MHQ Vol.29 No.1 - 2016 Autumn

THE QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF MILITARY HISTORY

Flying Over the Hump Opium Wars Hot Day at Monmouth, 1778

AUTUMN 2016

HistoryNet.com

NAPOLEON LOST

PARIS How his army melted away at Laon, March 1814

“YOU CAN SCARCELY IMAGINE THE BEAUTY AND MAGNIFICENCE OF THE PALACES WE BURNT. IT MADE ONE’S HEART SORE.” —British captain Charles Gordon, Second Opium War, 1860 page 68

AUTUMN 2016 VOLUME 29, NUMBER 1

The Battle of Laon presented Napoleon with the last opportunity to change the course of the war by defeating his Prussian nemesis.

26 FEATURES 26 How Napoleon Lost Paris, 1814 Autumn 2016

by Michael V. Leggiere At Laon, he was outmaneuvered by Field Marshal Gebhard von Blücher’s Allied army

36 Death in the Afternoon by Mark Edward Lender and Garry Wheeler Stone In the Battle of Monmouth, Washington struck a inal blow against Clinton’s redcoats

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44 Over the Hump by Stephan Wilkinson World War II’s pioneering airlit operation over the rugged mountain barriers of Burma— in myth and reality

52 Kearny’s California Trek by Anthony Brandt How the general who would become known as “the father of the U.S. Cavalry” won the West with an all-but-bloodless war

60 Weapons as Objets d’Art PORTFOLIO hroughout history, the tools of war have oten been beautiied

68 Kickin’ the Gong by David Silbey Britain’s push for “free trade” created drug addicts by the millions in China and triggered two Opium Wars

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44 76 The Spoiling of the World by Michael S. Sweeney South Sudan won independence in 2011 ater decades of civil war, but the new nation hasn’t been able to rid itself of ighting

SUBSCRIBER BONUS 98 Third-Century Crisis by James Lacey Long-lost passages reveal new details of the Roman Empire’s near-death experience

68 DEPARTMENTS 4 Flashback 10 Comments 13 At the Front 14 Laws of War 16 Battle Schemes 18 Experience 20 Behind the Lines 23 Weapons Check 25 Letter From MHQ

85 Culture of War 86 Classic Dispatches 88 Artist 91 Poetry 92 Reviews Paul Andrew Hutton’s ambitious Apache Wars; top military scholars reexamine the Battle of the Somme; and the role of New York City and Hudson River Valley colonists in the American Revolution

76 On the Cover Napoleon Bonaparte, emperor of France—here in Jacques-Louis David’s heroic portrait—enjoyed political and military careers that were meteoric and matchless. In 52 years, he fought in 50 battles and won most—but not all: His loss at Laon (page 26), led to exile on Elba. (Photo RMN-Grand Palais/Art Resource, NY) OPPOSITE: ERNEST CROFTS/CHRISTIE’S IMAGES/ BRIDGEMAN IMAGES; CLOCKWISE FROM TOP: NORTH WIND PICTURE ARCHIVES/THE IMAGE WORKS; © PRESIDENT AND FELLOWS OF HARVARD COLLEGE, PEABODY MUSEUM OF ARCHAEOLOGY AND ETHNOLOGY, PM#91-6-70-/5059 (DIGITAL FILE #60741982); HARRISON NGETHI/AFP/GETTY IMAGES; DEA PICTURE LIBRARY/GRANGER, NYC; WILLIAM VANDIVERT/THE LIFE PICTURE COLLECTION/GETTY IMAGES

96 Drawn & Quartered MHQ Autumn 2016

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FLASHBACK

TAY NINH, SOUTH VIETNAM, MARCH 1965 Hovering U.S. Army helicopters pour machine-gun fire into a tree line to cover the advance of South Vietnamese ground troops in an attack on a Viet Cong camp 18 miles north of Tay Ninh, northwest of Saigon near the Cambodian border. TODAY: President Barack Obama announces that the United States will fully lift the longstanding U.S. embargo on sales of lethal military equipment to Vietnam—a decision, he says, that is “based on our desire to complete what has been a lengthy process of moving toward normalization with Vietnam.”

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HORST FAAS/ASSOCIATED PRESS

FLASHBACK SHUSHA, ARMENIA, MARCH 1920 Azerbaijani armed forces turn the Armenian boroughs of Shusha into an inferno, destroying some 2,000 buildings and wiping out the city’s Armenian population. Ghazanchetsots Cathedral (background, center) is defaced but left standing. TODAY: With the roots of their conflict reaching back nearly 100 years, Armenians and Azerbaijanis still heavily dispute the territorial ownership of the NagornoKarabakh region, threatening a breakdown of a fragile 1994 truce agreement.

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U.S. NATIONAL ARCHIVES AND RECORDS ADMINISTRATION

FLASHBACK

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HAITI, 1915

U.S. NATIONAL ARCHIVES AND RECORDS ADMINISTRATION

U.S. Marines land in Haiti on the orders of President Woodrow Wilson, beginning a 19-year occupation during which, with the assistance of local guides, they methodically hunt down the rebels—whom they call “Cacos”—that resist the occupation. TODAY: A photograph of Alix Idrache, a Haitian-born cadet at West Point, that shows him crying as he graduates quickly “goes viral.” Idrache writes on his Facebook page: “Thank you for giving me a shot at the American Dream and may God bless America, the greatest country on earth.”

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COMMENTS

OUR MAN IN ANZIO

GEORGE SILK/THE LIFE PICTURE COLLECTION/GETTY IMAGES

I am writing regarding MHQ Summer 2016, Volume 28, No. 4. he cover photo is my father, Carl E. Gallion Sr., of Jenkins, Kentucky. He is still living and will be 93 years old in December 2016. Although he is nonambulatory, he is still intellectually cognizant and his memory is intact. If you would like to follow up on the Anzio story, he is willing to provide information, since he was serving with the 45th Infantry for the entire Anzio campaign. He thoroughly enjoyed the cover of your magazine. It made his day!  Carl Gallion Jr. Berea, Kentucky EDITOR’S RESPONSE: We did contact Carl Gallion Jr., and with his thoughtful assistance conducted an interview with his father, who was indeed the subject of MHQ’s Summer issue cover photograph by George Silk. Carl Gallion Sr. was thoroughly responsive to our questions about his four months at Anzio, where he spent a great deal of time in what he referred to as “that cotton-pickin’ foxhole,” where he appears in the photograph. Gallion, who was wounded near Anzio, participated in nearly the entire war with the 45th Division in the European heater. He

was also in the amphibious operation at Salerno prior to Anzio; ater Anzio he landed in southern France with Operation Dragoon in August 1944, and then fought through France and into Germany. “Anzio,” he said, “was my toughest time in the army. We were under shellire the whole time.” A complete version of the interview with Carl Gallion Sr. will appear in the Winter issue of MHQ.

take Rome early by demonstrating the German way of rapid response to contain unexpected breaches. In other words, though Anzio was a messy afair, it would have been worse if the small Allied landing force tried to spearhead a dash to Rome. he Allies probably would have been cut to pieces by the rapidly mobilized German units. Clif Culpeper San Francisco, California

I consider myself decently read up on World War II histories, but I have neglected the Italian campaigns, thinking they were not that interesting. Robert Citino’s “Last Ride at Anzio” was a great succinct article on the Anzio campaign—without my needing to buy and read a whole book. Well done. Also, though one must beware of Hollywood’s versions of history, I remember a scene from the 1970 movie Patton in which the German generals are looking at captured Allied footage of the Anzio landing and saying that they had been taken by surprise and the road to Rome was all clear for the Allies, if only they didn’t stop to fortify the beachhead. Citino’s article disabuses any notion of a failed opportunity to

ASK MHQ Cavalry in Africa As far as I can tell, the peoples of Sub-Saharan Africa never developed  horse cavalry. I have always wondered why. Were  no  animals in Africa— zebras, for example—suitable to be used as cavalry, or is it a matter of environment, technology, culture, or something else? Or did the Africans in fact develop a cavalry culture? Michael R. Heydenburg Jersey City, New Jersey Zebras are not as easy to train as horses, and the terrain in equatorial Africa is not as hospitable for horses as it is in the north. While the Arab conquests spread the horse throughout northern Africa, where it was adopted by

desert tribesmen and the empires of Ghana, Mali, and Songhai, southern Africans had little exposure to horses until the Afrikaners made their Great Trek in the mid1830s. Even then, relatively few horses made their way into African hands, though a handful did appear in the Zulu armed forces (izimpi) in 1879. hese were ridden by princes, senior oicers (izinduna), and special units within some of the regiments (amabutho). During the Battle of Hlobane, for example, British troops trying to escape the mountain trap had encounters with some equestrian warriors of the uMcijo regiment, whose small detachment operated as both scouts and mounted infantry. hey used their horses to range farther and faster than the already swit-moving Zulu infantry but on contact with the enemy dismounted and fought in the usual manner. Jon Guttman, HistoryNet’s research director, is the author of many military histories. Something about military history you’ve always wanted to know? Send your questions to MHQeditor@ historynet.com, and we’ll have an expert answer it.

In World War II, on Anzio’s small beachhead, GIs like Carl E. Gallion (left) sought cover in trenches, dugouts, and caves. MHQ Autumn 2016

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MICHAEL A. REINSTEIN CHAIRMAN & PUBLISHER DAVID STEINHAFEL ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER

THE QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF MILITARY HISTORY AUTUMN 2016 VOL. 29, NO. 1

MICHAEL W. ROBBINS EDITOR BILL HOGAN SENIOR EDITOR ELIZABETH G. HOWARD MANAGING EDITOR JON GUTTMAN RESEARCH DIRECTOR DAVID T. ZABECKI CHIEF MILITARY HISTORIAN

Can You Hear Me? Long before the telegraph, telephone, and radio, the ancients relied on a variety of methods to exert battleield command and control. By James Lacey

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STEPHEN KAMIFUJI CREATIVE DIRECTOR BRIAN WALKER GROUP ART DIRECTOR PAUL FISHER ART DIRECTOR DREW FRITZ SENIOR PHOTO EDITOR

AT THE FRONT LAWS OF WAR 14

ROBERT HUNT LIBRARY/WINDMILL BOOKS/UIG VIA GETTY IMAGES

BATTLE SCHEMES 16 EXPERIENCE 18 BEHIND THE LINES 20 WEAPONS CHECK 23

A medic tends to a wounded soldier in the trenches in this still photograph taken from a silent movie shot at the bloody Battle of the Somme (see page 18), which on its opening day in 1916 claimed the lives of 20,000 British troops.

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LAWS OF WAR

THE COURT-MARTIAL OF COLONEL BILLY MITCHELL, 1925

By Marc G. DeSantis

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

Returning from Europe in 1919, Brigadier General William Mitchell championed the innovative airpower techniques and organization he’d seen the British use in World War I.

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American aviator William “Billy” Mitchell was born in Nice, France, in 1879, and grew up speaking French as well as he spoke English. He joined the U.S. Army on the outbreak of the Spanish-American War in 1898 and as a second lieutenant saw action against the guerrillas of Emilio Aguinaldo in the Philippines. Ater the war he led a pathinding mission for a telegraph cable route across the Alaskan wilderness. While journeying across the territory’s vast expanses, he developed a keen interest in aviation, then a brand-new technology. He worked as an intelligence oicer for the U.S. Army General Staf in 1912 and learned to ly in 1915. Ater the United States entered World War I on the side of the Allies in April 1917, Mitchell, by then a colonel, was appointed commander of the Army’s Air Service in France. He was from the start an innovator in the use of airpower, and deployed his aircrat in large-scale bombing attacks against German targets in addition to their more usual roles of reconnaissance and ighting enemy warplanes. Ater the war Mitchell loudly criticized the hidebound army and navy oicers who did not share his vision of airpower and refused to inance their aviators in the cash-strapped postwar era. Back in the United States, as assistant chief of the Air Service, Brigadier General Mitchell had a knack for ruling the feathers of those in the upper echelons of the armed forces. He also threatened their cherished notions of how war should be fought. In 1921 he and his aviators conducted a series of bombing tests against several target ships, including the heavily armored German dreadnought Ostfriesland, which they sank with a series of 1,000- and 2,000-pound bombs dropped from Martin and Handley-Page bombers. he tests and results were controversial, but they proved that aircrat could sink great warships. he navy was not grateful for this lesson. Mitchell became a celebrity proponent of airpower, continually scolding the army and navy for failing to back the creation of an independent air force and to buy modern aircrat. He was especially concerned about Japan, which he thought was ahead of the United States in airpower at the time, and predicted that one day the Japanese would launch an air attack in the early morning against Hawaii’s Pearl Harbor. Mitchell’s strident tone worried other sympathetic oicers, who thought he was going too far with his condemnations of the generals and admirals. “Billy, take it easy,” warned Major Henry “Hap” Arnold, the future chief of the U.S. Army’s Air Forces in World War II. “Airpower is coming.” But Mitchell could not silently stand by, claiming that his aviators were going to die in the “old laming coins” that they had to ly in the absence of more modern aircrat. “When senior oicers won’t see the facts,” he replied to Arnold, “you’ve got to do something unorthodox, perhaps an explosion.” Mitchell was eventually forced out of his job as assistant chief of the Air Service. He was reduced to his permanent rank of colonel, but he remained in the army in an out-of-the-way posting in San Antonio, Texas. he loss of the navy airship USS Shenandoah, which had crashed on September 3, 1925, marked the beginning of the end of his army career. he ship had run into a squall while on a nonmilitary mission to visit state fairs in the Midwest, and 14 men, including the dirigible’s

captain, had perished. hree navy seaplanes had also recently been lost in a separate series of accidents. Mitchell’s opinions on the disasters were sought by the press, and on September 5, Mitchell told reporters that the calamities were “the result of the incompetency, the criminal negligence, and the almost treasonable negligence of our national defense by the Navy and the War Departments.” Mitchell seemed to be spoiling for a showdown. On September 9, Mitchell made another incendiary statement to the press in which he deplored “the disgraceful condition” of American military aviation and argued that what he had said about the national defense “hurts the bureaucrats in Washington…because it’s the truth.” He even welcomed a court-martial where he might air his views. His outright challenge could not be ignored. Mitchell had his explosion, and it pushed the infuriated American brass over the edge. By early November 1925 Mitchell was in Washington, D.C., standing before a court-martial held to investigate his alleged violation of the 96th Article of War, a catchall provision of military law that allowed an oicer to be tried for just about any action deemed to be “of a nature to bring discredit upon the military service.” he charges were that he had conducted himself in a manner “to the prejudice of good order and military discipline”; that his statements about the Shenandoah and the loss of the navy’s seaplanes were insubordinate; and that he had been “highly contemptuous and disrespectful” of the War Department and the navy. he trial before a panel of generals, including Douglas MacArthur, electriied the American people, who closely followed the arguments in the nation’s newspapers. Mitchell pleaded “not guilty” and argued that his statements had been true and that he had no choice but to step forward and tell the nation about the state of its air defenses, since he could get nowhere through the normal channels. Such aviation notables as World War I ace Eddie Rickenbacker and future American generals Hap Arnold and Major Carl “Tooey” Spaatz testiied on his behalf. On December 17, 1925, ater seven weeks of testimony, the generals found Mitchell guilty of all charges, the accuracy of his statements being immaterial. Mitchell’s punishment was surprisingly light on account of his ine war record. He was suspended from duty and forfeited all pay and allowances for ive years. Mitchell then tendered his resignation. hough he died in 1936 of heart problems and inluenza, his ideas ultimately triumphed in the dispute over American aviation: During World War II, airpower would play a hugely important role, as he had foreseen, and shortly ater the end of that conlict, a completely independent U.S. Air Force would be established, as Mitchell had so fervently wished. His inluence was long felt by the aviators he let behind. “We obeyed him the rest of our lives,” one oicer who knew him during his army days said. “And long ater he was dead.” MHQ Attorney Marc G. DeSantis is a frequent contributor to MHQ. His book Rome Seizes the Trident: he Defeat of Carthaginian Seapower and the Forging of the Roman Empire was published in May. MHQ Autumn 2016

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BATTLE SCHEMES

1848: EUROPE IN REVOLT ALL OVER THE MAP By Peter Harrington

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For much of 1848 and 1849 Europe was convulsed by revolutions, especially in the Austrian Empire. Made up of multi-ethnic groups ranging from Poles, Slovaks, Hungarians, and Slovenes to Italians, Croats, and Slavs, it was a hotbed of independence movements eager to break free from Vienna. he uprisings spread quickly, but by late 1849 they had been brutally suppressed and many of their ringleaders executed. he creator of this picture map, published in Prague, has highlighted the regions of the empire and incorporated vignettes of the various revolts. he large uncolored region delineated by the orange boundary is Hungary with its capital Budapest (Ofen Pest) astride the Danube (1). he city is surrounded by scenes of ighting and of cheering volunteers interspersed with small images of gibbets (2) signifying the brutality of the imperial forces. In Romania, shaded green, revolutionaries march behind a banner (3) calling for freedom, while in Bohemia, colored pink, troops march to put down the student uprising in Prague (4); above them, two men cling to a liberty tree. On the periphery of the map sit Pope Pius IX (5), frustrated by the bloodshed, and even a skeleton (6) representing the cholera epidemic approaching from Russia. MHQ Peter Harrington is curator of the Anne S. K. Brown Military Collection at Brown University. he lithographed map “Europe in the Fith Decade of the 19th Century” is in the collection’s paintings, drawings, and watercolors series.

ANNE S.K. BROWN MILITARY COLLECTION/BROWN UNIVERSITY LIBRARY

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EXPERIENCE

WOUNDED…AND WHAT HAPPENS AFTERWARD One hundred years ago, on July 1, 1916, British scout Bert Payne, of the 1st City Battalion of the 18th Manchesters, went over the top at the Somme and was machine-gunned within minutes. He survived.

Bert Payne was bright and unlappable, with a reputation for good old common sense, so he was soon promoted and made a scout. Scouts were the eyes and ears of the battalion, on whose work lives depended. Payne was good at his job—so good, in fact, that he shot a British oicer out for a walk in no man’s land through the hat when the oicer failed to respond to his hail. By the time of the Battle of the Somme, Payne had already saved hundreds of lives. Historian Emily Mayhew used oral histories and interviews with the Payne family to reconstruct his experiences at the battle.

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rders inally came through. hey were to take the right-hand lank around the village of Montauban. he target was a small ridge, plain for everyone to see as Payne pointed it out. hen came the shriek of the whistles, and Payne led his men over the top. hey somehow made it to the irst line of enemy trenches and continued to the next one. he practical Payne realized that the Germans must have been preparing themselves for weeks, to appear so quickly in front of them with their equipment set up and ready. Riles, he just had time to think, were no good; only machine guns were any good. hen he was cut down, a spray of bullets lying across his face. Falling forward into a shell hole, he saw his teeth fall out of his mouth and hit the ground before he did. All around him, he saw men falling, dead or wounded. hey crumpled down around him—one shot through the eyes, another cut open from his jaw to his throat. hen he blacked out. When he came to in the shell hole, the sky above him was still blue and the sound of the ofensive had moved some way of, leaving an eerie silence in the wet mud and among the human debris. Payne gathered himself. He could hear a rasping, guttural sound, like a blocked drain—in-out, in-out. He realized it was his own breathing. hat was good, he thought. He must be all right if he could breathe. When he managed to raise himself up on one arm, he couldn’t see with his let eye, but the right one was working ine. He got out his ield dressing and clamped it down over the closed-up eye, winding the bandage ends around his head. hen he looked at his watch and saw that it was almost 4 o’clock. He had been lying unconscious for seven hours. He sat up and looked around. It hurt him to move his head, but he needed to know where

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he was. hen his eyes met a human face staring back at him, frozen but alive. It was that of his friend Bill Brock, who had been wounded in the foot and was unable to move. He had lain there for hours, waiting for someone else in the shell hole to wake up. He had been watching Payne bleed and twitch, fearful that he would die. hey were the only survivors. Payne crawled over to Brock and told him, through his ragged lips and cheeks, that they would be heading back. Brock tried to shake of the horrible sight of Payne’s face and pointed to his foot: a tattered little shock of pink and bloody lesh in the brown mud. It had all but been shot of and, although he had managed to get his boot of to relieve the pain, there was no way he could walk. Payne was having none of it. He took his friend’s ield dressing and tied the foot up as best he could. hen he slowly put Brock’s boot back on, quietly reassuring him when the other man cried out in pain and begged him to stop. Payne laced the boot up to support Brock’s foot and then looked around for a spare rile to use as a crutch. If they didn’t leave now, they would die in the shell hole. Brock knew it was useless to argue with the scout, so he scrambled up somehow and leaned on the rile. Together they clambered out of the crater—one man limping, trying to ind a painless way to walk, leaning on a dead man’s rile; the other with his bandaged eye and ragged face— willing each other on, to a chorus of distant gunire: the halfblind leading the lame. here weren’t any stretcher-bearers. So many had been killed in the irst few hours of the ofensive that medical oicers at the aid posts refused to let any more out on to the ield. Payne and Brock were on their own among the dead, struggling to make their way out. A few hundred yards further on they stopped to rest in a shell hole, where they found a man almost blown to pieces but somehow still alive. He was gasping for air, sobbing and calling out for someone called Annie. Payne could see at a glance that there was no hope for the man: He was bound to die ater hours of lonely agony. Payne took up the rile Brock was using as a crutch and shot the soldier. hen he and Brock moved on in silence. He deserved a Victoria Cross, Payne thought, for the courage that spared a man such a horrible death. When they inally reached their own lines it was hard to recognize the organized trench network they had let that morn-

ROBERT HUNT LIBRARY/WINDMILL BOOKS/UIG VIA GETTY IMAGES

Stretcher-bearers, aid stations, and field hospitals were overwhelmed by the 57,000 British casualties, including some 20,000 dead, on the first day of the Battle of the Somme.

ing. Instead they found chaos, with trenches full of wounded or confused men and abandoned equipment. Climbing down into one trench, they found it full of German POWs, bound and guarded by sentries. Brock was in so much pain that he was sobbing, tears running down his cheeks. But there was no one to help him here. One of the sentries pointed to a place in the distance where he believed there was a medical post. When they inally got to the place, they found not only a medical post but a horse-drawn ambulance preparing to leave. It was full up with injured POWs, but by that time Payne no longer cared. He tipped enough men of their stretchers to make space for his wounded friend, leaving them on the roadside calling for help. hen he loaded up Brock and called for the driver to set out. Shortly aterward he found another ambulance and got on himself. As it bumped along, Payne watched walking wounded and carts full of dead moving in one direction and reinforcements rushing the other way. he ambulance inally stopped at a medical station at Abbeville, where Payne was helped down and onto a stretcher. he next day was worse. Where there had been numbness in his face, there was now horrible pain. His cheeks and tongue had swollen up so that he could no longer make himself understood. Payne, who had always prided himself on his initiative and independence, had become helpless. He was moved inside the post,

and as the day passed he watched the doctors and bearers struggle with the hundreds of wounded and dying men. he whole medical system had collapsed under the weight of the Somme’s casualties and pinned him to the spot. But at least he wouldn’t get typhus or tetanus: He had been inoculated three times that day. Each time an orderly came forward with a syringe he had tried to tell him that he had already had the shot, but the man couldn’t understand him and gave him another injection. So he lay and waited, the pain growing along with a terrible thirst. He’d had nothing since breakfast cofee in the forward trenches the previous day, and now he couldn’t ask for a drink. Even if he could, the orderly would have been hard-pressed to get liquid past the rags of his face. His dressings were changed a couple of times but nothing more. hen he felt his stretcher bump and rise. An exhausted bearer appeared over him and told him he was being moved to the train station and that he was going home. Payne was too tired and diminished to care. MHQ Emily Mayhew is a research associate at Imperial College, London, and an examiner at the Imperial College School of Medicine. Excerpted from Wounded: A New History of the Western Front in the World War I, by Emily Mayhew with permission from Oxford University Press. Copyright © 2014 by Emily Mayhew. MHQ Autumn 2016

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BEHIND THE LINES

ANTWERP, 1914

Britain goes to war—but where? By David T. Zabecki

Whoever controlled the Belgian coast controlled the English Channel and whoever controlled the Channel threatened the maritime perimeter of the British Isles. hat was the center of gravity in the United Kingdom’s national security strategy during the era when capital warships were the world’s ultimate global-weapons system. Yet ships of the line, and later the Dreadnought-class battleships, were not invulnerable. hey depended on secure ports, reliable fueling and provisioning stations, and secure coastlines in narrow waterways. If a friendly or neutral power controlled the Belgian coast—and in 1914 Belgium was neutral—the Channel was relatively secure. But if a hostile power threatened to occupy Belgium, the United Kingdom’s only recourse, in the opinion of generations of British policymakers, was war. hat threat materialized on August 3, 1914, when Germany declared war on France. he next day German troops, following the Schliefen Plan, moved into Belgium, intending to sweep through northwestern France and envelop Paris. Since Belgian neutrality had been guaranteed by the 1839 Treaty of London, to which Germany and almost all other European countries were parties, Britain declared war that same day. But although the Royal Navy was the greatest leet in the world, Britain’s small army of one cavalry and six infantry divisions was little more than a colonial police force. Eventually, the British Expeditionary Force would grow to some 60 divisions, but that was several years in the future. he immediate problem was where on the Continent—or even whether— to deploy the few ground forces Britain had available.

Britain’s small army… was little more than a colonial police force

France and Britain had been bitter enemies for centuries, an enmity that reached its climax at Waterloo in 1815. Following the consequent Congress of Vienna, the United Kingdom adopted a strategic policy of acting as the fulcrum for the European balance of power. hus, the Crimean War of 1853–1856 found Britain and France for the irst time in many years ighting on the same side, in this case supporting the Ottoman Empire against the Russian Empire. Yet the British and the French continued to keep each other at arm’s length for most of the next half century. he 1904 Entente Cordiale between Britain and France marked the major turning point ater nearly 1,000 years of smoldering animosity

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between the two countries. hey were nudged even closer together the following year by the First Moroccan Crisis, when Kaiser Wilhelm II tried to encroach on French inluence in North Africa. In 1907 Russia joined with France and Britain to form the Triple Entente, an alliance designed as a counterweight to the Triple Alliance of Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Italy. he Triple Entente, however, was not a solidly deined military alliance; it was an ambiguous document of friendship, understanding, and agreement. Many British military and political leaders believed that in the case of war, Britain’s support of France would be primarily maritime. General Sir John Grierson, Britain’s director of military operations, concluded as early as 1905 that the Germans would attack France through Belgium. He therefore argued for deploying a British expeditionary force to Belgium on the outbreak of any war. A base in neutral Antwerp, he reasoned, would provide a secure and direct maritime link to Britain. A small British force positioned to threaten the German right lank would exert an inluence disproportionate to its size. Of equal importance, a deployment in Belgium would leave the British command independent of the French. Grierson’s plan, however, failed to take into consideration several crucial strategic facts. For one thing, an Antwerp base would not necessarily be a secure maritime link. he port lay at the end of the long Scheldt estuary, and an enemy force on either bank could efectively choke it of. (he Allies would learn that lesson the hard way in early September 1944.) he fact that the mouth of the Scheldt was completely in Dutch territory also compounded the problem, because the Netherlands remained neutral. It was German policy to keep Holland that way, so it could serve as Germany’s “windpipe” to world trade in the event of a British embargo. he inal problem was that deploying on the Belgian right rather than the French let would leave a significant gap in the Allied main line of resistance. Over the next several years, the British General Staf began to lean toward deploying instead on the French let. Major General Sir Henry Wilson, who became director of military operations in 1910, was a staunch advocate of the continental strategy over the maritime strategy, and he also supported deploying with the French. A devoted Francophile, Wilson had no objections to subordinating a small British Expeditionary Force to the operational control of the French army. When he had been commandant of the British Army Staf College at Camberly between 1907 and 1910, Wilson had established a close relationship with General Ferdinand Foch, then the commandant of the École Supérieure de la Guerre.

UNDERWOOD ARCHIVES/UIG/BRIDGEMAN IMAGES

Double-decker London Transport buses—still with open upper decks—are used to evacuate citizens as advancing German forces bombard the Belgian city of Antwerp in October 1914. Wilson decided that France, rather than Belgium, would be the foundation for general staf planning, but that commitment was far from unanimous among the British senior military and political leadership. In the wake of the Second Moroccan Crisis of 1911, the Committee of Imperial Defence met all day on August 23 to deliberate the military strategy of the empire. Wilson argued forcefully for the continental strategy, with the BEF deploying on the French let wing in the vicinity of Le Cateau, Hirson, and Maubeuge. Perhaps the decisive factor in favor of the French option was the position of the Belgian government itself, which insisted on maintaining its neutrality. hus, if the BEF tried to go in through Antwerp without the speciic invitation of the government, Britain would be as guilty of violating the Treaty of London as the Germans had been. Wilson’s arguments carried the day for the continental strategy. hough the British government remained reluctant to commit to any detailed deployment planning, the British General Staf worked up tentative plans. Based on continuing informal staf talks, the French centered their own planning on the assumption that the British would deploy on their let.

By the time the war broke out, almost everyone had accepted the continental strategy, but not necessarily the French option. Field Marshal Sir John French, the commander-designate of the BEF, resurrected the Belgian option. An old-school cavalry oicer who had never been through the British Army’s Staf College, French harbored a deep distrust of trained general staf oicers, especially of Wilson. And despite his last name, French was something of a Francophobe. So on August 5, two days ater the declaration of war, when an ad hoc war council met to decide what to do, French continued to push the Belgian option. hat made little sense, because no plans existed for an Antwerp deployment, while there were at least tentative plans and agreements for a deployment into northern France. he issue was decided when the foreign secretary, Lord Edward Grey, said that both Belgian and Dutch neutrality ruled out the Antwerp option, and the new irst lord of the admiralty, Winston Churchill, pointed out the operational diiculty of penetrating the Scheldt. On August 6, three days into the war, the newly appointed secretary of state for war, Lord Herbert Kitchener, complicated the decisions, when he announced that only four of the six exMHQ Autumn 2016

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ANTWERP, 1914

HOLLAND North Sea

Antwerp Boulogne

BELGIUM

English Channel

Mons Maubeuge

Le Cateau Amiens

Hirson

Paris

GERMANY LUX.

FRANCE

Following Germany’s invasion of neutral Belgium in August 1914, British troops are dispatched to assist Belgian forces in the defense of Antwerp (top). Belgium was the first battleground in Germany’s plan for the invasion of France (bottom).

In the 1930s former prime minister David Lloyd George dredged up the strategic debate in those early days of war when he published his multivolume War Memoirs. As chancellor of the exchequer in 1911, he had been a strong supporter of the Antwerp option. He later served as minister of munitions from 1915 to 1916, and even his severest critics credit him with a brilliant performance in rationalizing Britain’s industrial output during the war. But he was a dilettante regarding military strategy and steadfastly believed that his own intuition was far more reliable than the professional judgment of any British general oicer. Lloyd George continued to believe that Germany could have been defeated had Britain attacked it in some peripheral theater, rather than going head-to-head on the Western Front. Virtually no British general supported his strategic concept, nor did any French general. Lloyd George had endured a great deal of criticism during the war and even more ater it, when he was accused of trading knighthoods and peerages for hety political contributions. It was as a means of self-vindication that he started publishing his War Memoirs, which were a major factor in establishing the popular conception that the generals of World War I—especially the British generals—were butchers and incompetent bunglers who caused the unnecessary deaths of so many young men. he August 1914 decision to deploy the BEF to northern France rather than Antwerp was the opening salvo in Lloyd George’s war ater the war. But if the BEF had not been on the French let in September 1914 and had not been thrust into the gap between the German First and Second Armies, the Germans probably would have enveloped the French lank at the Marne, and 1914 might have turned into a rerun of 1870. Writing in 1936 German general Georg Wetzell, who had served as General Erich Ludendorf ’s chief operations oicer in 1917 and 1918, observed about the Battle of the Marne, “Without any doubt, if the British Army had not been there, it would have been terrible for the French.” If the British had gone with the Antwerp option, they would not have been. MHQ David T. Zabecki is HistoryNet’s chief military historian.

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SUEDDEUTSCHE ZEITUNG/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO; INFOGRAPHIC: BRIAN WALKER

isting infantry divisions of the British Army, plus its single cavalry division, would deploy initially, with the ith division to follow shortly and the sixth division to remain in Britain for homeland defense. With Kitchener’s support, BEF commander French now pushed for concentrating his force in the vicinity of Amiens, arguing that Maubeuge was too far forward and would leave the BEF too exposed. Wilson continued to lobby for Maubeuge, since any last-minute changes would seriously disrupt French war plans, based on Maubeuge. Although the BEF started deployment on August 9, the question of where to deploy was not settled inally until August 12, when Kitchener bowed to French pressure. he rapid German advance also made it imperative to stick with the original plan, and the BEF inally inished landing at Boulogne on August 14.

WEAPONS CHECK

ROMAN BALLISTA By Chris McNab

he ballista was essentially the long-range artillery piece of the Roman army. Developed from earlier Greek models of boltand stone-iring artillery during the second century bc, the ballista sat at the smaller end of a family of torsion-powered weapons. It was essentially a massive, wood- and metal-framed crossbow operated by a small team of men. Like the Greek weapons, it could ire either heavy bolts or large stones. Launch power came from its bow arms, which were driven by unleashing the tension stored in twisted ropes of leather, sinew, or hair. Although bad weather could profoundly weaken the performance of the ballista, under good conditions it was a fearsome tool. Some of the largest versions had bolt ranges

The Roman ballista had two vertically mounted torsion springs made from dozens of strands of braided leather, sinew, or hair.

exceeding 500 yards, and the thunderous missiles had the velocity and mass to punch through contemporary armor and even several men at once. Hety rocks, in some cases weighing more than 100 pounds, could smash fortiications and walls. he Roman ballistae remained in service beyond the end of the Western Roman empire in the sixth century ad but were progressively replaced by simpler and less-expensive catapults and counterweight siege weapons. MHQ Chris McNab is a military historian based in the United Kingdom. His latest work is Dreadnought Battleship: Dreadnought and Super dreadnought (1906–16).

When the weapon was cocked, the wooden arms were held under the tension of the spring unit.

The bolt or stone was propelled by a wooden slider (chelonium) that ran on a groove centrally through the frame and torsion springs.

MARK CARTWRIGHT/ANCIENT HISTORY ENCYCLOPEDIA LTD.

The bow string was pulled back by a clawand-trigger block attached to a windlass (carchesium) mechanism.

The ballista typically had a wooden frame, reinforced with metal plates and held together with iron nails. MHQ Autumn 2016

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HERITAGE AUCTIONS

THE HARDEE HAT, also known as the Model 1858 Dress Hat, was the regulation dress hat for enlisted men in the Union Army during the Civil War, though it also was worn by Confederate soldiers. It is said to have been designed by William Joseph Hardee, who was a career officer in the U.S. Army from 1838 until 1861, when he resigned his commission in advance of joining the Confederate States Army. The hat below, which bears the insignia of the 1st Cavalry Regiment, is identical to those worn by men who served in Brigadier General Stephen Watts Kearny’s “Army of the West” (page 52).

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THE GREAT OUTDOORS

W

ars are fought outdoors. hat simple fact brings with it conditions that never have been controlled by the hand of man: night and day and the weather. he title of one history book, A World Lit Only by Fire, by William Manchester, is a reminder of the many millennia in which little could be done to improve human visibility—for outdoor activities including warfare—once the sun went down. he limits set by the weather on human activity are nearly as implacable as darkness. To fully understand the decisions, actions, and outcomes of much of military history, one must consider the inluences of weather.

Well-known instances of foul weather afecting the outcomes of battles and even wars must include both Napoleon’s and Hitler’s encounters with winter in Russia, the fatal encounters by both sides in World War I with the winters in the Carpathian Mountains and the Dolomite Alps, the United Nations forces’ experience with subzero days in North Korea in 1950—and many more. Of course, no human action can stay the rain or snow, or raise or lower the ambient temperature. One has to adapt to the weather, as military liers have known irsthand for over a century of aerial combat.

It is the failure to recognize and prepare for those immutable conditions that makes the diference. Ater all, there are few surprises in seasonal weather; one has to wonder why the Wehrmacht fought into the Russian winter in 1941–1942 wearing summer-weight uniforms. Similarly, the weight of uniforms and packs was surely a factor in the many heat-related casualties in the 1778 Battle of Monmouth (page 36). But a torrid August aternoon in New Jersey is hardly a novelty. he impacts of weather conditions can be subtler but no less important to understanding a major battle: At Laon, France, in 1814, Napoleon divided his forces into two separate columns. he smaller detachment of some 9,500 efectives under Marshal Auguste-Frédéric de Marmont then came under heavy Allied pressure on the aternoon and evening of March 9, culminating in a surprise night attack that destroyed Marmont’s forces. Napoleon, positioned 12 kilometers upwind of Marmont, never heard the sounds of that deadly battle, thanks to a strong westerly wind that “howled through the night.” Having planned for an envelopment of the Allied position, the emperor learned too late of Marmont’s debacle. At that point, the battle was lost in the wind. —Michael W. Robbins [email protected]

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HOW NAPOLEON LOST PARIS, 1814

In the spring of 1814 Emperor Napoleon, here at Fontainebleau, faced a powerful invasion of France by the Allied Coalition’s forces—a direct threat to Paris.

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DEA/M. SEEMULLER/GRANGER, NYC

At Laon in early March, Napoleon was outmaneuvered by Field Marshal Gebhard von Blücher’s Allied army, leaving the capital unprotected By Michael V. Leggiere

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I

n early November 1813, several weeks ater his crushing defeat at Leipzig, Napoleon led fewer than 60,000 soldiers back into France and then continued on to Paris to oversee the mobilization of a new army. Meanwhile, his shattered marshals prepared to defend France’s Rhine frontier against a looming Allied invasion. hey did not have to wait long. On December 20 the Grand Army of Bohemia, led by Field-Marshal Karl Philipp, Prince of Schwarzenberg, crossed the Upper Rhine at Basel. Twelve days later, a smaller Allied force, Field Marshal Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher’s Army of Silesia, crossed the Rhine near Mainz. Schwarzenberg and Blücher had planned to reach their respective objectives of Langres and Metz by January 15. he Allies’ ultimate target, of course, was Paris, though the speciics of such an ofensive were let unsettled. Longstanding diferences had become enmities among the members of Napoleon’s Coalition as they considered whether France should be invaded and whether Napoleon, in turn, should be dethroned. he Austrians did not want to invade France and desperately hoped to reach a diplomatic settlement that would keep Napoleon on the throne to counter Russia’s growing power. Tsar Alexander I of Russia wanted to be rid of Napoleon altogether. Napoleon made his irst appearance in the ield on January 29, just in time to strike the rear of Blücher’s army at Brienne in northeast France. Each side sustained 3,000 or so casualties; each claimed victory. hree days later Blücher, now joined by Schwarzenberg’s forces, handed Napoleon a humiliating defeat at La Rothière about eight kilometers south of Brienne. Although Napoleon lost just 6,000 of his 45,000 combatants, he was forced to retreat in the face of the Coalition’s overwhelming numbers. he Allies might have ended the war with a general pursuit, but Blücher lacked fresh reserves and Schwarzenberg’s rearward units remained too distant to participate. Nonetheless, as long as their armies stayed together, a victory for Napoleon seemed impossible. Unbelievably, the two Coalition armies separated. In the aftermath of the victory at La Rothière, the Allies decided that the march on Paris should commence, with Blücher’s army advancing along the Marne River and Schwarzenberg’s down the Seine. hat decision gave Napoleon an opening to mask the slow-moving Schwarzenberg and launch what would become known as the “Six Days’ Campaign” against Blücher. Beginning on February 9, he defeated Blücher’s Prussians and Russians in four battles. Fortunately for Blücher, however, Schwarzenberg’s crossing

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of the Seine prompted Napoleon to disengage and head south to contend with the Army of Bohemia. Ater reorganizing and receiving reinforcements, Blücher had the Army of Silesia marching in just two days to answer Schwarzenberg’s call for help. As things would turn out, failing to inish of Blücher’s army amounted to a catastrophic error on Napoleon’s part. On February 17, Napoleon, with 55,000 men under his command, stopped the advance of Schwarzenberg’s 120,000 men at Mormant, less than 50 kilometers southeast of Paris. Ater learning of Blücher’s crushing defeat, Allied commanders ordered a general retreat 100 kilometers southeast to Troyes. Over the next few days, Napoleon gathered his forces at Nogent-sur-Seine. Meanwhile, Schwarzenberg reassembled the Army of Bohemia at Troyes and Blücher reached Mérysur-Seine in a lank position that deterred Napoleon from advancing. Nonetheless, in the face of unrelenting pressure from Napoleon, Schwarzenberg decided that he should retreat another 120 kilometers southeast to Langres and Blücher nearly 200 kilometers east to Nancy. On learning of Schwarzenberg’s decision, however, Blücher feared a withdrawal across the Rhine would come next. Consequently, he requested permission for the Army of Silesia to march north, cross the Marne, and unite with two corps from the Army of North Germany for another advance on Paris. Schwarzenberg approved and decided that for the moment the Army of Bohemia would retreat only 50 kilometers east to Bar-sur-Aube. Schwarzenberg commenced his withdrawal on February 23, and the following day Blücher began his advance. On February 25, Napoleon took the bait and furiously drove his men ater Blücher. Reaching the Marne on March 1, Napoleon found himself at a crossroads: Should he continue pursuing Blücher or did he need to contend with Schwarzenberg? His plan for defeating the Army of Bohemia entailed the operation that Schwarzenberg feared most. “I am prepared to transfer the war to Lorraine,” he informed his brother Joseph, “where I will rally my troops that are in my fortresses on the Meuse and the Rhine.” hus, the master planned his famous manoeuvre sur les derrières to turn Schwarzenberg’s right lank and operate against his rear. Had Napoleon implemented this plan immediately, Schwarzenberg undoubtedly would have retreated headlong to the Rhine. he evidence to support this assumption is clear. With Blücher north of the Marne, Schwarzenberg would have seen an envelopment of the Army of Bohemia’s right wing, along with Napoleon’s appearance on the Rhine, as a monumental calamity.

FROM TOP: ULLSTEIN BILD/GRANGER, NYC; PRISMA ARCHIVO/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO

BATTLE OF LAON, 1814

The small villages surrounding Laon northeast of Paris (above) changed hands several times as Napoleon’s outnumbered infantry traded attacks with the Prussian forces of Field Marshal Gebhard von Blücher (on white horse).

But instead of terrorizing Schwarzenberg, whose retreat eventually would have forced Blücher to renounce his own operations, Napoleon changed his mind, opting to continue his pursuit of the Army of Silesia. He based this decision on his overwhelming concern for Paris and the threat posed to it by Blücher’s army. Napoleon thus hounded Blücher, who led further north to the Aisne River. here, he united with the two corps from the Army of North Germany, whose commanders had convinced the French to surrender Soissons and its bridge over the Aisne on March 3. Using the city’s stone bridge as well as its own pontoons, the Army of Silesia miraculously escaped across the Aisne with Napoleon closing fast. Ater Napoleon defeated Blücher’s Russians at Craonne on March 7, the Prussian commander concentrated his army at Laon, a French city situated on a high, steep-sided hill. By taking Laon, Napoleon aimed to sever the enemy’s line of operation and secure Paris by driving of the aggressive Blücher. He could then rally the garrisons of his northeastern fortresses and, thus reinforced, fall on Schwarzenberg, who no doubt would be retreating ater learning of Blücher’s latest setback. On March 8, believing he would ind only a rearguard at Laon, Napoleon decided to approach the city in two widely separated columns—an extremely risky operation because the distance as well as the rough and broken terrain between his two columns ruled out mutual support. Nevertheless, Napoleon led

Ney unleashed a powerful counterattack that forced the Russians back

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his main body of 37,000 men northeast from Soissons toward Laon while Marshal Auguste-Frédéric de Marmont marched northwest on the Reims highway with some 9,500 men. Between them stood Blücher with nearly 100,000 men and 600 cannons. General Ferdinand von Wintzingerode’s Russian corps, with 25,200 men, formed Blücher’s right wing and rested on the village of hierret, where its vanguard took position with forward posts extending southwest. Lieutenant General Friedrich Wilhelm von Bülow’s Prussian III Corps, with 16,900 men, held Blücher’s center and received the task of defending the city. General Hans David von Yorck’s Prussian I Corps, with 13,500 men, and Lieutenant General Friedrich Heinrich von Kleist’s Prussian II Corps, with10,600 men, provided the let wing, which was slightly echeloned to the northeast and faced the roads leading to Athies and Reims. Two additional Russian corps commanded by Generals Louis Alexandre de Langeron and Fabian Gottlieb von der Osten-Sacken, with nearly 38,000 men between them, remained in reserve north of the Laon height. Blücher, sufering from fever and eye inlammation, ordered his commanders to maintain a strict defensive posture until Napoleon deployed his forces. As soon as Napoleon revealed his intentions, Blücher planned to launch a crushing counterattack. Napoleon opened his attack on the evening of March 8 by having Marshal Michel Ney’s Young Guard corps drive the Russians from Étouvelles. Two hours ater midnight, Ney pressed the attack, gaining Chivy and, by daybreak, had pushed the Russians to Semilly. Heavy snow had fallen throughout the night, and by dawn a thick mist veiled the whole countryside. Around 7 a.m., Ney directed Major General Pierre Boyer’s brigade east against Semilly, while a division led by Brigadier

PICTORIAL PRESS LTD/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO; CHRONICLE/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO; THOMAS LAWRENCE/ROYAL COLLECTION TRUST/BRIDGEMAN IMAGES

Coalition commanders Blücher (left) and Carl Philip, Prince Schwarzenberg (right) clashed repeatedly with Napoleon in early 1814 in the “Six Days’ Campaign.” With Blücher at Laon, Napoleon divided his forces and handed the smaller to Marshal August-Frédéric-Louis Viesse de Marmont (center).

WORLD HISTORY ARCHIVE/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO

Despite inferior numbers, Napoleon sought to engage Blücher’s army on the open plain—assuming the latter would pursue Marmont. But Blücher stood fast in his strong defensive position at Laon, leaving Napoleon (above) no option but to retreat.

General Paul Jean-Baptiste Poret de Morvan marched northeast from Leuilly toward Blücher’s center at Ardon. Preceded by a considerable cannonade, Boyer opened his assault on Semilly at 9 a.m., but the Prussian defenders, commanded by Lieutenant-Colonel Friedrich von Clausewitz, repulsed several attacks. Meanwhile, Poret de Morvan’s men took advantage of the poor visibility to surprise the Prussians at Ardon and drive them back some 1,000 meters to the foot of the Laon height. A counterattack pushed the French back to Ardon, which Poret de Morvan’s men held. By 11 a.m. the pale winter sun had burned of the mist. From his vantage point on the ramparts at the foot of a bastion called Madame Eve, Blücher surveyed the thin French battalions deployed before Laon and contemplated his adversary’s next move. Refusing to believe that Napoleon would attack with such a small force, he became concerned that the actual attack would come from another direction. At noon Blücher learned that a strong French column was approaching from Festieux, 12 kilometers north of Craonne, where the two armies had engaged on March 7. He assumed that the Festieux column probably made up the majority of Napoleon’s army and would deliver the main blow. Consequently, the linchpin of the French position seemed to be the village of Ardon. Believing that Napoleon’s main attack would be against the let wing, Blücher cautiously decided to retake Ardon and probe the intentions of the enemy force opposite his right. On the morning of March 9, Wintzingerode’s 12th Infantry Division attacked the French let between Clacy and Semilly. At the same time, four hussar regiments, numerous Cossack squadrons, and some light artillery batteries from Sacken’s corps moved around Blücher’s right to menace Ney’s extreme

let and rear. Ater Wintzingerode forced the French out of Clacy, the Russians attempted to debouch west toward Mons-en-Laonnais, but Ney unleashed a powerful counterattack that forced the Russians back into Clacy. Ater Poret de Morvan was mortally wounded, Bülow’s 6th Brigade drove the two French Guard battalions occupying Ardon to Leuilly. At this moment, Napoleon inally arrived in Chavignon, some 14 kilometers southwest of Laon. As soon as 6th Brigade had secured Ardon, Blücher planned to send Bülow’s entire Reserve Cavalry south through Ardon to Cornelle to envelop Ney’s right. Yet fresh doubts seized him. Blücher knew enough about Napoleon’s art of war to question whether he would leave his two wings so widely separated without a middle column to connect them. his thought raised concerns that a third column would soon appear at Bruyères, some six kilometers south-southeast of Laon. Consequently, until the road through Bruyères could be reconnoitered, and the strength and intentions of the Festieux ascertained, Blücher refused to order a general attack and so recalled Bülow’s 6th Brigade and Reserve Cavalry. Soon Ardon again fell to a counterattack led by Mortier. In addition, around 3 p.m., Blücher received a second report that reinforced the idea that the Festieux column would deliver the main attack. As a result, Blücher moved Sacken and Langeron to the let wing, as reserve for Yorck and Kleist, and ordered the two Prussian corps commanders to attack the enemy as soon as possible. To have the maximum number of cavalry regiments available for use on the open terrain to his let, he recalled Sacken’s cavalry, which by then had reached Ney’s rear. hroughout the day, numerous couriers had been dispatched with orders for Marmont to accelerate his march, but all had been captured or driven of by the Cossacks. For his MHQ Autumn 2016

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Laon Paris

FRANCE

The Battle of Laon was the second showdown between Napoleon Bonaparte’s French army and an Allied coalition led by Prince Gebhardt von Blücher’s Prussian army. Blücher had mobilized his 85,000 troops around Laon, situated on the summit of a scarped hill, because it provided a superb defensive position, with the villages of Ardon and Sémilly serving as bastions. Napoleon, with only 37,000 men, launched a series of attacks. Blücher badly underestimated Napoleon’s strength and at first held back. But Blücher’s powerful counterattacks compelled Napoleon to retreat to Soissons, ending the battle and the emperor’s chances for victory.

MHQ Autumn 2016 ALEXANDER KEITH JOHNSTON/THE STAPLETON COLLECTION/BRIDGEMAN IMAGES

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part, Marmont made no efort to establish communication with Napoleon. Assuming that Marmont was nearby, Napoleon ordered an attack on Blücher’s right to induce him to transfer reinforcements from his let. He hoped that this diversion would give Marmont the element of surprise against Blücher. Around 4 p.m. the battle again became heated. On Napoleon’s order, the lead division of General Henri François Charpentier’s corps, supported by one of Ney’s divisions, succeeded in driving the Russians out of Clacy, yet Bülow’s 6th Brigade recaptured Ardon. Marmont’s vanguard had cleared Festieux just ater 10 a.m., but the corps halted there until noon rather than march to the sound of Napoleon’s guns. Around 3 p.m. his lead column approached Athies. An hour later, Major General Jean-Toussaint Arrighi de Casanova led an attack that drove the two Prussian battalions from Athies. Ater Marmont deployed his cavalry against the let lank of the Allied army, Yorck and Kleist sent their combined cavalry under General Friedrich Wilhelm von Zieten southeast through Chambry toward Athies and a position facing Marmont’s right flank. With four Allied corps in his immediate front and a large cavalry mass threatening his right, Marmont had enough sense not to engage such superior forces. He ordered his soldiers—many of them teenagers or sailors who knew little about ield service— to bivouac on the ield. he marshal passed the night at the Eppes château, six kilometers southeast of Athies. While Blücher could see the ight at Athies from Laon, a strong westerly wind muted the sound of the guns. Napoleon, who was farther away, could not hear the guns at all, and the smoke and topography prevented him from seeing Marmont’s attack. Knowing nothing of Marmont’s movements, and with the light of day quickly fading, Napoleon decided to break of combat around 5 p.m. By nightfall, Blücher, with the beneit of enough reports from the ield, no longer feared the approach of a third enemy column from Bruyères. Moreover, the Festieux column was estimated at fewer than 10,000 men. Statements from prisoners conirmed that Napoleon had joined Ney’s forces. Based on this news, Blücher ordered a surprise attack to destroy Marmont. It was a dark night, with the only light provided by the smoldering ruins of Athies. At 6:30 p.m., six Prussian battalions followed by the rest of Yorck’s I Corps advanced against Marmont’s center. he Prussians entered Athies without iring a shot, surprising and dispersing Brigadier General Edme-Aimé Lucotte’s brigade of Arrighi’s division. To the right of Yorck, Kleist’s II Corps marched across the ields between Athies and the Reims

Blücher ordered a surprise attack to destroy Marmont

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highway to smash Marmont’s let. Zieten, commanding some 7,000 sabers, now charged through the woods of Salmoucy on Marmont’s right and ravaged the bivouac of the 2,000 troops of I Cavalry Corps just as they were mounting their steeds. he French resisted with great courage, and in the darkness bitter hand-to-hand struggle ensued. Marmont’s VI Corps soon led. he Prussian infantry halted at Aippes while the cavalry pursued Marmont, who briely resisted at Festieux before retreating further. Only the cavalry and a few battalions crossed the Festieux deile to pursue the enemy on the other side. Almost all of the Prussian infantry returned to Athies with detachments holding Festieux and Aippes. At 2 a.m., some seven hours ater the surprise attack, Marmont reported to the emperor: “We still have not been able to restore order among the troop units, which are all mixed together and are incapable of making a movement; it is impossible for them to perform any service, and, since a considerable number of men are marching to Berry-au-Bac, I see myself forced to proceed there to reorganize.” Marmont had lost more than 3,500 men, including 2,000 who had been taken as prisoners, as well as 45 guns and 131 caissons. he Prussians had lost 850 or so men. With wind howling throughout the night of March 9, Napoleon’s outposts did not hear the combat at Athies. Consequently, the emperor made plans for a double envelopment of Blücher’s position the following morning. His staf had already issued the orders when, around 1 a.m., news arrived of Marmont’s debacle. At irst, Napoleon refused to believe it; then he received a report from a dragoon post at Nouvion-le-Vineux, written at 2:30 a.m., stating that VI Corps had been completely defeated at around 7 p.m. Assuming that Blücher would pursue Marmont, he decided to remain before Laon and attempt to catch Blücher’s columns debouching from their positions. On the open plain, Napoleon reasoned, his superior skills would compensate for his inferior numbers. On March 10, pleased by the apparent victory, Blücher issued orders for the entire army to pursue the French. Yet at daybreak, just as his army started to march, Blücher was astonished to see that Napoleon had not only maintained his old position but had arranged his troops for a new attack. Blücher immediately ordered all corps to return to their previous positions; only Wintzingerode would take the ofensive. At around 9 a.m., the corps of Ney, Charpentier, and Mortier formed for the defense of Clacy; Pierre Boyer’s division occupied the brickworks of Semilly, while the right wing extended to Leuilly. Wintzingerode’s Russians launched repeated attacks but could not achieve decisive results. Consequently, Blücher ordered Bülow to shit some battalions from the center to assist the Russians. Observing Bülow’s movement and concluding that Blücher had inally accepted battle, Napoleon ordered the division holding Clacy to assault the Russians; Ney led two divisions in a failed efort to take Semilly and Ardon. Finally convinced that Blücher did not intend to move, Napoleon ordered the retreat to Soissons to commence at 6 p.m.

FROM TOP: HORACE VERNET/AKG-IMAGES; WILLIAM ELMES/ANNE S. K. BROWN MILITARY COLLECTION/BROWN UNIVERSITY LIBRARY; MARY EVANS PICTURE LIBRARY/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO

BATTLE OF LAON, 1814

After the surrender of Paris to the Coalition forces, Napoleon abdicated to face exile on Elba, bidding farewell to his guard at Fontainebleau (top). The jubliant Allies celebrated with cartoons showing Britain (John Bull) punishing the emperor and Blücher ridding Europe of “the Corsican Blood Hound.”

On March 11 a weak rearguard of two battalions, 300 cavalry, and two guns abandoned Clacy only an hour before daybreak. With Blücher ailing, the Army of Silesia did not pursue Napoleon, allowing him to slip away with 24,000 men. While exacting some 4,000 Allied casualties, Napoleon had lost 6,000 men in addition to Marmont’s 3,500. It was clear that he could not sustain the losses in men, matériel, and morale. “Unfortunately, the Young Guard is melting like snow,” he informed his brother Joseph. “he Old Guard maintains its strength. Yet the Guard Cavalry is also shrinking considerably.” he battle of Laon presented Napoleon with the last opportunity to change the course of the war by defeating Blücher—an event that most certainly would have prompted Schwarzenberg to retreat. Feeling that the war had taken a turn for the worse, concern for Paris mastered him. “[Blücher’s] army is much more dangerous to Paris than Schwarzenberg’s,” he wrote. “For all circumstances, I am going to move closer to Soissons in order to be closer to Paris; but until I have been able to engage this army in a battle, threaten it anew, it is very diicult for me to turn elsewhere.” On March 11, Napoleon instructed his brother to build redoubts on the hills that overlooked Paris, especially Montmartre. Joseph also received orders to implement a levée-en-masse of the National Guard to raise and arm 30,000 men from the refugees who had led to Paris and the city’s unemployed. hese measures, however, caused overwhelming panic and political agitation that ultimately led to his political demise. Although he would win minor victories at Reims on 13 March and St. Dizier on March 26, the master was out of time. By chasing Blücher to Laon, Napoleon had granted Schwarzenberg one too many reprieves. By failing to inlict serious losses on the Army of Silesia, he had lost the best opportunity to inluence Schwarzenberg’s operations. It did not help that Napoleon’s own intransigence had led the Allies to conclude that a diplomatic settlement was unattainable. While Napoleon was operating against Blücher, Schwarzenberg had resumed the ofensive. With the Army of Bohemia closing on Paris, Napoleon no longer had time to “transfer the war to Lorraine.” Any attempt to go east and turn Schwarzenberg’s right lank could result in the Allies reaching Paris before they could feel the efects of his manoeuvre sur les derrières. Unable to smash Schwarzenberg’s rearguard at Arcissur-Aube on March 20–21, Napoleon found the two enemy armies between himself and his capital. he end came quickly. On March 31, Marmont surrendered Paris; Napoleon unconditionally abdicated six days later. MHQ Michael V. Leggiere is professor of history and deputy director of the Military History Center at the University of North Texas. He is the award-winning author of ive books on the Napoleonic Wars including a biography of the Prussian ield marshal Prince Blücher and monographs on Napoleon’s campaigns in 1813 and 1814. MHQ Autumn 2016

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DEATH IN THE AFTERNOON

General George Washington, his army renewed after a winter of training, aimed to intercept—and hobble—the crack army commanded by British lieutenant general Sir Henry Clinton.

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SAMUEL KING/CHATEAU BLERANCOURT, PICARDIE, FRANCE/BRIDGEMAN IMAGES

In the hard-fought Battle of Monmouth in 1778, a relentless Washington struck a final surprise blow against Clinton’s redcoats By Mark Edward Lender and Garry Wheeler Stone

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MONMOUTH

During a hot spell in late June 1778, British lieutenant general Sir Henry Clinton was moving his army from Philadelphia to New York City. General George Washington, spoiling for a ight, his army renewed ater a winter of training, meant to intercept the redcoats in New Jersey. Washington, overriding the cautions of many of his generals, attacked Clinton’s column. Once engaged, the two armies slugged it out in a cauldron of deadly heat, dust, and confusion in the farm ields near Monmouth. his was the war’s longest single-day battle and both sides claimed victory, as Clinton withdrew toward New York with his vital supply train intact and Washington’s Continentals retained command of the ield. Essentially a hard-fought draw, the ight had major strategic and political implications for the Americans. In Fatal Sunday, their fresh, deeply researched, and detailed account of the Battle of Monmouth and its consequences, historians Mark Edward Lender and Garry Wheeler Stone have disentangled one of the Revolutionary War’s most confusing battles. his excerpt illustrates Washington’s relentless desire to damage Clinton’s crack army, even at the very end of a bloody, exhausting battle.

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ieutenant General Sir Henry Clinton felt that he could pull back with mission accomplished and honor intact. here was no point in staying on the ield longer. Accordingly, he issued orders for a general withdrawal toward the town of Freehold west of Monmouth. It should have been a relatively simple retrograde. Yet as if to demonstrate that even the veteran British Army could botch a routine maneuver, the withdrawal misired. Clinton wanted a phased withdrawal: the grenadier battalions were to stay in position near the hedgerow until the 3rd Brigade and light troops were completely out of danger. Instead, as the general later explained, “from my instructions not being properly understood, or some other cause,” all units but the 1st Grenadiers Battalion got out right away. he premature departure posed an immediate danger by leaving the still retreating 3rd Brigade farther forward than Clinton’s main body and lagging behind on the British right. It also let the 1st Grenadiers isolated near the north end of the hedgerow. Here General George Washington may have seen an opportunity. With Colonel Joseph Cilley’s 1st New Hampshire men still engaged and emboldened by their apparent success, the patriot commanding general looked for another opportunity. he view from Perrine’s Hill allowed only glimpses of British troop movements, but it was clear enough that the redcoats had retreated on the rebel let, and patriots certainly knew that the enemy artillery had pulled out. Were the British vulnerable near the hedgerow? Despite his lack of any solid intelligence, Washington ordered another limited advance. hrough

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Major General William Alexander—“Lord Stirling,” as he preferred—he ordered Brigadier General Anthony Wayne to lead a detachment of Pennsylvanians back over the West Morass bridge west of Monmouth Courthouse. here is no reason to believe the commander in chief had any speciic target in mind, and Wayne’s instructions probably were as general as Cilley’s. If so—and to paraphrase Cilley’s orders—they were as simple as: “Go and see what you can do with any British you can ind across the morass.” hat is, Wayne was to advance from the Continental center and pursue any opportunity. his time, however, it was the turn of the patriots to make a hash of things. Wayne had intended to take with him a command considerably larger than Cilley’s. In fact, he wanted three Pennsylvania brigades, which would have given him more than 1,300 men. In his view, this was strength enough to close with the British and then to “improve the advantage” in the event of success. But the mission sufered from confusion at the outset. Wayne’s fellow Pennsylvanian, Major General Arthur St. Clair, then serving as an aide to Washington, overheard the request for the three brigades. St. Clair promptly ordered the three brigades not to advance and allowed only one brigade to join Wayne. he two generals were not friends, and Wayne (in a letter intended for Washington) later put down St. Clair’s action to either “ignorance” or “envy.” As an aide to the commander in chief, the major general actually had no place in the chain of command. As far as Wayne knew, St. Clair was not acting on any instructions from Washington but merely pulled rank to deny the brigadier his requested number of troops. Furious, the aggressive Pennsylvanian never forgave St. Clair, but he had no time to argue the matter at present. If Wayne was disappointed in the size of his strike force, his ire was misdirected. St. Clair was no genius—his military career, which stretched well beyond the Revolution, was checkered—but he would not have intervened in an operation Washington had initiated without suicient cause. And the “suicient cause” was almost certainly the commander in chief. In ordering the new advance, Washington was not courting a major action or the possibility of damage to a substantial part of his army. he modest size of Cilley’s party was more indicative of the general’s thinking. An attack by three brigades was something else, quite contrary to an efort to strike Clinton without incurring unnecessary risk to the Continentals. An assault in such strength would have invited a major response, with Wayne too far forward for Washington to support adequately even if, as the brigadier put it, there was an “advantage” to “improve.” In all likelihood St. Clair did nothing more than act on instructions from Washington. Wayne evidently realized as much ater the fact because he never sent the letter in which he vented his spleen at his fellow Pennsylvanian. Making the best of what he considered a bad situation, it

CHICAGO HISTORY MUSEUM/BRIDGEMAN IMAGES

Other than some return fire from enemy pickets, the only opposition Washington’s troops met as they moved forward were a few bursting shells from British 5.5-inch howitzers.

seems Wayne took only the 3rd Pennsylvania Brigade and put it on the road toward the bridge. he brigade was made up of the 3rd, 6th, 9th, and 12th Pennsylvania Regiments (or at least elements of them) as well as Colonel Oliver Spencer’s and Colonel William Malcolm’s Additional Continental Regiments. Both Additionals were brigaded with the Pennsylvanians; Malcolm’s, composed mostly of Pennsylvanians, was commanded this day by Lieutenant Colonel Aaron Burr. Spencer’s troops were mostly Jerseymen, and Spencer led them personally. In all, Wayne’s force was not much larger than Cilley’s, probably around 400 men of all ranks—far fewer than the force he wanted. Wayne was his aggressive self even with only a brigade. He marched about 5:15 p.m., just ater Cilley stopped pursuing the Highlanders. His men were relatively fresh and their advance was swit, although at this point the exact movements of the Continental troops are conjectural. Without question, they crossed the West Morass bridge unopposed. Wayne probably let his men marching east on the road while he, his dragoon

escort, and a fellow oicer or two rode ahead to reconnoiter. As they moved up the hill, they found a battalion of British grenadiers marching south, heading for the Middle Morass causeways. No other enemy unit was west of the Middle Morass. he 1st and 2nd Battalions of Grenadiers had remained, hunkered down, in the hay meadow along the Middle Brook. here they were safe from the guns of Brevet Lieutenant Colonel homas Antoine, chevalier de Mauduit du Plessis, a French volunteer, and could cover the retreat of Brigadier General Sir William Erskine’s detachment and the 3rd Brigade. Ater Major General Charles Grey’s rear unit was safely on the road to the courthouse, the 2nd Battalion of the Grenadiers followed. In the hayield Lieutenant Colonel William Meadows held his 1st Grenadiers, either to give the lengthy column time to escape or (as noted earlier) from a misunderstanding of Clinton’s orders. hen the battalion began to move south, probably along the lane to young Peter Wikof ’s house. Meadows’s intention may have been to join and withdraw with the troops of the 4th Brigade. If so, he never reached them. MHQ Autumn 2016

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BRIDGE

Wayne With 3rd Pennsylvania Brigade

HE

DG

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AR FR TI O M LLE S U RY TF FIR IN E FA RM

Malcolm

33rd Regiment

BARN

L AN WIK E TO H O O FF ’S USE

DWELLING

Spencer

AR T FR ILLE O M RY CO FIR MB E SH ILL

3rd Pa. 1st Grenadiers 500 FT

Before Colonel Meadows’s grenadiers could turn east toward the ravine, Wayne’s men were upon them. he grenadiers were slow to recognize their danger, probably assuming that the smaller Continental unit was merely shadowing them of the battleield. But Wayne wanted blood, and he led his detachment of Pennsylvanians straight into the grenadiers, perhaps before they could form. In the irst minute or so, the rebels ired three volleys into the British. he battalion, badly shot up earlier in the day, was now unsupported. he 2nd Grenadiers had marched of, and the Royal Artillery had withdrawn, leaving only a single 6-pounder. (In fact, one grenadier oicer was convinced that the departure of the artillery had triggered the American attack—untrue, but a reasonable assumption from the British perspective.) he 1st Grenadiers rallied and fought back gamely, but patriot ire began to tell. “his brave corps,” Clinton wrote of the battalion, began “losing men very fast.” Sir Henry had not anticipated the Continental movement. Quickly, he sized up the new threat: he Americans had come over the bridge “in great force,” he noted, and their advance found him alarmed for the safety of Meadows. he 1st Grenadiers formed—probably along one of the fences paralleling the lane—and held their ground, taking their losses from Wayne’s ire. Meadows was a tough and experienced oicer, a gren-

‘This brave corps,’ Clinton wrote of the battalion, began ‘losing men very fast’

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adier with a superb combat record and whose performance won him an assignment as a military aide to George III by the end of the year. Riding close to the scene, Clinton realized that his orderly withdrawal was threatened, and he saw no alternative but to stand and ight. Anxiously searching the ield for potential reinforcements, the general spotted the 33rd Foot moving up. Luckily, the 33rd was a unit with an excellent reputation; its colonel was none other than Lieutenant General Charles Earl Cornwallis. he regimental commander, Lieutenant Colonel James Webster, apparently was heading for the sound of the guns on his own initiative. he 33rd pressed on, and a relieved Clinton sent Webster’s troops immediately into the fray. he subsequent action may have been the bitterest of the day. he numbers, though, were against the Continentals; Wayne was now facing some 1,000 redcoats. he grenadier battalion had a prebattle muster roll of approximately 760 men, and even ater losses from the heat and the ighting earlier in the day, there were probably still some 650 to 700 Grenadiers in the ield to go after Wayne. he 33rd Foot probably added another 300 to 350 men to British strength. Wayne was in his glory. Having had a taste of combat earlier, he was now in a classic showdown with some of the best soldiers in the British Army. Quickly, however, the larger numbers and spirit of the grenadiers began to tell. Formed in semi-open order, their line threatened to lank Wayne’s, and the Americans began backing up. (North of young Wikof ’s house today, a scatter of impacted musket balls has helped locate the action. One ball from a British grenadier’s musket bears the impression of coarse linen fabric from a Pennsylva-

THOMAS GAINSBOROUGH/NATIONAL PORTRAIT GALLERY U.K./BRIDGEMAN IMAGES; INFOGRAPHIC BY BRIAN WALKER

Clinton, realizing that Washington’s Continentals threatened his orderly withdrawal, called on the 33rd Regiment, led by Lieutenant General Charles Earl Cornwallis (left), to protect the 1st Grenadiers, which had formed the main British column.

HULTON ARCHIVE/GETTY IMAGES; NORTH WIND PICTURE ARCHIVES/THE IMAGE WORKS

Major General Arthur St. Clair (left), an aide to Washington, angered Brigadier General Anthony Wayne by overruling his request for three Pennsylvania brigades, but he undoubtedly was acting on instructions from the commander in chief.

nian’s pack.) In a vivid recollection of the action, Pennsylvania lieutenant Alexander Dow saw men in his own company and in other units go down around him. hese included some important oicers. In the 3rd Pennsylvania, Lieutenant Colonel Rudolph Bunner took a lethal hit; he was the highest-ranking rebel fatality at Monmouth. One of Washington’s favorite junior oicers, former schoolteacher Lieutenant Colonel Francis Barber, was wounded in the side. Late of the 3rd New Jersey and a talented light infantryman, Barber was serving as Stirling’s adjutant general; his own impetuosity, not any requirements of his oice, brought him to the front line. Aaron Burr tumbled to the ground with his horse shot from under him. According to traditional accounts, as the British advance gathered momentum, Wayne remained cool. Watching the developing enemy charge, he told his men, or at least those near enough to hear him, to hold their ire. He wanted the grenadiers and the 33rd to get within range of a sure kill, then have the Continentals go for the enemy oicers. “Steady, steady,” the general called down this line, “wait for the word, then pick out the King birds.” Lieutenant Dow, on the Continental let, may or may not have heard Wayne, as he had a more immediate concern. he lieutenant had three of his men killed and found his platoon “close pressed” as the enemy closed in. It was terrifying. hrough the smoke, Dow reported, he saw a mounted British oicer—a man he mistakenly took to be Lieutenant Colonel Henry Monckton—shouting “com on my brave boyes for the honour of Great Britain.” Dow feared that the horseman was actually going to ride him down. Ordering his platoon to aim at the rider and the men with him, the Pennsylvanian gave

the order to ire. he volley crashed and the target “droped,” shot dead, or so Dow believed. British casualty reports, however, listed no senior “King birds” lost in the late aternoon’s ighting, and no one knows who the platoon brought down, if anyone. he smoke and confusion easily could have let Dow mistaken; he certainly was mistaken regarding Monckton. he most likely casualty of the volley was the oicer’s horse. Dow, grateful to be alive, saw the British charge slowed, and Colonel Spencer ordered him to fall back. Slowed, the redcoats nevertheless maintained their advance. Pushed back through the hedgerow, Wayne’s formation began to disintegrate as Continental units hurried to take cover in the buildings and enclosures of the parsonage farm. As they fell back, an enemy ball tore through the throat of Adjutant Peter Taulman. Bleeding and dazed, he crawled behind the barn thinking that he had but moments to live. Two soldiers came to his aid. hey were carrying him farther back when a musket ball blew the hat of of one of them; he led. he other remained and helped Taulman of the battleield. he grenadiers pursuing Dow and Taulman were sheltered from the Continental artillery by the ridge to their let and the Americans in front of them, but they had no shelter from the Continentals who had taken refuge in the parsonage buildings and yards. Behind fences and walls, Malcolm’s and Spencer’s men were safe from a bayonet charge. A grenadier oicer reported that his men “lost Considerable from a Firing from a Barn & a House.” Just to the south, the 3rd Pennsylvania, moving toward the safety of the parsonage apple orchard, slowed to get over a rail fence. he pursuing grenadiers knew better than to let the men take cover behind it. Before the ContiMHQ Autumn 2016

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MONMOUTH nentals could re-form, the British were on them, loading and iring, forcing Colonel homas Craig’s troops back into the orchard. Now it was the grenadiers who had the advantage, but it was short lived. Indeed, the British advance came to a quick and deadly halt. A round of case shot landed just short of the fence corner, scattering 1.5-ounce iron shot along the edge of the orchard. It was the irst of many such rounds. Caught in front of the parsonage on open ground, the redcoats were now sitting ducks for patriot artillery on Combs Hill to their let. Du Plessis sent a withering rain of shot ripping through the British let lank. It is worth considering what the grenadiers and the 33rd faced. Du Plessis had four guns. Based on the smallsize iron case shot they were iring, the guns were most likely 3- or 4-pounders. With excellent crews, they could ire two or three aimed rounds a minute. A 4-pounder case round using 1.5-ounce iron shot contained about 44 shots; a canister of lead musket balls would contain many more. With all four guns iring at three rounds a minute, at any given minute over 500 pieces of hot metal were hurtling downrange. Aimed at formed infantry in enilade (that is, from the side), multiple hits were as likely as not. One unlikely tale had a round shot traveling the length of a platoon line, knocking the muskets from the grip of every soldier without doing further harm. Reality was much worse. he storm of artillery staggered the redcoats, who were powerless to reply. he American guns “quailed them so much,” one Continental recorded, that the enemy simply had to withdraw. Virtually every account of this action, American and British, bore testimony to the terrible efectiveness of the ire from Combs Hill. he British attack was over almost immediately. he grenadiers “Run Back,” the Continental wrote, and once east of the hedgerow, the vegetation and topography hid them from du Plessis’s gunners. As the gap between Wayne’s and Clinton’s men opened, the gunners on the Perrine and neighboring Sutin farms may have been able to ire a few solid shot at the retreating troops before they disappeared from view. In a technical sense, Clinton had won the ight with Wayne— the Americans had retreated—but his grenadiers and the 33rd Foot were licking their wounds as they moved out. he weary troops withdrew just over a mile to high ground near William Ker’s house. hey arrived shortly before 7 p.m. for some much-needed rest, safe from the galling rebel artillery. he British withdrawal from the parsonage area marked the end of the day’s longest period of sustained infantry action.

Now it was the grenadiers who had the advantage, but it was short lived

For Washington, however, the day was not over. Clinton’s retrograde invited a response, and he laid plans to strike a inal

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blow. Around 6 p.m. the commander in chief sent a rider to the reserve with orders for Major General Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben to send what troops he could from Englishtown. Major General Charles Lee’s men were assembled there, although they were in questionable condition ater their long day in the sun; the timely arrival of Brigadier General John Paterson had augmented the reserve with four more fresh brigades (Paterson’s, Brigadier General Peter Muhlenberg’s, Brigadier General George Weedon’s, and the 2nd Maryland)—a large force of over 2,200 men—and the inspector general personally organized and led these units toward the front. hey arrived too late to do anything on Sunday but were at hand if ighting resumed the following day. Simultaneously, elements of the Pennsylvania units that had fought near the parsonage held their position; the gore of the ighting lay all around them as they looked out over the now quiet ield. he British, sheltering at Ker’s, knew Wayne was still around the parsonage, but the royal army was not looking for another ight. But across the West Morass, Washington was doing just that. Shortly before 7 p.m. the general ordered two detachments to go ater Clinton’s lanks. he irst was under Brigadier General Enoch Poor of New Hampshire, who took his own brigade and a picked body of light infantry. Also along was a detachment of North Carolinians under Colonel homas Clark. Poor had done well at Saratoga the year before, but he had shared Lee’s caution about any major confrontation with the British in New Jersey. He had a reputation as a steady oicer, however, and had been part of Stirling’s let wing during the earlier ighting that day. he general was to follow the road across the morass bridge to go ater Clinton’s right. Moving in concert with Poor would be the small Virginia Brigade of Brigadier General William Woodford, whose men had been with Greene and had supported the guns on Combs Hill. Now he would advance from the hill and try for the British let. Knox limbered guns to accompany Poor and “gall” the enemy’s front. he two forces moved at about the same time. Poor crossed the bridge and let the road. He moved carefully through ields and patches of woods, seeking to conceal his advance toward the British let. Woodford picked his way through the boggy terrain at the base of Combs Hill, going for the enemy right. Once across the West Morass bridge, the artillery, with a small supporting detachment, kept to the road. Unsure of how far they could go before the British saw them or what the redcoats would do if they did, caution ruled the patriot approach. In fact, the pace was too slow. Soon sunset made a continued advance impractical, and Washington called of the efort before either Poor or Woodford closed. He had these advanced troops lie on their arms near the Wikof house, close enough to keep an eye on the enemy at Ker’s. Behind Poor and Woodford, Stirling’s brigades from the Perrine farm also moved up and took position, perhaps near the hedgerow, the troops “lying down on the ield amongst the dead.” On Perrine’s Hill, the fresh troops Steuben brought from Englishtown replaced Stirling’s men. Washington, who fully intended to

STOCK MONTAGE/GETTY IMAGES; QUINT & LOX/AKG-IMAGES

renew the ighting on Monday morning, slept under an oak on a cloak he shared with Lafayette. he infantry of the two armies rested within a mile of each other, but their only contact during the evening was when Colonel Parker sent a company of his picked men to disturb the royal army’s sleep. he Virginians probed forward until they found an enemy picket, ired three volleys, and returned unscathed. Other than return ire from the pickets, the only opposition Washington’s troops met as they moved forward were a few bursting shells from British 5.5-inch howitzers. In an ineffectual efort to keep the Continentals at a distance, Clinton had his artillerists randomly ire at the ground he had abandoned. he British commander had no intention of staying to ight on the 29th. here was no reason. He had ensured the escape of his baggage train, and with no prospect of inlicting a major wound on the rebels, he saw his job as the completion of his planned evacuation to New York. Clinton let his exhausted units rest for the time being, secure in their temporary camp. But about 11 p.m. the general began preparations to move out. His intention was to join Lieutenant General Wilhelm von Knyphausen, who by 6 p.m. had marched the baggage train and its escorts to a defensible encampment at Nut Swamp, some three miles from Middletown. Around midnight, Clinton quietly broke camp, slipped into the night, and let the battleield to Washington. Poor’s men never heard him go. In fact, the withdrawal was skillful and eicient (every bit as good as Washington’s escape from Cornwallis ater the Second Battle of Trenton), but the exhausted and sleeping rebels could have done little to stop him had they noticed his departure. Not all the redcoats let. “he wounded were brought into Freehold,” Major John André noted, “and those whose cases would admit of it, brought away when the Division marched.” But some men were too badly injured to move; Clinton let four wounded oicers and 40 men in the village. As their comrades marched away, they remained under the care of several surgeons and medical personnel who volunteered to stay behind. It was galling—“mortifying,” in the view of one oicer—to leave the wounded to the Americans, but there was nothing else to be done; even if the men were in condition to travel, there were not enough wagons to carry them. Clinton trusted, rightly, to their humane treatment by Washington. MHQ

Owing to his fiery personality, Wayne (top) was known as “Mad Anthony,” and he was in his glory at Monmouth. While Clinton (bottom) may have won the fight with Wayne, his forces were so weakened that they left the battlefield to Washington.

Mark Edward Lender is professor emeritus of history at Kean University in Union, New Jersey, and the coauthor of A Respectable Army: he Military Origins of the Republic and Citizen Soldier: he Revolutionary War Journal of Joseph Bloomield. Garry Wheeler Stone is retired as regional historian for the New Jersey State Park Service and historian for the Monmouth Battleield State Park with the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection. Excerpt from Fatal Sunday: George Washington, the Monmouth Campaign, and the Politics of Battle, by Mark Edward Lender and Garry Wheeler Stone. Copyright 2016, University of Oklahoma Press. MHQ Autumn 2016

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OVER THE HUMP

WILLIAM VANDIVERT/TIME & LIFE PICTURES/GETTY IMAGES

World War II’s pioneering airlift operation—in myth and reality By Stephan Wilkinson

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In 1942, the U.S. Army Air Forces’ brand-new Air Transport Command began running the most audacious airlift of World War II: flying “the Hump” over the foothills of the Himalayas.

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n August 2, 1943, CBS war correspondent Eric Sevareid and a small group of American diplomats and Chinese army oicers climbed aboard a Curtiss C-46 Commando transport plane at a U.S. Army Air Forces base in Chabua, India. Sevareid wanted to report irsthand on an ongoing mission to get gasoline and other supplies to China in support of Chiang Kai-shek, whose forces were ighting the Japanese. he USAAF’s brandnew Air Transport Command had been struggling to run the most audacious and dangerous airlit operation ever attempted—lying “the Hump,” over the foothills of the Himalayas—and Sevareid wanted to report on the operation. China had gone to war with Japan in 1937, but by the time the United States entered the Paciic War, Japan had sealed of China from any source of supply. Its ports had been conquered, and the last rail connection with the Soviet Union, a distant and pitiful lifeline, had been closed in 1941 by a SovietJapanese neutrality treaty. he infamous Burma Road lasted a while longer, but when the Japanese captured the port of Rangoon, the Burma Road was let with no supplies to carry. Flying over Burma (today, Myanmar)—a 261,000-squaremile swath of mostly mountainous terrain the size of Texas— was the only way. As the C-46 climbed high above the Patkoi Range, the aircrat that pilots had dubbed “the lying coin” suddenly lost its let engine, and it soon became clear that the plane was going to crash. “I stood in the open door of that miserable Commando and declared, ‘Well, if nobody else is going to jump, I’ll jump,’” John Paton Davies, one of the American diplomats, later wrote. “Somebody had to break the ice.” Sevareid followed Davies, but only ater grabbing a bottle of Carew’s gin. He and 19 other men landed in the jungle—the C-46’s copilot did not survive—near a village that was home to a notorious tribe of headhunters, the Nagas, who, amazingly, hosted and fed them until help arrived 22 days later. Most likely because of the VIPs aboard the light, intensive search-and-rescue eforts were mounted, including parachuting a light surgeon to the marooned party. hat was the beginning of serious search and rescue along the Hump routes. Before “the Sevareid light,” crews and occasional passengers were pretty much on their own in the Burmese jungles and mountains. On their 80-mile trek back to civilization, a native guide explained the Hump to Sevareid in a way that perfectly encapsulated its astonishing expanse: “India there,” he said, pointing in one direction, and then, pointing in the other, “China there.”

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he Second Sino-Japanese War occupied the attention of 1,250,000 Japanese troops stationed in Southeast Asia and China itself. It was a huge commitment by the Japanese, but they faced a Chinese force of more than three million. hat Chinese army did little—the war had essentially become a stalemate—but was nonetheless a threat, and that meant those million and a quarter Japanese soldiers couldn’t be sent to Guadalcanal or anywhere else in the South Paciic. President Franklin D. Roosevelt decided that Chiang Kai-shek, the supreme commander of most of China’s army—Mao Zedong led the rest—was his guy, and Chiang needed American support. Roosevelt imagined a superpower role for China ater the war, and he wanted to be on good terms with the generalissimo. Chiang kept demanding more supplies, and Roosevelt kept sending them, at least until he became increasingly disenchanted with the Chinese Nationalist dictator. But was that really the reason for lying some 500 to 560 miles over the Hump? To supply the Chinese and keep them in the war, thus pinning down all those Japanese troops? hat has been the popular explanation for decades, but it is far from the whole story. he Hump was a myth in many ways. Even the description “over the Himalayas” stretches the truth, for none of the several Hump routes overlew mountains that were technically part of the Himalayas. Yes, some of them crossed the Patkai and Santung Ranges, which forced a minimum cruising altitude of 15,000 feet, especially when lying by instruments in poor visibility, and that let no margin in the event of an engine failure in a twin-engine C-46 Commando or Douglas C-47 Skytrain or even a four-engine Consolidated C-87/C-109 Liberator Express. he Himalayas, though, were part of what percolated the extreme weather and jetstream-strength winds that were the routes’ severest challenges. he lood of memoirs, war stories, and reminiscences from members of the Hump Pilots Association (some 5,000 at its peak) was unequaled among such postwar alumni groups, and its annual conventions seemed to increase the signiicance of the feats they reported. “Every time we meet,” one former Hump pilot recalled, “the Himalaya Mountains get higher, the weather gets worse, and there are more Japanese ighters in the sky than there were in the whole leet.” he men who lew the Hump were near the bottom of the Army Air Force food chain; indeed, ATC, the abbreviation for Air Transport Command, was oten said to mean “Allergic to Combat” or “Army of Terriied Copilots.” hose terriied copilots

WILLIAM VANDIVERT/THE LIFE PICTURE COLLECTION/GETTY IMAGES

THE HUMP

A twin-engine Curtiss C-46 Commando flies over the rugged mountain barriers of Burma, moving military supplies from India to China as part of a 24-hour-a-day aerial supply line. MHQ Autumn 2016

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Hump Airfields

Chinese troops board Douglas C-53s (above); each plane could carry 28 soldiers in full combat gear. Opposite page, from top: CBS war correspondent Eric Sevareid (with hat) jumped for his life from a Hump flight and spent 22 days in the Burmese jungles. Chinese soliders wait to board a Hump flight in 1944. China’s Chiang Kai-shek got nearly everything he asked for, including wine, Ping-Pong tables, and condoms. General Henry “Hap” Arnold came to dislike the Nationalist leader, writing that all that mattered to him was “aid to China.”

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got little respect during the war but made sure the world heard about their exploits aterward. Inevitably, some of what they broadcast was myth and much was exaggeration. hat said, they operated overloaded airplanes, some of them mechanically lawed and poorly maintained with no source of spares, and did it in the world’s worst instrument-lying weather. Westerly winds sometimes reached 150 miles an hour (typically inlated by pilots in later years to 200 and even 250), and 115 miles an hour was not unusual. A trip in a C-47 from China back to India could see groundspeeds of 30 miles an hour, according to some Hump reminiscences, and pilots cruising at 16,000 feet might ind their aircrat carried uncontrollably to 28,000 feet, then suddenly back down to 6,000. he weather was at its worst from February to April, with ierce thunderstorms and heavy icing. May to September was monsoon season with even worse thunderstorms. October and November meant good weather, which brought out Japanese ighter planes, and December and January brought heavy winds, turbulence, and icing. It didn’t help that Hump route charts were outdated and inaccurate, with many exaggerated height callouts. Some Hump pilots went to their graves believing they had seen a mysterious mountain taller than Everest—a peak of 32,000 feet looming far above them when they suddenly broke out of clouds into the clear. Sometimes the media were responsible for the exaggeration, for journalists everywhere knew that if they needed colorful copy, all they had to do was sign on for a Hump run. In the earliest days of the Hump, before Pearl Harbor, the route was lown not by the U.S. military but by an airline: CNAC, the China National Aviation Corporation, a cooperative endeavor between the Chinese government and Pan American Airways. Its pilots—mostly expatriate Americans and Brits lying Douglas DC-3s, some of them U.S.-provided— were the best mountain pilots in the Far East, and their skill and experience showed when the Army Air Force Ferry Command (ATC’s predecessor) began to ly the route in 1942. CNAC aircrat oten carried more than double the tonnage that their Army Air Forces partners felt safe hauling aboard identical aircrat. he experienced CNAC pilots initially made lying the Hump look easy, but nobody yet realized that future operations would be lown by ill-trained newbies with no mountain- or weather-lying hours. he Ferry Command’s early pilots were also skillful, though they lacked relevant experience lying over such terrain or in such weather. he irst 100 were airline pilots who held AAF Reserve commissions. But when Hump tonnage began to build and a substantial leet of cargo planes had arrived in India, the demand for pilots grew rapidly. AAF light schools churned out as many as they could, but the best of them chose to ly ighters and fast medium bombers; for a new aviator in his early 20s, glory lay in combat, not in lying freight. Despite the occasional presence of Japanese ighters, the Hump was oicially declared a noncombat operation, with

FROM TOP: MARTIN WALZ, PEGMOTIONS GROUP (3); ALAMY STOCK PHOTO; OPPOSITE FROM TOP: BETTMANN/GETTY IMAGES; MONDADORI PORTFOLIO/GETTY IMAGES; 504 COLLECTION/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO; BETTMANN/GETTY IMAGES

THE HUMP

lower pay scales and more demanding rotation-home criteria. he Hump transports were easy but only occasional prey, since Japanese ighters would have to spend time, efort, and gas to ind one airplane at a time. In October 1943, the Japanese stationed a swarm of Nakajima Ki-43 Oscars at Myitkyina (pronounced “Mitchinaw”) in northern Burma, tasked to interdict the Hump routes. his worked briely—four Hump transports were downed—until Lieutenant General Claire Chennault, commander of the famous Flying Tigers, proposed launching a small group of up-gunned B-24s along one route. he Oscars found the Liberators and casually attacked, thinking they were unarmed C-87s, and eight of the Ki-43s were shot down. Air Transport Command got the least capable light students from the training classes; many arrived in India with minimal instrument-lying skills, some without multi-engine training. When possible, they were paired for training with airline pilots, many of whom were stunned by their lack of competence. By the end of 1942, 35 percent of the Hump operation’s new pilots showed up in India with just 27 weeks of light training. During spring 1943, nearly a third of the AAF pilots force-fed to the China-Burma-India heater were only single-engine rated. Even experienced crews got into trouble over the Hump. General Henry “Hap” Arnold was lying the Hump with a handpicked crew aboard his personal Boeing B-17 in February 1943 when they turned a two-and-a-half-hour trip into a six-hour epic. Befuddled by lack of oxygen, the crew made enough navigation errors to put themselves over Japanese-held territory. One small category of service pilots, however, were happy to log hours lying modiied civilian airliners. Ater the war they would be at the head of the line leading to the door marked “Airline Captain,” even then a glamorous and well-paid job. In the Hump’s early days—from its inception in early 1942 through the spring of 1943—the U.S.-run operation was what some likened to a civilian lying club run by its pilots. hey decided when they would ly, what route they’d take, and how much cargo they’d carry. hey were their own schedulers, dispatchers, and weather forecasters, and, not surprisingly, lights were oten canceled because of bad weather or the threat of Japanese interception. hat lasted until the arrival of Brigadier General homas Hardin, a former TWA vice president who took over the Hump command in August 1943. “From now on, there is no weather over the Hump,” he immediately decreed, telling the lying club pilots to suck it up or join the infantry. Hardin lew the Hump, sometimes solo and regardless of the weather, in a worn-out North American B-25 medium bomber that he had somehow appropriated, and he arrived unannounced at the various ATC bases in India and China with his hair on ire, sacking and reassigning oicers whenever he found laxity and incompetence. Hardin came to be feared and respected by the most aggressive of his pilots and hated by the malingerers. He asked more of his aircrat, maintainers, and crews than anyone had imagined was possible, and he was reMHQ Autumn 2016

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THE HUMP

The giant C-46 Commandos that flew the Hump from India to China carried all manner of cargo—from heavy equipment to drums of gasoline. Indian crews were often used to hoist the drums aboard one by one, though elephants seemed to get the job done more easily.

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he Hump missions operated with an imperfect mix of aircrat. Initially there was the indomitable Douglas C-47/C-53, the two military versions of the DC-3. Pilots called it “the rocking chair of the air” because it was so easy to operate, but the early-1930s design had limitations. It was diicult to load with bulky cargo, struggled to reach operational Hump altitudes, and carried a relatively small load. Along came the Curtiss C-46 Commando, a whale of an airplane that carried 70 percent more cargo than a C-47 and boasted two of the inest and most powerful piston aircrat engines ever produced: 2,000-horsepower Pratt & Whitney R2800 radials. he C-46 could munch mountains for breakfast, but it was deeply lawed. Still under development as a pressurized airliner, the military Commando was hastily sent to India when it should remained in testing. At one point, a group of early C-46s was returned with a list of more than 700 major and minor glitches that needed correcting before further production. he C-46’s biggest fault was tiny leaks in wing fuel tanks and lines. Such leaks weren’t unusual among complex multi-engine airplanes, but in the Commando, they were fatal. Curtiss had failed to vent the juncture between wing and fuselage, so the gasoline pooled there instead of quickly evaporating. Random fuel-pump sparks caused 20 percent of all Hump C-46s to explode in light. (Wing roots weren’t vented until ater the war.) In an attempt to turn a bomber into a cargo plane for the Hump routes, Consolidated Aircrat put a lat loor in its B-24, removed the guns and bomb racks, and called the result the C-87 Liberator Express. But the B-24 had been designed to carry a stable load in a small area on the airplane’s center of gravity: bombs

U.S. ARMY AIR FORCE PHOTO/ASSOCIATED PRESS (3)

sponsible for demanding and getting record tonnage delivered to China—irst 10,000 tons a month, then almost 24,000. Hardin was also responsible for a terrible Hump safety record; he admitted that setting new tonnage-delivered records was more important than bothersome safety procedures. During just one seven-month stretch during his tenure, there were 135 major accidents and 168 crew fatalities, half of them night-lying crashes. Hardin had initiated ater-dark lying over the Hump, saying “airplanes don’t need to sleep.” At one point, every thousand tons lown into China cost three American lives. Hardin lasted just 13 months and was replaced by another brigadier general, William Tunner. Tunner would become famous as the orchestrator of the 1949 Berlin Airlit. Under Hardin, Hump pilots were allowed to rotate home after logging 650 hours. A typical light took about three hours in good weather, and some crews lew three missions a day in order to build hours as fast as they could, lying some 2,000 demanding hours a year—twice the amount that the Federal Aviation Administration today allows airline pilots to log annually. And, not surprisingly, tired crews crashed. Tunner changed the deal to 750 hours and a minimum of 10 months in theater. Morale suffered some, since living in fetid accommodations at bases in India for almost a year was a cruel sentence, but safety improved.

in ixed, vertical bomb racks. When Hump crews lew C-87s randomly loaded with a variety of cargoes, few ever found a sweet spot where the airplane felt comfortable, stable, and in trim. he army also tried to turn the B-24 into a Hump tanker, dubbed the C-109, with big lexible bags full of gasoline in the hold. It was diicult to land at the 6,000-foot-high airields in China and soon acquired the name Cee-One-Oh-Boom. One C-109 blew a tire on landing, exploded, and wiped out three other Liberator Expresses. In his book Flying the Hump, ex-China-Burma-India pilot Otha C. Spencer wrote, “All the pilots on the base wished [it] had wrecked the whole leet.” It was the arrival of the Douglas C-54 Skymaster in February 1944 that turned the Hump operation into the largest, most eicient airline in the world. he Skymaster was the militarized version of the DC-4, the irst large, four-engine American airliner, and it had the cargo volume of a railroad boxcar. he C-54 didn’t have the high-altitude performance to ly the “High Hump” routes, but in May 1944 British and American forces captured the Japanese ighter strip at Myitkyina, thus eliminating any opportunity for the Japanese to interdict the less extreme “Low Hump” routes. he C-54 did quite nicely at 12,000 feet and carried far more cargo per trip than even the porky Curtiss Commando. It was also safer than its four-engine predecessor, the Liberator Express, and its tanker version, whose accident rate was 500 percent higher than the C-54’s. By early 1943, U.S. brass hats, including AAF chief Hap Arnold, were beginning to doubt the value of the Hump operation. Arnold felt the airlit could certainly be ramped up to accomplish what it had set out to do, but he saw little point in spending lives, material, and efort simply to sustain the will of the Chinese. Many felt that Chiang was husbanding his acquired supplies for use against Mao, not the Japanese. hat was a turning point for the Hump operation. Under the cover of aiding China, the ATC program quickly changed course to become the major source of supplies for the Twentieth Air Force, which was planning to bomb Japan with its B-29s from Chinese airbases. China had now become a launch pad, no longer of interest as a postwar partner. But ultimately, the Twentieth lew just nine Boeing B-29 missions from China against the Home Islands before it moved to huge airields in the Marianas. he postwar Strategic Bombing Survey concluded that those few missions “did little to hasten the Japanese surrender or justify the lavish expenditures poured out on their behalf through a fantastically uneconomic and barely workable supply system.” For every four gallons of avgas delivered to the Twentieth, Hump transports burned three and a half. Still, during 1944 the Hump lights grew exponentially in terms of tonnage, organization, and operational sophistication. hey became quite simply the world’s biggest international airline—750 aircrat and more than 4,400 pilots. Between August 1944 and October 1945, the Hump delivered almost 500,000 tons of material from India to China. Chiang got less than 20,000 tons of it—three pounds of every 100 that crossed the

Hump. he Twentieth Air Force got gasoline and ordnance; Chiang all too oten got wine, decorative shrubbery for his house, Ping-Pong tables, oice supplies, condoms, and such. Roosevelt died in April 1945, and his successor, Harry Truman, shared little of his warmth toward Chiang; nor did Truman believe that Nationalist China would play an important postwar role. China quickly became a decidedly minor player in Allied strategy. he Hump operation showed that a substantial amount of cargo could be airlited anywhere, under the worst lying conditions, as long as those in charge were willing to pay the price in men, aircrat, and money. What it didn’t prove was that such an undertaking was useful. As a logistics operation, the Hump lights were a failure. he cost in aircrat and crews was enormous. Loss estimates vary between 468 and 600plus airplanes (the AAF did not record every crash), but the best one seems to be 590 aircrat lost with 1,314 crewmen. General George C. Marshall felt the Hump had negative value: “he overthe-Hump airline has been bleeding us white in transport airplanes....he efort over the mountains of Burma bids fair to cost us an extra winter in the main theater of war.” Historian Barbara Tuchman has written that the Joint Chiefs seriously considered abandoning the project but decided that the United States couldn’t aford the implied defeat or the loss of China’s sycophancy. She too believed that the Hump cost an extra winter of war in Europe. It is hard to take seriously the claim that 650,000 tons of supplies over four years did much to support an army of three million Chinese, particularly when Chiang squirreled away most of it for future battles against the Communists. Moreover, basing heavy bombers at Chinese airields that had to be air-supplied was a baling logistical decision. When a single bombing mission burned 700,000 gallons of avgas and required 1,000 tons of bombs, it only made sense to base B-29s on islands that could be supplied by ocean freighters and tankers. In the end, though, the Hump had much to do with establishing the United States as the world’s airline leader. he War Department bought over 1,000 C-54s, 3,000 C-46s, and 10,000 C-47s—and many of them were sold as surplus to become American airliners ater hostilities ended. he United States began the postwar period with the airplanes, the pilots, and the air-transport management skills to build a worldwide airline system, all developed at least in part by lying the Hump. MHQ

U.S. brass hats were beginning to doubt the value of the Hump operation

Stephan Wilkinson is a longtime automotive and aviation writer and a frequent contributor to HistoryNet magazines. MHQ Autumn 2016

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How the father of the U.S. Cavalry won the West with an all-but-bloodless war By Anthony Brandt 52

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COL. CHARLES WOODHOUSE, USMCR/MARINE CORPS RECRUIT DEPOT COMMAND MUSEUM

GENERAL KEARNY’S CALIFORNIA TREK, 1846

The Battle of San Pasqual near San Diego, December 6–7, 1846, was the last and most formidable challenge for Brigadier General Stephen Watts Kearny’s column from the Army of the West as it paved the way for U.S. expansion to the Pacific. Exhausted and depleted after the 2,000-mile trek from Kansas, Kearny’s forces fell to Mexican lancers, and Kearny barely escaped alive. MHQ Autumn 2016

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he Mexican War of 1846–1848 has always had a nasty smell to it. No one doubts that the U.S. government, under President James K. Polk, deliberately manufactured the incident that started the war. hat it was a land grab, pure and simple, has always been obvious as well. he war came at a time when the Mexican government was unstable, with faction pitted against faction; one of those factions was even scheming in secret with Polk to deliver California and New Mexico to the United States for cash in return for help seizing power in Mexico City. Opposition to the war in the United States was strong in the North, partly on the moral grounds that adding territory in the Southwest would lead to the extension of slavery there. In Boston the Reverend heodore Parker declared that “aggressive war is a sin....It is a national inidelity, a denial of Christianity and of God.” Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David horeau echoed his sentiments. In his essay Civil Disobedience, horeau drew inspiration from a night he spent in jail for refusing to pay his poll tax to support the war. Nevertheless, Polk had his war to fulill the nation’s manifest destiny—a phrase coined by the Eastern newspaper editor John O’Sullivan in 1845. Polk was at the same time negotiating with Great Britain for the U.S. share of the Oregon Territory. Parts of the nation were screaming “54-40 or ight,” calling for war with Britain to have it all, even to 40 minutes north of the 54th parallel—well above today’s Edmonton, Alberta. In 1818 the two countries had agreed to “share” the region, but what is now the state of Oregon was beginning to ill with American settlers. By 1846 the British were amenable to splitting Oregon between them, and so was Polk, although he prolonged negotiations to placate his more belligerent followers. In June 1846 the Oregon Territory was divided along the 49th parallel, today’s border with Canada. Polk knew he could not ight two wars at once; he was hard put to ight even one. Relecting the long-term fear of standing armies that was etched in the American psyche, his regular army was limited by law to 6,000 men, and they were widely scattered. Until the Civil War, American armies were made up mostly of local militias called up for the occasion. he United States could easily have lost the Mexican war if Mexico had not been on the edge of bankruptcy, riven by conspiracies, and deeply dysfunctional—less a nation than a collection of provinces. So the war was fought in three separate areas at once. he casus belli was a border dispute. Texas had

achieved its independence from Mexico in 1836; in 1845 the United States annexed Texas at its request, and the Texas border with Mexico became the U.S. border with Mexico. But that border remained uncertain. According to Mexico, it fell on a line some miles north of the Rio Grande. he United States established the Rio Grande as the border. Under orders from Polk, Brevet Brigadier General Zachary Taylor, who had won the nickname “Old Rough and Ready” in the Second Seminole War (1835–1842), brought his army to the mouth of the Rio Grande at Brownsville, Texas, just across the river from Matamoros on the Mexican side. Skirmishes ensued. he United States was at war. Congress signed on in May 1846. Taylor won battles in Mexican towns—a major one at Buena Vista, a smaller at a place called Resaca de la Palma, and then at the city of Monterrey, which had been pronounced impregnable but proved to be quite porous. In March 1847 Winield Scott, the highest ranking general in the U.S. Army, borrowed most of Taylor’s army to take Vera Cruz. He then marched toward Mexico City, winning yet more battles on the way, and against large odds. In September 1847 he captured Mexico City. All of Mexico could have been his. But Polk did not want it, nor, for the most part, did the American people. he United States wanted not Mexico but New Mexico—particularly Santa Fe, the thriving center of trade in the Southwest. hen there was California, which was almost totally unmapped, and therefore unknown. Although more and more Americans were settling there every year, it was not well populated. hese areas, only loosely tied to Mexico itself, had troublesome Indian tribes, sprawling deserts, and dangerous mountains. Brigadier General Stephen Watts Kearny was the obvious choice to lead the so-called Army of the West to Santa Fe. A career oicer who did not attend West Point—the usual route to a successful army career—he was assigned to duty in the West ater the War of 1812 and in 1826 was named second in command of the Jeferson Barracks, 10 miles south of St. Louis. Ater that he became the irst commander of the U.S. Regiment of Dragoons, later renamed the First Cavalry Regiment. Kearny is thus known as “the father of the U.S. Cavalry.” Already a Western explorer, he had been part of an expedition to the mouth of the Yellowstone River, had known William Clark of the Lewis and Clark expedition, and in the ield had dealt with many of the major Indian tribes of the Plains. Ke-

President James K. Polk (lower right) sent Colonel Zachary Taylor (lower left) to launch his expansionist war. Stephen Watts Kearny (upper left) led the Army of the West; he forced John Charles Frémont (upper right) to cede command of California to him. Kearny relied on Kit Carson (middle right) as a guide and Lieutenant William Emory (center) as mapmaker.

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CLOCKWISE FROM TOP: NEW MEXICO PALACE OF THE GOVERNORS PHOTO ARCHIVES; LIBRARY OF CONGRESS (3); ANNE S.K. BROWN MILITARY COLLECTION/BROWN UNIVERSITY LIBRARY; SMITHSONIAN NATIONAL PORTRAIT GALLERY

STEPHEN WATTS KEARNY

STEPHEN WATTS KEARNY arny had also commanded army units sent west with emigrant trains to protect them from Indian attacks. He was known to be a tough and highly capable leader. To call it the “Army of the West” makes it sound more grandiose than it actually was. he secretary of war called on the state of Missouri to raise 1,000 men in May 1846, ostensibly to march on New Mexico and protect traders but in fact to take possession of New Mexico. hey gathered that spring at Fort Leavenworth, on the Kansas border, and proceeded to do what militias did then: train, elect their oicers, and equip themselves. Because Polk had neglected to prepare for the war he wanted, equipment for the militia was in short supply, and remained so. he 900 miles from Fort Leavenworth to Santa Fe, now just a two-day drive, was then a long, diicult trek across the High Plains. Food depended on the movements of bufalo herds. Water was scarce and so alkaline that it was nearly undrinkable. With little irewood on the plains, lower echelon personnel had to pick up bufalo chips to use as fuel for campires. For the horses and mules, grass was not always available. Scurvy, usually associated with sea voyages, can also occur on long treks across barren land, and the Army of the West sufered cases of scurvy on this trek. Of course the regular army men, like Kearny’s dragoons, were better prepared and equipped, and much more used to diicult conditions, than the militia. In his classic account of the war, he Year of Decision: 1846, historian Bernard DeVoto calls the U.S. military system of the time “the worst possible,” and the country had scant experience managing a war. Supply trains lagged well behind on the route. he logistics were daunting: “he reader should hazard some guess about the resources and organization required to equip, transport, supply, and maintain armies not only invading Mexico from three directions at distances of several thousand miles but also, in several columns, traversing the wilderness of the Great American Desert,” wrote DeVoto. He should think of the thousands of wagons, the many more thousands of drat animals, whole herds of beef cattle, plus light artillery, small arms, ammunition, the needs of a hospital, blankets and tents and myriad other things necessary to ight a war. he militia were undisciplined, every man an individualist, oten making the march chaotic. Kearny was patient and diplomatic, but he was also old-school army. He imposed order and for the most part got it. he Army of the West was fortunate to have him in charge. In late June 1846 the army got underway piecemeal, with the Dragoon Regiment forming the heart of it and the men from the relatively new Corps of Topographical Engineers

Horses gave out; wagon wheels dried, shrank, and collapsed in the heat

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forming a small but signiicant section. hese were mapmakers, 14 men in a separate unit, commanded by a red-headed and bearded oicer from Maryland, Lieutenant William Emory. Emory was a master horseman and well connected. He had grown up with Jeferson Davis, later president of the Confederacy, and in 1822, when Emory was 11, Secretary of War John C. Calhoun reserved him an appointment to West Point. Emory became a serious scientist. He had already been involved in mapping Texas, when that job entailed more than cartography. he task was to describe the country, its resources, climate, lora and fauna, and settlement patterns— everything worthy of notice. For example, Emory discovered that New Mexico was too dry and its soil too poor for conventional agriculture, stating in his report that for Southern planters to bring slaves into the area for growing cotton or tobacco would be a losing proposition. Kearny’s column amounted to a lot of people on 900 miles of rough trail. Animals died by the hundreds; horses gave out; wagon wheels dried, shrank, and collapsed in the heat and aridity. Men broke down and had to be sent back. Impure water caused dysentery. Food ran low and the men had to exist on half-rations or less. It was exceedingly hot during the day, cold to the freezing point at night. he wind blew up dust storms, and the dust ended up in eyes, ears, and mouths. he regular soldiers could handle these conditions, for the most part, while the militia, many of them straight of farms, found it hard going. People whom Kearny’s scouts picked up along the way—mostly stray Mexican soldiers and traders heading north—kept warning Kearny that while he might ind Santa Fe undefended, he could face a Mexican army near Santa Fe, the size of which kept growing in the telling—2,000 men, or 5,000, or even 10,000. By the time the U.S. forces reached Bent’s Fort, one of the West’s oldest trading posts, 530 miles from Fort Leavenworth, it was late July. More than 400 wagons pulled up to the fort, and unit ater unit straggled in. Kearny stayed there long enough to refresh his men—many of them swam in the river, the Arkansas—and organize his supply train. he sick and unit were weeded out. Some men had died and been buried along the trail. hen came the long climb to Raton Pass, which divides what is now Colorado from New Mexico. From there the Army of the West descended the far side of the mountains to the town of Las Vegas. Kearny met no opposition there. He climbed to the roof of a building on the town square and declared to the assembled citizens that the town was now the property of the United States and that they would henceforth be subject to its laws as well as its protections from the depredations of the Apache and the Navajo. hen he climbed back down, and the dragoons drew their swords and rode of to a rendezvous with the Mexican army, commanded by Manuel Armijo, the governor of New Mexico, who was supposed to be waiting for them in a nearby canyon. hey charged in—and found no one.

The Anzio fight placed heavy demands on foot soldiers; no man missed a chance for a smoke (above). Engineers (right) were vital in shaping the battlefield, building roadblocks, and laying mines.

ANNE S.K. BROWN MILITARY COLLECTION/BROWN UNIVERSITY LIBRARY

U.S. Dragoons—mounted infantry that usually fought on foot—are shown cutting their way through a Mexican ambush. Three U.S. Army dragoon regiments served in the Mexico war.

he real ight was set then for another canyon, this one called Apache Canyon, outside Santa Fe. Armijo fortiied the canyon by putting log barriers across its narrowest point and setting up some small cannons. He then told his army, about 3,000 men, almost all of them peasants with no military experience, that defense was hopeless. Accompanied by his personal bodyguard, he let for Mexico. Someone who encountered him on the trail south called him a “mountain of fat.” However heavy he was, at least he could count himself alive. As a military action, it must be listed as one of the biggest anticlimaxes in American history. Not a shot had been ired. But New Mexico now belonged to the United States. Kearny’s orders were, once he had taken Santa Fe, to spread the news around the territory and pacify it, if necessary. Ater that he was to move on to Southern California—and conquer it. Meanwhile, Emory was told to map New Mexico and follow Kearny. He had enough men, 14, to split his unit in two and assign one half to map the territory, a task more diicult

than it appeared. he mapmakers faced constant danger because New Mexico was indeed Apache and Navajo territory. Before he let, Kearny had gathered some Apache and Navajo chiefs and lectured them on the necessity of stopping their warfare with each other and other tribes. his had been U.S. Army policy from the beginning; tribes were promised protection and trade advantages if they stopped ighting each other and punishment if they didn’t. It never worked. Chiefs would smoke the peace pipes, agree to behave themselves, and go right back to doing what they had been doing from time immemorial: raiding others’ settlements and ighting among themselves. For them it was a way of life, a source of pride, and a means of selecting leaders. Chiefship among most tribes was not dynastic; it was achieved by demonstrated leadership and courage in war. Emory’s second unit produced a map of New Mexico so authoritative that it was still in use a hundred years later. So was Emory’s overall map of the entire Southwest, drawn while he accompanied Kearny on his march to San Diego. Kearny MHQ Autumn 2016

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had split his forces, too. He let a large body of troops behind to maintain order in Santa Fe and environs, while sending another group of men to parallel his march farther south in order to ind a route west that could be used by wagons. He continued west with only a handpicked group of his own dragoons, some 300 men. In wild country a lean force was more lexible, easier to maneuver, and had few logistical needs. Besides, the notion that a Mexican army might be waiting for them hardly seemed likely ater what they found in Santa Fe. Kearny’s small force proceeded to the Rio Grande, traveled upriver for a space, then cut over to the valley of the Gila River, which ran to the Colorado. Early on they came across Christopher Houston “Kit” Carson, an American lieutenant traveling east to Washington with news from California. A force of U.S. sailors, perhaps 400, along with Lieutenant Colonel John Charles Frémont’s small ad hoc army, had already taken the territory by themselves, without help from Kearny. Carson spoke too soon, as it happened, but Kearny immediately drated him as a guide and dispatched someone else to Washington. Ater sending 200 dragoons back to Santa Fe, Kearny marched on with the remaining 100 men, including Emory. As they traversed what is now southern Arizona, they came upon ancient pueblo ruins where they were entertained in style by Pima and Maricopa Indians who farmed the area. Emory was astounded. “To us it was a rare sight to be thrown

The result was classic hand-to-hand combat… an absolute melee

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in the midst of a large nation of what is termed wild Indians, surpassing many of the Christian nations in agriculture, little behind them in the useful arts, and immeasurably before them in honesty and virtue,” he wrote. Meanwhile, the Mexicans had taken back their territory, or at least the area around Los Angeles and Santa Barbara, and a force of several hundred Mexican lancers was waiting for the Americans outside the village of San Pasqual, near San Diego. he result was classic hand-to-hand combat, lancers and muskets against cavalry swords, an absolute melee. he Mexicans had the advantage of superior numbers. Several American oficers were killed; Kearny himself was wounded in his buttocks and an arm and would have died if Emory had not saved him by killing the lancer who was about to dispatch him. By the time it was over, 18 Americans were dead and 13 more wounded, while the Mexicans, who sufered only two deaths, had unaccountably withdrawn from the battle. But the dragoons remained surrounded, without food and with only the water they carried. It took Kit Carson and an Indian scout crawling through Mexican lines to reach San Diego, some 30 miles away, to bring reinforcements: 180 sailors and marines. he Mexicans withdrew for good this time, and shortly thereater Kearny reached San Diego. Emory remembered standing there staring at the Paciic Ocean while one of the mountain men, who had served as scouts, beside him exclaimed, “Lord! here is a great prairie without a tree!” here was a comic opera aspect to the U.S. victory in California. Frémont, himself a member of the Corps of Topographical Engineers, had been sent with a small number of men to Oregon Territory to make maps. But once there he took it upon himself to get involved in a budding rebellion among

GRANGER, NYC; INFOGRAPHIC: BRIAN WALKER

Moving southwest from Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, with his 1,700-man “Army of the West,” General Kearny entered Santa Fe and claimed the New Mexico Territory for the United States (left) without a shot being fired. Kearny then set out with 300 of his men for California, with orders to conquer it.

UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT ARLINGTON LIBRARY; LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

Americans from all walks of life eagerly gathered in public places to read—or hear—the latest war news from Mexico. Major General Winfield Scott leads his forces into Mexico City (right), marking the final blow in the Mexican-American War.

American settlers—the Bear Flag Revolt—that was trying to liberate the territory from the Mexicans. Mexican control was very light. Garrisons were not well fortiied, and those who manned them were hardly fervid patriots. Frémont was hungry for glory, and he kept looking for it. He seized every opportunity to take lightly armed communities with his own little force, perhaps a hundred men all together, a mix of his own soldiers and settler volunteers. He got chased out of one area by a larger, better-armed Mexican force and took refuge on a mountain. To escape with his life, he had to agree to leave California and go back to Oregon. President Polk, meanwhile, had convinced himself that Great Britain would seize the opportunity the war presented to take over California. It had no such intentions, but Polk sent American warships to California’s main ports anyway. As soon as Frémont learned of this, he raced back to the scene, still seeking the elusive glory that would complement his outsize ego. But it was actually the U.S. Navy that “conquered,” if that’s the word, California. he serious war was fought in Mexico, by Major General Winield Scott. He came late to the conlict and was the best, most experienced general oicer in the army, but Polk had been reluctant to use him. Scott was a Whig, Polk a Democrat, and the idea of relying on a Whig to win his war grated on Polk. But Zachary Taylor was a Whig too, and already running for president, so Scott got the job. He brought an American army to Vera Cruz, far down the Mexican coast, took the city against a real Mexican army, and then slowly worked his way inland toward Mexico City, pausing ater every successful battle in hopes the Mexicans would sue for peace. Not until he broke into Mexico City and captured the capital did that happen, and the war came to an end. And what of Stephen Watts Kearny far away in California?

Polk soon sent word that he was to command U.S. forces in California and govern the territory. Kearny had the satisfaction of relieving Frémont from that role—which he had assumed on his own—and sending him back to Washington, where he was court-martialed for disobeying orders. Frémont ran for president in 1856, the irst candidate of the newly formed Republican Party, but lost. As for glory, most of that went to Kearny. New Jersey and Arizona both named a town for him, New Mexico a canyon, Kansas a county, Nebraska a whole region on the Platte River. In the history books he remains a man of honor, and for good reason. Once, looking at the poor peasants who made up the bulk of an opposing Mexican force, Kearny remarked to Emory that he would be ashamed the rest of his life if he had to ire a round of grapeshot into their ragged midst. He died soon ater the war ended, at age 54. In 1853, half a decade ater the war was over, the United States negotiated the Gadsden Purchase with Mexico, paying $10 million for the piece of utterly lat land south of the Gila River that Emory’s men had noticed when they took that route in search of a wagon road parallel to Kearny’s march—an ideal bed for a railroad. Jeferson Davis, then secretary of war, urged the purchase, even though the whole area was populated with Navajos and Apaches. Ater the Civil War it became the route taken by the Southern Paciic Railroad. General Poririo Díaz, who became dictator of Mexico ater an 1876 military coup, was let to formulate the country’s catchphrase: “Poor Mexico, so far from God, so close to the United States!” MHQ Anthony Brandt is a frequent contributor to MHQ. His most recent book is he Man Who Ate His Boots: he Tragic History of the Search for the Northwest Passage. MHQ Autumn 2016

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WEAPONS AS OBJETS D’ART A weapon’s failure during battle can mean death. It’s no surprise, then, that weapons have been carefully crated and highly valued. But throughout history, people in nearly all cultures and of all social statuses have also painstakingly decorated and embellished weapons—far beyond what is necessary to ensure their efectiveness and to a far greater extent than tools for farming or cooking. What compels humans to transform implements of war into objects of surprising beauty? To explore answers to this question, the curators at Harvard’s Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology have studied artifacts from around the world and assembled more than 150 of them into the exhibit Arts of War: Artistry in Weapons Across Cultures, on display through October 2017.

Stone Mace Head, Peru Within the ancient civilizations that developed in the northern Andean coast and highlands of Peru—the Cupisnique, Salinar, and Chavín cultures—close combat with clubs and maces was oten the norm. In prehistoric Peru the mace became a symbol of power, and many such weapons survive because they were regularly buried with warriors or leaders. (9 x 7.8 x 8.5 cm)

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© PRESIDENT AND FELLOWS OF HARVARD COLLEGE, PEABODY MUSEUM OF ARCHAEOLOGY AND ETHNOLOGY, PM#58-51-30/8164 (DIGITAL FILE #98540057)

Throughout history, the tools of war have often been beautified

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ARTS OF WAR

Knife With Sheath, Japan he Ainu, Japan’s indigenous people, have struggled over centuries to retain their traditional way of life in Hokkaido and the Kuril Islands. his knife, with its wooden sheath and bear maxillary, probably had a ceremonial or shamanistic role as well as self-protective one. (26.7 x 2.8 x 1.2 cm)

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War Club, British Columbia, Canada Men in the Nisga’a tribes of Northwestern British Columbia wielded spears, clubs, harpoons, bows, and slings. his specimen, collected by George hornton Emmons, U.S.N., an ethnographer who befriended the Tlingit Indians, is carved, painted, and embellished with whale teeth. (62 x 17 x 6.5 cm)

FROM TOP: GIFT OF LT. GEORGE THORNTON EMMONS, © PRESIDENT AND FELLOWS OF HARVARD COLLEGE, PEABODY MUSEUM OF ARCHAEOLOGY AND ETHNOLOGY, PM#14-27-10/85889 (DIGITAL FILE #60741316); GIFT OF MRS. N. E. BAYLIES, © PRESIDENT AND FELLOWS OF HARVARD COLLEGE, PEABODY MUSEUM OF ARCHAEOLOGY AND ETHNOLOGY, PM#96-3-6-/47866.1 (DIGITAL FILE #99310031)

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Archer’s Shield, Papua New Guinea he Elema people of southeastern Papua New Guinea made wooden shields that were notched in the top and slung by a cane loop over one shoulder, leaving the arm free to hold a bow. his shield (shown sideways) was carved in low relief with stylized facial features and painted to identify its bearer’s tribe. (116 x 42 x 10 cm)

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Wahaika, New Zealand he Wahaika (“mouth of the ish”) is a traditional onehanded weapon of the Māori, the indigenous people of New Zealand, to be used in close-quarter ighting. his club was made from whalebone, waxed, and decorated with pāua (abalone). It has a notch on one side to catch an opponent’s weapon. (31.2 x 11.2 x 1.9 cm)

FROM TOP: © PRESIDENT AND FELLOWS OF HARVARD COLLEGE, PEABODY MUSEUM OF ARCHAEOLOGY AND ETHNOLOGY, PM#91-6-70-/5059 (DIGITAL FILE #60741982); © PRESIDENT AND FELLOWS OF HARVARD COLLEGE, PEABODY MUSEUM OF ARCHAEOLOGY AND ETHNOLOGY, PM#47-54-70/2605 (DIGITAL FILE #99310014)

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Decorated Revolver, Eastern Europe his revolver, probably made in Austria but used in the Balkans, was intended to advertise the wealth and status of its owner. Because handgrips protrude from the holster, they could be ornately decorated and individualized—in this case with silver and intricate inlays. (33 x 19.3 x 5.1 cm)

Executioner’s Sword, Congo he ngulu was not so much a weapon of war as an instrument of terror. It was carried as a status symbol and used primarily for ceremonial executions of slaves. Manufactured by the Ngombe tribe, ngulus were traded to many diferent tribes in the Congo. (65.4 x 18.7 x 6.3 cm)

Shark-Tooth Sword, Kiribati his four-pronged sword, made by natives of Kiribati, a Paciic island nation, owes its fearsome appearance to more than 100 shark teeth, which were painstakingly matched, drilled with holes, and fastened to the wooden shat with coconut-iber twine. (66.1 x 5.9 x 3.4 cm)

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FROM TOP: © PRESIDENT AND FELLOWS OF HARVARD COLLEGE, PEABODY MUSEUM OF ARCHAEOLOGY AND ETHNOLOGY, PM#981-9-40/9120 (DIGITAL FILE #46410034); © PRESIDENT AND FELLOWS OF HARVARD COLLEGE, PEABODY MUSEUM OF ARCHAEOLOGY AND ETHNOLOGY, PM#14-9-50/85403 (DIGITAL FILE #99310030); GIFT OF DR. ALFRED M. TOZZER, © PRESIDENT AND FELLOWS OF HARVARD COLLEGE, PEABODY MUSEUM OF ARCHAEOLOGY AND ETHNOLOGY, PM#36-45-70/333 (DIGITAL FILE #36470042)

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KICKIN’ THE GONG

The British exported opium to China in quantities sufficient to counterbalance its imports of tea, and the Second Opium War removed the final restraint on its drug trade. By 1880, China was importing more than 6,500 tons of opium a year.

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KACHELHOFFER CLEMENT/CORBIS VIA GETTY IMAGES

The Opium Wars, 1839–1860 By David Silbey

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“What kind of thing from India greatly victimized China? Opium.” —from a 1901 Chinese textbook

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n July 1840 Lieutenant Charles Cameron of Her Majesty’s 26th Regiment of Foot (the Cameronians) found himself part of a British military expedition of Zhoushan Island near the central coast of China. His job that month was to take part in a series of military eforts against the Chinese and, more speciically, to help capture a number of their most important trading ports. he Chinese had enraged the British over the issue of opium importation, and now the British were keen to demonstrate their superiority. he British forces near Zhoushan had little doubt about who was the stronger power, and neither did the local Chinese. Cameron later recounted the story of how the Chinese admiral, on being summoned to surrender, replied, “If I do I shall lose my head; if I ight I am not certain to be killed.” he Chinese did not quite surrender the island, but they barely resisted. he initial barrage and landing came on July 5. As the British ships launched their assault, the defenders returned a brisk but inefective ire, one that lasted for ive or six rounds. hen, before the British soldiers actually landed, the defenders led. “When the smoke blew of,” Cameron recalled, “every Chinese had disappeared.” He saw no real combat that day, and his worst problem came from his own soldiers. “In the meantime the soldiers…discovered large quantities of [alcohol] and, as usual, numbers got drunk,” he wrote. “hen ensued the usual scene of breaking in houses and destroying everything in their way.” When they occupied the abandoned capital of the island the next day, Cameron found himself and his men living in an empty stable, short of food. he anticlimax that Cameron experienced on Zhoushan is a itting example of events in both of the Opium Wars, especially the irst one. What seemed to promise an epic clash between China, the dominant power in Asia, and Britain, the most powerful empire in the world, turned instead into onesided beatings of China. he wars showed the fragility of Chinese power—and the reach of Britain’s. China had an awful 19th century. It was marked by a nearunbroken string of defeats at the hands of foreign powers. he Qing Dynasty, ruling China since 1644, had previously managed to fend of foreign intervention and trade, limiting access

to China’s markets and to China itself. What trade there was worked to China’s advantage. Britain’s unshakable demand for tea brought a copious low of hard currency into China’s economy, just the sort of monetary boost the country could use to industrialize rapidly and catch up with the Western powers, as Japan would do later. It was not to be. he British, ever wary of their imperial inances, cast around for something to even out the trade balance and settled on opium. he plant grew prolifically in Indian climes and, once processed, traveled well. In China, opium already seemed to be an exotic and fashionable drug. Late in the 18th century, the British pounced on the business opportunity and began exporting opium to China— in quantities suicient to counterbalance the tea trade. hey did so on the backs of millions of Chinese addicts, but in that imperial world such was perceived as the inevitable way of things. Opium, ater all, was not even illegal in Britain. he opium trade presented the Daoguang Emperor, then the Qing ruler of China, with a twofold problem. First, millions of his subjects were becoming addicted to opium, with all the ensuing societal consequences, and second, the tidy inlow of silver from the tea trade was now being ofset by a sustained outlow of that same silver. By 1838 nearly a thousand tons of Indian opium was being imported into China, and by some estimates the number of addicts topped 10 million. Daoguang cracked down, sending a hardline enforcer, Lin Zexu, to Guangzhou (Canton), the hub of opium trading, to break the importation. his Lin did, quite efectively. He arrested local oicials and confronted foreign merchants in their opium warehouses, eventually forcing their surrender along with their stocks of opium. He went so far as to write a letter to Queen Victoria, justifying China’s actions, which he sent back to England in the pocket of an English trader. “Suppose that foreigners came from another country and brought opium into England,” he wrote, “and seduced the people of your country to smoke it, would not you, the sovereign of the said honorable country, look upon such procedure with anger, and in your just indignation endeavor to get rid of it?” he logic of Lin’s point was hard to overlook. But the British did so anyway. What resulted in Guangzhou in the summer and fall of 1839 was an escalating series of confrontations between the British and the Chinese, somewhat mediated by Lin Zexu and by the British plenipotentiary there, Charles Elliott. he largest of these was an open naval battle on November 3, 1839, between the British frig-

Opposite: Opium balls are stockpiled in a factory of the East India Company in Patna, India, before being packed in cardboard boxes and loaded on ships bound for China. Chinese militia, armed with wicker shields and outdated weapons, during the Second Opium War. Chinese customs officials board a British merchant ship, the Arrow, in October 1856 and arrest the entire crew as pirates, sparking the war. Opium is transferred to “scrambling dragons”—oar- powered junks, operated by Chinese rivermen, that could slip in among the local shipping unobserved.

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CLOCKWISE FROM TOP: W. S. SHERWELL/PICTURES FROM HISTORY/BRIDGEMAN IMAGES; HULTON ARCHIVE/GETTY IMAGES; MARY EVANS PICTURE LIBRARY/EVERETT COLLECTION; LOOK AND LEARN/BRIDGEMAN IMAGES

OPIUM WARS, 1839–1860

OPIUM WARS, 1839–1860

Above: British ships destroy an enemy fleet in Canton in 1841 during the First Opium War. Opposite page, clockwise from top: Seeing millions of his subjects becoming addicted to opium, the Daoguang Emperor cracked down on the drug trade but suffered catastrophic defeat in the First Opium War. His son, the Xianfeng Emperor, decided to renew the fight with the British. Lord Elgin, who commanded the British forces, retaliated against the Chinese by burning the Summer Palaces. Sir Charles Elliot, a British diplomat, couldn’t drive a hard bargain with the Chinese and was recalled as a result. Lin Zexu, Elliot’s counterpart, won the battle as a hardline enforcer but, in the end, couldn’t claim victory.

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In early 1840, the British decided to make an even more concerted efort to put the Chinese in their place. In a letter, Lord Palmerston, the foreign minister, spelled things out in no uncertain terms: “he British Government has learnt with much regret, and with extreme surprise, that during the last year certain oicers, acting under the Authority of he Emperor of China, have committed violent outrages against the British Residents at Canton, who were living peaceably in that City.” his would not do, the British felt. China had to be shown that it could not keep the British out. he declaration of war, on January 31, 1840, came not from London but from India, as did the forces to wage it: more warships and several regiments of infantry. his was imperial power at its height, waging war from one part of empire to assert Britain’s power elsewhere. here were those who disagreed, including members of the expedition, one of whom wrote home that “the poor Chinese…must submit to be poisoned, or must be massacred by the thousand, for supporting their own laws in their own land.” British forces—regiments including the 18th Royal Irish, the 49th Bengal Volunteers, and the 26th Cameronians—showed up in June 1840 of the mouth of the Zhu Jiang (Pearl River) downstream of Guangzhou. he naval ships were commanded by Rear Admiral Sir George Elliott, the brother of Charles Elliott; the land forces by General Hugh Gough, a veteran not only of empire, but also of the Napoleonic Wars. hey quickly captured Hong Kong to serve as a base and blockaded Guangzhou. he campaign was an odd combination of warfare and negotiating; Charles Elliott continually made agreements with the Chinese even as his own side continued the ighting. One angry British oicer of the 26th Regiment wrote home: “We have been playing at war, instead of waging it.” Elliott would have settled for a limited victory, and that was relected in the Convention of Chuenpee, a fairly modest treaty signed in January 1841. But neither government was really pleased with the results. he British, in response, recalled Elliott and sent a replacement in mid-1841 to continue the discussions with a new set of Chinese negotiators. In the meantime, British military forces continued a series of successful campaigns, capturing or cutting of major trade cities such as Shanghai. In addition, they inally occupied Guangzhou itself. his damaged Chinese trade and, by blocking the mouth of the Yangzi Jiang (Yangtze River), limited inland China’s access to the ocean. he Chinese found themselves unable to stop the British, losing battle ater battle. A Chinese account of the war from mid-1841 held that “the enemy was now at our gates; our soldiers were routed, the people lying, and we had no arms.” he British soldiers were more efective, their weapons were better, and the Royal Navy gave them a mobility that allowed them easy movement. In fact, the British lost more soldiers to disease than to

MAP: MARTIN WALZ, PEGMOTIONS GROUP; DEA PICTURE LIBRARY/GRANGER, NYC; OPPOSITE, CLOCKWISE FROM TOP: PICTURES FROM HISTORY/BRIDGEMAN IMAGES (2); SSPL/GETTY IMAGES; PICTURES FROM HISTORY/BRIDGEMAN IMAGES; PETER HORREE/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO

ates Volage and Hyacinth and 29 Chinese vessels blockading Guangzhou. Several Chinese vessels were sunk, including a junk that was hit by a Congreve rocket and exploded. he First Battle of Chuenpee, as the encounter came to be known, showed Britain’s advantage in both the technology and skill of its navy.

combat. Five hundred of the 560 men in the Madras Native Infantry, for example, sufered from dysentery and other diseases in June 1841. China could still inlict casualties, even if its military could not, but disease would not keep the British out. Finally, in the spring of 1842, the British moved up the Yangzi Jiang. At the Battle of Zhenjiang on July 21, Gough captured the conluence of the Yangzi and the Grand Canal, the main north-south artery of trade and the route by which tax payments made it to Beijing. Zhenjiang fell despite “a most obstinate resistance,” as one British narrative of the war described it, by the defenders when British forces blew open the western gate of the city, stormed through, and used ladders to scale the northeast corner. he emperor had had enough, and the resulting Treaty of Nanjing irmly established the British victory. he Chinese agreed to open ive major ports to trade, pay millions of pounds in indemnity, allow free trade, and cede Hong Kong to the British in perpetuity. he war was a reckoning for the dynasty. he Qing had long believed that they were the military betters of the Western powers, and that belief backed up their determined eforts to limit foreign access to China. he First Opium War shattered that belief. It was such a catastrophic defeat that more than a decade later U.S. Navy commodore Matthew Perry, in Tokyo Bay to open up a similarly inaccessible Japan, not only threatened the Japanese with American military power but also warned them that if they did not negotiate with him, the British would show up and treat the Japanese the same way. he Second Opium War (or the Arrow War) was a dispiriting rerun of the irst and occurred in the middle of near-total societal breakdown in China. In 1850 an apocalyptic Chinese cult called the Taipings revolted against the government. he resulting civil war lasted from 1850 to 1864 and cost the lives of about 20 million Chinese. In the middle of this disaster, the Xianfang Emperor (the son of the Daoguang Emperor) tried again to limit foreign trade. Since the First Opium War there had been an explosion of opium use. As one Western missionary put it, “he poppy, like a noxious weed, has been running over the whole land.” he Western powers, keen to China’s vulnerability, needed the barest excuse to go to war and that excuse came in October 1856, when a Chinese customs oicial boarded a merchant ship, the Arrow, and arrested the entire crew (except for the Irish master, who was breakfasting with friends ashore). he ship, while Chinese-owned, was registered with the British in Hong Kong. Worse, the local consul, Harry Parkes, believed that the Chinese had hauled down the Union Jack lying over the ship. Taking down the lag, he warned, was an “insult of a very grave character” and required substantial redress. War loomed. he Chinese government did not handle things well. he Xianfang Emperor probably should have apologized to the British so he could focus on the Taipings, but instead he decided to ight. China’s forces were again hopelessly overmatched by BritMHQ Autumn 2016

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OPIUM WARS, 1839–1860 ain’s. If anything, the situation was worse in 1856 than it had been two decades earlier. he British now had a well-established naval base in Hong Kong and, just to ensure their overwhelming advantage, reached out to France, Russia, and the United States to form an anti-Chinese alliance. While Russia and the United States remained largely neutral, the French joined up. he war was delayed by the outbreak of the Sepoy Rebellion in India, which the British suppressed with some brutality. British forces, commanded by James Bruce, the 8th Earl of Elgin, then began gathering in Hong Kong late in 1857. he initial campaign, which started in mid-June, followed that of the previous one. British naval forces swept the Zhu Jiang of the Chinese navy, and then the land forces captured Guangzhou. he local Chinese decided not to defend Guangzhou, sensing the hopelessness of their task. Ater Guangzhou, however, the Anglo-French forces headed immediately to northern China. his time, they would pressure the emperor directly. In May 1858, without much of a ight, the British and French captured the Dagu (Taku) Forts at the head of the Bai He (now called the Hai River) near Tianjin, opening access to Beijing itself. For a moment, the Xianfeng Emperor demonstrated something like good sense. Rather than try to suppress a cataclysmic rebellion and ight of the Western powers at the same time, the emperor agreed to the Treaty of Tianjin with the British and French, which conceded more open ports, a substantial indemnity, the presence of diplomats in Beijing itself, and the right for foreigners to travel in the interior of China. It was not a good result for the Chinese, but it gave them breathing room to ight the Taipings. Unfortunately, common sense failed the dynasty almost immediately thereater. Perhaps it would be better to say that the internal politics of the court and the vulnerability of a weak emperor could not sustain such concessions, and so Xianfeng quickly broke the treaties and began the war again. his time, he sent one of his best generals, the Manchu Sengge Rinchen, to run the campaign. Sengge Rinchen’s irst line of defense was the Dagu Forts, returned to the Chinese as part of the Tianjin treaty. he irst clash occurred when a small Anglo-French force approached in June 1859, carrying the new Western envoys to Beijing. Sengge Rinchen said that he would allow the envoys to pass but not their military escort. Sir James Hope, in military command of the expedition, refused the restriction and on June 24 and 25 attacked the forts. Hope blundered in his approach, sending his ships to bombard the forts and planning to land his troops close by. But Sengge Rinchen handled his forces efectively, pummeling the British ships with sustained artillery ire, while the British guns could not penetrate the stone walls of the forts. Hope’s ships took substantial damage—bad enough that the British were forced to retreat out of range. He did so with the unexpected help of an American warship, there as a neutral observer. he American commodore, Josiah Tattnall, decided that “blood was thicker than water,” disobeyed his orders, and laid down a covering ire on the Dagu Forts to cover the British withdrawal.

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During the Second Opium War, British and French forces at first failed to penetrate the stone walls of the Dagu Forts but then, moving in substantial gun batteries, subdued the forts—including Pehtang Fort (top)—and forced the Chinese forces there to surrender. Two months later, Anglo-French forces stormed into Beijing through the Tchio Yant gate (bottom).

FROM TOP: FELICE BEATO/HULTON ARCHIVE/GETTY IMAGES; TALLANDIER/BRIDGEMAN IMAGES

Despite this display of imperial comity, the attack was a severe defeat for the British, and it encouraged the Chinese court to continue its resistance. he British, stung, decided to make sure they had suicient forces for their next efort, building up 11,000 of their own soldiers plus roughly 7,000 French for a campaign in the summer of 1860. he overall commander was again Lord Elgin. he military commanders, the British general James Grant and the French general Charles Cousin-Montauban, were two of the most efective imperial oicers that their respective countries could muster. Grant and Cousin-Montauban did not repeat Hope’s mistake of trying to take the Dagu Forts from the sea. Instead, in mid-August 1860, they landed their main forces a few miles north of the forts and marched south to attack them from the land side. his they did, clinically. First, on August 20, the Anglo-French forces established substantial gun batteries within range of the forts. he next morning, the batteries pummeled the Chinese artillery into submission, ater which two columns—one British, one French—assaulted the larger fort north of the river. he main gate proved impossible to get in, so the assault resorted to ladders to climb the walls. he irst man into the fort swam the moat and then, standing on a bayonet stabbed into the wall and held by his companions, crawled through a gap made by British artillery. He was shot as he did so, but he kept ighting long enough for more British soldiers to enter. Once the main fort was captured, the British subdued the second northern fort. his made holding the two southern forts impossible for the Chinese, and they surrendered. Now that the Anglo-French base of operation was secure, the Western powers marched on Beijing. Again, negotiations went on even as the forces marched, the main efort being carried out by representatives of the emperor and a Western group headed by Harry Parkes, the diplomat whose actions around the Arrow had helped trigger the war. Parkes, perhaps proving that diplomacy was not his forte, quickly ran into troubles with the negotiations. He and the Chinese got into an argument, and the Chinese, ignoring the lag of truce, arrested the entire party, some of whom were tortured and executed. he failure of these negotiations ensured that there would be no immediate peaceful solution to the campaign, and the Anglo-French force continued advancing on Beijing, skirmishing with Sengge Rinchen’s forces as they did. On September 21, the Anglo-French forces encountered the main body of the Chinese defenders at the Baliqiao (Eight Mile Bridge). he Chinese defenders had anchored the northern end of their line against the river at the Baliqiao and used village buildings as strongpoints stretching south. It was an advantageous position, if the Chinese could hold it. hey could not. A combined British and French assault on September 21, with the French attacking along the side of the river and British forces lanking to the south, completely unhinged the Chinese defensive lines. he main problem was, as before, that while the Chinese had the weaponry to inlict heavy casualties on the Western assaults, any Chinese counterattacks

were cut to pieces by British and French irepower. Sengge Rinchen’s prize Mongol cavalry was slaughtered as they tried to push back the Western attackers. Worse for the Chinese, the only avenue of retreat was to cross the bridges over the river—easy pickings for the British and French soldiers on the riverbanks. he Chinese sufered several thousand casualties, while combined Anglo-French casualties numbered fewer than a hundred. he battle was an utter rout, and it let Beijing ripe for capture. his the Anglo-French forces did in early October, and there they found Harry Parkes, emaciated but alive. he emperor had led, but in revenge for how Parkes had been treated, Elgin burned the imperial family’s Old Summer Palace to the ground. “You can scarcely imagine the beauty and magniicence of the palaces we burnt,” Charles Gordon, a British captain, wrote in a letter home. “It made one’s heart sore.” No one’s heart was sorer, though, than Xianfeng’s, whose reign had been one catastrophe ater another. he agreement to end the war, the Convention of Beijing, committed him to handing over more land and inluence to the Western powers, including Jiulong (Kowloon) Harbor near Hong Kong to the British. he emperor did not long survive the treaty, dying at age 30 the next year. His early demise seems a death knell for imperial China. he dynasty would never really recover. he Opium Wars were critical moments in Chinese history, clear statements that China could no longer keep foreign powers at bay. he consequences played out in China well into the 20th century, with a range of imperial powers extracting more and more from the supine body of the Heavenly Kingdom. To Britain or France or Russia or Japan or the United States, China was a source of wealth and power rather than a nation, and not until decades of civil war and the racking of World War II did the Chinese manage to establish themselves again. he rise of Mao Zedong and the Chinese Communists, whatever else they did, ended China’s period as a plaything of the imperial powers. For those imperial powers, the Opium Wars were like many 19th-century wars: conlicts needing only a low commitment of resources but enabling the powers to spread their inluence across the globe. Whether in China or India or Africa, the imperial wars of the 19th century created the empires that dominated the world for decades. Not until those powers ruined themselves in the sanguinary ights of the world wars did their control crumble, and their empires as well. MHQ

The battle was an utter rout, and it left Beijing ripe for capture

David Silbey is a military historian who writes oten about modern wars. His most recent book is he Boxer Rebellion and the Great Game in China, 1900 (Hill and Wang, 2012). MHQ Autumn 2016

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HARRISON NGETHI/AFP/GETTY IMAGES

A soldier with the Sudanese People’s Liberation Army patrols a troubled area in 2014, three years after South Sudan separated from Sudan. A fleeting peace followed but ended in tribal warfare that has killed 50,000 and left some two million homeless.

THE SPOILING OF THE WORLD In South Sudan decades of civil war led to independence—and yet more war By Michael S. Sweeney MHQ Autumn 2016

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December 10, 2015: John Prendergast, the founding director of he Enough Project, an anti-genocide organization, tells the U.S. Congress that the new nation of South Sudan has become a “violent kleptocracy” that requires international oversight. Tribal violence, widespread corruption, famine, and national politics have turned South Sudan into a failed state. But the roots of that failure lay in the deep past.

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he biblical Book of Isaiah told of the land that became Sudan, calling it Kush—Hebrew for “black” or “dark.” he word applied to the inhabitants, but their homeland was also something of a dark void on the map. Soldier-explorers dispatched by Roman emperor Nero in the irst century with orders to trace the source of the Nile encountered a vast marshland known as the Sudd, a word derived from the Arabic for “barrier.” hey turned back at the prospect of its crocodiles, hippopotamuses, mosquitoes, and 120-degree heat. he upper Nile region, including Ethiopia, lay almost undisturbed by outsiders for centuries, except for the occasional Arab slave trader and Portuguese missionary. By the 16th century, Muslims spreading Islam controlled everything from the Mediterranean Sea to the Sudd. hey named the territory to its south Bilad al-Sudan (“Land of the Blacks”). In the irst decade of the 19th century, the Ottoman Empire under the rule of Muhammad Ali Pasha, the founder of modern Egypt, brought an administration to North Africa that created new interest in trade with the land beyond the Sudd. Arab troops on horseback pushed their way through the marshes to the modern site of Juba in 1839. On the far side, they found tribes who counted wealth in cattle and wives. he invaders raided villages and undertook a slave trade that drew buyers to Khartoum from Greece and northern Sudan. he Dinka, the largest tribe below the Sudd, call that time “the spoiling of the world.” By the 1870s Britain had established an economic foothold in Egypt and Sudan and pressured their ally, the Egyptian ruler Ismail, to halt the slave traic. To no avail. Even the charismatic British general George “Chinese” Gordon could not bring an end to the slave trade when he ventured up the Nile in 1874.

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When he returned in 1884, it was at the head of a detachment of soldiers. What they found there was a spiritualist named Muhammad Ahmad—calling himself the Mahdi, or “Expected One”—who, with his many followers, aimed to erase TurkishEgyptian-British authority and unify Sudan under Islam. At irst the southern ethnic groups approved as these new masters took power in the north, but they soon realized they had exchanged one taskmaster for another. hey did not embrace Islam, inding it complicated and its demands for prayer and meditation at speciic times an interference with farming and raising livestock. hey became alarmed as the Mahdi’s forces destroyed Gordon’s armies—and beheaded the general. Followers of the Mahdi ruled Sudan until 1898, when they fell before British machine guns. Military victory gave the British control of Sudan, and they ruled it as a “condominium” with Egypt’s Ottomans. he charade of shared governance ended with World War I, leaving Britain, and its nominal partner, Egypt, in control. Ater the war, Britain determined to cut ties between the Muslim northern half of Sudan and the southern half, with its mix of religions. he Permits and Passports Ordinance—a law that aimed to reduce the spread of tropical diseases and halt slave raids—achieved politically what the Sudd had done geographically: It severed access between Sudan’s north and south. Britain allowed Christian missionaries to go south, however, and they shored up resistance to Islam and introduced Western education. As for Western technology, southern tribes had no enthusiasm for it. A Dinka legend holds that in the beginning, God ofered them a choice between a marvelous animal, the cow, and a second git that God refused to reveal. he Dinka chose the cow; they believe God may have given the secret git to the West. Cut of by law, lack of technology, and geographical barriers, southern Sudan remained nearly isolated. And happy for it. Ater World War II, as Britain began to pull out of its colonies, Sudan became a candidate for self-governance. Muslims in the north complained that Christian missionaries blocked what they saw as the inevitable hegemony of Islam and that Britain had divided a land they hoped to dominate. In February 1953 Britain agreed to grant independence to Sudan in three years. Self-governance faced major challenges. At nearly 966,000 square miles, Sudan was Africa’s largest nation. Its 10 million inhabitants at the time, split among 572 tribes, spoke 114 languages. Northern Arabs made up the largest group, giving them a plurality in government and efective control, as long as southerners remained splintered. In the south the Dinka formed the largest tribe; today they comprise a third of South Sudan’s population and the Nuer people a sixth. hey and other tribes are ruled by

FROM TOP: LYNSEY ADDARIO/EDIT BY GETTY IMAGES; REUTERS/THOMAS MUKOYA

July 9, 2011: housands gather in Juba, on the banks of the White Nile, to celebrate Independence Day by chanting, banging drums, and waving the new national lag. “he excitement was really palpable,” says Susan Page, the irst U.S. ambassador to South Sudan, a landlocked, oil-rich expanse of east-central Africa whose people had spent decades ighting for autonomy from Arab-dominated Sudan.

Victim of a war that won’t end, an SPLA soldier lies dead after ethnic fighting in May 2014. In July 2011 joyful crowds in Juba celebrated the creation of their nation, still the world’s youngest.

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clan ailiation. he south, now as then, remains primarily rural, organized around small villages isolated by a lack of roads. he largest city is Juba, the capital, with a population of nearly 400,000. Before independence, the south feared that the north would renege on promises to allow near-autonomy. In August 1955 southern Sudanese in the state of Equatoria rose in revolt. Calling themselves the Anyanya, a local word meaning “viper venom,” they sought independence and touched of Sudan’s irst civil war, Anyanya I. he Anyanya raided government convoys for weapons and attacked police stations and armories, notably in the town of Wau in 1962. Israel gave the rebels more weapons, and by 1971 the war had spread: 10,000 Anyanya rebels were ighting across what were then the three states of southern Sudan—Equatoria, Upper Nile, and Bahr el Ghazal. While their arms had expanded to include mines, mortars, and automatic riles, their military power remained limited because of internal friction among tribal factions and a lack of central command. General Ibrahim Abboud, a veteran of World War II and a champion of Islamization, had tried to pacify and unite Sudan ater seizing power in 1958. But his clumsy authoritarian rule only added to the Anyanyas’ determination. Under his direction, the National Assembly focused on an Arab agenda, declaring the Islamic sabbath a national day of rest. he assembly exacted heavy taxes but spent little in the south on muchneeded schools, hospitals, and roads. It expelled Christian missionaries and built mosques in southern villages. Southern tribes fought these changes, sometimes by killing northern settlers sent to “Arabize” the region, and the government responded by burning towns identiied as rebel strongholds. In July 1965, ater an uprising ousted Abboud, government-backed pro-Arab militias targeted large numbers of civilians, killing about 1,400 in the streets of Juba. An additional 76 victims, many of them government oicials, were encircled by northern soldiers and slaughtered while celebrating a wedding in Wau. A irm hand took control in the north in 1969, when Colonel Gaafar Muhammad Numeiry led a socialist-communist coup. Numeiry struck down the multiparty system, but while vowing Sudan would remain united, he acknowledged that southern Sudan might someday gain local rule. During the early 1970s his government pressed attacks in the south while seeking a pathway to peace through political concessions, such as ofering to spend more government money in the south, returning a measure of power to the states, and allowing guerrillas a place in the nation’s army on the condition that they disarm. he southern tribes did not trust Numeiry and continued to ight, shelling Juba and mining all main roads in

‘The marginal cost of rebellion in the South became very small’

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Equatoria in 1970. In a coordinated attack, the rebels captured the strategic town of Morta, now Lainya. he north fought back with ground forces backed by Soviet-supplied MiG 17s and helicopters. Ater two months in which Morta changed hands several times with heavy losses on both sides, the rebels claimed it for good on October 20, 1970. hey got another boost in 1971 when a former army oicer, Joseph Lagu, brought all of the rebels into the Southern Sudan Liberation Movement, achieving a uniied command structure. he All Africa Conference of Churches and the World Council of Churches sought to end the civil war, and secret peace talks began in May 1971 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Nine months later, delegations from the north and south agreed that southern Sudan—roughly all the lands below the 10th parallel—would receive full autonomy while remaining part of a federal republic. A constitution was drated and ratiied, and the socialist Republic of Sudan came into being in May 1973. he government declared Islam the state religion but also legalized Christianity. Anyanya I had killed a half-million people, four-iths of them civilians. Ater the ighting ended in 1972, Sudan remained relatively peaceful until 1983, the longest stretch of tranquility since the mid-1800s. New hope for southern development appeared in 1978 when Chevron geologists discovered large oil deposits near the town of Bentiu at the northern border of what would become South Sudan. In the next few years, more deposits were discovered in the region, bringing the Sudanese oilields’ potential to an estimated two billion barrels, with a substantial fraction deemed recoverable. Unsurprisingly, the oil became a bone of contention. First the national government redrew internal borders to place the oilields in a new state, Unity, outside the lands traditionally designated as southern. hen Chevron and the Sudanese government agreed to form a corporation to build an 870-mile pipeline to the Red Sea, but they excluded southern representatives on the board. (Chevron would soon sell its interests in the pipeline.) Work on the pipeline began in April 1998 and was completed about a year later. Southerners were outraged over what they saw as Numeiry’s blatant grab for resources. Some northern Sudanese army units joined in, decrying corruption and ineptitude in the Numeiry government; riots over gasoline shortages erupted. In 1983 Numeiry insisted that military units from the south serve in the north and vice versa—a serious miscalculation: Many southern rebel soldiers had enrolled in the Sudanese army ater the end of Anyanya I. hey recoiled at the prospect of leaving their families for long periods and at having northern soldiers stationed outside their villages. In Bor, one of the few major towns in the south, soldiers from southern tribes rose in revolt, refusing to cede their positions to northern replacements. Small battles broke out, resulting in scores of

FROM TOP: REUTERS/MOHAMED NURELDIN ABDALH; REUTERS/ZOHRA BENSEMRA; LEFT: REUTERS/ANTONY NJUGUNA AN/AA; RIGHT: ASHLEY HAMER/AFP/GETTY IMAGES; ZACHARIAS ABUBEKER/AFP/GETTY IMAGES

SUDAN’S CIVIL WARS

From top: Sudan’s president Omar al-Bashir on a 2009 visit to Western Darfur, where his government is accused of genocide; al-Bashir wore traditional dress in 2009 meetings with southern Sudanese. SPLA leader John Garang (in gold suit) arrives for a rally in southern Sudan, 2004. Embattled current president of South Sudan, Salva Kiir (waving), is part of the Dinka ethnic majority; rebel leader Riek Machar (bottom), is a rival Nuer. deaths, and Numeiry grew more reactionary. He stopped wearing a military uniform and donned a turban and robe, then declared strict Islamic sharia law throughout the country, threatening public amputations for ofenders. Unrest spread as Christian groups outside Sudan protested sharia as an attack on religious freedom; students in Khartoum and across the Nile in Omdurman protested social conditions ater electrical power outages in the summer of 1983; and the nation’s 2,000 doctors went on strike six months later to protest low pay. Amid this crisis John Garang, a former rebel soldier, emerged as an opposition leader, taking control of the newly formed Sudanese People’s Liberation Army. A Dinka with a master’s degree in agricultural economics from Iowa State, he pushed for reforms and economic development. At irst he sought relatively modest accommodation, but as the ighting grew into an outright civil war, Anyanya II, Garang cast his lot with the SPLA and its political branch, the Southern People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM). he SPLA indoctrinated its soldiers into a culture of violence. Many recruits were boys as young as 12; the SPLA taught them to chant, “Even my father, I will give him a bullet.” Growing in strength, the SPLM openly called for the end of Numeiry’s government in March 1984. In May 1984 a Tupolev-22 warplane identiied as part of the Libyan air force bombed a government radio station in the northern metropolis of Omdurman. Five people died, and Numeiry declared that the sortie had originated from, and returned to, southern Sudan. He imposed a state of emergency, giving northern soldiers and police oicers carte blanche to search homes, open mail, and make arrests. Scattered ighting erupted in southern Sudan, with small units of the SPLA attacking government oices and military outposts. SPLA soldiers kidnapped and killed three Chevron workers and attacked oilields, causing Chevron to suspend operations. SPLA violence also halted work on construction of a major canal through the Sudd, intended to divert water for northern irrigation. In retaliation, army units from the north shelled southern villages and stole cattle, the lifeblood of the tribal economies. Complicating matters, widespread drought led to starvation, and hungry refugees from the south and west crowded the streets of Khartoum. Despite superior irepower, the northern army was unable to suppress the rebellion. In March 1985, on the eve of a visit by Vice President George H. W. Bush, Numeiry declared a cease-ire, hoping to impress the West with his willingness to seek a diplomatic solution. MHQ Autumn 2016

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as most young women had died in the attacks, escaped, or been captured to be raped, enslaved, or sold into marriage.) Hundreds of thousands of these refugees walked hundreds of miles to camps in Ethiopia and Kenya; many died along the way. About 3,700, including 89 girls, eventually resettled in the United States. he SPLA split into rival factions in August 1991. Riek Machar, of the Nuer tribe, broke away over what he perceived as Garang’s autocratic style and his heavy Dinka inluence on the SPLA. he factional armed violence caused more civilian casualties; Amnesty International put the death toll at 2,000 civilians. Cadres of autonomous armed militants raided and looted villages and systematically stole food, including emergency relief rations from the United Nations and other international agencies. Economic chaos swelled the ranks of the rogue units. Speaking as the economist he was, Garang noted, “he marginal cost of rebellion in the South became very small, zero to negative; that is, in the South it pays to rebel.” Over the next decade, negotiations for a cease-ire gradually began to bear fruit. Christian groups gained the ear of President George W. Bush, casting Sudan’s sharia law as an attack on religious freedom. In 2001 Bush named former U.S. Senator John Danforth of Missouri as a special envoy to Sudan, tasking him with ending the war. he SPLA and Khartoum signed the Machakos Protocol, halting conlict throughout Sudan and limiting sharia to northern Sudan. In January 2005 the SPLA and the northern government signed the Comprehensive Peace Agreement, ending Anyanya II and opening the road to independence. Garang became Su-

MAPS: MARTIN WALZ, PEGMOTIONS GROUP; FROM TOP: REUTERS/CORINNE DUFKA; FABIO BUCCIARELLI/AFP/GETTY IMAGES

But Numeiry was out of time. Southern violence escalated to its highest levels in early 1985, sending even more refugees north. Fed up with war, famine, and government ineptitude, northern trade unions, students, and professional organizations reached out to clandestine anti-Numeiry units in the army and the police to form an alliance. Huge demonstrations in northern cities led to a general strike in April 1985. hat month, while Numeiry visited the United States, the Sudanese army seized power and imposed a less restrictive state of emergency. he most extreme sharia courts closed, and the junta restored political parties. he army announced it would hold multiparty elections in spring 1986, with the proviso that many southern regions would be denied the vote because of the ongoing opposition. When the vote created a coalition government, the SPLA denounced it as inadequately representing the south. Opposition again turned violent, as the SPLA shelled a government garrison in Malakal and government planes bombed rebels in Rumbek. he SPLA sank a steamship on the Nile and downed a commercial airplane and a troop transport. It also managed to hold large swaths of rural southern territory, interdicting the delivery of food to government-held towns. In Wau, the northern army and tribal militias massacred hundreds of civilians, mostly Dinkas, to retaliate for a rebel attack and as part of a strategy to divide the southern tribes through a campaign of terror. he northern army conducted bombing raids and widespread night attacks on southern villages in the late 1980s and early 1990s. hese, combined with famine, drove some two million inhabitants from their southern homes. he adolescent boys who survived became “the Lost Boys,” named for the parentless children of Peter Pan. (here were few “Lost Girls,”

After a 1998 attack on their village by Khartoum-supported militia, these southern Sudanese joined the legions of homeless, hoping that SPLA soldiers could offer some protection. By 2013 the SPLA itself had split into factions, with fighters like those below remaining loyal to the government and others joining rebels.

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dan’s vice president under President Omar al-Bashir, as the nation began six years of interim government. he arrangement gave half the oil revenues to Khartoum and half to the south. he SPLA found itself awash in money, most of it going into the pockets of the elite. By then, a second Sudanese civil war, between the Khartoum government and non-Arab rebels in Darfur, had weakened the government’s ability to ight in the south. In July 2005 Garang was returning from a trip to Uganda when his helicopter crashed mysteriously. His death may have erased southern Sudan’s best chance for success. As the southern leader with the most credibility in the West, Garang had a clear path to the presidency of an independent South Sudan. In Garang’s absence, a fellow Dinka, Salva Kiir, took control of Garang’s organization, which soon devolved into widespread corruption. Southern elites stole openly from the public budget, placed friends and family in government jobs, and doled out money to soldiers to promote loyalty. Estimates of money stolen from the national treasury since 2005 start at $4 billion. Nearly 99 percent of voters endorsed independence in a January 2011 election in southern Sudan, and al-Bashir accepted the result. Kiir became South Sudan’s irst president in July, and Machar, from the rival Nuer, became vice president. Under the new constitution Kiir could dismiss parliament yet not be dismissed himself. Kiir and other highly placed oicials continued to hand out money and jobs to build personal loyalty. he good times (for the elites) seemed likely to last as long as the oil did. Ater independence, all of the oil revenue of South Sudan returned to the government, efectively doubling the opportunities for grat. Oil production accounted for 98 percent of the budget, which meant trouble when Sudan closed South Sudan’s oil pipeline for 13 months in 2012–2013 in a dispute over fees. Amid economic chaos, local military commanders learned the proit of mutiny: If they caused a big enough revolt, they forced the government to haggle over the price of paciication. Civil war broke out again in December 2013. And again civil-

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ians were massacred and raped. Famine compounded the violence; the United Nations declared South Sudan’s food crisis to be the world’s worst. In March 2013 Machar and two other members of the SPLM announced they would seek the presidency in 2015. Kiir ired Machar and most of the cabinet; in December 2013 Kiir accused Machar of plotting a coup, and conlict erupted between Dinka and Nuer in the presidential guard and spread throughout Juba. Kiir loyalists searched door to door for Machar supporters. One survivor told he Guardian that an armed intruder asked, in Dinka, “What is your name?” Failure to answer in Dinka usually meant execution, and an estimated 5,000 people died in Juba in one week. he violence touched of reprisal ater reprisal—in towns and villages throughout the south and mostly along ethnic lines. It also opened opportunities for personal and tribal inancial gain, as combatants fought for control of the oil regions. he town of Malakal in the oil-rich state of Upper Nile changed hands three times before falling to the SPLA—by then, it had become the South Sudanese army—in late January 2014. By the end of 2015 eight cease-ire accords had been signed and broken. What could possibly bring peace? In a 2014 interview with USA Today, Ambassador Susan Page ofered no clear guidelines but pinned hopes on young people. “he youth…are the largest tribe in South Sudan,” she said. “Not the Dinka, not the Nuer, not the Bari, but the youth. hat is the potential of South Sudan.” But South Sudan’s oil ields are expected to run dry within a decade or so. If civil strife continues, it is uncertain whether there will be anything let for South Sudan’s youth to inherit. MHQ Michael S. Sweeney is a historian and author of God Grew Tired of Us, with Sudanese Lost Boy Jon Bul Dau. His Secrets of Victory was named 2001 Book of the Year by the American Journalism Historians Association.

REUTERS/ALBERT GONZALEZ FARRAN/UNAMID/HANDOUT; SAMIR BOL/ANADOLU AGENCY/GETTY IMAGES

Steady diet of war: A Darfurian child holds bullets he found on the ground in his village. Right, boy soldiers wait to be disarmed and demobilized at a UNICEF ceremony in South Sudan, 2015.

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WRIGHT MUSEUM OF WWII/NATIONAL WORLD WAR II MUSEUM

ARTISTS 88 POETRY 91 REVIEWS 92 DRAWN & QUARTERED 96

The exhibit Infamy: December 7, 1941 marks the 75th anniversary of a seminal event in American history: the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. In this photograph, taken several months after the attack (possibly on Memorial Day 1942), sailors from Kaneohe Bay Naval Air Station place Hawaiian leis on the graves of 15 comrades who were buried along the shore of the Pacific Ocean on December 8, 1942. Diamond Head can be seen in the background. Wright Museum of World War II, Wolfeboro, New Hampshire, through October 24

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FIGHTING AT LONG RANGE

By Jack London

Jack London boarded the SS Siberia in San Francisco on January 7, 1904, as ominous war clouds hovered over Japan and Russia. London had vaulted to worldwide acclaim the previous year with the publication of his third novel, he Call of the Wild, and now was embarking on his irst assignment as a war correspondent for William Randolph Hearst’s San Francisco Examiner, which had outbid four other news organizations for his services. London would step of the ship in Yokohama, Japan, as a 28-year-old reporter determined to cover the as yet undeclared war on his own terms—an approach that at one point landed him behind bars on suspicion of being a Russian spy. He was to ile more dispatches on the Russo-Japanese conlict than any of his fellow correspondents, including the legendary Frederick Palmer of the New York Globe. “I’ve wasted ive months of my life in this war, ” London told a colleague, but in truth his reporting was incisive and insightful, as this 1905 dispatch from Korea demonstrates.

The Russians do not wish to be killed, so they prepare to kill the Japanese

WIJU, April 30—Long-range ighting is all very well. It is a splendid example of the extent to which man has risen above his natural powers and of the knowledge he has gained in linging missiles through the air. It is a far cry from the sling with which David went into battle to the modern ield gun; and yet, such is the paradox, the sling and hand-wielded weapons of David’s time, expenditure of energy being taken into consideration, were a hundred or so times more deadly than are the civilized weapons of today. hat is to say, the hand-wielded weapons of that ancient day more simply and immediately accomplished the purposes they were made to serve than do the weapons of to-day. Which is to say, in turn, irst, that the hand-wielded weapons killed more men, and, second, that they killed more men with far less expenditure of strength, time and thought. To kill men today requires harder work, harder thinking, harder inventing and longer time. he triumph of civilization would seem to be, not that Cain no longer kills, but that Cain has to sit up nights scheming how he is to kill.

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Take the present situation on the Yalu. On one side of a river winding through a smiling valley are a lot of Russians. On the other side are a lot more Japanese. he Japanese wish to cross. hey wish to cross in order to kill the Russians on the other side. he Russians do not wish to be killed, so they prepare to kill the Japanese when they attempt to cross. It is quite impersonal. hey rarely see each other. To the right, on the north bank, are some Russians who are hammering away at long distance at some Japanese who are hammering back from the islands in the river. A Japanese battery on the south bank, to the right, begins linging shrapnel into the Russians. Some four miles away to the let, at a diagonal course across the river, a Russian battery shells this Japanese battery with an enilading ire. his will never do. From the Japanese center a battery shells the Russian battery. Nor will this do, either. From the Russian center a battery begins hurling shells clear over a high mountain at the battery on the Japanese center. he Japanese battery on the right ceases shelling the infantry on the Russian side. And so it goes, Russian let battery changing its ire to Japanese center, Russian center changing its ire to Japanese right battery. he net result of all this, measured in terms of killing, is practically nil. Of course, on the other hand, a tactical advantage may have been gained by the Japanese which strengthened their strategic movement. Now, what is a strategic movement? A strategic movement, I take it, is the manipulation of men and war machinery in such a way as to make the enemy’s position untenable. An untenable position is one wherein the enemy must either surrender or be all killed. But no commander, unless he blunders, remains in an untenable position. He promptly gets out and hunts a position which is tenable. With much strategical labor he may be driven out of this, when he seeks a third. his continues, not indeinitely, but until he is cornered in the last of all tenable positions possible for him to occupy. hen the original proposition is made to him: Surrender or be killed. Of course, he surrenders. It is the same old time-worn proposition of the highwayman, “Money or your life.” A traveler so addressed is usually in an untenable position, and very naturally yields up his money. A nation, when its army is inally caught in an untenable position, does just the same thing, yielding up either fat provinces, commercial privileges or a money indemnity. At least, this is modern warfare to the mind of this layman.

EVERETT COLLECTION INC.

Jack London had already achieved worldwide fame and amassed a considerable fortune as a fiction writer when, at the relatively tender age of 28, he forged a new path as a war correspondent. Five major news organizations bid for his services in the run-up to the Russo-Japanese War.

Whether it be with small bodies of men, large armies or groups of armies, the strategic end is the same, namely, to get men and war machinery in an untenable position, where all will be destroyed if all is not surrendered. Here, for instance, on the Yalu, are two armies opposing each other. he Japanese army, by good strategy, may make the position of the Russian army untenable and compel it to fall back. On the other hand, a second Japanese army may land to the westward, somewhere on the gulf of Liao Tung, render untenable the position of a second Russian army, which it might encounter thereabouts, and thus, being on the lank of the Russian army on the Yalu, render the position of that army untenable. But it is the long-range ighting which makes modern warfare so diferent from ancient warfare. In David’s time a General did not know that his position was untenable till both sides got together with the hand-wielded weapons, and then it was too late to retire, for the killing had commenced. he only men killed in twentieth century warfare, supposing a General to be neither a fool nor a blunderer, are those killed by accident. “Accident” is used advisedly. Bullets have their billets, but very few bullets have the billets intended for them, and very few soldiers see the proper billets when they are iring their bullets. he theory seems to be to pump lead at the landscape in such quantities that there are bound to be some lucky accidents. While so far as shell and shrapnel ire goes, it is the sheerest accident that a man is killed by such means. Certainly, if men remained in the open, they would be killed. So would they be killed if they stood up and emptied their riles at each other at ive hundred yards. When shrapnel begins to ly they seek the reverse slopes, where they are quite safe. he ratio, in warfare, of men killed to energy expended is far, far smaller than that of men killed in house burglaries and holdups, the prize ring or the football ield. When warfare was simple and weapons were crude, the killing was on a large scale. he men got together at close range in those days, and the battles were decisive. Even up to nearly the close of the nineteenth century decisive battles were still possible. As late as the Civil War the enemy could be got on the run and chased of the battleield. But that is not likely to happen in future years—at least in battles between civilized peoples. he beaten army will merely retire, and the victorious army will occupy the ield at about the same rate of speed. It will have dislodged the enemy by long-range ighting, and the enemy, by the same long-range ighting, will prevent it from sweeping the ield and making the defeat a crushing defeat. he beaten army’s position will have been rendered untenable, and it will retire to take up another and tenable position. Killing decided ancient warfare; the possibility of being killed decides modern warfare. In short, the marvelous and awful machinery of warfare of today, defeats its own end. Made pre-eminently to kill, its chief efect is to make killing quite the unusual thing. When the machinery of warfare becomes just about perfect, there won’t be any killing at all. When one army gets the drop the other army will throw up its hands and deliver the valuables of which it is custodian. And in that day, the soldier boy’s farewell to his mother will be just about the same as his farewell today when he goes of for his summer vacation. MHQ MHQ Autumn 2016

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ARTISTS

KEARSARGE VS. ALABAMA Édouard Manet paints a naval battle of the American Civil War (1864) By Peter Harrington

cherbourg, sunday, 12.10 p.m. he Alabama let this morning, and is now engaged with the Kearsarge. A brisk cannonade is heard. 1.40 p.m. he Kearsarge has just sunk the Alabama. An English yacht has saved the crew. he Alabama had been built for the Confederacy at John Laird and Sons’ shipyard in Birkenhead, England, across the River Mersey from Liverpool. he Confederacy had no navy to defend itself against the Federal blockade that was choking its trade, of cotton especially. To hit back at the Union, Confederate leaders decided to commission a series of “cruisers” from British shipbuilders in order to attack and disrupt Federal commerce. Although disguised as a merchant ship named

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Enrica when it sailed down the Mersey on July 29, 1862, the Alabama had been designed as a fast, armed vessel. hese efforts did not escape the notice of spies working for the Union: he U.S. Navy was well aware of such attempts to create a Confederate leet and did all it could to thwart them. Union ships were dispatched to shadow the Confederate commerce raiders and if possible bring them to battle. he commander of the Alabama, Captain Raphael Semmes, sailed the ship to the Azores, where weapons and coal were loaded. For the next 22 months under the Confederate lag, the Alabama sank 65 Federal vessels in raids that ranged from South America to the Gulf of Mexico to South Africa and the Indian Ocean. On June 11, 1864, Semmes obtained permission from France, oicially a neutral country, to anchor at the entrance to Cherbourg harbor. he task of monitoring CSS Alabama had fallen to the Union screw sloop-of-war, USS Kearsarge, built in 1862. he Kearsarge, commanded by Captain John Ancrum Winslow, appeared at the Cherbourg harbor entrance two days later. A battle was now inevitable, and Semmes was determined to ight Winslow. On Sunday morning, June 19, the Alabama sailed out of Cherbourg followed by a French naval vessel, the Couronne, and a British yacht, the Deerhound; the Couronne returned to the harbor shortly thereater. Some distance ofshore but under the gaze of thousands of spectators, the Alabama opened ire. he Kearsarge responded and the vessels steamed in interlocking circles several times, all the while bombarding each other. Finally, the damaged Confederate ship sank, and the Kearsarge returned to anchor of Cherbourg. he event caused a great stir in France and Britain and was covered extensively in the press. Within a few weeks of the engagement, engravings began to appear in newspapers on both sides of the Channel. Manet, who had not witnessed the ight (despite assumptions to the contrary), read the reports and must have seen the engravings, which inspired him to render the scene in oils. Within 26 days of the event, his painting of the battle went on exhibition. Although it is unclear why Manet chose to paint the engagement, it was a subject that would have appealed to his

JOHN G. JOHNSON COLLECTION/PHILADELPHIA MUSEUM OF ART

In any discussion of mid-19th century French art, the name of Édouard Manet (1832–1883) stands prominently. One of the leading French artists of modern life, he is considered a major igure in the transition from Realism to Impressionism. Few, however, would associate him with the American Civil War, although contemporary military events did appear in his oeuvre. he events unfolding in the United States between 1861 and 1865 captivated Europeans, many of whom sympathized and identiied with the struggle of the Confederacy. Britain’s allegiance was an economic consideration driven by the need to obtain cotton from the Southern states to feed its burgeoning textile industry. Across the English Channel, French emperor Napoleon III also had leanings toward the Southern cause. hough the European press covered the battles in great detail, and the illustrated papers contained many wood engravings dramatizing the events, it was nonetheless a distant conlict that had little direct efect on the French people. But when a major incident of the war took place in their own backyard, their fascination was piqued. On Monday, June 24, 1864, a headline in the Times of London read latest intelligence: the sinking of the alabama and was accompanied by a telegram sent six days before by a Lloyd’s shipping agent writing from the scene of the action:

Édouard Manet did not witness the battle between the Kearsarge and the Alabama, but he accurately painted the naval action. Shot below the waterline, the Alabama (center, background) sinks stern first, while a small French pilot boat rescues some of its men. The better-armed and -armored Kearsarge (hidden by smoke) withstood the Alabama’s heavier but less accurate fire. MHQ Autumn 2016

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ÉDOUARD MANET

Although a gifted artist from a young age, Manet first set out to be a sailor. A yearlong training voyage across the Atlantic honed his ability to observe and draw the play of light on sea and sky.

A few weeks ater the battle—and ater Manet had completed his painting—the Kearsarge sailed to Boulogne. here, the artist saw it for the irst time and may have gone onboard as a visitor. Manet sketched and painted the ship at least two more times, once as a watercolor and again as a large oil, he Kearsarge at Boulogne. In that painting the dark outline of the ship is silhouetted against a cloudy sky and anchored on the horizon of a blue-green sea similar to that in his battle-scene painting. Once again, the foreground is occupied by a single vessel. Other, smaller boats cluster around to get a better view, many of them carrying paying passengers who wanted to glimpse the American ship. Manet’s vibrant contemporary history painting of the naval engagement of Cherbourg received considerable praise during the artist’s lifetime. In 1872 the French writer Jules Barbey d’Aurevilly said that the canvas was “a magniicent piece of marine painting” and suggested that the choppy sea was more frightening than the actual battle. Because of the signiicance of both paintings to American history in general and to the naval campaigns of the Civil War in particular, they were acquired by American collectors and today hang in museums in Philadelphia and New York. MHQ Peter Harrington, a frequent contributor to MHQ, is curator of the Anne S. K. Brown Military Collection at Brown University. He writes and teaches on military art and artists.

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imagination. He had always wanted to go to sea, and at age 18 he spent nearly a year on a ship sailing across the Atlantic to Brazil. He failed the examination for the naval oicers’ school, but he retained a love of the sea that was relected in his many seascapes. He was also aware of the French school of naval painting from the battle canvases he had seen in the Louvre and at Versailles. Manet’s picture was accurate in its presentation of the naval action, focusing on several incidents. he point of view gives the impression that the observer is on a boat looking across a vast expanse of open sea. Against a backdrop of the blue and green ocean that occupies three-quarters of the canvas, a small French pilot boat, Les Deux Jeunes Soeurs, lying the regulation white lag of a neutral, occupies the let foreground, moving to rescue some men from the stricken Alabama. In the top right of the painting, the Deerhound, lying the red ensign of the Royal Mersey Yacht Club, readies itself to pick up other survivors—including Semmes—and take them to safety in England. In the center of the painting on the horizon, the two protagonists can be seen, one behind the other. In the front, the Alabama is sinking stern irst. Crewmen try to lee the ship by jumping into a small wave-tossed boat. he Kearsarge is obscured by smoke from both ships, possibly because the artist did not have a clear idea of its details. Indeed, in a letter to a friend he noted that he had “made a pretty good guess.”

POETRY

BATTLE LINES By George S. Patton

Although biographers have speculated that World War II general George S. Patton Jr. was dyslexic, partly because he still could not read at age 11, he let a remarkable legacy of words, both written and spoken. he most famous of Patton’s compositions, of course, was the profanity-laden speech he delivered extemporaneously many times in 1944—with variations in each iteration—to troops of the hird Army, before the Allied invasion of France. Less well known is Patton’s poetry. As a child, he oten memorized lengthy passages of poetry and recited them at the dinner table, and he wrote poems throughout his life. Some 89 of them survive, including this one, written in 1920.

FEAR I am that dreadful, blighting thing. Like rat-holes in the lood, Like rust that gnaws the faultless blade Like microbes in the blood. I know no mercy and no truth, he young I blight, the old I slay. Regret stalks darkly in my wake And Ignominy dogs my way.

GEORGE SILK/LIFE MAGAZINE/THE LIFE PICTURE COLLECTION/GETTY IMAGES

Sometimes in virtuous garb I rove, With facile talk of easier way, Seducing, where I dare not rape Young manhood from its honor’s sway. Again in awesome guise I rush Stupendous, through the ranks of war, Turning to water with my gaze Hearts that before no foe could awe. he maiden who has strayed from right, To me must pay the mead of shame, he patriot who betrayed his trust, To me must own his tarnished name. I spare no class, or cult, or creed, My course is endless through the year. I bow all heads, and break all hearts, All owe me homage—I am FEAR! MHQ Autumn 2016

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Though Geronimo was not counted a chief among the Apache, he was a legendary fighter—and the target of a relentless manhunt by the U.S. military.

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REVIEWS

ATTITUDES AND OUTCOMES

The Apache Wars The Hunt for Geronimo, the Apache Kid, and the Captive Boy Who Started the Longest War in American History

H. WYMAN/LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

By Paul Andrew Hutton. 544 pages. Crown, 2016. $30. Reviewed by Ron Soodalter

To say that a single volume dedicated to the Apache Wars of the late 19th century is ambitious would be to seriously understate the case. Yet that is precisely what Paul Andrew Hutton, a distinguished professor of history at the University of New Mexico, has undertaken to accomplish. And, to a large extent, he has succeeded. he author presents an intriguingly revisionist picture of some of the major igures in the conlict. Geronimo, who today is seen as selless and noble, comes across as ego-driven, petulant, and devious. Hutton, in a recent interview, described him as “always only about Geronimo, never about the people.” Other Apache leaders, such as Mangas Coloradas and Victorio, are shown as more deserving of our admiration. Brigadier General Nelson Miles, whom it has become fashionable to portray as a deceitful narcissist (as in the factually challenged 1993 ilm Geronimo: An American Legend), is here presented as a competent, responsible oicer. Brigadier General George Crook—traditionally shown as empathetic to the plight of the Apache—is depicted as “stunningly arrogant,” callously oblivious to either the needs or the customs of his foe. Chronologically, the book is seamless, tracing the conlict from its eminently avoidable beginnings to its ultimately tragic conclusion. It is no surprise that the Apaches lost, their warriors killed or shipped of to Florida with their families—for many, an exile tantamount to a death sentence. Since Dee Brown’s Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee painted a depressing but detailed picture of the treatment of the Indians from the time of the irst Anglo settlements. In Apache Wars, Hutton takes it a step further, detailing the tragic saga of a people’s desperate, doomed struggle to retain their homeland and some semblance of their way of life.

Although their cause was worthy, the Indians weren’t above resorting to tactics that still engender chills and disgust. Indeed, the U.S. military’s brutal subjugation of a people and their no-holds-barred resolve to resist conquest do not make for genteel reading. To his credit, Hutton manages to keep his descriptions of frontier depredations well-balanced—thorough but not excessively graphic. he book is not without its issues. While the layman might be perfectly willing to accept Hutton’s quotations and facts without suicient annotation, the historian is not so sanguine. he author chooses not to cite these individually, instead listing general page references at the end of the book. he result is that many purported statements of fact go unsubstantiated. For example, in detailing the ight in which Captain Emmet Crawford is killed, Hutton describes a bemused Geronimo, along with various other leaders, watching—and laughing—from a nearby promontory. Without crediting any sources, it is impossible to know how Hutton comes to place Geronimo on that hillside or has him uncharacteristically laughing at his enemies’ plight. While it makes for a good story, it begs the question, How do we know? Some of the sources Hutton does cite raise serious questions. Tom Horn, who served as chief of scouts and witnessed Geronimo’s inal surrender, wrote his autobiography while awaiting execution for murder. While Horn may have been a legendary igure of the West, he was also a prodigious liar, more concerned with his legacy than the truth. As most Western historians are aware, much of his personal account is questionable at best. Yet Hutton repeatedly uses it without qualiication, and at such crucial points as the capture of Geronimo. Finally, Hutton has chosen as the central igure of his opus a half-Mexican, half-Irish orphan captive of the Apache. Although Felix Ward, called “Mickey Free,” certainly played a part in the long and bitter struggle, some historians might question whether he warrants a place of such eminence in the book. Flaws aside, this is a book well worth reading. Hutton is a superb storyteller, and his account of the Apache Wars is skillfully crated. It is the long-overdue chronicle of a shameful period in our expansionist history, and one that, for a century and a quarter, has been in desperate need of telling. Ron Soodalter, a frequent MHQ contributor, has written for the New York Times, Military History, Wild West, and Smithsonian. His most recent book is he Slave Next Door. MHQ Summer 2016

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The Battle of the Somme Edited by Matthias Strohn. 288 pages. Osprey, 2016. $35. Reviewed by David T. Zabecki

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he Battle of the Somme was one of the three great human carnages of World War I. For the French, Verdun was the war’s deining battle. For the British, it was the Somme— even though the French also fought on the Somme. One of the main reasons the Somme continues to haunt the British consciousness is that on the irst day of the battle (July 1, 1916), the British casualty count totaled a horrendous 57,740, of which 19,240 were killed and 2,152 went missing. Some historians identify that precise date as the point where the British psyche snapped and the British Empire started its long, 40-year decline. For well over 50 years, perceptions of the Battle of the Somme were shaped largely by the memories of the survivors who fought there, and of the civilians—British, French,

and German—whose lives it touched, frequently in permanent and traumatic ways. But now it no longer lies within the memory of living man. he Battle of the Somme, edited by Matthias Strohn, takes a fresh look at that apocalyptic battle. Strohn, a Bundeswehr reserve oicer and a senior lecturer in the Department of War Studies at the Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst, has assembled an international team of A-list military history scholars as contributors. he result is an objective and compelling analysis from all angles. he book makes a noteworthy efort to correct many widely held but not quite accurate beliefs about the Somme. Although the battle today is identiied almost exclusively with the British, the French were involved in

no small measure. he excellent chapters by Jonathan Krause, Michael Neiberg, and Georges-Henri Soutou analyze the French side; and those by Colonel Gerhard Gross, Lieutenant Colonel Christian Stachelbeck, and Strohn examine the German. During the 141 days of the battle, the British sufered an estimated 420,000 casualties, the French 250,000, and the Germans 500,000. he Somme is widely viewed as an attack aimed at relieving the pressure on the French at Verdun. By and large it did accomplish that, but that was not the original intent. Initially conceived at the Allied Chantilly Conference in December 1915, the attack on the Somme was supposed to be one of a coordinated series against the Germans from all sides. But when

PAUL POPPER/POPPERFOTO/GETTY IMAGES

British soldiers go “over the top” in the Battle of the Somme—one of the three great human carnages of World War I.

GL ARCHIVE/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO

the Germans launched their own attack at Verdun that February, the French were forced to scale down their commitment to the Somme, and the weight of the main efort passed to the British. On the British side especially, the Somme is remembered for the rigid, mechanical, and thoroughly unimaginative infantry tactics that got so many young men killed. But as Stuart Mitchell, Lieutenant Colonel Christopher Pugsley, and Bill Michinson each make clear in their respective chapters, this was anything but the case. Assuredly, some British commanders tried to advance across no man’s land in lockstep, but many were far more innovative. he true picture is not nearly as uniform and simplistic as it has been represented for so many years. In the inal chapter Major General Mungo Melvin ofers an important analysis of the long shadows of the Somme—how we think of the battle today (and why) and how it inluences the ways the British, and the rest of the world, see warfare in the 21st century. he plans and actions of many of the senior British commanders of World War II were direct products of their experiences as subalterns on the Somme in 1916. he Battle of the Somme is a must-read book for anyone interested in military history. David T. Zabecki is the author of several books on military history, including Chief of Staf: he Principal Staf Oicers behind History’s Great Commanders.

Revolution on the Hudson New York City and the Hudson River Valley in the War of American Independence By George Daughan. 432 pages. W. W. Norton & Company, 2016. $28.95. Reviewed by Joseph F. Callo At the beginning of his wide-ranging account of the American Revolution, George Daughan identiies the strategy established by Britain’s king George III to bring the war to a favorable conclusion for his country. he basic idea was that one British force would drive south along the lake and river system leading from Quebec to Albany. A second force would drive up the Hudson River to Albany from New York City. he king believed the simultaneous campaigns would detach New England and New York from the middle and southern colonies. As Daughan puts it, “It looked to George III and his advisers that by seizing the passageway connecting Manhattan with Canada they could isolate New England’s radicals, destroy them, and end the rebellion in a single campaign season.” he king assumed that “once New England’s Loyalists saw Britain’s awesome power… they would lock to his banner, as would political fence sitters, while rebels would be cowed.” Inherent in the king’s strategy was a contemptuous attitude toward the American

King George III of England had a simple strategy: crush the colonists

colonists that typically gets only passing attention—if that. As one of the king’s most inluential ministers, irst lord of the Admiralty, the Earl of Sandwich, famously declared in 1755, the colonials were “cowards who would soon submit.” For their part, the rebels believed that they were pursuing the cause of liberty, and they felt strongly that their government was treating them unfairly. In a letter to a member of the Continental Congress, John Paul Jones, who captured the idea of liberty before he captured a single British ship, put it this way: “he situation of America is new in the annals of history, her afairs cry haste, and speed must answer them.” As the rebellion continued, the colonists increasingly resented being treated as scurrilous traitors; that unity was

an important—possibly the most important—factor that ofset the military shortcomings and political incoherence of the nascent United States. Within the extraordinary detail of Revolution on the Hudson is a message: Warfare involves a lot more than blowing up bridges, turning the enemy’s lank, and making forced marches to launch surprise attacks. War also is a matter of intangibles, such as the deep-seated attitudes driving the antagonists. hat’s nourishing food for thought concerning our national behavior in a troubled world. MHQ Joseph Callo, who writes on national defense and military history subjects, served for 32 years in the U.S. Navy’s Reserve Component, retiring as a rear admiral.

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DRAWN & QUARTERED

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WARREN BERNARD COLLECTION

JAPAN DEFENDS ASIA AGAINST THE WEST Published in 1937 in a Japanese book celebrating the 70th anniversary of the Meiji Restoration, which returned Japan to imperial rule, this cartoon depicts international relations after the Russo-Japanese War of 1905. Japan protects the baby Korea and the “sick man” of China from the Imperial Russian Navy (center). The European powers (top and bottom left) look on with interest, while the United States cheers Japan from a bench. Japan came out of the RussoJapanese War as a military force on par with some of the Western powers, with which it shared imperialist desires in Asia.

EXTRA ROUND Subscriber bonus section, pages 97-104

BRAUNSCHWEIGISCHES LANDESMUSEUM

Sixteen years ago, metal-detector hobbyists found some unusual pieces of metal while searching for a medieval fortress between the German towns of Kalefeld and Bad Gandersheim. As it turned out, they had stumbled on the site of the Battle at the Harzhorn, where Germanic and Roman troops clashed in the early third century. In properly excavating the battlefield since the initial discovery, archaeologists have unearthed numerous iron bolt heads fired from Roman ballistae (see page 23), including those shown here.

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THIRDCENTURY CRISIS

Among those eroding Rome’s perimeters was Zenobia, queen of Palmyra. But her invasion of Egypt in AD 270 coincided with the rise of Emperor Aurelian, who sacked the region and captured her.

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HERBERT GUSTAVE SCHMALZ/ART GALLERY OF SOUTH AUSTRALIA/BRIDGEMAN IMAGES

The Roman Empire’s near-death experience By James Lacey

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ROME’S THIRD-CENTURY CRISIS “Wars continue to be even more frequent, death and famine heighten disquiet, ghastly illnesses ravage men’s health, the human race is devastated by rampaging pestilence.” —Cyprian, bishop of Carthage, ca. ad 250

A

ter easily pushing through Roman defenses and laying waste to much of hrace and Macedonia in the middle of the third century ad, Gothic invaders felt conident enough to assault the walled city of hessalonica. Attacking in “close-packed bands,” they hoped to overwhelm a section of the wall before the defenders could ready themselves. But “those on the walls defended themselves valiantly, warding of the battle columns with the assistance of many hands.” hen, abandoning their siege, the Goths marched south for the ininitely easier pickings around Athens because they had learned that the region was wealthy with “gold and silver votive oferings and the many processional goods in the Greek sanctuaries.” To their surprise, however, a hastily assembled Greek army was fortifying the famed pass at hermopylae. Athens was spared, as hermopylae’s defenders, some carrying “small spears, others axes, others wooden pikes overlaid with bronze and with iron tips, or whatever each man could arm himself with,” matched the valor and exceeded the staying power of their illustrious Spartan predecessors, who had held of Xerxes’s army in 480 bc. his additional battle of hermopylae in ad 261 became known following the translation, in 2015, of passages (quoted above) from the Greek general Dexippus’s Scythica, which today survives merely in fragments. he new passages, discovered in 2007 underneath some writing in an 11th-century codex preserved in the Austrian National Library in Vienna, are now helping historians peer deeper into a historic period long shrouded in time’s mists. hey have sparked a renewed interest in the third-century ad turmoil, when civil war, plague, barbarian invasions, and the rising Sassanid Empire all converged to bring Rome to its knees. Although these newly found fragments contain only a few hundred words, they reveal much about the afairs of the Roman Empire during a period when its armies could no longer maintain control and order. By the time of this later Battle of hermopylae, Rome’s hird-Century Crisis was well underway. Starting in 235 with the assassination of Severus Alexander, the last of the Severan line, the empire endured some 50 years of political turmoil; by some counts, more than 50 people claimed the title of emperor in that period—more than half of them conirmed by the Senate. he political disorder, marked by exhausting civil wars,

Fewer but substantially more powerful tribes began to line up against Rome

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was fueled by the growth of external enemies of greater power and aggressiveness than any Rome had faced since the wars with Carthage half a millennium before. For the irst decades of this crisis, these enemies rarely struck at the same time. But from 253 on, the empire oten found itself engaged in multiple simultaneous conlicts, forcing it to strip entire regions of imperial protection, as its troops marched away to defend distant frontiers. hese pressures set the stage for the fall of the empire. Since its defeat at Teutoburger Wald in ad 9, Rome had maintained peace through gits (essentially bribes), trade, and the occasional military intervention. his, however, had the unintended efect of upending German tribal societies, as new sources of wealth created elites capable of maintaining fulltime armed retinues. Rome’s favored “allied” tribes thus acquired immense power, including the capacity to intimidate, conquer, or destroy their rivals. As a result, by the third century, fewer but substantially more powerful tribes began to line up against Rome. When these tribes joined forces and advanced on the empire’s frontiers, they easily matched in numbers all but the most powerful Roman ield army. Moreover, the tribal marauders soon discovered that once the Roman frontier defenses were broken, there was nothing to stop them from ravaging deep into the empire. More oten than not, most Barbarian incursions ended when the emperor or some other Roman oicial bought them of. Such barbarian incursions might have been easier to contain if Rome had been able to focus on them, but greater trouble was then brewing in the east. here, the inefectual Arsacid Dynasty was overthrown by Ardashir I, who established his own militarily savvy Sassanid Dynasty atop the defunct Parthian Empire. Ardashir put in place a code of royal conduct that mirrored that of the Persian conqueror Cyrus the Great, requiring a king to lead armies in person and to gain victories. Ardashir’s son, Shapur I (some accounts call him Sapor), adopted this code and claimed that his Sassanid Empire, by natural right, encompassed all of the lands conquered by Cyrus, which included much of Rome’s Eastern Empire. Shapur made war against Rome with a vengeance. If the Sassanids lacked the administrative and economic capacity to sustain their territorial gains against Rome’s concentrated might, they did have enough power to severely damage a distracted adversary whose military forces were spread too thin. Shapur captured many border fortresses, penetrated Syria as far as the great city of Antioch, and devastated rich Roman lands deep into Anatolia. In the process, he defeated the many Roman armies sent against him, including one stunning defeat, in 260, of a large but plague-depleted army led by Valerian—who had the unfortunate distinction of becoming the irst Roman emperor ever captured in battle. his was the high-water mark of Shapur’s reign. Later, local military forces organized by a Roman iscal oicer, Macrianus, with a major

Beginning in 247 AD, Barbarians repeatedly attacked Roman troops in Dacia. Rome later abandoned the province of Dacia altogether—a strategic move that ultimately saved the empire.

NICOLAS BEATRIZET/THE MURIEL AND PHILIP BERMAN GIFT/PHILADELPHIA MUSEUM OF ART

assist from Odenathus, lord of Palmyra, counterattacked and retook most of what Shapur had gained. By the time of the events related in the newly discovered Dexippus fragments, the empire was on the verge of dissolution. In the wake of the Valerian disaster and lacking imperial support against massive Frankish and Alemanni incursions, Postumus, a general of the western legions, broke from Rome and created his own Gallic Empire in 260. He was an able administrator and soldier, and he defeated the Franks and their allies so decisively at Empel, near the North Sea, in the early 260s that no major barbarian force dared cross the Rhine for nearly a decade. Postumus’s Gallic Empire was organized to replicate the Roman Empire’s institutional structures. he major diference, of course, was that Postumus, not Rome, now issued the imperial orders. At almost the same time, another breakaway empire was forming in the east. Odenathus, ater repelling Shapur’s army, declared himself King of Kings and took over efective control of Roman Syria, Mesopotamia, and much of Anatolia. Odenathus remained on good terms with the new Roman emperor, Valerian’s son Gallienus, pledging his loyalty to Rome and to continued inclusion within the empire. When Odenathus was assassinated in 267, any pretense of the eastern territories remaining within the empire fell away.

Odenathus was replaced by his son Vaballathus, whose mother, Queen Zenobia, took control as regent. For a time, Zenobia paid lip service to Roman authority, just as her husband had. But in 270, with a reported 70,000 troops under her command, Zenobia invaded Egypt. he following year she had Vaballathus declared Augustus, giving rise to the short-lived Palmyran Empire ranging along the eastern coast of the Mediterranean. When the Goths, in Dexippus’s account, invaded the Balkans in 262, few thought the Roman Empire could long survive. But even as Rome’s emperors focused much of their energies on gaining and holding power against myriad rivals, some regions and localities began inding ways to defend themselves. he crucial element of this adaptation was the rise of local strongmen who, with plenty of weapons and large numbers of men ready for employment as soldiers, were able to create their own defense forces. he Dexippus fragment gives us a glimpse of this process, as it lists three such strongmen—Philostratus, Marianus, and Dexippus himself—who were selected to take a local force north to meet advancing Goths. Apparently both the Greek governing council (probably the Panhellenion) that made these selections and the troops defending hermopylae were independent of Roman imperial structures. Moreover, as parts of the Dexippus fragments attest, these local governments and military forces created command structures capaMHQ Autumn 2016

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ble of cooperating with imperial authorities. During the great Gothic invasion of 268, which saw Corinth, Athens, and Sparta sacked, the Greeks were able to muster suicient resources and manpower to build a wall across the Isthmus of Corinth and dispatch several thousand troops to harry the invading force. In 269 these forces joined with a counterattacking imperial ield army and, at the Battle of Naissus, in modern Serbia, broke Gothic power there for over two generations. he Dexippus fragment alludes to another adaptation that likely saved the empire but was to have grievous long-term consequences: the fortiication of cities. For nearly two centuries Rome’s frontiers had been guarded, in the words of Edward Gibbon, by soldiers of “ancient renown and disciplined valor.” Accordingly, the empire’s cities had long entrusted their safety to the legions, avoiding the expense of building walls. By the early 250s city-dwellers began to see the necessity of fortiications, and the next two decades witnessed frantic engineering activities as cities throughout the empire constructed great walls—including Rome, which built the massive Aurelian walls. As the Dexippus fragment demonstrates in its reference to the defense of hessalonica, barbarian forces found these walls to be all but impenetrable. he long-term negative consequence of these walled cities was to reinforce the power of local strongmen. Further, a breakdown of internal trade within the empire forced many local communities to be more self-reliant. As a result, when the great barbarian invasions, heralding the end of the Western Empire, arrived in the ith century, many communities no longer looked to Rome for support, accelerating the fragmentation of the empire. At Rome’s nadir in the middle of the third century, Emperor Gallienus, the son of Valerian, undertook the task of salvaging the empire. Gallienus was not well regarded in the histories of the ancient Roman writers, but he was an intelligent and cou-

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rageous leader. Without his reforms and battleield prowess, the empire surely would have been lost. Realizing that he did not have the power to resist all the forces splintering the empire, Gallienus focused on remaking the Roman army and deploying it to secure the parts of the empire that he still controlled: Italy, the Balkans, northern and western Anatolia, and North Africa. In 260 Gallienus started his reign in a diicult position, coping with a fragmented empire, his father’s loss of a large Roman ield army to Shapur, multiple challenges from would-be usurpers, and major barbarian invasions, including one by a massive force of Heruli, who launched a naval attack out of the Black Sea into the Mediterranean. To meet these challenges, Gallienus needed a much stronger military. He began by greatly accelerating the removal of members of the senatorial class from military positions. he efect was apparently large and positive, as suddenly the gateway to military advancement was opened to talent over birth. As a result, the Roman army developed cadres of longserving professionals, with many of them attaining high legionary rank. he cadres were crucial in maintaining the discipline, training, and professionalism of an army that was, of necessity, recruiting increasing numbers of barbarians into its ranks. It was during the era of Valerian and Gallienus that the irst stirrings of the multiple forces that would later transition into the permanent ield armies of the fourth century became evident. As the Valerian disaster and the fragmentation of the empire had created a manpower crisis, building a permanent standing army called for extreme measures: For the irst time, Rome militarily retreated from and later abandoned one of its provinces—Dacia—in order to conserve manpower. In doing so, Gallienus added most of the cohorts of two legions (V Macedonia and XIII Germania) to his ield army. When even this proved insuicient, he withdrew many of the troops

FROM LEFT: DE AGOSTINI PICTURE LIBRARY/BRIDGEMAN IMAGES; DEA/A. DAGLI ORTI/GRANGER, NYC; PRISMA ARCHIVO/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO; DE AGOSTINI PICTURE LIBRARY/G. NIMATALLAH/BRIDGEMAN IMAGESS

The capture of Valerian (second from right) and the assassination of Severus Alexander (far right) began an era of turmoil. But Gallienus (center) and Diocletian (far left) restored order with military innovations such as permanent field armies.

ROME’S THIRD-CENTURY CRISIS guarding the limes, Rome’s border defenses, ending two centuries of Rome’s “preclusive security” strategy—preempting invasions with military action outside its borders—and opening pathways for further barbarian invasions. Gallienus also strengthened the role of the cavalry. He increased the number of horsemen in each legion from 120 to 726 and created new cavalry formations, building a substantial body of cavalry that could be deployed independently of the legions. He also created a new body of troops—the comitatus—that was kept separate from the established legionary system. his force combined infantry and cavalry, had its own command structure, and was designed to move rapidly to any threatened point. With this elite, highly mobile strategic reserve, emperors now had a ready force with which to meet emergencies. Still, the legions remained the premier battle force; only they could defeat a major barbarian invasion. So what was the true value of these costly cavalry and elite infantry formations? While there is no record in the ancient sources as to how they were deployed, their efects can be seen in the historical record: From this time until just before the inal collapse of the Roman Empire, barbarian incursions were routinely crushed. Together, the cavalry and comitatus could arrive rapidly at any threatened point and begin confronting the barbarian invaders, forcing them to remain concentrated and limiting the scope of their destruction. Finally, once the legions engaged, the cavalry oten made a decisive contribution to the battle. But none of the cavalry’s contributions meant much if the legions, once engaged, could not win a decisive battle. Fortunately for Rome, throughout this period there seems to have been no falling of in the combat efectiveness of the legionary forces. What did change was how they fought: Legions of the principate era were shock forces designed to destroy their opponents through the ferocity of a close engagement; by Gallienus’s time, the legions were smaller (and thus nimbler) and relied much more on irepower than shock. Gone were the days when legionaries would advance slowly and silently, throw their pila, and then charge. he single pila volley was replaced with a much longer barrage of spears, darts, and arrows loosed by archers increasingly found in close support of the legions. Only when every spear, dart, and arrow had been expended would the infantry advance to close combat against the beleaguered foe. It was not let to Gallienus to use his reformed military to restore the Roman Empire. He was murdered in 268 while putting down a revolt of another usurper. His successor, Claudius II, used the army bequeathed to him to defeat the Goths decisively at Naissus in September of 269 and just months later the Alemanni at the Battle of Lake Benacus, in northern Italy. Soon thereater, Claudius was struck down by plague, and ater his brother Quintillus was defeated and killed, Aurelian was acclaimed emperor by the legions. hroughout 270, Aurelian was occupied by securing his control of the stunted empire he

had inherited. Although the Danube front was quiet for a time, several barbarian tribes had occupied sections of northern Italy. hese Aurelian quickly eliminated, also thwarting several attempts to usurp the imperial purple. Ater defeating another Alemanni invasion and destroying what was let of Gothic power south of the Danube, Aurelian prepared his army for the great prize: reuniting the empire. He irst marched on Queen Zenobia and the Palmyran Empire. In 272 Aurelian led his army into Asia Minor, quickly subduing and sacking any city that resisted him. For unknown reasons, however, he spared the city of Tyana, in modern Turkey. hereater, every major city hoping for similar treatment switched its allegiance on his army’s approach. Within six months the Danubian legions were before the walls of Palmyra. Zenobia tried to lee to the Sassanid Empire, but was captured and later led in golden chains at the head of Aurelian’s Roman triumph. Aterward she was mercifully allowed to marry a rich Roman nobleman and retire to a life of quiet luxury. Aurelian let Palmyra but in 273 was forced to return when the city rebelled. his time Aurelian gave the city over to a sack from which it never recovered. In 274 Aurelian turned his attention to the Gallic Empire. By this time Postumus had been dead nearly six years and Tetricus now ruled. Ancient writers credited Aurelian with having won this campaign largely through diplomacy. Most modern historians discount this version of events. More likely, Tetricus was maneuvered into a weak position where his forces proved no match for Aurelian’s hardened veterans, who made short work of them in 274 in a battle that became known as the Catalaunian Catastrophe. No matter how the battle was won, the efect was the same: he empire was made whole. Aurelian, forgiven for the inal abandonment of Dacia, was heralded as the “Restorer of the World.” Unfortunately, he did not live long enough to enjoy the accolades for his achievements, as he too was murdered while leading his army back to Syria for an invasion of the Sassanid Empire. At Aurelian’s death the empire was restored, but much hard ighting remained before Rome regained its ascendency over Persia and settled the Rhine-Danube frontiers. It took Diocletian 20 years of campaigning before the stability was fully restored and the hird-Century Crisis was inally over. MHQ

Aurelian prepared his army for the great prize: reuniting the empire

James Lacey is professor of strategic studies at the Marine Corps War College. His most recent book, with coauthor Williamson Murray, is Moment of Battle: he Twenty Clashes hat Changed the World (Bantam, 2013). MHQ Autumn 2016

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EXTRA ROUND BASTOGNE FOREST, 1944

PFC. DONALD ORNITZ/INTERIM ARCHIVES/GETTY IMAGES

Returning from the front lines two days after Christmas, an American soldier walks through a quiet section of a forest near the Belgian town of Bastogne.

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MHQ Autumn 2016