Military History 2016-01

Quebec’s Fall Rough Wooing Paraguay Disaster Doughboy Combat Finding the Missing Le Mot, Bon! HistoryNet.com

WAS ROMMEL A FRAUD? The Desert Fox was not shy about burnishing his combat reputation

JANUARY 2016

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Letters 6 News 8 Reviews 72

Features

32 Death of a Nation Paraguay barely survived its 19th-century war against a Triple Alliance of neighbors By Jorge E. Taracido

24 Rethinking Rommel A superior tactical commander, perhaps, but did he measure up in the strategic realm of warfare? By David T. Zabecki

Departments

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Interview Michael Linnington

Valor History’s Only Black Ace

On the cover: Erwin Rommel built a formidable reputation as a World War II German field marshal, but was it deserved?; Bundesarchiv, Bild 146-1977-018-13A, PHOTO: Otto

War Games 79 Captured! 80

42 Fighting Words Jean Cocteau’s wartime journal Le Mot took aim at the brewing war in Europe in 1914–15 By Warren Bernard

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56

A Fool’s Errand

Into the Hornet’s Nest

In 1760 French Maj. Gen. François-Gaston de Lévis set out to retake Quebec By Michael G. Laramie

American doughboys faced a gantlet of German fire during the 1918 Meuse-Argonne Offensive By Jack Woodville London

64 Slaughter at Pinkie Cleugh English Lord Protector Edward Seymour schooled the Scots in warfare at this 1547 clash By Chuck Lyons

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What We Learned From... The Battle of Lissa, 1866

Hardware Panzer 38(t)

Hallowed Ground German War Cemetery, Langemark, Belgium

CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: BUNDESARCHIV, BILD 146-1977-018-13A, PHOTO: OTTO; HARPER’S WEEKLY, NEW YORK: HARPER’S MAGAZINE CO., OCT. 24, 1868; PAUL IRIBE/COLLECTION OF WARREN BERNARD; AKG-IMAGES/ULLSTEIN BILD; ANGLESEY ABBEY, CAMBRIDGESHIRE, UK/NATIONAL TRUST PHOTOGRAPHIC LIBRARY/BRIDGEMAN IMAGES; IMAGE FROM NEW VANGUARD #215 PANZER 38(T), BY STEVEN J. ZALOGA, © OSPREY PUBLISHING, LTD, ILLUSTRATION BY RICHARD CHASEMORE; LIBRARY AND ARCHIVES CANADA, ACC. NO. 1993-326-1; CPL. MATTHEW J. BRAGG/U.S. MARINE CORPS

MICHAEL A. REINSTEIN CHAIRMAN & PUBLISHER DIONISIO LUCCHESI PRESIDENT WILLIAM KONEVAL ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER EDITOR IN CHIEF ROGER L. VANCE

Ilmars Salts was one of nearly 1,000 young army conscripts from Latvia and Lithuania assigned to a battalion of Soviet “stepchildren” that had little to do with the military. Not trusted to carry weapons, they were used as replacements in slave labor camps in the dusty rock quarries of Rostov, the hydro-electric station construction site in Stalingrad and the sweltering brick kilns of Tuchkov. Many died, were disabled or had their lives cut short by illnesses contracted during service. ‘CAREERISTS’: Quarry Duty in the Soviet Army is a tale of courage and perseverance in the face of hardship. The author strives to find answers to why he and his Brothers in Destiny - Siberia’s Children - were condemned to replace convicts and slave laborers in hazardous jobs in Soviet work camps.

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TRANSLATOR: Gunna Dickson is a New York-based writer and editor. Other books: “Red Fog: A Memoir of Life in the Soviet Union” and “A Stolen Childhood: Five Winters in Siberia.” Contact: [email protected]

MILITARY HISTORY

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IN THE ARCHIVES :

Rommel’s Afrika Korps “Desert Fox” Erwin Rommel had a stellar reputation as a commander in North Africa, but does his actual performance hold up to scrutiny? By Robert M. Citino

Interview Terry Kerby, director of operations for the Hawaii Undersea Research Laboratory, discusses the search for sunken military history

Tools Britain’s Invincible-class battlecruisers were state-of-the-art warships in 1907 but obsolescent by the close of World War I

Reviews Mark Reibling takes a closer look at the wartime resistance of Pope Pius XII to Nazi aggression and their persecution of Catholics

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Letters

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[Re. “NPS Pulls Confederate Flag From Civil War Battlefields,” News, November:] One cannot erase history to suit one’s own biases. The Confederate flag may be a symbol of oppression to some, but it is still a part of history. For the NPS to pull the flag from Civil War battlefields is plain nonsense. Does the politically correct crowd really think that by removing the flag, history will somehow right itself, and slavery will no longer be a part of America’s past? It happened. The Civil War happened. Not all soldiers who fought under the Stars and Bars were sadistic slave owners. In fact, during the war the percentage of slave owners was small in comparison to the Southern population as a whole. That might not exonerate them as being on the right side of history, but the facts cannot be changed. If we’re talking about flags as symbols of oppression, let’s take a quick look at the Stars and Stripes: How many American Indians died fight-

MILITARY HISTORY

ing the government? Yet many went on in following years to fight for the flag that flew while they were being slaughtered by the likes of George Armstrong Custer. When I served in Vietnam, we had a couple of great guys more than willing to fight under the American flag even though their ancestors fought tooth and nail to keep their land from soldiers who served under the flag. You have to accept history for what it is, warts and all. World War II vets kept Nazi flags as relics of the war. In fact, British Field Marshal Bernard Law Montgomery had one in his den after the war. These men did not glorify the Nazi flag—to them it was an artifact of something they were part of. So it is with the Confederate flag. It is part of history. You can’t change that. Live with it. Tom R. Kovach NEVIS, MINN.

Churchill [Re. “Churchill Rejoins the Ranks,” by Bradley P. Tolp-

Spanish Civil War On P. 29 of your September 2015 issue, in an article written by Anthony Brandt titled “They Shall Not Pass!” is an oft-used image of three Spanish Republican assault guards utilizing the corpses of dead horses as a parapet. Your photo caption misidentifies the Republican assault guards as Nationalist soldiers. Larry Campos WINTERS, CALIF. Editor responds: Our mistake. The photographer was Augusti Centelles, who did indeed fight on the Republican side of the Spanish Civil War.

Falklands War [Re. your May 2015 cover lines: F IGHT FOR THE F ALK LANDS: 11 WARSHIPS, 134 AIRCRAFT, 907 LIVES. WORTH THE COST?:] Yes, it was wort h it .

The British servicemen who died spent their lives basically to prove that their country collectively has the courage, toughness, fighting spirit and martial ability to travel halfway around the world and beat the crap out of people who try to mess them over. The freedom and sovereignty of a nation does not come without cost, and the truth of the matter is that in an elemental way this world is run by the law of the jungle. The way in which any nation responds to aggression will garner it either respect or disrespect over the ages. The response and performance of the British armed forces in World War II, the Falklands, Desert Storm, Sierra Leone, etc., around the world has bought the kind of respect that pays for the freedom and sovereignty of their nation, period. If there are people in the United Kingdom who don’t want to fight for that, then they should give up their citizenship, move somewhere else, stick their heads in the sand and hide from the reality of the world. Tech. Sgt. Chris Dierkes N.Y. Air National Guard MONROE, CONN. Send letters to Editor, Military History HistoryNet 19300 Promenade Drive Leesburg, VA 20176 or via e-mail to

militaryhistory@ historynet.com Please include name, address and phone number

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JANUARY 2016

Confederate Controversy

panen, November:] The stories of Winston Churchill’s early military experiences are truly fascinating. In addition to his Dardanelles blunder in World War I, however, during World War II he recommended attacking the Axis through the “soft belly of the crocodile” —Italy. Ask any American or British veteran of the slog up the Italian peninsula how “soft” the going was, especially at Anzio and Monte Cassino. It seems that the only “soft belly” in Europe was Churchill’s. Harold Ranzenhofer PORT HUENEME, CALIF.

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JANUARY 2016

National WWI Memorial Designs Stir Controversy

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The proposed National World War I Memorial in Washington, D.C., has stakeholders drawing battle lines over plans to redefine, if not replace, existing Pershing Park. In 2014 Congress set aside the nearly 2-acre site on Pennsylvania Avenue near the White House and directed the World War I Centennial Commission to enhance the park with “sculptural and other commemorative elements.” Last summer the commission launched a public design competition for the memorial and received more than 350 entries. However, the five finalists incorporate few features of the existing park, designed by modernist landscape architect M. Paul Friedberg, 84, who was not consulted. “The honorable thing would have been to come to me first,” Friedberg said of the design process. Opened in 1981, Pershing Park is dedicated to U.S. Army General John J. “Black Jack” Pershing, who commanded the American Expeditionary Forces in World War I.

Heroes’ Green, by Maria Counts, is one of the memorial design competition finalists.

Friedberg considers the park one of his best works, describing it as a “living room on Pennsylvania Avenue.” Detractors point to longstanding maintenance issues and insist the park should be demolished, while preservationists consider Friedberg’s design a signature example of modernist landscaping and public open space. Ironically, to avoid controversy the commission had opened the competition to anyone 18 or older, no background in architecture, engineering or landscaping required. It has given the five finalists $25,000 for concept development and will choose the winning design in January. The commission hopes to dedicate the new memorial on Nov. 11, 2018, the centennial of the World War I armistice. To review the five finalists, visit the commission website [worldwar1centennial.org].

‘Their deeds are immortal, and they have earned the eternal gratitude of our country’ —General John J. Pershing

MILITARY HISTORY

DISPATCHES Film Depicts WWII Chungking Raids Chinese director Xiao Feng is filming The Bombing, a World War II epic centered on Japanese air raids against the wartime provisional capital of Chungking (present-day Chongqing). Set in 1943, the $90 million 3-D blockbuster stars

Bruce Willis as a U.S. fighter pilot who volunteers to teach Chinese pilots to fly and defend their city. Actor/director Mel Gibson is consulting as art director and creative adviser. The film will premiere in early 2016.

Mount Soledad Cross Preserved The nonprofit Mount Soledad Memorial Association has purchased from the Department of Defense the halfacre plot beneath the cross at the heart of San Diego’s Mount Soledad Veteran’s Memorial [soledadmemorial.com]. The $1.4 million sale ends a decades-long legal battle between proponents of the Korean War memorial and those who believe the cross represented federal endorsement of a religion. A cross has stood on the site since 1913. The current 43-foot concrete version was erected in 1954.

CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: COUNTS STUDIO/WORLD WAR I MEMORIAL; KEVIN WINTER/THINKSTOCK; MICHAEL BUCKNER/THINKSTOCK; PRNEWSFOTO/LIBERTY INSTITUTE

News

Civil War Relic Hunters Jailed A federal judge has sentenced two Tennessee relic hunters to particularly stiff 30-month prison terms for illegally excavating Civil War artifacts from pro-

CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: BCWH/ISTOCKPHOTO; AKG-IMAGES/IMAGNO; STAFF SGT. STEVE CORTEZ/U.S. ARMY; DPA PICTURE ALLIANCE/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO

tected federal land. Over a period of four years the pair removed relics from several sites, including Shiloh National Military Park [nps.gov/shil] and Fort McCook at Battle Creek. The 1979 Archaeological Resources Protection Act forbids the removal of artifacts from federal or Indian land without a permit.

Serbia Honors WWI Assassin Serbian leaders have unveiled a contentious statue in Belgrade of Gavrilo Princip, whose June 28, 1914, assassination of Austro-Hungarian Archduke Franz Ferdinand and wife Sophie in Sarajevo sparked World War I. The 6.5-foot bronze stands in a square near Serbian government headquarters and the restaurant where Princip and co-conspirators reportedly planned the attack. At the dedication President Tomislav Nikolic called Princip “the assassin of tyrants” and “a symbol of the idea of freedom.”

Paul Allen Recovers Bell of HMS Hood Maritime researchers led by Microsoft cofounder Paul Allen [paulallen.com] have recovered one of two ship’s bells from HMS Hood, the British battlecruiser that during World War II famously pursued the German battleship Bismarck. On May 24, 1941, a shell from Bismarck struck Hood, detonating its aft magazine and sinking the 860-foot ship within minutes. Only three of its 1,418 crewmen survived. Allen’s team presented Hood’s bell to the U.K. Ministry of Defence and Royal Navy. Hood is protected as a war grave under the Military Remains Act of 1986, but officials authorized recovery of the bell to serve as a memorial. After a yearlong restoration effort it will anchor a modern-era exhibit at the National Museum of the Royal Navy [nmrn.org.uk].

‘In a split second of searing time Hood was gone’ —Former crewman Leonard Wood

Women Earn Army’s Vaunted Ranger Tab For the first time in its 65-year history the U.S. Army Ranger School [www. benning.army.mil/infantry/ rtb] at Fort Benning, Ga., has graduated women from its rigorous training course. The milestone comes amid Defense Department mandates to better integrate women into the U.S. armed forces. But while 1st Lts. Kristen Griest and Shaye Haver (above) have earned the right to wear the Ranger Tab, the 75th Ranger Regiment remains closed to women and maintains its own stringent requirements and training. Will that change? Perhaps. The two recent graduates certainly beat the odds. Of the 4,000 students who attempt Ranger School annually, only about 40 percent complete the course.

WAR RECORD Dec. 14, 1864: Paraguay invades Mato Grosso, Brazil, formally initiating hostilities in the War of the Triple Alliance (see P. 32). Paraguay ultimately loses the war and more than half of its prewar population.

Jan. 9, 1915: Writer Jean Cocteau and illustrator Paul Iribe re-launch the French satirical wartime journal Le Mot (see P. 42) as a weekly. Iribe’s dark cover illustration, “After the Execution,” depicts a gun-wielding German standing over the bloody corpse of a small boy.

Jan. 21, 1942: In answer to Operation Crusader, the Allied relief of Tobruk, Libya, German Field Marshal Erwin Rommel (see P. 24) launches a counteroffensive. His Afrika Korps smashes the Allies, recapturing the city in June. Jan. 27, 1895: Samuel Sampler is born in Decatur, Texas. As an Army corporal with Company H, 142nd Infantry Regiment, 36th Division, Sampler earns the Medal of Honor during the Oct. 8–9, 1918, battle of Saint-Étienne-à-Arnes, France (see P. 56).

Jan. 28, 1547: Henry VIII dies, and Lord Protector Edward Seymour continues the “Rough Wooing” of Mary, Queen of Scots, as a wife for Henry’s son and successor Edward VI. The English thrash the Scots at the Battle of Pinkie Cleugh (see P. 64) that September, but the Scots smuggle Mary to France.

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News

JANUARY 2016

For many World War II veterans this V-J Day marked a last time to gather.

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In what will likely be among the last largescale gatherings of their generation, World War II veterans of many nations commemorated the 70th anniversary of V-J Day, recalling the Allied victory in the Pacific Theater and the official end of the war. On Aug. 15, 1945, Emperor Hirohito broadcast Japan’s acceptance of Allied terms, while the formal surrender ceremony came on September 2 aboard the battleship USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay. The United States marks the occasion on September 2, while the United Kingdom, Japan and most other countries set aside August 15. At the National World War II Memorial [nps.gov/wwii] in Washington, D.C., veterans and representatives of the Pacific Theater Allies placed wreaths at the “Freedom Wall,” which bears 4,048 gold stars, each representing 100 Americans who died in the war. Army veteran and former Sen. Bob Dole, 102, and other dignitaries spoke of the soldiers’ sacrifice. At Hawaii’s Pearl Harbor,

within sight of the USS Arizona Memorial [nps.gov/valr], Navy officials and U.S. and Japanese dignitaries laid wreaths to honor the war dead. In London Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh— both of whom served in the British military during the war—joined Prince Charles and Prime Minister David Cameron in honoring former POWs at a remembrance service at St. Martin-in-the-Fields church, followed by a flyover of historic and modern military aircraft at Horse Guards Parade. Japan memorialized its war dead at a somber service in Tokyo, during which Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and Emperor Akihito apologized for Japan’s wartime actions. Protests in South and North Korea, which both suffered under Japanese occupation, struck a decidedly different note. South Koreans burned pictures of Abe outside the Japanese embassy in Seoul, while North Korea staged marches and rallies along the DMZ.

‘This is a victory of liberty over tyranny’ —President Harry S. Truman

MILITARY HISTORY

Will Reparations Lift Greek Debt? Greece claims that Germany—its biggest creditor in the ongoing debt crisis —still owes the nation nearly €300 billion in reparations for losses in both world wars. At

the 1932 Lausanne Conference, amid the Great Depression, the Allies suspended Germany’s World War I reparations, though it had repaid Greece only 1.5% of the total owed. In 1960 West Germany paid Greece some $3.9 billion (inflation-adjusted dollars) in World War II reparations, with an agreement there would be no more claims. Greece now threatens to seize German-held property as compensation.

Navy Divers Raise Ironclad, Relics U.S. Navy divers have recovered hundreds of relics, unexploded ordnance and some 250,000 pounds of armored siding from the wreck of the 250foot Confederate ironclad

CSS Georgia, scuttled in the Savannah River on Dec. 21, 1864, as Union forces captured the city. The retrieval efforts are part of a $703 million project to deepen the waterway for shipping.

CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: XINHUA/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO; AKG-IMAGES; XINHUA/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO; JEREMY S. BUDDEMEIER/USACE SAVANNAH DISTRICT

‘Greatest Generation’ Veterans Converge to Mark War’s End

‘Dambuster’ Pilot Les Munro, 96

CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: NEW ZEALAND BOMBER COMMAND ASSOCIATION/PA WIRE; TORU HANAI/REUTERS; NATIONAL ARCHIVES; INGEMAR LUNDGREN

Les Munro, 96, the last surviving pilot of Operation Chastise—the British Royal Air Force’s May 16–17, 1943, raid on dams upstream from Germany’s industrialized Ruhr Valley —died in New Zealand on August 4. Munro was

a member of 617 Squadron [dambusters.org. uk], which targeted the dams with drumshaped “bouncing bombs” dropped from 19 modified Avro Lancaster bombers. The raid breached two dams, knocking out critical factories and mines in the Ruhr and killing some 1,600 civilians.

Baltic Yields ‘Sea Monster’ Maritime archaeologists with the Blekinge Museum [blekingemuseum.se] in Karlskrona, Sweden, re-

cently raised from the Baltic Sea a ferocious-looking 660-pound wooden figurehead from the prow of Gribshunden (Griffin Hound), the 15th-century flagship of Danish King John, which caught fire and sank off Ronneby in 1495. Museum officials plan to put the preserved figurehead on display.

Japanese Apologize For WWII Actions As the world marked the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and executives of manufacturing giant Mitsubishi Materials issued apologies for wartime transgressions. In his measured comments Abe expressed his nation’s “profound grief” over its wartime abuses and “eternal, sincere condolences” to the families of all who died. He added that while Japan “must squarely face the history,” its future generations should not be “predestined to apologize.” Mitsubishi formally apologized to American and British POWs forced to work at its factories during the war, and it reached a negotiated settlement on behalf of 3,765 Chinese laborers similarly enslaved, paying out roughly $16,000 for each of the victims.

‘My heart is rent with the utmost grief’ —Shinzo Abe

Lou Lenart, 94, Pilot Who ‘Saved Tel Aviv’ American fighter pilot turned Israeli war hero Lou Lenart, 94 —hailed during the 1948 Arab–Israeli War as “The Man Who Saved Tel Aviv”—died on July 20. Hungarian-born Lenart was raised in Pennsylvania and was a Marine pilot in the Pacific during World War II. In 1948 he joined the effort to smuggle surplus warplanes into the embryonic Israeli state. On May 29, flying one of just four Czech Avia S-199s that comprised the nation’s first fighter squadron, Lenart led an attack against Egyptian columns advancing on Tel Aviv, forcing their retreat. In his postwar years Lenart airlifted Iraqi Jews to Israel, flew for El Al and served as an Israeli military liaison on six feature films.

DIG HISTORY As warfare is a global enterprise, it’s a real possibility that putting a shovel in the ground almost anywhere will turn up some relic of a past conflict. For example:

Pictish Post: Carbon dating suggests that stones and timbers atop a sea stack on Scotland’s Aberdeenshire coast are remnants of the earliest known Pictish fort, erected in the 3rd or 4th century. The fort was largely undisturbed, as reaching it requires the use of climbing gear at low tide.

Foremost Founders: Ongoing digs at Historic Jamestowne, Va. [nps.gov/ jame], continue to turn up interesting relics, while researchers report that the bodies of four men exhumed from its 1608 church include those of the Rev. Albert Hunt, founding chaplain of the colony, and Sir Ferdinando Wainman, the first English knight buried in America.

Famished Frenchmen: Chemical analysis of the remains of more than 3,000 of Napoléon’s troops found in a mass grave in Vilnius, Lithuania, confirm the men starved to death during the 1812 retreat from Moscow.

Good as Gold: A relic hunter in northern Germany recently found a hoard of 217 stolen Naziera gold coins worth nearly $50,000, though he only received a $2,850 finder’s fee. The coins—each stamped with a swastika and the Reichsbank insignia—went to a museum.

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Interview Michael Linnington To Account for the Missing

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In March 2014 Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel directed the merger of the two main U.S. government agencies tasked with accounting for the more than 83,000 American military personnel still listed as missing from the nation’s conflicts. The consolidation was intended, at least in part, to resolve what critics saw as bureaucratic ineptitude and organizational dysfunction within the Defense Prisoner of War/Missing Personnel Office and the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command. In January 2015 the Washington, D.C.–based Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency [www.dpaa.mil] was established as the single organization with oversight of personnel-accounting resources, research and operations across the Department of Defense (DOD).

MILITARY HISTORY

In June 2015 Michael S. Linnington, a retired U.S. Army lieutenant general, was named DPAA’s first permanent director. What compelled you to become DPAA director? As a former soldier, remaining in DOD and being part of an organization responsible for finding and accounting for men and women from across our country who fought our nation’s wars, yet never returned, is an honor and a privilege. This job as one of the most important assignments I’ve ever had. What is the agency’s mission? Our primary mission is twofold: to provide the fullest possible accounting for our missing personnel to their families and the nation, and to provide accurate

and timely information to the families of our missing. Although recovery and identification of MIAs from past conflicts gets the majority of attention, communicating with the families of our missing and telling the story of their loved ones is equally important. How are the 83,000 missing apportioned? More than 73,000 are from World War II —about 50,000 of those are deep-water losses, which are considered unrecoverable—and we are focusing on recovery of about 23,000 MIAs from that conflict. There are 7,841 Americans still unaccounted for from the Korean War, 1,626 from the Vietnam War, 126 from the Cold War and six from our nation’s recent conflicts.

CORPORAL MATTHEW J. BRAGG/U.S. MARINE CORPS

JANUARY 2016

The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency prioritizes the identification and recovery of America’s missing.

ALLAN BURCH ILLUSTRATION

What are DPAA’s priorities? First, to continue focusing on providing the fullest possible accounting of our missing personnel to their families and our nation. Second, to complete the consolidation and reorganization of past conflict-accounting efforts into a single agency. Third, to prioritize efforts to use technology to improve our productivity and modernize the way we maintain and share information. Fourth, to continue improving communications with families of our missing, family support groups, veterans’ service organizations and other partners. Fifth, to develop and expand strategic partnerships with foreign governments, U.S. and international universities, public and private companies, nongovernmental organizations and private citizens. These partnerships are meant to increase our capabilities and supplement, not replace, government efforts. How is DPAA organized? We are aligning all aspects of the accounting effort into a regional-area focus. Our team in Hawaii will focus on Asia and the Pacific, while the D.C.-based team will focus on Europe and the Mediterranean. We have a world-class laboratory in Hawaii with forensic anthropologists and other specialties, responsible for making identifications of unknowns from all conflicts in all theaters. Other labs (and supporting agencies) in the Unites States augment the efforts of our lab in Hawaii. Our Outreach and Communications (OC) directorate is split-based in D.C. and Hawaii and communicates with the families of our MIAs, Congressional leaders and others. OC is also responsible for family member updates and our annual government briefings to the Southeast Asia families and Korea/Cold War families. The agency’s OC team also oversees our public affairs team.

Tell us about the people of DPAA. I have a staff of just over 600 military and civilian personnel, including directors, team leaders, historians, research analysts, archivists, archaeologists, forensic anthropologists, logisticians, policy experts and support personnel. We have experienced professionals with more than 40 years in this mission, as well as young military members who rotate through as part of their standard military assignment process. How many recovery efforts do you undertake annually? In fiscal 2015—one of our busiest years on record—we executed nearly 100 investigation and recovery operations in 17 countries. They are preceded by the hard work done by teams of historians and analysts that explore archives, speak with veterans and validate information leading to the work in the field. It’s a team effort, one requiring long hours and dedicated professionals. How do you prioritize missions? Weather, terrain and logistical and operational concerns help determine the planning and staging of recoveries. DPAA also carries out technical negotiations with foreign governments to ensure positive and safe in-country conditions for our teams. While these efforts take time, DPAA makes every effort to quickly reach sites that might be in jeopardy of environmental degradation, urbanization and environmental, regulatory or political issues that might preclude future activity. As we move to a regional alignment, we are looking at how we prioritize our efforts, including incorporation of strategic partners and partnerships into our planning. Such partnerships allow us to expand our operations, while adding flexibility to respond and react to emerging opportunities.

How much of your budget goes toward recovery efforts? A majority of our budget is focused on recovery efforts, but it is difficult to precisely break this out. Achieving mission success requires a collaborative effort among several DPAA components, including research and analysis, investigation and recovery operations, laboratory analysis/identifications, and outreach and communications. All of those endeavors mutually support and nest together to ensure effectiveness and efficiency and are focused on the families of our missing heroes. How does the identification process work? Building each case involves compiling different lines of evidence that allow our agency to describe the incident of loss and, when possible, to make an identification. The types of evidence used to make an identification include material and circumstantial evidence and archaeological, odontological, anthropological and DNA analyses. Can DPAA achieve the goals set for it? Congress mandated that DPAA have the capacity and capability to identify 200 MIAs per year by 2015, and although DPAA is well short of that metric, we are working hard to achieve it soon. It is important to understand however, that in addition to finding and identifying our MIAs from past conflicts, it is equally important to provide answers to family members for those we cannot find. As a former service member, do you feel a particular sense of responsibility? Yes, indeed. As a 35-year Army veteran, I strove to live by the Soldier’s Creed. It is 13 lines long, and each is important, but none more so than “I will never leave a fallen comrade.” Being part of an organization responsible for returning our POWs/ MIAs from past conflicts to the families that loved them is an honor and privilege, and it is a responsibility I take very seriously. MH

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Valor History’s Only Black Ace

Captain Roger Sauvage Free French Air Force World War II

JANUARY 2016

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uring World War II the United States tested black military pilots to see if they could master warplanes. Trained in Tuskegee, Ala., these pioneers fought the Axis and their own country’s prejudices to amass a respectable record escorting strategic bombers of the Fifteenth Air Force over Italy and southern Europe as the 332nd Fighter Group. Although three of them were credited with four victories, none reached the five-victory mark of an ace. Unknown to the Americans, however, another black pilot was achieving that elite distinction. Roger Sauvage was born in Paris on March 26, 1917, to a white Frenchwoman and a black soldier from Martinique. He never met his father, who was killed at Chemin des Dames soon after his birth. Inspired by World War I’s flying aces, Roger studied mathematics and mechanics, and in 1935 he enlisted in the French air force. By 1940 he was a sergeant in Escadrille de chasse multiplace de jour I/16, flying the twin-engine Potez 631. On May 10 Germany invaded France. Four days later the British

MILITARY HISTORY

tion of two Junkers Ju 87s and an Fw 190, and the next day he downed an Fw 190 solo. On November 28 Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin, in recognition of the unit’s outstanding service over the Nemen River, gave the expanded organization the honorary title of NormandyNemen Regiment. In January 1945 the NormandyNemen resumed operations in the Yak-3, a smaller, lightweight Yak-1 derivative the French preferred above all other fighters. Sauvage, by then a sub-lieutenant, went on a rampage—downing two Fw 190s on January 16, one on the 17th and three more on the 19th, with a fourth damaged. He destroyed more pilot of a Hawker Hurricane, mistakFocke-Wulfs on February 15, March 26 ing Sauvage’s plane for a Messerschmitt and March 27, raising his final tally to 16. Bf 110, shot him down. His rear gunner A month after Germany’s surrender was killed, and Sauvage had to pound to the Soviets in Berlin on May 8, 1945, through a jammed canopy to bail out. Sauvage and comrades flew home in On May 18 a recovered Sauvage atthe Yak-3s Stalin presented to them, tacked a Heinkel He-111, set it afire, arriving in Paris on the 20th. One forced it to land north of Fismes and Yak-3 is preserved in the Air and Space took the plane’s two surviving crewmen Museum [museeairespace.fr] prisoner. He downed a Dornier Do 17 on June 14, but on the in Le Bourget. Sauvage left 22nd France capitulated. the regiment in April 1947 Sauvage went to North Afribut continued his career in ca and sat idle until the Allied the French air force, earning landings in November 1942. promotion to captain in April Joining Free French forces, he 1950 and retiring in January was given a choice between 1968. His decorations inflying with the Royal Air Force cluded the Commandeur de la in Britain or with a French Légion d’honneur, Médaille milifighter group in the Soviet taire and Croix de guerre with Union. Sauvage opted for the 12 palms, as well as the Soviet latter, arriving in January 1944. Medal for the Capture of KöFlying a Yakovlev Yak-9 Among the many nigsberg, Medal of Merit, medals Sauvage over East Prussia, Aspirant Medal of Victory and Order (officer candidate) Sauvage re- earned is France’s of Alexander Nevsky. sumed his scoring on Octo- Légion d’honneur. Sauvage wrote three member 14 when he and two other oirs—Un du Normandie-Niémen pilots shot down a Focke-Wulf Fw (1950), Les conquérants du ciel (1950) 190A. In accordance with French pracand La soif de l’air (1952)—and was tice, each pilot was given a whole credit actively involved in the conservative —not a fraction—for the victory. On politics of Jean-Marie Le Pen until his October 16 he shared in the destrucdeath on Sept. 26, 1977, at age 60. MH

TOP: RIA NOVOSTI/THE IMAGE WORKS; BOTTOM: AGENCJA FOTOGRAFICZNA CARO/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO

By Jon Guttman

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What We Learned From... The Battle of Lissa, 1866 By Robert Guttman

two Italian ironclads, Re d’Italia and Palestro, with the loss of 620 men killed and 40 wounded. On the Austrian side the ship-of-the-line Kaiser was damaged, 38 seamen were killed and 138 were wounded. Tegetthoff became a national hero, one of few Austrians so honored during an otherwise disastrous war. Persano returned to Italy claiming a great victory. But when the truth came out, he was dismissed from the navy.

Ordered to “ram everything gray,” the Austrians handed the Italians a humiliating defeat off Lissa.

Lessons: Pick your battles. Persano’s actions

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MILITARY HISTORY

earlier against the Danes, and the Austrian admiral had been training and drilling his crews in tactics and gunnery. As the Austrians closed on Lissa on July 20, Persano disrupted his fleet by changing its formation from line abreast to three lines ahead, with his flagship in the middle of the second line. He then transferred to another ship in the line without clearly signaling the change; many of his captains continued to look to the wrong ship for command signals. During the transfer Persano’s original flagship slowed down to allow him to disembark. But the first line of ships, unaware of the transfer, steamed ahead, opening a gap in the Italian formation. In contrast to Persano’s confused battle plan, Tegetthoff’s was simple. He formed his ships into three “V” formations and steamed straight at the Italians, hoping to defeat them in a close-range melee. Knowing the enemy ships were painted gray, he had ordered his painted all black but for their stacks, which bore different colors to aid identification. His orders: “Ram everything gray.” The result of the battle was a victory for the Austrian navy, which sank

Training and experience can overcome numbers and firepower.

Tegetthoff’s smaller fleet was well trained and drilled, while Persano’s more powerful fleet had been idle. Poor planning produces poor performance. Tegetthoff’s battle

plan was simple and well coordinated. Persano, with his confusing formation change before combat, seemed hell-bent on ensuring his own defeat. Good communication is key. Just before battle Persano transferred his flag to another ship without properly signaling his captains. During combat they watched in vain for his orders. What works once may not again.

To counter the Italians’ superior firepower, Tegetthoff resorted to ramming, though its role in his victory was misleading. Still, for the next half-century naval designers built many warships with ram bows, which ceased to be a factor as the range of naval guns increased. MH

EDUARD NEZBEDA/IMAGNO/AUSTRIAN ARCHIVES/THE IMAGE WORKS

JANUARY 2016

I

n 1866 a Prussian-led confederation of German states went to war against the Austrian empire. At the same time, seeking to wrest the northern Italian region of Venetia from Hapsburg rule, the kingdom of Italy took advantage of the distraction to its north to attack Austria from the south. While the Prussians were besting the Austrians in Bohemia, on June 24 an outnumbered Austrian force still managed to defeat the Italians at the Battle of Custoza. All the while the Italian navy sat idle. Cries came for the navy to punish Austria by engaging its relatively small fleet. Yet Italian Admiral Carlo Pellion di Persano made repeated excuses and remained in port in Ancona. Finally, the Italian government ordered Persano to sea. The admiral set his sights on the Austrian-held Adriatic island of Lissa (present-day Vis, Croatia). Told of the attack on the small garrison, Rear Adm. Wilhelm von Tegetthoff, the 38-year-old commander of the Austrian fleet, put to sea from Pola (Pula, Croatia). Although outnumbered and outgunned, Tegetthoff and his crews were veterans of the Battle of Heligoland, fought two years

placed the Italian navy at undue risk, yet the capture of Lissa would have made little difference to the outcome of the war. Under treaty terms after its loss to Prussia, the Austrian empire ended up ceding Venetia to Italy.

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Hardware Panzer 38(t)

Crew: Four (commander/gunner, loader, driver, radioman) Weight: 21,700 pounds Length: 15.1 feet Width: 7 feet Height: 7.4 feet Main armament: 37mm KwK 38(t) gun Elevation: -10 +25 degrees Sight: TzF 38(t), 2.6x, 25-degree field of view Secondary armament: Two 7.92mm MG 37(t); one machine gun on platoon command tanks Ammunition: 90 rounds of 37mm, 2,700 rounds of 7.92mm Communication: Fu 5 and Fu 2 transceiver (platoon commander) Engine: Praga Typ TNHPS/II 125 hp, six-cylinder gasoline engine Transmission: Praga-Wilson Typ CV; one reverse gear, five forward gears Steering: Clutch-brake Fuel: 58 gallons Range: 60–155 miles Maximum speed: 26 mph Power-to-weight ratio: 12.7 hp/ton

By Jon Guttman / Illustration by Richard Chasemore

JANUARY 2016

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hen Generalmajor Erwin Rommel led the 7th Panzer Division into France on May 10, 1940, 99 of his tanks were Panzer 38(t)s, including eight command versions. Soon realizing the light tank was ineffective against stout French armor, Rommel relied on its speed and mobility to forge ahead, instead using his 88mm anti-aircraft batteries to deal with enemy tanks. Although he lost 42 tanks—26 of them Panzer 38(t)s—by June 20 Rommel’s fast-moving “Ghost Division” had destroyed or captured 460 French tanks and rounded up 97,000 Allied prisoners. In its glory days the Panzer 38(t) was better armed, armored, mobile and reliable than other light tanks in the German fleet, but neither its designer nor its manufacturers were German. In the mid-1930s Alexej Surin—a Russian Civil War refugee working as an engineer for the Ceskomoravská-Kolben-Danek machine works in Prague —designed the TNH light tank for export to Persia. It featured four large road wheels and pivoted on a single horizontal spring and arm. Orders came in from Peru, Switzerland and, after the 1938 Munich Crisis, Czechoslovakia itself—though none of its tanks were delivered before the invading Germans dismembered the country on March 15, 1939. While production of the new Panzer III medium tank faced continual delays, the Germans— impressed by the Czechoslovakian LT vz. 38’s 37mm gun—took over production and had CKD turn out the tank for use as the Panzer 38(t). (The “t” stood for Tschechisch, German for “Czech.”) Comprising up to a fifth of German armored strength before production ceased in 1943, the Panzer 38t also saw use by Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria and neutral Sweden. Even after the light tank was outclassed, the Germans used its chassis for an array of self-propelled guns and other armored vehicles, including the 75mm Jagdpanzer 38 Hetzer (“Rabble-Rouser”) tank destroyer in the war’s closing months. MH

IMAGE FROM NEW VANGUARD #215 PANZER 38(T), BY STEVEN J. ZALOGA, © OSPREY PUBLISHING, LTD.

MILITARY HISTORY

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1. Tank commander’s seat 2. Gun breech safety frame 3. Tank commander’s vision cupola

4. Tank commander’s periscopic sight 5. Breech of 37mm KwK 38(t) gun 6. Co-axial 7.92mm MG 37(t) machine gun

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7. Radio antenna 8. Notek nightdriving light 9. Drive sprocket 10. Praga-Wilson Typ CV transmission

11. 7.92mm MG 37(t) machine gun 12. Bogie spring suspension unit 13. Fu 2 radio receiver 14. Loader’s seat

15. Road wheel 16. Idler wheel 17. Engine muffler 18. Praga Typ TNHPS/II engine

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World War II In the fall of 1944, most allied soldiers predicted that the war in Europe would be over by Christmas. Fierce fighting was taking place along the German frontier at Aachen and the Hürtgen Forest and the collapse of the German Army in the west seemed imminent. But the German Army was still a foe to be respected and on the 16th of December, it launched a major counter offensive in the heavily wooded area of the Ardennes Belgium, France, and Luxembourg. In the early part of the offensive, the Germans managed to make deep penetrations into the U.S. defenses in that sector. The surprise attack

caught the Allied forces completely off guard and it developed into the largest and bloodiest battle fought by the United States in World War II. By January 25th of 1945, the ‘Bulge’ in the allied lines had been completely reduced, severely depleting Germany’s armored forces on the Western Front, crippling their ability to resist the final Allied push to the Rhine. Our newest World War II releases focus on this time period and will be developed in depth to allow the collector to represent any of the engagements in the closing days of war in Europe on the western front.

The figures above are just a small sampling of the World War II collection what W. Britain produces. The figures shown and the entire W. Britain range can be purchased from the retailers listed below: 7R\6ROGLHU6KRSSH Tel: 414-302-1850 Fax: 414-302-1851 www.toysoldiershoppe.net 3775 S. 108th St. *UHHQ¿HOG:LVFRQVLQ

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THROUGHOUT HISTORY INDIVIDUALS, TRIBES, RELIGIONS AND NATIONS

have battled each other for reasons both laudable and reprehensible. Over the millennia mankind’s seemingly unquenchable thirst for armed conflict led to the development of organized armed forces with which nations could better defend themselves or oppress others. As these military organizations evolved, they developed increasingly complex and sophisticated ways of waging war on land, sea and, eventually, in the air. Newer technologies supplanted older ones, in the process forcing innovations in both strategies and tactics. But the essential element in any armed force has always been its individual members. It is soldiers, sailors and airmen who win or lose battles, and it is they who are asked, or ordered, to gamble their lives. Death has always been an occupational hazard for warriors, of course, and while the goal is to inflict it on the enemy, any member of a military organization must at some point come to grips with the idea of being killed in the performance of his or her duty. Among the many factors that can influence a combatant’s willingness to accept the risk of death are patriotism, religious beliefs, esprit de corps and the fear of letting down comrades. But two desires are near universal among those who put themselves in harm’s way: If they must die, they don’t want their death to have been in vain, and they don’t want to lie for eternity in a foreign land. History is often the ultimate determiner of the former, but the latter is the responsibility of the country for which warriors laid down their lives. No great nation leaves its missing or dead behind, and a society that truly honors the ultimate sacrifice of its sons and daughters in uniform will do whatever it takes to find them and bring them home. MH

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Rethinking Rommel While the German field marshal was undoubtedly a superior tactical commander, his skills didn’t carry over into the strategic realm of operations By David T. Zabecki

BUNDESARCHIV, BILD 146-1977-018-11A, PHOTO: ERNST A. ZWILLING

Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, pictured during the 1941 siege of Tobruk, Libya, rose through the ranks to become an acclaimed German general. But did he measure up to his reputation?

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very major military commander in history has taken on two personas—the man and the myth. When it comes to Field Marshal Erwin Rommel the gap between reality and legend is wider than most. Among the most readily identifiable German generals of World War II, Rommel has a reputation as one of the greatest his nation has produced. That said, many noted military historians and senior military officers at least understand, if not wholly agree with, the position of German historian Wolf Heckmann, who concluded Rommel was “possibly the most overrated commander of an army in world history.”

in World War I as a highly decorated company commander, receiving the coveted German order Pour le Mérite for his actions in Italy during the 1917 Battle of Caporetto, he owed his spectacular interwar rise within the Wehrmacht to Adolf Hitler’s direct patronage. Shortly after the 1937 publication of his wellreceived book, Infanterie greift an (Infantry Attacks), Rommel caught Hitler’s attention and soon assumed command of the Führer’s personal security battalion, Führerbegleitbataillon. After the 1939 invasion of Poland, Rommel protested that his tactical talent would be better applied as a field commander than as a personal guard. Superiors slated him to command a mountain division—a logical post given his wartime experience—but Rommel wanted an armored division and bucked the chain of command, appealing directly to Hitler. His blatant violation of military professional protocol got Rommel what he wanted, but it also earned him the enmity and distrust of fellow senior officers. That ill will haunted him for the rest of his life. As commander of the 7th Panzer Division, Rommel won acclaim for his aggressive, daring tactics during the 1940 invasion of France. His unit, part of Lt. Gen. Hermann Hoth’s XV Corps, crossed the Meuse River near Dinant. The decisive breakthrough of the campaign, however, came when Lt. Gen. Heinz Guderian’s XIX Corps crossed the Meuse some 50 miles to the south at Sedan, breaking the line and hastening the fall of France. Regardless, Rommel— at Hitler’s insistence—was the first divisional commander of the campaign awarded the Knight’s Cross of the Iron Cross, only reinforcing his reputation as Hitler’s fair-haired favorite and cementing the animosity of his peers. Top: Attending a June 1940 victory parade in Paris, Maj. Gen. Rommel wears the Pour le Mérite he received after the 1917 Battle of Caporetto. Bottom: Rommel, pictured in 1915 with his pet fox, based his book, Infantry Attacks, on his actions as a company commander during World War I. The book caught Adolf Hitler’s attention and aided Rommel’s rise.

TOP: BUNDESARCHIV, BILD 146-1970-076-43, PHOTO: O.ANG; BOTTOM: ROMMEL FAMILY ARCHIVE

Though Erwin Rommel had distinguished himself

In 1942 Rommel, commander of Afrika Korps, surveys the terrain near Tobruk. Though better qualified to lead a mountain division, Rommel had appealed directly to Hitler for command of a panzer division.

Time and again Rommel’s tactically brilliant attacks created logistically unsustainable operational situations

In a confidential after-action report Hoth recommended Rommel be denied command of a corps until he developed “greater experience and a better sense of judgment.” Hoth and Lt. Gen. Günther von Kluge, commander of Fourth Army, also criticized Rommel for being a glory hog and failing to credit other units for their contributions. When the German High Command produced the 1941 propaganda film Sieg im Westen (Victory in the West), Rommel enthusiastically participated in a section of the film that depicted his units crossing the Meuse and even directed French POWs on how to properly surrender.

AKG-IMAGES

While there is little doubt Rommel was a gifted tactical commander and an inspiring battlefield leader, he quickly found himself out of his depth when placed above the level of corps command. He had little feel for the opera-

tional level of war or for the realities of logistics, and he had almost no understanding of strategy. Such shortcomings were obvious during his time in North Africa. In 1941, before Rommel left Germany to take command of the Afrika Korps, Col. Gen. Franz Halder, chief of the German High Command, told him that preparations for Operation Barbarossa made it impossible to divert any more forces or logistical support to North Africa. Thus Rommel’s mission, he was told, was not to defeat the British but to tie down the maximum number of Allied troops as long as possible. The High Command set the Libyan oasis of Maradah as the limit of his eastward advance. In April 1941 Rommel ignored those instructions and tried to capture Tobruk, 350 miles farther east. Halder referred to Rommel as a “soldier gone stark mad.” Time and again in North Africa Rommel’s tactically brilliant attacks created logistically unsustainable operational

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German artillerymen race to engage the British at the July 1942 Battle of El Alamein. After a series of brilliant maneuvers in North Africa, Rommel overextended his supply lines and by that October was in full retreat.

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situations that cumulatively set the stage for strategic defeat. His greatest blunder came after the Battle of Gazala and subsequent capture of Tobruk in June 1942, thought to be Rommel’s most masterful victory. Despite a prior agreement with theater commander Field Marshal Albert Kesselring, Rommel went over his superior and straight to Hitler, convincing the Führer to approve an assault on Egypt rather than an attack to secure Malta. Kesselring believed it critical to occupy Malta, the Mediterranean island fortress that represented a dagger against the jugular of the German logistics lifeline to North Africa, while Rommel insisted it more important to pursue the withdrawing British and defeat them decisively with what forces he had. No one in the High Command believed Rommel’s plan would succeed, and it didn’t. The British fought him to a standstill at El Alamein in July and again at Alam el Halfa in August. In October 1942 the British counterattacked from El Alamein and drove Rommel all the way back across North Africa. As Afrika Korps withdrew into Tunisia, Rommel’s battlefield performance grew listless and dispirited, his tendency to blame

MILITARY HISTORY

others for his failures more pronounced. At Sbiba Gap on Feb. 19, 1943, Rommel ordered Colonel Hans-Georg Hildebrandt, commander of the 21st Panzer Division, to commit his armor to a frontal assault the Luftwaffe was unable to support due to bad weather. American artillery mauled the German tanks, and Rommel blamed Hildebrandt for the failure. Rommel’s performance at Médenine on March 6 was equally lackluster. Although the basic plan was not Rommel’s, he was present on the battlefield and failed to reverse the disaster. According to Rommel’s champions, he could have won in North Africa—if only Hitler had given him just a few more tanks and gallons of gas. The reality is Hitler didn’t have the tanks or gas to spare, without pulling the materiel from somewhere else and causing a bigger catastrophe.

Rommel was probably more thoroughly disliked by peers than any other senior general in modern history. Many considered him a reckless if lucky gambler who needlessly sacrificed his troops, as well as a masterful political stringpuller, who owed his position to the staunch aegis of Hitler

AKG-IMAGES/ULLSTEIN BILD

JANUARY 2016

No one in the German High Command believed Rommel’s plan would succeed, and it didn’t

TOP TO BOTTOM: BERLINER VERLAG/ARCHIV/DPA/LANDOV; MIRRORPIX/THE IMAGE WORKS; SUEDDEUTSCHE ZEITUNG PHOTO/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO

and Reich Minister of Propaganda Joseph Goebbels. Rommel’s apologists habitually write off negative commentary as professional jealousy, engendered by the fact Rommel was a member of neither the German general staff nor the aristocracy. But that argument doesn’t stand up to close scrutiny. One of his harshest critics, Field Marshal Walther Model had been a general staff officer and was every bit the commoner Rommel was. And another detractor, General of Panzer Troops Hermann Balck, was never a member of the general staff. As much as Rommel relished deriding the general staff as little more than an elite club for upper-class incompetents, he had three of its best men working for him in North Africa, as his chief of staff and his operations and intelligence officers. Siegfried Westphal, Fritz Bayerlein and Friedrich Wilhelm von Mellenthin, respectively, were the ultimate dream team for which any commander would have sold his soul. Only von Mellenthin came from the aristocracy, and Bayerlein had been an NCO in World War I. All three were loyal to Rommel while he was their commander, and they served him well, not because they especially liked him, but because it was the professional thing to do. Although only a lieutenant colonel, Westphal often made major battle decisions—correct ones—during Rommel’s many absences from headquarters to visit the front. Writing after the war, von Mellenthin was critical of many of Rommel’s decisions, believing he took too many chances too often, gambling the outcome of battles on splitsecond decisions made with incomplete information. Rommel’s November 1941 counterattack during the Allied relief of Tobruk, in which he again overextended his logistics, was one such instance. Von Mellenthin also noted that Rommel was an extremely difficult commander under which to serve, and that the real field marshal was nowhere near as courteous as actor James Mason portrayed him in the 1951 film The Desert Fox. “Rommel’s character defects make him very hard to get along with,” Halder concluded, “but no one cares to come out in open opposition because of his brutality and the backing he has at the top level.”

Much of the debate about Rommel’s later performance in France in 1944 centers on the conflict between his defensive plan and that of theater commander Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt. Rommel advocated a rigid forward defense, designed to keep the Allies from ever establishing a bridgehead. Rundstedt favored a flexible defense in depth, Top: Rommel, perched in his command vehicle Greif during his “Desert Fox” years, confers with staff before the capture of Tobruk. Middle: A period cartoon depicts the British Eighth Army’s halt of the German advance into Egypt in 1942. Bottom: After the British counterattack at El Alamein, defeated Germans march into captivity.

Manstein

Better Than Rommel? Despite Erwin Rommel’s popular reputation as one of the greatest generals of World War II, few German military historians would rate him their nation’s best. When comparing the following generals’ war records against Rommel’s—and allowing that each made his share of mistakes during the war—several achieved far better overall results but failed to win even a fraction of the field marshal’s celebrity. Among the most authoritative observers of Germany’s wartime senior commanders was Maj. Gen. Friedrich Wilhelm von Mellenthin, who as a general staff officer worked directly for many of these generals. Von Mellenthin’s two books, Panzer Battles and German Generals of World War II: As I Saw Them, rank among the most important World War II volumes written from the German perspective.

Balck

Guderian

As von Mellenthin noted, many considered Manstein “Germany’s greatest strategist during World War II,” both a superb operational staff officer and commander. British military historian Sir Basil Liddell Hart agreed with that assessment, calling him “the ablest of the German generals.” Manstein’s brilliant Sichelschnitt (“Sickle Cut”) modification of the 1940 invasion plan for France turned it from a rehash of the old World War I Schlieffen Plan into an innovative, winning strategy. Manstein spent most of the rest of the war in Russia, where he repeatedly turned around deteriorating tactical situations, only to be undermined by Hitler’s inept micromanagement.

General of Panzer Troops p Hermann Balck Mellenthin wrote, “I think Balck has strong claims to be regarded as our finest field commander.” In France in May 1940 Balck commanded the lead regiment in Heinz Guderian’s breakthrough

Model

at Sedan. Balck commanded the 11th Panzer Division during the December 1942 fight on Russia’s Chir River, widely regarded as one of the greatest divisional-level battles in all of military history. As commander of the Fourth Panzer Army in August 1944 he stopped the Soviets’ Vistula River offensive cold and received the Knight’s Cross with Oak Leaves, Swords and Diamonds, one of only 27 German soldiers so honored.

Colonel General Heinz Guderian Guderian, more than any other officer, was responsible for the development of armored maneuver warfare in the German army. Mellenthin noted that Guderian “created not only a new combat arm of service but simultaneously a new technique of command, in which success depended on the greatest possible speed and on orders that were brief but clear.” Guderian pioneered the concept of leading from the front using a mobile command post linked to headquarters by radio. During the 1939 campaign in Poland and 1940 campaign in France his XIX Corps spearheaded decisive breakthroughs, and in 1941 his armored group drove almost all the way to

Moscow. He was chief of staff of the German High Command when Hitler fired him in March 1945.

Field Marshal Walther Model Model often receives a black eye, many writers inaccurately labeling him a “fanatic Nazi.” He was never a member of the Nazi Party, but he was blindly apolitical to a fault, failing to confront the ugly reality of the political masters of his country. Nonetheless, Model was one of the most effective defensive tacticians in the history of warfare. Hitler repeatedly threw him into catastrophic crises on the Eastern Front to salvage and even reverse the hopeless situations. The “Führer’s Fireman,” as he was called, was a master of innovation and improvisation in battle. Between January and August 1944 he commanded three different army groups on the Eastern Front. Commanding an army group on the Western Front during the last year of the war, Model stopped the Allies’ Operation Market Garden and then handed the U.S. Army one of the biggest defeats in its history in the Hürtgen Forest. He also received the Knight’s Cross with Oak Leaves, Swords and Diamonds. —D.T.Z.

TOP TO BOTTOM: BUNDESARCHIV, BILD 183-H01758, PHOTO: O.ANG; AKG-IMAGES/ULLSTEIN BILD; BUNDESARCHIV, BILD 183-H15617, PHOTO: O.ANG; AKG-IMAGES/ULLSTEIN BILD

Field Marshal Eric von Manstein

Long a favorite of the Führer, Rommel meets with Hitler in France prior to the defense of the Atlantic Wall in 1944.

BPK, BERLIN/ART RESOURCE, NY

Many considered Rommel a political string-puller, who owed his position to the staunch aegis of Hitler reinforced with a deep-held armored counterattack force. The warfighting experience of the 20th century up to that point clearly demonstrated a rigid forward defense almost always failed, and virtually every major armor commander, including Guderian, agreed with Rundstedt that a forward defense was absolutely impossible in the face of Allied naval and air supremacy. In the end, however, Hitler’s vacillation resulted in a compromise somewhere between the two plans, which of course failed as well. Like his contemporary General George S. Patton, with whom he is often compared, Rommel was a dynamic, aggressive, inspirational, lead-from-the-front commander. Both generals were brilliant tactical leaders but had serious shortcomings at the higher end of the spectrum of war.

Both also had flamboyant prima donna streaks and cantankerous personalities. Their modern-day legends obscure the real soldiers behind those legends, and the blind hero worship that follows only distorts the real lessons to be learned from the study of their careers and battles. MH David T. Zabecki is HistoryNet’s chief military historian. He served in Vietnam as an infantry rifleman and retired from the U.S. Army as a major general. Zabecki holds a doctorate in military history from Britain’s Royal Military College of Science, Cranfield University. For additional reading Zabecki recommends Panzer Battles and German Generals of World War II: As I Saw Them, both by Friedrich Wilhelm von Mellenthin.

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In the 1860s a South American war of empire pitted the Triple Alliance of Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay against tiny Paraguay—with disastrous results for the latter By Jorge E. Taracido

JANUARY 2016

In October 1868 soldiers of the Triple Alliance crossed Paraguay’s Pikysyry Creek into the Chaco region to outflank enemy defenses in the closing stages of the war.

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MILITARY HISTORY

HARPER’S WEEKLY, NEW YORK: HARPER’S MAGAZINE CO., OCTOBER 24, 1868

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In 1864 the republic of Paraguay had a large and highly motivated standing army that owed its existence largely to Francisco Solano López. After succeeding his late father, Carlos Antonio López, as president-dictator in September 1862, he had immediately embarked on a massive military mobilization in preparation for what he saw as an inevitable conflict with the Brazilian empire. The spark of the war was Brazil’s August 1864 invasion of Uruguay, an incursion aided by members of Uruguay’s Colorado Party, who sought to overthrow the nation’s ruling Blanco (or National) Party. Rebuffing all diplomacy and protests from López (who backed the Blancos), Brazil opened hostilities in a naval encounter on the Uruguay River on August 24. A land invasion followed on October 12. With the fall of all Blanco bastions, the Brazilian-Colorado alliance took the Uruguayan capital Montevideo on

Feb. 20, 1865. Under Brazilian auspices, Colorado General Venancio Flores became the provisional president. The Brazilian occupation of Uruguay constituted an existential threat to landlocked Paraguay, whose access to the outside world via the Paraná River and the Río de la Plata could be denied at will by Brazil and its de facto ally Argentina, which had supported the move into Uruguay. Though numerically superior to the forces of the Triple Alliance, López’s army lacked sophisticated weaponry, leaving it at the mercy of its more populous and better-armed foes. Regardless, on Aug. 30, 1864, López sent an ultimatum to the Brazilians, stating that Paraguay would not accept a threat to the balance of power in the Río de la Plata (or Platine) region. Dismissed in word and action, on November 12 López ordered the seizure of the Brazilian side-wheel paddle steamship Marquês de Olinda on the Paraguay River.

PABLO ALBORNOZ/MILITAERHISTORISCHES MUSEUM, ASUNCION, PARAGUAY/ALBUM/ART RESOURCE, NY

In late 1864

the bitterly fought American Civil War was grinding to its dramatic and inevitable end. Immediately south of the border Mexico was embroiled in a life-and-death struggle of its own against France and a puppet government led by Emperor Maximilian I, a man whose reign would end before a Mexican firing squad. In South America, meanwhile, war had just broken out between the small but industrious republic of Paraguay and the sprawling empire of Brazil. The Spanish-speaking republics of Argentina and Uruguay soon joined the Portuguese-speaking Brazilians, and what had begun as a political and frontier dispute morphed into a war of annihilation and genocide that remains to this day the bloodiest conflict ever fought in South America. And the biggest loser was its smallest participant—Paraguay.

López’s move against Argentina prompted the

L’ILLUSTRATION: JOURNAL UNIVERSEL, PARIS: J.J. DUBOCHET, NOVEMBER 17, 1866

After some initial successes, the Paraguayan army faced a series of defeats in 1865–66, notably at the May 24, 1866, Battle of Tuyutí, the bloodiest clash in South American history.

The newly appointed governor of Brazil’s Mato Grosso state was among the passengers, and his detention by López’s troops resulted in a de facto state of war between Paraguay and Brazil. A formal declaration followed on December 13. López’s overall strategy was to launch a diversionary attack up north into Brazil’s Mato Grosso state and then penetrate in force to the southeast into Río Grande do Sul state. On December 27 Paraguayan troops crossed the northern frontier and quickly captured the fort of Nova Coimbra. More Brazilian garrisons followed, and the invaders captured considerable war materiel, but the assault failed to divert Brazilian forces from the southern front. Nonetheless, on March 5, 1865, the Paraguayan congress voted López the rank of mariscal de los ejércitos de la república (“marshal of the armies of the republic”). To facilitate his southern invasion, López had solicited Argentina’s permission to move troops across its Corrientes Province to attack Brazil’s Río Grande do Sul. Argentina refused, pleading neutrality in the conflict. Angered by its hypocrisy, López declared war on Argentina on March 18. Paraguayan troops poured over the border on April 13, capturing the town of Corrientes and two Argentine ships on the Paraná River. It was an offensive that would ultimately doom Paraguay.

secret Treaty of the Triple Alliance, signed by Brazil, Argentina and Colorado-ruled Uruguay on May 1, 1865. Article 7 of the pact stated the allies’ war was not against the Paraguayan people “but against the government.” The signatories pledged to ensure free navigation on the Paraná and Paraguay rivers. They also vowed to respect the independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity of Paraguay—a point that would cause great friction between Brazil and Argentina, both of which coveted Paraguayan territories. Each would demand reparations from Paraguay for the cost of the war. During the conflict no ally could agree to a separate peace with Paraguay (a provision Brazilian Emperor Pedro II continuously invoked), and the treaty would remain secret until the allies accomplished their principal objective—the removal of López as Paraguayan head of state. That effort would be led by Argentine President Bartolomé Mitre as the allied commander in chief, with Brazilian Vice Adm. Joaquim Marques Lisboa, Marquis of Tamandaré, in command of the allied navy. For propaganda purposes the allies created a Paraguayan legion—composed principally of anti-López exiles—and attached it to the Argentine army. While López’s campaign in northern Brazil was relatively successful, the southern assault proved the Paraguayan president’s undoing. After some initial successes his offensive ground to a halt as the Argentines, Uruguayans and Brazilians struck back, handing the Paraguayans three significant losses. The first came on June 11, 1865, when the opposing fleets met on the Riachuelo, a branch of the Paraná River near Corrientes, Argentina. López’s plan was to capture the allied ships (all Brazilian) in a surprise predawn attack. Things went wrong from the beginning, as the attack didn’t materialize until 9 a.m. Although the opponents were almost equal in strength—nine Brazilian ships vs. eight Paraguayan, along with seven chatas (single-gun towed barges)—the Brazilian ships were modern and carried superior guns. On hearing of his fleet’s defeat and the mortal wounding of its commander, Captain Pedro Ignácio Meza, López angrily indicated the man’s death would save him

On Sept. 12, 1866, Uruguayan President Flores, Argentine President Mitre and Paraguayan President López, left to right, met. The alliance sought to persuade López to give up his presidency, but the meeting was a failure.

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War of the Triple Alliance

C

omparitively tiny, landlocked Paraguay couldn’t afford to trust its larger, more populous neighbor Brazil when the latter, with tacit support from Argentina, invaded Uruguay in 1864 and installed a politically sympathetic regime. The move threatened Paraguay’s access to the sea via the Paraná and Paraguay rivers. Rebuffed diplomatically, Paraguayan president Francisco Solano López went to war in late 1865, targeting Brazil’s Río Grande do Sul state. When Argentina refused to allow Paraguayan troops to attack through its Corrientes province, López also declared war on that nation. In secret Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay allied against Paraguay.

Empire of Brazil Brazil, determined to maintain its influence in the riverine Platine region, had intervened twice before in Uruguayan politics. The third time proved the breaking point with Paraguay. In the subsequent war Pedro II was set on removing López as Paraguay’s president.

Argentine Ally Argentina also had a stake in the Platine and had alternately allied with and opposed Brazil. The two agreed on this latest intervention in Uruguay, and when Paraguay objected, Argentine President Bartolomé Mitre looked the other way, stoking López’s ire.

MAPS BY STEVE WALKOWIAK/SWMAPS.COM

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Waterway Access The heart of the conflict lay in the Platine (aka Río de la Plata), a region bordered by big trade rivers and crucial to the growth of all neighboring nations. Pedro, López and Mitre all knew this, and none was willing to cede influence in the region. War was inevitable.

Pikysyry Maneuver López made his last stand at Pikysyry Creek, with the river to his right and artillery batteries in the heights. But rather than play his game, the Brazilians instead crossed the river, forged a road north, then re-crossed to attack López’s rear. Game over.

Defense of Humaitá López set up a defensive perimeter around Humaitá, a fortress city supported by outlying strongpoints on the Paraguay River. Regardless, the alliance moved swiftly. Though stalled after a bloodbath at Curupaity, they captured Humaitá by July 1868.

Invasion of Corrientes López’s move against Argentina was ill advised, opening a second front in the Platine and prompting formation of the Triple Alliance. López met with initial success but soon suffered a string of defeats— on the Riachuelo, then at Yatai and Tuyutí. Paraguay’s fate was sealed.

Allied Invasion of Paraguay Once López had goaded Argentina into the fight, there was no stopping the Triple Alliance. The allied army marched north along the Paraguay River, hemming in López’s army around the river fortress of Humaitá. From that point it became a war of attrition, one that ultimately claimed more than half of Paraguay’s prewar population.

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Gaston d’Orléans

JANUARY 2016

from a firing squad. López then decided Paraguay’s only choices in the conflict were victory or death. Prophetically, he had foretold his own fate and that of his nation. The second defeat came on August 17 when General Flores, the provisional Uruguayan president, smashed a Paraguayan column under Major Pedro Duarte on the Argentine side of the Uruguay River at Yatai, Corrientes. Finally, after a brief siege, Paraguayan Colonel Antonio de la Cruz Estigarribia, who had occupied the city of Uruguaiana on the Brazilian side of the same river, surrendered his 8,000-man army to the allies on September 18 in the presence of Brazil’s Emperor Pedro II and presidents Mitre and Flores. Uruguay and Argentina forced hundreds of Paraguayan prisoners to serve in their respective armies, while Brazil opted to enslave its share of the captives. López withdrew the remnants of his army from Argentina, leaving Paraguay open to full-scale invasion. At that point in the war the Paraguayan army could slow but not stop the allies’ progress. On May 24 López decided to gamble his army. He hurled his finest units—some 22,000 men—against the invaders at Tuyutí, just north of the Paraná River. The result was both a crushing defeat for López’s forces and the bloodiest battle in South American history, costing some 13,000 Paraguayan and 8,000 allied casualties. While the latter were able to replace their losses, López could only call on the very old or young. Yet, stupefied by the carnage, the allies dithered after this Pyrrhic victory. Brazil and its allies were also stunned by the March 2, 1866, disclosure of the details of their secret treaty. An Eng-

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Luís Alves de Lima e Silva

lish translation of a copy obtained from Uruguayan Foreign Minister Carlos de Castro appeared in the British Parliament’s Blue Book and later in the London Times. The document was published in Buenos Aires in May and in Asunción in August. From its content Paraguayans understood their fight could end only with victory or complete annihilation.

Hoping to avert his country’s destruction, Lopez established a defensive perimeter centered on the Paraguay River fortress of Humaitá. Allied ships still controlled the region’s waterways, however, and on Sept. 3, 1866, the Brazilians bombarded and captured the Paraguayan battery at Curuzú, part of Humaitá’s defenses. On September 12, at his request, López met with allied leaders at Yataity-Corá. Brazilian Marshal Polidoro da Fonseca Quintanilha Jordão backed out of the conference, and Uruguayan President Flores left promptly after López accused him of causing the war. Argentina’s Mitre spoke at length with the Paraguayan president but, in keeping with the tenets of the no longer secret treaty, rejected all attempts at compromise. López, for his part, refused to give up the presidency, so nothing was accomplished but an exchange of riding whips and the gift of Paraguayan cigars for Mitre. But the cease-fire that accompanied the meeting gave López time to strengthen his defenses. On September 22, in the wake of the failed negotiations, an overconfident Mitre launched a poorly executed attack against Curupaity, the next Humaitá strongpoint up the Paraguay River. Although outnumbered 4-to-1, the well-

From the content of the secret treaty Paraguayans understood their fight could end only with victory or complete annihilation MILITARY HISTORY

LEFT TO RIGHT: ARCHIVO GENERAL DE LA NACIÓN URUGUAY; PHOTO12/THE IMAGE WORKS; SEBASTIEN AUGUSTE SISSON, GALERIA DOS BRASILEIROS ILLUSTRES, RIO DE JANEIRO: LITH. DE S.A. SISSON, 1861

Venancio Flores

Francisco Solano López

LEFT TO RIGHT: L’ILLUSTRATION: JOURNAL UNIVERSEL, PARIS: J.J. DUBOCHET, NOV. 29, 1862; HARPER’S WEEKLY, NEW YORK: HARPER’S MAGAZINE CO., DECEMBER 2, 1865

Bartolomé Mitre

entrenched Paraguayans sustained fewer than 100 casualties while inflicting a staggering 4,000-plus casualties on the allies, enough to suspend the allied offensive for months. Although Curupaity was a resounding victory, López made no counterattack. The stalemate merely postponed the inevitable, extending the suffering of the Paraguayan people. In early 1867 Mitre was ordered to return to Argentina with 4,000 troops to quell antiwar rebellions by caudillos in the western provinces. Luís Alves de Lima e Silva, Duke of Caxias and newly appointed commander of the Brazilian forces, took overall command of the allied armies. Mitre returned to the fight in July 1867 but deferred to Caxias until returning home in January 1868. Before his departure, however, the general witnessed what was very nearly a Paraguayan victory. On Nov. 3, 1867, López again sent his forces against Tuyutí, the allies’ principal staging area, quickly gaining the upper hand against the surprised defenders. Victory seemed certain for the Paraguayans until Lopez’s men, desperate for supplies and food, began to loot the allied camp. His army soon turned into a rabble, allowing the allied troops time to regroup and launch a counterattack. Outnumbered and disorganized, the Paraguayans fell back, though they managed to capture muchneeded weapons and equipment. López had bought more time,

but his overall position worsened further on July 25, 1868, when Humaitá’s starving garrison fled the fortress and subsequently surrendered. In reprisal, López had Juliana Insfrán de Martínez, the wife of garrison commander Colonel Francisco J. Martínez, arrested, tortured and ultimately executed. Her fate was emblematic of López’s growing paranoia, which led him to imagine conspiracies and treason among his officers, friends and family. The dictator accused his brothers, Benigno and Venancio, of treason; he executed the former, while the latter died in one of the interminable death marches that by that point had come to characterize the Paraguayan army’s treatment of prisoners. López also implicated his sisters and their husbands in plots, and even had his own mother tried and found guilty of plotting against him. All three women survived the war, but López executed his brothers-in-law.

Even as López was hunting down plotters both real and imagined, the allied army renewed its cautious but inexorable march upriver toward Asunción. By the fall of 1868 the Paraguayans had established a new defensive perimeter with small Pikysyry Creek as an obstacle to enemy frontal attacks. The creek flowed into the Paraguay River, and at the confluence, on the heights of Angostura, the defenders emplaced an artillery battery. To the north, the town of Villeta marked the final position on a line defended by an army comprising mainly old men, women and children. “¡Vencer o Morir!” (“Win or Die!”) had become the official battle cry of López and, by extension, his nation. Aware of the Paraguayan trenches lining the Pikysyry, Caxias decided on a flanking maneuver. In October, leaving troops in plain sight before the creek, he crossed to the Chaco side of the river with the bulk of the allied army. He

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As the death toll escalated in 1868, a Brazilian chaplain named Esmerata risked his life to urge Paraguayan troops to surrender.

Brazilians called the campaign) culminated with the De cember 21–27 Battles of Lomas Valentinas. During a lull in the fighting on Christmas Eve, Caxias demanded López’s unconditional surrender but was rebuffed. The Allies responded on Christmas Day with a brutal cannonade. Two days later, reinforced by 9,000 Argentine and 800 Uruguayan troops, the allies steamrolled the Paraguayan defenders, forcing the surrender of the last Pikysyry line holdouts at Angostura on December 30. The Brazilian vanguard entered the largely evacuated capital of Asunción on Jan. 1, 1869, and Caxias and the bulk of the allied army soon followed. While most Argentine troops remained outside the city, those within proceeded to thoroughly pillage the capital, ransacking and burning homes, government buildings and foreign consulates and desecrating churches and even cemeteries. Brazil confiscated the treasures of Paraguay’s national archives—encompassing the history of the nation—as war trophies. Women who remained in the city or returned in search of food risked sexual assault. Sick, old and tired, Caxias declared “mission accomplished” and returned to Brazil, leaving the army under the command of Pedro II’s French son-in-law, Prince Gaston d’Orléans, Count of Eu. López, still at large and determined to resist to the last drop of his (and his people’s) blood, was the subject of an intense manhunt. His capture or death was an obsession of Brazil’s emperor, whose son-in-law would stop at nothing to please him. The allied juggernaut swept everything before it as the war entered its final phase with the Campaign of the Hills. And the war took on an even more sinister character. On August 12 Gaston took Piribebuy, the third provisional capital established by the elusive López. After the Frenchman’s favorite general João Manuel Mena Barreto was mortally wounded, the enraged count ordered that captured Paraguayan Lt. Col. Pedro Pablo Caballero be tortured, decapi-

tated and quartered, all while his wife was forced to watch. Next Gaston ordered the Piribebuy hospital—packed with more than 500 wounded and sick and attending staff—sealed and set afire. Soldiers bayoneted anyone seeking to escape the conflagration. Four days later, in a continuation of the wrathful immolation of the nation, a Brazilian army of 20,000 men caught up with some 4,000 Paraguayans at Acosta Ñu. Though the fleeing “army” comprised mostly boys between the ages of 9 and 15, the Brazilians indiscriminately slaughtered them. Nearly seven months passed before the allies finally caught up with López. On March 1, 1870, at Cerro Corá—at the heart of Paraguay’s present-day border with Brazil—Brazilian troops destroyed the remnants of López’s command and killed Vice President Domingo Francisco Sánchez. Wounded and with Brazilian troops close behind, López himself made it to the nearby Aquidabán River. On the banks of a branch called Aquidabán-Nigüí the pursuers demanded his sur render. López, with sword in hand, lunged at his attackers, yelling, “¡Muero con mi patria!” (“I die with my country!”) and was immediately cut down. His 15-year-old son was also shot and killed while shielding his mother from Bra zilian captors. Father and son were buried side by side.

The War of the Triple Alliance ended with a preliminary treaty on June 20, 1870, followed by separate treaties with Brazil (Jan. 9, 1872), Uruguay (Dec. 13, 1873) and Argentina (Feb. 3, 1876). Brazil withdrew its last troops from eastern Paraguay on June 22, 1876. Argentine troops evacuated Villa Occidental on May 14, 1879, and Paraguay renamed the city Villa Hayes in honor of U.S. President Rutherford B. Hayes, who arbitrated in favor of Paraguay in its 1878 dispute with Argentina over the Chaco Boreal region. The war was a calamity for Paraguay, with battle, mass executions, starvation and disease claiming the lives of somewhere between 500,000 and 1 million of its people—more than half of its prewar population. Some scholars speculate that 90 percent of the nation’s male population was killed. Moreover, the allies devastated Paraguay’s industry and economy while systematically looting or destroying much of the nation’s cultural heritage. At war’s end occupation officials banned instruction in the native Guaraní language, spoken by the vast majority of the population—a prohibition only lifted officially in 1992. Paraguay ceded nearly 55,000 square miles of disputed territory, to Brazil in the Mato Grosso state and to Argentina in the Gran Chaco and Misiones regions. The victors occupied the nation fully or in part for nine years and imposed crippling war reparations. While Uruguay forgave reparation payments in 1885, Argentina and Brazil collected theirs until 1942 and 1943, respectively. MH Jorge E. Taracido, a retired college prep instructor from Kansas City, Mo., holds a doctorate in Romance languages and Renaissance studies from the University of Missouri. For further reading he recommends The Paraguayan War, by Thomas L. Whigham, and The War in Paraguay, by George Thompson.

HARPER’S WEEKLY, NEW YORK: HARPER’S MAGAZINE CO., OCTOBER 24, 1868; OPPOSITE: JUAN MANUEL BLANES/MUSEO NACIONAL ARTES PLASTICAS, MONTEVIDEO, SPAIN/INDEX/BRIDGEMAN IMAGES

then had his engineers hack a 7-mile road along the east bank, recrossed the river with his army and marched south to attack the Paraguayan rear. December brought the Paraguayans a series of crushing defeats. Battles at Ytororó on the 6th and Avay on the 11th decimated López’s remaining forces. The Dezembrada (as

The war was a calamity for Paraguay, with battle, mass executions, starvation and disease claiming more than half of its population

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FIGHTING

WORDS

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Of the dozens of political humor magazines on newsstands across Europe at the outset of World War I, few embraced the modernism of the art world more than France’s Le Mot (The Word). Its cofounder, bohemian writer Jean Cocteau, was unable to serve in the French army for medical reasons but decided to contribute to the war effort by collaborating on a wartime journal with Paul Iribe, an artist, fashion illustrator and jewelry designer. Iribe was no stranger to the world of political cartooning; in 1901, at age 18, he published his first works in L’Assiette au Beurre (The Plate of Butter), a satirical publication espousing socialist and anarchist ideas. The first four-page issue of Le Mot hit Parisian newsstands on Nov. 28, 1914, and the popular journal soon expanded to eight pages. Each issue was visually driven, featuring a cover usually rendered by Iribe, a centerfold illustration and cartoons interspersed amid the text. Though Le Mot was patriotic and vehemently anti-German, that didn’t stop Cocteau and Iribe from engaging in controversy. For example, the first issue took a swipe at the French government’s wartime censorship of the press by publishing an “interview” with a French general that was blank. Other notable artists of the time drew cartoons for Le Mot over its 20-issue run, including French caricaturist Sem (Georges Goursat), Russian painter and set designer Léon Bakst and French Fauvist painter Raoul Dufy. Cocteau himself took up a pen as an illustrator. His works dominated later editions, including a series of 24 abstract cartoons about German atrocities that ran in the last five issues. Le Mot ceased publication following its July 1, 1915, issue, ending a unique, modernist experiment in World War I political graphics. Cocteau ultimately made it to the front as an ambulance driver, surviving the war to become a notable novelist and filmmaker. MH

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JEAN COCTEAU/COLLECTION OF WARREN BERNARD; ALL OTHERS: PAUL IRIBE/COLLECTION OF WARREN BERNARD

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In 1914–15 French writer Jean Cocteau’s short-lived journal Le Mot made jest of a brewing war in Europe By Warren Bernard

Paul Iribe dismissed the menace of “Kaiser Willy” in this jab from Jan. 2, 1915. Opposite: “It seems that the giant Hindenburg is going to end up on the Western Front,” was Cocteau’s premature (July 1, 1915) Davidand-Goliath prediction.

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A “The Fronts Increase, the Heads Decrease.” Iribe’s June 15, 1915, cover referred to the Allied offensive in the Dardanelles, expected to knock Germany’s Ottoman ally out of the war. But the campaign was destined to fail.

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B Cocteau’s first edition of Le Mot on Nov. 28, 1914, featured this cover by Iribe on which a French 75 “David” cows a Krupp “Goliath” siege gun. C Iribe’s Feb. 13, 1915, cover shows “The Rose of France” threatened by the onslaught of a voracious caterpillar in German colors.

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D The Jan. 30, 1915, cover, “The Scar,” is Iribe’s curious ode to the Legion d’honneur.

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‘Our soldiers now cover a considerable expanse of enemy territory’ The above message was in a 1915 German communiqué morbidly interpreted by Le Mot in this illustration.

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E Iribe’s March 6, 1915, cover, “Our Hand,” shows four kings: Nicholas II of Russia, Albert I of Belgium, George V of Britain and Peter I of Serbia.

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F On June 9, 1915, Iribe rendered “After the Execution,” on which a pistol-wielding German hulks over his boy victim with the caption, “This age is without pity.” G With Austria-Hungary stalled in Serbia and under Russian attack in Galicia, Iribe declared on Jan. 23, 1915, Franz Josef “loses victory.”

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H On March 27, 1915, Iribe suggested “Why Not?” to countering “Professor” Alexander von Kluck’s vitriol with “Doctor” Joseph Joffre’s rat poison.

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“The Christmas Snowman,” in the person of General Joffre, blesses the French army as another year of war comes to an uncertain close.

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A FOOL’S ERRAND General François-Gaston de Lévis threw the dice during the 1760 Battle of Sainte-Foy, France’s last gamble to regain control of Quebec By Michael G. Laramie

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LOUIS CHARLES BOMBLED (AFTER)/PRIVATE COLLECTION/© LOOK AND LEARN/BRIDGEMAN IMAGES

In a last-ditch effort to turn the tide against British occupiers, French General Lévis rallies his troops at the Battle of Sainte-Foy within sight of Quebec’s ramparts.

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For France, 1759 was a year of collapse.

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It was the third year of the Seven Years’ War, and it brought the Ancien Régime nothing but disaster, highlighted by a string of defeats around the globe. In Europe an inferior Anglo-German army routed a 60,000-man French army at Minden, Prussia, and even though Frederick the Great suffered his greatest military defeat at Kunersdorf days later, he once again eluded destruction. With Maj. Gen. Robert Clive’s assertion of British rule over northern India and the timely arrival of a Royal Navy relief squadron that stifled France’s siege of Madras, the French position on the subcontinent rapidly deteriorated. Along the coast of West Africa the fall of Gorée and Senegal to a British expeditionary force had strangled France’s valuable African trade. And in the Caribbean the lucrative French sugar colony of Guadeloupe surrendered to yet another British expeditionary force. Nor did French Canada escape the miseries of 1759. On Lake Ontario the garrison at Fort Niagara capitulated to the British in July after a month-long siege, leaving New France’s western posts isolated. Meanwhile, to the east on Lake Champlain the French abandoned Forts Carillon and Sainte-Frédéric, and with the destruction of the French fleet on the lake, control of the waterway was entirely in British hands. Of greater importance was Maj. Gen. James Wolfe’s victory over Lt. Gen. Louis-Joseph de MontcalmGozon outside the walls of Quebec on September 13. Although most of the French army escaped the disastrous encounter, the surrender of the capital days later effectively closed the St. Lawrence River. By the beginning of 1760 the French colony had retracted onto a strip of land along the St. Lawrence, stretching from Trois-Rivières in the east to the river’s headwaters in the west. The French were wanting in almost everything, from men to materials. Food was short, the currency worthless and the population exhausted. Yet regardless of the state of affairs, between Maj. Gen. François-Gaston de Lévis—who had taken command after the death of MontcalmGozon at Quebec—and Governor Pierre de Rigaud de Vaudreuil-Cavagnal there was no talk of surrender. Only one hope remained—retaking Quebec.

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Maj. Gen. James Wolfe served the French a devastating blow in September 1759, when his troops captured Quebec after a three-month siege of the city.

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he recapture of New France’s capital was a military necessity. Canada was surrounded and unable to support itself. The only option was to break the British stranglehold and re-establish the lifeline to France. Toward this last-ditch effort the French colonial leaders agreed to consolidate whatever resources remained. Lt. Col. François Le Mercier, who traveled to Paris in late 1759 to deliver an urgent plea for assistance, summarized the colony’s plight. He informed the French court Lévis would lay siege to Quebec in early spring, and if a French squadron carrying badly needed artillery and supplies reached him by then, he would be in a position to retake the colonial capital. “If France does not send sufficient reinforcements to lay siege to Quebec,” Le Mercier concluded in his memoir to the French court, “’tis useless to send any, and the colony will necessarily be lost.” Moved by the letters and reports, the ministers pledged to send the reinforcements. But they realized in the same breath that with the destruction of their fleets and the ongoing British blockade of French ports, such promises would prove difficult to keep.

FRANCIS SWAINE/LIBRARY AND ARCHIVES CANADA, 1997-220 X DAP

Beginning in early 1760 Lévis gathered his troops and what supplies he could muster from the colony. The plan was to strike in early spring when the British garrison would be at its weakest, and precise timing was critical. Lévis needed to launch his attack as soon as the ice broke on the rivers, moving his troops and supplies before the British had a chance to reinforce Quebec and move against his weakened positions on the west bank of the St. Lawrence and Île aux Noix, an island on Quebec’s Richelieu River near Lake Champlain. Lévis also had others matters to contend with. His army faced restraints in time and resources, particularly the limited number of artillery pieces allotted it to besiege the city. And even if reinforcements from France arrived and he were able to retake Quebec, there were no guarantees he could hold the city should the British seek to recapture it. In every respect the campaign appeared a fool’s errand. As militiamen constructed scaling ladders and quartermasters scoured the countryside for supplies, Frenchmen from every quarter expressed their thoughts on how best to execute the plan. “The contagion spread even to my Lord Bishop and his seminary of priests, who gave their plan,” one of Lévis’ staff officers recalled,

“which, like all the others, lacked only common sense and judgment. In short, a universal insanity prevailed at Montreal.” In late April, as the ice began to break on the Saint Lawrence, Lévis ordered his 7,000 men, including the Canadian militia, forward. Although it would have proven difficult to wholly mask his army’s movement, Quebec’s military commander, Brig. Gen. James Murray, received word of the French advance almost as soon as the first soldiers cast their small boats into the river. The news hardly surprised the well-informed British commander, but it did leave him with the difficult decision of how best to act on the information. The first decision Murray made was perhaps the most wrenching. The winter had been hard on his garrison, leaving just 3,800 men fit for duty out of an original force of 7,000. The reduction in manpower made it impossible to secure the city, given the large French population remaining within its walls. On April 21, amid sporadic showers of freezing rain, he notified the Quebecois they had 72 hours to leave. “It is impossible to avoid sympathizing with them in their distress,” Captain John Knox noted of the evacuation in his journal. Citizens made arguments and promises

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to convince Murray otherwise, but he refused to countermand his order. Murray’s next decision was no easier. He could man the defenses and try to ride out the siege until reinforcements arrived, or he could march out and engage the enemy on open ground. Neither option appealed to him. Quebec’s 30-foothigh stone ramparts—which defended the only feasible approach to the city, across the Plains of Abraham—appeared impressive, but in fact they were a crumbling mess. While the six bastions bristled with cannon, the curtain walls between them lacked firing platforms and embrasures to allow artillery or even muskets to fire on any attacking force. Although a few wooden blockhouses guarded the approach, they were insufficient in number and strength to prevent the French from reaching and scaling the ramparts, especially at night. His limited manpower made Murray question whether he could defend this approach and still guard approaches into the city via the lower town, which stretched to the water’s edge.

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he shortcomings in Quebec’s defenses were enough to convince Murray to defend it from the outside, some 800 yards away on the Plains of Abraham, not far from where Wolfe had deployed his army the year before. The east-west ridge of Buttes-à-Neveu bisected the plains and loomed over Quebec’s ramparts to the north, while roads to the south fanned out to the villages of Sainte-Foy, Sillery and nearby Foulon. Murray was con-

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LIBRARY AND ARCHIVES CANADA, ACC. NO. 1997-227-1; OPPOSITE: HENRY A. PAYNE/PRIVATE COLLECTION/BRIDGEMAN IMAGES

Understanding Quebec’s defensive flaws, Brig. Gen. James Murray chose to defend the city from the Plains of Abraham, near where Wolfe had deployed the year before.

vinced that strong fieldworks on the plains, stiffened by a good train of artillery, would allow his outnumbered force to block any approach to the city. As the French army marched north over the next few days, however, two unforeseen factors threatened Murray’s plan. First, sickness spread among the few hundred troops he had tasked to dig redoubts along the ridgeline, and the weather proved so bitter he didn’t dare risk diverting more men to the project. Second, though cold spring rains had partially thawed the ground, the soil remained frozen more than a few inches down. Progress lagged on the fieldworks. By the morning of April 28 Murray had run out of time. Leaving behind 400 able-bodied troops with the sick and invalid to guard Quebec, he gathered his 10 understrength regiments, light infantry and rangers and marched from the city onto the Plains of Abraham. Mud and slush made for slow going, and owing to a lack draft of animals, the British dragged their 18 cannon and two mortars forward by hand. A little before 9 a.m. a line of Redcoats two deep stretched across the length of Buttes-à-Neveu. Murray’s left extended east just past the road to Foulon, where Wolfe had landed the year before, while his right was anchored on the road to Sainte-Foy to the west. Crews cursed the soggy terrain as they maneuvered cannon and ammunition carriages into position. Soon shouts rippled down the line, followed by pointing toward Sainte-Foy and the woods before it. For Lévis the march on Quebec had been painfully slow. A storm on the first night scattered the flotilla carrying his artillery and supplies, while an incessant barrage of rain and sleet obliterated the roads en route and encrusted the French encampments in sheets of ice. On the evening of April 26 Lévis scattered a British detachment and secured Sainte-Foy, a mile from Buttes-à-Neveu, but a bad storm the next day halted his advance. A break in the weather on April 28 finally allowed Lévis and his second-in-command, Brig. Gen. François-Charles de Bourlamaque, to ride forward with five companies of grenadiers to reconnoiter and sweep the advancing army’s path. Around 8 a.m. the pair spotted the British columns moving into position on Buttes-àNeveu. Lévis immediately sent back word to Sainte-Foy ordering the army forward. The grenadiers, meanwhile, seized a farmhouse near Dumont’s Mill and waited. In seizing the ridgeline, Murray had beaten Lévis to the punch, but the French general was more than willing to concede its loss. From the outset the entire Quebec adventure had seemed a gamble against low odds, but an unthinkable opportunity now presented itself. Murray, instead of resting on his defenses, had marched his army out of Quebec to meet the French. If Lévis could cut off the British from their citadel and crush them on open ground, he would need neither cannon nor relief from France to seize his objective. As the French columns marched down the Sainte-Foy road, Lévis directed them east into the woods,

In 1759 the British had scaled the Heights of Abraham to reach Quebec. A year later the French chose a more straightforward route along the Sainte-Foy road.

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where they could form their line of battle unmolested by British artillery. Seeing the French in the process of deploying, Murray ordered his line forward, hoping to take advantage of his enemy’s lack of cohesion. The drums beat the advance, and the long red line descended the heights to the hoarse shouts of their officers and the muttered curses of the gun crews. The fight commenced when a detachment of British light infantrymen out in front of Murray’s right surprised the grenadiers at the farmhouse near Dumont’s Mill. A melee quickly ensued, and the farmhouse changed hands several times before both sides withdrew, almost by mutual consent, leaving the house empty. In the shelter of the woods on the right and center of the line, three French brigades had managed to form a line of battle. But two brigades on the French left had yet to deploy. Caught in the open along the road only 50 yards from the advancing British right, they were subjected to a withering artillery barrage. Lévis, realizing he wouldn’t be able to form his entire line before the British were on them, gave orders for his leftmost brigades—Régiments de Berry, La Sarre and Béarn—to withdraw a short distance. When the order reached Lt. Col. Jean d’Alquier de

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Servian, commander of the Béarn brigade, the old veteran tossed it aside. “It is not time now, my boys, to retire when at 20 paces from the enemy!” he called out to his troops before ordering a bayonet charge. Although not part of his plan, on seeing the brigades on the left charging the British, Lévis ordered the rest of the line to advance from the woods. By this point the British had advanced to within musket range of the French line, but in so doing, many of their cannon had become bogged down in mud. Murray’s troops exchanged short-range musket fire with the French, and those British guns still operable launched volleys of canister into the densely packed formations, badly shaking the French-led Canadian militia, who nonetheless held strong. Although Murray’s troops had pressed the French, they failed to break them, and having abandoned their excellent defensive position on Buttes-à-Neveu, they were beginning to feel their opponent’s numerical advantage. On the British right four battalions of French regulars, supported by a nearly equal number of Canadians, had taken back the contested farmhouse and were threatening Murray’s flank. On the left a company of British volunteers and rangers, supported by the 28th Regiment of Foot, were engaged in a hand-to-hand struggle for a pair of old redoubts and barely noticed the Regiment de La Reine circling around them to the east. Stretched and threatened with envelopment, Murray committed his reserves and shifted a pair of battalions from his center to meet the threat on his flanks, but it was not enough to stem the tide. The British left broke first, dashing to the rear. The effect then moved like a zipper down the length of the red line, and soon Murray’s entire force was in retreat. With nothing else to be done, around 11 a.m. the general ordered the guns to be spiked and sounded the retreat.

‘It is not time now, my boys, to retire when at 20 paces from the enemy!’ d’Alquier de Servian called out before ordering a bayonet charge MILITARY HISTORY

TOP: K. COFIELD/THE TRUSTEES OF THE BRITISH MUSEUM; MAPS: MARTIN WALZ/PEGMOTIONS GROUP

A period drawing depicts two French 4-pounders confiscated by the British during the 1759 siege of Quebec. In 1760 French troops likely brought similar cannon on their march from Sainte-Foy.

In this depiction of the April 28, 1760, battle the French overwhelm the British as they advance on Quebec from Sainte-Foy. Having yielded the high ground, the British retreated within the city to endure a siege.

GEORGE B. CHAMPION/LIBRARY AND ARCHIVES CANADA, ACC. NO. 1993-326-1

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lthough the British had eluded the French pincers, Lévis still had an opportunity to turn their defeat into a disaster. If his troops closed on Quebec while Murray’s men were still entering the city, they could scale the walls and be on the British before they could organize a defense. But it was not to be. The battle, coupled with the hardships of the past weeks’ march, had sapped his army’s strength. A few exhausted units pursued the British at a distance, but no one was interested in pushing the matter any further. The French and British had fought with far more intensity than they had the year before, and casualties on both sides bore this out. Lévis suffered 193 killed and 640 wounded in the engagement, the bulk of French losses falling on the units engaged near Dumont’s Mill, while Murray reported somewhat higher British losses, with 292 killed, 837 wounded and 53 captured. Lévis had struck a blow for New France, but not the decisive one he desperately needed. Nor did his victory, bought at such a cost, purchase much. The British, though hit hard by the battle, had retreated safely behind their fortifications, leaving Lévis no option but to begin a siege he was ill prepared to conduct. From late April to mid-May the French

dug trenches in the rocky ground before the citadel of Quebec and erected four batteries against the western wall. It was a pitiful display. In all, 19 cannon were directed at the fortress, which responded with almost 150 guns, many of which dwarfed anything the French could bring to bear. It was then simply a question of which fleet arrived first. The answer came on the morning of May 9 when those ashore spotted a sail on the St. Lawrence. As the vessel inched closer, a calm fell over both sides as soldiers whispered among themselves and strained to make out the vessel’s flag. Lévis learned his fate when the men lining the city’s ramparts erupted into cheers. The vessel was HMS Lowestoffe, the vanguard of a relief squadron from England under Commodore Robert Swanton. And a larger squadron under Lord Alexander Colville was close behind. Lévis was left with only one course of action—a retreat to Montreal to play out the final moments of the colony. MH Independent historian Michael G. Laramie is the author of The European Invasion of North America. For further reading he recommends Francis Parkman’s Montcalm and Wolfe, Fred Anderson’s Crucible of War and Lawrence H. Gipson’s The British Empire Before the American Revolution: The Victorious Years, 1758–1760.

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American soldiers from north Texas and Oklahoma bolstered the French Fourth Army lines south of Saint-Étienne in 1918.

INTO THE HORNET’S NEST

In the opening days of the 1918 Meuse-Argonne Offensive a brigade of raw recruits braved a gantlet of German machine guns at Saint-Étienne, France By Jack Woodville London AKG-IMAGES/ULLSTEIN BILD

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the 71st Brigade of the U.S. 36th Infantry Division set out to attack German defenses in and around the village of Saint-Étienne-à-Arnes, France. The brigade’s two infantry regiments—the 141st on the right and 142nd on the left, with the 132nd Machine Gun Battalion split between them—started abreast on a half-mile-wide front from the base of Blanc Mont ridge, recently captured by the American 2nd Division after three days of brutal fighting. The objective was to destroy the German defenses in front of them—particularly a number of machine gun emplacements in the cemetery at the northeast end of Saint-Étienne—and to capture the village. When the attack began, the men of both regiments rushed across rolling fields pockmarked from three years of heavy shelling, scaled the earthworks and debris of the trenches taken just two days before and dodged enfilading fire from an enemy line that was in places only 100 yards away when the attack began. While the fact was of little concern to the troops as they moved forward, they were the first 36th Division troops to see action in World War I.

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At 5:15 a.m. on Oct. 8, 1918,

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he men of the 141st and 142nd regiments had begun moving toward the front line a few days before their combat debut. In the middle of the cold, rainy night of October 4–5, some 6,000 American farm boys and ranch hands had climbed out of trucks and formed up on what was left of the town square of the village of Suippes, 14 miles south of Saint-Étienne. As they stood

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in the dark, for the first time since arriving in France they saw not-too-distant muzzle flashes and bursts and heard the railcar rumblings of artillery shells fired in their direction. They had no illusions about what lay to the north. Suippes was demolished, most of its buildings reduced to ragged mounds of stone and shattered timbers. Armies had been clawing over this landscape for four years, leaving in their

For the first time they saw not-too-distant muzzle flashes and bursts and heard the railcar rumblings of artillery shells

CHRONICLE/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO (2)

In the Champagne region, just west of the MeuseArgonne front, a German artillery team prepares for action. Opposite: An American machine gun platoon cautiously makes its way to the front.

wake a wasteland of tree stumps, shell craters and chalkscarred trenches. Despite the surroundings, the morale of the men of the 71st was high, and after a year of training the troops were eager to do their duty. The brigade was composed of men from the vast and thinly populated plains of north Texas and Oklahoma. Most had enlisted with the avowed purpose of personally shooting German Kaiser Wilhelm II, seeing as his foreign secretary, Arthur Zimmermann, had offered Mexico help in reclaiming its “lost territory” in Texas and the American Southwest in exchange for becoming a German ally. Recruiters had encouraged the men to join local companies, enabling them to serve alongside friends and under officers they knew rather than be conscripted into some faraway division comprised of strangers. In a region of the United States with poor roads and few telephones, serving with officers and men they knew was as important to the men of the 71st as was keeping Mexico on the south side of the Rio Grande. In August 1917 the recruits were transported to Camp Bowie, near Fort Worth, to begin training. On arrival, however, the men who would ultimately make up the 71st Brigade found that Camp Bowie remained under construction, and they lacked both uniforms and weapons.

The men initially slept in tents and practiced close-order drill with sticks and clubs. Most didn’t receive rifles until October, and they initially spent hours on small arms and bayonet drill to prepare for a war in which machine guns and artillery were causing the vast majority of all combat deaths. As Camp Bowie became fully operational, the units trained for the type of fighting that had been waged over the last four years, learning how to dig trenches, fill sandbags, cut barbed wire and attack an entrenched enemy. They didn’t train with heavy field artillery; the brigade had only British Stokes mortars and a handful of light cannon. Oil drums stood in for artillery, wagons for tanks. Due to ammunition shortages, during livefire drills no one in the machine gun battalion was permitted to fire sustained bursts. But even as the Americans trained, the nature of the war in Europe was changing.

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n the spring of 1918 Germany gambled that a huge offensive might break through to Paris and end the war before the Yanks were fully combat ready. By then, however, the American troops were better prepared than the Germans realized, and though parceled out to British and French army groups, they stopped the surging German

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center at Belleau Wood and Château-Thierry. Thereafter the war shifted from a series of mindless attacks along the 400-mile line of trenches to a strategy of attack and maneuver against steadily retreating German armies. By the time the 71st Brigade arrived south of Suippes in September, General John J. “Black Jack” Pershing, the hard-charging commander of the American Expeditionary Forces, had won approval of his plan to execute a massive American frontal attack in far eastern France, spearheading the Meuse-Argonne Offensive. It would become the largest operation in American military history, sending more than 1 million American soldiers into the line between the Meuse River and Argonne Forest. The majority of the AEF’s infantry, artillery, aviation and fledgling armored units and equipment had assembled on that front. As part of the offensive French Army Group Center—in the Champagne region, west of the Meuse-Argonne front— would attack the Hindenburg Line and seek to push the Germans back to the Aisne River. And for the 36th Division therein lay the rub. When AEF commander Pershing unleashed the offensive, the division remained in training 100 miles south of Reims, within the French Fourth Army area of responsibility. Before they had even fired a shot in anger, the men who had rushed to serve under officers they knew were placed under the command of the French 21st Army Corps. At that point in the war the French army had been battered by four years of combat, and its soldiers were growing increasingly restive. Indeed, in 1917 the army had sent so many men over the top at nearby Chemin des Dames—in the process

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suffering immense losses—that more than 20 of its divisions, comprising nearly 30,000 French soldiers, had mutinied. While the uprising was put down, 554 French soldiers were sentenced to firing squads (though fewer than 50 were actually executed). What was left of that army took charge of the American 36th Division on September 23. The 36th was not the only American division assigned to the French army in the Champagne region. Maj. Gen. John Lejeune’s 2nd Infantry Division, which had played decisive roles at Château-Thierry and Saint-Mihiel, was sent to regroup in a quieter sector and like the 36th found itself with no place to fight when the Meuse-Argonne Offensive commenced. The French Fourth had no intention of letting the 2nd Division rest or regroup; the relatively fresh American troops were needed to help clear a path to the Aisne River through an area blocked by a German defensive ridge known as Blanc Mont near Saint-Étienne. The 2nd Division launched its attack on October 3, within hours reaching the crest of Blanc Mont and taking the three German trench networks in the process. However, a French unit to the Americans’ left faltered at a hook in the trench, and German defenders poured flanking fire into the Yanks. The 2nd eventually captured the hook and turned it over to the French, who then lost it again. By the end of the day the 2nd had occupied Blanc Mont but stalled short of SaintÉtienne, where the Germans stiffened. Reports the French 21st Division had taken the village proved false. After three days of battle Maj. Gen. Stanislas Naulin, commander of the French 21st Corps, ordered elements of the

EVERETT COLLECTION HISTORICAL/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO

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American machine gunners had scant livefire training before arriving in France in 1918.

The landscape favored the Germans, as the gently rolling ground would expose the doughboys to continual fire across open fields 36th Division to relieve elements of the 2nd, and the men of the 71st Brigade were first into the fight. They set out from Suippes unaware they were marching past a spot where the French had earlier shot four of their own men, three for supposed cowardice, and one to make an example. It was an ominous start to an ominous battle.

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he first indication the 71st Brigade was in for a tough time came on the night of October 6–7, when a 2nd Division soldier assigned to guide the relief regiments to the line got lost and instead led the men in circles for hours, only to wind up back at the staging area. Colonel Alfred Bloor and Colonel Will Jackson took charge, and by daylight the men were in place, with Bloor’s 142nd regiment on the left side of the line, nearest to Saint-Étienne, and Jackson’s 141st on the right. The latter, however, inherited a gap left between elements of the retiring 2nd Division troops and the French unit on its right. Worse, the sector in which they were operating was split between the corners of four separate maps issued to the regimental and battalion commanders, and the German lines were incorrectly marked. As the hastily emplaced brigade was unable to bring up its own artillery, the 2nd Division gunners reluctantly left their mortars and howitzers in place to support the attack. On the morning of October 7 Naulin issued verbal orders for the attack to 2nd Division commander Lejeune. Protesting that the French general was “expecting the impossible of untried troops,” Lejeune appealed to Naulin to delay the offensive for one or two days to give the Texans and Oklahomans a bit more time in the line. Naulin refused, saying essentially what the French had said at Chemin des Dames: “Tomorrow will be another great day for the 21st Corps!” The attack would take place across an east-west line in front of Saint-Étienne. German defenders had established interlocking machine gun defenses in the cemetery on the east side of the village, supported by another machine gun in a church tower and backed by artillery behind the village. The landscape heavily favored the Germans, as the gently rolling ground between Blanc Mont and Saint-Étienne would expose the green American doughboys to continual fire across open fields. The assault would commence with a rolling artillery barrage at H-hour, with fire lifted progressively so as to destroy the enemy trenches and barbed wire as the Americans moved forward, leaving only dazed German survivors for them to mop up. French tanks would offer further support. Lejeune shared Naulin’s verbal orders with his brigade commanders, who passed them down the line. Written orders, including when the attack was to commence, were to follow. What happened next is almost impossible to believe.

UNITED KINGDOM

Saint-Mihiel

Soldiers of Company G, 142nd Infantry Regiment, at Camp Bowie, Texas. In early October 1918 the 36th Division took the brunt of the fighting at Saint-Étienne.

Naulin set H-Hour for 5:15 a.m., but his written orders did not reach Brig. Gen. Pegram Whitworth, commander of the 71st, until 3 a.m. on the 8th. Due to rain, mud and runners unable to find command posts, the orders didn’t reach the company commanders until well after 4 a.m. Some didn’t receive orders, written or otherwise, until after the battle started, announced by 2nd Division’s rolling artillery barrage. With or without orders, the lead battalions went over the top. At that moment the plan fell apart.

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It appeared the clash would end in a standoff across the 100 yards of bodies and shell craters that separated the lines

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erman observation balloons and airplanes flying over Blanc Mont reported exactly where the American troops were positioned, so when the U.S. artillery opened up, an appalling enemy counter-barrage of high-explosive shells and gas canisters fell directly on the two regiments. Regardless, the men attacked as ordered in battalion-strength columns, crossing the open fields toward Saint-Étienne and into the waiting machine guns. Not one shell of the rolling artillery barrage landed on the German machine gun nests, church tower or infantry unit, nor did the barrage cut a single strand of barbed wire in the path of the onrushing American foot soldiers. The French armor support was even worse—only five tanks took the field, and within minutes the lieutenant in command of the lead tank was killed, and the others promptly fled. Yet into those horrific conditions the 142nd charged on foot. Captain Thomas Barton’s company attacked a knoll sheltering German infantry and machine gun nests. At the same time Captains Steve Lillard and Ethan Simpson led their companies across open ground toward the village. As they approached German wire, the machine guns in the cemetery opened up, ripping into the men. Lieutenant Alfred Carrigan, Lillard’s second-in-command, was shot in the neck and killed as he tried to untangle one of his men, who also died. It was a scene repeated up and down the line. Realizing the artillery had failed them, the men pressed their attack with hand grenades and rifles. On their right, however, the 141st had not kept pace. Facing devastating fire, the regiment had fallen hundreds of yards behind the assault line, exposing both itself and the

German soldiers hastily fortify a crater carved out by a massive mine explosion.

142nd to enfilading fire. The 141st’s lead assault battalion was pinned down in the open, and the following two battalions ran right into it, causing the troops to bunch up. Platoon leaders dropped, then company commanders, and within a short time many men simply led themselves. Runners sent back to the command posts were shot or got lost, so neither Bloor nor Jackson knew exactly where their troops were or what they were facing. Barton, the only uninjured company commander in the 142nd, took command of the firing line. Although wounded, Lillard and Simpson led their companies into the town entered the cemetery and captured more than 100 German soldiers and 17 machine guns. However, they were short of ammunition and water, and enemy movement indicated the Germans were preparing to counterattack. At 4:30 p.m. Barton realized the men could not hold their ground and ordered a withdrawal to the knoll—since dubbed Barton’s Hill—to reorganize. At dusk the brigade’s machine gunners came up to the hill to defend against the expected counterattack. The 142nd spent the night reorganizing, calling up food and water, and scrambling to collect as much ammunition as possible. In the brigade’s first day of fighting nearly 300 men had been killed, mostly amid the barbed wire entanglements in front of the cemetery. Even the unit surgeon had been killed by artillery fire. More than 1,000 of the Yanks had been gassed or wounded, and officers sent as many as possible back to aid stations. On October 9 Bloor ordered the 142nd to renew its attack. The regiment advanced only 200 yards before bogging down,

largely because the 141st remained out of position. General Whitworth finally learned the 141st’s true position and ordered it to advance abreast of the 142nd. The day ended with no gains. It appeared the clash would end in a standoff across the 100 yards of bodies and shell craters that separated the American and German lines. On October 10 Whitworth again ordered the 142nd to advance. This time the regiment charged Saint-Étienne and eliminated the remaining defenders, then attacked north of the village, only to discover the Germans had established a new line of trenches 1,300 yards beyond the town. Barton again led his men forward, but the surge stalled under a hail of gas and high-explosive shells. The young officer called for an American barrage on the German position, but Bloor delayed for fear of shelling the 141st, thanks to yet another error in its reported position. Barton called in the strike anyway, knowing it would not hit the 141st, but by then his regiment was exhausted. At this point Maj. Gen. William Smith, commander of the 36th Division, ordered the 72nd Brigade to relieve the 71st, and by midday the 141st and 142nd infantry regiments had withdrawn from the line. Of the almost 6,000 men who had gone into the battle, more than 1,600 had been killed, wounded or gassed in the brigade’s first three days of combat.

U.S. ARMY (2); OPPOSITE: AKG-IMAGES

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hat the 71st Brigade took Saint-Étienne is more a testament to the bravery of individual soldiers than to command leadership. To continue an infantry attack after more than one-third of its officers have been killed or wounded is remarkable, more so when accompanied by the loss of more than a quarter of its men and while taking flanking fire during a ground assault through barbed wire. The valor of the brigade is reflected in a sobering list of awards. Two men of the 142nd—Corporals Samuel Sampler and Harold Turner —received the Medal of Honor, each for single-handedly destroying enemy machine gun nests and capturing 78 prisoners between them. Thirty-nine brigade members were awarded the Distinguished Service Cross, seven the French Médaille militaire, and more than 400 were decorated with the French Croix de guerre. The capture of Saint-Étienne did not make newspapers. Elsewhere in the Meuse-Argonne on October 8—the day the men of the 71st Brigade launched their attack—an allied relief force rescued the 77th Division’s so-called “Lost Battalion,” and Corporal Alvin York picked off some 20 enemy soldiers and captured 132 German prisoners. Those sensational stories left no room for mention of the hard business at Saint-Étienne. Following the battle the 71st Brigade regrouped. Burial crews laid the unit’s dead to rest in the captured SaintÉtienne cemetery, alongside the Germans who died in the fight. Three weeks later, under the leadership of Captain Lillard, units of the brigade planned and executed an attack on a German salient at the Aisne River. In a textbook

Top, AEF troops occupy the German observation tower at Blanc Mont in October 1918. Above, a demolished tank in the Champagne region speaks to the power of high-explosive artillery in this new type of war.

operation Lillard’s men annihilated a German battalion and captured the salient intact, taking 200 prisoners. In the process the unit pushed the Hindenburg Line all the way back to the Aisne, something neither France nor Britain had been able to do in four years. In 1920 the remains of the fallen Texans and Oklahomans who had fought with such tenacity at Saint-Étienne were carefully disinterred from the village cemetery and taken to the Meuse-Argonne American Cemetery in Romagne-sousMontfaucon, France, where they were reburied with honors. There they remain today in the largest—and least visited —American military cemetery in Europe. MH Jack Woodville London is a historian, novelist and native Texan. For further reading he recommends They Called Them Soldier Boys, by Gregory W. Ball, and a history of the 36th Infantry Division on the website of the Texas Military Forces Museum in Austin [www.texasmilitary forcesmuseum.org/gallery/36div.htm].

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The dynastic struggle to determine Scotland’s fate saw the debut of combined-arms warfare in the British Isles By Chuck Lyons

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The 1547 clash at Pinkie Cleugh marked the last pitched battle between the English and Scots.

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Henry VIII, King of England

Edward VI, King of England

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Somerset didn’t make the journey alone; with him marched a well-equipped army of 16,800 men, the majority of whom were armed with the traditional weapons of medieval England —the longbow and the hooked polearm known as the bill. But the duke’s entourage also included 600 foreign mercenaries equipped with firearms, 4,000 cavalrymen and a large artillery train. Somerset’s army skirted the east coast of Scotland. Offshore in the North Sea a large English fleet stood ready to provide whatever support might prove necessary. Just east of Edinburgh, on the River Esk, Somerset and his force met a Scottish army at a place called Pinkie Cleugh. The ensuing clash would mark the last pitched battle between Scottish and English armies and is considered the first modern battle in the British Isles for Somerset’s use of combined arms, cooperation among infantry, artillery and cavalry, and naval bombardment in support of land forces.

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Eyewitness William Patten, a judge appointed by the English provost marshal, wrote an account of the engagement, which left a field in which “bodies lay as thick as a man may note cattle grazing in a full replenished pasture.” Though the fight had few immediate political consequences, it had one lasting historical impact—it spelled the end of medieval warfare in England.

IN THE CLOSING YEARS of his tumultuous 38-year reign, England’s Henry VIII sought an alliance with Scotland through the marriage of his son—the future Edward VI—to the infant Mary, Queen of Scots. In July 1543 English and Scottish representatives signed the Treaty of Greenwich, which provided for such a marriage. Henry believed the alliance would secure the northern borders of his realm from possible French incursion. But the marriage was not

LEFT TO RIGHT: HANS HOLBEIN/AKG-IMAGES; SOTHEBY’S/AKG-IMAGES

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IN SEPTEMBER 1547 EDWARD SEYMOUR—DUKE OF SOMERSET, EARL OF HERTFORD AND LORD PROTECTOR OF ENGLAND— TRAVELED TO SCOTLAND TO SECURE A BRIDE FOR HIS NEWLY CROWNED KING AND NEPHEW, 9-YEAR-OLD EDWARD VI.

CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: ANGLESEY ABBEY, CAMBRIDGESHIRE/NATIONAL TRUST PHOTOGRAPHIC LIBRARY/BRIDGEMAN IMAGES; HANS HOLBEIN/ AKG-IMAGES/IAM/WORLD HISTORY ARCHIVE; FRANCOIS CLOUET (SCHOOL OF)/© CZARTORYSKI MUSEUM, CRACOW, POLAND/BRIDGEMAN IMAGES

Edward Seymour, Duke of Somerset

to be. By year’s end the Scots had rejected the treaty and moved away from England toward an alliance with France. (Many historians have noted that in fact much of the fighting between Scotland and England was prompted by a dispute between England and France over who should rule in Scotland). Stung by the Scottish rejection, Henry launched a war, aptly known as the “Rough Wooing,” to enforce the marriage and other terms of the Treaty of Greenwich. Much of the fighting came as English armies mounted unbridled raids on Edinburgh and throughout the Scottish borderlands. Adding to England’s dynastic and foreign relations problems, the Scots also refused to have the English Reformation imposed on them. When Henry died in late January 1547, Seymour, maternal uncle of Edward the child

John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland

Mary was an infant when the Scots agreed to the Treaty of Greenwich, betrothing her to Edward, the future king of England, who was only 9.

Mary, Queen of Scots

king, became Duke of Somerset and Lord Protector and contin ued to pursue the enforcement of the Greenwich Treaty, a task Henry may have given him on his deathbed. For Somerset it was a congenial labor. Aside from furthering the future of England and of his nephew, the task also gave Somerset an opportunity to further one of his own de sires: to form a great Protestant state, which under his direc tion would become protagonist of the Reformation in Europe. Throughout his protectorate unification with Scotland, specifically through marriage between Edward and Mary, was commonly referred to as the “godly cause.”

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ENGLISHMEN HAD BEEN REQUIRED to bear arms (ac-

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cording to their wealth) since Henry II’s 1181 Assize of Arms, and by the 16th century the system had created something of a standing army. It was administered on a county level, with armed men mustering up to twice a year for inspection and drill. By the end of the century the force, basically a militia, could in theory put as many as 1 million armed and trained men into the field. In 1509 Henry VIII had also formed his Nearest Guard, a “new and sumptuous Troop of Gentlemen” composed of cadets of noble families and higher gentry to serve as his personal bodyguard—yet another move toward a professional standing military. While some 600 of Somerset’s troops carried harquebuses—matchlock firearms steadied by a support—the English still relied heavily on the medieval bill, an axlike weapon, and especially the longbow. On the Continent handguns and harquebuses had largely supplanted the crossbow, but the English (or Welsh) longbow—which has been called the “artillery of the Middle Ages”—remained the nation’s dominant weapon. “To exchange the longbow for the harquebus,” as one modern historian put it, “would have involved abandoning a tested tactical doctrine in return for a missile weapon with only moderately greater range and penetrative power.” Despite their continued reliance on the longbow, the English had begun employing more advanced technology. The army had adapted modern artillery tactics, employing land-based artillery under the control of a master gunner appointed directly by the king. For his part Somerset had amassed a large troop of cavalry—commanded by John

MILITARY HISTORY

NAVAL CANNON LONGBOW

900 feet maximum

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Dudley, Duke of Northumberland and Earl of Warwick— a force that fielded a contingent of mounted Spanish harquebusiers under Don Pedro de Gamboa. The cavalry also included mounted knights, light cavalry and demi-lancers, riders mounted on unarmored horses and equipped with a lance and minimal leg armor, allowing them greater speed and mobility than that of their armored comrades. Opposing the English was a Scottish force under the command of James Hamilton, 2nd Earl of Arran and Regent of Scotland, who had originally negotiated the marriage of Edward and Mary but later turned against it. The Scottish army was not a permanent standing force but comprised primarily peasant levies called up in the medieval manner, mostly pikemen with a handful of unreliable Highland archers. Arran also had artillery, but his guns were not as mobile as Somerset’s. Lord George Home commanded the 2,000 lightly equipped horsemen of the Scots’ cavalry, while the infantry and pikemen were organized into three “battles” commanded by Archibald Douglas, Earl of Angus; George Gordon, Earl of Huntly; and Arran himself. In all, the Scottish army totaled perhaps 26,000 men, though an English source claimed it contained as many as 36,000.

THE ENGLISH CROSSED INTO SCOTLAND on September 1 and quickly moved north, the supporting fleet keeping pace offshore. Scottish border reivers harassed the invaders but could not check their progress. The tactical situation changed significantly, however, when the English reached Pinkie Cleugh, 10 miles east of Edinburgh. (Cleugh is a Scottish Gaelic word describing

LEFT TO RIGHT: LISZT COLLECTION/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO; CESARE VECELLIO, COSTUMES ANCIENS ET MODERNES, PARIS: FIRMIN DIDOT FRÈRES FILS & CIE, 1859; ARCHIBALD K. MURRAY, HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH REGIMENTS IN THE BRITISH ARMY, GLASGOW: T. MURRAY, 1862

Range of Arms at Pinkie Cleugh

LEFT TO RIGHT: WALLACE COLLECTION, LONDON/BRIDGEMAN IMAGES; SALVATOR ROSA/PRIVATE COLLECTION/PHOTO © CHRISTIE’S IMAGES/ BRIDGEMAN IMAGES; BRITISH LIBRARY, LONDON/© BRITISH LIBRARY BOARD. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED/BRIDGEMAN IMAGES

Soldiers and arms like those above populated the battlefields of the era. Left to right: An Englishman grips a longbow, while the one beside him shoulders a harquebus. Simply armed pikemen specialized in close-quarters fighting. Others chose from various polearms—for example, this halberdier dressed in full armor. Archers remained a deadly force on the battlefield.

a narrow ravine.) There Arran’s main force had already occupied the slopes of the west bank at the convergence of the Esk and the Firth of Forth estuary, where warships of the English fleet had converged. The estuary flanked Arran’s right, while a bog shielded his left. The Scots had mounted their cannon in fortified positions, several pointing toward the water, hoping to keep the English warships at a distance. The actual number of ships involved is unclear, with some sources claiming “eight to 12,” others 30 to as high as 80. Arran’s position was a strong one, with protection on both flanks and his cavalry massed and waiting atop a nearby hill. He’d left the English only one option—a direct frontal assault across the river and upslope, under Scottish fire the whole distance. In an attempt to even the odds somewhat on September 9 Somerset ordered troops to occupy Falside Hill to the east of Arran’s main position. The English commander opened hostilities that same day by sending his cavalry against the Scottish horsemen. One version of the story claims the Scots, in a chivalric if obsolete gesture, had challenged an equal number of English horsemen. Lord Home had brought up some 1,500 horsemen, though 500 infantrymen reportedly lay in wait, concealed from English sight. Whether in response to a challenge or not, Somerset sent 1,000 heavily armed knights and 500

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of the mobile demi-lancers to meet the Scots. As the English rode out, the Scots pulled back, perhaps intending to lure their opponents onto the pikes of the concealed infantrymen. But they had underestimated the speed of the English demi-lancers, who quickly overtook the lightly armored Scottish knights and cut them up badly in a running fight over 3 miles. Arran lost most of his cavalry in the engage ment, and later that day Somerset further tightened the screws by sending an artillery detachment to occupy a ridge overlooking the Scottish position. That night the Scots issued a twin challenge to the English invaders: either for Somerset to meet Huntly in single combat, or for each side to select 20 champions to fight out the quarrel. Somerset refused, ensuring the outcome would be decided not by medieval custom but by modern force of arms.

ARRAN’S NEXT MOVE WAS DICTATED by his unease with the English fleet anchored just offshore. Without cavalry to screen a move from what he knew to be a vulnerable position, the Scottish commander had only one option—he would send his pikemen on the run as a shock force and follow with the remainder of his forces. If his army moved fast and hard enough, Arran might well outrun the English artillery, break the enemy lines and send the invaders reeling.

SOMERSET ENSURED THE OUTCOME WOULD BE DECIDED NOT BY MEDIEVAL CUSTOM BUT BY MODERN FORCE OF ARMS 69

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pikemen in their closely packed ranks were being torn apart. Seeking to escape the iron hail, Huntly turned his column inland, only to collide with Arran’s main column. The two converged and continued the advance, as the Scottish gunners tried to bring what cannon they had into action. At that point Somerset unleashed his cavalry, hoping to buy time for his archers and infantry to reform. The English horsemen urged their mounts across the smoke-shrouded field toward the Scottish pikemen, who lined the namesake defile of Pinkie Cleugh. Leaping the ditch, the English horses crashed down onto the wickedly sharp, uplifted pikes. The pikemen held against the first English charge, leaving maimed and dying horses and men piled before them. Among the casualties was William Grey, Lord Wilton, commander of the English horse, who, despite taking a pike thrust through the throat into the roof of his mouth, managed to make it back to the English lines. Though battered, the English had used the time to better position their bowmen, sharpshooters and cannon, and they soon put the stalled Scottish columns under heavy fire on three sides from artillery, ships’ cannon, harquebusiers

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But the maneuver represented a huge gamble, as in stepping off for the attack, the Scots would move beyond the protection of their own guns. On the morning of September 10, believing the Scots would remain in their well-anchored position, Somerset sent his infantry toward the guns he had emplaced the previous day. The move presented a tempting flank to Arran, who launched his army across the Esk in three columns, the center under his personal command. Lightly armored Highland archers under Huntly supported the left, and all of the Scots advanced at a pace one observer called “more akin to cavalry than infantry.” Caught by surprise, the English struggled to form up to meet the onslaught as the hilltop gunners frantically muscled their cannon into firing position. It was then the waiting warships added their voices to the chorus, their cannon belching flame as round shot hurtled toward the rearmost Scottish troops. This marked the first time naval gunfire had been employed against a land-based army in the British Isles, and the effect was devastating. Volleys of shot crashed into the rear of Arran’s left column, prompting Huntly’s skittish Highland archers to flee the field even as the

TIMEWATCH IMAGES/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO

AS MANY AS 15,000 SCOTS LAY DEAD, DYING OR WOUNDED, AND ANOTHER 2,000 HAD BEEN CAPTURED. IN SCOTLAND THE DATE IS STILL KNOWN AS BLACK SATURDAY

and archers. The longbows and firearms were especially effective, with arrows raining down on the milling Scots as Gamboa’s mounted harquebusiers galloped past firing volleys from the saddle. Unable to withstand the concentrated fire, the Scots broke, many dropping their weapons as they sought any escape. Their collapse prompted the English cavalry to surge forward, especially eager to chase down and dispatch the retreating enemy pikemen. The riders offered no quarter. Many of those able to escape the horsemen’s wrath drowned as they tried to swim the River Esk or cross the bogs. Having seen enough slaughter, Somerset finally reined in his rampaging riders. By then as many as 15,000 Scots— including scores of noblemen—lay dead, dying or wounded, and another 2,000 had been captured. English losses tolled some 600 troops. In Scotland the date is still known as Black Saturday. Somerset followed his success at Pinkie Cleugh with the occupation of much of southern Scotland, but he failed in his bid to ensure a dynastic wedding. The Scots had already spirited away Edward VI’s intended bride, Mary, to France.

As English naval guns rained shot on the Scottish rear, William Grey led his cavalry against the enemy pikemen, gaining time for English archers, harquebusiers and gunners to rally and put the Scots under heavy fire.

MANY HISTORIANS AND TACTICIANS have focused on Arran’s pivot away from the English warships on the morning of September 10 as the ultimate cause of the Scots’ loss at Pinkie Cleugh, while others have defended the move as a logical response to Somerset’s preparations. But the Scottish defeat wasn’t the result of any single battlefield maneuver. It was the consequence of superior English organization, technology and tactics, developments that swept aside what had worked for so long in the Middle Ages. Simply put, a Renaissance army had beaten a medieval one, and the nature of warfare had changed forever. MH Freelance writer Chuck Lyons has contributed to numerous national and international periodicals. For further reading he recommends Scottish Renaissance Armies, 1513–1550, by Jonathan Cooper, and The Rough Wooings: Mary Queen of Scots, 1542–1551, by Marcus Merriman.

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Reviews Rise to Leadership Washington’s Revolution: The Making of America’s First Leader, by Robert Middlekauff, Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 2015, $30

JANUARY 2016

The American Revolution brought many noteworthy individuals to national attention, but George Washington garnered the highest acclaim among citizens of the emerging nation. Blessed with innate command and organizational abilities, he faced the almost insurmountable task of cobbling together a reliable army from ragtag militias and volunteers. Obstacles included regular desertions by enlisted men and officers alike,

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a dearth of vital supplies, insufficient financial support from an overly cautious Continental Congress, capricious allies and a superior enemy. Middlekauff traces Washington’s transformation from regional landowner and soldier to national leader and savvy diplomat. He vividly portrays the onetime Virginia militiaman’s gradual disillusionment with British leaders and his tireless efforts to convert other untested militiamen, whose first loyalty was to their home colonies, into a unified force capable of outlasting and outwitting its antagonists. The author eloquently describes how Washington’s diplomatic skills developed as the di-

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rect result of confronting mutiny and raising morale within his own army, as well as convincing his French allies to act more promptly to meet their shared military goals. Washington’s Revolution is a memorable portrait of a methodical, principled leader who rose to prominence due to his military skills, sense of justice and conscientious personality. Without Washington’s unrelenting persistence as a fighter, his exceptional leadership and his ability to unify countrymen around the common cause of national liberty the outcome of the Revolutionary War could have been significantly different. —S.L. Hoffman

Browned Off and BloodyMinded: The British Soldier Goes to War, 1939–1945, by Alan Allport, Yale University Press, New Haven, Conn., 2015, $40 In this amusing, anecdotefilled account historian Allport traces the transformation of a nation of relentlessly nonviolent individuals into effective soldiers. After 1918 Britain dissolved its immense army and scattered the small remainder throughout the empire. Budgets were so skimpy that a private’s pay was half that of his Napoléonic wars predecessor, and the army had trouble recruiting even during the Great Depression. Matters changed as Adolf Hitler grew more pugnacious, and Allport’s account refutes the common view of 1930s Winston Churchill as the great anti-appeaser who knew what was coming. In fact, he never supported a larger army. The U.S. Congress resumed selective service 15 months before the 1941 Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Britain, on the other hand, didn’t pass a universal conscription bill until Sept. 3, 1939, the day it declared war on Germany. A predictable mess followed as men overwhelmed training facilities that often lacked

buildings, running water and even weapons. Though in poor health by American standards of the time, British recruits in 1939 were healthier than their World War I predecessors. More literate than their fathers, they poured out their outrage at the pettiness, cruelty and irrationality of military life in letters and journals from which Allport quotes generously. The individual British soldiers fought well, though they never won the respect of the Wehrmacht, which regarded them as stubborn defenders but sluggish and easily discouraged in offense. This was not far off the mark, but in war stubbornness trumps brilliance. Allport’s narrative gives the generals and primary campaigns their due, but mostly this is a delightful account of how individual Britons felt as they entered an army unprepared to receive them and then grimly did their duty. —Mike Oppenheim The Great Call-up: The Guard, the Border and the Mexican Revolution, by Charles H. Harris III and Louis R. Sadler, University of Oklahoma Press, Norman, 2015, $39.95 Overshadowed by the U.S. entry into World War I, and often confused with the Mexican Expedition—led by Brig. Gen. John J. “Black

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Reviews Jack” Pershing in response to the March 1916 raid on Columbus, N.M., by Mexican revolutionary chieftain Francisco “Pancho” Villa— the June 18, 1916, mobilization of almost 150,000 members of the National Guard by President Woodrow Wilson to protect the border from Mexican raids gets short shrift from historians. Only two guard infantry regiments, the 1st New Mexico and the 2nd Massachusetts, were assigned directly to Pershing’s expedition, and they were limited to administrative

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and guard duties in Columbus, never entering Mexico. Authors Harris and Sadler, professors emeritus of history at New Mexico State University and co-authors of several books on the Mexican Revolution, turn their attention to how the National Guard regiments, organized by the states to deal primarily with riots, strikes and natural disasters, transitioned to a strictly military role. Though it faced serious supply problems due to the Army’s inefficient logistical system, the mobilization helped the National

Guard develop greater cohesion, while its officers and noncommissioned officers acquired invaluable experience. It was the National Guard’s 26th Infantry Division from New England that became the first full division to organize and deploy to France in September– October 1917—a feat that could never have been accomplished without the experience gained during the 1916 mobilization. Enthusiasts of American military history will find The Great Call-up most enlightening as to how and why that came to be. —Thomas Zacharis

Winston Churchill Reporting, by Simon Read

Chronicling the future prime minister’s lesserknown days as a correspondent during Britain’s wars in Cuba, India and Africa, author Read draws from private letters and papers relating the combat experiences that helped shape Churchill into an exemplary statesman. The narrative is more an adventure tale than a straight biography.

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Hallowed Ground German War Cemetery Langemark, Belgium

W

hat Germans call the Kindermord bei Ypern was an incident during the First Battle of Ypres, fought from Oct. 19 to Nov. 22, 1914. The term Kindermord (“infanticide”) is linked to Martin Luther’s German translation of the Bible and refers to the circa 6 BC massacre of the innocents related in the New Testament Gospel of Matthew. Hearing reports of the birth of Christ, the prophesied king of the Jews, King Herod of Judea ordered the slaughter of all boys age 2 or younger in Bethlehem. In the context of World War I the Kindermord refers to the high casualties suffered by inexperienced 17- to 20-year-old Kriegsfreiwillige (“war

volunteers”) from German secondary schools and universities who flocked to the colors at the war’s outset without waiting for scheduled call-ups. As they attacked Ypres frontally in linear, shoulder-to-shoulder formation and without wire cutters or even entrenching tools, they fell in droves to veteran British troops firing from behind fortified defensive positions. Most of the Kriegsfreiwillige killed at Ypres are buried in the German military cemetery at Langemark, Belgium. The First Battle of Ypres was the climax of what today is known as the Race to the Sea. After the failure of Germany’s vaunted Schlieffen Plan at the September 1914 First Battle of the Marne both the Germans and Allies started to

Hundreds of young German soldiers who fought in the First Battle of Ypres were killed near Langemark on Nov. 10, 1914—casualties of the Kindermord.

76

FRITZ GROTEMEYER/AKG-IMAGES/ULLSTEIN BILD

By David T. Zabecki

ARTERRA PICTURE LIBRARY/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO

shift their main forces north, seeking to exploit an open flank. Neither could move fast enough. Over a five-week period they fought six large battles and numerous minor skirmishes in a continual attempt to turn one another’s flank. The race finally ended in a dead heat at Ypres, a place that over the next four years would become synonymous with the worst horrors of trench warfare. Ypres would host several more major battles after 1914, including the horrendous 1917 bloodletting of Third Ypres, also known as the Battle of Passchendaele. The Kindermord took place on Nov. 10, 1914, during the last major German push of First Ypres. Among the advancing units, the 44th Reserve Division’s 206th Reserve Infantry Regiment attacked positions held by British II Corps at Bixschoote, near Langemark. Formed just four months earlier, the 44th was among the first wave of new divisions raised after the war started. Many of the soldiers in the 206th were the young Kriegsfreiwillige, who had been in the army mere weeks. They were no match for the “Old Contemptibles” of the British Expeditionary Force. By the time First Ypres ended 12 days later, the Germans had suffered nearly 50,000 casualties. Some 1,500 of those were the former students killed on November 10. After the war, however, that number had a tendency to grow in the retelling, as the Nazis exploited Kindermord and Langemark as nationalist folklore, birthing the “Langemark Legend.” The Oberste Heeresleitung—German High Command—actually started the legend in a communiqué issued on Nov. 11, 1914. That account sought to paint the debacle in a positive light by describing how the patriotic, valorous young former students had marched

The 8-acre military cemetery at Langemark, resting place of 44,324 soldiers, is the largest such German cemetery in terms of burials.

straight into the enemy guns singing the Deutschlandlied —which didn’t become Germany’s official national anthem until 1922. But as anyone who has actually been under fire knows all too well, such a report could only be pure propaganda. As World War I progressed and the slaughter around Ypres multiplied, makeshift graveyards littered the landscape on both sides. After the war the Germans consolidated most of their burial sites. Dedicated on July 10, 1932, Langemark became the largest of all the German military cemeteries in terms of total burials. Covering little more than 8 acres, however, Langemark is much smaller than Europe’s typically expansive American military cemeteries. For example, the World War I Meuse-Argonne American Cemetery at Romagne-sous-Montfaucon spans 130 acres, while the World War II Normandy American Cemetery at Colleville-sur-Mer covers 172 acres. A total of 44,324 German soldiers are interred at Langemark, including 11,813 unknowns. Two British soldiers killed in 1918 are also buried there. Just inside the cemetery entrance is the Comrades’ Grave, a mass burial plot holding 24,917 servicemen, including German ace Werner Voss. On either side markers on the smaller burial plots list up to 16 names on each flat headstone. Some 3,000 Kriegsfreiwillige, including most of the 1,500 who died at First Ypres, are buried in a section known as the Studentenfriedhof (“Student’s Cemetery”). Three World War I reinforced concrete bunkers are integrated into the grounds, interspersed among the graves. Superbly maintained by the German War Graves Commission [volksbund.de], Langemark—like most German military cemeteries—is surrounded by oak trees, lending it a far more somber and subdued atmosphere than the more open and bright American cemeteries. A sculpture of four dark mourning figures by Emil Krieger, added in 1956, stands at the rear of the cemetery. The distant silhouettes of the brooding group are the first arresting sight a visitor sees on entering the grounds. MH

77


   

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STATEMENT OF OWNERSHIP, MANAGEMENT AND CIRCULATION (required by Act of August 12, 1970: Section 3685, Title 39, United States Code). 1. Military History 2. (ISSN: 0889-7328) 3. Filing date: 10/1/2015. 4. Issue frequency: Bi-monthly. 5. Number of issues published annually: 6. 6. The annual subscription price is $39.95. 7. Complete mailing address of known office of publication: World History Group, 19300 Promenade Drive, Leesburg, VA 20176-6500. Contact person: Kolin Rankin. 8. Complete mailing address of headquarters or general business office of publisher: World History Group, 19300 Promenade Drive, Leesburg, VA 20176-6500. 9. Full names and complete mailing addresses of publisher, editor, and managing editor. Publisher, Michael A. Reinstein, World History Group, 19300 Promenade Drive, Leesburg, VA 20176-6500, Editor, Stephen Harding, World History Group, 19300 Promenade Drive, Leesburg, VA 20176-6501, Managing Editor, David Lauterborn, World History Group, 19300 Promenade Drive, Leesburg, VA 20176-6502. 10. Owner: World History Group, 19300 Promenade Drive, Leesburg, VA 20176-6500. 11. Known bondholders, mortgages, and other security holders owning or holding 1 percent or more of total amount of bonds, mortgages or other securities: None. 12. Tax status: Has Not Changed During Preceding 12 Months. 13. Publisher title: Military History. 14. Issue date for circulation data below: September 2015. 15. The extent and nature of circulation: A. Total number of copies printed (Net press run). Average number of copies each issue during preceding 12 months: 69,694. Actual number of copies of single issue published nearest to filing date: 72,462. B. Paid circulation. 1. Mailed outside-county paid subscriptions. 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Total Paid Print Copies (Line 15c) + Paid Electronic Copies (Line 16a). Average number of copies each issue during preceding 12 months: 41,135. Actual number of copies of single issue published nearest to filing date: 43,216. C. Total Print Distribution (Line 15f) + Paid Electronic Copies (Line 16a). Average number of copies each issue during preceding 12 months: 41,912. Actual number of copies of single issue published nearest to filing date: 43,995. D. Percent Paid (Both Print & Electronic Copies) (16b divided by 16c x 100). Average number of copies each issue during preceding 12 months: 98.1%. Actual number of copies of single issue published nearest to filing date: 98.2%. I certify that 50% of all distributed copies (electronic and print) are paid above nominal price: Yes. 17. Publication of statement of ownership will be printed in the January 2016 issue of the publication. 18. Signature and title of editor, publisher, business manager, or owner: Karen G. Johnson, Business Director. I certify that all information furnished on this form is true and complete. I understand that anyone who furnishes false or misleading information on this form or who omits material or information requested on the form may be subject to criminal sanction and civil actions.

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War Games 2

1

Triple Alliance Trivia Outside of South America the War of the Triple Alliance (see P. 32) remains obscure. What do you know?

4

3

49th Parallel North

6

5

A. Diplomat B. Commander of the army C. Minister of war D. All of the above

1. Roger Hale Sheaffe 2. William Henry Harrison

8

7

4. Gabriel Dumont

2. Among the participant nations, whose army was reputed to have the most skilled cavalry?

5. John O’Neill

A. Paraguay

B. Brazil

6. Poundmaker

C. Argentina

D. Uruguay

7. Louis-Joseph de Montcalm-Gozon 8. Winfield Scott 9. Guy Carleton 10. Frederick Middleton ____ A. Duck Lake, 1885 ____ B. Beauport, 1759

In the Sandbox Most of us have heard of “Desert Fox” Erwin Rommel (P. 24). But can you ID these other notable desert warriors?

3. Named for its Tower of London arsenal markings, what was the original popular name of the “tower musket” commonly used throughout the war? A. P-1853 Enfield

B. Martini–Henry

C. P-1842 Brown Bess D. Baker rifle 4. What weapon did Paraguayan cavalrymen use to disable opponents’ horses?

____ C. Cut Knife, 1885

____ A. Erich von Falkenhayn

____ D. Quebec, 1776

____ B. Edmund Allenby

____ E. Chippawa, 1814

____ C. Ludwig Crüwell

____ F. Queenston Heights, 1812

____ D. Claude Auchinleck

____ G. Châteauguay, 1813

____ E. Ariel Sharon

____ H. Batoche, 1885

____ F. Hubert Lyautey

____ I. The Thames, 1813

____ G. Rodolfo Graziani

A. France

B. Portugal

____ J. Ridgeway, 1866

____ H. Lloyd Fredendall

C. Spain

D. Britain

A. Caltrops

B. Blunderbus

C. Bolas

D. Chevaux de frise

5. Brazilian uniforms were most influenced by those of what European country?

Answers: D, A, C, C, B

Answers: A6, B1, C2, D3, E5, F7, G4, H8

Answers: A4, B7, C6, D9, E8, F1, G3, H10, I2, J5

LEFT TO RIGHT: BATTLE OF THE THAMES: AMERICAN ANTIQUARIAN SOCIETY, WORCESTER, MASSACHUSETTS/BRIDGEMAN IMAGES; MATCHING: LIBRARY OF CONGRESS (5); NATIONAL ARCHIVES (2); ISRAEL GOVERNMENT PRESS OFFICE; FRANCISCO SOLANO LOPEZ: FALKENSTEINFOTO/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO

Can you match each of the following commanders of various armies to the battle and year he won in Canada?

3. Charles de Salaberry

1. What position(s) did Francisco Solano López hold before succeeding his father as president of Paraguay?

79

JANUARY 2016

WAR DEPARTMENT/NATIONAL ARCHIVES

Captured!

80

Out of Sight, Out of Mind? In 1918 the U.S. War Department sought helmet designs that would protect soldiers’ eyes from shell fragments and debris. Based on a French infantry helmet, this prototype by Balitmore-based E.J. Cobb Co. may have met the requirement but did nothing to enhance the wearer’s vision.

MILITARY HISTORY