Military History 2017-09

A Scot at Waterloo The Reconquista Iraqi Civil Strife Louis XIV’s Gloire Camel Cavalry Khe Sanh Siege A CEREMONY IN TOKYO BAY BEGAN THE REIGN OF AN AM...

32 downloads 31 Views 23MB Size

Download PDF

A Scot at Waterloo The Reconquista Iraqi Civil Strife Louis XIV’s Gloire Camel Cavalry Khe Sanh Siege HistoryNet.com

MAC’S DAY IN THE SUN

A CEREMONY IN TOKYO BAY BEGAN THE REIGN OF AN AMERICAN EMPEROR

SEPTEMBER 2017

SEPTEMBER 2017

Letters 6 News 8

Features

Departments

2 MILITARY HISTORY SEPTEMBER 2017

22

30

Payoff in Tokyo Bay

Reconquista

Japan’s surrender ended World War II and began the reign of an American Caesar By Michael D. Hull

The 1492 fall of Granada ended nearly eight centuries of Muslim rule on the Iberian Peninsula By Steve Roberts

14

16

Interview Mary Jennings Hegar

Valor Romania’s Heroine

On the cover: General Douglas MacArthur presided over the September 1945 surrender in Tokyo Bay, then became supreme commander for the Allied powers in occupied Japan. PHOTO: Bettmann/Getty Images, photo-illustration: Brian Walker

Reviews 70 War Games 78 Captured! 80

40

48

Great Scot at Waterloo

Camelback Colonialism

George Drummond Graeme was the last man standing at La Haye Sainte farm in 1815 By John Koster

The Somaliland Camel Corps took on a Mad Mullah in the tempestuous Horn of Africa By Nicholas Smith

56 Kings of the Rubble The 2006 bombing of Iraq’s al-Askari shrine helped fan the ﬂames of sectarian war By Stephen Carlson

62 The Glory of the Sun King Though victorious on the battleﬁeld, Louis XIV sealed the fate of the French monarchy By Kelly Bell

18

20

76

What We Learned From... Battle of the Barents Sea, 1942

Hardware M50 Ontos

Hallowed Ground Khe Sanh, Vietnam

OPPOSITE, CLOCKWISE FROM LEFT: BETTMANN/GETTY IMAGES; MUSEO MARCELIANO SANTA MARIA/ART RESOURCE, NEW YORK; RANDY GLASS STUDIOS CLOCKWISE FROM TOP: TRINITY MIRROR/MIRRORPIX/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO; ADAM FRANS VAN DER MEULEN/RIJKSMUSEUM; PICTURES FROM HISTORY/AKG-IMAGES; GETTY IMAGES; ALLAN BURCH

3

Join the discussion at militaryhistory.com MICHAEL A. REINSTEIN CHAIRMAN & PUBLISHER DAVID STEINHAFEL ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER ALEX NEILL EDITOR IN CHIEF

SEPTEMBER 2017 VOL. 34, NO. 3

Though almost comical in appearance, narrow-gauge trains proved a lifeline to World War I frontline troops By Steven Trent Smith

I N T H E ARCHIVES:

Holding the Farm at Waterloo The Hanoverian riﬂemen of the 2nd Light Battalion of the King’s German Legion mounted an epic defense By Brendan Simms

Interview Author Neal Bascomb’s The

Winter Fortress centers on Norwegian efforts to thwart Nazi Germany’s nuclear ambitions

Tools Germany used the formidable and mobile Krupp 28 cm K5(E) railway gun to strike Allied landing zones in World War II

Reviews In My Lai Howard Jones revisits the March 16, 1968, massacre of South Vietnamese villagers and the aftermath

Digital Subscription Did you know Military History is available in digital format? Visit historynet.com for info

STEPHEN HARDING EDITOR DAVID LAUTERBORN MANAGING EDITOR DEBORAH STADTLER SENIOR EDITOR JON GUTTMAN RESEARCH DIRECTOR CLAIRE BARRETT EDITORIAL ASSISTANT DAVID T. ZABECKI CHIEF MILITARY HISTORIAN STEPHEN KAMIFUJI CREATIVE DIRECTOR BRIAN WALKER GROUP ART DIRECTOR PAUL FISHER ART DIRECTOR DREW FRITZ SENIOR PHOTO EDITOR CORPORATE ROB WILKINS Director of Partnership Marketing ROXANNA SASSANIAN Finance TOM GRIFFITHS Corporate Development GRAYDON SHEINBERG Corporate Development ADVERTISING COURTNEY FORTUNE Advertising Services [email protected] RICK GOWER Regional Sales Manager [email protected] TERRY JENKINS Regional Sales Manager [email protected] RICHARD VINCENT Regional Sales Manager [email protected] DIRECT RESPONSE ADVERTISING RUSSELL JOHNS ASSOCIATES 800.649.9800 [email protected] © 2017 HistoryNet, LLC

SUBSCRIPTION INFORMATION: 800.435.0715 or SHOPHISTORYNET.COM Yearly subscriptions in U.S.: $39.95 Military History (ISSN 0889-7328) is published bimonthly by HistoryNet, LLC 1919 Gallows Road, Suite 400, Vienna, VA 22182-4038, 703.771.9400 Periodical postage paid at Vienna, VA, and additional mailing ofﬁces POSTMASTER, send address changes to Military History, P.O. Box 422224, Palm Coast, FL 32142-2224 List Rental Inquiries: Belkys Reyes, Lake Group Media, Inc. 914.925.2406; [email protected] Canada Publications Mail Agreement No. 41342519 Canadian GST No. 821371408RT0001 The contents of this magazine may not be reproduced in whole or in part without the written consent of HistoryNet, LLC

Let’s Connect Learn more about what you’ve read or discuss a recent article in depth on our Facebook page

4 MILITARY HISTORY SEPTEMBER 2017

PROUDLY MADE IN THE USA

ROBERT HUNT LIBRARY/CHRONICLE/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO

Narrow Path to Victory

56/58 mm-1/30 Scale

TH[[LÄUPZO

25049 German Volksgrenadier Kneeling in Parka With K-98 No.1 $38

HA2033 Hudson & Allen Studio Damaged Smokestack 10”L x 11”W x 15”H $145

25052 WWII German Bicycle $30

25058 German Volksgrenadier 25048 In Greatcoat Looking German Volksgrenadier Around Corner with Walking with K-98 K-98 $38 $38

25039

/HUK7HPU[LK 7L^[LY-PN\YLZ

The History Store Tel: 740-775-7400 www.thehistorystore.net [email protected] 101 North Paint St. Chillicothe, Ohio 45601

Michigan Toy Soldier Co. Tel: 248-586-1022 Toll Free: 1-888-MICHTOY www.michtoy.com 1400 East 11 Mile Road Royal Oak, Michigan 48067

Sierra Toy Soldier Tel: 408-395-3000 Fax: 408-358-3966 www.sierratoysoldier.com 29 N. Santa Cruz Ave. Los Gatos, California 95030

Trains and Toy Soldiers Tel: 800-786-1888 www.trainsandtoysolders.com 3130 S. 6th Street, Suite 104 Lincoln, Nebraska 68502

Green’s Collectables Tel: 973-627-4961 www.greenscollectables.com 46 Warren Trail Denville, New Jersey 07834

Crown Military Miniatures US Tel: 603-552-5069 UK Phone: 02030048058 www.crowntoysoldiers.com 88 North Broadway Salem, NH 03079

Rodney’s Dimestore Hobby Bunker Treefrog Treasures Gallery Tel: 781-321-8855 Tel: 866-394-2418 Tel: 850-932-6522 Fax: 781-321-8866 Outside U.S.: 1-507-545-2500 www.rodneysdimestoregallery.com www.hobbybunker.com www.treefrogtreasures.com [email protected] 33 Exchange Street 248 Sandstone Drive NW Malden, Massachusetts 02148 Eyota, Minnesota 55934

*HSSHUKTLU[PVU[OPZHK[V YLJLP]LH-9,,JH[HSVN

WBA0617

©2017 THE GOOD SOLDIER

The GOOD SOLDIER and

are registered trademarks of The Good Soldier, LLC, Holland, OH

Letters

In his July book review about the My Lai murders David Zabecki stated that author Howard Jones [My Lai: Vietnam, 1968 and the Descent Into Darkness] made factual errors on peripheral points pertaining to his story—specifically that U.S. Marines finally regained control of the U.S. Embassy in Saigon during the Tet Offensive, when in fact soldiers of the 101st Airborne Division deserve the credit. Well, let’s give credit where credit is really due: MPs from the 716th Military Police Battalion, along with Marines from the Security Guard, defended and secured the grounds from enemy forces before the 101st landed on the embassy roof. It is true the paratroopers worked their way downstairs, checking each room for VC, but the battle was already won by then. Four U.S. Army MPs and one U.S. Marine Security Guard were killed defending the embassy. Let’s

6 MILITARY HISTORY SEPTEMBER 2017

give those brave men the credit they deserve. Steve Bragdon Former Spc. 4 Company C 716th MP Battalion STONEVILLE, N.C.

Congo Peacekeepers The May 2017 issue was very good and most interesting, especially the article on the Congo [“What We Learned From U.N. Peacekeepers in the Congo,” by David T. Zabecki], since I have some knowledge of the subject. I was a navigator in the U.S. Air Force 63rd Troop Carrier Wing, and our squadron was on a six-month temporary duty assignment to RheinMain Air Base, Germany, in 1960 and again in 1961, and we made many trips to and from the Congo, carrying both personnel and cargo in our Douglas C-124 Globemaster II aircraft. Most trips were to France to pick up cargo/passengers,

Lost at Sea I was amazed by your news item [“Salvors Obliterate Pacific War Wrecks”] in the May edition regarding the World War II shipwrecks that have been removed from the Java Sea. That these wrecks, which must total far more than the 25 tons you report, could have been

salvaged at a depth of 200plus feet without anyone being the wiser is almost beyond comprehension. Michael Shaw ATASCADERO, CALIF Editor responds: It is beyond comprehension—as is the fact we dropped three zeroes from the total reported tonnage. The scavengers made off with some 25,000 tons of scrap metal from the five known ships. Assume a salvage value in the tens if not hundreds of thousands of dollars, and their motivation becomes clear, if not their morality for disturbing war graves. (See news update on P. 9.)

Irish Invasion? [Re. “Napoléon’s Egyptian Riddle,” May:] Great article by James W. Shosenberg. If instead of taking a left in the Mediterranean, Napoléon and his Army of the Orient had made a right and headed to Ireland—like Brig. Gen. Jean-Joseph-Amable Humbert did in 1798, landing in County Mayo and linking up with the Irish—Napoléon would have made short work of Lord Lieutenant Charles Cornwallis and his Redcoats. It would have panicked England, and Europe would be a lot different today. Richard Burke TOMS RIVER, N.J. Send letters to Editor, Military History HistoryNet 1919 Gallows Road, Suite 400 Vienna, VA 22182-4038 or via e-mail to [email protected] Please include name, address and phone number

BETTMANN/GETTY IMAGES

Saigon Embassy

then to Wheelus Air Base, Tripoli, Libya, where we’d spend the night. Then we would fly south to Kano, Nigeria, to refuel and on to Léopoldville (present-day Kinshasa), the Congo. Another route took us to Cairo, Egypt, south through the Sudan and on to the Congo. Usually on return to Europe we would have a planeload of Belgian citizens leaving the Congo. These included whole families, sometimes with their pet dogs, cats and parrots (the Air Force did not normally allow animals aboard, but an exception was made here). One crew had an Arab nation’s military unit as passengers to the Congo. When airborne the soldiers were preparing to cook lunch for themselves using a live dog they planned to butcher and cook over an open wood ﬁre on the floor of the plane. Needless to say this did not happen. But from then on the crew kept a watchful eye on this group of soldiers. The 63rd Wing ﬂew to just about everywhere in the world, and I am proud to have been part of it. Jerry Keyes YAKIMA, WASH

T UE RS S FI IS AR YE

FIRST EVER SILVER KRUGERRAND OFFICIAL GOVERNMENT RELEASE

Actual size is 38.725 mm

How Can a Silver Coin be Over 60 Times Rarer than a Gold Coin? JUST RELEASED: The Silver Krugerrand The South African Gold Krugerrand is the most famous gold coin in the world. That’s because it was the very FIRST modern gold bullion coin—and is still the most widely traded gold coin on the planet. The Gold Krugerrand is the model for every other gold coin that followed it, including the American Eagle.

Uncirculated collector condition. This stunning silver coin bears the classic original design: former South African President, Paul Kruger on one side, and the symbolic South African Springbok antelope on the other. In addition, each one-ounce silver coin features a special 50th anniversary mint mark.

Now, to mark the 50th anniversary of the first Gold Krugerrand, you can help us celebrate another landmark FIRST...the first ever SILVER Krugerrand!

Over 60 TIMES More Scarce

World’s Most Famous Gold Coin Now Shines in Silver! Krugerrands have never been struck in silver before—making this first-ever release a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity you won’t want to miss! Issued by South Africa, the Silver Krugerrand is an official legal-tender coin, struck in a full ounce of 99.9% pure silver in stunning Premium

Over 60 million Gold Krugerrand have been issued in the past 50 years. But the first and only 2017 Premium Uncirculated Silver Krugerrand is strictly limited to only one million for the entire world. This means you can buy a Gold Krugerrand that numbers over 60 million (and spend up to $1300 each) OR you can secure the first ever Silver Krugerrand for only $59.95!

American distributor for the 2017 Silver Krugerrand. Don’t miss out on this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity! 2017 One-Ounce Silver Krugerrand 95

$59 ea + s/h

FREE SHIPPING on any order over $149* Visit www.GovMint.com or CALL NOW! For fastest service, call toll-free

1-888-870-9476 Offer Code SKG159-03 Please mention this code when you call.

Official Release GovMint.com is the exclusive North

GovMint.com ! !

Prices and availability subject to change without notice. Facts and ﬁgures deemed accurate as of May 2017. NOTE: GovMint.com® is a private distributor of worldwide government coin and currency issues and privately issued and licensed collectibles, and is not afﬁliated with the United States government. GovMint.com is not an investment company and does not offer ﬁnancial advice or sell items as an investment. The collectible coin market is speculative, and coin values may rise or fall over time. All rights reserved. © 2017 GovMint.com. *Limited time only. Product total over $149 before taxes

(if any). Standard domestic shipping only. Not valid on previous purchases.

News

By Brendan Manley

The Greek victory at Salamis sank Persia’s second invasion attempt.

GREEK RESEARCHERS FIND ANCIENT PORT OF SALAMIS about 550 ships, roughly one-third more than the Greeks. But the greater Persian numbers ultimately proved a disadvantage in the narrow straits. As Xerxes’ ﬂeet struggled to form up, the more maneuverable Greek force rammed into the invaders, sinking 200–300 Persian triremes and prompting Xerxes’ eventual retreat to Asia. Funding for the research project was provided by the U.K.-based Honor Frost Foundation [honorfrostfoundation. org], which supports maritime archaeology in the eastern Mediterranean. Combining aerial photography, photogrammetric analysis, and topographical and architectural documentation, researchers mapped the area, revealing port structures, fortiﬁcations and period buildings, as well as submerged artifacts on the north, west and south sides of Ampelakia Bay. According to the Greek Ministry of Culture [culture.gr], the port likely served both commercial and military purposes.

‘Most of the barbarians, being unable to swim, perished by drowning’ —Herodotus’ account of the Battle of Salamis 8 MILITARY HISTORY SEPTEMBER 2017

WIKIART.ORG

Researchers have pinpointed and mapped the ancient port on the Greek island of Salamis from which a coalition of city-states staged an improbable victory against the Persian ﬂeet in 480 BC. Fought in the Saronic Gulf straits between the island and the Attica mainland, the pivotal naval battle pitted the outnumbered Greek ﬂeet under the Athenian commander Themistocles against King Xerxes’ Persian navy. Salamis represented the turning point of Persia’s failed second invasion of Greece. The allied ﬂeet gathered at Salamis on the eve of battle. According to the ancient historian Herodotus, the 370-odd Greek triremes initially faced a Persian invasion fleet numbering some 1,200 triremes. By the time the Persians arrived off Salamis, however, they had lost one-third of their ships to a storm off Magnesia, another 200 to a storm off Euboea and at least 50 in the naval Battle of Artemisium. By those calculations the Persians still fielded

WAR RECORD

Series Honors WWII Directors Filmmakers Steven Spielberg, Francis Ford Coppola, Guillermo del Toro, Paul Greengrass and Lawrence Kasdan laud the work of ﬁve World War II–era colleagues in the new Net-

Aug. 9, 1913 Dervish riders under “Mad Mullah” Mohammed Abdullah Hassan shatter the British-led Somaliland Camel Constabulary at the Battle of Dul Madoba. The following spring the reorganized Somaliland Camel Corps (see P. 48) rides from the ashes.

SCAVENGERS DESTROY MORE WWII SHIPWRECKS

CLOCKWISE FROM LEFT: NETFLIX; IRWIN ANG; JAMES MONTGOMERY FLAGG/LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

ﬂix docuseries Five Came Back [netﬂix. com/ﬁvecameback]. Based on the eponymous Mark Harris book, the series focuses on the wartime documentaries of John Ford, William Wyler, John Huston, Frank Capra and George Stevens, whose footage bolstered the war effort.

Cunard Offers WWII Cruise August 4–9, in partnership with the Greatest Generations Foundation [tggf.org], the Cunard ﬂagship Queen Mary 2 [cunard.com] will host a World War II–themed transatlantic cruise. During the eight-night cruise from Southampton, England, to New York, historians and storied veterans will present lectures, roundtables and Q&A sessions about the Battle of the Atlantic, Pearl Harbor, D-Day, the Battle of the Bulge and other clashes.

Scrap metal salvors in Southeast Asian waters continue to pillage World War II wrecks, recently targeting three Japanese cargo vessels torpedoed and sunk off northwest Borneo by the submarine USS Hammerhead on Oct. 2, 1944, with the loss of 128 lives. According to local dive operators, the neighboring Hiyori Maru, Higane Maru and Kokusei Maru —collectively known as the Usukan Bay Wrecks—have been all but obliterated by a salvage vessel using a massive, clawlike grab dredger. Malaysian authorities contacted the owner of the China-registered vessel, which was photographed in the act at the popular dive site. While enforcement remains problematic, nations have traditionally respected the sanctity of one another’s military shipwrecks.

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS HOSTS WWI CENTENNIAL EXHIBITION The Library of Congress [loc.gov] in Washington, D.C., is hosting the exhibit “Echoes of the Great War: American Experiences of World War I” through January 2019. Organized under four themes—”Prologue,” “Over Here,” “Over There” and “Epilogue”—the exhibit explores how the war affected Americans both here and abroad. On display are some 600 artifacts from the library’s vast collection, including correspondence, music, ﬁlm, audio recordings, posters, photographs, diaries, scrapbooks, maps, medals and selections from the ongoing Veterans History Project [loc.gov/vets].

Aug. 18, 1487 During the Reconquista (see P. 30) Ferdinand II of Aragon captures the Granadan seaport of Málaga. The Spanish victory opens the door to the city of Granada—the Nasrid capital and last Muslim foothold in Spain.

Aug. 30, 1812 Scottish-born British army ensign George Drummond Graeme (see P. 40) is promoted to lieutenant in the 2nd Light Battalion of the King’s German Legion. He shines at Waterloo three years later, defending La Haye Sainte farmhouse.

Sept. 1, 1715 After a reign of 72 years— the longest in European history—French King Louis XIV (see P. 62) dies at Versailles. The Sun King had consolidated his realm, but his appeals for help from his citizens had sown the seeds of revolution.

Sept. 2, 1945

Aboard the battleship USS Missouri, amid an armada of more than 300 Allied warships in Tokyo Bay, Japanese emissaries sign the instrument of surrender (see P. 22), formally ending World War II.

9

News

REMOTELY PILOTED REAPER TO REPLACE PREDATOR The U.S. Air Force [airforce.com] is retiring the General Atomics [ga.com] MQ-1 Predator remotely piloted aircraft (RPA) after 22 years in service, replacing it with General Atomics’ MQ-9 Reaper, which is equipped for a wider array of tactical uses, with greater payload capacity, speed and range. The Air Force intends to deploy the Reaper well into the 2030s. The satellite-linked Predator ﬁrst entered service in the Balkans in 1995 as an unmanned reconnaissance aircraft. In 2001 the Air Force ﬁtted it with Hellﬁre missiles and a multispectral targeting system and sent it into combat. Its first strike came in Afghanistan in 2002. Since then Predator pilots have logged tens of thousands of flight hours in the War on Terror and other conﬂicts, operating the aircraft in Yemen, Iraq, Pakistan, Libya, Somalia, the Philippines and Syria. While RPAs have come under criticism for strikes resulting in civilian casualties, the Predator was withdrawn primarily because it is no longer able to meet increasing combat demands. Improving on the Predator’s legacy, the MQ-9 Reaper is a hunter-killer RPA, capable of long-range, high-altitude reconnaissance and close air support missions. It boasts eight times the payload (3,800 pounds), carrying both bombs and missiles. A larger, heavier craft, it is ﬁtted with a 900-hp turboprop engine that propels it at twice the cruising speed (more than 200 mph), with an increased fuel capacity that nearly doubles its range to 1,100-plus miles.

‘At the receiving end it feels like war’ —Retired General Stanley McChrystal, regarding drone strikes 10 MILITARY HISTORY SEPTEMBER 2017

Memphis Belle Returns in 2018

The National Museum of the U.S. Air Force [nationalmuseum.af. mil] at Wright-Patterson AFB near Dayton, Ohio, plans to put the famed Boeing B-17F Memphis Belle on display on May 17, 2018—75 years to the day after its last mission. Now undergoing restoration, it was among the ﬁrst U.S. Army Air Forces B-17s to complete 25 missions over Europe during World War II, a feat depicted in a 1944 documentary and a 1990 ﬁlm. Behind-thescenes tours visit the restoration hangar.

Honoring Helicopter Crews Congress has introduced legislation to honor Vietnam-era helicopter crews with a memorial at Arlington National Cemetery [arlingtoncemetery.mil] —ﬁnal resting place for the largest concentration of crewmen killed in the war. Designed and funded by the Vietnam Helicopter Pilots Association [vhpa.org], the simple granite slab bears the inscribed image of an airborne Bell UH-1 Iroquois (aka “Huey”) and will stand in Section 35 of the Virginia cemetery, along Memorial Drive near the Tomb of the Unknowns.

TECH. SGT. ROBERT CLOYS/U.S. AIR FORCE; NATIONAL MUSEUM OF THE U.S. AIR FORCE

General Atomics’ MQ-9 Reaper has greater speed, range and payload capacity than its predecessor.

Only $79! when you use your Offer Code

Plus FREE Stauer Flyboy Optics® Sunglasses!

“I just got the new Excursion Dive Watch... I love it. I have several Stauer watches and once again you don't disappoint.” — F. from Jersey City, NJ

Dive in Without Taking a Plunge Own one of the best dive watches out there at a refreshingly-affordable price.

T

he market’s swimming with overpriced dive watches. We’re here to tell you those guys are all wet. At Stauer our philosophy is everyone deserves the best without having to dig deep into their pockets. We’ve been in the watch industry for decades and know more than a thing or two about getting the ultimate bang for our buck— which means we can pass the fruits of our know-how onto our clients. Case in point: The Excursion Dive Watch. This tough-as-nails sophisticate would cost you in the thousands if you got it from a high-end retailer that’s really in the business of selling a big name more than a quality watch. We keep the big names out of the equation so we can price this top-notch timepiece for just $79 –– a price that let’s you dive in and have enough left over for an excursion or two...or three. EXCLUSIVE You’re getting a lot for your money with this watch. The Excursion is the Stauer Flyboy perfect companion in any locale–– Optics® Sunglasses whether you’re exploring coral reefs or investigating the rum options at a beach-a $99 valuewith purchase of side bar. With a case, band and crown of Excursion Watch stainless steel, this watch is built to last, and its water resistance rating of 20 ATM means it can handle most of your aquatic adventures to a depth of 678 feet. The striking metallic blue face reflects the

FREE

“Today dive watches are the most popular type of sport watch...because of their style, promise of durability, and utilitarian value.” —A BLOG TO WATCH

deep waters it was designed to explore and it’s sporty screw-down crown can take the pressure in stride. Equipped with precision crystal movement you can count on impeccable performance even when you’re 20 atmospheres below the surface. Limited Edition. Sure you could give your hard-earned money to those other guys, but why would you? We’ve got the thinking man’s timepiece right here. This watch takes six months to engineer and it’s already making waves, so we can’t guarantee it will be around for long. Call today, and experience how good it feels to get true luxury for less. Your satisfaction is 100% guaranteed. If you are not completely convinced you got excellence for less, simply return the Excursion Dive Watch within 60 days for a refund of the item price. At Stauer, we never leave our customers high and dry.

Limited to the First 1500 Respondents to This Ad Only Stauer Excursion Dive Watch $399† Your Cost With Offer Code

$79 + S&P Save $320

18003332045 Offer Code: EDW23902 You must use this offer code to get our special price. † Special price only for customers using the offer code versus the price on Stauer.com without your offer code. 14101 Southcross Drive W., ® Dept. EDW23902 Burnsville, Minnesota 55337 Rating of A+

Stauer

www.stauer.com

Precision movement • 316L stainless steel case and bracelet • Rotating bezel • Water resistant to 20 ATM • Screwdown crown design • Bracelet fits wrist up to 8 ½"

Stauer…Afford the Extraordinary.™

News BATTLE FUNDS

Woman Joins 75th Rangers The ﬁrst woman to join the U.S. Army’s elite 75th Ranger Regiment reported for duty this spring, after becoming the ﬁrst female ofﬁcer to pass the Ranger Assessment and Selection Program (RASP), held at Fort Benning, Ga. The unnamed ofﬁcer is one of three women who completed the RASP 2 program for staff sergeants and above.

Through September 24 the Chrysler Museum of Art [chrysler.org] in Norfolk, Va., presents “Thomas Hart Benton and the Navy,” an exhibit of two dozen World War II–era paintings and drawings by the acclaimed American painter and mural-

Chickamauga & Chattanooga

WERE VIKING SWORDS MERELY FOR SHOW? Researchers using cutting-edge neutron scanning technology have concluded Vikings used at least some of their fearsome swords for ceremonial purposes rather than combat. The study, published in the April 2017 issue of the Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports, focuses on three Viking Age swords from central Jutland housed at the National Museum of Denmark [en.natmus.dk]. The scans show that smiths crafted the blades by pattern-welding strips of metal for decorative effect. That fact, coupled with the presence of oxides and a lack of hardened steel edges, proves these speciﬁc swords would have made wholly ineffective weapons.

JOHN GLENN, 95, MARINE PILOT, ASTRONAUT, ICON ist. In 1943 Chicagobased Abbott Laboratories commissioned Benton, who had served in the U.S. Navy during World War I, to depict shipboard life as a Navy artist-correspondent. The Naval History and Heritage Command [history.navy.mil] owns the works and loaned them for display.

Iconic Marine Corps pilot, astronaut and U.S. Senator John Glenn, 95, who died on December 8 in Columbus, Ohio, was laid to rest in Arlington National Cemetery [arlingtoncemetery.mil] on April 6—what would have been the 74th wedding anniversary for him and wife Annie. Six Marine pallbearers bore his ﬂag-draped casket to the gravesite, where a trumpeter played taps, riflemen fired a salute and mourners recited the 23rd Psalm. In 1959 NASA selected Glenn, who flew 149 missions as a fighter pilot in World War II and Korea, as one of the original Mercury Seven astronauts. He later served in the Senate for 24 years and in 1998, at age 77, was the oldest person to fly in space, as a crewmember aboard the space shuttle Discovery.

12 MILITARY HISTORY SEPTEMBER 2017

The nation’s oldest military park [nps.gov/chch] could use key upgrades. The NPS plans to use at least part of Trump’s donation to repair an eroded section of the Point Park trail and restore the 1938 Ochs Museum.

Vicksburg The Mississippi Civil War battleﬁeld [nps.gov/vick] boasts more than 1,300 statues, busts, relief portraits, monuments, markers and tablets, all of which require costly maintenance and restoration every ﬁve years.

Wilson’s Creek Volunteers with the Wilson’s Creek National Battleﬁeld Foundation [wilsonscreek.com] aim to preserve 10 acres directly behind the Ray House, the only Civil War period building still standing at the Missouri military park [nps.gov/wicr].

Fredericksburg The Central Virginia Battleﬁelds Trust [cvbt.org] began efforts last year to preserve 12.2 acres across from the Fredericksburg National Cemetery [nps. gov/frsp]. A developer had planned to build on the site along Lafayette Boulevard and Hazel Run.

CLOCKWISE FROM LEFT: THOMAS HART BENTON/NAVAL HISTORY AND HERITAGE COMMAND; BERGEN MUSEUM; NASA

Benton Works Celebrate Navy

President Donald J. Trump’s decision to donate his $78,000 ﬁrst-quarter salary to the National Park Service [nps.gov] for battleﬁeld preservation underscored critical funding issues. Beneﬁciaries may include:

Steel of Approval At $49, this blade of Damascus steel is a real steal amascus steel is legendary. Tales of its unmatched strength, sharpness and D durability ring through the ages. There are stories of gun rifles being sliced in two by Damascus steel swords and individual strands of hair being sliced in half, even if they gently floated down on to the edge of the blade. Now, you can be a part of the legend. The Legend Knife boasts nearly 4” of famed Damascus steel with it’s signature, wavy pattern. Damascus steel blade knives can cost thousands. So, at $49, the price itself is almost legendary. Cast Damascus steel, known as wootz, was popular in the East and it’s an exacting process that’s part metalwork, part chemistry. It's produced by melting pieces of iron and steel with charcoal in a low oxygen environment. During the process, the metals absorb carbon from the charcoal and the resulting alloy is cooled at a very slow rate. The outcome is a beautiful one-of-a-kind pattern of banding and mottling reminiscent of flowing water. Once a lost art, we sought out a knifemaker who has resurrected the craftsmanship of Damascus steel to create the Legend Knife. The genuine Damascus steel blade folds into a tri-colored pakkawood handle that’s prepared to resist the ravages of the great outdoors. When not in use or on display, The Legend Knife stays protected in the included genuine leather sheath. “If you have a Damascus steel blade knife, you have a knife blade with unique beauty. With its historical reputation as the metal used for the best swords over hundreds of years, and its distinctive wavy design, Damascus steel is a beauty to behold.” –– knifeart.com With our limited edition Legend Knife What customers are saying you’re getting the best blade money can buy. about Stauer knives... What you won’t get is the inflated price tag. We know a thing or two about the hunt–– like how to seek out and capture an out- “Good value. Great looking. standing, collector’s-quality knife that won’t Sufficiently sharp. Overall cut into your bank account. Priced at an an "A" purchase and amazing $49, we can’t guarantee this knife I ordered three.” will stick around for long. So call today! — B. of Maryland Your satisfaction is 100% guaranteed. Feel the knife in your hands, wear it on your hip, inspect the craftsmanship. If you don’t feel like we cut you a fair deal, send it back within 60 days for a complete refund of the item price. But we believe that once you wrap your TAKE 67 % fingers around the Legend’s handle and experience OFF INST the beauty of its Damascus steel blade, you’ll be ready ANTLY! to carve out your own legend. When you use your

INSIDER OFFER CO DE

Legend Knife $149*

Offer Code Price Only $49 + S&P Save $70

18003332045

Not shown actual size.

Your Insider Offer Code: LGK14401 You must use the insider offer code to get our special price.

Stauer

Drive W., Dept. LGK144-01 ® 14101 Southcross Burnsville, Minnesota 55337

www.stauer.com

*Discount is only for customers who use the offer code versus the listed original Stauer.com price.

Rating of A+

• High quality, etched Damascus steel lock back blade • Pakkawood handle with steel bolster • Open: 7 ¾"L; blade: 3 ½"L • Includes genuine leather sheath

Stauer…Afford the Extraordinary.™

Interview Shoot Like a Girl Mary Jennings Hegar

On July 29, 2009, while attempting a medevac rescue in Afghanistan, the HH-60 Pave Hawk rescue helicopter Major Mary Jennings Hegar was co-piloting came under enemy ﬁre. Though both Hegar and pilot Lt. Col. George Dona were wounded, they effected the rescue. Due to fuel loss from the attack, however, they were forced to land 2 miles away. The crew then transferred the patients to another helicopter, ensuring their survival. For her actions in defense of both her crew and patients Hegar received the Distinguished Flying Cross with Valor Device—only the second ever awarded to a woman. The Air Force veteran began her career in aircraft maintenance and was selected for pilot training with the Air National Guard in 2004. She served three tours in Afghanistan on combat search and rescue and medevac missions. In 2017 Hegar published her memoir, Shoot Like a Girl: One Woman’s Dramatic Fight in Afghanistan and on the Home Front, which TriStar has optioned for a ﬁlm.

14 MILITARY HISTORY SEPTEMBER 2017

How do you feel about receiving the DFC and Purple Heart? It’s an honor to receive the DFC, especially with the Valor Device. As a rescue pilot, you do a lot of things that people would consider acting with valor, but it is your job. Saying that we went above and beyond what is already a high standard is a tremendous honor. In addition to the medals, feedback from fellow soldiers means the world to me. On one mission we went in to pick up a wounded Danish soldier. We got a radio call from the soldier’s commander saying that we had given his troops inspiration. It was touching to hear the commander describe how it turned the tide of that battle—his weary soldiers were renewed after seeing us rush into the ﬁreﬁght to rescue the wounded. Why did you sue the Pentagon over the exclusion of women from combat? When I could no longer ﬂy because of an injury, the only other job I would have wanted was special tactics ofﬁcer [a ﬁeld position that coordinates air support for ground troops]. I would have been perfectly suited for that

position, because I was battle-proven and composed under ﬁre. But because I’m a woman, I couldn’t apply for it. I might have retired and said, “The Air Force missed out on having a great STO.” However, about the time I was considering this, my stepdaughter told me she wanted to be a Marine. A few days later she came back in tears because someone told her she couldn’t be a Marine, because “it’s a boy’s job.” That sealed the deal. When the ACLU called me the next day, I didn’t hesitate to say yes to being part of the lawsuit. How do you respond to those who think women shouldn’t serve on the front line? That opinion comes from a lack of experience with women like me. Often the person is thinking about a mother or a wife who they don’t think would be able to hold their own in combat. They don’t have experience with women who have fought valiantly in combat. I’ve had people say things like, “We don’t want our country’s mothers, daughters, wives, sisters coming home in body bags.” That’s a telling argument, because it says who the speaker thinks women are and what role women are supposed to serve in society. Men are allowed to be individuals, whereas women are thought of in the roles we do to support men. We’re more than that. We’re also individuals with dreams and capabilities and something to contribute. Do women and men serving together change the team? Right now we’re talking about men and women, but it was the same question

RANDY GLASS STUDIOS

Tell us about being shot down. At the time we doing our job and completely focused on our patients and protecting each other. It didn’t sink in until days later what had happened. Spiritually, it was very impactful to me. I had developed this agnostic, “chaos reigns” view of the universe. But you can’t hold on to that view when you experience what we did in Afghanistan. There were easily four or five times we should have died but didn’t.

STAFF SGT. SAMUEL MORSE/U.S. AIR FORCE

On July 29, 2009, the HH-60 Pave Hawk rescue helicopter Hegar was co-piloting in Afghanistan had to make a forced landing after being severely damaged by enemy ﬁre.

when the military integrated racially. Opponents made the same “unit cohesion” argument. I’ve seen women integrated into units the right way, and I’ve seen the absolute wrong way. During the lawsuit it was a military effectiveness issue. Commanders would know a woman who had the best skills or a certain experience and needed those women in the ﬁeld. To get around the exclusion, commanders would attach women to male units. The problem is those men and women didn’t know each other. When you have a combat unit, where people are depending on the person next to you, it is a problem when that person is a stranger. You don’t trust them, you don’t know what training they’ve had, you haven’t seen them in a tough situation. That is not the way to sow trust. I trained with, lived with, ate with and deployed with the men. They had no reason not to trust me. The women in my unit were completely integrated, and unit cohesion was very high. Were you ever treated differently? There was one instance in Afghanistan when a female patient began to cry. My gunner turned to me and said, “This is why we shouldn’t let women

on convoys.” Yet, there I was covered in fuel and blood, explaining that it wasn’t her gender causing her to cry but the fact that she hadn’t had any experience in combat. I found that if a man did something like losing his nerve, that was attributed to the individual. But if a woman did something similar, it was, “Women can’t do this.” It was attributed to all women. What inspired the title of your book, Shoot Like a Girl? One time on the firing range the instructor told me that I shot like a girl. At ﬁrst I got my feathers rufﬂed a little. I fired back, “What are you talking about? I’m scoring ‘expert’ every time I shoot.” He said, “Exactly. It’s a compliment to say that you shoot like a girl.” Women are frequently better shooters because of our cardiovascular system, our breathing and our center of gravity. I feel empowered as a woman. I believe my femininity is a strength. Shoot Like a Girl refers to harnessing your power and strength instead of trying to cover up your weaknesses. What would you like to see for the future of women in the military? I would like gender not to be part of

their description—that they are not a “female tank driver” or a “female artillery troop”—it’s just their job. Should basic physical ability standards be lowered to allow more women to serve in the nation’s military? I am adamantly against lowering any type of standard for women in the armed services. The point has always been that if a woman can meet the standard and do the job, it should be open to her. That said, the standards need to be job-speciﬁc. If you need to be able to carry a 200-pound person out of a vehicle, then you train people to drag a 200-pound dummy or bag of sand away from a vehicle. Don’t say that 45 push-ups and 12 pull-ups equate to being able to drag a 200-pound person out of a vehicle. What about requiring women to register for the draft? Anyone who says women shouldn’t sign up for the draft is implicitly stating women should be protected and should be thought of as weaker. If we want to be thought of as equal, then we have to stand up and give as much as anybody else. MH

15

Valor Romania’s Heroine by the harsh conditions, she appealed to Queen Marie for relief. The monarch sent the nurse back to the front with cigarettes and supplies for the men. On March 10 Teodoroiu received the Military Virtue Medal 2nd Class for her prior combat actions. A week later King Ferdinand I awarded her the MVM 1st Class and commissioned her a brevet sublieutenant. Teodoroiu took command of a 25-man infantry platoon in the regiment’s 7th Company. In early August 1917 Teodoroiu’s regiment was part of the First Army reserve when a Russo-Romanian force launched an offensive against the AusRomanian national tro-Hungarian First Army (which inheroine Teodoroiu led cluded German units) around Maraan infantry unit in World War I combat. sesti and the Siret River. The 43rd/59th crossed the river and bivouacked close to the front. Two weeks later the unit dug into a defensive position near MunKilled in action in September 1917 leading RomaEcaterina Teodoroiu celu-Varnita. Anticipating an enemy nian troops into battle, Ecaterina Teodoroiu was Romanian Army attack, and recognizing Teodoroiu’s likely the ﬁrst woman in the 20th century to comMilitary Virtue Medal mand a male infantry unit in combat. Today she’s propaganda value, Brig. Gen. Ernest Eastern Front regarded as a national heroine, but during Ro- Brosteanu, commander of the 11th Di1916–17 mania’s communist era (1947–89) she was a “non- vision, ordered her to withdraw to a person” due to her association with the former royal family. It was that mobile hospital in the rear. She refused. On September 3 the German 115th connection, however, that led to her infantry commission. Born in 1894 into a farming family, Teodoroiu initially trained as a school- Division struck the 11th Division lines teacher, then in 1913 joined the Romanian branch of the international Scouting in force. While leading her platoon in movement—another target of the postwar communist regime. When Romania a counterattack, Teodoroiu was killed entered the war on the side of the Allies in August 1916, Teodoroiu volunteered by a burst of machine gun ﬁre. The costly but successful defense as a ﬁeld nurse so as to be close to her brothers. Working on the Eastern Front that October, she joined an ad-hoc band of reservists and civilians who repulsed was the last major battle of World War I Bavarian troops seeking to cross a bridge over the Jiu River. Impressed by her on Romanian soil between the Cencourage under ﬁre, the royal family invited Teodoroiu to visit them in Bucharest. tral Powers and Romania. Though the A week later, on November 1, Teodoroiu’s brother Nicolae, a sergeant in the Germans and Austro-Hungarians had 18th Infantry Regiment, was killed in action. Wanting to avenge his death, Ecat- occupied much of the country, the Baterina sought permission to join the unit as a volunteer. It was an unprecedented tle of Marasesti kept the northeastern request, one that undoubtedly would have been denied if not for the support of region free from occupation. Teodoroiu was buried near the front, the royal family. She soon proved her worth by devising a ruse that allowed the unit to evade the Germans. Teodoroiu was captured, but she managed to escape but in 1921 her remains were reinterred with light wounds after shooting her German guard in the head with a concealed near the bridge she had helped defend. revolver. Days later she fought in skirmishes near Barbatesti and Tantareni, then Among other memorials in her honor in the ﬁghting near Filiasi, where she suffered shrapnel wounds to both legs. is a stone plinth near the village of MunReleased from a Bucharest hospital in January 1917, Teodoroiu requested re- celu, marking the spot where she fell assignment to the 43rd/59th Infantry Regiment as a volunteer nurse. Heartbroken at the head of her men. MH

16 MILITARY HISTORY SEPTEMBER 2017

WIKIMEDIA COMMONS; EMEDALS.COM

By David T. Zabecki

“To you, it’s the perfect lift chair. To me, it’s the best sleep chair I’ve ever had.” — J. Fitzgerald, VA

Sit up, lie down — and anywhere in between!

Our Perfect Sleep Chair® is just the chair to do it all. It’s a chair, true – the finest of lift chairs – but this chair is so much more! It’s designed to provide total comfort and relaxation not found in other chairs. It can’t be beat for comfortable, long-term sitting, TV viewing, relaxed reclining and – yes! – peaceful sleep. Our chair’s recline technology allows you to pause the chair in an infinite number of positions, including the Trendelenburg position and the zero gravity position where your body experiences a minimum of internal and external stresses. You’ll love the other benefits, too: It helps with correct spinal alignment, promotes back pressure relief, and encourages This lift chair puts you better posture to prevent back and muscle pain. safely on your feet!

And there’s more! The overstuffed, oversized biscuit style back and unique seat design will cradle you in comfort. Generously filled, wide armrests provide enhanced arm support when sitting or reclining. The high and low heat settings can provide a soothing relaxation you might get at a spa – just imagine getting all that in a lift chair! It even has a battery backup in case of a power outage. Shipping charge includes white glove delivery. Professionals will deliver the chair to the exact spot in your home where you want it, unpack it, inspect it, test it, position it, and even carry the packaging away! Includes one year service warranty and your choice of fabrics and colors – Call now!

The Perfect Sleep Chair® Call now toll free for our lowest price. Please mention code 106327 when ordering.

1-877-689-6706 Long Lasting DuraLux Leather Tan

Chocolate Burgundy

Black

DuraLux II Microﬁber

Burgundy Cashmere

Fern

Chocolate

© 2017 ﬁrstSTREET for Boomers and Beyond, Inc.

Blue

Indigo

46426

We’ve all had nights when we just can’t lie down in bed and sleep, whether it’s from heartburn, cardiac problems, hip or back aches – it could be a variety of reasons. Those are the nights we’d give anything for a comfortable chair to sleep in, one that reclines to exactly the right degree, raises feet and legs to precisely the desired level, supports the head and shoulders properly, operates easily even in the dead of night, and sends a hopeful sleeper right off to dreamland.

Easy-to-use remote for heat, recline and lift

What We Learned From... Battle of the Barents Sea, 1942 By Jon Guttman

Struck by ﬁre from British light cruisers, the German destroyer Eckholdt sank with the loss of all hands.

Sherbrooke recovered from his injuries and received the Victoria Cross. Hitler, on learning of Kummetz’s failure to destroy JW.51B, ordered the entire High Seas Fleet scrapped, prompting Grand Adm. Erich Raeder to resign. Hitler replaced him with submariner Admiral Karl Dönitz, who reserved the battleship Tirpitz and battlecruiser Scharnhorst for active Arctic duty but otherwise placed the Kriegsmarine’s war effort primarily on the U-boat service’s shoulders.

I

n July 1942 German submarines and aircraft sank 23 of 35 Allied cargo ships bound for Murmansk, a success made possible when the British dispersed convoy P.Q.17 out of concern the German High Seas Fleet was about to attack—which it did not. Adolf Hitler was pleased with this triumph of a “threat in being,” but he still expected his surface warships to actually do something. On Dec. 30, 1942, a German force set out to engage Murmansk-bound convoy JW.51B. Commanded by Vice Adm. Oscar Kummetz, Operation Rainbow was to be a two-pronged attack by the heavy cruisers Admiral Hipper and Lützow, each accompanied by three destroyers. Kummetz, however, had to temper his aggressiveness against a standing order from Hitler, ever since the loss of the battleship Bismarck on May 27, 1941, to avoid unnecessary risks. Even as Kummetz set out, he received an order to “use caution even against enemy of equal strength, because it is undesirable for the cruisers to take any great risks.” By 8:30 a.m. the Germans were approaching the convoy—whose escort light cruisers Shefﬁeld and Jamaica, under Rear Adm. Robert Burnett, were 30 miles to the north. Hostilities began when the British destroyer Obdurate came under ﬁre from the German destroyers Friedrich Eckholdt, Richard Beitzen and Z-29, soon joined by Hipper. The British escort commander, Captain Robert Sherbrooke, responded with his ﬂagship Onslow and its sister destroyers Orwell and Obedient, and although wounded in the face, he kept Kummetz off-balance with the threat of torpedo attacks. Hipper and Eckholdt sank the minesweeper Bramble and destroyer Achates before another feigned torpedo run by Orwell and Obdurate drove them off. Lützow reached the convoy, only to turn away in a snow squall. At that point Burnett’s light cruisers arrived and also promptly attacked, damaging Hipper and sinking Eckholdt with all hands. Lützow found the convoy again at 11:40 a.m. but scored only minor damage before Kummetz signaled a general retirement nine minutes later.

18 MILITARY HISTORY SEPTEMBER 2017

Success or failure often begins at the top. While admitting his ignorance in naval matters, Hitler micromanaged his Kriegsmarine by issuing a vague order to avoid risks, thus robbing his admirals of the initiative that had made them so effective. Afterward, though, he was quick to accuse them of cowardice. A two-pronged attack requires both prongs to succeed. While Kummetz did his part by engaging British escorts and working around the convoy’s left ﬂank, Lützow Captain Rudolf Stänge undid the entire operation with two fainthearted, abortive attacks. Beware the snow squall of war. Bad weather caused Kummetz’s two main warships to lose track of each other and with their destroyers. Eckholdt’s last signal, when it came under ﬁre from Shefﬁeld, was to accuse Hipper of ﬁring on it. Fortune favors the bold. Sherbrooke’s single-minded focus on his duty—to defend convoy JW.51B—led to audacious deﬁance of heavy odds, ultimately leading to a stunning victory. MH

WAR HISTORY ONLINE

Lessons:

TECHNOLOGY SIMPLIFIED – BIGGER AND BETTER

Wow! A Simple to Use Computer Designed Especially for Seniors! Easy to read. Easy to see. Easy to use. Just plug it in!

NEW Now comes with... Larger 22-inch hi-resolution screen – easier to see 16% more viewing area Simple navigation – so you never get lost Intel® processor – lightning fast Computer is in the monitor – No bulky tower Advanced audio, Better speaker configuration – easier to hear Text to Speech translation – it can even read your emails to you! U.S. Based Customer Service

FREE

Automatic Software Updates

– Janet F.

Have you ever said to yourself “I’d love to get a computer, if only I could figure out how to use it.” Well, you’re not alone. Computers were supposed to make our lives simpler, but they’ve gotten so complicated that they are not worth the trouble. With all of the “pointing and clicking” and “dragging and dropping” you’re lucky if you can figure out where you are. Plus, you are constantly worrying about viruses and freeze-ups. If this sounds familiar, we have great news for you. There is finally a computer that’s designed for simplicity and ease of use. It’s the WOW Computer, and it was designed with you in mind. This computer is easy-to-use, worryfree and literally puts the world at

your fingertips. From the moment you open the box, you’ll realize how different the WOW Computer is. The components are all connected; all you do is plug it into an outlet and your high-speed Internet connection. Then you’ll see the screen – it’s now 22 inches. This is a completely new touch screen system, without the cluttered look of the normal computer screen. The “buttons” on the screen are easy to see and easy to understand. All you do is touch one of them, from the Web, Email, Calendar to Games– you name it… and a new screen opens up. It’s so easy to use you won’t have to ask your children or grandchildren for help. Until now, the very people who could benefit most from E-mail and the Internet are the ones that have had the hardest time accessing it. Now, thanks to the WOW Computer, countless older Americans are discovering the wonderful world of the Internet every day. Isn’t it time

you took part? Call now, and you’ll find out why tens of thousands of satisfied seniors are now enjoying their WOW Computers, emailing their grandchildren, and experiencing everything the Internet has to offer. Call today! Send & Receive Emails Have video chats with family and friends Surf the Internet: Get current weather and news Play games Online: Hundreds to choose from!

Call now toll free and find out how you can get the new WOW! Computer. Mention promotional code 106328 for special introductory pricing.

1-877-720-9912 © 2017 firstSTREET for Boomers and Beyond, Inc.

81059

“I love this computer! It is easy to read and to use! I get photo updates from my children and grandchildren all the time.”

Hardware M50 Ontos By Jon Guttman Illustration by Henry Morshead

B

y 1949 the U.S. Army had abandoned its wartime concept of specialized tank destroyers in favor of main battle tanks. After experiencing mobility limitations during the Korean War, however, the Army conceived a new breed of tank destroyer, one that packed tank-busting ﬁrepower on a lightweight, airmobile tracked chassis. The resulting M56 Scorpion boasted a 90 mm gun behind an armored blast shield, while the M50 Ontos packed six M40 106 mm recoilless riﬂes. Neither weapon ever engaged a tank, but both saw plenty of action supporting infantry in Vietnam—the Scorpion with Army airborne forces, the Ontos with the Marines. Attached to four of the Ontos’ recoilless riﬂes were M8C .50-caliber spotting riﬂes, which ﬁred rounds that produced visible puffs of smoke on impact, thus enabling operators to line up the main guns. Although its recoilless riﬂes had to be reloaded externally, potentially exposing its crew to enemy ﬁre, the two upper ones could be removed and used autonomously. During the 1968 Battle of Hue the Ontos won favor among troops for its speed, agility, relatively low proﬁle and the ability of its concretepenetrating high-explosive shells to bring down walls. The two Ontos platoons defending the ﬁrebase at Khe Sanh (see P. 76) usually hid by day and moved into ﬁghting positions at night. During perimeter patrols the M50A1s of Company A, 3rd Anti-Tank Battalion, towed improvised sleds to supply Marines in outlying, exposed positions. By 1969 the M50 had passed its prime and was gradually withdrawn, its parts and guns salvaged or repurposed. The last operational Ontos was pulled out of Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, in April 1980. MH

20 MILITARY HISTORY SEPTEMBER 2017

Length: 12 feet 7 inches Width: 8 feet 6 inches Height: 7 feet Weight: 19,050 pounds Crew: Three Armament: Six 106 mm recoilless riﬂes with 18 HEAT (high-explosive antitank), HEP (high-explosive plastic) or antipersonnel rounds; four .50-caliber M8C spotting riﬂes with 1,000 rounds; one M1919A4 Browning .30-caliber machine gun with 80 rounds Gun elevation/depression: +20 to -10 degrees Turret traverse: 40 degrees left or right Armor: Hull and turret, ½ inch; hull ﬂoor, ¼ inch Power: M50: General Motors 302 inline V6 liquid-cooled engine (145 hp) M50A1: Chrysler HT-361318 V8 liquid-cooled engine (180 hp) Maximum speed (road): 30 mph Range: M50: 125 miles M50A1: 100 miles

20

19

18

1. M40A1C 106 mm recoilless riﬂe 2. M1919A4 .30-caliber machine gun 3. Gunner periscope sight M20A3G 4. M8C .50-caliber spotting riﬂe 5. Engine exhaust tailpipe 6. Elevation handwheel, ﬁring button 7. Four 106 mm rounds (on deck) 8. Weapons control panel 9. Eight 106 mm rounds (under deck) 10. Rear supporting arm, road wheel 11. Gunner seat

12. Traversing handwheel 13. 106 mm riﬂe mount T149ES 14. AN/VRC-8 radio 15. Driver’s instrument panel 16. Driver seat 17. Steering levers, shifting and starting lever 18. Final drive, sprocket wheel 19. Allison XT-90-5 transmission 20. Chrysler V-8 engine

NEW VANGUARD 240: U.S. TANK DESTROYERS OF THE VIETNAM WAR/OSPREY PUBLISHING LTD.

1 4

2 3

5

6

7 8

9

17

16 14 12

15 13

11

10

21

PAYOFF IN TOKYO BAY In September 1945 General Douglas MacArthur commanded center stage aboard the battleship Missourii as Japan’s surrender ended World War II By Michael D. Hull

Hundreds of Navy and Marine Corps aircraft ﬂy over USS Missourii in Tokyo Bay after the surrender ceremony that ended World War II.

U.S. NAVY/NATIONAL ARCHIVES

23

surrender. “He didn’t get jubilant or jump up and down like I saw some other ofﬁcers do,” recalled intelligence ofﬁcer Edwin T. Layton. “He merely smiled in his own calm way.” Aboard the 45,000-ton, 887-foot battleship USS Missouri off the coast of Japan, Admiral William F. “Bull” Halsey Jr., commander of the U.S. Third Fleet, had a very different response. He was having breakfast when Lt. Cmdr. H. Douglass Moulton, his air operations chief, burst in, bringing word of Truman’s announcement. In his own retelling Halsey thought, God be thanked, I’ll never have to order another man out to die. The feisty admiral then yelled, “Yippee!” and exuberantly pounded every shoulder within reach. Halsey ordered the hoisting of “Well Done” signal ﬂags. It was a singular day for the man who had promised, “Before we’re through with ’em, the Japanese language will be spoken only in hell.” In Tokyo members of Japan’s war cabinet and ofﬁcers’ corps variously chose resignation or suicide after a broadcast to the nation by Emperor Hirohito, a speech in which the monarch told his people the way to peace lay in “enduring the unendurable and suffering what is insufferable.” Little did Hirohito know he, too, would have to suffer the insufferable—within weeks he would be effectively usurped as Japanese ruler by General of the Army Douglas A. MacArthur, supreme commander for the Allied powers.

A

t 7 p.m. on Tuesday, Aug. 14, 1945—days after atomic bombs incinerated the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, ushering in the nuclear age—reporters crowded into the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, D.C., to cover a statement from President Harry S. Truman. “I have received this afternoon a message from the Japanese government in reply to the message forwarded to that government by the secretary of state on August 11,” Truman announced in his ﬂat Missouri accent. “I deem this reply a full acceptance of the Potsdam Declaration, which speciﬁes the unconditional surrender of Japan.” With that terse announcement, three months after the defeat of Nazi Germany, World War II had finally ended. For the Allied land, naval and air forces in the Paciﬁc, respite came at the end of a long, hard struggle, from the ﬁery humiliation of Pearl Harbor and shame of Singapore to the bloody crucibles of Iwo Jima and Okinawa. The dire decision to unleash atomic weapons had averted a costly invasion of the Japanese Home Islands. It was time to rejoice.

On Guam Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, the widely respected commander in chief of the U.S. Paciﬁc Fleet, reacted quietly to the momentous news of the Japanese 24 MILITARY HISTORY SEPTEMBER 2017

first to land in newly surrendered Japan, the official occupation of the island nation began shortly after dawn on Tuesday, August 28, when 45 U.S. Army Air Forces C-47 transport planes touched down at Atsugi airbase, 30 miles southwest of Tokyo. The aircraft disgorged some 150 technicians and several tons of equipment— most intended for air-trafﬁc control—as ranks of sullen but non-hostile Japanese troops looked on. On the heels of those ﬁrst arrivals came hundreds of additional transport planes, while landing craft from offshore warships brought in tens of thousand of U.S. and Allied troops. Among those vessels was Missouri, and on August 29 it and the battleships USS South Dakota and HMS Duke of York dropped anchor in Tokyo Bay, along with other warships of the Third Fleet and the British Paciﬁc Fleet. Each of the three massive warships had an impressive service record. Commissioned on June 11, 1944, Missouri, a veteran of the Battles of Iwo Jima and Okinawa, was one of the four fast battleships of the Iowa class— along with Iowa, New Jersey and Wisconsin—and the last to enter U.S. Navy service. Commissioned on March 20, 1942, South Dakota had survived severe damage in the naval battles off the Santa Cruz Islands and Guadalcanal, was attached to the Royal Navy’s Home Fleet for a time and participated in the Gilbert Islands campaign. The King George V–class Duke of York, also a Home Fleet veteran, had supported the disastrous PQ-17 Arctic convoy in the summer of 1942, aided the Allied invasion

U.S. NAVY/NATIONAL ARCHIVES; OPPOSITE: NAVAL HISTORY AND HERITAGE COMMAND

While several American pilots later claimed to be the

of North Africa that November and helped sink the German battlecruiser Scharnhorst, Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler’s favorite warship, on Boxing Day 1943. As it sailed majestically into Tokyo Bay, it ﬂew the ﬂag of Admiral Bruce A. Fraser, commander of the British Paciﬁc Fleet. The British squadron included the battleship King George V, the ﬂeet carrier Indefatigable, the light cruisers Newfoundland and Gambia (the latter of the Royal New Zealand Navy), and 10 destroyers, two of them Australian. The display of Allied naval might in Tokyo Bay awed Japanese observers. Numbering more than 300 vessels, the vast armada included 10 battleships, five aircraft carriers (the ﬂeet carriers remaining safely at sea), 15 cruisers, 59 destroyers and destroyer escorts, a dozen submarines and scores of assorted landing craft. It was an unprecedented display of seaborne power, spanning almost 100 miles of water from the top of Tokyo Bay southwest into Sagami Bay. On the afternoon of August 29 Admiral Nimitz landed in Tokyo Bay aboard a Consolidated PB2Y Coronado flying boat and was taken by launch to South Dakota, which would serve as his ﬂagship. The usually digniﬁed Texan was seething, as Truman had selected the autocratic MacArthur to conduct the planned surrender ceremony and oversee the occupation of Japan. Nimitz harbored no ambition to take charge in Tokyo, but he

The atomic bombings of Nagasaki, opposite, and Hiroshima in August 1945 ultimately brought an end to World War II, which culminated in the September 2 formal surrender ceremony aboard Missouri, below.

was miffed because he felt the Navy and Marine Corps, not the Army, had borne the brunt of the Paciﬁc War. Back in Washington Secretary of the Navy James Forrestal smoothed the waters by proposing the Japanese delegates sign the surrender documents aboard Missouri. The compromise delighted Truman, as his own daughter had christened the battleship named for his home state. The Tokyo Bay ceremony was scheduled for September 2. By the morning of August 30 more than 4,000 troops of Maj. Gen. Joseph May Swing’s 11th Airborne Division had landed at Atsugi and were there to greet MacArthur, whose personal Douglas C-54 Skymaster transport Bataan II touched down that afternoon at 2:19 p.m. With the stem of his signature corncob pipe clenched between his teeth, the general stood silently at the plane’s door, savoring the moment. After posing for photographers, he then descended the steel steps to shake hands with Lt. Gen. Robert L. Eichelberger, Eighth Army commander and liberator of New Guinea and the Philippines. “Bob,” said MacArthur, “this is the payoff. From Melbourne to Tokyo is a long way, but this seems to be the end of the road.”

The display of Allied naval might in Tokyo Bay awed Japanese observers

25

Sunday, Sept. 2, 1945, dawned cool and gray in Tokyo Bay. Around 7:30 a.m. two U.S. destroyers lay to aft of Missouri and disembarked a host of correspondents and photographers from a score of countries. Assigned escorts led them to designated spots aboard the battleship and kept them from wandering about during the ceremony. The “Mighty Mo” was dressed up for the momentous occasion. Suspended from a bulkhead over the quarterdeck in a glass case was a frayed ensign bearing 31 stars. Commodore Matthew C. Perry had ﬂown the banner from his ﬂagship when he led a squadron into Tokyo Bay on July 8, 1853, symbolically opening Japan to the West. Halsey had ordered Perry’s colors rushed from the U.S. Naval Academy Museum in Annapolis, Md., for the ceremony. From its mainmast Missouri also ﬂew Nimitz’s blue ﬁve-star pennant and MacArthur’s red ﬁve-star ﬂag—both suspended from the same horizontal bar to diplomatically ensure each ﬂew at the same height. A rumor circulated that the 48-star American ﬂag atop the mainmast was one that had ﬂown above the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., on Dec. 7, 1941, but Captain Stuart Murray, commander of Missouri, said the press must have been “hard up for baloney,” describing the banner as “just a plain, ordinary GI-issue ﬂag.” At 8:03 a.m. the destroyer USS Buchanan eased to the starboard side of Missouri and disembarked high-ranking Allied ofﬁcers. Among them were Halsey, Eichelberger, Admiral Richmond K. Turner, General Joseph Stilwell, General Carl A. Spaatz, General George Kenney, Vice Adm. John S. McCain Sr., Dutch Lt. Adm. C.E.L. Helfrich and British Lt. Gens. Arthur E. Percival and Jonathan M. Wainwright. Percival and Wainwright had been interned by the Japanese in Manchuria since 1942 and released just days earlier. At 8:05 a.m. Nimitz arrived by motor launch and was piped aboard the battleship. Minutes later MacArthur climbed aboard. Shaking hands with Nimitz and Halsey, he quipped, “It’s grand to have so many of my colleagues from the shoestring days here at the end of the road.” 26 MILITARY HISTORY SEPTEMBER 2017

That occasion began as the Japanese emissaries lined up in front of a battered mess table on which the surrender documents had been strategically positioned to cover coffee stains on the green tablecloth. Accompanied by Nimitz and Halsey, MacArthur walked briskly across the quarterdeck behind the table, but most eyes remained on the Japanese. “We waited a few minutes, standing in the public gaze like penitent schoolboys awaiting the dreaded schoolmaster,” diplomat Toshikazu Kase recalled. “A million eyes seemed to beat on us like arrows barbed with ﬁre. I felt them sink into my body with a sharp physical pain.” Missouri’s chaplain delivered an invocation over the ship’s public address system, followed by the playing of a recording of “The Star-Spangled Banner,” as Percival and Wainwright stepped to MacArthur’s side behind the table, facing the Japanese delegation. The supreme commander stepped to the microphone. “We are gathered here,” MacArthur intoned slowly, “representatives of the major warring powers, to conclude a solemn agreement whereby peace may be restored.” Reading from a prepared statement, the paper shaking in his hands, he continued, “It is my earnest hope, and indeed the hope of all mankind, that from this solemn occasion a better world shall emerge out of the blood and carnage of the past, a world founded upon faith and understanding, a world dedicated to the dignity of man

NAVAL HISTORY AND HERITAGE COMMAND (2)

Attendees received certiﬁcates like this bearing the signatures of General MacArthur, Admirals Nimitz and Halsey, and Missouri Captain Murray.

Absent from the gathering of top brass aboard Missouri was Admiral Raymond A. Spruance, the quiet, unassuming victor of the Battles of Midway and the Philippine Sea and commander of the Fifth Fleet. He was off Okinawa aboard his ﬂagship, the battleship New Jersey, as Nimitz wanted someone ready to take command in the Paciﬁc in the event Japanese fanatics attacked Missouri. Rumors were rife kamikaze suicide pilots might target the ship after it entered Tokyo Bay. At 8:56 a.m. 11 Japanese delegates arrived aboard a launch from the destroyer USS Lansdowne. With cane in hand Foreign Minister Mamoru Shigemitsu made his way painfully up a gangway to Missouri’s quarterdeck. He had lost his left leg to a would-be assassin’s bomb in Shanghai years earlier, and his prosthetic leg caused him agony. He and the other Japanese civilian representatives wore formal morning coats and silk top hats, in stark contrast to the dress uniforms of their military colleagues, the khakis and open-necked shirts of the Americans, and the tropical dress whites of the British and Commonwealth ofﬁcers. Delegates and onlookers soon crammed Missouri’s decks. More than 300 Allied generals, admirals and other ofﬁcers stood on the quarterdeck, while correspondents and the ship’s complement of 3,000 ofﬁcers and bluejackets stood, sat, sprawled or dangled from wherever they could ﬁnd space, including atop the 16-inch gun turrets. All knew they were about to witness an historic occasion.

and the fulﬁllment of his most cherished wish for freedom, tolerance and justice.” MacArthur then invited the Japanese delegates forward to sign copies of the eight-paragraph surrender document prepared by the U.S. War Department. Shigemitsu was ﬁrst to approach. The foreign minister shufﬂed forward, sat at the table, set aside his cane, removed his top hat and right glove, and reached inside his coat for a pen. He then checked his watch and stared at the papers spread out before him for some moments, seemingly stalling. Realizing Shigemitsu was merely confused, MacArthur instructed his chief of staff, Lt. Gen. Richard K. Sutherland, “Sutherland, show him where to sign.” Next to sign was General Yoshijiro Umezu, the Japanese army chief of staff. Clad in a baggy olive drab uniform and jackboots, he remained standing, signed without pomp and returned stifﬂy to his country’s delegation. MacArthur then announced he would sign “on behalf of all the nations at war with Japan.” Turning with a halfsmile on his face, he announced, “Will General Wainwright and General Percival step forward and accompany me while I sign?” The emaciated pair stood behind MacArthur as he used ﬁve pens to sign the documents with dramatic ﬂourishes. He handed the ﬁrst pen to Wainwright, whom he’d left

Ofﬁcers and bluejackets stood, sat, sprawled or dangled from wherever they could ﬁnd space in charge of the doomed garrison at Corregidor in March 1942, and the second to Percival, who had incurred the wrath of British Prime Minister Winston Churchill by surrendering Singapore in February 1942. The third and fourth pens MacArthur set aside for the U.S. Military Academy and the U.S. Naval Academy. He placed the last pen in his shirt pocket to share with wife Jean and son Arthur back in Manila. Nimitz signed next on behalf of the United States, and the other Allied representatives followed suit for their respective countries: General Hsu Yung-chang for China, Fraser for the United Kingdom, Lt. Gen. Kuzma Derevyanko for the Soviet Union, General Sir Thomas Blamey for Australia, Colonel Lawrence Moore Cosgrove for Canada, General Philippe Leclerc—the liberator of Paris in August 1944—for France, Admiral Helfrich for the Netherlands and Air Vice Marshal Sir Leonard Monk Isitt for New Zealand.

The Japanese delegation, with civilians in formal attire and military ofﬁcers in dress uniform, stand in contrast to more casual U.S. ofﬁcers.

27

An Allied correspondent surveys damage from the Aug. 6, 1945, atomic bombing of Hiroshima, which helped convince the Japanese to surrender.

At 9:25 a.m., as the signing drew to a close, the clouds parted and the sun emerged for the ﬁrst time that morning. MacArthur again stepped to the microphone. “Let us pray,” he concluded, “that peace be now restored to the world and that God will preserve it always. These proceedings are closed.” The 23-minute ceremony, broadcast by radio around the world, had gone off without any major glitches. As the Japanese delegates turned to leave amid the shrill echoes of boatswains’ pipes, MacArthur strolled over to Halsey, put an arm around his shoulders and asked, “Bill, where in the hell are those airplanes?” As if on cue, a distant rumble announced the arrival of ﬂights of Boeing B-29 Superfortress heavy bombers and hundreds of carrier planes, which soon swept over Missouri in a thunderous salute. After leaving the quarterdeck, MacArthur broadcast an eloquent message of both hope and warning to the American people. “Today the guns are silent,” he began. “A great tragedy has ended. A great victory has been won. The skies no longer rain death, the seas bear only commerce, men everywhere walk upright in the sunlight. The entire world lies quietly at peace. The holy mission has been completed.” Then he abruptly switched gears. “We have had our last chance. If we do not devise some greater and more equitable system, Armageddon will be at our door.” Later that day the ﬂags of the Allied signatory nations were slowly lowered in unison from signal yards as the bands aboard Royal Navy ships present played the evening hymn, “The Day Thou Gavest, Lord, Is Ended,” by 19th century British clergyman the Rev. John Ellerton. His words were ﬁtting: Now the labourer’s task is o’er; Now the battle-day is past; Now upon the further shore Lands the voyager at last.

28 MILITARY HISTORY SEPTEMBER 2017

Shortly before noon on September 8, six days after the surrender ceremony, MacArthur conducted another symbolic ceremony at the U.S. Embassy in Tokyo, within sight of Emperor Hirohito’s Imperial Palace. Joining General Eichelberger on the terrace, he watched as an honor guard of Maj. Gen. William C. Chase’s 1st Cavalry Division attached colors to the ﬂagpole halyards. “General Eichelberger,” declared MacArthur sonorously, “have our country’s flag unfurled, and in Tokyo’s sun let it wave in its full glory as a symbol of hope for the oppressed and as a harbinger of victory for the right.” As a khaki-clad honor then hoisted Old Glory up the staff, a band played the “The Star-Spangled Banner,” and the general and the gathered Americans stood and saluted. With that simple act MacArthur—World War I veteran, West Point superintendent, military adviser to Philippine President Manuel Quezon, Army chief of staff and wartime commander of U.S. Army forces in the Far East— became the supreme commander for the Allied powers, Japan’s civil administrator. By the end of his tenure in 1951 he had earned praise for his enlightened reforms of the vanquished nation’s political, economic and social life. More service also lay ahead for Missouri. In early April 1946 the battleship, a light cruiser and a destroyer sailed through the Mediterranean, the Aegean and the Sea of Marmara to anchor off Istanbul, Turkey, ostensibly to return the remains of Turkish Ambassador Munir Ertegun, who had died in the United States in November 1944. New York Herald Tribune columnist Walter Lippman later described the true purpose of the mission: “With the Missouri treated as a symbol of our power in the Mediterranean,” he wrote, “we can make it unmistakably clear in Moscow just where we believe the outer limits of their expansion are.” The “Mighty Mo” saw more action when the Cold War suddenly turned hot on June 25, 1950, as North Korean troops stormed across the 38th parallel into South Korea. Along with its sister ships Iowa, Wisconsin and New Jersey, Missouri distinguished itself during the bitter 1950–53 conﬂict, and Missouri and Wisconsin later provided ﬁre support during the 1991 Gulf War. Decommissioned in 1992, the proud battleship is docked at Ford Island in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, where it serves as a museum ship [ussmissouri.org]. Each year visitors from around the globe stand on the same teak-covered quarterdeck where World War II ﬁnally, ofﬁcially, came to an end. MH Michael Hull was a soldier in the British army and a contributor to The World War II Desk Reference. He has written for World War II, Aviation History, Vietnam and Wild West. For further reading he recommends Reminiscences, by Douglas MacArthur; Nimitz, by E.B. Potter; and The Rising Sun, by John Toland.

POPPERFOTO/GETTY IMAGES; OPPOSITE: AKG-IMAGES

As “Amen” faded in the evening air, crewmen aboard the British ships gathered in their White Ensigns.

MacArthur broadcast an eloquent message of both hope and warning to the American people

MacArthur steps from his Douglas C-54 Skymaster Bataan II in Tokyo. He later earned praise for his role in rebuilding Japan as its postwar civil administrator.

29

C

In this 1837 painting by Charles Auguste Guillaume Steuben, Charles Martel (on the white steed) halts the Muslim advance at the pivotal 732 Battle of Tours.

30 MILITARY HISTORY SEPTEMBER 2017

HULTON ARCHIVE/GETTY IMAGES

When Ferdinand and Isabella retook Granada in 1492, they ended eight centuries of Muslim rule on the Iberian Peninsula By Steve Roberts 31

Islam arose amid the desert expanses of the Arabian Peninsula in the ﬁrst decade of the 7th century. By 682 the faith of Muhammad had spread across Syria, Egypt 32 MILITARY HISTORY SEPTEMBER 2017

and North Africa, and the Muslim vanguard had reached the southern shore of what we now know as the Strait of Gibraltar. The 9-mile-wide channel connecting the Mediterranean and the open Atlantic only brieﬂy delayed the armies of conquest, and in 711 some 12,000 Arabs and Berbers loyal to the Damascus-based Umayyad caliphate crossed the strait under the command of Tariq ibn Ziyad. The invaders landed near a massive promontory they dubbed Jabal Tariq (“Mount Tariq,” later corrupted into Gibraltar) and quickly set about subduing the defending Visigoths. Masters of the peninsula since the early 5th century, the warlike Visigoths were disinclined to welcome new arrivals and did what they could to halt the advancing Moors (a catchall term referring to the Arab and Berber Muslims of the North African coastal region of Mauretania). At the decisive Battle of Guadalete the Moors under Tariq vanquished Visigoth forces under King Roderick, who was either killed or ﬂed the ﬁeld. Tariq quickly pressed north to take Córdoba and Toledo. Landing with a follow-up Umayyad force, Musa ibn Nusayr soon added Medina-Sidonia, Seville, Mérida and Saragossa to the lengthening list of Muslim conquests. By 717 the Moors had reached the Pyrenees, compelling opposing Christian forces to retreat into the moun-

CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: HERMANN PLUEDDEMANN/AKG-IMAGES; HENRI ALEXANDRE GEORGES REGNAULT/MUSEE D’ORSAY/ BRIDGEMAN IMAGES; UNIVERSAL HISTORY ARCHIVE/GETTY IMAGES

I

n Western minds 1492 resonates as the year Christopher Columbus arrived on the Atlantic and Caribbean shores of the New World, the culmination of an arduous journey made possible by the patronage of King Ferdinand II of Aragon and Queen Isabella I of Castile. By ﬁnancing the Italian explorer’s “enterprise of the Indies,” the married Catholic monarchs helped change history. But aiding Columbus was not the only way in which Ferdinand and Isabella shaped their times and, indeed, the world map. In the months before the explorer and his party set off across the Atlantic aboard Niña, Pinta and Santa Maria, the royal couple oversaw the culminating siege in what had been a long and brutal war for the heart and soul of future Spain—one ultimately leading to the expulsion of a culture that for nearly eight centuries had dominated every aspect of life on most of the Iberian Peninsula. That war came to a close on Jan. 2, 1492, in Granada, a prosperous fortress city in the Sierra Nevada foothills.

Martel’s victory at Tours (opposite, top left) marked the start of a campaign to drive the invading Moors back across the Pyrenees. The Spanish expelled Muslims from retaken lands (opposite, bottom left). Summary execution was the norm in Moorish Granada (opposite right). In July 1212 rival Spanish and Portuguese kings joined forces to defeat the Almohads at the Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa.

MUSEO MARCELIANO SANTA MARIA/ART RESOURCE, NEW YORK

tains to the north and west. The advancing Muslims then crossed into France and by 725 had reached Burgundy and sacked Autun. In 732, exactly 100 years after the death of Muhammad, an army under Abd ar-Rahman al-Ghaﬁqi defeated Duke Odo of Aquitaine at the Battle of the River Garonne and sacked Bordeaux. These victories allowed Abd ar-Rahman to set his sights on Poitiers and Tours. Trepidation among the Christians must have been palpable, for the Muslims appeared unstoppable. Europe hadn’t faced a similar threat since the Huns’ rampage nearly three centuries earlier. But Abd ar-Rahman was about to meet his match.

Opposing the Moors were the Franks, a disunited people who in their hour of need found a champion in the person of Charles Martel. Known as “The Hammer,” the veteran commander had earned his stern moniker waging successful campaigns against the pagan Germanic tribes. Forewarned by Duke Odo of the Muslim advance on Tours, Martel placed his army squarely in their path. While Muslim armies had long made effective use of heavy cavalry as a shock force—again proving its worth on this campaign—Europeans traditionally fought afoot. The recent adoption of saddles and stirrups from Central

The disunited Franks found a champion in Charles Martel, known as ‘The Hammer’ Asia, however, made ﬁghting on horseback practicable, and Martel had his own cavalry to deploy. As he prepared to meet the Moors, the Frankish commander put the Loire River at his back. There would be no retreat. Abd ar-Rahman halted his army to reconnoiter. Martel did likewise, keeping to the hills and concealing his numbers in the surrounding forest. It was early October, and an autumn chill was in the air. Fresh from their summer campaigns, the Moors wore light fatigues, while Martel’s men were equipped for winter. For a week the armies shadowed one another as temperatures dropped. Loath to wait any longer, Abd ar-Rahman launched his heavy cavalry. Anticipating the charge, Martel had formed a hollow square to repel the onslaught, meanwhile sending outriders through the forest to hit the Moorish baggage train from the rear. Abd ar-Rahman sent repeated charges uphill into the waiting infantry square, but the Franks held. The decisive moment came when Martel’s outriders reached the enemy baggage train, news of which spread

33

Spanish Reconquista

C

harles Martel’s victory at Tours in 732 marked the farthest extent of the Muslim invasion of Europe, and by 759 the Franks had driven the Moors back across the Pyrenees. By then Christian forces in Iberia had already begun the Reconquista. The subsequent wars would persist nearly eight centuries, a time marked by bitter conﬂict as well as cultural exchange. Successive Muslim caliphates tried to maintain dominance on the peninsula only to see their rule fracture under internal power struggles, in turn enabling encroachment from neighboring kingdoms. The beginning of the end came in 1212 when Christian kings united under Alfonso VIII of Castile to defeat the Almohads at Las Navas de Tolosa. His successor Alfonso XI beat back the last Muslim invasion at Río Salado in 1340. By the early 15th century only the emirate of Granada remained as the sole Muslim foothold in Iberia. The marriage and joint rule of most of the peninsula under Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castile provided the catalyst for the 1492 recapture of Granada and resulting end of Muslim rule in Europe.

8th–10th Centuries In 756 exiled Umayyad prince Abd ar-Rahman established the emirate of Córdoba, which dominated Iberia into the 11th century. Martel’s grandson Charlemagne took the northeast in 801, while internal struggles weakened Córdoba. In the late 10th century al-Mansur struck back at the Christians.

34 MILITARY HISTORY SEPTEMBER 2017

The Spread of Islam, 610–732 After receiving visions in the early 7th century, Meccan tribal leader Muhammad conquered and united Arabia, his Islamic teachings soon spreading from the peninsula across the present-day Middle East and west through Egypt into North Africa. By 682 the Muslim vanguard had reached the south shore of the present-day Strait of Gibraltar. In 711 the Moors (Arab and Berber Muslims loyal to the Damascus-based Umayyad caliphate) crossed the strait and pushed defenders back up the peninsula. By 732 the Muslims had crossed the Pyrenees into France and were threatening to push Christianity from Western Europe. Charles “The Hammer” Martel checked their advance at Tours. The reconquest had begun.

11th Century After al-Mansur’s 1002 death, the Umayyad caliphate splintered into independent principalities, or taifas , enabling Alfonso VI of León and Castile to capture Toledo in 1085. The alarmed princes sought Almoravid help and bested Alfonso at Zallaqa the next year.

12th Century In 1139 knight Alfonso Henriques defeated the Moors at Ourique and eight years later founded Portugal as Alfonso I. At century’s end his counterpart Alfonso VIII of Castile made inroads against the Almohads but ceded gains after a setback at Alarcos in 1195.

MAPS BY STEVE WALKOWIAK/SWMAPS.COM

13th–15th Centuries In 1212 Alfonso VIII rallied the Catholic kingdoms of the peninsula against the Almohads at Las Navas de Tolosa, prompting the decline of the caliphate. The Christian kings checked the last Muslim invasion at Río Salado in 1340, and Ferdinand and Isabella delivered the coup de grâce at Granada in 1492.

35

In 756 another Abd ar-Rahman, this one an exiled prince of the since deposed Umayyad caliphate in Damascus, established the independent emirate of Córdoba, which dominated the Iberian Peninsula into the 11th century. Jews were well treated, while Christians were tolerated on payment of a poll tax. Rebellious governors in the fortress cities bordering France proved problematic, 36 MILITARY HISTORY SEPTEMBER 2017

and by 801 the Catholic army of Charlemagne, Martel’s grandson, had reconquered northeast Iberia. Meanwhile, internal revolts spread, even to Córdoba itself. This state of unrest continued until the 891–961 reign of Abd ar-Rahman III, the most powerful of the Umayyad emirs, who largely paciﬁed the peninsula and oversaw administrative, industrial and agricultural improvements that brought the caliphate to its zenith. Córdoba, with a population numbering around a half-million, became Europe’s intellectual hub and capital of the Islamic cultural domain known as al-Andalus. The majority Muslim population continued to tolerate Christians and Jews, and intermarriages were not unusual up to the 13th century. It took the preaching of Crusade as part of the Reconquista, together with papal propaganda, to fully foment the forces of Muslim intolerance and fanaticism. Meanwhile, the wars continued. Between 962 and 970 Catholic Castile, Leon and Navarre were all forced to sue for peace, then the all-conquering Umayyads replaced the Fatimids in Morocco. It seemed their ascendancy would continue. Cracks in the dynasty began appearing in the late 10th century, however, which only exacerbated

FROM TOP: ANTONIO RODRIGUEZ/MUSEO DEL PRADO/BRIDGEMAN IMAGES; FITZWILLIAM MUSEUM/ UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE/BRIDGEMAN IMAGES

panic through the Moorish ranks. Muslim troops that had managed to penetrate the square broke off and flooded back to their lines. As he sought to rally his men, Abd ar-Rahman was killed by a lance, and the battle devolved into a series of cavalry clashes that stretched into nightfall. At dawn the Franks found the enemy had ﬂed south. Over the next decade Martel remained on the offensive, driving the Moors from Burgundy and Languedoc. On his death in 741 son Pepin the Short took up the banner, and by 759 the Franks had driven the Moors back across the Pyrenees. Future campaigns would center on Iberia.

FROM TOP: DIONISIO BAIXERAS-VERDAGUER/UNIVERSITY OF BARCELONA/BRIDGEMAN IMAGES; PICTURES FROM HISTORY/BRIDGEMAN IMAGES

Ferdinand and Isabella accept tribute from a Moorish prince (opposite top). Gold coins minted by the Catholic monarchs (opposite bottom) spread through Spain as the Muslims retreated. Abd ar-Rahman III (left) was the most powerful of the Umayyad rulers on the Iberian Peninsula.

the power struggles and civil war, playing into Christian hands. From 989 the Catholic Church began proclaiming a Pax Dei (“Peace of God”), applying spiritual sanctions to limit violence within Christendom, though it remained perfectly permissible to head south of the Pyrenees armed to the teeth. In later centuries when the Crusades were in full swing, church leaders pointed to the ﬁght in Iberia as a convenient alternative to waging war in the Holy Land. The religious enmity reached a new pitch in 981 with the rise of al-Mansur, the fervently Muslim de facto ruler of al-Andalus, who terrorized the Christian north with nearly 60 attacks over his 21-year rule. In 997 he had the cathedral at Santiago de Compostela in northwestern Iberia razed, then forced Christian slaves to tote its bells to Córdoba, where they were melted down into lamps for the great mosque. Supposed burial place of the martyred apostle James (Santiago in Galician parlance), son of Zebedee, the shrine at Santiago de Compostela remained a major Christian pilgrimage destination. According to legend, Santiago appeared to Catholics marching into battle against the Moors and delivered them a glorious victory, earning for himself the nickname Matamoros (“Moorslayer”) and veneration as the patron saint of Spain. After al-Mansur’s death in 1002, the long-standing Umayyad caliphate in Córdoba went into decline and in 1031 dissolved into numerous petty principalities. The resulting power vacuum enabled expansion-minded Alfonso VI of León and Castile to capture Toledo in 1085. Alarmed at Alfonso’s gains, the other Muslim princes invited the Almoravid Berbers of Morocco to join them in an alliance against the Christians. The Berbers landed at Algeciras the next year, and the combined force defeated Alfonso at the Battle of Zallaqa (“Slippery Ground” in Arabic, supposedly named for the amount of blood shed there). As the Moors resumed their vigil at the borders, their victorious Almoravid allies proceeded to annex the whole of Moorish Iberia but for Saragossa. The 1961 ﬁlm El Cid centers on this period, relating the story of real-life Castilian nobleman and commander Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar (played by Charlton Heston), who lives in Spanish national memory as the iconic folk hero

El Cid (from al-Sayyid, “The Lord” in Arabic). An epic in its own right, the ﬁlm accurately conveys the inherent chaos of the Iberian wars. Aided by El Cid—notable for having fought on both sides of the conﬂict, hence his Moorish moniker—Alfonso resumed his attempts at reconquest. El Cid’s greatest contribution to the venture was his capture of Valencia in 1094. In the mid-12th century the ascendant Almohad caliphate conquered Morocco, followed by the whole of Maghreb (as far east as present-day Libya), managing to unify Muslim Iberia as a province of its North African empire. Alfonso VIII of Castile led a series of successful attacks on the Muslims, but was forced to cede his gains after losing to the Almohads at the Battle of Alarcos in 1195. The Almohads were at the apogee of their power.

The region that would coalesce into Portugal was also engaged in reconquest, beginning in the mid-11th century with Castilian knight Alfonso Henriques, who waged a series of campaigns against the Moors in the early 12th century, roundly defeating them at the 1139 Battle of Ourique. By 1147 Alfonso I had secured ofﬁcial recognition of the Kingdom of Portugal and the capture of its future capital, Lisbon. Alfonso’s son, Sancho I, continued his work, settling colonists on the lands won from the Moors. There would be no going back. In 1212 the Moorish denouement was at hand, as Alfonso VIII of Castile rallied the Catholic kingdoms of the peninsula for a uniﬁed assault on the Muslims, ﬁrst securing the moral high ground by recruiting Pope Innocent III to the cause. The allied kings crushed the Almohads at the July 16 Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa, signaling the beginning of the end of Moorish pre-eminence on the Iberian Peninsula. The mopping up largely fell to Ferdinand III of Castile, who retook Córdoba in 1236 and Seville in 1248. His death in 1252 cut short his ambitions to take the war to the Almohads in North Africa. By Peacocks grace a 12th then the Iberian Christians no longer ob- century silk tapestry produced in al-Andalus, sessed about the Muslim threat, leaving the Arabic name for them free to wage their own dynastic Muslim-ruled Iberia. The struggles, as baronage and crown fought centuries of Muslim rule for supremacy. While Ferdinand’s Castil- on the peninsula were a ians had done most of the heavy lifting, time of almost constant war, but they brought James I of Aragon did his fair share, free- about a ﬂowering of art ing his own Mediterranean frontier and and advancements in science and medicine. the Balearic Islands from the Muslims.

War and Art

37

There was one more major defensive battle to come— the Oct. 30, 1340, rout of the Marinid invasion at Río Salado, fought by Alfonso XI of Castile with aid from the Portuguese. There would be no more Muslim invasions; it was just a question of how long the vestiges of a onceproud caliphate could hold out. Increasing rapprochement between Castile and Aragon in the late 14th century focused their attention on the eviction of the Moorish rump. Isolated pockets of resistance remained, of which only the Nasrid emirate of Granada amounted to much, and it was effectively a vassal state of Castile. Still, it was a refuge for Muslims ﬂeeing the Reconquista, and its inhabitants refused to submit to the Catholic kingdom’s rules, pointedly maintaining Arabic as its mother tongue and engaging in commerce with the Muslim Maghreb. Sporadic Nasrid border raids prompted punitive responses short of invasion. The Portuguese were more aggressive, taking the key North African trading hub of Ceuta in 1415, thus kicking off the era of European colonization. Granada held on as the sole remaining Muslim emirate on an otherwise uniﬁed Christian peninsula. For Ferdinand and Isabella it was a boil to be lanced.

The 1469 marriage of Isabella, heiress to the throne of Castile, to Ferdinand, heir to the throne of Aragon, was a decisive catalyst in both the ﬁnal defeat of the Moors and Spanish uniﬁcation. Isabella took rule in Castile (and

38 MILITARY HISTORY SEPTEMBER 2017

Léon) in 1474, while Ferdinand succeeded in Aragon (and Catalonia and Valencia) ﬁve years later. In 1478 the royal couple established the Inquisition, intended to ensure Catholic orthodoxy in the realm. In Granada the sultan’s son Abu Abd Allah, known to the Spanish as Boabdil, was keen to gain power and in 1482, after a series of Christian-Muslim clashes, peremptorily named himself Nasrid ruler, effectively dethroning his father, Abu al-Hasan Ali. Opposing Muslim factions chose sides, and the ensuing civil war saw the emirate fatally weakened. Fate intervened when Castilian forces captured the young emir during a ill-conceived raid south of Córdoba. Exploiting the Nasrid rift, Ferdinand and Isabella sought to win over Boabdil to their cause, offering him a truce in exchange for tribute payments and a pledge to make war against his own father. Consenting to the humiliating terms, Boabdil returned to Granada to foment trouble and ﬁght both his father and uncle for the emirate. Muslim battled Muslim, and amid the chaos the dominoes began toppling. The fortress cities of Marbella and Ronda capitulated. Too late the treacherous Boabdil fell out with his patrons, Ferdinand and Isabella, defected and decided to oppose the dual monarchs, seeking redemption as some sort of Granadian patriot. The fall of the primary seaport at Málaga (1487) and the stronghold of Baza (1489) were the ﬁnal prelude to the ﬁght for the capital.

PICTURES FROM HISTORY/AKG-IMAGES

Captured during an ill-conceived raid near Córdoba, Emir Boabdil negotiated a truce with Ferdinand and Isabella and helped stoke civil war among his own.

ALFRED DEHODENCQ/RMN-GRAND PALAIS/ART RESOURCE, NEW YORK

Holed up inside Granada, Boabdil appealed for aid from the Muslim powers in Egypt and North Africa, but without success. It was nigh on impossible to provide succor to Granada anyway, as it had been cut off from the sea. The time had come for the coup de grâce, and Ferdinand and Isabella settled on a siege rather than lose men in an all-out assault. Operations began in April 1491. Eight months of misery, decay and disorder ensued before the city fell to the Spanish on Jan. 2, 1492. Leaving Granada with his family and retainers, Boabdil personally delivered the keys of the city to Ferdinand. Within moments royal bearers raised a great silver cross and the Castilian banner in triumph from the watchtower of the Alhambra, and the victorious royal couple wept for joy. Later that day, as he crossed over the Sierra Nevada, a dejected Boabdil paused for one last look at the city, shedding a tear for all he’d lost, only to be taunted by his own mother. “You do well to weep like a woman,” she scolded, “for what you failed to defend like a man!” This verbal slap was perhaps unjust, for while Boabdil had been a weak and vacillating ruler, he had been resolute in battle. The rocky pass from which Boabdil supposedly cast his backward glance remains known as Puerto del Suspiro del Moro (Pass of the Moor’s Sigh). A personal defeat for the emir, the fall of Granada also marked the end of 781 years of Moorish rule in Iberia. Muslims immediately went into mourning, regarding it as a catastrophe of epic proportions. Spanish Catholics, on the other hand, hailed it as the most blessed day in their history. With the Reconquista completed, so too ended threats of invasion from Moorish North Africa. According to the generous treaty terms, Muslims who remained in Iberia would be afforded respect with regard to their religion, culture and property—but such promises proved to be so many words.

The Reconquista of Iberia from the Moors was followed by a spiritual reconquest, spearheaded enthusiastically by the Inquisition. Practicing Jews (perhaps as many as 40,000) were expelled by royal edict in 1492, while Moors who refused to convert were shown the door in Castile in 1502. The fallout continued for decades. As late as 1530 Khayr ad-Din, a notorious Ottoman corsair and admiral known to Europeans as Barbarossa, evacuated tens of thousands of Moors from Andalusia. The irony of the expulsion of the Moors from the Iberian Peninsula is that while late medieval Europe was largely rural and impoverished, Moorish Iberia had been a ﬂourishing economic and cultural center at the cutting edge of science, philosophy and medicine. Indeed, in Castile the Muslims would be protected for their economic value. External inﬂuences had long informed Spanish culture, and the Muslim scholastic tradition continued to predominate, translations from Arabic to Latin making Iberia the conduit by which knowledge permeated the

As the Catholic pushed the Muslim out of Iberia, he was busy discovering the New World West. Toledo, a center of Arab learning, was a base for translating Arabic and Greek works into Latin. The Moors also left their mark architecturally in such monumental ediﬁces as the 10th century Great Mosque of Córdoba, or Mezquita, Seville’s 12th century royal palace of Alcázar and the mostly 14th century Alhambra of Granada. A further irony is that in the year 1492, as the Catholic pushed the Muslim out of Iberia and retreated in on himself, he was also busy discovering the New World and expanding his horizons in a new direction. The Muslim was not welcome in Spain, but Spain was bagging America. Of course, discord and open conﬂict continues, notwithstanding the many millions of Muslims and Christians who live in peace. But perhaps by relearning the lessons of history, the disparate cultures and religions can advance side by side for humanity’s greater good. MH Steve Roberts [steveroberts.org.uk] is a U.K.-based freelance writer and author. For further reading he recommends The Crusades, by Antony Bridge, and History’s Greatest Battles: Masterstrokes of War, by Nigel Cawthorne.

After turning over the keys of Granada to Ferdinand, Boabdil took a last glance at the city before riding into exile.

39

GREAT SCOT AT WATERLOO George Drummond Graeme was the last man standing at La Haye Sainte farmhouse during the epic 1815 battle By John Koster

The site of one of Waterloo’s most intense ﬁghts, the privately owned La Haye Sainte farm stands amid ﬁelds along the N5 highway linking the Belgian cities of Charleroi and Brussels.

40 MILITARY HISTORY SEPTEMBER 2017

RICHARD BAKER/IN PICTURES VIA GETTY IMAGES

41

J

ust off the N5 highway connecting the Belgian cities of Charleroi and Brussels stands La Haye Sainte, a privately owned farm complex whose most obvious feature is a large, sturdy building surrounded by an equally sturdy wall. Outwardly the structure is no different than many others in the rolling countryside south of the Belgian capital, yet it played a pivotal role in one of the most important battles in European history— the 1815 slugfest that ended Napoléon Bonaparte’s reign over the First French Empire. As signiﬁcant in European history as the ﬁght at La Haye Sainte is, however, the battle for the undistinguished farmhouse proved equally important for the family fortunes of one noteworthy combatant—a swashbuckling Scotsman named George Drummond Graeme.

Born in Stirling in 1796, Drummond—as his father called him—was the presumptive 10th heir to the estate of Inchbrakie and 26th descendant in line from the ﬁrst Graeme of Montrose in the Middle Ages. The family was eminent but not affluent, and his father apprenticed Drummond to an ofﬁce where he might learn commerce. The boy hated it. When his father learned in 1812 that the King’s German Legion accepted young gentlemen without requiring them to pay for their commissions, Drummond embarked on his new life with delight. The legion dated from 1803, when the French invaded and dissolved the Electorate of Hanover, seat of the reigning British king. Its ofﬁcers and men promptly ﬂed to Britain, where a riled George III ordered the raising of a corps of Hanoverian soldiers. While the original unit was a relatively small mixed force of infantry, cavalry and artillery, by the time young Graeme arrived in 1813, Germans and other northern Europeans opposed to Napoléon had 42 MILITARY HISTORY SEPTEMBER 2017

swelled its ranks to eight battalions of red-coated line infantry, two light battalions of green-coated riﬂemen, ﬁve regiments of cavalry, six batteries of artillery and a battalion of engineers. This army within an army numbered 14,000 and had established an excellent battle record. At any given time German-speaking troops accounted for upward of 40 percent of the forces in Spain under Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington. Graeme was posted to the legion’s green-coated 2nd Light Battalion, and in February 1813 the impressionable young Scot wrote his father from Portugal that the unit’s ofﬁcers were “all most cordial… and I think the ﬁnest looking fellows I ever saw in my life.” The battalion’s soldiers were armed with the short Baker riﬂe, which was accurate out to 200 yards but slow to load —so much so that British riﬂemen and legion troops were also issued small mallets to help seat the patched ball inside the muzzle. The French were armed with muskets and had no riﬂes, not even for skirmishers, thus they despised and feared the Anglo-German riﬂemen for their accurate ﬁre and use of open order and concealment in shooting. The French were known to summarily execute captured legionnaires rather than accept their surrender. Graeme fought in the June 21, 1813, Battle of Vitoria —the engagement that clinched Wellington’s victory over French forces in northern Spain—and at Tolosa four days later, as an Anglo-allied column under General Thomas Graham sought to cut off the retreat of French and Italian soldiers who had missed Vitoria. After a number of other small battles and skirmishes the Scot was an accepted and experienced young lieutenant, at all of 17 years old. On Jan. 3, 1814, Graeme wrote that he had been out on picket duty and “consequently saw the beginning of this year in all its glory, but [we] were not so jolly as the enemy, who had their bands playing from 12 till daybreak, and such singing and uproar I never heard.” Graeme added that

FROM LEFT: CHRONICLE/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO; ALLAN BURCH

George Drummond Graeme

FROM TOP: STEPHEN BARDENS/GETTY IMAGES; WATERLOO200.ORG

his own men sat around the campﬁre reminiscing about their last New Year spent at home—a dozen years before— and wondering whether their relatives were dead or alive. That spring Wellington drove the French from Spain back across their border, in the process encircling the city of Bayonne. On the night of April 14–15 the besieged city’s petulant commander, General Pierre Thouvenot, launched a sortie that was fundamentally pointless—Paris had already surrendered to the Russians, Prussians and Austrians, and Napoléon had abdicated the throne on April 4. Graeme participated in the resultant night action outside Bayonne, a brutal ﬁght marked by bayonet thrusts and musket ﬁre at such close quarters that combatants’ clothing was singed by muzzle blasts. The British eventually contained and then drove back the French, but in the course of battle Graeme was slightly wounded. With the wars against Napoléon seemingly at an end, the young Scot took an extended leave from the legion and returned home, intending—among other things—to ﬁnd himself a bride.

Graeme’s Scottish sojourn didn’t last long, however, for in February 1815 the exiled Napoléon escaped from permissive British custody on the Mediterranean island of Elba and made his way back to France. The former emperor gathered an army about him as he advanced on Paris. Napoléon reached the capital on March 19 and, following the hasty departure of King Louis XVIII, once

Though outnumbered by the attacking French, the mixed group of British and German troops defending La Haye Sainte (opposite left and above as it appears today) held out long enough to prevent Napoléon from breaking through and threatening the main coalition line under Wellington.

again proclaimed himself emperor. Alarmed by Bonaparte’s return to power, Britain joined its former coalition partners in launching a campaign to once and for all rid Europe of the diminutive troublemaker. Napoléon, for his part, launched a pre-emptive strike north into the United Kingdom of the Netherlands (present-day Belgium) in a bid to split his adversaries and defeat them separately. Recalled to the King’s German Legion, Lieutenant Graeme joined his battalion on the Continent. The ﬁrst action of the new campaign did not go well, however, as on June 16 French forces under Marshal Michel Ney beat Wellington’s Anglo-allied army to the key crossroads at Quatre Bras, a day’s march from the Belgian capital. The French beat back the coalition troops, and Graeme and his unit were part of the rear guard that sought to prevent pursuers from turning Wellington’s tactical withdrawal into a rout. Graeme recalled the chaotic aftermath: [Both light battalions] formed the rear guard and had to amuse [the French] skirmishers two hours after our army had gone; it was then so dreadfully hot we could hardly draw one leg after the other.…The enemy fol-

Baker’s Deadly Riﬂe While the Brown Bess musket remained the British army’s standard weapon during the Napoléonic wars, the highly accurate Baker riﬂe (brainchild of gunsmith Ezekiel Baker) was used by specialist units, including those that fought at Waterloo. The ﬂintlock could also be ﬁtted with a sword bayonet, above.

43

Graeme and his men inﬂicted severe losses on the French troops assaulting La Haye Sainte, but it was not a one-sided ﬁght—following an intense artillery barrage the attackers entered the walled compound and drove out its defenders.

As they put some distance between themselves and their pursuers the next day, the outlook improved. “This soon changed to joy on seeing our army had taken up a position,” recalled Graeme. “About 7 in the evening, up to the knees in mud, we came on picket in a farm in front of the [Anglo-allied] position. We had neither rations nor anything, and it was very cold. At daybreak [June 18] we heard the whole army opposite crying, ‘Vive l’Empereur!’” The farm was La Haye Sainte, and Graeme and his men could do little to prepare the position for the forthcoming attack by the oncoming French. “We had no loopholes excepting three great apertures, which we made with difﬁculty when we were told in the morning we that were to defend the farm,” the young Scot recalled. “Our pioneers [combat engineers] had been sent to Hougoumont the evening before. We had no scaffolding, nor means of making any, having burnt the carts, etc. Our loopholes, if they may be thus termed, were on a level with the road on the outside.” Graeme was posted ﬁrst with a section of riﬂemen to one side of the main gate leading into the complex, then with a dozen men “on top of the piggery.” The French came down obliquely toward the farm in the ﬁrst attack, over the ﬁelds as well as down the high

44 MILITARY HISTORY SEPTEMBER 2017

road.…When close upon us, we entered the farm and closed the gates and poured a constant fire on their columns as they passed us, and even until they were up on the crest of the British position, when they were repulsed and broken by the British line, and repassed us like a ﬂock of sheep, followed by the Life Guards [British cavalry].…A party of our men sallied out and pursued the crowd. Emerging from their makeshift stockade, Graeme and his men noted “the ground was literally covered with French killed and wounded, even to the astonishment of my oldest soldiers, who said they had never witnessed such a sight. The French wounded were calling out, ‘Vive l’Empereur!’ and I saw a poor fellow lying with both his legs shattered, trying to destroy himself with his own sword, which I ordered my servant to take from him.”

Despite the casualties Lieutenant Graeme and his men had inﬂicted on the French attackers during the initial defense of La Haye Sainte, it was not a one-sided ﬁght. French artillery had battered the complex. “Toward evening they brought a battery to bear on us,” Graeme recalled, “pierced a wall which was our principal defense and then sent down columns to which this wall served as a breastwork on our ﬂanks, so that our unfortunate three companies were overpowered and forced to quit. Some of the enemy then got in, opened the gates, and the whole column rushed in.” While the bayonet-wielding Hanoverians were eventually able to repel most of the French intruders, several enemy soldiers managed to clamber atop the roof of the barn and pour down close-range harassing ﬁre on Graeme

WILLIAM SADLER/HERITAGE IMAGES/GETTY IMAGES

lowing us close, with their artillery peppering us from every height, they then came on with their cavalry, which beat ours at first but were checked. Nothing but horror to be seen. Everyone seemed panic-struck at the idea of retreat…all running through each other, and the enemy as is usual follow up in such a manner not giving you time to breathe.

45

WILLEM BENJAMIN CRAAN/WATERLOO200.ORG

running about and then coming to me again and shaking me by the collar. But they all looked so frightened and pale as ashes, I thought, You shan’t keep me, and I bolted through the lobby. They ﬁred two shots after me and cried out, ‘Coquin!’ but did not follow me. Graeme had scarcely rejoined the stragglers of his ﬂeeing unit when the French came in force.

Napoléon Bonaparte

and his men. The defenders were running perilously low on ammunition, and with the sole resupply wagon bogged down miles from the battleﬁeld, Major George Baring, the on-site commander at La Haye Sainte, ordered his men to withdraw and rejoin the main body of the British army. The 2nd Light Battalion, joined by survivors of the 1st Light Battalion and the skirmishers of the red-coated 5th Line Battalion, dutifully pulled out, but the withdrawal came with its own perils, as Graeme recalled in graphic detail: We all had to pass through a narrow passage. We wanted to halt the men and make one more charge, but it was impossible; the [French] were ﬁring down the passage. [Ensign George Franck] called to me,

After retiring in 1840, Graeme became the 10th laird of the family estate at Inchbrakie ‘Take care,’ but I was too busy stopping the men and answered, ‘Never mind, let the blackguard ﬁre.’ [The Frenchman] was about 5 yards off and leveling his piece at me, when [Franck] stabbed him in the mouth and out through his neck. He fell immediately. Before Graeme or Franck could react further, the French swarmed in about them. [Franck got off] two shots and ran into a room, where he lay behind a bed all the time they had possession of the house; sometimes the room was full of them, and some wounded soldiers of ours who lay there and cried out, ‘Pardon!’ were shot, the monsters saying, ‘Take that for the ﬁne defense you have made.’ An ofﬁcer and four men came ﬁrst in. The ofﬁcer got me by the collar and said to his men, ‘C’est ce coquin’ [“This is the rogue”]. Immediately the fellows had their bayonets down and made a dead stick at me, which I parried off with my sword, the ofﬁcer always

46 MILITARY HISTORY SEPTEMBER 2017

To reach the main British line, Graeme and his men had to ﬁght their way through an enemy formation, and a French musket ball suddenly struck the lieutenant. “This was about 7 in the evening,” he recalled, “and I was convinced that no ball could touch me. I was in such a heat that the blood gushed very much.…All the world ran round, and I began to think all was a farce, till, just as I was about to fall, a fellow of ours ran up to me and bound up my arm and brought me away. I was so thirsty, I drank a canteen of water. A stupid doctor told me I would lose my arm, but I had no idea of that.…It was a glorious day; I am glad I saw the whole of it.” While the brash young lieutenant survived the ﬁght at La Haye Sainte, the defense of the complex and ﬁghting withdrawal had been costly. “When Baring collected the regiment at night,” Graeme recalled, “there were 63 men and four ofﬁcers. [The major] burst into tears and wished he ‘had been killed too.’” After-action reports recorded the 2nd Light Battalion’s losses as 11 ofﬁcers and 338 enlisted men out of an initial complement of 376; those of the 1st Light Battalion, 13 ofﬁcers and more than half its enlisted men. The 5th Line Battalion, whose skirmishers had fought at La Haye Sainte, had been overrun by the cavalry charge, and only six ofﬁcers and 18 of its 400 enlisted men survived. The 8th Line Battalion, the least engaged at Waterloo, lost seven ofﬁcers and 110 enlisted men. Despite their losses, the troops at La Haye Sainte and at Hougoumont—which had held, thanks to constant reinforcement and ammunition supply—had delayed Napoléon long enough for the Prussians to arrive and attack the French rear. Despite the emperor’s best efforts, the coalition forces prevailed, and as darkness spread across the battleﬁeld, the French collapsed and ﬂed. It was the end of Napoléon as both general and emperor,

FROM LEFT: BOMANN MUSEUM; CHRONICLE/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO

Major George Baring

We were immediately charged by a regiment of cuirassiers. All the army was formed in squares. We immediately got our men in a hollow and peppered them, and I believe they found the cuirass not thick enough for our musket shot. At any rate they faced about, leaving not a few behind. We were overjoyed and leapt out and made the bugle sound forward, wanting to retake [La Haye Sainte] but having only a handful of men, half without a cartridge, and the columns of the enemy forming up behind the cavalry gave us such a galling ﬁre.

for he abdicated for the second and ﬁnal time on June 22. Before him lay exile and, on May 5, 1821, death on the remote South Atlantic island of Saint Helena.

Waterloo also proved George Drummond Graeme’s last battle, but his life’s denouement worked out far better than did the French emperor’s. For his actions at La Haye Sainte Graeme received commendations from Baring and Maj. Gen. Colin Halkett, and when the King’s German Legion disbanded in 1816, the Scotsman joined the Hanoverian Guard. He became something of a ﬁgure in the court of the resurgent Kingdom of Hanover, whose viceroy was none other than Prince Adolphus, Duke of Cambridge, son of George III and founding commander of the King’s German Legion. Graeme had received a double pension for the Waterloo campaign and was able to sustain himself independently in Hanover rather than overburden the ﬁnancially troubled family estate in Scotland. Circumstances changed, however, following Queen Victoria’s 1837 ascension to the British throne on the death of uncle William IV. Court officials in Hanover invoked Salic law—which prohibited royal succession to or through a woman—thereby separating Hanover (seat of the British monarchy since 1714) from Britain and handing the Hanoverian throne to Ernest Augustus, Duke of Cumberland, yet another son of George III.

Prince Adolphus returned to Britain, and Graeme chose not to remain in the new monarch’s court. Retiring after a quarter-century of service, the Scotsman returned home and in 1840, on the death of both his father and mother, became 10th laird of Inchbrakie. Two years later he married kinswoman Marianne Drummond, daughter of General James Drummond, 8th Viscount Strathallan. Their union was by all accounts a happy and productive one, blessing them with a son and two daughters. Graeme also managed to use his pension monies to forestall the sale of his estate for indebtedness. Unfortunately, he had never completely recovered from the wound he’d suffered during the withdrawal from La Haye Sainte and died in 1854 while taking a rest cure in Tours, France. Graeme’s son, Patrick, born in 1849, inherited his father’s title but also his debts and was ultimately compelled to sell Inchbrakie in 1882. MH Frequent Military History contributor John Koster is the author of Operation Snow, Custer Survivor and the forthcoming Hitler’s Nemesis: Hermann Ehrhardt. For further reading he recommends The Hundred Days: Napoléon’s Last Campaign From Eyewitness Accounts, by Antony Brett-James, and Or and Sable: A Book of the Graemes and Grahams, by Louisa G. Graeme. Also visit the Graeme of Inchbrakie website [inchbrakie.tripod.com/inchbrakie].

LA HAYE MUDFORD/WATERLOO200.COM

The defense of La Haye Sainte essentially destroyed the British 1st and 2nd Light Battalions and 5th Line Battalion, but it ultimately helped end Napoléon’s reign.

47

The Somaliland Camel Corps mopped up a Mad Mullah and policed and paciﬁed the British protectorate through two world wars By Nicholas Smith

48 MILITARY HISTORY SEPTEMBER 2017

On patrol here in 1935, the Somaliland Camel Corps roved the tribal districts, settled disputes, and provided aid and supplies whenever the need arose.

TRINITY MIRROR/MIRRORPIX/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO

49

50 MILITARY HISTORY SEPTEMBER 2017

O

SOMALINET.COM (2); OPPOSITE: CHRONICLE/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO

n the stiﬂingly hot morning of Aug. 9, 1913, it seemed the Somaliland Camel Corps just might die almost before it had been truly born. In the shadow of a barren peak named Dul Madoba (Black Hill) deep in colonial British Somaliland, Richard Corﬁeld watched as an overwhelming horde of more than 2,000 mounted Muslim warriors descended on his tiny command. A young and headstrong British political ofﬁcer, Corﬁeld had been charged by Geoffrey Francis Archer, Somaliland’s acting commissioner, to organize a 150man camel-mounted constabulary to police and patrol the coastal region around the Gulf of Aden port of Berbera, capital of the protectorate. Though on paper Britain ruled some 68,000 square miles of the Horn of Africa, a charismatic Somali tribal leader named Mohammed Abdullah Hassan had effectively reduced London’s actual control to an increasingly precarious coastal foothold.

Somaliland was one of Britain’s last colonial acquisitions. While the region offered relatively little in the way of valuable resources, the British were eager to cement control of coastal supply centers from which to support the vitally important naval base across the gulf at Aden. The British also hoped to check both their European rivals and the growing power of neighboring Ethiopia. So in 1884 colonial administrators established a tiny garrison in Berbera, and by 1886 the government of Prime Minister William Gladstone had forged treaties of protection and alliance with various Somali tribes in the interior to ensure supplies moved freely to the coast. Though relatively small, the colonial presence enraged Hassan. A fervent Muslim, he resented the Western inﬂuences the British had introduced. Preaching violent resistance, he soon earned the nickname the “Mad Mullah” for his Islamic extremism and erratic behavior. Yet his charisma and ability to bridge tribal divisions soon drew thousands of followers known as Dervishes (a Persian-derived term for religious ascetics). In August 1899, at the head of an army of 5,000 men, Hassan approached the central Somali city of Burao and proclaimed a holy war against the inﬁdels. He contented himself for the moment with raids against tribes ostensibly under British protection. With colonial administrators only in the port cities and just 130 Indian troops on hand, the British were in no position to oppose this unforeseen native rebellion. However, fearing the loss of loyalty from the tribes they were treaty-bound to protect, they were forced to respond and over the next ﬁve years launched four military expeditions into the Somali interior. In 1904 Italian illustrator Achille Beltrame depicted a pitched battle between British cavalrymen and the Mad Mullah’s Dervish raiders. The Camel Constabulary took over pursuit of the raiders in 1912.

The British initially employed a hastily armed and poorly trained force of local tribal levees. When these Somalis proved unreliable, large numbers of regular troops were shipped in from other parts of the empire. Hassan used hit-and-run attacks against the lumbering British columns, frustrating their efforts to lure him into a decisive engagement. While these expeditions weakened Hassan, they exhausted the British. “The third and fourth expeditions had cost us much,” recalled Douglas Jardine, a colonial officer who served in Somaliland. “In treasure no less than £5 millions sterling; in blood the lives of many valuable British officers whom our small professional army could ill afford to lose.” Unwilling to maintain a sizeable military force in Somaliland, London agreed to an admittedly tenuous nonaggression treaty with the Mad Mullah and withdrew most of its regular troops in 1905. Within a few years, however, Hassan broke the terms and resumed raids against tribes allied with the colonial government. The exasperated British responded with what they dubbed the “elastic militia system,” wherein authorities would provide loyal tribesmen with arms and ammunition to mount their own defense. As Jardine bluntly put it, “They were expressly informed that they should not look to us in the future either for military assistance or to settle their intertribal disputes.” The plan was a disaster. With all controls removed, Somalis used the British-supplied weapons to settle Richard scores and engage in intertribal warfare Corﬁeld on an unprecedented scale. An estimated one-third of the male population perished in the resulting years of bloodshed. Meanwhile, emboldened by the British withdrawal, Hassan and his forces raided deeper into British Somaliland.

By 1912 the military situation had grown dire—Hassan’s forces were raiding the outskirts of the coastal cities, and the British colonial administration was in danger of being literally pushed into the sea. It was at that point Corfield arrived, bearing Archer’s mandate to raise a Mohammed Camel Constabulary of white ofﬁcers and Somali men Abdullah to police the coastal region. While slower than horses, Hassan camels could carry more weight, and their ability to forgo water for long periods was a coveted trait in Somaliland’s arid climate. By year’s end the Camel Constabulary was ready to take the ﬁeld. As the raiding continued into 1913, Archer resolved to protect the trade routes to the coast and ordered the corps into the Somali interior at Burao. In August, on word of renewed Dervish raids, the acting commissioner sent the corps on a reconnaissance sweep.

51

YEMEN

MIL ES 1 00

GULF OF ADEN BERBERA

A F R ICA

BRITISH SOMALILAND

ENLARGED AREA

ET HI O PIA

D

BATTLE OF DUL MADOBA

SOMALIA SO ITA L M AL IAN IL AN

BU RA O

BATTLE OF SHIMBER BERRIS

Corﬁeld set out from Burao on the 8th with two fellow ofﬁcers and 109 rank and ﬁle, 10 of whom turned back due to troubles with their mounts. In his orders Archer had reiterated that the small camel-mounted force was not to directly confront Hassan’s powerful army. Soon after the unit set out, however, ﬂeeing tribesman reported the presence of a large Dervish raiding party near Idoweina, some 35 miles to the southeast. Soon after the corps went into camp that night, 300 irate, armed tribesmen arrived and pleaded with the British to help them recover their stolen stock. Corﬁeld—just 31 years old and with precious little military experience—decided to attack at dawn. The decision played into the Mad Mullah’s hands. He counterattacked in force, sending the tribesmen scurrying into the surrounding bush. Chanting praises to Muhammad, the Dervishes then attacked the surrounded Camel Constabulary in successive waves, their withering fire soon putting the corps’ single Maxim gun out of action. As Corﬁeld sought to clear the gun, he was shot through the head and killed. For ﬁve hours the survivors of his shattered command sheltered behind their dead camels and held off Hassan’s forces till the latter ran out of bullets. When the Dervishes ﬁnally withdrew, only 25 defenders remained standing. Thirty-five lay dead, 17 wounded. Another two-dozen had fled with the tribesmen and were later drummed out of service. While the survivors counted 395 Dervish dead on the ﬁeld and estimated total enemy casualties at closer to 600, the battle went down as a humiliating defeat for the British. Taking advantage of that perception, Hassan penned a celebratory poem, opening with the lines, “You have died, Corﬁeld, and are no longer in this world/ A merciless journey was your portion.” The fiasco at Dul Madoba prompted the British to launch a drastic reorganization of the decimated Camel Constabulary in the spring of 1914. Renamed the Somaliland Camel Corps, the unit comprised 18 British ofﬁcers and 450 rank and ﬁle, supported by the 400-strong Somaliland Indian Contingent. Commanding the overall force was Lt. Col. T. Ashley Cubitt, an experienced British

52 MILITARY HISTORY SEPTEMBER 2017

As the Dervish horde warred against the colonial administration in British Somaliland, so too did Muslim rebels in neighboring Italian Somaliland (opposite top). The Camel Corps pursued the Dervish across the desert (opposite, bottom left) and drove them from Shimber Berris in 1914–15 (opposite, bottom right).

army officer. Whereas the first iteration of the corps, intended solely as a constabulary force, had been led by political and administrative ofﬁcials, the reconstituted force would be tasked with engaging and defeating Hassan, hence its relatively large and experienced cadre of military ofﬁcers. The Camel Corps ultimately embraced its dual mission to both maintain civil order and engage any threatening force (i.e., the Mad Mullah) in direct military action.

The Camel Corps was not the only group undergoing reorganization—Hassan was also consolidating his power. Bringing in expert masons from Yemen, he had directed the construction of stone forts throughout his territory, including a massive fortress at the Dervish stronghold of Taleh, near the eastern border with Italian Somaliland. Of greater concern to the British was a series of well-sited fortiﬁcations atop strategically important Shimber Berris (aka Mount Shimbiris) in north central British Somaliland, which posed a direct threat to coastal trade routes. On Nov. 19, 1914, Lt. Col. Cubitt led the Camel Corps and supporting Indian sepoys on an assault of the forts at Shimber Berris. Under the cover of steady machine gun ﬁre, the troops advanced across exposed ground toward the waiting defenders. Three times the corps charged, and three times was bloodily repulsed. Captain Herbert William Symons fell dead mere feet from one fort’s gate, while future lieutenant general and Victoria Cross recipient Adrian Carton de Wiart lost an eye and part of an ear (his ﬁrst of many wounds). Another ﬁve men were killed and 25 wounded before the force—with the additional support of a 7-pounder mountain gun hastily rushed to the ﬁeld— was able to expel the Dervishes. Cubitt’s soldiers had expended more than 30,000 riﬂe and machine gun rounds and 34 artillery shells in the ferocious ﬁght, and the men of the Camel Corps had proven themselves skilled and reliable ﬁghters. The enraged Mad Mullah reportedly castrated his defeated Dervishes. Though Hassan was able to reoccupy the abandoned forts, a follow-up expedition by Cubitt in February 1915 razed the stronghold. The Camel Corps also achieved success in countering Hassan’s raids on Britain’s Somali allies. Instead of simply arming the friendly tribesmen and leaving them to their own devices, the men of the corps organized small groups of scouts from the various tribes. The British also devised a functioning system for reacting to Hassan’s raids. Camel Corps Major Hastings L. Ismay later described it: If a small force came through, the irregulars dealt with it on their own. If, as often happened, the enemy were

OPPOSITE, CLOCKWISE FROM TOP: ACHILLE BELTRAME/BRIDGEMAN IMAGES; WIKIMEDIA COMMONS; BRITISH NATIONAL ARMY MUSEUM

0

53

The Mad Mullah, depicted with a scout signaling with a shield, faced both the Camel Corps riders and foot soldiers of the corps’ King’s African Riﬂes, like the sergeant on this period cigarette card (opposite left). When Italy invaded Somaliland in 1940, the corps’ Somali riders dispersed (opposite right).

out for a big thing and sent through 600 to 800 riﬂes, the job of the irregulars was to get the news in to the Camel Corps.…Sometimes we got up in time; far more often we failed. But the enemy never got away with a really big thing, and we gave him some bad knocks.

Camel Corps Conical Cap

54 MILITARY HISTORY SEPTEMBER 2017

in the Hargeisa War Cemetery in present-day Somalia. Hassan ﬂed into exile in Ethiopia, succumbing to the ﬂu on Dec. 21, 1920. He died a broken man.

Following Hassan’s defeat, Britain’s foremost goal in Somaliland was to maintain political stability and prevent the rise of another insurgency. Ultimately—and perhaps surprising, given the history of the region—Britain was largely successful in its efforts to create a relatively stable colony free from the inherent lawlessness and violence that had marked earlier decades. Tasked with establishing and maintaining the peace were the ofﬁcers and men of the Somaliland Camel Corps. The British ofﬁcers who served in the corps were a decidedly small band of brothers. By 1927 the unit comprised 379 enlisted soldiers led by just 12 ofﬁcers. Each company typically had three officers, one company commander and two subalterns who led individual troops on patrols, often over great distances. As a result the junior British ofﬁcers went largely unsupervised in the ﬁeld, leaving them to make command decisions on the fly. That said, they had to rely on their Somali troops not only to complete their assigned missions, but also for basic survival in the unforgiving landscape of rural Somaliland. The circumstances affected discipline and ofﬁcer-soldier relations. When Murray Lewis arrived as a young Camel Corps subaltern in 1922, a fellow officer shared this advice: “If you treat the men like British troops, you will do quite well. Remember they are equal to you and me.” Such remarks reﬂect an unusually enlightened viewpoint in an age not known for racial tolerance. Discipline in the corps was also very different than in other British military units. Lewis noted the Somalis required a “diplomatic discipline.” Ofﬁcers never drove the men hard or physically struck them and were especially

IMPERIAL WAR MUSEUM; RICHARD CATON WOODVILLE II/BRIDGEMAN IMAGES

The new strategy sapped Hassan of men and supplies he could ill afford to lose. The Camel Corps’ enhanced presence also greatly augmented the British reputation among the tribes. The end of World War I freed up men and equipment from Europe, and by January 1920 the British were able to move against the Mad Mullah in force. The Royal Air Force had flown 12 de Havilland DH.9 biplanes into Berbera, leaking a cover story they were to be used for oil operations. The forthcoming combination of tactical bombing—which Hassan and his troops had no experience with or defense against—and well-coordinated attacks by the Camel Corps, Indian sepoys and Somali levees overwhelmed the enemy. Ironically, Hassan’s abandonment of his mobile insurgent strategy and subsequent reliance on defensive fortiﬁcations had allowed the British to isolate the leader and his followers, with devastating consequences. On January 27, under the cover of machine gun and Stokes mortar ﬁre, the fastmoving Camel Corps stormed the fort at Jidali. Many of the Mad Mullah’s fanatical defenders fought to the end, praising him loudly in song even as they ﬁred their last shots before dying in a hail of exploding shells. For three days the British bombed the imposing fortress at Taleh, largely destroying it. Amid the confusion Hassan ﬂed, the Camel Corps close on his heels. Worn by Captain The survivors soon surrendered. “The Solomon Davidowitz magic of the Mad Mullah that had for so during his service in the long held his followers together,” Major Camel Corps, this fabric skull cap served as a Henry Rayne recalled, “was useless against liner. It underpinned a the magic of the bird-men above.” turban, whose protruding While the RAF received much credit shamla, or tail, served for the operation’s success, Archer conas unit identiﬁcation. cluded it was “the sustained and determined pursuit by the Camel Corps, often on half and no rations, over a great stretch of country, regardless of privation and fatigue” that had prevented the Mad Mullah from rallying his forces. The corps had paid dearly for its hard-fought victory, however; 42 members of the unit who died on campaign between 1914 and 1920 are interred

BRIDGEMAN IMAGES; BETTMANN/GETTY IMAGES

careful to respect the men’s Muslim beliefs. The bonds they established often proved strong. Peter St. ClaireFord recalled that the Somalis regarded him and fellow ofﬁcers more as “friends and advisers.” In turn, Ford’s trust in his men ran so deep that he often didn’t carry a weapon on patrol. He knew that if a ﬁght developed, his men would protect him. When Lewis returned to Somaliland in 1950, many of his former comrades walked more than 100 miles to welcome him. Somalis evinced great enthusiasm for the unit. A call for 20 recruits might yield as many as 200 applicants. “It was a great social attribute,” St. Clair-Ford explained, “to have a son in the Camel Corps.” The unit recruited from all tribes, but its members embraced a “corps ﬁrst” ethos, considering themselves members of a distinct family that superseded all other allegiances. When the unit engaged in actions against a particular soldier’s own tribe, he would often insist on participating in order to demonstrate his loyalty to the corps. The Camel Corps functioned essentially as the muscular arm of the British district commissioners, isolated political ofﬁcers who themselves acted as intermediaries and arbitrators among the various tribes. Tribal disputes centered mostly on grazing or water rights, as well as the theft of camels—which remain a critical source of transportation, not to mention milk and meat. The corps supported the district commissioners in their efforts to defuse such potentially explosive disputes before they got out of control. “One way to do it,” corps officer John A. Stevens explained, “was if the tribe misbehaved, you sent out a patrol, rounded up 100 camels and told them they’d get them back when [the tribe] started behaving.” The Camel Corps also served in a humanitarian capacity. During the inevitable seasons of severe drought, the colonial administration set up relief camps. The corps assisted with both the protection of the camps and the

Amid the confusion Hassan ﬂed, the Camel Corps close on his heels movement and distribution of relief supplies, using their pack camels to bring water and rice to the people. At the outset of World War II, in August 1940, the Somaliland Camel Corps helped wage a valiant but futile defense against a vastly superior Italian invasion force. The British ultimately evacuated, the corps disbanded, and its Somali members dispersed. When the British recaptured Somaliland the following spring, they reactivated the corps, which promptly went to work rounding up Italian holdouts and deserters. In 1942 the army replaced the Camel Corps with a fully mechanized unit known as the Somaliland Scouts, which remained active until British and Italian Somaliland merged in 1960 to form the independent Republic of Somalia. Dictator Mohamed Siad Barre staged a Marxist coup in 1969. Decades of repressive authoritarianism followed, leading to a devastating civil war and resultant famine that left Somalia in a state of anarchy. The subsequent rise of the radical Islamic terrorist group al-Shabaab, and the ongoing regional and international efforts to suppress it, only make the story of the Mad Mullah and the Somaliland Camel Corps all the more relevant today. These brave and resourceful men, British and Somali alike, brought stability to a land that has rarely seen it. MH Nicholas Smith is a U.S. Army Reserve ofﬁcer and works for the Massachusetts National Guard. For further reading he recommends The Mad Mullah of Somaliland, by Douglas Jardine; Sun, Sand and Somals, by Henry A. Rayne; and Churchill and the Mad Mullah of Somaliland, by Roy Irons.

55

GETTY IMAGES

Militants hoped the bombing of Iraq’s al-Askari shrine would inﬂame a sectarian civil war between the nation’s Sunni and Shiite Muslims—and they got their wish By Stephen Carlson

The Feb. 22, 2006, bombing of the al-Askari shrine by Sunni militants sparked internecine ﬁghting that soon embroiled U.S. forces and has yet to end.

57

T

hough bloodless, the Feb. 22, 2006, bombing of the al-Askari shrine in Samarra, Iraq, sparked sectarian warfare nationwide, particularly 60 miles south in Baghdad, where residents streamed from their neighborhoods seeking either reprisals or refuge. The violence quickly spread, claiming hundreds of civilian casualties in the ﬁrst week alone. As intended, the explosion had shattered the relative peace between Iraq’s contentious Sunni and Shiite sects, sparking a civil war that has yet to end.

The al-Askari shrine—commonly called the Golden Mosque, in reference to the gold sheathing installed on its dome more than a century ago—is one of the oldest and most revered sites in Shiite Islam. Built during the 9th century, it contains the entombed remains of two of the sect’s most important ﬁgures—imams Ali al-Hadi and his son Hasan al-Askari, the namesake of the shrine. Al-Hadi and al-Askari were the 10th and 11th of the 58 MILITARY HISTORY SEPTEMBER 2017

Twelve Imams, the spiritual and political successors of Muhammad, the 7th century founder of Islam. Though members of both al-Qaida and various Shiite militia groups were known to have infiltrated Iraq’s security forces, the lapses that had allowed the bombing of the mosque were clear indications of just how compromised the fragmented nation’s military and law enforcement agencies had become. Moreover, the incident blew up into a crisis for U.S-led coalition forces in Iraq. Though no one was killed, the partial destruction of the famed golden dome outraged Shiites, and militia forces ranging from the Mahdi army to Hezbollah considered the act tantamount to a declaration of holy war. On the heels of the U.S.-led invasion three years earlier Muqtada al-Sadr had founded the Mahdi army, which grew into a network of Shiite militias with signiﬁcant representation in the Iraqi parliament. The militia leader’s father and father-in-law, both Shiite clerics, had been killed on the orders of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. Regardless, he called the bombing “a plan by the occupation to spark a sectarian war” and speciﬁcally blamed

DEA/C. SAPPA/GETTY IMAGES

The al-Askari shrine (aka Golden Mosque) in Samarra, 60 miles north of Baghdad, is among the oldest and most revered sites in Shiite Islam. American troops (opposite, top left) patrolled its grounds even before the 2006 attack. The blue-tiled dome of an adjacent shrine (opposite, bottom right) survived the bombing.

al-Zarqawi

al-Sadr

SAMARRA IRAN BAGHDAD

IR AQ

MAP: BRIAN WALKER; CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: JEWEL SAMAD/AFP/GETTY IMAGES; GETTY IMAGES; JOSEPH KRAUSS/AFP/GETTY IMAGES; ALAA AL-MARJANI/REUTERS

SAUDI ARABIA

the United States and Israel. While patently untrue— the attack conﬂicting with the regional interests of both nations—al-Sadr’s words further inﬂamed Iraqi Shiites, who already saw themselves as second-class citizens. Before the invasion Saddam’s minority Sunnis had dominated Iraq. Indeed, one of the few points of favor coalition troops found among the majority Shiite population was that they had toppled the dictatorship and liberated the long-oppressed sect. After the bombing, al-Sadr played a key role in changing that positive perception, and the Mahdi army became an even more intractable enemy to the U.S.-led occupation. President George W. Bush immediately spoke out against the bombing. “The United States condemns this cowardly act in the strongest possible terms,” he wrote in a statement from the White House. “I ask all Iraqis to exercise restraint in the wake of this tragedy and to pursue justice in accordance with the laws and constitution of Iraq.” Coalition forces had been seeking to curb deaths among the civilian population using counterinsurgency tactics. The bombing hampered such efforts.

Shiite leader Muqtada al-Sadr blamed the bombing on the United States and Israel In a televised appearance Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari, a Shiite, called for a three-day mourning period. In a counterproductive public statement of his own Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, Iraq’s most senior Shiite cleric, insisted, “If the government’s security forces cannot provide the necessary protection, the believers will do it.”

Ultimately, Sunni insurgents inspired by Jordanianborn al-Qaida adherent Abu Musab al-Zarqawi claimed responsibility for the attack. Knowing they could not defeat the U.S.-backed majority Shiite government on the battleﬁeld, they wanted to incite a civil war between Shiites and Sunnis, a chaotic conﬂict from which Zarqawi and his followers hoped to emerge triumphant.

59

The blowback from his ruthless strategy was severe, as within a day of the bombing Shiite militiamen killed or kidnapped two dozen Sunni clerics and targeted dozens of the sect’s mosques across Iraq with drive-by shootings and rocket attacks. The militiamen also roamed Sunni neighborhoods, kidnapping and executing civilians at will. In reprisal attacks al-Qaida targeted Shiite market places, cafés and even funerals with suicide car bombings, killing and injuring scores. According to the Iraqi government 3,438 civilians died violently in July 2006 alone, making the month one of the deadliest for civilians during the Iraq War. Indeed, the bloodshed was so terrible that al-Qaida founder Osama bin Laden himself reportedly told Iraqi supporters the slaughter gave a bad name to the entire organization. Regardless, Sunni militants must have perceived the carnage and political instability that followed the bombing of the Golden Mosque as productive, as they bombed the ediﬁce a second time. That attack, on June 13, 2007,

60 MILITARY HISTORY SEPTEMBER 2017

toppled the twin 10-story minarets that had survived the 2006 assault. It also poured yet more fuel on Iraq’s already blazing Sunni-Shiite civil war. In a 2007 interview General David Petraeus, architect of the surge strategy employed earlier that year to stabilize the country, responded to the attack in hopeful tones. “This is a serious blow,” he began, “but frankly, it is our hope that this can galvanize the Iraqi leaders to unite against this form of extremism. As you’ll recall, this is a continuation of some attacks that took place a couple of weeks ago as well against some Sunni mosques. And, in fact, so far all Iraqi leaders have united, have joined, have linked arms in condemning this action.” Petraeus then made an indirect appeal to al-Sadr: “There have been different messages that have come out of Muqtada al-Sadr in the past week or so. Interestingly, some of those have been a bit more pragmatic and accommodating.”

REUTERS

Sunni insurgents wearing Iraqi military uniforms set the bombs that rocked the Golden Mosque. Local Shiites immediately began clearing the rubble (opposite, left and top right), while Samarrabased troops of the U.S. 82nd Airborne Division (opposite, bottom right) provided security.

CLOCKWISE FROM LEFT: DIA HAMID/AFP/GETTY IMAGES; GETTY IMAGES; JOSEPH KRAUSS/AFP/GETTY IMAGES

But al-Sadr had no intention of making peace with the United States. Indeed, his rhetoric strategically and routinely blamed U.S. forces for atrocities with which they had nothing to do. The Mahdi army remained a fearsome organization that targeted coalition forces and the poorly trained and equipped Iraqi government troops, as well as civilians and the infrastructure in Iraq. Its attempts to engage U.S. forces in open combat generally ended in disaster with heavy casualties. But when the Mahdi army switched to guerrilla tactics and gained material support from Iran—which supplied it with improvised explosive devices that could penetrate armored vehicles—its insurgent forces became a real threat to coalition troops. In the end the Iraq War was less a clash between insurgents and coalition troops—who had initially thought of themselves as liberators—than a sectarian civil war that happened to embroil U.S.-led forces. The

As recently as 2014 ISIL militants launched mortar rounds at the al-Askari shrine al-Askari shrine remains a ﬂash point of the continuing conﬂict in Iraq and the surrounding region. As recently as 2014 Sunni militants of the Islamic State, or ISIL, launched mortar shells at the site, wounding nine Iraqis. Their motives were the same as those of the attackers before them—to cause so much internecine ﬁghting that the country would collapse and they could rule as kings over the rubble. MH Stephen Carlson served two tours in Afghanistan as an infantryman with the 10th Mountain Division and is now employed by United Press International.

61

THE GLORY OF THE SUN KING Over his lengthy reign Louis XIV defeated successive generations of European royalty—but in so doing he sealed the fate of the absolute monarchy in France By Kelly Bell

King of France from 1643 to 1715, Louis XIV was motivated by an allconsuming thirst for martial glory.

62 MILITARY HISTORY SEPTEMBER 2017

LOUIS MAURER/WIKIMEDIA COMMONS

63

ondon was still smoldering when France’s King Louis XIV proclaimed his life’s driving force. The year was 1666, and the Great Fire had just reduced the capital of his mortal English enemies to a charred barren. Stirred by an inner ﬂame of his own, Louis proclaimed, “My dominant passion is certainly love of glory.” His thirst for la gloire had already moved him to claim a hefty share of fading Spain’s continental possessions. Yet there was little prestige to be gained from kicking around the bankrupt, overextended Spaniards. The monarch known to history as the “Sun King” cast his gaze elsewhere, and he discerned a quarry with much to offer in his nominal allies the wealthy Dutch.

64 MILITARY HISTORY SEPTEMBER 2017

Louis XIV’s 1672 invasion of the Netherlands— depicted in a period painting by Dutch artist Adam Frans van der Meulen—was more about power and proﬁt than it was about religion.

Seeking a quick victory, Louis had amassed an impressive force with which to conquer the Dutch. Some 120,000 men in two columns first advanced toward Maastricht in the southeast part of the Netherlands (sandwiched between present-day Germany and Belgium), but then bypassed the fortress city and followed the Rhine River northwest toward Amsterdam. As the French closed within two days’ march of the capital, the Dutch opened their dikes, establishing a defensive water line by ﬂooding the surrounding countryside in 4 feet of excruciatingly cold seawater. But by then the French soldiers were so far inside Holland that the panicked Dutch people revolted, demanding the appointment of William of Orange as stadtholder, or de facto head of state, before lynching the politicians they blamed for leading them to war. The government in waterlocked Amsterdam meanwhile sought a truce

ADAM FRANS VAN DER MEULEN/RIJKSMUSEUM, AMSTERDAM

King Louis’ decision to extend his quest for glory to the Netherlands seemed, to him at least, a logical one. Though the forerunner of the Dutch Republic had been a military ally of France for decades, the Hollanders had become major economic rivals. Having largely replaced the Portuguese as masters of commerce between Europe and the wealthy Far East, the ardently capitalistic Dutch grew steadily richer through their domination of the Molucca Islands (in present-day Indonesia) and stranglehold on the lucrative spice trade. To justify his decision to go to war, Louis could point to marked political and religious differences. The Dutch had broken with the Spanish monarchy to form their democratic republic, while France remained the domain of an absolute monarch—the Sun King himself. Moreover, the Dutch dared to challenge his authority, in 1668 forming a diplomatic alliance with England and Sweden that forced Louis to end his ongoing war against the Spanish Netherlands and return conquered territory. Though both the Dutch and French were ostensibly Christian, the Protestant Hollanders forbade Catholicism in the Netherlands, while the hard-core Catholic French king ultimately outlawed Protestantism within his domain. But profit and glory were Louis’ actual motives for wanting to conquer the rich and powerful Hollanders. To humble the men in wooden shoes would not only line Louis’ pockets but also gain him far-reaching acclaim as his nation’s champion in a struggle with a dangerous ideological opponent. Thus in May 1672 he mobilized his armies and launched the Franco-Dutch War.

to spare both sides a bloodbath in the looming siege of the capital. Louis, however, demanded such harsh concessions that the Dutch rallied around William. A hotheaded, combat-loving ﬁrebrand, William proved a largely inept ﬁeld commander. Yet in defeat he managed to inﬂict grievous losses on his opponents, and the fervently Protestant stadtholder hated Louis with a passion. Furthermore, he managed to enlist allies with his energetic anti-French exhortations. Frustrated by the swamped countryside and William’s fanatical resistance, Louis turned away from Amsterdam to instead invest the bypassed fortress city of Maastricht. Tasked with the siege was Sébastien Le Prestre de Vauban, a talented young military engineer with a proven ability to both build and overcome defensive works. Vauban devised an intricate network of trenches that within a few weeks brought about Maastricht’s fall.

A hotheaded, combat-loving ﬁrebrand, William proved a largely inept ﬁeld commander Under Vauban’s supervision the French captured every Dutch fortress city they encountered, but William kept coaxing a steady stream of new allies onto the battleﬁeld to ﬁght the French. Louis resorted to subterfuge, dispatching regiments of spies and subversives to nurture disaffection and outright revolt among William’s countrymen and newfound allies. In the end, although opposed by strong and capable enemies, the French king manipulated them into impotence and ultimately prevailed. In the subsequent 1678–79 Nijmegen peace treaties, his demoralized and confused adversaries conceded him vast tracts of Europe.

65

Le Roi Soleil Louis XIV’s reference to himself as the “Sun King” served several purposes: It was an allusion to his absolute power and the radiance of his court at the Palace of Versailles, and it highlighted what he saw as his many contributions to the enlightenment of France and its people.

William III

The Sun King’s adventure in the Netherlands had helped turn France into the undisputed pre-eminent power on the Continent. Louis oversaw a sprawling domain molded to his will, with few voices of dissent from his subjects of various nationalities. Yet his belief in a divine right to absolute power—and, of course, his unquenchable thirst for glory—inevitably drove him from the comforts of peace to lead his nation back to war.

Following his victory in the Franco-Dutch War Louis undertook a series of actions intended to stabilize his nation’s borders and reinforce his various territorial claims. The most momentous of these came in the fall of 1688, when the Sun King crossed the Rhine seeking to coerce Holy Roman Emperor Leopold I into acknowledging France’s hegemony in Western Europe. Louis’ advance did not have the intended result, however, instead driving Leopold to band together with Spain, the Dutch Republic, Savoy, England and other European allies to form the Grand Alliance, which promptly declared war on France. The resulting Nine Years’ War had Louis ﬁghting on two fronts—in the east, where his forces took numerous cities in the Rhineland, and in the west against the English and Dutch. France also supported the ultimately futile efforts of deposed King James II, a fellow Catholic, to reclaim the English throne from William III—Louis’ old nemesis William of Orange. The war also saw extensive ﬁghting in Italy, as well as in Spain’s Catalonia region. Though France generally did well in the conﬂict, by 1697 the huge drain on Louis’ treasury convinced him to agree to the Treaty of Ryswick and renounce some of his recent gains.

66 MILITARY HISTORY SEPTEMBER 2017

Louis had been on the throne ostensibly since age 4, and by the time the Nine Years’ War ended, the 59-yearold Sun King was more than ready to retire, at least as much as a ruling monarch of his stature could. His wife, Maria Theresa of Spain, had died in 1683, after which the aging monarch had shed his many mistresses and married 48-year-old Françoise d’Aubigné, pious onetime governess to one of the king’s former mistresses. As the 17th century waned, Louis surrounded himself with family—including his dozen-plus children, both acknowledged and illegitimate—and sought ﬁnally to give over the rigors of campaigning. Louis found it difﬁcult to rest on his considerable laurels, however, for a new generation of enemies was emerging to challenge him. The determined newcomers were conﬁdent they could cut down to size the aging monarch who had instilled such fear in their fathers. Yet the Sun King would rouse himself from the comforts of hearth and home to show how powerfully an old lion can bite.

As the 18th century dawned, the tangled political machinations in Europe conspired to make Louis XIV appear to ruling contemporaries a greater-than-ever peril. Spain’s frail and sickly Hapsburg king, Charles II, had no direct heir, although Hapsburg Archduke Charles of Austria was a strong claimant. But in the will he dictated just before his death at age 38 on Nov. 1, 1700, Charles II left the throne to grandnephew Philip, Duke of Anjou, who was also Louis’ grandson. The French king was poised to gain unfettered access to the considerable stores of gold and silver Spain had extracted from its New World colonies. The Sun King’s rivals in turn feared such a huge injection of capital would only fuel Louis’ penchant for territorial expansion and lust for glory. The French king’s actions in the two years following Philip’s ascension did little to dispel their fear, as he declined

TOP, FROM LEFT: SIR GODFREY KNELLER/GETTY IMAGES; WILLEM WISSING/RIJKSMUSEUM, AMSTERDAM; DEA PICTURE LIBRARY/GETTY IMAGES; BELOW: BECKY PITZER

John Churchill, Duke of Marlborough

FROM LEFT: NICOLAS DE LARGILLIÈRE/ALTESSES.EU; MASTERPICS/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO

Sébastien Le Prestre de Vauban

to remove his grandson from the House of Bourbon line of succession, raising the very real possibility Philip might one day rule over both Spain and France. The response to Louis’ actions was swift. England, the Dutch Republic, Austria and other states within the Holy Roman Empire allied themselves against the French king and formally supported Archduke Charles’ claim to the Spanish throne. The reconstituted Grand Alliance declared war on France in May 1702, and Louis once again found himself confronting a formidable array of hostile powers. While the French king remained a political force to be reckoned with, he faced several challenges in the War of the Spanish Succession. Louis’ best ﬁeld commander in the Franco-Dutch War, Henri de La Tour d’Auvergne, vicomte de Turenne, had died in one of the ﬁnal battles of that fray, and the brilliant Vauban had quibbled with his king and fallen out of royal favor. Moreover, France’s coffers had never recovered from the expenses of the Nine Years’ War, even with the recent infusion of Spanish money. The confederation squaring off against France, meanwhile, had organized a hardy leadership. A disillusioned expatriate Frenchman, Prince Eugene of Savoy, was expertly guiding Austria’s imperial forces. Louis’ nemesis William III of England had died, leaving John Churchill, Duke of Marlborough, in charge of that nation’s forces. Churchill, like Eugene, had fought as a young soldier in the previous war with France, and his courage and meticulous study of warfare made him one of his nation’s greatest warriors. Nevertheless, at the Sept. 20, 1703, Battle of Höchstädt, in Bavaria, the French under Marshal ClaudeLouis-Hector de Villars managed to trounce the opposing Austrians, inﬂicting more than 10,000 casualties for the loss of 1,000 men. The situation appeared dire for the coalition. But in 1704 Churchill, after massing a sizable force in Flanders, struck out southwest on a route that

John Churchill, Duke of Marlborough (in red, opposite right), took command of England’s military forces following the 1702 death of William III. As he grew older, Louis (above left) surrounded himself with family—including his dozen-plus children—and strove to retire.

made it impossible for the French to ascertain his destination and concentrate their troops accordingly. He ﬁnally dug into the French and their Bavarian allies on July 2 at Donauwörth, cutting them to pieces. Churchill shared William III’s love of combat, but was a far more competent ﬁeld commander known for uncompromising tactics. When assaulting a fortiﬁcation, for example, he skipped the formality of offering its commander a chance to surrender, instead sending waves of men against the enemy defenses. Churchill also refused to parole enemy soldiers, thus denying the rank and ﬁle an opportunity to bear arms against him a second time.

Louis found it difﬁcult to rest on his laurels, for a new generation of enemies was emerging In the wake of his victory at Donauwörth Churchill linked up with Eugene, and on August 13 they destroyed a numerically superior French-Bavarian army on the banks of the Danube near Blenheim, a decisive victory that essentially knocked Bavaria out of the war. The Grand Alliance further rocked the French back on their heels in Italy and the Mediterranean, where the British seized Gibraltar. The victories also crushed Louis’ hopes for a quick war. Things went from bad to worse for the French. In 1706 Churchill trounced Louis’ elderly favorite marshal, François de Neufville, duc de Villeroi, at Ramillies; allied forces drove

67

68 MILITARY HISTORY SEPTEMBER 2017

Though the withdrawal of French forces from the ﬁeld allowed John Churchill to claim an allied victory at the bloody Sept. 11, 1709, Battle of Malplaquet, Louis XIV’s armies remained intact and his empire largely secure.

articles were demands that the French surrender all their conquests and that Louis not only desist all aid to his grandson in Spain but also force Philip to abdicate in favor of Archduke Charles. Although broken in spirit and sick of the misery constant war was visiting on his country and people, the proud old monarch could not bring himself to bow so low to his foes. “If I must make war,” he replied to the demands, “I would rather ﬁght my enemies than my children.”

Backed into a corner with his loved ones behind him, Louis XIV decided on a wholly uncharacteristic course of action—the absolute monarch turned to his people for help. In June 1709 the French king distributed an open letter to his military governors, provincial authorities and bishops, outlining the impossibility of the allied

FROM TOP: JAN VAN HUCHT BURG/NETHERLANDS NATIONAL MILITARY MUSEUM; M.S. RAU ANTIQUES

the French from the Netherlands; Eugene upended Louis’ southern forces outside Turin, Italy; and an allied army reached Madrid, threatening Louis’ grandson. In 1708 Churchill and Eugene again teamed up to defeat the French in Flanders and occupy northern France. Meanwhile, the combined ﬂeets of the newly declared United Kingdom and Holland established ﬁrm control of the Mediterranean and North Atlantic, blockading French ports. Imported goods became a rarity, and prices soared. Then nature itself delivered a severe blow. The winter of 1708–09 was the harshest in recorded history. France’s just-planted wheat crop died in the rock-hard soil, while the numbing cold killed half the nation’s livestock. Famine was widespread. Louis’ pious wife told him God was punishing him for inciting the Dutch war. The Sun King believed her and sought peace from his enemies. In the spring of 1709, when French Foreign Minister Jean-Baptiste Colbert, marquis de Torcy, traveled to Holland for negotiations, the allies hurled a set of brutally humiliating terms at him. Among the 40

requirements and appealing directly to the citizens to come to their country’s aid:

THOMAS JONES HENRY BARKER/MUSEE ANTOINE-LÉCUYER

I can say that I have done violence to my character… to procure promptly a peace for my subjects even at the expense of my personal satisfaction, and perhaps even to my honor.…I can no longer see any alternative to take other than to prepare to defend ourselves. To make them see that a united France is greater than all the powers assembled by force and artifice to overwhelm it, at this hour I have put into effect the most extraordinary measures that we have used on similar occasions to procure the money indispensable for the glory and security of the state.…I have come to ask… your aid in this encounter that involves your safety. By the efforts that we shall make together, our foes will understand that we are not to be put upon. Louis’ plea struck a resounding chord with his subjects, who immediately rallied around king and country. Gold cascaded into the coffers, while malnourished men from 16 to 60 rushed to enlist in an army the allies did not notice growing. Fed by little more than patriotism, recruits toiled on fortiﬁcations and drilled ceaselessly under the direction of Marshal Villars, who knew the only real advantage they would have over the battle-tested, numerically superior Grand Alliance troops was desperation. Meanwhile, Churchill besieged the fortress city of Tournai, in Flanders, which ﬁnally fell in early September, then moved east toward Mons, threatening to outﬂank the French lines. Recognizing the threat, Louis sent Villars to intercept the allies. Correctly assuming Churchill would never pass up a shot at what appeared an easy victory, Villars conspicuously massed his troops outside the nondescript town of Malplaquet. Sure enough, the pugnacious British commander made straight for them. Villars’ choice of location was a stroke of genius. Dense forests protected his ﬂanks. From their bristling defensive positions the French employed cannons and muskets with greater accuracy than Churchill had anticipated, repulsing successive waves of brightly clad allied attackers. Using enﬁlading tactics Villars had seen before and was expecting, Churchill wasted thousands of men in advances shattered by withering fire from a far larger French force than he had dreamed of encountering. As Villars and his men were ﬁrst to leave the ﬁeld at Malplaquet, Churchill brazenly claimed success, but it was a cripplingly expensive Pyrrhic victory. While the French had sustained some 10,000 casualties, allied losses were nearly double that number. “If it please God to give your majesty’s enemies another such victory,” Villars reported to his sovereign, “they are undone.” The British Parliament, shocked by the bloodbath and impelled by a war-weary public, gradually pulled back from its hawkish stance and sought a separate peace with

Louis XIV’s self-abasing appeal to his subjects helped sow the seeds of French republicanism France, and the Grand Alliance ultimately crumbled. In a series of treaties signed in the Dutch city of Utrecht in 1713 the allies recognized Philip’s claim to the Spanish throne in exchange for his renunciation of any future claim to the French throne. Despite concessions to the British in North America, Louis had consolidated his realm—and just in time. The 76-year-old sovereign died of gangrene on Sept. 1, 1715, after a reign of 72 years—still the longest in European history. Yet the Sun King’s triumph would ultimately prove fatal to the French absolute monarchy.

Though Louis XIV had no way of knowing it, the brilliant manner in which he had saved his kingdom—namely, his self-abasing appeal to his subjects—had sown the seeds of an idea that by the end of the century would transform the French system of government. No longer in awe of its ruling elite, the citoyens began to wonder why they should continue to pay obeisance to a throne with life-and-death authority over millions. In 1789 Gallic royal absolutism would die in the French Revolution, as some of the great-great-grandchildren of those who had sacrificially preserved the realm of Louis XIV rose against the House of Bourbon. In rallying his countrymen to topple his foes at Malplaquet, the Sun King had both saved and doomed his way of life. MH Kelly Bell has written for World War II, Vietnam and other magazines. For further reading he recommends The Great Marlborough and His Duchess, by Virginia Cowles; War and Rural Life in the Early Modern Low Countries, by Myron P. Gutmann; and Europe in the Age of Louis XIV, by Ragnhild M. Hatton. By the time of his death at Versailles on Sept. 1, 1715, Louis XIV had ruled France for 72 years—still a record reign.

69

Reviews

With Their Bare Hands: General Pershing, the 79th Division and the Battle for Montfaucon, by Gene Fax, Osprey Publishing, Oxford, U.K., 2017, $32

At the outset of World War I the U.S. 79th Infantry Division was a military embarrassment—composed of draftees organized in anonymously numbered units, hastily trained in tactics more appropriate to the Civil War and led by junior ofﬁcers fresh from civilian life and seniors with only hazy ideas of their suddenly expanded responsibilities. Yet in 1918, when Allied commanders laid plans for the Meuse-Argonne Offensive, they handed these virgin soldiers the most critical assignment. Montfaucon, which boasted one of the strongest defensive systems on the Western Front, was the key to the German position. The 79th’s orders were to capture it—in a single day. The outcome of those preposterous orders proved grimly predictable. At all ranks the men of the 79th were willing enough. The problem was they did not know how to do what they’d been ordered to do. The author vividly describes the accompanying indecision, pervasive poor planning, inconsistency and befuddlement, resulting in bungled staff work, muddled

70 MILITARY HISTORY SEPTEMBER 2017

chains of command, failed communications, misdirected artillery support and frontal attacks made over poor terrain and virtually at random. Gridlocked rear areas meant casualties could not be evacuated nor supplies brought forward. Late autumn rains, diarrhea and inﬂuenza, hunger and fatigue all took an increasing toll. Fax makes a convincing case that the 79th’s initial failure at Montfaucon owed less to the division’s own shortcomings than to the refusal—from egoism and ambition —of a neighboring corps commander to support the division with a flank attack. Regardless, the division became a scapegoat for the slow, costly and confused progress of the entire offensive. The United States fought World War I with an army created from nothing and organized along industrial lines—a rigid, top-down command structure that left precious little room for initiative. Against the battle-tested German enemy the American Expeditionary Forces paid for in blood what it decidedly lacked in skill. The Meuse-Argonne retains the

U.S. ARMY SIGNAL CORPS/GETTY IMAGES

Paid in Blood

American artillery spotters check shell ranges during the ill-fated Meuse-Argonne Offensive.

record for the longest casualty list of any battle in U.S. history. Of course, that’s really only half the story. Once out of the line the 79th evaluated its mistakes, reconsidered its methods and within a month performed as well as any of its counterparts. Its prompt recovery is a tribute to the high learning curve of American soldiers once blooded in combat. —Dennis Showalter

Grunt: The Curious Science of Humans at War, by Mary Roach, New York, W.W. Norton & Co., New York, 2016, $26.95 Author Roach always seems to light on unexpectedly fascinating topics. Among her previous offerings are fascinating and highly readable books on corpses and their uses, digestion, life in outer space and the scientific aspects of afterlife. While not pure history, Grunt has its historical moments and offers the reader a rich and diverse menu of facts, stuff you never imagined you’d care about but soon ﬁnd absorbing. Take the military work uniforms commonly referred to as fatigues. In the past they were often too hot in summer and too cold in winter. No more. At a complex of U.S. Army laboratories outside Natick, Mass., researchers design and test cutting-edge military technology, including fabrics for all kinds of applications. Among the products they’ve developed is a textile that balloons away from the body when it burns, giving its wearer valuable seconds to stop, drop and roll. Reﬁnement continues, since the fabric tears easily and doesn’t handle moisture well. Of course everything has a downside, which is the challenge in engineering. Roach spoke with experts in the ﬁeld and watched tests in progress to get inside the subject and reveal the science behind it. For example, a proﬁcient military force doesn’t just give its

soldiers weapons and teach them tactics; it also equips them with, for example, the best boots for particular climes and tasks, the best food (researchers have developed a sandwich with a three-year shelf life), the best sniper clothing (no zippers, which reﬂect light) and on and on. Roach even talked her way aboard submarines to ask questions and take notes. Not given to shyness, she describes current medical techniques used to repair groin injuries and observed one of the ﬁrstever penis transplant operations. One chapter bears the subtitle “Diarrhea as a threat to national security.” Another centers on shark repellent. The author covers just about every contingency one might face in combat and how to address each in turn. Roach does so in her characteristic bright, quick, witty style, loaded with facts and rich with actual people. This is a wonderful book. —Anthony Brandt

Guibert: Father of Napoléon’s Grande Armée, by Jonathan Abel, University of Oklahoma Press, Norman, 2016, $34.95 Jacques-Antoine-Hippolyte, comte de Guibert (1743–90), a premier military theorist of France’s pre-revolutionary ancien régime, is the subject of this ﬁrst biography in English. Written by a scholar of French Revolutionary and Napoléonic military history, the book (Vol. 57 of UOP’s Campaigns and Commanders series) also provides a useful historiographical overview of relevant French-language scholarship. Guibert, a junior ofﬁcer present at several defeats in Germany during the Seven Years’ War, was passionately committed to French military reform. His widely read and wellreceived Essai générale de tactique (1772) advocated the first systematic doctrine for the French army, which included the removal of then widespread aspects of noble privilege, installation of a central command, ﬁnancial reform and a ﬂexible, mixed system (l’ordre mixte) of marching and

IN A DIFFERENT 1990...

CASTRO JOINS WORLD WAR 1990

With their military facing defeat in Europe and the Pacific, the Politburo looks for victory everywhere... In Nicaragua, Sandinista and Cuban troops roll across the border against Contra bases in Honduras... In Angola, fighting begins anew between Cuban forces and units of the South African defense force... In Washington, the Neocons organize a daring invasion of Cuba... It’s World War 1990: Castro’s Folly

WORLD WAR 1990 CASTRO’S FOLLY

By William Stroock Available on

Reviews Recommended

The Big Break Stephen Dando-Collins As the Red Army closed in on the Nazi-run POW camp in Schubin, Poland, U.S. Army ofﬁcers made a desperate dash for freedom toward the approaching Soviet line. Dando-Collins relates the true story of the largest and most successful Allied escape, in which 250 American ofﬁcers broke free to the east.

Pale Horse Jimmy Blackmon Blackmon, a veteran of the War on Terror, takes readers inside the 101st Airborne Division’s gritty ﬁght during the War in Afghanistan. The stories of pilots, medevac soldiers and other warriors deliver candid insight into the hearts and minds of the men and women of America’s ﬁghting forces.

fighting—a then controversial fusion of the existing French l’ordre profound, emphasizing shock, and Prussian-inspired l’ordre mince, based on overwhelming ﬁrepower. Abel presents Guibert as a rare military theorist, who was also a social and literary ﬁgure. He made the circuit of elite Parisian salons, was appointed to the prestigious French Academy and also served two contentious stints in government (1775–77, 1787–89), his reforms ultimately being enacted as the 1791 Reglement (Regulations). These remained in force until the 1830s and laid the foundations of the French Revolutionary and Napoléonic armies that dominated Europe until their ﬁnal defeat at Waterloo in 1815. Abel thoughtfully concludes the Reglement resulted from a long evolution, not a sudden revolution, as military innovations in France reﬂected those in society. The book provides an enumerated list of illustrations, including maps and figures, though it suffers from a lack of photos or portraits. Despite a few obvious errors—for instance, war was declared in 1756 and not 1757, and the celebrated campaigns of Henri de La Tour d’Auvergne, vicomte de Turenne, took place in the 17th rather than the 16th century—Guibert’s volume is highly recommended for Napoléonic scholars and enthusiasts, as well as general readers. —William John Shepherd

72 MILITARY HISTORY SEPTEMBER 2017

All Behind You, Winston: Churchill’s Great Coalition, 1940–45, by Roger Hermiston, Aurum Press, London, 2017, $29.99 On the back dust jacket of this important volume, eight mostly elderly, bald and paunchy men in business suits stare glumly at the camera. These gloomy gents are British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and members of his cabinet in 1940, a year after the outbreak of World War II. Missing a chance at ironic juxtaposition, the publisher failed to include a group photo of their mostly younger and thinner Nazi German counterparts. The latter also commanded a larger, better-equipped military whose soldiers (if not airmen and sailors) were arguably the world’s best at that point in history. Yet after nearly two years of failing to defeat the forces led by these frumpy old men, the Aryan elites proceeded to commit collective suicide over the following three years. Historians have hardly ignored Churchill’s war-

time leadership, but journalist Hermiston delivers one of the best and most complete accounts. He relates the fighting only as background to the work of “all the talents” who assisted the pugnacious Churchill, often restrained him, performed brilliantly in areas that didn’t interest him and then largely faded from Britain’s collective memory. American readers may recognize a few names. Deputy Prime Minister Clement Attlee lacked the charisma of his boss but more than made up for it in good sense. Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden remained faithful despite Churchill’s oft-repeated preference for dealing one on one with U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin. Almost no one remembers Frederick Marquis, Lord Woolton, a wealthy magnate who served as wartime minister of food. Yet while Britons hated rationing and the dreary diet, Woolton himself proved universally popular, cheerfully pouring out propaganda and cooking advice while working to keep prices low and distribution fair. In contrast, few loved Max Aitken, Lord Beaverbrook, a sort of freerange minister and press flack à la William Randolph Hearst whose fierce energy offended other cabinet members and may or may not have furthered the war effort. Churchill’s cabinet included everyone from pugnacious socialist union

leader Ernest Bevan to hidebound aristocrats more conservative than the prime minister himself. Their quarrels and bitter rivalries were every bit as bad as those of Adolf Hitler’s high ofﬁcials, yet they functioned far more efﬁciently. Hermiston’s book is excellent history and an oddly feel-good story. Overmatched by Nazi Germany and ultimately impoverished by the war, Britain survived without sacriﬁcing its democratic values, thanks to the resilience of its people and the tireless work of its talented leaders, only one of whom was named Churchill. —Mike Oppenheim

Preparing for War: The Emergence of the Modern U.S. Army, 1815–1917, by J.P. Clark, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass., 2017, $39.95 The deﬁning characteristic of U.S. preparation for war in the nation’s ﬁrst century was assiduous attention to lessons that were often outdated by the time the next conﬂict came around. Experience battling Stonewall Jackson, for example, wasn’t much help when tracking Sitting Bull; conclusions from the assault of San Juan Hill were dramatically ill-suited when approaching combat on the Western Front. The alternat-

ing and overlapping tumult of innovation and inertia, centralization and dispersion is the fascinating story of Clark’s volume, one that documents the century-long shift from the concept of the innate warrior to that of the trained careerist. Clark is acutely aware of the very real difference between practical and theoretical skills in conﬂict, and that soldiers with expertise in one domain are often incompetent in the other. The vast majority of conﬂict over the century comprised outpost-based frontier fighting, which, useful skill that it was, was poor preparation for large-scale, set-piece

battles. On the other hand, those tasked to prepare for large-scale combat were often mediocre at its actual conduct. If drill and organization were the principal skills desired of commanders, we’d have countless statues of George McClellan and Ambrose Burnside. Clark anchors his account on various efforts to organize and standardize Army procedures and the education of its ofﬁcers and men, from combined operations exercises to the establishment of permanent educational facilities. The rise of ofﬁcer education in the U.S. Army prompted some piquant, Minutemanlike objections, such as one

In October 1777, a 6,000-strong British army surrendered in defeat after the American victory at the Battles of Saratoga. For the first time in history, a British General surrendered his sword. %DWWOH¿HOGQHHG\RXUKHOSWR SUHVHUYHWKHLQVSLULQJORFDWLRQRI WKLVVXUUHQGHU

IULHQGVRIVDUDWRJDEDWWOH¿HOGRUJ

Reviews Recommended

Bloodstained Sands Michael G. Walling Walling shares the long forgotten stories of America’s Amphibious Forces during World War II. While the June 6, 1944, Normandy landings remain legend, U.S. Amphibious Forces participated in more than 200 landings—from Guadalcanal to Sicily and, ﬁnally, Okinawa. In Walling’s words, these men served in “an unceasing series of D-Days.”

ofﬁcer’s reaction to “wisdom crammed down our throats like food down the necks of Strasbourg geese.” Even its advocates were far from reaching consensus on a recipe for this organizational pâté. Study and written exams yielded benefits but often overlooked the actual and pressing exigencies of war itself. Well into the rising tide of instruction a 1910 manual failed to address the combined command of infantry and artillery. Conﬂict, of course, is the only ﬁnal exam that matters. In the meantime, military organization and preparation remain intrinsically difﬁcult, put to the test only on wildly disparate, sporadic occasions. It’s a problem the Army grappled with well into its formative years, one whose origins Clark cogently illuminates. —Anthony Paletta Going Deep: John Philip Holland and the Invention of the Attack Submarine, by Lawrence Goldstone, Pegasus Books, New York, 2017, $27.95

The Great Rescue Peter Hernon By 1918 Germany was gearing up for its ﬁnal massive offensive—determined to defeat the Allies before the American servicemen arrived in Europe. Hernon relates the story of USS Leviathan’s race to deliver an unprecedented number of doughboys to Europe to help stem the impending tide of the German onslaught.

In Going Deep Goldstone traces the genesis of combat submersibles in the U.S. Navy. His narrative illuminates the implausible courage and determination required of early submariners during underwater tests. It also reveals the exceptional engineering challenges involved in developing a survivable and affordable submersible for military applications. Regarding the latter, Gold-

74 MILITARY HISTORY SEPTEMBER 2017

stone underscores the need for—and frequent lack of —funding for expensive prototype vehicles. Of course, a necessary catalyst for all of the foregoing was an appreciation of the tactical and strategic potential of attack submarines among key U.S. politicians and naval ofﬁcers. The principal players in the story are inventors John Holland and Simon Lake, the competitive men who spearheaded the early development of military submersibles. Two powerful historical currents drove both men. The ﬁrst was the changing concept of sea power as articulated by such naval strategists as American Alfred Thayer Mahan and Briton Julian Corbett. The second centered on the naval technological advancements of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, including armor plating, steel hulls, torpedoes, mines, breechloading naval guns, revolving turrets, steam propulsion and wireless communication. Among the more thoughtprovoking aspects of Going Deep is its focus on the role of government contracting —and associated corruption

—in the early development of the submarine. Inﬂuence peddling, acrimonious congressional testimony, sex, bribery and manipulation of press accounts were all part of the story. After describing the sordid events of one particular congressional investigation, in which New York Congressman Montague Lessler was unfairly implicated, Goldstone draws a penetrating conclusion concerning the early contracting process for submarines: “The biggest casualty of the Lessler hearings, however, was the American submarine.” That’s a message with continuing relevance. —Joseph Callo The First European: A History of Alexander in the Age of Empire, by Pierre Briant (translated by Nicholas Elliott), Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass., 2016, $35 Briant, professor emeritus of the history of the Archaemenid world and Alexander’s empire at the Collège de France in Paris, describes The First European as “the narrative presentation of history based on a critical examination, evaluation and selection of materials from primary and secondary sources.” Sources he cites include not only written materials but also paintings, tapestries, sculptures and other items of historical relevance. The book examines the intellectual history of the Enlightenment (the long

18th century), as Western Europeans grappled with the legacy of Alexander’s conquest of the Orient and the lessons nation-states of the era might apply in their own relations with the powerful Ottoman empire, perceived as the successor to Alexander’s Persian satrapy. To attempt such an undertaking requires diligent study and comprehension of all the major works on Alexander written from antiquity to the Enlightenment—the latter including volumes written in English, French and German—as well as an understanding of peripheral works, including travel books of the era, maps, works of art, even coins. It is a prodigious task, one reflected in Briant’s small-print bibliography of more than 50 pages, accompanied by another 50 pages listing footnotes and excurses. The resulting work is mainly of interest to other historiographers, the “inside baseball” of classic European historians. That said, Briant’s approach is to present samples from every writer included in his analysis—more than 200—and in so doing he gives the lay reader the broad brushstrokes of history without the effort of having to read each work in the original French, English or German. The author’s opus is a ﬁrst-rate work of historiography and a true intellectual achievement. —Richard Gabriel Silver: The Spy Who Fooled the Nazis, by Mihir Bose, Fonthill Media, Oxford, U.K., 2017, $40 According to Indian-born biographer Bose, Bhagat Ram Talwar (code name “Silver”), a Hindu born in 1908 in the predominately Muslim North-West Frontier Province, was the most remarkable secret agent of World War II. A prewar participant in the Red Shirt movement in opposition to the British Raj, Talwar was jailed several times by the British. In February 1941 Talwar, posing as a Muslim named Rahmat Khan, helped smuggle Indian

nationalist leader Subhas Chandra Bose (no relation to the author) from Peshawar across the border into Afghanistan and on to Kabul. After many fraught weeks the Italian ambassador in Kabul arranged for Bose to continue ﬁrst to Moscow, then on to a sympathetic Nazi Germany. The ambassador also managed to recruit Talwar as an Axis spy. On a return visit to Kabul that spring Talwar made contact with Nazi agents. By late July, however, in the wake of the German invasion of the Soviet Union, he began spying for the Russians, who knew all about his German connections, though Talwar’s Nazi handlers never learned of his switch to double agent. In March 1942 the weekly British intelligence summary from Kabul reported Talwar as “a clever and suspicious character.” Approaching the British that June, the Russians offered to exchange intelligence they’d gleaned in the region and to share the services of one of their go-to spies—namely Talwar. At that point in the war the Indian agent was ostensibly serving Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia and Britain, the latter of whom gave him the code name Silver. On a dozen treks to Kabul by foot he provided his Nazi handlers with bogus intelligence reports, compiled under the watchful eye of Peter Fleming, head of British military deception operations in Southeast Asia and older brother of writer Ian Fleming of James Bond fame. Germany paid Talwar well for his “services” and even awarded him the Iron Cross. At war’s end the British also rewarded the agent handsomely, and he reportedly lived a quiet existence in Uttar Pradesh until his death in 1983 at age 75. A tangled web, but just how much Silver’s work contributed to the Allied victory is difficult to assess. For the time being, anyway, he will remain in the shadows, as the author lamentably failed to provide an index. —David Saunders

Hallowed Ground Khe Sanh, Vietnam

F

or Americans involved in ground operations during the Vietnam War, combat had many faces. Searchand-clear missions through jungles or rice paddies were typical, but troops also engaged in conventional battles—the largest of which was fought in 1968 at Khe Sanh. In the rugged highlands of western Quang Tri Province, 6 miles from the border with Laos, the village lay just south of the demilitarized zone between Soviet- and Chinese-backed communist North Vietnam and the U.S.backed republic of South Vietnam. The Ho Chi Minh Trail, the network of pathways along which North Vietnam transported supplies to its troops in the south, snaked through the Laotian mountains to the west. In late 1964 U.S. Special Forces troops established a rudimentary post on the site of an old French airstrip north of the village. In 1965, General William Westmoreland, commander of U.S. forces in Vietnam, sought to establish a combat base at Khe Sanh to disrupt the communist supply chain and provide a launching pad for a possible invasion of Laos. Other senior Americans countered that such a base could become dangerously isolated. Never far from the minds of U.S. leaders was the 1954 Battle of Dien Bien Phu, in which Viet Minh forces had besieged an isolated garrison in the mountains of then French Indochina, forcing France to withdraw from the country after nearly a century of colonial rule. Westmoreland prevailed. In late 1966 Navy Seabees improved fortiﬁcations and the existing airstrip carved into the red dirt on a plateau north of Khe Sanh village. A battalion of Marines reinforced the base in early 1967, soon wresting control of several hills north of the airstrip from the communists. By January 1968 the Khe Sanh Combat Base hosted 6,000 Marines. As American forces consolidated at Khe Sanh, several North Vietnamese Army divisions ﬁltered into the area, and ﬁghting erupted on Jan. 20, 1968. Enemy gunners poured mortar and rocket ﬁre onto the Marine positions, igniting the ammunition dump and severely hindering air operations. Communist troops also moved into Khe Sanh village and cut critical Route 9 to the east. The enemy surrounded the base, as folks back home watched anxiously on television. The communists seemed to intent on a prolonged siege like Dien Bien Phu. Westmoreland instead planned to crush them in a decisive battle. He unleashed Operation Niagara

76 MILITARY HISTORY SEPTEMBER 2017

—one of the most concentrated aerial bombing campaigns in history—to break the NVA. It was an election year, and President Lyndon Johnson understood the political implications of a defeat. “I don’t want any damn Dien Bien Phu!” he thundered. But did North Vietnam have something else in mind? On January 30 the communists launched the Tet Offensive —a wave of attacks across South Vietnam. Most historians agree Khe Sanh was probably a feint to draw U.S. attention away from the main thrust of the Tet onslaught. The Marines at Khe Sanh endured shelling and ground assaults for 77 days. Relief came in April, when elements of the 1st Marine Regiment and the Army’s 1st Cavalry Division pushed up Route 9, though the deﬁant Marines at Khe Sanh insisted they did not need to be rescued. U.S. forces had successfully held their ground against some 30,000 to 40,000 communist troops. Regardless, within months American commanders decided to abandon Khe Sanh. Today thousands of Americans travel to Vietnam, many to wartime sites. To visit Khe Sanh, it’s best to engage a tour company or hire a driver. All car rentals come with a driver, and after experiencing the chaos of Vietnamese trafﬁc, one will be happy to let someone else do the driving. Khe Sanh is a featured stop on the tours out of Dong Ha and Hue. Farmers have long since ﬁlled in the bomb craters to grow coffee and bananas. On the grounds of the Khe Sanh Combat Base is a small museum devoted to the battle—of course, from the communist perspective. Among the exhibits are the rusted remnants of sensors U.S. aircraft dropped into nearby jungles to detect communist troop movements and an early-war U.S. M14 riﬂe a local communist guerrilla claimed to have used against the Marines. Traces of the base remain. The airstrip is discernible, and one can imagine the harrowing experience of trying to take off or land under rocket and mortar ﬁre. Curators have re-created several bunkers, and U.S. aircraft are on display, including a Boeing CH-47 Chinook helicopter and a Lockheed C-130 Hercules cargo plane. To one side is a pile of bomb fragments—reminders of Operation Niagara. A half-century has passed since the Battle of Khe Sanh. It was not another Dien Bien Phu, nor did it deliver the communists a fatal blow, but its ambiguous result should not obscure the skill and heart of those Americans who fought one of the toughest, most lopsided battles in U.S. history. MH

FROM TOP: PICTURES FROM HISTORY/AKG-IMAGES; KHE SANH COMBAT BASE MEMORIAL

By Mark D. Van Ells

Marines (above) look on as U.S. aircraft strike enemy positions just outside the Khe Sanh Combat Base perimeter. Among other exhibits at the presentday museum are a U.S. M60 Patton tank and M113 armored personnel carrier.

77

War Games Alfonso Henriques

1

3

4

6

Reconquista Redux

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10.

Bernat Guillem d’Entença Tamim ibn Yusuf Duke Odo of Aquitaine Abd ar-Rahman III Alfonso VIII of Castile Tariq ibn Ziyad Alfonso VI of Léon and Castile Al-Mansur Alfonso Henriques Ramiro II of León

____ A. ____ B. ____ C. ____ D. ____ E. ____ F. ____ G. ____ H. ____ I. ____ J.

Toledo, 1085 Cervera, 1000 Guadalete, 711 Puig, 1237 Simancas, 939 Ourique, 1139 Uclés, 1108 Las Navas de Tolosa, 1212 Toulouse, 721 Valdejunguera, 920

Answers: A7, B8, C6, D1, E10, F9, G2, H5, I3, J4

78 MILITARY HISTORY SEPTEMBER 2017

5

7

8

9

10

Louis XIV’s Friends and Foes Identify these bewigged ﬁgures who either loathed or loved the Sun King. ____ A. John Churchill, Duke of Marlborough ____ B. François-Henri de Montmerency, duc de Luxembourg ____ C. Charles V, Duke of Lorraine ____ D. Prince Eugene of Savoy ____ E. Patrick Sarsﬁeld, Earl of Lucan

____ F. Sir Cloudesley Shovell ____ G. Jean Bart ____ H. Anne-Hilarion de Constantin, comte de Tourville ____ I. Michiel de Ruyter ____ J. Henri de La Tour d’Auvergne, vicomte de Turenne Answers: A3, B1, C9, D5, E7, F4, G6, H8, I2, J10

Can you match the commander to the battle he won during the 770-year Spanish Reconquista?

LEFT: WIKIMEDIA COMMONS; CENTER, BY NUMBER: MUZEO; RIJKSMUSEUM; ART UK; NATIONAL MARITIME MUSEUM; ARTCLON.COM; NATIONAL MARITIME MUSEUM; WIKIMEDIA COMMONS (2); ALAMY STOCK PHOTO (2)

2

Anglo-German…Allies? Germans have repeatedly fought in British service. What do you recall of the following?

Invention of the Year PERSONAL SOUND AMPLIFICATION PRODUCTS (PSAPs)

THEY’RE NOT HEARING AIDS The unit is small and lightweight enough to hide behind your ear... only you’ll know you have it on. It’s comfortable and won’t make you feel like you have something stuck in your ear. Call now toll free for our lowest price. 81099

1-877-665-3433 Please mention promotional code 106329.

1. At which battle did AngloGerman infantrymen save the day for their Hanoverian commander? A. Dettingen, 1743 B. Hastenbeck, 1757 C. Krefeld, 1758 D. Minden, 1759

American Sieges India vs. Pakistan Crimean Images Antony’s Intrigues WWI Railways Pontiac’s War HistoryNet.com

CollectRussia.com Atlantic Crossroads, Inc. P.O. Box 144 7HQDÁ\1- 3KRQH Email: [email protected]

***

Satisfaction Guaranteed! Ilse Hirsch’s innocent schoolgirl looks made her an ideal assassin

2. At age 60, Lt. Gen. Wilhelm von Knyphausen led the Hessian charge in which battle? A. Bunker Hill , 1775 B. Fort Washington, 1776 C. Savannah, 1778 D. Ninety-Six, 1781

NAZI KILLER ANGELS

IN 1945 WEREWOLVES PROWLED THE RUINS OF AACHEN MIHP-170700-COVER-DIGITAL.indd 1

3. In which battle did Lt. Col. Friedrich Baum lose the battle and his life to local militia? A. Bennington , 1777 B. Stony Point, 1779 C. Freeman’s Farm, 1777 D. Bemis Heights, 1777

the Electorate of Hanover C. The disbanding of the Hanoverian army D. All of the above

JULY 2017

3/23/17 11:02 AM

Civil War • WWI • WWII Korea • Vietnam & beyond Real War Photos, P.O. Box 414, Somerset Center, MI 49282

CLASSIFIEDS SPECIAL EVENTS 7/13TH ARTILLERY (VIETNAM) REUNION ALL RED DRAGON BATTERIES. Savannah, Georgia. Fall 2017. Dates TBA. Call Robert Adams: (859) 8065199 or Jon Taylor: (603) 677-6570.

Answers: D, B, A, D

YAMAC BEYTER/ISTOCK

4. What caused the King’s German Legion to become British in 1803? A. The occupation of Hanover B. Napoléon’s dissolution of

For information on placing a Direct Response or Marketplace ad in Print and Online contact us today: Military History 800.649.9800 / Fax: 800.649.6712 / [email protected] / www.russelljohns.com

Captured! The Right Track

SOVFOTO/UIG VIA GETTY IMAGES

Soviet Red Army soldiers hunker down in a trench as one of their own T-34 tanks rolls overhead during the 1943 Battle of Kursk —the last strategic offensive launched by the Germans on the Eastern Front.

80 MILITARY HISTORY SEPTEMBER 2017

The 75th Anniversary of D-Day: An Iconic Journey of Remembrance A Luxury Cruise Program from Amsterdam to Southampton aboard Regent Seven Seas Navigator May 30 – June 8, 2019

Reserve your place in history Contact The National WWII Museum Travel at 1-877-813-3329 x 257 for more information.