BONAPARTE ART
March 2015 Ɩ Issue 54 Ɩ £4.25
Napoleon’s career in prints
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TOP 5 Formidable gladiators
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MINE MENACE, 915
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FORGOTTEN CONFLICT
Battle of New Orleans, 1815
MHM
EDITORIAL ADVISORY BOARD: Martin Brown Archaeological Advisor, Defence Estates, Ministry of Defence
Mark Corby Military historian, lecturer, and broadcaster
Paul Cornish Curator, Imperial War Museum
Gary Gibbs Assistant Curator, The Guards Museum
Angus Hay Former Army Officer, military historian, and lecturer
Nick Hewitt Historian, National Museum of the Royal Navy, Portsmouth
Nigel Jones Historian, biographer, and journalist
Alastair Massie Head of Archives, Photos, Film, and Sound, National Army Museum
Gabriel Moshenska Research Fellow, Institute of Archaeology, UCL
Colin Pomeroy Squadron Leader, Royal Air Force (Ret.), and historian
Michael Prestwich Emeritus Professor of History, University of Durham
Nick Saunders Senior Lecturer, University of Bristol
Guy Taylor Military archivist, and archaeologist
Julian Thompson Major-General, Visiting Professor at London University
Dominic Tweddle
W
hen did trench warfare begin? Last month, David Porter traced its evolution from the middle of the 19th century onwards. This month, we focus on two great sieges of that period: Sebastopol and Petersburg. The Crimean War and the American Civil War both began as wars of movement and ended as year-long sieges. The basic reason was growing firepower. This in turn led to entrenchment. And the combination of increased killing-power and strong field-fortifications created static fronts. This also meant attrition, and attrition is costly. The war drags on, the big guns take their toll, and disease runs wild. An estimated 800,000 died in the Crimean War, and more than 600,000 in the American Civil War. Disease was the main killer, outnumbering combat fatalities by three to one in the Crimea and two to one in America. But it was the static and protracted character of both wars that gave disease its chance. Patrick Mercer looks at Sebastopol, David Porter covers tactics, and we provide an in-depth piece on Petersburg. Also this issue, we mark two very different anniversaries. Robin Smith analyses another American battle with his piece on the failed British assault on New Orleans on 8 January 1815. Overshadowed by Waterloo, this battle is little remembered on this side of the Atlantic, but it was a stunning victory by an improvised American frontier force commanded by a future president – Andrew Jackson. Our other anniversary is that of the naval war in the Dardanelles. David Saunders recalls a spectacular British submarine attack that sunk a Turkish battleship in December 1914, while Patrick Boniface analyses the disastrous Anglo-French naval operation of 18 March 1915, one of the biggest ship-to-shore actions in history.
ON THE COVER: The Taking of Malakoff, 1858 by Émile Jean-Horace Vernet. Image: Bridgeman Art Library
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CONTRIBUTORS THIS MONTH’S EXPERTS PATRICK MERCER was educated at Sandhurst and Oxford before joining his family regiment, The Sherwood Foresters. He was a radio reporter, an MP, and now writes history and novels.
DAVID SAUNDERS PATRICK BONIFACE was editor of is a freelance journalist who The Gallipolian, is a specialist the Gallipoli Asin naval history. sociation’s journal, Patrick has pubfor 21 years. His lished a number of other interests include the North-West Frontier and books profiling Royal Navy destroyers and frigates. the Battle of the Atlantic.
ROBIN SMITH is an author and freelance journalist, who specialises in military history, particularly the American Revolution, War of 1812, and the American Civil War.
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March 2015 | ISSUE 54
ON THE COVER
Siege Warfare Focusing on the sieges of Sebastopol (1854-1855) and Petersburg (1864-1865), MHM examines the 19thcentury transition from ‘horse and musket’ warfare to the ‘storm and steel’ trench warfare that emerged in the 20th century.
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Timeline Technology Tactics Battle Map
FEATURES
UPFRONT Welcome
3
Letters
7
Notes from the Frontline
8
Conflict Scientists
10
Patrick Boniface charts the life and military career of Frank Whittle, inventor of the world’s first jet engine.
War Culture
INCLUDES:
12
MHM studies the British people’s perception of Napoleon, as it was expressed through contemporary prints and cartoons.
16 Battle of New Orleans 8 January 1815
Robin Smith tells the story of this crushing British defeat in America, forever overshadowed by Waterloo.
46 The Sinking of the Mesudiye
‘A mighty clever piece of work’
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David Saunders explains the sinking of a mighty Ottoman battleship by a tiny British submarine on 13 December 1914.
52 Scourge of the Seas Mines in the Dardanelles Patrick Boniface marks the anniversary of the Dardanelles disaster with an analysis of exactly what went wrong for the British.
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MILITARY HISTORY MONTHLY
March 2015
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72 BACK AT BASE | MHM REVIEWS War on Film | 62 Taylor Downing assesses Frank Borzage’s film adaptation of Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms.
Book of the Month | 66 Curtis Hutchinson recommends Peter FitzSimons’ new work on the Gallipoli Campaign of 1915.
Books | 69 ules Stewart on Clausewitz: his ife and work by Donald Stoker, Keith Robinson on The Most Secret Place on Earth by Roger Pugh, and David Flintham on Destructive and Formidable by David Blackmore.
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IN THE FIELD | MHM VISITS Museum | 72
NEWS DISTRIBUTION
David Flintham takes us on a tour of the Royal Engineers Museum.
Listings | 74 MHM brings you the best military history events for March.
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This month we have three new titles from Casemate Publishing to be won. The most fearsome gladiators of the Roman Empire.
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TWITTER @MilHistMonthly @MilHistMonthly 8 January Issue 54 will feature a piece on the Battle of New Orleans. To get you in the mood, here are six myths about the battle ow.ly/H2DIf @MilHistMonthly 9 January Dawn of the nouveau dirigible! Is this the new era for Britishdesigned airships? ow.ly/H2FCS @MilHistMonthly 9 January Were the Prussians Britain’s saviours at Waterloo? What should we be reading as the anniversary approaches? goo.gl/00iIoK
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ONBOARD SAFETY MEASURES The article on the Battle of Dogger Bank (MHM 52) left out one important consequence of the conflict. In order to compensate for the shortcomings of Royal Navy gunnery, Beatty ordered that all ships in his command should make up for poor accuracy by concentrating on high rates of fire, on the basis that this would increase the number of hits in any future engagement. Within a year, the battlecruisers had removed the flashtight interlocks between the magazines and the gun turrets in order to speed up the rate of fire. The results of this ill-considered measure became evident 18 months later. Only aboard Lion were these vital safety measures restored. In his book Admirals, Andrew Lambert records that the Warrant Officer Gunnery refused to accept responsibility for the safety of the ship unless they were put back in place. He must have been some personality to face down Beatty on this issue. Tim S Allen London
ATLANTIC VETERAN’S SEAL OF APPROVAL I served in the Royal Navy, and I was actively engaged in the Battle of the Atlantic, so you can understand my interest in your article on the battle (MHM 37). So much went on in those days, and so little was relayed to the ordinary ‘seamen’ who were at the sharp end, it is nice to know that someone has put it down in print to tell it as it was. I am almost 90 years old now, and I have waited far too long for an article like yours. In conclusion, I must thank you for your efforts to supply said article. L Atkinson Cheshire
SHREWDNESS AND HONOUR Thank you for your interesting article looking at Machiavelli’s ideas in a military context (‘Thinkers at war’, MHM 52). The Prince does seem to have been intended as a warlord’s practical manual, rather than a work of Renaissance philosophy. You might also have considered Machiavelli’s comments in The Prince relating to neutrality in war: ‘He who is not your friend will request your neutrality and he who is your friend will ask you to declare yourself by taking up your arms.’ ‘A Prince is respected when he is a true friend and a true enemy… declare yourself and fight an open war.’ Shrewdness and honour – a rare combination. Andrew Webster West Yorkshire MILITARY HISTORY MONTHLY
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Our round-up of this month’s military history news
FORGOTTEN FORTIFICATION DISCOVERED The forgotten story of a German fortified line, running across Southern Jutland in Denmark, is to be brought to life by the Danish Agency for Culture. Efforts are being made to preserve the WWI bunkers and gun batteries that were not destroyed.
Fortification North was built between 1916-1918 by the Imperial German Army, using military convicts and German criminals to undertake the hard manual labour. It consisted of around 900 bunkers and 40 artillery batteries, as well as
defensive lines with trenches and barbed wire. The impressive fortification was placed across what at the time was German Northern Schleswig, and was Europe’s most formidable fortification of its type. The works stretched over 50km of an area of Denmark that was lost to Germany in the Second Schleswig War of 1864. Although it was never used, after the war the Danish were nervous that Fortification North could be quickly manned in the event of another war breaking out. The Danish army therefore quickly went about dismantling and destroying as much of the facility as they could in the years following WWI.
However, a number of the bunkers were overlooked, and others were located too close to farms and residences to be blown up responsibly. As a result, Fortification North is, as excavations have documented, the best-preserved WWI fortified line in the world. This German military facility tells an important story of European history and of the history of Southern Jutland during its period under German rule. The Danish Agency for Culture has taken on the preservation project to ensure this history is never forgotten.
declared, ‘Upon my word, a very proper letter: much more so, I must say, than any I ever received from Louis XVIII’. Despite this, Napoleon’s request for protection was refused, and the Emperor was sent to exile on the island of St Helena, where he remained until his death in May 1821. The letter of surrender is on display alongside other Napoleonic memorabilia, including a lock of the Emperor’s hair, and a star of a Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Légion d’Honneur that was worn by Napoleon. Another letter, this one sent by the Duke of Wellington to the Prince Regent following the battle, is also exhibited. Sent just
14 days after Waterloo, the letter reads, ‘Your Royal Highness will again have saved the World’, perpetuating the Prince Regent’s own belief in his important role in the military and political triumph over Napoleon, despite having never seen active service. Exhibition curator Kate Heard, of Royal Collection Trust, said, ‘These vivid and important documents provide a fascinating insight into the minds of the Duke and the Emperor almost directly after the Battle of Waterloo.’
Napoleon seeks mercy Letters written to the future monarch George IV by French Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte and the Duke of Wellington have been put on display at Windsor Castle. They are part of an exhibition and themed tour, ‘Waterloo at Windsor: 1815-2015’. Dated
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13 July 1815, Napoleon’s letter of surrender was written to the Prince Regent 25 days after his defeat at Waterloo and is signed by the Emperor himself. Addressed to ‘Your Royal Highness’, the letter pleads for the ‘hospitality of the British people’, and calls on the Prince – as the ‘most powerful, the most constant, and e most generous f my enemies’ – for rotection. Seeking efuge, the Emperor ompares himself to Themistocles, a Greek atesman who threw himself on the mercy of the Persian ruler Artaxerxes, and was subsequently received with honour. On receiving the letter, the Prince
March 2015
Last British survivor of the Burma Railway dies Britain’s last-known survivor of the WWII Burma Railway has died, aged 96. Harry Williams survived over three years as a prisner of war working on the infamous railway ine for the Japanese occupying forces, after aving been captured in Singapore in 1942. Over 90,000 forced labourers reportedly ied building the 250-mile track linking Thailand with Burma, due to the terrible onditions, overwork, and brutal treatment y the Japanese army. Williams enlisted in the 137th Division Field Regiment Royal Artillery Blackpool in October 1939 at the age of 21 – just weeks after Britain declared war against Germany – and was sent to Singapore. Japan attacked Pearl Harbor in December 1941, and its forces captured the island in February 1942, leading to the largest surrender of British-led military personnel in history. Repatriated to the UK in 1945, Williams became a leather-worker and engineer. He died on 4 January 2015.
NELSON BULLET ON DISPLAY The musket ball that killed Admiral Horatio Lord Nelson at the Battle of Trafalgar is to go on display at Chatham Historic Dockyard. The bullet, fired by a French marine, entered through Nelson’s shoulder. By the time the surgeon on board HMS Victory, William Beatty, was able to extract it from the wound, it had already caused fatal damage to the Admiral’s lungs and spine. Nelson’s victory over the Spanish and French fleets made him a national hero. Beatty preserved the bullet by having it made into a locket, which he is said to have worn for the rest of his life. On
Beatty’s death, it was presented to Queen Victoria. Now the macabre memento is among the treasures due to go on display at Chatham Historic Dockyard to mark the 250th anniversary of the launch of the world’s oldest commissioned and most famous warship. ‘HMS Victory: The Untold Story’ has been curated by historian, writer, and broadcaster Brian Lavery. It explores Victory ’s career, unearthing little-known and often surprising stories about the lead-up to the Battle of Trafalgar and its aftermath. Other treasures to be displayed include a sword presented to Admiral Sir John Jervis, Earl of St Vincent, for his victory over the Spanish fleet at Cape St Vincent, and an embroidered Order of Bath, presented to Nelson for his part in the same battle, and worn on his uniform.
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Goodbye Piccadilly London Transport Museum’s exhibition ‘Goodbye Piccadilly – from Home Front to Western Front’ has been extended for a further six weeks, and will now close on 19 April 2015. ‘Goodbye Piccadilly’ gives a unique perspective on the First World War, using museum artefacts to explore how the conflict accelerated social change, and its impact on the lives of Londoners. The exhibition pays particular attention to the role played by bus-service staff and their buses in the war effort, both at home and abroad. It also looks at the impact of aerial bombardment on domestic life, including the use of the Underground as bomb shelters, and at rationing.
MHM FRONTLINE
NEWS IN BRIEF
Civil War Centre opening A battery of cannons and nearly 900 re-enactors will descend on the market town of Newark, in Nottinghamshire, when the country’s National Civil War Centre opens with a recreation of three 17th century sieges, organisers have announced. Promising an ‘epic clash of arms’, the £5.4 million venue will conjure up the atmosphere of the war, pitting the sides against each other over the River Trent at Newark Castle. Michael Constantine, of the Civil War Centre, said, ‘The National Civil War Centre is a huge development for the whole area, which will have a tremendous impact on the town. Such a major project deserves to be launched on a truly grand scale.’
Living legend HMS Caroline, only survivor of the Battle of Jutland, is to be reinvented as a major Northern Irish museum – a sweet reward for supporters of the lengthy campaign to reinvigorate the vast vessel. The warship, which began service as a destroyer, will benefit from £11.5 million in Heritage Lottery funding. Its reinvention is expected to be completed in time for the centenary of the battle on 31 May 2016. ‘This is the culmination of 18 months to two years of extremely hard work,’ said Captain John Rees, of the National Museum of the Royal Navy, who also noted that the team would face a race against time to tell the full story of a ship originally noted for its rapid intelligence-gathering.
MILITARY HISTORY MONTHLY
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Patrick Boniface considers the influence of science on warfare
Gentlemen, I give you the Whittle engine.
“
Frank Whittle
BIOGRAPHY Born: 1 June 1907, Earlsdon, Coventry Occupation: RAF Engineer Officer Field: Theoretical physics Awards: CBE (1944), Commander of the Legion of Merit (1946), CB (1947), KBE (1948), Louis E Levy Medal (1956), Order of Merit (1986), Fellow of the Royal Society (1986), Honorary Fellow of the Royal Aeronautical Society (1986) Died: 9 August 1996, Columbia, Maryland
FRANK WHITTLE
T
he light was fading and the wind had become blustery late on 15 May 1941, as the experimental Gloster E28/39 made its maiden flight. This aircraft was the first to be powered by the Whittle W1 jet engine, and its flight ended Frank Whittle’s 15 years of frustration with a marvellous achievement that truly changed the world. Whittle was self-educated, but what he lacked in formal education he made up for with a brilliantly innovative mind. His ambition was to serve in the RAF as a Trade Apprentice, but he was rejected three times before finally being accepted. During his early career he excelled. His end-of-course thesis used the basic equation for flight and expanded on it, stating that aircraft needed to fly higher and faster than contemporary designs, and that they required a new form of propulsion to achieve that. He initially proposed rockets to replace propellers, but then dismissed this idea as too inefficient and dangerous. The young engineer remained baffled until 1929, when he had a flash of inspiration: the jet engine. He did away with the propeller
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MILITARY HISTORY MONTHLY
entirely, and proposed using the force of a jet to propel the aircraft. The powers that be, including Dr A A Griffith of the Air Ministry, were unimpressed by this maverick upstart. Whittle protested that a jet would be lighter, less complicated, and more powerful than other solutions – but to no avail. Undaunted, Whittle, aged just 22, patented his jet engine in early 1930. Unfortunately for him, Whittle’s flash of brilliance had occurred during the Great Depression, when no-one was willing to invest in seemingly outrageous and untested projects. He returned to his RAF career as a test pilot and instructor, and for five years his jet engine lay dormant. But in 1935, along with two former RAF colleagues, he found the necessary funding to create a small company – Power Jets – with Whittle holding a 49% share.
TRIALS BEGIN The following year, Whittle had British steam-turbine manufacturer Thomson-Houston build the prototype engine, named WU. RIGHT Sir Frank Whittle’s memorial at Farnborough Aerodrome. March 2015
MHM CONFLICT SCIENTISTS
FRANK WHITTLE QUOTES A nation’s ability to fight a modern war is as good as its technological ability.” Well, that’s what it was bloody well designed to do, wasn’t it?”
On 12 April 1936, the jet was successfully run for the first time. Development of the WU continued as funds allowed, but the engine itself did not help matters by frequently running out of control. In light of this tendency, trials work was moved from Rugby to the Ladywood factory at Lutterworth in Leicestershire. With war clouds gathering across Europe, the Air Ministry finally invested just enough cash to keep the project afloat. The engine trials were conducted at Cranfield, and the Whittle Supercharger Type W1 was developed in partnership with Rover and Rolls-Royce. Along with Government finance came the burden of adhering to
the Official Secrets Act. Whittle’s health suffered due to his determination to make the engine a success. He suffered heart palpitations and eczema, as well as losing a substantial amount of weight. At one point, his weight had gone down to just nine stone. Furthermore, he frequently sniffed Benzedrine and took tranquilisers and sleeping tablets. His mental health also suffered, and colleagues were heard remarking about Whittle’s ‘explosive’ temper. When the W1 was fitted into the Gloster E28/39, the authorities finally realised what Whittle had developed, and they now moved with some alacrity to secure the
IN CONTEXT: WHITTLE
The jet engine
Towards the end of the Second World War, new technology had transformed the way in which both sides were fighting. New innovations were rapidly making previous weapons systems obsolete, and one of the most important of these was the jet engine. Developed concurrently by both sides, the jet engine revolutionised aerial combat. Had the Germans developed their engines sooner, it could easily have turned the tide of the war in the air. But it transpired that fate allowed the Allies to steal a march in the production of jets. And one of the leading lights in the race to create jet engines was a Royal Air Force officer by the name of Frank Whittle.
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ABOVE The first British production jet-engine, the W2/700.
technology. Rolls-Royce was instructed to take over manufacture, and within months the Gloster Meteor, Britain’s first operational jet fighter, made its maiden flight. It was 12 June 1943. In mid 1942, Whittle was sent to Boston, Massachusetts, to assist the Americans in the development of their jet-engine programme at General Electric. A development of the basic W-2B design was installed in the Bell XP-59A Airacomet. In October 1943, Power Jets was nationalised by the Churchill Government after Whittle had agreed to surrender his shares in the company. The Government paid £135,500, and each of the directors received £46,800 for their remaining stock. Being a serving RAF officer, Frank Whittle received nothing, later improved to just £10,000. In May 1948, however, he received an award of £100,000 from the Royal Commission on Awards to Inventors for his work on jet engines. His jet-engine designs were then, shamefully, sold to the Americans, who developed the technology and never paid Frank Whittle the money he was rightfully owed. After leaving the RAF on medical
I had always realised it was desirable to gear down the jet.” The responsibility that rests on my shoulders is very heavy indeed.” I have a good crowd around me. They are all working like slaves, so much so that there is a risk of mistakes through physical and mental fatigue.” grounds on 26 August 1948, he worked for BOAC, Shell, and Bristol Aero Engines before deciding to move to the United States. There, in 1977, he took up the position of NAVAIR Research Professor at the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis. By the time of his death from lung cancer on 9 August 1996, at his home in Columbia, Maryland, Sir Frank Whittle had been recognised as the father of the jet engine, and his legacy is seen in innumerable military and civilian aircraft. æ MILITARY HISTORY MONTHLY
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‘THE GALLANT NELSON BRINGING HOME TWO UNCOMMON FIERCE FRENCH CROCODILES’ – 1798 Isaac Cruikshank (1764-1811), London. Hand-coloured etching on paper.
Listening over Christmas to BBC Radio 4’s superb adaptation of Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace, it was interesting to hear how Russia’s perception of Napoleon changed during his 1812 invasion of the country. Even as Napoleon was marching on Smolensk, segments of the Russian aristocracy still stood in awe of the great commander. Was this sense of admiration shared by the people of Britain? In a new book published by the British Museum, historians Sheila O’Connell and Tim Clayton examine how the British public responded to one of Europe’s most significant military figures, largely through an assessment of contemporary prints.
‘BUONAPARTE, FIRST CONSUL OF FRANCE’ – 1800 John Raphael Smith (1751-1812), after Andrea Appiani (1754-1817), London. Mezzotint on paper.
‘MANIAC RAVINGS’ – 1803 James Gillray (1756-1815), London. Hand-coloured etching on paper.
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March 2015
MHM WAR CULTURE
‘THE PLUMB-PUDDING IN DANGER’ – 1805 James Gillray (1756-1815), London. Hand-coloured etching on paper.
The book features work from the museum’s world-renowned collection, including examples by the great political satirists James Gillray, Thomas Rowlandson, and Isaac Cruikshank. These fascinating popular prints demonstrate perfectly the clash between hostile propaganda and stoic appreciation of Napoleon’s military and administrative talents. Examples of French cartoons – showing the view of the British from across the Channel – are also included, along with portraits of Bonaparte and his family made for the British market. Attitudes to Napoleon were influenced by political tensions in Britain, as highlighted in satirical sallies against Charles James Fox, Richard Brinsley Sheridan, Lord Holland, and other radicals. In the run-up to the anniversary of Waterloo, when many books and exhibitions will focus on Wellington’s complex life and career, this is an important and timely exploration of the portrayal of his adversary. Here, MHM looks at nine very different representations of Bonaparte from the late 18th and early 19th centuries.
‘THE FIRST KISS THIS TEN YEARS!’ – 1803 James Gillray (1756-1815), London. Hand-coloured etching and aquatint on paper.
CAST OF THE DEATH MASK OF NAPOLEON, 1830s Plaster of Paris.
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MILITARY HISTORY MONTHLY
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‘LA FAMILLE ANGLAISE AU MUSEUM À PARIS’ – 1814 Anonymous, Paris. Hand-coloured etching on paper.
‘NAPOLEON LE GRAND’ – 1808 Auguste Gaspard Louis Boucher Desnoyers (1779-1857), after François Gérard (1770-1837), Paris. Engraving on paper.
GO FURTHER Tim Clayton is a leading authority on British prints of the period, and the author of several critically acclaimed military histories. Sheila O’Connell is curator of British prints before 1900 at the British Museum.
BONAPARTE AND THE BRITISH: Prints and propaganda in the Age of Napoleon Tim Clayton and Sheila O’Connell British Museum Press, £25 ISBN 978-0714126937 Bonaparte and the British is being published to accompany an exhibition at the British Museum, which will run from 15 February to 30 August 2015. For more information, visit www.britishmuseum.org
‘THE KING OF BROBDINGNAG, AND GULLIVER’ – 1803 James Gillray (1756-1815), after Thomas Braddyll (1776-1862), London. Hand-coloured etching and aquatint on paper.
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March 2015
NEW ORLEANS
8 JANUARY 1815
The Battle of New Orleans It was the final clash of a futile war, and it was a crushing British defeat. Overshadowed by Waterloo a few months later, it is a largely forgotten battle. Robin Smith tells the story.
British intrigue was keenly felt by ‘Westerners’ living along the frontier, which stretched from Vermont through western New York and all the way down to Tennessee, Georgia, and Louisiana – and the potentially rich prize of New Orleans. During the Napoleonic Wars, America had also become a pawn, caught between France and Britain. Even though America was officially neutral, this did not stop both Britain and France seizing and searching BELOW The climax of the Battle of New Orleans is captured vividly in this contemporary bird’s-eye view. The American line along the dried-up canal is on the left. Its right wing is anchored on a fortified redoubt and the Mississippi River, its left on heavily overgrown swampland. Rennie’s forlorn-hope attack on the redoubt can be seen in the foreground, and the main British assault in the middle ground.
American ships for goods, as each country tried to stop America trading with the other. But Britain went further: sailors were often hauled off American ships and impressed into the British navy. True, some were deserters from British ships, but this was taken as another insult to the new republic, harking back to the heavy-handed British policies that had sparked the American Revolution. Britain was also eager to bar American ships from entering any continental European port.
NAPOLEON, BRITAIN, AND THE UNITED STATES The hawks in the U.S. Government were eager to swoop, and on 18 June 1812 President James Madison declared war against Great Britain. Circumstances appeared to favour the United States. Britain would be forced to wage war on two fronts, continuing its bloody
Image: WIPL
T
he fledgling United States may have finally won their independence when British troops bottled up at Yorktown surrendered in 1781. But as an overspill from the Napoleonic Wars, Britain continued to meddle in American affairs. Like teenage siblings trying to make the final break from their parents, warhawk American politicians decided that final measures had to be taken to cut the apron strings with the overbearing former mother-country. Britain still glowered at America from Canada, and an invasion across the long unfortified border was a possibility. Britain had even kept pockets of troops in America until the 1790s, and still had influence over the Indian tribes, anxious to stop their land being taken over by American settlers.
NEW ORLEANS
struggle with Napoleon, while fighting a new action across the Atlantic, with all the challenging logistical problems that such a conflict involved. With 250,000 troops committed to fighting in Europe, Britain could spare only around 6,000 soldiers at most for campaigning in America. Saving Canada – the prize the United States was after – came to depend heavily on regiments of dubious quality already stationed there and local militia. In Britain’s favour, America had learned little from the confusion and manpower shortages that had plagued its forces during the Revolution. Now as then, overwhelming patriotic fervour failed to grip the nation, and the standing army was small and recruitment low in many areas. New regiments went off to war underpaid, badly uniformed, and ill-equipped. Often, they were two-thirds under-strength. Despite some flashes of brilliance and courage, American forces failed in their attempt to capture Canada; and the eventual defeat and first abdication of Napoleon in Europe meant that seasoned British troops were freed up to cross the Atlantic and finish the upstart Americans off, once and for all.
THE CLIMAX OF THE WAR But the British did not have it all their own way. They may have burned down the White House and other parts of Washington, but they failed to capture Baltimore. The opposing forces were at a stalemate as peace negotiations between Britain and the United States rambled on at Ghent in Belgium. With the British war-effort in the north at an impasse, a fresh focus was needed. A new task-force, drawn mainly from troops in the European theatre of operations, was despatched to the American Gulf Coast. With a piratical swagger that would have made Sir Francis Drake and the old rogue Sir
A rough, tough lawyer, turned duellist and Indian fighter, Jackson hated the British. 18
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Image: WIPL
RIGHT A view of Lower Mississippi swampland as it would have looked at the time of the War of 1812. The young United States had only just ‘purchased’ its new territory at the mouth of the Mississippi: an asset with huge economic potential, but as yet largely untamed swamp-jungle.
Henry Morgan proud, they would capture that Pearl of the South, New Orleans. At a stroke, Britain could seal off the mouth of the Mississippi and control lucrative trade outlets to and from inland America. If successful, Britain’s gambit would also dramatically enhance her power at the negotiating table. After her humiliation at losing her American colonies, Britain wanted to hit her wayward offspring as hard as she could. Revenge would be oh-so-sweet, with the capture of the cosmopolitan city. Founded by the French, later controlled by the Spanish, then taken over again by the French, New Orleans had been part of America’s massive ‘Louisiana Purchase’. These exotic new lands had a quality unmatched by anything else in America. Settlers from Kentucky or Tennessee thought they were almost entering a foreign country.
ANDREW JACKSON: MILITIA GENERAL New Orleans was a tempting target. In addition to its own forces, Britain hoped to recruit the pirates from Barataria, a stronghold on the Louisiana coast, 30 miles south of New Orleans. Their knowledge of the swampy approaches to New Orleans, with its lagoons and bayous, would be invaluable. In September 1814, British officers visited Barataria to pressurise pirate leader Jean Lafitte into signing up, offering land, property, and hard cash. As if this was not enough, Lafitte was also offered a commission in the Royal Navy. Flames of war had been licking at the southern frontier in the years leading up to the British attack on New Orleans. Creek Indians went on the rampage, slaughtering settlers at Fort Mims, in August 1813. The
man who eventually stopped them, in March 1814, at a place called Horseshoe Bend, was Tennessee State Militia General Andrew Jackson. His name in lights, Jackson was just the man needed to lead American forces in the forthcoming desperate struggle to save New Orleans.
EDWARD PAKENHAM: BRITISH ARISTOCRAT His nemesis should have been Major-General Robert Ross, but Ross was killed by a stray bullet at North Point, during the unsuccessful British assault on Baltimore. Major-General Sir Edward Pakenham – the Duke of Wellington’s brother-in-law, no less – was chosen to be his replacement for the onerous task ahead, and was swiftly despatched on a fast frigate to America. Pakenham did not rely on lofty connections with the Duke for his success. He was a first-rate leader and tenacious fighter, who had been hailed the ‘Hero of Salamanca’ after leading a crucial charge during the Peninsular War battle in July 1812. ‘He is one of the best we have,’ Wellington had said: high praise indeed. Pakenham was 36; his opponent, Andrew Jackson, 47. A rough, tough lawyer, turned duellist and Indian fighter, who became known as ‘Old Hickory’, Jackson hated the British. During the American Revolution he had been a boy soldier, serving with an American cavalry regiment. Jackson was captured, and it is said that a British officer ordered him to clean his boots. When Jackson refused, the officer struck him with his sabre, leaving Jackson with a permanent scar on his head – and a thirst for revenge. It might seem that the well-connected aristocratic general and the rough, hell-raising March 2015
frontiersman would have nothing in common. But in fact Pakenham’s and Jackson’s parents were born in Country Antrim, Ireland.
OLD HICKORY Jackson had many political enemies, but tough Old Hickory, the man who mentored David Crockett, destined to meet his demise at the Alamo 21 years in the future, was loved by his men – even though he was an uncompromising disciplinarian. Before his move against the Creek Indians at Horseshoe Bend, he hanged a deserter in front of his troops, to instil discipline in the ranks. A charismatic leader, Jackson – unlike so many other lacklustre commanders in the American Army – was the prime contender to organise the resistance down south. As the British girded their loins to strike at New Orleans, Old Hickory was made a major-general and given command of the defenders of the imperilled city. His task was not an enviable one. He would have to hold the city with a bizarre scratch force of regulars, militia, pirates, and Choctaw Indians. Jackson would also have to knock up some kind of earthwork to keep the British out. Jackson arrived in New Orleans on 2 December 1814. Establishing his headquarters in Royal Street, he ordered all available militia units to converge on the city. BELOW Lieutenant-Colonel Rennie’s forlorn hope storms the redoubt on the right of Jackson’s line.
JACKSON’S ARMY Jackson would have to build on a small nucleus of regular army troops. He had 436 men of the 7th U.S. Infantry, 352 from the 44th U.S. Infantry, and a mere 58 men from the U.S. Marines. This meagre force was rounded out by a troop of the 1st U.S. Light Dragoons, and about 78 artillerymen. The bulk of his army would be volunteer units of varying quality, including various units of ‘Free Men of Colour’; many had no uniforms and fought in civilian clothes. The most controversial defenders were the Baratarian pirates. Despite the best efforts of the British, their leader, Jean Lafitte, had decided to side with the Americans. The Baratarians were good fighters, with a great deal of local knowledge, and although Jackson was initially against recruiting what he called ‘hellish banditti’, he relented after a meeting with Lafitte. Much has passed into folklore about Lafitte and his men’s contribution to the American cause, and how their artillery skills saved the day. But in reality the New Orleans defences were not thronged by pirates manning guns, mowing down the advancing redcoats. In fact, no more than two pirate artillery companies served, around 35 men in total, manning a couple of 24-pounder ship’s cannon. For the rest of his gallant defenders, Jackson would have to rely on companies of riflemen from Tennessee and Kentucky, many of whom were something less than
Many Kentuckians did not even have firearms, and had to be armed with old Spanish muskets. the stuff of legend. The Tennesseans were the most reliable, but the Kentucky militia, the last of the defenders to arrive at New Orleans, were in poor shape. Many of the Kentuckians did not even have firearms, and had to be armed with some old Spanish muskets held in New Orleans stores – and whatever else could be found. The ladies of New Orleans were so concerned about the Kentuckians’ miserable state of dress, they made clothing for them.
PAKENHAM’S ARMY This, then, was the army that was going to save a city and rid American shores once and for all of the British. It looked like a walkover for Pakenham’s lads. Many of his battalions, including the 4th, 7th, 40th, and 43rd Regiments of Foot, were hardened Peninsular War veterans. The 4th Regiment of Foot had been raised in 1683 by Charles II, serving from the British Army’s very beginnings. During the Peninsular War, the regiment had won numerous battle honours, including Corunna and Badajoz. Transferred across the Atlantic, they had already taken part in the War of 1812, winning fresh laurels at Bladensburg. The 7th Foot, Royal Fusiliers, also had a proud heritage, stretching back to 1685, and Brigadier-General Pakenham was one of their old boys. Pakenham could also count on a detachment of the 95th Rifles. Their green-camouflaged uniforms would be ideal for skirmishing amid the dense foliage of the Louisiana swamplands. Scottish grit was provided by the 93rd Highlanders. Alas, they did not go into battle sporting feathered headdress and wearing kilts, beloved by many early illustrators of the battle. They wore trews or standard British Army grey fatigue trousers, and headgear was flat Hummell bonnets.
JACKSON’S DEFENCES Image: WIPL
Jackson was preparing his defences well. The terrain around New Orleans certainly helped. In 1814 the city was like an exotic island surrounded by swamps and marshes. The British would find the going extremely tough when www.military-history.org
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they approached the city. Jackson added to their problems by blocking waterways and bayous with logs. He also utilised the old Rodriguez Canal, the boundary between the Chalmette and Macarty plantations, as his main line of defence. The canal ran about 900 yards from the bank of the Mississippi River. Its left side rested on an impassable swamp, while its right was anchored against a levee. Behind the dry-canal ditch, which was about 12 feet wide and up to eight feet deep, Jackson’s men built tall, mud ramparts reinforced with wooden fencing and anything else they could lay their hands on, including cotton bales. It would later be claimed that their fibrous texture absorbed cannon balls and lessened their impact. Eight gun-batteries were emplaced, as well as firing-platforms for the American infantry. A forward redoubt was constructed on the far right of the line, to flank the open ground in front of the American position. It bristled with two 6-pounder cannon. A company of the 7th U.S. Infantry were its primary defenders. In Ghent, peace negotiations had been taking place between war-weary Britain and America. Diplomats had managed to thrash out a peace treaty satisfactory to both sides by Christmas. But there was no way the news that peace had been declared could be sent quickly across the Atlantic. Both sides remained in ignorance of this decision. The long-planned battle for New Orleans went ahead regardless.
A NIGHT ATTACK AND TWO ARTILLERY DUELS The approaches to New Orleans were slow and tortuous. The British were soaked by driving rain during the day and frozen by the cold nights – so cold that several men in the ethnic black West India regiments, unused to such extremes, died of exposure. On 23 December, news reached Jackson that the British were only nine miles from the city. He decided to take the initiative and strike a blow against them that very night. The attack stalled the British, giving them a bloody nose. But in the confusion of darkness, it was not an overwhelming victory. Still, it put the enemy on the back foot and raised American morale, putting fresh vigour and confidence into the men working on the defence line. On Christmas Day, Pakenham arrived on the field. He was not happy about the British Army’s position. He felt that it was sandwiched between New Orleans and exceptionally swampy terrain, and could easily get bottled up. www.military-history.org
The British commander even suggested that the army should pack up, march back to their ships, re-embark, and land somewhere else more favourable. But despite the mini American victory in the recent night battle, Pakenham’s staff remained bullish. Some officers maintained it would take only a bayonet charge against ‘the dirty shirts’ to drive them away. But Pakenham was worried. His heavy artillery had not yet arrived, so he only had field-guns to pound the Americans’ formidable defences along the canal. As the mist cleared on the morning of 28 December, Pakenham sent his troops forward in a ‘grand reconnaissance’ of two columns. An artillery duel opened up, and the Americans had the better of it. When one British column wavered, Pakenham ordered his forces back. ‘There was not a man amongst us who failed to experience shame and indignation,’ said one British officer. It would take a lot more than just a bayonet charge to dislodge the Americans after all. After darkness fell on 31 December, the British crept to within 600 yards of the Rodriguez Canal, and installed three batteries of guns to pound those infernal earthworks. In the thunderous artillery duel that followed, the British guns again came off badly, with most put out of action. The American defences remained firm. A British infantry assault in daylight could make no headway in the circumstances.
PAKENHAM’S GRAND ASSAULT Pakenham was desperate for victory. Humiliated, he planned another assault to carry the American lines: a final grand slam against Old Hickory. Early on the cold, misty morning of 8 January 1815, as Congreve rockets screeched overhead, Pakenham mounted his attack with three assault columns. The main force aimed to hit the American position on the left, but in order for this mission to succeed, the forward redoubt on the right of Jackson’s line would have to be captured. If it did not fall, heavy fire would
Some officers maintained it would take only a bayonet charge against ‘the dirty shirts’ to drive them away. MILITARY HISTORY MONTHLY
Image: WIPL
LEFT The Battle of New Orleans, 8 January 1815, showing the main British assault on the American lines, and the wider geographical context of the campaign.
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Rennie and most of his men were hit by a blast of fire from the American line. enfilade the main force as the British infantry scrambled across the canal and tried to mount the ramparts behind. Lieutenant-Colonel Rennie of the 21st Foot led a forlorn hope comprising the 43rd Light Infantry and the light companies of the 7th Fusiliers and the 93rd Highlanders in an attack on the redoubt. Men from the 1st West India regiment struggled forwards with scaling ladders for the forlorn hope to mount the defences. Initially, Rennie’s fast-moving men made steady progress, crossing the canal ditch, scrambling up the redoubt walls, and passing through the embrasures into the redoubt. The Americans retreated, and for a few blissful moments it looked like a British triumph. Rennie, though badly wounded in the leg, staggering on, urged his men to charge across the narrow plank connecting the redoubt to the canal fortifications.
charge would do it had been proved hopelessly wrong. General Gibbs reported to Pakenham that his men were so traumatised they refused to move.
THE DEATH OF PAKENHAM This was just too much for the Hero of Salamanca. Spurring his horse forward, he called for the shattered remnants of the 4th Regiment to rally on him. Pakenham’s horse was hit and went down, spilling him from the saddle. Breathless, but undeterred, Pakenham commandeered another horse and galloped off again. But he had gone only a few yards when he was hit in the neck and abdomen. Mortally wounded, he died in the arms of his aide. BELOW The death of Major-General Sir Edward Pakenham, attempting to lead a final charge on the American lines in front of New Orleans.
Major-General Keane, Pakenham’s second-in-command, was wounded in the groin, and carried from the field. Though some British troops had succeeded in mounting the American defences, they were too few, and were quickly swept away. The broken columns of assault troops flowed away to the rear. American casualties were claimed to be only 76. The British had lost 2,044, with no less than three generals hors de combat. Jackson’s bizarre, improvised frontier army had triumphed over the British, and inflicted massive and wholly disproportionate losses – in a battle that should never have happened, for peace in the War of 1812 had already been signed on the other side of the Atlantic. Robin Smith is an author and freelance journalist, who specialises in military history, particularly the American Revolution, War of 1812, and the American Civil War.
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AMERICAN FIREPOWER
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Image: WIPL
Then Rennie and most of his men were hit by a blast of fire from the American line. The British attack on the redoubt floundered. Rennie was killed, and what was left of his command crawled back the way they had come as best they could. Elsewhere, the British attacks were faltering. One regiment had forgotten its scaling ladders. All of them faced galling fire as American cannon cut great swathes through Pakenham’s ranks as his regiments began piling up on each other in the confusion. Up on the defences, Jackson’s riflemen were also doing good, deadly work. The main battalion of the 93rd Highlanders, whose light infantry company had already suffered badly in the failed attack on the redoubt, were badly mauled in the increasingly confused killing-ground. American officers remembered them ‘standing like statues’ as they were cut down in the chaos. Disorientated and unable to move forwards or back, the 93rd suffered 75% casualties. The Americans, comparatively snug along their fortified line, sensed victory. Discipline in the British ranks had broken down. Troops milled around, stunned by the heat, smoke, and noise, or they ran away. Those officers who had told Pakenham that one bayonet March 2015
SIEGE warfare in the mid 19th century
T
he killing-power of artillery and small-arms was accelerating rapidly by the middle of the 19th century. Flintlock muskets that were short-range, slow to load, and wildly inaccurate had dominated battlefields from the late 17th century to the second quarter of the 19th century. But by the time of the Crimean War (1853-1856) and the American Civil War (1861-1865), that era was over. The percussion cap, the expanding bullet, and the rifling of barrels transformed the range, accuracy, and rate of fire of the infantryman’s basic weapon. Equivalent changes were beginning to transform artillery: there were more guns, better guns, and more powerful guns. Tactics, as so often, lagged behind. The weapons technology increasingly demanded dispersal and entrenchment. Success depended less on the élan of the charge, and more on establishing fire superiority. But the lessons were hard-learnt, as generals continued to launch frontal attacks into concentrated rifle-fire and canister.
Our special this month focuses on two great mid-19th-century sieges: Sebastopol in the Crimea (pictured below), and Petersburg in Virginia. Both were preceded by ‘traditional’ pitched battles – the Alma in September 1854 in the case of Sebastopol; Wilderness, Spotsylvania, and Cold Harbor in May-June in the case of Petersburg. These battles demonstrated how lethal modern weaponry was. The opposing armies responded in a similar way: they dug in. But the transition to trench warfare was incomplete. The Russians tried to break the Siege of Sebastopol at the Battles of Balaklava and Inkerman. General Grant probed again and again at the open country west of the Petersburg trench-lines; when he finally broke through, the war of movement resumed, and General Lee’s army was quickly overwhelmed. These two sieges therefore represent a transitional stage, from 18th-century ‘horse and musket’ warfare to the ‘storm of steel’ trench warfare of the 20th century. Patrick Mercer narrates the story of Sebastopol, Neil Faulkner covers Petersburg, and David Porter analyses the technologies and the tactics of mid-19th-century siege warfare.
Introduction
TIMELINES 4 October 1853 Ottoman Empire declares war on Tsarist Russia
28 March 1854 Britain and France declare war on Russia
20 September 1854 Battle of the Alma
Se bastapol
After landing at the Old Fort, 30 miles north of Sebastopol, the combined British, French, and Ottoman army, 52,000 strong, marches towards the great Crimean port-city. Russian General Menshikov, with 36,000 men, holding a strong defensive position on high ground overlooking the River Alma, attempts to block their advance. Although Menshikov is dislodged and forced into retreat, the Allies suffer heavy losses during their frontal assault.
17 October 1854 Siege of Sebastopol begins in earnest
25 October 1854 Battle of Balaklava The Russians launch a major attack on the British, attempting to get between their siege-lines and their main supply-base at Balaklava. The attempt is defeated by ‘the thin red line’ of the 93rd Highlanders and the charge of the Heavy Cavalry Brigade. The subsequent ‘Charge of the Light Brigade’, however, during which 247 men and 497 horses (out of 673) are lost in 20 minutes, has become an icon of the incompetence of Britain’s aristocratic officer-class in the mid 19th century.
5 November 1854 Battle of Inkerman A second major Russian attempt to break the Siege of Sebastopol is equally unsuccessful, though it involves the British Army in some of the most ferocious infantry fighting of the war. The arrival of a French division rescues the British. The Russians lose 12,000 men, the Allies 3,300, most of them British.
8 September 1855 Storming of the Malakoff 26
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TIMELINES
5-7 May 1864 Battle of the Wilderness
9-13 May 1864 Battle of Spotsylvania
1-12 June 1864 Battle of Cold Harbor
Pete rsburg
15-18 June 1864 Battle of Petersburg As Grant crosses the James River with the bulk of the Army of the Potomac, advanced Union elements attack the Confederate lines around Petersburg. The trenches are virtually empty, but the Union army is now afflicted with ‘Cold Harbor syndrome’ after the terrible losses of the previous month. Confederate General Beauregard rushes men to the scene. As both armies feed new arrivals into the battle, the Confederates keep just ahead, holding the line and inflicting twice as many casualties on the attackers as they suffer themselves.
30 July 1864 Battle of the Crater
1 April 1865 Battle of Five Forks Phil Sheridan’s Union cavalry corps, reinforced by infantry, strikes Pickett’s heavily outnumbered corps in front and flank, overwhelming it and causing it to break and run. The effect is to expose the entire Confederate right flank and rear, and to cut Lee’s communications with the interior. He, and the Confederate Government in Richmond, have no choice but to evacuate.
9 April 1865 Army of Northern Virginia surrenders By the end, Lee’s army is reduced to around 30,000 half-starved men. Grant has set out to block his escape-route and surround him with some 120,000 well-supplied Union soldiers. With Grant’s men ahead of him and deploying for battle at Appomattox Court House, Lee sends a request for a ceasefire and a conference on terms. The leaders meet in the home of Wilmer McLean, who had fled from Manassas (Bull Run) in 1861 to get away from the war! The Army of Northern Virginia surrenders at 3.45pm, and the American Civil War is effectively over. Five days later, President Lincoln is assassinated. www.military-history.org
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Technology and Tactics The Sie ge Revolution David Porter analyses the development of siege-warfare methods from the mid 17th century to the mid 19th century. LEFT Union heavy mortars at Yorktown in 1862.
tunnels under enemy fortifications, which, once under the defences, were enlarged to form chambers, supported by wooden props. Brushwood was then stacked in the chambers and fired, to bring down a section of the walls. During the 15th century, gunpowder began to be used in military mines. In 1495, Spanish engineers used a large mine to destroy an entire outwork of the Frenchheld Castello Nuovo in Naples. Mining techniques were steadily refined. By the late 17th century, Vauban’s manuals of siege warfare included tables for mines using up to 12,000kg (26,455lb) of gunpowder to destroy entire fortresses.
GUNS
F
ortification and siege-craft changed little in the period from 1650 to 1850 – ‘star’ fortresses of all sizes, inspired by the designs of Louis XIV’s great engineer, Marshal Sébastien de Vauban, were built across Europe and throughout the growing number of European colonies in the Americas, Africa, and Asia. Vauban also devised most of the techniques for attacking such fortresses. Batteries of siege guns were set up to bombard the defences before the first approach trenches were dug. These advanced in a series of zigzags to avoid suffering enfilading fire from the artillery on the ramparts. Cannon were used to blast breaches in the ramparts, and once a ‘practicable breach’ (one that could be assaulted with a reasonable chance of success) had been made, the garrison were offered the chance to negotiate a surrender. If the offer was rejected, the besiegers would attempt to storm the fortress. In the 17th century, the defenders were still occasionally massacred following a successful
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assault, although this brutality was rare after the Thirty Years War. However, widespread looting and rape remained commonplace as late as the Napoleonic Wars, notably after Wellington’s capture of Badajoz in 1812, when most of his Anglo-Portuguese troops ran amok for three days. The situation began to change in the 1830s, as improved howitzers and mortars firing heavier shells began to appear. In the 1832 Siege of Antwerp, the 460kg (1,015lb) shells of French 975mm (38-inch) ‘Monster Mortars’ devastated the citadel. This prompted military architects to incorporate far more overhead cover in their fortress designs. Bunkers (then generally known as ‘bomb-proofs’) were provided to shelter the garrison, while the guns were mounted in casemates, vaulted chambers fitted with firing ports.
MINING Mining has been a feature of siege warfare since at least 700 BC. Until the end of the Middle Ages, it generally involved driving
Early siege and fortress guns included some enormous weapons, such as the 15th-century Austrian bombard ‘Pumhart von Steyr’, which fired a 690kg (1,521lb) stone shot to an effective range of 600 metres (656 yards). Such artillery was so difficult to transport over the appalling roads of the period that it was sometimes cast on site, as it was easier to move the raw materials to the siege-lines than the guns themselves. For all their impressive size, these first ‘superguns’ were relatively inefficient. They were very costly, and it soon became apparent that the same amount spent on two or three smaller-calibre cannon gave much better results. Smaller guns were lighter and easier to deploy, and their higher rate of fire inflicted significantly greater damage. The gradual introduction of solid iron round-shot, which was far heavier than stone shot of the same calibre, accelerated the decline of the huge bombards, and by the 17th century the largest siege gun in general use was the ‘Cannon Royal’, firing a 63lb (29kg) shot. Improvements in artillery during the 18th century led to a further reduction in calibre, and by the Napoleonic Wars it was rare to find anything larger than 24-pdr cannon in most armies’ siege or fortress artillery inventories. Despite several centuries of minor improvements, early 19th-century siege and fortress artillery still comprised smoothbore March 2015
TECHNOLOGY AND TACTICS
LEFT A French ‘monster mortar’, as used at the Siege of Antwerp in 1832.
this meant that they were unable to fire at as high an elevation as mortars, and were restricted to a maximum calibre of about 250mm (10 inches), little more than a quarter of the size of the largest siege mortars.
THE SIEGE OF SEBASTOPOL Although modernisation of the fortifications of Sebastopol, the base of the Russian Black Sea Fleet, had been planned in 1832, little more than a few fortified barrack blocks had been completed by the outbreak of the Crimean War in 1854. Initially, there were no more than 205 guns available to protect the long landward perimeter of the port, but, fortunately for the Russians, the garrison’s chief engineer was the able LieutenantColonel Eduard Totleben. muzzle-loading cannon, firing mainly solid iron shot. (Canister was used for close-range fire against attacking infantry. This was a tin can, filled with musket balls, which broke up on firing to produce a shotgun-like effect.)
Images: WIPL
MORTARS AND HOWITZERS Mortars – short-barrelled weapons firing projectiles at high elevation – had been in existence for almost as long as conventional artillery. They could bombard targets sheltered behind the most elaborate fortifications. Giovanni da Tagliacozzo’s account of the 1456 Siege of Belgrade by the Ottoman Turks credits the besiegers with the use of seven mortars that fired ‘stone shots one Italian mile high’. By the mid 16th century, mortars were deployed in large numbers. Henry VIII assembled 50, firing explosive shells for his Siege of Boulogne in 1544. (The shells of the period were hollow ‘cannon balls’, filled with gunpowder that was detonated by a short burning fuse; the basic design remained essentially unchanged until after the American Civil War.) Their main limitations were their weight and poor mobility – in order to withstand the recoil forces when firing at elevations of about 45º, they were mounted on heavy wooden beds without wheels. Movement of the larger examples involved hoisting them onto specially designed carts that were even slower than the rest of the ponderous siege train. (Whenever possible, water transport was used in preference to the appalling roads of the period.) Howitzers were similar shell-firing weapons, but were more mobile as they were mounted on conventional wheeled carriages. However,
SIEGE AND FORTRESS ARTILLERY TO 1850 Projectile weight
(ƬHFWLYHUDQJH
French 24-pounder de Vallière 2,400kg Cannon 1732-1765 (5,400lb)
Weight
12kg round-shot (24 French pounds)
600 metres (656 yards)
French 12-inch (325mm) Gribeauval Mortar 1765-1803
2,560kg (5,644lb)
72kg shell (159lb)
1,500 metres (1,640 yards)
US 8-inch Siege Howitzer Model 1841
1,185kg (2,614lb)
20.4kg shell (45lb)
2,000 metres (2,187 yards)
British 68-pounder Cannon 1846
4,800kg (10,582lb)
31kg round shot (68lb)
2,700 metres (2,953 yards)
RIGHT A heavily fortified Allied battery in action during the Siege of Sebastopol. www.military-history.org
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MALLET’S MORTAR In 1854, an Irish engineer – Robert Mallet – designed a giant siege mortar intended to destroy the fortifications of Sebastopol. The War Office was unreceptive, so Mallet wrote to the Prime Minister, Lord Palmerston, who authorised the construction of two prototypes, which were completed in 1857. The mortar broke down into sections for transportation, and was mounted on a platform made up of three layers of heavy timber. It underwent trials for several months, but was not accepted for service, as the end of the Crimean War left it with no obvious role.
&DOLEUH
914mm (36 inches)
:HLJKW
6KHOOZHLJKW
0D[LPXPUDQJH
42,674kg (42 tons)
1,334kg (2,940lb)
2,523 metres (2,759 yards)
BRITISH SIEGE ARTILLERY AT SEBASTOPOL :HDSRQ
7RWDOQRGHSOR\HG
1RRIURXQGVƭUHG
13-inch Mortar 10-inch Mortar 8-inch Mortar 5.5-inch Mortar 68-pounder Cannon 10-inch Gun 8-inch Gun 32-pounder Cannon 68-pounder Lancaster Rifled Muzzle Loading Cannon
39 35 10 8 7 10 76 94 7
39,345 37,345 3,174 4,847 4,649 6,111 64,280 65,371 1,542
Total
286
226,664*
*Average rate of fire during the 349-day siege: 649 rounds per day
UNION SIEGE ARTILLERY AT PETERSBURG 6PRRWKERUHZHDSRQV 13-inch Mortar 10-inch Mortar 8-inch Mortar 8-inch Siege Howitzer
7RWDOQRGHSOR\HG
1RRIURXQGVƭUHG
1 16 20 12
218 2,849 21,089 (not known)
13 17 44 1 124
1,560 5,567 12,209 10 43,502*
5LƮHGZHDSRQV 100-pounder Parrott Rifle 4.5-inch Siege Rifle 30-pounder Parrott Rifle 24-pounder Sawyer Rifle Total
*Average rate of fire during the 292-day siege: 149 rounds per day
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He mobilised all available manpower to build a formidable network of field defences, which proved to be exceptionally resilient despite the fire of 286 British and 382 French guns and mortars. He also adopted a policy of ‘aggressive defence’, ensuring that the earthworks were strengthened throughout the siege, and that any ground gained by local counter-attacks was swiftly fortified. Totleben overcame the initial shortage of artillery by thoroughly ransacking arsenals and stores to bring the total number of serviceable Russian guns up to 998 by the end of the siege, including 120-pdr shell guns, together with 96-, 56-, and 40-pdrs. Initial Allied bombardments and assaults were unsuccessful, and in November 1854 the French attempted to break the deadlock by mining under the Flagstaff Bastion. The Russians dug countermines, and mine warfare became a major feature of the siege. The Russians dug a total of 7,000 metres (7,655 yards) of tunnels, and detonated 120 mines. Superficially, the Siege of Sebastopol showed little obvious advance on similar actions of the Napoleonic Wars – the vast bulk of the artillery on both sides still comprised smoothbore muzzle-loaders – but there was some new technology. The handful of Lancaster Rifled Muzzle Loaders (RMLs) deployed were prone to bursting, but had a maximum range of 5,944 metres (6,500 yards), more than twice that of the 68-pdr smoothbore. This prompted inventors such as Joseph Whitworth and William Armstrong to develop new designs of rifled field and heavy artillery. The limitations of conventional siege guns also stimulated interest in a new generation of ‘superguns’, such as Mallet’s Mortar (see box above), which showed considerable potential, but was completed too late to see action in the Crimea.
THE SIEGE OF PETERSBURG Artillery development accelerated rapidly in the decade between the Crimean War and the closing stages of the American Civil War. Rifled guns (both breech- and muzzleloaders) were increasingly challenging the smoothbore’s centuries-old pre-eminence. Petersburg was protected by fortifications known as the Dimmock Line, an arc of earthworks stretching for 16 kilometres (10 miles), with both flanks resting on the Appomattox River. Construction was completed in 1863 under the supervision of Captain Charles Dimmock, by which time the defences included 55 numbered artillery batteries, connected by entrenchments. Senior Confederate officers, including General Beauregard, who commanded the defence of the line in June 1864, noted important defects, including: March 2015
TECHNOLOGY AND TACTICS
Mine warfare became a major feature of the Siege of Sebastopol: the Russians alone detonated 120 mines. r A significant gap between Battery 24 and Battery 25, just east of the vital Jerusalem Plank Road. r Several vulnerable salients, including one along the obvious path of Union advance from the James River. r Too many guns exposed above the parapets, and insufficient fields of fire in front of the line. r None of the batteries had ‘all-round’ defences; they all were open to the rear, making them vulnerable to any breakthrough in their immediate vicinity. These weaknesses may have contributed to the loss of parts of the line to the initial attacks in June 1864, although this was primarily due to the Confederate garrison being grossly outnumbered – at this stage Beauregard had no more than 14,000 men, and he faced about 50,000 Union troops. For the rest of the 292-day siege, the defenders were largely reliant on hastily built field defences, which, like those of Sebastopol BELOW Chevaux de frise at the Siege of Petersburg – the American Civil War’s version of barbed wire.
UNION SIEGE ARTILLERY :HLJKW 3URMHFWLOHZHLJKW(ƬHFWLYHUDQJH 13-inch Seacoast Mortar M.1841 7,766kg
10-inch Siege Mortar M.1841 8-inch Siege Mortar M.1841 8-inch Siege Howitzer M.1841
100-pounder Parrott Rifle 4.5-inch Siege Rifle 30-pounder Parrott Rifle 24-pounder Sawyer Rifle
1,670kg 839kg 1,186kg 4,400kg 2,608kg 1,905kg 4,002kg
a decade earlier, soaked up artillery fire without sustaining critical damage. Recognising the ineffectiveness of sustained artillery fire against earthworks that were repaired literally overnight, the Union artillery then made equally unsuccessful attempts to breach the abbatis and chevaux de frise protecting the Confederate trenches. (Abbatis are trees felled with their tops facing the enemy, and the tips of the branches sharpened into spikes; chevaux de frise are logs covered with long spikes.) Thereafter, the siege guns primarily concentrated on counter-battery fire and bombardments in support of infantry assaults on sections of the Confederate defences. Counter-battery fire rarely destroyed enemy artillery, but did frequently silence the guns by inflicting casualties on their crews and forcing the survivors to take cover. However, there were some spectacular exceptions, as when a direct hit on a Confederate battery by a shell from the 13-inch mortar ‘Dictator’ blew a field gun over the parapet. The technique that came closest to achieving a decisive breakthrough was
100kg shell 40kg shell 20kg shell 20kg shell 41kg shell 14kg shell 13kg shell 20kg shot
3,658 metres 823 metres 732 metres 1,829 metres 6,400 metres 2,926 metres 5,486 metres 1,829 metres
mining, but the Union assault at the Battle of the Crater which followed the blowing of a massive mine was hopelessly mishandled. The failure of frontal assaults led to a campaign of attrition – the Union used its growing numerical superiority (ultimately 125,000 to 50,000) to wear down the defenders by constant attacks on vital rail- and road-links to the south and west of Petersburg. The Confederates were repeatedly forced to extend their defences to protect their supply-lines, until they were so grossly overstretched that they could not prevent a Union breakthrough in April 1865.
AFTERMATH: 1865-1914 Contemporary military experts tended to regard the Sieges of Sebastopol and Petersburg as exceptions to the trend towards industrialised wars of manoeuvre. Increasingly sophisticated rail networks held out the promise of rapid movement and supply of armies far larger than any that had previously existed. Indeed, the wars of the late 19th century reinforced this view: the Austro-Prussian War of 1866 lasted barely more than two months, and active military operations in the Franco-Prussian War were over within seven months. What was not readily apparent was the fact that, by about 1900, scientific advances would have created a ‘technology trap’. Entrenchments protected by barbed wire, combined with the firepower of magazinerifles, machine-guns, and quick-firing artillery, made it almost impossible for attackers to achieve a decisive breakthrough. It was this technology trap that effectively turned combat on the Western Front into a series of siege operations from the autumn of 1914. Although the rapid development of tanks and aircraft had begun to solve the problem by 1918, it was not until the blitzkrieg campaigns of 1939-1941 that manoeuvre warfare was fully re-established. David Porter worked at the MoD for 30 years, and is the author of nine books on the Second World War, as well as numerous magazine articles.
Images: WIPL
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THE SIEGES
SEBASTOPOL
The Crimean War turned into a year-long siege – and it was not, says Patrick Mercer, all bungling aristocratic incompetence.
W
hen I opened the newspaper early last year, I thought I had woken up in 1854. The headlines seemed to be almost exactly the same as they had been 160 years before, for they talked of ‘a new Crimean War’ and the ‘beat of war-drums with Russia’. It seemed as though the press would once again force the British Government to take up arms over an issue that its editors hardly understood, and that the focus would again be the great port and fortress of Sebastopol. There is no room here to discuss the tortuous politics that led to the conflict. It is enough to say that the term ‘Crimean War’ is a misnomer, for by the time that Britain sent troops and ships to the Crimea, fighting had already been going on between Russia and Turkey since October 1853 on the Danube and around the coast of the Black Sea. Similarly, a considerable expedition was sent to the Baltic, while there was sporadic fighting in the northern Pacific against the
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Russian Navy. So the Victorian phrase ‘the Russian War’ is far more accurate. Lord Aberdeen’s helplessness in the face of a jingoistic British press eventually led him to ally with France in order to help Turkey resist the might of Russia – though the casus belli now seems difficult to understand.
‘Many of us will not be alive tomorrow night.’ Admiral Kornilov THE TURCO-RUSSIAN WAR The Russians had marched men into the Turkish-owned territories of Moldavia and Wallachia in July 1853. But it was the Battle of Sinope in November that caused popular outrage. Admiral Nachimov manoeuvred his largely steam-driven fleet against a Turkish
ABOVE In the spring of 1855, the British deployed a number of 13-inch mortars at the Siege of Sebastopol. This lithograph, by J Needham, is entitled The New Works at the Siege of Sebastopol on the Right Attack, from the Mortar Battery on the right of Gordon's Battery.
force that had only sails to propel it, and used explosive ordnance for the first time on a wide scale in an engagement at sea. The Turks took appalling casualties; the Russians almost none. The Western press exploded with indignation against a deed which, though brutally efficient, was an entirely reasonable act of war, insisting that something should be done and done quickly. While ships and men were assembled, the politicians wrangled and ducked. Then, in March 1854, war was declared after an ultimatum demanding Russian withdrawal from the Danubian principalities was ignored. A British armada joined a French one in the Mediterranean, but as the great force steamed for Constantinople, the Russians withdrew, leaving Lieutenant George Carmichael of the 95th March 2015
THE SIEGES
Corporal Dolton, Scots Fusilier Guards (The Derbyshire) Regiment to wonder why he was there at all, still less why ‘Britain should be allying with old enemies like Catholic France to support Musselmen against our old ally, Christian Russia’. He was not alone. After a pause in Scutari, the fleet headed on towards Varna at the mouth of the Danube, there to support the Turks. Yet, after the Turkish victory at Oltenitsa in November 1853, the threat had all but disappeared on this flank, leaving the Allies with no palpable reason to fight, and no immediate target.
OBJECTIVE: SEBASTOPOL Luckily, the Press was again on hand to direct Westminster. It was decided by the editors that the great arsenal of Sebastopol should be attacked. So, late in the season, 60,000 British and French and some 12,000 Turks set sail across the Black Sea. On 14 September they landed about 30 miles north of Sebastopol, where the beaches were most favourable, before marching south in order to invest the city. On 20 September the Allies won a battle as remarkable for its stupidity as for the fact that it was won at all. They attacked a preprepared Russian artillery and entrenched infantry position on the hills south of the River Alma in daylight with scarcely any attempt at manoeuvre. Only grit and gallantry ousted the Russians and sent them scooting back to Sebastopol, with no more attempts being made to stop the invaders. This bloody victory allowed Lord Raglan’s and Marshal Saint-Arnaud’s troops to march south, reaching Sebastopol on the 22-23 September – but without enough men to invest it properly. Now that Russia has re-annexed Sebastopol, it is perfectly possible to visit. Do so, for only then can you appreciate the strength of the place. Built on an ice-free, deep-water anchorage that divides the town into a northern bank and a more built-up southern one, it is made up of one large and many smaller bays, all of which now, as in 1854, are named after their naval function. So there is Artillery Bay, Careening Bay, Ration’s Bay, and a number of others, where warships of the Black Sea www.military-history.org
THE DEFENCES Strangely, though, the defences were not all as strong as they might have been. A number of powerful forts defended both the entrance to the harbour and the quaysides, but inland there was only one proper fortress, the Malakoff, that might check an invading army. True, there were rudimentary walls around the southern half of the city, which the commander of the British 4th Division, Sir George Cathcart, referred to as being ‘nothing more than a low park wall’ when he railed against Lord Raglan’s lack of drive and decisiveness after the victory of the Alma. Indeed, the Russians acknowledged that if the Allies had moved more quickly, then the city could have been taken almost at once. But that lack of drive allowed the partially abandoned plans of 1834 to have new life breathed into them by Admiral Kornilov, the garrison commander, and Colonel Todleban, the chief sapper. They put troops, sailors, and civilians to work constructing earthworks on the previously surveyed sites of seven bastions and a number of coastal batteries designed to encircle the port from landward. Just as important was the construction of the so-called ‘Sapper Road’, though there are few histories that make as much of this as they should. Built by the engineers of 6th Corps, when they arrived in April, it ran from the interior of the Crimea all the way around the base of the Inkerman position along the
southern bank – but it was never cut when the Allies started their siege.
THE SIEGE-WORKS Without enough men completely to encircle Sebastopol, the besiegers ‘broke ground’ in late September, but only around the southern part of the port. The French took the north-western sector, the British the inland, south-eastern sector which culminated where the high ground of Inkerman met the junction of the Tchernaya River at the mouth of the harbour. And there was a further complication. While the ships and garrison were under siege within the city, the interior of the Crimea was entirely open to the rest of Russia via the strip of land in the north known as ‘the Perekop’. Throughout the campaign, a Russian army moved freely on the outside of Sebastopol, threatening the right flank of the besiegers near Inkerman. This gave the British a number of problems, for they had to prosecute the siege, protect their lines of supply to Balaklava, and maintain a guard force looking away from the siege towards the Allies’ east and rear. That force was Major-General De Lacy Evans’s 2nd Division, which was never strong enough to block the Sapper Road, running below its position near Shell Hill. The Russians, of course, appreciated the need for this road, and anchored the warships Chersonese and Twelve Apostles where they could deliver devastating fire on anyone who dared threaten it. BELOW The British infantry attack at the Battle of the Alma. Frontal assaults by close-packed lines against modern rifle- and artillery-fire were fast becoming hopelessly costly in casualties.
Image: WIPL
‘They bury our men quite naked and throw him [sic] into the grave like a dog.’
Fleet went (and still go) to be refurbished and re-victualled. Ashore there were arsenals, gunfoundries, and powder mills that made the Fleet self-sufficient.
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LEFT ‘General Winter’ in action. The Allied supplyline ran across the Black Sea, and from there all the way back to Britain and France. Maintaining the flow of food, fodder, and matériel through the winter of 1854/55 was a major challenge.
LOGISTICS
‘The attack was without aim, without calculation, without necessity...’ Field-Marshal Paskewich Perhaps the boldest and most unexpected decision, though, was that of Admiral Kornilov to scuttle a number of his capital ships across the mouth of the harbour, and to dismount countless guns from his other craft to arm the newly established batteries. There had been a series of furious rows between Kornilov and the Commander-inChief, Prince Menshikov, after the latter's defeat at the Alma and his decision to take most of the troops out of Sebastopol. As Kornilov wrote to his wife on 2 October, ‘Menshikov has returned to his troops on the Belbec, leaving us here to sweat it out’. However, the force, under entirely naval command, got on with the job, and by 3 October Kornilov records that the forts ‘are becoming more and more imposing to look at… some of them mounting 68-pdr armaments’.
Tomorrow will be a hot day, for at any rate the English will make their presence felt. I fear a big loss among our men because they are untrained to meet a bombardment. It is a great pity, but there it is! Many of us will not be alive tomorrow night. There followed a race by the Allies to reduce the port’s defences and invest it
BELOW The Charge of the Heavy Brigade at the Battle of Balaklava – part of the British effort to block a Russian attack on the army’s line of communication.
BELOW A vivid reconstruction of the Russian lines as they would have been during the siege.
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March 2015
Image: WIPL
Image: WIPL
Meanwhile, the Allies had the formidable job not only of surveying and building batteries to hammer Sebastopol, but also arming them. Yet, in a remarkably short space of time, both the French from Kamiesch and the British from Balaklava had hauled guns of siege calibre by brute force to the new earthworks, while the infantry had started to dig trenches and ‘parallels’. Seeing all this, Kornilov wrote on 16 October,
Images: WIPL
THE SIEGES
ABOVE An Allied artillery battery in action at the Siege of Sebastopol. Trench warfare puts a premium on artillery – lots of it, and of heavy calibre.
before the onset of Russia’s greatest ally: ‘General Winter’. There are, however, a number of misconceptions about this campaign. First is the weather. Go to the Crimea, and you will discover that it is subtropical, and that winters as hard as that of 1854/55 are unusual. The British, though, with all their amphibious experience from campaigns such as Walcheren and Corunna, fully appreciated that even usually benign
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climates can deteriorate, and that an already fragile supply-line from Turkey might then become highly problematic. A second misconception concerns British military incompetence. The commanders before Sebastopol are usually portrayed as over-bred fops. Certainly, mistakes were made, but the campaign was an extremely bold one, for it could be supplied only by sea. As a result, operations – all of them on enemy territory – were wholly at the mercy of the weather. The commanders knew that they had taken a huge risk simply in landing in the first place, but their daring and skill are seldom recognised.
BALAKLAVA That said, the first bombardment failed due to explosions in the Allies’ magazines and there not being enough firepower. Yet this only increased Lord Raglan’s determination to press on, and probably blinded him to the Russian plan, which was to prove to be a Pyrrhic masterstroke. As the siege developed, the Tsar put Menshikov and the defenders of the town under huge pressure to expel the invaders, while authorising Generals Paulov and Dannenberg to march 40,000 reinforcements from Bessarabia with a view to falling on the Allies’ outer flank as soon as they reached the Crimea. Fully anticipating this, it was decided
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1. Fort Nicholas 2. Artillery Fort 3. Fort Alexander 4. Fort Quarantine 5. Chemiakine Batteries 6. Quarantine Bastion 7. Rostislaw Redoubt 8. Belkine Lunette 9. Central Bastion 10. Tchesme Redoubt 11. Schwartz Redoubt 12. Jason Redoubt and
Garden Batteries 13. Flagstaff Bastion 14. Crow’s Nest Bastion and Boulevard Batteries 15. Crew Batteries 16. Barrack Batteries 17. Redan 18. Gervais’s Battery 19. Malakoff 20. Little Redan 21. Point Battery 22. Sviatoslaw Battery
Image: Ian Bull
KEY TO THE RUSSIAN POSITIONS
to mount a pre-offensive in order to prepare the ground for a major attack. Again, the Battle of Balaklava in October has been misunderstood. Initially, all the Russians intended to do was probe the British lines of communication from their port of supply up to their siege positions on the Sapoune Ridge. This they did on 25 October, but were pushed back by a mixed infantry and artillery force in front of the harbour, a highly successful charge by the British Heavy Cavalry Brigade, followed, of course, by the celebrated débâcle of the Light Cavalry Brigade. The Russians took some ground and destroyed an important part of the slender cavalry force, but a less well-known action on the 26 October is far more important. On that Sunday, Colonel Federov led six battalions against the Inkerman position with a view to digging a forward redoubt that
could support a much larger assault later on. However, Federov’s death on Shell Hill dispirited the attackers, who were thrown back by the British guns and infantry. Captain Hume of the 55th’s claim, though, that it was ‘half an hour of the best training that could be had’ is too dismissive, for the Russians watched every move that the British made in the Inkerman sector, and the way that the French deployed to support them, and they took full account of their observations when making future plans.
INKERMAN Using this intelligence, the massive attack by over 40,000 troops that was launched on 5 November deserved to succeed. But fighting grimly against 92 guns and swarms of battalions, the 2nd Division (now commanded by Brigadier-General Pennefather)
drove the assaults back time and again. A mere 8,000 troops with a score of guns won an extraordinary victory amid the roiling fog that shrouded the battlefield throughout the fight. The Russians were knocked back into Sebastopol, leaving 5,000 of their fellows stricken on the scrubby slopes of Inkerman. However, what looked like a tactical defeat for the Tsar’s men proved to be a costly victory, for the battle had ruined the British Army operationally, and ensured that Sebastopol would not fall before winter. The worsening weather found the British having to hand over ground to the French. Neither ally had enough men to push the siege to a conclusion. The elements were frightful. The British logistics failed badly, and cold, wet, half-starved regiments melted away, finding it hard to send enough men to fill each day’s quota in the trenches.
THE SIEGE OF KARS
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BELOW Kars Castle as it is today.
Photo: Martin Burgess
The Siege of Kars lasted from June to November 1855. In this case, roles were reversed: a Turkish force under mainly British leadership was besieged by the Russians. General William Fenwick Williams was given overall command of the forces at Kars, with Major Teesdale as his aide-de-camp. Colonel Henry Atwell Lake of the Royal Engineers made an impressive contribution as the main engineer of the fortifications, and other British personnel, officers, and civilians also served, including Yorkshire doctor and interpreter Humphry Sandwith. The province of Kars lies on what is now Turkey’s eastern border with Armenia. During the Cold War, the area was a part of the ‘Iron Curtain’ in the east, dividing Turkey (part of the NATO alliance) from the Soviet Union. The city of Kars itself has changed hands many times, and had been attacked by the Russians in two major 19th-century sieges before the events of 1855. Because the fortress could be used as a springboard for invasion of the loosely held Russian Caucasus area, the Ottomans were keen to hold onto the city. In contrast to other parts of the Ottoman Empire, however, the area’s defences were not up to scratch. The new team of mostly foreign officers and officials were immediately involved in rooting out corruption in the upper ranks of the army. A muster roll ordered by Williams showed that there were more soldiers on paper than in reality, the wages for the absent men being pocketed by Ottoman officers. Many soldiers, in any case, had received no pay for up to two years. In June 1855, the Russians arrived outside Kars, and commenced a series of small-scale actions designed to push back the Turkish advanced posts and test the strength of the defences. By mid July,
Kars was surrounded, and supplies now became the main concern. Letters had to be smuggled in and out, and foraging for supplies beyond the walls was a military operation. Teesdale, accompanied by a Hungarian mercenary, led a foraging raid in August, for example, that had to be covered by artillery and riflemen, and pulled it off without a single casualty. A more crafty approach was the use of deserters – described as ‘Russian’, but probably Poles – to go out at dawn to collect corn cut by Russian cavalry the previous day before the harvesters returned! The news that southern Sebastopol had fallen reached Kars on the 23 September, when a Bashibazouk chief, along with ten men, managed to charge through a Russian patrol. The Russian commander Muravyov soon realised that the cheers and a shot fired within the walls were a celebration of the news.
It seems that Muravyov became impatient for results, as a final major attack took place on the ‘Tachmash’ and ‘English’ lines of defence. Separated from the rest of the city and the citadel by a deep valley and river, the first Tachmash line fell to waves of attackers advancing from around 4.30am onwards. Once the English line had also been breached, many defenders rallied around the Williams Pasha Fort. Fire from here, supported by fire from the Arab Tabya and from Captain Thompson’s command in the Karadagh Work, proved sufficient to drive the Russians out again. Despite the victory at Sebastopol in September, supplies remained short, and General Williams was forced to surrender on 25 November. A relief expedition led by Omar Pasha from the Crimea failed to arrive in time to save the garrison. Martin Burgess is a member of the Crimean War Research Society and has an interest in conflict archaeology.
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Photo: James Robertson
As Corporal Dolton of the Scots Fusilier Guards watched worn, sodden blankets being carefully recovered, he bitterly observed, ‘They bury our men quite naked and throw him [sic] into the grave like a dog. I wonder what then the people of England would think if they were to see it.’ This was the winter of Tolstoy’s Sebastopol Sketches, when he served as a young gunner officer facing the French from the Flagstaff Bastion, and where even the Russians sheltering in the buildings of Sebastopol felt the effects of the weather. Prince Michael Nikolaevich wrote to his father in January 1855: ‘The French have already begun to appear in sheepskins, but our young fellows have not got any. The weather is bad… they talk about sheepskin coats, but nothing has been done.’
TRENCH WARFARE Even in the dreadful weather, trench warfare continued, with frequent raids by both sides, the Russians being especially keen on taking Allied rifles to replace their own muskets. A British soldier would have instantly recognised his grandson’s experiences on, say, the Somme 60 years later, as shells, grenades, flares, and mines took a steady toll of lives. Nothing could be decided, though, by these tactics alone. The great defensive earthworks of the Redan in front of the British and the Malakoff before the French had to be taken before the town proper could be stormed. But lying in front of those forts were lesser works, the Quarries and the Mamelon respectively. The former were a series of diggings that the Russians had reinforced and armed, while the latter was a more conventional redoubt about the size of a hockey pitch – it is still there today. On 6 June, a heavy bombardment was opened on both in the hope that the next day’s planned assault would be easier. That proved to be the case, with the British taking the Quarries, and the French Zouaves sweeping first into the Mamelon, and then pushing on impulsively towards the Malakoff. A strong counter-attack knocked them back, even out of the Mamelon, before the French reserve riposted and secured the objective. But casualties had been heavy: the British suffered 671 killed and wounded, almost half the total number involved.
THE TCHERNAYA The next test would be much more difficult, though. With wonderful optimism, the French and British planned an assault on 18 June, the anniversary of Waterloo – something keenly anticipated by the Russians. Again, the defences were heavily bombarded for days before the attack, which, when it came, was hotly contested by the Russians. The British failed badly at the Redan, while the French had more success against the Malakoff www.military-history.org
‘This infernal fire... clearly indicates that the enemy intends to destroy or neutralise our guns and to make a ground assault.’ Prince Gorchakov and its supporting works, yet were eventually beaten back. The casualties were staggering: almost 4,000 Russians, 3,553 Frenchmen, and 1,728 Britons were killed or injured. Then, on 16 August, the Russians tried to do at the Tchernaya what they had done at Inkerman nine months before. Hoping to spoil and forestall another attack, a huge force of 47,000 infantry, 10,000 cavalry, and 48 guns descended on the French and the recently arrived Sardinian forces. Like Inkerman, it was bloody, but unlike that battle it was both a physical and moral defeat, which left the Russians with 10,000 fallen and caused Field-Marshal Paskewich to criticise the plan of attack, saying, ‘it was without aim, without calculation, without necessity, and… eliminated the possibility of attacking anything thereafter’. With such casualties and its high command divided, Sebastopol was doomed. From 5 September a fresh bombardment was
ABOVE A Russian gun emplacement abandoned during the siege.
opened, causing Gorchakov, now in command, to write to the Tsar, This infernal fire, much of which is counterbombardment, clearly indicates that the enemy intends to destroy or neutralise our guns and to make a ground assault. It is impossible to repair the fortifications and the best that can be done is to keep the powder magazines and the shelters intact.
THE FALL OF SEBASTOPOL He was right, for on the 8 September the dénouement began. Bludgeoned by almost 700 Allied guns, the garrison of Sebastopol faced the inevitable, and plans were made to withdraw across a pontoon bridge to the north bank, the Severnaya. Commanding there from the Nicholaev Battery, Gorchakov gave final orders to withdraw, recognising that although he was giving up the southern part of the fortress, the enemy was too exhausted to pursue his troops. At about 8am on 9 September, the rearguard was ordered to fall back: the final defence cost the Russians almost 13,000 men, and over 10,000 Allies had been killed or injured. Too much attention is given both to the early battles of the Crimean campaign and the highly coloured criticisms of its commanders. While much is made of languid lancers, the tiffs of the toffs, and medical miracles in far-off Turkey, one of the greatest European sieges of the 19th century is quietly forgotten. There were many mistakes on the slopes before Sebastopol, and too many bones were left there, but it was a bold and mostly skilful enterprise from which the British Army emerged battered but better. Patrick Mercer is a military historian and a former army officer and MP.
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PETERSBURG The American Civil War, like the Crimean War, culminated in a year-long siege. Firepower and entrenchment, argues Neil Faulkner, made it all but inevitable that it should be so.
I
now it was also recruiting black men, mainly escaped or liberated slaves from Southern plantations. By the war’s end, 200,000 black men would have served in Union blue; and, as anyone might have guessed, they fought like furies to smash the slave system whenever they got the chance. Grant knew he was winning. Previously, the Army of the Potomac had attacked the Rebels, been mauled by Lee, and had then scurried back to its northern encampments. Exactly a year before the 1864 Overland Campaign began, General Hooker had been beaten in the five-day Battle of Chancellorsville (2-6 May 1863), and had immediately retreated, exposing the North to the Confederate offensive that culminated at Gettysburg.
‘I never expect to be fully believed when I tell what I saw of the horrors of Spotsylvania.’
Not this time: fighting on the very same ground, in a gruesome soldiers’ battle fought in dense thickets where swirling gunsmoke quickly reduced visibility to a few yards, Grant’s men suffered heavy losses attacking Lee’s trenches and failed to break through. At the Battle of the Wilderness (5-7 May), the Union took 17,500 casualties for the 7,000 or so they inflicted. But Grant did not retreat. Instead, he moved south, looking for a way round Lee’s right flank in an effort to cut his links with Richmond. When they realised the direction of march – that it was not another ‘skedaddle’
t was the most terrible summer of America’s most terrible war. In 40 days of fighting from the Wilderness to Cold Harbor, Grant’s Army of the Potomac had suffered 52,600 casualties, half the number it started out with and an average of 1,300 a day. It was not the intention, but the war in the eastern theatre turned into a war of attrition in May-June 1864. If such, it was a war the Union was bound to win. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia had taken proportionate casualties among smaller numbers – 33,000 – and whereas the Union ranks could be made up with fresh drafts, the Confederacy was running out of men. The Union had had a four-to-one advantage in white manpower from the outset, and
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THE OVERLAND CAMPAIGN
BELOW LEFT Breastworks of the Confederate Fort Mahone – or ‘Fort Damnation’, as it was known – during the Siege of Petersburg.
– the Union men started to sing. ‘Our spirits rose,’ wrote one veteran. ‘We marched free.’ Lee retreated to parry Grant’s move. Three days later, the Graycoats were ready, ensconced behind the strongest field fortifications yet seen in the eastern theatre, and they hurled back one attack after another. The Battle of Spotsylvania (9-13 May) reached a murderous climax at the Bloody Angle, where, in pouring rain, for 18 hours, some of the most ferocious fighting of the Civil War raged along a few hundred yards of Rebel trench. ‘I never expect to be fully believed when I tell what I saw of the horrors of Spotsylvania,’ wrote a Union officer. When the battle ended, the casualty toll in the fighting since the 5 May had reached 32,000 for the Union, 18,000 for the Confederacy. Grant was undeterred. Unable to break Lee’s lines, he again moved off, and again the direction was south. ‘I propose to fight it out on this line if it takes all summer,’ he wrote in a dispatch to Washington.
THE VIRGINIA BATTLEGROUND Bobbie Lee, who could deliver the boldest of offensive strokes, was also a wily old defensive fighter. He marched in parallel with the Union juggernaut, always with the aim of getting just ahead of Grant, so his men could chose the ground and dig in. And the ground as a whole favoured the South throughout the Overland Campaign that summer. Northern Virginia comprised a whole series of rivers draining north-west to south-east: a close succession of strong defensive lines. But water was not the only problem; the other was earth. Civil War soldiers now routinely improvised field fortifications whenever they expected a fight, and none were better at constructing them than the veterans of the Army of Northern Virginia. If they had walls and banks, they would use them, but if they did not, they would dig trenches, pile up the earth, and lace the parapet with timber. The countryside was still heavily wooded, and everywhere there were split-rail fences, so raw material was abundant. March 2015
THE SIEGES It was the terrible effects of close-range rifle volleying that had driven the shift to trench warfare. Any waiting army, expecting to fight on the defensive, would entrench itself, and this would cut its casualties to a fraction of what they would have been in the open. Infantry firepower was shifting the balance of advantage from attack to defence. This explains the two-to-one casualty ratio in the Overland Campaign.
‘I propose to fight it out on this line if it takes all summer.’ *HQHUDO8O\VVHV6LPSVRQ*UDQW
COLD HARBOR Lee’s men were ready again to block Grant’s southward advance on the banks of the North Anna, where a desultory battle was fought between 23 and 27 May (with only 2,100 to 1,250 casualties). But Grant again prised the Rebels out of their position, and Lee fell back to a new position at Cold Harbor. The rival armies faced each other here from 1 to 12 June, but the main fighting took place on the first three days, reaching its climax on 3 June. Grant’s 110,000 men attacked Lee’s 60,000 Rebels, who were entrenched along a seven-mile concave line, such that the attackers, as they went forwards, entered a massive storm of converging fire. Men cut down in front of the Rebel trenches took shelter behind the bodies of dead comrades, or scratched at the ground to improvise some sort of cover. Their generals ordered them to attack again and again, and now, finally, their morale began to break, and many refused to go forwards. Between 3,000 and 7,000 Union men were killed or wounded in the assault on 3 June, most in the first hour, and after that the heart went out of the battle. Grant later recalled in his memoirs that he ‘always regretted the last assault on Cold Harbor’. The battles were getting longer; or rather, the armies were confronting one another along the same fixed lines for longer, and when frontal attacks were mounted, they invariably failed, creating battlefield stalemate. The combination of a narrow theatre of operations, good defensive positions, strong field fortifications, mass armies, and modern firepower was giving rise to trench warfare. The Civil War in the east was becoming a siege.
CROSSING THE JAMES
Images: Library of Congress
Lee’s army had manoeuvred brilliantly and fought superbly, each time keeping just ahead of Grant, and remaining between him and the Confederate capital. Grant was running out of room to deliver the decisive left-hook that he hoped would get him behind Lee RIGHT The Siege of Petersburg lasted for almost a year. These images – of a waterlogged Confederate trench and Confederate casualties – could easily be from the First World War. www.military-history.org
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and into Richmond. So he cut loose from the Cold Harbor lines on 13 June, and sent his army across the James River, where his engineers had constructed a phenomenal 2,100-foot-long pontoon bridge. By the 15 June, his advanced elements were in front of Petersburg. Petersburg was a railroad town about 20 miles south of Richmond. Five railroads run through it, and, were it to be taken, Richmond’s communications would be severed and the Confederacy decapitated. Everyone knew this, so as soon as Lee realised where Grant’s army was headed, he started rushing troops to the town. This time, though, Grant had moved faster, partly because Lee had been temporarily blinded by shortage of cavalry. Nonetheless, work had already begun on fortifying Petersburg, and when the Union men began arriving, 10 miles of breastworks were in place – 20-foot thick and fronted by a ditch 15-foot deep. Along the line were 55 cannon emplacements. The
‘We will rest the men and use the spade for their protection until a new vein has been struck.’ *HQHUDO8O\VVHV6LPSVRQ*UDQW 42
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only problem at that moment was that Pierre Beauregard, the Confederate commander, had virtually no soldiers to man them. Fortunately for the South, he was up against Union corps commander William ‘Baldy’ Smith, who was inclined to be over-cautious, and Union soldiers who were now suffering from a Cold Harbor syndrome. Many, indeed, seem to have been afflicted with what would later be called ‘shell shock’ (in the First World War), ‘combat fatigue’ (in the Second), and ‘post-traumatic stress’ (nowadays).
THE BATTLE OF PETERSBURG Not until evening did Smith send his men forwards. When he did so, they captured about a mile of trenches, but then did nothing more. By the morning, Lee had plugged the gap, and the next two days were uneventful. When, finally, on the 18 June, an exasperated General George Meade, the commander of the Army of the Potomac under Grant, ordered an all-out assault, only one regiment could be induced to charge the Rebel breastworks. ‘Lie down, you damn fools! You can’t take them forts!’, the veterans told them. They attacked anyway, and lost 632 of their 850 men. Even the irascible Meade – ‘What additional orders to attack you require I cannot imagine,’ he had railed on the telegraph at one of his field commanders – realised it was hopeless. Something had snapped. The fight had gone out of the army. ‘Our men are tired,’ he said, ‘and the attacks have not been made with the force and vigour which characterised our fighting in the Wilderness.’ Grant accepted the reality, and called a temporary halt: ‘We will rest the men and use the spade for their protection until a new vein has been struck.’ The Siege of Petersburg had begun.
ABOVE A detailed map of the siege, showing Union and Confederate lines, and all major forts.
The Overland Campaign thus ended for the same reason that the Battle of the Marne would lead to the Race to the Sea and the creation of the Western Front in 1914: firepower and unsustainable casualties. In a little over a month, the Army of the Potomac had lost 65,000 killed, wounded, and missing, a casualty total equal to three-fifths of the losses it had suffered in the whole of the previous three years of the war.
PATRIOTISM PLAYED OUT ‘For 30 days,’ said the commander of 5th Corps, ‘it has been one funeral procession past me, and it has been too much.’ The Democratic newspapers in the North labelled Grant a ‘butcher’, and announced that ‘patriotism is played out’. The desertion rate soared to a hundred a day. Many threeyear enlistment men were due to go home, and precious few seemed inclined to renew their terms. Lincoln’s re-election – the vote was in the autumn – looked questionable. Maybe the peace party would take the presidency, make a compromise peace, and slavery would endure. And yet, Grant’s achievement had been prodigious. He had got his massive army into a position from which it could not possibly be dislodged, and from which, at any moment, it might again spring forwards and cut the jugular of Richmond and Lee’s army. Proportionately, he had done as much damage to Lee’s army as Lee had done to his, and these 33,000 Confederate casualties could far less easily be replaced. He had done this by driving relentlessly southwards, through March 2015
THE SIEGES country that favoured the enemy, and in doing so, he had smothered the famed mobility and offensive punch of the Army of Northern Virginia. Now, at Petersburg, he had Lee’s army pinned to a wall and liable to be squeezed to death. ‘We must destroy this army of Grant’s before it gets to the James River,’ Lee had told one of his senior commanders. ‘If he gets there, it will become a siege, and then it will be a mere question of time.’
A QUESTION OF TIME Lee was right, but he may have underestimated the timescale. The Civil War was fought with a strange mix of the grimmest determination and a relative generosity of spirit. Given its length, intensity, and bloodletting, the war was fairly free of atrocities. In the last year, Lee’s men continued to fight with astonishing resilience, but with little hatred for their enemy (with the sorry exception of black soldiers, on whom the racism in the Rebel ranks was sometimes freely vented when opportunity arose). The discrepancy in numbers made it seem at first that Grant would quickly force the Petersburg lines and end the war in 1864. His method was to worry at Lee’s right, threatening to nip past his entrenchments and cut the railroads and turnpikes that supplied both Petersburg and Richmond, thereby forcing him to come out and fight a pitched battle in the open to protect them. Then, surely, Union numbers would crush him. But each time he tried, Lee blocked him by extending his line, rustling up the extra men he needed to dig the trenches and line the breastworks. The discrepancy was never quite enough to compensate for the advantage enjoyed by the defender in trench warfare. Lee could manage against odds of two-to-one because the Wilderness, Spotsylvania, and Cold Harbor had shown that frontal assault could not carry strong trenches. Grant had to go round and try to get Lee in the open. But it would be almost a year before attrition had ground down the Army of Northern Virginia enough to vindicate its commander’s judgement that it had indeed, all along, been ‘a mere question of time’.
Colonel Henry Pleasants, a mining engineer in civilian life, and the commander now of the 48th Pennsylvania, a unit of coal-miners. ‘We could blow that damn fort out of existence if we could run a mine shaft under it,’ Pleasants overheard one of his men saying. Pleasants liked the idea, and so did his divisional and corps commanders, so he set about driving a 500-foot shaft under no-man’s-land, with the intention of planting explosive at the end of it and blowing up the Confederate fort that dominated the sector. He got little help from the army’s engineers – it was ‘claptrap and nonsense’, for no tunnel in military history had been longer than 400 feet because of ventilation problems. Meade put no faith in the enterprise, and Grant was non-committal. But the 48th improvised their own tools, the corps commander borrowed a theodolite, and Pleasants designed a ventilation shaft with a fire in the base to create a draft. Once the main shaft was dug, the miners excavated lateral galleries, each nearly 40-foot long, under the Confederate lines, and packed them with four tons of gunpowder. Interest in the enterprise rose. Meade and Grant authorised Burnside, the corps commander, to blow the mine and send his corps through the resulting gap.
eager ‘to show the white troops what the colored division could do’. ‘The night we learned that we were to lead the charge,’ recalled a 4th Division brigade commander, ‘the news filled them too full for ordinary utterance. The joyous negro guffaw always breaking out about the campfire ceased… At last a heavy voice began to sing, “We looks like men a-marching on, we looks like men o’ war.” Over and over again he sang it… All at once, when his refrain had struck the right note in their hearts, his group took it up, and shortly half a thousand voices were upraised…’ The officers and men of 4th Division believed in themselves. Burnside also believed in them. But not the rest of the Union high command. At the last minute, Meade, with Grant’s approval, ordered Burnside to send his white divisions in first. The Union probably lost the Battle of the Crater on 30 July 1864 through a decision informed by racism. Burnside was demoralised. The commander of the division now chosen to lead the assault was a mediocrity and an alcoholic. He stayed in the trenches drinking the division’s medicinal rum during the assault. His men attacked in disorderly fashion, and without the benefit of the black troops’ special training.
THE 4TH (COLORED) DIVISION
THE BATTLE OF THE CRATER
The operation was well prepared. Grant arranged a diversionary attack north of the James River, and Lee pulled several of his divisions out of the Petersburg trenches. The division chosen to lead the attack was raring for the chance. It received special training for the assault. Burnside had every faith in them. The 4th Division, 9th Corps, Army of the Potomac, was black, and the guys were
The detonation of the mine blew a hole in the Confederate line 170 feet long, 60 feet wide, and 30 feet deep. An entire Confederate regiment and an artillery battery were destroyed, and the Confederates either side of the mine fled in terror, creating a gap about a third of a mile wide. For a moment – a brief moment – there was an opportunity for the Union troops to pour
A DAMN FORT AND A MINESHAFT The Union’s best chance to break the main trench-line came early on. It was provided by
www.military-history.org
Image: WIPL
RIGHT The Battle of Five Forks was one of the most critical of the Civil War: it turned Lee’s flank, cut his communications, and forced the evacuation of Richmond. This romanticised contemporary image shows General Phil Sheridan, the dynamic Army of the Potomac cavalry commander, in the thick of the fighting (he is shown with his sword raised, behind the standard-bearer). MILITARY HISTORY MONTHLY
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forwards, rolling up the exposed enemy flanks on either side of the crater, and fanning out into the enemy rear. Lee’s army – for an hour or two – was threatened with destruction. The war hung in the balance. But the unprepared, badly led Union division stopped on the lip of the crater to view the spectacle, and then descended into it. The supporting divisions performed little better, merely adding to the crush of men, doing nothing either to widen and consolidate the breach, or to drive through the broken line. Meantime, the Rebels were recovering their nerve, regrouping their men, and organising for a counter-attack. Rebel cannon and mortars got the range and started dropping shells into the dense mass of Bluecoats. Mid-morning, the counter-attack came in. The 1st Brigade of William Malone’s division, four regiments from the Carolinas, smashed into the Union mass, which had now been joined by the men of 4th Division. The troops who were to have led the assault had been sent in as reinforcement, but they were merely reinforcing failure and adding to chaos. And having pushed through the milling crowd, they now took the full brunt of the Rebel counter-attack. They were quickly broken, and in the mayhem whooping Confederates murdered many of the black soldiers. The Battle of the Crater was a Union disaster. Burnside’s division suffered 4,000 casualties, twice as many as the Confederates, and it achieved nothing except to create a huge earthwork. ‘It was the saddest affair I have witnessed in the war,’ cabled Grant to Washington. ‘Such opportunity for carrying fortifications I have never seen and do not expect again to have.’
STRETCHING THE LINE He was right. The Union could not get through the Confederate trenches. The best that could be done was to keep stretching Lee’s line. With a detached Rebel force under Jubal Early operating in the Shenandoah Valley – and making a brief lunge at Washington – Grant ratcheted up the pressure on the attenuated line in the Petersburg trenches by cutting the Weldon Railroad, which linked the city to the blockade-running port of Wilmington (18-21 August). Lee was forced to recall a division from the Valley, extend his trench-line, and organise a wagontrain to get around the break in the line. The following month, Grant struck again, this time hitting both ends of Lee’s line, capturing Fort Harrison at Chaffin’s Bluff on the southern edge of the Richmond perimeter, and edging forwards around Peebles Farm on the extreme left beyond Petersburg (29-30 September). 44
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A month later, he made an all-out effort to cut the Boydton Plank Road and the Southside Railroad (27-28 October). This would have cut Richmond and Petersburg off from the rest of the Confederacy. The effort failed, but Grant now had Lee’s line stretched perilously thin, running for 37 miles from a point east of Richmond to one far to the west of Petersburg. Lee told Confederate President Jefferson Davis that without more troops, ‘I fear a great calamity will befall us.’ While his subordinates delivered a series of hammer-blows to other parts of the Confederacy – Sherman’s famous march through Georgia from Atlanta to the sea was one of many simultaneous operations – Grant kept 90,000 men in front of Petersburg, nailing around 55,000 poorly fed, poorly
‘We must destroy this army of Grant’s before it gets to the James River. If he gets there, it will become a siege, and then it will be a mere question of time.’ *HQHUDO5REHUW(/HH equipped Confederates to their entrenchments. Desertion was melting this army, though the morale of those who stayed seemed unbroken: the veteran general A P Hill knocked back a succession of Union probes, the élan of his men seemingly undimmed. But time was running out.
LEE’S LAST ATTACK Lee knew that sooner or later – more likely sooner – Grant would break through, cut the supply-lines, and surround his heavily outnumbered army and the capital city it was defending. His desperate plan was to break away before this could happen, and march his army south to hook up with Joe Johnston’s 20,000 men in the Carolinas. Then, together, they might smash Sherman, before turning back to face Grant. To give himself room for manoeuvre, Lee decided on an all-out attack on the centre
of the Union line, designed to force Grant to draw in the horns of his army. The Rebels launched a surprise attack on Fort Stedman on 25 March 1865. Though they captured the position, the Union men rallied and counterattacked. After a furious four-hour battle, the Rebels were thrown out, losing nearly 5,000 men against only 2,000 of their enemies. These were losses Lee could not bear. His position was now weaker than ever. Grant decided the time had come to ‘end the matter’. Rejoined from the Valley by its immensely powerful cavalry corps under Phil Sheridan, the Army of the Potomac now numbered more than 120,000 men. Lincoln had been re-elected in the autumn (taking the votes of four in every five soldiers). Three-year recruits had been re-enlisting in large numbers, eager to be in at the end. Morale was high.
THE BATTLE OF FIVE FORKS In five days of ferocious fighting (29 March2 April), Grant hit both ends of Lee’s line. The main attack, as usual, was on the extreme left. Sheridan rode wide to encircle Lee’s army, but was himself encircled and thrown back (Battle of Dinwiddie Courthouse). Hill hit the supporting Union infantry in flank, and knocked them back too (Battle of White Oak Road). But this was the South’s last gasp. The numbers against them were overwhelming. Sheridan reorganised and attacked again, and this time, at the Battle of Five Forks on 1 April 1865, the Confederates broke and ran, exposing their entire right wing to attack, leaving their rear open to deep Union penetration. Lee’s position had become untenable. Jefferson Davis was at church in Richmond when a messenger came down the aisle to deliver a telegram from Lee’s headquarters. The President turned pale and left the church without a word. People guessed. The very next day, 3 April, with the Confederate Government and Army gone, a Northern civilian who happened to be nearby entered the captured enemy capital. He was recognised, and soon there was an impenetrable mass of people crowding around him. Some could not quite believe what they were seeing, and needed to push forwards and touch him to be sure. The surprise visitor was Abraham Lincoln, and the crowd around him was black. ‘I know I am free,’ said one old woman, ‘for I have seen Father Abraham and felt him.’ The Siege of Petersburg was over, and so was slavery. ‘Richmond has never before presented such a spectacle of jubilee,’ wrote Thomas Morris Chester of the Philadelphia Press, drafting his dispatch in the former Confederate capital. ‘What a wonderful change has come over the spirit of Southern dreams.’ Chester, too, was an African-American.
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MESUDIYE
‘A mighty clever piece of work’ THE SINKING OF THE MESUDIYE On 13 December 1914, a tiny British submarine torpedoed and sank an Ottoman battleship in the Dardanelles Straits. David Saunders tells the story.
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ABOVE The obsolete miniature submarine B-11, and [INSET] its intrepid commander, Lieutenant Norman Holbrook. By sinking the Ottoman battleship Mesudiye on 13 December 1914, Holbrook and his crew demonstrated that a new age of naval warfare had begun.
impounded. But this did not happen. Instead, the British Naval Mission under Vice-Admiral Limpus was forced to leave at the beginning of September. At the same time, Germany dispatched a large contingent of military specialists, partly to assist in strengthening the defences along the shores of the Dardanelles.
OPENING SALVOES On 29 September, the Turks closed the Dardanelles to all shipping and began to lay minefields. The first naval action of Turkey’s war, however, took place not here, but in the Black Sea, on 29 October, when Souchon, acting independently of most members of the
Images: WIPL
A
senior German naval officer at the Dardanelles described the sinking of the Mesudiye as ‘a mighty clever piece of work’. So it was – especially given the weapon employed: the tiny B-11 submarine. The Dardanelles, the strategic waterway stretching 35 miles between the Mediterranean and the Sea of Marmara, had been closely blockaded by the Allied navies ever since the German warships Goeben and Breslau had slipped into Constantinople in August 2014. This naval coup – executed by Rear-Admiral Wilhelm Souchon – had transformed the strategic balance in the eastern Mediterranean, for the German commander and his two ships immediately became part of the Ottoman Navy, and they then used their position to lever the Turks into the war. Initially, Turkey had declared that she would remain neutral, the German crews would be sent home, and the ships would be
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Ottoman Government, used the Goeben and the Breslau, supported by Turkish ships, to attack Russian port installations on the Crimean coast. Although Britain and France did not declare war on Turkey until 5 November, two days previously the Allied naval squadron in the eastern Mediterranean, which included the British battlecruisers Indefatigable and Indomitable and the French battleships Suffren and Verité, bombarded the forts either side of the entrance to the Dardanelles. The attack had been ordered by the gung-ho First Lord of the British Admiralty – one Winston Churchill. It was a modest success, but it spurred on Turkish efforts to improve the defences. More shore batteries were constructed, and five lines of sea mines laid – much to the Allies’ cost several months later.
ENTER THE SUBMARINES Three British B-class submarines formed part of the Allied fleet in the eastern Mediterranean. Built in 1906, and considered obsolete by the outbreak of World War I, B-class submarines measured 140 feet in length, carried just four torpedoes, and normally had a crew of two officers and 13 ratings. In December, the decision was taken to send one of these submarines 13 miles into the Dardanelles, about the limit of their range submerged. B-11 was chosen as she had only recently been refitted with a new battery. This gave, at least in theory, a speed when submerged of six knots (while on the surface her petrol engine might manage 12 knots). Extra guards were also added to prevent mine cables snagging the conning tower, exhaust pipes, and other projections. Commanding B-11, last of her class to be built, was Norman Holbrook, who had entered HMS Britannia in 1903, becoming a midshipman in 1905. He began submarine training in January 1910, and gained his first command in March 1913, before joining B-11 nine months later. www.military-history.org
In the area of the minefields, Holbrook took B-11 down to 80 feet and passed through without hindrance, though he could only guess at the distance travelled. To distract them from worries about the mines, the crew took their breakfast of ham, bread, butter, and jam, while Holbrook himself enjoyed half a cold lobster that had been given to him at departure by a French submariner.
APPROACH VOYAGE
About 0940, in Holbrook’s own words, ‘on putting the periscope above water, I observed, on my starboard beam, a large two-funnelled vessel painted grey’. One of the crew later recalled how Holbrook, on seeing his target for the first time, had exclaimed, ‘Good God, we are nearly on top of a big ship.’ They were, indeed. They were just off Chanak, further into the Dardanelles than anyone had realised, and what Holbrook had seen was the elderly battleship Mesudiye. Launched in 1873 at the Thames Iron Works, Blackwall, London, she displaced almost 10,000 tons, had a top speed of 17 knots, and mounted a main armament of two 9.2-inch and twelve 6-inch guns. Her crew in 1914 numbered 665 officers and men. Before the war, the Mesudiye had flown the flag of Vice-Admiral Arthur Limpus, head of the British Naval Mission to Constantinople. She was now about to be destroyed by a British torpedo. Some 13 minutes after the first sighting, Holbrook had brought B-11 into a position about 800 yards from the Mesudiye, off her port beam. Firing a single torpedo, the noise of the discharge being described as
The voyage into the unknown began at 3am, when B-11 slipped away from Hindu Kush, a depot ship moored at Tenedos some 12 miles from the Dardanelles. Just over an hour later, the submarine was within three miles of the entrance, where the Turkish searchlight beams swept to and fro. Here B-11 waited, until, as dawn began to break, they were switched off. Moving forward again, the submarine was about a mile from Cape Helles when Holbrook took it down to about 60 feet. Shortly afterwards, a series of severe vibrations right through the hull forced him to surface. A guard on the bow had twisted. Fortunately it was possible to remove this, two seaman working at times up to their waists in water, as B-11 wallowed partly submerged. Continuing, but finding progress slow against the westward current flowing at about two knots, Holbrook moved close to the north shore; he later recalled that ‘being a fisherman I knew where the slack water would be’. Every 45 minutes or so, he brought the submarine to periscope depth to check position. Progress was hindered as they moved further from the open sea by the meeting of salt water with freshwater flowing from the east. Changes in salinity resulted in the submarine altering depth without warning, and at times refusing to answer the hand-operated hydroplanes.
THE ATTACK
BELOW The crew of B-11, pictured standing on the deck of their submarine.
Image: WIPL
The attack had been ordered by the gung-ho First Lord of the British Admiralty – one Winston Churchill.
The First Lieutenant was Sidney Winn. There were 14 other crew, the very experienced Petty Officer William Milsom being added at the last minute. It was said that ‘his qualifications as a Petty Officer have always been excellent except in the matter of sobriety’. He had lately been deprived of three Good Conduct Badges for drunkenness, but had since performed his duties in ‘a most zealous and satisfactory manner’.
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MESUDIYE
‘All I knew I was in the middle of the minefield and hadn’t the faintest notion in what direction I was pointing.’ Lieutenant Norman Holbrook, commander of B-11
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‘something between a sneeze and a cough’, he could see the line of bubbles going straight to the target. B-11 dipped, submerging the periscope, shortly before the torpedo hit, but the shock of the explosion was clearly heard by the elated crew. Bringing his submarine back to periscope depth, he could see a big cloud of smoke issuing from the Mesudiye, whose crew at the same time spotted the submarine. The Turks opened fire, but failed to hit their target in the seven minutes before the battleship heeled over onto her starboard side. Lying in shallow water and close to the shore meant that casualties were light: just 37 men lost.
RETURN VOYAGE Shortly afterwards, B-11’s helmsman reported that the compass lens had fogged up; in Holbrook’s words, it had ‘chucked its hand in’. He later described how ‘all I knew I was in the middle of the minefield and hadn’t the faintest notion in what direction I was pointing.’ LEFT The sinking of the Mesudiye, hit by a single torpedo fired by the British submarine B-11 on the morning of 13 December 1914. www.military-history.org
As if that was not enough, B-11 suddenly grounded, then equally suddenly scraped clear. Rising to periscope depth, Holbrook was able to ascertain that he had been swept by the current into Siglar Bay on the Asiatic side of the Dardanelles. He immediately ordered full speed, the submarine frequently touching bottom, before eventually reaching deeper water. With the compass unserviceable, Holbrook had to repeatedly come to periscope depth to check his course. Eventually the little British submarine reached the open sea, and at 2.10pm B-11 surfaced, about two miles off the Dardanelles. They had been submerged for at least nine hours, a record for a B-class submarine. Small wonder that the crew were beginning to feel as sick as dogs, and that the petrol engine would not run for some ten minutes: the submarine had been fast running out of oxygen.
ABOARD THE MESUDIYE When the torpedo exploded, the crew of the Turkish battleship had no inkling as to the cause until a periscope was observed not far off the port side. Immediately the gun batteries had opened fire, and continued until
the heeling of the Mesudiye prevented them from being brought to bear. She sank within seven minutes, though her masts, catching the seabed, prevented complete submersion. The American Vice-Consul, Mr G van H Ingert, happened to be in his boat quite close to the scene, and took part in the rescue effort, helping men in the water and also going to the assistance of some of the men trapped below.
THE BRITISH REACTION Holbrook’s senior officer, LieutenantCommander George Pownall, said that Holbrook had displayed ‘judgement’, ‘skill’, and ‘coolness’, not only in sinking the Mesudiye, but also in successfully bringing his submarine safely back through both shoals and minefields. Even the Germans were impressed. It was Vice-Admiral Merten, the senior naval officer in the Dardanelles, when speaking with the American Vice-Consul several days later, who described the sinking of the Mesudiye as ‘a mighty clever piece of work’. On 22 December, the London Gazette announced the award of the Victoria Cross to Holbrook, the first to a submariner. Secondin-command Sidney Winn received the MILITARY HISTORY MONTHLY
Images: WIPL
ABOVE The wreck of the Mesudiye.
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MESUDIYE Distinguished Service Order, while the 14 crew were awarded Distinguished Conduct Medals. In addition, a Royal Navy prize court awarded £3,500, of which Holbrook’s own share was £601 10s 2d. The Mesudiye was subsequently salvaged, and her guns used to supplement defences along the Dardanelles. Sometime after the close of the Gallipoli campaign, one of her guns was positioned on the hill known as Baby 700. It can be seen to this day, not far from the Commonwealth War Graves Commission cemetery. And in 1938 the Mesudiye battery monument was created close to the Asiatic shore.
HOLBROOK’S CAREER Holbrook remained in command of B-11 in the eastern Mediterranean until the autumn. He nearly lost his life during an encounter with gun-runners off the Egyptian coast. A bullet hit the conning tower, glanced off, and damaged his nose. After returning to England, Holbrook took command first of F-3, then V-4, followed by the minelayer E-41, and finally, in contrast to the tiny B-11, the mighty J-2. Towards the end of the war, he transferred to surface vessels, before retiring in 1920. He died in 1976, while watering his garden, six days short of his 88th birthday.
‘Good God, we are nearly on top of a big ship.’ Lieutenant Norman Holbrook, commander of B-11
Holbrook’s action not only boosted morale: it showed that with determination the Dardanelles could be breached and Turkish shipping and supply-lines attacked. The arrival in the eastern Mediterranean in 1915 of the more advanced E-class submarines seemed to offer the chance of reaching through the Dardanelles into the Sea of Marmara, and perhaps even to Constantinople itself on the far side. Eight were eventually deployed, together with the first H-class submarine. Four were sunk, along with four French submarines, but 27 passages were successfully made through the Dardanelles. Two Turkish battleships, five gun-boats, one destroyer, nine transports, 30 steamers, seven ammunition and store ships, and numerous sailing vessels were sunk. These successes were not on a sufficient scale, however, to choke off the Gallipoli supply-lines and allow the Allies to break through on the peninsula. Winston Churchill, writing in the second volume of The World Crisis, his WWI memoir and history, offers the following assessment: The naval history of Britain contains no page more wonderful than that which records the prowess of her submarines at the Dardanelles. Their exploits constitute in daring, in skill, in endurance, in risk, the finest examples of submarine action in the whole of the Great War, and were, moreover, marked by a strict observance of the recognised rules of warfare.
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LEFT The submarine – like the aircraft, and later the tank – evolved rapidly as a new weapon during the First World War. Holbrook’s B-11 was already obsolete when it carried out its famous attack. This contemporary reconstruction shows the development of submarine technology from Holland Class to E Class. Holland 1 was launched in 1901, and E-1 as early as 1912.
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Image: WIPL
David Saunders was editor of The Gallipolian, journal of the Gallipoli Association, for 21 years. His other interests include the history of the NorthWest Frontier, the Battle of the Atlantic, and the Shetland Bus.
DARDANELLES
ABOVE The main Allied naval attack on the Dardanelles Straits on 18 March 1915.
Scourge of the Seas MINES IN THE DARDANELLES
Image: WIPL
The Ottoman defenders of the Dardanelles won a spectacular naval victory in March 1915 with the most humble of weapons: the sea mine. Patrick Boniface explains.
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A minesweeper was blown apart as it touched a mine, while escorting destroyers were raked by gunfire from the shore. RIGHT The Dardanelles Straits in March 1915, showing the Allied naval assault (blue arrow), the Turkish artillery forts (red dots), and the Turkish minefields (white dotted lines).
BELOW Chanak Kale Fort, guarding the Dardanelles Straits in 1915.
Germans and the Austrians by attacking their weaker ally, the Ottoman Empire, and projecting military force through the Balkans. Success in such an attack would also open a new sea-route for supplies to reach Russia. The plan for the operation was formulated by Captain Hankey, the Secretary to the British War Council, who presented his memorandum on Boxing Day, 1914. The Council assumed that such an attack would be relatively easy. They had not counted on mines in the Dardanelles.
THE BRITISH PLAN More detailed plans were hurriedly made and presented by Vice-Admiral Carden on 11 January 1915. He requested an ample supply of shells, as well as a fleet of 12 battleships, three battlecruisers, light cruisers, destroyers, and minesweepers. Whether it was bravado or just a bad idea, the brand-new battleship HMS Queen Elizabeth was dispatched, principally to calibrate her new 14-inch guns. There were objections, especially from Admiral Jacky Fisher, who wanted these vessels in the North Sea ranged against German shipping. He was persuaded by Winston Churchill, however, to let his battleships and battlecruisers go to the Dardanelles instead. In fact, so persuasive
Images: WIPL
or a remarkably small price, underfunded combatants have access to a powerful tool, a weapon that has consistently brought great naval powers to the edge of disaster. Laid in secret, a minefield positioned at a strategic location can simply and easily bring to naught the best-laid plans. One of the best examples of the effectiveness of sea mines was during the Dardanelles campaign of World War I. The Dardanelles is one of the world’s most important waterways, linking the Mediterranean with the Black Sea, and its narrowest point is between Kilid Bahr and Chanak Kale. The original idea put forward by, among others, Winston Churchill was quite straightforward. The battleships of the Royal Navy, which were underutilised at this point in the war, would force their way through the narrow stretch of water and attack Constantinople (Istanbul). This attack, it was hoped, would knock Turkey out of the war, and provide the Entente with another way to attack the Central Powers on land. In fact, Churchill (then the First Lord of the Admiralty) believed, in the often-quoted phrase, that ‘the Army is the biggest shot which can be fired by the Navy’. He saw Royal Navy operations as a way of outflanking the
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A huge explosion ripped through the area as one of the mines claimed its first victim, the French battleship Bouvet. was Churchill that an extra pair of battleships was eventually added to the operation. The naval force thus consisted of the modern HMS Queen Elizabeth, the modern battlecruiser HMS Inflexible, and ten older battleships: the British ships Agamemnon, Vengeance, Albion, Cornwallis, Irresistible, and Triumph, and the French ships Suffren, Charlemagne, St Louis, and Bouvet. The initial assessment of Turkish defences along the shoreline had identified a number of forts with limited guns of quite elderly vintage. Buoyed by this information, British BELOW As this contemporary diagram shows, in early March the Allied navies attempted to reduce the Turkish forts guarding the Straits by overhead fire from the most powerful guns in the fleet.
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and French battleships and monitors started bombarding troop-concentrations. HMS Cornwallis opened the firing at 0950 on 19 February. Confident that the attack was progressing according to plan, the Allies sailed their ships through the Straits towards Marmara. As they did so, the Turkish fire reduced significantly. Still, the route to Constantinople was blocked by a heavy minefield protected by both emplaced and mobile guns, and this combination meant that any minesweeper sent to deal with the mines soon came under heavy, sustained, and deadly accurate fire.
GUNS AND MINES The Ottoman Navy had appointed Admiral von Usedom of the German Imperial Navy as Commander-in-Chief. Usedom was an expert in harbour defence, and particularly in the effective use of mines to protect waterways and key installations. Before moving to Turkey, he had been the German Navy’s Inspector General of Coast Artillery and Mines. On 13 December 1914, a British submarine had penetrated the defences in a breathtakingly daring style (see pp.46-50). This caused the Turks to redouble their defences, and between November 1914 and February 1915 they laid ten extra lines of mines and an anti-submarine net off Kephez Bay. Furthermore, all navigational aids were removed or made inoperative, and the Straits were officially closed to all traffic. On the morning of 25 February, British and French ships went to action stations, and bombarded the modern 9.4-inch guns at Cape
Helles. HMS Queen Elizabeth fired 18 rounds, which destroyed the installation, while HMS Irresistible fired 35 rounds at the gun at Orkanie. Later in the day, landing parties rushed ashore and destroyed another 50 guns, before returning to their ships. On 1 March 1915, converted trawlers used as minesweepers made the first of numerous unsuccessful attempts to clear the minefields. Their efforts were hampered by blinding searchlights, and medium- and heavy-calibre guns that were easily in range of vessels operating only 5,000 yards from the shore. The Allies could not get their heavy guns close enough to deal with the artillery threat as long as the minefields were in place, and the minesweepers could not operate safely under the fire of the enemy guns. Stalemate ensued.
A NEW LINE OF DEFENCE Desperation began to inform British thinking, and risks were soon taken. On 5 March, the battleship Queen Elizabeth fired right across the breadth of the Gallipoli Peninsula from the west; but with little success. Two days later, French minesweepers tried to force Kephez, but were, just as the British before them, repulsed. During the night of 7/8 March, the Turks put a masterstroke plan into action. The steamer Nouzret sailed into Erin-Kevi Bay, and planted a line of 20 mines running not east–west across the Straits, but north–south parallel to the shore. Crucially, the work of this steamer went unobserved.
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The plan was the brainchild of LieutenantColonel Geehl, a Turkish mine specialist, who wanted to achieve the complete closure of the Straits. His problem was that there were insufficient mines to achieve this. So he extemporised. Geehl’s idea was to plant a 3,000-yard-long line, with each mine moored 15 feet below the surface of the water. At this depth, the mines would not be triggered by anything smaller than a destroyer. Geehl’s targets were the capital ships. Geehl and his men watched anxiously as, over the following days, numerous ships came close to the line of mines, including the Royal Navy’s most modern warship, the Queen Elizabeth. But never close enough.
STALEMATE CONTINUES
THE BATTLE OF THE DARDANELLES STRAITS At daybreak, it was brilliant sunshine, and at 1130 the first guns opened fire. Thirty minutes later, the French ships under the command of Admiral Guépratte started their run into the narrows. Some idea of the fighting can be gauged from the fact that HMS Inflexible’s forebridge was set on fire, the Gaulois was holed below the waterline, and 12 hits were secured on the Agamemnon in less than 30 minutes.
ABOVE Rear-Admiral John de Robeck, the newly appointed commander at the Dardanelles who was forced to admit that the Allied navies had been defeated.
At 1345, as the battleships manoeuvred in the narrow channel, a huge explosion ripped through the area when one of the mines claimed its first victim, the French battleship Bouvet. Only 71 of her crew of 709 were saved, as she quickly rolled over and capsized. The shock of this loss was reinforced two hours later, when the British ship Inflexible also struck a mine. Badly damaged, she limped away, before beaching on Tenedos at 1614.
Images: WIPL
On 9 March, HMS Queen Elizabeth attacked Chemenlik, a fort on the Asiatic side of the Straits. The Turks, meanwhile, moved the veteran ex-German battleship Hairredin Barbarossa to a position at Canakkale (Chanak). This elderly ship had been built in 1894 as the SMS Kurfürst Friedrich Wilhelm, and was armed with six 11-inch guns. Soon after she started firing, the Turkish ship was swamped by gunfire from Queen Elizabeth, Ocean, and Agamemnon, and had to be abandoned. Not, however, before she had scored three hits on Queen Elizabeth’s armourplating below the waterline. On 11 March, during a sweep, a minesweeper was blown apart as it touched a mine, while escorting destroyers were raked by
gunfire from the shore. The channel was not cleared: ‘It was something, but it was not good enough,’ said Commodore Roger Keyes. Two days later, it was the cruiser Amethyst that was badly damaged by gunfire. Frustration now produced a plan for an all-out naval attack to clear the Straits. At 1100 on 18 March 1915, the combined battle fleet of French and British capital ships swung into action for one of history’s greatest sea-to-shore duels. The devastation ashore was immense as fortifications and gun emplacements were accurately bombarded. Ten battleships were assigned to the task, with the most modern ships, Lord Nelson, Inflexible, Agamemnon, and Queen Elizabeth opening fire at a range of 14,000 yards, followed by the four French ships. HMS Prince George and HMS Triumph were in support, and there was a relief line formed of Vengeance, Irresistible, Albion, Ocean, Swiftsure, and Majestic, along with a minesweeper and covering force of two battleships, Cornwallis and Canopus.
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Images: WIPL
DARDANELLES
The damage to Winston Churchill’s reputation would last for 20 years. Three minutes after Inflexible was struck, Irresistible was hit while steaming in Eren-Kevi Bay. Ocean went to tow her out of danger; but she ran aground in the shallow waters, and by the time she had successfully freed herself, the Irresistible was beyond hope, finally sinking at around 1930. As Ocean attempted to withdraw, she was hit by a drifting mine. The weapon struck the hull alongside her starboard coal-bunkers, and within seconds the passageways were flooded and her steering was jammed hard to port. Moments later, Ocean had developed a 15° list, while also being targeted by shore forts, whose fire succeeded in flooding her starboard engine-rooms. Fortunately, nearby destroyers were able to take off most of her crew. The abandoned battleship drifted into Morto Bay, and sank around 2230.
THE MINE MENACE The sea mines had proved their value, inflicting a major defeat on the Allied navies. As the enemy ships withdrew, the Turks and Germans repaired the damaged forts and further reinforced them. The stalemate continued. Rear-Admiral de Robeck had assumed command of the operation on 16 March. He wrote to the Admiralty: Mine menace will continue until Marmara is reached, being much greater than anticipated… I think it will be necessary to take and occupy Gallipoli Peninsula before it is possible to force the Straits with first rate [battle] ships. The Royal Navy was conceding defeat and passing the baton to the Army. The repercussions were profound and longlasting. No new supply-route to Russia could be opened. Bloody trench stalemate ensued on land. The Turks would win a yet more spectacular victory on land than that at sea. The damage to Winston Churchill’s reputation would last for 20 years. Amphibious warfare was largely abandoned by both Navy and Army, so that in the Second World War the techniques had to be relearnt and restored. Patrick Boniface is a freelance journalist specialising in naval history.
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LEFT HMS Irresistible hits a mine, then founders.
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MARCH Each month, the Debrief brings you the very best in film and book reviews, along with suggested historical events and must-see museums. Whether you plan to be at home or out in the field, our team of expert reviewers deliver the best recommendations to keep military-history enthusiasts entertained.
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Clausewitz: his life and work by Donald Stoker, The Most Secret Place on Earth by Robert Pugh, and David Blackmore’s Destructive and Formidable: British infantry firepower. RECOMMENDED Taylor Downing watches Gallipoli the film version by Peter of Hemingway’s FitzSimons A Farewell to Arms.
WAR ON FILM BOOKS
HIGHLIGHT
The Royal ‘The Horse Engineers at War’ exhibition Museum with David LISTINGS Flintham. We also bring you details of Richard Overy’s ‘A History of War in 100 Battles’ talk, and a free screening of Lawrence of Arabia. WHAT’S ON
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Test your problem-solving skills and win great prizes on MHM ’s puzzle pages. This month we have three new military history publications from Casemate to be won.
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O TAYLOR DOWNING REVIEWS A CLASSIC WAR MOVIE the Battle of Caporetto (October/ November 1917), and Hemingway did not arrive in Italy until June 1918. Although Hemingway was wounded, and did fall in love with the nurse who treated him, she was not a British nurse, but an American named Agnes von Kurowsky. Beyond that, some of the characters in the book were loosely based on individuals Hemingway had met, and he writes about the violence on the Italian front with a sense of immediacy that clearly comes from someone who had
been there and experienced it himself. The book has been described as the ‘premier American novel’ of the First World War. In 1932, Paramount Pictures decided to turn the book into a movie. While many of the great American writers of the day – among them Fitzgerald, Faulkner, and Chandler – did their stints writing for Hollywood studios in the 1930s and 1940s, Hemingway was happy to sell the rights to his book, but wanted nothing to do with the film-production process.
HEMINGWAY AND FILM
FILM | CLASSIC
A FAREWELL TO ARMS Paramount Pictures £19.99
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rnest Hemingway’s novel, A Farewell To Arms, published in 1929, was an almost instant bestseller, and established Hemingway in the front rank of modern American authors, alongside the likes of F Scott Fitzgerald and William Faulkner. The book is set on the Italian front in the First World War, and focuses on an intense love story between an American lieutenant, who commands a field
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ambulance unit, and an English VAD nurse. It is written in the first person with a sparseness and matter-of-fact narrative voice that helped establish a new, modernist style in American literature. Most people assumed A Farewell to Arms was based on Hemingway’s own experiences as an ambulance driver in the Italian Army. In fact, this was only partially the case. The novel is set against the backdrop of
A Farewell to Arms was the first Hemingway novel to be turned into a movie. As his books continued to be bestsellers and tales of his hard-drinking macho lifestyle made him into a legend, several more were bought up by Hollywood. They included: For Whom the Bell Tolls (1943, directed by Sam Wood), starring Gary Cooper and Ingmar Bergman; the story of an idealistic American volunteer in the Spanish Civil War, which Hemingway had reported on as a war correspondent. To Have and To Have Not (1944, directed by Howard Hawks), one of the best screen adaptations of Hemingway’s works, is set in Vichy France, bringing together on-screen for the first time Humphrey Bogart and the young Lauren Bacall. The Old Man and the Sea (1958, directed by John Sturges), the story of an aging fisherman struggling to capture a giant fish off the Cuban coast, starring Spencer Tracy; the book won a Pulitzer Prize, sold five million copies, and led to Hemingway winning the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1954. Throughout his life, Hemingway despised the film business, and although he became drinking buddies with Gary Cooper and Howard Hawks (among others), he refused to have anything to do with film versions of his work, except for The Old Man and the Sea, which was not a happy experience. He did, however, collaborate on a documentary made by Joris Ivens during the Spanish Civil War, called Spanish Earth (1937). As a war correspondent, Hemingway not only reported from Spain, but also witnessed the D-Day landings, was present at the Liberation of Paris, and reported on the Battle of the Bulge in December 1944. A Farewell To Arms was remade in 1957, in a version starring Rock Hudson and Jennifer Jones. After Hemingway’s death in 1961, more of his works were adapted for film and television. In 1996 Richard Attenborough directed In Love and War, based on the real story of Hemingway’s experience in Italy in the First World War and his tragic love-affair with Agnes von Kurowsky.
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MHM REVIEWS
Two established screenwriters, enjamin Glazer and Oliver Garrett, dapted the book for the screen. hey kept much of the original ialogue, especially that between he two lovers, but they modified the toryline in order to reduce it to a onventional 90 minutes of screenme. As a consequence, Hemingway was very unhappy about the film, nd claimed it had vastly simplified is book – without, it seems, ever aving seen it. But the film stands p strongly in its own right, and whether it is better or worse than he book is irrelevant, especially as Hemingway himself had turned his ack on the making of it.
ENTER BORZAGE he film was directed by Frank orzage, a master of his genre. orzage had begun directing films n 1915. During the 1920s he came nder the influence of the great erman expressionist director W Murnau, best known for the Dracula-inspired classic Nosferatu 922). Borzage developed his own tyle of rich visual romanticism, and t the centre of many of his films were star-crossed lovers struggling gainst terrible adversities. In 1927, Borzage won the first ver Academy Award for directing eventh Heaven, in which a streetleaner saves the life of a prostitute with whom he then falls in love. In 931, he won a second Academy ward for Bad Girl. When he came o A Farewell to Arms, he was at the eight of his fame and at the peak of is creativity. Today he is a largely orgotten director to the general ublic, but is highly regarded by ritics and film scholars. Borzage brought to A Farewell o Arms a visual style that moves etween scenes of starlit intimacy howing the two lovers, and the road, partly expressionistic canvas f epic scenes showing the aftermath f battle. It is this unique mixture f images, as the lovers struggle
to build a home against the backdrop of war, which gives the film its special quality. Borzage cast Gary Cooper to play the American ambulance lieutenant Frederic Henry (known as ‘Tenente’ to the Italians), and Helen Hayes to play the English nurse, Catherine Barkley. Cooper, tall, suave, and elegant, was a big star in the silent era. But unlike many, he made the transition to the sound era – with his deep voice – and became one of the biggest Hollywood stars of the 1930s. Helen Hayes, although playing an Englishwoman, was, in fact, American. She had won an Academy Award for her first sound film, The Sin of Madelon Claudet (1931). She later admitted to having fancied Gary Cooper, and certainly there is a real chemistry between them in the film. Hayes found it easier to act the full-on love scenes than Cooper, but both are convincing as lovers caught up in the pandemonium of war. Adolphe Menjou played the American lieutenant’s best friend, Major Rinaldi, a surgeon in the Italian medical corps. Menjou was also an established star, and many years later went on to play the French General Broulard in Stanley Kubrick’s Paths of Glory (see MHM 41). A Farewell to Arms begins with the American lieutenant, Frederic Henry, leading a convoy of ambulances of wounded men to a hospital where a group of English nurses are working. One of them is sent home in disgrace for becoming pregnant. In the book, the nurses are identified as being VADs (Voluntary Aid Detachment), although in the film they are Red Cross. Relationships between nurses and any of the doctors they worked with or the patients they treated were frowned upon in the First World War. Vera Brittain, a VAD, describes vividly in her book Testament of Youth (see MHM 53) the strict moral-code under which the nurses lived – for instance, MILITARY HISTORY MONTHLY
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LEFT Ernest Hemingway poses for a photograph to be featured on the dust jacket of For Whom the Bell Tolls.
Badly wounded, Frederic is sent to Milan, and to the same hospital to which Catherine has been banished. they were never allowed to go out alone with the men they encountered.
FORBIDDEN LOVE Frederic returns to his billet, where his close friend, the Italian surgeon Rinaldi, announces he has met a lovely English nurse, Miss Barkley, whom he intends to marry. After various drunken escapades, Rinaldi suggests Frederic joins him to make a foursome with Catherine Barkley and her friend Helen Ferguson, known as ‘Fergie’. But when they all meet, Frederic prefers Catherine, whisking her away from Rinaldi, who becomes jealous. She tells Frederic her fiancé died on the Somme. He tries to seduce her, but at first she slaps his face for being too forward. He tells her, ‘Back home I’d have courted you and sent you flowers.’ ‘Out here,’ she replies, ‘you 64
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concentrate it into one hour.’ ‘Yes,’ he says, ‘tomorrow I might be blown up.’ Catherine changes her mind, deciding that Frederic is acceptable after all. They embrace. Then they make love. It is the beginning of a passionate affair. On the following day, Frederic and his ambulance convoy depart for the front, but he returns to tell Catherine how important the last night was to him. The English major and the matron witness this and, under pressure from Rinaldi, who is still jealous, they decide to send Catherine away from the hospital to avoid any scandal. She is sent to a hospital in Milan. In a dugout in the mountains near to the front, Frederic and the Italian drivers come under heavy shellfire. Frederic is badly wounded in the leg and is evacuated. He is sent to Milan, and to the same hospital to which
Catherine has been banished to preserve her innocence. The love affair between them now starts in earnest. The priest from the ambulance unit visits, and seeing how much they are in love, mumbles some Latin phrases that appear to informally ‘marry’ the two of them. Frederic and Catherine clearly feel themselves to be married from this point. ‘It’s our wedding night,’ says Catherine as she climbs into Frederic’s bed. ‘Do I make a lovely wife?’ ‘Such a lovely wife,’ he replies. A Farewell To Arms is able to be quite open about the sexual nature of their relationship, since it was made in 1932, before the so-called ‘Hays Code’ was brought in two years later. The early 1930s mark a period in which Hollywood explored a variety of themes in an open, adult way that would later not be permitted on the silver screen. Men and women were allowed to have sexual relationships before marriage. Films explored stories of prostitution, of fallen women, showed sympathy for criminals, and exposed political corruption.
THE HAYS CODE However, the Hays Code called for the banning of anything that ‘lowered moral standards’. It was enforced from 1934, when Joseph Breen took control of the Production Code Administration (PCA). Breen believed strongly that the movies promoted the worst aspects of immorality within American life and needed to be cleaned up. All the major studios came under pressure to agree that no film could be made whose script had not been approved by the PCA. Slowly the rigid enforcement of the Hays Code changed the nature of Hollywood’s output. Sex was banished. Gangsters were always to be the bad guys. Politicians were always honest and upstanding. Homosexuality was banned, as was the use of several swearwords. The American way of life and respect for law were to be celebrated. It would be 40 years before Hollywood movies seriously addressed some of these issues again. In the narrative of A Farewell to Arms, Frederic and Catherine
spend some months together in Milan as he recuperates from his wound. Then, in October 1917, the matron finds a stash of empty booze bottles under Frederic’s bed, and sends him back to the front. Frederic and Catherine spend one last evening together in a seedy hotel room above a café, then Frederic has to rejoin his ambulance unit. ‘I hate to leave this fine house,’ he jokes. ‘We never stay long in a house, do we?’, she adds. Here, the book and the film narratives diverge. In the book, Catherine stays in Milan until Frederic returns to her. In the film, Catherine admits to her friend Fergie that she is pregnant, but says she has not told Frederic. To avoid the disgrace of being sent home from her nursing job, she departs for Brissago in Switzerland, where she moves into shabby lodgings and writes several letters to Frederic. But her letters do not get through. Nor do his letters to her: they are intercepted in the post by Rinaldi, who is still jealous. When his letters come back to him stamped ‘Return to Sender’, without any explanation, Frederic decides he must go back to Milan and find out what has happened to Catherine. ‘This war means nothing to me any more,’ he tells the priest – and leaves his unit. Even though he was a foreigner serving in the Italian Army, this would clearly have been seen as desertion.
CHAOS AT CAPORETTO There follows an extraordinary sequence. Frederic’s journey to Milan coincides with the retreat after the great Italian defeat at the Battle of Caporetto (see box opposite). Soldiers flee. Buildings burn. Men lie dead and dying in the mud. Refugees get mixed up with the soldiers. German aircraft machinegun the sea of people. Showing the influence of Murnau, Borzage shoots this in a highly stylised manner. Soldiers are silhouetted in the dark. Anonymous faces express the agony of defeat. Everything is in chaos. As he struggles among the throng of retreating soldiers, Frederic is identified by the ‘battle police’ as an officer and is pulled out for interrogation. Officers who had acted in a cowardly manner at Caporetto were being tried in a kangaroo court for March 2015
for real, Rinaldi reveals that she has gone across the border to Brissago in neutral Switzerland. Frederic takes a boat and crosses the border. He arrives as Catherine collapses and is rushed into hospital. Her baby is still-born, and she is haemorrhaging badly and herself at death’s door. Time by now has been severely compressed in the film. When Frederic finally gets to see Catherine in intensive care, she is dying. It is 4 November 1918. The bells are ringing for the Armistice that has just been signed between Italy and Austria-Hungary. Frederic and Catherine have a last few minutes together at her hospital bed. ‘Just tell me you haven’t stopped loving me,’ she says. ‘Never,’
BELOW ‘Lo, the fell monster with the deadly sting, who passes mountains, breaks through fenced walls and firm embattled spears, and with his filth taints all the world’. This cartoon and accompanying quote from Dante’s Inferno portray Italy’s defeat by Austria-Hungary at the Battle of Caporetto.
THE BATTLE OF CAPORETTO On 24 October 1917, nine divisions of the Austro-Hungarian Army, reinforced by six German divisions, attacked the Italian Second Army near the town of Kobarid, known in Italian as Caporetto, on the Isonzo River (now in Slovenia). Using poison gas and a heavy artillery bombardment, the assault was a great success, and the Italian line broke. Erwin Rommel, a junior officer, won the Pour le Mérite for his part in the battle. The mass retreat soon turned into a rout, and the Italians fell back 70 miles to the Piave River. However, the Austro-German armies had not anticipated this level of success, and did not have sufficient transport to support such a rapid advance. By mid-November, they could go no further, and the fighting returned to the stalemate of trench war. The Italians lost 40,000 men killed and wounded, and more than a quarter of a million became prisoners. Marshall Luigi Cadorna was ruthless in his determination to impose discipline in the Italian Army, and to punish those he thought had allowed the defeat to take place. The Italian front was reinforced by six French and five British divisions (much to the anger of Haig, who argued these men were needed on the Western Front). In June 1918, the Austrians attacked again on the Piave River, but this time were defeated by the Italians, now led by a new commander, General Armando Diaz. The Austrians never recovered from this defeat, and a final Anglo-Italian offensive in October led to the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Some 400,000 soldiers deserted, and an Armistice came into effect on 4 November 1918.
he replies. ‘Will you still keep loving me if I die?’ she asks. But he insists on talking about their future together. ‘We’ll go back to America. Then we’ll get married again in a church.’ ‘We’ll never be parted in life or in death,’ she says. Then she dies in his arms. He holds her body silhouetted by the window. Outside in the streets, crowds cheer the victory. Hemingway wrote the ending in Kansas City in June 1928, apparently while his second wife was going through the difficult birth of their son. But he struggled with how to end A Farewell to Arms, and drafted 47 different endings before deciding on the final one. Paramount was concerned that such a tragic ending was too bleak for a popular film, and that it would affect its commercial success. So Borzage reluctantly edited an alternative ending for American audiences. The same dialogue takes place around Catherine’s hospital bed, but, instead of her dying, the
MHM REVIEWS
abandoning their troops. This was seen as treachery. When Frederic realises that everyone questioned in front of him is then taken off and shot, he escapes by leaping into a river and swimming downstream. Eventually he gets to Milan, where he climbs into the room that Catherine used to share with her friend Fergie. But, of course, Catherine is not there. Fergie tells Frederic that Catherine is expecting a baby, which stuns him. But she will not tell him where Catherine is. Finally, he meets Rinaldi, who says he can get him off any charges by diagnosing him with shell-shock. But Frederic tells him, ‘I’m through with this war. I’ve got to find Catherine.’ Convinced, at last, that their affair is
couple are left gazing upwards, clearly implying that she would survive and they would live out the future they had planned together. Today, parts of A Farewell To Arms look and feel dated, especially the mountain backdrops using models and paintings, the star-filtered scenes of the lovers embracing, and the melodramatic music. But the film remains interesting for its exploration events on a little-known First World War battlefront. And as a love story, it is a compelling drama of how the lives of men and women are twisted in wartime. Moreover, it captures a moment in the history of Hollywood film-making when there was a willingness to explore complex relationships in a mature way. The film is well worth revisiting, especially as it has been superbly restored digitally only last year by Lobster Films for the BFI, who re-released it on DVD and Blu-ray. Even the alternative ending is there.
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A FAREWELL TO ARMS (1932) Director: Frank Borzage. Screenplay: Benjamin Glazer and Oliver Garrett, based on the novel by Ernest Hemingway. Starring: Gary Cooper, Helen Hayes, Adolphe Menjou. A BFI Dual Format DVD and Blu-ray.
www.military-history.org
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Peter FitzSimons William Heinemann, £30 ISBN 978-1741666595
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f events had gone to plan in early 1915, the Royal Navy would have pushed through the Dardanelles to Constantinople to deliver a knockout blow to the Ottoman Empire. This in turn would have exposed the underbelly of Germany to a third front, breaking the stalemate of the Western Front. Meanwhile, the beleaguered Russians would have been free to move in and out of the Black Sea, alleviating some of its internal economic and political woes, while the First Lord of the Admiralty, Winston Churchill, would have been acclaimed as one of the finest politicians of his generation for promoting such an audacious plan. Instead, Gallipoli became a byword for hubris and failure. The British Empire, supposedly at the height of its powers, seriously under-estimated the capacity and will of the Ottoman Empire to fight, discovering too late that the so-called ‘sick man of Europe’ was not quite ready to roll over. However, the brutal fighting and heavy Allied defeat became founding symbols of nationhood for Australia, New Zealand, and, arguably, the soon-to-be independent Turkey.
With the 100th anniversary of the Gallipoli landing falling on 25 April, Peter FitzSimons’ book provides a timely re-evaluation of a mismanaged campaign that continues to resonate in Australia and New Zealand, where Anzac Day remains the most important date on the secular calendar. The original plan envisaged a swift and decisive naval attack, which would knock out the forts guarding the Dardanelles – some equipped with cannons dating back to 1870 – and end with salvos fired into the Turkish capital prompting a surrender. When this plan was thwarted by strong Turkish resistance, which resulted in the sinking of several Allied ships, British Prime Minister Herbert Asquith overruled both Churchill and Lord Kitchener to insist on a joint navy and army operation to take the Gallipoli peninsula and then Constantinople. What followed was a protracted nine-month campaign ending in January 1916, by which time 43,921 Allies had died and 97,112 were wounded; while 86,692 Turks perished with 164,617 wounded. This is, of course, familiar territory to historians, so what does FitzSimons add to the
The British... discovered too late that the ‘sick man of Europe’ was not quite ready to roll over. 66
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picture? As befitting its subject, his book is epic in scale, weighing in at 820 pages (100 of which are footnotes) that run from the events leading up to the outbreak of the First World War to a poignant epilogue on the 75th anniversary reunion of combatants from both sides in 1990. FitzSimons is Australian and fiercely proud of it. He is also a journalist with the Sydney Morning Herald, and a prolific writer of history books and biographies ranging in subject from Tobruk to Ned Kelly, making him Australia’s biggest selling non-fiction author of the last 15 years. He writes in the present tense, creates direct quotes from reported speech, and deploys asides
directly to the reader. The narrative is thus more akin to a novel than a history book, a device which could divide readers. However, his is a well-paced and engaging account. Although students and academics looking for detailed analysis, unadorned by flourishes, will be frustrated, one suspects he is happy with this result. The book is well sourced. FitzSimons draws on a sizeable research team that includes, at its core, three key collaborators. While one trawled archives in London for the minutes of the British War Council meetings, the others – a PhD Turkish speaker and a German-Australian – interrogated primary sources to give the Turks and Germans a voice. March 2015
FRANKNESS AND FEELING FitzSimons has a disarming honesty. He reveals the moment he first heard Gallipoli described by a ‘highbrow historian’ as an invasion. It proved to be a wake-up call, prompting him to concede it was the ‘first time [he] had been obliged to think of the landings… in less than holy terms.’ Although his account focuses largely on the Australian experience, he challenges the perceived notion of the soldiers dying for freedom, BELOW Australian troops charging an Ottoman trench, just before the evacuation at Anzac.
www.military-history.org
and questions whether they even had ‘right’ on their side. Ultimately he sides with the popular view that many of his countrymen were ‘sacrificed on the altar of British Imperialism.’ He has a point. With Kitchener candidly admitting that replacing soldiers is easier than replenishing stocks of shells, and Churchill prepared to lose lives and multiple ships in the initial naval assault, the British leaders were guilty of recklessness. While the Anzacs paid a high price for their support of King and Empire, a cause many believed was worth fighting for, it is worth remembering the campaign claimed 21,555 British casualties, nearly double that of the combined Australian and New Zealand losses. Everyone was expendable. FitzSimons’ admiration for his beloved ‘Diggers’ is never hidden. To his credit, he does present a compelling account of their literal and spiritual journey from innocence to betrayal and finally redemption, while still acknowledging that not all of the British officers were bumbling halfwits. Indeed, one of the most sympathetic characters is General Sir Ian Hamilton, a Boer War veteran, dispatched to the Dardanelles by
FitzSimons challenges the notion of the soldiers dying for freedom, and questions whether they even had ‘right’ on their side. Kitchener with a flimsy manila folder containing out-of-date intelligence reports and no plan of action. This was the man charged with masterminding the biggest ever amphibious landing in history, and given only a matter of weeks to do so.
‘BRAVE TURKS’ FitzSimons also sheds some much-needed light (mostly drawn from personal accounts) on the often overlooked role of the ‘brave Turks’, who waged a spirited and ultimately successful defence of their homeland. The pivotal role played by Colonel Mustafa Kemal, who anticipated where the Allies would launch their main attack, is explored in all its compelling detail. Kemal, of course, would become a national hero and,
MHM REVIEWS
This solid reliance on primary sources – including diaries of combatants from both sides – post-war memoirs, and the first-hand reports of Charles Bean, the campaign’s only accredited war correspondent, provide rich seams. There is also a running narrative about Keith Murdoch, father of Rupert, and his role as journalistcum-political go-between, who contrived a visit to Gallipoli en route to London, and witnessed the discrepancies between what was being reported and what was happening on the ground.
as Atatürk, the first president of an independent Turkey. FitzSimons’ account is informed and readable. Indeed, his blowby-blow retelling of the failed British-led naval assault on the Dardanelles, which pre-empted the Gallipoli campaign, is a genuine page-turner, adding fascinating minutiae to the big picture. Here the combined might of the Anglo-French armada, which should have been sufficient to knock out the Turkish ground forces, failed, led astray by decoy cannons made from sewage pipes used to fire blanks. Ultimately, Gallipoli manages to make sense of the historical events that culminated in the Allied defeat. The roles of the main political and military leaders are analysed, with the primary sources revealing just how ill-conceived and improvised the campaign was. A more basic understanding of the peninsula’s topography, characterised by shallow beaches and high cliffs, should have ruled out such a perilous undertaking. Although a more detailed index would be appreciated, the bespoke maps are excellent. So too is the choice of photographs, especially the beguiling front-cover image showing an Australian camp in front of the pyramids, and a soldier playing with a wallaby who has been brought along for the ride. Despite my initial reservations, FitzSimons’ informal prose mostly works, because it captures the human voice of ordinary people caught up in extraordinary events. This is an author who knows his domestic audience, and his bluff approach should not detract from the book’s validity. Highbrow historians, however, are advised to look elsewhere. æ MILITARY HISTORY MONTHLY
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OO S THE BEST NEW MILITARY HISTORY TITLES THIS MONTH
CLAUSEWITZ: HIS LIFE AND WORK Donald Stoker Oxford University Press, £18.99 ISBN 978-0199357949
C
arl von Clausewitz joined the Prussian Army at the age of 12, and in that same year – 1792 – saw his country defeated by France at the Battle of Valmy, when Prussian troops commanded by the Duke of Brunswick attempted to march on Paris. French militarism under Napoleon’s leadership and strategy was one of the factors that made a lasting impression on the young Prussian soldier, leading eventually to the publication of On War, his posthumous military masterpiece. Clausewitz expounded the concept of total war and blitzkrieg, which had a profound effect on the conduct of modern warfare. Donald Stoker makes it clear that – contrary to conventional wisdom, which has it that Clausewitz did not see much combat during his army career – the Prussian officer was eminently qualified to write this seminal work on strategic and military theory. ‘Clausewitz had an enormous amount of combat experience,’ says the author, who points out that his subject took part in as many as three dozen battles. Indeed, the book’s primary focus is to reconstruct Clausewitz’s role in the various campaigns in which he served between 1793 and 1815. These experiences served as the inspiration
for On War, and how the book came to be written is the question Stoker seeks to answer. Clausewitz’s work has had a major impact on military strategists as well as military thinkers, from the 19th century to contemporary times. The French naturally took a keen interest in his work after their defeat in the 1870-1871 Franco-Prussian War. Some of Clausewitz’s ideas were applied to naval warfare by the British theorist Sir Julian Corbett. Clausewitz even appeared as a character in Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace, while Lenin introduced a number of his ideas into Soviet thought on the political nature of war. The book was translated into Chinese, and Mao Zedong taught seminars on it to his Communist followers. It also gained an influential readership like France’s Marshal Ferdinand Foch in the US during the Cold War years of drew heavily on Clausewitz, though the 1950s and 1960s. it could be argued that the tactics In his military career, with his deployed in trench warfare were a experience of the Napoleonic Wars, distortion of his theories. Clausewitz played an important role in Clausewitz began to write his the reorganisation of the Prussian Army. book in 1815, with the memory still His work underpinned the widespread belief that nations should have massive fresh of the 1812 campaign and the Battle of Waterloo, in which he served. armies aimed at total annihilation of ‘Here he lays the groundwork for some the enemy force. This concept reached of the concepts he would develop in its maximum expression in the First World War, when great commanders On War, such as friction, the culminating point, and the centre of gravity, which emerges in his assessment of Napoleon’s strategic and operational approach for his invasion of Russia,’ Stoker tells us. Clausewitz’s ambition was to write a book ‘that would not be forgotten after two or three years, and that possibly might be picked up more than once by those who are interested in the subject’. He could scarcely have foreseen the lasting effect his work was to have
Clausewitz even appeared as a character in Tolstoy’s War and Peace... and Mao taught seminars about On War. www.military-history.org
on worldwide military strategy in the following two centuries. Ironically, after years of defying musket and sword on the battlefield, in 1831 Clausewitz was carried off in the space of one day by the cholera epidemic that swept across the globe, from Asia to Europe and the New World. It fell to Clausewitz’s wife, Marie, to publish his work, which, again with certain irony, came about in line with his wish that it should not see print in his lifetime. The full work eventually appeared as ten volumes, assuring Clausewitz ‘a form of the immortality that he had sought’ in what Stoker considers ‘the greatest monument to military thinking yet conceived’. Stoker’s biography stands as an authoritative analysis of Clausewitz’s career as a soldier and theoretician, offering new insights into his subject’s personality and legacy. JULES STEWART MILITARY HISTORY MONTHLY
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ON THE HORIZON ‘Artie’: Bomber Command Legend Vincent A Ashworth ighting High Ltd, £19.95
DESTRUCTIVE AND FORMIDABLE: BRITISH INFANTRY FIREPOWER 1642-1765. David Blackmore Frontline Books, £25 ISBN 978-1848327689
SBN 978-0992620752
A vivid depiction of AF life during WWII, and the bravery displayed by ‘Artie’ Ashworth during the greatest air battle of all time. The Debs of letchley Park and Other Stories Michael Smith Aurum Press, £20 SBN 978-1781313879
xplaining how the Debs came to be at Bletchley, the lives they gave up to be there, and the part they played in the work of ‘Station X’. An Introduction to War Theory Dr Chris Brown The History Press, £8.99 ISBN 978-0750959728
How do wars actually work? This book is an introduction to war theory suitable for anyone with a general interest in the history of conflict.
B
etween 1642 and 1765, British troops were engaged in six major wars. These wars completely transformed the army’s infantry tactics, from the foreign-dominated and occasionally amateurish methods of the English Civil Wars to tactics which ruled the battlefield 120 years later – a period that also saw Britain move from the status of second-rate European power to ‘Master of the World’. Victories at Blenheim (1704) and at Minden and Quebec (1759) are largely credited to the British infantry’s deadly firepower. But it is not until now that this has been the subject of in-depth analysis. Author David Blackmore has revisited the original drill manuals. His findings address many misconceptions, and he highlights a number of striking facts, not least concerning tactics during the Nine Years War (1688-1697), which was a pivotal period for the British Army, when the pike was finally replaced by the bayonet, the matchlock musket by the flintlock, and the bandoleer by the cartridge. Other technical developments – such as shorter barrel lengths and, later, the introduction of metal ramrods – contributed to faster loading times and less space between ranks, which added up to a heavier rate of fire across a narrower frontage. With these advances in equipment came further changes in tactics. The introduction of platoon-firing contrasted with the tactics of the French Army, which maintained full-rank firing at longer ranges further into the period. This explains British infantry superiority in many encounters with their French adversaries. The approach was further honed by the likes of Wolfe. By the 1750s, infantry tactics were based on holding fire while the enemy advanced, and then unleashing devastating close-quarter volleys, followed up with a bayonet charge. Blackmore discusses the use of the bayonet, including its incorporation in the weaponry of Cumberland’s forces at Culloden in 1746, when tactics were no more complicated than holding the musket at breast height, similar to the ‘charge your pike’ position of a century before. Another interesting discussion is how tactics evolved to counter the irregular warfare of the French and Indian War in the 1750s, from which light infantry evolved. This is an important study, and essential reading for anyone interested in the British army of the 17th and 18th centuries. DAVID FLINTHAM
Battlefields in Britain C V Wedgwood Unicorn Press, £8.99
THE MOST SECRET PLACE ON EARTH: THE STORY OF THE EAST ANGLIAN VILLAGE OF ELVEDEN AND THE BIRTH OF THE WORLD’S FIRST TANKS
ISBN 978-1910065198
This accessible text lists and explains the major battles that occurred within the British Isles from the Norman Conquest to the 1940s. Wales and World War I Robin Barlow Gomer, £14.99 SBN 978-1848518858
A description of what was happening on the ome Front in Wales over the course of the irst World War. The Night of the Dam Busters W B Bartlett Amberley, £6.99 ISBN 978-1445643670
This account captures the very moment the heroic Dam Busters’ released their payload.
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Roger Pugh The Larks Press, £8.50 ISBN 978-1904006763
I
f William Foster & Co Ltd of Lincoln gave birth to the first tank – the armoured vehicle known as ‘Little Willie’ – and if Bovington has become the spiritual home of the Royal Tank Corps, then Lord Iveagh’s estate at Elveden is the kindergarten where the tank first learnt to crawl. In this small village just across the Suffolk border from Thetford in Norfolk, the man in charge of developing the secret weapon, which became known as the tank, was Royal Engineer Lieutenant-Colonel E D Swinton. As soon as sufficient tanks began to roll off the production line, Swinton – along with his able assistant Major Tandy – began searching for suitable training grounds on which to introduce the troops to these new machines. Elveden provided both the type and quantity of terrain required, and was sufficiently rural so as to be hidden from prying eyes. So secret was the project that three cordons of security were established, with some 700 troops employed – including Indian cavalry – in guarding the training area. The then Lieutenant Clough-Ellis, of Portmeirion fame, summed up the precautions when he said Elveden ‘was more closely circled than the Sleeping Beauty’s palace, more zealously guarded than the paradise of a Shah’. A parcel of land, stretching over 25 square miles and euphemistically called ‘The Elveden Explosives Area’, was turned into a replica of the Western Front. Complete with British and German trench systems, a No-Man’s-Land, and a forcibly abandoned farmhouse converted into a German blockhouse. This, then, is a small book of local history, but on a subject that reaches beyond local, beyond even national import, to claim its place in global military history. It tells the story of how men came to terms with a new war-machine, interleaved with the memories of those first tank-men. A good, easy-to-read introduction to the early days of the tank. KEITH ROBINSON March 2015
M MEMBERSHIP
AMERICAN CIVIL WAR SOCIETY LTD The American Civil War Society Ltd was formed in 1975 and has since been a mainstay of re-enacting in the UK. The society is essentially a nonprofit making organisation, and attendance at events by members is on a purely voluntary basis. Over the years they have helped to raise money for various charities acting as the focal point for shows. They have attended fetes, carnivals, stately homes, and organised events all over the country. They are currently looking for new members to fill the ranks of their Confederate and Union units, with places available in infantry, artillery, and mounted cavalry. They also cater for those who wish to participate in civilian roles. If you would like more information on the society, or want to put the uniform on and have a go, get in touch via phone or email, or keep up to date with them on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Flickr, Tumblr, and YouTube. Just look for ACWSUK. MEMBERSHIP BENEFITS: Membership of a long-standing experienced re-enactment society. Comprehensive training in drill of the period, with health and safety paramount. The opportunity to enjoy the great outdoors with a new hobby, with new f f f
COST OF MEMBERSHIP: Per annum:Single - £25, Couple/Single-parent family £35, Family - £45 WEB: www.acws.co.uk EMAIL:
[email protected] PHONE: 01254 70
INDIAN MILITARY HISTORICAL SOCIETY The IMHS act as a forum for the dissemination of knowledge of uniforms, medals, badges, buttons, and other militaria, as well as the history of Service units in India before and after Independence. These include: Royal Navy, British Army, and Royal Air Force units that served in India; Units of the Honourable East India Company's Army and Marine prior to 1861; The Indian Army subsequent to 1861, including the European Volunteer Corps; The Royal Indian Marine and the Royal Indian Navy; The Army of Nepal and those of the Princely States; the present day Armed Services of India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh, including Frontier Corps, Para Military, and Police units. MEMBERSHIP BENEFITS: A quarterly journal of roughly 52 pages. Once the web site has been completed and back issues of all journals placed on line, members will have usive access to the previous years’ journals.
COST OF MEMBERSHIP: £15 per annum, including delivery by air mail to international addresses WEB: www.imhs.org.uk EMAIL: membership@imhs. org.uk
FORCES POSTAL HISTORY SOCIETY stablished in 1952, this society was formed bring together collectors interested in the tary postal histories of all countries, with mphasis on the history of the British Forces. nterest extends to periods of both war and nd includes the collecting and study of ks, cachets, postage rates, routes, POW sorship and censor marks, stamps and stationery, as well as the on of military postal services. rship is currently £20 per year (£15 for electronic version only). ey publish a quarterly illustrated (some in colour) journal, h articles of original research, topical news items, members' d book reviews, together with a newsletter. Regular postal e held and they operate a packet scheme. They also have an rary. Meetings are held monthly in London at the Union Waterloo), usually on the second Saturday of each month ust). FITS: Quarterly journal and auctions, library (UK members acket (UK members only)
ostalhistorysociety.org.uk
[email protected]
COST OF MEMBERSHIP: £20 per annum (UK) (overseas - please enquire), £15 electronic only
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REVIEWING THE BEST MILITARY HISTORY EXHIBITIONS WITH DAVID FLINTHAM 01
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£8.40
VISIT
THE ROYAL ENGINEERS MUSEUM
ENTRY
Prince Arthur Road, Gillingham, Kent ME4 4UG 01634 822839 www.re-museum.co.uk 9am-5pm Tue-Fri; 11am-5pm Sat, Sun
T
he concept of military engineering dates back to ancient times. Military engineers accompanied the Norman Conquest, and it is from Bishop Gundulf of Rochester – who built both Rochester Castle and the White Tower in service to William the Conqueror – that the Royal Engineers claim nearly a thousand years of unbroken service to the Crown. Two centuries on, Master James of St George was responsible for Beaumaris, Caernavon, Harlech, and Conway Castles. But it was with the arrival of gunpowder that the military engineer really came into his own. In 1415, Nicholas Merbury used early cannon at the Siege of Harfleur, and 125 years after that, specialist artillery fortifications were built to defend the coast of England. The English Civil Wars saw more than 200 sieges, and throughout Europe, military engineering became more scientific. In 1683, the Board of Ordnance was formed, which brought together the roles of the Master Gunner and the Principal
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Engineer into a single force, although by 1716 artillery and engineering were again separated with the formation of the Corps of Engineers. During the 18th century, the role of the engineer encompassed everything from building and defending fortifications to siegecraft and map-making. As a mark of the Corps’ importance, in 1787 it became the Corps of Royal Engineers. The Corps served throughout the British Empire, and during the Napoleonic Wars it was responsible for the Martello Towers, as well as several sieges. It was the aftermath of the costly Siege of Badajoz in 1812 which led to the creation of the Royal Engineer Establishment, including the School of Military Engineering, in Chatham.
ORIGINS OF THE MUSEUM The Royal Engineers Museum can trace its origins back to 1812, and the library and archive created for use by Royal Engineers attending the school. The museum was established in an old chapel in Brompton Barracks
100 years later, but by 1986 it had outgrown its location. It was moved to the Ravelin Building in 1987, where it remains to this day. The Ravelin Building was constructed on the site of a ravelin (a triangular fortification or detached outwork, located in front the innerworks of a fortress) that formed part of the 18th-century ‘Great Lines’ built to defend Chatham from attack. Before these were in place, the Dutch had sailed up the Medway in 1667 and destroyed a Royal Navy fleet at anchorage at Chatham. The building itself dates from 1904: it was formerly the Electrical Engineering School. Opened by Queen Elizabeth II on 20 May 1987, the museum tells the story of the Royal Engineers from their 17th-century origins and early development during the 18th century, through their pivotal role in the expansion of the British Empire in the 19th century and the two World Wars of the 20th century, and finally to their changing role over the last 70 years.
In 1998 the museum received ‘Designated’ status – recognition of an outstanding collection of national and international significance. It is one of only three military museums in the country to hold this status. The Royal Engineers are, as the museum ably demonstrates, the pioneers of the British Army in more senses than one. Today’s Ordnance Survey originates from the mapmaking of the Corps of Engineers during the 18th century, and the Royal Flying Corps and subsequently the Royal Air Force developed from the Air Battalion established by the Royal Engineers in 1911.
ENGINEERING THROUGH THE AGES The museum is set out chronologically. Visitors are taken from the early engineers and birth of the Corps, to the wars with France, and then to the 19th-century ‘Engineers of Empire’. Next come the ‘Sappers of the Great War’ (25,000 of whom were killed during the conflict), then ‘Engineers for a Second World War’ March 2015
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MHM VISITS
K EN T UNI T ED K INGDOM
MORE MUSEUMS IN KENT CHATHAM HISTORIC DOCKYARD
Medway CTURED ON BOTH PAGES: 06
The Ravelin Building, home to the yal Engineers Museum. Lieutenant John Chard won the yal Engineers’ most-famous Victoria oss – during the defence of Rorke’s ift, 22-23 January 1879. A mid-17th-century ‘Murder Gun’ at was recovered from the sea bed Spithead. The Centurion Tank located outside e museum. A Churchill Assault Vehicle Royal gineer (AVRE) from WWII, also on rmanent display. The origins of military engineering e illustrated in the first gallery, which atures a bust of pioneering French tifications-expert Vauban. The prowess of the Corp’s divers is strated by this cannon, recovered m the wreck of the Mary Rose.
(10,664 killed), and finally Sappers for a New World’. With my interest in 17th-century military engineering, the first part of the museum took much of my attention. But in a collection of over 500,000 objects covering such a broad range of duties, there are highlights throughout the museum. These include a model of the defences of Gibraltar, the Waterloo map (complete with markings made by Wellington himself), and the revolver and sword used by Lieutenant John Chard at Rorke’s Drift in 1879, where he won the Royal Engineers’ most-famous Victoria Cross. Charles Gordon and Horatio Kitchener are probably the two best-known Royal Engineers – and much of their respective reputations centres on the Sudan. The lives of both men are well represented within the museum’s collection. www.military-history.org
ther exhibits include a Brennan Torpedo, a cannon raised from the wreck of the Mary Rose, items associated with various Second World War special operations, and a scale model of an RE-built port in Scotland. From 1943 onwards, bridge-building became a major element of the Royal Engineers’ contribution to the war effort. In response to the need for an easily built and versatile bridge, Donald Bailey designed the famous Bailey Bridge, which became the mostfamous piece of RE equipment ever used (the Corps built 2,000 in Italy alone). A reconstructed Bailey Bridge, a V2 rocket, and a Harrier jump-jet are the largest exhibits inside the museum. Close to the museum is the library and archive, which contains 30,000 books and 600,000 photographs, and the Bridge Study Centre, an
educational resource for learning about the history of the development of bridges; it opened in 2012. Access to both is by appointment only. Outside is the museum’s impressive collection of engineering tanks, descendants of the ‘Funnies’ of the 79th Armoured Division, which played such an important role during the Normandy Landings in June 1944. Included are examples of the Assault Vehicle Royal Engineer (AVRE) and the Armoured Vehicle Layer Bridge (AVLB). Further large exhibits, including railway locomotives and stock, are housed at Chatham Historic Dockyard, a short walk from the Royal Engineers Museum. There is an entrance fee, but included within the cost of admission is a very informative guidebook. My only criticism is the shop: I hoped for a better selection of books, and there was little to interest my nineyear-old son, whose pocket money was burning a hole in his trousers. This is a real gem of a museum. In this country we are fortunate in having a number of exceptional regimental museums – the Royal Scots Museum in Edinburgh Castle, and the Royal Signals Museum in Blandford Forum are two personal favourites. The Royal Engineers Museum is among the best, and is well worth a visit.æ
This maritime museum is located on part of the site of the former Royal Navy dockyard at Chatham. Chatham Dockyard was one of the navy’s main facilities for several hundred years, right up to its closure in 1984. After being shut down, the dockyard was divided into three sections. One of these sections, comprising the 18th-century core of the site, was transferred to a charity called the Chatham Historic Dockyard Trust, and it is now open to the public as a visitor attraction comprising historic buildings, museum galleries, and historic warships. It also hosts a vibrant programme of events and activities.
GRAVESEND COLD WAR BUNKER
Gravesend This Cold War bunker is the underground command post, built in 1954, from which Gravesend’s rescue and emergency services were to be coordinated in the event of a nuclear attack. Today the bunker has been carefully refurbished to look as it was in the 1950s, giving visitors the chance to experience its atmosphere and to glimpse into Cold War England.
FORT AMHERST
Medway Fort Amherst is Britain’s largest Napoleonic fortress, and provides a great day out for all the family. Visitors can enjoy over 300 years of military history, with an amazing network of underground passageways, historic buildings, and gun emplacements, all set in 20 acres of beautiful parkland.
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THE BEST MILITARY HISTORY EVENTS, LECTURES, AND EXHIBITIONS FILM SCREENING
LAWRENCE OF ARABIA FREE ENTRY
15 March 2015
EXHIBITION
£5
THE HORSE AT WAR Until 1 March 2015 The Lightbox Chobham Road Surrey, GU21 4AA
Y
www.thelightbox.org.uk
ENTRY
01483 737800
our last chance to see this fine exhibition, which looks at how the horse was depicted during the Great War – both as hero and as beast of burden – by some of the leading British artists of the day. To complement the exhibition, a social-history display of documents, newspaper reports, and other items recalls the role of horses and other animals on the Western Front and at home during WWI.
The Harlequin Theatre & Cinema Warwick Quadrant Surrey, RH1 1NN www.harlequintheatre.co.uk 01737 276500
As part of the Reigate and Banstead Borough Council’s commemorations of the centenary of the First World War, the Harlequin Theatre & Cinema will be screening a season of WWI films. In March, they will screen David Lean’s Lawrence of Arabia (1962), starring Peter O’Toole and Alec Guinness. Admission is free, but tickets must be booked.
LECTURE
OFFICIAL SQUEAMISHNESS: THE AIR MINISTRY AND THE BOMBER OFFENSIVE OF THE SECOND WORLD WAR 19 March 2015 RAF Cosford Shifnal, Shropshire, TF11 8UP www.rafmuseum.org.uk 01902 376200
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FREE ENTRY
As part of the RAF Museum’s new Research Programme, Air Commodore (retired) Dr Peter Gray will examine the attitudes prevalent in the Air Ministry during the Second World War towards the Strategic Air Offensive against Germany. Booking essential.
March 2015
£10 ENTRY
DATES TO REMEMBER
A HISTORY OF WAR IN 100 BATTLES 26 March 2015
1 MARCH 2015
Army & Navy Club 36-39 Pall Mall, London, SW1Y 5JN www.nam.ac.uk 020 7881 6600
Art and Symbolism in World War I
This talk will distil the history of warfare into 100 momentous battles, ranging from the earliest recorded skirmishes of the ancient world to the computerised conflicts of today. Renowned military historian Richard Overy dramatically brings to life the sights and sounds of the most significant battles in world history.
STUDY DAY
MHM VISITS
LECTURE
RE-ENACTMENT
£11 ENTRY
Ordsall Hall Museum 322 Ordsall Lane Manchester, M5 3AN www.salfordcommunity leisure.co.uk
Using a range of examples from painting, sculpture, and architecture, John Sculley, Head of Museums and Heritage Services, will show how visual art communicated people’s attitudes across the country during and after the First World War.
9 MARCH 2015
GATEWAYS TO THE FIRST WORLD WAR 20 March 2015 Canterbury Cathedral Lodge The Precincts Kent, CT1 2EH www.gatewaysfww.org.uk 01227 827052
LIFE IN A MEDIEVAL CASTLE 28-29 March 2015
FREE ENTRY
This is a day of talks and workshops exploring the German and Austrian experiences of the First World War. Talk to experts on the history of the war, and get advice on locating records and archives. Meet our translation panel, and bring along your own historical sources for analysis.
LECTURE
MACHINE-GUNS IN WWI 7 March 2015 Bankfield Museum Boothtown Road, Halifax, HX3 6HG www.calderdale.gov.uk 01422 352334
£3 ENTRY
John Spencer, Military Curator at the Bankfield Museum, talks about the use of the machine-gun in WWI. This is part of a series of talks on local topics linked to the First World War, and will be followed by a question-andanswer session with refreshments.
www.military-history.org
Arundel Castle and Gardens West Sussex, BN18 9AB www.arundelcastle.org 01903 882173
In the Keep and Barbican at Arundel, members of Raven Tor Living History Group will be portraying the characters who would have lived in a medieval castle. They will demonstrate archery in the dry moat, and the Yarnsmith of Norwich storyteller will weave historical tales inside the Castle. With costumes, weapons, armour, and craft displays, there will be plenty for visitors to see while learning about the Castle’s past.
The U-Boat Threat in World War I: its rise, fall, and eventual defeat HQS Wellington and the Wellington Trust Temple Stairs London, WC2R 2PN www.thewellingtontrust.com
Rear Admiral John Lang, a former Royal Navy submariner as well as an author, accomplished lecturer, and maritime historian, will look at the U-boat threat, which was so effective that it came close to causing Britain’s surrender in 1917.
30 MARCH 2015
The History of the Royal Army Chaplains’ Department from 1796 to 2013 Fulham Palace Bishop’s Avenue London, SW6 6EA www.fulhampalace.org
Bishop Winnington-Ingram served as a chaplain during World War I. This illustrated talk by David Blake, Curator of the Museum of Army Chaplaincy, highlights the role of army chaplains over the last 200 years.
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BATTLE PROMS This is the year to celebrate with the Battle Proms! The UK’s most popular picnic concert series celebrates a number of important historical milestones in 2015. As the Battle Proms takes much of its inspiration from the Napoleonic wars, which came to a conclusion 200 years ago at the Battle of Waterloo, there will be a special battle re-enactment by the Napoleonic Association at Blenheim Palace. Also scheduled is the Battle of Britain Evening Gun Salute, honouring this pivotal air campaign and end of the war itself, as WEB: www.battleproms.com DATES: Burghley House, Lincolnshire - Saturday 4 July Blenheim Palace, Oxfordshire - Saturday 11 July Hatfield House, Hertfordshire - Saturday 18 July Highclere Castle, Berkshire - Saturday 1 August Ragley Hall, Warwickshire – Saturday 15 August
gunners herald the arrival of the Grace Spitfire with a volley of shots from a vintage 13-pdr field gun. Widely regarded as the most exciting summer proms concert in the country, this is an event that fans return to year after year to enjoy a memorable night out with friends or for a significant celebration. The Battle Proms is proud to support Combat Stress: the Veterans’ Mental Health Charity. Tickets can be purchased securely online at www.battleproms.com
EMAIL:
[email protected] WHERE: See DATES PHONE: 01432 355 416 / 0790 449 4099 HOW MUCH: Adults: £33 if booked before 30 April 2015, £36 if booked from 1 May 2015 until the day before the concert, £40 on the day of concert (subject to availability)
Children aged 5 to 15: £17 (children aged 4 and under go for free, and do not require a ticket) Groups: Advance group bookings of 10 or more qualify for a £2 reduction per ticket
BIRMINGHAM INTERNATIONAL TATTOO
DE MONTFORT UNIVERSITY/IMPERIAL WAR MUSEUM NORTH
Experience the pomp and pageantry of the Birmingham International Tattoo. Britain’s biggest indoor military tattoo, with over 1,000 performers, returns to the Barclaycard Arena (formerly The NIA) in Birmingham at the end of November, bringing together marching bands and exciting displays, culminating in the spectacular Grand Finale featuring all the performers. This year’s special event will commemorate the 75th Anniversary of the Battle of Britain. Whether you prefer the spectacle of the international marching bands or the thrills of the exciting displays, this annual military spectacular is sure to prove popular with both young and old, with something for all the family at the three-hour event. The Birmingham International Tattoo will take place at the Barclaycard Arena on Saturday 28 November at 6pm and Sunday 29 November at 2pm.
Conference on Internment during the First World War: A Mass Global Phenomenon
WEB: www.birminghamtattoo.co.uk DATES: Saturday 28 November at 6pm and Sunday 29 November at 2pm. EMAIL:
[email protected] WHERE: Barclaycard Arena (formerly The NIA)
PHONE: 0844 338 8000 HOW MUCH: Adult tickets £17.20 to £28.20 Includes admin fee & £0.70 facilities fee plus £2.55 fulfilment fee may be payable
Although civilian internment has become associated with the Second World War in popular memory, it has a longer history. The turning point in this history occurred during the First World War when, in the interests of ‘security’ in a situation of total war, the internment of ‘enemy aliens’ became part of state policy for the belligerent states, resulting in the incarceration, displacement, and even murder of hundreds of thousands of people throughout the world. This pioneering international Conference on internment during the First World War brings together experts from throughout the world to investigate the importance of the conflict for the history of civilian incarceration. The speakers will tackle both government policy and, just as importantly, its impact upon the lives of those individuals who spent time behind barbed wire. The conference is open to all those interested in this neglected aspect of the history of the Great War on a global scale. WEB: www.dmu.ac.uk/internment DATES: 13-14 May 2015 EMAIL:
[email protected]
WHERE: The Imperial War Museum North PHONE: 0116 207 8681 HOW MUCH: £40 per day
AUCTIONOFARMS,MEDALS,ANDMILITARIA The next in George Kidner Auctioneer and Valuers’ regular series of specialist Arms, Medals, and Militaria auctions will be held on Thursday 5 March. Among the many interesting lots are the medals to Brigadier General E J F Vaughan CMG, DSO, Devon Regiment, which represent an impressive military career spanning the Boer War and the Great War, and including a term in the Egyptian army. During WWI he commanded a battalion of the Royal West Kent Regiment at Gallipoli. Research has not produced any direct evidence of the reason for the DSO award but there exists the tantalizing possibility that it was WEB: www.georgekidner.co.uk DATES: Thursday, 5 March at 10.30am (On view: Wednesday, 4 March 9.30am-7pm and Thursday 5 March 9am-10.30am) EMAIL:
[email protected]
for his service there. In any event, this is a highly desirable group. The medals will be followed by a broad and interesting selection of swords, firearms, and militaria. For example, military firearms enthusiasts will have the opportunity to acquire a de-activated Mk I BREN gun. All enquiries welcomed. Online bidding available.
WHERE: The Lymington Saleroom, Emsworth Road, Lymington, Hampshire, SO41 9BL PHONE: 01590 670070
LIVE ONLINE BIDDING: www.easyliveauction.com/georgekidner/
AN MHM SELECTION OF SOME OF THE BEST EVENTS COMING UP OVER THE NEXT FEW MONTHS
WAR MUSIC: NOTES FROM THE FIRST WORLD WAR In the First World War music was heard on the battlefield, in concert halls, in the camps, and in churches. Music reflected and affected all the emotions of war with everything from requiems to rousing choruses. Marking the First World War centenary, this exhibition takes a broad look at the relationship between music and war against the background of radical musical change. Objects on display include a wind-up trench WEB: www.ram.ac.uk/war-music DATES: Open now until 31 October 2015 Open weekdays 11.30am-5.30pm and Saturdays 12pm-4pm EMAIL:
[email protected]
gramophone, a tenor horn camouflaged with black paint to stop it glinting at the enemy, a burnt-out harmonica, and soldiers’ song-books. You can also view original film footage of musical episodes amid the conflict, featuring British, German, French and Chinese musicians. ‘War Music’ also explores the Academy’s own story during the War: discover how students and alumni fared once they’d enlisted and left London far behind. WHERE: Royal Academy of Music Museum Marylebone Road London NW1 5HT
PHONE: 020 7873 7443 HOW MUCH: Free
RAUCEBY WAR WEEKEND 2015
GATEWAYS TO MILITARY LIVES
Come to this 1940s Victory Ball, where, on the Saturday, 300 people will be entertained by the Ashby Big Band and supported by Paul & Melissa Harper with Heather Marie in attendance, all backed by DJ Woody’s War Dept. This is a ticket only dance. The marquee will also be used for various demonstrations such as fashion shows, hair demonstrations (have your hair done 1940s-style for the evening dance), and dancing lessons with ‘Air Raid Jive’ etc. Living history displays, re-enactors (people promenading in all sorts of different uniforms), and a large selection of military vehicles and classic cars with various stall holders, military and civilian, selling their wares. NAFFI will be selling homemade wartime type sandwiches and cakes. There is also a bar selling real ales. There will be battles each day in the arena as well as classic cars and, military vehicle parades. Children are welcome to interact by doing rifle drill and grenade throwing. Marquee entertainment from 10am-midnight.
This is a free ‘Gateways to the First World War’ study day at the University of Kent. The talks and workshops will focus on research into the military services in the First World War. Talk with academic and heritage experts about resources and techniques for researching military ancestors and develop ideas for your own centenary projects. There will be an introduction to the Imperial War Museum’s Lives of the First World War project, advice on applying for support from the Heritage Lottery Fund, and talks on researching the Great War. For more information and to book your place visit: www.gatewaysfww.org.uk/studydays. Gateways to the First World War is a centre for public engagement with the First World War centenary funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC).
WEB: www.raucebywarweekend.co.uk DATES: 29-31 August 2015 EMAIL:
[email protected] WHERE: In an open Field South Rauceby, Sleaford, Lincs. NG34 8PT PHONE: 01529 488354 or 07713074418
WEB: www.gatewaysfww.org.uk/studydays DATES: Wednesday 25 February 2015, 9.30am-4pm EMAIL:
[email protected] WHERE: Darwin Conference Suite, University of Kent, Canterbury, Kent, CT2 7NY
HOW MUCH: £6/day on the gate. £5 if prebooked. Children under 12 are FREE. Camping £5/night or £15 Max (3 or 4 nights). Saturday night dance tickets £15. Re-enactors £12 pre-booked
HOW MUCH: Places are free but must be booked in advance via the Gateways website.
WIDENING OF THE WAR: PROBLEMS WITHOUT ANSWERS 2015 WW1 CONFERENCE Following on from their very successful 2014 ‘First World War in retrospect’ conference, Weetwood Hall are proud to be hosting the ‘Widening of the War: problems without answers’ 2015 conference. Dr Peter Liddle as Conference Director and Colonel Alan Roberts have again come together to compile the range of topics and source the expert speakers to present. Like-minded historical and World War One enthusiasts wishing to attend the conference will be treated WEB: www.weetwood.co.uk/ww1conference DATES: Monday 2 August – Friday 7 August 2015 EMAIL:
[email protected]
to hour-long sessions from some of the UK’s top historians to present their findings, knowledge, and views on subject as diverse as: strategy and tactics on the Western Front; the War within the War- Politicians and Generals; Propaganda – target and ammunition; Women’s support for the men at the front; the birth of plastic surgery; the case of Arthur Pollard VC; the UK’s heritage of Great War locations; the Indian Army; Bereavement; the lasting impact of the Great War on Adolf Hitler. WHERE: Weetwood Hall Otley Road Leeds, LS16 5PS, UK
PHONE: 0113 230 6000 HOW MUCH: Daily prices start from £115
W W H AT ’ S O N
MILITARIA CINEY BELGIUM This is Europe’s largest event of its kind: the stock Militaria Ciney will celebrate its 60th event this April. The fair has had two meetings a year for 30 years, and each time thousands of enthusiasts and collectors from all over Europe flock to the inside of the covered market. The events take place in the great hall of CineyExpo and under the marquees which are specially put up for the occasion in the large car park. There is a total of 4.5 miles of tables with over 500 exhibitors. There are uniforms, helmets, medals, badges, flags, and spare parts, plus prints, books, postcards,
photographs, and other old documents. Arms represent only a small part of the goods on display. There is large array of demilitarised weapons on display, ranging from the most recent to the oldest. Ammunition is strictly prohibited. The excellent reputation of the event is in strict compliance with legal obligations in the matter, and is subject to spot checks. The capital of the Belgian Condroz area, Ciney is located on the motorway and railway axes Brussels-Luxembourg. The airports of Charleroi and Brussels Airport are less than an hour away. PHONE: 0032 (0) 83 21 33 94 HOW MUCH: 15€ . Free parking.
WHERE: Ciney Expo SA 3, Rue du Marché Couvert B-5590 Ciney (Belgium)
WEB: www.cineyexpo.be DATES: 26 April 2015 EMAIL:
[email protected]
THE WELLINGTON TRUST
The University of Southampton will be holding its Sixth Wellington Congress from 10 to 12 April 2015. Keynote speakers will be Rory Muir, Roger Knight, Will Hay, and Chris Woolgar. Papers will focus on a range of topics covering both Wellington’s military career and the battle of Waterloo as well as political, social, and literary topics. On the Friday evening there will be a concert of music from the period. Saturday will feature a BBC Battles, Waterloo 200 presentation, a private view of the Wellington and Waterloo exhibition in the Special Collections Gallery, Hartley Library, and a conference dinner. The University’s Hartley Library is the home of the first Duke of Wellington’s archive, and the meeting will include opportunities to see the collection, as well as a programme of social activities. The event is organised in conjunction with the Southampton Centre for NineteenthCentury Research.
The Wellington Trust is continuing with its exhibition to help inform and educate on the role of hospital and troop Ships in WWI. The war was world wide, although many people only seem aware of the horrors of the Western front. Without these Merchant ships, mostly taken up from trade by the Government, we could not have fought the war, let alone returned all those who were wounded back to their homeland, be that in Britain, India , ANZ, or elsewhere. 1/7th of the Allied troops in France came from India, 140,000 labourers were transported from China to dig trenches, carry ammunition, recover bodies from No-Mans-Land etc. In addition to the British troops going to France, Gallipoli, and Mesopotamia, there were millions of horses to be shipped. Nine hospital ships were sunk by mine or torpedo. This spring we especially commemorate the role of the troop and hospital ships in the Gallipoli Campaign, which was the first major joint amphibious landing undertaken by the British, French, and ANZAC Armies. There were no field hospitals and all the wounded had to be evacuated to a hospital ship. Visit our free exhibition to learn more or help with your research.
WEB: www.southampton.ac.uk/archives/ exhibitions/WellingtonCongress2015.html DATES: 10-12 April 2015 EMAIL:
[email protected]
WEB: www.thewellingtontrust.com DATES: Sundays and Mondays 1 March until 1 June. 11am-5pm EMAIL:
[email protected]
SIXTH WELLINGTON CONGRESS
WHERE: University of Southampton PHONE: 02380 592721 HOW MUCH: See website for programme and registration details.
FIREPOWER – THE ROYAL ARTILLERY MUSEUM In their own words … By 1914, man found that he had the weapons, technology and ability to kill, maim and destroy on an industrial scale. For the first time he fought in the sky, on land, on the sea, and below the waves. It was a war that touched everyone – including civilians – and at its end there probably wasn’t a town, village, or family that hadn’t in some way been affected by this war’s cruelty. WEB: www.firepower.org.uk DATES: Tuesday-Saturday 10am-5pm (last admission 4pm) Sunday and Monday Closed
‘In Their Own Words’ brings to life Gunners from different nations, separated 100 years ago by their country’s political ideology, the colour of their uniforms, or skin. Now 100 years on, as we look back upon their history and read their words, we realise that they are all united in the fact that they are all Gunners; this is their museum.
EMAIL:
[email protected] WHERE: No1 Street, Royal Arsenal, Woolwich, SE18 6ST PHONE: 020 8855 7755
WHERE: HQS Wellington, Temple Stairs Victoria Embankment, London, WC2R 2PN PHONE: 020 7836 8179 HOW MUCH: Free admission.
IN THE NEXT ISSUE ON SALE 12 MARCH
THE FIRST WORLD WAR IN AFRICA
ALSO NEXT ISSUE:
With a special focus on the Battle of Tanga and the German ‘Lawrence’ – Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck – we review the struggle for empire in Africa during WWI.
æ The Battle of Sidi Bou Zid, 1943 æ Bleeding Kansas: the guerrilla war in the American West æ Post-traumatic stress on the medieval battlefield
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TITIO PUT YOUR MILITARY HISTORY KNOWLEDGE TO THE TEST WITH THE MHM QUIZ, CROSSWORD, AND CAPTION COMPETITION
MHM QUIZ During WWII, the Axis Powers and the Allied Forces both used a combination of land and air power, but their dependence on air power was a huge development, with evolving technology demanding fresh combat and reconnaissance techniques. The newly released paperback edition of The Lions of Carentan and the widely praised Operation
This month we have a bundle of military history books to be won! Thunderclap and the Black March will enable you to experience and understand the shocking realities of what these air operations meant for those involved, on both sides of the map. Steel Thunder on the Eastern Front from Stackpole Books then pulls you back down to earth to show exactly what counter-measures were used by German and Russian
forces to stop such air assaults. These books provide in-depth information, including photographs and detailed maps and drawings, to truly bring this history to life and show the harsh realities of the new style of war. The three-book bundle is a great set to have, providing a much richer
understanding of what happened during the war. This is a great giveaway of musthave titles appropriate for any WWII or aviation enthusiast.
MHM
CROSSWORD NO 54
ACROSS 4 ___’s Rebellion, or the Nine Years War, fought in Ireland from 1594 to 1603 (6) 5 Vaughan ___, English composer who enlisted in the Royal Army Medical Corps in World War I (8) 9 Royal Navy battlecruiser sunk on 24 May 1941 (4) 10 Andy ___, author of Bravo Two Zero and Immediate Action (5) 11 Vietnam ___, informal term for former soldiers of that particular conflict (4) 12 US state in which the Civil War battles of Tranter’s Creek and Roanoke Island were fought (5,8) 14 Non-commissioned rank peculiar to the artillery (5,10) 17 The 18th-century conflict in which the battles of Emsdorf, Kunersdorf, and Minden took place (5,5,3)
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CAPTION COMPETITION
MHM OFF DUTY
MHM
Answer online at www.militaryhistory.org
To be in with a chance of winning, simply answer the following questions: ? Which city would Operation Thunderclap have targeted? ? In what year did the Black March take place? ? What type of military unit was the 6th Fallschirmjäger Regiment?
We continue our caption competition with an image from this month’s War on Film. Pit your wits against other readers at www.military-history.org/competitions
LAST MONTH’S WINNER ANSWERS
FEBRUARY ISSUE | MHM 53 ACROSS: 7 Mustang, 8 Collins, 10 Prinz Eugen, 11 Utah, 12 Shako, 13 Pioneers, 15 Fiddler, 16 Boothby, 19 Arsenals, 21 Koror, 22 Boer, 24 Troopships, 25 Stirrup, 26 Blarney. DOWN: 1 Cuirassier, 2 Standard-bearers, 3 Antelope, 4 Borneo, 5 Gloucestershire, 6 Anna, 9 Egypt, 14 Robert Peel, 17 Oak Apple, 18 Ascot, 20 Arthur, 23 Otto.
21 ___ Mercer, Continental Army general, killed at the Battle of Princeton in 1777 (4) 22 ___ Shah, Persian ruler whose many campaigns expanded the empire until his assassination in 1747 (5) 23 Native American tribe of the Great Plains (4) 24 Prince of Wales’s ___ Regiment (Royal Canadians), active from 1881 to 1922 (8) 25 City captured by Royalist forces in September 1643 (6)
DOWN 1 Poet who, in 1823, joined the Greeks in their fight for independence from the Ottoman Empire (5) 2 Supersonic fighter built by McDonnell entering service with the USAF in 1957 (6) 3 An item of armour, such as a sallet or armet (6)
www.military-history.org
5 Royal Air Force rank immediately above squadron leader (4,9) 6 African country which suffered civil war during the 1990s (7) 7 ___ companies, units formed of older or unfit troops (7) 8 Two of these occurred at Spithead and Nore in 1797 (8) 13 Warrior of a Middle Eastern military caste (8) 15 Member of a Caucasian people in conflict with Russia at various times since the 16th century (7) 16 Blade weapon with types such as plug, ring, and socket (7) 18 ___ Boy MacDonnell, clan chief and victor at the Battle of Carrickfergus in 1597 (6) 19 James ___, Confederate general taken prisoner at Gettysburg (6) 20 French city which surrendered to Henry V in January 1419 (5)
WINNER: I used to smoke Marlborough but the NCO thought it unpatriotic. Joe Agius
RUNNERS-UP You’re right Hans, recruits nowadays simply have no idea how to strike a heroic pose. Eddie Richards Well yes I would get rid of the pipe but I’ve got my finger stuck in the bowl. K J Venters
Think you can do better? Go head-to-head with other MHM readers for the chance to see your caption printed in the next issue. Enter now at www.military-history.org/competitions MILITARY HISTORY MONTHLY
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GLADIATORS
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MHM INTRODUCES THE MOST FEARSOME WARRIORS OF THE ROMAN ARENA
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CRIXUS
The Gaul Type of fighter: murmillo Trained as a gladiator in Capua, Crixus formed part of a small sla revolt in the gladiatorial training school of Lentulus Batiatus, from which about 70 gladiators escaped. The breakout escalated into what became the Third Servile War, a massive revolt led by Spartacus that convulsed the whole of Roman Italy. The slaves defeated a succession of Roman armies. Crixus was a leading slave general throughout. Under attack from the Romans near Mount Garganus in 72 BC, Crixus was killed. Spartacus thought so highly of Crixus that he sacrificed 300 captured Roman soldiers in his honour.
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According to the poet Martial, ‘Carpophorus could have handled the hydra, TA N RY HISTO RY MO the chimaera, and the fire-eating bulls at the same time’. He was perhaps the most skilled bestiarius of the time, dispatching bears, lions, buffalo, panthers, and, most famously, a leopard in the arena. Martial, clearly a fan, goes on to relay how his favourite gladiator apparently killed 20 beasts in one day, comparing his feats of martial prowess to the divine missions of Hercules.
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Perhaps the most famous gladiator of all, Spartacus TA N RY has been portrayed in works HISTO RY MO of fine art, films, television programmes, literature, and computer games. Although not a huge amount s known about him, most historians agree that he was a captured Thracian soldier, sold into slavery and trained as a gladiator n Capua. He was a strong, successful fighter, who enjoyed many victories in the arena before, in 73 BC, he led 70 of his fellow gladiators (including Crixus) in a revolt against their owner. The gladiators escaped to Mount Vesuvius, where many escaped slaves joined them. As his army swelled, Spartacus campaigned across the whole of Italy. He was eventually cornered and defeated by Crassus. Spartacus was killed on the battlefield, but 6,000 of his followers were captured and crucified.
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Attilius was a free-born Roman, who most likely volunteered himself for gladiatorial combat as a way of freeing himself from debt. As a rookie, he defeated the gladiator veteran and champion of Emperor Nero, Hilarus, a respected fighter who had 13 wreaths to his name. He then went on to beat another old hand and fellow volunteer, Lucius Raecius Felix. Attilius’ exploits were recorded in graffiti discovered outside the Nocerian gate at Pompeii, where he TO Y HIS RY MO AR is depicted as a murmillo, equipped with a gladius, long shield, and short TA N RY HISTO RY MO shin protectors on his legs.
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There are few gladiators who, when offered the rudis (a small wooden sword symbolising freedom), would turn it down in favour of continued combat. Syrian slave and legend of the arena Flamma rejected it on four
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separate occasions. Of his 34 bouts, 21 were victories, four were missus (a loss, but when the gladiator is spared death by the audience), and nine were stans missus (when both fighters were declared the winner). This went down as one of the most impressive records in gladiatorial history. He lived until the age of 30, when he was killed in the arena.
FLAMMA
