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5th Gebirgs Division attacks the Metaxas Line
Map showing the Metaxas Line and 5th Gebirgsjager operations in the Balkans.
Meanwhile XXX Corps was moving on western Thrace and XVIII Mountain Corps preparing to assault the 'Metaxas' Line.
Beginning in April 1939, the Greek government had poured enormous sums of money into the construction of this system of defensive works in the mountains covering the Bulgarian border, which was named the Metaxas Line in honour of the then Prime Minister, loannis Metaxas. The defences consisted of heavily fortified concrete blockhouses, many of them interlinked by tunnels, and manned by first-rate Greek troops. In front of these were smaller outposts and weapons pits.
The German plan called for a frontal attack on this position, to be undertaken by one German infantry division and the reinforced 5th and 6th Gebirgs Divisions. In the days prior to the attack, the troops hauled ammunition and supplies from the Bulgarian town of Petrich up into their forward positions, sequestered on the wooded slopes below the enemy line. Observing the Gebirgsjager at this task their comrades-in-arms began referring to them as the Gamsbock or 'mountain goats', a name that was enthusiastically adopted by the troops themselves. To support the infantry, artillery also had to be manhandled up the slopes.
By 05:00 on the morning of 6 April, the men of the 5th Gebirgs Division were poised for the attack. They had strapped rifles across their chests, and wire cutters, flare guns, entrenching tools and hand grenades hung from their belts. Shortly after 05:00 the gunners began to lay down a heavy preparation. Then flights of Ju87 Stukas approached to pound the ground positions, raising clouds of dust and grit that shrouded the mountaintops. While the bombs were still falling, the troops left the cover of the woods and scrambled up the snowy slopes that the Greeks had cleared of timber to provide their gunners with unrestricted fields of fire. Withering fire fell down on the advancing troops, proof that the large concrete and steel bunkers had largely withstood the barrage. Over the next few hours, in the face of extremely tough resistance from the Greek defenders, the mountain troops began to gouge holes in the line by clearing the trenches that flanked the bunkers. The engineers systematically blasted the casemates open with explosives or incinerated the defenders with flamethrowers aimed through the embrasures. Around midday the Greeks responded by calling in artillery fire on their own positions. Exposed on the slopes, the Gebirgsjager huddled in the abandoned Greek trenches or burrowed into shell craters for protection. Through the afternoon and evening, the Greek troops emerged sporadically from their culverts in an effort to drive the Germans from the positions they had seized. But the men of the 5th Gebirgs Division were not about to give up their hard-won toeholds in the Metaxas Line. Bolstered by reinforcements during the night, they attacked with renewed determination at dawn. Grappling up cliffs made slippery by the freezing rain, they blasted or burned the Greeks from one bunker after another.
Through the day, each carefully located nest of fortifications along the line of advance was gradually reduced through a combination of frontal and enveloping attacks, with tactical support from Luftwaffe aircraft. Using these methods the advanced units of the 5th Gebirgs Division, together with the reinforced 125th Infantry Regiment, finally penetrated the Metaxas Line on the evening of 7 April, pouring through large gaps in the line out onto the plain to the south. The savage contest cost the division 160 lives - nine more than the Wehrmacht had lost in the entire campaign in Yugoslavia.
Meanwhile the 6th Gebirgs Division crossed a 7,000-foot snow-covered mountain range and broke through the line at a point that had been considered inaccessible by the Greeks. The division reached the rail line to Salonika east of Lake Dojran on the evening of 7 April, and entered Kherson two days later.
After repelling several fierce counterattacks, the 5th Gebirgs Division moved on Neon Petritsi, and with this taken gained access to the important Rupul Gorge from the south. The 125th Infantry Regiment, which was attacking the gorge from the north, suffered such heavy casualties that it had to be withdrawn from further action after it had reached its objective.
Some of the fortresses in the line held out for days after the German attack divisions had bypassed them, and could not be reduced until heavy guns were brought up. However, in a deft move around the Metaxas Line, the 2nd Panzer Division motored west to the Yugoslav town of Strumica on 6 April, encountering little resistance on the way. The panzers then turned south towards the Greek border, brushed aside a Greek motorised infantry division near Lake Dojran, and took Salonika without a fight on 9 April. Coupled with the advance of XVIII Mountain Corps across the Metaxas Line, the armoured thrust succeeded in cutting off a large part of the Greek Second Army in Eastern Thrace and led to the collapse of Greek resistance east of the Vardar River. On 9 April the Greek Second Army surrendered unconditionally (the number of prisoners taken has never been established because the Germans released all Greek soldiers after disarming them). On the left wing, XXX Infantry Corps faced weaker opposition than west of the Nestos River, but had to overcome poor road conditions that delayed the movement of artillery and supplies. By the evening of 8 April, its attached 164th Infantry Division had captured Xanthi, while the 50th Infantry Division had advanced far beyond Komotini toward the Nestos, which both divisions reached on the next day.
Now only the newly formed Allied Group W, consisting of the British and Commonwealth forces and two inexperienced Greek divisions, stood in the way of the advance. In light of the capture of Salonika the group commander, Wilson, decided that a defence of Greece's northwest frontier was futile, and instead set up his main defensive line in a short arc extending westward from the Aegean coast near Mount Olympus to the Aliakmon River - a position that conceded northern Greece to the Germans but guarded the main approaches to Athens.
Stumme's XL Panzer Corps was even then poised at the northern end of the Monastir Gap, the strategic corridor from Yugoslavia to central Greece. On 10 April his lead units began to push through the narrows, and early the next morning ran into a 3,000-strong rearguard that Wilson had deployed on the panzer's route of advance in anticipation of the onslaught. Although eventually forced to withdraw, they succeeded in delaying the German advance, giving Wilson valuable time to establish his main line.
The rapid advance of XL Panzer Corps was now seriously jeopardising the position of the Greek First Army in Albania. However, it was not until 13 April that the first Greek elements began to pull back toward the Pindus Mountains. On the same day Stumme ordered the Leibstandarte Division and 73rd Infantry Division to the crossroads at Kastoria to stop the stream of retreating Greek troops, and the following 48 hours witnessed heavy fighting. On 19 April the 1st SS Regiment was ordered to advance southeastward in the direction of Yanina, to cut off the Greeks' route of withdrawal to the south and complete their encirclement. Realising the hopelessness of the situation, the Greek commander offered to surrender his 14 divisions. After brief negotiations, the surrender was accepted with honourable terms for the defeated. In recognition of the valour with which the Greek troops had fought, their officers were permitted to retain their side arms. The soldiers were not treated as prisoners of war and were allowed to go home after the demobilisation of their units.
Count Fedor Matveevich Apraksin (1661–1728)
Collaborator of Peter I and cofounder of the Russian navy. Born in Moscow in 1661 into an old noble family, Fedor Apraksin was related to the Romanov dynasty through his sister Marfa, wife of Tsar Fedor Alekseevich. Apraksin participated in Peter’s play regiments and became a sublieutenant colonel in the Semenovskii Guard Regiment in 1696. In 1693 he was appointed governor-general of Archangel, Russia’s only international seaport at the time. In 1698 Tsar Peter transferred Apraksin to the newly created Admiralty. Based on Apraksin’s efforts to promote shipbuilding, Peter appointed him to the rank of lord of the Admiralty in 1700 and named him governor of Azov. As the governor, Apraksin’s main task was building the Azov fleet. Apraksin was thus responsible for constructing the fleet at Voronezh as well as for overseeing docking and port facilities at Tavrov and Taganrog; he became Russia’s first experienced naval administrator. In February 1707, although he had still not been to sea, Apraksin became an admiral and president of the Admiralty.
After the destruction of the Azov establishments as part of Russia’s defeat by the Ottoman Empire in 1711, Apraksin’s assignments turned north to the Baltic. He was then commander of the entire Russian navy along with Russia’s land forces on the Baltic coast. In 1708 Apraksin’s troops beat back a surprise Swedish attack on Ingermanland, and in the process saved the Russian city of St. Petersburg and the nascent Russian Baltic fleet. Moving to the offensive, his forces in 1710 captured the fortress of Vyborg. From 1712 to 1723 Apraksin served as military governor of Ingermanland, Estland, and Karelia, and he captured Helsingfors in 1713. In 1714 Apraksin’s Baltic flotilla, which was composed mostly of galleys, won Russia’s first naval victory over Sweden at Hango Head (Gangut). Thereafter Apraksin used his galleys to menace the Swedish coast. He captured Abo and Aland Island, and ultimately threatened Stockholm, thereby improving Russia’s negotiating position for the peace of Nystadt in 1721. When the Admiralty was reorganized into a college in 1718, Apraksin became its first president. After the Northern War, Apraksin participated in Peter’s expedition against Persia during 1722–1723, and he became the first admiral to command a Russian fleet on the Caspian Sea. After Peter’s death Apraksin became a member of the Supreme Privy Council and a supporter of A.D. Menshikov’s faction. Although he was convicted several times for misuse of state funds, Apraksin always received a pardon from the tsar. Apraksin died at Moscow on 10 November 1728.
Combined Bomber Offensive Analysis
The most controversial aspect of Anglo-American air power had to do with the Combined Bomber Offensive, the strategic bombing effort against Germany. This author at least would rate its contribution as one of the four essential elements in Allied victory over Nazi Germany, the others being the Eastern Front, the battle of the Atlantic and American productive superiority. Let us then consider some of the particular contributions that the bombing efforts made to winning the war.
It is hard to measure the impact of bombing because, in contradiction to many of the tenets of air power, so much of its effect was indirect. We can, of course, measure increases in German production due to Speer's utilization of the whole of Europe's economic structure. But what would German-controlled industry have produced, had the Reich's cities not been pounded by British bombers? Perhaps the best that we can say is that German utilization of their own economic resources and those of the European nations under their control was severely impeded by the increasingly effective bombing after 1942.
Moreover, the quality of German-produced weapons declined significantly after 1942. The responses that the Nazi government made to the night-bomber offensive suggest the profound indirect impact of the Combined Bomber Offensive. The growth of the Flak (anti-aircraft fire) forces defending the Reich at a time when on any number of fronts German ground forces were confronting increasingly numerous and effective opponents suggests the impact the bombing made on the minds of the Nazi leadership and their worries that the home front might again collapse as in 1918. The number of Flak batteries rose from 791 guarding the Reich in 1940, to 967 in 1941, 1,148 in 1942 and 2,132 in 1943. By the end of 1943 the Germans had nearly 10,000 high-velocity anti-aircraft guns and 500,000 men firing huge numbers of shells into the skies over the Reich and hitting little. The impact of such weapons and manpower on other fronts in 1943 or 1944 hardly needs emphasis.
The second indirect effect of 'area' bombing also occurred in the minds of the Nazi leadership. Worried by the bombing's impact on German morale, Hitler and his advisers hit on a strategy of retaliation, one entirely in accord with the tenants of Douhet and Trenchard. As a result, the Germans poured enormous resources into the so-called revenge weapons, the V-1 and V-2. The former did not require a huge investment, but the latter made no sense at all. The V-2 demanded complex technological support; it was inordinately expensive; it used up scarce resources; and its production overloaded the instrument and electrical-component industries. With such heavy emphasis on 'revenge weapons' the Nazi leaders continued shortchanging the air defense forces. After the war the US Strategic Bombing Survey estimated that the industrial effort and resources devoted to these weapons was roughly equivalent to that of the production of 24,000 fighter aircraft. A more recent analysis has calculated that the V-2 program was roughly equivalent in proportional terms to the cost of the Manhattan project (the atomic bomb) in the United States - all in order to produce a one-way weapon that carried a ton of explosives and needed a target the size of the entire metropolitan area of London.
The American effort is easier to evaluate. In 1943 the campaign's results were disappointing, especially considering its losses. But it did impose heavy losses on the Luftwaffe and these carried over into 1944. In that year the massive campaign by the Eighth Air Force against the Luftwaffe's production base slowed the rate of increase in German aircraft production. But its most important contribution was the fact that it pulled the Luftwaffe's fighter force up into the air, where US long-range fighters could destroy it. The collapse in May 1944 was the direct result. The attacks on the German and Romanian oil industries made the regeneration of the Luftwaffe's fighting strength impossible; it also presented the Germans with insoluble problems in the ground war. In February 1945 Soviet armies conquered the province of Silesia in less than a week; German forces in the area possessed over 1,000 tanks, but all were immobilized by lack of fuel and were consequently useless.
Strategic air power also contributed to the campaign in Normandy and the eventual collapse of Nazi Germany in spring 1945. Tedder's transportation plan worked particularly well due to the capabilities Bomber Command developed in its efforts over the Reich. The tragedy was that having developed capabilities that allowed it to bomb even more accurately than the Eighth and Fifteenth Air Forces, Bomber Command's leadership returned to a policy of city-busting that minimized rather than maximized the possibilities.
In the end, air power did not win the war in Europe by itself. Rather its contribution reflected a broad-based application of capabilities that contributed significantly to victory in the air, on land and at sea. The failures of the Luftwaffe were symbolic of the Third Reich's fate. The German leaders held goals that were manifestly beyond the reach of their nation. The devastating effect of German successes in the first war years should not disguise the dilettantism of those who conducted the Reich's grand strategy Intermixed with an exceedingly high level of competence on the tactical and operational levels was a general inability to see the relationship between ends and means. The Germans waged the struggle with operational and tactical competence to the bitter end, but the tenacity of that defense only ensured that the final defeat would be all the more terrible.
Matilda of Tuscany
Posted by Mitch Williamson in Medieval
Matilda of Tuscany from Cod. Vat. lat. 4922 (1115)
Military leader in support of the papacy. Matilda, countess of Tuscany, is an almost unheard-of figure from the European Middle Ages—a woman whose fame is based primarily on her military role. She was the sole heiress of Count Boniface of Tuscany and his wife Beatrice of Lorraine. When her father was assassinated in 1053, Matilda became one of Europe’s greatest landholders. In 1076 she gained extensive territory on the northern side of the Alps when both her mother and her husband, Godfrey (the Hunchback of Lorraine) died. Matilda’s northern Italian lands were especially important to the power of the German Salian emperors in Italy. Matilda was not only the most important imperial vassal in Italy, but her lands also guarded the route to Rome—control of the papacy was central to the policy of the Salian dynasty. When open war broke out between Emperor Henry IV and Pope Gregory VII in 1077, Matilda was in a position of great strategic importance. The conflict between papacy and empire, known as the Investiture Contest, raged through Germany and Italy for the rest of Matilda’s lifetime and was only partially resolved in 1122. It would not have lasted so long nor ended in the centralization of church power under the papacy had it not been for Matilda.
Matilda was a staunch supporter of Gregory VII and his successors. When relations between pope and emperor first deteriorated early in 1077, she mediated between the two at her castle in Canossa. The resulting peace broke down, after which Matilda provided Gregory with military support. Her most important role was in the defense of Tuscany, preventing Henry IV from reaching Rome and denying him supplies and soldiers from her dominions. Matilda appears to have kept active control of her military instead of delegating the fighting to a male commander; contemporary chroniclers marveled at her “manlike” devotion to the papal cause. She was one of the few medieval women to personally lead an army. Henry IV succeeded in driving Gregory VII from Rome and establishing an “antipope” in his place. In 1087 Matilda marched against the antipope and drove him from Rome. Although she did not personally go on the campaign, in the same year the countess also played a major role in planning the Italian assault on Mahdia, a notable center for piracy in northern Africa.
Matilda remained loyal to the papacy until her death, even after her second husband, Welf of Bavaria, joined the Imperial party in 1096. Finally, the childless Matilda willed her personal lands to the Roman church, a bequest that helped the papacy continue its struggle to centralize religious authority in Christendom.
Women and the Spanish Civil War
Posted by Mitch Williamson in Battle, Fascist, Nationalist, Republican
From 1936 to 1939 Spanish women participated in a civil war that convulsed their nation. Women fought on both sides of the struggle; however, a surprisingly large number of Spanish women supported the Nationalist forces (Smith 1989, 474). The Nationalists, led by General Francisco Franco, represented conservative sectors like the Falange, a mass-based fascist organization, and were backed by much of the military, the Catholic Church, and large landowners. The Republicans, opponents of the Nationalists, were the governing coalition. They ruled Spain from their 1931 election, at which time they established the Second Republic, until their 1939 defeat. They received support from peasants, workers, and sectors of the middle class; the coalition included communists, socialists, anarchists, and liberals.
In the 1920s and 1930s most of Spain was mired in poverty. Unlike much of the rest of Europe, it had failed to industrialize, except in the north, or carry out agricultural reforms. As a result, the population was malnourished and lacked good housing or health care (Smith 1989, 472). Women worked in agriculture, sweatshops, and factories. Rates of infant mortality were high, as were the number of children born out of wedlock (Koonz 1998, 471). The Republican forces came to power pledging to modernize Spain and improve the population’s standard of living.
When the Republicans took control of the government, Napoleonic legal codes and conservative Catholic practices governed how most Spaniards lived. Families could “force their daughters into marriage” (Smith 1989, 473). Divorce was illegal, and husbands could imprison their wives for “disobedience and verbal insults.” Women’s literacy rate (50 percent) was much lower than that of men (70 percent) (Koonz 1998, 471). As part of its modernization project, the Republican government passed a series of laws that granted women equal status as full citizens. Women obtained suffrage rights and maternity benefits, the option of no-fault divorce, and civil marriage (Koonz 1998, 472).
Republican women fought to maintain the social gains they had won and to preserve the overall political and economic program of the government. In order to counter the threat that the growing power of fascism posed, antifascist Spanish women joined the Worldwide Committee of Women against War and Fascism (Smith 1989, 473). Initially, Republican women joined militia units and took up arms against the Franco forces. Lina Odena was the first Republican to die in battle when she committed suicide rather than surrender to the Nationalists as they overran her position (Smith 1989, 454). Dolores Ibárruri, known as La Pasionaria, called on women and men to fight against the fascists. When the Nationalist forces attacked Madrid, one of the last Republican strongholds, she urged women and men to take up arms against them.
Neither the social changes instituted by the Republicans nor their attempts to break up the large estates and set up peasant cooperatives, increase wages, or undermine the power of the Catholic Church pleased conservative forces within Spain. In 1936 the military under General Franco rebelled and initiated the civil war that, three years later, would defeat the Republican forces.
The majority of Spanish women rejected the Republicans and sided with the Franco forces. Unlike the Republican women, they embraced conservative ideas about gender and heeded the call of the Catholic Church to rally to its defense in opposition to the Republic. In the 1930s José Antonio Primo de Rivera started the Falange, using Benito Mussolini’s fascism as a model. In 1934 Pilar Primo de Rivera, José Antonio’s sister, organized the Sección Femenina (Women’s Section) of the Falange, under the leadership of her brother. It was started to “give aid to Falangist prisoners and assistance to the families of fallen members” of the movement (Enders 2002, 86). The organization grew rapidly and exponentially: from an initial group of 300 women in 1934 it grew to 400,000 in 1938, according to its own estimates. The vast majority of these women worked in Auxilio Social (Social Assistance), the Falange organization that “provided food, clothing, and shelter to widows, orphans and the destitute, and taught them to ‘love God and understand the Falange’” (Enders 2002, 87). They supported separate spheres for men and women and believed that the most important quality a woman could possess was abnegación (self-sacrifice).
Although these women engaged in very public activities, such as nursing, running soup kitchens, and in some cases taking up arms, they never did so in order to challenge male power or gender relations, as was the case with some of the Republican women. Instead, their goal was to “strengthen the family within a ‘New Spain’” (Keene 2002, 184). They fought to restore conservative ideas about gender; to establish the woman’s role in life as a wife and mother within the home, not in the streets; and to uphold the spiritual teachings of the church over all aspects of their lives.
In 1939 Nationalist forces defeated the Republic, and General Franco ruled Spain dictatorially until his death in 1975. Some of the Republican women, especially the most visible leaders like Dolores Ibárruri, went into exile. The lives of most women who stayed in Spain came under the strict control of the Franco government and the Catholic Church. The fascist government rescinded women’s right to vote, made divorce illegal, and instituted the Charter of Labor that said “women’s only proper sphere is in the nursery” (Koonz 1998, 473). Pilar Primo de Rivera continued to head the Sección Femenina of the Falange, which became the official women’s organization until Franco’s death. If women wanted to work for the state, “obtain a driver’s license, a passport, or the like, [they were] obligated to serve six months with the Sección Femenina” (Enders 2002, 87).
References and Further Reading
Enders, Victoria. 2002. “And We Ate Up the World”: Memories of the Sección Femenina. In Right-Wing Women: From Conservatives to Extremists around the World. Edited by Paola Bacchetta and Margaret Power. New York: Routledge.
Keene, Judith. 2001. Fighting for Franco. International Volunteers in Nationalist Spain during the Spanish Civil War, 1936–1939. London and New York: Leicester University.
———. 2002. Foreign Women in Spain for General Franco. In Right-Wing Women: From Conservatives to Extremists around the World. Edited by Paola Bacchetta and Margaret Power. New York: Routledge.
Koonz, Claudia. 1998. The “Woman Question” in Authoritarian Regimes. Pages 463–492 in Becoming Visible: Women in European History. Edited by Renate Bridenthal, Susan Mosher Stuard, and Merry E. Wiesner. Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin.
Smith, Bonnie G. 1989. Changing Lives: Women in European History since 1700. Lexington, MA: D. C. Heath.
Bombing of Nagasaki, (9 August 1945)
Second U.S. atomic bombing of a Japanese city. Following the Japanese refusal to surrender following the Hiroshima bombing on 6 August 1945, Twentieth Air Force headquarters on Guam issued Field Order 17 on 8 August, directing that, on the following day, the second atomic bomb on Tinian Island be dropped on another Japanese city. Kokura was designated as the primary target, and Nagasaki, a city of some 230,000 persons, was the alternate.
At 3:49 A.M. on 9 August, Boeing B-29 Superfortress bomber Bockscar (sometimes written as Bock’s Car), commanded by Major Charles Sweeney, departed Tinian. It was followed by a second B-29 as scientific observer and a third as photographic observer. The Bockscar carried a plutonium nuclear-fission bomb nicknamed “Fat Man” that was 10 ft 8 inches long and 5 ft in diameter, with a payload greater than that of the Hiroshima bomb. The plutonium 238 isotope core consisted of two melon-shaped hemispheres surrounded by a ring of explosive charges designed to drive the sections together, achieving “critical mass” and a chain reaction releasing 22 kilotons of energy in one-millionth of a second.
Sweeney flew to Kokura but found it overcast and circled for 10 minutes. Despite the clouds, bombardier Kermit Beahan believed they could bomb visually. Sweeney, concerned about a faulty valve that limited fuel, decided to divert to Nagasaki, which was also partly obscured by clouds. Beahan believed he could bomb by radar, but a break in the clouds allowed him to bomb visually, using the Mitsubishi shipyards as his aiming point.
The Bockscar released the bomb from 31,000 ft at 11:02 A.M. local time. The bomb detonated 53 sec later, approximately 1,500 ft over the city, destroying everything within a 1,000 yd radius. An intense blue-white explosion pushed up a pillar of fire 10,000 ft, followed by a mushroom cloud to 60,000 ft.
Although the bomb missed its intended aiming point by 8,500 ft, it leveled one-third of the city. Called the “Red Circle of Death,” the fire and blast area within the Urakami Valley section destroyed more than 18,000 homes and killed 74,000 people. Another 75,000 were injured, and many later died from wounds or complications. Blast forces traveling in excess of 9,000 mph damaged buildings 3 mi away, and the concussion was felt 40 mi from the epicenter. “Ashes of Death” from the mushroom cloud spread radiation poisoning, killing all who were not killed outright within 1,000 yd of the epicenter. The bomb might have killed thousands more, but it detonated away from the city center in a heavy industrial area, vaporizing three of Nagasaki’s largest war factories but “minimizing” deaths.
Sweeney made one complete circle of the city to determine damage and then left after fuel concerns and heavy smoke made other circuits futile. Critically low on fuel, he flew to Okinawa, landing at Yontan Field about 12:30 P.M., his gas tanks virtually empty. After refueling, Bockscar flew to Tinian, arriving there at 10:30 P.M. local time after a 20-hour flight.
Included in the instrument bundle dropped from the observation plane was a letter addressed to Japanese physicist Professor F. Sagane that urged immediate surrender and threatened continued atomic destruction of Japanese cities. Written by three American physicists, the letter was a bluff, as no other atomic bombs were then ready. Nonetheless, the second atomic attack, coupled with the 8 August declaration of war by the Soviet Union, provided Japanese Emperor Hirohito with the excuse to end the war.
References
Chinnock, Frank W. Nagasaki: The Forgotten Bomb. New York: World Publishing, 1969.
Ishikawa, Eisei. Hiroshima and Nagasaki: The Physical, Medical, and Social Effects of the Atomic Bombings. Trans. David L. Swain. New York: Basic Books, 1981.
Nobile, Philip. Judgment at the Smithsonian: The Bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. New York: Marlowe, 1995.
Toland, John. The Rising Sun: The Decline and Fall of the Japanese Empire, 1936–1945. New York: Random House, 1970.
The Battle of Magnesia
After the defeat of Carthage, Rome turned against Philip V of Macedon, and sent a force of two legions (and an equivalent number of Allies), across the Adriatic. At first, indifferent and changing leadership effected nothing, though the army contained many veterans of the Hannibalic war and Zama. In 198 a force often elephants was sent by Masinissa, his gift to the war effort. The arrival of the consul for 198, T. Quinctius Flamininus, injected a new sense of purpose. Roman and Macedonian forces came into contact unexpectedly in the range of hills called Cynoscephalae (‘Dog’s Heads’, from their distinctive profile), where the Romans found Philip’s men guarding the pass between the town of Pharsalus and the plains of northern Thessaly. Skirmishing brought up more sizeable forces to contend for the east-west ridge that controlled the pass itself. The Roman legions were able to deploy fairly quickly, before Philip’s phalanx, at a considerable disadvantage on the uneven ground, arrived in full strength. The Macedonian phalanx was about 16,000 strong.
When the battle began, Philip had only about half the phalanx on the ridge, along with some peltasts and other light forces. Flamininus immediately attacked with his own left wing; the phalanx responded, and drove the legionaries down the slope. Flamininus now used his right wing to attack the Macedonian left, which was still in the process of deploying, and with the aid of the elephants destroyed its structure. The battle now seemed to consist of two quite separate encounters. Clearly, whichever of the two commanders could react more quickly to the situation would win. An unnamed tribune, of one of the two legions on the Roman right, detached twenty maniples of legionaries (probably the triarii and principes of his own legion—or the triarii of his own and the accompanying ‘legion’ of Allies). Apparently on his own initiative, he led them back up the slope, over the crest and charged into the rear of the Macedonian right wing, which was still advancing slowly down the other flank. The ranks of Macedonian spearmen, with their long pikes (sarissae) pointing forward, were unable to turn, and were cut down where they stood. As Polybius observed, the superiority of the flexible manipular structure over the regimented phalanx is nowhere more apparent than in the Cynoscephalae battle, which ended the war and the supremacy of Macedon in the eastern Mediterranean.
The eclipse of Macedon encouraged the Seleucid king Antiochus to invade Europe: he landed in Greece, and in 191 took up a position at the Pass of Thermopylae against a Roman army advancing southwards. The Romans outflanked the position, just as the Persians had done in the more famous battle against Leonidas’ Spartans in 480, and Antiochus evacuated his forces from Greece. In the following year the war was carried into Asia Minor, under Scipio’s brother (but with Africanus himself serving as a legate). Antiochus had assembled a great army, comprising a phalanx of the Macedonian type, together with mounted archers, elephants, a camel corps and scythe-wheeled chariots. The Roman forces, four legions (including Allies) and substantial contingents from friendly states in Greece and Asia Minor, made contact with Antiochus’ army at Magnesia (Manissa). His polyglot assemblage fell into confusion with hardly a blow struck, the legionaries added to the turmoil with volleys of pila, and Roman losses were minimal. In a final clash with Macedon from 171 onwards, Roman mismanagement again almost led to disaster, but the appointment of L. Aemilius Paullus restored confidence and discipline: in a hard-fought battle at Pydna on the flanks of Mount Olympus the phalanx was initially successful but again fell into disarray; skilful use of the maniples by Paullus hastened its total destruction. Rome at this time was uninterested in establishing a permanent military presence east of the Adriatic, and the army withdrew.
The Battle of Magnesia
The Romans had successfully defended Greece against Antiochus but now made a monumental decision. In 190, for the first time in history, a Roman army landed on the continent of Asia. The Roman commander was L. Cornelius Scipio (cos. 190), the brother of the victor of Zama. The Romans moved down the coast from the Hellespont, then stopped at Elaea to pick up Eumenes II and the contingents from Pergamum. The army then turned east, marching inland to meet Antiochus at Magnesia. Antiochus had chosen this spot because it was flat and therefore conducive to the use of chariots, cavalry, and elephants.
Antiochus’s army was similar to the Hellenistic armies at Paraitakene, Gabiene, and Ipsus: a core of Macedonians and Greeks supported by various units from around the empire. In the center, Antiochus placed his best Macedonian infantry phalanx, 16,000 men altogether, along with the elite argyraspides, the 10,000 men of the “Silver Shields.” In front were the king’s 54 elephants, led by Philippus, his elephant master. In between the two main units were a unit of 1,500 Galatians, 3,000 heavy cavalry, and the elite agema, 1,000 men of the king’s cavalry. On the right wing was another cavalry unit made up of 1,200 Dahae. On the left wing were four more cavalry units, including more heavy cavalry, and Tarentine and Galatian cavalry. In addition, on the left, were scythed chariots. Antiochus was in the position of honor on the right, and his son Seleucus and his nephew Antipater commanded the left.
The Roman army was drawn up in standard fashion: two Roman infantry legions in the center, each flanked by an ala of allied troops divided into the three lines of, from front to back, hastati, principes, and triarii and commanded by Cn. Domitius Ahenobarbus (cos. 192). Most of the Roman and auxiliary cavalry was placed on the right under the command of King Eumenes. The units of peltasts, including Achaeans, Trallians, and Cretans, were also on the right. Only four turmae were placed on the left. The Romans stationed their 16 elephants in support behind their lines not only because they were outnumbered but also because the Rome’s African elephants could not stand up to the larger, stronger Indian elephants of Antiochus.
Antiochus and his heavy Iranian cavalry on the right charged against the Roman left, breaking through the infantry and cavalry stationed there. Unfortunately, Antiochus did not transform this breakthrough into a decisive moment of battle. Instead, he was carried away by his success and, rather than turn back to hit the Roman flanks or rear, he and his cavalry continued forward all the way to the Roman camp. His mistake was very similar to Demetrios’s failure to turn back at the Battle of Ipsos in 301, but even had Antiochus not known about this earlier battle, he should have learned from a similar example from early in his own career. In 217, Antiochus fought the Battle of Raphia against Ptolemaic Egypt. In this battle, Antiochus had led his cavalry to a similar breakthrough but then failed to return to help his army while continuing his pursuit of the defeated enemy left. Though he had been victorious, the rest of his army was defeated, and he lost the battle. History repeated itself at Magnesia; with Antiochus and his cavalry dragged away from the field, the Romans were able to take control of the battle. Eumenes used his slingers, javelin throwers, and Cretan archers to thwart the scythed chariots on which Antiochus had placed so much hope. Again the ineffectiveness of chariots was clearly demonstrated, as it had been 1,000 years before at the end of the Bronze Age. Eumenes then led a charge of the Roman right and broke Antiochus’s left; his cavalry was either forced off the field or pushed back onto his infantry, sowing confusion. Meanwhile, Ahenobarbus’s infantry moved steadily forward, first unleashing their pila and then going over to the attack. Antiochus’s phalanx was already under pressure when Eumenes’ cavalry charged in from the left. The phalanx, with the aid of the elephants stationed in the gaps between the individual infantry units, resisted until finally the elephants panicked and stampeded, wreaking havoc with the infantry line. Antiochus’s army collapsed. The Romans had won.
Aftermath
Antiochus was now forced to surrender, and the Romans imposed strict peace terms. The Seleucid Empire lost all of its territory in Anatolia north and west of the Taurus Mountains. Roman allies, especially Pergamum, received Seleucid land. Antiochus was forced to pay an indemnity of 15,000 talents, the largest indemnity in ancient history, larger than the 10,000 talents paid by Carthage and 15 times that of Macedonia. One last article of the peace stipulated that Antiochus hand over Hannibal. However, he escaped and, as evidence of the incredible fear that he still inspired in Rome, the Romans spent the next six years chasing him around. In 183, just as they were about to capture him, the 63-year-old Carthaginian committed suicide. The defeat at Magnesia represented the beginning of the end of Seleucid power; from this point on, they would not be able to challenge Rome. The Roman victor at Magnesia, L. Cornelius Scipio, received a nickname to glorify his great victory; as his brother was known as Africanus, he would now be known as Asiaticus.
Loyalist Forces in the American War of Independence
Posted by Mitch Williamson in France on Saturday, October 3, 2009
In most cases, the Loyalist corps in North America could provide excellent information on terrain and enemy strength when operating in familiar parts of the country. British senior officers were thus just as well informed in such matters as their American opponents. In tactical terms, many Loyalist corps were meant to be light troops that would manoeuvre swiftly and in loose formation, strike quickly and keep moving. The most famous Loyalist corps - such as the Queen's Rangers, the British Legion and Butler's Rangers - were made up of units of both light infantry and light cavalry. In the case of the Queen's Rangers and the British Legion, they provided a sizeable and very effective light cavalry and light infantry to a main British army operating in settled American heartlands such as New Jersey, South Carolina or Virginia. Butler's Rangers represented a very different application of light infantry tactics; this corps specialized in raids on wilderness frontier communities in partnership with Indian allies. In this case, the Loyalist frontiersmen replicated almost exactly the practices that had made the settlers of New France and their Indian allies so feared and effective until the surrender of Canada to the British forces in 1760.
However, not all Loyalist light corps achieved such fame and success, and many spent much of their time in garrisons. Most Loyalist units in the American seaboard provinces were meant to act as line infantry; some, such as the Loyal American Regiment or De Lancey's Brigade, were often deployed on campaign or participated in sieges, and gave distinguished service; but others attracted too few recruits for campaign service, and usually served in large garrisons such as the city of New York. At the end of 1778, some 6,300 Loyalist soldiers were spread among 31 units, thus giving an average of 204 men per unit on the Atlantic seaboard. A few corps -. such as the Queen's Rangers, the Volunteers of Ireland or the Royal Highland Emigrants - had between 300 and 400 men each, and were considered very effective. The strength of most of the other units hovered between 100 and 200 men, sometimes fewer, and these were thus unable to make any serious contribution (CO 5/96 and 97). In Canada the smaller Loyalist corps were merged into one unit, Jessup's Loyal Rangers, in late 1781; but no such measures were taken on the Atlantic seaboard, so that most Loyalist corps in that region remained understrength and thus less effective than if they had been amalgamated.
American Loyalist Exodus
The end of the American Revolutionary War, and Great Britain's recognition of the United States as a nation, was a cruel blow to the tens of thousands of Loyalists, most of whom were still resident in the new country. Given the bitterness that had marked what had been for them a civil war, the "Loyal Americans" could not remain in the new republic. By early 1783 most had lost their property to "patriotic" Americans; many were persecuted and banished from their towns and villages, some had been murdered, and all felt threatened. Although temporarily safe in New York, where most had sought refuge, all knew that exile from their native land was unavoidable.
Placed in a very difficult situation, the British government did all it could to prevent a human tragedy of monumental proportions. Even before the peace treaty was signed the authorities were looking for ways to resettle the Loyalists elsewhere in lands that still flew the Union flag, and the obvious choice was the vast expanse of present-day Canada. Between April and November 1783 five great fleets laden with Loyalist men, women and children successively sailed north. It is estimated that some 20,000 landed and settled in Nova Scotia; another 15,000 arrived on the shores of what would become in 1784 the province of New Brunswick, and a few hundred went to Prince Edward Island. The transfer was largely carried out as a military operation except that, in this instance, officers and men were accompanied by their families and friends, with all the goods that they could bring. The Loyalist provincial regiments from New York were transferred as units to the new land that they would settle; only when on the spot and when the land had been distributed would they formally disband. Thus, the official date for disbandment of many of these units was in October 1783, when all had arrived and were working to erect shelters for the coming winter. It was sensibly believed that men who had been brothers-in-arms should remain together as neighbours in the difficult transition that they now faced. In central Canada, about 2,000 settled in the province of Quebec, many of them southeast of Montreal in the "Eastern Townships." Nearly 6,000 came up by land through the Niagara peninsula or from Montreal to settle in what became Ontario now Canada's largest province. There too the settlement was largely along military lines. The refugees were not all white Anglo-Saxons, however. Loyalist African American groups settled in Nova Scotia as free people, while others continued to serve as soldiers in the eastern Caribbean. The Iroquois Indians of New York State had largely remained loyal, and consequently had to leave their ancient domain; Joseph Brant led an estimated 2,000 of them to settle on the shores of the Grand River, Ontario.
Queen's Rangers
Authorized on August 6, 1776, successively commanded by Robert Rogers, Christopher French (May 1777), James Wemyss (August 1777), and finally John Graves Simcoe (October 1777) - who proved its most talented leader until its disbandment. Lost 20 killed, 28 missing and 8 wounded in its first actions at Bronx River, October 1776 (CO 5/93); original officers mostly cashiered by Gen Howe, March 1777, due to the "infamous conduct of some ... of the officers in plundering and robbing many people" as well as attempting to steal the soldiers' bounty money. The men were totally reorganized under new officers, taking in some officers and men of the Loyal Virginia Regt and Stark's Corps (CO 5/98). Took part in Philadelphia campaign; in action at Brandywine and Germantown in 1777, and Monmouth in 1778. On the American establishment from December 2, 1779, as 1st American Regt. Sent to Virginia in 1781; took part in Yorktown campaign and defense; most taken prisoner during 1782, the majority interned at Lancaster, PA. Detachments in New York merged into King's American Dragoons that year. On British establishment from December 25, 1782; disbanded October 1783.
The Prussian Adventurer
When Frederick became king his attitude to his family and the old ministers of state became colder, more withdrawn and more uncivil. He snubbed his mother and sisters and publicly humiliated von der Schulenburg and the Old Dessauer. He began to live behind an impenetrable mask. He was untroubled and uninhibited by conscience, by a standard of common decency) or by any fellow feeling for his brother Germans, inside or outside of Prussia. He was the complete autocrat, friendless, perfidious, irreligious and cynical, the end always justifying the means, ungrateful, avaricious, mistrustful and untrustworthy, the monarch with the perpetual sneer.
Many stories are told about him. And as he was successful and became 'the Great', they were recounted after his death almost with admiration and affection. He visited the monks of Cleve to find out what they were doing with the revenues of the royal forests made over to them throughout the centuries to pray for the souls of past dukes. Carlyle tells how Frederick asked the purpose of these costly masses. The answer came 'To deliver the souls out of purgatory.' 'Purgatory? It is a costly thing for the forests all this while! And are they not out of purgatory yet, these poor souls, after so many hundred years of praying?' The monks thought not. 'And when will they be out?' The monks could not say. 'Then send me a messenger when it is complete.' And that ended what was to have been a long ceremonial visit, and the king rode off leaving the monks still singing the Te Deum with which they had greeted his arrival. When inspecting a prison at Spandau Frederick found only one prisoner who admitted his guilt and the fairness of his sentence, the others maintaining that they were innocent. ‘Release the scoundrel immediately', cried the king, 'lest he contaminate all these guiltless people.' On the prompting of the Protestant community at Glogau, he promised the Austrians that he would not use the Protestant church outside the walls as a blockhouse, if they, for their part, would spare it from demolition. But when he had taken Glogau and viewed the church he is said to have cried out, 'What a fearful monstrosity. Of course it must come down' On seeing a great placard erected by indignant burghers lampooning and criticizing the king for the taxes he had imposed, he merely gave orders that it should be hung lower in order that the people might see it better. During his life-time, however, he was regarded with little affection and the news of his death was received by the Berliners (whom he always disliked) with a sigh of relief.
In the summer of 1740, even before the death of the Emperor Charles VI, the young Frederick was already playing the bully in the Rhineland. He wanted Berg and would have been happy to have Russian or French troops lay waste the Rhineland to help him get it. Like his father, he was tolerant in matters of religion, being content 'that all his subjects should go to heaven in their own way'. But because it politically so suited him, he regarded himself as the champion of all German Protestants. And whereas Frederick William was prepared, if need be, to oppress Prussian Roman Catholics in retaliation for persecution of Protestants by German Roman Catholic rulers elsewhere, his son Frederick II more than hinted that he was ready to go to war on their behalf. In a territorial dispute between the Catholic Archbishop Elector of Mainz and the Protestant Landgrave of Hesse-Cassel, the Archbishop formed a military coalition with the Emperor's support. The Landgrave appealed to Frederick, who wrote to his brother Elector of Mainz saying 'In case of need, we' (that is to say Frederick) 'should not know how to refrain from affording the Landgrave ... protection and help.' The threat was sufficient to win the day for the Landgrave. The Bishop of Liege left unanswered a Prussian ultimatum and had to buy off the occupying Prussian troops at a price of 200,000 thalers. And the young king, revelling in his own success and jeering at the restraining advice of his own Prussian ministers, said that 'when they talked of war they resembled an Iroquois discussing astronomy'.
When, at the end of October, he learned or the Emperor's death, Frederick had already decided on the seizure of Austrian Silesia. He wanted its rich territory as his price for adherence to the Pragmatic Sanction. The province was contiguous to Brandenburg and brought him further political and strategic advantages in that it cut off the Elector of Saxony, who was also King of Poland, from his territories in the east. Silesia outflanked Western Poland, also coveted by Frederick. Prussia had of course no moral or legal right to the territory. And when his minister Podewils urged that some pretext or claim be furbished up, the king replied, 'That is what you are for. The orders have already been given out to the troops.' On 9 November Frederick received news of the death of the Empress or Russia and, having nothing more to fear on his eastern flank, this confirmed him in his intention to occupy Silesia, come what may.
The Prussian preparations had been made in the greatest of secrecy, all activity being cloaked in the guise of a march to be made to the west to secure the provinces of Jüllich-Berg on the Rhine, those provinces already promised to Frederick William. By the end of November, however, the British Ambassador was already convinced that Silesia was the goal, and Vienna, suddenly awakening to the danger, sent the Marquis di Botta on a special mission to Berlin to inquire the Prussian intentions. Di Botta en route had passed great columns of Prussians already moving south and it was no longer possible for Frederick to dissemble. He openly laid claim to Silesia, in return for which he promised support for Maria Theresa and her husband's claim to the imperial throne. Both men threatened, the Austrian envoy leaving with the reminder that 'though the Prussian troops make a handsomer show than the Austrian, ours have smelt powder'. In early December Prussian troops crossed into Silesia.
Frederick rightly judged Austro-Hungary, in spite of its size and large population, to be disunited and militarily weak, and he was correct in believing that the political climate in Europe was auspicious for an unprovoked attack. He was wrong, however, in his assessment of the energy, strength and wisdom of the new Austrian ruler, by far the most distinguished monarch the Habsburgs ever produced, and in the fervent support she was to receive as Queen of Hungary from the Hungarian people.
The War of the Austrian Succession, insofar as it concerns operations in Central Europe, embraces what is usually referred to as the First and Second Silesian Wars.
