THE QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF MILITARY HISTORY
The brazen British mission that could have changed the course of the Revolutionary War
The Battle for Baikal Germany’s ‘Trojan Horse’ U-Boat
SUMMER 2017
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TURBINE PILOT Manufacture caliber. Turbine Technology. 48 mm stainless steel case. Screw-down crown at 3 o’clock. Bidirectional inner dial ring, circular aviation slide rule. Black 12-blades revolving Turbine. Black calfskin strap. Ref. A1085/1A
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Soldiers with the U.S. 2nd Naval Beach Battalion inspect radio-operated German “beetle tanks” captured by Allied forces on Utah Beach during the D-Day invasion of Normandy.
Volume 29, Number 4 Summer 2017
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FEATURES 30 The Plot to Kidnap Washington by Christian McBurney In 1780 Lieutenant Colonel John Graves Simcoe and another British military officer in the American colonies planned a daring mission that could have changed the course of history.
40 A U-Boat’s U-Turn
50 Shadows of War
by Warren Bernard In 1916 a German “merchant” submarine floated up the Chesapeake Bay and into Baltimore Harbor. The blockade-breaking U-boat —the largest ever built— would go on to sink 43 Allied ships in World War I.
PORTFOLIO Leslie Starobin’s still-life montages venerate the keepsakes of veterans.
58 Germany’s Lion of the Defensive by David T. Zabecki As the Allies battled Germany in World War I, Colonel Fritz von Lossberg was one of their most fearsome adversaries.
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40 50 58 76
68 D-Day Through DEPARTMENTS 4 Flashback a German Lens by Robert M. Citino In 1944, as the Allies prepared for the Normandy invasion, what was the enemy thinking?
10 Comments 13 At the Front 14 Laws of War
A reporter’s court-martial
76 The Battle for Baikal by Kevin J. McNamara In 1918 the Czecho-Slovak Legion fought the Red Army in Siberia for control of the world’s deepest lake.
17 War List Rejected!
20 Experience William F. “Buffalo Bill” Cody
22 Battle Schemes 24 Behind the Lines Shirl Herr’s underground idea
27 Weapons Check
On the Cover
The Ranken dart
Gilbert Stuart might never have painted this iconic portrait of George Washington in 1796 had a British mission to kidnap Washington during the Revolutionary War succeeded. The plot: “to march by secret ways” to the American commander in chief ’s headquarters near Morristown, New Jersey, “to tie up his horses in a swamp,...storm the quarters, and attack his guard on foot.”
28 Letter From MHQ 85 Culture of War 86 Artist Goya’s Disasters of War
89 Poetry “The Long War,” by Li Bai
90 Classic Dispatches Eleanor Franklin Egan
92 Reviews Pershing’s Crusaders and more
COVER: GILBERT STUART VIA CLARK ART INSTITUTE OPPOSITE: CORBIS HISTORICAL VIA GETTY IMAGES; THIS PAGE, CLOCKWISE FROM TOP: JEAN LAURENT MOSNIER/BRIDGEMAN IMAGES; BAIN NEWS SERVICE/LIBRARY OF CONGRESS; GOTHICSTAMPS.COM; BRITISH NATIONAL ARMY MUSEUM; LESLIE STAROBIN
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FLASHBACK
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BEERSHEBA, PALESTINE, 1917 Defending against the British drive to seize Palestine during the First World War, Turkish forces under the command of German general Erich von Falkenhayn patrol the heavily fortified front from Beersheba to Gaza. TODAY: Competing territorial claims in the region traditionally known as Palestine not only fuel the seemingly intractable Israeli-Palestinian conflict but also keep the Middle East a hotbed of political instability.
JOHN D. WHITING/LIBRARY OF CONGRESS
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FLASHBACK CIUDAD JUÁREZ, CHIHUAHA, MEXICO, 1916 Walter H. Horne of El Paso, Texas, photographs the execution of a Mexican convicted of stealing military supplies and memorializes the gruesome image on postcards that his company prints by the thousands. TODAY: Locals fear they’re seeing a resurgence of the violence that made Ciudad Juárez known as “the most dangerous place on Earth” as drug cartels battle it out for control of a gateway to the lucrative U.S. market.
WALTER H. HORNE/SMU CENTRAL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY
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FLASHBACK
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PAINTING THE BATTLE OF ATLANTA, MILWAUKEE, 1886 More than a dozen German panorama artists pose for a group portrait in a Milwaukee studio with their mammoth painting, The Battle of Atlanta, as a backdrop. It would remain the largest oil painting in the world until 1894. TODAY: The Atlanta Cyclorama, as the painting of the 1864 Civil War battle has come to be known, is moved to the Atlanta History Center with the help of an army of experts, two cranes, and two flatbed trucks. It will reopen in 2018.
WISCONSIN HISTORICAL SOCIETY
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COMMENTS
BELOW AND ABOVE often very challenging. Everything at Attu is now abandoned—kind of sad— but it was pretty tough duty for those who spent a lifetime there in one year! Greg Westrup, Lieutenant Commander, U.S. Coast Guard (retired) Greensburg, Indiana
This World War II aerial photograph is of a U.S.—not a Japanese—airfield on Attu in Alaska’s Aleutian Islands.
Chain Letter
Having spent three years flying the Aleutian chain during my time in the U.S. Coast Guard, I enjoyed the Dashiell Hammett article in the Spring 2017 issue of MHQ (“Showdown in the Aleutians”). I’d like to suggest one slight correction: The aerial
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photograph on page 59, identified as a reconnaissance photo of the Japanese airfield under construction on Attu Island, is actually a photo of one of two airfields adjacent to Massacre Bay built by the Seabees (workers in the Naval Construction Battalions) and the Army Corps of Engineers. It is now called Casco Cove
CGS (Coast Guard Station) Airfield, though the Coast Guard left in 2010 when the LORAN-C station at Massacre Bay was decommissioned. The other, at Alexai Point, was primarily an army airfield. The Japanese airfield was near Holtz Bay, some distance away. I landed at Casco Cove many times, and it was
I read with interest Marc G. DeSantis’s article “The Court-Martial of Colonel Billy Mitchell, 1925,” in the Autumn 2016 issue of MHQ. Ironically, and illustrating the law of unintended consequences, Billy Mitchell’s histrionics actually aided rather than hindered the development of aviation in the U.S. Navy. There were other proponents of aviation within the fleet, many swayed by the achievements of the Royal Navy’s shipborne aircraft in the Great War. But Mitchell’s public pronouncement in early 1920 that “air attack will render surface craft incapable of operating to the same extent that they have heretofore, if it does not entirely drive them off the surface of the water” scared the U.S. Navy leadership. Naval aviators and senior nonaviator flag leaders grew increasingly concerned that if the navy did not aggressively develop its own aviation capability, Mitchell’s concept of an “air
FLIGHT PLAN/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO
Mr. Prescient
BOSLEY’S MILITARY AUCTIONEERS
service” would steal it from them and result in a landonly American air force orientation. Battleship admirals may have been unsure about the use of aircraft at sea, but they knew what they did not want: an “air service” owning naval aircraft and controlling the career prospects of naval aviators. In early 1921 the Department of the Navy asked Congress for authorization to create a “naval aviation bureau.” With only the secretary of the navy in the chain of command between the chief of the bureau and the president, it was felt, naval aviation would be protected from any machinations concocted in the War Department. In August 1921 Congress passed legislation creating the navy’s Bureau of Aeronautics. Rear Admiral William A. Moffett, by background a cruiser and battleship sailor, was put in charge, a position he would hold for 12 years. In 1923 and 1924, following Mitchell’s sinking of Ostfriesland in the summer of 1921, the navy conducted several additional aerial bombing tests, some with Mitchell’s army bombers. The tests demonstrated the difficulty of sinking a modern battleship—in this case the unfinished 32,500ton Washington, which was being scrapped under the terms of the 1922 Washing-
ton Naval Treaty, which limited the construction of battleships, battlecruisers, and aircraft carriers. Bombs, torpedoes, shaped charges, and naval gunfire finally put the hulk beneath the waves. Reviewing the results of the Washington test, a navy board concluded that while a modern battleship was “not invulnerable to airplane attack,” the exercise results did not substantiate Mitchell’s assertion that “air attack has rendered the battleship obsolete.” Mitchell’s self-destruction in 1925 coincided with the navy’s first aircraft carrier, USS Langley, being transferred to the West Coast, and the beginning of its routine participation in the navy’s fleet problem exercises. The navy was clearly embracing naval aviation, and the addition two years later of USS Lexington and USS Saratoga, the largest and fastest ships in the fleet, was further proof that aircraft carriers and sea-based combat aviation would be major components of the navy of the 1930s—an evolution hastened by Brigadier General Billy Mitchell a decade earlier. Richard Wright Captain, U.S. Navy (retired) Burke, Virginia
ASK MHQ What’s the Point? What was the point of the point (or spike) on the helmets that German soldiers wore up through World War I? Could it be used to impale the enemy or did it serve some other useful purpose? Emily Scammell Washington, D.C. The pickel (point or pickax) on the pickelhaube was strictly decorative. It was conceived and standardized for all Prussian infantry on October 23, 1842, by King Friedrich Wilhelm IV, although it remains unclear as to whether he thought of it on his own or was inspired by the spikes on French Napoleonic cuirassier helmets or Russian “Yaroslav Mudry” helmets, both of which used the spike to support a feathery pompom or a horsehair plume. The basic pickelhaube used the spike alone, although in
some units it supported plumes like its Russian contemporary. Its use spread gradually through all the German states, the last being Bavaria, which stubbornly held onto its own raupenhelm (caterpillar helmet) until 1887. By the time World War I broke out in 1914 the pickelhaube had become an essential element of the stereotypical German (especially Prussian) soldier, but in 1916 it rapidly gave way to the more protective and practical stahlhelm (steel helmet). Jon Guttman, MHQ’s research director, is the author of many military history books, including, most recently, Grim Reapers: French Escadrille 94 in World War I (Aeronaut Books, 2016) Something about military history you’ve always wanted to know? Send your questions to MHQeditor@ historynet.com
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MICHAEL A. REINSTEIN CHAIRMAN & PUBLISHER DAVID STEINHAFEL ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER ALEX NEILL EDITOR IN CHIEF
THE QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF MILITARY HISTORY SUMMER 2017 VOL. 29, NO. 4
Churchill’s Army The men of the Royal Naval Division fought as infantry in some of the fiercest battles of World War I. By John A. Haymond
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STEPHEN KAMIFUJI CREATIVE DIRECTOR BRIAN WALKER GROUP ART DIRECTOR PAUL FISHER ART DIRECTOR DREW FRITZ SENIOR PHOTO EDITOR CONTRIBUTORS WARREN BERNARD, ROBERT M. CITINO, JOHN A. HAYMOND, K. M. KOSTYAL, CHRISTIAN McBURNEY, CHRIS McNAB, KEVIN J. McNAMARA, MICHAEL W. ROBBINS, PAMELA D. TOLER, BETH UNDERWOOD, WILLIAM WALKER CORPORATE ROB WILKINS Director of Partnership Marketing ROXANNA SASSANIAN Finance TOM GRIFFITHS Corporate Development GRAYDON SHEINBERG Corporate Development ADVERTISING COURTNEY FORTUNE Advertising Services [emailprotected] RICK GOWER Regional Sales Manager [emailprotected] TERRY JENKINS Regional Sales Manager [emailprotected] RICHARD VINCENT Regional Sales Manager [emailprotected] DIRECT RESPONSE ADVERTISING RUSSELL JOHNS ASSOCIATES 800.649.9800 [emailprotected] SUBSCRIPTION INFORMATION: SHOP.HISTORYNET.com U.S./Canada: 800.435.0715, Foreign Subscribers: 386.447.6318 E-mail: [emailprotected] MHQ: The Quarterly Journal of Military History (ISSN 1040-5992) is published quarterly by HistoryNet, LLC, 1919 Gallows Road, Suite 400, Vienna, VA 22182-4038, 703-771-9400. Periodical postage paid at Vienna, VA, and additional mailing offices. Postmaster: Send subscription information and address changes to: MHQ, P.O. Box 422224, Palm Coast, FL 32142-2224. Single copies: $19.95. Yearly subscriptions in U.S.: $74.95; Canada: $99.95; Foreign: $99.95 (in U.S. funds only). Canadian Publications Mail Agreement No. 41342519, Canadian GST No. 821371408RT0001 © 2017 HistoryNet, LLC, all rights reserved The contents of this magazine may not be reproduced in whole or in part without the written consent of HistoryNet, LLC PROUDLY MADE IN THE USA
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BILL HOGAN EDITOR ELIZABETH G. HOWARD CONSULTING EDITOR CLAIRE BARRETT, BRANDON QUINTIN EDITORIAL ASSISTANTS JON GUTTMAN RESEARCH DIRECTOR DAVID T. ZABECKI CHIEF MILITARY HISTORIAN
AT THE FRONT LAWS OF WAR 14 WAR LIST 17 EXPERIENCE 20 BATTLE SCHEMES 22 BEHIND THE LINES 24 WEAPONS CHECK 27
LT. H. W. TOMLIN/BRITISH ROYAL NAVY VIA IMPERIAL WAR MUSEUM
DOGGED PURSUIT Venus, the pet bulldog of the captain of the British destroyer HMS Vansittart, achieved a small measure of fame when Lieutenant H. W. Tomlin, one of the Royal Navy’s official photographers during World War II, made several pictures of him, including this one, in 1941. Though Vansittart did stellar service in World War II—it sank the German submarine U-102 on its first patrol in 1940—it was sold to be broken up for scrap after the war. MHQ Summer 2017
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LAWS OF WAR
THE TRIAL OF THOMAS KNOX
In 1863 a veteran newspaper correspondent defied a Union general’s order. He was court-martialed for the transgression. By John A. Haymond
In late December 1862, Major General William T. Sherman opened the campaign to capture the fortified Confederate city of Vicksburg, Mississippi, by landing troops in the swamps to the north. The rebels’ strong defensive positions repulsed every one of Sherman’s assaults, and after three days of frustrated battle, he withdrew his divisions. The Battle of Chickasaw Bayou was a small foretaste of the difficulties that Union forces would face in capturing Vicksburg. It also provided the backdrop to a precedent-setting case of American military law. Before embarking on the expedition, Sherman had issued General Order No. 8, which expressly prohibited reporters from accompanying his forces or sending dispatches for publication from his area of operations. Any correspondents sending out news that might give the enemy “information and comfort,” the order stated, “will be arrested and treated as spies.” Sherman’s dislike of newspaper reporters was already well known; “the most contemptible race of men that exist” was one of his more polite descriptions of them. Thomas W. Knox, a correspondent for the New York Herald, defied General Order No. 8, bringing down on himself the full force of Sherman’s dislike for the press. For whatever reason—either because he was unaware of Sherman’s order or because he assumed it did not apply to him—Knox had attached himself to the expedition and written a dispatch in which he denounced Sherman in scathing terms. One of Sherman’s staff officers found Knox’s report in the outgoing mail, read it, and called it to Sherman’s attention. Undeterred by the confiscation of his draft, Knox wrote his story a second time and carried it by hand upriver to Cairo, Illinois—some 400 miles away— where he mailed it to the Herald. In his article, Knox said “there is little doubt that Vicksburg would, ere this, have been in Union hands,” if only someone other than Sherman were in command. “General
Knox’s dispatch denounced Sherman in scathing terms.
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Sherman was so exceedingly erratic,” he wrote, “that the discussion of the past twelve months with respect to his sanity, was revived with much earnestness.” He accused Sherman of refusing proper medical care for wounded soldiers in an attempt to keep the failure of his assault from becoming public knowledge and of ordering the destruction of 50,000 rations in his haste to leave the field. Knox hadn’t witnessed most of the events he described, instead compiling his report from dubious secondhand sources, but still he assured the Herald’s readers that “the battle of Chickasaw Bayou has been a repetition on a smaller scale of the great battle of Fredericksburg, a month ago.” The public’s horror over the carnage from Union general Ambrose Burnside’s repeated frontal assaults on Fredericksburg’s Marye’s Heights on December 13, 1862, was still painfully fresh. Knox’s claim was wildly inaccurate: The Union army suffered more than 12,000 casualties at Fredericksburg, compared with 1,776 total losses at Chickasaw Bayou. Knox’s hyperbole was stubbornly impervious to such facts. Sherman’s “failure has dashed the hopes of the nation,” he wrote; “insanity and inefficiency have brought their result.” He declared that the only hope of capturing Vicksburg was Sherman’s immediate removal from command. Knox was not the only correspondent who made slanderous statements about Sherman’s mental state. The New York Times ran an article maintaining that Sherman’s operational plans were proof of his “madness”; another newspaper printed a story declaring that during the fighting at Chickasaw Bayou, Sherman was “confined to his stateroom perfectly insane.” What made Knox different, though, was that he was physically within the reach of Sherman’s military authority, a fact the journalist perhaps overlooked when he figuratively threw his gauntlet at the general’s feet and all but dared him to pick it up. He did not have to wait long for Sherman’s response. On February 3 Sherman received a copy of the Herald with Knox’s dispatch. The next day he wrote: “I am going to have the correspondent of the New York Herald tried by a court-martial as a spy, not that I want the fellow shot, but because I want to establish the principle that such people
MATHEW BRADY COLLECTION/NATIONAL ARCHIVES
Union major general William T. Sherman’s dislike of newspaper reporters was well known. He once called them “the most contemptible race of men that exist.”
cannot attend our armies, in violation of orders, and defy us, publishing their garbled statements and defaming officers who are doing their best.” Reporters such as Knox, Sherman believed, were undermining the war effort with “their limited and tainted observations as the history of events they neither see nor comprehend.” On February 5 Sherman issued General Order No. 13, convening a general court-martial at Young’s Point, Louisiana. Thomas Knox was charged with “giving intelligence to the enemy, directly or indirectly,” “being a spy,” and “disobedience of orders.” The first two charges were the most
serious, invoking the possibility of a death sentence if Knox were to be convicted. But the court found Knox guilty only of the third charge, disobeying orders. The sentence of the court-martial was that he be “sent without the lines of the army, and not to return under penalty of imprisonment.” Sherman might have thought he had seen the last of Knox, but the newspaperman had influential friends, who appealed to President Abraham Lincoln to override the court-martial verdict and allow Knox back into Sherman’s theater of operations. Lincoln, mindful of the need to avoid
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In defying Union General William T. Sherman’s order, Thomas W. Knox of the New York Herald brought down on himself the full force of Sherman’s dislike for the press.
antagonizing the New York newspapers and his generals in the field, agreed only to allow Knox to put his request to Major General Ulysses S. Grant, Sherman’s commander. Grant gave the petition short shrift. “You came here first in positive violation of an order from General Sherman,” he wrote in his reply to Knox. “You made insinuations against his sanity, and said many things which were untrue.…General Sherman is one of the ablest soldiers and purest men in the country.” He would allow Knox to return, Grant added, only if “Sherman first gives his consent.” Since Knox still had not apologized or published a retraction, such consent was unlikely. When the matter reached Sherman, he reminded Knox that the reporter had earlier tried to excuse his conduct with the explanation that “you had to supply the public demand for news; true if possible, but false if your interest demanded it.” Sherman said that he would welcome Knox if he came as a soldier, but his presence as a reporter was intolerable. “Come as you do now…as a representative of the press,
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which you yourself say makes so slight a difference between truth and falsehood,” Sherman wrote, “and my answer is, Never.” He would not relent. Sherman had actually overstepped his bounds by hauling Knox before a court-martial. It was not that he didn’t have the authority to charge a civilian with criminal activities and bring him to trial—he did. The problem was that he tried Knox before the wrong kind of court. As a civilian, Knox was not subject to the conventional military law represented by a court-martial. And since Sherman was campaigning in Confederate territory, where no U.S. civil courts had jurisdiction, there was no recourse to a civilian court. With court-martial or civil court out of the question, the only legal option was a trial by military commission. In the aftermath of the Mexican-American War of 1847, Major General Winfield Scott had created military commissions so that the U.S. Army would have a way to handle cases that fell outside the reach of courts-martial. An unorthodox and slightly field-expedient idea at first, military commissions gained a new legitimacy and codified structure in the first year of the Civil War. In 1862, just a few months before Knox ran afoul of Sherman, the U.S. government legislatively recognized them as courts of law. Major General Henry Halleck, the foremost legal scholar of the Union army during the Civil War, pointed out at the time that “many classes of people cannot be arraigned before [courts-martial] for any offense whatsoever, and many crimes committed cannot be tried under the ‘Rules and Articles of War.’ Military commissions must be resorted to for such cases.” The Knox case clearly fit that definition. More important than the question of jurisdiction and venue, however, was the fact that Sherman’s decision to prosecute a newspaper correspondent raised troubling questions about the line between the army’s legitimate need to control operationally sensitive information and the vital constitutional protections that guaranteed freedom of the press, even in time of war. It was understandable that inaccurate and distorted newspaper reports infuriated Sherman—especially accounts that impugned him personally—and he would have been well within his rights if he had decided to sue those papers for slander. As the commander of an army in the field, however, he established a dangerous precedent when he ordered Knox’s arrest and trial. To date, it remains a precedent without repetition: Thomas W. Knox is still the only credentialed representative of the American press ever tried and convicted by a U.S. Army court-martial for his reporting. MHQ John A. Haymond, a conflict historian, is the author of The Infamous Dakota War Trials of 1862: Revenge, Military Law, and the Judgment of History (McFarland & Company, 2016).
A.D. WORTHINGTON & CO., PUBLISHERS
THE COURT-MARTIAL OF THOMAS KNOX
WAR LIST
REJECTED!
These famous people wanted to serve in the military but for one reason or another were turned down—at least at first. By Claire Barrett
Ray Bradbury
Walt Disney
Author, short-story writer, screenwriter (1920–2012) During World War II Bradbury’s vision problems caused his local draft board to deem him ineligible for military service, but he went on to write radio spots for the Red Cross and scripts for the Los Angeles Department of Civil Defense.
Film producer, entrepreneur (1901–1966) A year after the United States entered World War I, Disney tried to enlist in the U.S. Navy but was turned down for being too young (he was 16). He then volunteered for the Red Cross Ambulance Corps, but by the time he arrived in France the armistice had already been signed.
Charlie Chaplin Actor, director, writer, composer (1899–1977) Throughout World War I Chaplin was harassed by British journalists and citizens, who assumed that he hadn’t attempted to enlist in the British Army. Chaplin had, in fact, registered for military service in the United States but was rejected for being undersized and underweight. This didn’t appease his critics, however, and he continued to receive white feathers—meant to shame men as cowards—for years after the war.
William Faulkner Author (1897–1962) In 1918, after the U.S. Army rejected him for being underweight and too short (he was five feet five), Faulkner enlisted in the Royal Flying Corps—and later in Britain’s Royal Air Force—but saw no action in World War I.
Errol Flynn
Actor (1909–1959) The Australian-born Flynn became a U.S. citizen in 1942 and tried to enlist in every branch of the service during World War II. He was rejected by all of them on medical Cook, author, television personality (1912–2004) During World War II Child tried to enlist in the U.S. Navy’s grounds, including, reportedly, heart problems, recurrent WAVES (Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Ser- bouts of malaria, chronic back pain, chronic tuberculosis, vice) and the Women’s Army Corps, but she was rejected and various venereal diseases. by both of them for being too tall (she was six feet two). Undaunted, Child instead joined the Office of Strategic Services, the forerunner of the CIA, and soon rose to Novelist, short-story writer, journalist (1899–1961) become a top-secret researcher for Major General William Hemingway tried to enlist in the U.S. Army in 1918 but J. “Wild Bill” Donovan, the chief of the OSS. was rejected because of a defective eye. He then volunteered to serve in Italy as an ambulance driver with the American Red Cross, and in 1918, while running a mobile canteen dispensing chocolate and cigarettes for solU.S. Army general (1912–2002) In 1934, at the start of his junior year at the U.S. Military diers, he was wounded by Austrian mortar fire. Despite his Academy in West Point, Davis applied for the Army Air injuries, Hemingway carried a wounded Italian soldier to Corps but was rejected because it did not accept blacks. He safety and was injured again by machine-gun fire. was instead assigned to the all-black 24th Infantry Regiment at Fort Benning, Georgia. In 1942, after President Franklin D. Roosevelt ordered the War Department to Film director, producer (1899–1980) create a black flying unit, Davis became the first black offi- Hitchco*ck was called up to serve in the British Army cer to solo an Army Air Corps aircraft. during World War I but was ultimately excused from mili-
Julia Child
Ernest Hemingway
Benjamin O. Davis Jr.
Sir Alfred Hitchco*ck
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REJECTED! tary service because of his weight. In 1917 Hitchco*ck managed to join a cadet regiment of the Royal Engineers (he’d left a Jesuit boarding school some years earlier to study marine engineering and navigation).
John F. Kennedy U.S. president (1917–1963) In 1940, following his graduation from Harvard University, Kennedy tried to enter the U.S. Army’s Officer Candidate School but was rejected on medical grounds, including ulcers, asthma, venereal disease, and chronic back problems. His father, Joseph P. Kennedy Sr., then persuaded Captain Alan Goodrich Kirk, the head of the Office of Naval Intelligence, to allow a private doctor to certify his son’s health so that JFK could enlist in the U.S. Navy.
D. H. Lawrence
Norman Rockwell Artist, illustrator, author (1894–1978) In 1918, with World War I raging in Europe, Rockwell tried to enlist in the U.S. Navy but was turned down because, at 140 pounds, he was deemed eight pounds underweight for someone six feet tall. The night of his rejection Rockwell gorged on bananas, doughnuts, and liquids until he’d put on enough weight to be able to enlist the next day.
Mickey Rooney Actor (1920–2014) Rooney, drafted for military service in World War II, was initially classified as 4-F for high blood pressure. But in 1944 he was drafted into the U.S. Army; he spent the next 21 months entertaining troops and was awarded a Bronze Star for performing in combat zones.
Frank Sinatra
Novelist, journalist, poet, playwright (1885–1930) Lawrence, who had chronic tuberculosis throughout his Singer, actor, producer (1915–1998) adult life, was seriously ill early in 1916 and was rejected In 1943 Sinatra was officially classified 4-F by his draft board for military service on health grounds in June of that year. because of a perforated eardrum. But Sinatra’s FBI files, made public after his death, disclosed that was he deemed “not acceptable material from a psychiatric viewpoint” and that his emotional instability was hidden to avoid “undue unpleasActor, martial artist (1940–1973) Lee was drafted by the U.S. Army in 1963 but reportedly antness for both the selectee and the induction service.” failed his pre-induction physical and was classified as 4-F Toward the end of World War II Sinatra entertained troops because of an undescended testicl*, poor eyesight (he wore during several successful overseas USO tours. contact lenses), and a sinus disorder. He had already been wearing a uniform as a member of the ROTC squad at the University of Washington in Seattle, where he was a stu- Actor (1908–1997) dent from 1961 to 1964. In 1940 Stewart was drafted by the U.S. Army but was rejected for being five pounds under the weight requirement for new recruits of his height. To get up to 143 pounds, he sought the help of Don Loomis, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer’s Soldier, actor (1925–1971) In 1942, seeking an escape from poverty, Murphy tried to muscleman and trainer, who was legendary for helping enlist in the Marines by lying about his age (he was 16). As stars add or subtract pounds in his studio gymnasium. it turned out, though, he was rejected for being too short Stewart then attempted to enlist in the Army Air Corps, (he was five feet five). The U.S. Army Airborne and the U.S. but he still came in underweight. After persuading the enNavy also rejected Murphy because of his height. On his listment officer to run new tests, he passed the weigh-in 17th birthday his older sister falsified his birth certificate to and on March 22, 1941, was inducted into the army, beshow that Murphy was 18; he was then able to enlist in the coming the first major American movie star to wear a milU.S. Army. Murphy went on to receive every available itary uniform in World War II. combat award for valor.
Bruce Lee
Jimmy Stewart
Paul Newman Actor (1925–2008) Newman had dreams of becoming a pilot in the U.S. Army Air Force during World War II but was ultimately rejected because he was color blind. In 1943 he managed to join the U.S. Navy and became a rear-seat radioman and gunner for torpedo bombers, and by 1944 he was posted as a turret gunner on a TBM Avenger torpedo bomber.
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Orson Welles
Director, producer, actor, writer (1915–1985) During World War II Welles was initially classified 1-B (unfit for active duty but available for limited duty), but in February 1943 his status was changed to 1-A (available for immediate duty). Shortly after that, following an army physical examination, Welles was reclassified as 4-F for medical reasons—which it was later disclosed, included myoditis, bronchial asthma, arthritis, and inverted flat feet. MHQ
CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: THEHITCHco*ckZONE.COM; WIKIMEDIA COMMONS (2); NATIONAL ARCHIVES
Audie Murphy
Clockwise from top left: Alfred Hitchco*ck, Charlie Chaplin, Ernest Hemingway, and Julia Child. MHQ Summer 2017
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EXPERIENCE
ON THE TRAIL OF THE INDIANS
“I was soon alongside of the chap who had wounded me. Raising myself in the strirrups, I shot him through the head.”
Years before he would be known to millions of Americans simply as “Buffalo Bill,” William F. Cody (1846–1917) dreamed of making a name for himself in the military. After trying unsuccessfully at the outset of the Civil War to enlist in the Union army (he was rejected as being too young), Cody went on, in the last years of the war, to serve as a scout for the 7th Kansas Cavalry. In 1868 he went to work for the U.S. Army, operating out of Fort Ellsworth, Kansas, as a civilian scout and guide for the 5th Cavalry. During the Plains Wars he fought in 16 battles, including the Cheyenne defeat at Summit Springs, Colorado, in 1869. On April 26, 1872, Cody became one of only four civilian scouts to be awarded the Medal of Honor for valor in action during the Indian Wars. But his medal was revoked in 1917 on the grounds that he hadn’t been a regular member of the armed forces. (It was reinstated in 1989 by the Army Board for Correction of Military Records.) In 1883 Cody created what would become Buffalo Bill’s Wild West, a touring extravaganza that over the next three decades would propel him to worldwide fame. pon reaching Fort McPherson, I found that the 3rd Cavalry, commanded by General [Colonel Joseph J.] Reynolds, had arrived from Arizona, in which Territory they had been on duty for some time, and where they had acquired quite a reputation on account of their Indian fighting qualities. Shortly after my return, a small party of Indians made a dash on McPherson station, about five miles from the fort, killing two or three men and running off quite a large number of horses. Captain [Charles] Meinhold and Lieutenant [Laurin L.] Lawson with their company were ordered out to pursue and punish the Indians if possible. I was the guide of the expedition and had an assistant, T. B. Omohundro, better known as “Texas Jack,” and who was a scout at the post. Finding the trail, I followed it for two days, although it was difficult trailing because the red-skins had taken every possible precaution to conceal their tracks. On the second day Captain Meinhold went into camp on the South fork of the Loupe, at a point where the trail was badly scattered. Six men were detailed to accompany me on a scout in search of the camp of the fugitives. We had gone but a short
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distance when we discovered Indians camped, not more than a mile away, with horses grazing near by. They were only a small party, and I determined to charge upon them with my six men, rather than return to the command, because I feared they would see us as we went back and then they would get away from us entirely. I asked the men if they were willing to attempt it, and they replied that they would follow me wherever I would lead them. That was the kind of spirit that pleased me, and we immediately moved forward on the enemy, getting as close to them as possible without being seen. I finally gave the signal to charge, and we dashed into the little camp with a yell. Five Indians sprang out of a willow tepee, and greeted us with a volley, and we returned the fire. I was riding Buckskin Joe, who with a few jumps brought me up to the tepee, followed by my men. We nearly ran over the Indians who were endeavoring to reach their horses on the opposite side of the creek. Just as one was jumping the narrow stream a bullet from my old “Lucretia” overtook him. He never reached the other bank, but dropped dead in the water. Those of the Indians who were guarding the horses, seeing what was going on at the camp, came rushing to the rescue of their friends. I now counted 13 braves, but as we had already disposed of two, we had only 11 to take care of. The odds were nearly two to one against us. While the Indian re-enforcements were approaching the camp I jumped the creek with Buckskin Joe to meet them, expecting our party would follow me; but as they could not induce their horses to make the leap, I was the only one who got over. I ordered the sergeant to dismount his men, leaving one to hold the horses, and come over with the rest and help me drive the Indians off. Before they could do this, two mounted warriors closed in on me and were shooting at short range. I returned their fire and had the satisfaction of seeing one of them fall from his horse. At this moment I felt blood trickling down my forehead, and hastily running my hand through my hair I discovered that I had received a scalp wound. The Indian, who had shot me, was not more than 10 yards away, and when he saw his partner tumble from his saddle he turned to run. By this time the soldiers had crossed the creek to assist
YELLOWSTONECOUNTRY.ORG
In 1872 William F. “Buffalo Bill” Cody became one of only four U.S. Army scouts to be awarded the Medal of Honor for valor in action during the Indian Wars. me, and were blazing away at the other Indians. Urging Buckskin Joe forward, I was soon alongside of the chap who had wounded me, when raising myself in the stirrups I shot him through the head. The reports of our guns had been heard by Captain Meinhold, who at once started with his company up the creek to our aid, and when the remaining Indians, whom we were still fighting, saw these re-enforcements coming, they whirled their horses and fled; as their steeds were quite fresh they made their escape. However, we killed six out of the 13 Indians, and captured most of their stolen
stock. Our loss was one man killed, and another—myself— slightly wounded. One of our horses was killed, and Buckskin Joe was wounded, but I didn’t discover the fact until some time afterwards, as he had been shot in the breast and showed no signs of having received a scratch of any kind. Securing the scalps of the dead Indians and other trophies we returned to the fort. MHQ Excerpted from W. F. Cody (Buffalo Bill) and William Lightfoot Visscher, Buffalo Bill’s Own Story of His Life and Deeds (Homewood Press, 1917).
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BATTLE SCHEMES
ARMS RACE
Maurice Neumont (1868–1930) knew from an early age that he wanted to be an artist and, after studying at the Academy of Fine Arts in Paris, he made a name for himself as an illustrator, painter, and affichiste (poster designer). With the outbreak of World War I Neumont and his wife opened their home in Montmartre to help feed artists, actors, and singers who were left without work in Paris. At the same time, he emerged as a leading proponent of French patriotic propaganda. In 1916 Neumont became involved in La Conférence au Village, a newly established French propaganda group, and the following year, with its backing, he produced this stylized poster, “La guerre est l’industrie nationale de la Prusse” (War is the national industry of Prussia). Neumont’s poster, an early form of infographic, marries quotations from French leaders Honoré Mirabeau and Philippe Pétain with a depiction of a menacing, pickelhaube-wearing octopus grasping the entire European continent with his arms. An allegorical bar graph on the right side of the poster depicts the expansion of Prussia’s armed forces from 1715 to 1914—the latter date dramatized by a giant Prussian soldier. Captions detail every instance of Prussia’s “blood and iron” expansion during the German Wars of Unification, and at the bottom of the poster, in large red type, Neumont highlights an incendiary prewar declaration from a German nationalist organization: “The German people must rise as masters above the inferior peoples of Europe.” MHQ
DAVID RUMSEY HISTORICAL MAP COLLECTION
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BEHIND THE LINES
THE RELIC HUNTER
Shirl Herr’s “hidden-metal detector” paved the way for the development of mine detectors used by the world’s militaries. By Beth Underwood
For Herr, life was about finding possibilities in improbable situations.
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sole design, which incorporated pneumatic tubes, was heartily supported by the athletes who had tried his prototypes. But without money to underwrite his efforts, Herr was unable to pursue the project. Among his subjects of experimentation, Herr was particularly drawn to the science of agriculture, and he developed a process to remove weed seeds from clover seeds. Shortly after he received the patent for his color-changing device, he received another patent for his seed-cleaning machine. The idea was well received in Indiana, where manufacturing and industry were developing rapidly in the early 20th century. After seeing the machine in action, a seed company in Crawfordsville, Indiana, hired him as its foreman. He also replicated the machine for companies in Chicago, New York, and Toronto. In 1910 Herr married Sallie Remley, the daughter of Ambrose Remley, a well-to-do Civil War veteran. At least one Crawfordsville store summarily canceled her credit account on hearing the news, fearing that Sallie’s marriage to an inventor who had no affluent family members or apparent fortune would mean certain financial failure. Whether or not his bride had taken issue with the store’s decision, Herr readily dismissed the judgment. He was fixated far more on solving problems than on dollar signs. Herr’s seed-separating machine and patented improvements continued to earn him professional accolades and financial gains, perhaps to the surprise of at least one local business. By 1914 he had founded his own seed company with a partner and was well on his way to financial security. His successes in the agricultural world had given him the freedom to invent and the luxury of remaining unattached to the financial outcomes of those inventions. This independence allowed him to move from project to project as he wished, investigating theories for no other reason than to appease his own curiosity. One of those projects was his work on magnetic balance and the hidden-metal detector. The idea of detecting metal wasn’t a new one. In fact, Alexander Graham Bell had developed and used a similar device after the attempted assassination of President James Gar-
BOONE COUNTY (IND.) HISTORICAL SOCIETY
It was late August 1929 when the black limousine pulled to the front of an Italian hotel to retrieve Shirl Herr. An American businessman, inventor, and self-educated historian, Herr had offered his assistance to the Italian government in uncovering centuries-old relics of Caligula, the third Roman emperor. While the emperor’s barges—once luxurious floating pleasure palaces—had recently poked through the surface of Lake Nemi, just south of Rome, during a four-year project to lower its water level, many priceless artifacts were still buried deep within the volcanic lake’s mucky floor. Herr was confident that the hidden-metal detector he had invented would serve the Italians well, helping them to locate and recover the artifacts efficiently. Without hesitation, the elder Herr and his son entered the limo bound for the excavation site. Waiting for them inside was the Italian dictator, Benito Mussolini. That the fascist authority should accompany the visiting Americans may seem unlikely. It wasn’t for Shirl Herr. For him, life was about finding possibilities in improbable situations. The Indiana native was a problem solver, whether in spite of—or thanks to—little more than an eighth-grade education, most of which had taken place in a one-room Hoosier schoolhouse. “Higher learning would not have been good for me,” Herr once said. “I’ve been told, too often, by physicists and engineers that certain things couldn’t be done and could be proved impossible by the books. Only I found that those things sometimes could be done.” Always undeterred by naysayers, Herr was a man of ideas. For some of those ideas—like the “color-changing screen” for theater lights, railway signals, and the like, for which he received his first patent, and his theory of fluorescent light technology (“cold light,” he called it)—the time had come. Other ideas, such as his invention of air soles for athletic shoes, were perhaps ahead of their time. The air
Inventor Shirl Herr poses with an early model of what in all likelihood was the world’s first portable metal detector.
METAL DETECTOR field in 1881. Bell hoped to locate the bullet that remained lodged in Garfield’s body weeks after Charles J. Guiteau had shot him. Unfortunately, the magnetic balance was thrown off by the metal coils in Garfield’s mattress. Herr set out to improve and simplify the older, often unreliable invention by having it use radio frequencies to locate the metal. Describing his intentions in his patent application, dated February 4, 1924, Herr said his primary objective was to “provide portable means of locating submerged, buried, or hidden metallic objects by the production of sound waves effected through distortion of a magnetic field.” Although Herr was first to apply for a patent on the device, his request wasn’t granted until 1928, three years after another man, Gerhard Fischer, applied for—and received—a patent for a metal detector. The reasons for the four-year delay remain unknown. Nevertheless, Herr was credited with numerous underground discoveries during this period, including the exact site near West Lafayette, Indiana, of Fort Ouiatenon, a French trading post built in 1717. Sometimes partnering with others, he retrieved battleground artifacts from Yorktown and Jamestown, Virginia, and from a camp used by Major General Edward Braddock during his 1755 retreat from Fort Duquesne in western Pennsylvania. During this time, his seed-separating machines provided increasing financial security while Herr pursued his love of perpetual discovery, regardless of where it took him. And that is how he found himself in the boot of Europe, more specifically in the back of a limo with a dictator.
Herr’s hidden-metal detector was effective to a depth of eight feet.
Under Mussolini’s orders, the Italian government was two years into a project to recover Caligula’s barges. Adorned with gold and silver, alabaster and bronze, marble and mosaic, the floating palaces are thought to have served the emperor in all his excess. Mussolini’s English was broken at best, but his outward excitement evidenced his thirst for unearthing ancient treasures, effectively bridging any language barrier as he interacted with his American guests. While the ride gave the men time to conjure visions of a utopian site, all notions of glamour were dashed when the Herrs arrived. Herr’s son, Remley, recalled the scene to be “no more romantic than a pig pile of heavily-creosoted railroad ties dumped like jackstraw on the mud floor of an out-sized gravel pit.” Unappealing aesthetics aside, their work was rewarded, as the men helped retrieve a number of artifacts, including iron and lead fountain pieces and a solid gold figurehead.
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“Over here!” Herr would periodically yell as he walked on the planking. A particularly strong buzz pulled Herr to the edge of the planking, where he lost his balance, fell into the mud, and emerged covered in large black leeches. The incident rendered the magnetic balance temporarily useless and ended the Americans’ field study in Italy. But Herr continued to influence world exploration, ultimately sending his metal detector to the southernmost reaches of the globe. Herr met physics professor Thomas Poulter in 1932 when both men were in Arizona. A year later Admiral Richard E. Byrd named Poulter his second in command for his second Antarctic expedition. Remembering the magnetic balance, Poulter approached Herr about taking the device on the journey—brutally cold temperatures would provide a rare test of durability. Herr readily agreed. Poulter’s letters to Herr during the expedition confirmed that the balance, altered to be both water- and snowproof even in extreme weather conditions, was performing as expected. With the help of the detector, the men had been able to locate Byrd’s original base camp, Little America, and its still usable provisions left behind after the first expedition ended in 1930. The device proved effective to a depth of eight feet. In 1935 Byrd sent a personal letter of thanks to Herr, attaching a piece of insulation from the base. In 1936, a year after the second expedition had ended, Shirl Herr died of heart disease. Still, the refined applications of his magnetic balance continued to shape the world and its militaries. In the early years of World War II, Józef Kosacki, a Polish soldier, advanced the design. Used as a mine detector and produced by the hundreds, the device allowed Allied forces to pass through German minefields. It was used in several Allied invasions and was still operational through the 1991 Gulf War. Modern metal detectors have both military and commercial applications. They continue to play a significant role in battlefield archaeology and have been used successfully at both Revolutionary and Civil War era battlegrounds, including Little Bighorn (Montana); Wilson’s Creek (Missouri); Pea Ridge (Arkansas); Monmouth (New Jersey), and Kings Mountain (South Carolina). While the artifacts they unearth can help to recreate past events, their application in active theaters of war can mean the difference between life and death. As metal detectors and their applications continue to evolve, they will serve as a reminder that Shirl Herr’s advances in the field of magnetic detection were as significant as the history he worked so hard to unearth. MHQ Beth Underwood, a journalist whose work has appeared in many newspapers, magazines, and anthologies, is the author of Gravity (Red Engine Press, 2015).
WEAPONS CHECK
ANTI-ZEPPELIN DART By Chris McNab
On the night of January 19, 1915, two German Zeppelin airships ponderously dropped their small bomb-loads on Great Yarmouth and King’s Lynn on the eastern coast of England, beginning what was, in effect, the first sustained strategic bombing campaign in history. The British military immediately started looking for ways to bring down the new threat. Focusing on the dirigibles’ highly flammable hydrogen gas filling, Engineer Lieutenant Commander Francis Ranken of the Royal Navy invented the Ranken dart—essentially a hand-deployed anti-Zeppelin incendiary device. The dart consisted of a 13-inch-long tinplate tube capped with a penetrating tip and filled with a combustible mixture. The intention was to drop the darts, loaded in 24-round boxes, from an airplane flying above the Zeppelin. As each dart pierced the airship’s skin, its three spring-loaded metal arms would open, pulling up an igniter rod inside the dart and detonating the explosives inside (in much the same way as dragging a match head across a rough surface causes it to ignite). The engineering was ingenious, but the devices were not popular with pilots in the Royal Naval Air Service and the Royal Flying Corps (nor with the civilians on whom they might inadvertently fall). The Ranken darts were also inaccurate—so much so, in fact, that they may never have been solely responsible for downing an airship. MHQ
Rubber parachute
Black powder grains
Arms (3)
High explosive Igniter rod
Coated red phosphorus Igniter tube
Cast-iron point
IMPERIAL WAR MUSEUM
Chris McNab is a military historian based in the United Kingdom. His most recent book is The FN Minimi Light Machine Gun: M249, L108A1, L110A2, and Other Variants (Osprey, 2017).
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THAT SINKING FEELING n his day, H. L. Mencken (1880–1956) was as caustic, and controversial, as any journalist in America. In 1920, for example, surveying “the Gamalian plurality” that had swept Warren Gamaliel Harding into the White House, Mencken wrote: “One gapes at it as a yokel gapes at a blood-sweating hippopotamus; its astounding vastness makes it seem somehow indecent, as a very fat man always seems somehow indecent.” Mencken never really bothered with politeness or political correctness, and the more he got a rise out of his own detractors the higher he seemed to sail in public estimation. Mencken, in fact, clearly took delight in standing above those who hurled disparagements at him—so much so that in 1928 he arranged for Alfred A. Knopf to publish Menckeniana: A Schimpflexicon, a compilation of awful things people had said or written about him. (Example: “Mencken, with his filthy verbal hemorrhages, is so low down on the moral scale, so damnably dirty, so vile and degenerate, that when his time comes to die it will take a special dispensation from Heaven to get him into the bottom-most pit of Hell.”) Throughout his life, Mencken kept notebooks that he’d routinely plumb for ideas and inspiration. Before his death in 1956, he read through them in search of material for what turned out to be his last book, and the exercise unearthed such semiprecious stones as this:
WARRELICS.COM (3)
I
The military caste did not originate as a party of patriots, but as a party of bandits. The primeval bandit chiefs eventually became kings. Something of the bandit character still attaches to the military professional. He may fight bravely and unselfishly, but so do gameco*cks. He may seek no material rewards, but neither do hunting dogs. His general attitude of mind is stupid and anti-social. It was a sound instinct in the Founding Fathers that made them subordinate the military establishment to the civil power. To be sure, the civil power consists largely of political scoundrels, but they at least differ in outlook and purpose from the military, and to some extent at least, they are superior. A country dominated by the military is always backward, and frequently almost savage.
Mencken’s journalistic home was the Baltimore Evening Sun, which he helped to found in 1910 and where he had made a name for himself within just a few years. And so when the German merchant submarine Deutschland suddenly appeared in Baltimore Harbor in 1916, as World War I raged overseas, naturally the entire nation waited to hear from Mencken, who was fluent in German and, moreover, had made clear his pro-German sentiments. Mencken, however, refused to even show up at the welcoming reception for Deutschland, much less write about it. “That welcome was in the charge of Paul Hilken, son of old Henry G. Hilken, for many years the Baltimore agent of the North German Lloyd,” Mencken wrote some 25 years later. “I was well acquainted with his father, and had a high esteem for him, but the son always seemed to me a suspicious character.” Paul Hilken, Mencken recalled, later came to him with a potentially lucrative proposition: that he travel aboard Deutschland on its return trip to Bremen, Germany, with the promise that he would have an exclusive and be free to sell his reports to the highest bidder. (A New York newspaper reportedly had already offered $50,000 to put a correspondent on board.) “There seemed to be something fishy about this, and I refused at once,” Mencken wrote. “Indeed, I’d have refused if there had not been anything fishy, for I knew that a large British fleet was waiting for the Deutschland, outside the Chesapeake capes, and the chances of its getting though seemed very slim.” Deutschland did get back to Germany unharmed, though, as Warren Bernard recounts in telling the story of the stealth submarine in this issue. Deutschland’s debut in the United States spawned souvenirs and commemorative pieces of all kinds, including those shown on the opposite page. But in the end, Mencken’s instincts on the “something fishy” front were well founded. On its return to Germany, Deutschland was converted into a marauding U-cruiser that ultimately took down dozens of Allied ships in the North Atlantic Ocean. —Bill Hogan [emailprotected]
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THE PLOT TO KIDNAP WASHINGTON FROM LEFT: PETER NEWARK/BRIDGEMAN IMAGES; GILBERT STUART/CLARK ART INSTITUTE; PHOTO ILLUSTRATION BRIAN WALKER
In 1780 two British military officers planned a mission that could have changed the course of history. By Christian McBurney
The idea of kidnapping George Washington was the brainchild of Lieutenant Colonel John Graves Simcoe, a courageous British cavalry officer who had been a captive of the Americans.
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KIDNAPPING WASHINGTON
I
n February 1780 Lieutenant General Wilhelm von Knyphausen, the interim commander in chief of British forces in the New York area, and Captain George Beckwith, London’s spymaster in the American colonies, planned and attempted a mission that could have changed the course of the Revolutionary War: the capture of General George Washington, then quartered near Morristown, New Jersey. The audacious idea was the brainchild of Lieutenant Colonel John Graves Simcoe, an exceptionally courageous British cavalry officer who only a few weeks earlier had returned from three months as a captive of the Americans. Simcoe, the commander of the Queen’s Rangers, an elite legionary corps made up of loyalist cavalry and infantry then stationed on Staten Island, aimed to lead a party of his mounted hussars across the iced-over Hudson River and make off with the American commander in chief, who, according to Simcoe, “was quartered at a considerable distance from his army, or any corps of it.” With the assistance of a loyalist sympathizer who’d once lived near where Washington was staying, Simcoe soon had “a very minute and perfect map of the country,” as he described it in his journal. He planned to select 80 of his cavalrymen and “march by secret ways, made the more so by the inclement season, and to arrive near General Washington’s quarters by day-break, to tie up his horses in a swamp, and to storm the quarters, and attack his guard on foot.” Simcoe likely would not have even considered the idea of a raid to capture Washington but for the fact that the Hudson River had iced over. It may seem odd that Simcoe would choose to attack on foot, when on horseback his men would have the advantage of speed, but perhaps he thought that the mounted approach would be more likely to create an alarm. He did not plan to kill Washington, though he worried how he could prevent the death of the American commander in chief should he “personally resist.” Since December 1, 1779, Washington’s headquarters had been outside Morristown, in the area’s finest house. Built by Colonel Jacob Ford Jr., who had died of pneumonia in January 1777, the mansion was occupied by his widow, Theodosia, and their four young children. Lying roughly a half mile east of the main part of Morristown and three miles northeast of the main American encampments at Jockey Hollow, the mansion was vulnerable; all the more so because Washington was spending nights there away from the main body of his troops. Still, to get there Simcoe’s cavalry would have to ride some 30 miles through the foothills of the Watchung
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Mountains and then across rough back roads regularly watched by local militia and Continental troops. Moreover, the raiders’ exceedingly long escape route to New York would provide many opportunities for enemy attacks. The weather was also unpredictable and potentially dangerous. That winter more than 20 snowstorms would pound the Morristown area, sometimes blocking roads with six-foot drifts. Simcoe’s plan was indeed a daring one. In addition, soldiers whose specific job was to protect Washington lurked in the vicinity of the mansion. Unlike British commanders, Washington had established his own security detail, commonly known as Washington’s Life Guard. Its purpose was not only to provide personal security for Washington but also to handle the baggage of his headquarters and the money and official papers of the Continental Army. The unit, led by Major Caleb Gibbs, had 110 men, although not all of them would be available to defend against a raid: six of them worked as servants for Washington and several more as stable hands and messengers. “Two sentinels paraded in front and two [patrolled] in the rear constantly, day and night,” John W. Barber and Henry Howe wrote in an 1846 history of New Jersey that included veterans’ accounts of the war. “Several times in the course of the winter false alarms were given of the approach of the enemy.…Immediately, the Life Guard would rush from their huts into the [Ford] house, barricade the doors, open the windows, and about five men would place themselves at each window, with their muskets brought to a charge, loaded and co*cked ready for defense. There they would remain until the troops from camp were seen marching, with music, at quick-step down towards the mansion.” “These occasions were annoying to the ladies of the household,” Benson J. Lossing wrote in his 1851 history of the Revolutionary War, “for both Mrs. Washington and Mrs. Ford were obliged to lie in bed, sometimes for hours, with their rooms full of soldiers, and the keen winter air from the open windows piercing through their drawn curtains.” (Martha Washington had arrived to stay at the mansion on December 31.) Washington and his staff, according to one of his aides, “occupied two rooms below, all the upper floor, the kitchen, cellar and stable.” Nonetheless, the Ford mansion, though spacious, was packed with bodies. On January 22, 1780, Washington complained in a letter to Major General Nathanael Greene that “eighteen belonging to my family [meaning his staff] and all Mrs. Ford’s are crowded together in her kitchen.” On January 31, Brigadier General Thomas Stirling, the commander of the British 42nd Regiment (the famous
GENE AHRENS/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO
Beginning in December 1779, Washington made his headquarters at this mansion, now a National Park Service museum, outside Morristown, New Jersey.
“Black Watch”), approved Simcoe’s plan, noting, “Your ideas are great, and would be of importance if fulfilled.” That same day Silas Condict, a member of New Jersey’s executive council, wrote Washington expressing his concern: “I take the liberty to suggest my apprehension respecting Your Excellency’s situation, which I do not think so secure as I would wish, while the frost [ice] makes firm passing into Jersey from every part of the enemy’s lines.” The prescient councilman advised Washington that the solid ice could make possible a “bold” attempt to surprise him and allow a party of cavalry to reach Morristown undetected. “The importance of the object may induce them to hazard an attempt,” Condict warned, “and it will fully justify every means to be ready to receive them.” But Washington seemed unconcerned. He told Condict
that he had already taken “precautions” that would be “effectual” in preventing a surprise cavalry raid on the mansion. As he waited for scouts to confirm Washington’s continued presence at the mansion, Simcoe was surprised to learn that the spymaster Beckwith had come up with his own plan to kidnap Washington. Knyphausen agreed that a raid on Morristown was feasible. “General Washington having taken up his quarters at a distance from his army, under the protection of a small corps of infantry,” Knyphausen wrote, “it appeared practicable to surprise that body with cavalry and to penetrate to the neighborhood of Morristown.” Knyphausen preferred Beckwith’s plan, since it called for the deployment of many more troops, resulting in less risk. Beckwith proposed staging various diversions in New Jersey. This force of mounted men would consist of about
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60 cavalrymen each from the British 17th Light Dragoons and from Simcoe’s Queen’s Rangers. Beckwith ordered a disappointed Simcoe to send him the mounted troops of the Queen’s Rangers for the operation. In late January and early February, Knyphausen made his preparations for Beckwith’s planned raids. The German general assigned a regiment of infantry to Paulus Hook to await the return of his mounted men from Morristown. The core of the mounted attack force poised to ride to Morristown and capture Washington was the British 17th Light Dragoons, commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Samuel Birch. This regiment had sailed from Ireland in 1775 and landed in Boston just before the Battle of Bunker Hill. Some of them had infamously ridden their mounts inside Boston’s Old South Meeting House. Since then the regiment had participated in most of the significant engagements in the north, including those of Long Island, White Plains, and Monmouth, as well as dozens of small skirmishes in New Jersey and around Philadelphia and New York City. After the British evacuation of Philadelphia in 1778, the 16th Light Dragoons, the only other British regular cavalry regiment used in the Revolutionary War and whose dragoons had captured Major General Charles Lee, transferred many of its men and horses to the 17th and sent its officers back to England. After arriving in the New York City region, its headquarters was usually at Hempstead, on Long Island, but its men constantly patrolled the lines around New York City. The uniform of the 17th Dragoons included a red jacket with white facings, buckskin breeches, black-top boots, and a leather helmet with a skull-and-crossbones above the words “or glory.” The helmet was topped with a red, flowing crest of dyed horsehair. The dragoons were armed with a single-bladed straight saber and a light carbine. They were trained to fire from the saddle. The Black Hussars were mostly escaped German prisoners of war who had accompanied Major General John Burgoyne’s army to Saratoga. After they had gathered in New York City and had acquired a reputation for being
The core of the mounted attack force was the British 17th Light Dragoons.
unruly, they were formed into a hussar outfit in 1779. The men wore a hussar cap and black coat and short boots with blue trousers tucked in—the hussar style. Simcoe’s Queen’s Rangers were similarly attired, wearing a hussar-type cap, with the crescent or half-moon insignia of the Rangers on the front, a green wool jacket, green trousers tucked into short boots, and a sword belt over the right shoulder. It is not known who commanded the expedition, but it was probably Birch, since he was the senior commander of the only regular British Army cavalry regiment in the attack force. Birch had not yet made much of an impression as a military leader. As commander of his dragoons on Long Island and later as a brigadier general and commandant of New York City, he’d gained a reputation for corruption, stealing the houses and possessions of loyalists, allowing his soldiers to plunder the churches of loyalists, and even ordering the tearing down of a Quaker meetinghouse on British-held Long Island and personally selling the wood. Knyphausen augmented the Elizabethtown-bound force with additional troops and a second senior officer, Brigadier General Cortland Skinner, the former attorney general of New Jersey. Stirling commanded two regiments of British regulars and Skinner probably commanded the 1st and 4th Battalions of New Jersey Volunteers, a loyalist outfit, for a total of about 1,200 men. The British seized sleds from civilians. At least 86 were used on February 6 to carry munitions, provisions, and other military supplies to British posts at Paulus Hook and Staten Island. The ice on Newark Bay was so firm that 24-pounder cannons hauled across it to Paulus Hook on February 8 and 13 “made no impression” on the frozen surface, “an event unknown in the memory of man,” wrote Major General James Pattison, the commander of the British Army’s New York City garrison. On February 7 the mounted men of Simcoe’s Queen’s Rangers and the Black Hussars rode on the ice from Staten Island to New York City, and by the next day the 17th Regiment of Light Dragoons had joined them, after departing from their base at Jamaica in Queens County (then considered part of Long Island). The British also called on prominent New York City loyalists to make maps detailing the network of roads between Elizabethtown and Washington’s headquarters and the more distant Continental camps at Morristown.
Clockwise from upper left: Major General Arthur St. Clair, the commander of American outposts in New Jersey; Captain George Beckwith, London’s spymaster in the colonies; Brigadier General Thomas Stirling, who approved the abduction plan; Lieutenant General Wilhelm von Knyphausen, commander of British troops in New York; Lieutenant Colonel Samuel Birch, the commander of the British 17th Light Dragoons; and (center) Simcoe.
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CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: PICTORIAL PRESS LTD/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO; ANNE S.K. BROWN MILITARY COLLECTION/BROWN UNIVERSITY LIBRARY; VALENTINE ART REPRODUCTIONS; CHRONICLE/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO; THE BRITISH LIBRARY; NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY
KIDNAPPING WASHINGTON
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While Knyphausen completed plans for his move against Washington at Morristown, much of the British activity related to efforts to increase New York City’s and Staten Island’s defenses. The American army could just as easily cross the ice to attack them. The Royal Navy, having departed Upper New York Bay for the winter to avoid being iced in, could not protect army outposts. In desperation, Pattison buttressed his force by drafting more than 2,500 loyalist militiamen in a single week. News of the British preparations was speedily conveyed to Washington and his commander of American outposts in northern New Jersey, Major General Arthur St. Clair. Washington believed he would be safe with Continentals and local militia manning guard posts at various key points. “Our main body cannot be surprised” he wrote to St. Clair on January 30, adding that he thought the main object of a raid would be his army’s “magazines of hay.” He had no idea that he was the primary target of the raid, and that the British planned to have him on his way to Paulus Hook well before Continental troops could interfere. According to historian Benjamin Huggins, Washington kept two brigades of his main army stationed west of Elizabethtown to guard against raids from Staten Island. Arriving to take command of these brigades on January 27, St. Clair ordered his commanders to post guards at Rahway, Cranes Mills, Connecticut Farms, Elizabethtown, and Newark. In addition, the New Jersey militia could be called into the field on an alarm. Washington also kept a detachment of about 200 infantry at Paramus. Washington and St. Clair had also put another force in place that would prove critical in deflecting one of the raiding parties. With few Continental cavalry to patrol the areas between his guard posts, St. Clair asked the New Jersey authorities to raise a company of light cavalry at Continental expense to patrol the coast roads between Newark and Amboy. The company numbered 45 light cavalry raised from militia volunteers. St. Clair stationed these light cavalry at Rahway, Newark, and Woodbridge, with 15 at each town. They would prove their worth in the coming fights. The mission to kidnap Washington was scheduled for February 8 but called off when a fierce snowstorm intervened. Knyphausen, however, was unwilling to wait much longer. On February 10, with no new snowfall, he ordered the Morristown raid and diversionary attacks to begin the next evening. During the night of February 11–12, more than a hundred cavalrymen (accounts range from 120 to
Washington had no idea that he was the primary target of the British raid.
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300), all probably commanded by Birch, and an infantry regiment crossed the ice-sheeted Hudson River and Newark Bay to Paulus Hook, on the New Jersey mainland. Meanwhile, Simcoe and Stirling ventured out to create their diversions. At the head of 200 infantrymen, Simcoe passed over the ice at 1 a.m. on February 11. Stirling’s orders called for Simcoe to send a party to surprise the enemy post at Woodbridge or Rahway “and to give a general alarm.” To cover his return, Simcoe posted Major Richard Armstrong with some of the regiment’s infantry, his remaining cavalry, and some cannons at the heights overlooking the Old Blazing Star Ferry, which connected Staten Island with New Jersey. He then took the rest of the Rangers and headed toward Woodbridge, but he was forced to march “on the beaten road” because of the deep snows around them. When Simcoe and his men arrived at Woodbridge, they found the enemy guard post abandoned. Still, Simcoe was determined to “beat up some of the enemy’s quarters, or fall in with their patrols” to create a diversion that would “give every assistance in his power to his friend” Beckwith. As they marched on from Perth Amboy to Elizabethtown, Simcoe’s troops were challenged at a crossroads by patriot sentries. All of Simcoe’s men, shielded by the darkness and deep snowdrifts, stood still “in profound silence.” The sentinels, talking among themselves, thought they were mistaken in spotting the enemy. But soon one of the New Jersey militia on horseback rode up on the flanks of Simcoe’s unit and yelled an alarm. The sentries opened fire. Simcoe ordered his men to retreat. As they did, one of them was struck and killed. The patriots took time to gather and organize their forces. Then they set out after Simcoe and his men, using the same path. Finally, at 8 a.m., after crossing Woodbridge Creek, the Americans caught up with the raiders. But the deep snow prevented the Americans from attacking the British flanks. As Simcoe approached the road to the Old Blazing Star Ferry, he dispatched a man to ride over the ice to alert Armstrong to prepare his cannons, and he ordered Captain David Shank to cover his retreat by manning a ridge with a small detachment. That done, Simcoe suddenly ordered the rest of his men to turn around and charge the pursuing Americans. The surprised Americans immediately fled. As they passed over a hill, Shank’s men rose and fired on them, driving them farther back, and Armstrong opened up his cannons on ferry buildings sheltering some of the other American soldiers. This dispirited the Americans and allowed Simcoe and his men to return over the ice to Long Island. Simcoe had carried out his mission of skirmishing with local militia and St. Clair’s horse patrols. He later wrote that he had lost just one man and suffered “a few wounded,” adding that he thought the enemy’s loss to have been much greater. St. Clair, though, reported only one man wounded.
DETROIT PUBLISHING CO./LIBRARY OF CONGRESS; MAP: BRIAN WALKER
KIDNAPPING WASHINGTON
HUDSON RIVER
WATCHUNG MOUNTAINS
Hackensack
Morristown Ford Mansion
Lower Manhattan
Newark Paulus Hook
Elizabethtown Rahway
NEW YORK
Staten Island
Woodbridge Perth Amboy
ATLANTIC OCEAN
M I L E S 0
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NEW JERSEY
Simcoe’s Path to Morristown The British forces set out from New York City by crossing the iced-over Hudson River and Newark Bay to Paulus Hook, on the New Jersey mainland. They would avoid the main road to Morristown through Newark and instead take the less traveled and guarded roads north of Morristown and, moving southwest, attack Washington’s vulnerable headquarters at the Ford mansion (top).
The more punishing blow was struck at Elizabethtown. St. Clair informed Washington that his 50 men “were timely apprised” of the enemy’s approach and quickly retreated in the face of Stirling’s and Skinner’s overwhelming force. Skinner’s advance raiders did manage to take some shots at a rear guard, wounding one man. With the town now unprotected, the soldiers resorted to looting—as was sometimes done by victorious loyalists, whose property had often been seized by patriots. There is no indication that Skinner tried to stop it. “A number of houses in the town have been stripped of everything,” St. Clair informed Washington the next day, “and ten or twelve of the inhabitants carried off.” The Pennsylvania Packet reported sarcastically of the raiders, “After terrifying the women and children, they heroically marched off with their plunder and five or six prisoners.” As Stirling’s and Skinner’s troops began to evacuate Elizabethtown, St. Clair’s guards and the local horse patrols reclaimed it, taking two stragglers, but they turned out to be civilians from Staten Island who’d followed Skinner’s troops in order to plunder. The guards, horse patrols, and some local militia pursued Skinner’s retreating raiders and claimed to have wounded several, but no report of the casualties survives in British or loyalist records. A small, third force of British or loyalist soldiers (their identity is not known) raided Rahway. The next day St. Clair reported to Washington that enemy troops “landed at Rahway, in a very obscure place, plundered two houses and carried off two men, and seem to have had no other object.” As for the main object, Birch’s cavalrymen, accompanied by Beckwith, rode north to Hackensack and regrouped there as planned. But after setting out from Hackensack for Morristown, the mounted troops were stymied by the harsh weather. “A body of cavalry passed into Jersey, but was obliged to return after a march of between five and six miles; the snow which fell on the 7th and 8th instant having rendered the roads impassable,” Knyphausen reported. Simcoe wrote that “Beckwith had found it impracticable to carry his attempt into execution, from an uncommon fall of rain, which encrusting the top of the snow, cut the fetlocks of his horses, and rendered it absolutely impossible for him to succeed.” Judge Thomas Jones railed in frustration about the failed attempt: “The guides got frightened, the party bewildered, they lost the road, and after a cold, tedious and fatiguing excursion of twenty-four hours, without ever seeing a Rebel, returned to New York, all frost-bitten.” Before turning back, the commander of the main body of dragoons had five rockets fired into the night sky to signal Stirling to call off his raid of Elizabethtown. In turn, Stirling had five rockets fired to signal Simcoe to call off his raid and turn back to Staten Island.
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KIDNAPPING WASHINGTON Loyalists in New York City quickly learned the true purpose of the raid. “The dragoons went out last night with an intent to take Washington,” newspaper printer Hugh Gaine wrote in his journal, “but the roads were so bad they could not proceed, so returned—ah well.” William Smith, with fair accuracy, wrote in his diary for February 11: “There went over the river last evening a party of 4 or 500 and 200 more from Staten Island, but they all returned on account of the depth of the snow. I suspect Washington was the chief object and the sallies from Staten Island feints.” The smothering February 7–8 snowstorm had spoiled the British mission to kidnap Washington. While the bitterly cold winter that had iced over the Hudson River made the raid against Morristown possible, it had also ruined Beckwith’s plan. The American commander in chief surely could not have revealed the significance of the following entry in his diary for February 8: “A fall of nine or ten inches of snow in the night from the northeast.” Ironically, the inability of Washington’s Continentals to quickly clear the road of snow between Hackensack and Morristown had prevented the raid. On February 11 St. Clair sent Washington an account of the unsuccessful British raids. Somehow, St. Clair had planted a spy—the guide for Birch’s dragoons. This man was likely a trader who plied his goods between New Jersey and Manhattan, supplying British-held New York. The spy reported to St. Clair, who explained to Washington:
Loyalists in New York City quickly learned the true purpose of the raid.
The party from Paulus Hook consisted of about three hundred horse, and landed at Hackensack.…They proceeded some distance into the country, and from the route they pursued, he [the spy] thinks, intended to have passed the Cedar Swamp, and were very particular in their inquiries about the situation of your quarters, and where I was quartered, and the guards that were posted between Hackensack and Morristown. He says particularly that, after marching some ways into the country, he heard an officer ask the commandant where they were going. He replied he could not tell him, but they had more than thirty miles to march that night. In a short time after this, finding the snow very deep and the roads not broken, they returned, and he [the spy] was dismissed. St. Clair then laid out a warning. “If their design was an attempt on your Excellency’s quarters,” he told Washing-
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ton, “I hope you will pardon me for hinting that there is not a sufficient body of troops near enough to render you secure. Had they designed to have fallen upon our rear, which they might have done, they had troops enough to have given us full occupation, and them the opportunity.” Washington responded to St. Clair the next day, noting that he had just “taken precautions to guard against an attempt, by such a party as might be reasonably supposed to be able to reach [his Morristown headquarters] in the course of a night.” One precaution was to increase his guard around and inside the mansion. In his response to St. Clair, Washington added, “I hope that a short continuance of this weather will make the ice impassable by horse; from foot there is no danger at this distance.” To increase security against another raid on Morristown, he advised St. Clair to extend his horse patrols north, at least until the ice across remained firm. As temperatures warmed in late February, the ice in the bays melted, and the British shelved any further plans to kidnap Washington. While the warmer weather melted the ice on the Hudson River, it also made the roads to Morristown passable by British dragoons. But Washington must have doubted that the British would plan a complicated amphibious operation, involving shipping dragoons and their horses across the Hudson, to mount another raid against him at Morristown. He also realized that a raid by infantry was not a true threat to his personal safety. Still, he took no chances. In March, Beckwith kept himself informed of the American commander’s security precautions through his own intelligence sources in and around Morristown. On March 3 Beckwith received word that “General Washington’s bodyguard” at the mansion was “augmented to 350 men….Onethird of them lodge every night in the lower part of the house.” On March 9 the intelligence captain received further information that “General Washington’s guard is augmented to 400 men. The caution against being surprised is sentinels being posted on every road leading to headquarters.” On March 16 a new storm dumped nine inches of snow in and around Morristown. Three days later, perhaps feeling vulnerable to another raid attempt over the ice on the Hudson River, Washington ordered two soldiers from each regiment and one sergeant from each brigade to join his Life Guard at the mansion. Though he was frustrated by Washington’s increased vigilance, Beckwith continued to seek and receive reports of Washington’s quarters, hoping to see another opportunity to try to kidnap him. In July and August of 1781, for example, Washington’s headquarters was sometimes at Joseph Appleby’s house, on the crossroad from Dobbs Ferry to White Plains in New York, about three and a half miles from the ferry. On July 28 a Hessian intelligence officer forwarded to
WASHINGTON, JEFFERSON & MADISON INSTITUTE
A smothering blizzard—one of more than 20 snowstorms that pounded the Morristown area in the winter of 1779–1980—spoiled the British mission to kidnap Washington.
Beckwith information obtained from a female spy who had gained access to Washington’s headquarters, probably by performing chores such as laundry or cooking. “The woman is returned from Washington’s quarters,” wrote Lieutenant Carl Levin Marquard. “She saw him herself and says that Washington sleeps in the back bedroom; that there were two French sentries yesterday at his door; that his guard consists of French and Rebels, which she judged to be about 30 or 40 men; that she saw no horsem*n there; that there was no camp in the rear of his quarters;…that Appleby’s was about half a mile back of the Rebel camps.” On August 11 Beckwith received information from a Continental Army deserter: “Washington’s house is about a quarter of a mile in the rear of the army at Appleby’s house….He has a guard of eighty men with him constantly.” Other than Simcoe, none of the major participants on the British side wrote about the attempt to capture the Continental Army’s commander in chief. It may have been that they were too embarrassed to admit their role in kidnap-
ping a man who had become revered in republican circles and elected to two terms as president of the United States. Surprisingly, perhaps, Washington himself favored the idea of kidnapping the enemy. He twice ordered plans made to abduct his counterpart, British commander in chief Henry Clinton, at his headquarters in New York City, and he even ordered plans made to kidnap 17-year-old Prince William Henry, the first member of the British royal family to visit North America, in 1782, after the great victory at Yorktown. Referring to a bid to capture Clinton in 1778, he wrote, “I think it one of the…most desirable and honorable things imaginable.” MHQ Christian McBurney is a partner in the law firm Arent Fox in Washington, D.C. He is the author of four books on the Revolutionary War, including Abductions in the American Revolution: Attempts to Kidnap George Washington, Benedict Arnold, and Other Military and Civilian Leaders (McFarland, 2016).
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A U-BOAT'S U-TURN
Hailing “Freedom of the Seas,” a German cartoon magazine celebrates the blockade-blocking submarine’s maiden voyage by asking, “Hello, America, what do you say now?” President Woodrow Wilson, bug-eyed and slack-jawed, looks on helplessly from the mouth of Baltimore Harbor.
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WARREN BERNARD COLLECTION
In 1916 a German “merchant” submarine suddenly popped up in Baltimore. It went on to sink 43 Allied ships during World War I. By Warren Bernard
THE STEALTH SUB
s the fog lifted just after dawn on July 9, 1916, people along the shores of the Chesapeake Bay in Virginia and Maryland witnessed something never before seen—or even imagined—in the United States: a German U-boat slowly making its way into an American port. At 213 feet long and 30 feet high, Deutschland was the largest submarine ever built. It had but one aim: to break the British naval blockade preventing undersea trade between Germany and the United States. Americans who had read newspaper accounts of Germany’s death-dealing U-boats during the first two years of the war stood at the shoreline watching the world’s first unarmed merchant submarine proudly flying the German flag as it cruised up the Chesapeake and into Baltimore. Newspaper reporters, newsreel crews, and thrill seekers boarded small boats to get a closer look at the slowmoving Deutschland. Captain Paul König, who spoke English, stood with his crew on the submarine’s conning tower and answered questions about their historic trip, shouting over the din of Deutschland’s engines. A sudden, late-afternoon thunderstorm scattered the observers and inquisitors, allowing the massive submarine to complete its trip to Baltimore in relative peace and the reporters to file their stories in time to be printed in the evening papers. Even before it had arrived, Deutschland was a full-blown media sensation. The July 9 evening edition of the Washington Times devoted its entire front page to the story, under these headlines:
A
Even before it had arrived, Deutschland was a fullblown media sensation.
U-BOAT LINER ARRIVES; IS NOW COMING UP BAY German Submarine Reaches Virginia Capes Early Today After Escaping From French and British Warships. Bringing Valuable Chemical Cargo to Baltimore
Deutschland carried more than 1,000 tons of dyes sorely needed by U.S. textile manufacturers. Before the war, Germany had enjoyed a worldwide monopoly on high-quality dyes used in textiles, with the United States one of its largest customers. But by 1916 the fabrics in American cloth-
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ing, draperies, tablecloths, and other goods had become noticeably less vibrant as the British shipping blockade took hold and stocks of dyes imported from Germany before the war were exhausted. U.S. textile makers were anxiously awaiting the arrival of the Deutschland’s very valuable cargo. After weeks dodging British warships and maneuvering through rough seas, with temperatures inside sometimes reaching 120 degrees, Deutschland finally settled peacefully into a berth at Locust Point in Baltimore Harbor. Its crewmen found their new, spacious quarters on the German passenger ship Neckar, docked next to Deutschland. On the rainy morning of July 10, hundreds of people gathered just outside the gates of the high fence surrounding the dock, hoping to get a glimpse of Deutschland or its crew. Later that day, reporters and photographers were invited to get their first close look at everything, and soon newspapers everywhere had pictures of Deutschland’s crewmen smiling and waving their hats for the cameras. Baltimore enthusiastically welcomed König and his men. The city had one of the nation’s largest concentrations of Germans (some 20 percent of its population in 1914), as it had been a prime destination for German immigrants since the 1880s. Many of Baltimore’s public schools taught German, and the city had a German-language daily newspaper and a multitude of social clubs and activities for its German-speaking community. König and other members of Deutschland’s crew were treated like celebrities, with newspaper interviews, dinner with Mayor James H. Preston, a visit from German ambassador Johann Heinrich von Bernstorff, and banquets and other festivities organized by Baltimore’s GermanAmerican community. König responded effusively: “Only those who know American hospitality and American enthusiasm can form an idea of the hearty reception we were given everywhere,” he told reporters. “People’s heads were quite turned. It did one good to see with how much open and honest sympathy our voyage and safe arrival were regarded by the Americans, and how this sympathy was expressed with the most unrestrained rapture.” Such was the mystique of Deutschland that people inquired about booking passage to Germany on the submarine’s return voyage. Some 200 members of Congress asked to see Deutschland, it being a political and technological curiosity, but König said no, citing security reasons. Ger-
BAIN NEWS SERVICE/LIBRARY OF CONGRESS
Captain Paul König and the crew of Deutschland pose for photographers in Baltimore with Paul Hilken, the front man for the German operation in the United States.
many further burnished the triumphal image of the voyage by announcing that it was building 25 more Deutschlandclass submarines to sail under the British blockade, not only to the United States but also to Spain and South America. Postcards featuring Deutschland were published in the United States in both English and German. Movie theaters in Baltimore, New York, and other cities showed film shorts of its arrival. Scientific American, Collier’s, and other magazines featured stories about the technical wonders of the massive submarine, though editorials in the nation’s newspapers reflected conflicting attitudes: The Deutschland’s feat is notable and if it is found to pay, it will doubtless be repeated. But the notion that it proves that “the English blockade amounts to nothing” [a German agent’s assertion] is delusional, as the Germans themselves are quite aware. —New York Herald, July 12, 1916
The world will not withhold warm admiration for the initiative and daring that adapted this type of marine construction to the purposes of commerce and the navigation that solved all of the problems of its record-breaking trip and caused the longest voyage ever made by a submarine to be a voyage of peace rather than war. In this brilliant exploit the German merchant marine has matched the resourcefulness of the German navy. And no higher commendation drawn from the analogies of the present war could be framed. —St. Louis Post-Dispatch, July 10, 1916 The giddiness of some of the American press and the people of Baltimore over the arrival of Deutschland wasn’t shared by the other Allies, and the event caused some consternation in Washington, D.C. In the early years of World
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War I, the United States and the Allies had sharply divergent views of the British blockade. The British were intent on cutting off shipments of any material that could aid Germany’s war effort. The foodstuffs, coal, metals, armaments, and even cotton on American merchant ships were considered contraband, and regardless of their final destination, ships found carrying those items had their cargoes impounded. Further dampening American trade, the British put quotas on what could be sent to Denmark, Norway, Sweden, and the Netherlands, as it was found those neutral European countries were being used as conduits for goods bound for Germany. The British also boarded more than 2,000 American ships sailing between the United States and Canadian ports, confiscating cargoes worth millions of dollars. Britain’s allies, France and Russia, supported the blockade as a way to choke off Germany’s access to war materials and foodstuffs. Little wonder, then, that when the Allied powers, joined by Japan, filed a formal protest with the U.S. State Department to impound Deutschland as a weapon of war, the United States was less than sympathetic. As the submarine was purportedly owned by a private company, Deutsch Ozean Reederei, and the crew held papers showing that they were German merchantmen and not from the German navy, the U.S. government could not justify impounding it. It did, however, send Navy and Treasury Department representatives to inspect the submarine. They reported that it was unarmed and saw no way that it could be turned into an armed U-boat. Based on these findings, the Joint State and Navy Neutrality Board declared Deutschland to be a merchant vessel. But it added an important caveat: that the status of any Deutschland-type merchant submarine be reassessed with each visit to a U.S. port. That left open the door to a future reversal in policy based on German-American relations and Germany’s conduct of the war. In Washington, the British and French embassies not only objected to the provisioning of the submarine while it was in Baltimore Harbor but also protested the U.S. government’s decision to classify Deutschland as a merchant ship. The British immediately made it clear that Deutschland or any submarine like it would be treated as a warship
The British aimed to cut off shipments that could aid Germany’s war effort.
by its Royal Navy, shelled “at sight,” and given no quarter. Meanwhile, Deutschland’s cargo of dyestuffs was unloaded into a warehouse. The cargo for its return trip—376 tons of nickel, needed to reinforce steel for Germany’s arms industry, and about 500 tons of rubber for gaskets, bushings, tires, and other products needed for its war effort—was loaded into the ship shortly thereafter. Repairs were also undertaken. Engine parts made from German steel were replaced with U.S.-made brass parts, as the German parts were inferior and prone to failure. Deutschland topped off its tanks with as much high-quality American fuel as it could hold, which triggered another international protest, as the British and French pointed out that the extra fuel could be used to resupply armed U-boats. As reports circulated that British and French ships were waiting for Deutschland in international waters off the mouth of the Chesapeake, newspapers ran stories suggesting that the submarine’s trip back to its home port of Bremen might not be as safe or easy as the trip to Baltimore. American fishing boats whose operators supported the British cause were said to be readying huge nets to try to snare the sub. Ambassador Bernsdorff, sensing danger, asked the U.S. government for an escort for Deutschland’s three-mile voyage to international waters, but the State Department rebuffed his request. On August 1, Deutschland eased out of its berth in Baltimore and—joined by boats jammed with reporters, photographers, and onlookers—floated back down the Patapsco River. The next morning it reached international waters, submerged, and began the long trip back to Germany. On August 25, after three weeks at sea without incident, Deutschland entered the Weser River. Thousands of people lined its banks to celebrate the heroic submarine, which for the occasion was decked with various flags, including the Stars and Stripes. Bremen’s mayor and other dignitaries greeted König and his crew. Banquets, toasts, and tributes for the blockade-running heroes followed. German newspapers and magazines, such as Der Brummer and Lustig Blätter, ran articles and cartoons extolling Deutschland’s success. With little to show from mounting battlefield casualties and worsening food shortages, the German people desperately needed good news, and the exploits of Deutschland gave them some hope, however fleeting. Deutschland was conceived out of the dire situation in which Germany found itself as a result of the British blockade, which by early 1915 was already constricting the flow
Members of Deutschland’s crew wave their caps for the cameras at McLean Pier in Baltimore on July 10, 1916. A city quarantine tug, E. Clay Timanus, helps to pilot the submarine into the harbor, shielding it from “accidental” ramming by British vessels.
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HARRIS & EWING COLLECTION/LIBRARY OF CONGRESS (2)
THE STEALTH SUB
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THE STEALTH SUB Fritz Stoltenberg (1855–1922), a German landscape and marine painter, produced this longitudinal cutaway of “The Underwater Cargo Ship ‘Deutschland’” for reproduction in poster form. The schematic shows the cargo holds of the submarine filled with the nickel and other metals it came to retrieve in the United States.
of raw materials needed for its war effort. German arms makers, for example, needed nickel, saltpeter, iron ore, coal, and other materials to manufacture guns, artillery, and ammunition. The largest such company was Friedrich Krupp AG. In addition to submarines, Krupp manufactured most of Germany’s artillery (including the renowned Big Bertha) as well as other weapons and war matériel. It did the same for Germany’s allies, the Austro-Hungarians and Ottomans. In August 1914, with the onset of war, Krupp had purchased stores of U.S. nickel to strengthen the steel used in U-boats, ships, artillery barrels, and other armaments. But the British blockade kept Krupp from obtaining this valuable metal, so in late 1915 the company assigned its engineers to design a merchant submarine that could travel under the British fleet to retrieve the nickel warehoused in America. At about the same time, Karl Helfferich, Germany’s finance minister (and one of its leading financiers), brought the same idea to the German navy. With Alfred Lohmann, a Bremen-based businessman, Helfferich developed a plan not only to build the submarine but also to construct an intricate deception that would make it appear as if the submarine were a strictly private initiative. To do this Helfferich and Lohmann set up a civilian front company, Deutsche Ozean Reederei, that was nominally owned by Norddeutscher Lloyd, a well-respected concern that for more than 30 years had transported immigrants from its base in Bremen to Baltimore and handled shipments of goods between Germany and the United States. But behind the scenes, the Imperial German Navy’s design bureau would draw up the construction plans in consultation with Krupp, which would actually build Deutschland and be paid by the navy. The ship’s engines had been designed for the German navy’s heavy cruisers, and its crew was selected from experienced U-boat personnel. In every way Deutschland was a creation of the German navy, under the civilian veneers of Deutsche Ozean Reederei and Norddeutscher Lloyd. With the German government paying for Deutschland’s
In 1915 Krupp assigned its engineers to design a merchant submarine.
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construction, Deutsche Ozean Reederei turned to warehousing, supplies, and other needs in the United States. It hired Paul Hilken, an MIT graduate and pillar of Baltimore’s German-American community, who in 1915 was working as a German spy while running the operations of the Norddeutscher Lloyd Steamship Company. Hilken arranged for the dock, warehouse, and other facilities the Deutschland would use while it was in Baltimore. Hilken also arranged to bring the raw materials to Baltimore that Deutschland would take back to Germany, with the priority on the nickel that Krupp had previously purchased. In December 1915 the keels were laid for Deutschland and a sister merchant submarine, Bremen. Weeks later König was chosen as Deutschland’s commander because he spoke fluent English, was an experienced captain, and had previously navigated the route to Baltimore while with Norddeutscher Lloyd. Like much of the crew, König was a member of the German navy, but to maintain the facade of Deutschland being strictly a merchant vessel, all of the crew would carry papers attesting to their status as merchant sailors. In truth, Deutschland was an unarmed Imperial German Navy U-boat manned by an Imperial German Navy crew. Given the success of Deutschland’s first voyage—it got the much-needed nickel to Krupp and the rubber to other German companies—the massive submarine left Bremen again on October 1, 1916, for New London, Connecticut, as that destination shaved about a week from the round trip. This time, in addition to dyes, Deutschland’s cargo included German pharmaceuticals, diamonds and other pre-
WARRELICS.EU
cious stones, and securities—all for the purchase of American goods. As it was with the dyes, the German pharmaceuticals had a large market in the United States, which was now cut off by the British blockade. After fighting its way through a three-day storm in the Atlantic, Deutschland finally pulled into New London on November 8. But things didn’t go as well as they had in Baltimore. For starters, there was the surprise arrival on October 7 of U-53 at the Naval Station in Newport, Rhode Island. Undetected until it surfaced at the mouth of Narragansett Bay, the U-boat’s appearance proved that the U.S. Navy was vulnerable to submarines at one of its largest bases. After a courteous visit of six hours, U-53 left Newport and, over the next six days, sank six Allied vessels as it cruised the Atlantic. Under the Sussex Pledge, issued in May 1916 in an effort to appease the United States after a German submarine torpedoed a French passenger ferry without warning, Germany had promised that its U-boats would allow merchant ships enough time to load crews and passengers on lifeboats before attempting to sink them. It was then left to the United States to send out ships to rescue those adrift at sea. The attacks moved public opinion further against Germany, and American business leaders quickly came to fear that all shipping on the East Coast would soon be under attack by U-boats. With bad press from the U-53 episode already coloring the reception of Deutschland on its second voyage, things didn’t get much better on the public relations front. In New London there was a total news blackout on the dock where Deutschland was berthed. No one could even see the submarine, much less have any interaction with the crew.
Once again navy inspectors were sent to make sure Deutschland wasn’t armed. This set of inspectors, however, saw things in a different, decidedly negative light. They concluded that Deutschland could easily be retrofitted into a surface raider or mine-laying submarine and could be armed with torpedoes. They also noted that the large cargo holds would make it easy for Deutschland to serve as a submarine tender, providing fuel and spare parts to other U-boats. Just after midnight on November 17, Deutschland left New London loaded with a cargo of nickel, rubber, tin, and silver. As it was being escorted out to sea by the tugboat T. A. Scott Jr., the tug suddenly turned into its path and collided with the giant submarine. The tugboat sank immediately; all five members of its crew died. Deutschland returned to New London for repairs. In short order, more than $200,000 in claims were filed against its owners. Although a trial was scheduled for December 18, König received clearance to leave, and on November 21 Deutschland headed home. As there had been no public relations bonanza from its second trip, no dignitaries, adoring crowds, or banquets greeted the submarine and its crew on their return to Bremen. Though Deutschland had two successful trips transporting goods to and from the United States, events unfolding in Germany would soon change its fate. Germany began rationing bread in January 1915. The rest of the year saw rising prices for bread, milk, meat, and other basic foodstuffs. Before long, shortages of these foods led to riots. As other products—including fats, flour, and potatoes—became subject to rationing the following year,
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THE STEALTH SUB civil disturbances over food broke out in cities all across Germany. On the battlefront, German troops suffered large losses at the Somme and Verdun, among other places, with little to show in terms of either military or political advantage over the Allies. The situation for Germany was becoming increasingly dire. As 1916 wore on, Germany’s grim position once again brought the idea of unrestricted submarine warfare into play at the highest levels of the German government. Having built a much larger U-boat fleet since 1915, the Germans hoped to force Britain out of the war by cutting off the supplies it was importing from the United States and other countries. With the approval of Kaiser Wilhelm II, Germany declared that its unrestricted submarine attacks would resume on February 1, 1917. In December 1916 the German government ordered all Deutschland-class submarines to be transferred to the jurisdiction of the German navy so that they could be converted into U-cruisers—larger U-boats designed to stay at sea for months at a time. On February 27, 1917, Deutschland, now assigned the name U-155, was sent to the North Sea naval base at Wilhelmshaven, where it began its retrofitting as a U-cruiser. The interior was reconfigured for a larger crew and stockpile of ammunition, and the old narrow walkway from the conning tower was replaced by a larger, elevated deck. Two 150mm deck guns were installed on the new deck, and six torpedo tubes, all taken from the old battleship Zähringen, were installed fore and aft of the guns. The retrofit, however, left U-155 with two disadvantages at sea. First, its external torpedo tubes were constantly exposed to seawater, increasing the need for maintenance and making them prone to mechanical issues, and the sub had to surface to reload them. Second, it was slow. Deutschland could make only 10 knots or so on the surface and was significantly slower when submerged. It couldn’t chase fast ships, and its slow dive time meant that it was much more vulnerable to depth charges and surface fire from Allied vessels. As a result, Deutschland’s captain had to be especially cautious in his attack tactics. With Deutschland’s conversion to a U-cruiser, König returned to the navy to serve in its personnel office, selecting merchant seamen for U-boat duty. Two of Deutschland’s officers stayed with U-155, serving under its new captain, Karl Meusel, who had trained as a U-boat commander and previously served as a watch commander. A
Deutschland was, without doubt, the most famous German U-boat of World War I.
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new crew was brought aboard U-155 and on May 23, 1917, after a series of sea trials, it left Kiel for patrol in the Azores. Only a day out to sea, one of U-155’s compressors failed and had to be repaired. This was just the beginning of a long list of mechanical failures that plagued the U-boat during its first patrol. But Meusel pushed tenaciously on as his mechanics overcame the technical difficulties by cannibalizing parts and using the onboard machine shop. To make up speed while maximizing the firepower of his deck guns, Meusel, using the naval tactic of “crossing the T,” would surface U-155 in the path of an oncoming ship to bring both of his deck guns to bear on the target. He reasoned that no ship would be willing to ram the large submarine. None did. Meusel’s patrol took him up the Norwegian coast, around the northern tip of Ireland, and then down to the Azores. From May 23 to August 8, U-155 sank or damaged 21 ships, mostly by using its 150mm deck-mounted guns to force them to stop and then boarding them to set charges. Only once did U-155 use its torpedoes to sink a ship. But combat exposed further issues with Deutschland’s conversion. Most of its torpedoes were damaged from being stowed improperly and getting jostled in rough seas. Heavy use of the large deck guns loosened them from their mountings and wore out their traversing gears, ruining their accuracy. U-155 spent the next month making its way back to Kiel, arriving on September 7. It was immediately sent to the dockyards for repairs, and Meusel was reassigned to another U-boat. Commander Erich Eckelman took over U-155. It was his first combat assignment. After being outfitted with new deck guns and an onboard torpedo room as well as getting a general overhaul, U-155 undertook a new series of sea trials in December 1917. On January 14, 1918, it once again headed south of the Azores, charged with intercepting ships heading to and from the Mediterranean Sea via the Straits of Gibraltar. On the way there and once in position, Eckelman had trouble finding suitable targets, as the Allies had begun using defensive convoys to reduce losses to their merchant ship fleet. As a result, Eckelman began going after sailing ships. He sank 17 of them. After returning to Kiel on May 4, 1918, U-155 underwent three months of overhaul and was outfitted with mine-laying equipment. A new captain, Ferdinand Studt, was assigned. Like Eckelman, he had no U-boat experience. On August 11, U-155 left Kiel for what turned out to be its last patrol, along the Eastern Seaboard from Canada to New York City. Before being called home with the rest of the U-boat fleet on October 21, Studt managed to sink only four fishing vessels and four other ships. U-155 arrived back in Kiel on November 14, three days after the signing of the armistice.
Ships Sunk by U-155 NORTH ATLANTIC OCEAN
Baltimore
NATION OF ORIGIN United States United Kingdom Italy
Portugal Norway France
Canada Greece Spain
WARREN BERNARD COLLECTION; MAP BY BRIAN WALKER
Deutschland’s maiden voyage under the British naval blockade was fodder for cartoonists (left). After the submarine was converted into U-155 by the German navy in 1917, it sank 43 Allied ships as it relentlessly patrolled the North Atlantic Ocean.
The saga of Deutschland/U-155 did not close quietly or quickly with the end of World War I. Under the terms of the armistice, the German navy had 14 days to turn over all of its submarines to the Allies. And so, on November 24, 1918, the last of the operational German U-boats surrendered to British rear admiral Reginald Tyrwitt, the commander of the Harwich Force, which during the war had helped hunt down U-boats and aided in the blockade against Germany. With Sir Eric Geddes, the First Lord of the Admiralty, looking on from the bridge of one of Tyrwitt’s destroyers, Germany’s remaining 28 U-boats, led by U-155, were handed over to the Royal Navy. The British did not miss any opportunities to flaunt the captured U-boats as war trophies. Five of them, including Deutschland, were sent from Harwich to London. On December 14 the mighty Deutschland, moored at St. Katherine’s Dock near Tower Bridge, was opened to the public, and people by the hundreds lined up to get a peek inside. After its return to Harwich in early 1919, Deutschland was sold to financier Horatio Bottomley, a former member of Parliament and owner of the patriotic magazine John Bull. The submarine was put on display around England to help sell more than £100,000 in Victory Bonds, with profits from admissions and souvenirs earmarked for the King George’s Fund for Sailors, a charity formed in 1917. More than 150,000 people reportedly saw Deutschland when it was displayed at various English ports from May 1919 to September 1920.
But the whole enterprise turned out to be a scam engineered by Bottomley, who was arrested and convicted in 1922 for fraud involving the purchase and commercialization of Deutschland and for using the money from the Victory Bonds for his own benefit. Deutschland’s final chapter was tragic. In June 1921 it was brought to Birkenhead, near Liverpool, to be disassembled. Three months later, as the submarine was being taken apart, an explosion ripped through its engine room. Five young apprentices died and one was seriously injured when the torches they were using ignited tanks of hydrogen gas where they were working. Shortly thereafter, what was left of the submarine was sold for scrap. Deutschland was, without doubt, the most famous German U-boat of World War I. It was a symbol of German resolve, and of the innovative thinking of the German navy and German industry. Germany, faced with the crippling consequences of the British naval blockade, saw merchant submarines as a possible solution. But the Germans’ desperation caused them to overlook the obvious—namely, that the Deutschland-class submarines were too small, too slow, and too few to appreciably affect the outcome of the war. Ultimately, Deutschland was as much folly as it was famous. MHQ Warren Bernard is the author of Cartoons for Victory (Fantagraphics Books, 2015). He has lectured at the Library of Congress on various historical topics.
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SHADOWS OF WAR An artist’s still-life montages venerate the keepsakes of veterans.
n 2012 artist Leslie Starobin learned of her father-in-law’s British Army book and journal from World War II, newly discovered and filled with snapshots, secret correspondence, and other items that helped to illuminate the part of his life devoted to military service. Starobin, a professor of communication arts at Framingham State University in Framingham, Massachusetts, soon launched her own search for collections of objects—photographs, letters, articles of clothing, and other keepsakes—that, as she puts it, “stir the visual imagination.” The 18 multilayered, textural photomontages that make up her recent exhibition, “Dear Dearest Mother,” speak to such universal themes as love, longing, fear, loss, and remembrance. The exhibition, which spans military conflicts from the Civil War to the present, powerfully venerates classic photography, the lost art of letter writing, and the relic of the battlefield. It’s proof, as the saying goes, that every picture tells a story.
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SPECIAL COLLECTIONS, FRAMINGTON HISTORY CENTER
‘If This Be Glory It Is Enough of It’ “Dear Dearest Mother, I have been homesick,” George H. Gordon, a cadet in the U.S. Military Academy, began a letter home in 1846. On graduating he would send his family a daguerreotype of himself, and in 1847 he would write home to describe the atrocities he had witnessed as a lieutenant in the Mexican-American War: “My heart bled for one poor little fellow of my regiment. His arm was shattered by a cannon ball…and the surgeon had taken his arm off at the shoulder. I turned away and thought if this be glory it is enough of it.” During the Civil War, Gordon, who would rise to the rank of brigadier general in the Union army, led troops against Thomas H. “Stonewall” Jackson (a West Point classmate) in the Battle of Antietam and at the Siege of Charleston.
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‘I Love You Always’ John T. “Mac” McEntegart saved the photo of his high school sweetheart (and future wife) Judy that he carried with him to Vietnam as a sergeant in the U.S. Marine Corps, along with a telegram that she sent to him in 1967 and the South Vietnamese flag that his men inscribed and presented to him when he left Vietnam the following year. In a letter to Judy dated September 28, 1967, McEntegart wrote: “We are in a new area [Con Thien, a Marine Corps fire support base]...up [near] the DMZ. We were mortared last night. The mortars hit eight of my men. They were all casualties. As I was writing this letter to you, the round hit your picture. Later everyone joked that none of us was hurt, but ‘Mac, your wife got killed.’”
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‘I Want to Show the Germans That I Am Still Here’ André Scheinmann, whose family had emigrated from Düsseldorf to Bruay, France, when he was a teenager, joined the French army in 1939. After the Germans invaded France he became a prisoner of war. Scheinmann managed to escape and join the French underground resistance movement. In 1943 the Nazis arrested Scheinmann and sent him to the Natzweiler-Struthof concentration camp, and in 1944 he was deported to Dachau, where he remained until the U.S. Army liberated it on April 29, 1945. At age 80, despite his poor health, Scheinmann insisted on returning to Germany for ceremonies marking the 50th anniversary of Dachau’s liberation. “I want to show the Germans that I am still here,” he explained to his son, “and that the thousand-year Reich is not.”
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‘He Was Carrying in His Heart His Family’s Tragedy’ Meir Sheracoviak of Łódź, Poland, was 26 when he reported for military duty after Germany invaded Poland in 1939. Months later Sheracoviak, a Jew, was forced to flee across the border to the Soviet Union, leaving his wife and infant daughter behind. He spent two years foraging to survive and in 1942 made it to Tel Aviv, where he eventually joined the Jewish Brigade of the British Army. More than 60,000 Jews had perished in the Nazi-created hell of the Łódź ghetto, including his parents and extended family; his wife and daughter, he later learned, had died in the Nazi extermination camps at Auschwitz in 1944. “Like most of his comrades,” one of Sheracoviak’s sons from his second marriage would later say, “he was carrying in his heart his family’s tragedy.”
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SPECIAL COLLECTIONS, FRAMINGTON HISTORY CENTER
‘You Have to Wear a Silk Scarf’ Gilbert C. Burns never washed the sweat out of the white scarf that he wore while flying more than a hundred combat missions over Nazi Germany as an American fighter pilot. “Over here when we fly we have to keep twisting our neck and looking around— you can probably guess why,” Burns told his mother in a letter. “And you have to wear a silk scarf, or your neck will chafe from your collar.” Late in life, Burns revealed that his scarf had been given to him by “a Parisian girl” who had made it with the fabric from a German parachute that she had found in the woods near her home. “When American pilots were captured, the German captors would invariably take these as souvenirs,” Burns later wrote. “I managed to bring mine home at war’s end.”
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‘Wooden Ships With Iron Men’ John A. Halfrey enlisted in the U.S. Navy on July 29, 1902, in Boston, Massachusetts. While in the navy, Halfrey kept a little leather-covered journal that he filled with handwritten notes. On board the USS Atlanta, Halfrey logged in various notations about the atmospheric conditions in deep-sea waters, noting in an entry about the “velocity of wind” that a zero meant “calm” and that the numeral 5 denoted “stiff breezes.” On subsequent pages he described the caliber of a gun on the ship. Halfrey also copied poems, including “A Psalm of Life” and “The Wreck of the Hesperus,” by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. “When I was in the navy,” the sailor’s son, John C. Halfrey, recalls his father saying, “they had wooden ships with iron men.”
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‘If Death Be My Portion…’ In July 1862, the Reverend Basil L. DeShetler of the 7th Michigan Infantry, Company D, noting that he was “a soldier of the cross and in arm for my country,” penned this entry in his Civil War diary: “If death be my portion, I hope to hear, a voice above the roar of cannon and din of battle, full of sweetness and majesty, in which are blended the sympathy of man with the omnipotence of God saying to the poor Soul, ‘Thy sins are forgiven thee: be of Good Cheer.’ The man who is willing that the Union should be divided by the sword of treason may have been been born in America, but he cannot have an American heart.” Later that year, DeShetler, the married father of eight children, wrote a final entry in his diary after he was mortally wounded in the Battle of Antietam.
See all of the photomontages in Leslie Starobin’s Dear Dearest Mother exhibition at www.starobinartworks.com.
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GERMANY’S LION OF THE DEFENSIVE Colonel Fritz von Lossberg, known throughout the German army as “der Abwehrlöwe,” was sent in whenever things got bad on the Western Front.
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WIKIMEDIA COMMONS
As the Allies battled Germany during World War I, Colonel Fritz von Lossberg emerged as one of their most formidable— and fearsome—adversaries. By David T. Zabecki
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LOSSBERG
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o his contemporaries in the German army during World War I, Colonel Fritz von Lossberg was der Abwehrlöwe—the Lion of the Defensive. To some, Lossberg was “Ludendorff ’s Fireman,” as he was one of the first officers General Erich Ludendorff summoned whenever things got really bad on the Western Front. Few officers in the 20th century have had as much influence on the development of modern military tactics. Lossberg played a key role in developing and proving on the battlefield many of the principles and techniques modern armies apply to the conduct of defensive operations, including defense in depth, flexible defense, and reverse-slope defense. Lossberg didn’t command anything from 1914 to 1918, but he was the chief of staff of one corps, five different field armies, and two army groups. Under the German General Staff system of the time, a chief of staff was almost a co-commander and in many cases had more direct influence on the conduct of operations than the commander himself. From 1915 to late 1917 the German army was on the overall defensive on the Western Front—with the notable exception of the 1916 Verdun Offensive—and Lossberg directed virtually all of its major defensive battles. Friedrich Karl von Lossberg was born in 1868 at Bad Homberg to an old Thuringian military family. In 1886 he joined the elite 2nd Foot Guards Regiment as an officer candidate. He was commissioned in 1887, and in 1894, while still a second lieutenant, he entered the vaunted Kriegsakademie, the Prussian war academy that was the primary training institution for German General Staff officers. After graduating from the three-year course, Lossberg served an additional two-year probationary period, finally achieving full qualification as a general staff officer in 1900. His career then followed the standard pattern, alternating between general staff and line assignments, including company and battalion command. Lossberg returned to the Kriegsakademie as an instructor from 1907 to 1910. When World War I broke out, Lossberg was the chief of staff of the XIII Army Corps, which took part in the early fighting around Ypres, Belgium. In November 1914 the XIII Army Corps was redeployed to the Eastern Front. Three months later Lossberg was reassigned to the High Command of the German Field Army (Oberste Heereslei-
To some, Lossberg was “Ludendorff’s Fireman” on the Western Front.
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tung, or OHL) as deputy chief of the Operations Department. He hated his time at OHL, much preferring to be serving with combat troops. He got his chance to go back to the front when the French launched a major offensive in Champagne on September 25, 1915. The German Third Army in that sector immediately requested permission to pull back. Lossberg didn’t agree with its proposed course of action. Neither did General Erich von Falkenhayn, the chief of OHL. Falkenhayn immediately relieved the Third Army’s chief of staff, replacing him with Lossberg, who had specific orders to restore the tactical situation. Lossberg was only a newly promoted colonel, but as soon as he reported, he requested and received vollmacht from his new commander. Vollmacht was a command-and-control concept unique to the German army. In the civilian context the word is translated as “power of attorney,” but there is no real English equivalent for the military application. Through the end of World War I, a senior general staff officer given vollmacht had the specific authority in emergency situations to issue direct orders to subordinate commanders in the name of the senior commander, even without having first checked with that commander. The technique was used very sparingly, but for the rest of the war Lossberg was entrusted with vollmacht on many occasions. By early November the Germans had won the Second Battle of Champagne, inflicting some 450,000 casualties on the French in six weeks. Lossberg’s reputation as the master of the defensive was firmly established. In February 1916 Falkenhayn launched Germany’s offensive at Verdun. What turned into a massive battle of attrition failed in the end, but for 10 months the French army was under intense stress and came close to breaking. On July 1, to relieve the pressure on Verdun, the British and the French launched their great offensive at the Somme. Two days later OHL posted Lossberg to the Second Army as its chief of staff, again with orders to restore the situation. On July 19 OHL split General of Infantry Fritz von Below’s Second Army into the First and Second Armies. The Second Army was to deal with the French in the south, and the First Army was to defend against the more dangerous British in the north. Lossberg and Below went with the half that became the First Army. The Battle of the Somme lasted until November 18 and was one of the worst bloodbaths in a war that was never short of carnage. It was a resounding operational defeat for the Allies. Fifty German divisions fought 51 British and 48 French divisions to a standstill. The British and French suffered an estimated 620,000 casualties, the Germans about 450,000. Lossberg was awarded the prestigious Orden Pour le Mérite (the order of merit also known as “The Blue Max”) for his role in the battle.
NATIONAL ARMY MUSEUM (U.K.)
A German stormtrooper cuts through Allied barbed-wire defenses in 1918. By the final year of the war the Allies had adopted most of Germany’s defensive techniques.
During the Battle of the Somme, Lossberg calculated that it took eight to 10 hours for a message to travel in either direction between a divisional headquarters and the front line, and far longer back to corps and army. Most telephone lines were cut as soon as the artillery started firing. From then on, almost everything depended on runners—assuming they even survived. The tactical situation always changed drastically during the time that it took information to flow up the chain of command and the corresponding orders to flow back down. Lossberg concluded that the only practical way to speed up tactical responsiveness was to give the frontline battalion commanders total control of their own sectors. That meant that the higher headquarters would have to support the decisions of the frontline commanders, who best knew the terrain and the situation. For such a system to work, the frontline battalion commanders also had to have operational control of any reinforcements committed to their sectors—regardless of the size of the reinforcing unit or its commander’s rank—to ensure continuity of command. A frontline battalion commander would thus have the authority to withdraw from forward positions under pressure as the tactical situation demanded. More significantly, he would have the authority to commit his regiment’s remaining battalions to the counterattack when he judged the timing right.
On the Somme the three battalions of a regiment were typically deployed echeloned in column. The Forward Battalion held the first defensive position—actually a series of usually three or more roughly parallel and mutually supporting trench lines. The Immediate Reserve Battalion held the second defensive position. Farther to the rear, and generally beyond the range of the enemy’s artillery, was the Deep Reserve Battalion. Lossberg’s system effectively shortened the chain of command, with the regimental commander now managing the logistical support of his forward deployed battalions. Although Lossberg initially was a proponent of rigid, forward defense, by the end of 1916 he was experimenting with emerging innovations in defensive techniques. Reverse-slope defense was something of a counterintuitive concept. With the main line of resistance sited just down from the ridgeline, away from the enemy, defenders had a much shorter field of fire. But they were screened rather effectively from enemy observation and masked from small-arms and artillery fire. Observers and defensive strongpoints on the front side of the slope provided early warning and called in targets for the German artillery positioned farther back. Attacking enemy forces were completely exposed when they arrived on the crest, and once they started down the defender’s side they were masked from their own artillery support.
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The main idea was to trade space, where necessary, for time and especially enemy lives. The forwardmost ground was held by fire, not by men. Once the enemy attack culminated, the attacker would be subjected to an almost immediate counterattack before he could set his defense or bring his supporting elements forward. German doctrine recognized two basic types of counterattack: gegenstoss and gegenangriff. These are best translated into English as hasty counterattack and deliberate counterattack. When-
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ever possible, a German force pushed out of its initial defensive positions was expected to launch a gegenstoss before the enemy could consolidate or bring up enough forces and artillery to continue the attack. In situations where the attacking force was just too strong or too well supported by its own artillery or air cover, such a hasty counterattack would only lead to more casualties. The commander of the forward battalion was given wide latitude in deciding whether a gegenstoss was
BETTMANN/GETTY IMAGES
In April 1918, during the first of General Erich Ludendorff’s great spring offensives, German troops advance through smoke and fire past the body of a fallen French soldier on the edge of a shell hole at Villers-Bretonneux.
FROM TOP: NICOLA PERSCHEID/STAATSBIBLIOTHEK ZU BERLIN; UNIVERSITAET OSNABRUCK
General Erich von Falkenhayn (lower right), who in February 1916 had launched Germany’s stalled offensive at Verdun, was sacked as chief of the German General Staff in July. He was replaced by Field Marshal Paul von Hindenburg (upper right).
feasible. If not, the standard procedure was to prepare to launch a deliberate counterattack, based on careful planning and the commitment of sufficient reinforcements and artillery. While the Allied command and control of attacks and counterattacks became increasingly centralized at ever-higher levels as the war progressed, the German lower-level commanders were gaining unprecedented autonomy and freedom of initiative. Falkenhayn was sacked as chief of the general staff in
July 1916. He was replaced by Field Marshal Paul von Hindenburg, with General Erich Ludendorff as his first quartermaster general (vice chief of staff). Ludendorff initiated a complete overhaul of German tactical doctrine on the Western Front, adopting many of Lossberg’s defensive innovations. On December 1, 1916, OHL published the new doctrinal manual, Principles of Command in the Defensive Battle in Position Warfare. The primary principles underlying
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the new defensive techniques were flexibility, decentralized control, and counterattack. Despite his own contributions to the new doctrine, Lossberg thought the Principles went too far in permitting frontline unit commanders to yield ground in the face of a strong attack. He believed that a rigid forward defense was the best course of action whenever possible, with the flexible defense in depth reserved for crisis situations. And so Lossberg responded with his own analysis, Experiences of the First Army in the Somme Battles, which rebutted much of what was in the new Principles. Most military historians strongly criticize Ludendorff ’s overall performance on the Western Front, particularly at the operational and strategic levels of warfare. On the tactical level, however, Ludendorff receives relatively high marks for encouraging healthy professional debate over tactical doctrine in the best traditions of the German General Staff. Ludendorff ordered OHL to reprint and widely distribute Lossberg’s pamphlet. The British later captured a copy, translated it, and printed 2,800 copies to distribute to their commanders.
“If anyone can straighten out this tangle,” von Kuhl said of Lossberg, “he will.”
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The British launched a major offensive at Arras on April 1, 1917. The German Sixth Army operating in that sector was supposed to be defending on the new principles of flexible defense. The Germans, however, committed their reserves too late, allowing the attackers to penetrate into the German front on a wide sector. The British and Canadians captured the commanding high ground of Vimy Ridge, significantly pushing back the German lines. The defenders were facing a disaster in the making when Ludendorff telephoned Lossberg on April 3 to tell him he was being transferred immediately to the Sixth Army as its chief of staff. Lossberg immediately asked Ludendorff for vollmacht—a significant departure from accepted practice, since the chief of staff was supposed to be granted vollmacht directly from his immediate commander. Lossberg was presuming to bypass both the commander of the Sixth Army, Colonel General Erich von Falkenhausen, and the commander of Army Group Crown Prince Rupprecht of Bavaria. Lossberg, still only a colonel, in effect was asking Ludendorff to designate him as the de facto commander of the Sixth Army. Not completely trusting the efficacy of the flexible defense doctrine, Lossberg believed that he needed almost unlimited command authority to rescue the situation. Ludendorff approved vollmacht without hesitation, and then informed the army and army group headquarters while Lossberg was en
LORELEI ROCKWELL COLLECTION/NAVAL HISTORY AND HERITAGE COMMAND
German emperor Wilhelm II confers with Field Marshal Paul von Hindenburg and General Erich Ludendorff at the German General Headquarters in January 1917.
German infantry attack with flamethrowers and hand grenades during the Battle of Verdun. Lossberg’s counterattack forces used identical tactics to restore lost positions.
INTERFOTO/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO
route. On getting word that Lossberg was on the way, Rupprecht’s chief of staff, General Hermann von Kuhl, said, “If anyone can straighten out this tangle, he will.” Despite Lossberg’s serious reservations about the new defensive doctrine, Ludendorff had complete confidence that he would be able to stabilize the situation. Before Lossberg even reported to the Sixth Army headquarters, he went directly to the front lines, talked with the key commanders on the ground, and formulated his own assessment of the situation. He recognized immediately that by holding Vimy Ridge, the British had an overwhelming tactical advantage in artillery observation that made a German rigid forward defense completely impossible. In response, Lossberg started to establish a flexible defense in great depth, with the German forwardmost positions lightly manned. Lossberg estimated that it would take the British at least three days to move their artillery forward over the ground they had recently captured. Until then, the British guns wouldn’t have the range necessary to support any continued advance. Lossberg used that time to reorganize and reinforce the Sixth Army’s new rearward main position and to establish a flexible defensive zone 18 miles wide and 10 miles deep, manned by 150,000 troops in 15 divisions. The British resumed their offensive on April 14 with the goal of conducting a limited objective attack to expand the
salients they had pushed into the German lines five days earlier. “When a more formal attack went in on the 14th it was very roughly handled,” Richard Holmes, the late British military historian, wrote. “The long ridges and shallow valleys enabled the Germans to employ elastic defense at its best, giving ground before the attack.” The British troops crossed their line of departure at 5:30 a.m., but the deeper they penetrated into the German positions, the more they encountered unanticipated resistance. By 8 a.m. most of the attackers were back in their own trenches, having taken up to 60 percent casualties in their lead units. Thus, at Arras, one of the German army’s strongest critics of the widespread use of flexible defense in depth became the first to make it work in a large-scale battle. Lossberg later admitted that his defensive system at the Sixth Army ran counter to almost everything he had written in his Experiences pamphlet. Ironically, the heavy German casualties on the first day at Arras initially caused Ludendorff and others at OHL to doubt the efficacy of the new doctrine. But once Lossberg made the system work, it was clear that the tactics were sound. Errors in application on April 1 had been the problem. On April 24, 1917, Lossberg was awarded the Orden Pour le Mérite with Oak Leaves, a high honor given only 122 times during World War I. That August he was promoted to major general. In early June 1917 German intelligence collected strong
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LOSSBERG indicators of an imminent major British attack in the Ypres sector. Once again, Ludendorff sent Lossberg to the threatened Fourth Army, to take over as chief of staff. For once, Lossberg had sufficient time before the start of a battle to organize a defense. The British attacked on July 31. The Third Battle of Ypres, more commonly known as “Bloody Passchendaele,” raged on until November 20. By the time it was over, the British had managed to capture the key Passchendaele Ridge, but they had little besides some 300,000 casualties to show for it. Now it was time for the Germans to go over to the offensive on the Western Front. Lossberg played no direct role in Operation Michael (March 21–April 4, 1918), the first of the five great “Ludendorff Offensives” of 1918. During the follow-on Operation Georgette (April 9–29), Lossberg’s Fourth Army attacked the British in support of the German Sixth Army, capturing Mount Kemmel on April 25, though the offensive failed overall. The Fourth Army played no role in the subsequent three German offensives, Blücher (May 27–June 5), Gneisenau (June 9–13), and Marneschutz-Reims (July 15–18). Following Marneschutz-Reims, which was a feint toward Paris to draw French reserves away from the British in Flanders, the Fourth Army was supposed to follow through with the long-planned and frequently postponed Operation Hagen—the final blow against the Allies intended to push the British off the Continent. The plan called for the Fourth Army to deliver the main effort with five corps and 29 divisions, supported on the left by Sixth Army with two corps and seven divisions. The Hagen attack date was set for August 1, but Marneschutz-Reims failed and the Allies launched a robust counterattack into the German positions west of Reims on July 18. The German lines crumbled because they hadn’t had time to establish their own defenses after halting their fifth offensive. On July 19 Lossberg strongly recommended to Ludendorff that the Germans withdraw immediately to the Siegfried Line, their starting position for the offensives in March. A badly shaken Ludendorff refused to consider it. The following day Ludendorff summoned Lossberg to OHL. His nerves shattered, Ludendorff talked about resigning immediately. Lossberg talked him out of it, but later regretted doing so. Ludendorff then sent the German army’s defensive expert to the Soissons sector to assess the situation. By the time Lossberg returned to OHL on July 25, the overall situation had deteriorated further, and he was shocked to find that
In April 1917 Lossberg was awarded the Pour le Mérite with Oak Leaves.
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Ludendorff had not acted on any of his recommendations to shore up the German defensive lines. In August 1918 Lossberg became the chief of staff of Army Group von Boehn. By that point, however, the Germans no longer had any chance of winning World War I on the battlefield, or even of fending off inevitable defeat for much longer. Lossberg ended the war as the chief of staff of Army Group Duke Albrecht von Württemberg. Following the war, Lossberg remained in the new Reichswehr, as the German army was known between the wars, and contributed to the tactical and organizational reforms of General Hans von Seeckt. In late August 1919 he was assigned to serve as the chief of staff of General Kommando II, one of only two corps-level formations in the 100,000-man Reichswehr. One of his subordinate staff officers was a young Captain Erich von Manstein, who during the Battle of the Somme in July 1916 had served under Lossberg as a First Army General Staff officer. Manstein would go on to become a field marshal and the Wehrmacht’s greatest general of World War II. During the interwar years there was a great deal of debate, first within the Reichswehr and then the Wehrmacht, over the tactical and operational lessons of World War I. Since at least the days of Helmuth von Moltke the Elder, the offensive had been the overriding mantra of the German army. It was ironic, then, that the Germans proved to be the most effective defenders in World War I. In the 1920s and ’30s many German officers argued that trench warfare conditions of 1915–1918 had been an anomaly, and they pushed for a return to an overwhelming emphasis on the attack. Not all, however, agreed. In his influential 1938 book, Die Abwehr (The Defense), General (later Field Marshal) Wilhelm Ritter von Leeb warned against any overly doctrinaire and exclusive focus on offensive operations. In his discussion of the historical background of German defensive operations, he reviewed the major Western Front battles of 1915 to 1917 in which Lossberg had played so significant a role. Leeb argued that Germany’s geographic position in central Europe, surrounded by potential enemies, combined with its comparative industrial and economic inferiority made it essential that Germany master defensive as well as offensive operations. Pursuing a directly opposite tack to many of the operational theorists of the day, Leeb argued that the dramatic improvements in mobility and weapons effects since 1918 made defensive capabilities even more necessary and at the same time opened up new operational and tactical possibilities for combat operations, both defensive and offensive. A pure defense, of course, could never produce decisive results in war. But offensive operations had to be focused on a concentrated objective, and an effec-
CHRONICLE/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO
Dazed German soldiers surrender to British soldiers on Pilkem Ridge during the Battle of Passchendaele. The three-day fight for Pilkem Ridge cost the British 31,820 casualties.
tive defense, therefore, was essential in all other sectors to facilitate massing the required forces for an attack. To this day, the Wehrmacht is remembered primarily for its many stunningly successful offensive operations of World War II. Nonetheless, some German commanders during that war also conducted brilliant defensive operations against overwhelming numerical odds. Among them were Field Marshal Albert Kesselring in Italy, Field Marshal Erich von Manstein and General Hermann Balck on the Eastern Front, and Field Marshal Walther Model on both fronts. In 1925 Lossberg assumed command of the Reichswehr’s General Kommando I, and the following year he was promoted to the three-star rank of general of infantry. He retired in January 1927. During World War II, his son Bernhard was a major general on the Wehrmacht’s Command Staff (Führungsstab). Lossberg died in Lübeck on May 14, 1942.
During his 41-year military career Lossberg was the quintessential German General Staff officer, and he was recognized as such by his peers. He was arguably the best chief of staff the Germans had during World War I. In January 1918 OHL issued its official after-action analysis of the 1917 Battle of Arras. Citing Lossberg’s contribution, the report credited the outcome of the battle to “the prodigious creative mental energy of this exceptional man.” MHQ David T. Zabecki is MHQ’s chief military historian. He and Dieter J. Biedekarken have edited and translated Fritz von Lossberg’s World War I memoirs (published in Berlin in 1939 as Meine Tätigkeit im Weltkriege 1914–1918) into English. Their book, Lossberg’s War: The World War I Memoirs of a German Chief of Staff, is to be published this year by the University Press of Kentucky.
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D-DAY THROUGH A GERMAN LENS As the Allies prepared for the Normandy invasion, what was the enemy thinking? By Robert M. Citino German officers scope the Normandy beaches near the towns of Granville and Saint-Pair-sur-Mer shortly before the Allied invasion in 1944. REGIONAL COUNCIL OF BASSE-NORMANDIE/NATIONAL ARCHIVES
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THROUGH A GERMAN LENS
We’ve all had the unhappy experience: the guests who wouldn’t leave. They show up unexpectedly and you scramble to respond, whipping together whatever food and drink you have on hand. Meanwhile, your surprise arrivals plop themselves down on the sofa, chatting away, eating your food, and drinking their way through your liquor cabinet like they own the place. The minutes become hours; day merges into night. They’re still there. You didn’t invite them in the first place, and now you’re not sure if they’re ever going to leave. So it was for the German Wehrmacht in 1944. Germany’s armed forces had carved out a home for themselves in France: a position that its commanders insisted was impregnable, a great fortress of concrete and steel called the Atlantic Wall that would repel any Allied landing. They had spent years preparing for the invasion, doing everything that human ingenuity, military engineering, and slave labor could achieve. But when the visitors finally arrived, showing up suddenly one fine morning in the late spring of 1944, all those carefully laid plans fell apart. On D-Day, June 6, 1944, the German hosts botched the reception. They failed to show their unwanted guests the door, and, in the end, the invaders moved in permanently. he Germans seemed to be holding some high defensive cards as they prepared to fight the Allied invasion in 1944. Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt, the High Commander West (Oberbefehlshaber West, or OB-West), had Army Group B in northern France, under famed field marshal Erwin Rommel, and Army Group G in the south, commanded by General Johannes Blaskowitz. Each army group contained two constituent armies, for a total of four armies in all: Seventh and Fifteenth in the north, First and Nineteenth in the south. Take an average strength for a German army of about 225,000 soldiers, throw in independent units and support personnel, and call it an even million—enough to man 58 divisions. As impressive as these numbers sound, Rundstedt had to spread them over 2,000 miles of European coastline. Many of his troops were so-called Eastern battalions (Ostbataillonen)—poor-quality units formed from former Soviet prisoners of war—and about half his divisions were “static,” lacking any form of trucks or transport. Plunked down on the beach, their mission was to resist the initial landing, fire at any force that happened to land in front of them, and then, presumably, die at their posts. Without transport, retreat wasn’t an option. But what about the famous Atlantic Wall? An impressive project on paper, it was made of 17 million cubic yards of concrete and 1.3 million short tons of steel, enough of
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the former to build 270 Empire State Buildings and enough of the latter to construct the Eiffel Tower 160 times over. German propaganda delighted in showing images of immense gun emplacements, guarded by grim Aryan-looking soldiers straight out of central casting. In fact, though, German newsreels often showed the same shot again and again: the Lindemann Battery at Cap Gris Nez on the coast, with its three 406mm guns. Elsewhere? Not so much. Rommel, taking command of the coastal defenses in late 1943, was appalled at the slipshod work he inspected. He did the job with his usual zeal, sowing millions of mines, building bunkers for the static divisions, and placing anti-boat obstacles at all the likely landing sites. His work was so good that the Allies had to change their plans to land at low tide instead of high tide. But in June even Rommel recognized that much needed to be done. Since the Allies had their choice of landing sites, the Germans needed to fortify every inch of beach in France. They never came close. In truth, the task of defending France came down to a handful of panzer divisions. There were only 10 of them, and so their placement became the topic of a major tussle within the German High Command. Rommel knew how hard it was to operate under Allied air attack and wanted the panzers close to the water, where they could hit the Allies as they were slogging ashore. Rundstedt argued for a more orthodox posture, grouping the panzers into a strong, centrally located reserve, ready to smash the Allies as they advanced inland. The compromise reached in the end satisfied no one. The two army groups each got three panzer divisions to deploy as they wished; Panzer Group West, a central reserve under the command of General Leo Geyr von Schweppenburg, got the other four. The authority to send them into action, however, lay with the High Command of the Armed Forces (Oberkommando der Werhmacht, or OKW)—that is, with Adolf Hitler himself. With their limited resources, the Germans had tied themselves in knots. The D-Day landings have become one of our great historical epics, filled with grand and glorious exploits of heroism. Seen from the German perspective, however, the romance vanishes, leaving the uninspiring spectacle of a once proud military force no longer up to the challenge. For years the Germans had been formulating plans for repelling an Allied landing in the west. But when it was time to act they found themselves aimlessly scrambling back and forth across Normandy, trying to put out whichever fire seemed most threatening. The Allies came ashore at five invasion beaches along a 50-mile stretch of the Norman coast. Facing the landings—
BETTMANN/GETTY IMAGES
A massive agglomeration of Allied forces hits the beaches of Normandy on D-Day, June 6, 1944, in what will be the largest land, sea, and air invasion in history.
containing the spearheads of two complete Allied armies— was a single, understrength German corps, the LXXXIV, under General Erich Marcks. He had a mere three divisions, two of which were static. Unsurprisingly, all five landings succeeded. Three of them—Utah, Gold, and Sword Beaches—were easy, with minimal casualties. Another, the Canadian landing at Juno Beach, was difficult. And, of course, the fifth, the U.S. landing at Omaha Beach, nearly ended in disaster for the Americans. On Omaha, a landing by the U.S. 1st and 29th Infantry Divisions had the misfortune of running into the one regular German infantry division in the invasion sector, the 352nd. The division’s 916th Grenadier Regiment, under Colonel Ernest Goth, held a naturally strong position, a semicurved amphitheater with steep bluffs looming over the beach, and hulking concrete fortifications like Widerstandsnest 62, which stood about 100 yards from the water. From the moment the Americans hit the beach at 6:30 a.m., machine-
gun fire erupted from the resistance nests. Mowing down the first wave, it shredded the dense mass of U.S. infantry desperately trying to find cover behind the tiny rocky ledge at the waterline, the “shingle.” Within 10 minutes, the beach was littered with dead and dying Americans. Lieutenant General Omar Bradley, floating offshore on the heavy cruiser USS Augusta, actually considered evacuating the beach. But even with fate apparently handing them the U.S. Army on a platter, the Germans failed. Their soldiers spent the morning shooting, and they shot quite well, inflicting punishing casualties. But the Germans had no maneuver component, no counterattacking force, no tanks, no aircraft—nothing that could have driven a rattled U.S. landing force into the sea. The Germans had bunkers aplenty, but what they needed were more soldiers. Things got no better for the Wehrmacht as the day wore on. The landing had come as a complete surprise, and many
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German commanders were away from their posts. Rommel was spending a day back at home, celebrating his wife’s birthday. Hitler, as was his wont, was sleeping in. General Friedrich Dollmann, the Seventh Army commander, had scheduled a planning war game in Rennes, testing responses to an Allied landing. His division commanders were on the road to Rennes, got the recall en route, and spent the morning scurrying back to their command posts. General Wilhelm Falley of the 91st Air-Landing Infantry Division could clearly hear the roar of thousands of Allied aircraft engines in the night sky. He turned his car around and raced back to his headquarters near Bernaville. As he pulled onto the grounds, however, Falley ran into a blaze of gunfire from U.S. paratroops of the 82nd Airborne Division. He became the first German general to die in Normandy. With the commanders driving to and fro, the situation at the front descended into chaos. Consider the case of the 915th Regiment, under Colonel Ernest Meyer (and thus known as Kampfgruppe Meyer). Deployed inland in the Bayeux sector, the heart of the Normandy landings, Kampfgruppe Meyer was the sole reserve force for the LXXXIV Corps. Responding to reports just after midnight that Allied paratroops had landed south of the key crossroads town of Carentan, General Marcks ordered Meyer to clear up the problem. Meyer quickly assembled his grenadiers and was on the road by 3 a.m. But navigating Normandy’s narrow country lanes in the middle of the night was no easy task, and the battle group was still on the road
On D-Day, the German situation at the front descended into chaos.
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at 6 a.m., when the sun came up and the vast Allied invasion fleet came into view off the coast. Soon Marcks’s corps was under attack everywhere: the 709th Division in the Cotentin, the 352nd Division between Vierville and Colevillesur-Mer, and the 716th Division on the long stretch from Arromanches in the west to Ouistreham in the east. Around 7 a.m., as Marcks was trying to process the threats, a new report came in: There had been no airborne drops south of Carentan, after all. It had been a mistake of some sort—a rumor, a jumpy patrol, a typo on the report. A reconnaissance flight could have clarified the situation in 10 minutes, but no German aircraft were in the sky. Marcks was operating in the unknown. The U.S. landing at Omaha had been smashed, that much seemed clear. On his right, however, the British had come ashore on a broad front, supported by tanks. They had penetrated the beach defenses of the 726th Regiment and were heading inland. With trouble clearly brewing on his right, Marcks ordered Meyer to turn around, head east at speed, and counterattack the British. But even this simple job proved impossible. Meyer had to turn his units around and get them back into a march column. That process took an hour. Since Allied naval gunfire was ranging deep, the battle group had to loop south of Bayeux rather than head directly up the main road. Then the weather suddenly changed. As the skies cleared, they filled again with Allied fighter-bombers (jagdbomber; German soldiers called them jabos). Often thought of as killers, the fighter-bombers were in fact best at hampering German movement. The clock slipped past 11 a.m. and on to noon, and Meyer decided to postpone his counterattack until 2 p.m. That deadline, too, came and went. Much of the battle group was now strung out along the road, either pinned to the ground or taking cover from the rain of Allied bombs and strafing. By 3 p.m. it was too late. Ele-
FROM LEFT: PHOTO12/UIG/GETTY IMAGES; BUNDESARCHIV
A Douglas A-20 Havoc of the U.S. Ninth Air Force drops bombs in Normandy on D-Day to cut off German telecommunication lines. German field marshal Gerd von Runstedt.
German soldiers surrender to Allied forces in Quinville, France, on June 9, 1944. A German soldier lies dead outside the pillbox that he vainly defended on Utah Beach.
FROM LEFT: U.S. ARMY/THE LIFE PICTURE COLLECTION/GETTY IMAGES; PHOTOQUEST/GETTY IMAGES
ments of the British 50th Division now went over to the attack, Sherman tanks in the lead, jabos screaming overhead. The 50th easily overran the German assembly area, killing Colonel Meyer in the process, and soon the bulk of the regiment was in a hurried retreat to the west. Calling Kampfgruppe Meyer’s counterattack a failure isn’t quite accurate. It never even got started. The Germans did manage one counterattack that day. On June 6 the 21st Panzer Division under Lieutenant General Edgar Feuchtinger was deployed 20 miles southeast of Caen (although the general, like so many others, was away from the front at the moment). Nevertheless, the men of the division reacted quickly to the Allied airdrops, fighting a series of sharp nighttime scraps with British paratroops who were dropping all around them. As dawn broke and the Allies landed on the beaches north of Caen, Marcks wanted the division to disengage and head for the beaches. The 21st Panzer was under Army Group B, however, so Marcks first had to get Rommel’s permission. But Rommel wasn’t there, either, and that meant a wearying series of radio messages with Colonel Hans Speidel, Rommel’s chief of staff. Marcks finally got command of the 21st at noon. He immediately ordered it to cross the Orne River, wheel north through Caen, and drive to the sea. But as always for the Germans on June 6, slow motion was the order of the day. The division took three full hours to move the 10 miles from Ranville to (and through) Caen. Every man and vehicle had to squeeze over the few remaining undestroyed bridges in Caen, the sky was teeming with jabos the whole way, and losses in machines and men were heavy. Not until 4:20 p.m. did it happen: a panzer attack on the Allied D-Day beachhead. The German battle array had the 22nd Panzer Regiment (Colonel Hermann Oppeln-
Bronikowski) on the right, paired with elements of the 92nd Panzergrenadier Regiment (Colonel Joseph Rauch) on the left. Confidence was high. Oppeln was a skilled panzer commander with a reputation for hard drink and for dodging the reaper; his swagger and his luck were legendary with his men. Three times he had survived direct hits on his tank and walked away without a scratch. The assault opened with Oppeln’s tanks rolling north toward Périers Ridge. His panzers were mainly Mark IVs, older models now upgraded with a high-velocity 75mm gun, though in most of the other relevant metrics—speed, armor, optics—the state of the art had long passed them by. Trundling along behind came the infantry on halftracks, along with self-propelled guns of various calibers mounted on the reliable French Lorraine 37L tracked chassis. The regiment moved out with gusto and was, as always, an impressive sight: the army that had invented mechanized, combined arms warfare once again on the prowl, apparently irresistible in the advance. But appearances, as the saying goes, can be deceiving. Holding the ridge was a full British battalion, the Shropshire Light Infantry. Dug in, with well-hidden positions, it had a full complement of heavy weapons: 6-pounder antitank guns, Firefly tanks (a Sherman variant with a powerful, high-velocity 17-pounder gun), and self-propelled artillery. The Shropshires held their fire until the Germans came to the foot of the ridge and then opened up with the full spectrum. Six Mark IVs on the German right went up in flames in the opening minutes of the engagement, followed by nine more on the left near the village of Mathieu. Ten minutes later, the surviving German tanks were scrambling toward any gully, copse, or farmhouse they could find, desperately seeking cover. British fire had broken the momentum of the attack. Oppeln’s luck had run out.
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The attack had greater success on the left, where the 1st Battalion of Rauch’s regiment managed to hit the seam between the British and Canadian landing forces. Forward they came against little enemy opposition or fire, their path eased by the attention being devoted to Oppeln’s abortive panzer attack to their right. In an hour they reached the sea at Lion-sur-Mer and Luc-sur-Mer, splitting the Allied beachhead, separating Juno Beach from Sword, and linking up with joyful elements of the 716th Static Division—still hanging tough in their bunkers on the coast—who had thought they were goners. Rauch had reached the sea, traditionally a marker of victory. But to what end? He was now crammed in a tight spot between two powerful Allied forces pouring fire into his position from both flanks. A follow-up drive to the right or left was unthinkable, since it required a flank march along the shore, where any German assault column would have presented a perfectly silhouetted parade of tar-
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gets. Allied naval commanders would have been licking their chops and adding up their kills. The coup de grâce, fittingly, came from the air. At 9 p.m., with Rauch still holding his position at water’s edge and Feuchtinger still deciding what to do, a great force of aircraft passed overhead. The British were reinforcing their airborne bridgehead east of the Orne with an immense glider drop, some 250 craft, their tow planes, and dozens more fighters flying escort. Fearing an Allied airdrop into the rear of the division, Feuchtinger ordered Rauch to retreat and rejoin the main body of the 21st Panzer Division along Périers Ridge. Rauch’s regiment ended this day of drama slinking back to the south and, incidentally, leaving the remnants of the 716th Static Division to their unhappy fate after all. June 6, 1944, was the “longest day,” all right—for the Germans. Indeed, it was a disaster. The bedrocks of the Wehrmacht’s defensive strategy in the West, the Atlantic Wall
PHOTO12/UIG/GETTY IMAGES
German prisoners of war are held under guard on the beaches of Normandy during the first hours of the D-Day landings; many will later be taken to POW camps in England.
PHOTO12/UIG/GETTY IMAGES
American paratroops who took part in the successful Allied landings on D-Day pose with a Nazi flag captured during the liberation of a French village in Normandy.
and the panzer divisions, were both abject failures. The Allies pierced the wall within the opening minutes of the landing, and only a single panzer division managed to head toward the beach and launch an attack. Many factors fueled the catastrophe. Some historians blame German blundering (Hitler sleeping in, Rommel being out of reach) or the cleverness of the Allies in launching deception operations that fooled the Germans as to the time and place of the landings. And, of course, the popular imagination continues to focus on Allied heroism, especially those young American boys who landed under withering enemy fire and stormed the bluffs of Omaha. While all these factors were important, the real reason for the Wehrmacht’s failure was much more basic: the sheer, raw power of its adversaries. The Allies had finally learned how to translate their wealth and industrial might into combat power at the front. Thousands of ships, tens of thousands of aircraft sorties, and the elements of nine divi-
sions were in play on the Allied side that morning, while millions of men waited in the wings as a follow-on force. To resist this onslaught, the Wehrmacht fielded just three divisions—two low-grade static formations and a single infantry division—with no navy or air force. Whether Hitler slept in or not wasn’t going to change the balance of forces in Normandy. As night fell on June 6, World War II had entered its final phase. Unexpected visitors had crossed the water with impunity, cracked the wall of Germany’s “Fortress Europe” at five places, and decided to stay. MHQ Robert M. Citino is senior historian at the National World War II Museum in New Orleans and the author of eight books, including The German Way of War: From the Thirty Years’ War to the Third Reich; Death of the Wehrmacht: The German Campaigns of 1942; and The Wehrmacht Retreats: Fighting a Lost War, 1943.
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ROBERT HUNT LIBRARY/CHRONICLE/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO
The Czecho-Slovak Legion used this armored train, captured from the Red Army, to seize and control the Trans-Siberian Railway.
THE BATTLE FOR BAIKAL In 1918 the Czecho-Slovak Legion found itself fighting the Red Army in Siberia for control of the world’s deepest lake. By Kevin J. McNamara
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Front—“the unknown war,” Winston Churchill called it— more than two million of these Austro-Hungarian soldiers were taken prisoner by tsarist armies and scattered across Russia and Siberia in some 300 prisoner-of-war camps. When tsarist Russia collapsed amid revolution, Tomas G. Masaryk, an elderly professor and fugitive from Prague, traveled to Russia with a vision involving outright sedition, a global trek, and great personal risk: to recruit thousands of Czechs and Slovaks for an ad hoc unit of the French army, their former enemy. Masaryk’s plan was breathtakingly audacious: The men would cross Siberia to Vladivostok, the largest Russian port on the Pacific Ocean, where they would board ships, circle the globe, land in France, and fight on the Western Front— all to gain Allied support for the independence of the Czechs and Slovaks from Austria-Hungary. But defecting to the Allies meant committing treason. They would have no country they could call home, no recognized or experienced
GOTHICSTAMPS.COM
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ne of the most spectacular yet little-known stories of World War I and the Russian Revolution is the epic journey of the Czecho-Slovak Legion, whose exploits burst out of Siberia and onto the world stage almost 100 years ago. Subsequently lost in the multiple histories of a tumultuous time, the episode began as the final horrors of the war melted into chaos. In Russia, the revolution gave way to the birth of the Soviet Union, and the United States and its allies bungled a half-hearted attempt to overthrow its new Communist regime. In Europe, a fragile peace was declared, the fate of four empires hung in the balance, and the map of a continent was redrawn. The legion emerged from an undistinguished array of shopkeepers, dentists, farmers, professors, factory hands, and bank clerks who were plucked from the obscurity of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in the heart of Europe and plunged into World War I. After fighting on the Eastern
Left: Soldiers in the Czecho-Slovak Legion fought with the Allies during World War I in the hopes of winning independence from Austria-Hungary. Above: Legionnaires man their machine gun stations atop a camouflaged troop train in the Siberian city of Ufa.
TATRANCI.SK
military leaders, no evident means of support, few supplies, uncertain legal status, questionable loyalties, and too few weapons. Many were still nursing combat wounds or illnesses. Remarkably, given the risks associated with such an audacious plan, the promise of renewed harsh combat, and Masaryk’s blue-sky ambitions, 50,000 to 65,000 of the men said yes. With the explicit approval of Vladimir Lenin and Josef Stalin, the men of the Czecho-Slovak Legion commenced a perilous journey across Siberia—where they had an unexpected encounter with history. It began on May 14, 1918, with an altercation between two men at the Trans-Siberian Railway station at Chelyabinsk, more than 1,000 miles east of Moscow. A still-loyal AustroHungarian soldier, angered by the legionnaires’ betrayal of their common homeland, hurled a chunk of metal at one of the defecting Czechs, killing him. The soldier was quickly apprehended and killed in retaliation. Subject to repeated
arrests by the Communists in charge of Chelyabinsk, the legionnaires took matters into their own hands and liberated their comrades from the local jail. Having done so, they prepared to resume their journey. In response to this direct challenge, Leon Trotsky, the leader of the Red Army, telegraphed dire threats that his soldiers would shoot any armed legionnaires on sight and imprison the rest. Already feeling imperiled amid the violence and rising tensions of an emerging Russian Civil War, and acting entirely in self-defense, 50,000 legionnaires revolted en masse. Strung out along 5,000 miles of the Trans-Siberian, the legionnaires were isolated in three major formations. From west to east, there were about 8,000 legionnaires marooned on the European side of the Ural Mountains near Penza; 8,800 in the vicinity of Chelyabinsk; about 18,000 east of Omsk; and 15,000 in and around Vladivostok. Yet between Irkutsk and Vladivostok, tens of thousands of Red Army soldiers, likewise trapped, lay in wait and prepared to fight.
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BATTLE FOR BAIKAL The Czechs’ first priority was to link all of the legionnaires in a single chain—especially those around Penza, who were farthest from Vladivostok and the most vulnerable. From Chelyabinsk, Novosibirsk, and Penza, trains headed east and west under full steam to rescue their “brothers” and defeat the Red Army forces all along the Trans-Siberian Railway. Eager to surprise and quickly defeat the enemy, the legionnaires sometimes encountered forces that were far larger and better armed. Initially, without sufficient small arms, the legionnaires rushed Red Army units, throwing hand grenades and, in at least one battle, hurling rocks. They captured machine guns, rifles, artillery, and even entire trains and quickly deployed them against the enemy. Day by day, week by week, one Siberian city after another fell to the Czecho-Slovaks: Novosibirsk on May 26, Chelyabinsk on May 27, Penza and Syzran on May 29, Tomsk on June 4, Omsk on June 7, Samara on June 8, Krasnoyarsk on June 20, Nizhneudinsk on June 24, Vladivostok on June 29, Ufa on July 4, Ussuriysk on July 5, and Irkutsk on July 11. While about 15,000 of the legionnaires had reached Vladivostok by April, there were large Red Army units between that port city and Irkutsk, a major city just west of Lake Baikal, especially in the vicinity of Chita, and Khabarovsk. When the rebels finally entered Irkutsk on July 11 they were greeted with pealing church bells and celebrating Russians. Having taken control of the Bolshevik strongholds of Irkutsk and Vladivostok, as many as 50,000 legionnaires nonetheless remained stretched out behind Irkutsk, cut off from their comrades in Vladivostok. Good intelligence quickly taught them that they faced a dangerous gantlet and a harrowing challenge: the 39 tunnels that sheltered the Trans-Siberian through the sheer cliffs along the southern shores of Lake Baikal, whose surface is larger than Belgium and whose depths hold a fifth of the world’s fresh water. A 25-million-year-old scar on Russia’s backside, Baikal’s 400-mile, crescent-shaped gash in the tectonic plates holds a lake so large that locals call it a sea. Baikal drains the Russian heartland, swallowing the 336 rivers and streams that run to it; only the Angara River sends Baikal’s waters roaring west into the interior. Raw and unspoiled, the lake’s placid surface hides enormous depths. While transparent as a fishbowl in summer, in winter it can freeze to a depth of six feet. Razor-sharp rock lines the sheer cliffs that wall in
Spooked by the legion’s rapid advance, the Red Army abandoned Irkutsk.
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the southern rim of the lake, sweeping toward the sky and plummeting deeply into the seemingly bottomless lake. The opening of the Chinese Eastern Railway through Manchuria in 1903 completed the original Trans-Siberian Railway, but it avoided the mountainous 162 miles around the southern tip of the lake. When the builders of the railway finally tackled these mountain cliffs, which are bisected by the streams and river gorges feeding the lake, they had to dynamite cuttings into the sides of the rock walls; build more than 200 bridges and trestles to span river gorges, inlets, and tributaries; shore up miles of embankments; and bore through rock to create the 39 tunnels, the longest of them spanning a half mile. When this final link was opened in 1904—more than 13 years after ground was broken for the Trans-Siberian—the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans were finally linked by the Trans-Siberian, through adjacent seas. Spooked by the Czecho-Slovak Legion’s rapid advance in their direction, Soviet armed forces abandoned Irkutsk. The legionnaires soon learned that the retreating Bolsheviks had taken with them an entire train loaded with explosives, planning to blow up one or more of the tunnels, thereby trapping all the legionnaires west of Lake Baikal. Still, the boldness and energy of the legion’s commander at the front in Irkutsk, Captain Radola Gajda, gave his men confidence. “Gajda was a leader whose belief it was to strike at once, to strike often, and with determination,” recalled Sergeant Gustav Becvar. “In those days, he seemed never to hesitate in his course of action.” Gajda realized that he and his men had to reach and clear the tunnels as soon as possible to prevent their destruction. Yet events in Irkutsk exposed the political weakness of the Czecho-Slovak Legion’s position in Russia, even as the world marveled at its military prowess. “As if by magic, law and order were established,” Ernest Harris, the American consul general in Irkutsk said, “and the streets became crowded with every class of society exceedingly happy at having been rescued from Bolshevik rule.” The residents of Irkutsk warmly welcomed the legionnaires. At a celebratory dinner, Becvar recalled, “I began by thanking the people for the wonderful reception they had given us, saying how much we appreciated their goodwill. These remarks went down well, but when I proceeded to warn them that we had no intention of interfering in any way in the internal affairs of their country, that any fighting we had done had been undertaken solely to secure our passage to Vladivostok, and that therefore we could not be relied upon to stay in the neighborhood of Irkutsk, they were less pleased. After this announcement, much of the joy occasioned by our arrival evaporated.” The Allies would also need to be taught that the Czecho-Slovaks did not actually want to fight Russians.
CLOCKWISE FROM TOP: WIKIMEDIA COMMONS; TANTRANCI.SK (2)
Clockwise from top: Legionnaires make their way across one of the rivers flowing into Lake Baikal; Tomas G. Masaryk organized the legion and aligned it with the Allied powers; the ice-breaker SS Baikal was later armed with machine guns and cannons.
At Irkutsk, the Trans-Siberian was built on the opposite side of the Angara River from the main center of the city, and the tracks originally ran east along the Angara for about 40 miles until they reached Lake Baikal at the village of Port Baikal. The ice-breaking ferries Baikal and Angara shuttled passengers, trains, and freight from Port Baikal across the lake to Babushkin until 1904, when the “missing
link” was completed, with two tracks running 162 miles around the southern tip of the lake from Port Baikal to Babushkin on the lake’s eastern shore. It was at Port Baikal, the legionnaires learned, that the Bolsheviks had parked their explosives-laden train. The station and its tracks sat between the steep cliffs above Port Baikal and the mouth of the Angara River at the lake.
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On July 15, 1918, Gajda dispatched three parties in the direction of the enemy. One unit of 500 men hiked crosscountry and quietly approached another lakeside village, Kultuk, south of Port Baikal. A second party followed the Trans-Siberian down the Angara valley toward Baikal but kept to the hills above the valley to avoid detection; an armored train the legionnaires had captured from the Red Army followed slowly behind and to the left of these men. On the opposite side of the Angara valley, a third unit followed the old Moscow post road from Irkutsk to the lakeside village of Listvyanka, opposite Port Baikal at the mouth of the Angara. This third unit turned left off the road as it approached Listvyanka and climbed into the hills above the village. After a few hours, a ridge appeared and the men crawled to its edge and looked below them in wonder at the enormous sparkling lake spread out beneath them. Off to their right in the distance sat Baikal station, where the lake emptied into the Angara. “We stared silently at the indescribable loveliness of the view,” Becvar recalled. “Men drew their breath quickly, but few broke the silence.” Suddenly, from the direction of the Baikal station, came the sound of a huge explosion. A column of thick, black smoke rose into the air. Assuming this signaled their attack, Becvar and his men ran toward Listvyanka, firing at enemy
“We stared silently at the indescribable loveliness of the view,” Becvar wrote.
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troops who scrambled aboard two steamers that vanished across the lake. As they crept forward cautiously, the first legionnaires to reach Port Baikal saw buildings leveled, tracks twisted, coaches shattered, rockslides, and body parts everywhere. Their comrades who had earlier reached the cliffs above the station confessed that when they fired on the enemy train, some of their rounds probably hit dynamite. Gajda appeared and ordered most of the men to pursue the Bolsheviks through the tunnels on foot. A small detachment remained behind to repair the tracks and allow the legion’s armored train through. Early the next morning, troop trains began moving through the tunnels toward Kultuk; other troops were dispatched into the hills above the tunnels. After five days of fighting, the combined three units of legionnaires took Kultuk. The soldiers then advanced toward Slyudyanka, a town on the southern tip of Lake Baikal, beyond which lay the last of the 39 tunnels. Then came another booming explosion that echoed through the tunnels and across the lake to their left. The men ran ahead until the tracks in front of them disappeared under a pile of stone and earth. It took the legionnaires three weeks, working day and night, to clear the massive stones and earth from the tracks. Yet they used the time well. Planning to hit the Bolsheviks simultaneously from three sides, they boarded their one armored train and several passenger trains and rounded the southern cone of Lake Baikal, heading toward Tankhoy, a town on the eastern shore. “The Bolsheviks were entrenched strongly in front of this station, and not even our newly arrived armored train
FROM LEFT: ETOSIBIR.RU; TANTRANCI.SK
The Circum-Baikal Railway, one of the original seven sections of the Trans-Siberian Railway, had 39 tunnels that ran through nearly six miles of mountain. Captain Radola Gajda’s decisive leadership earned him the nickname “the Siberian Tiger.”
M I L E S
RUSSIA
Moscow URAL MOUNTAINS
Penza
TRANS-SIBERIAN RAILWAY Syzran Chelyabinsk
Omsk
Nizhneudinsk Krasnoyarsk Tomsk
Enlarged Area
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ANGARA RIVER
Khabarovsk
Chita Novosibirsk
KAZAKHSTAN
SEA OF OKHOTSK
Ussuriysk
CHINA
Ufa
MONGOLIA
Vladivostok
LAKE BAIKAL Angarsk Irkutsk Posolska Baikal Listvyanka
Ulan-Ude
Babushkin
Kultuk Tankhoy
TRANS-SIBERIAN RAILWAY
MAPS: BRIAN WALKER; ROBERT HUNT LIBRARY/CHRONICLE/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO
Soldiers in the Czecho-Slovak Legion moved along the 5,000 miles of the Trans-Siberian Railway in armored trains like the one above, photographed east of Omsk. They drove the Red Army around the southern cone of Lake Baikal from Listvyanka to Posolska.
could shell them out of their fortified nests,” Becvar later wrote. Scouts spotted about 60 Red Army troop trains crowding the line between Tankhoy and the station at Babushkin, which was farther north along the shore. Gajda briefed the men: legionnaires left behind at Listvyanka on the opposite side of the lake had acquired simple barges that they fortified with timber, as well as steamboats that could tow the barges. The boats would start across the lake that night, landing at yet another lakeside village, Posolska, north of Babushkin, behind the Red Army forces. At the same time, another battalion would march east into the taiga and, in a wide flanking move, approach the enemy from the east. The remainder of the troops would advance along the tracks behind the legion’s armored train. The Red Army soldiers fought hard. By about noon, however, they began bolting from their lines, and soon the whole front was in retreat, undoubtedly having gotten wind of the legionnaires approaching from their rear. “Then the retreat turned into a positive rout,” Becvar later wrote. “The Bolsheviks were given no time or opportunity to use their trains. They were driven in a panic-stricken mass along the line towards Posolska.” What awaited them was a massacre. “Rifle and machine-gun fire raked the driven mob until they scattered into the hills.” Red Army casualties numbered in the hundreds; the legion gained countless trains and a larger arsenal. The legionnaires also set ablaze the Baikal, ending its career at the dock at Babushkin. The Red Army forces did not soon recover from these defeats. With Lake Baikal’s 39 tunnels behind them, dozens of
the legion’s heavily armed trains started west again. On August 24 they reached Ulan-Ude, a city about 60 miles east of the lake. The men who had been trapped west of Lake Baikal finally saw their “brothers” from Vladivostok when, on September 1, the legionnaires celebrated their final juncture in Olovyannaya, meeting legionnaires from Vladivostok, who had fought their way along the Chinese Eastern Railway to this small town south of Chita. That same day, in an ironic coincidence, U.S. Army major general William S. Graves came ashore at Vladivostok with orders to rescue the legionnaires—but to do nothing more than facilitate their retreat to Vladivostok and evacuation. Yet the legionnaires had already facilitated their own free movement toward Vladivostok, leaving Graves and his troops with little to do. On top of that, the Allies by now had abandoned their faint hopes of providing ships to take the legionnaires from Vladivostok, and the French and British began lobbying for the legionnaires to remain in Russia to support the anti-Bolshevik forces under attack by the Red Army, and even to advance on Moscow. Thus began the confused and ill-fated Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War. Afterward Graves nicely summed up his experience this way: “I was in command of the United States troops sent to Siberia, and, I must admit, I do not know what the United States was trying to accomplish by military intervention.” Still, in little more than three months, the legion had seized the entire Trans-Siberian Railway and, with it, all of Siberia from the Ural Mountains to the Sea of Japan— about the distance from Honolulu to New York. Siberia’s
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BATTLE FOR BAIKAL five million square miles account for a tenth of the world’s land surface. While their feat astonished many, those who had come to know the men were less surprised. The British writer, W. Somerset Maugham, who worked with the Czechs and Slovaks inside Russia as a British spy, warned, “They are organized like a department store, disciplined like a Prussian regiment.” Roughly 15,000 more Czech and Slovak POWs joined the legion after the revolt began, leading Trotsky and Lenin to see it as a threat to Soviet rule. Speaking to an extraordinary joint session of Soviet leaders on July 28, Lenin said that “crushing the Czecho-Slovaks and their counterrevolutionary partisans” was “the most urgent task of the Russian Revolution.” Speaking to the same assembly the next day, Trotsky conceded: “What is now happening on the Volga, in the shape of the Czecho-Slovak mutiny, puts Soviet Russia in danger and therefore also endangers the international revolution. At first sight it seems incomprehensible that some Czecho-Slovak Corps, which has found itself here in Russia through the tortuous ways of the world war, should at the given moment prove to be almost the chief factor in deciding the questions of the Russian revolution. Nevertheless, that is the case.”
For a brief time, the legionnaires held the power to depose the Soviet regime.
The Czecho-Slovak legionnaires briefly held the power to depose the Soviet regime, an outcome that would have dramatically changed the course of the 20th century. Their revolt also had many unintended consequences. Their advance against Red Army forces in the city where the Romanov family was held in July 1918 directly precipitated Lenin’s order to murder Tsar Nicholas II and his family. The legion hastened the development of the Soviet gulag with the founding of the first concentration camps, and it also spurred the early buildup and configuration of the Red Army. Their rebellion was the main reason that President Woodrow Wilson sent U.S. troops to Russia, deployed explicitly to aid the Czechs and Slovaks. Yet the legion’s willingness to fight for the Allies helped to undermine the Habsburg dynasty and enabled Masaryk and his associates to secure Allied recognition for the republic of Czechoslovakia. Winston Churchill, who served as British war minister during the revolt, concluded, “The pages of history recall scarcely any parallel episode at once so romantic in character and so extensive in scale.” In rare agreement with Churchill, British prime minister David Lloyd George said, “The story of the adventures and tri-
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umphs of this small army is indeed one of the greatest epics of history.” Former U.S. president Theodore Roosevelt, long out of office and grieving the death of his son in the war, was inspired by reports of the legion’s achievements in Russia. He donated $1,000 of the cash award he had received from his 1906 Nobel Peace Prize to the legionnaires, “the extraordinary nature of whose great and heroic feat,” he said, “is literally unparalleled, so far as I know, in ancient or modern warfare.” His mortal enemy, Woodrow Wilson, agreed, later welcoming legionnaires to the White House. The “pages of history,” however, have not done much justice to these men. This tale of the founding of Czechoslovakia was suppressed after 1938, when Germany’s Nazi regime occupied the small nation, where anti-German sentiment had long walked hand in hand with Czech nationalism, and again after 1948, when Czechoslovakia became a Soviet satellite. Prague’s Russian occupiers buried the memory of the founders of Czechoslovakia, who had fought and defeated, albeit briefly, the Red Army and threatened the very survival of the Russian Revolution. It was not until after the communist regimes of the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe collapsed that this story could be told using original source material. Fighting against the Red Army in the Russian Civil War had the unfortunate effect of characterizing the CzechoSlovak Legion, at least in some quarters, as a reactionary, pro-tsarist army. Yet the men risked their lives to oppose a monarchy in Vienna, not to support one in Russia. All available evidence confirms that most of the men, as well as their leaders, were socialists, and about 10,000 Czech and Slovak POWs volunteered for the Red Army. Finally, they despised and openly opposed the leading White commander, Admiral Aleksandr V. Kolchak, even turning him over to a neutral revolutionary tribunal in Irkutsk in January 1920. The origins and aims of these Czech and Slovak legionnaires, the youngest sons of Europe’s last medieval empire, would more appropriately characterize them as the last revolutionaries of the ancien régime. Only novel political concepts and categories then emerging from Soviet Russia could classify these revolutionaries as the first counterrevolutionaries of a new era, when the exuberant mood of the last innocent age of nationalism collided with the dawn of international socialism and Soviet communism. MHQ Kevin J. McNamara is an associate scholar of the Foreign Policy Research Institute in Philadelphia, and a former contributing editor of its quarterly journal, Orbis. He is the author of Dreams of a Great Small Nation: The Mutinous Army that Threatened a Revolution, Destroyed an Empire, Founded a Republic, and Remade the Map of Europe (Public Affairs, 2016), from which this article is adapted. Copyright © 2017 by Kevin J. McNamara.
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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS
POETRY 89 CLASSIC DISPATCHES 90 REVIEWS 92 DRAWN & QUARTERED 96
Artist Charles Edward Chambers (1883–1941) designed this striking World War I poster for the U.S. Food Administration, which, aiming to reach recent immigrants, produced it in at least five languages. The Yiddish version shown here is featured in the exhibition 1917: How One Year Changed the World. The caption: “Food will win the war. You came here seeking freedom. Now you must help preserve it. Wheat is needed for the Allies. Waste nothing.” National Museum of American Jewish History, Philadelphia, through July 16, 2017
ARTISTS
EYEWITNESS TO HORROR
Published 35 years after his death, Goya’s The Disasters of War has etched the cruel suffering of war into our collective memory. By Pamela D. Toler
The French invaded at a time when the Spanish government was in crisis. Long-simmering tensions between King Carlos and his son Ferdinand had come to a head in 1807. Fearing that his father intended to remove him from the succession, Ferdinand negotiated with Napoleon for help in deposing his father. A popular uprising in March 1808 forced Carlos to abdicate in favor of his son. The new king arrived in Madrid on March 24, the day after the French commander Joachim Murat had entered the city at the head of the French army. Popular resentment against Carlos’s corrupt government was so strong that many Spaniards greeted Murat and the French troops as liberators. In short order, however, the Spanish people realized that France had come to conquer, not to liberate. Held captive in the French city of Bayonne, both Carlos and Ferdinand were forced to give the reins of power to Napoleon, who proclaimed his brother Joseph king of Spain. On May 2 violent demonstrations erupted in Madrid as a result of rumors that the French planned to forcibly remove the remaining members of the royal family to Bayonne. A Mamluk cavalry unit that Napoleon had brought back from Egypt charged into the protesters, who were armed with little more than cudgels and knives. Once the
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riot was subdued, Murat’s men rounded up everyone they could find who was armed and executed them. There were so many of them that the executions lasted through the night and well into the following morning. The brutal repression of the May 2 protest did not end Spanish resistance. For six years Spanish patriots waged guerrilla warfare against the French occupiers, providing critical support to the British Army in the Peninsular War against France. Aside from the fact that Goya lived in Madrid during France’s initial invasion and may well have witnessed the May 2 uprising, not much is known about his direct wartime experiences. We know from his letters that Goya visited his childhood home of Zaragoza after the first siege of the city. Don José de Palafox y Melzi, the Spanish general who led the defense against the attackers, summoned Goya “to see and examine the ruins of the city so as to paint the heroic deeds of its inhabitants.” He arrived in late October and left shortly before the French began their second, more successful assault on the city in December. By May 1809 at the latest, Goya was back in Madrid, where he would spend the rest of the war and witness the famine it wrought on Madrid in 1811 and 1812—a famine so devastating that 20,000 of its residents died of starvation. Goya began etching the plates that make up The Disasters of War in 1810, and he appears to have worked on them through the end of the war. When his supplies ran low, he cut in two the copperplates for two landscapes he had etched before the war and created his scenes of war on the reverse sides. The series can be divided into three rough parts. The first part deals with scenes of war. The second depicts the sufferings of famine. The third—comprising 16 etchings— consists of biting political satires aimed at those who benefited under the French occupation. Goya used a wide range of etching techniques. Drawing on figures and compositions from classical antiquity and Renaissance masters, he created images that combine beauty
MUSEO NACIONAL DEL PRADO, MADRID (3)
When French emperor Napoleon Bonaparte’s troops invaded Spain in December 1807, Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes (1746–1828) had been First Court Painter to King Carlos IV for more than three decades. Goya was famous not only for his portraits of the Spanish aristocracy but also for his satirical etchings. During six years of French occupation and guerrilla warfare by Spanish patriots, Goya continued his public career as a court artist, accepting commissions to paint portraits of French generals and other officials connected with the new Bonapartist regime. In private, he created a very different type of work: 85 etchings that depicted the cruelty of war. He titled the series Fatal Consequences of Spain’s Bloody War With Bonaparte. We know it as The Disasters of War.
Francisco Goya began etching the 85 plates that make up The Disasters of War in 1810. Many of the etchings depict such shockingly gruesome scenes as the mutilated torsos and limbs of civilian victims mounted on—or bound to—tree stumps after a massacre (top, lower left) and grisly decapitations by ax-wielding soldiers (lower right). MHQ Summer 2017
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FRANCISCO GOYA
In 1819 Goya (shown here in an 1815 self-portrait) gave his 85 original etchings and a full set of working proofs, which he’d completed some years earlier, to a friend and fellow artist. They weren’t published until 1863.
with horror. In what appear to be earlier plates (based on stylistic similarities to the few plates dated 1810), Goya created delicate effects of line and wash—techniques that contrast with the gruesome scenes they portray. These plates display complex scenes in which many small figures are crowded into compositions that often subvert the heroic conventions of traditional battle scenes. Other plates, generally considered to date from later in the war, are less finished in style, with larger-scale figures set against simplified backgrounds that bring greater clarity to the horrors they depict. Both sides in the war were merciless, and Goya is impartial in his depiction of their cruelties. He treats the atrocities that French soldiers suffered at the hands of his countrymen and those that French soldiers inflicted on ordinary Spanish citizens with the same sense of pity and condemnation; there is no difference between combatants and noncombatants. Men are shot, hanged, tortured, and dismembered. Women fight to defend themselves, sometimes with children in their arms. The wounded are pressed
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After the war King Ferdinand VII returned to his throne, and Goya regained his title and salary as first court painter, thanks to friends who testified that he had not supported Joseph Bonaparte’s brief rule. He kept his head down, creating portraits of the court and a series of etchings depicting the history of bullfighting in Spain. Meanwhile, he prepared his wartime etchings for future publication. In 1819 he gave fellow artist and writer Juan Agustín Ceán Bermúdez his original etchings and a full set of working proofs, with each sheet numbered and captioned—presumably intending to publish the plates as a series. But Goya’s The Disasters of War remained unpublished until 1863—a half century after its creation and a year after Mathew Brady displayed his photographs of the bloody battlefield at Antietam on the door of his New York photography studio. In the years since their publication, Goya’s prints have been acclaimed for what photographer Susan Sontag described in Regarding the Pain of Others as “a new standard for responsiveness for suffering.” After the First World War, German Expressionist artist Otto Dix modeled his own print series Der Krieg on Goya’s work. Photojournalists assigned to cover modern wars have pointed to Goya’s war etchings as precursors of their reportage from the battlefront. As immediate as a snapshot and as artificial as many of the earliest examples of war photography, The Disasters of War demands that the viewer share Goya’s horror. In Goya’s hands, war is anything but glorious and heroes are in short supply. MHQ Pamela D. Toler writes frequently about history and the arts. She is the author of Heroines of Mercy Street: The Real Nurses of the Civil War (Little, Brown and Company, 2016) and is currently working on a global history of women warriors.
MUSEO NACIONAL DEL PRADO, MADRID
into service despite their pain. Children weep for dead mothers. Even the dead receive no respect: Soldiers strip corpses before throwing them into a common grave. Some plates bear titles such as Yo lo vi (I saw it) and Así sucedió (This is how it happened) that suggest Goya saw at least some of the events he depicts. But while many of the plates offer the immediacy of an eyewitness account, others, such as Esto es peor (This is worse), combine fantastical atrocities with painstaking realism. Only one plate, titled Que valor! (What courage!), refers to an identifiable event. It is the only heroic image in the series. In it, a young woman, seen from behind, climbs over the bodies of her fallen countrymen and fires a cannon at an unseen foe—a clear reference to the actions of Augustine Domènech, who stepped into a defensive breach and fired a cannon during the first siege of Zaragoza.
POETRY
OF SOLDIERS AND GENERALS Li Bai
THE LONG WAR They fought last year by the upper valley of Son-Kan, This year by the high ranges of the Leek Mountains, They are still fighting…fighting! … They wash their swords and armor in the cold waves of the Tiao-Chih Sea; Their horses, turning loose over the Tien Mountains, Seek the meagre grasses in the white snow. Long, long have they been fighting, full ten thousand li away from home; Their armor is worn out, the soldiers grown old. … Oh, the warlike Tatars! To them manslaughter is their plowing, Plowing, oh from ancient times, in the fields of white bones and yellow sands! It was in vain that the Emperor of Chin built the Great Wall, Hoping to shut out those fiery hordes. Where the wall stands, down to the Han Dynasty, The beacon fires are still burning.
LI BAI FOUNDATION
The beacon fires keep on burning; The war will never cease! …
Li Bai (701–762) is widely regarded as China’s greatest poet. In 756 he became unofficial poet laureate to Prince Li Lin, the 16th of Emperor Xuanzong’s 30 sons, who tried to seize power in an unsuccessful uprising against the Tang dynasty. The prince, accused of trying to establish an independent kingdom, was executed; Li Bai was arrested for treason and imprisoned at Jiujiang. His death sentence was commuted to exile in Yelang, in China's remote southwest interior. In 759, as he made his way to Yelang, Li Bai received notice that he had been granted an imperial pardon. He wandered the Yangtze Valley until his death in 762. Some 1,100 of Li Bai’s poems have survived, including the one printed here. They are known for their clear imagery and conversational tone and have influenced a number of 20th-century poets, including Ezra Pound and James Wright.
The soldiers fight and die in death-grapple on the battlefield, While their wounded horses howl in lamentation, Throwing up their heads at the desolate sky; The gray ravens and hungry vultures tear, And carry away the long bowels of the dead, Hanging them on the twigs of lifeless trees. … O soldiers who fight long— Their blood varnishes the desert weeds! But the generals who lead them on— They have accomplished nothing!
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CLASSIC DISPATCHES
TORPEDOED!
By Eleanor Franklin Egan
Eleanor Franklin Egan, born Bertha Eleanor Pedigo in 1877, was placed in the Rose Orphan Home in Terre Haute, Indiana, following the death of her mother. She was later adopted and raised in Martinsville, Illinois, and Kansas City, Missouri. She moved to New York City in 1898 in search of an acting career but ended up in journalism instead. Egan covered the Russo-Japanese War and the Russian Revolution for Leslie’s Weekly and World War I and its aftermath for the Saturday Evening Post. She died in New York in 1925, at age 45, from pneumonia. In 1915 Egan made headlines all over the world when she survived a deadly submarine attack on the British passenger ship Barulos. She wrote about the experience for the Saturday Evening Post, from which this account is excerpted. I was leaving Greece. The war I had run from in Serbia, in Bulgaria, and in Turkey snarled at my heels in Athens. Greece was mobilizing; everything was in the utmost confusion, and I knew I must get away, my objective then being my own homeland, where there was no war. Sailings of the Italian ships to Brindisi had not been suspended; but in that direction the greatest danger lay. There were rumors of Austrian submarines, and one was made to believe that to the westward they were as thick as fishes in an aquarium. Very well; I would go down to Egypt, and from Egypt I would go to Malta, from Malta to Palermo, and thence across to Naples. There was a promise of British and Italian convoy on this route, and the sensible idea is always to seek the safest possible avenue. It was the Barulos or nothing, everything else afloat being engaged in service connected with either Greek mobilization and the transportation of troops to Macedonia or with the battle of Gallipolli, which was then wallowing along to its end. The Barulos it had to be. I was the only English-speaking passenger aboard. The three-hundred-odd other passengers suggested nothing but nomadic tribes.
“I was standing by the rail,” Egan wrote,“when the submarine came up.”
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I was standing by the rail when the submarine came up—all by myself. I was restless, and I was tremendously interested in the surface of the sea. I always shall be after this. Never again shall I be able to sweep a bright horizon from a ship’s deck without seeing that black hulk rising like a whale coming up to “blow.” Your mind at such a moment is like a film in a camera. It captures and fixes every minutest detail. I remember the white wash of the sea off the submarine decks, though it rose halfway between us and the sky line. I remember the instantaneous of the flash of fire and the reverberating boom which caught up just in time to mingle with the crack of an exploding shell and the loud swish of a geyser that it threw into the air. It was the explosion of that shell that settled our fate. If the submarine could have used some other kind of signal the panic would not have been so instantaneous and complete. But the concussion shook the ship; and all those buried in the bowels of the ship—firemen, engineers, sailors, steerage passengers, everybody, thought just one thing, and that thing was “Torpedoed!” I had to clutch the rail to steady myself. Goodness knows how long I stood there. I don’t. Moreover, I have no idea how the first impulse of the crowd expressed itself. I suppose there must have been a momentary hesitation of unbelief before a scream was uttered; but when the sobbing sounds of fear did penetrate my daze they curdled my blood—and that I know. I turned finally and started aimlessly for the gangway that led below to the cabins. Then I got caught in the crush at the gangway, I being seriously bent on going down when everyone else was in frantic haste to come up. I remember blackened firemen and uniformed officers and sailors fighting women and children and other men in a way that chilled my heart and closed the very shutters of my mind. It was toward the Englishmen’s lifeboats that the crowd stampeded. They were the only lifeboats instantly available, and more than 300 persons had gone insane with a determination to get into them. There was a Greek sailor standing in the bow of the boat toward which I had been rushed by the mob, and I turned in time to see him cutting away like a madman at the rope that held it. I had just sense enough to observe instantly that nobody was doing anything at all to the ropes at the
PIERPONT MORGAN LIBRARY
In 1915 Eleanor Franklin Egan, a correspondent for the Saturday Evening Post, made headlines when she survived a deadly submarine attack on a British passenger ship.
other end; and then it was, I think, that I lost my reason too. The boat was already overloaded and people were still crowding into it, and I got a swift, terrible vision of its being loosed at one end only, and of the whole struggling, screaming lot of them being plunged into the sea. I reached out and caught the sailor’s arms; but— I think I went over just as the boat fell. How? I wish I knew. There was a clutch of hands behind me, a sudden lift, a long, sickening drop—and I was looking wide-eyed through the blue seethe of the sea. Some noble soul, of course, had tried to lift me into the lifeboat and had caught me off my balance as I struggled with the sailor. When I came up and caught my breath in the air, and began mechanically to keep my head above water, I was still thinking that I must go to my cabin and get a life belt. I had been thinking this subconsciously all the time; and that shows how quickly it all happened. By the time I had adjusted myself and had stroked my way out into a space by myself—away from the clutching hands and the struggling others—our submarine had come up and was lying under our bows, with two 1,200-pound guns
trained on our water line. It was the English captain who told me afterward that they were 12-pounders, else I should not have known. Hereafter, though, I think I shall always know a 12-pounder when I see one, because I looked straight into their muzzle from where I floated in the sea. My eyes ran down the gleam of them, seeing photographically their every detail. Behind them stood two gunners, as straight and still as statues of men. They were awaiting the order to fire, and I had a sort of frantic feeling that I was exactly in range and was likely to be blown to bits. The commander of our submarine was an Austrian; and if the German idea is right he should have been courtmartialed and shot for being weak—and merely human. I imagine that he was once a proud, upstanding navy man, with swashbuckling thoughts, perhaps, and dreams of brave fights with fighting ships. But he was not fitted to command a submarine under orders to be ruthless. He wept! They got me. I was picked up by one of the lifeboats. I sank into it, exhausted. Do you know anything about the blessed feel of one when it is the only thing between you and the illimitable awfulness of black sea depths? I am going to skip all the particulars about how my lifeboat was filled with sailors and firemen mostly; how we rowed round afterward and picked up others, until the big chief steward, who was in command, decided we had all we could take care of; how three lifeboats were stampeded as they were launched and swamped as soon as they touched the water; how one woman after another threw her children into the sea, screaming to God to let them be saved by someone, somehow; and how the long swells caught little bodies and swept them far out beyond the reach of rescue. Yet I would, if I could, make you see the pitiful ship drifting aimlessly and dejectedly there under the guns; and I would, if I could, make you see how the sunset bathed all the horrors in a marvelous light. I would, if I could, make you hear the feeble wails of the little Arab baby I picked up and tucked away under my wet coat, and feel the weight of the dead woman they dragged in and threw across my knees. I would, if I could, call up before you all the 25 drowned—14 of them children, and only three of them men—and have you listen to their stories. But these are details, only details. Two weeks later I crossed that spot on a Dutch ship, which I boarded at Port Said for Genoa; within a month I had crossed to the English Channel and was on an American Line ship bound for New York. I can only add that, until I came within sight of the Statue of Liberty, I was subject to occasional heart contractions which felt exactly the way you do when you are dropped suddenly in an elevator. I went back before the Germans completed their arrangements for unrestrained ruthlessness. MHQ
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MEN O’ WAR
By Richard S. Faulkner. 784 pages. University Press of Kansas, 2017. $39.95. Reviewed by William Walker Pershing’s Crusaders, Richard S. Faulkner’s encyclopedic look at the 4,178,172 doughboys who served in the U.S. Army during World War I, is a magnificent overview of the great national experiment represented by the American Expeditionary Forces. Combining the best methods of military history with interesting statistics and sociological techniques, Faulkner covers virtually every conceivable aspect of the doughboys’ experience, from their motivation for military service to their experiences in battle to their unbridled exhilaration on seeing the Statue of Liberty on their return to New York Harbor. Faulkner, a professor of military history at the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth, devoted 20 years to gathering the littleknown facts, soldiers’ letters, surveys, and veterans’ recol-
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lections that he has woven into a compelling narrative. We learn, for example, that the pay earned by a U.S. private far exceeded that of his compatriots in French and British armies, that the metallic sound of the German MG 08 machine gun was particularly “cruel and fiendish,” and that there was no way that a soldier could stay warm and dry using his overcoat on a wet, cold battlefield. To his credit, Faulkner does not shy away from controversial subjects. He faithfully reports, for example, the number of Americans who committed murder during the war (2 officers and 88 soldiers), the rampant discrimination against immigrants and African Americans, the stiff penalty imposed for contracting venereal disease (three months confinement at hard labor), and the exceptionally high illiteracy rate among recruits (30 percent). The illiteracy figure should not be surprising, as the average white enlisted man had completed just 7.7 years of school and his black counterpart just 4.6 years. While many military historians avoid writing about American atrocities, Faulkner devotes a long section of his book to the subject. “It is not difficult to find instances where doughboys chose not to take prisoners in letters and diaries from the period and in postwar accounts,” he writes. “This is not to say that
the killing of German prisoners or potential prisoners was widespread; rather, it is to acknowledge that such acts do happen in war and that the Americans were not immune to this fact.” In an honest attempt to assess the impact that battle stress had on young Americans, he cites several examples of the execution of prisoners and quotes one doughboy confessing that “a sniper was never taken prisoner.” According to Faulkner, returning veterans evidenced a wide range of emotions. Some had grown cynical: “Only those who do not know,” one veteran said, “talk about the accomplishments of the army.” Others experienced a sense of relief tempered by the recognition that the experience had irrevocably changed them. As one put it, “I am out of the army, but I have a feeling it will be a long time before the army is out of me.” There is much to celebrate in Faulkner’s superb portrait of doughboy life. And fortunately, other than a skimpy index that limits the book’s usefulness as a reference, it has precious few shortcomings to bemoan. William Walker is the author of Betrayal at Little Gibraltar: A German Fortress, a Treacherous American General, and the Battle to End World War I (Scribner, 2016).
The Locomotive of War: Money, Empire, Power, and Guilt By Peter Clarke. 432 pages. Bloomsbury, 2017. $30. Reviewed by K. M. Kostyal
Using Leon Trotsky’s famous axiom as a starting point (“War,” Trotsky said, “is the locomotive of history”), historian Peter Clarke aims to examine how the locomotive of war transformed the role of government and the workings of the economic system in the years surrounding the world wars. While that examination is certainly woven into his narrative, much of Clarke’s book focuses on what he calls Anglo-American liberalism—mostly the Anglo side of the equation—and the large personalities driving it in the first 40 years of the 20th century. Clarke traces that liberalism to William Ewart Gladstone, the Grand Old Man of the previous century. Four times British prime minister, Gladstone preached a moral populism and “a virtuous passion” in the political dealings of a nation. Gladstone’s ideas would echo through the regimes of his liberalimperialist successors: Her-
HARRIS & EWING COLLECTION/LIBRARY OF CONGRESS
Pershing’s Crusaders: The American Soldier in World War I
General John J. Pershing was the commander of the American Expeditionary Force in Europe during World War I.
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REVIEWS bert Henry Asquith (an affected patrician despite his middle-class background), David Lloyd George (the quintessential man of the people), and Winston Churchill (whose iconoclastic brilliance defies categorization). All three men were part of the feuding, intricate, and interconnected oligarchy that ultimately drove the British Empire into and through World War I and toward a second world war. Clarke follows each of their life trajectories, showing how they intersected and shaped not only government policy but also the British zeitgeist of the early 20th century. Also included among the prominent zeitgeist-shapers is economist John Maynard Keynes, who believed that the only way to influence the “hidden currents, flowing continually below the surface of political history” was to set “in motion those forces of instruction and imagination which change opinion.” Keynes indicted the profiteers of war for humbugging the public away from liberal values and, in so doing, ending “an extraordinary episode in the economic progress of man” during which the upper and middle classes had enjoyed “conveniences, comforts, and amenities beyond the compass of the richest and most powerful monarchs of other ages.” Yet Churchill had seen that era in an entirely a different light, predicting in 1901 that “the wars of peoples will be more terrible than those of Kings.” What led the British peoples into that first great war
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was a Gladstonian moral outrage at Germany’s invasion of neutral Belgium. But peace, when it finally came, was hardly the moralistic “peace without a victor” that U.S. President Woodrow Wilson preached. As with the other liberals he covers, Clarke finds fault with Wilson, criticizing his naiveté. “He simply does not know the modern Machiavellianism,” American journalist Ray Stannard Baker said of Wilson. And yet, as Clarke acknowledges, the war boosted not only America’s economic fortunes at home but also its standing as a world power. While the Locomotive of War covers all the obvious complications of that time of upheaval in British politics—the issue of Irish Home Rule, the initial reluctance to go to war, the consequences of the great battles, the pros and cons of maintaining a worldwide empire in time of war, the push for German reparations at war’s end—it’s sometimes hard to follow exactly what point Clarke is attempting to make. His overarching theme seems to be the time-tested truism that politicians and public sentiment can be ambiguous, self-serving, even hypocritical—particularly when it comes to waging war. K. M. Kostyal is the author of Founding Fathers: The Fight for Freedom and the Birth of American Liberty (National Geographic, 2014).
Waging War: Conflict, Culture, and Innovation in World History
By Wayne E. Lee. 560 pages. Oxford University Press, 2016. $44.95 (paper). Reviewed by Michael W. Robbins In this wide-ranging and ambitious work, Wayne E. Lee, a professor of history at the University of North Carolina, does not seek to “explain” war. Nor does he attempt to answer whether warfare is an inevitable product of human nature. Instead, Lee draws on such disciplines as anthropology, archaeology, biology, human evolution, sociology, and—of course—history, to trace the development of warfare. He reaches as far back as 12,000 BCE for evidence of mass burials of victims of violent conflict, and to the earliest signs of fortified settlements to trace the many innovations that have shaped human conflict and cooperation. Lee contends that “coordinated lethal conflict” among human groups evidently existed at all times and in all places, but not all the time (author’s emphasis). He suggests that conflicts arose as groups competed for available resources and that such conflicts gave rise to cooperation and to the organization of larger social groups, from chiefdoms to states.
In examining the long developmental arc from early Neolithic conflicts to the more familiar warfare among states, Lee highlights many examples of innovations in weaponry and other technologies, social organization, logistics, transportation, and the exploitation of natural resources. Beginning with the domestication of horses and the development of the chariot in the Pontic-Caspian and Central Asian Steppe, Lee moves through the use of bows and arrows and slings; then through spear-wielding phalanxes, swords, heavy European armor, and cavalry; and, finally, to the advent of gunpowder and the effects of industrialization. Lee also analyzes the parallel developments of craft, weapons, and tactics of warfare on water. For each innovation in weaponry, he explains the development of such defensive countermeasures as shields, armor, and fortifications. Throughout the course of warfare development all the way to contemporary insurgency, nonstate conflicts, and terror, Lee is as attentive to changes in social, political, and military ideas and organization as he is to technological change. Lee augments every chapter of the book with a useful timeline and detailed, expansive notes. Waging War is a comprehensive and welcome survey of the development of warfare—an indispensable guide to military history. Michael W. Robbins is a former editor of MHQ.
American Sieges India vs. Pakistan Crimean Images Antony’s Intrigues WWI Railways Pontiac’s War HistoryNet.com
Ilse Hirsch’s innocent schoolgirl looks made her an ideal assassin
NAZI KILLER ANGELS
IN 1945 WEREWOLVES PROWLED THE RUINS OF AACHEN MIHP-170700-COVER-DIGITAL.indd 1
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DRAWN & QUARTERED
Early in his career John Cawse (1778–1862), the noted English painter, worked as a caricaturist for Samuel William Fores, a prominent London printseller who at one time operated his own “Caricature Museum.” In this satirical print, published in 1800, Cawse skewers Napoleon Bonaparte (furious and long-locked), who wears a bicorne with ridiculous plumage and is attended by two goggle-eyed lackeys, at least one of whom wears a jester’s collar.
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ANNE S.K. BROWN MILITARY COLLECTION/BROWN UNIVERSITY LIBRARY
HAIR OF THE REPUBLIC
“I WAS SOON ALONGSIDE OF THE CHAP WHO HAD WOUNDED ME. RAISING MYSELF IN THE STRIRRUPS, I SHOT HIM THROUGH THE HEAD.” —William F. “Buffalo Bill” Cody page 20
SUMMER 2017 VOLUME 29, NUMBER 4
