December 1, 1826

Feta and Brie: Or A Chaud Time in the Old Town Tonight.

We start off the chilly month of December with a hot battle in the history of Athens, one of the world's oldest cities. After the Byzantine Empire fell to the Turks in the 15th Century, much of the old Eastern Roman Empire, including all of Greece, fell under Ottoman control. Three centuries of Islamic rule began in the ancient land, but not without obvious resentment from the native Greeks. While the Turks were enamored with the antiquated beauty of Athens, the city's population had less than cordial feelings toward their new rulers.

Despite the fact that Turkish forces were ordered to leave the ancient ruins of Athens in peace, most inhabitants had fled the city by the start of the 19th Century. In the coming years, constant conflict with the west meant many of the city's buildings, even on the famed Acropolis, were turned into fortresses, and the Turks went as far as burning most of the city to stop a Venetian attack in 1688. By 1814, a secret society of Greek patriots known as the Filiki Eteria, or "Society of Friends", felt it was time to restore the nation to its rightful owners.

For the most part, Europe was unsure of how to view the Greek nationalists. While any swipe at the Ottomans was seen as beneficial, western rulers were nervous that uprisings against an established empire could incite similar movements at home. Some Europeans, however, knew exactly where they stood. Enter our honorary over-zealous Frenchman of the day, Charles Nicolas Fabvier. As you might imagine, Fabvier had very different ideas about European involvement in Greece.






Charles Nicolas Fabvier, in traditional Greek dress.








A well-schooled engineer and expert in all types of cannon, he once served as an artillery major under the indomitable Michel Ney. After joining the army in 1804 Fabvier was wounded in several major engagements during the Napoleonic wars. He was the representative from France who signed the peace treaty after Bonaparte was exiled the first time, then reenlisted and followed his emperor to Waterloo. In 1823, Fabvier was under investigation by the French government for aiding Bonapartists when he decided to join the Greek Independence movement.

After rebuilding the coastal fortifications in Navarino Bay, on the western coast of Greece, Fabvier was given command of the newly formed Greek Army. His men made their way to Athens, which had briefly been held by the Greeks before being retaken by the Ottomans, to lay siege to the Turkish forces occupying the Acropolis. There, on December 1, 1826, Fabvier's men succeeded in breaking through enemy lines and seizing the ancient monument to Western Civilization.

Unfortunately for the Greeks, and for Fabvier's legacy, the capture of the Acropolis was not the end of the war. Two more years of fighting and more than three more years of negotiations still lay ahead for the troubled crossroads between east and west. Following his battle in Athens, Fabvier returned to France to drum up further support for Greek independence. He made his way back to Greece to participate in the final battles of the war in 1828.

Following the War of Independence, King Othon of Greece makes his way to the foot of the Parthenon on the Acropolis after entering Athens in 1833.

Perhaps because he was a foreigner, Fabvier does not get the same credit as other heroes of the Greek War of Independence, most notably Alexander Ypsilantis and Theodoros Kolokotronis. In spite of this, his contributions cannot be overlooked. A soldier through and through, Fabvier was eventually promoted to Lieutenant General by the French government and later served in parliament. In keeping with our goals at Lies Agreed Upon, we felt the tale of this fighting Frenchie was too good to pass up.

November 30, 1939

A Bad Dress Rehearsal: Or is the Enemy of My Enemy My Friend?

Today we start the new week and end the month of November with one of those small, sometimes forgotten dances that opened up the waltz of the Second World War. By 1945, Anglo-American troops had linked up with the Soviet Red Army, cutting Germany in half and linking the great Allies of east and west. History remembers these two forces combining to rid the world of the Third Reich, but some neglect that at the start of hostilities, the two sides almost became enemies.

Before the first German blitzkriegs were launched across Poland, Nazi and Soviet leaders had signed a mutual non-aggression pact that freed the two distrusting states of the immediate fear of a conflict with each other. This allowed both sides to pursue engagements elsewhere, even though each viewed the other as their main threat. While Hitler turned his eyes to the Western Allies that had shamed Germany after World War I, Stalin sought to reclaim Soviet territory lost to Finland during the Bolshevik Revolution a generation before.

His prime concern was with the city of Leningrad, in the extreme western reaches of the new communist empire. Stalin felt the namesake of his mentor could only be properly defended by reacquiring the lost territory. Also, while the Soviets and Finns had a non-aggression pact of their own, Stalin had noticed that almost none of the rapidly growing Finnish foreign commerce was coming across the border to the Soviet Union. Citing the potential conflict with Germany, he demanded that neutral Finland cede former Russian territory back to its rightful owner. The Finns flatly refused.

In late November, 1939, the Soviets claimed some of their troops had been shelled by Finnish forces near the border town of Mainila. When the Finns suggested the two countries investigate the incident, the Soviets feigned outrage and renounced the peace treaty between the two nations. On November 30, 1939, Red Army troops stormed across the border and Soviet planes bombed Helsinki, the Finnish capital. The short but ill-fated Winter War had begun.

Finnish ski troops man a trench during the brief but intense Winter War. While the Finns' clothing camouflaged them in the snow, many Red Army units began the war without cold weather gear.

Stalin, in all his paranoid wisdom, had quite successfully rid the Red Army of almost all its most experienced officers during the Great Purge the year before. Nevertheless, he felt his enormous army could easily beat back the outnumbered Finns and reclaim the territory he sought. The fact that Stalin was launching his invasion at the start of the Finnish winter and his men were attacking an enemy defending its homeland seemed lost on the dictator. As usual the lives of Red Army troops would foot the bill for Stalin's dreams of conquest.

The Soviets were woefully unprepared to fight such a campaign. With their best generals either dead or in Siberian gulags, the senior leadership in the Red Army was in shambles. Furthermore, the winter of 1939-40 was one of the coldest in Scandinavian records. All that, combined with the relentless determination of Finland's sons meant the easy war envisioned by the Red Army was far from the reality. By the end of the four month conflict, nearly 400,000 Russians had become casualties.

The West, for its part, was just as shocked at Stalin as it had been at Hitler earlier in the decade. This time, however, they planned to stop a hungry dictator before he took too healthy a serving for his plate. Aid poured in from many western nations, including Nazi Germany. Russia was booted from the League of Nations, and thousands of foreign volunteers made their way to Finland. The French and British, hoping to simultaneously cut Hitler's access to Scandinavian iron ore and to keep the fighting far from home soil, both planned to send troops to aid the smaller nation's cause.

The dogged Finnish defenders, however, could not hold back the Russian steamroller indefinitely. By the time spring had broken, the Red Army had secured the land Stalin felt was necessary to defend Leningrad. A fragile peace was arranged, but the Soviets could not escape the double indemnity of being viewed as both the aggressors and militarily incompetent. The Winter War would usher in more wholesale changes to the Red Army command structure, not all of which would be completed by the time the Germans invaded in 1941.

Broken Russian bodies and equipment litter Raate Road, the only line of escape for Red Army units trapped deep in Finnish territory during the Winter War.

Despite its brevity, the Winter War had lasting effects on the newly begun Second World War. Finland would not forget Russia's transgressions, and joined with Hitler once Operation Barbarossa was launched. Tensions between the west and the Soviet Union would remain until the Germans made them allies out of necessity. The Red Army would eventually regain its footing to throw back the Nazi invaders and emerge as the West's menace during the Cold War. Nevertheless, its first preparations for the rapidly approaching war nearly ended in disaster.

Shameless Napoleon Quote of the Week

November 29- December 5, 2009

God is on the side with the best artillery.

Napoleon Bonaparte

Dead General Quote of the Week

Bold Predictions

After leading the successful but costly invasion of Tarawa, General Holland M. "Howlin' Mad" Smith would find himself commanding at another bloody stop on the island hopping campaign. Waiting off the coast of Iwo Jima in February, 1945, Navy commanders asked Smith to appraise how his men would fare on the island:

This will be the bloodiest fight in Marine Corps history. We'll catch seven kinds of hell on the beaches, and that will be just the beginning. The fighting will be fierce, and the casualties will be awful, but my Marines will take the damned island.

November 27, 1095

God Wills It: Or the Start of Something Big.

The holiday week closes out here at Lies Agreed Upon with a topic we have left untouched during the short life of this blog. Toward the end of the 11th Century AD, Islam had spread throughout the Mid-East and over most of North Africa. Christians had begun the Reconquista of the Iberian Peninsula, but Islamic rulers were threatening Europe in modern day Turkey. In 1095, Envoys from Constantinople were sent by Byzantine Emperor Alexius I Comnenus, who plead to Pope Urban II to help defend Christendom in the east.

The Pope had a meeting with bishops and abbots scheduled for November, and Urban told many of them to bring the powerful lords from their respective regions. During the week-long Council of Clermont, Urban covered a wide range of topics, never mentioning the trouble brewing far to the east. Then, on November 27, 1095, the last full day of the meeting, Urban urged the clerics and the lords to send Christian fighters to reclaim the land of Christ from the advancing Muslim menace. This was their divine duty, for history remembers Urban famously proclaiming "Deus lo vult!" Medieval Latin for "God wills it."

In reality, no one is exactly sure what Urban said to the convened members at Clermont. There are several accounts of his speech, but each differs widely in both letter and spirit. Some claim that Urban asked Western Christians to defend their Eastern counterparts, but said nothing about recapturing the Holy Land. Others say Urban did claim it was God, not he, that was calling for this "Crusade" into the Holy Land. Either way, most agree that Urban put no limits on who could join, young or old, rich or poor, knight or peasant.




Pope Urban II addresses assembled clerics at the Council of Clermont, 1095 AD.













Regardless, nearly 35,000 men set off from Europe for Constantinople the next summer. What would become known as the First Crusade would successfully beat back Islamic forces from Turkey. In 1099, they laid siege to Jerusalem, eventually capturing the city. The holiest place in Christendom would remain under western rule for nearly a century, before eventually being recaptured by Islamic lords. In all there would be at least nine Crusades, launched over the course of three centuries.

Surely many would love to know what Pope Urban II said to the gathered clerics on that November day in 1095. Nearly three hundred years of savage warfare was launched at his behest, and there is no shortage of resentment between Muslims and the west to this day. No matter what he said during the Council of Clermont, Urban nevertheless added more to the endless tally of men killed by wars in the name of God.

Thanksgiving Day, 1967

875 Meters to Hell: Or Why There Will Always be Infantry.

The holiday we are enjoying today was surely no cause for celebration for the men of the US 173rd Airborne Brigade, fighting in the Central Highlands of Vietnam in the fall of 1967. American ground units had struggled for control of the region since first arriving in country two years earlier, and commanders speculated it was a staging area for People's Army of Vietnam troops arriving from the north. Throughout November, fighting had intensified around the hamlet of Dak To, and would culminate on a wooded hill on the Cambodian border.

Hill 875, designated by its height in meters, was found by the men of the 2nd Battalion of the 503rd Infantry. It's height and strategic position overlooking the Ho Chi Minh Trail made it a prime target for the paratroopers. On Sunday, November 19 they began to probe the slopes of the heavily forested hill. Almost immediately after reaching the top, they ran head long into a complex bunker line and were pinned down. It soon became clear to the paratroopers that this was no ordinary hill.

Paratroopers of the 173rd Airborne Brigade assault up the slopes of Hill 875, Central Highlands, Vietnam.

After units of Delta Company were halted in front of the bunkers, men from Alpha Company began working their way back down the hill to cut a landing zone for helicopter support. With fighting still raging near the crest, the chilling sound of bugles reached the ears of the men of Alpha. Bugles were often used by the PAVN to coordinate attacks, and at times were a normal sound in big engagements early in the war. These bugles, however, were coming from in front of Alpha, at the base of the hill. The battalion was surrounded.

Still in contact with the bunker line and cut off from any additional ground help, the battalion desperately tried to hack an LZ out of the jungle. But the close proximity of the enemy positions made landing a chopper nearly impossible. One ship made it in and evacuated some wounded. Ten others were disabled while trying to land. Not only could ammunition and water not be flown in, but the mounting number of wounded men would be forced to wait on the hill side for death or victory, whichever came first.

Aid was administered to the wounded wherever possible during the fight for Hill 875. Many took days to be evacuated and were killed or re-wounded while awaiting the helicopters.

The problems were exacerbated on Sunday evening, when the men of Delta Company called for close air support near their position. After the sorties, a lone fighter remained with a single 500lb bomb still to be dropped. It swept in low over the trees, and some soldiers noticed this strike came in on a north-south approach, along the crest of the ridge line and not across it as others had all day. It was the first sign that something was amiss.

The men who had been fighting all day below watched with a clear view as the plane descended and loosed its deadly payload smack into the middle of Delta's position. The slopes of the hill were silenced for a few moments as the paratroopers struggled to comprehend what had happened. Then came the screams. Delta's CO was badly wounded, and the battalion chaplain was killed. In all nearly 40 paratroopers were killed by the bomb with more than as many wounded. Among the dead were dozens of men who were already wounded and had been waiting for evacuation. It was the worst friendly fire incident of the Vietnam War.

The battle was far from over. For the next four days, the paratroopers tried to maintain their position, clear whatever bunkers they could, and stay alive. From as close as 25 meters, the heavy mortar and rocket fire of the PAVN kept helicopters, the lifeline of most American units in Vietnam, from landing anywhere. The line of wounded stretched down the hill, and makeshift aid stations became targets for the the enemy. By Wednesday, all the officers in the rifle companies were casualties, and 11 of the 13 medics in the battalion had been killed. A reporter who witnessed the fight later wrote that the only way to tell the living from the dead was to see who moved when the incoming mortar rounds landed.

A relief column was sent to take the pressure off the men of the 2nd Battalion, but brought no extra food, water, ammo, or medical supplies. Hill 875 had been the base camp for several PAVN regiments, and the paratroopers had blindly stumbled right into the thick of it. Further air strikes and artillery barrages had little effect on the well entrenched enemy regulars. By late Wednesday afternoon an LZ was finally cut, and the line of wounded men slowly made their way to the helicopters.

Revitalized by seeing their wounded comrades taken to safety and finally resupplied by the tenuous LZ, the men of the relief column swept the last of resistance from the hill on Thursday, Thanksgiving Day, 1967. The paratroopers of the 2nd Battalion were not able to contribute much to the final assaults. Of the 570 men of the unit who went into action on Sunday, more than half were casualties by the middle of the week.

The fighting on Hill 875 and around Dak To in general was some of the savagest seen during the entire American involvement. The PAVN proved that by maintaining close contact with their Western enemies they could negate their overwhelming fire power and air support. The dense jungle and tangle of hills and ridges also proved how valuable the helicopter was to the American style of fighting. Without the aircraft to resupply them and evacuate the wounded, the paratroopers lost all their advantages over the North Vietnamese.

In the end, it would be the dogged determination of the American infantryman that won through. Facing an experienced and capable enemy, each bunker had to be cleared by hand grenades and small arms fire. No matter how many advantages in fire power and aircraft a nation has, the individual grunt will always be needed to physically clear the enemy away from the battlefield. Infantry is the backbone of any military, and no matter how far technology progresses, always will be. When they were finally pulled off the hill on Thursday afternoon, the men of the 173rd surely had a lot to be thankful for.

November 24, 1944

The End of an Era: Or How Do You Say Wild Blue Yonder in Chinese?
















Yesterday we covered the bloody invasion of Tarawa, the first stepping stone in the island hopping campaign aimed at the heart of Japan. As we discussed, the ultimate goal of creeping closer to Tokyo island by island was to secure airbases and jump off points close to the Japanese mainland. By late 1944, the Marines had finally captured airfields that brought the home islands into the range of the B-29 Superfortress, America's new heavy bomber. Soon after, relentless air attacks would hit Japan from over the ocean, dealing death on daily basis after racing down out of the rising sun.

Before that, however, the task of bombing Japan was the charge of the United States Twentieth Army Air Force, stationed at a far off series of airbases near Chengtu in central China. On the far side of the world, 10,000 miles from Washington, D.C., the Twentieth Air Force had been taking the war to the Japanese homeland since the start of 1944. Using four groups of B-29s, the Twentieth Air Force was personally commanded by General Henry H."Hap" Arnold, Chief of the Army Air Forces.


Kumming Air Base, China, in 1944. B-29s from the XX Bomber Command, Twentieth Air Force took off from this field and others like it before bases opened in the Marianas.

Supplies to the base had to be airlifted via "The Hump", the high altitude supply line from India over the Himalayas, and not all the equipment the Twentieth needed always arrived. With Arnold at the helm, the Twentieth developed a knack for resourcefulness, ingenuity and inventiveness. That, combined with the distance from home and the dangerous nature of their mission meant that a unique attitude developed on the airbases near Chengtu. Perhaps the farthest flung of all American troops across the globe, the airmen developed a cocky, colorful yet workmanlike demeanor.

On November 24, 1944, the first B-29s took off for Tokyo from the island of Guam in the central Pacific. For the Twentieth, still launching raids on Japan in Operation Matterhorn, it was the beginning of the end of the flyboy haven on the other side of the world. With island airfields large enough to handle the giant bombers, the daunting logistics that came with raiding the enemy's home were eased. The lifeline of a B-29 over Japan no longer had to stretch from China, over Everest, through India and across two oceans. With bases in the Marianas, planes, pilots and munitions could all be delivered by the United States Navy who now controlled the Pacific.

When most think of the bombings of Japan, familiar images include formations of B-29s taking off from airfields on the widespread islands of the Pacific. To be sure, most of the destruction suffered by Japanese cities was yet to come, hand delivered by American boys who had launched from places like Guam, Tinian and Saipan. The Twentieth Air Force itself would even transfer to the Marianas to continue their work for the rest of the war. But lost to the deathly efficiency of these raids is another story of men fighting on the far side of the world.

B-29s drop incendiary bombs on Japan, 1945.

Deep in the Asian mainland, with the entire Japanese war machine between themselves and their homes, they paved the way for the bombing campaign that would eventually bring the war to a close. All the while, they bred a unique environment, where skill and initiative and guts trumped dogma and spit and polish. True, they were far more effective later from the Marianas, and their huge requisitions dogged the overburdened airlift, but the story of the Twentieth Air Force in China is not to be forgotten.

November 25, 1864

The Confederate Army of Manhattan: Or the Day the Flames Went Out on Broadway.

Today we turn back the clock to the American Civil War, and cross the bridge to Manhattan during the rainy November of 1864. At the time, tensions in the North's grandest city were just as volatile as in any field in Georgia or Tennessee. Two summers before, after President Lincoln signed the first conscription act, the city had erupted in riots that took Union troops (fresh from the Battle of Gettysburg) to suppress. Most of New York's immigrant population was more interested in working than fighting, especially if the dying was to be done to aid a potential rival in the workforce.

Since the beginning of the war, there had even been talk of New York City seceding from the Union and declaring Manhattan a free entity. The boiling mood on the island made it a juicy target for Confederate espionage, and they hoped the fires from the draft riots still raged in New Yorkers' hearts. While Billy Sherman was burning his way toward Savannah, Jacob Thompson, former Secretary of the Interior of the United States, hoped to fan a few flames of his own. Thompson had returned to his home in Mississippi after secession and after serving as Inspector General of the Confederate Army, began building a spy cell in Canada.

Jacob Thompson

Late in November, Thompson put his men into action. He had formed a group of eight men that called themselves the Confederate Army of Manhattan, who each snuck into the Union and checked himself into a different New York City hotel. At about 8:45pm on November 25, 1864, the city's fledgling fire department began receiving near simultaneous calls at over 20 locations all over town. The Confederate spies had each set fire to their rooms, then hit the streets to start fires at targets throughout the city.

The plan was to start more fires than the department could handle, and the Southerners would of course had been pleased to see the city burned to the ground. But the real hope was that the panic and blame that would ensue would incite New York's population to rebel against city officials. While seemingly an effective plot in theory, Thompson failed to take into account three things: the wet weather; the considerably more calmed mood that had overtaken Manhattan in the last year; and the men who had recently begun calling themselves the New York City Fire Department.

When the calls of fire began streaming in, coordinated teams of units began to each tackle a fire. Soon, all were contained or had burned out before spreading far enough to cause much damage. Thompson had remained in Canada, but all eight members of the Confederate Army of Manhattan were captured. Seven were later executed, the last of which, Captain Robert Cobb Kennedy, was the last solider hanged by either side during the Civil War.







Harper's Weekly published this depiction of a member of the Confederate Army of Manhattan setting a fire.





Sadly, it turned out it was Thompson who the Union really needed to get its hands on. Operating in Canada for the remainder of the war, Thompson continued his efforts against the Federal war effort. Clearly, he had few qualms about burning down New York, and perhaps the plot was a sign of worse things to come. There are some who speculate, and the editors of Lies Agreed Upon are in that camp, that Jacob Thompson should be counted among the conspirators of the assassination of President Lincoln.

Union troops burned Thompson's estate in Oxford, Mississippi in 1864, and after the war the former congressman and cabinet member lived abroad in exile. He was pardoned in 1869, but never returned to public life. Terrorism has always been an unfortunate extension of the horrors of war, whether in 1864 New York or the Middle East today. Fortunately for the City that Never Sleeps, then just as now, her bravest constitute a fire department that doesn't sleep either.

November 23, 1943

Blood on the Coral: Or the Most Expensive Square Mile in the Pacific.

We start the new week at Lies Agreed Upon with one of the more infamous battles in the Pacific Theater of World War II. The tiny atoll of Tarawa, in the Gilbert Island chain nearly 2,400 miles southwest of Pearl Harbor, was seen by American commanders as a vital step in the island hopping campaign across the Central Pacific. Planners had their sights set on the Marianas Islands, another 2,000 miles further west, to establish the airbases needed to take the war to the Japanese home islands. Standing in the way was the heavily armed garrison on Tarawa's Betio Island, a spit of rock with an area less than a square mile.

Landing troops on a hostile shore, protecting them while they unload equipment and then keeping them supplied is often considered the most difficult operation a force can attempt. These challenges were compounded at Tarawa for several reasons. First, the beaches of the island are only accessible from the shallow lagoon the atoll surrounds. Approaching from the sea is impossible. Furthermore, the tides around the Gilberts are notoriously fickle, and at times hide jagged coral reefs that can rip the bottoms right out of landing craft.

Marines storm an enemy pillbox on Tarawa.

In addition, Tarawa was occupied by 5,000 men of a special naval detachment, essentially Japanese marines. These elite troops spent over a year creating an interwoven web of trenches, bunkers and pillboxes. The difficult task of assaulting Tarawa fell to the men of the 2nd Marine Division. During the inter-war period, the United States Marine Corps had pioneered the art of amphibious landings on beaches all over the Caribbean. The few offensive landings undertaken since the start of the war had not been contested on the beaches by the Japanese. The landings on Tarawa in late November, however, would put the Americans to the ultimate test.

The first wave of Marines was met at the water's edge by heavy machine gun and mortar fire. They would be forced to fight their way onto the island, but they were ashore and organizing at the base of a seawall on the beach. As the second wave approached, the predicted tides failed to change and landing craft had to dump their men and equipment nearly a hundred yards out to sea. Men laden with nearly half their body weight in gear were forced to wade through chest-high water under fire. By the time the third wave arrived, the distance was nearly five times that. The first wave was hit hard; the second decimated; the third nearly destroyed.

The problems did not end once the Marines got off the beach. The well planned defensive network proved its worth over the course of the next three days, exacting a bitter price for each yard the Americans advanced. Nevertheless, the typical marine bravado was evident throughout the battle. During the fighting, a report by Colonel David. M. Shoup, who would eventually become the Commandant of the Marine Corps, summed up both the combat and the attitude of the Marines: "Casualites: many; Percentage of dead: not known; Combat efficiency: we are winning."



Colonel David M. Shoup, shown here with his trademark cigar, won the Medal of Honor for his actions on Tarawa.



By November 23, 1943, through incredible bravery, overwhelming firepower and sheer grit, the Marines had cleared the island. Afterward, for one of the first times ever, the American public was allowed access to the gruesome details of the savage war in the Pacific. The "butcher's bill" at Tarawa would be shocking, as in just three days of fighting casualties in many units topped 50 percent. Up to that point, it was the costliest battle in the history of the Marine Corps. A short documentary, With the Marines at Tarawa, was released the next year, and Americans found themselves aghast at the deadly carnage their sons faced on a daily basis. Of the 5,000 Japanese on the island, only about 150 were taken alive.

After the battle, the huge casualty numbers caused many to question not only the necessity of the fight, but the conduct of the war as a whole. Marine General "Howlin' Mad" Holland Smith later wrote "Was Tarawa worth it? My answer: an unqualified No." Smith blamed the casualties on poor planning and a lack of understanding of tides in the Gilberts. He felt Tarawa could have been bypassed and the Japanese defenders left to "wither on the vine." Nevertheless, the Marines proved that any island could be taken by an amphibious assault, regardless of the number of defenders or the extent of their fortifications. The lessons learned at Tarawa would prove invaluable on the long road to Tokyo.

This grisly scene was repeated all along the shores of Tarawa in late November, 1943. It was the first time the Japanese had contested an American landing at the water's edge.

Shameless Napoleon Quote of the Week

November 22-28, 2009

Some people can move, and some people can shoot. But when you can move and you can shoot, you and Napoleon are pissin' in the same puddle.

George S. Patton

Dead General Quote of the Week

A Cold Day in Hell.

A Note from the Editors:
On Wednesday night, we promised to cover Operation Uranus for the next day, November 19th. We backed out on that, collectively opting to go with a more personal story rather than just discussing a battle that would result in a post too cluttered with background.

Every good journalist (and we think every writer, really) knows its a sin to abuse the reader's trust, however slight the transgression. We promise we won't do it again. To atone for that we are announcing the installment of a new feature here at Lies Agreed Upon, Dead General Quote of the Week.

To make up for our wrongs, the inaugural Dead General Quote of the Week comes from Field Marshal Friedrich Paulus, commander of the German Sixth Army at Stalingrad. After Paulus was cut off by Operation Uranus, Hitler refused to allow him to break out and reunite with German forces. Instead, Sixth Army was forced to stay, and suffered through one of the most desperate battles in history. Hitler later promoted Paulus to Field Marshal, a not-so-subtle way of telling him to win or fall on his sword. After the surrender at Stalingrad, Paulus, who became the highest ranking German ever to become a prisoner, had this to say:

"I have no intention of shooting myself for that Austrian Corporal."

November 20, 1917

Landships: Or the Day the Cavalry Died.

At the beginning of the week, we briefly discussed the reluctance early flight faced from conservative military minds. Today the calender offers us the opportunity to examine another aspect of modern warfare we take for granted, but was met with the same skepticism as aviation. As is our goal with most of the topics we attempt to cover at Lies Agreed Upon, today we look at an event that had a far reaching affect on the conduct of war as a whole.

Despite continual evidence to the contrary, many leaders during the First World War believed the key to breaking the stalemate in the trenches lied with mounted troops exploiting gaps in the enemy front. In battle after battle, commanders envisioned their horse cavalry galloping through breaches in the line and rolling up the enemy's flanks. Cavalry charges, along with chivalrous images of mounted medieval knights, had been the norm on battlefields for thousands of years. But the tangles of barbed wire and the deathly efficiency of machine guns on the Western Front had relegated most cavalrymen to fighting in dismounted roles by 1917.


Dead horses often littered the battlefields of the Western Front during World War I.






Both sides had experimented with alternatives to mounted cavalry since the beginning of the war. Oddly enough, it was the Royal Navy who first proposed the idea of a "landship", a heavily armored moving gunship that used tracks instead of wheels to roll over any obstacles. These supposedly impregnable fortresses were intended to do the job of both the infantry and the cavalry; blasting a hole in the enemy line and then using mobility to exploit its own gains. Commanders believed the answer to their prayers had arrived.

The first modern tanks that appeared at the front during the Battle of the Somme, however, found little success. The tracked chassis often stalled in the mud, the armored interiors were hot and smokey, and troops found the art of moving and shooting difficult to master. The first tanks were little more than armored deathtraps. Nevertheless, tank advocates insisted that if the right number of vehicles was used on the right battlefield, the long awaited breakthrough on the Western Front could be achieved.

On November 20, 1917, in front of the French town of Cambrai, the plan was put into action. For the first time in history, tanks were massed on one sector of the line and featured in the main assault. In the early morning mist, 378 British Mark IV tanks slipped the cover of Havrincourt Wood and made their way toward the German line. Just the sight of the slow, loud, smoke-spitting beats caused most of the enemy to flee from their trenches, and the British we able to penetrate five miles in just 10 hours (a huge gain by Western Front standards).




A British Mark IV tank during a training exercise, 1917.

The battle is important for several reasons, some more obvious than others. The tank was not the only new innovation on display at Cambrai. After the initial British gains, the nature of the German defensive line allowed them to reform in positions to the rear and eventually halt the attack, a practice that is seen in most modern day defensive plans. Furthermore, in the ensuing counterattack the Germans unveiled their new stormtrooper tactics to push back the British. This approach had been developed on the Russian front, and proved to be extremely effective at breaking through trenches during the German Spring Offensives the next year.

The British attack lasted less than ten days, and within a month, the front line punctured by the tanks had been restored. Nevertheless, the tank had arrived. Working in teams of three, the tanks had covered each other, plowed through barbed wire, and bridged trenches so the infantry could follow behind. The Allies would not attempt another large-scale tank assault during the war, but the Battle of Cambrai was one of, if not the first combined arms operations in history. Today, most conventional military tactics are based on the combination of tanks and supporting infantry.

As usual, such military progress was not immediately recognized. In fact, during the battle stubborn British leaders had horse cavalry waiting behind the lines to be deployed should the tanks fail. The new German tactics in the counter attack were seen as more important, since it now seemed possible for the enemy to breach Allied trenches, even without tanks of their own. Stormtroopers, teams of shock troops using grenades and automatic weapons, indeed became a force to be reckoned with for the remainder of the war. The notion of combined arms would take another generation to prove its worth, when German stormtroopers, following behind tanks, launched the first blitzkrieg across Poland in World War II.

Military minds are traditionally very slow to react. Nevertheless, it was clear modern weaponry had rendered horse cavalry obsolete. Furthermore, the time and money it took to train, feed, and care for the animals used by an ineffective branch of service soon became an obvious excess. While the horse was used to move supplies and the wounded during the Second World War, its days as a weapon were numbered. The Battle of Cambrai, while doing little to decide the outcome of the war, still shaped the face of all ensuing conflicts. Cavalry was gradually phased out and replaced by tanks. Even today in the United States Army, many modern tank outfits are designated as "Armored Cavalry."



The shoulder patch of the armored US 1st Cavalry Division still bears the horsehead insignia. Yellow is the traditional cavalry color.

November 19, 1941

A Long Way From Home: Or Why They Call It a World War.

We've got good news and we've got bad news. We went to bed last night making a promise to our readers about a few irritated communists and maybe a T-34 or two. We hate to do it, but we're backing out on that. We woke up this morning realizing we had just done pissed-off Russians two days ago, and would thus be luring our reader into the same trap as yesterday's. Fortunately, (for us more than our audience) we have come across another one of those little stories that end up serving as a microcosm for war as whole.

Captain Theodor Detmers, a twenty year veteran of the German Kriegsmarine, must have thought his luck had run out early in the evening of November 19, 1941. He was skippering the auxiliary cruiser Kormoran, a blue water commerce raider that had been at sea for nearly a year. In the bountiful eastern Atlantic, his ship had executed a impressive run of successful raids. But as they passed the Cape of Good Hope and neared the coast of western Australia, their haul had dried up.



Captain Theodor Detmers, skipper of the Kormoran.









The Kormoran was struggling with a malfunctioning engine, and had not made contact with any enemy ship for months. Detmers planned to deploy a complement of sea mines before leaving the Pacific and returning home for repairs. He barely avoided an Australian convoy off Cape Leeuwin, but then on the evening of the 19th, sailed right past the light cruiser HMAS Sydney. Intercepted by the faster and better armed Sydney, Detmers disguised his vessel as a Dutch merchant ship. Now, the Sydney was so close, he could see Australian sailors moving around on her decks.

Detmers was puzzled, too. This warship, which easily out-gunned his disguised raider, was bearing down on him just off his starboard beam. Now, she had hoisted the letters IK, warning him to prepare his ship for a hurricane. In the serene waters off of western Australia, Detmers had no idea what the signal meant and had no idea how to answer it. After fifteen minutes of nerve-shattering tension, the Sydney signaled "Show your secret sign", and Detmers knew his ship was in trouble.

The Kormoran in 1940, pictured here from the deck of a German U-Boat.

The fact that Detmers was even in this situation is what we'd like our readers to pause and think about today. At this point in the war, Germany had tasted very little defeat practically anywhere. With France overrun, England stood alone in the west, and Hitler had bailed out his ally Mussolini in Greece. Russia was on its heels, although the Germans were running into stiff resistance in front of Moscow. In North Africa, they were pushing on Tobruk. In the Pacific, a secret Japanese task force was just a week away from sailing for Pearl Harbor.

Still in its infancy, the Second World War had truly earned its name. Take Detemers' stand-off, for example. A German commerce raider, nearly 8,000 miles from its home port, was staring down the barrels of an Australian cruiser, on its way home from a tour of duty in the Mediterranean. Elsewhere, Japanese boys were in China; Americans were in the Philippines and on Wake Island; Italian soldiers were stuck in the Libyan sand dunes, and the young men of the British Isles were in places as far flung as India and New Guinea, while fending off the Luftwaffe in the skies over Europe.

It is hard to imagine such a scenario today, most of the world at war in all corners of the globe, with more nations and more territory soon to be thrown in. By 1945 there had been at least some fighting on six of seven continents and on all four of the oceans. The sheer number of people involved and the size of the military machines required to sustain that effort is something we cannot comprehend today. There were times when it seemed no one, no where, could escape the war.

Certainly, Captain Detmers could not escape it, and by 5:30 pm on the 19th he had a decision to make. Obviously, the Sydney was challenging him with some sort of code. Unable to produce the correct response, Detmers had only one choice. What happened next was later pieced together with accounts from the survivors of the Kormoran.

Detmers ordered his men to run up the German colors and open fire on the Sydney. The Australian ship, finally realizing who she was along side, fired almost simultaneously. But the cruiser had come in too close, or her guns were still sighted for a warning salvo. Her first volley mostly flew over the smaller German craft. The Kormoran, however, didn't miss. Her salvos were raking the enemy fore to aft. The Sydney fired away for nearly half an hour, eventually damaging the raider, but was struck by a German torpedo and forced to retire.

Detmers' craft had fended off the bigger vessel, but with no safe port anywhere in reach, the Captain ordered his men to abandon their burning ship. 318 of the 399 German sailors would await rescue in lifeboats for days. On the night of November 19, the sky above them was lit by the fires aboard the Sydney, slowly dying somewhere beyond the horizon. The cruiser sunk sometime after that, and none of the 645 Australian sailors was ever found.



Crew of the HMAS Sydney before the war.

Afterward, the Australian government would launch inquiries into the case of the Sydney, trying to determine what events had caused such a superior ship to be sunk by an inferior enemy. Few clear conclusions were drawn, and some accused Detmers of firing before revealing his German colors. Survivor accounts refute that, and it is most likely the damage from the enemy torpedo did in the Sydney and her crew. Either way, Detmers was an Australian prisoner, and sat out the greatest conflict in human history far from home on the other side of the world.

November 18, 1803

Ici Nous Allons Encore: Or Here We Go Again.

It's almost shameful, really, but we've done it again. It seems we here at Lies Agreed Upon are such Bonipartists that we can't even go a day without covering a Napoleonic event. Some may say we're too enamored with the Little Dictator for our own good. We'll just say it's more of a thank you to our reader(s), all of whom are fluent in French and know where to find excellent brie. We're loyal to our fans here at Lies Agreed Upon, what can we say?

But of course, we cannot possibly cover the French two days in a row without highlighting two defeats in a row. So today we look at the fight for Fort Vertieres, a French stronghold on the island of Hispaniola, the last battle in the Haitian War for Independence. When the French surrendered to rebel forces on November 18, 1803, it paved the way for the establishment of what is now known as the Republic of Haiti. This may sound like a familiar tale to us Yanks; oppressed colony throws off European mother country in favor of a democracy, you say? Not exactly. Leave it to the French to put their own spin on this sort of Old-World nightmare.



Haitian rebels attack the fort's French garrison in this engraving of the Battle of Vertieres.

At the time, France's stake in Hispaniola was known as the colony of Saint-Domingue, and what a colony it was. Hot, humid and sticky; positively perfect for growing coffee and sugar cane, veritable necessities in pantries all over Europe. Earlier in 1803, Napoleon had signed away most of his holdings in the Western Hemisphere to a certain newly founded republic. (Ever been to New Orleans?) But while selling the huge, but mostly empty Louisiana Purchase unburdened France, if Saint-Domingue were to go, she would be robbed of one of the last jewels of her empire.

The funny thing about really lucrative colonies is that they usually churn out all those high profits at the exploitation of the labor force. By the second half of the 1700's, Saint-Domingue produced more coffee and raw sugar than all the British holdings in Caribbean combined. To guess who was doing all that farming, think about the southeast United States at about the same time. Society in the colony was based almost entirely around African slavery, and blacks outnumbered whites on the island almost nine to one. Oh, those tolerant and liberal French.

But let's think here. What else had just happened to affect France in the last ten years or so? For starters the king was killed, the government was overthrown more times than the guillotine was sharpened, and eventually there was an old-fashioned coup d'etat by none other than our boy Napoleon. We'll save the gushing for later because the important thing here is the French Revolution itself. All the talk about Liberty, Equality and Fraternity that kicked around during the absolution of the monarchy reached Saint-Domingue, and the slaves began to wonder just what it meant for them.

Free blacks in the colony began appealing to the French government for more equality. When they were denied and discriminated further, it played a role in the slaves decision to revolt in 1791. The revolt scared whites into coming to terms, and after helping fight off British and Spanish invasions the slaves were promised their freedom. Unfortunately for them, that was before Napoleon came to power, and old Nap had to have things his way. He dispatched an expeditionary force to Saint-Domingue in 1802, intent on eventually restoring slavery. So the former slaves, now exposed to European-style military tactics and a small taste of freedom, set out to win their independence.



Jean-Jacques Dessalines, leader of the rebels at Vertieres.








Once again, the battle is not particularly significant, as the determined attackers overwhelmed the outnumbered garrison of Fort Vertieres. The results however, were far reaching. The nation that became Haiti is important for several reasons. Haiti was the first independent Latin American country. Furthermore, it was the first state founded by black leaders since European colonialism began. And, surely noted by many in Virginia and Alabama, it was the first time a nation was founded after a successful slave rebellion.

We admit we got a little narrow in our topic selection again, but since the Haitian Revolution is sometimes lost as a side-note, we thought the irony of events in France shaping it worth sharing. In return for two days of Frenchies in a row, Lies Agreed Upon promises a couple hundred thousand pissed-off Russians and some Panzers for tomorrow. We appreciate the patience of our readers, and would like to thank the French for their participation.

November 17, 1812

Le Rougeaud: Or a Frenchman So Bad Even Napoleon Had to Tip His Cap.














Back in June, Lies Agreed Upon covered similar events on consecutive days because the calender was chock-full of topics too good to pass up. Now, however, we return to Napoleon's invasion of Russia, simply because it appears November 17 is a slow day in military history. Therefore, today we will look at the Battle of Krasnoi, in which the Russians tried to pounce on the remnants of the Grand Armee as it made its desperate attempt to flea enemy territory.

After abandoning Moscow in October, Napoleon was determined to move what was left of his army to its supply base at Smolensk, nearly 270 miles to the west. The Russians, aided by their old ally, General Winter, harassed the French the entire way. So depleted were Napoleon's forces by the time they reached their objective that Bonaparte decided he could no longer hold the position. He hoped to reach Orsha, a supply base further west, then planned on making winter camp near his huge depot at Minsk.

Assuming his enemy was just as hampered by the weather as his own troops, Napoleon decided to move his men out as quickly as possible. Instead of concentrating his army, he sent it out piece-meal, corps by corps on the road to Orsha. Napoleon himself, personally commanding a unit of veterans known as the Imperial Guard, planned to wait for the rear units of the army at a small town called Krasnoi, now known as Krasny near the modern day border with Belarus. It was here, with the battered Grand Armee staggering into town piece by piece, that the Russians struck on November 17, 1812.

The battle itself is not overly significant, with the Russians lashing at the heels of a battered enemy that, while unable to offer much resistance, was retiring in good order. A strong feint by the Imperial Guard gave most of the army enough time to move through the city and continue toward Orsha. The approach of the Russian army, however, meant that French units could not wait for their rear guard to catch up as originally planned. Any remaining men in the tail end of Napoleon's army would be forced to fight their way through enemy lines to rejoin their comrades.

Luckily, the rear guard was commanded by Michel Ney, Napoleon's close friend and one of his original Marshals of the Empire. As is our practice here at Lies Agreed Upon, we must take a moment to recognize Ney, our honorary over-zealous Frenchman of the day. Serving since 1787, Ney was the extremely seasoned leader of the army's III Corps, and earned the dubious honor of commanding the rear guard.




Marshal of France
Michel Ney.








Ney had fought under Napoleon since the Emperor's first days in command and continuously proved his worth. Affectionately dubbed Le Rougeaud, or Red Face, by his men, not even a neck wound suffered a few months before the retreat was enough to keep him from duty. Arriving at Krasnoi late on November 17, Ney was surprised to find the Russians, not his comrades, waiting for him. Undeterred, and convinced the remnants of the Grand Armee were nearby, Ney ordered his exhausted Corps to attack the next morning.

They nearly succeeded. Three lines of Russian infantry lay before him, and Ney's veterans slashed, shot and gouged their way through the first two. The third line, however, refused to yield, and a swift counterattack nearly routed what was left of III Corps. Ney, cut off from his commander and left with only a few thousand men, fled into the forest. For the next few days they blindly marched to the west, constantly shadowed by the dreaded Russian Cossacks. Ney eventually reunited with Napoleon near Orsha on November 20, a feat so impressive even the egotistical Bonaparte dubbed him Le Brave des Braves, "The Bravest of the Brave."

Ney cemented himself a place in military history for his relentless drive toward Krasnoi. Twice during the battle, first when he came in sight of the Russian lines and then again after the counterattack scattered his forces, the enemy offered Ney a chance to honorably surrender. Both times, he refused. He served under Napoleon all the way to Waterloo three years later, a battle that saw five horses shot from under him.

After Napoleon was exiled Ney was arrested and tried for treason. Despite a huge public outcry for one of France's heroes, he was convicted and sentenced to death, perhaps to set an example for Bonaparte's other followers. Before the firing squad, he refused the customary blindfold and gave the order to fire himself, with these stirring final words:

Soldiers, when I give the command to fire, fire straight at my heart. Wait for the order. It will be my last to you. I protest against my condemnation. I have fought a hundred battles for France, and none against her. Soldiers...Fire!

It sounds like Napoleon knew bravery when he saw it.

November 16, 1940

Erasing the Front Line: Or a Look at War as We Know It Today.

After a long layoff, Lies Agreed Upon returns to examine one of the more unfortunate chapters of military history, and modestly attempts to trace the path belligerent nations took to change the face of warfare as we know it. During the First World War, the newly invented airplane took a backseat to conventional ground and naval tactics. In the generation between that war and the next, however, military leaders ensured that rapidly evolving aircraft would play an ever-increasing role in the conduct of war.

While many doubted that airplanes had any military importance at the start of hostilities in 1914, by the fall of 1940 it was clear that the future of warfare was in the sky. With devastating effectiveness, the Luftwaffe had cleared the way for German panzers to bulldoze a path across most of Poland, the Low Countries, and France. Without a naval force large enough to challenge his enemy's dominance on the waves, Adolf Hitler once again turned to his air force to reduce Great Britain, his last challenger in Western Europe.


Stuka dive-bombers became a symbol of the German Blitzkrieg. While lethal against ground targets, they were essentially useless in air-to-air combat.



In May of 1940, in complete control of the Continent, Hitler launched wave after wave of bombers in an attempt to subdue the British and prepare for a cross-Channel invasion. Initially, the Germans targeted shipping and munitions plants, but led by the indomitable Winston Churchill, the British resolve failed to waver. German strategy would have to change.

Soon, they began targeting civilian areas, hoping to demoralize the population and blast the British right out of the war. On November 14, 515 German bombers attacked Coventry in one of the most destructive raids seen during the Battle of Britain. Two days later the British enacted their revenge.

A little after midnight on November 16, 1940, 200 bombers of the Royal Air Force rumbled their way over Hamburg, Germany, leveling parts of the city. It was not the first raid on Hamburg, nor was it the most devastating night the area would see during the war, but the raid was launched in direct response to the raid on Coventry. For the first time, even though they claimed the moral high-ground over the modern day "Huns", the British carried out an attack with the express purpose of targeting German civilians. War, as it was known at the time, was changed forever.

Hamburg, pictured here at the end of the war, was one of the many victims of the Allied Combined Bomber Offensive. Particularly effective was a new weapon first used by the Allies in 1944: napalm.


It had become increasingly clear during the first years of the Second World War that civilians were no longer safe in their homes behind the front lines. The German and Japanese genocides in their conquered territory hinted at this, but the Battle of Britain confirmed it beyond all doubt. Not only did airplanes make civilians living near military targets vulnerable, but as the war progressed they found themselves liable to be targeted directly. Over 50,000 residents of Hamburg were killed as a result of the Allies' Strategic Bombing campaigns.

In centuries past, Western warfare was limited to opposing armies meeting on a clear field of battle. While the landscape was open to devastation, civilians generally found themselves out of bounds. As war changed, and concepts of total war came into play, civilians saw every aspect of their lives geared toward arming, clothing and feeding a far-off army. With the advent of the airplane as a major weapon, however, civilians found themselves just as likely to be killed as men in uniform.

At the outset of World War I, few commanders believed aircraft could be used even for reconnaissance, let alone for aerial combat. In less than twenty-five years, military aviation had evolved to be the most important factor in a nation's ability to project power. The Battle of Britain was the first large-scale air battle in history. Eighteen months after the raid on Hamburg, the Americans and Japanese fought the first naval engagement to only involve aircraft in the Battle of the Coral Sea. A few years later, the war came to a conclusion in the clouds above Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In just five years, and only a generation after flight was first used in combat, the face of war underwent a complete overhaul.

The Second World War was the first major conflict to see a higher number of civilians become casualties than combatants. Civilian deaths have outnumbered military deaths in every single major conflict since.