June 26, 1918

A Note on Frontal Assaults: Or Germany's Rude Introduction to the United States Marine.



The calendar could not be more cooperative in the first week of this blog's existence, as it has allowed us to cover three of our favorite things: cold Germans; over-zealous Frenchmen; and now, the U.S. Marine Corps.

After America entered the First World War in April of 1917, the country was caught in the same patriotic fervor that had gripped European nations in the late summer and fall of 1914. Clearly, report after report of the horrific carnage and waste in the trenches of the Western Front had done nothing to dissuade American boys from thinking a great adventure awaited "Over There."

That first April, hundreds of thousands of Americans volunteered for the armed forces, and they were quickly joined by the millions of draftees Uncle Sam needed to back up his promise to defend democracy. By year's end, French ports were teeming with American supplies and cocky young Yanks itching for a fight. Alone in this group of army citizen-soldiers was a brigade of United States Marines, professional fighters seasoned from their role as Teddy Roosevelt's "Big Stick" in Central America.

When revolution forced Russia out of the war, the Germans were able to free up huge numbers of men and equipment to redeploy to the Western Front. In the spring of 1918 they used these resources to launch an offensive aimed at destroying the Allies before the untried Americans could be put into battle. It almost worked, as they penetrated further than they had since the first days of the war, but were halted just 40 miles from Paris after American units saw their first combat.

The Germans then turned to try and flank the capital, and on June 1, 1918 entered Belleau Wood, a forest occupied by French troops. Just arriving to the front and filling in the line to the right of their ally, the Marines saw French forces fleeing from their positions. Told that the situation was hopeless and to turn back, Captain Lloyd W. Williams uttered the famous words "Retreat? Hell, we just got here." Aren't Marines fun?

The Marines, soldiers of the U.S. Army's 9th Infantry and the French stopped the attack, but then had to enter the woods themselves to clear out the remaining Germans. To do this, they attempted the same frontal assaults on fixed positions that had failed so miserably at places like Verdun, Ypres, and even Gettysburg the century before. Even with the wholesale slaughter seen up and down the Western Front, tactics had still not evolved enough to avoid so costly a sacrifice. The Marines entered the woods shoulder to shoulder, bayonets fixed, and were mowed down by German machine guns.

Yet as usual, the individual valor of the Marine was not absent during these bloody assaults. Under fire, out-numbered and out-gunned, two-time Medal of Honor recipient Sergeant Dan Daly led his men in an attack with the stirring cry "Come on you sons of bitches, do you want to live forever?" Shocked at the ferocity of their fighting and impressed by their professional attitude, the enemy was said to distinguish Marines from army units with the nick-name "Teufelhunden," a crude German translation of "Devil Dogs."




On June 26, 1918, after nearly a month of fighting throughout the woods, the Marines and French soldiers finally cleared out the last of German resistance. With the German spring offensive finally snuffed out, the momentum shifted to the Allies, who soon began their own offensive into the German line. So depleted by their last gasp attempt at winning the war, and faced with the prospect of fighting millions of fresh American troops, the Germans were near the end. Nevertheless, the suicidal frontal assaults and bloody fighting continued for another four months.

The final exclamation point on the Battle of Belleau Wood was a sparse report dispatched to American headquarters after the forest was cleared. Brief and to the point, qualities every Marine values, the report summed up the battle simply and humbly: "Woods now U.S. Marine Corps entirely."

June 25, 1876

Greasy Grass Creek: Or Custer's Last Stand.

Following the Civil War many Americans resumed the expansion Westward, chasing open spaces and valuable mining opportunities. To protect American citizens and to deal with the Native Americans already occupying these Western lands, many regular U.S. Army units were redeployed to the frontier after the war. When gold was discovered in the Black Hills of South Dakota, an area the local Indians considered sacred, tensions were bound to boil over. Years before, the Indians had been promised by the government that this land would remain untouched. Some tribes, led by the Lakota Sioux and the Northern Cheyenne, left their reservations and began harassing whites.

The actions prompted a quick reaction from the Army, who began sending columns of men and cavalry into the Black Hills to push the Indians out. In the summer of 1876, the Army had chased the Native Americans into the hills of Western Montana. Late in June a cavalry detachment led by General George Armstrong Custer was sent to scout a series of uncharted valleys and determine Indian presence there.

Through one of these valleys snaked the Little Bighorn River, and Custer soon began receiving reports from his scouts of a large Indian village led by Sioux Chief Sitting Bull on the river's banks. What his scouts failed to tell him, or what he chose to ignore, was that the village had been joined by hundreds of Indians for a hunt in the buffalo-rich region. Either way, not wanting to let such a large target scatter and escape, Custer decided to divide his force and attempt a pincer movement to destroy the village on June 25, 1876.

The first part of his forces swept in and attacked from the Southeast, but were driven back when they discovered the true size of the village they were attacking. What happened next is uncertain, but it is believed that the second half of the force, led by Custer himself, was lost in the maze of bluffs and hills to the East of the village. When they finally did attack, the Indians had already driven back the first assault and were free to concentrate on Custer alone. Post-battle accounts from many Indians claim that Sioux warrior Crazy Horse caught the cavalry troopers in the very same pincer move they had tried to execute. There are no accounts of the attack from the cavalry troopers. Custer was killed, along with every member of his detachment.


This painting of the Battle of the Little Bighorn depicts Custer at center, in buckskins. Note the men firing in front of him; it is believed the troopers shot their own horses to use for cover.

After the fight, the Native Americans combed the field at the spot of Custer's demise, stealing rifles and equipment and mutilating the bodies of dead troopers. Interestingly enough, the General had been dressed in buckskins that day, not the blue cavalry uniform, and thus his body escaped mutilation. The chase and the war with the Sioux continued into the next year until Sitting Bull led his people into Canada. The fight would come to be known as the Battle of the Little Bighorn and would go down as the worst defeat the U.S. suffered during the Indian Wars. The Native Americans know it as the Battle of Greasy Grass Creek, as the prairie near the river that day ran slick with blood.

Ironically, the expedition that found the first gold in the Black Hills in 1874 was led by Custer himself.

June 24, 1812

A Note on General Winter: Or How We Cover Napoleon, Sun Tzu, and Hitler in a Single Bound.

Although we covered an invasion of Russia just two days ago (and quite a similar one at that), this gives us a chance to look at the comparable invasions of Adolph Hitler and Napoleon Bonaparte. Plus, we will never pass up a chance to give the Little Dictator some press. He did name this blog, after all.

At the height of the Napoleonic Wars, Bonaparte had a strong hold on most of continental Europe. The defeat at Trafalgar in 1805 proved he lacked the naval power to invade the the British isles, but he beat back a Russo-Austrian invasion in the East a few years later. Just as Hitler would over a century later, Napoleon sought to destroy his biggest enemy on the mainland. On June 24, 1812, his Grand Armee, 690,000 strong and composed in large part of foreign conscripts, crossed the Nieman River and set off to Moscow. When they returned six months later, they numbered just 22,000.




Both the 1812 (Patriotic War if you're a Tsarist) and 1941 (Great Patriotic War if you're a Soviet) invasions failed, stymied by the size of Russia's territory and the sacrifices of her sons. For five more quick reasons why, we can go to our old friend Sun Tzu, whose Art of War never fails to prove itself as the authority on warfare.

Sun Tzu wrote "the art of war is governed by five constant factors":

(1) The Moral Law
(2) Heaven
(3) Earth
(4) The Commander
(5 )Method and Discipline

For fun, lets see how Dolph and Nap match up against ol' Mother Russia.

(1) The Moral Law- Sun Tzu describes this as identifying with which side the morality lies. Which side, if any, has a more just cause for fighting. Defending themselves from invasions attempting to wipe them off the map, in both cases surely the first point goes to the Russians.
(2) Heaven (And we don't mean God)- When Sun Tzu wrote "Heaven" he meant time, weather and seasons, not Jesus, Allah and the Flying Spaghetti Monster. Notice these invasions were launched just two days apart on the calender. At least Hitler and Napoleon were mindful of this, jumping off at the start of summer. But costly battles and logistical nightmares kept them from prevailing before Russia was saved by her greatest ally: General Winter. Russia up 2-0-0.
(3) Earth- Location, Location, Location. By earth, Sun Tzu meant the very land on which the battles are fought. Russia is impossibly large, and any plans to invade it are impossibly ambitious. Two armies, both at the time of invasion the largest in the world to that point, failed to conquer all that territory. Furthermore, had they succeeded, maintaining a presence in that area for any period of time would be a more than herculean effort. Russia still pitching a shutout as we go to the top of the fourth.
(4) The Commander- This one speaks for itself. There is definitely something to be said for conquering most of Europe, as both Hitler and Napoleon did. However, they both suffered from, among other things, over-ambition, the same strategic flaw. And if a commander is supposed to extend some of his own virtues into his army, surely the virtues of these two men were not desirable ones to inherit. Hitler loses the point for his martial ignorance. Napoleon was a much better military mind, but if you're a commander and you decide to invade Russia, you lose this point automatically. 4-0-0.
(5) Method and Discipline- Napoleon himself said an army marches on its stomach, and Sun Tzu's methods and disciplines revolved mostly around logistics and supply. As mentioned, maintaining armies across the vast Russian steppe, even in high summer, is a daunting task. Combined with these first four points, even in mildest winter an invasion of Russia is just a no-win.

So, it was worth looking at the 1812 invasion of Russia, even if we just did Barbarossa. The similarities between the two campaigns are remarkable, then add in the lofty personalities involved and this is too good to ignore. Plus, 6th Century BC Sun Tzu still relates to military history in the 19th and 20th Centuries. Any time we get Sun Tzu in here, we've done our job.

June 23, 1865

The Bitter End: Or the Surrender of the Last Confederate General.

While many remember April 9th, 1865 as the day Robert E. Lee surrendered to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox, some forget that day was not the end of the American Civil War. Lee surrendered only the famous Army of Northern Virginia to Grant that day, and while he effectively ended major combat, he did not surrender the Confederacy itself. In fact, several generals in the South's Western departments kept their armies operational for the rest of the spring.







Brigadier General Stand Watie, C.S.A., Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation.








The last of these generals to surrender was Stand Watie, a Cherokee Indian who had risen to command the cavalry of the Army of the Trans-Mississippi. After the Battle of Doaksville on June 23, 1865, a full 75 days after Lee's surrender in the East, Watie finally surrendered his command to Union forces at Fort Towson, Indian Territory, modern-day Oklahoma.

Watie, however, is a pretty interesting guy. As mentioned, he was a full-blooded Cherokee, and his cavalry force was made up almost entirely of Native American riders. A good read for young historians is the novel Rifles for Watie by Harold Keith, the title of which refers to our Watie. While the events in Keith's book are mostly fictional, they do justice to the guerrilla tactics Watie's cavalry was known for in the war's far western theater. It's fair to say Watie stood with other Confederate horsemen Nathan Bedford Forrest and J.E.B. Stuart in gray hairs given to Federal commanders.

When the war broke out, some leaders of the Cherokee decided to remain loyal to the government in Washington. Others felt that past treatment by the United States did not warrant such loyalty, and saw the Confederacy as a chance for a better future for Indian Rights. When the Chief of the Cherokee Nation fled to the North in 1862, Watie was elected as the new Chief. Watie was as against these pro-Union Cherokee as he was against the U.S. itself, and even after the war he advocated for a split of the Cherokee Nation on those lines. One of only two Native Americans to rise to the rank of general during the Civil War, Chief of his people, and as fierce a politician as he was a fighter. An interesting guy to say the least.

Oh, and the Battle of Doaksville? Watie's men won the fight, but low on provisions and with all other Confederate resistance disbanded, were forced to surrender. It's a cool piece of trivia that the last battle of the Civil War was actually won by the South.

June 22, 1941

Operation Barbarossa: Or Das Lange Krieg.

In the predawn hours of June 22, 1941, a sound that had become familiar in Western Europe finally rumbled its way into the East. From the early summer stillness that Sunday morning erupted the largest land invasion in history, the culmination of more than a thousand years of socio-ethnic tension and the catalyst of the most destructive war in human history.


No guarantee these pics are of Barbarossa (I think the machine
gun this guy is humping is an MG-42, putting this pic post 1942)

The now familiar sounds echoing across the Eastern European plain included the whine of Stuka dive-bombers, the roar of Panzers and the endless hammer of hob-nailed boot after hob-nailed boot. With an open-ended war still raging with Britain and Free French forces in the West, Adolf Hitler had finally launched his invasion of the Soviet Union. In doing so, he hoped to rid Europe of what he perceived to be a Judeo-Bolshevik menace, and secure for the Third Reich the lebensraum, literally "living space", it needed to assume its rightful place as the world's leading power.

But if you follow this blog, you know nothing is cooler than Germans live in technicolor.

Barbarossa, launched with 4.5 million men over a nearly 2,000 mile front, opened up the Eastern front of the European Theater of World War II. Over the next four years, more men fought over more square miles of territory, resulting in more casualties than in any other land conflict in human history, all of it done with a savage inhumanity that is nearly incomprehensible. To be sure, the war in the Pacific that began following the attack on Pearl Harbor six months later was fought over a larger area and could lay claim to being the Eastern Front's equal in sheer brutality. However, the number of men engaged in the Pacific and the casualty numbers, even with the two atomic bombings, are not even comparable.

From June 22, 1941 to Germany's surrender in 1945, most of Eastern Europe was laid to waste, resulting in the deaths of upwards of 30 million people, both in uniform and out. The siege of Leningrad; the extermination of Eastern European Jews; the battle for Moscow, which remains to date the largest battle ever fought; the infamous and pivotal battle of Stalingrad; the Soviet rape of East Prussia; and the battle of Berlin all were direct effects of Operation Barbarossa, along with countless other battles where the notoriety was more fleeting, but the death just as permanent. Not only were the depths of human depravity made evident during Barbarossa, but the borders and authorities created by its resolution would set the stage for the Cold War that would plague the world for the next 50 years.

June 21, 2009

June 21, 2009

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