Innholdsfortegnelse for No. 63 i History of War

2 December 1851-2 December 1852 COUP D’ÉTAT OF 1851 Napoleon I’s nephew Prince Louis-Napoléon, the first president of France, launches a coup to stay in office. Soldiers occupy strategic points in Paris, and hundreds of opponents are killed while thousands more are arrested. The Second French Empire is proclaimed and Louis-Napoléon becomes Emperor Napoleon III. 1854-56 CRIMEAN WAR Napoleon III allies with Britain and the Ottoman Empire against Russia in the Crimea. Over 300,000 French soldiers and sailors serve in the war, incurring high casualties of almost 135,500 men. The victory over Russia increases French authority and prestige in Europe. 1852-71 EXPANDING THE EMPIRE French colonial territory doubles during Napoleon III’s reign. Algeria, Senegal, New Caledonia and Cochinchina all come under French rule, while Cambodia becomes a protectorate. There are…

The Imperial Guard was the most famous unit of Napoleon I’s army, and they earned a reputation as outstanding soldiers. When Napoleon III became emperor of France, he actively sought to emulate his uncle in politics, warfare and the organisation of his armed forces. A visible sign of the new Napoleonic era was the re-establishment of the Imperial Guard on 1 May 1854. Composed of two infantry divisions and one cavalry division, the Guard retained some visible aspects of its famous predecessor, such as bearskin headdresses for grenadiers. All members of the Guard had to be experienced soldiers of good character, which replicated Napoleon I’s corps of reliable, loyal veterans. There were also some new features, including the wearing of red trousers and the establishment of a North African Zouave…

“PRÉVOT MADE THE GAZETTE DES ARDENNES AN EFFICIENT WEAPON OF PROPAGANDA. ITS READERSHIP WENT FROM UNDER 20,000 COPIES IN 1914 TO 180,000 IN 1918” The German invasion of 1914 trapped 7 million Belgians and 2 million French people behind enemy lines. Communication between the occupied territories and the Allied zones became almost impossible, as the Germans proscribed all publications as well as civilian correspondence and banned radios, pigeons and telephones. Not surprisingly, occupied civilians wanted to hear about their relatives and receive news of the war – this was a problem for the Germans, who had not prepared for a long foreign occupation. The lack of propaganda structures aimed at enemy populations forced the occupiers to seek new solutions. During the first months of the war, the German army authorised…

One surprising source of information regarding the career of Sir Thomas Stukeley is the works of art and literature that portrayed him. That he was the subject of such works, in some cases long after his death, suggests that he held some importance and notoriety in Elizabethan England. Ballads were composed about his expedition to Florida, and (probably) in 1588 George Peele wrote The Battle Of Alcazar containing several scenes featuring Stukeley, including his death. There are aspects of the play that reveal it was tied up in anti-Spanish propaganda in 1588, such as blaming Philip II explicitly for Stukeley’s death, but there are also touches of accuracy, such as the names of the Italian soldiers who betray Stukeley. Peele’s play was revived and published in the 1590s. Another play…

TOM GARNER Vietnam vet Stuart Steinberg spoke with Tom about his service as a bomb disposal expert, revealing the dangers and horrors he encountered (p.62). In this issue’s Frontline, Tom delves into the campaigns of Napoleon III (p.14). DR KARL JAMES Senior historian at the Australian War Memorial, Dr James joins us this issue to discuss how Aussie independent companies on Timor countered the Japanese invasion – using guerrilla tactics, bush craft and sheer grit (p.26). DR BERNARD WILKIN This month Dr Wilkin took time out of his work at the State Archives, Belgium, to uncover the little-known Allied propaganda drops during WWI. Turn to page 42 to find out how ‘fake news’ found its way to the Western Front.…

The nature of war changed over the course of the 19th century, and the men and tactics that had served Napoleon I well during his campaigns could not succeed on the new battlefields. CHASSEURS À CHEVAL EVEN ON A MODERNISING BATTLEFIELD, THE CAVALRYMAN STILL HAD HIS PLACE Heavy cavalry may have had their day by the time of the Second French Empire, but light units, including chasseurs, hussards and chasseurs d’Afrique would remain relevant for decades to come. The heavy cuirassier regiments of the French army enjoyed a last hurrah in the Franco-Prussian War (although ‘enjoyed’ may be the wrong term, as they suffered heavy losses against Prussian infantry and artillery), while light cavalry performed valuable service as scouting and harrying units. LINE INFANTRYMAN THE HEART OF THE FRENCH ARMY…

In the night air of a Timorese mountain hideout, a group of bearded Australians watched anxiously as Corporal Jack Sargeant began tapping out a signal in Morse code. Two months earlier, on 20 February 1942, the Japanese had invaded Dutch Timor, and most of the island’s Australian and Dutch defenders were overwhelmed and captured. In Portuguese Timor, the Australians of the 2/2nd Independent Company had fallen back into the mountains overlooking Dili. They were reached in early March by some Australians and a few Dutch troops, who had escaped from Dutch Timor on foot. Among this group was Captain George Parker, Sargeant and signaller Lance Corporal John Donovan. They began working with the independent company’s signalmen Max ‘Joe’ Loveless and Keith Richards to build a radio capable of communicating with…

CURRENT AND HISTORICAL – “MATTER RELATING TO, OR COMMENTING UPON RECENT EVENTS WHICH HAD TO BE USED BEFORE THEY BECAME ANCIENT HISTORY OR OUT OF DATE.” PERMANENT AND ACADEMIC – “MATTER RELATING TO AFFAIRS AND GENERAL CONDITIONS IN GERMANY, CRITICISMS FROM GERMAN PAPERS, AND GENERAL ARTICLES UPON THE WAR ACTIVITIES OF THE ALLIES, WHICH WERE GOOD FOR USE AT ANY TIME.” HUMOROUS AND ABUSIVE – “COMIC, SCURRILOUS, OR SCANDALOUS STORIES ABOUT THE GERMANS, REVEALING THEIR WEAKNESSES OR IMMORALITIES, AND MAKING FUN OF THEIR INSTITUTIONS AND WAR REGULATIONS.” LEADING ARTICLES ON MATTERS OF CURRENT IMPORTANCE – “TAKEN FROM LEADING PAPERS, OR WRITTEN MYSELF.”…

“IT IS POSSIBLE STUKELEY FOUGHT AT THE BATTLE OF PINKIE CLEUGH ON 10 SEPTEMBER 1547” The 15th and 16th centuries are full of the remarkable and flamboyant lives of soldiers of fortune. None are more fascinating than Englishman Sir Thomas Stukeley (c. 1525 – 4 August 1578). He fought all over Europe in the service of four English monarchs, two popes and various other heads of state. He was a man whose appetite for mischief knew no bounds; Stukeley involved himself in several of the most prominent political and religious intrigues of the day and offered his service to any and all who would take it. Stukeley was born at Affeton in Devon, the third son of Sir Hugh Stukeley, at some point in the early 1520s. When he was…

From what we can construct of his private life, whenever Stukeley had resources he was a lavish spender, squandering vast sums of not only his own inheritance but several others’ as well, through relations, guardianships and marriages during his life. He was also often accused of theft, counterfeiting and other crimes, as well as continuously amassing vast debts wherever he went; debts that he never seems to have repaid. Stukeley’s name often occurs on arrest warrants. Looking at this record alone, he seems to have been a disreputable charlatan who would say and do anything, and use anyone, to get what he wanted for his various schemes. He was nonetheless a skilled soldier. Despite the vast number of enemies that he made, he must also have been capable of charming…

Bomb disposal became a formalised practice during WWI when the British Army dedicated a section of ‘Ordnance Examiners’ from the Royal Army Ordnance Corps to handle the growing problem of dud shells fired by both the Allied and Central Powers. Nevertheless, the US Army had no bomb disposal apparatus until WWII, when they took inspiration from the British, who had specialised their bomb disposal units during the Blitz of 1940. American bomb disposal was therefore initially planned as a civilian function, but in the wake of Pearl Harbor responsibility fell to the US Army for military purposes. From 1942, American EOD soldiers were trained in Britain and began actively operating during the invasion of Sicily in 1943. EOD has been an essential component of the US Armed Forces ever since,…

General Bernard Montgomery, commander of the Allied 21st Army Group, wrote this handwritten plan for what would become the D-Day landings on 11 February 1944. As the overall commander of all ground forces for Operation Overlord, Montgomery wrote the most important premise for the plan in the bottom right corner of the document: “The key note of everything to be SIMPLICITY”.…

Author: Susan Loughhead Publisher: Amberley Price: £9.99 A book on Britain’s involvement in Afghanistan is sure to attract interest at the moment, and author Susan Loughhead has excellent credentials to write one, having served in the British Embassy in Kabul from 2010 to 2013. There is a fascinating twist to her story as well, because her grandfather served in the same embassy more than half a century ago, and his letters home offer a valuable insight into the situation in the country following World War II. Loughhead knows her subject intimately, but this brings its own problems to the book. There is so much information at the author’s fingertips that at times it feels like the reader is being given everything, when a more focused delivery would have been helpful.…

Author: James Douglas-Hamilton Publisher: Frontline Books Price: £19.99 Early on the morning of 11 May 1941, Adolf Hitler was having one of his habitual tantrums. Rudolf Hess’s adjutant Karl-Heinz Pintsch had arrived at the Berchtesgaden, the führer’s Eagle’s Nest in the Bavarian Alps, bringing with him an astonishing letter from his boss. The man who in 1939 Hitler had designated his second-in-line as successor, after Hermann Göring, had flown solo and unauthorised to Britain to try and negotiate a peace settlement between both belligerents. His objective was to seek out the duke of Hamilton, the first man to fly over Mount Everest and the author’s father. Hess maintained the belief that Hamilton was in opposition to the British government. It was in fact Hamilton who informed Winston Churchill of Hess’s…

The road to Italian unification during the 19th century was long, complex and involved several wars. Of those, the Second Italian War of Independence of 1859 was one of the most significant conflicts. It resulted in the establishment of a ‘Kingdom of Italy’ that comprised virtually all the Italian peninsula apart from Venice, San Marino and the area around Rome. A large factor in the outbreak of war was the attempts of Victor Emmanuel II, the king of Sardinia, to drive the Austrian Habsburg dynasty out of northern Italy. Austria ruled Venice and large parts of the north while also heavily influencing the duchies of Parma and Tuscany. Sardinia, which included the principality of Piedmont, was independent and found a sympathetic ally in Napoleon III, who had fought with Italian…

NAPOLEON III “HIS INTERFERENCE DURING THE CRIMEAN WAR WAS EMBARRASSING AND HIS EXPERIENCE ON THE BATTLEFIELD AT SOLFERINO SHOCKED HIM TO HIS CORE” THE FUMBLING FOUNDER 1808–1873 Napoleon III was nothing like the military leader his uncle had been, nor did he have such a dazzling array of generals to call upon. The commanders of the Second French Empire are generally viewed as a decidedly inferior bunch, partly because they were weighed down by the tradition of French military might established under Napoleon Bonaparte, and partly because they did not get the practice of regular pitched battles that proved so crucial half a century earlier. Napoleon III did his best to get involved as a commander, but his interference during the Crimean War was embarrassing and his experience on the…

In 1940 the British Army formed commando units to raid, sabotage and gather information from German-occupied Europe. A small British military mission was sent to Australia to establish similar units in the Australian Army. The first of eight Australian independent companies was raised in 1941. Little was known in Australia about independent companies or commando units and their organisation, equipment, or operations beyond what Chief of the Australian General Staff Lieutenant General Vernon Sturdee described as some form of “cloak and dagger gang”. Recruits for these new units were trained in irregular and guerrilla warfare, demolitions, advanced field craft, map reading and signals work. The training syllabus was directed at developing individual initiative, resourcefulness and physical fitness. Commanded by a major, each company consisted of 17 officers and 256 other…

No known portrait of Sir Thomas Stukeley survives. One portrait, Man in Red, now in Hampton Court, is said to be of Stukeley, however. It shows a young man in extravagant red doublet and hose in the right period. The artist could be Hans Holbein the younger, although it is usually attributed to the Holbein school or an unknown artist. Holbein made several portraits of young men, whose identities remain unknown, around this time. He also did work for figures who had known Stukeley – connections at the right date, such as Charles Brandon. Holbein drew Brandon’s two sons in 1541.…

It is January 1970, and in a remote corner of Vietnam a bomb disposal team is flown in by helicopter to a dangerous firebase that has been booby-trapped by North Vietnamese forces. This team is part of the US Army’s Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD), and among the specialists is experienced soldier Stuart Steinberg. Steinberg’s been destroying ordnance in Vietnam since September 1968 and has been called to every hazardous situation imaginable. Acute danger is an accepted part of the job, but while he is sweeping the firebase, Steinberg steps on something suspicious. He stops, digs down and finds a black wire that is ominously moving. When he looks up, Steinberg spots a North Vietnamese soldier in pulling on the wire in the distance. The two men lock eyes for a…

“HE DISPLAYED GREAT SKILL AND DETERMINATION IN HIS DISPOSITION, FINALLY CAPTURING THE POST, KILLING SEVERAL OF THE ENEMY AND PUTTING THE REMAINDER TO FLIGHT. CPL. ANDREW’S CONDUCT THROUGHOUT WAS UNEXAMPLED FOR COOL DARING, INITIATIVE, AND FINE LEADERSHIP, AND HIS MAGNIFICENT EXAMPLE WAS A GREAT STIMULANT TO HIS COMRADES” London Gazette, 4 September 1917 Corporal ‘Les’ Andrew commanded a force of 15 men, ordered to take out a machine gun nest on the northern edge of the village of La Basseville in support of the main assault to take the village. This attack launched at 3.50am on 31 July 1917 and was immediately halted by another hidden machine gun nest, which opened up on the front platoon. From his position in support of the main assault, Andrew realised that if…

A draft page from a speech delivered by Winston Churchill at Mansion House on 10 November 1942. The text is typed by Churchill’s secretary Elizabeth Nel and the blue and red ink amendments are in the prime minister’s own hand. The draft, written in the aftermath of the Second Battle of El Alamein, contains Churchill’s famous quote, “This is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is the end of the beginning.”…

Author: Derek Leebaert Publisher: Oneworld Price: £30.00 In this mammoth book, Derek Leebaert takes issue with one of the keystones of 20th-century history – the idea that Britain effectively handed over the reins as the world’s dominant superpower to the USA after World War II. The familiar story contends that Britain was exhausted by the war, while the USA was young, virile and hungry for power. Leebaert argues that this transfer of power and influence was far from the orderly handover depicted in so many history books. He believes that the USA, which he describes as a “resolutely distant superstate”, was not suddenly willing to pick up the mantle cast off by the British. Nor were the British themselves ready to step meekly away from their position. “IT IS FASCINATING…

MacArthur’s Coalition: US And Australian Operations In The Southwest Pacific Area, 1942–1945 (2018) Peter J. Dean “BASED ON ARCHIVAL RESEARCH, DEAN USES THE AUSTRALIAN-AMERICAN CAMPAIGNS IN PAPUA, NEW GUINEA, THE PHILIPPINES AND BORNEO TO CONSIDER THIS UNEQUAL ALLIANCE” This will likely prove to be the definitive study of Australia’s wartime coalition with General Douglas MacArthur and the United States. It was a nuanced relationship. Based on archival research, Dean uses the Australian-American campaigns in Papua, New Guinea, the Philippines and Borneo to consider this unequal alliance. Australian Soldiers In Asia-Pacific in World War II (2014) Lachlan Grant During the war, half a million Australians encountered the peoples of New Guinea, Asia and India. Assessing the diaries, letters and memoirs of Australian personnel, Grant skilfully considers how these Australians responded to…