Teutoburg Forest – 9AD

One of Rome’s most famous defeats was in the forest across the Rhine where three whole legions were wiped out.  Rome certainly had defeats up to this point, but this one was particularly bad to the point that over the next five years Rome pulled troops from all over the empire to deal with this defeat.  So while this event had a major psychological affect on Rome, the defeat itself isn’t the really interesting story.  Rather it’s how the whole thing was set up, and the seeds for this defeat appear to rest with one German’s desire for revenge/power and the elaborate scheme he undertook.  The story is one of blind ignorance on the part of the Romans, actions of the past coming back to hurt, and paying attention to the tactics and strategy of your  enemy if you want to win.

The story of Teutoburg Forest is one of deception and well-planned ambush such that the Romans had no choice but to lose.  It begins with a German, Arminius, a member of the Cheruscan tribe, who long ago was held hostage in Rome before Rome began to draft non-Romans into their auxiliary corps.  He was taken as a child when his father lost against the Romans and taken to Rome as a hostage to ensure the Cheruscans would behave.  What exactly happened to Arminius at Roman hands is unknown, and further, it is not clear what his motivations were (revenge, return to chief position in Germany) after that captivity.  But, Arminius clearly paid attention to how Rome won it’s battles and used this to achieve his goals.  Rome could not be defeated if out in the open, but if you could spread them out, or get them in close quarters with little room to maneuver, then you had a chance of beating them.  So Arminius went into the Roman Auxilia as a cavalry officer (he was a German noble – easy for him to show his superior training for auxilia leadership) and acted as the loyal German and local guide to all things German.  It appears that he was interested in gaining prominence and clout with the German tribes back home, so maybe he needed to show a spectacular victory to gain complete power and regain the position that was robbed from him when he was taken hostage, but again, exact motivations are not clear.  What he did well though was make sure he was in the right place at the right time to influence decisions.

In the past, Rome had always had problems with the Germans – indeed, long before the days of Caesar the Germans had managed to invade far enough south to wreck havoc on Rome itself, and Rome had long memories.  So in AD 6-7, Augustus wanted to further pacify the German Tribes and finally put some prolonged power across the Rhine.  So he took a Roman General who in the Eastern Empire had done a masterful job politically and sent him into Germany across the Rhine to further placate the tribes, show Rome’s might, and politically play the tribes off one another.  Or that was what was believed to have been the original motivation.  For all we know this was a reconnaissance in force.  Regardless, the Roman General, Varus, led three Roman Legions into Germany across the Rhine, and who do you suppose his local auxilia guide was?   That’s right, Arminius.  Arminius was there to go with the Romans into his former homeland and convince the Romans he was their erstwhile ally and friend, and they should follow his advice rather than that of the senior military staff.  Here’s where the blind ignorance comes in – no one apparently suspected Arminius of anything sinister here – either because he did such a good job acting as the loyal Roman subject, or because he charmed Varus into believing him over his own staff.  But once that trust was in place, Arminius used it well and led the Romans to exactly where he needed them to go – a spot where their ability to maneuver would be limited and the Germans could begin to wear them down and begin to set up a masterful ambush.

Now that Arminius had the Romans where he wanted them, he left his final deceit in place by telling Varus the way to proceed was to march through “a shortcut” which would get the Romans to their destination faster, and then leaving in that direction to act as a scout.  Varus, still believing Arminius to be the faithful subject of Rome, marched in this direction while his legions began to be nibbled at the edges by German attacks and rather than listening to his senior officers, continued to march deeper into the forest.  As the legions began to realize they terrain they were marching into was a place where they could not maneuver, the Germans began to raid the Roman column winding through the forest, easily inflicting casualties on the Romans while melting back into the woods with little damage.  With these raids and Arminius not reappearing, it finally sunk in that the Romans were trapped and that their “ally” had set up the whole thing.  An attempt to break out was made, with the remainder of the Roman cavalry being trapped and wiped out by the surrounding German groups now in their native terrain.  Varus now despaired and did the “Roman” thing of committing suicide, and it was left to senior officers to try and lead what was left of the march-tired and increasingly wounded Roman Legions out of the woods.  Things went from bad to worse in that they found the only way out was through the exact terrain where Roman tactics were doomed to fail – up through a funneling hill with the Germans on the other side of the barricades at the top of the slope.  The Romans made an attempt and failed.  Arminius and the Cheruscans, along with other allied German tribes wiped out three legions – and only a few fleeing legionaries managed to make it back to Roman lines to tell of the carnage.

Deceit for setting up an ambush in terrain where the enemy’s tactics cannot succeed.  Arminius learned well and got his revenge for his captivity and gained the chiefdom of the Cheruscans, all because his Roman”allies” never thought to question the person leading them into enemy territory.  Sometimes actions can have consequences years after they occur, and in my opinion, this was one of them.

If you’re interested in learning more, check out Osprey Campaign Series #228 which is where I learned about what I’ve written here.  Well written.

The Sinews of War

Are gold, gold, and more gold.  And our current war is, not surprisingly, bleeding us dry.   Since the US is more of an economy than a true culture, I now find that bastard bin Laden to be even more of an evil man in that he has hit us exactly where it would hurt the most.  Imagine how much different things would be in the US financially if all of the havoc he wrought never came into being.  I think this article says it all.

Despite this high cost, our elected leaders refuse to raise taxes to pay for the war.  Probably because everyone knows that in the US, if you do raise those taxes then war weariness sets in much faster and if that happened the long fight needed to take out our enemy might end before we can win.  But is it right that most of the US populace is decoupled from the war since they don’t have to really sacrifice much of anything as others go and fight?   Maybe if they really did understand more what was at stake and what the cost was they might be more demanding of congress to really make the right decisions on what to fund and what to not fund.  Or then again…maybe not.

I think in hindsight Bin Laden did way more damage to us than we originally saw, and we’ll be paying for that damage for decades to come.

El Alamein 1942

Osprey Campaign Series 158.  The book covers the events leading up to this famous defeat of the Afrika Korps in Northern Egypt in 1942, but it puts those events in much better perspective on what the stakes were if the British lost, the state they were in going into the fight, and the real state of the Axis forces going into the battle.  As much as this part of WWII is played out as the “Desert Fox” vs. Montgomery, that simplistic description does not to the battle justice.  For one thing, even though the Germans were leading the forces here, this was really a kluge job of Axis forces (Italian, German forces under a mixed command that did not communicate well) vs. a British Army that was increasingly get its act together.

While 1941 and the 1st half of 1942 had the Axis forces blitzing through North Africa, their supply lines were getting more and more stretched out while the British lines were getting more and more consolidated and shorter to the point that by mid-1942, the British General in charge before Montgomery (Auchinleck) had succeeded in finally stopping Rommel’s offensive to the point that every time Rommel tried to probe in a new direction, Auchinleck could rapidly move troops to reinforce that position because he had good control of his interior lines and plenty of supplies coming in from India.  To me – I think at this point Rommel had lost because he could not get enough fuel or replacement tanks/units to keep up with the British.  So even though Auchinleck got sacked by Churchill for not being aggressive enough, Auchinleck set things up for Montgomery to take advantage of.  To be fair though, Auchinleck had mastered defensive operations, so it was Montgomery who took advantage of those fast interior lines of transport and increasing supplies and men to go on the offensive.  He reorganized his armor units into offensive units rather than infantry supporting units, and put his artillery to much better use for offensive operations.  So when Montgomery finally began his attacks and offensives against the Axis forces, he had the ability to exploit breakouts and successful attacks that Auchinleck never would have been able to use because his units were not organized that way.

In the end, Rommel had lost early on because he could not get enough fuel and supplies in.  The fragmented Axis command did not work and play well together, and despite repeated assurances from the Italian Navy for fuel and supplies to come through, they failed to get enough in or in some cases, reallocated what was needed for things they thought were important vs. what Afrika Korps needed.  Rommel really had no chance against this new organization facing him and so had to finally pull back and retreat – his decision to leave North Africa for good being forced on him by the quick landing of US troops in North Africa (Operation Torch) on the other side – now sandwiching Rommel between a General Montgomery who had rediscovered offensive initiative and had it in his favor, and a newly aggressive US force at his rear.

A good read overall and a nice balance of military history blow-by-blow as well as just enough information on the organizational structure and generals who were in the fight and the effects they had.  I would recommend it as a read if you want a nice summary of the battle with a bit of depth to it.  It’s no definitive textbook, but it covers everything important very well.

Leningrad 1941-1944: The Epic Siege

This is my summary and review of Osprey Campaign Series #215.  While I was familiar with this battle, I had no idea the sheer carnage this siege inflicted upon the Soviets.  Certainly this battle is well known for being one of the longest sieges in modern history, but the casualties suffered by the Soviets (maybe a lot self-inflicted) during this battle have me wondering…where the heck did the Soviets find all those soldiers? While the battle of Stalingrad is the city battle is perhaps more famous in history – I think the scope and breadth of damage done in Leningrad is worth reflecting on.

One aspect of this book I like is that it quickly gets to the history of the battle.  It quickly covers the background to the siege, the generals involved, and the units so that the last 2/3 of the book are dedicated to the long history of this battle.  The beginning of the battle on August 20th saw the Germans rapidly attacking outlying towns and rail connections near the city, and by September 8th, thanks to a little help from the Finnish on the other side of Leningrad, they had already circled the city by land.   Immediate counter-attacks by the Soviet forces failed and so at this point, the only ways into the city were by air or via the nearby lake or gulf of Finland.  The gulf of Finland was blocked shortly afterwords and despite failed attempts to sever the city from the Lake, the Germans set up siege lines by 17 September.  Time to encircle the city took no time at all – so one asks why the Germans didn’t storm the city since they had blitzed in so fast to surround the city.  The reasons go from lack of forces for city and house-to-house fighting (by early September, other German units were already being transferred for other operations now that the city was cut off so fast) to what at times seems like a lack of will on the Germans’ part to really attack the city.  There seemed to be more will to bomb and shell the city into submission and starve out the enemy than go in and attack them.  Still, with such a roll-over of the Soviet forces to this point, one wonders how the battle would turn out if the Germans had kept up their momentum.  To be fair though, as the inhabitants of Leningrad and the generals therein realized that they were going to be cut off – the Soviets did not stand idly by and conscripted huge portions of the city to build extra defenses and this rapid increase in defenses may have given the Germans some pause since they were losing units by the day via inter-army transfer to other Soviet invasion plans.   Plus, the Germans had trapped over 300,000 troops plus numerous armed civilians, so taking the city by storm really wasn’t an easy option given the German numbers available.  So that short period concluded the encirclement of the city – and now the multi-year siege began.

The numbers of Soviet losses, both military and civilian during this siege, are really staggering.  600,000 civilians dead in the first winter, and 12,400 soldiers dead to starvation and disease with another 62,000 too sick to fight.  And yet the city held out despite bombing runs and artillery fire on the city.  The Germans never managed to cut the narrow line of supplies going through the lake by Barge or over frozen lake by sled/ski during the first year, despite sinking many ships and downing many Soviet aircraft sent up for interception against the Luftwaffe bombers.  The Soviets did attempt some breakouts on the ground out of the city, but other than a few minor incursions into German lines, every time they were beaten back with huge losses.  By July 1942, the Soviets had suffered 403,000 casualties, including 150,000 dead or captured – whereas the Germans had only lost 1/10th of that number.  However, as would be seen later, the Soviets could replace their losses and rebuild whole Armies while the Germans could barely keep up with replacement of lost soldiers.  These kind of lopsided losses played out through the entire siege – by air (8:1 kill ratio in favor to the Germans) and by land (another 114,000 casualties during the 2nd year of the siege as opposed to German losses of 26,000).  By 1943 the Soviets began to finally make some progress in weakening the siege lines and with another 115,000 Soviet losses, they had finally weakened the blockade of the city.  During this whole time they Soviets had slowly evacuated 500,000 citizens of Leningrad and gotten better at bringing in supplies by boat every day (or by air as Luftwaffe losses could not be replaced), but still – what appeared to be limitless supplies of Soviet soldiers and equipment was winning the day – not superior tactics or strategy here.  The Soviet 2nd Shock Army was rebuilt twice during the siege of Leningrad – twice!  German units could barely be reconstituted during this same period.

By 1943 the Soviets were finally making some slow progress in not just weakening the siege, but slowly reopening lines to the city.  But it was not until January 1944 did this battle finally move from slowly moving static lines to a proper mobile battle.  From 1941 to late 1943 the Germans had pretty much always fought the Soviets to a standstill, and other than some minor changes, the front lines were mostly unchanged.  By January 1944 the Germans were on their last legs here, and finally the Soviets didn’t just have a minor incursion into the lines, but instead had a proper breakout of the siege lines and a rout of the German forces.  Interestingly it was the 2nd Shock Army in it’s third reincarnation that led the charge and finally broke through.  By this point though – one could argue that with the Germans losing on all aspects of the Russian front, it was only a matter of time before the Germans fell here too.  Losses again were lopsided – from January 1944 to February 1944 the Germans lost 37,000 casualties to the Soviet’s 278,000.

Looking over the entire siege – both sides had a heavy price to pay.  The Germans had units tied up laying siege to the place, and gained nothing strategic from the siege, especially when you consider the Soviet losses and the fact that despite such losses – the Soviets still managed to fight elsewhere in Russian and push the Germans out.  Total Soviet losses for the entire siege was at least 1.5 million soldiers – including 620,000 dead or captured.  Despite inflicting such huge losses, the Germans never managed to destroy anything major in Leningrad, nor did they ever manage to break or demoralize the city – so one wonders if they were too cautious or just not very effective in their choice of tactics.  The Soviets can be given high marks for trying, but that’s about it given the massive casualties, which were so high and embarrassing that Stalin tried to cover the whole thing up after the war.  However, it may have been quick thinking in 1941 by the Soviets in charge of defense of the city that they set up defenses such that the Germans could never inflict major structural losses on the city and caused the Germans to sit and wait.  So in this game of waiting and attrition – the Soviets won – but at a huge cost.

Overall an informative book on a very bloody and massive siege which hopefully we never see the like of again.  The losses on the Soviet side are staggeringly large…it’s amazing that the Soviets could still fight after all of it.

Russian Design Philosophy

For military equipment it appears to be, most of the time (not all of the time), to wait for someone else to discover it and implement it, then to borrow it and improve up on it.  Take the AK-47 – it borrowed a lot from the German MP44, but the Russians made it better.  The famous T34 borrowed from the famous Christie suspension developed in the UK before WWII, and many Soviet era aircraft borrowed from US designs but had their own take on them.  They may not always have been better in the flight and capability department, but they were incredibly rugged and durable.

Now we have the newest Russian fighter – the Sukhoi PAK-50, which I find funny has been named “Firefox” by the West/NATO. (Someone either enjoys a non-IE browser or is a child of the 80s and remembers the Clint Eastwood movie).  It has some striking similarities to the US F-22 and some other prototype jets and seems to borrow from many of them all combined into one larger and beefier design.

See the similarities between the designs?   Further, the new Su jet will be made out of composites (much like the F22 and F35)  and will have stealth characteristics, but interestingly it appears to have radar not just in the nose, but on the wing leading edges and by some assessments will be superior to the F-22 in capability and durability.  Stealth technology isn’t just shape of the aircraft, it’s what you make it out of, and in that regard there are some suggestions that the material the PAK-50 is made out of materials require a whole lot less maintenance.  Could just be bluster though.  Here’s the real kicker in my opinion.  Cost of a F-22:  $150 million a plane.  Cost of a PAK-50:  $87 to $100 million a plane.  Better plane, more robust, lower cost.  Sound familiar?   Sometimes there is an advantage to being at the bleeding edge of technology, but in other cases it pays to wait.  Oh I know – there is much that has to be proved about this plane, but still, it fits to Russian design philosophy so well and it will be interesting to see this aircraft move forward.  Gives me another Russian jet design to memorize on top of so many that I memorized as an Air Force brat reading Jane’s Soviet Air Force guides as a kid before the USSR fell.  I still remember them all.

Miscellania

Random musings and thoughts over the past few days:

1) Just finished reading a book about the fighting for Iraq in Basra, Fallujah, Ramadi, Habbinaiya, and Baghdad….in 1941.  Very interesting the events that unfolded there when Iraqi nationalists attempted to push the British out and how the badly outnumbered British, through bluffing and sheer determination, pushed the nationalists out and kept Iraq and its oil reserves out of the hands of the Germans.  Had they not succeeded, one wonders what would have happened to the outcome of the war.  A pretty good book in the Osprey campaign series highlighting a very overlooked aspect of early WWII history in a part of the world just as important in WWII as it is today – oil makes the world go ’round.

2) Read two interesting articles on how messed up the education of science has become.  The first article was on how science needs to learn PR in a bad way.  Really – I think they just need to get ALL scientists to take more liberal arts courses so they learn HOW to communicate that what they’re working on is important and WHY it is important.  An article in Wired (June 2010 issue) really hits on this one well.  The other is about all the push to train more and more students to do science when there are not enough jobs, let alone interesting ones, in science for all these people to do.  Certainly someone needs to do the grunt work of churning out experiments, but really, if there is no long term career or stability for someone in science – why would they ever dedicate that much time and effort to develop a mastery of science?   I can say the article gets it very right in many sad ways, and further, I see today you have scientists with 20 to 30 years under their belt who can’t find work.  If you’re not willing to pay for high quality science work – don’t throw out the crap that you don’t have enough people going into science.   Translation:  you’re too cheap to pay for the good ones so you’re hoping a bunch of people with just enough skills (1,000,000 monkeys typing – 1 writes Newton’s “Opticks”) to get by at low pay will do it so you can throw them away later.  Morons…fscking morons.

3) I think the music in Super Mario Galaxy was better than the music in Super Mario Galaxy 2….but there are some songs from that 2nd game I would love to have on my iPod.

4) I’m torn that one of the best video game soundtracks ever made was either the music for LucasArts “Outlaws” or Sega’s “Medieval Total War 2″.

5) I’m convinced there should be a scientific study proving that when you are least able to take on more work – everyone shows up to to give you more….and somehow you find the way to get it all done anyway.

6) There are times (especially when #5 shows up) I wish I could go visit the Big Rock Candy Mountains.

Veterans and Unconventional Warfare

Seems to me that with the last several attempted terrorist attacks that a huge fundamental flaw in the unconventional warfare which is terrorism has been revealed.  Throughout all of human history, it’s veteran soldiers which make the difference.  Green recruits (aka cannon fodder) are important, but several well trained veterans can hold their own against a lot of green/incompetent soldiers.

So if your model of warfare is to do damage through suicide bombing, you effectively eliminate all your veterans, or worse (better for us) you have no veteran corps to train new soldiers – and your effectiveness gets worse with time.  The only way anyone will ever pull off a plane hijack / bomb again will be if they’re really strong and trained in martial arts – like black belt level.  I say this because any and all airline attack attempts after 9/11 have resulted in the passengers dog-piling up on the would be bomber and beating the love of Jesus into them.  If you are willing to train that suicide bomber to new levels of fighting prowess – well you just lost it all once they succeed.  It’s like a one-shot rifle, and you’ve armed your entire army with them while the other army has automatic rifles.  Guess who’s going to win even if you can send out a lot of guys to get shot up?   And even then, the current model of terrorist warfare does not have the benefit of limitless soldiers. I’m beginning to think that unless you get a really good corps of veteran bomb-makers and insurgents who are really good at what they do, and never get caught, you have no choice but to slowly lose if you decide that terrorism is your way to beat another army.

By no means am I suggesting everyone let down their guard, but I’m seeing a trend here that the terrorists of the world have lost their ability to really fight, and they are setting themselves up for failure because of their model.  If you look at the Vietcong in the Vietnam war, yes they used suicide troopers, but they had plenty of veterans to fight and fight every day and eventually they were able to beat the French in the 50s and later the US (Yes…I know there are arguments that the US was politically hamstrung in this war, but really, unless we were willing to raze the whole country to the ground, which we were not, the outcome would have been the same – win for the North Vietnamese).  Veterans are a key ingredient of success in any type of warfare, and for the terrorists of the world who use their veterans up (or never grow them to begin with), they have zero chance of winning.

Bannockburn 1314 – Robert Bruce’s Great Victory

Campaign Series #102 by Osprey books.

It’s funny how you hear about specific great events in history, but until you read about them in more detail, you really don’t know how great the event really was.  This book does a very nice job of explaining all the events and background that led up to this battle, and after reading more you start to understand much better how good Robert Bruce was, and how inept Edward II was.

Up to the famous rebellion by William Wallace, the Scots were always a weak kingdom, and when the previous king, Alexander III, passed away with no heir, the English under Edward I dominated the Scots.  Wallace only defeated the English (1297) and held them off for one year, and then even he lost to Edward I in 1298.  By 1305 Edward I had taken back everything from the Scots and Wallace was captured and executed.  The leadership of the Scots fell to Robert Bruce whose beginning resulted in losses.  However, the tide turned in his favor when Edward I passed away and Edward II took the throne.  Edward II was not a good leader, and while he could fight and was no slouch in knightly arts, he did not have influence over the barons of England, and he had no head for tactics or strategy.  Robert Bruce did – and changed tactics to irregular guerilla warfare since he knew he could not win pitched battles.  He took castles through commando-like raids and subterfuge, and anytime enough English showed up to try and fight him, he and his forces would melt away into the lands they knew so well.  By 1312 the tide had turned so much in Bruce’s favor that he was invading England and taking land from them, rather than how it had been under Edward I.  These events led up to Edward II raising another army after Bruce laid siege to Stirling Castle, one of the main fortresses on the Scottish/English border, which in turn led to the battle of Bannockburn.

From the start, Bruce controlled the terrain and the initiative of battle.  I won’t go into all the details of the battle here except to say that Bruce used the combined arms of the day in the way he saw Edward I use them.  Bruce did not have a huge force of knights – his mounted units were light cavalry at best – but he knew to have his spearmen formations form walls of pikes and have them advance with cavalry support on their flanks and with archer support.  The English under Edward II fell into traps of pride and charged the spearmen formations with the heavy knights – unsupported by infantry – with the expected consequences of running horses into a wall of spears.  Further, the English were engaging the Scots with only part of their forces.  They were choosing to fight immediately rather than waiting for the rest of their army to show up and get into formation.  On the 2nd day Bruce completely defeated the English who again chose to not fight with combined arms, and he shattered the army such that they routed.  Even King Edward II was sent running for the hills with what was left of his knights.  From this point on, Bruce had the initiative and did to the English what Edward I had done to the Scots.  He beat Edward II every time Edward II tried to invade again, and did it so well that Edward II abdicated in 1327 because by this time Bruce had controlled so much of northern England.  Quite a reversal of fortune.  But as this time period of human history shows – force of will and good leadership can only hold things together so long. Once Bruce passed away and most of the old guard of Scotland died as well, fortunes reversed again and the English took the fight back to the Scots on their terms.

So while the English lost hard at Bannockburn, they eventually got the lesson and when Edward III took the throne and war back to the Scots – he fought in the “Scottish fashion” and made sure infantry was supported by archers and knight formations while picking the right terrain to take advantage of these tactics.  The English learned this lesson so well it became their winning formula not just against the Scots (now without good leadership who forgot how to fight in the style Bruce created), but against the French in the 100 years war.  I’d dare say that the lessons the English learned at Bannockburn helped them win Agincourt over 100 years later.

Kolin 1757

Campaign Series #91 by Osprey Books.

Kolin was a battle in the 7 years war between Prussia (Frederick the Great) and Austria (Maria Theresa) which resulted in the first ever defeat of Frederick the Great.  The book is loaded with details of the tactics and maneuver that dominated warfare in the 18th century, so I won’t go into all of that here.  However, there is a quite remarkable anecdote in the book which testifies to the hardiness and discipline of the Prussian solider.  Towards the end of the battle the Lifeguard battalion of Prussian Infantry Regiment #15 was completely overrun by Austrian Dragoons (cavalry) which scattered the battalion and broke it up completely.  As the Austrian Dragoons finished this fight and moved on to other targets, the remnants of this Battalion were summoned up by their Colonel who survived the attack.  In fine Prussian fashion, they dusted themselves off, picked up hats, rifles and equipment, reformed, and marched back to the Prussian lines like nothing was wrong.  With such discipline no wonder Frederick the Great had such great confidence in his soldiers to carry the day.

I’m going to attempt to boil down the main lesson from this battle which I believe is this:  Don’t get overconfident and assume your enemy will always crumple when that is all it has done to date.  Up to this battle, Frederick the Great had been undefeated by anyone, and had great success against the Austrians – but one’s luck cannot hold out forever.  Certainly the Austrians had been paralyzed by bad commanders and leadership, but they got better.  In the events leading up to the battle of Kolin, the Austrians kept getting better and in the last two engagements with the Prussian Army, held their own and inflicted heavy casualties despite losing the battles overall.  So by the time that Kolin came around, the Prussians were laying siege to Prague and the other portions of the Austrian army were marching up from the south to relieve the siege.  Frederick went south to meet them and despite realizing he was outnumbered, he chose to fight rather than wait for the Austrians to come to him on ground of his choosing.  He probably had every reason to believe he could win again through the force of his great soldiers, but when he could not get the initiative early on and take the ground he needed to early in the battle, this should have been a warning sign to him.  In the end he was able to withdraw with his Army mostly intact, but he got mauled as he could not take the ground he needed because the Austrians more than held their own and had the initiative the whole time.  Frederick should have been patient and should have paid attention to the past 2 engagements with the Austrians in how they dealt with his army.  So in the end, I think it was overconfidence that caused Frederick to get into a situation where he did not control the terrain and flow of events in the battle which led him to lose.  The warning signs were all there – it’s not the fog of war which caused Frederick to not know what he was getting into.  He saw it and went in anyway.

Overall a good book to read if you’re interested in the complex tactical histories of maneuver and day-long battles which so characterized 18th century battles, but I think at times the book gets bogged down in too many details of the battle.  Still, if you want to walk along the entire path of the battle from start to finish, this book does a very good job of guiding you through everything from an above the ground and ground level view at the same time.

The Alamo 1836 – Santa Anna’s Texas Campaign

Campaign Series #89 by Osprey Publishing.  This book covers the entire 1836 campaign of Santa Anna through Texas, from his initial battle at the Alamo to his defeat at San Jacinto.  There is also a nice summary history of events leading up to this campaign involving Mexican independence and the beginnings of the Texas Republic.  What is really educating about this book is how so many events affected the outcome of the war, and in the final battle which decided the fate of the Texas Republic – as the author of the book put it best – it was not that General Sam Houston won the battle so much as General Santa Anna botched it.

First let’s talk about the opposing forces.  The Mexican army was at least a standing professional army even if against other standards it may not have been good as others.  It was not well equipped and it was definitely under strength, but it did have a professional officer corps and it did have drilled soldiers.  The Texian forces were strictly volunteers – strong fighters, excellent marksmen, but completely undisciplined.  The Texians tended to have many more officers than enlisted, and maintaining order, let alone having a central strategy or command structure where things could be obeyed, was nearly impossible.  You could argue given some of the events that happened in the campaign, that while the Texians were brave and would fight ferociously, they were incompetent in the arts of war.  So we have an understrength and poorly equipped, but disciplined army, going up against a disorganized, but brave, resistance.

From the beginning, Mexican General Santa Anna did throw the Texians curve balls that they didn’t expect.  Firstly, he invaded during Winter and forced marched his forces faster than the Texians ever expected him to arrive.  Secondly, he had another General at his disposal who was more than competent, but was really the shining star of the entire campaign – General Jose Urrea.  First let’s discuss the quick invasion in Winter and then General Urrea.

Santa Anna invaded in Winter because Texas winters were in general mild in comparison to the Summers which were brutal.  However during this Winter there was a sudden cold snap with lots of snow over a few days that dealt a lot of damage to his army before it even got to San Antonio.  Still, his Army arrived in Texas much faster than the Texian govt. ever expected, especially since they did not expect Santa Anna to march in Winter.  Indeed, when information finally began to show up that Santa Anna was closing in on San Antonio, the garrison there chose to stand and fight rather than withdraw and regroup with other forces in spite of orders from the Texas govt. to withdraw.  To be fair to the Alamo garrison, at this point the Texas govt., pretty well disorganized to begin with, really had no ability to make any influence on anything that was going on.  So the defenders of the Alamo were surprised by the sudden appearance of the Mexicans and settled down into a siege mode.  The outcome of the siege is well-known, but what isn’t so well-known is that if Santa Anna had wanted, he could have just pounded the fort into rubble as he had longer range artillery than the Texians did.  So he laid siege to the place for a few days, but then went and stormed the place.  The storming of the Alamo was done at night and did not go according to plan, and while the Texians were slaughtered to a man (save a few) the Mexicans had higher casualties and the massacre at the Alamo served as a rallying cry to the Texians.  Santa Anna could have done things differently and greatly blunted this moral high event for the Texian cause, but he made a bloody (literally) mess of it.

Now onto General Urrea.  So while Santa Anna’s column was attacking the Alamo, General Urrea’s column was moving along the Texas coast and had a very different outcome.  I had never heard of General Urrea before this book, but after reading about what he did, I feel that is a shame as it was obvious he was a damn good general.  General Urrea knew the strengths of his opponent – long distance marksmanship and excellent fighting behind cover.  So General Urrea focused on setting ambushes and picking battle sites that removed the Texian strengths and played on their disorganized weakness.  He did this more than once as he went up the Texas coast – completely beating the Texians in each of 4 encounters on his approach to Galveston with minimal losses.  One wonders what would have happened if he had been around at the final battle at San Jacinto.

The entire campaign ends with the Battle of San Jacinto.  It’s pretty clear from the book that General Sam Houston was a very reluctant general and if you look at the events that led to the battle, it wasn’t so much that Houston decided to attack as his battle-hungry troops dragged him into it.  Houston arrived to the site first and set things up and Santa Anna arrived shortly afterwards, surprised to find the Texians there, but given how they had been retreating to this point, he had his own Army set up camp but did not post guards.  His army was exhausted but the stupidity of Santa Anna to not set up basic guards for his camp left him completely defenseless.  Initial engagements had the Texians attacking the Mexican position in their typical uncoordinated fashion.  The only Texian cavalry unit went out for recon, but again being hungry for battle, ended up engaging the Mexican units who were far better and outnumbered the Texians – and the cavalry began to lose.  The infantry volunteers clambered for battle to save their Cavalry comrades, and before you knew it, began to charge on the Mexican positions.  The Mexicans, who set up camp but didn’t bother to guard it, had pretty much collapsed in exhaustion due to the forced marches and now were completely overwhelmed by the charging Texians.  The battle lasted all of 18 minutes, after which the Mexican army was in complete rout and the slaughter of the Mexicans the hands of the angry Texians wanting revenge for the Alamo began.  So if Santa Anna had bothered to keep his units on guard, even if they were exhausted, he could have picked off the piecemeal attacks by the Texians at first, and then when they did charge, probably could have still beaten them since he outnumbered them.  A great “what if” moment in history.  The entire outcome of US history would have been very different if Houston and the Texians had been beaten at San Jacinto, and again, the battle was not won due to Houston’s leadership, but because Santa Anna incompetent leadership set up perfect conditions for Texian victory.

Overall a good book if one wants a more in-depth version of the events in the early history of the US which led to the birth of Texas.  It’s very obvious how differently everything could have turned out had certain things been done.