September 2014
Ɩ
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£4.25
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ople AD 378: death knell of
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ESPERATE
EFENCE
e BEF at Le Cateau, 1914
UNDER FIRE
Exposing the realities
the French trenches
RIAL WAR MUSEUM
nside the new First World War Galleries
DEVIL’S
GUARD
Is this history’s
most evil man?
MHM
O
ur special feature this issue focuses on the Battle of
Adrianople in AD 378. It has often been compared
with Cannae: a battle of annihilation in which an
entire Roman army was destroyed.
In fact, Adrianople was more decisive. The Romans recov-
ered from Cannae. They simply built a new army. Indeed,
such were their manpower reserves in 216 BC that they
could have survived several defeats on this scale.
But in AD 378, the age of the mass citizen levy was long
gone. The empire had become an edifice of state power
resting on a foundation of exploited provincial labour. The
soldiers were a small professional elite.
The losses at Adrianople had to be made good, of course.
But this was done by recruiting barbarian ‘federates’ –
Germanic tribal contingents fighting under their own
chieftains and hired en masse. Thus did Rome in decline
create the agents of its own destruction.
Adrianople was also a turning-point in the history of
war: the moment when the heavy infantry of antiquity
were finally displaced by the heavy horse of an embryonic
medieval order.
Patrick Mercer takes a hard look at another turning-
point with his article on Le Cateau, the desperate defensive
battle fought by the British Expeditionary Force on 26
August 1914. A battle in the style of Wellington, it was also
the swansong of the old 19th-century Regular Army.
Matt Leonard continues the First World War theme with
a discussion of Henri Barbusse’s Le Feu, and Rafe McGregor
investigates the infamous career of Oskar Dirlewanger and
his SS Sonderkommando.
CONTRIBUTORS THIS MONTH’S EXPERTS
SUBSCRIBE NOW
RAFE MCGREGOR
is the author of
over 60 short
stories, novellas,
magazine articles,
and journal
papers. He
specialises in writing and reviewing
military biographies.
PATRICK MERCER
was educated
at Sandhurst
before joining
The Sherwood
Foresters. Aft er
the Army he was
a reporter for BBC Radio 4’s
Today
programme and elected as an MP.
IAIN KING
is the author of
acclaimed books on
war and philosophy,
and currently leads
the UK govern-
ment’s research on
confl ict and development. He became
one of the youngest recipients of a CBE.
MATT LEONARD
is a PhD research
student in the
Department of
Anthropology and
Archaeology, and
advises the BBC
on its cross-platform coverage of the
centenary of the First World War.
September 2014
Ɩ
Issue 48
Ɩ
£4.25
MILITARY
k
+
+
www.military-history.o
Adrianople AD 378: death knell of an empire
Ɩ
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FALL OF ROM
FALL OF ROME
ESPERATE
EFENCE
e BEF at Le Cateau, 1914
UNDER FIRE
Exposing the realitie
the French trenches
IM ERIAL WAR MUSEUM
side the new First World War Galleries
DEVIL’S
GUARD
Is this history’s
most evil man?
ON THE COVER: ‘The Course of Empire
(Destruction of Rome by the Visigoths)’
painted by Thomas Cole.
Image: Alamy Images
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EDITORIAL ADVISORY BOARD:
Martin Brown
Archaeological Advisor, Defence
Estates, Ministry of Defence
Mark Corby
Military historian, lecturer, and
broadcaster
Paul Cornish
Curator, Imperial War Museum
Gary Gibbs
Assistant Curator, The Guards Museum
Angus Hay
Former Army Offi cer, military
historian, and lecturer
Nick Hewitt
Historian, National Museum of the
Royal Navy, Portsmouth
Nigel Jones
Historian, biographer, and journalist
Alastair Massie
Head of Archives, Photos, Film, and
Sound, National Army Museum
Gabriel Moshenska
Research Fellow, Institute
of Archaeology, UCL
Colin Pomeroy
Squadron Leader, Royal Air Force
(Ret.), and historian
Michael Prestwich
Emeritus Professor of History,
University of Durham
Nick Saunders
Senior Lecturer, University of Bristol
Guy Taylor
Military archivist, and archaeologist
Julian Thompson
Major-General, Visiting Professor at
London University
Dominic Tweddle
Director-General, National Museum
of the Royal Navy
Greg Bayne
President, American Civil War Table
of the UK
MILITARY
HISTORY
MONTHLY
www.military-history.org
3
FEATURES
The Devil’s Guard
SS-Sonderkommando
Dirlewanger
Rafe McGregor uncovers the horrifying
history of one the most notorious
military units ever formed.
18
44
52
Welcome
3
Letters
7
Notes from the Frontline
8
Behind the Image
10
MHM reviews an image of French
cyclists in Chauconin-Neufmontiers.
Thinkers at War
12
Iain King studies the stoic philosophy
of Emperor Marcus Aurelius.
War Culture
15
MHM looks at the larger objects on
show at the Imperial War Museum’s
new atrium.
UPFRONT
e Fall of
e Western
man Empire
INCLUDES:
Adrianople
Warriors
Timeline
Battle map
15
Under Fire
French Poilus in
the trenches, 1915
Matt Leonard explores the background
of Henri Barbusse’s novel
Le Feu, fi rst
published in 1916.
Desperate Defence
Le Cateau, 1914
Patrick Mercer on the BEF’s
Wellingtonian masterpiece at the
Battle of Le Cateau.
ON THE COVER
September 2014 | ISSUE 48
MILITARY
HISTORY
MONTHLY
4
September 2014
24
With a focus on the Battle of
Adrianople, the confl ict that
brought about the end of the
ancient world,
MHM dissects
the collapse of the Western
Roman Empire.
MHM
CO
NTE
NT
S
War on Film
|
62
Taylor Downing revisits Jean Renoir’s
prisoner-of-war drama
La Grande
Illusion.
Book of the Month
|
67
Jules Stewart on
MHM’s recommended
Ring of Steel by Alexander Watson.
Books
|
69
Bijan Omrani on
Agent Cicero, David
Flintham on
Defending
Nottinghamshire, and Jules
Stewart on
Collision of
Empires.
THE DEBRIEF
IN THE FIELD |
MHM VISITS
BACK AT BASE |
MHM REVIEWS
Museum
|
72
MHM reports from the reopening of the
IWM galleries.
Listings
|
74
MHM brings you
the best military
history events
for September.
Competition
|
80
Win entry to Apsley House and
dinner at Le Garrick.
Top Five
|
82
This month, the most
daring escapes.
62
74
72
Military History Monthly
www.military-history.org
EDITORIAL
Editor: Neil Faulkner
neil@military-history.org
Deputy Editor: George Clode
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Editor-at-large: Andrew Selkirk
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ng Director: Rob Selkirk
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Military History Monthly (ISSN 2048-4100) is pub-
lished monthly by Current Publishing Ltd,
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© Current Publishing Ltd 2014
rights reserved. Text and pictures are copyright restricted and must
be reproduced without permission of the publishers. The publishers,
tors and authors accept no responsibility in respect of any goods,
motions or services which may be advertised or referred to in this
gazine. Every eff ort has been made to secure permission for copyright
terial. In the event of any material being used inadvertently or where
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INTELLIGENCE |
MHM OFF DUTY
www.military-history.org
OLD PLANE, MODERN PHOTO,
DODGY CAPTION
Firstly, let me congratulate you on a first-class
magazine which I look forward to every month.
You appear to take a great deal of trouble to be
accurate, so why, in the July issue, have you tried
to pass off a modern photograph as one that is 70
years old (‘D-Day’,
MHM 46).
The photograph at the top of page 41 is cap-
tioned as ‘A USAAF B17 Bomber on an airfield in
England in the lead-up to D-Day’.
It is, in fact, the Sally B – the only B17 still flying
in Europe – at her home base at the IWM Duxford
in Cambridgeshire. You can see the artwork for
Memphis Bell on one side of the nose and Sally B on
the other. The black-and-yellow chequered engine
cowling is in memory of the late Ted White, who
was largely responsible for acquiring Sally B and
bringing her to England.
Gary Beach
Cambridgeshire
MISPLACED
ACHILLES
I am sure I
will not be the
first (or last) of
your readers to
point out your
enormous howler
on page 24 of
the August issue
(
MHM 47). The photograph of HMS Achilles got the
name right, but the ship very wrong.
The vessel shown there is the Warrior-class
armoured cruiser of the same name, launched in
1905 and sold for scrap on 9 May 1921. In view of this,
the vessel’s participation in the Battle of the River
Plate, fought in 1939, would have been difficult.
Alun Granfield
Pontypridd
Your thoughts on issues raised
in
Military History Monthly
OFFICIAL SOMME FILM
ANTI-WAR?
In what is an otherwise fascinating and factually
correct review, Taylor Downing, in ‘War on Film’
(
MHM 47) incorrectly asserts that the screening of
The Battle of the Somme proved purely ‘positive’.
In doing so he overlooks why it was popular with
those who viewed the war negatively.
Graphic imagery of death and destruction bridged
the chasm between front and home as some
intended, but
The Battle of the Somme clearly failed as a recruitment tool since conscription was
introduced in early 1916.
Divided into fi ve distinct parts, with Parts III and Part IV containing 26 per cent and 43 per cent
images of dead and wounded respectively, it is obvious why the Red Cross – which viewed the
77-minute fi lm as peace propaganda – sponsored its showing at the Apollo Cinema in The Hague in an
eff ort to rally support for the anti-war movement.
Lee P Ruddin, Cheshire
TWITTER
@MilHistMonthly
FACEBOOK
www.facebook.com/
MilitaryHistoryMonthly
24 July
The shot almost heard
around the world. What
might have happened had
these two been successful?
http://tinyurl.com/mnjljmc
23 July
Had an excellent time at
the press opening of the
new IWM London. Highly
recommended, especially
the First World War
Galleries.
5 July
ssassination day:
Margaret MacMillan’s
xcellent analysis of a
hotograph showing
Archduke Franz
Fer inand and his wife on
the day they were murdered.
http://tinyurl.com/mrhesdh
020 8819 5580
@MilHistMonthly
MilitaryHistoryMonthly
feedback@military-history.org
WHAT DO YOU THINK?
Let us know!
Military History Monthly, Lamb House,
Church Street, London, W4 2PD
@MilHistMonthly 24 July
Bargain! - RAF Harrier and
Tornado jets auctioned
with no reserve http://bbc.
in/1kdIB4q
@MilHistMonthly 23
July
How do YOU think
Rabbie would
have voted in the
referendum...? http://
ow.ly/zuDUj
@MilHistMonthly 23 July
Book your tickets to the
RAF Museum archive
viewing. A rare opportunity!
http://tinyurl.com/nfjnfqh
@MilHistMonthly 7 July
Stunning short animation
to mark the much-
anticipated new First
World War Galleries at IWM
London. http://ow.ly/yQPM5
#IWM #WWI @I_W_M
@MilHistMonthly 3 July
#OnThisDay 1863 Battle
of Gettysburg ended after
three days. Victory for
the Union as Confederate
troops retreated http://goo.
gl/ZntbWl
MILITARY
HISTORY
MONTHLY
www.military-history.org
7
NO T E F ROM T HE E DI T OR
Apologies to all our readers for the howlers in our picture
selections and captions. And thanks, too, for alerting us and
helping ensure we remain attentive to high standards of accu-
racy in all aspects of the magazine. We have now instituted a
much tighter system of quality-control with regard to pictures.
Do let us know if we go wrong again, but here’s hoping …
The John Palmer collection of WWI
and WWII propaganda forgeries
and parody material has
Two exciting resources launched
by the Commonwealth War
Graves Commission (CWGC) have
allowed millions of people across
the Commonwealth to discover
more about their relatives who
fought and died during WWI.
The unveiling of the CWGC’s
recently completed online archives
and the new Discover 14-18
Our round-up of this month’s military history news
Commonwealth resources released
PROPAGANDA PARODIES
been offered by a Stanley Gibbons
auction. The collection includes
very rare items relating to
the Isle of Man ‘Knockaloe
Internment Camp’ with a
range of the ‘stamps’ and
postcards.
Among those on offer
were a ‘Deutsche Reichspost’
telegram dated 19 January
1941 from Adolf Hitler to Frau
Geheimrat Anna Himmler
(Heinrich’s mother) to wish
her a happy 75th birthday,
and an extensive collection
of 245 German patriotic
and propaganda postcards,
including anti-Churchill
images, battle scenes, flags,
and banners.
Other propaganda
lots include the German
parody of a British 1935
green Jubilee stamp which
reads ‘THIS WAR IS A
JEWSH WAR’ in an unused
block of 12, and the
original hand-painted
artwork on card in
lilac-brown and white
of the German parody
of a British 1937
Coronation stamp.
The Knockaloe
material is of
particular interest.
The Isle of Man
was used as a base for Alien
Civilian Internment camps in both
WWI and again in WWII. During
the First World War the British
government interned male citizens
of the Central Powers, principally
Germany, Austria-Hungary, and
Ottoman Turkey, and a very large
camp was established at Knockaloe,
on the west coast near Peel.
It was originally intended to
house 5,000 internees, but by
the end of the war some 24,500
were held there. It was built from
wooden huts covering 22
r , plit int
mp und
nd
divided between four camps, each
of which had its own hospital and
theatre.
The camp was such a significant
settlement that a railway branch
line was constructed to bring in
supplies. The General Post Office
established a branch post office
at Knockaloe Camp, and this was
supplied with a steel date stamp
and printed registration labels. It
remained the only British post
office ever to function within a
British prisoner-of-war camp.
MILITARY
HISTORY
MONTHLY
8
September 2014
microsite will
make locating
and visiting
memorial sites of
relatives and loved o
in the war easier. Th
resources will also g
enhance the service
CWGC provides to t
million people who
every year.
The CWGC, found
in 1917, marks and c
for the graves and m
rials of over 1.7 mill
Commonwealth war
from the two world w
However, with the ce
under way, it has undertaken
a five-year project to scan over
300,000 documents relating to
those who died in service during
WWI and upload them to the web-
te, all of which
he public can
iew.
These docu-
an insight into
commemoration
the Army and
W1, and include
tone
inscrip-
ath, rank, and
documents even
sed’s journey to
g
place.
rston,
the
st
and
er, said, ‘The
window into
’s past, and the
incredible work carried out to
ensure those who died are not
forgotten.’
For more information, visit
www.CWGC.org
LOST PIPES OF
SCOTLAND
A set of bagpipes plucked from the
mud of the Western Front and kept in
Perthshire for 90 years have returned
to Scotland as part of a First World War
exhibition.
The pipes, assumed to be Scottish
when they were rescued at the Somme
in 1916, were kept at Ardvreck School
in Crieff from 1931 until researchers
discovered they belonged to a soldier
from a Canadian regiment, Piper James ‘Jimmy’
Richardson.
In 2006 the pipes were sent to Victoria,
where they can usually be found on display in
the entrance hall of the British Columbia State
Legislature. Now, for the fi rst time since they
were sent across the Atlantic, the pipes will
return to Scotland on loan as part of an exhibition
that is taking place at the National Museum of
Scotland.
soundscape for the piece. Phoenix Dance
Theatre will capture the contorted figures in
no-man’s-land, and Theatre in the Quarter
will intersperse the visual elements with
excerpts of drama, relaying the experiences
of the region’s dockworkers who were
enlisted to serve in battle.
The event will culminate in a newly
commissioned choral work by Andy Smith,
directed by Jeff Borradaile, and performed
by hundreds of voices from the Greater
Manchester area. A multitude of poppies will
fall on the projection screens, allowing the
audience to reflect on the loss and sacrifice
of The Great War.
Craig Morrison, Artistic Director, said,
‘Sassoon, Wilfred Owen, and August Stramm
created the catalyst for what I hope will be
a very moving commemorative event. The
first-hand experience of the war poets allows
a harrowing insight into what it must have
been like to experience the horrors of war.
‘The First World War has a tragic legacy,
but I hope the evening will in some way com-
memorate the sacrifices that were made.’
MHM
FR
ONTLI
NE
NEWS IN BRIEF
Dummy tactics
An extremely rare ‘dummy head’, which was used
by British soldiers to determine the direction of
German sniper fi re in the trenches of the First
World War, has been revealed at York Castle
Museum. The paper mache head, dated to around
1916, would have been
raised up out of the
trench by troops to
draw enemy fi re. The
angle of the bullet entry
and exit holes could
be used to work out
enemy positions. The
head, which is believed
to be one of a very
small number that still
exist, will feature in the
museum’s major new
exhibition,
1914: When the
World Changed Forever.
Great Ward Poetry
A book has been launched off ering a new
perspective on the First World War through the
poetry of the men and women at one of London’s
Great War Hospitals, housed in the Royal Victoria
Patriotic Building, Wandsworth.
Great Ward Poetry tells the moving war-time story
of the men recovering from horrifi c injures at the
Royal Victoria Patriotic Building and of the nurses
who cared for them. Known as the third London
Hospital, it was one of the nation’s largest, treating
52,000 casualties.
From 1914 it was recognised that a strong mind
was vital to recovery and to getting through the
emotionally exhausting hospital work. Poetry was
encouraged and published in the hospital’s newslet-
ter, the
Gazette, which had a circulation of over
5,000 and was read beyond the hospital walls.
Great Ward Poetry by Simon McNeill-Ritchie is
published by Hamilton Laird.
The Horse at War
The Lightbox gallery and museum in Woking, Surrey,
will commemorate the centenary of WWI with the
exhibition
The Horse at War: 1914-1918. Exploring
the role of the horse in the First World War, the
exhibition will compare the glorifi ed image of offi cers
and their chargers at war with the piteous desolation
of these animals as beasts of burden when faced
with gunfi re and trench warfare.
The Lightbox is delighted to announce that
‘Joey’, the original West End horse puppet from
the National Theatre’s
acclaimed stage
adaptation of Michael
Morpurgo’s novel
War
Horse, will feature in
the exhibition. The
event will run from
25 November 2014 to
1 March 2015.
Exhibition Curator Dr Stuart Allan said: ‘The
exhibition is about two things — the transfer of
Scottish military tradition to other countries, and
how signifi cant the First World War is in their
own national story.’
The National Museum of Scotland exhibition,
taking place between 11 July and 12 October
2014, tells the stories of the Scottish diaspora
and the war experiences of Commonwealth
nations during the First World War.
GOT A STORY?
Let us know!
editorial@military-history.org
Military History Monthly, Lamb House,
Church Street, London, W4 2PD
020 8819 5580
MILITARY
HISTORY
MONTHLY
www.military-history.org
9
Collaborating artists
honour the fallen
Artists from all over Europe and from all
manner of disciplines have been commis-
sioned to collaborate on an artwork that
reflects the tragedy of the First World War.
It uses the short life of poet Hedd Wyn as a
metaphor, and audiences will be transfixed
by the beauty of his poetry while watching
large projections of Britain’s idyllic landscape
before the outbreak of war. Manchester’s
MediaCity buildings will be transformed into
huge projection screens, with the piazza an
outdoor viewing area for this free event.
Artists, including German duo Hartung
Trenz and Wales-based visual artist Sean
Vicary, have been commissioned to use pro-
jected text and carefully curated imagery to
accompany the story. Actor Nicholas Farrell
gives voice to the event with renditions of
poems and letters sent home from the front.
Contemporary sound artists Peter Morris
and Mieko Shimizu have created an emotive
L’INFANTERIE
CYCLISTE
MHM
BEH
IN
D T
HE I
M
AG
E
FRENCH CYCLISTS
IN CHAUCONIN-
NEUFMONTIERS
The region of Meaux came dangerously close to
being occupied by the advancing German army
in September 1914. The German onslaught had
already laid waste to the surrounding villages
of Chambry, Barcy, Montyon, Varreddes, and
Chauconin-Neufmontier, where this image was
taken.
Meaux was well within their sights, and as the
Germans approached, the residents of Meaux
fled to Paris.
A counterattack was organised to repel the
Germans. French forces, along with the British
Expeditionary Force, drove the Germans back
towards the Somme, where fronts were solidi-
fied and the stage was set for three years of
attritional trench-warfare. The Anglo-French
offensive halted the German advance, saved
Paris, and wrecked Germany’s Schlieffen Plan.
As such, it came to be known as ‘the Miracle of
the Marne’.
The windows are barred and boarded in the
wrecked buildings which form the backdrop
of this image. It is dated 1914, and though it is
unspecified whether the photograph was taken
pre- or post-Miracle of the Marne, the ruins and
rubble strongly imply the image post-dates
the German occupation and the fighting of late
August/early September. The caption simply
reads, Chauconin près de Meaux: cyclistes
traversant le village (‘Chauconin near Meaux:
cyclists crossing the village’).
Bicycles were most commonly used to relay
messages from command to outposts on both
sides of battle-lines. Hitler had been a bicycle
messenger during the First World War.
Eleven French soldiers on bicycles and three
civilians face the camera, the soldiers looking
proud but weary, leaning heavily. The civilians
are inquisitive; the man at the rear seeming to
peer in to see what is going on. The guns slung
over the soldiers’ shoulders emphasise the
diagonal line hinted at by the wrecked staircase,
sloping roof, and the cross-beam of the boarded
window behind them.
The only woman in the photo appears on the
left and seems to be smiling, perhaps proud to
see these soldiers off or happy that they have
returned alive.
MILITARY
HISTORY
MONTHLY
11
himself in AD 169. As well as destabi-
lising Roman society, the plague made
the Empire vulnerable to invasion.
To garner forces for the eastern
campaign, Marcus Aurelius had
slimmed down his troops on the
long European frontier – roughly
demarcated by the Rhine and the
Danube rivers. Aware he was weaken-
ing his defences, he had warned his
local governors against provoking
the borderland tribes. It did not work.
Germanic tribes raided west into Gaul,
and, in AD 166, the Marcomanni of Bo-
hemia broke their alliance with Rome
and launched a much more serious
invasion across the Danube.
Marcus Aurelius had to act. Unlike
previous emperors, who had spent
many years campaigning in the
provinces, he was a relative novice
at expeditionary warfare. But he duly
left for the Front, stationing himself in
modern-day Serbia and Austria.
He suff ered two early defeats, and
the barbarians crossed the Alps and
mounted the fi rst successful invasion
of Italy in two and a half centuries,
attacking the Roman city of Aquileia.
MEDITATIONS
It was during these campaigning years
that Marcus wrote his famous
Medita-
tions. Removed from the cultural and
intellectual life of Rome, he may have
turned to philosophy for mental stimu-
lation. But the books also reveal a
moral exploration – as if the Emperor
were searching for guidance as he
made important decisions without any
source of refl ection other than himself.
Whereas many in the Roman world
had no qualms about being cruel,
and some even revelled in it, Marcus
ne of Rome’s most remark-
able rulers, Marcus Aurelius
(AD 121-180) is commonly re-
garded as the last of ‘the fi ve
ood emperors’. Along with his pre-
ecessors – Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian,
nd Antonius Pius – Marcus brought
stability to an unstable empire. The
fi ve presided over almost a century
of competent government in the age
that Edward Gibbon considered the
most ‘golden’.
But it was Marcus Aurelius, the
philosopher-emperor, who inadver-
tently brought this golden age to an
end.
He had been singled out for an im-
perial life when he was still a teenager.
The dying Hadrian had instructed his
successor, Antoninus Pius, to adopt
the young philosopher. Antonius,
one of the longest-serving emperors,
became infi rm in his last years, so
Marcus Aurelius gradually assumed
the imperial duties. By the time he
succeeded in AD 161, he was already
well practised in public administration.
THE EASTERN QUESTION
Marcus immediately became the fi rst
emperor to appoint a co-ruler. It was
a clever arrangement: it made it much
harder for usurpers to snatch power,
since they had to assassinate two
rulers, not one. It also recognised that
the empire had become too huge to
administer from a single capital.
Marcus’s cousin Lucius Verus was
given responsibility for the eastern
half of the Empire and made respon-
sible for confronting the Parthians
(who controlled Persia), who had
Look back over the past, with its
changing empires that rose and fell,
and you can foresee the future.
Marcus Aurelius
just moved into the buff er state of
Armenia. Recognising fl aws in Lucius’s
character, however, Marcus made sure
that his co-emperor was accompanied
by trustworthy generals. Even so,
Lucius’s victorious fi ve-year campaign
was marred when his army plundered
a city even aft er it had surrendered.
Although he was far from the action,
Lucius’s campaign in the East shaped
Marcus’s reign in three ways. First, it
meant the senior emperor was free
to concentrate on administration and
public aff airs. Contemporary accounts
describe him as judicious and deeply
interested in government processes.
Even allowing for court propaganda,
it is reasonable to assume that Marcus
had an affi nity for his decision-making
role. He would certainly need it –
because of two further implications of
the Parthian campaign.
PLAGUE AND
BARBARIANS
Lucius’s soldiers did not come home
from the wars just with trophies: they
also brought back a plague. Possibly
a strain of smallpox, it is estimated to
have killed fi ve million Roman citizens
– perhaps ten per cent of the total
– including the co-emperor Lucius
Iain King examines the relationship between war and thought
Modern use of the word ‘stoic’ – meaning
resilient and without complaint in the face
of diffi culty – draws on just one aspect of a
whole philosophy. Stoicism emerged over
several centuries, and had a major impact
on ancient Greece and Rome; Emperor
Marcus Aurelius was a major fi gure within
the movement.
Stoics believed the universe was one living
being, with its own soul and purpose. This
worldview meant that Stoics believed individ-
uals had a duty to accept what the Universe
had decided for them. People should master
their ‘passions’, develop their virtues, and
make the best of their destiny, they said.
It is telling that Marcus Aurelius titled his
twelve books on philosophy
The Meditations:
they were written to himself, not the outside
world, since stoicism narrowed responsibil-
ity to one’s own thoughts and actions. This
inward focus consoled the Emperor, and
allowed him to fi nd moral satisfaction in his
deeds, even though he was unable to cure
the multiple and complex problems facing
his people.
Stoicism was outlawed as pagan by a later
emperor, seeking to enforce the monolithic
ideological supremacy of Christian teaching.
But aspects of it have survived into medieval
ideas on chivalry, and even into some
modern ideas about ecology and ethical
consumerism.
BIOGRAPHY
Birth:
26 April AD 121
Birthplace:
Rome
Citizenship:
Roman
Profession:
Soldier, adminis-
trator, philosopher
Position:
Roman emperor
Death:
17 March AD 180
Place of Death:
Vienna
(
Vindobona)
STOIC EMPEROR
MILITARY
HISTORY
MONTHLY
12
September 2014
MARCUS AURELIUS
“
Aurelius reveals himself to be a con-
siderate, even sensitive, man.
He stayed on the Front until the cli-
max of his wars against the Germanic
tribes. He won perhaps his most
important battle at the end of AD 173,
fought over a frozen part of the Dan-
ube. The Emperor was outnumbered
and surrounded by the Quadi and
Iazyges tribes. But Marcus ordered his
men to form a square, covered by a
shield-wall, with the cavalry (including
himself) protected in the centre.
Even though the tribesmen had
trained their horses to ride over ice,
they were unable to break the Roman
formations, and, in close-quarter
fighting, superior Roman discipline
won out. The Quadi and Iazyges were
routed. In AD 175 the Roman Emperor
was able to impose punitive peace
terms on both tribes.
Marcus had almost ended the
Germanic threat, but he died in AD
180 before what was to be the final
confrontation. Commodus, his son,
successor, and by all accounts a
megalomaniac, wasted the advan-
tage so that he could return to the
pleasures of Rome.
MHM
THINK
ER
S AT
W
AR
IN CONTEXT
You have power
over your mind –
not outside events.
Realise this, and you
will find strength.”
Never let the future
disturb you. You will
meet it, if you have to,
with the same weap-
ons of reason which
today arm you against
the present.”
Look back over the
past, with its changing
empires that rose and
fell, and you can fore-
see the future too.”
Death smiles at us
all. All a man can do is
smile back.”
The happiness of
those who want to be
popular depends on
others; the happiness
of those who seek
pleasure fluctuates
with moods outside
their control; but the
happiness of the wise
grows out of their own
free acts.”
MARCUS
AURELIUS
QUOTES
The most famous account of the end of Rome,
Edward Gibbon’s The History of the Decline and
Fall of the Roman Empire, starts by describing
Marcus Aurelius as the last of the good emperors.
Ominously, the book says that all the factors
which eventually caused Rome to collapse
became evident during his reign.
Military factors certainly drained Rome’s
strength. For several centuries, the Empire
fought intermittently with the Persians and their
successors in the Middle East. They also battled
various Germanic tribes, and later confronted
barbarians on Roman soil.
Vital negotiations were mishandled, provoking
the Empire’s enemies to storm Rome in AD 410
and to ravage it again in AD 455. By then, the
old superiority of the Roman military machine
was waning, the balance of power on the battle-
field shifting to the Germanic barbarians.
The Western Roman Empire’s last major
military expedition was to Libya in AD 468 – an
attempt to seize from the Vandals the grain
supply on which Italy depended. The mission
ended in disaster, and the former superpower
was starved into disintegration.
But Rome fell victim to these military chal-
lenges because of other weaknesses. Marcus
Aurelius had to deal with only one serious
usurper, but future emperors faced many, and
often succumbed to them: civil wars directed
Rome’s military manpower against itself.
Rome was also afflicted by social tensions,
with citizens less willing to fight for the Empire.
Gibbon called it ‘a decline in civic virtue’.
It is hard to know which of several inter-related
reasons caused Rome’s collapse: lead poisoning,
plagues, climate change, demographics, aristo-
cratic in-breeding, Christianity, and economics
have all been cited. Many commentators have
sought explanations from their own times.
Gibbon was an English MP who wrote his master-
piece between 1776 and 1789, just as the British
Empire was losing its American colonies. His end-
of-empire theory then seemed very contemporary.
For all his wisdom, Marcus Aurelius
had entrusted a vain teenager
with imperial office (Commodus is
depicted with some accuracy in the
film
Gladiator). The move established
the principle of genetic rather than
meritocratic inheritance at Rome.
Marcus Aurelius was undoubt-
edly a great man: an intellectual who
navigated Rome masterfully through
severe difficulties. The tragedy is
that his philosophy – self-restraint,
duty, and respect for others – was so
abjectly abandoned by the imperial
line he anointed on his death.
.
MILITARY
HISTORY
MONTHLY
www.military-history.org
13
The Fall of the Roman Empire
To celebrate the re-opening of the Imperial War Museum,
MHM explores the artefacts, old and new, housed in the
museum’s famous atrium. Designed by Foster + Partners,
the new space includes terraced galleries rising up either
side with new curated displays chronologically taking
visitors through the history of confl ict in Britain from 1914
to the present day.
Each level holds a diff erent exhibition comprising a
total of 400 newly selected and meticulously arranged
objects. Level one focuses on the Second World War
and features new objects, including the wreckage of an
X7 midget submarine and a Japanese Zero fi ghter, aban-
doned in 1943 and discovered in the jungle 50 years later.
The displays on level two deal with the world’s confl icts
from 1945 to the present day, the centrepiece of which
is the powerfully symbolic casing of an atomic bomb.
Other highlights include a prefab house exploring how
Britain went about rebuilding itself aft er WWII, artworks
and objects from the confl icts in Northern Ireland and the
Falklands, and a British Desert Hawk drone which sits
opposite a Taliban Honda motorbike.
The fi nal level presents some of the more
pected curiosities in the IWM’s collections, i
the wooden wheel thought to be for a new s
German aircraft when it was discovered in 1
and packaging from a seized parcel containi
parts for Saddam Hussein’s ‘super-gun’.
Here, we look at six of the larger objects
displayed in the Witness to War exhibition o
the ground fl oor of this impressive new atriu
MHM
W
AR CU
LTU
RE
NAVAL GUNS
The left -hand gun (Gunbody No. 125) of
the pair situated outside the Imperial War
Museum was made by William Beardmore and
mounted in HMS
Ramillies in 1916. It was fi rst
fi red in action against Turkish shore targets
during operations in the Sea of Marmara
in 1920. Apart from practice shoots, it was
not fi red again until 17 August 1940, when a
British force bombarded Bardia in North Africa
HMS
Ramillies also fi red several salvoes dur-
ing the Battle of Spartivento on 27 November
1940. The Italian warships were out of range
and no hits were scored.
The right-hand gun (Gunbody No. 102)
was mounted in HMS
Resolution from 1915
to 1938. It saw service in the Sea of Marmara
in 1920, but was not fi red in anger again until
1944, and then in another ship, the monitor
Roberts. On D-Day, HMS Roberts bombarded
Houlgate Battery, east of Sword Beach. During
the succeeding weeks, her guns shelled en-
emy positions several miles inland near Caen.
www.military-history.org
V2 ROCKET
From September 1944, Germany deployed the V2 rocket against London and other cities in Europe. Between September 1944 and 27
march 1945, approximately 1,054 rockets fell on London. A rocket like the one on display struck the Kennington Road/Lambeth Road
crossroads, barely 150 metres from the museum on 4 January 1945, killing 43 people. This rocket was brought back from Germany at
the end of the Second World War and was transferred to the Imperial War Museum in 1946.
London s new First World War Galleries and refurbished
atrium are now open. The museum is open daily from
10am-6pm and admission is free. To read
MHM’s review
of the galleries, turn to page 72.
BAGHDAD CAR
This car was destroyed by a suicide car bombing against
the Mutanabbi Street book market in Baghdad, at a time
of growing sectarian violence, almost four years aft er the
US-led invasion of Iraq. It was later exported from Iraq
and exhibited in the Netherlands, before being acquired by
British Turner Prize-winning artist Jeremy Deller.
Deller toured the car across the United States, in com-
pany with a former American soldier and an Iraqi expatri-
ate, as a means of starting conversations about Iraq.
It was donated to the IWM and exhibited in the IWM
London atrium in 2010.
SPITFIRE
ter plane on display fl ew 57 combat missions
he Battle of Britain in 1940, accounting for two
n aircraft , contributing to the destruction of two
and damaging a further four. It was fl own by 13
ent pilots, only six of whom survived the Second
d War. Its most frequent and successful pilot was
Offi cer Noel Agazarian.
MILITARY
HISTORY
MONTHLY
16
September 2014
T-34 TANK
Tanks like this Soviet-designed T-34 played such a key role
in the Second World War that they became symbolic of the
Soviet war eff ort and were oft en used as war memorials. This
particular tank was built in 1954 and later sold to the Egyptian
Army. It was captured by the Israelis in 1973.
HARRI
This British g
northern Iraq i the early 1990s and was twice deployed
to Afghanistan. It was once sat in by David Cameron
during a visit to Afghanistan in 2006, a few years before
he became Prime Minister.
GO FURTHER
Rafe McGregor uncovers the
hideous history of one of the
most remarkable and notorious
military units ever formed,
the SS-Sonderkommando
Dirlewanger.
MILITARY
HISTORY
MONTHLY
18
September 2014
O
skar Dirlewanger has been
called ‘the most repulsive
figure to have tainted the rolls
of the Knight’s Cross’. This is
no exaggeration.
The combination of Hitler’s whimsy,
Himmler’s personal patronage, and National
Socialist inhumanity permitted Dirlewanger
to raise his own private army, which began as
a company of Black Hunters in 1940, grew to
become the 36th Waffen Grenadier Division
of the SS in 1945, and was alleged to have
survived the war as a battalion in the French
Foreign Legion.
THE RISE AND FALL OF
DR DIRLEWANGER
Oskar-Paul Dirlewanger was born in
Würzburg, Bavaria, in 1895, one of the four
children of an attorney and his wife. He
appears to have had an unremarkable child-
hood and enlisted in the Army in 1913, where
he was trained as a machine-gunner. His unit,
the 123rd Infantry Regiment, saw immediate
action in Belgium on 4 August.
Very little is known about Dirlewanger’s
character during the war, except that he
excelled in close-quarter combat: within a
month, he had receive three wounds – by
sabre, bullet, and shrapnel – and been
awarded the Iron Cross 2nd Class.
He was commissioned as a lieutenant early
in 1915, prior to being bayoneted and shot
again in hand-to-hand combat on the Western
Front. He was awarded the Iron Cross 1st Class
in July 1916.
By April the following year, Dirlewanger
was commanding his regiment’s machine-gun
company on the Eastern Front. A year later he
was wounded yet again. He distinguished him-
self after the Armistice by leading a battalion
of the 121st Infantry Regiment from Russia to
Germany on foot, to avoid imprisonment.
The
Devil’s
Guard
Photo
: Bundesar
chi
v
LEFT Oberführer Oskar Dirlewanger, commander of
SS-Sonderkommando, in August 1944.
RIGHT German infantry advancing in Belgium on
7 August 1914. Like so many far-right activists in
interwar Germany, Dirlewanger was a ‘front-fighter’.
His unit first went into action on 4 August 1914,
and he remained on active service throughout
the war. Image: Department of Defense.
Photo
: Bundesar
chi
v
This was the
Führer’s war,
not the Kaiser’s,
and Dirlewanger
was destined for
lasting infamy.
MILITARY
HISTORY
MONTHLY
www.military-history.org
19
A RIGHT-WING MILITANT (AND SEX
OFFENDER)
Dirlewanger returned to Germany a heavy
drinker and smoker, and – like many soldiers
– joined the Freikorps, the right-wing para-
militaries formed in response to the German
Revolution, and several other nationalist
organisations, including the National Socialist
German Workers’ Party (the Nazis).
Although he distinguished himself in action
with the Freikorps, knew several of the NSDAP
hierarchy personally, and even played a small
part in the failed ‘Beer Hall Putsch’ of 1923,
he seems to have been motivated by personal
rather than ideological concerns.
Dirlewanger provoked extreme reactions in
those he met, making numerous enemies and
some powerful friends during the interwar
years. While the accusations of alcoholism,
corruption, and paedophilia were probably
true, one cannot be certain.
He was, for example, found guilty of having
sexual relations with a 13-year-old girl in 1934,
but the conviction was quashed in 1940, so it
seems that he was either framed by Nazis who
wanted to rid themselves of an arrogant and
ambitious colleague, or – more likely – was able
to employ the influence of either Heinrich
Himmler himself or leading SS henchman
Gottlob Berger at the retrial.
A CONDOR LEGIONARY
Dirlewanger served two years in
prison for his crime and was stripped
of both his PhD in political science
and his NSDAP membership. Early
in 1937 he went to Spain, where he
is believed to have served briefly with
the Spanish Foreign Legion before
Berger secured him a commission in
the famed Condor Legion.
Dirlewanger distinguished h im self
again, but his efforts to re-open his
criminal case made him more ene-
mies and brought unwanted atten-
tion from the Sicherheidstdienst
– the SD, the SS/Nazi security police.
BELOW Germany was convulsed by socialist
revolution when the First World War ended. Many
returning soldiers joined the workers and fought for
the revolution. Others, especially NCOs and junior
officers, joined the counter-revolutionary Freikorps
(depicted here). The Freikorps became a primary
seed-bed of the Nazi Party. Himmler’s SS adopted
the Freikorps symbol of skull and crossbones.
This was Oskar Dirlewanger’s career path.
Undeterred, Dirlewanger renewed his
efforts to clear his name on his return
to Germany in May 1939. He succeeded
a year later, was commissioned as an
Obersturmführer (‘senior assault leader’) in
the Waffen-SS in June, and appeared set for a
repeat of his first war: an outstanding junior
officer, but not – especially at the age of 44 –
considered senior leadership material.
But this was the Führer’s war, not the
Kaiser’s, and Dirlewanger was destined for
lasting infamy.
NAZI POACHERS
In March 1940 Hitler decided to form a sharp-
shooter company of convicted poachers, who
would be given the opportunity to exonerate
themselves in trial by combat. The idea was a
whim and Himmler was given responsibility
for raising Wilddiebkommando Oranienburg
as part of the SS-Totenkopfverbände (SS-VT).
Dirlewanger was earmarked for command
and joined 84 poachers at Sachsenhausen
concentration camp in June 1940. He was
quickly promoted to Hauptsturmführer
(equivalent of captain) and the unit was
renamed in his honour.
The Sonderkommando unit’s first opera-
tional posting was to Poland in 1941, guarding
a Jewish labour camp at Dzikow
and performing policing duties in
Cracow and Lublin. Dirlewanger’s
activities in Lublin – looting,
brutality, extortion, and blackmail
– attracted the attention of the
SS and he would be dogged by
the police and judiciary until an
arbitrary decision from Himmler
closed all investigations against
him at the end of 1944.
Dirlewanger was promoted to
Sturmbannführer (equivalent of
major) – his first senior leader-
ship position – in November
1941, and the Sonderkommando
was dispatched to Belarus two
months later.
BLACK HUNTERS
Dirlewanger’s ‘Black Hunters’ were unleashed
against the thousands of partisans who
controlled large tracts of German-occupied
territory in the forests and marshes surround-
ing Minsk. The Sonderkommando performed
well in its baptism of fire in March, rescued
a cut-off army unit in April, and rapidly
acquired a reputation as the most effective
anti-partisan unit in Belarus.
This was down to a combination of
Dirlewanger’s exemplary leadership in combat
and his ruthlessness – and perhaps sexual
sadism – in dealing with the local population.
Civilians were burned to death en masse in
SONDERKOMMANDO
20
barns, women and children marched ahead
of the Sonderkommando as human mine-
sweepers, and villages starved as livestock and
foodstuffs were confiscated for the unit’s larder.
Dirlewanger received the first of the many
decorations and wounds that he was to accrue
in his fourth war in May and July 1942, using
his convalescence to petition Berger for
more men and to run a personal recruitment
campaign at home in Esslingen-am-Neckar. He
September 2014
ABOVE Nazi SA and other paramilitaries
parade in 1924. The NSDAP was one of
several nationalist organisations Dirlewanger
joined after the First World War.
MILITARY
HISTORY
MONTHLY
Photo
: WIPL
Women and
children were
marched
ahead of the
Sonderkommando
as human
mine-sweepers.
BELOW Soldiers of the Freikorps, the right-wing
paramilitaries Dirlewanger joined early in his career.
was rewarded with the allocation of a company
of Ukrainian troops, which brought the
Sonderkommando strength to 350 men.
Dirlewanger’s commitment to the NSDAP
was secondary to his lust for power, but the Nazi
approach to counter-insurgency facilitated his
rapid advancement: in the latter half of 1942
Hitler sanctioned mass murder, and at the
start of 1943 exempted German soldiers from
prosecution on anti-partisan operations.
GAS, FIRE, AND BULLET
Dirlewanger made full use of this immunity,
carving a path of murder, rape, and pillage
across Belarus and assisting Einsatzgruppe B
– one of the four Nazi death-squads – in their
extermination of the population by gas, fire,
and bullet.
Himmler approved wholeheartedly, and
by June 1943 Dirlewanger found himself an
Obersturmbannführer (equivalent of lieuten-
ant-colonel) in command of 760 German and
Russian soldiers, an armoured car troop, and
an artillery battery.
Despite the justifiable description of
Dirlewanger as a ‘monster’, his courage was
never in doubt, as a small part of French
MacLean’s translation of his citation for the
German Cross in Gold shows:
During the clean-up of the remaining encircle-
ment, the enemy succeeded on 1 August 1943
to break through the seam between Battalion
Dirlewanger and the Commando Kreikenboom.
SS-Obersturmbannführer Dirlewanger was the one
who, with the help of some brave men, brought the
bandits to a standstill, and the previously existing
ring could be closed. During this action, a shot went
through his sleeve and he sustained a grazing shot
on his breast, while a third threw a cigarette out of
his mouth.
www.military-history.org
21
BULLET AND WHIP
In November 1943 the Sonderkommando
was sent to the sector north-west of Vitebsk as
part of an attempt to prevent the Red Army
from breaking through German lines. Several
flights from the enemy were reported as the
men faced frontline soldiers for the first time.
Dirlewanger imposed a death sentence on
anyone accused of cowardice, and Himmler
endorsed his decision by authorising him to
use capital punishment both in the face of,
and away from, the enemy. Corporal punish-
ment was administered with Dirlewanger’s
dog-whip, which he was never without.
Dirlewanger secured anti-tank capability
for the Sonderkommando in January 1944,
by which time sustained combat had reduced
its standing to 260 men. The following
month, 200 foreign replacements (including
six Spaniards) arrived, and Dirlewanger was
promoted to Standartenführer (equivalent of
full colonel) in March.
He raised a second battalion of penal
troops in June, and was given command of
4,000 Muslim troops from Azerbaijan for the
defence of Minsk. At the beginning of August,
the Sonderkommando was withdrawn to East
Prussia to prevent it being cut off – from here
it would deploy to Warsaw and sink to new
depths of depravity.
THE WARSAW UPRISING
The Warsaw Uprising began on 1 August with
the Polish Home Army mobilising 18,000
well-trained but poorly equipped troops, with
the intent of holding the capital until the Red
Army arrived. In an instruction which must
ABOVE A dead Republican beside his
machine-gun, Spain, 1936. The Spanish Civil
War was Dirlewanger’s third war, serving
first with the Spanish Foreign Legion, then
with the German Condor Legion.
MILITARY
HISTORY
MONTHLY
Photo
: WIPL
BELOW Dirlewanger’s unit was employed in
counter-insurgency operations behind the
German lines during Operation Barbarossa.
Here, Russian partisans – or men suspected of
so being – are captured by German troops.
Photo
: WIPL
rank as one of Hitler’s most morally depraved,
he ordered that every man, woman, and child
in Warsaw be killed, and the city razed.
The decree went beyond merciless-
ness to gratuitous inhumanity, and
Obergruppenführer Erich von dem Bach-
Zelewski – responsible for retaking the city
– realised that the rules of engagement would
only inspire fiercer resistance. He was unable
to alter them until 12 August, however, giving
Dirlewanger eight days in which to enjoy an
orgy of slaughter, rapine, and destruction.
The German plan was to take the city back
building by building, block by block, killing
everyone and flattening everything along the
way, with the Sonderkommando in the lead.
Inspired by Himmler’s call for terror tactics,
Dirlewanger and his men used children as
human shields, burned prisoners alive, waved
impaled babies from windows, and hung
women upside-down from balconies.
Contemporary accounts describe platoons
of the Sonderkommando relentlessly assault-
ing buildings in a crazed – and at times
alcohol-induced – frenzy, charging into
enemy fire which other units would not face.
MacLean translates the testimony of a mem-
ber of Kampfgruppe Reinefarth, of which the
Sonderkommando was part:
That’s when the Dirlewanger crowd was
thought of. ‘The crowd’ arrived, took a look,
and stormed in. About 50 men rushed across
the street. Approximately 30 men remained
SONDERKOMMANDO
22
lying there and did not move anymore. The
remainder vanished into the house, and during
the next ten minutes both corpses and living
people flew out of the windows on the fourth
and fifth floors. The Dirlewanger people did not
stop by giving long speeches. This is how the
houses of Warsaw were cleaned up.
FIRE AND MASSACRE
Dirlewanger continued to lead from the
front, demonstrating great military know-how,
bravery, and a dare-devil attitude. At the end
of the first day, he had advanced one and a
half miles into the district of Wola, in the west
of the city. He had also burned down Wilski
Hospital and massacred 2,000 civilians. By the
third day, the Sonderkommando reached a
surviving enclave of the German garrison at
the Kierbedzia Bridge.
Dirlewanger received his final promotion
on 12 August, to Oberführer (equivalent to
brigadier), in time to lead the assault on the
Old Town. The battle raged on without respite
through August, and Dirlewanger lost first
hundreds and then thousands of men under
his command.
On 3 September the Red Army launched
their belated thrust for the Vistula, and the
Sonderkommando spent a week fighting on
two fronts, with the Poles to the west, the
Soviets to the east. On 26 September, with
Warsaw in ruins and over 150,000 civilian
casualties, the Poles surrendered.
Two weeks later Dirlewanger was awarded
the Knight’s Cross of the Iron Cross, the
ultimate endorsement of both his military
prowess and his repulsive character. With
the Knight’s Cross at his throat and his pet
September 2014
MILITARY
HISTORY
MONTHLY
During the next
ten minutes both
corpses and living
people flew out
of the windows
of the fourth and
fifth floors.
LEFT The Sonderkommando fought to the end.
Reorganised as SS Panzergrenadiers – as shown
here – the unit only finally disintegrated during
a breakout from Red Army encirclement on 21
April 1945. Did any survive? The post-war rumour
was that around 50 of the original poachers later
fought as counter-insurgents in Indochina.
Photo
: WIPL
monkey on his shoulder, Dirlewanger was
now a fully fledged hero of the Reich, a living
embodiment of the bestiality at the heart of
the Nazi regime.
THE DEATH OF DIRLEWANGER
There was no rest for the wicked: in mid-
October the Sonderkommando, expanded
to 4,000 men, was deployed to quell the
Slovakian Revolution. The unit was then
redeployed to the Oder Front in February
1945, but commander and unit finally parted
company when Dirlewanger left on the 15th of
the month, never to return.
Dirlewanger was either wounded in action
or used his previous wounds as an excuse to
prepare for the impending German defeat
and inevitable retribution that would follow.
His exact movements from February to May
will never be known, but he visited Berger
in Berlin in March and was seen at home in
Esslingen in April. Dirlewanger then arrived
in Altshausen in May, where he was arrested by
the French.
His guards were Poles and they meted out
what can only be described as poetic justice:
he was beaten and bayoneted to death over a
period of four days, and found dead in his cell
on the morning of 7 June.
So notorious had he become, however,
that the European public refused to accept
his death. Berger claimed that Dirlewanger
had been commissioned into a Western army,
and SS Standartenführer Otto Skorzeny
told an interviewer that he was working
for the Egyptian military. Rumours placed
Dirlewanger in the French Foreign Legion
and then in Württemberg (with a Syrian
passport) in 1956 and 1957. His remains were
exhumed in November 1965 and his death
confirmed beyond reasonable doubt.
At the end of February 1945, the
Sonderkommando was reinforced and
In his critical analysis of the Sonderkommando,
Christian Ingrao notes that up to 50 of the original
poachers were rumoured to have survived and
escaped captivity. George Robert Elford, who
published
Devil’s Guard in 1971, claimed that the
story had been told to him by an ex-Waff en-SS
offi cer who led a German French Foreign Legion
battalion in Indochina.
The narrator in the book, one ‘Wagemueller’,
employs pseudonyms throughout, but thinly
veiled references to the Sonderkommando abound,
beginning with his initial description of himself as ‘a
kopfj aeger – a “head-hunter” as you would say in
English’, and his unit as a ‘partisanjaeger commando’.
Wagemueller claims that members of the
Sonderkommando joined the French Foreign Legion
in 1949 and exported Nazi genocide to Indochina
until 1952, when the battalion was disbanded in
order to prevent an international outcry.
Devil’s Guard was denounced as neo-Nazi fi ction
(as were two sequels, published in 1988 and 1991),
but returned to the news when it was revealed as
the sixth most popular read of US troops in Iraq in
2008, a fact which must have caused some concern
to the Department of Defense.
Setting aside the novel’s multiple moral and
aesthetic failings, it is full of bombast, hyperbole,
and downright nonsense, but there is an undeniable
familiarity with the Sonderkommando’s operational
practices. There are also certain passages which
have a ring of truth: the fl ight from the Red Army,
the methods used to destroy a militia compound in
China, and the death of one of the poachers down
a well.
The novel is most probably entirely fi ctional, but
Elford seems to have been exceptionally thorough
in his research. For readers reliant upon English
translations,
Devil’s Guard may be debunked with
the forthcoming publication of
On the Devil’s Tail,
the memoir of Paul Martelli, an Italian who served
in the 33rd Waff en Grenadier Division of the SS
Charlemagne in 1945 and then with the French from
1951 to 1954.
Whatever the truth about Indochina, Dirlewanger
and his Sonderkommando deserve to be remem-
bered: they are a lesson from history that does not
bear repeating.
DEVIL’S GUARD: A NEO-NAZI LEGEND
RIGHT One of the few confirmed photos of the
Sonderkommando (though it may have been
posed), apparently taken in August 1944.
LEFT The first edition of Devil’s Guard.
Photo
: Bundesar
chi
v
reorganised as the 36th Waffen-SS Grenadier
Division. The unit remained on the Oder
Front under the command of Brigadeführer
Fritz Schmedes for the next two months. It
was surrounded by the Red Army in Peitz on
21 April, and dissolved in the break-out three
days later.
r
Rafe McGregor is the author of over 60 short
stories, novellas, magazine articles, and journal
papers. He holds two postgraduate degrees from the
University of York and specialises in writing and
reviewing military biographies.
6*'(#..
of the
9'56'40
41/#0'/2+4'
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6
he decline and fall of the Western Roman Empire was a
long process. Gibbon famously described the Antonine
Age (AD 138-161) as the ‘golden age’, arguing that it was
all downhill after that. Antoninus Pius’ successor, Marcus
Aurelius (who reigned from AD 161-180), certainly spent
much of this period trying to the throw the Germans back across the
Danube.
The Hollywood take – The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1964)
– certainly centres on the reign of Marcus Aurelius (Alec Guinness)
and his dissolute son and successor Commodus (Christopher
Plummer).
Others would push things later, dating the real decline from the
onset of the ‘Third Century Crisis’ (or ‘Anarchy’) of AD 235-284. What
is not in doubt is that the decline and fall of the Empire was a long
process extending over centuries.
But all great historical transformations involve tipping-points –
moments when the balance of power shifts dramatically and the effects
of underlying, drip-by-drip processes are suddenly revealed. One day
above all others has that significance in the long decline of the Roman
Empire: 9 August AD 378.
On that day, a few miles from the city of Adrianople in the eastern
Balkans, the Emperor Valens and around 30,000 soldiers were trapped
and killed by Gothic horsemen in a battle of annihilation from which
the Roman Empire never recovered.
Adrianople sounded the death-knell of the Western Roman Empire.
The East, richer and more secure, cast its Western cousin adrift and
allowed it to succumb over the succeeding century to the incursions of
Germanic barbarians.
Adrianople marked the eclipse of the heavy infantry that had saved
Greece from the Persians, carried Alexander to India, and created the
empire of the Caesars. It marked the beginning of the thousand-year
dominance of mailed horses on the battlefields of Europe.
In this month’s special feature, we analyse the battle that heralded
the end of the ancient world and the dawn of the Middle Ages.
MILITARY
HISTORY
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25
%106':6S6+/'.+0'S9#44+145S$#66.'1(#&4+#012.'S$#66.'/#2
')+00+0)
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key client groups – the soldiers and the city
mob – to be bought off with pay rises, bonuses,
and a programme of ‘bread and circuses’.
But when the legions became a garrison
army defending fixed frontiers – looking out
upon a wilderness of forest, hill-country, and
empty desert – the war subsidy dried up and
the Empire became dependent on its own
internal resources.
The ruling class remained greedy for luxury,
the soldiers for pay, the mob for spectacles.
The cost of ‘civilisation’ therefore remained
high, even though the flow of spoils to support
it had slowed to a trickle.
So began the long process whereby succes-
sive regimes ratcheted up the rate of taxation
and labour service. Without plundered gold
from abroad, the peasants had to pay more
at home. Without war captives to enslave, the
peasants had to work as serfs on the estates of
the rich and the building projects of the state.
The predator state became a cannibal state:
an expanding empire based on robbery with
violence became a stagnating empire consum-
ing its own capital.
CRISIS IN TOWN AND COUNTRY
Town and country were in crisis. The landown-
ing gentry – the mainstay of efficient local
government in the 2nd century – rarely came
to town, were no longer interested in public
building, and more often than not failed to
maintain their urban residences.
But at their country seats, too, there were
problems. Landowners discovered that the
burdens on estates meant dwindling returns.
Soon the great country houses were too
#
s the Huns advanced westwards
across South Russia in late antiq-
uity, the resistance of the (east-
ern) Ostrogothic and (western)
Visigothic kingdoms collapsed.
The Huns were nomadic pastoralists from
Central Asia who fought as light horse-archers.
They had no literature – indeed, little
culture of any sort – and they have left only
minimal traces in either the historical or the
archaeological record. Because of this, we do
not know what propelled them suddenly into
motion. But we can guess.
The Huns combined hunting and gathering
with the herding of horses, cattle, sheep, and
goats. The barrenness of the steppe and the
Huns’ primitive productive technique meant
that their poverty was extreme. There was no
margin of safety. Drought meant death on the
steppe.
So probably they were set moving by an
ecological crisis. Violence, subjugation, and
westward expansion became an escape-route
from an exhausted, overpopulated homeland.
Because they were first-class horsemen –
perhaps the finest in the world – and because
they were trained in the use of bow, lasso,
and sword from early childhood, they were
formidable warriors. The Ostrogoths (of
today’s Ukraine) and the Visigoths (of today’s
Romania), unable to stop the Hunnic tide,
fled south-westwards – towards the Roman
Empire in the Balkans.
A vast folk-movement had begun, with
profound implications for the future history
of Europe.
THE DECLINE OF ROME
By the late 4th century AD, the Roman Empire
was rotting within. Heavy taxation, forced
labour, and a swollen military-bureaucratic
complex were rendering the socio-economic
system unsustainable.
The Empire had been subsidised by war
and conquest as long as it had continued to
expand. Great inflows of booty, slaves, and
tribute had filled the coffers of the state,
enriched the Roman ruling class, and enabled
BELOW This relief panel of the Great
Ludovisi sarcophagus depicts Romans
battling Goths in the third century.
%106':6
Local villas were
being plundered
for food. The Late
Roman Empire
faced a major
military emergency.
MILITARY
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27
expensive to maintain: frescos flaked and were
not replaced; mosaics were holed and badly
patched; the water-channel got blocked and
the bath-house ran dry.
Beyond, in the villages, there was grinding
poverty and sullen resentment. Some of the
outlying farms were in ruins, the fields over-
grown; others were short of labour, animals,
and equipment – taken by military requisition-
squads as often as not – and the resources and
will to make good had gone.
Many peasants simply fled, disappearing
perhaps to another estate, perhaps to eke out a
living in the wilderness, perhaps to join outlaws
and hold up travellers on the remoter roads.
There were three worlds of late antiquity:
the world of the imperial grandees, of
emperors, generals, courtiers, bishops, and
big landlords; the world of the provincial
gentry, of ruined market towns, crumbling
villas, and bankrupt estates; and the world of
the peasantry, of tax, rent, debt, corvées, and
a desperate struggle to survive on the margins
of existence.
Because these three worlds were linked –
since grandees needed gentry to manage their
empire and peasants to create its wealth – the
great edifice of Roman imperial power was, by
the late 4th century, resting on a foundation
of crumbling sand.
THE GOTHIC INCURSION
A large mass of displaced Goths was led west
by the Visigothic chieftains Fritigern and
Alavivus. They appealed to the Eastern Roman
Emperor Valens (AD 364-378) for admission
to the Balkans. Their request was granted:
they could settle on abandoned land in fron-
tier Thrace, on the southern side of the Lower
Danube, in return for military service.
In late autumn AD 376, the Goths – men,
women, and children, perhaps 200,000 all
told – were ferried across the river. Some
immediately went east to serve in the Roman
%106':6
Image:
ak
g-images / Erich Lessing
ABOVE This allegory of the fall of the Roman
Empire depicts the ruinous landscape of Rome,
with the Colosseum and the Arch of Constantine.
Army. Others were settled around the city of
Adrianople in central Thrace. Most, however,
were left in refugee-camps in northern
Thrace, without adequate food supplies,
and prey to exploitation by corrupt Roman
officials. The starving Goths were traded dog-
meat in return for selling their families into
slavery. The going rate was one dog per slave.
Anger sometimes boiled over. There were
armed clashes. As order broke down, the
shattered remnants of the Ostrogothic people,
led by the chieftains Alatheus and Safrax, also
crossed the Danube into Roman territory,
swelling the numbers of refugees – and of
Gothic warriors.
When the corrupt Roman military com-
mander in Thrace murdered the escort of
the two Visigothic leaders as they dined with
him during negotiations, revolt exploded
across the refugee-camps and beyond. The
Gothic settlers at Adrianople and the Goths
sold into slavery joined the revolt. So, too, did
some of the provincials, including Thracian
miners – forced labourers who had recently
been rounded up and returned to work by the
Roman authorities.
The whole of Thrace was soon under
the control of the insurgents. Landlords,
tax-collectors, and corrupt contractors fled.
Local villas were plundered for food. The
Late Roman Empire faced a major military
emergency.
.
A sustained period of invasion, rebellion, and civil war.
Emperors lasted only a few years and most died violently.
At times the Empire was on the verge of total collapse.
In AD 268 the authority of the legitimate Emperor was
reduced to a rump of Balkan territory and a single
Roman army. The tide was turned only by a succession of
ruthless ‘soldier-emperors’.
AD 235-284 - THE ANARCHY
AD 235
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September 2014
AD 356
BATTLE OF
STRASBOURG
tian ruled with three
eagues, creating the
trarchy – ‘the rule of four
emperors’. The aim was to
establish tight control over
he regions into which the
mpire was now divided. The
trarchs used their power
rush remaining resistance
entral authority and to
olidate many of the ad-
forms
of
s decades.
AD 284-296 - REIGN OF DIOCLETIAN
AD 378 - BATTLE OF ADRIANOPLE
A combined army of Eastern and Western Goths
destroyed the main field-army of the Eastern
Roman Empire in a day of ferocious fighting. It was
the worst defeat of the Roman Army since Cannae
(216 BC). The Army never recovered: the loss of
military manpower could be made good only by
hiring barbarian ‘federates’ – tribal contingents
fighting under their own leaders.
AD 306-337 - REIGN OF CONSTANTINE
Constantine built on the work
of the Tetrarchs to create
a distinctive Late Roman
state. The Empire became
authoritarian, even totalitarian,
with forced labour, heavy
taxation, and a ruthless focus
on resourcing the bureaucracy
and army. A new ruling class of
imperial grandees – big landown
top officials, senior officers, and
bishops – came to dominate
society. The Christian Church
was legalised, the Court
converted, and the bishops
became a major prop of
imperial power.
AD 313
EDICT OF
MILAN
AD 312
BATTLE OF
THE MILVIAN
BRIDGE
6+/'.+0'
The last Western Roman Emperor was overthrown in
Italy by the Germanic leader Odoacer. By this time, the
rest of the Western Empire had already been lost. The
Vandals ruled in Africa. The Visigoths ruled much of Spain
and south-west Gaul. The Burgundians ruled much of the
rest of Gaul. The Franks ruled on the Lower Rhine. The
Anglo-Saxons were settling in parts of Britain. A new Early
Medieval world was taking shape.
AD 476 - OVERTHROW OF ROMULUS AUGUSTULUS
AD 451 - BATTLE OF CHÂLONS
The last great victory of the Western Roman
Empire. Roman commander Aëtius defeated
Attila, King of the Huns. The Huns withdrew
from Gaul (France) and never returned. Attila’s
Central European empire disintegrated after
his death two years later. But it was a medieval
battle in which both sides fielded armies of
barbarian horsemen. The Romans fought with
Alans and Visigoths as their allies. Roman
dependence on barbarians demonstrated the
hollowness of the Empire.
AD 429
VANDAL
INVASION OF
AFRICA
MILITARY
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29
AD 379-395
REIGN OF
THEODOSIUS
THE GREAT
AD 476
AD 410
SACK OF ROME
BY ALARIC
THE GOTH
AD 394 - BATTLE OF THE RIVER FRIGIDUS
The (Eastern) Emperor Theodosius defeated the
Western Roman Army of rebel leaders Eugenius
and Arbogast. The bulk of the fighting was done
by 20,000 Gothic federates in the service of
Theodosius, confirming the ‘barbarisation’ of the
Roman Army. This was also the last stand of
Roman paganism: with the defeat of Eugenius and
Arbogast, the temples were shut down and their
estates transferred to the Christian Church.
AD 395 - DIVISION OF ROMAN
EMPIRE INTO EAST AND WEST
Theodosius reunited the Roman
Empire for the last time, but died
within months of the Battle of the
River Frigidus. The Empire was then
divided again. Arcadius ruled in the
East, Honorius in the West. The
interests of the two halves diverged.
The East had two-thirds of the tax
revenues, but the West needed
two-thirds of the soldiers. So the
West was left to fend for itself and
eventually collapsed.
6+/'.+0'
THE LATE ROMAN ARMY
T
f J lius Caesar’s centurions, the Late
would have been unrecognisable.
of AD 235 to 284 had destroyed
ld structure, and emergency
had created a new one. The
ganisation that emerged was
ated into a new type of army by
D 284-305) and Constantine the
-337).
ere divided and many new ones
plethora of regimental titles
ersity of origins. Despite this,
y a broad, threefold distinction
anei, comitatenses, and palatini.
ei were ‘Frontier Troops’ (from
mes for ‘frontier’). They provided
s of the frontier forts and linear
Hadrian’s Wall. They tended to
de troops, mainly infantry, and
l work implies that they were
ded in the local communities
erved, such that many became
mmobile – being local men with
d
farms.
mitatenses were ‘Field Troops’
e Latin comes for ‘companions’
the Emperor). They undertook
operations both inside the
and beyond its borders, as cir-
nces required. They were higher-
soldiers than the limitanei, and
d proportion were armoured
lry, these having replaced heavy
ntry as the key shock troops of
Roman Army.
The palatini were ‘Household
roops (from the Latin palatinus
or ‘Palatine’ – the hill on
which the imperial palace was
me). They formed a growing
who guarded the Emperor and
him on campaign. They included
tion of heavy cavalry, and regi-
ncluded such honorific names as
llowers of Hercules’ – and there-
n’s Own) and Ioviani (‘followers
iocletian’s
Own).
OFFICERS AND MEN
Frontier Troops were commanded by duces
(‘dukes’), Field Troops by comites (‘counts’),
and the highest command positions, the
equivalent of modern field-marshals, were
the magistri equitum (‘masters of horse’) and
magistri peditum (‘masters of infantry’). All
officers were professionals; the days of amateur
aristocratic generals – when Roman politicians
did stints of military service as a routine part of
their career – were long past.
Units were typically between 500 and 1,000
strong. Smaller units were necessary because
warfare had become more fluid and fast-
moving. Pitched battles were no longer decided
GOTHIC LIGHT
CAVALRYMAN
Though many Goths fought on foot,
a large minority were mounted,
many of them armoured, others
more lightly equipped (as here).
They represented an intrusion
into Europe of a new way of war,
forged on the steppes of Central
Asia, that involved a combination
of missile and shock
action by cavalry
51.&+'451(
6*'#0%+'06
914.&
9#44+145
ABOVE The Sack of Rome Alaric's Visigoths in 410.
MILITARY
HISTORY
MONTHLY
30
September 2014
by the clash of compact masses of 5,000 or
more heavy infantry, but by the manoeuvres of
separate battalions of specialised troops.
The Late Roman Army was recruited mainly
in frontier areas, sometimes among the very
barbarian tribes whom the Romans were
otherwise fighting. It was, to a large degree,
Germanic in ethnic composition – even at the
most senior levels.
The rising proportion of Germans reflected
conditions inside the Roman Empire. The
legions had originally been recruited from the
prosperous free peasantry of Italy. By the 4th
century, most peasants were weighed down by
taxes, rents, and labour services; many were the
serfs of big landowners. Such men make poor
soldiers.
Germanic society was much healthier: society
was more egalitarian and democratic, and
ordinary Germans enjoyed a much greater mea-
sure of personal freedom. This distinction is
sufficient to explain the decline of the Roman
military tradition and the rise of the Germanic
warrior in Late Antiquity.
Equally significant
i f h
alry. War had become
frontier defences col
and Rome’s enemies
the West, Sassanid Pe
raided far and wide in
and tactical mobility
The proportion of ca
ten to one in three. B
by the clash of heavy
The Middle Ages, in
military terms at least
had begun.
THE GOTHIC AR
The Goths were a Ge
roots in Eastern Euro
Visigoths (Western G
Romania. Many were
relatively high propo
The Ostrogoths (East
is today Ukraine. As a
steppe – like the later
proportion than amo
fought as cavalry.
The Goths knew th
warriors stability in th
armour, typically of c
helmet of iron and co
cavalry carried an ova
kontos (a long, heavy
sword (a long, straigh
weapon). There were
formed of men who c
armour, and these es
number of short jave
The foot included
station and subject-pe
Equipment included
long swords, and batt
normally wear armou
standard oval shield.
included contingents
Battles were no longer decided by the
clash of compact masses of heavy
infantry, but by the manoeuvres of
separate battalions of specialised troops.
LATE ROMAN
INFANTRYMAN
The Roman Army mirrored the
rise of the horseman in late
antiquity: the proportion of cavalry
increased, and greater reliance was
placed on cavalry shock action in
battle. Nonetheless, the Romans
continued to field large numbers
of heavy infantry (as shown
here), and it was the destruction
of their trained regular infantry
at Adrianople that was decisive:
thereafter, Roman rulers looked
to barbarian ‘federates’ to fill the
9#44+145
MILITARY
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In a few hours of fighting on a hot August afternoon in AD 378, an army of 50,000 Gothic warriors destroyed a
Roman army and set in train the events which would bring down the Western Roman Empire.
MHM analyses the
battle that signalled the end of the ancient world.
6*'$#66.'
#&4+#012.'
#&4+#012.'
ABOVE The Goths crossed the Danube and
entered Roman territory as refugees. An entire
people was on the move – long columns of
men, women, and children searching for food.
MILITARY
HISTORY
MONTHLY
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33
Then, in early August, leaving his heavy
baggage at Adrianople, he advanced the eight
miles or so to the place where the Goths had
established a camp – a great defensive wagon-
laager – with the clear intention of giving
battle. No-one is quite sure why.
A DECEPTION PLAN?
The ancient sources for the battle are limited.
We rely mainly on the work of Ammianus
Marcellinus, a Late Roman army officer of
‘Valens was assured
that the enemy’s
host was only
10,000 strong, and
this filled him with
a rash craving to
encounter them.’
Ammianus Marcellinus
B
y the spring of AD 378, the
Roman Empire had lost control
of Thrace to a combination
of insurgent Gothic settlers
and provincial rebels. The
Goths had acted as a catalyst. Their desperate
plight as refugees had been exploited by Late
Roman officials, exposing the corruption and
greed inside the state administration. The
rebellion this had provoked had provided the
cover for a wider rebellion of the provincial
population, exposing the hollowness of the
social order as a whole.
Roman field-armies were hastened to the
scene from both East and West. The Emperor
Valens was first to arrive with the bulk of the
Eastern Roman Army. He did not immediately
seek battle with the Goths – leaving them
free to continue their campaign of looting –
perhaps awaiting the arrival of the Emperor
Gratian with reinforcements from the Western
Roman Army, perhaps allowing time for more
men of his own army to assemble, or perhaps
needing to gather intelligence because he
remained uncertain of the Goths’ where-
abouts, strength, and intentions.
Image:
akg-images / Os
prey
Publishing / A
drianople AD 378 / Ho
ward Gerr
ard
LEFT The Last Stand. As his army disintegrated,
the Emperor Valens sought refuge among
his veteran elite. They could not save him. He
perished along with two-thirds of his army.
September 2014
Greek origin, from whom we have a fairly
detailed history of the years AD 354-378.
However, Ammianus’s coverage can be
patchy, obscure, and opinionated. His nar-
rative of the actual battle comprises mainly
generic description of the kind encountered
in many ancient accounts of battles; there is
precious little information about what actu-
ally happened on 9 August AD 378. Equally
dubious is his account of Valens’s motives in
seeking battle.
We are told that Valens was advised at a
council of war to await the arrival of Gratian
and the Western Roman Army, but that ‘the
fatal obstinacy of the Emperor and the flattery
of some of his courtiers prevailed – they urged
immediate action to prevent Gratian sharing
in a victory which in their opinion was already
as good as won’.
This requires unpacking. Valens and his
officers stood to benefit greatly from a victory
won without the involvement of Western
troops: the glory would not be shared, but
more important, nor would the booty – each
man stood to gain up to twice as much in
the distribution of spoils if the Eastern Army
fought alone.
The Roman Army was an instrument of
robbery with violence. Its soldiers received
regular pay, but this was often topped up with
bonuses, and, when victories were won, the
enemy’s property was seized and survivors
were sold as slaves. Every soldier got his share
– of booty and captives.
The haul of both promised to be immense.
The Goths were refugees. Their recent
passage of the Danube had been a huge folk-
movement. They had brought their women
and children with them, and all their movable
property, and they had since been engaged
in widespread plundering. It is likely that the
wagon-laager contained a vast treasure and
tens of thousands of women and children.
FALSE INTELLIGENCE
So Ammianus’s testimony makes sense – but
only in the context that Valens, and presum-
ably many of his senior officers, were con-
vinced that they could win alone. Why should
they think this?
Ammianus supplies an answer: ‘Valens was
assured by his skirmishers that the part of
the enemy’s host that they had seen was only
10,000 strong, and this filled him with a rash
craving to encounter them.’
Not so rash if the Eastern Roman Army
was – as we suspect – around 40,000 strong.
Indeed, had this been the actual balance of
forces, the Emperor might have been consid-
ered negligent not to have sought immediate
battle, since the Goths and the provincial
rebels were at large plundering the Thracian
countryside. Any government that cannot
maintain order and protect property fails in
‘The barbarians
poured on in huge
columns, trampling
down horse and
man, and crushing
our ranks.’
Ammianus Marcellinus
For ten years, Valens ruled jointly with his other
older brother Valentinian (AD 364-375). Valentinian
was the dominant partner, a peasant who had be-
come a general and was then made emperor by his
soldiers. He inherited an Empire divided by religious
faction, for his predecessor, the Emperor Julian (AD
361-363), had attempted to restore paganism.
Valentinian divided the Empire in two, taking
responsibility for the West himself, assigning
Valens the East. Both men were fi rm Christians.
Their elevation meant that the pagan revival was
dead. Religious compromise was thrown to the
winds. Militant Christianity – and the military-
bureaucratic complex that now ruled the Roman
Empire – resumed its forward march. The old order
was sidelined by the dominant power-nexus of court,
army, Church, and an aristocracy of merit of which
the two Emperors were exemplars.
When his brother died, Valens was content
that his nephews, Gratian and Valentinian, should
succeed to joint rule in the West. He was fully
preoccupied with the struggle against the Sassanid
Persians on the Eastern frontier, his diffi culties made
worse by the rebellion of Procopius (a kinsman of
Julian), and by Gothic incursions across the Lower
Danube.
Valens was, then, an experienced ruler and general,
and he marched at the head of an army comprised
of combat veterans, when he set out to confront the
Goths at Adrianople in August AD 378.
THE EMPEROR VALENS
AD 364-378
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35
Roman Armies represented an existential
threat to the Gothic host.
Was the false intelligence that there were
only 10,000 Goths present also part of the
deception plan? In the event, the Goths
probably numbered about 200,000 in total, of
whom perhaps 50,000 were warriors, 20,000 of
them cavalry.
Then there is the well-known fact that,
when the battle began, the Gothic cavalry was
absent. Ammianus thinks the negotiations
were designed to give the cavalry more time to
reach the battlefield, messengers having been
sent to recall them once it was clear that the
Romans were in motion from Adrianople. The
cavalry were supposedly away on a foraging
and plundering mission.
But this does not quite work. The fact that
the Gothic cavalry attack fell on the Roman
army almost as soon as it was fully engaged in
its assault on the wagon-laager, and the fact
that the entire Gothic cavalry seems to have
been united for this purpose, makes it unlikely
that it had ever been widely dispersed and
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its most fundamental obligation to the social
elites it represents. Valens’s credibility and
prestige may have been at stake.
A further complication is provided by two
other reports of Ammianus. First, we are
told that Fritigern sent emissaries to Valens,
which suggests a display of Roman power as a
way of enabling the Gothic leaders to regain
control of their own hotheads: ‘He [Fritigern]
addressed Valens as his future friend and
associate, and informed him that he would
not be able to tame the fierce spirit of his
countrymen and induce them to make terms
favourable to the Romans unless he could give
them the sight of Valens’s troops close at hand
and ready for battle.’
Second, after the arrival of the Roman army
at the Gothic camp on the day of the battle,
Fritigern initiated further negotiations; these
were proceeding when, unexpectedly and
apparently without orders, certain Roman
units launched an attack and a general
engagement then began.
THE MISSING CAVALRY
What are we to make of this? Fritigern seems
to have been engaged in an elaborate ruse to
draw the Roman Emperor into battle. That
he had an interest in doing so is obvious: the
imminent junction of the Eastern and Western
‘This left the
infantry so closely
huddled together
that a man could
hardly wield his
sword or draw
back his arm.’
Ammianus Marcellinus
Image:
akg-images / Os
prey
Publishing / A
drianople AD 378 / Ho
ward Gerr
ard
BELOW Roman corruption left the Goths starving
and forced to sell themselves into slavery.
Eventually the whole nation exploded into revolt.
1
2
3
4
1
Valens orders a general attack
on the Gothic wagon-laager.
2
The wagon-laager is defended
by the Gothic infantry. The
women and children shelter in
the centre of the laager, but many
would have acted as auxiliaries to
the resistance.
64112 /18'/'065
#6 6*' $#66.'
#&4+#012.'
5
3
The Gothic cavalry arrive on the
battlefield and charge into the
exposed Roman left flank.
4
The Gothic cavalry lap round
the Roman flank and into the
rear, cutting off the retreat of the
Roman infantry.
5
The Gothic infantry join the
counterattack, falling upon the
exposed Roman right flank and
completing the encirclement of
the Roman infantry.
1(#&4+#012.'
1
1
distant; instead, perhaps, the Gothic horse-
men were simply waiting out of sight for the
moment to strike.
Adrianople, the greatest Roman defeat
since Cannae, may have been the artifice of
a master of deception and tactics – Fritigern
the Goth – who can stand comparison with the
great Hannibal of Carthage himself. We are
reading between the lines, of course, and we
will never know for sure. But the circumstan-
tial evidence seems strong.
THE ROMAN ATTACK
The day was hot. The Romans were tired,
thirsty, and hungry by the time they reached
the Gothic camp. The Goths had fired the
land around the camp for a considerable
distance, scorching the earth to deny their
enemies food and water. This, too, speaks of
deliberate preparation for a battle the Goths
were actively seeking. The negotiations at the
38
camp may have been designed simply to pro-
long the delay and further exhaust the enemy.
It was a contingent of Roman archers and
the Scutarii (‘Shield-bearers’: an elite regi-
ment) who broke the truce while hostages
were being exchanged. Valens then appears to
have ordered an immediate full-scale assault
on the wagon-laager.
This was situated on a low hill. The laager
was probably formed of four-wheeled ox-
wagons ranged end to end to create a wooden
palisade running around the entire extent of
the Gothic camp.
Most of the (mainly Visigothic) infantry –
armed with bows, javelins, spears, and swords
– will have been deployed in depth around the
September 2014
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‘The cavalry routed
with great slaughter
all that they could
come to grips with
in their wild career.’
Ammianus Marcellinus
BELOW Gothic cavalry charge into the flank of
the Roman infantry, already heavily committed
to the attack on the wagon-laager.
Image:
akg-images / Os
prey
Publishing / A
drianople AD 378 / Ho
ward Gerr
ard
39
whole of that part of the circumference under
attack, with reserves posted further back to
plug gaps and stop break-ins. The women and
children, massed in the centre of the laager,
probably assisted with the supply of missiles
and water to the Front Line, care of the
wounded, and other ancillary tasks. The pres-
ence of their families – and the mortal danger
they would face should the Romans break into
the laager – must have had a powerful moral
effect on the men in the line.
THE STRUGGLE ON THE LEFT
Valens seems to have deployed his army in
a conventional manner, with infantry in the
centre, cavalry on either wing, and a screen of
archers along the front. Ammianus provides
little assistance in reconstructing the detail of
the action, except that the decisive collision
appears to have taken place on the left.
Here, he tells us, ‘our left wing penetrated
as far as the very wagons, and would have gone
further if it had received any support, but it
was abandoned by the rest of the cavalry, and
under pressure of numbers gave way and col-
lapsed like a broken dyke’.
A little further on we hear that ‘the barbar-
ians poured on in huge columns, trampling
down horse and man, and crushing our ranks,
so as to make orderly retreat impossible’.
Since Ammianus tells us that the (mainly
Ostrogothic) cavalry under Alatheus and
Saphrax was already on the field – apparently
they had ‘shot forward like a bolt from on
high and routed with great slaughter all that
they could come to grips with in their wild
career’ – we can assume that the main weight
of the cavalry attack had fallen on the Roman
left, and that it was this that had stripped away
the Roman cavalry support on this wing, leav-
ing the infantry exposed to attack and defeat.
A LATE ROMAN CANNAE
The essence of Cannae (in 216 BC) was that
the main mass of the Roman army had been
drawn forwards onto a weak centre and then
attacked in flanks and rear by the main strike-
force of the Carthaginian army – its heavy
infantry and its shock cavalry. Adrianople
appears to have followed a similar pattern.
The main mass of the Roman army was
committed to the assault on the wagon-laager,
which was a formidable defence-work – a solid
palisade at the top of a slope held by freeborn
Gothic warriors protecting their families
and their personal property. The superb
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‘The Goth had
become the arbiter
of war, the lineal
ancestor of all
the knights of the
Middle Ages.’
Sir Charles Oman
When the Emperor Valentinian died in AD
375 – in an uncontrollable fi t of rage, it is said,
while negotiating with some barbarian lead-
ers – he was succeed by his sons Gratian and
Valentinian II (AD 375-392). But Gratian was a
teenager, Valentinian a child, and they were in
fact ciphers for their uncle, Valens: fi gurehead
rulers to secure the House of Valentinian
against usurpers in the Western Empire.
Then, suddenly and cataclysmically, the
regime was shattered in a huge and terrible
battle against the Goths in AD 378. By the time
of the battle, however, Gratian was already
leading his troops in military operations against
the Germanic tribes, and, despite his age (still
only 19), was the eff ective ruler of the Western
Empire. With Valens’s death, he became the
eff ective ruler of the Eastern Empire as well.
Gratian’s pre-eminence did not last long. He
seems to have lost his taste for politics and
generalship, lapsing into a life of indolence,
except for an obsession with hunting. Power
passed to the Frankish general Merobaudes
and to Bishop Ambrose of Milan.
By the 4th century AD, power in the
Roman Empire was in the hands of a military-
bureaucratic complex and court politics was
a ruthless struggle of heavily armed factions.
Emperors had to be eff ective military men to
survive. Gratian quickly earned the contempt of
the soldiers.
A revolt began in Britain in AD 383, led by
one Magnus Maximus, and it quickly gained
momentum. Gratian was deserted by his troops,
forced to fl ee from Paris to Lyon, and was there
betrayed and handed over to his enemies for
execution.
THE EMPEROR GRATIAN
AD 375-383
September 2014
and numerous Ostrogothic horse had then
smashed into the flank of the Roman cavalry
on the left, crushing it and driving it from the
field, thus exposing the infantry in the centre.
Elements of the Ostrogothic horse then swept
into the rear of the Roman army, paralysing its
offensive drive against the wagon-laager.
As the Roman attack ground to a halt, the
Gothic infantry joined the counterattack.
The Romans found themselves under attack
on all sides, and as they recoiled they were
forced together and become an increasingly
compressed mass, unable to manoeuvre, to
regroup, or to use weapons effectively.
‘This left the infantry unprotected,’ says
Ammianus, ‘and so closely huddled together
that a man could hardly wield his sword or
draw back his arm once he had stretched
it out… Our men were too close-packed to
have any hope of escape… In the end, when
the whole field was one dark pool of blood
and they could see nothing but heaps of slain
wherever they turned their eyes, they trampled
without scruple on the lifeless corpses.’
THE KILLING-FIELD
In this respect, too, Adrianople bears com-
parison with Cannae. The closing of the trap
in 216 BC – medium infantry in front, heavy
infantry on the flanks, cavalry in the rear –
had left the Roman legions compressed into a
shrinking space without hope of escape.
Battles of annihilation are exceptionally
rare. Usually the defeated can flee the battle-
space. When this option is shut off, while some
simply give in to despair, others may fight
with the grim determination of the doomed.
So it seems to have been at both Cannae and
Adrianople.
With the trap closed, a battle whose out-
come was perhaps decided in the first hour
may have continued for many hours more.
The Eastern Roman Army, mainly reduced to
infantry abandoned by their cavalry, will have
formed dense blocks of men, protected by
armour, shields, and levelled spears. As long as
organised resistance continued, their Gothic
enemies are likely to have remained wary. The
killing was surely protracted, continuing into
the night.
THE DEATH OF THE EMPEROR
VALENS
Most of the cavalry probably escaped, and
perhaps handfuls of the infantry. Altogether,
Image:
WIPL
THE RISE OF HEAVY HORSE
ABOVE A Visigothic heavy cavalryman as depicted on an 11th-century ivory reliquary.
The coat of mail and the pointed iron helmet remained the distinctive armour of heavy
cavalry for hundreds of years. The Bayeux Tapestry is, of course, the most famous
depiction. Note the more lightly equipped cavalryman behind the lead figure.
ABOVE A Gallo-Roman or Frankish cavalryman as depicted on an Early Medieval illuminated
manuscript illustration. Adrianople was the first great triumph of the mailed horseman
in European warfare. He would dominate the battlefield for the next thousand years.
Image:
WIPL
of the 40,000 Romans engaged, however,
more than two-thirds perished. Among them
was the Emperor Valens. Ammianus reports
that he picked his way through the mêlée
and took refuge with two elite regiments
that were standing firm, the Lancearii and
the Mattiarii, but that other units that might
have come to their assistance failed to do so.
Then, the trail goes blank: ‘Soon after
nightfall, so it was supposed, the Emperor
was mortally wounded by an arrow and
died immediately. No-one admitted that he
had seen him or been near him, and it was
presumed that he fell among the common
soldiers, but his body was never found.’
Thus, one of the two most powerful men in
the world disappeared without trace in the
anonymity of the killing-field of Adrianople.
Others of senior rank who perished
included the Grand Master of Cavalry, the
Grand Master of Infantry, the Count of the
Palace, and 35 regimental commanders. It
was a cull of the politico-military elite and
of the trained military manpower of the
Eastern Roman Empire without parallel in
six centuries.
www.military-history.org
41
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ABOVE A somewhat sensationalist depiction
of the Sack of Rome by the Goths in AD 410. It
was the first time the city had been captured
by a barbarian enemy in 800 years. The news
sent a shockwave across the ancient world.
It also marked a turning-point in the
history of war – the definitive end of the
Graeco-Roman system based on citizen
heavy infantry, and the advent of a new
Germanic way of war based on free warriors
and heavy cavalry. It is for this reason that
Charles Oman begins his great History of the
Art of War in the Middle Ages with the year AD
378.
The military importance of Adrianople was
unmistakable; it was a victory of cavalry over
infantry… Adrianople [was] the first great victory
won by that heavy cavalry which had now shown
its ability to supplant the heavy infantry of Rome
as the ruling power of war… When Valens had
gathered all the forces of the East for a decisive
battle, the day of judgement arrived. The shock
came, and, probably to his own surprise, the Goth
found that his stout lance and his good steed
would carry him through the serried ranks of the
Imperial infantry. He had become the arbiter of
war, the lineal ancestor of all the knights of the
Middle Ages, the inaugurator of that ascendancy
of the horseman which was to endure for a thou-
sand years.
.
‘The Goth cavalry
had now shown its
ability to supplant
the infantry of
Rome as the ruling
power of war.’
Sir Charles Oman
Marathon expeditionary force, all of them
fully trained and superbly equipped, all a
combination of archers, heavy infantry, and
both shock and light cavalry.
Yet the Greeks were the victors, as they
would be again, at Plataea in 479 BC, on many
subsequent battlefields, and finally, of course,
during the campaigns of Alexander the Great,
when the Hellenic military system was adapted
into an instrument of world conquest. The
military descendants of the ‘Men of Marathon’
eventually destroyed the Persian Empire and
carried their arms to the Indus.
ROMAN LEGIONS
The Romans stood in the same tradition. The
legions of the Roman Republic (509-30 BC)
were also citizen-militias. Military service was
an obligation on every able-bodied Roman
male, and, until its last century or so, the great
majority of the Republic’s legionaries were,
like the hoplites of the Greek city-states, farm-
ers and therefore part-time amateur soldiers.
Republican legionaries conquered Italy,
defeated Hannibal, destroyed the Hellenistic
kingdoms of the East, and subjugated the
Gauls. And just as Alexander had adapted the
Greek military tradition, so Augustus took
that of the Republican legions and profes-
sionalised it, creating the Imperial legions of
citizen volunteers who served for 20 years. The
#4/+'51(
(4''/'0
The military
descendants of the
‘Men of Marathon’
eventually
destroyed the
Persian Empire.
BELOW Persian Immortals shown on
a frieze in Darius's palace, Susa. The
Persian Army was defeated at Marathon
by 10,000 undertrained Greek farmers.
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42
September 2014
Roman Empire, of course, reached its greatest
extent in the heyday of the citizen legions
between the late 1st century BC and the early
3rd century AD.
The Greek phalanx and the Roman legion
were formations of free men. The Athenian
hoplites at Marathon were soldiers of a new
democracy, created in revolution only half
a generation before. The Athenian Popular
Assembly was a form of mass participatory
democracy: every adult citizen male was
entitled to attend, speak, and vote. The men
who fought at Marathon had voted for war.
The Roman state was a hybrid, but its com-
plex mechanism of interlocking magistracies
and assemblies included powerful popular
restraints on aristocratic authority. Going
to war required a decision of the Council of
the Centuries, which was effectively a mass
meeting of the Roman Army. Because the
legionaries were free citizens, they got their
share in the distribution of booty, captives,
and land, turning the Roman Army into a
highly motivated instrument of conquest.
It was the decline of free citizenship – the
increasing subordination of the mass of the
population to military dictatorship, bureau-
cratic control, high taxation, and proto-feudal
landlords – that doomed ancient civilisation.
It was this that made the Late Roman Empire
increasingly dependent on the services of
Germanic recruits and barbarian federates.
Adrianople symbolised the decline of one
military system – that of the Mediterranean
city militia of heavy infantry – and the rise of
another, that of the freeborn Germanic war-
rior of Central Europe.
.
+
n 490 BC, on a narrow coastal plain in
the Bay of Marathon, an army of about
10,000 Greek farmers defeated a Persian
army of about 30,000 professional
soldiers in a battle that seems to have lasted
barely an hour. The Greeks were a citizen-
militia – part-time amateur soldiers – who
fought as heavy infantry (hoplites) formed up
in tight-packed blocks of men (phalanxes).
They lacked both the training and the flexibil-
ity for any tactical sophistication. They were
poorly supported by auxiliary arms: neither
archery nor cavalry action seems to have
played any part in their conduct of the battle.
Up against them was an expeditionary force
of the greatest military machine in the world
at the time. The Persian ‘King of Kings’ ruled
from Thrace to India, from the Caucasus to
the Sudan, and his vast wealth and all but
limitless manpower resources meant that he
could have fielded ten armies the size of the
#0#.;5+5
ABOVE Hannibal, who was defeated by
Rome’s Republican legionaries.
#0#.;5+5
Adrianople represents the end of a thousand-year-old military tradition based on
militia service by free citizens, argues Neil Faulkner.
On 26 August 1914, the British Army fought a defensive
battle against overwhelming German forces. It was, says
Patrick Mercer, a Wellingtonian masterpiece.
Desperate
Defence
44
LE CATEAU 1914
I
mage:
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L
e Cateau was fought following two
of the most difficult days in British
military history. Having fought
the Battle of Mons on 23 August,
the British Expeditionary Force
(BEF) was struggling to extract itself from the
vice-like clamp of General von Kluck’s massive
First Army.
General Horace Smith-Dorrien, the com-
mander of II Corps, had done the bulk of the
fighting at Mons. He had been ill-served by
Field-Marshal French, the commander-in-chief
of the BEF, whose orders had been vague.
I am sent out here without even time to collect
kit, still less to make myself fully acquainted with
the situation, and I have had to make two great
decisions. When I arrived before Mons, the C-in-C
[French] told me to give battle on the line of the
Conde Canal, and, when I asked whether this
meant the offensive or the defensive, he told me to
obey orders. That fellow said to me this morning,
‘If you stand and fight, there will be another
Sedan!
But stand and fight the corps did, winning
the first VCs of the war and causing the
Germans to stall most bloodily before falling
back to a defensive line.
Then, early on Monday 24 August, French,
in the face of overwhelming pressure from the
German III, IV, and IX Corps, issued orders
for a withdrawal from the salient that Mons
had become once the French had pulled back
unexpectedly on the BEF’s right.
As the crow flies, it is slightly more than 30
miles from Mons to Le Cateau. Is it reasonable
to expect regular troops to take such distances
over a couple of days in their stride and then
be ready to do whatever their commander
decides? Perhaps it is on a peacetime exercise,
but such a view takes no account of the reali-
ties of war – especially when the enemy is on
one’s heels.
REARGUARD ACTION
Many of the BEF were experienced men,
many were also older reservists, making up as
much as 50 per cent of some units. These men
brought a useful leavening of maturity, but
few were as tough as the serving troops whose
constant regime of marching and fitness
training had brought them to a physical peak.
Combine that softness with new boots, the
hot weather, and a lack of water, and it is not
surprising that many soldiers found those 30
miles extremely tough.
Listen to what Captain Alexander Johnston
had to say:
We started our march back to Bavai, some 13
miles distant, rather stiff after a long morning’s
fight, on a very hot day, and in retirement too.
One got a slight idea of what defeat in war may be.
Wounded men had had to be left behind at Ciply,
others were in the ambulances, others bandaged up
tried to march along. Men were scattered all over
the place, very tired after the morning’s long and
anxious fighting.
Battle exhausts soldiers, not just because of
the physical effort, but because of the debili-
tating effect of fear.
The 1st Cheshires’ experience illustrates
the condition of the BEF before Le Cateau. At
Audregnies, at about tea time on 24 August,
the battalion was on the right flank of 1st
The Cheshires
even had to hide
the miniature
colour, sewn by
the regiment’s
ladies, in the roof
of a school!
LEFT The face of the professional. In a continent of
mass conscript armies, the small British Army of
1914 was an army of long-service regulars. This was
the army that fought the Battles of Mons, Le Cateau,
the Marne, the Aisne, and First Ypres. By the end
of the year, it had effectively ceased to exist. This
group – along with RN sailors and Royal Marines –
was photographed in Belgium in August 1914.
ABOVE The enemy: General Alexander von
Kluck, command of the German First Army,
with his staff in 1914 (Kluck is the figure
with greatcoat draped over shoulders).
Image:
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Norfolks, trying to cover the withdrawal of
the whole corps. Such was the intensity of
the German shelling and small-arms fire that
a host of messages telling the Cheshires to
pull back never got through, and, despite
gallant charges by the 9th Lancers and the 4th
Dragoon Guards, as well as the extraordinary
bravery of 119 Battery RA, the German 66th
and 93rd Infantry overwhelmed them. They
even had to hide the miniature colour, which
was sewn by the regiment’s ladies, in the roof
of a school!
Lieutenant-Colonel Bogers’ fine battalion
had been destroyed. That night, when the roll
was called of the survivors of the 1,007 men
and 27 officers of all the units who had fought
at Audregnies, only 192 troops and six officers
answered.
TO STAND OR NOT TO STAND
During the evening of 25 August, French
directed that there should be no stand at
the Le Cateau position. But this order did
not reach II Corps until late in the evening,
leaving its commander in a quandary. Smith-
Dorrien’s earlier quote shows that he believed
that he ‘made two great decisions’ during the
campaign – one at Mons, one at Le Cateau.
Both involved defiance of his commander-in-
chief. But what else could he do?
His men were exhausted, short of food,
and battered by combat. If other formations
had been ready to take up the fight, then
there might have been an alternative. But
Haig’s I Corps had fought its own bloody little
delaying-action at Landrecies and had then
lost touch with II Corp’s right flank. Allenby’s
cavalry division, meantime, was just as tired as
Smith-Dorrien’s infantry corps. The danger
was that the BEF would disintegrate in retreat
unless it could inflict some sort of stopping-
blow to stall the German pursuit and buy
some time.
The official history of the Northumberland
Fusiliers is revealing. The battalion’s second-
in-command, Major Yatman, said,
On the afternoon of 25 August, Smith-Dorrien
was at the side of the road when I went over to
speak to his ADC. Smith-Dorrien called out to me
and said: “Come here, I am going to tell you some-
thing which you may repeat to none but your CO.
We are going to stand and fight tomorrow. What
will your men think? Are they tired of retreating?”
I said that the men were certainly tired of retreat-
ing and would be delighted. It was some time
before I could tell Colonel Ainslie and he was then
LE CATEAU 1914
46
so harassed by other concerns that I have never
been sure that he grasped the significance of what
I told him.
Smith-Dorrien first sought the help of
Allenby’s cavalry – which was given – and then
told French that he intended to fight. It is
not recorded how much tension this caused
at the C-in-C’s HQ, but French gave formal
endorsement to the decision, with the clear
proviso that the retreat was to resume as soon
as possible.
DEPLOYING FOR BATTLE
The battalions and regiments were clearly
not expecting to fight at Le Cateau for they
had found night billets and were then turned
out at 2am so that they might continue the
withdrawal. The orders to retreat no further
had only just been received, so the troops were
told to stand down and rest until dawn.
The Northumberland’s history continues
with wry humour: ‘One gathers that where a
corps commander should have been credited
with an historic decision, a long-suffering adju-
tant was blamed for having issued the wrong
orders in the first place!’
So it was that II Corps found their fatigued,
depleted place in history. And the decision to
throw the fresh but unprepared 4th Division
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BELOW The northern sector of the
Western Front in August 1914.
Image:
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into the line was an important one, for what
they lacked in logistic, cavalry, signals, and
engineer support, they compensated for by
their numbers and eagerness to fight.
With this accretion of strength, Smith-
Dorrien was able to deploy his corps in a thin
but strong linear formation, with 5th Division
anchored to the east of and upon Le Cateau
itself, 3rd Division holding Beaumont and
Inchy in the centre, and 4th Division sealing
the western flank beyond Caudry.
The battle is best known for the daring,
highly competent use of British artillery – and
so it should be. Much is made of the lethality
of the infantry’s rifles – and the German
belief that every battalion was armed with
numerous machine-guns. But it was the 13-pdr
and 18-pdr guns, fought well forward and
often firing over open sights, that decided the
outcome.
With orders only reaching the often con-
fused and strung-out units from dawn onwards
– many of them having spent the night march-
ing and counter-marching – there was little
time for reconnaissance. The low ridge-line
of the Le Cateau-Cambrai road, behind which
French civilians had scraped some shallow
trenches, served as the axis of the position as
German guns opened the battle at about 6am
by firing on 4th Division.
THE RIGHT FLANK
On the extreme right, 14th Brigade fought
at a huge disadvantage, having to turn from
line of march to active defence in an instant,
their orders to stand having arrived at the
same time as the Germans. 11th Battery, Royal
www.military-history.org
47
Field Artillery, was hard hit: by 10am only one
of its six guns was still firing. This enabled the
German infantry to leak around the flank of
II Corps.
But they were met by 2nd King’s Own
Yorkshire Light Infantry and 2nd Suffolks.
Splendid work was done by both battalions,
but it was the Suffolks who suffered the worse
as they screened the whole of the right flank.
All morning they fought toe-to-toe with the
Germans until, at about 2.30pm, the end
came.
As the official history states,
The Germans now fell upon the Suffolks from the
front, right flank, and right rear. The turning
movement did not at once make itself felt as we
opened rapid fire … with a terrific effect. The
Germans kept sounding the British ‘cease fire’ and
gesticulating to persuade the men to surrender …
at length a rush of enemy from the rear bore down
all resistance and the Suffolks were overwhelmed.
The battalion had suffered more than
720 casualties, and today a granite memorial
stands where the Suffolks fell, louring at the
ghosts of countless Germans.
The 1st Royal West Kents from 13th Brigade
west of Le Cateau also came in for some
rough handling as the right flank was almost
turned by the Germans. But Major Hastings,
commanding C Company, underlined how
important the artillery was:
Most of our guns appeared to be in front of us, a
60-pdr battery in rear of us, and also a howitzer
battery … one battery galloped past our
MILITARY
HISTORY
MONTHLY
The danger was
that the BEF would
disintegrate unless
it could inflict
a stopping-blow
to stall the
German pursuit.
BELOW German infantry on the
march in August 1914.
Image:
WIPL
ABOVE Le Cateau was notable for the exceptional role played by the British artillery,
both horse guns and field guns. They were operated well forward, often firing over
open sights, and they suffered massive losses in both men and animals.
LE CATEAU 1914
Image:
Ian
Bull
The story of Le Cateau revolves heavily around the
commander of II Corps, General Horace Smith-
Dorrien. One of several sons of a well-connected
retired colonel, the young Smith-Dorrien gravitated
naturally to the Army aft er an unremarkable time
at Harrow. He did well enough at Sandhurst to be
selected for 95th (the Derbyshire) Regiment, a unit
that that was still basking in the glory of its achieve-
ments in the Crimea and the Mutiny.
Joining the 95th in Cork in 1877, Smith-Dorrien
soon made a mark, being appointed adjutant when
the regiment moved to Gibraltar. It was here, though,
that his maverick tendencies began to show. When a
former commanding offi cer, Lord Chelmsford, wrote
asking for two offi cers to be seconded from the 95th
to him for the Zulu campaign, Smith-Dorrien told the
colonel that Chelmsford had specifi ed that he should
be one of he two offi cers to be sent!
So began a remarkable, active-service career.
Surviving Isandlwana and being recommended for
the VC, Smith-Dorrien saw further fi ghting in Egypt,
Sikkim, Tirah, and South Africa, the last being the
place where he shot to prominence.
Initially he commanded 1st Sherwood Foresters,
but he was quickly promoted to a brigade, before
going back to India in 1901 as a major-general under
Kitchener, his friendship with whom was to infl uence
his future profoundly.
As a lieutenant-general he was given Aldershot
Command, but it was Kitchener's patronage that
saw him rushed to France and II Corps when its com-
mander, Grierson, died of a heart attack in August
1914. Bad personal relations, though, were going to
mar Smith-Dorrien's achievements.
The decision to disobey orders and fi ght at Le
Cateau caused huge friction, but it was Smith-
Dorrien's later request to abandon the Ypres
Salient – which he considered undefendable – that
gave French the excuse to remove him. It is said that
General 'Wully' Robertson (the only man to rise from
private to fi eld-marshal in the history of the Army)
delivered the news with the words, ‘Orace, you’re
to ’op it back ’ome.’ Smith-Dorrien did indeed 'op it,
never to hold an active command again.
Heavily involved in veterans' aff airs, Smith-Dorrien
was killed in a car accident in 1930.
GENERAL SIR HORACE LOCKWOOD SMITH-DORRIEN
ABOVE The Battle of Le Cateau, 26 August 1914. Smith-Dorrien’s stand at Le Cateau was a brilliantly and bravely conducted ‘Wellingtonian’
defensive battle. Heavily outnumbered and eventually prised from their position by the envelopment of the right flank, the sheer
professionalism of the BEF enabled II Corps to inflict an effective ‘stopping-blow’, disrupting and delaying the German steamroller.
49
trench within a few yards … after a bit they came
back, but it was a sad sight … a few gunners were
hanging onto the limbers and others were strag-
gling back wounded. I think that was the only gun
that came back from that battery.
THE CENTRE
With his right under pressure as 13th and
14th Brigades began to fold back, and with the
enemy at the same time massing to his front,
Brigadier-General Count Von Gliechen’s 15th
Brigade, standing at the right-centre of the
corps line, was ordered to fall back to the
south towards Estrees near Bertry, where the
next stand would be made.
There was vast confusion: ‘… as we pro-
ceeded along the road we did our best to get
the troops collected into their units, getting
single men collected into bunches, and the
bunches into groups and platoons’ despite ‘…
the shells bursting beautifully with terrific and
damnable cracks’.
Nonetheless, the brigade withdrew success-
fully, continuing to blunt the enemy’s advance.
The movement of Shaw’s 3rd Division fur-
ther left was grudging. The division had been
less hard pressed in the middle of the corps
line than 5th Division on the right. It had suc-
cessfully defended Inchy, supported by XXIII
Brigade, Royal Field Artillery’s three batteries.
Four guns of 108 Battery were so far forward
that they had to be disabled and abandoned.
But the division conformed to their neigh-
bour's movements – pulling back with fairly
light casualties as the bruised Germans failed
to harry them.
MILITARY
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It was the 13-pdr
and 18-pdr guns,
fought well forward
and often firing
over open sights,
that decided
the outcome.
ABOVE German infantry advancing
into battle in August 1914.
Image:
WIPL
THE LEFT FLANK
In the west, the left flank was held by Major-
General T D’O Snow’s 4th Division, which
had arrived in France only on 23/24 August.
Placed under command of II Corps, it had,
inexplicably, been sent forward without its
heavy battery, its cyclists, its cavalry, sappers,
signallers, ammunition train, and ambulances.
In other words, not only was Snow ‘blinded’,
but he lacked any ability to sustain himself
once his first-line stocks of ammunition, food,
and fodder had been expended.
Asked to cover a very wide front, the gap
was never properly plugged between 4th
Divison’s 11th Brigade west of Caudry and
3rd Divison’s 7th Brigade in the town itself.
This the Germans exploited, and with only his
field batteries to answer the Germans’ heavy
artillery, Snow took considerable casualties
as his division obeyed the corps’ plan to fall
back.
The unexpected arrival of Sordet’s French
cavalry corps on Snow’s left gave Smith-
Dorrien some much-needed relief for his
left flank. Yet, as Major E Collins of 1st East
Lancashire, lying wounded as his battalion
withdrew, noted,
The German guns and machine-guns advanced
on either side of the wood but did not enter it.
About an hour after darkness fell, tremendous
shelling from our side commenced. Shells of all
sorts fell around, but none came into the wood.
This silenced the German fire and they withdrew,
probably being only outposts.
THE WITHDRAWAL
By 8.30pm, only isolated bodies of British
troops remained in position along II Corp's
front. Most of these units had simply failed to
get the message to begin a general withdrawal,
and, without orders, with ammunition and
supplies failing, they fought on.
This was especially notable with units such
as 2nd Suffolks on the right and a mixture
of units from 4th Division on the left, their
tenacity doing much to prevent the Germans
from following up the general retreat. Their
resistance allowed the rest of the corps to slip
away that night toward St Quentin. But many
stayed behind forever.
LE CATEAU 1914
50
Of the 40,000 British who fought at Le
Cateau, there were 7,812 casualties, includ-
ing 2,600 taken prisoner. Thirty-eight guns
were lost, although the vast majority had had
their breech-blocks removed and their sights
destroyed.
German casualties are hard to estimate
because of the way that their records included
those at Mons and the smaller battles before
Le Cateau. However, it is thought that at least
3,000 were killed, with many more injured.
The cost in German blood was not the
crucial point, however. Although von Kluck’s
men held the field, such was the shock they
received that most of II Corps lived to fight
another day, having put sufficient distance
between themselves and their pursuers to
guarantee their escape.
As I write this, I have just returned from
the field of Le Cateau. It is a beautiful stretch
of land, crop- and grass-covered, and still
bisected by the shallow ridges that the British
defended and the roads down which they
retreated.
Dominating the position is a cemetery,
not far from where Smith-Dorrien must have
taken the decision to disobey Sir John French.
In it lie the bodies of men who turned that
disobedience into one of the finest episodes in
the British Army's history.
.
September 2014
MILITARY
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Without orders,
with ammunition
and supplies
failing, they
fought on.
I dare say nobody else cared, but to us the sword was a
wonderful thing. I had found it, rusty and in a knocked-
about scabbard, in a cupboard in the regimental
museum, and the curator told me that he would be
happy to return it to the great man’s old battalion.
It had no names or markings on it, but to my delight,
Wilkinson Sword told me that the number on its blade
showed that it had been bought by one Ensign H L
Smith-Dorrien, 95th Foot in 1877.
Thoroughly refurbished, it was carried from then on by
the adjutant, and every time I looked at the nicks on the
blade, I thought about the Zulus it must have hacked,
how it was brandished at Dargai, and how it must have
hung by the young general's side as the fate of the
British Expeditionary Force lay in Smith-Dorrien's hands
at Le Cateau in August 1914.
SMITH-DORRIEN’S SWORD
ABOVE How the public at home misunderstood the
war. This contemporary magazine image of the
Battle of Le Cateau could hardly have been more
uninformative about the realities of modern combat!
Image:
WIPL
Patrick Mercer was educated at
Sandhurst and Oxford before joining
The Sherwood Foresters, with whom he
served mainly in Northern Ireland and
Bosnia. He was the defence reporter for
BBC Radio 4's Today Programme before
being elected as an MP.
Image:
WIPL
Published in 1916, it became France’s most successful literary evocation of the realities of the
trenches. Matt Leonard explores the background to Henri Barbusse’s
Le Feu (Under Fire).
Under Fire
MILITARY
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52
September 2014
HENRI BARBUSSE
BELOW French
poilus in the
trenches of 1915.
Poilu was the
common term for an ordinary
infantryman, the equivalent
of the British ‘Tommy’.
MILITARY
HISTORY
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www.military-history.org
53
W
hen Henri Barbusse
penned Le Feu in 1916, he
struck a chord with many
in France who had tasted
war since 1914. His book
not only brought home the horrors of trench
warfare, but also the stark and visceral realities
of modern conflict.
It was a fictional story, lent verisimilitude by
the knowledge that the author had served his
own time in the squalor of the French lines,
both in Soissonnais and the Artois. It was read
by men in the trenches, many of whom wrote
to Barbusse to congratulate him. Within a year
it had sold over 200,000 copies and to this day
remains the best-selling French book on the
First World War.
POILU BARBUSSE
When war was declared, Barbusse was 41 years
old, yet he immediately volunteered for the
Army. Joining the 231st Infantry Regiment, he
spent 18 eighteen months at the Front as part
of the 55th Division.
During his time in the trenches, he expe-
rienced the full trauma of modern industrial
warfare. In January 1915 he found himself
stationed near Crouy, where in less than a week
over half his unit were killed.
He was twice cited for bravery, on one
occasion receiving the Croix de Guerre for
bringing in wounded from no-man’s-land. Like
many, he was eventually wounded in action and
never really recovered. He was invalided out of
combat duty and formally discharged in 1917.
As with many fictional accounts of the war,
the first half of
Under Fire introduces a num-
ber of disparate (and desperate) protagonists
who one by one perish in the mud, rain, and
blood, their experiences recalling those of
Barbusse and his real-life comrades-in-arms.
The second half of the book becomes more
graphic, leading to the description of the
attack on Hill 119, known as ‘the Pimple’,
where the charge across no-man’s-land is so
vividly described that the reader can almost
feel the shrapnel and bullets whistling by. The
book ends with a new beginning, an almost
biblical washing away of the old order and a
bringing in of the new.
POTERLOO
The exact places that Barbusse’s poilus find
themselves in are not always made clear, a
deliberate literary device that adds to a sense
of battle-zone disorientation in the narrative.
But several areas are specifically mentioned:
‘The village has
disappeared. There
is no longer any
shape. There is
not even an end of
wall that remains
standing.’
Henri Barbusse
ABOVE Henri Barbusse (1873-1935) and the
cover of a two-volume French edition of
Le Feu.
Ablain-Saint-Nazaire, Carency, Souchez,
the Lorette Spur, and the Zouave Valley all
feature.
These once peaceful villages and swathes of
countryside become characters in themselves,
mirroring the fate of the tale’s protagonists.
At one point, Poterloo, a soldier who before
the war had lived his whole life in the village
of Souchez, ventures back there once the
Chasseurs have retaken it. What he finds is
nothing like he remembers:
The village has disappeared, nor have I seen a
village go so completely. Ablain-Saint-Nazaire
and Carency, these still retained some shape of a
place, with their collapsed and truncated houses,
their yards heaped high with plaster and tiles.
Here, within the framework of slaughtered trees
that surrounds us, as a spectral background in
the fog, there is no longer any shape. There is not
even an end of wall, fence, or porch that remains
standing; and it amazes one to discover that there
are paving stones under the tangle of beams,
stones, and scrap-iron. This – here – was a street.
The confused and broken Poterloo cannot
even identify the house he lived in for most of
his life, such is the utter destruction:
It’s there – no, I’ve passed it. It’s not there. I
don’t know where it is – or where it was. Ah,
misery, misery!
Barbusse paints man and the shattered land-
scape of the Front as being one image, entwin-
ing the two together. Souchez and Poterloo
become indistinguishable from each other,
the fate of each framed through the oblivion
of endless mud, utter destruction, and the
hopelessness of war. Indeed, mud is a recur-
ring theme, portrayed as a sentient monster
covering everything it touches in death. Men
fade into the landscape, almost becoming one
with it, their suffering dissolving them into the
very earth.
ARTOIS
Verdun and the Chemin des Dames are often
seen as the major French battlefields of the
war; the Artois is frequently overlooked. Yet
during the first months of the conflict the
HENRI BARBUSSE
54
French suffered huge losses attempting to stop
the Germans capturing Arras. The plateau
of Notre Dame became a charnel house as a
salient formed around Carency, Souchez, and
Ablain-Saint-Nazaire.
The relentless French attacks failed to
capture the high land and slowly the area
was ground into the mud. These attacks
culminated in a concerted effort that became
known as ‘the Second Battle of the Artois’.
Barbusse had a front-row seat at this apoca-
lypse.
The battle began on 9 May 1915. Within
three days Notre Dame had not only fallen
to the French, it had also fallen into ruins.
Despite the capture of the Lorette Spur, Vimy
Ridge was not taken, and the death toll was
monstrous: the French estimated their losses
at 102,000 killed, wounded, or missing.
Nevertheless, it was a victory of sorts, in
a war where victories were in short supply,
especially for the war’s main host – a victory
the soldiers of France shared with the Foreign
Legion, Polish and Czech soldiers, and
Moroccan Zouaves, all of whom had been in
the thick of the fighting.
MOROCCANS AND POLES
Barbusse’s narrator describes the Zouaves’
attack of 16 June 1915 as ‘one of the finest of
this war or any other’. The Africans gallantly
August 2014
MILITARY
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MONTHLY
ABOVE A German war cemetery in the Artois. The experiences of Henry Barbusse on this
battleground in 1915 inspired him to write the best-selling French novel of the First World War.
Image:
autho
r
BELOW The shattered landscape of Vimy Ridge today.
Image:
autho
r
charged headlong across their now epony-
mously named valley and took their objective.
Despite this courageous act, the Zouaves’
efforts were unsupported and they soon
found themselves at the mercy of the enemy’s
guns, their bright red fezzes doing little to
camouflage them amongst what was left of the
verdant Artois fields.
The Polish and Czech efforts on the
battlefield are memorialised, too, astride the
main road from Neuville St Vaast to Souchez.
The Polish memorial was destroyed by the
Germans in 1940, but later rebuilt, only to be
storm-damaged in 1967. Repaired again, the
impressive structure carries the motto ‘For
our freedom and yours’, reminding those who
pay their respects that not all who lost their
lives under the Tricolour heralded from the
motherland.
Under Fire ends in December 1915, a mere
two months before the main French effort
switched to Verdun. Barbusse’s battlefield
would continue to burn for years, but the
French would not be involved – British and
Commonwealth troops would replace them in
this sector.
VIMY RIDGE
Despite their failure to take Vimy Ridge in
1915, the French had pushed the Germans
back to the very edge of the high ground,
leaving their line perilously vulnerable to a
sudden push. To counteract this, and because
they could no longer defend in depth, the
Germans began digging an impressive series
of tunnels and galleries designed to protect
their lines from attack. The French had
responded, but their often-crude tunnels were
quickly abandoned by the British, thereby
removing the last vestiges of the French effort
at the top of the ridge.
The final German stand came on 9 April
1917, when, during the Battle of Arras,
the Canadians charged up the ridge – and
into legend. They had no small amount of
help from the British, however, who had
constructed the infantry subways used so
effectively for the attacks: Captain Briscoe of
172 Tunnelling Company was among those
killed during the battle and is today buried in
Ecoivres Cemetery near Mont St Eloi.
The attack on Vimy Ridge was one of the
greatest Allied successes of the war. The sum-
mit was quickly taken, exposing the Douai
Plain beyond the ridge, where the Germans
could be seen in headlong retreat.
THE LABYRINTH
‘The Labyrinth’ was the soubriquet given
by both sides to an area of battlefield
immediately to the west of Neuville St Vaast
and Rolincourt. It was a part of the Front con-
sumed by a vast and confusing network of tun-
nels, bunkers, trenches, dugouts, connected
shell-holes, and mine craters. This lethal
maze played a vital role in the build-up to the
BELOW Notre Dame de Lorette cemetery: the
largest French military cemetery in the world.
Image:
autho
r
‘The worst hell of the war ... the
suffocation of the underground passages
that constantly close in on you.’
Henri Barbusse
German defences before the battle. And by
late 1917, the British also had an airfield just
below the medieval abbey at Mont St Eloi, the
pilots often daring to fly between the abbey’s
crumbling twin towers.
Barbusse describes the sheer desolation, the
mud and rain, the innumerable corpses, and
the detritus of war that made up the Labyrinth
in vivid detail – so much so that it becomes
difficult for the reader to imagine the land
around Vimy ever recovering. Yet today
many of the villages have been reconstructed
and the fertile fields are quiet once again.
Barbusse describes the place as one where the
living and the dead would continue to share
the same space. The Labyrinth still echoes
with his prophecy.
HENRI BARBUSSE
56
THE LARGEST FRENCH MILITARY
CEMETERY IN THE WORLD
On the heights of the Lorette Spur, near the
phoenix-like village of Souchez, rebuilt from
modern brick as opposed to the more tradi-
tional chalk, can be found the largest French
military cemetery in the world. A statue of
General Paul Maistre, who led his men to
‘victory’ in 1915, stands guard outside Notre
Dame de Lorette, keeping watch over the
seemingly endless white crosses – ‘on a ground
peopled with the dead’, as Barbusse put it.
The small museum at the top of the ossuary
shows the extent of the devastation around
Vimy and Souchez in 1915, and the views from
the heights make it obvious why the area was
so important to control.
Just to the south-east of Souchez can be
found the Zouave Valley, today bisected by the
A26 Autoroute. A small cemetery marks the
final resting place of 178 identified bodies –
yet amongst them are none of the Moroccans
who made that epic charge in 1915. Rather, it
is a British and Commonwealth cemetery.
The Africans rest at Notre Dame de
Lorette, and a large memorial to the division
can be found near the impressive Canadian
monument on the heights of Vimy Ridge. The
Zouave Valley cemetery was begun in May
1916 and used until June 1917, but during this
period the area was heavily shelled, causing
many of those buried there to be reinterred –
a macabre reflection of Barbusse’s notion that
the dead would rise again.
August 2014
MILITARY
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MONTHLY
ABOVE The entrance to a souterrain in Zouave Valley.
April 1917 attacks. As Barbusse described, the
French lost huge numbers in this morass of
mud and death during 1915, but without their
sacrifice it is doubtful that the attack on Vimy
Ridge would have been so successful.
By 9 April 1917, the British and Dominion
tunnelling companies had constructed
between 12 and 15 subways (depending on
how they are counted) in order to funnel men
to and from the Front Line underground and
in relative safety. Many of these subways had
their origins in, or on the outskirts of, the
Labyrinth.
Much of the area was used by the heavy
artillery that was so vital in softening up the
BELOW The detritus of battle, as seen in
Goodman Subway, explored by Durand
Group conflict archaeologists.
Image:
autho
r
Image:
autho
r
EXPLORING THE UNDERGROUND
WAR
The extent of this shelling was revealed when
battlefield archaeologists the Durand Group
attempted in late 2012 to enter the Tottenham
Subway that runs beneath the valley. Although
we failed to gain access to the subway itself,
we exposed a souterrain (an old subterranean
quarry) that had certainly been occupied at
some point by members of the British tun-
nelling companies: a distinct ‘T’ was found
engraved on one of the crumbling walls.
The chalk in the valley had been violently
shattered by the relentless bombardments that
took place during the war, making the souter-
rain so unsafe that our efforts were quickly
abandoned. Nevertheless, along the bank of
the sunken lane that runs parallel to the cem-
etery, the now-collapsed entrances to subways
could be clearly identified, hinting further
at the secrets that lie beneath the heights of
Vimy Ridge.
Further south from Souchez is the village of
Neuville St Vaast, a place central to the fight-
ing during Barbusse’s time. The village sits in
an area containing no less than eight souter-
rains, some initially occupied by the Germans
during the 1915 battles of the Artois.
The Goodman Subway, one of the major
tunnels dug for the 1917 attacks on the ridge,
had its entrance on the outskirts of the village.
Goodman is not accessible to the public, but
a section of the Grange Tunnel can be visited
and this subterranean warren demonstrates
well enough the efforts in engineering and
planning required finally to evict the Germans
from Vimy Ridge.
HIDDEN BATTLEFIELD
The Front Line described by Barbusse has
changed beyond all recognition since the end
of 1918. But it is still there, hiding beneath a
modern skim. The area’s almost ubiquitous
cemeteries and memorials speak of the trauma
Barbusse’s squad suffered, the rebuilt villages,
so clearly modern in character, narrate the
destruction of early 20th-century civilisation,
and the shattered chalk beneath the fields of
the Zouave Valley recall the bombardments
that almost drove Poterloo and the others
insane.
Finally, the warren of unseen tunnels and
souterrains that still exist demonstrate the
lengths that armies were driven to just to
seize one locally important tactical feature.
Barbusse described the tunnels of the area
as the ‘worst hell of the war’, recalling ‘the
suffocation of the underground passages that
constantly close in on you’.
The final chapter of Under Fire is entitled
‘Dawn’. To many, it is the most powerful chap-
ter of the book, a figurative piece of writing
comparing a deluge of rain after a battle to
www.military-history.org
57
MILITARY
HISTORY
MONTHLY
the great biblical flood, forever washing away
the old world.
During the conflict, Barbusse vociferously
claimed the war should be fully prosecuted:
Germany had to be defeated. But afterwards
he became an ardent pacifist, and that final
chapter came to stand for this new beginning.
CORPSES FROM THE DEPTHS
The utter hopelessness of the poilus occupying
the Artois trenches is revealed in a passage
describing a time after the main battle has
ended. The heavens have opened and the
gaunt and skeletal remains of men emerge
from the mud:
You cannot determine the identity of these
creatures, not from the clothes buried under a
layer of mud, not from their headdresses – they are
bare-headed or swathed in wool under their liquid,
ABOVE Goodman Subway.
Image:
autho
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stinking balaclavas – nor from their weapons –
they do not have their guns, or else their hands are
sliding across something which they have dragged
here, a shapeless, sticky lump like some variety of
fish… It is the end of everything.
This image of the muddy hell of the Front,
of humanity and landscape being simultane-
ously destroyed, and of men being reborn
from the slime, is a common theme of First
World War writing and poetry. It was also the
inspiration for Otto Dix’s Flanders (1936).
Both the final chapter ‘Dawn’ and Flanders,
despite their harrowing content, are actually
visions of hope, representing the start of a new
world, and, indeed, Barbusse’s work brought
hope to many people, not least the women of
France.
Historian Leonard Smith noted how
important Under Fire was to many French
women, who otherwise had little idea of the
trials of their men-folk and the reality of life
in the trenches. As Smith puts it, they turned
to Barbusse to act as a mediator between their
own suffering and those at the Front.
Yet Barbusse’s book did not impress
everyone. Writer Jean Norton Cru famously
set out after the war to devise a system that
could identify the legitimacy of men’s tales
of the trenches. According to Cru, Barbusse
could not have seen the trauma he chronicled
because his descriptions were so different to
the majority of others.
Yet Barbusse was there. He did experience
the horrors he describes. And like his visions
of landscapes reborn and the living sharing
the earth with the dead, in the archaeology of
the Labyrinth the veracity of his story finds its
confirmation.
.
Matt Leonard is an active modern conflict
archaeologist and a member of the Durand Group,
which researches the underground war on the
Western Front. More of his work can be found at
www.modernconflictarchaeology.com
HENRI BARBUSSE
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‘They do not have
their guns, or else
their hands are
sliding across
something
which they have
dragged here, a
shapeless, sticky
lump like some
variety of fish...’
Henri Barbusse
ABOVE Flanders, 1936, by Otto Dix.
I
H
SEPTEMBER
Every month, The Debrief brings you the very best in fi lm and book
reviews, along with suggested military history events and must-see museums.
Whether you plan to be at home or out in the fi eld, our team of expert reviewers
deliver the best recommendations for keeping military history fans entertained.
09/14
recommen
ds
MHM
M
IL
ITA
RY
HIS
TORY MONT
HLY
Agent Cicero: Hitler’s most
successful spy by Mark Simmons,
Defending Nottinghamshire by Mike
Osborne, and
Collision of Empires
by Prit Buttar. Taylor
Downing studies Jean
Renoir’s
La Grande
Illusion, and MHM
reviews Georgeian
drama,
In Bloom.
The new First World War Galleries and
reopening of the IWM London. We also
recommend the Largs Viking Festival,
the Duxford Air Show, and the Tyranny
and Treason London tour.
This month we have entry to
Apsley House and dinner at
Le Garrick to be won.
WIN!
ENTRY
TICKETS AND
DINNER
TOP 5
CAPTION COMPETITION
WAR ON FILM
MUSEUM
LISTINGS WHAT’S ON
MI
LIT
ARY
HISTORY MONT
HLY
MIL
ITAR
Y HISTORY MO
NTH
LY
5
BOOKS
HIGHLIGHT
SIR ALAN
COBHAM’S
FLYING
CIRCUS
RECOMMENDED
Ring of Steel
by Alexander
Watson
J
ean Renoir’s 1937 fi lm
La Grande
Illusion is oft en regarded as one
of the great masterpieces of world
cinema. In polls of the fi nest fi lms ever
made it frequently appears in the top
ten. It is for most part set in various
WWI German prisoner-of-war camps
and presents Renoir’s view of the
break-up of the old social order by the
war. It is a classic war fi lm but contains
no scenes of combat. To many British
viewers used to a diet of WWII PoW
fi lms, it is also the mother of all escape
movies.
Jean Renoir was the son of the
impressionist painter Auguste Renoir
and grew up in artistic circles in the
south of France. During the First World
War he served in the French cavalry
and was shot in the leg. He transferred
to the air force and qualifi ed as a
reconnaissance pilot. Wounded in a
crash landing, Renoir was recovering
in Paris when he started to visit the
cinema and became entranced by the
fi lms of Charlie Chaplin. He watched
every Chaplin fi lm and, as he later put
it, ‘became a fanatical cinema fan’.
He began to notice diff erences in
the look and feel of diff erent fi lms and
realised this was down to the director.
He became a particular admirer of
D W Griffi th, the great American direc-
tor who helped transform cinema into
a major art form in its own right, with
long and powerful fi lms like The Birth
of a Nation (1915) and Intolerance
(1916).
Aft er a brief period as a ceramic
artist, Renoir decided to commit his
life to his passion. He began to direct
in 1924 and made several fi lms for
the ‘silent’ cinema, fi nanced by selling
his father’s paintings. But it was not
until the advent of talkies that he had
any real commercial success. Aft er a
string of popular fi lms, Renoir started
to write and direct one of his greatest
fi lms,
La Grande Illusion.
The fi lm begins in a French air-force
base where an aristocrat pilot, Captain
de Boeldieu (played by Pierre Fresnay)
wants to discover what a mysterious
grey spot on an aerial photograph
reveals. He fl ies off to take a look
along with his mechanic, Lieutenant
Maréchal, played superbly by one
of the great French actors of this era,
Jean Gabin. The fi lm then cuts to a
German squadron where Captain von
Rauff enstein (played by Erich von
Stroheim) enters, saying he has just
shot down a French aircraft . He sends
September 2014
O
an aide to fi nd out if the two men in
the plane are offi cers and, if so, to
invite them to lunch.
OFFICER TREATMENT
Boeldieu and Maréchal are brought
in and Rauff enstein announces he is
honoured to have French guests. His
politeness represented what was
widely thought to be the chivalry of
aerial combat in the First World War –
in fact it was a vicious business and by
April 1917 the average life expectancy
of a new British fi ghter pilot was only
two weeks.
But Rauff enstein and Boeldieu are
aristocrats and they soon establish a
rapport. It turns out the German knew
the Frenchman’s cousin in Berlin before
the war and they both used to eat
at the same fi ne restaurants in Paris.
They speak in French, occasionally
dropping into English, so no-one else
can understand what they are saying.
Boeldieu and Maréchal are then
taken to a prisoner-of-war camp,
where the German commandant reads
out the rules expected of captured
offi cers and says that they will be living
under German military law. ‘Remember
your manners,’ says Boeldieu to a
camp guard who rather roughly tries to
search him. The two newcomers join a
lively group of prisoners, one of whom,
Rosenthal (Marcel Dalio), turns out to
be from a wealthy Jewish banking fam-
ily who regularly supply him with lavish
food parcels which he generously
shares with his roommates.
When they sit down to their fi rst
meal, they are off ered a fi ne menu to
choose from, with cognac as an aperitif.
Boeldieu and Maréchal are soon told
that their roommates are digging a
tunnel and are shown how this is
done. Each man goes down for a night
of digging with air pumped through a
ventilation system, and the earth they
bring up is scattered around the camp
in the gardens they look aft er. So far,
so much like Stalag Luft III and the
Second World War.
The prisoners put on a vaudeville
show with the British prisoners
FILM | CLASSIC
LA GRANDE ILLUSION
Réalisation d'art cinématographique
£19.99
TAYLOR DOWNING REVIEWS A CLASSIC WAR MOVIE
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dressed up as women, dancing and
singing
It’s a Long Way to Tipperary.
The show is interrupted by Maréchal,
who has news that Fort Douaumont
at Verdun has been recaptured from
the Germans. The audience erupts in
spontaneous singing of
La Marseillaise.
Maréchal is thrown into solitary
confi nement where he nearly breaks
down. On release he rejoins his friends,
who are now only a few days away
from completing their tunnel. But their
escape plans are suddenly foiled when
they are transferred to another prison
camp. A group of British offi cers arrive
to replace them. Maréchal tries to pass
on information about the tunnel to one
of the British offi cers, but he speaks no
French and cannot understand what
he is being told.
VON RAUFFENSTEIN’S
RETURN
Time passes and Boeldieu and
Maréchal go through a series of camps
where they repeatedly try to escape.
Finally they are brought to a Colditz-
like citadel called Wintersborn (fi lmed
at Haut-Koenigsbourg Castle in Alsace).
Here the commandant is none other
than the impeccably mannered Von
Rauff enstein, who has been shot down
and wounded, and given the job of
running a prison camp.
Von Stroheim provides one of the
great standout performances as the
German aristocrat who is desperate
to off er Boeldieu the sort of treatment
that a man of his class deserves. He
apologises that he does not have a
private room for him. He explains, ‘I
respect your patriotism and courage,
but here escape is impossible.’ When
he fi nds his guards carrying out a
routine room inspection he orders
them to stop searching Boeldieu’s
quarter. ‘Give me your word there is
nothing here against regulations,’ he
says. ‘I do,’ replies Boeldieu. His space
is left alone.
Later, the French aristocrat is invited
to the German’s rooms for drinks. They
discuss horse races before the war.
Rauff enstein says he despises his new
job and that he is now simply a civil
servant, a functionary. ‘I do not know
who will win this war,’ he tells the
Frenchman, ‘but I do know one thing:
the end of it will be the end of the
Rauff ensteins and the Boeldieus.’
‘But perhaps there is no more need
for us,’ replies Boeldieu. Here is one of
Renoir’s central themes. The war has
swept away the old class system,
Erich von Stroheim’s ramrod
performance as the German
aristocrat Captain von
Rauffenstein provides some of
the most memorable moments
in La Grande Illusion. From his
first appearance as the German
fighter pilot who wants to invite
the pilots he has shot down to
lunch (if they are officers), to
his final sequence at the bedside
of the fellow aristocrat he has
been forced to shoot, he steals
every scene in which he appears.
Von Stroheim was an Austrian
who had emigrated to the
United States in 1909. Although
from a middle-class family, on
arriving in the States he claimed
to be an Austrian nobleman and
seems to have convinced most
Americans of this.
In 1915 he went to Hollywood
where he began to act in
films, and after the war started
directing. Everything about
von Stroheim was larger than
life and he rapidly acquired a
reputation for obsessively spend-
ing vast sums on his productions.
His film Foolish Wives (1922) was
supposedly the first movie ever
to cost one million dollars. In
1924 he spent two months shoot-
ing in Death Valley for his film
Greed, the original version of
which was ten hours long, later
edited down to four hours.
In the 1930s von Stroheim
returned to acting and spent
some time in France, where
Renoir asked him to appear in
La Grande Illusion. It is interest-
ing that although von Stroheim
plays a German stereotype, the
monocled Prussian aristocrat,
there is nothing stereotypical
about his performance. He
plays a man who wants to
believe the best in people and
who willingly trusts a man of his
own social rank, even though
he is an enemy. It is this quality
that makes his performance
stand out.
Despite von Stroheim’s
Austrian origins, Renoir says in
his memoirs that he could hardly
speak German and had to learn
his lines like a schoolboy learn-
ing a foreign language. Maybe
that is why he can both repre-
sent and transcend the image of
a typical German officer.
September 2014
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MILITARY
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despite values that transcended
borders and nationalities.
Boeldieu and Maréchal fi nd them-
selves billeted again with Rosenthal
and his luxurious food parcels. There
is a rare moment of humour when
the Russian prisoners receive a large
parcel ‘from the Empress’. Anticipating
crates of vodka and lashings of caviar,
they invite the Frenchmen to join
them. But they open the crate to fi nd
it is packed not with food and drink
but with books – introductions to
algebra, geometry, and the like. In a
fury the Russians set fi re to the case,
creating a major distraction for the
guards – which gives Boeldieu an idea
for an escape.
ESCAPE PLAN
The Frenchmen make a rope long
enough to let them escape down the
side of the castle. One evening they
stage a mass distraction by playing
fl utes and banging saucepans. While
the guards are busy confi scating these
items, Maréchal and Rosenthal slip
out of a side window and down the
castle wall.
Boeldieu, who has volunteered to
stay behind, gets up on the roof to
continue to distract the guards. They
open fi re on him, but Rauff enstein
arrives and orders them to cease fi ring.
He begs Boeldieu to come down or
he will have to shoot him, which he
dreads having to do.
Boeldieu stays on the roof and
Rauff enstein shoots him, aiming for
his legs but hitting him in the stomach.
Then he is told that Maréchal and
Rosenthal have escaped. He realises
he has been duped and orders a
search. But Boeldieu has played his
part like a hero and the two men
have had enough time to get clean
away. Rauff enstein tends Boeldieu in
a hospital bed and asks for his forgive-
ness. ‘I would have done the same,’
says Boeldieu before expiring.
Meanwhile, trying to survive in the
countryside, travelling only at night,
the exhausted Maréchal and Rosenthal
argue bitterly. Rosenthal is wounded in
the foot and Maréchal feels he is hold-
ing him back. Exasperated, Rosenthal
tells him to go on without him. But
Maréchal returns and they continue
together and take refuge in a mountain
barn. There they are discovered by a
German farm woman named Elsa (Dita
Parlo).
Elsa takes the two Frenchmen into
her home, feeds them, and attends
to Rosenthal’s wounded foot. When a
German army patrol passes, she does
not give them away. She reveals her
husband died at Verdun and her three
brothers died in other battles. She and
Maréchal fall in love, despite coming
from countries that are at war and
neither speaking the other’s language.
Maréchal looks aft er the farm and
entertains Elsa’s young daughter
Lotte. But with Rosenthal recovered
from his injury, the day comes when
the two escapees have to leave. In a
tearful farewell, Maréchal tells Elsa
that aft er the war he will come back
and take her and Lotte to France. The
two Frenchmen head off across the
mountains. In a fi nal scene they are
spotted by German border guards,
but one of them calls out, ‘Don’t fi re,
they are in Switzerland.’ The two have
made it to freedom and in the last
scene trudge through the white snow
into the distance.
FRONT POPULAIRE
Renoir was close to the French Front
Populaire (Popular Front). This was an
During the war, both sides accused the other of maltreating their
prisoners, partly to discourage their own troops from surrendering to
the enemy. The Germans soon had enormous numbers of prisoners to
supervise: over 200,000 by the end of September 1914; 650,000 by early
1915; 1.6 million by August 1917; and over 2.4 million by October 1918.
Three hundred new camps had to be built during the war to house
these vast numbers. Despite internationally agreed rules from the
Hague Convention of 1907 about the treatment of prisoners, life for
many PoWs was harsh and malnutrition was widespread, particularly as
the Allied naval blockade on Germany severely restricted food supplies.
Officers were taken to their own camps (Offizierlager), often in
existing buildings where living conditions were usually better than for
those of the other ranks, who might be settled in camps of specially con-
structed wooden barracks, each one of which accommodated 250 men
(Mannschaftslager). In these insanitary and overcrowded conditions,
outbreaks of cholera or typhus were not unusual.
All nations forced prisoners into labour battalions. The vast majority
of Allied prisoners worked in agriculture, some in German industry or
mines, but quite a few prisoners in camps that were in the vicinity of the
Western Front were forced to dig trenches, construct defences, or bury
bodies.
British and French prisoners were able to receive parcels either from
the Red Cross or other international bodies, or from their families, as is
the case in
La Grande Illusion. Food parcels were particularly well liked.
Russian prisoners rarely received parcels as their families were too poor
to send them.
During late 1917 and 1918, the conditions of British and French
prisoners in German camps worsened markedly as the naval blockade
tightened and PoWs often suffered from starvation and repeated beat-
ings. At the end of the war there was an eruption of anger about the
maltreatment of Allied prisoners and seven of the 12 Germans charged
with war crimes at the Leipzig Trials in 1921 were from prison camps.
By the mid 1930s, however, this memory had faded, and, in the hope
of reconciliation between the European powers, a rosier picture was
painted of the prisoner experience. La Grande Illusion was very much
part of this trend. Indeed, one recent historian has said the film pres-
ents ‘a great illusion’ in itself in its sanitisation of the PoW experience.
TREATMENT OF ALLIED PoWs IN WWI
alliance of left -wing parties that came
to power in 1936 and was led by Prime
Minister Léon Blum. For a year, while
Renoir was making
La Grande Illusion,
the Popular Front introduced a range of
socialist policies and strengthened the
position of the trade unions.
But the economy was in decline and
Blum’s government was forced out
of offi ce in 1937, leading to a run of
short-term administrations that left the
French state fundamentally weakened
by the time of the Second World War.
But in this brief period of socialist
reform, Renoir’s
La Grande Illusion
shared ideas of the need for a
European reconciliation – symbolised
by the relationship between Maréchal
and Elsa – and of the need for a com-
mon shared humanity that had once
been epitomised by the aristocratic
classes of Europe.
The Germans of this fi lm are not
evil, violent, or aggressive, as usually
presented. They are honourable,
reasonable, and fair. The worse you
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get from a German guard is a slightly
rough search of your possessions.
Renoir knew this was not typical but
argued that he was producing a work
of art – not an historical documentary.
The theme of class runs through the
fi lm, with the aristocrats in their old
world, Rosenthal representing the
nouveaux riches, and Maréchal, a
mechanic of humble working-class
origins, showing the way to the future.
This is all a bit too heavily laid on
and at times the message of the fi lm
seems to overpower the narrative. Also,
of course, despite the fi lm’s appeal,
its message was going against the
fl ow. Hitler’s Germany was, at the time,
forcing Europe to take sides once again.
Reconciliation between the peoples
of Europe was rapidly becoming an
impossibility.
So what is the ‘great illusion’ of the
title? Part of it is that war is grand and
noble and the causes that inspire men
to fi ght are high and mighty. As Renoir
later wrote, ‘The motherland and
national honour are noble ideals, but
to someone crouching in the bottom
of a trench they are not worth a pair of
dry boots.’
Maybe the illusion is that wars can
never be fought by gentlemen in an
honourable way. Part of the illusion is
that the Great War was the war to end
all wars. When Renoir was making La
Grande Illusion, Hitler’s Germany had
already reoccupied the Rhineland and
was demanding greater living space
for its people. Only two years aft er
the fi lm’s release, the world would be
engulfed in another war.
Perhaps Renoir’s great illusion was
simply to believe that there could ever
be a time when nations were no longer
at war.
.
Set against the civil war-ravaged backdrop of post-Soviet Georgia in 1992,
this intelligent drama addresses serious themes with gentleness and
occasional humour. Before exploring these, however, the fi rst thing to
mention is the acting, which is superb. For directors Simon Groß and Nana
Ekvtimishvili, discovering young lead actors Lika Babluani and Mariam
Bokeria must have felt like a miracle.
The two play 14-year-old best friends Eka and Natia, teenagers growing
up in the Georgian capital Tbilisi. The city is depicted as chaotic, cracking
at the seams. Tensions are high and public shouting matches are frequent.
Here, citizens push and shove for their daily bread rations, and violence
– although a distant threat in the northern Abkhazia region – is the
dominating topic of the adults’ conversations.
In this midst of this male-dominated confrontational environment, the
two friends, on the whole, smile their way through stern lectures from
the intimidating school teacher, and unwelcome and increasingly regular
attention from men. That is until one boy with whom Natia – the older-
looking and more mature of the two – has been fl irting, off ers her a pistol
and a bullet as a present, with the promise of more ammunition to come.
Chekov’s rule was that if you introduce a gun in the fi rst act, it has to
have gone off by the third. Is this gun going to go off ? If so, how, and
who will it aff ect? Mathieu Kassovitz used this device with great skill and
success in his 1995 fi lm
La Haine, and here it appears again to completely
transform the narrative of the fi lm.
The girls’ hitherto unbreakable friendship is challenged by the
appearance of this violent symbol, as they pass the gun between each
other, mystifi ed by its power and potential. Narratively speaking, its main
purpose is to protect Natia from being kidnapped and forced into marriage,
a practice which, although now illegal, was rife at the time.
This is a clever coming-of-age drama with a military twist. Lighter
moments are never far from the shadows of violence and confl ict. The use
of these non-professional leads makes for an unaff ected and sensitively
directed work, a deserving winner of the Berlin Film Festival and a worthy
Georgian submission for the Academy Awards’ best fi lm.
FILM | NEW RELEASE
IN BLOOM
Artifi cial Eye
£15.99
Director: Jean Renoir. Writers: Jean Renoir and Charles Spaak.
Photography: Christian Matras. Designer: Eugene Lourié. Assistant
Director: Jacques Becker. Starring: Jean Gabin as Maréchal, Pierre
Fresnay as de Boeldieu, and Erich von Stroheim as von Rauffenstein.
A StudioCanal DVD.
LA GRANDE ILLUSION (1937)
T
he disastrous impact of the
First World War on the peoples
of the Central Powers forms a
central thesis of Alexander Watson’s
insightful and ground-breaking study
of Germany and Austria-Hungary
at war.
The book sets out to explore the
experiences of the people of these
states, their post-war radicalisation,
and how the misery and hardships
they endured led to almost total social
collapse aft er 1918. The story has
not been told in such depth until now,
and what emerges from these pages
is a tragic tale of ruthless cruelty, as
the Allies threw what the author has
termed a ‘ring of steel’ around the
Central Powers. Mass starvation led to
social breakdown and violent unrest.
The ordinary people of Germany
and Austria-Hungary lie at the heart
of this account. Whether standing in
food queues or fi ghting in the trenches,
people’s fears, desires, and ordeals
were central to the confl ict.
One of the most fascinating subjects
covered in the book is the role played
by wartime propaganda. Watson
poses the question of why people held
out for so long in the face of terrible
hardship and against dreadful odds. In
part, they had no choice. But coercion
by the state is not the only answer.
to make sense of a defeat following
so many millions of deaths. In such
an atmosphere of popular outrage
and exasperation, the republics that
replaced the discredited empires,
Watson contends, were undermined
by the war’s bitter legacy.
One of the author’s arguments is
that President Woodrow Wilson made
a fatal mistake in placing people’s
self-determination at the centre of his
post-war vision. Watson points out
that while the slogan made eff ective
wartime propaganda, it also ensured
Woodrow Wilson’s post-war order
would be discredited in many eyes.
‘The reason for this was simple,’ he
says. ‘So mixed were the peoples of
east-central Europe that not everyone
could be permitted to exercise this
new right.’ The non-application of
national self-determination was
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‘Persuasion was at a premium,’
Watson observes, ‘and propaganda,
the dark art of guiding opinion, be-
came ever more important. Ideas able
to inspire the masses were turned into
powerful weapons of war.’
General Erich Ludendorff , the chief
manager of the German war eff ort,
introduced a programme of ‘Patriotic
Instruction’ in 1917 to rejuvenate the
troops’ combat eff ectiveness and
instil confi dence in victory. Watson
describes it as ‘a pioneering attempt
both to raise morale and to indoctri-
nate troops’.
The propaganda sought to rekindle
fears of invasion that had been live
in 1914, when the Russian Army had
rolled into East Prussia. Germany’s
leaders warned their people of the
national trauma if they lost the war,
with German territory invaded and
laid waste. This scare-mongering was
reinforced by horror tales of Cossacks
and other Russians charging through
villages, burning and destroying
everything in their path.
Eff ective though this propaganda
campaign may have been, Germany
would have saved its people much
suff ering by suing for an armistice on
reasonable terms earlier in the war.
When it was fi nally over, Germans
and Austro-Hungarians struggled
OF T E
T
RING OF STEEL:
GERMANY AND
AUSTRIA-HUNGARY
AT WAR, 1914-1918
Alexander Watson
Allen Lane, 2014, £30
ISBN 978-1846142215
WITH JULES STEWART
recommen
ds
MHM
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RY
HIS
TORY MONT
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Propaganda, the dark art of
guiding opinion, became vital.
demonstrated when German Austrians
were forbidden to join Germany.
The humiliation of the German and
Hungarian peoples under the Treaty of
Versailles could not have been more
complete. Watson explains clearly
why neither country’s government
ever accepted them: Germany was
deprived of 13 per cent of its territory
and ten per cent of its population, and
Hungary lost 74 per cent.
‘Within a decade, there was little left
of Woodrow Wilson’s new democratic
order, for most of the east had fallen
under the rule of autocratic strong-
men,’ Watson points out. The misery
and sacrifi ce had exceeded anything
in living memory. People now found
themselves living under terrible social
and political conditions, which, in the
minds of many, raised the question of
what it had all been for.
.
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T
he phenomenon of senior civil
servants being careless with
sensitive files, so frequently
in the news at the moment, is
nothing new. In his latest book,
Mark Simmons recounts how the
lackadaisical behaviour of Sir Hughe
Knatchbull-Hugessen, the British
Ambassador to Turkey during WWII,
gave an inadvertent opportunity
to one of Hitler’s most effective
spies to seize a wealth of top-secret
information and put the entire Allied
war effort potentially in jeopardy.
Agent Cicero, the German spy,
was not motivated by ideology.
When questioned by his SD (Secret
Service) handler, Ludwig Moyzisch,
the trade attaché at Ankara, he
claimed that his father had been
killed by the British. However, this
was later found to be a lie.
Elyesa Bazna, Cicero’s real name,
had been born to Albanian parents
in Kosovo in 1904. Moving to
Istanbul as a young man, he had
been arrested as a petty criminal
and taken to a labour camp in
France following the occupation in
WWI. There he learned the trade of
a locksmith, but later returned to
Istanbul to work as a taxi driver.
OO S
AGENT CICERO: HITLER’S MOST
SUCCESSFUL SPY
Mark Simmons
The History Press, £14.99
ISBN 978-0750952866
THE BEST NEW MILITARY HISTORY TITLES THIS MONTH
BAZNA UNDERSTOOD THAT
HE HAD AN UNPRECEDENTED
OPPORTUNITY TO MAKE
MONEY AND WIN SUCCESS.
He attempted without success
to reinvent himself as a singer, and
eventually ended up working as a
valet in the circuit of embassies in
Ankara. In 1942, following minimal
vetting, he took up such a role with
Sir Hughe Knatchbull-Hugessen.
Realising that he could access Sir
Hughe’s safe, that Sir Hughe was
not always as careful as he should
have been with classified docu-
ments, and that he frequently used
sleeping tablets, Bazna understood
that he had an unprecedented
opportunity to make money and win
success by moonlighting as a spy
for the Axis.
When Bazna approached
Moyzisch and asked for the vast
sum of £20,000 per roll of British
photographed documents, the
latter was initially sceptical. Bazna
was hardly a prepossessing or
convincing character, but having
consulted with Berlin they got the
go-ahead. It was a gamble worth
taking. Although Turkey at this point
was neutral, it was still regarded as
a ‘crucible of the war’. During 1942
Churchill became increasingly eager
to press Turkey to enter the war on
the Allies’ side, particularly to assist
with operations in the Aegean. Sir
Hughe was integral to this effort
of persuasion, and hence was
furnished with some of the Allies’
most sensitive information.
Bazna took full advantage of
this and was able to pass to the
Germans a wide range of material.
This included an account of the
Tehran conference with references
to Operation Overlord; details of
other military operations such as
the air-raids on Sofia; the ‘Accolade’
and ‘Anvil’ bombing operations in
the Dodecanese and Normandy;
Operation Saturn on the Eastern
Front; and documents about the
evolving relationship between
Turkey and the Allies in the context
of the war.
In the end, Bazna passed to the
Germans around 150 documents,
and was supposedly paid £300,000.
Simmons' well-researched and
fascinating study shows how
nothing ended well for any of the
participants. Bazna’s work was
detected by a British agent in 1944
and he was forced to flee. He then
discovered that much of the money
he had been paid was counterfeit,
and after the war attempted unsuc-
cessfully to sue the West German
government for acting in bad faith.
When the story was made into the
1952 film
Five Fingers, with James
Mason as Agent Cicero, Bazna
received no benefit. He ended up
as a night watchman in Munich. The
German authorities, although lucky
to have Bazna’s documents, failed
to make much use of them, either
distrusting Bazna or simply passing
over them. When Moyzisch revealed
the affair in his 1950 autobiography,
Sir Hughe was humiliated by being
rebuked in Parliament.
Simmons book is an excellent
treatment of the Cicero affair, vividly
illuminating not only Bazna, but also
the tensions among the German
establishment over the affair, and
its repercussions in the wider
context of the war.
It should also remind modern civil
servants of the possible conse-
quences of carelessness with files.
BIJAN OMRANI
September 2014
70
MILITARY
HISTORY
MONTHLY
I
t is worth keeping in mind in this commemorative year that all was not quiet on the Eastern Front during the Great War. Far
from it. Prit Buttar reminds us that while slaughter engulfed Ypres, the Somme, and Passchendaele, ‘another war raged in
Eastern Europe, consuming soldiers on a scale to match the bloody battles of the Western Front’.
Collision of Empires tells the story of this other theatre of war in 1914, from the Battles of the Masurian Lakes and Tan-
nenberg in East Prussia, to the vicious fi ghting in the Carpathian Mountains.
This was the battlefi eld for the armies of the great powers in Eastern Europe – Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Russia, the
colliding empires of the book’s title.
The east played a role of paramount importance in 1914. Germany, when unleashing its armies against France, remained
ever fearful of the Russians on their eastern frontier. ‘The greatest fear of all for Germany was that the country would fi nd
itself involved in a two-front war,’ explains Buttar. One wonders whether Hitler, had he served on the Eastern Front in the First
World War rather than the Western, might have been more cautious about launching his attack on Russia in 1941.
The book covers the strategies employed, the political decision-makers, the military commanders, and the battles fought
during the fi rst fi ve months of war. Buttar’s battle descriptions are based on research in various European archives, much of it
new material.
There are also numerous fi rst-hand accounts, one of the most graphic of which is that of an American war correspondent
at the Battle for the Masurian Lakes. ‘The German artillery today beat back, in a bloody, ghastly smear of men, the Russian
advance.’ When this was repulsed by the Germans, ‘more horrible than the sight of the dead were the squirming, tossing
fi gures everywhere. The wounded!’
As the Eastern Front became a charnel house comparable in scale with the Western Front, it became apparent that the
quick war expected by the three great powers was not to be. In the east, as in the west, the armies of Germany, Austria-
Hungary, and Russia had been unable to land a decisive blow.
JULES STEWART
T
he latest in Mike Osborne’s indispensable series exploring Britain’s defences on a county-by-county basis looks at
Nottinghamshire, a county whose position at the very heart of England has given it important strategic signifi cance.
It is criss-crossed by a number of strategic routes – the River Trent, the Fosse Way, and the Great North Road in-
cluded – leading to a great deal of military activity over the centuries, and leaving a strong impression on the modern
landscape.
The format follows that of previous titles in the series, describing the defences chronologically. It is no surprise that
Newark-upon-Trent, with the best concentration of English Civil War-period defences anywhere in the country, features
prominently. On the other hand, in common with other titles in the series, half of
Defending Nottinghamshire focuses on
the 20th century.
Central to the fi rst half of the book are the castles at Newark and Nottingham. The story of Nottingham Castle, removed
from the legend of Robin Hood, is particularly interesting, although the account makes no mention of Ye Olde Trip To Jeru-
salem, which is built into the castle rock and reputedly the oldest pub in England.
The author considers ‘defending’ Nottinghamshire in its broadest sense. For example, the section on the Great War looks
at the county’s military formations and how they were deployed, both at home and abroad, military hospitals, and the
county’s various munition works.
The story of the RAF in Nottinghamshire between the wars is fascinating. I was intrigued to learn that the design for
buildings at several aerodromes was vetted by both Edwin Lutyens and the Council for the Preservation of Rural England.
On one level, this is a ‘local’ history book, but such is its breadth that it has an appeal much wider than the county
boundaries – though an outline map of the county indicating the location of the major sites would have been an asset
to the book.
Given its scope, there are times when a little more detail on particular topics would be of benefi t, although a comprehen-
sive bibliography does go some way to address this. Altogether, this is an interesting and useful addition to the series.
DAVID FLINTHAM
ON THE HORIZON
The New Oxford Book of
War Poetry
Edited by John Stallworthy
Oxford University Press,
£16.99
ISBN 978-0198704478
An introduction to many new poems from
the two World Wars, the Vietnam War, and
other confl icts of the late 20th and early
21st century.
The Last Escaper
Peter Tunstall
Duckworth Overlook, £18.99
ISBN 978-0715649237
A hugely informative last testa-
ment written by the ‘last man
standing’ from the Colditz generation who
risked their lives in WWII.
Those Who Hold
Bastogne
Peter Schrijvers
Yale University Press,
£18.99
ISBN 978-0300179026
A dramatic account of the 1944-1945 winter
of war in Batogne, off ering the fi rst full story
of the German assault on the town.
The Great Race: the race
between the English and
the French to complete
the map of Australia
David Hill
ittle, Brown, £25
ISBN 978-1408705735
Based on eyewitness accounts, this is the
story of men whose drawings recorded
previously unknown species and whose
skill enabled Terra Australis Incognita to
become Australia.
From Downing Street to
the Trenches
Mike Webb
Bodleian Library, £19.99
ISBN 978-1851243938
These compelling eye-
witness accounts provide a
highly personal and immediate picture of the
war as it happened.
Out of the Dark 1914-
1918: South Dubliners
who fell in the Great War
Ken Kinsella
Merrion, £24.99
ISBN 978-1908928597
A poignant history
highlighting the terrible losses due to
Ireland’s involvement in WWI, and the grief
and pride of the families of South Dublin.
DEFENDING NOTTINGHAMSHIRE: THE MILITARY
LANDSCAPE FROM PREHISTORY TO THE PRESENT
Mike Osborne
The History Press, £17.99
ISBN 978-075249955
COLLISION OF EMPIRES: THE WAR ON THE
EASTERN FRONT IN 1914
Prit Buttar
Osprey Publishing, £20
ISBN 978-1782006480
September 2014
72
MILITARY
HISTORY
MONTHLY
T
he newly transformed IWM
London recently opened its
doors to the public aft er a
year’s closure. This highly
anticipated event, marking the start
of the centenary of WWI, saw the
launch of the impressive First World
War Galleries and refurbished
atrium, a gallery in itself, displaying
nine iconic objects of war.
As you enter the atrium, a Har-
rier, a Spitfi re, and a V-1 rocket
loom over you, suspended from
the ceiling. Dramatically arranged
around the three fl oors are other
striking objects, including a Reuters
Land Rover, damaged by a rocket
attack in Gaza, smashing through
the wall on the fi rst fl oor with its
front wheels hanging over the main
space. The much-loved objects –
the Sopwith Camel, the British Mark
V tank – remain, although they have
been relocated to maximise space
and impact.
Throughout the opening
speeches at the launch, the faint
sounds of videos and sound-bites
could be heard coming from the
First World War Galleries on the
east side of the atrium, heightening
anticipation. At a time when we are
in danger of being oversaturated
with centenary-based events,
galleries, and literature, how would
IWM present the war? What had the
developers been planning for the
past four years?
FIRST WORLD WAR
GALLERIES
Walking in through the corridor
which leads you round the gallery,
you are confronted with a video
presentation of Britain in 1914.
This brief showing sets the scene:
happy civilians and smiling children
gather before the camera, blissfully
unaware of the catastrophic war
about to explode around the world.
A chat with academic board
and advisory team member David
Stevenson revealed that the plan-
ners had a small number of key
diffi culties when deciding how best
to lay out the exhibition.
‘The question we were most
frequently asked was “How did it
all begin?”,’ he explains. In order to
quickly and accessibly sum up the
tense pre-war state of the world
on the eve of 1914, they used a
short animated display based on
the opening credits of the 1968 fi lm
The Charge of the Light Brigade.
This leads on to the war’s begin-
ning, where cleverly choreographed
silhouettes represent troops
marching into machine-gun fi re
as shells whistle overhead. Here,
too, Stevenson and the rest of the
advisory team – David Reynolds,
Deborah Thom, Dan Todman, and
Hew Strachan – were asked chal-
lenging questions.
‘It was important for the museum
to remain impartial, to explain how
war came about, and how people
at the time felt about it, without
the ingrained pre-conception that it
was an awful waste,’ he says.
This they have done successfully.
By stripping away the interpreta-
tions formulated over the past 100
years, they have left only the stark
human experience of the time.
To this end, words like genocide
– a word which did not exist in
1914 – are purposefully not used
to describe the events in Armenia
in 1915. Rather, the events of the
massacre are clearly and simply laid
out, inviting visitors to inform their
own views. Contemporary quotes
are used to attract a visitor’s atten-
tion to a particular display, which
is then explained thoroughly in the
captions, all of which were run past
the fi ve historical experts early in
the development process.
OBJECT ARRANGEMENT
The placement and grouping of the
displays was another vast planning
job. Senior Curator Paul Cornish
took me through some of the chal-
lenges he faced when arranging the
groups of objects. ‘The selections
were based on how they supported
the narrative. Whereas these groups
used to relate to one particular
individual in history, a method
which would oft en just provide an
incomplete biography, they are now
arranged in clusters to give the im-
pression of a people’s war,’ he says.
An example of this method work-
ing to full eff ect is the collection of
trench weapons one encounters
midway through the exhibition. The
REVIEWING THE BEST MILITARY HISTORY EXHIBITIONS
WITH GEORGE CLODE
VISIT
IMPERIAL WAR MUSEUM
LONDON
IWM London, Lambeth Road, London SE1 6HZ
020 7416 5000
www.iwm.org.uk
10am-6pm daily
FREE
ENTRY
01
02
03
www.military-history.org
73
MILITARY
HISTORY
MONTHLY
MHM
VI
SI
TS
impact of having a large number
of these murderous, grisly-looking
tools clustered together rather than
simply dotted around the rooms
is arresting.
Punctuating these larger col-
lections of objects were smaller
curiosities, including the head of
a German pig rescued by British
sailors when the German cruiser
Dresden was sunk off the coast of
Chile. Such artefacts are oft en used
to convey information regarding
events for which there is otherwise
no direct physical evidence.
The limited spacing available
meant that not all elements of
the war could be represented. As
Cornish explained, ‘We were unable
to focus too heavily on the civilian
story. In order to remain within the
confi nes of the allocated space, we
could not go into the fate of people
in occupied countries or the experi-
ences of prisoners-of-war. The
most fundamental aspect of this
project has been to concentrate on
the contemporaneous presentation
of objects and facts which have an
eff ect on the overall narrative of
the war.’
This is something of which the
IWM is clearly very proud. With
controversy surrounding how
Britain should be commemorat-
ing the centenary, this ‘make up
your own mind’ format works well.
Subtle audio-visual interactive
displays work to support, rather
than confl ict with, the contempo-
rary pieces, and visitors are left to
choose how involved they want to
get with them.
‘The hardest section to nail
down,’ Stevenson told me, ‘was the
ending. Was it a victory? Militar-
ily of course it was, but was this a
British victory? We had to be very
roles other countries played in
bringing about the Allied victory.’
Cornish was in agreement about
this. At the end of the display the
organisers also had to be care-
ful not to imply that WWII was an
inevitable result of WWI. A clever
video display in the fi nal room
takes us through the post-war
years up to 1929. For Britain, the
German threat has been quashed
and the infl uence of America is
beginning to make its mark on
British culture. Images of Ketchup,
Coca-Cola, and Broadway fl ash up
on-screen, while in Germany a new
threat is fast emerging.
The museum space is now
twice as large as it was before the
revamp. There are more artefacts,
and the larger objects, which
before were confi ned to the atrium
space, have been incorporated into
the First World War Galleries. The
model trench, for example, is a
large installation which also makes
good use of the silhouette eff ect
depicting weary soldiers trudging
through mud.
One criticism would be the sign-
posting and captioning of exhibits
on the upper fl oors. The images are
arranged and captioned in ‘mind-
L ONDON
ENGL AND
RE MUSEUMS
LONDON
PICTURED ON BOTH PAGES:
1.
The Menin Road by Paul Nash.
2. An American Thompson sub-machine
gun used by the IRA.
3. A French 75mm quick-fi ring fi eld gun.
4. Indian walking wounded in
Belgian village, 1914.
5. A member of the Red Baron’s
‘Flying Circus.’
6. A camoufl age tree observation post.
7. A British artillery fuze 106.
04
06
05
sets’, and although it becomes a bit
clearer once you work out how this
system works, you still have to go
to some eff ort to fi nd the informa-
tion you are looking for. This was
most apparent in the
Peace and
Security: 1945-2014 exhibition on
the fi rst fl oor.
That aside, the opening was a
success. The atrium is stunningly
arranged, and the First World War
Galleries are an excellent platform
on which to learn more about the
overall story of WWI. The museum
manages to present contempo-
rary objects and information in a
smart, modern way, and can be
recommended to history buff s and
schoolchildren alike.
æ
AVIATION
RAF Museum
Situated on the historic
site of Hendon’s London
Aerodrome in Colindale, this
North London museum is
one of two sites belonging
to the UK’s only national
museum that tells the story of
the Royal Air Force through
its people and collections.
MILITARY
National Army Museum
This museum gathers and
maintains the story of the
British Army and its role and
impact in world history. It
provides a museum experience
that meets the widest range of
public need and connects the
British public with its army.
NAVAL
National Maritime
Museum
Situated within a working naval
base, Portsmouth Historic
Dockyard is the only place in
the world to see the Royal Navy
past, present, and future – a
must-see for anyone visiting the
south of England.
07
September 2014
ISTI S
THE BEST MILITARY HISTORY EVENTS, LECTURES AND EXHIBITIONS
74
MILITARY
HISTORY
MONTHLY
EXHIBITION
PIECE MAKERS
9 September-20
November 2014
REME Museum of
Technology
Isaac Newton Rd
Reading, RG2 9NH
www.rememuseum.org.uk
This exhibition displays the artistic results
of 'Piece Makers', a two-year collaboration
between the National Army Museum, soldiers
drawn from rehabilitation and support centres,
and contemporary artist Susan Stockwell.
A large-scale, textile-based work by Stock-
well draws together pieces made by soldiers,
narrative captured during the course of the
project, and Stockwell’s own response to the
process.
£9
ENTRY
TYRANNY
AND
TREASON
28 September 2014
King Charles I Statue
Trafalgar Square, London
d.fl intham@googlemail.com
The 1640s was Britain’s most revo-
lutionary decade, pitting King and
Parliament against one another
in bitter civil wars to decide the
entire future course of our history.
Urban insurrection drove the King
from London in 1641. Defeated in
the First Civil War in 1646, he then
started a second in 1648, so the
revolutionary leaders had him tried
and executed in 1649 and declared
the country a republic.
On this walk you will stand
face to face with the two main
characters in the English Civil
War – King Charles I and Oliver
Cromwell – and see the very
buildings and locations where
dramatic events unfolded.
It is a story of politics and
power, rebellion and riot, armies
and battles, treason and trial,
beheadings and shootings. You
can also see how history is
infl uenced by geography and ge-
ography is infl uenced by history.
TOUR
FREE
BOOKING
ADVISED
SIR ALAN COBHAM’S FLYING CIRCUS: A LIFE OF A
PIONEERING AVIATOR
14 September 2014
RAF Museum London
Grahame Park Way
London, NW9 5LL
www.rafmuseum.org.uk
FREE
ENTRY
EXHIBITION
S
ir Alan Cobham was a pioneering long-distance aviator and technical innovator who became famous for his
exploits in the interwar years by making aviation accessible and popular throughout the world.
This new exhibition will be opening on the museum’s Battle of Britain Day on 14 September. It will be
a highly visual display of Cobham’s life and his many notable achievements, showcasing some of the
‘treasures’ from the collection and showing fi lm footage demonstrating how he made aviation into a breathtaking
spectacle.
020 8205 2266
75
MILITARY
HISTORY
MONTHLY
MHM
VI
SI
TS
HUNDRED DAYS:
THE END OF THE
GREAT WAR
25 September 2014
Army & Navy Club
36-39 Pall Mall, London, SW1Y
5JN
020 7881 6600
www.nam.ac.uk
In his groundbreaking study of
the end of the Great War, Nick
Lloyd, a Senior Lecturer in
Defence Studies at King’s College
London, analyses events on the
Western Front from the Second
Battle of the Marne in July 1918
to the Armistice in November.
FESTIVAL
EVE
atmosphere for all
the family.
Confi rmed fl ying
participation so far
includes Red Ar-
rows (Sunday only),
replica First World
War aircraft , and the
Battle of Britain Me-
morial Flight Spitfi re
and Hurricane, as
well as the Dakota
(Saturday only) and Lancaster
(Sunday only). You can also enjoy
TR
TRENCHES
12-14 September 2014
Apedale Valley Light Railway
Loomer Road
Staff ordshire, ST5 7LB
0845 094 1953
www.ww1-event.org
This event will mark the role which
narrow-gauge railways played in
supporting the troops on all sides
during the First World War.
The growing list of exhibits
includes steam locomotives
from the Leighton Buzzard Light
20-21 SEPTEMBER
Battle of Prestonpans
1745
Greenhills Prestonpans
East Lothian, EH32 9AN
0845 643 5760
www.historic-uk.com
Witness one of the most spec-
tacular annual battle events in
Scotland, as British Redcoats
and Jacobite Highlanders clash
with cannon, foot, and horse. A
truly exciting weekend of living
history and re-enactment.
20 SEPTEMBER
Open Cockpits
Evening
Royal Air Force Museum
Cosford
Shropshire TF11 8UP
01902 376 200
www.rafmuseum.org.uk
A wide range of aircraft will be
available for closer viewing on
the night, including transport
aircraft, jet fighters, and unique
research airframes. Visitors will
get a feel for what it was like to
fly these much-loved machines,
as well as enjoying after-hours
access to the museum.
6 SEPTEMBER
Truth and Memory
IWM London
London SE1 6HZ
020 7416 5000
www.iwm.org.uk
A free, hour-long tour around
the IWM’s new major art exhi-
bition Truth and Memory: British
Art of the First World War – the
largest exhibition of British
First World War art for nearly
100 years.
8 SEPTEMBER
Royal Marines
Museum
Portsmouth, PO4 9PX
023 9281 9385
www.royalmarinesmuseum.co.uk
The museum welcomes back
he Royal Marines Association
Concert Band for their second
concert of the year, celebrating
350 years of Royal Marines in
the grand Mountbatten Room.
DATES TO
REMEMBER
THE DUXFORD AIR
SHOW
13-14 September
IWM Duxford
Cambridgeshire, CB22 4QR
01223 835000
www.iwm.org.uk
Combinations of historic aircraft ,
contemporary jets, and mind-
boggling aerobatics make the
Duxford Air Show an entertaining
aer
Railway, the North Gloucester-
shire Railway at Toddington, and
the Statfold Barn Railway.
It will be possible to ride behind
the steam locomotives on the
passenger trains operating on
the Apedale Light Railway. Other
locomotives will be demonstrated
on a newly built demonstration
railway – built with the assistance
of Heritage Lottery funding. This
will connect to a replica of a
trench tramway which will lead to
a reproduction section of trench.
The annual Largs Viking Festival commemorates the 1263 Battle of
Largs, the last mainland battle between the Scots and the Norse. It
features a living-history Viking village showing how the Vikings lived in
12th and 13th centuries. A Scottish craft -and-food market, owl displays, and a fun fair will be there each day, and
the weekends will feature street entertainers, aerobatic displays, and the Red Devils freefall Team (7 September).
There will be on-stage entertainment, a re-enactment with the burning of a Viking longboat, and a fi reworks display.
LARGS VIKING
FESTIVAL
30 August-7 September 2014
Largs Town Centre
North Ayrshire
Scotland
www.largsvikingfestival.com
CELEBRITY LECTURE
£5/£2
ADULT/
CHILD
treat yourself to a pleasure
fl ight, and take part in other
activities across the museum.
£32.50
ENTRY
£24.75
ENTRY
£8/£4
ADULT/
CHILD
M U S E U M
M
THE ROYAL AIR FORCE MUSEUM
The Royal Air Force Museum’s London site
is located in Colindale, north-west London.
Admission to the museum is free of charge. As
part of its calendar of events commemorating
the outbreak of the First World War, the
museum is currently displaying an exhibition
of First World War art: Biggles and Chums.
Consisting of drawings and paintings, each
artwork has never been seen by the public.
Each has been specifically chosen for the
powerful story that it has to tell – made all
the more poignant as each artwork has been
created by an artist who either served or lived
through the First World War, including Biggles’
creator himself, Captain WE Johns.
Located in the museum’s Art Gallery,
Biggles and Chums is on display until 4 January
2015.
ADDRESS:
Grahame Park Way, London, NW9 5LL
TEL:
020 8205 2266
EMAIL:
london@rafmuseum.org
WEB:
www.rafmuseum.org
OPENING TIMES:
Open daily from 10am-6pm
HAVERING MUSEUM
Home Front Havering: Local Life in the First World War explores life in
the area that is now the London Borough of Havering during this
extraordinary and devastating period of modern history, a century
after war broke out.
This exhibition is a joint project between Havering Museum and
Havering Libraries Local Studies and Family History Centre, and
both sites will deliver a range of events over the next four years.
Bringing together information, images, objects, and written accounts relating to local life at the time, the
exhibition examines how ordinary people coped with the new and challenging experiences that total war
brought them, and the heavy presence of the military throughout the locality.
ADDRESS:
The Brewery Gate, 19-21 High Street, Romford, RM1 1JU
TEL:
01708 766571
EMAIL:
exhibitions@haveringmuseum.org.uk
WEB:
www.haveringmuseum.org.uk
OPENING TIMES
Wednesday to Saturday 11am-5pm.
Last admission to galleries at 4pm, and shop at 4.30pm.
CROFT CASTLE
AND PARKLAND
Croft Castle is an
intimate home set
deep in the heart of
Herefordshire and has
been home to the Croft
family for nearly 1,000
years. Visitors can explore the castle, gardens, stables, and 1500 acres of historic
parkland including ancient trees, an Iron Age hill fort and the ‘picturesque’
Fishpool valley. From 23 August 2014 we’ll be developing the moving stories of
the Croft family during the First World War and life at the home front during
1914. We’re also sharing the story of Croft’s local community during this time
and finding out how it coped with its loved ones who were away at war.
Entry is free to National Trust members and under fives. Normal admis-
sion fees apply.
ADDRESS:
Croft Castle and Parkland, Yarpole,
Leominster, Herefordshire, HR6 9PW
TEL:
01568 780246
EMAIL:
ana.vaughan@nationaltrust.org.uk
WEB:
www.nationaltrust.org.uk/croftcastle
OPENING TIMES
Open daily until 2 November from 11am-
5pm, last entry is 4.30pm. Open every
weekend from 8 November-21 December
11am to 4pm, last entry 3.30pm
THE GREEN HOWARDS MUSEUM
Our collection ranges from regimental silver
and medals to uniforms, military equipment,
and photographs. A wealth of personal
objects tell their own stories about the men
who have been proud to call themselves
Green Howards since 1688.
The museum, in the centre of the historic
Georgian market town of Richmond, is undergoing a £1.7 million
redevelopment, made possible through Heritage Lottery funding, to completely
transform the galleries and exhibition spaces. Reopening in autumn 2014.
To mark the centenary of the start of the First World War, our special
exhibition Ypres: The First Battle 1914, will explore the role played by the Green
Howards during the battle, and track the experiences of soldiers and their
families through diaries, paintings, and personal effects.
ADDRESS
:
Trinity Church Square, Richmond,
North Yorkshire, DL10 4QN
TEL:
01748 826561
EMAIL:
museum@greenhowards.org.uk
WEB:
www.greenhowards.org.uk
OPENING TIMES
Visit us Monday to Saturday 10am-4.30pm.
We will be closed Christmas Eve, Christmas
Day and Boxing Day, New Year’s Eve and
New Year’s Day.
Between 1 April and 31 October we will also
be open on Sundays 12.30pm-4.30pm
LEEDS MUSEUMS AND
GALLERIES
From 2014-2018, Leeds Museums
and Galleries are delivering a special
programme of exhibitions, events,
and outreach activities. These will
reflect the history of Leeds during
wartime through the lens of nine his-
toric sites, collections, and the legacy
of the war in the city today. Find out
more about how the war affected
people’s lives locally in Leeds and
around the world. Discover how
heritage buildings were used during
the war, uncover the stories behind
personal objects, get involved in local
community projects, and see wartime
artefacts from the collections,
including our unique archive relating
to the Leeds Rifles.
ADDRESS:
Nine venues across Leeds,
Yorkshire hosting a number of events
throughout the commemoration.
EMAIL:
ww1heritage@leeds.gov.uk
WEB:
www.leeds.gov.uk/ww1heritage
OPENING TIMES
Please check our website for venue
opening times
.
WITH HUNDREDS OF MILITARY MUSEUMS IN THE UK
ALONE, HOW DO YOU KNOW WHICH ONE WILL BEST
SUIT YOUR INTERESTS? HERE,
MHM HAS PICKED
SOME OF THE BEST MUSEUMS AND EXHIBITIONS
TO VISIT THIS YEAR, FROM HIDDEN GEMS TO LONG-
ESTABLISHED SITES.
LONDON TRANSPORT MUSEUM
Situated in the heart of Covent Garden
and filled with stunning exhibits, London
Transport Museum brings the story of
London’s transport into the 21st century.
Lively exhibitions explore the powerful link
between transport and the growth of modern
London, culture and society from 1800
onwards.
Temporary exhibition Goodbye Piccadilly:
From Home Front to Western Front reveals the
untold story of London’s Home Front during
the First World War, how drivers took their
buses to the Front to support the war effort,
how women advanced into the transport work-
force for the first time, and how Londoners
came under deadly attack from the air as total
war came to the capital.
ADDRESS:
London Transport Museum, Covent Garden
Piazza, WC2E 7BB.
TEL:
0207 379 6344
EMAIL:
bookings@ltmuseum.co.uk
WEB:
www.ltmuseum.co.uk
OPENING TIMES:
Monday-Thursday: 10am-6pm
Friday: 11am-6pm
Saturday-Sunday: 10am-6pm
MUSEUM OF LINCOLNSHIRE LIFE
The museum marks the centenary of WWI with a series of excel-
lent events, exhibitions, and lectures, including Tommies to Trenches,
where the museum remembers WWI with a major exhibition, a
private collector’s display, and living history characters. A major
exhibition, 1914, A Call to Arms for Lincolnshire, highlights the
impact on Lincolnshire of the declaration of war in 1914, and
begins a series of five which will chronicle, each autumn, the story
of World War One from a Lincolnshire perspective.
You can also now bring the museum to life using the latest
cutting-edge iPod technology and augmented reality. With three tours for different age groups, the new
multi-media i-Guides offer a fresh and fun way to explore the displays.
ADDRESS:
Burton Road, Lincoln, Lincolnshire, LN1 3LY
TEL:
01522 782040
EMAIL:
lincolnshirelife_museum@lincolnshire.gov.uk
WEB:
www.lincolnshire.gov.uk/visiting/museums/museum-of-lincolnshire-life
BATTLE OF DUNKIRK
AND OPERATION
DYNAMO MUSEUM
The museum is located in the fortifications that were built in
1874 to reinforce France’s costal defence. Bastion 32 served as the
headquarters for the French and Allied forces during the Battle
of Dunkirk and Operation Dynamo. The Memorial Du Souvenir
tells an incredible story of the battle and the evacuation of more
than 338,000 allied soldiers from the pocket of Dunkirk.
The museum boasts a rich exhibition of maps, pictures, and
both Allied and German military material. Scale models of the
sites and of the operation, uniforms, and weapons complete the
impressive collection.
Visiting the museum will also offer you the opportunity to see
a film using dramatic period footage lasting 15 minutes. This
film gives visitors an exciting overall view of the events which took
place between May and June 1940.
ADDRESS:
Courtines du Bastion 32,
Rue des Chantiers de France, 59140
Dunkerque
TEL:
+33 (0)3 28262731
EMAIL:
production@ot-dunkerque.fr
WEB:
www.dynamo-dunkerque.com
OPENING TIMES:
Every day from 10am to 12pm and
from 2pm to 5pm.
From 1 April-30 September 2014
NEWARK PARK, NATIONAL TRUST
A National Trust property consisting of a 700-acre
estate, with at its heart a Tudor hunting lodge which
has been extended over more than four centuries.
Both from the house and from the garden, and
estate walks, you will be able to admire the won-
derful unspoilt views over the estate, the Cotswolds
and as far as the Mendip Hills.
A building with many historic layers, wonderful
stories and with a quirky collection of its own, we
host exhibitions in our Exhibition Room as well as
some around the whole house and gardens. Our
exhibition programme is very varied, from hosting
the Stroud International Textiles exhibition, to
local wildlife and jewellery artists, as well as our own
Newark WWI exhibition this summer.
ADDRESS:
Newark Park, Ozleworth, Wotton-under-Edge,
Gloucestershire, GL12 7PZ
TEL:
01453 842644
EMAIL:
newarkpark@nationaltrust.org.uk
WEB:
www.nationaltrust.org.uk/newark-park
OPENING TIMES:
The house is open 11am-5pm (last admission 4.30pm).
We are open Wednesday-Sunday from 2 March until 2
November. We also open for our Christmas weekend on
6 and 7 December (11am-4pm)
SHROPSHIRE REGIMENTAL
MUSEUM
The Shropshire Regimental Museum dis-
plays the combined collections of the major
military units associated with the county.
The museum displays a fine collection of
military and personal items, and presents
a comprehensive view of military and associated artefacts relating to the Shropshire
Regiments from 1755 to c.1970.
Highlights include US Colours captured near Washington in 1814, a lock of Napoleon’s
hair, a Victoria Cross awarded to a Shropshire Yeoman in Palestine, the baton of Grand
Admiral Dönitz, and spectacular displays of regimental silverware, orders and medals,
uniforms, weapons, Colours, ceramics, and many personal items and associated ephemera
representing regimental service around the world over two hundred and fifty years.
ADDRESS:
Shropshire Regimental Museum,
Shrewsbury Castle, Castle Street, Shrewsbury,
SY1 2AT
TEL:
01743 358516
EMAIL:
curator@shropshireregimentalmuseum.
co.uk
WEB:
www.shropshireregimentalmuseum.co.uk
OPENING TIMES
Spring opening hours (17 Feb-23 May)
Monday-Saturday 10:30am-4pm, closed
Thursdays and Sundays
Summer opening hours (24 May-14 Sept)
Monday-Saturday 10:30am-5pm, Sunday
10:30am-4pm, closed Thursday
Autumn opening hours (15 Sept-20 Dec)
Monday-Saturday 10:30am-4pm, closed
Thursdays and Sundays
Winter closure (22 Dec-15 February)
OPENING TIMES:
See website for details for individual
events and exhibitions.
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UNDER FIRE
Exposing the realitie
the French trenches
IM ERIAL WAR MUSEUM
side the new First World
War Galleries
DEVIL’S
GUARD
Is th s history s
most evil man?
DOWNLOAD THE
MHM
DIGITAL EDITION
SAVE
UP TO
41%
ON ANNUAL DIGI
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Military History Monthly is now available as
a digital edition that can be downloaded to
your PC, Mac, or iPad.
CLASH OF EMPERORS
The war on the Eastern Front in 1914 was radically different from that on the
Western, as German, Austrian, and Russian empires clashed in Poland and the
Carpathians.
MHM analyses a war of movement over vast spaces that saw
both Habsburgs and Romanovs crash to defeat.
IN THE NEXT ISSUE
ON SALE 11 SEPTEMBER
www.military-history.org/digital
SUBSCRIBE TO
MILITARY HISTORY MONTHLY
MAGAZINE TODAY
ALSO NEXT ISSUE:
æ
The Battle of Sluys, 1340
æ
The Ticonderoga Campaign, 1758
æ
Kesselring: great commander or war
criminal?
September 2014
TITIO S
80
MILITARY
HISTORY
MONTHLY
PUT YOUR MILITARY HISTORY KNOWLEDGE TO THE TEST WITH THE
MHM QUIZ, CROSSWORD, AND CAPTION COMPETITION
ACROSS
7 Helmuth ___, German offi cer, Chief
of the General Staff from 1906 to 1914 (6)
9 Name given to the medieval crusader
states (8)
10 Soldiers such as the SAS and Green
Berets (7,6)
11 Opponent of the Catholic League
during the French Wars of Religion (8)
12 ___ Allen, commander of the Green
Mountain Boys militia who took part in
the capture of Fort Ticonderoga in May
1775 (5)
15 Film (1989) about black soldiers of
the Union army in the American Civil War
(5)
16 Former RAF station in Cam-
bridgeshire, operational from 1940 to
1948 (5)
20 Asian city invaded by Russian troops
in 1979 (5)
23 ___ League, a federation of city-
states in ancient Greece (8)
25 US state in which the battles of
MHM
CROSSWORD
N
O
48
This month we have entry to Apsley House and a
meal for two at Le Garrick to be won
MHM
QUIZ
To celebrate the publication of
Napoleon: The End of Glory by Munro Price, Oxford
University Press are off ering you the chance to win entry to Apsley House and
lunch for two at Le Garrick in Covent Garden. Enjoy a day at the home to the
Duke of Wellington aft er his victory over Napoleon at Waterloo, then travel the
short distance to Le Garrick, a restaurant in the centre of Covent Garden serving
excellent regional French food.
To be in with a
chance of winning
visit www.military-
history.org to watch a
video and answer the
questions.
81
MILITARY
HISTORY
MONTHLY
MHM
OF
F DU
TY
NAPOLEON:
THE END OF GLORY
Munro Price
Oxford University Press, £20
ISBN 978-0199660803
Napoleon: The End of Glory tells
the story of the two crucial years in
which Napoleon lost his empire and
ultimately his control over France
itself. These years remain strangely
neglected, lying as they do between
the two much better-known landmarks
of the retreat from Moscow and the
battle of Waterloo.
The most fascinating and least-
known aspect of these years is that at
several key points Napoleon’s enemies
off ered him peace terms that would
have allowed him to keep his throne,
if not his empire. Why, instead of
accepting a compromise, did Napoleon
choose to gamble on total victory at
the risk of utter defeat?
Lexington and Concord took place (13)
26 Kenneth ___, British general, com-
mander of the First Army during the
invasion of North Africa in 1942 (8)
27 Town in north-west France damaged
by Allied air raids in World War Two (6)
DOWN
1 Nickname of Sir Henry Percy, killed in
1403 at the Battle of Shrewsbury (7)
2 An ordinary soldier of the Roman
army. (9)
3 Infantry soldier of ancient Greece (7)
4 Naval battle fought in the Mediter-
ranean in 1807 between Russia and the
Ottoman Empire (5)
5 Guided missile system in service
with the Royal Navy from 1962 until the
Falklands War (3,3)
6 Opponent of Greece at the battles of
Thermopylae and Salamis (6)
8 Nickname of Field Marshal Allenby
(3,4)
13 Member of a nomadic people whose
MHM
CAPTION COMPETITION
Think you can do better?
Go head-to-head with other
MHM readers for the
chance to see your caption printed in the next issue.
Enter now at www.military-history.org/competitions
LAST MONTH’S WINNER
'Congratulations! You've won a year's free bus travel!' The
irony was not lost on these soldiers on Mao's Long March.
Nigel Johnson
ANS
W
ER
S
AUGUST ISSUE | MHM 47
ACROSS:
7 Graf Spee, 9 Apache, 10 Carson, 11 Bearcat, 12
Barons, 13 Algerian, 14 Jamaica, 16 Marengo, 18 Sullivan, 21
Greeks, 23 Charles, 24 Arnhem, 25 Topeka, 26 Omdurman.
DOWN:
1 Armada, 2 Spanish Civil War, 3 Serbia, 4 Varangian
Guards, 5 Lancer, 6 Nha Trang, 8 Fashoda, 15 Asuncion, 17
Eleanor, 19 Laager, 20 Nestor, 22 Keegan.
After months of combat, the men heartily appreciated the
signed photograph from Kim Kardashian.
Dave Parkin
empire reached its peak in the 4th
century AD (3)
14 Last battle of the English Civil War,
fought on 3rd September 1651 (9)
15 Old slang term for an American sailor
(3)
17 Arikara scout who served with
Custer in the Little Bighorn campaign
(3,4)
18 Royal Navy Tribal-class destroyer
sunk off Galway in May 1941 (7)
19 ___ Clay, Union army general
during the Civil War and ambassador to
Russia (7)
21 Edward ___, US army general, com-
mander of X Corps in the Korean War (6)
22 ___ Defence Regiment, active from
1970 to 1992, now part of the Royal Irish
Regiment (6)
24 Bloody ___, battle fought in 1742
between British and Spanish forces
during the War of Jenkins' Ear (5)
RUNNERS-UP
Aft er a hard day’s fi ghting, the Caption
Competition entries never failed to
bring a smile to the faces of the men.
Jeff rey Monroe
We continue our caption competition with an image from
our Thinkers at War article. Pit your wit against other
readers at
September 2014
82
MILITARY
HISTORY
MONTHLY
MHM EXAMINES FIVE OF THE MOST DARING PRISONER-OF-WAR ESCAPES THROUGHOUT HISTORY.
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POW ESCAPES
Stalag
Luft III
Escape Date:
29 October 1943
When Oliver Philpot, Eric Williams, and
Richard Codner found themselves impris-
oned at Stalag Luft III, the main obstacle
they faced in planning their escape was
the tell-tale yellow dust which would cover
anyone who dug down even a few inches
below the surface. To get round this, the
men constructed a large pommel horse ca-
pable of concealing three men inside. They
would take it in turns hiding in the horse,
which would be placed gradually nearer
the fence each day, digging the tunnel
towards the fence with a bowl as the other
men practised their gymnastics above. The
noise of the digging was hidden by the
sounds of the troops practising their stride
swings and the yellow dust was disposed
of in fl ower beds and toilets. Their eff orts fi -
nally paid off and they escaped through the
tunnel, returning to Britain through Sweden
with false identities.
Less than a year later, the ‘Great Escape’
would take place at the same prison.
Pretoria
Escape Date:
12 December 1899
A 25-year-old Winston Churchill was captured by
a Boer kommando force aft er his train crashed
into a boulder in 1899. Aft er a long journey under
armed guard, Churchill arrived at his prison – a
converted school – in Pretoria.
He had only been in captivity for about four
weeks when he made his escape. While the
guards were getting the prisoners ready for
transfer to a more secure prison, Churchill
Colditz Castle
Escape Date:
5 January
1942
Airey Neave failed his fi rst
attempted escape from Colditz
dressed in a less-than-credible
makeshift German uniform. The
second time around he learned from
his mistakes.
Along with Dutch offi cer
Anthony Luteyn, Neave – more
convincingly disguised – made
off through a trap door during
a theatre production. This led
out of the prison, where the
pair made their way by train
and on foot to the border of Switzerland. Neave travelled
through France, Spain, and Gibraltar, fi nally arriving in Eng-
land in April 1942 where he was awarded the Military Cross.
Konigstein
Castle
Escape Date:
17 April
1942
Locked down at the 800-year-old
supposedly inescapable stronghold
Konigstein Castle, 63-year-old
French General Henri Giraud planned
a two-year escape plan involv-
ing German lessons, twine, and a
Tyrolean hat.
Having convinced his guards to
teach him German – in preparation
for his post-escape travels through
Germany – Giraud managed to con-
nect with his family by embedding coded messages in his letters home,
informing them of his plan. Using twine, bed sheets, and smuggled
copper wire, he created a 150ft rope which he used to scale down the
wall of the castle. Finally, he shaved off his moustache and donned a
Tyrolean hat he had acquired through friends, and made good his escape
across Germany to the Swiss border.
hopped over the neighbouring
property and slid away.
By day he hid and ate the food
he had been able to steal. By night
he walked the city streets trying
to locate the eastward-heading
railway line, drinking from streams and
getting rides on goods trains.
A combination of courage and good
luck allowed young Winston to arrive
safely at Mozambique.
Lake
Superior
Escape Date:
21 January 1941
Aft er a series of failed escape attempts
from UK camps, Franz von Werra was
transferred to Lake Ontario. With the help
of others prisoners he began plotting his
escape into America, which at the time was
still neutral.
As the prison train he was on made its
way from Montreal, von Werra jumped
out of a window and ended up near
Smith’s Falls, Ontario, 30 miles from the
St Lawrence River. The seven others who
attempted to escape were almost immedi-
ately recaptured. But not von Werra.
He endured a hazardous trip across the
frozen St Lawrence River, over the border
and into Ogdensburg, New York. He turned
himself in to the police, who charged him
with illegal entry into the country. With
the help of the German vice-consul, he got
across the border to Mexico and made his
way back to Germany in stages through Rio
de Janeiro, Barcelona, and Rome. He was
welcomed back in Germany as a hero on
18 April 1941.
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