Austria Descending, part 1: The Campaign of Magenta and Solferino 1859 by HC Wylly

not, sadly, the edition I own

Today Austria is thought of, if ever, as a quaint alpine country with little importance to anybody outside its own borders. Maybe devotees of Haydn and Mozart turn their eyes, at least metaphorically, to the land of their heroes occasionally. Vienna, once the capital of a sprawling, multi-ethnic empire, and the beneficiary of centuries of accumulated wealth and artistic and architectural wonders, get more attention than the nation as a whole.  A century ago, though, even weakened by years of raging nationalism, political backwardness, and the four years of the Great War, Austria-Hungary, as it was then known, was still an important power.

The end of the Great War spelled the final relegation of Austria to minor state status. Its component parts were set free and used to build new nations - Croatia, Slovenia, and Bosnia were joined to the already independent Serbia to form Yugoslavia. Bohemia and Slovakia were merged into Czechoslovakia. Galicia was added to lands repossessed from Germany and Russia to rebuild Poland. Transylvania was turned over to the Romanians. Hungary became a small, independent state. The first two, constructs built from the dreams of academics, no longer exist. The second two, both with dominant ethnic citizens and long histories predating the Austrian Empire, remain viable and moderately healthy nation states.

Austrian infantry

Austria's decline and fall wasn't an overnight event. The internal pressures of so many nationalities poorly contained within such a ramshackle state meant the empire would probably dissolved eventually, but two military losses in the 19th century ensured it would happen sooner rather than later.

There's something about Austria that's always intrigued me. How had one of the major continental powers come to such an insignificant state, and why wasn't it part of the larger Germany? Reading this book, as well as Geoffrey Wawro's The Austro-Prussian War, I've gotten some answers.

French infantry

First, there was always a fragility to the empire. From the moment Hungary became part of the empire in 1526 it demanded recognition of its historic rights and laws. As various emperors and their ministers tried to tighten control over the Hungarians, there were several major uprisings over the centuries. The last, and worst, in 1848, required help from Russia. The latter sent nearly 300,000 troops to help the Austrian crush the revolution. In 1859, and again in 1866, in was not uncommon for whole non-Austrian units to simply drops their arms and flee the battlefield the first time they were fired upon.

Sardinia troops

As to why Austria isn't part of Germany, it's pretty simple. The only other contestant for ruler and unifier of the numerous German states (reduced to a mere thirty-nine after 1815) was Prussia. There was only room for one leader of the Germans and Prussia maneuvered herself into that place by gradually excluding and finally crushing the Austrians in battle (though that's discussed more in the next book I read).

The Second Italian War of Independence (29 April – 11 July 1859), fought by the Austrian Empire against the combined forces of France and the Kingdom of Sardinia set the stage for Italian unification in 1871. The latter wasn't just the island of Sardinia, but also a substantial part of northwestern Italy. Its capital was at Turin.

The political turmoil that had swept across Europe in 1848 had led to war between Sardinia and Austria. Austria had ruled the Northeast of Italy, in particular the cities of Milan and Venice, for over a century. There had been a break when Napoleon conquered the region, but the Congress of Vienna in 1815 had reaffirmed Austrian Hapsburg rule of the area. The war, called the First Italian War of Independence, ended in Austrian victory, but it clearly set the stage for next one.

Sardinia realized it would need allies in order to defeat its enemy. To make friend, she allied herself with the French and British in 1854 and sent troops to help fight Russia in the Crimea. This, coupled with a later deal to transfer Nice and the region of Savoy to France, ensured when the time came, Napoleon III would bring his army in on the side of Sardinia - provided the Austrians declared war first. In 1859, that happened.

When I set my sights on reading about the wars of the 19th century, I didn't think I'd have a hard time finding books on them. Hah! There isn't much and, since I wanted an ebook, I ended up with H.C. Wylly's  1907 The Campaign of Magenta and Solferino, 1859. The title references the two main battles of the short war. The latter engagement, the largest in Europe since Leipzig in 1813, led directly to the end of the war two weeks later.

As over-a-century-old military works go, Wylly's is adequate. In the preface he states his is the first work in English about the campaign to draw on official sources. Unfortunately, in buying the nice, cheap Kindle version, I didn't get any maps (even though the original included a portion of on from the book "la campagne de Napoleon III en Italie"). A war with lots of rapid retreats and advances, it is practically impossible to follow some of the events without pausing to find maps somewhere else. I guess it serves me right for being cheap, but it was seriously frustrating.

The Sardinians began pressuring for a European congress in order to force Austria's withdrawal from the Italian territories it controlled (Lombardy and Venetia in particular). The Austrians also had their fingers in the affairs of several other independent states and the Sardinians wanted them gone.

The Austrian response to Sardinian agitation was to agree to a congress but only is the Italians disarmed. When this was clearly not going to happen, the Austrians declared war and invaded. 

Despite having a large, relatively modern army, the Austrians committed one blunder after another. Under the command of Count Ferenc Gyulai, governor of Lombardy, the Austrian army slowly advanced on Turin. When it became clear his lackadaisical pace had allowed the rapidly arriving French army would cut them off from their supplies he retreated. 

In preparation for the war, France had transferred large numbers of veterans out of North Africa to southern France. They then began using the railroads to move these same forces quickly into Sardinia. Wylly states this was one of the first times railroads were successfully used to move such large numbers of soldiers - nearly 170,000.

Battlefield of Magenta

There were several small engagements in the opening weeks of the war. Each time the French maneuvered around Gyulai's flanks causing him to pull back eastward. On June 6th, Napoleon threw a large portion of his army head on into the Austrians on the east bank Tincio River town of Magenta. It was a tough battle, with the town being captured, recaptured, and captured again. In the end, though, the Austrians were forced out. On June 7th, the Allies marched into Milan.

Towards 7:30 o'clock Espinasse ordered the final advance of his division upon Magenta, and his two columns entering from the north and east, while La Motterouge, closely followed by Camou, penetrated from the west, bloody fighting took place - in the streets, in the churches and from house to house. Here General Espinasse was killed. The Austrians were driven from the town and fell back in great confusion upon Corbetta, covered by Lilia, by Mensdorfl, and by Lippert of the VIII Corps who ha at this moment reached the scene of action.

French troops force the crossing into Magenta

At that point he abandoned any plans for serious offensive operations and shifted to a defensive posture. Gyulai's plan was to build a secure position within the Quadrilateral, the geographic area of Lombardy marked off by four great fortresses - Peschiera, Mantua, Legnago and Verona.

For his withdrawal from Sardinia and the defeat at Magenta, Gyulai was relieved. Instead of relying on a veteran general, Emperor Franz Josef himself took personal command of his empire's army. He was 29 and inexperienced.

On the other side, Napoleon III, Emperor of the Second Empire, held the reins of his nation's forces. The final major battle of the war, Solferino, would be the last European battle where both sides were led by their country's monarch. The Sardinian forces were also commanded by the their king, Victor Emmanuel II.

After several weeks of retreating, the Austrians decided to counterattack. At the same time the Allies resumed their offensive. The two armies collided in a series of engagements around the town of Solferino on the morning of June 24th. For nine hours 83,000 French soldiers, 37,000 Sardinians and 129,000 Austrians fought for nine hours. On the north end of the line, the Sardinians attacked around San Martino, in the center the French attacked at Solferino itself, and in the south at Medole. The French army, many of its soldiers battle-tested, long-service veterans, fought with great ferocity. The Austrian army, many of them inexperienced, less so. 

The Austrians were never convinced, until too late in the day, that Solferino was a major engagement. As battalions arrived on the scene they were thrown into battle piecemeal. The result was mostly disaster. 

Battle of Solferino by Carlo Bossoli

The one bright moment of the battle for the Austrians was the stand of VIII Corps under General Benedek around San Martino on the northern end of the line. Outnumbered, they held off the Sardinian army all day, not leaving the field until the rest of the Austrian army had withdrawn.

Sardinians at San Martino - from the Torre di San Martino della Battaglia and Ossuary

The four brigades in Benedek's front line had endured and beaten back the attacks of the Italian divisions of Mollard and Cucchiari, and had indeed so completely overthrown them that about 1 o'clock the battle in this portion of the field had died down, and for some two hours there was no more heard "the voices of them that shout for mastery and the noise of them that cry, being overcome."

In summing up the battle, Wylly quotes two previous writers on Solferino:

Of the battle itself (Edward Bruce) Hamley says: "There was no exhibition on either side of strategical art; none of the movements on either side since the battle of Magenta had altered the chances of success; and the result was altogether due to tactics."

and:

(Wilhelm) Rüstow very truly remarks that it was not gun or rifle or even tactics which won the day at Solferino, but the offensive, spirit which was wanting in the Austrian leaders; and in support of this statement he points out that the Austrians, who crossed the Mincio simply and solely to attack the Allies, had no sooner met them than they took up defensive positions.

When it was done, the vast majority of the Austrian army was in retreat. The French and Sardinians were too battered to pursue. Viewing the human wreckage the next day inspired Swiss businessman Henry Dunant to found what would eventually become the International Red Cross. About 4,500 men were killed and 22,000 wounded.

Napoleon III 

A few weeks later, facing possible Prussian opposition, and shocked by the great losses at Solferino, Napoleon III signed an armistice with the Austrians. While unable to take Venetia, the Sardinians did end up with Lombardy. In return for the French giving up any claim to Lombardy, Sardinia turned over the province of Savoy and its capital, Nice. Within a year, with French and British support, they occupied the rest of the Italian peninsula and in 1861 proclaimed the birth of the Kingdom of Italy.

As for Austria, it took on the appearance of someone slowly dying from gangrene. The empire was still suffering from the aftershock of the 1848 revolutions. The loss of such a wealthy province as Lombardy, isolation from Italy's allies (England as well as France), weakened the empire tremendously. The stage for the next big blow was set.

For anyone with the slightest interest in the wars that built the nations of modern Europe and helped set the stage for the Great War, Wylly's book is only reasonable game around. It's short on any sort of real character study of the commanders or the soldiers as individuals. It's also fairly dry and there's too much attention to the minutia of troop movements., but it's one of the few available studies of a most important, if forgotten, war. I wish there was an affordable, more in-depth work, but there doesn't seem to be.

Nonetheless, there was value in reading the book. In a sense, it's a sequel to Trevor Royle's book I read on the Crimean War, the French-Sardinian alliance being a direct result of that. With Prussia lurking in the wings, it's also a prequel to Wawro's books on the Austro-Prussian War and the Franco-Prussian War. 

Some Rambling Thoughts on Failure and the Mail Bag

Bossoli's Battle of Solferino

I haven't done one of these in a long time. I've been rereading - Glen Cook's Black Company and James Lee Burke's Dave Robicheaux books - so I haven't picked up any new fiction until today. Later on I'll show you what was in the mail bag.

On the other hand, a recent question from a friend about the unification of Germany sparked a flutter of a memory. Oh, yeah, my utterly failed Long Nineteenth Century project from a couple of years ago. You know, the one where I replaced the banner with Carlo Bossoli's awe-inspiring painting of the Battle of Solferino and claimed I was going to read a great big stack of history books. The thing I failed at almost completely. I only managed to review two books - Alistair Horne's Price of Glory about Verdun and Trevor Royle's The Great Crimean War - and make a few ancillary posts before getting distracted by others things.

3rd Bastion in Sevastopol

I really was distracted. I was getting bored with swords & sorcery (really, it can happen). In search of something to write about for Black Gate, my eyes fell on epic fantasy. It was fun, but the bigger books stole any extra time had for reading non-fiction. I mean it stole time if I wanted to keep writing for Black Gate AND spend hundreds of hours playing Civilization.

So I bailed. After all the hullabaloo I made about it I just ditched the Long Nineteenth Century like a hot potato - a dirty, smelly, hot potato. Later I did the same thing with the Western project. In the end I just signed off on blog projects, changed the name to Stuff I Like and started posting whatever caught my fancy. The thing is, I'm lazy, too lazy by half. It's really my greatest fault and I don't see myself overcoming it any time soon. I really do wish I'd succeed at the 19th century stuff. Heck, I've got something going on at my Staten Island blog I was really hoping I'd get a move on this summer, but you can guess how well that went.

I'm not proud of my laziness, but I really don't see overcoming it. Maybe if anything other than my reputation as a slacker depended on me accomplishing any of these things I would change. I'm am starting to discipline myself a little bit, so I'll see how that goes. Until some future better moment, though, I'll just keeping on keeping on the way I'v been going.

Now, I'm not saying I'm going to attempt anything like that. I am saying I'm going to finally finish Geoffrey Wawro's The Prusso-Austrian War and review my notes on Harold C. Wylly's Campaign of Magenta and Solferino. I'm really interested in fall of Austria and the rise of Prussia as the leaders of the German-speaking world.

Cavalry at Konnigratz

Between the clobbering by the French and Sardinians in 1859 and then the Prussians in 1866, Austria was knocked out of the running for control of the Germans. The Prussians, victorious in Denmark in 1864, against Austria in 1866, and finally against Germany's long-time nemesis, France, in 1870, became the natural leaders of the Germans. In 1871, under Prussian direction, save for Luxembourg, Lichtenstein, and Austria, the assorted German nations were finally united. How this heady moment of Teutonic triumph led to the cauldron of the First World War and then the Second is a story for another day.

Mail Bag

On my birthday, I always order a stack of stuff, mostly from Amazon. This year is no different.

I'm a huge Tim Powers fan, and he, along with Glen Cook, is one of only a few writers I still get in hardcover. Even though I'm like two books behind on his catalogue, there's a new one out and I'll get it on Friday.

Then there are the history books I bought (all ebooks). I envision having a significant library dedicated to the military insanity that shaped the last few centuries, particularly in the West. I think I'm pretty well along, but there's always more to go. Our history of slaughtering one another is lengthy.

I know a little about the English Civil War, mostly from a book, whose title escapes me, on the period's radical factions. This is the first full history of the whole period and I hope to actually read it soonish. 

Other than a vague idea of who the Duke of Marlborough was and that the Battle of Malplaquet was a important, I know little about the war. I vaguely recall it involved Louis XIV finagling to get his grandson on the Spanish throne, but beyond that, I've got nothing. These seems to be a solid treatment of the whole war and not just the British part as many other books do.

I've got a little cash left to spend but I'm going to sit on it for a bit. Ideally, I'd love to find a history of Russian imperialism in the Caucasus, but I haven't come across one yet. If you know of one, please, let me know. Imperial Russia appears to have been one of the most thoroughly militarized societies to have ever existed. There appear to have been wars going on constantly from mid-16th century straight up until the Revolution. Of course the Soviet Union had its own imperial period, but again, that's a story for another time.

A good one volume survey of the Latin American wars of independence would be a score too. If you know about one of those, drop me a line.

Last Year and This Year

This past year was a haphazard one here at Swords & Sorcery: A Blog. First I tried to review all of Chaosium's Cthluhu Mythos anthologies, but Lin Carter killed that for me. Really, it was just too much of too much of the same stuff over and over again. To get to the really good stories I had to wade through lots of meh, to lousy, to hair-torn-out-at-the-roots bad stories. So after only a few volumes that whole business crashed and burned.

Then, in reaction to reading nothing but fantasy and being driven nuts by the state of the nation and the world, I turned to the Long 19th Century Project. While it crashed and burned as well, I will still go back to it. 

The rise of Western Imperialism and its attendant wars is one of the most compelling and interesting periods of world history. The great powers of today, save China, were forged into their modern versions during this era: industrialized America and Japan, Germany and Italy both united, Russia's completion of its southward and westward expansion, England and France chopping up Africa. 

My problem was I went overboard, trying to cram a vast stack of of books into my brain too quickly. I will definitely return to this in the coming year, just not with as concentrated attention, probably no more than a book or two at a time, but I will return.

Finally, there was, and still is, EPIC. It's going to be around at least until I finish the several series I've already started reviewing: First Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, Riddle-Master of Hed, and Fionavar. I need to read the next Kencyrath book from P.C. Hodgell, To Ride A Rathorn. Heck, I might even throw another Shanarra book in just for the heck of it. If I can think of anymore good stand-alones like Red Moon and Black Mountain I read/review them as well.

Then there are the reviews I've been asked to do (or will be shortly). The next Charles Saunders book should show up soon (oh, yeah!), a Gonji collection. Some other things I don't even know what they are yet.

And, as I've been doing for several years now, my short story reviews. I really don't read much new fantasy except in bite-size form, which suits me just fine. I get to read a wider array of authors, styles, and encounter dozens more ideas in a stack of doorstoppers. 

I do read a few books, mostly by people I know now, but very little of the popular stuff the kids are digging. With their terrible photo-realistic covers and their monstrous thickness and endless sequels, they just don't catch my eye. I need to read from people whose taste run similar to mine that a new book's good for me to chance it. I'm turning fifty this year, so I'm allowed to be crotchety.

And, of course, other posts about things that catch my fancy. Genre related things just not necessarily about a specific book or story, though they could be. You know, whatever.

I hope nobody got too bored or frustrated with my rapidly changing interests here during the last year. I like to believe I'm providing decent value (or amusement) for your dollar. I hope everyone sticks with me for the next twelve months. I don't know what it'll really bring, but I'm still having fun here and at Black Gate, so I with any luck that'll be apparent in what I write. Here's hoping, and a Happy New Year to everybody!

Imperial Reading List

I'm nearly finished with this and it's helping set the direction for the next several books I'll read covering European events. The war represents the collapse of the forty years of peace following the Congress of Vienna and onset of several years of European war (2nd Italian War of Independence 1859, the 2nd Schleswig War 1864, the Austro-Prussian War 1866, and Franco-Prussian War 1870) that saw the birth of two new important European states (Germany and Italy), that would leave their own indelible marks on world history over the next seventy-five years.

One of the odd bits of an odd war was that the Kingdom of Sardinia, essentially Italy-in-waiting, sent troops to the Crimea. The kingdom was hoping to create a unified nation out of the various principalities and Austrian controlled regions of in present-day Italy, and wanted to secure French support for their efforts. By committing soldiers to the Crimea, Sardinia endeavored to show it was a mature state and not in any way connected to the radicalism of 1848. They succeeded and the intervention of Napoleon III in 1859 secured Sardinia's victory against Austria. 

This 1907 book is one of the few books I've been able to find on this short war, despite being one of the first major steps on the road to Italian unification in 1870. With massive French assistance, the Austrians were driven from Lombardy and its capital, Milan. The aftermath of the war's biggest battle, Solferino, left such an impression on Swiss businessman, Henry Dunant, it led him to create the International Red Cross.

This just showed up in the mail (yes, I had to buy an actual paper book). It's one of the only recent (and in English) books on Prussia's swift victory over the Austrians. The war broke Austria's hold over the German states, paved the way for Prussia's ascension to the world stage, and broke Austria's hold over Italy once and for all. Königgrätz, the battle that broke the Austrians, was fought three years to the day after the last day of Gettysburg with armies nearly three times as large. In one day of fighting, nearly as many men were wounded and killed at Königgrätz as during the three of Gettysburg. The war left Prussia dominant over the rest of the German states and Austria a broken hulk just waiting for the wreckers to arrive.

I'm half way done with this massive account of the birth of the American overseas empire during the "splendid little war" against the decaying Spanish empire. It goes into tremendous detail about the fall and rise of the US navy in the years following the Civil War and the political warfare between the various Democratic factions, the Republicans, and the imperialists and their opponents. While the book is primarily about America and its actions, it doesn't neglect the Spanish and Cubans. Between the Spanish brutality and the Cuban scorched earth policies, the chapters on the Cuban wars of independence are harrowing.

Both of these are supposed to be good, solid histories of their respective conflicts. Most people's, only knowledge of the Anglo-Zulu War is from the rousing film, Zulu. While it portrays the Zulus as brave it never really explains who they are or why they're fighting the British. I know enough to know they were responding to British aggression.

The Boer War was also the result of British bad intentions. As someone of Dutch background, I've always been intrigued by the Boers and their history. For a people bound and determined to be independent, they never seemed to have missed an opportunity to hold black Africans in bondage. 

This trio of books tell the history of America's expansion to the Pacific Coast and Rio Grande River. There were earlier events clearly a part of this continental expansion (Tecumseh's War, the Florida Wars, etc.) and the War of 1812 (an appendix to the Napoleonic Wars), and maybe I'll get to them, but I admit to being drawn to images of Mexican lancers, the storming of Chapultepec, blue uniformed cavalry troopers, and Sioux and Cheyenne warriors riding across the plains.

There's so many more books I want to read before I'm finished with this project and I really hope I'm able to stay with it. Among them are Rising Sun and Tumbling Bear (Russo-Japanese War), The Franco-Prussian War: The German Conquest of France in 1870-1871, The Sino-Japanese Naval War 1894-1895, and just maybe, The Spirit Soldiers: A Historical Narrative of the Boxer Rebellion. 

I still want to finish Herwig's The Marne, and there's a book about the Ashante War that looks good. This list totally neglects British action in India and the Northwest Frontier, as well as French and Italian colonial escapades too, and I don't want to do that. 

I'm not completely sure what I'm trying to do with all this reading but so far it's been a tremendously exciting and interesting undertaking. I haven't read this much history since college and it's invigorating. 

Eagle Ascending: Enter the Americans

So, I'm already about to break one of the few guidelines I set for myself when I started this undertaking: I'm going to write about America. I'll still leave out the US Civil War; from an American perspective, it's just too big and singular event to include here. But there's no way the Mexican War, the various Indian wars, the Spanish American War, and the numerous incursions into the Caribbean and Central America before the Great War, can be separated from the great wave of Western imperial expansion of the long 19th century. And I already own a great batch of books on these various wars and expeditions, so I got that going for me. I do need to get something good about Pershing in Mexico, though.

The Storming of Chapultepec - Sept. 1847

10th Cavalry on Patrol in Arizona

Rough Rider Charge at Battle of San Juan Hill

Imperial Artwork - Assault of Gimry - by Franz Alekseyevich Roubaud

This detailed painting is of the Russian attack on the stronghold of Ghazi Muhammad, the most important religious leader of the resistance of the peoples of the Eastern Caucasus to Russian conquest. It was painted by Franz Alekseyevich Roubaud. Make sure you click on it to get the full effect.

As I'm learning more about 19th century European imperialism, I'm becoming very interested in Russia's actions to its south. Between 1651 and 1828 Russia fought five wars against Persia. Between 1568 and 1878, they fought ten distinct wars against the Ottomans. Their war in the Caucasus went for nearly fifty years, starting in 1817 and not ending until 1864. The Crimean War, and its participation in the Balkan Wars are part of the warfare in the southern regions as well.

Counting in the Napoleonic Wars, the various nationalist uprisings it suppressed, the war against Japan, and the Revolution of 1905, I can think of no other nation that experienced as much and as constant warfare as imperial Russia. 

Unfortunately, there is little contemporary writing, at least in English, about the Russian invasion and subjugation of the Caucasus. There's Life of Schamyl And Narrative of the Circassian War of Independence Against Russia by J. Milton Mackie, but that's from 1856 and before the war even ended. I might be forced to rely on a mix of fiction by Pushkin, Lermontov, and Tolstoy to get a sense of what the Russians made of events at the time. For a broader picture, the best I think I can do is Charles King's The Ghost of Freedom: A History of the Caucasus. Will I ever read all this, who can tell? Still, it's a mesmerizing period and region I know little of. As much as we here about British and French imperialism and colonialism, Russia was clearly as aggressive and as brutal as either of them.

Into the Cauldron - The Price of Glory: Verdun 1916 by Alistair Horne

I've read several books on the entire history of the Great War: Liddell Hart's The Real War, Martin Gilbert's The First World War, and John Keegan's The First World War. I also have the lavishly illustrated American Heritage History of World War One. But until now, I haven't read a volume dedicated to a single battle or campaign. So I figured I might as well start with a study of one of the bloodiest and most horrific battles of the war: Verdun.

The Battle of Verdun ran from February 21 to December 20, 1916. French casualties were about 160,000 killed and somewhere between 300,000 and 500,000 wounded. German casualties were nearly as terrible, with around 145,000 killed and 300,000 and 440,000 wounded. The initial German battle plan had been to bleed the French army white in a series of attacks on locations the French would be forced to defend. The French army complied but the German army found itself caught up just as much and unable to extricate itself from the seemingly endless series of attacks and counterattacks. In the end, both armies were broken.

Last year marked the centennenial of the start of the Great War. On June 28, 1914, the heir to the
throne of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, during a military tour of Sarajevo, was assassinated by a Serbian nationalist. Exactly four weeks later the war started when Austria declared war on and invaded Serbia. Over the following four days, Austria and Germany found themselves at war with Russia, France, and Great Britain.

The campaign in the West during the first months of the war was one of movement. The German right wing drove through Luxembourg and Belgium and on towards Paris. Deflected from its objective at the Battle of the Marne, it then began the "race to the sea" as it tried to outflank the Allied left wing. The British beat the Germans to the Channel and the trench line the war is infamous for began to take form.

During 1915 the Germans were content to let the Allies take the initiative. In a series of battles, often little more than direct assaults, the British and French armies battered away at the enemy trenches.

The Allies made efforts to adapt to the new style of warfare and develop new tactics to break the static front line. Even with these, neither the British or the French were able to do more than break through the front line of trenches before being stopped only half a mile or so at the next line of trenches. The great autumn offensive at Loos and Champagne left twice as many Allied casualties on the field as German.

The German high command decided that 1916 would be the year they would resume the offense. By focusing their attack on a place of some strategic importance but of even greater historical significance they would force the French to commit their army to hold the ground at all costs.

"The string in France has reached breaking point. A mass breakthrough—which in any case is beyond our means—is unnecessary. Within our reach there are objectives for the retention of which the French General Staff would be compelled to throw in every man they have. If they do so the forces of France will bleed to death."

General Eric von Falkenhayn, Chief of the General Staff of the German Army

Alistair Horne is a British historian specializing in the 19th and 20th century history of France. During the invasion of Iraq in 2003 his history of the Algerian War, A Savage War of Peace, became something read by US generals and politicians. The renewed attention for his 26 year old book garnered him a interview on The Charlie Rose Show.

The Price of Glory opens with a history of the French Army between its defeat by Prussian arms in 1870, the scandal of the Dreyfus Affair, and the development of its attaque à outrance (attack to the excess) philosophy in the years prior to the outbreak of the Great War. French theorists were convinced the way to overcome on the battlefield was to pour everything into a purely offensive strategy.

Airplanes and machine guns were dismissed as irrelevant or unimportant. Heavy artillery was deemed "contrary to the (Attaque à outrance) spirit." Officers like Philippe Petain who questioned the prevailing wisdom weren't promoted. In the end, Cassandra-like, his fears were proven correct and the French attacks were cut to pieces and little to no ground was taken. Nonetheless, the spirit of attack was still strong in the early days of 1916 and the officers who held to it still held the reins of power.

Gen. Joseph Joffre - ctr.

The tenor of the battle was set by the two opposing commanders: Generals Joseph Joffre and Eric von Falkenhayn. Horne gives short, but sufficient biographies of the two men that show how they arrived at the theories and attitudes they held in the beginning of 1916.

On the French side was General Joseph Joffre, hero of the Marne. He was a mentally thick man, incapable of thinking too deeply. British Field Marshal Haig disparaged him as "a poor man (who) cannot argue, nor can he easily read a map." He rarely read books on military theory before the war and after it read none of the books about the events he had played so large a role in. He didn't want to know about the maimed and dead because he believed he would be unable to order attacks.

As a general he was stolid and unimaginative. By courage and spirited counter-attack the enemy could be overcome. Seeing no other way to overcome the German army he became a supported of attrition warfare. 

Gen. Eric von Falkenhayn

Erich von Falkenhayn succeeded Helmuth von Moltke the Younger as Chief of the General Staff of the German Army when the latter's health broke down when he failed to capture Paris during the Battle of the Marne. He was a driven man, often severe and strict. Horne credits him with reviving the heart of the German Army following the failures of 1914. Capable of brilliant strategic insights, he also proved tentative and overly cautious. He was so startled by the breach in the British line during the gas attack at Ypres in 1915 he failed to send in troops to exploit it. He needed everything to be exactly where he wanted it, every possible contingency to be accounted for, and every unit ready before attacking. This attitude led directly to his failure during the battle.

Falkenhayn's plan was to launch a limited offense seize the town of Verdun and the system of fortresses that surrounded it. Verdun lies less than two hundred miles from Paris, so he was convinced the French would be forced to attempt to recapture it. Switching over to a defensive stance, the German army would destroy the French with the power of its tremendous artillery batteries. He called this plan, Unternehmen Gericht, or Operation Judgment.

Germans march to the front

The battle is a stunning series of brutal attacks, and heroic, often doomed, defenses. The initial German attacks swarmed over much of the French front lines. Previous decisions by the French high command had left many of the massive concrete fortress undermanned and ill-prepared for an assault. One of the mightiest of these, Fort Douaumont, fell to a handful of German soldiers. It seemed as if victory was inevitable. 

But everywhere there were holes, and not enough material to plug them all. Closer and closer the grey mass crept towards Haumont village. Twice machine-gun fire from somewhere in its ruins made the storm-troops fall back until the bombardment could be renewed. Two of the monster 420s joined their vocies to the fugue of destruction, and shells and heavy mortar bombs rained down on this small village, which in pre-war days had had a population of less than a hundred, at a rate of twenty a minute. Each moment its appearance was transformed. Once concrete bunker collapsed under a direct hit from a 420, burying eighty men and two machine guns. By 3 p.m. Bonviolle had less than 500 effectives defending the village; most of his officers were either dead or wounded. At 4 p.m., the Germans moved in on three sides to deliver the final blow. Still they were mowed down by French machine guns firing from the cellars of shattered houses. Up came the Pioneers with their flamethrowers, and the last brave defenders were consumed in remorseless fire.

from Chapter Seven: The Fall of Colonel Driant describing action on Feb. 22

It was not. First, under the battlefield direction of one of Joffre's right hand men, Gen. N. E. Castelnau, the French army held the Germans back from Verdun itself. Then under the brilliant leadership of Gen. Petain, a system of rotation was implemented that took units out of the line after fairly short periods of time. The Germans, on the other hand, left their soldiers in place, sending them into combat time and time again. And for ten months they were thrown at each other, grappling in the muck and mud of a landscape so pulverized by the unending artillery bombardment, that it more resembled the moon than anywhere on Earth. It as if two blind giants, both grievously wounded, kept shooting and stabbing at each other as if it would go on forever.

While the heart of The Price of Glory is the actual fighting of the battle itself, much space is dedicated to struggles within the two opposing commands. Petain was dedicated to the average soldier in a way few other French generals ever were. While he too subscribed to the strategy of attrition, he believed the way way to do it was to expend munitions not men. This became to be viewed as a reluctance to attack and ultimately led to his displacement by the vainglorious and agressive General Robert Nivelle (the offensive he directed in 1917 would lead directly to the mutiny of the French army).

Germans await the attack

On the German side, everything was hampered by von Falkenhayn's secretiveness. It was never his plan to breakthrough the French lines but he seems to have never made this clear to his subordinates. The only man who seems to have fully realized this was Crown Prince Wilhelm, heir to the German throne and commander of the Fifth Army. Unfortunately, he was dismissed by his father, the Kaiser, as useless and real command of his army was held by his chief of staff, Konstantin von Knobelsdorf. The latter was an aggressive commander always ready and willing to attack and Falkenhayn was unwilling or unable to restrain him.

1916 became a bloody year for all the armies. Before the start of Gericht, both the Russians and British had committed to joint offensives during the year. As the maelstrom of Verdun threatened to overwhelm the French, they urged their allies to start their operations as soon as possible.

In the East, the Russians under General Aleksei Brusilov broke through the Austrian lines and took 200,000 prisoners in an offensive launched in June. The British attack, the Somme Offensive became the largest and most murderous battle on the Western Front. Together, these costs of these two titantic engagements led to the halt of German offensive operations at Verdun.

There are also chapters on the battle's air operations, the efforts of the French to supply their forces on the narrow road that came to be called the Voie Sacrée, the Sacred Way, and the failure of the both sides to properly feed their men and treat their wounds. All this is powerful but in the end, it is the depiction of combat that is the most vivid and moving parts of the book.

Phosgene gas was used for the first time, cutting swaths through the French lines. A hill of not much more significance than any other, Mort Homme, becomes the focus of intense fighting during the French offensive in March. Horne never stints from showing the horrors and nigthmarish fights that seem like they will never cease. Men are torn to pieces by gunfire, eviscerated by shrapnel. The book is filled with events and images that are now seared in my mind.

Then there is the close-quarters fight in the darkened tunnels of Fort Vaux.

Here the battle went on in pitch darkness, relieved only by the flash of exploding grenades, in a shaft for the most part no more than three feet wided and five feet high, in which no grown man could stand upright. Machine-gins bullets ricochetting from wall to wall inflicted wounds as terrible as any dum-dum, and in the confined space the concussion of the grenades was almost unendurable. Repeatedly men of both sides felt themselves asphyxiating in the air polluted by TNT fumes and cement dust stirred up by the explosions. Added to it was the ever-worsening stink of the dead, rapidly decomposing in the June heat, for whom there was no means of burial inside the fort.

from Chapter Twenty-One: Fort Vaux

Inside Fort Vaux

The Battle of Verdun finally ended in the winter of 1916, both sides exhausted and unable to continue. Von Falkenhayn was relieved of command in the West. The mishandling of so many things during Verdun, coupled with the failure of the Battle of the Somme led to Joffre's fall from power before the end of the year.

In the end, both armies were wounded almost beyond recovery. The survivors were wounded in souls. Soldiers lost hope in surival or the future, faith in God and country. While Verdun became a byword for bottomless courage in France, it also became a nightmare that haunted it for years to come. 

A French sergeant, Marc Boasson, who would later be killed in the battle, wrote to his wife in June:

This is not heroism. It is ignominy. What kind of nation will they make of us tomorrow, these exhausted creatures, emptied of blood, emptied of thought, crushed by superhuman fatigue?

Horne claims that never again did the French Army possess the willingness to bravely throw itself into offensive operations with anything like the vigor of the days before Verdun. Only the arrival of American troops in 1918 allow the Allies to defeat the Germans.

The German Army ended Verdun not much better off. Only with the freeing up of armies from the East following the Russian collapse in 1917 are the Germans able to return to offensive operations.

Alistair Horne's The Price of Glory is a powerful book about one of the most terrible events in European history. While the total casualties and destruction of World War Two far exceeded those of the Great War, there are few battles that I can think of that exhibited the same sort of endless carnage as Verdun. It is war stripped of any pretense or glory, where the only goal is to kill the enemy, not to seize some important strategic prize or precious resource.  There was no way it could be turned into anything but slaughter for slaughter's sake.

If you have any interest in the Great War this is a book worth your time. My only real problem with the book is Horne's expectation that his readers can read French. I can't and it meant I was alway running to google translate to find out what an order or battlefield exclamation meant. On the other hand, he also assumed nobody can read German and translated everything. But that's my only quibble with a book that will stay with me for a long, long time.

The Long Nineteenth Century

So the Chaosium Cthlhu Mythos project I embarked on late last year has clearly fallen by the wayside. I haven't posted anything on it in months and I haven't been able to make any headway in the next book, Cthulhu's Heirs, for weeks. Every time I tried to get going again I found myself distracted by anything else. I just couldn't stay focused on the stories, no matter how good. So, I'm calling it quits for now. Maybe I'll go back in the future.

What I AM interested in right now are the various wars and colonial actions between 1789 and 1918, a period the repellent Marxist historian, Eric Hobsbawn, crafted.  The French Revolution represents a shattering of the feudal, social, and relgious order in most of Europe. At the conclusion of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815, the Great Powers attempted to re-establish the old order at the Congress of Vienna and it never really took. Between that span, nationalism sparked numerous revolutions and wars. France, England, and many other powers continued their imperial expansion bringing millions of people under their rule.

The slow-motion race toward the Great War and the vileness of the colonial undertakings are fascinating. At a time of rapid cultural and social growth, of scientific advancement at a speed never before experienced, the developed nations of the world seemed bent on proving themselves by force of arms and with bloodshed. From my cossetted early-21st century place it makes little sense. But of course it did to millions upon millions of educated people at the time.

When I read history, when I encounter the past, I try hard not to simply dismiss it because people and societies aren't as liberally minded as we like to think of ourselves today. People weren't evil (okay, some of them clearly were), but instead, had the same sort of complex thinking and understanding of human actions we have but with completely different underlying assumptions. My hope is to come to a greater understanding of how people came to such different conclusions than we do (most of the time) today.

Between 1815 and 1914, Europe saw numerous wars. Among them were the First and Second Italian Wars of Independence, and the Austro-Prussian and Franco-Prussian Wars. Even poor little Denmark gets ravaged by the Prussians.

The decaying state of the Ottoman Empire led to three wars between the Turks and the Russians. In 1882, Britain sort of, kind of, took control of Egypt from the Ottomans and in 1911, Italy helped itself to Libya. The British supplantation of the Ottomans in Egypt led directly to various excursions into the Sudan.

The Japanese make their entrance onto the world stage by defeating first China in 1894, then Russia in 1905.

None of these had the scope or duration of the Napoleonic Wars, but they were brutal and showed the way to the industrial slaughterhouse of the Great War.

Then, most egregiously, there are the numerous colonial conquests and exploitation. Germany, France, Belgium, England, and Italy into Africa. England, France, Russian, Japan, and more into China. Sometimes the colonized had the temerity to rise up, hence the Great Mutiny and the Boxer Rebellion. The Boer Wars, if not perfectly, fit into the catergory of uprisings as well.



The greatest proof of the failure of the Congress of Vienna is the Great War. All the nationalism, all the competition between the Great Powers for colonial possessions, martial and economic power, exploded in the summer of 1914. Though sparked by the assassination of the Archduke Ferdinand, heir to the throne of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, it had been building for a long time before that.

At present, inspired by the centenary of the Great War, I'm reading
The Price of Glory: Verdun 1916 by Alistair Horne and The Marne:1914 by Holger Herwig. Both are excellent studies of the respective battles, providing excellent studies of the commanders, strategies, and tactics involved. Both books go a long way to showing the disastrous conduct of the battles were more the result of failures by the generals to understand the changes wrought by technology. Rare were the commanders who really were able to take these things into account and incorporate them into tactics and strategies.

So, that's what I'm doing here, for the next few months at least. Oh, at I'm leaving the US out of this. Sure, we were doing the sames things as Europe (and Japan). We had a bloody expansionist period, a bloody war of consolidation, and a nice quick war with Spain and colonialism. But, as an American, I'm already familiar with it, so I'm not looking to read much about it now (but maybe next time. I've got two good looking books about the Spanish American War that straring at me from the shelf).


Oh, and I'm too bored/tired right now, but I will be updating the banner.