THE BATTLE OF ADWA

1896

                                                         Emperor Menelik II 

Close to the end of the 19th century, the ancient kingdom of Ethiopia remained one of the few country's within the continent of Africa that had not fallen to European colonialism. 

Compared to the other great powers of Europe, Italy was late in its efforts to colonize and possessed only the small acquisitions of Eritrea and Somalia. Italy therefore sought to increase its dominance over the region by conquering Ethiopia and creating a land bridge between its two provinces. 

On the evening of February 29th under the cover of darkness, the military governor of Eritrea, General Oreste Baratieri with an army of 18,000 men and 55 artillery pieces crossed the Ethiopian border and occupied the villages of Makalle and Adigrat. 

Menelik was outraged by this blatant invasion of Ethiopian soil and summoned all his tribal chiefs to Addis Ababa for a consul of war. Once assembled, Menelik's large army consisted of 100,000 men. Although the bulk of Menelik's force consisted of spear and shield armed infantry, 30,000 men were armed with modern rifles. 

Ethiopian Warriors

On March 2nd, Menelik marched his army from Addis Ababa occupying the village of Adowa and the surrounding area. Now aware of the position of the Ethiopian army , General Baratieri called his brigade commanders to a meeting to discuss the upcoming battle. 

Baratieri revealed he planed to divide his army into four brigades with each marching along separate routes with the goal of arriving at their pre determined objectives before dawn. Once completed, the maneuver would effectively occupy the high ground and completely surround the Ethiopian forces encamped at Adowa. 

Although Baratieri's plan was tactically sound, it began to unravel almost from the outset. The Italian's soon found themselves struggling to keep cohesion with their flank's due to the hostile terrain and outdated maps of the area.

At 6:00am, Major General Albertone reached his objective at Mount Kidane Meret overlooking the Ethiopian encampment, he then assumed the other three brigades were also in position and gave the order for his men to advance.

 

 

                          Baratieri                                             Albertone

Menelik's scouts had given the Emperor reports on the enemy's movements the previous night and his army was in position and prepared for the Italian's once they arrived. Albertone's brigade of 4,500 men was immediately confronted by a superior Ethiopian force numbering 15,000 warriors under Ras Tekla Haymanot.

General Baratieri now also began to receive reports of increasing contacts to Major General Armondi's front and that Albertone's brigade was heavily engaged and requesting reinforcements. At 7:45am, Baratieri ordered Major General Dabormida to move his brigade from the right wing and pull back to support the army's center. 

For some unknown reason Dabormida moved his brigade towards the extreme right, away from the army at the same moment Menelik ordered Ras Mikael Makonnen and the 25,000 strong Royal Guard to support Haymanot against Albertone. 

After fighting for over two hours, Albertone's exhausted troops could no longer hold back the massive Ethiopian assault and the brigade simply disintegrated and melted away, with Albertone himself being captured.

Haymanot                                           Makonnen

With the Italian left flank now completely destroyed, Ras Makonnen and the Royal Guard now swept down from mount Kidane Meret on Major General Arimondi's central brigade. 

Arimondi's lone brigade of 5,000 men now found themselves facing assaults to their front and both flanks. Although all seemed hopeless, the Italian brigade was fortunate in that they did possess the bulk of the Italian artillery. 

Arimondi quickly placed his artillery surrounding the brigade in a rough semi circle, he then ordered the infantry to take up positions between each piece. As the Ethiopians came within rifle range Arimondi finally gave the order to open fire. 

The withering barrage decimated the oncoming Ethiopian charge killing hundreds with each repeated salvo. After suffering incredible casualties, the Ethiopian’s finally reached the Italian positions. 

Arimondi’s troops now found themselves engaged in bitter hand to hand fighting. However this did not last long as the Ethiopian warriors poured over and through the Italian lines massacring the brigade to a man. 

  

At 9:15am Baratieri arrived on the scene with the reserve brigade. The General was in disbelief with the situation before him, off to his left in the distance and below in the valley he could see the corpses of two of his brigade's littering the ground, and there was no sign of Dabromida's brigade.

A horrified Baratieri had seen enough, he was not going to commit his last brigade to an already lost battle and ordered an immeadiate retreat back to Sauria. Unknown to the General as he pulled back, Major General Dabromida's brigade was still intact and had halted in a canyon just out of view to get there bearings a few miles from his position.  

Emperor Menelik now decided to finish off the last remnants of the Italian army, ordering Ras Mikail and 20,000 warriors supported by 8,000 cavalry to move on the lone Italian brigade and destroy it before it could escape.

Dabromida was caught completely by surprise at the sight of large numbers of Ethiopian forces converging on his position from all directions. As the pressure on his brigade intensified, Dabromida ordered a fighting withdrawal which soon turned into a complete route. Within half an hour the third and final Italian brigade on the battle field, numbering 4,500 men had been annihilated.

 

The battle of Adowa was now over and had ended in complete victory for Emperor Menelik, but at a high cost. Ethiopian casualties numbered 30,000 warriors dead and 8,000 wounded compared to Italian losses of 14,000 dead 

In the wake of the catastrophe, Italian prime minister Crispi and his entire cabinet were forced to resign and Italy had lost its place among the other European nations as a military power.

On October 26th 1896, Rome signed the treaty of Addis Ababa, recognizing Ethiopia as a sovereign and independent state.

 

ITALIAN INVASION OF ETHIOPIA

1935

Mussolini                                         Selassie 

In 1896, when Italian youth Benito Mussolini was thirteen years old, he along with the entire nation of Italy were informed of the disastrous military defeat of the Italian army at the battle of Adwa in Ethiopia. 

The event was a severe blow to Italian prestige not only in Europe, but around the world. In 1922, Mussolini and his Fascist party had assumed dictatorial power in Italy. 

In 1935, Mussolini felt that a war of conquest against the kingdom of Ethiopia would restore Italy's prestige, avenging the humiliation suffered in the first Italo - Ethiopian war. 

For the invasion the Italians could call upon, six hundred thousand men, seven hundred tanks, two thousand artillery pieces and six hundred aircraft. The Ethiopians would counter with five hundred thousand men, two hundred outdated artillery pieces and a mere handful of machine guns.  

On October 3rd 1935 without a declaration of war, 400,000 soldiers commanded by Marshal Emilio De Bono attacked from Italian Eritrea in the north while 200,000 men under General Rodolfo Graziani advanced from Italian Somalia in the south. 

On October 6th Italian troops captured Adwa, Aksum and Adigrat, then nine days later seized the holy capital of Axum. De Bono then paused operations to replenish his forces.

Mussolini now became exasperated by De Bono's slow and cautious progress and on November 8th as Italian forces occupied the city of Makale, sacked the Marshal replacing him with General Pietro Badoglio.

Before Badoglio could re shuffle his forces and continue with the advance, Emperor Selassie ordered two hundred thousand men to launch a major counter attack on December 15th.  The Ethiopians achieved total surprise and the sheer weight of the assault forced the Italian's to abandon there front line positions. 

In desperation, Badoglio cabled Mussolini on December 26th asking for then receiving permission to use chemical warfare agents to stem the Ethiopian advance.

The next day the Italian’s began delivering the gas from bombers and specially designed canisters in place of artillery shells. The effects were immediate as Ethiopian troops were suffocated by the tens of thousands from this terrible weapon of the First World War.  

On January 23rd, General Graziani employed several hundred tons of mustard gas against Ras Kassa's southern Ethiopian army of seventy thousand men completley destroying it as a fighting force.

On February 9th, Marshal Badoglio launched an offensive against Ras Mulegeta’s 80,000 strong army dug in atop Mount Amba Aradam. Clearing this major obstacle would open the road to the Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa.

The combination of bombers, artillery and poison gas against the entrenched defenders completely paralyzed Mulugeta’s ability to mount any form of attack. After five days of continuous pounding  the Ethiopians surrendered the position yielding thirty thousand prisoners.

The capture of Mount Amba Aradam was a catastrophic disaster for the country. Ras Mulugeta was dead, the southern army had been annihilated and three of the four Ethiopian armies of the north were practically destroyed. 

Only one army remained intact, that of Ras Imru and his sixty thousand strong army of the Shire. This along with the Emperor’s Imperial Guard numbering twenty five thousand men remained as the last organized fighting forces within all Ethiopia. 

On March 29th, the Emperor assembled his last forces in and around the hills surrounding the city of Maychew and awaited the Italians.

For the up coming battle, Marshal Badoglio possessed a total of one hundred and fifty thousand men, three hundred tanks, four hundred artillery pieces and two hundred fighters and bombers. 

Emperor Haile Selassie would counter the Italians with eighty five thousand men and fifty pre World War One cannons.

Ethiopian Imperial Guard

At dawn on the morning of March 31st, Selassie ordered twenty thousand men under Ras Kassa to attack the Eritrean colonial forces holding the Mekan Pass on the Italian left flank.

The assault quickly began to force the pass and gain ground, however Badoglio unleashed a fierce artillery bombardment supported by heavy bombers and the Ethiopian advance began to falter and was pushed back with heavy casualties.

The next morning, Haile Selassie felt he had no further options but to order an all out frontal attack along the entire front. 

As the entire Ethiopian army lumbered forward en mass, a horrified Selassie could only stand silent as the assault meet with heavy machine gun fire, artillery ordenance, air attacks and poison gas. As the smoke cleared from the Italian barrage, the battlefield lay littered with thousand’s of dead and dying Ethiopians.  

With his army completely destroyed, the Emperor made his way towards Addis Ababa, where on May 2nd he boarded his imperial train to Djibouti, from there he fled to England by air.

Italian forces marched into Addis Ababa three days later. The second Italian - Abyssinian war was over, back in Italy Benito Mussolini could now claim his empire to the world. On June 1st 1936, Italy officially merged Ethiopia with Eritrea and Somaliland, calling the new state, Africa Orientale Italiana (Italian East Africa).

The war had cost the the Italians 50,000 killed and 125,000 wounded. The Ethiopian's suffered much greater losses at 275,000 killed and 225,000 severely wounded with most suffering the after effects of poison gas.  

 

THE BATTLE OF SHILOH 

1862

GRANT                                        JOHNSTON

Following the capture of Fort's Henry and Donelson along the Tennessee River, General Albert Sidney Johnston was forced to withdraw his Confederate army south west leaving Union General Ulysses S. Grant free to advance towards the heart of the Confederacy.

General Grant moved his army south to Pittsburg landing on the western shore of the Tennessee River. He was then directed by Major General Halleck to await the arrival of General Buell’s army of the Ohio marching on his position in support.  

Confederate General Johnston was resolved to attack Grant before he could be joined by Buell’s force. On April 3rd, the Confederate army of Mississippi numbering 45,000 men marched out of Corinth, north east towards General Grant’s camp.    

General Grant had taken few precautions to secure his camp against attack. No field fortifications were built, no cavalry screens deployed and the infantry pickets were to sparsley positioned to give sufficient notice of a Confederate attack.  

On April 5th General Grant fell from his horse and was injured and spent the night recuperating ten miles from his camp in Savannah. That same evening the Confederate army had completed its march and now lay within three miles of the unsuspecting federal encampment. 

At first light on April 6th, Johnston ordered his two center Infantry corps under Major Generals Hardee and Bragge supported by Brigadier General Breckinridge on the right and Major General Polk on the left to move forward in an all out attack on the Union positions. 

The Federal troops awoke to hear the screams of the Confederate rebel yell and the roar of cannons and gunfire as Hardee and Polk fell on General William Tecumseh Sherman's 5th division. The surprise of the Union troops was complete with many soldiers just cooking breakfast or still asleep.

Sherman’s troops were driven back with ease while In the center of the the 2nd and 6th  divisions under Brigadier General's Wallace and Prentiss attempted to form defensive positions against increasingly frenzied Confederate attacks in what was later to become known as the Hornet’s Nest. 

General Grant arrived on the battlefield at around 8am to find his army being pushed back everywhere but at the Hornet’s Nest. Grant then ordered his army to fall back and establish new Union lines along the road leading from Pittsburg landing to the Hamburg Savannah turnpike while he rode through the Federal positions getting a feel for the situation from his commanders while encouraging the troops.

By mid afternoon the Union army had fallen back to there new line, leaving Prentiss and Wallace's divisions surrounded within the Hornet’s Nest. General Johnston now ordered sixty Confederate cannons brought up to blast the trapped Federals into surrender. 

After a three hour murderous barrage General Wallace ordered what was left of his division to fight there way out of the Hornet's Nest but was virtually destroyed with himself being fatally wounded.  

At around 6pm General Prentiss could do no more and surrendered what was left of his shattered division amounting to some 4,000 wounded troops. The Federal stand in the Hornet’s Nest held off the Confederate attack for sufficient time to enable Grant to hold the thin Union line long enough for darkness to bring an end to the fighting.

The day long battle for the Hornets Nest was now over and casualties were high on both sides, including General Johnston himself who while leading an assault on the Federal positions was shot in the leg with the round severing his main artery. Johnston bled to death within half hour, leaving command of the Confederate army to General Beauregard.

As night was falling Beauregard called a halt to the Confederate attacks. That night General Beauregard wrote a dispatch to Confederate President, Jefferson Davis in Richmond claiming victory and a major defeat over the Union army, “Victory is ours” he wrote.

BEAUREGARD

During the fighting on April 6th General Grant had been sending urgent requests to Major General Don Carlos Buell's 18,000 strong Army of the Ohio to march with all hast in support of his army.  

Buell’s Army arrived at the river crossing around midnight and were brought over the Tennessee River to Pittsburg Landing by Federal gun boats and were in line with Grant's army by the morning of the 7th. 

With a force of some 66,000 men, Grant ordered a general advance against the enemy positions. Unknown to Grant the Confederate army was still in a state of confusion after the fighting the day before and most units had not been effectively re supplied with ammunition.   

Now outnumbered and outgunned the suprised Confederates were driven back all along the line by the unexpected Federal assault. With his troops exhausted and running out of ammunition, Beauregard was forced to concede the field and ordered a retreat back to Corinth.

Union casualties at the Battle of Shiloh were 2,000 dead, 8,400 wounded and 3,000 captured. Confederate losses numbered 1,700 dead, 8,000 wounded and 1,000 missing or captured.

The battle was considered a Federal victory, however General Grant was subjected to considerable criticism for allowing his army to be surprised on the first day of the battle.  President Lincoln was subjected to pressure from the opposition as well as his general staff to sack Grant, which Lincoln resisted firmly stating “I cannot lose this general, he stands and fights.”

Nevertheless, General Halleck took command of the joint Federal armies, relegating Grant to second in command for the advance on Corinth.

 

OPERATION KIKUSUI

Floating Chrysanthemums

By March 1945, Japan was a nation isolated and under siege, her once mighty Empire had now been reduced to a few unimportant and isolated island strongholds.

After a long and bitter campaign of reconquest, the Americans were preparing to assault the island of Okinawa, a mere three hundred and forty miles from mainland Japan. Its capture was vital to secure airfields and deep water ports necessary for the inevitable invasion of Japan itself.

On April 6th 1945, all remaining wings of the Japanese Imperial air force launched operation Kikusui, directed against the United States 5th fleet anchored within Hagushi Bay on the western approaches to Okinawa.

In attack formations numbering in the hundreds, Japanese planes began attacks focused on the American carriers positioned at the center of the enemy fleet. For nine straight days the Kamikazes attacked, severally damaging the U.S. Hancock, Intrepid and Enterprise while sinking numerous other vessels.

On May 4th, the British carrier HMS Formidable was hit by a single Kamikaze, eight crew members were killed and forty nine wounded. She was struck again on the 9th  along with the carrier HMS Victorious and the Battleship HMS Howe.

On May 11th, the commander of task force fifty eight, Admiral Marc Mitscher was aboard his carrier flagship USS Bunker Hill when it was struck by a Kamikaze pilot killing three hundred and fifty sailors.

The effect of this new form of warfare on American morale was immediate and devastating. The surviving crew members were quickly becoming exhausted from standing twenty four hour watches against potential future attacks.

Kamikaze attacks would continue throughout May and June with deadly effect. However by mid July the attacks became less fierce and more sporadic as the Japanese began to run out of operational aircraft and traine pilots.

The situation now became desperate as the Japanese high command approved the enlistment of sixteen year old youths still attending aviation school, who were now instantly promoted, given there flight wings and assigned to the Kamikaze wing.

At this stage of the battle however, air worthy aircraft could no longer be found and the few which did get airborne were shot down well within the American destroyer pickets defensive perimeter. 

By late June the entire operation was discontinued when Japan had run out of servicable aircraft. After an eighty two day battle, the Americans and her British allies had captured Okinawa and Japan had to now prepare for the anticipated defense of the Japanese homland itself. 

For the loss of two thousand brave Japanese pilots and there aircraft, the U.S. Navy suffered thirty four ships sunk and three hundred and sixty damaged with five thousand five hundred sailors killed.

The U.S. Naval air wing also lost seven hundred and sixty three aircraft, all of which were destroyed on there carrier decks during the Kamikaze attacks.

 

THE ASSYRIAN EMPIRE

At the height of its power (700 BC) Assyria possessed the most powerful army yet seen in the ancient world and would go on to dominate the middle east for the next three hundred years.

Expansion began in the reign of King Ashurnasirpal II (883 – 859) BC whose military campaigns conquered the peoples of Asia Minor, Syria including the powerful Aramaens and Hittite tribes along the length of the Euphrates Rivers. 

Ashurnasirpal would captured five cities in a single campaign when other warlords of the time would have regarded the capture of one as a successful conclusion to hostilities.

Ashurnasirpal II died  while on campaign and was succeeded by his son Shalmaneser III (859 - 824) BC. The new king also adopted a policy of conquest and rapid expansion . Shalamaneser’s armies defeated an alliance of northern city states at the battle of Lutibu in 858, extending his frontiers into eastern Anatolia.

Shalameneser soon followed this up with a stunning victory over the combined tribes of Israel, Damascus, Lebanon and Egypt at the battle of Qarqar in 853, expanded the empire to the coast of the Mediterranean Sea, northern Egypt and the occupation of the strategic city of Petra along with the Sinai peninsula.

Following Shalameneser's death in 824 BC, multiple rebellions, civil wars and no central government lasting for an extended period of no less than seventy nine years tore the empire apart leaving only the Assyrian heartlands intact.

Assyrian Imperial fortunes were restored only when in a military coup installed King Tiglath Pileser III to the throne in 745 BC. He immediately set about restoring the former glories of Assyria by launching a five year campaign in which Syria, Asia Minor and Babylon were incorporated into his new empire.

For the next forty years an era of Assyrian supremacy within the middle east followed until Tiglath Pilesers death in 705 BC. King Sennacherib ascended the throne and violently put down a revolt by the kingdom of Babylon, he quickly followed up this success by asserting Assyrian rule into Egypt.

King Sennacherib died in 681 and the empire was immediately thrust into another sixty nine years of civil disobedience and unrest. Civil wars and a host of inept leaders all bidding for the throne destabilized the empire and weakened the Assyrian military to a point where it was no longer considered a viable fighting force.   

It wasn't until 612 BC, that a powerful coalition of states including Asia Minor, Syria, Lebanon, Egypt and Babylon, broke away from the empire capturing the Assyrian capital of Nineveh itself, deposing the last Assyrian King Ashur Uballit II, which effectively brought the Assyrian empire to an end. 

 

THE GREAT PLAINS INDIAN WARS

1862 - 90

Little Crow

The first eruption of violence on the great plains occurred in Minnesota during the American civil war. In August 1862, suffering from near starvation, severe economic hardship brought on by ever increasing numbers of settlers upon there territory and the neglect of the federal Indian agents tasked with there well being, the Santee Sioux led by Chief Little Crow rose up in armed revolt. 

It would take the U.S. Army and local militias four months to put down the uprising with hostilities ending with the final defeat of the Sioux during the siege of Fort Ridgely in late December. The revolt had cost the lives of seven hundred settlers killed along with eighty U.S. soldiers in stark contrast with two hundred native Sioux.

Of the one thousand Santee captives taken during the conflict the majority were interned in Minnesota jails with the remainder of the tribe fleeing to Dakota territory. In a grim example to the other tribes in the state, thirty eight Sioux warriors were hanged on December 26th 1862 in what today still remains the largest one day execution in American history.

Red Cloud

After the end of the American civil war, the U.S. government went forth with a plan to build a chain of forts along the bozeman trail within Montana and Wyoming. This angered the native american tribes who felt the army was once again encroaching on there sacred lands.

Led by Chief Red Cloud, an alliance of Northern Cheyenne, Lakota Sioux and Arapaho agreed to go to war and put a stop to the proposed white occupation of there territories.

On December 21st 1866, Red Cloud and six hundred warriors attacked and annihilated an eighty one man cavalry detachment led by Captain William Fetterman. This massacre was to spark what was to be later known as Red Cloud's war.

The conflict would go on to culminate in the native siege of Fort Kearny and several battles including the Hayfield and Wagonbox fights in August. Fighting would only subside in the autumn of 1867 after Red Cloud settled for peace with the United States under the treaty of Fort Laramie / Medicine Lodge, in which the U.S. government agreed to abandon their forts and withdrawal from Lakota territory. 

Roman Nose

Black Kettle

In 1868 the U.S. government's campaign against the plains Indians shifted south. Major George Forsyth's Colorado campaign against the Northern Cheyenne resulted in victory after the nine day battle of Beecher's Island (September 17 - 25) in which the Cheyenne war leader Roman Nose was also killed.

In the early morning hours of November 27th, Lieutenant Colonel George Custer and five hundred troopers of the 7th Cavalry surrounded and massacred Chief Black Kettle's entire village of three hundred Southern Cheyenne as they wintered along the Washita River in Oklahoma. 

After the U.S. government had sanctioned the slaughter of nearly two hundred thousand buffalo during 1872 - 73 to starve the northern plains tribes onto reservations, they requisitioned hundreds of buffalo hunters to move further south into the Texas panhandle region where they set up a large encampment and trading post at Adobe Walls. 

Quanah Parker

The Comanche, Cheyenne, Kiowa and Arapaho perceived the post as a major threat to there very existence and decided to act. On the morning of July 27th 1874, the fifty men present within the post were suddenly attacked by three hundred warriors led by Comanche Chief Quanah Parker.

The initial attacks were repulsed however due in large part that the buffalo hunters were able to keep the attackers at distance with there high calibre, long range sharp's rifles. By evening the attacks had ceased and Parker's warriors returned to their lodges.

Chief Parker would repeat these tactics for the next seven days until August 4th when a cavalry troop of one hundred men under Lieutenant Frank Baldwin arrived at Adobe Walls where two dozen men still remained alive.

The next day Lieutenant Baldwin deemed the position untenable and returned with the remaining survivors to his encampment at Contonement Creek. The warriors later returned and burned Adobe Walls to the ground.

The end result of the battle was that the slaughter of the buffalo heard's in the region ended and Chief Parker could claim victory for the plains tribes, for they had succeeded in saving there main source of food from extinction and had driven the whites from there territory.

Sitting Bull

The discovery of large gold deposits withing the Black Hills of Dakota in 1875 prompted the U.S. government to attempt and purchase the sacred lands. Chief Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse sternly declined all offers. Therefore on January 31st 1876, the government ordered all Cheyenne and Lakota within the territories onto reservations. 

For the next few months all the tribes openly disobeyed the government directives. So in early June the U.S. broke its peace treaty with the natives and launched a three pronged invasion of the Dakota territories to subdue and forcibly relocated the Indians.

Colonel John Gibbon led a force westward from Fort Ellis Montana, General Alfred Terry advanced eastward from Fort Lincoln North Dakota and General George Crook marched northward from Fort Fetterman Wyoming, in all the U.S. forces amounted to 3,000 cavalry.

However five hundred warriors under Crazy Horse severely mauled Crook's forces at the battle of the Rosebud on June 17th, which forced his withdrawal back to Wyoming.

Crazy Horse

Unaware of Crook's defeat, General Terry ordered Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer and 600 men of the 7th cavalry regiment ahead of the main column to bottle up and surround the Indians within the Little Big Horn valley.

Custer's Crow scouts reported they had found a massive village containing perhaps ten thousand inhabitants fifteen miles distance from the column. Custer's overriding concern now was that once the natives knew of his approach, they would break up the camp and scatter.

Custer decided to attack the village without further delay. He divided his force into three battalions, three companies were placed under Major Marcus Reno and three under Captain Frederick Benteen with the remaining five companies of 210 men remained with Custer.

On June 25th, Custer's command was surrounded and totally annihilated by 2,000 Lakota, Northern Cheyenne and Arapaho warriors led by Crazy Horse while both Reno and Benteen were forced to retreat suffering heavy losses. 

 

It would take the U.S. army another year and a half of vigorous campaigning to finally restore peace to the western plains. This peace was broken for the last time when the U.S. government became alarmed by what it considered the militant fervor induced in the tribes by a new religious movement, the ghost dance. 

It was believed that during this time the white man would completely disappear from all native lands, the buffalo would return in abundance and the ghosts of there ancestors would return to earth.

An expedition was sent into the Dakota's to restore order which included units of the 7th cavalry regiment. On December 29th 1890, this inept effort resulted in the massacre of 200 Lakota Sioux at wounded knee. 

This act crushed the ghost dance movement and was the last confrontation between the plains Indians and the U.S. government. 

 

 

  

 

 

  

 

PAUL von LETTOW VORBECK

The Lion of Africa

Paul von Lettow Vorbeck was the commander of Germany's small East Africa Colonial force during the First World War. Throughout the duration of the conflict his units held down much larger Allied forces, preventing them from serving in Europe. At the end of the war he was the only German general who had remained undefeated.

Born in Saarlouis, Prussia on March 20th 1870, at age seventeen Vorbeck joined the Infantry corps at the military school of  Berlin and three years later in 1890 was commissioned a Lieutenant in the German Imperial Army. 

He was then sent to China in 1900 as part of the expedition to put down the Boxer Rebellion, an uprising aimed to drive all European foreigners from the country. When the foreign delegations were surrounded and beleaguered in Peking in June, Vorbeck was part of the international relief force which liberated the city on August 14th.

Vorbeck was then transferred to the German south west colonial forces in Africa were he served putting down the Herero and Hottentot uprisings in Namibia. He then returned to Germany and joined the general staff in Berlin were he taught colonial warfare studies at the officer staff college.

When World War One broke out in 1914, Vorbeck was promoted to Colonel and appointed commander of the German East African colony comprising Burundi, Rwanda, Tanzania and Mozambique.

upon arriving in Africa, Vorbeck quickly assembled his small force of 2,700 German officers and 11,500 native Askaris troops and began a series of cross border raids into British controlled Kenya and Uganda to sabotage the railway systems.

His actions panicked the British colonists who sent word to London demanding they send an army to protect them. The British then assembled an Anglo - Indian force of 9,000 troops and disembarked Bombay on October 24th with all secrecy.

However the Germans were well aware the Allies were in transit, for as the supplies for the invasion were being loaded onto the transports, the crates stacked in the dockyards were visibly stamped "Indian Expeditionary Force - Tanga East Africa", thus German spies alerted Vorbeck weeks in advance.

The British task force under General Aitken landed two Infantry Brigades outside the port facilities on November 3rd but the lead Battalions were met with murderous gunfire from the awaiting German forces occupying the heights surrounding the port, sending the Indian and British troops fleeing back into the bay to escape the ambush with hundreds drowning in the surf.

By nightfall the landings were called off and the British task force withdrew in defeat. The attack on Tanga had cost the Allies 1,000 dead, 500 wounded and 300 taken prisoner. German losses amounted to 15 officers and 60 native Askaris killed.

Von Lettow's complete victory also brought the unexpected bounty of hundreds of tons of food stores and ammunition taken from the damaged Allied transports left behind in the bay, enough to equipt and feed his small army for the duration of the war. 

For the duration of the year 1915, the size of Vorbeck's small force limited his actions to guerrilla warfare conducting raids into British East Africa and Zanzibar, targeting forts, railways and communication centers. 

In July, Vorbeck received reinforcements in the form of 320 German sailors from the German light cruiser SMS Konigsberg which had to be scuttled after sustaining heavy damage in the battle of the Rufiji River.  

In March 1916, 40,000 men under South African Field Marshal Jan Christian Smuts invaded Tanzania. Von Lettow Vorbeck using the terrain to his advantage fought a skillful dogged defense at Taveta inflicting heavy casualties on the enemy but was forced to withdrawal due to superior numbers.

For the next few months Vorbeck employed guerilla tactics against his numerically superior foe inflicting a series of local defeats upon the British. On October 15 - 19th, Lettow Vorbeck  fought a fixed battle at Mahiwa where he inflicted 2,700 casualties upon the Allies for the loss of 400 men. He was again however forced to withdrawal into the jungle as South African reinforcements began to arrive threatening his encirclement. 

With the British in hot pursuit for the remainder of the year Lettow Vorbeck scored a tactical victory at Lindi on November 25th 1917 but was forced to abandon German Tanzania. With the Allies now in firm possession of German East Africa, Vorbeck still refused offers to surrender his meager force of 3,000 men and instead shocked the British by crossing the Ruvuma River and invading Portuguese Mozambique.

With news of Lettow Vorbeck's exploits and his invasion of Mozambique reaching Germany, The Kaiser in Berlin, promoted Vorbeck to Major General. With the British holding the frontier with 30,000 men, a large Portuguese army of 80,000 troops scoured the countryside in search of Vorbeck.

For almost a year Lettow Vorbeck and his men evaded the Portuguese with skillful guerilla hit and run tactics until September 28th 1918 when his force of 2,000 men were encircled at Namakura. 

Once again Von Lettow Vorbeck refused Portuguese offers of surrender and effected a breakout escaping once again. He then chose to shake his pursuers by marching south and invading Northern Rhodesia. 

Vorbeck was one hundred and fifty miles inside Rhodesia when on November 12th, his troops captured a British dispatch rider with documents stating to the effect that the war in Europe was over.

It had taken a further two weeks for Von Lettow to receive conformation of Germany's defeat where at which time he surrendered his remaining force of 155 Germans and 1,100 Askaris on November 25th 1918. 

Returning to Germany in 1919 Lettow Vorbeck was given a hero's welcome with the parade marshal stating "His was said to be the capitulation of an army that had not lost to an army that had not won"