2012: do you remember?

It is almost the year 2012. We'll have a lot to remember this year ....

20 years ago (1992): the Maastricht Treaty signed (7 February). The move towards a European integration was boosted and the single currency, the Euro, became reality, while Britain remained as sceptical of the idea of European union as ever. Now they are saying I told you so and the rest of Europe is really, really annoyed.

30 years ago (1982): the Falklands War (April-June). Britain was about to be consigned to the second division of the world and then this war totally revived her fortune. It demonstrated that, with logistical backing of the United States, Britain could still wage an expeditionary warfare. The Argentinians could not believe they lost. The bloody dictatorship of General Galtieri ended as a result. Not so bad news after all then?

[The Illustrious class British aircraft carrier that proved its worth during the war.]

50 years ago (1962): the Cuban missile crisis (October). The United States and the Soviet Union square off in Cuba. Annoyed by the US deployment of new middle range nuclear missiles in Turkey, the Soviet Union shipped nuclear missiles to Cuba. JFK, having been humiliated at the Bay of Pigs fiasco, was determined not to climb down even if it meant an all-out nuclear war. The Soviets did back down; yet, behind the scenes, the US also agreed to withdraw the missiles in Turkey.

70 Years ago (1942): what Winston Churchill called the end of the beginning. The Axis powers in WW2 began to lose. First go the Japanese, who, despite enjoying numerical superiority in major warships in the western Pacific, got soundly beaten by the US Navy at Midway in June. In October, the British finally stopped and comprehensively defeated the Germans in North Africa, led by the ‘Desert Fox’, Erwin Rommel. The Germans would meet even bigger disaster in Russia: Operation Blau [blue], aimed at occupying Caucasus and its oil fields, was launched in summer. By the end of the year, they captured Stalingrad. There, they were bogged down, locked into deadly city fight with the Russians. They eventually got surrounded not just in the city but also in the entire operational sector by the counter-attacking Red Army. The German Sixth Army under General von Paulus was completely encircled and then annihilated. Nearly one million German soldiers perished, but, more than one million Soviets also became casualties.

100 years ago (1912): the Balkan Wars broke out (October). Throughout the nineteenth century, the Ottoman Turkish Empire was in retreat, whereas the advance of the Slavic nations was accelerating. Bulgaria and Serbia were at the forefront of this Pan-Slavic spring, with the backing of the Russian Empire. Greece also won independence, and, although not strong or large enough to take on the Ottomans on its own, it also benefitted from the weakening of the Ottoman power. The tension between the Sublime Porte and its former subjects reached a boiling point in the early twentieth century. With the Turkish defeat at the hands of the Italians (1911-1912) and the forming of the Balkan League, the time was ripe for an all-out offensive to push Turks back into Asia. At sea, the Greek armoured cruiser Averoff became the pride of the Hellenic navy by spearheading its offensive against the Turkish fleet, wrestling sea supremacy from the Turks in the Aegean. Bulgaria, Serbia and Greece all gained territories. But over the spoil of war, the second Balkan war would break out next year (1913) between Serbia and Bulgaria. This time, Bulgaria would lose what she had gained in the first war.

[The Averoff: the Italian-built armoured cruiser, now a museum ship in Athens, Greece.]

[The Battleship Averoff website (http://www.bsaverof.com/)

The Hellenic Navy website (http://www.hellenicnavy.gr/index.php/el/Ιστορία-Παράδοση/istoriapn.html) ]

Pan Slavism was destabilizing the whole region: the Slavic nations were gaining at the expense of traditional multi-national empires, but sowing new seeds of conflict as they go along. Most seriously, Serbia’s victories were alarming the Hapsburg Empire to such an extent that enmity between these two states would eventually spark off WW1, when Gavrilo Princip fired those fatal shots in Sarajevo in 1914.

[Available as free e-book: Shurman, J. G. (1914). The Balkan Wars, 1912-13.]

150 years ago (1862):  the second year of the American Civil War. The battle of Antietam in September. During the first year of the Civil War, both the United States and the Confederate States of America were still learning how to fight modern war. The more desperate Confederates had an edge though, and during 1862, they believed that they were winning, as they were threatening even Washington D.C. The battle of Antietam was a result of the Union’s attempt to stop the Confederates’ advance after their win in an earlier battle. It was a bloodbath: more than 20,000 Americans became casualties. Though not a clear victory for the Union, it did blunt the Confederates’ offensive and so is considered as the turning point of the Civil War by some. During the next year, the Confederates’ attempt to find another way to achieve a decisive victory led to the battle of Gettysburg [we’ll commemorate this one in 2013!], which quashed their last chance of victory.

[The Dunker Church. This rather featureless house was a focal point during the battle of Antietam. Antietam National Park.]

200 years ago (1812): Napoleon’s Russian campaign and the Anglo-American war of 1812. It was like a world war. Napoleon was victorious in Europe, except that Spain was still resisting with British help and Russia had no intention of submitting to him. Napoleon invaded Russia in three major thrusts. Napoleon’s main force in the centre marched straight towards Moscow. Having lost a series of minor engagements and the major battle at Smolensk (August), the Russians made their last stand at Borodino, in front of Moscow (September). Though suffering heavily, Napoleon won the day and resumed his advance. The Russian Tsar Alexander abandoned Moscow. Napoleon entered Moscow, but the Russians burnt down the city. Napoleon’s attempt to impose peace on the Russians was frustrated, as Alexander refused to capitulate. With the onset of the Russian winter, Napoleon realized that his army could not stay without provisions. His men were cold and starving. The tragedy of the retreat began. Constantly harassed by the Russian partisans and the Cossacks, the French doggedly withdrew, but, by the time the army departed Russia, the main force of the Grande Armée had been reduced to just 10,000, out of the original strength of more than 400,000.

With the bulk of the French army destroyed, the Russians chased up. The Tsar Alexander liberated Europe from the French and marched into Paris. Napoleon was deposed; even though he would come back taking advantage of the victorious allies’ bickering over post-war settlement, encouraged by the French defeat in Russia, another grand coalition materialized, which would converge in the field of Waterloo in 1815.

[The Tsar Alexander I]

1812 was the year that started the final downfall of Napoleon. Less spectacularly but equally importantly, two wars Britain had been waging against Napoleon were also going well this year: the guerrilla warfare in Spain and the naval war. Ever since Britain defeated France at Trafalgar six years previously, Britain held supremacy of the seas, tightening the blockade of France. But this led to another problem across the Atlantic.

The naval war meant interdiction of merchant shipping by belligerents. Any ship suspected of carrying goods to and out of France could be stopped by the Royal Navy. Britain upheld the right of the belligerent, seizing any goods as contraband. The United States, a neutral, on the other hand, insisted on freedom of the seas: she should have rights to trade with any country and carry goods to any destination at high seas.

In peacetime, this was a legal dispute. In wartime, this Anglo-American difference on the fundamental principle regarding maritime trade in wartime was serious enough to destroy their otherwise cosy relationship. (This Anglo-American row continued until the eve of WW2.) As the US continued to sell stuff to France (naturally, the French, blockaded by Britain, were eager to trade with the US), the British Royal Navy seized some American ships. Americans protested that it was an assault on their fundamental freedom. Neither side was prepared to back down, and incidents, which enraged the Americans more, were taking place with an alarming frequently. In the end, a war was inevitable. (June 1812)

The land war in 1812 was mostly fought along US-Canadian border regions. (Ever since, the idea of American invasion of Canada has never completely died out: as late as in 1926, the Canadian military drew up a plan for just such a case to the embarrassment of the government, and even today, the Canadians are worried that the Americans are up to something.[i]) The US Navy, outnumbered, fought gallantly, scoring some unlikely victories with its fleet of a handful of frigates. The war led to burning of Washington DC by the British. (The only occasion that the US mainland was seriously invaded by foreign forces since Independence.) Amazingly, however, the US persevered and would win the war [1815].

[The USN battling the Royal Navy.]

[Classic available as e-book: Roosevelt, Theodore (1882). The Naval War of 1812. New York and London.]

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[i] The Economist, Print Edition, December 10^th, 2011: ‘The Border Two-step’

The scariest T-62 tank I've seen

Last month, I was in Budapest, Hungary. I went to House of Terror, a museum converted from the Police Prison. It commemorates victims of Nazi violence and Communist oppression in the 20th century.

Faces of those victims locked up in the basement of this building or deported to Siberia...

The exhibits appear to be rather usual at first sight. Except, visitors are given handouts which describe (in Magyar and English!) lives of Hungarians under these tyrannical regimes. Under what conditions political prisoners were forced to work in camps; how some were locked up in underground prisons. Multiple screen videos show recorded interviews of survivors and contemporaries to convey what it was like. To me the contrast between their battered faces and smooth, rather cheerful faces of Hungarian youth visiting this place was the most startling thing. Hungary has finally moved on since the collapse of the Habsburg Empire.

What was most poignant and funny in a way was a video in a small booth showing how people swapped their Nazi uniform to the Communist one at the end of WW2....

• http://www.terrorhaza.hu/en/index_2.html

(The English page doesn't seem to be working...)

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Terror

Japanese Samurai warriors.. (from my recent work)

My article on the origins of the Samurai warriors of Japan has been published by Historical Quest, an online history magazine. Unfortunately, it is all in Greek! So here is the gist of it in English.

The image of the Samurai warrior has been distorted not just in the West but in Japan as well, due to romanticism in Japanese literature and modern media. Novels and movies tend to distort our perception of history, and, in Japan, the Samurai is just another victim.

The Samurai is something nostalgically reconstructed in the Edo era from the 17th century until 1868, during which Samurai warriors formed the ruling elite, but, since they successfully ruled the country in peace, there was no war, either externally or internally. Samurai warriors became bureaucrats. The colourful image of the Samurai was invented for popular consumption and also for the self-image of those officials who had lost all combat skills and ethos of those free spirited warriors of the olden times who had valued the idea of self-help in the chaotic medieval period.

So, what sort of people were Samurai warriors in reality?

Some people seem to believe that these warriors practically died out with the coming of western warfare to the east. Yet, these warriors were actually quite flexible, learning new art of warfare and adopting new weapons when necessary; they did not have to don those armours and wield that Samurai sword. The sword was not the weapon of the Samurai – it was a part of the image created in peacetime.

In the ancient and medieval period, Japan’s wars were usually precipitated by attempts of the early kingdom of Japan to spread its domain to the rest of the Japanese island chain. They met considerable resistance, and, conscript armies of the ancient Japanese state had hard time conquering the eastern and northern parts of Japan. The Japanese state was a rice-farming based sedentary society, whereas in the north, where it was too cold for rice farming, people preferred hunter-gathering life style (hence Sushi).

Court nobles often sought chances of promotion by serving the Emperor by organising armies of conquest. It is a little like the Western knightly class forming compagnie to wage wars for self-advancement. But, fighting in the countryside, they often went native: merging with the local strongmen, some were forming their own power base in the wild countryside, complimented by their own private armies.

The conquered, too, sought to help themselves by taking up practice of forming their own companies. Sometimes they were nothing but bandits, while others might be engaged in legitimate businesses. Some notable, powerful warlords would emerge, curving up territories, ostensibly as loyal subordinates of the Emperor.

As the old Japanese state was in decline by the 12th century, some powerful warlords began to seek ultimate power. They did not dare destroy the state. Rather, they sought to obtain positions reserved by the traditional, land-owning nobles at the court. Some warlords favoured marriage alliances with high nobles to win positions; but in the end, some tried brute force to gain recognition and appointment as high officials, including the coveted office of ‘Shogun’, the high commander of the Emperor’s army.

By the end of the 12th century, some warlords led by the Genji clan had become so powerful, they opened a government in Kamakura, which ruled the entire country on behalf of the Emperor, opening an era of dual government, which lasted until 1868.

So how did these Samurai warriors fight?

We think that they were sword swinging barbarian warriors. Even the Japanese themselves believed in this myth; during WW2, some soldiers and officers took their swords (many of them were actually made for decorative purposes and could not be used effectively apart from beheading captured enemies soldiers) to remind themselves of their traditional ethos and value of the Samurai.

But the early Samurais were more like horse archers of Central Asian nomads. They apparently learnt the style from the Mongols, most likely via the Chinese. They used the bow as the main weapon, not the sword. The sword was for the final coup de grace, which usually meant beheading of the fallen foe, so that a warrior can display that he had won. Horse archery skills were highly prized and they preferred close-range ambushes and skirmish type combats. Wars between rival bands of warriors might be decided by single combat.

This is due to the fact that the Japanese had to develop such skills against the native inhabitants of the Japanese island chain, who were hunter-gatherers and hence skilled archers. The early Japanese armies were a little like Roman legionnaires, equipped with short swords and shields, and fought in a massed formation of infantry. Against the mobile enemies of north, they were often beaten badly, so, naturally they adopted their more mobile combat styles.

Many contemporary drawings show warriors on horseback, shooting arrows from their long wooden bow or composite bows; apparently they were capable of making Parthian shot.

As the conquest of Japan was completed, however, fighting style began to change. Power struggles between rival warlords provoked more local wars, usually aiming at acquiring more territories, commercial rights, and, in some cases, satisfying personal honour. Winning a single combat with a strong rival often resulted in winning both material gains and prestige; the sword, the weapon suited for single combat with a decisive result, became the weapon of Samurai.

Fighting styles varied accordingly, but, as the whole country was plunged into free-for-all fray for land-grab, combined armies began to develop. By the high period of the so-called War Lord era of the 16th century, Japanese armies tend to be large with tens of thousands of infantry conscripted from the peasantry, led by high-ranking warriors, who were usually mounted. They were capable of adopting quickly: it did not take long for them to develop an effective massed tactics utilising muskets only a few decades after Portuguese merchants introduced them.

So it is a little wonder they disarmed quickly when the period of endless wars finally ended at the beginning of the 17th century (the last one was the uprising of Japanese Christians, which was brutally suppressed); then, in the middle of the 19th, faced with the threat of European colonialism, they quickly rearmed, learning new techniques and tactics from the West.

Samurais are essentially warriors who fought in spirit of free and self-help. This quality gave them flexibility and adoptability that made them such formidable warriors.