115 BC. When Quintus Caecilius Metellus Macedonicus (c. 210-c. 115 BC) was carried to his funeral, his bier was borne by a sitting praetor, and three former consuls, all of whom had, like him, celebrated triumphs, and one of whom was a former censor, all of whom were his sons.
1740 When in the field the Comte de Saxe (1696-1750) always traveled with a theatrical troupe – partially to enjoy the show and partially to enjoy the actresses – and it was usually at the conclusion of a performance that his subordinates learned whether a battle was imminent, for after curtain call, one of the starlets would appear to announce the name of the play for the following night, but would occasionally say, “Gentlemen, there will be no play tomorrow for the marshal gives battle” before explaining what was scheduled for the day after that.
1861 Stephen R. Mallory, Confederate secretary of the navy, had chaired the U. S. Senate’s naval affairs committee during the 1850s. Thus he was well qualified to plan a visionary maritime strategy that would couple modern technology, with cunning.
Mallory believed he had two duties: to protect the Southern coastlines and break the Union naval blockade. By adopting the most advanced architecture, his fewer ships might overpower the mostly wooden Union blockaders. Having long been an advocate of ironclads, Mallory pushed for their construction.
Working with former U.S. Navy officer James D. Bulloch (young Theodore Roosevelt, Jr.’s maternal uncle), Mallory proposed development of two ironclad rams that could operate both as defensive and offensive warships. Mallory looked to British shipyards that had the large-scale facilities to construct them and British seamen to sail the raiders. Bulloch was dispatched to in Liverpool in June 1861, to exploit loopholes in the Foreign Enlistment Act that barred neutral Britain from building belligerent warships.
The ironclad rams, however, presented a grave threat. If the rams could break the blockade, foreign recognition of the Confederacy might follow; failing that, they could attack New York City or Boston, and extort payments from the North. Further the Confederate cover-up of the ships’ ownership involved shadowy foreign figures, including the French Emperor, which made it more difficult to maintain peace with Britain.
The ironclads and the raiders were built supposedly as commercial vessels. The British Admiralty’s view was that it would take action against the vessels only if it could be proven that Confederate agents were the owners and were “fitting out, equipping, and arming” the ships for warlike operations. So, to remain legal, Bulloch connived to have the initial raiders leave port under various guises and sail into international waters to take on guns and ammunition.
The effects of the raiders, whether procured abroad or in the Confederacy was impressive. By January of 1863, the most famous of the raiders, Alabama, had captured or destroyed 10 merchantmen, after only about six months at sea. Despite the efforts of Alabama and other Confederate raiders, however, the Union blockade of the South tightened and no significant resources were diverted to deal with the marauders. So Confederate offensive hopes were still pinned heavily on the rams.
Bulloch had contracted with Laird & Sons shipyard to build several warships, among them the two ironclad rams. Under Lord John Laird’s leadership, the yard had pioneered the construction of iron ships and gunboats. Although only mid-sized ships―230 feet in length with 15-foot drafts―the vessels were state-of-the-art: steam powered with auxiliary sail; screw propellers; ironclad armor; below-the-waterline-rams, fore and aft. Yet their lethality stemmed, not from the rams, but from the two turrets in which rifled cannon would be ensconced, guns able to fire both solid shot and explosive shell to considerable ranges.
Bulloch, however, encountered financial, construction, and political problems, which caused delays that worried him. One cruiser fitting out, Georgia, was seized by the British, and Alabama very nearly met a similar fate, only escaping detention because Bulloch bribed a port official to look the other way. Worried the British government might confiscate the rams while still under construction, Bullock and the Confederacy’s agent in Paris John Slidell wove a silky scheme, involving an accommodating Emperor Louis Napoleon. In early 1863, Bulloch transferred the ownership of the rams to M. Bravay, owner of Bravay and Co., a French brokerage firm and an associate of Napoleon III’s lead shipwright. Bravay claimed, falsely, that he represented the Pasha of Egypt, who was the “straw owner.” Bulloch then managed the construction “from behind the desk” at Bravay’s firm.
Meanwhile, U. S. secret agents were trying to unearth proof of ownership, without which the British would have difficulty taking action. If the agents were mistaken and the Admiralty acted, the British government could face sizeable monetary damages if sued in court.
Yet the ironclads’ case differed from that of the raiders. Both Prime Minister Lord Palmerston and Foreign Secretary Lord John Russell finally perceived that ironclad vessels, featuring revolving turrets and rams provided prima facie evidence of military purpose.
By the summer of 1863, Charles Francis Adams, Jr., the American Minister to Great Britain, warned Russell that the “very existence” of the rams constituted a war threat. As Gustavus Fox, Assistant Secretary of the Navy, stated, the U. S. Navy had “no defense against them,” neither monitors nor steam frigates. Moreover, if the British did not halt construction then, what was to prevent 20 more being built?
On September 3rd, after returning from a sojourn in Scotland, Minister Adams learned that one ram had recently completed sea trials and his diplomatic reserve broke. On September 5th he penned his sternest warning to the British government, asserting that Britain was waging war “by stealth and deception,” stating that if the rams escaped to bombard New York or Boston, the United States would retaliate, and ending “It would be superfluous in me to point out to your Lordship that this is war.”
Unbeknownst to Adams, however, in June Russell had begun an investigation of the ownership of the vessels to determine any Confederate connection. The British consul in Egypt met with the Pasha. He dispatched a telegram that was received in London on August 31, 1863, reporting that the Pasha’s ownership had been faked. However, the true owner’s identity, that is Bravay, was still murky and Russell’s legal officers, again, rejected action.
However, Palmerston and Russell agreed that the Confederate charade was dragging the government into “neutral hostility.” The international scene, too, had become complicated: the Union victories at Gettysburg and Vicksburg seemed to turn the tide of war. Moreover, an insurrection in Poland against Russia had stirred domestic sympathies. And then there was Louis Napoleon, with his naval ambitions, imperialist meddling in Mexico and various parts of Europe. Supposedly Russell had been “staggered by confident assertions of French ownership” of the ironclads, which the Lairds had corroborated. This put the Palmerston government, as a whole, at political risk. As Adams wrote, “If it acted, the [British] government must do so on the grounds of prerogative, against public opinion, regardless of the advice of counsel and be prepared to be mulcted by a jury.” So on September 3, when Russell ordered Treasury officials to detain the ironclads, he acted courageously, albeit tardily, in accord with Britain’s “international obligations” to preserve the peace.
As a corollary, Palmerston suggested the Royal Navy buy the rams, as the service was short of ironclads. But when the British naval attaché in Paris met with Bravay, he rejected the offer.
After a few weeks during which time there were peaks and valleys in this Anglo-American dispute, Lord Russell decided that the Lairds could not be trusted. On October 8, he ordered the Royal Navy to seize the rams outright.
This diplomatic contretemps finally came to a whimpering halt in early 1864. Bulloch left for France in one final attempt to convince Napoleon III to prevent the rams from being sold to Britain. The Emperor refused. Thus on February 8, Bulloch sent a letter to Bravay, authorizing him to sell the rams as soon as possible. Several months and much discussion later, the British Admiralty purchased the vessels for £180,000, to the great relief of Charles Francis Adams and the Lincoln administration.
1937 Between 1930 and 1937 five men served as directors of the Soviet Naval Academy, each of whom ended his tour by being executed.
1914 Although all had varying proportions of artillery and cavalry, the armies that marched to war in the summer of 1914 were essentially infantry armies. The basic form of battle envisioned by all participants was the open field clash of rifle-armed infantrymen, likely to culminate in close combat with cold steel. There were small differences in the arms issued to the infantry in different countries, which by 1914 included not only the magazine rifle but also the machine gun.
Army Piece Cal Wt Ln Rng RPM Mag Note
Infantry Rifles
Belg Mauser F.N. 1889 7.65 4.0 1.3 2.0 10-15 5 A
Brit Lee-Enfield No 1 7.70 3.3 1.1 2.0 15-20 10 B
Fr Lebel M 1886/93 8.00 4.2 1.3 2.0 8-10 8 C
Berthier Fusil 1907 8.00 3.8 1.3 2.0 10-15 3 D
Ger Mauser M 1898 7.92 4.2 1.2 2.0 10-15 5 E
Mauser M 1888 7.92 3.8 1.2 2.0 10-15 5 F
Machine Guns
Belg Hotchkiss M 1914 8.00 52.6 1.3 2.0 450 24-30 G
Brit Vickers M 1912 7.70 40.9 1.1 1.0 450 200 H
Fr Hotchkiss M 1914 8.00 52.6 1.3 2.0 450 24-30 G
Ger MG08 7.92 63.7 1.1 2.0 450 200 I
Abbreviations: Piece is the designation of the weapon; Cal, caliber in millimeters; Wt, weight in kilograms, without bayonet in the case of rifles, which could add up to .5 kg; Ln, length in meters, without bayonet, which could add an additional .5 m; Rng, maximum range in kilometers, but most armies set sights to c. 400 meters; RPM, for rifles this it the number of aimed shots per minute possible at 400 meters presuming a well-trained man, for machine guns this is cyclic rate, the theoretical maximum number of rounds per minute, with normal rate being about half that given; Mag, is number of rounds in the magazine.
Notes:
A. Belgian Mauser F.N. 1889: Five round external box magazine.
B. British Lee-Enfield No 1: Ten round box magazine.
C. French Lebel M 1886/93: Eight round tubular magazine. Many American accounts of the war insist that this rifle had a three round clip, probably mistaking it for the Berthier.
D. French Berthier Fusil 1907: Three round box magazine; a five round version was introduced in1915. Commonly issued to colonial troops and even the Foreign Legion.
E. German Mauser M 1898: Five round integral box magazine. This remained the standard Germany infantry rifle until well into World War II.
F. German Mauser M 1888: Five round clip Carried by some Landwehr and Landsturm units, essentially third line reservists and militiamen.
G. Belgian and French Hotchkiss M 1914: Ammunition came in a round metal canister. Weight given includes tripod (27.7 kg) and water (c. 3.5 kg). One of the most reliable machine guns of the war, it soldiered on in many armies (e.g., Spain, Poland) into World War II.
H. British Vickers M 1912: Ammunition came in canvas belts. Weight includes tripod (22.7 kg) and water (c. 3.5 kg). A very effective piece, but required an unusually large crew, six men or more.
I. German MG08: Ammunition supply by belts. Weight includes tripod (34.1 kg) and water (c. 3.6 kg) A Maxim system, sometimes known as the “Spandau Machinegun” because most were manufactured at the Spandau arsenal.
But almost as soon as the troops began to come into contact, it became clear that the prevailing view of combat was flawed, fatally for thousands and thousands of troops on all sides. This was largely because all of the European armies had, to a greater or lesser extent, neglected the lessons of the experience of combat from the Crimean War (1853-1856) through the Russo-Japanese War (1904-1905), roughly from the introduction of the rifled musket to that of the magazine rifle and the machine gun, not to mention numerous colonial conflicts, which demonstrated that the firepower of even small numbers of infantrymen or a handful of machine guns could inflict devastating slaughter on opposing troops in open country. And none of the participants truly understood the overwhelming power of modern artillery.
So the war that came was not the war that was expected.
