Winston Churchill Born

Winston S. Churchill
(1874-1965)

Sir Winston Spencer Churchill was born on November 30, 1874 at Blenheim Palace, the home built for his famous ancestor the 1st Duke of Marlborough, John Churchill, who led an allied victory against the French at the Battle of Blenheim in 1704. As the future Prime Minister of Great Britain, Winston Churchill would lead his nation to win even greater battles, first in the Battle of Britain and later in the ultimate defeat of Germany and Japan in World War II.

Winston Churchill was a soldier, journalist, writer, politician, historian and even an artist. A brilliant orator and a man of genius, he made many grave mistakes in his career but he was instrumental in keeping Great Britain and its Empire in the fight against Hitler's Germany in the early years of the Second World War when a Nazi victory seemed certain. When the United States finally declared war against the Axis powers (Germany, Japan, Italy) in December of 1941 Churchill knew that although the fighting was far from over, the war was all but won.

Throughout his life Churchill was a fervent supporter of the British Empire. As a soldier and a journalist he fought on the North-West frontier of India and took part in the Sudan expedition that culminated in the Battle of Omdurman in 1898. He was taken prisoner in the Boer War and escaped to write about his exploits. During the First World War he fought again as an officer on the Western Front.

Following in his fathers footsteps, Lord Randolph Churchill, he became a member of Parliament. He was First Lord of the Admiralty in both World Wars before becoming Prime Minister in 1940. He served as Prime Minister from 1940-1945 and again in 1951-1955.

Upon his death in 1965, Sir Winston S. Churchill was given an official state funeral, an honor generally reserved for royalty in Great Britain.

Battle of Waterloo

Battle of Waterloo

This is the 195th anniversary of the Battle of Waterloo. On Sunday 18 June 1815, near the town of Waterloo, in what is now Belgium, a coalition of British, Dutch and German forces under British commander Arthur Wellesley, the Duke of Wellington and his ally Marshall Blucher commanding a Prussian army, combined together to defeat the Emperor Napoleon and his French Imperial Army.

The Battle of Waterloo, along with the Battle of Gettysburg from the American Civil War, are perhaps the two most debated and written about battles in world history. As the Duke of Wellington aptly described the battle, it was "a near run thing".

The allied army was able to hold against severe French assaults throughout a long day giving time for the Prussian forces to join them in the late afternoon. The order for an army-wide advance was then given and the ranks of the French Grande Armee collapsed and either surrendered or fled from the field, only to be chased by vengeful Prussian soldiers and cavalry. The exception to this general rout was Napoleon's Old Guard which stubbornly retired from (and died on) the field with honor.

Napoleon surrendered to his enemies and spent his last days in captivity on the island of St. Helena. He died in 1821. The "Iron Duke" was showered with honors, ultimately serving as both the Prime Minister of England and at the time of his death in 1852 was Commander-in-Chief of the British Army.

D-Day - 6 June 1944

Landing on the Beach
Today is the 65th anniversary of D-Day, the Allied invasion of Normandy, France during World War II. On this date in 1944 British, American and Canadian army divisions landed on the beaches of Normandy and airborne forces dropped from the skies or landed in glider transports in the countryside. Although German forces knew the invasion was coming, tactical and strategic surprise was achieved.

The German high command delayed their efforts to throw back the invaders into the sea for fear this landing was a ruse with the real invasion coming later to attack the port of Calais. (Calais is only 21 miles from England versus the 110 miles to Normandy). The delay allowed the Allies to gain their foothold on the continent and to ultimately achieve their goal of liberating occupied France and then invade the German homeland. The successful landings at Normandy were the beginning of the defeat of Hitler and the German armies in Western Europe.

Veterans Day

A U.S. Cemetery in France

Today marks the 90th anniversary of the end of the First World War, formerly known as the Great War and the War to end all Wars. Although the German Army was still on the battlefield, with the entry of the United States in the war by the fall of 1918 it was only a matter of time until Germany was defeated. Peace talks were opened and an Armistice was signed. On the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month in 1918 the guns on the Western Front of Europe became silent. Four very bloody years of warfare had ended.

It is generally forgotten today but Veterans Day started out as Armistice Day. In 1919 President Woodrow Wilson declared November 11 to be Armistice Day. In 1954 a federal law was passed changing Armistice Day to Veterans Day to honor all of our nations war veterans.

The Bombing of Dresden

Dresden, 1945

On the night of 13 February 1945 bombers from RAF Bomber Command flew over Dresden, Germany and dropped thousands of pounds of bombs. The next day U.S.A.A.F. bombers continued the bombing raids. In total, four bombing raids were conducted dropping tons of high explosive and incendiary bombs. The mixture of bombs created a firestorm that devastated the city and killed thousands of German civilians.

Exactly how many civilians were killed is the subject of a new study whose results were released today. The purpose of the study was to make an authoritative accounting of the number killed in order to put to rest part of the controversy that has arisen over the Dresden bombings. Since the war there have been claims that have placed the death toll to be between 40,000 and as many as 135,000 civilians killed in the bombing raids. The new study places the death toll to be no more than 25,000, which is still a substantial number.

Even in the midst of the horror and the mass killings of the Second World War, the bombing of Dresden has always been controversial. Dresden was considered the cultural capital of northern Germany and had little or no military value. Also, by February 1945 the war in Europe was almost over and Nazi Germany was clearly in its last days.

Held up against the crimes committed by Hitler's Third Reich, especially the deaths of as many as 11 million civilians in its work and death camps, questions about the necessity and even the morality of the Dresden bombings are pushed into the background. In hindsight and perhaps even at the time, it appears that the decision to go ahead with the bombings and the deliberate manner in which they were conducted, was the wrong decision.

What can be called the deadly equation of war, the costs of a war (which includes the number of deaths) weighed against the results that a country or an alliance can expect to achieve, changes over time. In the Second World War, the nations involved decided that no cost was too high to pay in order to defeat the enemy. As a result, large portions of Europe, Russia and Asia were devastated in the war and millions of combatants and civilians died. In the midst of all that carnage the desire for revenge and to spread the destruction can be a strong motivator in strategic thinking.

The Dogs of War

Julius Caesar
by William Shakespeare

Mark Antony's famous line, "Cry Havoc and let loose the Dogs of War," in Shakespeare's play Julius Casar, was his promise to take revenge upon the conspirators who assassinated Caesar. He knew very well that this would lead to a bloody civil war of Roman against Roman. His term Dogs of War, which formerly simply meant soldier, has changed somewhat over the years. Today it is a term often used for mercenaries.

The hiring of mercenaries has been a part of statecraft for thousands of years. While it was usually preferable to use native soldiers, rulers in the past were often forced to hire foreign born troops to augment their armies. The ancient Greeks hired themselves out to the Persians, the men of Genoa were known for their ability with crossbows and the Swiss fought in many of Europe's wars under other flags.

Upon the outbreak of hostilities in his American colonies King George III was faced with the immediate prospect of needing more troops. Rebuffed in his efforts to hire Russian soldiers from Catherine the Great, King George turned to the divided German states for his needs. The German Princes were more than willing to rent out their native sons for currency. Most of the soldiers came from Hesse-Kassal, which led to the German troops being referred to as Hessian's, but soldiers from Brunswick and other states were also hired.

Also during the American Revolution, the Marquis de Lafayette and Baron von Steuben, along with many others, took up the cause of freedom and fought the British. Ireland's Wild Geese, Irish soldiers fighting under foreign flags, made a name for themselves throughout the world. During the Spanish Civil War many idealists fought against Franco's regime, while Nazi Germany sent troops, including the Condor Legion, to support Franco. Frances Foreign Legion, whose enlisted ranks are made up solely of foreign born soldiers, has been making history since 1831. Finally Jews from all over the world have fought for Israel since its creation in 1948.

Under the Geneva Convention and according to the laws of many nations, a mercenary is someone who hires themselves out as a soldier and is paid more than the common soldiers whose army he has joined. This is to differentiate a mercenary from someone who has joined a foreign army to fight for a cause he believes in, or quite often, because soldiering is the only trade he knows.

In the past being a mercenary, or as he is sometimes referred to, a soldier of fortune, was considered an honorable profession. Myles Standish in his hiring by the Pilgrims, the Ronin of feudal Japan, the hired soldiers fighting for Biafra's independence, were all mercenaries. They all fulfilled a need to provide military expertise, or perhaps just a sword, in a dangerous world. Today's world is not really all that different. It is perhaps a much more dangerous world in that today many choose to believe that the world no longer needs mercenaries, or for that matter, soldiers.

Great Britain dominates Olympics - Summer of 1908

1908 Summer Olympics
White City Stadium
London, England

This week, with the XXIX Summer Olympics taking place in Beijing, China I thought I might take a look back to a hundred years ago to the 1908 Summer Olympics. Held at the newly built White City Stadium in London the IV Olympiad was originally scheduled to take place in Rome. When Mt. Vesuvius erupted in 1906, it became necessary to find a new location and London, England was chosen.

The 1908 Summer Olympics are considered the most controversial of the modern era but from today's perspective much of the controversy seems, to me at least, to be "tempests in a teapot".

What I find to be most interesting, however, about those games are a couple of things. First of all is the absolute dominance of Great Britain in these Olympics. Great Britain won an amazing total of 146 gold (56), silver (51) and bronze (39) medals. Its nearest competitor, the U.S., won a total of 47 (23 gold). Fielding athletes from England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland, Great Britain decisively won more medals than the rest of the competition, much of which was drawn from more populated nations. Being the host nation is perhaps an advantage to winning in the Olympics, but certainly not to this degree of success.

Looking at the list of participants in the games is also interesting. This Olympics could have been called the "Games of Empires". Starting with the host nation, England, the center of the British Empire, there were 21 other nations participating. Included among those nations are France (French Empire), Germany (German Empire), Turkey (Ottoman Empire), Austria (Austrian-Hungarian Empire) and Russia (Russian Empire). The only Empires of the time that are missing from this list, that I know of, are the Chinese and Japanese Empires.

This was the last days of Empire for Germany, Turkey, Austria and Russia. The defeat of the Central Powers in World War One in 1918 and the Russian Revolution of 1917 spelled the end of their Empires. The last Chinese Emperor was deposed in 1912 and Japan lost its Empire at the end of World War II in 1945. France and Great Britain gave up their dreams of Empire in the aftermath of World War II when their former colonies gained their own independence.

In 1908, during those Summer Olympics, the British Empire was at its peak. The nightmare of the world war that was to break out in August of 1914 was still in the unseen future. What a different world that must have been. How different a world it would be if that "War to end all Wars" had never taken place.