Now I had been very lucky in my time in Mr Reagan’s Army. As I had for the most part had some pretty good Leadership. But this guy if half the stuff about him is true. Was leagues ahead of them.
It just goes to show, that when the shit hits the fan. Usually Folks like him show up and lead the way.
RIP Sir, as you really earned your pay! Grumpy
Let me begin by saying that I am no friend of the Communism or their political philosophy. Frankly way too many folks have been needlessly killed because of their flawed thinking.
(Yeah this is some pretty bad art even for the Commies)
But I have to give this. That the Long March was one hell of a feat of endurance and arms. Here is their story below.
Overview map of the route of the Long March
Light red areas show Communist enclaves. Areas marked by a blue “X” were overrun by Kuomintang forces during the Fourth Encirclement Campaign, forcing the Fourth Red Army (north) and the Second Red Army (south) to retreat to more western enclaves (dotted lines). The dashed line is the route of the First Red Army from Jiangxi. The withdrawal of all three Red Armies ends in the northeast enclave of Shaanxi.
The Long March (October 1934 – October 1935) was a military retreat undertaken by the Red Army of the Communist Party of China, the forerunner of the People’s Liberation Army, to evade the pursuit of the Kuomintang (KMT or Chinese Nationalist Party) army. There was not one Long March, but a series of marches, as various Communist armies in the south escaped to the north and west. The best known is the march from Jiangxi province which began in October 1934. The First Front Army of the Chinese Soviet Republic, led by an inexperienced military commission, was on the brink of annihilation by GeneralissimoChiang Kai-shek‘s troops in their stronghold in Jiangxi province. The Communists, under the eventual command of Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai, escaped in a circling retreat to the west and north, which reportedly traversed over 9,000 kilometers (5600 miles) over 370 days.[1] The route passed through some of the most difficult terrain of western China by traveling west, then north, to Shaanxi.
The Long March began Mao Zedong‘s ascent to power, whose leadership during the retreat gained him the support of the members of the party. The bitter struggles of the Long March, which was completed by only about one-tenth of the force that left Jiangxi, would come to represent a significant episode in the history of the Communist Party of China, and would seal the personal prestige of Mao Zedong and his supporters as the new leaders of the party in the following decades.
1931: December, Zhou Enlai arrived in Ruijin and replaced Mao as leader of the CCP.
1932: October, at the Ningdu Conference, the majority of CCP military leaders criticized Mao’s tactics; Mao was demoted to figurehead status.
1933: Bo Gu and Otto Braun arrived from the USSR, reorganized the Red Army; and took control of Party affairs. They defeated four encirclement campaigns.
1934: October 16, 130,000 soldiers and civilians, led by Bo Gu and Otto Braun, began the Long March.
1934: November 25 – December 3, Battle of Xiang River.
1935: January 15–17, Zunyi Conference. The leadership of Bo and Braun was denounced. Zhou became the most powerful person in the Party; Mao became Zhou’s assistant.
1935: June–July, troops under Zhou and Mao met with Zhang Guotao‘s troops. The two forces disagreed on strategy, and separated.
1935: April 29 – May 8, crossing of the Jinsha River, the upper stream of the Yangtze River.
1935: May 22, Yihai Alliance, the red army allied with the Yi people.
Although the literal translation of the Chinese Cháng Zhēng is “Long March”, official publications of the People’s Republic of China refer to it as “The Long March of the Red Army” (Chinese traditional: 紅軍長征, Chinese simplified: 红军长征, pinyin: Hóngjūn Chángzhēng). The Long March most commonly refers to the transfer of the main group of the First (or Central) Red Army, which included the leaders of the Communist Party of China, from Yudu in the province of Jiangxi to Yan’an in Shaanxi. In this sense, the Long March lasted from October 16, 1934 to October 19, 1935. In a broader view, the Long March included two other forces retreating under pressure from the Kuomintang: the Second Red Army and the Fourth Red Army. The retreat of all the Red Armies was not complete until October 22, 1935, when the three forces linked up in Shaanxi.
The divisions of the “Chinese Workers’ and Peasants’ Red Army” (紅軍) were named according to historical circumstances, not by chronological order. Indeed, early Communist units would often form by defection from existing Kuomintang forces, and they kept their original designations. By the time of the Long March, numerous small units had been organized into three unified groups: the First Red Army (紅一方面軍/红一方面军/Hóng Yī Fāngmiàn Jūn), the Second Red Army (紅二方面軍/红二方面军/Hóng Èr Fāngmiàn Jūn), and the Fourth Red Army (紅四方面軍/红四方面军/Hóng Sì Fāngmiàn Jūn).[2] Some translations refer to these same units as the “First Front Red Army,” “Second Front Red Army,” and “Fourth Front Red Army” to distinguish them from earlier organizational divisions.
The First Red Army formed from the First, Third and Fifth Army Groups in southern Jiangxi under the command of Bo Guand Otto Braun. When several smaller units formed the Fourth Red Army under Zhang Guotao in the Sichuan–Shaanxiborder area, no standard nomenclature of the armies of the Communist Party existed; moreover, during the Chinese Civil War, central control of separate Communist-controlled enclaves within China was limited. After the organization of these first two main forces, the Second Red Army formed in eastern Guizhou by unifying the Second and Sixth Army Groups under He Long and Xiao Ke. In this case, a “Third Red Army” was led by He Long, who established his base area in the Hunan-Hubei border. The defeat of his forces in 1932 led to a merge in October 1934 with the 6th Army Corps, led by Xiao Ke, to form the Second Red Army. These three armies would maintain their historical designation as the First, Second and Fourth Red Armies until Communist military forces were nominally integrated into the National Revolutionary Army, forming the Eighth Route Army and the New Fourth Army, during the Second Sino-Japanese War from 1937 to 1945.
The Communist Party of China (CCP) was founded in 1921 by Chen Duxiu with Soviet support. The CCP initially collaborated with the Chinese Nationalist Party or Kuomintang (KMT), founded by the revolutionary republican Sun Yat-sen. However, after the unexpected death of Sun in March 1925, a power struggle within the KMT led to the shift in the party’s authority to Chiang Kai-shek, whose Northern Expedition forces succeeded in wresting control of large areas of China from local warlords and establishing a unified government in Nanjing in April 1927. Unlike other nationalist leaders, like Wang Jingwei, Chiang was opposed to the idea of continued collaboration with the Communist Party. The initial period of cooperation to unify China and end the unequal treaties broke up in April 1927 when Chiang Kai-shek struck out against the Communists. Unsuccessful urban insurrections (in Nanchang, Wuhan and Guangzhou) and the suppression of the Communist Party in Shanghai and other cities drove many party supporters to rural strongholds such as the Jiangxi Soviet, which was organized by Mao Zedong. By 1928, deserters and defecting Kuomintang army units, supplemented by peasants from the Communist rural soviets, formed the Chinese Workers’ and Peasants’ Red Army. The ideological confrontation between the CCP and the KMT soon evolved into the first phase of the Chinese Civil War.
By 1930, the Communist Red Army had established the Chinese Soviet Republic in the provinces of Jiangxi and Fujianaround the city of Ruijin, including industrial facilities.[3]
After the establishment of the Jiangxi Soviet, Mao’s status within the Party declined. In 1930, Mao claimed a need to eliminate alleged KMT spies and Anti-Bolsheviks operating inside the Jiangxi Soviet and began an ideological campaign featuring torture and guilt by association, in order to eliminate his enemies. The campaign continued until the end of 1931, killing approximately 70,000 people and reducing the size of the Red Army from 40,000 to less than 10,000. The de facto leader of the party at the time, Zhou Enlai, originally supported Mao’s purges as necessary to eliminate KMT spies. After Zhou arrived in Jiangxi in December 1931, he criticized Mao’s campaigns for being directed more against anti-Maoists than legitimate threats to the Party, for the campaign’s general senselessness, and for the widespread use of torture to extract confessions. During 1932, following Zhou’s efforts to end Mao’s ideological persecutions, the campaigns gradually subsided.[4]
In December, of 1931 Zhou replaced Mao Zedong as Secretary of the First Front Army and political commissar of the Red Army. Liu Bocheng, Lin Biao and Peng Dehuai all criticized Mao’s tactics at the August 1932 Ningdu Conference.[5]The most senior leaders to support Mao in 1932 were Zhou Enlai, who had become disillusioned with the strategic leadership of other senior leaders in the Party, and Mao’s old comrade, Zhu De. Zhou’s support was not enough, and Mao was demoted to being a figurehead in the Soviet government, until he regained his position later, during the Long March.[6]
In early 1933, Bo Gu arrived in Jiangxi with the German Comintern adviser Otto Braun and took control of Party affairs. Zhou at this time, apparently with strong support from Party and military colleagues, reorganized and standardized the Red Army. Under Zhou, Bo, and Braun, the Red Army defeated four attacks by Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalist troops.[7]
Chiang’s fifth campaign was much more difficult to contain. In September 1933, the National Revolutionary Army under Chiang Kai-shek eventually completely encircled Jiangxi, with the advice and tactical assistance of his German adviser, Hans von Seeckt.[8] A fortified perimeter was established by Chiang’s forces, and Jiangxi was besieged in an attempt to destroy the Communist forces trapped within. In July 1934, the leaders of the Party, dominated by the “Twenty-Eight Bolsheviks“, a militant group formed in Moscow by Wang Ming and Bo Gu, forced Mao from the Politburo of the Communist Party in Ruijin and placed him briefly under house arrest. Mao was replaced by Zhou Enlai as leader of the military commission.[9]
Chiang’s strategy of slowly constructing a series of interlinking blockhouses (resembling medieval castles) was successful, and Chiang’s army was able to capture several major Communist strongholds within months. Between January and March 1934, the Nationalists advanced slowly. Bo and Braun continued to employ orthodox military tactics, resulting in a series of Kuomintang advances and heavy Communist casualties. In October 1934 KMT troops won a decisive battle and drove deep into the heart of the Central Soviet Area. When Ruijin became exposed to KMT attack, Party leaders faced the choice of either remaining and perishing or of abandoning the base area and attempting to break through the enemy encirclement.[10]
In August 1934, with the Red Army depleted by the prolonged conflict, a spy, Mo Xiong, who had been placed by Zhou Enlai in the KMT army headquarters in Nanchang, brought news that Chiang Kai-shek was preparing a major offensive against the Communist capital, Ruijin. The Communist leadership decided on a strategic retreat to regroup with other Communist units, and to avoid annihilation. The original plan was to link up with the Second Red Army commanded by He Long, thought to be in Hubei to the west and north. Communications between divided groups of the Red Army had been disrupted by the Kuomintang campaign. During the planning to evacuate Jiangxi, the First Red Army was unaware that these other Communist forces were also retreating westward.
Since the Central Base Area could not be held, the Standing Committee appointed Bo (responsible for politics), Braun (responsible for military strategy), and Zhou (responsible for the implementation of military planning) to organize the evacuation. Since the enemy was close, Zhou, in charge of logistics, made his plans in complete secrecy. It was not disclosed who was to leave or when: even senior leaders were only at the last moments told of the Army’s movements. It is not known what criteria were used to determine who would stay and who would go, but 16,000 troops and some of the Communists’ most notable commanders at the time (including Xiang Ying, Chen Yi, Tan Zhenlin, and Qu Qiubai) were left to form a rear guard, to divert the main force of Nationalist troops from noticing, and preventing, the general withdrawal.[11]
The first movements to screen the retreat were undertaken by forces led by Fang Zhimin, breaking through Kuomintang lines in June 1934. Although Fang Zhimin’s troops were soon destroyed, these movements surprised the Kuomintang, who were numerically superior to the Communists at the time and did not expect an attack on their fortified perimeter.
The early troop movements were actually a diversion to allow the retreat of more important leaders from Jiangxi. On October 16, 1934, a force of about 130,000 soldiers and civilians under Bo Gu and Otto Braun attacked the line of Kuomintang positions near Yudu. More than 86,000 troops, 11,000 administrative personnel and thousands of civilian porters actually completed the breakout; the remainder, largely wounded or ill soldiers, continued to fight a delaying action after the main force had left, and then dispersed into the countryside.[12] Several prominent members of the Chinese Soviet who remained behind were captured and executed by the Kuomintang after the fall of Ruijin in November 1934, including Qu Qiubai and the youngest brother of Mao Zedong, Mao Zetan.
The withdrawal began in early October 1934. Zhou’s intelligence agents were successful in identifying a large section of Chiang’s blockhouse lines that were manned by troops under General Chen Jitang, a Guangdong warlord who Zhou identified as being likely to prefer preserving the strength of his troops over fighting. Zhou sent Pan Hannian to negotiate for safe passage with General Chen, who subsequently allowed the Red Army to pass through the territory that he controlled without fighting.[13] The Red army successfully crossed the Xinfeng River and marched through the province of Guangdong and into Hunan before encountering the last of Chiang’s fortifications at the Xiang River.
After passing through three of the four blockhouse fortifications needed to escape Chiang’s encirclement, the Red Army was finally intercepted by regular Nationalist troops, and suffered heavy casualties. Of the 86,000 Communists who attempted to break out of Jiangxi with the First Red Army, only 36,000 successfully escaped. Due to the low morale within the Red Army at the time, it is not possible to know what proportion of these losses were due to military casualties, and which proportion were due to desertion. The conditions of the Red Army’s forced withdrawal demoralized some Communist leaders (particularly Bo Gu and Otto Braun), but Zhou remained calm and retained his command.[13] Most Communist losses occurred over only two days of heavy fighting, from November 30 to December 1, 1934.
After escaping Chiang’s encirclement, it was obvious to Party leaders that Chiang was intent on intercepting what remained of the Red Army in Hunan, and the direction of the Red Army’s movements had to be reconsidered. The plan to rendezvous and join He Long’s army in Hunan had become too risky. Mao suggested to Zhou that the Red Army change direction, towards Guizhou, where Mao expected enemy defenses to be weak.[13]
A meeting at Tongdao, close to the border of Hunan and Guizhou, was convened to discuss the direction of the Red Army on December 12, 1934. Zhou endorsed Mao’s proposal, encouraging other leaders to overrule the objections of Bo and Braun. Another dispute of the direction of the Red Army occurred soon after, once the Red Army reached Liping, in the mountains of southeast Guizhou. Braun believed that they should travel to eastern Guizhou, but Mao wanted to go to western Guizhou, where he expected KMT forces to be lighter and which borders Sichuan, and to establish a base area there. In a meeting to decide the army’s direction, Zhou sided with Mao, making Braun “fly into a rage because he was overruled in the debate.” At the meeting it was decided that the Red Army would travel towards Zunyi, in western Guizhou.[14]
On January 1, 1935, the Red Army reached the Wu River. Bo and Braun again insisted the Red Army move back to western Hunan to join other Communist troops in the area, but their prestige had considerably declined by that point, and their suggestion was rejected. Even Zhou had become impatient, and proposed a new rule which was put into effect immediately: that all military plans had to be submitted to the Politburo for approval. The movement passed, clearly depriving Braun of the right to direct military affairs. On January 15 the Red Army captured Zunyi, the second largest city in Guizhou. As Mao had predicted, the city was weakly defended, and was too far from Nationalist forces to be under immediate threat of attack.[14] By the time the Red Army occupied Zunyi, it was highly depleted, and counted little more than 10,000 men.[15] Zhou used the peace afforded in Zunyi to call an enlarged Politburo meeting, in order to examine the causes of the Communists’ repeated defeats.[14]
The Communists’ Zunyi Conference lasted from January 15–17, 1935, and resulted in a reshuffling of the Party politburo. Zhou intended the conference to draw lessons from the Red Army’s past failures, and to develop strategies for the future. Much of the discussion revolved around whether the defeats of the Red Army were due to unavoidable circumstances, or inadequacies of leadership. Bo Gu, the first speaker, attributed the Red Army’s losses to “objective” causes, particularly the enemy’s overwhelming numerical superiority, and poor coordination of Communist forces. Braun’s interpreter, Wu Xiuquan, later recalled that Bo’s arguments did not impress his audience, and that Bo came across as someone attempting to avoid responsibility.[14]
Zhou Enlai was the next to speak. Zhou blamed the Red Army’s failures on poor decisions at the leadership level, and blamed himself as one of the three people most responsible. Zhou’s willingness to accept responsibility was well received. Zhang Wentian, basing many of his conclusions on recent discussions with Mao, attacked Bo and Braun directly, criticizing them for numerous strategic and tactical errors.[16]
After Zhang, Mao gave a speech in which he analyzed the poor tactics and strategies of the two leaders. With Zhou’s explicit backing, Mao won over the meeting. Seventeen of the meeting’s twenty participants (with the exception of Bo, Braun, and He Kequan) argued in his favor.[16]
Of the three leaders who had controlled the Party before the Zunyi Conference, only Zhou Enlai’s political career survived. Zhou was held partially responsible for the Red Army’s defeat, but was retained at the top level of Party leadership because of his differences with Bo and Braun at Ningdu, his successful tactics in defeating Chiang’s fourth Encirclement Campaign, and his resolute support of Mao.[16] Although the failed leadership of Bo Gu and Otto Braun was denounced, Mao was not able to win the support of a sufficient number of Party leaders to gain outright power at the conference.[17]
A major shift in the Party’s leadership occurred two months later, in March 1935. Mao was passed over for the position of General Secretary by Zhang Wentian, but gained enough influence to be elected one of three members of Military Affairs Commission. The other two members were Zhou Enlai, who retained his position as Director of the Commission, and Wang Jiaxiang, whose support Mao had enlisted earlier,.[17] Within this group, Zhou was empowered to make the final decisions on military matters, while Mao was Zhou’s assistant. Wang was in charge of Party affairs.[16]
When the army resumed its march northward, the direct route to Sichuan was blocked by Chiang’s forces. Mao’s forces spent the next several months maneuvering to avoid direct confrontation with hostile forces, but still attempting to move north to join Zhang Guotao‘s Fourth Red Army.[18] While Chiang’s armies approached Mao in northern Guizhou from three directions, Mao maneuvered out of the encirclement by crossing the Chishui River for four times. Then, Mao led the Red Army crossed Wu River and marching towards Guiyang. He feigned an attack to this city when Chiang was visiting. Chiang ordered his army in Kunming to move eastward to save Guiyang, but the Red Army turned towards Kunming immediately and entered Yunnan, where the Yangtze River was lightly guarded.
In February 1935, Mao’s wife, He Zizhen, gave birth to a daughter. Because of the harsh conditions, the infant was left with a local family[19] (Two Europeans retracing the Long March route in 2003 met a woman in rural Yunnan province said by local officials to be Mao and He Zizhen’s long-lost daughter[20]).
The Luding Bridge
The Communist forces were harassed by both the Kuomintang and local warlords. To avoid a fatal confrontation, Zhou and Mao maneuvered the Red army south and west, through Guizhou, Sichuan, and Yunnan, feigning attacks on Guiyang and Kunming to disguise their movements. The First Red Army crossed the Yangtze (the section of Jinsha River) on May 9, 1935, finally escaping determined pursuit, but still had to deal with dangerous mountain passes at heights of up to 4,000 meters, rough climatic conditions, shortages of food, clothing, and equipment, and tribes of local ethnic groups hostile to Chinese encroachment.[21] The Red Army had to capture river crossings defended by warlords and Nationalist troops. The most famous was Luding Bridge, extolled in official history as an heroic triumph, although many historians now believe that the difficulty of the battle was exaggerated or that the incident was fabricated for propaganda purposes.
Warlords often refused to help out the Kuomintang against the Communist Red Army, preferring to save their own forces.
300 “Khampa bandits” were enlisted into the Kuomintang’s Consolatory Commission military in Sichuan, where they were part of the effort of the central government of China to penetrate and destabilize the local Han warlords such as Liu Wenhui. The Chinese government sought to exercise full control over frontier areas against the warlords. Liu had refused to do battle against the Red Army, to save his own military from destruction. The Consoltary Commission forces were used to battle the Communist Red Army, but were defeated when their religious leader was captured by Communist forces.[22]
Communist forces on the Long March clashed against Kham rebels in the 1934 Khamba Rebellion, who were fleeing from Tibetan government forces.[23]
In June–July 1935, the troops under Mao united with the Fourth Red Army, led by Zhang Guotao, which had retreated west from Henan. Zhang had taken a different route of evacuation, and arrived at Lianghekou with 84,000 troops in relatively good condition. The fact that he had control of superior forces gave him the power to challenge the authority of Zhou and Mao, whose power was based largely on the Party’s support. Zhang demanded that one of his own generals, Chen Changhao, take over Zhou’s position as political commissar of the entire Red Army, and suggested that Zhang himself replace Zhu De on the Military Commission. Zhang argued that such a reorganization would create a more “equal” army organization. On July 18, Zhou relinquished his position as political commissar, and several leading positions were taken over by generals of the Fourth Red Army.[21]
These changes had no long-term significance because Zhang and Mao disagreed with the direction of the army. Zhang insisted on going southwest, while Mao insisted on going northwards, towards Shaanxi. No agreement was reached, and the two armies eventually split, each going their separate ways.[21]
Zhang Guotao’s Fourth Red Army took a different route than Mao travelling south, then west, and finally north through China. On the way Zhang’s forces were largely destroyed by the forces of Chiang Kai-shek and his Chinese Muslim allies, the Ma clique. The remnants of Zhang’s forces later rejoined elements of the Second Red Army before eventually linking up with Mao’s forces in Shaanxi.[24]
The Second Red Army began its own withdrawal west from Hubei in November 1935, led by He Long, who commanded the KMT Twentieth Army in 1923 before joining the Communist Party of China (CPC). For retribution Chiang Kai-Shek had He Long’s relatives executed, including three sisters and a brother.[citation needed] In 1932 he established a sovietin the Hunan-Jiangxi border area, and in August 1934 received command of the Second Red Army, establishing a base in Hubei. An advance party of the First Red Army, called the Sixth Corps, commanded by Xiao Ke, was sent towards the Second Red Army two months before the beginning of the Long March. Xiao Ke’s force would link up with He Long and his army, but lost communication with the First Army that came behind. It was at this point that Li Zhen’s unit was assigned to He Long’s command, having already served in the Sixth Corps.[25]
On November 19, 1935, the Second Red Army set out on its own Long March. He Long’s force was driven further west than the First Red Army, all the way to Lijiang in Yunnan province, then across the Jade Dragon Snow Mountain massif and through the Tibetan highlands of western Sichuan. He Long and Xiao Ke were married to sisters who also accompanied the army. He Long’s wife, Jian Xianren, carried the baby daughter she had given birth to three weeks before the retreat began. Jian Xianfo gave birth to a son in the desolate swamps of northern Sichuan.[26] Forces of the Second Army detained two European missionaries, Rudolf Bosshardt and Arnolis Hayman, for 16 months.[27] Bosshardt later related his account of the details of daily life on the Long March in a book.[28]
Mao’s First Red Army traversed several swamps and was attacked by Muslim HuiMa Clique forces under Generals Ma Bufang and Ma Buqing.[24] Finally, in October 1935, Mao’s army reached Shaanxi province and joined with local Communist forces there, led by Liu Zhidan, Gao Gang, and Xu Haidong, who had already established a Soviet base in northern Shaanxi.[29] The remnants of Zhang’s Fourth Red Army eventually rejoined Mao in Shaanxi, but with his army destroyed, Zhang, even as a founding member of the CPC, was never able to challenge Mao’s authority.[24] After an expedition of almost a year, the Second Red Army reached Bao’an (Shaanxi) on October 22, 1935, known in China as the “union of the three armies”, and the end of the Long March.
All along the way, the Communist Army confiscated property and weapons from local warlords and landlords, while recruiting peasants and the poor. Nevertheless, only some 8,000 troops under Mao’s command, the First Front Army, ultimately made it to the final destination of Yan’an in 1935. Of these, less than 7,000 were among the original 100,000 soldiers who had started the march. A variety of factors contributed to the losses including fatigue, hunger and cold, sickness, desertion, and military casualties. During the retreat, membership in the party fell from 300,000 to around 40,000.[30]
In November 1935, shortly after settling in northern Shaanxi, Mao officially took over Zhou Enlai’s leading position in the Red Army. Following a major reshuffling of official roles, Mao became the chairman of the Military Commission, with Zhou and Deng Xiaoping as vice-chairmen. (After Zhang Gutao reached Shaanxi, Deng was replaced by Zhang). This marked Mao’s position as the pre-eminent leader of the Party, with Zhou in a position second to Mao. Both Mao and Zhou would retain their positions until their deaths, in 1976.[29]
A Communist leader addressing Long March survivors.
While costly, the Long March gave the Communist Party of China (CCP) the isolation it needed, allowing its army to recuperate and rebuild in the north of China. It also was vital in helping the CCP to gain a positive reputation among the peasants due to the determination and dedication of the surviving participants of the Long March. Mao wrote in 1935:
“The Long March is a manifesto. It has proclaimed to the world that the Red Army is an army of heroes, while the imperialists and their running dogs, Chiang Kai-shek and his like, are impotent. It has proclaimed their utter failure to encircle, pursue, obstruct and intercept us. The Long March is also a propaganda force. It has announced to some 200 million people in eleven provinces that the road of the Red Army is their only road to liberation.”[32]
In addition, policies ordered by Mao for all soldiers to follow, the Eight Points of Attention, instructed the army to avoid harm to or disrespect for the peasants, in spite of the desperate need for food and supplies. This policy won support for the Communists among the rural peasants.[33]
Hostilities ceased while the Nationalists and Chinese Communists formed a nominal alliance during the Second Sino-Japanese War from 1937 until 1945. During these years, the Chinese Communist Party persevered and strengthened its influence. The Red Army fought a disciplined and organized guerilla campaign[34] against superior Japanese forces, allowing it to gain experience. Following the end of World War II, the resurgent Communist Eighth Route Army, later called the People’s Liberation Army, returned to drive the Kuomintang out of Mainland China to the island of Taiwan. Since the establishment of the People’s Republic of China in 1949, the Long March has been glorified as an example of the Communist Party’s strength and resilience. The Long March solidified Mao’s status as the undisputed leader of the CPC. Other participants in the March also went on to become prominent party leaders, including Zhu De, Lin Biao, Liu Shaoqi, Dong Biwu, Ye Jianying, Li Xiannian, Yang Shangkun, Zhou Enlai and Deng Xiaoping.
The Chinese government produced a movie in 2006, My Long March,[35][36] relating personal experiences of a fictional participant in the Long March.
The Long March is surrounded by conflicting accounts of what occurred. Some critics and researchers call the earlier accounts myths, but find that they are difficult to prove or disprove because the Chinese government prevents independent historians from exploring the topic. The few who were able to perform research recently struggle with the fact that many years have gone by since the march took place. Many of the survivors are no longer alive or able to accurately recall events.[37]
In 2003, controversy arose about the distance covered by Mao’s First Front Army in the Long March.[38] The figure of 25,000 li (12,500 kilometres or about 8,000 miles[1]) was Mao’s estimate, quoted by his biographer Edgar Snow in Red Star Over China, published not long after the end of the Long March in 1938. In 2003, two British researchers, Ed Jocelyn and Andrew McEwen,[33] retraced the route in 384 days,[26][33] and in their 2006 book “The Long March” estimated the March actually covered about 6,000 km (3,700 miles). Jocelyn and McEwen conclude in their book that “Mao and his followers twisted the tale of the Long March for their own ends. Mao’s role was mythologized to the point where … it seemed he had single-handedly saved the Red Army and defeated Chiang Kai-shek”. Mao exaggerated, perhaps even doubled, the length of the march, they believe.[39] Chinese media dispute their report: “The 25,000 li of the Red Army’s Long March are a historic fact and not open to doubt.”[40] However, even at the time that Edgar Snow’s account was written, there were estimates that the distance traveled was closer to 18,000 li (9,375 km).[41]
Well, that’s the way it’s presented in our propaganda. We needed that to express the fighting spirit of our forces. In fact, it was a very easy military operation. There wasn’t really much to it. The other side were just some troops of the warlord who were armed with old muskets and it really wasn’t that much of a feat, but we felt we had to dramatize it.
The Battle of Luding Bridge has been portrayed as a glorious and heroic moment in Chinese Communist history, analogous to the Texan Battle of the Alamo. The official account of the battle depicts exhausted and depleted Communist forces in a desperate situation, where they must fight across a bridge that is guarded by the numerically superior forces of Chiang Kai-shek and his warlord allies. The Communists send a small volunteer force that braves a hail of gunfire to climb across the bridge on underlying chains and assault the enemy positions on the other side, hence securing the bridgehead for the rest of the army to cross.
However, there is evidence that differs from the official account of the battle. This suggests that much of the fighting was dramatized, by Communist leaders, for propaganda purposes. Authors Andrew McEwen and Ed Jocelyn who retraced the route of the Long March, interviewing survivors along the way, said that a woman in her early 80s recalled that local people led the way across the bridge and were all shot and killed.[43] Author Sun Shuyun quotes a witness who said that there was a small enemy force on the other side armed with guns that could “only fire a few metres”. They panicked and fled.[44]
The writer Sun Shuyun writes that generations of Chinese have been taught a glorious account of the Long March in order to justify Mao’s Revolution: “If you find it hard,” they were told:
think of the Long March; if you feel tired, think of our revolutionary forebears. The message has been drilled into us so that we can accomplish any goal set before us by the party because nothing compares in difficulty with what they did. Decades after the historical one, we have been spurred on to ever more Long Marches – to industrialize China, to feed the largest population in the world, to catch up with the West, to reform the socialist economy, to send men into space, to engage with the 21st century.[45]
October 2006 marked the 70th anniversary of the end of the Long March. Dozens of newly released, government approved books were displayed in bookstores, with the intention of showing the heroic actions and drama of the Long March.Chinese television presented “a feast of Long March-themed entertainment, including a 20-part drama series, documentaries, and even a song-and-dance extravaganza.”[46]
Scholars in the West more often focus on aspects of the Long March rarely portrayed by Chinese propaganda, such as the Red Army recruiting local people through kidnapping and blackmail.[47] Sun Shuyun interviewed a man who said he was barely into his teens when he was forced to join the Red Army. This veteran only joined the Red Army because his father was arrested by the Communists and would not be released until the man agreed to join the army. The man later thought of deserting, but stayed on because he feared being caught and executed.[37] In order to escape starvation, the Red Army often stole food from villagers in the remote locations it traveled through.[47] Driven by desperation and hunger, Communist armies during the Long March sometimes took hostages for ransom.
When the United States Army Went to War Armed with French Weapons
France. What a silly place, am I right? They eat frogs, they’re on their, like, millionth government since the Revolution, and they keep needing us ‘Muricans to save them during world wars. Well, that is one way of viewing the Franco-American narrative, I suppose, if one were to overlook the incredibly vital French aid during the American Revolution (thousands of troops, a Navy, and literally tons of weapons) and all the French thinkers that influenced the Founding Fathers.
And then there’s that little problem of the U.S. Army using mainly French weapons when it entered World War I.
“But ASO, surely it was only a few weapons, right?” the interlocutor might ask. Sure, gentle reader, just a few weapons: just several hundred thousand automatic rifles, machine guns, grenades, artillery pieces, and tanks. That’s all.
“But how could this happen?” the astonished reader asks.
Simple. It’s what happens when you build a small Army – less than 200,000 men – meant for fighting small wars on small islands and entirely neglect modernization.
On April 6, 1917, when the U.S. declared war on Imperial Germany, the U.S. Army had about 200,000 Soldiers on active service, approximately 80,000 of which were National Guardsmen called up for the 1916 Mexican Border Expedition. Getting the Army up to size wasn’t the problem; with authority of the National Defense Act of 1916, the President and Congress could call up the approximately 350,000 Soldiers in the National Guard and institute the draft. No, the problem was how to arm these Soldiers.
Once upon a time – back in the Spanish-American and Civil Wars – this wasn’t too big of an issue. Regular troops were augmented by units of U.S. Volunteers, most of whom were armed by their states or from stores of small arms kept by the Federal government in arsenals across the country. But that was back when war was relatively simple and you could equip infantry units with weapons like the muzzle-loading 1861 Springfield or the 1873 Springfield trapdoor rifle. With 1,000 men to a regiment, it was pretty simple to do the math: 1,000 rifles, some tents, a small wagon train, a blacksmith forge, and travelling kitchens would get you what you needed. Not so in 1917.
The first problem was force structure. The National Defense Act of 1916 had changed the organization of infantry regiments to reflect the changing nature of war: they now had machine guns and automatic rifles. Further, General John Pershing – Commander of the American Expeditionary Forces – added even more weapons to the list in 1917 to increase a regiment’s lethality: Stokes mortars, 37mm light field guns, and grenade launchers affixed to rifles. He also flexed infantry regiments up to a wopping 3,200 men, arranged in three battalions. The infantry regiment formed the core of Pershing’s main functional maneuver element: the division. Each division contained four infantry regiments, three field artillery regiments, three machine gun battalions, one regiment of engineers, and battalions of support troops. Each of these divisions contained 28,000 men. That was a lot of men to equip. Indeed, the first four divisions to arrive in France in the fall of 1917 -the 1st, 26th, 2nd, and 42nd – numbered over 112,000 men; this was over half the size of the Regular Army when war had been declared. There were simply too many men who needed arms and equipment.
The other problem was modernization. The Army was just not ready for the modern age. Their machine-gun was still the 1895 Browning, nicknamed the “potato digger” because its recoil drove it into the ground. The Army’s field guns were still of Spanish-American War vintage. The 1903 Field Gun was actually quite good, but had been stuck in the development stage for nearly two decades. The Browning Company had manufactured a new machine gun and automatic rifle, but there were barely any models of these excellent weapons on hand when war was declared, and it would take over a year for them to actually get pushed to France in any numbers that would matter. The service’s main rifle, the M1903 Springfield, was excellent, but was also lacking in numbers. Facing the daunting task of equipping the first four divisions to head to France, the War Department turned to its allies for help.
Thus it was that the French opened their stores of weaponry and began arming the Doughboys that were arriving in France by the thousands in the fall of 1917. To the regimental machine gun companies and the machine gun battalions went the M1914 Hotchkiss machine gun. The Hotchkiss was gas-actuated and air-cooled, firing an 8mm Lebel round and had to be crewed by three men, due to its weight and the need to incessantly feed 24-round strips of ammo into the gun. Its weight – 110 pounds with the tripod – caused it to usually be carried around on carts, adding to the difficulty of getting it into battle. However, U.S. machine gun battalions racked up excellent records using the Hotchkiss and even learned how to use them for laying down machine gun barrages.
U.S. troops with the Hotchkiss, 1918. (Library of Congress)
Far less popular than the Hotchkiss was the M1915 Chauchat automatic rifle. Now, the concept of automatic rifles was that there would be one auto rifle squad in each infantry platoon, giving that platoon the ability to lay down some serious suppressive fire. And it was a good concept. The problem lay in the Chauchat. It was slow, heavy, and seemed to jam at the worst possible times. The jams were not usually caused by the weapon itself, but by the magazine’s idiotic design that left half of the side open – open to the ubiquitous mud of the Western Front. Small wonder then that it jammed. However, in the hands of well-trained and meticulous soldiers, the Chauchat could be a force multiplier.
An old French couple, M. and Mme. Baloux of Brieulles-sur-Bar, France, under German occupation for four years, greeting soldiers of the 308th and 166th Infantries upon their arrival during the American advance. (Library of Congress)
Another infantry weapon adopted from the French was the Vivien and Bessières – or V-B in Doughboy parlance – rifle grenade. Fitting to the barrel of a rifle, the grenade was projected by the pressure from the bullet going off in the rifle’s chamber. V-B squads could deliver a barrage of deadly grenades on top of attackers or right before entering an enemy trench. There were, however, issues. The V-B was tooled for the French 8mm round, while the American rifles were 7.62mm. This difference sometimes caused the V-B not to go off because the 7.62mm rounds did not carry enough force. Still, the U.S. didn’t have any rifle grenades at the outbreak of war, so it was better than nothing.
While the Americans would get their primary field mortar from the British with the Stokes Mortar (a few lucky units got the British Lewis machine gun as well, which was very effective), they got their infantry support gun from the French: the Canon d’Infanterie de 37 modèle 1916 TRP, or simply, the 37mm gun. Doughboys, not quick to be wordy, called them “one pounders.” These small guns were crewed by two men and could be quickly moved around the battlefield to knock out machine gun nests or other medium targets. Some men used them as “sniping guns,” rolling them out into No-Man’s Land, firing off thirty-five rounds in a minute, then limbering up and getting the hell out before the Germans could respond with a murderous barrage. But the 37mm was still not a field gun.
U.S. troops using a 37mm gun near Chateau-Thierry in 1918. (U.S. Army Signal Corps Photo)
Moving from the 37mm to field artillery, the two most striking French gifts to the Americans were the 75mm field piece and the 155mm field piece. The French 75 was possibly one of the most successful field guns of all time. It was deadly accurate and could keep up a high rate of fire due to the pneumatic firing device that absorbed the recoil of the gun and left the barrel sited after every shot. This alleviated the need to re-site the gun after a round was fired. U.S. troops got so proficient with the 75 that they could fire on the recoil, leading to such a high volume of fire that French advisers pulled out their hair in worry and German prisoners demanded to know where the American 75mm machine gun was. The gun even led to its own mixed drink being named for it, the French 75.
Less popular in alcoholic memory, but well-liked by the infantry who followed behind its powerful explosives was the 155mm Schneider howitzer. It provided the heavy type of barrage that Doughboys would need to break a German attack or take apart enemy entrenchments. It was a mix of old and new – pneumatic firing like the 75, but on a rickety gun carriage with wooden wheels that shook and rattled when the gun was fired. The U.S. purchased more than 1,300 of these for the American Expeditionary Force.
Along with the guns came the tanks. One tank in particular: the Renault FT-17. Since at the beginning of the war the U.S. wasn’t even thinking about tanks, they had to borrow the Renault from the French when it came time to think about a Tank Corps. The Renault was small – it could only fit two men: a driver and a commander/gunner. The commander communicated with the driver by kicking him in the head or shoulders, since the tank was so loud that the men couldn’t hear each other. And since the driver couldn’t see anything at all, this type of communication was vital. The U.S. would work on their own tank variant, with supervision by George Patton, but the war would end before it saw action. For more on the Renault, check out this War Stories Podcast.
During the war, the massive U.S. industrial machine would roll into action, turning out millions of small arms, thousands of field guns, and hundreds of tanks. But the fact remains that the first battles fought by U.S. troops in the fall of 1917 and the spring of 1918 were done so with mainly French weaponry, with some from the British. For the most part the equipment was good; but there is no doubt that fewer lives would have been lost had the U.S. fielded the Browning .30 caliber machine gun and Browning Automatic Rifle earlier in the conflict (although loss of life was more to do with poor American strategy and tactics than armaments). This shocking lack of readiness would be seen twenty-four years later, as the U.S. faced the Second World War. While the Army had a massive amount of equipment available, most of it was from the stocks of World War I – and therefore out-of-date. It would take another year and a half before the U.S. Army could begin to bring their weapons on the battlefield in parity against their enemy.
Both of these examples stand as a warning to the current U.S. Army: ignore modernization at your peril, and at the peril of thousands of lives of American service members. Because France can’t always be around to bail us out of trouble.
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About the Author: Angry Staff Officer is an Army engineer officer who is adrift in a sea of doctrine and staff operations and uses writing as a means to retain his sanity. He also collaborates on a podcast with Adin Dobkin entitled War Stories, which examines key moments in the history of warfare.
All I can say is that Lot must of had balls of solid brass! Thank God that they won as I can even think of what would’ve happened if Hitler had won this one!
(This film also showed how confusing Combat can be!)
The Great Siege of Malta (Maltese: L-Assedju l-Kbir) took place in 1565 when the Ottoman Empire tried to invade the island of Malta, then held by the Knights Hospitaller.
The Knights, with approximately 2,000 footsoldiers and 400 Maltese men, women and children, withstood the siege and repelled the invaders.
This victory became one of the most celebrated events in sixteenth-century Europe. Voltaire said, “Nothing is better known than the siege of Malta”, and it undoubtedly contributed to the eventual erosion of the European perception of Ottoman invincibility and marked a new phase in Spanish domination of the Mediterranean.[3]
The siege was the climax of an escalating contest between a Christian alliance and the Islamic Ottoman Empire for control of the Mediterranean, a contest that included the Turkish attack on Malta in 1551, the Ottoman destruction of an allied Christian fleet at the Battle of Djerba in 1560, and the decisive Battle of Lepanto in 1571.
The Knights Hospitaller are also known as the Sovereign Order of Saint John of Jerusalem, of Rhodes and of Malta, or Knights of Malta, Knights of Rhodes, Knights of Saint John, and Chevaliers of Malta.
By the end of 1522, Suleiman the Magnificent, the Ottoman Sultan, had forcibly ejected the Knights from their base on Rhodes after the six-month Siege of Rhodes.
From 1523 to 1530 the Order lacked a permanent home. They became known as the Knights of Malta when, on 26 October 1530, Philippe Villiers de L’Isle-Adam, Grand Master of the Knights, sailed into Malta’s Grand Harbour with a number of his followers to lay claim to Malta and Gozo, which had been granted to them by Holy Roman Emperor Charles V[4]in return for one falcon sent annually to the Viceroy of Sicily and a solemn Mass to be celebrated on All Saints Day. Charles also required the Knights to garrison Tripoli on the North African coast, which was in territory that the Barbary Corsairs, allies of the Ottomans, controlled. The Knights accepted the offer reluctantly.
Malta was a small, desolate island, and for some time, many of the Knights clung to the dream of recapturing Rhodes.
Nevertheless, the Order soon turned Malta into a naval base. The island’s position in the centre of the Mediterranean made it a strategically crucial gateway between East and West, especially as the Barbary Corsairs increased their forays into the western Mediterranean throughout the 1540s and 1550s.
Jean Parisot de Valette
In particular, the corsair Dragut was proving to be a major threat to the Christian nations of the central Mediterranean. Dragut and the Knights were continually at loggerheads. In 1551, Dragut and the Ottoman admiral Sinandecided to take Malta and invaded the island with a force of about 10,000 men.
After only a few days, however, Dragut broke off the siege and moved to the neighboring island of Gozo, where he bombarded the Cittadella for several days.
The Knights’ governor on Gozo, Gelatian de Sessa, having decided that resistance was futile, threw open the doors to the Cittadella. The corsairs sacked the town and took virtually the entire population of Gozo (approximately 5,000 people) into captivity.
Dragut and Sinan then sailed south to Tripoli, where they soon seized the Knights’ garrison there. They initially installed a local leader, Aga Morat, as governor, but subsequently Dragut himself took control of the area.
Expecting another Ottoman invasion within a year, Grand Master of the Knights Juan de Homedes ordered the strengthening of Fort Saint Angelo at the tip of Birgu (now Vittoriosa), as well as the construction of two new forts, Fort Saint Michael on the Senglea promontory and Fort Saint Elmo at the seaward end of Mount Sciberras (now Valletta).
The two new forts were built in the remarkably short period of six months in 1552. All three forts proved crucial during the Great Siege.
The next several years were relatively calm, although the guerre de course, or running battle, between Muslims and Christians continued unabated.
In 1557 the Knights elected Jean Parisot de Valette Grand Master of the Order. He continued his raids on non-Christian shipping, and his private vessels are known to have taken some 3,000 Muslim and Jewish slaves during his tenure as Grand Master.[5]
By 1559 Dragut was causing the Christian powers such distress, even raiding the coasts of Spain, that Philip II organized the largest naval expedition in fifty years to evict the corsair from Tripoli.
The Knights joined the expedition, which consisted of about 54 galleys and 14,000 men.
This ill-fated campaign climaxed in the Battle of Djerba in May 1560, when Ottoman admiral Piyale Pasha surprised the Christian fleet off the Tunisian island of Djerba, capturing or sinking about half the Christian ships. The battle was a disaster for the Christians and it marked the high point of Ottoman domination of the Mediterranean.
Toward the siege
Fort St. Angelo
After Djerba there could be little doubt that the Turks would eventually attack Malta again.
Malta was of immense strategic importance to the Ottoman long term plan to conquer more of Europe, since Malta was a stepping stone to Sicily, and Sicily in turn could be a base for an invasion of the Kingdom of Naples.[6]
In August 1560, Jean de Valette sent an order to all the Order’s priories that their knights prepare to return to Malta as soon as a citazione (summons) was issued.[7]
The Turks made a strategic error in not attacking at once, while the Spanish fleet lay in ruins, as the five-year delay allowed Spain to rebuild their forces.[8]
Meanwhile, the Spaniards continued to prey on Turkish shipping. In mid-1564, Romegas, the Order’s most notorious seafarer, captured several large merchantmen, including one that belonged to the Chief Eunuch of the Seraglio, and took numerous high-ranking prisoners, including the governor of Cairo, the governor of Alexandria, and the former nurse of Sultan Suleiman’s daughter.
Romegas’ exploits gave the Turks a casus belli, and by the end of 1564, Suleiman had resolved to wipe the Knights of Malta off the face of the earth.
Suleyman I
By early 1565, Grand Master de Valette’s network of spies in Constantinople had informed him that the invasion was imminent. De Valette set about raising troops in Italy, laying in stores and finishing work on Fort Saint Angelo, Fort Saint Michael, and Fort Saint Elmo.[9]
The armies
The Turkish armada, which set sail from Constantinople on 22 March, was by all accounts one of the largest assembled since antiquity.
According to one of the earliest and most complete histories of the siege, that of the Order’s official historian Giacomo Bosio, the fleet consisted of 193 vessels, which included 131 galleys, seven galliots (small galleys) and four galleasses (large galleys), the remainder being transport vessels, etc.[2]Contemporary letters from Don Garcia, the Viceroy of Sicily, give similar numbers.”[10]
The Italian mercenary Francisco Balbi di Correggio, (serving as an arquebusier in the Spanish corps), gave the forces as:[1]
The Knight Hipolito Sans, in a lesser-known account, also lists about 48,000 invaders, although it is not clear how independent his work is from Balbi’s.[11] Other contemporary authors give much lower figures.
In a letter written to Philip II only four days after the siege began, de Valette himself says that “the number of soldiers that will make land is between 15,000 and 16,000, including seven thousand arquebusiers or more, that is four thousand janissaries and three thousand spahis.”[12]
On the other hand, in a letter to the Prior of Germany a month after the siege, de Valette writes, “This fleet consisted of two hundred and fifty ships, triremes, biremes and other vessels; the nearest estimate we could make of the enemy’s force was 40,000 fighting men.”[13]
That de Valette gives the enemy fleet as 250 vessels, a number much above anyone else’s, shows that the Grand Master himself was not above exaggeration.
Indeed, a letter written during the siege by the liaison with Sicily, Captain Vincenzo Anastagi, states the enemy force was only 22,000 and several other letters of the time give similar numbers.[14][15]
However, Bosio arrives at a total of about 30,000, which is consistent with Balbi’s “named troops.”[16] Another early history gives essentially the same figure.[17]
The siege
Arrival of the Ottomans
Before the Turks arrived, de Valette ordered the harvesting of all the crops, including unripened grain, to deprive the enemy of any local food supplies. Furthermore, the Knights poisoned all wells with bitter herbs and dead animals.
The Turkish armada arrived at dawn on Friday, 18 May, but did not at once make land.[18] The first fighting broke out on 19 May.[19]
A day later, the Ottoman fleet sailed up the southern coast of the island, turned around and finally anchored at Marsaxlokk (Marsa Sirocco) Bay, nearly 10 kilometers (6.2 miles) from the Grand harbour region.
According to most accounts, in particular Balbi’s, a dispute arose between the leader of the land forces, the 4th Vizierserdar Kızılahmedli Mustafa Pasha,[20] and the supreme naval commander, Piyale Pasha, about where to anchor the fleet. Piyale wished to shelter it at Marsamxett Harbour, just north of the Grand Harbour, in order to avoid the sirocco and be nearer the action, but Mustafa disagreed, because to anchor the fleet there would require first reducing Fort St. Elmo, which guarded the entrance to the harbour. Mustafa intended, according to these accounts, to attack the poorly defended former capital Mdina,
which stood in the centre of the island, then attack Forts St. Angelo and Michael by land. If so, an attack on Fort St. Elmo would have been entirely unnecessary. Nevertheless, Mustafa relented, apparently believing only a few days would be necessary to destroy St. Elmo.
After the Turks were able to emplace their guns, at the end of May they commenced a bombardment.
It certainly seems true that Suleiman had seriously blundered in splitting the command three ways. He not only split command between Piyale and Mustafa, but he ordered both of them to defer to Dragut when he arrived from Tripoli.
Contemporary letters from spies in Constantinople, however, suggest that the plan had always been to take Fort St. Elmo first.[21] In any case, for the Turks to concentrate their efforts on it proved a crucial mistake.
While the Ottomans were landing, the knights and Maltese made some last-minute improvements to the defences of Birgu and Senglea.
The Ottomans set up their main camp in Marsa, which was close to the Knights’ fortifications.[22] In the following days, the Ottomans set up camps and batteries on Santa Margherita Hill[23] and the Sciberras Peninsula.[24]The attacks on Birgu began on 21 May, while Senglea was first attacked a day later.[25]
Map of Malta at the time of the Great Siege
Capture of Fort St. Elmo
“
The darkness of the night then became as bright as day, due to the vast quantity of artificial fires. So bright was it indeed that we could see St Elmo quite clearly. The gunners of St Angelo… were able to lay and train their pieces upon the advancing Turks, who were picked out in the light of the fires.”
Having correctly calculated that the Turks would seek to secure a disembarkation point for their fleet and would thus begin the campaign by attempting to capture Fort St Elmo, de Valette sent reinforcements and concentrated half of his heavy artillery within the fort.[27][28]
His intent was for them to hold out for a relief promised by Don Garcia, Viceroy of Sicily. The unremitting bombardment of the fort from three dozen guns on the higher ground of Mt. Sciberras began on 27 May,[29] and reduced the fort to rubble within a week, but de Valette evacuated the wounded nightly and resupplied the fort from across the harbour.
After arriving in May, Dragut set up new batteries to imperil the ferry lifeline. On 3 June, a party of Janissaries managed to seize the fort’s ravelin and ditch.[27][30] Still, by 8 June, the Knights sent a message to the Grand Master that the Fort could no longer be held but were rebuffed with messages that St Elmo must hold until the reinforcements arrived.[27]
The Turks attacked the damaged walls on June 10 and 15, and made an all out assault on June 16, during which even the slave and hired galley oarsmen housed in St Elmo, as well as the native Maltese soldiers, reportedly fought and died “almost as bravely as the Knights themselves.”
Two days later, Dragut was seen in a trench cannon emplacement arguing with the Turkish gunners about their level of fire.
At Dragut’s insistence a cannon’s aim was lowered, but the aim was too low, and when fired its ball detached part of the trench which hit Dragut in the head, killing him,[31] (although according to Bosio, it was a lucky shot from Fort St. Angelo that mortally wounded him.[27])
Finally, on 23 June, the Turks seized what was left of Fort St. Elmo.[27] They killed all the defenders, totaling over 1,500 men, but spared nine Knights whom the Corsairs had captured, and a few others managed to escape.[citation needed]
Although the Turks did succeed in capturing St. Elmo, allowing Piyale to anchor his fleet in Marsamxett, the siege of Fort St. Elmo had cost the Turks at least 6,000 men, including half of their Janissaries.[27]
Dragut Reis
Mustafa had the bodies of the knights decapitated and their bodies floated across the bay on mock crucifixes. In response, de Valette beheaded all his Turkish prisoners, loaded their heads into his cannons and fired them into the Turkish camp.[citation needed]
Panic
By this time, word of the siege was spreading. As soldiers and adventurers gathered in Sicily for Don Garcia’s relief, panic spread as well.
There can be little doubt that the stakes were high, perhaps higher than at any other time in the contest between the Ottoman Empire and Europe. Queen Elizabeth I of England wrote:[32]
“
If the Turks should prevail against the Isle of Malta, it is uncertain what further peril might follow to the rest of Christendom
”
All contemporary sources indicate the Turks intended to proceed to the Tunisian fortress of La Goletta and wrest it from the Spaniards, and Suleiman had also spoken of invading Europe through Italy.[citation needed]
However, modern scholars tend to disagree with this interpretation of the siege’s importance.
H.J.A. Sire, a historian who has written a history of the Order, is of the opinion that the siege represented an overextension of Ottoman forces, and argues that if the island had fallen, it would have quickly been retaken by a massive Spanish counterattack.[27]
Although Don Garcia did not at once send the promised relief (troops were still being levied), he was persuaded to release an advance force of some 600 men.
After several attempts, this piccolo soccorso (Italian: small relief) managed to land on Malta in early July and sneak into Birgu, raising the spirits of the besieged garrison immensely.
On 15 July, Mustafa ordered a double attack against the Senglea peninsula.
He had transported 100 small vessels across Mt. Sciberras to the Grand Harbour, thus avoiding the strong cannons of Fort St. Angelo, in order to launch a sea attack against the promontory using about 1,000 Janissaries, while the Corsairs attacked Fort St. Michael on the landward end.
Luckily for the Maltese, a defector warned de Valette about the impending strategy and the Grand Master had time to construct a palisade along the Senglea promontory, which successfully helped to deflect the attack.
Nevertheless, the assault probably would have succeeded had not the Turkish boats come into point-blank range (less than 200 yards) of a sea-level battery of five cannons that had been constructed by Commander Chevalier de Guiral at the base of Fort St. Angelo with the sole purpose of stopping such an amphibious attack.
Just two salvos sank all but one of the vessels, killing or drowning over 800 of the attackers. The land attack failed simultaneously when relief forces were able to cross to Ft. St. Michael across a floating bridge, with the result that Malta was saved for the day.
The siege of St Michael, showing the Christian Knights cut off from the sea and surrounded in their remaining fortresses of Birgu, St Angelo and St Michael.
The Turks by now had ringed Birgu and Senglea with some 65 siege guns and subjected the town to what was probably the most sustained bombardment in history up to that time. (Balbi claims that 130,000 cannonballs were fired during the course of the siege.)
Having largely destroyed one of the town’s crucial bastions, Mustafa ordered another massive double assault on 7 August, this time against Fort St. Michael and Birgu itself. On this occasion, the Turks breached the town walls and it seemed that the siege was over, but unexpectedly the invaders retreated.
As it happened, the cavalry commander Captain Vincenzo Anastagi, on his daily sortie from Mdina, had attacked the unprotected Turkish field hospital, massacring the sick and wounded. The Turks, thinking the Christian relief had arrived from Sicily, broke off their assault.
St. Michael and Birgu
After the attack of 7 August, the Turks resumed their bombardment of St. Michael and Birgu, mounting at least one other major assault against the town on 19–21 August. What actually happened during those days of intense fighting is not entirely clear.
Bradford’s account of the climax of the siege has a mine exploding with a huge blast, breaching the town walls and causing stone and dust to fall into the ditch, with the Turks charging even as the debris was still falling.
He also has the 70-year-old de Valette saving the day by leading towards the Turks some hundred troops that had been waiting in the Piazza of Birgu. Balbi, in his diary entry for 20 August, says only that de Valette was told the Turks were within the walls; the Grand Master ran to “the threatened post where his presence worked wonders. Sword in hand, he remained at the most dangerous place until the Turks retired.”[33]
Bosio also has no mention of the successful detonation of a mine. Rather, in his report a panic ensued when the townspeople spied the Turkish standards outside the walls. The Grand Master ran there, but found no Turks.
In the meantime, a cannonade atop Ft. St. Angelo, stricken by the same panic, killed a number of townsfolk with friendly fire.[34]
The situation was sufficiently dire that, at some point in August, the Council of Elders decided to abandon the town and retreat to Fort St. Angelo. De Valette, however, vetoed this proposal.
If he guessed that the Turks were losing their will, he was correct. Although the bombardment and minor assaults continued, the invaders were stricken by an increasing desperation.
Towards the end of August, the Turks attempted to take Fort St. Michael, first with the help of a manta(similar to a Testudo formation), a small siege engine covered with shields, then by use of a full-blown siege tower.
In both cases, Maltese engineers tunneled out through the rubble and destroyed the constructions with point-blank salvos of chain shot.
At the beginning of September, the weather was turning and Mustafa ordered a march on Mdina, intending to winter there. However the attack failed to occur.
The poorly-defended and supplied city deliberately started firing its cannon at the approaching Turks at pointlessly long range; this bluff scared them away by fooling the already demoralised Turks into thinking the city had ammunition to spare.[35]
By 8 September, the Turks had embarked their artillery and were preparing to leave the island, having lost perhaps a third of their men to fighting and disease.
Gran Soccorso
On 7 September, Don Garcia had at last landed about 8,000 men at St. Paul’s Bay on the north end of the island. The so-called Grande Soccorso (“great relief”) positioned themselves on the ridge of San Pawl tat-Tarġa, waiting for the retreating Turks. It is said that when some hot-headed knights of the relief force saw the Turkish retreat and the burning villages in its wake, they charged without waiting for orders from Ascanio della Corgna. Della Corgna had no choice but to order a general charge which resulted in the massacre of the retreating Turkish force. The Turks fled to their ships and from the islands on 13 September. Malta had survived the Turkish assault, and throughout Europe people celebrated what would turn out to be the last epic battle involving Crusader Knights.
The number of casualties is in as much dispute as the number of invaders. Balbi gives 35,000 Ottoman deaths, which seems implausible, while Bosio estimates 30,000 casualties, including sailors. Modern estimations from military historians using Turkish archives have put the number of casualties at 10,000 from combat and disease, though it is generally agreed that there were likely far more losses amongst the various volunteers and pirates, which the Turkish sources would not have noted.[36]The knights lost a third of their number, and Malta lost a third of its inhabitants. Birgu and Senglea were essentially leveled. Still, 9,000 defenders had managed to withstand a siege of more than four months in the hot summer, despite enduring a bombardment of some 130,000 cannonballs.
Jean de Valette, Grand Master of the Knights of Malta, had a key influence in the victory against Ottomans with his example and his ability to encourage and hold together people as one man. This example had a major impact, bringing together the kings of Europe in an alliance against the previously seemingly invincible Ottomans; the result was the vast union of forces against Ottomans at the Battle of Lepanto seven years later. Such was the gratitude of Europe for the knights’ heroic defense that money soon began pouring into the island, allowing de Valette to construct a fortified city, Valletta, on Mt. Sciberras. His intent was to deny the position to any future enemies. De Valette himself died in 1568 after suffering a stroke while praying in a chapel.
^ Jump up to:abFrancesco Balbi di Correggio / translated by: Ernle Bradford (1965). The Siege of Malta, 1565. London.
^ Jump up to:abGiacomo Bosio, Histoire des Chevaliers de l’ordre de S. Iean de Hierusalem, edited by J. Baudoin (Paris, 1643).
Jump up^Fernand Braudel, The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II, vol. II (University of California Press: Berkeley, 1995).Great Siege of Malta
Jump up^Abbe de Vertot, The History of the Knights of Malta vol. II, 1728 (facsimile reprint Midsea Books, Malta, 1989).
Jump up^Godfrey Wettinger, Slavery in the Islands of Malta and Gozo, (Publishers Enterprise Group: Malta, 2002), p. 34
Jump up^Setton, Kenneth Meyer (1984). The Papacy and the Levant, 1204-1571. Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society. p. 854. ISBN0-87169-162-0.
Jump up^Carmel Testa, Romegas (Midsea Book: Malta, 2002), p. 61.
Bradford, Ernle, Ernle Bradford (1961). The Great Siege: Malta 1565. Wordsworth 1999. ISBN1-84022-206-9.
Bradford, Ernle, The Sultan’s Admiral: The Life of Barbarossa, London, 1968.
Correggio, Francesco Balbi di (1568). The Siege Of Malta 1565. Copenhagen 1961.
Correggio, Francesco Balbi di Francesco Balbi di Correggio translated Ernle Bradford (1568 translated 1965). “chapter II”. The Siege Of Malta 1565. Penguin 2003. ISBN0-14-101202-1. Check date values in: |date= (help)
Currey, E. Hamilton, Sea-Wolves of the Mediterranean, London, 1910
Pickles, Tim. Malta 1565: Last Battle of the Crusades; Osprey Campaign Series #50, Osprey Publishing, 1998.
Rothman, Tony, “The Great Siege of Malta,” in History Today, January 2007.
Spiteri, Stephen C. The Great Siege: Knights vs. Turks, 1565. Malta, The Author, 2005.
Wolf, John B., The Barbary Coast: Algeria under the Turks, New York, 1979; ISBN0-393-01205-0
https://youtu.be/ZxbFB7myZIw
Of course, at the same time. Sally Lou was boffing some 4-F Jody. Who was making a sh*t load of money working in the War Industry.
And all the while she was spending his GI allotment. That he was sending her while deployed overseas.
But then I am just a Cynical ex Grunt! Grumpy
Chinese Nationalist Party and allied warlords
Communist Party of China
Hans von Seeckt
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