The Elite

by Ranulph Fiennes

  While each soldier was ordered to take a bath once a week, there was also a daily review at 5 a.m., with everyone expected to drink a cup of hot coffee immediately after, whether they liked it or not. In addition, regimental officers who had not been attending the early morning roll call were now required to do so.

  Gibbon also sought to address the uneven appearance of his regiments. All soldiers in the unit were now issued with a nine-button dark-blue frock coat, along with white linen leggings and white cotton gloves. However, it was the tall model 1858 Hardee dress hat for which the unit would soon be known, making the westerners stand out on the battlefield.

  While many of Gibbon’s changes had been met with hostility, the new uniforms were enthusiastically received. ‘We have a full blue suit, a fine black hat nicely trimmed with bugle and plate and ostrich feathers,’ a 7th Wisconsin man wrote home, ‘and you can only distinguish our boys from the regulars, by their [our] good looks.’

  Yet, rather than for good looks, this group of ragtag soldiers were to become renowned for their unstinting bravery. Upon meeting Confederate forces at Gainesville, in a battle widely known as Brawner’s Farm, the subsequent open-field fighting was brutal. With nowhere to hide, it was a shootout to the finish. Major Rufus Dawes of the 6th Wisconsins wrote of the battle in his memoir: ‘Our one night’s experience at Gainesville had eradicated our yearning for a fight. In our future history, we will also be found ready but never again anxious.’ The casualties were enormous. Refusing to leave the field, more than one-third of the brigade – 725 men – were killed. To illustrate this courage, Lieutenant Colonel Charles Apthorpe Hamilton was shot through the thighs but maintained in the saddle, while his boots filled with blood. Likewise, Major Thomas Allen was shot in the neck and left arm, but continued to fight.

  The bravery of the Wisconsins in such circumstances astounds me. While on duty in Oman, the prospect of being killed or wounded was one that kept me up at night. Of particular terror was the thought of some bullet, shrapnel shard or mine blast ripping out my genitals or blinding me. I had seen it happen all too often and it was only by the grace of God that the only injury I picked up in Oman was a crooked finger. Yet these terror images totally dominated my mind. To cope, I learnt to keep a ruthlessly tight clamp on my imagination. With fear, you must prevent, not cure. Fear must not be let in in the first place. If you are in a canoe, never listen to the roar of the rapid ahead before you let go of the river bank. Just do it! Keep your eyes closed and let go. If the fear then rushes at you, it will not be able to get a grip, because your mind will by then be focusing on the technical matter of survival. I wonder if any of the Wisconsin men felt like I did and also had to use some mind trick to blank out fear and charge forward nonetheless?

  However, despite the unit’s daring deeds, there had been no one but themselves to witness their heroics. The Battle of South Mountain would change all that and spawn a legend. As, while Gibbon’s Wisconsin units set off believing they had the upper hand over the Confederates, they had no idea that General Lee had not only reinforced the South Mountain defence, but was also lying in wait.

  Arriving at the mountain around 3.30 p.m., Gibbon and his men found that rising sharply on both sides were wooded hills, as well as stone-wall barriers, ravines and farm buildings. Through it all was their target, Turner’s Gap, a narrow defile through which the National Road passed. There was only one way in, and one way out. It was vital they captured it.

  As the sun began to set behind the mountain, producing an orange haze, Gibbon mounted his horse. It was time to move. Riding to the front line on the high ground, from which he could view his whole force, Gibbon suddenly shouted, ‘Forward! Forward! Forward!’

  At this, his men charged up the mountain, expecting to meet moderate defences at best. But suddenly there was the sound of rifle shots booming through the air. They were being ambushed. The Confederates had been lying in wait all this time and now emerged from behind logs, fences, rocks and bushes.

  With shells exploding around them, and men collapsing to the floor in pools of blood, the Wisconsins refused to retreat. Moving steadily up the steep mountainside, they unleashed a barrage of gunfire on the Confederate hiding places only to suddenly come under attack from the woodlands. The Wisconsin units now stopped in their tracks. They had not been expecting this. Out in the open, they would all die if this continued, but they could not move forward until the woodland was clear. Yet this was a suicide mission that would involve charging across an open field towards it. It mattered not. As a handful charged headlong towards the woodland, all guns blazing, others threw several shells into a farmhouse, from where gunfire had also been coming. This bought the rest of the brigade vital time to move forward.

  In the face of increasing rifle fire and heavier casualties, the brigade steadily advanced for another three-quarters of a mile, driving the Confederate outposts into the narrowing gorge. Positioning themselves behind a stone fence, the Confederates poured hot fire into the advancing Wisconsins. One after another was shot down, almost as if being subjected to a firing squad. Yet still the Wisconsins continued, ever relentless, refusing to be beaten.

  Charging out front, right and left, they suddenly outflanked the fence and sent the Confederates fleeing. But, from stone walls and hills 40 yards away, a thousand rifles fired down from both sides, lighting up the gathering darkness and halting the westerners’ advance.

  Although exhausted from the climb and the ceaseless fighting, the massed men now rushed forward, shouting wildly from throats burning with powder and smoke. As the battle roared towards its climax, flashes of gunfire lit up all sides of the mountain. Such was the unrelenting ferocity of the attack, the Wisconsins’ rifles became too hot to reload, and too full of carbon for safe use. Some even ran out of ammunition. At this critical moment, locked in the dark with a powerful enemy, it appeared that the brigade, for all its hard fighting and heavy losses, would have to surrender. But this was far from Gibbon’s mind. With no guns left, Gibbon turned to his men and shouted, ‘Hold your ground with the bayonet.’

  With their bayonets at their side, the bedraggled and bloodied Wisconsins charged into the advancing Confederates. Man after man was shot down but those who reached the Confederate line did so with such savage intensity that they forced the enemy back to a stone barricade. Stunned by this assault, the Confederates found that they had also run out of ammunition. General Lee now had no option but to order an immediate withdrawal.

  Up and down the battered western line, word was passed that the battle had been won. In the smoky darkness, three cheers went up for the ‘Badger State’. With victory sealed, and Turner’s Gap captured, they now had to turn their attention to helping the many wounded and dying men scattered up and down the mountainside. Rufus Dawes was engaged in this terrible task:

  Several dying men were pleading piteously for water, of which there was not a drop . . . nor was there any liquor. Captain Kellog and I searched in vain for a swallow for one noble fellow who was dying in great agony from a wound in his bowels. He recognised us and appreciated our efforts, but was unable to speak. The dread reality of war was before us in this frightful death, upon the cold hard stones. The mortal suffering, the fruitless struggle to send a parting message to a far-off home, and the final release in death, all enacted in the darkness . . .

  Over 25 per cent of Gibbon’s men had been lost in the attack. However, the manner in which those losses had occurred had not gone unnoticed. McClellan, as well as a number of other officers, had seen it all – the initial advance up the mountainside, the unflinching progress as the enemy’s fire increased, and the dogged movement, always forward, into the darkness, marked towards the end by the flashes from the opposing lines of rifles.

  Apparently, as General Joseph Hooker of the 1st Corps met with General McClellan to get further orders, McClellan asked, ‘Who are those men fighting in the Pike?’ Hooker replied that it was the western brigade of General Gibbon, to which McClellan answ
ered, ‘They must be made of iron.’ From here on, Gibbon’s men would be known as the ‘Iron Brigade’. A few days later a report in the Cincinnati Daily Commercial ensured that this name was known far and wide:

  The last terrible battle has reduced this brigade to a mere skeleton; there being scarcely enough members to form half a regiment. The 2nd Wisconsin, which but a few weeks since, numbered over 900 men, can now muster but fifty-nine. This brigade has done some of the hardest and best fighting in the service. It has been justly termed the Iron Brigade of the West.

  At Fredericksburg in December 1862, and again at Chancellorsville in May of 1863, the Iron Brigade continued to earn plaudits for its unflinching bravery in the face of overwhelming enemy superiority. However, it was the Battle of Gettysburg between 1 and 3 July 1863 that really cemented the reputation of the Iron Brigade as one of the bravest military units of all time.

  Under the command of General Solomon Meredith, the Iron Brigade was now the 1st Brigade of the 1st Division of I Corps of the army, as well as being custodians of the flag of the 1st Division. One proud Black Hat proclaimed that this identity was ‘purchased with blood and held most sacred’.

  As General Lee’s forces moved east, to seek a store of shoes in the little town of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, the Union marched towards them, with the Iron Brigade leading the way. Despite the fact that the enemy appeared to have superior numbers, the Iron Brigade hurled themselves into action. Soon they were in a head-on collision with the enemy, as one eyewitness recorded ‘a line of ragged dirty blue crashed into one of dirty, ragged butternut’.

  The Iron Brigade swept the Confederate soldiers back. Temporarily overwhelmed, the Confederates started to surrender or fall back to Willoughby Run. The first phase of the battle west of Gettysburg had been won by the Union, in no small part due to the Iron Brigade, but more was to come.

  Following a lull of more than two hours, the Confederates attacked again at 3 p.m. with a barrage of artillery fire. The Iron Brigade fired back such a thunderous response that, for a time, ‘no rebel crossed the stream alive’. However, Solomon Meredith became a casualty at this stage, having been crushed beneath his horse. While the Union front remained impregnable, the flanks began to yield, forcing them to pull back to a barricade of rails on Seminary Ridge.

  From behind this feeble barricade, the Iron Brigade stemmed the fierce tide that pressed upon them incessantly, and held back the enemy lines, as Union troops fled to Cemetery Hill. Soon outflanked on both right and left, many fought to the death until they were sure the bulk of the Union was safe.

  With 1,200 casualties, out of a total of 1,800 who entered the battle, the Iron Brigade’s losses had indeed been grievous; but by holding off the Confederates on the west of the town they enabled the rest of the Union army to place themselves in strong defensive positions south of the town on Culps Hill, Cemetery Hill and Cemetery Ridge, from where the Confederate army was unable to dislodge them. Thus the gallant Iron Brigade played an important role in deciding the outcome of the battle, and in the final triumph of the Union.

  Gettysburg was sadly the Iron Brigade’s last official stand. After the battle and the huge losses they sustained, men from many states of the Union were brought in to replace them. Although they played a valuable part under General Grant in the final advance on Richmond, this new unit could no longer be reckoned as the old Iron Brigade of westerners.

  With the war ending once and for all on 9 April 1865, fewer than 200 of the original 1,026 men returned to Wisconsin. In Colonel William F. Fox’s Regimental Losses in the American Civil War, he reported that the 2nd Wisconsin lost the highest percentage of men killed in battle of any regiment in the Union army in proportion to the number enlisted. But their efforts did not go unnoticed.

  ‘Of all the brave troops who have gone from our state,’ reported the Detroit Free Press, ‘few, if any, regiments can point to a more brilliant record, to more heroic endurance, to greater sacrifices for the perpetuation of the priceless legacy of civil liberty and a wise and good government.’ A correspondent for the Milwaukee Sentinel echoed these thoughts:

  Wisconsin, Michigan and Indiana can say with truth that they have furnished the bravest soldiers of the war and they have had their shoulders to the wheel ever since the rebellion broke out. Their soldiers have never faltered . . . [and] they were confident that Right would be vindicated – and the result proved they were not wrong.

  Such bravery on a battlefield is an enormous asset. When coupled with brilliant tactics, it can make a unit nigh-on unstoppable. And such a combination would be needed in abundance when a group of men had to do battle with a fleet of tanks, or see their country lose the greatest war of their age . . .

  18

  THE STORMTROOPERS

  AD 1914

  As war broke out in Europe on 28 July 1914 and spread from the Balkans to become a global conflict, fighting on several fronts soon descended into trench warfare. On the Western Front, in particular, men fought in appalling conditions; casualties were alarmingly high and progress agonisingly slow, as neither side seemed able to break the deadlock.

  Relentless infantry bayonet charges were useless as thousands of men were quickly cut down by machine-gun fire without gaining an inch of ground. Alternatively, attempts to annihilate the enemy with a massive artillery barrage proved equally ineffective. The enemy would merely wait in their underground dugouts until the barrage lifted before emerging to mow down the attacking infantry. As was seen so tragically at Verdun, where 337,000 died, it seemed both sides had only one strategy: to fling more firepower at the enemy than they could fling back. Indeed, at the Battle of Arras my 21-year-old uncle John was also to die in such circumstances when leading a company of the 2nd Battalion of the Gordon Highlanders against the German trenches.

  Despite the horrendous number of casualties, there seemed to be no way to break the stalemate. Each day that passed merely saw each side’s defensive positions get stronger, with barbed-wire obstacles installed across no-man’s land, as well felled trees with sharpened branches and pointed metal stakes. However, the British were about to make an almighty breakthrough and unleash one of the most fearsome weapons the battlefield had ever seen.

  On 20 November 2017, over a 1,000 guns suddenly opened fire on the German trenches defending the town of Cambrai, followed by smoke and a creeping barrage of British forces. Despite this onslaught, such an attack was par for the course. But what came next was not. Under cover of this ferocious bombardment, 376 Mark IV fighting tanks suddenly lumbered across no-man’s land, spearheading a surprise attack that crushed the belts of defensive barbed wire and smashed through the German lines. The tank’s armour allowed it to shrug off bullets and shrapnel, while its weapons knocked out German machine-gun nests with impunity.

  Most of the Germans had never seen anything like it before. Cambrai was the first battle in which tanks were used en masse and they were a terrifying sight. When the Germans set eyes on these killing machines storming towards them, they fled for their lives.

  Within twenty-four hours, the British had driven the Germans back 5 miles – a feat unprecedented on the Western Front – as well as destroying two German infantry divisions. After three years of trench warfare, the British Army at last looked to have the Germans on the run. At this momentous news, church bells rang out in Britain for the first time since the outbreak of the war.

  Germany now appeared to be staring defeat in the face. It had no tanks of its own and it seemed that this new machine would sweep all before it and make trench warfare obsolete. But, while the British had been developing the tank, the Germans had been working on trench-clearing tactics of their own. Now it was time for the acid test. Their Sturmtruppen, aka ‘storm troops’, were their last hope.

  The origin of the storm troops can be traced to 2 March 1915, when the German war ministry ordered the 8th Army Corps to form an assault detachment (Sturmabteilung). The idea was to attack by stealth and penetrate weak points in the e
nemy line, without expending blood or time attacking enemy strongpoints. In theory, by the time the defender realised what was happening, his front-line forces would be surrounded and isolated, to be mopped up later by follow-up waves of regular German troops. Under the command of Major Calsow, this fledgling new unit subsequently assembled at the artillery range at Wahn, where it spent the next two months honing techniques for storming trenches.

  Issued with lightweight Krupp guns, which were soon christened the ‘assault cannon’, as well as portable steel shields, they learnt how to clear barbed wire and other obstacles in no-man’s land. However, this training was never put into effect. Rather than lead an assault they instead defended a section of the German trench line. Casualties were high, while the assault cannon was found to be unsuitable for use near the front line. Each time one was fired its pronounced muzzle would flash, making it easy for the enemy to determine its exact position. Major Calsow was subsequently relieved of his command, to be replaced by the 37-year-old Captain Rohr of the Guards Rifles Battalion.

  Rohr was given a free hand insofar as the training of his unit was concerned. His only instruction was to train his unit ‘according to the lessons that he had learnt during his front-line service’ with the Guards Rifles Battalion. This was to have a profound effect on the future of the assault detachment. In the next few months, Rohr was to transform it into an elite infantry organisation.

  One of the first things Rohr addressed was weaponry. Rather than be restricted to bayonets or cannons, Rohr believed an assault battalion needed an array of weapons suitable for any given situation. As such, he was provided with a machine-gun platoon (two model 1908 Maxim machine guns), a trench mortar platoon (four light mortars) and a flamethrower platoon of six small flamethrowers.