Impossible Victories

by Bryan Perrett

  For the sorely tried American riflemen, the intervention of the Gatlings provided tremendous psychological relief in that, at last, the enemy was receiving the same sort of punishment he had been handing out for several hours. Sensing that the moment had come, Hawkins took off his hat and waved the 6th, the 24th and the rest of the 16th Infantry forward to support Ord’s little group.

  ’You felt that someone had blundered and that those few men were blindly following some madman’s mad order.’ wrote Richard Harding Davis later that year.8 ‘It was not heroic then; it seemed merely terribly pathetic. The pity of it, the folly of such sacrifice, was what held you. They had no glittering bayonets, they were not massed together in regular array. There were a few men in advance, bunched together, and creeping up a steep, sunny hill, the tops of which roared and flashed with flame. The men held their guns pressed across their breasts and stepped heavily as they climbed. Behind these first few, spreading out like a fan, were single lines of men, slipping and scrambling in the smooth grass, moving forward with difficulty as if they were wading waist high through water, carefully, with strenuous effort. It was much more wonderful than any swinging charge could have been. They walked to greet death at every step, many of them, as they advanced, sinking suddenly or pitching forward and disappearing in the high grass, but the others waded on stubbornly, forming a thin blue line that kept creeping higher and higher up the hill. It was a miracle of self-sacrifice, a triumph of bull-dog courage, which one watched breathless with wonder. The fire of the Spanish riflemen, who still stuck bravely to their posts, doubled and trebled in fierceness, the crests of the hills crackled and burst in amazed roars and rippled with waves of tiny flame. But the blue line crept steadily up and on, and then, near the top, the broken fragments gathered together with a sudden burst of speed. The Spaniards appeared for a moment outlined against the sky and poised for instant flight, fired a last volley and fled before the swift moving wave that leaped and sprang up after them.’

  The Rough Riders had watched the progress of the infantry assault and now they charged down the reverse slope of Kettle Hill and up the slopes beyond, clearing the enemy from the northern end of the ridge. In the process Roosevelt shot and killed one of two stragglers who had fired at him from ten yards’ range, using a revolver salvaged from the sunken Maine. Curiously, American casualties during this phase of the action were less than might have been expected. By no means all the Spaniards were marksmen, but given the output of fire available to them they did not have to be. One probable explanation for their failure to stop the attack is that, having engaged static targets at a fixed range all day, in the excitement they simply forgot to lower their sights, the result being that most of their fire went high.

  San Juan Ridge had been taken, but at El Caney the struggle continued until late afternoon. By then, half the garrison was down and its ammunition supply had begun to fail. Vara del Rey, who had inspired his men throughout the day despite being hit in both legs, was killed as he was being stretchered off the field. The end of the battle is described by an eye-witness:

  ’Always our infantry advanced, drawing near and closing up on the village till at last they formed under the mangrove trees at the foot of the hill on which the stone fort stood. With a rush they swept up the slope and the stone fort was ours. From the blockhouses and trenches from which the Spaniards could not safely retreat, flags of truce were waved. Guns and side arms were being taken away from such Spaniards as had outlived the pitiless fire, and their dead were being dumped without ceremony into the trenches after Spanish fashion.’

  Only about 40 of the entire garrison managed to escape in the direction of Santiago. What surprised, and indeed shocked, many of the Americans, was the extreme youth of their opponents. ‘Many of them,’ remarked one, ‘seemed like little boys with men’s shoes on – rope-soled, canvas shoes.’

  V Corps incurred a total of 1,572 killed and wounded during the capture of San Juan Ridge and El Caney, approximately ten per cent of its strength. The Spanish losses were estimated at only 850, but for the few units involved this represented between 30 and 50 per cent of their men and this had a serious effect on morale. Linares, having been hit in the arm during the defence of the ridge, handed over command to Major General José Toral, who withdrew to an intermediate line of prepared defences between the ridge and Santiago itself.

  Shafter believed that there had been 12,000 Spanish troops in the line at San Juan Ridge and El Caney. Already concerned by his own losses, he became seriously alarmed when Wheeler predicted that a minimum of 3,000 casualties would be incurred in storming the Spaniards’ second line. However, when he suggested abandoning the ridge and retiring to a defensive position near Siboney the idea was voted down by his divisional commanders and vetoed by Washington. He therefore began to prepare for a siege, bringing forward his heavy guns, and awaited reinforcements.

  For their part, the Spanish authorities were equally depressed. The entire point of defending Santiago was that it offered a haven for the fleet. Following the loss of San Juan Ridge it seemed probable that the city itself would fall, which would mean the simultaneous loss of Cervera’s warships. On the morning of 2 July Cervera received a direct order from the Captain General of Cuba, Ramón Blanco y Erenas, to take the fleet to sea. Cervera knew that the result would be nothing more than a death ride for the honour of Spain and the service, but the following morning he complied, hoping that some of his ships would succeed in breaking through the blockade and reaching the safe anchorage of Cienfuegos, over 500 miles to the west. The Battle of Santiago Bay was little better than a massacre. Hopelessly outgunned by Sampson’s battleships, the Spanish cruisers were, one by one, set ablaze, wrecked and driven ashore with loss of 474 seamen killed and 1,750 captured. The Americans sustained some superficial damage, one man killed and one wounded.

  The very public loss of their fleet caused the Spaniards’ morale to plummet even further. In the eyes of many, since the reason for holding Santiago had disappeared, the army should withdraw. Such an operation, however, would be difficult because many of the troops were sick and the Cuban rebels would eagerly seize every opportunity to fall on the column. Had Toral but known it, Shaffer’s troops were in an even worse case, ravaged by yellow fever, malaria and dysentery to the extent that a third of them were incapacitated at any one time. Nevertheless, the arrival of heavier guns and reinforcements within the American lines suggested to Toral that V Corps was growing stronger by the day and on 17 July he surrendered unconditionally. This brought hostilities to an end on the Cuban mainland, although a 5,000-strong expeditionary force under Major-General Nelson A. Miles eliminated the Spanish military presence on the island of Puerto Rico the following month.

  The storming of San Juan Ridge had been the decisive event of the war since it compelled Cervera’s ships to put to sea. With its fleet gone, the Madrid government, unable to supply, reinforce or communicate with its troops in Cuba, bowed to the inevitable and opened peace negotiations. Under the terms of the Treaty of Paris, concluded in December, Spain relinquished her sovereignty over Cuba and ceded the islands of Puerto Rico and Guam to the United States, which also purchased the Philippine Islands for $20 million. It had, recalled the American Ambassador to the Court of St James, been a ‘splendid little war.’ Approximately 250 Americans had lost their lives as a result of enemy action, but ten times that number died because of disease; of the latter, many, the victims of badly administered camps, never even left the United States.

  Shafter’s battles had been won for him by the grit and raw courage of his troops, the initiative of junior commanders and the serious errors made by his opponent. Roosevelt, with his powerful connections in political and press circles, effectively destroyed his reputation. ‘Not since the campaign of Crassus against the Parthians has there been so criminally incompetent a general as Shatter,’ he wrote to his friend Senator Henry Cabot Lodge a day or two after the capture of San Juan Ridge, ‘and not since the expedition against
Walcheren has there been a grosser mismanagement than this.’ Roosevelt’s own actions had made him the hero of the hour and he ended the war as a brigadier-general; within a year he had become Governor of New York, and two years after that he became President of the United States.

  Also contained within Roosevelt’s correspondence with Senator Lodge were two prescient sentences. ‘We have won so far at a heavy cost; but the Spaniards fight very hard and charging these entrenchments against modern rifles is terrible. We are within measurable distance of a terrible military disaster.’ The lessons of Cuba were emphasised during the Second Boer War and the Russo-Japanese War, but were ignored because in every case it was the attackers, American, British and Japanese, who had won, albeit at the heavier cost. As the powers of defence continued to increase it became clear that soon they would dominate those of the attackers, no matter how much courage the latter displayed. By the autumn of 1914 all the combatant armies of Europe had been torn apart by the very disaster which Roosevelt had predicted.

  Notes

  1. It is now generally accepted that the effects of the single torpedo fired at the liner Lusitania were greatly magnified by an explosion in a nearby coal bunker.

  2. The Kearsage , it will be recalled, sank the Confederate raider Alabama off Cherbourg in 1864. Twenty-two years later the criticisms levelled at Sigsbee included failure to comply with ordnance regulations and keeping a dirty ship; the Texas was also found to be dirty and rusted with improperly outfitted boats.

  3. Kitchener employed similar methods to bring the guerrilla phase of the Second Boer War to an end.

  4. For many years after the Civil War former regular officers who had fought for the South were not allowed to serve in the United States Army, despite the issue of a general pardon in 1868. This clearly denied the Army the services of men with real ability and in due course the ban was rescinded. Wheeler was one of comparatively few such men to achieve high rank.

  5. Although dynamite was the most powerful explosive of its days, dynamite-filled shells could not be fired from conventional guns because the shock of discharge would cause them to explode in the barrel. A Lieutenant Zalinski of the US Coast Artillery Corps developed a system using compressed air as the propelling agency and a number of Zalinski Dynamite Guns were installed in coastal defences. That used by V Corps in Cuba was a much smaller version employing a field carriage. The development of more stable yet equally powerful explosives quickly rendered the concept obsolete.

  6. As Daiquirí was an open roadstead, Sampson was using Guantánamo Bay, 40 miles to the east, to coal his ships. His marines had already secured the environs of the bay but the difficult country between it and Daiquirí inhibited its use as a base.

  7. The 9th and 10th Cavalry and the 24th and 25th Infantry were formed after the Civil War and consisted of negro soldiers with white officers. All earned an outstanding reputation on the Frontier.

  8. The Cuban and Porto Rican Campaigns, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1898

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Mounted Action –

  The Charges at Beersheba and Huj,

  Palestine, 1917

  The year was 1898 and the place Jerusalem. A young Arab and his grandfather were sitting in a coffee shop, discussing the events of the day, which included the formal entry into the city of Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany and his glittering retinue, accompanied by the Turkish governor and the province’s most important men.

  ‘Is he the One, do you think?’ asked the young man, referring to the ancient Arab prophesy that one day a leader would come from the West and deliver Palestine from the indolent, corrupt and frequently cruel rule of the Turk.

  ‘No, he is not the One,’ replied his grandfather.

  ‘Why not? It is said that he wishes to be known to us as Hadji Mohammed Guilliamo – and has he not laid a gilded wreath upon the tomb of the great Saladin?’1

  ‘Certainly he has made the Pilgrimage, but I do not understand why. His name is not Mohammed and he remains the Christian king of a Frankish country. Besides, part of the city walls had to be knocked down to admit his grand procession!’

  ‘What has that to do with anything?’

  ‘You forget the rest of the prophesy. The Deliverer, when he comes, will be named the Prophet of God, and, unlike this man, he will enter Jerusalem humbly and on foot. He will come, it is said, when the waters of the Nile flow into Palestine.’

  ‘How can such things be?’ replied the young man, angrily. ‘That is impossible and makes nonsense of the whole prophesy!’

  ‘If it is written it will come to pass – Inshallah! Perhaps not in my lifetime, but maybe in yours.’

  If the young man was still living just nineteen years later he would have seen every detail of this uncannily accurate prophesy fulfilled.

  The Kaiser’s curious stance as Champion of Islam was just one element in an ultimately successful long-term diplomatic strategy that severed the ramshackle Ottoman Empire’s traditional links with Great Britain and brought it within the German sphere of influence. By 1914 the process was complete and Turkey entered the Great War on the side of Germany and Austria-Hungary.

  For the British, this posed a number of very serious problems. They were worried by the potential threat posed to India and their own Imperial lifeline, the Suez Canal; by the possibility of disaffection among the British Empire’s millions of Muslim subjects; by their inability to supply adequate military and economic assistance to the huge but under-equipped Russian armies following the closure of the only viable sea-route through the Dardanelles and the Black Sea; and, above all, by the fact that so much of the fuel oil upon which the Royal Navy increasingly relied was produced within the Turkish provinces of Mesopotamia and Arabia and the vulnerable Persian Gulf. Obviously, substantial British naval and military resources would be tied down in the Middle East, which was exactly what Germany intended.

  For the first two years of the war the fortunes of the Ottoman Empire varied. An attack on the Suez Canal was repulsed and a Turkish-inspired invasion of western Egypt by the Senussi religious sect was defeated after some surprisingly hard fighting. Against this, the Royal Navy failed to force a passage of the Dardanelles and Allied landings on the Gallipoli peninsula not only proved abortive but resulted in a humiliating evacuation. In Arabia the Arab Revolt – in which Colonel T. E. Lawrence was later to play such a distinguished role – seriously damaged the Sultan’s prestige throughout the Islamic world by capturing the holy city of Mecca, of which he was the Guardian. In Mesopotamia, however, early British advances overreached themselves and resulted in a force commanded by Major-General Townshend being needlessly surrounded and forced to surrender at Kut-al-Amara. After this, however, Turkish lethargy reasserted itself and the British, rallied and reorganised under the command of Lieutenant-General Frederick Maude, returned to the offensive, capturing Baghdad on 11 March 1917.

  It was, nevertheless, in Sinai and Palestine that the first conclusive signs appeared that, in the long term and even with generous German support, the Turkish Army was incapable of sustaining a modern war indefinitely and would ultimately be defeated. In 1916 the British and Commonwealth troops in Egypt, including many veterans of the ill-starred Gallipoli venture, were formed into the Egyptian Expeditionary Force under the command of Lieutenant-General Sir Archibald Murray, a former Chief of the Imperial General Staff. Murray initiated a methodical advance across Sinai, backed by a logistic infrastructure that involved thousands of local labourers constructing a standard-gauge railway starting at El Kantara on the Canal and moving steadily eastwards at the rate of 50 miles per month.2 Beyond the railhead an efficient Camel Transport Corps distributed supplies to the forward troops. In parallel, a freshwater pipeline was laid, complete with pumping stations, storage tanks, a portable reservoir holding half a million gallons and batteries of standpipes; by these means the waters of the Nile eventually entered Palestine in partial fulfilment of the ancient prophesy. In sharp contrast, the Turkish troops
holding southern Palestine were at the extremities of a rickety single-track narrow-gauge railway system for the operation of which so little locomotive coal was available that felling of the sparse local timber was required. The system’s limited capacity in itself therefore restricted the number of troops the Turks were able to deploy and, if put under sustained pressure, it would simply be unable to cope with the voracious demands of a modern field army.

  Murray’s advance across Sinai was made with his infantry divisions close to the coast and railhead and his cavalry and camel troops covering the open desert flank to the south. The cavalry was commanded by Major-General Harry Chauvel, an Australian regular officer who had served in South Africa and who, in August 1914, had been on his way to London to serve as his country’s representative on the Imperial General Staff when he was diverted to the Middle East. He had commanded a brigade and later a division at Gallipoli and in due course he would emerge from the war with a reputation as the greatest horsed cavalry leader of the modern era. Curiously, he was as different from the usual idea of the ‘beau sabreur’ cavalry leader as it is possible to imagine, being short, wiry and quietly spoken. On the other hand, he was well versed in military history, completely familiar with every role mounted troops had to play, a hard-working, meticulous planner, cool in action, on good terms with his troops, careful of their lives and those of their mounts, and entirely dependable.