by Bill McLain
Napoleon’s defeat was the result of a number of conditions, not the least of which was the fact that he was outnumbered. At Waterloo the French had about 70,000 men. Although the British had only 60,000 men, the Prussian army, which came to their aid, also had 70,000 men. This combined force was almost double that of Napoleon’s army.
FACTOIDS
Although most people think Napoleon was short, he was actually five feet six inches tall, an average height for a Frenchman in those days. He was often seen in the presence of taller men, which may have led to the myth that he was short.
During the entire Napoleonic wars, over five million people died.
Napoleon took 14,000 French decrees and simplified them into a unified set of 7 laws. This was the first time in modem history that a nation’s laws applied equally to all citizens. Even today Napoleon’s 7 laws are so impressive that by 1960 over 70 governments had patterned their own laws after them or used them verbatim.
People wonder why Napoleon is usually shown with his hand inside his coat. Some of the many theories are that he had a skin disease, he had a deformed hand, he was afraid of being shot, or he was winding his watch. The simple explanation is that the pose was common at that time for men of stature and was almost always used when a portrait was painted.
During Napoleon’s conquest of Egypt his soldiers discovered the Rosetta stone, which had the same text inscribed in three different languages, including Egyptian hieroglyphics. This was the stone that unlocked the secret of the hieroglyphs and enabled scholars to translate the vast amounts of ancient Egyptian writing.
When Napoleon conquered Spain he outlawed the Inquisition, calling it “A wrong upon the masses.”
The commanders of the English and Prussian armies that defeated Napoleon met at a village called La Belle Alliance. The Prussian commander wanted to name the battle after the village. But Wellington, the British commander, refused because he always named his battles after the place he had stayed the night before the battle. Thus, the battle became known as “the battle of Waterloo.”
DID YOU KNOW?
The battle of Waterloo was a complex affair with many nations providing troops to support both the French and the English.
The battle began with four French attacks against the British army. The intent was to weaken the center so the French could break through. The attacks failed because there was no coordination between the French infantry and cavalry.
Eventually the French launched a coordinated attack with infantry, cavalry, and artillery, capturing a farmhouse in the middle of the British line. Artillery then started blasting holes in the center of the British defenses.
Had the French intensified the attack, the British would have been vulnerable. Napoleon refused to send reinforcements, however, because he was busy fighting the Prussians attacking his flank. By the time he did send additional troops, it was too late to press the advantage because the British had reorganized their defenses.
The British began a concentrated advance while the Prussians attacked the French elsewhere. The attack panicked the French and they retreated in disarray. Napoleon saw 25,000 of his men killed and 9,000 captured. Four days later he abdicated.
Although Napoleon is usually portrayed as a power-hungry conqueror, his other achievements are often ignored. In the states that he created, he instituted constitutions, abolished slavery, introduced uniform laws for all people, created efficient governments, and fostered both science and the arts.
Whatever Napoleon was, he was definitely not a small man.
Is it true that in ancient Greece 300 soldiers held off 200,000 Persian elite troops for 3 days? (A Spartan stand against overwhelming odds.)
In 480 B.C. Xerxes, the son of the King of Persia, prepared to invade Greece. Leonidas, a Spartan king, agreed to help stop the invading Persians to give the rest of Greece time to mobilize its army. He decided that the best defensive position was Thermopylae, where a 4-mile-long pass narrowed to 60 feet or less. Xerxes would have to cross this pass to reach the rest of Greece.
Leonidas picked up 7,000 troops in addition to his own 300 on his way to Thermopylae but these did not believe in the Spartan phrase “stand and die” and most fled or surrendered once the fighting began. It was up to Leonidas and his 300 Spartan soldiers to hold back the force of 200,000 battle-trained Persians.
The battle initially went as planned. The Persian advantage of numbers was minimized because only a few soldiers could go through the narrow pass at a time. The Persians used short javelin-type spears and wicker shields that were superior in an open field but no match for the Greeks’ long thrusting spears, heavy shields, and body armor, so effective in close quarters.
The Spartans held off the Persians, even beating back the crack 10,000 Persian troops known as the Immortals. For two days the Persians suffered heavy losses. But on the third day, a Greek traitor offered to show the Persians a way to reach the rear of the Spartan force. Xerxes sent his Immortals to encircle the Spartans. Knowing that every minute they fought would provide more time for the rest of Greece to prepare, the Spartans fought to the death. Every man died.
The Persians finally won at Thermopylae and conquered central Greece. However, they suffered considerable losses and, because of the holding action of Leonidas and the brave Spartans, most of the Greek troops and ships escaped to the Isthmus of Corinth. Beaten badly in later battles, the Persians retreated to Asia.
The battle at Thermopylae is celebrated as an example of heroic resistance against overwhelming odds.
FACTOIDS
Thermopylae has been the scene of three other famous battles. In ancient battles, the Greeks fought the Gauls and the Romans defeated the Syrians. In 1941, brave New Zealanders fought a holding action against the Germans.
In every famous battle at Thermopylae, the defenders failed to hold the pass. This was usually because the attacking force took another route and came up from behind to surprise them.
An oracle said that Sparta would be destroyed unless one of its kings was killed. Scholars still debate whether King Leonidas refused to surrender because he feared the oracle’s prophecy or because he simply wanted to hold off the Persians as long as possible.
DID YOU KNOW?
There have been many battles where a superior force was held at bay by relatively few defenders. The Texans did just that at the battle of the Alamo.
Another lesser-known battle took place in South Africa during the Zulu Wars in 1879. A small English military encampment at Rorke’s Drift had just over 120 men. These men were attacked by 20,000 Zulu warriors. Even the hospitalized British soldiers took up arms.
This small contingent of soldiers fended off wave after wave of Zulu warriors and suffered only minimal losses. Their heroism was recognized by their government. More Victoria Crosses (similar to our Congressional Medal of Honor) were awarded to that group than to any other group in the history of the British Army.
What does “flying the hump” mean? (Have you ever seen a tiger fly?)
Japan and China had been at war for some time before the United States entered World War II. When the Japanese conquered Hong Kong in 1941, China lost its air link to the rest of the world. By spring of 1942 the Japanese had conquered most of Burma, and China was completely cut off. There were no land, sea, or existing air routes that could be used to send supplies to the ill-equipped Chinese army. The only way to help the beleaguered Chinese was to fly cargo from Assam, India, to Kunming in southwest China. Because pilots had to fly over the Himalayas, they said they were flying over the “hump.” These men flew through the world’s worst weather over the world’s highest mountains.
The United States and Britain knew the Japanese were planning to advance southward to conquer and occupy Indochina, Thailand, British Malaya, and the Dutch East Indies. If they accomplished their mission, they would be at Australia’s door. Although the United States had lent China $500 million and Great Britain had lent it $50 million, the money would have been of
little use if the Chinese could not receive the arms they purchased.
The airlift over the hump was successful but costly. U.S. cargo planes flew the hump day and night for three and a half years. This air route was so dangerous that it was nicknamed “the aluminum trail” because of the more than 600 transport planes that were lost.
FACTOIDS
Supplies flown over the hump first traveled 12,000 miles by ship from the United States, then traveled 1,500 miles by rail to the Indian airstrip. After making the 500-mile flight over the hump, the supplies were delivered by trucks and donkey carts to the Chinese forward bases 400 to 700 miles away.
Most casualties among pilots were caused not by bullets but by disease. Malaria, jaundice, dysentery, and other diseases were common. Worse still, none of the bases had a flight surgeon.
Paper was so scarce that combat logs and other records were kept on the backs of envelopes or letters and even on matchbook covers.
In addition to flying the dangerous hump, pilots often helped maintain and repair the planes. With no hangars and exposed to the weather, they still worked from dawn to dusk.
DID YOU KNOW?
Before the United States formally entered World War II, a group of U.S. civilian pilots volunteered to fight the Japanese in Burma and China.
Although facing a superior force in both size and strength, these volunteer pilots scored victory after victory, managed to protect the Chinese capital, and inflicted considerable damage to the Japanese air and ground forces.
Flying beat-up planes and always facing shortages of parts, fuel, and pilots, this volunteer air force continued to win battles against the Japanese. They were successful because they used the element of surprise, were capable of precision flying, and adopted highly unorthodox military tactics.
The pilots flew the famous Curtiss P-40 fighter, which had a top speed of almost 380 mph and a range of about 100 miles. They painted eyes and large teeth on the conical nose to make it look very much like a tiger shark, hence the name “Flying Tigers.” After every few missions the planes were repainted with different numbers and insignia. The planes were also continually moved from one small airstrip to another so the Japanese never knew where they would come from next. Both strategies made the pilots appear to have numerous airfields and aircraft, many more than they really did.
Once the United States entered the war, these civilian pilots were allowed to join the U.S. Air Force and became the nucleus of the China Air Task Force. Only this time, they had newer planes and no longer faced the shortages that had plagued them before. As U.S. Army Air Force pilots, the intrepid volunteers continued to rack up victories in the air.
The Flying Tigers are still active today and are known as the “23d Fighter Group.” They are headquartered at Pope Air Force Base in North Carolina.
Has a U.S. vice president ever been assassinated? (It’s much safer to be vice president than president.)
No vice president of the United States has ever been assassinated. However, four presidents have been assassinated and another four have died while in office. Those assassinated were Abraham Lincoln, James A. Garfield, William McKinley, and John F. Kennedy. Those who died in office were William Henry Harrison, Zachary Taylor, Warren Harding, and Franklin Delano Roosevelt. In addition, unsuccessful assassination attempts were made on Harry Truman and Ronald Reagan.
President Lincoln was at Ford’s Theater in Washington, D.C., watching the melodrama Our American Cousin when the actor John Wilkes Booth shot him.
President McKinley was shot twice at point-blank range while visiting the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York. His assailant was the anarchist Leon Czolgosz. McKinley rarely exercised. Doctors said that if he had been in better shape he might have survived.
President Garfield was entering a Washington, D.C., railroad station when a disappointed office seeker shot him. However, the bullet did not kill him. Doctors kept probing for the bullet with un-sterilized instruments, resulting in the blood poisoning that eventually killed him.
President Kennedy was shot while traveling in a motorcade in Dallas, Texas. Many believe that the assassin was Lee Harvey Oswald, but others still believe there was a conspiracy. The debate goes on.
FACTOIDS
McKinley holds the record for presidential handshaking at 2,500 handshakes per hour.
Garfield was the first left-handed president.
Lincoln’s son Robert was at the scene of his father’s assassination as well as at the scene of both Garfield’s and McKinley’s assassinations.
Kennedy was the youngest elected president (43) and the youngest to die in office (46). William Jefferson Clinton was 46 when he became president.
Lincoln was awarded a patent for a device that lifted boats over shoals. He is the only president ever to receive a patent.
The only president to win a Pulitzer Prize was Kennedy, who won it for his biography, Profiles in Courage.
Most presidents have nicknames. The nicknames of those who were targets of assassins are “Honest Abe” (Lincoln), “Idol of Ohio” (McKinley), “JFK” (Kennedy), “Give ‘Em Hell Harry” (Truman), and “the Gipper” (Reagan). Garfield did not have a nickname.
DID YOU KNOW?
President Warren G. Harding died in office under extremely suspicious circumstances.
Harding seemed to be a friendly and kindly man. His marriage was a stormy one and because he was quite handsome women found him attractive, which led him into numerous affairs.
One of these affairs may have cost him his life. At one point there was a rumor in Washington, D.C., that he had fathered an illegitimate child by a woman 30 years his junior. Harding’s wife hired an investigator from the Bureau of Investigation (which later became the F.B.I.) to investigate the rumor and prove it false. Unfortunately, upon delving into the case the investigator proved just the opposite: the rumor was true.
Sometime later Mrs. Harding told the investigator that she had heard of a “little white powder” that could be slipped into a person’s food or drink and would cause death. She demanded that the investigator tell her where to get this powder but he refused.
When returning from an Alaskan vacation the president’s party stopped in Vancouver. The president became quite ill from what was thought to be food poisoning. Continuing the journey, the party stopped in San Francisco. The president and his wife checked into a hotel where the president suddenly died.
No one else in the party came down with food poisoning even though they had all eaten the same food.
The official cause of Harding’s death was a stroke, but some doctors believed he had a heart attack or might have even been poisoned. These rumors intensified when Mrs. Harding refused to allow an autopsy or a death mask to be made.
Is it possible that the first lady, Florence Harding, had found some of that “little white powder” after all?
How many people died in the Civil War? (Can any war truly be civil?)
More Americans perished in the Civil War than in all the worldwide conflicts in United States history combined. At the beginning it was called a “90-day war” because most northerners believed it would be over by then. No one at that time had the faintest idea that it would last for four bloody years. The war produced 700,000 fatalities and nearly tore the nation apart. The number of Americans killed was more than double the number killed in World War II and accounted for 2 percent of the country’s population.
The Union forces lost 23 percent of their troops and the Confederate forces lost about 24 percent. Not all died from bullets; disease was a major killer during that time. Almost two out of every three deaths were due to disease rather than battle wounds.
Even the soldiers who survived did not have an easy time of it. For example, it is estimated that every Confederate soldier was either wounded or fell ill from some sickness about six times during the course of the war.
Arlington National Cemetery is the final resting place for 18,000 Civil War soldiers. Another 15,000 sold
iers who survived the war but later died of natural causes or accidents are also buried there. General Robert E. Lee is buried in a crypt on the campus of Washington and Lee University in Virginia and General Ulysses S. Grant is buried, where else, in Grant’s Tomb in New York City.
One member of the Union Army was a large, reddish, white-faced water spaniel called Curly. During battles he would run between the skirmish lines barking. A badge around his neck proclaimed “I am Company A’s dog. Whose dog are you?” Curly had a number of close calls, including being shot in the neck and breaking a leg. After the war, Curly attended all of his comrades’ reunions for a number of years. He finally was sent to the National Soldier’s Home in Dayton, Ohio, where he lived a luxurious life with his army companions until he died at the age of 12. He was buried on the grounds of the National Soldier’s Home.
FACTOIDS
The youngest soldier killed in the Civil War was 12 years old.
Soldiers on both sides came from all walks of life and fought side by side. They were rich and poor, U.S.-born and immigrants, and as young as 10 and as old as 73 years old.
The bloodiest battle of the war was the 3-day battle of Gettysburg, which produced 51,116 casualties. Lincoln wrote his famous Gettysburg Address to honor those who had fallen in this battle.
Some women disguised themselves as men, enlisted in the army, and fought in the battles alongside the men.