Description
In this issue:
The Battle of the Little Bighorn, 1876
It is 140 years since Native Americans won their greatest victory over United States forces on 25 June 1876. This month, Fred Chiaventone reassesses this most famous collision.
-Background
-Custer: the backstory
-Custer at the Little Bighorn
-Weapons
-Casualties
-Maps
Air power -a century of military flight. Jeremy Black explains why the heady claims of air-power proponents have fallen so wide off the mark.
Clausewitz’s lost battle -Sehestedt, 1813. Donald Stoker finds military theorist Carl von Clausewitz in the thick of battle.
Smoke and fire -flame weapons from the ancient world to 1900. David Porter begins a two-part series on incendiary weapons in warfare.
Regiment: the Royal Berkshires. Patrick Mercer uncovers the role of ‘The Fighting Tenth’ at Anzio in 1944.
Plus: news, reviews, museums, opinion columns, and much more!
From the Editor:
Little Bighorn may be the most popularised battle in history. It is probably the subject of more films and documentaries than any other. The character of its most-famous protagonist -George Armstrong Custer -and the sequence of events which led to the destruction of his command on 25 June 1876 have been endlessly debated for 140 years.
Why the fascination? One reason, surely, is that most battles of the colonial era were little more than one-sided slaughter. As such, they lack both drama and interest. The essential ingredient of uncertain outcome is missing. Is this not why we remember Isandlwana better than Ulundi, Maiwand better than Kandahar.
Little Bighorn is, of course, the battle the Indians won. The tragic record of ethnic-cleansing -for such it was -by which the American West was cleared of indigenous people to make way for white settlers was, for a moment, reversed. The underdog fought back and triumphed.
Perhaps, too, there is satisfaction in the fate of Custer, who seems to have been a man of exceptional arrogance, callousness, and ambition, wholly without redeeming moral qualities. He had it coming, we feel.
US military historian Fred Chiaventone tells the story of the Little Bighorn this issue, while Jeremy Black analyses a century of air power, Donald Stoker reveals Clausewitz at war, David Porter begins a two-parter on incendiary weapons, and Patrick Mercer continues our regiment series by recalling the epic resistance of the Royal Berkshires at Anzio.
Cover Date: May-2016, Volume 6 Issue 8