Narukami's Thunderbolts

December 7th - The Serendipity of 70 Years

2011-12-07T22:18:00.000-08:00

Reflections On Kabuki, Faubion Bowers and Serendipity

Serendipity is a wondrous thing, putting us, as if by random chance, in the right place at the right time, even though it may not be entirely obvious to us until much later.

Today marks the 70^th anniversary of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, an act that widened the Great Pacific War. It was a merciless war that continued for nearly four years and only ended with the occupation of Japan by the United States. This event (and the ripples it caused) continues to reverberate today and has occasioned much chatter on the Social Media pages of the Internet. Some have remarked that although we remember these events, this is little or no animosity among the descendants of the combatants. It would seem that “time heals all wounds” but in fact, that healing was already in full swing in 1945.

It just so happens that today I was in a used bookstore, looking for potential Christmas gifts, when I came upon an old program from the 1960 Grant Kabuki tour of the US. The program contains several classic photos of the stars making the tour as well as essays by several noted kabuki scholars. There is one by famed author Yukio Mishima on the actor’s craft, another by the noted translator and scholar, Donald Keene, about the history of kabuki, and finally a longer piece by Colonel Faubion Bowers, about the struggle to return kabuki to the stage in post war Japan.

Colonel Bowers (R) with General MacArthur

Bowers, known in Japan as “the man who saved kabuki” was a graduate of Columbia and Julliard, and had taught at Hosei University in Tokyo before the war. In 1945 he returned as General MacArthur’s aide and translator. It was a heady time for the American members of the Occupation, many of whom had never been overseas let alone to so seemingly strange a place as Japan. As Bowers puts it, “We were flush with our victory, overenthusiastic, ignorant and arrogant – a bad conjunction of qualities.”

In their zeal to “reform” Japan into a modern democracy, the Military Censors “persuaded” the Shochiku Company (who controlled Kabuki) to remove Kabuki from all theatres. It was felt that Kabuki extolled feudal values (like seppuku, bushido, and the subordination of women) that were incompatible with a modern and democratic Japan.

Not surprisingly Colonel Bowers, who had been quite impressed by the Kabuki performances he has seen before the war, was dismayed by this turn of events. However, it was his encounter with a young actor that set him on the road to returning Kabuki to the stage. Bowers is a wonderful storyteller, so I will let him speak for himself:

Because I had been an admirer of Kabuki from before the War, the newspapers, shortly after issuing the extraordinary announcement that Kabuki was ended, approached me. In a long interview, I regretted the ‘decision’ of Shochiku, and pointed out, I thought and think rightly, that the depiction of feudalism has, in effect, an anti-feudal effect. After this interview, I tried to enlist the attention of MacArthur in the matter. He had no feeling about Kabuki, and couldn’t find ‘its head or its tail.’

The press reported my opinions widely, and mistakenly continued to make Shochiku the villain in the piece. I remember clearly, on day not long after, sitting in my office. A Japanese, accompanied by a guard and carrying a slip of paper on which I was to write his time of arrival and hour of departure, entered my room. The paper said ‘Mister Onoe,’ a name not uncommon in Japan. To my astonishment when he introduced himself it was Shoroku II. Already in 1945 Shoroku was a most promising young actor and dancer. Son of the great Koshiro VII and adopted son of the even greater Kikugoro VI, Shoroku was destined for every advantage that the intricate hierarchy of Kabuki affords, yet there I was in full uniform, while Shoroku looked as run down as his compatriots of those postwar years. Even the luxurious, extravagant Kabuki actors were poor then. Theatres had been closed because of air raids and many of them had been bombed. Most actors had lost their homes, their belongings, and their clothes were crinkly with ‘staple fiber’ or ersatz cloth.

Shoroku as the hero in the play Sukeroku Flower of Edo

“I have come on behalf of the Kabuki actors because of the article in the newspaper. Did you really say it?” he asked, looking brave, but as he told me later, feeling frightened. I was the first soldier he had ever talked to and one of the few foreigners he had ever seen. Certainly this was the first time he had ever entered an Occupation building where guards were posted, bayonets gleamed, and presumably secret documents fluttered in the air. He went on to explain that the ban on Kabuki meant the end of an art, the finish of a livelihood for hundreds of actors and technicians, and a devastating blow to a country prostrate by war but culturally still alive.

“I am not speaking for myself,” he said. “I am young, I can learn modern theatre, make movies, and if I have no talent in those directions, I can always work at other things. But what about my parents? There is nothing they can do now.”

In retrospect, it seems to me that it was then I decided to become a censor of the theatre myself.

Through a variety of machinations, easily accomplished in those rank conscious days, I became the censor of Japanese theatre, and my self-imposed task was to release the classics as quickly as possible without openly embarrassing the Occupation. My uppermost thought was that if the Occupation left Japan with Kabuki still forbidden, it would be a mark against us, and later, of course, it would be resumed as soon as they were free of us. But what would have become of the greatness of the old artists and the essential continuity in the training of the younger ones and the atmosphere and traditions that would one-day mould the children of the acting families?

– Colonel Faubion Bowers in the 1960 Grand Kabuki US Tour Program

As a direct result of Colonel Bowers’ cultural sensitivity, historical perspective and, perhaps most importantly, his sense of justice, it was possible in 1978 for the University of Hawai'i to undertake a year long program of intensive study and training that would culminate in the staging of the Kabuki classic Kanadehon Chushingura – The 47 Ronin. Under the tutelage of Nakamura Matagoro II (Chief Instructor at the National Theatre) and a cadre of Kabuki actors, musicians, and technicians, we immersed ourselves body and soul into the world of Kabuki.

Many of us had come from great distances to be a part of this program. Indeed, my theatre professor at the Claremont Graduate School, Dr. Leonard Pronko, told the students in his Japanese Theatre seminar that if any of us were serious about learning this art form then we would head to Hawaii for we would never have the opportunity, even in Japan, of working as closely with the Kabuki talent being assemble for this production. I got on the airplane and never looked back.

Class in Gidaiyu chanting.

Our mornings were devoted to dance and acting classes and out afternoons were spent in academic classes on Kabuki history, costuming and music. In the evenings many of us took additional dance and music lessons and, once the play was cast, we spent every evening, from 3:00pm until 9 or 10 pm in rehearsals. By the time we opened our Honolulu run in May, we had learned the entire play in Japanese and then re-memorized it in English. We ate, slept and breathed Kabuki. It was, for me at least, the best year of my theatrical life.

Some of the older Kabuki actors, those who had been the promising young stars when Colonel Bowers was shepherding Kabuki’s return to the stage, were less than sanguine about Matagoro spending so much of his time and energy teaching Kabuki to gaijin. However, they were a small minority. Many more of the leading actors were very supportive of our work and Matagoro had no doubts about the efficacy of what he was doing.

Although there were many talented actors among us, there were also some, myself included, who, though we loved Kabuki and worked at it diligently, had only a modest talent for it. Even so this did not seem to bother Matagoro sensei in the least.

Nakamura Matagoro II (seated) during rehearsals at Kennedy Theatre

As I now look back on those days, I think that Matagoro saw his work as repaying in kind the good work done by Faubion Bowers back in 1945. Even more, Matagoro was “paying it forward,” so to speak, insuring, in some small way, that when serendipity strikes once again, that one of us might prove to be the next Faubion Bowers, in the right place at the right time, with the passion to help Kabuki through its next crisis.

I can only hope that at least one of our group has both the wisdom and the courage to repay that debt when fate demands it, and so honor both Matagoro sensei and Colonel Bowers.

The Limits Of Vision

2011-03-08T20:57:00.000-08:00

The Case Against Darth Vader As Luke’s Father

When Star Wars burst upon the public that summer of 1977 no one was quite sure what had hit them, but from the opening sequence of the Imperial Star Destroyer pursuing the Rebel Blockade Runner everyone knew Lucas had finally gotten it right – space was big, really BIG. It was also just as clear that audiences wanted more, and it was obvious they would get as the villain, Darth Vader, spun off into space alive to fight another day. However, all was not what it seemed.

It turned out that Vader was not the villainwe believed him to be and in the years between Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back much had changed in that Galaxy Far Far Away…

Following the old Hollywood adage of “Bigger is Better” Empire Strikes Back was exactly that: giant walking tanks, vast panoramic vistas, more complex space battles and a plot twist that threw everyone for a loop. No longer was Luke Skywalker on a journey of discovery, a quest to avenge his father. Instead he now faced the prospect of having to kill his own father in order to save his friends and free the galaxy.

This was the plot twist to end all plot twists and nothing else Lucas did in the original films matched this for shear audacity. Darth Vader had not killed Luke’s father – Darth Vader was Luke’s father.

Many fans were not happy with this new development and they still aren’t. They pointed out all of the problems this created for the story’s internal logic and Lucas went to great lengths to bend the story to fit this new development.

Luke: Obi-Wan! Why didn’t you tell me? You told me Vader betrayed and murdered my father.

Ben: Your father was seduced by the dark side of the Force. He ceased to be Anakin Skywalker and became Darth Vader. When that happened, the good man who was your father was destroyed. So what I have told you was true…from a certain point of view.

Luke: A certain point of view!

Ben: Luke, you’re going to find that many of the truths we cling to depend greatly on our point of view.

Compare this tortured logic to the clean and straightforward prose of the first film:

Luke: How did my father die?

Ben: A young Jedi named Darth Vader, who was a pupil of mine until he turned to evil, helped the Empire hunt down and destroy the Jedi Knights. He betrayed and murdered your father. Now the Jedi are all but extinct. Vader was seduced by the dark side of the Force.

Clearly, Vader and Anakin are not the same person, despite all of the ipso facto arguments to the contrary from Lucas himself. Of course it is his story to tell and he may tell it in any way he chooses. That he changed his mind more than onceduring both the writing of the screenplay and the actual filming is well documented.

In an early draft of the first film the main character isa Jedi-bandu Knight named Mace Windy, and during the filming in England Lucas decided that Obi-Wan should “die” on the Death Star rather than escape with the other rebels. (And, as we now learn, that idea was first suggested to Lucas by his then wife, film editor Marcia Lucas.) Such changes are quite common on a film shoot – it is part of the creative process. And yet, by making Vader the father of Luke, I believe Lucas has limited both his vision and his story options. Furthermore, by doing so he has taken the easy path to resolving his story.

Revenge Is Not the Jedi Way

After finishing The Empire Strikes Back Lucas began work on the final film of his Star Wars trilogy entitled The Revenge Of The Jedi. This was not simply a working title, as films often use, but in fact the final release title. This is evidenced by the fact that 20^th Century Fox went to great lengths to persuade Paramount to change the title of their up coming film, to be released the same summer as Jedi, from Star Trek II The Revenge Of Kahn to The Wrath of Kahn. Paramount obliged Fox only to have Lucas change the title of his film from Revenge Of The Jedi to Return of The Jedi. It had been pointed out to Lucas that revenge was not the Jedi way.

This name change actually better suited Lucas’ revised story line for Luke was not seeking revenge for his murdered father but rather redemption for his father who had fallen from the true faith.

The idea of a son seeking revenge for the murder of his father is as old as story telling itself. The most famous example, but certainly not the only one, is Hamlet by William Shakespeare. But where as Hamlet must decide if the king is truly guilty of his father’s death, as the ghost of his father has informed him, Luke has no such dilemma. Lukeknows he must kill Vader in order to free the galaxy from the imperial tyranny his father has made possible. Luke’s dilemma is quite simple: Is he strong enough to kill his own father? Lucas though turns that convention on its head.

Hamlet is tortured by the fear that the ghost has misled him and the king is in fact not guilty. Luke is tortured by the thought of having to kill his own father in order to fulfill his destiny. As we all know Luke opts to not kill his father and instead trusts that his friends will save the day by destroying the Death Star and the Emperor along with it.

But is Luke’s dilemma as monumental and tragic as Lucas makes it out to be? Is it in fact easier not to kill your father than to kill him? Did Lucas give his alter ego Luke Skywalker the easier path? I blieve Lucas missed an opportunity to tell a far richer story, one that more fully reveals the essence of the Jedi. Had Lucas but remained true to his original idea that Darth Vader was not Luke’s father but indeed than man who killed him, what then would Luke’s dilemma have been?

The Discipline of the Jedi

To not kill one’s own father despite his crimes is no great struggle. The children of the Nazi leaders still loved their fathers even as they abhorred and repudiated the crimes they had committed. Indeed it would have been more significant had Luke actually killed his father because of his crimes, Luke’s sense of justice overriding his love of and longing for a father to be proud of.

Of course that is not what happens – Luke spares his father, offering himself as a sacrifice to the Emperor and in doing so shows his father the path to redemption

However…

Let us suppose for a moment that Darth Vader was not Anakin but rather, as originally envisioned, his betrayer and murderer.

Imagine now Luke’s dilemma as he hovers over a prostrate and defeated Vader in the throne room of the Death Star. With one stroke of his light saber Luke can avenge his father and free the galaxy. With one simple strike…and yet Luke choose not to strike.

To not kill the murderer of your father when you have both the means and the rights to do so — now that takes discipline.

A classic theme in literature is that of the child seeking to avenge the untimely and unjust death of their parent.

But in telling the story this way, where Luke at last, after three films, has Vader at his mercy yet shows him mercy, is that not more poignant? He does not exact a pound of flesh, does not avenge his father with blood but instead honors his father by adhering to the highest values and discipline of the Jedi order. Thus does Luke not only “out Jedi” Darth Vader, but also his father and Ben as well. And in that moment Vader has a flash of realization,a true moment of Zen satori. Now he sees clearly a path to redemption for himself, by siding with the son of the man he betrayed and against the Emperor who seduced him.

Thus do we see the limits of vision, a vision that, in the first film, was seemingly limitless but by the end of the second film was constrained to follow a path that ultimately proved to be less satisfying and less fulfilling. What might have been… what might have been…

Crimes Against Art or the Creative Process

Many have accused George Lucas of committing artistic crimes (or is that Crimes Against Art?). Jar Jar Binks is the most often cited example, but there are others: the poorly written and delivered romantic dialog between Anakin and Amidala, or envisioning Anakin so young when the story begins, (An older Anakin would have allowed for a wider range of actors to play the part and puberty could have been used as the point beyond which the Jedi believe a Padawan is too old to begin training.) or the almost comical exclamation of pain by Darth Vader when he learns of Amidala’s death.

With the exception of Jar Jar Binks these moments and concepts are indeed all clunkers, but minor ones in light of the real crime. If George Lucas is guilty of any crime it is of not have enough confidence in himself and his original vision for Darth Vader and Star Wars.

In his original vision Anakin (or as he called him then, Annikin) and Obi wan Kenobi are forced into exile, hiding from the elite forces of Darth Vader who are hunting down any surviving Jedi. It is while Anakin is in hiding that Luke is born and that explains Ben’s comment: “I haven’t gone by the name Obi wan since oh, before you were born.”

By making Darth Vader the father of Luke and Leia rather than themurderer of Luke’s father, Lucas broke with himself and in so doing limited the scope of his vision. This one change became the wellspring from which all of the problems we perceive in the Saga issue forth.

Now we say “crimes” but of course what we are really talking about is the creative process and the choices every writer faces as they stare at the blank page before them. Looking at the early drafts of Star Wars and the voluminous background notes it is clear to see that from the very start Lucas had a grand vision and he succeeded in incorporating many of those earlier ideas and characters in his six film saga. No doubt Lucas feels that his vision was widened after the success of Star Wars in 1977, and that the changes he made to his original concept have only served to enhance the story he is telling.

Then again…

The original vision of Darth Vader, of Annikin, of Luke and Leia, that vision leads down a far richer path that can only be tread in our mind’s eye. Perhaps in twenty years or so another hot young director will come along and pull a “JJ Abrams” on Star Wars. As Abrams did to Star Trek (using time travel to create an alternate reality for the original crew and thus allowing that franchise to push the “re-set button” and begin again) so a plot device might be found to re-set Star Wars on a different path, a path where Darth Vader does kill Annikin Skywalker, and where Luke must decide between avenging his father by killing Vader or remaining true to the ideals of the Jedi Order and sparing Vader.

Who knows, perhaps that hot young director willbe the son of George Lucas himself, come to redeem his father’s original vision. Now that would be life imitating art and poetic justice to boot.

Sources Consulted

The Art Of Star Wars – Edited by Carol Titelman, Story & Screenplay by George Lucas c1979

The Empire Strikes Back Notebook – edited by Diana Attias & Lindsay Smith, Story by George Lucas, Screenplay by Lawrence Kasdan & Leigh Brackett. c1980

The Making Of Star Wars by J.W. Rinzler c2007

The Force Behind Star Wars by Paul Scanlon, Rollingstone Magazine, May 25, 1977

The Cult Of Darth Vader by Gavin Edwards, Rollingstone Magazine, May 19, 2005

Screen Chatter: Forget whales, let’s save George Lucas by Brenden West, The Evening Sun May 25, 2008

The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark by William Shakespeare, as found in The Portable Shakespeare by Viking Press c1944

2010-11-18T11:21:00.000-08:00

Cleopatra – The Obsession With Beauty

Antony And Cleopatra by Adrian Goldsworthy c2010

Of all the women of ancient history, Cleopatra is the best known. Who has not heard of the Queen of the Nile?

Most people “know” she was, perhaps with the exception of Helen, the most beautiful woman in the world, but was she? Putting aside the vagaries of just what constitutes beauty, what did this most famous of queens look like?

It is difficult to depict charm, or intelligence, or quickness of wit in sculpture, and Temple paintings are so highly stylized as to be useless as a guide to physical appearance.

The historian Plutarch tells us:

In itself her beauty was not absolutely without parallel, not the kind to

astonish those who saw her; but her presence exerted an inevitable

fascination, and her physical attraction, combined with the persuasive

charm of her conversation and the aura she somehow projected around

herself in company, did have a certain ability to stimulate others.

Writing one hundred years later, the historian Dio comments that Cleopatra “was a woman of surpassing beauty, and at that time, when she was in the prime of her youth, she was most striking; she also possessed a most charming voice and a knowledge of how to make herself agreeable to everyone.”

Is it any wonder then that the brightest stars in the Hollywood firmament have sought to play this fabled queen who combined both brains and beauty in a most powerful combination. Vivien Leigh, Claudette Colbert, Elizabeth Taylor, and Kim Cattrall are but a few who have assayed the role, and even now a new film is being readied for Angelina Jolie to star in as Cleopatra.

No doubt Cleopatra would be flattered to have such beauties portray her on stage and screen.

However…

Allow me to quote at length from the new book, Antony And Cleopatra by Goldsworthy:

“Absolutely nothing is certain. Cleopatra may have had black, brown, blonde or even red hair, and her eyes could have been brown, grey, green or blue. Almost any combination of these is possible. Similarly, she may have been very light skinned or had a darker more Mediterranean complexion. Fairer skin is probably marginally more likely given her ancestry. Greek art traditionally represented women and goddesses as very pale, and fair skin seems to have been part of the ideal of beauty. Roman propaganda never suggested that Cleopatra was dark-skinned, although this may simply mean that she was not exceptionally dark or simply that the color of her skin was not important to her critics.

At no point will we need to consider Antony’s appearance at similar length and this should remind us that the obsession with Cleopatra’s looks is unusual, and not entirely healthy. Not only is there no good evidence, but also there is something disturbing about the desire to base our understanding of her first and foremost on her appearance. Cleopatra was not another Helen of Troy, a mythical figure about whom the most important thing was her beauty. She was no mere object of desire, but a very active political player in her own kingdom and beyond.

Cleopatra was born and raised in the real and very dangerous world of the Ptolemaic court in the first century BC. When her father died in 51 BC, she became queen. Auletes had planned for his son and daughter to rule jointly. Cleopatra had other ideas.”

-from Antony And Cleopatra by Adrian Goldsworthy, c2010 pp.128-129

Goldsworthy has hit on the crux of the problem, and like the historian Michael Grant, reaffirms for us just how little we know for certain, and, more importantly, how little it really matters.

As it often the case, what a person does matters far more than what they look like. In the end, Dr. King put is most succinctly and eloquenty: we must judge a person by the content of their character and not the color of their skin. And when it comes to character, Cleopatra is one of the most fascinating characters not only of her time, but of anytime in human history.

For more about Cleopatra and the world in which she lived, see:

Antony And Cleopatra by Adrian Goldsworthy, c2010 ISBN: 978-0-300-16534-0

http://www.amazon.com/Antony-Cleopatra-Adrian-Goldsworthy/dp/030016534X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1290106917&sr=1-1

Playing At War

2010-08-22T16:06:00.000-07:00

Hannibal, Scipio and the Art of War Gaming

"My mother bore a general, not a warrior." - Publius Scipio Africanus

Recently my grandson and I have been playing the war game Commands & Colors designed by Richard Borg and published by GMT Games of California. We actually started playing scenarios from the game two years ago when Mr.K was 7 years old, and while he did understand the mechanics of the game then, his tactical finesse is now, at age nine, much better. No doubt two years hence it will be better still.

Of course we are both avid, if irregular, game players – Risk, Axis & Allies, Conquest Of The Empire, Battle of the Bulge, and Stratego are all favorites. Indeed I started playing war games at about the same age as Mr. K, though I began with Joseph Morchauser’s book How To Play War Games In Miniature. His simple yet well thought out rules brought order and purpose to the chaos that had marked our playing with toy soldiers.

From there I moved on to Map & Counter war games, like Blitzkrieg and The Battle Of The Bulge, then being published by Avalon Hill. In college Panzerblitz was all the rage while at the Armor Officer Basic Course the games of choice, in the evenings over beer and pizza, were SPI’s Firefight and Avalon Hill’s Kingmaker (about the War of the Roses). 1

Since then games have taken a back seat to life in general. My family has been courageous over the years, indulging my love of games as they have, and they actually seem to enjoy playing Space Hulk, the Aliens inspired tabletop game from Games Workshop. However, it was the arrival of the grandson that brought games back to the forefront in a big way.

So it was, that last week Mr. K and I were playing Commands & Colors, re-fighting the battles of the Second Punic War between Carthage and Rome, when we came upon the scenario for the Battle of Dertosa, in Spain, between Hannibal’s brother, Hasdrubal, and the Scipio brothers Gnaeus and Publius.

To their great credit, GMT includes a brief but detailed description of each battle, giving the historical outcome and challenging the players to do as well as the original generals. Mr. K, who always plays the Romans, was intrigued by the name Scipio, and I mistakenly said, “Oh, Publius Scipio goes on to defeat Hannibal at Zama and take the name Scipio Africanus.”

Actually, this is correct, just the wrong Scipio.

The ancient Romans were a practical and pragmatic people, to a fault, except when it came to naming their children. In this they suddenly displayed a total and frustrating lack of imagination. Sons were often named after their father, still a common practice today, but so too were daughters, all of them. Thus you had families with three daughters all named Julia or Agrippina. This is probably why the Romans had slaves. Imagine asking one of your three daughters to pass the olive oil. You might starve before it was decided just which Julia you were addressing. 2

So it is that historians, both professional and amateur alike, must be careful when it comes to the Romans and figuring out just who is who.

In the case of Dertosa, it was the father and the uncle of the future Africanus that led the Roman army in that particular battle. The younger Publius (and future Africanus) had campaigned at his father’s side several years before this and had actually saved his father’s life at the Battle of Ticinus River in 218 BCE. Seeing his father surrounded by the enemy, the younger Publius ordered his troop of cavalry forward to the rescue – but the legionaries refused to move. Scipio rode alone into the enemy and his troop, thus shamed by his courage, joined him in the charge that saved the elder Scipio. It is said that the elder Scipio offered his son the corona civica (the Civic Crown) one of Rome’s most revered honors, awarded to those who save the life of a fellow citizen, however the younger Scipio declined the honor.

All of this got me to thinking about just what a remarkable fellow Scipio Africanus really was.

The Cornelian family, of which the Scipio are one branch, were perhaps the oldest and most storied family in all of Roman history, a distinction due in no small part to the members of the Scipio house. They believed in the “res publica” or ‘the public thing’ which is to say fulfilling one’s duty to the Republic in both peace and war.

Scipio’s father and uncle were both gifted generals who won several important victories in Spain against the Carthaginians.

Indeed, the 2^nd Punic War was something of a family affair for while the elder Scipio brothers, Publius and Gnaeus, were fighting in Spain against the Hamilcar brothers Mago and Hasdurbal Barca, young Scipio, now just twenty years old, was part of the Consular Army in Italy moving to confront Hannibal, the third Hamilcar brother. Scipio was assigned as a Military Tribune in the 2nd Legion, a typical position for a young Roman aspiring to a career as a Senator.

Although the elder Scipio brothers were enjoying success against the Hamilcar brothers in Spain, the Romans in Italy were being consistently out maneuvered and out fought by Hannibal. After weeks of chasing the Carthaginian army around the country side the Romans finally brought Hannibal to battle, but on ground of Hannibal’s choosing. This proved decisive for although the Romans had a much larger Army, Hannibal inflicted upon the Romans the worst defeat in their history.

In one afternoon, at the Battle of Cannae, the Roman Consular Army of 85,000 legionaries was utterly destroyed. Losses were staggering – over 48,000 dead, including one of the Consuls, a Proconsul and 80 Senators, as well as 18,000 legionaries taken prisoner. The remainder, some 14,000 odd survivors were scattered about the countryside. Among them was the young Publius Scipio.

Pause, for just a moment, and consider the staggering nature of this defeat. Imagine if we in the United States received word from Iraq or Afghanistan that we had lost 48,000 soldiers killed in a single afternoon. And imagine if those losses included not only 80 members of Congress, along with their sons, but also the current President and the former President. Of course for our modern military the loss of 48,000 soldiers, while grievous would still represent less than 10% of our total military manpower. For the Romans however, this was a loss, in a single afternoon, of more than 25% of their armed forces (not including the casualties among their Latin Allies). Added to the losses suffered in recent previous battles and it seemed that Rome’s days were numbered, and in single digits. Is it any wonder then that many of the surviving officers, all sons of noble families, considered abandoning Rome and seeking safety by fleeing overseas? However, a few officers were not ready to give up. One of them was young Scipio. 3

We do not know anything about Scipio’s movements during the actual battle, but his conduct after the battle is well known and quickly became part of Scipio family lore.

Scipio and Appius Claudius, another young Tribune, rallied the survivors and held them together by sheer force of will. At the same time Scipio moved decisively to check the desertion of his demoralized fellow officers. He forced each of them in turn to follow his example by swearing an oath, to Jupiter, that he would never desert the Republic nor allow anyone else to do so on pain of death for himself and his family.

In Spain, Scipio’s father and uncle enjoyed continued success against the Hamilcar brothers until, four years after Cannae, their Spanish allies abandoned the Romans and, now outnumbered, the Scipio brothers were defeated and killed in separate battles. This left the majority of Spain under the control of Carthage. The few survivors hung on for dear life and waited for help from Rome. 4

At the age of 25, Scipio was given command of the Roman Army in Spain with the rank of Proconsul even though he had never been elected Consul. This was an unprecedented move, but Scipio proved worthy of such trust and used his authority wisely. Indeed, Scipio well understood the seemingly modern military concept of “winning the hearts and minds” of the populace as a means to winning the war.

“Scipio was in Spain when a captive was brought to him. She was a maiden of noble birth, whose beauty drew all eyes to her. Scipio had this woman returned to her fiancé, and made the couple a marriage gift with the gold, which her parents had brought as a ransom. The tribe was so overwhelmed by his conduct that they gave themselves over to the cause of the Roman people.” – Frontinus, Stratagems 5

As Shakespeare would later write in Henry V, “…for when lenity and cruelty play for a kingdom, the gentler gamester is the soonest winner.” Henry V, Act III, sc. 6

Scipio also appreciated the need for good intelligence and meticulous planning. His victories in Spain were the very model of superior planning and the astute application of military intelligence. Scipio defeated Hasdrubal Barca at the Battle of Baecula and, two years later, Mago at the Battle of Ilipa.

Now with Spain firmly under Roman control and his father and uncle avenged, Scipio returned to Rome where he was elected Consul (even though he was still too young at age thirty) by promising the people that he would take the war against Carthage to Africa itself.

In 204, after his year in office and now just 31 years old, Scipio was granted the province of Sicily to govern as Proconsul. Although Sicily was the ideal base from which to strike at Carthage, what the Senate did not give Scipio was an army with which to do so. Thus blocked by his jealous rivals in the Senate, Scipio set about raising an army of volunteers and training then for the invasion of North Africa.

Once again Scipio was meticulous in his planning, gathering intelligence about the enemy and training his army to the peak of readiness. When he at last launched his attack it was with a well-trained, well-armed and well-supplied army against which the Carthaginians had little chance.

Scipio moved quickly, destroying two Carthaginian armies by surprise night attacks. Carthage entreated for a truce, but this was likely just ruse to buy time so Hannibal could return from Italy and lead the defense of Carthage himself. With Hannibal safely home Carthage resumed the war. True to his nature, Scipio was ready.

In 202 BCE, the Roman Army (including two legions of survivors from Cannae) met the larger Carthaginian Army at Zama. Although Hannibal’s forces included a large contingent of elephants, the Romans for once outnumbered the Carthaginians in cavalry, thanks to Scipio’s Numidian ally Masinissa. This would prove decisive for when the elephant charge failed to break the veteran legionaries, the Roman cavalry chased their Carthaginian counterparts from the field. Now deprived of their cavalry, the Punic infantry proved no match for the Romans. In the end, looking at the number of casualties suffered (which were heavy but not catastrophic) it was not the Carthaginian Army that was destroyed at Zama, but rather the Carthaginian will to resist. Scipio had won his greatest victory and in so doing he had not only avenged the defeat at Cannae but, more importantly, he had restored Roman honor.

Scipio, now called Africanus, returned to Roman where he celebrated a Triumph and, in 194, was elected Consul for the second time. Now just 41 years old Scipio hoped to be named Proconsul of Greece, but it was not to be. His rivals in the Senate led by Cato the Censor, stymied Scipio at every turn.

Scipio had committed the one unforgivable sin – he had risen too high too fast, and if the Romans were a practical people they could also be an extremely jealous people in equal measure. Scipio had achieved more in his 30 plus years than most other Senators would in two or even three lifetimes, and that was something they would not abide.

Scipio did eventually serve in the east with his brother, but he remained mostly in the background lest it be said that any Roman victories were his doing and not that of his brother. There was also the incident of his son, who was taken prisoner by King Antiochus. It was said that Scipio feigned sickness on the day of the battle at Magnesia to avoid talking the field against an enemy who had so recently show him mercy by releasing his son.

Scipio died not long after returning from the East. He had survived Cannae, and out maneuvered all of his battlefield opponents, but in the end he could not out maneuver his rivals in the Senate or survive their machinations against him. He was exiled to Liternum, south of Rome, where he died in 185 BCE.

Scipio’s legacy did survive him, most pointedly in is daughter Cornelia and her sons Tiberius and Gaius, known to history as the Grachii. 6

Of all the stories told about Scipio Africanus, the one I like most is the one about the time Scipio and Hannibal meet in Syria many years after Zama. As told by the Roman historian Livy, I quote it in full:

Africanus asked who, in Hannibal's opinion, was the greatest general of all time. Hannibal replied, "Alexander ... because with a small force he routed armies of countless numbers, and because he traversed the remotest lands"

Asked whom he placed second, Hannibal said, "Pyrrhus. He was the first to teach the art of laying out a camp. Besides that, no one has ever shown nicer judgement in choosing his ground, or in disposing his forces. He also had the art of winning men to his side."

When Africanus followed up by asking whom he ranked third, Hannibal unhesitatingly chose himself. Scipio burst out laughing at this and said, "What would you be saying if you had defeated me?"

"In that case," replied Hannibal, "I should certainly put myself before Alexander and before Pyrrhus -- in fact before all other generals!"

This reply, with its elaborate Punic subtlety, affected Scipio deeply, because Hannibal had set him apart from the general run of commanders, as one whose worth was beyond calculation. (Adrian Goldsworthy, In The Name Of Rome, c2003, page 69)

Perhaps this story isn’t true, but it should be.

Upon hearing this, Mr. K smiled and said, “So, they were friends after all.”

Yes, I replied, in a way they were. And with that, we returned to the game.

NOTES

1 Map & Counter War Games enjoyed their ‘golden age’ during the 1970’s and 80’s with the leading publishers, Avalon Hill and SPI releasing a dozen or more games each year. However, the hobby fell on hard times in the 90’s (thanks in large part to video games) and it is only now enjoying a modest resurgence in popularity. Hasbro purchased Avalon Hill while SPI’s library went to Decision Games in Bakersfield, California. Avalon Hill’s biggest sellers, Panzerblitz and Squad Leader, ended up at Multiman Publishing in Canada.

2 Roman naming conventions are challenging to say the least. See Adrian Goldsworthy’s 2009 lecture at the Kansas City Public Library for his amusing comments about Roman names and the confusion caused by asking Julia to “pass the salt please.” The Podcast of the lecture may be found here:

http://www.kclibrary.org/event/adrian-goldsworthy-how-rome-fell

3 Ancient Historians are notorious for inflating numbers of both total combatants and casualties in any given battle, so all such numbers must be approached with caution. Losses at Cannae may have been as low as 30,000 dead and as high as 50,000 depending upon who you trust. Goldsworthy in his book, The Complete Roman Army, places Roman dead at 45,500 infantry and 2,700 cavalry.

With regard to what percentage of the Roman Army these losses represent, again the numbers depend upon where they come from and who they are counting. P.A. Brunt estimates the losses at 23% of mobilized Roman manpower, but he is only counting Roman citizens and the Latin allies. In terms of total Roman military might, both citizens and allies, the losses at Cannae might be as high as 40%. As we do not know total manpower reserves for the allies in Italy, Spain and elsewhere it may be a percentage that is impossible to know for certain. I am indebted to Romany Army Talk Forum Member Pompieus for this information.

http://www.romanarmytalk.com/rat/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=29794&start=40

4 The Celtiberian allies were paid to abandon the Scipio brothers despite their generous and evenhanded treatment of the local tribes. Buying allies, or buying off enemies played to the Carthaginian’s strength as a mercantile empire. It is a technique the Romans themselves would learn to use in later years.

5 See Chronicle Of The Roman Republic by Philip Matyszak, c2003, p102.

6 The story of Cornelia and her two sons is well known. See:

Famous Men Of Rome by John H. Haaren & A.B. Poland, c1904, p126

Also, Chronicle Of The Roman Republic by Philip Matyszak, c2003, p127. The photo caption relates Cornelia’s wish “to be renowned, not as the daughter of Scipio, but as the mother of Tiberius and Gaius.”

Indeed, Cornelia was considered the very epitome of Roman motherhood. The story was told of how one day a close friend of Cornelia’s paid her a visit to show off some newly acquired jewelry. After displaying her finery, the friend asked Cornelia, “Now, let me see your jewels.” At that very moment Cornelia’s two sons returned home. She called them to her and placing her arms around them Cornelia replied to her friend, “Here are my jewels.”

Sources Consulted

In The Name Of Rome by Adrian Goldsworthy, c2003 ISBN: 0-297-84666-3

The Complete Roman Army by Adrian Goldsworthy, c2003 ISBN: 0-500-05124-0

Cannae by Adrian Goldsworthy, c2001 ISBN: 0-304-35714-6

Hannibal’s War With Rome by T. Wise & M. Healy, c1999 ISBN: 1-85532-980-8

Famous Men Of Rome by J.H. Haaren & A.B., Poland, c1904 ISBN: 1-59915-046-8

Chronicle Of The Roman Republic by P. Matyszak, c2003 ISBN: 0-500-05121-6

A Dictionary Of The Roman Empire by M. Bunson, c1991 ISBN: 0-19-510233-9

The Art of War Great Commanders of the Ancient & Medieval World 1500BC--AD1600 edited by Andrew Roberts, c2008 ISBN: 978-1-84724-259-4

Links of Interest

Roman Army Talk Forum -- an excellent source for information on the ancient Romans and lively discussions of same.

http://www.romanarmytalk.com/rat/

GMT Games -- The publisher of the Commands & Colors games and one of the better sources for traditional Map & Counter style war games

http://www.gmtgames.com/c-6-commands-colors-ancients.aspx

Commands & Colors: Ancients -- A third party site devoted to the Commands & Colors systems with many scenarios beyond those that come with the game.

http://www.thewargamer.com/ccancients/

Two feature films about Scipio Africanus:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0067719/

http://www.imdb.com/character/ch0063611/

The 1937 version, commissioned by Mussolini, is available on DVD

http://www.amazon.com/Scipio-Africanus-Hannibal-Fosco-Giachetti/dp/B000065VVG/ref=sr_1_1?s=dvd&ie=UTF8&qid=1282520964&sr=1-1

Horsing Around In London

2010-08-04T16:41:00.000-07:00

The Blues & Royals

This regiment was formed in 1969 by the amalgamation of the The Royal Horse Guards (the Blues) and the 1st Royal Dragoons. The Horse Guards trace their lineage to a regiment raised in 1650 by Oliver Cromwell. In 1651 they joined with the Earl of Oxford’s regiment, The Oxford Blues, whose blue uniform color the current regiment has retained.

The Blues & Royals have participated in every major war fought by the UK including both World Wars and, most recently, Desert Storm in 1991 and the current conflicts in SW Asia. Indeed their capture of the Regimental Eagle from the French 105th Infantry at the Battle of Waterloo is commemorated by a small embroidered eagle worn on the left uniform sleeve by all members of The Blues & Royals. (You can just make out the sleeve eagle on the Guardsman in this photo.)

In the photo above Stefan is posing with the “Box Man” from The Blues & Royals. The Box Man, in either the Foot Guards or the Household Cavalry, is the Guard who stands on duty at White Hall, Horse Guard Parade and Buckingham Palace in London. To be The Box Man is the most sought after duty by a Guardsman and only the best looking Guards and horses are selected for this duty. A Box Man spends one hour on post, or, on extremely cold days, one half hour.

Patience is a virtue for both Guardsman and horse as they deal with a seemingly unending stream of tourists, some of who are less than polite to the Guards. In the case of this photo, the horse seems to be asking, “Can I go now?”

There is a tradition that those wishing to give the Guardsman a “note of assignation”’ will place that note on the Foot Guard’s bayonet scabbard or inside the top of the Horse Guard’s boot.

So Stefan, did you slip the Guardsman a note?

See:

The Guards - Britain's Household Division by Simon Dunstan c1995 ISBN: 1-85915-062-4

The Guards text by John de St. Jorre photos by Anthony Edgeworth c1981 ISBN: 059-54376-1

Jobs -- Is War The Only Solution?

2010-03-17T20:46:00.000-07:00

“I can’t call off the war. I’ve already paid a month’s rent on the battlefield.” – G Marx

The hot topic in the news, not surprisingly, is the economy and the jobless recovery we seem to be in right now. Many people have now been out of work for a year or more with no sign that they will return to work any time soon.

What is to be done?

Two schools of thought have emerged – The Stimulators and the Free Marketeers.

The Stimulators are advocating for more government spending while the Free Marketeers believe we have already spent too much and we should instead let market forces decide who fails and who survives. Everyone looks back to the Great Depression and FDR for clues as to how we might solve our current economic woes, but in this case hindsight appears to be less than 20/20. One thing both camps seem to agree on is the fact that it was World War Two that brought the US economy back to full and robust life.

So, is war the only answer?

One of the goals of war (as outlined in the 1967 book Report From Iron Mountain On The Possibility And Desirability Of Peace) is to use up the produce of our labors. “Why is war so wonderful? Because it creates artificial demand…the only kind of artificial demand, moreover, that does not raise any political issues: war, and only war, solves the problem of inventory.” (p35)

We are already engaged in two wars that have proven to be ruinous to our economy rather than the boom World War Two was. Now some would say that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan bear little resemblance to what is arguably the seminal event of the 20^th Century and they are quite correct. Unlike WWII, that saw the entire US on a war footing, we are fighting the “War on Terrorism” more like we did the Vietnam War, with a peacetime economy. The current wars are simply not using up enough inventory.

So, does this mean we need a really BIG war to revive our economy?

And if so, then with whom shall we fight?

Germany and Japan are now our allies, as are the Italians. Russia, who was our ally in WWII and then our enemy during the Cold War, is certainly big enough, but given their current economic woes they seem an unlikely opponent.

China, on the other hand, has both a robust economy and a first class military. However, beyond MacArthur’s warning against undertaking a land war in Asia, attacking China would be like attacking your local Wal-Mart. Yes, it might be fun at the time, and yes the pillaging would certainly be impressive, but once the fires died out where would you shop for all of those items you need & want?

That leaves Iran, the current enemy of first choice for neo-cons and anyone else who slept through their high school history classes.

The last person to defeat the Persians was Alexander the Great, and his empire didn’t last very long. Even the Romans, whose empire did endure, found the Persians a tough nut to crack. Yes, they could and did sack the Persian capital several times, but the Romans did not have the resources, and more importantly, the will to stay the course and solidify their Eastern conquests. This is worth noting, as the Romans traditionally had proven to be dogged in their pursuit of victory. The Punic Wars and the Siege of Jerusalem are but two examples of the Romans spending whatever it took, in blood and treasure, to secure a lasting victory on their terms. Yet, when it came to Persia, their resolve seemed to crumble in the face of more practical considerations. If nothing else the Romans were both practical and pragmatic to a fault.

Despite neo-con hyperbole and promises to the contrary, a war with Iran will be neither short nor easy. Be that as it may, the real question is: would it revive our economy? Maybe, but the chances are that as the aggressors, most Americans would quickly lose heart and our eventual victory would leave a bitter taste in our mouths.

So, who then to fight a new world war against and in so doing save our economy and put our people back to work?

Martians?

If only the Nazis really had retreated to the Moon (as postulated in the film Iron Sky) and were, even now, waiting for just the right moment to return to Earth and fight World War II The Sequel.

Damn Nazis – where are they when we really need them?

So, no enemy means no war, and no economic recovery.

Or does it?

In the 1970’s President Jimmy Carter tired to rally Americans to “fight the moral equivalent of war” and in so doing save the planet and ourselves from ecological disaster. This call to arms, issued long before Al Gore spoke of the Inconvenient Truth, fell on deaf ears. And yet, Carter was correct, both morally and economically. He was simply ahead of his time.

Many derided Carter then, and Al Gore now, yet 30+ years since Carter's presidency clean water is still a luxury for many, basic health care is unobtainable for too many, and renewable, sustainable, green energy is a dream for all but the very few.

The looming ecological disaster is now more obvious (the doubters not withstanding – the ice caps really are melting folks) and the economic need is obvious. Time to dust off Carter’s Moral Equivalent. It is time for the Unarmed Forces of the United States.

This new force would be organized, trained and led just like the US Army. They would wear the same uniforms, have the same rank structure, be grouped into squads, platoons, battalions, and so forth, be subject to the UCMJ and receive the same pay and privileges as the current US military. They would, for all intents and purposes, be soldiers, but they would not carry weapons nor fight on the conventional battlefield.

The US Army is currently reshaping itself away from the heavy infantry and armored divisions it thought it would need to fight against the Warsaw Pact, and towards the more flexible and rapidly deployable Brigade Combat Team. The adoption of the Stryker combat vehicle and the doctrine of Total Situational Awareness have hastened this transformation.

A typical Stryker Brigade has a TO&E of just under 5,000 personnel. This number is in some flux as the Army works out exactly how many soldiers it needs in the Support Battalion and the Forward Support Companies, however, for our purposes (and to keep the math simple) we may say that each Brigade Team has 5000 soldiers.

If each state raised four Brigade Ecological Teams (BET) of 5000 soldiers each we would have a new army of 1 million solders across the fifty states. They would need uniforms and equipment, vehicles, housing, food and all the other items any army needs in order to function.

Additionally, because the BET is not designed nor expected to engage in combat, the ranks throughout the brigade would be open to both men and women. Engineer, medical and logistics units would replace actual combat elements. Required skill sets would run the gamut and include doctors and other medical technicians, engineers and skilled construction professionals, electricians, heavy equipment operators, communications and networking engineers, law enforcement and education, agricultural specialists, etc. etc. etc.

This one million in uniform would require several more millions supporting them, producing and providing them with the tools and equipment, food and supplies they would consume in the course of performing their job.

Doing what?

Working to restore the ecological balance of our planet.

Green Energy Projects

Clean Water & Water Reclamation

Infrastructure Upgrades both physical and virtual

Disaster Relief

Forest Restoration

How long will this war last?

Long enough for most of the new soldiers to make a career of it, retiring after 20 years with a pension pegged at 50% of their base pay.

Many (my brother the lawyer and my sister with the PhD in Economics) might well say that this approach, a gigantic government works program, is totally impractical for a host of legal and economic reasons. They may be absolutely correct.

Likewise, there are some (those who remained awake in their High School History classes) who might recall that Germany tired much the same approach in the 1930’s and 40’s, drafting able bodied young men and women into labor battalions of the National Labor Service (RAD). This approach not only fed upon the need for jobs but also the seemingly unique German penchant (some might say ‘love’) for organization, uniforms and marching.

Of course, any association with the Nazis is be avoided, and for good reason, however, given the typical American's natural rebelliousness, it seems unlikely the BET would devolve into some sort of political shock troops. Even so, those of a practical bent might still object, and they too may be absolutely correct.

Yet practical thinking seems to be getting us nowhere, so perhaps it is time for some impractical thinking.

Now I am not the first to suggest the Unarmed Forces of the United States (UFUS) and I dare say I will not be the last, however the time has come to give this proposal serious consideration.

Just as the Founding Fathers looked to those great civilizations of Greece and Rome for guidance in the formation of our own Grand Democratic Republic so it is fitting that we consider again this concept of Universal Service.

Military service has never been a prerequisite for holding elected office in our country. Although many on the right pay lip service to such a concept, in fact few members of the GOP have served. Indeed it is a peculiar irony of the US Congress that of those few who have served the majority are Democrats, while the majority of Republican members have never served or have actively avoided military service even when their country called upon them for their help.

Service as a Hoplite, a “citizen soldier,” was a corner stone of Greek Democracy during the age of the City States. Likewise, during the years of the Republic, members of the Roman Senate regularly served in the military as part of their duty as citizens. (Of course, Rome may be unique in this regard and perhaps not the best example, for Rome did not have an army – Rome was an army.) Some have even advocated military service as the price for citizenship, along the lines portrayed in Robert Heinlein’s book Starship Troopers. However, this is perhaps carrying the concept too far.

The idea of universal military service as a requirement for the holding of elected office has its merits and the advent of the Unarmed Forces of the United States would allow for more of our fellow citizens to do so without undue risk to life and limb. Those who chose to service in the UFUS would have a longer term of active duty obligation than those who selected service in the Armed Forces. Say 4 years in the former and 2 in the latter. Beyond that there would be no distinction between the two forces in look, discipline, basic structure, pay or benefits.

Cleaning up the Earth and restoring some ecological balance to our planet would seem, on the face of it, both imminently practical and wisely foresighted. Besides, keeping one’s only home clean and in working order is only common sense.

And, once we have cleaned up Earth there is Mars and the galaxy beyond. It will take a lot of inventory to fill up outer space.

December 16th The Battle of the Bulge

2009-12-15T21:42:00.000-08:00

Today is the 65^th Anniversary of The Battle of the Bulge.

On this day, 65 years ago, Germany launched their final offensive in an attempt to change the course of the war on the Western Front. The Germans had marshaled the best of their remaining forces and on December 16^th began a massive attack that caught the Allies completely by surprise.

In the first 48 hours German Army and Waffen-SS formations made impressive thrusts into and through the American lines. The 106^thand 28^th Infantry Divisions were both destroyed (the 106^th losing 7,000 men taken prisoner) though they would both be rebuilt and fight again. In addition the 1^st, 2^nd, 4^th, 30^th, 78^th, 80^th and 99^th Infantry Divisions were all badly damaged. Their paratrooper brothers in the 82^nd and 101^st Airborne Divisions also suffered heavy losses, and while their casualties were less than the infantry, the 2^nd, 3^rd, 4^th, 6^th, 7^th, 10^th and 11^th Armored divisions sustained heavy losses as well. (733 tanks and tank destroyers were lost.)

However, key American units held their ground and over the next few weeks the Ardennes Offensive developed into the largest battle ever fought by the US Army.

Although most of the heavy fighting took place in December, the front was not restored to its original position until the end of January. By then the Americans had suffered over 81,000 casualties including 19,000 killed and over 23,000 taken prisoner.

Losses for the Germans were equally grim, but unlike the Allies, the tanks and soldiers lost could not be replaced. Exact numbers for German losses are unknown and depend upon which units are included. Numbers range from 81,000 to 100,000 (if Luftwaffe air and ground units are included). Among the losses were nearly 14,000 killed, 39,000 wounded and over 30,000 missing. Again, the actual numbers may be far higher. The 6^th SS Panzer Army alone reported over 37,000 casualties.

On a tactical level the Germans won several engagements, delayed the planned Allied offensive by some six weeks, and proved beyond any doubt that the German Army and Waffen-SS still had teeth. However, on a strategic level, the Ardennes Offensive was a decisive defeat and an unmitigated disaster for the Germans.

The Germans brought out their best units for the Ardennes Offensive, and although they made impressive initial gains they were also exposed to Allied firepower. The Americans took full advantage of the opportunity. The Germans could not make good their losses and these powerful Army and Waffen-SS tank units would be sorely missed on the Eastern Front. Indeed, there has been much speculation that had the Germans remained on the strategic defensive the war might have gone on into 1946. That of course is impossible to know, but one can only imagine the additional losses the Allies, particularly the Soviets, would have suffered attacking these powerful German formations in prepared defensive positions.

As Winston Churchill noted in the House of Commons on January 18^th: “This is undoubtedly the greatest American battle of the war and will, I believe, be regarded as an ever famous American victory.”

Hollywood Loves A Famous Battle

Generally speaking Hollywood and History do not get along well even though many famous and much lauded Hollywood films are based upon well known historical events. Not surprisingly the Battle of the Bulge is no exceptions. That being said, most films about the battle have been only fair at best

Robert Shaw as Colonel Hessler (supposedly based upon

Waffen-SS Colonel Peiper) in the 1965 film The Battle of the Bulge

Perhaps the absolutely worst film is also the only film to deal with the entire battle. Released on December 16^th 1965 by Warner Brothers the Battle Of The Bulge gets very little of the history correct with the notable exception of the uniforms, which are impeccable. Indeed the film plays so fast and lose with history that after watching the film in Munich, the former commander of the 5^th Panzer Army, Hasso von Manteuffel commented:

The content of this film is completely fictional and has hardly anything to do with the events of those days… It also presents a distortion of the facts and actual conditions under which the battle took place … The film is an insult not only to the American soldier who fought in the Ardennes, but also a scandal for all soldiers including those on the other side. (Battle of the Bulge by Danny S Parker, c1991, p313)

Unfortunately the fiction that is this film has infiltrated the public conscious and become accepted as “fact.”

One of the events portrayed in the film, in a highly fictionalized form, is the Malmedy Massacre. Despite much scholarly research into this incident the IMDB internet bio of Charles Durning, a survivor of that event, describes the Malmedy Massacre as it is presented in the Warner Brothers film, not as it actually happened.

All in all, with the exception of the uniforms, this film is to be avoided.

Better are the handful of films that deal not with the battle as a whole but with small groups caught up in the events of that December. As with all films some are better than others and that judgment has more to do with personal taste that historic objectivity.

Some of the better, or at least more noteworthy films:

Battleground 1950 MGM

Band of Brothers Episode Six: Bastogne 2001 HBO

A Midnight Clear 1992 A&M Films

The Execution of Private Slovik 1974 Universal

Silent Night 2002 Fast Carrier Pictures

Slaughterhouse Five 1972 Universal

Saints and Soldiers 2003 Go Films

“What they should have done…”

With the possible exceptions of Gettysburg and Waterloo, no battle has as many games devoted to it than the Battle of The Bulge. Even though research shows that the Germans had no real chance of winning this battle the Ardennes Offensive has proven to be very popular with gamers and a new take on the battle appears almost every year.

One of the very first was Avalon Hill’s The Battle Of The Bulge. Released in 1965, what this game lacked in historical accuracy it more than made up for in playability. Indeed it was a hallmark of the Avalon Hill Company to favor playability over accuracy, just as it was the tendency of their rival, SPI, to favor historical accuracy to the point of rendering some of their games frustratingly unplayable.

Both Avalon Hill and SPI cranked out several games on this battle and these now out of print classics are much sought after by both players and collectors alike. Two in particular, Avalon Hill’s Bitter Woods and SPI’s "monster" game Wacht Am Rhein, have enjoyed a new life as updated and expanded games produced by L2 Designs and Decision Games respectively. So popular was the update of Wacht Am Rhein that it too is now out of print with copies on E-Bay fetching as much as $400.

Video games have also dealt with this battle to varying degrees of success. Most are now out of print and those that are available tend to be “First Person Shooters” that happen to have the Battle of the Bulge as one of their many scenarios. The exception to this is HPS Simulations who continue to publish an excellent operational level game Bulge ’44.

A Few noteworthy games on the Battle of the Bulge:

Battle of the Bulge 1965, Avalon Hill

Bastogne 1969, SPI

Ardennes Offensive 1974, SPI

Hitler’s Last Gamble 1975, 3W (Designed by Danny S Parker an authority on this battle)

Bastogne 1976, SPI

Wacht Am Rhein 1976, SPI

Dark December 1979, Operational Studies Group

Battle of the Bulge (2nd Ed) 1981, Avalon Hill

Battle of the Bulge 1985, Epoch

Wave of Terror 1987, XTR Corp

Ardennes 1994, The Gamers

The Last Blitzkrieg 1994, 3W

Bastogne or Bust 1994 Terran Games Inc

Bitter Woods 1998, Avalon Hill

Tigers in the Mist 2000, GMT

Bitter Woods 2003, L2 Designs (revised AH game)

Ardennes 44 2003, GMT

Iron Tide 2003, Pacific Rim Publishing

Wacht Am Rhein 2005, Decision Games (revised SPI game)

Axis & Allies Battle of the Bulge 2006. Avalon Hill/Wizards of he Coast

The Significance of the Battle Today

Outside of those interested in Military Science or the history of World War Two, the Battle of the Bulge, despite its historic importance, would seem to hold little relevance to our present day. Yet nothing could be further from the truth. The Malmedy Massacre, and in particular the trial that is spawned, have a direct bearing on our present circumstances.

Although closely studied, the actual events of that day at the Baugnez crossroads south of Malmedy remain somewhat cloudy. There are several competing versions of what happened and the absolute truth will probably never be known with certainty.

What can be said is that Battery B of the 285^th Field Artillery Observation Battalion ran into the leading elements of Kampfgruppe Peiper, the armored spearhead of the 1^st SS panzer Division. After a brief firefight the surviving GI’s were taken prisoner and moved into an open field next to the crossroads. Several soldiers were detailed to watch the prisoners while the rest of the battle group, urged on by their commander Joachim Peiper, pushed on down the road in the hopes of capturing an American general reported to be in the next town.

Waffen-SS Colonel Joachim Peiper

A few minutes later one of the SS tankers, later identified as Private Georg Fleps, fired two shots from his pistol into the group of prisoners, killing an officer. Another US officer yelled for his men to stand fast, but then more shots rang out and there was a mad dash for the woods. Few made it to safety. Any GI’s left in the field who showed any signs of life were shot by SS panzergrenadiers moving among them. For the next few hours panzergrenadiers on passing tanks and halftracks took potshots at the bodies lying in the field. Surprisingly, despite all of this, several GI’s did survive, making it safely to American lines.

Bodies of American GI’s killed at the Baugnez Crossroads

News of the massacre was quickly disseminated throughout the American command and did more to stiffen American resistance and resolve than anything else.

After the war a trial was held at Dachau in which 74 members of the Waffen-SS were tried, convicted and sentenced, in many cases to death. However, because the prosecution had used “enhanced interrogation” on the prisoners, and the tribunal had knowingly admitted the evidence so obtained, the convections were instantly called into question. After several reviews of the trial, including one by the US Senate, several of the convictions were over turned and all death sentences were commuted to life in prison. These sentences were themselves reduced upon subsequent review. The last defendant to be released, Joachim Peiper himself, was set free in 1956.

Even though it is clear that a war crime was committed against American GI’s by members of the Waffen-SS, because of the use of evidence obtained by “enhanced interrogation” those defendants, many of whom were guilty, walked free. It seems clear that the use of “enhanced interrogation” serves no useful purpose. It is not only counter productive but undermines the very foundations upon which our judicial freedoms and rights are built. Our failure to follow our own laws serves only to allow those who have wronged us to walk free. What was true in 1946 is still true today.

Roman Centurion

2009-07-24T11:45:00.000-07:00

D-Day June 6th, 1944 -- Still the Stuff of Homer 65 Years On

2009-06-05T20:51:00.000-07:00

Saturday is June 6th, the 65th anniversary of the Allied Invasion of Hitler's "Fortress Europe." Perhaps not since the Greeks sailed against Troy had the world seen an invasion fleet as large. Indeed, Agamemnon and Odysseus could not have conceived of such a force even in their wildest dreams. And paratroopers, filling the night skies in their thousands, would have struck the Greeks as if the gods themselves had come to join the battle.

Many an Achilleus and Hektor fought and perished that day, and the days, weeks and months that followed. There were heroes on both sides, and some villains too, but any glory or honor the German forces won by their battlefield exploits and warrior élan is forever tainted by the evil cause they served. Oh one might make a case for nobility of an individual soldier, even among the members of the Waffen-SS, but there is no redemption for the larger group or the master they followed.

General Eisenhower called it the “Great Crusade” and indeed it was a crusade after a fashion. Others have seen that June day in terms truly Homeric, and that too is certainly true. German Fieldmarshal Erwin Rommel said the invasion would be “The Longest Day” and so it was.

We who now sit comfortably in the present, 65 years later, can but imagine what it was like that day, jumping out of a plane into the dark and an uncertain landing or bobbing up and down in a landing craft waiting for the ramp to drop and rushing into an almost certain death on the beaches of Normandy.

Some of us actually know someone who was there: a grandfather or an uncle or a friend of the family. That they survived at all, let along went on to win a stunning victory is nothing short of miraculous.

For those who enjoy their History via Hollywood one can do no better than the 1962 Darryl F Zanuck film The Longest Day. Yes, Spielberg’s film, Saving Private Ryan, is more popular and certainly more visceral, but in terms of historic authenticity it rather pales before Zanuck’s old Hollywood warhorse.

I remember well the first time I watched The Longest Day for it was the only time that I can recall my father actually going to a theatre to watch a movie. There was to be a special screening of the film at Walter Reed for service members and their families. My father, who was stationed at Walter Reed, made a point of gathering us up and driving from our home in Wheaton Maryland to the post theatre for the showing. Although my father had served in World War Two he reached Europe, as an infantry officer, after the Battle of the Bulge. Even so many of the soldiers he served with were veterans of that invasion and for reasons he did not articulate he thought it important that we see this film. Not surprisingly at age 7 the film made a big impression on me, and still does every time I watch it.

Of course it must be remembered that in 1962 most of the veterans of the D-Day landings were still alive, whereas by 1998 when Spielberg released his D-Day opus World War Two was ancient history and barely remembered by the vast movie viewing public. With this in mind Spielberg concentrated on the story in the trenches so to speak. Zanuck’s audience, on the other hand, already knew that story – they have lived it. What they might not know about, and what The Longest Day tells so well, was the story-taking place above their heads and above their pay grades. How the officers on both sides blundered about and how victory, for either side, was decided as much by chance as it was by skill or courage.

This is not to degrade by any means the courage displayed that day by the soldiers on both sides. It was a day when “uncommon valor was common.” However all soldiers know that luck on the battlefield is a commodity not to be underestimated. As Julius Caesar once observed when considering a highly recommended officer for promotion to general, “Yes, I know he is good, but is he lucky?”

On that day long ago, June 6^th, 1944, a little luck backed by immense courage carried the day for the Allies and the world saw not the beginning of the end to Hitler and World War Two, but certainly the end of the beginning of our march to victory.

Petraeus Speaks Out Against "Enhanced" Interrogation

2009-05-26T21:46:00.000-07:00

In an Open Letter to the troops General David Petraeus spoke out against the use of so called "enhanced interrogation" and in favor of following the Geneva Conventions. Furthermore on May 24th of this year, during an interview on Radio Free Europe, the General reaffirmed his support for the Geneva Conventions and voiced support for the president's decision to close the Guantanamo Bay Detention Center.

One might hope that the words of this outstanding officer might put an end to this debate about the efficacy of using torture and perhaps give those who advocate the use of torture, but who themselves have never served in the military, pause to reconsider their pro-torture positions. Indeed, one might hope...

Here is the text of the letter by General Petraeus:

10 May 2007

Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, Marines, and Coast Guardsmen serving in Multi-National Force—Iraq:

Our values and the laws governing warfare teach us to respect human dignity, maintain our integrity, and do what is right. Adherence to our values distinguishes us from our enemy. This fight depends on securing the population, which must understand that we—not our enemies—occupy the moral high ground. This strategy has shown results in recent months. Al Qaeda’s indiscriminate attacks, for example, have finally started to turn a substantial portion of the Iraqi population against it.

In view of this, I was concerned by the results of a recently released survey conducted last fall in Iraq that revealed an apparent unwillingness on the part of some US personnel to report illegal actions taken by fellow members of their units. The study also indicated that a small percentage of those surveyed may have mistreated noncombatants. This survey should spur reflection on our conduct in combat.

I fully appreciate the emotions that one experiences in Iraq.

I also know firsthand the bonds between members of the “brotherhood of the close fight.” Seeing a fellow trooper killed by a barbaric enemy can spark frustration, anger, and a desire for immediate revenge. As hard as it might be, however, we must not let these emotions lead us—or our comrades in arms—to commit hasty, illegal actions. In the event that we witness or hear of such actions, we must not let our bonds prevent us from speaking up.

Some may argue that we would be more effective if we sanctioned torture or other expedient methods to obtain information from the enemy. They would be wrong. Beyond the basic fact that such actions are illegal, [emphasis added] history shows that they also are frequently neither useful nor necessary. Certainly, extreme physical action can make someone talk; however, what the individual says may be of questionable value. In fact our experience in applying the interrogation standards laid out in the Army Field Manual (2-22.3) on Human Intelligence Collector Operations that was published last year shows that the techniques in the manual work effectively and humanely in eliciting information from detainees.

We are, indeed, warriors. We train to kill our enemies. We are engaged in combat, we must pursue the enemy relentlessly, and we must be violent at times. What sets us apart from our enemies in this fight, however, is how we behave. In everything we do, we must observe the standards and values that dictate that we treat noncombatants and detainees with dignity and respect. While we are warriors, we are also all human beings. Stress caused by lengthy deployments and combat is not a sign of weakness; it is a sign that we are human. If you feel such stress, do not hesitate to talk to your chain of command, your chaplain, or a medical expert.

We should use the survey results to renew our commitment to the values and standards that make us who we are and to spur re-examination of these issues. Leaders, in particular, need to discuss these issues with their troopers—and, as always, they need to set the right example and strive to ensure proper conduct. We should never underestimate the importance of good leadership and the difference it can make.

Thanks for what you continue to do. It is an honor to serve with each of you.

David H. Petraeus General, United States Army Commanding

Ends -- Means, and the Justice In-between

2009-05-18T15:42:00.000-07:00

The news of late is, once again, filled with torture, accusations, and denials. What did you know and when did you stop knowing it? That was the question asked of Nazis more than sixty years ago and once again being asked of our own Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi.

Nancy Pelosi and her answers have only served to fuel the firestorm surrounding the issues of torture and whether the ends justify the means. The GOP and their supporters have tried to shift the discussion away from torture to focus instead on Pelosi, and by extension the Democrats as a whole, and their knowledge of and complicity in the use of torture by the CIA. While this might be seen as an attempt by the Right to distract us from the real issue of who ordered the use of torture and why, in fact the question of what Pelosi knew and what did she do with that knowledge is important.

In pursuing those responsible for the crimes committed by the Nazis we are now at the point of punishing those who knew and yet did nothing to stop them. The courts have found that their mere presence is enough to brand them as persecutors. The history of how we dealt with the German War Criminals may well serve as a blue print for how we deal with our own.

First there is the recurring case of John Demjanjuk, the retired autoworker who lied about his membership in the Waffen-SS and was tried in Israel for war crimes. , Though he was acquitted, there was still the problem of his membership in the Waffen-SS and, more to the point, his lying about that membership on his citizenship application.

Demjanjuk had his citizenship revoked and with his appeals exhausted he has been extradited back to Germany to face charges arising from his assignments as a guard at several Concentration Camps. Like Scooter Libby who was tried not for “outing” a CIA Agent but for lying about it, so too Demjanjuk was not deported for being a member of the Waffen-SS (there are many of them living openly in the US) but for lying about his SS membership.1

Likewise Josias Kumpf, a retired sausage plant worker, was deported to Austria in March of 2009 because he too had lied about his membership in the Waffen-SS and assignment as a guard at several Concentration Camps. At his deportation hearing Kumpf admitted to serving as a guard but asserted that he had harmed no one. The court agreed but found that “…his mere presence at a place where admittedly horrible, horrible things happened was sufficient to find him a persecutor.” 2

The use of torture by the US against prisoners held in the so called “War on Terrorism” has moved back onto the front page with the release by the Obama administration of previously classified memos. These memos detail not only the ‘tortured’ logic by which the Bush Administration tried to show that torture, as authorized and practiced by them, was in fact legal, but also spell out exactly what was done and to whom. Led by MSNBC host Keith Olberman, the calls by the Left for War Crimes trials have reached a fever pitch.

The political Right, led by Dick Chaney, have argued that the use of torture saved lives and besides, the Democratic leadership in the Congress knew and approved.

At the same time we have the comic opera spectacle of Condoleezza Rice being confronted by students in a dorm lobby at Stanford University and displaying her lack of historical knowledge or perspective. She goes so far as to claim that Al Queda is a greater threat to the US than was Nazi Germany simply because Germany never attacked the US Homeland. (What about those U-Boat attacks off the New Jersey shore?) Further, in what would have gotten her a failing grade in a Logic 101 class, Rice asserted that because the US does not torture, any actions taken by US interrogators were not torture. 3

All men are mortal

Socrates was mortal

Therefore All Men are Socrates

Vox Populi

As astounding as this video may be, the performance by Ms. Rice pales when compared to the vitriol in the comments left by viewers. They run the gamut from those who believe that so called “Enhanced Interrogation” is not torture to those who affirm that, even if it is, the US is more than justified in using torture if it saves lives. The rationale usually falls into the “The Terrorists did not sign or are not covered by the Geneva Conventions” or the “What ever it takes to protect America and Americans.”

You Tube is anything but scientific so it is impossible to know if the voices there represent anything more than a lunatic fringe. However, a recent CNN/ORC poll found that while 60% of respondents think water boarding is torture. 50% approve of their use and 57% do not want members of the Bush administration investigated.4

The follow-up question the pollsters did not ask but should have: “Would you approve of the use of Enhanced Interrogation techniques on US soldiers captured by enemy forces?” Perhaps they thought the answer would be obvious, too obvious, but that may not be the case given Senator Kit Bond’s amazing admission that he knew about the use of torture by the CIA.5

Finally there is Nancy Pelosi being accused of knowing and therefore approving, if only tacitly, of the use of Water Boarding. She has claimed that although briefed by the CIA they did not mention Water Boarding, or if they did mention it they were speaking in the future tense. The CIA counters that they explicitly mentioned Water Boarding and Senator Kit Bond has confirmed that, in the briefing he received from the CIA, the use of Water Boarding was indeed discussed and not in the abstract.

Of course the Right, now calling for Pelosi to resign for lying, are themselves in an untenable position. If Torture is OK because it is necessary, as many of them assert, then what does it matter if she knew? What they and the GOP are not objecting to is that she knew about the use of torture by the CIA and did noting to stop it because neither did they. The GOP and the Right believe not only that torture works but that it is justified if it saves American lives.

Fine. Then let us stipulate that torture does work. So what – that changes nothing.6

It is never a case of the ends justifying the means but rather the end being only as honorable as the means employed to obtain it. If you use the weapons of the enemy then you have become the enemy. Torture is the weapon of the enemy.

History Lessons

Thus do we return once again to the Nazis and to the Germans in 1945 denying any knowledge of the Concentration Camps. What did you know and when did you stop knowing it?

“We had no idea what went on in the Camps.”

“How could we know – they kept it a secret.”

“And even if we did know, what could we do?”

What could we do indeed…?

The issue is not did Nancy Pelosi lie about knowing. The real issue is did she know and do nothing to stop it?

Senator Kit Bond has already admitted that he knew and we know he did nothing to stop it.

Water Boarding is torture. Torture is against the law and against the very principles for which the United States stands

Those who carried out torture against prisoners should be tried and punished if found guilty.

Those who ordered the use of torture should be tried and punished if found guilty.

Those in the chain of command, military or civilian, who knew that torture was being used and did nothing to stop it, should pay a price for their cowardice. In this regard the GOP is no less guilty; if Pelosi knew, then you can be sure that THEY knew.

If the US Courts found that a lowly Concentration Camp Guard, who was not accused by the US Government of committing any particular act of torture or murder or abuse of prisoners but whose “mere presence at a place were admittedly horrible things happened, was sufficient to find him a persecutor” then how can the Courts, and by extension we the people of the United States, ignore those who ordered the use of torture, those who conducted torture, and especially those who know this crime was being committed and did nothing to stop it?

Sometimes holding the moral high ground obliges one to act in a moral fashion to defend it. Now is one of those times.

1 LA Times April 2009

2 Huffington Post article by Dinesh Ramde March 19, 2009

3 Video Clip posted on Youtube April 28, 2009 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ijEED_iviTA

4 CNN / Opinion Research Corporation poll reported on May 6^th, 2009. http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20090506/pl_afp/usattacksmilitarytorture;_ylt=AnVnX0UNs9Lz8OeUr4jdkbIHcggF

5 Although Senator Bond never served in the military his son is a Marine Corps officer who has served two tours in combat as a Marine Platoon Commander. One presumes that should the enemy ever capture his son that Senator Bond would object to him being subjected to “Enhanced Interrogation.”

6 If we accept the argument of “any and all means in order to win” or in other words the classic “the Ends Justify the Means” then why do we not use poison gas against the enemy? It would certainly be more efficient and would save the lives of many American soldiers. Many US leaders, both civilian and military called for the use of poison gas against the Japanese after the appalling casualties suffered by the Marines at the Battle of Tarawa in 1942. FDR had ruled out the use of gas but if we had been forced to actually invade Japan perhaps Truman would have changed his mind and allowed the use of poison gas against the Japanese. As it was the Atom Bomb made the invasion unnecessary and so too the question of using poison gas. See Before the Bomb: How America Approached the End of the Pacific War by John David Chappell c1997 ISBN: 0813119871

Pure Acting--Kabuki Actor Nakamura Matagoro Dies at 94

2009-03-02T09:55:00.000-08:00

Matagoro sensei has died.

I had the great good fortune (as did several of us) to spend a year training with Matagoro sensei in what is still one of the best years of my theatrical life.

What I remember most clearly was the day, after class, when Russell and Elizabeth had questions about their scene together as Heimon and Okaru and the emotions involved as Heimon tells Okaru about Kampei's death.

There were several of us there, sitting next to Matagoro in the dance studio at the University of Hawai'i, as he started to explain the scene. Then he said, "Here, let me show you." and without a moment's hesitation he launched into the scene, acting both parts with full emotional intensity. It was an incredible performance, unlike any I had ever seen before or since. Here was a true artist working at the very height of his powers and his talents. It was pure acting without relying on props, or costumes, or stage setting to carry the scene but doing so entirely with his acting. And when the scene was finished, he smiled and asked, in a calm matter-of-fact tone, "Do you understand now?"

I have seen many great performances (granted, mostly on film) by some of the world's greatest actors, but nothing has ever equaled the sheer skill and artistry I saw that morning.

Kabuki has lost a great artist, and we from outside the kabuki world of Japan have lost a true friend who supported our quest to better understand this art from not just as scholars but more importantly as fellow artists.

The march of time was bound to bring this day, but the reality of it still hits hard.
Matagoro sensei (seated) along with Nakamura Matashiro and Yamada Isuzu on the occasion of her visit while on her way back to Japan. Yamada san had stopped at the University of Hawaii to pay her respects to Matagoro and ended up conducting an impromptu make-up demonstration and then staying to watch our rehearsal of the kabuki play Chushingura.

Yamada Isuzu is an actor of some renown -- she played the part of Lady Macbeth in Akira Kurosawa's film The Throne of Blood.

Nakamura Matagoro in the role of the Shogun in Hiroshi Inagaki's 1962 film Chushingura.

Visiting Bhutan

2008-12-06T14:09:00.000-08:00

The real King with his Army Chief of Staff and his Minister for Finance & Parking

My brother on his visit to Bhutan poses for a photo with the newly crowned King and his General. Or... perhaps it is his vivd imagination (with a little help from Photoshop) posing with the King. In this day and age one can never be too sure. As Obi wan Kenobi advised young Luke Skywalker, "Your eyes can deceive you - don't trust them."

2008-11-24T12:08:00.000-08:00

Why History Matters

The news of late has been full of Nazis and torture. Perhaps this is fitting; the two do seem to go together so well.

First there was retired Wisconsin farmer and former member of the Waffen-SS Ted Junker who built a museum to set the record straight about what a good guy Adolf Hitler was. Junker, who volunteered for the Waffen-SS in 1940, says he never made any attempt to hide his former membership, unlike Nobel Laurite Gunter Grass who recently revealed to a stunned world his former membership in the Waffen-SS. Some saw the timing of his admission as a ploy to drum up sales for his latest book while others viewed it as a ‘spiritual house cleaning,’ something we will all face as we near the end. Grass claims that he did nothing in violation of the Geneva Conventions, which is a far cry from what long time San Francisco resident Elfriede Lina Rinkel can claim. Late last year we discovered that Mrs. Rinkel too had been a member of the Waffen-SS, serving as a guard and dog handler at the Ravensbruck Concentration Camp. Unlike Grass, who was drafted into the Waffen-SS in 1944, she had volunteered. Seems the pay of a dog handler was much better than that of a factory worker. However, unlike Junker, she did hide her former membership, even from her Jewish husband who, from all reports, she loved very much. Perhaps Rinkel thought a lifetime of love and devotion might make amends for the follies of her youth. Certainly Grass thought his writing would do so. As for Junker, it is difficult to know just what he was thinking.1

Currently there is a national debate concerning the reinterpretation of the Geneva Conventions, the use of torture as a matter of national policy and the labeling, by the Bush administration, as Nazi appeasers anyone who questions either the administration’s goals or methods in the “War on Terror.”

As symbols of evil the Nazis still hold first place, but the Bush administration would like very much to replace the Nazis at number one with the current crop of religious fanatics whom they have conveniently, if confusingly, dubbed “Islamo-fascists.”

Calling someone a “Nazi” seems to be the argument of last resort for the less articulate on both the Left and the Right. Doing so is like dropping a Neutron bomb – how do you counter a charge like that? It is somewhat akin to that old conversation stopper, “So tell us, when did you stop beating your wife?”

Bush Sr. began the current “They’re worse than the Nazis.” trend when he said Saddam was a tyrant as evil as Hitler. However, the first Gulf War revealed Saddam to have more in common with Mussolini than with Hitler. Saddam, despite Bush Administration rhetoric to the contrary, was no Hitler and his Republican Guard was not the Waffen-SS.2 Besides, if in fact Saddam was as evil as Hitler then why did we leave him in power at the end of the first Gulf War? Would the Allies have done the same with Hitler in 1945?

Such logic, however, seems lost on the current administration of Bush the younger which has returned to the Nazi rhetoric with a vengeance.

In the past few weeks we have been treated to speeches by several administration officers and a host of their media flaks, essentially accusing anyone who questions the administration aims or conduct in the “Global War On Terror” of being appeasers of the Nazis. Again they hope to cement in our minds the idea that as the Nazis were to our parent’s generation so the Islamo-fascists are to our own. This conflation has now taken an even more ominous turn with regards to the use of torture to gain not only “actionable” intelligence but also evidence to be used in the impending trials of the detainees.

From the very beginning of “The War On Terror” the Bush administration has sought to operate outside of or to otherwise ignore the Geneva Conventions. In a now famous memo concerning the treatment of prisoners taken in “The War On Terror” Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, then White House counsel, called the Geneva Conventions “quaint.”3 As Bush has so often said, “the world changed on 9/11” and to his way of thinking this included the way we deal with prisoners taken in Afghanistan, Iraqi, or anywhere in the world including US citizens within the borders of the US.

This new kind of war requires new terminology and new techniques: We do not capture prisoners of war but “Illegal Enemy Combatants” and we do not torture them, but rather use “Alternative Interrogation Techniques.” War is Peace. Freedom is Slavery. Ignorance is Strength. With every passing day George Orwell becomes less of a prophet and more of an historian of our future.

Yet it is precisely historians who we should be consulting, for we have been down this road before. Despite the recent compromise between the President and dissident Republican Senators to safeguard the “…letter and the spirit of the Geneva Conventions.”4 the new law on interrogation still allows for the use at trial of evidence obtained by coercion (which can include torture as most reasonable people would define it). The administration insists it needs this law in order to bring to trial the people responsible for the 9/11 attacks and other acts of terror. Ironically, we used this same approach in 1946 at the Malmedy Massacre trial to disastrous results. 73 former members of the Waffen-SS were found guilty of murdering American POW’s. Reportedly some of them even laughed as they killed the wounded GI’s on that cold December day, and yet despite 42 death sentences not a single execution was carried out. The SS men escaped the hangman’s noose. How could this happen? The Bush Administration so fond of evoking the Nazis and World War II, has clearly not studied that war nor understood its lessons.

Dachau 1946

On May 16, 1946 the trial of 74 former members of the Waffen-SS began.5 Neither the prosecutor (LTC. Burton Ellis) nor the counsel for the defense (Col. Willis Everett) had any experience trying criminal cases, but this was not necessarily an impediment as the Military Tribunal before which the case would be tried did not resemble anything like an American civilian court nor even a normal US Army courts martial. Then again, this case was anything but normal.

Defense Counsel Col. Willis Everett (L) &
Prosecutor LTC. Burton Ellis

The defendants were accused of committing what was, as far as most Americans were concerned, the worst war crime perpetrated by the Waffen-SS: the murder of 84 American GI’s who moments before had surrendered to advancing German armored forces.6 Known as the Malmedy Massacre, the details of that day are still a matter of some contention. As might be expected, for every eyewitness, survivor and perpetrator, there is a different version of what happened and why.

The basic facts are these:

On December 16 the Germans launched their last major offensive in the west. Known as The Battle Of The Bulge, the initial attack took the Allies by surprise and quickly evolved into the largest battle in the history of the US Army. American casualties were heavy. Some units stood their ground or conducted fighting retreats while others simply ceased to exist. Entire battalions were overrun and taken captive or destroyed in detail. By the next day (December 17th) confusion reigned supreme as German armored forces, having broken through the front, by-passed American units in a headlong rush to reach the Meuse River as quickly as possible.

At about 1 pm on the 17th of December, Battery B of the 285th Field Artillery Observation Battalion was moving through what they thought was American held territory on their way to a new position when they ran headlong into the leading elements of Kampfgruppe Peiper, the armored spearhead of the 6th SS Panzer Army. The Germans caught the Americans by surprise and after a brief firefight (most accounts agree it lasted ten minutes or less) took the survivors prisoner, moving them into an open field next to the crossroads.

The kamfgruppe (battle group) commander, SS-Obersturnbannfuhrer Peiper now appeared at the crossroads with his command group. He ordered his lead element to resume their advance and following after them shouted out at the American POW’s “It’s a long way to Tipperary boys.”7 He was off to try and capture an American general rumored to be billeted in the next town. Peiper did not return to the crossroads.

Col. Jochin Peiper was the ideal SS officer: Handsome,

intelligent and ruthless in combat.

Video links to Peiper answering questions at the trial

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2hlnO4dCNJw&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cv6VE3WmbFU&feature=related

By 2 pm the main body of the battle group, trying to catch up to their commander, was passing the crossroads and the field in which the 150 or so American POW’s stood. At this point details become less certain and no two versions seem to agree on all points.

Some accounts say the shooting began when SS-Sturmmann Georg Fleps took a couple of ‘pot shots’ at the POW’s, hitting one with his second round. A machinegun then opened fire followed by a general fusillade by all the Germans in the area. Some Americans were killed instantly, while others fell wounded and a very few, standing farthest from the road and the Germans, ran for their lives making good their escape.8

Survivor, Lt. Lary, identifies SS-Sturmmann Georg Fleps as the first shooter.

Almost as soon as it had started the shooting ended, but the killing had just begun. Now the Germans moved through the field looking for survivors and killing any they found. One German would later call these “mercy shots,” a common practice on the Eastern Front.9 Those Americans who managed to avoid this “German mercy” by playing “dead” remember the Germans laughing as they moved through the field. For these survivors their ordeal did not end with the departure of this first group of Germans. For the next hour or so passing tanks, and halftracks full of panzer grenadiers, fired into the field at the bodies lying there. That anyone survived was no small miracle and yet several Americans did. Of the American solders taken captive at the Baugnez crossroads 82 lay dead while an amazing 41 survived the actual massacre either by escaping as the first shots were fired or by “playing dead” and avoiding detection by the Germans.

US Soldiers killed by Waffen-SS troops at the Malmedy Massacre

Word of the Malmedy Massacre spread quickly through the Allied army serving to stiffen considerably the American resolve to resist as well as igniting a hunger for revenge.

From top to bottom of the US Army, the Malmedy massacre intensified a reluctance to take SS prisoners. (General) Bradley expressed surprise on Christmas Eve, hearing that four POW’s from 12th SS Panzer had been
brought alive to the cage. “We needed a few samples,” said an officer apologetically, “that’s all we’ve taken sir.”10

Not only members of the Waffen-SS, but Luftwaffe paratroopers and anyone in a black uniform were liable to be shot as they surrendered.

“This was the only time I saw American troops kill German soldiers that were trying to surrender,” wrote Private Donald Schoo of the 80th Infantry Division. “If they wore the black uniforms of the SS, they were shot.” Like many men, he did not know that every German tank crew [including those of the Army and the Air Force] wore black.11

The blood was up, and it remained ‘hot’ even after the war had ended. In a post war press conference at the Pentagon General Eisenhower was asked if he considered the “ordinary SS trooper a war criminal”:

This is what I’d say: The SS trooper, up until it began to get desperate, or somewhere in September of 1944, I’d say anyone that was an SS trooper until that time would be a war criminal. After that…they would put any healthy man in it they could get hold of. He couldn’t help himself. …Except for the 12th SS. I think that the American Army as a unit will handle the 12th SS, every man they can get a hold of. They are the men who killed our people in cold blood…We hate everybody that ever wore a 12th SS uniform.12

That the perpetrators of the Malmedy Massacre would stand trial for their crimes seemed a forgone conclusion. That they should, or more importantly, would be found guilty also seemed self-evident. As events would soon make clear the prosecution sought to leave nothing to chance. Yet even the most comprehensive plains, carried out with the best of intentions often run afoul of the Laws Of Unintended Consequences. The Malmedy Trial was no exception.

From the very start, with the selection of the 75 defendants, controversy attached itself to the trial. The various Allied prison camps were combed for former members of Kampfgruppe Peiper but many were left behind “because the prosecution felt they had enough men of Kampfgruppe Peiper to try.”13 Besides, in order to prove that a criminal conspiracy existed, it was necessary to reserve space in the dock for several senior members of the Waffen-SS rather than still more lower ranking members of the kamfgruppe itself even though they may have been directly involved in the actual killing. To this end Sepp Dietrich, commander of the 6th SS Panzer Army, Fritz Kramer, his chief of staff, and Hermann Priess, the commander of the 1st SS Panzer Division were included among the accused. The focus of US Army investigators, however, would be upon those at the crossroads on December 17th, namely Peiper and his subordinates.

In the dock: #11 Sepp Dietrich, #33 Fritz Kramer, #45 Herman Priess and
#42 Jochen Peiper.

The prosecution went to great lengths to gather the evidence necessary for an airtight case. This included the calling of witnesses, both survivors of the massacre and Belgian civilians who were in the area, as well as former members of the SS who had knowledge of but had not participated in the massacre. However, the core of the case would be based upon the confessions of the accused themselves.

Testimony given by prosecution witnesses was often vague as to the nature of ostensible criminal acts or indefinite as to the individuals responsible for the crimes. Many of the nearly one hundred sworn statements [from the accused themselves] on the other hand, associated specific SS men with crimes that were described in exhaustive detail. If the statements were accepted by the court as literal truth or even close approximations thereof, the case against the defendants was sealed.14

But were the statements true, and were they given voluntarily or under duress? It was on this fine legal point that the fate of the 74 defendants rested. Unfortunately for the prosecution, their zeal in obtaining this “evidence” would be their undoing.

When led counsel for the defense Col. Everett was assigned to the Malmedy case he was less than enthusiastic about the defendants, and told his family “these ‘clients’ of ours were really some terrible murderers and probably the hangman’s rope would be mild punishment for them.”15 Even so, Everett intended to mount a vigorous defense firm in his belief that the American legal system was not only fair and impartial, but also strong enough to dispense justice to the defendants within the bounds set by the US Constitution, the Uniform Code of Military Justice and the Geneva Conventions of 1929. However, almost from the start, Everett had suspicions that the US Army, and more pointedly the prosecution, did not share his faith in American jurisprudence.

These fears were confirmed when Everett conducted his pre-trial interviews with his clients. (Or at least as many as he could in the limited time allotted to him for preparation prior to the trial’s start.) Peiper presented Everett with a written summary of the abuses he and his men had endured at the hands of the interrogators at Schwabish Hall. Physical beatings, mock trials, the use of hoods, false confessions and simulated executions (nooses placed around the neck or being positioned in front of a “firing squad”) were all alleged. Upon subsequent interviews Peiper’s men confirmed the abuse, and although some of their accounts seemed exaggerated the general points remained consistent. It was obvious to Everett and his team that the detailed confessions of the SS men, upon which the prosecution was relying, were anything but voluntary. Such ‘evidence’ would never pass judicial muster in any US court of law.

Colonel Everett brought this inconvenient fact to the attention of the officers sitting in judgment, but the prosecution had anticipated this objection (how could they not) and countered without missing a beat that it did not matter if the confessions were voluntary or not. As prosecutor Ellis saw it:

To admit a confession of the accused, it need not be shown such confession was voluntarily made and the Court may exclude it as worthless or admit it and give it such weight as in its opinion it may deserve after considering the facts and circumstances of its execution.16

The panel of eight judges agreed with Ellis and went even further. For although it was true, as the defense contended, that the Geneva Conventions protected prisoners or war from the methods used to obtain the confessions in questions, the accused were in fact not prisoners of war at all. The moment they committed the murders at the crossroads they became war criminals and lost all protection and rights provided by the Geneva Conventions for honorable soldiers. The confessions were admitted into evidence and given enough weight so as to seal the fate of the defendants. Colonel Everett continued to mount a dogged defense and did manage to score a minor point or two, but to little effect. After just two and one half hours of deliberation the eight officers sitting in judgment returned verdicts of guilty for 73 of the 74 defendants.17

Deciding how the SS men should be punished for their crimes took somewhat longer than deciding their guilt (a week as opposed to 2.5 hours) but there was little surprise when sentences were at last read in court. Of the 73, 42 were sentenced to death by hanging, 22 to imprisonment for life, and the remaining 9 to imprisonment of various lengths from 5 to 20 years.

Colonel Everett stands with SS Lieutenant Heinz Tomhardt as the
Military Tribunal sentences him to death.

From the moment the sentences were read in court Colonel Everett began a “crusade” to have the convictions overturned on the grounds of prosecutorial misconduct and judicial indifference. Besides using the normal military channels for judicial review, Everett attempted, over the next ten years, to have the case heard not only by the US Supreme Court (petition for a Writ of Habeas Corpus) but also the International Court of Justice in The Hague. Not surprisingly this caught the attention of the press whose reporting in turn piqued the interest of the US Congress. Hearings were held and investigations launched culminating in allegations of a whitewash made by none other than the junior senator from Wisconsin, Senator Joseph McCarthy.

The US Army concluded that the Malmedy Trial had perhaps not been their finest hour. Consequently all death sentences were commuted to life in prison and, upon additional review, reduced further still. In the end the last defendant to be released, Colonel Peiper, had served just over 11 and one half years. It was now 1956, the war was long over and America needed Germany as an ally in the looming struggle with the Soviet Union. Revenge was no longer the order of the day; it was now a time for reconciliation.

However, in terms of the Malmedy Massacre, the question remains: Was justice done?

No one, least of all Colonel Everett, ever contended that a war crime had not taken place. Clearly American soldiers had been shot and killed after surrendering, an undeniable violation of the rules of war. And although he made some arguments about extenuating circumstances (heat of battle, confused situation, etc.) Everett seems to have had little doubt about the guilt or innocence of his clients. The International Military Tribunal at Nuremburg had already declared the SS, including the Waffen-SS, a criminal organization, and the ranks of the Waffen-SS were full of those who had knowledge of and complicity in the worst crimes of the Third Reich. Colonel Peiper himself had once been Himmler’s adjutant and had accompanied him to a concentration camp to observe the experimental use of gas to kill camp inmates. Unlike many others, Peiper could never say that he did not know about the camps or what went on there.18 Even so, Everett did believe that no matter how heinous their crimes the defendants deserved a fair trial in the best traditions of the US Constitution and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. When the defendants did not receive that ‘fair trial’ their cause became his cause. This is a point worth remembering.

In our current “War On Terror” do we so doubt our cause that we must resort to the use of torture to obtain confessions that we can then use against the accused to order to secure convictions? Have we such little faith in our Constitution that we feel compelled to abandon the Writ of Habeas Corpus and the Bill of Rights? Is our thirst for vengeance so great that we do not trust our Uniform Code of Military Justice or 200 years of US jurisprudence to deliver justice? Or is that really the point – that what we are seeking now is revenge and not justice?

In 1946, in a Dachau courtroom, the answer was, unfortunately, yes. In 2006, in a Guantanamo courtroom, the answer must be no. We must proceed by the strictest rules and win on the merits of the case, or risk losing all that we fight to defend. Bush, in his zealous drive to win at any cost, may in fact cost us the very justice we claim to be seeking.

When asked at a 1948 press conference if there was any truth to allegations that mock trials were used to obtain confessions from the Malmedy Massacre defendants, Colonel Rosenfeld the Trial Judge Advocate for the case responded “Yes of course. We couldn’t have made those birds talk otherwise. It was a trick, and it worked like a charm.”19

The irony is, of course, that had Rosenfeld and the other judges held the prosecution to the highest ethical and legal standards the convictions and punishments the US Army sought might very well have stuck. However, built as they were on such flimsy foundations, they fell apart and the guilty kept their lives.

John Toland, one of the first historians to write about the Battle of the Bulge, summed up the Malmedy Trials with words that ring a warning for our own time:

Because of poor preparation, shocking irregularities and impassioned pleas for vengeance rather than facts, the Malmedy Trials pleased no one. Many of the documented atrocities went unpunished; men innocent of atrocities were thrown into prison. … Enemies of the United States continue to point out that Malmedy is a good example of American justice.20

Will historians say the same things about the Guantanamo Trials? Will history repeat itself? Only if those charged with conducting this war fail to heed the lessons of our own past. Given the events of the last few weeks, “compromise” and all, a repetition seems all but inevitable.

The ends never justify the means. In fact, the ends are only as honorable as the means employed to obtain them.

Addendum December 14, 2007

Ever since President Bush the senior first juxtaposed World War Two and Hitler with war in the Persian Gulf and Saddam (a line of reasoning continued with gusto by his son President Bush the younger and his cohort of Neo-con advisors) it seems that earlier war will forever be used to justify the later one even when such references provide no such justification.

A case in point was the recent dust up between Bill O’Reilly of Fox News and Keith Olbermann of MSNBC.

On October 3 of 2005 O’Reilly, in an interview with General Wesley Clark, made reference to the Malmedy Massacre, trying somehow to compare the release of photos from that incident to the release of photos of the crimes committed by US Army soldiers at Abu Ghraib. O’Reilly had mistakenly stated that US Troops had murdered Waffen-SS POW’s at Malmedy during the Battle of the Bulge. Countering General Clark’s call for the public release of the Abu Ghraib photos O’Reilly shot back “…you need to look at the Malmedy massacre in World War Two and the 82nd Airborne. You want those pictures out?”

Then on May 30th of 2007 while once more interviewing General Clark, this time regarding the killing of civilians by US soldiers at Haditha, O’Reilly yet again used the Malmedy massacre as a counter point to what was happening in Iraq displaying more brilliantly than before his total lack of knowledge or understanding when it comes to the history of the Second World War.

O’Reilly (to General Clark): “In Malmedy, as you know, US forces captured SS forces who had their hands in the air and they were unarmed and they shot them down. You know that. That’s on the record. Been documented.”

Not only did Olbermann take O’Reilly to task for these gross mischaracterizations, but even the Fox commentator’s loyal followers chimed in to point out his error which O’Reilly disingenuously acknowledged on his May 31st broadcast.

O’Reilly (responding to a viewer’s e-mail): “In the heat of the debate with General Clark, my statement wasn’t clear enough, Mr. Caldwell. After Malmedy, some [SS troops] were executed by American troops.”

While this statement is true (see End Notes #10 and #11) it is also abundantly clear that O’Reilly does not “get it.” How does the commission of one crime justify in any way the commission of another?

As we examined in the preceding pages, US Troops did kill German POW’s out of hand, often for simply being in a black uniform (under the mistaken notion that only Waffen-SS troops wore black uniforms). However, the German atrocities before and after Malmedy in no way justified these American crimes, and they in turn offer absolutely no justification for the crimes committed against Iraqi civilians at Haditha. O’Reilly seems to believe that because soldiers then had the implicit or even explicit approval of their officers (including senior Generals) and essentially “got away with murder” that soldiers now should have the same leeway. In fact just the opposite is true – these earlier crimes should act as a warning against the commission of similar crimes today.

While it might seem ironic that O’Reilly, a former high school history teacher, shows little knowledge or understanding of World War Two, it is perhaps emblematic of our times that a serving officer, a general no less, in the United States Air Force is just as ignorant of history. Even more embarrassing, Brigadier General Thomas Hartmann, chief legal advisor for the military trials at Guantanamo, is a distinguished graduate of the Air Force Academy and holds a Master of Arts degree in Modern European History from Stanford University.21 Presumably General Hartmann’s studies concentrated on post 1945 Europe, though it is difficult to believe that as a military officer and a lawyer he knows nothing about the Malmedy Massacre trials. Yet that would seem to be the case.

In recent testimony before the Senate (on December 12, 2007) General Hartmann refused to classify waterboarding as torture. Even when presented with a hypothetical case, of a captured US Air Force pilot being waterboarded by his captors, the general declined to call it torture. However, in the case of the Guantanamo detainees, the general did aver that if such interrogation techniques resulted in evidence that “is reliable and probative, and the judge concludes that it is in the best interest of justice to introduce that evidence, ma’am, those are the rules we will follow.”22

This is exactly the line of reasoning used by LTC. Ellis and accepted by the trial judge at the Malmedy Trials that allowed the use of the confessions gained under torture. Clearly we have learned nothing from history – even our own. As LTC Ellis before him, now General Hartmann seems to believe that the end justifies the means despite over 200 years of US jurisprudence to the contrary. Justice was ill served by such thinking at the Malmedy Trials and it will be ill served again at Guantanamo. Then end has never justified the means, and it never will. More to the point, the end is only as honorable as the means employed to obtain it.

It is abundantly clear that war makes criminals of us all for it demands of our soldiers actions that if committed at any other time we would punish with the utmost severity. That we, as a democratic republic, ask this of our soldiers puts the onus of responsibility, and guilt, for any crimes committed by them, squarely on our shoulders. So it is then that we should use our army with the greatest of care, sending it forth only when there is no other choice and only if we are willing to accept responsibility for what happens as a consequence of having “let slip the dogs of war.”23

Perhaps it is fitting, as we rapidly approach the 63rd anniversary of the Battle of the Bulge that we consider the words of the great writer, pacifist, and father of modern tabletop war games, HG Wells when he asked: “Why do we revile Dr. Moreau for attempting to turn animals into men when we routinely honor politicians and generals for turning men into animals?”24 Why indeed. We can only hope that in the 21st century we will learn at last how to be humans and not animals.

End Notes

1. Heinz Hohne, The Order Of The Death’s Head, pp.524-525. On April 22, 1941 Himmler issued a directive listing 179 units he considered part of the Waffen-SS. These units included not only those combat units fighting at the front under the direction of the OKW but also various rear area units to include the Concentration Camp Guards (Totenkopfverbande) and the Einsatzgruppen. See Masters Of Death by Richard Rhodes concerning the activities of the Einsatzgruppen and their inclusion within the Waffen-SS.

2. Saddam was a “Fascist Buffoon” who resembled Mussolini more than he did Hitler. Of course, that might not be fair to Mussolini, after all Mussolini did manage to get the trains to run on time. As for Saddam’s Republican Guard and their military prowess (or lack thereof) see Toppling Saddam: Iraq And The American Military Transformation by Dr. Stephen Biddle et al. pp.26-27 concerning the battle at Objective Montgomery in which an entire armor battalion (with supporting troops) of the Hammurabi Republican Guard division, armed with T72 tanks and in a textbook perfect ambush position caught A Troop of the 3-7 Cavalry in their trap. The Americans did not even realize they had run headlong into an ambush until they saw the muzzle flashes of the Iraqi tanks firing at them. However, what should have been a resounding Iraqi victory was in fact a decisive defeat. Not only did all of the Iraqi tanks miss their targets in that opening salvo, but within 10 minutes the Americans had destroyed the majority of the Iraqis and were able to move out of the trap without a single casualty.

3. In a memo To Bush, written while he was White House Legal Counsel, Gonzales states that the war on terrorism “renders obsolete Geneva’s strict limitations on questioning enemy prisoners and renders quaint some of its provisions.” Highlights of the Gonzales memo and General Colin Powell’s response, along with links to the originals in full are available on the Center For American Progress web site:
http://www.americanprogress.org/site/pp.asp?c=biJRJ8OVF&b=79532

4. How is it possible to have a compromise on torture? We will only use torture on Tuesdays & Thursdays and the other days we will limit ourselves to harsh language? See the LA Times Op/Ed of September 23, 2006 for a commentary by R. Simon and J. Barnes entitled: “Defense Lawyers Assail Legislation on Detainees” and a Times Editorial, “A Tortured Compromise” in the LA Times of September 24, 2006.

5. Originally 75 former members of the Waffen SS were selected to stand trial, however one committed suicide before the trial began (Arvid Freimuth) and another (Marcel Boltz) was transferred to French custody prior to deliberations because he was a French Citizen. French authorities subsequently released him due to a lack of evidence. See A Peculiar Crusade by James J Weingartner (2000, New York University Press) pages 72-74 for Freimuth and page 103 for Boltz.

6. There are, as might be expected, various accounts of what happened that day at the Baugnez crossroads. See: The Malmedy Massacre by John M Bauserman (White Mane Publishing 1995) p.30 for a German account claiming that fog obscured the field in which the Americans were held causing some passing units to believe the Americans were not POW’s but in fact active combatants.

Massacre At Malmedy by Charles Whiting (Stein & Day 1971) provides a straightforward narrative of the events that day and might be considered the standard.

Finally, there is a very interesting version related by one of the former defendants who attended a reunion of the Malmedy Massacre survivors and claims his version was corroborated by one of the survivors in attendance. This can be found at: http://www.scrapbookpages.com/DachauScrapbook/DachauTrials/MalmedyMassacre02.html

7. See testimony by 1st LT. Virgil P, Lary as reproduced in A Peculiar Crusade by Weingartner, p.61. See also Massacre At Malmedy by Whiting, p.49.

8. Whiting, Massacre At Malmedy pp.51-52.
Weingartner, A Peculiar Crusade pp.63-64.
Bauserman, The Malmedy Massacre pp.69-81.

9. Bauserman, The Malmedy Massacre p. 27.

10. Hastings, Max. Armageddon The Battle For Germany 1944-1945, c2000 Alfred A Knopf, p.209

See also the following web site on which the author talks about capturing a Tiger tank and upon questioning a crewmember about where he obtained GI issue boots and sweater was told “Malmedy.” As the site’s author puts it, “He should have taken the Fifth Amendment. Your web master thinks a dogface shot him in the backyard of the farmhouse where the headquarters was located.” http://www.737thtankbattalion.org/Memories

11. Hastings, Armageddon p.210.

12. Taylor, Telford. The Anatomy Of The Nuremberg Trials, c1992 Little, Brown & Company, p.110. Actually, General Eisenhower was off by a couple of years in his assessment of when the Nazis became desperate and started wholesale transfers and conscription into the Waffen-SS. See General Michael Reynolds’ book, Steel Inferno (Dell Books, 1997) pp. 18-19 for details on the transfer of Luftwaffe ground crews into the 1st SS Panzer Division (Hitler’s Bodyguard division) to replace losses suffered on the Russian Front. These former airmen had no say in the transfer – they were neither volunteers nor members of the Nazi Party, just ground crews with no planes to service.

13. Bauserman, The Malmedy Massacre p.30.

14. Weingartner, A Peculiar Crusade p.71.

15. Weingartner, A Peculiar Crusade p.40. In approaching his duties as Defense Counsel for the Malmedy Trial Colonel Everett, “…found the prospect of aiding Germans to offer ‘excuses’ for murdering American soldiers ‘in cold blood’ highly distasteful.” (Page 39.)

16. Weingartner, A Peculiar Crusade p.81. It should be noted that the Bush Administration is using this same rational to justify the use of confessions in the trial of “enemy combatants’ held at Guantanamo.

17. As noted above, SS-Sturmmann Marcel Boltz, who was born in Alsace, was turned over to French custody when Alsace returned to French control. Boltz, now a citizen of France was eventually released, the French finding the evidence against him less than compelling. Weingartner, A Peculiar Crusade pp.103-104. Interestingly, this was not the only time the French government would intervene on behalf of a French citizen being tired for war crimes while serving in the Waffen-SS. In the 1953 Oradour Massacre trial of 21former members of the 2nd SS Panzer Division Das Reich, 20 were found guilty of which 15 were from the French province of Alsace. That they were members of the Waffen-SS was bad enough, but that they had also participated in perhaps the ugliest war crime to take place in France during World War II was even worse. However, the verdicts caused severe unrest in Alsace to the point that the French Assembly voted an amnesty for 14 Alsatians. (One Alsatian, a volunteer for the SS, along with a German remained under a sentence of death.) This of course angered the survivors in Oradour as well as the German government who protested that only Germans remained liable for punishment. In the end all death sentences were commuted to prison terms and by 1958 all had been freed. See Martyred Village, by Sara Farmer (University of California Press, 1999) pp.135-170.

18. Peiper was a fascinating character, intelligent and sophisticated, yet at the same time a cold and ruthless killer. Although his formal education ended with high school, he was well read and fluent in French and English as well as German. After gradation from high school he joined the SS as a member of Hitler’s bodyguard regiment, the Leibstandarte, rising through the ranks based upon his merits as a leader. Peiper ended the war as a highly decorated colonel and a convicted war criminal. After his release from prison in 1956 he worked as a manager with Porsche and then Volkswagen, however, is past kept catching up to him. He finally settled in France with his wife and children, making a living translating military histories. Peiper died on Bastille Day 1976, when his home was firebombed. Though most suspect either Resistance veterans or French communists the crime remains, officially, unsolved.

19. Weingartner, A Peculiar Crusade p.172

The Dachau Scrapbook web site Malmedy Trial section. http://www.scrapbookpages.com/DachauScrapbook/DachauTrials/MalmedyMassacre02.html

20. Michael Reynolds gives a good summation of the Malmedy Trial, including John Toland’s critique, in his book The Devil’s Adjutant (Sarpedon 1995) See in particular pages 252-259. Toland’s quote from his own book, Battle: The Story Of The Bulge, appears on page 258.

21. From General Hartmann’s official Bio found on the US Air Force web site. http://www.af.mil/bios/bio.asp?bioID=10078

22. Transcript of testimony by Air Force Brigadier General Thomas Hartmann before the US Senate Judiciary Committee on December 12, 2007

23. William Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, Act 3 Scene 1

24. I have not yet been able to pin down this quote and so can not, beyond a shadow of a doubt, be certain where or when HG Wells wrote this. It is also possible that some one else said this about HG Wells’ work. The only thing that I am certain of is that I did not write this myself – but I wish I had.

Sources Consulted

Bauserman, John M. The Malmedy Massacre. Shippensburg: White Mane Publishing, 1995.

Bender, Roger James & Hugh Page Taylor. Uniforms, Organization And History Of The Waffen-SS. Vol. I. Palo Alto: R James Bender Publishing, 1969.

Biddle, Stephen, et al. Toppling Saddam: Iraq And American Military Transformation. US Army Internal Study, 2004.

Farmer, Sarah. Martyred Village. Berkeley: Univ. of California Press, 1999.

Hastings, Max. Armageddon The Battle For Germany 1944-1945. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2004.

Hohne, Heinz. The Order Of The Death’s Head. New York: Ballantine Books, 1969.

Rhodes, Richard. Masters Of Death: The SS-Einsatzgruppen And The Invention Of The Holocaust. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2002.

Reynolds, Michael. Steel Inferno: 1st SS Panzer Corps In Normandy. New York: Dell, 1997

Reynolds, Michael. The Devil’s Adjutant: Jochen Peiper, Panzer Commander.
New York: Sarpedon, 1995

Taylor, Telford. The Anatomy Of The Nuremberg Trials. Boston: Little, Brown & Company, 1992.

Weingartner, James J. A Peculiar Crusade: Wills M Everett And The Malmedy Massacre. New York: New York Univ. Press, 2000.

Whiting, Charles. Massacre At Malmedy: The Story Of Jochen Peiper’s Battle Group Ardennes, December, 1944. New York: Stein And Day, 1971.

Halloween 2008 A Return to Ancient Rome

2008-11-06T22:07:00.000-08:00

Roman Centurion joined by Warewolf, Anakin Skywalker, and Anime Slayer

Centurion K before the Standards

Being a Centurion is serious business

Centurion fully dressed with red tunic, chain mail, military cloak, helmet with transverse crest and wearing his medals.

You can do almost anything with cardboard, gaff tape, and a sharp knife.

Instinct For War

2008-01-11T14:28:00.000-08:00

"It is tempting to close one's eyes to history and instead to speculate about the roots of war in some possible animal instinct: as if, like the tiger, we still had to kill to live, or, like the Robin Redbreast, to defend a nesting territory. But war, organized war, in not a human instinct. It is a highly planned and cooperative form of theft." -- Jacob Bronowski from The Ascent Of Man

The Pacific War Gamer

2007-11-15T22:26:00.000-08:00

Friday, March 31, 2006

The Pacific War Gamer

"And if I might for a moment trumpet!
How much better is this amiable miniature than the real thing! Here is a homeopathic remedy for the imaginative strategist. Here is the premeditation, the thrill, the strain of accumulating victory or disaster -- and no smashed nor sanguinary bodies, no shattered fine buildings nor devastated country sides, no petty cruelties, none of that awful universal boredom and embitterment, that tiresome delay or stoppage or embarrassment of every gracious, bold, sweet, and charming thing, that we who are old enough to remember a real modern war know to be the reality of belligerence.

This world is for ample living; we want security and freedom; all of us in every country, except a few dull-witted, energetic bores, want to see the manhood of the world at something better than apeing the little lead toys our children buy in boxes. We want fine things made for mankind -- splendid cities, open ways, more knowledge and power, and more and more and more, -- and so I offer my game, for a particular as well as a general end; and let us put this prancing monarch and that silly scaremonger and these excitable 'patriots,' and those adventurers, and all the practitioners of Welt Politik, into one vast Temple Of War with cork carpets everywhere, and plenty of little trees and little houses to knock down, and cities and fortresses, and unlimited soldiers -- tons, cellars-full, -- and let them lead their own lives there away from us.

Great War is at present, I am convinced, not only the most expensive game in the universe, but it is a game out of all proportion. Not only are the masses of men and material and suffering and inconvenience too monstrously big for reason, but -- the available heads for it, are too small. That, I think, is the most pacific realisation conceivable, and Little War brings you to it as nothing else but Great War can do."

H.G. Wells from his book of war game rules: Little Wars published in 1913.

H.G. Wells is well known as a writer of science fiction (War Of The Worlds, The Time Machine) and, to a lesser extent, as an ardent socialist and pacifist. However, he is also considered the father of miniature wargaming. His books Floor Games (1911) and Little Wars (1913) and considered the first rules published for recreational wargames. It is reported that Wells converted his attic into a miniature wargame battlefield complete with terrain, buildings and toy soldiers. He often invited dinner guests to play opposing generals and they would spend hours on their hands and knees maneuvering their armies in games that lasted long into the night.

Now, the obvious question is why a steadfast pacifist would devote so much time and energy, and take such delight and pleasure in playing war games. The answer, of course, is just as obvious -- Wells understood the difference between games and reality and could separate the two. This is a concept that some people, both supporters and critics of games in general and war games in particular, seem unable to grasp.

Thanks to:
The Imaginative Strategist web site at which the above quotation was first seen. www.imaginative-strategist.layfigures.com
And...
Wikipedia for their article on H.G.Wells
Also of note...
The H.G.Wells Society
www.hgwellsusa.50megs.com