Category Archives: Military History

THE ROYAL ALTERNATIVE – DUKE OF AOSTA; “THAT’S WHAT THEY WANT!”

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The Duke stands in the middle of the Third Army Monument in Torino.
The Duke of Aosta stands in the middle of the Third Army Monument in Torino.

Right around the southeast corner of the former Royal Palace in Torino stands an old Roman gate, repurposed on the west side into the Palazzo Madama, the first Senate of the Kingdom of Italy and today a museum of art dating back to the late Middle Ages.  The museum opens up onto Piazza Castello to the west with a statue dedicated to the army of Sardinia which played a significant role in the Risorgimiento.  On the east side, past the two remaining Roman towers, stands a large monument mounted by two groups of four soldiers with a large, somewhat brooding man standing alone, fists clenched, looking to the east.  This man depicted is Emanuele Filiberto Vittorio Eugenio Alberto Genova Giuseppe Maria di Savoia, Duke of Aosta and a a cousin of Italy’s king Victor Emanuel III.  

Filiberto, during World War One, led the Italian Third Army against the Austro-Hungarian forces on the Carso for two years from June 1915 until October 1917.  Erected between 1933 and 1937 after the general’s death in Torino in 1931, the bronze statue stands cast from four captured artillery pieces, the “Statue in a Coat” – “statua in un cappotto”.  The monument memorializes the “Undefeated Duke” of the “Undefeated Third Army” – “la armatta invitta”.

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GAS, SILENT KILLER, CAVES IN THE FRONT AT BOVEC

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Sheep huddling on side of airfield - Men of Italian 87th Regiment died in gulley just below the trees behind.
Bovec sheep huddling on side of airfield – Men of Italian 87th Regiment died in gulley just below the trees behind.

Early in the morning of 24 October 1917, the newly constituted Austro-German 14th Army launched the Caporetto Offensive – known on the Austrian side as the Das Wunder von Karfeit or the Miracle of Caporetto. An integral part of the “miracle” was “Der Durchbruch bei Flitsch” – “The Breakthrough at Bovec”. In the two-pronged offensive, the use of gas shaped the deadly results in both zones of the attack.

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KÄRTNER SPERREN – LOCKING THE DOOR IN THE JULIAN ALPS

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Looking down on Fort Kluže from Fort Hermann.
Looking down on Fort Kluže from Fort Hermann.

After the crushing loss suffered by the Austro-Hungarian Empire at the battle of Sadowa in 1866, The Empire lost more lands in Italy to the Kingdom of Savoy.  The entire Veneto added to earlier losses of Lombardy and smaller duchies in central Italy like Tuscany.  Austria’s old defense system centered around the forts of the Quadrilateral.  Those forts were all given up after 1866 with the loss of the Veneto and Friulian.  A totally new defensive system became needed – enter the Kärtner Sperren.

In the far northeast of Italy, Austrian fortifications were not as elaborate as those in South Tyrol.  Here, a modern fort system developed in the early 20th century to both defend and to serve as a potential base for offensive operations against potential Italian aggression – even though, Italy supposedly was an ally to Austria-Hungary.

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PLAYERS OF THE CAYUSE WAR REVISITED

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Cayuse men on horseback – from Lee Moorhouse photo collection – University of Oregon Special Digital Collections; photo is from about 1900.

Warfare erupted from the killings of Marcus and Narcissa Whitman at their mission along the Walla Walla River at Waiilatpu.  Like most wars, they are easier to extinguish than to begin.  Here are some of those involved with the Cayuse War, a “war” having grievous results for the Natives belonging to the Cayuse peoples and directly transforming the state of government in the Pacific Northwest.

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MCCLELLAN ON A JOURNEY OF DISCOVERY IN THE NORTHWEST

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Sign noting McClellan's passage through the dense forests of the southern Cascades.
Sign noting McClellan’s passage through the dense forests of the southern Cascades.

As future generals for the Federal Army during the Civil War, Ulysses S. Grant and Philip Sheridan are also remembered for their service in the Pacific Northwest during the 1850’s.  Another, George Brinton McClellan made a cameo appearance. He led a group tasked with identifying a possible rail route through the Cascades.  In addition, they potential were to build a military road across the mountain chain so emigrant wagons could more easily reach the Puget Sound of Washington Territory.  This reconnaissance gave McClellan his first extended period of independent command since graduating from West Point with the Class of 1846.

Before George McClellan became the leading Federal general in the early Civil War, he served in the wilds of Washington, surveying for railroad routes.

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U.S. GRANT – OREGON STRINGS TIED TO THE CIVIL WAR

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1854 view of Columbia Barracks looking south across the Columbia River to Oregon. James Madison Alden – Yale Collection of American Literature, Yale University, CT

Oregon, California and the western territories of the United States played little roles in the devastation seen in the East known as the American Civil War.  In the era before transcontinental rail, the two Pacific states were simply too far away to matter much in the conflagration.  To reach the far west, six months needed to come into play, whether the journey was overland or by sea – choice there of around Cape Horn or across the disease-ridden Isthmus of Panama.  A surprisingly number of men with Oregon ties did play roles in the titanic struggles.  Most of those men had military ties to the Northwest, spending time on duty in the 1850’s helping bring order and stability to the newly settling lands of Oregon, California and Washington Territory.  The most famous soldiers who spent time in Oregon, one Ulysses S. Grant.

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JAMES NESMITH – PIONEER TO THE SENATE – FORGOTTEN OREGON GIANT

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Final resting place of James W. Nesmith
Final resting place of James W. Nesmith

Oregon in its early days featured many folks who by today’s standards would score very low with Political Correctness points.  James Willis Nesmith falls into that category, but with some redeeming qualities.  One of Oregon’s first politicians, his time began with the Provisional Government, extending through the Territorial period well into Oregon’s early Statehood years.  A member of the so-called Salem Clique, a group of Democratically inclined politicians who were prominent in that era, Nesmith outlasted the Clique’s breakup with the Civil War, serving as one of Oregon’s senators through the war years. 

He was one of only eight Democratic senators – four Border State Democrats and four Union Democrats – to vote in favor of the 13th Amendment outlawing slavery.  He abstained from the senate vote on the 14th allowing equal rights to all citizens under the law.  Here, he was following the lead of President Andrew Johnson, a fellow Unionist.  His allegiance to his fellow Democrat would cost him in the years to come.

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REVISITING THE “CAYUSE WAR” – MURDER, REVENGE AND A NEW TERRITORY

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Print from a wood-engraving by N. Orr & Co., originally published in Frances Fuller Victor’s, The River of the West, circa 1870.

Early relationships between European newcomers and Native Americans living in the Pacific Northwest certainly went no better than in most other regions of the Americas.  European supremacy became much easier through early introduction of disease, an actual prelude in many cases to actual ethnic introductions.  Bad as the era directly before the two peoples came together face to face was, disease continued to inflict the Native populations, a factor leading directly to ill will and what became known as the “Cayuse War” in 1847.

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EVOKING EPIC STRUGGLES FROM A TEMPESTOUS TIME ON MENGORE

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Aljaž-like refuge atop Mengore – only large enough for pigeons, however.

There are several open-air museums relating to the ghastly events of World War 1 along the Soca-Isonzo River valley. Six are found in the upper reaches from Bovec in the north to Tolmin in the south. Here, we concentrate on those found on three hillocks – one being Mengore – across the river from Tolmin on the west side which made up the Tolmin Bridgehead.

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CAPORETTO OSSUARY – CATRASTROPHIC DEFEAT REVISED AS A NEW BEGINNING

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Road entrance leading from Kobarid up to the Italian Ossuary.

Over 600,000 Italians lie dead on the battlefields of the Great War with another 170,000 dying of illness or wounds in hospitals further back.  Buried in small battlefield cemeteries, like elsewhere across the destroyed landscapes of Europe, remains in the small cemeteries were gathered up into larger cemeteries.  Unlike the American example of offering repatriation of remains to families – two thirds of American families opted for that option – here in Italy, only about 50,000 remains returned to the families.  By 1927, too many cemeteries remained for the State to maintain upkeep.  So, the huge ossuaries – charnel houses, in England – came onto the scene. Here at the Caporetto Ossuary, mythology transposed defeat into victory of sorts. A victory leading to the Blackshirt March on Rome; a renewed and greater Italy.

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