On this day in military history - 17 November (1st/7th Cav)

[Woodmonkey]

1636 - Henrique Dias, Brazilian general, wins a decisive battle against the Dutch in Brazil.

1796 - Napoleon Bonaparte defeats an Italian army near the Alpone River, Italy.

1856 - U.S. establishes Fort Buchanan:* On this day, the United States buttresses its control over the Gadsden Purchase with the establishment of Fort Buchanan. Named for recently elected President James Buchanan, Fort Buchanan was located on the Sonoita River in present-day southern Arizona.* The U.S. acquired the bulk of the southwestern corner of the nation from Mexico in 1848 as victors' spoil after the Mexican War. However, congressional leaders, eager to begin construction of a southern railroad, wished to push the border farther to the south. The government directed the American minister to Mexico, James Gadsden, to negotiate the purchase of an additional 29,000 square miles.* Despite having been badly beaten in war only five years earlier and forced to cede huge tracts of land to the victorious Americans, the Mexican ruler Santa Ana was eager to do business with the U.S. Having only recently regained power, Santa Ana was in danger of losing office unless he could quickly find funds to replenish his nearly bankrupt nation. Gadsden and Santa Ana agreed that the narrow strip of southwestern desert land was worth $10 million. When the treaty was signed on December 30, 1853, it became the last addition of territory (aside from the purchase of Alaska in 1867) to the continental United States. The purchase completed the modern-day boundaries of the American West.* The government established Fort Buchanan to protect emigrants traveling through the new territory from the Apache Indians, who were strongly resisting Anglo incursions. However, the government was never able to fulfill its original purpose for buying the land and establishing the fort-a southern transcontinental railroad. With the outbreak of the Civil War four years later, northern politicians abandoned the idea of a southern line in favor of a northern route that eventually became the Union Pacific line.

1862 - Union General Ambrose Burnside marches north out of Washington, D.C., to begin the Fredericksburg campaign.

1863 - Siege of Knoxville, Tennessee, begins:* Confederate General James Longstreet places the city of Knoxville, Tennessee, under siege. After two weeks and one failed attack, he abandoned the siege and rejoined General Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia.* The Knoxville campaign began in November when Longstreet took 17,000 troops from Chattanooga and moved to secure eastern Tennessee for the Confederates. Longstreet's corps was normally part of Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia, but after the Battle of Gettysburg in July, Longstreet took two of his divisions to shore up the Confederate effort in the West. He and his troops participated in the victory at Chickamauga in September and the siege of Chattanooga in October and November. Longstreet quarreled with Braxton Bragg, the Confederate commander in the West, and he was given independent command of the Department of East Tennessee.* Longstreet took his 17,000 troops and moved toward Knoxville. Facing him was General Ambrose Burnside and 5,000 Yankees. Burnside fought a delaying action at Campbell Station on November 16 before retreating into the Knoxville defenses. The next day, Longstreet pulled into position around the north side of the city, but he could not cut off supplies to the Union troops. Longstreet waited for reinforcements to arrive, which they did on November 28. He attacked, but was repulsed with heavy loses. Longstreet continued the siege in order to draw troops away from Chattanooga. The ruse worked, and 25,000 Union troops were dispatched from Chattanooga to chase Longstreet's force away.* Ultimately, Longstreet retreated back to Virginia. His Knoxville campaign was disappointing for the Confederates, who had hoped to secure eastern Tennessee. Longstreet rejoined Lee in the spring after his disappointing turn as head of an independent command.

1877 - Russia launches a surprise night attack that overruns Turkish forces at Kars, Armenia.

1885 - The Serbian Army, with Russian support, invades Bulgaria.

1887 - Monty is born:* On this day in 1887, Bernard Law Montgomery, British general and one of the most formidable Allied commanders of the war, as well as one of the most disliked, is born in London.* A graduate of the Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst, Montgomery fought in World War I with distinction, leading an infantry platoon in an attack at Ypres, Belgium, the site of three major battles and many British casualties. Between wars, Montgomery stayed in the army as an instructor, rising in reputation as a tough-minded leader.* During the Second World War, Montgomery took command of the 3rd Army Division as part of the British Expeditionary forces in France, but had to be evacuated at Dunkirk. Two years later, in August 1942, Prime Minister Winston Churchill gave Montgomery command of the British 8th Army, which had been pushed across North Africa into Egypt by German General Erwin Rommel. Needless to say, British morale was low-but not for long. "We will stand and fight here. If we can't stay here alive, then let us stay here dead," Monty declared in his typical braggadocio style, and proceeded to push Rommel into retreat at the Battle of el-Alamein--all the way to Tunisia. Rommel was finally recalled to Europe, and the Germans surrendered their position in North Africa altogether in May 1943.* It was during preparations for Operation Overlord, the D-Day invasion of France, that Montgomery's prickly personality ran straight into Gen. Dwight Eisenhower, supreme commander of the operation. Montgomery and his 21st Army Group performed admirably in France, keeping the Germans turned in one direction as American forces attacked from the other. But Eisenhower often rejected many of Monty's strategic proposals, deeming them overly cautious (he was unwilling to move until all the resources and men necessary for optimum results were in place). Ike also thought Montgomery unable and unwilling to strain every last bit of advantage from every strategic gain.* Monty, for his part, did little to hide a haughty disdain for Eisenhower-not to mention his desire to take complete control of land forces. After receiving the surrender of the German northern armies in 1945, Monty held a press conference in which he all but took credit for salvaging a disintegrating American-led operation. He was almost removed from his command for this outrageous, and groundless, contention. By war's end, virtually no American commanding officer, including Generals Omar Bradley and George Patton, was speaking to Montgomery.* After the war, Monty was made a viscount and a knight of the garter. Among the offices he held was deputy commander of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), Supreme Headquarters, Allied Powers in Europe. He also went on to write a number of treatises on warfare, as well as his Memoirs (1958). He died in 1976 at the age of 88. He would be remembered as one of the most gifted British commanders of the war-but more by his troops than by his American counterparts.

1918 - German troops evacuate Brussels.

1941 - German Luftwaffe general and World War I fighter-ace Ernst Udet commits suicide. The Nazi government tells the public that he died in a flying accident.

1965 - 1st Cavalry unit ambushed in the Ia Drang Valley:* During part of what would become known as the Battle of the Ia Drang Valley, a battalion from the 1st Cavalry Division is ambushed by the 8th Battalion of the North Vietnamese 66th Regiment. The battle started several days earlier when the 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry engaged a large North Vietnamese force at Landing Zone X-Ray at the base of the Cheu Pong hills (Central Highlands).* As that battle subsided, the 2nd Battalion, 7th Cavalry, was ordered to move cross-country to Landing Zone Albany, where it was to be picked up by helicopter and moved to a new location. The U.S. unit was moving through the jungle in a long column when the North Vietnamese sprang a massive ambush along the length of the column from all sides. Companies C and D took the brunt of the Communist attack--within minutes, most of the men from the two companies were hit.* The North Vietnamese forces had succeeded in engaging the U.S. forces in very tight quarters, where supporting U.S. firepower could not be used without endangering American lives. The cavalrymen returned fire, but the Communistss were fighting from prepared fighting positions and many of the American leaders had been felled in the initial stages of the ambush. As night fell, the cavalrymen waited for the North Vietnamese to attack but illumination flares provided by air force aircraft made the enemy cautious. By morning, they had withdrawn.* Senior U.S. military leaders declared the Battle of the Ia Drang Valley an American victory. That had clearly been the case with the fight at Landing Zone X-Ray, where the three-day battle resulted in 834 North Vietnamese soldiers confirmed killed with another 1,000 communist casualties likely. However, the battle at Landing Zone Albany was another story. Although there were over 400 enemy soldiers lying on the battlefield after the fighting was over, the battle had been an extremely costly one for the 1st Cavalry troopers. Of the 500 men in the original column moving to Landing Zone Albany, 150 had been killed and only 84 were able to return to immediate duty. 93 percent of Company C sustained some sort of wound or injury--half of them died.* The Battle of the Ia Drang Valley was important because it was the first significant contact between U.S. troops and North Vietnamese forces. The action demonstrated that the North Vietnamese were prepared to stand and fight major battles, and senior American leaders concluded that U.S. forces could wreak significant damage on the communists in such battles. The North Vietnamese also learned a valuable lesson during the battle: they saw that they could negate the effects of superior American firepower by engaging American troops in physically close combat, so that U.S. artillery and air fire could not be used without endangering American lives. This became standard North Vietnamese practice for the rest of the war.

1970 - My Lai trial begins:* The court-martial of 1st Lt. William Calley begins. Calley, a platoon leader in Charlie Company, 1st Battalion, 20th Infantry, 11th Infantry Brigade (Light) of the 23rd (Americal) Division, had led his men in a massacre of Vietnamese civilians, including women and children, at My Lai 4 on March 16, 1968. My Lai 4 was one of a cluster of hamlets that made up Son My village in the northern area of South Vietnam.* The company had been conducting a search-and-destroy mission as part of the yearlong Operation Wheeler/Wallowa (November 1967-November 1968). In search of the 48th Viet Cong Local Force Battalion, the unit entered the village but found only women, children, and old men. Frustrated by unanswered losses due to snipers and mines, the soldiers took out their anger on the villagers, indiscriminately shooting innocent people as they ran from their huts. They then systematically rounded up the survivors, allegedly leading them to nearby ditch and killing them.* Calley was charged with six specifications of premeditated murder. During the trial, Chief Army Prosecutor Capt. Aubrey Daniel charged that Calley ordered Sgt. Daniel Mitchell to "finish off the rest" of the rounded-up villagers. The prosecution stressed that all the killings were committed despite the fact that Calley's platoon had met no resistance and that no one had fired on the men.* The My Lai massacre was initially covered up, but came to light a year later. An Army board of inquiry, headed by Lt. Gen. William Peers, investigated the massacre and produced a list of 30 persons who knew of the atrocity, but only 14, including Calley and his company commander, Capt. Ernest Medina, were charged with crimes. All eventually had their charges dismissed or were acquitted by courts-martial except Calley, whose platoon allegedly killed 200 innocent people.* Calley was found guilty of personally murdering 22 civilians and sentenced to life imprisonment, but his sentence was reduced to 20 years by the Court of Military Appeals and further reduced to 10 years by the Secretary of the Army. Proclaimed by much of the public as a "scapegoat," Calley was paroled in 1974.