Collected Miscellany

The Rise and Fall of the Second Largest Empire in History: How Genghis Khan’s Mongols Almost Conquered the World by Thomas J. Craughwell is about the rocket-fast expansion of the Mongol Empire under Genghis Khan to its equally rapid disintegration under Genghis’ grandchildren – including Kublai Khan.  Craughwell chronicles all of the events in between and how the Mongol Empire influenced not only Asia, but also the Middle East and Europe as well.

It is hard to imagine unassuming Mongolia being a world power – the most powerful in the world – but this was the case for a brief period in history.  This rise to power was led by Genghis Khan – arguably the greatest conqueror in world history.  Craughwell describes how Genghis generally took a no-prisoners policy in his conquests – killing tens of millions of people.  

Craughwell not only chronicles the expansion and contraction of the empire, but also the tactics used by Genghis and his followers to conquer so much territory in so little time.  In short, they brought devastating tactics to bear on their opponents – super fast light cavalry with far superior bows.  Their horses were more agile and had more stamina then their opponents’ mounts and their bows could shoot arrows much farther than any of their opponents.   In addition, the Mongol warriors were superior riders with excellent archery skills.

Reading the exploits of the Mongols, it is hard to imagine that they conquered an area from Hungary to the China, including much of modern-day Russia and many areas of the Middle East.  The fact that the Mongolian military conquered all of this land area with an estimated strength of no more than half a million.  Many times they defeated foes that were two, three, or five times larger.

Craughwell provides a lot of information in a small amount of space – 272 pages.  His writing style is easy to follow and understand.  He includes 125 color pictures, including several good maps.

This book would be an excellent addition to a person’s military history collection.

I finished James Bradley’s The Imperial Cruise: A Secret History of Empire and War a few days ago and I have been thinking about the book ever since.  He writes about an ugly period of our country’s foreign policy – when the United States joined the ranks of the colonial powers by its acquisition of the Philippines, Puerto Rico, Hawaii, and Cuba (Cuba for a brief period).  Our leaders at the time cloaked our colonization in terms of helping the natives to become civilized and then giving them back their sovereignty once they were civilized.

The book centers around the 1905 cruise led by Secretary of War William Howard Taft that visited the Phillipines, Japan, China, and Korea and that had a secret agenda – Taft was ordered by President Theodore Roosevelt to make an unofficial treaty with Japan that encouraged the Japanese to adopt their own “Monroe Doctrine” for Asia.  Bradley claims that this secret treaty caused the Japanese to be more aggressive in their foreign affairs and eventually led to war with the United States (Bradley never explains how this treaty led to the events of World War II in the Pacific – there were too many other events that occurred between the signing and the beginning of World War II).

I do think that Bradley is dead-on with his criticism of Taft – he knew practically nothing of the countries he was visiting, but he was our lead diplomat in the tour.  In trying to project a strong American image, Taft came across at times as clueless.  Bradley states that Taft was sent because he was a front man and “yes” man for Roosevelt (apparently Roosevelt was the de facto Secretary of State and Secretary of War).

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The World’s Bloodiest History: Massacre, Genocide, and the Scars They Left on Civilization by Joseph  is not a book about the happiest of topics, but it does provide some interesting insights.  The book has examples of some highlights, or should I say lowlights, of human history – how we so easily kill those who are different from us.

The book begins with the Roman sacking of Carthage in 146 BCE and ends with the massacre of Bosnian Muslims by Christian Serbs in Bosnia-Herzegovina in 1995. Cummins covers many of the largest atrocities committed in history, but he also describes some not so well-known.  They all share the common link of being turning points in history.  For example, Cummins mentions the massacre of Cheyenne Indians (mainly women, children, and elderly) by Colorado militia in 1864.  He argues that this action triggered Indian uprisings and attacks across the West - more importantly it convinced the various Indian tribes that they could not trust the whites (they had signed a peace treaty and wrongly assumed they were safe).  After this, some of the worst fighting in the history of warfare between Indians and whites occurred.

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In an effort to expand my military history knowledge, I decided to read about the Italian Front during World War I.  Generally, this part of the war set Italy against the Austro-Hungarian Empire.  Mark Thompson traces the reasons for Italian intervention, the fighting between the two adversaries, and the ramifications of Italy’s participation in the Allied victory in his book entitled The White War: Life and Death on the Italian Front, 1915-1919.

Here is a brief description of the book from the publisher’s website:

In May 1915, Italy declared war on the Habsburg Empire. Nearly 750,000 Italian troops were killed in savage, hopeless fighting on the stony hills north of Trieste and in the snows of the Dolomites. To maintain discipline, General Luigi Cadorna restored the Roman practice of decimation, executing random members of units that retreated or rebelled. With elegance and pathos, historian Mark Thompson relates the saga of the Italian front, the nationalist frenzy and political intrigues that preceded the conflict, and the towering personalities of the statesmen, generals, and writers drawn into the heart of the chaos. A work of epic scale, The White War does full justice to the brutal and heart-wrenching war that inspired Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms.

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I have always been interested in the history of individual military units, especially ones written by a former member.  Thus, I was intrigued by Edward Posey’s The U.S. Army’s First, Last, and Only All-Black Rangers when I found out about it.  Although the unit was only in existence for ten months during the Korean War, its members proved to many skeptics (some high ranking generals in the Army) that African-Americans could fight.  I believe their example and the efforts of others pushed the Army leadership in Korea (and worldwide) to finally end segregation in the U.S. Army - the armed forces were ordered to desegregate by President Truman, but the Army took its sweet time in carrying out the order.

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Armies of the Napoleonic Wars: An Illustrated History, edited by Chris McNab, is a wonderful resource for any Napoleonic Wars buff.  The book is a compilation of several booklets on this subject published by Osprey Publishing.

Here is a brief description of the book from the publisher:

The Napoleonic Wars saw almost two decades of brutal fighting, from the frozen wastelands of Russia to the wildness of the Peninsula; from Egypt’s Lower Nile to the bloody battlefield of Waterloo. Fighting took place on an unprecedented scale across Europe, and over the entire period of the wars Napoleon led his Grand Armee and his allies against almost every European nation, and against varying coalitions. This book provides a comprehensive guide to all the major armies of the Napoleonic Wars, of France, Britain, Austria, Prussia, Russia, Spain and Portugal. Covering the changes experienced by the armies over the period, the author details the organization, infantry, cavalry, and artillery of each. With stunning original artwork of the often glorious uniforms worn into battle, period illustrations or the equipment used, and photographs, this is a beautiful and in-depth study of the armies that fought in the Napoleonic campaigns.

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