A Sports Dispute Started the Cuban Missile Crisis and Other Odd Facts

39. Baseball vs Soccer and the Cuban Missile Crisis

After the humiliating failure of the Bay of Pigs Invasion in 1961, the Kennedy administration became leery of further entanglements in Cuba. Then in September of 1962, a CIA analyst spotted numerous soccer fields along the Cuban coast, and grew concerned. Cubans did not commonly play soccer, but do you know who did? Russians. The presence of soccer fields allowed American analysts to figure out that there were Soviets around.

The CIA deduced that the soccer fields indicated the presence of Soviet military camps nearby, and between that and other intelligence, Kennedy authorized U2 spy planes to overfly Cuba and see what was going on. Aerial photography revealed not only a significant presence of Soviets in Cuba, but even more significantly, the presence of Soviet missiles that could reach much of the continental US, including Washington, DC, within a few minutes. The result was the Cuban Missile Crisis.

38. “Cubans Play Baseball. Russians Play Soccer”

The Cold War superpowers came eyeball to eyeball over the Soviet missiles in Cuba in 1962, until the Soviets blinked. An understanding was reached between JFK and Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev, whereby America agreed to not invade Cuba in exchange for the Soviets removing their missiles from the island. Things then calmed down for 8 years, until soccer and Cuba helped trigger another crisis.

In 1970, Cuba began expanding naval facilities in Cayo Alcatraz, an island in the port of Cienfuegos, just as a flotilla of Soviet nuclear missile submarines was headed there. That September, US National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger burst into the office of Nixon’s chief of staff, H.R. Haldeman, and slapped U2 photos of the Cuban naval expansion, including soccer fields near Cienfuegos. “Those soccer fields mean war, Bob“, Kissinger exclaimed. “Cubans play baseball. Russians play soccer“. A Cuban Missile Crisis 2.0 was in the offing.

37. The Missing Baseball Diamonds

Evidence that Cayo Alcatraz was being developed as a Soviet base consisted not only of what spy plane photos showed but also of what they did not show. Facilities included a soccer field, plus tennis, volleyball, and basketball courts – all sports that Cubans did not commonly play, but that Soviets did. Most telling was that the facilities did not include the one sport that Cubans were crazy for: there were no baseball diamonds.

The CIA concurred, and in a congressional briefing, then CIA Director Richard Helms told the legislators: “clinching the case that all this was for Soviet — not Cuban — use, there are sports facilities for soccer, tennis and volleyball only, and we have yet to see a major Cuban military installation that does not provide for ‘beisbol’“. Under US pressure, the Soviets backed down, the crisis fizzled, and the Cubans left the Cayo Alcatraz naval base unfinished.

36. ‘Beisbol‘ Repeatedly Tipped the Cubans’ Hand Throughout the Cold War

Cubans’ love of baseball made baseball diamonds a ubiquitous part of the Cuban landscape. That allowed American aerial photo analysts to guesstimate the amount of Cuban activity in an area by counting the number of baseball diamonds there. And since Cubans played baseball wherever they went, baseball diamonds on a landscape became an easy tell, allowing US analysts to determine that Cubans were present.

In 1975, after Angola gained its independence from Portugal, Cuban military advisors were sent to back the socialist Movimento Popular de Libertecao de Angola (People’s Movement for the Liberation of Angola, or MPLA) against rival factions supported by America and apartheid South Africa. US eyes in the sky were able to track Cuban presence by the presence of baseball diamonds.

35. The Use of Baseball Diamonds to Rally Allies

Cuban advisors remained in Angola until the 1980s, their presence readily identifiable to US satellites because of their tell-tale baseball diamonds. American diplomats often used that evidence to rally support for the US position, and against that of the Eastern Bloc. America’s then-ambassador to Tanzania used to pass aerial photos of baseball diamonds to convince Tanzania’s president, Julius Nyerere, of Cuba’s presence in neighboring Angola.

As ambassador David C. Miller put it: “You would show Julius [Nyerere] examples of satellite photography of Angola … and then point out that the overhead photography keeps turning up baseball diamonds all over Angola. We know that they’re Cubans playing baseball“.

34. Jagermeister Was Named After Hermann Goering

The famous (or infamous, depending on one’s outlook) Jagermeister has achieved a semi-iconic status as a staple of college frat parties and ski lodge bashes. The flagship product of German liquor company Mast-Jagermeister, many might know that the drink’s name means “Hunt Master”, but far fewer know that it was named after Hitler’s second in command, Herman Goering.

The company traces its roots to the small town of Wolfenbuttel in Lower Saxony, where one Wilhelm Mast founded a wine vinegar business in 1878. In 1934, his son Curt was working in his father’s struggling enterprise, when he came up with a new concoction of traditional herbal liqueurs that had been used medicinally for centuries. That took the enterprise in a new direction, and in the process created Jagermeister as we know it today.

33. Goering Schnapps

Curt Mast concocted his iconic liqueur in 1934, a year after the Nazis took over Germany. At the time, Herman Goering had recently been named Reichsjagermeister, or Reich Hunt Master. Goering appointed regional hunt masters to oversee the enforcement of Germany’s hunting laws, and got into the habit of meeting and partying with them in Wolfenbuttel, site of the Mast liquor company.

So Curt Mast, who intended his new drink to be “a toast with which every hunt would begin and end“, named it after the Reich’s Hunt Master. Jagermeister was introduced to the market in 1935, and it took off. The association of its name with Goering’s title led many Germans to refer to Jagermeister as “Goering Schnapps”. After the war, the company furiously backpedaled to distance itself from its former association with the Nazis.

32. The 11-Year-Old Soldier

Franklin Pettis was born in 1850, in Reedsburg, Wisconsin, and joined the Union Army at age 11, enlisting in the 19^th Wisconsin Infantry Regiment as a drummer boy in 1862. Young Frank joined the regimental band alongside his father, a fife player, and served in a company commanded by his school teacher, captain A.P. Ellinwood.

Drummer boys had been in use for centuries in many armies. The tactics of the era called for closely formed columns and lines, to advance and fight in well-ordered formations and in neat rows and lines. The shouted commands of officers were often difficult to hear above the din and roar of battle, so musical instruments, such as bugles and drums, were used to signal commands.

31. Drummers Played a Vital Role in the Civil War

Drummers such as Frank Pettis were utilized to tap out a pace, or rhythm, to assist with the evolutions and formations involved in marching or advancing on opposing forces. Drummer boys, tapping the appropriate beats on their instruments as directed by the officers in charge, accompanied their units into combat and were thus exposed to shot and shell as battle raged and men fell.

Drummer boys were frequently at the side of unit commanders, as they might be needed at any moment to tap out an alert to the unit of pending operations and movements. There were different drum calls to signal assembly, notify the officers to gather for a meeting, sound the advance or retreat, or tap out any of the sundry calls that were part of the drummer’s repertoire.

30. Frank Pettis’ Service

Frank Pettis served with the 19^th Wisconsin in Suffolk, Virginia, Berne, North Carolina, and in the sieges of Petersburg and Richmond. He was present at war’s end when his unit became the first Union regiment to fly its colors over the captured Confederate capitol building. He mustered out in August, 1865, and returned to Wisconsin, to work at his father’s tailor shop, before changing careers at age 20 and becoming a miller.

Frank gained prominence in his community and was active in the Grand Army of the Republic, the Civil War’s premier veteran’s association, as well as in the Reedsburg Drum Corps. He raised a family, and died in 1918, aged 68, leaving behind five grown children. His funeral procession was preceded by the Reedsburg Drum Corps, tapping muffled drums, until his coffin was lowered to his final resting place, buried near his former teacher and captain.

29. The French Architect Who Planned Washington, DC

Frenchman Charles Pierre L’Enfant crossed the Atlantic to fight for the rebels during the American Revolution, and became an accomplished architect after the war. In 1790, Congress authorized a federal district on the Potomac River to house the national government, and George Washington entrusted L’Enfant to plan the new nation’s capital.

He created Washington, DC, from scratch, imposing his vision for a grand capital on unappealing tracts of land. Surveying a swath of swamps and forests and hills, L’Enfant envisioned inspiring buildings, grand avenues, and public squares. America’s capital, as it exists to this day, is based on L’Enfant’s design.

28. Adapting European Models to an American Vision

L’Enfant meshed European city models with American ideals, to come up with a design based on concepts of equality of citizens. His innovations included The Mall, which was open to all – an idea unheard of in most of Europe. He was also big on wide avenues that afforded extended views, with a series of public parks and squares evenly dispersed at intersections.

L’Enfant’s plan also departed from traditional notions that the grandest spot in capital should be reserved for the ruler’s palace. Instead, the highest point in Washington, with the most commanding view, was reserved for Congress, whose building would be the city’s grandest and most imposing, while the President would be housed in a relatively modest mansion, off to the side. Thus, Capitol Hill, and not the White House, is the center of Washington, DC, from which broad diagonal avenues radiate, cutting a grid street system. L’Enfant’s vision came to be, but he neither saw it nor got the credit.

27. L’Enfant Did Not Get to Savor His Creation

Although a gifted and visionary architect, L’Enfant lacked political tact and skill, and ended up clashing with officials. Unwillingness to compromise with the city commissioners responsible for implementing his plans, or with the legislators paying for it all, cost him dearly. The exasperated officials hired a surveyor who copied L’Enfant’s plans, with minor modifications to incorporate the changes sought by the politicians, without giving L’Enfant any credit.

Furious, and egged on by Thomas Jefferson, he resigned. It was a bad move: he died penniless in 1825, never having been paid for his work in designing Washington, DC. L’Enfant was originally buried in Maryland, until 1909, when he finally got some posthumous recognition. His remains were exhumed, placed in a casket, and after lying in state in the Capitol Rotunda, L’Enfant was reburied in Arlington National Cemetery, in a monument positioned on an elevated spot overlooking the capital city he had designed.

26. Karl Marx Was a Hell Raiser Youth

Karl Marx, the father of communism, was the son of a successful Prussian Jewish lawyer. His father, a man of the Enlightenment and a passionate advocate for reform had converted to Lutheranism to avoid legal restrictions that barred Jews from high society. Karl received a liberal education in a school whose enlightened leanings made it suspect in the eyes of reactionaries. The authorities raided his school in the 1830s, confiscated writings deemed subversive from its library, and forced changes in the teaching staff.

Marx’s early years of higher education were marked by poor grades, imprisonment for drunkenness, riotous behavior, and general rowdiness, before buckling down to serious study of the law and philosophy. He was strongly influenced by Hegel, and joined a radical student group known as the Young Hegelians, which marked the beginning of his transformation into a radical, and eventually revolutionary, thinker.

25. Marx Kept Getting Himself Expelled

Karl Marx got his Ph.D. in 1841, but his politics kept him from getting a teaching job, so he became a journalist. Within a year, however, his newspaper was suppressed, and he was forced to move to Paris and the relatively freer French environment. In Paris, he met Friedrich Engels, and the two developed a friendship and began a collaboration that would revolutionize the world.

In 1845, the Prussians pressured the French into expelling Marx, so he moved to Belgium, where he founded a correspondence committee to link European socialists. That inspired English socialists to form the Communist League, and ask Marx and Engels to write a platform for their party. The result was the Communist Manifesto, published in 1848.

24. Marx Was Seriously Not Into Dying Statement

Not long after publishing the Communist Manifesto, Marx was expelled from Belgium. He went to France, which also expelled him. He returned to Prussia, but by then he had been stripped of his citizenship, and the authorities refused to re-naturalize him, so he ended up in London in 1849. He spent the remainder of his life writing, and in 1867 published Das Kapital, which, twinned with the earlier Communist Manifesto, became the philosophical bedrock of Marxism and communist theory.

For all the dramatic changes and upheavals his writings wrought, Marx was not into dramatics. As he lay on his deathbed in 1883, expiring from pleurisy, Marx was asked for final words. His reply, before breathing his last, was: “Go on! Get Out! Last words are for fools who haven’t said enough!”

23. The First Steppe Nomads To Terrorize the Civilized World

The 6^th century BC Scythian King Idanthyrsus ruled a nomadic Iranian-speaking tribal confederacy that inhabited the Steppe between the Carpathians and central China. His territory lay astride an overland trade network that connected the Greeks, Chinese, Persians, and Indians, and milking its resources, the Scythians created the first of the Steppe empires that terrified the neighboring settled lands for millennia.

Starting in the 7th century BC, the Scythians began raiding the Middle East. Their first major disruptive role occurred in 612 BC, when they played a leading part in the destruction of the Assyrian Empire, forever extinguishing a nation that had existed for over a millennium and had dominated the Middle East for centuries. The region was eventually taken over by the Persians, and in 513 BC Darius I of Persia sought to end Scythian raids on his empire by conquering them. It did not turn out well.

22. The Scythians Led Darius on a Wild Goose Chase

After assembling a huge army to settle the Scythians’ hash once and for all, Persia’s King Darius I launched an invasion along the western Black Sea coast, and into today’s southern Ukraine and Russia. The nomads simply retreated into the vastness of the Steppe, taking their families and herds with them.

Avoiding the decisive pitched battle Darius sought, the Scythians’ King Idanthyrsus laid waste in the countryside, blocking wells and destroying pastures, while attriting the invaders with skirmishes and hit-and-run attacks.

21. A Scythian Burn

Frustrated by the Scythians’ tactics, Darius challenged Idanthyrsus to stop fleeing and either fight, or admit his weakness and submit, recognizing the Persians as his lords. The Scythian’s response, as recorded by Herodotus, highlights the difficulty in forcing turbulent nomads to fight if they did not want to: “This is my way, O Persian. I have never fled in fear from any man and I do not flee from you now … We have neither cities nor cultivated land for which we might be willing to fight with you, fearing that they might be taken or ravaged … As for lords, I recognize only my ancestors Zeus and Hestia … As to you calling yourself my lord, I tell thee to ‘Go weep’“.

Darius had to give up and turn back, his invasion amounting to little more than an expensive and fruitless demonstration. Scythians were still raiding the Persian Empire centuries later until its destruction by Alexander the Great, and continued to raid the former Persian lands for centuries beyond that.

20. One of Ancient History’s Greatest What Ifs: What If Julius Caesar Had Invaded Parthia?

Julius Caesar was assassinated on the Ides of March in 44 BC, just days before he was scheduled to leave Rome and head to the east, to lead an invasion of Parthia. It was to be a massive endeavor with the largest force he had ever led: 16 legions and 10,000 cavalry, in addition to support troops. As a preliminary, Caesar planned to first invade and conquer the kingdom of Dacia, roughly modern Romania, which he calculated could be accomplished by the end of 44 BC.

The following spring, he would move on to Parthia. However, Parthia was no pushover, as evinced by the Battle of Carrhae in 53 BC, where a Parthian cavalry force of 10,000 had all but annihilated a much larger Roman army of roughly 50,000, led by Caesar’s colleague, Crassus. So it was not a foregone conclusion that Caesar could have conquered Parthia.

19. Would Caesar Have Conquered Parthia?

In 38 BC, Mark Antony invaded Parthia with a larger force than Caesar had planned to use, numbering over 100,000 legionaries, 24,000 auxiliaries, and 10,000 cavalry. He met with disaster. However, neither Crassus nor Mark Antony were in Caesar’s league as generals, while Caesar was Caesar – an all-time great military mind.

Parthia was not invulnerable to a Roman army led by a great commander. A century and a half later, the emperor Trajan did exactly what Caesar had planned, conquering Dacia, then successfully invading and defeating Parthia, seizing its capital city of Ctesiphon, annexing Mesopotamia, and dictating a highly favorable peace treaty. It is not inconceivable that Caesar could have accomplished the same in the 40s BC. He never got the opportunity: three days before he was to leave Rome for the Parthian campaign, Caesar was assassinated.

18. The Founder of the Boy Scouts Was Not Above Trickery

During the Boer War (1899 – 1902), Colonel, later Lord and founder of the Boy Scouts, Robert Baden-Powell commanded the garrison of the besieged town of Mafeking in South Africa. He had initially seized the town by bluff during the runup to the outbreak of hostilities and held on to it with a steady diet of bluffs during the subsequent siege after the war began.

Baden-Powell, who had been ordered to raise two regiments of volunteers, began storing his supplies in Mafeking. However, he could not openly garrison the town before hostilities began, because that would have been impolitic and provocative. So he got around that by politely asking the townspeople for permission to send guards to protect his supplies. They consented, and Powell sent in his entire force of nearly 1500 men. When the townspeople protested, he responded that he had never specified the size of the guard.

17. Baden-Powell’s Mystery Boxes

When hostilities commenced, Robert Baden-Powell found himself besieged by a Boer force five times bigger than his own. To discourage his enemy from launching a direct attack, he began burying mysterious boxes around the town’s periphery. When asked, he responded that they were powerful new landmines, the latest in British technology.

To demonstrate, he had a couple blown up within sight of Boer sympathizers, whom he then allowed to slip out of town, knowing that they would make a beeline for the enemy, to inform them of the new British weapon. In reality, the boxes blown up had been stuffed with the town’s entire stores of dynamite, while the other boxes buried around the defensive perimeter contained nothing but sand.

16. Keeping Up the Ruses to Keep the Boers at Bay

Another of Robert Baden-Powell’s bluffs revolved around barbed wire, of which the Boy Scouts’ founder had none. Barbed wire was known to be effective in slowing down a charge, and since he wanted to discourage the numerically superior Boers from charging and overrunning his defenses, Baden-Powell set out to convince them that he had plenty of barbed wire.

He had no barbed wire, but he did have plenty of the wooden posts from which barbed wire was strung. So Baden-Powell directed that they be hammered into the ground all around the defensive perimeter. From a distance, even with binoculars, barbed wire is difficult to see, but the wooden posts from which it is usually strung are readily visible, and the sight of a line of such posts in the distance is indicative of barbed wire fences. Seeing the wooden posts, the Boers assumed that they were strung with barbed wire.

15. Saving Mafeking With Theatrics

To strengthen his barbed wire deception and further mislead the Boer watchers, Baden-Powell had his men drop to the ground whenever they reached a line of wooden posts – wooden posts that had no barbed wire between them. The defenders would then crawl “beneath” the imaginary barbed wire to get to the other side, before getting back on their feet, dusting themselves off, and carrying on.

With the help of bluffs such as the fake super landmines and imaginary barbed wire, coupled with a heavy dose of stubborn and bloody resistance when the situation warranted, Baden-Powell fought off the enemy and withstood the Boer siege for 217 days. He held on to Mafeking until he was finally relieved by the arrival of a British army that chased off the Boers and lifted the siege.

14. World War I’s Worst Weapon

During WWI, the French army’s light machine gun, the Chauchat, became infamous as one of the worst firearms to have ever gone into mass production and got inflicted upon an army as a standard-issue weapon.

Introduced in 1915, the weapon immediately began presenting problems stemming from both a defective design and poor workmanship. The defects were further exacerbated by reliance on poor and low-quality metals to produce the Chauchat.

13. A Weapon That Was Good – In Theory

In the plus column, the Chauchat was a revolutionary weapon, being the world’s first truly light (20 lbs) portable automatic firearm. It was inexpensive to manufacture and did not require a team of machine gunners and a heavy mount or tripod, but could instead be operated by a single user, alone or with an assistant.

The Chauchat also featured a detachable magazine and a selective fire capability. It could easily be carried around the battlefield by a single soldier, and was light enough to be fired from the hip during assaults in suppressive marching or walking fire to pin down enemy defenders while the attackers closed in. From that perspective, the Chauchat set the template for subsequent light machine guns, from the BAR to the SAW. However, the weapon’s negatives far outweighed its positives.

12. The Chauchat’s Serious Defects

Unfortunately for the Chauchat’s users, the actual battlefield conditions of WWI exposed serious defects that earned the light machine gun a bad reputation as one of history’s worst firearms. Among the weapon’s numerous problems, the worst was probably the detachable magazine, which was designed with one side open. That allowed the entry of loose earth, mud, dirt, and grit with which the trenches of WWI abounded.

The particles then made their way into the chamber, barrel, and firing mechanism, resulting in stoppages and malfunctions. The magazines were very flimsy and easily dented, resulting in jamming and stoppage. The ejection port lacked a cover, which allowed dirt and other particles to enter from there as well and cause the weapon to jam.

11. The Chauchat Was a Curse Upon Its Users

When the Chauchat did not cease firing because it was jammed with dirt and mud, or because the magazine got dented, it ceased firing from overheating. The sights were misaligned, which wreaked havoc with aiming. The plate assemblies were secured by screws that tended to come loose and fall off when the weapon was fired. On top of that, the bipod was loose, which, coupled with poor ergonomics, made it impossible to keep the weapon on target other than with short bursts.

By 1918, only three years after its introduction and with months still to go before the war ended, the Chauchat was gradually withdrawn from service. It was replaced by the M1918 Browning Automatic Rifle (BAR).

Read More: History’s Failed Military Weapons.

10. The Sword That Scared the Romans the Most

The falcata was a Celiberian single-edged sword, with a curved blade that narrowed towards the middle. It was derived from Iron Age sickle-shaped knives, and became best known for its use by the Carthaginians during the Punic Wars against Rome. It featured a hook-shaped grip made of the same piece of metal as the blade, often stylized in the shape of a bird or horse, with a chain connecting the hilt and the hooked butt of the grip.

The design, with the blade swelling towards the tip, gave the falcata extra mass up front. It thus combined the speed and mobility of a sword with the cleaving or chopping power of an ax at the front. The falcata could hack off spear shafts, shatter inferior swords, and deliver tremendous blows capable of splitting shields and helmets.

9. A Frightening Cut and Thrust Weapon

The falcata’s blade had the added menace of a curve that enhanced the effectiveness of the cutting edge. The broad front tapered off into a sharp point, which rendered the sword suitable for thrusting as well. It was one of the most devastating swords ever faced by the Romans, who first encountered it in the hands of Iberian mercenaries fighting as light infantry for Carthage during the Second Punic War.

It was also wielded, to devastating effect, by Iberian warriors defending their lands during the subsequent century and half of wars fought by the Roman Republic to subdue and conquer the Iberian Peninsula. Iberian warriors wielding falcatas usually fought light, armed only with sword, small shield, and a javelin. After casting their javelins, the Iberians quickly closed in and sought to overwhelm their foes with speed and ferocity, employing their falcatas in combinations of slashing cuts, thrusts, and smashing overhand blows.

8. Deadly Design and Great Manufacture

It was not only the quality of the falcata’s design and the ferocity of its wielders that discomfited the Romans, but also the quality of the metal that went into making it. Falcata blades were made from three layers of steel that had been buried for years in order to corrode out weaknesses, which were then joined together in a furnace.

Ancient sources report that blade quality was tested by a warrior placing the flat of the blade atop his head, then bending it so handle and tip touched his shoulders. A good falcata blade was expected to spring back into shape, with no hint of the bend.

7. China’s Greatest Traitor of the Modern Era

Wang Jingwei (1883 – 1944) was a Chinese politician who had been an associate of the revolutionary nationalist leader Sun Yat-sen. After Sun Yat-sen’s demise, Jingwei became a prominent leader in the left wing of the Chinese ruling party, the Kuomintang (KMT), from which flank he contested leadership of the KMT with its leader, Chiang Kai-shek.

A failed collaboration with the communists weakened Jingwei politically and embittered him so much that he abandoned the left altogether and became a rabid right-winger. He eventually turned traitor, and collaborated with the invading Japanese against his own people.

6. A Traitor’s Background

Jingwei had been among the bright Chinese students sent by the dying Qing dynasty to study abroad, and he attended a university in Japan. There, he joined radical nationalist Chinese student circles, self-identified as an anarchist, and became a disciple of Sun Yat-sen. Returning to China, he spoke eloquently of Chinese nationalism, and was jailed for plotting to assassinate the Qing regent.

He was freed in the Chinese Revolution of 1911 which did away with the Qing dynasty, and became a national hero. That Revolution and the overthrow of the imperial system led to a chaotic period of warlord rule. A nationalist party, the Kuomintang, was formed to restore order, and in 1925 sent “the Great Northern Expedition” to tame the warlords and restore central authority. Jingwei became chairman of the national government, but Chiang Kai-shek, who led the campaign against the warlords, formed a rival government in southern China.

5. Foiled Plans Lead to Treason

To counter Chiang Kai-shek, Jingwei formed a government in northern China in collaboration with the communists. However, he fell out with the communists and purged them, at which point his government collapsed and his supporters flocked to Chiang Kai-shek. Bitter, Jingwei did a 180 from the left, and became an extreme right-winger.

When the Japanese invaded China in 1937, he flew to meet their representatives in Hanoi, and issued a declaration calling for peaceful negotiation with the invaders. In 1939, he flew to Japan for negotiations, and while there, betrayed China and negotiated a deal on his own behalf. In 1940, he defected and was appointed by the Japanese to head a puppet regime, based in Japanese-occupied Nanking, that nominally “governed” the Japanese-conquered territories in China. He remained Japan’s Chinese puppet ruler until his death in 1944.

4. The Biggest Battle of the Napoleonic Wars Saw One of History’s Greatest Betrayals

After the disastrous collapse of his 1812 invasion of Russia, Napoleon Bonaparte scrapped together a new army. He then skillfully led it in the German Campaign of 1813 against a coalition of armies led by Russian Tsar Alexander I and Austrian field marshal Karl Philipp.

Things eventually came to a head at the Battle of Leipzig, also known as “The Battle of Nations” because of the numerous nationalities involved in the fight, from October 16^th to 19^th of that year. The result was a decisive defeat for Napoleon, after he was dramatically double-crossed, mid-battle, by his Saxon allies.

3. Napoleon’s Dramatic Recovery from Catastrophe

Napoleon’s invasion of Russia in 1812 was disastrous. He went in with history’s biggest army to date, 685,000 strong, and came out with 120,000 cold and hungry survivors. The debacle shattered Napoleon’s dominance of Europe, as client states and subject nations shook off French hegemony. Racing back to France, he raised an army equivalent in size to the one recently lost, but of lower quality and experience than the veteran force destroyed in Russia.

Marching into Germany to reassert French dominance, Napoleon won some victories. However, he was unable to follow up with a decisive win because his enemies avoided battle with him, falling upon his subordinates instead, whom they defeated as often as not. By October 1813, the allies were confident enough to challenge Napoleon directly, and the showdown took place at Leipzig between Napoleon’s army of 225,000, and a 380,000-strong coalition of his enemies.

2. Leipzig Started Out Well For Napoleon

Although outnumbered, Napoleon planned to take the offensive against the allies who sought to envelop him. He operated along interior lines, which allowed him to concentrate against enemy sectors faster than they could be reinforced by his foes, who operated on exterior lines. The battle’s first day, October 16^th, ended in a hard-fought stalemate, as allied attacks were defeated, while Napoleon’s outnumbered forces were unable to achieve a breakthrough.

The 17^th saw limited actions, and by the 18^th, Napoleon was running low on supplies and munitions, so he prepared to withdraw. An attempt to negotiate an exit was rejected by the coalition, who launched a massive attack all along the line that day. The offensive steadily pushed Napoleon’s forces back into Leipzig, and only fierce resistance prevented a breakthrough.

1. A Dramatic Betrayal

The bottom fell out for Napoleon when his Saxon allies pulled off a well-timed double cross on the afternoon of October 18^th, 1813. With his forces already stretched to their limit, a Saxon corps of about 10,000 men occupying a sector of the French line suddenly abandoned their positions, deserted Napoleon, and marched out to meet the allies.

With a gaping hole now suddenly appearing in their lines, Napoleon’s forces had to abandon that entire sector. That night, with their positions untenable, they began a retreat. It went smoothly at first, but the following day, incompetence led to the premature blowing up of a bridge while it was still crowded with retreating Frenchmen. The result was a panicked rout in which thousands were killed, while tens of thousands more were stranded on the wrong side of the destroyed bridge and captured, transforming the battle from an arguable tactical draw into a catastrophic French defeat.

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Where Did We Find This Stuff? Some Sources and Further Reading

Reedsburg Times Press, May 21^st, 2016 – Reedsburg Youth is Civil War Drummer Boy

Reedsburg Times Press, June 24^th, 2016 – Schuette Column: Civil War Drummer Boy Story Continues

British Battles – Siege of Mafeking

CNN – The Cold War: 5 Things You Might Not Know

Cracked – 5 Everyday Things With (Mostly Forgotten) Nazi Origins

Encyclopedia Britannica – Pierre Charles L’Enfant, French Engineer and Architect

Forgotten Weapons – The Worst Gun Ever

Guardian, The, May 4^th, 1900 – Baden-Powell on the Mafeking Front Line

Herodotus – The Histories, Book 4, Logos 11

Historum – Scythia, the Scythians, and Darius

History of War – The Battle of Leipzig (‘The Battle of Nations’), 16-18 October 1813

Medium, April 5^th, 2015 – How Baseball Betrayed Cuba’s Covert Ops

Men’s Journal – Jagermeister Tries to Grow Up

Metropolitan Museum of Art – Falcata

Mirror, March 11^th, 2014 – Steve Irwin, Karl Marx, Bob Marley: The Final Words of Nine Famous Faces

Napoleon Guide – Battle of Leipzig

Smithsonian Magazine, April 30^th, 2018 – A Brief History of Pierre L’Enfant and Washington, DC

Smithsonian Magazine May 2016 – Why Benedict Arnold Turned Traitor Against the American Revolution

Telegraph, The, January 17^th, 2018 – Jagermeister: 11 Facts About Everyone’s Favourite Apres Drink

Washington Post, February 12^th, 2012 – Drummer Boys Played Important Roles in the Civil War, and Some Became Soldiers

Wikipedia – Baseball in Cuba

Wikipedia – Julius Caesar’s Planned Invasion of the Parthian Empire