Little-Known Wars of Great and Lasting Impact: The Turning Points in Our History We Should Know More About

292 Pages·2009·50.33 MB·English

by  Alan Axelrod

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“ Alan Axelrod’s tour through the dark corners of history
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is full of enlightening moments. Beautifully told, the FFFFIIII
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Alan Axelrod is the author of many books on history and book takes us into harm’s way through confl icts both GGGGTTTT Author Alan Axelrod brings investigative skills
military history, including Bradley: A Biography (2008), as well as a historian’s eye to bear on eighteen
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Miracle at Belleau Wood: The Birth of the Modern U.S. pivotal and obscure. Edifying and entertaining.” LLLL
largely forgotten but fateful confl icts. Each chap-
Marine Corps (2007), The Horrid Pit: The Battle of the EEEEEEEE
ter offers vivid and arresting accounts of pivotal
Crater, the Civil War’s Cruelest Mission (2007), Blooding —Cormac O’Brien, author of The Forgotten History of America AAAA----
battles, clearly explaining each side’s maneuvers
at Great Meadows: Young George Washington and the KKKK
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and tactics, capturing the chaos and carnage of
Battle that Shaped the Man (2006), Patton: A Biography NNNN
The consequences of a war may not be evident until long after the smoke of battle has cleared; indeed, warfare, and revealing the chain of events that
(2006), Encyclopedia of Wars (2005), and America’s Wars
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the true signifi cance of triumph or defeat may remain obscured for years, decades, even centuries. Thus, a OOOO
(2002). He has been a creative consultant and on-camera led to its greater signifi cance in world history.
war’s importance is easily overlooked, not only by contemporary chroniclers, but also by later generations NNNNWWWW
personality for several television documentary series and OOO FFF GGG RRR EEE AAATTT AAA NNN DDD
of historians.
has appeared on the Discovery Channel, MSNBC, CNN, and DDDD
National Public Radio. Little-Known Wars of Great and Lasting Impact takes its readers on a series of journeys, deep into the NNNN PRAISE FOR ALAN AXELROD:

past and across the globe, to highlight the enduring infl uence of eighteen wars that are seldom discussed LLLL

On Bradley: A Biography (2008)
in mainstream histories. Turning the spotlight on places and peoples both familiar and unfamiliar, and AAAAWWWW
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MORE PRAISE FOR ALAN AXELROD: unearthing obscure but important facts, this book shows how these supposedly minor wars have had
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profound effects—on nations and individuals, on the practice of warfare and the writing of history, and AAAA
On Miracle at Belleau Wood (2007) TTTT of Americans, and helps us understand the foundation
on the loyalties and enmities that color the world today.
“ Axelrod is one of America’s great military historians. RRRR of today’s Army.”
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He’s done it this time with riveting non-stop action that Many of these wars are revealed to have been defi ning moments in the history of a country or whole NNNNSSSS —Gen. Wesley K. Clark (ret.),
reads like the best of Hemingway’s frontline reports . . . continent, such as the eighth-century clash between invading Muslims and defending Spanish Christians TTHHEE TTUURRNNIINNGG PPOOIINNTTSS IINN OOUURR HHIISSTTOORRYY WWEE SSHHOOUULLDD KKNNOOWW MMOORREE AABBOOUUTT former Supreme Allied Commander, NATO
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This is one book I wish I’d written!” that enshrined the concept of Europe in early medieval minds. Some are shown to have marked the
birth of deep-seated antagonisms that tragically endure to this day, such as the revolt in 132–35 that A On The Horrid Pit: The Battle of the Crater, the Civil War’s
—Paul B. Farrell, syndicated columnist, Dow Jones’s IIIIl
MarketWatch, and former USMC staff sergeant triggered the centuries-long persecutions and Diaspora of the Jews, while others signal the end of MMMMa Cruelest Mission (2007)
something potentially world-changing, such as the rise of Sweden to European predominance, brought n “A gripping new narrative of the battle . . .”

to an abrupt halt by the Great Northern War of the early eighteenth century. PPPPA
—James M. McPherson, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of
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Insightful and thought provoking, these stories compel us to re-examine many long-held assumptions, e Battle Cry of Freedom
reassess the relationship between warfare and history, and look anew at the political and cultural forces CCCCl
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ON THE FRONT COVER: The Battle of Vienna (September 12, 1683)
ISBN-13: 978-1-59233-375-2 AAA LLL AAA NNN AAA XXX EEE LLL RRR OOO DDD
History ISBN-10: 1-59233-375-3 brought a bloody end to the siege that an Ottoman army under Grand
Vizier Kara Mustafa had begun in July and thus shifted the balance of
$19.99 US
PC £12.99 UK AN power in Europe, creating religious and national enmities that would
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$24.99 CAN be magnifi ed in the two world wars of the twentieth century and the
www.fairwindspress.com genocidal Balkan confl icts that followed the Cold War.
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American Commodore Stephen Decatur’s daring operation to destroy the
captured U.S. frigate Philadelphia in Tripoli harbor on February 16, 1804,
during the Barbary Wars, enfl amed the world’s imagination. The small vessel
in the foreground is a ketch the U.S. Navy captured from locals and rechris-
tened the Intrepid. On it, Decatur and his men sailed into Tripoli harbor, A detail from Jean-Marc Nattier’s sweeping portrayal of the Battle of Poltava
boarded the Philadelphia, put it to the torch, and reboarded the Intrepid, on during the Great Northern War, where Peter the Great defeated Charles XII
which they made good their escape. on July 8, 1709.
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#175 Dtp:119_P Page:Inside Cover
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THE TURNING POINTS IN OUR HISTORY WE SHOULD KNOW MORE ABOUT
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Text © 2009 Alan Axelrod
First published in the USA in 2009 by
Fair Winds Press, a member of
Quayside Publishing Group
100 Cummings Center
Suite 406-L
Beverly, MA 01915-6101
www.fairwindspress.com
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized, in any form or by any means, electronic or
mechanical, without prior permission in writing from the publisher.
13 12 11 10 09 1 2 3 4 5
ISBN-13: 978-1-59233-375-2
ISBN-10: 1-59233-375-3
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data available
Axelrod, Alan, 1952-
Little-known wars of great and lasting impact : the turning points in our history we should know more about /
Alan Axelrod.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN-13: 978-1-59233-375-2
ISBN-10: 1-59233-375-3
1. Military history. 2. Low-intensity conflicts (Military science) I. Title.
D25.5.A946 2009
355.009—dc22
2009016107
Cover design by Peter Long
Book design by Sheila Hart Design, Inc.
Photo research by Anne Burns Images
Printed and bound in Singapore
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DEDICATION
To Anita and to Ian
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C COONNTTEENNTTSS
INTRODUCTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .8
CHAPTER 1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
A Woman Against Rome: Boudicca’s Revolt, 60
CHAPTER 2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
The First Holocaust: A Messiah Rebels against Rome, 132–135
CHAPTER 3 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
Triumph of the Caliphate: Islam Conquers Spain, 711–718
CHAPTER 4 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
Shoguns Rising: The Genpei War, 1180–1185
CHAPTER 5 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .60
Revolt and Reaction: The Peasants’ War in Germany, 1524–1526
CHAPTER 6 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
“The Third Rome”: Ivan the Terrible
and the Boyars’ Revolt, 1547–1572
CHAPTER 7 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84
The Beaver Wars: “No Ink Black Enough to Describe
the Fury of the Iroquois,” 1638–1684
CHAPTER 8 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98
King Philip’s War: America’s Costliest Conflict, 1675–1676
CHAPTER 9 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .116
Ottoman Eclipse: The Austro–Turkish War, 1683–1699
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CHAPTER 10 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128
Cold-Blooded Ambition: The Great Northern War, 1700–1721
CHAPTER 11 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 144
The First Wars on Terror: The United States vs. the Barbary Pirates,
1801–1805 and 1815
CHAPTER 12 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 162
Eastern Sunset: The First and Second
Opium Wars, 1839–1842 and 1865–1860
CHAPTER 13 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 176
Rising Sun: The Meji Rebellion, 1863–1868
CHAPTER 14 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 190
Germany in the Saddle: The Franco–Prussian War, 1870–1871
CHAPTER 15 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 204
Explosion in the Balkans: The Balkan Wars, 1912–1913
CHAPTER 16 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 220
Twentieth-Century Jihad: The War for Afghan Independence, 1919
CHAPTER 17 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 236
Middle East Mandate: Arab Insurrection in Iraq, 1920–1922
CHAPTER 18 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 252
Out of Africa: The Mau-Mau Uprising, 1952–1956
BIBLIOGRAPHY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 270
IMAGE CREDITS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 276
ABOUT THE AUTHOR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 277
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 277
INDEX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 278
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lthough many think the deadliest American war was waged between the states
in 1861–1865, it was actually fought between New Englanders and their Native
American neighbors in 1675–1676.
The December 7, 1941, attack on Pearl Harbor, which brought the United States into
World War II and doomed Japan to become the world’s first victim of nuclear warfare, was
firmly rooted in the Genpei War, fought on that nation’s soil, not in the twentieth century
but the twelfth.
In another early era, after Roman soldiers publicly whipped her and then raped her
daughters in the year 60, the widow of a Celtic chieftain rose up as a warrior queen and led
a bloody revolt that prompted the emperors to rewrite the rules of imperial conquest in
ways that influenced empires for the next two thousand years.
And in a clash between Visigoth Christians and Umayyad Muslims on the bank of a
Spanish river, modern Europe was born.
The Swiss historian Jean-Jacques Babel famously estimated that in the past 5,500
years—the period we call “recorded history”—the world has known a slim total of 292 years
of peace—292 years in which the name of no armed conflict can be found. No two histori-
ans agree on a precise census of war, on just how many armed conflicts the human race has
fought, but by conservative estimate, we can say that there have been some 2,000 wars suf-
ficiently significant to have merited naming. Most of us can rattle off perhaps a half-dozen
of them—and maybe a few more, if we think beyond those in which our home country was
involved—but the rest that have been fought over the past five and a half millennia claim
places in few minds. They are, for the most part, consigned to the vast category of “minor”
conflicts, wars of relatively brief duration, producing relatively few casualties, and affect-
ing the future minimally, if at all. And yet a handful in this category, though similarly little
known, have had an impact on history that is astounding, profound, and life altering.
For example, asked for a quick list of U.S. wars, the typical American would men-
tion the American Revolution, the U.S. Civil War, the Spanish-American War (possibly),
the two world wars, the Korean War (maybe), Vietnam, and the ongoing wars in Iraq and
Afghanistan. These represent about 1 percent of the wars in which Americans have fought
from colonial times to the present, a total of 106 conflicts by my count.
8
Little-Known Wars of Great and Lasting Impact
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