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As of today the History Central is one step closer to our goal of being the best online history magazine for all who has an interest in history to enjoy. From now on Sunday will be our weekly day for updates. We are working on new features to improve this site and make it more user friendly.

One of the things we’ll be implementing is the editor’s recommended book on the subject of each article (given that the editor(s) can recommend one of course) . It will be found at the end of each article along with a link to a thread were you can discuss the article on our forums.

I’d like to thank all the people who’ve either already written articles for this blog or are currently working on them for their great work. We have turned into a fast growing community of writers from all over the world.

I think that’s all for now. Please feel free to ask any questions you might have or take part in the debate at our forums, where you can also discuss today’s article.

- Benjamin (Editor)

oh yeah… remember to read today’s article!

THE FALL OF NAPOLEON’S MARSHALS
by Jon Leslie Helmandollar

The amount of historiography covering Napoleon Bonaparte’s reign over most of Europe is exhaustive, even for figure and period of such importance. Whether focused on his rise to power or his fall from it, nearly every aspect of Napoleon’s twenty-year dominance of the Continent has been examined by historians and strategists aiming either to glorify or vilify his legacy. The attention paid to his fall from power, however, has been overwhelmingly biased towards his personal blemishes and flaws, and fatal mistakes. His growing megalomania, insatiable quest for glory on the battlefield, complicated personal relationships with friends and foes alike, strategic error in invading Spain and Russia, and a fixation on Berlin in 1813 rank among these. From this it is easy to see that the list of charges holding Napoleon in particular accountable for Imperial France’s crumbling is extensive. This essay, however, makes the attempt to diverge from the anti-personality cult aspect of Napoleonic history and limit personal attacks on his character and abilities, and instead focus on outside contributions that his numerous generals made, both in the field and in the political arena, to the fall of the French juggernaut. After all, the Empire that was forged by the sword also fell by it, in no small part due to defeat on the battlefield, and Napoleon couldn’t be everywhere at once.
Using personal memoirs of and addresses dictated by Napoleon, as well as the prior work of scholars who have skirted the topic before, this essay aims to show how some of Napoleon’s most trusted lieutenants failed to live up their leader’s high standards of generalship, investigates their strategic and tactical errors, and demonstrates how, ultimately, many of them betrayed Napoleon by defecting to the Allies or turning their backs away when the upper hand was lost. Others were unfortunately killed in battle or in accidents, striking heavy blows to Napoleon’s command ability in dealing with the large enemy forces squared against him in the final, decisive battles. Finally, an overall idea will be drawn of what Napoleon, for his part, could have done to prevent or alleviate the problems caused by some of his generals.

Vice-Admiral Villeneuve (commander of the French fleet at Trafalgar)

Napoleon Bonaparte as an individual is easily regarded as one of the most brilliant military commanders of all time; most historians and armchair generals are hard-pressed to find a replacement in their top-three lists. He scored a multitude of famous victories over his long career, from a formative score at Marengo the masterpieces of Austerlitz and Jena. It is true that he also suffered debilitating defeats, from the skirmish at Aspern-Essling to crushing blows at Leipzig and the final straw at Waterloo. Napoleon had help in his endeavors throughout, both successful and failed, by the host of Marshals of France and their lieutenants.
Napoleon’s first campaigns as head of the newly created French Empire were outstanding and unrivaled successes. His masterful victory at Austerlitz at the end of 1805 sealed the fate of the Third Coalition, bringing about the necessary (but incomplete) Treaty of Pressburg. (1) However, it is important to note that just weeks beforehand, in October, Napoleon’s hopes for an invasion of Britain were dashed by defeat at Trafalgar. (2) Interestingly enough, such a seemingly important event is not found in any substantial manner in his diary. He does, however, thoroughly condemn Vice-Admiral Villeneuve (commander of the French fleet at Trafalgar) for failing to enact Napoleon’s grand plan to invade England, set to be months beforehand; “I believe that Villeneuve hasn’t enough in him to command a frigate. He has no decision and no moral courage.” (3) As events turned out, Napoleon appeared to be correct in his assessment; Villeneuve quickly canceled the expedition and turned back. Said Napoleon, “Had Admiral Villeneuve, instead of going into Ferrol, merely effected his junction with the Spanish squadron, and made sail for Brest to join Admiral Ganteaume, my army was over, and there was an end to England.” (4) This may explain Napoleon’s lack of interest into what history describes as a decisive defeat at Trafalgar; to him, the chance to crush Britain had already come and gone, squashed by the inability of the Vice-Admiral.

The Emperor’s dissatisfaction with some of the army’s leaders is apparent even early on in what has come to be labeled Napoleonic Wars. Despite a clear victory at Ulm and occupation of the Austrian capitol at Vienna, Napoleon wrote to his brother shortly after on 15 Novermber, 1805: “. . . [I] have not had occasion to be very satisfied with Bernadotte. He has lost me a day, and the fate of the world may depend on a day.” (5) It is difficult to tell the circumstances under which Bernadotte was performing, but it is clear that a Russian army was closing in and Napoleon was anxious to engage them; the decisive conclusion of the campaign, Austerlitz, at hand and it was imperative that Napoleon occupy the most favorable terrain possible.

The next year brought the next campaign, this time against the Fourth Coalition headed by the Prussians. In an even quicker and more decisive campaign than the one a year before, Napoleon was able to crush the Prussians with the assistance of his finest general, Marshal Davout; they scored double victories at Jena and Auerstadt, respectively; after these decisive blows, “the Prussia of Frederick the Great had ceased to exist.” (6) Even then Napoleon still had cause for grievance, again with Marshal Bernadotte. Days after the battle he wrote to the general that troubled him so: “It is not my habit to recriminate over the past, since it cannot be altered. Your corps was not in the battle [of Jena], and that might have proved disastrous.” (7)

In 1809 Napoleon suffered the death of one of his Marshals for the first time when, having lost his legs during the defeat at Aspern-Essling, Jean Lannes succumbed to his wounds. Napoleon said of the Duke of Montebello’s death, “My sorrow is as deep as yours. I lose the most distinguished general in my armies . . .” (8) Montebello’s death was the first of many such casualties and defections that would deplete Napoleon’s abilities in the field. Despite the loss, Napoleon pressed on against the Fifth Coalition. The campaign ended with victory at Wagram, after which the Austrian government was again forced to surrender and sign the Treaty of Schonbrunn. (9) However, at Wagram Napoleon lost a second Marshal, this time to ineptitude. Bernadotte, again the primary recipient of Napoleon’s scorn, was finally dismissed in the midst of battle: “I relieve you, sir, from the command of a corps which you handle so badly.” (10) Ironically Bernadotte, after being stripped of command and title, went on to become elected King of Sweden and later bitter enemy of Napoleon, contributing to his final fall.

Marshal Jean Lannes was the first of Napoleon’s marshals to die in battle.

A year before dismantling the Fifth Coalition, Napoleon began the first of two major conflicts that would prove to spell doom for the French war machine. Motivated by a desire to complete the Continental System by extending it to the Iberian Peninsula (11), Napoleon intervened militarily. Portugal was conquered, in only two weeks, towards the end of 1807; the next year a coup in Spain was engineered from without that placed Joseph Bonaparte on the throne. However, the invasion of the latter was to prove costly. Napoleon’s principle loss at the outset was the resignation, in protest, of his foreign minister, Talleyrand, who up to that point had “dominated the early-Napoleonic era with a skill that has rarely been equaled.” (12) Entrusting his generals with the execution of the pacification effort, Napoleon oversaw affairs in France and the rest of Europe, which was still volatile.

Unfortunately for the Emperor, “many of the marshals and generals employed in the Peninsula were unsuited and inexperienced in the independent command of large armies and, without Napoleon close at hand to guide them, put in performances ranging from mediocre to bad.” (13) This was apparent within weeks, when General Dupont was defeated at Baylen by Spanish insurgents, losing in the process twenty thousand veteran troops. Napoleon was incensed: “Brute! Fool! Coward! Dupont has lost Spain to save his baggage! It’s a spot on my uniform! . . . One can see clearly enough, by General Dupont’s own report, that all that happened resulted from his inconceivable folly.” (14) From that point on the fighting in Spain was to be a struggle against odds, with the Spanish continuing to turn against King Joseph and the British involving themselves in the fight. While Dupont was heading to disaster in southern Spain, other general were failing to pacify the eastern sections of Valencia and Catalonia. General Moncey was thwarted, despite best efforts, from taking the former (15), while General Duhesne completely bungled the siege of Gerona and nearly lost the regional capitol of the latter at Barcelona. His replacement, St-Cyr, fared better but still failed to secure the province. To the north, Marshal Bessieres quickly conquered the important city of Volladolid, but his lieutenants failed to Saragossa on his eastern flank. Also, after securing a decisive victory against the largest Spanish force in the region, Bessieres failed to follow up and destroy the remnants. Along with Dupont’s defeat, this meant that “the initial illusions of conquest were utterly shattered and several years of bitter warfare lay ahead.” (16) In Portugal, General Junot was forced to evacuate in the face of vigorous British intervention, fortunately saving 25,000 troops in one of the few brilliant strokes of the Peninsular War.

Understandably, “Napoleon was both amazed and infuriated by this series of reverses,” (17) and, having freed himself after defeating the Fourth Coalition, decided to finally conduct operations in Spain personally. Within a month he had retaken Madrid, spending the rest of the year fighting the British presence that had precluded a subsequent reconquest of Portugal. Unfortunately, Austrian mobilization once again forced his departure. Though is designated replacement, Marshal Soult, completed the work of crushing the British expedition, French fortune ended there. A general war of attrition followed after Soult’s invasion of Portugal failed and Marshal Ney’s objectives in the northwest were unfulfilled. At the very time of Napoleon’s crossing of the Danube in his victorious 1809 campaign against the Austrians, the last French troops were being thrown out of Portugal; while Napoleon was defeating the Fifth Coalition at Wagram, his lieutenants in Spain were locked in a grinding campaign in Aragon that accomplished little. Napoleon remarked to one of the generals, “It seems to me that the Spanish operations are being poorly conducted, and so poorly conducted that I foresee a catastrophe unless more vigour is imparted to the movements of the columns.” (18)
Fighting of such an unfavorable sort – a veritable meat-grinder that devoured French manpower – continued for the next few years until 1812, when a new British commander, Arthur Welleslay, later Duke of Wellington, inflicted a smashing defeat on the French at Salamanca. Madrid was lost soon after, the ebb tide of French power in Spain gaining ever more momentum. In an ironic spout of hapless foreshadowing, Napoleon had lamented little more than a month before Salamanca that “I cannot appoint a commander-in-chief for all my armies in Spain, because I can find no one fit for the job.” (19) However, even after disaster in Russia, 200,000 French troops remained in Spain in the spring of 1813, when Wellington began his conclusive offensive that culminated in the Battle of Vitoria; it was the nail in the coffin for French forces in Spain. Headed by a new commander, General Gazan de Peyriere, the army fought for eight hours before being signaled for withdraw, almost inexplicably, by its nervous commander. Gazan’s retreat created a gap in the lines that Wellington easily exploited, causing a general rout of the French forces; the remnants managed to limp back to the French border, but “Spain was lost” once and for all due to the blunder of General Gazan, whose “skills were not up to command in a battle of such importance.” (20)

Marshal Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte

Greater than the so-called ‘Spanish Ulcer’ was the disaster of the 1812 Russian campaign. Napoleon entered Russia with an army that numbered at least 400,000, if not more. (21) Within three months the army had entered Moscow, but the Russians didn’t submit as expected. After wallowing in the capitol until the Russians were moved to burn it, Napoleon was forced to order a withdrawal. Right then, “on 5 December 1812, the Grand Armee died,” (22) when Napoleon took leave to return to France. Why did he leave the army? At that moment a former general named Malet was attempting a coupe to overthrow Napoleon in absentia, claiming the Emperor to have been killed in Russia and falsely announcing the dissolution of the Empire. (23) It’s safe to say that the Grand Armee was in fact murdered by the treachery of one of Napoleon’s own former commanders.

Napoleon designated his brother-in-law, the King of Naples Joachim Murat, as his replacement; without the Emperor at it’s head, however, the army had no effetive leader. Murat was a well-respected former marshal, but he “rarely excelled when placed in independent command.” (24) Tasked with regrouping what was left of the Armee in order to put up a resistance against renewed Russian vigor, the Neapolitan king was simply “not up to the great task.” (25) As it seemed, during this pivotal stage, neither were most of the other commanders. Three of them left the army for France, two were injured badly enough to preclude command, and one – Marshal Ney – stayed with his army but did not actively command it. Murat, in his false preponderance, could do little to maintain order. In frustration he too abandoned the Armee, handing command over to Prince Eugen de Beauharnais, while Marshals Davout and Macdonald became the only two remaining to exercise real control over the remaining forces. Simultaneously the Prussians under General Johann Yorck, defected against Napoleon, making French presence in Poland and Prussia untenable. (26) Napoleon later admitted to Murat’s wife: “Your husband is very brave on the battlefield, but weaker than a woman or a monk when out of sight of the enemy.” (27)

During the four months Napoleon was in France, he managed to raise a new Grand Armee of some 200,000 men, though he severely lacked cavalry. (28) With this new force he devised a campaign designed to “sweep the enemy back beyond the Nieman (River, in today’s Lithuania and Belarus).” (29) To this end, he began a drive through Saxony in April of 1813, while further north an offensive against the Prussian capitol of Berlin was launched. That same month former Marshal Bernadotte, now the elected King of Sweden, signed an alliance with Russia. (30) There is disagreement amongst the sources as to the effectiveness of the 1813 campaign: Thompson asserts that the major battles at Lutzen and Bautzen were indecisive, forcing Napleon to seek an armistice he didn’t want; Hamilton-Williams contends that the two battles were clear victories for the Emperor, who was able to panic the Allies sufficiently, and that Napoleon’s agreement to an armistice was surprising and untimely. Leggiere agrees with Thompson in declaring that the battles were indecisive, the overall campaign strategy dubious, and the tactical “failure in North Germany was [due to] the ineffective officers who commanded the operations,” (31) implicating Ney especially. Judging from diary entries, Napoleon apparently considered both parts of the campaign highly successful. Unfortunately for him, however, another of his better marshals was lost at Bautzen; Jean-Baptise Bessieres, a veteran of all the Empire’s campaigns, was killed by a musket ball.

Marshal Michel Ney

During this campaign Napoleon had dispatched his trusted and able Marshal Ney, along with over 80,000 men, to take Berlin in the hopes that doing so would force Prussia to capitulate once again. Ney, however, failed to take the city in the first attempt, mistakenly turning back to engage a field army at Bautzen. After this blunder Marshal Oudinot was given the same task with some 25,000 men. He was defeated by Prussian General Bulow the same day that the armistice was signed. (32)
The summer armistice Napoleon signed in June of 1813 was broken by yet another Austrian mobilization, a result of souring negotiations; once again the Grand Armee was beset by a large coalition. Immediately Napoleon again surged towards Berlin, sending Oudinot and the sixty-thousand-strong Army of Berlin, which was again repulsed just twelve miles from its objective. Giving Ney another shot at the city, Napoleon grasped at the city one more time. Ney’s repeat failure ended up stalling Napoleon’s entire offensive — “the misfortune that has overtaken the Berlin army prevents my pressing on further” (33) — and set the stage for later defeat. The autumn campaigning season saw the Allies with the initiative and numerical superiority, leading Napoleon down the road towards the decisive ‘Battle of the Nations’ at Leipzig. Three days’ fighting saw the defection of the Saxon Army and the sudden return of Bernadotte, this time in the opposing ranks. Napoleon’s army was routed; his Polish and German allies were lost; Murat defected to the Allies, taking his Kingdom of Naples along with him (34); the Emperor, in an untenable position, was forced to retreat into France. During the retreat Napoleon lost yet another able commander, when the Polish General Poniatowski drowned in the Elster River following the loss of the only bridge out of Leipzig. The nephew of Poland’s last king, Poniatowski was the embodiment of Polish national identity and struggle, and this death took from Napoleon an exceedingly capable, enthusiastic, and loyal leader. As if things could not be any worse, the only up to then undefeated general, “Iron Marshal” Davout, was trapped in Hamburg with 100,000 men; neither he nor his troops would leave the city until the end of the war. The loss of his service and army, coupled with Poniatowski’s death, removed sorely needed leaders that were becoming increasingly short in supply.

Leipzig and the resulting retreat into France, coupled with the earlier mentioned rout in Spain, had put Napoleon in an extremely difficult situation; his Empire was falling apart all at once. Negotiations to end the war again faltered and the Allies poured across the French border. The Emperor engaged in a brilliant and hard-fought series of defensive engagements, but could not stem the overwhelming numbers lined against him. While he was trying to save what he could of France, Paris was presided over by former minister Talleyrand, who “had been guaranteed riches, advancement and a free hand in the restoration of the Bourbons”, alongside the nominal King of Spain, Joseph Bonaparte, “who had abandoned his brother’s sinking ship to look after his own interests.” (35) Of the two, the former hurt Napoleon the most. Talleyrand succeeded in turning General Marmont, one of the Napoleon’s most faithful, against the Empire’s cause; Marmont then negotiated the capitulation of Paris, on 31 March. (36) Four days later Napoleon, outmaneuvered by the Allies and his own countrymen, was left with little choice but to announce his abdication from the throne. Just days later he found himself on the island of Elba, but not for long. By March of the next year he was once again on French soil, rejoined by some of his former Marshals, which included Ney, Dabout, Massena, Soult, and Grouchy. For a hundred days they again attempted to save France from an overwhelming invasion by the Allies.

Waterloo was the culminating event of those hundred days, the decisive moment which was to make or break Napoleon once and for all. While he possessed the immediate tactical advantage – the opportunity to engage the main British and Prussian forces separately – the former, under Wellington, was able to hold the French armies back long enough for the Prussians under Blucher to engage in battle as well. According to Napoleon’s memoirs, during the fight a critical error by one of his closest marshals contributed to the final defeat. Chaboulon, ex-secretary to Napoleon, explains”
Marshal Ney, carried away by his reckless courage, forgot the orders of the Emperor [to hold his ground]. He charged the enemy at the head of Milhaud’s cuirassiers and the light cavalry of the Guard, and succeeded, amid the applause of the army, in establishing himself on the heights of Mont St. Jean, till then inaccessible. This ill-timed and hazardous movement did not escape the Duke of Wellington. He ordered his infantry to advance, and fell upon us with all his cavalry. (37)
Ney forced a fight that was unnecessary and that he was unprepared for. The final engagements of the battle ensued, the French army losing far more men than it could afford to. Chaboulon continues:
“Meanwhile our cavalry, weakned by a considerable loss and unequal contests incessantly renewed, began to be disheartened, and to yield ground. The issue of the battle appeared to become doubtful. It was necessary to strike a grand blow by a desperate attack. The Emperor did not hesitate a moment.” (38)

French cavalry attack British square formations during the battle of Waterloo.

The attack that followed was the charge of the Old Guard, Napoleon’s final desperate gamble to break Wellington’s center before Blucher could close. It failed, and the battle turned to a rout as the French army fled the field in the wake of rapidly advancing British and Prussian columns. Waterloo was finished, and so was Napoleon. (39) Soon after the battle, Ney returned to Paris and declared to the Chamber of Peers, “There is no other means of securing the public safety but to make proposals to the enemy at once.” (40) This traitorous and hypocritical advice, coming from the man who contributed to the recent defeat, helped seal the final fate of Napoleon. The Chamber requested that the Emperor abdicate a second time, and under the circumstances there was little choice but to acquiesce, this time for good.
It has been shown that, through a series of triumphant victories and tragic defeats spanning a decade, Napoleon was accompanied along the way by a host of hand-picked Marshals and generals of France. Some of them gained renown and everlasting glory for their services. Others earned a warrior’s death on the battlefield. Still others, however, would become infamous to history for their own blunders or, worse yet, their treachery. Although as head of state and commander-in-chief of France and her armies, the large burden of overall responsibility always laid with Napoleon, the significant contributions of his lieutenants clearly played a definitive role in the fate of both Empire and Emperor.

1: J.M. Thompson, Napoleon Bonaparte: His Rise and Fall (New York: Oxford University Press, 1969), 234.
2: Ibid.
3: Napoleon Bonaparte, The Corsican (New York: Houghton Mufflin, 1930), 204. Compiled by R.M. Johnston.
4: Ibid., 206.
5: Bonaparte, The Corsican, 176.
6: Thompson, Napoleon Bonaparte: His Rise and Fall, 292
7: Bonaparte, The Corsican, 252.
8: Ibid., 304.
9: Thompson, Napoleon Bonaparte: His Rise and Fall, 299.
10: Bonaparte, The Corsican, 317.
11: David Gates, The Spanish Ulcer: A history of the Peninsular War (New York: Norton, 1985), 6.
12: Ibid., 10.
13: Ibid.
14: Bonaparte, The Corsican, 179.
15: Bonaparte, The Corsican, 57.
16: Gates, The Spanish Ulcer: A History of the Peninsular War, 81.
17: Ibid., 93.
18: Bonaparte, The Corsican, 315.
19: Ibid., 338.
20: Natalia Griffon de Pleineville, “Fighting for Napoleon,” History Today, Apr 2003, Vol.53 Iss.4. Admittedly, up to that point Gazan possessed an impeccable record. The problem was that he, like nearly all the Napoleonic generals, had little ability when it came to exercising independent command and lacked the initiative and confidence erquired. The fault for such deficiency surely lies both with Napoleon and the generals themselves.
21: Frederick C. Shneid, “The Dynamics of Defeat: French Army Leadership, December 1812-March 1813,” The Journal of Military History, Vol.63 No.1, 7.
22: Ibid.
23: David Hamilton-Williams, The Fall of Napoleon: The Final Betrayal (New York: Wiley, 1996), 64.
24: Ibid., 9.
25: Shneid, “The Dynamics of Defeat”, 12.
26: Ibid., 16.
27: Bonaparte, The Corsican, 369.
28: Hamilton-Williams, The Fall of Napoleon, 29. This number includes about 60,000 men remaining in eastern Europe from garrisons and the Russian campaign, and 140,000 new conscripts from France
29: Bonaparte, The Corsican, 371.
30: Thompson, Napoleon Bonaparte: His Rise and Fall, 345.
31: Michael V. Leggiere, “From Berlin to Leipzig: Napoleon’s Gamble in North Germany, 1813”, The Journal of Military History, Vol.67 Iss.1, 58.
32: Ibid., 40.
33: Bonaparte, The Corsican, 397.
34: Hamilton-Williams, The Fall of Napoleon, 57.
35: Ibid., 105.
36: Hamilton-Williams, The Fall of Napoleon, 110.
37: Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourriene, Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte (New York: Scribner’s, 1891), 219.
38: Ibid.
39: De Bourriene, Memoirs, 219.
40: Hamilton-Williams, The Fall of Napoleon, 246.

Herman Lindqvist – Napoleon
Herman Lindqvist’s biographic description is well written and tells the whole story about the man, the emperor and the general. It goes into great details about Napoleon’s relations with several of his marshals, especially Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte. As the author is Swedish it has a tendency to judge many of the political affairs from a Swedish point of view which adds a surprinsingly interesting flavour to the book.

DISCUSS THE ARTICLE

BAPTIZING EUROPE
- Continental Identity in Medieval Europe
by Christian Villumsen

BACKGROUND
“Ladies and Gentlemen, we have reached an agreement.” Those were the words of Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen on the last day of the European summit after the expansion of the European Union had been announced. The negotiations had intensified during the Danish presidency and had paved the way for ten new member states. This expansion closed one of the final chapters in the story of a divided European continent; a state which had existed since the Cold War. The reason I mention this is because during the Middle Ages Europe was a fragmented continent of warring states that fought for power and the scraps the decline of the Roman empire had left behind. Europe was a continent of kingdoms and principalities, where local magnates held power – or at least the power that mattered.
One thing, however, did bind this divided continent together: Christianity. This relatively new denomination, at least according to Rome, was already known in the territories we now know as France, Germany, Italy, Spain, the British Isles, Poland, Hungary, Bohemia and Scandinavia – territories that became known as respublica christiana (the Christian Community). These territories, especially Scandinavia and Hungary, did, however, not start out as members of this “holy community – their roles will become clear later. During the reign of Charles the Great (757-814) Europe was relatively safe but after his death his empire was divided into three parts (the former Carolingian Empire, the Christian Spain and the British Isles) because his son Louis the Pious (778-840) never achieved to do for the empire what his father had done. It is therefore also no surprise that Central Europe came under attack from all sides. Arabs ravaged the Mediterranean, Viking attacks terrorized northern Europe and Eastern Europe (Hungary) was invaded by the Magyars. The threat from the Vikings and the Magyars ended in the year 972 when these two peoples converted to Christianity and thereafter Europe was only threatened by the Arabs and internal power struggles.

A UNIFIED CHURCH
Europe continued to be a divided continent even after “the savages” had converted. Many reasons have been named as the cause but the fact that even the church was divided seems to be the most likely factor. Rome experienced a minor civil war when three popes all declared that they were the successors of St. Peter and therefore rightfully entitled to become the next pope. We don’t know if it was the threat of a major conflict within the Christian world that prompted Emperor Henry III of Germany (1039-56) to travel to Rome to resolve the situation and we probably never will but Henry, nevertheless, solved the problem by removing all three popes and installed one of his own loyalists. While Henry III cleaned up the Roman mess and his son Henry IV had been appointed secular leader of the church Hildebrand, a reformer within the church had been inaugurated as pope and had taken the name Gregory VII as a tribute to Gregory VI (whom Henry III had deposed) and Gregory I, who later became known as Gregory the Great. Gregory VII was largely responsible for the unification of the church because of his reforms that e.g. ended papal tolerance to imperial meddling into affairs of the church. This potential conflict was avoided in 1122 when the church and Holy Roman Emperors concluded an agreement, which became known as the Concordat of Worms. This agreement gave the emperors the right to invest bishops with secular symbols of authority in their governed territories, but not with sacred symbols of authority. Furthermore the Concordat decreed that the clergy had to imitate the earliest form of life, which was described in the Acts of the Apostles 4:32: “And the multitude of them that believed were of one heart and of one soul: neither said any of them that ought of the things which he possessed was his own; but they had all things in common.”
Gregory and all other reform-friendly popes wanted to return to the time of Pope Gregory the Great and become servus servorum Dei (servant of God’s servants) because this was the path to become ruler of all and thereby uniting Europe under the papal banner.

The church was very powerful at this moment in history and its influence was spreading. Robert Bartlett describes the phenomenon in his book “The Making of Europe” as being similar to that of the Americanization that took place in Europe after the Second World War; a dominant culture spreads into adjacent territories and thereafter dominates them. Europe saw two such cultures: the Frankish and the German. These two cultures could actually be combined into one because Charles the Great built up an empire which also consisted of parts of the territory we now call Germany. Both cultures had the Christian faith in common and were both eager to spread the word. The church of course led the conversion-campaign in Medieval Europe, but the church was not solely responsible for the spread of Christianity. European aristocrats often send their children away to foreign states in order to place them in positions of power, either by marriage and political ingenuity as was the case with e.g. Naples and Hungary or by military might. Bartlett writes that up to 80% of European royalty had ties to France with the exception of three kingdoms: Sweden, Denmark and Poland. The aristocracy and royalty in these three countries traditionally married into German families. This tendency shows with all certainty that Europe may have been more unified than originally believed – a unification of both faith and blood.

MY NAME IS …
It is perhaps a bit premature to talk about unification but one cannot deny that the peoples of continental Europe had the similar mentalities regarding many things, e.g. the names that were given to newborn children. It was not unusual for the person responsible for naming the children to name them after the saints that meant most to them. It was, in fact, also customary to take on a new name if one married a person of a different nationality and preferably a name common to the area of which one were to live. This was done in order to avoid being looked upon as a foreigner as was the case of the two Bohemian princesses Swatawa and Markéta, who became the German Countess Luitgard and Queen Dagmar of Denmark. Another example regards the expansion of the French aristocracy. The children that were sent out to be married eventually lost contact with their homeland and became more and more a part of their societies.
This may not seem as something of which the church had much to do with, but that changed in the 11th and 12th centuries – more precisely at around 1066. It was relatively easy to guess people’s nationalities by looking at their names, e.g. Mikhail (the Russian or Croatian patron for the ill). The name is well known from the Eastern Bloc and is especially linked with a former president of the Soviet Union (Mikhail Gorbatjov). In England, after the Battle of Hastings, the tendency to name children after English saints changed and gave way for Norman names like William, Henry and Robert. The link to the church was that this trend actually started among high ranking church officials and the aristocracy.
The change was simple but deeply territorial. France and England believed in the same God, but the names in the two countries were completely different. It is today very difficult to find a family in England that does not have a William, Henry or Robert an then we are back at the idea that a dominant culture rubs off on surrounding, and perhaps weaker, cultures and let us be honest, this was not an uncommon phenomenon in the Middle Ages.

HIGHER LEARNING
Another way to spread Christianity was by using the latest trend in Europe, the universities, which the church held power over. People, mostly from the aristocracy and the upper class, became obsessed with education and wanted to learn more. Education in e.g. Denmark was handled by the monasteries until the 12th century and it was therefore not unusual that the training of a priest was conducted at home if the trainee’s father was a priest. The would-be priests managed but without a formal education in the liturgical language, Latin, the young priests had to memorize certain Latin phrases in order to cope. On a positive note a priest was never hard to find but the priest was probably not schooled in Latin. This was however not the case with priests from the city as they were able to travel abroad to receive proper training. The ones that did travel abroad usually went to Paris and not just because the very first university in Europe was founded there but also because that the teaching elite went to Paris in order to share their knowledge. Furthermore Paris was also the European centre for cathedral schools. These schools were not just in Paris but all over Europe. These schools offered a higher form of education and made people pilgrimage to these places. One who made such a journey was Gunnar, who became bishop in Viborg, Denmark in 1222. Paris gave Gunnar the opportunity to create a network of clerical equals, one of which was to become the papal legate. This was in fact a fellow student from Paris named Gregorio of Crescenti, who came to Denmark in 1221 and, via Gunnar, created a clerical friendship network with Viborg diocese.
The story about Gunnar exemplifies the level of international cooperation that took place during the Middle Ages, whether it be clerical or secular. In that kind of society education was the key, which is not unlike today.
Another example of the connection between education and church is Anders Sunesen. He was born into the Danish aristocracy and by that right he was almost certain to play a role within the church. He was archbishop in Lund from 1201-1224 and had traveled through most of the major countries for higher learning, e.g. France, Italy and England. He did this because Denmark did not offer the same level of education as was found in other countries and by knowing that he spearheaded the effort to make education more accessible. He did by writing two works, in Latin of course: the first one was a compendium of Christian verses, which was inspired by the French theologians and the second was a Latin version of the laws of Denmark, that bore the impress of his knowledge of Roman law. He was later stationed in Estonia with the Danish forces, where he was the spiritual head in the battle against the heathen Estonians.
The stories of Gunnar and Anders show us that the universities and the clerical society are intertwined. Within the educated societies people spoke the same language, the liturgical language Latin. Today, we communicate in English if we do not speak the native tongue of a country we are visiting – another example of the fact that Europe, even back then, was getting smaller.

CRUSADING MENTALITY
I have stated that many factors were involved in the unification of Europe, but the single most important thing was probably the crusades. Never before in the history of Europe had one seen such dedication as when Pope Urban II in 1095 in Clermont urged the Christian world to unite against the Muslim threat and to retake the Holy Land. He recruited soldiers from almost every strata of society with France being a major contributor, but countries like Germany, England and Italy also contributed on a large scale. Nothing unifies a world better than the battle against a common foe. We have seen this phenomenon on a global scale with the battle against terrorism and on a more homely scale during the Second World War where the world united against the Axis powers. The majority of crusaders were peasants, who had been captivated by Urban’s rhetoric about cleansing the Holy Land of the infidels. When the army of 15,000 reached Jerusalem only about a tenth of them were knights, which would imply that the price of recruiting a proper army was rather expensive.
When the Christian army stormed Jerusalem and the looting began another form of solidarity showed its face. The infidels – in this case the Muslims – were, according to eye witnesses, rounded up and beaten to within an inch of their lives, and it did not matter if they were woman, children or men. Esmark and McGuire describes it in their book Europa 1000-1300 as a form of religious high and a spiritual cleansing. It went on to the point that the Christian invaders had a saying that went: “heathens are better dead than alive” and the more “merciful”: the faster you kill them the less time they will spend in Purgatory.”
Say what you will about the crusades but they did help on a large scale with the creation of a common European identity. The actual creation did not occur during this time and one can argue that it does not exist even today, but the smaller Europe got the easier it got to cooperate with one another.

Bibliography

Bartlett, Robert
“The Making of Europe”
London, 1994

Esmark, Kim and McGuire, Brian Patrick
“Europa 1000-1300”
Roskilde, 1999

Roach, Andrew P.
“The Devil’s World”
Pearson Education Limited, 2005

DISCUSS THE ARTICLE

MAKING SURE
- Is Arms Control verification a subjective political or an objective technical practice?
by Patrick Kidd

The verification process has fulfilled a very important role in the context of arms control since the outbreak of the Cold War. According to the Dictionary of International Relations, verification “is the process whereby actors seek to confirm that others are complying with agreements, conventions and understandings.” (Evans & Newnham 1998, p. 251) This process is very multi-faceted and requires a large variety of information and evidence gathered from a number of different sources, which are often vastly different from one another.

This information and evidence can generally be placed in to one of two very general categories: objective information and subjective information. Objective information is that which is known to be fact and has been obtained often through monitoring of a state by national or non-national technical means and is presented without bias. Subjective information is often based on political factors which are in turn based on observations made about a state’s political and military activities.

William D. Jackson (1982) points out that because “both excessive verification requirements and reliance on verification procedures that are perceived to be inadequate can thus obstruct progress in arms control” it is paramount to note that “Verification must be viewed therefore not only as a technical subject, but as a political subject.” (p. 346)

The debate on the subjective or objective nature of verifying arms control agreements was particularly active during the term of office of the Reagan administration in the United States in the 1980s. A lot of the literature on the subject came out of this period firstly due to increased suspicion of Soviet violations of agreements during Reagan’s Presidency and secondly due to the recent signing of the extremely unpopular (in the United States at least) SALT II accord, which was believed by many to be incredibly complex to verify to a standard which would be agreeable to the American Administration.

Michael Krepon (1989) raises some interesting points in his article, ‘The Political Dynamics of Verification and Compliance Debates’. He proposes that the process of verification does not occur unless a state believes it to be politically viable. He talks about the ‘Adequate Verification’ attitude prevalent in the USA between 1963 and 1979, mentioning that it was not always necessary to waste time and effort trying to gauge Soviet compliance with agreements and that it was only necessary to do so when non-compliance posed a significant military or political threat to the government of the United States of America.

Aspin and Kaplan (1980) confirm Krepon’s observations on Adequate Verification, declaring that if margins of error occur in the verification process, but “these margins are so small that undetected Soviet cheating would not upset a favourable assessment of the treaty’s impact on our security, then the treaty is adequately verifiable,” (p. 177) meaning that if the treaty was shown to be ‘adequately verifiable’ it would fulfil the political function it was required to fulfil by the United States, which was being sufficient to ensure national security.

The process of ‘Adequate Verification’ itself suggests, by its mere existence, that at the time of its adoption the United States government did not possess the means to detect all potential Soviet violations.

This policy was replaced in 1981, during the Reagan administration after it had been long felt that ‘adequate verification’ was sufficient. It was replaced by ‘effective verification.’ A decision was made amongst Reagan’s officials that “tougher verification provisions and more exacting standards for determining adequacy would be required for future agreements.” (Krepon 1989, p. 141) This is a prime example of the increase in political toughness exhibited by the Reagan administration towards the verification process and demonstrates the increased politicisation of the process during the 1980s well.

Krepon also mentions that the Soviets were unlikely to break many of the earlier arms control treaties because the political consequences of breaking these agreements far outweighed the gain from performing the tests. He quotes former US Senator, Jacob Javits, who stated, based on a report by Dr Kissinger, “there is every likelihood that the agreements will be complied with because it is in the interest of the U.S.S.R. to do so.” (p. 139) Krepon’s article suggests that the political considerations related to verification are far more important to the process than the technical considerations.

Karl Pieragostini (1991) agrees with Krepon that there is a general likelihood of compliance to treaties, reiterating the sentiment that cheating is an unattractive prospect to those engaged in arms control agreements as “if caught, the cheater faces markedly greater costs. What would the other side do? What would happen to the cheater’s standing in the international community?” (p.424) and also that “The alternative of not cheating has attractions. Money will be saved through reduced arms expenditure, security will be enhanced by constraints placed on the other side, and a resulting reduction in tensions could have wider implications.” (p. 424) He echoes this further by mentioning that “the inherent threat of discovery and reaction acts as a deterrent to future cheating.” (p. 423)

Mark Lowenthal and Joel Wit (1985) also discuss this when they talk about the different types of non-compliance, mentioning that “Although the military significance of any violation may be small, there remains a political significance.” (p. 163) They state the point that “Risking a treaty, or perhaps an entire regime of treaties, for a small military advantage, sends a troubling message about the intention of that party,” (p. 163) however, they are more sceptical of Soviet intent than Javits, Krepon and Kissinger in their observation that “Violating a treaty for some military advantage may make sense, depending on the calculation of risks and benefits.” (p. 163)

Krepon’s arguments are not without opposition. Stephen Meyer (1984) disagrees with the proposal that the government of the United States takes such a blasé stance on minor Soviet violations and ‘hedging’ on arms control agreements, stating that “Many in government and in the broader defence and foreign policy community have come to accept the proposition that arms control agreements that are not completely verifiable pose a potential threat to U.S. national security.” (p. 111)

Despite this, Meyer is not completely in disagreement with Krepon. He tells us that the monitoring process (the technical aspect) is only a small part of the verification process by stating that “A distinction that is important, yet often blurred is that between monitoring and verification. Monitoring refers to efforts to detect, identify and ‘measure’ developments and activities of interest.” (p. 112) He goes on to say that “Monitoring, therefore, is a technical process in that it merely attempts to ‘see’ what is occurring.” (p. 112)

In his article, Meyer makes references to the political nature of the verification process, with a particular example being when he talks about the politicisation of the monitoring process, declaring that “The verification process is susceptible and sensitive to political distortion… The fact is that identical monitoring information will not always lead to the same verification outcome.” (p.114)

Nancy Gallagher (1997) refers to the co-operation theorists view that verification is “a ‘self-help’ substitute for the functions that a world government would perform.” The basis of this theory is that the ‘truth’, as determined by the verification process can be used by a government as political weight to reassure the population that arms control is a worthwhile process, as the government can be seen to be taking an active stance on ensuring the compliance of another state to these agreements.

Another example of political factors influencing the verification process can be seen in the changes in Soviet policy throughout the Cold War period. After the Second World War, Soviet attitudes towards verification were reserved. However, as time went by and different ways of enacting the monitoring aspect of verification became more politically useful to successive regimes, the Soviets began to accept more varied methods of ensuring compliance with Arms Control agreements. This changing policy shows just how important subjective political factors are in the verification process. It shows that the opinions of different individual Soviet leaders and governments mattered greatly on the decision to incorporate the verification procedures in to national policy. (Sherr 1988)

In his book ‘The Other Side of Arms Control’, Alan B. Sherr talks about this change in Soviet policy regarding verification throughout the Cold War area. He mentions that different forms of verification were considered to be more acceptable by the Soviets depending on the regime in power at the time. For instance he tells us that despite the Soviet enthusiasm for co-operative measures and national technical means as instruments for verification, there was a large amount of disapproval in the Kremlin for verification of arms control treaties by the process of international regulation performed by supranational bodies, independent of the states involved in the agreements. (pp. 243-247)

He states that Soviet approval of this practice was limited to acknowledgement that “an aggrieved party to an appropriate agreement could seek redress from the United Nations Security Council, where the USSR could exercise its veto if necessary to block any action.” He goes on to say that “Soviet leaders made no concrete commitments to proposals that might subordinate their power.” (p. 247)

Later on in the Cold War period, in the Gorbachev era, attitudes towards verification by means of international regulation changed within the leadership of the Soviet Union. Sherr presents evidence that this was happening and that Soviet attitudes towards verification by means of international agency was beginning to change after Gorbachev’s accession to the position of Soviet Party Leader, highlighting, amongst other steps, the agreement made at the Conference on Disarmament in Europe, which “can be seen as a bridge between ever more intrusive types of on-site inspection conducted by parties to an agreement, and the development of an international regulatory agency with broad inspection powers.” (p. 268)

Miroslav Nincic (1986) talks about the more technical aspects of the verification process in his article about Soviet compliance with arms agreements in Scientific American. He mentions the importance of telemetry to the verification process, and that “telemetric information is test-performance data that are transmitted as a stream of radio signals…each side routinely intercepts the other’s signals to gather military intelligence.” (p. 25) He asserts that this information, when intercepted, can be used to verify compliance with arms control agreements and forms an integral part of the verification process.

Also discussed in Nincic’s article is the importance of verifying compliance with the ABM treaty. The importance of technical means when it came to verification of this treaty was paramount as it was very important for both sides to ensure that the other state did not possess a more widespread early warning system in order to maintain the status quo.

The US became particularly concerned upon discovery of the Krasnoyarsk radar in 1983 by a Big Bird satellite (p. 21) that the Soviet Union was violating the ABM treaty and gaining an advantage over the United States by vastly increasing its capacity to detect incoming ICBMs in time to launch an effective counter-attack. Because of the significance of this it was therefore vital for the United States to possess the means, such as reconnaissance planes and the Big Bird satellites, to verify Soviet compliance.

This does not mean, however, that political factors are not present in the verification of the ABM treaty. One of the main issues when negotiating the treaty is one that is very familiar in arms control. Schear (1985) raises the question, “How do both sides draft agreements when the weapon systems (or components) they want to limit also have applications they may wish to exempt from restraint?” (p. 154) The decision is entirely subjective as it depends on the usefulness of the system to the incumbent administration and cannot be reversed when it comes to verification of the treaty by the opposite side.

There is a lot of evidence to suggest that technical means do indeed play a very important monitoring role in the process of verifying the many arms control treaties which were agreed during the Cold War period. It is fair to suggest that without national and non-national technical means the verification process would have been considerably more complicated and possibly even non existent, as without these means the process would have been based almost entirely on a trust relationship between the USA and USSR which was almost non-existent for large amounts of this period of history.

Despite this, however, the evidence to suggest that subjective, political factors played a more important role than objective technical facts is overwhelming. There is a consistent theme in the literature of political factors in one state influencing the use of technical means, for example, a change in administration, leading to a change in perspective on the technical aspect of verification, or suspicion of a possible treaty violation.

One very important piece of evidence for this is the previously mentioned ‘Adequate Verification’ policy held by the United States in the 1960s and 1970s. The idea that it is only necessary to be able to detect treaty violations which pose a militarily significant threat to US national security suggests that, with verification, subjectivity is of critical importance when it comes time to decide whether or not it is necessary to consult objective information.

William D. Jackson (1982) summarises the political, rather than technical, nature of arms control accurately in the introduction to his article, stating that “U.S. Administrations in particular have acted with domestic political risks as well as international security risks in mind in approaching the arms control verification issues.” (p. 345) He also highlights that “The verification regime must be designed with political as well as technical requirements in mind,” and that “Verification procedures also must address the subjective insecurity of the participants in order to provide political support for the agreement.” (p. 351)

In doing so he is echoing many other scholars by saying that evaluation of the verifiability of negotiated arms control agreements is a process based primarily on subjective political factors rather than those that are objective and technically-based.
Bibliography:
Evans, G. & Newnham, J. (1998) The Penguin Dictionary of International Relations. London: Penguin
Gallagher, N. W. (1987) ‘The Politics of Verification, why ‘How Much?’ is not enough’, CSP, 18 (2)
Jackson, W. D. (1982) ‘Verification in Arms Control: beyond National Technical Means’, Journal of Peace Research, 19 (4), 345-53
Krepon, M. (1989) ‘The Political Dynamics of Verification’, International Affairs, 65 (2)
Lowenthal, M. M. and Wit, J. S. (1985) ‘The Politics of Verification’ in W. Potter (ed.) Verification and Arms Control 1985
Meyer, S (1984) ‘Verification and Risk in Arms Control’, International Security,
Nincic, M. (1986) ‘Can the US trust the USSR?,’ Scientific American, 254 (4), 33-41
Pieragostini, K. (1991) ‘Arms Control Verification, Cooperation to reduce uncertainty’, Journal of Conflict Resolution 30 (3), 420-44
Schear, J. A. (1985) ‘Arms Control Treaty Compliance, Buildup to a Breakdown’, International Security, 10 (2), 141-82
Sherr, A. B. (1988) The Other Side of Arms Control, Soviet Objectives in the Gorbachev era, Boston: Unwin Hyman

ONLY THE GOOD LORD KNOWS
- the death of a Swedish volunteer
by Benjamin T. Christensen

As a small follow up to yesterday’s article about the battle of Lundby on July 3rd 1864, today we bring you the story of what happened to one of the participants after the battle had ended.

Robert Emil Ekström was born in Värnersborg, Sweden on the 23rd of February 1840. He grew up in Göteborg, to where his parents moved just a few weeks after his birth. As one of the first Swedish officers he volunteered for the Danish army on the outbreak of the war against Prussia and Austria-Hungary and was accepted for duty on January 2nd 1864.

On the morning of July 3rd he was seriously injured at the battle of Lundby when hit in the head by a bullet, but was not taken prisoner by the Prussians who, in their hurry to leave the place after the battle, probably assumed him to be dead. Instead he and many other Danish soldiers who had hidden nearby in the fields and high grass, some even taking advantage of the chaos following the battle to sneak behind the enemy lines and hide inside a chicken house, were by the locals put on wagons and taken to the Danish field hospital in Nørresundby where he was nursed by the staff as well as several locals who took great interest in the wounded men, and did all that was possible to ease their suffering.

One local, the wife of factory owner Galster, writes in her diary:

“The shop and all of the adjoining apartment is filled with wounded, suffering, moaning men, of which a Swedish man appeared to be dead, doctors and everybody thinking him dead, as a bullet had gone through his head, and the bullet was cut out of the back of his head; but believe it or not, the poor man still lives and shortly another piece of iron was cut out of his head, and one piece of bone after the other is now coming out. Often the doctor assures of that he cannot live, and only the good Lord knows whether he will ever fully recover, whether he shall remain among the living.”

As it is obvious from the above quote Ekström’s injuries were too serious for him to survive. Never the less he held on for 6 weeks before died at 6 in the evening on August 15th. His battle against death had been followed by the whole town, who when death finally occurred collectively gathered the money needed for the funeral, and followed him on his last journey.

As a sign of gratitude his family in Götheborg, Sweden helped collect money for Nørresundby when large parts of the town burnt to the ground the following year.

Newspaper note. The text reads:

Notice

Let it hereby be brought to general knowledge that the Swedish volunteer Robert Emil Ekström who was seriously wounded at the skirmish at Lundby on 3 July, after six weeks of painful sufferings departed this life here in Nørresundby on Monday 15 August.

The funeral will take place at Nørresundby Church on Friday 19 August in the morning at 11 xxx [unreadable]

Nørresundby Vickarage

16 August 1864
T. Walter

Newspaper notes. The text reads:

Emil Ekstrøm

Swedish volunteer at the 1 regiment’s fifth company, seriously wounded at Lundby on 3 July, died in Nørresundby on 15 August 1864.

Never he in fight shall succumb
whom the Lord in his safe-keep has had;
Pray and love, and in hours of trial
you shall reap the victorious power of grace.

________

Nocices

My heartfelt, my innermost thanks to all who both in Nørresundby and Allborg and other places have shown my departed son, Robert Emil Ekström so much compassion and friendship! The memory of this will truly be kept with both me and my family and will be of great comfort to us in our deep grief.

Aalborg, 19 August 1864

Robert Wm. Ekström

of Göteborg.

The tombstone of Robert Emil Ekström.

FORWARD ONCE MORE
The destruction of Fifth Company at the battle of Lundby 1864.
- By Benjamin T. Christensen

“Then the Germans fired their first volley and the result was horrifying. Almost all, both those who were hit and those who were not, threw them self flat on the ground, though it gave them little cover. Some, amongst those myself, continued to move forward; but as we were too few to do anything we had to lie down quite near to the enemy. I lay in a field and fired my rifle a few times, but when I saw the company retreat I got up to follow it, and now the bullets started whistling around me until one strafed my left thigh and went right through the right one. Shortly after I stood up and limped forward a bit. But my loss of blood was too big and exhausted I fell down.”

These are the words of private Holger Petersen describing his part in what was to become the last action during the Second Schleswig War (War of 1864), the battle of Lundby, between Denmark and her opponents Prussia and Austria-Hungary. As it may appear from Holger Petersen’s description the battle went awfully wrong for the Danish side. In the following we well take a look at how a combination of bad leadership and superior weapons technology caused one of the biggest massacres in the history of the Danish military.

___________

THE ROAD TO BATTLE
In the summer of 1864 the Second Schleswig War was nearing it’s end. Prussian and Austro-Hungarian forces had occupied almost all of the Jutland peninsula and was now preparing to throw out the last remaining Danish forces there. After it’s defeats at Dybbøl and Als the Danish army had given up the defense of Jutland leaving behind only a small force under the command of Lieutenant-Colonel Charles Beck. His orders were to delay the Prussians’ advance on the northern part of Jutland while covering the retreat (by sea) of the main force. With his camp in Aalborg and Nørresundby Beck’s orders also allowed him to move further south should the opportunity arise without disproportionate risk.

When, on July 2nd, Beck got knowledge of three Prussian scouting commands each of company size marching towards Aalborg by different roads, he ordered his Fifth Company of app. 184 men under the command of Captain P.C.C. Hammerich to attack the western most command, preferably surprising them while camped for the night at the small village of Ellidshøj. Beck himself would assume command of the expedition.

Reaching Ellidshøj at 3 o’clock in the morning on July 3rd the Danish forces found that the Prussian command had retreated. But being assured by locals that there was a second Prussian command at the nearby village of Gunderup Beck ordered his force to move at full pace against it, only to reach Gunderup shortly after the Prussians had left.

Map of the area south of Aalbog with Danish picket lines (blue) and Prussian movements (red)

When interviewed in 1912, Peder Johannsen, a resident of Gunderup, remembers a conversation he had with Beck as he and his men entered Gunderup: “He came to me and asked me about the Prussians. I told him what I knew, how many they were, in what direction they had gone, and at what time they had left Gunderup.

“How far can they have gotten?” he asked me
“They can barely have reached Lundby yet,” I answered, and when he wanted to know where that village was, and how the terrain was there, I gave him the information, also about the long hill leading down to the village.
“But you can move past it by two roads,” I said, “and you can get right into the village without being noticed.”
To that he gave me a short and negative answer so I got all embarrassed.
“Yes, the Lieutenant-Colonel must excuse me” I said. “I’ve never been a soldier myself and do not understand such matters, but I give my advice with the intention to help. If the Prussians are in Lundby, it’s going to be ugly to walk down that hill!”
“Yes thanks! That’s enough!” said the Lieutenant-Colonel and then he and his men marched north right behind the Prussians.”

On their way to Lundby Beck and his force received several warnings from locals not to follow the main road leading from the south over the big hill known as Kongehøj (King’s Hill), and instead approach the Prussians from the east through a low valley or from the west where hedgerows would cover the advance. Either way letting the company get right into the village without the Prussians noticing anything until it would be too late. None of these warnings were listened to. When a peasant offered to lead the force through the valley Beck refused the offer, stating that his men “shall not be led by a simple peasant!” At 4 o’clock in the morning Fifth Company reached Kongehøj overlooking Lundby.

Map of the Lundby area. The Danish force arrived from the south refusing to use the valley east of Lundby to cover it’s advance.

Meanwhile in Lundby part of the Prussian commando was moving out, heading north where they would later engage Danish picket lines near the village of Sønder Tranders, leaving behind 124 men under command of Captain von Schlutterbach in Lundby. Von Schlutterbach’s force was busy requisitioning horses and wagons in Lundby when a bugle call from the trumpeter was suddenly heard.

THE BATTLE
The Prussians had noticed the Danish force at the top of the hill and suddenly found them self in a race against time. With their rifles placed in pyramids on a field just north of the village, the Prussians had to move fast in order to get to their guns before the enemy were upon them. From the top of the hill Beck had a good oversight of the battlefield in front of him. With his men slowly making their way up the hill behind him, he had time to survey the area. In front of him the road was leading down the long sloping hill making a bend about 200 meters before it reached the village. On both sides of the road were fields. At the southern edge of the village he could see an earth dike that would give the Prussians good protection. It was obvious that whoever reached that dike first would get the upper hand in the the battle that would soon start. Noticing this Beck ordered Captain P.C.C. Hammerich to form the men into half columns, a formation that was quick to form but against regulations as it was too vulnerable to fire. But time was of the essence. With a “hurrah” the 184 men of Fifth Company started moving down the sloping hill.

From the village Søren Uhrenholdt witnessed what then happened: “We saw the Prussians line up behind Niels Christensen’s farm, and from there they moved into Kristen Winther’s garden, where they took up position behind the earth dike with their rifles pointing towards the road. They had good cover all of them. Only a commander stood up, likely to have a good view of it all. [...]

But their bullets went right above the heads of the Prussians and flew bewildered around in the village. Some hit the wall close to us, and we retreated to the farm to save ourself. From there we could see nothing, but it was all over soon anyway. Another volley was fired and then it was all silence.“

The battle only lasted a few minutes. With a use of 750 bullets the Prussians had killed, wounded or captured 98 Danes receiving only three wounded of their own. Such a display of superior firepower resulting in such a devastating defeat had never been witnessed before. The result was quickly tributed to the Prussians’ use of breech loading rifles, which allowed them to fire much faster, with greater accuracy and lying down in cover. Whereas the Danes with their muzzle loaders had a lower rate of fire, and had to stand up in order to load, which of course offered a bigger target for their opponents to hit. But could that be the only explanation?

REASONS
As has been mentioned earlier Beck chose not to lead his men around the flanks of the Prussians through the valley or behind the hedgerows. Had this been done, he would most likely have taken the Prussian force by surprise. Later an anonymous Prussian who took part in the battle stated, that at first the Prussians thought them self surrounded and only put up a fight as to stand better in case they would have to defend their actions against accusation of cowardice later.

So why didn’t Beck lead his men through the valley. To answer this question we must look upon the history of the 1st regiment to which Fifth Company belongs. Beck came to the regiment in the winter of 1863 as his first field command. Until then he had only had staff duty as an officer, and spent most of his time on his political career. He soon wrote the high command in order to get transferred stating that he had no experience with field command, and that he did not fit in well with the men.

When the war broke out he lead 1st Regiment into battle. At Sankelmark the regiment became famous when they stopped the pursuing Austro-Hungarian forces, for which Beck received much praise and glory. The truth is though, that Beck left his regiment at an early stage of the battle to escort a wounded colleague to an aid station leaving the regiment without a commander. Only good leadership skills from the regiments former commander (now leading the whole brigade) Colonel Max Müller saved the day. For leaving his men in the heat of battle Beck could very well have faced trial, but instead he became a hero. The reason for this being that he was responsible for putting together the official report of the battle that was sent to the high command. Thus giving him a chance to give himself far more credit than was deserved. One can imagine how it must have been for him, working among colleagues who knew the truth, and it is reasonable to assume that his actions at Lundby were his try to live up to the fame he had falsely gained. He was not even supposed to be their. He should have been in Nørresundby/Aalborg with the regimental staff not on an expedition with a single company.

At the time his actions at Lundby were not judged as harsh as we do today. In fact he got promoted. He had let his men in a heroic attack upon the enemy, a bayonet charge that however outdated by weapons technology it might have been, at that time still was the favored style of attack. When describing the training of 1st regiments a few years earlier a fellow officer wrote: “We attack them head on with the bayonets fixed, all their bullets fly right over our heads.” And a few weeks after the battle of Lundby the high command issued a statement to all troops on the island of Fyn (Fuen) urging them to fix bayonets and push any enemy invaders back into the ocean. So while we may judge Beck’s actions as outdated and irresponsible from a modern perspective, we must also acknowledge that he was just a man of his time.

INTENTIONS
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