100 Mistakes That Changed History (29 page)

57

EVERYONE LOSES

Little Big Horn
1877

T
he honor of the first mistakes in this series of errors that doomed a people goes to Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer. If there were a single cause for the many lapses in judgment that led to the death of Custer and nearly 300 troopers of the Seventh Cavalry, it was frustration. Just plain, simple frustration.

Custer could not get the enemy to face him, and he needed a victory. George Armstrong Custer was an unquestioned Civil War hero. His greatest moment came when Jeb Stuart was leading the bulk of the Confederate cavalry behind the Union lines at Gettysburg. Stuart was going to attack from behind the same units and artillery that Pickett’s Charge would face. General Custer led his Wolverine Cavalry against ten times their number. It held Stuart up until more Union horses arrived and the Southern riders were forced to retreat. Had Stuart’s attack succeeded, Gettysburg might well have been a Southern victory and so Custer’s courage may have saved the Union. This and the fact that he was the youngest brigadier general in the Union Army helped the young officer develop an ego and ambition. General Grant had become president and other war heroes saw their chance. What Custer needed was a win that would get national coverage and advance his political prospects. But the Indian war dragged on, and the great victory he needed eluded him.

Custer commanded the Seventh Cavalry in the Dakotas. The different style of fighting employed by the tribes, hit-and-run tactics and withdrawals when confronted by a strong force, gave him the wrong impression of their determination and courage. He felt they were cowards who would run when faced with any serious opposition. Subsequent encounters encouraged this view.

After months of trying unsuccessfully to bring the tribes in the Dakota territories to battle, a strategy was devised to force a battle. The plan was that the army would invade in three columns from three directions. The three were to converge and force the “hostiles” ahead of them until they could be beaten by the combined forces. The Seventh Cavalry was one of those columns. It was commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Custer, who like most officers had taken a demotion from general when the U.S. Army downsized after the war.

The plan quickly fell apart. The northern force was met, stopped, and driven back. So the other two columns continued with the invasion. Once the three columns were riding across the Indian lands, they were out of contact with one another and the telegraph. This meant that Custer did not know of the northern column being driven back or that the third column was delayed. He did not know he was unsupported. What he was mostly concerned about was not support but that the hostiles would once again slip away.

So the former general made a number of decisions, all of which were intended to allow his cavalry to ride faster and so bring to battle an elusive opponent. The first of these decisions was to leave behind the wagons and similar horse-drawn items that might slow his troopers down. This included the new Gatling guns, which alone might have given Custer’s Last Stand a new name. These early machine guns had been used by the Union Navy in the American Civil War, but a decade later they were still distrusted by army officers. The second decision George Custer made was to disregard the scouting reports of how many hostiles he was facing. This may have been partially inspired by the disdain in which he held the Sioux and Cheyenne warriors. Finally, Custer broke one of the basic rules by splitting his own command into three parts. Once more the reason for this was to ensure that the hostiles did not escape. This was not likely to happen since the camp he was approaching contained more than 5,000 women and children. The 2,000 armed warriors guarding it had no choice but to defend their families.

One column, commanded by Captain Benteen, was sent to prevent any retreat. The other two columns under Major Reno and Custer himself would hit the village from both north and south. This would force the warriors to stay and fight. Before it got close to the village, Major Reno’s column was confronted by hundreds of Sioux and Cheyenne warriors. They drove Reno back across a river and up a bluff. The blocking column was also under pressure and forced to withdraw as well. When Custer and 210 men attacked the village, it took most of the pressure off Reno’s column, which was later able to unite with Benteen’s men and withdraw. But that left no one to reinforce Custer’s force.

As he led his 210 men down toward the encampment, the Civil War hero realized that there were well over a thousand tepees in it. His small force would have little effect on so large a village and would quickly be broken up as they rode through the maze of dwellings. So he diverted his attack off to one side, but that took him out to the rolling ground beyond. There they met more than a thousand warriors who were riding hard to meet what they justifiably saw as an attack on their wives and children. Custer had to stand and fight. He spread his men in an extended formation, hoping their Spencer repeating rifles would be enough. They weren’t. Without the artillery or Gatling guns, which Custer had left behind, they were quickly overwhelmed. Custer’s command died to the last man.

The men of the Seventh Cavalry certainly paid a high price for George Armstrong Custer’s mistakes. It was the most one-sided defeat in American history. The victory also reinforced the white opinion that Indians were violent savages. After the defeat at Little Big Horn, the U.S. Army reinforced and increased their efforts all through the Dakotas. Within a few years, the only Native Americans not starving on reservations were the few hundred that remained exiled in Canada.

The final mistake that doomed the Sioux and other tribes was a betrayal. The Oglala Sioux chief Crazy Horse was perhaps their most respected leader. A competing chief told General Crook, who commanded the U.S. cavalry in the territory, that Crazy Horse planned to kill him during a parley. On the basis of this statement, Crook issued an arrest warrant for the Oglala chief. Ironically, after successfully leading warriors in many battles, Crazy Horse may have become convinced that war was not the best route for his people. In early September, the chief had refused to join a small band of warriors led by Chief Red Cloud, and then later that month, he convinced Chief Spotted Tail and hundreds of his warriors to return peacefully to the reservation. When asked by Colonel Luther Bradley to come to Camp Robinson on a promise that no harm would befall him, Crazy Horse agreed. It was a mistake.

Thousands of Lakotas were already gathered at Camp Robinson when Crazy Horse arrived. Many of them were families he had personally led there that May. He entered the camp with Indian agent Jesse Lee accompanying him. Lee pleaded that the chief be allowed to speak his piece. His request was refused. Chief Crazy Horse was too influential and this made him a threat. Bradley ordered his immediate arrest. Being arrested virtually guaranteed that the chief would be killed or shipped off to die at a desolate prison in the Florida Keys.

At first Crazy Horse went willingly with the officer of the day. When they entered the building and he realized he was being taken in the camp jail, the old warrior pulled a knife and ran back out. One Lakota warrior who had fought with Crazy Horse earlier was now working for the army. His name was Little Big Man, though his story is very different from the Dustin Hoffman movie by that name. As Crazy Horse ran out the door, Little Big Man grabbed his arm. Crazy Horse stabbed the Indian scout and ran a few steps farther.

Armed only with a knife, Crazy Horse found himself surrounded by soldiers. Dozens ran toward the fleeing chief, and one officer yelled, “Kill him, kill him.” Crazy Horse was bayoneted and died that evening. With his death went the best hope for a peaceful resolution of the problems in the Indian Territories. It was the final act that guaranteed the near destruction of the Cheyenne and Sioux cultures.

Custer’s mistakes in command led to a massacre that reinforced public opinion that the tribes were savages whose violent way of life needed to be exterminated. The results were increased efforts and massacres of women and children, such as the revenge taken by the Seventh Cavalry at Wounded Knee. With the death of Crazy Horse, the loss was guaranteed. It is a terrible irony that the Sioux and Cheyenne paid such a terrible price for their one-sided victory. George Armstrong Custer may have made the mistakes, but both his troopers and the Native Americans felt the repercussions.

58

ONE WRONG TURN

How to Start a War
1914

R
arely has one driver making a wrong turn affected history more than in Sarajevo in 1914. It all really started in about 1859 as Germany struggled to become a nation. The result of that unification was that the traditional balance of power in Europe was disrupted. By 1870 and the Franco-Prussian War, there was no balance and no one doing any balancing. Rather, the balance was replaced by interweaving alliances, often based on treaties that contained several secret clauses.

By 1914, racial and political tensions were high all over Europe. This was particularly true in the Austro-Hungarian empire. This Hapsburg empire had a number of problems. Most of the trouble was because it was made up of several nations and even more ethnic groups. Many of those racial groups distrusted or hated one another even more than they did any of Austria’s external enemies. The Austrians lorded over the rest, the Germanic Austrians even more so, while the Serbs hated the Slavs, the Slavic groups all resented everyone else, and less numerous minorities were all exploited and persecuted. Adding to the problems of Austria was Emperor Franz Joseph. He had been on the throne for fifty years and was totally out of touch with both his subjects and the times. Complicating this volatile mix was the fact that dozens of different ethnic groups inside Austria were being supported by nations such as Russia and Germany. So the situation in the Austrian empire was unstable at best and getting worse.

Instability bred chaos and extremism. In parts of the empire, such as Serbia, dozens of radical groups existed, all capable of violent terrorism. Some wanted national freedom, some were ready to kill in the name of democracy; anarchists bombed everyone else in the hope of eliminating all governments. Many groups simply hated and feared all of the other ethnic minorities and religions who were their neighbors. Christians and Muslims continued centuries of antipathy. Almost every group strove to make sure their minority took control of their local area once the inevitable happened and the Hapsburg empire collapsed.

It was in the middle of this volatile and unstable situation that it was decided that the heir to the throne, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, should visit Sarajevo. Now this may sound like a mistake, then again it may not have been. Sarajevo was probably one of the most dangerous centers of radicalism in the empire. The archduke was a moderate and publicly stated that as emperor he would allow the Slavic states to form their own internal governments. This was anathema to the internal police forces of the empire, who spent most of their time putting down plots by those same Slavs. Or perhaps Ferdinand simply wanted to reassure those friendly to his empire, in one of its most hostile provinces, that he cared. So the son of the emperor made a state visit to Serbia. This is the same Serbia that has spent the last few decades dealing with civil war and ethnic cleansing. It might also be added that in the opinion of most governments, the emperor’s son was not the sharpest point on the crown, at best.

In any case, Ferdinand was advised not to go to Serbia, but insisted. So at the end of June 1914, the heir to the Hapsburg throne went to Sarajevo. Knowing that this was going to be a problem, the empire’s secret police went on overtime in all of Serbia and arrested many suspected terrorists. But there were so many that they were unable to get the majority of them. They left virtually untouched one group: the Slavic nationalist fanatics known as the Black Hand.

The route that the caravan of open cars carrying the Austrian archduke would take from the train station to city hall was known. In fact, it was announced so that people would be able to line up and cheer, or at least see their future emperor. Young Black Hand terrorists were spaced along that route. Each terrorist was armed with whatever they could obtain, from grenades to pistols and even a few bombs.

At the beginning of the marked route the first few waiting Black Hand had no chance to attack as the cars sped past before they were ready. Then one, a typesetter named Cabrinovic, threw a grenade. It bounced off the car carrying the archduke. When the grenade did explode, the blast injured those riding in the auto behind Ferdinand’s. Some were hurt seriously enough to be hospitalized. After this incident, the auto caravan sped up again and rushed to the city hall. There the archduke reaffirmed his faith in Serbia’s markedly dubious friendship with the empire and his appreciation of those who served his father’s empire there.

The Austrian military commander for Serbia, General Potiorek, urged the heir to get out of the city as quickly as possible. Instead Ferdinand insisted that he first go visit those who had been injured by the grenade meant for him. A two-car caravan was formed, with the mayor of Sarajevo’s vehicle leading the way to the hospital. And here is the mistake. The first car took a wrong turn. It went the wrong way at a fork in the road. As a result of their wrong turn, the open-topped auto carrying the archduke and his wife slowed to a near stop. It may have even pulled partway into an alley to turn around and get back onto the correct route.

By sheer coincidence one of the would-be assassins, Gavrilo Princip, who had failed to get a shot earlier, happened to be standing where they stopped. He had been standing in the wrong place. Princip still had his loaded pistol. When he found himself standing just a few feet from the royal couple, he quickly fired two shots. One hit Ferdinand near his heart and the other struck Duchess Sophia in the stomach. While the terrorist was quickly subdued, the damage was done. Both royals died soon after.