12.13.04
IT HAPPENED THIS WEEK...DEC 13th - DEC 19th
December 13 1862
The Battle of Fredericksburg
During the Civil War, the Union forces of General Ambrose E. Burnside, consisting of some 135,000 troops, launch an offensive against Confederate General Robert E. Lee's army of 75,000 men. After crossing the Rappahannock River, and advancing steadily through Fredericksburg, Union troops encounter the strongest Confederate position of the entire Civil War--a stone wall at Marye's Heights utilized by General Lee as a natural rifle pit for the Confederates. Wave after wave of Union soldiers advance on the impregnable position, and thousands are mowed down by the entrenched Rebels. It during this battle that Lee, watching the futile Union attack on Marye's Heights, is reported to have said, "It is well that war is so terrible--we should grow too fond of it." More than 25,000 Union soldiers are killed or wounded at the Battle of Fredericksburg, compared with only 5,000 Confederate casualties. The victory of Lee's vastly outnumbered army at Fredericksburg, following a year of consistent Confederate victories, is a grave defeat for the Northern war effort.
December 14 1799
George Washington Dies
George Washington, the American revolutionary leader and first president of the United States, dies of acute laryngitis at his estate in Mount Vernon, Virginia. He was sixty-seven years old. Washington was born in 1732 to a farm family in Westmoreland County, Virginia, and through his extensive reading was essentially self-educated. His first direct military experience came as a major in the Virginia colonial militia in 1754, when he led a small expedition against the French in the Ohio River valley on behalf of the governor of Virginia. As a colonel during the Seven Years' War between Britain and France, Washington took command of the defenses of the western Virginian frontier in 1756. After the war, he resigned from his military post and over the next two decades he openly opposed the escalating British taxation and repression of the American colonies. In 1774, Washington represented Virginia at the Continental Congress and, after the American War for Independence erupted in 1775, was appointed commander in chief of the newly established Continental army. With this inexperienced and poorly equipped army of civilian soldiers, Washington led an effective war of harassment against British forces in America, while employing his extraordinary diplomatic skills to encourage the intervention of the French into the conflict on behalf of the colonists. On October 19, 1781, British General Charles Lord Cornwallis surrendered his massive British army at Yorktown, Virginia, and General George Washington had defeated one of the most powerful nations on earth. After the war, the victorious revolutionary general retired to his estate at Mount Vernon, but in 1787 he heeded his nation's call and returned to politics to preside over the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. On April 30, 1789, after being unanimously elected, Washington was inaugurated as the first president of the United States, and in 1792 was elected to a second term. While in office, he sought to unite the nation and protect the interests of the new republic at home and abroad. In 1797, Washington retired to Mount Vernon, where he died of natural causes two years later.
December 15 1961
Architect of the Holocaust Sentenced to Death
In Tel Aviv, Israel, Adolf Eichmann, the Nazi SS colonel who organized Adolf Hitler's "final solution of the Jewish question," is condemned to death by a Jewish war crimes tribunal. During World War II, Eichmann, a fanatical Nazi, was appointed head of the Gestapo's Jewish section by Nazi leader Adolf Hitler, and with horrifying efficiency carried out the Fuehrer's orders. From 1942 to 1945, Eichmann oversaw the systematic abuse of Jews in German-occupied territories, organized their subsequent mass deportation to concentration camps, and then carried out Hitler's "final solution to the Jewish question"--the genocidal murder of millions of Jews in Nazi, primarily in the gas chambers of the concentration camps. In 1945, Eichmann was captured by U.S. forces and imprisoned, but he managed to escape before having to face the Nuremberg international war crimes tribunal. Eichmann traveled under an assumed identity, and in 1950 arrived in Argentina, which maintained lax immigration policies and was a safe haven for many accused war criminals. After over a decade of pursuit, Israeli agents located Eichmann living under a false name in Argentina, and in May of 1960 kidnapped him near Buenos Aires. The agents circumvented extradition procedures and transported him to Israel, where he was judged by a special war crimes tribunal in two successive trials. Known as the "human symbol" of the genocide of the Jewish people, on December 15, 1961, Eichmann was condemned to death for the abuse and murder of millions of Jews. On May 31, 1962, Eichmann was hanged. His body was subsequently cremated and his ashes thrown into the sea.
December 16 1944
BATTLE OF THE BULGE BEGINS
With the Allies closing in on Germany, Nazi leader Adolf Hitler ordered a surprise attack along the western front. The German counterattack out of the densely wooded Ardennes region took the Allies by surprise, and created a "bulge" sixty miles deep in the front. Weather prevented the unleashing of Allied air superiority, and for several days Hitler's desperate gamble seemed to be paying off. However, the Americans kept up a fierce resistance, and on December 23, the skies cleared over the bulge. By January 21, the Germans had been pushed back to their original line, having lost some 120,000 men in the offensive. The Allies suffered 81,000 casualties, and all but 4,000 of these were American. It was the heaviest-single battle toll in U.S. history.
December 17 1971
Pakistani Forces Defeated in East Pakistan
Two weeks after the Indian invasion of East Pakistan, some 90,000 Pakistani troops surrender to the Indian forces and East Pakistan is subsequently declared the independent nation of Bangladesh. At the end of British rule in the Indian subcontinent in 1947, East Pakistan was declared a possession of Pakistan to the west, despite the fact that the two regions were separated by over 1,000 miles of Indian territory. Although the two Pakistans shared the Islamic religion, significant cultural and racial differences existed between the regions, and by the late 1960s, East Pakistan began to call for greater autonomy from West Pakistan. In March of 1971, the independent state of Bangladesh was proclaimed and West Pakistani forces were called in to suppress the revolt. An estimated one million Bengalis--the largest ethnic group in Bangladesh--were killed by the Pakistani forces over the next several months, while over ten million more took refuge in India. In December, India, which had provided substantial clandestine aid to the East Pakistani independence movement, launched a massive invasion of the region, and routed the West Pakistani occupation forces. In 1974, Pakistan agreed to recognize the independence of Bangladesh.
December 18 1939
GRAF SPEE BLOWS ITSELF UP
The Battle of the River Plate was a ferocious sea battle off the coast of South America between the German battleship Admiral Graf Spee and the British ships Exeter, Ajax, and Achilles. On December 13, 1939, the nimble and heavily armed German ship held off the three vessels for three hours, sustaining some damage, and then fled into the harbor of Montevideo, Uruguay. Over the next few days, clever maneuvering by the British deceived the Germans into believing that a large British fleet had them trapped. On December 18, as thousands watched from the shore, the Graf Spee was scuttled. Two days later, Hans Langsdorf, the German captain, killed himself.
December 19 1777
Patriot Soldiers Enter Valley Forge
With the onset of the bitter cold, the Continental Army under General George Washington, still in the field, enters its winter camp at Valley Forge, twenty miles from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. During 1777, Patriot forces under General Washington suffered major defeats against the British at the battles of Brandywine and Germantown, and Philadelphia, the former capital of the United States, fell firmly into British hands. The particularly severe winter of 1777 to 1778 proved to be a great tribulation for the American army, and of the 11,000 soldiers stationed at Valley Forge, nearly 3,000 of these men died. However, the suffering troops were held together by loyalty to the Patriot cause and to General Washington, and Prussian military advisor Frederick von Steuben kept the soldiers busy with drills and training in modern military strategy. When Washington's army marched out of Valley Forge on June 20, 1778, his men were better disciplined and stronger in spirit than when they had entered. Eight days later, they won a major victory against the British at the Battle of Monmouth in New Jersey.
