Battle Rattle Podcast

You've heard of US military tragedies like Pearl Harbor and Custer's Last Stand, but arguably the worst defeat on a US army force is so unknown that it doesn't even have a name. Most call it St. Clair's defeat, named after the general who lost 1/3 of the US's standing army in a single morning. We call it Battle of the Wabash, named after the river where a smaller Native American force wiped out an American encampment on November 4, 1971.

Britain's introduction to "modern" warfare came a few years before World War I against an unlikely foe: farmers on horseback. Except these farmers geniusly employed smokeless powder, machine guns, and trenches. The farmers were called Boers, and 3,500 of them fended off 21,000 British troops at a small river crossing in South Africa called Colenso.

Simon Bolivar is known as The Liberator of South America, but on a hot summer morning in a sleepy Venezuelan village he nearly lost his entire revolution, and possibly the freedom of a continent. Moments from defeat, Bolivar was saved by an unlikely ally: British veterans of Waterloo.

When we think of the great military minds, we think of the standards: Napoleon, Alexander the Great, Genghis Khan, etc. But in 621 a second son in frontier China would emerge from the desert to lead one of the most successful military campaigns in history, culminating in an against-all-odds victory that united China and ushered in China's Golden Age. His name was Li Shimin, and the place was Hulao Pass.

What does victory on the battlefield look like? Can you fail your objective but still change the war? The U.S. Marines at Soissons did just that. Failed by their planners, these Marines drove headfirst into a maelstrom of German firepower. The casualties were horrific, but their determination to hold the ground they gained changed the calculus of the Western Front. And that's why Soissons is a battle you might not know, but should. http://battlerattlepodcast.com/

For being the United State’s first war on foreign soil and featuring a Who’s Who of future Civil War leadership, the Mexican War gets little attention. On several occasions the US was on the brink of disaster, only to pull out a surprise victory. Arguably the most significant turn of fortune came on General Winfield Scott’s march to Mexico City at a small choke point called Cerro Gordo. There, the outnumbered and out-positioned Americans employed grit and ingenuity to turn the battlefield around and make the war’s conclusion inevitable. http://battlerattlepodcast.com/

On October 7, 1780, a band of American backwoodsmen slowly encircled British loyalists. The loyalists had the numbers, the training, and the high ground, but on this day the traditional rules of war would not work out for them. The entire force would disintegrate and force Lord Cornwallis to withdraw from his Southern campaign and escape to Yorktown, where he eventually surrendered to Washington, effectively ending the war. In terms of the battle’s relative importance, King's Mountain is arguably the most pivotal battle in the entire American Revolution, but it doesn't get the airtime other battles fought in the Northern theater of the war receive. http://battlerattlepodcast.com/

On a small hillock in a remote ridge on a forgotten frontier between Pakistan and Afghanistan sat a small signal tower in a dusty village. In 1897, the 22 Sikh soldiers employed by the British army operating this signal tower were surrounded by at least 8,000 Pashtun warriors. They were invited to surrender, but their response would make Saragarhi one of the most impressive last stands in the annals of military history. http://battlerattlepodcast.com/

The Roman Legions were the height of military professionalism of their day. How, then, was a young Roman officer able to cobble together a loose federation of lightly armed Germanic tribesmen and hand Rome one of her most disastrous defeats? All of this right under the nose of his commanding officer? Love, betrayal, fate…The Battle of Teutoburg Forest has it all, and that is why it is a battle you might not know, but should. http://battlerattlepodcast.com/

Besides it getting made into a country folk song, the Battle of New Orleans has largely been forgotten. Which is a shame, because rarely has such a motley crew of fighters—US soldiers, US sailors, American backwoodsmen, American Indians, Frenchmen, free Blacks, American militia, hat-makers and blacksmiths and grocery store clerks and probably some others—able to withstand the mighty British Army. The same British Army that had just finished off Napoleon. The fact that Andrew Jackson was able to successfully defend the entire Gulf of Mexico, from Florida to Louisiana, by beating back a land invasion in the swamps below New Orelans is why The Battle of New Orleans is a battle you might not know, but should. http://battlerattlepodcast.com/

There is room to argue that The Battle of Monongahela is the most “underrated” battle ever. After all, it sparked the world’s first real world war, it shifted the boundaries of huge swaths of North America, it lit the fire of revolution in Colonial Americans, and it helped shape the military futures of numerous British and American military leaders, including George Washington. Today, though, it barely earns brief mention in textbooks and is memorialized by a roadside sign. And that’s why Monongahela is a battle you might not know, but should. http://battlerattlepodcast.com/