In Enemy Hands, South African POWS in WW2 by Karen Horn 2015 257pg To Edit

 WW2 South Africans Prisoners of War in Germany 11/3/18

The memories of the Boer war 1900 still divided the country with some "bittereinders" (bitter enders) moving off to Patagonia and the States, Tanganyika . The hansoppers (capitulators)  were prepared to be a British Dominion.
WW1 Smuts and Botha drove the Germans out of SWA.
Oswald Pirow the Minister of Defense was pro Nazi and SA exported wool to Germany and bought Junker planes for SA Airways. Robey Leibbrandt was a SA Olympic boxing champion 1936  recruited by Germany to assassinate Smuts.

By the end of the WW2, 334 324 soldiers had served in the Union of South Africa Defense Force of them 16 430 were captured or reported missing. Because of the tensions of Afrikaner nationalism all South Africans were volunteers.
They ended up in the army for a number of reasons, some it was a job and they never thought they would leave SA, others affected by the depression found their farms did not pay others because friends had volunteered. Volunteers wore a red tab that was called "rooiluis" by those against the British in the end the UDF was almost equally divided by the 2 language groups. They had signed up to fight in Africa to defend SA.
When they arrived in the Italian colonies Eritrea , Somalia, Abyssinia they won the battles easily their biggest problem was the sand and flies. When later on in Libya they fought the Germans they realized their lack of experience. The soldiers taken directly to Libya had even less experience. Auxiliaries were volunteer coloureds running a kitchen who had been given captured Italian rifles for self defense this was objected to by the authorities.
1942 General Dan Pienaar was in a plane that crashed returning to SA  after he had driven out the Italian, he had the potential to be Smut's successor.
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They fought with outdated weapons and tactics against a highly organized Afrika Corp. Even the Germans knew about the Smuts or Hertzog affiliates. S A General Klopper was in charge of Tobruk but under Atchinleck with indecision taking its toll losing the battle. Even when they capitulated the soldiers didn't know it, they could have tried to escape and would not have been deserters. Here a third of the captured were South African. We read about the thirst, hunger marches and crowded POW camps in Bengazi with dysentery. Kloppers was exonerated and later head of the SA Army. Sir Villiers de Graaf was also captured.
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They were shipped to Italy and arrived with few warm cloths and lots of lice. Without Red Cross parcels they would have starved, their Italian guards did not eat much better than the POWs.
As prisoners there was resentment to the SA soldiers when it was heard that  SA General Grobbler capitulated at Tabruk but this really came across from the German propaganda as it was a time Germany were losing at Stalingrad. 
When Italy capitulated POWs were free to escape but were told to wait in the camps. This appears to have been false German information.  Over 700 escaped into Switzerland , others met up with the invading forces at Anzio.
The POWs were loaded onto trains and taken through the Bremen Pass to Landsdorf, Upper Silesia  which today is part of Poland. SA prisoners were chosen to work in agriculture as they were more adapt to it and so were able to get some food out in the fields.
When the Russians started attacking from the east they were marched westwards for weeks and saw the Allied planes carpet bombing German cities before  the Americans arrived. 
They travelled in Britain and a compound was set up for S. Africans near Briton. They were given a free train pass to have a tour as it took about 4 months to organize ships to get them home.
    Back home returning Afrikaans soldiers had very poor recognition especially POWs some returned to Ossawabrandwag neighbourhoods, so their stories were not told.  
The Nationalist Party came to power in 1948 and Smuts died in 1950

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My father's  memoir "HIllies War from Rommel to Patton" by Hillel Feldman is on Amazon, covered this whole period, there were a lot more stories he told us but did not mention in the book as they were stories heard about from others.. My father actually saw Rommel who spoke to them in a good English and later saw Patton going past.
1)A ship San Sabastian was torpedoed and the Italian sailors abandoned it, prisoners went into the galley and enjoyed good food while the ship eventually reached a Greek beach.2) A few Russians escaped their camps and were hidden amongst the S. Africans. 3)Soldiers sent off to be recruited into the German Army had some good food and suffered lesson on Nazi dogma and then were returned to their Stalag.VIIB at Landsdorf. He said these were mostly Irish. 

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A Soldier and his Diary by Harris Green   2020   190pg  3/12/23

This is a diary written by (Solly) Solaman Green of the Third Field Engineers of the S. African Army. In was written from January 1942 to May 30th 1942. Born in Cape Town to Harris and Leah  in 1911 to Polish Jewish parents who had arrived there in 1902. The author knew about this diary and years later edited this book from it.

The SA army at the time consisted of 5,353 regulars and another 14,000 Active Citizen Force. Mostly volunteers 135,000 Whites  fought in the North African Campaigns. Another 70,000 non whites served as laborers transport driver and stretcher bearers.

The Commonwealth War Graves  Commission has records of 11,023 SA soldiers who died in WW2. that is more than 5% of those enlisted. In 1939 Solly volunteered to served and was trained at Zonderwater, near Pretoria.

From South Africa the troops were taken  by ship north along the East Coast of Africa to Egypt. Then traveled westwards along the Mediterranean coast of Egypt to Bug Bug, Sallim, Halfafa pass, Mersa Matruh,Sidi Barrani, Fort Capuszzi, Then in Libya Acroma Derna, Bardia, El adem . Bomba, Tobruk, Bir Hakeim and finally Gazala

1942,1st June during the Battle of Gazala he had to detonate a minefield and accidently suffered sever injuries. He was evacuated and via Tobruk and Cairo and put on a hospital ship Llandovery Castle back to South Africa. Gazala is on the coast 60 km west of Tobruk.  

Once Rommel defeated the British at this battle Tobruk fell to him later. This was the greatest achievement of Rommel and he was made Field Marshal from this victory. 

Harris was discharged from service Jun 1943. He returned to his old job at a lower salary as he was not the same man that left. Later a friend hired him "for what he is and not for what he was."

The Woolworth  Diary has adverts of the well know products sold in SA at the time  Describes The Union of South Africa as a British Dominion with a population of 6,530,649. Most of the other soldiers with Solly were taken prisoner and spent time in Italy as POWs.

Most history books are written by historians and are based on research by statesmen and career officer, they saw the war from the top down while the fighting soldier saw it from the bottom up 

Inside story by Ike Rosmarin 1990 1/5/17 This is the story of a South African soldier who was captured at Tobruk. It also gives a lot of research to get the correct information of the battle as well as the names of those captured. My father’s book "Hillies War" covers the fight earlier against Rommel and the battle of Sidi Risigue as well as the experience of being a prison of war at Stalig 17. When one reads about WW2 not much is known of the South Africa role in it, the fact that the South African army was made up of volunteers and a large percentage of it was Jewish and Afrikaans speaking. Tobruk fell to Rommel because the Australians were sent out of Tobruk to defend Australia when Japan captured Singapore. This book covers all aspects of life in the POW camp from sport to education and culture. There are other interesting facts that Rosmarin came across like the Canadians captured at the Dieppe invasion which was a total blunder as the German's knew about it. They heard from a witness about the death camps at Auschwitz. Americans were captured at the Battle of the Bulge and very badly treated. Finally Patton’s tanks released them. Anyone who want's to know about these aspects of WW2 should read this book. The author died in 2008 leaving great grandchildren, he become a big Red Cross worker and supporter.

A novel history of Egypt The Photographers Wife by Robert Sole 1996 312pg

The Photographers Wife by Robert Sole 1996 312pg written in French        31/5/19

This is an extraordinary novel in that it gives the historic backround  to Egypt in this period, with well researched facts.
Milo Touta meets Dora on vacation at the beach in Alexandria and the marry and live in Cairo in 1891.They were both Syrian Christians living in Egypt.  Dora was an artist and Milo askes her to colour some of the portraits. At first she rejects the idea but as she has little else to do takes it up. She reads up all she can of photography, starts on landscapes. These families Syrian Christian, Aramaic speakers and took on French rather than Arabic at the time.
Napoleon set up French rule in Egypt but not Upper Egypt 1798 to 1801.  In 1882 the British took control there. Whereas French language and culture was looked up to the British and English language were not.
1867 to 1914 Khedivate of Ottomans (viceroy) Taxes were paid to Turkey.
1805 to 1848 Mohommad Ali
1879 to1892  Tewfiq. British came in to keep him in power against rebels. Died of renal failure.
In late 1895 Oresto Baratieri led a force of 20,000 Italian troops and Eritrean Ascari are overwhelmed by Ethiopian forces.
The book teaches us about photography at its early stages and why photos were always posed.
1892 till 1914 Abbas HilmeII educated in Vienna. On a tour the young Khedive said that the Egyptian army parade was a disgrace and Kitchener threatened to resign as a result, the Khedive made a apology and the problem was solved. Sir Evelyn Baring - Earl of Cromer was the British Consul.
Gordon had been sent to evacuate Kartumn but got their too late and made a 9 month stand and was defeated as reinforcement never arrived. The Mahdi ruled Sudan and they discus that Britain will have to take over there as a foreign power there can control the Nile. Sir Reginald Wingate a Scot, fought there. Orde Wingate was a cousin once removed of his.
You had the British Army and the Army of Occupation controlled by the British.
Rudolf Slatin an Austrian who fought for Britain in Sudan and surrendered to the Mahdi in1883 and escaped in 1995.got title Slatin Pasha and fought under Kitchener against the Mahdi. He wrote a book on these 12 years.
1894=1896  Hamidian  Massacres.  Under Sultan Abdul Hamid ll mainly Armenians but also Assyrians and other Christians were   massacred by the Ottomans in Turkey.
1894 Dreyfus  trial is talked about.
 1895      Tram system installed in Cairo by a Belgium company.
Railway track build in Sudan by the British to join the 2 loops of the Nile to bring supplies for war against the Mahdi. Locals who are in clans against  the Mahdi are hired and slave girls are found them as wives. British slowly work along and destroy the Dervishes.
1898 Captain Jean Batiste Marchant with 20 French officers and 130 Senegalese troops -the Fashado incident. Kitchener arrived with 5 ships of troops and the French had to back down. France was very preoccupied  in the Dreyfus scandal and they were already worried about Germany.
Dora becomes a superb photographer and the business begins to flourish she has 3 daughters but her role as a professional women is problematic. His family have an annual photo together and he takes one then she does - her less formal one is far better. A portrait of hers is entered in a Paris competition and wins. Dora manages to get a picture of Nonna  (Milo's mother) and she likes it. The Kedive  sends a message for them and they take his photo and are allowed to market it. Then Lord Cromer the Consul (the real ruler of Egypt) invites her to take his photo which surprisingly they manage to market.
Milo feels overshadowed by his successful wife.  She has a friend Isis who is French woman doctor and they have a lot in common. Miro now has a mistress a French woman.
Milo comes home drunk they have an argument and she takes the girls to her family and she takes the job that she been offered previously  as a photographer of  the Semaphore to report on Sudan. Kitchener has gone south to fight the Boer War and Reginald Wingate is  in charge. Her friend William is in the Sudan and she meets up  with him. Her pictures are seen in the Cairo press. Nonna the family matriarch dies. The book ending is not clear, but Milo and Dora really did love each other
We read that Khartoum was destroyed when Gordon was defeated in 1883. Across the river at Omdurman the Mahdi set up his capital where he died. Kitchener had to destroy his tomb otherwise he would have been considered scared of the dead Mahdi.  The British redesigned Khartoum and Syrian and Greek merchants were already there.    Wingate took over as Governor of Sudan.
In Paris the Metro is opened 1900 for the Paris World  Fair

Cod :the fish that changed the world by Mark Kurlansky 1997,238pg

  Fishing and how it influenced history  14/9/19

This starts in Newfoundland  fishing in Petty Bay or Pettit from the French. Once there were so many fish it was free for all then, licences were introduced and gill nets banned but less and less cod was available also other fish vanished and whales stopped feeding in the area. This was the nearest part of America to Ireland and north of the river with Irish Catholics while south Protestants but now they cross the bridge and integrated.  The fishermen were doing research on cod and caught 100 fish that weighed 365 pound 10 years earlier a hundred fish would have weight many times more and of the 100 only 2 were 7years old and ready to breed.
The book describes the Basques who live in 4 Spanish and 3 French provinces and went out and found a source of ready dried cod which must have been Newfoundland before Columbus as well as the discovery of Greenland. Cod is white because it is passive and only has enough energy to grab a piece of food. When caught they don't have energy to wriggle. Of a million eggs only about 2 survive and they shelter in the bottom close to shore. They live where the cold Atlantic current meet warmer water along the Great Banks and the are omnivorous. Because of the  Catholic church eating fish on Friday and lent that is about 100 non meat days in the year. This resulted in a market for fish throughout Europe. Stock (stick) fish was dried in the winter cold. Salt fish came about where they had access to salt.
In the battle for Quebec both the British James Wolfe and French Marquis de Montcalm died in the Battle of Abraham Plains and the French were defeated. After this the British allowed France to keep the Isle of Guadeloupe but did not want them  in North America, ended in Peace of Paris 1863.
 They only allowed them to use the north of Newfoundland to land their fishing. Newfoundland and Nova Scotia never developed as they had scarce population and summer was the fishing season so they could not do agriculture at the same time.  The result that New England became wealthy. The sugar islands needed food to feed slaves and they bought salted cod and paid in sugar molasses and rum till rum was produced in Boston.
A hundred years before the American Revolution, Boston was selling cod and trading directly with the French both in the Carribean and Europe as the Bristol merchants could not take all the cod. This was given as an example of free trade by Adam Smith. There was clandestine dealing in immoral slave trade as part of a fish, sugar, slave triangle but this was kept out of records.
During the Amreican Revolution, Newfoundland and Nova Scotia developed as cod came directly from them to England. The American troops had a good supply of food but not sufficient boots and clothes while the British troops were well clad but short of food.
The fishing was the most dangerous job at the time as men went out on dory boat from the main ship and got lost in fog, fell overboard or lost toes and fingers to frostbite. While the fish season was on they worked so many hours that they lacked sleep. Only after WW2 that fishing was really modernized with factory ship and mechanical engines instead of sails.
In 1946 Clarence Birdseye mastered the technique of blast freezing and then then factories started freezing fillets and sawing them up into fish fingers. This led to an enormous demand and salt fish was no longer wanted. Huge factory trawlers with nets dragged along by 2 boats resulted in the sea floor turning into a dessert and many undesirable fish were simply returned to the sea dead.
Aldous Huxley believed that the more you fished the more fish would replace them but by 1902 the British saw they had less fish and boats went to Icelandic shores. Iceland fishing methods had not advanced and most fishing was done off parts of the coast without harbours.
Governments encourage fishing fleets as they  trained sailors and with WW2 the fishing fleet was taken to serve the war effort. For 6 years very little fishing was done and Iceland became the only supplier of fish as well as cod liver oil that was given out at schools , was used till 1970. In 1944 Iceland negotiated independence from Denmark and after the war declared and extra 2 mile fishing territory. The 3 mile limit had been establish in 1822 the rest of the sea was considered free for all. Iceland now was a wealthy country also mentioned by WH Auden the poet who taught there.
In 1945 Harry Truman declared that the continental shelf belong to the USA to protect US oil but most fishing takes place on continental shelves.
The book tells us it was Jews who started selling take away fried fish but later on the working man's meal was fish and chips either cod or haddock till this ended in about the 1980s when the price went up.
Eventually a 200 mile fishing zone was declared and Iceland controlled her fishing. Canada and Newfoundland the authorities never had the will to close down fishing and quotas did more harm than good as cheaper fish were thrown back but were already dead. There were always years when the cod disappeared possibly to move to the changing zone where the hot and cold water meet but would return. Suddenly they never returned and other species have replaced them. In 1933 the filleting machine was invented and fish that in the past that were dumped were now marketed. US fishing moved to the Pacific and Alaska.
 There can be a number of reason for the permanent disappearance of cod on the Grand Banks, the ecology changed other predators replace them or ate their eggs. Cod farming has been tried but salmon is far more successful. However this leads to a problem that the farmed fish have a different genetic make up to the natural surviving fry.
Iceland and Britain had 3 Cod Wars 1958,1972,1975 Nobody was killed but the Iceland Navy cut off nets of trawlers and boarded ships and impounded them.  Both countries were NATO members and Iceland won the battle. Hull, Grimsby and Fleetwood were the most affected towns and fishermen were laid off and paid out compensation in England.  Fish and chip shops ended and collagen sausage casing were invented to become the replaced cheap food.
From Gloucester Mass. near  Cape Cod  fishermen turned to other trades like taking tourist out to see whales.

John Muir The ice that started a fire by Kim Heacox 2016 212pg

 John Muir; The great American Naturalist 22/10/18

The begining of knowledge on Alaska.

This book is about the glaciologist, explorer, conservationist and writer John Muir and gives the background to the subject and interesting aspects of American history. Also our first cruise was to Alaska and I now understand what I saw better.

William Seward had been Lincoln Secretary of State and now he held the post under Andrew Johnson, He bough Alaska from Russia in 1867 for $7.2 million under Alexander 2nd as Russia knew she could not defend the territory and needed the money after the Crimean War and the 1861 emancipation of serfs.  The US was in a state of Reconstruction after the Civil War and were hard pressed for money and the sea otter for furs had mostly been hunted out leaving the territory little values and it was called Seward's Folly.
(1838 -1914)John Muir was born in southern Scotland  in where there was a very literate population. The family moved to Wisconsin where from the age of  12 he worked the family farm and his father forced the bible on the family. This is about the first Alaska explorer with the missionary Young
 Wordsworth's romantic poetry influenced them and showed God in nature. He influenced the preservation of the Lake District in England.
1871 Ralph Waldo Emerson met Muir at Yosemite and influenced him, in the same way as Emerson had met John Adams the 2nd President who had mentored him at Braintree in 1825.
1582 Edinburgh University had been established and  in the Scottish Enlightenment of 18C had more students than Oxford Cambridge combined.
1619 Descartes Principia Philosophae was that man was above nature that must be subdued.
Francis Bacon  " the world is made for man, not man for the world,
1620 The Mayflower arrived in New England and 200 years later most hardwood forests had been felled.
1770 James Cook circumnavigated the Antarctic.

1823 James Fenimore Cooper first  novel The Pioneers followed by other novels on the early settlers of the East Coast.
1804 to 1806 Lewis and Clark expedition to that crossed to the Pacific Ocean.
  1826  George Catlin an artist in the west commented on the destruction of the Indians and bison.
1843 John James Audubon wrote about the destruction of the bison.
1863 the Civil war had killed 625 000  Americans, and the whole Southern way of life had been destroyed. Lincoln had explained that the whole country had profited from slavery now the trend was to conquer the west.
1872 Yellowstone made a national park under Ulysses Grant.
1883 Glacier Bay Alaska attracted tourists on ships.
1890 Yosemite made a national Park by President Benjamin Harrison to stop sheep grazing there and felling the trees.
1891 Boone and Crocket club set up in NY with Teddy Roosevelt to preserve the wild.
1892 Sierra Club set up in Berkley
          Svante Arrhenius a Swedish scientist speculated on the "hydrocarbon Problem" and the CO2 effect on the air. He won the Noble Prize for science in 1903 for work on conductivity.
1893 Chicago World Fair  the hamburger and Ragtime music of Scot Joplin, a smallpox epidemic, internal combustion engine   alternate current, originate here.
           Fredrich Turner wrote a thesis titled "With the American Frontier gone'.
1896 Klondike Gold Rush portrayed by Jack London. John Nordstrom a Swede made money here and set up department stores all over the USA.
 1899 Edward Harriman (father of Averell Harriman) wealthy road and rail magnet chartered a ship George W Elder and took American greatest scientists including John Muir on a 2 month expedition to Alaska - it took these scientist years to document what they had studied there. After an earthquake later that year Glacial Bay was inaccessible due to ice that had broken off. The lengthening and receding of glaciers is understood today to be relevant to sea temperature.

1901 Teddy Roosevelt becomes president and received Booker T Washington as the first black guest to the White House.
1903 in Florida the first Bird Preserve made. Wright Brothers aeroplane, trans Atlantic radio transmissions.
         John Muir toured India and Egypt but avoided the Holy Land as there was a cholera epidemic.
1906 American Antiquities Act protected the Petrified Forest, Grand Canyon Park, Olympus National Park
        Earthquake destroys San Francisco.
1919 Grand Canyon becomes a national park
A kilo of oil can produce twice the energy of a kilo of coal.
Mark Twain lived from Haley's Comet in1835 to Haley's Comet 1910  75 years
1980 Jimmy Carter made large parts of Alaska a national park.
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Crazy Horse and Custer: The parallel lives of 2 American Worriers by Steven E Ambrose.2014 490pg

 Crazy Horse and Custer: American History15/3/20 

Both Custer and Crazy Horse were recognized as leaders by the age of 24, neither were drinkers and both were avid hunters. They met only twice - on the banks of the Yellowstone in 1873 and at Little Bighorn in 1876. 

In the great plains grasses send down roots 24 inches to withstand the drought, and provide nutritious plant food and the buffalos provided an inexhaustible supply of meat. Kansas alone had 12 million and they provided meat, clothing and shelter and droppings fed campfires. Horses only arrived in the south US in 1690 and till then Indians lived sedentary lives on corn squash and beans. 

With their endurable pintos they could make a travois and move around the plains. The Sioux only acquired horses in 1776, it also became a medium of exchange and wealth. Pemmican was made from buffalos meat.  Whiskey dominated the fur trade but they also wanted coffee, metal and guns.. Indians fought for prestige and loot.

James Fenimore Cooper gave a romantic view of the red man.

1839 George Armstrong Custer born in New Brumley, Ohio where there was a big mix of immigrants and Calvinism had a great influence. Nowhere was success as great as in America where a mans property was secure in law and customs. Anything in the way of progress had to be destroyed, first the forest for agriculture and then the Indians. Free land was of central importance to the American way of life and taking the continent was their manifest destiny and the Bible went hand in hand with ambition. 

1840.Oregon Trail opened. Public education was set up in Ohio. With American history, the Revolution and Constitution emphasised.  Custer's favourite reading was military fiction  and got into Westpoint getting free higher education. Navel collage was an alternate for boys without money.

1857 Custer aged 17 arrived in Westpoint the most advance engineering school in the US and graduated in July1861. This way a poor boy mixed in circles like the Vanderbilt's and du Ponts. Some southerners resigned to join the Confederates.

1845 the first white soldiers seen on Sioux country and by 1849 cholera , smallpox, measles arrived. Indians spoke different dialect but had a common sign language. At fort Laramie you had Indians receiving supplies annually to pacify them.

The Oregon Trail was the road west and Indians attacked wagon caravans and stagecoaches. During the 4 civil war years  the army was not in this area and the  Oglalas Sioux and the Shoshonis  and had the finest hunting season and they stayed mostly in the Powder River region and kept out of the way of whites and European sicknesses .. Everyone who wanted to avoid the civil war headed west along the Holy Road (Oregon Trial) Even though young braves wanted goods and  they could steal and big American horses, guns and cattle.

Only the worst officers left over from the Civil War were sent to serve on the Plains, and they ended up killing friendlies making the rest more hostile.  Indians knew the terrain, could live off the country, were more mobile and had the inactive.

1865 Gold had been found in Montana and whites wanted the shortest road there the Bozeman Trail. 

A peace treaty was signed letting Americans  open roads in the Powder River country. In Washington it was thought that it would be cheaper through bribery than war but no hostile Sioux signed.

1861 Custer was with Mc Dowel in the Battle of Bull Run. He always had amazing good health.

1862  Custer was under Mc Clellen  in the army of the Potomac who was replaced by Burnside.

1863 June, Robert E Lee invaded the north  As the battles go fiercer political appointees dropped out an West Pointers took their places.

1863 Sep. Custer was pictured on Harpers Weekly as a national hero.

He led a Brigade in the Battle of Gettysburg and cut his way out of the battle of Brandy Station. At the end of the war he was in the van of the force that cut Lee off from his supplies.

Custer was only 25 at Appomattox for him the war had been fun, and he fraternized with his rebel friend now.

1864 He married Libby Bacon in Monroe who devoted 12 years of married life to Custer and then 57 years of widowhood to her husbands legasy She wrote Boots and Saddles: life in Dakota with General Custer. To satisfy her father he pledged not to drink or swear and he kept this pledge. He now became a major general.

Discipline is what makes an army and civilization.

During the Civil War 267 soldiers of Union Army were executed a third of them for rape the others for desertion.

Sherman was sent to protect the railways and it was cheaper to buy their way out of a war with the Indians but not enough money was allocated. Only the Powder River Sioux were an obstacle and the army started building forts before they had a peace treaty and Red Cloud stormed out of the council at Fort Laramie. Red Cloud between 1866-68 allied Indian forces for a 3 year campaign.

Fettleman was enticed by decoys to Lodge Trail Ridge and ambushed killing 81 soldiers.

1867 Custer got his first command on the Great Plains his first post war assignment had been to accompany Sheridan to Texas where the last rebel force surrendered and to deal with Emperor Maximilian's French troops in Mexico.

Wild Bill Hickock taught Custer a lot about the Indians. Many of the men who joined the army did it to get free tranport west and then deserted to work on mines. The unemployed in the cities were recruited by the army so  drunks criminals and deadbeats. Henry Morton Stanley was a leading reporter in this area. Later known for finding Livingstone in Africa.

Sherman ordered Custer to kill Indians and bring in women and children. Sherman's contribution to the Civil War was cutting off the enemies resources and the coming of the railways would meant the end of the Indian way of life. In 10 year the number of buffalo were reduced from 50 million to less than 1000 by 1888. Buffalo hunters not the army cleared the Indians off the plains. Whites could think of only 2 solution civilization or extermination of the Indians. They di not follow a policy of genocide.

The government provide them with ploughs wagons, oxen and the Sioux agreed to education of their children between ages 6 and 16 to Christianize and modernize them.

 Custer was successful in attacking the Indian camps in winter but extended winter campaigning was impossible as the horses had no food.

1870 When Red Cloud was taken to Washington and NY her was awestruck and put away his worrier clothing.

1869 till 1877 Ulysses Grant was a Republican President.  

1876 the Cheyenne's and Sioux came to the closest united front against the whites under Crazy Horse. He defeated Lieutenant George Crook who survived at the Battle of the Rosebud as he was expecting them to attack and flee and not counterattack.

 The Indians moved the camp to Little Bighorn Valley, Montana. Later  Custer Cavalry were armed with 1873 model of the Springfield .45-70s Custer took the 7th Cavalry 611 men and wanted to get the Indians before they fled so left the heavy Gatling guns behind. He did not want to share his glory and wanted to be the Democratic candidate for president.

Crazy horse had 3000 warriors the movement of the Indian camps and the marks of the travois looked like a wide stretch of ploughed fields. Custer ended up doing exactly as the Indians expected him to do. Reno and his troops were meant to charge from the flank but did not and Crazy Horse knew no to chase them. 1 in 5 Indians had Winchesters. In 20 minutes the Indians wiped out Custer and 225 soldiers who had been marching all night. Custer was not only outnumbered, outflanked  but outgeneraled. Sioux losses were 40 dead. Thus Crazy Horse had defeated Fetterman, Crook and Custer. 

The next  winter was extremely cold and with no hunting territory left the Indians had to come in and the Indian agent were now controlled by the army.

1877 Crazy Horse was stabbed to death in Fort Robinson while with Little Big Man. Controversial about wanting to escape?