‘Milstack Saturday’ showcases the best articles on military subjects that I read in the preceding week.
Brandan Rapp examines the role played by adaptive command in the Battle of Little Big Horn.
Ben Duval ponders the possibility of strategic maneuver.
Brett Friedman compares the beaches of Gallipoli to those of Taiwan.
Donald Hill discusses Ukrainian drone attacks on Russian bridges.
Related Reading
I've been to the site of Little Big Horn - the Sioux call it the Battle of the Greasy Grass. If you have to die, it's really a beautiful place to do so. Several of the names on the monument to Custers men had Irish names and I kind of wondered at the time if any of them had been in the any of the Irish Brigades during the Civil War.
The Sioux counter attacked up-hill through a gully full of rattlesnake dens. Today you can walk down through that gully on a raised boardwalk and the signs all says "Stay on the boardwalk and watch out for rattlesnakes"
For over 100 years the Sioux kept the real secret - that Mary Crawler, born Tȟašína Máni, (Moving Robe) had been in that battle. She'd accompanied a war party against the Crow a six years earlier when she was 17 and fought alongside her brother, One Hawk. The year prior to Big Horn, he was killed by Custer, and in this case, he attacked the village at LBH she was living in with her family. She was 23 at that time. They weren't supposed to be there , they'd been moved to a reservation and they left and went back to where they really wanted to live.
There have been reports that a warrior named Fast Eagle pinned Custers arms behind him while Moving Robe stabbed him to death, but the officers who found his body reported only gunshot wounds. She does however have one confirmed killed - one of the interpreters there at the battle. She migrated up to Canada then eventually settled at Standing Rock and several of the Sioux who were were at Standing Rock pipeline protests in 2016 were descended from her.
🔗 links misroute Duval and Friedman going to Rapp strategic maneuver and Ukraine last link to Gallipoli <