ROSWELL


   Bill McDonald had very little time to worry about the squabbling within his own command. He had enough trouble with his counterpart, a man that he theoretically commanded in this operation but, who was far less polite about his refusal to accept a subordinate role than was Weatherford. McDonald could not ignore this man like he was in the habit of doing with Weatherford. That was because this man was Field Marshall Miguel Gregorio de la luz Atenogenes Mariom y Tarelo and he was not only commanding Mexican troops in this operation but, he also happened to be the Commander and Chief of all the Armed Forces of Mexico.
Before any discussion of details could get underway, the exact nature of Mariom’s position had to be discussed in detail and the man simply refused to budge on anything. He was sixty eight years old at this time and despite his extensive experience, and German military education, it had been a long time since the man had served in the field. He had not been the Emperor’s first choice for command but, this was Mexico’s largest military operation in it’s history. Mariom refused to be left out. Fortunately for McDonald, it would be Colonel Weygand who came to the rescue. He suggested, thru McDonald’s staff, that they adopt the same attitude with Mariom that he had. Tell the man yes to whatever he asked for and then just ignore him. It seemed to have worked.
Beyond the bickering over titles, the Mexican and Confederate staffs began to deploy troops along the lines of McDonald’s basic plan that had been formulated months before in Mexico City. While their enemy was greatly out numbered he was dug in on ground of his choosing. He also had decades to prepare for this and from what little intelligence that McDonald was getting about his opposite number, John Pershing, it appeared as if the man was competent. Exactly how much was yet to be seen.
The one thing that Pershing seemed to be even shorter of than McDonald were reserves. Pershing had a large border to defend and precious few men to do it with. He also had many miles of railroad that had been laid by the US Army for the express purpose of defending New Mexico. Normal considerations that usually went with railroads, such as commerce, were subordinate to it’s military function. As a result, New Mexico was not heavily populated and most of it’s newer cities were simply extensions of the army posts that were set up to defend the rail depots.
This gave the Allied forces an advantage in that they could easily overwhelm any of the garrisons they faced. The main concern that McDonald had was keeping Pershing from concentrating his forces. If this happened then the front would likely stagnate as it had everywhere else. The solution that McDonald hit upon was to try and give Pershing more disasters than he could handle. This meant a series of on going strikes along the border and near targets that the US could not ignore. Hopefully, this would keep the Yankees spread thin and maybe even keep Pershing questioning the nature McDonalds moves.
The largest of these diversions would fall to none other than General Jesse James. His operation would also begin some seventy two hours before the main attack would be launched, from around El Paso, where it would advance up the Rio Grande river valley. James was given the objective of striking at the heavily fortified city of Roswell which was located just east of the mountains on the exposed plains.
Besides the cities abundant water supply, Roswell was of very little strategic importance. Occupying the city would give you effective control of a small sliver of the of the state but, what good was having it? The region was geographically isolated and thinly populated. The only rail line that ran to the city was a spur from Albuquerque. It was only a single line affair and easily severed (not to mention it followed narrow mountain passes) so that it could not be used by the Confederates. No lines ran into the Confederacy from this area. To put it bluntly, once you captured the area you could do nothing else. It had been suggested to McDonald that a more worthy target would be the rail hub of Las Vegas. McDonald rejected the notion since the geography made the town easy to defend and it was also heavily garrisoned. Beside that, he wanted the Roswell region pacified since it would be deep on his right flank as he approached Albuquerque.
One has to wonder if McDonald ever believed that James could even capture the city. There was no real reason to think that James could. He did not outnumber it’s garrison by a sizable margin and, besides, James only needed to threaten the city in order to accomplish his mission. The presence of Confederate troops in the area would keep the US Army pinned down and that was all McDonald needed.
What McDonald did not understand was that his subordinate required a great deal more. It is fair to say that a forty year old desire for revenge was not James’ alone. Just a quick glance at the correspondence of his men will prove that much. They also possessed something more than a zealous desire to get even. James had seen to it. These men knew how to accomplish their goals and events would bare this out even if no one in the Confederate hierarchy, including McDonald, seemed to be aware.
As stated earlier, the Legion was ordered to advance seventy two hours before the main attack fell on the Mesilla Valley. It was reasoned that it would give James enough time to reach his target so that his attack would begin on Roswell around the same time as the other combat operations began. James chose to interpret his orders in such a way that his main attack should start three days earlier instead of just the advance. McDonald’s headquarters remained completely unaware of this due to the way that James advanced. Fortunately for the Missourians, the US army was also in the same boat as the commanding General of the Mexican-Confederate Army.
By the time that James’ main columns had crossed the border, his advance parties were already within sight of Roswell. By the time his logistics trains caught up, it was already all over with. His troops moved at an ungodly speed because they traveled in column instead of skirmish lines. They could afford to do this because the advanced teams had long since scouted the axis of advance and neutralized enemy observation posts.
That is not to say that the city of Roswell received no warning at all. Several warnings did arrive but, they were very misleading as to the size and composition of the approaching enemy force. Raids across the border were common and there was nothing in these warnings that would indicate this was a movement in force.
The garrison was a little under five thousand in strength and composed mainly of reservist (men who were older than your average draftee, had completed their military service, and had volunteered to return to duty). Most of the men at this particular garrison were from Nevada. Most had never seen any serious combat. The warning that they were given was even more vague than those received by their officers. Since they were used to alerts that turned out to be nothing, most of them ignored their sergeants and went about their duties as normal.
When a stand to was called at around three in the morning, many men did not even show up and, a good number more, asked to go on sick call. The city was still being combed over by military police, officers, and angry sergeants, who were all looking for their missing men when the first attack fell on the sleepy little hamlet. Yet the disaster cannot be completely attributed to the lack of discipline. There was no overall commander in charge of Roswell.
There was a city Military Superintendent but, he did not get along so well with his fellow officers who were the actual commanders of the units stationed there. He also lacked the official orders that gave him authority over them. It was one of those oversights left behind from the parade of departmental commanders that had plagued the area since the start of the war. Pershing’s staff had yet to even notice the problem, let alone fix it. The senior officers in Roswell decided everything with a vote and, in this case, they had no time.
Several civilian ranchers had discovered the main Confederate Force when it was only a few miles from Roswell. They had delivered the first warning that had prompted the stand to which caused more problems than it solved. Roswell’s perimeter defenses were lightly manned but, this was not seen as an immediate problem since, the senior officers assumed that the Confederates were camped out and were not likely to do anything till dawn, if even then. The US officers began making preparations for a protracted siege, something that they had thought might be possible all along.
What is very clear is that no one in Roswell expected a direct assault on the cities fortifications. They certainly did not expect the kind of attack that came. The Missourians had been practicing these tactics for decades and they were quite eager to put them into practice. The first strike did not come as an artillery barrage, an infantry assault, or even a cavalry charge. It almost seemed as if the enemy had magically appeared out of nowhere and then vanished just as quickly into the dark.
Post number seven was an artificial mound that was topped with six Colt ‘potato digger’ machine guns and a bunker full of ammo. It was surrounded with extensive fields of wire, land mines, and cleared fields of fire that just kept on going forever. It was impregnable to a conventional assault but the darkness and the attitude of the men stationed there gave it a serious weakness. The wire was not as formidable as it looked. It could stop men trying to run across but, too high to stop someone from crawling under it. That was exactly what the Missourians did.
The first groups of infiltrators managed to crawl right up to the bottom of the hill, at which point, they tossed large bundles of dynamite into the firing pits. These bundles were not set off by standard fuses either. They were all wired to electric plungers and set off with the kind of split second timing that forty years of practice affords. Post number seven never knew what hit them. One toss landed close enough to the entrance to the ammo bunker and the subsequent explosion was channeled right into the firing pits. The primary defense of the eastern line was gone in the blink of an eye. Post Number Seven was also not the only one hit. Not all of these preliminary attacks were successful but, enough of them were.
The infiltration groups also managed to detect any number of gaps in the US defenses. They were marked and then the groups proceeded right into the heart of the enemy defenses. Many of them would ambush confused US stragglers and prevent reinforcements from reaching the crumbling defenses. Others would even be so bold as to pretend to be their enemy and send entire companies of men in the wrong direction. One of these columns of US troops would be directed right into an ambush. Many of the US soldiers would toss down their weapons and try to surrender. The Missourians would not accept.
That was only how it started. US defenses were in complete disarray when James arrived with his main strike force. Other components of the Legion, as well as the Sequoians, were effectively cutting the town off from any possible help. James still had the dark to his advantage but, he did not lead his men in a direct charge. His advanced teams had already scouted the ground and marked the ground for good cover as well as removing any obstacles. Because of this, the Missourians were able to remain in column formation (and hence moved quicker than could be expected) until they were almost on top of the US line. Only then did they deploy into tactical lines. They still did not charge headlong in. His men moved forward in a series of counter rushes, like playing leap frog. One group would shoot at enemy concentrations of fire while the other moved.
The most revolutionary aspect of this attack was the use of artillery. James had several batteries of seventy-five millimeter guns with his force but, he only brought part of one with his strike team. They did not deploy in a concentrated line as was standard doctrine. The crews man handled their pieces forward, not far behind the infantry, and used the ground and darkness to cover their movements. When they saw a clump of enemy fire that appeared to become heavy, they stopped, readied their weapon, and fired directly into it instead of an indirect barrage as was common for the time. They practically ignored any enemy artillery fire which was proving to be completely ineffective anyway. The US guns could never figure out exactly where to fire.
US troops were confused to say the least. To the average soldier in a rifle pit, it appeared as if the enemy was coming from everywhere and all at once. Any time he attempted to shoot he found himself on the receiving end of punishing fire. Some of it was described by one dazed trooper as nothing less than, “a fire breathing dragon.” It was enough to convince many troops to run, if they had the option, while others began quickly waiving white flags.
The US forces were never able to recover from their initial shock. James simply would not give them the time. Every time US troops managed to form some kind of line, they found themselves quickly under heavy fire and then suddenly flanked by what appeared to be a superior force. By the time the sun came up, and the main Confederate supply column had reached it’s forward destination, most of Roswell was already in Confederate hands and James had managed to capture most of it’s supplies still in tact. He also had over half of it’s garrison under guard as prisoners. The US troops that managed to get out never came back.
It was certainly a victory for the men of the Confederate Foreign Legion. They had managed to move further and faster than practically any unit had, in any army, of this war. They had also managed to do something else that seemed completely impossible. They had taken away an entire city from their enemy, with minimal casualties, and all in the span of less than three hours. It was such a lopsided and miraculous victory that no one at McDonald’s headquarters even believed the reports when they first got them. They had thought that James was only just then crossing the border. It would take them over a day to realize what had actually happened.
McDonald should have been celebrating this cheap and easy victory as an omen of things to come. He was actually quite furious with James because taking the city had never truly been one of McDonald’s objectives. McDonald saw it as having alerted the enemy that a major offensive was now underway and the main Mexican-Confederate force would not be ready to strike for at least two more days. McDonald then began changing his plans to fit the new situation. His orders became counter orders and all at the last minute. When the real attack began, this would be telling in many ways and plague allied forces through out the campaign.
Strangely enough, in Albuquerque, at Pershing’s headquarters, the reaction to the news was almost the opposite of McDonalds. The one thing the Confederate General (McDonald) never seemed to consider was that he had already lost strategic surprise. Pershing was already fully aware that a major enemy offensive was coming. He had been making his own preparations for almost as long as McDonald had. Pershing was not sure exactly how much he could do but, he intended to make a good fight of it. He was not so concerned about a border post like Roswell that was, too him at least, expendable. With that said, it is quite ironic that Roswell became so important. It’s loss gave Pershing exactly what he needed and it was the one thing that he had lacked since he took command of the department, all courtesy of Jesse James.