On 28 October a battle for Rome, a hard-fought hill of the American Revolution and one of the boldest raids of the First World War all took place. In 312 Constantine, his soldiers' shields marked with a new sign, met his rival Maxentius at the Milvian Bridge outside Rome, and Maxentius drowned in the Tiber when the bridge gave way under his fleeing army. In 1776 British and Hessian troops stormed Chatterton Hill at White Plains, but George Washington's army slipped away to fight on. In 1914 the German cruiser Emden, disguised with a dummy funnel, steamed into Penang harbor before dawn and sank a Russian cruiser and a French destroyer.
Milvian Bridge, 312: two emperors, one city
By 312 the Roman world had several rival emperors. Maxentius, son of the old emperor Maximian, had been proclaimed at Rome in 306 (in October, according to the Catholic Encyclopedia), and when he threw down Constantine's statues and declared him a tyrant, war became certain. In the spring of 312 Constantine crossed into Italy and, according to the Catholic Encyclopedia, stormed Susa, crushed an army near Turin and forced Verona to surrender. Eusebius has him beat three of Maxentius's armies one after another. Maxentius stayed behind the walls of Rome. Lactantius says soothsayers had told him he would perish if he left the city, while Eusebius says he put his trust in sorcery, and the pagan historian Zosimus that he sacrificed to the gods.1
Nobody knows how big the armies were. Zosimus gives Constantine 90,000 foot and 8,000 horse against 170,000 foot and 18,000 horse for Maxentius. The Catholic Encyclopedia cites figures for Constantine's army ranging from 25,000 to 100,000 men.2
A sign on the shields
The two Christian writers closest to Constantine tell the most famous story of the campaign differently. Lactantius says Constantine "was directed in a dream to cause the heavenly sign to be delineated on the shields of his soldiers". The sign he describes is the Greek letter X with an upright stroke through it, curved at the top: the monogram of Christ.3
Eusebius of Caesarea, in his Life of Constantine, says the emperor himself told him the story long afterwards and swore to it. About noon, Constantine said, he saw "a cross of light in the heavens, above the sun" with the words "Conquer by this", and his whole army saw it too. That night Christ appeared to him in a dream and told him to copy the sign as a safeguard in battle, and at dawn he called in goldsmiths and jewelers to make the standard. Eusebius's account of the campaign in his Church History has no vision at all: there Constantine simply calls on God and Christ in prayer before he marches.4
28 October: the bridge gives way
The armies met by the Milvian Bridge over the Tiber, just outside Rome. In the city, Lactantius writes, the anniversary of Maxentius's accession was at hand, and while he presided over games in the circus the crowd shouted with one voice, "Constantine cannot be overcome!" Shaken, Maxentius had the Sibylline books consulted and was told that on that day "the enemy of the Romans should perish". Taking this as a promise of victory, he went out to the battle. Zosimus also has him consult the Sibylline books.5
According to Zosimus, Constantine's cavalry charged first and threw Maxentius's horsemen into disorder, and when they gave way the rest fled for the river. Maxentius had prepared his own crossing. Zosimus describes a bridge built in two halves, joined by iron pins that could be pulled out to drop an enemy into the water, and Eusebius a bridge of boats rigged as a trap. In both versions it collapsed under Maxentius's own retreating men, and he went down in the Tiber. Lactantius says the crowd pressing on him at the broken bridge drove him headlong into the river. Eusebius, likening the scene to Pharaoh's army in the Red Sea, writes that Maxentius and his guards "sank as lead in the mighty waters".6
When the news reached Rome, Zosimus writes, nobody dared to rejoice until Maxentius's head was carried through the city on a spear. The victor took little revenge: Zosimus says he punished only a few of Maxentius's closest friends, and the Catholic Encyclopedia notes that no bloody executions followed.7
Why the Milvian Bridge mattered
Early in 313 the Edict of Milan granted toleration to Christian worship across the empire.8
The Senate's own monument is more guarded. The Arch of Constantine, dedicated in 315 to mark the victory over Maxentius, says that Constantine avenged the state on the tyrant and all his faction "by divine inspiration" (instinctu divinitatis) and his own greatness of mind, without naming Christ. As Allen Farber of SUNY Oneonta points out, the phrase could refer to the vision or to the Unconquered Sun, whose cult Constantine had embraced earlier in his career. For the full story, see our article on the Battle of the Milvian Bridge.9
White Plains, 1776: the race north
After the loss of Long Island and the fighting at Harlem Heights, Washington's army still held northern Manhattan when William Howe tried to get behind it, landing at Throg's Neck on 12 October and then at Pell's Point. Washington pulled his main army north to his supply base at White Plains in Westchester County and dug in behind breastworks. The delaying fight at Pell's Point is told on our 18 October page.10
Howe chose not to attack the main American lines, which the American Battlefield Trust's map places on Hatfield and Purdy Hills. He went instead for Chatterton Hill, a wooded ridge on the American right, held at first by militia. The same map notes that the Bronx River in front of it was 14 feet wide. The American Battlefield Trust puts the troops engaged on 28 October at 7,500 British and Hessians against 3,100 Americans. BritishBattles.com gives about 13,000 against 14,500 in the two armies, with only around 4,000 on each side actually fighting.11
Chatterton Hill, 28 October
According to the American Battlefield Trust's map, Howe sent infantry and about 20 guns against the hill, and the bombardment shook the militia. Reinforcements came up: Colonel John Haslet's Delaware Regiment, troops under Alexander McDougall and William Smallwood's Marylanders. According to the Maryland State Archives, the Marylanders charged and briefly drove the British back. A Hessian force under Colonel Johann Rall dislodged the militia guarding the American right, and as more British and Hessian troops pushed into the gap the line came apart. The defenders made a fighting withdrawal, with the 1st Delaware covering the rear.12
Smallwood himself was wounded during the retreat: twice, in the wrist and the hip, according to the Maryland State Archives.13
Losses, and Howe's next move
The American Battlefield Trust counts 233 British and Hessian casualties (47 killed, 182 wounded and 4 missing) and 217 American (50 killed, 150 wounded and 17 missing or captured). BritishBattles.com gives 313 British killed and wounded and about 300 Americans killed, wounded and captured, and warns that the American figure is speculative.14
Howe had the hill but not the army. He was slow to follow up, and the Americans pulled back farther north. Howe turned back toward Manhattan instead, and on 16 November he took Fort Washington, where, by the American Battlefield Trust's count, some 2,800 defenders surrendered. Washington's army retreated into New Jersey, but it survived, and so did the Revolution.15
Penang, 1914: the fourth funnel
The German light cruiser SMS Emden, under Captain Karl von Müller, had spent weeks preying on Allied shipping in the Indian Ocean when she made for Penang in British Malaya. Müller rigged a dummy fourth funnel so that Emden would pass for the British cruiser HMS Yarmouth, and she came in just before dawn on 28 October, at about 4:30 a.m..16
In the harbor lay the Russian cruiser Zhemchug, just back from a sweep for the raider and due for work on her boilers. Her captain, Baron I. A. Cherkasov, was ashore at the Eastern & Oriental Hotel in George Town, no lookout was posted, and according to John Rickard only twelve shells were ready for her guns. Emden ran up the German ensign, fired a torpedo from about 300 yards and raked the Russian with gunfire. A second torpedo set off her magazine, and she broke apart and sank until only her masts showed above the water.17
Victor Pogadaev counts a midshipman and 80 sailors killed. MaritimeQuest gives 81 killed and 129 wounded, seven of whom later died, and the Wartime Memories Project 89 dead and 143 wounded. The dead were buried in Penang, in a mass grave in the Western Road cemetery. A court-martial in Vladivostok sentenced Cherkasov to three and a half years in prison for gross negligence and his executive officer to 18 months. The Tsar sent both to the front as ordinary seamen instead, and both later won the Cross of St. George.18
The Mousquet's last fight
As Emden left, the French destroyer Mousquet came in from patrol and set off after her. Hopelessly outgunned, she was sunk after a short action. Müller stopped to pick up survivors: 36 Frenchmen were taken aboard (37 by the Naval Historical Society of Australia's count, which also notes that not one man on Emden had been wounded in the attack on the Zhemchug).19
On 30 October Emden stopped the British steamer Newburn and put the French prisoners aboard her for Sumatra. According to Le Petit Journal, the badly wounded ensign Jacques Carissan, 29, died soon after he was landed at Sabang and was buried in the town's European cemetery with the bugler Joseph Hamon. On 9 November HMAS Sydney caught Emden at the Cocos Islands, as told on our 9 November page.20
Also on 28 October
In 1940 Italy handed Greece an ultimatum demanding that Italian troops be allowed into the country. The Greek prime minister, Ioannis Metaxas, refused, and Italian troops already in Albania invaded Greece the same day. The next day's newspapers reported his answer as "Ochi" (No), but according to Hérodote.net he reportedly put it more simply, in French: "Alors, c'est la guerre!" (Then it is war). The Greeks drove the invaders back into Albania, and, as Hérodote.net notes, 28 October is now a national holiday in Greece.21
Also on this day
- 1914: Battle of Penang. In the harbor of Penang in British Malaya, the German light cruiser SMS Emden made a surprise raid during the First World War.
