Battle of Masaka

The Battle of Masaka (Kiswahili: "Mapigano ya Masaka") was a battle of the Uganda–Tanzania War that took place from 23 February to 24 February 1979 in the town of Masaka, Uganda. Following an artillery bombardment, most of the Ugandan government forces fled and Tanzanian and Ugandan rebel forces captured the town.
Colonel Idi Amin had seized power in a military coup in Uganda in 1971 and established a brutal dictatorship. Seven years later he attempted to invade Tanzania to the south. Ugandan troops occupied the Kagera Salient and subsequently murdered local civilians and destroyed property. The attack was eventually repulsed, and Tanzanian President Julius Nyerere, unsatisfied with Amin's refusal to renounce his claims to Tanzanian territory and the international community's failure to strongly condemn the invasion, ordered his forces to advance into southern Uganda with the aim of capturing the towns of Masaka and Mbarara.
After careful planning, the Tanzania People's Defence Force (TPDF) crossed the border in January 1979 and moved steadily northward. Masaka was garrisoned by up to several thousand Ugandan troops, including the Suicide Battalion. Their performance was undermined by low morale and internal divisions. The TPDF surrounded the town on three sides and on 23 February, after beating off several harassing Ugandan probes, initiated an artillery barrage, concentrating on the Suicide Battalion's barracks. Several Ugandan units withdrew to Lukaya, leaving the Suicide Battalion alone to defend Masaka. The TPDF's 201st and 208th Brigades attacked at dawn. A battalion of Ugandan rebels and the 207th Brigade—bolstered by a tank squadron—also moved in on the town. The Suicide Battalion withdrew towards the village of Villa Maria, and, aside from opposition at Kasijagirwa camp, the TPDF seized the town with minimal resistance. As revenge for the damage wrought by the Ugandans in Kagera, the TPDF razed much of Masaka. The loss of the town greatly hurt the morale of the Ugandan forces and troubled Ugandan commanders. Amin ordered a counter-attack which was defeated in Lukaya. His promise to exact revenge on the local civilians for welcoming the invasion partly contributed to Nyerere's decision to attack Kampala. Much of Masaka was later rebuilt.
Background.
In 1971 Colonel Idi Amin launched a military coup that overthrew the President of Uganda, Milton Obote, precipitating a deterioration of relations with the neighbouring state of Tanzania. Amin installed himself as President and ruled the country under a repressive dictatorship. In October 1978 he launched an invasion of Tanzania. On 1 November he announced the annexation of the Kagera Salient, an 1800 square kilometre (1118.5 square mile) strip of land between the Ugandan border and the Kagera River. Ugandan troops subsequently pillaged the area they occupied, murdering civilians, stealing cattle, and destroying property, triggering the flight of 40,000 inhabitants southward. Tanzania eventually halted the assault, mobilised anti-Amin opposition groups, and launched a counter-offensive. In January 1979 the Tanzania People's Defence Force (TPDF) seized the Ugandan border town of Mutukula to counter any further threats to Kagera. The TPDF bulldozed homes in the locale and murdered local civilians to avenge the destruction in Kagera. Deeply disturbed by the event, Nyerere subsequently instructed his troops to refrain from harming civilian life and property.
Though many international actors were sympathetic with the Tanzanian position, numerous African states and the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) strongly encouraged Tanzanian President Julius Nyerere to exercise restraint and not act beyond defending his territory. He had originally not intended to expand the war, but with Amin refusing to renounce his claims to Tanzanian territory and the OAU's criticism of the Kagera invasion being muted, he decided that Tanzanian forces should occupy southern Uganda.
Prelude.
The two major towns in southern Uganda were Masaka and Mbarara. The former was the third largest inhabited place in the country and the site of the southern headquarters for the Uganda Army. The Tanzanians decided to seize them as revenge for the devastation wrought by Ugandan troops in their country and in order to incite a rebellion. Obote assured Nyerere that if the locales were taken a mass uprising would take place against Amin's regime, deposing it in a few weeks and allowing the Tanzanians to exit the war. Obote was also certain (and Nyerere was partly convinced) that the Uganda Army would disintegrate if Masaka were captured. The Tanzanians began careful planning for an offensive on the two towns. Major General David Musuguri was appointed commander of the TPDF's 20th Division and tasked with overseeing the advance into Uganda. It was originally hoped that the Ugandan rebels could spearhead the attack, but there were only about 1,000 of them, so the Tanzanians had to lead the operation. Between the TPDF's positions and Masaka was a series of locations occupied by Ugandan troops that needed to be cleared out, including an airstrip and various artillery batteries. The 201st, 207th, and 208th Brigades were ordered to clear the way. They steadily advanced, killing dozens of Ugandan soldiers, destroying large amounts of their materiel, and seizing the airstrip on 13 February.
Meanwhile, Amin claimed that Tanzanian forces and mercenaries had seized a large portion of Ugandan territory. Facing questions from the international community, Tanzania insisted that its troops had only occupied land just over the Ugandan border. Tanzanian diplomats repeated Nyerere's proclamation that "Tanzania does not desire an inch of Ugandan territory" but evaded more specific questions about their troops' movements. After 24 Tanzanians were killed in an ambush at Lake Nakivale, the TPDF slowed its offensive. They dislodged the garrison of Kalisizo, a town south of Masaka, inflicting heavy casualties. The Ugandans that retreated to Masaka were in a panicked state and demoralised the troops stationed there. Anticipating conflict, most of the civilian population, including the mayor, fled the town. The civilians mostly left out of fear of Masaka's garrison, as the Ugandan military was notorious for harassing civilians. At the recommendation of an Indian diplomat, the municipality's South Asian community evacuated.
Tanzanian commanders formulated their final plan of attack for Masaka after seizing Kiziba. The exact strength of Masaka's garrison was unknown to the Tanzanians, but it was assumed at the time to number in the thousands. The garrison was commanded by Brigadier Isaac Maliyamungu and included the Suicide Battalion, regarded as one of the best units in the Uganda Army. Nevertheless, the Ugandan military in general was lacking in discipline and was affected by internal divisions, reducing its combat effectiveness at Masaka. Lieutenant Colonel Bernard Rwehururu, the commander of the Suicide Battalion, suspected that after Kalisizo's fall Masaka would be attacked. He called a meeting with his fellow officers to discuss defensive strategy. Agreeing that the town should not be abandoned, the commanders drew up plans that called for troops to occupy specific locations. The Suicide Battalion was to defend Masaka from the Mutukula, Mbarara, and Bukakata–Nyendo roads and also guard the hill with the local television mast. Soldiers of the Chui Battalion and the First Infantry Brigade were allocated to the Kitovu and Buwala hills. According to journalist Faustin Mugabe, the Masaka garrison also included police officers who had been drafted into the Uganda Army.
Battle.
Following their victory at Kalisizo, the Tanzanians were in a good position to continue their advance, but instead halted and regrouped. They encircled Masaka on three sides, but were ordered not to move in, as an OAU meeting was convened in Nairobi in an attempt to provide mediation between the belligerents. Amin erroneously declared that Masaka had fallen on 22 February. Boastful Ugandan political exiles in Nairobi repeated the claim, which was subsequently reported by the international press. Nyerere was extremely displeased when he saw the false story on the front page of Tanzania's "Daily News". Maliyamungu saw an opportunity for a counter-attack, so his troops launched a number of probes against the Tanzanian positions on 23 February. The TPDF easily repelled the assaults, but, to the chagrin of field commanders, was not yet allowed to attack the town. Instead they set up artillery and trained their guns on Masaka. The 201st, 205th, and 207th Brigades moved up to the outskirts of the town, while a column of rebels under Lieutenant Colonel David Oyite-Ojok advanced into the area.
On the eve of 24 February, the TPDF initiated a large nighttime bombardment of Masaka, focusing their fire on the Suicide Battalion's barracks. They fired nearly 1,000 shells. The town centre was also hit with Katyusha "Saba Saba" rockets. The Ugandan troops from the barracks were not in their defensive positions by the time the barrage started, and withdrew to Boma hill. Feeling that the hill positions offered them sufficient cover for an extension of their deployment, some of the soldiers relocated to a pineapple field in the Masaka valley and entrenched themselves. By then serious divisions had emerged among both the rank and file and the officers about defending the town. According to Rwehururu, many soldiers felt that the entire war had been instigated by the Suicide Battalion and thus believed that Masaka should be solely defended by that unit. The officers of Sudanese, Congolese, and West Nile extract felt that the conflict had little impact on their places of origin and were not committed to a battle. Partly as a result of the internal tensions, the First Infantry Brigade and the Chui Battalion promptly withdrew to Lukaya.
At Musuguri's direction, the TPDF's 201st and 208th Brigades attacked at dawn. Their assault focused on Kitovu (which had been left undefended by the Chui Battalion's desertion), Nyendo, and the pineapple field, before concentrating on Makasa proper. The 207th Brigade under Brigadier John Walden, equipped with a squadron of tanks, attacked from Mutukula. Outnumbered, the Suicide Battalion withdrew over a marsh to the Villa Maria road. The retreat, according to Rwehururu, devolved into a "stampede" as he "lost control" of the situation. "The New York Times" reporter John Darnton later argued that the Suicide Battalion had "de facto" "rebelled" during the battle. The Suicide Battalion eventually took up positions on Villa Maria hill, where it watched the Tanzanians enter Masaka. The TPDF seized the town with minimal difficulty, finding that most of the Ugandan soldiers and civilians had left. The few civilians that remained welcomed the Tanzanians as "liberators". The Tanzanians encountered determined resistance at Kasijagirwa camp, but were able to take it with the aid of 130 mm (5.1 in) artillery and Katyusha rockets. Amin later claimed that Palestinian guerillas aided in the defence of the town. A battalion of Ugandan rebels captured Buchulo airfield and then destroyed the Masaka Town Hall and the local police station, which were being used as armouries. The Tanzanians were "under orders" to destroy the town as revenge for the damage done by the Ugandans in Kagera and subsequently began razing structures not damaged by the bombardment. By afternoon much of Masaka had been leveled by explosives. The Uganda Commercial Bank's local branch building was destroyed, causing the institution to run a deficit for the year, as were the Masaka District administrative headquarters, the Chief Magistrates Court, the Tropic Inn hotel, the regional governor's offices the post office, the hospital, and the Masaka Recreation Ground facility. Various properties were looted. The 21st Battalion of the TPDF's 205th Brigade was deployed to Mbirizi to prevent any Ugandan reinforcements from arriving from Mbarara.
Aftermath.
According to Rwehururu, the fall of Masaka greatly hurt the morale of the Ugandan forces. He elaborated that it surprised and troubled Ugandan commanders, who felt that the defeat made Kampala, the capital, vulnerable to attack. They mobilised additional forces and began planning for a defence of the city. The day following the battle the TPDF and several dozen Ugandan rebels bombarded Mbarara and, after seizing it, destroyed what buildings remained with dynamite. The Suicide Battalion further retreated from the village of Villa Maria to the north. Other Ugandan forces retreated to Lwera near Lukaya, while Brigadier Maliyamungu got lost in the bush for more than a week. Amin was enraged by the loss of Masaka, and upon hearing news of its capture during a meeting he reportedly drew a revolver and fired six shots into the ceiling.
Nyerere feared the international implications of sending his troops far into Uganda and the destruction of Masaka. Wishing to provide cover for the TPDF's actions and possibly incite a revolt in the Uganda Army, he requested Obote to pen a document supposedly written by the soldiers of the Suicide Battalion, declaring that they had mutinied and taken Masaka away from Amin's control on their own. Obote complied, and Tanzanian Presidential Press Secretary Sammy Mdee was instructed to covertly publish it. Mdee wired it from his office in Dar es Salaam to Nairobi, pretending that it had come from a telex machine in Uganda. The Nairobi journalists were suspicious of its authenticity, but for lack of clear news about the war published it anyway. The statement was also published in the Tanzanian press. In addition to its claims about the Suicide Battalion's mutiny, it requested "soldiers in every unit to follow our example so as to avoid further unnecessary loss of life." Though most observers did not believe it to be genuine, the forged declaration—in the context of the overall confusion and lack of public information about the war—gave the Tanzanian Government means to dodge inquiries about its troops' activities in Uganda.
The capture of Masaka and Mbarara disrupted land and air communications across East Africa. After the former's fall the Ugandan government impounded many Rwandan trucks in the country to assist the war effort, contributing to shortages of fuel and other goods in Rwanda. Radio Uganda erroneously declared that Masaka was retaken on 28 February after intense fighting despite the public announcement by Ugandan rebels that the town was under their control. Nyerere responded by daring Amin to let international observers travel to Masaka to verify his claims. Amin did order a counter-attack to retake it, and a column of Ugandan and Libyan forces (which had been sent by Muammar Gaddafi) was assembled for the purpose. It met advancing Tanzanian forces in Lukaya in March and was defeated. The rebels declared Masaka "liberated territory" and installed Paulo Muwanga as a provisional civilian governor of the region. According to the militant Yoweri Museveni, the rebels under his command recruited supporters in the Mbarara region, but Obote's men refrained from the doing the same in Masaka for fear that southern tribesmen would not be loyal to them, much to Muwanga's chagrin. Museveni speculated that this soured Nyerere's opinion of Obote, and led him to sponsor a conference in Moshi that led to the unification of several rebel groups under an umbrella organisation, the Uganda National Liberation Front (UNLF). The journalists Tony Avirgan and Martha Honey stated that Muwanga attempted to recruit new rebels, but that his closeness to Obote discouraged suspicious locals from signing up. The mass uprising against Amin envisioned by Obote did not materialise. The TPDF moved its operating headquarters to Masaka and it remained there until Entebbe was captured.
Nyerere originally planned to halt his forces in Masaka and allow the Ugandan rebels to attack Kampala and overthrow Amin, as he feared that scenes of Tanzanian troops occupying the city would reflect poorly on his country's image abroad. However, Ugandan rebel forces did not have the strength to defeat the incoming Libyan units, so Nyerere decided to use the TPDF to take Kampala. Tanzanian leaders were also inclined to capture the city after Amin's announcement that the inhabitants of Masaka and Mbarara would face retaliation for welcoming the Tanzanian invasion. The successful formation of the UNLF organisation also eased Tanzanian concerns about the aftermath of a seizure of the capital. Kampala was secured by the TPDF on 11 April. Combat operations in the country continued until 3 June, when Tanzanian forces reached the Sudanese border and eliminated the last resistance. The TPDF withdrew from Uganda in 1981.
Legacy.
Ugandan Lieutenant Colonel Abdu Kisuule later said that the Ugandans' defeat at Masaka was critical in determining their later loss of the entire war. The town was left heavily damaged by the battle, and most of the population sought refuge in lodges in Kampala after the war. By 1980 only 6,000 residents remained in Masaka. The Masaka District administrative headquarters were relocated in a private residence. The assistant district commissioner estimated that it would cost $20 million to rebuild the town. Masaka was further damaged by fighting in 1985 during the Ugandan Bush War. As late as 2002 ruins from 1979 conflict were still visible, and some compromised buildings remained abandoned. By 2013 most of the damaged landmarks had either been replaced or were being rehabilitated. Records of municipal property were lost when the town hall was destroyed, and in lieu of the documentation of ownership businessmen privatised the public lands for their own use. Following a petition from the local government, in 2013 the Ministry of Lands returned 23 disputed properties to municipal control.
Political scientist Daniel Acheson-Brown wrote that Masaka's destruction was "not in keeping with the proper conduct of war". When the Catholic Church considered canonising Nyerere as a saint in 2016, Masaka District chairman Jude Mbabali declared his disapproval, accusing the Tanzanian President of ordering the leveling of Masaka and failing to help it rebuild.


Heavy Press Program

The Heavy Press Program was a Cold War-era program of the United States Air Force to build the largest forging presses and extrusion presses in the world. These machines greatly enhanced the US defense industry's capacity to forge large complex components out of light alloys, such as magnesium and aluminium. The program began in 1950 and concluded in 1957 after construction of four forging presses and six extruders, at an overall cost of $279 million. Eight of them are still in operation today, manufacturing structural parts for military and commercial aircraft. They still hold the records for size in North America, though they have since been surpassed by presses in Japan, France, Russia and China.
The program produced ten machines, listed below.
Background.
The Heavy Press Program was motivated by experiences from World War II. Nazi Germany held the largest heavy die forging presses during the war, and translated this advantage into high performance jet fighters. The Soviet Union captured the largest German press to survive the war, with a capacity of 33,000 ton, and were suspected to have seized the designs for an even larger 55,000 ton press. The next two largest units were captured by the United States and brought across the Atlantic Ocean, but they were half the size at 16,500 ton. As Cold War fears developed, American strategists worried that this would give the Soviet Air Force a crucial advantage and designed the Heavy Press Program to help win the arms race.
Seventeen presses were originally planned with an expected cost of $389 million, but the project was scaled back to 10 presses in 1953.
Air Force Lieutenant General K. B. Wolfe was the primary advocate for the Heavy Press Program. Alexander Zeitlin was another prominent figure of the program.
Presses.

Landmark designation.
The American Society of Mechanical Engineers designated the 50,000-ton Alcoa and Wyman-Gordon presses as Historic Mechanical Engineering Landmarks. The Alcoa press weighs 8,000 tons and is tall. The die table is , and the maximum stroke is .


Anna Maria Engsten

Anna Maria Jansdotter Engsten (1762 – fl. 1790) was awarded with a medal in silver for "Valour in Battle at Sea" by King Gustav III of Sweden for her acts during the Russo-Swedish war of 1788–1790.
Engsten was a maid to the master mariner of the Swedish fleet, G.A. Leijonancker. During the retreat from Viborg and Björkösund, she was evacuated with five sailors in a boat filled with food supplies and the captain's belongings. They were shot at by the Russian fleet, which killed a sheep and caused a leak. The sailors abandoned the boat, but she stayed behind, determined to steer the boat to safety. She did so singlehandedly, although the boat required at least two people to steer, a mission she succeeded with. This was confirmed by Major Scharff. When the King was told about this, he awarded her a medal in silver for "Bravery in Battle at Sea" as well as a sum of 50 riksdaler. This was paid out on 15 March 1791.


Georg Hartog Gerson

Georg Hartog Gerson (25 August 1788 – 3 December 1844) was a medical doctor and surgeon in the King's German Legion during the Napoleonic Wars.
Dr. Gerson was born in Hamburg. He came from a family of doctors who had been living and working in Hamburg and Altona since the 17th century. His grandfather was the principal of the Jewish hospital in Altona, his father and elder brothers were also medical doctors. After his education at home, he visited the secondary grammar school ("Gymnasium") and specialised in the classical languages and natural sciences (especially in botany). He studied from 1805 at the university of Berlin and from 1809 at the university of Göttingen. Here he got his medical doctorate on 7 April 1810. He habilitated in Hamburg in 1811 and then joined the King's German Legion as "hospital mate".
Military career.
As soon as 12 August 1811 he was proposed for the position of "Assistant Surgeon" and received this commission on 6 September 1811 for the 5th Line Battalion, King's German Legion. He saw action in the Peninsula, in Southern France, the Lowlands and at the Battle of Waterloo.
"A rare eagerness was seen in the assistant surgeon Gerson of this 5th line battalion, who not only stayed in the carree during the fiercest of fighting, dressing with fervour and skill the wounded of his battalion, but also caring for those of the neighbouring Hanoverian troops. In this way he saved the live of many brave men, voluntary exposing his own life, he rightly gained the admiration of every eyewitness, and Colonel von Ompteda, commander of the brigade, shortly before the charge which cost his life, expressed his great appreciation publicly."
After the battle Gerson was in charge of the "Hôpital de la Gendàmerie" in Brussels.
Civilian career.
After the legion was dissolved in 1816 he returned to Hamburg and was in the beginning mainly working as an author, but his surgery was expanding quickly and he gained a reputation as doctor and surgeon. In 1833 he was appointed as teacher for anatomy at the "medical-surgery school" and worked also from time to time as chief surgeon at the "Allgemeine Krankenhaus". In 1839 he became sick with a chronic disease which led to his sudden death on 3 December 1844 in Hamburg. His graveside was in the Jewish cemetery the "Grindelfriedhof". In the time of the "Third Reich" the cemetery was dissolved and the dead were reburied with their gravestones in the "Jewish Cemetery Ohlsdorf". There his memorial can still be seen today. The inscription on one side reads:
"Mitissimus Aggressor – Acerrimus Defensor" (a mild aggressor – a sharp defender).
His uniform jacket, that he (presumably) wore at the battle of Waterloo is in the Hamburg Museum, the "Museum für Hamburgische Geschichte" (Museum for the History of Hamburg).It is believed to be the only jacket of a surgeon of the British/allied forces from the Napoleonic times, still in existence.


List of wars involving Thailand

This is a list of wars involving the Kingdom of Thailand, its predecessor states, and by Siamese people, from antiquity to the present day. It also includes wars fought outside Thailand by Thailand military.
Ayutthaya Kingdom.
! style="background-color:pink;" rowspan="1" |Conflict
! style="background-color:pink;" rowspan="1" width=170px| Combatant 1
! style="background-color:pink;" rowspan="1" width=170px| Combatant 2
! style="background-color:pink;" rowspan="1" width=340px| Results
Location: Northern Ayutthaya, Southern Lan Na
Location: Upper Tenessarim coast, western and central Siam
[[File:Queen Suriyothai elephant combat.jpg|thumb|left|Painting by Prince [[Narisara Nuvadtivongs]], depicting Queen Suriyothai (center) on her elephant putting herself between King Maha Chakkraphat (right) and the [[Thado Dhamma Yaza I of Prome|Viceroy of Prome]] (left).
Location:[[Kingdom of Ayutthaya|Ayutthaya]], [[Phitsanulok]], [[Sukhothai Kingdom|Sukhothai]]
Location:[[Kingdom of Ayutthaya|Ayutthaya]], [[Phitsanulok]], [[Kamphaeng Phet]] and [[Lan Xang]]
Location: [[Kingdom of Ayutthaya|Ayutthaya Kingdom]] and [[Tanintharyi Region |lower Tanintharyi Region]]
[[File:WatSuvandaramMural.jpg|thumb|left|Elephant battle between Naresuan and Mingyi Swa during the Battle of Nong Sarai as wall murals in Phra Ubosot, Wat Suwan Dararam, Ayutthaya, Thailand.]]
Location: [[Kingdom of Cambodia |Cambodia]]
Location: Southern and central [[Myanmar|Burma]]
[[File:Naresuan life - Wat Suwan Dararam - Section 13 (2142 BE).jpg|thumb|left|King Naresuan entered [[Pegu]], mural painting by Phraya Anusatchitrakon, Wat Suwandararam, Ayutthaya.]]
Location: upper [[Tenasserim coast]] and [[Lan Na]]
Location: [[Northern Siam]] and [[Tenasserim coast]]
Location: [[Tenasserim coast]]
Location: [[Mergui]] and [[Coromandel coast]]
Location: [[Bangkok]], [[Thailand]]
[[File:Siege of Bangkok 1688.jpg|thumb|left|Siege of the French fortress in [[Bangkok]] by the Siamese revolutionary forces of [[Phetracha]] in 1688.]]
Location: [[Kingdom of Ayutthaya|Ayutthaya Kingdom]]
Location: [[Tanintharyi Region|Tenasserim]], [[Siam]]
[[File:Burmese-siamese-war-1759-1760.png|thumb|left|Siege of the French fortress in [[Bangkok]] by the Siamese revolutionary forces of [[Phetracha]] in 1688.]]
Location: [[Tanintharyi Region|Tenasserim coast]], [[Gulf of Siam|Gulf of Siam coast]], [[Suphanburi]], [[Ayutthaya (city)|Ayutthaya]]
[[File:Burmese-Siamese war (1765-1767) map - EN - 001.jpg|thumb|left|
[[Category:Wars involving Thailand| ]]
[[Category:Lists of wars by country|Thailand]]
[[Category:Thailand history-related lists|Wars]]


USS San Francisco Memorial

The USS "San Francisco" Memorial is a war memorial installed in San Francisco's Lands End, in the U.S. state of California. The memorial has a plaque commemorating the approximately 100 sailors and seven Marines who died aboard the cruiser . The memorial is notable for being formed partially from the bridge of ship itself, showing some of the extensive damage received in battle.


Fort Beaufort

Fort Beaufort (Xhosa: iBhofolo) is a town in the Amatole District of South Africa's Eastern Cape Province, and had a population of 25,668 in 2011. The town was established in 1837 and became a municipality in 1883. The town lies at the confluence of the Kat River and Brak River between the Keiskamma and Great Fish Rivers. Fort Beaufort serves as a mini-'dormitory' for academic staff and students of Fort Hare University, based in the nearby town of Alice, and is also close to Sulphur Springs.
It is also the birthplace of South African politician and anti-apartheid activist who is also the first Premier of the Eastern Cape Raymond Mhlaba and his former first wife Joyce Meke.
History.
The roots of Fort Beaufort is a mission station that the Reverend Joseph Williams of the London Missionary Society established in 1816. In 1822, Colonel Maurice Scott of the Royal Warwickshire Regiment constructed a blockhouse about three miles from the mission station as a military frontier post and stronghold against raids by the Xhosa under their chief, Maqoma. The British named it Fort Beaufort to honour the Duke of Beaufort, father of Lord Charles Henry Somerset, first British governor of the Cape Colony (1814 to 1826). After the 6th Xhosa War (1834–1835), Governor Sir Benjamin d'Urban authorised construction of a fort at the site of the original blockhouse. The new buildings included a military hospital, guard houses, infantry barracks, and officers' quarters.
In 1839, the British commenced work on what is probably the world's only inland Martello tower, a small, circular Napoleonic era design hitherto used only in coastal defences. The tower was completed in 1846. Today, the original howitzer remains mounted on the roof on a traversing carriage that gives it a 360-degree field of fire. The tower has been restored after having served for some time as a public latrine.
In 1840 Fort Beaufort became a town. Around this time Andrew Geddes Bain built the first road, including the Ecca Pass, from Grahamstown, to Fort Beaufort.
During the 8th Xhosa War (1850–53), also known as the War of Mlanjeni, anti-British forces unsuccessfully attacked the town. Harmanus Matroos, alias Ngxukumeshe, was a half-Khoikhoi and half-Xhosa. He started the war on 30 December 1850 by capturing a small outpost near Fort Beaufort. Matroos had served the British in the 7th Xhosa War (1846–47), also known as the War of the Axe. Matroos fell on 8 January 1851 during his third attack on Fort Beaufort.
British troops occupied the town until 1870.
In 1949 the first congregation of the Nederduitse Gereformeerde Kerk (Dutch Reformed Church) seceded from Alice due to demographic changes.
Schools.
Schools in the area include the historic Healdtown Comprehensive School. Fort Beaufort has number of high schools that include:
Eyabantu High, Inyibiba High, Lindani High, Winterberg High, Thubalethu High, Sakhululeka High, and the newly built Lighthouse Academy.
Healthcare today.
Fort Beaufort has three governmental hospitals, namely Fort Beaufort Provincial Hospital, Tower Psychiatric Hospital and Winterberg TB (previous SANTA) Hospital. There are also seven primary healthcare clinics in the area, namely C.C. Lloyd (in the CBD), Newtown, Hillside, Thozamile, Lulama Kama, Healdtown and Mxelo.


Operation Dewey Canyon

Operation Dewey Canyon was the last major offensive by the 3rd Marine Division during the Vietnam War. It took place from 22 January through 18 March 1969 and involved a sweep of the People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN)–dominated A Shau and Song Đa Krông Valleys by the 9th Marine Regiment. Based on intelligence and captured documents, the PAVN unit in contact was believed to be the 9th Regiment.
The 56 days of combat were a tactical success but did not stop the overall flow of North Vietnamese men and matériel into South Vietnam. The 9th Marine Regiment and attached units were awarded the Army Presidential Unit Citation for their actions in Operation Dewey Canyon.
Background.
Throughout 1967 and into 1968, the United States Marine Corps units in the northern I Corps region had been tied to their combat bases along the South Vietnam border as part of the McNamara Line. This "line" was a combination of infantry units and ground sensors devised to stop PAVN infiltration into South Vietnam across the border and along the Ho Chi Minh Trail. When Maj. Gen. Raymond G. Davis took command of the 3rd Marine Division, he ordered Marine units to move out of their combat bases and engage the enemy. He had noted that the manning of the bases and the defensive posture they developed was contrary to the aggressive style of fighting that Marines favor.
In early 1969, intelligence reports indicated there had been a large PAVN build-up in the A Shau and Đa Krông Valleys. The A Shau was just 10  km east of the Laotian border and some 34  km long, while the Đa Krông was several kilometers further east and separated by two mountain ranges.
The operation, named Operation Dawson River South was to comprise 3 distinct phases: first was the southern movement of the 9th Marines and supporting units into mutually supporting firebases near the objective area, second was a period of intensive patrolling around the firebases and finally, the Regiment would attack into the PAVN base areas. The Marine operation would be coordinated with supporting actions by the 101st Airborne Division and the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) 2nd Regiment, 2nd Division east of the operations area.
General Davis would later state that the purpose of the operation was to disrupt PAVN logistics, not engage PAVN units stating "There was no [PAVN] force down there, we knew that. Our primary target was to go in and ferret out this system - without any thought that there was a major force down there."
Operation.
Phase 1.
On 18 January the 3rd Battalion, 9th Marines was lifted from Vandegrift Combat Base to reoccupy Firebase Henderson. On 20 January Company L, 3/9 Marines reoccupied Firebase Tun Tavern () and on the 21st Company A, 1st Battalion, 9th Marines reoccupied Firebase Shiloh ().
On 22 January the 2nd Battalion, 9th Marines was lifted from Vandegrift to establish two new firebases further south: Dallas () and Razor (). On 24 January the 9th Marines command post was moved from Vandegrift to Razor.
On 25 January 3/9 Marines established Firebase Cunningham 6 km southeast of Razor and over the following four days the 9th Marines command post and five artillery batteries from 2nd Battalion, 12th Marines moved to Cunningham.
Phase 2.
The Operation was renamed Operation Dewey Canyon and on 24–5 January Companies from 2/9 and 3/9 Marines began patrolling south from Razor and Cunningham discovering the PAVN 88th Field Hospital which had been abandoned the previous day.
On 31 January after a brief firefight with PAVN forces Company G secured Hill 1175, while Company F established Firebase Erskine (). On 1 February Company K established Firebase Lightning which was occupied by the ARVN 1st and 2nd Battalions, 2nd Regiment.
On 2 February Firebase Cunningham was hit by 30-40 rounds of PAVN 122mm artillery fire from Laos resulting in 5 Marines killed.
With bad weather limiting patrolling and resupply, the Marine infantry were withdrawn to their bases. On 5 February as Company G withdrew from Hill 1175 they were ambushed resulting in 5 Marines killed and 18 wounded, while only 2 PAVN bodies were found. LCpl. Thomas Noonan Jr. would be posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor for his actions during the engagement.
On 10 February, Company H, 2/9 Marines captured a large cache of ammunition, weapons and equipment while on patrol five kilometers northwest of FSB Cunningham. The haul of ammunition included 363 RPG-2 rounds and 120 rounds of 60mm mortar ammunition.
Phase 3 and the raid into Laos.
The third phase commenced on 11 February 1969. 1/9 Marines engaged a PAVN force preparing to attack Firebase Erskine and killed 25 PAVN. Company M repulsed a PAVN platoon killing 18 for the loss of 2 Marines, while Company C killed 24 PAVN for the loss of 2 Marines. On 16 February Company K, 3/9 Marines killed 17 PAVN. On the 17th Company G, 2/9 Marines killed 39 PAVN for the loss of 5 Marines.
On the early morning of 17 February PAVN sappers attacked Firebase Cunningham resulting in 4 Marines and 37 PAVN killed.
On 18 February Company A, 1/9 Marines encountered a PAVN bunker system which they overran killing 30 PAVN. The following morning Company C continued the attack against nearby PAVN positions killing a further 30 PAVN with total Marine losses of 1 killed. On the afternoon of the 20th Company C encountered another PAVN bunker system killing 71 PAVN and capturing 2 122mm field guns. Company A continued the attack killing a further 17 PAVN, total Marine losses were 6 dead.
Also on 18 February Company L, 3/9 Marines discovered a PAVN cemetery containing 185 bodies buried in June 1968.
As the Marines approached the Laotian border and in response to the artillery attack on Cunningham, Major General Davis had sent requests up the chain of command to get permission to enter Laos. This led to a redirection of MACV-SOG's Operation Prairie Fire to conduct reconnaissance near Base Area 611 in Laos. On February 20, Lieutenant General Richard G. Stilwell forwarded Davis' request to have a limited raid into Base Area 611 up to COMUSMACV General Abrams for his approval.
By 20 February, 2/9 Marines had both Companies E and H on the Laotian border. From their position, Company H could see enemy convoys traveling along Route 922. Company H Commanding Officer David F. Winecoff later reported:
"The company, of course, was talking about let's get down on the road and do some ambushing. I don't think they really thought that they were going to let us go over into Laos ... I knew if the military had their way we'd be over there in Laos and the company was all up for it... With the Paris Peace Talks going on, I wasn't sure what route was going to be taken."
On 21 February, Captain Winecoff received a message from Colonel Barrow, 9th Marines Commanding Officer, to set up an ambush along Route 922. The Captain's men needed rest, and he requested a postponement but was denied by Colonel Barrow. The Captain utilized his 1st and 2nd Platoons, and at 16:10, 1st Platoon moved out and made its way to 2nd Platoon's position. At 18:30, Winecoff briefed his men on the ambush. After dark they moved out towards Route 922, about 900 meters away. By 01:00, Captain Winecoff and Company H were in place and setting up the ambush. Within minutes of getting into position they started hearing trucks coming down the road and continued to observe as 40 minutes later, a lone truck and one PAVN soldier also walked through the kill zone. Winecoff had not wanted the ambush sprung on one truck or soldier, realizing that eventually a bigger target would come down the road. At 02:30, the lights of eight trucks appeared, and as three trucks came into the kill zone the column of vehicles stopped. Not wanting to give away the ambush or their position Winecoff, set off the claymores and the ambush. The Marines poured small arms and automatic weapons fire on the three vehicles, the forward observer alerted the artillery, and rounds bracketed the company position.
After minutes of fire, Captain Winecoff had his men moved forward, ensuring that everything was destroyed. The company proceeded to move out to the rally point 600 meters away and waited till daylight. Later, it rejoined with 3rd Platoon who had not been involved with the ambush because of the heavy patrols it had been involved with in the previous days. H Company was resupplied and the men rested. They had destroyed three trucks and killed eight PAVN soldiers. Company H did not suffer any casualties.
After Action Reports of the patrol were met with positive reviews, General Abrams formally approved the operation. The success of the operation was more valuable than just the destruction of the enemy, because it allowed Colonel Barrow to request that continued operations in Laos be approved. His reasoning for continued operations was the presence of the enemy in the area was a threat to his troops. Barrow noted, "I put a final comment on my message, which said, quote, "Put another way, my forces should not be here if ground interdiction of Route 922 not authorized." The message finally reached General Abrams via General Stilwell, who had adopted the Colonel's recommendation. General Abrams approved further action on 24 February, but restricted discussions of the Laotian operation.
Also on 21 February Company M, 3/9 Marines discovered a PAVN maintenance facility including a bulldozer and on further searching around Hill 1228 discovered 2 122mm field guns and a large tunnel complex inside the mountain.
On 22 February Company A, 1/9 Marines overran a PAVN position eight kilometers southeast of FSB Erskine killing 7 PAVN for the loss of 1 Marine. As Company A continued patrolling they encountered and overran an entrenched PAVN Company killing 105 PAVN for the loss of 11 Marines. Captured documents indicated the unit in contact was the 3rd Battalion, 9th NVA Regiment (also known as the K.16 NVA Battalion). The Company A commander 1Lt Wesley L. Fox would be awarded the Medal of Honor for his actions during the battle.
Company H was ordered to go down Route 922 on 24 February. Morale was low because the Marines were tired after several days of patrolling, additionally, they did not want to leave the resupplies that included 60 mm mortar ammunition and C-rations. Company H was to move into Laos followed by Companies E and F and push eastward on the road, forcing the PAVN into the 1st and 3rd Battalions. After a six-hour night march, Company H set up a hasty ambush; at 11:00 on 24 February, six PAVN soldiers walked into their kill zone, of which four were killed. On February 25, Company H continued to move eastward again engaging PAVN, resulting in the capture of one 122 mm field gun, two 40mm antiaircraft guns and the killing of eight PAVN soldiers. Company H suffered two dead and seven wounded. Later that day a company patrol was ambushed by an estimated 15 PAVN troops who were dug in fortified bunkers and fighting holes. The patrol was reinforced and was able to fight its way through, capturing a second 122 mm gun and killing two. Casualties were mounting for Company H: three killed and five wounded. Corporal William D. Morgan was one of the men killed in action when he made a daring dash and directed fire away from Private First Class Robinson Santiago and Private Robert Ballou. Robert Ballou was wounded multiple times that day and Robinson Santiago was killed-in-action. Corporal Morgan was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor for this action.
Company H, flanked by Companies E and F, continued their drive east, which was rapid and did not allow for the Companies to conduct thorough searches. Advancing much slower would have garnered much more equipment. However, 2nd Battalion did capture 20 tons of foodstuffs and ammunition, while killing 48 PAVN soldiers. On 26 February, Company F, 2/9 Marines discovered a large cache nine kilometers south of FSB Erskine which included 198 rounds of 122mm artillery ammunition and 1,500 rounds of 12.7mm ammunition for anti-aircraft guns.
On 28 February at 13:00 a squad patrol from Company G, 2/9 Marines came under heavy fire from approximately 25 PAVN. The squad was pinned down and reinforcements were sent to the location (), however as the patrol leader had lost his map it was difficult to locate the patrol or use supporting arms. After some time, patrol was located and an artillery mission was called in which routed PAVN. 3 Marines were killed and 12 wounded, while PAVN losses were estimated to be 12 dead.
The three companies were within 1,000 meters of the South Vietnamese border by 1 March and were flown by helicopter to Vandegrift Combat Base on 3 March, officially ending operations in Laos. 2nd Battalion sustained eight killed and 33 wounded during the operation. For the record, all of the dead were listed as being killed in Quảng Trị Province, South Vietnam and for political reasons no reference was made about being in Laos. On 27 February Company D discovered a large PAVN weapons cache near Hill 1044 that included 629 rifles and over 100 crew-served weapons.
With the Marine objectives achieved by early March the operations plan called for the phased withdrawal of the Marines from the operational area, however this was hampered by bad weather. As 3/9 Marines withdrew to Firebase Cunningham on 3 March they were ambushed by a PAVN force and PFC Alfred M. Wilson would be posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor for his actions during the firefight. The operation concluded at 20:00 on 18 March as the last Marines arrived back at Vandegrift.
Aftermath.
Marine losses were 130 killed and 932 wounded, in return, the Marines reported 1,617 PAVN killed, the discovery of 500 tons of arms and munitions including 16 artillery pieces and 73 antiaircraft guns and denial of the valley as a PAVN staging area for the duration of the operation. The disruption of Base Area 611 was only temporary and the 101st Airborne Division would assault the area again 2 months later in Operation Apache Snow.
Notable decorations and awards during the operation were:
In 1971, the operation to clear Highway 9 from Đông Hà Combat Base to the Laotian border was named Operation Dewey Canyon II in an attempt to misdirect enemy attention towards the A Shau Valley instead of Tchepone, the actual objective of the combined campaign.
In April 1971, the Vietnam Veterans Against the War organized a protest rally in Washington, D.C. and named it Operation Dewey Canyon III.


Aisne-Marne American Cemetery and Memorial

The Aisne-Marne American Cemetery and Memorial is a World War I cemetery in Belleau, Northern France. It is located at the foot of the hill where the Battle of Belleau Wood was fought, with many American fatalities. The cemetery also contains burials from the Battle of Château-Thierry, later that summer.
The site is maintained by the American Battle Monuments Commission, and its dedication ceremony was held on Memorial Day, May 30, 1937. Among those buried there are Medal of Honor recipient Weedon Osborne.
The grounds include both the Château-Thierry American Monument and a monument to US Marines.
Cemetery.
The cemetery itself is laid out in the form of the capital letter T, with the Memorial Chapel crowning the T-shape on a small hill to south, the cross-bars making up the two burial plots and the pathway leading into the cemetery making up the stem of the letter-shape.
Each of the two burial plots (Plot A and Plot B) contain 13 rows of headstones, which consist of either Stars of David or Latin crosses. There are 2,289 burials in the cemetery, 250 of which contain unknown remains.
On 10 November 2018, amid ceremonies in Paris to mark the 100th anniversary of the end of the war, a planned visit by President Donald Trump to the Aisne-Marne American Cemetery was cancelled, reportedly due to helicopter transport being prevented by low cloud cover and a light steady rain. Instead, White House Chief of Staff John Kelly and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Joseph Dunford visited Aisne-Marne American Cemetery. On 3 September 2020, an article in "The Atlantic" reported that Trump had referred to soldiers buried at the cemetery as "suckers" for getting killed and that he decided not to visit the cemetery because the weather would mess up his hair. The article was reportedly verified by unnamed senior administration officials and corroborated by Fox News correspondent Jennifer Griffin. Trump and other officials denied the comments.
Memorial Chapel.
The Memorial Chapel is built over the site of front-line battle trenches dug in defense of Belleau Wood. When entering the Memorial Chapel, one can see on the wall to the right a small hole that was made by a passing German anti-tank gun. Looking above the inside entrance door, one will see the following inscription:
The names of 1,060 soldiers missing in action are inscribed on the Chapel's walls.


Bundeswehr traditions regulations

The Bundeswehr regulations on traditions ("Traditionserlass") are a series of regulations by the Bundeswehr developed in the 1950s that until today with revisions (1982, 2017), all in respect to the German military traditions that have had been upheld by its predecessor services before and the traditions in force today by the current service.
Legal basis.
The name "Bundeswehr" was first proposed by the former Wehrmacht general and centre-right politician Hasso von Manteuffel.
When the "Bundeswehr" was established in 1955, its founding principles were based on developing a completely new military force for the defence of West Germany. In this respect the "Bundeswehr" did not consider itself to be a successor to either the "Reichswehr" (1921–1935) of the Weimar Republic or Hitler's "Wehrmacht" (1935–1946). Neither does it adhere to the traditions of the National People's Army. Its official ethos is based on three major themes:
Thus, as a mark of having a separate tradition separate from its predecessor armed forces, the Traditional Regulations were enacted in 1965 in order that it would maintain only a few of the military traditions of the former armed services of Germany while at the same time keeping its own in the face of the changing world. The regulations were drafted by no less than Wehrmacht veteran and then Minister of Defense Kai-Uwe von Hassel.


3rd Bengal Light Cavalry

The 3rd Bengal Light Cavalry, also known as the 3rd Bengal Native Cavalry, was a locally recruited regiment of the East India Company's Bengal Army. Raised in 1797, the regiment took part in conflicts throughout British India, serving with distinction in the Second Anglo-Maratha War, the First Anglo-Afghan War and the First Anglo-Sikh War, earning various battle honours.
In April 1857, 85 men of the regiment refused to accept cartridges for their carbines and were tried by court-martial, convicted, and sentenced to up to 10 years' hard labour. After the men were imprisoned, the regiment freed their jailed comrades and headed to Delhi, where their arrival led to the outbreak of the Indian Mutiny. Following the events of the mutiny, all the Bengal Light Cavalry regiments were disbanded.
History.
On 7 January 1796, the board of directors of the East India Company instructed the Governor-General to raise four 465-strong regiments of Native cavalry for its Bengal Army. Consequently, in 1797, the 3rd Bengal Native Cavalry was raised in Oude by Captain J. P. Pigot. At first, the terms "Bengal Native Cavalry" and "Bengal Light Cavalry" were used interchangeably, but by 1857 the regiment was referred to as the 3rd Bengal Light Cavalry in official paperwork.
The regiment served with distinction during the Second Anglo-Maratha War, taking part in the Battle of Delhi and the Battle of Laswari in 1803, as part of a force commanded by General Gerard Lake against the forces of Daulat Rao Sindhia; for their service during this campaign, the regiment was awarded an Honorary Standard bearing the inscription "Lake and Victory" and an extra Jemadar. The regiment earned the "Delhi 1803", "Leswarree" and "Deig" battle honours during this campaign.
The 3rd Bengal Light Cavalry was present throughout the Siege of Bharatpur (December 1825 – January 1826) as part of a cavalry brigade, taking part in the final assault on the fortress and earning the "Bhurtpore" battle honour. The regiment also took part in the 1839 First Anglo-Afghan War, participating in the Battle of Ghazni, earning the "Affghanistan 1839" and "Ghuznee 1839" battle honours. During the 1845–1846 First Anglo-Sikh War, the regiment fought in the Battle of Aliwal and the Battle of Sobraon and was awarded battle honours for both.
Meerut.
In 1857, the regiment had been stationed in Meerut for three years, forming part of the Meerut Division under Major General William Hewitt. The East India Company planned to supply its locally recruited "Native" regiments with the Pattern 1853 Enfield rifle during that year, accompanied by a new type of ammunition that came in the form of a greased paper cartridge. The standard drill (or formal procedure) for loading this ammunition required the user to bite the paper cartridge to open it. Rumours began to circulate within the Bengal Presidency that the grease for the cartridges was made from a mix of lard from pigs and tallow from cows, and was therefore offensive to both Hindu and Muslim sepoy alike. These rumours reached Lieutenant Colonel George M. Carmichael-Smyth, in temporary command of the regiment, while he was on leave in Mussoorie. On his return to Meerut, Carmichael-Smyth received orders for the new drill, which applied to all weapons currently in use including those which did not take the new form of ammunition. Carmichael-Smyth modified the drill so that cartridges would be torn by hand, rather than biting.
On 23 April, Carmichael-Smyth announced a parade for the following day, during which the men of the regiment would be taught the new drill, using the muskets and ammunition which they had been using for years, rather than the new rifles or ammunition. During that evening, the men decided that they would not accept the cartridges; some approached a junior officer directly, and when they were told that none of the new cartridges were being used, they stated that using any type of cartridge would "lay themselves open to the imputation from their comrades and from other regiments of having fired the objectionable ones." These concerns were communicated to Carmichael-Smyth, who decided that the parade would go ahead as planned; during the night, Carmichael-Smyth's tent and some buildings were destroyed by fire. The following morning, 90 men, the regiment's carabiniers or skirmishers, were lined up to carry out the new parade drill using blank ammunition. When Carmichael-Smyth arrived at the parade ground, he found that no man had taken their ammunition, and he ordered the Havildar Major to carry out the drill. There was then an attempt to distribute the cartridges to the rest of the carabiniers but this was refused, despite a speech from Carmichael-Smyth reminding the men that the cartridges were the type they had been using for years. Out of 90 men, 85 refused the order to accept the ammunition.
Hewitt convened a Court of Inquiry, judged by Indian officers, to investigate the events. The inquiry found that the ammunition issued to the men was of the same type the men previously used, and was in fact manufactured under the supervision of one of the five men who had accepted his ammunition during the parade. During the inquiry, only one man expressed a concern regarding the greased cartridges; the wider concerns of the men were based on the perceived stigma that they would face if they had accepted the ammunition. The inquiry found that the men had no reasonable cause, and no religious grounds, to refuse to accept the cartridges. A court martial was ordered, again composed entirely of Indian officers (six Muslim, nine Hindu), and this took place over a three-day period with each of the 85 men giving a plea of "not guilty". The men were found guilty, by 14 of 15 officers, of disobeying orders, and were sentenced to 10 years' hard labour. The judges asked Hewitt to take into consideration the fact that the men were of good character and had been misled, but this was ignored as Hewitt felt there had been no expression of remorse. Eleven of the men, the youngest, had their sentences reduced from 10 to 5 years, but sentences of the remaining men were confirmed on 8 May.
At 05:00 on 9 May 1857, a parade of the entire Meerut Division took place, to announce the sentences of the convicted men. The troops present included the 60th Rifles, 6th Dragoon Guards, and batteries of Bengal Artillery, as well as the 11th Regiment of Bengal Native Infantry, the 20th Regiment of Bengal Native Infantry and, dismounted, the remainder of the men of the 3rd Bengal Light Cavalry. The sentences were read, and the men stripped of their uniforms, then placed in shackles, while the Meerut Division watched. Despite pleas from the condemned men, none of their fellow soldiers came to their assistance. The entire process took around two hours to complete, following which the convicted soldiers were handed over to the civilian authorities and taken to the local jail under armed escort. After the parade, Hewitt communicated to his headquarters that all was calm, but during the night various junior officials received warnings of impending trouble from concerned sepoys or members of their household staff.
Mutiny.
The following day, a Sunday, at around 18:00, a general disturbance was reported in the town bazaar and columns of smoke were seen, rising from burning buildings. The 60th Rifles were waiting outside the local church, ready to attend a service, which had been delayed by half an hour on account of unusually warm weather; the sound of gunfire from the town alerted them to trouble. They headed to their own barracks, armed themselves, and were on their parade square awaiting orders when they were attacked by mounted troopers from the 3rd Bengal Light Cavalry. Upon finding the 60th Rifles unexpectedly armed and waiting for them, the troopers rode away, headed directly to the jail and released their comrades with the help of a local blacksmith. At the same time, soldiers from the 11th and 20th Regiments of Bengal Native Infantry were mutinying, killing some of their officers and some civilians (while helping some of their officers and officers' families to escape), and burning a number of buildings within the town. One company of the 60th Rifles was ordered to guard the treasury, a second company was ordered to guard their barracks, and the remainder of the 60th Rifles, joined by the 6th Dragoon Guards, headed to the barracks of the Native Infantry regiments. When they arrived, they found the buildings ablaze and the area deserted. Hewitt, concerned about the possibility of attack, withdrew the troops back toward their barracks and encamped them nearby. Throughout the mutiny and subsequent rioting, one troop consisting of between 80 and 90 members of the 3rd Bengal Light Cavalry remained loyal to their officers. The mutinying soldiers from the 3rd Bengal Light Cavalry, having released their comrades from the jail, returned to Meerut and joined in with the rioting along with members of the local civilian population, and then the mutineers from all three regiments left, heading to Delhi, although the fact that they had left Meerut was not discovered by the military authorities until the following morning and they did not know the direction in which the mutineers had departed.
At approximately 09:00 on 11 May, a small body of cavalry, followed by a larger body in the distance, was seen approaching Delhi along the road between that city and Meerut. The East India Company employees immediately noted that this was unusual, and the senior military officers present within the city attempted to contact Meerut by telegraph to enquire about the approaching troops, but the telegraph line between Delhi and Meerut appeared to have been cut. The 54th Regiment of Bengal Native Infantry, one of three Bengal Native Infantry regiments garrisoned within Delhi's Red Fort, was ordered to intercept them. A party of East India Company civil servants went to secure the fort's Calcutta Gate, but when they arrived they found that troopers from the 3rd Bengal Light Cavalry had already taken control of it. A struggle ensued which led to the death of a cavalry trooper and a civilian. A small group of troopers from the regiment headed toward the city's jail and released the inmates, meeting with no resistance. The main body of the regiment then arrived, joining up with the party at the Calcutta Gate, and then collectively they entered the fort and attacked the civilians within. A small group from the advance party gained access to the private courtyard of Bahadur Shah II and told him that he should take command of them. The regiment spread out throughout the fort and the city, and was eventually joined in mutiny by the forces of Bahadur Shah II and members of the Bengal Native Infantry who were based within the fort; a widespread outbreak of looting, burning of buildings and murder of East India Company employees and civilian shopkeepers took place, and the Indian Mutiny began in earnest. The mutineers of the 3rd Bengal Light Cavalry remained at Delhi until the breaking of the Siege of Delhi in September 1857. They withdrew first to Lucknow, then later to Nepal, where the majority of the men died through combat, disease or starvation. Those that eventually managed to make their way back to their homes found themselves shunned by their communities for their part in the mutiny. The regiment itself, in common with every other regiment of Bengal Light Cavalry, was disbanded at the end of the Indian Mutiny.
Historical perspective.
The way the situation had been handled was subject to criticism; firstly, the choice by Carmichael-Smyth to hold the firing drill parade was immediately criticised by his superior, Hewitt, who felt that had the parade not been held, the issue with the cartridges "would have blown over." Furthermore, a junior officer from Carmichael-Smyth's regiment, Lieutenant John Campbell MacNabb, felt that the drill parade was unnecessary and stated that the dislike held by the men toward their commanding officer was an aggravating factor in the events that followed. When Hewitt informed the Commander in Chief, Major General George Anson, about the public nature of the men's sentence, and of placing them in irons in front of the entire Meerut Division, on 9 May, Anson confirmed the sentences but did not approve of the "unusual procedure" that Hewitt had followed. For his conduct on 10 May, Hewitt later faced criticism from Lieutenant General Sir Patrick Grant, (who was the acting Commander in Chief by that point, following Anson's death) and from John Lawrence (who was then Commissioner of Punjab province). Following the mutiny of the troops at Meerut, Hewitt's command of the Meerut Division was taken away. At a subsequent appeal, Hewitt and his immediate subordinate, Brigadier General Archdale Wilson of the Bengal Artillery, blamed each other for the way the situation unfolded; Hewitt said that Wilson was responsible for the tactics on the day, and Wilson stated that as Hewitt was the overall commander, responsibility lay with him; Hewitt lost the appeal. The historian Kim A. Wagner, in his 2010 book "The Great Fear of 1857," stated that the senior officers' fear of "making a 'wrong decision'" led them to make no decision at all, "with devastating results".
Field Marshal Frederick Roberts, in his 1897 book "Forty-one Years in India," gave an opposing view; Roberts stated that he doubted "whether anything would have been gained" by an attempt to pursue the mutineers as the cavalry available (the 6th Dragoon Guards) was at that time composed mainly of recruits with horses that had not yet been broken and it was impractical to follow the mutineers with either infantry or artillery. Roberts went on to say "after careful consideration of all the circumstances of the revolt at Meerut, I have come to the conclusion that it would have been futile to have sent the small body of mounted troops available in pursuit of the mutineers on the night of the 10th May, and that, considering the state of feeling throughout the Native army, no action, however prompt, on the part of the Meerut authorities could have arrested the Mutiny. The sepoys had determined to throw off their allegiance to the British Government, and the when and the how were merely questions of time and opportunity." The actions of the 3rd Bengal Light Cavalry themselves were described by Major Agha Amin, writing for "Defence Journal", as "a coup d'état and an outstanding example of initiative and courage."


Serbian Hussar Regiment

The Serbian Hussar Regiment was a military unit of the Russian Imperial Army which predominantly consisted of Serbian colonists to Russia.
Background.
Due to Rákóczi's War of Independence (1703–1711), the position of Serbian militiamen in the Military Frontier of the Habsburg Monarchy was endangered. In 1704 the first Serbian attempts were made to offer their services to the Russian Empire in the latter's struggle against the Ottomans. Before the beginning of the Russo-Turkish War (1710–11) Russian Emperor Peter the Great invited Serbian militiamen and Serbs in general to join the Russian forces. During this period, a small group of Serbs, including Jovan Albanez, emigrated to Russia. A small Serb unit commanded by then-Captain Albanez distinguished itself in the Pruth River Campaign (1710–11), so Peter the Great decided to expand this unit and turn it into a separate Serbian Hussar Regiment.
In 1723 Peter the Great sent Albanez to the Pomorišje and Potisje regions of the Military Frontier of the Habsburg Monarchy to recruit additional Serbian militiamen. The invitation letter carried by Albanez was signed by Peter the Great on 23 October 1723. Every military men who emigrated to Russia with his wife and children would be granted arable land, while those who emigrated with larger numbers of people were promised additional privileges. Albanez was quite successful with recruitment. On 5 May 1724, Albanez reported from Serbia that he had recruited ten officers, including one colonel. According to some sources, 459 Serbs emigrated to Russia in 1724, and 600 in 1725. A detailed list of the military unit commanded by Albanez was made in 1726.
Establishment and command staff.
In 1724 a military unit known as the Serb Command (), consisting of Serbian colonists, was established and put under the command of the Kiev garrison. Between 1724 and 1729, the Serbian Hussar Regiment was expanded and completed its organisational structure. In 1727 this military unit had 459 Serb hussars when it was established as a separate regiment, Serb Hussar Regiment, by the decision of Empress Anna. It was also known as the Old Serbian Hussar Regiment. Its first commander was Major Jovan Albanez; members of the command staff included Captain Jovan Stojanov, Captain Georgije Marjanović, Captain Teodor Petrov, and Lieutenant Stefan Vitković.
The large-scale recruitment of Serbs from Austria was opposed by Austria and only smaller groups of Serbs continued to emigrate to Russia and enlist to serve in this regiment. To reach the planned strength of the regiment, several hundred Ukrainian Cossacks were transferred to it.
The Serbian Hussar Regiment served as a role model for the establishment of three additional regiments (Hungarian, Georgian, and Moldavian) in the 1740s and two more (Bulgarian and Macedonian) during the Seven Years' War.
Military engagements.
Until 1734 the regiment did not have a permanent garrison, although it had been established with the primary intention of securing the Ukrainian front line. Between 1729 and 1731, the regiment was assigned to the Russian infantry corps in the southern provinces of Persia. In 1732 the regiment returned from Persia and from 1733 to 1734 participated in the War of the Polish Succession. When the regiment participated in the Russo-Swedish War (1741–43), it numbered between 500 and 800 soldiers.


Operation Tiger Hound

Operation Tiger Hound was a covert U.S. 2nd Air Division, later Seventh Air Force and U.S. Navy Task Force 77 aerial interdiction campaign conducted in southeastern Laos from 5 December 1965 till 11 November 1968, during the Vietnam War. The purpose of the operation was to interdict the flow of People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN) supplies on the Ho Chi Minh Trail (the Truong Son Strategic Supply Route to the North Vietnamese) from the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (North Vietnam), through southeastern Laos, and into the northern provinces of the Republic of Vietnam (South Vietnam). The missions were originally controlled by the 2d Air Division until that headquarters was superseded by the Seventh Air Force on 1 April 1966.
The geographic boundary of the operation was carved from the area of Laos already under bombardment under Operation Steel Tiger. This was done at the behest of the American commander in South Vietnam, General William C. Westmoreland, who saw the area of Laos that bordered the five northernmost provinces of South Vietnam as an extension of his area of operations. The U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff agreed. Unlike Operation Barrel Roll and "Steel Tiger," however, the bombing in the new area would be conducted by aircraft of the Republic of Vietnam Air Force and by U.S. Air Force units based in South Vietnam (aircraft participating in "Barrel Roll" and "Steel Tiger" were generally based in Thailand).
By the end of 1968 and the absorption of "Tiger Hound" operations by Operation Commando Hunt, 103,148 tactical air sorties had been flown over Laos. These missions were supplemented by 1,718 B-52 Stratofortress sorties under Operation Arc Light. During the same time period, 132 U.S. aircraft or helicopters were shot down over Laos.


Camp Chase

Camp Chase was a military staging and training camp established in Columbus, Ohio in May 1861 after the start of the American Civil War. It also included a large Union-operated prison camp for Confederate prisoners during the American Civil War.
The camp was closed and dismantled after the war and the site has been redeveloped for residential and commercial use, except for the Camp Chase Confederate Cemetery, which contains 2,260 graves of Confederates who died in captivity both in Camp Chase and in Camp Dennison near Cincinnati. Camp Chase was located in what is now the Hilltop neighborhood of Columbus, Ohio. Camp Chase is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
History.
Camp Chase was an American Civil War training and prison camp established in May 1861, on land leased by the U.S. Government. It replaced the much smaller Camp Jackson which was established by Ohio Governor William Dennison Jr as a place for Ohio's union volunteers to meet. It originally operated from a city park. The main entrance was on the National Road west of Downtown Columbus, Ohio. Boundaries of the camp were present-day Broad Street (north), Hague Avenue (east), Sullivant Avenue (south), and near Westgate Avenue (west). Named for former Ohio Governor, Salmon P. Chase, who was Lincoln's Secretary of the Treasury; it was a training camp for Ohio volunteer army soldiers, a parole camp, a muster outpost, and later a prisoner-of-war camp. The nearby Camp Thomas served as a similar base for the Regular Army. As many as 150,000 Union soldiers and 25,000 Confederate prisoners passed through its gates from 1861 to 1865. By February 1865, over 9,400 men were held at the prison. More than 2,200 Confederates are buried in the Camp Chase Cemetery. Western Virginia and Kentucky civilians suspected of actively supporting secession, including former three-term United States Congressman Richard Henry Stanton were held at the facility. The prison camp also held Confederates captured during Morgan's Raid in 1863, including Col. Basil W. Duke.
The camp was closed in 1865, and by September 1867, dismantled buildings, usable items, and 450 patients from Tripler Military Hospital (also in Columbus) were transferred to the new National Asylum for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers in Dayton, Ohio (Now Dayton VA.) Building materials taken from dismantled buildings were sent to help build the Dayton facility which opened in 1867 and became the largest veterans home in the nation. In 1895, former Union soldier William H. Knauss organized the first memorial service at the cemetery. In 1906 he published a history of the camp.
The Confederate Soldier Memorial was dedicated in 1902. From 1912 to 1994, the United Daughters of the Confederacy held annual services to commemorate Confederate soldiers who had been held and died there. The Hilltop Historical Society now sponsors the event on the second Sunday in June.
Prison conditions.
The living conditions at Camp Chase were inadequate for a number of reasons. The prisoners were never intentionally starved, but because the Union army focused on feeding its own soldiers first it often left the prisoners with little to no food. The largest number of soldiers and officers held at Camp Chase at a single time was in 1863 when the prison camp held around 8,000 men. Because of the large number of prisoners crowded in a relatively small area, there was also a large outbreak of smallpox and other deadly diseases. This resulted in the death of hundreds of prisoners in the winter of 1863–1864. Many POW camps had the same conditions on both sides of the war. Because of this, the Union and the CSA agreed to exchange prisoners to stop the suffering of men on both sides. Ultimately around 10,000 soldiers were exchanged between both sides.
The Lady in Gray.
The Lady in Gray is purportedly an apparition that haunts Camp Chase Cemetery. The story goes that the ghost is looking for her lost love, and cannot find him in the cemetery. The woman is described as young, in her late teens or early twenties, dressed entirely in gray, and carrying a clean white handkerchief. The legend of the Lady in Gray dates back to just after the Civil War, when visitors to Camp Chase spotted the woman walking through the cemetery, trying to read the carved names on the marked grave markers. She was seen quite often for several years, before disappearing completely.
Camp Chase today.
Aside from the two-acre Camp Chase Confederate Cemetery, the land that formerly housed Camp Chase has been redeveloped as a residential and commercial area known as Westgate. A corner stone to the camp is located in front of the Westgate #623 Masonic Temple, in a community in the Hilltop section of west Columbus. This development was built in the late 1920s and early 1930s. Camp Chase is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Camp Chase Confederate Cemetery is managed along with five National Cemeteries by the Dayton National Cemetery.
Vandalism.
On August 22, 2017, part of a chain of removal of Confederate monuments and memorials, the statue of a Confederate soldier on top of the camp memorial was pushed off the arch and in the process had its head broken off. The vandals were never found. They stole the head of the Confederate statue but not the hat. The statue has been repaired under the auspices of the Dayton National Cemetery and was re-installed in May 2019.
References.
Miller, Robert Earnest, "War Within Walls: Camp Chase and the Search for Administrative Reform," Ohio History 96 (Winter Spring 1987): 33 56


German ostmark

 () is the name given to a currency denominated in which was issued by Germany in 1918 for use in a part of the eastern areas under German control at that time, the area. The currency consisted of paper money issued on 4 April 1918 by the in (Kaunas) and was equal to the German. The circulated alongside the Russian ruble and the , with two equal to one .
Denominations.
The denominations available were:
The reverse sides of the carry a warning against forging banknotes in German, Latvian and Lithuanian.
Aftermath.
The Ostmark and Ostruble continued to circulate in Lithuania from the end of World War I until 1 October 1922, when they were replaced by the . The names and were used for and , for example, on postage stamps. The reason for the replacement was the link to the , which already suffered from inflation (and would spiral into hyperinflation in 1923). The was pegged to the U.S. dollar.


Ladysmith (novel)

Ladysmith is Giles Foden’s second novel. It was published in 1999 by "Faber and Faber".
Plot summary.
The time is November 1899 through February 1900; the place is Ladysmith, a small railway town in the British Colony of Natal near the border with the Boer Republics. The Boers have surprised the world with initial victories over the British Army and have now laid siege to Ladysmith. As they shell the town from surrounding hills, people die, disease is rampant, structures collapse, starvation looms, there is panic about enemy agents and yet the British muddle through.
The setting of Giles Foden’s novel is historically accurate, and a number of historical figures appear as characters; for example, the Boers arrest a young reporter named Winston Churchill as he struggles to reach the besieged town, and an Indian lawyer-turned-medical volunteer named Mohandas K. Gandhi becomes more committed to his philosophy of active non-violence.
The core of "Ladysmith" is a fictionalised version of a love story that Giles Foden found in the letters of his great-grandfather, who was a British soldier at Ladysmith. Bella, the Irish hotelkeeper's daughter, falls in love, first, with a British soldier; and later with a Portuguese barber, thus defying convention and rebelling against her father.


5th Pursuit Group

The 5th Pursuit Group was an Air Service, United States Army unit that was assigned to the American Expeditionary Forces during World War I. It was demobilized in Germany after serving with the Third Army Air Service as part of the American Occupation of the Rhineland in May, 1919. There is no modern United States Air Force unit that shares its lineage and history.
History.
The 5th Pursuit Group was authorized by the Second Army Air Service in October 1918, for the purpose of participating in the planned drive on Metz and subsequent offenses. However, the signing of the Armistice with Germany on 11 November intervened.
Officially organized on 15 November 1918, initially, the 41st, 138th and 638th Aero Squadrons (Pursuit) were assigned to the group, and were billeted in the village of Lay St. Remy, in the Toul Sector; the 94th Squadron joined on 20 November. The Aerodrome was located only about a dozen kilometers from the town. Within several weeks after the group's formation, barracks were completed near the field and the squadron's men were moved to the quarters. Many of the pilots of the group had seen service with the British Royal Flying Corps, and a few had been shot down over German-held territory and had been taken prisoner. Also, several of the pilots were instructors in the United States and were sent overseas late in the war, and had not seen combat. Also many of the men of the squadrons had been instructors at training fields both in the United States, as well as in England and Scotland.
Although formed after the Armistice with Germany, the flying of the group did not. Pilots flew proficiency flights, training in formation flying, patrols and in air combat being on the schedule each day the weather permitted, although all flying was performed in friendly territory. Also demonstration flying was performed for various events to thrill the crowd and to demonstrate to the other branches of the service the capabilities of the Air Service. The pilots were skilled in aerobatic flying, and no accidents ever resulted from an exhibition.
High-ranking officers would visit Lay-Saint-Remy Aerodrome on occasion to discuss their cooperation with the Air Service during the War, and on their own particular work. Courses were held for the enlisted men in maintaining their skills learned and updating them with experiences learned during the war.
By 1919, the rough, barren airdrome had been transformed by much hard work, into one of the showplaces of the Second Army Air Service. Colonel Frank P. Lahm, Chief of Air Service, Second Army, remarked in a talk to the officers of the group that the station compared most favorably with a Regular Army post in the United States during peacetime. A fully equipped Officer's Club (The "Side Slip Inn") was one of the best-equipped, and prettiest places to be found in France, and it was here that the officers of the group entertained the many high-ranking visitors.
On 15 April 1919, orders were received that the Second Army Air Service was being demobilized. The entire 5th Pursuit Group but the 94th was ordered to Coblenz, Germany to become part of the Third Army Air Service. Just before this, the group had been reviewed by General Pershing and General Patrick, Chief of Air Service, AEF. The group was informed that the 141st Aero Squadron would be joining it at Coblenz. Each squadron prepared to move, and their equipment and supplies were moved the 200-odd miles in their own trucks. The enlisted personnel moved by rail and also by truck, while the pilots ferried their aircraft to their new airfield in the Rhineland.
The group made itself comfortable in Fort Kaiser Alexander, which was built by Wilhelm Hohenzollern's grandfather. The Fort commanded a high ridge between the Rhine and Moselle rivers, overlooking the city. There it was also joined by the 3d Air Park, its primary support unit that completed the organization of the group. At Coblenz, the groups flew a mixture of their assigned aircraft, and also they were was able to perform test flights on surrendered German aircraft. Flights of the Fokker D.VII, Pfalz D.XII, Halberstadts and Rumpler aircraft were made and evaluations were made.
The entire air service of the Third Army, excepting that of the III Corps Observation Group at Weißenthurm Airdrome, were relieved from further duty with the Third Army, on 12 May 1919 and ordered demobilized. The 5th Pursuit Group component squadrons were ordered to proceed to the 1st Air Depot at Colombey-les-Belles Airdrome, France for subsequent demobilization.


Battle of Romanovka

The Battle of Romanovka was fought in June 1919 during the Russian Civil War. Russian Bolsheviks of Yakov Tryapitsyn launched a surprise attack on an American army camp at Romanovka, near Vladivostok. As a result of the engagement, the attacks were repelled. Romanovka and the Suchan Valley Campaign that followed were the final major engagements of the Russian Civil War involving the United States. Battles would later break out again between the Americans and Soviets, as well as the Cossacks, on much smaller scales. Likewise, the Americans were invariably victorious.
Battle.
Lieutenant Lawrence Butler was in command of the American garrison at Romanovka. His seventy-two men of Company A, 31st Infantry, were encamped at the base of a hill within the town limits. On the night of June 24, 1919, Lieutenant Butler placed a sentry at the top of the hill to watch for any approaching enemies. However, at 4:00 am on the following morning, the sun was coming up so the sentry relieved himself to prepare for reveille. Moments later the partisans attacked and because the sentry had abandoned his post, the Russians achieved a surprise attack by gaining control of the hill and firing on the camp below. Most of the American garrison was still asleep when bullets came ripping through their tents. Within the first few minutes nineteen Americans were killed and Lieutenant Butler was wounded, having a portion of his jaw shot away and another bullet wound to one of his legs. With hand signals Butler was able to direct his men to form a firing line. The Bolsheviks, numbering around 400 men, then attempted to surround the American position but the latter retreated, first to a large wood pile and then again to the back of a cabin, all while under heavy fire.
After that Butler sent one man to try to find help from other American units in the area. The messenger was shot while doing this but he managed to flag down a passing supply train guarded by a platoon of American troops under Lieutenant James Lorimar. When Lorimar learned of the situation, he dispatched half of his men to aid Lieutenant Butler in the defense of Romanovka. Lorimar's men found the garrison huddled together with Butler unconscious and lying on the ground near some ammunition crates. For several more moments the two sides skirmished but eventually the Bolsheviks retreated. On the same day, men of the 27th Infantry engaged partisan forces at Kraefski and Shmakovka, resulting in the wounding of six more American soldiers and another Bolshevik retreat.


Carrollton Road-Carrollton Segment

The Carrollton Road-Carrollton Segment is a historic 19th-century road in Boone County, Arkansas. It extends for more than eastward from Carrollton, which was once the county seat of Carroll County. The roadways matching the documented 1837 alignment of the road are (from west to east, beginning at U.S. Route 412) County Road 417, Terrapin Creek Road, and Dunkard Road, up to its junction with Green Hill Road. This stretch of dirt road has retained a 19th-century rural character, and is further significant as a route taken by Native American parties on the Trail of Tears in 1838.
The road was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2008.


United Kingdom casualties of war

United Kingdom casualties of war lists deaths of British armed forces and British citizens caused by conflicts in which the United Kingdom was involved.


Muelle de Gallineras

Muelle de Gallineras is a fishing port and marina located in San Fernando in the Province of Cádiz, Andalusia, Spain. It was used in Roman times. On 23 October 304, Calventius Viator sailed from here to Africa after being martyred. During the French siege there were two defensive batteries, one lower and one higher. Gallerinas today is also the name of a district (barrio) of the city.


Siege of Mequinenza

The siege of Mequinenza (15 May to 8 June 1810) saw a 16,000-man Imperial French corps commanded by Louis Gabriel Suchet invest a 1,000-strong Spanish garrison under Colonel Carbon. Mequinenza and its castle were captured by the French after an operation lasting about three weeks. The action occurred during the Peninsular War, which formed part of the Napoleonic Wars. Mequinenza is located at the confluence of the Ebro and Segre Rivers about west of Barcelona.
Mequinenza's town wall was old and weak, but its castle perched on a mountain spur above the town was a formidable position. It took Suchet's military engineers two weeks to construct a zig-zag road up the mountain. Once the road was ready, the French dragged their siege cannons to the top and opened fire on the castle. The town was successfully stormed on 5 June. After eight days of bombardment the castle was a ruin and Carbon surrendered. Since Mequinenza was at the head of navigation on the Ebro, Suchet was able to use the town as a supply base in his subsequent operations during the siege of Tortosa in the winter of 1810 and 1811.
Background.
During the second siege of Zaragoza, its Spanish defenders bitterly resisted the French for many months. The city finally fell on 20 February 1809 and its large garrison was killed or captured. With most of Aragon's defenders wiped out, the French III Corps under General of Division Jean-Andoche Junot and V Corps under Marshal Édouard Mortier rapidly conquered the Ebro River valley. The powerful fortress of Jaca meekly surrendered to Mortier on 21 March 1809 and the towns of Monzón and Fraga were soon occupied. However, the castle of Mequinenza declined to surrender when summoned by a French column. After Mortier in person appeared before the castle with a brigade of infantry, its commander again refused to capitulate. The French marshal withdrew, planning to return after conquering the remainder of eastern Aragon. However, Emperor Napoleon issued orders on 5 April for the V Corps to withdraw to Tudela. The War of the Fifth Coalition was about to start and the emperor knew he might need Mortier's troops to reinforce his army in Germany. This left the III Corps to hold Aragon with only 15,000 troops. At the same time the emperor replaced Junot with General of Division Louis Gabriel Suchet.


Siege of Saguntum

The siege of Saguntum was a battle which took place in 219 BC between the Carthaginians and the Saguntines at the town of Saguntum, near the modern town of Sagunto in the province of Valencia, Spain. The battle is mainly remembered today because it triggered one of the most important wars of antiquity, the Second Punic War.
Hannibal's plans.
After Hannibal was made supreme commander of Iberia (221 BC) at the age of 26, he spent two years refining his plans and completing his preparations to secure power in the Mediterranean. The Romans did nothing against him though they received ample warning of Hannibal's preparations. The Romans even went so far as turning their attention to the Illyrians who had begun to revolt. Because of this, the Romans did not react when news reached them that Hannibal was besieging Saguntum. The capture of Saguntum was essential to Hannibal's plan. The city was one of the most fortified in the area and it would have been a poor move to leave such a stronghold in the hands of the enemy. Hannibal was also looking for plunder to pay his mercenaries, who were mostly from Africa and the Iberian Peninsula. Finally, the money could be spent on dealing with his political opponents in Carthage.
Some historians doubt whether Hannibal attacked Saguntum deliberately or whether he was provoked by the Saguntines, who had Rome's support. Since most of the remaining ancient sources covering this period are pro-Roman, one cannot rule out the possibility that Rome encouraged Saguntum to defy Hannibal. However, Rome failed to support their ally during the siege of Saguntum. This might be due to the fact that Rome's legions were occupied elsewhere or might have been a calculated move to have a casus belli against Carthage. Hannibal's alleged hatred of Rome and all Romans might also have been an idea of Roman propaganda to justify the second and eventually the third Punic war.
The siege.
During Hannibal's assault on Saguntum, he suffered some losses due to the extensive fortifications and the tenacity of the defending Saguntines, but his troops stormed and destroyed the city's defenses one at a time. Hannibal was even severely wounded by a javelin, and fighting was stopped for a few weeks while he recovered.
The Saguntines turned to Rome for aid, but none was sent. In 218 BC, after enduring eight months of siege, the Saguntines' last defenses were finally overrun. Hannibal offered to spare the population on condition that they were "willing to depart from Saguntum, unarmed, each with two garments". When they declined the offer and began to sabotage the town's wealth and possessions, every adult was put to death.
This marked the beginning of the Second Punic War. Hannibal now had a base of operations from which he could supply his forces with food and extra troops.
Aftermath.
After the siege, Hannibal attempted to gain the support of the Carthaginian Senate. The Senate (controlled by a relatively pro-Roman faction led by Hanno the Great) often did not agree with Hannibal's aggressive means of warfare, and never gave complete and unconditional support to him, even when he was on the verge of absolute victory only five miles from Rome. In this episode, however, Hannibal was able to gain limited support which permitted him to move to New Carthage where he gathered his men and informed them of his ambitious intentions. Hannibal briefly undertook a religious pilgrimage before beginning his march toward the Pyrenees, the Alps, and Rome itself. The next phase of the war was marked by extraordinary Carthaginian victories at Trebia, Lake Trasimene, and the Battle of Cannae.
Legacy.
At the end of the 1st century AD the siege of Saguntum was described in much detail by the Latin author Silius Italicus in his epic poem "Punica". In his verses several Saguntine leaders and heroes stand out (Sicoris, Murrus, Theron), as well as a Libyan warrior princess fighting for Carthage (Asbyte), but very few historians give the tale any credit as a historical source.
In 1727 the English dramatist Philip Frowde wrote a tragedy entitled "The Fall of Saguntum" which was based on Silius' poem.
The death metal band Ex Deo has a song called "Hispania (The Siege of Saguntum)" on their album "The Immortal Wars".


Battle of Koljonvirta

The Battle of Koljonvirta () () i.e. the Battle of the Virta Bridge was fought between Swedish and Russian troops on October 27, 1808. The Swedish force consisted of troops from Savolax and Östergötland. After the main Swedish army had been defeated at the Battle of Oravais the army under Johan August Sandels in Savonia had to retreat in order not to be outflanked by the Russians. Sandels found a good defensive position north of Iisalmi and decided to resist the Russian advance there.
Between September 29 and October 27 a cease-fire was in effect. Sandels was heavily outnumbered but had a good defensive position between two lakes connected by the Koljonvirta river and he had prepared his position well during the cease-fire. On October 27 the cease-fire was to end at 1 PM, but Russians started their attack a little earlier, perhaps because of the time difference between Sweden and Russia. Sandels pulled back the forces on the south side of the river and the Russians attacked over the partially demolished bridge. The Swedes counter-attacked and literally pushed the Russian troops into the river. The Russians pulled up fresh troops on the south side of the river, but they didn't try to attack again. The battle was the last Swedish victory on Finnish soil.


Clash at Habersbirk

Clash at Habersbirk (Czech: "Habartov") was the first armed confrontation between the Czechoslovak gendarmerie and the Sudeten Germans. It is sometimes marked as the first battle of the Second World War.
Background.
In 1938, Habersbirk was inhabited by 3135 people, out of which 207 were Czech. The population was overwhelmingly Sudeten German. The local gendarmerie consisted of four men: chief ("praporčík") Jan Koukol and sergeants Jan Pardus, Antonín Křepela and Matěj Příbek. During the year, the gendarmerie station received a number of threatening anonymous messages, mainly targeted at Pardus. The ordners set out to guard crossroads in the area.
The clash.
The first incidents occurred in the morning of 13 September. Sergeant Pardus was intercepted by a crowd of Sudeten Germans on his way to purchase cigarettes, but only met with swear words. A swastika banner was hung from the church tower, which Pardus and Koukol set out to remove. The confrontation with the crowd got tenser at the church, but both gendarmes were left to return to the station, where the crowd partially dispersed.
Another part of the German crowd thrust into the building and dragged out Pardus' wife, Růžena Pardusová. They forced her back into her apartment and imprisoned her there, demanding the capitulation of the gendarmes. This resulted in a gunfight between the gendarmes and the Germans, who stormed the building but were driven out by the gendarmes. Jan Koukol and the leader of the insurgents, Otto Plass, were killed in the action, Sergeant Příbek was wounded.
The crowd brought Růžena Pardusová in front of the station, having lynched her previously. The gendarmes were given an ultimatum to stand down, lest she be shot. The gendarmes then started to exit the station unarmed, Příbek first, then Křepela and Pardus. Pardus was immediately shot at and lynched by the crowd, who pierced his ears with swastika-shaped holes.
Around 14:00, eleven more gendarmes arrived in the town in a bus and immediately confronted the Germans. Gendarmes Roubal and Černý were killed in the engagement. The Germans were forced to flee. Later, the dead body of Křepela was found with signs of torture.