Battle of Konotop

The Battle of Konotop or Battle of Sosnivka was fought between a coalition led by the Hetman of Ukrainian Cossacks Ivan Vyhovsky and cavalry units of the Russian Tsardom under the command of Semyon Pozharsky and Semyon Lvov, supported by Cossacks of Ivan Bezpaly, on 29 June 1659, near the town of Konotop, Ukraine, during the Russo-Polish War (1654–1667). Vyhovsky's coalition defeated the Russians and their allies and forced the main Russian army to interrupt the siege of Konotop. However, the result of the battle only intensified political tensions in Ukraine and led to Vyhovsky's removal from power several months later.
Prelude.
The Battle of Konotop took place during the period of Ukrainian history that is generally referred to as the Ruin. This was the time after the death of Hetman Bohdan Khmelnytsky, during which many power struggles within the Cossack elite took place. Arguably, these power struggles were instigated by the Russian tsar, in an effort to undermine the authority of the Cossacks.
During his reign, Bohdan Khmelnytsky managed to wrestle Ukraine out of Polish domination, but was later forced to enter into a new and uneasy relation with Russia in 1654. His successor, general chancellor and close adviser Ivan Vyhovsky, was left to deal with Moscow's growing interference in Ukraine's internal affairs and even overt instigation of a civil war by way of supporting Cossack factions opposing Vyhovsky.
In 1656, Russia signed a peace accord in Vilno with Poland in violation of the Treaty of Pereyaslav of 1654, and increased pressure on the Cossack Hetmanate. As a result, Vyhovsky entered into negotiations with the Poles, and concluded the Treaty of Hadiach on 16 September 1658. Under the planned new treaty three voyevodships of central Ukraine (Kiev, Bratslav and Podilya) were to become an equal constituent nation of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth along with Poland and Lithuania under the name of Grand Principality of Rus', forming the Polish–Lithuanian–Ruthenian Commonwealth. However, the Sejm ratified the treaty in a very limited version, where the idea of an independent Ruthenian Principality was completely abandoned.
The news of a Cossack-Polish alliance alarmed Moscow and the Ukrainian cossacks opposing Vyhovsky (led by Ivan Bezpaly) to the extent that an expeditionary force was dispatched to Ukraine in the autumn of 1658 headed by Prince Grigory Romodanovsky. Moscow's military commander not only supported the election by Vyhovsky's opponents of a new rival hetman, but started actively to occupy towns held by Vyhovsky's supporters. The latter were mercilessly exterminated along with widespread abuse and robbery of the civilian population.
The situation having escalated that far, open hostilities followed. Skirmishes and attacks occurred in different towns and regions throughout the country, the most prominent of which was the capture of Konotop by Cossacks of the Nizhyn and Chernihiv Regiments headed by Hryhoriy Hulyanytsky, a colonel of Nizhyn. In the spring of 1659 a Russian army of 28,600 men according to documents of Razryadny prikaz or 100,000–150,000 according to "The Сhronicle of the Witness" and Sergey Solovyov was dispatched to Ukraine to assist Romodanovsky. The latter numbers are being criticized by modern historians as exaggerated.
The army came to the Ukrainian border on 30 January 1659 and stood 40 days till Trubetskoy negotiated with Vyhovsky since the Russian commander had instructions to persuade the Cossacks. Vyhovsky's rivals, the Cossack forces of commanders Bezpalyi, Voronko and the Zaporizhian Cossacks of Barabash joined the Russian troops. After the negotiations failed, hostilities began. The Russian army together with anti-Vyhovsky insurgents defeated Vyhovsky's troops in the battle of Romny and the battle of Lokhvytsya. After that, the supreme military commander Prince Aleksey Trubetskoy decided to finish off the small 4,000 garrison of Konotop Castle held by Cossacks of Hulyanytsky before proceeding in his pursuit of Vyhovsky.
Siege of Konotop.
Prince Trubetskoy's hopes for a quick resolution of the Konotop stand-off were dimmed when Hulyanytsky and his Cossacks refused to betray hetman Vyhovsky and mounted a fierce and protracted defence of Konotop with only 4,000 Cossacks. According to a historian Markevych, on 21 April 1659, after a morning prayer, Trubetskoy ordered an all-out assault on the fortress's fortifications. The city was shelled, a few incendiary bombs were dropped inside, and the army moved on to capture the city. At one point Trubetskoy's troops broke inside the city walls, but were repelled by the fierce resistance of the Cossacks inside. After the fiasco of the initial assault, Trubetskoy abandoned his plans of a quick assault and proceeded to shell the city and to fill the moat with earth. The Cossacks stubbornly held on in spite of all the fire unleashed on the city: during the night, the earth filled into the moat was used to strengthen the city walls, and the besieged even undertook several counterattacks on Trubetskoy's besieging army. These attacks forced Prince Trubetskoy to move his military camp 10 km away from the city and thereby split his forces between the main army at his headquarters and the army besieging Konotop. Another attack on 29 April was also repelled and the Russians lost close to 400 men and suffered around 3000 wounded. Instead of a quick campaign the siege dragged on for 70 days and gave Vyhovsky the much-needed time to prepare for the battle with the Russian army.
The hetman not only managed to organize his own troops, but secured support of his allies — the Crimean Tatars and the Poles. By agreement with the Tatars, the Khan Mehmed IV Giray, at the head of his 30,000-strong army, made his way towards Konotop in early summer of 1659, as did the 4000-man Polish detachment with the support of Serbian, Moldavian and German mercenaries.
Battle.
By 24 June 1659 Vyhovsky and his allies approached the area and defeated a small reconnaissance detachment of the invader's army near the village of Shapovalivka, several kilometers south-west of Konotop. According to the plan made that evening, the 30,000 Tatars were left in an ambush south-east of the river Sosnivka, and Vyhovsky's forces with Poles and mercenaries were positioned at the village of Sosnivka, south of the river with the same name.
Meanwhile, Vyhovsky left the command of his forces to the brother of Hryhoriy Hulyanytsky, Stepan Hulyanytsky, and at the head of a small Cossack detachment left for Konotop. Early on the morning of 27 June 1659, Vyhovsky's detachment attacked Trubetskoy's army near Konotop, and using this sudden and unexpected attack managed to capture a sizable number of the enemy's horses and drive them away and further into the steppe. The enemy counterattacked, and Vyhovsky retreated across the bridge to the other bank of the Sosnivka river in the direction of his camp. Having learned of the assault, Prince Trubetskoy dispatched a detachment of 4,000 men noble cavalry and 2,000 Bezpalyi Cossacks led by Prince Semen Pozharsky across the river to pursue Ivan Vyhovsky. Trubetskoy's forces were thus divided between this detachment and those besieging Konotop. According to the Chronicle of the Eyewitness and Solovyov the detachment of Pozharsky consisted of 30,000 men.
On 28 June 1659 Prince Semen Pozharsky, in his pursuit of the Cossacks, crossed the river Sosnivka and made his camp on the southern bank of the river. During the night a small Cossack detachment led by Stepan Hulyanytsky, having padded the hoofs of their horses with cloth, stole under the cover of night behind the enemy lines and captured the bridge that Pozharsky had used to cross the river. The bridge was dismantled and the river dammed, thus flooding the valley around it.
Early on the morning of 29 June 1659 Vyhovsky, at the head of a small detachment, attacked Prince Pozharsky's army. After a little skirmish, he started to retreat, feigning a disorganized flight in the direction of his main forces. The unsuspecting Pozharsky ordered his army to pursue the enemy. Once the enemy's army entered Sosnivka, the Cossacks fired three cannon shots to give the signal to the Tatars and counterattacked with all the forces stationed at Sosnivka. Having discovered the trap, Prince Semen Pozharsky ordered retreat; but his heavy cavalry got bogged down in the soggy ground created from the flooding the night before. At this moment the Tatars also advanced from the eastern flank, and the outright slaughter ensued. Almost all troops perished, with few of them captured alive. Among the captured were Prince Semen Romanovich Pozharsky himself, Prince Semen Petrovich Lvov, both Princes Buturlins, Prince Lyapunov, Prince Skuratov, Prince Kurakin and others. A relative of the Great Liberator of Moscow from the Poles, Dmitry Pozharsky, Prince Semen Romanovich Pozharsky was brought before the Khan of Crimea Mehmed IV Giray. Being forced to carry out acts of submissiveness Pozharsky insulted the Khan and spat in his face. For that he was promptly beheaded by the Tatars, and his severed head was dispatched with one of the captives to Prince Trubetskoy's camp.
Having learned about the defeat of Pozharsky's army, Trubetskoy ordered the siege of Konotop lifted and started his retreat from Ukraine. At that moment the Cossacks of Hulyanytsky inside the fortress emerged from behind the walls and attacked the retreating army. Trubetskoy lost, in addition, most of his artillery, his military banners and the treasury. The retreating army defended well and Vyhovsky and the Tatars abandoned their 3-day long pursuit near the Russian border.
Aftermath and significance.
As Trubetskoy's troops arrived in Putivl, the news of the battle reached Moscow as well. A prominent Russian historian of the 19th century, Sergey Solovyov, described it this way:
Solovyev’s emotional description, however, is challenged by modern historians, who point to the fact that his judgement is true only in the sense that at least 259 of those lost in the battle were officers or men of Moscow rank, and that the Russian army was much smaller than Solovyov and other historians who followed Polish declarations believed it to be. The overall Russian casualties revealed by 17th-century archive documents of the Ambassadors’ Chancellery were 4,769 men: 2,830 of L’vov’s and Pozharskii’s forces sent across the Sosnovka and 1,896 lost during the attacks on Trubetskoi’s wagenburg. In a number of Polish and Ukrainian narrative sources the overall strength of the Russian army is estimated at 100,000-150,000 men, while its casualties are claimed to be 30,000-50,000, and it is declared that such prominent Russian commanders as Grigory Romodanovsky, Andrey Buturlin, Artamon Matveyev, and Venedikt Zmeyev all perished in the battle. These claims were uncritically accepted by 19th-century scholars, such as the aforementioned Sergey Solovyov, and are still popular among Ukrainian historians. For example, A. Bulvinsky concluded in his publication that both sides lost 40,000 men in the Battle of Konotop. These claims have been criticized in detail by Western and Russian historians as heavily exaggerated, the criticism has been supported by the Polish expert Piotr Kroll. It was noted that "judging by the marks on the sheets of the used documents from the Russian State Archive of Ancient Acts, [Bulvinsky] knew many Russian documents on the Konotop battle. However, he decided to use only one of them, one that has nothing to do with the battle of 28 June 1659". In order to have a 150,000-men-strong army at Konotop, Russia would have had to send all of its military forces to one place, leaving no troops behind, since the overall strength of the Russian armed forces according to the annual estimate of 1651 was 133,210 men in total, including 39,408 noblemen and boyars' sons, 44,486 streltsy troops, 21,124 Cossacks, 8,107 dragoons, 9113 Tatars, 2371 Ukrainians, 4245 artillerymen, 2707 foreigners, and Zasechnaya guard. Furthermore, documentary evidence makes it clear that Romodanovsky, Buturlin, Matveyev, and Zmeyev survived the battle and continued to serve the Russian Crown for many years. Instead of using narrative works, which don't cite any evidence, include dubious details and were used for propaganda purposes, Western and Russian scholars usually prefer 17th-century archive documents of the Russian Ambassadors’ Chancellery that provide detailed information on Russian regiments, their provision and losses. These documents are regarded as most reliable and accurate, as they were used in the interests of financial control and supply of the armed forces, carefully checked by a state commission and presented to the Tsar himself; attempts to distort the data were prohibited by law. When on one occasion Prince Ivan Lobanov-Rostovsky made an attempt to downplay his casualties in one of these documents, it was immediately noticed by the commission and perceived as an extraordinary offense by Tsar Alexis I. In 2012, T. Tairova-Yakovleva urged historians not to regard the documentary evidence as the most reliable source on this matter, but her statement was criticized as completely ungrounded and absurd and her own interpretation of the battle as based on uncritical acceptance of non-Russian sources.
After the battle, the Ukrainian civil war of the Ruin ensued. Hetman Vyhovsky and his allies had only been able to capture a few of the Ukrainian towns held by his opponents, when the first bad news arrived: Cossacks of the Zaporozhian Host led by Ivan Sirko attacked Crimean outposts in the south, and Khan Giray was forced to leave him for his country. Several cities rebelled against Vyhovsky immediately: Lokhvytsia, Hadyach, Poltava, Romny. It was only 2 months after the battle when the citizens of Nizhyn gave a ceremonial welcome to Trubetskoy and swore an oath of allegiance to the Russian tsar. The same month the Ukrainian citizens and cossacks regiments in Kiev, Pereyaslav, Chernihiv swore an oath to the tsar as well.
Thus Vyhovsky was left to deal with the growing opposition to his rule. By the end of the year he was forced to resign and to flee to Poland where he was later executed by the Poles in 1664. His defeat is largely attributed to his alliance with the very unpopular Poles and his inability to seek support among all the strata of the Ukrainian population and not just among the rich Cossack elite, who were willing to betray him at every opportunity either to Moscow or Warsaw. The civil war raged on and the victors of the Konotop battle were soon forgotten.
Together with a number of other battles between East Slavs, such as Battle of Orsha, the Konotop battle was with a few exceptions an abandoned topic in Russian Imperial and in Soviet historiography. This attitude towards this event is explained by the fact that it dispelled some Russian propaganda positions about the unity of East Slavs, in particular the ones about "eternal friendship of Russian and Ukrainian peoples" and about "natural desire of Ukrainians for union with Russia". According to S. Makhun (writing on Reitar-military) for all the skill and the bravery of the Cossacks — especially those defending Konotop — it still remains a bitter victory. A victory that did not have any significant impact on the course of Ukrainian history, where the fratricidal war of the Ruin and the personal ambitions of treacherous hetmans prevailed.
Art and music.
Numerous poems and odes have been written about he battle by the Ukrainian poets Yar Slavutych, Olena Teliha, and P. Karpenko-Krynytsia.
Numerous historic songs about the battle also entered the repertoire of the blind itinerant musicians known as kobzars.
The composer and bandurist Hryhory Kytasty in 1966 composed a monumental work based on Ukrainian Cossack folk songs for soloists, male chorus and orchestra to commemorate the battle. Recordings of this work have been released by the Ukrainian Bandurist Chorus with the renowned Russian singer Michael Minsky and also by the Kiev symphony.


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7th SS Volunteer Mountain Division Prinz Eugen

The 7th SS Volunteer Mountain Division "Prinz Eugen" ("7. SS-Freiwilligen Gebirgs-Division "Prinz Eugen""), initially named the SS-Volunteer Division "Prinz Eugen" ("SS-Freiwilligen-Division "Prinz Eugen""), was a German mountain infantry division of the Waffen-SS during World War II. It served only in occupied Yugoslavia. Formed in 1941 from both Germans and "Volksdeutsche" (ethnic German) volunteers and conscripts from the Banat, Independent State of Croatia, Hungary and Romania, the division fought a bloody counter-insurgency campaign against communist-led Yugoslav Partisan resistance forces in the German-occupied territories of Serbia and Montenegro, as well as elsewhere in Yugoslavia.
History.
1941.
After the invasion, occupation and dismantling of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia by the Axis powers on 6 April 1941, the Wehrmacht placed Serbia proper, the northern part of Kosovo (around Kosovska Mitrovica) and the Banat under a military government. The division was formed in late 1941 following the invasion initially from German-speaking Danube Swabian "Selbstschutz" in the Banat autonomous area within the Territory of the Military Commander in Serbia. The unit was given the title "Prinz Eugen" after Prince Eugene of Savoy, an outstanding military leader of the Habsburg Empire who liberated the Banat and Belgrade from the Ottoman Empire in the Austro-Turkish War of 1716–18. A key figure in the organisation of the division was the Higher SS and Police Leader in Serbia, "SS-Obergruppenführer und Generalleutnant der Polizei" (Police General) August Meyszner.
After the initial rush of "Volksdeutsche" to join, voluntary enlistments tapered off, and the new formation did not reach division size. Therefore, in August 1941, the SS discarded the voluntary approach, and after a favorable judgement from the SS court in Belgrade, imposed a mandatory military obligation on all "Volksdeutsche" in Banat, the first of its kind for non-"Reichsdeutsche". One of the reasons for the forced conscription of ethnic Germans was the disappointingly low number of volunteers for the division after the initial recruitments (no more than 5,000). While the division remained "volunteer" in name, few of the conscripted ethnic Germans actively sought entry into the unit. "SS Reichsführer" Himmler had announced that the wishes of the "Volksdeutsche" were irrelevant, while in connection with the Balkan Germans the SS head of recruitment Gottlob Berger remarked: "kein Mensch [kümmert] [sich ja] darum, was wir unten mit unseren Volksdeutschen tun" ("no person cares what we do with our ethnic Germans in the South"). Ethnic Germans in the Balkans were therefore powerless and could not oppose conscription into the SS. The unwillingness of ethnic Germans to serve in the unit is illustrated by a mutiny of 173 Croatian Germans of the division
in 1943 in Bosnia when apparently the men of mixed ancestry did not speak German and were mistreated by their superiors as a result. Many of these men preferred service in the Croatian Home Guard for a variety of reasons; Himmler intervened personally in the problem.
In 1942, the Pančevo-based unit was declared a Mountain Division. Its troops were issued with a significant amount of non-standard German weapons and used captured equipment such as Czechoslovak machine guns like the ZB-53 and French light tanks. They were provided with excellent German-made mountain artillery such as the 10.5 cm Gebirgshaubitze 40 howitzer and 7.5 cm Gebirgsgeschütz 36 mountain gun. When the division was formed, it was assigned to the Balkans as an anti-partisan mountain division.
1942.
In October 1942, the division led a German-Bulgarian anti-guerrilla offensive by the name of Operation Kopaonik against the Chetniks in the Kopaonik, Goč and Jastrebac mountains in Serbia. The operation was aimed at the destruction of the Rasina Corps of the Yugoslav Army in the Fatherland, commanded by Major Dragutin Keserović, whose headquarters was located in the village of Kriva Reka. In early October 1942, the division was deployed in southwestern Serbia, in Kraljevo, Užice, Ivanjica, Čačak, Raška, Kosovska Mitrovica, and Novi Pazar. On 5 October 1942, Phleps ordered the German and Bulgarian forces to destroy the enemy. A comprehensive attack was planned: 20,000 well-armed and fully trained troops would encircle the 1,500 Serb guerrillas from four directions. Because of the perceived importance of this operation and to observe the first military operations of the newly established SS Division, Himmler himself travelled to Kraljevo in the German occupation zone; Himmler was in Kraljevo from 15 to 18 October 1942 and toured the division. German and Bulgarian forces began their attack on the Chetnik territory at dawn on 12 October 1942, proceeding from four directions. However, Keserović ordered his units to regroup into smaller squads for easy maneuvering and penetration, and the Rasina Corps was able to escape from the Axis ring entrapment.
The division's first major action thus ended in a failure, as the Germans and Bulgarians cleared the Chetnik free territory (and in the process committed war crimes against the Serbian civilian population), yet the Chetniks themselves successfully withdrew beyond the reach of the occupation forces. The "Prinz Eugen" was next involved in counter-insurgency activities on the Serbian-Montenegro border in the mountains east of river Ibar.
1943.
Afterwards, the division took part in the Fourth anti-Partisan Offensive in Croatia's Zagreb-Karlovac area, where together with Italian forces attempted to defeat the Yugoslav Partisans commanded by Josip Broz Tito, the operation failed and most of the Partisans managed to evade the main attack. In Operation Weiss I, the division advanced from Karlovac area against the Yugoslav National Liberation Army (NOVJ) resistance and on January 29 captured informal partisan capital Bihać. In Operation Weiss II, it forced its way from western Bosnia to Mostar area in Hercegovina and also deployed units northwest of Sarajevo.

From 15 May – 15 June, the "Prinz Eugen" took a part in the Fifth anti-Partisan Offensive (Operation Schwartz) aiming to pin Tito's main force of about 20,000 Partisans against the Zelengora mountain, in south-eastern Bosnia. During the battle, the division received a task to move through the Italian occupation zone in order to block the possible advance of Partisans towards the Adriatic Sea and the Italian-occupied Albania, to close the south-east part of the encirclement and then advance north over mountainous terrain to crush the Partisan forces. In eleven-day fightings from May 20, division captured Šavnik. For this success, "Sturmbannführer" Dietsche as well as commander Phleps both received first two Knight's Crosses for the division. In the following days, the focal point of the battle shifted westward. After the main group of the Partisans headed by the 1st Proletarian Division broke out of the encirclement, two battalions of the division that were moved to cover the left bank of the Sutjeska river and block the Partisans' escape route were surprised by the attack of three battalions of the NOVJ 1st Dalmatian Strike Brigade and one from 5th Montenegro Brigade at Tjentište pushing them back. They recovered their positions during a night battle and decimated the Partisan units. In the operation Schwartz the division suffered total losses of 613 men.
In August 1943, the division became a part of the XV Mountain Corps and was sent to the Dalmatian coast, to disarm the Italian forces in September 1943 after the Italian government had surrendered to the Allies. In exploiting Italian capitulation, Tito's forces succeeded in seizing control of the most part of the Dalmatian coast. In sixteen-days long battle the division pushed back NOVJ units and on September 29 reoccupied Split. In October, division participated in Operation Landsturm, another anti-Partisan operation in Omiš, Ploče and Biokovo. In battles for Split and Biokovo coastline, the "Prinz Eugen" suffered losses of 1,582 killed, wounded and missing in action.
The division was reorganized on 22 October 1943 and was renamed the 7th SS Volunteer Mountain Division "Prinz Eugen". In November, the unit was attached to the V SS Mountain Corps and took part in anti-Partisan Operations Kugelblitz and Schneesturm in Dalmatia during the next month.
1944.
In January 1944, the division was involved in more anti-Partisan actions in Operation Waldrausch. It then took part in Seventh anti-Partisan Offensive (Operation Rösselsprung) which began on 25 May 1944. This operation had the task of killing or capturing Tito, and the operation was spearheaded by the 500th "SS Fallschirmjäger-Bataillon" and supported by the Brandenburg Regiment. In this timespan many other ethnic groups joined the division, such as ethnic Croats, ethnic Hungarians, and over 1,000 ethnic Serbs who volunteered for the division at General Phelps' office, most of whom were either ideologically or otherwise motivated to fight against the Partisans.
In May, June and July, the "Prinz Eugen" saw further action in Operation Freie Jagd, Operation Rose and Operation Feuerwehr. Between 12–30 August, the division was engaged in Operation Rübezahl, aimed to prevent offensive of NOVJ forces from Montenegro into western Serbia.
In September, the Soviet Red Army had advanced to the Balkans and the division suffered heavy casualties in defensive battles against the combined Bulgarian, Soviet and NOVJ forces in the Nish region. On 21 September, "Obergruppenführer" Artur Phleps—the division's first commander—was believed to have been killed when en route from Montenegro to Transylvania. The division's next action was the defence of the Kraljevo bridgehead against the Soviet-led Belgrade Offensive as a part of XXXIV Army Corps (Army Corps Müller). This defence was essential for the success of Army Group E efforts to open a corridor which would allow the retreat of 350,000 German soldiers from Greece and the Aegean Sea.
In the beginning of November, the very understrength and underperforming 21st Waffen Mountain Division of the SS "Skanderbeg" was disbanded, following widespread demoralisation and mass desertions within its ranks. It was nominally ethnic Albanian but in reality staffed mostly with the "Reichsdeutsche" and "Volksdeutsche" Germans, including ex-Kriegsmarine conscripts. Its remnants were incorporated into the 14th Regiment of "Prinz Eugen", which received its honor title "Skanderbeg".
1945.
In January 1945, the division was in action against the Yugoslav Army at Otok and Vukovar in Croatia. In February, it took part in Operation Wehrwolf against a Yugoslav bridgehead in the Virovitica area.
The withdrawal from Bosnia towards Austria continued as "Prinz Eugen" retreated through Croatia in April 1945. On 10 May, the division moved towards Celje in Slovenia. There it surrendered to the Yugoslav Army on 11 May, three days after the capitulation of Germany that marked the official end to World War II in Europe.
All personnel of "Prinz Eugen" taken prisoner by the Yugoslav Army were then killed. Most were executed wholesale, without trial, disposed of through a variety of methods immediately following their surrender. The killings, which were never punished, were ordered by local Yugoslav commanders, apparently acting directly against Tito's strict instructions to detain the captives in prison camps and screen them for war criminals. In 2010, a large mass grave containing the remains of some 2,000 "Prinz Eugen" soldiers was opened near the Slovenian village of Brežice; the soldiers had been stripped naked, bound together with telephone wire, and shot, their bodies buried in a trench in a summary mass execution on 22 May 1945. Many of the soldiers' family members were amongst the tens of thousands of local civilians who perished at the hands of Yugoslav forces during the ethnic cleansing of German-speaking populations throughout eastern Europe.
War crimes.
The division was infamous for its brutality. On 6 August, 1946, during the morning session at the Nürnberg Trials, it was said that "The 7th SS Division, "Prinz Eugen", is famed for its cruelty," and that "wherever it passed - through Serbia, through Bosnia and Herzegovina, through Lika and Banija or through Dalmatia - everywhere it left behind scenes of conflagration and devastation and the bodies of innocent men, women, and children who had been burned in the houses."
It also committed numerous atrocities in the area of Nikšić in Montenegro:
Commanders.
The following officers commanded the division:
Out of the four commanders of the division, one (Phleps) was killed in battle, two of them were sentenced to death by hanging and executed in Belgrade 1947, and the fourth (Kumm) managed to avoid extradition to Yugoslavia by fleeing over the wall of the internment camp of Dachau.
Awards.
Several members were decorated with high German military awards, including one Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross with Oaks Leaves and Swords awarded to "SS-Brigadeführer und Generalmajor der Waffen-SS" Otto Kumm when he was the divisional commander. Divisional recipients of the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross included the first commander of the division, Artur Phleps and five others, all regimental or battalion commanders. One was awarded posthumously.


Arnold Wilson

Sir Arnold Talbot Wilson (18 July 1884 – 31 May 1940) was the British civil commissioner in Baghdad in 1918–20. Wilson served under Percy Cox, the colonial administrator of Mesopotamia (Mandatory Iraq) during and after First World War, including the Iraqi revolt against the British in 1920. Wilson was the third Member of Parliament to die in action in the Second World War. He was killed while serving as an aircrew member at the advanced age of 55.
Early life and career.
Wilson was born in 1884 and educated in England at Clifton College, where his father James Wilson was a headmaster. His elder half-sister was the leading civil servant Mona Wilson and his younger brother was the tenor Sir Steuart Wilson.
Wilson (aka "A.T.") was tall and strong. He began his military career as an army officer 19 August 1903, having been awarded the King's Medal and sword of honour at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, being commissioned on the Unattached List for the British Indian Army. After he spent a year attached to the 1st battalion the Wiltshire Regiment in India, he was appointed to the Indian Army and posted to the 32nd Sikh Pioneers, on 18 December 1904.
Wilson famously saved money travelling back to Britain on leave by working as a stoker to Marseilles and then cycling the rest of the way.
In 1904 he went to Iran as a Lieutenant to lead a group of Bengal Lancers to guard the British consulate in Ahvaz and to protect the work of the D’Arcy Oil Company, which had obtained a sixty-year oil concession in Iran and was pursuing oil exploration in partnership with the Burmah Oil Company.
In 1907 Wilson was transferred to the Indian Political Department and sent to the Persian Gulf, where he served as a political officer. Wilson oversaw the discovery of the first oil site in the Middle East, Masjid-i-Suleiman in 1908. Soldier and senior administrator as Consul-General of Muhammerah (1909–11), he was put in charge of the Turko-Persian Frontier Commission. He looked like the traditional figure of the Indian Rebellion of 1857 in a top buttoned bright red tunic, the Indian Army uniform. "His flashing eyes, his beetling eyebrows, his close-cropped hair, his biblical quotations", recalled Gertrude Bell, the British "Oriental Secretary". Wilson was a hard worker, a workaholic, who was tirelessly energetic, shifting mountains of paperwork. He inspired a younger colleague, Harry Philby, while Hubert Young, a favoured subordinate, found him domineering.
First World War.
In January 1915, as the British were moving troops from India into Mesopotamia through the Persian Gulf and Basra, Wilson was designated as the assistant, and then deputy, to Sir Percy Cox, the British Political Officer for the region. Based in Baghdad, he then became the acting Civil Commissioner for Mesopotamia. The problem remained that there was no official "Arab Policy"; it had not been defined in law nor by the Civil Service. India wanted Mesopotamia as a Province; but Arabists from Cox downwards wished for a semi-autonomous policy separate from the Arab Bureau in Cairo. Policy was made "ad hoc"; but Wilson disagreed.
During his tenure in Mesopotamia Wilson worked to improve the country's administration according to the principles he learned in India. In Wilson's view the priority was to reconstruct and stabilise the country, by establishing an efficient government and administration as well as a fair treatment and political representation of the various ethnic and religious communities (i.e. in the case of Iraq: Arabs, Kurds, Turkmen, of religions such as Islam Shiite and Sunni, Christianity and Judaism). In doing so, he was nicknamed "The Despot of Mess-Pot". Capt Wilson told me the staggering news that he had been appointed to Tehran ...Capt Wilson and I are excellent colleagues and the best of friends and I know I can do a good deal by seeing people...I am going to compile an intelligence book on Persia.
However, after the First World War he found himself progressively opposed to other British officials who believed that Arab countries should be granted independence under British supervision. British policymakers debated two alternative approaches to Middle Eastern issues. Many diplomats adopted the line of thought of T. E. Lawrence favoring Arab national ideals. They backed the Hashemite family for top leadership positions. Wilson expressed the views of the India office. They argued that direct British rule was essential, and the Hashemite family was too supportive of policies that would interfere with British interests. The decision was to support Arab nationalism, sidetracked Wilson, and consolidate power in the Colonial Office.
Post World War One.
In 1919, during the Paris Peace Conference, he was among the few who successfully recommended adopting the Arabic name "Iraq", as it had been known for more than 1400 years by Muslim and Arab worlds, instead of the Greek name Mesopotamia which was only used by Westerners.[citation needed] This political entity covered the planned northern expansion of the newly created country under the British Mandate to include the oil rich Mosul region of northern Iraq, in addition to the Mesopotamian provinces of Baghdad and Basra.
In April 1920, at the Conference of San Remo, the League of Nations agreed to the British mandate over Iraq. In the spring and summer of 1920 various riots erupted across central and southern Iraq. These riots were often violently repressed by Wilson's administration. The total number of Iraqi casualties of these riots was estimated at 10,000 people.
Having achieved the rank of Brevet Lieutenant-Colonel in August 1918, he retired from the Indian Army in August 1921.
In the summer of 1920 Wilson proposed a compromise, suggesting that Feisal, the former King of Syria, be offered the Iraqi throne. This proposal was intended to obtain support from the Iraqis as well as British officials who favored semi-independence. It was eventually accepted by the British government, but Wilson was not there to participate in its implementation. The British government decided not to follow Wilson's views, and instead granted independence to Iraq. The British government removed Wilson from his position in Iraq and knighted him. Deeply disappointed by the turn of events, he left the public service and joined the Anglo-Persian Oil Company as manager of their Middle Eastern operations. He worked for the company until 1932.
Interwar decades.
Across the 1930s Wilson undertook a great number of extracurricular activities, such as chairman of the Parliamentary Scientific Committee (forerunner of the Parliamentary and Scientific Committee), an active role in the British Science Guild, the British Eugenics Society, the Industrial Health Research Board, and many more.
Wilson was responsible for the large exhibition of Persian art at Burlington House in London in 1931.
Wilson published his travelling and political diaries as "Thoughts and Talks", "More Thoughts and Talks" and "Walks and Talks Abroad" with the Right Book Club.
Politics.
In 1933 Wilson was elected in a by-election as the Conservative MP for Hitchin. He described himself as a 'left-wing radical Tory'.
Like his half-sister Mona Wilson, Wilson published extensively on what he termed 'left wing' issues such as workmen's compensation, the costs of funerals, industrial assurance, and old age pensions. These researches arguably influenced related postwar policies.
Before the Second World War his outspoken views on foreign policy evoked much criticism. In 1938 Wilson expressed support for the Spanish Nationalists, saying "I hope to God Franco wins in Spain, and the sooner the better." George Orwell called him a Fascist, although he also praised his courage and patriotism.
Second World War.
However, in October 1939 after the outbreak of the war, he joined the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve, serving as a pilot officer (air gunner) in 37 Squadron of RAF Bomber Command. He stated that "I have no desire to shelter myself and live in safety behind the ramparts of the bodies of millions of our young men." Still an MP, he was killed in northern France, near Dunkirk, on 31 May 1940 when the bomber he was serving on as an air gunner, Wellington L7791, piloted by Pilot Officer William Gray crashed near Eringhem, killing him instantly and fatally wounding Gray. He is buried at Eringhem churchyard, half-way between Dunkirk and Saint-Omer.
Legacy.
Wilson was immortalised as Sir George Corbett in the 1942 Powell and Pressburger movie "One of Our Aircraft is Missing".
His book "The Persian Gulf" was published in 1928. "S.W. Persia: Letters and Diary of a Young Political Officer 1907–1914" was published posthumously in 1941.
Arnold Wilson is commemorated in the scientific names of two species of reptiles: "Panaspis wilsoni" and "Xerotyphlops wilsoni".
Sir Wilson's personal papers are held at The London Library, London UK


Cerritos Veterans Memorial

The Cerritos Veterans Memorial, located in Cerritos, California is a sculpture dedicated in honor of local veterans. The sculpture is part of a "Cerritos Veterans Project," which seeks to preserve the stories of veterans who are current or former residents of the City of Cerritos. The sculpture, which was designed and built by artist James T. Russell, sits on the grounds of the Cerritos Civic Center.
The memorial.
The memorial was dedicated at the first annual Veterans Day ceremony on November 11, 2006. The memorial contains a stainless steel sculpture in the shape of a flame atop a reflecting pool. There are five pedestals surrounding the pool, each containing the emblem of one branch of the United States armed forces: Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, and the Coast Guard. Off to the side, there are two other pedestals, one in honor of the Merchant Marine, and another honoring all 32 groups who were recognized by Congress for their efforts during World War I and World War II.
The memorial serves as a focal point for the various official city ceremonies which have a patriotic theme. The dedication ceremony in 2006 served as the city's first annual Veterans Day ceremony, and the first annual Memorial Day ceremony took place in 2008. Starting in 2007, the city also moved its "Let Freedom Ring" ceremony to celebrate the Fourth of July to the grounds around the Cerritos Veterans Memorial, and in 2010 the city held its Patriot Day concert in that venue.
Controversies.
Memorial design.
During the November 22, 2005, Cerritos City Council meeting, a controversy erupted as to whether there should be a sixth pedestal around the pool with the emblem of the Merchant Marine. After a very long public discussion, a compromise was reached where it was decided to put a pedestal with the emblem of the Merchant Marine, but place that pedestal off to the side and not include it with the emblems of the 5 primary branches. In order to be sensitive to other groups, it was also decided to have a pedestal honoring all the groups recognized by Congress for the contributions during World War I and World War II.


Operations Malheur I and Malheur II

Operation Malheur I and Operation Malheur II were a series of search and destroy operations conducted by the 1st Brigade 101st Airborne Division operating as part of Task Force Oregon in Quảng Ngãi Province.
Operation Malheur I.
On 29 April, COMUSMACV General William Westmoreland ordered the 1st Brigade commanded by Brigadier general Salve H. Matheson to immediately join Task Force Oregon in I Corps. In early May the brigade put ashore at Razorback Beach in southern Quảng Ngai, established a base named Carentan, and prepared for action against the People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN)/Viet Cong (VC)'s inland base areas-numbered 122, 123 and 124 which ran from north to south through the mountainous jungle overlooking the Ve and Tra Cau River Valleys. On 11 May, the 1st Brigade moved into the interior looking for the 1st and 2nd Regiments, both of which were thought to lurk there. Two of the three battalions conducted air assaults into the western part of Base Area 124, a tangle of tree-clad low hills overlooking the coastal plain. Resistance was light. The next morning Matheson committed his remaining battalion to a blocking position on high ground in the eastern part of the base area and ordered the other two battalions to sweep toward it. Encountering little opposition in the days that followed, Matheson decentralized his operations and conducted a more rigorous search. Matheson allowed each battalion commander to work his operational area as he saw fit, insisting only that companies operate within a two-hour march of each other. Most units kept constantly on the move and traveled with three to five days' worth of supplies, so the PAVN/VC would be less likely to pinpoint their location by observing resupply helicopters. Companies split into platoons for wider coverage of a search area, but remained close enough to reassemble quickly if they ran into a sizable force. These tactics often paid off. On 13 May, near the Tra Cau's headwaters, 12 separate firefights occurred, the largest against an entrenched VC company. By nightfall, the Americans had killed 29 VC at a cost of 1 American killed and 7 wounded, but the outcome was not always so one-sided. On 18 May Company B, 2nd Battalion, 502nd Infantry Regiment, moved well inside a large VC camp before realizing that the occupants had not yet fled. Confusion reigned during the firefight, and the Americans realized they were too close to their enemy to call in artillery or helicopter gunships. For six hours they fought, sometimes hand to hand, until reinforcements arrived and the VC pulled back. Left on the battlefield were 31 VC dead, while American casualties were 12 killed and 41 wounded. Matheson's men completed their scouring of Base Area 124 in early June, reporting that they had killed or captured over 400 VC, seized 125 weapons, and razed several base camps.
Operation Malheur II.
Task Force Oregon commander General William B. Rosson then ordered Matheson to shift his attention slightly north, to Base Areas 123 and 122. Both were more mountainous than 124 and were often drenched by cloudbursts leftover from storms brewing around the inland peaks near the Laotian border. If Matheson failed to find VC there, he was to assist the Quảng Ngãi province chief with the evacuation of all civilians from the Ve and Tra Cau Valleys. Whatever their political loyalties, these civilians had provided food and recruits for the VC. Matheson sent two battalions into Base Area 123 on 8 June and another into 122 the following day. While the first day's fighting ended with 22 VC killed, it was apparent to the Americans that the VC were trying to avoid contact. With few enemy units to be found, Matheson turned to evacuating civilians. For two weeks trucks and helicopters moved over 7,000 people and 1,200 head of cattle to refugee centers in Đức Phổ and Nghĩa Hành Districts. When the operation ended in late June, the valleys had been laid waste by combat and herbicides, while several hundred tons of rice and salt were either destroyed or airlifted to refugee centers. In July, believing that the VC were re-forming in Base Area 124, the airborne brigade returned south. A week of searching, however, uncovered only small enemy units. Documents and prisoners revealed that both the 1st and 2nd Regiments had lost several commanders and that illness, desertions and heavy casualties had greatly diminished their effectiveness. When Matheson received a report in mid-July that the two units were converging on Base Area 123 to form a single combat-effective regiment, he called in B-52s. On the heels of the bombing, all three of his battalions air-assaulted back into the region, which they again swept clean through the rest of the month. Yet, once again, the VC evaded, though American sweeps killed over 100 VC, including a VC district chief and his aides.
Aftermath.
When the operations closed, the 1st Brigade reported 869 VC and PAVN killed and 314 weapons captured, for the loss of 81 US killed. The United States Agency for International Development reported 6,400 civilian casualties in the province for 1967 throughout the year, though obviously not all of these could be attributed to the Malheur operations or even to American military action.


Battle of Pleichfeld

Battle of Pleichfeld in 1086. was the last major battle of the Great Saxon Revolt (1077-1088), a nobles' rebellion against the emperor Henry IV in the Holy Roman Empire. The battle was a victory for the rebel forces.
Prelude.
In their rebellion against the central imperial authority, Herman of Luxembourg and Welf I, Duke of Bavaria laid siege to the imperial city of Würzburg in summer of 1086. In an effort to destroy the center of rebellion and to maintain the unity of the Empire, emperor Henry IV attempted to lift the siege.
Battle.
Imperial army, numbering about 20.000 (according to unverifiable contemporary accounts), was largely composed of armed peasants and town militia, while rebel forces, numbering some 10.000, had a larger proportion of mounted knights.
Armies met on August 11, 1086. at Pleichfeld, a village 3 km north of Würzburg. Rebel knights dismounted, and charged the enemy on foot. Loyalist army, composed mostly of untrained peasants and armed citizens, broke and fled after the first charge. Their swift defeat was attributed by chroniclers to treason amongst the Emperor's own knights, who accepted a bribery and changed sides in the thick of battle.


Auts

Auts () is a mountain chain that is located southeast of Mequinenza, close to the Ebro river in the Bajo Cinca comarca, Aragon, Spain. Its maximum elevation is 434 metres.
History.
During the Spanish Civil War Auts were the scene of violent fighting during the initial phase of the battle of the Ebro, where the 42nd Republican division began the passage of the Ebro river through this area on the early morning of July 25, although it was surrounded by Francoists forces.
The operation of Mequinenza-Fayón, secondary in the Battle of the Ebro respect to the main objective - the advance towards Gandesa-, began on July 25 with the crossing of the river and the conquest of a bridgehead between the towns of Fayón and Mequinenza. Its balance was one of the bloodiest in the battle of the Ebro, for the Republican side, 817 dead and 1,328 prisoners without counting the wounded and missing (about 3,000 casualties), and by the Franco army, 135 dead and 1,284 wounded. Finally, the survivors of the 42nd Republican Division had to cross the Ebro in the opposite direction.
The objective of the Republican offensive was to set the enemy's reserves and cut the road from Mequinenza to Maella at precisely the height of the "Gilabert Crossing." This knot, however, was never conquered. To the initial effort of the 226 Brigade and part of the 227 Brigade of the 42nd Division, which quickly conquered the Alto de los Auts, the Francoists replied with the progressive arrival of reinforcements. The offensive continued day after day without significant progress despite the heavy fighting. On August 1, a double air and artillery bombardment preceded a first counterattack by Franco's forces. The republicans would attack again two days in a last attempt to conquer the 'Gilbert Crossing' while on August 6th there was the definitive counterattack of the defenders, who withdrew until midnight of the same day, avoiding the collapse of the entire division.
The parts of war from the Francoist side explain:
Among the Francoists, the units that split the most casualties were the 3rd, 17th and 18th Flags of the Legion, the 9th Tabor of Alhucemas and the 9th of Tetuán.
Auts Monument.
Six decades after the events, on August 8, 1998, the "Quinta del Biberón", a group of survivors inaugurated the monument erected on the hillside of the Alto de los Auts, a key position, the highest and most strongly defended by the Republicans of the Mequinenza-Fayón battle. The monument, designed by Javier Torres, is chaired by two plaques, in Catalan and Spanish, and two helmets on each side. The plaque says: 'To all those who lost, who were all'. The event involved up to 250 "biberones" accompanied by their families. After making a floral offering at the foot of the monument, the veterans recalled the thirst, heat and illness they suffered at those spaces.
The Monument is located next to the Mequinenza road at the end of the port of Fayón, where a sign indicating the access to the monolith has been overcome.
Origin of the name.
The name "Auts" comes most likely from an ancient Catalan word for "heights", "alts" in modern Catalan. Referring to hills this name appears, for example, in Ramon Llull's following text:


Captain general of the Army

Captain General () has been the highest rank in the Spanish Army ("Ejército de Tierra") since the 18th century. A five-star rank with NATO code OF-10, it is equivalent to a field marshal of the armies of numerous countries, a general of the Army of the United States, a captain general of the Spanish Navy "(Armada Española)" or a Captain general of the Air Force in the Spanish Air Force "(Ejército del Aire)". A Captain General's insignia consists of two command sticks under five four-pointed stars below the Royal Crown.
A personal rank of "captain general" was created in the Spanish Army (and Navy) as the highest rank in the hierarchy, not unlike the Marechal de France. Since King Charles IV's reign (1788–1808), the monarchs used captain general insignia when wearing uniform. Briefly abolished by the Second Spanish Republic (except one honorary promotion), it was restored by Nationalist Spain in 1938; Francisco Franco himself was the only officer of this rank. The effective rank was reserved to the reigning monarch. A few posthumous honorary promotions and honorary promotions of retired officers to this rank were also made, such as José Moscardó Ituarte (1956), Agustín Muñoz Grandes (1957), Camilo Alonso Vega (1969) or Manuel Gutiérrez Mellado (1994). Some members of the Spanish Royal Family were promoted to the rank after periods of service and Queen Isabella II appointed her consort, Francis of Assisi (1846). Two foreign monarchs, Edward VII of the United Kingdom and William II of Germany, and four distinguished foreign military officers also held the honour.


Archer Clive

Brigadier Archer Francis Lawrence Clive, DSO and bar, MC (24 June 1903, in London – March 1995, in Ross-on-Wye, Herefordshire) was a British Army officer who served during World War II.
Family.
Clive was the son of Lieutenant-General Sir George Sidney Clive and Madeline Buxton. He was educated at New Beacon School, Sevenoaks, Harrow School (January 1917-?) and the Royal Military College, Sandhurst.
He was married twice; firstly on 8 February 1934 to the Honourable Penelope Isobel Portman (daughter of Gerald Berkeley Portman, 7th Viscount Portman). The couple had two children (a son and a daughter); they were divorced in 1949. His second marriage was to Olivia Mary Beatrice Stanley, on 3 October 1950.
Military career.
After graduating from Sandhurst, Clive was commissioned as a second lieutenant into the Grenadier Guards on 1 February 1923. Promoted on 1 February 1925 to lieutenant, from May 1928 to August 1930, he was attached to the Sudan Defence Force (SDF). Returning to England, from 1938 to 1939 he attended the Staff College, Camberley.
From September 1939 until July 1940, he served with the British Expeditionary Force (BEF), first as a General Staff Officer, 3rd grade (GSO3), then from March 1940 as a brigade major. He was awarded the Military Cross in July 1940 for his services with the BEF. Clive then served at the War Office as a General Staff Officer, 2nd grade (GSO2), until 15 February 1941, when, promoted to the acting rank of lieutenant colonel, he was appointed Commanding Officer (CO) of the 6th Battalion, Grenadier Guards. The battalion was a war-raised unit composed mainly of civilian soldiers who had volunteered for the army, along with a few Regulars. After training in England the battalion was sent overseas in June 1942, arriving in Syria where, in October, it was assigned to Brigadier Julian Gascoigne's 201st Guards Brigade. Together with the rest of the brigade, Clive's battalion was sent to Tunisia to become part of the British Eighth Army, where it was engaged in the final stages of the Tunisian Campaign, notably at the Battle of the Mareth Line in mid-March, where the battalion suffered heavily. For his service with the Grenadiers in North Africa, he received his first Distinguished Service Order.
For six months between 12 August 1943 and 13 February 1944, Clive performed staff officer (GS01) roles with 203 Military Mission and then with the 21st Army Group. After this, he became commander of the 24th Guards Brigade, as a temporary brigadier, in Italy until the end of October 1944. For his service in Italy, he was awarded a bar to his DSO. Clive was a member of the Military Mission to South Africa between 1945 and 1946.
Clive retired from active service, with the honorary rank of brigadier, late of the Grenadier Guards, on 9 December 1947, being listed in the Regular Army Reserve of Officers until 24 September 1958. He was appointed a Justice of the Peace in 1953 and Deputy Lieutenant for Herefordshire on 24 May 1960.


Governor of Pendennis Castle

The Governor of Pendennis Castle was a military officer who commanded the fortifications at Pendennis Castle, part of the defences of the River Fal and Carrick Roads, on the south coast of Cornwall near Falmouth. Originally fortified under Henry VIII, defences in the area were intermittently maintained until after the Second World War. The office of governor was abolished in 1837, when Gen. Anderson received the colonelcy of the 78th Regiment of Foot.
Governors of Pendennis Castle.
The early Governorship was a quasi-hereditary office, whose holders were as follows:


Battle of Ocotal

The Battle of Ocotal occurred in July 1927, during the American occupation of Nicaragua.
A large force of rebels loyal to Augusto César Sandino attacked the garrison of Ocotal, which was held by a small group of US Marines and Nicaraguan National Guards. Ultimately the rebels were defeated with heavy losses, while the Americans and their Nicaraguan allies suffered very light casualties.
Battle.
By June 1927, United States Marine Corps Captain Gilbert D. Hatfield's original eight men at Ocotal had been augmented to forty-one men, with the intention of patrolling the Nueva Segovia area, and further augmented on July 11 by "Guardia Nacional's" 1st Co. Upon arriving at the town of Ocotal, Captain Hatfield expected enemy activity so he had his men build an airstrip and establish telegraph service with the surrounding town.
The United States Marines and the Nicaraguan guards did not have to wait long for a battle. On July 15, Captain Hatfield doubled his watch and that same night, Sandino's rebels began entering the town, two or three men at a time. At 1:15 am on July 16, a lone marine patrolling the town spotted a suspicious man walking through a street so he fired what became the first shot of the engagement. With the element of surprise lost, Sandino immediately ordered his men to charge the marines and the guards. Around 4 AM, three charges were made on city hall, resulting in the death of Rufo Marin, the second charge lasting more than four hours. At daybreak heavy fighting commenced again until 8:00 am when Sandino demanded Hatfield's surrender. Captain Hatfield refused to concede, apparently believing that his fortified positions were strong enough to repel any further attack.
Daylight also brought two marine aircraft into the battle. At around 10:00 am, one of the planes, piloted by Lieutenant Hayne D. Boyden, landed near Ocotal to inquire about the seriousness of the situation while the other plane, piloted by Gunner Michael Wodarczyk, strafed the enemy's positions. A little later, Lieutenant Boyden reboarded his plane, made a few more strafing runs and then flew back to Managua where he informed Major Ross E. Rowell of the battle. Major Rowell responded by forming a squadron of five De Havilland DH-4 biplanes armed with machine guns and four twenty-five pound bombs each. At 2 PM, Rowell's squadron arrived at Ocotal and began dropping bombs on the rebels at 300 to 1,000 feet for about forty-five minutes. Sandino's men, who had never been attacked by aircraft before, began a panic retreat in what was history's first dive bombing attack in tactical support of ground troops.
Aftermath.
Fifty-six dead rebels were collected and over 100 more were wounded, while the US Marines and the Nicaraguan National Guards suffered only light casualties. (The exact casualties suffered by the victors vary between accounts: Nalty stated only one man killed and five wounded, while Beckett stated a total of nine killed and wounded.) While this action was by no means the end of the insurgency – it was to last another five years – it was the last time that the rebels attempted to concentrate for a massed attack of this kind. As with early British successes with aircraft in counterinsurgency in Somaliland in 1920, it had forced the insurgents to change their tactics.
One Marine killed was Roulette, PA native Michael Obleski was killed and buried at Ocotal
Major Oliver Floyd's Nueva Segovia expedition soon arrived in Ocotal, and on 25 July, marched for San Fernando.


Battle of El Sauce

The Battle of El Sauce, or the Battle of Punta de Rieles or Punta Rieles, took place on the 26 December 1932 during the American occupation of Nicaragua of 1926–1933. It was the last major battle of the Sandino Rebellion of 1927–1933. The incident has its origins in Nicaraguan President José María Moncada's plan to commemorate the completion of the León-El Sauce railway on the 28 December 1932.
Rumors spread that Sandinista rebels planned on crashing the ceremony, so an expedition of eight Marines and 64 Nicaraguan National Guardsmen led by Captain Lewis B. "Chesty" Puller were sent by train towards El Sauce on the 26 December 1932 to secure the area. A Sandinista force led by Juan Pablo Umanzor, meanwhile, was looting a construction company commissary. As the Marines'/National Guard's train passed some ancient ruins, it was fired upon by rebels from both sides of the tracks.
Soldiers led by Puller exited the train on the right side, while those following First Lieutenant William A. Lee got out on the left side of the tracks. Lee's men soon took cover in a ditch, while Puller's forces "tried to turn Umanzor's left flank." During the firefight, Corporal Bennie M. Bunn grabbed a Browning automatic rifle and began driving the Sandinistas back. The battle concluded, after one hour and ten minutes, in a victory for the Marines and National Guard. Thirty-one Sandinista corpses were found after the battle (and 63 live horses were captured), compared to losses of three killed and three wounded for the Guard.
Moncada got to participate in ceremony two days later, as planned. He was so pleased with American performance during the battle that he promoted Puller to major and Lee to captain.


Haji Sahib of Turangzai

Haji Sahib of Turangzai (whose real name was Fazal Wahid) (b. 1858 d. December 14, 1937) was a Pashtun freedom fighter and social worker in the late 19th century and early 20th century.
He was born to a noble family in 1858 at Turangzai; a famous town in district Charsadda, modern Pakistan. His father's name was Fazal Ahad. After receiving his early religious education at home, Haji Sahib went to the Darul Uloom Deoband where he grew an attachment to Sheikh ul Hind Maulana Mahmood ul Hasan and in 1890, accompanied the Sheikh on the Hajj.
On his return he fought against the British in the 1897 Frontier revolt, in which there was a general uprising against the British by the frontier tribes.
The revolt was ultimately unsuccessful, and in 1908, Haji Sahib went on the Hajj once again. On his return he became preoccupied with social work, education in particular. It was during this time he started touring each village and town along with Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan, better known as Bacha Khan. The movement proved successful, and almost 120 schools were established in the space of a few years.
The British government reacted negatively to events, and accused Haji Sahib as well as Ghaffar Khan of running a parallel government to that of the British. They had him arrested and put on trial. He briefly attempted to oppose the British government but was arrested. On the basis of lack of evidence, Haji Sahib was released, but his fellow workers were given sentences of up to three years.
In 1913, Sir Sahibzada Abdul Qayyum Khan chose Haji Sahib of Turangzai to inaugurate the foundation laying ceremony of the Darul Uloom Islamia in Peshawar, present day Islamia College.
In June 1915 the British government issued an arrest warrant against him. Evading arrest at midnight, Haji Sahib left Peshawar and headed for Mohmand Territory along with his sons and trusted friends. Within days of arriving at Mohmand Agency, Haji Sahib along with Mujahideen from Chamarkand accelerated attacks on British positions in the nearby areas. The Chamarkand Mujahideen were under the leadership of Ameer Niamatullah Khan. In August 1915, they attacked a British camp stationed at Rustam in Mardan.
In 1923, the British sent their troops to Mohmand Territory to stamp out the resistance. This time however, instead of any bloodshed they managed to sign a truce after which they pushed back their troops. It proved a pyrrhic victory, and he eventually settled in Mohmand agency where he became preoccupied with building a mosque.
In 1936, Haji Sahib fell seriously ill. With time, his condition worsened and died on 14 December 1937 aged 81.
His tomb has turned into a shrine for locals, and his children started construction of the mosque along with Haji Sahib tomb in 1979 and completed it in 1990. The Mosque is known as Turangzai Babaji Mosque.
The Mosque recently came into the news when armed groups of Taliban fighters took over the Mosque


South Sudan Opposition Alliance

The South Sudan Opposition Alliance is a coalition of political parties and armed groups in South Sudan that opposed the government of President Salva Kiir. It was formed in February 2018 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, by nine groups. In September the alliance acceded to a revised peace deal with the government that also included the main rebel faction, the Sudan People's Liberation Movement-in-Opposition, but some of the member groups disagreed with the decision and split from the alliance. The pro-deal SSOA has experienced continued tension between its members, as well as with the government.
Formation.
The original nine groups consisted of:
The Sudan People's Liberation Movement-Former Detainees faction (SPLM-FD), led by Pagan Amum, was also listed as a member in the SSOA's charter, but subsequent media reports suggested that it was not included in the coalition. South Sudan United Front/Army, led by Paul Malong Awan, declared its intention to join the SSOA in April, but this does not seem to have occurred.
In its foundational statement, the SSOA promised to "accelerate efforts to restore just and durable peace, democracy and to preserve human rights and the fundamental democratic rights of our people." The group condemned the "ethnic chauvinism, despotic oppression, and institutionalized corruption" plaguing the country and called for the institution of federalism. It criticized previous peace agreements for focusing too much on satisfying warring factions and not enough on long-lasting conflict resolution; it also blamed the collapse of these agreements largely on the government.
History.
In 2017, the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) began sponsoring an attempt to revise and resurrect the failed 2015 peace deal. This was followed by the formation of several new political groups and militias hoping to claim a place at the negotiating table. From June to August 2018, Sudanese-sponsored talks resulted in President Salva Kiir and former Vice President Riek Machar signing several interim agreements meant to lead up to a conclusive deal. The SPLM-FD and the SSOA also participated in these talks, but were said to be marginalized.
First split.
As negotiations were drawing to a close, parts of the SSOA expressed continued dissatisfaction with the terms. Cirilo, leader of the NAS, demanded the full introduction of federalism and accused Sudan and Uganda of being more concerned with preserving their material interests in South Sudan than achieving lasting peace. His supporters further alleged that Machar was only concerned with the interests of his own Nuer people.
On September 12, the Revitalized Agreement on the Resolution of Conflict in South Sudan (R-ARCSS) was signed by the government, Riek Machar's SPLM-IO, Pagan Amum's SPLM-FD, and the SSOA faction led by Changson.
SSOA groups that accepted the deal included:
SSOA groups that rejected the deal included:
Four of these breakaway groups later renamed themselves the South Sudan National Democratic Alliance. Dario's PDM expressed disagreements with the others over their vision for a future government and went its own way.
SSNDA and SSOMA.
The SSNDA, led by Cirilo and dominated by his NAS, was reported to be the largest rebel group outside of Machar's SPLM-IO in early 2019. On August 30, it merged with the Real Sudan People's Liberation Movement (formed by Amum after he quit the SPLM-FD) and Malong's SSUF/A to form the South Sudan Opposition Movements Alliance. This group entered into negotiations with the government, facilitated by the Community of Sant'Egidio, and signed a peace deal on January 14, 2020.
Second split, reunion, and third split.
On November 30, 2018, the SSOA held leadership elections. Peter Gadet of the SSUM/A won. Incumbent leader Changson dismissed the elections, saying that Gadet was unfit to lead because he had been "indicted by the international community", referring to a 2014 European Union sanction against Gadet after the 2014 Bentiu massacre. Lam Akol of the NDM sided with Gadet and later accused the South Sudanese government of provoking a split to weaken the remaining opposition. Another member of the NDM accused Changson of buying support from the other party leaders with money sent from the Intergovernmental Authority on Development that was meant to be shared equally among the parties. Media reported that the dispute may revolve around who will secure the vice presidential position allotted to the SSOA in the peace deal; Changson denied these rumors.
The SSOA groups that supported Changson's leadership included:
The SSOA groups that supported Gadet's leadership included:
Gadet died on April 15, 2019. Reportedly, many of his subordinates in the SSUM had by then defected back to the Kiir government. Also by this time, the FDP/SSAF faction led by Thomas Okac had left to join a new alliance formed by Hakim Dario's PDM.
Later that month, the spokesman for Akol's NDM (part of the faction led by Gadet until his death) joined many opposition leaders in calling for an extension of the "pre-transitional" period of the R-ARCSS, saying key parts of the agreement (such as the unification of the army and the finalizing of state boundaries) have yet to be implemented.
In July, the two SSOA factions reconciled. Each of the eight member parties would hold the position of chairman for six months, starting with Denay Jock Chagor (having assumed leadership of Gadet's SSUM/A) and followed by Changson of the FDP-SSAF. However, the other six member parties promptly rejected Chagor and appointed Josephine Lagu of the PDM-P as interim leader. Lagu's position was confirmed in an election in September, which was boycotted by Changson's FDP/SSAF and Chagor's SSUM/A.
By 2020, however, Changson and Chagor had apparently reconciled themselves with the new leadership and rejoined the SSOA.
Current membership.
As of April 2020, there were eight member groups within the SSOA:


SS LeBaron Russell Briggs

SS "LeBaron Russell Briggs" was a Liberty ship built in the United States during World War II. She was named after LeBaron Russell Briggs, the first Dean of Men at Harvard College and the president of Radcliffe College.
Construction.
"LeBaron Russell Briggs" was laid down on 29 March 1944, under a Maritime Commission (MARCOM) contract, MC hull 2301, by J.A. Jones Construction, Panama City, Florida; she was sponsored by Mrs. George R. Smith, daughter of James Addison Jones, and launched on 12 May 1944.
History.
She was allocated to R.A. Nichol & Company, on 31 May 1944. On 5 March 1948, she was laid up in the National Defense Reserve Fleet, in Wilmington, North Carolina. On 26 September 1957, she was relocated to the National Defense Reserve Fleet, in the Hudson River Group. On 8 December 1961, she was withdrawn from the fleet to be loaded with grain under the "Grain Program 1961". She returned loaded with grain to the fleet on 22 December 1961. On 17 June 1963, she was withdrawn from the fleet to have the grain unloaded, she returned empty on 22 June 1963. On 30 July 1970, she was turned over to the US Navy for use in Operation CHASE (Chase 10). On 18 August 1970, she was loaded with 418 steel jacketed concrete vaults, which encased 12,540 US Army M55 rockets containing Sarin nerve gas, and one container of VX gas, and towed out east of Cape Kennedy, Florida, where she was scuttled in of water.
Bibliography.


West Kent Light Infantry

The West Kent Light Infantry was a militia regiment in the United Kingdom from 1758 to 1881, when it was amalgamated into The Queen's Own (Royal West Kent Regiment).
The regiment was organised in 1758 as the West Kent Militia. It was embodied in 1778, at which time it was ranked the 12th regiment of militia, and remained active for five years. It was regularly re-ranked through its embodiment, becoming the 4th in 1779, 36th in 1780, 27th in 1781, and 23rd in 1782.
It was embodied again in 1793 for the French Revolutionary Wars, ranked as the 1st, and disembodied in 1802. With the resumption of hostilities in 1803, it was embodied as the 57th, and disembodied with the peace in 1814, being briefly embodied again in 1815-16.
In 1833, it was ranked as the 37th, and redesignated as light infantry. It was embodied during the Crimean War, from January 1855 to July 1856. In 1876 it was split into two battalions, the 1st and 2nd.
In 1881, under the Childers Reforms, the regiment was transferred into The Queen's Own (Royal West Kent Regiment) as the 3rd and 4th Battalions; these were amalgamated in 1894 into a single battalion, the 3rd. This was embodied for the South African War in December 1899, and disembodied in mid-1901, after garrison service in the Mediterranean.
During the Haldane Reforms in 1908 the battalion was transferred to the Special Reserve, and was embodied on mobilisation in 1914 for the First World War. As with all Special Reserve battalions, it served as a regimental depot, and was disembodied following the end of hostilities in 1919, with personnel transferred to the 2nd Battalion. The battalion nominally remained in existence throughout the Second World War, but was never activated, and was finally disbanded in 1953.


Siege of Oviedo

The Siege of Oviedo was a siege in the Spanish Civil War that lasted from 19 July until 16 October 1936. The town garrison, under the command of Colonel Antonio Aranda Mata, declared for the Nationalist uprising and held out until relieved by a Nationalist force.
The uprising.
The Nationalists did not consider Oviedo, capital of the province of Asturias, as a likely place for a successful revolt, and initially, it was considered a lost cause for the uprising. The town was the center of the Asturian October Revolution of 1934, and became an ongoing hive of revolutionary activity since the election of the Popular Front government earlier in the year.
Aranda was reputed to be a freemason and a Republican, and got along well with the local Republican officials; in addition, the Falange distrusted him. Aranda declared that he would be loyal to the Republic when the rebellion started on 17 July, and he convinced the civil governor and the union leaders that all was calm. So satisfied were the authorities that 4,000 miners left by train for other parts of Asturias and Spain to fight in the growing conflict. Aranda secretly called in Civil Guard and Assault Guard personnel from all Asturias to concentrate at Oviedo. He had gained a reputation in Africa of being a top strategist, and after the miners left, he declared for the rebellion on 19 July. The Falange, Civil Guard, and Assault Guard immediately rallied to his side. Aranda easily took over Oviedo as the republicans panicked, and the rest of Asturias became hostile toward him. Between the two large zones, east and west of Oviedo, Aranda was landlocked and surrounded in the town.
Aranda's plan.
Aranda realized from the beginning that he would have to hold the town and had made intelligent and extensive preparations in the process. He had carefully studied the defense of the place, and having at first much equipment from the barracks in Oviedo, he sited over 100 Hotchkiss machine guns in five strategic locations in about a nine-mile perimeter around the town. The town was not that easy to defend as it was surrounded on all sides by heights, but Aranda took that into consideration and secured the heights in preparation of laying down curtains of fire against the invaders. Aranda's tactics were novel for the time as they considered that a town as vulnerable as Oviedo could be held by firepower alone. Aranda's plan did have one serious flaw as he only had about 3,000 defenders, counting regular forces, guards, and volunteers. That meant he could not occupy all of the heights, and this gave the attackers their one main advantage. The Republican government in Madrid had reinforced the garrison at Oviedo after the 1934 revolution and had sent large numbers of guns and amounts of ammunition for storage there. In addition to the large number of machine guns, Aranda had over a million rounds of ammunition at his disposal. During the relatively quiet time during August, Aranda improved his position by constant offensive thrusts and feints that kept the besiegers in doubt.
The siege begins.
Since the siege had no regular Republican ground forces, their "army" consisted almost solely of militia from the Popular Front parties and the allied Anarchists, and they began besieging Oviedo on 20 July but at the same time had to conduct the Siege of Gijón, also in Asturias. The Nationalists at Gijón's Simancas Barracks held out until 16 August. Thereafter, the Popular Front forces could start to concentrate on Oviedo. The final Nationalist resistance ended in Gijón on 21 August, and the Republican Gijón militia could now join the siege of Oviedo. The fact was, however, that about two hundred defenders had tied down the entire militia of that area for a month. Valuable time had been gained by the Nationalists and lost by the Republicans.
After the end of the conflict in Gijón, the Popular Front forces were able to lay close siege to Oviedo. Most of the attacking militia were miners from the many Asturian mines. The besieging force, though, had several problems; it lacked professionalism with few, if any, trained military men as almost all such troops, including a majority of the Assault Guards, had rallied to the uprising. In addition, a Nationalist relief force was on the way from Galicia, and the siege in Gijón had drained away forces needed to oppose that advance. The relief force had made substantial progress towards Oviedo, and the Popular Front forces had little proper equipment to conduct a siege with the exception of dynamite. Last, but not least, was the terrain. With the seizure of the heights around Oviedo, Aranda was confident that the town was well prepared for defense.
The attackers tighten the siege.
Two union members, Otero, a socialist miner, and Higinio Carrocera, an anarchist steelworker, assumed leadership of the siege. The attackers had cut off the water supply from the outset. The defenders, however, made the city reservoir one of their defended strong points, and with rationing were able to endure the siege. Despite their efforts, however, water could not be used for sanitation. Oviedo was known as a warehouse center for all Asturias, and so the garrison and populace had plenty of food at first. Little fighting occurred until 4 September, when the attackers launched a ferocious aerial and artillery bombardment. An estimated 1,500 bombs were dropped on Oviedo, cutting off the gas, electric, and telephone systems, causing a total blackout of the town. Four days later, supported by an improvised armor-plated steamroller and aerial support, the attackers tried to take the most remote outpost. The defenders reacted by raising several artillery pieces on sandbags to act as anti-aircraft guns. The Nationalist troops were also supported by three Trubia A-4 tanks from the Infantry Regiment "Milán". The Trubia was basically a Spanish version of the Renault FT. After a 12-hour battle, the attackers were driven off.
The heavy shelling had killed a large number of civilians, but more died due to the lack of water for sanitation. Many people who were sympathetic to the Popular Front joined the forces defending Oviedo because a family member was killed or injured by the attackers' explosives. There was a constant danger of in-town fighting between those loyal to the Republic and the defenders of the siege, but those fears quickly evaporated as the attackers intensified the bombardment and caused more civilian casualties. One advantage to the defenders was that a large portion of the population was politically neutral. A bomb from a Popular Front airstrike killed at least 120 civilians, most of them children and the elderly, on 10 September.
The attackers tightened the siege even further as September wore on. Because of the lack of water for sanitation, typhoid broke out and claimed many lives, especially the physically weak, the old, and the very young. As an aside, Oviedo was remarkable during the siege in that the defenders executed none of the political prisoners whom they held in captivity, which was unique at this time on both sides early in the war.
The final assault begins.
4 October was the day before the second anniversary of the beginning of the Asturias Revolution of 1934, and the Popular Front militias made an all-out attack on that day. The attackers were in a hurry since units from the tough Army of Africa had reinforced the Nationalist relief column from Galicia. Although the Popular Front had held up that relief column for two weeks, it was only 15 miles from Oviedo. Aranda had lost half of his defenders, and the attackers rolled over one of his defense points as he lost part of the high ground around the town. The fighting raged for a week and, one by one, the defenders' strong points fell to the attackers. Aranda abandoned what was left of the perimeter and pulled his survivors back into the town, and by that time he had used 90% of his ammunition. The defenders ran out of machine gun ammunition and the fighting reverted to hand to hand combat. The attackers fought from house to house by cutting holes in the walls joining the houses. The defenders were almost out of ammunition when several Nationalist airmen managed to drop 30,000 rounds to them.
Aranda's last stand.
Aranda had only 500 defenders left and he pulled them into the center of the town for a last stand. By that time, the Popular Front militia captured Oviedo's last power plant, leaving the entire town powerless. Aranda retreated into the barracks in the middle of the defense, and with a radio powered by a car battery, he exhorted the defenders to "fight like Spaniards to the end". He sent a message to the Nationalist relief column from Galicia to state that his troops were out of ammunition, but that they would fight to the last. The Popular Front militias had suffered enormous losses themselves, estimated at least 5,000 casualties; they were low on ammunition but were making slow progress. Then, on 16 October, with the defenders facing annihilation, the Galician relief column arrived and the Popular Front militias, almost out of ammunition, halted their assault.
Relief and end of siege.
The Nationalists won a narrow corridor into the city and held it until the end of the War in the North a year later. The Popular Front militias abandoned the town and retreated to their positions occupied at the start of the siege. Oviedo, however, was no longer in danger. Aranda would continue to serve the Nationalist cause including the Battle of Teruel and other conflicts during the war.


Battle of Staten Island

The Battle of Staten Island was a failed raid by Continental Army troops under Major General John Sullivan against British forces on Staten Island on August 22, 1777, during the American Revolutionary War. After British Lieutenant General William Howe sailed with most of his army from New York City in July, Sullivan recognized that the British position on Staten Island was vulnerable, and planned an attack. He carried it out in spite of commanding general George Washington's request that Sullivan reinforce the main army with his troops as soon as possible to support Washington's planned Colonial assault on British-held Philadelphia.
Among its flaws the raid suffered from a shortage of boats to effect its retreat, costing it two companies, and one of its detachments was misled by its guide to the front of the enemy position rather than its rear. As a result, Continental losses of dead, wounded, and captured were each double or more those of the British, depriving Washington of some 180-300 men needed for his campaign. Although Sullivan was accused of mismanaging the raid, a generous court martial held later in 1777 exonerated him of all charges.
Background.
In March 1776 the British forces of General William Howe withdrew from Boston after Major General George Washington fortified high ground threatening the city and its harbor. With this army augmented by reinforcements from Europe, General Howe captured New York City, forcing Washington to retreat all the way across New Jersey. At the end of 1776, Washington crossed the Delaware River and surprised German troops at Trenton, New Jersey, and eventually regained control of most of the state. The two armies then settled into winter quarters, although there was much skirmishing before the 1777 campaign got underway.
On July 23, 1777, following months of preparation and some preliminary maneuvers in New Jersey, General Howe and his brother, Admiral Richard Howe, launched a fleet carrying most of the New York-based army south in an effort to capture the American capital, Philadelphia. The army was to land at the upper end of Chesapeake Bay and march north.
General Washington, although he was notified promptly of the fleet's departure, was unaware of its destination. He heard on August 10 that the fleet appeared to be moving south of Philadelphia, possibly heading for Charleston, South Carolina. As a result, he prepared to move north to assist General Horatio Gates defend the Hudson River against Lieutenant General John Burgoyne's march south from Quebec. On August 21 he was alerted that the fleet had been spotted one week earlier at the mouth of Chesapeake Bay. Realizing the danger to Philadelphia, he immediately issued orders to move the entire army south with all speed. His orders to Major General John Sullivan, who commanded the front line defenses in eastern New Jersey, were to rejoin the main army "with all convenient speed".
Prelude.
Sullivan, in the meantime, had learned that the departure of Howe's army had left Staten Island vulnerable, and planned and put into execution a raid against British targets there. He had learned that although the bulk of British regulars were near the northern end of the island, about 700 New Jersey Loyalist militia were scattered along the western shore, facing the New Jersey mainland. His plan was to cross two groups onto the island from points in Elizabethtown (present-day Elizabeth, New Jersey), capture prisoners from the isolated militia outposts, and destroy supplies. They would then go to the Old Blazing Star Ferry (between present-day Carteret, New Jersey and Rossville, Staten Island) to return to the mainland.
British defenses on the island, under the overall command of Brigadier General John Campbell, consisted of the regular army elements from the 52nd Foot, regiments of so-called "Hessians" from the German states of Waldeck and Ansbach, and the Loyalist New Jersey militia known as Skinner's Brigade under the command of Cortlandt Skinner. Campbell's men (including the German troops) numbered about 900, and were stationed near the northeastern tip of the island. Skinner's men, numbering about 400 according to Campbell's report, were stationed at outposts along the western shore between Dexter's Ferry and Ward's Point.
General Sullivan, at his base in Hanover, New Jersey, ordered his commanders on August 20 to prepare their troops for a march the next day. Sources do not describe the precise composition of the troops chosen, but most of them were drawn from Sullivan's division, which consisted of the First and Second Maryland Brigades. These brigades comprised the regiments of the Maryland Line; additional troops chosen for the operation included companies from the 2nd Canadian Regiment and a company of New Jersey militia. On the afternoon of August 21 two columns numbering about 1,000 in all left the camp. One column was led by Brigadier General William Smallwood, and the other, headed by Sullivan, consisted of troops led by a French officer who had been given a Continental Army brigadier's commission, the Chevalier Philippe Hubert Preudhomme de Borre. After reaching Elizabethtown late that evening, they rested for a few hours, and began crossing early the next morning. One detachment, led by Colonel Matthias Ogden, crossed opposite Fresh Kills and rowed partway up the kill, in order to approach their target, the militia brigade of Elisha Lawrence, from its rear. The remaining troops crossed near Palmer's run on the north side of the island, where they split into three groups. Smallwood and Sullivan led most of their columns away to attack specific targets, each leaving a regiment behind to cover their line of retreat.
Battle.
Ogden attacked Lawrence's outpost at dawn, surprising and routing the militia company. After a few minutes of battle he had taken 80 prisoners, then moved on to the outpost of Lieutenant Colonel Edward Vaughan Dongan, commanding the 3rd battalion of Skinner's Brigade. Dongan's men put up stiff resistance, even though he was felled with a mortal wound. This prompted Ogden to retreat toward the Old Blazing Star. After waiting there as long as he thought prudent, Ogden crossed his men back to the mainland before Sullivan and Smallwood arrived.
Sullivan moved to attack Skinner's 5th battalion, under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Joseph Barton, at the New Blazing Star Ferry, but these troops were alert, and fled when Sullivan's forces advanced on them. Although Sullivan had placed troops to intercept men who tried to get away, many of Barton's men escaped, crossing over to the Jersey shore or hiding in the woods and swamps of the area. Sullivan took 40 prisoners, including Barton. Some of his men advanced on Skinner's headquarters, but the force there was too strong, and the Americans retreated.
General Smallwood's column was led by its guide to the front of the Loyalist battalion of Abraham van Buskirk, instead of its rear. He ordered the attack anyway, and Buskirk's men fled until they were rallied by General Skinner, and the tables were then turned on the Americans. They beat a hasty retreat, although they had time to destroy camp supplies and equipment, and managed to seize a battle standard.
Smallwood and Sullivan joined forces near Richmond, a village in the center of the island, and made their way to the Old Blazing Star. Sullivan sent for the boats to speed the crossing, but they never arrived, so he began crossing the troops and prisoners using the three boats that Ogden had commandeered to cross earlier. As they did this, Skinner and his company approached, accompanied by the forces of Campbell, the 52nd, and the Waldeck and Anspach regiments. Sullivan ordered the companies of Majors Stewart and Tillard to cover the retreat. Numbering roughly 80 men, they successfully held off the accumulated British forces until all other American troops had crossed to the mainland, repulsing several determined attempts to break through their line. Although some of this covering line managed to escape, a number of men were killed, and a sizable number surrendered after they ran out of ammunition and the British began firing grape shot at them.
The British loss was given by the Loyalist publication "Gaine's Mercury" of September 1, 1777 as 5 killed, 7 wounded and 84 missing. Sir Henry Clinton wrote that the British took 259 prisoners in the engagement, whereas historian Douglas Southall Freeman gives the number of men captured as 150. Twenty-one of the American prisoners were officers, one of whom was wounded; the ranking officer captured was Lieutenant Colonel Edward Antill.
Aftermath.
Sullivan's remaining forces marched south after the battle, and were able to join Washington's defensive arrangements south of Philadelphia in time to participate in the key Battle of Brandywine on September 11.
General Sullivan was later subjected to a court martial over accusations that he mismanaged the expedition in a variety of ways. A generous court exonerated him of all charges.


Castle of Velasco

The Castle of Velasco () is a 14th-century castle in Valle de Mena, Burgos, Spain. The medieval castle has been restored and is privately owned. The Spanish government classifies the fortification as a site of cultural interest.


Battle of Trippstadt

The Battle of Trippstadt was a relatively-minor French military action in 1794 during the War of the First Coalition. The clash between French Republican forces and the armies of Prussia and Habsburg Austria was fought over several days (13 to 17 July) in the lower Vosges Mountains in the German states west of the Rhine River. Fighting occurred across a wide front and included action in Kaiserslautern, Trippstadt, Schänzel and Neustadt and along the banks of the Speyerbach River.
The battle is also sometimes referred to as the Battle of Vosges, but most documented historical reports including French- and German-language studies refer to the Battle of Trippstadt. Some studies also mention Platzberg, but few studies call the action the Battle of Vosges.
Introduction.
During the first two years of the War of the First Coalition, the north-eastern frontier of France bordering the Holy Roman Empire along the Upper Rhine served as invasion route for the enemies of France.
In 1792, the Duke of Brunswick entered France through the north-eastern frontier in his attempt to support and rescue Louis XVI. In 1793, coalition forces including the Prussians and the Habsburg Austrians attempted to capture French fortresses along the Rhine and attacked the French defensive entrenchments along the Lauter River. By the summer of 1794, conflict in this theater of the war had reached a stalemate with armies facing each other in the Palatinate Forest of the lower Vosges Mountains.
At that time, the French Army of the Rhine commanded by Claude Michaud occupied a defensive position along the Queich River while the French Army of the Moselle commanded by René Moreaux occupied a defensive position along the Saar River.
Directly across from the “Moselle” to the north at Trippstadt were the Prussians commanded by Field Marshall Wichard Mollendorf. And directly across from the “Rhin” stretching from the Vosges Mountains east to the Rhine River were the Austrians commanded by Friedrich Wilhelm von Hohenlohe-Kirchberg and Prussians commanded by Prince Hohenlohe.
Given this standstill during the summer of 1794, the French armies were ordered to attack the armies of the coalition to prevent the Habsburg Austrians from sending reinforcements to the critical northern front in the Austrian Netherlands.
Battle.
On 17 June 1794, General Michaud held a council of war with the chief officers of the “Rhin” to discuss plans for an offensive. Generals Moreaux and Ambert of the “Moselle” were also in attendance, as the anticipated action was slated to be a joint attack by both French armies.
Disagreement as to the best offensive punch ensued, and the council ultimately decided to attempt a plan favoured by General Desaix with the cavalry leading the attack on the enemy’s left by means of the Rhine flood plain.
On 2 July Michaud launched the agreed upon attack. On the extreme right, Desaix successfully pushed back the left wing of the coalition forces. Across the other fronts, however, the French armies were halted and then reversed through counterattacks by Prince Baden that inflicted approximately 1,000 casualties. This left Desaix’s division exposed and isolated. Ultimately, Desaix withdrew and at the end of the day, there was no substantial change in the positions that French armies held at the start of hostilities.
At Michaud’s next council of war, new plans were made to attack the coalition lines stretching from Kaiserslautern in the mountains, south to Trippstadt, down to the Rhine flood plain at Neustadt and along the Speyerbach River. In this offensive, the cavalry would be used at the outset only to hold the enemy in the front of the French armies while infantry units from both the “Moselle” and the “Rhin” confronted the enemy in the mountains.
On 13 July Michaud launched the second French offensive. In the center of the battle, French General Alexandre-Camille Taponier's division attacked the Prussian camp at Trippstadt. The attack was held off for an entire day, but overnight the Prussians pulled back to a position closer to Kaiserslautern. On the left, the French advance divided the coalition lines preventing the Austrians from supporting the Prussians. On Taponier’s right, French General Laurent de Gouvion Saint-Cyr captured Johanniskreuz. Further to the right the Prussians held Schänzel against an attack from the west but were forced to retreat to Neustadt when the French attacked from the south via Albersweiler and Ramberg. Prussian General Theodore von Pfau was killed during the fighting at Schänzel.
General Michaud planned to continue the battle and attack the Prussians at Kaiserslautern on 16 July but overnight the evening before Hohenlohe retreated out of the mountains to Frankenthal on the Rhine. On 17 July Saint-Cyr advanced forward and the French occupied Kaiserslautern.
Aftermath.
This victory gave the French control of the mountain passes across the lower Vosges, but in the end the battle was all for naught. Later that July, Michaud was ordered to move west to attack Trier near Luxembourg. In mid-September the Prussians attacked the weakened French forces in the north-eastern frontier and reoccupied Kaiserslautern. The French returned and the fighting continued until the Austrians abandoned the Netherlands and withdrew to the Rhine at Coblenz. With their northern flank now dangerously exposed, the coalition armies in the Upper Rhine withdrew east to the fortified city of Mainz.


Friedrich von der Decken

Graf Johann Friedrich von der Decken (25 May 1769 – 22 May 1840) was a Hanoverian general and diplomat during the Napoleonic Wars.
Life.
The von der Deckens are an old noble family in Lower Saxony which produced several officers for the forces of the Electorate of Hanover. In 1784 Johann Friedrich joined the army, fighting in the French Revolutionary Wars from 1793 to 1795. He headed a military journal with his friend Gerhard von Scharnhorst, the Prussian military reformer for many years. In 1803 he joined the diplomatic service on Napoleon's occupation of Hanover and left for the United Kingdom. On 28 July 1803 he began together with Sir Colin Halkett recruiting expatriate Hanoverian soldiers to fight for the United Kingdom in the War of the Third Coalition and subsequent Napoleonic conflicts, with his recruits forming the King's German Legion, with which he fought from 1805 to 1807.
In 1808 he was sent to Spain and Portugal during the Peninsular War as a diplomat and military advisor and to recruit troops to fight against France, before returning to England, where in 1815 he organised another Hanoverian regiment to fight against the French during the Hundred Days. After the war he refused military decorations from the Netherlands and Prussia. In 1817 he bought the former Benedictine monastery in Ringelheim and rebuilt it as his country house, the , spending his retirement there from 1833, the year in which he was made a count (Graf). It is a primogeniture title and it was given by William IV as king of the restored kingdom of Hanover. In 1835 he also became president of the .