Monthly Archives: March 2011

Capture of Perth 1715

31 Thursday Mar 2011

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In mid-September, the Earl of Mar had marched south from Braemar, passing through the Spittal of Glenshee before reaching the village of Kirkmichael in Strathardle, where he halted for a day or two. At this point, he probably commanded only a few hundred men under John Farquharson of Inverey, together with a party of Gordons under the young Earl of Aboyne. However, numbers were growing quickly. At Kirkmichael, they were reinforced by 300 cavalry under the joint command of the Earl of Linlithgow and Lord Drummond, together with 500 foot soldiers from Atholl (mostly Murrays, Stewarts and Robertsons). They were commanded by William Murray, Marquis of Tullibardine, whose father, the Duke of Atholl, remained loyal to the government, while his two younger brothers Charles and George Murray and his uncle Lord Nairne, sup- ported the Jacobites. Whether this actually reflected a real division in loyalties or simply a family arrangement intended to preserve the Atholl estates whatever happened is a matter for debate. Many other families were similarly divided with their younger sons joining Mar’s army, while the eldest son and heir remained at home, giving his nominal support to the government.

Meanwhile, the city magistrates in Perth were sufficiently alarmed by the proximity of Mar’s forces at Kirkmichael, only thirty-five miles north, to appeal for help to the Duke of Atholl who sent 200 men to defend the city. They also turned to the Earl of Rothes, Sheriff and Lord Lieutenant of Fife, who started to raise a local militia. However, Colonel John Hay of Cromlix now seized the initiative for the Jacobites. While recruiting in Fife, he was approached by Jacobite sympathisers from Perth, who offered to deliver the city to him. On 14 September 1715, Hay entered the city from the north with around 200 horsemen, after crossing the River Tay. The Athollmen promptly switched sides and the local militia from Fife, hearing of the city’s capture, `threw down their arms and ran’. On 22 September, the Jacobite forces in the city were strengthened by a party of Robertsons under their chief, Alexander Robertson of Struan. The scale of the Jacobite uprising under Mar now became apparent as James Edward Stuart was proclaimed king throughout the north-east of Scotland at places as far apart as Inverness, Forres, Gordon Castle, Aberdeen, Brechin, Montrose, Dundee, Perth and Dunkeld. Mar finally entered Perth itself on 28 September 1715, after a leisurely journey from Kirkmichael by way of Moulinearn and Logierait. He had apparently spent much of the intervening time writing a `barrage of letters, declarations and manifestoes to all and sundry’.

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The Standard is Raised 1715

31 Thursday Mar 2011

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The Duke of Argyll.

The Jacobite standard was raised by the Earl of Mar on 6 September 1715 at Braemar. The dignity of the ceremony itself was upset when the gilt ball on top of the standard fell to the ground, an event considered to be an ill omen by the watching Highlanders. Mar made a speech, regretting his own part in pushing through the Act of Union in 1707 and now admitting it to be a mistake.

 

At Westminster, the Parliament passed an Act for Encouraging Loyalty, often known, quite mistakenly, as the Clan Act. This required all `suspected . . . persons, whose estates or principal residences are in Scotland, to appear at Edinburgh, or where it shall be judged expedient, to find bail for their good behaviour’. Twenty-one peers and forty-one gentry were summoned but, of these, only two surrendered themselves, whereupon they were promptly arrested. This action hardly encouraged loyalty to the Hanoverian regime, forcing those remaining at liberty into the Jacobite camp, including the eighty-year-old John Campbell of Glenorchy, Earl of Breadalbane. He persuaded a doctor and a minister to sign a medical certificate, claiming that he was too ill to travel to Edinburgh, as he suffered from an alarming array of illnesses, such as `coughs, rheums, gravels, stitches, defluxions and disease of the kidneys’. Nevertheless, he managed to join Mar at Perth on 20 September 1715. Others made similar excuses or simply ignored the summons.

 

By now, the government in London was seriously alarmed. It had already ordered three regiments of infantry from Ireland which had arrived in Edinburgh on 24 August. Meanwhile, Major-General Joseph Wightman, as the commander-in-chief in Scotland, had ordered all the regular troops in Scotland to Stirling, where they had begun to muster towards the end of August, amounting to barely 1,000 men. Then John Campbell, second Duke of Argyll, was ordered north to replace Wightman as commander-in- chief of the government forces in Scotland. Argyll wrote back to London, assessing the deteriorating situation thus: `If the enemy think fit to act with the vigour that men of commonsense would, in their circumstances, the handful of [Hanoverian] troops now in Scotland may be beat out of the country.’ Indeed, Mar was now ready to march south from Braemar and his forces would soon capture Perth.

 

On the night of 14 September, Argyll reached Edinburgh where a botched attempt to seize the castle for James Edward Stuart had failed a few days previously. He inspected its defences and then spent the next week calling up all the forces he could muster. But, by the end of his first week in Scotland, he still had only 1,600 men, mostly ill-trained and poorly equipped. Against them was a Jacobite army apparently consisting of several thousand of men. By 21 September, Argyll thought the situation so dangerous that he wrote south to say that he was surprised that:

his Majesty’s Ministers still persist to think this matter a jest, and that we are in a condition to put a stop to it. Give me leave to say, Sir, that if all of us who have the honour to serve his Majesty here are not either knaves or cowards, we ought to be believed when we tell you that this country is in the extremest danger.

Three days later, he wrote again, begging for yet more troops: `I must end with insisting on considerable reinforcements, for without it, or a miracle, not only this country will be utterly destroyed but the rest of his Majesty’s dominions put in the extremest danger.’ Only sheer incompetence on Mar’s part seemed likely now to stop the Jacobite cause from triumphing in Scotland.

The English Intervention in the Eighty Years’ War

31 Thursday Mar 2011

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In 1585 the English intervened in the war, which to that point had spanned 17 years. Robert Dudley, earl of Leicester, came to the aid of the Netherlands with his army of 6,000 English troops. Although granted sweeping powers by the Netherlanders, Leicester was inept, and after the death of his lieutenant, Philip Sidney (1554–86), he withdrew. William’s son Maurice was named captain and admiral-general.

 

In 1589 Philip II ordered the duke of Parma to the aid of the French Catholics battling Henry of Navarre (1553–1610). Taking advantage of Parma’s absence, Maurice liberated Breda in a surprise attack. Maurice continued on to Zutphen and Deventer, where he won victories in June and July of 1591. He then faced Parma along the Waal River near Arnhem, but Philip again ordered Parma to France, this time to relieve Rouen, under siege by Henry of Navarre. Maurice now struck quickly by both water and road and captured Hulst and Nijmegen. His string of successes continued beyond the death of Parma in 1592 to the Battle of Turnhout on January 24, 1597. There the rebel forces, after making a 24-mile march in nine hours, routed the Spanish army under Count Jean de Rie of Varas. Over the next few years the Spanish made no headway in their attempts to regain control of the Netherlands.

 

In 1600 Maurice, under orders from the States General, invaded Flanders. His army crossed the Scheldt River and routed the Spanish blockaders of Ostend. On July 2 Maurice sent a detachment to Leffingham Bridge over the Yser River with orders to halt the approach of Albert of Austria, the new Spanish viceroy and son-in-law of Philip II, on his way to try his hand at conquering the rebels. The Spanish reached the bridge first and destroyed the Dutch detachment. Later that day the two armies engaged. Albert ordered his reserves into that fray, but by then it was too late for the weary Spanish. Exhausted by their long march of several days, the Spanish force collapsed under a general attack by the Dutch.

 

Between 1601 and 1604 the Spanish besieged Ostend. The Dutch, losing 20,000 men during the siege, fared better than the Spanish, who lost as many as 60,000 men due to casualties or disease. While the siege was under way both England and France negotiated peace terms with the Spanish, thereby leaving the Dutch alone in their struggle against the Spanish. The States General ordered Ostend to surrender on September 20, 1604.

 

Over the next three years the Dutch managed to retain control of the sea. After the victory of Admiral Jacob van Heemskerck at the Battle of Gibraltar, the Spanish agreed to a truce.

Anglo-Scottish War (1559–1560)

31 Thursday Mar 2011

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Contemporary map of the Siege of Leith of 1560

PRINCIPAL COMBATANTS: England and Scottish Protestants vs. Scottish Catholics and French forces in Scotland

PRINCIPAL THEATER(S): Scotland

DECLARATION: None

MAJOR ISSUES AND OBJECTIVES: During the ongoing conflict between Catholic and Protestant Scots, the

Catholics appealed to France for aid and the Protestants to England.

OUTCOME: The French withdrew from Scotland, and the Presbyterian Church of Scotland (the Scottish Kirk) grew.

APPROXIMATE MAXIMUM NUMBER OF MEN UNDER ARMS: Unknown

CASUALTIES: Negligible

TREATIES: Treaty of Edinburgh, July 6, 1560, among England, France, and Scotland; Treaty of Berwick, February 27, 1560, between England and Scotland.

 

Following after a decade the costly ANGLO-SCOTTISH WAR (1542–1549), the 1559–60 conflict between the Protestants and Catholics of Scotland was more a stand-off or showdown than it was a full-scale war. In the midst of the heated religious conflict, Mary of Guise (1515–60), French Catholic widow of King James V (1512–42) of Scotland, withdrew to Leith Castle and, fearing for her life, secured French troops to come to her aid. For their part, the Scottish Protestants appealed to England’s queen Elizabeth I (1533–1603) for troops. Although Elizabeth, cognizant of the perilous economic health of her kingdom and the relative weakness of her army, did not wish to provoke hostilities with France—much less its ally, Spain— she felt it her duty to defend Protestantism when it was threatened at her borders. Accordingly, she sent an army as well as a fleet and laid siege against Leith for the better part of a year. There was no battle, but at last the French yielded to this pressure and concluded the Treaty of Edinburgh, by which all foreign troops were to withdraw from Scotland. Separately, England and Scotland drew up the Treaty of Berwick, a mutual defense pact.

 

Further reading: Richard Glen Eaves, Henry VIII and James V’s Regency, 1524–1528: A Study in Anglo-Scottish Diplomacy (Lanham, Md.: University Press of America, 1987); Rosalind Mitchison, A History of Scotland, 3rd ed. (London and New York: Routledge, 2002); Raymond Campbell Paterson, My Wound Is Deep: A History of the Anglo-Scottish Wars (Edinburgh: John Donald Publishers, 1997); Pamela E. Ritchie, Mary of Guise in Scotland, 1548–1560: A Political Career (East Linton, East Lothian, Scotland: Tuckwell, Press, 2002); David Starkey, Elizabeth: The Struggle for the Throne (New York: Harper- Collins, 2001).

Post–World War II Soviet Aviation: The Ministry of Aviation Production Plan

30 Wednesday Mar 2011

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In December of 1945 the status of Soviet aviation had come under debate in the Party Central Committee. The Aviation Commissariat proposals debated at that time culminated in a comprehensive program to eliminate any lag in the field of aircraft design or research. In March of 1946 a party of senior aviation personalities, Yakovlev among them, visited Germany to assess first-hand what could be obtained there. By April 2, a long-range plan for the development of jet fighters was laid before Stalin.

 

The strategy for post war development of jet fighters was based on the rapid achievement of superior jet engine capability. Although the Soviets had some background in jet turbine design dating back to 1937, the work of its most experienced jet technician, Arkhip Lyulka, had been interrupted during the war. After working on an unheralded rocket aircraft project, Lyulka returned in 1942 to jet turbine work. By the end of the war he was bench testing an experimental engine of 1,543 pounds thrust and had initiated work on a 2,866 pounds thrust engine intended for flight testing. It was apparent, however, that these engines were behind the world standard and would require extensive development while German engines were already available. The Commissariat plan would allow attention to be given to advanced engine design while native designed aircraft would be based on engines of foreign derivation. Key to the strategy was the purchase of British Rolls Royce centrifugal compressor engines—the Nene and the Derwent. In reacting to this strategy, Stalin is said to have remarked, “Just what kind of fool would sell his own secrets!” Nevertheless, the Russians had had considerable experience with the British unclassified lists during the war and were aware that licenses for production of these engines were being sold in a number of countries. The successful attempt to purchase these engines would proceed.

 

The 1946 Plan addressed three stages of engine development with associated design activities:

(1) Transitional aircraft based on 1,800–2,000 pounds thrust German engines. This stage was nearing fruition as the YAK-15 and MiG-9 were already in preliminary testing.

(2) Combat capability based on British Nene and Derwent engines of 3,500–4,850 pounds thrust. A requirement for such aircraft would emerge concurrently with the plan. All four fighter design teams would submit prototypes which evolved to the MiG-15, the YAK-23, Su-II, and the La-15.

(3) Advanced aircraft based on engines by Klimov, Mikhulin, and Lyulka in the range of 6,600–17,600 pounds thrust. It was planned that these would be available in 5 to 6 years. Eventually, the Klimov VK-1 would power the MiG-15 bis, and the MiG-17; the Mikhulin AM-5 would drive the MiG-19 and YAK-25; the Lyulka AL-7 eventually powered the Su-9 and Su-11 of the late fifties.

 

The 1946 plan coupled with the December 1945 commitment of resources by the Central Committee would allow the Soviets to achieve superiority in jet engine technology in the early 1950’s. It facilitated early emphasis on advanced technology by leap-frogging intermediate stages of development with adaptations of foreign designs. In effect, the Soviets would be mastering British jet technology almost concurrently with the United States.63 In the meantime, native airframe designs would continue on a par with those of other countries. One consequence of the resulting engine allocations, however, was that available power may have prejudiced the success of early prototypes in the program. It appears that early success may have prejudiced later success.

Armia Krajowa, or Home Army

30 Wednesday Mar 2011

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The Polish Resistance established the Armia Krajowa (AK, Home Army), which became the largest underground movement in Europe with 400,000 fighters. Above are some of the AK’s weapons.

Polish resistance to the German occupation developed rapidly. In Warsaw, the leading underground organization was called Service for the Victory of Poland and was led by General Michal Tokarzewski-Karasiewicz, who maintained communications with the government in exile based in France. In January 1940, General Władysław Sikorski, head of the exile government, ordered the creation of an underground army, the Union for Armed Struggle (Związek Walki Zbrojnej, or ZWZ), which absorbed Service for the Victory of Poland. Many Polish officers were involved in the ZWZ, which mounted acts of sabotage against the Germans. ZWZ operatives also played a crucial role in gathering intelligence for the Western allies. The underground also created a Committee for Aid to Jews, and it was active in preserving the Polish educational and cultural activities the Germans had sought to eradicate. On February 14, 1942, the ZWZ became the Armia Krajowa, the Polish Home Army, its activities increasingly coordinated by the Polish government in exile in cooperation with British Special Operations Executive.

After the Soviets reached the Vistula and Narew, the Polish front stabilized for another five months. In that time the Soviets proved they came to Poland as liberators and occupiers rolled into one.

Much controversy therefore attends the decision to pause on the eastern side of the Vistula while the Germans crushed the Warsaw Rising over 63 days. A balanced view must take into account that the various Red Army Fronts on the eastern bank were at the end of a long campaign and needed to rest and refit: on August 29 the Stavka ordered a shift to the “strict defense” along the Vistula while operations were conducted in Rumania and the Baltic States. There is some evidence that a Soviet relief effort was attempted at Warsaw. Russian historians have argued that the Red Army made real attempts to assist, but that real operational and logistics problems did not allow this. Most importantly, the Soviets were defending their bridgeheads, only newly established, and building up forces for another deep battle operation to be fought in western Poland. It was not their objective to liberate Warsaw as an end in itself, just as Western Allied commanders originally intended to bypass Paris that August but were drawn in by a rising of its citizens. Once Polish units serving with the Red Army arrived on scene, a strong attempt was made to cross the Vistula and break into the city, but it was repulsed. Many Polish and western historians nevertheless accuse Stalin of deliberate, cynical delay over the 63 days of the Warsaw Uprising, during which the city was systematically ruined and the main force of the Armia Krajowa crushed by the Nazis with utter ruthlessness. And it is true that other Polish patriots were already being arrested and killed in Soviet rear areas by the NKVD.

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Warsaw Rising

The Warsaw Rising, sometimes called the Second Warsaw Uprising to distinguish it from the earlier Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, was part of Operation Tempest, a planned resistance by the Polish Home Army against the German occupiers. The rising began on August 1, 1944, and was projected as a 10-day action, but it endured for 63 days. The hope was not only to defeat the Germans in the capital city, but also to obtain control of Warsaw to prevent the Soviets from seizing the city when they “liberated” it.

The rising was commanded by Home Army general Antoni Chrusciel and involved about 37,600 Polish insurgents, most of whom were Polish Home Army troops. In the initial stage of the uprising, fewer than 14 percent of the insurgents were armed (equipment included 20 heavy machine guns, 98 light machine guns, 844 submachine guns, 1,386 rifles, and 2,665 handguns), but more arms and ammunition came from western Allied and Soviet air drops or were captured from the Germans. In any case, much of the combat took place with hand grenades and Molotov cocktails.

Initially, most of the city quickly fell to the insurgents, although they failed to capture the principal arteries and railway stations. The insurgents continued to fight, however, in the expectation of reinforcements from the Western Allies or the Soviets. There was also a strong possibility, they felt, that Germany would soon collapse. This hope was dashed on August 20, when 21,300 German troops (including Oskar Dirlewanger’s so-called SS-Sonderbatallion “Dirlewanger”, a unit of convicted variegated criminals in the German service) stormed through the city streets. Heinrich Himmler had ordered the soldiers to shoot all Poles on sight, whether insurgents or not. In this way, 40,000 citizens of Warsaw were cut down before Lt. Gen. Erich von dem Bach- Zelewski, commander in charge of the operation, ordered the indiscriminate killings to cease. On August 25, Bach-Zelewski began his organized counterattack. It was a bitter street-by-street battle. In the meantime, the Red Army was stopped by a German counteroffensive just outside of Warsaw, and Joseph Stalin refused to order a renewal of the Soviet offensive; therefore, no relief would come to the fighters in the city. Almost certainly, Stalin intended for the Germans to kill as many members of the Home Army as possible, because he saw these men as obstacles to ultimate Soviet control of Poland.

Under siege, the insurgents organized soup kitchens, dug wells, and provided shelter and medical care for Warsaw’s residents during the fighting. But slowly, the Germans regained control of the city. On October 1, Polish Home Army general Tadeusz Komorowski surrendered, having secured from the Germans a pledge that the insurgents would be treated as regular combatants and that all surviving civilians would be evacuated from Warsaw.

The toll of the Warsaw Rising was 15,000 insurgents killed, along with 250,000 civilians— out of a total population of 1,000,000. German losses may have been as high as 17,000 dead and missing. After the evacuation, the Germans deliberately and systematically leveled more than 80 percent of Warsaw.

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The liberation of Warsaw and the rest of Poland from the Nazis waited for five agonizing months. It did not begin until January 1945, with the start of the Red Army’s Vistula-Oder operation . After Warsaw was liberated by Polish 1st Army, attached to Soviet forces, the NKVD arrested or kill as many Armia Krajowa personnel as it could locate in the liberated areas. Several hundred krasnoarmeets were killed as Armia Krajowa men fought back. Representatives of the London Poles were arrested in secret, and Polish soldiers were arrested and held in Soviet camps. By October 1945, there were 30,000 Poles in NKVD holding camps.

Russian Artillery

29 Tuesday Mar 2011

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Russian Artillery of Peter the Great

Since its introduction into Moscow in the fourteenth century, artillery has arguably been the centerpiece of Russian combat power. According to medieval records, the Russians first used guns to defend Moscow against the Mongols in the late summer of 1382. Based on this chronicled date, in 1982 the Soviet Army celebrated the 600th anniversary of Russian artillery with great fanfare.

 

The Tsar-Cannon in the Moscow Kremlin is a memorial of ancient Russian artillery and founding art, a piece of ordnance of the biggest caliber in the world. Master of the Cannon-yard Andrey Chokhov cast it of bronze in 1586. The length of the cannon is 5.34 m, the caliber is 890 mm, the thickness of the barrel is 15 cm, and it weighs 40 tons. In the XVI-XVIl centuries the cannon was placed in Kitay-Gorod for defense of the Kremlin and the passage across the Moskva-river. However, the Tsar-Cannon has never shot. The decorative gun-carriage and empty-bodied cast-iron cannon-balls lying at the foot of the cannon were cast in 1835.

 

Artillery appears as a separate unit in Russian army in the beginning of the 15th Century and was called Nariad. As a separate, regular unit, the artillery had its own flag called a prapor. The artillery was a kind of a corporation or guild like the Streltsy. The Pushkarsky (Gunner) prikaz managed the entire life of the Russian artilleryman, including legal proceedings. They lived according to Russian State law, but were under the jurisdiction of their prikaz. Service in the artillery was for life, and service in the artillery was inherited. Because of losses during the Time of Troubles, at the beginning of the 17th Century enlisted volunteers were used; however, by the 1630′s artillerymen were recruited from the relatives of current pushkary. Pushkary settled in separate sloboda near the walls of fortresses. These slaboda were restricted only to pushkary. No one other than pushkary could settle there or even remain in the sloboda after nightfall. Russian artillery in the 17th Century did not have fixed organization. The number of gunners depended on the available guns and finances. Artillerymen in Russia were officially called ludy pushkarskogo china (people of cannon rank).

 

This title was shortened to pushkary. The artillery corps consisted of:

 

- puskary – means gunner. These served large and medium caliber guns. The word pushkar has two meanings: gunner and artilleryman in general.

 

- zatynshyky – means instigator. These served small caliber guns which were generally used at the beginning of a battle.

 

- vorotniky – means a man guarding a gate. These guarded the gates of settlements and outposts.

 

- blacksmiths and carpenters.

 

- armorers and gunsmiths.

 

The pushkary were divided into two parts: – Moscow puskary. – Gorodovye pushkary.

 

Unfortunately, there is no specific breakdown of the strength of the Moscow and Gorodovye gunners. Only the following is available: -In 1651 Russian artillery numbered 4,250 gunners, -In 1680 – about 7 000 gunners. This growth was the result of the increase in the number regimental artillery pieces.

 

The Moscow gunners were an elite unit and served in the field artillery. They were called “Moscow” because they lived in Moscow in a separate sloboda (district) of old Moscow. Military forces stationed in Moscow were the core of the Russian Field Army. In war the Moscow pushkary formed the basis for the field and siege artillery. As a rule, they were assisted by attached Gorodovye pushkary.

 

Gorodovye (town) gunners were stationed in numerous garrisons and fortresses throughout the Russia. As a rule, during war Gorodovye gunners joined the field artillery as assistants to the Moscow gunners. In contrast to Moscow gunners, the service of Gorodovye gunners was hard duty, especially in the border garrisons.

 

It is possible to distinguish two main duties of the Gorodovye pushkary: – service in towns (nariad) – service in field units

 

The major duty of the Gorodovye pushkary was service in a town’s nariad (artillery). Each frontier town and settlement in the west and especially in the south was fortified and protected by cannon (usually not less than 20-30 pieces). Each cannon was attended by 2 gunners who served in rotation. Pushkary also guarded the powder magazines. From the middle of the 17th Century field duty for Gorodovye pushkary appears. This duty was tied to the growth in the number of regular infantry regiments. During the 1654- 67 war each Soldier and Streltsy regiment had 5 to 10 medium caliber cannons served by Gorodovye pushkary.

 

In addition to military duties, pushkary also were assigned police and administrative duties. They guarded prisons, convoyed prisoners to Siberia, looked for robbers, etc. Quite often they gathered Datochnye recruits and members of the Feudal Levy. Pushkary also produced ammunition, and built outposts and fortresses. The information below on the uniform of Russian pushkary is based on the article by Palasios-Fernandes in Zeughaus magazine. He describes the Moscow pushkary in the second half of the 17th Century. The article is well illustrated and recommended. The cut of the coats of artillerymen was the same as the infantry. Usually, gunners’ coats were red or blue. These colors (red-blue) were preserved in Peter’s army. His gunners wore red coats with blue facings. Only in 1731 were facings changed to black. The author also stated that in the 17th Century green coats also were available for gunners. The distinguishing feature of gunners in the 17th Century was metal armor. This was a kind of metal cuirass. There were two variants: Alam, used for parade purposes, and Zertsalo, a plain variant for duty. This armor consisted of 2 metal (tin/pewter or copper) circles connected by straps. Alam was a decorated variant with stamped eagles and lions, but for everyday use the variant of this cuirass called Zertsalo (a word meaning mirror) was used. Gun carriages and ammunition wagons were painted red.

 

Another interesting detail of gunners’ equipment was the palnits (from the words to fire and to scorch, it means something that is scorching/burning). It was a kind of pike with fastenings for fuses on the top. The palnits could be used also as a pike. The uniform of the Gorodovye pushkary is less well known. According to A.K. Levykin, Russian Pushkary in the 2nd Half of the 17th Century, they wore a light blue coat and a red cap. They were also equipped with the zertsalo and a metal helmet called a shishak.

 

Artillery at the start of the 18th century was slow, cumbersome and could easily be lost on the battlefield, yet it was also indispensable to any modern army, and at the start of his reign that is what Peter I of Russia wanted above all else. Peter’s reforming zeal, taking a backward state like Russia and forging a major European power, has since become legendary, and in the major reforms of the army the artillery received special attention. It took a long time to train the men and improve the guns, but Peter’s artillery was to play a major role in many of his victories, most notably that at Poltava, where it was decisive.

 

Artillery Museum


MALAYA WWII

29 Tuesday Mar 2011

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The Japanese invasion of the British colony of Malaya began almost simultaneously with the attack on Pearl Harbor (December 7, 1941). The invasion by 60,000 highly experienced veterans of the Japanese 25th Army, under General Tomoyuki Yamashita, proceeded down the Malay Peninsula with Singapore as the ultimate target. The British had over 120,000 British and Indian Army troops in Malaya, but they were unbloodied before the fight and badly led during it by General Arthur Percival. They also lacked proper air cover. The British were taken by surprise at the speed of the Japanese assault, which was greatly aided by bicycle troops moving swiftly over roads paved earlier by the British. Percival failed to pull back in time to avoid being partially flanked, then failed to defend well-prepared positions at the Jitna Line. The Japanese broke through the Jitna Line on the third day. The British moved again, harassed and harried by Japanese planes all down the narrow roads to which their retreat religiously stuck. Advance Japanese units overran more British positions in the north, taking many prisoners and half the British motorized transport. In rapid succession the Japanese took Penang, Kuala Lumper, and Jahore. The British lost 25,000 men during the campaign, with most taken prisoner. Many wounded suffered horrendous treatment in Japanese captivity until they died of neglect or were killed. The rest suffered cruel imprisonment for the duration of the war. The Japanese lost 4,500 men in the Malayan campaign. Surviving British forces holed up on the island fortress of Singapore, which thereafter fell with alarming ease. That reflected low British morale, a fact known to Winston Churchill and the War Cabinet but kept secret from the public and Parliament.

From 1943 the British Special Operations Executive (SOE) and its Australian equivalent supplied a small Malay Peninsula guerilla force that harassed the Japanese occupiers and supported Malays who spied on the Japanese headquarters in Singapore. Opposition arose from the brutality of the occupation and because Japan permitted Thailand to annex four northern Malay provinces. However, some Malays embraced the idea of a Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere and cooperated with the Japanese, who in turn encouraged anti-Western Malay nationalism. Ethnic Malays were mostly spared the harsh treatment meted out to ethnic Chinese, of whom tens of thousands were sent to work and to die as coolie forced laborers on the Burma–Siam railway. British and Commonwealth forces invaded Malaya in September 1945. They were unopposed. However, the seeds of Malay nationalism planted during the Japanese occupation sprouted into an anti-British guerilla war from 1947, led principally by Malay Communists.

MALAYA PEOPLE’S ANTI-JAPANESE ARMY (MPAJA)

A small guerilla force of about 8,000 mostly Communist ethnic Chinese operating in basic survival mode in Malaya after the Japanese conquest. Its attacks were mainly aimed at the coming postwar contest for power, not direct ouster of the Japanese occupation forces.

Sino-French War (1883–1885)

28 Monday Mar 2011

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PRINCIPAL COMBATANTS: China and Tonkin (northern Vietnam) vs. France
PRINCIPAL THEATER(S): Tonkin and Formosa
DECLARATION: None
MAJOR ISSUES AND OBJECTIVES: France pushed for colonial possessions in Southeast Asia.
OUTCOME: France gained a protectorate over Annam and its client, Tonkin (central and northern Vietnam).
APPROXIMATE MAXIMUM NUMBER OF MEN UNDER ARMS:
French, 17,000; Chinese and Vietnamese, 30,000
CASUALTIES: French, 4,500 killed in battles with the Vietnamese, 4,200 killed in battles after Chinese entered the war, 5,200 died of disease; Chinese and Vietnamese troops, at least 10,000 killed
TREATIES: Treaty of Tientsin, June 9, 1885

 

By the late 19th century, French colonial interests had expanded into Southeast Asia, encompassing Cochin China (southern Vietnam), Annam (central Vietnam), and Cambodia. At the time, these were possessions of the steadily weakening Chinese empire. As French interests increasingly penetrated these areas, the king of Annam, nominal vassal of the Chinese, called upon the Chinese government for military aid in stopping the French. In 1873, an incursion of some 171 French soldiers captured the Hanoi citadel in Tonkin (northern Vietnam), then went on to conquer much of the Red River Delta before they were killed by Black Flag Chinese guerrillas (so called because of the color of their banners). A pogrom against Vietnamese Christians swept the countryside in 1874, resulting in some 20,000 deaths; the French withdrew from Tonkin completely for a decade.

 

Then in April 1883, French troops overran and captured Hanoi in Tonkin, which was under the nominal control of the Annamese king. In the absence of immediate Chinese aid, the king of Annam had no choice but to conclude with the French a treaty granting that nation a protectorate over Tonkin as well as Annam itself. Belatedly, Chinese troops arrived in Tonkin to aid native armies in repelling the French. However, French naval forces acted preemptively against the Chinese port of Foochow, causing extensive destruction there in 1884. Chinese forts on Formosa (Taiwan) resisted French incursions, but these collapsed in 1885.

 

In the meantime, the French did not fare as well in Tonkin, where Chinese soldiers and Black Flag guerrillas once again drove them out. Yet the prospect of continued war seemed too costly to China, to the native troops, and, for that matter, to France. Therefore, the French concluded the Treaty of Tientsin with China on June 9, 1885. By it China agreed to recognize the French protectorate over Annam and withdrew its troops from Tonkin. France returned Formosa and the Pescadores Islands to China.

 

Further reading: E. H. G. Dobby, Southeast Asia, 11th ed. (London: University of London Press, 1973); Immanuel C. Y. Hsu, The Rise of Modern China, 6th ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000).

French Indochina War (1882–1885)

28 Monday Mar 2011

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Chinese regular soldiers photographed during the Sino-French war

In 1881, China proclaimed its sovereignty over Annam (much of modern Vietnam). Chinese troops occupied the northern region, Tonkin, even as France dispatched troops to check persecution of missionaries and to acquire more territory in Indochina—encompassing Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia. China objected to this.

 

A small French force of 480 men under Captain Henri Laurent Rivière landed at Tonkin on April 28, 1882, and captured the fortress at Hanoi, the coast of Nam Dinh, and the Hon Gay coal mine. Rivière advanced into the Red River delta region, where on May 19, 1883, he and 450 men were ambushed by the Black Flag Pirates. Rivière was killed, along with 49 of his men. Paris responded by ordering 3,000 reinforcements to Indochina, and on August 18 seven French naval vessels bombarded the citadel at Hue, which prompted the Vietnamese to sue for peace on August 25.

 

If the Vietnamese had been beaten into temporary submission, China remained deeply concerned that French colonialism was now on its southern border. During December 14–16, 1883, French river gunboats and 5,500 troops took preemptive action against combined Black Flag and Chinese forces—about 9,500 men—at Son Tay. The fortress fell to the French, and China opened negotiations with France, even as sporadic combat continued. Early in the summer of 1884, peace talks collapsed, and, on June 23, an 800-man French force was defeated by a vastly superior force of 8,000 Chinese near the border at Bac Le. On August 27, China declared war on France, and the French fleet responded with an attack on Foochow Harbor on the southern coast of China. Eleven Chinese warships were sunk in a one-sided battle. This was followed by a ground invasion, which resulted in the capture of Chinese forts in the Pescadores and on Taiwan.

 

While France waged a successful war on Chinese territory, French troops were hard pressed by Vietnamese and Chinese troops in Vietnam. From December 1884 to March 1885, Tuyen Quang in the Red River delta was besieged by Black Flag and Chinese forces, but held out until it was relieved. French troops also succeeded in taking Lang Son, near the Chinese border, albeit with heavy losses (200 killed or wounded) on February 13, 1885.

Combat at Bang Bo: a Chinese view

At Bang Bo, near Lang Son, on March 24, a massive force of 30,000 Chinese and Vietnamese attacked, prompting the evacuation of 3,700 French troops and many more French civilians throughout the area. This was a shocking setback and the worst defeat France would suffer in Southeast Asia until the FRENCH INDOCHINA WAR (1946– 1954). The defeat prompted France to conclude the Treaty of Tientsin on June 9, 1885, restoring the status quo antebellum— albeit Vietnamese and Chinese battle losses were far greater than those suffered by France: about 10,000 killed or wounded versus 4,222 Frenchmen. If disease is factored in, French losses about equaled those suffered by the Asians.

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