The fall of the Conservative Government in England on 28 April 1880, during the Second Afghan War, resulted in a policy change to withdraw British forces from many locations, including Afghanistan. To fill the power vacuum upon their imminent departure and to maintain stability, the British selected Abdur Rahman to rule the country. He was proclaimed Amir on 22 July 1880.

Ayub Khan, a brother of Yakub Khan then governing Kabul, believed he should rule Afghanistan, and he had been marching with a large force toward Kandahar to gain the throne by force since early July 1880. Former Afghan Army soldiers and religious followers flocked to Ayub Khan’s cause.

On 2 July 1880, a British brigade, commanded by Brigadier General G.R. S . Burrows, began to advance from Kandahar to the Helm and River to prevent Ayub Khan’s force from crossing it. Burrows’s brigade consisted of the 66th Foot (minus two companies ) ; 1st Bombay and 30th Bombay Native Infantry Regiments; 3rd Bombay Light Cavalry; 3rd Sind Horse; 2nd Company Bombay Miners and Sappers; E Battery, B Brigade, Royal Horse Artillery. This unit totaled 2,599 soldiers, six 9-pounder guns, and about 3,000 support and transport personnel.

Some 6,000 British – equipped local Afghans, manning a blocking position at Girishk, mutinied and joined Ayub Khan’s advancing army, abandoning six of their artillery pieces to the British. With the Helm and River then indefensible, Burrows withdrew to Khushk- i- Nakhud, 50 miles from Kandahar. British intelligence ascertained that Ayub Khan’s advance force was in Maiwand on 26 July 1880, and Burrows marched his brigade the following morning to that location to engage the Afghan force on the march.

The British first spotted the Afghan force, estimated at over 25,000 (with about 8,500 regular troops) with 30 guns; at about 10:00 A.M. on 27 July 1880.British artillery deployed forward and started firing on the Afghans. Burrows deployed his brigade in two lines, with the 1st Bombay Native Infantry to the left of the guns, four companies of 30th Bombay Native Infantry to the right of the guns, and the 66th Foot at the extreme right. The two cavalry regiments were positioned to the left rear of the line, and four companies of the 30th Bombay Native Infantry were in reserve.

The British, by deploying into a defensive combat position, forfeit the initiative. Ayub Khan’s cavalry attacked the exposed British left flank and Afghan irregular infantry moved in a ravine to threaten the British right flank. The 66th, using their Martini – Henrys, repulsed the attacking ghazis on the right flank. Burrows ordered units on his left to advance and break up the impending Afghan attack, but heavy and accurate Afghan artillery fire limited their advance to about 500 yards.

The Afghans suffered considerably and then regrouped. At around 1:30 P.M. the British smoothbore artillery ran out of ammunition and withdrew. About an hour later, the Afghans, led by irregular soldiers, conducted an all-out attack on the British. Companies of the 30th, having lost all their officers, broke and ran to the 1st Bombay Native Infantry, throwing the latter into confusion. A British cavalry charge was ineffective, and the horsemen retreated. Only the 66th maintained a semblance of order and discipline, and about 100 soldiers of the rear-guard, surrounded by the Afghans, fought to the death. Realizing the situation was hopeless, Burrows ordered a withdrawal. The survivors straggled into Kandahar the following day.

 

The Battle of Maiwand was one of the worst British Army disasters of the Victorian era. The British lost about 962 soldiers killed and another 161 wounded. Afghan casualties are difficult to estimate, but some sources state they lost over 5,500 killed and 1,500 wounded. Ayub Khan’s force then marched on and besieged Kandahar.

References: Barthorp (1982); Barthorp (1988); Featherstone (1989); Forbes (1892); Jalali and Grau (2001); James (1998);Maxwell (1979); Roberts (1897); Tanner (2002)

The most decisive German victory of the Franco-Prussian War. With the French Army of the Rhine under Marshal Bazaine besieged in Metz, the last hope for France rested with the Army of Châlons, commanded by Marshal Patrice MacMahon. MacMahon’s options were to either race east to Bazaine’s aid or to retire to the west and use the strong fortifications around Paris to support his defense. The stronger course of action would be to retreat west, but MacMahon was under great pressure from the Empress Eugénie and her advisors. Furthermore, the Emperor Napoleon III himself was with MacMahon’s army, and retreat would have dealt a grave blow to the political stability of the Empire. The Army of Châlons marched east.

To counter this threat, the German commander, General Helmuth von Moltke, split his forces into four armies. Leaving two to keep Bazaine contained at Metz, he ordered the other two to head west and find MacMahon. German cavalry probing ahead found indications that the Army of Châlons was heading northeast, perhaps to reach Metz via Sedan and Thionville, hugging the Belgian border. It would have been a grave risk for the Germans if they had turned north to pursue, only to find the French were not there. If the French move was a feint, Moltke would be presenting his left flank to MacMahon. On the other hand, if MacMahon was retiring to safety around Paris, the Germans would lose as much as a week reforming and chasing after the French, giving them ample time to bolster the defenses of Paris. Moltke was prepared to gamble and accordingly ordered the two armies to turn north and cut off MacMahon’s line of advance. Through forced marches, the Germans caught up with the French and stopped the Army of Châlons at the town of Sedan, a few miles from the Belgian border, on August 31.

The Army of Châlons was now caught in a triangle-shaped position, surrounded by German forces on all sides. On September 1, the Germans commenced their final assault. Early in the action MacMahon was severely wounded, but there was confusion as to who would take his place. MacMahon appointed General Auguste Ducrot as acting commander; however, a more senior general and recent arrival, Emmanuel Wimpffen, refused to take orders from Ducrot and insisted he was now in charge. The two commanders disagreed over which direction the army should attempt a breakout. Ducrot advocated a breakout to the west and a return to Paris; Wimpffen ordered an attack to the east and a continuation of the drive to relieve Metz. Either option was doomed to failure. The German artillery controlled the heights above Sedan on all sides and was able to rain down artillery fi re from different directions on the French troops below. There was no cover, and thousands of French soldiers and horses were cut to pieces. A few units were able to sneak to the north and into neutral Belgium, where they were interned, but the rest either died or were captured. By the end of the day, the French had suffered 3,000 men killed, 14,000 wounded, and 21,000 more taken prisoner, including the Napoleon III and MacMahon; over the next few days, the total French prisoner count reached nearly 100,000. The Germans’ total losses—killed, wounded, and missing—were only 9,000, the vast majority of which had been incurred by a few ill-advised infantry assaults by commanders too impatient to let the artillery do their work for them. The defeat at Sedan was the last gasp of the French Second Empire and opened the road to Paris for the victorious German armies.

FURTHER READING: Howard, Michael. The Franco-Prussian War. New York: Collier, 1969; Wawro, Geoffrey. The Franco-Prussian War: The German Conquest of France, 1870–1871. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003; Wetzel, David. A Duel of Giants: Bismarck, Napoleon II and the Origins of the Franco-Prussian War. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2001.

The Battle of Trenton The Hessians By Don Troiani

The Hessian Sketch of the Battle of Trenton

Date

December 26, 1776

Location

Trenton, New Jersey, on the Delaware River (eastern United States)

Opponents

[1]Americans

[2]Hessian mercenaries

Commander

[1]General George Washington

[2]Colonel Johann Rall

Approx. # Troops

[1]2,400

[2]1,600

Importance

Restores confidence in Washington’s leadership and in the possibility of ultimate American victory in the war

 

Continental Army commander General George Washington’s first military campaign ended in disaster. In July 1776 British commander in chief Major General William Howe and 32,000 British troops (the largest expeditionary force in British history until the 20th century) landed in New York and proceeded to drive Washington’s troops from Long Island and Manhattan. Washington suffered one defeat after another; often his men simply broke and ran. Washington then left an isolated garrison at Fort Washington on the Manhattan side of the Hudson River. In mid-November, supported by ships in the Hudson, British forces cut off the garrison and captured it along with 3,000 prisoners, 100 cannon, and a huge quantity of munitions. The same thing almost happened a few days later to the colonials at Fort Lee, across the Hudson in New Jersey.

 

Washington fled to the interior. Howe pursued in dilatory fashion, ignoring the Hudson to go after the Continental Army. Washington got away, his army safely behind the Delaware River. On December 13, 1776, British forces caught up with Major General Charles Lee, who had rejected Washington’s orders to join him. The British captured him and some of his 4,000 men near Morristown, New Jersey. The British then went into winter quarters, their forces covered by a line of outposts. The most important was located at Trenton, New Jersey, and was held by Colonel Johann Rall’s Hessian mercenaries. What was left of Washington’s force was deployed across the Delaware River from Trenton.

 

Washington’s position was critical. Smallpox ravaged his force, and half of his 10,000 men were sick. To make matters worse, enlistments for most would expire in a few days, at the end of the year. Washington decided to risk everything and mount a surprise attack on Trenton. Everything depended on getting the men across the icy Delaware at night to achieve surprise. Crossings by 5,500 men, horses, and artillery were to occur at three separate locations, with the forces converging on Trenton. If circumstances allowed, they could then advance on the British posts at Princeton and New Brunswick.

 

The attempt was planned for Christmas night, December 25. The crossing was to start at 5:00 p.m., with the attack at Trenton scheduled for 5:00 a.m. the next morning, but weather conditions were terrible, and the troops were slow to reach their assembly areas. As a consequence, the men began loading an hour later than planned. Shallow-draft wooden Durham boats, 40–60 feet long by 8 feet wide, transported the men across the river. Perfect craft for such an operation, the Durham boats had a keel and a bow at each end. Four men, two to a side, used setting poles to push off the bottom and move the boats, which also had a mast and two sails. Horses and artillery went across the river in ferries.

 

All did not go smoothly, as a storm swept through. Of the three crossings, only the major one at McKonkey’s Ferry under Washington with 2,400 men occurred in time for the planned attack. That force was divided into two corps under major generals John Sullivan and Nathanael Greene. Colonel Henry Knox commanded 18 pieces of artillery. Conditions were horrible. The men had to contend not only with the dark but also with wind, rain, sleet, snow, and chunks of ice in the Delaware. The password for the operation, “Liberty or Death,” reflected its desperate nature.

 

Washington had planned for the crossing to be complete by midnight, but the last man was not across until after 3:00 a.m., and it was nearly 4:00 a.m. before the army formed and began to move. Washington’s men were poorly clad for such an operation; some actually had no shoes and wrapped their feet in rags. The men thus marched the nine miles to Trenton.

 

Washington was determined that the attack would succeed. When Sullivan sent a message to him that the storm had wet the muskets, making them unfit for service, Washington replied, “Tell General Sullivan to use the bayonet. I am resolved to take Trenton.” Washington’s will, more than anything, kept the men going. On nearing Trenton, Washington split his force into the two corps to follow two different roads for a converging attack on the British outpost.

 

The attack began at 8:00 a.m., with the two columns opening fire within 8 minutes of one another. The battle lasted some 90 minutes. The Hessian garrison consisted of three regiments, 50 Hessian Jägers, and 20 light dragoons—about 1,600 men in all—along with six 3-pounder guns. Continental Army forces soon drove the Hessians back. Artillery played a major role, and here Washington enjoyed a 6 to 1 advantage, with his guns deployed to fire down the streets of the town. The battle itself was a confused melee of men fighting in small groups or singly. Rall rallied his men, intending a bayonet charge down Queen Street, but was soon mortally wounded, and the Hessians were cut down by individual Americans with muskets and rifles and by artillery fire.

 

The Hessians lost 22 troops killed and 92 wounded; 948 were captured. The remaining Hessians would have also been taken had the other columns gotten into position in time. The Continentals also secured a considerable quantity of arms and booty. The Americans lost only 2 men, both frozen to death, and 5 wounded. With little food or rest for 36 hours, Washington’s men needed relief, and he was thus forced to suspend operations. On December 27 the Continentals were back across the Delaware.

 

Washington followed up Trenton by an attack against Princeton. Recrossing the Delaware on January 2, 1777, he routed 1,700 crack British troops at Princeton under Lieutenant Colonel Charles Mawhood. These two small Continental victories changed the entire campaign. Washington called Trenton “A glorious day for our country,” while British minister for the colonies Lord George Germain exclaimed, “All our hopes were blasted by the unhappy affair at Trenton.” Trenton helped end the Continentals’ fear of the Hessian troops. More importantly, the two battles of Trenton and Princeton added immensely to Washington’s prestige, which was at a low point a month before, establishing his reputation as a general and a leader of men. The battles also restored Continental morale, which had been at its lowest point since the start of the war. In two weeks Washington had snatched victory out of the jaws of death and fanned the dying embers of American independence into flame again.

 

References Fischer, David Hackett. Washington’s Crossing. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004. Ketchum, Richard M. The Winter Soldiers: The Battles for Trenton and Princeton. New York: Anchor Books, 1975. McPhillips, Martin. The Battle of Trenton. Parsippany, NJ: Silver Burdett, 1984. Ward, Christopher. The War of the Revolution, Vol. 1. New York: Macmillan, 1952.

Robert Kelly’s depiction of the Kholifa’s flight was wholly imaginative, but still suggests the impact which the exotic image of dervish power had on British opinion .

 

Date

September 2, 1898

Location

Near Khartoum in central Sudan

Opponents

[1]British and Egyptians

[2]Sudanese Dervishes

Commander

[1]Major General Sir Herbert Kitchener

[2]Khalifa Abdullah

Approx. # Troops

[1]8,000 British, 17,000 Egyptians

[2]35,000–50,000 Sudanese Dervishes

Importance

Brings Anglo-Egyptian control of the Sudan

In the September 2, 1898, Battle of Omdurman, British, Egyptian, and Sudanese forces defeated nationalists in the Sudan, leading to the establishment of the Anglo- Egyptian Sudan. The battle also illustrated the technological advantage of European military establishments over their brave but primitively armed opponents in the wars of imperialism that preceded World War I.

 

Concern over the security of the Suez Canal, Britain’s lifeline to India, led the British government to send naval and land forces to Egypt in 1882. Following the Battle of Tel el Kebir on September 13, 1882, the British established their control over all Egypt. Although the khedive was still nominal ruler, the real power in the country rested with the British consul-general and high commissioner, and British imperialists soon considered the Nile Valley part of the British Empire.

 

From Egypt, the British were soon drawn into difficulties in the vast, poor, and hostile Sudan. Egypt had long sought to establish its control over the Upper Nile region but aroused strong opposition through actions against the slave trade and heavy taxes. In 1883 a prophet, Muhammad Ahmad ibn as-Sayyid Abd Allah, the son of a Nile boatbuilder, arose in the Sudan, calling himself the Mahdi. Soon he had thousands of warrior followers, known as Dervishes.

 

The Egyptian government decided to intervene to put down the uprising. Former Indian Army officer General William Hicks marched 8,500 Egyptian Army troops into the desert, only to be annihilated on November 3 at El Obeid by Sudanese forces under command of Abu Anja, one of the Mahdi’s best generals. The Mahdi’s reputation soared after this victory, and the entire Sudan was in revolt.

 

The Egyptians then sought assistance from the British government. The Egyptians still held the Nile and the city of Khartoum, at the confluence of the Blue and White Niles, but Prime Minister William Gladstone decided that the Sudan must be evacuated. To accomplish this, he sent out Major General Charles Gordon.

 

Gordon’s nickname was “Chinese,” earned for his command of the Chinese Imperial Army that put down the Taiping Rebellion in the 1860s. He had once been governor of the Sudan for the Egyptians and had taken an aggressive stance against the slave trade there. Deeply religious and eccentric, Gordon was the worst possible choice for a mission involving capitulation. He completely ignored Gladstone’s original instructions and convinced the Egyptian ministry to reestablish British control in the Sudan. Gordon then proceeded up the Nile to Khartoum, where he dallied and got besieged by the Mahdists. Gladstone was furious; only after five months had passed did his government respond to public pressure and send relief forces under General Garnet Wolseley.

 

Wolseley’s own trip up the Nile was as slow as that of Gordon. As his relief expedition neared Khartoum and after a siege lasting 317 days, on January 26, 1885, the Dervishes swept over Gordon’s defenses, stormed the palace, and massacred the entire garrison, presenting Gordon’s severed head to the Mahdi. On June 21, 1885, the Mahdi died. His successor, Kalifa Abdullah, and his Dervish followers completed the conquest of the Sudan, with the British this time evacuating.

 

Not until 1896 did the British government decide to reconquer the Sudan, part of a plan to provide a defense in depth for the Suez Canal fueled by French and Italian interest in the Sudan. Under orders from London, Egyptian army commander in chief (sirdar) major general (only a colonel in the British Army) Horatio Herbert Kitchener marched forces south from Egypt. Kitchener commanded six brigades of infantry. He had only four British battalions, and most of his 25,000- man force consisted of Egyptians and Sudanese. Kitchener also had some 20 Maxim guns, artillery, and river gunboats. He had a considerable supply train of camels and horses and built a rail line as he proceeded southward.

 

The methodical Kitchener captured Dongola on September 21, 1896, and Abu Hamed on August 7, 1897. He then defeated Mahdist forces under Osman Dinga and Khalifa Abdullah in the Battle of the Atbara River on April 7, 1898. On September 1, 1898, Kitchener arrived outside Omdurman, across the Nile from Khartoum, to face the main Mahdist army. Among those present on the British side was 23-year-old soldier and reporter Winston Churchill.

 

After some preliminary skirmishing, on the morning of September 2 some 35,000–50,000 Sudanese tribesmen under Abdullah attacked the British lines. The Mahdists had perhaps 15,000 rifles, with the remainder of their men armed only with spears and swords. There was no real sense of how the troops should be deployed; riflemen were merely mixed in with the spearmen and swordsmen. The riflemen were to provide cover for the others to close with the enemy and fight hand to hand in true warrior fashion. The Mahdist riflemen also fired from the hip, standing or running, rather than from the shoulder; they considered firing from the prone position to be cowardly.

 

In a series of charges against the British position the Mahdists were simply annihilated, although disaster was narrowly averted that afternoon when Kitchener, who thought that the fight was over and was anxious to avoid a street battle for Omdurman, tried to place his forces between the Mahdists and the capital. As they moved, Kitchener’s infantry encountered a fresh force that had not participated in the earlier fighting. Fortunately for Kitchener, this attack came in separate waves. General Hector MacDonald’s Sudanese brigade managed to hold the Mahdists off, and the 21st Lancers charged and defeated another force that suddenly appeared on the British right flank. After the battle it was learned that the men of the Sudanese brigade were down to an average of only two rounds apiece.

 

During the Battle of Omdurman the British had used their magazine rifles and Maxim guns to kill perhaps 10,000 Dervishes and wound as many more, with 5,000 taken prisoner. The cost to the British side was 48 dead and 434 wounded. Kitchener, surveying the battlefield from horseback, is said to have announced (in considerable understatement) that the enemy had been given “a good dusting.” The battle led Hilaire Belloc to have the character Blood proclaim in The Modern Traveller:

“Whatever happens we have got The Maxim Gun, and they have not.”

The Battle of Omdurman also gave Britain control of the Sudan for all practical purposes, and made Kitchener a British national hero.

 

References Barthorp, Michael. War on the Nile: Britain, Egypt, and the Sudan, 1882–1898. Poole, UK: Blandford, 1984. Harrington, Peter, and Frederick A. Sharf. Omdurman, 1898: The Eye-Witnesses Speak. London: Greenhill Books, 1898. Spiers, Edward M., ed. Sudan: The Reconquest Reappraised. London: Frank Cass, 1998. Vandervort, Bruce. Wars of Imperial Conquest in Africa, 1830–1914. London: UCL Press, 1998.

The Queen’s Regiment of Horse breaking through on the right flank; seen here capturing the kettle-drummer of the Bavarian Electoral Guards.

 

Map of the Low Countries during the War of the Spanish Succession. The village of Ramillies lies near the Mehaigne, a tributary of the Meuse.

 

Date

May 23, 1706

Location

Ramillies, north of Namur in the Spanish Netherlands (today Belgium)

Opponents

(1)    British, Dutch, Danes

(2)    French

Commander

(1)    John Churchill, First Duke of Marlborough

(2)    Marshal François de Neufville, Duc de Villeroi

Approx. # Troops

(1)    62,000

(2)    60,000

Importance

Allows the allies to overrun much of the Spanish Netherlands

The Battle of Ramillies was an important allied victory against the French during the War of the Spanish Succession (1701–1714) and a personal triumph for the principal allied general, John Churchill, First Duke of Marlborough. Following the splendid allied victory at Blenheim in August 1704, a stalemate developed in the Spanish Netherlands (present-day Belgium), where Marlborough saw his desire for offensive operations frustrated by caution on the part of the Dutch. Operations along the Rhine and in northern Italy were inconclusive. This situation prevailed throughout 1705.

In May 1706 French marshal François de Neufville, Duc de Villeroi, believing that Marlborough intended to seize Namur in the province of Brabant in the Spanish Netherlands, moved there with about 60,000 men. Villeroi’s army was intercepted north of Namur at Ramillies by Marlborough’s allied force of about 62,000 British, Dutch, and Danish troops. The French took up position on high ground and partially entrenched, their center on Ramillies. The French position, however, was dangerously overextended.

The battle occurred on May 23, 1706. Marlborough feinted an attack on the French left. To meet this threat, Villeroi shifted his reserves and pulled some units from his right wing, whereupon Marlborough launched his main attack on that weakened sector. Although the French soldiers on the right flank fought well, the men were simply outnumbered and overwhelmed.

Sensing that the entire French line was near collapse, Marlborough ordered a general advance, aided by the aggressive action of the Danish cavalry. The French fled in disorder. Marlborough ordered a vigorous pursuit, and indeed his forces inflicted most of the casualties in this phase of the battle. The pursuit ended some 20 miles from Louvain. Total French casualties amounted to some 13,000 killed or wounded and 6,000 captured. Allied losses were only 1,066 dead and 3,633 wounded.

The Battle of Ramillies had significant consequences, allowing the allied forces to overrun the Spanish Netherlands. During June–October, Marlborough took a dozen important fortresses in the Netherlands and north-eastern France, including Antwerp, Dunkirk (Dunkerque), Menin, Dendermonde, and Ath. The allies also captured an additional 14,000 prisoners. In August, King Louis XIV ordered Marshal Louis Josef, Duc de Vendôme, north from Italy to replace Villeroi and also put out tentative peace feelers.

References Chandler, David G. Marlborough as Military Commander. London: Batsford, 1973. Churchill, Winston S. Marlborough: His Life and Times, Vol. 2. London: Harrap, 1934. Hugill, J. A. C. No Peace without Spain. Oxford, UK: Kensal, 1991. Jones, J. R. Marlborough. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1993.

Following his victory at First Breitenfeld (September 17, 1631), Gustavus Adolphus took his army of 25,000 out of winter quarters and invaded Bavaria. He crossed the Danube on April 7 and next looked to ford the River Lech, where Johann Tilly was positioned to stop him with 20,000 Imperial and Bavarian troops. Gustavus employed a novel tactic: at a carefully chosen bend of the Lech his main army forded while hidden by a smokescreen made from burning straw and covered as they crossed the river by Swedish artillery fire. This secured a beachhead into which he next crossed over the artillery and from where it hammered the Imperial lines. The Catholic position, which once seemed unbreachable, broke down in confusion as men fell back through their camp that was now part of a battlefield. During this action 4,000 Imperial troops were killed and Tilly was mortally wounded (he died five days later). The victory at Rain allowed Gustavus to take Augsburg and Munich and his troops to eat out unprotected Bavaria.

Order of Battle

Swedish Army

King Gustav II of Sweden

 

Infantry

Hand Infantry Regiment (Swedish)

Hand Infantry Regiment (Swedish)

Hastger Infantry Regiment (Finnish)

Royal Guard Coy (Mixed)

N. Brahe Infantry Regiment (German)

Winckel Infantry Regiment (German)

Thurn Infantry Regiment (German)

Baner Infantry Regiment (German)

Bernard Saxe-Weimar Infantry Regiment (German)

Burt Infantry Regiment (German)

Chemnitz Infantry Regiment (German)

Forbes Infantry Regiment (German)

Horn Infantry Regiment (German)

Kagge Infantry Regiment (German)

Kanoffsky Infantry Regiment (German)

Liebenstein Infantry Regiment (German)

Mitschefall Infantry Regiment (German)

Mitzlaff Infantry Regiment (German)

Monro of Fowles Infantry Regiment (German)

Riese Infantry Regiment (German)

Schaffalitsky Infantry Regiment (German)

B. Schlammersdorf Infantry Regiment (German)

T. Schlammersdorf Infantry Regiment (German)

Schneidwinds Infantry Regiment (German)

Truchsess Infantry Regiment (German)

Wildenstein Infantry Regiment (German)

Hepburn Infantry Regiment (Scottish)

Mackay Infantry Regiment (German)

Spens (German)

 

Cavalry

Stenbock Cuirassier (Swedish)

Soop Cuirassier (Swedish)

Silversparre Squadron (Swedish)

Sack Squadron (Swedish)

Sperreuter Squadron (Swedish)

Stahlhansk Cuirassier (Finnish)

Tesenhaussen (Livonian)

Domhoff Squadron (Kurland)

Baudissin Cuirassier (German)

B. Saxe-Weiver Cuirassier (German)

Horn Cuirassier (German)

Kotchtitzky Cuirassier (German)

Baden Cuirassier (German)

Monro of Fowles Cuirassier (German)

Schonberg Cuirassier (German)

Soms Squadron (German)

Sperreuter Cuirassier (German)

Streiff Squadron (German)

Tott Cuirassier (German)

Truchsess Cuirassier (German)

Uslar Cuirassier (German)

Wedel Cuirassier (German)

W. Saxe Weimer Cuirassier (German)

Ohm Cuirassier (German)

Horn Leib Coy (German)

Du Menys Dragoon (German)

Taupadel Dragoon (German)

 

Holy Roman Empire – Catholic League Army

John Tserclaes, Count of Tilly

 

Infantry

Alt-Till Infantry Regiment (Catholic League-Wurzburg)

Reinach Infantry Regiment (Catholic League-High German)

Comargo Infantry Regiment (Catholic League-High German)

Pappenheim Infantry Regiment (Catholic League-High German)

Wahl Infantry Regiment (Catholic League-High German)

Jung-Furstenberg Infantry Regiment (Catholic League-High German)

Free Companies Infantry Regiment (Catholic League-High German)

Beck Infantry Regiment (Imperialist-Walloon)

Conteras Infantry Regiment (Imperialist-German)

Savelli Infantry Regiment (Imperialist-Low German)

Witzleban Infantry Regiment (Imperialist-German)

Baldiron Infantry Regiment (Imperialist-Spanish)

Fahrenbach Infantry Regiment (Imperialist-High German)

Rittberg Infantry Regiment (Imperialist-German)

 

Cavalry

Cronberg Heavy Cavalry (Catholic League-High German)

Billehe Heavy Cavalry (Catholic League-High German)

J. Fugger Cuirassier (Catholic League-Low German)

Blankhart Cuirassier (Catholic League-Low German)

D’Espagne Cuirassier (Catholic League-Low German)

Cratz Cuirassier (Catholic League-High German)

Hasslang Cuirassier (Catholic League-High German)

Merode Cuirassier (Catholic League-High German)

Free Coy (Catholic League-High German)

Dragoons (Catholic League-High German)

O.H. Fugger Croats (Catholic League-High German)

Merode Arquebussier (Imperialist-Walloon)

Bucquoy Heavy Cavalry (Imperialist-Walloon)

Free Coy (Imperialist-High German)

Croats Light Cavalry (Imperialist-Croatian)

Sources

Welsh, William E. “The Lion Conquers Bavaria: The Battle of the Lech, April 1632.” Strategy & Tactics, Number 229 (July/August 2005) ISSN 1040-886X

Battle for the capital of the Philippines, located on the big island of Luzon. Manila was one of the largest cities of Southeast Asia, with a population of more than 800,000 people. The Japanese commander in the Philippines, General Yamashita Tomoyuki, had 250,000 men on Luzon, a figure that had been grossly underestimated by General Douglas MacArthur’s intelligence chief, Major General Charles A. Willoughby. Beginning on 9 January 1945, General Walter Krueger’s Sixth Army assaulted the western coast in the Lingayen Gulf. The Japanese made no effort to contest the landing, and that first day, 68,000 men went ashore. They then drove southward toward Manila. Major General Oscar W. Griswold’s XIV Corps had the right flank, and Major General Innis P. Swift’s I Corps was on the left. I Corps had the more difficult going.

 

Beginning on 30 January, units of Lieutenant General Robert L. Eichelberger’s Eighth Army began landing north and south of Manila. Major General Charles P. Hall’s XI Corps landed in the Subic Bay area, helping to seal off the Bataan Peninsula and preventing the Japanese from repeating the American defense of 1942. Meanwhile, on 31 January, two regiments of Major General Joseph M. Swing’s 11th Airborne Division went ashore at Nasugbu, about 45 miles southwest of Manila.

 

On 3 February, the division’s remaining regiment was air-dropped on Tagaytay Ridge, 30 miles south of the city. The next day, elements of the 11th Airborne Division reached Paranaque, just south of Manila. MacArthur urged a rapid advance. While the 37th Infantry Division of Griswold’s corps pushed toward Manila from the north, the lighter and more mobile 1st Cavalry Division also drove on the city. It had just landed to reinforce Griswold’s corps, and MacArthur ordered the cavalry division to advance as fast as possible. Elements of the 1st Cavalry reached the north-eastern outskirts of Manila on 3 February, the first U.S. unit to do so. As darkness fell, one of its tanks smashed through the gates of Santo Tomas University, releasing 4,000 American prisoners held there.

 

Rear Admiral Iwabuchi Sanji now defied Yamashita’s orders to withdraw from the city and utilized his 18,000 men, mostly naval personnel, to stage a fanatical, month-long, block-by-block and house-by-house defense of the city. As units of the 1st Cavalry and 37th Divisions closed on Manila, Iwabuchi’s forces withdrew across the Pasig River, destroying its bridges and setting fire to the highly flammable residential areas. For the next several days, American forces battled these flames.

 

General MacArthur had hoped that Manila would fall without significant damage to the city. On 6 February, he announced in a communiqué that the complete destruction of the Japanese in Manila was “imminent.” To save civilian lives, he ordered that no air strikes be utilized. This order did not pertain to artillery fire, however, and its heavy use by both sides produced many civilian casualties. The doomed Japanese defenders also went on an orgy of murder and rape, killing thousands of innocent Filipinos.

 

By 22 February, the 37th Division had driven the Japanese defenders into the old walled portion of the city (Intramuros) and the modern business district. In Intramuros, U.S. troops had to fight the Japanese, who were well dug in, one building at a time. Many buildings were simply turned into rubble by the unrestricted support fire, as breaching the buildings with infantry was virtually impossible.

 

By 26 February 1945, the remaining Japanese resistance was compressed into the three Philippine Commonwealth government buildings off the southeast corner of the walled city. The last organized Japanese resistance was in the Finance Building. Late on 3 March 1945, General Griswold reported that all organized resistance in the Manila area had ended.

 

The Battle for Manila cost the Americans 1,010 killed and 5,561 wounded. The Japanese lost perhaps 16,000 men in and around the city. In addition, more than 100,000 Filipino civilians were killed in the battle, and perhaps 70 percent of Manila was destroyed. The governmental center was damaged beyond repair, public transportation and electric power were wrecked, and the water and sewer systems required extensive repair. Thirty-nine bridges, including the six major bridges over the Pasig River, were destroyed. Port facilities were so badly damaged that it was mid-April before any ships could unload at Manila Bay.

 

References James, D. Clayton. The Years of MacArthur. Vol. 2, 1941–1945. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1975. Smith, Robert Ross. The United States Army in World War II: The War in the Pacific—Triumph in the Philippines. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1963.

The Battle of Chaldiran. An Ottoman army of ca 60-212,000 janissary, under the Ottoman Sultan Selim I, defeated a Persian Safavid army of ca 12-40,000 men under Ismail Abul-Mozaffar bin Sheikh Haydar bin Sheikh Junayd Safawi, the Shah of Iran.

 

The Janissaries of the Ottoman Empire, fighting for Selim I, smashed the army of the Safavids of Iran in this first major battle between the two Muslim empires. The wholly lopsided outcome resulted from the more modern gunpowder weapons and advanced infantry tactics of the Janissaries, but also because the Iranian army was almost exclusively cavalry archers recruited from tribal levies and lacked modern firepower. The Ottomans deployed serried ranks of Janissary musketeers behind wagon-forts. They had also hauled as many as 200 heavy cannon to the battle. The musketeers and cannon exacted a great toll of Iranian horse archers, many thousands of whom fell. Most military historians agree that Ottoman artillery was decisive in the battle, though the Janissary infantry also played a key role in stopping Iran’s cavalry which had scattered the Ottoman timariot cavalry, before falling in droves before the guns. There is some evidence that the Iranians had access to artillery but foreswore it as unmanly and unworthy of holy war. Chaldiran did much to disabuse them of that prejudice while resetting the frontier between the Ottoman and Safavid empires and securing Azerbaijan and Kurdistan to the Ottoman Empire. After Chaldiran the Safavids removed their capital from vulnerable Tabris to more distant Qazwin.

Commencing on August 31, 1942, a month after the German Panzerarmee Afrika was checked at the Battles of El Alamein, Alam el Halfa was Erwin Rommel’s final attempt to break through to the Nile valley in continuation of his frustrated drive across Cyrenaica and western Egypt. Leading the British Eighth Army, Gen. Sir Bernard Law Montgomery deployed his forces near Alam el Halfa, an east-west ridge astride Rommel’s path of advance. On the first day of battle, three German armored divisions defeated British forces, turning the Eighth Army’s southern flank. However, Montgomery rallied an extraordinary defense—considered by military historians a textbook example of the modern repulse—and, coordinating armor and infantry with air and artillery support, stopped Rommel at the ridge. By the fourth day of the battle, Rommel had been forced into retreat, redeploying his armor in a defensive line running north and south. The battle was over by September 7, by which time Rommel, checked again, had lost significantly more than the 1,750 casualties (killed and wounded) suffered by the Eighth Army.

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North African battle between German Field Marshal Erwin Rommel’s Afrika Korps and British Lieutenant General Bernard Law Montgomery’s Eighth Army. Fearful that he would permanently lose the initiative to the Eighth Army after his advance was halted at the First Battle of El Alamein in July 1942, Rommel reorganized with the intention of resuming his advance toward Suez. Meanwhile, Montgomery assumed command of the British Eighth Army on 13 August and began planning for the offensive, all the while expecting Rommel to attack first.

 

Late on the evening of 30 August, Rommel attempted, as at Gazala, to get around Eighth Army’s left flank although his force was weak in armor. With diversionary attacks designed to hold British forces along the coast, Rommel ordered the Afrika Korps east and south of Alam Halfa Ridge with the aim of swinging north to the Mediterranean coast behind Montgomery and enveloping the Eighth Army.

 

The Eighth Army had established a defense in depth, including strong positions on the Alam Halfa and Ruweisat Ridges, and Montgomery rejected any withdrawal. The 10th Armored Division, 22nd Armored Brigade, and 44th Division defended Alam Halfa, while the 7th Armored Division was south of the ridge. Montgomery ordered his armored units to defend from their current positions rather than advancing to meet Rommel’s panzers.

 

Slowed by British minefields and fuel shortages, Rommel’s tanks did not reach Alam Halfa until the evening of 31 August. Daylight brought vicious Desert Air Force attacks against the Axis advance, and the 7th Armored Division’s placement forced Rommel to swing north prematurely, into the teeth of a tank brigade on Alam Halfa Ridge. Fuel shortages prevented the Afrika Korps from outflanking Alam Halfa to the east, forcing Rommel onto the defensive there.

 

The Victor: Montgomery.

On 1 September, after a flank assault on the 22nd Armored Brigade failed and having suffered severe losses, Rommel ordered his forces to retire to their original positions. The withdrawal, which began the next day, exposed the Afrika Korps to further devastating British aerial attacks. Rommel repulsed a counterattack by the 2nd New Zealand Division on the evening of 3 September, and Montgomery believed that he lacked the resources to force a general Axis withdrawal, so he decided not to press his advantage for the time being. Certainly Rommel’s past successes made Montgomery wary of pushing too far forward.

 

Montgomery had fought his first battle as commander of Eighth Army with great skill. Rommel now had no choice but to go on the defensive. He established positions between the Mediterranean and the Qattara Depression as both sides prepared for the Eighth Army’s upcoming offensive: the Second Battle of El Alamein.

 

Historically, the victory here is significant as an outstanding instance of ground-air coordination and the exploitation of intelligence. British breakthroughs in the decryption of the enemy’s coded communication proved crucial to the triumph at Alam el Halfa. On August 15, 1942, Rommel, using the Enigma cipher, transmitted his plan of action—to effect a breakthrough to Cairo and the Nile—to Adolf Hitler. Within 48 hours, Montgomery had a decrypted translation of this message. Learning that Rommel intended to move south around the end of the British line, then strike the British flank to cut off the Eighth Army from its base and supplies, Montgomery was able to deploy his forces at the Alam el Halfa ridge and check the German advance.

 

Further reading: Hinsley, F. H., and Alan Stripp, eds. Codebreakers: The Inside Story of Bletchley Park. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001; McCarthy, Peter, and Mike Syron. Panzerkrieg: The Rise and Fall of Hitler’s Tank Divisions. New York: Carroll & Graf, 2002. Stewart, Adrian. Eighth Army’s Greatest Victories: Alam Halfa to Tunis 1942–1943. London: Leo Cooper, 1999; Stewart, Adrian. North African Victory: The 8th Army from Alam Halfa to Tunis, 1942–43. London: Penguin UK, 2002.

The German counter-offensive at Mortain was just the sort of orthodox armoured attack that Rommel had declared impossible against Allied air power. The offensive is also referred to in American and British histories of the Battle of Normandy simply as the Mortain counter-offensive. Only Hitler thought it would work.

Generalfeldmarshall Günther von Kluge was the German supreme commander in the West. After Generalfeldmarschall Erwin Rommel was injured by Allied aircraft on 17 July, von Kluge also took over direct command of Army Group B, the formation conducting the battle in Normandy. He had warned Hitler on 22 July that the collapse of the front was imminent, but Hitler continued to order him to stand fast.

 

On 2 August, Hitler sent a directive to Von Kluge ordering “an immediate counterattack between Mortain and Avranches”. General Walter Warlimont—the Deputy Chief of Staff at OKW, the German armed forces headquarters—was also sent to von Kluge’s headquarters to ensure these orders were complied with. Von Kluge suggested that there was no chance of success, and the German forces in Normandy should retire to the Seine River, pivoting on the intact defences south of Caen, but on 4 August, Hitler categorically ordered the attack to be launched. He demanded that eight of the nine Panzer Divisions in Normandy be used in the attack, and that the Luftwaffe commit its entire reserve, including 1,000 fighters. According to Hitler, three qualifications had to be met for the attack to proceed. “Von Kluge must believe in it. He must be able to detach enough armour from the main front in Normandy to create an effective striking force, and he must achieve surprise”.

 

Although ordered to wait “until every tank, gun and plane was assembled”, von Kluge and SS General Paul Hausser—commanding the German 7th Army, which held the western part of the front—decided to attack as soon as possible, before the overall situation deteriorated further. The main striking force assigned was the XLVII Panzer Corps, commanded by General Hans Freiherr von Funck. Instead of eight Panzer Divisions, only four—one of them incomplete—could be relieved from their defensive tasks and assembled in time; the 2nd Panzer Division, 116th Panzer Division, the 2nd SS Panzer Division and part of the 1st SS Panzer Division, with a total of about 300 tanks. The Panzer Corps was supported by two Infantry Divisions and five Kampfgruppen, formed from the remnants of the Panzer Lehr Division and four equally battered infantry divisions.

 

Von Kluge ordered the attack to be mounted on the night of 6/7 August. To avoid alerting American forces to the attack, there would be no preparatory artillery bombardments. The intention was to hit the U.S. 30th Infantry Division, commanded by Major-General Leland Hobbs, east of Mortain, then cut through American defenses to reach the coast. Had surprise been achieved, the attack might well have succeeded, but Allied decoders at Ultra had intercepted and decrypted the orders for Operation Lüttich by August 4. As a result, Bradley was able to obtain air support from both the US 9th Air Force and the RAF.

 

7th of August:

By using reserves that were reaching the theater to replace panzer divisions already in the line, Kluge cobbled together four panzer divisions to launch the counterattack. The U.S. 30th Infantry Division, defending the position through which the Nazi counterattack would come, was a solid outfit, while the terrain favored the defenders. The initial attack, although ragged—only three of the assault groups jumped off at the correct time—achieved some local successes. Yet, at St. Barthelmy north of Mortain, the 1st Battalion, 117th Infantry Regiment, blunted the attack of the 1st SS Panzer and 2nd Panzer Divisions until the sun burned through the fog on the morning of 7 August.

 

Meanwhile, the German advance had isolated four companies of the 2nd Battalion, 120th Infantry Regiment, on Hill 317, while approximately 70 tanks broke through Mortain and headed west. But they did not get far. From their vantage point on 317, the Americans called in massive artillery fire on the enemy columns. German attacks on Hill 317 failed to take out the Americans, while Allied fighter-bombers and artillery ceaselessly battered the Wehrmacht troops. By 12 August, when relief finally arrived, only 357 of approximately 700 men on Hill 317 were able to walk off under their own power. The four company commanders received Distinguished Service Crosses. The Mortain counterattack had failed. Nevertheless, Hitler flirted with the idea of resuming the counterattack and ordered two more panzer divisions facing the British to move west.

 

8th of August:

1400 Hrs: Das Reich launches a counterattack against the northern flank of the 35th Infantry Division. The 35th Division had been committed south of Mortain in order to seal up a gap which had developed between the 30th Division at Mortain and 2nd Armored Division at Barenton to the south. Barenton lies halfway between Mortain and Mayenne, where CCA, 3rd Armored Division, 1st U.S. Infantry Division, and 90th U.S. Infantry Division were in the process of breaking through LXXXI Armee Korps.

 

The counterattack consisted of elements of Krag’s SS Panzeraufklarungs Abteilung 2., reinforced by reconnaissance troops from 2 Panzer Division and 116 Panzer Division, as well as a Pzkfw IV platoon and Panther platoon commanded by Willy Durr. Durr’s panzers overrun a section of the 134th Infantry’s cannon company, killing seven Americans and destroying two 105mm howitzers. The Pzkfw IV platoon is able to ambush the Sherman platoon supporting the 1/134th Infantry, knocking out five American tanks for no loss. One of Durr’s Panthers also knocks out two M-10 TD’s from the 654th Tank Destroyer Battalion.

 

The counterattack also overruns the aid station of the 2/134th Infantry and the motor park of the same battalion. A number of medics are captured, but the headquarters company of 2/134th Infantry does not suffer many casualties as the panzers do not have very much infantry support. After a Panther and Pzkfw IV are knocked out by bazooka fire, a pair of Pzkfw IVs occupy a position astride the main supply route leading to the 1/134th Infantry and 2/134th Infantry. Both of the U.S. battalion are cut off from support. Interestingly enough, the panzer crews capture several officers from the 134th Infantry, as well as medics from the 737th Tank Battalion, all of whom are released after being captured.

 

By 13 August, the offensive had fully halted, with German forces being driven out of Mortain. The Panzer Divisions involved in the attack lost over 150 of their tanks to Allied counterattacks and air strikes, nearly ½ of those committed. As Hitler ordered German forces in Normandy to hold their positions, the U.S. VII and XV Corps were swinging east and north toward Argentan. The German attack west left the 7th Army’ and Panzergruppe West in danger of being encircled by Allied forces. As American forces advanced on Argentan, British and Canadian forces advanced on Falaise, threatening to cut off both armies in the newly-formed Falaise Pocket.

 

Although American casualties in Operation Lüttich were significantly lighter than in previous operations, certain sectors of the front, notably the positions held by the 30th Division around Mortain, took severe casualties. By the end of 7 August alone, nearly 1,000 men of the 30th Division had been killed. Estimates for American casualties from 6–13 August vary from 2,000-3,000 fatalities, with an unknown number of wounded.