Interesting facts of military history

The Edict of Longjumeau, 23rd March 1568, brought to an end the French Second War of Religion, and restored rights previously granted to the Huguenots-
Edict of Longjumeau, 23 March 1568

 

The first purpose-built PoW camp was at Norman Cross, Cambridgeshire, England in 1797-
http://www.peterboroughtoday.co.uk/...world_s_first_pow_camp_on_time_team_1_1376186

 

The first purpose-built PoW camp was at Norman Cross, Cambridgeshire, England in 1797-
World

 

February 4th 1782; British garrison of Minorca surrenders to French/Spanish forces-
Invasion of Minorca, 1781 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

Batons of The Duke of Wellington

The victor over Napoleon at the Battle of Waterloo was honoured by not only receiving his Field Marshal's Baton from the Regent of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, he was showered with Batons from Portugal, Prussia, The Netherlands, Spain, Hanover, Austria, and Russia, eight Batons in all.

Ahoy - Mac's Web Log - Batons of The Duke of Wellington

 

This Day in US Military History: February 14, 1943~ Battle of the Kasserine Pass

On this day, German General Erwin Rommel and his Afrika Korps launch and offensive angainst an Allied defensive line in Tunisia, North Africa. The Kasserine Pass was the site of the United States' first major battle defeat of the war.

In the Battle of El Alamein in August 1942, British general Bernard Montgomery pushed rommel out of Equpt and into Tunisia, behind the Mareth Line, a defensive fortification built by Vichy French forces. Rommel set his sites on Tunis, Tunisia's capital and a key strategic goal for both Allied and Axis forces. Rommel determined that the weakest point in the Allied defensive line was at the Kasserine Pass, a 2-mile-wide gap in Tunisia's Dorsal Mountains, which was defended by American troops. His first strike was repulsed, but with tank reinforcements, Rommel broke throught on February 20, inflicting devastating casualties on the U.S. forces. the Americans withdrew from their position, leaving behind most of their equipment. More than 1000 American soldiers were killed by Rommel's offensive, and hundreds were taken prisoner. The United States had finally tasted defeat in battle.

(If this is not the right place to post this, please move to appropriate thread. Thank you!)

 

"The Race to the Sea developed out of the first battle of the Aisne (13-28 September 1914). This saw the Germans retreat from the line of the Marne to the line of the Aisne, which would become their front line until 1918. The battle of the Aisne began with a series of attempts to break through the German lines. When these attacks failed, Joffre and Falkenhayn both began to plan to turn each other's northern flank."
Race to the Sea, 15 September-14 October 1914

 

"The common perception for much of the 20th century was that terrorism was perceived as a contest between two sides: on the one hand, a shadowy somewhat connected group of people or an organization, and on the other, a sovereign state with the power of the law and legal if not democratic legitimacy. However, throughout history various countries have used terrorist organizations to promote state interests in the international domain. In some cases, states have established "puppet" terrorist organizations, whose purpose is to act on behalf of the sponsoring state, to further the interests of the state, and to represent its positions in domestic or regional fronts. This allowed the state to effectively wage a low level war against rival powers without the risk of escalation or a political backlash. It was for many years easy for a state supporting terrorists to deny any involvement with little risk of retaliation."
State Sponsored Terrorism

 

SS John Grafton - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

S/S John Grafton was a steamboat which was used in an unsuccessful attempt to smuggle large quantities of arms for the Finnish resistance to the Imperial Russian regime in 1905. The matter later came to be known as the "Grafton Affair".

After the Russification in Finland increased ( before Finland was independent ), the resistance activist Konni Zilliacus in 1905 organized smuggling of weapons. The reason for this action was to provide the Finnish and the Russian resistance with weapons. With Japanese financing, the S/S John Grafton was bought. In London the ship was loaded with 15,500 Swiss "Vetterli" rifles, 2.5 million bullets, 2,500 high-class English officer's revolvers and 3 tons of explosives. According to the original plan, the weapons were to be transported via the Netherlands and Copenhagen to a meeting place in the Gulf of Finland, from where the journey would continue to St Petersburg. On arrival, a part of the cargo would be offloaded and given to Russian revolutionaries.

After running into a few problems the route was changed, and the ship set course towards the Gulf of Bothnia and town of Kemi, where parts of the cargo was offloaded. The journey continued to Jakobstad, that, like Kemi, was a center for the Finnish resistance. The ship was guided into the rocky archipelago north of Jakobstad and the offloading of the weapons was conducted without any big problems. When the ship continued its journey south, she ran aground. The crew started to salvage what remained of the weapons. It quickly becomes clear that the whole cargo could not be salvaged. The captain J.W. Nylander made the decision to blow up the ship to avoid it ending up in the hands of the Russian authorities. On the afternoon of 8 September 1905 the ship was blown up with three powerful charges.

In 1930 a monument was unveiled at Orrskär in Larsmo to commemorate the event. To this day parts of the cargo and ship lies at the bottom of the gulf.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rif_War_(1920–1926)

Not just Spanish losses:

In May 1924, the French Army had established a line of posts north of the Oureghla River in disputed tribal territory. On 13 April 1925, an estimated 8,000 Rifs attacked this line and in two weeks 39 of 66 French posts had been stormed or abandoned. The French accordingly intervened on the side of Spain, employing up to 300,000 well trained and equipped troops from Metropolitan, North African, Senegalese and Foreign Legion units. French deaths in what had now become a major war are estimated at about 12,000.

 

Chemical weapons in the Rif War - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Between 1921 and 1927, the Spanish army indescriminately used phosgene, diphosgene, chloropicrin and mustard gas. Common targets were civilian populations, markets, and rivers. In a telegram sent by the then-High Commissioner of Spanish Morocco Dámaso Berenguer on August 12, 1921 to the Spanish minister of War, Berenguer stated: "I have been obstinately resistant to the use of suffocating gases against these indigenous peoples but after what they have done, and of their treasonous and deceptive conduct, I have to use them with true joy."

According to military aviation general Hidalgo de Cisneros in his autobiographical book Cambio de rumbo,he was the first warfighter to drop a 100-kilogram mustard gas bomb from his Farman F60 Goliath aircraft in the summer of 1924. About 127 fighters and bombers flew in the campaign, dropping around 1,680 bombs each day. Thirteen of these planes were stationed in the military air base of Seville. The mustard gas bombs were brought from the stockpiles of Germany and delivered to Melilla before being carried on Farman F60 Goliath airplanes.

According to Sebastian Balfour, the motivation for the chemical attacks was based primarily on revenge for the defeat of the Spanish Army of Africa and their Moroccan recruits the Regulares at the Battle of Annual on July 22, 1921.

 

"The Avro Rota was the name given to twelve Cierva C.30A autogiros built under licence for the RAF by Avro during 1934-35. The autogiro was designed to be almost impossible to stall. If the machine was travelling too slowly to generate enough lift, it gently lost altitude. Unpowered landings were far safer than in normal aircraft (or most helicopters). The Cierva C.30A was a significant improvement in autogyro design. In earlier examples the rotor was completely unpowered, and some way had to be found to bring it up to speed – often by using ropes to start it moving. On the C.30A the engine could be connected to the rotor at take-off, to start it rotating (but not to provide direct lift as in a helicopter)."
Avro Rota (Cierva C.30A)

 

"The Avro Rota was the name given to twelve Cierva C.30A autogiros built under licence for the RAF by Avro during 1934-35. The autogiro was designed to be almost impossible to stall. If the machine was travelling too slowly to generate enough lift, it gently lost altitude. Unpowered landings were far safer than in normal aircraft (or most helicopters). The Cierva C.30A was a significant improvement in autogyro design. In earlier examples the rotor was completely unpowered, and some way had to be found to bring it up to speed – often by using ropes to start it moving. On the C.30A the engine could be connected to the rotor at take-off, to start it rotating (but not to provide direct lift as in a helicopter)."
Avro Rota (Cierva C.30A)

 

"Marshal of France was the highest military rank in France before the revolution. After the revolution it was abolished as an elitest rank, but in 1804 Napoleon reinstated it as part of his attempts to rebuild a system of honours in France. Napoleon appointed twenty six marshals between 1804 and 1815."
Napoleon's Marshals

 

The English Civil War killed more British soldiers than any other conflict, with 100,00 estimated battle fatalities in England and another 84,000 in Scotland-
English Civil War - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

"The A7V was the German response to the initial successes of the British tanks forces on the Western Front in 1916 (WW1). It was first proposed towards the end of 1916, and the prototype was ready by the middle of 1917. Like several other tanks of the period, it was based on the American Holt Tractor, which provided the tracks. Despite suffering from many obvious flaws, the German general staff was aware that they did not have time to produce an improved design, and at the end of 1917 ordered 100, of which only one third were ever produced"
http://www.historyofwar.org/articles/weapons_a7v.html

 

Last night saw something of medical military history from local "theme channel".

Henry V of England - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

History of Dentistry Research Page, Newsletter

Henry was in command of part of the English forces—he led his own army into Wales against Owain Glyndŵr and joined forces with his father to fight Harry Hotspur at Shrewsbury in 1403.[4] It was there that the sixteen-year-old prince was almost killed by an arrow which became stuck in his face. An ordinary soldier might have died from such a wound, but Henry had the benefit of the best possible care. Over a period of several days John Bradmore, the royal physician, treated the wound with honey to act as an antiseptic, crafted a special tool to screw into the broken arrow shaft and thus extract the arrow without doing further damage, and then flushed the wound with alcohol. The operation was successful, but it left Henry with permanent scars which would serve as evidence of his experience in battle.

Incredible operation at the time....

 

It's amazing Kai. I remember in a programme about the battle of Towton, one of the recovered skulls from a mass grave showed signs of having recovered from an old sword cut that should have killed him years before.
We just don't give Mediaeval physicians enough credit for skills or knowledge.

 

"The Sri Lankan Civil War was a conflict fought on the island of Sri Lanka. Beginning on June 23, 1983, there was an on-and-off insurgency against the government by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (the LTTE, also known as the Tamil Tigers and other few rebel groups), a separatist militant organization which fought to create an independent Tamil state named Tamil Eelam in the north and the east of the island. After a 26 year long military campaign, the Sri Lankan military defeated the Tamil Tigers in May 2009."
Sri Lankan Civil War - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

" In the ninety-five days between Ludendorff´s Black Day and 11 November the British had about 250,000 men killed or wounded, their highest daily casualty rate since the last bout of fluid fighting in 1914."

From " England´s last war against France " by Colin Smith