War and Game

Fulk Nerra's fortress strategy greatly expanded Anjou. He constructed a network of castles, fortified houses, and towns no more than a day's march apart, to surround and isolate his enemies. The map shows the defensive beginnings and later offensive momentum which this strategy of conquest generated.

For over half a century, from 980 to around 1030, Fulk Nerra dominated his county by means of a fortress strategy. At first this was defensive. His greatest competitor was Odo I, count of Blois, and ruler of the important city of Tours. Odo also controlled Saumur, so cutting off Angevin contact with the Touraine. In 992-94, Fulk constructed Langeais to secure a route south from Angers. He also drew upon his father's alliance with Bouchard of Vendome to outflank Tours. His prime aim was to establish lines of communication with his southern fortresses of Loudun, Loches, and the Vienne valley. There was a risk that Fulk's vassals might transfer their allegiance to the count of Blois to preserve their lands; their defenders could submit to a besieger without penalty - only if they held out would they suffer massacre. So, Fulk's fortifications acted as staging posts, both defensible refuges and bases for supporting advances. They needed to be within a day's march of one another; no more than 20 miles (32 km) apart.

The sudden death of Odo in 996 allowed Fulk to take the initiative. He seized control of the Loire valley from Montsoreau to Amboise; but he had overreached himself. The new king of France, Robert, married Bertha of Blois and recaptured the city. Fulk learnt his lesson and was a most scrupulous vassal thereafter. He worked instead on developing a secure route through the northern Touraine to Amboise, constructing and rebuilding castles a day's march apart at Semblançay, Château-la-Valliere, and Baugé. Once again this was defensive, while the fortification of a domus (house) at Morand to harass communications between Tours and Chateau Renault was aggressive.

South of the Loire, Fulk was strong in the valleys of the Indre and Vienne, but lacked a good link from Angers to Vihiers above the Layon. The situation was worsened by the defection of his previous ally, viscount Aimeri of Thouars, in 994. Needing a link to Loudun, Fulk began by fortifying Passavant and Montglan, a little further east. Montreuil-Bellay was only constructed c.1 030, after the fall of Saumur. Its castellan, Berlaius, and his garrison ofcaballarii (mounted warriors) were tasked with protecting the area from attacks by the men of Thouars.

Meanwhile, following the loss of Tours in 997, Fulk began to encircle the city, building Montbazon in the same year. The castle also operated against the Blésois communications between Tours and lIe-Bouchard and, in co-ordination with the garrison of Langeais, against Chinon. Soon after 1000, Fulk established a castle southeast of Tours at Montrésor.
Montrichard was constructed c.1005 to increase the pressure on St Aignan, a castle captured later and used as a base for further penetration of the Cher valley. Odo II's campaigns to recover St Aignan led to his defeat by Fulk at the battle of Pontlevoy in 1016.

In the west, Fulk used his vassals effectively, with Renaud controlling Champtoceaux c.998, and Drogo in Chateaupanne c.1 006. Montjean was constructed shordy afterwards. St Florent-le-Vieil completed the defence of the Loire in the 1030s. Pushing south, Montrevault was established at the same time and later, in the 1020s, Montfaucon and La Tour Landry stood against hostile Thouars. Mirebeau, built c.1 000, protected the southern march from attack from Poitiers. Fulk's influence may have spread even further south, supporting the lord of Parthenay in constructing that castle (c.1012) and later an outpost at Germond (1026). The strength of William V, count of Aquitaine, meant that it was advisable to use a less direct strategy than that employed against the count of Blois.

In the north, Fulk built upon the position established by his father at Sable. Chateau-Gontier, on the Mayenne, and Chateau du Loir were constructed after 1005 against Le Mans. Most of the castles were built in the 101 Os and 1020s, establishing a deep frontier, or limes, along the river Loir. It is possible to identify several strategic groupings of castles in a similar fashion, defending Fulk's territories. Of course, these did not form a rigid defensive line, rather a flexible defence-in-depth against the chevauchee. In 1026 and 1027, Odo II of Blois penetrated as far as Saumur, which had fallen to Fulk in the former year - but to no avail.

Castle garrisons were not intended to challenge an invading force, rather to harass it. Unless the attacker wished to commit his forces to siege, and risk being surprised by a relief force, he could achieve little. Fulk avoided battle and preferred to develop a strategic stranglehold through his fortifications. The final result, although not in his lifetime, was the conquest of Tours in 1044, after a half century of pressure.

Role of women in eighteenth-century Andean rebellions against the Spanish. The eighteenth century in the Andes has been called the age of Andean rebellion. Starting in 1730 with a rebellion in Cochabamba, the era was marked by numerous localized village revolts, insurrections, and protests, culminating in the firestorm of the Great Rebellion of 1780–1782. This violent upheaval in southern Peru and territories in present-day Bolivia and northern Chile, according to probably exaggerated contemporary estimates, left more than 100,000 dead. The rebellion comprised two large insurgencies, which gradually merged during the first half of 1781: the Túpac Amaru uprising in southern Peru and the Túpac Catari uprising in Charcas (present-day Bolivia). Women played a central role in the Great Rebellion, as both protagonists and victims. The participation of rebel women in these insurgencies often stemmed from their insertion into the kinship network of a male insurgent leader, but they led as well as followed, and some acted entirely of their own volition. That they were able to do so owed much to the remarkable relative freedom that rural, especially indigenous, women enjoyed in eighteenth century rural Andean society.

After two centuries of colonial rule, Andean women of the eighteenth century, despite legal provisions that ostensibly circumscribed their freedom of action, were deeply enmeshed in all areas of economic and social life. Restrictions bore more heavily on elite Hispanic women than on their indigenous or mixed-race counterparts. The exceptions to this rule were female slaves, as distinct from free blacks; the conditions in which the slaves lived ranged from poor to appalling. Yet here, too, ways were found to navigate legal prohibitions to one’s own advantage. Domestic slaves, particularly those in urban areas, often enjoyed a fair measure of de facto liberty, at least in comparison to their counterparts on rural haciendas and coastal plantations, whose living conditions were often dire.

Women immersed themselves fully in productive and commercial endeavors, despite ostensibly being severely restricted by law from the freedom to work in a trade or to engage in commerce. Marriage, of course, was the most viable way of life for women of the time, but numerous middle- and lower-class Hispanic women earned their daily bread as market traders or tailors, by making and renting festive costumes, by conducting long-distance commerce, and as petty rentières and money lenders. Among the upper tiers of society, not a few women held sway over family haciendas and estancia operations; others ran textile manufactories both large and small. From surviving notarized testaments, it is evident that many such women accumulated impressive fortunes and exercised de facto influence, both over their extended families and within colonial society.

Away from the cities, rural women, especially indigenous women, appear to have had fewer constraints. It was among the overwhelmingly more numerous indigenous population that women came to exercise an influence that took them to war in roles ranging from leaders (cacicas, or female chiefs) to camp followers (rabanas). Rural areas, however far-flung, did have strong links to the cities; members of the indigenous communities realized that cities offered a chance to market their produce and a place where they might find work. It was the city that provided an opportunity for women to become wage earners. This was not a woman’s individual decision, but a collective community, or at least familial, strategy to earn money for taxes and to obtain merchandise and foodstuff otherwise unavailable through subsistence farming and village markets. Urban domestic service in the coastal cities depended heavily on slave or free black workers, but in the highland cities such as La Paz and Cuzco, indigenous servants were the norm; young indigenous servant women, in particular, were ubiquitous in urban households. Indigenous and mixed-race women (castas, mestizas, mulattas, cholas, pardas) had a salient presence in late colonial protests, whether violent or peaceful.

In both cities and the country, indigenous and caste women shared the general malaise that led to the outbreak of the Great Rebellion of 1780–1782 in the southern Andes. Three women in particular stood out as leaders in 1780–1781: Micaela Bastidas, wife of José Gabriel Túpac Amaru; Bartolina Sisa, wife of Túpac Catari; and Túpac Catari’s sister, Gregoria Apasa, who upon becoming the consort (amante) of Andrés Túpac Amaru, helped to unify the two insurgencies following the capture and execution of her brother. These three consorts were more than the “women behind the throne.” They played an active role that perhaps owed more to indigenous understandings of shared familial or clan responsibilities than to European notions of patriarchal leadership. In rural society, female authority was more pronounced among the upper tiers of indigenous society, manifest in the widespread phenomenon of female incumbency of the indigenous chieftainships (cacicazgos). These were the cacicas, whose authority spanned the full gamut of functions associated with this office. Their authority ranged from sole responsibility or shared responsibility with their spouses to nominal responsibility in which the woman inherited the office from a relative, the duties of which were performed thenceforth by her husband.

The most prominent of these three figures was Micaela Bastidas. At times, she appears to have directed rebel operations and to have had a better sense of military priorities than her husband, whose undoubted charisma was not always matched by a clear strategic vision or a recognition of the need to take urgent action to forestall looming military and logistical crises. Bastidas, on the contrary, combined strategic clarity with a heightened sense of urgency. Her demonstrated ability as a military planner and staff officer was superior to that of her husband. Moreover, Bastidas was reputed to have been fiercer than her husband, issuing threats to the fainthearted and ordering reprisals against deserters, peninsular Spaniards (chapetones), and even creoles (españoles), although she herself had been registered as a Creole (española) at her baptism. It was alleged that her orders and threats led to the death of many chapetones and Creoles in the provinces. She employed a mixture of menace and persuasion in forging and maintaining alliances and allegiances, oversaw prisoners and their interrogation, and directed recruiting efforts once the rebellion had commenced. She also made rebel loyalists and her “favorites” officeholders (caciques, alcaldes) in many highland villages. Bastidas received aid from her kinswomen, among whom Cecilia Túpac Amaru and Marcela Castro are the best known. She ruled with an iron hand at the rebel headquarters in Tungasuca while her husband was on expeditions. She sent written orders to the provinces, organized logistics, and even reprimanded her spouse over his lack of urgency and inability to understand the ebb and flow of the fortunes of war. Bastidas combined decisiveness in command with a clear appreciation of strategic and tactical considerations; her grasp of details was as assured as her astute appreciation of the strategic imperatives.

Bartolina Sisa did not exercise control over rebel partisans to nearly such a degree as did Bastidas, but she did accompany her husband and his army in battle. Indeed, her husband similarly lacked the stature of Túpac Amaru, such that Catari needed to shore up his own uncertain authority by invoking Amaru’s name. Nevertheless, Bartolina Sisa remained at the center of operations in upper Peru. In particular, she helped form, organize, and direct the catarista army. Gregoria Apasa, however, surpassed Sisa’s achievements and leadership status, and her role from mid-1781 was more akin to that of Bastidas in the northern movement. By that time, José Gabriel had been captured and executed, and his nephew Andrés (Mendigure) Túpac Amaru had taken effective control of the greater insurgency. His personal liaison with Túpac Catari’s sister facilitated the union of the two movements. Their relationship was part political, part personal, and it is impossible to ascertain precisely the extent to which Andrés and Gregoria shared power. Clearly, however, she played a major role in the combined operations of the joint insurgency. In a notorious incident, when rebel forces took the town of Sorata, she and Andrés jointly sat in judgment of the captives, many of whom were summarily executed.

Gregoria Apasa became popularly known as queen (reina) of the southern insurgency. Micaela Bastidas was deferred to variously as la cacica, señora gobernadora, or simply “wife of the rebel.” There was, however, tacit recognition of her de facto regal status: Túpac Catari called himself viceroy and his wife vicereine, thereby acknowledging the sovereignty of José Gabriel Túpac Amaru; Micaela was thus implicitly regarded as queen, in contrast to Bartolina’s vicereine. Titles were important within indigenous society; rank lent elite authority. This held true for both women and men. Micaela derived her authority from José Gabriel’s status as Inca. There were, however, other women who collaborated closely during the rebellion whose elite status sprang from their high birth or innate talents. The cacica of the towns of Acos and Acomayo, Tomasa Tito Condemaita, led the Indians within her chiefdom to the field of battle. The cacica of Combapata, Catalina Salas Pachacuti, was of noble Incan lineage; her husband was Ramón Moscoso, who derived his local authority from her inherited office and who was the cousin of the powerful bishop of Cuzco. Therefore, Doña Catalina enjoyed an elite status in both town and country. We know less about a third rebel cacica, Francisca Herrera, who nevertheless is perhaps the most interesting of these three: she is also described as a beata, or holy woman. This intriguing aside hints at a religious wellspring of female political authority in rural areas.

There is similar testimony in two later movements: in Lircay (Huancavelica) in 1811 and in Ocongate in the Cuzco region in 1814–1815. During the former, which was a localized messianic revolt, the charismatic authority of the leader was said to derive from his mother, an alleged sorceress (bruja); in the latter case, a major indigenous insurgency within the 1814 so-called revolution of the fatherland, the wife of the principal insurgent was also said to be a bruja. In any event, religious praxis and political authority were probably indivisible within native Andean society, and political authority in the colonial Andes encompassed the principle that a woman or a man might hold political office, either separately or jointly.

It was therefore right and proper that female leaders such as Bastidas, Sisa, Apasa, and Tito Condemaita should be tried for treason and related crimes; they could hardly expect a plea of mitigation, based on compulsion from their spouses, to succeed. It followed ineluctably that they would be found guilty, and the penalty for treason was death. Because of their culpability, many women died, because the death penalty was judged appropriate to their crimes. What was not consonant with due legal process, however, was the horrific manner of their execution. A few details will suffice: Bastidas’s tongue was cut out, and she was then garroted. Because of the slenderness of her neck, this method was unsuccessful, and the two official executioners tied ropes around her neck, which each pulled, all the while punching her stomach and breasts until she died. Apasa was paraded with a crown made of nails, and Sisa was ritually humiliated in a similar manner. The corpses of all three were decapitated and dismembered, with their heads, arms, and hands placed on pikes at select villages throughout the southern highlands. If under prevailing legal norms they deserved death, the manner of their execution was unwarranted— and is resented to the present day by Peruvians and Bolivians. Today these women are venerated as martyrs and heroines in the struggle for freedom from Spanish tyranny.

References and Further Reading
Campbell, Leon. “Women and the Great Rebellion in Peru, 1780–1783,” The Americas 42, no. 2 (1985):163–196.
Martín, Luis. 1983. Daughters of the Conquistadores: Women of the Viceroyalty of Peru. Dallas, TX: Southern Methodist University Press.
Silverblatt, Irene. 1987. Moon, Sun, and Witches: Gender Ideologies and Class in Inca and Colonial
Peru. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Socolow, Susan Migden. 2000. The Women of Colonial Latin America. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.
Stavig, Ward. 1999. The World of Túpac Amaru: Conflict, Community, and Identity in Colonial
Peru. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. Thomson, Sinclair. 2002. We Alone Will Rule: Native Andean Politics in the Age of Insurgency. Madison: University of Wisconsin.

St Gotthard was the major battle in the Austro-Turkish war of 1663-64. In 1661, Habsburg forces under the Italian Raimondo Montecuccoli had intervened in Transylvania to assist a rebellion against the Turks. This was unsuccessful and provoked Turkish attacks on Austria. Montecuccoli repelled the 1663 attack and checked the invasion in 1664 at St Gotthard.

THE WAR OF 1663-64
War resumed in 1663 as a result of Habsburg efforts to challenge Ottoman dominance of Transylvania. The Grand Vizier, Fazil Ahmet, advanced in 1664, being met near St Gotthard by the Austrians under Montecuccoli, who sought to block any Ottoman advance on Graz or Vienna. The Austrians were supported by German contingents and by French troops sent by Louis XIV. The Ottoman forces, prevented from advancing across the river Raab, lost their cannon, but avoided a rout. The war was terminated swiftly by the Peace of Vasvar (1664), with an Austrian agreement to respect the Ottoman position in Transylvania.

Ahmed Fazil Köprülü (1635–1676).
Grand vezier at 26, in direct succession following his father Köprülü Mehmed Pasha, holding office from 1661–1676. He was as ruthless as his father but far more debauched. Like his father, he began his term by exterminating in a bloody purge all political opposition he could identify, including some courtiers who had supported his father and his own succession. Köprülü Ahmed Fazil also continued his father’s policy of full-bore aggression into Hungary and other Habsburg lands. His offensive into Hungary was stopped by Montecuccoli at St. Gotthard (August 1, 1664), but nevertheless resulted in a treaty favorable to the Ottomans, the Peace of Vasvár, signed nine days later. Unlike his father, Köprülü Ahmed Fazil successfully completed the Ottoman-Venetian War (1645–1669), traveling personally to Crete to conduct the final phase of the siege of Candia (1666–1669). He then opened a new front and war against Poland, the Ottoman-Polish War (1672–1676). His ambitions were repeatedly frustrated by the superior generalship of Jan Sobieski: he lost badly at Chocim in November 1673, and again at Lwów (Lvov) in 1675, despite having superior numbers in each case. He died at the start of the 1676 campaign, and his plans and army were defeated yet again later in the year at Zuravno.

Raimondo Montecuccoli, (1609–1680).
Habsburg field marshal. An Italian, he entered Austrian and Imperial service in 1625. He saw extensive action during the Thirty Years’ War (1618–1648), including at the Battles of Lutzen (1634), First Nördlingen (1634), and Wittstock (1636). He was captured by the Swedes at Wittstock and held for 30 months before being ransomed back to the emperor. He used the time to study all available literature on the “art of war,” ancient and contemporary. After his release he fought in Silesia and Lombardy. He fought against the Swedes in the last several years of the German war, notably at Zusmarshausen (1648). He fought Sweden again during the Second Northern War (1655–1660), alongside the “Great Elector” of Brandenburg, Friedrich-Wilhelm. Montecuccoli led Austrian armies against the Ottomans in the 1660s. He won at St. Gotthard (August 1, 1664), though more by Ottoman misfortune than any special skill on his part. Regardless, the victory brought him appointment as head of the Hofkriegsrat. He fought well against the French during the Dutch War (1672–1678). Feeling his age, he retired to write extensively on the subject of war and gained much influence thereby, deserved or not.

Like many minds of the age, Montecuccoli sought perfect order even in the sheer chaos of combat, believing that there were immutable “laws of war” that might be discovered and codified. This approach to war was much approved by the salon set and in studies of the good professors of the Sorbonne and The Hague, but it bore no relation to actual warfare then or since. For instance, Montecuccoli proposed a law of war that established a perfectly-sized Imperial army of 28,000 foot and 22,000 horse to face any opposing Ottoman force, of whatever size or makeup. He was more right in famously declaring that the precondition of successful war making was having enough money. As for the problem of finding soldiers to feed into the Imperial war machine he was busy crafting in theory, Montecuccoli wrote that all “orphans, bastards, beggars, and paupers” cared for by charitable orders or in hospices should be swept into the Army. This was far from the later concept of the “nation in arms” or the ancient one of a natural nobility of warriors.

Montecuccoli came out of retirement to fence with Turenne in a prolonged war of maneuver in Germany during the campaign of 1673. He joined the future William III to besiege Bonn that November. Montecuccoli lost a campaign of maneuver to Turenne during the summer of 1675. By July he was short on food and fodder, and in full retreat. Turenne tried to force battle at Sasbach on July 27, but before the fight got underway, he was killed by an Imperial cannonball. Montecuccoli retired for the final time a few months later, the same year as the Great Condé. Widely regarded and hailed by earlier historians as a brilliantly skillful practitioner of the art of 17th-century positional warfare, his reputation may exceed what is deserved. It has been downgraded in more recent studies of his campaigns and especially of his writings on war.

Battle of St. Gotthard, (August 1, 1664).
A Habsburg army reinforced by French troops and Rhinelanders to a total of about 40,000 men fought to victory over the Ottomans and their Tatar allies at St. Gotthard, a small village in Hungary near the Styrian border. The Habsburgs were led by Montecuccoli, who commanded about one-quarter of the Allied troops. Before the Allies arrived, the Ottomans had thrown a rickety bridge over the Raba river, gaining a foothold on the far side. The bridge collapsed, however, forcing the Ottomans to abandon the bridgehead. Tatars helped extricate infantry from forward positions, mounting foot soldiers on the extra horses that always accompanied Tatar fighters into battle. Failure of the bridge was compounded by tactical errors that decided the outcome of the fight, rather than by any supposed or later-reported brilliance on the part of Montecuccoli, as was once widely thought among military historians. A young Charles V also saw action at St. Gotthard, leading a cavalry charge against the Ottoman left. The result contributed to negotiation of the Peace of Vasvár (August 10, 1664), which turned into a 20-year Habsburg-Ottoman truce. This conclusion was secured only in part by military action; Leopold I also bought peace by paying a tribute to the sultan of 200,000 florins.

The Battle of Oland (30-31 May 1564) was an important episode in the bitter Swedish-Danish struggle of 1563-70. The Swedes lost their new flagship, the Mars, after repeated attacks by the Danish ships and their Lubeck allies under Herlof Trolle. The Mars was successfully boarded on the second day of the battle, caught fire, and blew up. Both fleets then withdrew for repairs.


In the Baltic in the Sixteenth Century, there was conflict between Denmark and Sweden, including a long period of war from 1501 to 1520 when the Oldenburg kings, who ruled in Denmark and Norway, tried to gain control over Sweden. In 1517, Christian II started a series of intensified attempts to gain control over Sweden. In 1524, the Danes recognized Gustavus Vasa as King of Sweden. Gustavus joined Frederick I of Denmark in defeating Lubeck and resisting an attempt by Christian II to regain the Danish throne (1534-36), but in 1563 the two powers went to war. Sweden's sole outlet to the North Sea, Alvsborg (Gothenburg), fell to the Danes in 1563, prompting Erik XIV of Sweden to seek a new route through southern Norway. Trondheim fell to the Swedes in 1564, much of southern Norway was overrun in 1567 and Oslo was taken, but the Swedes were held at Akershus. From 1565 until 1569 the Swedes held Varberg, to the south of Alvsborg.

Erik relied on native troops, which he transformed by training them in the combined use of pikes and firearms in linear formations. He made the pike the basis of offensive infantry tactics. Frederick II of Denmark used German mercenaries who were usually more successful, severely defeating the Swedes at Axtorna: Erik's troops fought well there but were poorly commanded. The Danish army managed to advance as far as Norrkoping in late 1567 before being forced to retreat by the weather.

At sea, 1563-70 saw the first modem naval war between sailing battle fleets in European waters, as Denmark and Sweden fought for control of the invasion routes. The Danes were supported by the semi-independent German city of Lubeck - no longer the great sea power it had been but still able to make an important contribution. Both sides sought to destroy the opposing fleet, and seven battles were fought between 1563 and 1566. The Swedes, under Klas Kristersson Hom, with their modem bronze artillery, systematically used stand-off gunfire to block Danish boarding tactics: sheer weight of metal was decisive. Both navies expanded greatly, and in the late 1560s the Swedes may have had the largest sailing fleet of the period. Both sides were exhausted by 1568, and peace was agreed without any territorial gains to either side.

Warfare on land in the Baltic involved relatively few battles. Sieges were more important, while devastation was used to reduce opponents' fighting capability. This conflict is far more than a footnote to the history of European warfare, being an important reminder of the growing prominence of Sweden and Russia. The tactics employed were less formalistic than those developed in western Europe, and the troops sometimes less specialized in weaponry, but their warfare was well-suited to the eastern European military circumstances of great distances and small populations.

Twice in the sixteenth century, foolish military initiatives by young monarchs led to the end of their lives and of the independence of important states. Sebastian of Portugal was crushed by the Moroccans at Alcazarquivir in 1578. In 1526, Louis II of Hungary confronted the powerful forces of Suleiman the Magnificent. Although Suleiman had set off in April 1526, bad weather delayed his crossing of the river Drava until late August. The Hungarians, however, in part due to slow preparations, were divided, poorly led and short of infantry, and they failed either to contest the Drava crossing or to retire to Buda and allow the Ottomans to exhaust their resources in a difficult siege. Instead they deployed behind the Borza, a small tributary of the Danube, and rather than waiting on the defensive, their heavy cavalry advanced.


The Hungarian charge (1) pushed back the Ottoman sipahis (cavalry) of Rumelia, but halted when Turkish troops advanced on their flank. Louis then led the remainder of his cavalry in a second attack which drove through the sipahis of Anatolia, but was stopped by the janissaries and cannon. Their fITe caused havoc, and the Hungarians, their dynamism spent, were then attacked in front and rear by the more numerous Turkish forces. Louis and most of his aristocracy died on the battlefield or in the nearby Danube marshes, Louis drowning while trying to swim across a river in armour, and few of his army escaped (3). Suleiman swept on to Buda, which fell ten days later. The days of independent Hungary were numbered. Louis had no children, and his inheritance was to be contested by his brother-in-law Archduke Ferdinand and by the Ottomans. Suleiman, however, initially decided not to annex Hungary but rather to accept the suggestion by John Zapolya, Prince of Transylvania, who was opposed to the Habsburgs, that he and his supporters be left in control in return for an acknowledgement of Ottoman suzerainty and a payment of tribute. Zapolya was chosen King of Hungary at the Tokay diet in 1527, but the Habsburgs under Ferdinand defeated him in 1527, leading to renewed Ottoman intervention in 1528-29.

By the Spring of 1917 the Western Front had been stalemated for more than two years with the armies of Germany and the Allies deadlocked in static trench warfare. At sea, the fleets of both Germany and Great Britain were also at a strategic impasse following the inconclusive Battle of Jutland in 1916. The unrestricted U-Boat campaign in the Atlantic had resulted in Americas entry into the War, and Germany turned to its fledgling air force to help break the deadlock. Night raids by Zeppelins in 1915 and 1916 had proven ineffectual as the great airships had proven vulnerable to the unpredictable weather and to increasingly effective defenses. A new strategic weapon would therefore be utilized - the heavy bomber. With a fleet of such airplanes, the very heart of London could be attacked.

In March of 1917 a new unit was formed in Flanders, soon to be known as the England Geschwader. Lead by Hauptman Ernst Brandenburg, Kaghol 3 (the units official designation,) was equipped with the Gotha G. IV. With a crew of three, and a wingspan of nearly seventy-eight feet, the G. IV was an impressive flying machine. Powered by twin 260-HP Mercedes six cylinder, in-line, water-cooled engines, the Gotha had a top speed of 88-MPH. Its service ceiling was more than 21,000 feet, and its range was 305 miles. The maximum bomb load was 1,100 pounds, but on the first daylight raid on London, each aircraft would carry six 110-lb bombs. For defensive purposes the Gothas were armed with two 7.92mm machine guns. An interesting feature of the G. IV was the ability of the rear gunner to fire not only rearwards and upwards, but could also fire downwards through a specially designed tunnel in the fuselage.

On June 13, 1917 Brandenburg led his unit in his red-tailed Gotha on the first daylight bombing raid to London. Twenty G. IVs departed on this historic mission, but two soon turned back, and another four bombed other targets due to mechanical problems. A total of 128 bombs were dropped on the mission with devastating effects. All told, 162 people were killed in the raid, and another 432 were injured. It was a portent of the future of aerial warfare. Although 94 defensive sorties were flown against the raiders, only a few British fighters made contact with the Gothas before they reached their targets. One fighter which did intercept was a Bristol F2B piloted by Capt. C. W. E. Cole-Hamilton of No. 35 Training Squadron. The observer, Capt. C. H. Keevil was killed during the battle.

On the next day, June 14, it was announced that Brandenburg had been awarded the Pour Le Mérite. No general citation this time, it specifically mentioned the attack on London of his 17 aircraft. He was ordered to the Kaiser's headquarters in Ban Kreuznach to give a personal report and be invested with the order by the Emperor himself. Then an ironic tragedy occurred. In taking off on June 19 to return to his squadron, the two-seater crashed killing his pilot, Oberleutnant Hans-Ulrich von Trotha, and so severely injuring him that he lost a leg. The command of Kagohl 3 was turned over to Hauptmann Rudolf Kleine

By then the first battle of Britain was well underway.

LINK

One of the most significant developments in command and control during the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars was the introduction of the combat division and army corps. The increasing size of armies during the eighteenth century as well as multiple theatres of war required administrative reorganization of European armies. Generally, the standard military unit was the infantry regiment, composed of one or two combat battalions and a depot battalion. Cavalry regiments also remained the standard, although their squadrons could be divided among armies in different theatres.




The army commander therefore contended with controlling numerous battalions and squadrons on the strategic, operational and tactical level. This created an enormous burden for army staffs, who had the responsibility for keeping track of the units within an army, keeping them supplied and ensuring that orders were properly disseminated in a timely fashion. This was no easy task. The coordination of tens of thousands of men on campaign often led to confusion and inefficiency. To reduce the difficulty, European armies were often organized into ad hoc wings, columns (Abteilungen) , divisions and brigades whose composition depended entirely on the mission at hand. There was no standardization of army organization above the regiment.



In 1759, during the Seven Years War, the Duc de Broglie (1718-1804) established combat divisions within French Army, but these were temporary formations. Also during the mid-eighteenth century, the French army introduced the administrative military division. France was divided into military regions and each general of a division was responsible for the regiments garrisoned within his region. This organization, however, did not translate into the standing combat division that emerged during the French Revolutionary Wars (1792-1802), but it provided the foundation for that development.



Pierre de Bourcet (1700-80), a staff officer, advocated the introduction of the division as a standard formation in his Principes de la Guerre des Montagnes, written in the 1760s-1770s. Divisions would enable an army to advance along parallel routes and unite rapidly for battle. The formation would facilitate greater efficiency on campaign and provide for the rapid movement of larger numbers of troops over great distances, as opposed to an army using a single road, moving slowly and encumbered by supply trains. To that end, another French military theorist, the Comte de Guibert (1743-90), argued in his Essai general de tactique of the early 1770s that armies should dispense with their supply trains in order to increase their flexibility and mobility.



'March Divided, Fight United'



The division began to develop in the mid-eighteenth century as a means of improving an army's strategic mobility and its ease of command. A general commanding an army did not have to keep track of each battalion and squadron but merely of his divisions. Meanwhile, the divisional generals were responsible for controlling their respective regiments. Indeed, while the French explored divisional organization they also introduced the infantry brigade - a unit formed of two infantry regiments. Prussia, too, organized its army into brigades but did not adopt the combat division. What made the French division unique was the integration of artillery and cavalry into the table of organization. Typically, artillery and cavalry were under the direct control of the army commander, who apportioned it to his subordinates as needed. By integrating artillery and cavalry into the divisional structure, the French possessed greater firepower and reconnaissance at a lower level. Divisions could march divided, engage the enemy and have adequate support for a short period until reinforced by other divisions. The principle is often cited as 'march divided, fight united'.



During the French Revolutionary Wars, the increased size of campaign armies compelled the Revolutionaries to introduce the combat division as a permanent entity within army organization. Each division comprised two infantry brigades, a cavalry detachment - a squadron or regiment and an artillery battery. At times, generals gave command of multiple divisions to a single subordinate, dependent upon the plan of operations. General Andre Massena (1758-1817), for example, led two divisions of Napoleon's Army of Italy in 1796; General Kleber also led two divisions in Belgium in 1794.



Napoleon built upon the divisional foundation to expand the organizational system, introducing the corps d’armée. These bodies existed during the revolution but in a temporary state. Each corps comprised two or three infantry divisions, a cavalry brigade (later division), divisional artillery and a corps artillery reserve. Engineer companies and a corps staff were included to make the organization a self-contained fighting unit of 20,000-30,000 men.



A marshal of France, and occasionally a general of division (general de division), commanded a French corps after 1804. Each divisional commander, his brigadiers and the regiments comprising the corps remained part of the corps from campaign to campaign. A French corps also, like a Roman Legion, generally remained in a specific European theatre. Thus Marshal Louis Davout's vaunted III Corps of the Grande Armée retained its composition from its establishment in 1803 through to 1812 and was based in Germany.



Ideally, French corps operated on independent axes of advance but within mutual support of another. This allowed Napoleon to coordinate the Grande Armée on campaign with greater ease than his opponents could control their armies; the latter rejected the corps system, preferring the traditional column, or Abteilung. During the 1806 campaign against Prussia, Napoleon deployed his army into essentially three columns of three corps, the bataillon carré. Each corps was a half-day march from the supporting corps and a full day from all corps in any direction.



Prussia and Austria adopted the divisional system by the early nineteenth century, but their divisions remained largely administrative, and no standing combat divisions came into being until 1809 and thereafter. The Russians did develop military divisions and combat divisions by 1805, but they were incredibly cumbersome and lacked the appropriate staff to manage the brigades and regiments adequately. In Britain, brigade and divisional organization were ad hoc, with formations established for specific expeditions.

During its first surge eastward in 1941, the Wehrmacht only allowed towns and villages to impede the advance if their capture was vital - for instance, in order to secure a river crossing. Even then many were taken at the run, shock being regarded as more important than preparation. However, whereas in 1939 there had been a general expectation of avoiding committing armour to built-up areas, German tacticians now seemed more ambivalent. A German document on armoured divisions, translated early in 1942, set out the general parameters:


Except where necessary, tanks should not be employed in built-up areas, since their movements are restricted and they are easy targets for anti-tank weapons. When the armoured division is compelled to fight in a built-up area, the task should be assigned to the motorized infantry... [these] may be strengthened by single heavy tanks, heavy anti-tank guns, and engineer assault detachments [to] give support by engaging particularly strongly fortified defended areas. Built-up areas can be overcome more rapidly and with fewer casualties if smoke is used to blind the enemy, if he is paralyzed by artillery and bombing attacks, or if the area is burned down. Tank and motorized infantry units following in the rear of the first wave will be employed to flank the locality and take it from the rear. Liaison must be insured between forces carrying out the frontal and flank attacks.

How this worked in practice was demonstrated by an account of how a Panzergrenadier company dealt with the village of Krutojarka in the Ukraine. Once action was imminent the company moved at speed in its armoured carriers, dispersed in both width and depth with at least 20 yards between vehicles:

Guns can be seen flashing at the edge of the village. The Russian force is engaged. We hear the fire of the Russian anti-tank guns and our own tank cannon, and, in between, the sound of both sides' machine gun fire. The Panzergrenadier company commander gives his orders by radio: as soon as the grenadiers see Russian soldiers, they are to fire on them direct from their carriers, or else dismount quickly and fight on the ground... The first tanks enter Krutojarka, but presently reappear. The company commander radios the order 'Clear the town!' The personnel carriers advance past the tanks, which are firing with all their guns, and move towards the edge of the village ...

A personnel carrier's track is hit by a flanking anti-tank gun. The grenadiers jump out and assault the gun crew with machinegun fire, while the driver and the man beside him get out and, under fire, change the link of the broken track. The attacking grenadiers have now reached a street at the edge of the village. Startled by the suddenness of the assault, the Russians take cover in houses, bunkers, foxholes and other hideouts. The grenadiers jump out of the carriers and advance along the street, making good use of grenades, pistols and bayonets. The driver and the second man remain in each carrier. The carriers skirt around the sides of the village, with the men beside the drivers delivering flanking fire against the buildings. Soon the roofs of the houses are on fire; the smoke grows thicker and thicker. Three tanks push forward along the main street to support the attack of the grenadiers.

We find the smoke an advantage, as it prevents the Russians discovering that there are relatively few of us. Also, as a result of the poor visibility, the Russians cannot employ their numerous machine guns with full effect. We, for our part, are able to engage in the close fighting in which we excel. It is no longer possible to have one command for the company; officers and NCOs have formed small shock detachments, which advance from street corner to street corner, and from bunker to ditch, eliminating one Russian nest after another. A lieutenant holds a grenade until it almost explodes, and then throws it into a bunker...

As explained in the British Periodical Notes on the German Army, where villages lay in the path of an armoured division it was the job of the lorried or armoured infantry to clear them, 'engineers armed with explosives and flamethrowers' giving valuable support. While fire against the outskirts - supplemented by generated smoke or burning buildings occupied the defenders from various quarters, the main attack came in from 'an unexpected direction'. The hard slog was then the job of dismounted troops, 'organized for street fighting', commonly using 'one company with support weapons under command' concentrated to deal with a row of houses. Where resistance was stiff it might be necessary to use as much as a battalion with attached troops for a single street.

As the German offensive faltered in the East the whole campaign became less of a Sichelschnitt ('sickle cut') through the opposition, and much more a matter of 'take and hold'. Protracted fighting in built-up areas was a symptom of this change, and it is arguable that extensive street fighting was one of the first signs of German failure in the East. Urban battles cost large numbers of men, and in comparison with Germany the USSR's human resources appeared almost limitless. Many towns would be fought over during four years of war, notably Orel, Odessa, Zhitomir, Rostov, Kharkov, Sevastopol and finally Berlin itself; but one battle for a city naturally stands out, and it was during the struggle for Stalingrad that Russian street-fighting methods would be immeasurably improved.

Marshal M.N. Tukhachevsky was the bright star of the Red Army in the early 1930s. His execution in May 1937, accused amongst other crimes of sabotage, began the avalanche of murder known as the Great Purges. One reason Stalin considered the marshal a saboteur was the weak state of the defenses on the approaches to Leningrad.


Thanks to its extensive and effective spy network the USSR learned of Barbarossa soon after Wehrmacht leaders. Initially, the Soviets planned to defend critical axes of advance using their fortified regions. That plan ceased to be workable when the Soviet Union extended its borders west in 1939-40. The decision to deploy defending units so far forward also robbed the Red Army of room to maneuver - a traditional Russian strength.

As Red Army Chief of Staff and member of the Military Soviet from 1926-34, Tukhachevsky focused on defending the Ukraine and the twin "capitals" of Moscow and Leningrad. By 1940, however, much had changed and the German Blitzkrieg campaigns had turned the military world on 16 its head. While Stalin acted the good neighbor to assuage Hitler, Soviet military thinkers put Tukhachevsky's offensive doctrines on hold until they had found a way to halt the Blitzkrieg.

The Red Army began planning in earnest immediately following Hitler's "secret" 31 July 1940 meeting. Following Stalin's contributions, Mobilization Plan 41 (MP 41) was published in October 1940. Results of wargames in December and January of 1941 painted a gloomy picture. On 13 January Stalin asked "Who won here?" None of his generals answered satisfactorily. Stalin made General G.K. Zhukov Red Army Chief of Staff two weeks later.

Even the USSR's best general could not work defensive miracles in less than five months. His State Defensive Plan 41 (DP 41) stated "that the Red Army would begin military operations in response to an aggressive attack." While remaining on the strategic defensive it would unleash operational offensives that might penetrate into the Reich; the Soviets were also aware of the panzer thrusts' lack of mutual support and vulnerable flanks.

Fatefully, Zhukov's plans also called for the forward deployment of 237 out of 303 divisions. The opening of the Barbarossa offensive on 22 June came too soon for MP 41 and DP 41 to take effect. On that date the Red Army was deployed as follows: First Echelon (6-30 miles deep) - 57 divisions, Second Echelon (30-60 miles) - 52 divisions, Third Echelon (60-240 miles) - 62 divisions. This positioning of so much of the Red Army in forward areas played into the Germans' hands.

Initial planning in the north assumed that Leningrad would only be threatened from Finland and that German thrusts would aim for Moscow. By 18 November 1940 the Soviets learned of the existence in German planning of a supporting attack heading for Leningrad. A defensive plan from that date identified an attack axis through Pskov and anticipated the Finns advancing via Vyborg against Leningrad. Responsibility for defending the Pskov-Ostrov approaches to Bolshevism's birthplace shifted to the Baltic Special Military District from the Leningrad Military District. Unfortunately for the Soviets, neither headquarters gave the issue its full attention.

Such plans as did exist identified two phases of defensive fighting: first at the frontier and along the Dvina River, second on the line Riga-Pskov-Luga-Novgorod. This took advantage of natural obstacles like the Velikaya and Luga Rivers, as well as marshes and forests in the area. A later plan, dated 15 May 1941, maintained Leningrad Military District responsibility for defending Leningrad and the Murmansk rail line. The same plan gave the Baltic Special Military District the mission to halt the enemy between Riga and Vilnius and hold the Baltic Islands. The "Leningraders" would accomplish their assigned mission. Their comrades on the East Prussian border would not.

The "1941 Plan for the Defense of State Borders" assumed Germany would need 10-15 days to finalize their invasion. However, Stalin preferred to look the other way as the Wehrmacht prepared for 11 months. One observer called Hitler the only man Stalin ever trusted. The dictator's wishful thinking was not the Soviets' sole intelligence weakness. They over-estimated German strength at 260 divisions, 10,000 tanks and 15,000 aircraft (real numbers: 150, 3,300, and 2,510 respectively). However, 500,000 untrained recruits and reserve armies sent to die front in the weeks prior to Bartarossatag could not stave off disaster.