War and Game

The word “arsenal,” derived from an Arabic phrase meaning a “house of manufacture,” entered western usage around the mid-sixteenth century. The words “arsenal,” “armory,” and “magazine” are often used synonymously. Traditionally, an armory focuses on the manufacturing, repair, and storage of weapons, while a magazine is a structure or complex that supports storage of munitions and equipage.

By definition, an arsenal represents specialized industrial structures for the purpose of manufacture, repair, storage, and supply of both arms of various size and type and their associated munitions and equipage. In the seventeenth century, a powder magazine was established in each English colony in North America by royal charter. These magazines varied in size and construction from earthen cellars to grand structures. Although militia laws required each male to own a suitable firearm with a supply of fixed or ready-made cartridges, large stores of powder and shot remained centralized in the magazines. Powder was stored in wooden barrels secured by wooden hoops and issued to the militia in emergencies. Various militia manuals of the day provided instructions for making fixed cartridges from loose powder, paper, and ball. To support English industry, by the mid-eighteenth century powder manufacture in the North American colonies was forbidden by law and weapons for the militia were either imported or stocked locally using imported parts.

The French and Indian War (1754–1760) forced the British army to establish a series of magazines running from Philadelphia to Fort Pitt (later Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania) to support forces on the northwest frontier. The town of Carlisle, Pennsylvania, was selected as the site for a central grand magazine including arms and equipment shops unique to the colonies.

During the American Revolution (1775–1783), the new nation lacked arms and ordnance manufacturing sites. On 9 January 1777 the Continental Congress established a magazine and manufacturing laboratory on the site of the old English works at Carlisle. The Carlisle complex combined the French arsenal concept of state-run manufacturing combined with the English method of using government-inspected contractors from the surrounding areas to provide raw materials and semi-finished goods. At the end of hostilities, Congress sold off the arsenal equipment at Carlisle, leaving a token amount of ordnance stores at Fort Pitt and West Point, New York.

After the War of 1812 (1812–1815), the country began a program of rebuilding the various powder magazines and associated buildings, taking full advantage of the latest European technological innovations. Vaulted brick ceilings, traversed entrances, ventilation shafts, and lightning rods were added to arsenal and magazine architecture to increase safety and protect material. Designs sought to minimize the blast effect by forcing the roof up rather than the walls out. The use of exposed metal was minimized to reduce sparks, and tools of copper, wood, and leather would become standard when working with gunpowder. By 1816 the federal government had established an arsenal system based on five manufacturing plants. Harpers Ferry, Virginia (later West Virginia), and Springfield, Massachusetts, produced small arms; Watervliet, New York, and Watertown, Massachusetts, produced artillery; and munitions and small-arms ammunition were produced and stored at Frankford, Pennsylvania. Production at these plants was supplemented by government-inspected private contractors as need arose.

In the 1820s the federal armories of Springfield and Harpers Ferry, established respectively in 1794 and 1796 on the French model, developed production techniques that revolutionized the factory system. By 1822 the federal arsenals could produce complete machine-made weapons with interchangeable parts and stocks. These advances were the result of machines and gauges developed by John D. Hall for his breech-loading rifle at Harpers Ferry and Thomas Blanchard’s duplicating lathe for making gun stocks developed at the Springfield armory. These production methods would become known as the American system and serve as a benchmark of the Industrial Revolution.

BIBLIOGRAPHY Darling, Anthony D. Red Coat and Brown Bess. Ottawa, Ont.: Museum Restoration Service, 1993. Farley, James J. Making Arms in the Machine Age: Philadelphia’s Frankford Arsenal, 1816–1870. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1994. Murray, James V., and John Swantek, eds. and comps. The Watervliet Arsenal: A Chronology of the Nation’s Oldest Arsenal. Rev. ed. Washington, D.C.: Department of the Army, 1993. Neumann, George C. Battle Weapons of the American Revolution: The Historian’s Complete Reference. Texarkana, Tex.: Scurlock, 1998. Partington, J. R. A History of Greek Fire and Gunpowder. Cambridge, U.K.: Barnes and Noble, 1960. Scott, Beth F., James C. Rainey, and Andrew W. Hunt, eds. The Logistics of War: A Historical Perspective. Maxwell Air Force Base, Ala.: Air Force Logistics Management Agency, 2000. Smith, Merrit Roe. Harpers Ferry Armory and the New Technology: The Challenge of Change. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1977. Sveda, George J. Fort McHenry Military Structures Baltimore, Maryland. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Commerce, 1969. Tousey, Thomas G. Military History of Carlisle and Carlisle Barracks. Richmond, Va.: Dietz, 1939. Wilkinson, Norman B. Explosives in History: The Story of Black Powder. Chicago: Rand McNally, 1966. Wright, Harry A., transcriber. The Genesis of the United States Armory at Springfield, Massachusetts. Springfield, Mass.: 1919.

The United States operated with two versions of the same military organization during the early period of the Republic. One version consisted of a small peacetime military force that was used to enforce order on the growing western frontier. The other was a national army that was created to conduct war in defense of the Republic. This force was initially the Continental Army during the American Revolution (1775–1783). It was later transformed into a postwar frontier defense force.

NATIONAL ARMY
The regular army or “regulars” was the governmental institution whose job was to defend the country and its citizens. This military organization consisted of established units that were garrisoned throughout the country.
The Continental Army represented the first attempt to create a national military unit within the former British colonies. This organization was made up of men who either volunteered to serve or were conscripted by their states to serve in this force. It was not uncommon to see both whites and African Americans serving in the same battalions or regiments, especially if the organization was raised in the northern states. The ages of the men ran from eighteen to fifty. Immigrant soldiers were most likely to be either Irish or German in nationality. Women were considered a part of these military units as laundresses attached to regimental companies. Women also accompanied the men into the field and assisted in any medical duties. The armament of these regiments consisted of either French or British weapons, which were either supplied or captured on the battlefield. Their officers ranged from political appointees to veterans of foreign armies.

The army of the new nation was a token force consisting of small numbers of infantry, cavalry, and artillery. Regimental officers beholden to the upkeep of their commands recruited the personnel. Many of the soldiers were older men, immigrants, or southerners. These soldiers would face the harsh environment of frontier service, where even their families might find themselves in combat. The War of 1812 (1812–1815) brought an expansion of the national army with the influx of farmers and native-born soldiers from New England. Unlike the peacetime army, this national force consisted of younger men who saw their future in land grants for military service.

SOCIAL ENVIRONMENT AND COMBAT
The culture of the army was concentrated around the company, which was the smallest level of the regular military organization. Regular army soldiers operated in a small world, interacting with officers, sergeants, and laundresses. Within these companies, the world of the soldier revolved around the mundane tasks of cooking and basic hygiene. Maintenance of health became an ongoing problem for soldiers in the field because of the rapidity with which disease attacked a unit. In addition, the quality and shortage of food became an ongoing problem for these military units. The regular units also suffered from problems in obtaining enough clothing to ward off sickness. After a particularly harsh campaign, many Continental Army regiments looked worse than their militia counterparts.

For regular units, discipline was the main focus of their training. Through proper discipline, European linear tactics became a lethal force in open country. These tactics thrust rolling waves against an enemy position, with continual strikes. To ensure this discipline, officers and sergeants were ruthless to their privates. This approach was meant to make the privates mentally strong enough to stand in a line of battle to deliver rounds of volley fire on the enemy or to withstand hand-to-hand combat.

The strong application of discipline was one reason for desertions from military units in both war and peace. In addition, the extreme boredom of frontier garrison affected the willingness of men to endure the treatment of their superiors. The use of bounties for enlistment during the American Revolution and the War of 1812 created a class of soldier that used the system for profit through multiple enlistments and desertions.

FRONTIER ARMY
From 1784 to 1828, the U.S. Army operated as a frontier constabulary for the country’s ever-moving western frontier. This deployment forced the officers and enlisted men into becoming a police force to separate the Native American population from the settlers moving into the western territories. The positioning of army units to isolated fortifications along with tight fiscal policies were used to keep the army weakened both internally and politically. Many of the posts consisted entirely of units on the company, battery, or squadron level. In 1818 the regular army numbered roughly seventy-five-hundred men. The U.S. Army maintained sixty-four garrisons, in which units of more than one hundred men of all ranks occupied twenty-three posts. Entire regiments were rarely in the field at one time, except during war.

During times of peace, army life became very ritualistic and extremely lonely for officers and soldiers alike. Much of the time was focused on the maintenance of the post facilities and the occasional patrol. Small, company-sized units were sent out to establish small outposts along trading roads and water routes. Old fortifications were repaired and new ones constructed to protect the local communities. Soldiers were also called upon for construction of civilian buildings and roads. In 1818 the garrisons were ordered to start farming as a cost-saving measure. Several installations were able to raise enough crops to feed their own and other posts and sell the surplus in the marketplace. The fresh food cut the high disease rate of military garrisons, which had previously been issued low-quality food from military contractors.

Recreation on these isolated garrisons during free time was left to the creative minds of the officers and men. Army personnel resorted to activities such as gambling and drinking as a way to deal with the hard work and loneliness. Whiskey was a part of the issued rations for both officers and enlisted soldiers. The alcohol became a tool to deal with the emotional problems of garrison duty. Attempts were made to bring churches, small theater groups, and fraternal organizations like Masonic lodges to these posts. Many times it was left up to officers and enlisted men or their families to create pursuits to relieve the boredom on posts.

The U.S. Army became a tight, isolated community within the growing American Republic. Many men and their families spent their entire lives within the army going from post to post. Their mundane and ritualistic lives were interrupted by violence from time to time on the frontier. Many peacetime soldiers remained close to military garrisons upon leaving the service and formed the basis of many western towns.

BIBLIOGRAPHY Coffman, Edward M. The Old Army: Portrait of the American Army in Peacetime, 1784–1898. New York: Oxford University Press, 1986. Cox, Caroline. A Proper Sense of Honor: Service and Sacrifice in George Washington’s Army. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2004. Cress, Lawrence Delbert. Citizens in Arms: The Army and the Militia in American Society to the War of 1812. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1982. Guthman, William H. March to Massacre: A History of the First Seven Years of the United States Army, 1784–1791. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1975. Higginbotham, Don. The War of American Independence: Military Attitudes, Policies, and Practice, 1763–1789. Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1983. Kohn, Richard H. Eagle and Sword: The Federalists and the Creation of the Military Establishment in America, 1783– 1802. New York: Free Press, 1975. Neimeyer, Charles Patrick. America Goes to War: A Social History of the Continental Army. New York: New York University Press, 1996. Prucha, Francis Paul. The Sword of the Republic: The United States Army on the Frontier, 1783–1846. New York: Macmillan, 1968. Royster, Charles. A Revolutionary People at War: The Continental Army and American Character, 1775–1783. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1979. Slaughter, Thomas P. The Whiskey Rebellion: Frontier Epilogue to the American Revolution. New York: Oxford University Press, 1986. Stagg, J. C. A. “Enlisted Men in the United States Army, 1812–1815: A Preliminary Survey.” William and Mary Quarterly, 3rd series, 43 (1986): 615–645. ———. “Soldiers in Peace and War: Comparative Perspectives on the Recruitment of the United States Army, 1802– 1815.” William and Mary Quarterly, 57 (2000): 79–120.

Date: 2 September–14 November 1751.

Location: approximately 50 miles west of the coastal city of Madras, India.

Forces Engaged:
British: 120 British troops and 200 Indian troops. Commander: Captain Robert Clive.
French: 10,000 men, primarily Indian troops with less than 1,000 French troops. Commander: Raza Sahib.

Importance:
British victory halted the French takeover of southern India, and marked the beginning of the widespread recruitment of Indian troops into the army of the British East India Company.

Historical Setting
Eighteenth-century India was an active place. The Moghul Empire was falling apart as the monarchy weakened and the nobility grew stronger. Although Delhi was the putative capital, local princes (nawabs) ruled their own lands and acted with virtual autonomy, cooperating with the Delhi government if they saw fit. In this time of uncertain local rule both the French and British arrived on the scene. The Honorable East India Company represented British trading interests with factories (trading centers) at Calcutta on the northeastern coast, Madras on the southeastern coast, and Bombay on the northwestern coast. The French East India Company operated out of Pondicherry, just down the coast from Madras. Both European powers entered into agreements with local nawabs, primarily for trade contacts but also hoping to gain influence with whatever government rose from the Moghul ashes. As England and France were rivals in Europe, they supported rival nawabs in India.

The Indian rulers were somewhat ambivalent toward the Europeans. Much as they appreciated the income from trade, they appreciated even more the military might the Europeans could provide to affect the local balance of power. The Anglo-French wars fought in Europe usually had their counterparts in India, but the European support of rival princes meant that fighting occurred on an Indian timetable as often as on a European one. As the War of the Austrian Succession ended in 1748, tensions were rising in southern India. As stated above, the nobles were exercising increasing independence from the Mughal capital. Ranking just below the emperor was the nizam of the Deccan, whose title was “Viceroy of the South”; he paid little attention to Delhi. Next in rank after the nizam were the various nawabs, few of which heeded the viceroy. When the nizam of the Deccan died in 1748, the British and French supported rival claimants to the throne. The French candidate ultimately won out. Meanwhile, another disputed succession was occurring in the Carnatic, which spans the southeastern tip of India. The French-supported nizam appointed the French favorite, Chanda Sahib, to the position of nawab of the Carnatic. The British factory at Madras was now surrounded by hostile territory.

Not content with the title, the new nawab wanted to eliminate his British-supported rival, Mohammed Ali. Chanda Sahib led a large force to besiege Ali’s capital of Trichinopoly. Ali was supported by a handful of his own men and about 600 British troops. As the British commander did not have a reputation for inspiring confidence, British authorities in other parts of India were on the verge of writing Trichinopoly and the south off to the French. Robert Clive, an East India Company clerk with a new appointment to the British army, proposed a plan to Governor Thomas Saunders. (Clive had met with Mohammed Ali in Trichinopoly during a reinforcement expedition, and the plan was Ali’s.) Rather than challenge the strong Franco-Indian forces at Trichinopoly, they would strike at Arcot, Chanda Sahib’s capital city. That would force him to lift the siege. Saunders agreed, but could only part with 200 of the 350 British soldiers under his command. Those 200 soldiers and a further 300 sepoys (Indian soldiers trained by the British) marched with Clive to Arcot and captured it: “The garrison, 1100 strong, had fled during the night, having heard from their spies of how the English had marched unconcernedly through the storm [which hit the day before their arrival], heedless of the omens of heaven. This to them denoted superhuman courage, so they reckoned it was no good trying to resist such a foe” (Bence-Jones, Clive of India, pp. 39–40). Indeed, Chanda did march to save his capital, but he left both Indian and French troops to maintain the Trichinopoly siege.

The Siege
Arcot, a city of 100,000 at the time, quickly fell under Clive’s sway, for he ordered that there be no looting and he returned property Chanda had confiscated to its rightful owners. He immediately began gathering in supplies and fresh water, and to strengthen the city’s defenses. Many of the towers were virtually useless as artillery positions, and the moat surrounding the mile-long city wall was dry or easily forded.

The previous garrison was encamped a few miles away, blocking the arrival of any resupply or reinforcements. Two sallies against them failed, so Clive decided on a night attack on 14 September. It was so successful the entire force scattered in fear, while Clive lost no casualties. Two days later word came that Governor Saunders had sent two large cannon. Clive sent almost his entire force to escort the guns to the city, and the handful that remained drove off two night attacks.

The French commander, Joseph Dupleix, at first disbelieved reports of Arcot’s fall, but soon decided to divide his force and recapture the city. He sent Raza Sahib, Chanda’s son, to accomplish the task. He dawdled, waiting for an auspicious omen, but finally marched with 4,000 Indian troops and 150 French. The holding force that had been harassing Arcot had grown to 3,000, so the combined force would be fourteen times stronger than Clive’s. Raza’s force arrived on 23 September. Clive occupied the fort in the city center, allowing Raza’s troops to man taller buildings overlooking the walls. Clive attempted a sortie to drive the newcomers away, but ran into intense fire from newly occupied buildings. His attack managed to kill most of the French artillerymen, but he suffered the loss of fifteen of his British troops. The boldness of the move, although unsuccessful, forced Raza to respect him.

Clive’s virtually amateur status as a soldier meant that he took risks a professional would never have attempted, like staying in Arcot against a force that soon swelled to 10,000. Having sent a portion of his force back to Madras to supplement the garrison there, Clive at this point commanded but 120 British and 200 Indian troops. Completely surrounded, the defenders soon began to suffer. Cut off from outside water, the fort’s reservoir was brackish. Food, thankfully, was not a problem. The besieging force, manning the nearest houses, shot at anyone who moved. The minute defending force exhausted itself trying to maintain a patrol of the fort’s wall.

Back in Madras Governor Saunders scraped together a few more soldiers and received some new recruits from England. In the third week in October a force of but 130 British and 100 sepoys finally got on the way. Unfortunately for the defenders, the relief force was intercepted and sent packing. Luckily for Clive’s men, however, the French commanders on the scene were paralyzed by rumors of relief forces, and Raza Sahib was no military man. Late in October a battery of artillery arrived from the French base at Pondicherry and was positioned northwest of Clive’s position. It soon knocked out one of Clive’s large cannon and damaged another. For six days the French pounded the walls, destroying a section of wall between two dilapidated towers. The British tried to plug the gap with trenches, wooden palisades, and piled-up rubble. Another battery was set up to the southwest and created another breach.

Rescue appeared from an unexpected source. The British-backed regent of Mysore, supporting Mohammed Ali, hired a force of Maratha warriors to aid the beleaguered Arcot. They had been watching the battle for some weeks, trying to decide which side to join, when they came to respect the defenders’ tenacity. As the Maratha commander, Morari Rao, was collecting his pay, Raza Sahib learned of the threat. He quickly offered Clive honorable conditions and a gift if he would surrender. Knowing the Marathas were at hand and that another force was coming from Madras, Clive refused. Raza finally decided to act decisively and storm the fort. On 13 November, a spy alerted Clive to the coming assault. Prepared, the defenders manned their trenches and threw back the attackers. Only at breach was there any sign of French/Indian success, but when the commander of the assault force was killed his men fell back; the other breach was not seriously attacked.

Results
After but an hour’s fighting, Raza Sahib’s men broke off the attack. After some fire was exchanged, a truce was called to bury the dead. As Clive had but four dead and two wounded, his men spent the truce gathering up the dead attackers’ weapons. Early the next morning Clive learned that Raza’s army had fled Arcot, abandoning most of their artillery. The relief force from Madras arrived later that day.

Clive’s force had achieved an amazing feat in the face of the numeric odds against them, but in India numbers were not always the telling factor. The death of the assault commander in the final charge broke his force’s spirit. Whatever the combination of circumstances that brought about Clive’s victory, the siege of Arcot marked a sea change in the British experience in India. “It may have been luck, it may have been bungling on the part of the enemy, but it created the legend of English courage and invincibility which was to carry English arms in India from one success to another” (Bence-Jones, Clive, p. 48). Many in southern India, including some of the attacking soldiers, joined the army of the East India Company. When the British began to seriously recruit and train the men from the armies and provinces they conquered, they ended up with a top-notch army of sepoys leavened with a sprinkling of British Army units assigned to India. France lost status, and the dip in her fortunes in India was made worse by French losses a few years later in the Seven Years War.

References: Mark Bence-Jones, Clive of India (New York: St. Martin’s, 1974); Robert Harvey, Clive: Life and Death of a British Emperor (New York: St. Martin’s, 2000); Philip Mason, A Matter of Honour (Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin, 1976 [1974]).

Date: intermittently between 13 July 1982 and 27 February 1987.

Location: on the Shatt-al-Arab River, 75 miles upstream from the Persian Gulf.

Forces Engaged:
Iraqi: III and VII Corps, some 285,000 men at final strength. Commander: overall, President Saddam Hussein.
Iranian: varied from attack to attack, but hundreds of thousands total. Commander: overall, Ayatollah Khomeini.

Importance:
Battles around Basra were the most intense of the Iran-Iraq War, causing thousands of deaths and drawing international attention because of the Iraqi use of poison gas.

Historical Setting
Many factors played into the outbreak of the war between Iran and Iraq. The last straw was a dispute over control of the Shatt-al-Arab, the river that is formed by the junction of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers and flows southeast to empty into the Persian Gulf. A segment of the river forms the border between the two countries, and in 1914 the British gave Iraq (then Mesopotamia) control over the entire river, ruling the eastern bank to be the border. The line was reaffirmed in 1932 at the beginning of Iraq’s statehood, but Iran was allowed free anchorage at Abadan, Khorsrowabad, and Khorramshahr. When Mohammed Reza Pahlavi became shah of Iran in the 1940s, he claimed that international tradition called for the border to lie in the center of the river. The two countries argued until 1975 when, at a meeting of the Oil Producing and Exporting Countries (OPEC), they signed the Algiers Accord recognizing the shah’s claim.

Behind the border dispute are other factors. Religion is key, as the more fundamentalist Shi’ite Muslims dominate in Iran while the more liberal Sunni Muslims (although in the minority) dominate the Iraqi government. During the years leading up to the shah’s overthrow, the Ayatollah Khomeini lived in Iraq in exile, but by the time President Saddam Hussein expelled him in 1978 the two hated each other. Further, Hussein wanted to make himself the major power in the Persian Gulf region and he had to reduce Iranian power to do that. In April 1980 Iranian terrorists assassinated Iraq’s deputy prime minister, to which Iraq responded by expelling hundreds of Iranians and executing a friend of Khomeini’s. Each country’s military began to attack border positions. A major tank and artillery battle took place 29 June 1980, and Iraqi troops entered Iranian territory on 6 September.

On 17 September Hussein announced he was abrogating the Algiers Accord and that he intended to incorporate the Arab population of southwestern Iran into Iraq. Iraqi air raids began early on 22 September with the land invasion beginning the following day. Although the invasion was poorly executed, Iraqi forces still managed to capture a strip of land 150 miles wide and up to 70 miles deep in an area east and northeast of Baghdad. They captured another strip 200 miles wide and up to 50 miles deep along the southern border by January 1981, including the major Iranian refining center of Ahvaz on the Karun River. After his initial success, Hussein offered to negotiate a peace agreement but Khomeini would have none of it. Instead, he ordered counteroffensives in the spring that, poorly supported by either tanks or artillery, gained no more than a few miles. In September, however, Iranian troops recaptured the port of Abadan and acquired a vast amount of abandoned Iraqi equipment.

After spending the winter reorganizing and equipping the troops, the Iranian army launched a spring offensive on 22 March 1982 that drove the Iraqis out of Khorramshahr and took the invaders to within 20 miles of the key port city of Basra. In Stalinesque style, Hussein executed 300 officers he blamed for the retreat, but ordered the construction of a massive defense perimeter around Basra. With his fortunes reversed, Hussein announced he was returning his troops to the original border and once again offered to negotiate peace; once again he was rejected. Khomeini wanted revenge. Also, the population of Basra was primarily Shi’ite, so he hoped for a popular rising to assist the offensive. Control of Basra would deny Iraq access to the Persian Gulf and markets in Kuwait, as well as give Iran possession of the oil fields and refineries downstream.

On the low hills to the east of Basra, the Iranians regrouped and began to dig in. Three miles away, the Iraqis worked feverishly (in the 125 degree heat) to dig what came to be called the Salt Line, five concentric and interconnected rings of trenches, barbed wire, and minefields covered with bulldozed salt, giving it a bright white facade. An abandoned railroad bed led from the defenses back to a functioning rail line on the other side of the Shatt-al-Arab in the city. On the outer ring of the Salt Line berms were constructed with revetments for tanks, artillery, and antiaircraft and machine guns. An open field of fire was cleared and observation posts positioned. The Basra population of 500,000 was drawn upon for labor to fill sandbags and cover government buildings.

To the north of Basra was the Hawizeh marsh, beginning 30 miles away and stretching 1,160 square miles to the north. As no force could traverse it, the Iraqis stationed their troops to cover the solid ground between the marsh and the city. The III Corps (70,000 men and 300 tanks and other armored vehicles) was placed to cover the northern flank. The VII Corps (100,000 men and 700 tanks) was stationed in (the) Basra and the Salt Line. To complete the defense, the Iraqis dug a trench 10 miles long and a half-mile wide, then flooded it from the Kutayban River, a tributary of the Shatt-al-Arab. The trench occasionally flooded to the east, making a vast shallow lake, called Fish Lake. Given that the Iranians had little in their army at this point but a relative handful of tanks, captured artillery, and hundreds of thousands of Pasdaran (Revolutionary Guard) volunteers and Basij (volunteer youth), the Basra position could only be called impregnable.

At dawn on 13 July 1982, the Iranian army launched a feint toward Basra to hold the VII Corps in place. It gained 12 miles the first day but was driven back the next. The main attack was launched with 120,000 men against the III Corps to the north. The front wave was made up of volunteers, some armed with nothing but plastic or wooden keys blessed by mullahs which would guarantee their entry into Paradise, but their willing sacrifice identified Iraqi gun positions and helped clear minefields. The 77th Infantry Division of the regular army followed up and within two hours had captured two defensive lines and destroyed or driven off two Iraqi mechanized divisions. The initial thrust drove 14 miles but the Iraqi counterattack pushed it back. Then, bringing in artillery and tanks they set up a crossfire that slaughtered more than 3,700 Iranian soldiers and destroyed ten tanks. Iranian troops for a time controlled the pump station that transferred water from the Kutayban River into the defensive trench, but the Iraqi recapture soon restored the water level. By 25 July the Iranians claimed to have recaptured 60 square miles of territory, but at a cost of 65 tanks, 6,400 dead, and 20,000 wounded. They tried again on 1 August and after three days lost a further 10,000 casualties. The total offensive cost almost 30,000 men and 25 percent of Iran’s armored force. They did not capture Basra, nor did the Shi’ite population rise up.

Over the next year the Iraqis did more work on their defenses, constructing a canal to either end of the flooded trench so they could bring up supplies to the front by boat. The Iranians recruited more volunteers and planned their next attack, which was launched on 15 February 1984. Named Operation Kheiber, the Iranians used a flotilla of shallow-draft boats to ferry troops across Hawizah marsh. They seized Majnoon Island in the marshes, capping the fifty oil wells located there. Their ultimate goal was to sever the Basra–Baghdad highway, and on 22 February 60,000 Pasardan and Basij volunteers stormed the Iraqi positions to the west of the marsh. Although they came within 500 yards of the road, an Iraqi counterattack pushed them back. In the battle to recapture Majnoon Island, the Iraqis fired about twenty shells filled with mustard gas to slow an Iranian human wave attack. A few days later they dropped nerve gas bombs. Although Iraqi authorities denied using poison gas, independent European doctors confirmed its use when treating the casualties.

During the battle for Majnoon, the Iranians began another attack on Basra. It began with an artillery barrage that included the city itself. A pontoon bridge across Fish Lake allowed troops to hit Salt Line. Once again the Iranians used human wave tactics and Iraqi artillery and machine guns mowed them down. Again poison gas was used. Thirteen thousand Iranian bodies lay before the Iraqi trenches.

The third Iranian attempt came on 10 February 1986. Sixty thousand militia held Majnoon Island while 60,000 regular army troops assembled south of Basra. Under cover of darkness and rain they crossed the Shatt-al-Arab and invaded the Faw peninsula, stretching from Kuwait to the Shatt-al-Arab. The Iraqis had only stationed machine guns in the region so the Iranians made quick advances. Fao, at the mouth of the river, fell on the second day and the Iraqi naval base at Umm Qasr, on the western flank, fell the next day. The Iranians turned north to drive on Basra, but ran into 20,000 Iraqi troops 25 miles short of their goal. The Iranians found themselves mired in mud and easy targets for Iraqi artillery and helicopter gunships. The killing went on for three weeks, and once again poison gas was employed. However, the Iraqis settled for isolating the Iranians rather than launching their own offensive to regain the peninsula. Iraqi engineers developed another strong defensive line, the Iron Citadel, to cover the southern approach to Basra.

The fourth and final attempt to take Basra occurred in early January 1987. The Iranians had been working to drain Fish Lake and built an embankment across which they pushed 90,000 regular troops. They advanced on a 4-mile wide front that drove 3 miles into the Iraqi defenses in what the Teheran government called “the final offensive in the epic battle for Basra.” By the third day of the attack the Iraqi defenders were showing signs of weakness and Hussein committed his elite Republican Guards. Both sides lost heavily as the Iranians finally reached Basra’s outskirts. For days the battle raged, with both sides taking and losing objectives. The Iranian government shifted 200,000 untrained Pasdaran from the north to go into battle. For days toxic smoke from burning petrochemical plants covered the battlefields but finally, on 1 February, Iraqi tanks managed to get behind the Iranians and cut them off between Basra and Fish Lake. Although thousands of Iranians surrendered, Khomeini had thousands more to take their place. He announced a withdrawal from the Basra battle on 27 February, then launched a surprise attack the following morning. Although the Iranians recaptured a bit of lost territory, from that point on they did little more than raid and launch the occasional artillery barrage.

Results
By late April the Iraqi army had pushed the remnants of the Iranian force back to the original international border and the last direct on attack on Basra was officially over. Both sides continued to probe each other’s positions until July 1987, when the United Nations put forward a cease-fire proposal. Iraq accepted and observed it for thirty days, while Iran ignored it. The last remaining Iranian units positioned in the Faw peninsula launched artillery attacks on a number or targets. Iraq responded with air attacks on Iranian oil facilities on Kharg Island in the Persian Gulf as well as strikes against shipping. Iran upped the ante with SCUD missiles on border cities and also attacking tankers in the Gulf. U.S. Navy ships began escorting ships through the Gulf as the “tanker war” continued through May 1988.

Iraqi forces finally retook control of the Faw peninsula and Majnoon Island in early summer, and in August the UN once again offered a cease-fire plan. This time both nations accepted it, for after eight years of war neither side had significantly acquired any property from the other. “At the end, virtually none of the issues that are usually blamed for the war had been resolved. When it was over, the conditions that existed at the beginning of the war remained virtually unchanged. The UN-arranged cease-fire merely put an end to the fighting, leaving two isolated states to pursue an arms race with each other, and with the other countries in the region” (“Iran-Iraq War,” FAS.org). For this lack of results, the Iraqis paid with 375,000 casualties and a further 60,000 prisoners. The Iranians lost at least 300,000 dead and another 500,000 wounded. Although the human wave tactics they employed were responsible for the higher numbers, it came nowhere near the number of dead and wounded Germany suffered in World War I, a conflict that lasted only half as long.

References: Anthony Cordesman and A. R. Wagner, The Lessons of Modern War, vol. 2 (Boulder, CO: Westview, 1990); William Yengst, “The Iran-Iraq War: The Siege of Basra,” Command, no. 28, May–June 1994.

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The occupation of Yugoslavia and Greece forced Hitler to revise the original start date of the Russian invasion (15 May), instead scheduling it for end of June. In the middle of May, the regiment received orders to move by rail to the Freudentstadt-Troppau area in south-eastern Germany. Here it remained until 15 June, when further orders came to move to the area south-east of Warsaw, around the town of Zelechów. This would be the start point for the invasion, for which it was attached as a reserve to the Second Panzer Group. Panzer groups had succeeded the highly-successful Panzer corps of the French campaign and were in fact mobile armies, but lingering conservatism among the general staff prevented their being accorded the status of fully-fledged armies. Four of them were available on the eve of the invasion, for which Germany had some 3,050,000 men, plus another 750,000 from Finland and Romania, 3,350 tanks, 7,184 artillery pieces, and 600,000 motor vehicles. These were organised into three Army Groups, North, Centre and South, with support from over 3,000 aircraft. Though all of the German leaders agreed that the war hinged on the use of the Panzer groups, acting independently ahead of the infantry, Hitler was persuaded for the Russian campaign that though the Panzer corps should remain at the spearhead, they were to be in closer co-operation with the infantry in battles of the classic encirclement pattern that aimed at netting the Soviet forces before they could retreat behind the Dnieper.

On 22 June this huge force was unleashed on a 1,800-mile front against the Soviet Union, whose armies were totally unprepared to meet the onslaught. Grossdeutschland, marching from Zelechów as part of Bock's Army Group Centre, crossed the border on the 27th/28th in the wake of the Panzers of the 7th Division, and moved toward the objective, Moscow.

Advancing from Bialystock on the 29th, the regiment fought consolidating actions at Sionim against Soviet troops that had been encircled during the rapid advance, and launched another major drive from Baranovichi on 3 July over the northern fringes of the impassable Pripet Marshes towards Minsk. Here another large encirclement yielded more than 150,000 Soviet prisoners. Continuing the drive east, IRGD fought a major engagement at Borisov on the Beresina River, where Napoleon had crossed during his disastrous campaign of 1812. Had the men of Grossdeutschland peered down into the water they might have seen the timber supports of the bridges Napoleon's engineers had built. As the regiment advanced deeper into Russia, fighting became more frequent along the route, which took it up to the Dnieper north of Mogilev.

Here IRGD met with the armoured spearhead, and was assigned to the 10th Panzer Division for the assault across the river. After forcing a crossing on 11 July, fighting for the bridgehead continued for the following five days. Having broken out of the bridgehead on the 16th the regiment continued to advance in support of the XLVI Panzer Corps into the area west of Mstislavl near Yelnya, where it attacked Russian positions on 21 and 22 July. On 30 July the regiment took part in the attack on the road north toward Dorogobuzh, which met with strong resistance at Ustinova. These battles and other actions at the railroad crossing south of Yelyna, at Vaskovo, raged in summer heat for the last week of July and into August. After more than a month in the front line, the regiment was afforded two days rest in the Dankovo-Vaskovo area from 6 to 8 August, and after moved into defensive positions to hold the salient that had been put into the Soviet line west of Yelnya by the 360-mile-wide advance of Army Group Centre. The capture of Smolensk on 7 August had brought 850,000 Russian captives, and towards the end of the month the ferocious fighting in the vicinity ofVaskovo-Chochlovka-Rudnaya began to slacken off.

The beginning of the campaign in Russia had been characterised by rapid advances as far as the area south of Smolensk, with the fighting sporadic and small scale. Advances across the flat, empty, coverless terrain of central Russia had to be made with the support of artillery and armour and here the regiment's assault gun and artillery units proved invaluable. On the southern front the fighting had been more intense, and better-prepared Soviet defences had held up the advance of Rundstedt and Kleist. Against the better judgment of his senior staff, who felt the maximum effort should be directed against Moscow, but encouraged by their confident predictions that the war was already won, Hitler decided to send some of Army Group Centre to the south to assist in the actions against Budyonny's West Front at Kiev. On 25 August, the Second Army and the Second Panzer Group turned southward from the Army Group Centre flank. IRGD marched south on 1 September, travelling via Roslavl, Lukaviza, and Starodub. Crossing the Desna River at Novgorod-Severskiy, it was engaged in battles to the north-east of the city to establish a secure bridgehead and, having done so, advanced further south to Glukhov by 8 September. The next day it assaulted across the Seym River at Putivl, but was checked in the bridgehead by strong resistance until the 13th. Pushing on south, the regiment fought at Schilkova, Konotop and Belopoyle, on the north flank of what was now Timoshenko's West Front. The advance was slowed by rain and mud but by the 16th the lead elements of the Second Army and the First Army, which had moved northward from the Dnieper bend, met 150 miles east of Kiev. Kiev fell on the 19th, and seven Soviet armies inside the pocket were captured. In addition to those lost at Uman in the south, this amounted to nearly 1,500,000 men, or half of the current active strength of the Soviet Army.

In the line east of Romny IRGD checked attempts by the Soviets to counterattack between 26 September and 3 October, and on the 4th began the march back to the Roslavl area, transiting via Konotop and Gomel, and then proceeded on to Karachev, where it bivouacked in positions north of the city on 12 October.

OPERATION TAIFUN (TYPHOON)
Ordered by Hitler to recommence the attack on Moscow, Bock had advanced east on 2 October, encircling Bryansk and Vyazma and capturing 663,000 more Soviet prisoners. As the autumn rains set in, slowing the advance to Moscow to a crawl, IRGD was allowed a welcome period of rest and recuperation at Orel on the Oka River. Starting on the 23rd, it marched through the cloying mud to a bivouac area north-east of Mtsensk, in preparation for the following day's attack on strongly fortified Soviet positions in the area. In the last week of October, with temperatures falling ominously, IRGD ground on to Tula, less than 90 miles from Moscow, fighting many actions en route.

To the north-west, German forces were within 40 miles of the Russian capital on 20 October, but their advantage was already running out. Georgi Zhukov had arrived to take charge of the defence of the city, reinforcements were expected from the Far East, and most of the surviving Soviet warplanes were being concentrated around the city. This combination of factors held back the stab at Moscow via Tula on 15 November by Guderian's tank forces in which IRGD played a major role, fighting around Yefremov and Tula.
At the end of the month, an attempt was made to encircle Tula from the north. The regiment assaulted the Soviet defensive lines at Ryazan and Kashira to the east, but was repulsed and lost most the 17th Company (Motorcycle) at Kolodesnya. By 5 December most of the German troops had reached the limit of their endurance, and vehicles were almost inoperative in the severe weather conditions.

On 7 December Zhukov chose his moment to launch a major counter-attack on a 65-mile front against Bock's exhausted Army Group Centre forces. In the lines around Yefremov and Tula, IRGD, now on the defensive, repelled the attacks for two weeks, and then was ordered north again, to the area around Bolkhov north of Orel.

Although his troops were unprepared and poorly equipped to fight through a Russian winter, Hitler refused to allow any retreat, calling instead for fanatical resistance from his men. However, under the weight of the Soviet offensive, the German spearheads north and south of Moscow quickly crumbled, and the offensive expanded until nearly the whole of the Army Group Centre front was aflame. Fighting on the defensive on the Oka River and north of Bolkhov during the last week of the year, IRGD was called on again to reinforce weak points in the line. The regiment was spilt into units and assigned to assist three separate infantry divisions, as Soviet breakthroughs in the north and south threatened the encirclement of the entire Army Group Centre.

Although it had survived, the year has been hard for IRGD. The regiment had fought, and survived, through the extremes of the Russian summer and autumn, and was enduring its winter. Nine hundred of its men had been killed, including many experienced NCOs and enlisted men, and over 3,000 others wounded.

By the exile of Norfolk  and Hereford  in September 1398 he seemed to have removed the last persons he need fear. He was so confident that in May 1399 he paid a second visit to Ireland, taking with him all his most trusted adherents. Thus when Henry landed at Ravenspur in July he found only half-hearted opposition, and when Richard himself returned it was too late. Ultimately Richard surrendered to Henry at Flint on the 19th of August, promising to abdicate if his life was spared. He was taken to London riding behind his rival with indignity

In the sixteenth century, William SHAKESPEARE and his contemporaries, concerned with the uncertain succession of the house of TUDOR, viewed the deposition of Richard II in 1399 as the cause and starting point of the WARS OF THE ROSES.

In late June 1399, Henry of Bolingbroke, duke of Lancaster, returned to England from continental exile to claim his late father’s extensive estates, an inheritance of which he had been deprived by his cousin Richard II (r. 1377–1399). Nervous about the king’s willingness to abrogate the property rights of a subject, and angered by a series of highhanded and arbitrary royal actions, the English ruling classes quickly abandoned the childless king in favor of his Lancastrian kinsman. On 29 September, Richard II, a prisoner in the TOWER OF LONDON, reluctantly bowed to pressure and resigned his Crown to his cousin. When this action was confirmed next day by PARLIAMENT, Richard ceased to be king, and the throne passed to Henry IV (r. 1399–1413), first king of the house of LANCASTER.

The Lancastrian usurpation, although approved at the time by the political elite of the realm, bypassed the line of legal succession. In 1399, Richard II’s heir was Edmund Mortimer, the eight-year-old earl of March (1391–1425), the grandson of his cousin Philippa (1355–1381), only child of Lionel, duke of Clarence (1338–1368), second son of Edward III (r. 1327–1377). Henry IV, the new king, was the eldest son of John of Gaunt, duke of Lancaster (1340–1399), third son of Edward III. Within months of Henry’s accession, disgruntled former supporters were disputing his right to the throne. Chief among these opponents were Sir Henry Percy (known as Hotspur, 1361–1403), who was married to March’s aunt, and Sir Edmund Mortimer (1376–1409), March’s uncle. Henry IV survived a series of pro-Mortimer uprisings in the early years of his reign and successfully passed his Crown to his son, Henry V (r. 1413–1422). The second Lancastrian king secured the dynasty by reopening the HUNDRED YEARS WAR, crushing the French at the Battle of Agincourt in 1415, and conquering much of northern FRANCE, actions that made the king and his family a focus of national pride. When March died childless in 1425, his family’s claim to the throne, which passed to his sister’s fourteen-year-old son, Richard PLANTAGENET, duke of York, was virtually forgotten.

It only revived in 1460, when York, after striving unsuccessfully for years to control the government of the incompetent HENRY VI, the third Lancastrian monarch, laid the house of YORK’s claim to the Crown before Parliament. York’s action, which led in 1461 to his son’s coronation as EDWARD IV, turned the political rivalries of the 1450s into the intermittent dynastic wars of the following three decades. When HENRY VII established the Tudor dynasty on the throne in 1485, his propagandists stressed the horrors of the dynastic warfare from which the new king had rescued England (see PROPAGANDA). Sixteenth-century Englishmen, most notably represented by Shakespeare in his history plays, traced the root of these horrors to the 1399 disruption in the natural line of succession. Although most modern historians reject this view, finding the origins of the wars in Henry VI’s inability to function effectively as king and in the local feuds and national ambitions of wealthy and militarily powerful noblemen, the deposition of Richard II is still sometimes taken as the start of the Wars of the Roses.

Further Reading: Bennett, Michael, Richard II and the Revolution of 1399 (Stroud, Gloucestershire, UK: Sutton Publishing, 1999); Saul, Nigel, Richard II (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1997); Strohm, Paul, England’s Empty Throne: Usurpation and the Language of Legitimation, 1399–1422 (New Haven, CT:Yale University Press, 1998); the text of William Shakespeare’s play Richard II can be found online at .

Pigeon message to be displayed in Dieppe was first word Allies had of disaster on the beaches of France.

By Brent Mazerolle

The citizens of Dieppe received a poignant reminder yesterday of why their city, the former village of Leger Corner, bears its proud name. And all of us on this Canada Day have a message to remind us of the sacrifices that have made our nation what it is.

The message is just 42 words, but it captures the worst day of 1942, the worst day of Canada's 143 years.
First borne by a carrier pigeon, it tells of the disaster that was the Dieppe Raid, those 42 words were the first news the Allies received back in England that our first attempt to land troops in France was an utter failure.
Major-General J. H. Roberts, the commander of the 2nd Canadian Division, sent the message at 1340, 1:40 p.m., that the Allies had suffered very heavy casualties (the bulk were Canadians), and the terrible decision had been made to retreat with what men could be saved at the cost of abandoning the rest to die from their injuries or become prisoners of war.

And while Roberts maintained professional composure, his last line seemed to betray his frustration with what we know in hindsight to have been a poorly planned Allied experiment at the cost of so many Canadian lives.
"Obviously operation completely lacked surprise," he concluded tersely.

Our nation lost 913 of its sons that day. More than 2,200 others were wounded and 1,946 were taken prisoner. Of the 6,100 soldiers to storm the beaches that morning, their pre-dawn raid plagued by delays and no surprise, 5,000 were Canadian.

The raid - it was never meant to be the establishment of a Western front, rather just a test to see if an amphibious assault on German occupied and fortified France was possible - did for all its waste of life provide valuable lessons for the successful D-Day invasion two years later.

Aiding the major-general in getting the message out that fateful August 19 was Lt.Col. John Douglas MacBeth, an officer in the Royal Canadian Corps of Signals.

In the battle conditions, carrier pigeons were actually a more effective means of communicating across the English Channel than were the radios.

The Pigeon Service Message Books contained carbons to make three copies of any message. Two identical messages were inserted into tiny tubes tied to the legs of two pigeons in the hope at least one would get through. A third carbon remained in the notepad.

According to information provided yesterday by the Department of Veterans Affairs, one of the pigeons carrying news of the Dieppe failure was indeed killed in the battle, but the other got word back to England.
MacBeth survived the raid, served out the rest of the war, including action in the Italian campaign, and as the end of the war approached, set up some of the communications in Holland by which the Canadians and Germans negotiated the German army's final surrender.

At war's end, Pigeon Service Message Book 418B came back to Ottawa with him as a dark souvenir. Like so many survivors of the Second World War, MacBeth's life was drastically shortened. He died in 1951 at just 48 years of age. His widow held on to all her husband's war mementoes, and it was only after she died a decade ago that their daughter Mike MacBeth began to go through his effects and learn about her father's war service.

That's where she took over what the carrier pigeon started, bringing the rare and significant artifact to the attention of the Department of Veterans Affairs.

Yesterday, accompanied by Veterans Affairs Minister Jean-Pierre Blackburn, she shared it and a number of other artifacts with the people of Dieppe, New Brunswick, presenting the items to Dieppe Mayor Jean LeBlanc in a touching ceremony at the city's war monument in front of a crowd that included a number of Second World War veterans and current members of the Canadian Forces. Various political leaders from Dieppe and Riverview were also on hand, as was Damien Dauphin, France's deputy consul to Atlantic Canada.

The items are on loan to the city until Remembrance Day.

It is the first time the message book has ever been displayed publicly. It can be viewed at Dieppe City Hall in a few day's time, once city staff establish a place where it can be seen by the public but also be kept secure.
Also among the items is a photograph of Lt.-Col.MacBeth taken by the renowned Ottawa photographer Yousuf Karsh, who was a family friend. As well, the City of Dieppe will have on display the book Somewhere in England, a collection of letters MacBeth sent to his mother. His mother Madge MacBeth was a well known author and journalist considered to be part of the first wave of Canadian fiction writers, noted today for the groundbreaking feminism and frank sexuality of her 1926 novel Shackles. Her son's letters to her during the war were published by the Canadian government as a patriotic morale booster. His medals and a letter of citation from Charles De Gaulle are also among the effects.

"We have all of his medals and citations here, but who was the man?" Mike MacBeth asked. "My father died when I was seven years old. My mother was a war bride and I only lived with my father between the age of four and seven. I didn't know him. I didn't understand his contribution to the war."

She said she didn't have many memories of him other than that he was "a very stern man." However, she does cherish memories of some lightness showing through his stern exterior. She laughingly recalled that as a very little girl she threw up on her father in his uniform the first time she met him. She recalled watching him lead a parade once, his perfect military bearing forgotten just long enough for him to wink at her as he marched past.

She also remembers her father bringing one of New Brunswick's greatest sons to the Macbeth family farm in Hazeldean, where the Ottawa suburb of Kanata stands today. After the war, her father was executive assistant to the Minister of Veterans Affairs of the day, Milton Gregg, V.C., the Kings County boy who grew up near Sussex and won his Victoria Cross for heroism at Cambrai, in the First World War.

"He came to the farm one time and was helping my father with something and in my five-year-old innocence, I said, Mr. Gregg, if you ever lose your job, you can always come work for my father.'"

When Gregg left the family's home, he signed the little girl's autograph book, "Milton F. Gregg, V.C. - the Hired Man."

Lt.-Col. Gregg also brought his daughter to Parliament Hill one day in 1949 for the signing ceremony that brought Newfoundland into Confederation.

"I'm probably the only person alive who's seen that," she said, being in all likelihood correct about that.
"Those are the only memories I have of my father, she said. "To my infinite regret, I never knew this man."
"A soldier's life must be remembered, before it fades away," she said.
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The pigeon message to 1 Cdn Corps from Major-General J.H. Roberts at 1340, August 19, 1942:
"Very heavy casualties in men and ship. Did everything possible to get men off but in order to get any home had to come to sad decision to abandon remainder. Obviously operation completely lacked surprise."
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Written by Adam Sweeting

During the days following the surrender of Vera Cruz, McClellan was engaged in making surveys of the captured fortifications, dismantling the army’s siege works, and landing and organizing the engineers’ train. He and his company had to work quickly, however, for the yellow-fever season was almost upon them, and so on 12 April 1847 the company of sappers and miners departed the coast with General Scott and his staff.

Five days later McClellan and the engineer company reached Cerro Gordo, the strategically vital pass that was the gateway to the Mexican highlands and ultimately to Mexico City. There President and Generalissimo Antonio López de Santa Anna had fortified the naturally strong positions on El Telegapho and La Atalya in anticipation of halting the Yankee invaders on the fever-ridden coastal plain.

In accordance with intelligence gathered during a brilliant reconnaissance mission by Robert E. Lee, Scott determined to hold Santa Anna’s forces in place with a feint along his front by General Pillow’s brigade of volunteers while turning the Mexican left flank and cutting its line of retreat with his regulars under General Worth.

Much to his disgust, McClellan was attached to the volunteers, to whom he derisively referred as the Duck Creek Fencibles. Placed in charged of a ten-man detachment from the engineer company, he was directed to clear the obstacles between Pillow’s command and the Mexican line so that the volunteers could carry out their attack. “This was a service of no common danger,” wrote his first biographer, George Stillman Hillard, “as the heavy and well-served Mexican batteries in front swept the space before them with a most destructive fire.”

Although Pillow totally bungled his orders and needlessly sacrificed the lives of many men of his brigade, the American victory at Cerro Gordo was brilliant and absolute—so much so that fourteen years later McClellan, as commander of the Department of Ohio, attempted to employ Scott’s tactics at Rich Mountain, Virginia. Recalling the useless sacrifice of Pillow’s men in a headlong assault on enemy entrenchments, McClellan vowed to “repeat the manoeuvre of Cerro Gordo” and assured Scott, who was still the general in chief of the U.S. Army, “that no prospect of a brilliant victory shall induce me to depart from my intention of gaining success by manoeuvring rather than by fighting; I will not throw these men of mine into the teeth of artillery and intrenchments, if it is possible to avoid it.”

As at Vera Cruz, the engineers were singled out for high praise for their signal contribution to the victory at Cerro Gordo. Despite the icy contempt of the West Point–trained regulars, Pillow praised McClellan, reporting that he and Zealous Bates Tower had “displayed great zeal and activity in the discharge of their duties in connection with my command.”

Scott, in his report to Marcy, singled out McClellan, Smith, Beauregard, Stevens, and Tower as having “won the admiration of all about them.” Stevens, writing to his wife, declared that “General Scott expressed himself in terms that won my heart. He remarked, ‘You engineers are too daring. You require to be held back.’”

But the debacle on Pillow’s front further solidified McClellan’s already ingrained prejudice against volunteers, especially volunteer officers and officers appointed to the regular army directly from civilian life. He considered the commanders of the new regiments “deficients of the Military Academy, friends of politicians, & bar room blackguards.” This too was an attitude that McClellan would maintain through the Civil War.

McClellan was not present at Molino del Rey, and though officially tendered a brevet for that action, declined it on the grounds that he was not under fire on that field. His absence there, however, was made up by his performance in the capture of Mexico City.

After seizing Molino del Rey with an excess of blood, the only obstacle standing between Scott’s army and the Mexican capital was the old Spanish viceroy’s palace, now converted to the national military academy, the castle of Chapultepec. Scott determined to take this key position by storm following an intense artillery bombardment. On 11 September Mc-Clellan was placed in charge of a detachment of engineers to construct Battery No. 2, which was to breech the southwestern angle of the castle wall. Following the fall of Chapultepec on 13 September, McClellan was recalled to army headquarters and, with the engineer company, attached to Persifor Smith’s division to operate against the San Cosme Garita, one of the main gates to the capital.

On the morning of 13 September, the engineers conducted a reconnaissance of the San Cosme suburb, which revealed that no Mexican artillery opposed an entry in that quarter and that, in Stevens’s words, “the infantry force there was not formidable, and the lancers hanging of the flanks were not worthy of regard.”

At four o’clock that afternoon, the engineer trains arrived at the garita, and “troops armed with the proper tools, commenced making their way from house to house.” Having established itself inside the city wall, the engineering company conducted a reconnaissance toward the center of the capital. Approximately 150 yards beyond the gate, they discovered a fortified convent supported by artillery. G. W. Smith reported this position to General Worth, who sent forward two brigades to clear it. One party, led by the engineer company, reached the top of a three-story building some 40 yards from the battery and opened a plunging fire on the Mexican gunners just as a detachment of the Second Artillery opened a crossfire from the opposite side of the street. As Worth described the scene, the engineer company sprang “as if by magic, to the tops of the houses into which they had patiently and quietly made their way with bar and pick, and to the utter surprise and consternation of the enemy, opening upon him, within easy range, a destructive fire of musketry. A single discharge, in which many of his gunners were killed at their pieces, was sufficient to drive him in confusion from the breastworks.” The Mexicans abandoned the battery, carrying away only one of their guns.

Near the end of this engagement, Orderly Sgt. David H. Hastings of the engineer company was shot by a Mexican irregular. According to Lieutenant Smith, who was an eyewitness, “McClellan seized the Sergeant’s musket, fired at, and killed the man who shot Hastings.” The sergeant recovered to be commissioned as a second lieutenant at end of campaign.

Smith and McClellan then reported at 10:00 p.m. to Worth, who “received us both very kindly,” Smith later wrote, and “expressed satisfaction with the manner in which the works at the Garita had been carried.” He also ordered the two lieutenants to “suspend operations for the night and resume them at daylight.” Smith and McClellan, therefore, remained at the general’s headquarters, which just after midnight received reports that Santa Anna had evacuated the capital and that civil authorities were suing for an armistice to surrender the city.

By 2:00 a.m., 14 September, the engineers were performing a reconnaissance to determine whether the report was true, with McClellan leading the detachment that examined the Alameda district in the heart of Mexico City. Having completed his mission, McClellan reported to Worth that indeed the Mexican army had evacuated the city, though Santa Anna had ordered the opening of the jails before making his escape, and the former inmates were carrying on a desultory resistance to the U.S. occupation. Until three o’clock in the afternoon, the sappers were engaged in street fighting, “particularly,” reported Major Smith, “in breaking into houses with crow-bars and axes,” killing a number of the Mexican irregulars, and capturing even more “suspicious persons.”

For the greater part of the afternoon, McClellan commanded the company while Lieutenant Smith was searching for powder to be used in blowing up houses from which the Americans had been fired upon, “contrary to the usages of war.” In one particular firefight McClellan reported killing more than twenty resistance fighters. In the week’s fighting from 8 through 14 September, the engineer company had suffered two men dead and two wounded. Worth’s official report on the capture of the city was fulsome in its praise of the engineer company, mentioning Smith and McClellan by name and inserting what he called “a respectful notice of the very intelligent enlisted men of the sappers and miners.”

Principal naval engagement of the Sino-Japanese War of 1894–1895. In September 1894 China’s Northern Fleet, commanded by Admiral Ting Ju-ch’ang, convoyed a large ground force to Ta-tung-kao, Korea, at the mouth of the Yalu River. After dispatching troop transports, Ting took up protective station off the mouth of the river on 16 September. Meanwhile, a Japanese fleet commanded by Vice Admiral Yūkō Itō had just convoyed Japanese troops to Pyongyang, Korea. Having finished his escort duties, Itō steamed northward in search of the Chinese fleet.

At about 10:00 a.m. on 17 September, lookouts in each fleet sighted the other’s smoke. The Japanese approached from the southwest in a line-ahead formation of two semi-independent squadrons. A flying squadron of four light cruisers, commanded by Rear Admiral Kozo Tsuboi, preceded Itō’s main squadron of three Matsushima-class heavy cruisers, the belted light cruiser Chiyoda, two old broadside battleships, a coastal defense gunboat, and the armed merchantman Saikyo. The Chinese fleet consisted of the heavily armored battleships Ting-yuen and Chen-yuen, the armored cruisers Lai-yuen and King-yuen, three light cruisers, and three sloops.

Ting’s fleet possessed greater firepower and range with four 12-inch guns on each battleship, but Itō’s cruisers were faster and their many 4.5-inch and 6-inch quick-firing guns were the most effective naval cannon of the period.

The Japanese approach forced the Chinese to accept battle, as Itō’s squadrons bore down, cutting the Chinese off from the open sea. Ting formed his fleet line abreast with the battleships in the center, flanked by the smaller vessels, and advanced to meet the Japanese at about 11:00 a.m. As the fleets closed, Itō’s squadrons raced diagonally across the Chinese line at twice Ting’s speed, making for the weak right flank. The Chinese opened fire at 6,000 yards, but were unable to hit the fast cruisers. Tsuboi held the flying squadron’s response until closing within 3,000 yards, then concentrated his fire on the two sloops on Ting’s far right.

Tsuboi then turned north and routed four Chinese ships coming from the Yalu to reinforce Ting before doubling back to run the length of the Chinese line. Itō followed Tsuboi’s track around Ting’s right flank, then swung southeast and steamed across the Chinese rear. Ultimately, the Japanese maneuvers placed Ting’s fleet in a pincer between Itō and Tsuboi, and the Japanese squadrons poured deadly, rapid fire into the Chinese line.

Under concentrated Japanese fire, Ting’s formation quickly disintegrated. In the melee that followed, the armored cruiser King-yuen and all of Ting’s light cruisers were sunk. Both sloops on the Chinese right were lost, but the one on the left dashed for Port Arthur and escaped along with the badly damaged Lai-yuen. Itō concentrated his fire on Ting’s battleships and riddled both vessels’ superstructures, but was unable to penetrate their armored hulls. At nightfall, Itō broke off the engagement, having taken heavy damage himself, though no Japanese ships were lost. Ting made Port Arthur under cover of darkness.

References
Ballard, George A. The Influence of the Sea on the Political History of Japan. London: John Murray, 1921.
Evans, David C., and Mark R. Peattie. Kaigun: Strategy, Tactics, and Technology in the Imperial Japanese Navy, 1887–1941. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1997.
Feller, A. B. “Steel and Shot off the Yalu River.” Military History 16 (February 2000): 34–40.
Inouye, Jukichi. The Japan-China War: The Naval Battle of Haiyang. Yokohoma, Japan: Kelly and Walsh, 1895.
Potter, Elmer B., ed. Sea Power: A Naval History. 2d ed. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1981

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ukiyoe by Mizuno Toshikata depicting Admiral Itoh accepting the surrender of Chinese forces after the Battle of Weihaiwei, dated November 1895（The depiction is fictitious. In fact the Chinese commander Dingruchang [ Admiral Ting Ju-ch’ang]had committed suicide after he refused to surrender.）


Japanese admiral, the first accorded that rank. Yūkō Itō was born in Satsuma (Kagoshima) on 12 May 1843, the son of a samurai warrior; he matured at a time of national instability. On 5–8 September 1864, he witnessed the reduction of Shimonoseki by a combined squadron of English, Dutch, French, and American warships. He then entered the national naval school at Kobe. Itō applied himself diligently, and during 1871–1883 he held a series of eight ship commands before rising to rear admiral in 1886. He thus became the first senior naval leader to rise through the ranks. In light of his exemplary service record, Itō served in the Naval Ministry during 1889–1890 and also functioned as president of the Naval Staff College.

In 1894 when war began between Japan and China, Itō became commander of the Combined Fleet, a force of four protected cruisers, four light cruisers, and two older armored cruisers. Itō’s adversary was Admiral Ting Ju-ch’ang of the Peiyang, or Northern Fleet, a former cavalry officer and a close personal acquaintance. In contrast to the efficient Japanese, Ting commanded a motley array of two ironclad battleships, four light cruisers, and six torpedo boats. Nevertheless, the Chinese rashly gave battle on 17 September 1894, near the mouth of the Yalu River, whereupon Itō’s warships sank five Chinese vessels, drowning nearly 1,000 sailors. Japanese losses were only 90 killed and 200 wounded.

Immediately after his defeat, Admiral Ting returned to his home base at Weihaiwei, which was guarded by forts, harbor booms, and mines. Itō, saddened by his former friend’s predicament, entreated him to surrender rather than face disaster. Ting thanked Itō for his hospitality but declared his intention to fight to the last. On 4 February 1895, despite freezing weather, Itō sent in his torpedo boats, and they sank the entire Chinese squadron. At that point Ting offered to surrender Weihaiwei to the Japanese and then committed suicide. As a final token of respect, Itō ordered a captured Chinese ship released to convey Ting’s body back to China.
Japan’s complete victory in the Sino-Japanese War marked its debut as a major and modern military power. For his part, Itō was honored upon his return home and promoted to full admiral in 1898. Between 1895 and 1913 he also served as the senior member of the Navy General Staff, and in 1907 he was granted the title of viscount. A major architect of Japanese naval power, Itō died in Tokyo on 16 March 1916.

References
Ballard, George A. The Influence of the Sea on the Political History of Japan. New York: E. P. Dutton, 1921.
Evans, David C., and Mark R. Peattie. Kaigun: Strategy, Tactics, and Technology in the Imperial Japanese Navy, 1887–1941. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1997.
Howarth, Stephen. The Fighting Ships of the Rising Sun. New York: Atheneum, 1983.