The Ypres salient was one of the most dangerous places on the entire Western Front. The bulge in the front-line enabled the Germans to fire into the British positions from in front and both sides. It was a "hot" place and every soldier dreaded being in the lines there. The salient was also vulnerable to a major German attack. At any time, the Germans, attacking from the north and south, could attempt to pinch-off any troops in the bulge. If they were successful in cutting off the British positions from behind, there would be no avenue of escape for the thousands of trapped soldiers.

The Germans also had the advantage of topography on their side. The Ypres salient was located on the Flanders Plain, an area distinguished by flat, low-lying agricultural land with few heights of any significance. Occasionally, the land rose to form almost imperceptible ridges. Control of these ridges was of great military importance, for they offered the occupier the "eyes" to observe all the opponent's movements and to direct deadly artillery fire accurately on the enemy's positions. In the summer of 1917, unfortunately for the British, the Germans controlled virtually all of the high positions in the Ypres salient.

The most prominent of these crests of land was Passchendaele Ridge which ran in a crescent-shape about eight kilometres east of Ypres. It was a truly dominating position. The Germans, aware of its crucial importance, had turned the entire ridge into an armed bastion. For the British, their precarious position in the Ypres salient could only be alleviated by seizing Passchendaele Ridge. Once the Ridge was captured, the British could then utilize the high ground to harass the surrounding German .positions and to launch a decisive attack on the German-occupied channel ports. These ports were important to the German war strategy, as many of their deadly submarines operated from them.

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In mid-October, the Canadian Corps was given the dubious task of securing Passchendaele Ridge. Immediately, the Canadians set about devising a strategy that would defeat the mud and allow them to penetrate the formidable German defences. The German defensive system reflected the unique conditions found in the Ypres salient. The high water table precluded the use of the traditional trench systems that were employed in other sectors of the Western Front like the Somme and Vimy. In their place, the Germans erected a complex system of interlocking pillboxes. S.G. Bennett, historian of the 4th Canadian Rifles, describes the problems encountered when attacking the German defensive lines as follows:

"The enemy's line of defence was not a series of uniform trenches to be taken and mopped up. Instead there were isolated trenches and strongpoints dotted here and there. The greatest obstacles were the pill-boxes.

They were manned by picked resistance-troops who fought with courage and resolution, keeping their rifles and machine-guns in action until bombed or bayoneted. Only by collective bravery and individual acts of gallantry were these obstacles removed. Contrary to popular belief the majority of pill-boxes were not loop-holed fortresses from which the defenders fought. They were square rooms of reinforced-concrete with walls and roof about five feet thick with one door in the rear leading into a fire-trench. Their walls were too thick to allow a field of fire through ports. During a bombardment and when not in action the garrison gained shelter within, but as soon as an attack was launched, the occupants manned the fire-trench which ran behind and extended on either side of the pill-box. They took the place of deep dug-outs, which were impracticable in such a low-lying country, and were good rallying points giving moral support to the defenders.

"They were formidable, but with one weakness, their range of fire was limited, and unless covered by other pill-boxes on the flanks the blind points in the range of fire made it possible for individual attackers to crawl up under cover and bomb the garrison behind. This explains many of the individual acts of heroism in capturing or demolishing a crew defending a pillbox."

He was awarded the Navy’s top honor after the battle.

Navy Capt. Vernon L. “Mike” Micheel, an unassuming but heroic naval aviator who downplayed his feat of bombing two Japanese aircraft carriers on the same day during the Battle of Midway, died Thursday at Fleet Landing in Atlantic Beach. He died two weeks short of his 93rd birthday.

A reception in his honor will be held at 10:30 a.m. Aug. 21 in the Coleman Center at Fleet Landing, 1 Fleet Landing Blvd.

When he retired in 1972, Capt. Micheel had spent his last five years as commanding officer of Mayport Naval Air Station and chief of staff for Commander, Fleet Air Jacksonville.

Hugh Ambrose, who wrote the book “The Pacific” as a companion to the HBO series of the same name that premiered this year, included Capt. Micheel in the book.

“He was a pivotal person in one of the biggest battles of World War II,” Ambrose said Tuesday in a telephone interview. “He will always be one of my heroes.”

Yet the combat pilot continued to downplay his role in the Battle of Midway. Ambrose said Ensign Micheel had never flown a plane full of bombs off a carrier before taking to the skies with Scouting Squadron Six from the deck of the USS Enterprise on June 4, 1942.

Capt. Micheel’s bombs struck two Japanese carriers: the Akagi, which sank that day, and the Hiryu, which was heavily damaged and stayed afloat for another day.

In an interview with the late Jacksonville Journal writer Ray Knight in 1967, Capt. Micheel offhandedly said of the bombings, “Somebody in our squadron put about four bombs on two carriers in one day, four bombs each on two carriers in one day — and nobody knows who did it, so they gave it to everybody on the flight. We sank the carriers and this was our mission.”

For that deed, Capt. Micheel was awarded the Navy Cross, the highest medal that can be awarded by the Navy and the second-highest given for valor, surpassed by only the Medal of Honor.

Ambrose recalled that when he interviewed Capt. Micheel extensively several years ago for his book, “Mike had a way of steering away from things that he feared, such as the low fuel level on his plane or the Japanese Zeros he refused to see. He could get uncomfortable talking about his deeds.

“It was almost as if he didn’t want to think of killing people, or of those fellow pilots who didn’t come home,” he said. “Mike also felt others had done just as much as he but didn’t get the honors.”

Seth Paridon of the National World War II Museum in New Orleans remembered Capt. Micheel as an honored guest at the museum’s 65th memorial of the Battle of Midway in 2007.

He served on a panel with a few others in a “very lively” discussion of the battle, Paridon said.

Capt. Micheel’s daughter, Karen Gabriel of Ponte Vedra Beach, said the most important lesson she learned from her father was perseverance; you do what you have to do. She said her mother suffered bouts of poor health and her father often filled roles usually shared by parents.

“It was not unusual for Daddy to take me shopping for my Easter dress because my mother was ill,” she said.
Gabriel agreed that her father deflected everything that had to do with being a Navy hero.

“I remember asking him why he volunteered during Midway to go back up in the plane for a second bombing run, and he said he was afraid his ship would be sunk,” she said.

A native of Davenport, Iowa, Capt. Micheel earned a bachelor of science degree in 1939 from Iowa State University. He entered the Navy in December 1940 as an aviation cadet.

After Midway, his assignments included two years back in the States training dive-bomber pilots before returning to the Pacific Theater, where he earned the Distinguished Flying Cross and other combat awards. He later saw combat in Korea and South Vietnam, where he was awarded the Legion of Merit.

A Jacksonville resident since 1967, Capt. Micheel went to work for the city’s public safety department after his retirement, helping to expand rescue services into neighboring counties.

He also volunteered for several nonprofits including providing free tax service for service men and women, Meals on Wheels and the Salvation Army’s Night Patrol.

His wife of 62 years, the former Jeanne Miller of Philadelphia, died Oct. 10.

Besides his daughter, Capt. Micheel also is survived by a son, Bruce Micheel of Santa Barbara, Calif., and five grandchildren.

The family suggests memorials be made to The Salvation Army, 15 E. Church St., Jacksonville, FL 32202, or the National World War II Museum, 945 Magazine St., New Orleans, LA 70130.

At the same time that divisional cavalry squadrons were transferred to the corps cavalry regiments, divisional cyclist companies were assembled into corps cyclist battalions. As these cyclist battalions had no previous existence, there was no need to return particular companies to particular battalions. Instead, the cyclist companies serving in each army corps in Mayor June 1916 were, in most cases, simply detached from their divisions and formed into a new unit. (In the remaining cases, cyclist companies were either assigned to the cyclist battalions of corps other than their own or broken up in order to reinforce cyclist battalions that were under strength.)

The mission of corps cyclist battalions was similar to that of the divisional cyclist companies. Divisional cyclist companies had been designed to relieve divisional cavalry squadrons of those reconnaissance and security duties that did not require the employment of skilled horsemen. These included patrols in areas that were well provided with roads, and missions that involved a great deal of dismounted work. While all British cavalrymen of World War I were trained to fight on foot as well as on horseback, the act of dismounting deprived a cavalry unit of the services of the men detailed to care for the horses. As one man could only manage four horses or so, the transition from saddle to boot cost a cavalry unit some 25 per cent of its rifle strength. A cyclist unit, however, did not have to worry about its mounts running off on their own accord or being hit by stray small-arms fire. It could thus put everyone of its rifles into the firing line.

Cyclist battalions were relatively small units, with an authorized strength of some 322 officers and men. (A contemporary infantry battalion had an authorized strength of 999 officers and men.) The three companies of each cyclist battalion were, at 98 officers and men, likewise much smaller than either British infantry companies of the day (229 officers and men) or the standard divisional cyclist companies of the first two years of the war (204 officers and men). Because of this, the formation of corps cyclist battalions created a surplus of unassigned men. A few of these found jobs in the headquarters of the new corps cyclist battalions. Most, however, were sent to other units, with a considerable number ending up in military police units and trench mortar batteries.

The standard building block of both divisional cyclist companies and the cyclist companies of corps cyclist battalions was the 31-man cyclist platoon. (A divisional cyclist company had six such platoons. A cyclist company of a corps cyclist battalion had three.) Each of these platoons consisted of a small headquarters and four sections. The headquarters was made up of the platoon commander (a lieutenant or second lieutenant), a sergeant and a batman. Each section consisted of a section leader (who usually ranked as either a corporal or a lance-corporal) and six men.

As long as the Expeditionary Force was locked in positional warfare, most of the reconnaissance and security work carried out on the ground was performed by patrols provided by infantry battalions. As a result, cyclist units spent the middle years of the war in much the same way as their comrades in the divisional cavalry squadrons and the corps cavalry regiments. They trained for the resumption of mobile warfare; patrolled the roads, woods and fields behind the front lines; escorted prisoners of war; and provided working parties for various fatigues and engineering projects.

The early Roman Republic was greatly affected by the example of the Greek polis. This was true not only in the political realm but also in the military. Only citizens served in the army, and specifically only citizens who could afford to arm themselves as hoplites. The early Republic did not provide pay or equipment for the men. Like the Greek hoplites discussed in detail earlier, Rome’s early soldiers were armed with iron armor and iron weapons, which included both a spear and a sword. The soldiers would fight in the familiar phalanx formation. Most of the soldiers were farmers who owned property sufficient to qualify them for military service. Rome’s early wars were fought in the vicinity of Rome itself, so these farmer-soldiers would fall in for a few months of military service each summer before returning to their fields. By 400, the Roman army numbered roughly 6,000 men, making it bigger than most Greek armies of the period. From earliest times the largest unit of the Roman army was called the legion, which derived from the Roman term legio (levy). Later in the Republic, each legion was distinguished by its own Roman numeral.

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At some point around 400, changes were implemented. First of all, pay for military service was introduced during the siege of Veii (406–396 B.C.E .). Second, the Romans replaced the phalanx with the more flexible system of maniples. Rather than have one solid phalanx on the battleline, the legion would now consist of three separate lines called (from front to back) hastati, principes, and triarii, arranged on the battlefield in what was called the triplex acies. Soldiers were assigned to a particular line on the basis of their age and experience: the youngest, least experienced men were at the front, and the older veterans were assigned to the rear. Their experience and calm under fire would keep the men in front of them steady and prevent them from breaking and running. The legion would now be divided into 30 maniples, 10 each for the hastati, principes, and triarii.

The two forward lines had maniples of 120 men, and the triarii in the rear would have 60 soldiers in each maniple. The maniples were arranged in a checkerboard formation. The front line had gaps between each maniple; these gaps would then be covered by the maniples of the principes in the second line, which would also have gaps that would be covered by the maniples of the triarii. Apparently, the Romans made these changes to give greater flexibility than was possible with the phalanx, to provide what were essentially reserve units of veteran soldiers that could move in to cover any breach in the frontline and to allow for relays by which tired soldiers in the front line could be relieved efficiently by those from behind. Generally, they were equipped with the same type of armor, which was similar to that of the Greeks: helmet with various types of plumes, breastplate, and grieves of some sort. However, the Romans did adopt or develop some other implements of war that became very important during this middle period. First was the scutum, the distinctive, large oval shield. Second was the pilum, the Roman javelin, made of wood and iron. There may have been a connection between the change to a manipular legion and this new javelin, both introduced about 400 B.C.E ., since the new formation provided the necessary room for a Roman infantryman to throw the pilum at the enemy. The pilum was designed to penetrate armor and, at the very least, even if it did not wound an enemy soldier, to stick to the enemy’s armor or shield, either weighing him down or forcing him to discard part of his defenses. Later, the gladius, the new Roman sword, was introduced. This weapon was also known as the “Spanish” sword and may have been copied from swords used by Iberian soldiers whom Rome faced for the first time during the third century. The gladius replaced the long thrusting spear that had been the main weapon of the Greek and early Roman hoplites. The sword was short, less than two feet long, and its sharp edges were used to slice through armor and flesh. Generally, for the rest of the Republic, Roman soldiers would advance toward the enemy, hurl their pila with devastating effect, and then close with their short swords. One other unit was part of the Roman infantry: the velites, or light infantry. The velites were recruited from Rome’s poorer classes, who could not afford the full infantry panoply. They were armed with a smaller, round shield and used weapons such as javelins. Altogether, there were 3,000 of the heavy infantry and 1,200 of the light infantry, for a total legionary strength, at least on paper, of 4,200 men.

The last unit of the army was the equites (cavalry). The cavalry was made up of the wealthiest Roman citizens, who could afford not only their own weapons but also a horse. There were 300 equites assigned to each legion, and they were split into 10 units of 30, called turmae.

Described as the backbone of the army and considered to be the best soldiers in the maniple. They were experienced and talented professional soldiers. They were promoted from the ranks on the basis not of their social standing or family relationships but (usually) of their bravery and ability. They were rewarded with a large tent and far more pay and plunder than the average soldier received. They enjoyed tremendous prestige with the common soldier because they had similar backgrounds and unlike many military tribunes, legates, and even commanders, the centurions had earned their positions. They had influence not just with those under them but also with their superiors. The typical legion had 60 centuries, 6 per cohort. There was a definite hierarchy among them; the six centurions of the cohort were ranked, with the highest running the first century and possibly the cohort itself. The competition to rise within the ranks of the centurionate was fierce, as demonstrated by the rivalry between T. Pullo and L. Vorenus in Caesar’s army. The top centurions from the legion’s 10 cohorts were called the primi ordines. The ranking centurion among the primi ordines was the primus pilus, who was the leading centurion of the entire legion.

It was the duty of the centurions to command the 80 men in their century. They were responsible for enforcing orders. When necessary, they informed the military tribunes of problems that required investigation or punishment. In short, they were responsible for discipline at the lowest level of the camp and were vital for the commander’s control of the men.

The importance of the centurion can readily be seen in the works of Caesar. He stated that the loyalty of the centurions, especially during the Civil War, was essential to his success. He knew not just the names of individual centurions but also their military history, and he knew how many centurions had died in particular battles, even in the army of his enemies.

Immediately below the centurions were the three principales: the optio, signifier, and tesserarius. Below that may have been another rank known as the immunes. Last but not least, the bulk of the army consisted of the miles (common soldiers). These men were usually of humble origins who were conscripted or who volunteered, mostly from the rural areas of Italy. Soldiers came from Cisalpina, Etruria, Picenum, Umbria, the Sabine country, Campania, Samnium, Lucania, Apulia, and Bruttium, from among the Marsi, Paeligni, and the Marrucini. Almost all of the regions of Roman Italy were represented in republican armies.

Each soldier was part of a century, which numbered 80 men. The century as a whole was a soldier’s first loyalty, the group with which he fought, marched, and lived. In fact, he had almost a religious connection to his century. The Roman soldier was also part of a smaller unit, the contubernium. The contubernium was a group of eight men who shared a tent and messed together.

By the eve of the Invasion of Kuwait which led to the 1991 Gulf War, the Army was estimated to number 1,000,000 men. Just before the Gulf War began, the force comprised grouped into 47 infantry divisions plus nine armoured and mechanised divisions, grouped in seven corps. This gave a total of about 56 army divisions, and total land force divisions reached 68 when the twelve Iraqi Republican Guard divisions were included. Although it was said at the time in Western media that Iraqi troops numbered approximately 545,000 (even 600,000) today most experts think that both the qualitative and quantitative descriptions of the Iraqi army at the time were exaggerated, as they included both temporary and auxiliary support elements. Many of the Iraqi troops were also young, under-resourced and poorly trained conscripts. Hussein did not trust the army; among counterbalancing security forces was the Iraqi Popular Army.

The widespread support for Iraq during the Iran-Iraq war meant Iraq had military equipment from almost every major dealer of the world's weapons market. This resulted in a lack of standardization in this large heterogeneous force, which additionally suffered from poor training and poor motivation. The majority of Iraqi armoured forces still used old Chinese Type 59s and Type 69s, Soviet-made T-55s from the 1950s and 1960s, and some T-72s from the 1970s in 1991. These machines were not equipped with up-to-date equipment, such as thermal sights or laser rangefinders, and their effectiveness in modern combat was very limited. The Iraqis failed to find an effective countermeasure to the thermal sights and the sabot rounds used by the M1 Abrams, Challenger 1 and the other Coalition tanks. This equipment enabled Coalition tanks to effectively engage and destroy Iraqi tanks from more than three times the distance that Iraqi tanks could engage.

The Iraqi tank crews used old, cheap steel penetrators against the advanced Chobham Armour of these US and British tanks, with disastrous results. The Iraqi forces also failed to utilize the advantage that could be gained from using urban warfare — fighting within Kuwait City — which could have inflicted significant casualties on the attacking forces. Urban combat reduces the range at which fighting occurs and can negate some of the technological advantage that well equipped forces enjoy. Iraqis also tried to use Soviet military doctrine, but the implementation failed due to the lack of skill of their commanders and the preventive air strikes of the USAF on communication centers and bunkers.

The exact number of Iraqi combat casualties is unknown, but known to be heavy. Immediate estimates said up to 100,000 Iraqis were killed. Some now estimate that Iraq sustained between 20,000 and 35,000 fatalities. However other figures still maintain fatalities as high as 200,000. A report commissioned by the U.S. Air Force, estimated 10,000-12,000 Iraqi combat deaths in the air campaign and as many as 10,000 casualties in the ground war. This analysis is based on Iraqi prisoner of war reports. It is known that between 20,000 and 200,000 Iraqi soldiers were killed. According to the Project on Defense Alternatives study, 3,664 Iraqi civilians and between 20,000 and 26,000 military personnel were killed in the conflict. 75,000 Iraqi soldiers were wounded in the fighting.

During the Allied invasion of France in 1814 the Prussian general Gebhard von Blücher launched an assault on Napoleon’s position around this town on 1 February. He had a great superiority in numbers, and many of the French troops were raw conscripts. The heavy snow allowed Napoleon to fight a successful defensive action for most of the day. However, the arrival of General Karl Freiherr von Wrede and his Russo-Bavarian corps on Napoleon’s left flank forced him to withdraw. In the action both sides lost around 6,000 men.

After the Battle of Brienne, Blücher had fallen back to positions north of Trannes, where he had good fields of fire to his front on high ground. During the next two days both sides rested their forces and Napoleon uncharacteristically remained inactive. Feldmarschall Karl Philipp Fürst zu Schwarzenberg, the Allied commander in chief, gave Blücher two corps, those of Feldzeugmeister Ignaz Gyulai Graf von Maros-Nemeth und Nadaska and Prince Eugen of Württemberg, to strengthen his forces. Meanwhile the Bavarians under Wrede were to operate on the right flank of the Allied force. Blücher planned his attack for the morning of 1 February. Schwarzenberg could have committed more forces to the attack, but political decisions made it inadvisable to allow the Prussian commander enough troops to destroy Napoleon’s forces. Gyulai and Württemberg were ordered not to pursue beyond Brienne. The combined strength of the Allied forces was around 80,000, whereas Napoleon had only 45,000 men under his command. The weather was poor, with frigid temperatures and frequent snow squalls.

Blücher planned to attack the four villages of Dienville, La Rothière, Le Petit Mesnil, and La Giberie with the troops of generals Gyulai, Fabian Osten-Sacken, and Württemberg. Württemberg’s troops advanced through the woods to their front and attacked La Giberie, which was held by troops under Marshal Auguste de Marmont. This assault pushed the French out of the village. However the French rallied and counterattacked, retaking La Giberie. In the center, Marshal Claude Victor held La Rothière and was faced by the cavalry of Osten-Sacken and General Zakhar Dmititrievich Olusiev’s Russian troops. Osten-Sacken had problems in bringing up his artillery, owing to the condition of the ground, and the mud had also prevented Württemberg from making full use of his guns. General Etienne Nansouty, commanding the French cavalry in the center, took advantage of this to launch a charge meant to catch Osten-Sacken in the act of fully deploying his artillery. However the cavalry were driven off by some of the guns firing canister.

By now Osten-Sacken had fully deployed his troops, and his guns began to bombard La Rothière. Within a short time the town was ablaze, and he ordered his troops to begin an assault. The French were almost evicted from the village, but were reinforced and assailed once again by Russian troops. In the fighting that followed Osten-Sacken was nearly captured. On either side of La Rothière a cavalry battle raged between the French cavalry under General Emmanuel de Grouchy and Nansouty and Osten-Sacken’s dragoons and hussars. In the melee that followed, some of Osten-Sacken’s forces managed to overrun four batteries of horse artillery of the Imperial Guard. However, the French still held La Rothière by the end of the battle.

On the right flank of the French position General Maurice Etienne, comte Gérard held Dienville. Gyulai’s Austrian troops were given the task of attacking this village. Gyulai wished to capture the bridge here, but Gérard had time to barricade it. Despite the fact that many of his troops were conscripts, he was able to hold his position. By around 4:00 P.M. Wrede with his Bavarian troops were in a position to attack the left flank of Napoleon’s army. Marmont was able to turn his forces to face this threat, but could not prevent the Bavarians from taking the woods of Ajou to their front. There was some confusion in this action as some of Württemberg’s cavalry mistook Bavarian cavalry for the enemy and charged them. Württemberg quickly became aware of Wrede’s advance and requested his assistance in taking the village of Chaumesnil. To do this Wrede would have to turn his forces to the south, and this would prevent them from falling on the rear of the French. Such a move could have crushed the enemy.

Wrede chose to move against Chaumesnil. Napoleon appreciated the importance of holding this village for the safety of his entire force and ordered Marmont to retake it with a division of the Young Guard. Despite the ferocious attack of the French, the Bavarians held on to parts of the village, helped by the poor visibility caused by darkness and the snow. Württemberg had by now completed the capture of La Giberie and Le Petit Mesnil, but his forces were too exhausted to advance further. At La Rothière, Blücher had been reinforced by a force of Russian grenadiers commanded by General Mikhail Barclay de Tolly. Blücher organized one more assault on the town. The French had also been reinforced, Marshal Nicolas Oudinot having been ordered by Napoleon to defend the village with further troops drawn from the Young Guard. The clash between these enemy formations was bloody, but eventually the Russians forced the French out. Once more, however, the Allied pursuit was halted, this time by Napoleon deploying a number of guns of the Imperial Guard under the command of General Antoine, comte Drouot.

By the early evening Napoleon had managed to resist all attacks, but he had lost around 6,000 men and a large amount of artillery. Allied forces had lost a similar number. Napoleon, however, knew that if he remained in his position he would be surrounded the next day and crushed. By 9:00 P.M. he had dictated orders for a withdrawal to the north covered by Marmont.

By JANET MARTIN
Demographic and economic dislocation
The Mongol invasion had a severe impact on the society and economy of north-eastern Russia. During the three-month winter campaign of 1237–8, the city of Vladimir was besieged and burned, and Suzdal’ was sacked. Rostov, another of the main cities of the region, as well as Tver’, Moscow and a series of other towns, were also listed among those subjected to direct attack. The surrender of towns and defeat of the north-eastern Russian armies did not end the Mongol military assaults. During the quarter century following the initial invasion, the Mongols conducted fourteen more campaigns against northeastern Russia. The Golden Horde khans continued to send expeditionary forces, often in the company of Russian princes and at times at the Russian princes’ request, into the region. The campaigns tapered off only after the late 1320s.

The military campaigns took a heavy toll on the Russian population. Princes and commoners, urban and rural residents were killed or taken captive. Iurii Vsevolodich of Vladimir and Vasil’ko Konstantinovich of Rostov were among the numerous princes killed during the 1238 campaign. Although population figures are unknown, George Vernadsky estimated that at least 10 per cent of the Russian population died or was taken captive during the invasion of 1237–40. In north-eastern Russia the cumulative result of repeated military incursions was similarly a marked reduction in the size of the population. This effect was compounded by the Mongol khans’ demands for human services. Russian princes took part in Mongol military campaigns; commoners were also drafted for military service. Skilled artisans and unskilled labourers were conscripted to participate in the construction of Sarai, the capital city of the Golden Horde built by Khan Baty on a tributary of the lower Volga River. They also contributed to the construction of New Sarai, which was located about seventy-seven miles upstream and replaced Sarai as the Golden Horde capital in the early 1340s. Russian craftsmen were relocated to Sarai also to manufacture goods for its residents and markets. They were sent for similar purposes as far as Karakorum and China.

The Mongol invasion not only depleted the population of north-eastern Russia. It resulted as well in the subordination of the region to Juchi’s ulus, known also as the Kipchak Khanate or, more commonly, as the Golden Horde, which formed the north-western sector of the Mongol Empire. The khans of the Golden Horde required the Russian princes to recognise their suzerainty. They also demanded tribute in kind and, by the fourteenth century, in silver from the Russian populace. Mongol administrative agents, known as baskaki, were stationed with military contingents in selected north-eastern Russian towns to oversee tax collection and ensure compliance with the khans’ decrees. The tribute or vykhod, which may have been collected on an annual basis, has been estimated to have reached 5,000 silver roubles per year by 1389, the first year for which calculations are possible; it may have been even larger in earlier decades. That amount has been interpreted as a drain on the economy of northern Russia and a hindrance to its economic development.

Mongol military campaigns, seizures of captives, and demands for labour and tribute were not the only factors that adversely affected the demographic and economic condition of north-eastern Russia. Just over a century after the Mongol invasion, the Black Death or bubonic plague reached the region. Having spread through the lands of the Golden Horde in 1346–7 to Europe, it circled back to northern Russia and reached Pskov and Novgorod in 1352. The following year the epidemic reached north-eastern Russia, where it claimed the lives of the metropolitan, the grand prince, his sons and one of his brothers. After the initial bout, the plague returned repeatedly during the following century. Chronicles reported that as many as a hundred persons died per day at the peak of the epidemic. Scholars estimate that the Russian population declined by 25 per cent as a cumulative result of the waves of plague.

Despite the debilitating effects of conquest and plague, north-eastern Russia experienced a gradual economic recovery. Residents fled from the towns and districts that were favourite targets of Mongol attack. Thus, the capital city of Vladimir lost population and, despite the efforts of its prince Iaroslav Vsevolodich to rebuild it, recovered at a slow pace. But the refugees settled in other towns and districts, such as Rostov and Iaroslavl’, that were situated in more remote areas. Five of eight districts that were fashioned into separate principalities between 1238 and 1300 were located beyond the former main population centres of Rostov-Suzdal’. In addition, forty new towns were founded in north-eastern Russia during the fourteenth century.

Thus the demographic shift, prompted by the devastation caused by Mongol attacks, also stimulated economic growth. Among the towns and districts that benefited from the redistribution of population were Tver’ and Moscow, which became dynamic political and economic centres of north-eastern Russia during the fourteenth century. One visible sign of economic recovery was reflected in production by craftsmen. Despite the transfer of artisans and specialists into Mongol service, carpenters, blacksmiths, potters and other craftsmen continued to manufacture their wares in the thirteenth century; in the fourteenth century they were producing more goods than they had before the invasion. Building construction, particularly of masonry fortifications and churches, was curtailed in the immediate aftermath of the invasion. Only one small church of this type was built in Vladimir in the twenty-five years after the invasion. But half a century later patrons of such construction projects, including princes and, to a lesser degree, metropolitans, were able to muster the finances and skilled labour to undertake them. From the beginning of the fourteenth century new construction was occurring in north-eastern Russia. Appearing first in Tver’, building projects were almost immediately also launched in its rival city Moscow. There the church of the Dormition, the cathedral dedicated to the Archangel Michael, and three other stone churches were erected within a decade. By the middle of the century, prosperity was similarly visible in Nizhnii Novgorod.

Economic recovery was attributable, at least in part, to commercial activity. The Golden Horde, known for its brutal military subjugation of the Russians as well as their neighbours in the steppe, was part of the vast Mongol Empire that fostered and depended upon an extensive commercial network that stretched from China in the east to the Mediterranean Sea. Sarai became a key commercial centre in the northern branch of the segment of Great Silk Route that connected Central Asia to the Black Sea. Khan Mangu Temir (1267–81) was particularly active in developing commerce along the route that passed through his domain. To this end he granted the Genoese special trading privileges and encouraged them to found trading colonies at Kafa (Caffa) and Sudak (Surozh, Soldaia) on the Crimean peninsula in the Black Sea. Using the bishop of Sarai as his envoy, he also opened diplomatic relations with Byzantium.

Northern Russia was drawn into the Mongol commercial network. Goods collected as tribute and gifts for the khan and other Tatar notables were conducted down the Volga River to Sarai. But the Mongols also encouraged Russian commerce, particularly the Baltic trade conducted by the northwestern city of Novgorod. Khan Mangu Temir pressured Grand Prince Iaroslav Iaroslavich (1263–71/2), despite his unpopularity in Novgorod, to promote that town’s commercial interaction with its German and Swedish trading partners and to guarantee its merchants the right to travel and trade their goods freely throughout Vladimir-Suzdal’. Through the next century a commercial network developed that brought imported European goods through Novgorod into north-eastern Russia, then down the Volga River to Sarai. By the late thirteenth and first half of the fourteenth century Russian merchants were conveying those imports as well as their own products down the Volga River by boat and appearing not only at Sarai, but also Astrakhan’ and the Italian colonies of Tana, Kafa and Surozh. At those market centres European silver and textiles as well as Russian luxury furs and other northern goods joined the commercial traffic in silks, spices, grain and slaves that were being conducted in both eastward and westward directions along the Great Silk Road. The steady flow of tribute and commercial traffic through north-eastern Russian market towns from Tver’ to Nizhnii Novgorod stimulated their economic recovery and development.

It was within the framework of the economic demands and opportunities created by the Golden Horde that north-eastern Russia recovered. It was similarly under the pressures of Mongol hegemony that north-eastern Russia underwent a political reorganisation during the century following the invasion.

By JANET MARTIN

On the eve of the Mongol invasion two institutions had given definition to Kievan Rus’. One was the ruling Riurikid dynasty, whose senior prince ruled Kiev. The other was the Orthodox Christian Church headed by the metropolitan, also based at Kiev. Although the component principalities of Kievan Rus’ had multiplied and had become the hereditary domains of separate branches of the dynasty, subjecting the state to centrifugal pressures, they all recognised Kiev as the symbolic political and ecclesiastic centre of a common realm and were bound together by dynastic, political, cultural and commercial ties.

The principality that comprised the north-eastern territories of Kievan Rus’ was Vladimir, also known as Suzdalia, Rostov-Suzdal’, and Vladimir-Suzdal’. Centred around the upper Volga and Oka River basins, its territories were bounded by Novgorod to the north and west, Smolensk to the south-west, and Chernigov and Riazan’ to the south. The eastern frontier of Vladimir- Suzdal’ stretched to Nizhnii Novgorod on the Volga; beyond lay lands and peoples subject to the Volga Bulgars.

Vladimir-Suzdal’ was the realm of the branch of the dynasty descended from Iurii Dolgorukii (1149–57) and his son Vsevolod ‘Big Nest’ (1176–1212). When the Mongols invaded the Russian lands, Vsevolod’s son Iurii, the eldest member of the senior generation of this branch of the dynasty, was recognised, according to principles common to all the principalities of Kievan Rus’, as the senior prince of his branch of the dynasty. He was, therefore, the grand prince of Vladimir. Despite his detachment from Kievan politics, the legitimacy of Iurii’s rule in Vladimir derived from his place in the dynasty. The sovereignty of the Riurikid dynasty extended to Vladimir and defined it politically as an integral part of Kievan Rus’.

Vsevolod’s descendants also ruled in other towns and districts of the principality, which had begun a process of subdivision before the Mongol invasion. Prince Vsevolod had assigned the city and region of Rostov to his son Konstantin; when Konstantin died in 1218, Rostov and its associated towns became the inheritance of his descendants. In 1238, it was ruled by Vasil’ko Konstantinovich (d. 1238). At least half a dozen principalities had been defined in north-eastern Russia, but with the exception of Rostov they had not become the patrimonies of particular branches of the dynasty. They remained attached to the grand principality and were, accordingly, periodically distributed by princes of Vladimir to their relatives.

Affiliation with the Orthodox Church also defined the principality of Vladimir as a component of Kievan Rus’. Until the early thirteenth century the bishop of Rostov was the ecclesiastical leader of the population of the principality of Vladimir. In 1214, while Konstantin, the prince of Rostov, and his younger brother Iurii, appointed prince of Vladimir by their father, were engaged in a dispute over the throne of Vladimir, the eparchy was divided. The bishop of Rostov retained his authority over Rostov, Pereiaslavl’, Uglich and Iaroslavl’. But a second bishop, based in the city of Vladimir, assumed ecclesiastical authority over Vladimir, Suzdal’ and a series of associated towns. Both bishoprics remained within the larger Russian Orthodox Church, headed by the metropolitan of Kiev.

The Mongol invasion did not immediately destroy the heritage left by Kievan Rus’. The two institutions, the Riurikid dynasty and the Orthodox Church that had given identity and cohesion to Kievan Rus’, continued to dominate north-eastern Russia politically and ecclesiastically. But over the next century dynastic, political relations within north-eastern Russia altered under the impact of Golden Horde suzerainty. The lingering bonds connecting north-eastern Russia with Kiev and the south-western principalities loosened in the decades after the Mongol onslaught. North-eastern Russia separated from the south-western principalities of Kievan Rus’ while the principality of Vladimir-Suzdal’ fragmented into numerous, smaller principalities. During the fourteenth century, furthermore, the Moscow branch of the dynasty, the heirs of Daniil Aleksandrovich, emerged as victors in the competition among the princes for Mongol favour and domestic power. Their political ascendancy violated the dynastic traditions, also inherited from the Kievan era, that had determined dynastic seniority and defined a pattern of lateral succession to the position of prince of Vladimir. In their quest for substitute bases of support and legitimacy the Moscow princes leaned heavily on their Mongol patrons. They also began processes of aggrandising territory, securing dynastic alliances and nurturing ties with the Church that served to secure their hold on the leading political position in north-eastern Russia, the grand prince of Vladimir. These processes also laid the foundations for the state of Muscovy.

The real technological edge enjoyed by the West in this period was naval. There was no real equivalent in the non-Western world to Europe's naval superiority, which bestowed at least three advantages on the invaders. The first was power projection. If Europe discovered the world from the fifteenth century, and not vice versa, it was because the capability in the form of well-built ships had married the motivation to sail forth and conquer. Navies gave the West strategic reach, a means of passage to the most distant corners of the earth opposed only by the caprice of nature and the ships of rival European navies. As A.T. Mahan noted in The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 'if Britain could be declared the winner in the imperial race, the credit, or blame, resided with the superiority of the Royal Navy'. A second benefit of naval superiority for imperialists was security: In the early days when Europeans were on the defensive on land, especially in Africa and the East, they seized coastal enclaves, often islands like Goa, St Louis de Senegal, Hong Kong or Singapore, which they could defend and supply by sea. Precarious frontier posts like Montreal might have succumbed to Amerindian constriction had their communications depended exclusively on overland routes.

Finally, sea power meant operational and even tactical mobility, which could translate into strategic advantage. Sea power was the force multiplier for the British. The British ability to shift their troops up and down the coast in India was an important element in their victory over the French there. In 1762, British maritime expeditions sent to punish Spain for her alliance with France in the Seven Years War seized both Manila and Havana. In North America, the Royal Navy gave Britain the decisive edge over France, a country with three times the population and ten times the army: Maritime expeditions swept up French settlements around the Bay of Fundy in 1710, captured Louisbourg in 1745 (and again in 1758), and imposed a blockade which, by stemming the supply of gunpowder, munitions and muskets, began the unravelling of France's Amerindian alliances as far inland as the Great Lakes, the Ohio Valley and Louisiana. A seaborne strike in 1759, behind a screen of men-of-war blockading French ports, allowed Britain to pierce the heart of New France at Quebec, rescuing what, until then, had been a fumbling campaign of attrition against the southern glacis of French Canada. And although the French Navy - La Royale returned the favour twenty-two years later at Yorktown, sea power had made land operations against New France a leisurely march to a foregone conclusion. British maritime expeditions had harvested so many islands of the French Antilles by 1762 that British diplomats attempting to negotiate a peace were embarrassed by their nation's military success. British sea power forced Napoleon to abandon the reconquest of Saint Domingue (Haiti) in 1803.

Dominance of the Pacific was essential for the victory of the rebellious South American colonies, who promoted Lord Cochrane, a disgraced Scottish aristocrat, to the rank of admiral, and launched a successful amphibious assault on Lima, an oasis in the desert, from Valparaiso in Chile in 1820. Foreign corsairs organized a small fleet to assault Spanish ships in the Caribbean.

Brown-water operations were also a feature of imperial warfare. Lake Champlain and the Richelieu river provided a classic invasion route into and out of New France. During the Second Seminole War, the United States Navy operated steamboats on the larger rivers while oared, flat-bottomed Mackinaw boats, capable of carrying twenty, moved men along the tributaries. This permitted American troops and volunteers to re-establish their presence in central Florida, abandoned to the Seminole chief Osceola in 1835. Without the support of the Russian navy, the string of posts along the Black Sea created to sever supplies from Turkey to Shamil would undoubtedly have fallen to Murid attacks. Following the Crimean War, these maritime outposts served as bases of operations against the Cherkess population of the western Caucasus. British victory in the Opium War with China (1839-42) demonstrated how relatively small naval forces could impose their will even on a vast continental empire. Sea power allowed the British to transform what the imperial court in Beijing viewed as a distant dispute in Canton into a struggle which directly threatened the economic health and political stability of the empire itself. Junks and poorly defended Chinese coastal fortifications offered scant defence against twenty-five Royal Navy ships of the line, fourteen steamers, and nine support vessels carrying 10,000 troops. With this relatively small force, the British seized four important coastal trading centres, sailed up the Yangtze River to block the Grand Canal which carried much of the Celestial Empire's north-south commercial traffic, and threatened Nanking. This was enough to bring the Chinese to the peace table.

However, in 1884-5 the French were far less successful in employing their navy to wring concessions from the Chinese when they attacked Formosa which, clearly, Beijing did not believe vital to its interests. The creation of a gunboat force was critical in allowing the Celestial Empire to defeat the Taiping and Nien rebellions, sparked by European encroachment, in the 1860s. Naval artillery made the walled cities held by the Taipings along the Yangtze untenable. Gun sampans and eventually gunboats on the Yellow river and Grand Canal escorted grain convoys, and linked a defensive chain of fortifications created to keep Nien forces from breaking out across the Yellow river, much as the British in the Boer War of 1899-1902 used railways to link barriers of blockhouses built to contain Boer commandos. The French pioneered river flotillas to advance up the Senegal River toward the Niger from the 1850s.

According to the ceasefire agreement of 10 September 1943, two Italian battalions of the Piave Division were left in Rome for security duties. In mid-October they were disarmed and disbanded. Here we see Fallschirmjäger conferring with Italian officers whilst Italian soldiers are carried away aboard lorries. The main photograph is interesting as it shows three Fallschirmjäger, each equipped with a different weapon: from left to right, an FG42, an MP40 and the ubiquitous Kar 98 rifle.

Fallschirmjäger of 2 FJD manning a 75mm PaK 40 in Rome, September 1943.This was quite an unusual weapon for such a unit, since Fallschirm-Panzerjäger Abteilungen were mostly equipped with the 50mm PaK 38.

On Crete two years previously, 7 Flieger Division had simply consisted of FJR 1-3 plus the semi-autonomous LLStR and artillery, etc. Two years later many changes were in process: firstly, the division was being gathered into a strategic reserve, much like the US 82nd and 101st Airborne in November 1944; secondly, it was being transformed into an infantry division with special talents. At the time of the name change, the bulk of Heidrich's men were stationed at Flers, near Caen in Normandy, but moved south to Avignon later in the month, closer to 2 Fallschirmjäger Division. Both divisions were therefore relatively near to hand when the invasion of Sicily began on 9/10 July 1943, yet Hitler decided that at the moment only one of them was to be transferred to Italy.

On 11 July FJR 3 was airlifted to Rome, the vanguard of 1 Fallschirmjäger Division, preceded by Richard Heidrich and his staff. After a brief conference with Generalfeldmarschall Kesselring at his HQ in Frascati, who gave him the task of closing a gap in Sicily's frontline along with Kampfgruppe 'Schmalz' of the 'Hermann Goring' Division, Heidrich issued orders to transport the various units of the division to Sicily by air as soon as they arrived in Italy. Promptly, on the afternoon of 12 July Heilmann's 1,400-strong FJR 3 was airdropped on the Catania plains and made contact with Kampfgruppe 'Schmalz', to whom it was subordinated. Incidentally, this was to be the last large-scale German airdrop of World War II. FJR 3 was followed on 13 July by Fallschirm-MG Bataillon 1, which moved south immediately after landing at Catania airport, and by the Funk-Kompanie of Luftnachrichten-Abteilung 1. Other units also arrived at Catania airport; two companies of Fallschirm-Pionier Bataillon 1, the first Abteilung of Fallschirm-Artillerie Regiment 1 and three platoons (1, 5, 6) of Fallschirm-Panzerjager Abteilung 1.

None of them had time to rest, for on the very same day the German situation in Sicily became critical: on 13 July the town of Augusta fell into British hands and, on the night of 13/14 July, British paratroopers and Commandos seized the bridges on the Simeto and Lentini Rivers just south of Catania, thus cutting out both Kampfgruppe 'Schmalz' and FJR 3. The situation was saved by the intervention of Hauptmann Stangenberg, a 1 Fallschirmjäger Division staff officer, who organized an 'alarm unit' using men from both the Funk-Kompanie and a nearby Flak unit and promptly counter-attacked. Soon a Kampfgruppe composed of two companies of Fallschirm-Pionier Bataillon 1 and Fallschirm-MG Bataillon 1 joined them. Until 17 July the area saw savage fighting between the 'Grun Teufel' and the 'Red Devils', but eventually British armour and infantry reached the Simeto. As a result, Kampfgruppe 'Schmalz' and FJR 3 had to move north on the western side of Mt Etna while its eastern side was defended by the newly arrived FJR 4 (minus 8./II, two platoons each from 5 and 7./II and 14./FJR 4), which, together with Fallschirm-MG Bataillon 1, Fallschirm-Pionier Bataillon 1, Fallschirm-Panzerjager Abteilung 1 and the units from Fallschirm-Artillerie Regiment 1, formed Kampfgruppe 'Walther'.

It took nearly a month before the two groups rejoined south of Messina where, since 10 August, the Germans had begun the evacuation of their troops to the Italian mainland. Until 17 August, when the Allies entered Messina, the defence line was manned by men of the 'Hermann Goring' and 1 Fallschirmjäger Divisions. The losses had been appalling, a common occurrence in the history of the Fallschirmjäger. Of the 1,400 men of FJR 3 no less than 1,100 had been killed, captured or wounded, and the regiment had only had 200 replacements. Fallschirm-MG Bataillon 1 was in no better shape, for in early September its strength was only 150.

Between mid- and late July the rest of 1 Fallschirmjäger Division, mainly its reinforced FJR 1, moved to Naples. Soon after Mussolini's downfall on 25 July, Student's XI Fliegerkorps and Ramcke's 2 Fallschirmjäger Division were rushed to Rome on Hitler's orders, officially to defend the city but actually ready to undertake Operation Schwarz (Black), the intention of which was to free Mussolini and take over the country. When the Italian surrender was announced on the afternoon of 8 September the Germans immediately began Operation Achse (Axis), disarming Italian troops in northern and central Italy and seizing the country. A few hours later, Allied troops landed at Salerno. Once more, the Fallschirmjäger were to play a vital role in these events.

With about 80 per cent of its established strength, some 14,000 men, 2 Fallschirmjäger Division was to face no less than two coastal and four Italian infantry divisions in Rome. The city itself was also defended by two other armoured divisions (one of which, the 'Centauro', was considered unreliable by Italian commanders since it was composed of Mussolini's 'Blackshirts'), plus elements of another infantry division that was being moved from the north. Student's XI Fliegerkorps could only rely on 2 Fallschirmjäger Division, stationed on the coast south of Rome, which was under strength (II/FJR 6 was at Foggia and most of FJR 7 was held in reserve for airborne operations), and on 3 Panzergrenadier Division stationed well north of Rome. A few hours after the announcement of the Italian surrender, 2 Fallschirmjäger Division had disarmed two Italian coastal divisions and seized the coastline near Rome.

The following morning II/FJR 6 was airdropped at Monterotondo, east of Rome, in an attempt to capture the Italian Comando Supremo, though they had evacuated their HQ some hours before. During the ensuing fight II/FJR 6 captured no fewer than 2,500 Italian soldiers at the cost of 33 dead and 88 wounded. In the meantime the bulk of 2 Fallschirmjäger Division, commanded by its la (first staff officer) von der Heydte, moved to the centre of Rome. There was heavy fighting at the southern gate of the city, but by the morning of 10 September the Fallschirmjäger had reached the city centre. In the afternoon the Italians agreed a ceasefire, which included the disarming of most of their units. With Rome declared an 'open city', most of the Fallschirmjäger came back to defend the coast. The seizure of the Eternal City had cost 109 dead and 510 wounded. Although 2 Fallschirmjäger Division units carried out other airborne operations (Mors' I/FJR 7 spectacular rescue of Mussolini at Gran Sasso; Hubner's Ill/FJR 7 seizure of the island of Elba; and Kuhne's I/FJR 2 airdrop on to the Aegean island of Leros), it was subsequently employed in security duties on the Tyrrhenian coastline.

Frederick at the end of the battle of Kunersdorf on August 12 1759. Source: Röchling, Karl; Knötel, Richard; Der Alte Fritz in 50 Bildern für Jung und Alt, Berlin, 1895

Battle of Kunersdorf, 12 August 1759. Prussians attack the Russian right flank. After heavy fighting they carry the Russian positions at Muhl-Berge. Prussians follow up by attacking the Russian positions at Kuh-Grund. The Russians have reinforced the position with troops from farther down the line. The Prussians are not able to break through and begin to fall back. A Prussian cavalry charge is sent in to relieve pressure, but it is attacked by joint Austrian/Russian cavalry and is dispersed. The Russian artillery on Grosser-Spitzberg takes a further toll on the Prussian cavalry.

The Russians spent the early months of 1759 preparing their army for a new offensive into Prussia. The Russian force, under the command of General Petr Semenovich Saltykov and numbering 50,000 men, set out in late June. The Austrians sent a corps of 20,000 troops, under the command of Lieutenant-General Gideon Ernst v. Loudon, to join the Russian advance in a joint effort to destroy the main Prussian field army in one decisive campaign. On 23 July, the Russian army met a Prussian corps and soundly defeated them at Paltzig. Frederick, upon hearing this news, marched with 19,000 men toward the remnants of the defeated Prussian force. He arrived in early August and took command of the Prussian corps from the defeated Lieutenant-General Johann Heinrich v. Wedell. His army now numbered 50,000 men.

Both sides maneuvered for position near the Oder River. Saltykov feared his army being caught on the march by Frederick and eventually decided to dig them in on a ridge near the village of Kunersdorf on the eastern side of the Oder River. A Prussian officer stated: 'they [the Russians] had occupied a very strong camp fortified and covered with cannon' (Lloyd, History of the Late War in Germany, II, 143).

The Prussians began to march on the Russian positions at 2.00 am on 12 August. They had not reconnoitered very well and were hoping to maneuver around the Russian lines and take them from the rear and left flank. However, the Russians had defended themselves on most sides with trenches and redoubts, and in the expectation that the attack would fall on this part of the ridge, Muhl-Berge, they had fortified the position with considerable artillery. The Prussians emerged and attacked the Russian left flank, from three sides. Although pounded by Russian artillery, the Prussians were able to seize the northeast area of the fortification.

A second Prussian attack went in against Kuh-Grund, but this one was not successful, retreating under an onslaught of Russian artillery and musket fire. Frederick noted that 'the attack was several times received, but it was impossible to carry this battery, which commanded the whole ground' (Frederick II, History of the Seven Years War, II, p. 14). At midday a Prussian cavalry charge was sent in against the Grosser-Spitzberg line, but it too failed. Russian artillery fire raked its columns and a Russian/Austrian cavalry charge decimated the survivors. Soltykov stated: '[the] Prussians kept attacking and suffered heavily ... their lines had been exposed to artillery' (Lloyd, History of the Late War in Germany, II, pp. 147-8). By 6.00 pm the Prussians had begun to withdraw from the battlefield, but the Russians failed to follow up the retreat and to destroy the Prussians completely.

Frederick had suffered 19,000 dead, wounded, and missing, while the joint Russian/Austrian army had suffered close to 15,000 dead and wounded. The Russian army crossed the Oder River intending to head east toward Berlin, but it was forced to detour south to assist another Austrian corps, who had had their line of communications cut by a small Prussian force. Relations between the Russian and Austrian armies were beginning to deteriorate, as is evidenced by a letter from the Russian commander to the Austrian commander, Daun:

I have done enough, sir for one year. I have gained two victories, which have cost the Russians 27,000 men. I only wait till you shall in like manner have gained two battles and I will begin anew. It is not just that troops of my sovereign should act singly. (Frederick II, History of the Seven Years War, II, p. 33)

Kunersdorf was Frederick's worst defeat, but not his last of 1759. He lost the strategic city of Dresden on 4 September and a Prussian corps of 13,000 at Maxen on 20 November. He and his army, tired and bled white as it was, were still in the field as 1759 drew to a close. The inability of the Austrian and Russian armies to stage a combined effort against Berlin and the remnants of the Prussian army were to prove decisive, enabling Frederick and his men to survive and prepare for another campaign season.

Designed by Manny Aguilar, Indian Summer tells the story of the Civil War in the west. A work in progress, this will be a large game, befitting a large topic, featuring some 600 counters and a 22" x 35" map. Borrowing ideas from Miranda's They Died With Their Boots On, Indian Summer employs a leader-draw mechanic to activate commands or groups of units under a leader. The player is challenged to manage available resources and reinforcements in order to control sections of the "western" states of Missouri, Kansas, Arkansas and Texas and the Indian Territory during the period June 1862 to September 1863. Counters in the game represent historic infantry, cavalry, artilley units plus leaders, supply depots, wagon trains and more. A heroism draw aspect provides for unexpected events and capabilities for both sides, making Indian Summer not only a highly realistic simulation but an exciting game as well.

The Son of the Dragon is a work in progress by Dennis L. Bishop. This is a game about Vlad III of Wallachia who fought against invading Ottomans, 1456-1462. This game is planned as a printed game with die-cut counters.

In May, of the free games available at White Dog Games, the computer game Hannibal Against Rome had 329 downloads. The computer game Waterloo followed with 168 downloads and the print-and-play game Saratoga with 91. Hannibal Against Rome is a great little game (I wrote it so I can say that!) with lots of replayability. It's difficult but not impossible for the player to defeat mighty Rome and re-write history.

For you Texas history buffs, Remember the Alamo! San Jacinto April 20 - 21, 1836 is coming soon. Oh, I know, historically it was a rout. But, if Santa Anna had not gotten a little over confident, it might have been a real contest. After all, he outnumbered the Texians 1300 to 900 and, on the previous day, had shown himself a competent commander of troops by smartly manuevering cavalry, artillery and infantry in a sharp skirmish with eager Texians. The Mexican commander failed to post sentries on April 21 and Sam Houston, finally acting, took the Mexican army by surprise. Any army can be overwhelmed if sentries are not posted; that's why they shoot sentries who fall asleep on duty. Remember the Alamo! is a PnP game and will take place over two days, April 20 and 21, although just the actual battle of San Jacinto on April 21 could be played by itself. The game employees a turn and unit activation method to simulate General Houston's indecisiveness on Day One and Day Two and Santa Anna's carelessness on Day Two. Tom Cundiff, counter master, is doing the counter art for this game. Mexican order of battle research assistance by Dennis L. Bishop. Still in the thinking stage, we may offer die-cut chits in limited sets for this game.

Bloody April: April 6-7, 1862 The Battle of Shiloh is a remake of sorts of an earlier White Dog Games issue. A computer-based boardgame, it will be a quick-play, battalion-level simulation. The game will be the first released since we converted from Visual basic 6 to Visual Studio 2008. It's been a learning process of about six months off and on but we think we are getting the hang of the object-oriented language. Bloody April will feature counters

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Between 1795 and 1914 Russia sought to expand its territory in all possible directions but met with resistance from Austria, Britain and France when it threatened their interests in the Balkans in the 1850s. Expansion to the south and east was intermittent up until the 1880s, when it was halted by British power and by internal financial difficulties. To the east, the Russian Empire extended even onto the continent of North America, as far as northern California, until Alaska was sold to the Americans for $7.2 million in 1867. To the southeast, Russia continued to exert its influence in Manchuria and Mongolia in the early years of the 20th century, despite its defeat at the hands of the Japanese in 1905.

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Russian expansion was of an entirely different nature to that of other imperial nations. In the first place, it was a continental not a maritime enterprise. It was a continuation of the defensive expansion of Muscovy, and such strategic concerns supplied the most coherent rationale. Second, nationalism played almost no part. No equivalent of the 'White Man's Burden' existed in Russia. The most important support for Russian imperialism came from Pan-Slavism, but this was never a mass movement and was only influential during the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-8. Third, as elsewhere, economic considerations were, at best, marginal. There was some belief that the conquest of Central Asia would encourage trade from India. There was also population pressure to move Russians into the conquered areas. But basically, the Russian frontier moved forward because, apart from in the Caucasus, the advance met minimal resistance. In the eighteenth century, Russia moved to consolidate its southern frontiers on the Kazakh steppe, the Ukraine and White Russia, on the Black Sea coast and in the Crimea. After that, Russian imperialism turned offensive: eastern Poland was annexed in 1795, Finland in 1807 and Armenian areas in the first quarter of the nineteenth century: The northern Caucasus was absorbed between 1859 and 1864, and the Kazakh steppe consolidated from China to the Caspian. The Uzbek states, Kokand, Bukhara and Khiva, were overwhelmed between 1864-73, while Turkestan fell in the 1880s. Although the British feared that the Russian presence in Asia was a prelude to an invasion of India, the tsars never seriously entertained that ambition.

Towards the century's end, Russia shifted its attentions to the Far East. The flight of serfs into Siberia had enticed the government to follow in the eighteenth century: Vladivostok was established in 1857 and the Amur and Ussuri regions were annexed in 1860. However, St Petersburg's apathy towards Siberia was rattled by the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-5, which opened Manchuria to Russian penetration. Tsar Nicholas II allowed himself to be seduced by the Asian vision of his finance minister, Sergei Witte. Witte convinced his sovereign that Russia's destiny lay in the Far East. Manchuria, Witte insisted, could be exploited for the cash required to industrialize western Russia. But the Russian case offers an example of how an imperial power merely drifted, unmindful of the potentially disastrous consequences, into a vacuum created by the decomposition of the Celestial Empire, and quickly found itself overextended. The intervention of Russia, Germany and Britain to strip Japan of many of the spoils of its victory over China in 1895, and the subsequent Russian invasion of Manchuria and Korea, set off alarm bells in Tokyo. Japan prepared to assert its claims to territories on the Asian mainland which it regarded as being within its sphere of imperial interests. At the same time, Witte's dreams of a Russian empire in the Far East were shared by few of his compatriots, who nourished hopes that their country would evolve as a Western, not an Oriental, power. Appalling mismanagement of the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-5 confirmed the disinclination of Russians to fight for Manchuria to the point that it spawned the revolution of 1905. Revolution, combined with the loss of the Russian fleet at Tsushima in 1905, convinced the tsar to cut his losses and concede an unfavourable peace with the Japanese in 1905.

The following eyewitness accounts of the Storming of the fortress of Schellenberg is by Colonel Jean de la Colonie, one of the defenders. 

Wednesday, 2 July 1704 
The enemy's battery opened fire upon us and raked us through and through. They concentrated their fire on us, and with their first discharge carried off Count de la Bastide, the Lieutenant of my own company with whom at the moment I was speaking, and twelve grenadiers, who fell side by side in the ranks, so that my coat was covered with brains and blood. So accurate was the fire that each discharge of the cannon stretched some of my men on the ground.... Hardly had our men lined the little parapet when the enemy broke into the charge, and rushed at full speed, shouting at the tops of their voices, to throw themselves into our entrenchments....  

The English infantry led this attack with the greatest intrepidity, right up to our parapet, but there they were opposed with a courage at least equal to their own. Rage, fury and desperation were manifested by both sides, with the more obstinacy as the assailants and assailed were perhaps the bravest soldiers in the world. The little parapet which separated the two forces became the scene of the bloodiest struggle that could be conceived.... It would be impossible to describe in words strong enough the details of the carnage that took place during this first attack, which lasted a good hour or more. We were all fighting hand to hand, hurling them back as they clutched at the parapet; men were slaying, or tearing at the muzzles of guns and the bayonets which pierced their entrails; crushing under their feet their own wounded comrades, and even gouging out their opponents' eyes with their nails, when the grip was so close that neither could make use of their weapons....  

At last the enemy, after losing more than eight thousand men in this first onslaught, were obliged to relax their hold, and they fell back for shelter to the dip of the slope, where we could not harm them.... The ground around our parapet was covered with dead and dying, in heaps almost as high as our fascines, but our whole attention was fixed on the enemy and his movements; we noticed that the tops of his standards still showed at about the same place as that from which they had made their charge in the first instance, leaving little doubt but that they were reforming before returning to the assault. As soon as possible we set vigorously to work to render their approach more difficult for them than before, and by means of an increasing fire swept their line of advance with a torrent of bullets, accompanied by numberless grenades, of which we had several wagon loads in rear of our position. These, owing to the slope of the ground, fell right amongst the enemy's ranks, causing them great annoyance and doubtless added not a little to their hesitation in advancing the second time to the attack. They were so disheartened by the first attempt that their generals had the greatest difficulty in bringing them forward again, and indeed would never have succeeded in this... had they not dismounted and set an example by placing themselves at the head of the column, and leading them on foot. 

Their devotion cost them dear, for General Stirum and many other generals and officers were killed. They once more, then, advanced to the assault, but with nothing like the success of their first effort, for not only did they lack energy in their attack, but after being vigorously repulsed, were pursued by us at the point of the bayonet for more than eighty yards beyond our entrenchments....
They arrived within gunshot of our flank, about 7.30 in the evening, without our being at all aware of the possibility of such a thing, so occupied were we in defence of our own particular post.... 

But I noticed all at once an extraordinary movement on the part of our infantry, who were rising up and ceasing fire withal. I glanced around on all sides to see what had caused this behaviour, and then became aware of several lines of infantry in greyish white uniforms on our left flank.... I verily believed that reinforcements had arrived for us, and anybody else would have believed the same. No information whatever had reached us of the enemy's success, or even that such a thing was the least likely, so... I shouted to my men that they were Frenchmen, and friends, and they at once resumed their former position behind the parapet.  

Having, however, made a closer inspection, I discovered bunches of straw and leaves attached to their standards, badges the enemy are in the custom of wearing on the occasion of battle, and at that very moment was struck by a ball in the right lower jaw, which wounded and stupefied me to such an extent that I thought it was smashed. I probed my wound as quickly as possible with the tip of my finger, and finding the jaw itself entire, did not make much fuss about it; but the front of my jacket was so deluged with the blood which poured from it that several of our officers believed that I was dangerously hurt. I reassured them, however, and exhorted them to stand firmly with their men.... I at once, therefore, shouted as loudly as I could that no one was to quit the ranks, and then formed my men in column along the entrenchments facing the wood, fronting towards the opposite flank, which was the direction in which we should have to retire. Thus, whenever I wished to make a stand, I had but to turn my men about, and at any moment could resume the retirement instantaneously, which we thus carried out in good order.

Jean de la Colonie. Chronicles of an Old Campaigner, 1692-1717. (London: 1904), pp. 182-192.