War and Game

The war ended officially at the beginning of May 1945, and the peace agreement was signed on 8 May 1945, but that did not mean that the war was actually over. The fighting still raged until about the beginning of the 1950s, with the heaviest taking place in southeastern Poland where the Ukrainian partisan movement and Polish "desperado" partisan units had trouble accepting the fact that they had lost the war. Feeling betrayed, taken advantage of and forsaken by both Anglo-Saxons and Germans, friendly forces and people who were tired of the war dug in amidst the forests and waited for either final destruction or a miracle. In reaction to this, in 1948 the Polish communist government launched a large-scale operation named "Vistula" against the Ukrainians (partisans and civilian), even involving small aviation and armored units. Seen here are two BA-64 scout cars during a pause in the fighting during this operation.

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The stated goal of the operation was to suppress the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), which had been fighting the communist Armia Ludowa units and murdering ethnic Polish civilians in those southeastern territories since 1944. The direct pretext for Operation Vistula was the March 28, 1947, assassination of the Polish communist General Karol S'wierczewski in an ambush which had allegedly been set up by the UPA's Chrin and Stach sotnias. About 12 hours after the incident, the Polish communist authorities took the official decision to deport all the Ukrainians and Lemkos from the southeastern territories of the People's Republic of Poland (1944–1990). It is known, however, that preparations for Operation Vistula had started already in January 1947, if not earlier.

According to the order of the Ministry of Recovered Territories "the main goal of the relocation of 'W' settlers is their assimilation into a new Polish environment, all efforts should be exerted to that end. Do not apply the term 'Ukrainians' to the settlers. In cases when the intelligentsia element reaches the recovered territories, they should be settled separately and away from the communities of the 'W' settlers."

The operation was carried out by Operational Group Vistula consisting of about 20,000 personnel commanded by General Stefan Mossor. This personnel included soldiers of the Polish People's Army and the Internal Security Corps, as well as functionaries of the police Milicja Obywatelska and the Security Service Urząd Bezpieczeństwa. The operation commenced at 4 a.m., April 28, 1947. The expellees comprised about 140,000 to 150,000 Ukrainians and Lemkos still remaining after the 1944-1946 forcible repatriation of Ukrainians from Poland to the Soviet Union (Ukrainian SSR and Siberia), and the inhabitants of
Polesie
Roztocze
Pogórze Przemyskie
Bieszczady
Low Beskid
Beskid Sądecki
Ruś Szlachtowska
The process of deportation itself was swift and brutal as the deportees were often given only a few hours to prepare and get the limited belongings they were allowed to take, and they were transported in crowded boxcars. The food supply was irregular, the sanitary conditions were poor, there were many delays along the way. The entire process was accompanied by considerable violence. Some deportees died in transit.

Members of the Ukrainian intelligentsia, including clergy (both Greek Catholic and Ukrainian Orthodox), were sent from collection points to the concentration camp in Jaworzno called the Central Labour Camp, and was a branch of the formerly German concentration camp Auschwitz. At the latter camp, almost 4,000 persons were held, including 800 Ukrainian and Lemko women and dozens of children. The captives, of whom 200 died in the camp, were subject to harsh interrogations and beatings despite the fact that no active members of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists were sent to the camp. For the latter, show trials by the extraordinary Operation Group Vistula Tribunals or regular military tribunals were held, and over 500 were sentenced to death and executed.

The remaining expellees were resettled over a wide area in the Northern (Warmia and Masuria) and Western Territories acquired by the People's Republic of Poland following the Potsdam Agreement, were they were not to constitute more than 10 percent of the population in any one location. Operation "Vistula" itself was officially ended as early July 31, 1947. Operation Vistula closed officially with a ceremonial bestowing of decorations on what were deemed the most deserving Polish soldiers, held on the Polish-Czechoslovak border. The last resettlements took place as late as 1952, in the western part of the pre-1939 former Polesie Voivodeship.

A consequence of Operation Vistula was the almost total depopulation of Pogórze Przemyskie, Bieszczady and Beskid Niski. The relocation of the population put the UPA forces in Poland in a difficult position: deprived of human and other resources, the outnumbered Ukrainian partisans were unable to uphold their own armed resistance and guerilla against the communist Polish forces. Nevertheless the UPA continued its fight for a few more years. After the last relocations, the UPA's activities on Polish territory died out, while some Ukrainian insurgents fled to Western Europe, notably to West Germany, and the United States.

Weapons, Uniforms, and Armor
The Ottoman army was initially reliant upon a cavalry force that was used to engage in plundering raids. These forces were typically lightly armed and armored, with an emphasis on speed. They frequently armed themselves with war hammers, maces, short swords, sabers, javelins, and spears. Early Ottoman armies often wore leather lamellar armor into battle. Later, as the Ottomans came into contact with the Byzantine, Crusader, and Serbian armies, they began to adopt more substantial armor and heavier weapons. Heavy mail and plate armor was utilized frequently, which differentiated the Ottomans from most of the early Islamic armies. In addition to carrying on the Turko-Mongolic tradition of armaments, the Ottomans borrowed from the Byzantines and other European powers.

The Ottomans were known to use heavy guns during sieges as well as on the battlefield. Despite conflicting accounts of the use of artillery against the Karamans (1388), at Kosovo (1389), and at Nicopolis (1396), definitive evidence shows artillery in the Ottoman armies by 1420 and widespread use by 1440. For sieges, the heavy guns were frequently used, and these were often cast on the spot. Some of the cannons were enormous; according to certain sources, some of the cannonballs shot at the walls of Constantinople in 1453 weighed in excess of 1,900 pounds.

Ottoman armies also gradually began to utilize handheld firearms in the form of the harquebus (tufenk). The janissaries were massed among the araba, a series of linked wagons similar to the Wagenburg (a Bohemian defensive line of wagons) and used large volleys to suppress cavalry charges. These weapons were confined mainly to the janissaries and became prevalent only at the end of the fifteenth century.

Military Organization
The earliest organization of Ottoman forces was a predatory confederation drawn from nearby tribes, allies, and renegades; however, as Ottoman territorial control expanded, organizational principles were enforced. Two organizational systems were in place during this period. The first represents the initial attempt by the Ottomans to organize their army into something other than a raiding band. The second is the beginning of the form that the Ottoman army would assume in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

Some of the first regular troops employed by the Ottomans were known as the müsellem (tax-free), which were the earliest organized cavalry units, and the yayas, the earliest infantry forces. These groups were given land grants in return for their service. They were organized using a decimal system. This was the first structure given to the Ottoman army. However, the loyalty of these freedmen raised concerns for the Ottoman sultans and encouraged the creation of a new structure.

With the effective establishment of an Ottoman state, the principle of military slavery was enforced in the form of the Kapeulu corps. This force was made up of military slaves who were theoretically the property of the Ottoman sultan. The two principal branches of the Kapeulu were the janissaries and the sipahis, a cavalry force.

As the army grew, a specialized infantry force was utilized. The yeniçeri (the janissaries) were first drawn from prisoners of war and later from a special levy (devshirme) on the Christian subjects of the empire. The janissaries adopted gunpowder weapons early in the fifteenth century, particularly the harquebus, which was used with great effect in this period. This force was organized into ortas, or regiments, typically containing between one hundred and three thousand troops.

The azab corps were established in the early fifteenth century and were drawn from rural Anatolia. Utilized principally as an infantry force, they also performed a naval function later. The azabs continued as a second-line infantry force in the Ottoman army until sometime in the sixteenth century.

The sipahis (sometimes rendered “spahis” in English) were cavalry forces drawn from the notables of Anatolia. Many of these forces received nontransferable land grants, timars, from which they drew their income and gathered their own forces in times of war. These forces were armored and generally heavily armed. “Sipahi” was also a term used for a unit from the six cavalry divisions of the Ottoman palace, which served as the bodyguard of the Ottoman sultans. These forces, along with the janissaries, formed the backbone of the Ottoman army after about 1400. There was a well-known rivalry between the sipahis and the janissaries.

In addition to these forces, the Ottomans employed various elements from vassals in the Balkans and Anatolia, particularly the Serbs. The Christian vassals of the Ottomans brought infantry forces that were often referred to as voynuks. These troops performed garrison duty along the Ottoman frontiers in the Balkans and joined the Ottoman army in major campaigns.

Additionally, Ottoman armies began to include units of miners and sappers who were needed to reduce the many fortifications that Ottoman armies encountered on campaign. An initial lack of these forces had hindered the Ottomans against Byzantine and Crusader fortifications. Later these forces became adept at using gunpowder and mining operations.

Political Considerations
Anatolia was a politically diverse crossroads in the thirteenth century. The Ilkhans, the descendants of the Mongols, lost their grip on power in Iran; the Byzantine Empire was besieged by the Franks from the west and the Turks from the east. A serious power vacuum developed in the region. A wide array of smaller states formed in this period. Close to a dozen Turkish emirates emerged throughout Anatolia, the Italian trading republics of Venice and Genoa established a presence along the coasts, and various other groups attempted to control what was left.

Out of this situation one group emerged to dominate the rest. The founder of this new state was Osman. He carved out an independent center of power near the Byzantine Empire and after years of raiding and building up a political network, the Ottomans, or Osmanlelar (those who are associated with Osman), became a force to be reckoned with. They developed a ghazi ethos (an Islamic ideology of fighting for the faith) but also an inclusive policy of recruiting military talent of any faith. The Ottomans found a fertile ground for their raids in 1354, as they crossed into the Balkans. There they discovered a politically disunited patchwork of states that were eventually brought into the Ottoman fold. With a foothold in Europe, the Ottomans dominated both sides of the Aegean.

Slowly the majority of the other regional powers were subordinated to the Ottomans. At the dawn of the fifteenth century, the Ottomans faced a new challenge from the East: the Turkic commander Tamerlane (also known as Timur, 1336-1405). The Ottomans faced him at the Battle of Ankara (1402) and were soundly defeated. The Ottoman sultan Bayezid I (r. 1389-1402) was captured, and the Ottoman state was thrown into chaos. Between 1402 and 1413, contending Ottoman princes and former Ottoman vassals fought to fill the power vacuum as Tamerlane’s empire quickly evaporated.

Slowly the Ottomans were able to reestablish rule over their old territories and solidify their state again. During the reigns of Murad II (r. 1421-1451) and Mehmed II (r. 1451-1481), the Ottoman Empire reconsolidated and began to expand. Those former vassals who had asserted their independence were brought to heel, and the empire was stronger than ever before. With the defeat of the Byzantines and the capture of Constantinople in 1453, the Ottomans established a position as the preeminent power in the eastern Mediterranean.

Military Achievement
The Ottomans were able to establish an empire centered on the Aegean, controlling western Anatolia and southeastern Europe in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. They unified a host of disunited states into a strong political entity. Despite defeat at the hands of Tamerlane and brief vassalage thereafter, the Ottomans became the dominant power in Anatolia, the Balkans, and the Aegean.

The Ottoman armies in this period consolidated power in most of Anatolia by defeating their principal Turkish rivals: the emirates of Aydin, Menteshe, Karesi, Saruhan, Hamit, Germiyan, Teke, and Karaman. While accomplishing this, they inflicted a series of defeats upon the Byzantines at Bursa (1326), Iznik (1331), and Edirne (1361), culminating with the capture of Constantinople (1453). While the Ottoman armies were establishing dominance over Anatolia, they also took the opportunity to become the premier power in the Balkans. After the fall of the Serbian Empire in 1355, the Ottomans slowly established suzerainty over the Serbian and Bulgarian successor states with major victories at Maritza (1371) and Kosovo (1389), thereby becoming the dominant Balkan power of the period. Ottoman forces were also successful against various Crusader armies sent against them, winning the day at Nicopolis (1396), Varna (1444), and Kosovo (1448).

The Ottomans also had substantial success against the Venetians at Thessalonica (1430). The definitive military success of the period was the capture of Constantinople in 1453, which eliminated the Byzantines, made the Ottomans masters of the Aegean, and positioned them to become a world power.

1.       Fusilier, Hector's Royal Marine These former sailors of the French Royal navy wore a red coatee with iron grey collar, cuffs, turnbacks and shoulder straps, white piping and pewter buttons stamped '2', over a white waistcoat and breeches with black gaiters. The black round hat was furnished with a red turban and white cockade, loop and plume. Officers had gold buttons, epaulettes and belt-plates; the men's oval brass belt-plates bore the legend 'Hector' above a fleur-de-lis.
2.       Officer, Salm-Kirburg Light Infantry Only 18 members of this unit escaped from Quiberon at the end of this catastrophic campaign, to be absorbed by the Loyal Emigrant regiment. Officers wore a scarlet coatee with scarlet collar, black cuffs and turnbacks, silver lace at sleeve buttonholes and silver buttons. See illustration elsewhere in this book for their men's dress.
3.       Fusilier, Breton Company, Loyal Emigrant Raised locally after the landing and fighting with the rebel chouans of the Vendée from 1795 until at least the end of 1799, the company wore the wide-brimmed Breton hat rather than uniform headgear.
4.       The Duc de Choiseul The duke was the commander of this ill-fated expedition. Having lost his baggage, he wore a campaign version of the uniform of the Salm Hussars - featuring a buff coatee with red collar and silver lace - lent to him by officers of the regiment.

Ill-fated British attempt to initiate a counterrevolutionary uprising in Brittany in 1795. A force of several thousand armed émigrés was landed by a British fleet, with the hope that Chouan revolutionaries would join them. The expedition was hampered by a divided command and was quickly defeated by local forces under General Louis Lazare Hoche.

By the spring of 1795 Allied operations in Flanders had collapsed and French Revolutionary armies were on the offensive. The British government, led by William Pitt, hoped to land an émigré army in Brittany, near the Vendée, to spur a general uprising. Joseph, comte de Puisaye, who had led a guerrilla force and fled France in 1794, had been trying to gain support for such an attack for some time. An expedition was prepared using British-funded French regiments as a landing force. Command was divided between Puisaye and Louis Charles, comte d’Hervilly, an experienced soldier.

An expedition under Commodore Sir John Warren left Portsmouth in mid-June 1795. Nearly 100 transports carried more than 3,000 émigré troops and 80 guns, escorted by 3 ships of the line and 10 frigates. The fleet sailed into Quiberon Bay, in western Brittany, on 25 June. A suitable landing spot was located, and the troops and supplies were disembarked on the twenty-seventh. There was little resistance from the local militia, and several thousand Chouan rebels quickly rallied to Puisaye’s colors. D’Hervilly led an army of 12,000 men, including many untrained local peasants, to attack Penthièvre, the only fortification on the Quiberon peninsula.
They quickly captured it, but d’Hervilly refused to advance farther. By not doing so, he allowed Hoche to seal off the peninsula. Weaknesses in the expedition quickly came to light. Puisaye and d’Hervilly were at odds over who would command. Also, many of the émigré troops were French prisoners of war, who volunteered in England to get out of prison ships. When they returned to France, they quickly deserted. Hoche’s defenses cut off the flow of new recruits to the army. Had the expedition come earlier, when counterrevolution was stronger in Brittany, the results might have been different. Unfortunately for the royalist cause, it had been largely suppressed by the time the landing at Quiberon took place.

D’Hervilly attempted to break out of Quiberon by making amphibious landings behind the flanks of Hoche’s defenses on 11 July. He led the southern wing of the attackers in an assault against 3,000 men holding a fortified position on 16 July. Hidden French artillery opened up, killing d’Hervilly and routing the assailants. The northern wing marched on St. Malo, but was intercepted by republican troops and dispersed.

Emigré reinforcements arrived at Quiberon on 15 July, but by then the expedition was foundering. Hoche followed up his defensive successes by an attack on Penthièvre. Deserters among the émigrés took control of the fort and surrendered it on the night of 20–21 July. Hoche immediately attacked the remaining field force of royalists, who collapsed and were routed to the beaches. British frigates were delayed by a gale and managed to take off only 2,000 royalists of a force that had totaled 17,000. Hoche also captured equipment to supply 40,000 troops, intended for Chouans expected to join the expedition.

Despite promises of mercy, the republicans executed more than 700 émigrés captured in the abortive invasion. The defeat helped end the threat of counterrevolution in western France and prevented other uses of émigré troops by the British.

References and further reading Ehrman, John. 1985. The Younger Pitt. Vol. 2, The Reluctant Transition. London: Constable and Robinson. Great Britain.War Office, Intelligence Division. 1884. British Minor Expeditions, 1746–1814. London: Her Majesty’s Stationery Office. Hutt,Maurice. 1983. Chouannerie and Counter-Revolution: Puisaye, the Princes, and the British Government in the 1790s. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Created by Congress in 1798, the United States Marine Corps is one of the two services of the Department of the Navy and one of the four American military services. Its legislative legitimacy as a separate service was made clear in the Marine Corps Act of 1834.

The Marine Corps measures it unofficial historic existence from the American Revolution (1775– 1783). The marines copied from their British Royal Marine counterparts, serving aboard U.S. Navy vessels for several reasons: intimidate the sailors into obedience; serve as bodyguards for U.S. naval officers; become naval gun crews in desperate gunnery engagements; serve as on-board snipers and grenadiers; and spearhead boarding and landing parties. Ashore, marines lived in barracks in navy yards in east coast port cities. “Marine Corps towns” were Boston, New York, Baltimore, Washington, Norfolk, Charleston, and New Orleans. The marine enlisted force came from uneducated rural and urban British Americans and Irish and German immigrants.

Nonwhites were banned from the Marine Corps by law to avoid fraternization with multiracial sailors the marines policed. Marine officers tended to be West Point and Annapolis dropouts, ambitious Celtic and German immigrants with some education, displaced southern gentry, and educated and unemployed youths influenced by bright uniforms and tales of exotic foreign adventures.

The U.S. Marine Corps had two predecessor organizations, four regiments of three thousand colonials recruited for a Royal Navy expedition to Cartagena (in contemporary Colombia) in 1741 and the Continental marines of the Revolution. The first unit, known as “Gooch’s Marines” since it was raised by William Gooch, royal governor of Virginia, became too sick to play any role in Admiral Edward Vernon’s failed campaign.

Only three hundred of these marines returned to the colonies; the rest deserted or died of tropical fevers. The Continental marines, raised directly by Congress for shipboard service, may have numbered two thousand officers and men over the course of the Revolution. Other groups of seagoing soldiers served as state troops; these marines served on coastal and inland waters as widely separated as the Ohio River, Lake Champlain, Chesapeake Bay, and along the Atlantic seaboard.

The Continental marines, like the Continental navy, never grew large enough to challenge the British forces but performed well enough in isolated sea battles and limited raids ashore. The most memorable successful Continental marine operations were a raid on New Providence in the Bahamas in 1776 and two single-ship victories in 1776 and 1778. Marines also fought well in several ship-to-ship defeats and participated in the failed Penobscot Bay expedition in Maine during 1779. By war’s end only five Continental navy ships had marine detachments, and the corps dissolved in 1783.

Reborn to man the six frigates authorized by the Naval Act of 1794, the U.S. Marine Corps served principally in sea battles as marksmen in the rigging and tops and as boarding parties. The ships guards, no more than one or two officers and fifty enlisted men, also participated in raids from the sea. The marines of the 1798–1812 era fought French privateers and warships in the Caribbean, pirates in the same area, and the Barbary corsairs of the Mediterranean and in 1805 spearheaded a mercenary force led by the American William H. Eaton that captured Derna (in contemporary Libya) and displaced the bashaw of Tripoli, a corsair sponsor. This action is commemorated in the Marine’s hymn with the words “to the shores of Tripoli.”

The War of 1812 provided the marines with more opportunities for distinguished service that, however, had little effect on the war with Great Britain or even on the engagements in which they participated. In a war marked by repeated American strategic and tactical errors and lack of ardor, the marines made a commendable impression as steadfast fighters. Marines fought aboard the frigates Constitution, United States, Essex, Chesapeake, and Lawrence and other warships in sixteen sea battles. In battle ashore, marine companies from the naval stations at Washington, Baltimore, and New Orleans joined extemporized American armies that failed to save the capital but repulsed major British expeditions sent to seize two of the most valuable ports of the United States.

The postwar Marine Corps of thirty-five officers and 1,200 enlisted men (compared to 2,700 authorized men during wartime) continued to serve primarily as “soldiers at sea.” In 1820 President James Monroe appointed Archibald Henderson, a thirty-seven- year-old Virginian, as the corps’s colonel commandant; he went on to serve for thirty-eight years. A combat veteran and driving commander, Henderson used his long tenure as commandant to set much stricter standards of dress, training, and discipline than were common in the army and navy of that era. He advocated a larger and better navy and created firm bonds between the Marine Corps and Congress. Essentially, Henderson created the foundation of the modern Marine Corps.

BIBLIOGRAPHY Heinl, Robert D., Jr. Soldiers of the Sea. 2nd ed. Baltimore: Nautical and Aviation Publishing, 1991. Millett, Allan R. Semper Fidelis: The United States Marine Corps. Rev. ed. New York: Free Press, 1991. Millett, Allan R., and Jack Shulimson, eds. Commandants of the Marine Corps. Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute Press, 2004. Moskin, J. Robert. The U.S. Marine Corps Story. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1977. Simmons, Edwin Howard. The United States Marines: A History. 4th ed. Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute Press, 2003.

The formal end of the Revolutionary War in 1783 required the Continental Congress to consider a peacetime military establishment. Alexander Hamilton sought the advice of George Washington, and his report, proposing a force of just over twenty-six hundred, drew heavily on the general’s recommendations. That plan, however, never obtained the approval of the Continental Congress, and on 2 June 1784 the Continental Army was disbanded— with only eighty officers and men retained. The next day, Congress asked the states for seven hundred militiamen and soon appointed Lieutenant Colonel Josiah Harmar to command them. That force was sent into the territory north of the Ohio River to protect settlers, aid surveyors, and prevent intrusions on federal and Indian lands.

In 1786, when a rebellion led by Daniel Shays broke out in western Massachusetts, Secretary of War Henry Knox had no forces with which to protect the arsenal in Springfield. In the end, the Massachusetts militia under General Benjamin Lincoln put down the rebellion and saved the army’s weapons and stores. The weakness of the Articles of Confederation was clear. The states were not only slow in recruiting, but many failed to satisfy their 1784 quotas. As a result, in 1785 and again in 1788, the Congress asked the states for three-year troops. Even that approach could not keep Harmar’s frontier force close to its authorized strength.

THE ARMY UNDER THE FEDERALISTS
When the Constitution of 1787 went into effect two years later, the army consisted of a single, understrength regiment of infantry and a battalion of artillery for a total of less than seven hundred men. The next year, the new federal Congress authorized a total of 1,216 men for the new nation’s army. Although both African Americans and Indians were members of numerous Revolutionary War units, their recruitment into the army was forbidden through the early national period.

In June 1790, when violence between setters and Indians north of the Ohio increased, Knox ordered Harmar and Arthur St. Clair, governor of the Northwest Territory, to attack the Indians along the Upper Wabash and Maumee Rivers. St. Clair led a force of regulars and militia north from Vincennes, but he turned back before making contact. Harmar’s force, also a mix of regulars and militia, was ambushed at the Maumee. Although his regulars fought well, the militia fled the flight. Harmar lost 180 men, of whom 73 were regulars.

Late the next year, St. Clair was ordered into the field for a second time. Early on the morning of 4 November 1791, his force was attacked by Indians. Again the militiamen fled, trapping themselves and the regulars in a murderous crossfire. St. Clair lost 635 dead and some 300 wounded out of a force of about 1,500. Also killed were some 50 women and children, and many more camp followers were captured. Colonel Richard Butler, St. Clair’s second in command was killed, and St. Clair himself had eight bullet holes in his clothing.

In the aftermath of this defeat, Secretary Knox proposed enlarging the army and Congress approved, authorizing a force of nearly five thousand men, including riflemen and dragoons. At the same time the administration decided to reorganize the force, adopting a legionary system of four sublegions, each with its own infantry, cavalry, and artillery. Knox and Hamilton, now secretary of the Treasury, also reorganized the army’s logistics and contracting system. This new force was put under the command of Anthony Wayne, an officer with a reputation for boldness.

In the spring of 1792, after enlarging the army, Congress took up militia reform. The administration’s plan was to strengthen and make uniform the state forces and bring them under increasing federal influence. The Uniform Militia Act of 1792, however, accomplished neither aim—nor did any subsequent effort. Rather, it insured a national military establishment of regulars, augmented when necessary by federal volunteers, not militia.

Wayne immediately began to shape his new recruits into an effective fighting force. By the winter of 1793–1794, when he began to move into hostile country, he had barely thirty-five hundred of the five thousand men promised, and many of these were needed to protect his lines of communication. Still, what men he had were thoroughly trained. In July 1794 Wayne’s fighting force of some two thousand regulars and fifteen hundred Kentucky volunteers moved toward the Maumee River. They burned and pillaged Indian towns as they marched, demonstrating that the British would no longer aid the tribes. Then, on 20 August, Wayne achieved a decisive victory at the Battle of Fallen Timbers. The subsequent Treaty of Greenville in August 1795 brought lasting peace to the Ohio country.

Meanwhile, in 1794 western Pennsylvania farmers refused to pay a new whiskey tax, and President Washington called up nearly thirteen thousand militia and marched them west through Pennsylvania. In the face of this force, resistance quickly ended. In the same year, Knox ordered the arsenal at Springfield to produce muskets, a second national arsenal at Harpers Ferry was approved, and the army began fortifying key seaports. An ordinance officer was appointed to supervise the arsenals, and, two years later, a Corps of Artillerists and Engineers was created to build, garrison, and maintain the new coastal forts.

In 1798, during the presidency of John Adams (1797–1801), the Quasi-War broke out—a maritime conflict between France and the United States. When France and England went to war four years before, Washington proclaimed U.S. neutrality, but the French, who believed they were due active support, began attacking American shipping. Fearing a wider conflict, Congress authorized a huge increase in forces. Most important of these was the New Army, consisting of twelve infantry regiments and six troops of dragoons. (The “old” army on the frontier, having abandoned its legionary organization, now had two infantry regiments.) In addition a ten thousand-man Provisional Army, and an even more massive Eventual Army for emergencies, were authorized should war be declared. Furthermore, the president was authorized to accept volunteers as he saw fit. Of all of these, only a few volunteers and selected units of the New Army were ever organized, and even then few other than officers were ever enrolled. Washington was appointed to command this force, but he agreed to serve only if he could remain at home at Mount Vernon until the nation actually went to war. The Federalists’ tendency to appoint only fellow Federalists as officers politicized the army and widened the political divide. The opposition Democratic Republicans claimed to see in this and other administration actions evidence of an incipient military despotism.

By early 1800 the threat of war, external or internal, had subsided, and the Adams administration began to eliminate those new units that had been created. At its peak the army may have approached six thousand men, but when Thomas Jefferson became president in March 1801, the number had declined to roughly thirty-six hundred.

THE JEFFERSONIAN ARMY
Jefferson, however, was less concerned about the size of the army than about the predominance of Federalist officers in its ranks. Many of these men were strongly opposed to him and his policies and might, he feared, prove unresponsive to his orders. The United States Military Academy was created in 1801 by Jefferson and recognized by Congress in the Military Peace Establishment Act of 1802. Both the academy and the Peace Establishment Act were elements in a plan to reduce Federalist influence and ultimately Republicanize the army. The authorized strength of the army was set by the act at just below thirty-three hundred—roughly the size of the force when the measure was passed.

After the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, the army, under Brigadier General James Wilkinson, began to garrison the towns on the western bank of the Mississippi River and push into the interior of the continent in a series of explorations. The first, in 1804, was the expedition of Meriwether Lewis and William Clark up the Missouri River to find a route to the Pacific. In 1805 other detachments ascended the Osage and Mississippi Rivers and in 1806 explored the headwaters of the Arkansas and Red Rivers.

In June 1807, just off Norfolk ,Virginia, the British ship Leopard mauled the American frigate Chesapeake. Resentment in America quickly turned into war fever, but Jefferson took measured steps until February 1808, when the administration asked for a sizable increase in troops that would bring the army to an authorized strength of almost ten thousand officers and men. In April, Congress gave the administration what it had asked, and Secretary of War Henry Dearborn immediately began the process of expanding the army—and finding Republicans to fill the new officer billets. As usual, recruiting lagged behind the appointment of officers, and the actual number of troops reached a high of around seven thousand in 1808 and then declined to an average of about six thousand from 1809 through 1811.

THE WAR OF 1812
In June 1812 President James Madison asked for a declaration of war against Great Britain on four familiar grounds: impressment, illegal blockades, the Orders in Council, and British encouragement of Indian warfare on the northwestern frontier. Anticipating Madison’s request, Congress had, in January, begun the creation of a force of about 36,000 men, plus volunteers, and militia. By 1814 the total authorized force was some 62,500 regulars, of which barely 38,100 were ever raised. Strategic control of the War of 1812 lay with the Americans in 1812 and 1813. They correctly believed that Canada was vulnerable and focused their efforts there during the first two years. The army, however, was ill prepared for an offensive war. Since the Revolution it had been scattered in company-size posts across the country. With few exceptions, there had been neither opportunities nor inclination to train or plan for either largescale offensive action or the support and supply of such operations. After two seasons of campaigning without effect, the British took strategic control of the war. As the duke of Wellington’s veterans poured into Canada, it is likely that the United States was saved from further embarrassment by a negotiated peace.

THE BEGINNINGS OF MODERNIZATION
The War of 1812 began under the leadership of senior officers who were veterans of the Revolutionary War—Dearborn, Wilkinson, William Hull, and Wade Hampton, in particular. By 1815 younger men—Jacob Brown, Edmund P. Gaines, Alexander Macomb, Decius Wadsworth, Winfield Scott, and Andrew Jackson—had replaced these veterans, and these new men were the ones who would lead the army for years to come. Just months after the war was over, the army was reduced to an authorized strength of just over twelve thousand officers and men. The actual strength of the force declined until 1820, when the number fell below nine thousand.

At that point Congress announced its intention to reduce the army to about six thousand, and Secretary of War John C. Calhoun proposed an Expansible Army plan that would retain most of the officers and noncommissioned officers needed for a twelve thousand- man army, but only about one-third of the privates required for the larger force. The House of Representatives favored a more conventional approach, but the Senate sided with Calhoun and his expansible force was approved largely as he had suggested. The bill, however, did not explicitly mention Calhoun or his innovation, and its implications escaped the attention of many at the time (including some serving officers); the measure was also largely overlooked by historians for a century and a half.

In the years following the War of 1812, the army began slowly to evolve into a more professional organization. In 1815 a Board of Tactics presided over by Winfield Scott adopted drill regulations to train and discipline the troops based on the French model. At about the same time, the Ordinance Department began to promote uniformity in production between the two armories at Springfield and Harpers Ferry—a shift that ultimately moved them from craft industry to industrial production. In 1817 the Military Academy at West Point was placed under Sylvanus Thayer, who quickly turned it into a true engineering school—the first in the nation. In 1821 the newly trained engineers found employment as the army began a second program of seacoast fortification. In 1824, moreover, when the army was ordered to provide surveys, plans, and estimates for roads, canals, and other internal improvements, civil engineering was added to the academic curriculum.

The army’s nascent modernization was further evidenced by the creation of its first professional school, an Artillery School formed at Fortress Monroe in 1824. This was followed three years later by an Infantry School at Jefferson Barracks. Although these proved premature and lasted less than a dozen years, it is clear that the years between 1815 and 1828 were the beginning of a long period of slow, sometimes sporadic professional growth for the U.S. Army.

BIBLIOGRAPHY Crackel, Theodore J. Mr. Jefferson’s Army: Political and Social Reform of the Military Establishment, 1801–1809. New York: New York University Press, 1987. ———. West Point: A Bicentennial History. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2002. Kohn, Richard H. Eagle and Sword: The Federalists and the Creation of the Military Establishment in America, 1783– 1802. New York: Free Press, 1975. Skelton, William B. An American Profession of Arms : The Army Officer Corps, 1784–1861. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1992. Stagg, John C. A. Mr. Madison’s War: Politics, Diplomacy, and Warfare in the Early American Republic, 1783–1830. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1983.

Landsknechts (singular Landsknecht, German plural Landsknechte, sometimes also in English publications) were European, most often German, mercenary pikemen and supporting foot soldiers from the late 15th to the late 16th century, and achieved the reputation for being the universal mercenary of the European Renaissance.

History
The first Landsknecht regiments were formed by Maximilian I. He called upon Georg von Frundsberg, known by many as the Father of the Landsknechts, to assist him in their organization. They later went on to fight in almost every 16th century military campaign, sometimes on both sides of the engagement. The landsknechts, formed in conscious imitation of the Swiss mercenaries (and, initially, using Swiss instructors), eventually contributed to the defeat of the redoubtable Swiss whose battle formations, overly-dependent on hand to hand fighting, became vulnerable to the increased fire power of arquebus and artillery. French artillery or Spanish firepower dealt serious blows to the Swiss formations, and the Landsknecht pike blocks were there to fight off the depleted Swiss attack columns once this had occurred.

The Landsknechts, although rather conservative themselves in weapons usage, and always containing a large majority of pikemen, were more predisposed to the tactical employment of firearms than the Swiss were because Landsknechts relied less on the precipitous rush to close combat and, as Imperial soldiers, they also often fought in formations mixed with Spaniards, who made widespread use of the arquebus and, later, musket.

The landsknechts typically came from Swabia, Alsace, Flanders, and the Rhineland, but ultimately the regiments were made up of men from all parts of Europe.

Their battlefield behavior was highly variable. Sometimes, such as at the Battle of Pavia, they performed very well, being instrumental to the Emperor's victory. However, on many other occasions, (such as in the later Italian Wars, French Wars of Religion and the Eighty Years War) their bravery and discipline came under severe criticism, and the Spanish elements of the Imperial army regularly deprecated the battlefield usefulness of the Landsknechts—it was said that the Duke of Alba hired them only to deny the Dutch enemy of their service, and put them on display to swell his numbers, not intending to fight with them. The Huguenots scorned their landsknecht mercenaries after these were immediately routed by the battered Swiss mercenary pike block they had been sent to finish off at the Battle of Dreux.

Organization
The regiments often expanded from 4,000 to 10,000 men according to circumstances, or even larger—the Black Band, generally considered to have been a regiment of landsknechts, were 17,000 strong when raised by the French in 1515. It was this flexibility which allowed them to be used in various battle conditions. Oberste (colonels) were given recruiting commissions by the Emperor to form regiments, with a lieutenant-colonel and various regimental staff, and units divided into Fähnleins (companies) with a Hauptmann (captain) in charge, as well as lieutenants and Fähnriche (ensigns). Other ranks included majors of the court-martial and officers in charge of camp followers.

The Tross were the camp followers or "baggage train" who traveled with each Landsknecht unit, carrying the military necessities, the food and the belongings of each soldier and his family. Members of the Tross were made up of women, children and some craftsmen.

Weapons
Landsknechts were trained in the use of the famous long pikes and used the pike square formations developed by the Swiss. The majority of Landsknechts would use pikes, but others, meant to provide tactical assistance to the pikemen, accordingly used different weapons. For example, an experienced Landsknecht could be designated a Doppelsöldner, and instead of wielding a pike as did more recent recruits, would employ a 6-to-8-foot-long (1.8 to 2.4 m) halberd or partisan, or, more famously, a Zweihänder(literally translated: "Two-hander"), a two-handed sword as long as 180 cm (6 ft), although it was generally called at the time a Bidenhänder(literally translated: "both-hander") rather than a Zweihänder. These great war swords could be used to hack off the heads of enemy pikes; or more likely to knock the pikes aside, creating disorder among the tightly arranged enemy pikemen in order to break through their lines.

However, this tactic seems to have been of limited value, and was possibly dropped after around 1510 (although pictorial evidence of the use of these swords in the front lines exists until at least late into the 16th century) - their Swiss adversaries had specifically prohibited it when they went over to widespread use of the pike in the early 15th century, because the weapon was too large to use in constricted pike warfare.

"Doppelsöldner" meant "double mercenary", because they were paid double the wages of their less experienced counterparts. Landsknechts also used Kriegsmesser longswords, in German translating to War knife, a long curved sword clasped to the belt, the blade shown naked without a scabbard in some woodcuts from (1500–1520).

Other Landsknechts would use the arquebus, the precursor to the musket. When the Landsknechts were first formed, arquebusiers composed up to an eighth of the total number of soldiers, but the number gradually grew to be about a quarter.

The universal Landsknecht weapon was a short sword called a Katzbalger, carried in addition to the Landsknecht's main weapon. Indeed, the Katzbalger was seen as the very symbol of the Landsknecht, Swiss illustrators being careful to depict it to indicate that a mercenary was a Landsknecht rather than a Reisläufer.
Landsknechts were a very powerful force due to powerful weaponry. Landsknecht Paul Dolstein said in July 1502 "We were 1800 Germans and were attacked by 15000 Swedish peasants...we struck most of them dead." He was fighting for the King of Denmark at the time.

Camp
Landsknechts adopted the Hussite tactic of creating a ring of limbers and wagons, surrounded by cannon, with the encampment in the middle. While in strong positions like this, many Landsknechts lived in tents; however, in more makeshift situations, they would often build crude huts made of straw and mud supported by Pikes and Halberds. Commission officers would always sleep in tents on campaign. Quarrels and disease would go about the camp, and if the landsknechts had been defeated in the battle the camp followers had little time to escape before rape and plunder took place. However, it was usually secure from the enemy.

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Third major Israeli-Arab war, after the War of 1948 (Israel’s “War of Independence”; the nakba, or “disaster,” to Palestinians) and the Suez-Sinai War of 1956. On 25 January 1967, the Israeli-Syrian mixed armistice commission convened, after an eight-year hiatus, and published a communiqué according to which the two parties had reached an agreement meant to prevent any hostile or aggressive action. On 7 April, in reprisal for Syrian artillery barrages on kibbutzim in the north of Galilee, Israeli planes conducted a raid on the Golan, in the course of which six Syrian MiGs were downed. On 13 May, Soviet intelligence informed Cairo and Damascus that the Israelis were massing troops on the Syrian frontier. In the context of the Egyptian-Syrian defense pact, Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser decided to mobilize his army. The following day, several Egyptian units left Cairo for the Sinai.


On 15 May, the anniversary date of the founding of Israel, the general staff of the Israel Defense Force (IDF) put on an impressive military parade. The day after, Syrian and Egyptian forces were put on high alert. On 19 May, at the request of the Egyptian government, the United Nations (UN) withdrew its troops, on duty since the end of the Suez-Sinai War of 1956, from Sinai and the Gaza Strip. On 20 May, Israel mobilized a part of its reserves. The next day, Egypt banned Israeli shipping in the Straits of Tiran, leading to a protest on the part of the United States, which declared the blockade of the Gulf of Aqaba illegal. With tension between Egypt and Israel at its apogee, on 25 May, Egyptian, Syrian, and Jordanian army divisions approached their respective frontiers with Israel. On 30 May, before the cameras of Egyptian television, King Hussein of Jordan signed a mutual defense pact with Egypt, according to which the Jordanian army would pass under Egyptian command in case of war. On 2 June, faced with Arab military preparations openly aimed at the Jewish state, Israeli Prime Minister Levi Eshkol ceded the portfolio of defense to Moshe Dayan. The next day, France and the United States decreed an embargo on arms shipments to the Middle East. On 4 June, Iraq joined the Syrian-Jordanian-Egyptian military alliance.

On the morning of 5 June 1967, Yitzhak Rabin, army chief-of-staff of the IDF, flanked by Generals Ezer Weizman and Haim Bar-Lev, unleashed a simultaneous attack against Egypt and Jordan. In a few hours, Israeli aircraft annihilated practically all of the Egyptian air force, surprised on the ground, and 416 Egyptian, Syrian, and Jordanian planes were destroyed. Sudan, Saudi Arabia, Algeria, and Yemen, in solidarity with the Arab countries, declared war on Israel. Egypt, Syria, Algeria, Yemen, Iraq, and Sudan broke off diplomatic relations with the United States, then with Great Britain. On 6 June, the U.S. ship Liberty was attacked by the Israelis, who claimed they had mistaken it for an Egyptian craft. Believing this to be Soviet aggression, U.S. president Lyndon Johnson ordered the U.S. fleet on high alert, while the U.S. Sixth Fleet approached the combat zone. On the same day, the UN Security Council unanimously passed a resolution demanding an immediate ceasefire. The next day, concluding its takeover of the West Bank, which had been under Jordanian control since 1948, Israeli troops, under the command of General Uzi Narkiss, penetrated into East Jerusalem. On the Egyptian front, Israeli troops were closing in on the Suez Canal. On 8 June, the UN Security Council unanimously adopted a resolution, again insisting on an immediate cease-fire. The Soviet Union and countries in its orbit, with the exception of Rumania, broke off diplomatic relations with Israel.

Israel then attacked and captured the Golan region, and on 10 June, Syria accepted a cease-fire. Movements of the U.S. Sixth Fleet, misinterpreted by the Soviet general staff, led to a state of high tension between Washington and Moscow, but this scare ended after only a few hours.

The Israeli army had defeated the Egyptian, Jordanian, and Syrian armies in six days, Israel more than tripling its territorial area by the occupation of the West Bank (which included East Jerusalem), a part of the Golan Heights, the Sinai Desert, and the Gaza Strip. Israeli military leaders judged now that they had acquired the strategic “depth” necessary to assure the security of Israel, while the ultra-orthodox movements perceived the victory of the IDF as the messianic expression of political Judaism. On 12 June, in the army’s orders of the day, the chief-of-staff, Yitzhak Rabin, saluted the “unification and liberation of Jerusalem,” and celebrated the victory of the “sons of light” over those who “wanted to cover the country with darkness.” On 14 June, the UN Security Council adopted Resolution 237, recommending Israel respect international conventions concerning the treatment of prisoners of war and the protection of civilians in time of war. On 19 June, U.S. President Lyndon Johnson proposed a peace plan for the Middle East. Four days later, after his meeting with Johnson, Soviet Prime Minister Alexis Kosygin published a communiqué backing a peace plan in the Middle East, specifying that the “rapid withdrawal of Israeli troops is the key to the reestablishment of peace.” On 27 June, the Israeli Knesset voted to annex the Arab part of Jerusalem. On 29 August, the leaders of Arab states, meeting in Khartoum, reaffirmed their will to continue the war against Israel with statements such as “no to peace, no to negotiations, no to recognition of Israel.” The oil-producing states decided to aid Egypt financially. On 22 November, the UN Security Council unanimously adopted Resolution 242, requiring Israel to evacuate the occupied territories, in exchange for a cessation of the state of belligerence.

In 1967, the Egyptian Army comprised some 175,000 men. Aside from those forces in Yemen, almost all the combat units of the army were deployed in the Sinai with 18 infantry brigades, one paratroop brigade, six armoured brigades and two mechanized brigades, as well as four Special Forces battalions. These were divided into six divisions. The 20th Palestine Liberation Army Division supported by Egyptian artillery and 50 Sherman tanks was stationed in the Gaza Strip. To the south of the Gaza Strip was the newly formed 7th Infantry Division supported by approximately 100 T-34/85 and IS-3M tanks. Further to the south-east in the Abu Ageila-Quseima area was the 2nd Infantry Division supported by approximately 90 T-34/85 and T-54 tanks. This was considered to be one of the better formations but its commander, Major-General Sadi Naguib, was a political appointee of limited military expertise whose main claim to fame was as a drinking companion of the commander-in-chief of the army, Field Marshal Amer. The 6th Mechanized Division was deployed in the Kuntilla-Nakhl area. It was a good division at full strength with a competent commander, Major-General Abd el Kader Hassan. It in turn was supported by the 1st Armoured Brigade of some 100 T-34/85 and T-54 tanks under the command of Brigadier Hussein Abd al Nataf. In general reserve was the 3rd Infantry Division in the Jebel Libni-Bir Hassna area under the command of another of Field Marshal Amer's cronies, Major-General Osman Nasser. Also in reserve was an armoured task force consisting of 150 T-55 tanks, a paratroop brigade and an artillery brigade under the command of Major-General Saad el Shazli and known as Shazli Force. It was deployed east of Bir Hassna to conduct offensive operations against Eilat and to link up with the Jordanians once war began in a plan codenamed Operation al-Asad or Lion. In strategic reserve under the control of Field Marshal Amer's GHQ in Cairo was the 4th Armoured Division equipped with 200 modern Soviet T-55 tanks under the command of Major-General Sidki el Ghoul. It was stationed in the central Sinai around Bir Gifgafa. An independent infantry brigade was posted to Sharm el Sheikh overlooking the Straits of Tiran.

In total the Egyptian forces in the Sinai amounted to over 100,000 troops and some 930 tanks. Following standard Soviet doctrine, the divisions were deployed in strongly defended localities of three distinct defensive lines supported by dug-in artillery and armour units. As part of a comprehensive defensive plan codenamed Operation Qahir or Conqueror, these were to act as a lure to tempt the IDF to attack these 'killing zones' and once the Israeli assault was broken the Egyptian army would move to the offensive. In reality Operation Qahir was neither fish nor fowl with the commanders uncertain whether to adopt a defensive or offensive posture. This confusion was compounded by the appointment of General Abd el Mushin Murtagi as the Sinai front commander with his headquarters in Ismailia. Recently returned from undistinguished service in Yemen, he had little knowledge of the Sinai and no rapport with either his divisional commanders or the Sinai field commander, Lieutenant-General Sallah el din Mohsen. The latter demanded clear-cut guidance regarding the true objectives of Operation Qahir, but none was forthcoming from either the front HQ at Ismailia or GHQ in Cairo. Indeed, Field Marshal Amer was prone to issuing conflicting orders directly to divisional commanders without consultation with his field and front commanders.

Such confusion percolated down through the ranks. Some units were seriously under strength. Almost a quarter of Egypt's tanks and artillery pieces were unserviceable. Many reservists arrived at the front without uniforms or weapons into a situation of chaos; almost a third never arrived at their assigned positions at all. As a case in point, a newly graduated Egyptian officer, Lieutenant Hamid, was tasked with delivering anti-tank ammunition to Kuntilla. He left on the afternoon of 4 June and bivouacked with his convoy overnight near Nakhl. On the next morning, he reported to the receiving unit at Kuntilla where he was told by a senior officer 'We don't need any ammunition. There isn't going to be a war. Take it back.' The lieutenant rejoined his convoy and started back towards the Suez Canal. Some 30 minutes later, his trucks were being strafed and bombed by the IAF.

The Westphalian Army was constructed almost exactly on the French model, relying, like its French counterpart, on conscription. The army was composed of both line and guard units. The Royal Guard closely resembled Napoleon’s Imperial Guard, although it was smaller in number, and it was meant to provide a solid core of loyal troops. The Westphalian Guard included cavalry, infantry, and artillery as well as specialists and some of the finest light troops at that time in Europe, due to the abundance of Jäger (literally, “hunters”; riflemen) who had served the Holy Roman princes in the Hessian, Hanoverian, and Brunswick forest preserves. The Guard also included a regiment styled the Hussars Jérôme Napoléon, paid for by Jérôme’s father-in-law, the king of Württemberg. The line units included the same basic three branches. The cavalry was well mounted and included both heavy and light regiments. The artillery was organized according to the Gribeauval system, with standardized and excellent guns. Napoleon’s hope was that the natural martial ability of the Hessians and Brunswickers who made up the majority of the population would permeate the army (Westphalia’s population was almost 2 million).

Almost immediately, though, Jérôme had problems filling out the regiments of his army. Napoleon’s involvement in Spain soon resulted in Westphalia’s “fair share” being sent south—including the line chevauléger (light horse) regiment, which remained for almost the entire war. During the War of the Fifth Coalition in 1809, Jérôme and his army were charged with defending parts of the Confederation of the Rhine against incursions by the Austrians and British and were forced to deal with attempts to cause a popular uprising in Westphalia itself. It is a measure of some success of French proxy rule that only a few Westphalian officers and troops supported the revolts of 1809 led by the former Duke of Brunswick (most of whose troops were Bohemian), the turncoat General Wilhelm von Dornberg (a colonel in the Guard), and the hot-headed Prussian major Ferdinand von Schill. Schill was killed in fighting in Stralsund, and both Dornberg and Brunswick were driven from the Continent. Jérôme’s kingdom had survived its first major crisis, but not without a cost.

The real problem for Westphalia turned out to be not so much the men but the finances to pay for them. Additionally Jérôme had to pay for the upkeep of fortresses and their provisioning for French troops. Until the dissolution of the kingdom in late 1813, Jérôme and his subjects constantly struggled to meet his older brother’s force requirements and always came up short in manpower and money. Nevertheless,Westphalia managed to produce a prodigious number of troops for the campaigns in Spain, Russia, and Germany—eventually over 100,000 Westphalians served in Napoleon’s armies between 1808 and 1813. The real disaster occurred, as for most of the German kingdoms and for Napoleon himself, in Russia in 1812; out of over 22,000 Westphalian troops with the Grande Armée (nearly all in Jérôme’s VIII Corps), only 1,500 returned.Yet in spite of all this, the kingdom remained relatively loyal until late into 1813. The most notable instance of disloyalty was the defection of the two line hussar regiments at the start of the fall 1813 campaign. Nevertheless, the Guard Hussars followed Jérôme out of Germany to fight on in 1814 as the 13th (French) Hussars.

As for Jérôme, his skill at military command was probably limited to no higher than corps command. As a wing commander he did poorly, and he abandoned the army early during the Russian campaign. As a ruler he did better; both traditional and more recent scholarship give him high marks for just the sort of enlightened liberal governance that Napoleon had originally intended. There is no other way to explain the remarkable performance of this satellite kingdom than to give Jérôme his fair credit as a ruler.

A Marine of the 1st Tank Battalion, 1st Marine Division, loads a 50 cal. machine gun prior to moving into the firing slot, a key position in the defense of Boulder City after the Communists had taken outposts Berlin and East Berlin. This was the final battle before the Korean truce talks. ID #127-GK-235-A174618

In the I Corps sector, 1st Marine Division zone, Company G, 3rd Battalion, 1st Marines, led by 1st Lieutenant Oral R. Swigaet, Jr., moves into position and relieves Company G, 3rd Battalion, 7th Marines, at Hill 119 (Boulder City). Precautions continue to be taken due to an expected assault against Boulder City. At about 1940, soon after enemy troops are detected to the rear of Hill 139, the formation is brought under fire.

The forward observers pin the columns, about regiment-strength, at a point about 700 yards northwest of Berlin. Less than one hour later, the enemy artillery erupts, followed by an enemy surge in the right sector of the line.

Hill 111, to the right of Boulder City at the extreme right of the sector, is the first position to be stung by the two-battalion assault. At this time, the 1st Marines are still in the process of relieving the 7th Marines’ units there. The enemy pounds against Hill 111, just as Companies H and I, 3rd Battalion, 1st Marines, are exchanging places with Companies H and I, 7th Marines. The enemy, using the blackness of the night and the poor weather, penetrates at Hill 111. The nasty weather prohibits air strikes and the lack of air observers also impedes the artillery. Nonetheless, the defenders at Hill 111 hold, in what turns out to be only a diversion, while the primary objective remains Hill 119. The Chinese disengage slightly before 2130.

Meanwhile, at Boulder City, the defenders have been in a non-stop battle to hold the positions against ever-increasing numbers of Chinese. Following the initial waves that crash into the positions, other reinforcements continue to flow from East Berlin and the Jersey Ridge, where most of the columns converge upon the Berlin Gate, the most direct path to Hill 119. The targeted hill is held by Company G, 1st Marines.

The superior number of enemy troops is unable to collapse the defense, but the Marines’ numbers continue to diminish, as the clash remains close-quartered and vicious. The Marines maintain their firing at a rapid pace, but more enemy troops continue to advance.

The beleaguered company is struck by a second powerful assault at 2100. Still, the men of Company G hold the line, despite the fact that their casualties continue to dangerously climb. Friendly artillery opens the spigot and streaks round after round into the charging enemy to stem the tide, but the attackers remain oblivious to the cloudburst that rains steel upon them. To add even more muscle, the 1st 4.5 Rocket Battery delivers successive blows into the enemy positions.

By about 2200, the entire length of the trenchline (700 yards) becomes a close-quartered shoot out intertwined with hand-to-hand combat. Bayonets, rifle butts and fists rattle the ditches. The Chinese are unable to claim the trenches, but as the conflagration intensifies, Marine casualties soar. Two corpsmen are killed prior to midnight and of the other six with the unit, nearly all are wounded, making it difficult to aid the fallen Marines or evacuate the more seriously wounded.

By midnight (24th-25th) the overwhelming pressure by the Chinese against the perimeter finally forces the line, held by beleaguered Company G, to falter. The left and right flanks are driven back to the reverse slope, yet the Marines refuse to relent. Horrific combat continues by those Marines still standing. The Chinese pour more force against the staggered company and still the Communists are unable to roll them over, despite having inflicted a casualty rate of seventy-five percent. At about fifteen minutes after midnight, the able-bodied defenders resist as if they have the Chinese outnumbered, and though their ranks have been cut drastically, there is no despair. Word arrives that Company I is en route and about to bolster the line, which brings a thunderous cheer that reverberates through the trenchline.

While Company I speeds to extricate Company G and galvanize the line to extinguish the enemy fire, the unit is struck on the reverse slope of Boulder City by enemy mortar and artillery fire. The Chinese had picked up a coded message in time to swivel some of its gun barrels and pinpoint the Marines’ positions, inflicting 35 casualties. Nevertheless, Company I presses forward and joins with the surviving defenders to help cut the odds.

In the meantime, the Communists are able to penetrate the ever-thinning frontal position and for a while, they actually gain the crest; however, the Marines, who only recently lost a hill and on the following day, were ordered not to take it back, seem determined to take it right away rather than risk having the Chinese retain it by default.

At 0130, Captain Louis J. Sarror leads Companies G and I in a relentless charge that barges directly into the Chinese and slams them back to begin to restabilize the conditions at Hill 119. The Marines strike menacing blows and give no quarter as they plow through the enemy in a dogged two-hour bloodbath. At 0330, the MLR is totally restored to order with the Marines back in control. Sarror’s Marines ensure that at dawn, they will not have to launch another counterattack to re-secure the ground. By 0550, Boulder City belongs to the Marines. The victors become ecstatic upon the appearance of four additional platoons, drawn from Company E, 1st Marines, and Company E, 7th Marines.

During the struggle, an outpost guarded by elements of Company F, 2nd Battalion, 7th Marines, comes under a strong attack by about two battalions. The company gets pinned down. While the men try to extricate themselves, Sergeant Ambrosio Guillen attempts to maintain discipline and direct the defense. Guillen is able to rally the troops and they meet the enemy head-on in hand-to-hand combat.

Again Guillen takes responsibility and his Marines pound the Chinese sufficiently to beat them back and cause them to abort the attack. Sergeant Guillen had become seriously wounded during the fight and refused medical attention in order to ensure his men would be the victors. Sergeant Guillen’s platoon prevails, but he dies of his wounds. Sergeant Guillen is awarded the Medal of Honor posthumously for his extraordinary leadership, courage and heroism in the face of an overwhelming enemy force.

Meanwhile, Boulder City and Hill 111 had not been the only recipients of the Chinese attacks. The 5th Marines’ positions at Esther and Dagmar come under attack at 2115. However, the Chinese, soon after striking both outposts, only give Dagmar a light blow before focusing on Esther. The enemy, like in the 1st Marines’ zone, is supported by mortars and artillery. Heavy fighting continues until after midnight and beyond in a tight-fisted, close-quartered raging battle.

Company H, the defending unit, is pushed hard by the superior numbered force, estimated at the size of a reinforced battalion. The enemy thrust eventually gains ground in the forward trenches. Nevertheless, the Marines return fire relentlessly and although imperiled, they surrender no ground in either of the rear trenches.

The Chinese maneuver to isolate the Marines at Esther, but to no avail. Long-distance help is accelerated to forestall disaster. The artillery and mortar fire is rapidly increased and several tanks commit their 90- mm rifles against the Communists. In addition, the Chinese still face the Marine riflemen, machine gunners and some testy flamethrowers. By 0640, the Chinese disengage, having failed to seize Esther. The Marines sustain 12 killed and 98 wounded (35 evacuated). The Chinese sustain 85 killed (counted) and an additional 110 estimated killed, along with an estimated 250 wounded.

During the previous night into the morning of the 25th, the Chinese commit 3,000 troops against the outposts. In addition to the Marines on the ground, the several thousand enemy troops are showered with just under 24,000 rounds by the 11th Marines in the same period, between 2200 and 0400. The 11th Marines and ten battalions under its operational control include units of the 25th Division, I Corps and the British 1st Commonwealth Division. The attackers at Esther were the recipients of 7,057 rounds in support of the 5th Marines and 16,668 rounds to bolster the 1st Marines at Boulder City.

The Chinese, however, again make an offensive move in yet another chance to dislodge the Marines and increase their bargaining positions at the peace talks. At 0820, Boulder City (Hill 119) is again struck. The Marines meet the new threat with devastating fire and inflict severe casualties upon the enemy. Still, the Chinese probe and for the balance of the morning into the early afternoon, the opposing sides exchange blows, but at 1335, the last of the Chinese on Boulder City are evicted from the forward slope.

In the meantime, the 1st Marines continue with relief of the 7th Marines. At 1100, Boulder City comes under control of the 1st Marines. At Hill 111, mop-up operations continue as elements of Company H, 1st Marines, and of Company H, 7th Marines, root out remaining enemy troops still in and around the trenchworks. Later, at 1815, the 1st Marines complete relief of Company H, 7th Marines, along the MLR.

As the day winds down, the temporary period of tranquility is again shattered at Hill 119, when the Chinese mount yet another assault at 2130 to reduce the Marine resistance. The 1st Marines and the 7th Marines are each struck by a contingent estimated at two-company strength. They receive instant support fire from the 11th Marines. The artillerymen are joined by the tankers. The combined strength of the ground troops and the support units force the Chinese to abort the assault.

And still, they refuse to quit. Later, at 0130, Boulder City and Hill 111 are again besieged. During this latest attack, the Communists are able to advance in some places to the trenches, but again, only to be driven back out by the persistence of the defenders. By dawn on the 26th, Boulder City complex, including Hill 111, remains under Marine control. The Marines sustain 19 killed and 125 wounded. The Chinese sustain 30 killed (counted) and an additional estimated 84 killed, along with an estimated 310 wounded.

Subsequently, even more enemy contingents attempt to test the lines, but they are each met with riveting fire by Marine riflemen and machine gunners. The effective impenetrable fire halts the Chinese in their tracks.

Meanwhile, the Communists realize the armistice is imminent and decide to mount yet another attack in a desperate effort to gain the Boulder City complex to impede U.N. access to the Imjin River. Picking a usual time, at 2130, the Chinese initiate the charge. By this time, the 1st Marines retain responsibility for the area, having completed the transfer at 1330. Marines on the line are led by Captain Esmond E. Harper, commanding officer, Company E, 2nd Battalion, 1st Marines. Harper had assumed command after Major Thurston had been seriously wounded.

The Chinese attack is shattered. Still, they refuse to quit. At a few minutes after midnight (25th-26th), another platoon rushes the defenses and receives the same fate as the former, in what becomes the final assault to take Boulder City. The platoon is handily repulsed. Later, Hill 111 comes under assault when yet another Communist force of about platoon strength barges against its defenses at 0045. The Chinese engage the Marines until about 0205 and after failing to make any gains and receiving a battering blow, the attack is aborted.

This last attack against Hill 111, on 26 July, is the final action of the Marines in Korea. The Chinese make no further attempt to test the mettle of the Marines. The armistice is signed on the following day at Panmunjom.

Dr. Sidney Phillips poses for a portrait Thursday, Mar. 4, 2010 holding a print from a painting of himself as a young U.S. Marine titled "Guadalcanal Marine Pfc. Sid Phillips" by Matt Hall.

Dr. Sidney Phillips poses for a portrait Thursday, Mar. 4, 2010 holding a print from a painting of himself as a young U.S. Marine titled "Guadalcanal Marine Pfc. Sid Phillips" by Matt Hall. The way Sid Phillips tells it, he was drinking a milkshake with three scoops of ice cream at a long-gone drug store at the corner of Dauphin and Ann when news of the attack on Pearl Harbor came over the radio.

At that moment, 17 years old and just graduated from Murphy High School, he decided to enlist.
The story of his time as a Marine during the Battle of Guadalcanal was central to the Emmy-nominated HBO miniseries “The Pacific,” which also focused on the wartime experiences of fellow Mobilian Eugene Sledge.

Phillips recounts his story in a new memoir titled “You’ll Be Sorree!”

“When you arrive in boot camp with your long hair and your suitcase with your civilian clothes, the first thing you hear is all the other soldiers saying, ‘You’ll be sorry.’ They were right,” Phillips said, laughing, during a recent interview.

Though he fought in some of the bloodiest battles of World War II, tales of guts and gore with bullets flying are not the heart of his book. Instead, Phillips focuses on the challenges of bare survival during the months his Marine unit spent on the small islands wrested from the Japanese. He tells of rampant dysentery, near starvation and name-calling exchanges with Japanese snipers sneaking toward the Marine encampments in the dead of night.

He recounts how his unit, teetering on the edge of starvation after Navy ships carrying their supplies were sunk, was ultimately saved by a mountain of rice left behind by the Japanese soldiers. At one point, things were so desperate, Phillips and his fellow Marines resorted to eating World War I vintage crackers from a box labeled “Field Ration Biscuits 1918” that washed up on their island.

“We started to eat the things ... They had to be broken into pieces with bayonet handles and then put in your mouth and sucked to soften; they tasted like corrugated paper.”

When supplies finally did make it in, Phillips commandeered a gallon can of sliced pineapple, ate the entire thing in one sitting, then “became gloriously sick.”


The book, like Phillips, is funny. He tells of getting knocked out cold by a falling coconut and of becoming the hero of his unit after digging a latrine that collapsed under the officers, dunking them in filth. The reader shares his first beer and quite a few after it, and the months spent in Australia trying to woo the local girls.

In the book, Phillips attempts to capture something he has said he fears is lost from the history of World War II — the importance of humor to soldiers facing death on a daily basis.

“We Marines lived in a world of sarcasm and bad language. Nothing complimentary or encouraging was ever heard. I was repeatedly told I was so stupid I couldn’t pour urine out of a boot with the directions in the heel. If someone said something civil to you, it was almost a sign they didn’t like you.”

Ultimately, Phillips returns to the U.S. and his attention turns to capturing the heart of the most beautiful bank teller he’d ever seen, who, miraculously, had not gotten married while he was away at war.

“Out of the door came Mary Victoria Houston, dressed in a navy blue, polka-dot dress and high heels with her brown, curly hair bouncing. I actually became dizzy,” Phillips writes of the woman who would become his wife. “Thank goodness the Japs bombed Pearl Harbor! It kept the boys away from Mary until I could grow up!”

Spitfire - Return to Flight by Brendon Deere
Published August 2010 by ITL Aviation
ISBN 978-0-473-16711-0
Hardback with dustcover
304 pages
Coloured and Black & White photos throughout on almost every page.
http://www.spitfirepv270.co.nz
RRP: NZ$69.95

By Brendon Deere
Review by Dave Homewood
One of the recent highlights on New Zealand's aviation scene has been the return to flight of the Deere family's marvellous Spitfire. Brendon Deere was already familiar to New Zealand aviation enthusiasts for his two volumes of Military Wings, which feature potted histories and photo spreads of various RNZAF aircraft types, and the Spitfire project had been a much followed and anticipated restoration. Now, following the incredible experience of returning a Spitfire to the air, and allowing it to be flown at public events as a tribute to his uncle Alan Deere, Brendon has recorded the story behind this epic task in Spitfire: Return To Flight.
Essentially this book tells four interconnected stories. It begins with a brief overview of the Supermarine Spitfire as a type, covering the development, variants and roles. This sets the scene for the next chapter which is about Alan Deere and his incredible RAF career. Although two highly regarded books have been published about Al Deere already in the past, his own superb autobiography Nine Lives and Richard Smith's Alan Deere: Wartime Commander; Peacetime Leader, Brendon is able to add another personal perspective on his uncle's life. The great respect and admiration for his uncle comes across strongly in Brendon's words, and it is easy to see why he was inspired to embark on the immense project of acquiring and rebuilding a WWII fighter to fly in Al Deere's honour.

The third section of the book is about that fighter itself, the history of Spitfire PV270. The fascinating story of this machine is being told in full for perhaps the first time, and what an adventurous life this particular Mk IX Spit has lead so far. It served with the RAF, the Italians, the Israelis and then with the Burmese. The derelict aircraft was eventually brought out of its resting place in Burma and came to New Zealand to begin its rejuvenation. Therein is the last story in this quartet. The painstaking restoration of the aircraft is seen and described stage by stage, through to the first flight and airshow debut, where it has since stamped its presence on the New Zealand aviation scene.

There are of course a multitude of other sub-stories woven throughout the brilliantly written narrative, including several stories of other New Zealand Spitfire pilots.

The design and layout of this book is extremely attracting and one of the outstanding qualities is the hundreds of photographs that chronicle every period of the Spitfire's history. Brendon has gathered together amazing historical shots from the Deere family's albums and wartime days, and from the various points in PV270's own service career. He has also taken step by step photos of the restoration process, and the book also offers an array of stunning post-restoration shots of the Spitfire back in the air where she belongs. The airshow photographs and the Gavin Conroy air to airs are breathtaking. Moreover, Brendon has gone the extra mile to ensure that almost every photograph in the book has a detailed and lengthy caption attached, often running of paragraph length. Brilliant.

Whilst the well researched captions are informative, the main body text is very easy to read, written in Brendon's relaxed, very accessible style and brimming with enthusiasm for the project and interest for the reader.

Additionally, numerous quotes are dotted throughout the book, many quoting Alan Deere himself from interviews, his own book or extracts from his combat reports. There are passages also from other Spitfire pilots, various authors and a variety of other sources. Each in its own way adds a little to the amazing experience that this book is.

As well as the many photos illustrating this story, there are also numerous fine art paintings depicting Spitfires, some great technical drawings of the Spitfire and some very nice side view profiles of the various colour schemes PV270 has worn in the past. There are also chapters contributed by other pilots such as Paul Stockly and Pete Cochran. There is a walkaround photo section for modellers to see close up details of the aircraft, and some stunning recent photos from Warbirds Over Wanaka 2010.

The book has forewords from both Chief of Air Force Air Vice Marshal Graham Lintott, and wartime No. 485 Squadron pilot Doug Brown.

In conclusion I think this is a gorgeous book about a beautiful aeroplane. It pays tribute to the Spitfire itself and to the project's inspiration, Alan Deere. And a very moving touch is it has also been dedicated to the memory of Nick Cree, Hayden Madsen, Daniel Gregory, Andrew Forster and Benjamin Carson, five kiwis who have recently given their lives in the service of their country in the Royal New Zealand Air Force.

The book will be released within the coming weeks. The recommended retail price is $69.95 and I would say to any Spitfire enthusiast and fan of the New Zealand warbirds movement it is worth every cent, especially since Brendon says, "All proceeds from the book will support the public commemoration flights of Spitfire PV270 and obviously web site sales assist that objective the most." You can order your copy now from Brendon's website at http://www.spitfirepv270.co.nz