Military power in Japan became private and “feudal” long before government or military authority did. Unlike the knights and barons of northwestern Europe, Japan’s bushi were fashioned to serve the needs of a still-secure, still-vital centralized state. Court enfranchisement of private warrior power from very early on worked, paradoxically, to keep connections between the military and political hierarchies thin for many centuries thereafter. There was no power vacuum into which incipient warlords could rush, and little bushi class consciousness to incite a warrior revolution.

Until the very end of the early medieval era, the “feudalization” of military organization was thoroughgoing only at the monadic level, between warrior leaders and small bands of direct retainers. Large forces and networks were difficult to sustain for very long, and difficult to assemble, even in the short term, without the support of state authority in some form. Hence military power was seldom a practical route to political power in Japan before the fourteenth century. Indeed, the opposite more often proved true: political power and authority were crucial to any maintenance of military power.
Minamoto Yoritomo’s declaration of independence in 1180 stands, in many respects, as a glaring exception to this precept. But even his early calls to arms, which claimed – however spuriously – a mandate from Prince Mochihito to rouse the east, co-opted the authority and the framework of the imperial state. And the developments that followed from his subsequent negotiations with Go-Shirakawa integrated the feudal lordship he had initiated deeply into the court-centered polity.

In its mature form, the Kamakura power structure simplified the Heian military/police system while retaining most of its basic principles and key features. As such, it created a framework for the continued existence of the Heian polity, even as it laid the groundwork for the warrior rule that emerged under the Ashikaga regime.

On a more prosaic level, and of more direct concern to this study, the dual – and dueling – organizational principles of Heian-, Kamakura- and Nambokucho-era military forces mitigated against extensive articulation of command and control on early medieval battlefields, with significant repercussions for tactics and the nature of warfare.

Foreign powers, domestic lawbreakers, and personal enemies were not the only antagonists against whom early bushi and their institutional forebears directed their martial power. For not all adversaries of the state or the throne were human.

Under the ritsuryo polity and its antecedents, the Japanese emperor emerged as a sacerdotal monarch reigning over a liturgical community of noble houses. The operations of this liturgical community were conducted as much through the rituals and ceremonies that filled the court calendar as through the sorts of activities modern audiences conventionally associate with governance. To the Japanese of the Nara, Heian and Kamakura eras, ritual and ceremony were not quaint or meaningless customs designed to occupy the time of bored courtiers, they were a visible symbol of the social order and served an important function in vitalizing and renewing the polity. Thus it is an error to think of court politics as having become ceremonial during the Heian period (as textbooks and survey histories often contend), for, from the very beginning, court ritual and ceremony were politics.

As such, defense of the emperor and of the state involved more than just guarding the security of his corporeal body, and military service extended into the realm of magic and exorcism. Participation in rites of this sort was, in effect, an alternative type of military service, one equally valued at the time as police work and battlefield activity. In premodern societies, technology and magic were not separable phenomena. It should not be surprising, then, that the military arts, being just one more kind of technology, also had a magical function in premodern Japan.

In fact, magical and exorcistic military functions were considered important enough to warrant the creation of a guard unit specializing in them. The Takiguchi, formed in the late ninth century as a detail of bodyguards attached to Emperor Uda’s private secretariat, the Kurodo dokoro, was composed of men recruited for their martial skills, and yet there are virtually no sources that portray Takiguchi guardsmen engaged in ordinary personal defense or law-enforcement activities. Their main function seems, rather, to have been exorcism and divination.

Among their duties was a rite called meigen (“sighing bowstring”) or tsuru-uchi (“striking the bowstring”), which involved the drawing and releasing of bows without shooting arrows. This was performed at regular hours throughout the night, and on such occasions as births, illnesses, thunderclaps or other inauspicious omens, and – intriguingly – prior to an emperor’s entry to his bath. It was also performed by Takiguchi whenever they came on duty. This is the background to the scene in the Genji monogatari in which Genji, frightened by an apparition in a dream and by the Yugao lady’s sudden illness, summons a servant and orders him to

“Tell the escort to twang his bowstring and keep shouting.” . . . The servant, a member of the Takiguchi, could be heard twanging his bow with expert skill . . .. The sound reminded Genji of the imperial palace. The roll call would be over by now; the guardsmen were probably twanging their bows and proclaiming their names.

Rites such as meigen reflect a belief that the bow was more than just a prosaic weapon, that it was a magical instrument with the power to drive away evil spirits and disperse ghosts. The notion that weapons could be used to ward off evil and invite good fortune probably derives from Taoist practices, but it was thoroughly ingrained with native Japanese (Shinto) ideals by the start of the ritsuryo era. It was expressed at court not only in meigen exercises, but also in the numerous wrestling (sumai) and archery (jarai) ceremonies held throughout the year.

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The proliferation of private warfaring that occurred over the course of the early medieval period was symptomatic of a fundamental change in Japanese definitions of Just War, one that centered on the replacement of courtier values with those of the bushi themselves. While the former focused narrowly on central government sanction, the latter broadly embraced the right of warriors to fight on the personal authority of courtier or bushi patrons, as well as in pursuit or defense of private profit or matters of honor.

The new ethic was nascent during the Heian period, but bushi remained politically constrained enough that they were obliged to bow to courtier rules and definitions governing their droit de guerre. The Gempei War (1180–85) unleashed widespread local violence conducted under the banner of public war, and the Kamakura shogunate that emerged from this fighting found itself unable fully to constrain small-scale private conflicts, because it depended for its existence as much on the backing of its own warrior vassals as on the credibility of its promises to the court to maintain law and order. The fourteenth century witnessed six decades of more or less constant civil war, fueled by two competing centers of political legitimation, which made it both possible to wrap almost any private fight in the banner of the larger public war and impossible for either government to restrain its warriors, lest they simply change allegiance to the other side. The result was the end of any meaningful distinctions between public and private warfare, and of the ability of governments to assert the primacy of centrally dictated law over warrior self-help. Henceforth, bushi notions of Just War would prevail.

A sixteenth century Indian depiction of the Mongol army storming a Chinese city. The achievements of Genghis Khan remained a popular subject for stories and illustrations throughout the Turco-Persian world and the Mogul emperors of India looked to Genghis Khan as their great forebear.

Like the early caliphs of Islam, Genghis realized that in order to keep his following together he had to direct them against outside enemies; and so his career of conquest began. The tribes of the eastern steppes looked to China as the main outside power and it was natural that Genghis should turn his attention to the invasion of China for reasons of plunder and prestige. The first priority was to lead a raid which would result in the capture of flocks and herds as a visible reward for his followers. It was a propitious time for such an expedition. China was divided between two main empires, the Chin of the north and the Sung of the south. The Chin were themselves of nomad origin and their relationship with their Han Chinese subjects was uneasy: To the west of them lived a people the Chinese called the Xixia but whom others knew as the Tanguts. These inhabited the area immediately south of the Gobi Desert with their capital at Ningsia, on the Yellow River. Genghis knew he would have to subdue them to protect his right flank in any invasion of China. A campaign of 1207-8 was no more than a large-scale plundering raid which brought him the booty he needed to keep his followers satisfied. In 1209, however, Genghis embarked on a campaign of conquest of the Tangut Empire, his first operation outside Mongolia. It was also the first time the Mongols had attempted the capture of large fortified towns.

Having defeated the main Tangut army, they attempted to take the city of Ningsia by damming the river and flooding it. It was typical of the ambitious and labour-intensive siege works that the Mongols were to undertake elsewhere. However, in the end the dam broke and the Mongol camp itself was flooded. In January 1210 a peace treaty was made by which the Tanguts agreed to pay tribute. It was not a 'very auspicious beginning to Genghis's career of conquest.

After this, a successful assault on China itself must have seemed vital to preserve his status as a great war leader. He was well aware of the divisions among the Chin and their unpopularity with many of their Chinese subjects. In the spring of 1211 Genghis held a Kuriltay on the banks of the Kerulen River and a campaign was decreed. It was make or break for Genghis. The Chin maintained a formidable army and they were numerically far superior to the Mongols. A setback would certainly have resulted in rebellion by some of his recently subdued enemies in Mongolia itself. Genghis retreated to a mountain-top to pray to heaven while the Mongols fasted for three days and nights. He exhorted them to take revenge for past insults to the Mongolian peoples. The campaign was not easy and at one point Genghis himself was wounded by an arrow but by 1214 the I Mongol army was laying siege to the Chin capital Zhongdu, near Beijing. The fall of the city was followed by the first of the great massacres which the Mongols staged to impose their authority: By 1216 Genghis was back in Mongolia, quelling unrest among the remaining Merkit tribesmen, whom he ordered to be massacred to the last man.

The Mongols were closely related to the Turks in custom and language. In the twelfth century they were one of a number of tribal groups which inhabited the steppe lands of what is now the republic of Mongolia. Their neighbours, the Tatars, Keraits, Naimans and Merkits were tribes who lived very similar lives and there must have been a certain balance between the groups. Until the beginning of the thirteenth century, the Mongols were scarcely known outside their homelands. All this changed, however, with the career of Temüchin, later known as Genghis (or Chinggis) Khan, probably born around 1170. He is said to have been descended from a family of khans but his father had been poisoned by members of the rival Tatar tribe and the young Genghis was brought up by his mother in conditions of desperate hardship and poverty. He soon distinguished himself by his ability and his ruthlessness. Slowly, by making alliances and playing off one patron against another, he made himself the leader of the Mongols. Next he launched attacks on the other tribes of the steppes, subduing the Merkits and the Naimans and almost exterminating the Tatars in a fearsome massacre. By 1206 he was master of the steppes and all the other tribes had submitted to his authority.

Compared with Turkish people further west, Mongols seem to have led a very pure nomad life. All the characteristics we have noted in the case of the Turks were here in an exaggerated and intensified form. The Mongols lived off their horses and flocks. Commentators always remarked on the extreme hardiness (and sometimes on the ugliness) of these sturdy ponies. There is a record of a Mongol on a single horse covering 600 miles in nine days. Genghis Khan's army once travelled 130 miles in two days, moving without a break. This astonishing mobility was to prove one of their most terrifying features and one of their most important military advantages. They could also move without needing to carry their fodder. In 1241 the emperor Frederick II wrote to his fellow rulers in western Europe to warn them against the Mongol invasions and to try to gather their support. His description of the Mongols and their methods of warfare is surprisingly well informed. Among their strengths he notes that 'when fodder fails them, their horses are said to be satisfied with the bark and leaves of trees and the roots of herbs which the men bring with them: yet they always find them to be very swift and strong in case of necessity'. Other commentators noted that Mongol horses knew how to dig down through the snow to find food whereas horses brought up in more comfortable conditions were unable to cope in the same way.

Like the Turks, the Mongols could survive off a diet of animal products. They drank the milk and ate the flesh of their horses, and we even have accounts of the Mongols drinking the blood of their riding animals in times of great hardship. Their travelling supplies might consist of dried milk curd, to which water was added to make it drinkable, and cured meat. In moments of relaxation they enjoyed the famous kumiz or fermented mare's milk. In contrast, the Mongols never practised agriculture and although they certainly ate grain products when available, they had no understanding of farming or sympathy with farmers. Mongol armies needed pasture as twentieth-century armies needed oil and petrol. If the land was occupied by buildings or tillage, then it had to be cleared. They had no interest in preserving orchards or irrigation canals, and needed no urging to convert the land to grass. Equally, Mongol armies could not maintain themselves in the absence of broad pastures. In India, and in the arid lands of southern Iran and Syria, the Mongol advance faltered and halted. In southern Russia and northern Iran, by contrast, extensive grazing meant that their armies could 'refuel' and multiply.

The Mongols also used wagons for transport. Unlike the Islamic Middle East, where wheeled transport was virtually unknown in the Middle Ages, the people of the steppes utilized them for carrying their tents, and necessary household equipment. Wagons were sometimes used on military campaign and wagons are mentioned, for example, in the 1241 battle of Mohi against the Hungarians when they were moved into a circle to provide a sort of improvised fortification. The Mongols were also adept at building rafts to cross rivers: Frederick II in his letter notes, 'They are incomparable archers and carry skins artificially made, in which they cross lakes and the most rapid rivers without danger.'
The bow was their principal weapon. The Mongol version was a composite bow of bone and sinew on a wooden frame. These bows had a very heavy pull, stronger even than the famous English longbows of the later Middle Ages. The effective range could be well over two hundred yards. What is astonishing, however, is that this formidable weapon was used from the back of a swiftly moving horse. Mongols could also fire with terrifying rapidity. When sources talk of the sky becoming dark with their arrows, this was no mere figure of speech. Like an aerial bombardment in modern warfare, it prevented the enemy from maneuvering or regrouping at will. Of all the nomad peoples of Asia, the Mongols were the most successful in the practice of mounted archery.

Life on the Mongol steppes was very hard and enemies were treated with the most extreme ruthlessness: there was none of the quasi-chivalry which characterized the Bedouin society of the period before Islam. Enemies could be surprised, poisoned (a technique which would have been regarded with the utmost horror by the Bedouin) or have their backs broken. Their women and children could be slaughtered or become the absolute property of the victors. It was a peculiarity of the Mongol scale of values that the shedding of blood was considered especially shameful for the victim. Hence men of high rank would be executed by trampling or suffocation rather than with the sword. This doubtful privilege might even be extended to distinguished outsiders, like the last 'Abbasid caliph of Baghdad who in 1258 was rolled up in a carpet and trampled to death by horses.

Unlike other nomads, the Mongol soldiers underwent systematic training. This was not done in camps or barracks but on the hunting field. The Mongol leaders mounted great annual hunts, called nerge, to provide meat for the winter. A huge ring of hunters would gradually close in on the game, driving it ever closer together. Anyone who allowed an animal to escape would face punishment. As the ring contracted so the press of animals would become more intense. Finally, when the khan gave the order, but not a moment before, the slaughter would begin. The nerge inculcated basic skills of teamwork, communication and co-ordination, of encircling the prey and above all, of obedience, which were to be key factors in the success of the conquests.

For 1942 Hitler planned another Blitzkrieg campaign in Russia. However, its scope, aims and overall goals were very different from those of Operation Barbarossa. For a start the German army was incapable of a strategic offensive across the whole of the Eastern Front. Despite its great victories, the Wehrmacht had taken a severe battering at the hands of the Russians in 1941–2. By March 1942 the Germans had suffered casualties of 1.1 million dead, wounded, missing or captured, some 35 per cent of their Eastern army’s strength. Only eight out of 162 divisions were at full strength and operational capacity. Some 625,000 replacements were needed to bring the Eastern army back up to scratch. The army’s mobility was severely impaired by the loss of 40,000 lorries, 40,000 motorcycles and nearly 30,000 cars, not to speak of thousands of tanks. Of the 180,000 draught animals (mainly horses) also lost as a result of enemy action, only 20,000 had been replaced by March 1942.

The only realistic option was an offensive on a single front. Hitler’s attention focused on the southern front and on the quest for oil. In the Transcaucasus, the area deep in the south of the USSR centred on the Caucasus mountains, were the oil fields that supplied 90 per cent of Soviet fuel. Hitler had both short- and long-term motives for wanting to seize these oil fields. Denying the Russians their oil was one short-term aim; another was the desperate need to increase oil supplies to Germany and its Axis allies.

In the longer term, Hitler needed the means to fight a prolonged war of attrition against the Allies on a multiplicity of fronts. A long war was clearly the only prospect in Russia, and Hitler worried increasingly about the implications of the entry of the United States into the conflict. American economic and military power had been crucial in swinging the balance against Germany during the First World War. He was particularly concerned about the danger to his Festung Europa (Fortress Europe) of an Anglo-American invasion of France. Although that invasion did not take place until June 1944, in mid-1942 it seemed a matter of months rather than years away. German predominance, if not outright victory, had to be established on the Eastern Front before the Allied invasion of France. In that event Germany would be faced with the prospect of a two-front land war in Europe, which it would inevitably lose. This was the background to Chief-of- Staff Halder’s statements in March 1942 that the ‘war will be decided in the east’ and ‘only through the possession of that territory [Transcaucasia] will the German war empire be viable in the long-term’ (Boog et al, 2001, pp.844, 860). Hitler agreed. In June 1942 he told his generals ‘if we don’t get to Maykop and Groznyy [Soviet oil cities in Transcaucasia], I shall have to pack up (“liquidieren”) the war’ (Goerlitz, 1963, p.155).

A thrust to the Caucasus offered other economic advantages. If the Germans did succeed in occupying Transcaucasia, including the Azerbaijan oil capital of Baku, an important Allied supply route to Russia would be cut. Anglo-American supplies shipped via the Persian Gulf would be forced to make a huge detour through Kazakhstan in the Soviet central Asia. A German advance south would involve occupation of the Donets Basin (the Donbas) – the mineral-rich industrial heartland of the Ukraine – and conquest of the fertile lands of the Don and Kuban rivers. Again, denial of these resources to the Russians loomed large in Hitler’s calculations.

Finally, Hitler was anxious about the security of the Rumanian oil fields in Ploesti – the main supplier of the German war machine. These oil fields had been attacked a number of times by Soviet bombers. Damage was light but the potential for a destructive air campaign was clear. ‘Now in the era of air power’, Hitler had said in January 1941, ‘Russia can turn the Rumanian oil fields into an expanse of smoking debris . . . and the very life of the Axis depends on those fields.’

On 31 January the Soviets captured the commander of the 6th Army, Field Marshal Fredrich Paulus – the highest ranking of the 24 German generals who surrendered at Stalingrad. Two days later the remaining German forces in Stalingrad capitulated.

The loss of the 6th Army – an elite fighting force of the German army – was catastrophic enough. It was the biggest and most traumatic defeat in German military history and the myth of the invincible Wehrmacht was gone forever. But the overall strategic picture was even worse. By the end of the Stalingrad campaign Germany and its Axis allies on the Eastern Front had suffered casualties of a million and a half dead, wounded and captured. Nearly 50 divisions – almost the whole of five armies – had been lost. In the Caucasus, the German armies beat a rapid retreat north and barely escaped entrapment themselves. In the central sector, in front of Moscow, German Army Group Centre survived a major Soviet offensive launched simultaneously with the one at Stalingrad, but took heavy casualties and the threat of renewed Russian attack remained. In the north the Germans still surrounded Leningrad, as they had done since 1941, but in January 1943 the land blockade was breached and it was only a matter of time before the siege of the Soviet Union’s second city would be completely lifted. By spring 1943 the Germans were outnumbered two to one on the Eastern Front and outgunned many more times over. In the summer the Germans attempted to stabilise their defensive position by launching a great tank offensive at Kursk in the central sector, but this was another battle they lost, and it was one from which their famed Panzer forces never recovered.

The Soviets paid a high price for their victories. The Stalingrad campaign alone cost an estimated 2.5 million casualties. But no-one, either at the time or subsequently, seriously doubted that it was worth it. The Soviet victory at Stalingrad was the turning point in the war on the Eastern Front and the Eastern Front was the main front of the Second World War. More than 80 per cent of all combat during the Second World War took place on the Eastern Front.

The Germans suffered in excess of 90 per cent of their total war losses on the Eastern Front: 600 divisions destroyed by the Soviets; ten million dead, wounded, missing or captured. As the war progressed the western Allied contribution to the land war in Europe grew proportionately. Following the D-Day landings of June 1944, the American, British, Canadian and other allies deployed a two million strong force in France against about a million German defenders. However, even in summer 1944 there were still twice as many Germans serving on the Eastern Front, as in western theatres. The Germans blamed their defeat at Stalingrad on the vagaries of the weather, on the logistical difficulties of operating in the vast expanses of Russia, and, above all, on the seemingly inexhaustible Soviet manpower reserves. After the war, but not at the time, the favourite sport of retired German generals was attacking Hitler for his meddling in military affairs and his tactical and strategic errors in relation to Stalingrad and other campaigns.

Soviet propagandists, on the other hand, depicted Stalingrad as a triumph for the Soviet socialist system. The Soviet Union, they argued, had out-produced, out-fought and out-lasted Nazi Germany. Underlying that victory, they argued, was a superior socialist economic system, a dynamic political and military leadership and, above all, a people united in their determination to resist Nazi invasion, conquest and occupation.

Though brave, Red Army soldiers were tactically inept, often absurdly so. Officers were trained to undertake only frontal assaults, even across open terrain. A German account of Soviet counter-attacks on a German strong point on the approach to Kiev exemplifies both Soviet persistence and Soviet ineptitude. The attack began with an artillery barrage that fell behind the German emplacement, causing no damage. Then from a thousand yards distant, a hundred yards or so separating each line, wave after wave of infantrymen rose up out of the grass and with bayonets fixed tramped towards the German lines. The first line was mowed down almost to a man by machine-gun fire; the second was hit but was able to reform. Then the men ran towards the German guns, shouting in unison. They moved more slowly when they reached the piles of dead, stepping over or between them. Officers on horseback bullied them on and were shot by German snipers. The attack faltered and broke, then was repeated, using the same methods, four more times, each time without success. German machine-gunners found that their guns became too hot for them to touch. ‘The fury of the attacks,’ the report continued, ‘had exhausted and numbed us completely…a sense of depression settled upon us. What we were now engaged in would be a long, bitter and hard-fought war.’ ---J. Lucas, War on the Eastern Front: The German Soldier in Russia 1941‐1945 (London, 1979), pp. 31-3.

In August Hitler changed his mind about the priority to Army Group Centre he had given in June and switched the main German effort to clearing the Ukraine and seizing Kiev. The change was strongly resisted by the army leadership, who wanted to capitalize on the victory at Smolensk by pushing on rapidly to Moscow and destroying what remained of the Red Army in the process. Theirs was the view of Clausewitz: concentrate on the destruction of the enemy’s forces. They did not share Hitler’s view that what counted in war was economics. The seizure of the ‘Ukraine, with its rich grainlands, its mines and metals plants, was part and parcel of the pursuit of ‘living-space’. Hitler believed that the loss of these resources would spell disaster for the Soviet war effort and make the new German order invincible.

Hitler prevailed and in the process possibly saved the Soviet capital. The capital of the Ukraine was less fortunate. Though under heavy harassing attack, bogged down by autumn rains, and short of tanks and aircraft, the First Panzer Group from the north and the Second Panzer Group moving from the south met up far to the east of Kiev. In Moscow the German shift from the central front to the southern had been anticipated in August. General Yeremenko, who lost his wife and young child in the initial German onslaught, was given charge of the counter-offensive to save the Ukraine. The attempt failed. Stalin urged Yeremenko to report victories and poured in precious reserves from other parts of the front to bolster the Soviet attack. They were all squandered in the effort to prevent another catastrophic encirclement. Stalin refused to let Kiev be abandoned to the enemy, though only a strategic withdrawal would have saved the Soviet forces, as Zhukov had argued in July. Without a specific order from Stalin, the local commander in Kiev refused all demands from his colleagues that he save the army by retreating? politically prudent no doubt, but militarily disastrous. When even Stalin had to accept the reality that German forces had encircled Kiev and its hinterlands, it was too late. Evacuation of the front was ordered on September 17, but the order never reached the embattled garrison in Kiev, which fought on in the ruins of the ancient city for two more days before surrendering. The rest of the trapped army, except for small groups of stragglers who fought their way out, became prisoners. In all 527,000 men were killed or captured, and the way was open for German armies, though battle-weary and greatly depleted, to occupy the rest of the Ukraine and the Crimean peninsula. Most senior commanders lost their lives in the final battering of the pocket by German aircraft and artillery. The Kiev Front commander, General Mikhail Kirponos, was ambushed with a thousand men as he tried to break out. Wounded in the leg, he fought on until the splinters from an exploding mine abruptly dispatched him.

During the 1430s the search for peace became more urgent, particularly in England. The Congress of Arras (1435) and discussions at Gravelines (1439) were unproductive, largely because English opinion remained divided as to the desirability of peace and the wisdom of significant concessions. But the recovery in Charles VII's fortunes, the mounting cost of English Still at War, 1390-1490 231 expeditions to defend Lancastrian France, Bedford's death in 1435, and especially the defection of Burgundy were decisive factors. The government freed the duke of Orleans (a captive in England since Agincourt) to promote peace among his fellow French princes (1440), though he did not have much success. In 1445 Henry VI married the French queen's niece, Margaret of Anjou, but even that only produced a truce, and a proposed meeting of kings never took place. Eventually, Henry VI promised to surrender hard-won territory in the county of Maine as an earnest of his personal desire for peace. His failure to win the support of his subjects for this move—especially those magnates and gentry who had lands in France and had borne the brunt of the fighting—led to the exasperated French attacking Normandy in 1449.

Their onslaught, supported by artillery, was so spectacularly successful that the English were defeated at Rouen and Formigny, and quickly cleared from the duchy by the end of August 1450. ' . . . never had so great a country been conquered in so short a space of time, with such small loss to the populace and soldiery, and with so little killing of people or destruction and damage to the countryside,' reported a French chronicler.

Gascony, which had seen few major engagements under Henry V and Henry VI, was invaded by the triumphant French armies, and after their victory at Castillon on 17 July 1453, the English territories in the south-west were entirely lost. This was the most shattering blow of all: Gascony had been English since the twelfth century, and the long-established wine and cloth trades with southwest France were seriously disrupted. Of Henry V's 'empire', only Calais now remained. The defeated and disillusioned soldiers who returned to England regarded the discredited Lancastrian government as responsible for their plight and for the surrender of what Henry V had won. At home, Henry VI faced the consequences of defeat.

Within three weeks of Castillon, Henry VI suffered a mental and physical collapse which lasted for seventeen months and from which he may never have fully recovered. The loss of his French kingdom (and Henry was the only English king to be crowned in France) may have been responsible for his breakdown, though by 1453 other aspects of his rule gave cause for grave concern. Those in whom Henry confided, notably the dukes of Suffolk (murdered 1450) and Somerset (killed in battle at St. Albans, 1455), proved unworthy of his trust and were widely hated. Those denied his favour—including Richard, duke of York and the Neville earls of Salisbury and Warwick— were bitter and resentful, and their efforts to improve their fortunes were blocked by the king and his court. Henry's government was close to bankruptcy, and its authority in the provinces and in Wales and Ireland was becoming paralysed. In the summer of 1450, there occurred the first popular revolt since 1381, led by the obscure but talented John Cade, who seized London for a few days and denounced the king's ministers. The king's personal responsibility for England's plight was inevitably great.

Henry VI was a well-intentioned man with laudable aspirations in education and religion; he sought peace with France and wished to reward his friends and servants. But no medieval king could rule by good intentions alone. Besides, Henry was extravagant, over-indulgent, and did not have the qualities of a shrewd and balanced judge of men and policies. He was intelligent and well educated, but he was the least experienced of kings and never shook off the youthful dependence on others which had been the inevitable hallmark of his long minority (1422-36). Many of his problems were admittedly unavoidable. The dual monarchy created by his father made heavier and more complex demands than those placed on a mainly military conqueror such as Edward III or Henry V. His minority was a period of magnate rule which created vested interests that were not easily surrendered when the king came of age—particularly by his uncle, Humphrey, duke of Gloucester, and his greatuncle, Henry Beaufort, cardinal-bishop of Winchester. Moreover, after Gloucester's death in 1447, Henry was the only surviving descendant of Henry IV in the senior male line, a fact which Still at War, 1390-1490 233 led him to distrust the duke of York, the heir of that earl of March who had been passed over in 1399. There was, then, ample reason for disenchantment with late Lancastrian rule, and in Richard of York there was a potential leader of the discontented.

Despite the king's illness, the birth of a son to his abrasive queen in October 1453 strengthened the Lancastrian dynasty, but it hardly improved the immediate prospect for the realm or for Richard of York. As England's premier duke and Henry's cousin, York was twice appointed protector of the realm during the king's incapacity (1454-5, 1455—6). But as such he aroused the queen's fierce hostility which erupted in the battles of Blore Heath and Ludford Bridge (September-October 1459), and in the subsequent Parliament at Coventry which victimized York, the Nevilles, and their supporters. This alienation of powerful men by a regime with a disastrous record at home and abroad led York to claim the Crown in October 1460. After his death at Wakefield soon after, his son Edward took it for himself on 4 March 1461, with the aid of the earl of Warwick. The period of dynastic war that is popularly known as the Wars of the Roses was now well under way amid conditions that had been ripening during the 1450s.

Sri Padmanabhaswamy temple is a famous Hindu temple dedicated to god Vishnu maintained by the erstwhile Travancore Royal Family and located inside East Fort in the city of Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala state, South India. The temple is considered to be one of 108 Divya Desams (Holy Abodes), which are principal centres of worship in Vaishnavism. The date of the temple is unknown, but the temple is mentioned in the writings of the Alvars (6th-9th centuries AD), and renovations are thought to have taken place until the 18th century.

The principal deity, Padmanabhaswamy, is a form of Vishnu in "Ananta-sayanam" (Vishnu in the eternal sleep of Yoga-nidra on the serpent Ananta) posture. Padmanabhaswamy Temple is a very ancient temple and the city of Thiruvananthapuram ("Abode of Lord Ananta") derives its name from the name of serpent Ananta.

In July 2011 a review of the temple's underground vaults, by a seven-member panel appointed by the Supreme Court of India, was begun. Estimates suggested that the temple could be the richest in the world; unofficial estimates on the sixth day of the inventory placed the value of contents at close to Indian Rupee symbol.svg100,000 crore (US$22.3 billion). The local rulers (more recently the Travancore Maharajahs) sealed immense riches within the thick stone walls and vaults of the temple, over at least a millennium, as offerings to Lord Padmanabhan.

In earlier years Padmanabhaswamy Temple and its properties were controlled by eight powerful Nair feudal lords known as Ettuveetil Pillamar (Lords of the Eight Houses) under the guidance of the Council of Eight and a Half. Later, King Marthanda Varma, the founder of Travancore, successfully suppressed the Ettuveetil Pillais and his cousins. The last major renovation of the Padmanabhaswamy temple was also done by Marthanda Varma. He virtually "dedicated" the kingdom of Travancore to Padmanabha, the deity at the temple, and pledged that he and his descendants would "serve" the kingdom as Padmanabha Dasa, meaning "Servant of the Padmanabha".

The insignia of the Padmanabha, Valampiri Shankhu or Dextral Conch-shell, served as the state emblem of Travancore and it can still be seen on the emblem of Kerala state. Padmanabha is still regarded as regional deity of erstwhile Travancore.

The two annual festivals of the Padmanabhaswamy Temple culminate in a grand procession, in which the three deities (Padmanabha, Narasimha and Krishna) are carried on flower-deck and aesthetically decorated Garuda Vahanas to Shankumugham Beach, for "arattu" (sacramental ablution). The arattu days are declared as local public holidays in Thiruvanathapuram. The Idol is made of Kadusarkkara Yogam, an ayurvedic mixture, with Vishnu sleeping on the serpent Ananta with his head pointing towards south, facing east.

A master military strategist in the Prussian tradition—but one who approved of ruthless treatment for Jews.

By TOM NAGORSKI

On Jan. 4, 1944, Field Marshal Erich von Manstein flew from the Eastern Front to see Adolf Hitler, determined to change the Führer's mind. Manstein had tried before—he had pushed hard for a radical realignment of forces in the east—but now his army was facing defeat. "One thing we must be clear about, mein Führer," Manstein said, "is that the extremely critical situation we are now in cannot be put down to the enemy's superiority alone, great though it is. It is also due to the way in which we are led." Hitler, Manstein later recalled, "stared at me with a look which made me feel he wished to crush my will to continue. I cannot remember a human gaze ever conveying such willpower." Three months later Manstein was relieved of his command.

The confrontation is one of the better moments in "Manstein: Hitler's Greatest General," Mungo Melvin's interesting if flawed biography of the master strategist and military commander who fought in two wars, on fronts from the Somme to Stalingrad. Perhaps the most compelling questions surrounding Manstein's career involve the moral imperatives of military leadership. Was he the innocent leader of a professional army, blind to Hitler's ideology and ignorant of what the SS and other extramilitary outfits were up to? Or was he, with other German commanders, aware of the extremes of National Socialism and an enabler of its cruelest policies?

Erich von Manstein was born in 1887 into the Prussian aristocracy. He saw fighting in several theaters during World War I and suffered the postwar humiliation that befell so many German officers. But he would rise to high command in Hitler's Wehrmacht, prosecuting the German war on Poland, then France and ultimately on the Eastern Front. It was Manstein who planned the 1940 Ardennes offensive that helped Germany to victory in France; two years later, he led the land-sea-and-air attack in the Crimea, conquering the great bastion of Sevastopol in one of the most inventive sieges of modern warfare. Manstein had a great military mind and a sober one—Krisenfest, calm in crisis, was a term used to describe him.

Mr. Melvin's biography is meticulously researched, and his treatment of Manstein's military prowess is thorough, almost to a fault. The author is a retired British general, and while his fellow officers may value the book's density of detail, the ordinary reader may find it hard-going at times. This is history told through maneuvers—encirclements and tank formations and the like. The pathos of battle is in short supply. Even Stalingrad—the scene of so much drama, bravery and horror—is presented largely as a tale of strategy and tactics.

Mr. Melvin is on better footing when he turns to the moral questions. At Nuremberg, Manstein argued that he had served his nation, not Hitler or Nazism. He testified that it was only after the war that he learned of the annihilation of the Jews, only then that he came to believe that Hitler "had no moral scruples." But, as Mr. Melvin makes clear, Manstein's recollections were often self-serving.

It is true that Manstein never joined the Nazi Party, but he had shown an affinity for certain tenets of National Socialism. In April 1934, he argued in a memorandum that "the professions of judges, lawyers and doctors were flooded with Jews and half-Jews" and that a "rigorous cleansing" was required. He was on record extolling "pure-blooded" Germans, and in November 1941 he drafted and signed a military order demanding the ruthless treatment of "partisans" and "Jews" on the Eastern Front: "The soldier must appreciate the necessity for the harsh punishment of Jewry, the spiritual bearer of Bolshevik terror." In court he acknowledged that the signature on the order was his but said he could not remember signing it.

No court ever tied Manstein directly to a specific atrocity. At Nuremberg he was acquitted on a technicality (no charge of criminality, it was ruled, could be brought broadly against the general staff) but was rebuked by the judges. Manstein and other generals, they said, were "responsible in large measure for the miseries and suffering that have fallen on millions of men, women and children." Four years later Manstein was brought before a British military tribunal in Hamburg and convicted on nine charges, including a failure to stop the killing of civilians and other atrocities carried out in areas under his command. He was released in May 1953.

It did not help Manstein's case that he took a lawyerly approach to the postwar questions: He said he could not have known about all the battlefield "transgressions" and could not have joined an organized opposition to Hitler, given the code of military honor. ("Prussian field marshals," he said, "do not mutiny.") In any event, he claimed, Hitler's overthrow would have brought unacceptable chaos to Germany.

A key question, Mr. Melvin writes, is when "a field commander [is] entitled to confront his commander-in-chief if he disagrees with the latter's orders." True enough. But Manstein confronted Hitler often on military matters; on other occasions he chose not to or claimed ignorance. This selective candor brought a scathing remark from one of the British judges at Hamburg: Manstein "did not consider the mass murder of a hundred thousand Russians worth a quarrel with Hitler."

Mr. Melvin concludes that "Manstein's misfortune, along with millions of fellow Germans, was to serve blindly a criminal regime." Again, not quite. Manstein may not have been a fanatic, and he was no mastermind of Nazi ideology. But he was no blind servant either. As the German magazine Der Spiegel put it in its June 1973 obituary, Manstein "embodied both the degeneration and downfall of the Prussian-German military caste. He assisted in the march to catastrophe."

Mr. Nagorski is a managing editor at ABC News and author of "Miracles on the Water: The Heroic Survivors of a World War II U-Boat Attack."

It was on 3 August 1944, that the OKH/ Gen.lnsp.d.Pz.Tr./GenStdH/Org.Abt. issued the following order for the Heeres Panzer-Divisions to reorganize in accordance with the standardized “Gliederung Panzer-Division 44”:

1. The “Gliederung Panzer-Division 44” goes into effect immediately for all Panzer-Divisions.

2. Within the bounds of their available personnel and material, the Panzer-Divisions are to convert to this organization. The status of their reorganization is to be reported in the monthly operational status reports. Panzer-Lehr-Division and the 21.Panzer-Division are exceptions. A special organization applies to these two divisions.

3. The list of application KSt.N. for Panzer-Division 44 is included as an Appendix 2.

The organization chart stated that provisionally each Panzer-Kompanle was to be outfitted only with 17 Pz.Kpfw.IVs or Panthers.

Type 44 Panzer Division (nominal strength 14,691)
Divisional Headquarters (520 men)
Panzer Regiment (2006 men)
Regimental Staff Company (5xPz.IV, 3xPzBfWg.V)
-Flak Platoon (8x37mm Flak 43 on Pz.IV)
1st Panzer Battalion (76-94 Pz.V Panther)
-Staff Company (5xPz.V, 3xPzBfWg.V, 3xFlakvierling 20mm SP guns)
-Four tank companies (each with 17 or 22 Pz.V Panther)
-Armoured maintenance company
-Armoured Supply Company
2nd Panzer Battalion (76-94 Pz.IV)
-Staff Company (5xPz.IV, 3xPzBfWg.IV, 3xFlakvierling 20mm SP guns)
-Four tank companies (each with 17 or 22 Pz.IV)
-Armoured maintenance company
-Armoured Supply Company
1st Armoured Panzergrenadier Regiment (2287 men)
Regimental Staff Company
1st Panzergrenadier Battalion
-Battalion Staff
-3xPanzergrenadier Companies (half-track)
-Heavy Company (half-track)
--Infantry Gun Platoon
--Mortar Platoon
-Panzergrenadier Supply Company
2nd Panzergrenadier Battalion
-Battalion Staff
-3xPanzergrenadier Companies (motorized)
-Heavy Company (motorized)
--Engineer Platoon
--Panzerjaeger Platoon
--Infantry Gun Platoon
--SP Gun Battery
-Pioneer Company (motorized)
1st Motorized Panzergrenadier Regiment (2219 men)
Regimental Staff Company
Two Motorized Panzer Grenadier Battalions each with:
-Battalion Staff
-3xPanzergrenadier Companies (motorized)
-Motorized Heavy Company
-Supply Company
Heavy Infantry Gun Company
Pioneer Company
Self-Propelled Panzerjaeger Battalion (475 men)
Staff Company (3 PzJg IV)
Motorised Panzerjaeger Company (12x7.5cm PaK 40)
Two self-propelled Panzerjaeger (14 PzJg IV)
Supply Company
Armoured Reconnaissance Battalion (945 men)
Staff Company (10xSdKfz 251, 16xArmoured cars)
Armoured Reconnaissance Company (16xLuchs Light Tanks) or Armoured Car Company (25 Armoured cars and SdKfz 250)
Light Armoured Reconnaissance Company (30x SdKfz 250)
Panzer Grenadier Company (23xSdKfz 251)
Armoured Heavy Company
-Heavy Gun Platoon (6xSdKfz 251/9)
-Mortar Platoon (6xSdKfz 251/2)
-Pioneer Platoon
Supply Company
Panzer Artillery Regiment (1315 men)
Regimental Staff Battery
1st Self-Propelled Battalion
-2 light batteries (12x leFH SdKfz 124 Wespe)
-1 heavy battery (6xSFH SdKfz 165 Hummel)
2nd Battalion (motorized)
-Staff Battery
-2 light batteries (12x10.5cm leFH 18 )
3rd Battalion (motorized)
-Staff Battery
-2 heavy batteries ( 8x15cm sFH 18 )
-Gun Battery (4x10cm K 18 )
Army Flak Battalion (635 men)
Armoured Pioneer Battalion (874 men)
Armoured Signals Battalion (463 men)
Field Replacement Battalion (973 men)
(including 800 replacement troops)
Panzer Supply Troop (781 men)
Vehicle Maintenance Group (417 men)
Medical and Ambulance Companies (530 men)
Administrator, Military Police and Other units (251 men)
Source: German Wehrmacht Panzer Divisions 1939-45

LINK

* General Staff working on plan to boost presence in Arctic
* Russia set to start producing Bulava nuclear missile

By Thomas Grove
MOSCOW, July 1 (Reuters) - Moscow will create two brigades to protect its valuable Arctic resources, Russia's defence minister said on Friday.

Moscow has walked a fine line between cooperation and aggression in the Arctic which the world's top energy producer believes could hold huge reserves of natural gas and oil.

"The General Staff is currently working on plans to create two such units," Defence Minister Anatoly Serdyukov was quoted as telling media by state-run news agency Itar-Tass.

Declining to go into detail, he added: "The location will be determined, as well as weapons, numbers and infrastructure for the brigades."

Global warming has boosted expectations that the Arctic may provide mining, fishing and shipping prospects for the countries that have claims on the region -- Russia, the United States, Denmark, Greenland, Canada, Norway and China.

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said on Thursday that Russia would boost its presence in the region to protect its interests.

"As for our own geo-political interests (in the Arctic) are concerned, we shall be protecting them firmly and consistently," Putin told a meeting of his ruling United Russia party on Thursday in the Urals city of Yekaterinburg.

Late last year Russia delineated new Arctic borders with Norway and agreed to ease frontier controls in the hope of further cooperation in oil and gas exploration.

Russian gas export monopoly Gazprom (GAZP.MM: Quote, Profile, Research) runs two major gas projects in the Arctic, including one with Statoil (STL.OL: Quote, Profile, Research), while state-run oil major Rosneft (ROSN.MM: Quote, Profile, Research) and BP (BP.L: Quote, Profile, Research) operate at three Kara Sea fields.

Serdyukov also said that Russia was in a position to start production of its intercontinental Bulava missile following the most recent successful test of the armament this week.

His ministry has said the missile, which the Kremlin wants to make the cornerstone of its nuclear arms programme, will undergo four more tests this year before being introduced into service.

Previous failures -- seven out of 15 tests -- had called into question the viability of the programme.
"The Bulava flew well. And that's good news," Interfax news agency quoted him as saying. "We understand exactly that in this case it is possible to start serial production of the rocket."

Russia is looking to modernise its armaments and Putin has promised to spend nearly 20 trillion roubles ($718.4 billion) over the next decade upgrading its armed forces.

One missile can hold six to 10 nuclear warheads, which would deliver an impact of up to 100 times the atomic blast that devastated Hiroshima in 1945. (Editing by Robert Woodward)

REUTERS

By Lisa J. Robertson

Armies existed in Japan prior to the medieval era. For example, in the Nara period, government troops consisted of peasants recruited from provincial farm communities. In the early medieval era from about the 10th century, the government-sponsored conscription system began to falter. Despite court government efforts to establish militia units, eventually both aristocrats and the imperial family enlisted the aid of private provincial warrior bands to maintain order in remote areas where central rulers had little authority.

As the Kyoto-based aristocratic government declined during the 12th century, the warrior class emerged as the dominant political, economic, and social force, first in outlying provinces and later, throughout much of Japan. Samurai ascent to power in the middle to late Heian period was prompted in part by the widespread employment of warriors on estates held by Kyoto aristocrats (kuge). High-ranking courtiers residing at the cultural center of Japan were not interested in administrating their extensive provincial landholdings, private estates called shoen. Instead, they turned to individuals of military skill to serve as estate agents and governors. Aristocrats were effectively absent as the day-to-day management and defense of these lands became the responsibility of groups of professional soldiers.

The rise of these warrior bands, called bushidan, began in the late Heian period. All such militia units were regarded as professional fighters, and thus were distinct from conscripted government troops who lacked a formal military background. Some of the most formidable warrior bands were located in the eastern provinces, known as the Kanto region. In addition to court nobles, both the central government and private landholders with no aristocratic lineage employed military units for diverse purposes, such as guarding the capital and protecting villages, and they soon became indispensable.

Disregarding court authority, military bands in the provinces behaved according to lord-vassal relations, and envisioned themselves as bound to serve regional estate officials rather than the courtier-owners of the lands they defended. Often a military troop comprised warriors who shared lineage within extended families, or were local recruits serving on behalf of private interests. Some military bands included warriors who assumed or were granted family names by their employers. Historically significant clans had large percentages of armed retainers who shared no kinship ties. Many warriors serving in the provinces who would never attain court rank were simply assigned to one of the three clans—the Fujiwara, the Taira, and the Minamoto—who dominated warfare of the late Heian and early Kamakura eras. Descendants of these families (or those so assigned) struggled continually for power during the last 100 years of the Heian period.

The Gempei War (1180–85), a violent, decisive struggle for power between the Minamoto and the Taira, ended in victory for the Minamoto. The Minamoto were headquartered at Kamakura in the eastern Kanto region, where the patriarch, Yoritomo, accepted court appointment as seii tai shogun, “Great General Who Quells the Barbarians,” and set up the first warrior government (bakufu, or shogunate). The abbreviated title shogun identified Minamoto no Yoritomo as the head of the military government and the person to whom all warriors owed ultimate allegiance. Under military rule, martial responsibilities and local power remained the purview of warrior bands unified through kinship, regional alliances, or political interests, although the shogun was the supreme leader.

Warrior units who enforced peace and defended estates were employed by provincial constables (shugo) and estate stewards (jito), offices first established by Minamoto no Yoritomo. Initially these constables and stewards were sent to outlying regions by the shogunate, although they later began to amass land and power for personal gain, thus functioning as forerunners to the military lords later known as daimyo. Samurai had long relied upon personal connections to recruit members of their band, while the central government had secured allegiance of military retainers through a system of rewards including rank, office, and land grants. Eventually, government land reserves and available positions became insufficient to ensure that samurai vassals (gokenin) would remain loyal to the shogunate and control of provincial estates fell to warrior alliances that consolidated power over regions in the provinces.

From early medieval times, provincial bushidan were confederations of independent warrior bands bound by lord-vassal relations and serving different leaders. In practice, lord-vassal alliances functioned like ancestral bonds whereby descendants of a vassal served subsequent generations of the lord’s family, who in turn provided ongoing support to the vassals. Despite the lack of blood ties, lords and vassals often conceived of and articulated their relationship in language suggesting kinship. For instance, vassals were described as housemen (kenin, or gokenin after the Heian period) and children of the house (ienoko). Vassals also sometimes characterized their lords as father figures although they were not related.

During the 13th and 14th centuries, the shogunate unwittingly hastened dissolution of central government authority by allowing gokenin to attain rank and wealth previously reserved for aristocrats, even as military bands also increased their might. At first, rulers valued warrior bands for their military acumen and secure regional ties or kinship bonds, which peasant forces had lacked. However, personal (or assigned) connections strengthened the commitment between the military retainer, or vassal, and the regional lord (daimyo). Capitalizing on such alliances, established daimyo and gokenin were able to amass significant tracts of land far from the capital, with the assurance that samurai bands could defend the domains against central government interference.

Initially such privately trained military groups were somewhat informal, although by the end of the Kamakura era, warrior bands became more organized and essentially constituted private armies. In response to threats from such forces, the Kamakura shogunate issued a new code governing gokenin behavior in 1232, hoping to inspire provincial order and regulate samurai activity through exhortations to honor and integrity. Yet such ideals were largely ignored among warrior classes until the samurai code was fully articulated in the Edo period. Disorder prevailed in the provinces, and samurai challenged shogunal authority in struggles for personal property, land, and financial gain—not for honor. The Kamakura shogunate finally collapsed in 1333, and the Ashikaga family assumed power, establishing the Muromachi shogunate.

By Lisa J. Robertson
The Tokugawa shogunate officially assumed control of Japan in 1615, fostering more than 250 years of peace and imposing nearly complete isolation from trade as well as conflict with foreign lands. Warriors were no longer occupied with battles because the Tokugawa government instituted strict controls to maintain order in domestic affairs, especially in the provinces. Soon many samurai became government bureaucrats, serving the shogunate both in the capital and outlying regions. Other warriors became figureheads who traveled to the capital to make periodic ceremonial appearances and offer tribute to the shogun in the name of their lords. Thus, both daily experience and the social position of members of the samurai classes were transformed in the Edo period. Military ability no longer ensured that the heads of warrior clans could attain daimyo status, nor did lineage confer wealth and prestige, as lands were reallocated according to allegiances and for strategic purposes at the discretion to the Tokugawa ruler. Mounting estate taxes and tributes due to the shogun began to cause financial hardship even among elite daimyo, who could no longer rely upon a network of dutiful vassals and warriors.

The high cost of maintaining favor and position with Edo rulers increased in the third decade of shogunal rule, further depleting already dwindling samurai resources. In 1634, the Tokugawa government established a policy of obligatory alternateyear residence (sankin kotai) in the capital for samurai and their families. Initially, daimyo were encouraged to leave family members behind in Edo, thus making them available as hostages in the event that warrior lords collaborated in an attack on the shogun in the capital. Soon, the system also included compulsory daimyo attendance at court in Edo in alternating years, ensuring that warriors traveling to the provinces would lack time, inclination, and resources to organize factions that might overthrow the Tokugawa rulers.

Combined with other aspects of Tokugawa rule, the system of alternate attendance and hostages had significant consequences for warrior culture. The sankin kotai system helped to distance regional lords from their vassals and domains, and ensured that shogunal rule in the Edo period would not be disrupted by the localized power struggles that characterized the Warring States period. Although samurai could continue to bear arms in some cases, they suffered reduced stipends due the alternate residence requirement and the associated burden of frequent long-term travel, as well as expenses due to social competition among daimyo for shogunal favor. Warrior affairs were further restricted due to extensive regulations and taxes imposed on diverse circumstances— including castle construction and repair, and intermarriage of daimyo families. Compliance with shogunal edicts was assured using spies and inspectors. Sankin kotai did have advantages for warriors of means, since wealthy daimyo had opportunities to indulge their cultural passions. The peacetime environment of the shogunal court spawned increased warrior patronage of leisurely pleasures such as theater, literature, music, and other forms of entertainment. Finally, the significant sums spent by the large samurai population enriched the Edo economy, resulting in a bustling metropolis that ultimately benefited not only the Tokugawa shogunate, but also the merchant and artisan classes.

Thus, Tokugawa rule revolutionized both the social position and daily lives of samurai. Many former warlords were recruited as administrative figures in the shogunal bureaucracy—a position not so different from that of courtiers in attendance at the capital during the zenith of the Heian court. At first it may seem incongruous that the famous Bushido (“Way of the Warrior”) code was formalized during this time of peace. Although the Tokugawa shogunate supervised warriors carefully to prevent battles and challenges to central authority, Edo-period samurai were expected to follow rigorous moral guidelines for conduct and to polish their martial skills in accord with their superior rank. Further, under Tokugawa rule, emphasis was placed on principles of warrior traditions rather than military practice, and daimyo and samurai were urged to uphold valor, honor, and duty, even as they were charged with administration of a peacetime government.

In their search for an outstanding fighting aeroplane the Sopwith experimental department decided in early 1916 to build an entirely new design--a triplane. The completed machine had three narrow-chord wings. The combined wing area of the three mainplanes gave the aircraft plenty of lift. Ailerons were fitted to all three wings; the interplane struts were plain but strong and few bracing wires were needed. The fuselage was a typical Sopwith wooden box girder. Tail- plane, elevators, rudder and fin resembled those of the Pup, but later production models had a tail-plane of reduced area. The handling qualities of the Triplane were excellent. It is now regarded as only slightly less maneuverable than the Pup, but many pilots preferred it to the little biplane.

The triplane layout was adopted in order to give the pilot the widest possible field of vision, and to ensure maneuverability. Shown here is the prototype Triplane  N.500 at Chingford.

The triplane layout was adopted in order to give the pilot the widest possible field of vision, and to ensure maneuverability. The central wing was level with the pilot's eyes and obscured very little of his view, and the narrow chord of all the mainplanes ensured that the top and bottom wings interfered less with his outlook than the wings of a biplane. The narrow chord aided maneuverability, for the shift of the centre of pressure with changes of incidence was comparatively small; this permitted the use of a short fuselage. At the same time, the distribution of the wing area over three mainplanes kept the span short and conferred a high rate of roll.

Looking back, it is hard to realize the revolutionary nature of the Triplane at the time it appeared. Nothing quite like it had ever been built for military purposes, and the best measure of its success is provided by the profusion of German and Austrian single-seat fighter triplanes which appeared after the impact made by the Sopwith Triplane

It has been said that Anthony Fokker was so anxious to produce an aircraft which would be an adequate reply to the new Sopwith fighter that he resorted to subterfuge to obtain an example of the Triplane. He contrived to arrange for the delivery to his works of the remains of a Sopwith Triplane which had been shot down, despite the fact that the aircraft should have gone to the German experimental field at Adlershof. However, the Fokker Dr. I Triplane which was ultimately designed by Reinhold Platz, Fokker's chief designer, was a very different aeroplane from the Sopwith Triplane.

The power unit, a 110 h.p. Clerget rotary, was eventually replaced by the 130 h.p. Clerget. The standard armament consisted of a fixed Vickers gun, synchronized to fire through the revolving propeller. A small batch of six Triplanes, however, were fitted with twin Vickers guns built by Clayton & Shuttleworth.

The first prototype Sopwith Triplane, N.500, went to France in mid-June, 1916 to undergo Service trials with Naval "A" Fighting Squadron at Furnes. The Triplane was an instant success, and no time was lost in testing it in action, for it was sent up on an interception within a quarter of an hour of its arrival at Furnes. It was destined to be flown operationally by naval units only. The R.F.C., who had already received a present of the first sixty R.N.A.S. Spad S.7s, decided in February 1917 to accept the remaining sixty in exchange for the Sopwith Triplanes on order for the Corps.

The type was ordered by the Admiralty for the R.N.A.S., and the War office followed suit by ordering 266 machines for the R.F.C. Sopwith built the R.N.A.S. Triplanes. Other contractors undertook production of the Triplane for the R.F.C.

No. 1 (Naval) Squadron, 'Naval one', went into action with the type in April 1917, in support of the hard-pressed R.F.C. The hitherto very successful Albatros D-III was completely outclassed, and IdFlieg , the German Inspectorate of Flying Troops, received a severe shock. The Tripehound could out-climb and out-turn the Albatros, and was 15 m.p.h faster. Naval Eight and Naval Ten, equipped in April and May, also made their presence felt. Proof of the Triplane's worth was soon to be shown. In April 1917 Flight Commander R. S. Dallas and Flight Sub-Lieutenant T. G. Culling attacked a formation of fourteen German aircraft. After forty-five minutes they had shot down three of the enemy and driven the remainder into retreat.

On June 6th, thirteen of Naval Ten's Triplanes fought fifteen enemy aeroplanes and shot down five without loss to themselves. Two of the five were Albatros scouts which fell in flames under the fire of Flight Sub-Lieutenant Raymond Collishaw. Other famous R.N.A.S. pilots who scored heavily with the type were Collishaw, Little, Booker, Reid, Sharman, Nash and Alexander.

Collishaw was probably the best-known exponent of the Sopwith Triplane's superb fighting qualities. A Canadian, he was given command of "B" Flight of No. 10 (Naval) Squadron on April 1st, 1917. This was the famous "Black Flight", as redoubtable a fighting unit as took the air during the war. Between May and July, 1917 it accounted for no fewer than eighty-seven enemy aircraft. All the pilots were Canadians. The original members were Flight Sub-Lieutenant E. V. Reid, Flight Sub-Lieutenant J. E. Sharman, Flight Sub-Lieutenant G. E. Nash, and Flight Sub-Lieutenant W. M. Alexander. The Triplanes of the Black Flight were named Black Death, Black Maria, Black Roger, Black Prince and Black Sheep.

In a combat on June 26th, 1917, Nash was wounded and forced down behind the enemy lines by Leutnant Allmenroder, a German pilot with thirty victories to his credit. Next day Collishaw avenged the loss of his friend. In a fight which began near Courtrai, he shot down and killed Allmenroder, forcing his green tailed Albatros to crash on the outskirts of Lille.

In twenty-seven days during June, 1917, Collishaw shot down sixteen enemy machines. All, except three, were Albatros and Halberstadt single-seat fighters.

Some difficulty was found in obtaining spares for the Triplane during the summer of 1917, and one unit, Naval one, had to reduce its establishment from eighteen to fifteen aeroplanes. By the autumn the type had passed its zenith and the rate of casualties in Triplane squadrons rose.

At the end of August, 1917, No. 10 (Naval) Squadron began to re-equip with Sopwith Camels. Three of its Triplanes were then transferred to No. I (Naval) Squadron, which in turn gave up its beloved Triplanes on its withdrawal on November 2nd, 1917. The first Triplane squadrons to begin re-equipment with Camels were No. 8 (Naval), which had received a few Camels by the end of July, 1917, and No. 9 (Naval), which exchanged its Triplanes and Pups for Camels between mid-July and August 4th.
The Battles of Ypres were therefore the last actions over which Sopwith Triplanes flew. They fought with distinction until their final demise.

When it is realized that only about 150 were built, it is surprising how much they influenced the trend of design. A host of triplanes and quadruplanes were built by the leading German and Austro-Hungarian aircraft manufacturers in efforts to match the performance of the remarkable Sopwith Triplane.
One Sopwith Triplane, N.5431, was used in Macedonia. It was on the strength of No. 2 Wing R.N.A.S., and in March, 1917, it was allocated to the new R.N.A.S. unit known as "E" Squadron, which later combined with a Royal Flying Corps detachment to form the Composite Fighting Squadron, based at Hadzi Junas as a countermeasure to the German bomber squadron then operating from Hudova.

However, N.5431 never reached Hadzi Junas. It flew first to Stavros; and, in company with four Sopwith 1 1/2 Strutters, set out for Salonika on March 26th, 1917. Its pilot was Flight Lieutenant John Alcock. When landing at Salonika, Alcock made one of the few errors of judgment in his distinguished flying career. He overshot the small aerodrome and wrecked the Triplane. The wreckage was taken back to Mudros and rebuilt. It was still flying from Mudros at the end of September, 1917. On the 30th of that month it was flown by Lieutenant H. T. Mellings when he shot down an enemy single-seat fighter seaplane.

Country: Great Britain
Manufacturer: Sopwith Aviation Company
Type: Fighter
First Introduced: November 1916
Number Built: 152
Engines: Clerget 9Z, 9 cylinder, rotary, 110 hp [82 kw]
Clerget 9B, rotary, 130 hp [96 kw]
Le Rhône, 9 cylinder, 110 hp [82 kw]
Wing Span: 26 ft 6 in [8.07 m]
Length: 18 ft 10 in [5.73 m]
Height: 10 ft 6 in [3.20 m]
Empty Weight: 1,101 lb [499 kg]
Gross Weight: 1,541 lb [698 kg]
Max Speed: 117 mph [188 km/h]
Ceiling: 20,500 ft [6,248 m]
Endurance: 2¾ hours
Crew: 1
Armament: 1 synchronized Vickers .303 machine gun (a handful were equipped with twin machine guns)