Innholdsfortegnelse for No. 87 i History of War

Although Tennyson’s eulogising of the Light Brigade’s fateful charge is far more often recalled than the Battle of Balaclava itself, it also overshadowed another event earlier that same day, which was equally lionised at the time. The disciplined stand of the 93rd Highlanders against Russian cavalry charges was dramatically recalled by journalist William Russell as “a thin red streak topped with a line of steel”, and much later made immortal in Robert Gibb’s romanticised artwork. This issue historian Mark Simner recounts the real events surrounding the ‘Thin Red Line’, and retraces the 93rd’s heroic conduct beyond Balaclava.…

1206 RISE OF TEMÜJIN Born as Temüjin Borjigin, the future Genghis Khan comes to power by uniting Mongol nomadic tribes under his rule. He gains his name in 1206 when he is proclaimed as the ‘Universal Ruler’ of Mongolia. This enables Genghis Khan to begin a supremely ambitious campaign for world conquest. 1211-34 CONQUEST OF JIN CHINA Genghis Khan conquers northern China and Manchuria, which is ruled by the Jin dynasty. The conquest takes 23 years and the Jin dynasty’s destruction is finally overseen by Genghis Khan’s third son Ögedai Khan. Aug-Oct 1211 1 BATTLE OF YEHULING 300,000 Chinese soldiers under the command of Jin Emperor Xingsheng are killed by Genghis Khan’s numerically inferior force of 100,000 cavalry at the Battle of Yehuling. The Mongols’ decisive victory allows them to…

Sir Colin Campbell, Baron Clyde, commanded the Highland Brigade during the Crimean War, which consisted of the 42nd (Royal Highland) Regiment of Foot and 79th (The Queen’s Own Cameron Highlanders) Regiment of Foot in addition to the 93rd (Sutherland Highlanders) Regiment of Foot. He would take command of the 93rd at Balaclava on that fateful day in 1854, passing into legend along with the Highlanders themselves. Yet Sir Colin had already had a long and distinguished career before the Crimean War. The son of a carpenter (he was actually born Colin Macliver but later took his mother’s name), Campbell joined the British Army at the age of 15 when he gained a commission as an ensign in the 9th Regiment of Foot in 1808. Unfortunately, he lacked social influence and…

“IT’S A CASE OF DO OR DIE! YOU’VE GOT THE ENEMY IN FRONT, AND ALL OUR ARMY BEHIND. THERE IS NO SPACE TO RETREAT, AND THE ONLY WAY TO GO FORWARD IS TO BEAT THE ENEMY!” The blue-coated Prussian soldiers marched south over hard frozen ground blanketed with a light dusting of snow towards the nondescript village of Sagschutz at midday, on 5 September, 1757. A string of low hills masked their march from the watchful eyes of their Austrian foe arrayed for battle less than two miles to the west. Prussian King Frederick II ‘The Great’ believed his army had a strong chance for success in the coming battle that would decide whether Prussia retained Silesia or lost it to the Austrians. He intended to send his well-trained infantry…

Also known as ‘Geronimo Ji Jaga’, Elmer ‘Geronimo’ Pratt (1947-2011) volunteered for the 82nd Airborne Division and served two tours in Vietnam. He was awarded a Silver Star, two Bronze Stars and two Purple Hearts before he left the military as a sergeant. After graduating from UCLA he joined the Black Panther Party and became a leader in California. Pratt was targeted by the FBI in an effort to destroy the Black Panthers. He was arrested for the 1968 murder of Caroline Olsen and the wounding of her husband. Convicted in 1972, he spent 27 years in prison, eight of which were spent in solitary confinement. He was finally released in 1997 after it was discovered that prosecutors had withheld evidence that could have secured his acquittal. The FBI had…

“THE TYPE WAS BUILT TO BE CATAPULTED FROM THE DECKS OF WARSHIPS, FOR USE IN SPOTTING FOR NAVAL GUNS, MOUNTING ANTI-SUBMARINE PATROLS, AND CONDUCTING GENERAL RECONNAISSANCE” AMPHIBIOUS UNDERCARRIAGE The undercarriage allowed the Walrus to be used on land or aircraft carriers, and folded up into the lower wing when operating as a flying boat. MAIN ACCESS Entry and exit to the aircraft while at sea was through the cockpit roof, so no potentially leaky fuselage doors were needed. WINCH POINTS Four bolts on the upper wing were used to connect cables, to allow the type to be winched on or off ships at sea. SEA RUDDER A cover would slip down over the tail wheel when in the water, augmenting the main rudder with a small underwater rudder. Based on…

Heir to an illustrious dynasty, the early reign of King Bela IV was spent promoting his allies and punishing any upstarts. Meanwhile, the busy court in Pest-Buda did not heed firsthand accounts from diplomats and refugees of the horrors visited on ‘Rus’ or Russia. By 1235 the Mongols, led by the feared Subotai (also known as Subudei) began their assault on Russia, culminating in deeper campaigns over the Carpathians and Balkans. True to the overused maxim, resisting the Mongols was futile. Even the Teutonic Knights and their allies learned this the hard way. The Mongols’ progress was stopped only by a miracle – for the Christian imagination, at least. With the death of Ögedei Khan in 1241 a new supreme leader had to be chosen by assembly known as ‘kuriltai’.…

Psychological warfare was a key tactic employed by the Mongols. It is easy to characterise their treatment of captured civilians and enemy soldiers as mere barbarity (and it was undeniably brutal) but there was actually a definite purpose behind it. By creating a terrifying image of themselves, the Mongols made it more likely that any city they approached might surrender without putting up resistance. It also made it more likely that an area would remain submissive after Mongol forces had passed through – this was hugely important, as the invading force did not have enough men to leave garrisons behind. For this reason, civilians in a captured city that had offered resistance would be systematically slaughtered or taken into slavery. A small proportion of the population would be allowed to…

William Howard Russell of The Times had a grandstand view of the Battle of Balaclava and the role played by the 93rd. Shortly after the battle, he famously wrote, “The Russians dash at the Highlanders. The ground flies beneath their horses’ feet; gathering speed at every stride, they dash on towards that thin red streak topped with a line of steel.” However, this ‘thin red streak’ would not be the phrase that became the stuff of legend. Rather, in his book The British Expedition To The Crimea (revised in 1877) the description morphed into, “The Russians drew breath for a moment, and then in one grand line charged towards Balaclava. The ground flew beneath their horses’ feet; gathering speed at every stride, they dashed on towards that thin red line…

01 SUCCESSFUL FEINT To deceive the Austrians into believing that he intended to attack their centre, Frederick ordered his light cavalry to form into a line of battle in the late morning east of the village of Borne. He then had the main body of the army begin its flank march by passing through this sector in full view of the enemy. Some of these troops stayed behind temporarily before rejoining the main army further south. 02 PRUSSIANS OVERRUN AUSTRIAN FLANK An advance guard of three elite Prussian infantry battalions lead King Frederick’s ‘oblique order’ assault at 1.30pm against the Austrian left flank held by Austrian and Imperial troops. The Prussians storm the Kiefenberg where the weak Wurttemberg battalions are deployed behind abattis. The Wurttembergers fire on the…

IWM’s aid worker tribute IWM North’s new exhibition explores the vital role of aid workers who assist those in need during modern conflicts Across the world, aid organisations are working to support, care for and protect vulnerable populations forced to flee their homes because of conflict. However, difficult questions arise about who they choose to help, which risks to undertake and whether the presence of aid organisations do more than harm than good. These are some of the challenges that are explored in ‘Aid Workers: Ethics Under Fire’, which is a new exhibition at IWM North in Greater Manchester. Running from 1 October 2020 to 31 May 2021 as part of IWM’s ‘Refugees’ season, the exhibition highlights the practical, emotional and ethical challenges faced by aid workers on the front…

Hidden Wales is a BBC TV series that explores some of the country’s long-forgotten locations, from secret beauty spots to industrial and military sites. Now into its second season, the programme’s new six-part series has its fifth episode devoted to Wales’s wartime history. ‘World War II’ sees presenter Will Millard discover various sites including plane wrecks in the Brecon Beacons and a top-secret bunker in Monmouthshire. Millard is an English-born explorer who has led remote expeditions to West Papua and West Africa. A Fellow of both the Royal Geographical Society and Winston Churchill Memorial Trust, he is also an enthusiastic advocate for his adopted home country of Wales. He explains how its geography greatly assisted the Allies during WWII and why the Welsh should be proud of their unsung but…

MASKED UP Taken: c. 1915 French poilu wear masks and goggles to protect from gas attack on the front line. Prior to the first major use of chlorine gas by the Germans at the Second Battle of Ypres, 1915, there was only a basic understanding of how effective chemical weapons would be on the battlefield. As the use of gas became more common, the measures and equipment to counter them grew more sophisticated. WINTER OF DISCONTENT Taken: 18 January, 1990 An elderly Armenian woman walks past a truck transporting a Red Army tank in a street of Yerevan, while tensions grew between Azeri and Armenian nationalists. The disputed territory of Nagorno-Karabakh was fought over between Armenia and Azerbaijan, in the shadow of the collapsing Soviet Union. Though a ceasefire was…

“BY THE TIME THE KHAN’S ARMIES DESPOILED KHWARAZM, A PERSIAN EMPIRE STRETCHING ACROSS CENTRAL ASIA, THE TATARS WERE RECOGNISED AS THE ELITE CAVALRY OF THE GROWING EMPIRE” Forever evoking images of horse-riding barbarians, the Tatars are a bewildering ethnic group who changed the course of history yet remain misunderstood. Between ambiguous European chronicles and official Chinese records, the Tatars or ‘Tartars’ were nomadic pastoralists who, once unified by Genghis Khan after 1206 along with other tribes, began conquering large swathes of northern China ruled by the Song Dynasty (960-1279). By the time the Khan’s armies despoiled Khwarazm, a Persian empire stretching across Central Asia, the Tatars were recognised as the elite cavalry of the growing empire. But Mongols considered themselves distinct from Tatars. The usage of Mongol as an identifier…

Among Lord Raglan’s forces earmarked for the war against Russia at the outset of the Crimean War, was the hardy Highland Brigade. The brigade consisted of three Scottish battalions, including the 93rd (Sutherland Highlanders) Regiment of Foot under the command of Lieutenant-Colonel William Bernard Ainslie. The regiment was eager to prove its mettle on the battlefield. In all, the battalion numbered 34 officers, 107 non-commissioned officers, 21 drummers, and 950 privates. Unbeknown to the men of the 93rd, they were soon to leave their mark on history as the ‘Thin Red Line’. Their journey to the Crimea began on 27 March 1854, when they embarked for the Black Sea aboard the troopship Himalaya. While the voyage itself was uneventful, the battalion was to suffer a rather inauspicious start to the…

The term ‘race to the sea’ during the opening months of World War I is something of a misnomer. Rather than a race, the series of movements by the opposing German and Allied armies involved attempts by each side to turn the northern flank of its enemy. Following the opening Battle of the Frontiers in August and September 1914, the German offensive into France was stopped during desperate fighting at the First Battle of the Marne from 5-12 September and during the British-French counteroffensive that resulted in the Battle of the Aisne through the end of the month. “EMPHASIS ON MOVING TO THE WEST AND NORTH INTENSIFIED, RESULTING IN THE “RACE” AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF TRENCH WARFARE” Four weeks of northward manoeuvres continued, leading to a series of encounter battles…

African Americans comprised 23 per cent of all US combat troops during the Vietnam War, despite numbering just 11 per cent of the United States’ population. Although 22 Black soldiers received the Medal of Honor for extreme courage during the conflict, they fought at a time when the USA was consumed by the Civil Rights Movement. These soldiers not only contended with the enemy but also the endemic racism in their own country. One of those who fought was Dedan Kimathi Ji Jaga, a teenage volunteer in the US Marine Corps, who began his military service with dedicated enthusiasm. He describes how he became disillusioned with the war before becoming a civil rights activist, and how he continues the fight for the rights of his fellow African-American veterans. Born in…