The Military History Thread

[Ennath]

November 12, 1512
Battle of Ghaj-davan

Babur’s second occupation of Samarkand had been ended by the great Uzbek conqueror Shanbani Khan in 1501 (see posting, Battle of Sar-e-Pul), leaving Babur without a strong base. In 1504 he captured Kabul in an attempt to move away from the Uzbeks, and it looked as if his last chance to take Samarkand had gone. This all changed when Shanbani entered into a feud with Shah Ismail Safawi, the new ruler of Persia. In December 1510 Shanbani was killed at the Battle of Merv, and his empire soon began to fall apart.

Babur realized that this gave him a chance to occupy Samarkand for a third time, but after an early rebuff he entered into an agreement with the Shah. In return for military help Babur agreed to impose the Shah’s Shia beliefs on the Sunni inhabitants of Samarkand. After a triumphant entry into the city Babur soon found that his new religious affiliation made him unpopular. Worse was to come. Babur had dismissed his Persian troops, and this encouraged the Uzbeks to return. In May 1512 Babur was defeated at Kul-i-Malik, and was forced to abandon Samarkand and retreat to Hisar.

At the same time as he was alienating the people of Samarkand, Babur’s unwillingness to actively persecute the Sunni inhabitants of the city angered Shah Ismail, who dispatched an army under Najm Sani to discipline his unruly subordinate. By the time Najm reached the borders of Khorasan, Babur was already a refugee. The Persian army spent 20 days at Balkh, from where Najm exchanged letters with Babur and possibly with the Shah, before he decided to go to Babur’s aid and attempt to recover Bukhara and Samarkand (possibly without waiting for orders from the Shah).

The 2 armies soon joined up, and began to advance towards Bukhara. Babur’s force was much smaller than the Persian army, and it would appear that he was a virtual prisoner of his ally. At any rate he had no influence with Najm. When the army reached Qarshi (Karshi) the city was stormed, and despite Babur’s efforts the entire population was massacred. From Qarshi the combined army moved on towards Bukhara. The Uzbeks responded by sending an army under Timur and Abu-sa’id out from Samarkand to threaten the marching column. Najm responded by sending Bairem Beg to attack the Uzbeks, and they retreated into Ghaj-davan.

Najm Sani ignored his advisors, and decided to besiege Ghaj-davan. This placed him in a vulnerable position, on the edge of the desert, short of supplies and with a strong Uzbek army on his flanks at Bukhara. Sources disagree on the length of the siege, but it probably lasted for about 4 months. During this period the garrison’s food supplies held out, but the besiegers found themselves short of food, and it would appear that Najm was on the verge of ordering a retreat when a new Uzbek army appeared.

This army, under Ubaid Khan, came from Bukhara. The Persian siege can’t have involved an effective blockade, as Ubaid Khan was able to unite with the garrison before the battle began. The Uzbeks were still outnumbered, but the battle took place in the suburbs outside the walls of Ghaj-davan, which countered the Persians’ numerical advantage. The Persians may also have been suffering from contention amongst the army commanders, while Babur, who had command of the rear-guard, appears to have lost any interest in a Persian victory.

The main part of the Persian army was defeated in street fighting in the suburbs and Najm Sani was killed in the fighting. Babur was able conduct a fighting retreat with the rear-guard, and escaped to relative safety at Hisar, before a failed assassination attempt convinced him to move back to Kunduz, where he spent most of 1513 before retreating to Kabul. Persian historians of the period claimed that the defeat was caused by treachery on Babur’s part, although given the small size of his own army and his position in a rearguard that was probably posted outside the suburbs, there would appear to have been little that he could have done. The defeat at Ghaj-davan ended any last chance Babur had of regaining Samarkand, and his attentions soon moved east, to India.

[Ennath]

382 BC
Olynthian-Spartan War

The Chalcidian League had been formed in around 423 BC, several years after the city of Olynthus in Chalcidice had broken away from the Athenian Empire. The League had survived an attempt to dissolve it at the time of the Peace of Nicias (421 BC). After that little is known of it until around 393, when the new king of Macedon, Amyntas III, was threatened by an invasion from Illyria. In an attempt to preserve at least some of his kingdom, he asked Olynthus to take over some of his border lands. By the mid 380s Amyntas felt more secure, and asked Olynthus to return these lands. Unsurprisingly they refused, and in the fighting that followed advanced further into Macedon, capturing the capital at Pella. In 382 Amyntas sent an envoy to Sparta asking for help. At about the same time ambassadors arrived from Acanthus and Apollonia, near neighbors of Olynthus, complaining that they were being forced into the League, and also asking for aid.

The Spartans decided to intervene in Thrace. According to Diodorus their motive was a desire to uphold the King’s Peace, which included a clause guaranteeing the autonomy of the cities of Greece. Xenophon reports a longer debate, in which the potential threat of an alliance between the Chalcidian League, Athens and Thebes was the main argument for intervention.

The Spartan army moved north in two waves. The Acanthians wanted immediate help, and Eudamidas was sent north with around 2000 men. His brother Phoebidas followed with the larger part of the Peloponnesian force. Eudamidas reached the Thracian theatre during 382, and was welcomed into Potidaea, clearly an unenthusiastic member of the Chalcidian League. Phoebidas had a more eventful journey. As he passed through Boeotia he was tempted to intervene in Theban politics. Leontiades, one of the Theban polemarchs for the year, is said to have asked for Spartan help against his local rivals, and Phoebidas was happy to occupy the Cadmea (the acropolis of Corinth). In the short term this appeared to be a major Spartan success, but Thebes soon threw off Spartan rule, and it led directly to the decisive Spartan defeat at Leuctra in 371 BC (see posting). The reaction in Sparta was mixed - Phoebidas was recalled, put on trial, and fined, but the Spartan garrison remained in Thebes. After his early successes Eudamidas bogged down (probably because most of his army got stuck in Boeotia).

In the autumn of 382 a new army or around 10,000 men, commanded by Teleutias (a half brother of King Agesilaus II), was sent north, summoning troops from Sparta’s allies. He reached Potidaea, and encouraged a more active pursuit of the war. Thebes, which had refused to support the original expedition, supplied troops. Amyntas of Macedon was urged to supply mercenaries. Teleutias also sent messengers to the Thracian king Derdas of Elimia, pointing out that he was also threatened by the rising power of Olynthus. Derdas joined the army with 400 cavalry. The army now included Spartan, Peloponnesian, Theban and Macedonian contingents as well as the original army under Eudamidas. After a brief pause at Potidaea, Teleutias advanced towards Olynthus. About a mile from the city he formed into line of battle, with his own contingent, and Derdas’ cavalry on the left, facing the city gate, and the allies, along with the Spartan, Theban and Macedonian cavalry, on the right.

The Olynthians emerged from the city, formed up close to the walls, and then launched a cavalry attack on the Spartan right. The Spartan and Boeotian cavalry on the Spartan right was defeated, and the Spartan cavalry commander Polycharmus killed. The allied infantry on the Spartan right was close to breaking. Derdas saved the day, leading his cavalry in a charge against the city gates of Olynthus. Teleutias followed up with his infantry. This threatened to cut off the Olynthian cavalry, and it abandoned the attack and fled back to the city. Derdas was able to inflict heavy losses on the retreating Olynthians. The Olynthian infantry, which was still close to the city walls and doesn't appear to have been involved in the battle, was able to retreat back into the city without problems.

Although Teleutias claimed that the battle had been a victory, and even erected a victory trophy, he then withdrew from the immediate vicinity of the city. Derdas and the Macedonians were sent home. Over the winter the Olynthians appear to have held the initiative, raiding the territory of cities that had chosen to support the Spartans. Early in the following year a raid on Apollonia ended in defeat at the hands of Derdas. This was the high point of Spartan success in 381, but things were about to go badly wrong. Teleutias decided to conduct a fresh raid into Olynthian territory, probably without Derdas, who isn’t mentioned in Xenophon’s account. Teleutias’ aim was to destroy any remaining crops or fruit trees in Olynthian territory. His army operated in the area on the opposite side of the River Sandanus, which ran right by the city walls.

The Olynthians had clearly not been too discouraged by the setback at Apollonia, and they sent their cavalry out to harass the Spartans. The cavalry crossed the river, and quietly approached the Spartan camp. Teleutias was angered by this, and ordered Tlemonidas and the light infantry to charge the Olynthian cavalry. The Olynthians withdrew, and re-crossed the river, luring the light infantry into pursing across the river. Once Teleutias’ light infantry was vulnerable on the opposite bank, the Olynthian cavalry turned back and attacked. Tlemondias and 100 of his men were killed. Teleutias responded to the setback angrily. He led his hoplites towards the fighting, and ordered his peltasts and cavalry to pursue the Olynthians, who presumably chose to retire rather than risk a clash with the Spartan heavy infantry. The Olynthians retreated back into the city, with the Spartans in close pursuit.

This triggered the final stage of the battle. The Spartans came under heavy missile fire from the city walls, and were forced to pull back. While they were concentrating on protecting themselves against the missile fire, they were hit by another Olynthian cavalry charge, supported by their light infantry. The Olynthian heavy infantry was finally committed to the battle, catching Teleutias’ men in some confusion. Teleutias himself was killed in the fighting, and the rest of his army then broke and fled. The army scattered, with parts fleeing north to Apollonia, other parts heading for Spartolus or Acanthus, and the largest part fleeing towards the Spartan base at Potidaea. The Olynthians mounted an effective pursuit. Both Xenophon and Diodorus record heavy losses during this battle, with Xenophon saying that the “pith and kernel” of the army was lost, and Diodorus giving a figure of 1200 Lacedaemonian dead.

Sparta reacted by sending the junior king, Agesipolis I, with 30 advisors. He captured Torone, but then fell ill, and died of a fever in the summer of 380. Agesipolis was replaced by Polybiades, who arrived late in 380 or early in 379. He was finally able to bring the war to a conclusion. After winning a number of very badly documented battles he laid siege to Olynthus, and probably in the summer of 379 the city surrendered. The Olynthians agreed to become Spartan allies - to have the same friends and enemies as Sparta, and to follow Sparta's lead. The Chalcidian League was also probably dissolved, but this didn't last for long, and the League survived until 348 BC, when it was destroyed by Philip II of Macedon.

[Ennath]

November 13, 1647
Battle of Knocknanuss

In the summer of 1647, Murrough O’Brien (later created Earl of Inchiquin), commander of the Parliamentarian forces in Cork, ravaged and burned Confederate territory in Munster. This caused severe food shortages and earned O’Brien the Irish nickname, Murchadh an dTóiteán (Murrough the burner). In addition, Inchiquin took the Rock of Cashel, which was garrisoned by Confederate troops but was also rich in emotive religious symbolism. In the sack of the castle, O’Brien's troops massacred the garrison and also all the clergy they found there.

The Confederate Munster army was incapable of stopping O’Brien because of political infighting between officers who supported a deal with the English Royalists and those who rejected such a move. Eventually, in reaction to the sack of Cashel and when near famine conditions were approaching as a result of O’Brien’s pillaging, the Confederate Supreme Council replaced Donagh MacCarthy, Viscount Muskerry, as commander of the Munster army with Theobald Taaffe, Earl of Carlingford, and ordered him to bring O’Brien to battle.

The 3000 men of the Confederate Munster army were reinforced with 3 regiments from Connacht and a contingent of 1500 Scottish Redshanks under the command of Alasdair MacColla to bring Taaffe's strength up to around 6000 foot and 1200 horse. The Confederate army marched into County Cork and met Inchiquin's forces at Knocknanuss, “the hill of the fawns” (cnoc na nos), near Mallow, 18 miles north of Cork, on November 13, 1647.

Taaffe was an English Catholic and not an experienced soldier. His appointment to command of the Munster army was a political maneuver intended to undermine the influence of Archbishop Rinuccini on the Supreme Council. Although Taaffe had a slight superiority in numbers over Inchiquin (with 5200 men) and also gained the tactical advantage of higher ground, and his Redshanks were veterans, most of his men were as inexperienced as he was. Furthermore, the Irish troops were demoralized by the internal factionalism and most of them had little loyalty to Taafe. O’Brien, on the other hand, had been commanding his force since 1642 and was well tried in battle. His troops were a mixture of well trained Parliamentarian soldiers shipped from England and British settlers who had been driven from their homes in the Irish Rebellion of 1641.

Taaffe's Munster and Connacht regiments were deployed in separate formations with MacColla’s Redshanks on the right wing. The crest of a hill interposed between the two wings so that they could not see one another and all cohesion was broken.

The battle began with MacColla leading a downhill charge that broke through the infantry on Inchiquin’s left flank and overran his artillery lines. The Redshanks then ran off to plunder the baggage train. On the opposite flank, however, Inchiquin’s cavalry routed the Confederate horse. The Munster regiments in the center fired a single volley then broke and fled at the first enemy charge. Taaffe tried desperately to rally his troops, but the battle quickly turned into an ignominious rout. The Confederates were pursued for several miles, suffering heavy casualties and the loss of all their equipment.

Although Taaffe escaped, Alasdair MacColla was taken prisoner and shot immediately after the battle. The surviving Redshanks were massacred. Around 3000 Confederates died at Knocknanauss, and up to 1000 Parliamentarians. The carnage did not stop after the fighting was finished. The next day a couple of hundred Irish soldiers were found sheltering in a nearby wood. These were promptly put to the sword.

When combined with the Battle of Dungans Hill in County Meath (see posting), the defeat led to the collapse of the Confederate Catholic cause and forced them to make a deal with the English Royalists. The Confederate defeat at Knocknanuss left Lord Inchiquin in control of most of Munster. Only Limerick, Waterford and Clonmel remained in Confederate hands. However, neither Inchiquin in Munster nor Colonel Jones in Leinster could continue the onslaught against the Confederates in 1648 because the Second Civil War had broken out in England, diverting Parliament’s resources of men and supplies.

[Reclaimedwg]

I just got the DVD for this film.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breaker_Morant_(film)

This is a true story?

Another war started by the British empire over land and ego and the bigger kid in the playground wants to be a bully.

[Mal Hombre]

Bit like The (would be) Italian Empire's War in Abyssinia or most every war fought by the United States ?

[Dr Pepper]

Originally Posted by wildtig2013

I just got the DVD for this film.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breaker_Morant_(film)

This is a true story?

Another war started by the British empire over land and ego and the bigger kid in the playground wants to be a bully.

Up to a point-and allowing for filmmakers' taking a bit of historical licence-yes-and the execution of two Australian officers by the British became a cause celebre in Australia-and understandably a lot of anti British sentiment resulted.

Breaker Morant became something of a legend as a result-and as is the way with legends-their good points are exaggerated and their negative ones glossed over....

What is known for certain though-is that as a result of the incidents portrayed in the film, and especially the later publication of a book about the trials 'Scapegoats of the Empire', the depth of feeling was such that Australians were never again placed under British command and control for purposes of military discipline-so none were executed during WW1 by the British for cowardice or or desertion-NZ however did not take this approach-and as a result some 16 of our soldiers were executed by the British for various real or alleged offences during WW1....

In recent years there has been considerable public effort to rehabilitate the memory of those treated this way and virtually canonize them-the 'Shot at Dawn' docos and memorials etc-but this totally overlooks the possibility that quite a number may have been guilty of the charges they were convicted for-and those were the penalties in place at the time...

see also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breaker_Morant_(film)



PS Personally I think 'Breaker Morant' was Edward Woodward's finest acting role-and the movie did indeed achieve a number of awards

[Mal Hombre]

Most if not all of the men shot for desertion in WW1 had deserted more than once.

[crinolynne]

Originally Posted by Mal Hombre

Most if not all of the men shot for desertion in WW1 had deserted more than once.

I would think they were shot for being shit scared for the express purpose of "pour encourager les autres". From the distance of a full century, in the light of what we now know about PTSD and its ilk, I for one do not blame either side.

[haroldeye]

Gordon Corrigan gives the figures for WW1 as follows.

3080 Death Sentences were given of which 346 were carried out.

91 of the men executed were on suspended sentences.

The reasons for the sentence were,

Mutiny 3
Desertion 266
Cowardice 18
Murder 37
Striking a Superior 6
Disobediance to a lawful command 5
Sleeping at post 2
Quitting a post without authority 7
Casting away arms 2

Murder was a civilian crime for which the guilty would have hung anyway.

Corrigan gives the Nationality of those executed as,

291 British
25 Canadian
5 NZ
4 British West Indian
21 Chinese Civvi Labour Corps (mostly for murder)

[Ennath]

November 14, 1940
Coventry Blitz

In 1940, Coventry was an industrial city of around 238,000 people which, like much of the industrial West Midlands, contained metal-working industries. In Coventry’s case, these included cars, bicycles, aircraft engines and munitions factories. In the words of the historian Frederick Taylor, “Coventry was therefore, in terms of what little law existed on the subject, a legitimate target for aerial bombing”.

The raid that began on the evening of November 14, 1940 was the most severe to hit Coventry during the war. It was carried out by 515 German bombers from Luftflotte 3 and from the pathfinders of Kampfgruppe 100. The attack, code-named Moonlight Sonata, was intended to destroy Coventry’s factories and industrial infrastructure, although it was clear that damage to the rest of the city would be considerable. The initial wave of 13 specially modified He-111s of KG100, which were equipped with X-Gerät navigational devices, accurately dropped marker flares at 1920. Attempts to counter the German navigation aids were still at an early stage (“the Battle of the Beams”) and on this night the British failed to disrupt the X-Gerät signals.

The first wave of follow-up bombers knocked out the utilities and cratered the roads, making it difficult for the fire engines to reach fires started by the later waves of bombers. These later waves dropped a combination of high explosive and incendiary bombs. The high explosive bombs and the larger air-mines were not only designed to hamper the Coventry fire brigade, they were also intended to damage roofs, making it easier for the incendiary bombs to fall into buildings and ignite them.

Coventry’s air defenses consisted of 24 3.7” AA guns and 12 40mm Bofors. The AA Defense Commander had prepared a series of concentrations to be fired using sound-locators and GL Mk.I gun-laying radar, and 128 were fired before the bombing severed all lines of communication and the noise drowned out sound-location. The AA batteries then fought on in isolation. Although the Coventry guns fired 10 rounds a minute for the whole 10-hour raid, only 1 German bomber was shot down.

At around 2000, Coventry Cathedral was set on fire for the first time. The volunteer fire-fighters managed to put out the blaze but other direct hits followed and soon new fires broke out; accelerated by a firestorm, the flames quickly spread out of control. During the same period, more than 200 other fires were started across the city, most of which were concentrated in the city-center, overwhelming the fire-fighters. The telephone network was crippled, hampering the fire service’s command and control and making it difficult to send fire-fighters to the most dangerous blazes first; and as the Germans had intended, the water mains were damaged by high explosive, so there was not enough water available to tackle many of the fires. The raid reached its climax around midnight with the final all clear sounding at 0615 on the morning of November 15.

More than 4300 homes were destroyed and around 2/3 of the city’s buildings were damaged. The raid was heavily concentrated on the city center, most of which was destroyed. Approximately a third of the city's factories were destroyed or severely damaged, another third were badly damaged, and the rest suffered slight damage. Among the destroyed factories were the main Daimler factory, the Humber Hillman factory, the Alfred Herbert Ltd machine tool works, 9 aircraft factories, and 2 naval ordnance stores. However, the effects on war production were only temporary, as much essential war production had already been moved to ‘shadow factories’ on the city outskirts. Also, many of the damaged factories were quickly repaired and had recovered to full production within a few weeks.

An estimated 568 people were killed (the exact figure was never precisely confirmed), with another 863 badly injured and 393 sustaining lesser injuries. Given the intensity of the raid, casualties were limited by the fact that a large number of Coventrians “trekked” out of the city at night to sleep in nearby towns or villages following earlier raids. People who took to air raid shelters suffered very little death or injury. Out of 79 public air raid shelters holding 33,000 people, very few had been hit.

The raid reached such a new and severe level of destruction that Joseph Goebbels invented a new verb, “coventriert” (to Coventrate), to describe similar levels of destruction of other enemy towns.

In his 1974 book The Ultra Secret, Group Captain F. W. Winterbotham asserted that the British government had advance warning of the attack from intercepted German radio messages encrypted with the Enigma cipher machine and decoded by British cryptanalysts at Bletchley Park. He further claimed that Churchill ordered that no defensive measures should be taken to protect Coventry, lest the Germans suspect that their cipher had been broken. Such claims have been supported by William Stephenson, Commander in Chief of Allied intelligence during the war, with ready access to Churchill and Roosevelt, who claimed both leaders were aware Coventry was going to be bombed but could not reveal to the Germans their codes were broken. Indeed, according to Stephenson, Churchill told him he aged 20 years by deciding to let Coventry burn.

However, Winterbotham’s claim has been rejected by other Ultra participants and by historians. They state that while Churchill was indeed aware that a major bombing raid would take place, no one knew what the target would be. Peter Calvocoressi was head of the Air Section at Bletchley Park; he wrote: “Ultra never mentioned Coventry.... Churchill, so far from pondering whether to save Coventry or safeguard Ultra, was under the impression that the raid was to be on London”. Scientist R. V. Jones, who led the British side in the Battle of the Beams, wrote that “Enigma signals to the X-beam stations were not broken in time” and that he was unaware that Coventry was the intended target. Furthermore, a technical mistake caused jamming countermeasures to be ineffective. Jones also noted that Churchill returned to London that afternoon, which indicated that Churchill believed that London was the likely target for the raid.

Since 1996, the Ultra decrypts for the relevant period have been available in the UK National Archives. Between 0735 GMT on November 10 and 0500 on November 11 a German signal was deciphered and given the serial number CX/JQ/444, paragraph 4. The message set out code words to be used by aircraft on an operation named Moonlight Sonata but did not give Coventry as the target or a date. It said that transmission of a figure 9 would denote “KORN”, and hindsight has recognized that to be the code name for Coventry. This was not realized at the time however, even though PAULA had been identified as Paris and LOGE as London. Indeed, the word KORN was used in two reports from an aircraft taking part in a raid on Southampton on November 30, two weeks after the Coventry Blitz. Another decrypt on November 11 gave navigational beam settings for Wolverhampton, Birmingham, and Coventry but no dates. There was a hiatus in Ultra decrypts from 0115 on November 13 until 0240 on November 15 by which time the raid was well underway: Churchill could not have received new Ultra intelligence on the afternoon or evening of the attack because there was none to give him. Intelligence from captured airmen and documents did not offer an unambiguous picture either.

Immediate reconstruction of Coventry was undertaken by a committee headed by motor-industry magnate William Rootes. In the aftermath of the war, Coventry city center was extensively rebuilt under a then innovative scheme which created a pedestrian shopping precinct.

Coventry Cathedral was left as a ruin, and is today still the principal reminder of the bombing. A new cathedral was constructed alongside the ruin in the 1950s, designed by the architect Basil Spence. Spence insisted that instead of rebuilding the old cathedral it should be kept in ruins as a garden of remembrance and that the new cathedral should be built alongside, the 2 buildings together effectively forming one church. The foundation stone of the new cathedral was laid by the Queen on March 23, 1956. It was consecrated on May 25, 1962, and Benjamin Britten’s War Requiem, composed for the occasion, was premièred in the new cathedral on May 30 to mark its consecration.