World War II
World War II known as the Second World War, was a global war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. The vast majority of the world's countries—including all the great powers—eventually formed two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis. A state of total war emerged, directly involving more than 100 million people from over 30 countries; the major participants threw their entire economic and scientific capabilities behind the war effort, blurring the distinction between civilian and military resources. World War II was the deadliest conflict in human history, marked by 50 to 85 million fatalities, most of whom were civilians in the Soviet Union and China, it included massacres, the genocide of the Holocaust, strategic bombing, premeditated death from starvation and disease, the only use of nuclear weapons in war. Japan, which aimed to dominate Asia and the Pacific, was at war with China by 1937, though neither side had declared war on the other. World War II is said to have begun on 1 September 1939, with the invasion of Poland by Germany and subsequent declarations of war on Germany by France and the United Kingdom.
From late 1939 to early 1941, in a series of campaigns and treaties, Germany conquered or controlled much of continental Europe, formed the Axis alliance with Italy and Japan. Under the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact of August 1939, Germany and the Soviet Union partitioned and annexed territories of their European neighbours, Finland and the Baltic states. Following the onset of campaigns in North Africa and East Africa, the fall of France in mid 1940, the war continued between the European Axis powers and the British Empire. War in the Balkans, the aerial Battle of Britain, the Blitz, the long Battle of the Atlantic followed. On 22 June 1941, the European Axis powers launched an invasion of the Soviet Union, opening the largest land theatre of war in history; this Eastern Front trapped most crucially the German Wehrmacht, into a war of attrition. In December 1941, Japan launched a surprise attack on the United States as well as European colonies in the Pacific. Following an immediate U. S. declaration of war against Japan, supported by one from Great Britain, the European Axis powers declared war on the U.
S. in solidarity with their Japanese ally. Rapid Japanese conquests over much of the Western Pacific ensued, perceived by many in Asia as liberation from Western dominance and resulting in the support of several armies from defeated territories; the Axis advance in the Pacific halted in 1942. Key setbacks in 1943, which included a series of German defeats on the Eastern Front, the Allied invasions of Sicily and Italy, Allied victories in the Pacific, cost the Axis its initiative and forced it into strategic retreat on all fronts. In 1944, the Western Allies invaded German-occupied France, while the Soviet Union regained its territorial losses and turned toward Germany and its allies. During 1944 and 1945 the Japanese suffered major reverses in mainland Asia in Central China, South China and Burma, while the Allies crippled the Japanese Navy and captured key Western Pacific islands; the war in Europe concluded with an invasion of Germany by the Western Allies and the Soviet Union, culminating in the capture of Berlin by Soviet troops, the suicide of Adolf Hitler and the German unconditional surrender on 8 May 1945.
Following the Potsdam Declaration by the Allies on 26 July 1945 and the refusal of Japan to surrender under its terms, the United States dropped atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on 6 and 9 August respectively. With an invasion of the Japanese archipelago imminent, the possibility of additional atomic bombings, the Soviet entry into the war against Japan and its invasion of Manchuria, Japan announced its intention to surrender on 15 August 1945, cementing total victory in Asia for the Allies. Tribunals were set up by fiat by the Allies and war crimes trials were conducted in the wake of the war both against the Germans and the Japanese. World War II changed the political social structure of the globe; the United Nations was established to foster international co-operation and prevent future conflicts. The Soviet Union and United States emerged as rival superpowers, setting the stage for the nearly half-century long Cold War. In the wake of European devastation, the influence of its great powers waned, triggering the decolonisation of Africa and Asia.
Most countries whose industries had been damaged moved towards economic expansion. Political integration in Europe, emerged as an effort to end pre-war enmities and create a common identity; the start of the war in Europe is held to be 1 September 1939, beginning with the German invasion of Poland. The dates for the beginning of war in the Pacific include the start of the Second Sino-Japanese War on 7 July 1937, or the Japanese invasion of Manchuria on 19 September 1931. Others follow the British historian A. J. P. Taylor, who held that the Sino-Japanese War and war in Europe and its colonies occurred and the two wars merged in 1941; this article uses the conventional dating. Other starting dates sometimes used for World War II include the Italian invasion of Abyssinia on 3 October 1935; the British historian Antony Beevor views the beginning of World War II as the Battles of Khalkhin Gol fought between Japan and the fo
Mechanized infantry
Mechanized infantry are infantry units equipped with armored personnel carriers or infantry fighting vehicles for transport and combat. Mechanized infantry is distinguished from motorized infantry in that its vehicles provide a degree of protection from hostile fire, as opposed to "soft-skinned" wheeled vehicles for motorized infantry. Most APCs and IFVs are tracked or are all-wheel drive vehicles, for mobility across rough ground; some nations distinguish between mechanized and armored infantry, designating troops carried by APCs as mechanized and those in IFVs as armored. The support weapons for mechanized infantry are provided with motorized transport, or they are built directly into combat vehicles to keep pace with the mechanized infantry in combat. For units equipped with most types of APC or any type of IFV, fire support weapons, such as machine guns, small-bore direct-fire howitzers, anti-tank guided missiles are mounted directly on the infantry's own transport vehicles. Compared with "light" truck-mobile infantry, mechanized infantry can maintain rapid tactical movement and, if mounted in IFVs, have more integral firepower.
It requires more combat supplies and ordnance supplies, a comparatively larger proportion of manpower is required to crew and maintain the vehicles. For example, most APCs have a crew of two. Most IFVs require a crew of three. To be effective in the field, mechanized units require many mechanics, with specialized maintenance and recovery vehicles and equipment; some of the first mechanized infantry were assault teams mounted on A7V tanks. The vehicles were extra-large to let them carry sizeable assault teams and would carry infantry on board in addition to their large crews that were trained as storm troopers. All machine-gun-armed A7V tanks carried two small flame throwers for their dismounts to use. A7V tank would carry a second officer to lead the assault team. During the Battle of St. Quentin, A7Vs were accompanied by 20 storm troopers from Rohr Assault Battalion, but it is unspecified if they were acting as dismounts or were accompanying the tanks on foot. During the battle, tank crews were reported to have dismounted and attacked enemy positions with grenades and flamethrowers on numerous occasions.
Another example of the use of such a method of fighting is the capture of Villers-Bretonneux, in which A7Vs would suppress the defenders with machine gun fire and assault teams would dismount and attack them with grenades. Towards the end of World War I, all the armies involved were faced with the problem of maintaining the momentum of an attack. Tanks, artillery, or infiltration tactics could all be used to break through an enemy defense, but all offensives launched in 1918 ground to a halt after a few days; the following infantry became exhausted, artillery and fresh formations could not be brought forward over the battlefields enough to maintain the pressure on the regrouping enemy. It was acknowledged that cavalry was too vulnerable to be used on most European battlefields, but many armies continued to deploy them. Motorized infantry could maintain rapid movement, but their trucks required either a good road network or firm open terrain, such as desert, they were unable to traverse a battlefield obstructed by craters, barbed wire, trenches.
Tracked or all-wheel drive vehicles were to be the solution. Following the war, development of mechanized forces was theoretical for some time, but many nations began rearming in the 1930s; the British Army had established an Experimental Mechanized Force in 1927, but it failed to pursue that line because of budget constraints and the prior need to garrison the frontiers of the British Empire. Although some proponents of mobile warfare, such as J. F. C. Fuller, advocated building "tank fleets", such as Heinz Guderian in Germany, Adna R. Chaffee Jr. in the United States, Mikhail Tukhachevsky in the Soviet Union, recognized that tank units required close support from infantry and other arms and that such supporting arms needed to maintain the same pace as the tanks. As the Germans rearmed in the 1930s, they equipped some infantry units in their new Panzer divisions with the half-track Sd. Kfz. 251, which could keep up with tanks on most terrain. The French Army created "light mechanized" divisions in which some of the infantry units possessed small tracked carriers.
Together with the motorization of the other infantry and support units, this gave both armies mobile combined-arms formations. The German doctrine was to use them to exploit breakthroughs in Blitzkrieg offensives, whereas the French envisaged them being used to shift reserves in a defensive battle; as World War II progressed, most major armies integrated tanks or assault guns with mechanized infantry, as well as other supporting arms, such as artillery and engineers, as combined arms units. Allied armored formations included a mechanized infantry element for combined arms teamwork. For example, US armored divisions had a balance of three battalions each of tanks, armored infantry, self-propelled artillery; the US armored infantry was equipped with M2 and M3 halftracks. In the British and Commonwealth armies, "Type A armoured brigades," intended for independent operations or to form part of armored divisions, had a "motor infantry" battalion mounted in Bren Carriers or in lend-lease halftracks.
"Type B" brigades were subordinated to infantry formations. The Canadian Army and, subsequently the British Army, used expedients
Aden
Aden is a port city and the temporary capital of Yemen, located by the eastern approach to the Red Sea, some 170 km east of Bab-el-Mandeb. Its population is 800,000 people. Aden's natural harbour lies in the crater of a dormant volcano, which now forms a peninsula joined to the mainland by a low isthmus; this harbour, Front Bay, was first used by the ancient Kingdom of Awsan between the 5th and 7th centuries BC. The modern harbour is on the other side of the peninsula. Aden gives its name to the Gulf of Aden. Aden consists of a number of distinct sub-centres: Crater, the original port city. Khormaksar, located on the isthmus that connects Aden proper with the mainland, includes the city's diplomatic missions, the main offices of Aden University, Aden International Airport, Yemen's second biggest airport. On the mainland are the sub-centres of Sheikh Othman, a former oasis area. Aden encloses the eastern side of a natural harbour that comprises the modern port; this city has no natural resources available in it.
However, Aden does have the Aden Tanks. These reservoirs accumulate rain water for the sole purpose of drinking for the city's citizens; the city is prosperous with Indian vessels arriving for trade. The volcanic peninsula of Little Aden forms a near-mirror image, enclosing the harbour and port on the western side. Little Aden became the site of the oil tanker port. Both were established and operated by British Petroleum until they were turned over to Yemeni government ownership and control in 1978. Aden was the capital of the People's Democratic Republic of Yemen until that country's unification with the Yemen Arab Republic in 1990, again served as Yemen's temporary capital during the aftermath of the Houthi takeover in Yemen, as declared by President Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi after he fled the Houthi occupation of Sana'a. From March to July 2015, the Battle of Aden raged between loyalists to President Hadi. Water and medical supplies ran short in the city. On 14 July, the Saudi Army launched an offensive to retake Aden for Hadi's government.
Within three days the Houthis had been removed from the city. Since February 2018, Aden has been seized by the Southern Transitional Council. A local legend in Yemen states; some believe that Cain and Abel are buried somewhere in the city. The port's convenient position on the sea route between India and Europe has made Aden desirable to rulers who sought to possess it at various times throughout history. Known as Eudaemon in the 1st century BC, it was a transshipping point for the Red Sea trade, but fell on hard times when new shipping practices by-passed it and made the daring direct crossing to India in the 1st century AD, according to the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea; the same work describes Aden as "a village by the shore," which would well describe the town of Crater while it was still little-developed. There is no mention of fortification at this stage, Aden was more an island than a peninsula as the isthmus was not so developed as it is today. Although the pre-Islamic Himyar civilization was capable of building large structures, there seems to have been little fortification at this stage.
Fortifications at Mareb and other places in Yemen and the Hadhramaut make it clear that both the Himyar and the Sabean cultures were well capable of it. Thus, watch towers, since destroyed, are possible. However, the Arab historians Ibn al Mojawir and Abu Makhramah attribute the first fortification of Aden to Beni Zuree'a. Abu Makhramah has included a detailed biography of Muhammad Azim Sultan Qamarbandi Naqsh in his work, Tarikh ul-Yemen; the aim seems to have been twofold: to keep hostile forces out and to maintain revenue by controlling the movement of goods, thereby preventing smuggling. In its original form, some of this work was feeble. After 1175 AD, rebuilding in a more solid form began, since Aden became a popular city attracting sailors and merchants from Egypt, Gujarat, East Africa and China. According to Muqaddasi, Persians formed the majority of Aden's population in the 10th century. In 1421, China's Ming dynasty Yongle Emperor ordered principal envoy grand eunuch Li Xing and grand eunuch Zhou Man of Zheng He's fleet to convey an imperial edict with hats and robes to bestow on the king of Aden.
The envoys set sail from Sumatra to the port of Aden. This event was recorded in the book Yingyai Shenglan by Ma Huan. In 1513, the Portuguese, led by Afonso de Albuquerque, launched an unsuccessful four-day naval siege of Aden. Before British administration, Aden was ruled by the Portuguese between 1513–1538 and 1547–1548, it was ruled by the Ottoman Empire between 1538–1547 and 1548–1645. In 1609 The Ascension was the first English ship to visit Aden, before sailing on to Mocha during the Fourth voyage of the East India Company. After Ottoman rule, Aden was ruled by the Sultanate of Lahej, under suzerainty of the Zaidi imams of Yemen. British interests in Aden began in 1796 with Napoleon's invasion of Egypt, after which a British fleet docked
Dunkirk evacuation
The Dunkirk evacuation, code-named Operation Dynamo known as the Miracle of Dunkirk, was the evacuation of Allied soldiers during World War II from the beaches and harbour of Dunkirk, in the north of France, between 26 May and 4 June 1940. The operation commenced after large numbers of Belgian and French troops were cut off and surrounded by German troops during the six-week long Battle of France. In a speech to the House of Commons, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill called this "a colossal military disaster", saying "the whole root and core and brain of the British Army" had been stranded at Dunkirk and seemed about to perish or be captured. In his "we shall fight on the beaches" speech on 4 June, he hailed their rescue as a "miracle of deliverance". After Nazi Germany invaded Poland in September 1939, France and the British Empire declared war on Germany and imposed an economic blockade; the British Expeditionary Force was sent to help defend France. After the Phoney War of October 1939 to April 1940, Germany invaded Belgium, the Netherlands, France on 10 May 1940.
Three of their panzer corps attacked through the Ardennes and drove northwest to the English Channel. By 21 May German forces had trapped the BEF, the remains of the Belgian forces, three French field armies along the northern coast of France. Commander of the BEF, General Viscount Gort saw evacuation across the Channel as the best course of action, began planning a withdrawal to Dunkirk, the closest good port. Late on 23 May, a halt order was issued by Generaloberst Gerd von Rundstedt, commander of Army Group A. Adolf Hitler approved the order the next day and had the German High Command send confirmation to the front. Destroying the trapped BEF, Belgian armies was left to the Luftwaffe until the order was rescinded on 26 May; this gave trapped Allied forces time to construct defensive works and pull back large numbers of troops to fight the Battle of Dunkirk. From 28 to 31 May, in the Siege of Lille, the remaining 40,000 men of the once-formidable French First Army fought a delaying action against seven German divisions, including three armoured divisions.
On the first day only 7,669 Allied soldiers were evacuated, but by the end of the eighth day, 338,226 of them had been rescued by a hastily assembled fleet of over 800 boats. Many troops were able to embark from the harbour's protective mole onto 39 British Royal Navy destroyers, four Royal Canadian Navy destroyers, a variety of civilian merchant ships, while others had to wade out from the beaches, waiting for hours in shoulder-deep water; some were ferried to the larger ships by what came to be known as the little ships of Dunkirk, a flotilla of hundreds of merchant marine boats, fishing boats, pleasure craft and lifeboats called into service from Britain. The BEF lost 68,000 soldiers during the French campaign and had to abandon nearly all of its tanks and equipment. In his speech to the House of Commons on 4 June, Churchill reminded the country that "we must be careful not to assign to this deliverance the attributes of a victory. Wars are not won by evacuations." In September 1939, after Nazi Germany invaded Poland, the United Kingdom sent the British Expeditionary Force to aid in the defence of France, landing at Cherbourg and Saint-Nazaire.
By May 1940 the force consisted of ten divisions in three corps under the command of General John Vereker, 6th Viscount Gort. Working with the BEF were the Belgian Army and the French First and Ninth Armies. During the 1930s, the French had constructed the Maginot Line, a series of fortifications along their border with Germany; this line had been designed to deter a German invasion across the Franco-German border and funnel an attack into Belgium, which could be met by the best divisions of the French Army. Thus, any future war would take place outside of French territory, avoiding a repeat of the First World War; the area to the north of the Maginot Line was covered by the wooded Ardennes region, which French General Philippe Pétain declared to be "impenetrable" as long as "special provisions" were taken. He believed that any enemy force emerging from the forest would be vulnerable to a pincer attack and destroyed; the French commander-in-chief, Maurice Gamelin believed the area to be of a limited threat, noting that it "never favoured large operations".
With this in mind, the area was left defended. The initial plan for the German invasion of France called for an encirclement attack through the Netherlands and Belgium, avoiding the Maginot Line. Erich von Manstein Chief of Staff of the German Army Group A, prepared the outline of a different plan and submitted it to the OKH via his superior, Generaloberst Gerd von Rundstedt. Manstein's plan suggested that Panzer divisions should attack through the Ardennes establish bridgeheads on the Meuse River and drive to the English Channel; the Germans would thus cut off the Allied armies in Belgium. This part of the plan became known as the Sichelschnitt. Adolf Hitler approved a modified version of Manstein's ideas, today known as the Manstein Plan, after meeting with him on 17 February. On 10 May, Germany invaded the Netherlands. Army Group B, under Generaloberst Fedor von Bock, attacked into Belgium, while the three Panzer corps of Army Group A under Rundstedt swung around to the south and drove for the Channel.
The BEF advanced from the Belgian border to positions along the River Dyle within Belgium, where they fought elements of Army Group B starting on 10 May. They were ordered to begin a fighting withdrawal to the Scheldt River on 14 May when the Belgian and French positions on their flanks failed to hold. During a visit to Paris on 17 May, Prime Minis
France
France the French Republic, is a country whose territory consists of metropolitan France in Western Europe and several overseas regions and territories. The metropolitan area of France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, from the Rhine to the Atlantic Ocean, it is bordered by Belgium and Germany to the northeast and Italy to the east, Andorra and Spain to the south. The overseas territories include French Guiana in South America and several islands in the Atlantic and Indian oceans; the country's 18 integral regions span a combined area of 643,801 square kilometres and a total population of 67.3 million. France, a sovereign state, is a unitary semi-presidential republic with its capital in Paris, the country's largest city and main cultural and commercial centre. Other major urban areas include Lyon, Toulouse, Bordeaux and Nice. During the Iron Age, what is now metropolitan France was inhabited by a Celtic people. Rome annexed the area in 51 BC, holding it until the arrival of Germanic Franks in 476, who formed the Kingdom of Francia.
The Treaty of Verdun of 843 partitioned Francia into Middle Francia and West Francia. West Francia which became the Kingdom of France in 987 emerged as a major European power in the Late Middle Ages following its victory in the Hundred Years' War. During the Renaissance, French culture flourished and a global colonial empire was established, which by the 20th century would become the second largest in the world; the 16th century was dominated by religious civil wars between Protestants. France became Europe's dominant cultural and military power in the 17th century under Louis XIV. In the late 18th century, the French Revolution overthrew the absolute monarchy, established one of modern history's earliest republics, saw the drafting of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, which expresses the nation's ideals to this day. In the 19th century, Napoleon established the First French Empire, his subsequent Napoleonic Wars shaped the course of continental Europe. Following the collapse of the Empire, France endured a tumultuous succession of governments culminating with the establishment of the French Third Republic in 1870.
France was a major participant in World War I, from which it emerged victorious, was one of the Allies in World War II, but came under occupation by the Axis powers in 1940. Following liberation in 1944, a Fourth Republic was established and dissolved in the course of the Algerian War; the Fifth Republic, led by Charles de Gaulle, remains today. Algeria and nearly all the other colonies became independent in the 1960s and retained close economic and military connections with France. France has long been a global centre of art and philosophy, it hosts the world's fourth-largest number of UNESCO World Heritage Sites and is the leading tourist destination, receiving around 83 million foreign visitors annually. France is a developed country with the world's sixth-largest economy by nominal GDP, tenth-largest by purchasing power parity. In terms of aggregate household wealth, it ranks fourth in the world. France performs well in international rankings of education, health care, life expectancy, human development.
France is considered a great power in global affairs, being one of the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council with the power to veto and an official nuclear-weapon state. It is a leading member state of the European Union and the Eurozone, a member of the Group of 7, North Atlantic Treaty Organization, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the World Trade Organization, La Francophonie. Applied to the whole Frankish Empire, the name "France" comes from the Latin "Francia", or "country of the Franks". Modern France is still named today "Francia" in Italian and Spanish, "Frankreich" in German and "Frankrijk" in Dutch, all of which have more or less the same historical meaning. There are various theories as to the origin of the name Frank. Following the precedents of Edward Gibbon and Jacob Grimm, the name of the Franks has been linked with the word frank in English, it has been suggested that the meaning of "free" was adopted because, after the conquest of Gaul, only Franks were free of taxation.
Another theory is that it is derived from the Proto-Germanic word frankon, which translates as javelin or lance as the throwing axe of the Franks was known as a francisca. However, it has been determined that these weapons were named because of their use by the Franks, not the other way around; the oldest traces of human life in what is now France date from 1.8 million years ago. Over the ensuing millennia, Humans were confronted by a harsh and variable climate, marked by several glacial eras. Early hominids led a nomadic hunter-gatherer life. France has a large number of decorated caves from the upper Palaeolithic era, including one of the most famous and best preserved, Lascaux. At the end of the last glacial period, the climate became milder. After strong demographic and agricultural development between the 4th and 3rd millennia, metallurgy appeared at the end of the 3rd millennium working gold and bronze, iron. France has numerous megalithic sites from the Neolithic period, including the exceptiona
Palestine (region)
Palestine is a geographic region in Western Asia considered to include Israel, the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, in some definitions, some parts of western Jordan. The name was used by ancient Greek writers, it was used for the Roman province Syria Palaestina, the Byzantine Palaestina Prima, the Islamic provincial district of Jund Filastin; the region comprises most of the territory claimed for the biblical regions known as the Land of Israel, the Holy Land or Promised Land. It has been known as the southern portion of wider regional designations such as Canaan, ash-Sham, the Levant. Situated at a strategic location between Egypt and Arabia, the birthplace of Judaism and Christianity, the region has a long and tumultuous history as a crossroads for religion, culture and politics; the region has been controlled by numerous peoples, including Ancient Egyptians, Canaanites and Judeans, Babylonians, ancient Greeks, the Jewish Hasmonean Kingdom, Parthians, Byzantines, the Arab Rashidun, Umayyad and Fatimid caliphates, Ayyubids, Mongols, the British, modern Israelis, Jordanians and Palestinians.
The boundaries of the region have changed throughout history. Today, the region comprises the State of Israel and the Palestinian territories in which the State of Palestine was declared. Modern archaeology has identified 12 ancient inscriptions from Egyptian and Assyrian records recording cognates of Hebrew Pelesheth; the term "Peleset" is found in five inscriptions referring to a neighboring people or land starting from c. 1150 BCE during the Twentieth dynasty of Egypt. The first known mention is at the temple at Medinet Habu which refers to the Peleset among those who fought with Egypt in Ramesses III's reign, the last known is 300 years on Padiiset's Statue. Seven known Assyrian inscriptions refer to the region of "Palashtu" or "Pilistu", beginning with Adad-nirari III in the Nimrud Slab in c. 800 BCE through to a treaty made by Esarhaddon more than a century later. Neither the Egyptian nor the Assyrian sources provided clear regional boundaries for the term; the first clear use of the term Palestine to refer to the entire area between Phoenicia and Egypt was in 5th century BCE Ancient Greece, when Herodotus wrote of a "district of Syria, called Palaistinê" in The Histories, which included the Judean mountains and the Jordan Rift Valley.
A century Aristotle used a similar definition for the region in Meteorology, in which he included the Dead Sea. Greek writers such as Polemon and Pausanias used the term to refer to the same region, followed by Roman writers such as Ovid, Pomponius Mela, Pliny the Elder, Dio Chrysostom, Plutarch as well as Roman Judean writers Philo of Alexandria and Josephus; the term was first used to denote an official province in c. 135 CE, when the Roman authorities, following the suppression of the Bar Kokhba Revolt, combined Iudaea Province with Galilee and the Paralia to form "Syria Palaestina". There is circumstantial evidence linking Hadrian with the name change, but the precise date is not certain and the assertion of some scholars that the name change was intended "to complete the dissociation with Judaea" is disputed; the term is accepted to be a translation of the Biblical name Peleshet. The term and its derivates are used more than 250 times in Masoretic-derived versions of the Hebrew Bible, of which 10 uses are in the Torah, with undefined boundaries, 200 of the remaining references are in the Book of Judges and the Books of Samuel.
The term is used in the Septuagint, which used a transliteration Land of Phylistieim different from the contemporary Greek place name Palaistínē. The Septuagint instead used the term "allophuloi" throughout the Books of Judges and Samuel, such that the term "Philistines" has been interpreted to mean "non-Israelites of the Promised Land" when used in the context of Samson and David, Rabbinic sources explain that these peoples were different from the Philistines of the Book of Genesis. During the Byzantine period, the region of Palestine within Syria Palaestina was subdivided into Palaestina Prima and Secunda, an area of land including the Negev and Sinai became Palaestina Salutaris. Following the Muslim conquest, place names that were in use by the Byzantine administration continued to be used in Arabic; the use of the name "Palestine" became common in Early Modern English, was used in English and Arabic during the Mutasarrifate of Jerusalem and was revived as an official place name with the British Mandate for Palestine.
Some other terms that have been used to refer to all or part of this land include Canaan, Land of Israel, the Promised Land, Greater Syria, the Holy Land, Iudaea Province, Coele-Syria, "Israel HaShlema", Kingdom of Israel, Kingdom of Jerusalem, Retenu, Southern Syria, Southern Levant and Syria Palaestina. Situated at a strategic location between Egypt and Arabia, the birthplace of Judaism and Christianity, the region has a long and tumultuous history as a crossroads for religion, culture and politics; the region has been controlled by numerous peoples, including Ancient Egyptians, Israelites, Babylonians, Ancient Greeks, Parthians, Sasa
Operation Market Garden
Operation Market Garden was an unsuccessful World War II military operation fought in the Netherlands from 17 to 25 September 1944, planned and predominantly led by the British Army. Its objective was a series of nine bridges that could have provided an Allied invasion route into Germany. Airborne and land forces succeeded in the liberation of the Dutch cities of Eindhoven and Nijmegen, but at the Battle of Arnhem were defeated in their attempt to secure the last bridge, over the Rhine. Market Garden included two subsidiary operations: an airborne assault to seize the key bridges and a ground attack; the attack was the largest airborne operation up to that point in World War II. Field Marshal Montgomery's strategic goal was to encircle the heart of German industry, the Ruhr Area, in a pincer movement; the northern end of the pincer would circumvent the northern end of the Siegfried Line, giving easier access into Germany. The aim of Operation Market Garden was to establish the northern end of a pincer ready to project deeper into Germany.
Allied forces would project north from Belgium, 60 miles through the Netherlands, across the Rhine and consolidate north of Arnhem on the Dutch/German border, ready to close the pincer. The operation made massive use of airborne forces, whose tactical objectives were to secure the bridges and to allow a rapid advance by armored ground units to consolidate north of Arnhem; the operation required the seizure of the bridges across the Meuse River, two arms of the Rhine, together with crossings over several smaller canals and tributaries. The Allies captured several bridges between Eindhoven and Nijmegen at the beginning of the operation. Lieutenant-General Brian Horrocks' XXX Corps ground force advance was delayed by the initial failure of the airborne units to secure bridges at Son en Breugel and Nijmegen. German forces demolished the bridge over the Wilhelmina Canal at Son before it could be secured by the US 101st Airborne Division; the US 82nd Airborne Division's failure to capture the main highway bridge over the Waal River at Nijmegen before 20 September delayed the advance of XXX Corps.
At the furthest point of the airborne operation, at the Battle of Arnhem, the British 1st Airborne Division encountered initial strong resistance. The delays in capturing the bridges at Son and Nijmegen gave time for German forces—including the 9th SS and 10th SS Panzer Divisions, which were present at that time—to organize and counterattack. In the ensuing battle, only a small force managed to capture the north end of the Arnhem road bridge and after the ground forces failed to relieve them, the paratroopers were overrun on 21 September; the remainder of the British 1st Airborne Division was trapped in a small pocket west of the bridge, having to be evacuated on the 25th of September, after sustaining heavy casualties. The Allies had failed to cross the Rhine; the river remained a barrier to their advance into Germany until offensives at Remagen, Oppenheim and Wesel in March 1945. The failure of Operation Market Garden to form a foothold over the Rhine ended Allied expectations of finishing the war by Christmas 1944.
After major defeats in Normandy in the summer of 1944, remnants of German forces withdrew across France and the Low Countries towards the German border by the end of August. In the north, in the first week of September, the British 21st Army Group, under Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery, sent its British Second Army commanded by Lieutenant-General Sir Miles Dempsey advancing on a line running from Antwerp to the northern border of Belgium while its First Canadian Army, under Lieutenant-General Harry Crerar, was pursuing its task of recapturing the ports of Dieppe, Le Havre, Boulogne-sur-Mer. To the south, the U. S. 12th Army Group under Lt. General Omar Bradley was nearing the German border and had been ordered to line up within the Aachen gap with Lieutenant General Courtney Hodges' U. S. First Army, in support of Montgomery's advance on the Ruhr. Meanwhile, the group's U. S. Third Army, under Lieutenant General George S. Patton, moved eastward towards the Saarland. At the same time, the U. S. 6th Army Group under Lt. General Jacob L. Devers was advancing towards Germany after their landings in southern France.
Before D-Day, to disrupt German logistics efforts, the Allies spent considerable effort in bombing the French rail network, although aware this would affect their own operations in the event of a breakout. The plan of Overlord had foreseen this, it called for the exploitation of the ports in Brittany to move the supply points forward as the armies moved. By August, supply sources for the armies were still limited to the original invasion beaches, the nearby deep water port of Cherbourg at the tip of the Cotentin peninsula, some minor ports in Normandy. Although over-the-beach supply operations outperformed expectations, September saw deteriorating weather and rising seas, the end of their usefulness was in sight. Additional deepwater ports were therefore required; the Brittany ports, still occupied by stiff German resistance, were unsuitable as they were situated along the western coast of France and were overcome by the rapid Allied advance toward the east. On 4 September, Montgomery's troops captured the massive port of Antwerp intact, but the Scheldt Estuary leading to it was still under German control.
Some argued that the capture of Le Havre and Antwerp made the original plan of clearing French ports further south unnecessary. Antwerp could have been opened sooner by the Canadian Army if Montgomery had given priority to clearing the approaches, but Eisenhower and Montgomery persisted with the original plans to capture many of the French ports; the failure to open the ports i
United Kingdom
British Army
