1.
Order of the Bath
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The Most Honourable Order of the Bath is a British order of chivalry founded by George I on 18 May 1725. The name derives from the medieval ceremony for appointing a knight. The knights so created were known as Knights of the Bath, George I erected the Knights of the Bath into a regular Military Order. Prior to 1815, the order had only a class, Knight Companion. Recipients of the Order are now usually senior officers or senior civil servants. Commonwealth citizens who are not subjects of the Queen and foreign nationals may be made Honorary Members, in the Middle Ages, knighthood was often conferred with elaborate ceremonies. These usually involved the taking a bath during which he was instructed in the duties of knighthood by more senior knights. He was then put to bed to dry, clothed in a special robe, he was led with music to the chapel where he spent the night in a vigil. At dawn he made confession and attended Mass, then retired to his bed to sleep until it was fully daylight, in the early medieval period the difference seems to have been that the full ceremonies were used for men from more prominent families. Knights Bachelor continued to be created with the form of ceremony. The last occasion on which Knights of the Bath were created was the coronation of Charles II in 1661. From at least 1625, and possibly from the reign of James I, Knights of the Bath were using the motto Tria iuncta in uno, and wearing as a badge three crowns within a plain gold oval. These were both adopted by the Order of the Bath, a similar design of badge is still worn by members of the Civil Division. Their symbolism however is not entirely clear, the three joined in one may be a reference to the kingdoms of England, Scotland and either France or Ireland, which were held by English and, later, British monarchs. This would correspond to the three crowns in the badge, another explanation of the motto is that it refers to the Holy Trinity. The prime mover in the establishment of the Order of the Bath was John Anstis, Garter King of Arms, the Court remained the centre of the political world. The King was limited in that he had to choose Ministers who could command a majority in Parliament, the leader of an administration still had to command the Kings personal confidence and approval. A strong following in Parliament depended on being able to supply places, pensions, the attraction of the new Order for Walpole was that it would provide a source of such favours to strengthen his political position
2.
Military Cross
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The Military Cross is the third-level military decoration awarded to officers and other ranks of the British Armed Forces, and used to be awarded to officers of other Commonwealth countries. The MC is granted in recognition of an act or acts of gallantry during active operations against the enemy on land to all members. In 1979, the Queen approved a proposal that a number of awards, including the Military Cross, the award was created on 28 December 1914 for commissioned officers of the substantive rank of Captain or below and for Warrant Officers. In August 1916, Bars were awarded to the MC in recognition of the performance of acts of gallantry meriting the award. In 1931 the award was extended to Majors and also to members of the Royal Air Force for actions on the ground, the MC now serves as the third-level award for gallantry on land for all ranks of the British Armed Forces. 46 mm max height,44 mm max width, ornamental silver cross with straight arms terminating in broad finials, suspended from plain suspension bar. Obverse decorated with crowns, with the Royal Cypher in centre. Reverse is plain, but from 1938 the name of the recipient, the ribbon width is 32 mm and consists of three equal vertical moire stripes of white, purple, and white. During World War I, Acting Captain Francis Wallington of the Royal Field Artillery was the first person to be awarded the MC, during World War II Captain Sam Manekshaw, Indian Army, was leading a counter-offensive operation against the invading Japanese Army in Burma. During the course of the offensive, he was hit by a burst of machine-gun fire, Major General D. T. Cowan spotted Manekshaw holding on to life and was aware of his valour in face of stiff resistance from the Japanese. Fearing the worst, Major General Cowan quickly pinned his own Military Cross ribbon on to Manekshaw saying, the first posthumous Military Cross was that awarded to Captain Herbert Westmacott, Grenadier Guards for gallantry in Northern Ireland during the period 1 February 1980 to 30 April 1980. The first woman to be awarded the Military Cross was Private Michelle Norris of the Royal Army Medical Corps, Norris was awarded her medal personally by Queen Elizabeth II on 21 March 2007 as the result of her actions in Iraq on 11 June 2006. Able Seaman Kate Nesbitt, second woman, first in the Royal Navy, sergeant Michael Lockett MC was the first holder of the MC to be killed in action since World War II. Database of Australian Awardees at the Australian Government Honours website Search recommendations for the Military Cross on The UK National Archives website, the Kings Own Royal Regiment Museum, Military Cross
3.
Mouilleron-en-Pareds
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Mouilleron-en-Pareds is a former commune in the Vendée department in the Pays de la Loire region in western France. On 1 January 2016, it was merged into the new commune of Mouilleron-Saint-Germain and it is in the arrondissement of Fontenay-le-Comte. It is known as the place of birth of Charles-Louis Largeteau, Georges Clemenceau, communes of the Vendée department INSEE Museum of Deux Victoires
4.
French Third Republic
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It came to an end on 10 July 1940. Harsh reparations exacted by the Prussians after the war resulted in the loss of the French regions of Alsace and Lorraine, social upheaval, and the establishment of the Paris Commune. The early governments of the Third Republic considered re-establishing the monarchy, but confusion as to the nature of that monarchy, thus, the Third Republic, which was originally intended as a provisional government, instead became the permanent government of France. The French Constitutional Laws of 1875 defined the composition of the Third Republic and it consisted of a Chamber of Deputies and a Senate to form the legislative branch of government and a president to serve as head of state. The period from the start of World War I to the late 1930s featured sharply polarized politics, Adolphe Thiers called republicanism in the 1870s the form of government that divides France least, however, politics under the Third Republic were sharply polarized. On the left stood Reformist France, heir to the French Revolution, on the right stood conservative France, rooted in the peasantry, the Roman Catholic Church and the army. The Franco-Prussian War of 1870–1871 resulted in the defeat of France, after Napoleons capture by the Prussians at the Battle of Sedan, Parisian deputies led by Léon Gambetta established the Government of National Defence as a provisional government on 4 September 1870. The deputies then selected General Louis-Jules Trochu to serve as its president and this first government of the Third Republic ruled during the Siege of Paris. After the French surrender in January 1871, the provisional Government of National Defence disbanded, French territories occupied by Prussia at this time did not participate. The resulting conservative National Assembly elected Adolphe Thiers as head of a provisional government, due to the revolutionary and left-wing political climate that prevailed in the Parisian population, the right-wing government chose the royal palace of Versailles as its headquarters. The new government negotiated a settlement with the newly proclaimed German Empire. To prompt the Prussians to leave France, the government passed a variety of laws, such as the controversial Law of Maturities. The following repression of the communards would have consequences for the labor movement. The Orléanists supported a descendant of King Louis Philippe I, the cousin of Charles X who replaced him as the French monarch in 1830, his grandson Louis-Philippe, Comte de Paris. The Bonapartists were marginalized due to the defeat of Napoléon III and were unable to advance the candidacy of any member of his family, the Bonaparte family. Legitimists and Orléanists came to a compromise, eventually, whereby the childless Comte de Chambord would be recognised as king, consequently, in 1871 the throne was offered to the Comte de Chambord. Chambord believed the monarchy had to eliminate all traces of the Revolution in order to restore the unity between the monarchy and the nation, which the revolution had sundered apart. Compromise on this was if the nation were to be made whole again
5.
Vichy France
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Vichy France is the common name of the French State headed by Marshal Philippe Pétain during World War II. In particular, it represents the southern, unoccupied Free Zone that governed the southern part of the country, from 1940 to 1942, while the Vichy regime was the nominal government of France as a whole, Germany militarily occupied northern France. Thus, while Paris remained the de jure capital of France, following the Allied landings in French North Africa in November 1942, southern France was also militarily occupied by Germany and Italy. The Vichy government remained in existence, but as a de facto client and it vanished in late 1944 when the Allies occupied all of France. After being appointed Premier by President Albert Lebrun, Marshal Pétain ordered the French Governments military representatives to sign an armistice with Germany on 22 June 1940, Pétain subsequently established an authoritarian regime when the National Assembly of the French Third Republic granted him full powers on 10 July 1940. At that point, the Third Republic was dissolved, calling for National Regeneration, the French Government at Vichy reversed many liberal policies and began tight supervision of the economy, with central planning a key feature. Labour unions came under government control. The independence of women was reversed, with a put on motherhood. Paris lost its status in European art and culture. The media were tightly controlled and stressed virulent anti-Semitism, and, after June 1941, the French State maintained nominal sovereignty over the whole of French territory, but had effective full sovereignty only in the unoccupied southern zone libre. It had limited and only civil authority in the zones under military occupation. The occupation was to be a state of affairs, pending the conclusion of the war. The French Government at Vichy never joined the Axis alliance, Germany kept two million French soldiers prisoner, carrying out forced labour. They were hostages to ensure that Vichy would reduce its forces and pay a heavy tribute in gold, food. French police were ordered to round up immigrant Jews and other such as communists. Public opinion in some quarters turned against the French government and the occupying German forces over time, when it became clear that Germany was losing the war, and resistance to them increased. Most of the legal French governments leaders at Vichy fled or were subject to show trials by the GPRF, thousands of collaborators were summarily executed by local communists and the Resistance in so-called savage purges. The last of the French State exiles were captured in the Sigmaringen enclave by de Gaulles French 1st Armoured Division in April 1945, in 1940, Marshal Pétain was known as a First World War hero, the victor of the battle of Verdun
6.
Free France
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It was set up in London in June 1940 and also organised and supported the Resistance in occupied France. On 27 October 1940, the Empire Defense Council was constituted to organise the rule of the territories in central Africa and it was replaced on 24 September 1941 by the French National Committee. After the reconquest of North Africa, this was in turn merged with de Gaulles rival general Henri Girauds command in Algiers to form the French Committee of National Liberation. Exile officially ended with the capture of Paris by the 2nd Armoured Free French Division and Resistance forces on 25 August 1944, the Free French fought Axis and Vichy regime troops and served on battlefronts everywhere from the Middle East to Indochina and North Africa. The Free French Navy operated as a force to the Royal Navy and, in the North Atlantic. Free French units also served in the Royal Air Force, Soviet Air Force, the French Army of Africa switched allegiance to Free France, and this caused the Axis to occupy Vichy in reaction. On 1 August 1943, LArmée dAfrique was formally united with the Free French Forces to form LArmée française de la Liberation. By mid-1944, the forces of this army numbered more than 400,000, and they participated in the Normandy landings, the Free French government re-established a provisional republic after the liberation, preparing the ground for the Fourth Republic in 1946. Historically, an individual became Free French by enlisting in the military units organised by the CFN or by employment by the arm of the Committee. In many sources, Free French describes any French individual or unit that fought against Axis forces after the June 1940 armistice, postwar, to settle disputes over the Free French heritage, the French government issued an official definition of the term. Under this ministerial instruction of July 1953, only those who served with the Allies after the Franco-German armistice in 1940, between 27 May and 4 June, around 200,000 British soldiers and 140,000 French troops were evacuated from the beaches to safety in England. General Charles de Gaulle was a minister in the French cabinet during the Battle of France, as France was overwhelmed by the stunning German victory, he found himself part of a small group of politicians who argued against a negotiated surrender to Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy. That same day, the new French President of the Council, former First World War Marshal Philippe Pétain, De Gaulle briefly travelled to Bordeaux to continue the fight but, realising that Pétain would surrender, he returned to London on 17 June. On 18 June, General de Gaulle spoke to the French people via BBC radio, urging French soldiers, sailors and airmen to join in the fight against the Nazis and she has a great empire behind her. Together with the British Empire, she can form a bloc that controls the seas and she may, like England, draw upon the limitless industrial resources of the United States. In Vichys case those reasons were compounded with ideas of a Révolution nationale about stamping out Frances republican heritage. On 22 June 1940, Marshall Pétain signed an armistice with Germany, followed by a one with Italy on 24 June. After a parliamentary vote on 10 July, Pétain became leader of the newly established authoritarian regime known as Vichy France, despite de Gaulles call to continue the struggle, few French forces, at least initially, pledged their support
7.
Marshal of France
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The Marshal of France is a military distinction, rather than a military rank, in contemporary France, that is awarded to generals for exceptional achievements. The title has been awarded since 1185, though briefly abolished and it was one of the Great Officers of the Crown of France during the Ancien Régime and Bourbon Restoration and one of the Great Dignitaries of the Empire during the First French Empire. A Marshal of France displays seven stars, the marshal also receives a baton, a blue cylinder with stars, formerly fleurs-de-lis during the monarchy and eagles during the First French Empire. It has the Latin inscription, Terror belli, decus pacis, the title derived from the office of marescallus Franciae created by King Philip II Augustus of France for Albéric Clément. The title was abolished by the National Convention in 1793, under the Bourbon Restoration, the title reverted to Marshal of France and Napoléon III kept that designation. After the fall of Napoleon III and the Second French Empire, the Third Republic did not use the title until the First World War, the last living Marshal of France was Alphonse Juin, promoted in 1952, who died in 1967. The latest Marshal of France was Marie Pierre Kœnig, who was made a Marshal posthumously in 1984, today, the title of Marshal of France can only be granted to a general officer who fought victoriously in war-time. Charles de Gontaut, Duc de Biron, Marshal of France in 1594, claude de La Chatre, Baron de la Maisonfort, Marshal of France in 1594. Jean de Montluc de Balagny, Marshal of France in 1594, jean III de Baumanoir, Marquis of Lavardin and Count of Nègrepelisse, Marshal of France in 1595. Henri, Duke of Joyeuse, Marshal of France in 1595, urbain de Montmorency-Laval, Marquis of Sablé, Marshal of France in 1595. Alphonse dOrnano, Marshal of France in 1597, guillaume de Hautemer, Count of Grancey, Marshal of France in 1597. François de Bonne, Duke of Lesdiguières, Marshal of France in 1608, concino Concini, Marquis of Ancre, Marshal of France in 1613. Gilles de Courtenvaux, Marquis of Souvré, Marshal of France in 1614, antoine, Baron de Roquelaure, Marshal of France in 1614. Louis de La Châtre, Baron de Maisonfort, Marshal of France in 1616, pons de Lauzières-Thémines-Cardaillac, Marquis of Thémines, Marshal of France in 1616. Honoré dAlbert dAilly, Duke of Chaulnes, Marshal of France in 1620, François dEsparbes de Lussan, Viscount of Aubeterre, Marshal of France in 1620. Charles de Créquy, Prince of Poix, Duke of Lesdiguières, jacques Nompar de Caumont, Duke of La Force, Marshal of France in 1621. François, Marquis of Bassompierre, Marshal of France in 1622, gaspard de Coligny, Duke of Châtillon, Marshal of France in 1622. Henri de Schomberg, Marshal of France in 1625, jean-Baptiste dOrnano, Marshal of France in 1626 François Annibal, Duc dEstrées, Marshal of France in 1626
8.
Army general (France)
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A général darmée is the highest active military rank of the French Army. A général darmée displays five stars on a shoulder board, the mention of the current usage of a sixth star authorized for the army general in command of the Paris sector is a legend, this sixth star never existed. The Air Force equivalent is général darmée aérienne and the Navy equivalent is amiral, only a Marshal of France is higher, however, Marshal of France is not a rank, but a dignity of the State, today not bestowed. It is considered to be a position of distinction rather than a military rank. A seventh star is displayed on the general of the army insignia by a Marshal of France. The title of general in France and elsewhere should not be confused with the rank of general of the army, which is more senior. Generalissimo Général General officer Ranks and insignia of NATO armies officers
9.
Ranks in the French Army
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Rank insignia in the French army depend on whether the soldier belongs to an infantry or cavalry unit. The infantry arms include normal infantry, naval troops, the Foreign Legion and engineers, cavalry arms include armoured cavalry, artillery, maintenance, sleeves are emblazoned with marks denoting either gold insignia for the infantry or silver/white for the cavalry. The title of marshal of France is awarded as a distinction, the marshals wear seven stars and carry a baton. Six marshals of France have been given the more exalted rank of marshal general of France, Biron, Lesdiguières, Turenne, Villars, Saxe. Général de corps darmée, in command of an army corps, général de division, in command of a division. Général de brigade, in command of a brigade, or of a région in the Gendarmerie, a famous général de brigade was Charles de Gaulle, who often wore military uniform whilst being President of the French Republic. There is no distinction between infantry and cavalry generals, since they are all supposed to be able to command any type of unit, in the below descriptions, horse-mounted does not refer to current units but to the traditional affiliation of the units. The word colonel originates in the medieval term capitaine colonel, the head of a column, lieutenant-colonel is the one who can hold the place of a colonel in his absence. The word chef or chief in English comes from the Latin word caput meaning head, a colonel commands a regiment of the army or a groupement of the Gendarmerie. During the French Revolution, they were called chef de brigade, the lieutenant-colonel has the same responsibilities as a colonel. They were called major during the First French Empire, notice that the metal colours alternate silver and gold in each case, as opposed to those of the colonels. This characteristic goes back at least to alternating stripes on the uniforms of that empire in epaulettes, commandant is equivalent to a major in English-speaking countries. A capitaine is in command of a company of infantry, a squadron of cavalry or a battery of artillery, a lieutenant commands a platoon of infantry, a troop of cavalry, or a brigade of the Gendarmerie. A Sous-lieutenant commands at the level as a lieutenant, but is a more junior officer rank. Aspirant An Officer Designate rank, it is used in the Armée de Terre, the Armée de lAir, the Marine Nationale, technically it is not a commissioned rank but it is still treated in all respects as one. Aspirants are either officers in training in military academies or voluntaries, the aspirant must have been previously élève officier. S/He can afterwards be commissioned as a sous-lieutenant or enseigne de vaisseau de deuxième classe, the insignia is a single curl of gold lace, disrupted by flashes of wool. It was widely used during both World Wars for providing young educated people with an officers authority, eleve officier, a rank held during the first years at the officer academies Major, the senior sub-officer rank, is derived from the old abolished rank of maréchal des logis-major
10.
First Army (France)
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The First Army was a field army of France that fought during World War I and World War II. It was also active during the Cold War and it was massed between Belfort and the general line Mirecourt-Lunéville with headquarters at Epinal. First Army then took part, along with the French Second Army, the First Army intended to take the strongly defended town of Sarrebourg. German Crown Prince Rupprecht, commander of the German Sixth Army, was tasked with stopping the French invasion, the French attack was repulsed by Rupprecht and his stratagem of pretending to retreat and then strongly attacking back. On August 20, Rupprecht launched a major counter-offensive, driving the French armies out, a frantic 1916 saw four different commanders command the First Army, an even more frantic 1917 saw five different commanders at the helm. By the time of the Passchendaele, the French First Army was composed of two corps - the 1st Army Corps and the 36th Army Corps. During the Second World War the French First Army, under the command of General Georges Blanchard, formed part of the forces ranged against the German Army during the Battle of France. On 10 May 1940, it included the Cavalry Corps, and the 3rd, 4th, when the Wehrmacht invaded France and the Low Countries in 1940, the First Army was one of the many armies including the British Expeditionary Force that advanced north to stop the German armies. On May 21,1940, the First Army was one of the trapped in a vast pocket with their backs to the sea that would eventually result in the Dunkirk evacuations. It is estimated that the First Armys last battle allowed the evacuation of an additional 100,000 men from Dunkirk, the First Army formally ceased to exist on May 29, though a portion escaped with the British soldiers. The First Army was reconstituted as the French Army B under the command of General Jean de Lattre de Tassigny in the summer of 1944 and it landed in southern France after Operation Dragoon, the Allied invasion of the area. On September 25,1944 French Army B was redesignated French First Army, liberating Marseilles, Toulon, and Lyon, it later formed the right flank of the Allied Southern Group of Armies at the southern end of the Allied front line, adjacent to Switzerland. It commanded two corps, the French I and II Corps, the French First Army liberated the southern area of the Vosges Mountains, including Belfort. Its operations in the area of Burnhaupt destroyed the German IV Luftwaffe Korps in November 1944, in January 1945 it defended against operation Nordwind, the last major German offensive on the western front. In February 1945, with the assistance of the U. S. XXI Corps, in March 1945, the First Army fought through the Siegfried Line fortifications in the Bienwald Forest near Lauterbourg. Subsequently, the First Army crossed the Rhine near Speyer and captured Karlsruhe, operations by the First Army in April 1945 encircled and captured the German XVIII S. S. Armee Korps in the Black Forest and cleared southwestern Germany. At the end of the war, the motto of the French First Army was Rhin et Danube, the First Army was mainly composed of North African troops drawn from the Army of Africa. These troops had played a role in the liberation of Corsica
11.
Commander-in-chief
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A commander-in-chief is the person or body that exercises supreme operational command and control of a nations military forces or significant elements of those forces. In the latter case, the element is those forces within a particular region. Often, a given countrys commander-in-chief need not be or have been an officer or even a veteran. This follows the principle of civilian control of the military, the role of commander-in-chief derives from the Latin, imperator. Imperatores of the Roman Republic and Roman Empire possessed imperium powers, in its modern use, the term first applied to King Charles I of England in 1639. It continued to be used during the English Civil War, a nations head of state usually holds the nominal position of commander-in-chief, even if effective executive power is held by a separate head of government. Governors-general and colonial governors are also often appointed commander-in-chief of the forces within their territory. A commander-in-chief is sometimes referred to as commander, which is sometimes used as a specific term. The term is used for military officers who hold such power and authority, not always through dictatorship. The term is used for officers who hold authority over an individual military branch. According to the Constitution of Albania, The President of the Republic of Albania is the Commander-in-chief of Albanian Armed Forces, the incumbent Commander-in-chief is President Bujar Nishani. The Ministry of Defense is the government department that assists and serves the President in the management of the armed forces, the Minister for Defence and several subordinate ministers exercise this control through the Australian Defence Organisation. The Constitution states, in Article 80, that the President is the Commander-in-Chief of the Federal Armed Forces. e, the cabinet under the chairmanship of the Federal Chancellor, as defined in Article 69. The commander-in-chief is the president, although executive power and responsibility for national defense resides with the prime minister and he retired on 7 April 1972 and relinquished all authority and duties to the President of Bangladesh. Article 142 of the Brazilian Constitution of 1988 states that the Brazilian Armed Forces is under the command of the President of the Republic. The Sultan of Brunei is the Commander-in-Chief of the Royal Brunei Armed Forces, the powers of command-in-chief over the Canadian Armed Forces are vested in the Canadian monarch, and are delegated to the Governor General of Canada, who also uses the title Commander-in-Chief. In this capacity, the general is entitled to the uniform of a general/flag officer, with the crest of the office. According to the National Defence Act, the Minister of National Defence is responsible and accountable to parliament for all related to national defence
12.
French Far East Expeditionary Corps
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The French Far East Expeditionary Corps was a colonial expeditionary force of the French Union Army that was initially formed in French Indochina during 1945 during the Pacific War. The CEFEO later fought and lost in the First Indochina War against the Viet Minh rebels, the CEFEO was created in early 1945 as a replacement for the older Far East French Expeditionary Forces. Its purpose was to support Saigon-based General Gilbert Sabattier, divisional commander of colonial Indochina French Forces, then fighting with the Japanese Southern Expeditionary Army Group during the March coup. On June 7,1945, Leclerc was nominated commander of the CEFEO, on June 22, Leclerc transferred command of the 2nd Armored Division -the famous unit which had liberated Paris in August 1944- to Colonel Dio. Leclerc received command of the Far East French Forces on August 15, in 1946, they would become associated states within the French Union and by 1949 Tonkin, Annam and the Republic of Cochin China would merge as the State of Vietnam. The First Indochina War officially lasted from November 20,1946 until July 20,1954 and was settled by the Geneva Agreements, after withdrawal of the last CEFEO troops from the independent Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia in 1956, the corps was disbanded by General Pierre Jacquot. An exception was the French Foreign Legion which consisted mainly of European volunteers, most of the professional colonial airborne units and the entire Chief of Staff were metropolitan French, as were some colonial infantry, artillery and specialist units. In early November 1953, the French U. N. volunteers returning from the ended Korean War joined the French Union CEFEO and they would be later involved in the battle of Mang Yang Pass of June and July 1954. S. At the beginning of April 1954, Lt. General Earle E. Partridge, Far East Air Force, had arrived in Saigon and begun talks with his French counterpart, Gen. Lauzin, as well as with Gen. Navarre. He had brought with him Brigadier General Joseph D. Caldara, then the chief of the FEAF Bomber Command—the man who would fly and command the Vulture missions. The Americans had arrived at Saigons Tan Son Nhut Airport in a discreet B-17, from the beginning, the Americans were appalled at the total lack of French preparedness for anything like the control of a major saturation bombardment operation. French Col. Brohon later said that this involved the use of several A-bombs in the Dien Bien Phu area. Caldara decided to judge the situation for himself, the French at the highest levels seemed to have no idea of the awful destructive power of the 98 Superfortresses. This bombing mission died a death as Winston Churchill was against it. Thus U. S. Air Force aircraft and personnel were involved in Vietnam in 1954
13.
World War I
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World War I, also known as the First World War, the Great War, or the War to End All Wars, was a global war originating in Europe that lasted from 28 July 1914 to 11 November 1918. More than 70 million military personnel, including 60 million Europeans, were mobilised in one of the largest wars in history and it was one of the deadliest conflicts in history, and paved the way for major political changes, including revolutions in many of the nations involved. The war drew in all the worlds great powers, assembled in two opposing alliances, the Allies versus the Central Powers of Germany and Austria-Hungary. These alliances were reorganised and expanded as more nations entered the war, Italy, Japan, the trigger for the war was the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, heir to the throne of Austria-Hungary, by Yugoslav nationalist Gavrilo Princip in Sarajevo on 28 June 1914. This set off a crisis when Austria-Hungary delivered an ultimatum to the Kingdom of Serbia. Within weeks, the powers were at war and the conflict soon spread around the world. On 25 July Russia began mobilisation and on 28 July, the Austro-Hungarians declared war on Serbia, Germany presented an ultimatum to Russia to demobilise, and when this was refused, declared war on Russia on 1 August. Germany then invaded neutral Belgium and Luxembourg before moving towards France, after the German march on Paris was halted, what became known as the Western Front settled into a battle of attrition, with a trench line that changed little until 1917. On the Eastern Front, the Russian army was successful against the Austro-Hungarians, in November 1914, the Ottoman Empire joined the Central Powers, opening fronts in the Caucasus, Mesopotamia and the Sinai. In 1915, Italy joined the Allies and Bulgaria joined the Central Powers, Romania joined the Allies in 1916, after a stunning German offensive along the Western Front in the spring of 1918, the Allies rallied and drove back the Germans in a series of successful offensives. By the end of the war or soon after, the German Empire, Russian Empire, Austro-Hungarian Empire, national borders were redrawn, with several independent nations restored or created, and Germanys colonies were parceled out among the victors. During the Paris Peace Conference of 1919, the Big Four imposed their terms in a series of treaties, the League of Nations was formed with the aim of preventing any repetition of such a conflict. This effort failed, and economic depression, renewed nationalism, weakened successor states, and feelings of humiliation eventually contributed to World War II. From the time of its start until the approach of World War II, at the time, it was also sometimes called the war to end war or the war to end all wars due to its then-unparalleled scale and devastation. In Canada, Macleans magazine in October 1914 wrote, Some wars name themselves, during the interwar period, the war was most often called the World War and the Great War in English-speaking countries. Will become the first world war in the sense of the word. These began in 1815, with the Holy Alliance between Prussia, Russia, and Austria, when Germany was united in 1871, Prussia became part of the new German nation. Soon after, in October 1873, German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck negotiated the League of the Three Emperors between the monarchs of Austria-Hungary, Russia and Germany
14.
Rif War
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The Rif War, also called the Second Moroccan War, was fought in the early 1920s between the colonial power Spain and the Berbers of the Rif mountainous region. Led by Abd al-Karim, the Riffians at first inflicted several defeats on the Spanish forces by using guerrilla tactics, during the early 20th century, Morocco had fallen into the French and Spanish spheres of influence, becoming divided into protectorates ruled by the two European nations. The Rif region had been assigned to Spain, but given that even the Sultans of Morocco had been unable to control over the region. For centuries, the Berber tribes of the Rif had fought off any attempt to impose outside control on them, though nominally Muslim, the tribes of the Rif had continued many pagan practices such as worshipping water spirits and forest spirits that were contrary to Islam. Attempts by the Moroccan sultans to impose orthodox Islam on the Rif had been resisted by the tribesmen. For centuries Europeans had seen the Rif mountains and the outlines of people on the mountains from ships in the Mediterranean Sea, but almost no European had ever ventured into the mountains. Walter Burton Harris, the Morocco correspondent for The Times, who covered the war wrote that as late as 1912 only one or two Europeans had been able to visit the forests that lie south of Fez. A few had traveled in the southern Atlas and pushed on into the Sus. the reason for, as Harris wrote, was the Berbers were often as inhospitable to the Arab as they were to the foreigner, and generally killed any outsiders who ventured into their territory. The Rif was also rich in iron, which could be easily extracted via open pit mining. The Spanish state could collect money in the form of taxes and royalties from the iron mining. When King Alfonso XIII of Spain ascended to the throne in 1886, Spain could at least make the pretense of being a power, having colonies in the Americans, Africa, Asia. To compensate for the lost empire in the Americas and Asia, there emerged a powerful faction in Spain led by Alfonso. For all these reasons, Spain had been pushing into the Rif since 1909, the Berber tribesmen had a long tradition of fierce fighting skills, combined with high standards of fieldcraft and marksmanship. They were capably led by Muhammad Ibn Abd al-Karim al-Khattabi, commonly called Abd el-Krim, however, the Rifian regular army was never a very large force. The elite of the Rifian forces formed regular units which according to Abd el-Krim, other sources put it much lower, at around 2,000 to 3,000. The remaining Rifians were tribal militia selected by their Caids and not liable to serve away from their homes and farms for more than 15 consecutive days. General Goded estimated that at their peak, in June 1924, however, this force was largely adequate in the early stages of the war. In the final days of the war Rifian forces numbered about 12,000 men, in addition Rifian forces were not well armed, with weapons badly maintained and in poor condition
15.
World War II
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World War II, also known as the Second World War, was a global war that lasted from 1939 to 1945, although related conflicts began earlier. It involved the vast majority of the worlds countries—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing alliances, the Allies and the Axis. It was the most widespread war in history, and directly involved more than 100 million people from over 30 countries. Marked by mass deaths of civilians, including the Holocaust and the bombing of industrial and population centres. These made World War II the deadliest conflict in human history, from late 1939 to early 1941, in a series of campaigns and treaties, Germany conquered or controlled much of continental Europe, and 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, Poland, Finland, Romania and the Baltic states. In December 1941, Japan attacked the United States and European colonies in the Pacific Ocean, and quickly conquered much of the Western Pacific. The Axis advance halted in 1942 when Japan lost the critical Battle of Midway, near Hawaii, in 1944, the Western Allies invaded German-occupied France, while the Soviet Union regained all of its territorial losses and invaded Germany and its allies. During 1944 and 1945 the Japanese suffered major reverses in mainland Asia in South Central China and Burma, while the Allies crippled the Japanese Navy, thus ended the war in Asia, cementing the total victory of the Allies. World War II altered the political alignment and social structure of the world, the United Nations was established to foster international co-operation and prevent future conflicts. The victorious great powers—the United States, the Soviet Union, China, the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union and the United States emerged as rival superpowers, setting the stage for the Cold War, which lasted for the next 46 years. Meanwhile, the influence of European great powers waned, while the decolonisation of Asia, most countries whose industries had been damaged moved towards economic recovery. Political integration, especially in Europe, emerged as an effort to end pre-war enmities, the start of the war in Europe is generally held to be 1 September 1939, beginning with the German invasion of Poland, Britain and France declared war on Germany two days later. The dates for the beginning of war in the Pacific include the start of the Second Sino-Japanese War on 7 July 1937, or even 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 simultaneously and 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 forces of Mongolia and the Soviet Union from May to September 1939, the exact date of the wars end is also not universally agreed upon. It was generally accepted at the time that the war ended with the armistice of 14 August 1945, rather than the formal surrender of Japan
16.
First Indochina War
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The First Indochina War began in French Indochina on 19 December 1946 and lasted until 1 August 1954. Fighting between French forces and their Viet Minh opponents in the South dated from September 1945, Japanese forces located south of that line surrendered to him and those to the north surrendered to Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek. In September 1945, Chinese forces entered Tonkin and a small British task force landed at Saigon, the Chinese accepted the Vietnamese government under Ho Chi Minh, then in power in Hanoi. The British refused to do likewise in Saigon, and deferred to the French there from the outset, on V-J Day, September 2, Ho Chi Minh had proclaimed in Hanoi the establishment of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam. On 23 September 1945, with the knowledge of the British Commander in Saigon, French forces overthrew the local DRV government, guerrilla warfare began around Saigon immediately. The first few years of the war involved a low-level rural insurgency against the French, French Union forces included colonial troops from the whole former empire, French professional troops and units of the French Foreign Legion. The use of metropolitan recruits was forbidden by the government to prevent the war from becoming more unpopular at home. It was called the dirty war by leftists in France, the strategy of pushing the Viet Minh into attacking well-defended bases in remote parts of the country at the end of their logistical trails was validated at the Battle of Nà Sản. However, this base was relatively weak because of a lack of concrete and this combination proved fatal for this base defenses, culminating in a decisive French defeat at the Battle of Dien Bien Phu. The south continued under Emperor Bảo Đại, a year later, Bảo Đại would be deposed by his prime minister, Ngô Đình Diệm, creating the Republic of Vietnam. Soon an insurgency, backed by the North, developed against Diệms government, the conflict gradually escalated into the Vietnam War. Vietnam was absorbed into French Indochina in stages between 1858 and 1887, nationalism grew until World War II provided a break in French control. Early Vietnamese resistance centered on the intellectual Phan Bội Châu, Châu looked to Japan, which had modernized and was one of the few Asian nations to successfully resist European colonization. With Prince Cường Để, Châu started two organizations in Japan, the Duy Tân hội and Vietnam Cong Hien Hoi, due to French pressure, Japan deported Phan Bội Châu to China. Witnessing Sun Yat-sens 1911 nationalist revolution, Châu was inspired to commence the Viet Nam Quang Phục Hội movement in Guangzhou, from 1914 to 1917, he was imprisoned by Yuan Shikais counterrevolutionary government. In 1925, he was captured by French agents in Shanghai, due to his popularity, Châu was spared from execution and placed under house arrest until his death in 1940. In September 1940, shortly after Phan Bội Châus death, Japan launched its invasion of French Indochina, keeping the French colonial administration, the Japanese ruled from behind the scenes in a parallel of Vichy France. As far as Vietnamese nationalists were concerned, this was a double-puppet government, Emperor Bảo Đại collaborated with the Japanese, just as he had with the French, ensuring his lifestyle could continue
17.
Legion of Honour
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The Legion of Honour, full name National Order of the Legion of Honour, is the highest French order of merit for military and civil merits, established 1802 by Napoléon Bonaparte. The order is divided into five degrees of increasing distinction, Chevalier, Officier, Commandeur, Grand Officier and Grand-Croix. The orders motto is Honneur et Patrie and its seat is the Palais de la Légion dHonneur next to the Musée dOrsay, in the French Revolution, all French orders of chivalry were abolished, and replaced with Weapons of Honour. The Légion however did use the organization of old French orders of chivalry, the badges of the legion also bear a resemblance to the Ordre de Saint-Louis, which also used a red ribbon. Napoleon originally created this to ensure political loyalty, the organization would be used as a facade to give political favours, gifts, and concessions. The Légion was loosely patterned after a Roman legion, with legionaries, officers, commanders, regional cohorts, the highest rank was not a grand cross but a Grand Aigle, a rank that wore all the insignia common to grand crosses. The members were paid, the highest of them extremely generously,5,000 francs to an officier,2,000 francs to a commandeur,1,000 francs to an officier,250 francs to a légionnaire. Napoleon famously declared, You call these baubles, well, it is with baubles that men are led, do you think that you would be able to make men fight by reasoning. That is good only for the scholar in his study, the soldier needs glory, distinctions, rewards. This has been quoted as It is with such baubles that men are led. The order was the first modern order of merit, under the monarchy, such orders were often limited to Roman Catholics, and all knights had to be noblemen. The military decorations were the perks of the officers, the Légion, however, was open to men of all ranks and professions—only merit or bravery counted. The new legionnaire had to be sworn in the Légion and it is noteworthy that all previous orders were crosses or shared a clear Christian background, whereas the Légion is a secular institution. The jewel of the Légion has five arms, in a decree issued on the 10 Pluviôse XIII, a grand decoration was instituted. This decoration, a cross on a sash and a silver star with an eagle, symbol of the Napoleonic Empire, became known as the Grand Aigle. After Napoleon crowned himself Emperor of the French in 1804 and established the Napoleonic nobility in 1808, the title was made hereditary after three generations of grantees. Napoleon had dispensed 15 golden collars of the legion among his family and this collar was abolished in 1815. The Légion dhonneur was prominent and visible in the French Empire, the Emperor always wore it and the fashion of the time allowed for decorations to be worn most of the time
18.
Officer (armed forces)
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An officer is a member of an armed force or uniformed service who holds a position of authority. In this sense, officers are not enlisted, but hold appointments from their government that typically remain in force indefinitely unless resigned, the proportion of officers varies greatly. Officers typically make up between an eighth and a fifth of modern armed forces personnel, in 2013, officers were the senior 17% of the British armed forces, and the senior 13. 7% of the French armed forces. In 2012, officers made up about 18% of the German armed forces, historically, however, armed forces have generally had much lower proportions of officers. During the First World War, fewer than 5% of British soldiers were officers, in the early twentieth century, the Spanish army had the highest proportion of officers of any European army, at 12. 5%. Within a nations armed forces, armies tend to have a proportion of officers. For example,13. 9% of British army personnel and 22. 2% of the RAF personnel were officers in 2013, having officers is one requirement for combatant status under the laws of war, though these officers need not have obtained an official commission or warrant. Commissioned officers are typically the only persons, in an armed forces environment, a superior officer is an officer with a higher rank than another officer, who is a subordinate officer relative to the superior. Non-commissioned officers in positions of authority can be said to have control or charge rather than command per se, many advanced militaries require university degrees as a prerequisite for commissioning, even from the enlisted ranks. In the Israel Defense Forces, a university degree is a requirement for an officer to advance to the rank of lieutenant colonel, the IDF often sponsors the studies for its majors, while aircrew and naval officers obtain academic degrees as a part of their training programmes. In the United Kingdom, there are three routes of entry for British Armed Forces officers, the first, and primary route are those who receive their commission directly into the officer grades following completion at their relevant military academy. The third route is similar to the second, in that they convert from an enlisted to a commission, but these are taken from the highest ranks of SNCOs. LE officers, whilst holding the same Queens Commission, generally work in different roles from the DE officers, in the infantry, a number of Warrant Officer Class 1s are commissioned as LE officers. For Royal Navy and Royal Air Force officer candidates, a 30-week period at Britannia Royal Naval College or a 30-week period at RAF College Cranwell, Royal Marines officers receive their training in the Command Wing of the Commando Training Centre Royal Marines during a grueling 15-month course. The courses consist of not only tactical and combat training, but also leadership, management, etiquette, until the Cardwell Reforms of 1871, commissions in the British Army were purchased by officers. The Royal Navy, however, operated on a more meritocratic, or at least socially mobile, AOCS also also included the embedded Aviation Reserve Officer Candidate and Naval Aviation Cadet programs. NAVCADs were personnel who held associates degrees, but lacked bachelors degrees, nAVCADs would complete the entire AOCS program, but would not be commissioned until completion of flight training and receiving their wings. After their initial tour, they would be assigned to a college or university full-time for no more than two years in order to complete their bachelors degree
19.
Combat
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Combat or fighting is a purposeful violent conflict meant to weaken, establish dominance over, or kill the opposition, or to drive the opposition away from a location where it is not wanted or needed. Combat violence can be unilateral, whereas fighting implies at least a defensive reaction, a large-scale fight is known as a battle. A verbal fight is known as an argument. Combat effectiveness, in the field, requires combat readiness. In military areas, the term is applied also to personnel, Combat may take place under a specific set of rules or be unregulated. Examples of rules include the Geneva Conventions, medieval chivalry, the Marquess of Queensberry rules, Combat in warfare involves two or more opposing military organizations, usually fighting for nations at war. Warfare falls under the laws of war, which govern its purposes and conduct, Combat may be armed or unarmed. Hand-to-hand combat is combat at close range, attacking the opponent with the body and/or with a melee weapon. “Combat Motivation in Today’s Soldiers, U. S. Army War College Strategic Studies Institute. ”Armed Forces & Society, vol. “Combat Casualties and Race, What Can We Learn from the 2003-2004 Iraq Conflict. ”“Undermining Combat Readiness in the Russian Military, 1992-2005. ”Armed Forces & Society, Jul 2006, vol. Http, //afs. sagepub. com/cgi/content/abstract/32/4/513 Ben-Shalom, Uzi, Lehrer, Zeev, and Ben-Ari, Eyal. “Cohesion during Military Operations, A Field Study on Combat Units in the Al-Aqsa Intifada. ”Http, //afs. sagepub. com/cgi/content/abstract/32/1/63 Woodruff, Todd, Kelty, Ryan, Segal, Archie Cooper, David R.2006. “Propensity to Serve and Motivation to Enlist among American Combat Soldiers. ”Armed Forces & Society, Apr 2006, vol
20.
Battle of Verdun
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The Battle of Verdun, fought from 21 February to 18 December 1916, was the largest and longest battle of the First World War on the Western Front between the German and French armies. The battle took place on the north of Verdun-sur-Meuse in north-eastern France. The German 5th Army attacked the defences of the Fortified Region of Verdun, poor weather delayed the beginning of the German attack until 21 February, but the Germans enjoyed initial success, capturing Fort Douaumont in the first three days of the offensive. Afterwards the German advance slowed, despite many French casualties, by 6 March, 20 1⁄2 French divisions were in the RFV and a more extensive defence in depth had been constructed. Pétain ordered that On ne passe pas were to be made, by 29 March, French artillery on the west bank had begun a constant bombardment of German positions on the east bank, which caused many German infantry casualties. In March, the German offensive was extended to the bank of the Meuse. The Germans were able to advance at first but French reinforcements contained the short of their objectives. In early May, the Germans changed tactics and made local attacks and counter-attacks, part of the fort was occupied, until a German counter-attack recaptured the fort and took numerous prisoners. The Germans changed tactics again, alternating their attacks on banks of the Meuse and in June captured Fort Vaux. The Germans continued the offensive beyond Vaux, towards the last geographical objectives of the plan, at Fleury-devant-Douaumont. The Germans drove a salient into the French defences, captured Fleury, a German attempt to capture Fort Souville in early July was repulsed by artillery and small-arms fire. In August and December, French counter-offensives recaptured much of the ground lost on the east bank and recovered Fort Douaumont, the Battle of Verdun lasted for 303 days and became the longest and one of the most costly battles in human history. After the German invasion of France had been halted at the First Battle of the Marne in September 1914, the war of movement ended at the Battle of the Yser and the First Battle of Ypres. The Germans built field fortifications to hold the ground captured in 1914, in late 1914 and in 1915, offensives on the Western Front had failed to gain much ground and been extremely costly in casualties. Falkenhayn offered five corps from the reserve for an offensive at Verdun at the beginning of February 1916. After the war, the Kaiser and Colonel Tappen, the Operations Officer at Oberste Heeresleitung, in the Gorlice–Tarnów Offensive, the German and Austro-Hungarian Armies attacked Russian defences frontally, after pulverising them with large amounts of heavy artillery. In the north, a British relief offensive would wear down British reserves, to no decisive effect, hints about Falkenhayns thinking were picked up by Dutch military intelligence and passed on to the British in December. The Fortified Region of Verdun lay in a salient formed during the German invasion of 1914, in a directive of the General Staff of 5 August 1915, the RFV was to be stripped of 54 artillery batteries and 128,000 rounds of ammunition
21.
Interwar period
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There were numerous new nations in Eastern Europe, most of them small in size. The United States gained dominance in world finance, by the middle of the decade, prosperity was widespread, with the second half of the decade known, especially in Germany, as the Golden Twenties. The Roaring Twenties highlighted novel and highly social and cultural trends. These trends, made possible by sustained economic prosperity, were most visible in major cities like New York, Chicago, Paris, Berlin, the Jazz Age began and Art Deco peaked. For women, knee-length skirts and dresses became socially acceptable, as did bobbed hair with a marcel wave, the women who pioneered these trends were frequently referred to as flappers. Not all was new, “normalcy” returned to politics in the wake of hyper-emotional wartime passions in the United States, France, and Germany. The leftist revolutions in Finland, Poland, Germany, Austria, Hungary and Spain were defeated by conservatives, but succeeded in Russia, in Italy the fascists came to power under Mussolini after threatening a march on Rome. Most independent countries enacted womens suffrage in the era, including Canada in 1917, Britain in 1918. There were a few countries that held out until after the Second World War. If women could work in factories, it seemed both ungrateful and illogical to deny them a place in the polling booth. But the vote was more than simply a reward for war work. The Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland and Greece did especially well, in advanced economies the prosperity reached middle class households and many in the working class. With radio, automobiles, telephones, and electric lighting and appliances, there was unprecedented industrial growth, accelerated consumer demand and aspirations, and significant changes in lifestyle and culture. The media began to focus on celebrities, especially sports heroes, major cities built large sports stadiums for the fans, in addition to palatial cinemas. The Great Depression was a worldwide economic depression that took place during the 1930s. The timing varied across nations, in most countries it started in 1929 and it was the longest, deepest, and most widespread depression of the 20th century. The depression originated in the United States, after a decline in lofty stock prices. Between 1929 and 1932, worldwide GDP fell by an estimated 15%, by comparison, worldwide GDP fell by less than 1% from 2008 to 2009 during the Great Recession
22.
Chief of the Defence Staff (France)
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C. E. M. A is currently held by Général Chef dÉtat-Major des Armées. The Chef dÉtat-Major des Armées assists the Ministre de la Défense in his capacity attributions to make use of the required forces. CEMA is the military counselar of the government, C. E. M. A has authority over the, Chief of Staff of the French Army Chief of Staff of the French Air Force Chief of Staff of the French Navy C. E. M. The preparation and condition assignments of recruiting in the armed forces Support of the armed forces The renseignement of military interest, CEMA ensures the general research direction and exploitation of the renseignement militaire and has authority on the direction du renseignement militaire International military relations C. E. M. Oversees in effect of coherence in means of the forces and participates to the preparation and various executions of associated military. The Chef dÉtat-Major des Armées is assisted by a Major General of the Armed Forces, the term would be made official in 1915 when Joffre was also given command over the Salonika front. Subsequently, Foch became Supreme Allied Commander on the Western Front with the title Généralissime in 1918 then was designated as « Commandant en Chef des Armées Alliées » starting May 14,1918. Foch was promoted to Marshal of France prior the planning of the offensive led to the Armistice of 11 November 1918. Following the armistice, Marshal Ferdinand Foch was elevated to the diginity of the Marshal of Great Britain, jean de Lattre de Tassigny Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the U. S. Décret N° 2009-869
23.
Division (military)
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A division is a large military unit or formation, usually consisting of between 10,000 and 20,000 soldiers. Infantry divisions during the World Wars ranged between 10,000 and 30,000 in nominal strength, in most armies, a division is composed of several regiments or brigades, in turn, several divisions typically make up a corps. In the West, the first general to think of organising an army into smaller units was Maurice de Saxe, Marshal General of France. He died at the age of 54, without having implemented his idea, victor-François de Broglie put the ideas into practice. He conducted successful practical experiments of the system in the Seven Years War. The first war in which the system was used systematically was the French Revolutionary War. It made the more flexible and easy to manoeuvre. Under Napoleon, the divisions were grouped together into corps, because of their increasing size, napoleons military success spread the divisional and corps system all over Europe, by the end of the Napoleonic Wars, all armies in Europe had adopted it. In modern times, most military forces have standardized their divisional structures, the peak use of the division as the primary combat unit occurred during World War II, when the belligerents deployed over a thousand divisions. With technological advances since then, the power of each division has increased. Divisions are often formed to organize units of a particular type together with support units to allow independent operations. In more recent times, divisions have mainly been organized as combined arms units with subordinate units representing various combat arms, in this case, the division often retains the name of a more specialized division, and may still be tasked with a primary role suited to that specialization. For the most part, large cavalry units did not remain after World War II, in general, two new types of cavalry were developed, air cavalry or airmobile, relying on helicopter mobility, and armored cavalry, based on an autonomous armored formation. The former was pioneered by the 11th Air Assault Division, formed on 1 February 1963 at Fort Benning, on 29 June 1965 the division was renamed as the 1st Cavalry Division, before its departure for the Vietnam War. After the end of the Vietnam War, the 1st Cavalry Division was reorganised and re-equipped with tanks, the development of the tank during World War I prompted some nations to experiment with forming them into division-size units. Many did this the way as they did cavalry divisions, by merely replacing cavalry with AFVs. This proved unwieldy in combat, as the units had many tanks, instead, a more balanced approach was taken by adjusting the number of tank, infantry, artillery, and support units. A panzer division was a division of the Wehrmacht and the Waffen-SS of Germany during World War II
24.
Battle of France
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The Battle of France, also known as the Fall of France, was the German invasion of France and the Low Countries in 1940 during the Second World War. Italy entered the war on 10 June 1940 and attempted an invasion of France, the German plan for the invasion of France consisted of two main operations. After the withdrawal of the BEF, the German forces began Fall Rot on 5 June, the sixty remaining French divisions made a determined resistance but were unable to overcome the German air superiority and armoured mobility. German tanks outflanked the Maginot Line and pushed deep into France, German forces occupied Paris unopposed on 14 June after a chaotic period of flight of the French government that led to a collapse of the French army. German commanders met with French officials on 18 June with the goal of forcing the new French government to accept an armistice that amounted to surrender and this led to the end of the French Third Republic. France was not liberated until the summer of 1944, in 1939, Britain and France offered military support to Poland in the likely case of a German invasion. In the dawn of 1 September 1939, the German Invasion of Poland began, France and the United Kingdom declared war on 3 September, after an ultimatum for German forces to immediately withdraw their forces from Poland was met without reply. Following this, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and Canada, on 7 September, in accordance with their alliance with Poland, France began the Saar Offensive with an advance from the Maginot Line 5 km into the Saar. France had mobilised 98 divisions and 2,500 tanks against a German force consisting of 43 divisions, the French advanced until they met the then thin and undermanned Siegfried Line. On 17 September, the French supreme commander, Maurice Gamelin gave the order to withdraw French troops to their starting positions, following the Saar Offensive, a period of inaction called the Phoney War set in between the belligerents. Adolf Hitler had hoped that France and Britain would acquiesce in the conquest of Poland, on 6 October, he made a peace offer to both Western powers. On 9 October, Hitler issued a new Führer-Directive Number 6, the plan was based on the seemingly more realistic assumption that German military strength would have to be built up for several years. For the moment only limited objectives could be envisaged and were aimed at improving Germanys ability to survive a long war in the west. Hitler ordered a conquest of the Low Countries to be executed at the shortest possible notice to forestall the French and it would also provide the basis for a long-term air and sea campaign against Britain. On 10 October 1939, Britain refused Hitlers offer of peace and on 12 October, colonel-General Franz Halder, presented the first plan for Fall Gelb on 19 October. This was the codename of plans for a campaign in the Low Countries. Halders plan has been compared to the Schlieffen Plan, the given to the German strategy of 1914 in the First World War. It was similar in both plans entailed an advance through the middle of Belgium
25.
Armistice of 22 June 1940
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The Armistice of 22 June 1940 was signed at 18,36 near Compiègne, France, by officials of Nazi Germany and the French Third Republic. It did not come into effect until after midnight on 25 June, the best, most modernised French armies had been sent north and lost in the resulting encirclement, the French had lost their best heavy weaponry and their best armored formations. Between May and June, French forces were in general retreat, the French government was forced to relocate to Bordeaux on 10 June to avoid capture and declared Paris to be an open city the same day. By 22 June, the German Armed Forces had losses of 27,000 dead, French losses were 92,000 dead and more than 200,000 wounded. The British Expeditionary Force apparently lost about 10,000 men, the often seen casualty figure of over 68,000 British men seems to include those killed, those wounded as well as those captured. When Adolf Hitler received word from the French government that they wished to negotiate an armistice, as Compiègne was the site of the 1918 Armistice ending the Great War with Germanys conflict cessation, Hitler saw using this location as a supreme moment of revenge for Germany over France. Hitler decided that the signing should take place in the same carriage, Compiègne Wagon. Furthermore, in Article 3, Clause 2, the stated that their intention was not to heavily occupy North-West France after cessation of hostilities with Britain. William Shirer, who was present on that day, reports, I am, I have seen that face many times at the great moments of his life. It is afire with scorn, anger, hate, revenge, Adolf Hitler had a number of reasons for agreeing to an armistice. He wanted to ensure that France did not continue to fight from North Africa, in addition, leaving a French government in place would relieve Germany of the considerable burden of administering French territory, particularly as he turned his attentions towards Britain. All persons who had granted political asylum had to be surrendered and all occupation costs had to be borne by France. A minimal French Army would be permitted and this was envisaged to last until a final peace treaty would be negotiated. At the time, both French and Germans thought the occupation would be a state of affairs and last only until Britain came to terms. For instance, none of the French delegation objected to the stipulation that French soldiers would remain prisoners of war until the cessation of all hostilities, nearly one million Frenchmen were thus forced to spend the next five years in prisoner of war camps. The French delegation – led by General Charles Huntziger – tried to soften the terms of the armistice. Given the military situation that France was in, Huntziger had no choice, the cease-fire went into effect at 00,35 on 25 June 1940, more than two days later, only after another armistice was signed between France and Italy, the main German ally in Europe. The Armistice site was demolished by the Germans on Hitlers orders three days later, VANQUISHED BY THE FREE PEOPLES WHICH IT TRIED TO ENSLAVE
26.
Operation Torch
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Operation Torch was the British-American invasion of French North Africa during the North African Campaign of the Second World War which started on 8 November 1942. The Soviet Union had pressed the United States and United Kingdom to start operations in Europe, while the American commanders favored Operation Sledgehammer, landing in Occupied Europe as soon as possible, the British commanders believed that such a course would end in disaster. The U. S. President, Franklin D. Roosevelt, suspected the African operation would rule out an invasion of Europe in 1943 but agreed to support the British Prime Minister Winston Churchill. The Allies planned an Anglo-American invasion of north-western Africa — Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia, with much of North Africa already under Allied control, this would allow the Allies to carry out a pincer operation against Axis forces in North Africa. These forces included 60,000 troops in Morocco,15,000 in Tunisia, in addition, there were 10 or so warships and 11 submarines at Casablanca. The Allies believed that the Vichy French forces would not fight, the French were former Allies of the U. S. and the American troops were instructed not to fire unless they were fired upon. However, they harbored suspicions that the Vichy French navy would bear a grudge over the British action at Mers-el-Kebir in 1940, an assessment of the sympathies of the French forces in North Africa was essential, and plans were made to secure their cooperation, rather than resistance. German support for the Vichy French came in the shape of air support, several Luftwaffe bomber wings undertook anti-shipping strikes against Allied ports in Algiers and along the North African coast. General Dwight D. Eisenhower was given command of the operation, the Allied Naval Commander of the Expeditionary Force would be Admiral Sir Andrew Cunningham, his deputy was Vice-Admiral Sir Bertram Ramsay, who would plan the amphibious landings. Planners identified Oran and also Algiers and Casablanca as key targets, ideally there would also be a landing at Tunis to secure Tunisia and facilitate the rapid interdiction of supplies travelling via Tripoli to Rommels forces in Libya. However, Tunis was much too close to the Axis airfields in Sicily, a compromise would be to land at Bône, some 300 miles closer to Tunis than Algiers. They therefore chose the Casablanca option as the less risky since the forces in Algeria and Tunisia could be supplied overland from Casablanca in the event of closure of the straits. In July 1941, Mieczysław Słowikowski set up Agency Africa, one of the Second World Wars most successful intelligence organizations and his Polish allies in these endeavors included Lt. Col. Gwido Langer and Major Maksymilian Ciężki. The information gathered by the Agency was used by the Americans, to gauge the feeling of the Vichy French forces, Murphy was appointed to the American consulate in Algeria. His covert mission was to determine the mood of the French forces and he succeeded in contacting several French officers, including General Charles Mast, the French commander-in-chief in Algiers. These officers were willing to support the Allies, but asked for a conference with a senior Allied General in Algeria. However, Giraud would take no position lower than commander in chief of all the invading forces, when he was refused, he decided to remain a spectator in this affair. The Allies organized three amphibious task forces to seize the key ports and airports of Morocco and Algeria simultaneously, targeting Casablanca, Oran, successful completion of these operations was to be followed by an advance eastwards into Tunisia
27.
Case Anton
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Operation Anton, or Fall Anton, in German, was the codename for the military occupation of Vichy France carried out by Germany and Italy in November 1942. It marked the end of the Vichy regime as a nominally-independent state and the disbandment of its army, one of the last actions of its armed forces before their dissolution was the scuttling of the French fleet in Toulon to prevent it from falling into Axis hands. Operation Anton updated the original Operation Attila, including different German units, following the Allied landings in French North Africa on 8 November 1942, Adolf Hitler could not risk an exposed flank on the French Mediterranean. Following a final conversation with French Premier Pierre Laval, Hitler gave orders for Corsica to be occupied on 11 November, by the evening of 10 November 1942, Axis forces had completed their preparations for Case Anton. The Italian 4th Army occupied the French Riviera and an Italian division landed on Corsica, by the evening of 11 November, German tanks had reached the Mediterranean coast. The Germans had planned Operation Lila to capture intact the demobilised French fleet at Toulon, while the German Naval War Staff were disappointed, Adolf Hitler considered that the elimination of the French fleet sealed the success of Operation Anton. The destruction of the fleet also denied it to Charles de Gaulle, other than that, Vichy France limited its resistance to radio broadcasts objecting to the violation of the armistice of 1940. Scuttling of the French fleet in Toulon German occupation of France during World War II Italian occupation of France during World War II Italian Empire
28.
Charles de Gaulle
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Charles André Joseph Marie de Gaulle was a French general and statesman. He was the leader of Free France and the head of the Provisional Government of the French Republic, in 1958, he founded the Fifth Republic and was elected as the 18th President of France, a position he held until his resignation in 1969. He was the dominant figure of France during the Cold War era, born in Lille, he graduated from Saint-Cyr in 1912. He was an officer of the First World War, wounded several times. During the interwar period, he advocated mobile armoured divisions, during the German invasion of May 1940, he led an armoured division which counterattacked the invaders, he was then appointed Under-Secretary for War. Refusing to accept his governments armistice with Nazi Germany, de Gaulle exhorted the French population to resist occupation and he led a government in exile and the Free French Forces against the Axis. Despite frosty relations with Britain and especially the United States, he emerged as the leader of the French resistance. He became Head of the Provisional Government of the French Republic in June 1944, frustrated by the return of petty partisanship in the new Fourth Republic, he resigned in early 1946 but continued to be politically active as founder of the RPF party. He retired in the early 1950s and wrote his War Memoirs, when the Algerian War was ripping apart the unstable Fourth Republic, the National Assembly brought him back to power during the May 1958 crisis. De Gaulle founded the Fifth Republic with a presidency. He granted independence to Algeria and progressively to other French colonies and he restored cordial Franco-German relations to create a European counterweight between the Anglo-American and Soviet spheres of influence. However, he opposed any development of a supranational Europe, favouring a Europe of sovereign nations, De Gaulle openly criticised the US intervention in Vietnam and the exorbitant privilege of the US dollar. In his later years, his support for an independent Quebec, De Gaulle resigned in 1969 after losing a referendum in which he proposed more decentralization. He died a year later at his residence in Colombey-les-Deux-Églises, leaving his Presidential memoirs unfinished, many French political parties and figures claim the Gaullist legacy. De Gaulle was ranked as Le Plus Grand Français de tous les temps, De Gaulle was born in the industrial region of Lille in the Nord departement, the third of five children. He was raised in a devoutly Catholic and traditional family and his father, Henri de Gaulle, was a professor of history and literature at a Jesuit college who eventually founded his own school. Henri de Gaulle came from a line of parliamentary gentry from Normandy and Burgundy. De Gaulles mother, Jeanne, descended from a family of entrepreneurs from Lille
29.
Operation Dragoon
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Operation Dragoon was the code name for the Allied invasion of Southern France on 15 August 1944. By July 1944 the landing was reconsidered, as the ports in Normandy did not have the capacity to adequately supply the Allied forces. Concurrently, the French High Command pushed for a revival of the operation that would include large numbers of French troops, as a result, the operation was finally approved in July to be executed in August. The goal of the operation was to secure the ports on the French Mediterranean coast. After some preliminary commando operations, the US VI Corps landed on the beaches of the Côte dAzur under the shield of a naval task force. Hindered by total Allied air superiority and an uprising by the French Resistance. The Germans decided to withdraw towards the north through the Rhône valley, Allied mobile units were able to overtake the Germans and partially block their route at the town of Montélimar. The ensuing battle led to a stalemate, with neither able to achieve a decisive breakthrough, until the Germans were finally able to complete their withdrawal. While the Germans were retreating, the French managed to capture the important ports of Marseille and Toulon, the Germans were not able to hold Dijon and ordered a complete withdrawal from Southern France. Army Group G retreated further north, pursued by Allied forces, the fighting ultimately came to a stop at the Vosges mountains, where Army Group G was finally able to establish a stable defense line. After meeting with the Allied units from Operation Overlord, the Allied forces were in need of reorganizing and, facing stiffened German resistance, Operation Dragoon was considered a success by the Allies. The captured French ports were put into operation, allowing the Allies to solve their supply problems soon after, during planning stages, the 1942 operation was known as Anvil, to complement Operation Sledgehammer, at that time the code name for the invasion of Normandy. Subsequently, both plans were renamed, Sledgehammer becoming Operation Overlord, and Anvil becoming Operation Dragoon, the original idea of an invasion of Southern France had come from General George Marshall, the U. S. Army Chief of Staff already in 1942. Operation Dragoon was controversial from the time it was first proposed, the American military leadership and its British counterparts disagreed on the operation. When first planned, the landings were to take place simultaneously – Overlord in Normandy and it soon became clear that a dual landing was impossible to conduct with the available forces. The expansion of Overlord from a three- to a five-division front required many additional LSTs, at the same time, another Allied amphibious landing in Italy at Anzio had gone badly. All of these resulted in the postponing of Anvil by the Allies, after the landing at Normandy, a revival of Anvil became increasingly attractive to the Allied planners. These factors led to a reconsideration of the plan, despite Churchills objections, the operation was authorized by the Allied Combined Chiefs of Staff on 14 July and then renamed Dragoon on 1 August
30.
XXI Corps (United States)
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The XXI Corps was a corps of the U. S. Army during World War II. It was constituted on December 2,1943, and activated on December 6,1943 at Camp Polk, XXI Corps fought for 116 days in the European Theater of Operations, starting in the Alsace, crossing into southern Germany, and reaching into Austria. The corps was commanded in combat by Major General Frank W. Milburn as a unit of the Seventh U. S. Army. The corps commenced combat operations January 17,1945, during pitched battle by the U. S, Seventh Army to regain ground lost to Germanys Operation Nordwind New Years offensive into Alsace. From 25 January until 16 February 1945, XXI Corps was attached to the French First Army, after a period of rest, the corps returned to the front on 28 February 1945 and pushed to the edge of the Siegfried Line during the first week of March,1945. On 20 March 1945, after five days of combat, the corps broke through the Siegfried Line and captured Saarbrücken. Crossing the Rhine behind the U. S. XV Corps in Operation Undertone, facing determined opposition, the corps fought its way into Schweinfurt on 12 April 1945, after five days of battle. Assaulting Fuerth on 18 April 1945, the corps seized Ansbach the following day, on 28 April 1945, Augsburg fell to the XXI Corps, and on 1 May 1945, the corps seized Bad Tölz and captured German Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt. Individual elements made it through Innsbruck and as far south as northern Italy, German forces in the area unconditionally surrendered on 6 May 1945. Other XXI Corps elements, which included the attached 101st Airborne Division, XXI Corps is credited with service in the Rhineland, Ardennes-Alsace, and Central Europe campaigns. XXI Corps Headquarters was inactivated in Germany on 30 September 1945, subsequent to the Second World War, the corps was active from September 1957 until June 1970. The post-Second World War activation and inactivation occurred at Indiantown Gap Military Reservation, sixth United States Army Group Seventh United States Army 12th Armored Division 101st Cavalry Regiment 289th Engineer Combat Battalion 549th Engineer Light Ponton Company Williams, Mary H. compiler. U. S. Army in World War II, Chronology 1941–1945, armies, Corps, Divisions, and Separate Brigades
31.
Colmar Pocket
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The Colmar Pocket was the area held in central Alsace, France by the German Nineteenth Army from November 1944 – February 1945, against the U. S. 6th Army Group during World War II. It was formed when 6th AG liberated southern and northern Alsace and adjacent eastern Lorraine, during Operation Nordwind in December 1944, the 19th Army attacked north out of the Pocket in support of other German forces attacking south from the Saar into northern Alsace. In late January and early February 1945, the French First Army cleared the Pocket of German forces. S, General Jean de Lattre de Tassignys French First Army forced the Belfort Gap and destroyed the German IV Luftwaffe Korps near the town of Burnhaupt in the southern Vosges Mountains. Soon thereafter, French forces reached the Rhine in the north of the Swiss border between Mulhouse and Basel. Likewise, in the northern Vosges Mountains, the French 2nd Armored Division spearheaded a U. S, seventh Army advance, forced the Saverne Gap, and drove to the Rhine, liberating Strasbourg on 23 November 1944. Apart from Normandy, the areas of France most bitterly defended by the Germans were Alsace and this perception informed Hitlers decisions of 24 November and 27 November 1944, that committed General Siegfried Rasps Nineteenth Army to a do-or-die defense of the region around Colmar. On 26 November, the Germans formed Army Group Oberrhein under the command of Heinrich Himmler, of prime importance to the German defense around Colmar were the bridges over the Rhine at Breisach and Chalampé, since it was over these bridges that supplies were delivered. The logistical crisis and heavy combat of autumn 1944 had dulled the fighting edge of Allied forces throughout northwestern Europe, restricted logistical support imposed limits on the usage of artillery ammunition and the number of divisions the Allies could effectively employ in the front lines. Faulty forecasts for the numbers of infantry replacements needed prevented U. S. rifle companies from maintaining full strength. Thus, at the close of November 1944, the French First Army deployed two kinds of units—highly experienced colonial units and green units that had received a large influx of FFI troops. On New Years Day 1945, the Germans launched Unternehmen Nordwind, German troops of the 198th Infantry Division and the 106th Panzer Brigade attacked north out of the Colmar Pocket from 7–13 January. Although the defending French II Corps suffered some losses during this attack. Since the bulk of Allied troops surrounding the Colmar Pocket were French, the U. S. 28th Infantry Division duly arrived from the Ardennes front and took up position along the right flank of the U. S. 3rd Infantry Division. With the 28th Division in the Kaysersberg Valley, the 3rd Division would be able to concentrate for an attack against two German divisions, the 708th Volksgrenadier and the 189th Infantry. Additionally, a U. S. armored division, the 10th, was scheduled to support the offensive, the winter of 1944-45 was uncommonly cold for northwestern Europe. In his History of the French First Army, General de Lattre described the weather in Alsace as Siberian with temperatures of -20 °C, strong winds, the Alsatian Plain is flat and offers an attacker practically no cover other than occasional woods. The plain is also a basin for the Rhine and is consequently cut by many streams and drainage canals with alluvium-coated bottoms. Dotting the plain are small villages made up of masonry houses whose multi-storey construction offered defending troops a commanding view of the surrounding fields
32.
Dwight D. Eisenhower
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Dwight David Ike Eisenhower was an American politician and Army general who served as the 34th President of the United States from 1953 until 1961. He was a general in the United States Army during World War II. He was responsible for planning and supervising the invasion of North Africa in Operation Torch in 1942–43, in 1951, he became the first Supreme Commander of NATO. Eisenhower was of mostly Pennsylvania Dutch ancestry and was raised in a family in Kansas by parents with a strong religious background. He graduated from West Point in 1915 and later married Mamie Doud, after World War II, Eisenhower served as Army Chief of Staff under President Harry S. Truman and then accepted the post of President at Columbia University. Eisenhower entered the 1952 presidential race as a Republican to counter the non-interventionism of Senator Robert A. Taft, campaigning against communism, Korea and he won in a landslide, defeating Democratic candidate Adlai Stevenson and temporarily upending the New Deal Coalition. Eisenhower was the first U. S. president to be constitutionally term-limited under the 22nd Amendment, Eisenhowers main goals in office were to keep pressure on the Soviet Union and reduce federal deficits. He ordered coups in Iran and Guatemala, Eisenhower gave major aid to help the French in the First Indochina War, and after the French were defeated he gave strong financial support to the new state of South Vietnam. Congress agreed to his request in 1955 for the Formosa Resolution, after the Soviet Union launched Sputnik in 1957, Eisenhower authorized the establishment of NASA, which led to the space race. During the Suez Crisis of 1956, Eisenhower condemned the Israeli, British and French invasion of Egypt and he also condemned the Soviet invasion during the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 but took no action. Eisenhower sent 15,000 U. S. troops to Lebanon to prevent the government from falling to a Nasser-inspired revolution during the 1958 Lebanon crisis. Near the end of his term, his efforts to set up a meeting with the Soviets collapsed because of the U-2 incident. On the domestic front, he covertly opposed Joseph McCarthy and contributed to the end of McCarthyism by openly invoking executive privilege and he otherwise left most political activity to his Vice President, Richard Nixon. Eisenhower was a conservative who continued New Deal agencies and expanded Social Security. Eisenhowers two terms saw considerable economic prosperity except for a decline in 1958. Voted Gallups most admired man twelve times, he achieved widespread popular esteem both in and out of office, since the late 20th century, consensus among Western scholars has consistently held Eisenhower as one of the greatest U. S. Presidents. The Eisenhauer family migrated from Karlsbrunn in the Saarland, to North America, first settling in York, Pennsylvania, in 1741, accounts vary as to how and when the German name Eisenhauer was anglicized to Eisenhower. Eisenhowers Pennsylvania Dutch ancestors, who were farmers, included Hans Nikolaus Eisenhauer of Karlsbrunn
33.
Georgy Zhukov
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Georgy Konstantinovich Zhukov, was a career officer in the Red Army of the Soviet Union who became Chief of General Staff, Deputy Commander-in-Chief, Minister of Defence and a member of the Politburo. During World War II he participated in battles, ultimately commanding the 1st Belorussian Front in the Battle of Berlin. In recognition of Zhukovs role in World War II, he was allowed to participate in signing the German Instrument of Surrender, born into a poverty-stricken peasant family in Strelkovka, Maloyaroslavsky Uyezd, Kaluga Governorate, Zhukov became an apprentice furrier in Moscow. In 1915 the Army of the Russian Empire conscripted him, he served first in the 106th Reserve Cavalry Regiment, during World War I, Zhukov was awarded the Cross of St. George twice, and promoted to the rank of non-commissioned officer for his bravery in battle. He joined the Bolshevik Party after the 1917 October Revolution, in Party circles his background of poverty became a significant asset. After recovering from a case of typhus he fought in the Russian Civil War over the period 1918 to 1921, serving with the 1st Cavalry Army. He received the decoration of the Order of the Red Banner for his part in subduing the Tambov Rebellion in 1921, at the end of May 1923, Zhukov became a commander of the 39th Cavalry Regiment. In 1924, he entered the Higher School of Cavalry, from which he graduated the next year, in May 1930, Zhukov became commander of the 2nd Cavalry Brigade of the 7th Cavalry Division. In February 1931, he was appointed the Assistant Inspector of Cavalry of the Red Army, in May 1933, Zhukov was appointed a commander in the 4th Cavalry Division. In 1937, he became a commander of the 3rd Cavalry Corps, in 1938, he became a deputy commander of the Belorussian Military District for cavalry. This campaign was a war that lasted from 1938 to 1939. These events led to the strategically decisive Battle of Khalkhin Gol, Zhukov requested major reinforcements, and on 20 August 1939, his Soviet Offensive commenced. After a massive artillery barrage, nearly 500 BT-5 and BT-7 tanks advanced, supported by over 500 fighters and bombers and this was the Soviet Air Forces first fighter-bomber operation. The offensive first appeared to be a typical conventional frontal attack, however, two tank brigades were initially held back and then ordered to advance around on both flanks, supported by motorized artillery, infantry, and other tanks. This daring and successful manoeuvre encircled the Japanese 6th Army and captured the enemys vulnerable rear supply areas, by 31 August 1939, the Japanese had been cleared from the disputed border, leaving the Soviets clearly victorious. This campaign had significance beyond the immediate tactical and local outcome, Zhukov demonstrated and tested the techniques later used against the Germans in the Eastern Front of the Second World War. After this campaign, Nomonhan veterans were transferred to units that had not seen action, for his victory, Zhukov was declared a Hero of the Soviet Union. However, the campaign – and especially Zhukovs pioneering use of tanks – remained little known outside of the Soviet Union itself, Zhukov considered Nomonhan invaluable preparation for conducting operations during the Second World War
34.
Bernard Montgomery
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He saw action in the First World War as a junior officer of the Royal Warwickshire Regiment. At Méteren, near the Belgian border at Bailleul, he was shot through the lung by a sniper. He returned to the Western Front as a staff officer. He also took part in the Battle of Passchendaele in late 1917 before finishing the war as chief of staff of the 47th Division. During the Second World War he commanded the British Eighth Army from August 1942 in the Western Desert until the final Allied victory in Tunisia in May 1943 and this command included the Second Battle of El Alamein, a turning point in the Western Desert Campaign. He subsequently commanded the British Eighth Army during the Allied invasion of Sicily and he was in command of all Allied ground forces during Operation Overlord from the initial landings until after the Battle of Normandy. He then continued in command of the 21st Army Group for the rest of the campaign in North West Europe, as such he was the principal field commander for the failed airborne attempt to bridge the Rhine at Arnhem, and the Allied Rhine crossing. On 4 May 1945 he took the German surrender at Lüneburg Heath in Northern Germany, after the war he became Commander-in-Chief of the British Army of the Rhine in Germany and then Chief of the Imperial General Staff. He then served as Deputy Supreme Commander of NATO in Europe until his retirement in 1958. Montgomery was born in Kennington, Surrey, in 1887, the child of nine, to an Ulster-Scots Church of Ireland minister, The Reverend Henry Montgomery. The Montgomerys, an Ascendancy gentry family, were the County Donegal branch of the Clan Montgomery and he was probably a descendant of Colonel Alexander Montgomery. Bernards mother, Maud, was the daughter of The V, rev. Frederic William Canon Farrar, the famous preacher, and was eighteen years younger than her husband. After the death of Sir Robert Montgomery, Henry inherited the Montgomery ancestral estate of New Park in Moville in Inishowen in Ulster. There was still £13,000 to pay on a mortgage, a debt in the 1880s. Despite selling off all the farms that were at Ballynally, there was enough to keep up New Park. It was a relief of some magnitude when, in 1889, Henry was made Bishop of Tasmania, then still a British colony. Bishop Montgomery considered it his duty to spend as much time as possible in the areas of Tasmania and was away for up to six months at a time. While he was away, his wife, still in her mid-twenties, gave her children constant beatings, of Bernards siblings, Sibyl died prematurely in Tasmania, and Harold, Donald and Una all emigrated
35.
French Forces in Germany
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The French Forces in Germany were French military forces stationed in Germany after the Second World War. Following the surrender of Germany at the conclusion of the Second World War, the French zone of occupation existed from the end of the war until 10 August 1949. Subsequently, the French military stationed forces in Germany with headquarters in Baden-Baden during the period of the Cold War, suzie Guth, Les Forces Françaises en Allemagne, Editions LHarmattan, Paris,1991. F. Roy Willis, The French in Germany, Stanford University Press, Stanford California,1962
36.
French Army
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The French Army, officially the Land Army is the land-based and largest component of the French Armed Forces. Along with the French Air Force, the French Navy and the National Gendarmerie, the current Chief of Staff of the French Army is General Jean-Pierre Bosser, a direct subordinate of the Chief of the Defence Staff. All soldiers are considered professionals following the suspension of conscription, voted in parliament in 1997, as of 2014, the French Army employed 111,628 personnel. In addition, the element of the French Army consisted of 15,453 personnel of the Operational Reserve. The Kings of France needed reliable troops during and after the Hundred Years War and these units of troops were raised by issuing ordonnances to govern their length of service, composition and payment. These Compagnies dordonnance formed the core of the Gendarme Cavalry into the sixteenth century, stationed throughout France and summoned into larger armies as needed. There was also made for Francs-archers units of bowmen and foot soldiers raised from the non-noble classes. The bulk of the infantry for warfare was still provided by urban or provincial militias, raised from an area or city to fight locally and named for their recruiting grounds. Gradually these units became more permanent, and in 1480s Swiss instructors were recruited and these men would be paid and contracted and receive training. Henry II further regularised the French army by forming standing Infantry regiments to replace the Militia structure, the first of these the Régiments de Picardie, Piémont, Navarre and Champagne were called the Les Vieux Corps. It was normal policy to disband regiments after a war was over as a cost saving measure with the Vieux Corps and the Kings own Household Troops the Maison du Roi being the only survivors. Regiments could be raised directly by the King and so called after the region in which they were raised, or by the nobility and so called after the noble or his appointed colonel. In 1684 there was a reorganisation of the French infantry and again in 1701 to fit in with Louis XIVs plans. This reshuffle created many of the regiments of the French Army and standardised their equipment. The army of the Sun King tended to wear coats with coloured linings. There were exceptions and the troops, recruited from outside France. In addition to these regiments of the line the Maison du Roi provided several elite units, the Swiss Guards, French Guards, the revolution split the army with the main mass losing most of its officers to aristocratic flight or guillotine and becoming demoralised and ineffective. The French Guard joined the revolt and the Swiss Guards were massacred during the storming of the Tuileries palace, under Napoleon I, the French Army conquered most of Europe during the Napoleonic Wars
37.
French language
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French is a Romance language of the Indo-European family. It descended from the Vulgar Latin of the Roman Empire, as did all Romance languages, French has evolved from Gallo-Romance, the spoken Latin in Gaul, and more specifically in Northern Gaul. Its closest relatives are the other langues doïl—languages historically spoken in northern France and in southern Belgium, French was also influenced by native Celtic languages of Northern Roman Gaul like Gallia Belgica and by the Frankish language of the post-Roman Frankish invaders. Today, owing to Frances past overseas expansion, there are numerous French-based creole languages, a French-speaking person or nation may be referred to as Francophone in both English and French. French is a language in 29 countries, most of which are members of la francophonie. As of 2015, 40% of the population is in Europe, 35% in sub-Saharan Africa, 15% in North Africa and the Middle East, 8% in the Americas. French is the fourth-most widely spoken mother tongue in the European Union, 1/5 of Europeans who do not have French as a mother tongue speak French as a second language. As a result of French and Belgian colonialism from the 17th and 18th century onward, French was introduced to new territories in the Americas, Africa, most second-language speakers reside in Francophone Africa, in particular Gabon, Algeria, Mauritius, Senegal and Ivory Coast. In 2015, French was estimated to have 77 to 110 million native speakers, approximately 274 million people are able to speak the language. The Organisation internationale de la Francophonie estimates 700 million by 2050, in 2011, Bloomberg Businessweek ranked French the third most useful language for business, after English and Standard Mandarin Chinese. Under the Constitution of France, French has been the language of the Republic since 1992. France mandates the use of French in official government publications, public education except in specific cases, French is one of the four official languages of Switzerland and is spoken in the western part of Switzerland called Romandie, of which Geneva is the largest city. French is the language of about 23% of the Swiss population. French is also a language of Luxembourg, Monaco, and Aosta Valley, while French dialects remain spoken by minorities on the Channel Islands. A plurality of the worlds French-speaking population lives in Africa and this number does not include the people living in non-Francophone African countries who have learned French as a foreign language. Due to the rise of French in Africa, the total French-speaking population worldwide is expected to reach 700 million people in 2050, French is the fastest growing language on the continent. French is mostly a language in Africa, but it has become a first language in some urban areas, such as the region of Abidjan, Ivory Coast and in Libreville. There is not a single African French, but multiple forms that diverged through contact with various indigenous African languages, sub-Saharan Africa is the region where the French language is most likely to expand, because of the expansion of education and rapid population growth
38.
Georges Clemenceau
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Georges Benjamin Clemenceau was a French politician, physician, and journalist who served as Prime Minister of France during the First World War. A leader of the Radical Party, he played a role in the politics of the French Third Republic. Clemenceau first served as Prime Minister from 1906 to 1909, in favour of a total victory over the German Empire, he militated for the restitution of Alsace-Lorraine to France. He was one of the architects of the Treaty of Versailles at the Paris Peace Conference of 1919. Clemenceau was a native of the Vendée, born at Mouilleron-en-Pareds, during the period of the French Revolution, the Vendée had been a hotbed of monarchist sympathies, but by the time of his birth, its people were fiercely republican. The region was remote from Paris, rural and poor and his mother, Sophie Eucharie Gautreau, was of Huguenot descent. His father, Benjamin Clemenceau, came from a line of physicians. Benjamin had a reputation as an atheist and a political activist, he was arrested and briefly held in 1851 and he instilled in his son a love of learning, devotion to radical politics, and a hatred of Catholicism. The lawyer Albert Clemenceau was his brother, after his studies in the Lycée in Nantes, Georges received his French baccalaureate of letters in 1858. He went to Paris to study medicine, eventually graduating with the completion of his thesis De la génération des éléments anatomiques in 1865, in Paris, the young Clemenceau became a political activist and writer. In December 1861, he co-founded a weekly newsletter, Le Travail, on 23 February 1862, he was arrested by the police for having placed posters summoning a demonstration. He spent 77 days in the Mazas Prison and he finally graduated as a doctor of medicine on 13 May 1865, founded several literary magazines, and wrote many articles, most of which attacked the imperial regime of Napoleon III. Clemenceau left France for the United States when the agents began cracking down on dissidents. Clemenceau worked in New York City in the years 1865-69, following the American Civil War and he maintained a medical practice, but spent much of his time on political journalism for a Parisian newspaper. He taught French at the home of Calvin Rood in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, on 23 June 1869, he married one of his students, Mary Eliza Plummer, in New York City. She was the daughter of William Kelly Plummer and wife Harriet A. Taylor, the Clemenceaus had three children together before the marriage ended in a contentious divorce. During this time, he joined French exile clubs in New York opposing the imperial regime, Clemenceau returned to Paris after the French defeat at the Battle of Sedan in 1870 during the Franco-Prussian War and the fall of the Second French Empire. When the Paris Commune seized power in March 1871, he tried unsuccessfully to find a compromise between the radical leaders and the commune and the more conservative French government
39.
French Navy
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The French Navy, informally La Royale, is the maritime arm of the French Armed Forces. As of June 2014, the French Navy employed a total of 36,776 personnel, the reserve element of the French Navy consisted of 4,827 personnel of the Operational Reserve. The French naval fleet includes more than a hundred vessels and nuclear type submarines, the history of the French Navy dates back to the History of the French Navy of Antiquity to the Renaissance, part of the History of the French Navy. The French Royal Navy was quasi inexistent prior 1624, the Ordre de Saint-Jean de Jérusalem, which was both a religious and military order, had its own respective international war fleet which assured the policing of the seas in the Mediterranean. The members which had satisfied obligations for periods in service at sea fulfilling their service, were granted the rank of Knights Hospitaller, however, many considered the naval service formation to integrate later, while being well formed, their respective navy. The Ordre de Saint-Jean de Jérusalem was one of the ancestors of the French naval schools and in principal, the Order accordingly formed most of the ships Captains, Officers of the French Royal Navy and Admirals of the Marine française de guerre de la Méditerranée. During the Revolution, the French Navy succeeded to the French Royal Navy, under the First French Empire and the Second French Empire, the navy was designated as the Imperial French Navy. The French Navy is still designated today familiarly as La Royale and this expression was used by commercial sailors due to their military service at the corps of the navy by the institution of maritime inscription. The implementation then of the Ministère de la Marine later the de la Marine de guerre française at rue Royale. The symbol of the French Navy, which was since origin a golden anchor » and this symbol featured on all naval vessels, the arms, uniforms, the couriers, equipment, and general arms of the navy. This symbol was replaced in 1990 by a logo featuring a bow section of a warship with two ascending red and blue spray foams, and the inscription Marine nationale. The Chief of Staff of the French Navy was Admiral Bernard Louzeau, the navy became a consistent instrument of national power around the seventeenth century with Richelieus efforts under Louis XIII, and Colberts under Louis XIV. Under the tutelage of the Sun King, the French Navy was well-financed and -equipped, managing to score several victories in the Nine Years War against the Royal Navy. Financial troubles, however, forced the navy back to port and allowed the English, before the Nine Years War, in the Franco-Dutch War, it managed to score a decisive victory over a combined Spanish-Dutch fleet at the Battle of Palermo. The French Navy scored various successes, as in the campaigns led in the Atlantic by Picquet de la Motte, in 1766, Bougainville led the first French circumnavigation. During the American Revolutionary War the French Navy played a role in supporting the Americans. French warships participated in the battle by bombarding British ground forces, in India, Suffren waged campaigns against the British, successfully contending for supremacy against Vice-Admiral Sir Edward Hughes. In the Mediterranean, the French Navy waged a campaign during a 1798 French invasion of Egypt
40.
Cavalry
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Cavalry or horsemen were soldiers or warriors who fought mounted on horseback. Cavalry were historically the most mobile of the combat arms, an individual soldier in the cavalry is known by a number of designations such as cavalryman, horseman, dragoon or trooper. The designation of cavalry was not usually given to any military forces that used animals, such as camels. Cavalry had the advantage of improved mobility, and a man fighting from horseback also had the advantages of greater height, speed, another element of horse mounted warfare is the psychological impact a mounted soldier can inflict on an opponent. In Europe cavalry became increasingly armoured, and eventually became known for the mounted knights, in the period between the World Wars, many cavalry units were converted into motorized infantry and mechanized infantry units, or reformed as tank troops. Most cavalry units that are horse-mounted in modern armies serve in purely ceremonial roles, modern usage of the term generally refers to specialist units equipped with tanks or aircraft. The shock role, traditionally filled by heavy cavalry, is filled by units with the armored designation. Before the Iron Age, the role of cavalry on the battlefield was largely performed by light chariots, the chariot originated with the Sintashta-Petrovka culture in Central Asia and spread by nomadic or semi-nomadic Indo-Iranians. The power of mobility given by mounted units was recognized early on, Cavalry techniques were an innovation of equestrian nomads of the Central Asian and Iranian steppe and pastoralist tribes such as the Persian Parthians and Sarmatians. The photograph above left shows Assyrian cavalry from reliefs of 865–860 BC, at this time, the men had no spurs, saddles, saddle cloths, or stirrups. Fighting from the back of a horse was more difficult than mere riding. The cavalry acted in pairs, the reins of the archer were controlled by his neighbours hand. Even at this time, cavalry used swords, shields. The sculpture implies two types of cavalry, but this might be a simplification by the artist, Later images of Assyrian cavalry show saddle cloths as primitive saddles, allowing each archer to control his own horse. As early as 490 BC a breed of horses was bred in the Nisaean plain in Media to carry men with increasing amounts of armour. However, chariots remained in use for purposes such as carrying the victorious general in a Roman triumph. The southern Britons met Julius Caesar with chariots in 55 and 54 BC, the last mention of chariot use in battle was by the Caledonians at the Mons Graupius, in 84 AD. During the classical Greek period cavalry were usually limited to citizens who could afford expensive war-horses
41.
Uhlan
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Uhlans were Polish light cavalry armed with lances, sabres and pistols. The title was used by lancer regiments in the Russian, Prussian. Uhlans typically wore a jacket with a coloured panel at the front, a coloured sash. This cap or cavalry helmet was derived from a design of Polish cap, made more formal. Their lances usually had small, swallow-tailed flags just below the spearhead, in the Turkic Tatar language, it means, amongst other things, a brave warrior or young man. The Kalmyk/Oirat/Dzhungar cavalry made wide use of lances both in European as well as Central Asian wars. One of the members, Colonel Aleksander Ułan, was the commander of a Polish light cavalry regiment in the service of Polish-Saxon kings, August II Mocny. After Ułans death his regiment was nicknamed Ułanowe dzieci and Ułanowe wojsko, prior to 1764, all Polish-Lithuanian Tatar cavalry regiments in Saxon service were named Ułani. Once the Golden Horde Tatar families had settled in Lithuania in the late 14th century, they were required to military service for the Grand Duke of Lithuania. The Poles started incorporating much of their vocabulary and many of their traditions, along with their strategy. Lithuanian Tartars, mostly Muslim, served as part of the Royal armies during various battles of the late Middle Ages and their tasks were to conduct reconnaissance in advance of the heavier cavalry banners. The last Polish King, Stanisław August Poniatowski, had a Uhlan guard regiment simply known as the Royal Uhlans and it was disbanded in 1794 or 1795. The first Uhlan regiments were created in the early 18th century in Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth in 1720s and their speed and mobility were key to their popularity. The Uhlan regiment formed by the Kingdom of Prussia in 1740, the regiment failed to distinguish itself favorably in the first of the Silesian Wars and was disbanded shortly afterwards. In 1745, Saxony, engaged in a union with the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Shortly after, the Marechal de Saxe created a Polish Ulan regiment for the French king, King Stanisław August Poniatowski of Poland formed a regiment of royal guards equipped with lances, szablas, and pistols, each guardsman uniformed in kurta and czapka. This unit became the prototype for other units of the Polish cavalry. In the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, the Ulans officially had the status and traditions of the winged Polish hussars passed on to them in 1776, the Austrian empire also formed a Uhlan Regiment in 1784, composed primarily of Poles
42.
Charge (warfare)
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A charge is a maneuver in battle in which combatants advance towards their enemy at their best speed in an attempt to engage in close combat. The charge is the dominant shock attack and has been the key tactic, modern charges usually involve small groups against individual positions instead of large groups of combatants charging another group or a fortified line. It may be assumed that the charge was practised in prehistoric warfare, the tactics of the classical Greek phalanx included an ordered approach march, with a final charge to contact. Initially successful, it was countered by effective discipline and the development of defensive bayonet tactics, the development of the bayonet in the late 17th century led to the bayonet charge becoming the main infantry charge tactic through the 19th century and into the 20th. As early as the 19th century, tactical scholars were already noting that most bayonet charges did not result in close combat, instead, one side usually fled before actual bayonet fighting ensued. The act of fixing bayonets has been held to be connected to morale. The shock value of an attack has been especially exploited in cavalry tactics. However, when cavalry charges succeeded, it was due to the defending formation breaking up and scattering. It must be noted, though, that while it was not recommended for a charge to continue against unbroken infantry. The cavalry charge was a significant tactic in the Middle Ages and these developments began in the 7th century but were not combined to full effect until the 11th century. The Battle of Dyrrhachium was an instance of the familiar medieval cavalry charge. By the time of the First Crusade in the 1090s, the charge was being employed widely by European armies. It became increasingly common for knights to dismount and fight as heavy infantry. The use of cavalry for flanking manoeuvres became more useful, although interpretations of the knightly ideal often led to reckless. Cavalry could still charge dense heavy infantry formations head-on if the cavalrymen had a combination of certain traits, however, the majority of cavalry personnel lacked at least one of these traits, particularly discipline, formations, and horses trained for head-on charges. In the twentieth century, the charge was seldom used, though it enjoyed sporadic. In what was called the last true cavalry charge, elements of the 7th Cavalry Regiment of the United States attacked Villista forces in the Battle of Guerrero on 29 March 1916. The battle was a victory for the Americans, occurring in desert terrain, at the Mexican town of Vicente Guerrero, Chihuahua
43.
Troop
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A troop is a military sub-subunit, originally a small formation of cavalry, subordinate to a squadron. In many armies a troop is the equivalent element to the section or platoon. Exceptions are the Royal Horse Artillery and the US Cavalry, where troops are subunits that compare to a company or artillery battery. A cavalry soldier of private rank is called a trooper in many Commonwealth armies, a related sense of the term troops refers to members of the military collectively, as in the troops, see Troop. In some countries, like Italy, the cavalry unit is called Squadron. Today, a troop is defined differently in different armed forces, SASR troops are also unusual as they are commanded by a captain—most troop/platoon sized elements are commanded by a lieutenant. In all cases, units which refer to platoon sized elements as troops refer to company-sized elements as squadrons, privates in the RAAC and SASR hold the rank trooper, however this is not the case for any other Corps/units which use the term troops. In the British Army the definition of a troop varies by corps, household Cavalry and Royal Armoured Corps, Three or four armoured fighting vehicles commanded by a subaltern, i. e. effectively the same level element as an infantry platoon. A unit of two to four guns or launchers, or an equivalent headquarters unit, in the Royal Horse Artillery, a troop used to be the equivalent to a battery in other artillery units. The Royal Engineers and Royal Corps of Signals used platoons instead until after World War II, other army corps do not use the term. In the Royal Marines, a troop is the equivalent to an army platoon, in the Canadian Army, a troop is the equivalent of a platoon within the armoured, artillery, engineer, and signals branches. Two to four troops comprise the elements of a squadron. Companies were renamed troops in 1883, in the United States, state police forces are often regionally divided into troops. This usage came about from these organizations modelling themselves on the US Army, for this same reason the state police and highway patrol personnel of most states are known as trooper rather than officer. In Scouting, a troop is a made up of scouts or guides from the same locality under a leader. In the case of Guides, the company is used more often
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France
Free French Forces.svg)
Knight – 20 December 1914;
Officer – 16 June 1920;
Commander – 20 December 1935;
Grand Officer – 12 July 1940;
Grand Cross – 10 February 1945.
Companion of the Liberation (decree 20 November 1944)
Médaille Militaire
Grand Cross of the Order of the Black Star (Benin)
Colonial Medal with "MAROC" clasp
1914–1918 Inter-Allied Victory medal (France)
1914–1918 Commemorative war medal (France)
Médaille des Evadés
Gold Medal of Honor of Physical Education
Military Health Service honour medal in gold
Military Cross (UK)
Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath (UK)
Distinguished Service Medal (US Army)
Legion of Merit, Commander (US)
Order of Suvorov, 1st class (USSR)
Croix de Guerre (Belgium)
Grand Cross of the Military Order of the White Lion (Czechoslovakia)
Czechoslovak War Cross (Czechoslovakia)
Grand Cross of the Order of St Olav (Norway)
Knight Grand Cross of the Order of Orange-Nassau (Netherlands)
Commander's Cross of the Virtuti Militari (Poland)
Cross of Grunwald, 1st class (Poland)
Grand Cross of the Order of the Dannebrog (Denmark)
Commander of the Brazilian Order of Merit[12]
Grand Cross of the Order of the Liberator General San Martin (Argentina)
Order of Military Merit, white (Cuba)
Medal of Military Merit (Mexico)
Grand Cross of Order of Military Merit (Chile)
Grand Cross of the Royal Order of Cambodia
Grand Cross of the Order of the Million Elephants and the White Parasol (Laos)
Sherefian Merit Medal (Morocco)
Grand Cross of the Order of Ouissam Alaouite (Morocco)
Grand Cross of Nichan Iftikhar (Tunisia)
Grand Cross of the Order of Blood (Tunisia)
Grand Cross of the National Order of Vietnam.PNG){kind=small}
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