Sieges (7) The Crusades, American Forts, Bibliography

Sieges, Part 7

Appendix A - The Crusades

1096-1099  First Crusade.  This was essentially successful, and basically due to a backlash of Christendom against Islamic conquests in the Middle East.  The Byzantines wanted Western assistance, and the Holy Roman Emperors needed some measure of unity.  Knights and separate contingents of simple people were led by itinerant preachers such as Peter the Hermit.  Many pogroms against the Jews took place during the course of this movement.  The First Crusade reached Constantinople in 1097.   A seven month siege was mounted against Antioch in 1098, followed by the fall of Jerusalem on 15 July 1099, after a siege which had taken 40 days.  The Kingdom of Jerusalem was then created and governed by Godfrey of Bouillon, Duke of Lower Lorraine, along with the Principality of Antioch and the Counties of Edessa and Tripoli.  The 1st Crusade Battles of Nicaea, Dorylaeum I, and Tarsus were fought in 1097.  The Battle of Antioch I was fought 1097-1098; the Battles of Jerusalem and Ashkelon I were fought in 1099.

Four Leaders of the First Crusade, engraving by François Guizot.

Four main crusader armies left Europe in August 1096, taking different routes to Constantinople.  They gathered outside the city’s walls of what is now Istanbul sometime between November 1096 and April 1097.  Hugh  I, Count of Vermandois arrived first, followed by Godfrey of Bouillon, Raymond IV, Count of Toulouse, and Bohemond I, Prince of Taranto.

The numbers estimated for the Crusader armies vary in the eyes of the historians.  Some estimate there were 70,000 to 80,000 who left Western Europe between 1096 and 1111.  Estimates for the number of Knights range from 7,000 to 10,000; 35,000 to 50,000 foot soldiers; and including non-combatants a total of 60,000 to 100,000.

Godfrey of Bouillon enters Jerusalem, engraving.

Duke Godfrey of Bouillon was a tall red-bearded man and reputedly one of the hardest fighting knights of the Crusade.  He captured Jerusalem in 1099, and eight days after the fall of the city he was elected the first Christian King of Jerusalem.  He refused to take the title however, and instead chose to be named “the Defender and Baron of the Holy Sepulchre.”  He died of a fever a year and three days later and was buried in the Holy Sepulchure.  During his short reign, he consolidated the new kingdom, and Outremer was founded for half a century.  He was succeeded by Baldwin I on 18 July 1100.

"Taking of Jerusalem by the Crusaders, 15th July 1099", Giraudon, The Bridgeman Art Library.

1147-1149  Second Crusade.  The second major expedition to the “Holy Land” was prompted by the loss of Edessa to the Muslims and preached by St Bernard at Vezelay in 1146.  Louis VII of France and the Emperor Conrad II took part.  The Battle of Dorylaeum was fought 1147; the Battles of Edessa II and Damascus were fought in 1148.

On 4 July 1187, the Battle of the Horns of Hattin was fought near the shores of the Sea of Galilee.  The armies of Jerusalem were defeated by Saladin and the true cross was captured by the Muslims.  The cities and fortresses of the kingdom, denuded of their garrisons, could offer no serious resistance, and on 2 October 1187 the Holy City of Jerusalem was captured by Saladin.  This action prompted the Third Crusade.

1189-1192  Third Crusade.   This was a multi-national expedition which was mounted following the recapture of Jerusalem by Salah ed-Din Yusuf (Saladin) in 1187.  Emperor Frederick Barbarossa took the cross, but while leading a major Germanic force, he drowned in Anatolia, Cilicia, on 10 June 1190.  His forces melted away.  Richard the Lionheart left England in 1190, and fought on the island of Cyprus until 8 June 1191.  Philip Augustus, King of France left France in 1190 and arrived in the Holy Land 20 April 1191.  Both took part in the Battle at Acre, from 1189-1191.  Richard won a battle at Arsouf in 1191, but was not able to free Jerusalem.  The Muslims capitulated on 12 July 1191 after a two year siege.  Leopold Duke of Austria sailed for Europe (after an altercation with Richard, for which he was later taken prisoner).  Conrad of Montferrat (Italy) sulked in Tyre, and King Guy of Lusignan was installed as the Crusader ruler.

1202-1204  Fourth Crusade.  This expedition was essentially an act of plunder on an ally, rather than an assault on the Holy Land.  It was instigated by Pope Innocent III.  The demands of the Venetians, who provided the Crusaders with sea transport, lead to the capture of the Byzantine town of Zara, then of Constantinople itself in 1204.  A Latin empire replaced the Byzantine empire, and its capital was established at Nicaea.  Frankish nobles carved out fiefs for themselves in Greece.  The Crusaders launched an attack on the city of Constantinople on 7 April 1203.  When the city walls were breached a year later (1204), the Byzantine Empire fell and the establishment of a Latin Empire followed.  Baldwin I was established as Emperor.  Related Crusader Battles were fought at Adrianople in 1205; and at Philippoplis in 1208.

1208-1213  Albigensian Crusade.  Crusade conducted in southern France against the Cathars.   The Cistercian battles against Cathar heretics centered around Albi and Carcassonne.  The Treaty of Paris ended the Crusade although the Cathar stronghold of Montsegur did not fall until March 1244.

(Jean Yves Didier Photo)

Château de Montségur, France.

In 1233 the site became "the seat and head" (domicilium et caput) of the Cathar church.  It has been estimated that the fortified site housed about 500 people when in 1241, Raymond VII besieged Montségur without success.  The murder of representatives of the inquisition by about fifty men from Montségur and faidits at Avignonet on 28 May 1242 was the trigger for the final military expedition to conquer the castle, the siege of Montségur,

In 1242 Hugues de Arcis led the military command of about 10,000 royal troops against the castle that was held by about 100 fighters and was home to 211 Perfects (who were pacifists and did not fight) and civilian refugees.  The siege lasted nine months, until in March 1244, the castle finally surrendered.  Approximately 220 Cathars were burned en masse in a bonfire at the foot of the pog when they refused to renounce their faith.  Some 25 actually took the ultimate Cathar vow of consolamentum perfecti in the two weeks before the final surrender.  Those who renounced the Cathar faith were allowed to leave and the castle itself was destroyed.

In the days prior to the fall of the fortress, several Cathars allegedly slipped through the besiegers' lines carrying away a mysterious "treasure" with them. While the nature and fate of this treasure has never been identified, there has been much speculation as to what it might have consisted of — from the treasury of the Cathar Church to esoteric books or even the actual Holy Grail.  The siege itself was an epic event of heroism and zealotry, akin to that of Masada, with the demise of the Cathars symbolized by the fall of the mountain-top fortress (although isolated Cathar cells persisted into the 1320s in southern France and northern Italy)

The present fortress ruin at Montségur is not from the Cathar era.  The original Cathar fortress of Montségur was entirely pulled down by the victorious royal forces after its capture in 1244.  It was gradually rebuilt and upgraded over the next three centuries by royal forces. The current ruin so dramatically occupying the site, and featured in illustrations, is referred to by French archeologists as "Montsegur III" and is typical of post-medieval royal French defensive architecture of the 17th century.  It is not "Montsegur II," the structure in which the Cathars lived and were besieged and of which few traces remain today.

1217-1221  Fifth Crusade.  This was a failed expedition which was originated by Pope Innocent III.  The crusaders took Cyprus, Acre and Egypt.  Damietta in Egypt was taken between 1218 and 1221, but then lost.  This expedition was preceded by the Children’s Crusade, which in reality was composed of young people, the majority of whom died on the journey.

1228-1229  Sixth Crusade.  This expedition was organized by Frederick II, even though he had been excommunicated at the time.  He succeeded in capturing Jerusalem after negotiating a truce with the Sultan for the right to reoccupy the city, which was finally lost in 1244.  The Crusade was relatively successful.

1248-1254  Seventh Crusade.  Louis IX of France lead this expedition to Egypt.  He succeeded in taking Damietta, but was defeated and captured at Mansourah.  After he was freed on payment of a ransom, he spent another four years in the Holy Land.

1270  Eighth Crusade.  This expedition was led to Tunisia by Louis X of France, who died outside the city of Tunis.  This is also the time of the earliest record of a sea chart, which was shown to Louis IX, King of France.

Appendix B – American Forts

           The numerous forts constructed in the New World were used to command coastlines, protect frontiers and to serve as trading posts in times of peace or for protection during the multiple wars that followed the arrival of the Europeans.  Many underwent storm and siege, and a few have remained intact for the present day historian to examine archaeologically.  The frontier forts remain alive in imagination through films and television depiction of the western theme, but there are many others with considerable historical significance.  Of particular note are the 30-plus forts built after the War of 1812 to provide a “Third System” of protection for seaports along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts. The introduction of rifled cannon during the American Civil War rendered most of these fortifications obsolete, although many have survived to become tourist attractions.  The following is a brief listing of a few of the major forts by state.

The Presidio of San Francisco, California, is the only “Third System” fort on the West Coast, and stands intact beneath the south anchorage of the Golden Gate Bridge.  It was the base of operations for the building of the bridge and a backdrop for many Hollywood movies.

Bent’s Old Fort National Historic Site in La Junta, Colorado, is a reconstructed adobe trading post, which bustled as a commercial center on the Santa Fe Trail between 1833-1849.  Its furnishings made it the “Castle of the Plains.”

Castillo de San Marcos National Monument in Florida was designed to fend off pirates.  The Castillo survives as the only intact 17th century fort in the continental U.S. and the larger of only two forts built anywhere using coquina stone.

Fort Pulaski National Monument in Savannah, Georgia is surrounded by a moat.  The fortress took 18 years to complete, beginning in 1829.  Considered invincible, its 7.5-foot-thick walls were breached by rifled artillery in 1862.

Fort Lamed National Historic Site in Lamed, Kansas has nine restored buildings, and is one of the best surviving outposts from the Indian Wars era.  It functioned both as a guardian of the Santa Fe Trail and as an Indian Bureau Agency.

Fort McHenry National Monument and Historic Shrine in Baltimore, Maryland is the site of the historic star-shaped fort (built 1799-1805) whose garrison repelled an intense British attack in September 1814.  Commander Armistead wanted the post’s flag “large enough that the British will have no difficulty in seeing it,” resulting in the inspired composition of America’s national anthem.

Fort Mackinac, Mackinac State Historic Parks, located on Mackinac Island, Michigan has a military outpost with 14 structures whose initial construction was begun by the British in 1780.  A sister fort, Colonial Michilimackinac, is located near the Mackinac Bridge in Mackinaw City.  On the site of a 1715 French fort and fur-trading village are 18 reconstructed buildings and an underground archaeological exhibit.

Fort Atkinson State Historical Park, at Fort Calhoun, Nebraska was the first post west of the Missouri River from 1820 to 1827, and was built to protect the Western fur trade.  Local concern resurrected the fort in the 1960s, leading to its substantial reconstruction.

Fort Union National Monument, at Watrous, New Mexico has a number of ghostly ruins still standing which give testimony to the military outpost and supply depot that flourished here alongside the Santa Fe Trail in the mid-1800s.  A tour trail winds through the adobe ruins of the largest fort in the Southwest, built to protect settlers and travelers from Indian raids.  Nearby is the largest network of wagon ruts from the Santa Fe Trail.

Fort Stanwix National Monument at Rome, New York is a Revolutionary War-era fort, which has been almost completely reconstructed.

Fort Ticonderoga, near present-day Ticonderoga, New York overlooks Lake Champlain and controlled the connecting waterway between Canada and the American Colonies.  Originally built by the French in 1755, it saw battles between the French and British, and during the Revolutionary War.  Fort Ticonderoga, formerly Fort Carillon, is a large 18th-century star fort built by the French at the narrows near the south end of Lake Champlain, in northern New York.  It was constructed by Canadian-born French military engineer Michel Chartier de Lotbiniere, Marquis de Lotbiniere between October 1755 and 1757, during the action in the "North American theater" of the Seven Years' War, often referred to as the French and Indian War.  The fort was of strategic importance during the 18th-century colonial conflicts between Great Britain and France, and again played an important role during the American Revolutionary War.

(Mwanner Photo)

Fort Ticonderoga, aerial view.

Fort Ticonderoga, plan view of the forts defences, 1758.

(Mid-Manhattan Picture Collection)

The storming of Fort Ticonderoga, 1775, by Frederick Remington.

Fort Fisher Historic Site at Kure Beach, North Carolina was the largest Confederate earthwork fortification during the Civil War, and kept the seaport of Wilmington open to receive foreign supplies for Confederate armies. Less than 10% of the fort remains.

Fort Union Trading Post National Historic Site at Williston, North Dakota was built by the American Fur Company in 1828.   Fort Union was the center for trading on the Upper Missouri.

Fort Sumter National Monument on Sullivan’s Island, South Carolina was a “Third System” fort in Charleston Harbor, and the target of the first engagement of the Civil War.  Later, Confederates held it through a 22-month siege that nearly destroyed it.

Fort Davis National Historic Site, Fort Davis, Texas guarded the San Antonio-El Paso Road from 1854 to 1891, garrisoned the famed Buffalo Soldiers, and tested the use of camels for the military.  This site is considered the best-preserved fort in the Southwest.

Fort Vancouver National Historic Site, at Vancouver, Washington was an outpost created by the Hudson’s Bay Company and became the fur trade capital of the Pacific Coast from 1825 to 1849, making it a political and cultural hub.

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Footnotes

[1] The Holy Bible, King James Version, Thomas Nelson Inc., Camden, New Jersey, 1970, Genesis, Chapter 9, verse 6, p. 6.

[2] The White House, Washington, 20 September 2002, W01081-02: The National Security Strategy of the United States of America, p. 1.

[3] 26 Aug 1346  Battle of Crécy.  The English defeat the French.   First known use of gunpowder weapons in battle in Europe (by the English), although guns may have been used at Metz in 1324, or at Algeciras in 1342.  The English chose the battle site, their strength 20,000, the French strength 60,000.  Beginning about 6 PM in rain, the battle went through the night.  English archers stopped the French knights in the mud in 15 or 16 waves, leaving 1,542 dead French knights and Lords and between 10 and 20,000 men.  English losses were 200, including 2 knights.  The French had good cavalry, but atrocious leadership.  Since the time of Crécy, infantry has remained the primary element of the ground combat forces.

19 Sep 1356  Battle of Poitiers.  The French are defeated by an Anglo-Gascon force at Maupertuis, near Poitiers.  Fought during the Hundred Years War.  Edward the Black Prince with 7,000 troops vs. the French led by King John II with 16,000 men.

25 Oct 1415  Battle of Agincourt.  Fought during the Hundred Year’s War between Henry V of England with 1000 knights and men-at-arms and some 5000 archers, against Charles VI of France and 20,000 French forces.  The English won, losing 1600 casualties vs. 7000 casualties for the French.

The renewed English invasion of 1415 found France ruled by a mad king, Charles VI.  From his conquest of Harfleur on 22 Sep, Henry V marched northward toward Calais with his English army.  Unable to cross the lower Somme because of flooding and French defenses, the English had to swing inland to cross above Amiens.  This detour enabled a French army of 20,000 men under the constable Charles d’Albret and the Marshal Jean Bouciquaut II to interpose itself between the invaders and Calais.  Henry had no choice but to fight.  At the village of Agincourt, 33 miles northwest of Arras, he chose a position between two patches of woods that narrowed the front to 1,200 yards.  Sending his horses to the rear, he deployed his men-at-arms in three divisions abreast, each supported by a group of archers on either flank.  To his front lay ploughed fields, heavy with mud after a week of rain.

The French, with most of their numerical superiority lost on the cramped front, also dismounted and deployed in three lines in depth.  Little use was made of their crossbowmen or heavy cannon.  At eleven o’clock on 25 Oct the English opened the battle by advancing their archers to bring the longbows within killing range (about 250 yards).  The French first line, led by a cavalry spearhead, plodded forward through the mud.  Although suffering terrible casualties from English arrows, they reached Henry’s front ranks, only to be repulsed when the archers exchanged their bows for axes and swords.  Then the second line, under the Duc d’Alencon, pressed forward to continue the deadly hand-to-hand struggle.  It, too, was finally beaten back, leaving the duke dead on the field, and many wounded, as well as able-bodied, prisoners in the hands of the English.  At this moment the French camp followers broke into Henry’s camp, seeking plunder.  Believing himself attacked in the rear while the third line of the enemy stood intact on his front, the king ordered the massacre of all prisoners.  Thus perished much of the remaining warrior arm of the French nobility.

After extinguishing the threat to their rear, the English braced to meet a new assault.  But the French third line, shaken by the heaps of corpses to their front, recoiled without making an effective charge.  The battle had ended in less than three hours with 7,000 French casualties.  D’Albret was dead and Bouciquaut a prisoner.  English losses were reported no higher than 1,600.  At odds larger than 3 to 1, England had won one of the great victories of military history.

With the way now open Henry marched on to the English base at Calais, reaching there on 16 Nov.  Buoyed by the dramatic victory at Agincourt, he returned two years later to launch a systematic conquest of all Normandy.

[4] 98 AD:  Trajan reinforces the Roman wall on the Rhine known as the Limes Germanicus.  117-138 AD:  Hadrian’s Limes constructed, followed by additions from138-161 by Antonius Pius.  Limes abandoned ca. 260 AD.

[5] Excavations by archaeologists at Jericho on the west bank of the Jordan River note that its approximately 3,000 citizens of that period (7,000 BC) enclosed their town with a free-standing stone wall 6’ thick, 22’high and running almost 900 yards around it.  It was defended with a tower 24’ across and the fortifications were completely surrounded by a ditch 26’ wide and 9’ deep.  Martin H. Brice, Stronghold, A History of Military Architecture, B.T. Batsford Ltd., London,1984, p.33.

[6] Egypt was divided into Lower and Upper Egypt.  Lower Egypt refers to the area north of Memphis, and Upper Egypt traditionally refers to the area south of Memphis, which is the opposite of the way it seems they should be on the map.  Upper Egypt is both upriver and uphill from Lower Egypt.

[7] Ibid, p. 34.

[8] 1469 BC:  Battle of Megiddo, the first recorded battle of history.  Thutmosis led an Egyptian Army of 10,000 men on a rapid and unexpected march into central Palestine.  Rebel Chieftains assembled an army at Megiddo, North of Mount Carmel.  The King of Kadesh led the rebels, who formed a concave formation to the South.  Thutmosis led a Northern “horn” between the rebel flank and the fortress of Megiddo.  The victory went to Egypt.

[9] Ibid, p. 35.

[10] Internet: http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/gabrmetz/gabr000d.htm.

[11] The Holy Bible, King James Version, Thomas Nelson Inc., Camden, New Jersey, 1970, 2 Chronicles, Chapter 26, verses 9-15, p. 341.

[12] 410 AD:  Beginning of the Dark Ages for the people of Europe, when the Army of Alaric the Visigoth captured and sacked Rome.  Dark because of the apparent lack of light shed in those times by contemporary historians.  The walls of Rome had been constructed 271-281 AD, restored 395 AD, and held out against Alaric in 408 AD, when the invaders were bought off.  In 410 AD, slaves opened the gates and Alaric’s troops stormed in.  476-814 AD:  Period considered to be the Middle Ages.

[13] The manufacture of gunpowder in the 17th century involved extracting and refining the saltpeter from earth found in decomposing organic matter such as the kind found in cattle sheds, sheep pens and dung heaps.  It was then blended with charcoal and brimstone, and then the mixture was milled finely, in a relatively simple but dangerous process.  Paul Johnson, Castles of England, Scotland and Wales, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, London,1989, p. 168.

[14] The Author earned his military jump wings in 1975 at CFB Edmonton, Alberta, and later served as a member of the Canadian Forces Parachute Team (CFPT), the SkyHawks from 1977 to 1979.  From 1986 to 1989 he served as the Regimental Intelligence Officer for the Canadian Airborne Regiment (CAR) within the First Special Service Force (FSSF) based at CFB Petawawa, Ontario, when the training exercise described here took place.  He continued to serve as an active military parachutist until his retirement at CFB Gagetown, New Brunswick,  in August 2011.  The CAR motto is “Ex Coelis” (from the skies).

[15] The Holy Bible, King James Version, Thomas Nelson Inc., Camden, New Jersey, 1970, Joshua, Chapter 6, verses 1-20, p. 166.

[16] Castle under siege.  P. Newark.

[17] Anthony Kemp, Castles in Colour, Blandford Press, Poole, Dorset, 1977, p. 13.

[18] G. J. Ashworth, War and the City, Routledge, London and New York, 1991, p. 12.

[19] Internet: http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/gabrmetz/gabr000d.htm.

[20] 212 BC:  Siege of Syracuse by Romans.  Archimedes designed giant ship lifting cranes and invented a method of training great mirrors onto the Roman ships burning their fleet during the siege. Archimedes died in Syracuse.

[21] Anthony Kemp, op. cit., p. 14.

[22] Peter Paret, Makers of Modern Strategy from Machiavelli to the Nuclear Age, Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey, 1986, p. 90.

[23] Charles Connell, The World’s Greatest Sieges, Odhams Books Limited, Long Acre, London, 1967, p. 9.

[24] Barbara W. Tuchman, A Distant Mirror, The Calamitous 14th Century, Ballantine Books, New York, 1978, p. 5.

[25] LCol Daniel Gosselin, CFCSC, Toronto, RMC War Studies 500 Program, 14 April 1994.

[26] At 07:45 Tuesday morning 11 September 2001, American Airlines Flight 11, a Boeing 767, left Boston, Massachusetts bound for Los Angeles, California, with 92 people onboard.  At 07:58, United Airlines Flight 175, also a Boeing 767, left Boston for Los Angeles with 65 people onboard.  At 08:01 United Airlines Flight 93, a Boeing 757, left Newark, New Jersey bound for San Francisco, California with 45 people onboard.  At 08:10, United Airlines Flight 77, also a Boeing 757, left Washington, DC, bound for Los Angeles with 64 people onboard.  At 08:45 American Airlines Flight 11 hit the north tower of the World Trade Center in New York.  At 09:05, United Airlines Flight 175 hit the south tower of the World Trade Center.  At 09:39, American Airlines Flight 77 crashed into the Pentagon outside Washington, DC.  At 09:40, the American Federal Aviation Administration halted all flights in the USA>  At 09:58 the South tower of the World Trade Center collapsed.  At 10:10, United Airlines Flight 93 crashed near Johnstown, Pennsylvania.  At 10:25 all overseas flights bound for the USA were diverted to Canada.  At 10:28 the World Trade Center’s north tower collapsed.  The terrorist group Al Qaeda. led by Osama bin Laden claimed responsibility. Maclean’s, article, Special Report After the Terror, 24 September 2001, p. 14.

[27] TIME Canada Ltd., Toronto, Ontario, 21 February 1994, p. 11.

[28] The castle of Krak des Chevaliers in Syria was captured by the Mameluke Sultan Beibars of Egypt, using a false messenger.  It had been the most important possession of the Knights of St John.  Beibars had surprised Caesarea in 1265, and stormed Arsouf, a town belonging to the Hospital.  Safed, Jaffa, Belfort and the city of Antioch had fallen in 1266, before Beibars took on the “Castle of Krak.”  St Jean d’Acre fell 3 years later.

[29] Anthony Kemp, op. cit., p. 167, and Wolfgang F. Schuerl, op. cit., p. 16.

[30] Anthony Kemp, op. cit., p. 167.

[31] Bruce Allen Watson, Sieges, A Comparative Study, Praeger Publishers, Westport, Connecticut, 1993, p. 1.

[32] Charles Connell, op. cit., p. 10.

[33] Ibid., p. 22.

[34] Anthony Kemp, op. cit., pp. 166-167.

[35] N. J. G. Pounds, The Medieval Castle in England and Wales. Cambridge University Press, 1990.  Internet: http://www.castlewales.com/siege.html.

[36] Philip Warner, Sieges of the Middle Ages, G. Bell & Sons Ltd., London, 1968, p. 5.

[37] William was descended from Vikings who had settled at the mouth of the Seine River in France in 896.  This area, known as Normandy, was ceded to Rollo the Viking Chief by Charles the simple in 911.  William used Normandy as his base and point of assembly for his invasion fleet in 1066.  In the subsequent famous battle, William defeated the Saxon King Harold Godwinson and became the King of Britain.  Carlos Paluzie de Lescazes, op cit., p. 84.

[38] Martin van Creveld, Technology and War, From 2000 BC to the Present, The Free Press, Collier MacMillan Publishers, London, 1989, p. 25-27.

[39] Anthony Kemp, op. cit., pp. 15-16.

[40] Luo Zewen et al, The Great Wall, McGraw Hill Book Coy, Maidenhead, England, 1981, p. 67.

[41] Martin H. Brice, Stronghold, A History of Military Architecture, B.T. Batsford Ltd., London, 1984, p. 33.

[42] Anthony Kemp, op. cit., p. 14.

[43] Martin van Creveld, op. cit., p. 28.

[44] Internet: http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/gabrmetz/gabr000d.htm.

[45] Wolfgang F. Schuerl, Medieval Castles and Cities, Cassell Ltd., London, 1969, p. 64.

[46] Anthony Kemp, op. cit., p. 167.

[47] During the Trojan War (1204-1194 BC), a Greek Army, known as the Achaeans, laid siege to the city of Troy in Asia Minor, just south of the Dardanelles.  According to Greek mythology, the Greeks were commanded by King Agamemnon of Mycenae, brother of the king of Sparta, Menelaus.  The war was reportedly begun when Helen, the wife of Menelaus, was enticed to Troy by Paris, son of the Trojan King, Priam.  Four nine years the Greeks failed to penetrate the sturdy walls of the city.  In the 10th year Hector, another son of King Priam, was killed in individual combat with the mercurial Greek hero Achilles.  Achilles was then killed by Paris.  At this point the Greeks made use of their famous wooden horse, as related above, placing 100 warriors inside and pretending to withdraw the rest of their forces to the island of Bozcaada (Tenedos).  The ruse worked, the city was subdued and Helen was returned to her husband.  The story is told in the Iliad, Odyssey, and Aeneid.  There is considerable historical evidence to support the fact that a war did take place at Troy, although none of the legend of the horse has been confirmed.  David Eggenberger, An Encyclopedia of Battles, Dover Publications, Inc., New York, 1985, pp. 445-446.

[48] Archaeologists have determined that the city of Troy was destroyed about the middle of the 13th century.  It is possible that enemy infiltration brought the long siege to an end, horse or no horse.  The main source for the history is the Iliad.  Charles Connell, op. cit., p. 21-21.

[49] F.E. Adcock, The Greek and Macedonian Art of War, University of California Press, Berkley, 1957, p. 57-62.

[50] Eyewitness accounts of the daring exploits of Alexander unfortunately do not exist.  What we know about him comes from secondary sources. Arrian (first century BC) refers to the works of Ptolemy, a general of Alexander, and Aristobolus, whose writings are lost.  Diodorus Siculus (first century BC) and Quintus Curtius (first century AD) no doubt had access to earlier histories that have been destroyed.

[51] Alexander the Great (356-323 BC).  Alexander’s father Philip II (382-336 BC) was the king of Macedon. Philip II married Olympias, the wild, witch-like daughter of the king of Epirus.  According to Plutarch in his Life of Alexander (2.3-4) when newly wed, Philip came upon his wife asleep with a serpent by her side.  He was filled with revulsion and feared her as an enchantress.  Alexander, born of their union, was a fair-skinned handsome youth, quick to anger.  He studied under Aristotle, the most celebrated philosopher of his time and had Leonidas as a tutor, a man of stern temperament. Alexander thus became a great lover of all kinds of knowledge and always placed Homer’s Iliad alongside of his dagger under his pillow when he slept.  Alexander’s faithful companion in both battle and the hunt was his horse Bucephalus.  Plutarch (6.1-4) records that Alexander was barely fifteen years of age when he tamed this tempestuous and unruly steed. Bucephalus was brought before Philip by a Thessalian who demanded an exorbitant sum of thirteen talents in exchange.  No sooner did an attendant attempt to mount him, than the horse reared up and tossed him to the ground.  As the horse was being led away, Alexander exclaimed that he would be able to mount him.  Philip mocked his son and asked him what sum he would pay in case he was unhorsed.  Alexander replied that he would pay his father the full price of the horse.  On hearing this, the king and his attendants burst out into loud laughter.  Unabashed, Alexander ran to the horse and turned him directly towards the sun, for the youth had observed that Bucephalus was afraid of the motion of his own shadow.  He then lead the horse forward, stroking him gently, and with one nimble leap, mounted him, let him go at full speed and galloped away.  Philip and his attendants looked on in wonder.  When Alexander dismounted, according to Plutarch (6.5), Philip embraced him and said, “O my son, look thee out a kingdom equal to and worthy of thyself for Macedonia is too small for thee.”

[52] 356-323 BC:  Alexander the Great unraveled the legendary Gordian Knot by cutting it with his sword.  Between 336-323 BC, Alexander III mobilizes The Great Army, comprised of light mobile columns & light cavalry bowmen.  He was wounded in 327 BC during an assault on the citadel of Malli in India, when a scaling ladder broke under him.  Having seized Taxila, which was at that time a major centre of Brahman culture, Alexander vanquished the Indian armies of King Puru (Poros in Greek), but because his troops refused to go further he retreated towards the mouth of the Indus river.  He died in Babylon (Iraq), of a fever (possibly of malaria).

[53] Tyre has been of major importance from ancient times.  It was great commercial city on the eastern Mediterranean under the Phoenicians when it came under siege by Nebuchadnezzar in 585 BC during the Babylonian-Phoenician War (585-573 BC).  Alexander’s siege was the first to successfully take Tyre.  David Eggenberger, An Encyclopedia of Battles, Dover Publications, Inc., New York, 1985, p. 450.

[54] Internet: http://oncampus.richmond.edu/academics/as/classics/students/brownie/tyre.htm.

[55] Following the siege of Tyre, Alexander founded the city of Alexandria at the mouth of the Nile, which was destined to be the new commercial and intellectual center of the Eastern Mediterranean world.  In the spring of 331 BC Alexander left the Mediterranean to strike into the heart of the Persian Empire.  Near Nineveh he was met by the Persian leader Darius who was accompanied by an army hastily assembled to stop him.  In the battle of Arbela which followed, Darius was defeated and fled into Media.  Alexander then followed the Tigris River into Babylonia, the central seat of the Persian Empire and its richest region.  From here he proceeded on to Susa, and then to the royal city of Persepolis with its enormous treasure.  There he destroyed the palace by fire according to the geographer Strabo (15.6), ostensibly in revenge for the burning of Greek temples by Xerxes during the Graeco-Persian wars.  Plutarch (38.1-4) gives another version saying that the fire was started during a drunken revelry but was then extinguished by order of Alexander who regretted the deed.

From Ecbatana Alexander pursued Darius to the Caspian Sea.  As the Persian Empire crumbled, Darius was deserted by his generals one by one as well as by his troops. His cousin, Bessus, seized this opportunity to rid himself once and for all of the Persian king.  At night he and a few followers burst into Darius’ tent, tied him up with ropes and carried him to his chariot and on to Bactria.  He hoped eventually to offer the Persian king as a hostage in exchange for Alexander’s recognition of him as ruler of the eastern satrapies.  Alexander followed Darius in hot pursuit.  Seeing he could not escape, Bessus suddenly galloped up to the royal chariot, stabbed Darius to death and escaped. When Alexander finally caught up with his rival, he found only Darius’ corpse. Alexander looked down on his fallen foe with compassion, and covered his body with his purple cloak.

Eventually Bessus was captured and put in chains.  Due to the nature of the crime, Alexander had him sentenced by Persian judges, not by himself.  Bessus was found guilty of rebellion against his king.  The sentence was cruel.  Bessus’ nose and ears are cut off and he is led to Ecbatana where he was crucified on a tree.

Alexander marched through Bactria and Sogdiana putting down rebellions and founding Greek cities.  Then he crossed the Hindu Kush and proceeded on to India.  King Porus ruled one of the principalities, situated between the Hydaspes and Ascenines. Alexander crossed the Hydaspes, and encountered Porus, who held the opposite bank with a powerful force and two hundred elephants.  During the battle that followed, Porus was wounded and fell into Alexander’s hands.  Alexander, however, gained the fallen king as a friend.

It is at this time, Plutarch (61.1) records that Bucephalus died, wounded in battle. Others relate that the horse died of fatigue and old age.  Alexander was overcome with grief.  On the banks of the Hydaspes River he built a city on the tomb of his horse, which he named Bucephalia in his memory.  When he reached the Hyphasis River (Beas) the Macedonian army refused to go farther although Alexander believed he had not much more to go to reach the ocean and the eastern limit of the inhabited world.  He was obliged to give way and the return began.

In the spring of 323 BC, Alexander returned to Babylon.  There he made plans for the construction of a great fleet and the opening of a route by sea from Babylon to Egypt around Arabia.  In Babylon, however, he fell ill, consumed by a raging fever that did not leave him.  He died towards evening on 13 June 323 BC at the age of thirty-three.

[56] The Holy Bible, King James Version, Thomas Nelson Inc., Camden, New Jersey, 1970, 2 Chronicles, Chapter 26, Verse 15, p. 341.

[57] Anthony Kemp, op. cit., p. 14.

[58] Greek fire was a name given by the Crusaders to various inflammable mixtures they encountered in their wars against the Muslims.  The Byzantines did not call it Greek fire (they regarded themselves as Romans), but Maritime or Sea Fire.  The Byzantines reportedly introduced the weapon in 672 at the first Saracenic siege of Constantinople.  The exact composition of Greek fire is unknown, but it likely consisted of variations of an oil or petroleum based substance with pitch to make it burn longer, sulphur to make it stick, and quicklime to make it ignite on contact with water.  These ingredients were difficult to extinguish, and only sand, vinegar or urine were apparently effective in putting the fire out.  The Arab name for the same substance was “Naptha,” and they made highly effective use of it against the Crusader’s siege engines.  The Arabs used small copper, glass or pottery containers filled with naptha and thrown as a form of hand grenade.  Hollow arrow-heads packed with naptha and sprinkled with powdered black sulphur were turned into arrows which sprang into flame as they traveled through the air.  Ordinary flaming arrows with straw and cotton soaked in tar were also used.  At sea, naptha was packed into brass-bound wooden tubes and fired by pumping water into the tubes at high pressure.  The water ignited the naptha and the combined explosion and water pressure projected the naptha a considerable distance with great effect on wooden ships.

[59] Ibid., pp. 162-163.

[60] Procopius was a Byzantine historian, born in the latter years of the fifth century at Caesarea in Palestine.  He died some time after 562 AD.  Little is known of his background except that by a legal and literary training he qualified himself for the civil service.  As early as 527 AD, before Justin’s death, he became counselor, assessor, and secretary to Belisarius, whose fortunes and campaigns he followed for the next twelve or fifteen years.  He was raised to the dignity of an illustrius.  He is reckoned the greatest of the later Greek historians.  Internet: http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/12450a.htm.

[61] Between 885-886 AD, Viking bands of 100-200 men joined together to form armies.  One of these Viking force besieged Paris for 11 months, and it may have involved close to 30,000 men.  Vikings also developed their own cavalry units.

[62] Anthony Kemp, op. cit., p. 164.

[63] Ibid., p. 165.

[64] N. J. G. Pounds, The Medieval Castle in England and Wales. Cambridge University Press, 1990.  Internet: http://www.castlewales.com/siege.html.

[65] Philip Warner, op. cit., p. 29.

[66] Internet: http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/gabrmetz/gabr000d.htm.

[67] N. J. G. Pounds, The Medieval Castle in England and Wales. Cambridge University Press, 1990.  Internet: http://www.castlewales.com/siege.html.

[68] Anna Comnena (1083-1146), was a Byzantine historian and the eldest daughter of Alexios I Comnenos Emperor of Constantinople (1081-1118), and Irene She received, as was the custom for Byzantine princesses, an excellent education in the Greek classics, history, geography, mythology, and even philosophy.  She was married to Nicephorus Bryennius, son of a former pretender to the imperial office, and in 1118 joined in a conspiracy to place her husband on the throne. Failing in her ambition she retired with her mother, the Empress Irene, to a monastery that the latter had founded, where she wrote the Alexiad, a 15-volume biography of her father’s career from 1069 to his death in 1118. Internet: http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/12450a.htm.

[69] Anthony Kemp, op. cit., p.161.

[70] Ibid., p. 162.

[71] Ibid., p. 162.

[72] Carlos Paluzie de Lescazes, Castles of Europe, Crescent Books, Barcelona, 1982, p. 21.

[73] Trevor N. Dupuy, The Evolution of Weapons and Warfare, Hero Books, Fairfax, Virginia, 1984, p. 30.

[74] Brigadier-General Thomas R. Phillips, The Military Institutions of the Romans, Flavius Vegetius, Stackpole Books, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, 1965, p. 59-65.

[75] Internet: http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/gabrmetz/gabr000e.htm.

[76] Charles Connell, op. cit., p. 42-43.

[77] Charles Connell, op. cit., p. 49-50.  The Barbarians crossed the Rhine in 406 AD, and the Visigoth, Alaric, took Rome in 410 AD. Genseric’s Vandals took Hippo, St Augustine’s city, in 431 AD, then Carthage in 439.  They sacked Rome in 455 AD.

[78] Ibid., p. 84. In 52 BC Julius Caesar defeated and took prisoner Vercingetorix the Celtic leader, at Alesia following its siege and capture.  The scarlet cloaked Caesar led 40,000 Legionaries, including some German cavalry, against 100,000 Infantry and 8,000 cavalry under Vercingetorix and Vercassivellaunus.  Vercingetorix was taken to Rome in Chains and beheaded.

[79] Julius Caesar, The Conquest of Gaul, translated by S.A. Handford from The Gallic War (52 BC), Penguin Books, Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England, 1967, p. 192.

[80] Julius Caesar, op. cit., p. 223-233.

[81] H.W. Koch, Medieval Warfare, Bison Books Limited, London, 1982, pp. 12-13.

[82] The Phalanx had proven itself to be effective, but if it was penetrated, the formation tended to fall apart.  As an example, the phalanx was used at the Battle of Pydna (near Mount Olympus in Greece) which took place 22 June 168 BC.  This was the culminating battle of the Third Macedonian War (172-167 BC).  Rome had entered the war on the side of an old ally named Pergamum, when Perseus of
Macedonia had tried to murder Eumenes II, ruler of Pergamum.  Perseus had defeated three Roman armies in the previous three years.   Lucius Aemilius Paulus, son of a Roman consul, arrived with reinforcements.   Paulus soon tried an envelopment of the Macedonians, but it failed when Perseus withdrew across the Aeson River.   On the afternoon of the 22 June, the battle broke out by accident as both sides were watering their horses.  Perseus took the initiative and attacked across the river with his Macedonian phalanx, and the Romans fell back rapidly.  But the rolling terrain soon caused gaps in the phalanx, which Paulus saw and was able to take advantage of after rallying his troops.  Once penetrated the phalanx collapsed.  The Macedonians lost 20,000 killed and 11,000 captured (Perseus escaped but later surrendered).  Roman losses were less than 1,000.  Macedonia was later partitioned by the Romans into four republics under the protection of Rome.

[83] H.W. Koch, Medieval Warfare, Bison Books Limited, London, 1982, p. 13.

[84] The legions under Varus were marching during the autumn with their baggage train to return to their winter quarters on the Rhine or at Aliso.  The Roman force consisted of three legions, six cohorts of auxiliaries, and three troops of cavalry, with an estimated strength of between 12,000 to 18,000 combatants and another 12,000 personnel with the baggage train.  On hearing the first battle cries of the Germans, the vanguard at the head of the column halted near present day Herford where they quickly fortified a suitable place and surrounded it with a stockade and a moat.  As the column arrived it assembled inside the stockade.  Varus abandoned his surplus baggage and marched out the next day intending to reach Aliso, but German attacks forced them into a blocked gorge under heavy rains.  Roman counter attacks failed to make headway over the muddy ground.  Trapped in the Doeren Gorge without any hope of escape, morale disintegrated.  Varus and a number of his officers committed suicide and the bearer of the Roman eagle jumped into a swamp to ensure that Rome’s insignia would not fall into German hands.  The remainder surrendered except for a few, primarily cavalry, who managed to escape and make their way to Aliso where they were besieged.  They successfully broke out of the fortress and got back to Roman lines along the Rhine.  The Germans, expecting a strong Roman force to return to avenge their comrades, withdrew back into the interior. H.W. Koch, Medieval Warfare, Bison Books Limited, London, 1982, p. 14.

(Paul Walter Photo)

Boudicca statue, Westminster, London.

[85] Under Emperor Nero, Roman rule over Britain was benevolent and constructive, except in East Anglia (modern Norfolk and Suffolk).  The death of the Iceni king in 61 AD opened the way to plunder and cruelties on the part of the occupying Roman forces.  The Iceni took up arms under the leadership of the widowed queen Boudicca (Boadicea), and attacked the undefended Roman town of Camulodunum (Colchester), slaughtering the Roman settlers and the Britons who collaborated with them.  Hurrying from Lindum (Lincoln) to put down the revolt, the Ninth Legion was overcome by sheer numbers and virtually annihilated.  At Gloucester, the Second Legion commander. Poenius Postumus, refused to leave the protection of his encampment.  The other two legions in Britain, the Fourteenth and Twentieth, under Governor Suetonius Paulinus, stood in Wales.  Before they could intervene, Boudicca’s rebels attacked Londinium (London), and burned it to the ground after massacring its inhabitants.  Her forces also attacked Verulamium (Saint Albans) killing an estimated 70,000 people in the three rebel onslaughts.  Paulinus force-marched his two legions (10,000 men) to the scene from Wales, and, choosing his ground carefully to give maximum advantage to his vastly outnumbered soldiers, directed a coordinated attack on the Briton rebel horde.  The battle was fought without mercy, even for the women and children in Boudicca’s wagon train.  Roman discipline and tactical skill triumphed in the face of superior numbers.  Almost 80,000 Britons were killed at a cost of 400 dead legionaries and a somewhat larger number of wounded.  The Iceni queen took poison, while at Gloucester the news of the battle induced Postumus to stab himself to death.  The victory of Paulinus gave him rank with Domitius Corbolo, in the East, as the best Roman General of the first century AD. David Eggenberger, An Encyclopedia of Battles, Dover Publications, Inc., New York, 1985, pp. 460-464..

[86] The cities of Adrianople (Edirne), Constantinople (Istanbul), and Rome have each been the site of seven separate battles and sieges; Warsaw has borne the brunt of six, Pavia five, and Alexandria, Baghdad, Paris, Prague and Ravenna four each.  These cities continue to stand, although the 20th century aerial bombardments of Baghdad may be counted as more recent additions to its score.  David Eggenberger, An Encyclopedia of Battles, Dover Publications, Inc., New York, 1985, p. iv.

[87] Jerusalem was besieged and destroyed in 586 BC by Nebuchadnezzar II, King of Babylon, (all its leading personalities were exiled in Mesopotamia, and in turn, Judah ceased to exist as a political entity); Antiochus IV destroyed the wall of Jerusalem between 168-165 BC; the Roman General Pompeii the Great laid siege to Jerusalem in 66 BC, although the city held out for three years.  Titus, the son of Titus Flavius Vespasian conducted the 4th siege as related above. The 5th siege took place in 615 AD during the Byzantine-Persian wars, when the Persians stormed the city, reportedly killing 50,000 and taking another 35,000 prisoners back to Persia.  The Muslims led by caliph Omar I besieged Jerusalem in 637, taking and holding it until the First Crusade in 1099.  Led by Raymond IV of Toulouse, Robert of Normandy, Godfrey de Bouillon, Robert of Flanders and Tancred of Taranto, the Christian army of 1,200 knights and 11,000 foot soldiers began the siege of Jerusalem on 7 June 1099, seizing it by 15 July 1099, and launching a wholesale slaughter of 70,000 of the defenders.  The Crusaders were themselves defeated at the Horns of Hattin near Tiberias in 1187, and were therefore unable to come to the aid of Balian of Ibelin when Saladin began his siege of Jerusalem on 20 September 1187.  It was over by 2 October with some captives ransomed and the rest sold as slaves.  In 1948, the city again came under siege by the Arabs during the first of the modern-era Arab-Israeli wars.  The defense of Jerusalem came under the command of Colonel David Shaltiel of the Hagana, and later with Colonel Moshe Dayan on 4 August 1948.  When the cease-fire finally came into effect, the city was divided with part of it remaining inside Jordan, and remained so until the 1967 six-day war when it came under full Israeli control.  Ibid, pp. 211-212.

[88] The siege of Jerusalem by Titus in AD 70 was conducted with the help of onagers reportedly capable of firing a 20-kilogram stone some 400 meters, although its impact velocity at that range cannot have been high. Anne Gael & Serge Chirol, Châteaux et Sites de La France Medievale, Hachette Realites, Paris, 1978, p. 157.

[89] Extrapolated from The Works of Flavius Josephus. (London: 1906).  http://www.hillsdale.edu/academics/history/War/Classical/Rome/70-Jerusalem-Josephus.htm.

[90] The temple was burnt 10 August AD 70, on the exact same day and month on which it had been burnt by the king of Babylon: Josephus, Ant. b. xx. c. 11. s. 8.

[91] Internet: http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/gabrmetz/gabr000d.htm.

[92] The Works of Flavius Josephus. (London: 1906). Internet: http://www.hillsdale.edu/academics/history/War/Classical/Rome/72-Masada-Josephus.htm.

[93] H.W. Koch, Medieval Warfare, Bison Books Limited, London, 1982, p. 16.

[94] Ibid, p, 16.

[95] Carlos Paluzie de Lescazes, Castles of Europe, Crescent Books, Barcelona, 1982, p. 84.

[96] 742-814 AD:  Charlemagne (born 2 Apr 742, died 28 Jan 814) fought 40 campaigns in a 43 year reign, while carrying his sword Joyeuse.  Offa King of Mercia (757-796 AD) was the only monarch he treated as an equal. (Offa constructed Offa’s Dyke separating England from Wales.)  He stimulated and encouraged revivals of learning, art and literature.  After Charlemagne came the emergence of feudal society, based on the mounted knight and the fortified castle.  The strong protected the weak, and the weak paid a price.  Freemen of some wealth and property became vassals of the neighbouring lord, and in return for his promise of protection, pledged themselves (and retainers, if any) to serve him as cavalry or soldiers under certain clearly defined conditions i.e.: Viking or Magyar raids.  Charlemagne established a logistical organization including supply trains with food and equipment sufficient to maintain his troops for several weeks in the field.  Replenishment of supplies was done on an orderly basis, both by systematic foraging and by convoying additional supply trains to the armies in the field.  This permitted Charlemagne to carry war a thousand miles from the heart of France and to maintain armies in the field on campaign or in sieges, throughout the winter, something unknown in Western Europe since the time of the Romans.

[97] Lynn Montross,  War through the Ages, Harper & Brothers Publishers, New York & London, 1946, p. 97.

[98] Carlos Paluzie de Lescazes, Castles of Europe, Crescent Books, Barcelona, 1982, p. 11.

[99] Wolfgang F. Schuerl, op. cit., p. 74.

[100] Lynn Montross, op. cit., p. 97-98.

[101] Internet: http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/gabrmetz/gabr0015.htm.

[102] Lynn Montross, op. cit., p. 99.

[103] James Graham-Campbell and Dafydd Kidd, The Vikings, British Museum Publications, London, 1980, p. 122.

[104] William Anderson, Castles of Europe, From Charlemagne to the Renaissance, Ferndale Editions, London, 1980, p. 41.

[105] Ian Heath, The Vikings, Osprey Publishing, London, 1985, p. 61.

[106] William Anderson, op. cit., p. 39. The first date in Russian history according to Byzantine sources is 860 AD, when the Kiev Vikings (Rus) now known as Russians made their first attack and siege on Constantinople. The Patriarch Photius attempted to convert them to Christianity between 864-867 AD.

[107] Carlos Paluzie de Lescazes, Castles of Europe, Crescent Books, Barcelona, 1982, pp. 5-6.

[108] Wolfgang F. Schuerl, op. cit., p. 80., and William Anderson, op. cit., p. 45.

[109] R. Allen Brown et al, Castles, A History and Guide, Blandford Press, Poole, Dorset, 1980, p. 19.

[110] R. Allen Brown et al, op. cit., p. 18.

[111] Wolfgang F. Schuerl, op. cit., p. 7.

[112] Carlos Paluzie de Lescazes, Castles of Europe, Crescent Books, Barcelona, 1982, p. 9.

[113] The Haut-Koenigsbourg was constructed in the 12th century and suffered numerous sieges and assaults until it was taken and destroyed by the Swedes during the 30 Years War in the 17th century.  It was restored at the turn of the 20th century. Anne Gael & Serge Chirol, Châteaux et Sites de La France Medievale, Hachette Realites, Paris, 1978, p. 236.

[114] Carlos Paluzie de Lescazes, Castles of Europe, Crescent Books, Barcelona, 1982, p. 12.

[115] Anthony Kemp, op. Cit., pp. 168-169.

[116] David Eggenberger, An Encyclopedia of Battles, Dover Publications, Inc., New York, 1985, p. 487.

[117] Anthony Kemp, op. cit., p. 96.

[118] Ibid, p. 96.

[119] N. J. G. Pounds, The Medieval Castle in England and Wales. Cambridge University Press, 1990.  Internet: http://www.castlewales.com/siege.html.

[120] Hannibal von Luttichau-Barenstein, Alte Burgen-schone Schlosser, Eine romantische Deutschlandreise, (Old Fortresses and beautiful Castles, a romantic German tour), Verlag Das Beste GmbH, Stuttgart, 1980, p. 273.

[121] Lynn Montross, op. cit., p. 161-165.

[122] Carlton J.H. Hayes et al, History of Western Civilization, The MacMillan Company, New York, 1964, p. 179.

[123] G. Braun, Stauferburgen am Oberrhein (Staufer Castles on the Upper Rheinland), GmbH, Karlsruhe, 1977, p. 24.

[124] 1113-1118  Knights Templar founded by Baudoin I (crowned 18 July 1100).  When the Crusaders took the city of Jerusalem on 15 Jul 1099, there was in existence a small hospital for Christian pilgrims dedicated to St John the Baptist and under the rule of a certain Brother Gerard.  Brother Gerard had taken care of many wounded Christian soldiers and had his hospital had so impressed Duke Godfrey of Bouillon that he endowed it with the manor of Montboise, in Brabant.  Other Crusaders also gave grants.  They decided to formalize the hospital with a regular constitution.  The Knights of the Order of the Hospital of St John of Jerusalem (Hospitallers of St John of Jerusalem) were confirmed by the 1113 order of Pope Pascal II as a military order to protect pilgrims and also to defend the Latin states in the East.  They adopted the Augustinian rule, and took as their habit the black robe, with a white cross of eight points on the left side near the heart.  It originally consisted mostly of French Knights (1119-1120), but nine women as nursing sisters were also original members of the Hospitallers at Jerusalem.  About 50 women were generally part of the establishment for the next 150 years.  When Brother Gerard died in 1120, the Hospitallers elected Raymond du Puy, the second founder of the Order, whose destinies he guided for the next 40 years to 1160.  He was the first to take the title of Master.  Pope Clement V suppressed the Order 22 Mar 1312, and two years later burnt the last Grand Master Jacques de Molay; ancestors of the Rosicruscians & Freemasons.

Knights dubbed at the tomb of Christ were known as Knights of the Holy Sepulchre.  When Acre fell in 1291, they lost their last stronghold in the Holyland.  The Order of the Hospital of St John of Jerusalem (Hospitalers) later retreated to Cyprus, then Rhodes, where it ruled for 200 years.  The Sealords of Sultan Suleiman besieged Rhodes in 1522 and forced them out after six months.  Seven years later the Knights were offered Malta by the HRE Charles V (with Tripoli included), for the payment in rent of one falcon.  The Knights arrived in Malta in 1530.  The Order of the Temple of Solomon (Templars) was followed by the Order of St Lazarus, all at the end of the 11th Century.  The orders were comprised of a Grandmaster, Pillars of Lands (provincial masters), Grand Priors, Commanders, and Knights.

In Spain several orders were established in Castille between 1156-1171, including The Orders of: Calatrava; Alcantara; and Santiago (St James).  In Portugal, the Orders of: Avis; Montesa (Aragon); and the Order of Christ.  The Teutonic Order-Great Order of German Knights.  There are awards still presented for the Orders of: The Garter; the Golden Fleece; of St Michael; the Most Ancient Order of the Thistle; the Most Honourable Order of the Bath; the British Empire; the Chrysanthemum; and the Companions of Honour.

The Knights of Malta still exist and continue to function to this day.  Their Order was divided into langues, or tongues: Auvergne, Provence, France, Aragon, Castille, England, Germany, and Italy.  The Turks attacked Malta in 1547 and 1551 unsuccessfully, although the Knights were driven out of Tripoli in 1551.  On 18 May 1565 the Ottoman Turks and their allies totaling 48,000 troops attacked the 8000 men (540 Knights, 4000 Maltese, and Spanish and Italian Mercenaries) on Malta.  The Grand Master, La Valette defeated the Turks.  Six years later the Turks are also defeated at Sea- the Battle of Lepanto.  Napoleon captured Malta in Jun 1798, but it was retaken by the British in Oct the same Year.  In 1802 the Treaty of Amiens ended the war between England and France, and Malta was returned to the Order of St John.  In 1814, under the Treaty of Paris, Malta became a UK possession.

[125] Charles Connell, op. cit., p. 56.

[126] Charles Connell, op. cit., p. 57.

[127] William Anderson, Castles of Europe, from Charlemagne to the Renaissance, Ferndale Editions, London, 1980, p. 46.

[128] A.W. Lawrence, T.E. Lawrence by His Friends, Jonathan Cape, London, 1954, p. 53.

[129] John E. Mack, A Prince of Our Disorder, The Life of T.E. Lawrence, Mack, London, 1976, p. 52-54.

[130] Desmond Stewart, T. E. Lawrence, Paladin, Granada Publishing, London, 1979, p. 61-62.

[131] Anthony Kemp, op cit., p.96 & p. 161.

[132] Ibid., p.161.

[133] Defenestration of Prague took place on 23 May 1618, leading to the start of the Thirty Years War.  Most of the battles took place in Germany.  The war ended on 20 August 1648 with the signing of the Treaty of Westphalia which recognized the independence of the Netherlands.

[134] Werner Bornheim et al, Burgen un Schlosser, Kunst und Kultur in Rheinland-Pfalz, (Fortresses and Castles, Art and Culture in the Rhineland-Pfalz Region), Ahrtal-Verlag, Bad Neuenahr-Ahrweiler, 1981, p. 31.  H. von Luttichau-Barenstein, Alte Burgen-schone Schlosser, Verlag Das Beste, Stuttgart, 1980, p. 137.

[136] Steven Runicman, The Fall of Constantinople, 1453, Cambridge at the University Press, 1965, p. 77-78, 95-97.

[137] Trevor N. Dupuy, The Evolution of Weapons and Warfare, Hero Books, Fairfax, Virginia, 1984, p. 27.

[138] Carcassonne, situated in the middle of the Languedoc on the Aude River in southern France, with portions which date from the 6th century, although its current castle was constructed in the first half of the 12th century.  The original town was built on a bluff sloping down steeply on all sides.  It is an amalgam of mainly Romanesque and Gothic buildings which were restored by Viollet-le-Duc in the 19th century. Wolfgang F. Schuerl, op. cit., p. 143.

[139] H.W. Koch, Medieval Warfare, Bison Books Limited, London, 1982, p. 85.

[140] Ibid., p. 166.

[141] Anthony Kemp, op. Cit., p. 166.

[142] Philip Warner, op. cit., p. 30.

[143] Wolfgang F. Schuerl, op. cit., p. 68.

[144] Martin van Creveld, op. cit., p. 33.

[145] H.W. Koch, Medieval Warfare, Bison Books Limited, London, 1982, p. 128.

[146] Charles Connell, op. cit., p. 11.

[147] Internet: http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/gabrmetz/gabr000e.htm.

[148] John E. Mack, op. cit., p. 52-53.

[149] In 1152, Eleanor of Aquitaine, divorced wife of Louis VII of France, married the Count of Anjou, who became Henry II of England in 1154.  Her dowry was half of France.  For the next 300 years, France and England would be at war over these territories.  In 1214, Philip II Augustus of France defeated the English ally Emperor Otto IV of Germany.  Louis IX (Saint Louis) crushed a rebellion of nobles supported by England.  This resulted in England being forced to give up all of her French territories except for Aquitaine by the Treaty of Paris in 1259.  The dispute continued long after the treaty was signed, with England’s Edward II launching the “Hundred Years War” in 1339.  In spite of his victory at Crécy, his campaign was brought to a halt by lack of money. Carlos Paluzie de Lescazes, Castles of Europe, Crescent Books, Barcelona, 1982, p. 84.

[150] John Lackland (1199-1216) was defeated by the Capetian Philip Augustus in 1214 at Roche-au-Moine, and his allies, Otto IV of Brunswick and the Counts of Flanders and Boulogne, had also been defeated at the Battle of Bouvines.  His barons took advantage of this to force him to accept the conditions of Magna Carta in 1215.

[151] Anthony Kemp, op. cit., p. 170.

[152] Anthony Kemp, op. cit., p. 171.

[153] William Anderson, op. Cit., p. 118-124.

[154] ca. 1162-1227  Genghis Khan, son of Mongol chieftain Yesugai, born in the south east of the Baikal.  His son Tuli took over after his death.  The Mongols withdrew undefeated in 1242.  Khan Toktamish and Tamerlane lead both the White Horde and the Golden Horde, uniting them 1243-1400.

[155] Genghis learned from Chinese engineers the use of siege engines, mangonels and catapults.  Trevor N. Dupuy, The Evolution of Weapons and Warfare, Hero Books, Fairfax, Virginia, 1984, p. 71.

[156] In the first decades of the 13th Century the Mongol horsemen, united by Genghis Khan in 1206, conquered the empire of the Chin Tartars to the South of their homelands, and advanced west through Muslim Asia as far as the Caucasus, thus creating the nucleus of an empire that would become, under Kublai Khan, larger than any the world had seen.

The term horde, denoting a Mongol tribe or a field army, did not necessarily mean large numbers of men.  Genghis Khan and his successors accomplished feats that would be hard, if not impossible, for modern armies to duplicate, principally because they had one of the best-organized, best trained, and most thoroughly disciplined armies ever created.  The Mongol army was usually smaller than those of its principal opponents.  The largest force Genghis Khan ever assembled was 240,000 men, with which he conquered Persia.  The Mongol armies that later conquered Russia and all of eastern and central Europe never exceeded 150,000 men.

[157] Trevor N. Dupuy, The Evolution of Weapons and Warfare, Hero Books, Fairfax, Virginia, 1984, p. 72.

[158] A.V.B. Norman and G.M. Wilson, Treasures from the Tower of London, Lund Humphries, Bradford, 1982, p. 29.  Werner Meyer and Erich Lessing, Deutsche Ritter, Deutsche Burgen, Orbis Verlag, 1990, p. 211.

[159] Under Charles V of France, Bertran Du Guesclin began the reconquest of the French territories captured by England in the Hundred Years War at that time.  The balance of power returned to the English forces again when Henry V of England landed in France in 1415 and won the battle of Agincourt.  Carlos Paluzie de Lescazes, op. cit., p. 85.

[160] Attila the Hun reached Metz in June 451 AD, but he was defeated in the Battle of Chalons-sur-Marne.  He went on to invade northern Italy in 452 AD.  He died in 453 AD.

[161] During the reign of Charles VII, King of France (1422-1461), the country was divided into three large areas: The English occupied Normandy, Poitou, and Aquitaine; Burgundy was an independent state and the remainder consisted of Anjou and the south of France under the French crown.  Joan of Arc was aided and in many ways manipulated by a number of ruling power-brokers, serving as a powerful and near-mystical symbol in the battles which helped to turn the tide in favor of France.  Normandy was ultimately recovered by France in 1450, and Aquitaine in 1461.  Carlos Paluzie de Lescazes, op. cit., p.85.

[162] Lynn Montross, War through the Ages, Harper & Brothers Publishers, New York and London, 1946, p. 183.

[163] During the reign of Louis XI (1461-1483), Burgundy was annexed after the death of its ruler, Charles the Bold, at which time Maine and Provence fell to the French on the death of King René.  France lost Flanders in 1482 as it formed part of the dowry of Marie of Burgundy when she married Maximillian of Austria.  When the Burgundian inheritance was divided by the Treaty of Senlis in 1493, the groundwork was laid for the future rivalry between France and the Hapsburgs.  Carlos Paluzie de Lescazes, op.cit., p. 85.

[164] There is nothing to show that Joan had military ability, as the French men-at-arms often averted a disaster by declining to attack when the tactical circumstances were unwinable.  Joan would eventually be taken prisoner, tried and convicted on charges of heresy, and burnt at the stake in Rouen by the English.  After her martyrdom, it took 15 years of anarchy and civil strife before another woman helped to transform warfare as it was then known.  Agnes Sorel, one of the first of the royal mistresses to mold French history, urged Charles to create a formal military establishment.  As a result, the first standing army of the Middle Ages came into being.  It consisted of 9,000 permanent troops, paid and equipped by the king, and which could be used to crush his enemies.  The raising of this small force set a precedent for other monarchs, and is one of the landmarks of military history.  With these forces at his disposal, Charles conducted a series of swift campaigns which cleared France of the invaders, leaving the English only Calais as the prize of a century’s conquests.

[165] The Wars of the Roses took place 1450-1485 in England between the houses of York (White Rose) under Richard Plantagenet, and Lancaster (Red Rose) under Henry VI.  A scion of the latter house founded a new dynasty in 1485, when the Tudor, Henry VII, became king of England.

[166] Lynn Montross, op. cit., p. 189-190.

[167] Bruce Allen Watson, op. cit., p. 2.

[168] General Sir John Hackett, The Profession of Arms, Sidgwick & Jackson Ltd., Great Britain, 1983, p. 57.

[169] Hans Halberstadt, The World’s Great Artillery, from the Middle Ages to the Present Day, Barnes & Noble Books, New York, 2002, p. 11.

[170] Bruce Allen Watson, op. cit., p. 2.

[171] Lynn Montross, op. cit., p. 111-112.

[172] The conquest of Constantinople took place from 11-13 April1204.  The Varangian (English/Danish) Guard fought well, but were destroyed by the Crusaders and Venetians.

[173] Martin H. Brice, op. cit., p. 95.

[174] Charles Connell, op. cit., p. 59.

[175] Lynn Montross, op. cit., p. 195.

[176] Lynn Montross, op. cit., p. 223.

[177] In 1444, a great Egyptian armada, too powerful for the galleys of  “the Religion,” had landed a force of 18,000 Mamelukes on the island of Rhodes.  The island of Rhodes was ravaged from end to end, and the siege of the city lasted 40 days.  The Egyptians had concentrated their fire on the outlying fort covering the entrance to the Harbor of the Galleys, where the Castle of St Nicholas was later built, and on the curtain wall linking the harbor to St Peter’s Tower.  By mid August, the curtain wall began to show a serious breech, and John de Lastic decided to take the offensive and to make a sortie in force with all the troops at his disposal.  On 24 August 1444, in the darkness of the early morning the garrison silently filed out of the fortress and formed up in front of the ditch, light troops in front, supported by a stand of pikes and the archers on the flanks.  As soon as daylight began to appear, the drums and trumpets sounded the charge, and the Egyptian camp was successfully rushed.  A great number of Mamelukes were killed, and the remainder, taken completely by surprise, fled in panic to their galleys and hastily embarked, abandoning guns, stores and baggage to the garrison.

[178] Lynn Montross, op. cit., p. 225.

[179] Craig Philip, Last Stands, Famous Battles Against the Odds, Bison Books Ltd., Kimbolton House, London, 1994, Introduction.

[180] William Seymour, Great Sieges of History.  Brassey’s (UK), Oxford, 1991, p. 46.

[181] William Seymour, op. cit., p. 47.

[182] William Seymour, op. cit., p. 49.

[183] William Seymour, op. cit., p. 50.

[184] Charles Connell, op. cit., p. 75-84.

[185] The Inquisition began in 1478, instituted by Isabel in Castile, Spain.  The Spanish Inquisition was formally established by a union of the Inquisitions of Aragon and Castile in 1483.  Torquemada was appointed Grand Inquisitor 1493.  The Inquisition lasted until the 19th Century, and is estimated to have been inflicted on 3 million people.

[186] Having set out from Cuba, Hernan Cortes (1485-1547), landed near the site of modern Veracruz with 500 men on 22 April 1519.  He then marched on Mexico, arriving in August, and entered Tlaxacallan on 23 September.  He destroyed Cholula on 18 October, and entered Mexico City on 8 November where he took power.  He conquered the Aztec empire of Montezuma in two years.

[187] TIME magazine, 21 February 1994, p. 11.

[188] G. J. Ashworth,  War and the City, Routledge, London and New York, 1991, p. 31.

[189] Bruce Allen Watson, op. cit., p. 3.

[190] Russell F. Weigley, The Age of Battles: the Quest for Decisive Warfare from Breitenfeld to Waterloo.  Indiana University Press, 1991, p. 55.

[191] Reginald Bloomfield, Sebastien le Prestre de Vauban, 1633-1707, Methuen & Company Ltd., London, 1938, p. 61.

[192] Harold A. Skaarup, Vauban: His Fortifications and Methods of Siege, RMC War Studies 500 Paper, 14 January 1994, p. 3.

[193] Bruce W, Fry, “An Appearance of strength” The Fortifications of Louisbourg, Volume One and Volume Two.  Canadian Government Publishing Centre, Supply and Services Canada, Hull, Quebec, 1984, p. 45.

[194] Ian Hogg, op. Cit., p. 129-130.

[195] Bruce Allen Watson, op. cit., p. 7.

[196] Bernard L. Montgomery, A History of Warfare, Collins, London, 1968, p. 295

[197] J.F.C. Fuller, Major General, The Conduct of War, 1789-1961, Lyre and Spottiswoode, London, 1962, p. 90-91.

[198] Marguerita Z. Herman, Ramparts, Fortifications From the Renaissance to West Point, Avery Publishing Group Inc., Garden City park, New York, 1992, p. 46-47.

[199] The first wave of the Black Death swept through Europe between 1347-1350.  The Black Death originated in the steppes of Central Asia, and traveled the trade routes opened up by the Mongols, reaching Constantinople in 1347.  By the end of the following year it had spread through Italy, France, Spain, and Portugal, and had appeared in southern England.  The infection was then carried north, through Scotland and Germany, reaching the Baltic in 1350.  A few sparsely populated areas were spared, but overall perhaps a third of the population of Europe perished in the first epidemic of 1347-1350.  Outbreaks continued for many years afterwards.

[200] Paul Johnson, Castles of England, Scotland and Wales, Weinfeld and Nicolson, London, 1989, pp. 168-173.

[201] Wimmer, Jan, The 1683 Siege of Vienna (Warsaw; Interpress, 1983); Internet:

http://campus.northpark.edu/history/WebChron/EastEurope/ViennaSiege.html.

[202] Russell F. Weigley, The Age of Battles: the Quest for Decisive Warfare from Breitenfeld to Waterloo.  Indiana University Press, 1991, p. 55

[203] Reginald Bloomfield, Sebastien le Prestre de Vauban, 1633-1707, Methuen & Company Ltd., London, 1938, p. 61.

[204] Russell F. Weigley, op. cit., p. 53-54.

[205] Field-Marshal Viscount Bernard L. Montgomery of Alamein, A History of Warfare, (Collins, London, 1968), p. 293.

[206]  Reginald Bloomfield, op. cit., p. 56.

[207] Bernard L. Montgomery, op. cit., p. 293.

[208] A list of definitions, terms and illustrations used to describe the fortifications is included in the appendix.

[209] Bernard L. Montgomery, op. cit., p. 295.

[210] Ian Hogg, The History of Fortification, Orbis Publishing Ltd., New York, 1981, p. 120-121.

[211] The large citadel Vauban built at Arras still stands today.  Peter and Helen Titchmarsh, Exploring France, Warwick, 1990, p. 191.

[212] Bruce W. Fry, “An appearance of strength” The Fortifications of Louisbourg, Volume One, (Parks Canada, 1984), p. 38.

[213] Ibid. p. 38.

[214] Loc. cit., p. 38.

[215] Bruce W. Fry, op. cit., p. 39.

[216] Ibid. p. 39.

[217] Loc. cit.

[218] Loc. cit.

[219] Loc. cit.

[220] Loc. cit.

[221] Loc. cit.

[222] Some of which are visible in the fortifications at Longwy, Mauberge and Verdun, where one can see the characteristic designs of Vauban in the curved flanks protected by orillons.  Loc. cit.

[223] Peter and Helen Titchmarsh, op. cit., Index.

[224] Colonel T.N. Dupuy, The Evolution of Weapons and Warfare, Indianapolis, 1980, p. 110.  Ian Hogg, The History of Fortification, St. Martin’s Press Inc, New York, 1981, p. 122.

[225] H.W. Koch, History of Warfare, Bison Books Ltd., London, 1987, p. 193.

[226] Peter Paret, op. cit., p. 81.

[227] Russell F. Weigley, op. cit., p. 56.

[228] Reginald Bloomfield, op cit., p. 59.

[229] Bruce W. Fry, op. cit., p. 41.

[230] Ibid. p. 42.

[231] Peter Paret, op. cit., p. 82.

[232]  Bruce W. Fry, op. cit., p. 42.

[233] Bruce W. Fry, op. cit., p. 43.

[234] Field Marshal Viscount Bernard L. Montgomery of Alamein, op. cit., p. 313.

[235] Bruce W. Fry, op. cit., p. 44-45.

[236] Ibid. p. 43.

[237] Peter Paret, op. cit., p. 81.

[238] Bruce W. Fry, op. cit., p. 43.

[239] Reginald Bloomfield, op. cit., pp. 141-142.

[240] Bruce W. Fry, op. cit., p. 43.

[241] Peter Paret, op. cit., p. 81.

[242] Peter Paret, op. cit., p. 75

[243] Bruce W. Fry, op. cit., p. 41.

[244] Peter Paret, op. cit., p. 81.

[245] Bruce W. Fry, op. cit., p. 41.

[246] Louise Déchene, la correspondance de Vauban relative au Canada. Ministere des affaires culturelles, (Paris, 1968), p. 3, 3rd para, and André Charbonneau, Québec, p. 35 & 99.

[247] Ibid. p. 4, 3rd para, free translation.

[248] Leslie F. Hannon, Forts of Canada, The Conflicts, Sieges, and Battles that Forged a Great Nation.  McClelland and Stewart Ltd., 1969, p. 62.

[249] H. W. Koch, History of Warfare, p. 276.

[250]  Leslie F. Hannon, op. cit., p. 30.

[251] Leslie F. Hannon, op. cit., p. 30.

[252] The English captured Louisbourg in 1745, during King George’s War (1744-1748).  This was the third French-English conflict in North America, which ended with the Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle.

[253] Leslie F. Hannon, Forts of Canada, The Conflicts, Sieges, and Battles that Forged a Great Nation.  McClelland and Stewart Ltd., 1969, p. 30.

[254] Leslie F. Hannon, op. cit., p. 30.

[255] Lynn Montross, op. cit., p. 442.

[256] David Eggenberger, An Encyclopedia of Battles, Dover Publications, Inc., New York, 1985, p. 382.

[257] The American Civil War was fought between April 1861 and 1 April 1865.  The issue of slavery, particularly in the new states being formed from western territories, drove an ever larger wedge between the free states of the North and the slave holding states to the South.  When the Republican candidate for President of the United States, Abraham Lincoln, won election on 6 November 1860, the situation reached a crisis.  South Carolina seceded from the Union on 20 December 1860, declaring that its sovereignty now stood in jeopardy.  Six other states followed suit from 9 January to 1 February 1861: Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas.

On 4 February representatives from these states formed the Confederate States of America, with Jefferson Davis elected President.  Federal forts and arsenals were seized throughout the South.  Confederate shore batteries forced the surrender of Fort Sumter outside Charleston, South Carolina on 13 April.  President Lincoln then called for 75,000 volunteers to put down the “insurrection” against the United States.  From 17 April to 20 May, four more states left the Union: Virginia, Arkansas, Tennessee, and North Carolina.  The Confederate government established its capitol at Richmond, Virginia, and mobilized for war.  Its chief aim was to force the North to recognize its independence.  The 23 states of the North and West, under the leadership of Lincoln, sought originally only to restore the Union.  However, after the President’s Emancipation Proclamation of 1 January 1863, freeing the slaves became an almost equally important objective.

For four years the United States was torn by bitter civil war.  The major theater of operations was east of the Appalachians, especially in northern Virginia between the two hostile capitals of Washington, DC, and Richmond.  From the Appalachians westward to the Mississippi River an important secondary theater developed.  The last two Confederate armies in the field surrendered on 9 April and 18 April 1865.  In the costliest war in United States history (in the proportion of casualties to participants), the Confederate government was decisively abolished.  In all, the North mobilized 1,557,000 men, the South 1,082,000.  Federal losses were 359,528 dead (of these 110,070 were killed or mortally wounded in battle), 275,175 wounded.  Confederate casualties were 258,000 dead (including 94,000 battle deaths) and more than 100,000 reported wounded.

[258] Herbert M. Schiller, Sumter Is Avenged! The Siege and Reduction of Fort Pulaski.  White Mane Publishing Co., Shippenburg, Pennsylvania, 1996.  Commentary by Walter J. Jr., Fraser.

[259] The Victoria Cross, the Commonwealth’s highest military decoration for bravery, is founded by Queen Victoria in 1856 to award outstanding gallantry in the Crimean War.  The decoration, a bronze cross pattee with, in relief, the Royal crest, bears the simple words: “For Valour.”  It is suspended from a ribbon that was formerly blue for the navy and red for the army.  The ribbon is now red (dull crimson) for all services.

[260] Lynn Montross, op. cit., p. 676.

[261] The British had expanded into large portions of Central and Southern Africa just before the turn of the century.  Cecil Rhodes, a British “diamond king” developed part of this territory and gave it his name “Rhodesia” (now Zimbabwe) in 1895.  He clashed with President Kruger of the Transvaal Republic, just as major deposits of gold were discovered launching a destabilizing rush to the area.  A Briton named Jameson led a disastrous and unsuccessful raid into the Transvaal which began much of the trouble leading up to the war.  Jameson, a friend of Rhodes was captured and the German Kaiser, William II, telegraphed his congratulations to Kruger.  Although William was Queen Victoria’s grandson, the British were outraged.  Relations between the Boer Republics and Great Britain deteriorated further because of the poor treatment of foreign miners and prospectors who had flooded into the Transvaal in the Gold Rush.  War broke out in 1899.  The skill and tenacity of the Boer farmers had been seriously underrated and the Boers under the command of men like General Cronje who led the Transvaal forces at the sieges of Mafeking and Kimberly, inflicted a number of serious defeats on the British forces with heavy losses.  The arrival in early 1900 of Lord Roberts, who had conquered Afghanistan, and Lord Kitchener who had conquered the Sudan, improved the British situation, but the war did not end until May 1902.  Though the Boers were granted the same civil liberties as those in effect throughout the British Empire, the two small farmer republics of the Transvaal and the Orange Free State disappeared, and the British dominated all of South Africa.  Larousse Encyclopedia of Modern History from 1500 to the Present Day, Ed Marcel Dunan, Paul Hamlyn, Singapore, 1973, pp. 335-336.

[262] Arthur Conan Doyle, The Siege of Mafeking; The Great Boer War: A Two-Years’ Record, 1899-1901, London, Smith, Elder & Co., 1901.  Internet: http://www.pinetreeweb.com/conan-doyle-mafeking.htm.

[263] On 28 June 1914, the Austrian Arch-Duke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated at Sarajevo in Bosnia.  Austria held Serbia responsible, and William II promised his support to the Austro-Hungarians in case of war.  On 28 July 1914 Austria-Hungary declared war on the Serbia.  Shortly afterwards, on 1 August, Germany declared war on Russia, and on 3 August Germany declared war on France and entered Belgium.  On 4 August 1914, Great Britain declared war on Germany.  As a British Colony, Canada was automatically at war as well.

[264] Alistair Horne, The Price of Glory, Verdun 1916, Macmillan and Co Ltd., London, 1962, p. 33.

[265] Alistair Horne, op. cit., p. 205-206.

[266] Alistair Horne, The Price of Glory, Verdun, 1916, MacMillan and Co Ltd., London, 1962, p. 263.

[267] Alistair Horne, op. cit., p. 304.

[268] Charles Connell, op. cit., p. 196-202.

[269] Alistair Horne, op. cit., p. 338.

[270] Peter Paret, Makers of Modern Strategy from Machiavelli to the Nuclear Age, Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey, 1986, p. 604-605.

[271] Trevor N. Dupuy, The Evolution of Weapons and Warfare, Hero Books, Fairfax, Virginia, 1984, p. 330-331.

[272] Michael Hickey, Out of the Sky, A History of Airborne Warfare, Mills & Boon Limited, London, 1979, p. 51

[273] Michael Hickey, op. cit., p. 52.

[274] Ibid, p. 53.

[275] James Lucas, Storming Eagles, German Airborne Forces in World War Two, Arms and Armour Press, London, 1988, p. 22.

[276] Philip de Ste Croix, Airborne Operations, An Illustrated Encyclopedia of the Great Battles of Airborne Forces, Salamander Books, London, 1978, p. 43.

[277] Philip de Ste Croix, op. cit., p. 44.

[278] The Belgian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Belgium, The Official Account of what happened, 1939-1940, 1941, p. x.

[279] On 22 June 1941, Adolf Hitler launched Operation Barbarossa, the greatest ground attack in history, with 138 divisions, (including 19 armoured divisions).  On the left, Field Marshal Wilhelm von Leeb’s Army Group “C” with 30 divisions attacked from East Prussia through the Baltic States toward Leningrad.  On the right, Field Marshal Karl von Rundstedt’s Army Group “A” with 57 divisions drove southeast from southern Poland and Rumania into the Ukraine.  In the center, Field Marshall Fedor von Bock’s Army Group “B” with 51 divisions, carried the heaviest weight of the German armor and with four armies in the van press north of the Pripet Marshes straight towards Moscow.  To defend against this onslaught, the Soviet Union had 148 divisions spread along the 1,500-mile long frontier from the Baltic to the Black Sea.  The Russian army groups were commanded by General Kliment Voroshilov in the north, General Semën Timoshenko in the center, and General Semën Budënny in the south.  The ensuing combat is now known to history as the world’s greatest land battle.  In the north, Field Marshall von Leeb’s forces advanced rapidly through the Baltic States to close in on Leningrad within 10 weeks of the initial invasion.  David Eggenberger, An Encyclopedia of Battles, Accounts of Over 1,560 Battles from 1479 BC to the Present.  Dover Publications, Inc., New York, 1985, p. 411.

[280] Internet: http://www.cityvision2000.com/history/900days.htm.

[281] David Eggenberger, An Encyclopedia of Battles, Accounts of Over 1,560 Battles from 1479 BC to the Present.  Dover Publications, Inc., New York, 1985, p. 121.

[282] Bruce A. Watson, op. cit., p. 149.

[283] Bruce A. Watson, op. cit., p. 149.

[284] Bruce A. Watson, op. cit., p. 150.

[285] Bernard B. Fall, Hell in a Very Small Place, The Siege of Dien Bien Phu, J.B. Lippincott Company, Philadelphia, New York, 1967, p. 1-3.

[286] Philip de Ste Croix, op. cit., p. 176.

[287] Bruce A. Watson, op. cit., p. 150.

[288] Bernard B. Fall, op. cit., p. 52-53.

[289] Philip de Ste Croix, op. cit., p. 177.

[290] Bernard B. Fall, op. cit., pp. 381-382.

[291] Bernard B. Fall, op. cit., p. 399.

[292] Philip de Ste Croix, op. cit., p. 177.

[293] Charles Connell, op. cit., pp. 257-264.

[294] On 6 and 9 August 1945, Atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, following the first atomic bomb exploded at Alamagordo in the United States.  A non-nuclear explosive charge is used to bombard fragments of fissile material which thus reach a critical mass and spark off a chain reaction in a fraction of a second.  Other countries quickly followed with nuclear devices of their own: the USSR on 14 July 1949, Great Britain in 1952, France on 13 February 1960, China  in 1964, India in 1974, Pakistan more recently and certainly Israel, South Africa and soon others.  On 1 November 1952, the first thermonuclear H-bomb was exploded in the USA.  The A-bomb uses the fission of heavy nuclei, while the H-bomb uses light nuclei.  The USSR quickly followed with an H-bomb device of its own on 12 Aug 1953, Great Britain in 1957, China in 1967 and France in1968.  The detonation of the first atomic bomb in modern times marked 1945 as year one of the atomic era.

[295] Anthony Kemp, op. cit., p. 14.

[296] The White House, Washington, 20 September 2002, W01081-02: The National Security Strategy of the United States of America, p.22.

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