This Day in History

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1715. King Louis XIV of France (1643-1715) is generally credited with having instituted the first modern military establishment, not just an army, but the financial, administrative, and bureaucratic apparatus necessary to support it on a permanent footing, an effort that established France as the premiere military power in Europe for two centuries. One interesting characteristic of the French Army during his reign was the remarkable stability in the officer corps, which consisted mostly of noblemen. Even in wartime there was surprisingly little turnover in officer slots, save as a result of casualties.
A good example can be seen in some statistics for French regiments during the Nine Years’ War (1688-1697). this was a complex affair that involved pretty much everyone in Europe against France, unless they were temporarily allied with France.

Average Turnover of Senior Officers in
French Infantry Regiments, 1688-1697
Colonels   1.85
Lieutenant Colonels   2.04
Majors   2.41
Grenadier Captains   2.58
In effect, during the war, the French Army had to fill every colonel’s slot nearly twice, and every grenadier captain’s slot somewhat more than 2½ times. Junior officers, naturally, seem to have turned over more frequently. The fates of about 83-percent of the French infantry officers in these slots during this period are known. Of those, about 13-percent died in the service, either in combat, by disease, or by peradventure. About 6-percent actually retired, whether from wounds, illness, or other reason, nearly 2-percent were expelled from the army by the king, and some 14-percent were transferred to other duties.

1914   Germans execute c. 675 civilians, including some infants, at Dinant, Belgium, as franc-tireurs

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1944. When the 2nd French Armored division set out to enter Paris, it was in three columns.  Each had a half track infantry battalion of the Regiment du Marche du Tchad, a squadron of Spahis on reconnaissance, a squadron of Fusiliers-Marins tank destroyers, an artillery regiment, and a tank regiment: either Cuirassiers, Chasseurs, or Chars de Combat.
The vehicles were blazoned in the French style.  The Cuirassiers adopted the names of villages already liberated: Caen, Evroux, Liseux.  The Chaseurss chose Marshals of the Empire, Lannes or Murat.  The Chars de Combat used victories of the 1814 campaign: Romilly, Champaubert, Montmirail.  The Fuslers-Marins chose the winds: Ouragon, Scirocco, Tempete.
Held up by stubborn defences, and under pressure from his corps commander, Gerow, to maintain progress or the American 4th division would make first entrance, general Leclerc ordered a captain of the T chad infantry to take a platoon of infantry and three tanks to find a route into the city.
Slipping down side streets ended up crossing at the Pont d'Austerlitz and drove up by the Quai des Celestins.  At 0:30 pm his three tanks, Montmirail, Champaubert, and Romilly came to the Hotel de Ville.  Von Choltitzs headquarters was a few hundred yards up the Rue Dr Rivoli.
The news brought the bells of Paris to life.  Choltitz called Speidel, chief of staff of Army Group B,  he lifted the receiver so the bells could be heard.  Any orders, he asked, and asked Sprite to watch over his wife and children in Germany.

The final irony was that the company chosen by Leclerc to slip into Paris?  It was mostly Spanish.
Republicans who fled the Spanish Civil War to Chad where they enlisted in the French Foreign Legion.

[Sir Slash]

Great story! 

[besilarius]

53 BC. To finance his invasion of Parthia, the Roman Triumvir Marcus Licinius Crassus plundered the temple of the Syrian goddess Atargatis in Heiropolis, as well as that of the Jewish God in Jerusalem, which may help explain why he lost big time at Carrhae.

1927. The airship Los Angeles was manhandled by the wind.
https://m.youtube.com/shorts/XD6T-y44RDk

1944. the junior officer of the deck aboard the battleship Washington spotted a glow from the ship's navigation bridge, which he took to be someone taking an illegal smoke.
He yelled, "Sailor! Put that cigarette out!"
Nothing happened.
Not only did the man puffing away on the navigation bridge fail to put out his smoke, but he seemed to be puffing harder, as the glowing end grew brighter.
The officer of the deck shouted his order once or twice more. Then, frustrated, he summoned the ship's master-at-arms. When the man arrived, he told him "Bring that sailor to the chart house."
Off went the master-at-arms. A few moments later he came back. And with him was Vice Admiral Willis "Ching" Lee, senior battleship commander of the Pacific Fleet, who had been having a stogie on what was, after all, his flagship. Mildly amused, Lee came because he didn't want the master-at-arms chewed out by an irate officer of the deck.
As the master-at-arms left the chart house, he could hear Lee saying, "You're a lieutenant, j.g., and I'm a vice admiral, and I can smoke any Goddamn place I want to."

[bayonetbrant]

yeah, I've seen a few senior officers like that....

[besilarius]

1260 tHe fighting between the Guelphs and Ghibellines in pre Renaissance Italy was utterly cutthroat.
The Guelph troops of Venice, Trent, Padua, and Vicenza invested San Zenone. Completely circled and with no possibility of mounting a defence, Alberico surrendered in the hopes of saving his and his relatives' lives. The hatred his brother had incurred, however, was too great. The following day his sons, some still young children, were chopped to pieces before his eyes while he languished in chains. His female relatives were paraded naked through the streets and then burned alive. Alberico, having been forced to assist in their execution, was then tortured with hot irons, tied to the tail of a horse, and dragged through the streets until dead.

1810   The battle of Grand Port, Mauritius, a French base in the Indian Ocean
French frigate squadron of Bellone, Minerve, Victor and captured Indiaman Ceylon, defeated a British squadron at Vieux Grand Port, Mauritius. HMS Nereide (38), Cptn. Nesbit J. Willoughby, and HMS Iphegenia (36), Cptn. Henry Lambert, struck. HMS Sirius (36), Cptn. Samuel Pym, and HMS Magicienne (32), Cptn. Lucius Curtis,  were both burnt to prevent them falling into enemy hands after grounding.
Nesbit J Willoughby, Captain of the Nereide, was a foolhardy, brave sea dog.  Regularly in trouble with superiors, he had made lieutenant twice and been demoted for being insubordination.
He was tried by court-martial at Cape Town in 1808 on charges of cruelty; he seems to have taken a great delight in inflicting punishment, but he was acquitted with the advice to be more moderate in future in his language.
At Grand Port, Willoughby initiated the attack against the wishes of Captain Lambert, who felt obliged to follow.  The entrance was very tricky and Nereide and all of the other ships grounded under heavy fire by the forts guarding the port.
Under heavy fire, his ship had 222 casualties out of a crew of 281.  His own Injuries included the loss of an eye, and a portion of his neck was blown off revealing his windpipe.  Once again he survived his wounds.  Realizing that the navy would not employ him with these disabilities, he did what seemed righteous to him.
He volunteered for the Russian army to oppose the invasion of 1812.  Fighting with them, he was captured by the French and forced to accompany them to Moscow.  And then still under guard, he returned to Poland.
C. Northcote Parkinson (Parkinson's Laws) declared him "The Immortal".  For as the French troops died like flies around him, he just went on and on.  Surviving everything that man and nature threw at him.
Finally escaping from the French control, even the Russians would not believe this damaged man should be at war.
So, he joined the Prussian army.
The Annual Register of his death noted: "He was eleven times wounded with balls, three times with splinters, and cut in every part of his body with sabres and tomahawkes: his face was disfigured by explosions of gunpowder, and he lost an eye and had part of his neck and jaw shot away... and at Leipzig had his right arm shattered by cannon shot."
He is remembered as one of the most reckless characters in British naval history, partially due to his being court martialled four times.

[Sir Slash]

Brothers can be nothing but trouble sometimes. 

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 413 BC   a lunar eclipse caused the Athenians to postpone an attempt to escape from Syracuse harbor, dooming them to destruction

1776      The largest battle of the American Revolution began on the northwestern end of Long Island, near the village of Brooklyn, George Washington had concentrated some 10,000 indifferently equipped troops, a mixture of raw recruits, militiamen, and some Continentals. Facing them were some 20,000 well-trained and well-equipped British regulars and Hessian mercenaries. In a three day battle, the Patriots were soundly beaten, and only some desperate rear guard fighting and a fortuitous fog saved the army, as Washington evacuated his troops to Manhattan Island.

Head-Quarters,
Colonel Roger Morris's House,
ten miles from New York,
September 19, 1776

 

Gentlemen: I was honoured the night before last with your favor of the 13th instant...
In respect to the attack and retreat from Long Island, the publick papers will furnish you with accounts nearly true. I shall only add, that in the former we lost about eight hundred men; more than three-fourths of which were taken prisoners. This misfortune happened in great measure, by two detachments of our people who were posted in two roads leading through a wood, in order to intercept the enemy in their march, suffering a surprise, and making a precipitate retreat, which enabled the enemy to lead a great part of their force against the troops commanded by Lord Stirling, which formed a third detachment, who behaved with great bravery and resolution, charging the enemy and maintaining their posts from about seven or eight o'clock in the morning till two in the afternoon, when they were obliged to attempt a retreat, being surrounded and overpowered by numbers on all sides, and in which many of them were taken. One battalion (Smallwood's of Maryland) lost two hundred and fifty-nine men, and the general damage fell upon the regiments from Pennsylvania, Delaware and Maryland, and Colonel Huntington's, of Connecticut.
As to the retreat from the Island, it was effected without loss of men, and with but very little baggage. A few heavy cannon were left, not being moveable on account of the ground's being soft and miry through the rains that had fallen.
The enemy's loss in killed we could never ascertain; but have many reasons to believe that it was pretty considerable, and exceeded ours a good deal. The retreat from thence was absolutely necessary, the enemy having landed the main body of their army there to attack us in front, while their ships of war were to cut off the communication with the city, from whence resources of men, provisions, &c., were to be drawn....
I have the honour to be, &c.,
Go. Washington.

Washington’s summary of the battle was fairly accurate, though he was wildly optimistic in his assumption that British loses “exceeded ours a good deal”: U.S. casualties amounted to about 2,500, including some 300 dead and many prisoners, while the British suffered only about 400 from all causes.

Nevertheless, Washington had conducted an effective retreat from an untenable position, preserving the army to fight another day.

 

[besilarius]

1645. Death of Hugo Grotius.

On February 25, 1603, a Dutch East Indiaman captured a Portuguese vessel, a perfectly legal proceeding at the time, given that the Netherlands were in revolt against Spain, which happened also to own Portugal. But a surprising legal problem arose when the Dutch vessel returned home. It seems that some of the Dutch East Indian Company’s shareholders were Mennonites, and thus pacifists, and flatly refused to benefit from the proceeds of an act of war. Worse, the peace-loving burghers proposed to pull out of the East India Company and organize one of their own, which would not indulge in warlike pursuits.
Afraid that the proposed new company would cut into their profits, the less peacefully-inclined shareholders decided to take action to establish firmly the legitimacy of prize taking in both law and public opinion. Casting about for a legal expert, they settled upon the youthful, but brilliant Hugo Grotius (1583-1645), then serving as official historian for the Dutch Republic..
In 1605 Grotius produced De jure praedae, which may be loosely translated as “The Law of Loot”, a profoundly learned work that traced the history of prize from Biblical and Classical times through the medieval Mediterranean maritime codes, to contemporary Western European usage. Grotius’ work formed the foundation of his subsequent life-long effort to codify international law, leading ultimately to his monumental De jure belli ac pacis – The Law of War and Peace (1625), which established him as “the Mozart of International law.

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1014         Byzantine Emperor Basil II defeated the Bulgars in the Battle of Kleidion, slaughtering thousands and blinds 15,000 more.

1526 Battle of Mohacs.  For centuries, the Kingdom of Hungary was a strong, mostly cohesive country that was a bulwark of Europe against invaders like the Mongols.  The great defenders of the country were John Hunyadi and Matthias Corvinus who developed a strong national mercenary force, the Black Army.  This left them less at the mercy of the contentious, independent nobility.
After Corvinus' death, the nobles elected young, weak kings to increase their own power, and the Black Army was disbanded.  In 1526, the Ottoman emperor, Suleiman the Magnificent, invaded Hungary.  His devastating victory at Mohacs ruined the kingdom.  It was split into Royal/Habsburg lands, Ottoman lands, and semi independent Principality of Transylvania.

1782   HMS Royal George (100), Cptn. Waghorn, while heeled at Spithead off Portsmouth to repair the coppering with the lower deck guns run out, was struck by a sudden and violent squall which threw her over so much that water rushed in the open ports. She filled and sank killing Rear-Admiral Richard Kempenfelt and about 900 crew.

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1814 landing party. from HMS Menelaus (38), Cptn. Peter Parker (Killed in Action), engaged ashore in Chesapeake Bay.

Never knew that Spider-Man served in the RN.

1888   Lord Walsingham kills 1070 grouse in a single day
1918    Fanya Kaplan shoots Lenin, but only wounds him; is later shot in the Alexander Garden on the Kremlin's west wall.

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1729. John Blackader, late Lt Col, 26th Foot (the Cameronians), and Col of the Glasgow Militia, diarist,
dies at 65
1842.  Congress replaces the Board of Navy Commissioners, a group of senior officers who oversee naval technical affairs, with the five technical Bureaus, ancestors of the Systems Commands. One of the 1842 Bureaus, the Bureau of Medicine and Surgery, continues to serve under its original name.  "CNOs come and go but the Bureaus go on forever. "

1862  The daily rum issued to US Navy sailors on board vessels is abolished. On July 14, by an Act of Congress, the spirit ration ceases Sept. 1. Secretary of Navy Gideon Welles issues a further order requiring captains of naval vessels to remove all distilled liquors from their ships except those that serve as medical stores. Ale, beer, wine, and other liquors not distilled are exempted from the provisions of the act of July 14.

1935. "Shock Worker" Aleksei Stakhanov (1903-1977), allegedly digs 102 tons in 6 hours, at the Central Irmino Coal Mine

1995. the ashes of former Ensign George Gay, sole survivor of Torpedo Squadron 8, were scattered across the waters into which his comrades had fallen during the Battle of Midway

[bayonetbrant]

1729. John Blackader, late Lt Col, 26th Foot (the Cameronians), and Col of the Glasgow Militia, diarist,
dies at 65
1842.  Congress replaces the Board of Navy Commissioners, a group of senior officers who oversee naval technical affairs, with the five technical Bureaus, ancestors of the Systems Commands. One of the 1842 Bureaus, the Bureau of Medicine and Surgery, continues to serve under its original name.  "CNOs come and go but the Bureaus go on forever. "

1862  The daily rum issued to US Navy sailors on board vessels is abolished. On July 14, by an Act of Congress, the spirit ration ceases Sept. 1. Secretary of Navy Gideon Welles issues a further order requiring captains of naval vessels to remove all distilled liquors from their ships except those that serve as medical stores. Ale, beer, wine, and other liquors not distilled are exempted from the provisions of the act of July 14.

1935. "Shock Worker" Aleksei Stakhanov (1903-1977), allegedly digs 102 tons in 6 hours, at the Central Irmino Coal Mine

1995. the ashes of former Ensign George Gay, sole survivor of Torpedo Squadron 8, were scattered across the waters into which his comrades had fallen during the Battle of Midway

ahem....

please amend to include

2018.  The Armchair Dragoons, the Regiment of Strategy Gaming, was mustered into service

[bob48]

 

[besilarius]

No One expects the Reiters of The Armchair Dragoons!

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=yrvGcCK0o_o&pp=ygUOY2F2YWxyeSBjaGFyZ2U%3D

Forward for good and better gaming!