The figure (above) is a centurion of the 1st century AD. With an earlier style of helmet, he would also be typical of Caesar's day. His rank is denoted by his transverse crest which might be of horsehair or feathers as here. His rank is also signified by his vine "swagger stick", which was sometimes used to administer corporal punishment. His armour is of mail or scales, and, unlike the legionaries' was richly decorated and was sometimes silvered. The centurion carried his gladius on the opposite side to the legionaries, and in battle carried shield and pila like his men.

To Rome the River Rhine presented a significant divide. It provided a highly serviceable frontier line-though in the minds of some this was to be only a temporary solution and it served to mark an ethnic divide between the Celts to the south and the Germans to the north. This, at least, was the view Caesar chose to present, though in reality the situation was far more fluid. In the middle of the first century BC the tribes on both sides of the river were very mixed and it is unlikely that rigid ethnic differences could be recognized, but the creation of a frontier along the river prevented further tribal movement. This meant that the Germanic tribes of the north, in their sporadic movements south, would have little choice but to concentrate on the north side of the river in lands previously occupied by tribes of more mixed origin. Thus the Roman presence was itself a significant factor in intensifying the ethnic differences along the river line.

Something of the nature of Germanic society can be glimpsed through the works of Caesar, completed in 51 BC, and of Tacitus written a century and a half later. Neither provides a systematic account, but both attempt to paint an anecdotal picture of a generalized German way of life to amuse and surprise their readers. Caesar suggests that agriculture was not particularly advanced. Land was held by the tribe and allocated to the individual clans in a system which required an annual redistribution. In this way wealth, derived from constant access to a particularly fertile tract, could be prevented from building up in the hands of any single group. Status could, however, be acquired by acts of bravery and leadership in the pursuance of raiding. 'The Germans', says Caesar, 'claim that it is good training for young men and stops them becoming lazy.' Raids were announced by the chiefs at public assemblies and all those who, in the excitement of the moment, proclaimed their willingness to follow were expected to present themselves when the force was ready to leave, otherwise they were derided by the tribe and lost all prestige. Power at this time, as in classic Celtic society, lay with the elite and was measured by the size of their entourage and their ability to bestow patronage. It was they who formed the tribal council. Only in times of exceptional warfare would members of the aristocracy be elected to lead the confederate army.

By the time that Tacitus was writing, a century and a half later, the social system had changed, at least among the tribes closest to the frontier. Arable land was now distributed in accordance with social status. Two types of leader were recognized, the rex elected for life from among a small group of aristocratic households comprising the royal class, and the dux appointed on the basis of military valour to lead the army in times of stress. Councils of the elite were held regularly as were general assemblies of warriors who met to debate issues submitted to them: it seems they were unable to initiate action of their own. This dual system had evidently evolved to maintain some semblance of social equilibrium. But one major destabilizing feature existed in Germanic society as it did in classical Celtic-the ability of an individual to attract a loyal retinue. The point was neatly summed up by Tacitus:

The chiefs fight for victory, the followers for their chief. Many noble youths, if the land of their birth is stagnating in a long period of peace or inactivity, deliberately seek out other tribes which have some war on their hands. For the Germans have no taste for peace; renown is more easily won among perils and a large body of retainers cannot be kept together except by means of violence and war.

He goes on to say that the boldest warriors prefer warfare to agriculture, they 'have no regular employment, the care of house, home, and fields being left to the women, old men, and weaklings of the family. Germanic society, then, was very much like Celtic society 500 years before: its system of prestige relied on the maintenance of conflict and this inevitably created perpetual instability.

Caesar's crossings of the Rhine in 55 and 53 BC were not serious attempts at conquest, nor was a brief campaign mounted in 38 BC by Agrippa. Throughout this time the Romans were content to develop the river as a frontier line while the affairs of the Empire were put into order by Augustus and his administrators. By 15 BC the situation within the Empire was sufficiently stable to enable the conquest of the Alps to be put in hand and by 12 BC, with the Alps now under control and the north-western corner of Iberia sufficiently subdued to allow troop withdrawals from Spain and Aquitania, the new forward policy across the Rhine could begin.

It seems that Augustus' intention was to make the Elbe-Vltava-Danube the permanent frontier of the Empire, but he seriously misjudged the strength of German resistance. It had been comparatively easy for Caesar to overrun Gaul because the Gauls had become a settled people with a well-developed agricultural base and many tribes were now politically and economically centred on permanent oppida. Moreover, Gaulish society had been softened by the enervating effects of luxury goods from the Mediterranean. The Germans were totally different: mobility and warfare were the keynote, there were no oppida, and few southern luxuries had penetrated the area by this time. It is one thing to destroy a tribe by besieging its oppidum, quite another when its armies simply shrink into the protection of vast unchartered forests.

To begin with, the advance does not seem to have gone too badly for Rome. Annual campaigns from 12 to 7 BC and another in AD 4-5 brought a sufficient degree of control over the area from the Rhine to the Elbe for attention to turn to the conquest of Bohemia-the crucial link between the frontier zones planned for the Elbe and the Danube. Command of Bohemia would also provide the Roman entrepreneurs with a major trading axis leading to the North European Plain and the Baltic, whence came a range of desirable products. At the crucial moment, however, a serious rebellion broke out in Illyricum requiring urgent attention: while the main weight of Roman military effort was tied up in dealing with the situation, the German tribes took the opportunity to reorganize. Arminius, a member of the German elite, who had served as a cavalry officer in the Roman army, was elected war leader with startling effect. Three Roman legions were annihilated in the depths of the Teutenburg Forest and Roman forces were all but driven from German soil. It was a devastating reversal for Rome. The next year, AD 10, the Rhine frontier was strengthened in preparation for a new campaign to regain the German holdings, and in subsequent years there were some notable Roman successes but the Emperor Tiberius, who knew Germany well having fought there himself, eventually conceded that the country was ungovernable. After the final campaign of AD 16, he withdrew Roman troops to the Rhine, thus bringing to an end twenty-eight years of fruitless endeavour.

There is, however, a revealing epilogue. Arminius, as we have seen, was elected war leader by his tribe, the Cherusci, to lead the military revolt against Rome. Success no doubt increased his prestige and thus his retinue, but he was not universally accepted even among his own lineage. His father-in-law, Segestes, and his uncle, Inguiomerus, were both opposed to his policies and were able to galvanize their own, not inconsiderable, retinues against him. Such was the power of the individual aristocrat in German society that personal ambitions and antipathies could overshadow national need. Indeed one wonders if concepts of German national identity were more a construct of Roman historians than a reality. In AD 19, after fighting Romans for twelve years, Arminius lurched towards tyranny. According to Tacitus, the Roman evacuation of Germany and the fall of the pro-Roman king of Bohemia, Maroboduus, persuaded him to make a bid for kingship, but this was anathema to those who believed in traditional values. Conflict broke out and finally 'Arminius succumbed to treachery from his relations'. This incident is a fascinating reminder of the similarities between German society in the early first century AD and the situation in Celtic Gaul nearly eighty years earlier when Orgetorix of the Helvetii aspired to kingship, but was restrained by his people and chose to end his own life.

The annihilation of General VARUS in 9 A.D. in the TEUTOBURG FOREST

Roman Legionaries on the march AD 14

Senior Roman Officer

AULUS SEVERUS CAECINA. After the death of Augustus, Tiberius ordered a campaign of revenge. We don't know whether this was another attempt to establish Roman hegemony, or simply to erase the stain of defeat with victory. In command of the Rhine Army was a 30-year-old proconsul with impressive family connections. Germanicus Caesar was the grandson of Marc Antony, son of Drusus Germanicus, nephew and adopted son of Emperor Tiberius, brother of the future Emperor Claudius, father of the future Emperor Caligula, and grandfather of the future Emperor Nero. Tiberius helped his young son by assigning Aulus Caecina Severus as his second in command. Caecina was a capable officer with forty years of experience campaigning against the Germans, Pannonians and Parthians.

In the spring of AD 15, Germanicus divided his reinforced army into two columns, one under himself and the other under Caecina Severus. Germanicus struck at and ravaged the lands of the Chatti, while Caecina tied down the Cherusci to prevent them from fully engaging. The Chatti chose not to engage Germanicus, instead evacuating what they could save, and melting into the forests.

In the meantime, Caecina again ravaged the Marsi. Hit twice in a row, this tribe was effectively knocked out of the war and adopted a low profile for several years. This ended the spring campaign.

For the summer, Germanicus united the two columns and advanced towards the territory of the Bructeri. On the way, they came to Varus' final camp, which was a haunting and pitiable scene. Whitening bones were scattered unburied on the ground. Skulls were nailed to tree trunks where captives had been executed six years earlier. Surviving veterans of the battle pointed out where the Eagles had been captured, and where Varus fell. Germanicus spoke quietly of the dead, and buried the bones in a great funeral mound, his piety stoking the fury of his legions for revenge.

The Romans moved onward, attempting to engage Arminius, who continued to fall back. The Germanic prince showed a flair for guerilla action, striking at supply groups and flankers, then retiring as the main force came to their aid. He might very well have worn down a weaker or less capable opponent. At one point Arminius lured the Roman cavalry forward and ambushed them with hidden troops. They were nearly wiped out, but as Germanicus rushed forward with the legions, Arminius broke off the action once again.

It appears that Germanicus was frustrated in his attempts to pin down and ravage the Bructeri by Arminius' hit and run warfare. The supply problems steadily worsened as baggage trains from Gaul had to struggle through the dense forests, always vulnerable to sudden attack. Towards the end of the campaign season, he went with half of the army by ship down river to the North Sea bases. Caecina returned via the old "long bridges" built some years earlier by one of the Ahenobarbi. Caecina stopped to repair them. During construction work in swampy terrain, Arminius struck and inflicted some losses. Caecina managed to hold off the Germans and get his men into camp.

Arminius urged that the Germans wait until the Romans made a run for it, chasing them down the same way they defeated Varus. His uncle Inguiomerus argued for storming the camp to take the booty undamaged, and because the Romans were already demoralized. Arminius lost at the council and the Germans attacked the camp. The canny Caecina Severus sortied just as the Germans were coming over the walls and routed them with his swift and violent counterattack. Inguiomerus was wounded and the Germans driven off with heavy losses.

GERMANICUS JULIUS CAESAR (15 B.C.-19 A.D.) Son of DRUSUS (1) the Elder and ANTONIA; a general of great achievement and a noble political figure of enormous popularity. As a grandson of AUGUSTUS, Germanicus was raised in the imperial palace with his brother Claudius, where he received a good education and was the more favored of the two by their mother. After the deaths of Lucius CAESAR (2. A.D.) and Gaius CAESAR (4 A.D.), Germanicus was groomed for high office and became a member of the Senate, and he was adopted by TIBERIUS at the same time that Tiberius was adopted by Augustus. From 7 A.D. onward, Germanicus was on campaign with Tiberius, first in PANNONIA and DALMATIA (7 to 10 A.D.) and then in Germany (11 to 12 A.D.). In the field he showed considerable strategic prowess, and when Tiberius departed for Rome, Germanicus was left in command of the German legions. Because of his popularity, Germanicus was feared by Tiberius and his mother LIVIA. Further, Livia engaged in a long-running feud with Germanicus' wife, AGRIPPINA THE ELDER. However, in 14 A.D., when Augustus died and Tiberius laid claim to the throne, Tacitus wrote that Germanicus simply worked harder for the emperor. He took an oath of loyalty himself and then administered it to all of the surrounding tribes.

A mutiny erupted in the legions of Germany and Illyricum at this time, and Germanicus relied upon the support of his troops to quell it. As proof of the restored discipline, he took to the field again and made war in Germany from the Rhine to the Elbe, all the way to the North Sea, against the Chatti and especially the Cherusci, under the command of the King ARMINIUS. In a series of hard-fought battles, Germanicus did much to restore Roman supremacy and honor among the tribes responsible for the annihilation of General VARUS in 9 A.D. in the TEUTOBURG FOREST. In 17 A.D., Tiberius ordered him back to Rome, where he celebrated a great triumph. Then the emperor, sensing his growing strength among the Romans, ordered Germanicus to the East, granting him the title mains imperium, master of all of the eastern provinces. While he clashed with Gnaeus Calpurnius PISO, appointed by Tiberius governor of Syria, Germanicus achieved numerous successes and was hailed throughout the major cities of ASIA MINOR, SYRIA, PALESTINE and even in EGYPT. CAPPADOCIA was organized into a province with the help of the legate Quintus Veranius. Troubles in Armenia were temporarily eased with the crowning of POLEMO of Pontus as its king. Parthian relations were improved. A famine in Alexandria was relieved. Tiberius viewed all of this with jealously, even censuring Germanicus for traveling through Egypt without imperial permission.

From the start Germanicus and Piso disliked each other, and even the normally generous Germanicus was pushed too far. When he returned from Egypt, he fell ill but recovered, only to collapse again. On October 10, 19 A.D., he died. Antioch went wild with grief, joined soon by the entire Empire. It was generally held that Germanicus had been poisoned (a fact assumed by Tacitus and Suetonius), and Piso instantly received the blame. When Agrippina returned to Italy, she openly charged Tiberius and Livia with the crime, and the emperor sacrificed Piso rather than face even greater public outrage. As an orator Germanicus showed himself gifted and even authored a translation of an astronomical poem by Aratus. His children were nine in number. The six survivors of childhood were Agrippina the Younger, Livilla, Drusilla, Drusus, Nero and, of course, Gaius Caligula, who would be Germanicus' legacy.

ARMINIUS (Hermann) (d. 19 A.D.) Prince of the CHERUSCI and one of Germanic folklore's greatest heroes; responsible in 9 A. D. for one of the worst defeats ever inflicted on the Roman legions. Arminius served as an auxiliary of the Roman army but remained loyal to his own tribe. In 7 A.D., VARUS was placed in command of the three legions posted to Germany, with the intention of Romanizing the entire area. These plans were proceeding successfully when, in 9 A.D., Varus advanced to the Weser River, heading to a Roman fort at Aliso.

Arminius, who had previously voiced no opposition to Rome, suddenly led his people and nearly all of the Germanic tribes in revolt. Varus marched his three legions through the rough, impenetrable terrain of the Teutoburg Forest of Lower Saxony, and there he encountered the determined enemy. Nearly 20,000 men were killed in one disastrous episode. Even in the Punic Wars, Rome had never witnessed such a debacle. Imperial policy over the Rhine territory would never recover, and Germany was lost as a province forever. Six years later the gifted Roman general, GERMANICUS, mounted an expedition against the CHATTI, while Arminius was beset with troubles of his own. The Cherusci were divided into two uneven camps because of a quarrel between Arminius and his father-in-law, Segestes. (Arminius had stolen his daughter, although she was betrothed to another man.) Segestes was subsequently besieged by Arminius, and Germanicus, seizing the opportunity offered to him, marched to Segestes' rescue. The Romans captured Arminius' pregnant wife, Thusnelda, who happened to be Segestes' daughter. Segestes and his household were allowed to settle in Ravenna, with Thusnelda practically a prisoner, and the son of Arminius raised in Roman ways. The loss of his wife and child enraged Arminius, but he remained cold and calculating in his hatred of Rome.

The Roman pursued Arminius, dispatching his deputy, Aulus Severus Caecina, with 40 cohorts, ahead of him. Arminius turned to fight, and a general battle followed, with victory to the Romans. The German leader escaped, but four years later, in an attempt to regain his power, he was killed by treachery. Arminius was intensely popular during his days of victory but was hated in his later years, despite his pivotal role in the liberation of Germania.

The German Infantry Battalion underwent a seemingly constant series of changes and reorganisations during the war, beginning in 1939 and peaking in 1944/45. The overall structure of the Battalion remained largely unaltered; Battalion Headquarters with Communications and Trains elements, a Machine Gun or Heavy Company, and three Rifle Companies. Each amendment reduced the establishment of the Battalion, but sought to alleviate the effect through increased automatic firepower.

In 1942, in belated recognition of the role they had played, the Infantryman was renamed Grenadier. It was nothing more than a PR move, and most men would have gladly been called 'Doris' in return for some effective anti tank defence on the Eastern Front.

The Infantry Battalion, circa 1940 to 1942

Battalion Headquarters (5 Officers, 27 men)

Communications Platoon (22 men)

Battalion Supply Train (32 men)

Machine Gun Company (3 Officers, 174 men)

Company HQ (1 Officer, 16 men)

Company Train (31 men)

Mortar Platoon (1 Officer, 53 men)

Three Machine Gun Platoons (1 Officer or NCO, 24 men)

Three Rifle Companies (2 Officers, 197 men), each comprised of;

Company HQ (1 Officer, 10 men)

Company Supply Train (31 men)

Anti Tank Rifle Section (7 men)

Three Rifle Platoons, each comprised of;

Platoon HQ (1 Officer or NCO, 6 men)

Light Mortar Section (3 men)

Four Rifle Squads, each comprised of 10 men

Total Strength of 860 all ranks (14 Officers and 846 men)* The source this is taken from is not presented in the normal tabulated manner, so some 'interpretation' is unfortunately required.

Points of note

The German Battalion never gathered its overall command and service elements into a HQ Company, as did the British and Americans. Another interesting omission is a Pioneer Platoon. In practice, each Battalion selected a number of men within the Platoons to be trained in the role. They were detached from their units and assembled as and when required. Also, Infantry Battalions were never authorised their own Anti Tank Guns, such weapons remaining firmly under Regimental control. The most notable feature is the lower number of commissioned officers in the Battalion. Only the first Platoon of each Company was commanded by an Officer, the second and third being lead by Senior NCOs. Likewise, Company commanders had no deputy, that role falling to the officer in first Platoon. I believe it was a unique approach. Many allied platoons were lead by Sergeants, but only because their Officer had fallen. The troops undoubtedly performed well under their NCOs, but perhaps the absence of more empowered leaders compounded the 'die in your foxhole' mentality that characterised later defensive operations.

The elements of the Battalion

Battalion Headquarters - Comprised the Battalion Commander, two Adjutants, Medical Officer, Veterinarian and a small staff of runners and clerks.

Communications Platoon - maintained radio, wire and telephone communication between the Battalion and higher and parallel formations.

Battalion Supply Train - contained the Battalion's small motor pool, large numbers of horse drawn wagons and also the usual tradesmen and specialists.

Heavy Company HQ - administered the units of the Heavy Company.

The Mortar Platoon- the Mortar Platoon was much like any other. It deployed six teams each serving a single 8 cm mortar with a range of almost 2400 m. What stands out in all allied reports is the ferocity and accuracy of the bombardment they produced. Perhaps this was partly due to an increased allocation of such weapons later in the war (discussed further on), but they undoubtedly provided the Battalion commander with his most powerful asset.

The Machine Gun Platoon - the German Army had learned well the lessons taught by the machine gun on the killings fields of the Great War. But they did not rely on the self same weapons for the next conflict, as was the case with the allies. The MG34 was a unique concept; a General Purpose Machine Gun or GPMG. The same weapon could be mounted on a heavy tripod and fed by continuous belts of ammunition, or fired from a bipod with a short belt contained in a drum. The toll this weapon and its successor took on allied troops was truly terrible. Each Platoon served four MG34s, used in the sustained fire mode on tripod mountings.

The Rifle Company- the original Company formation fielded by the Infantry was particularly large. The building block was the Rifle Squad or Gruppe.

Each Squad was comprised of an NCO, a six man rifle element and a three man machine gun element. The NCO was originally armed with a rifle, but as sufficient stocks became available adopted the MP40 machine pistol. The MP40 was the world's first mass produced sub machine gun, and was constructed from pre-fabricated metal stampings and plastic. It fired the usual 9 mm round, and became a highly sought after allied trophy. Some one million were eventually produced. The men of the rifle group were all armed with the Mauser bolt action rifle, an amended model of the 1898 weapon fielded during the Great War. One of the riflemen served as assistant leader. Like the British, the Germans based the firepower of the squad around a single light machine gun. The MG34 was served by a gunner and loader, each man armed with a pistol; a third ammunition bearer carried a rifle. The original weapon was the revolutionary MG34. The Germans believed a gunner would only have seconds to engage exposed enemy infantry before they naturally took cover. The MG34 had an exceptionally high rate of fire for the period, enabling even the shortest burst to unleash a tremendous volley.

The German penchant for large headquarters elements began at Platoon level. The four squads were directed by a Platoon commander aided by an NCO, three runners, a medic and a supply wagon driver. The commander, who as mentioned previously may have been an officer or senior NCO, was armed with a machine pistol and a semi automatic pistol. His NCO and runners carried rifles, as did the wagon driver, while the medic carried a pistol. The wagon driver was responsible for the Platoon supply vehicle, a horse drawn affair which transported the bulk of the unit's equipment. I'm not aware of any other army which provided transport down to this level, even if it was as low tech as a horse and cart. The light mortar section was the same as the British equivalent, an NCO with gunner and loader. The NCO carried a rifle, each crewman a pistol. The 5 cm light mortar was not a popular weapon. Unlike the British, who used the 2 inch mortar more for smoke than effect, the Germans intended the 5 cm to bridge the gap between maximum grenade range and minimum safe artillery range. It was not a success, being too heavy a weapon for too small an advantage. It fell out of use quickly once the campaign in the East began.

Company HQ provided the usual command functions. The supply role was handled by the substantial Company Train, which included a large number of horse drawn vehicles, but originally also three trucks. Company level fire support was provided by the Anti Tank Rifle section. Its NCO commanded three teams, each of a gunner and loader serving a single Panzerbuchse 38/39. The ATR was, as mentioned in the British pages, an outmoded idea from a previous era. The ironic reality was that many Infantry units did not even have the rifles until the invasion of Russia, in which theatre of war they were infinitely outclassed. But, as in the British and Red armies, they remained in use long after they should have to provide the infantry soldier with some means to engage armour in the absence of the necessary towed guns.

The mid-war period

1942 and 1943 were dark times for the average German soldier. Yet defeat in North Africa and allied landings in Italy were probably of little consequence to those engaged in the East. In an effort to meet the needs for war against the mammoth Red Army, the Wehrmacht had been massively expanded, but it was becoming plain the army was too big to support. Reductions were sought to ameliorate the crippling losses already sustained. They fell on all branches, but the Infantry were hit the hardest.

Little detail is available on the interim reorganisation which laid the ground for the 1944 Battalion detailed subsequently. Several amendments are certain. During 1943, the Rifle Platoon lost its fourth Squad. Platoon HQ had already deleted the light mortar section, and Company HQ the Anti Tank Rifle section. The ponderous Company train was also reduced, and most importantly lost its motor vehicles. The issue of support weapons causes particular confusion. A Rifle Company was now stated as having sixteen MG34s and two 8 cm mortars. The Support Company had twelve MG34s in the heavy role, and six 8 cm mortars. The issue of light machine guns is odd. It would suggest that each Platoon had a fifth weapon, perhaps used to replace the 5 cm mortar. With the deletion of the fourth Squad, their LMG seems to have remained, suggesting two unallocated weapons at Platoon HQ? The remaining weapon would then have been carried by the Train, who were increasingly required to take on a fighting role. The issue of 8 cm mortars to each company is likewise odd; each Section would have needed a substantial crew and horse drawn transport element, and there seems little reward in duplicating the Platoon in Support Company. Perhaps they were served by the crews of the redundant light mortars and ATRs? An alternative arrangement describes the Mortar Platoon being split between the Rifle Companies, and an Infantry Gun Platoon (usually found at Regimental level) serving two 7.5 cm guns taking its place in Support Company. There are several versions and variations described for the late 1943 period, most contradictory, all vague. By 1944 the Army had penned a new organisation which sought to further reduce manpower but attempted to increase automatic firepower in compensation.

The Grenadier Battalion, 1944

Battalion Headquarters (4 Officers, 13 men)

Communications Platoon (25 men)

Battalion Supply Train (35 men)

Heavy Company (3 Officers, 202 men)

Company HQ (1 Officer, 19 men)

Company Train (17 men)

Machine Gun Platoon (1 Officer, 54 men)

8 cm Mortar Platoon (66 men)

12 cm Mortar Platoon (1 Officer, 46 men)

Three Rifle Companies (2 Officers, 140 men), each comprised of;

Company HQ (1 Officer, 11 men)

Company Supply Train (13 men)

Machine Gun Section (18 men)

Three Rifle Platoons, each comprised of;

Platoon HQ (1 Officer or NCO, 5 men)

Three Rifle Squads, each comprised of 9 men

Total Strength of 708 all ranks (13 Officers and 695 men)

Points of note

The General structure of the original Battalion had been changed slightly. Some units fielded the new Heavy Mortar Platoon; the machine guns had been broken into units providing direct Company support and general Battalion assets. Several new weapons were also now in the hands of the troops in varying numbers.

Machine Gun Platoon- the revised unit now deployed six heavy machine guns in three Sections. However, the new MG42 began to supplement the MG34 during 1943. The MG42 had an even higher rate of fire than its predecessor and was a particularly lethal machine. It too was used in the light role by Rifle Squads, and was easier to mass produce. It never supplanted the MG34 however, which remained in service throughout.

Medium Mortar Platoon - the Platoon remained unchanged apart from an increase in manpower and horse transportation.

Heavy Mortar Platoon- the Germans had encountered a new threat on the Eastern Front, the Red Army's 120 mm mortar. They were suitably impressed and copied the weapon for German use. It was effectively a light artillery piece, and required a notably high concentration of motor transport to move. The Platoon served four tubes, each with a massive range of almost 6000 m. Production never met demand, and in some units additional 8 cm mortars may have been used, or even Infantry guns as described earlier.

The Rifle Company- the new Company was a much smaller unit. The Rifle Squad itself was now targeted for 'downsizing', losing the ammunition bearer for the machine gun element. The loader now officially adopted a rifle, and a second machine pistol replaced a Mauser in the rifle group, possibly carried by the assistant leader. Platoon HQ now had a commander, two runners, a medic, and two supply wagon drivers. Each Platoon now had a two horse wagon, and a one horse wagon with trailer. The commander still carried his MP40 and pistol, the medic a pistol, all others rifles. The Platoon also had an unallocated light machine gun for deployment as required. This may have been deleted in subsequent cutbacks. Curiously, there is no indication of radios being issued to Platoons. Instead, Company HQ listed four signallers among it strength, who were perhaps despatched as necessary. The Company Train carried a thirteenth LMG.

A number of new individual weapons began to reach the troops in 1943, however the rate of supply was too incoherent to attempt to put any figure to. The Gewehr 43 was an attempt to provide a semi automatic rifle to the troops, but still using the same ammunition as the Mauser. It had been preceded by the Gewehr 41, which had proven to be an all round failure in terms of usefulness and reliability. The much modified rifle was a success, and while it never replaced the 1898 Mauser, it offered a real increase in firepower to those units lucky enough to receive it. Likewise, the MG42 served alongside the MG34 as the Squad light machine gun, its high rate of fire proving as devastating in the light role as the heavy. Anti tank potential had also been exponentially increased. For the best part of two years, the German soldiers only reply to a Soviet T34 was to move within spitting distance and assail it with either a Teller mine or a bundle of stick grenades. A new series of one shot disposable anti tank grenades changed that in late 1943. The variously titled Faustpatrone or Panzerfaust gave the individual soldier the ability to successfully destroy a tank, though effective range never increased beyond 100 m as the design was progressively upgraded. Unlike the Bazooka or PIAT, the Panzerfaust was effectively a munition, and was issued in tremendous numbers to offset the declining status of the Panzer arm.

One new weapon deserves special mention, for it was to set the course of rifle development for the next fifty years. The Sturmgewher 44, also known as the MP43, MP44 and Stg45, used an entirely different round to the Mauser. It was designed only for short ranges of up to perhaps 500 m, which allowed the weapon to fire on fully automatic while retaining controllability. It was fed from a thirty round magazine. The rifle was never produced in sufficient quantities to effect the revolution in squad tactics it promised; that was left to the post war Kalashnikov which it inspired. However, the German Army did issue a revised Company organisation to embrace the new weapon.

The first and second Platoons were almost entirely rearmed with the Stg44. The first and second Squads in each Platoon were fully equipped, while the third Squad deployed two MG42s. Platoon commander and runners carried the weapon, the rest of HQ remained as before. An additional MG42 was also issued at Platoon. The third Platoon was armed as previously, but without the extra light machine gun. Company HQ deployed a sniper group of six or seven men, and the Train was abolished. Quite how many units were able to field this ideal is purely speculative, but perhaps only 100,000 assault rifles were ever available.

Summary

The evolution of the German Infantry and later Grenadier Battalion is symptomatic of that of the Army itself. It moved from an offensive minded force to a highly defensive outfit. The increase in mortars and machine guns, and the removal of men from the Rifle Platoons to serve them, showed just how static the Wehrmacht had become. The deep battle concept of Blitzkrieg was replaced by an attrition dominated conflict in the East, and in the West movement was choked by allied airpower. The ordinary infantryman was endlessly expended in countless machine gun posts, fortified farm houses and shattered streets. When massive assaults were undertaken in the final year, they could not be sustained beyond a few days, and the losses suffered by inexperienced men fighting now veteran enemies drained resources even further. It was an inglorious end for an army which had thought itself invincible, but oddly fitting that they became as stagnant as the Nazi ideology which they embraced and carried to so many innocents.

The successes of the Panzer Divisions were not brought about by tanks alone. It was the ability to combine the actions of Infantry, Armour and Artillery which achieved it. The Panzer Grenadiers provided close support for the tanks throughout the war, and as the numbers of Panzers dwindled the Grenadiers were forced to shoulder more of the burden.

The Panzer Grenadier Battalion seems to have been the subject of more organisational variations than any other manoeuvre unit in the German Army. Matters are complicated further by the deployment of two distinct types of Battalion; the 'Mechanised' unit, which fought from armoured halftracks, and the 'Motorised' which was carried in lorries and field cars. Both formations had similar characteristics, but their fighting potential was notably different. The disagreements between various sources renders any attempt to apply unit strengths meaningless.

The Panzer Grenadier Battalion, circa 1940 to 1942

Battalion Headquarters

Communications Platoon

Battalion Supply and Maintenance elements

Heavy Company

Company HQ

Pioneer Platoon

Anti Tank Platoon

Infantry Gun Platoon

Machine Gun Company

Company HQ

Mortar Platoon

Two Machine Gun Platoons

Three Rifle Companies, each comprising;

Company HQ

Machine Gun Section

Three Rifle Platoons, each comprising;

Platoon HQ (1 Officer or NCO, 6 men)

Three Rifle Squads, each comprised of 12 men

Points of note

At first sight the allocation of support weapons seems quite generous, however it is somewhat deceiving. An Infantry Battalion commander could be reinforced with an Anti Tank and an Infantry Gun Platoon from his Regiment. The Panzer Grenadier Regiment simply deployed its extra assets within the Battalions as a matter of course. During the early years of the war it was not unusual for a Battalion to deploy a single Company in halftracks with the balance in lorries. As production increased, the aim became to fully equip an entire Battalion with the armoured vehicle.

The elements of the Battalion

Battalion Headquarters - the command staff of the Battalion but fully motorised.

Communications Platoon - fulfilled the same role as that in the Infantry Battalion.

Supply and Maintenance units- contained the Battalion motor pool and the various craftsmen and mechanics needed to maintain the collection of men and vehicles.

Pioneer Platoon- the Panzer Grenadier seem to have initially had a standing Pioneer unit, which was charged with assault tasks rather than labouring, as befitted their mobile role. They were equipped with light machine guns and flamethrowers, but numbers of weapons are vague.

Anti Tank Platoon- the original Anti Tank gun was the 3.7 cm Pak. This small lightweight weapon was akin to the British 2 pdr, in that it too was obsolete before hostilities began but due to a lack of replacements was kept in service far beyond its days. The Platoon served three weapons, towed by whatever vehicle was available from the myriad types deployed, the ideal being the Krupp Protz. The 3.7 cm was the standard defence for the early part of the war, and earned the derisory nickname 'the doorknocker' from its inability to penetrate most British and Soviet tanks. Its successor was the more capable 5 cm Pak, which appeared in time to replace some 3.7 cm weapons for the invasion of Russia.

Infantry Gun Platoon - the 7.5 cm Infantry Gun was the primary Regimental support weapon, and the Platoon served two such weapons.

Mortar Platoon - as the Infantry version, with six 8 cm tubes.

Machine Gun Platoon - as the Infantry with four MG34 heavy machine guns.

The Rifle Company- as mentioned the Rifle Company could be transported either by lorry or halftrack. In either event, the same twelve man Squad was used.

It comprised a leader and assistant, armed with a machine pistol and rifle respectively. The four men of the rifle element were each armed with a rifle. The machine gun element deployed two gunners and two loaders, each armed with a pistol, serving a pair of light machine guns. A driver and assistant were responsible for the vehicle. In the halftrack version, the vehicle mounted its own LMG behind a splinter shield. It was the responsibility of the assistant driver to man this weapon. The driver had a rifle, and a 'spare' machine pistol was carried in the vehicle. One of the two LMGs could be placed on a rear mounting enabling it to be used in the anti aircraft role where required. In the lorried Squad there were no additional weapons in the vehicle, both driver and assistant carrying a rifle. The concentration of light machine guns was enormous for such a small unit. The driver and assistant would remain with the vehicle (though with the lorry there was only need for the driver to stay). The dismount troops could split into two teams, each with a leader, two riflemen and gun team. This negated the weakness of riflemen covering a moving MG team with clunky bolt action weapons. The three Squads operated under a Platoon Headquarters. The halftrack version comprised a Platoon commander, NCO, two messengers, driver, medic and motorcycle orderly. The motorised equivalent was split between two Kubelwagens and so substituted a second driver for the motorcycle rider. Commanders carried machine pistols, medics pistols, all others rifle.

Uniquely, an attempt was made to provide anti tank guns to each halftrack Platoon by mounting a 3.7 cm Pak on the commander's vehicle in place of a LMG. As a means of tank defence it was mostly outdated, but it offered a handy means of projecting fire in support of the Squads. The issue of 5 cm mortars and Anti Tank Rifles in the early years is hazy. Each Company had three of each weapons, but whether they were deployed by the Platoons or served by dedicated men at Company level remains a mystery, to me at least. Anyone know?

Company HQ added the traditional command, supply and additionally maintenance elements.

The mid-war period

During 1943 the same reductions inflicted upon the Infantry arm were also visited upon the Panzer Grenadiers. Again, specific details are confused, but the overall effect is clear.

The Machine Gun Company was abolished, and its assets were distributed to the Rifle Companies, each of which now added a Weapons Platoon to its ranks. Heavy Company lost its Pioneer Platoon, but there were such assets at Regimental level to compensate. Some sources describe an Anti Tank Section within each Rifle Company, serving four 8.8 cm Projectors. The most important move was towards deploying at least one Mechanised Battalion in each Panzer Division. Panzer Grenadier Divisions were left motorised only it appears. By 1944 the picture had settled somewhat.

The Panzer Grenadier Battalion, circa 1944

Battalion Headquarters

Communications Platoon

Battalion Supply and Maintenance elements

Heavy Company

Company HQ

Motorised Battalion

Heavy Mortar Platoon

Anti Aircraft Platoon

Anti Tank Platoon * credited in some sources to the Battalion, but possibly attached from a Regimental AT Company

Mechanised Battalion

Heavy Mortar Platoon

Infantry Gun Platoon

Three Rifle Companies, each comprised of;

Company HQ

Weapons Platoon, comprised of;

Platoon HQ

Two Machine Gun Sections

Mortar Section

Anti Aircraft Section * Mechanised only

Infantry Gun Section * Mechanised only

Three Rifle Platoons, each comprised of

Platoon HQ (1 Officer or NCO, 6 men)

Three Rifle Squads, each comprised of 10 men Mechanised or 12 men Motorised

Points of note

The firepower of the Mechanised formation had been massively increased. Curiously, the Motorised Battalion had lost its 7.5 cm Infantry guns, but these may have been retained in those units which did not receive the 12 cm mortar to replace them. Anti aircraft weapons were now a prime requirement for the ground troops, as the Luftwaffe's decline allowed allied planes to roam at will overhead.

The elements of the Battalion

Heavy Mortar Platoon - as with the Infantry, the Panzer Grenadiers were authorised four 12 cm mortars carried by tracked lorries of halftracks.

Anti Aircraft Platoon- the AA Platoon served six 2 cm weapons which were ideally mounted on trucks or unarmoured halftracks, or towed. They also served in the ground support role as 'very heavy' machine guns.

Anti Tank Platoon- where present this unit was intended to field three 7.5 cm Pak anti tank guns. The 7.5 cm was the next evolution of the German series, and was perhaps the best all round weapon. The guns could be towed or mounted on any of the numerous vehicles used as a firing platform.

Infantry Gun Platoon - in the Mechanised Company this unit comprised six halftracks each mounting a 7.5 cm gun with ammunition vehicles in support.

The Rifle Company- the Motorised Company seems to have undergone little restructuring. The Weapons Platoon served four heavy machine guns and two 8 cm mortars. Other than that, it remained as before.

The Mechanised Company however was very different. Each Squad had lost two men from the rifle element. The Platoon vehicle was now intended to be armed with a 2 cm anti aircraft gun, but this was by no means a universal arrangement. The motorcycle had long since gone and the rider now served on the carrier as a loader or gunner. The Weapons Platoon deployed two 8 cm mortars, each carried and fired from their own halftrack; likewise two 7.5 cm infantry guns. The anti aircraft group should have had three halftracks mounting 2 cm weapons. Each vehicle also carried a heavy machine gun team, yet the Company is credited with four HMGs. Where the fourth team was deployed is one of the many minor mysteries concerning the Panzer Grenadiers. The Platoon commander's vehicle was later deleted. Company HQ is also variously credited with a further 2 cm AA gun halftrack. No official tables credit 8.8 cm anti tank Projectors, the lethal German equivalent of the Bazooka, to the Panzer Grenadiers in 1944. Some sources suggest each halftrack may have been so equipped, but the total is purely speculative.

A flurry of revised tables were issued during the closing months of the war, aimed at increasing AA defence or centralising mortars and machine guns in support companies. I do not propose to attempt to cover them here for sanity's sake, and the fact that they were probably little more than paper formations.

Summary

Quite how closely Panzer Grenadier formations resembled their authorised tables differed on a day to day basis. But where they approached full strength, they were powerful units. As the war progressed they became less mobile, debilitated by lack of fuel and vehicles, pounded from on high by allied bombers, and supported by dwindling numbers of Panzers. In the end, they were reduced to the same stubborn defensive actions as their foot slogging comrades in the Infantry.

BATTLE OF MARENGO, 14 JUNE 1800

In 1800 Bonaparte's strategy in northern Italy had been brilliant, but his handling of the battle of Marengo was degraded by poor intelligence that led him to divide his forces. He nearly lost the battle in the morning, but was able to gain victory by the fortuitous return of detached divisions in the afternoon. With his last reserve, the Consular Guard, barely holding, Bonaparte is saved by General Desaix, previously detached with two divisions, returning.

HOHENLINDEN, 3 DECEMBER 1800

Although the defeat at Marengo had forced the Austrians to withdraw from Italy, they continued to hold Germany. When, after an armistice, hostilities reopened in the winter of 1800, an Austrian army under the inexperienced Archduke John was ambushed by General Moreau and his army in the forest of Hohenlinden, east of Munich, on 3 December. Austria now signed an armistice and negotiations towards a peace settlement were begun.

THE MARENGO CAMPAIGN: PREPARATIONS

Aware that the French people desired peace, Bonaparte made overtures to England and Austria, though he insisted on keeping Belgium, Piedmont and Genoa as parts of France, with Switzerland and Holland as French satellites. The Second Coalition rejected his terms. The First Consul had expected as much and already, in January 1800, had ordered Berthier to assemble an Army of Reserve three infantry divisions, a cavalry brigade and the Consular Guard - around Dijon, close to the alpine passes. French control of Switzerland meant that the Army of Reserve could reinforce either Moreau's Army of the Rhine or Massena's Army of Italy. With over 120,000 men, the Army of the Rhine was France's strongest army; the Army of Italy dispersed in the Maritime Alps and on the Ligurian coast numbered only 36,000.

As always, Austria was the principal adversary. General Kray commanded 108,500 men along the Upper Rhine and Danube, while General Melas had about 93,000 in Italy. Initially, Bonaparte considered the Austrian army between the Upper Rhine and Danube as the paramount strategic objective. His intent was for Moreau to pin Kray with one corps in the Black Forest, while the combined Armies of the Rhine and the Reserve swung through Switzerland into the rear of the opponent. This would result in his destruction and open the road to Vienna. If necessary, the Army of Reserve could pivot through Switzerland into Melas's rear to eliminate remaining Austrian forces.

But Moreau was averse to Bonaparte's directions, asserting that the proposed strategy was too risky. The First Consul lacked power to replace the recalcitrant general. Moreau was among the greatest generals of the Republic and his Army of the Rhine as loyal to him as the Army of Italy was to Bonaparte. Any attempt to relieve him might have precipitated a major mutiny. Therefore Bonaparte instructed Moreau to proceed with his frontal offensive, but requested that he detach a corps to the St Gotthard Pass to reinforce the Army of Reserve's strike into the rear of the Austrians in Italy.

Austrian offensive plans assumed that the French were weak in Germany and, as Bonaparte had hoped, discounted the Army of Reserve. Melas was to smash Massena, then advance through the Maritime Alps into southern France to be joined by a British expeditionary force assembling on Minorca. This would draw French troops from the Rhine front, enabling Kray to penetrate through Alsace into France. On 6 April Melas hit Massena's command and split it. Massena was besieged in Genoa with only four weeks' rations for his 10,000 men; General Suchet, with 18,000, was pushed west beyond the River Var. In Germany Moreau hesitated and only attacked in late April. On 3 and 6 May he defeated Kray at Stockach and Moskirch and drove him into a fortified camp at DIm, removing a potential threat to Bonaparte's rear. Moreau's tardiness had delayed Bonaparte's offensive and instead of the promised corps he merely detached a division to the St Gotthard Pass. But finally Bonaparte was able to execute his great strategic manoeuvre sur les derrieres. Time had become of the essence while Massena still pinned 21,000 Austrians and Suchet another 30,000. The First Consul took a gamble. Victory would secure his position, though a major defeat might unseat him and end the consular regime.

MARENGO AND HOHENLINDEN

In the second week of May Bonaparte, who had remained in Paris to prod Moreau into action, arrived at the headquarters of the Army of Reserve, ostensibly an adviser because the new constitution did not allow the First Consul to hold command. He planned to traverse the Alps through five different passes. The easiest passage from Geneva was the Little St Bernard Pass, but Bonaparte rejected this approach because it would require a larger supply train than the more difficult Great St Bernard route which was closer to the depots established on Lake Geneva. Careful arrangements were made to move the main body through this 40-kilometre pass, while, to confuse Melas, small detachments would come over the four remaining passes. On 14 May Bonaparte ordered the advance guard under Lannes to proceed, and by 16 May it had descended as far as Aosta. Six days later the army crossed over the pass, though Fort Aosta held up passage of artillery.

Leaving behind a detachment to invest the fort, Bonaparte proceeded with only 6 small guns. Although aware of Massena's desperate situation in Genoa, Bonaparte did not march to relieve it. Instead, he swung eastwards to cut Austrian communications and capture Milan and its arsenal on 2 June. Here he waited for the arrival of the corps promised by Moreau, in the event only 11,000 men. Meanwhile, Massena had capitulated on 4 June. He had carried out his mission until his men had almost starved to death and then delayed surrender for another two days while negotiating excellent terms. Melas occupied Genoa, but, now aware of the Army of Reserve in his rear, ordered a general concentration at Alessandria, about halfway between Turin and Genoa. By 10 June he had assembled 32,000 men and 100 guns. From Alessandria he could either retreat into Genoa where he would have British naval support, or he could fight for northern Italy.

The Austrian concentration induced Bonaparte to advance west through Montebello, where Lannes won a sharp engagement on 9 June, and late on 13 June he crossed the Scrivia River into the plain east of Alessandria on the far side of the Bormida River. His army numbered about 31,500 men with forty guns. Among the commanders present was Desaix, returned from Egypt on the First Consul's express orders. Convinced that Melas wished to escape, Bonaparte divided his army and detached three divisions, including two under Desaix, to block likely Austrian escape routes.

Not expecting trouble, the remainder bivouacked for the night around the small village of Marengo. When Melas attacked on 14 June a surprised Bonaparte found himself with only 22,000 men and 20 guns facing a far superior enemy supported by 100 cannon. Although the attack developed slowly and there were some defensive positions on the plain, by noon massive Austrian infantry assaults forced the French back. Bonaparte committed his last reserve - the Consular Guard - but, heavily outnumbered and low on ammunition, the battle seemed lost. Desperate messages went out recalling detached formations, while, convinced that the day was won, Melas handed over command to a subordinate. But the French hung on grimly. At about noon Desaix returned with one division and, assisted by Marmont who scraped up 18 guns to provide close fire support, and a charge by the surviving cavalry, the counter-attack stampeded the victorious but fatigued enemy. The unexpected blow by almost fresh troops converted defeat into victory. As Napoleon later commented, 'The fate of a battle is a single moment ... the decisive moment arrives, the moral spark is kindled and the smallest reserve force settles the issue.' And he had learned from his close call.

Never again would he disperse his main force in the face of the enemy and whenever possible he would retain a strong reserve.

The Marengo campaign was a strategic masterpiece, but the conduct of the battle was far from brilliant and the official account would be rewritten several times to enhance Napoleon's reputation. Meanwhile, at the cost of 6,000 casualties, including Desaix who was shot leading the assault, the First Consul had his victory. Austrian casualties equalled the French, though they also lost 8,000 prisoners and 40 cannons. Melas was stunned and the next day signed an armistice evacuating all of Lombardy up to the Mincio River, halting all fighting until Vienna had responded to a peace proposal. Even so, the Austrian army was not destroyed. Re-forming behind the Mincio it still numbered some 55,000 men and 300 guns. In Germany Moreau advanced to Munich, and in July concluded an armistice that lasted until November.

One more victory was needed to finish the Second Coalition. This Moreau provided when the fighting resumed. In Germany, Archduke Charles not only refused to accept command, but he also advised that Austria should make peace while there was still an army. But Vienna decided to try once more. With the inexperienced eighteen-year-old Archduke John in command, hostilities recommenced on 22 November with an attempt to crush Moreau's left flank and cut his communications. Moreau ambushed the Austrian columns on 2 December at Hohenlinden, 33 kilometres east of Munich, and routed them. This disaster convinced Austria to sign an armistice on 25 December, which was followed on 9 February 1801 by the Peace of Luneville, confirming the terms of Campo Formio.

Britain continued the conflict alone, her position complicated when Tsar Paul I organized a league of northern states - Russia, Sweden, Denmark and Prussia - threatening her naval supplies. Britain responded with an attack on Copenhagen, destroying major elements of the Danish fleet. Soon thereafter, Paul was murdered in a palace revolt and his successor Alexander I dismantled the league. Even so, England was weary of war, while Bonaparte wished to consolidate his regime. As a result, after prolonged haggling, the Treaty of Amiens was signed on 27 March 1802.

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The Somme region of France is beautiful, undulating farmland. The region takes its name from the Somme River, a pretty, meandering stream, that is known for its fishing and wildlife. The actual river is south of where the battle occurred and never became part of it. The main cities of the countryside are connected by arrow straight Roman roads. A large amount of the fighting took place around the Roman road running along a main ridge connecting the cities of Albert and Bapaume. The countryside is dotted with small French farming villages. In 1916, these villages, such as Thiepval, Mametz, Courcelette and Pozieres, gained infamous reputations. But the villages themselves had long ceased to exist; they had been torn to shreds by the massive military onslaught.

The choice of the Somme as the location from which to launch the first major British offensive of the war is puzzling. It had no particular strategic value and possessed no breakthrough potential. It is an unlikely place to imagine an army could achieve a decisive victory. The question that has perplexed military historians is: why the Somme? Calculating the men lost in this battle, more 1,200,000, only adds emphasis to the debate. There seems to be no answer to this question, other than the Somme was a useful place to launch an attack and start a war of attrition.

As the Somme battlefield lacked any particularly advantageous physical characteristics, the Germans had built a complex series of interconnecting trenches and deep redoubts across the rolling chalk hills. They took full advantage of every contour. To protect themselves from observation, the Germans generally entrenched on the down side of a slope. The trenches were deep and solid, often strategically interconnected with other switch trenches. A warren of communication and support trenches was utilized for transporting supplies, reinforcements and ammunition. The redoubt positions were often connected by tunnels coming from a variety of places in the support lines. In front of the trenches were dense belts of barbed-wire. Farms had been fortified and linked by a maze of underground works. Each position was designed to extract a great price from any attacker.

"The modern battlefield is like a huge, sleeping machine with innumerable eyes and ears and arms, lying hidden and inactive, ambushed for the one moment on which all depends. Then from some hole in the ground a single red light ascends in fiery prelude. A thousand guns roar out on the instant, and at a touch, driven by innumerable levers, the work of annihilation goes pounding on its way."

Ernst Junger, German Army

The British strategy to capture a trench works was to plaster the German position with high-explosive shells in the hope of collapsing the trench walls, killing or wounding the defenders, and cutting the extensive barbed-wire in front of the trench with shell shrapnel. At the appropriate time, the assault troops would approach the German lines as closely as possible without being hit by their own artillery fire, and at zero hour, rush and take the position. Even if the attack were successful, it did not preclude the Germans digging another trench behind the one just captured or counter-attacking to retake the one lost. In the Battle of the Somme, the Germans did both.

More often than not, the attacks on the strongly fortified German defences on the Somme proved disastrous. The artillery bombardment rarely cut the barbed-wire and the soldiers, trapped in No Man's Land, would be cut down in swathes by the German machine-guns. Sometimes, the Germans allowed the assault troops to enter their front-line trench. Then the German artillery would blast No Man's Land to prevent reinforcements or ammunition from reaching the newly captured position. The reinforcements would be decimated by the German barrage when crossing the open ground and the soldiers in the captured trench would be isolated. At this point, the Germans would counter-attack via communication trenches or underground subways. The German stick grenade was the weapon of choice and was a very effective killer with good range and accuracy. These defensive techniques cost the Australians heavily at Pozieres; the Canadians on the Somme learned about these tactics the hard way.

"If you want to find the old battalion,

I know where they are, I know where they are,

If you want to find the old battalion,

I know where they are,

They're hanging on the old barbed-wire,

I've seen em, I've seen em,

Hanging on the old barbed-wire."

First World War Song.

The only flaw in the German method was that the counter-attacker often suffered more casualties than the attacker. Germany could not win a war of attrition.

The Canadians arriving at the Somme could not believe the devastation. Even compared to the horrific standards of Ypres, the sights were shocking. It was their first view of total destruction; villages razed, the battlefield a lunar landscape of interconnected shell holes, destroyed trenches, sandbags spread everywhere, old equipment scattered, and thousands of bodies, decomposing in the summer sun. But they did not have much time to mull over these images of immense destruction. They were immediately put in the line in support of the Australians.

"Through a gap between two sandbags I was shown the village (Pozieres), where smoke was drifting across skeletons of trees on a torn-up mound. An uneven line of sandbags, stretching across piles of bricks and remnants of houses, faced our way... The ground between our trench and the ruins beyond was merely a stretch of craters and burnt-up grass broken up by tangled wire... The dead were lying in all conceivable attitudes; rotting in the sun... with the heat the smell had become very trying."

Paul Maze, French Army attached British Army.

Despite serving in a secondary role, Canadian losses were considerable. Between September 4th and 7th, the 1st Canadian Division's 16th Battalion (Canadian Scottish) supported the Australian Infantry attack on Mouquet Farm and other German positions north of Pozieres. The Canadian battalion suffered 349 casualties. On September 9th, the 2nd Battalion (Eastern Ontario) attacked a German trench work south of the Pozieres windmill. The attack was only a local action; one meant to improve the jump-off position for the up-coming major assault.

In this fierce action, Corporal Leo Clarke won the Victoria Cross. Clarke, and a section of bombers, were confronted by 20 Germans. Clarke attacked the attackers, emptied his revolver into them, killed four and captured another. Single-handedly, he had stopped a German attack. Clarke was one of three men from the same street in Winnipeg to win the Victoria Cross in the war. Sadly, two of the three did not survive. Leo Clarke was wounded later in the Battle of the Somme and died of his wounds. He was 24.

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The Anglo-French armies had advanced some 10 kilometres (6 miles) at their point of deepest penetration, on a 40-kilometre (25-mile) front. Losses remain controversial. The British suffered nearly 420,000 casualties, their French allies just over 200,000. The German losses were at least 400,000 men, possibly as many as 650,000.

Although the German army did not collapse in 1916, in A.J.P. Taylor's phrase, at Verdun and the Somme the German army 'bled to death'. Its 1917 recruits were already in the line by the end of 1916. In spring 1917 it was obliged to withdraw its untenable front in Picardy to the prepared positions of the Hindenburg line, to liberate manpower for a renewal of the attritional struggle. Nor could it compete in the battle of matĂŠriel (materialschlacht) which the allies forced it to fight. The allied blockade was starting to impact heavily on productivity and morale on the home front. In December 1916 the new duumvirate at the head of the German army, Paul von Hindenburg and Erich Ludendorff, intensified mobilisation with a new Auxiliary Service Law conscripting labour on the home front into war industries. The year of attrition had cost the already tired French army and nation equally dearly. Only the British emerged from the Somme with credit. The ordinary soldiers had borne the heavy sacrifice with stoicism, and after initial failure the inexperienced army had learned to fight with skill and determination. The expectation of rapid military victory disappeared. After 1916 the war became a struggle to outlast the enemy in a brutal 'total war'. In this the allies had the upper hand.

Given the rapidity of the German victory over France, Belgium and Holland and the pivotal role played by the Panzer Divisions in bringing this about, the superficial judgement at the time was that German tanks must not only have been more numerous than those of the Allied armies, but also superior to them. However, we will need to qualify how this term was understood. For the purposes of immediate explanation, we will assume that 'superior' was employed as a shorthand for greater numbers, heavier armour and more effective fire power.

a) Numbers

There is no question that, as regards the first of these greater numbers, the Western Allies possessed at the beginning of Fall Gelb a decided superiority in the numbers of tanks that they could field compared to the Germans at the beginning of Fall Gelb. While full breakdowns by tank type and their totals for each of the ten Panzer Divisions are provided in tabular form, the overall number of tanks deployed by the Panzerwaffe for combat operations on 10 May 1940 amounted to 2,582 machines of all types. This was exceeded by a considerable margin by the number possessed by the French Army alone. The French maintained a tank park of some 4,360 machines of all types, of which 250 were stationed overseas in their colonial territories at that date. By far and away the bulk and best of France's armoured strength was stationed on the north-east Front ready to deploy into Belgium once news had been received of the opening of the German offensive. Not only did the French possess a quantitative advantage over the Panzerwaffe in theatre, but also many of their tanks were also superior in the thickness of armour protection they carried and in the calibre of the armament they mounted. Even the Germans themselves accepted that a number of the tank types being fielded by the French Army were superior to their own, the best example of this being the Somua S-35 cavalry medium tank, regarded by many armour pundits of the time as one of the finest in the world.

Although of lesser importance, the armoured contributions of the British and the Belgians served to raise total Allied numbers to just over 4,000 machines. This numerical strength explains why General Gamelin was so confident that the Allied tank force would crush that of the Germans when they invaded Belgium en masse which, as we have seen, he was absolutely convinced they would.

b) Armour

The greatest disparity between the tanks of the Germans and the French lay in the area of armour protection. Even the heaviest Panzer in service at the time of the invasion of France - the Panzer IV Ausf D- weighing in at a modest 18 tons, mounted armour no thicker than 30mm across its frontal arc, although the gun mantlet was formed of 35mm of rolled armour plate. The equivalent machine in the French Army at the time - the Char B1Bis - at nearly double the weight of a Pz, had frontal armour double the thickness of the pz at 60mm. At the time of the German offensive in the west, the two tanks planned to become the standard equipment of the Panzerwaffe were woefully protected.

At the other end of the spectrum, the most numerous German tank was the diminutive Panzer I light tank, whose maximum armour thickness of just 13mm was not even enough to withstand a high velocity rifle bullet. It was to prove appallingly vulnerable to every calibre of gun mounted on French tanks and to Allied anti-tank guns. This machine, and the later Panzer II light tank - the second most numerous German tank to see service in the French campaign - had also proved vulnerable in Poland to enemy anti-tank rifle fire by virtue of their very thin armour. Remedial action was undertaken in the months following the Polish campaign to improve the protection of the Panzer II by the addition of rivetted plates of 20mm armour. Although only some 70 per cent of the Panzer II inventory had been improved in this fashion by 10 May, this did serve to increase the maximum thickness across the vital frontal arc of those machines to approximately 35mm, and this enabled the Germans to rectify the design's most evident weakness. Nonetheless, both machines were castigated by their operators in the French campaign as being 'unfit for combat'.

Although the French Army was still deploying quite a number of its early AMC and AMR light tanks whose armour was equivalent to that of the Panzer I and II, the most numerous and modern machines of this class, namely the Renault 35, Hotchkiss 35/39 and Renault 35, all mounted a maximum of 40mm of armour as standard. Thus, the most common French light tank in May 1940 carried thicker armour than did the heaviest Panzer!

It was, however, when the Germans faced the British Matilda 11 that they encountered the tank bearing the heaviest armour of any in the 1940 campaign, Although the thinnest carried by this machine was just 20mm, found on its hull and turret tops, the 78mm of its cast hull front and nose rendered it invulnerable to any weapon carried by any German AFV, in 1940. As was to be found later when it was also encountered in the Western Desert, the 88mm Flak 18/36 gun was needed to despatch the beast!

While in the aftermath of defeat the myth that the Germans were fielding more numerous and better armoured tanks became a convenient excuse to explain away the rapid Allied collapse, the matter was actually made worse by virtue of the fact that the weapons carried by these same Allied tanks were also better than those of the Panzers!

c) Firepower

The twin 7.92mm MG-13 machine guns carried by the Panzer I rendered the type suitable for little more then infantry support, whilst the 20mm KwK L\130 cannon of the Panzer II was ineffective in penetrating all of the French types. However, it could do so with the armour of the British light and cruiser tanks, and these were penetrated at all ranges. In post-campaign analysis, the 37mm calibre gun mounted on the Panzer Mark III and the Pak36 anti-tank gun were castigated as being inadequate to penetrate enemy tanks. It was for this reason that this weapon acquired the unflattering sobriquet of the army's 'door knocker'. Numerous reports spoke of 37mm shells from both weapons simply bouncing off the armour of tanks like the Somua and Char Bl-Bis. What emerged as the most effective tank mounted weapon against enemy tanks in the French campaign was the low velocity, 75mm KwK37 L\24 gun carried on the Panzer IV. This weapon had not been designed for this purpose, as it was essentially a low velocity howitzer appropriate for the Panzer's designated task of supporting infantry end other tanks. As the largest calibre weapon carried by any of the Panzers, it fired the heaviest shell and, when employing the limited number of Sprenggrenate (armour piercing shells) ammunition it carried in combat (with the majority carried being HE), it was able to take on and defeat the Somua S-35, albeit only up to a range of 600 metres. Beyond this distance, the effectiveness of the weapon fell off rapidly. However, even the 75mm weapon found difficulty penetrating the heavier frontal armour of the Char B1. One German officer later observed that in a one to one with either of these French tanks, even the Panzer IV would have little chance of success.

On paper, which is in terms of a straight comparison in the size and effectiveness of weaponry, most French tanks also had an advantage across the board relative to those carried by the Panzers. Apart from the older AMR 35 which mounted, like the Panzer I, nothing other than a machine gun, all other French designs fielded weapons of 25mm calibre or more. As the most numerous type in service with the French Army in 1940, the H-35 class of light cavalry tanks carried a 37mm or 40mm weapon, double the size of that carried by their German counterparts, Even the obsolescent FT-17, dating to the First World War and still in service in some numbers in 1940, albeit mainly in reserve units, mounted a 37mm gun. The two most formidable French machines - namely the Somua S-35 and Char Bl-Bis - both mounted a variant of the excellent French 47mm anti-tank gun in their turrets, while the latter also disposed of a75mm weapon in its lower front hull.

The 2 pounder OF (quick firing) gun was the main armament of the British Army cruiser tanks and of the Matilda II heavy infantry support tank encountered by the Germans in the French Campaign. Although later castigated by its users in the Western Desert, primarily for its lack of a high explosive shell, the 2pdr was none the less regarded as one of the best weapons of its type in the world in 1940. A barrel length of 50 calibres allowed the gun to tire an AP round at quite a high velocity, thus permitting British tankers to hit the more lightly armoured German Panzers at a greater range. It was superior to its nearest enemy equivalent, the 37mm weapon mounted on the Panzer III.

Char versus Panzer: The factors that really mattered!

Notwithstanding the 'on paper' superiority of French armour in particular areas, the 1940 campaign would illustrate the degree to which these were degraded by a whole series of other factors. These ranged from French Army doctrine and organisation through to general design limitations and other issues, all of which combined to render the whole, in the crucible of war, to be substantially less than the sum of its parts.

It is a truism that French armour doctrine at the start of the Second World War was in essence no different to that at the end of the First. The roles of the tank were that of infantry support and the provision of a mechanised equivalent of the cavalry. These two suppositions governed all aspects of tank unit organisation, their use, design and development In the inter-war period. It meant that when faced with a technologically inferior enemy whose tank arm was predicated upon a far more dynamic concept of the use of armour and air power, the French were unable to respond in an effective way and went down to defeat. Cited as a maxim in pre-war French Service Regulations, tanks had to observe the requirement of only moving as fast as the infantry they were supporting. In consequence, the specifications issued for new machines to fulfil the support role rarely required that they have a maximum speed beyond 17 mph. These machines formed the core of the five Light Cavalry Divisions in 1940. These comprised a light mechanised brigade equipped with the H-35/R-35/H-38/H-39 tanks, Panhard armoured cars and mechanised infantry. It is a measure of their anachronistic structure that they still included a brigade of cavalry.

The Cavalry Division analogue was to be found in the three Divisions Legeres Mecaniques (abbreviated hereafter to DLM). These light mechanised divisions were seen conceptually as mechanised cavalry. Their primary role was to advance to the fore of the main force and screen its movements - a role that Joachim Murat, Napoleon's commander of cavalry, would have related to without difficulty save for the fact that these steeds were of steel and not flesh and blood I Fielding a mixture of Hotchkiss light tanks and the more formidable Somua S-35s, two of these divisions would be involved in the largest tank clash of the campaign at Hannut in Belgium on 12 and 13 May.

Evidence, however, that the contribution played by the Panzerwaffe in the rapid defeat of Poland had not gone by way of the board in France can be seen in how between September 1939 and May 1940 the French had moved very quickly to create their own equivalent of the Panzer Division. Four Divisions Cuirassees Rapide (hereafter abbreviated to DCR) were set up in short order. Three were already part of the order of battle on 10 May. The fourth, as yet still forming, was under the command of a certain Colonel Charles de Gaulle (one of the few minds in the French camp in the 1930s who had been in tune with German armoured developments and had argued for the same in France). With a mechanised infantry battalion and two battalions of artillery, the core of these formations was built around two battalions of 60 Char B1Bis. This was the premier tank of the French Army in 1940. However, it had not been designed for rapide. Its original specification had called for a machine to provide infantry support! The top speed of just 18mph illustrates the point. More numerous were 78 Hotchkiss H-39s that were also organised in two battalions. When enabled to take up static positions, the heavy frontal armour and weapons of French machines enabled them to deal without difficulty with all German tanks -their armour being so weak.

When denied that facility, they succumbed rapidly to the superior movement of the Panzer formation operating in concert with other arms and the Luftwaffe. This was bound to happen at any time the Germans effected a breakthrough of the French line - be it held by infantry or armour - because of the latter's attention to the maintenance of contiguous lines. This hangover from the Great War, when trench lines dictated the requirement to preserve a coherent front, contained within it the seeds of many errors made in 1940 by the French Army. By default it conferred many tactical and strategic gains on the Germans, who rapidly and ruthlessly exploited every opportunity provided when this effect of this anachronistic doctrine was employed.

Although the new DCRs appeared formidable on paper, they had been set up to emulate a formation whose armour doctrine was alien to the French military mind. It would take more than a few months and a reorganisation of assets to copy what the Germans had done in Poland. Herein is to be seen a profound weakness in the design of French armour that was to impact on its ability to duplicate the mobility of the Panzer Divisions in Poland. We have already alluded to the slowness of French tank designs. It was also the case that the efficiency of any Char in battle in 1940 was seriously handicapped by the one-man turret they all carried. To the commander of the vehicle, who had to identify the target, also fell the tasks of aiming the gun, rotating the turret, loading the gun and firing it. Nor was he helped by the poor view provided for him by limited optics. However, all of the aforementioned were then compounded by the slow traverse of the turret.

Contrast this with German design practice. Unlike their French counterparts, the German medium Panzers had crews of five men. Representing, as they did, the machines that would see the Panzerwaffe through to 1943, and in the case of the Pz IV through to the defeat in 1945, the insistence by the Heeres Waffenamt on a three-man turret design was proved by experience. A commander, loader and aimer were deemed to provide the best arrangement for the division of labour in carrying out those tasks, thereby providing the optimum efficiency of the workload of a crew when in battle. With the commander able to observe events from his cupola and communicate his orders via a throat microphone, this permitted the Panzer to rapidly move and shift both vehicle and main armament from target to target. The trump card, however, for the German way of war in 1940 was the radios carried by all Panzers, but very few Chars. In a real sense, they were the war winner.

It was the onboard radios carried by all Panzers that permitted them to manoeuvre rapidly on the battlefield to take account of contingencies as they arose. It was accepted even in 1940 that 'the primary method of command in combat' was the radio. Drilling in the use of this medium was deemed by the Panzerwaffe to be as important as firing accurately. By 1940, the Panzerwaffe had had years of practice in war games and operations in which to develop their radio procedures and inculcate the protocols of such in their tank crews. A short insight into the sophistication of such methods and their common usage through the tank arm in 1940 can be gleaned from this instruction manual extract:

'Movements are carried out according to radio command, previous orders or signals (although radio was accepted as being the most workable means of command - author comment). On the order to move out, all tanks start moving uniformly and at first, straight ahead. If a change of formation is desired at the same time as the start of the move, the formation order is given first, followed by the order to move out. Distances, intervals and formation are assumed while driving .... When changing direction of the march, the commander orders 'Follow me!' or 'Direction of march is... !' while giving point or compass bearing. If a formation change is to take place at the same time, the march direction is given first, followed by the new formation. Platoons that have four, instead of five, tanks execute these formations and manoeuvres in analogous fashion'.

The degree of control implicit in such a short extract and the sophistication required to effect it betokens a great expertise in radio employment. Herein lies the French bafflement at the ability of the Germans to move their tanks around en masse and effect a rapid concentration of effort and firepower where they desired it. This is hardly surprising when very few French tanks actually possessed radios. Apart from a cultural obsession with radio security, which provides one explanation as to why they were not fitted in their tanks, the other problem arose again directly out of the perception that tanks were only to provide support for the infantry. In such circumstances, radios were not necessary, signal flags would suffice and, once drawn up in their static lines facing the enemy, it was thought to be enough for an officer or runner to move from tank to tank passing on orders in person by word of mouth!

The sophisticated German radio net went beyond tank to tank. It also permitted a degree of communication between ground and air that had never been seen before. Attached to the Panzer Divisions were Fliegerleittrupps-tactical air control parties - which were provided with wheeled vehicles. At this juncture of the war there were too few SPWs available to be fitted out for this role, although they would become a more familiar sight from 1941 onward. Their task was to be in close proximity to the advancing Panzers. When the tank divisions' own towed artillery could not eliminate a target, the Fliegerleit offizier-the air control officer - elicited what air support was available and contacted the pilots on their frequency. In 1940, it was the Stuka and the Henschel Hs-123 which provided this help, with the bulk of the air support being provided by the former. The air control officer would then talk the pilots into the area so that they could recognise the target. In the meantime, troops with the Panzers would have demarcated their own positions relative to that of the enemy by laying out on the ground special identification panels. It was later claimed that the support given to Guderian's thrust to the channel saw the most effective use of air support of the war, with Stukas being on hand to deal with targets within 15-20 minutes of being called.

The first Soviet officer to enter Vienna poses in front of his tank: an American Sherman.

Map of Vienna at the 1920s

The trajectory of Viennese history over the course of the twentieth century follows a downward arc: in the first two decades of the century the city was a dominant political and cultural hub in Europe. Thereafter it declined in significance as a European capital. The cultural developments of Vienna's imperial era, which ended in 1918, substantially defined the city's identity and have overshadowed cultural developments of the subsequent twentieth century. As a result, post- Habsburg Vienna is sometimes described as a nostalgic museum city that showcases its own grand past. While Vienna remained the capital of Austria through the twentieth century, the political and geographic contours of the Austrian state fluctuated greatly. Vienna went from being the capital city of the Habsburg Monarchy with fifty-two million inhabitants to being the capital of the small First Republic with just six million people. From 1934 to 1938 it was the capital of an authoritarian Catholic corporate state (Ständestaat).

The city was incorporated into the Third Reich between 1938 and 1945. In 1939 Greater Vienna (Gross-Wien) became one of the seven provinces of the Ostmark, the Nazi designation for Austria. The territory of Greater Vienna was expanded threefold as surrounding small towns and Lower Austrian countryside were incorporated into the city. Vienna emerged once again as the capital of the Second Austrian Republic after 1945. When, in 1955, the Allied occupation forces left Austria, now officially neutral in the Cold War, Vienna's status as a neutral metropolis proved attractive for a number of international organizations. The city became home or host to several United Nations offices (International Atomic Energy Agency in 1956, International Development Organization in 1967) and to the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) in 1965. In 1961 the city played host to a superpower summit between John F. Kennedy (1917-1963) and Nikita Khrushchev (1894-1971) and in the 1970s to Strategic Arms Limitations Treaty (SALT) talks. Vienna's twentieth-century transformation from hothouse of cultural innovation to staid diplomatic hub inspired a public relations initiative by mayor Michael Häupl's (b. 1949) office in the 1990s; ads promoting Weltstadt Wien attempted to reclaim Vienna's status as ''world city.''

DEMOGRAPHICS AND STRUCTURES OF GOVERNMENT

The city has seen a slight decline in population over the past one hundred years. The 1910 census recorded 2,031,498 residents. In 1951 the city had a population of 1,616,125, and by 2001 the population had dipped to 1,550,123. The national and religious makeup of the population has shifted markedly as Austria's borders and state structure have changed. In 1910 Vienna was a microcosm of the diverse Habsburg Monarchy. While a majority of the residents were German-speaking, at least 100,000 residents spoke Czech as a first language. Eighty-seven percent of Viennese were Roman Catholic and nearly 9 percent of the population was Jewish. Hungarians, Poles, and Italians added to Vienna's reputation as a Central European melting pot. Adolf Hitler (1889-1945) famously commented on Vienna's prewar diversity, writing in Mein Kampf (1925) that a gradual ''Slavicization'' threatened the German character of the city. He recorded hearing a ''babble of different tongues'' and traced the roots of his own anti-Semitism to the streets of prewar Vienna. Hitler noted that ''the visual instruction of the Viennese streets had performed inestimable services.'' Districts home to Orthodox Jews in traditional dress ''swarmed with a people that no longer even superficially possessed any likeness to Germans'' (pp. 192-193, 198-199).

After 1918 Vienna's population became more homogenous as non-German-speaking residents relocated to the successor nation-states that were founded on former Habsburg territory. Despite the anti-Semitism of the city's ruling Christian Social Party, German-speaking Jews had played important roles in the politics and culture of Vienna's fin-desiècle period. During the First Republic, the city's heterogeneous Jewish community was divided along liberal, Jewish nationalist, Socialist, and Orthodox lines, and developed various strategies for coping with increasingly overt anti-Semitism in the interwar years. In 1934 most Austrian Jews (93 percent) lived in Vienna; the vast majority of these either emigrated or were deported in the 1930s and early 1940s. Today Jews make up a fraction of the Viennese population. The opening of a permanent Jewish history museum (1996) and a Holocaust memorial at the Judenplatz (2000) have facilitated discussion about the historical experiences of Viennese Jews and the history of anti-Semitism in the city. Post-1945 immigrants to the city have included Turks and citizens from Eastern Europe and the former Yugoslavia. In 2001, 49 percent of the population was Roman Catholic, nearly 8 percent was Muslim, and 25 percent was recorded as ''confessionless.''

ADMINISTRATIVE AND POLITICAL STRUCTURES

In the first two decades of the century Vienna was administratively part of the province (Land) of Lower Austria. In 1922 it became its own province and incorporated new districts on the opposite side of the Danube River. The city government is led by a mayor and a municipal council, and the municipal administration is made up of departments (Magistratsabteilungen). From 1897 to 1918 the clerically oriented Christian Social Party controlled the city government. The influential Karl Lueger (1844- 1910) served as mayor until his death in 1910, and his party retained power until the end of World War I. Between 1918 and 1934, the period known as ''Red Vienna,'' the city government was in the hands of socialists. When the Socialist Party was banned in 1934, the municipal government was taken over by the corporate Fatherland Front and later by the National Socialist Party. Since 1945 all seven of Vienna's mayors have come from the Socialist Party.

SPATIAL DIVISIONS ON SOCIAL AND OCCUPATIONAL GROUNDS

Today Vienna is made up of twenty-three districts (Bezirke). The First District sits in the center of the city and is surrounded by the Ringstrasse, a grand boulevard built on the site of the old city wall, which was dismantled in the second half of the nineteenth century. On the Ringstrasse sit many government buildings and cultural landmarks, including the parliament, the state opera, the Hofburg (a former Habsburg palace, now the site of museums and the Austrian National Library), the city hall (Rathaus), the University of Vienna, the Burgtheater, and the police headquarters. The remaining districts are arranged in a roughly circular pattern around the city center, with transportation arteries leading out as spokes. The Danube River flows southeast through the city. Traditionally, the first district housed aristocracy and the seat of government, the inner districts housed the bourgeois classes, and the outer districts were home to the growing immigrant and working classes.

WORLD WAR I

During World War I the civilian population suffered shortages of most essential goods. As agricultural lands in the Austrian east (Galicia) were destroyed by fighting and imports from neighboring Hungary declined, food supplies in Vienna grew scarce. Food rationing was introduced in the fall of 1914, and by 1916 hunger and malnutrition affected large segments of the population. The city was a central hub for Habsburg military transports and many schools and other municipal buildings were converted into hospitals for wounded troops. In January 1918 labor and hunger strikes in Vienna and other Austrian cities brought the home front into near-mutiny. The Spanish influenza epidemic killed more than 3,000 residents in fall 1918. Poorer Viennese continued to rely on external food aid (primarily from the International Red Cross and Society of Friends) into 1919 and 1920. Some former imperial buildings were converted by the new socialist municipal government into children's and veterans' homes.

ARTS AND SCIENCES

Around 1900 Viennese artists, scientists, architects, composers, writers, and philosophers were leaders of European cultural innovation. In his classic work Fin de Sie`cle Vienna: Politics and Culture, the historian Carl Schorske investigated the political and cultural climate that produced the likes of the psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud (1856-1939), the Zionist Theodor Herzl (1860-1904), the painter Gustav Klimt (1862-1918), and the writers of Young Vienna ( Jung-Wien), Arthur Schnitzler (1862-1931) and Hugo von Hofmannsthal (1874-1929). Across artistic and scientific disciplines Schorske saw a common thread: Viennese intellectuals were reacting to the perceived end of the rational, liberal culture of the nineteenth century. In its place came the post-liberal, irrational ''psychological man'' of the twentieth century. While Schorske's work, published in 1980, is the starting point for study of the fin-de-siècle period, scholars have since questioned both his characterization of Austrian liberalism and his analysis of the relation between politics and culture.

In 1897 Klimt and a handful of art students formed the Vienna Secession, a group that sought to create a ''new art'' in reaction to the more conservative establishment of Vienna's art academy. They adopted the motto ''To the age its art, to the art its freedom.'' Shortly thereafter, Josef Hoffmann (1870-1956) and Koloman Moser (1868-1918) founded the Vienna Workshop (Wiener Werkstätte), an arts-and-crafts association that produced household objects similar those of the art nouveau or Jugendstil style elsewhere in Europe. Influential architects of the period were Otto Wagner (1841-1918), who designed a number of Vienna's train and transit stations in the art nouveau style, and Adolph Loos (1870-1933), who eschewed ornamentation in favor of spare, functional designs. In his newspaper Die Fackel, the Viennese journalist Karl Kraus (1874-1936) wrote biting satire about the contradictions, absurdities and hypocrisy of Viennese and Austrian society in the first decades of the twentieth century.

In the decade following World War I Vienna was a center for European philosophical and scientific exploration. The Vienna Circle (Wiener Kreis), organized by the philosopher Moritz Schlick (1882-1936), developed logical positivism and theorized on the language of science, the relations among scientific disciplines, and the unity of all scientific endeavor.

RED VIENNA, 1920s

The 1920s, known as the era of Red Vienna, saw massive expansion of social services and municipal housing. Implementing new real-estate taxes and rent-control laws, the socialist government of Vienna embarked on an ambitious building plan and added approximately 65,000 new housing units. Many of the housing developments, which cultivated both new privacy for the working classes (through private kitchens and living rooms) and also increased communal domesticity (shared play areas, libraries, and laundry facilities), were to become models for urban planners in other European cities. After 1947 the socialist municipal government resumed the public housing support for which it had become internationally known in the interwar period. Between 1951 and 1970 an additional 96,000 housing units were built.

But the 1920s were also a decade of political violence. The ''red'' city of Vienna had long been held in contempt by the clerical ''black'' forces of the Austrian provinces, represented by the conservative Christian Social Party. The historian Gerhard Botz counts 215 deaths and 640 seriously wounded from ''political violence'' in Austria between 1918 and 1933 (1983, p. 304). In 1919 and 1920 small groups of communists regularly agitated for a Soviet-style government, but they never managed to take Vienna as they had neighboring Budapest and Munich. One notorious incident of interwar street violence took place in July 1927 when members of the fascist Home Guard (Heimwehr) on trial for killing a man and child in the Burgenland town of Schattendorf were acquitted. Angry working-class demonstrators took to the streets in Vienna, the Palace of Justice was burned down, and troops fired on the crowds. Nearly one hundred demonstrators and a handful of troops were killed, and around one thousand Viennese were wounded in the ensuing violence. This crisis was part of a larger political polarization between Right and Left that marked Viennese politics in the decade after World War I. The Karl-Marx-Hof, built between 1926 and 1930, and one of the municipal government's most celebrated housing developments, was the central site of Austria's brief civil war in February 1934. More than 300 people were killed when the army and right-wing paramilitary forces battled socialists in Vienna and other Austrian cities. The socialists were defeated, the Social Democratic Party was banned, and leaders of the leftist fighters were executed. Today a plaque at the Karl-Marx-Hof commemorates this battle, placing Vienna at the center of the growing European-wide split between Right and Left in the 1930s. It reads ''On 12 February 1934 Austria's workers were the first in Europe to stand courageously against fascism. They fought for freedom, democracy and the Republic.'' Following the civil war, Austria was for four years the capital of the corporate clerical state ruled first by Chancellor Engelbert Dollfuss (1892-1934), who was assassinated in Vienna, and then by Chancellor Kurt von Schuschnigg (1897-1977).

THE THIRD REICH, 1938-1945

One of the moments in interwar Viennese history that would later complicate apologist claims that Austria had been the first ''victim'' of Nazi Germany's territorial expansion was the warm welcome that Adolf Hitler received on 2 April 1938 when he spoke on Vienna's Heldenplatz. Ninety-nine percent of the Viennese electorate voted ''yes'' in the 10 April plebiscite on annexation by Germany. In November 1938 Viennese synagogues and Jewish-owned businesses were attacked and burned in the events of Kristallnacht. The National Socialist Party had an extensive network of branches and cells in Vienna. At the local level 14,254 ''blocs'' administered the affairs of neighborhoods and apartment buildings. In February 1941 mass deportations of Viennese Jews to ghettos and concentration camps was begun; in total, around 65,000 Austrian Jews were murdered in the Holocaust.

Geographically, Nazified Greater Vienna was the second largest city in the Third Reich behind Berlin. However, despite its position as a transport hub and potential ''bridge city'' for German interests in southeastern Europe, the Berlin government tried to reduce the regional influence of Vienna. It was classified as a provincial city (Provinzstadt) rather than a leadership city (Führerstadt), and Hitler vowed to break Vienna's cultural hegemony in the Alpine and Danube regions by promoting Linz as a competitor.

During World War II the food and fuel supplies to Vienna were less restricted than they had been in World War I. Although it was better provisioned, the Viennese population now faced Allied air attacks. The United States began regular bombing raids on Vienna in September 1944. A police report on the mood of the people from March 1945 described ''panicked fear of air attacks (the people's nerves are shot). Repeated bitter statements about the lack of any [air] defense'' (Widerstand und Verfolgung, vol. 3, pp. 474- 475). By war's end in April 1945, 8,769 Viennese civilians had been killed and tens of thousands left homeless in the 110 attacks that constituted the ''air terror.'' The physical infrastructure of the city (bridges, canals, housing stock) was heavily damaged during the Battle of Vienna in April 1945, when the Red Army captured the city from the retreating German Army. The territory of Lower Austria, surrounding the capital, fell into the Soviet occupation zone. The outlying territories annexed by Greater Vienna in 1938 were eventually returned to Lower Austria. The city of Vienna itself was divided into sectors run by the Soviets, Americans, British, and French. The center of the city (I. District) was under quadripartite control, and the occupation administration changed hands monthly. One legacy of the Soviet occupation of Vienna is the towering monument to Soviet liberation, unveiled in 1949, that still stands on the Schwarzenbergplatz in the city center.

LINK

Over the Front journal actually rated the best aircraft of the war and came to the "scientific" conclusion that the best fighter of the war was the Siemens Schukert D.IIIa ! Four 'tied' for second...the Fokker DVIIF, Bristol F.2b, Spad XIIIC.1 and the Snipe 7F.1.

The criteria were: Maximum speed, Snap turn, Rate of climb, Armament, Ceiling, Steady State Turns, and Endurance.

The thumbnail comments on each of the top 5 were. "Good balance of all features" Siemens Shuckert and Fokker D.VIIF. "Superior turns and best guns" -Bristol F.2b, "Top Speed and good turns" Spad XIII and Superior Turns and Guns" Sopwith Snipe. Very poor scorers were Albatros D.Va and the Fokker DR.I - they were the only two rated as POOR.

The Albatros vee-strutters (D.III and V) were an attempt to give the Albatros D.II more of the maneuverability enjoyed by the Nieuport 11, 16, and 17. Pfalz went so far as to build a more or less straight copy of the Nieuport.

Comments about the Albatros D.V /Va should be seen in context. The Albatros D.III was the best German fighter when it appeared and was in its heyday in April 1917 and continued in production until May 1918 alongside the D.V/Va. Richthofen also flew the OAW build D.III at times. Indeed in Jasta lineups photos of Jasta 28w and Jasta 27 and other units you can see that the Jastaführers of these units, Karl-Emil Schäfer, Otto Hartmann, Hermann Göring, and countless others continued to fly the D.III. The retrofit, while not entirely solving the problem eased the fears of the pilots enough to let them focus on their task, which they did very well. The D.V appeared during this time, but the performance was not as great an improvement as the D.III had been over the D.II. (except diving) Although von Richthofen disliked the type he flew it and recognized it was the best that they had. And, he did well in it. 60 victories on the Albatros D.I,II,III, and V are not shabby at all. Consider the remark made by Paul Strähle of Jasta 18 and later of Jasta 57. He said that in his opinion it was the equal of the Fokker D.VII. A surprising remark, but he was there, and we weren't. (see the Smithsonian Albatros D.Va book by Robert Mikesh) Richthofen's comments about the "lousy Albatroses" was made to serve a purpose. He said that to get those back at Idflieg to stop resting on their laurels and foster support for more competition between manufacturers. (Perhaps he overstated it to make a point, his opinion, although highly regarded, still had to be carefully floated to the right people who could do something about the situation. He was, after all, a junior officer.)

Someone stated that why not put the BMW IIIa engine in the D.II? Albatros tested that engine in a variety of the D. type airframe combinations and there was no appreciable improvement to warrant a contract. Besides, by 1918, the Albatros was a late 1916-early 1917 design. As we have seen, the Fokker D.VII and some other designs were to take the limelight as far as the pilot's aspirations were concerned. But, the Albatros D.V and D.III (OAW) soldiered on for that matter, much like the ME-109 would in a later war although surpassed by superior designs.

Lower-wing failure

According to the Windsock Datafile on the Albatros, the problem wasn't confined to the D.V; it plagued both the D.III and D.Va.

Pilots started to experience lower-wing failure with the D.III, the Datafile saying that this has been attributed by several writers as being caused by the single-spar lower wing fluttering, leading to failure. But it goes on to say that exhaustive tests proved the strength of the wing to be quite adequate and that the problem was largely countered by reinforcing the wings structure and improving quality control.

However, when the first D.Vs arrived at the front, the problem resurfaced and, this time, the problem was never totally identified or completely resolved.

On 24 July 1917, Idflieg admitted that the D.V could be considered only as a lightened D.III of virtually equal performance: production was consequently halted after about 900 aircraft had been ordered and the model superseded by the D.Va.

The D.Va started to arrive at the front in October 1917. It was similar to the D.V but the whole structure was beefed-up with additional fuselage ribs, stronger wing spars and heavier ribs. Aileron control cables were routed through the lower wings as per the D.III and wing tip support cables were also fitted for additional strength (the only way of identifying a D.Va from a D.V). As a result, the aircraft was heavier than even the D.III and its reputation was only partly salvaged by engine developments giving more power.

The wing failures continued to occur and testing continued in an effort to resolve the problem. As a result of these tests, the aircraft were modified in-the-field by replacing the spar attachments, increasing the diameter of the drag and anti-lift cables and reinforcing the wing ribs at the point where the auxiliary bracing strut was fitted to the leading edge of the wings; all of which seemed to resolve the problem.

By Peter N. Stearns

Fascist movements took shape initially in the 1920s, building on new kinds of conservative attacks on modern society before World War I. In some respects, the movements were blatantly anti-Western, despite their popularity in countries that seemed central to the West. They attacked individualism in the name of group loyalty, the state, and a single leader. They blasted parliaments for their political divisions and their constraints on strong government initiatives. They criticized modern consumerism, modern art, and the changes in women's roles, urging a return to real or imagined folk forms and female domesticity and childbearing. Ultimately, fascism, combined with weak response from the remaining democracies, introduced another set of horrors to 20th century Western history, bringing another world war and the unprecedented slaughter of six million Jews, plus many others, in the Nazi Holocaust.

How could this happen in Western civilization? Aside from a head-in-the- sand wish that the 20th century would go away, there have been two principal interpretive responses. The first emphasizes the extent to which the leading fascist countries, and particularly Germany, were not in fact really Western, despite their undeniable participation in many aspects of Western history and numerous contributions, from music to the modern university, to Western life. Nazism, according to this line of argument, springs from Germanness, not Westernness.

A great deal of research went into a search for a German Sonderweg, or special way, to explain how a society could go so wrong. All of the Sonderweg analysis went beyond the special circumstances Germany faced after 1918, which everyone acknowledges played a key role in spurring Nazism: defeat in war after the government had kept Germans hopeful that victory was near; the fact that the military leadership made a new civilian government take responsibility for the peace settlement, which tainted the regime even though it had not had anything to do with the conduct of war; a terrible price inflation in the early 1920s (for which the government did bear some responsibility, but which really unsettled the middle classes by pounding down the value of savings); a bad peace settlement which stripped Germany of key territory, severely limited the military which made both leaders and veterans all the more disgruntled, and also treated the nation as if it had been solely at fault for the war, imposing heavy reparations which further damaged the economy; and a depression which, partly because of the war's consequences, hit Germany unusually hard after 1919. None of this, according to Sonderweg analysis, quite explains why so many Germans could voluntarily fall for such a horrible political movement (at a peak in free elections in 1932, about 37% of all voters picked the Nazis) and then stay largely silent under a regime that became still more horrible as time went on.

Here are the main features of Germany's special historical path, and, of course, they can be combined with each other as well as with the war and postwar dislocation. In politics, the Prussian state had traditionally emphasized strong authority and a large army. Germany had long been disunited, and then between 1864 and 1871 gained unity by war. All of this increased nationalism more than was usual in Europe (so the argument goes) and linked it to militarism and a strong state. National success weakened the middle-class commitment to liberalism, for liberals accepted a fairly weak parliament, including the emperor's appointment of the executive ministers along with limits on the freedom of the press, because they were so excited about unity. When Germany did get full parliamentary institutions after World War I, in the Weimar republic, it did not have a strong enough liberal tradition to provide adequate support. Late unity also caused a pervasive sense that the other great European powers were not giving Germany its due, for example in imperialism, so when the war settlement punished Germany directly resentment was greater than it might otherwise have been. All of which, in turn, made a vigorously authoritarian, militaristic political movement that promised a glorious foreign policy unusually attractive.

Culturally, some have argued that Germans - particularly, Lutheran Germans - had a distinctively internal idea of freedom, which could make them feel free even under an authoritarian state. Again, this points to weak liberalism. Socially, Germany had an unusually powerful landed aristocracy, the Prussian Junkers, who wanted a state that would maintain their social and economic prestige. Though not for the most part Nazi, they accepted Nazism because it secretly pledged a defense of aristocratic privilege. Under the Junkers, many peasants had long lacked much freedom, which may have made them, too, quick to support a nationalist movement that promised a defense of peasant values against modern life. (Nazis were big on promoting peasant costumes and such.) Germany had industrialized very fast and created a powerful big business class that often allied with the Junkers. Overall, German society had not kept pace with its economy. One result, besides traditionalist peasants, was a large artisan and shopkeeper class that resented modern economic forms, like the department store, which threatened growing competition; again, Nazism, which promised to restore artisan guilds though it largely broke its promise in favor of promoting big business and a war economy, could seem a solution to a society under systematic stress even before World War I. Germany's social structure was simply less flexible than France's or England's, and rapid industrialization was all the more disruptive.

And so Germany was not really Western, which makes a clearly anti-Western political movement and regime unsurprising without calling Western civilization directly into account. The Western nations are still responsible for their timid, sluggish response to Nazism, until World War II forced their hand, but at least Nazism itself is not laid at the Western door. There are a few holes in the Sonderweg analysis: notably, Prussia, where strong government and weak peasants had their greatest hold, was not a hotbed of Nazism compared, for example, to Catholic regions such as Bavaria. But lots of really thoughtful scholars, German and non-German, have poured great intelligence and historical insight into the search for a special explanation.

But Sonderweg analysis has declined in popularity in recent years, mainly, of course, because Germany now seems thoroughly Western and the pressure of explaining Nazism and its atrocities is far less acute. (Historical thinking is always susceptible to the impact of current conditions, and this is one of the factors involved here; the Sonderweg interest may have dropped more than it should as a result.) Far more work now sees Germany's history as fairly similar to that of its neighbors, its social structure, for example, quite comparable to that of France. But this might mean, of course, that Nazism has more to do with the West than some observers might wish.

While Nazism was unusually powerful and awful, strong fascist, anti- Jewish movements cropped up in many parts of the West after World War I - particularly, of course, in Italy (though the anti-Jewish part came only later) and France. Fascism did not win out in France but fascistic movements sometimes had as many as two million supporters; and France's wartime regime, though partly imposed by the Germans after the French defeat, had fascist elements. Spain also picked up fascism, though partly on the strength of German example. To be sure, fascism was weak in Britain, Scandinavia, and the settler societies including the United States, where among other things the parliamentary tradition was unusually strong. But maybe it was in fact Western, and not simply a German aberration.

And here is how this possibility might play out. Fascism was anti-Western in many ways but it highlighted several Western features, taking them out of full context. Notably, it emphasized a strong state as absolutism had done, though going much further in part because, with industrialization and the World War I example, governments could be much more powerful than absolutists had ever imagined save in rhetoric. Fascism strongly played up fervent nationalism, which was a Western creation. It built on a tradition of anti-Semitism that went back to the Middle Ages. And a fascination with military virtues and military competitions was as old as the West itself, and all the fascist movements played on this tradition. So a real Western component was there.

Then, fascism also built on the shock of World War I and a wider sense that industrial society needed to be brought under greater control, to protect older values and social groups. Germany was not alone here. Many sectors - the military, the aristocracy, and in places like Spain the church - were willing to use new, desperate measures to preserve their social power, and fascism could suit the bill. Fear of communism added into this mix - and many non-fascist Westerners shared this fear in the 1920s and 1930s.

Germany went to extremes, but this is because of the war and postwar dislocations, and also because of Hitler's particular evil genius, not because Germany was non-Western. Other regions moved in similar directions. The West is not off the hook. Even at the time, thoughtful observers, such as the novelist Sinclair Lewis in the United States with his book It Can't Happen Here, worried that fascism could spread more widely in the West. Even after World War II fears of revived fascism have troubled not only Germans and Italians, but also French observers and others. No one would argue that fascism was typically Western or some logical outgrowth of Western history; but there may be more link than is sometimes recognized. In extreme circumstances, in other words, the West harbors its own opponents. And while events in the past 50 years have greatly eased fears of fascist recurrence, it may be that the memory not only of the movement, but of its links to Western civilization, is worth maintaining, to warn Westerners of their own dark side.

Hitler counted on Allied reluctance to assume an active role in the war, and he was not disappointed. The six-month hiatus known as the Phony War lasted from September 1939 until April 1940, when Germany invaded Norway and Denmark. In the interim, Britain and France made plans that could only fail, because they were based on a negative concept: avoidance of the costly direct attacks that had characterized World War I. New Anglo-French strategy focused on naval blockade and encirclement - indirect methods that were no match for the new blitzkrieg tactics of Nazi Germany.

Allied strategy was based on the belief that the German economy was fundamentally weak, and that holding defensive positions and implementing a naval blockade would win victory by attrition. Unable to deliver a decisive victory against the Allied defensive position in the west, Hitler would be overthrown, bringing peace and the restoration of Polish independence. There were serious flaws to this approach, both in its fundamentals and in its implementation. The Nazi-Soviet Pact reduced the likelihood that Germany would need to station many troops on its eastern frontier, and also constituted a serious breach in the blockade.

Hitler offered peace to the Allies after completing the conquest of Poland, but Chamberlain no longer trusted him, and the war was now less about Poland than about the whole European balance of power. The period from October to April 1940 is often called the 'Phoney War', a derisive term applied by an isolationist American senator. There was action elsewhere, but certainly it was a time of inaction on the Western Front - disastrously so for the Allies. The attrition strategy created a state of mind that avoided bold risks; passivity was all that was necessary. They failed even to develop an effective defensive strategy. The French and British continued to rearm, and a sizeable British Expeditionary Force (BEF) was deployed to France. The problem was the northern part of the line. Belgium and the Netherlands were determined to remain neutral, so refused to engage in any military planning and would not allow Allied forces into their countries. Allied planning had either to be based on leaving the Low Countries to the Germans or on guesses as to their defensive deployments and capabilities. The first option was rejected because it would compromise the whole defensive position. It was planned therefore to advance to the natural defensive lines in Belgium formed by the canals, in the hopes of forming a line with the Belgian Army. Unfortunately, German planning accurately predicted this move, and indeed welcomed it as it would draw the Allied forces forward into the trap to be sprung through the Ardennes.

There was more action at sea. The German Navy (Kriegsmarine), like the Army, was unprepared for war in 1939. The submarine force was small, and the two new battleships, Tirpitz and Bismarck, and the aircraft carrier Graf Zeppelin, were nowhere near completion (the latter never was). As it was, the submariners scored some spectacular early successes, aided by British tardiness in introducing up-to-date anti-submarine measures. Günther Prien in U-47 became the first German Second World War hero when he penetrated the fleet anchorage at Scapa Flow and sank the battleship HMS Royal Oak on 14 October 1939. The aircraft carrier Courageous was another early victim of the U-boats, as, more controversially, was the liner Athenia on 3 September. At the outbreak of war, some surface commerce raiders were at sea, and caused great disruption to merchant shipping. One, Graf Spee, was tracked down in the South Atlantic and engaged in the Battle of the River Plate by two British cruisers, Ajax and Exeter and the New Zealand-manned Achilles. After battering Exeter, Graf Spee took refuge in Montevideo. Deceived into thinking that a larger British force was waiting outside, its captain, Langsdorff, scuttled the ship and committed suicide.

One of Graf Spee's supply ships, Altmark, was intercepted in February in Norwegian coastal waters by HMS Cossack and British prisoners-of-war on board were liberated. The British and French were still considering intervention in Scandinavia to interdict the ore traffic to Germany, at the least by mining Norwegian waters. After the Altmark incident, Admiral Raeder, commander-in-chief of the Kriegsmarine, convinced Hitler that he should pre-empt this in order to protect German interests and prevent the Allies gaining control of key Norwegian ports.

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Between 1920 and 1927, France made military agreements with Belgium, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Romania and Yugoslavia but in 1938 the situation had considerably evolved:
• Belgium is completely neutral
• Czechoslovakia is seen as too weak to counter any German or even Italian attack. It is in trouble because of the German minorities in the Sudetes and France doesn't really count anymore with it.
• Romania is between Hungary and Bulgaria and is not really in a situation to be an ally but French armaments are being delivered to Romania (Renault R35 tanks, 105mm field guns, Brandt mortars etc.)
• Poland appears then as the last possible ally. The French intelligence services noted weaknesses about the Polish Army in their reports:
* insufficient instruction of the NCOs
* tactical doctrines not adapted to modern warfare
* insufficient ammunition and equipment
* war industry too weak

But they also noted good points like the instruction of the officers and the ardent patriotism. Poland is seen as a good ally but it is unsure if Poland will fight with the French troops at this time.

During this time, French politicians are also trying very slowly to cooperate with the Soviets in the simple aim to isolate Germany but the latter choose to support Hitler. Nonetheless in 1938, the French Army on its side doesn't see a possible alliance with the Soviets at all. At the beginning of WW2 it is intended to send an allied expeditionary force in Finland ... but the intervention takes finally takes place later in Norway in 1940 with British, French and Polish soldiers.

In February 1938, the British Army has only 6 active divisions and 11 reserve divisions. Great Britain doesn't want to be involved in the coming war and before October 1938 is not implicated in the rearmament programs beside France. Chamberlain and Lord Halifax indicated (as noted by Georges Bonnet) that a ground involvement in continental Europe by the British Army is purely hypothetical and could at the moment only reach 2 incomplete divisions.

Therefore by end 1938 the single allied ground troops that could help France against Germany are those from the Polish army and 2 British divisions. At that time the involvement of Poland is nevertheless also seen very hypothetical because of the foreign policy of Colonel Beck.

The perception from the French high command about the French troops in 1938 is also not very good, many armaments and divisions are lacking, the war industry is insufficient etc. but the clash with Germany is not expected before 1941 (in the worst case for end 1940). France was not prepared at all to enter in a war in 1939 and many types of equipment will lack still by 1940. In 1938-1939, France feels roughly alone to face Germany on the continent and is very cautious. This will be illustrated by the decisions taken in 1939.

By 1941,
• a stronger British involvement
• weapons/equipment/ammunition/trucks/planes deliveries from the USA (including possible French tank production there, buying of former French 75mm guns etc.)
• increased number of modern equipments especially a more modern air force (in May 1940 roughly all the bomber fleet was under transformation, close to nothing was available)
• effects of naval blockades against Germany etc.

The clash was awaited for 1941.

"The Phoney War" October 1939 - April 1940

During the Phoney War the French and German armies didn't remain completely inactive. France and Great-Britain declared war to Germany after the invasion of Poland but at first this is mainly a political gesture.

The French attack on the Sarre area in 1939 is very limited and is much more a probe than a full scale offensive. Such an offensive could in no case be launched at that time. Even engaging all the peacetime units in north-east France would not have been sufficient and there would remain no troops to cover the mobilization of the reserve divisions. The Saar attack was launched on the 7th of September 1939; 4 days after France declared war to Germany. The Sarre area is the single area where the probe could be launched. The neutrality of Luxembourg and Belgium made this 180 km border (from the Rhine to Luxembourg) the single area were French and Germans were in direct contact.

An assault across the Rhine was not envisaged.

The combats by themselves were not really intense; they looked often more like traps, ambushes, a bit like guerrilla warfare against the cautiously advancing French troops. The Germans let only active rearguards units and a huge number of AT and AP mines everywhere. The French troops are for the first time confronted to huge quantities mines. These weapons (especially the AP mines) are rather new and the soldiers don't really know how to deal with so many mines. All the reports insist on the numerous mines hidden everywhere even AP mines in the trees. There were losses on both sides like e.g. in the French 21e DI which sustained 329 losses.

Concerning the ground operations during the Phoney War, except the Sarre limited actions, they consisted in ambushes and deep patrols behind enemy lines along the border. The German "Stosstruppen" and the French "Corps Francs" launched many deep reconnaissance patrols, prepared ambushes, took prisoners etc. behind the enemy lines. The combats often took the form of bloody night skirmishes between patrols and outposts. There were also artillery battles etc. The so-called Phoney War was not a completely quiet period of time and had its number of KIA and WIA.

The Germans continuously reinforced their troops in front of the French:
• 28 August 1939: 6 divisions
• 6 September 1939, after France declared war and just before the French move: 12 divisions
• 12 September 1939: 14-16 divisions
• 20 September 1939: 18-20 divisions

So yes the Germans moved additional troops to this part of the border against the French troops but of course it was far from sufficient to help the Polish troops. This first French attack was before all political but it had to be said that General Weygand is guilty of having told the Polish HQ that a major offensive was currently launched. The French politicians are also guilty for having a foreign policy completely incompatible with the insufficient means they allowed to the French Army (whose modernization and reorganization had roughly just begun).

Later operations were intended (e.g. an attack was planned on Sarrelouis on 22 September 1939) but had no justification at all since Poland was already defeated. The Polish collapse was faster than initially believed. The French HQ thought that Poland would resist at least 6 months ... as they would never has thought that France would collapse on June 25.

France needed 15 days to fully mobilize but launched the operations in the Sarre 4 days only after the declaration of war. If France was to have launched a full scale offensive 15 days after it declared war this would have been around 18 September 1939 at the earliest. This was 4 days after the Polish government had opened negotiations on the terms of its flight to Rumania and the same day that it and its military High Command fled their own country and ordered all their forces to head for neutral borders.

The rapid collapse of Poland left France in a very exposed position. France remained in 1939 roughly alone to face Germany, which had nearly twice its metropolitan population (including Germans from Austria, Czechoslovakia, Poland etc.). Germany had also at that time a pact with the Soviets (which led to strikes and some sabotages organized by communists in France to target the French military industry).

The Belgian and Dutch neighbours were at that time neutral; they did not allow the French troops to deploy on their territory before an invasion and had rather tiny armies. Even close to the German invasion, the French forces could not start moving before the German attack, despite the fact that the French had a longer movement to execute to reach their planned positions.

The British could eventually put only 4-5 divisions into Europe in September 1939 and would take 2 years to field a continental-scale army. The French were very cautious in September 1939, but one can see why. The evolution of the German army from 1939 to 1940 shows that the French HQ had really reasons to be cautious. Not ready in 1939 and also unable to really match the innovations in terms of organization of the German army in 1940. The modernization of the French army (in all the fields like the bombers for example) should have enabled to be at level with the new German army in 1941 but the Germans attacked earlier.

What the Polish asked for before all was air support and allied bombings. Everyone studying the state of the French Air Force in 1938-1939 knows that at that time nothing could be done for that. Even around Sedan on 14 May 1940 only about 30 French bombers could be engaged! The British bombers were more numerous. Only around May 22 the French could engage newly transformed air units with modern bombers.

On 3 September 10 British light bombers dropped propaganda tracts over Germany and on 4 September there is the first British bombing mission with several planes over the naval base at Heligoland (5 Blenheim bombers were lost). The first combat involving fighters takes place on 8 September 1939 between French Curtiss H75s and German Me109s with 2 German fighters reported shot down. The same day a Mureaux 115 (observation aircraft) is lost over Karlsruhe. From September to October 1939: 48 German, 37 British and 40 French planes were shot down. In total, between September 1939 and April 1940, 176 German aircraft were lost for 82 British and 57 French ones (= 139 allied aircraft).

Concerning the naval combats in 1939 there were several losses on both sides:

Example of German losses:
• German freighter "Chemnitz": captured by the submarine "Poncelet" on 28 September 1939
• German submarine U-49: heavily damaged by torpedo boat "Siroco" on 20 November 1939
• German merchantmen "Halle" (scuttled) and "Santa Fe" (captured) : found by a joint Franco-British group including "Dupleix" cruiser, counter-torpedo boat "Le Terrible" and counter-torpedo boat "Le Fantasque" on 25 November 1939
• German freighter "Trifels": captured by French auxiliary cruiser "Koutoubia" in November 1939.

Example of French losses:
• Tanker "Rhône": sunk by U-47 at Cap Juby (19 December 1939)
• Light cruiser "Emile Bertin": damaged by the Luftwaffe in Namsos (Norway, 19 April 1940)
• Trawler "La Cancalaise": sunk by a mine (1 May 1940)
• Destroyer "Bison": sunk by the Luftwaffe in Namsos (Norway, 3 May 1940)

In September and October 1939, France on its side lost 1,136 soldiers KIA, 256 sailors KIA, 42 airmen KIA and 370 POW were in German hands according to François Cochet's "Les soldats de la Drôle de Guerre" (2004).

Fall Weiss allowed testing of some Blitzkrieg principles at the tactical level and the German HQ wanted to upscale this concept. The Germans did more than replace losses between the Polish and French campaigns. They created about 50 new divisions and improved their army in terms of equipments, chain of command and doctrine.

After Fall Weiss, the 1., 2., 3. and 4. Leichten-Divisionen became the 6., 7., 3. and 4. Panzerdivisionen) and the 5. PzD has been created. The German army in May 1940 had therefore 10 Panzerdivisionen, 6 motorized infantry divisions and 1 newly created cavalry division.
The armored units were better armed in 1940 than in 1939: more tanks were armed with 3.7cm and 7.5cm guns. The tanks used in 1940 were also far better armored: Panzer IV Ausf.C/D, Panzer III E/F, at the time of the 1940 western campaign also most of the Panzer II had been uparmored.
The 3. and 4. Wellen Infanterie Divisionen from the Polish campaign were largely improved, younger men were enlisted and the equipment was modernized. In 1940, 15 of these divisions were frontline units.

The chain of command was also modified and modernized. During Fall Weiss, the German army lacked some specific HQ especially for armored units. The chain of command was still very traditional. For Fall Gelb a new, more flexible chain of command was developed and could already be used during operation Weserübung.

It was kind of race to modernize the Armies but he French HQ was mostly stuck in old ways of thinking the strategy and was not very smart in using the new modern equipments. One of the best examples of this is Hugh Dowding's trip to France in 1939; he and his PA went to visit the French HQ of their air defences. Dowding came from RAF Fighter Command HQ at Bentley Priory with its underground bunker; the HQ of an integrated system of early warning combined with a practical command-and-control system...and was shown its French counterpart - ONE French air controller sitting in a basement with a public telephone and a blackboard.

Overall the French Army was not dominated by the German Army in terms of motorization and quality of armament. The Germans in mostly all the field simply concentrated the more modern, faster and more powerful elements whereas the French had them spread, reducing their power of decision on the strategic level. What is nonetheless obvious is that he French really lacked AA weapons and AA ammunition to cover their units and also that the bomber fleet was caught at a time when it was only a skeleton.

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Hans Ernst Karl von Zieten, by Franz Kr端ger

Prussian general.

In the Battle of Waterloo (18 June 1815), the support of the Duke of Wellington's left wing by I Corps under Zieten's command was vital to the outcome of the battle. From 1815 to 1819, he commanded the Prussian corps of occupation in France. He was made Graf (count) on 3 September 1817.

Zieten entered military service on 26 May 1785, becoming a corporal. On 2 February 1788 he became a cornet, a second lieutenant on 10 June 1790, a captain of the army on 7 December 1793 (that is, without assignment to a unit), a major on 12 June 1800, a lieutenant colonel on 21 June 1807, and a colonel on 20 May 1809 (the patent being postdated to 1 June). On 12 December of that year he was promoted to brigadier general, rising to major general on 14 March 1813 (the patent being postdated to 30 March). He was made a lieutenant general on 13 December 1813, a general of cavalry on 18 June 1825, and a general field marshal on 6 June 1839. He fought in the campaigns of 1792-1794 on the Rhine, and in the campaigns of 1813, 1814, and 1815 in Germany, France, and Belgium, respectively.

Born 3 March 1770, Zieten joined the hussar regiment of his distant relative, the famous General Hans Joachim von Zieten, at the age of fifteen. From 1793 to 1806, he was adjutant to General Friedrich Adolf Graf von Kalckreuth (or Kalkreuth). In 1806 he reentered service in the line, commanding different hussar brigades and regiments, until, on 12 December 1809, he was given charge of the Upper Silesian brigade. In 1811 he was a member of the commission that prepared the new regulations for cavalry exercise. In the spring of 1813 his brigade was part of the army corps commanded by General Gebhard von Bl端cher, distinguishing himself especially in the combat at Haynau on 26 June. After the armistice he commanded the 11th Brigade in II Corps.

On 10 April 1814, Zieten took command of II Corps from General Friedrich Graf Kleist von Nollendorf. On 19 March 1815 he was made commander of I Corps, which bore the main burden of fighting on 15 June, and at Ligny on the following day. He also fought at the Battle of Waterloo on the eighteenth and took part in the advance on Paris. On 3 October he became chief of the Prussian corps of occupation in France. After the return of this formation to Prussia, he was made commanding general of VI Corps on 11 February 1819. Zieten was pensioned on 2 June 1839 and died on 3 May 1848.

The German town of Düben is located on the main road between Dresden and Leipzig in Mark Brandenburg along the river Elbe. The town is a historical site, and many of the buildings date from the Middle Ages, including what many have described as a "dreary palace." It was at this palace that Napoleon set up his provisional headquarters between 10 and 13 October while he pondered what to do as General Gebhard von Blücher and Feldmarschall Karl Philipp Fürst zu Schwarzenberg closed in on him from different directions. The year 1813 was pivotal in the War of the Sixth Coalition. The action at Düben would be a minor part of the larger Battle of Leipzig, also known as the Battle of the Nations.

Napoleon had left Düben at the head of his forces to meet Blücher near Leipzig on 13 October. Napoleon's forces were strung out along the road to Leipzig and on both sides of the Elbe when they were attacked on the sixteenth. A French rear guard was located in Düben consisting of the understrength 9th Division commanded by General Antoine-Guillaume Mauraillhac d'Elmas de La Costa (known as Delmas).

His forces consisted of elements of the 29th Provisional Regiment, 29th Light Regiment, 136th, 138th, and 145th Line Regiments, and two batteries of foot artillery, totaling some 4,235 men.

To the north of Delmas were the 1,300 men of the Polish 27th Infantry Division commanded by General Edward Zostowski, part of Prince Józef Poniatowski's Polish forces. Zostowski's men held the twin villages of Gross Wiederitzsch and Klein Wiederitzsch, partially covering Napoleon's rear. Austrian and Hungarian grenadiers supported by Russian infantry fiercely attacked the Poles across the Elbe, and Zostowski was hard-pressed, losing control of Gross Wiederitzsch to the Russians. French forces across the Elbe could do nothing to aid Zostowski, but Delmas was in position to do so.

Delmas led his troops out of Düben, launching an attack into the flank and rear of the Russians relieving the beleaguered Poles. Delmas and Zostowski then regrouped and assaulted the woods near Klein Wiederitzsch, putting the Allied troops to flight. Delmas, with the assistance of the Poles including 700 recently arrived Polish uhlans (lancers) commanded by General Jan Dabrowski, recaptured Gross Wiederitzsch that afternoon after a sharp engagement.

Ultimately the battle swung against Napoleon when increasing pressure from Austrian, Russian, and arriving Prussian troops rendered the positions near Düben untenable. After strong resistance, both the Polish and French troops were forced to give way before their formations were shattered by repeated Allied assaults. Düben was only a small part of much larger events, but the Poles that fought there highly distinguished themselves, as did their French comrades.

References and further reading

Hofschröer, Peter. 2000. Leipzig 1813: The Battle of the Nations. Oxford: Osprey.

Nafziger, George. 1996. Napoleon at Leipzig: The Battle of Nations, 1813. Chicago: Emperor's. Petre,

F. Loraine. 1992. Napoleon's Last Campaign in Germany, 1813. London: Greenhill.

Smith, Digby. 2001. 1813, Leipzig: Napoleon and the Battle of the Nations. London: Greenhill.

By Michael H. Kater

For the Germans, the defeat at Stalingrad on February 2, 1943, turned out to be a watershed in more ways than one. Within his larger strategic scheme, Hitler needed this industrial city on the Volga River in the Southeast of Russia because it was to be instrumental in salvaging the area already conquered beyond the Crimea and was a key post for further expansion in the East. It was in this entire region and further east into the Donets Basin and the Caucasus that the German armed Wehrbauern settlement would be started, so that agricultural staples, heavy industry, and valuable oil would be secured. Beyond these immediate goals, Hitler was hoping to move his armies into Iraq and Iran for the control of oil in those regions. Thereafter, joining up with Rommel's forces who would push east from North Africa, the aim was to unite with the Japanese and expel the British from South Asia.

After the Wehrmacht's setback on three extended Russian fronts in late 1941, Hitler's Army groups in the South were making headway again in the New Year, conquering Sevastopol on the southern Crimea in early July, 1942. By the end of that month three German armies were moving east and southeast, and in early August they occupied the first of several rich oil fields near Maikop in the northern Caucasus. Further to the northeast, General Friedrich Paulus ordered the attack on Stalingrad on August 19. Paulus was assisted by Luftwaffe General Wolfram von Richthofen, who flew 1,600 attacks against the city, bombing it into a field of ruins. Forty thousand civilians died. "Stalingrad was important not only as a major industrial center and as a place where the Germans could halt all shipping on the Volga but as the major connecting point to any operations in the Caucasus," writes Weinberg. It also possessed valuable armament factories. However, it soon became obvious that the city would be hard to conquer completely, in the face of continuing Soviet resistance. Until November, there was house-to-house combat. "Streams of blood in the streets," noted Nobel laureate Thomas Mann in his diary, who from his exile in Los Angeles was keenly following the war, "much of it German." When the Germans finally controlled most of the nearly destroyed city, their army had suffered huge losses. Having regrouped, the Russians began a concerted attack on the Wehrmacht in Stalingrad on November 19, and three days later, after a successful pincer operation by three Russian Army groups, Stalingrad was encircled. This came on the heels of the Soviet relief of Leningrad in the North, which had been besieged by the Germans for seventeen months. By January 1943, after three months of winter fighting, the Wehrmacht in southern Russia had lost more than half a million men in killed and wounded. Hitler, who refused General Paulus and his 6th Army permission to break out of the city, was still building on Göring's promise that Stalingrad could be well supplied from the air, with 300 tons of provisions per day, but the enfeebled Luftwaffe managed merely a third of that. And even then the Führer could not make good on his promise to send relief troops under General Erich von Manstein, but still he forbade Paulus to capitulate. The Soviets started to invade the city on January 10, 1943, and the German forces inside were split in two. On February 2 Paulus, having just been promoted to field marshal, capitulated of his own volition, surrendering 90,000 men to the Russians, of an army originally up to 250,000 strong. The rest had fallen or died of disease and hunger. Of those taken prisoner, most perished soon after; only 5,000 eventually made it back to Germany.

The disillusionment and desperation experienced by the young soldiers before their certain doom is evident from their diaries and letters, as well as from the memoirs of the few wounded soldiers who were flown out by the Luftwaffe or those who eventually returned from captivity. They stand in grotesque contrast to Hitler's and Goebbels's decision to recast what was a major disaster for the nation as a giant heroic sacrifice. Instead of owning up to egregious military blunders and a deplorable defeat culminating in dishonorable unconditional surrender, as Paulus himself had been too cowardly to stand up to Hitler, Nazi propaganda proclaimed the event to have been a valiant action, in which every single German soldier in the cauldron of Stalingrad willingly laid down his life for Germany and its Führer.

As part of this larger deception, German families on Christmas 1942 were linked to a radio broadcast from Stalingrad, so that they could join the soldiers in singing "Silent Night." Those families did not know that the link-up was a fake; 1,280 soldiers died in Stalingrad on Christmas Day alone. Two separate reports on Christmas in and around Stalingrad tell us that one group of German soldiers had to dig themselves a new hole with a makeshift roof on Holy Night, during a snowstorm at minus 30 degrees Celsius. Lacking bread or potatoes, they made hamburgers out of horsemeat; there were no parcels or letters from home. The other group huddled nearby did have a bit of chocolate and candy, a few pieces of meat and bread. They consumed this an hour after Russian artillery had torn a comrade to shreds.

Although there was hope against hope to the very day of surrender, a growing sense of despair had begun during the advance on the city in the late fall of 1942, especially among the young soldiers just out of the HJ and still dependent on home. The lack of mail delivery seemed incomprehensible to the younger men, particularly at Christmas. And then there was hunger. Because of constant air-supply interruptions, rations of bread and meat had to be incrementally decreased, until by Christmas Eve sixty-four soldiers had died of undernourishment. Around this time, meat from the dying horses and the stray cats, dogs, and rats was becoming the sole staple, with minuscule portions at that. The men made soup from sawdust. Because of the lack of fresh water, thirst added to the agony of famine. Göring's planes were still dropping supply bags, but they often missed their targets, falling to the enemy instead. During January the German soldiers were drinking machine oil and cannibalizing dead comrades. Many of those taken prisoner on February 2 had not eaten anything for about a week.

The infamous Russian cold, setting in by early November, compounded the nutrition problem. The steppe in front of Stalingrad contained no wood for burning, and inside the city's walls combustible material was scarce, as was gasoline. Garments were deemed to be sufficiently warm only after several dead soldiers had been stripped of their uniforms; even then hypothermia proved endemic.

The cold did not destroy lice and fleas, which carried diseases such as typhus. One of the most common causes of death in the Stalingrad area apart from malnutrition was freezing. Sheer exhaustion after days and nights of sleeplessness was also widespread, weakening a soldier's will to live. Having been wounded would prolong his agony, unless he was lucky enough to be flown out of the encircled area. At one of two functioning airports, the lightly wounded kept stepping over more serious cases in an effort to reach a plane; they had to be restrained with pistols. A doctor reported in January that on the roads around Stalingrad lay the wounded, as well as those frozen to death and still freezing, who were blocking his car with their bodies. "Their screams begging to be run over or be rescued repeated themselves with variations over the entire route. Many were lifting their hands entreatingly, hidden in soaked bandages, some were shaking their fists, and others did not stir at all." By the end of the month approximately 40,000 wounded German soldiers were staggering from one field hospital to the next, never finding entry and finally collapsing in the city's ruins. The Russians bombed one of the central sickbays, resulting in 3,000 patients being burned to death.

In January 1941 the Stukas of 1JSt.G 1 and II/St.G 2, operating under Stab/St.G 3 with a total of 79 aircraft, arrived In Sicily to attack Allied convoys. Their first action took place on 10 January when a convoy from Alexandria was attacked and the carrier HMS Illustrious was severely damaged. A further attack was prevented by a shortage of suitable bombs but the next day twelve Ju87R-1s attacked and hit the cruisers HMS Gloucester and Southampton as they made their way back to Alexandria ; Southampton was abandoned and sunk.

On 13 January, after reconnaissance aircraft had discovered HMS Illustrious in Valletta Harbour, Hptm. Hozzelts I/St.G 1 struggled into the air with special 2,200 lb bombs for the first in a series of determined attacks. Vicious anti-aircraft fire caused heavy losses, but the attacks continued for a week, during which, Hozzel recalls, 'We now lost our best crews. The leader of my 2 Staffel a very hard chap, could not report to me for tears. He was the last of his Staffel; all his old chaps were lost'. The dive-bombers caused serious damage to the dockyard during these attacks, but although the carrier was hit repeatedly it eventually sailed via Alexandria to the USA for extensive repairs.

At about this time the Luftwaffe began its preparations for the invasion of the Balkans and by 5 April, Stab, I and III/St.G 2. I/St.G 3 and II(Schlacht)/LG 2 had assembled on Bulgarian airfields under VIII Fliegerkorps. Additional ground attack forces were assembled in Austria under the Kommandeur of Stab./St.G 3 who controlled II/St.G 77 and a number of fighter Gruppen, while the Kommandeur of St.G 77, leading the Stab, I and II/ St.G 77, also had a number of fighter and destroyer Gruppen under his command in Rumania for ground-attack duties.

On 6 April German and Italian forces attacked Yugoslavia. After completely destroying Prilep airfield, II(Sch1acht)LG 2 attacked enemy columns and flew reconnaissance sorties in support of the attack on Skopje, crossing the border into Greece within two days. Heavy air attacks ensured German mastery of the air and St.G 77 heavily bombed Belgrade, while forces under Stab/St.G 3 attacked defences in the path of the German 2nd Army thrusting into Yugoslavia from Austria. By 14 April Yugoslavia had sued for peace. In Greece, Stukas from VIII Fliegerkorps harassed retreating Allied troops and obliterated all resistance, while II(Schlacht)/LG 2 struck at positions near Servia. Although Gloster Gladiators destroyed a few of LC 2's Bf109s, the pace of the German advance eventually forced the RAF to withdraw to Crete, giving the Luftwaffe complete mastery in the air. Athens fell on 27 April and a parachute assault supported by VIII Fliegerkorps at Corinth allowed the Germans to fan out across the Peloponnese.

Already the Allies had begun to evacuate their troops to Crete, and once again the hard-worked II/LG 2 was in the spearhead of the attacks, bombing and strafing vessels in the Aegean Sea and Suda Bay. VIII Fliegerkorps then turned its attention to the invasion of Crete itself, Stukas and ground-attack fighters making heavy attacks on British defences. Fearful of a seaborne assault, the Allies sent a powerful force of warships to Crete and, in so doing, set the stage for one of the Stukas' most spectacular victories. Between 21 and 23 May the destroyers HMS Juno, Greyhound, Kashmir and KelIy were sunk, together with the cruiser HMS Gloucester. In an attempt to neutralise the Stukas' bases, a large force of warships set out from Alexandria but, as it sailed, it was spotted by patrolling aircraft of the Libyan-based II/St.G 2. During the attack which followed, the destroyer HMS Nubian was damaged and the carries HMS Formidable so badly damaged that she had to be withdrawn from the area for repairs.

Stuka sorties against Royal Navy vessels covering the evacuation of Crete were equally successful; the destroyer HMS Hereward was sunk and the destroyer Dido and the cruiser Orion damaged. ObIt. Arnirn Thiede of the 'Immelmann' Geschwader received the Ritterkreuz for his successful operations against shipping during the Crete campaign, and he was reported then to have sunk thee freighters, scored a direct hit on a cruiser and damaged a destroyer and a light cruiser.

While the bulk of the Stukagruppen now massed for the forthcoming invasion of Russia, 1/St.G 1, II/St.G 2 and 1/St.G 3 remained in the Mediterranean theatre to support Rommel in North Africa. With little in the way of Allied defences to oppose them, the Stukas were able to operate freely during the desert offensives and counteroffensives. In December 1941, Luftflotte 2 arrived in the area with the Erg채nzungs (training and replacement) Gruppe of St.G 1; and in March 1942 1/St.G 1 and II/St.G 2 were redesignated II and III/St.G 3 respectively to bring the Geschwader up to full strength. On 21 March III Gruppe moved to Biscari-San Pietro in Sicily, where it converted to the Ju87D-1; during renewed attempts to neutralise Malta, when crews often made three sorties per day, formations of about twenty aircraft set out with an entire Gruppe of fighters as escort. Eventually, demands for air support from North Africa reduced the strength of units operating against Malta and although small raids by single sections of dive-bombers continued, they lacked adequate defensive covering fire and became easy prey for the defending fighters.

At the end of May 1942, III/St.G 3 too was recalled to North Africa and in June and July, when operations in support of the Afrika Korps' advance to El Alamein called for intense efforts, they again flew as many as three sorties a day, attacking troops, transport and tank concentrations, artillery positions, airfields, stores and ammunition dumps. In early June the entire Geschwader made repeated attacks on the fortress of Bir Hacheim and, up until the time of its capture, many raids were directed against shipping and installations at Tobruk Harbour; but the long advance had exhausted German air and round farces alike, and Rommel was halted at El Alamein. The now greatly reinforced Desert Air Force inflicted heavy losses, and in spite of close escort flown by the more experienced Luftwaffe fighter-pilots the Allied fighters invariably broke through the defensive screen. As in the Battle of Britain, the Stukas were too slow for the escort. One particularly notable success for the Desert Air Force occurred during the evening of 3 July when a formation of fifteen Stukas, heavily escorted by fighters, was intercepted over El Alamein. In the ensuing air battle the Allied fighters claimed all but two of the dive-bombers destroyed, some being chased back as far as their own airfield before being shot down. Final attacks against El Alamein extended the Luftwaffe to its limit with the result that sorties were considerably reduced due to natural attrition and combat losses.

TUNIS

As the first of the Fw 190s entered service with the ground-attack arm, two new Hs 129-equipped units were raised for operations in the Middle East and the first, 4/Sch.G 2, alternatively known as the Schlacht und Panzer-fliegersfaffel 'Afrika ', left Poland on 2 November with fourteen aircraft. At the end of the first week's operations from Staraset, however, only two aircraft survived and the unit's personnel, evacuated to southern Italy, were refitting at Bari when, in February 1943, the Jabo-Staffen of JG 27 and JG 53 were amalgamated and equipped with Hs129s to form 8/Sch.G 2. This unit was more successful than its predecessor but could make no substantial or distinctive contribution to the Tunisian fighting. Based at the large airfield at El Aouina, 8/Sch.G 2 joined the Ju87s of St.G 3 and the FwI90s of III/SKG 10 (formed on 20 December by redesignating III/ZG 2).

During the British October-November offensive from El Alamein, St.G 3 lost approximately 125 aircraft during 960 sorties mounted in support of the Afrika Korps against troop columns, tank concentrations and troop transport generally. Thereafter the number of Stuka sorties dropped, mainly due to low serviceability and the vital necessity of avoiding losses in view of the overall situation. Also, increasing use was now being made of the Fw190s in the ground-attack role and between 11 November and 11 February, III/SKG 10 claimed 449 vehicles destroyed and a further 196 damaged during 51 operations undertaken in a vain effort to stem the Allied advance. In January, however, III/SKG 10 lost about half of the 30 Fw 190s transferred to Gabes when the airfield was heavily bombed by the RAF, and further losses occurred from extremely accurate AA when the unit attacked the airfield and harbour at Bone. From 10 November, battered Luftwaffe units encountered a new hazard when RAF Beaufighters from Malta made numerous night and day raids against the airfield at El Aouina, destroying hangars and setting workshops and parked aircraft alight. As the Allies closed in on the remaining Axis units in Tunisia, III/St.G 3 was badly shot up over El Guetter by newly-arrived American Spitfires on 3 April and had to be finally withdrawn to Sicily. The remaining Fw 190s could not redress a hopeless situation and on 12 May the North African campaign came to an end with the final surrender of German and Italian troops.

SS-Staf Wilhelm Mohnke, awarded the Knight's Cross on 11 July 1944 as commander of SS-PzGren Regt 26 in 12.SS-Pz Div 'Hitlerjugend' - a command in which he would be implicated in the shooting of Canadian prisoners in Normandy. A fanatical Nazi, Mohnke lived to be 90 years old; in his old age he was interviewed at length by the greatly respected writer Gitta Sereny, who became convinced that he played a shadowy part in the 1983 scandal of the faked 'Hitler diaries', which cost the magazine Stern and the London Sunday Times so much money and credibility. Mohnke was not a charismatic commander; unlike contemporaries such as Gille and Harmel, he never developed close bonds with the men under his command. After the war some veterans expressed intense dislike of him, and did their best to avoid contact with him.

Wilhelm Mohnke was born in Lübeck on 15 March 1911, the son of a cabinet maker; after working as a manager in a porcelain factory, he joined SS-Standarte 4 in 1931, transferring the following January to SS-Standarte 22 in Schwerin. Shortly thereafter he was selected by Dietrich to become a member of the elite guard company SS-Stabswache Berlin. Commissioned an SS-Untersturmführer in June 1933, he had achieved the rank of SS-Hauptsturmführer by that October, and eventually took command of 5.Kompanie of the 'Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler'. For his service in the Polish campaign he was awarded both classes of the Iron Cross, on 21 September and 8 November 1939.

Mohnke led his company during the opening phase of the attack on France and the Low Countries, and subsequently took command of II Bataillon. On 28 May 1940 some 80 British prisoners of war were murdered at Wormhout by men under his command. SS-Sturmbannführer Mohnke commanded the battalion in the Balkans in April 1941, and was seriously wounded in Yugoslavia during an aircraft attack. This resulted in the amputation of his right foot; he almost lost the whole leg, but refused to allow this. He subsequently spent many months recuperating, only returning to duty in 1942. Mohnke languished in the replacement battalion of the 'LSSAH' until 1943, when he was posted in the rank of SS-Obersturmbannführer to the newly formed 12.SS-Panzer Division 'Hitlerjugend' as one of the large cadre of experienced soldiers from the 'Leibstandarte'.

Mohnke was given command of SS-Panzergrenadier Regiment 26, which he led through the brutal fighting around Caen as the division struggled to hold back the British and Canadian advance. Promoted SS-Standartenführer on 21 June 1944, he was awarded the Knight's Cross on 11 July, and wounded again on 17 July; he is also alleged to have ordered the execution of 35 Canadian prisoners who were murdered at Fontenay le Pesnel. During August, Mohnke also had temporary command of the 'Leibstandarte' Division after SS-Brigaf Wisch was wounded. Promoted SS-Oberführer on 4 November 1944, he was confirmed in the divisional command, which he exercised during the ill-fated Ardennes offensive. Although it was troops of his division who were responsible for the shooting of US prisoners of war at the Baugnez crossroads - generally known as the Malmedy massacre - these men were part of the detached Kampfgruppe Peiper rather than the main body of the 'Leibstandarte'.

Mohnke was promoted to SS-Brigadeführer on 30 January 1945. Wounded again shortly thereafter, he spent some time recovering before being appointed to command the motley troops allocated to defending the 'Central Government Area' of Berlin around the Reichstag, the Reichskanzlei and the Führerbunker beneath it. Mohnke took his orders directly from Hitler; during the last days of April he conducted the hopeless defence with ruthless energy, deploying as best he could a force including various mostly Waffen-SS remnants, including Frenchmen from the 'Charlemagne' Division and Scandinavians from the 'Nordland'. Mohnke is also believed to have been involved in the summary executions of German stragglers and supposed deserters. He survived the battle of Berlin, and was taken prisoner by the Soviets while trying to lead a group of survivors from Hitler's bunker towards the west.

Held as a POW until 1955, Mohnke returned to Germany and went into the truck business. At various times there were demands that he be tried for various war crimes, but no prosecution ever took place. He died on 6 August 2001, aged 90.

Heinz Harmel was born in Metz on 29 June 1906, the son of a soldier. Intent on following his father, Harmel enlisted in 1926, serving in Infanterie Regiment 6 in Schleswig-Holstein. Due to eye problems he was forced to relinquish his chosen career after two years, though he remained a reservist; he took up farming, completing his agricultural training just in time for the great depression of the early 1930s to render him jobless once again. Joining the Volunteer Labour Service (Freiwilligen Arbeitsdienst), Harmel eventually became an instructor with the Reichskuratoriums für Jugendertüchtigung, which in turn led to his involvement in 1934 with the new schools being set up to give pre-military preparatory training.

Harmel joined the SS in 1935 after a brief period of refresher training as an Army reservist, and was accepted with the rank of SS-Oberscharführer (sergeant-major) into the 'Germania' Regiment of the SS-VT in October of that year. He subsequently passed a platoon leaders' course with distinction, and was commissioned as an SS-Untersturmführer in 1937. After transferring to the 'Deutschland' Regiment in Munich, Harmel was promoted to SS-Obersturmführer in 1938. He took part in the annexation of Austria, and thereafter transferred to the 'Der Führer' Regiment raised in that country where, in January 1939, he was promoted to SS-Hauptsturmführer.

Harmel led a company of this Austrian regiment in the SS-Division 'Deutschland' (former SS-Verfügungs Div, later 'Das Reich' Div) during the campaign against France and the Low Countries, earning the Iron Cross in both classes. In January 1941 he was given command of II Bataillon of his regiment, which he led through the Balkan campaign, being promoted to SS-Sturmbannführer in April 1941. Operating on the central sector of the Eastern Front after the launch of Operation 'Barbarossa', Harmel was decorated with the German Cross in Gold on 29 November 1941. In December 1941 he was given command of the 'Deutschland' Regiment, a considerable responsibility for a 35-year-old major. His success was recognized by promotion to SS-Obersturmbannführer effective from June 1942. During the attack that regained Kharkov in March 1943, Harmel personally launched a successful nighttime counter-attack on his own initiative, leading a combined force of tanks and armoured infantry; during this action he single-handedly destroyed a Soviet tank. This exploit brought Harmel the Knight's Cross on 31 March 1943, and on 20 April he was promoted to SS-Standartenführer. Colonel Harmel was an inspirational leader, always in the thick of the fighting with his men, and was greatly admired and trusted. On 7 September 1943 he received the Oakleaves, and was also decorated with the Close Combat Clasp in Silver.

In the spring of 1944 Harmel attended a divisional commanders' training course before being appointed to command the recently formed 10.SS-Panzer Division 'Frundsberg' that May; this carried with it promotion to SS-Oberführer. A couple of months previously 'Frundsberg', with its sister 9.SS-Pz Div 'Hohenstaufen', had formed II SS-Panzerkorps under Paul Hausser, and saw action in the relief of the German pocket around Tarnopol in March-April, before being rushed back to the West following the Allied landings in Normandy. After suffering badly from Allied air strikes on its way to the front, Harmel's division went into action on 30 June against the British Operation 'Epsom', taking heavy casualties in the intense fighting around Hill 112. The 'Frundsberg' fought most effectively in the see-saw battles during July and August, being fortunate to escape over the Dives River before the final closing of the Falaise Pocket.

Withdrawing into Holland, the division was resting between Arnhem and Nijmegen in September when the Allied Operation 'Market Garden' sent them back into action, before they had received the replacement for much of their heavy equipment. Harmel - promoted to SS-Brigadeführer that month - played an energetic part in defending the Waal Bridge at Nijmegen, and thereafter slowing the Allied advance along 'Hell's Highway'. For his part in the defeat of the airborne operation Harmel was awarded the Swords on 15 December 1944.

Rebuilt in Germany, the 'Frundsberg' Division fought the advancing Americans around Geilenkirchen, Jülich and Hagenau in December/ January, before being sent east to face the Red Army on the Oder in February 1945. By mid April, Harmel's division was encircled near Spremberg; he disregarded an irrational order to attack, and instead managed to break out with remnants of his units to rejoin German forces. Relieved of his command, Harmel was assigned to lead a Kampfgruppe fighting in Austria in the last weeks of the war, and fell into British captivity.

A highly respected soldier, Harmel was never accused of any war crimes; in fact, in 1984 he was awarded the Medal for Franco-German Reconciliation by the town of Bayeux, Normandy, around which his division had fought 40 years previously. He also developed a post-war friendship with MajGen John Frost, against whose British paratroopers he had fought at Arnhem; Harmel had personally authorized a ceasefire to allow the collection of British wounded from the battlefield, and ensured their decent treatment thereafter. Heinz Harmel maintained close links with his former soldiers after the war, taking a personal interest in their welfare. He died in retirement in September 2000.

Here Witt is seen as an SS-Brigadefuhrer and divisional commander of the unblooded 12.SS-PZ Div 'Hitlerjugend', taking his ease at a French chateau in May 1944 shortly before the Allied landings in Normandy. Witt would meet his death on 16 June during the bombardment of his divisional headquarters by Allied warships. When he heard of Witt's death, 'Sepp' Dietrich is reported to have said, 'That's one of the best gone - he was too good to stay alive for long.'

Born at Hohenlimburg on 27 May 1908, Witt was the son of a salesman. After leaving school he followed his father into commerce, and for a few years was employed as a salesman by a textiles firm. Witt joined the SS in December 1931; and in 1933 he was selected for service in the SS-Stabswache Berlin - the elite SS guard unit, just over one hundred strong. In September 1934 he was promoted to SS-Obersturmführer and given command of 3.Kompanie/SS-Standarte 'Deutschland' of the SS-Verfügungstruppe. In this position he served through the brief campaign in Poland, winning both classes of the Iron Cross. Promotion to SS-Hauptsturmführer followed, and with captain's rank came command of his battalion.

During the SS-VT's 1940 campaign in Holland and France, Witt distinguished himself during defensive actions on 27 May following the crossing of the Lys Canal. Strongly counter-attacked by British troops with some 20 tanks in support, Witt and his men - who had no anti-tank weapons - held their ground using only light infantry arms, and succeeded in destroying nine tanks. Witt's regimental commander recommended him for the Knight's Cross, citing him as 'the soul of the resistance' and as a 'model of the young leader, never retreating in the face of anything'. In October 1940, Fritz Witt was transferred to the 'Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler' and given command of I Bataillon. During the brief campaign in the Balkans in spring 1941 he played a key role in the seizure of the Klidi Pass, where his men captured over 500 prisoners and substantial amounts of equipment.

After the first campaign in the Soviet Union in 1941-42 the 'Leibstandarte' was considerably strengthened, and in July 1942 Witt's battalion was upgraded to regimental status; he was appointed to command, in the rank of SS-Obersturmbannführer. On 1 March 1943 he was awarded the Oakleaves for his successful leadership in many battles, particularly the ferocious fighting for Kharkov. Witt was promoted to SS-Oberführer on 1 July 1943, and at the end of that month was appointed to command the newly forming 12.SS-Panzer Division 'Hitlerjugend'. This formation was raised largely from 17-year-old Hitler Youth boys, around an armature of battle-hardened NCOs and officers from the 'LSSAH' and the Army. In April 1944 Witt was promoted to the rank of SS-Brigadeführer und Generalmajor der Waffen-SS - at the age of 35, Germany's second youngest general officer after Adolf Galland.

Early on 7 June 1944 the 'Hitlerjugend' Division was thrown against the Allied landings in Normandy, the first battlegroup (led by Kurt Meyer) hitting Canadian troops on Caen-Carpiquet airfield. Savage fighting continued without respite; and on the morning of 14 June, when Witt's field headquarters at Venoix came under heavy bombardment from Allied warships, he was killed by a shell fragment in the head.

A studio portrait of SS-Gruf Steiner, wearing the Oakleaves to his Knight's Cross, awarded in December 1942 for his command of the SS-Div 'Wiking'. The other neck decoration, partially obscured by the edge of his tunic, is the Finnish Order of Freedom.

Felix Steiner was born in Ebenrode on 23 May 1896. During World War I he saw combat on both the Eastern and Western fronts, and took a particular interest in the development of the Sturmtruppe concept employed so effectively in the German offensive of spring 1918. He was retained in the Reichswehr after the war; but it was only when Major Steiner transferred to the SS-Verf端gungstruppe - the forerunner of the Waffen-SS - that he had the opportunity to develop training for these tactics free from the more traditionalist inter-war thinking of the Army. Steiner's motto, 'Sweat saves blood', was to prove entirely valid.

The SS-Regiment 'Deutschland' fought well under SS-Standartenf端hrer Steiner's leadership in 1940, winning him the Knight's Cross on 15 August. When the decision was taken the following month to form a division including volunteers from 'Germanic' countries, the forward-thinking Steiner was chosen to lead it and promoted to general rank. Formed around the SS-VT's 'Germania' Regiment, the new formation (originally entitled 'Germania', but after a few weeks renamed 'Wiking') also included men from Holland, Denmark, Norway, Belgian Flanders, the Baltic states, and even some volunteers from neutral Sweden and Switzerland. Under Steiner's leadership, 'Wiking' became one of the best of the Waffen-SS motorized, later mechanized, and finally armoured divisions. He commanded it on the southern sector of the Eastern Front from June 1941, fighting at Tarnopol, Uman and Korsun before being checked on the Mius River in December.

In 1942 Steiner's division took part in the Wehrmacht's deepest penetration, via Rostov on the Don to Tuapse, the Maikop oilfields and the Terek River in the Caucasus; and on 23 December 1942 he was decorated with the Oakleaves to his Knight's Cross. Early in 1943 the re-equipped SS-Panzergrenadier Division 'Wiking' was instrumental in preventing the Red Army from breaking through to the Sea of Azov and thus encircling huge numbers of German troops in the area between the Don and Donetz rivers. At the beginning of March 1943, SS-Gruppenf端hrer Steiner was appointed to command the newly forming III (germanisches) SS-Panzerkorps, which he led with distinction until October 1944, being promoted SS-Obergruppenf端hrer in July 1943. His corps was in the Oranienbaum bridgehead south-west of Leningrad when the Soviet offensive from that city and along the Gulf of Finland began in January 1944; his units were heavily committed to fierce defensive fighting until September, finally being forced back into the Baltic States. For his skilled leadership Steiner received the Swords on 10 August 1944; and in September what was left of his corps was given a brief respite in Croatia.

Steiner commanded the nominal 11.Panzerarmee during the defence of Pomerania in early 1945; although in practice far weaker than its title suggested, this formation checked Zhukov's advance by desperate counter-attacks around Stargard, before being forced westwards over the Oder river. In the last days of the Third Reich, Hitler entertained a fantasy of an attack southwards by Steiner's units as his final hope for the relief of Berlin. Steiner had no intention of squandering the lives of his remaining troops, and simply ignored the orders he received from Gens Jodl, Keitel and Heinrici. After release from British captivity, Steiner was active in working for the welfare of veterans. He wrote a number of books describing his wartime experiences, the most famous being Armee der Geachten ('Army of Outlaws'). Felix Steiner died in retirement in Munich on 17 May 1966.

A formal portrait of Gille taken after the award of his Oakleaves in November 1943. His rank of SS-Gruppenfuhrer is shown here by his post-1942 pattern collar patches. By this date he had risen to command of the 'Wiking' Div, which he led with great success and undeniable courage, both physical and moral. Notwithstanding his apparently unsoldierly appearance, Gille was a popular and trusted commander, who cared for his men's welfare.

Born in Gandersheim on 8 March 1897, Herbert Otto Gille entered the Imperial Army as a cadet. He served in Baden Feldartillerie Regiment Nr 30 throughout World War I, reaching the rank of Oberleutnant by the Armistice. He was not one of the lucky 100,000 who were retained in the army of the post-war Republic, and was forced to find civilian work. He was eventually employed as an estate administrator after obtaining further educational qualifications.

In 1934 he volunteered for service in the SS-Verfügungstruppe, becoming first a platoon, then a company commander in the 'Germania' Regiment. With the expansion of the SS-VT an artillery regiment was authorized, and the former gunner officer Gille was heavily involved in its formation, ultimately serving as one of its battalion commanders during the campaign in Poland. Promoted to SS-Standartenführer, he commanded his regiment when it later became part of the new SS-Division 'Wiking', with which Gille saw heavy action during the early part of the Russian campaign (see Steiner, below). In the rank of SS-Oberführer he was decorated with the Knight's Cross in October 1942 for personal bravery and exemplary leadership.

In May 1943, Gille was promoted to general rank as an SS-Brigadeführer to command the 'Wiking' Division, which continued to earn a formidable reputation under his popular leadership. In the historic battle for the Cherkassy Pocket, 'Wiking', along with SS-Division Totenkopf, held out against Soviet forces which reached more than 20 times the strength of the encircled German units, before successfully breaking out. Subsequently ordered to take command of the 'last man, last bullet' defence of the city of Kovel, Gille refused to take his battered division into what he knew was a death trap; but he himself flew into Kovel, where the forces under his command held out against repeated armoured assaults by four Soviet armies - despite not having a single remaining tank of their own - until a relief force from the 'Wiking' Division broke in. Hitler was finally persuaded by GFM Model that the city must be abandoned; Gille withdrew his men and vehicles, with over 2,000 wounded, along a narrow corridor held by 'Wiking'. For this remarkable achievement Gille was decorated with the Diamonds on 19 April 1944. He was subsequently appointed to command IV SS-Panzerkorps, being promoted to SS-Obergruppenführer on 9 November 1944. After taking part in the doomed attempt to save Budapest his corps fought in the last offensive around Lake Balaton in March 1945; after its failure Gille took his men westwards, and surrendered to US troops. After his release Gille lived modestly, opening a mail order book service and founding the newspaper of the HIAG. He died suddenly of a heart attack on 26 December 1966.

A fine formal portrait study of SS-Gruf Paul Hausser, shown here wearing the pre-1942 style of rank insignia. The photo was taken just after the award of his Knight's Cross in August 1941, for his performance in command of SS-Div 'Reich' in Operation 'Barbarossa'. During the 1930s Hausser probably made the greatest single contribution to the training of the future Waffen-SS for a serious military role.

Paul Hausser was born in Brandenburg on 7 October 1880. His long military career started at the age of 12 when he became a cadet at a military preparatory school. He was commissioned as a Leutnant in 1899 and assigned to an infantry regiment. By the outbreak of war in 1914 he was a Hauptmann with the General Staff, and he served on the staffs of various commands throughout World War I, being promoted Major in March 1918. Hausser was retained in the Reichswehr of the Weimar Republic and continued to progress through the ranks, serving variously as a battalion and regimental commander and commander of the M端nsingen troop training grounds, and being promoted Oberst in 1927. In February 1931 he was elevated to Generalmajor, and one year later to Generalleutnant, at which point he retired from the Reichswehr.

Hausser joined the SS in 1934 but, interestingly, he did not become a member of the Nazi Party for another three years. Making best use of the immense experience of this accomplished senior officer, Himmler appointed him as commander of the SS-Junkerschule (officer training academy) at Brunswick. Two years later Hausser was made Inspector of SS officer training schools; in May 1936 he was promoted to SS-Brigadefuhrer, and in October of that year appointed Inspector of the SS-Verfugungstruppe (SS-VT), the forerunner of the Waffen-SS.

During the invasion of Poland, Hausser served as SS liaison officer with the Army's Panzer Division Kempf, and in October 1939 he was given command of the SS-Verf端gungs Division, which would later evolve into 2.SS-Panzer Division 'Das Reich'. Hausser commanded the division through the Balkan campaign and the early stages of the invasion of the USSR in 1941, being decorated with the Knight's Cross on 8 August for his success in command. On 1 October 1941, Hausser was promoted to SS-Obergruppenf端hrer und General der Waffen-SS; but that same month he was seriously wounded, losing the sight of his right eye. On his return to duty in May 1942, now sporting the eyepatch that was to become his trademark, the 61-year-old 'Papa' Hausser moved to a staff posting which he held until September, when he was given command of II SS-Panzerkorps. On 28 July 1943, Hausser was awarded the Oakleaves for his command of the corps, especially in the recapture of Kharkov that March - an operation which had involved his calculated disobedience of Hitler's orders.

In August 1944, Hausser was promoted to SS-Oberstgruppenf端hrer und Generaloberst der Waffen-SS, the highest rank attainable short of the Reichsfuhrer-SS himself. He was appointed commanding general of 7.Armee on the Western Front, and saw action throughout the fighting in Normandy, where he once again suffered a serious head wound during the breakout from the Falaise Pocket. The Swords were added to his Knight's Cross on 26 August 1944. On returning to duty in January 1945 he was appointed to command Heeresgruppe Oberrhein, holding this post until the command was disbanded in April 1945. During the closing days of the war he was attached to the staff of GFM Kesselring, the Commander-in-Chief South-West. Hausser surrendered to US troops in Austria at the end of the war, and was finally released from captivity in 1948.

Paul Hausser was greatly respected by his men, and indeed by his former enemies; his qualities as a soldier were undeniable, and no war crimes charges were ever brought against him. After the war Hausser was the senior member of HIAG, the ex-servicemen's organization of the Waffen-SS, and published two books, the better known being Soldaten wie andere audi ('Soldiers Like Any Others'). He died in Ludwigsburg on 21 December 1972, at the age of 92.

Then there is marksmanship. At the height of his powers, Experte Hans-Joachim Marseille is said to have needed an average of 15 rounds per victory. In Burma, Jim Lacey shot down a Hayabusa with a mere five rounds, while in Europe, Canadian Wally McLeod shot down two FW 190As with a total expenditure of 26 rounds. In terms of strike rates, Lacey's 28 victims were amassed in little over 80 encounters with the enemy, while P-47 ace Bob Johnson flew 91 sorties for a similar score. This sortie/victory ratio would have ensured them a ranking in the Jagdflieger list far above Erich Hartmann, or Adolf Galland. It has been postulated, purely on Second World War results, that Germans are naturally better fighter pilots. This can be refuted by taking a glance at the relative scores for World War One; in this conflict there was no basic difference. The only conclusion is that British, American and Commonwealth pilots in the second conflict were at least the equal of their opponents, and given identical circumstances, would have matched anything the Jagdflieger achieved. - Allied Fighter Aces by Mike Spick

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The most successful Luftwaffe fighter pilot in World War II. Even the legendary fighter pilot Adolf Galland called "Jochen"Marseille "the unsurpassed virtuoso among fighter pilots."An officer candidate before the war, his poor disciplinary record delayed his commission until 1941, despite moderate success in the Battle of Britain in 1940-he shot down seven RAF aircraft but was himself shot down four times. In early 1941, he was transferred to the 1st Group of Jagdgeschwader 27 (27th Fighter Wing) in North Africa, where an understanding commander gave him full rein to develop his talents. Marseille soon began to score regularly against the RAF and became renowned in the theater for total command of his aircraft and for his unerring aim. His skill as a deflection shooter allowed him to score as often as targets presented themselves-he could dive into the middle of a defensive circle of RAF fighters and totally destroy it. He once shot down eight RAF fighters in 10 minutes, a day in which he claimed 17 victories in three combat sorties. He was promoted to captain and given command of a staffel (squadron), whose primary mission was to fly high cover for Marseille. On 3 September 1942, he became the fourth member of the Wehrmacht to receive the Oak Leaves with Swords and Diamonds to the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross from Adolf Hitler. Less than a month later he was dead. The engine of his new fighter seized while he was returning from a mission; Marseille struck its tail while bailing out and fell to the ground with an unopened parachute. His final victory total was 154 fighters and four bombers; all of his victims were from the Royal Air Force or the South African Air Force.

References

Obermeier, E.Die Ritterkreuztraeger der Luftwaffe, 1939-1945, Band 1: Jagdflieger [Recipients of the Knight's Cross].Mainz:Verlag Dieter Hoffmann, 1989.

LZ 11 2 (L 70) The first 'x' type airship, an improved 'Height-Climber', was used by Strasser as his flagship during what turned out to be the last strategic raid of the war on the night of 5-6 August 191 8. Note the difference between the matt-black underside, for camouflage purposes, and the lighter-coloured top. The ceiling of some 7,000m obviated the need for defensive armament on top of the hull, although the airship was destroyed by a DeHaviland DH-4 while at an altitude of some 5,000m during the raid. The entire crew, including Strasser, was lost.

The first strategic raid of 1918 on Britain was on 12-13 March, using five of the latest airships: LZ 99 (L 54), LZ 100 (L 53), LZ 106 (L 61), LZ 107 (L 62) and LZ 110 (L 63). The raid was rendered ineffective by the weather - not winds on this occasion, but rather thick cloud that obscured the ground. Another five-ship raid on 12-13 April was notable for the airship gunners hitting an aeroplane that was attempting to close with their ship, LZ 107 (L 62), and forcing it to break off and land. This successful instance of defensive gunfire is believed to have been unique, but an experiment that might have afforded a greater defensive capability had taken place on 26 January. The airship LZ 80 (L 35) took off with an Albatross D-111 fighter suspended beneath it, which was, successfully dropped from a height of some 1,200m, and flew safely away. Rationale behind this experiment is clear enough, but the project was not explored further.

The airship as a combat weapon was becoming obsolescent, though the advocate of both the weapon and its strategic use, Peter Strasser, continued to deny this, and on 5-6 August himself led a five-ship raid to bomb London. Strasser 's 'flagship' for this operation was the LZ 112 (L 70), the first 'x' type which had reached an altitude of some 7,000m during tests, whilst the other four ships, LZ 100 (L 53), LZ 103 (L 56), LZ 110 (L 63) and LZ 111 (L 65), had 6,000m ceilings. However, the defenders now deployed the two-seater DeHaviland DH4 aeroplane, which had a ceiling greater than 6,000m. In any event, and for unknown reasons, three of the airships, L 53, L 65 and L 70, chose to approach the British coast at heights of some 5,00Om, where they were intercepted by three of the aeroplanes. The report of one pilot, Maj. E. Cadbury, graphically describes what happened: 'The [explosive bullets were] seen to blow a great hole in the fabric and a fire started which quickly ran along the entire length of the Zeppelin. The Zeppelin raised her bows as if in an effort to escape, then plunged seaward, a blazing mass. The airship was completely consumed in about 3⁄4 of a minute.'

The downed airship was L 70, and there were no survivors. Strasser had perished in Imperial Germany's newest airship on what was to be the last strategic raid of the war. L 70 was not the last airship to fall victim to British fighters, however. On 11 August, while carrying out reconnaissance work over the North Sea, LZ 100 (L 53) was successfully intercepted by a Sopwith Camel launched from a lighter towed behind a destroyer. Despite operating at near maximum altitude, it taking the aeroplane an hour to climb anywhere near it, the airship was ignited by gunfire from some 100 metres below, and plunged into the sea.

The airship as a weapon of war had clearly been neutralised, and in any event the defeat of German arms of all kinds was acknowledged within three months by the signing of the Armistice.

Among the troops of the Fifty-seventh Tank Corps under General Weidling, the unit now bearing the main burden of the fight, there was an administrative officer, a member of General Mummert's Tank Division M端ncheberg. This officer kept a diary. In it he wrote:

"April 24: Early morning. We are at the Tempelhof airport. Russian artillery is firing without letup. Our sector is Defense Sector D. The commander is over in the Air Ministry Building. We need infantry reinforcements, and we get motley emergency units. Behind the lines, civilians are still trying to get away right under the Russian artillery fire, dragging along some miserable bundle holding all they have left in the world. On and off, some of the wounded try to move to the rear. Most of them stay, though, because they are afraid of being picked up and hanged by flying courts-martial.

"The Russians burn their way into the houses with flame throwers. The screams of the women and children are terrible.

"Three o'clock in the afternoon, and we have barely a dozen tanks and around thirty armored cars. These are all the armored vehicles left around the government sector. The chain of command seems snarled up. We constantly get orders from the Chancellery to send tanks to some other danger spot in town, and they never come back. Only General Mummert's toughness has kept us so far from being 'expended.' We have hardly any vehicles left to carry the wounded.

"Afternoon. Our artillery retreats to new positions. They have very little ammunition. The howling and explosions of the Stalin organs, the screaming of the wounded; the roaring of motors, and the rattle of machine guns. Clouds of smoke, and the stench of chlorine and fire.

Dead women in the street, killed while trying to get water. But also, here and there, women with bazookas, Silesian girls thirsting for revenge. News and rumors that Wenck is approaching Berlin, his artillery can already be heard in some of the southern suburbs. Another army is expected to come to our aid from the north. 8 P.M.: Russian tanks carrying infantry are driving on the airport. Heavy fighting.

"April 25: 5:30 A.M. New, massive tank attacks. We are forced to retreat. Orders from the Chancellery: our division is to move immediately to Alexanderplatz in the north. 9 A.M. Order canceled. 10 A.M.: Russian drive on the airport becomes irresistible. New defense line in the center of town.

Heavy street fighting-many civilian casualties. Dying animals. Women are fleeing from cellar to cellar. We are pushed northwest. New order to go north, as before. But the command situation is obviously in complete disorder, the F端hrer shelter must have false information, the positions we are supposed to take over are already in the hands of the Russians. We retreat again, under heavy Russian air attacks. Inscriptions on the house walls: 'The hour before sunrise is the darkest,' and 'We retreat but we are winning.' Deserters, hanged or shot. What we see on this march is unforgettable. Free Corps Mohnke: 'Bring your own weapons, equipment, rations. Every German man is needed.' Heavy fighting in the business district, inside the Stock Exchange. The first skirmishes in the subway tunnels, through which the Russians are trying to get back of our lines. The tunnels are packed with civilians.

"April 26: The night sky is fiery red. Heavy shelling. Otherwise a terrible silence. We are sniped at from many houses- probably foreign laborers. News that the commander of the city has been replaced. General Weidling takes over, General Mummert takes the tank forces. About 5:30 A.M. another grinding artillery barrage. The Russian attack. We have to retreat again, fighting for street after street. Three times during the forenoon we inquire: Where is Wenck? Wenck's spearheads are said to be in Werder, twenty-two miles southwest of Berlin. Passes understanding. A dependable release from the Propaganda Ministry states that all the troops from the Elbe front are marching on Berlin. Around 11 A.M., L. comes from the; Propaganda Ministry, his eyes shining, with an even more dependable release directly from Secretary of State Naumann. Negotiations have been conducted with the Western powers. We will have to bring some sacrifices, but the Western powers will not stand by and let the Russians take Berlin. Our morale goes up enormously. L. reports as absolutely certain that we will not have to fight for more than twenty-four hours-at most forty-eight.

"An issue of Goebbels' paper Der Angriff reaches us. An article in it confirms L.'s report: 'The tactics of the Bolshevists show that they are realizing how soon Western reinforcements will be in Berlin. This is the battle that will decide our fate, and the fate of Europe. If we hold out, we shall bring about the decisive turn of the war.'

"But one thing puzzles me. The paper also says: 'If we resist the onslaught of the Soviets here on the main defense line through the heart of Berlin, the fortunes of war will have been changed regardless of what the U.S.A. and England will do.'

"New command post in the subway tunnels under Anhalt railroad station. The- station looks like an armed camp. Women and children huddling in niches and corners and listening for the sounds of battle. Shells hit the roofs, cement is crumbling from the ceiling. Powder smell and smoke in the tunnels. Suddenly water splashes into our command post. Screams, cries, curses in the tunnel. People are fighting around the ladders that run through air shafts up to the street. Water comes rushing through the tunnels. The crowds get panicky, stumble and fall over rails and ties. Children and wounded are deserted, people are trampled to death. The water covers them. It rises three feet or more, then it slowly goes down. The panic lasts for hours. Many are drowned. Reason: somewhere, on somebody's command, engineers have blasted the locks of one of the canals to flood the tunnels against the Russians who are trying to get through them. Late afternoon, we change position again. A terrible sight at the entrance of the subway station, one flight below street level: a heavy shell has pierced the roof, and men, women, soldiers, children, are literally squashed against the walls. At night, a short interval in the shooting.

"April 27: Continuous attack throughout the night. Increasing signs of dissolution. But that's no use-one must not give up at the last moment, and then regret it for the rest of one's life. K. brings information that American tank divisions are on their way to Berlin. In the Chancellery, they say, everybody is more certain of final victory than ever before. Hardly any communications among troops, excepting a few regular battalions equipped with radio posts. Telephone cables are shot to pieces. Physical conditions are indescribable. No rest, no relief. No regular food, hardly any bread. We get water from the tunnels and filter it. Nervous breakdowns. The wounded that are not simply torn apart are hardly taken in anywhere. The civilians in their cellars are afraid of them. Too many of them have been hanged as deserters. And the flying courts-martial drive the civilians out of cellars where they pick up deserters because they are accessories to the crime.

"These courts-martial appear in our sector particularly often today. Most of them are very young SS officers. Hardly a medal or decoration on them. Blind and fanatical. The hope of relief and the fear of the courts-martial bring our men back to the fighting pitch.

"General Mummert requests that no more courts-martial visit the sector. A division made up of the largest number of men with some of the highest decorations does not deserve to be persecuted by such babies. He is resolved to shoot down any court-martial that takes action in our sector.

"The whole large expanse of Potsdamer Platz in a waste of ruins. Masses of damaged vehicles, half-smashed trailers of the ambulances with the wounded still in them. Dead people everywhere, many of them frightfully cut up by tanks and trucks.

"At night, we try to reach the Propaganda Ministry for news about Wenck and the American divisions. Rumors that the Ninth Army is also on the way to Berlin. In the west, general peace treaties are being signed. Violent shelling of the center of town.

"We cannot hold our present position. Around four o'clock in the morning, we retreat through the subway tunnels. In the tunnels next to ours, the Russians march in the opposite direction to the positions we have just lost."

Numerous units in the western suburbs tried to escape from the city in massive sallies. Civilians joined them everywhere. Women with children in their arms took part in their assaults and perished in the fire of the enemy. The officer of Division M端ncheberg, whose diary was quoted earlier, was in one of these units. He wrote:

"May 1. We are La the Aquarium. Shell crater on shell crater every way I look. The streets are steaming. The smell of the dead is at times unbearable. Last night, one floor above us, some police officers and soldiers celebrated their farewell to life, in spite of the shelling. This morning, men and women were lying on the stairs in tight embrace and drunk. Through the shell holes in the streets one can look down into the subway tunnels. It looks as though the dead are lying down there several layers deep. Everyone in our command post is wounded more than once;

General Mummert carries his right arm in a sling. We look like walking skeletons. Our radio men are listening all the time-but there are no reports, no news. Just a rumor that Hitler has died in battle. Our hope is going down. All we talk about is not to be taken prisoners, to break out to the west somewhere, if Hitler is really dead. The civilians don't have any hope either. Nobody mentions Wenck any more.

"Afternoon. We have to retreat. We put the wounded into the last armored car we have left. All told, the division now has five tanks and four field guns. Late in the afternoon, new rumors that Hitler is dead, that surrender is being discussed. That is all. The civilians want to know whether we will break out of Berlin. If we do, they want to join us. I won't forget their faces.

"The Russians continue to advance underground and then come up from the subway tunnels somewhere behind our lines. In the intervals between the firing, we can hear the screaming of the civilians in the tunnels.

"Pressure is getting too heavy, we have to retreat again. In the cellars, the shrieking of the wounded. No more anesthetics. Every so often, women burst out of a cellar, their fists pressed over their ears, because they cannot stand the screaming of the wounded.

"May 2. No let-up. The ground shakes without a stop. Night fighters overhead; we hear their machine guns and their fragmentation bombs. Finally we make contact with a group left over from the 18^th Armored Infantry. We ask whether they will join in a break. They say no, because they have no orders from above.

"We retreat again. We send our scouts to the west to find a path for a break. In the afternoon, Russian planes drop leaflets about capitulation. Soviet loud-speakers shout a proclamation from General Weidling that we should surrender- perhaps it is genuine, perhaps not. The anti-aircraft guns on the Zoo air-raid shelter are still firing. Some bedraggled civilians and infantry men who have got through from behind the Russian lines join us. They all are wounded, even the women. They are very quiet, barely a word about what they have seen on the other side. The 18^th Armored Infantry sends word, part of them will join us now.

"May 3. At dawn we make an attack on a bridge leading to the west. It is under heavy Russian fire, can be crossed only at a run. The dead are lying all over it, and the wounded with no one to pick them up. Civilians of every age are trying to cross; they are shot down in rows. Our last armored cars and trucks are forcing their way across through piles of twisted human bodies. The bridge is flooded with blood.

"The rear guards fall apart. They want to go west, they don't want to be killed at the last moment. The command crumbles. General Mummert is missing. Our losses are heavy. The wounded are left where they fall. More civilians join us.

"May 4. Behind us, Berlin in flames. Many other units must still be fighting. The sky is red, cut by bright flashes. Russian tanks all around us, and the incessant clatter of machine guns. We make some headway in close combat. We meet columns of refugees drifting about lost. They weep and ask for help. We are at the end ourselves. Our ammunition is giving out. The unit breaks up. We try to go on in small groups."

This was the end of one division in the Battle of Berlin. All other units that tried to break out suffered the same fate. No more than a few men made good their escape.

Planning for the invasion of Greece - Operation 'Marita' - at once began in earnest. This envisaged a limited move against eastern Thrace from Bulgaria, taking Salonika and the coast and preempting any attempt by the British to land behind the German advance into southern Russia. No further incursion was planned at this stage. However, these plans were upset by events in Yugoslavia where, in March 1941, a coup d'etat against the pro-Axis regent installed a new government with an anti-German stance. Hitler now prepared another operation against Yugoslavia, codenamed 'Strafe' (punishment), for the spring of 1941, to run concurrently with the attack on Greece. In the combined operation the Twelfth Army (Wilhelm List) was ordered to move on Greece, while the Second Army (M. E. von Weichs), Paul von Kleist's First Panzer Group and the Hungarian Third Army moved on Yugoslavia. The added burden actually produced a tactical advantage for the Greek operation. No longer would the German generals be restricted to a frontal assault on the formidable Metaxas Line along the Bulgarian-Greek frontier. They could now exploit the pathways into Greece that they had coveted from the start: the lightly defended passes leading from Yugoslavia.

For the operation the 5th Gebirgs Division was attached to XVIII Corps of the Twelfth Army, charged with penetrating the heavily defended 125-mile Metaxas Line that covered the Bulgarian border to the north and east of Salonika. In total, List's Twelfth Army numbered eight infantry divisions and the 2nd and 9th Panzer Divisions, divided among XL Panzer Corps (Georg Stumme), XVIII Mountain Corps (Franz Boehme), and XXX Corps (Otto Hartmann). They were faced by troops of the Greek Second Army (70,000 men) in the Metaxas Line, whose western flank was covered by the Yugoslav Fifth Army and the Greek 20th Infantry Division. To block an attempted thrust down the Aliakmon Valley west of Mount Olympus, the British had despatched an expeditionary force from North Africa under General Henry Maitland Wilson. This comprised some 75,000 men, including the 6th Australian Infantry Division, the 2nd New Zealand Division and the 1st Armoured Brigade, and could field some 100 tanks. The Australian 7th Division and a Polish brigade were intended for Greece as well, but were held back for North Africa, as Rommel was at that time advancing into Cyrenaica.

List's Operation 'Marita' is generally considered a masterpiece of military planning. Recognising the Yugoslav Fifth Army as the weak link in the Allied position, he struck out to the west at 05:15 on 6 April, before the Yugoslavs had time to complete mobilisation. As Weichs' Second Army thrust south into Yugoslavia from Austria, and Kleist's First Panzer Group pushed toward Belgrade from Bulgaria, Twelfth Army attacked Thrace, sending XL Corps westwards through the Vardar region toward Macedonia. On 7 April, the Kriva Pass and Skopje were taken after heavy fighting with the Yugoslav Third Army. But instead of heading for the Aliakmon Valley as the Allies anticipated, List then ordered XL Panzer Corps to attack through the strategically important Monastir Gap for Kozani, further west - the gateway into Greece on the open flank of the Allied line along the Vermion mountains and the Greek front in Albania.

Map showing the Metaxas Line and 5^th Gebirgsjager operations in the Balkans.

Meanwhile XXX Corps was moving on western Thrace and XVIII Mountain Corps preparing to assault the 'Metaxas' Line.

Beginning in April 1939, the Greek government had poured enormous sums of money into the construction of this system of defensive works in the mountains covering the Bulgarian border, which was named the Metaxas Line in honour of the then Prime Minister, loannis Metaxas. The defences consisted of heavily fortified concrete blockhouses, many of them interlinked by tunnels, and manned by first-rate Greek troops. In front of these were smaller outposts and weapons pits.

The German plan called for a frontal attack on this position, to be undertaken by one German infantry division and the reinforced 5th and 6th Gebirgs Divisions. In the days prior to the attack, the troops hauled ammunition and supplies from the Bulgarian town of Petrich up into their forward positions, sequestered on the wooded slopes below the enemy line. Observing the Gebirgsjager at this task their comrades-in-arms began referring to them as the Gamsbock or 'mountain goats', a name that was enthusiastically adopted by the troops themselves. To support the infantry, artillery also had to be manhandled up the slopes.

By 05:00 on the morning of 6 April, the men of the 5th Gebirgs Division were poised for the attack. They had strapped rifles across their chests, and wire cutters, flare guns, entrenching tools and hand grenades hung from their belts. Shortly after 05:00 the gunners began to lay down a heavy preparation. Then flights of Ju87 Stukas approached to pound the ground positions, raising clouds of dust and grit that shrouded the mountaintops. While the bombs were still falling, the troops left the cover of the woods and scrambled up the snowy slopes that the Greeks had cleared of timber to provide their gunners with unrestricted fields of fire. Withering fire fell down on the advancing troops, proof that the large concrete and steel bunkers had largely withstood the barrage. Over the next few hours, in the face of extremely tough resistance from the Greek defenders, the mountain troops began to gouge holes in the line by clearing the trenches that flanked the bunkers. The engineers systematically blasted the casemates open with explosives or incinerated the defenders with flamethrowers aimed through the embrasures. Around midday the Greeks responded by calling in artillery fire on their own positions. Exposed on the slopes, the Gebirgsjager huddled in the abandoned Greek trenches or burrowed into shell craters for protection. Through the afternoon and evening, the Greek troops emerged sporadically from their culverts in an effort to drive the Germans from the positions they had seized. But the men of the 5th Gebirgs Division were not about to give up their hard-won toeholds in the Metaxas Line. Bolstered by reinforcements during the night, they attacked with renewed determination at dawn. Grappling up cliffs made slippery by the freezing rain, they blasted or burned the Greeks from one bunker after another.

Through the day, each carefully located nest of fortifications along the line of advance was gradually reduced through a combination of frontal and enveloping attacks, with tactical support from Luftwaffe aircraft. Using these methods the advanced units of the 5th Gebirgs Division, together with the reinforced 125th Infantry Regiment, finally penetrated the Metaxas Line on the evening of 7 April, pouring through large gaps in the line out onto the plain to the south. The savage contest cost the division 160 lives - nine more than the Wehrmacht had lost in the entire campaign in Yugoslavia.

Meanwhile the 6th Gebirgs Division crossed a 7,000-foot snow-covered mountain range and broke through the line at a point that had been considered inaccessible by the Greeks. The division reached the rail line to Salonika east of Lake Dojran on the evening of 7 April, and entered Kherson two days later.

After repelling several fierce counterattacks, the 5th Gebirgs Division moved on Neon Petritsi, and with this taken gained access to the important Rupul Gorge from the south. The 125th Infantry Regiment, which was attacking the gorge from the north, suffered such heavy casualties that it had to be withdrawn from further action after it had reached its objective.

Some of the fortresses in the line held out for days after the German attack divisions had bypassed them, and could not be reduced until heavy guns were brought up. However, in a deft move around the Metaxas Line, the 2nd Panzer Division motored west to the Yugoslav town of Strumica on 6 April, encountering little resistance on the way. The panzers then turned south towards the Greek border, brushed aside a Greek motorised infantry division near Lake Dojran, and took Salonika without a fight on 9 April. Coupled with the advance of XVIII Mountain Corps across the Metaxas Line, the armoured thrust succeeded in cutting off a large part of the Greek Second Army in Eastern Thrace and led to the collapse of Greek resistance east of the Vardar River. On 9 April the Greek Second Army surrendered unconditionally (the number of prisoners taken has never been established because the Germans released all Greek soldiers after disarming them). On the left wing, XXX Infantry Corps faced weaker opposition than west of the Nestos River, but had to overcome poor road conditions that delayed the movement of artillery and supplies. By the evening of 8 April, its attached 164th Infantry Division had captured Xanthi, while the 50th Infantry Division had advanced far beyond Komotini toward the Nestos, which both divisions reached on the next day.

Now only the newly formed Allied Group W, consisting of the British and Commonwealth forces and two inexperienced Greek divisions, stood in the way of the advance. In light of the capture of Salonika the group commander, Wilson, decided that a defence of Greece's northwest frontier was futile, and instead set up his main defensive line in a short arc extending westward from the Aegean coast near Mount Olympus to the Aliakmon River - a position that conceded northern Greece to the Germans but guarded the main approaches to Athens.

Stumme's XL Panzer Corps was even then poised at the northern end of the Monastir Gap, the strategic corridor from Yugoslavia to central Greece. On 10 April his lead units began to push through the narrows, and early the next morning ran into a 3,000-strong rearguard that Wilson had deployed on the panzer's route of advance in anticipation of the onslaught. Although eventually forced to withdraw, they succeeded in delaying the German advance, giving Wilson valuable time to establish his main line.

The rapid advance of XL Panzer Corps was now seriously jeopardising the position of the Greek First Army in Albania. However, it was not until 13 April that the first Greek elements began to pull back toward the Pindus Mountains. On the same day Stumme ordered the Leibstandarte Division and 73rd Infantry Division to the crossroads at Kastoria to stop the stream of retreating Greek troops, and the following 48 hours witnessed heavy fighting. On 19 April the 1st SS Regiment was ordered to advance southeastward in the direction of Yanina, to cut off the Greeks' route of withdrawal to the south and complete their encirclement. Realising the hopelessness of the situation, the Greek commander offered to surrender his 14 divisions. After brief negotiations, the surrender was accepted with honourable terms for the defeated. In recognition of the valour with which the Greek troops had fought, their officers were permitted to retain their side arms. The soldiers were not treated as prisoners of war and were allowed to go home after the demobilisation of their units.

When Frederick became king his attitude to his family and the old ministers of state became colder, more withdrawn and more uncivil. He snubbed his mother and sisters and publicly humiliated von der Schulenburg and the Old Dessauer. He began to live behind an impenetrable mask. He was untroubled and uninhibited by conscience, by a standard of common decency) or by any fellow feeling for his brother Germans, inside or outside of Prussia. He was the complete autocrat, friendless, perfidious, irreligious and cynical, the end always justifying the means, ungrateful, avaricious, mistrustful and untrustworthy, the monarch with the perpetual sneer.

Many stories are told about him. And as he was successful and became 'the Great', they were recounted after his death almost with admiration and affection. He visited the monks of Cleve to find out what they were doing with the revenues of the royal forests made over to them throughout the centuries to pray for the souls of past dukes. Carlyle tells how Frederick asked the purpose of these costly masses. The answer came 'To deliver the souls out of purgatory.' 'Purgatory? It is a costly thing for the forests all this while! And are they not out of purgatory yet, these poor souls, after so many hundred years of praying?' The monks thought not. 'And when will they be out?' The monks could not say. 'Then send me a messenger when it is complete.' And that ended what was to have been a long ceremonial visit, and the king rode off leaving the monks still singing the Te Deum with which they had greeted his arrival. When inspecting a prison at Spandau Frederick found only one prisoner who admitted his guilt and the fairness of his sentence, the others maintaining that they were innocent. 'Release the scoundrel immediately', cried the king, 'lest he contaminate all these guiltless people.' On the prompting of the Protestant community at Glogau, he promised the Austrians that he would not use the Protestant church outside the walls as a blockhouse, if they, for their part, would spare it from demolition. But when he had taken Glogau and viewed the church he is said to have cried out, 'What a fearful monstrosity. Of course it must come down' On seeing a great placard erected by indignant burghers lampooning and criticizing the king for the taxes he had imposed, he merely gave orders that it should be hung lower in order that the people might see it better. During his life-time, however, he was regarded with little affection and the news of his death was received by the Berliners (whom he always disliked) with a sigh of relief.

In the summer of 1740, even before the death of the Emperor Charles VI, the young Frederick was already playing the bully in the Rhineland. He wanted Berg and would have been happy to have Russian or French troops lay waste the Rhineland to help him get it. Like his father, he was tolerant in matters of religion, being content 'that all his subjects should go to heaven in their own way'. But because it politically so suited him, he regarded himself as the champion of all German Protestants. And whereas Frederick William was prepared, if need be, to oppress Prussian Roman Catholics in retaliation for persecution of Protestants by German Roman Catholic rulers elsewhere, his son Frederick II more than hinted that he was ready to go to war on their behalf. In a territorial dispute between the Catholic Archbishop Elector of Mainz and the Protestant Landgrave of Hesse-Cassel, the Archbishop formed a military coalition with the Emperor's support. The Landgrave appealed to Frederick, who wrote to his brother Elector of Mainz saying 'In case of need, we' (that is to say Frederick) 'should not know how to refrain from affording the Landgrave ... protection and help.' The threat was sufficient to win the day for the Landgrave. The Bishop of Liege left unanswered a Prussian ultimatum and had to buy off the occupying Prussian troops at a price of 200,000 thalers. And the young king, revelling in his own success and jeering at the restraining advice of his own Prussian ministers, said that 'when they talked of war they resembled an Iroquois discussing astronomy'.

When, at the end of October, he learned or the Emperor's death, Frederick had already decided on the seizure of Austrian Silesia. He wanted its rich territory as his price for adherence to the Pragmatic Sanction. The province was contiguous to Brandenburg and brought him further political and strategic advantages in that it cut off the Elector of Saxony, who was also King of Poland, from his territories in the east. Silesia outflanked Western Poland, also coveted by Frederick. Prussia had of course no moral or legal right to the territory. And when his minister Podewils urged that some pretext or claim be furbished up, the king replied, 'That is what you are for. The orders have already been given out to the troops.' On 9 November Frederick received news of the death of the Empress or Russia and, having nothing more to fear on his eastern flank, this confirmed him in his intention to occupy Silesia, come what may.

The Prussian preparations had been made in the greatest of secrecy, all activity being cloaked in the guise of a march to be made to the west to secure the provinces of J獯llich-Berg on the Rhine, those provinces already promised to Frederick William. By the end of November, however, the British Ambassador was already convinced that Silesia was the goal, and Vienna, suddenly awakening to the danger, sent the Marquis di Botta on a special mission to Berlin to inquire the Prussian intentions. Di Botta en route had passed great columns of Prussians already moving south and it was no longer possible for Frederick to dissemble. He openly laid claim to Silesia, in return for which he promised support for Maria Theresa and her husband's claim to the imperial throne. Both men threatened, the Austrian envoy leaving with the reminder that 'though the Prussian troops make a handsomer show than the Austrian, ours have smelt powder'. In early December Prussian troops crossed into Silesia.

Frederick rightly judged Austro-Hungary, in spite of its size and large population, to be disunited and militarily weak, and he was correct in believing that the political climate in Europe was auspicious for an unprovoked attack. He was wrong, however, in his assessment of the energy, strength and wisdom of the new Austrian ruler, by far the most distinguished monarch the Habsburgs ever produced, and in the fervent support she was to receive as Queen of Hungary from the Hungarian people.

The War of the Austrian Succession, insofar as it concerns operations in Central Europe, embraces what is usually referred to as the First and Second Silesian Wars.