Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/News/February 2021/Articles




 * Charles I of Anjou (Borsoka) : Charles I, born in 1226 or 1227, acquired vast territories and many titles. He accompanied his brother, the French king Louis VIII, during the Seventh Crusade to Egypt. In 1263 he agreed with the Holy See to seize the Kingdom of Sicily and occupied it with little resistance. He took part in the Eighth Crusade in 1270, and forced the Caliph of Tunis to pay him a yearly tribute. In 1281 Charles was authorised to launch a crusade against the Byzantine Empire. An uprising in 1282 put an end to Charles' rule on Sicily, but he was able to defend his mainland territories.


 * SMS Gneisenau (Parsecboy) : Launched in 1906, Gneisenau was armed with eight 21 cm guns and had a top speed of 22.5 kn. Outclassed by the newly developed battlecruisers, she was assigned to the German East Asia Squadron. On the outbreak of World War I the squadron crossed the Pacific and off the coast of Chile defeated a British squadron at the Battle of Coronel. The British despatched two battlecruisers to hunt down the squadron, which they accomplished at the Battle of the Falkland Islands on 8 December 1914. Gneisenau was sunk with heavy loss of life.


 * Ba Congress (Peacemaker67) : The Ba Congress was a meeting of representatives of the Chetnik movement in January 1944 in the village of Ba in German-occupied Serbia during World War II. The congress aimed to advance a political alternative to the communist-led Yugoslav Partisans. It re-asserted the Chetnik movement's opposition to the Axis powers and proposed a vision for the political and socio-economic future of Yugoslavia. However, as Allied policy swung towards the Partisans, the congress did not improve the position of the movement.


 * Haane Manahi (Zawed) : Haane Manahi was a New Zealand Māori soldier who served in the Māori Battalion during the Second World War. He participated in the Battles of Greece and Crete and the Western Desert and Tunisian campaigns. He was recommended for a Victoria Cross (VC) for his actions at Takrouna in April 1943. Despite the support of four generals, his award was downgraded to a Distinguished Conduct Medal. After his death in 1986, the New Zealand Government was urged to press for a posthumous award of the VC, but to no effect. In 2007 Manahi's bravery was further recognised by a special award from Queen Elizabeth II.


 * 1st Missouri Field Battery (Hog Farm) : The battery served in the Confederate States Army during the American Civil War. Formed in Arkansas in September 1862, it was armed with two 12-pounder James rifles and two 6-pounder smoothbore guns. The unit fought in numerous actions in the Trans-Mississippi Theater in 1862–1864. In December 1863, it was re-equipped with two 10-pounder Parrott rifles and two 12-pounder howitzers. Several guns were captured at the Battle of Jenkins' Ferry in April 1864 and the battery was rearmed with four 6-pounder smoothbores. Its members were paroled at Alexandria, Louisiana, after the Confederate Trans-Mississippi Department surrendered on June 2.


 * American logistics in the Northern France campaign (Hawkeye7) : Logistics played a key role after the breakout from the Normandy lodgment began in July 1944. The subsequent advance was much faster than expected and the logistical plan lacked the flexibility to cope with the rapidly changing operational situation. At critical junctures in the campaign, senior American commanders subordinated logistical imperatives to operational opportunities. The decision to abandon plans to develop the ports of Brittany left only the Normandy beaches and the port of Cherbourg. The subsequent decision to pursue the defeated Germans beyond the Seine led to a multitude of logistical problems as increased German resistance stalled the American advance.


 * Pepi I Meryre (Iry-Hor) : Pepi ruled for c. 50 years during the second half of the 24th century BC. He had at least six queens, and was succeeded by son Merenre Nemtyemsaf I. Pepi engaged in a vast architectural program; Egypt's prosperity allowed him to become the most prolific builder of the Old Kingdom period. He launched military campaigns against Nubia, the Sinai and the southern Levant. Trade flourished while Pepi launched mining and quarrying expeditions to Sinai and further afield. Pepi had a pyramid complex built for his funerary cult in Saqqara next to which he built at least a further six pyramids for his queens.


 * Sennacherib : Sennacherib ruled the Neo-Assyrian Empire from 705BC to his death in 681BC. He is one of the most famous Assyrian kings for his role in the Old Testament of the Bible, which describes his campaign in the Levant when he invaded and subdued the Kingdom of Judah under King Hezekiah. Sennacherib is also noted for destroying the city of Babylon in 689BC. He transferred the capital of Assyria to Nineveh, launching one of the most ambitious building projects in ancient history. He expanded the city, constructed great city walls, numerous temples and a royal garden.


 * Battle of the Saw (u|Gog the Mild) : This was the culminating battle of a campaign fought between a Carthaginian army led by Hamilcar Barca and a rebel force led by Spendius in 238 BC in what is now northern Tunisia. After several months of campaigning, Hamilcar trapped the rebels. Pinned against the mountains, with their supply lines blockaded and with their food exhausted, the rebels ate their horses, their prisoners and then their slaves, hoping that their comrades based in Tunis would sortie to rescue them. Eventually, the Carthaginians, led by their elephants, attacked the starving rebels and they were massacred to a man. The captured rebel leaders were crucified in sight of their comrades in Tunis.


 * Manuel Kamytzes (Cplakidas) : Manuel Kamytzes was a military commander in late 12th-century Byzantium. Born to the high aristocracy, his life and travails encapsulate the crisis of the Empire during this time, having to confront revolts, the Crusades, with a weak army and led by astonishingly incompetent rulers. Kamytzes was not a brilliant commander, but dependable and loyal, that is until he was captured, and the emperor decided to not only let him rot in prison, but also dispossess him and imprison his family. Once free, Kamytzes rebelled but was defeated, and his ultimate fate is lost to history.


 * Uroš Drenović (Peacemaker67) : This article covers a leader of the World War II-era Chetniks. A pre-war Royal Yugoslav Army reserve officer, Drenović initially threw his lot in the with the Partisans in the uprising against the genocidal Ustashas in the Independent State of Croatia (NDH) after the Axis invasion in 1941. His Serb-chauvinist tendencies soon got the better of him and he eventually betrayed the Partisans during an operation against the Italians, and was forced to seek the protection of the NDH authorities, with whom he concluded a collaboration agreement. He met his end in an Allied air raid on Banja Luka in 1944.


 * Kidnapping of Heinrich Kreipe (Catlemur) : The kidnapping of Major General Heinrich Kreipe was a successful operation conducted in 1944 by the Special Operations Executive and the Greek resistance fighters. Initially seen as a symbolic propaganda victory, it led to the Germans to initiate large-scale reprisals against Crete's civilian population. The operation entered popular imagination through the biographical works of several of its participants, most notably the book Ill Met by Moonlight and its movie adaptation.