Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/News/February 2023/Articles


 * American transportation in the Siegfried Line campaign, nominated by Hawkeye7 : This article is a continuation from one that Hawkeye developed on American logistics in the Northern France campaign, and covers the period from September to December 1944. As the volume of material was considerable, he split the article into two parts; one about transportation, and one about supply. For much of the Siegfried campaign problems transporting supplies to the troops were a significant constraint on American operations, but these were eventually overcome, preparing the way for the final assault on Germany in 1945.


 * Battle of Helena, nominated by : Another in HF's series on American Civil War battles, this episode took place on July 4, 1863, near Helena, Arkansas. Union troops had captured the city in July 1862, and had been using it as a base of operations. Over 7,500 Confederate troops attempted to capture Helena in hopes of relieving some of the pressure on the Confederate army besieged in Vicksburg, Mississippi. Despite being outnumbered, the 4,100 Union troops defeated the Confederates' poorly coordinated attacks and inflicted heavy casualties. Union troops subsequently used Helena as a waypoint for their successful campaign to capture Little Rock, Arkansas.


 * Hove War Memorial, nominated by Harry Mitchell and Hassocks5489: Hove War Memorial is a First World War memorial designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens and located on Grand Avenue in Hove, part of the city of Brighton and Hove, on the south coast of England. Hove was the site of one of the earliest recruiting events at the beginning of the war and later of several military hospitals. Over 600 men from the town were killed during the war, a quarter of them from the local regiment alone. A war memorial committee was established in 1919 and Lutyens was engaged as architect, designing a Tuscan column on a three-staged base, topped with a statue of Saint George, patron saint of England. George, cast in the studio of Sir George Frampton, holds a sword by the blade in one hand and a shield in the other. The same statue, with variations, appears on several of Frampton's other monuments, including Fordham War Memorial in Cambridgeshire, also by Lutyens. The base contains several dedicatory inscriptions but no names, which are instead recorded on plaques in the town's library.


 * David Kelly (weapons expert), nominated by SchroCat: A Welsh scientist and authority on biological warfare (BW), David Kelly (1944–2003) was one of the UN's chief weapons inspectors in Iraq. A year after the publication of the 2002 dossier on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction—which stated that some of Iraq's chemical and biological weapons could be deployed within 45 minutes—Kelly had an off-the-record conversation with a BBC journalist; the BBC broadcast that the 45-minute claim was included at the insistence of Alastair Campbell, the Downing Street Director of Communications. Kelly denied he said Campbell had forced in the reference, and the government complained to the BBC, who refused to recant. Kelly informed managers in the Ministry of Defence that he may have been the source, but did not think he was the only one, as the BBC had reported points he had not mentioned. Kelly's name became known to the media, and he was called to appear before a parliamentary select committee. Two days later he was found dead near his home, an apparent suicide.


 * Battle of Lake Trasimene, nominated by Gog the Mild: Another in Gog's series on the Punic Wars, his succinct description being "Hannibal arrives in Roman Italy and inflicts 100% casualties on a Roman army in a single day. A defeat simply begging for an adjective." It took place when Hannibal's Carthaginians ambushed the Romans under Gaius Flaminius in June 217 BC, on the north shore of Lake Trasimene, during the Second Punic War. With the Carthaginians attacking unexpectedly from the flank and the rear, there was no chance for the Romans to form even a rudimentary fighting line and they were defeated after three hours' hard fighting. The trap failed to close on the 6,000 Romans at the front of the column, who escaped; later that day they were surrounded by pursuing Carthaginians and surrendered. Thus all 25,000 Romans in Flaminius's army were killed or captured. This destruction of an entire army as a result of such an ambush is widely considered a unique occurrence. For good measure, a few days later the Carthaginians wiped out the entire cavalry force of a second Roman army.


 * Constantine (son of Basil I), nominated by Iazyges: Constantine (Κωνσταντῖνος; born between 855 and c. 865, died 3 September 879) was a junior Byzantine emperor, alongside Basil I as the senior emperor, from January 868 to 3 September 879. Constantine was made co-emperor by Basil in c. January 868. Constantine was the intended heir of Basil and as such received much attention from him and accompanied him on military campaigns, including one in Syria, for which he shared a triumph. In comparison, his younger brother, Leo VI ((r. 886 – 912)), was made co-emperor merely to secure the imperial lineage and bolster legitimacy. However, Constantine died of fever on 3 September 879, before his father. After his death, Leo became the primary heir, and another brother, Alexander ((r. 912 – 913)), was raised to co-emperor.