Battle

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A battle is an occurrence of

The word "battle" can also be used infrequently to refer to an entire operational campaign, although this usage greatly diverges from its conventional or customary meaning. Generally, the word "battle" is used for such campaigns if referring to a protracted combat encounter in which either one or both of the combatants had the same methods, resources, and strategic objectives throughout the encounter. Some prominent examples of this would be the Battle of the Atlantic, Battle of Britain, and the Battle of France, all in World War II.

Battle is a loanword from the Old French bataille, first attested in 1297, from Late Latin battualia, meaning "exercise of soldiers and gladiators in fighting and fencing", from Late Latin (taken from Germanic) battuere "beat", from which the English word battery is also derived via Middle English batri.^[4][5]

Characteristics

The defining characteristic of the fight as a concept in

The use of the term "battle" in military history has led to its misuse when referring to almost any scale of combat, notably by strategic forces involving hundreds of thousands of troops that may be engaged in either one battle at a time (Battle of Leipzig) or operations (Battle of Wuhan). The space a battle occupies depends on the range of the weapons of the combatants. A "battle" in this broader sense may be of long duration and take place over a large area, as in the case of the Battle of Britain or the Battle of the Atlantic. Until the advent of artillery and aircraft, battles were fought with the two sides within sight, if not reach, of each other. The depth of the battlefield has also increased in modern warfare with inclusion of the supporting units in the rear areas; supply, artillery, medical personnel etc. often outnumber the front-line combat troops.

Battles are made up of a multitude of individual combats,

Battlespace is a unified strategic concept to integrate and combine

Battles can also be determined by terrain. Capturing high ground has been the main tactic in innumerable battles. An army that holds the high ground forces the enemy to climb and thus wear themselves down. Areas of jungle and forest, with dense vegetation act as force-multipliers, of benefit to inferior armies. Terrain may have lost importance in modern warfare, due to the advent of aircraft, though the terrain is still vital for camouflage, especially for guerrilla warfare.

Generals and commanders also play an important role,

Types

Battles can be fought on land, at sea, and in the air.

• A pitched battle is an encounter where opposing sides agree on the time and place of combat.
• A battle of encounter (or encounter battle) is a meeting engagement where the opposing sides collide in the field without either having prepared their attack or defence.
• A
  Somme
  ) attrition battles.
• A battle of breakthrough aims to pierce the enemy's defences, thereby exposing the vulnerable flanks which can be turned.
• A battle of
  bewegungskrieg)—surrounds the enemy in a pocket
  .
• A battle of
  double envelopment of the Battle of Cannae
  .
• A battle of annihilation is one in which the defeated party is destroyed in the field, such as the French fleet at the Battle of the Nile.

Battles are usually hybrids of different types listed above.

A

B.H. Liddell Hart

(Decisive Wars of History), among many others, have written books in the style of Creasy's work.

Land

There is an obvious difference in the way battles have been fought. Early battles were probably fought between rival hunting bands as unorganized crowds. During the

barbarians continued to use mob tactics

.

As the Age of Enlightenment dawned, armies began to fight in highly disciplined lines. Each would follow the orders from their officers and fight as a unit instead of individuals. Armies were divided into regiments, battalions, companies and platoons. These armies would march, line up and fire in divisions.

Native Americans, on the other hand, did not fight in lines, using guerrilla tactics. American colonists and European forces continued using disciplined lines into the American Civil War.

A new style arose from the 1850s to the First World War, known as trench warfare, which also led to tactical radio. Chemical warfare also began in 1915.

By the Second World War, the use of the smaller divisions, platoons and companies became much more important as precise operations became vital. Instead of the trench stalemate of 1915–1917, in the Second World War, battles developed where small groups encountered other platoons. As a result, elite squads became much more recognized and distinguishable. Maneuver warfare also returned with an astonishing pace with the advent of the tank, replacing the cannon of the Enlightenment Age. Artillery has since gradually replaced the use of frontal troops. Modern battles resemble those of the Second World War, along with indirect combat through the use of aircraft and missiles which has come to constitute a large portion of wars in place of battles, where battles are now mostly reserved for capturing cities.^{[citation needed]}

Naval

One significant difference of modern naval battles, as opposed to earlier forms of combat is the use of

Aircraft carriers

have since become the central unit in naval warfare, acting as a mobile base for lethal aircraft.

Aerial

Although the use of aircraft has for the most part always been used as a supplement to land or naval engagements, since their first major military use in World War I aircraft have increasingly taken on larger roles in warfare. During World War I, the primary use was for reconnaissance, and small-scale bombardment. Aircraft began becoming much more prominent in the

dog fights). Some of the more notable aerial battles in this period include the Battle of Britain and the Battle of Midway. Another important use of aircraft came with the development of the helicopter

, which first became heavily used during the Vietnam War, and still continues to be widely used today to transport and augment ground forces. Today, direct engagements between aircraft are rare – the most modern fighter-interceptors carry much more extensive bombing payloads, and are used to bomb precision land targets, rather than to fight other aircraft. Anti-aircraft batteries are used much more extensively to defend against incoming aircraft than interceptors. Despite this, aircraft today are much more extensively used as the primary tools for both army and navy, as evidenced by the prominent use of helicopters to transport and support troops, the use of aerial bombardment as the "first strike" in many engagements, and the replacement of the battleship with the aircraft carrier as the center of most modern navies.

Naming

Battles are usually named after some feature of the battlefield

Battle of Çanakkale. During the American Civil War, the Union tended to name the battles after the nearest watercourse, such as the Battle of Wilsons Creek and the Battle of Stones River, whereas the Confederates favoured the nearby towns, as in the Battles of Chancellorsville and Murfreesboro. Occasionally both names for the same battle entered the popular culture, such as the First Battle of Bull Run and the Second Battle of Bull Run

, which are also referred to as the First and Second Battles of Manassas.

Sometimes in desert warfare, there is no nearby town name to use; map coordinates gave the name to the

Twelfth—between Italy and Austria-Hungary

during the First World War.

Some battles are named for the convenience of

Beaumont Hamel on November 13, 1916, was probably unaware he was taking part in what the committee named the Battle of the Ancre. Many combats are too small to be battles; terms such as "action", "affair", "skirmish", "firefight", "raid", or "offensive patrol" are used to describe small military encounters. These combats often take place within the time and space of a battle and while they may have an objective, they are not necessarily "decisive". Sometimes the soldiers are unable to immediately gauge the significance of the combat; in the aftermath of the Battle of Waterloo, some British officers were in doubt as to whether the day's events merited the title of "battle" or would be called an "action".^{[citation needed}

]

Effects

Battles affect the individuals who take part, as well as the political actors. Personal effects of battle range from mild psychological issues to permanent and crippling injuries. Some battle-survivors have nightmares about the conditions they encountered or abnormal reactions to certain sights or sounds and some experience

Jacobite risings. Battles affect the commitment of one side or the other to the continuance of a war, for example the Battle of Inchon and the Battle of Huế during the Tet Offensive

.

See also

• List of battles
• Military strategy
• Military tactics
• Naval battle
• Pitched battle
• Skirmisher
• War

Further reading

• Interstate War Battle dataset (1823–2003)

References

1. ^ p. 65, Dupuy
2. ^ p. 10, Glantz
3. ^ translation of part quote from p. 77, Clausewitz
4. ^ p. 33, Tucker
5. ^ See also: [1] Merriam-Webster Dictionary; [2] Dictionary.com; and [3] etymonline.com.
6. ^ p. 302, Keegan
7. ^ pp. 65–71, Dupuy
8. ^ ^{a b} p. 67, Dupuy
9. ISBN 978-951-20-7218-7
   .
10. ISBN 952-90-3809-7
    .

Sources

• von Clausewitz, Carl (1979). Hahlweg, Werner (ed.). Bemerkungen über die reine und angewandte Strategie des Herrn von Bülow oder Kritik der darin enthaltenen Ansichten [Remarks on the Pure and Applied Strategy of Mr von Bülow or Criticism of the Views contained Therein] (in German) (repr. Biblio Verlag ed.). Osnabrück: Verstreute kleine Schriften. no isbn
• ISBN 0-85052-293-5
  .
• ISBN 0-7146-4077-8
  .
• ISBN 1-84413-748-1
  .
• Official Names of the Battles and Other Engagements Fought by the Military Forces of the British Empire During the Great War, 1914–1919, and the Third Afghan War, 1919 (Cmd 1138) (The Naval & Military Press, Uckfield ed.). London: HMSO. 1993 [1922].
  ISBN 1-897632-06-1
  .
• Richardson, F. M.; Hunt, Sir Peter (Foreword) (1978). Fighting Spirit: A Study of Psychological Factors in War. London: Leo Cooper.
  ISBN 0-85052-236-6
  .
• Tucker, T. G. (1976). Etymological Dictionary of Latin. Chicago: Ares.
  ISBN 0-89005-172-0
  .

External links

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