The First Battle of the Aisne was a World War I battle fought between two German armies and the combined elements of the British Expeditionary Force and the French 5th and 6th Armies, in September 1914, on the Aisne River, France. The result of this military confrontation was a stalemate as both sides started to dig in after vicious and gory fighting, marking the beginning of trench warfare. Both the Allied forces and the German Army suffered approximately more than 20,000 casualties.
Summary
In early September 1914, the Allied armies had initiated a counter-offensive against the German 1st and 2nd Armies, commanded by Alexander von Kluck and Karl von Bülow respectively. However, the German forces suddenly halted their retreat on the north bank of the Aisne River and turned to confront their enemies as they dug in to stop the French and British counter-offensive, setting up machine gun nests and light artillery gun positions on strategic points on the front line.
The First Battle of the Aisne River broke out on the night of September 13, 1914, when the French 5th and 6th Armies, led by Louis Franchet d’Esperey and Michel Joseph Maunoury respectively, and the British Expeditionary Force, commanded by John French, attacked the German defensive positions on the north bank of the Aisne River. The French 5th Army crossed the river at Berry-au-Bac and took a steep ridge on the eastern tip of Chemin des Dames after ferocious fighting that included hand-to-hand combat using bayonets and lineman shovels. Units of the British Expeditionary Forces also got across the Aisne on pontoons at Bourg-et-Comin and at Venizel. Protected by thick fog, the British and the French kept advancing slowly, but when the fog lifted they were cross-raked by machine gun fire and light field artillery. French 6th Army elements, that had also crossed the river, were caught in the valley without the fog cover and were mauled to pieces.
The Battle of Kham Duc was a military engagement fiercely fought between combined elements of US, Australian, and South Vietnamese armies, and the North Vietnamese and Vietcong forces, in Kham Duc, Quang Tin province, from May 10 to May 12, 1968, during the Vietnam War. Although the result of the battle was a communist victory, as they managed to capture the US base at Kham Duc, the North Vietnamese army suffered twice the number of casualties than the US and Australian troops.
At about 05:00 hours, on May 10, 1968, the Vietcong 1st Regiment launched an assault on the Ngok Tavak, one of several outposts of Kham Duc, defended by the Australian 11th Mobile Strike Force. Despite being reinforced, this Austrialian outpost was overran by the Vietcong, who were largely superior in number to the Australians, whose commander, John White, decided to evacuate his positions there and fall back toward Kham Duc with support of an AC-47 Spooky gunship. On the early hours of May 11, the North Vietnamese 2nd Division, reinforced by a Vietcong regiment, launched a massive attack on Kham Duc. As they closed in on the base, US and South Vietnamese elements, deployed on peripheral outposts, were forced to retreat into their main base of Kham Duc. As they were being overrun by the communist forces, the American commander, William Westmoreland decided to evacuate the base by airlift. By May 12, the North Vietnamese forces had captured the military installation after vicious fighting, and the Battle of Kham Duc was over.
The Battle of Quang Tri was fought between the South Vietnamese Army, supported by US troops, and the North Vietnamese and Vietcong forces, from January 31 to February 6, 1968, in the City of Quang Tri, during the Vietnam War. The result was a US and South Vietnamese victory.
As part of the Tet Offensive, a combined force of North Vietnamese Army units and Vietcong battalions launched a massive assault on key targets in Quang Tri in the early hours of January 31, 1968, with the objective of bringing the city under communist control. The attack took the local troops off guard, so during the first day, they could barely manage to hold the enemy off. Nevertheless, after they got organized, the South Vietnamese troops, supported by the 1st Battalion (12th US Cavalry Regiment) and the 1st Battalion (5th Cavalry Regiment), began to regain lost ground as savage house-to-house fighting raged on. By February 2, the communist forces had been driven out of the city, leaving behind approximated 1,000 dead bodies. However, the battle continued on the outskirts and peripheral villages, and by February 6, the last enemy pockets had been snuffed out.
The Battle of Hue was a military engagement between the US Marines and the North Vietnamese Army in the city of Hue, from January 31 to March 3, 1968, during the Tet offensive of the Vietnam War. The US and South Vietnamese victory over the communist forces proved that the Tet Offensive, launched by North Vietnam during the Vietnamese Lunar New Year had failed, eventhough the American press put it as if the communist forces had definitely gained the upper hand in war. As a result, Congress significantly reduced the war budget, which crippled the US counter-offensive, giving the communists time to recover.
Despite the Tet Truce (Lunar New Year cease fire), the North Vietnamese, along with the Viet Cong, launched a major offensive throughout South Vietnam (known as the Tet Offensive) as many military installations and cities were viciously attacked by the communist forces, taking the Americans by surprise. On January 31, on the same day they had launched the massive assault, the communist forces took Hue, quickly controlling most of the city. The main objective of the North Vietnamese Army was to capture the whole city to help sweep the Communist insurgents into power. Two of the targets hit the hardest were the local airfield and the US Military Assistance Command, Vietnam.
For about thirty two days, the US 1st Battalion (1st Marines), the 2nd Battalion (5th Marines), and South Vietnamese forces fought ferociously a house-to-house street fighting in their attempt to reconquer the city. During the Battle of Hue more than 4,000 civilians were killed, most of them executed by the Viet Cong. Casualty among the communists were very high, around 9,000 men, as the South Vietnamese and American forces lost only 700 soldiers. It was an outright military victory for the Marines and South Vietnamese units as they totally recovered the city of Hue, annihialating the enemy forces. But it was a political and ideological defeat, for most of the American press put it the other way round.
The Battle of Tora Bora was fought between the US-led Coalition forces and the Taliban, from December 12 to December 17, 2001, in the cave complex of Tora Bora, Safed Koh (White Mountains), Afghanistan, near the Pakistani border. Although they failed to capture Osabama Bin Laden, it was a victory for the Coalition troops from a military point of view as they managed to capture the whole area after fierce fighting. The Battle of Tora Bora was one the first military clashes in the global war against Islamic terrorism that had broken out as a result of the murderous attacks on the World Trade Center twin towers and the Pentagon on September 11, 2001, where more than 4,000 thousand civilians lost their lives.
On October 7, 2001, with an extensive bombing campaign, the US military had begun Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan to remove the Taliban from power, defeat al-Qaeda guerrilla fighters and capture their leader Osama Bin Laden who was hiding in that country. By November 30, the US-led Coalition troops and the Afghan anti-Taliban Northern Alliance had regained more than half of Afghan territory, including the capital Kabul, as the Taliban fled into the high mountains near the border with Pakistan. The Battle of Tora Bora broke out on December 12, 2001, when Taliban guerrillas opened fire on the Coalition forces vanguard that were closing in on them, throwing everything they had at the American Rangers. Nevertheless, US Navy Seals and Green Berets, who had already infiltrated the White Mountain region, called in air support and directed the US and British air strikes on the Taliban positions.
After two days of intense bombing, with all type of smart bombs as well as Tomahawk cruise missiles raining down on the targets designated by Special Forces members from observation points on high ground, American Delta Force, British SAS and SBS, Australian SAS, and German KSK Special Forces troops began a ferocious cave-by-cave fighting. On December 17, the last terrorists positions were overrun by US and Canadian troops as the Special Forces and CIA operatives took the last cave system. Although more than 350 Taliban and al-Qaeda members got killed in the battle, Osama Bin Laden and a large number of Islamic terrorists managed to escape into Pakistan.
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