Once back on the line, the division returned to its previous routine of static warfare: conducting patrols and raids, as well as being subjected to raids and artillery bombardments.
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He cautiously envisioned "combat cars (of mechanized cavalry) assisting the horsed cavalry in closing with the enemy."Hoffman, p. 182 In a foreword to the 1937 Cavalry Combat Kromer wrote that mobility was antithesis to static warfare; open flanks created by cavalry increased the magnitude of operations supported by horse troops.Hoffman 2006, p. 202.
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Ellis, Normandy, pp. 230–1, 250–6, 261. A period of static warfare then followed for 50th (N) Division until the German front began to break up at the end of July. The other brigades of 50th (N) Division began pushing forward on 30 July, then on 2 August 69th Bde attacked and captured a hill west of Villers Bocage against small-arms fire, afterwards capturing Tracy-Bocage on the high ground outside Villers-Bocage.
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In the weeks that followed, the 6th Airborne Division was reinforced with the Dutch Princess Irene Brigade and the 1st Belgian Infantry Brigade. On 7 August, following a period of static warfare, the division began preparations for offensive operations. On the night of 16/17 August, the division began to advance against stiff German opposition. This advance continued until 26 August, when the division reached its objective – the mouth of the River Seine.
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British reinforcements were sent to renew failed attacks rather than reinforce success. Small numbers of German troops in strong-points and isolated trenches, had been able to maintain a volume of small-arms fire sufficient to stop the advance of far greater numbers of attackers. The battle had no strategic effect but showed that the British were capable of mounting an organised attack, after several winter months of static warfare. They recaptured about of ground.
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Another role of XIX TAC was dive bombing. Normally thought of as a tactic, XIX TAC considered it a separate role. It resembled deep interdiction, for both types of missions made use of various aerial bombing techniques and normally attacked similar, prearranged targets. But while deep interdiction was designed to cut off enemy movements either in or out of the combat zone, dive-bombing missions were most often used for static warfare.
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This static warfare was costly and frustrating. During one of the UN major fall campaigns, on 28 October 1951, G Company, 5th Cavalry was engaged in a desperate fight for control of Hill 200 against the Chinese. The American assault stalled until 1LT Lloyd L. Burke charged forward and knocked out two enemy bunkers with grenades and his M1 Garand. On his third charge, he caught enemy grenades in midair and hurled them back at the Chinese.
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Lieutenant General Dmitry Kozlov commanded the Crimean Front during the battle The 51st Army moved with extreme slowness from Kerch, reaching the Parpach Narrows on 5 January but deploying only two rifle divisions in its forward elements on 12 January. It conducted no offensive action against the 46th Infantry Division aside from minor static warfare raiding. The Axis response was far quicker. Mattenklott's XXXXII Corps received the 170th and 132nd Infantry Divisions as reinforcements along with two battalions from the 72nd Infantry Division, StuG III assault guns and the Romanian 18th Infantry Division.
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Even though the Swedish main effort was on the sea, they attacked also on land, where Swedes led by Colonel Gustaf Mauritz Armfelt defeated Russian defenders on 15 April in southern Savolax, while the army led by King Gustav III and Colonel Gustav Wachtmeister won another victory in the battle of Valkeala. A Russian attack on 5 May close to the Kymmene river gained some success, capturing Anjala, but was thrown back before the end of the month. Fighting on land, however, reached stalemate, and already in June had turned into static warfare.
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French Army Trench in northeastern France By the end of May 1915, a continuous opposed pair of defence-in-depth trench earthworks with no vulnerable flanks, stretched from the North Sea coast to neutral Switzerland. With both sides equally well dug-in and deploying comparable troop numbers and armaments, neither was to prove strong enough to force a decisive breakthrough. The resultant static warfare meant that tunnelling saw a brief resurgence as a military tactic. As in siege warfare, mining was possible due to the nature of the fighting.
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The division now settled down to static warfare in the low-lying 'Island' between the Waal and the Nederrijn. Its battalions were now very weak in numbers – the whole of 21st Army Group was suffering a manpower crisis – and the War Office decided that it should be broken up to provide reinforcements for other formations. The division was withdrawn from the line on 29 November and moved back into Belgium where the units were reduced to cadres. The majority of the infantry were drafted into other units, and then the cadres returned to the UK, landing at Southampton on 14 December.
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Loyal Edmonton Regiment and tanks from the Three Rivers Regiment during the Battle for Ortona, December 1943. After this the division was rested and many months of static warfare ensued, the division then went on to break out of the Eighth Army's bridgehead with the second wave in the spring offensive, Operation Diadem, the Fourth Battle of Monte Cassino. The 4th Princess Louise Dragoon Guards, the reconnaissance (or 'recce') regiment serving with the 1st Canadian Division, was the first of the Eighth Army's units to cross the Hitler Line in May 1944, below Pontecorvo in its armoured cars.
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Shtemenko, p.69 Later they were reinforced with 100 tanks, earmarked for Baku defense,Shtemenko, p.71 and were the first to receive experimental infrared sights and silenced sniper rifles, however, the manpower shortage persisted into 1943.Shtemenko, p.78 Consolidation of reserves, supervised personally by Joseph Stalin,Shtemenko, p.70 enabled Maslennikov to check 1st Panzer Army advance in Terek valley and secure Baku oil. January 4, 1943, Joseph Stalin changed Maslennikov's Northern Group task from counteroffensive action to tying up German troops, hoping that a static warfare would delay German withdrawal from the Caucasus and lead them into envelopement and destruction.
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The Canadians began a long period of static warfare which would last them throughout the winter. In September, the arrival of the 2nd Canadian Division meant that a national corps headquarters could take to the field to command the division. Major- General Arthur Currie took command of the division in September. Active operations resumed again in the spring of 1916, participating in the Battle of Mount Sorrel, and then restoring the situation at Sanctuary Wood. The legendary Battle of the Somme opened on 1 July 1916, the worst single day in the history of the British Army, with over 19,000 British soldiers killed and 38,000 wounded.
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In the First campaign the French Army was responsible for the rest of the Western Front from Luxembourg to Switzerland, as were the American 12th Army and 6th Army Groups during the second campaign. Units of the First Canadian Army fought in five major campaigns in North-West Europe, including the Battle of Normandy, the battles for the Channel Ports, the Battle of the Scheldt, the Rhineland fighting in February and March 1945, and the final operations east of the River Rhine. A period of static warfare existed from 1 November 1944 to 8 February 1945 during which time the First Canadian Army manned positions in the Nijmegen Salient.
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The static warfare in the Nijmegen bridgehead was 50th (N) Division's last operation. It was now very weak and in view of 21st Army Group's acute manpower crisis it was broken up at the end of November to provide reinforcements for other formations. The infantry battalions were reduced to cadres which were sent home to train surplus Royal Navy and Royal Air Force personnel as infantry replacements; however, the divisional artillery remained with 21st AG. 25th LAA Regiment was assigned to 53rd (Welsh) Infantry Division on 1 December, replacing that division's 116th LAA Rgt which was disbanded on 31 January 1945.Barnes, pp. 156–60.
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In a fierce campaign which seems to have consisted mostly of static warfare, the Dacians, devoid of maneuvering room, kept to their network of fortresses, which the Romans sought systematically to storm (see also Second Dacian War). The Romans gradually tightened their grip around Decebalus' stronghold in Sarmizegetusa Regia, which they finally took and destroyed. Decebalus fled, but, when cornered by Roman cavalry, committed suicide. His severed head, brought to Trajan by the cavalryman Tiberius Claudius Maximus,Anton J. L. van Hooff, From Autothanasia to Suicide: Self- killing in Classical Antiquity. London: Routledge, 2002, , page 277, note 41 was later exhibited in Rome on the steps leading up to the Capitol and thrown on the Gemonian stairs.
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Furthermore, Dorman-Smith's predecessor, Brigadier J. G. James, had been hugely popular in his brigade, causing some resentment among the battalion commanders. When Dorman-Smith arrived in the Anzio beachhead, the fighting was reminiscent of the fighting on the Western Front almost 30 years before, with static warfare replacing the mobility that had existed in the Western Desert. Soon after his arrival, Major General Lucian Truscott, commanding the U.S. VI Corps (under which the 1st Division had been serving since January), received orders from his superior, Lieutenant General Mark W. Clark, commanding the American Fifth Army, to break out of the Anzio beachhead. This was to coincide with the Allied forces further south in their successful attempt in breaching the Gustav Line.
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Field Marshal Lord Kitchener planned an amphibious landing near Alexandretta in Syria in 1914, to sever the capital from Syria, Palestine and Egypt. Vice Admiral Sir Richard Peirse, Commander-in-Chief, East Indies, ordered to Alexandretta on 13 December 1914 as the and the French cruiser Requin were performing similar operations. The Alexandretta landing was abandoned because it required more resources than France could allocate, and politically France did not want the British operating in their sphere of influence, a position to which Britain had agreed in 1912. By late 1914, static warfare had begun on the Western Front, with no prospect of a quick decisive victory and the Central Powers had closed the overland trade routes between Britain, France and Russia.
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96 The brigade was relieved by the rest of the 50th Division which continued the attack around Haalderen (151st Brigade) and straightening the line between there and Bemmel (231st Brigade). The division was now tasked with guarding bridgehead north of Nijmegen called the Island, and for nearly two months static warfare was the norm, patrolling and mortaring. The forward troops rotated regularly with frequent leave to Brussels, Antwerp and Eindhoven, the D.L.I. regimental band brought from their depot at Brancepeth provided music for concerts and dances with the locals. The casualties in the battles on the island in early October had been severe: almost 900 including 12 officers and 111 other ranks killed in action, 30 officers and 611 other ranks wounded and another 114 missing, in total since D-Day 50th Division had suffered of 488 officers and 6,932 ORs casualties, but had also assimilated 358 officers and 8,019 ORs.
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50th Division, however, played a relatively minor role in the pursuit, but, after a brief rest, was ordered to the front once again in early September, where it fought in the Battle of Geel. Again playing only a minor role in Operation Market Garden − Montgomery's attempt to cross the Rhine and end the war before Christmas − the division instead spent the next few weeks garrisoning "The Island", the area between the River Waal and the Lower Rhine, after the operation failed, in turn relieving the 43rd Division, commanded by Major General Ivor Thomas, who had been one of Graham's fellow students at the Staff College in the mid-1920s. On "The Island" static warfare replaced the fast and mobile warfare of the previous few weeks. In early October Graham received a leg injury and returned to England for recovery, his place as GOC being taken over by Major General Lyne, formerly Graham's senior brigade commander in the 56th Division before taking over the 59th (Staffordshire) Infantry Division.
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