Photos Miscellaneous photos

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Soldiers of the 36th Sikh Regiment of the British Indian Army (modern 4th Battalion, Sikh Regiment of the Indian Army). All these brave men would die in the last-stand battle, the Battle of Saraghari on the 12th of September, 1897

The Battle of Saragarhi was a last-stand battle fought before the Tirah Campaign between the British Raj and Afghan tribesmen. On 12 September 1897, an estimated 12,000 – 24,000 Orakzai and Afridi tribesmen were seen near Gogra, at Samana Suk, and around Saragarhi, cutting off Fort Gulistan from Fort Lockhart. The Afghans attacked the outpost of Saragarhi where thousands of them swarmed and surrounded the fort, preparing to assault it. Led by Havildar Ishar Singh, the 21 soldiers in the fort—all of whom were Sikhs—refused to surrender, in what is considered by some military historians as one of the greatest last stands in history. The post was recaptured two days later by another British Indian contingent.

The Indian Army's 4th battalion of the Sikh Regiment commemorates the battle every year on the 12th of September, as Saragarhi Day.

Details of the Battle of Saragarhi are considered fairly accurate because Sepoy Gurmukh Singh signalled events to Fort Lockhart by heliograph as they occurred.

• Around 09:00, approximately 6,000–10,000 Afghans reach the signalling post at Saragarhi.
• Sepoy Gurmukh Singh signals to Colonel Haughton, situated in Fort Lockhart, that they are under attack.
• Haughton states he cannot send immediate help to Saragarhi.
• The soldiers in Saragarhi decide to fight to the last to prevent the enemy from reaching the forts.
• Sepoy Bhagwan Singh is the first soldier to be killed and Naik Lal Singh is seriously wounded.
• Naik Lal Singh and Sepoy Jiwa Singh reportedly carry the body of Bhagwan Singh back to the inner layer of the post.
• The Afghans break a portion of the wall of the picket.
• Haughton signals that he has estimated that there are between 10,000 and 14,000 Pashtuns attacking Saragarhi.
• The leaders of the Pashtun forces reportedly make promises to the soldiers to entice them to surrender.
• Reportedly two determined attempts are made to rush open the gate, but are unsuccessful.
• Later, the wall is breached.
• Thereafter, some of the fiercest hand-to-hand fighting occurs.
• IHavildar Ishar Singh orders his men to fall back into the inner layer, whilst he remains to cover their retreat. However, this is breached and all but one of the defending soldiers are killed, along with many of the Pashtuns.
• Sepoy Gurmukh Singh, who communicated the battle to Haughton, is the last surviving defender. His last message is for permission to pick up his rifle. Upon receiving permission he packs up the heliograph and holds the door of his signalling shed. He is stated to have killed 40 Afghans, the Pashtuns having to set fire to the post to kill him. As he is dying, he is said to have yelled repeatedly the Sikh battle cry "Bole So Nihal, Sat Sri Akal!" ("One will be blessed eternally, who says that God is the ultimate truth!").

 

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April 5th. 1935. The Nore Command Rifle and Revolver Meeting is being held this week at Bartons Point Naval Range at Sheerness, Kent. Teams from battleships, destroyers, cruisers and shore establishments are taking part. The Nore Command in the 50 yards revolver range.

 

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HMS Hood leads the line with HMS Renown and HMS Repulse following on with HMS Emperor of India, HMS Iron Duke and HMS Marlborough follow in their wake during gunnery exercises c.1926.

 

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Chinese soldiers with Czechoslovakian ZB vz. 26 light machine gun, date unknown

 

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The First Balkan War 1912.
Montenegro began the First Balkan War on 8 October 1912. Before the other allies could join in, the Ottomans declared war on the Balkan League on 17 October. The main theater of the ensuing conflict was Thrace. While one Bulgarian army besieged the major Ottoman fortress at Adrianople (Edirne), two others achieved major victories at Kirk Kilisse (Lozengrad) and at Buni Hisar/Lule Burgas. The latter was the largest battle in Europe between the Franco-German War of 1870-1871 and the First World War. The Ottomans rallied at the Chataldzha, the last lines of defense before Constantinople. An attack by the exhausted and epidemic ridden Bulgarians on 17 November against the Ottoman positions there failed. Both sides then settled into trench warfare at Chataldzha.
Elsewhere the Serbian army broke the western Ottoman army at Kumanovo on 23 October. The Serbs then proceeded against diminishing resistance into Macedonia, Kosovo and on through Albania, reaching the Adriatic coast in December. The Greek navy prevented the Ottomans from shipping reinforcements from Anatolia to the Balkans, and occupied the Ottoman Aegean Islands. The Greek army advanced in two directions, entering Salonika on 8 November, and further west, bringing the town of Janina under siege. Montenegrin forces moved into the Sanjak of Novi Pazar and besieged the northern Albanian town of Scutari (Shkodër).
The Ottomans signed an armistice with Bulgaria, Montenegro and Serbia on 3 December. Greek military operations continued. By this time, Ottoman Europe was limited to the three besieged towns of Adrianople, Janina, and Scutari, the Gallipoli peninsula and eastern Thrace behind the Chataldzha lines. As a result of the Ottoman collapse, groups of Albanian notables, supported by Austria and Italy, declared Albanian independence on 28 November 1912. While delegations from the Balkan allies attempted to negotiate a final peace with the Ottomans in London, a conference of Great Power ambassadors met in London to ensure that their interests would prevail in any Balkan settlement.
A coup on 23 January 1913 returned a Young Turk government to power in Constantinople. This government was determined to continue the war, mainly in order to retain Adrianople. It denounced the armistice on 30 January. Hostilities recommenced, to the detriment of the Ottomans. Janina fell to the Greeks on 6 March and Adrianople to the Bulgarians on 26 March.
The siege of Scutari, however, incurred international complications. The Austrians demanded that this largely Albanian inhabited town become a part of the new Albanian state. Under Austro-Hungarian pressure, Serbian forces aiding the Montenegrin siege withdrew. The Montenegrins persisted in the siege, however, and succeeded in taking the town on 22 April. A Great Power flotilla off the Adriatic coast forced the Montenegrins to withdraw less than two weeks later, on 5 May.
Meanwhile in London, peace negotiations resulted in the preliminary Treaty of London, signed on 30 May 1913 between the Balkan allies and the Ottoman Empire. By this treaty, the Ottomans Empire in Europe consisted of only a narrow band of territory in eastern Thrace defined by a straight line drawn from the Aegean port of Enos to the Black Sea port of Midya.

 

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Boxer Rebellion, officially supported peasant uprising of 1900 that attempted to drive all foreigners from China. “Boxers” was a name that foreigners gave to a Chinese secret society known as the Yihequan (“Righteous and Harmonious Fists”). The group practiced certain boxing and calisthenic rituals in the belief that this made them invulnerable. It was thought to be an offshoot of the Eight Trigrams Society (Baguajiao), which had fomented rebellions against the Qing dynasty in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Their original aim was the destruction of the dynasty and also of the Westerners who had a privileged position in China.
In the late 19th century, because of growing economic impoverishment, a series of unfortunate natural calamities, and unbridled foreign aggression in the area, the Boxers began to increase their strength in the provinces of North China. In 1898 conservative, antiforeign forces won control of the Chinese government and persuaded the Boxers to drop their opposition to the Qing dynasty and unite with it in destroying the foreigners. The governor of the province of Shandong began to enroll Boxer bands as local militia groups, changing their name from Yihequan to Yihetuan (“Righteous and Harmonious Militia”), which sounded semiofficial. Many of the Qing officials at this time apparently began to believe that Boxer rituals actually did make them impervious to bullets, and, in spite of protests by the Western powers, they and Cixi, the ruling empress dowager, continued to encourage the group.
Christian missionary activities helped provoke the Boxers; Christian converts flouted traditional Chinese ceremonies and family relations; and missionaries pressured local officials to side with Christian converts—who were often from the lower classes of Chinese society—in local lawsuits and property disputes. By late 1899 the Boxers were openly attacking Chinese Christians and Western missionaries. By May 1900, Boxer bands were roaming the countryside around the capital at Beijing. Finally, in early June an international relief force of some 2,100 men was dispatched from the northern port of Tianjin to Beijing. On June 13 the empress dowager ordered imperial forces to block the advance of the foreign troops, and the small relief column was turned back. Meanwhile, in Beijing the Boxers burned churches and foreign residences and killed suspected Chinese Christians on sight. On June 17 the foreign powers seized the Dagu forts on the coast in order to restore access from Beijing to Tianjin. The next day the empress dowager ordered that all foreigners be killed. The German minister was murdered, and the other foreign ministers and their families and staff, together with hundreds of Chinese Christians, were besieged in their legation quarters and in the Roman Catholic cathedral in Beijing.
An international force of some 19,000 troops was assembled, most of the soldiers coming from Japan and Russia but many also from Britain, the United States, France, Austria-Hungary, and Italy. On August 14, 1900, that force finally captured Beijing, relieving the foreigners and Christians besieged there since June 20. While foreign troops looted the capital, the empress dowager and her court fled westward to Xi’an in Shaanxi province, leaving behind a few imperial princes to conduct the negotiations. After extensive discussions, a protocol was finally signed in September 1901, ending the hostilities and providing for reparations to be made to the foreign countries

 

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Imperial Japanese Army maneuvers in 1926 - Machine gunners clean a Hotchkiss MLE 1914 medium machine gun during a break in training exercises.

 

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PLA forces aboard repurposed civilian junks during the Yangtze River Crossing Campaign, preparing to assault Kuomintang forces

PLA troop and armed escort junks crossing the Qiongzhou Strait during the Battle of Hainan, April 1950