223-481: Russian Civil War Anglo-Irish War Second World War Lieutenant-General Arthur Ernest Percival , CB , DSO & Bar , OBE , MC , OStJ , DL (26 December 1887 – 31 January 1966) was a British Army officer. He saw service in the First World War and built a successful military career during the interwar period , but is best known for his defeat in
446-522: A Lancashire cotton family. By 1891 the family was living in nearby Thundridge at "Sprangewell" on Poles Lane, his father being listed as "Land Agent" in the 1891 census, although it is unclear if this is still for Hamel's Park, or for E.S. Hanbury's Poles estate (now " Hanbury Manor "), which is adjacent to Sprangewell. Percival was initially schooled locally in Bengeo . Then in 1901, he was sent to Rugby with his more academically successful brother, where he
669-824: A Protestant linen merchant from County Tyrone in Northern Ireland . They had met during his tour of duty in Ireland but it had taken Percival several years to propose. They had two children. A daughter, Dorinda Margery, was born in Greenwich and became Lady Dunleath . Alfred James MacGregor, their son, was born in Singapore and served in the British Army. Russian Civil War [REDACTED] White movement The Russian Civil War ( Russian : Гражданская война в России , romanized : Grazhdanskaya voyna v Rossii )
892-653: A lieutenant-general in command of I Corps and was promoted to command the First Army in early 1915 and then the BEF in December, which eventually comprised five armies with sixty divisions. The swift increase in the size of the army reduced the average level of experience within it and created an acute equipment shortage. Many officers resorted to directive command to avoid delegating to novice subordinates, although divisional commanders were given great latitude in training and planning for
1115-556: A militia . Philpott argues that the German army was exhausted by the end of 1916, with loss of morale and the cumulative effects of attrition and frequent defeats causing it to collapse in 1918, a process which began on the Somme, echoing Churchill's argument that the German soldiery was never the same again. The destruction of German units in battle was made worse by lack of rest. British and French aircraft and long-range guns reached well behind
1338-598: A naval fleet to the newly built Singapore Naval Base . Accordingly, the army's role was to defend Singapore and Southern Johore . While this plan had seemed adequate when the nearest Japanese base had been 1,700 miles (2,700 km) away, the outbreak of war in Europe , combined with the partial Japanese occupation of the northern part of French Indochina and the signing of the Tripartite Pact in September 1940, had underlined
1561-571: A staff officer . He was given brevet promotion to lieutenant-colonel in 1929. In 1930, Percival spent a year studying at the Royal Naval College, Greenwich . From 1931 to 1932, Percival was a General Staff Officer Grade 2, an instructor at the Staff College. The college's commandant was by now Major-General Sir John Dill , who became Percival's mentor over the next decade, helping to ensure his protégé's advancement. Dill regarded Percival as
1784-678: A white flag to the Old Ford Motor Factory in Bukit Timah to negotiate the surrender. A Japanese officer present noted that he looked "pale, thin and tired". After a brief disagreement, when Percival insisted that the British keep 1,000 men under arms in Singapore to preserve order, which Yamashita finally conceded, it was agreed at 6:10 pm that all British Commonwealth troops would lay down their arms and cease resistance at 8:30 pm. This
2007-534: A brigade of the 31st Division, which had attacked in the disaster of 1 July, took its objectives before being withdrawn later. South of Serre, Beaumont Hamel and Beaucourt-sur-l'Ancre were captured. South of the Ancre, St. Pierre Division was captured, the outskirts of Grandcourt reached and the Canadian 4th Division captured Regina Trench north of Courcelette, then took Desire Support Trench on 18 November. Until January 1917
2230-674: A comparatively late age: although a member of Youngsbury Rifle Club, he was working as a clerk for the iron ore merchants Naylor, Benzon & Company Limited in London, which he had joined in 1914, when the First World War broke out. Percival enlisted on the first day of the war as a private in the Officer Training Corps of the Inns of Court , at the age of 26, and was promoted after five weeks' basic training to temporary second lieutenant . Nearly one third of his fellow recruits would be dead by
2453-581: A considerable defeat on the German Second Army, but from the Albert–Bapaume road to Gommecourt the British attack was a disaster where most of the c. 60,000 British casualties were incurred. Against Joffre's wishes, Haig abandoned the offensive north of the road, to reinforce the success in the south, where the Anglo-French forces pressed forward towards the German second line, preparatory to
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#17330856973322676-627: A conspiracy. This was the first time Bolsheviks used this kind of repression against a socialist party. Izvestia said the arrest was not related to his membership in the Constituent Assembly. On January 4, 1918, the All-Russian Central Executive Committee made a resolution saying the slogan "all power to the constituent assembly" was counterrevolutionary and equivalent to "down with the soviets". The Constituent Assembly met on January 18, 1918. The Right SR Chernov
2899-421: A damp squib". The fall of Singapore switched Percival's reputation to that of an ineffective "staff wallah", lacking ruthlessness and aggression. Over six feet in height and lanky, with a clipped moustache and two protruding teeth, and unphotogenic, Percival was an easy target for a caricaturist, being described as "tall, bucktoothed and lightly built". There was no doubt his presentation lacked impact as "his manner
3122-457: A decision was taken to build a new defensive line well behind the Somme front. The Siegfriedstellung was to be built from Arras to St. Quentin, La Fère and Condé, with another new line between Verdun and Pont-à-Mousson. These lines were intended to limit any Allied breakthrough and to allow the German army to withdraw if attacked; work began on the Siegfriedstellung (Hindenburg Line) at
3345-641: A demand of the Bolsheviks against the Provisional Government, which kept delaying it. After the October Revolution the elections were run by the body appointed by the previous Provisional Government. It was based on universal suffrage but used party lists from before the Left-Right SR split. The anti-Bolshevik Right SRs won the elections with the majority of the seats, after which Lenin's Theses on
3568-473: A few wood roads and rail lines were inadequate for the number of lorries and roads. A comprehensive system of transport was needed, which required a much greater diversion of personnel and equipment than had been expected. The Battle of the Somme was one of the costliest battles of World War I. The original Allied estimate of casualties on the Somme, made at the Chantilly Conference on 15 November 1916,
3791-715: A fine example during several critical periods. He ended the war, which came to an end on 11 November 1918 due to the Armistice with Germany , as a respected soldier, described as "very efficient" and was recommended for the Staff College . Percival's studies were delayed in 1919 when he decided to volunteer for service with the Archangel Command of the British Military Mission during the North Russia intervention of
4014-503: A five-minute hurricane artillery bombardment . Field artillery fired a creeping barrage and the attacking waves pushed up close behind it in no man's land, leaving them only a short distance to cross when the barrage lifted from the German front trench. Most of the objective was captured and the German defence south of the Albert–Bapaume road put under great strain but the attack was not followed up due to British communication failures, casualties and disorganisation. The Battle of Fromelles
4237-577: A fluid and rapidly shifting strategic situation. Among the antagonists were the Czechoslovak Legion, the Poles of the 4th and 5th Rifle Divisions and the pro-Bolshevik Red Latvian riflemen . The second period of the war lasted from January to November 1919. At first the White armies' advances from the south (under Denikin), the east (under Kolchak) and the northwest (under Yudenich) were successful, forcing
4460-656: A general attack on 14 July. The Battle of the Somme lasted 141 days beginning with the opening day of the Battle of Albert . The attack was made by five divisions of the French Sixth Army on the east side of the Somme, eleven British divisions of the Fourth Army north of the Somme to Serre and two divisions of the Third Army opposite Gommecourt, against the German Second Army of General Fritz von Below. The German defence south of
4683-476: A great test for Kitchener's Army, created by Kitchener's call for recruits at the start of the war. The British volunteers were often the fittest, most enthusiastic and best-educated citizens but were inexperienced and it has been claimed that their loss was of lesser military significance than the losses of the remaining peacetime-trained officers and men of the Imperial German Army. British casualties on
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#17330856973324906-547: A house in Maryboro, Percival chased him on foot and shot him in the back. Barry later wrote that Percival was "easily the most vicious anti-Irish of all serving British officers". David Lloyd George and Winston Churchill met Percival in 1921, when he was called as an expert witness during an inquiry into the Irish War of Independence. Percival would later deliver a series of lectures on his experiences in Ireland in which he stressed
5129-611: A larger army than the Whites, but with members indifferent towards communist ideology . The Red Army also utilized former Tsarist officers as "military specialists" ( voenspetsy ); sometimes their families were taken hostage in order to ensure their loyalty. At the start of the civil war, former Tsarist officers formed three-quarters of the Red Army officer-corps. By its end, 83% of all Red Army divisional and corps commanders were ex-Tsarist soldiers. The Russian Constituent Assembly had been
5352-438: A lull set in, as both sides concentrated on enduring the weather. After the Battle of the Ancre (13–18 November 1916), British attacks on the Somme front were stopped by the weather and military operations by both sides were mostly restricted to survival in the rain, snow, fog, mud fields, waterlogged trenches and shell-holes. As preparations for the offensive at Arras continued, the British attempted to keep German attention on
5575-555: A pen he had used to sign the treaty. Percival and Wainwright then returned together to the Philippines to witness the surrender of the Japanese army there, which in a twist of fate was commanded by General Yamashita. Yamashita was momentarily surprised to see his former captive at the ceremony; on this occasion Percival refused to shake Yamashita's hand, angered by the mistreatment of POWs in Singapore. The flag carried by Percival's party on
5798-412: A position either to fix their forces in position or to prevent them from launching an offensive elsewhere. We just do not have the troops.... We cannot prevail in a second battle of the Somme with our men; they cannot achieve that any more. (20 January 1917) and that half measures were futile, retreating to the Siegfriedstellung was unavoidable. After the loss of a considerable amount of ground around
6021-566: A prelude to further Japanese landings in Johore to disrupt communications northwards and enable the construction of another main base in North Borneo. From North Borneo, the final sea and air assault could be launched against eastern Singapore – in particular the Changi area. In April 1941 Percival was promoted to acting Lieutenant-General , and was appointed General Officer Commanding (GOC) Malaya. This
6244-552: A promising officer and wrote that "he has an outstanding ability, wide military knowledge, good judgment and is a very quick and accurate worker" but added "he has not altogether an impressive presence and one may therefore fail, at first meeting him, to appreciate his sterling worth". With Dill's support, Percival was appointed to command the 2nd Battalion, the Cheshire Regiment from 1932 to 1936, initially in Malta . In 1935, he attended
6467-669: A result of the failed attempt on Lenin's life, he began to crack down on his political enemies in an event known as the Red Terror . More broadly, the term is usually applied to Bolshevik political repression throughout the Civil War (1917–1922), During interrogation by the Cheka , she made the following statement: My name is Fanya Kaplan. Today I shot Lenin. I did it on my own. I will not say from whom I obtained my revolver. I will give no details. I had resolved to kill Lenin long ago. I consider him
6690-466: A revival occurred in the German defence. The British experimented with new techniques in gas warfare, machine-gun bombardment and tank–infantry co-operation, as the Germans struggled to withstand the preponderance of men and material fielded by the Anglo-French, despite reorganisation and substantial reinforcements of troops, artillery and aircraft from Verdun. September became the worst month for casualties for
6913-558: A series of engagements, assisted by an Insurgent Army offensive against White supply lines, the Red Army defeated Denikin's and Yudenich's armies in October and November. The third period of the war was the extended siege of the last White forces in the Crimea in 1920. General Wrangel had gathered the remnants of Denikin's armies, occupying much of the Crimea. An attempted invasion of southern Ukraine
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7136-502: A small number of tanks joined in the battle later in the afternoon. Many casualties were inflicted on the Germans but the French made slower progress. The Fourth Army advance on 25 September was its deepest since 14 July and left the Germans in severe difficulties, particularly in a Salients, re-entrants and pockets salient near Combles. The Reserve Army attack began on 26 September in the Battle of Thiepval Ridge . The Battle of Thiepval Ridge
7359-673: A stirring, if ultimately ineffective, Special Order of the Day: In this hour of trial the General Officer Commanding calls upon all ranks Malaya Command for a determined and sustained effort to safeguard Malaya and the adjoining British territories. The eyes of the Empire are upon us. Our whole position in the Far East is at stake. The struggle may be long and grim but let us all resolve to stand fast come what may and to prove ourselves worthy of
7582-405: A strong imprint on the specifics of the Civil War. The Western Allies armed and supported the Whites. They were worried about a possible Russo-German alliance, the prospect of the Bolsheviks making good on their threats to default on Imperial Russia's massive foreign debts and the possibility that Communist revolutionary ideas would spread (a concern shared by many Central Powers). Hence, many of
7805-592: A token £5 million of frozen Japanese assets for this cause. This was distributed by the FEPOW Welfare Trust, on which Percival served as chairman. He led protests against the film The Bridge on the River Kwai when it was released in 1957, obtaining the addition of an on-screen statement that the movie was a work of fiction. He also worked as president of the Hertfordshire British Red Cross and
8028-724: A traitor to the Revolution. I was exiled to Akatui for participating in an assassination attempt against a Tsarist official in Kiev. I spent 11 years at hard labour. After the Revolution, I was freed. I favoured the Constituent Assembly and am still for it. Kaplan referenced the Bolsheviks' growing authoritarianism, citing their forcible shutdown of the Constituent Assembly in January 1918, the elections to which they had lost. When it became clear that Kaplan would not implicate any accomplices, she
8251-563: A unit of French artillery from capture, winning a Croix de Guerre . For a short period in May 1918, he acted as commander of the 54th Brigade. He was given brevet promotion to major, and awarded the Distinguished Service Order (DSO), with his citation stating the following: For conspicuous gallantry and devotion to duty during recent operations. He handled his battalion cleverly, showing power of command and knowledge of tactics. He set
8474-467: A very short time. Clifford Kinvig, Percival's biographer considers him to have been unfairly vilified by Irish republican propaganda due to being "tireless in his attempt to destroy the spirit of the people and the organisation of the IRA". Percival attended the Staff College, Camberley , from 1923 to 1924, which had Major-General Edmund Ironside as its Commandant, where he was taught by J. F. C. Fuller , who
8697-417: A week after Joffre and Haig agreed to mount an offensive on the Somme. The German offensive at Verdun was intended to threaten the capture of the city and induce the French to fight an attrition battle, in which German advantages of terrain and firepower would cause the French disproportionate casualties. The battle changed the nature of the offensive on the Somme, as French divisions were diverted to Verdun, and
8920-582: A week of fighting on the island, Percival held his final command conference at 9 am on 15 February in the Battle Box of Fort Canning . The Japanese had already occupied approximately half of Singapore and it was clear that the island would soon fall. Having been told that ammunition and water would both run out by the following day, Percival agreed to surrender. The Japanese at this point were running low on artillery shells, but Percival did not know this. The Japanese insisted that Percival himself march under
9143-582: A young military cadet of the Imperial Russian Army , assassinated Moisey Uritsky on August 17, 1918, outside the Petrograd Cheka headquarters in retaliation for the execution of his friend and other officers. On August 30, the SR Fanny Kaplan unsuccessfully attempted to assassinate Lenin, who sought to eliminate political dissent, opposition, and any other threat to Bolshevik power. As
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9366-500: Is best understood within the context of the group's terrorist past. The Left SRs strongly opposed the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk and opposed Trotsky's insistence that no one try to attack German troops in Ukraine. According to historian Marcel Liebman , Lenin's wartime measures such as banning opposition parties was prompted by the fact that several political parties either took up arms against
9589-530: The R. I Stellung to the R. II Stellung on 11 March, forestalling a British attack, which was not noticed by the British until dark on 12 March; the main German withdrawal from the Noyon salient to the Hindenburg Line (Operation Alberich) commenced on schedule on 16 March. Von Falkenhayn was sacked and replaced by Hindenburg and Ludendorff at the end of August 1916. At a conference at Cambrai on 5 September,
9812-450: The R. II Stellung (R. II Position) on 13 March. The withdrawal took place from 16–20 March, with a retirement of about 25 mi (40 km), giving up more French territory than that gained by the Allies from September 1914 until the beginning of the operation. At the start of 1916, most of the British Army was an inexperienced and patchily trained mass of volunteers. The Somme was
10035-881: The Siegfriedstellung ( Hindenburg Line ) in March 1917. Debate continues over the necessity, significance, and effect of the battle. Allied war strategy for 1916 was decided at the Chantilly Conference from 6th to 8th December 1915. Simultaneous offensives on the Eastern Front by the Russian army, on the Italian Front by the Italian army and on the Western Front by the Franco-British armies were to be carried out to deny time for
10258-464: The Stützpunktlinie (Support line) begun in February 1916 and was almost complete on the Somme front when the battle began. German artillery was organised in a series of Sperrfeuerstreifen (barrage sectors); each officer was expected to know the batteries covering his section of the front line and the batteries ready to engage fleeting targets. A telephone system was built, with lines buried 6 feet (1.8 m) deep for 5 mi (8.0 km) behind
10481-420: The Stützpunktlinie and the second position, all within 2,000 yards (1,800 m) of no man's land and most troops within 1,000 yards (910 m) of the front line, accommodated in the new deep dugouts. The concentration of troops at the front line on a forward slope guaranteed that it would face the bulk of an artillery bombardment, directed by ground observers on clearly marked lines. The Battle of Albert
10704-557: The 5th Australian Division ; German losses were 1,600–2,000, with 150 taken prisoner. The Battle of Delville Wood was an operation to secure the British right flank , while the centre advanced to capture the higher-lying areas of High Wood and Pozières. After the Battle of Albert the offensive had evolved to the capture of fortified villages, woods, and other terrain that offered observation for artillery fire, jumping-off points for more attacks, and other tactical advantages. The mutually costly fighting at Delville Wood eventually secured
10927-430: The Allies intervened with Great Britain and France sending troops into Russian ports. There were violent clashes with the Bolsheviks. Britain intervened in support of the White forces to defeat the Bolsheviks and prevent the spread of communism across Europe. The Central Powers also supported the anti-Bolshevik forces and the whites; after the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk , the main goals of the intervention were to maintain
11150-482: The American General Jonathan Wainwright , in a prisoner-of-war camp near Hsian , about 100 miles (160 km) to the north east of Mukden . As the war drew to an end, an OSS team removed the prisoners from Hsian. Percival was then taken, along with Wainwright, to stand immediately behind General Douglas MacArthur as he confirmed the terms of the Japanese surrender aboard USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay on 2 September 1945. Afterwards, MacArthur gave Percival
11373-406: The Central Powers also intervened, rivaling the Allied intervention with the main goal of retaining the territory they had received in the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk with Soviet Russia. The Bolsheviks initially consolidated control over most of the former empire. The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk was an emergency peace with the German Empire , who had captured vast swathes of the Russian territory during
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#173308569733211596-462: The Central Powers in 1916 by the French, Russian, British and Italian armies, with the Somme offensive as the Franco-British contribution. Initial plans called for the French army to undertake the main part of the Somme offensive, supported on the northern flank by the Fourth Army of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF). When the Imperial German Army began the Battle of Verdun on the Meuse on 21 February 1916, French commanders diverted many of
11819-421: The Central Powers to move troops between fronts during lulls. In December 1915, General Sir Douglas Haig replaced Field Marshal Sir John French as Commander-in-Chief of the BEF. Haig favoured a British offensive in Flanders, close to BEF supply routes, to drive the Germans from the Belgian coast and end the U-boat threat from Belgian waters. Haig was not formally subordinate to Marshal Joseph Joffre but
12042-402: The Cheka (the Bolshevik state secret police ). In January 1918, after significant Bolshevik reverses in combat, the future Russian People's Commissar for Military and Naval Affairs Leon Trotsky headed the reorganization of the Red Guards into a Workers' and Peasants' Red Army in order to create a more effective fighting force. The Bolsheviks appointed political commissars to each unit of
12265-424: The Council of People's Commissars (Sovnarkom) decided to liquidate criminal recklessness associated with anarchists and disarm all anarchist groups in the face of their militancy. From early 1918, the Bolsheviks started physical elimination of opposition, other socialist and revolutionary fractions. Anarchists were among the first: Of all the revolutionary elements in Russia it is the Anarchists who now suffer
12488-467: The Fifth All–Russian Congress of Soviets of July 4, 1918, the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries had 352 delegates compared to 745 Bolsheviks out of 1132 total. The Left SRs raised disagreements on the suppression of rival parties, the death penalty, and mainly, the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk. The Bolsheviks excluded the Right SRs and Mensheviks from the government on 14 June for associating with counterrevolutionaries and seeking to "organize armed attacks against
12711-455: The First Battle of the Marne in 1914. The operational objectives of the Anglo-French armies were unfulfilled, as they failed to capture Péronne and Bapaume, where the German armies maintained their positions over the winter. British attacks in the Ancre valley resumed in January 1917 and forced the Germans into local withdrawals to reserve lines in February before the strategic retreat by about 25 mi (40 km) in Operation Alberich to
12934-420: The Imperial Defence College in London. Percival was made a full colonel in March 1936, and until 1938 he was General Staff Officer Grade 1 in Malaya , the Chief of Staff to General Dobbie , the General Officer Commanding in Malaya. During this time, he recognised that Singapore was no longer an isolated fortress. He considered the possibility of the Japanese landing in Thailand to "burgle Malaya by
13157-476: The Left Socialist Revolutionaries had assumed positions in Lenin's government and led commissariats in several areas. This included agriculture ( Kolegaev ), property ( Karelin ), justice ( Steinberg ), post offices and telegraphs ( Proshian ) and local government (Trutovsky). The Bolsheviks also reserved a number of vacant seats in the Soviets and Central Executive for the Menshevik and Left Socialist Revolutionaries parties in proportion to their vote share at
13380-426: The Malayan peninsula . Conversely, the latter number represents only the front-line troops available for the invasion of Singapore. British Commonwealth casualties in battle since 8 December amounted to 7,500 killed and 11,000 wounded. Japanese losses totalled more than 3,507 killed and 6,107 wounded. Churchill viewed the fall of Singapore to be "the worst disaster and largest capitulation in British history." However,
13603-421: The Reserve Army , the only British success in the Allied fiasco of 22/23 July, when a general attack combined with the French further south, degenerated into a series of separate attacks due to communication failures, supply failures and poor weather. German bombardments and counter-attacks began on 23 July and continued until 7 August. The fighting ended with the Reserve Army taking the plateau north and east of
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#173308569733213826-405: The Russian Civil War . Acting as second-in-command of the 45th Royal Fusiliers , he earned a bar to his DSO in August, when his attack in the Gorodok operation along the Northern Dvina resulted in the British capture 400 Red Army troops. The citation reads: He commanded the Gorodok column on 9–10 August 1919, with great gallantry and skill, and owing to the success of this column the forces on
14049-407: The Russian Revolution , which was one of the key events of the 20th century . The Russian monarchy ended with the abdication of Tsar Nicholas II during the February Revolution , and Russia was in a state of political flux. A tense summer culminated in the October Revolution , where the Bolsheviks overthrew the provisional government of the new Russian Republic . Bolshevik seizure of power
14272-501: The Second World War , when Percival commanded British Commonwealth forces during the Malayan campaign , which culminated in a catastrophic defeat at the Battle of Singapore . Percival's surrender to the invading Imperial Japanese Army , which was the largest of its kind in British military history , significantly undermined Britain's prestige and military position in East Asia . Some historians, such as Sir John Smyth , have argued that under-funding of British Malaya 's defences and
14495-515: The Stalinist regime. In December 1917, Felix Dzerzhinsky was appointed to the duty of rooting out counter-revolutionary threats to the Soviet government . He was the director of the All-Russian Extraordinary Commission (aka Cheka ), a predecessor of the KGB that served as the secret police for the Soviets. The Bolsheviks had begun to see the anarchists as a legitimate threat and associate criminality such as robberies , expropriations and murders with anarchist associations. Subsequently,
14718-450: The Ukrainian anarchists of the Makhnovshchina and Left Socialist-Revolutionaries , were involved in conflict against the Bolsheviks. They, as well as non-ideological green armies , opposed the Bolsheviks, the Whites and the foreign interventionists. Thirteen foreign states intervened against the Red Army, notably the Allied intervention , whose primary goal was re-establishing the Eastern Front of World War I . Three foreign states of
14941-431: The United States and the Netherlands imposed economic sanctions , freezing Japanese financial assets and cutting Japan from its supplies of oil , tin and rubber . The sanctions were aimed at pressuring Japan to abandon its involvement in China ; instead, the Japanese government planned to seize the resources of South-East Asia from the European nations by force. Both the Japanese navy and army were mobilised, but for
15164-423: The Urals and the Volga region in late May-early June 1918 and the center of SR activity shifted there. On June 8, 1918, five Constituent Assembly members formed the All-Russian Committee of Members of the Constituent Assembly ( Komuch ) in Samara and declared it the new supreme authority in the country. The Social Revolutionary Provisional Government of Autonomous Siberia came to power on 29 June 1918, after
15387-513: The intelligence officer of the 1st Essex Regiment . He was stationed in Bandon and Kinsale in County Cork . In December 1920 the Commander in Chief of British forces in Ireland ( Nevil Macready ) informed the British Cabinet that "official reprisals" had been authorized in Martial law areas. Percival proved to be an energetic counterinsurgency commander who was noted for his aptitude for intelligence-gathering and establishment of bicycle infantry formations which acted as flying columns . He
15610-555: The 13 organizers of the murder of local authorities and the uprising were arrested, while the uprising ended as propaganda activities were held there; in 1920, having received information that in Estonia and Latvia, with which Soviet Russia had concluded peace treaties, volunteers were being enrolled in anti-Bolshevik detachments, Lenin offered to "advance by 10–20 miles (versts) and hang kulaks, priests, landowners" "while pretending to be greens" , but instead, his government confined itself to sending diplomatic notes. Leonid Kannegisser ,
15833-432: The 6th Army. The maintenance of the strength of the 6th Army, at the expense of the 2nd Army on the Somme, indicated that Falkenhayn intended the counter-offensive against the British to be made north of the Somme front, once the British offensive had been shattered. ) If such Franco-British defeats were not enough, Germany would attack the remnants of both armies and end the western alliance for good. The unexpected length of
16056-413: The Albert–Bapaume road mostly collapsed and the French had "complete success" on both banks of the Somme, as did the British from the army boundary at Maricourt to the Albert–Bapaume road. On the south bank the German defence was made incapable of resisting another attack and a substantial retreat began; on the north bank the abandonment of Fricourt was ordered. The defenders on the commanding ground north of
16279-501: The Albert–Bapaume road. The Reserve Army attacked to complete the capture of Regina Trench/Stuff Trench, north of Courcelette to the west end of Bazentin Ridge around Schwaben and Stuff Redoubts, during which bad weather caused great hardship and delay. The Marine Brigade from Flanders and fresh German divisions brought from quiet fronts counter-attacked frequently and the British objectives were not secured until 11 November. The Battle of
16502-578: The Ancre valley to the British Fifth Army in February 1917, the German armies on the Somme were ordered on 14 February, to withdraw to reserve lines closer to Bapaume. A further retirement to the Hindenburg Line ( Siegfriedstellung ) in Operation Alberich began on 16 March 1917, despite the new line being unfinished and poorly sited in some places. Defensive positions held by the German army on
16725-723: The Ancre was the last big British operation of the year. The Fifth (formerly Reserve) Army attacked into the Ancre valley to exploit German exhaustion after the Battle of the Ancre Heights and gain ground ready for a resumption of the offensive in 1917. Political calculation, concern for Allied morale and Joffre's pressure for a continuation of attacks in France, to prevent German troop transfers to Russia and Italy also influenced Haig. The battle began with another mine being detonated beneath Hawthorn Ridge Redoubt . The attack on Serre failed, although
16948-456: The BEF were based on an assumption that the war of movement would soon resume and make it pointless to build infrastructure , since it would be left behind. The British relied on motor transport from railheads which was insufficient where large masses of men and guns were concentrated. When the Fourth Army advance resumed in August, the wisdom of not building light railways which would be left behind
17171-501: The Bolsheviks then ended dual power by overthrowing the Provisional Government in late October, on the eve of the Second All-Russian Congress of Soviets of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies , in what would be the second Revolution of 1917. The initial stage of the October Revolution which involved the assault on Petrograd occurred largely without any human casualties . Despite the Bolsheviks' seizure of power, they lost to
17394-468: The Bolsheviks, composed of the Popular Socialists and "personal representatives" of Right Socialist Revolutionaries, Kadets and Defensists, among others. They were tasked with propping up anti-Bolshevik forces and to create a Russian state system based on "state consciousness, patriotism and civil liberties" with the goal to liberate the country from the "Germano-Bolshevik" yoke. On May 7, 1918,
17617-538: The Bolsheviks, fearing a confrontation with them was impending as well. During the first period, the Bolsheviks took control of Central Asia out of the hands of the Provisional Government and White Army, setting up a base for the Communist Party in the Steppe and Turkestan , where nearly two million Russian settlers were located. Most of the fighting in the first period was sporadic, involved only small groups and had
17840-628: The Bolsheviks: in the Voronezh Oblast, the Red Guards killed sixteen peasants during the pacification of the village, while another village was shelled with artillery in order to force the peasants to surrender and in the Novgorod Oblast the rebelling peasants were dispersed with machine-gun fire from a train sent by a detachment of Latvian Red Army soldiers. While the Bolsheviks immediately denounced
18063-519: The British Fourth Army) and Fayolle to co-ordinate joint attacks by the four armies, all of which broke down. A pause in Anglo-French attacks at the end of August, coincided with the largest counter-attack by the German army in the Battle of the Somme. In the Battle of Ginchy the 16th Division captured the German-held village. Ginchy was 1.5 km (0.93 mi) north-east of Guillemont, at
18286-778: The British attack to be the anticipated offensive against the 6th Army. Next day, Falkenhayn ordered the Guard Reserve Corps to be withdrawn to reinforce the Somme front. The Battle of Fromelles had inflicted some losses on the German defenders but gained no ground and deflected few German troops bound for the Somme. The attack was the debut of the Australian Imperial Force on the Western Front and, according to McMullin, "the worst 24 hours in Australia's entire history". Of 7,080 BEF casualties , 5,533 losses were incurred by
18509-629: The British defence was that the Middle East and the Soviet Union had all received higher priorities in the allocation of men and material, so the desired air force strength of 300 to 500 aircraft was never reached, and whereas the Japanese invaded with over two hundred tanks , the British Army in Malaya did not have a single tank. In The War in Malaya Percival himself cites this as the major factor for
18732-514: The British military, once invited in, proceeded to execute members of the Bolshevik Party who had peacefully stood down from the Soviet when they failed to win the elections. As a result, the Bolsheviks banned each opposition party when it turned against the Soviet government. In some cases, bans were lifted. This banning of parties did not have the same repressive character as later bans enforced under
18955-575: The British played a lesser role on the Western Front and complied with French strategy. In January 1916, Joffre had agreed to the BEF making its main effort in Flanders but in February 1916 it was decided to mount a combined offensive where the French and British armies met, astride the Somme River in Picardy before the British offensive in Flanders. A week later the Germans began the Battle of Verdun against
19178-478: The British right flank and marked the Western Front debut of the South African 1st Infantry Brigade (incorporating a Southern Rhodesian contingent), which held the wood from 15 to 20 July. When relieved, the brigade had lost 2,536 men , similar to the casualties of many brigades on 1 July. The Battle of Pozières began with the capture of the village by the 1st Australian Division (Australian Imperial Force) of
19401-494: The British section of the Somme offensive. Other intelligence which warned the Germans included POW reports, interception of Rawlinson's message to his troops and early detonation of a mine. Thus alerted, the Germans were waiting in their trenches when the British troops went over the top. After the Autumn Battles ( Herbstschlacht ) of 1915, a third defensive position another 3,000 yards (1.7 mi; 2.7 km) back from
19624-563: The Caribbean en route.) The following day Rear-Admiral Spooner hosted a dinner attended by the newly arrived Commander-in-Chief Eastern Fleet , Admiral Sir Tom Phillips , and Percival. On 8 December 1941 the Japanese 25th Army under the command of Lieutenant-General Tomoyuki Yamashita launched an amphibious assault on the Malay Peninsula (one hour before the attack on Pearl Harbor ;
19847-573: The Cheshire Regiment being appointed Colonel of the Cheshire Regiment between 1950 and 1955; an association continued by his son, Brigadier James Percival who became Colonel of the Regiment between 1992 and 1999. Percival was respected for the time he had spent as a Japanese prisoner of war . Serving as life president of the Far East Prisoners of War Association (FEPOW), he pushed for compensation for his fellow captives, eventually helping to obtain
20070-630: The Congress. The dissolution of the Constituent Assembly was also approved by the Left Socialist Revolutionaries and anarchists , both groups were in favour of a more radical democracy . From mid-1917 onwards, the Russian Army , the successor-organisation of the old Imperial Russian Army , started to disintegrate; the Bolsheviks used the volunteer-based Red Guards as their main military force, augmented by an armed military component of
20293-586: The Constituent Assembly argued in Pravda that formal democracy was impossible because of class conflicts, conflicts with Ukraine and the Kadet-Kaledin uprising. He argued the Constituent Assembly must unconditionally accept sovereignty of the soviet government or it would be dealt with "by revolutionary means". On December 30, 1917, the SR Nikolai Avksentiev and some followers were arrested for organizing
20516-643: The Constituent Assembly was dispersed with force, but there was little protest afterwards. The first large Cheka repression involving the killing of libertarian socialists in Petrograd began in April 1918. On May 1, 1918, a pitched battle took place in Moscow between the anarchists and the Bolshevik police. The Union of Regeneration was founded in Moscow in April 1918 as an underground organization of "democratic resistance" to
20739-481: The Edmonds calculations but counted 729,000 German casualties on the Western Front from July to December against 631,000 by Churchill, concluding that there had been fewer German losses than Anglo-French casualties but that the ability of the German army to inflict disproportionate losses had been eroded by attrition. In 2003 British historian Gary Sheffield wrote that the calculation by Edmonds of Anglo-French casualties
20962-842: The Eighth Party Council of the Socialist Revolutionary Party commenced in Moscow and recognized the Union's leading role, putting aside political ideology and class for the purpose of Russia's salvation. They decided to start an uprising against the Bolsheviks with the goal of reconvening the Russian Constituent Assembly. While preparations were under way, the Czechoslovak Legions overthrew Bolshevik rule in Siberia ,
21185-460: The French army. The costly defence of Verdun forced the army to divert divisions intended for the Somme offensive, eventually reducing the French contribution to 13 divisions in the Sixth Army , against 20 British divisions. By 31 May, the ambitious Franco-British plan for a decisive victory had been reduced to a limited offensive to relieve pressure on the French at Verdun and inflict attrition on
21408-497: The French into counter-attacking German positions. Falkenhayn chose to attack towards Verdun to take the Meuse heights and make Verdun untenable. The French would have to conduct a counter-offensive on ground dominated by the German army and ringed with masses of heavy artillery, leading to huge losses and bringing the French army close to collapse. The British would mount a hasty relief offensive and suffer similar losses. Falkenhayn expected
21631-597: The German armies in the west. The Chief of the German General Staff , Erich von Falkenhayn , intended to end the war by splitting the Anglo-French Entente in 1916, before its material superiority became unbeatable. Falkenhayn planned to defeat the large number of reserves which the Entente could move into the path of a breakthrough, by threatening a sensitive point close to the existing front line and provoking
21854-545: The German first line, from Montauban to Serre and the Third Army was to mount a diversion at Gommecourt. In a second phase, the Fourth Army was to take the German second position, from Pozières to the Ancre and then the second position south of the Albert–Bapaume Road, ready for an attack on the German third position south of the road towards Flers, when the Reserve Army which included three cavalry divisions, would exploit
22077-418: The Germans withdrew, protected by rear guards , over roads in relatively good condition, which were then destroyed. The German withdrawal was helped by a thaw, which turned roads behind the British front into bogs and by disruption, to the railways, which supplied the Somme front. On the night of 12 March, the Germans withdrew from the R. I Stellung between Bapaume and Achiet le Petit and the British reached
22300-402: The Germans. The Battle of Le Transloy began in good weather and Le Sars was captured on 7 October. Pauses were made from 8–11 October due to rain and 13–18 October to allow time for a methodical bombardment, when it became clear that the German defence had recovered from earlier defeats. Haig consulted with the army commanders and on 17 October reduced the scope of operations by cancelling
22523-432: The IRA while in British custody and had invented his allegations to deflect attention away from his decision to provide the names of fellow IRA members in return for a lesser sentence. On 4 February 1921, while participating a raid carried out by British forces between Bandon and Kilbrittain , Percival shot and killed IRA volunteer Patrick Crowley Jr. When Crowley, who was being treated for appendicitis , tried to flee from
22746-882: The Imperial General Staff at the War Office in 1940 but asked for a transfer to an active command after the Dunkirk evacuation . Given command of the 44th (Home Counties) Division , he spent 9 months organising the protection of 62 miles (100 km) of the English coast from invasion. He was appointed a Companion of the Order of the Bath (CB) in the 1941 King's Birthday Honours . In 1936, Major-General William Dobbie , then General Officer Commanding ( Malaya ), had made an inquiry into whether more forces were required on mainland Malaya to prevent
22969-476: The Japanese from establishing forward bases to attack Singapore. Percival, then his Chief Staff Officer, had been tasked to draw up a tactical assessment of how the Japanese were most likely to attack. In late 1937, his analysis had duly confirmed that north Malaya might become the critical battleground. The Japanese were likely to seize the east coast landing sites on Thailand and Malaya in order to capture aerodromes and achieve air superiority. This could serve as
23192-746: The Kolchak coup, the Right SRs and the Mensheviks went to opposition to the Whites and co-operated with both factions of the Civil War on a tactical level, while also attempting to overthrow White administrations or establish themselves as "the third force" of the war: for example, they attempted to stage an anti-Kolchak mutiny in November 1919 with the help of the Czech general Radola Gajda , and in 1920, they formed an organisation called 'Political Centre' and successfully overthrew
23415-529: The Meuse in October and December. The Brusilov offensive ( 4 June – 20 September ) on the Eastern Front absorbed the extra forces that had been requested on 2 June by Fritz von Below , commanding the German Second Army, for a spoiling attack on the Somme. On 4 June, Russian armies attacked on a 200 mi (320 km) front, from the Romanian frontier to Pinsk and eventually advanced 93 mi (150 km), reaching
23638-625: The Muslim Basmachi movement in Central Asia and Khabarovsk Krai until 1934. There were an estimated 7 to 12 million casualties during the war, mostly civilians. The Russian Empire fought in World War I from 1914 alongside France and the United Kingdom ( Triple Entente ) against Germany, Austria-Hungary and Ottoman Empire ( Central Powers ). The February Revolution of 1917 resulted in
23861-431: The Red Army and its allies back on all three fronts. In July 1919 the Red Army suffered another reverse after a mass defection of units in the Crimea to the anarchist Insurgent Army under Nestor Makhno, enabling anarchist forces to consolidate power in Ukraine. Leon Trotsky soon reformed the Red Army, concluding the first of two military alliances with the anarchists. In June the Red Army first checked Kolchak's advance. After
24084-495: The Red Army to maintain morale and to ensure loyalty. In June 1918, when it had become apparent that a revolutionary army composed solely of workers would not suffice, Trotsky instituted mandatory conscription of the rural peasantry into the Red Army. The Bolsheviks overcame opposition of rural Russians to Red Army conscription units by taking hostages and shooting them when necessary in order to force compliance. The forced conscription drive had mixed results, successfully creating
24307-526: The Reserve/Fifth Army. Larger operations resumed in January 1917. The Battle of the Ancre Heights was fought after Haig made plans for the Third Army to take the area east of Gommecourt, the Reserve Army to attack north from Thiepval Ridge and east from Beaumont Hamel–Hébuterne and for the Fourth Army to reach the Péronne–Bapaume road around Le Transloy and Beaulencourt–Thilloy–Loupart Wood, north of
24530-579: The Russian armies conducting the Brusilov Offensive. The German offensive at Verdun was suspended in July, and troops, guns, and ammunition were transferred to Picardy, leading to a similar transfer of the French Tenth Army to the Somme front. Later in the year, the Franco-British were able to attack on the Somme and at Verdun sequentially and the French recovered much of the ground lost on the east bank of
24753-667: The Socialist Revolutionary Party in the 1917 Russian Constituent Assembly election , and the Constituent Assembly was dissolved by the Bolsheviks in retaliation. The Bolsheviks soon lost the support of other far-left allies, such as the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries , after their acceptance of the terms of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk presented by the German Empire. Conversely, a number of prominent members of
24976-621: The Somme ( French : Bataille de la Somme ; German : Schlacht an der Somme ), also known as the Somme offensive , was a major battle of the First World War fought by the armies of the British Empire and the French Third Republic against the German Empire . It took place between 1 July and 18 November 1916 on both sides of the upper reaches of the river Somme in France. The battle
25199-403: The Somme after November 1916 were in poor condition; the garrisons were exhausted and censors of correspondence reported tiredness and low morale in front-line soldiers. The situation left the German command doubtful that the army could withstand a resumption of the battle. The German defence of the Ancre began to collapse under British attacks, which on 28 January 1917 caused Rupprecht to urge that
25422-474: The Somme and increased the urgency for the commencement of operations on the Somme. The principal role in the offensive devolved to the British and on 16 June, Haig defined the objectives of the offensive as the relief of pressure on the French at Verdun and the infliction of losses on the Germans. After a five-day artillery bombardment, the British Fourth Army was to capture 27,000 yards (25,000 m) of
25645-554: The Somme front before the Anglo-French offensive began, bringing the total to 10 + 1 ⁄ 2 divisions. Falkenhayn, and then Hindenburg and Ludendorff, were forced to send divisions to Russia throughout the summer to prevent a collapse of the Austro-Hungarian army and then to conduct a counter-offensive against Romania , which declared war against the Central Powers on 27 August. In July there were 112 German divisions on
25868-449: The Somme front, Falkenhayn's construction plan of January 1915 had been completed. Barbed wire obstacles had been enlarged from one belt 5–10 yards (4.6–9.1 m) wide to two, 30 yards (27 m) wide and about 15 yards (14 m) apart. Double and triple thickness wire was used and laid 3–5 feet (0.91–1.52 m) high. The front line had been increased from one trench line to a position of three lines 150–200 yards (140–180 m) apart,
26091-513: The Somme front. British operations on the Ancre from 10 January – 22 February 1917 , forced the Germans back 5 mi (8.0 km) on a 4 mi (6.4 km) front, ahead of the schedule of the Alberich Bewegung ( Alberich Manoeuvre/Operation Alberich) and eventually took 5,284 prisoners . On 22/23 February, the Germans fell back another 3 mi (4.8 km) on a 15 mi (24 km) front. The Germans then withdrew from much of
26314-408: The Somme past Guillemont and Ginchy , north-west along the crest of the ridge to Pozières on the Albert–Bapaume road. The objectives of the attack were the villages of Bazentin le Petit , Bazentin le Grand and Longueval which was adjacent to Delville Wood , with High Wood on the ridge beyond. The attack was made by four divisions on a front of 6,000 yd (5.5 km) at 3:25 a.m. after
26537-447: The Somme to Maricourt on the north bank and by the Fourth Army from Maricourt to the vicinity of the Albert – Bapaume road. The 57,470 casualties suffered by the British, including 19,240 killed, were the worst in the history of the British Army . Most of the British casualties were suffered on the front between the Albert–Bapaume road and Gommecourt to the north, which was the area where
26760-479: The Somme, on a front of 16 miles (26 km) at a cost of 419,654 to 432,000 British and about 200,000 French casualties, against 465,181 to 500,000 or perhaps 600,000 German casualties. Until the 1930s the dominant view of the battle in English-language writing was that the battle was a hard-fought victory against a brave, experienced and well-led opponent. Winston Churchill had objected to
26983-541: The Third Army plans and reducing the Reserve Army and Fourth Army attacks to limited operations, in co-operation with the French Sixth Army. Another pause followed before operations resumed on 23 October on the northern flank of the Fourth Army, with a delay during more bad weather on the right flank of the Fourth Army and on the French Sixth Army front, until 5 November. Next day, the Fourth Army ceased offensive operations, except for small attacks intended to improve positions and divert German attention from attacks being made by
27206-590: The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk: the United Baltic Duchy , Duchy of Courland and Semigallia , Kingdom of Lithuania , Kingdom of Poland , the Belarusian People's Republic , and the Ukrainian State . Following Germany's Armistice in World War I in November 1918, the states were abolished. Finland was the first republic that declared its independence from Russia in December 1917 and established itself in
27429-440: The Verdun offensive, and the need to replace many drained units at Verdun, depleted the German strategic reserve placed behind the 6th Army, which held the Western Front from Hannescamps , 18 km (11 mi) south-west of Arras to St Eloi , south of Ypres and reduced the German counter-offensive strategy north of the Somme to one of passive and unyielding defence. The Battle of Verdun ( 21 February – 16 December 1916) began
27652-641: The Western Front and 52 divisions in Russia and in November there were 121 divisions in the west and 76 divisions in the east. The original British Expeditionary Force (BEF) of 6 divisions and the Cavalry Division, had lost most of the British pre-war regulars in the battles of 1914 and 1915. The bulk of the army was made up of volunteers of the Territorial Force and Kitchener's Army , which had begun forming in August 1914. Rapid expansion created many vacancies for senior commands and specialist functions, which led to many appointments of retired officers and inexperienced newcomers. In 1914, Douglas Haig had been
27875-400: The Western Front between February and June 1916, the Germans had suffered 270,000 casualties against the French and 390,000 between July and the end of the year (Appendix J); he wrote that the Germans suffered 278,000 casualties at Verdun and that around one eighth of their casualties were suffered on "quiet" sectors. According to the tables, between July and October 1916, German forces on
28098-535: The Western Front suffered 537,919 casualties, 288,011 inflicted by the French and 249,908 by the British; German forces inflicted 794,238 casualties on the Entente. In 1931, Hermann Wendt published a comparison of German and British–French casualties which showed an average of 30 per cent more Allied casualties than German losses on the Somme. In the first 1916 volume of the British Official History (1932), J. E. Edmonds wrote that comparisons of casualties were inexact, because of different methods of calculation by
28321-424: The White administration in Irkutsk. Although the White movement included a variety of political opinions, from the liberals through monarchists to the ultra-nationalist Black Hundreds , and did not have universally-accepted leader or doctrine, the main force behind the movement were the conservative officers, and the resulting movement shared many traits with widespread right-wing counter-revolutionary movements of
28544-453: The abdication of Emperor Nicholas II of Russia . As a result, the social-democratic Russian Provisional Government was established, and soviets , elected councils of workers, soldiers, and peasants, were organized throughout the country, leading to a situation of dual power . The Russian Republic was proclaimed in September of the same year. The Provisional Government, led by Socialist Revolutionary Party politician Alexander Kerensky ,
28767-452: The advice of the Allied supreme commander in South East Asia , General Sir Archibald Wavell . Percival was perhaps fixed on his responsibilities for defending the Singapore Naval Base. He also spread his forces thinly around the island and kept few units as a strategic reserve. When the Japanese attack came in the west, the Australian 22nd Brigade took the brunt of the assault. Percival refused to reinforce them as he continued to believe that
28990-407: The anti-Bolsheviks, but later the movement became known for its antisemic pogroms and discrimanation against the Jews. When the White Army was created, the structure of the Russian Army of the Provisional Government period was used, while almost every individual formation had its own characteristics. The military art of the White Army was based on the experience of World War I, which, however, left
29213-412: The attack of 1 July, since the heterogeneous nature of the 1916 army made it impossible for corps and army commanders to know the capacity of each division. Despite considerable debate among German staff officers , Erich von Falkenhayn continued the policy of unyielding defence in 1916. Falkenhayn implied after the war that the psychology of German soldiers, shortage of manpower and lack of reserves made
29436-402: The backdoor and conducted an appraisal of the possibility of an attack being launched on Singapore from the North, which was supplied to the War Office , and which Percival subsequently felt was similar to the plan followed by the Japanese in 1941. He also supported Dobbie's unexecuted plan for the construction of fixed defences in Southern Johore . In March 1938, Percival returned to Britain and
29659-453: The basis with alliance with the right-wing parties of Russia until November 1918. Until this period, parliamentary democracy was the main tendency of the anti-Bolshevik forces on the East (but not the South) of Russia, but since then, the White movement unified on an authoritarian-right platform around the figure of Alexander Kolchak who rose to power through a military coup as its principal leader and his All-Russian government . After
29882-456: The belief that it would improve discipline, he reconstituted a Malaya Command, complete with staff appointments, and helped occupy his fellow prisoners with lectures on the Battle of France . Along with the other senior British captives above the rank of colonel, Percival was removed from Singapore in August 1942. First he was imprisoned in Formosa and then sent on to Manchuria , where he was held with several dozen other VIP captives, including
30105-445: The belligerents but that British casualties were 419,654, from total British casualties in France in the period of 498,054. French Somme casualties were 194,451 and German casualties were c. 445,322, to which should be added 27 per cent for woundings, which would have been counted as casualties using British criteria; Anglo-French casualties on the Somme were over 600,000 and German casualties were under 600,000. In
30328-426: The chaos of the revolution. In May 1918, the Czechoslovak Legion in Russia revolted in Siberia. In reaction, the Allies began their North Russian and Siberian interventions . That, combined with the creation of the Provisional All-Russian Government , saw the reduction of Bolshevik-controlled territory to most of European Russia and parts of Central Asia . In 1919, the White Army launched several offensives from
30551-484: The commander of the IRA's 3rd Cork Brigade , and Patrick Harte, the brigade's quartermaster , for which he was given an OBE . Both Hales and Harte subsequently claimed they had been tortured while in custody, and according to IRA commander Tom Barry , Harte received a severe blow with a rifle butt to his temple causing a brain injury and died in a mental hospital in 1925 as a result. British intelligence officer Ormonde Winter subsequently stated that Hales had informed on
30774-417: The consolidation of the captured position. Percival took a regular commission as a captain with the Essex Regiment in October 1916, whilst recovering from his injuries in hospital. He was appointed a temporary major in his original regiment. In 1917, he became a battalion commander with the temporary rank of lieutenant-colonel . During Germany 's Spring Offensive , Percival led a counter-attack that saved
30997-406: The countries expressed their support for the Whites, including the provision of troops and supplies. Winston Churchill declared that Bolshevism must be "strangled in its cradle". The British and French had supported Russia during World War I on a massive scale with war materials. After the treaty, it looked like much of that material would fall into the hands of the Germans. To meet that danger,
31220-434: The date of the Revolution, Cossack General Alexey Kaledin refused to recognize it and assumed full governmental authority in the Don region, where the Volunteer Army began amassing support. The signing of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk also resulted in direct Allied intervention in Russia and the arming of military forces opposed to the Bolshevik government. There were also many German commanders who offered support against
31443-547: The defeat stating that the 'war material which might have saved Singapore was sent to Russia and the Middle East'. However he also concedes that Britain was engaged in 'a life and death struggle in the West' and that 'this decision, however painful and regrettable, was inevitable and right'. In 1918, Percival had been described as "a slim, soft spoken man... with a proven reputation for bravery and organisational powers" but by 1945 this description had been turned on its head with even Percival's defenders describing him as "something of
31666-451: The difference in date was because the two places lie on opposite sides of the International Date Line ). That night the first Japanese invasion force arrived at Kota Bharu on Malaya's east coast. This was just a diversionary force, and the main landings took place the next day at Singora and Pattani on the south-eastern coast of Thailand , with troops rapidly deploying over the border into northern Malaya. On 10 December Percival issued
31889-505: The difficulty of a sea-based defence. Instead it was proposed to use the RAF to defend Malaya, at least until reinforcements could be dispatched from Britain. This led to the building of airfields in northern Malaya and along its east coast and the dispersal of the available army units around the peninsula to protect them. On arrival, Percival set about training his inexperienced army; his Indian troops were particularly raw, with most of their experienced officers having been withdrawn to support
32112-429: The disarray to push for national independence. In March 1921, during a related war against Poland , the Peace of Riga was signed, splitting disputed territories in Belarus and Ukraine between the Republic of Poland on one side and Soviet Russia and Soviet Ukraine on the other. Soviet Russia invaded all newly independent nations of the former empire or supported the Bolshevik and socialist forces there, although
32335-441: The divisions intended for the Somme and the "supporting" attack by the British became the principal effort. The British troops on the Somme comprised a mixture of the remains of the pre-war army, the Territorial Force , and Kitchener's Army , a force of wartime volunteers. On the first day on the Somme (1 July) the German 2nd Army suffered a serious defeat opposite the French Sixth Army , from Foucaucourt-en-Santerre south of
32558-470: The east in March, the south in July, and west in October. The advances were later checked by the Eastern Front counteroffensive , the Southern Front counteroffensive , and the defeat of the Northwestern Army . By 1919, the White armies were in retreat and by the start of 1920 were defeated on all three fronts. Although the Bolsheviks were victorious, the territorial extent of the Russian state had been reduced, for many non-Russian ethnic groups had used
32781-414: The end of September. Withdrawing to the new line was not an easy decision and the German high command struggled over it during the winter of 1916–1917. Some members wanted to take a shorter step back to a line between Arras and Sailly, while the 1st and 2nd army commanders wanted to stay on the Somme. Generalleutnant von Fuchs on 20 January 1917 said that, Enemy superiority is so great that we are not in
33004-441: The end of the war. By November Percival had been promoted to captain . The following year he was despatched to France with the newly formed 7th (Service) Battalion of the Bedfordshire Regiment (later the Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire Regiment ), which became part of the 54th Brigade , 18th (Eastern) Division , in February 1915. The first day of the Battle of the Somme (1 July 1916) left Percival unscathed, but in September he
33227-412: The ensuing Finnish Civil War between nationalist German-supported White Guards and socialist Bolshevik-supported Red Guards from January–May 1918. The Second Polish Republic , Lithuania , Latvia and Estonia formed their own armies immediately after the abolition of the Brest-Litovsk Treaty and the start of the Soviet westward offensive and subsequent Polish-Soviet War in November 1918. At
33450-545: The events that would officially catalyze the Red Terror , Vladimir Lenin issued orders and made speeches which included harsh expressions and descriptions of brutal measures to be taken against the "class enemies", which, however, often were not actual orders or were not carried out as such. For example, in a telegram which became known as " Lenin's hanging order " he demanded and "crush" landowners in Penza and to publicly hang "at least 100 kulaks, rich bastards, and known bloodsuckers" in response to an uprising there; yet, only
33673-438: The final objectives of the Battle of Flers–Courcelette (15–22 September). The attack was postponed to combine with attacks by the French Sixth Army on Combles , south of Morval and because of rain. The combined attack was also intended to deprive the German defenders further west, near Thiepval of reinforcements, before an attack by the Reserve Army, due on 26 September. Combles, Morval, Lesboeufs and Gueudecourt were captured and
33896-475: The first day were the worst in the history of the British Army, with 57,470 casualties, 19,240 of whom were killed. British survivors of the battle had gained experience and the BEF learned how to conduct the mass industrial warfare which the continental armies had been fighting since 1914. The European powers had begun the war with trained armies of regulars and reservists, which were wasting assets. Crown Prince Rupprecht of Bavaria wrote, "What remained of
34119-521: The first trench ( Kampfgraben ) occupied by sentry groups, the second ( Wohngraben ) for the bulk of the front-trench garrison and the third trench for local reserves. The trenches were traversed and had sentry-posts in concrete recesses built into the parapet . Dugouts had been deepened from 6–9 feet (1.8–2.7 m) to 20–30 feet (6.1–9.1 m), 50 yards (46 m) apart and large enough for 25 men . An intermediate line of strongpoints (the Stützpunktlinie ) about 1,000 yards (910 m) behind
34342-440: The foothills of the Carpathian mountains, against German and Austro-Hungarian troops of Armeegruppe von Linsingen and Armeegruppe Archduke Joseph . During the offensive the Russians inflicted c. 1,500,000 losses including c. 407,000 prisoners . Three divisions were ordered from France to the Eastern Front on 9 June and the spoiling attack on the Somme was abandoned. Only four more divisions were sent to
34565-411: The formation of new units as the Indian army expanded. Relying upon commercial aircraft or the Volunteer air force to overcome the shortage of RAF planes, he toured the peninsula and encouraged the building of defensive works around Jitra . A training manual approved by Percival, Tactical Notes on Malaya , was distributed to all units. In July 1941 when the Japanese occupied southern Indochina, Britain,
34788-427: The front line being advanced by 2,500–3,500 yards (2,300–3,200 m) and many casualties were inflicted on the German defenders. The battle was the debut of the Canadian Corps , the New Zealand Division and tanks of the Heavy Branch of the Machine Gun Corps on the Somme. The Battle of Morval was an attack by the Fourth Army on Morval , Gueudecourt and Lesboeufs held by the German 1st Army , which had been
35011-414: The front line was also built. Communication trenches ran back to the reserve line, renamed the second position, which was as well-built and wired as the first position. The second position was beyond the range of Allied field artillery, to force an attacker to stop and move field artillery forward before assaulting the position. French losses at Verdun reduced the contribution available for the offensive on
35234-423: The front line, to connect the front line to the artillery. The Somme defences had two inherent weaknesses that the rebuilding had not remedied. The front trenches were on a forward slope, lined by white chalk from the subsoil and easily seen by ground observers. The defences were crowded towards the front trench with a regiment having two battalions near the front-trench system and the reserve battalion divided between
35457-504: The front line, where trench-digging and other work meant that troops returned to the line exhausted. Despite the strategic predicament of the German army, it survived the battle, withstood the pressure of the Brusilov Offensive and conquered almost all of Romania. In 1917, the German army in the west survived the large British and French offensives of the Nivelle Offensive and the Third Battle of Ypres , though at great cost. The British and French had advanced about 6 miles (9.7 km) on
35680-462: The government in London was more to blame than any of the British commanders in the Far East. Despite repeated requests, the British government did not provide the necessary reinforcements and they denied Brooke-Popham – and therefore Percival – permission to enter neutral Thailand before it was too late to put in place forward defences. Moreover, Percival had difficulties with his subordinates Sir Lewis "Piggy" Heath , commanding Indian III Corps , and
35903-399: The government to heed Dzerzhinsky's lobbying for greater terror against opposition. The campaign of mass repressions would officially begin thereafter. The Red Terror is considered to have officially begun between 17 and 30 August 1918. Protests against grain requisitioning of the peasantry were a major component of the Tambov Rebellion and similar uprisings; Lenin's New Economic Policy
36126-406: The great trust which has been placed in us. The Japanese advanced rapidly, and on 27 January 1942 Percival ordered a general retreat across the Johore Strait to the island of Singapore and organised a defence along the length of the island's 70-mile (110 km) coast line. But the Japanese did not dawdle, and on 8 February Japanese troops landed on the northwest corner of Singapore island. After
36349-440: The importance of surprise and offensive action, intelligence-gathering, maintaining security and co-operation between different security forces . Historian J. B. E. Hittle wrote that of all the British officers in Ireland "Percival stood out for his violent, sadistic behaviour towards IRA prisoners, suspects and innocent civilians... He also participated in reprisals, burning farms and businesses in response to IRA attacks. Percival
36572-437: The independent-minded Gordon Bennett , commanding the Australian 8th Division . The former officer had been senior to Percival prior to his appointment as GOC (Malaya). Percival was ultimately responsible for the men who served under him, and with other officers – notably Major-General David Murray-Lyon , commander of the Indian 11th Infantry Division – he had shown a willingness to replace them when he felt their performance
36795-429: The inexperienced, under-equipped nature of the Commonwealth forces in Malaya, not Percival's leadership, were ultimately to blame for the defeat. Arthur Ernest Percival was born on 26 December 1887 in Aspenden Lodge, Aspenden near Buntingford in Hertfordshire , England, the second son of Alfred Reginald and Edith Percival (née Miller). His father was the land agent of the Hamel's Park estate and his mother came from
37018-413: The junction of six roads on a rise overlooking Combles, 4 km (2.5 mi) to the south-east. After the end of the Battle of Guillemont , British troops were required to advance to positions which would give observation over the German third position, ready for a general attack in mid-September. British attacks from Leuze Wood northwards to Ginchy had begun on 3 September, when the 7th Division captured
37241-484: The late 1920s. The armies under Kolchak were eventually forced on a mass retreat eastward . Bolshevik forces advanced east, despite encountering resistance in Chita , Yakut and Mongolia . Soon the Red Army split the Don and Volunteer armies , forcing evacuations in Novorossiysk in March and Crimea in November 1920. After that, fighting was sporadic until the war ended with the capture of Vladivostok in October 1922, but anti-Bolshevik resistance continued with
37464-446: The main assault would occur in the north east. The attacking Japanese were down to the last of their ammunition when Percival surrendered. Before surrendering, besides taking his own counsel, he consulted his own officers. In the post-war Percival Report (written in 1946, published in 1948) the "imminent collapse" of the water supply, estimated by David J. Murnane , the Municipal Water Engineer, on 14 February to occur within 24–48 hours,
37687-435: The main effort by the French diminished to a supporting attack for the British. German overestimation of the cost of Verdun to the French contributed to the concentration of German infantry and guns on the north bank of the Somme. By May, Joffre and Haig had changed their expectations of an offensive on the Somme, from a decisive battle to a hope that it would relieve Verdun and keep German divisions in France, which would assist
37910-415: The maze of trenches, dug-outs and shell-craters. The final British objectives were not reached until the Battle of the Ancre Heights (1 October – 11 November). Organisational difficulties and deteriorating weather frustrated Joffre's intention to proceed by vigorous co-ordinated attacks by the Anglo-French armies, which became disjointed and declined in effectiveness during late September, at the same time as
38133-455: The moment an uneasy state of cold war persisted. British Commonwealth reinforcements continued to trickle into Malaya. On 2 December, the battleship HMS Prince of Wales and the battle-cruiser HMS Repulse , escorted by four destroyers , arrived in Singapore, the first time a battle fleet had been based there. (They were to have been accompanied by the aircraft carrier HMS Indomitable to provide air cover but she had run aground in
38356-492: The most ruthless and systematic persecution. Their suppression by the Bolsheviki began already in 1918, when — in the month of April of that year — the Communist Government attacked, without provocation or warning, the Anarchist Club of Moscow and by the use of machine guns and artillery "liquidated" the whole organisation. It was the beginning of Anarchist hounding, but it was sporadic in character, breaking out now and then, quite planless, and frequently self-contradictory. Prior to
38579-466: The new Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic , or participated in sabotage, collaboration with the deposed Tsarists, or made assassination attempts against Lenin and other Bolshevik leaders. Liebman noted that opposition parties such as the Cadets and Mensheviks who were democratically elected to the Soviets in some areas, then proceeded to use their mandate to welcome in Tsarist and foreign capitalist military forces . In one incident in Baku ,
38802-516: The newly conquered territories and prevent a re-establishment of the Eastern Front. After the defeat of the Central Powers, many armies that stayed mostly helped the Russian White Guard eradicate communists in the Baltics until their eventual withdrawal and defeat. Pro-German factions fought against the newly independent Baltic states until their defeat by the Baltic States, backed by the victorious Allies . The German Empire created several short-lived buffer states within its sphere of influence after
39025-407: The old first-class peace-trained German infantry had been expended on the battlefield". A war of attrition was a logical strategy for Britain against Germany, which was also at war with France and Russia. A school of thought holds that the Battle of the Somme placed unprecedented strain on the German army and that after the battle it was unable to replace casualties like-for-like, which reduced it to
39248-411: The pension of his substantive rank of major-general. Thereafter, he held appointments connected with the county of Hertfordshire, where he lived at Bullards in Widford : he was Honorary Colonel of 479th (Hertfordshire Yeomanry) Heavy Anti-Aircraft Regiment, Royal Artillery , ( T.A. ) from 1949 to 1954 and acted as one of the Deputy Lieutenants of Hertfordshire in 1951. He continued his relationship with
39471-404: The policy inescapable, as the troops necessary to seal off breakthroughs did not exist. High losses incurred in holding ground by a policy of no retreat were preferable to higher losses, voluntary withdrawals and the effect of a belief that soldiers had discretion to avoid battle. When a more flexible policy was substituted later, decisions about withdrawal were still reserved to army commanders. On
39694-430: The principal German defensive effort ( Schwerpunkt ) was made. The battle became notable for the importance of air power and the first use of the tank in September but these were a product of new technology and proved unreliable. At the end of the battle, British and French forces had penetrated 6 mi (10 km) into German-occupied territory along the majority of the front, their largest territorial gain since
39917-460: The rebellion as orchestrated by the SRs, there is actually no evidence that they were involved into peasant violence, which they deemed as counterproductive. In the European part of Russia the war was fought across three main fronts: the eastern, the southern and the northwestern. It can also be roughly split into the following periods. The first period lasted from the Revolution until the Armistice, or roughly March 1917 to November 1918. Already on
40140-433: The relief offensive to fall south of Arras against the 6th Army and be destroyed. (Despite the certainty by mid-June of an Anglo-French attack on the Somme against the 2nd Army , Falkenhayn sent only four divisions, keeping eight in the western strategic reserve. No divisions were taken from the Sixth Army, despite it holding a shorter line with 17 + 1 ⁄ 2 divisions and three of the divisions in OHL reserve behind
40363-420: The retirement to the Siegfriedstellung (Hindenburg Line) begin. Ludendorff rejected the proposal the next day, but British attacks on the First Army – particularly the action of Miraumont (also known as the Battle of Boom Ravine, 17–18 February) – caused Rupprecht on the night of 22 February to order a preliminary withdrawal of c. 4 mi (6.4 km) to the R. I Stellung (R. I Position). On 24 February
40586-416: The right bank of the Dvina were able to capture all its objectives. During the enemy counter-attack from Selmenga on Gorodok he handled his men excellently. The enemy were repulsed with great loss, leaving 400 prisoners in our hands. In 1920, Percival was deployed to Ireland and fought against the Irish Republican Army (IRA) during the Irish War of Independence , first as a company commander and later as
40809-440: The road inflicted a huge defeat on the British infantry, who took an unprecedented number of casualties. Several truces were negotiated to recover wounded from no man's land north of the road. The Fourth Army took 57,470 casualties , of which 19,240 men were killed. The French Sixth Army had 1,590 casualties , and the 2nd German Army had 10,000–12,000 losses . The Fourth Army attacked the German second defensive position from
41032-477: The second 1916 volume of the British Official History (1938), Wilfrid Miles wrote that German casualties were 660,000–680,000 and Anglo-French casualties were just under 630,000, using "fresh data" from the French and German official accounts. The addition by Edmonds of c. 30 per cent to German figures, supposedly to make them comparable to British criteria, was criticised as "spurious" by M. J. Williams in 1964. McRandle and Quirk in 2006 cast doubt on
41255-476: The south towards the Somme river. The German defence in the area was based on the second line and numerous fortified villages and farms north from Maurepas at Combles, Guillemont, Falfemont Farm, Delville Wood and High Wood, which were mutually supporting. The battle for Guillemont was considered by some observers to be the supreme effort of the German army during the battle. Numerous meetings were held by Joffre, Haig, Foch, General Sir Henry Rawlinson (commander of
41478-404: The success of such invasions was limited. Estonia , Latvia , and Lithuania all repelled Soviet invasions, while Ukraine , Belarus (as a result of the Polish–Soviet War ), Armenia , Azerbaijan and Georgia were occupied by the Red Army. By 1921, the Bolsheviks had defeated the national movements in Ukraine and the Caucasus , although anti-Bolshevik uprisings in Central Asia lasted until
41701-594: The success to advance east and then north towards Arras. The French Sixth Army, with one corps on the north bank from Maricourt to the Somme and two corps on the south bank southwards to Foucaucourt, would make a subsidiary attack to guard the right flank of the main attack being made by the British. Research in German archives revealed in 2016 that the date and location of the British offensive had been betrayed to German interrogators by two politically disgruntled soldiers several weeks in advance. The German military accordingly undertook significant defensive preparatory work on
41924-430: The time, namely nationalism , racism , distrust of liberal and democratic politics, clericalism , contempt for the common man and dislike of industrial civilization; although not all of the participants of the movement wanted a restoration of Tsarism , it generally preferred it to the revolution, and its main goal became to establish an order which would share the main features of the imperial one; its positive program
42147-502: The uprising in Vladivostok . The main Russian military and political force opposing the Bolsheviks was known as the White movement , or simply the Whites; its armed formations were known as the White Army . Some historians distinguish the White movement from the so-called "democratic counter-revolution" led mainly by the Right SRs and the Mensheviks that adhered to the values of parliamentary democracy and maintained anti-Bolshevik counter-governments ( Komuch , Ufa Directory ) on
42370-444: The village and was then forced out by a German counter-attack. The capture of Ginchy and the success of the French Sixth Army on 12 September, in its biggest attack of the battle of the Somme, enabled both armies to make much bigger attacks, sequenced with the Tenth and Reserve armies, which captured much more ground and inflicted c. 130,000 casualties on the German defenders during the month. The Battle of Flers–Courcelette
42593-419: The village, overlooking the fortified village of Thiepval from the rear. The Battle of Guillemont was an attack on the village which was captured by the Fourth Army on the first day. Guillemont was on the right flank of the British sector, near the boundary with the French Sixth Army. German defences ringed the British salient at Delville Wood to the north and had observation over the French Sixth Army area to
42816-399: The way the battle was being fought in August 1916, and Prime Minister David Lloyd George criticised attrition warfare frequently and condemned the battle in his post-war memoirs. In the 1930s a new orthodoxy of "mud, blood and futility" emerged and gained more emphasis in the 1960s when the 50th anniversaries of the Great War battles were commemorated. Until 1916, transport arrangements for
43039-422: The way to Bukit Timah was also a witness to this reversal of fortunes, being flown when the Japanese formally surrendered Singapore back to Lord Louis Mountbatten . Percival returned to the United Kingdom in September 1945 to write his despatch at the War Office but this was revised by the UK Government and published only in 1948. He retired from the army in 1946 with the honorary rank of lieutenant-general but
43262-440: The workers and peasants" (though Mensheviks did not exist as a united movement and were split into the left-wing "internationalist" and more right-wing factions), while the Left SRs advocated forming a government of all socialist parties. The Left SRs agreed with extrajudicial execution of political opponents to stop the counterrevolution, but opposed having the government legally pronouncing death sentences, an unusual position that
43485-421: Was (temporarily) promoted to brigadier on the General Staff, Aldershot Command . Percival was appointed brigadier, General Staff, of the I Corps , British Expeditionary Force , commanded by General Dill, from 1939 to 1940. He was then promoted to acting major-general , and in February 1940 briefly became General Officer Commanding (GOC) of the 43rd (Wessex) Infantry Division . He was made Assistant Chief of
43708-424: Was a boarder in School House. A moderate pupil, he studied Greek and Latin but was described by a teacher as "not a good classic". Percival's only qualification on leaving in 1906 was a higher school certificate. He was a more successful sportsman, playing cricket and tennis and running cross country . He also rose to colour sergeant in the school's Volunteer Rifle Corps. However, his military career began at
43931-405: Was a multi-party civil war in the former Russian Empire sparked by the overthrowing of the liberal-democratic Russian Provisional Government in the October Revolution , as many factions vied to determine Russia's political future. It resulted in the formation of the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic and later the Soviet Union in most of its territory. Its finale marked the end of
44154-500: Was a significant promotion for him as he had never commanded an army corps although he had previous experience there. He left Britain in a Sunderland flying boat and embarked on an arduous fortnight -long, multi-stage flight via Gibraltar , Malta , Alexandria (where he was delayed by the Anglo-Iraqi War ), Basra , Karachi , and Rangoon , where he was met by an RAF transport. Percival had mixed feelings about his appointment, noting that "In going to Malaya I realised that there
44377-399: Was a subsidiary attack to support the Fourth Army on the Somme 80 km (50 mi) to the south, to exploit any weakening of the German defences opposite. Preparations for the attack were rushed, the troops involved lacked experience in trench warfare and the power of the German defence was "gravely" underestimated, the attackers being outnumbered 2:1 . On 19 July, von Falkenhayn had judged
44600-449: Was also accused by several IRA prisoners of using torture during interrogations. As a result, Percival became one of the most hated British commanders in Ireland at the time and survived three assassination attempts by the IRA. The IRA had promised a £1,000 reward to whomever captured or killed Percival. Following the IRA killing of a Royal Irish Constabulary sergeant outside a Bandon church in July 1920, Percival captured Tom Hales ,
44823-402: Was argued by some, in favour of building standard gauge lines. Experience of crossing the beaten zone showed that such lines or metalled roads could not be built quickly enough to sustain an advance, and that pausing while communications caught up allowed the defenders to recover. On the Somme the daily carry during attacks on a 12 mi (19 km) front was 20,000 long tons (20,000 t) and
45046-453: Was badly wounded in four places by shrapnel , as he led his company in an assault on the Schwaben Redoubt , beyond the ruins of Thiepval village, and was awarded the Military Cross (MC), the citation for which reads: For conspicuous gallantry in action. During the advance he showed fine leadership and determination under heavy shell and machine-gun fire. He worked unceasingly, with absolute disregard of danger, in completing every detail in
45269-418: Was elected president defeating the Bolshevik supported candidate, the Left SR Maria Spiridonova (she would later break with the Bolsheviks and after the decades of gulag , she was shot on Stalin's orders in 1941). The Bolsheviks subsequently disbanded the Constituent Assembly and proceeded to rule the country as a one-party state with all opposition parties outlawed. A simultaneous demonstration in favor of
45492-430: Was executed in Alexander Garden . The order was carried out by the commander of the Kremlin, the former Baltic sailor P. D. Malkov and a group of Latvian Bolsheviks on September 3, 1918, with a bullet to the back of the head. Her corpse was bundled into a barrel and set alight. The order came from Yakov Sverdlov , who only six weeks earlier had ordered the murder of the Tsar and his family. These events persuaded
45715-479: Was highlighted as a direct cause for surrender. According to oral history records, quoted by Louis Allen (author of Singapore 1941–42), Murnane asked for and was promised by General Percival "ten lorries and a hundred Royal Engineers" so he could fix the water supply leaks caused by Japanese bombing and shelling. He never got what he needed: Louis Allen says Murnane got 'one lorry and ten frightened Sikhs'. When confronted again, all that Percival delivered (on 14 February)
45938-429: Was in spite of instructions from Prime Minister Winston Churchill for prolonged resistance. A common view holds that 129,704 Allied personnel surrendered or were killed by fewer than 30,000 Japanese. However, the former figure includes nearly 50,000 troops captured or killed during the Battle of Malaya , and perhaps 15,000 base troops. Many of the other troops were tired and under-equipped following their retreat from
46161-423: Was intended to hasten a victory for the Allies . More than three million men fought in the battle, of whom more than one million were either wounded or killed, making it one of the deadliest battles in all of human history. The French and British had committed themselves to an offensive on the Somme during the Chantilly Conference in December 1915. The Allies agreed upon a strategy of combined offensives against
46384-431: Was introduced as a concession. The policies of "food dictatorship" proclaimed by the Bolsheviks in May 1918 sparked violent resistance in numerous districts of European Russia : revolts and clashes between the peasants and the Red Army were reported in Voronezh , Tambov , Penza , Saratov and in the districts of Kostroma , Moscow , Novgorod , Petrograd , Pskov and Smolensk . The revolts were bloodily crushed by
46607-464: Was largely summarized in the slogan of "united and indivisible Russia" which meant the restoration of imperial state borders (excluding Poland and Finland) and its denial of the right to self-determination and the resulting hostility towards the movements for national independence ; the movement is associated with pogroms and antisemitism , although its relations with the Jews were more complex, as at first, for example, Jewish properitors supported
46830-530: Was low key and he was a poor public speaker with the cusp of a lisp". Air Chief Marshal Sir Robert Brooke-Popham , the Commander-in-Chief of the British Far East Command , refused Percival permission to launch Operation Matador , a pre-emptive invasion of Thailand, in advance of the Japanese landings there; he did not wish to run any risk of provoking the coming war. Brooke-Popham was accused by his detractors of not arguing forcefully for air reinforcements required to defend Malaya. Peter Wykeham suggested that
47053-447: Was made an Officer of the Venerable Order of Saint John in 1964. Percival died at the age of 78 on 31 January 1966, in King Edward VII's Hospital for Officers , Beaumont Street in Westminster , and is buried in the churchyard at Widford in Hertfordshire. On 27 July 1927 Percival married Margaret Elizabeth "Betty" MacGregor Greer in Holy Trinity Church , Brompton . She was the daughter of Thomas MacGregor Greer of Tallylagan Manor,
47276-449: Was not universally accepted, and the country descended into civil war. The two largest combatants were the Red Army , fighting for the establishment of a Bolshevik -led socialist state headed by Vladimir Lenin , and the forces known as the White movement (and its White Army ), led mainly by the right-leaning officers of the Russian Empire, united around the figure of Alexander Kolchak . In addition, rival militant socialists, notably
47499-444: Was not up to scratch. Perhaps his greatest mistake was to resist the building of fixed defences in either Johore or the north shore of Singapore, dismissing them in the face of repeated requests to start construction from his Chief Engineer, Brigadier Ivan Simson , with the comment "Defences are bad for morale – for both troops and civilians". Percival also insisted on defending the north-eastern shore of Singapore most heavily, against
47722-427: Was one lorry and ten Royal Engineers but it was too late. Percival himself was briefly held prisoner in Changi Prison , where "the defeated GOC could be seen sitting head in hands, outside the married quarters he now shared with seven brigadiers, a colonel, his ADC and cook-sergeant. He discussed feelings with few, spent hours walking around the extensive compound, ruminating on the reverse and what might have been". In
47945-436: Was one of the few sympathetic reviewers of his book, The War in Malaya , twenty-five years later. He impressed his instructors, who picked him out as one of eight students for accelerated promotion, and his fellow students who admired his cricketing skills. Following an appointment as major with the Cheshire Regiment , he spent four years with the Nigeria Regiment of the Royal West African Frontier Force in West Africa as
48168-492: Was rebuffed by the Insurgent Army under Makhno's command. Pursued into Crimea by Makhno's troops, Wrangel went over to the defensive in the Crimea. After an abortive move north against the Red Army, Wrangel's troops were forced south by Red Army and Insurgent Army forces; Wrangel and the remains of his army were evacuated to Constantinople in November 1920. Battle of the Somme Associated articles 1915 1916 1917 1918 Associated articles The Battle of
48391-436: Was said to regularly drive in the countryside in an open touring car so he could "have cockshots at farmers working in the fields". It is possible that Percival was influenced by the then British Army Captain Bernard Montgomery who wrote to Percival regarding tactics he used to combat the Irish rebels: "My own view is that to win a war of this sort, you must be ruthless. Oliver Cromwell , or the Germans, would have settled it in
48614-429: Was that the Germans suffered 630,000 casualties, exceeding the 485,000 suffered by the British and French. As one German officer wrote, Somme. The whole history of the world cannot contain a more ghastly word. However, Churchill wrote that Allied casualties had exceeded German losses. In The World Crisis (first published in the early 1920s, reprinted in 1938), he quoted the German Reichsarchiv data, showing that on
48837-414: Was the double danger either of being left in an inactive command for some years if war did not break out in the East or, if it did, of finding myself involved in a pretty sticky business with the inadequate forces which are usually to be found in the distant parts of our Empire in the early stages of a war." For much of the interwar period, Britain's defensive plan for Malaya had centred on the dispatch of
49060-411: Was the first large offensive mounted by the Reserve Army of Lieutenant General Hubert Gough and was intended to benefit from the Fourth Army attack at Morval by starting 24 hours afterwards. Thiepval Ridge was well fortified and the German defenders fought with great determination, while the British co-ordination of infantry and artillery declined after the first day, due to confused fighting in
49283-404: Was the first two weeks of Anglo-French offensive operations in the Battle of the Somme. The Allied preparatory artillery bombardment began on 24 June and the Anglo-French infantry attacked on 1 July, on the south bank from Foucaucourt to the Somme and from the Somme north to Gommecourt, 2 mi (3.2 km) beyond Serre. The French Sixth Army and the right wing of the British Fourth Army inflicted
49506-419: Was the third and final general offensive mounted by the British Army, which attacked an intermediate line and the German third line to take Morval, Lesboeufs and Gueudecourt, which was combined with a French attack on Frégicourt and Rancourt to encircle Combles and a supporting attack on the south bank of the Somme. The strategic objective of a breakthrough was not achieved but the tactical gains were considerable,
49729-401: Was unable to solve the most pressing issues of the country, most importantly to end the war with the Central Powers. A failed military coup by General Lavr Kornilov in September 1917 led to a surge in support for the Bolsheviks , who took control of the soviets , which until then had been controlled by the Socialist Revolutionaries. Promising an end to the war and "all power to the Soviets",
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