Dictionary Definition
battle
Noun
1 a hostile meeting of opposing military forces
in the course of a war; "Grant won a decisive victory in the battle
of Chickamauga"; "he lost his romantic ideas about war when he got
into a real engagement" [syn: conflict, fight, engagement]
2 an energetic attempt to achieve something;
"getting through the crowd was a real struggle"; "he fought a
battle for recognition" [syn: struggle]
3 an open clash between two opposing groups (or
individuals); "the harder the conflict the more glorious the
triumph"--Thomas Paine; "police tried to control the battle between
the pro- and anti-abortion mobs" [syn: conflict, struggle] v : battle or contend
against in or as if in a battle; "The Kurds are combating Iraqi
troops in Nothern Iraq"; "We must combat the prejudices against
other races"; "they battled over the budget" [syn: combat]
User Contributed Dictionary
English
Etymology
From Old French bataille (French bataille), from Proto-Romance battualia, from Latin battalia ‘fighting and fencing exercises of soldiers and gladiators’, from batuere ‘to strike, beat’.Pronunciation
- , /ˈbæt(ə)l/, /"b
Extensive Definition
Generally, a battle is a
conceptual component in the hierarchy of combat in warfare between two or more armed forces,
wherein each group will seek to defeat the others within the scope
of a military
campaign, and are well defined in duration, area and force
commitment. Wars and military campaigns are guided by strategy,
whereas battles take place on a level of planning and execution
known as operational
warfare. German strategist Carl
von Clausewitz stated that "the employment of battles . . . to
achieve the object of war" was the essence of strategy.
Etymology
The definition of a battle can not be arrived only through the names of historical battles, many of which are a misnomer. The word battle is a loanword in English from the Old French bataille first attested in 1297, and is itself a borowing from Late Latin battualia, meaning "exercise of soldiers and gladiators in fighting and fencing," from Latin battuere "beat", from which the English word battery is also derived via Middle English batri. and comes from the staged battles in the Colloseum in Rome that may have numbered 10,000 individuals.Characteristics of battle
The defining characteristics
of the battle as a concept in the Theory of
combat has been a dynamic one through the course of military
history, changing with the changes in the organisation, employment
and technology of military forces.
While the British
military
historian Sir John
Keegan suggested an ideal definition of battle as "something
which happens between two armies leading to the moral then
physical disintegration of one or the other of them" the origins
and outcomes of battles can rarely be summarized so
neatly.
In general a battle during the
20th century was, and continues to be defined by the combat between
opposing forces representing major components of total forces
committed to the military
campaign, used to achieve a specific military
objectives, within a time-frame of less than a month. Where the
duration of the battle is longer then a week, they are often for
reasons of staff
operational planning called operations. Battles can be planned,
encountered,
or forced by one force on the other when it is unable to withdraw
from combat.
The a battle always has as its
purpose the reaching of a mission goal
by use of military force. A victory in the battle is achieved when
one of the opposing sides forces the other to abandon its mission,
or is forced to surrender
its forces, have its forces rout, forced to retreat or rendered
militarily ineffective for further combat
operations. However, a battle may end in a Pyrrhic
victory which ultimately favors the defeated party. If no
decision is reached in battle, it can result is a stalemate. A conflict in which
one side is unwilling to reach a decision by a direct battle using
conventional military forces often becomes an insurgency.
Up until the 19th century the
majority of battles were of short duration, many lasting a part of
a day or less, the Battle of
Nations (1813) and the Battle
of Gettysburg (1863) were exceptional for lasting three days.
This was mainly due to the difficulty of supplying armies in the field,
or conducting
night operations. Typically, the means of prolonging a battle
was by employment of siege
warfare. Improvements in transportation, and the sudden
evolving of trench
warfare with its siege-like nature during the First World
War in the 20th century, lengthened the duration of battles to
days and weeks., with troops preferably not remaining in combat
area of operations for more then a month. This theory proved to be
completely unmanageable during the Second
World War.
The use of the term "battle"
in military history has led to its misuse when referring to almost
any scale of combat, notably by strategic forces involving hundreds
of thousands of troops that may be engaged in either a single
battle at one time (Battle of
Leipzig) or multiple operations (Battle of
Kursk). The space a battle occupies depends on the range of the
weapons of the
combatants, and may occupy large geographic areas as in the case of
the Battle of
Britain or the
Battle of the Atlantic. Until the advent of artillery and aircraft, battles were fought
with the two sides in sight, if not reach, of each other. The depth
of the battlefield has also increased in modern
warfare with inclusion of the supporting units in the rear
areas; supply, artillery, medical, etc.; now outnumbering the
front-line combat troops.
Battles are, on the whole,
made up of a multitude of individual combats, skirmishes and small
engagements
within the context of which the participating individuals will
usually only experience a small part of the events of the battle's
entirety. To the infantryman, there may be
little to distinguish between combat as part of a minor raid or a
major offensive, nor is it likely that they anticipate the future
course of the battle; few of the British infantry who went over the
top on the first
day on the Somme, 1 July, 1916, would have
anticipated that they would be fighting the same battle in five
months time. Conversely, some of the Allied infantry who had just
dealt a crushing defeat to the French at the
Battle
of Waterloo fully expected to have to fight again the next
day.
Battlespace
The factors of battles
Battles are decided by various factors. The number and quality of men and equipment, the commanders of each army, and the terrain advantages are among the most prominent factors.A unit may charge with high morale but less discipline and still emerge victorious. This tactic was effectively used by the early French Revolutionary Armies. Weapons and armor may also play as a decisive factor; however, during the Wars of Scottish Independence the Scots emerged victorious over the English despite inferior weaponry. Discipline within the troops is also important; at the Battle of Alesia, the Romans were greatly outnumbered but won because of superior training. A squad that does not retreat is far more valuable than an army that flees upon sight. Battles can also be determined by terrain. Capturing high ground, for example, has been the central strategy in innumerable battles. An army that holds the high ground forces the enemy to climb, and thus wear down. Another advantage is it is physically easier to strike a blow from a higher position than from a lower position. Although this does not hold as much in modern warfare, with the advent of aircraft, terrain is still vital for camouflage, especially for guerrilla warfare. Generals and commanders also play a decisive role during combat. Hannibal, Julius Caesar and Napoleon Bonaparte were all legendary generals and, consequently, their armies were extremely successful. An army that can trust the commands of their leaders with conviction in its success invariably has a higher morale than an army that doubts its every move. The British in the naval Battle of Trafalgar, for example, owed its success to the reputation of celebrated admiral Lord Nelson.Types of battle
Battles can be fought on land,
sea and in the modern age, in the air. Naval
battles have occurred since before the 5th century BC. Air
battles have been far less common, due to its late conception, the
most prominent being the Battle of
Britain in 1940. However since the Second World
War land or sea battles have come to rely on air support.
Indeed, during the Battle of
Midway, five aircraft
carriers were sunk without either fleet coming into direct
contact.
There are numerous types of
battle. A "battle of encounter" is a meeting
engagement where the opposing sides collide in the field
without either having prepared their attack or defence. The goal of
a "battle of attrition" is to inflict greater loss on the enemy
than you suffer yourself; many battles of the First World War were
intentionally (Verdun)
or unintentionally (Somme)
attrition battles. A "battle of breakthrough" aims to pierce the
enemy's defences, thereby exposing the vulnerable flanks which can
be turned. A "battle of encirclement"—the Kesselschlacht
of the German Blitzkrieg—surrounds
the enemy in a
pocket. A "battle of envelopment" involves an attack on one or
both flanks; the classic
example being the double-envelopment of the Battle of
Cannae. A "battle of annihilation" is one in which the defeated
party is destroyed in the field, such as the French fleet at the
Battle
of the Nile.
A "decisive battle" is one of
particular importance; often by bringing hostilities to an end,
such as the Battle
of Hastings or the Battle of
Hattin, or as a turning point in the fortunes of the belligerents, such as the
Battle
of Stalingrad. A decisive battle can have political as well as military
impact, changing the balance of power or boundaries between
countries. The concept of the "decisive battle" became popular with
the publication in 1851 of Edward
Creasy's
The Fifteen Decisive Battles of the World. British military
historians J.F.C.
Fuller (The Decisive Battles of the Western World) and B.H.
Liddell Hart (Decisive Wars of History), among many others,
have written books in the style of Creasy's work.
The differences among land battles throughout history
There is an obvious difference in the way battles have been fought throughout time. Early battles were probably fought between rival hunting bands as disorganized mobs. However, during the Battle of Megiddo, the first reliably documented battle, in the fifteenth century BC, actual discipline was instilled in both armies. This continued through the Ancient Times and the Middle Ages. However, during the many wars of the Roman Empire, barbarians continued using mob tactics. As the Age of Enlightenment dawned, armies began to fight in highly disciplined lines. Each would follow the orders from their officers and fight as a single unit instead of individuals. Each army was successively divided into regiments, battalions, companies, and platoons. These armies would march, line up, and fire in divisions. Native Americans, on the other hand, did not fight in lines, utilizing instead guerrilla tactics. The United States during the American Revolution also followed suit. Europe, during the Napoleonic Wars, continued using disciplined lines, continuing into the American Civil War. A new style, during World War I, known as trench warfare, developed nearly half a century later. This also led to radio for communication between battalions. Chemical warfare also emerged with the use of poisonous gas during World War I and the Austro-Prussian War. By World War II, the use of the smaller divisions, platoons and companies, became much more important as precise operations became vital. Instead of the locked trench warfare of World War I, during World War II, a dynamic network of battles developed where small groups encountered other platoons. As a result, elite squads became much more recognized and distinguishable. Vehicle warfare also developed with an astonishing pace with the advent of the tank, replacing the archaic cannons of the Enlightenment Age. Artillery has since gradually replaced the use of frontal troops. Modern battles now continue to resemble that of World War II, though prominent innovations have been added. Indirect combat through the use of aircraft and missiles now comprise of a large portion of wars in place of battles, where battles are now mostly reserved for capturing cities.The difference of naval battles throughout history
One significant difference of modern naval battles as opposed to earlier forms of combat is the use of marines, which introduced amphibious warfare. Today, a marine is actually an infantry regiment that sometimes fights solely on land and is no longer tied to the navy. A good example of an old naval battle is the Battle of Salamis. Most ancient naval battles were fought by fast ships using the battering ram to sink opposing fleets or steer close enough for boarding in hand-to-hand combat. Troops were often actually used to storm enemy ships as used by Romans and pirates. This tactic was usually used by civilizations that could not beat the enemy with ranged weaponry. Another invention in the late Middle Ages was the use of Greek fire by the Byzantines, which was used to light enemy fleets on fire. Empty demolition ships utilized the tactic to crash into opposing ships and set it afire with an explosion. After the invention of cannons, naval warfare became useful as support units for land warfare. During the 19th century, the development of mines led to a new type of naval warfare. The ironclad, first used in the American Civil War, resistant to cannons, soon made the wooden ship obsolete. The invention of a U-Boat, that is, submarine, during World War I by the Germans brought naval warfare to both above and below the surface. With the development of military aircraft during World War II, battles were fought in the sky as well as below the ocean. Aircraft carriers have since become the central unit in naval warfare, acting as a mobile base for lethal aircraft.Aerial battles throughout history
Although the use of aircraft has for the most part always been used as a supplement to land or naval engagements, since their first major military use in World War I aircraft have increasingly taken on larger roles in warfare. During World War I, the primary use was for reconnaissance, and small-scale bombardment, using ineffectual hand-dropped bombs. Aircraft began becoming much more prominent in the Spanish Civil War and especially World War II. Aircraft design began specializing, primarily into two types: bombers, which carried explosive payloads to bomb land targets or ships; and fighter-interceptors, which were used to either intercept incoming aircraft or to escort and protect bombers (engagements between fighter aircraft were known as dog fights. Some of the more notable aerial battles in this period include the Battle of Britain and the Battle of Midway.Another important use of
aircraft came with the development of the helicopter, which first
became heavily used during the Vietnam War, and still continues to
be widely used today to transport and augment ground
forces.
Today, direct engagements
between aircraft are rare - the most modern fighter-interceptors
carry much more extensive bombing payloads, and are used to bomb
precision land targets, rather than to fight other aircraft.
Anti-aircraft batteries are used much more extensively to defend
against incoming aircraft than interceptors. Despite this, aircraft
today are much more extensively used as the primary tools for both
army and navy, as evidenced by the prominent use of helicopters to
transport and support troops, the use of aerial bombardment as the
"first strike" in many engagements, and the replacement of the
battleship with the aircraft carrier as the center of most modern
navies.
Battle naming
Battles are almost invariably
named after some feature of the battlefield geography, such as the name of
a town, forest or river. Occasionally battles are named after the
date on which they took place, such as
The Glorious First of June. In the Middle Ages
it was considered important to settle on a suitable name for a
battle which could be used by the chroniclers. For example,
after Henry
V of England defeated a French army on 25 October,
1415, he met
with the senior French herald and they agreed to name
the battle after the nearby castle and so it was called the
Battle
of Agincourt. In other cases, the sides adopted different names
for the same battle, such as the Battle
of Gallipoli which is known in Turkey as the Battle
of Çanakkale. Sometimes in desert warfare, there is no nearby
town name to use; map coordinates gave the name to the Battle
of 73 Easting in the First Gulf
War.
Some place names have become
synonymous with the
battles that took place there, such as the Passchendaele,
Pearl
Harbor or the
Alamo. Military
operations, many of which result in battle, are given codenames, which are not
necessarily meaningful or indicative of the type or the location of
the battle. Operation
Market Garden and Operation
Rolling Thunder are examples of battles known by their military
codenames.
When a battleground is the
site of more than one battle in the same conflict, the instances
are distinguished by ordinal
number, such as the
First and
Second Battles of Bull Run. An extreme case are the twelve
Battles
of the Isonzo—First
to
Twelfth—between Italy and Austria-Hungary
during the First World War.
Some battles are named for the
convenience of military
historians so that periods of combat can be neatly
distinguished from one another. Following the First World War, the
British Battles Nomenclature Committee was formed to decide on
standard names for all battles and subsidiary actions. To the
soldiers who did the fighting, the distinction was usually
academic; a soldier fighting at Beaumont
Hamel on 13 November
1916 was
probably unaware he was taking part in what the committee would
call the "Battle
of the Ancre".
Many combats are too small to
merit a name. Terms such as "action", "skirmish", "firefight",
"raid" or "offensive patrol" are used to describe small-scale
battle-like encounters. These combats often take place within the
time and space of a battle and while they may have an objective,
they are not necessarily "decisive". Sometimes the soldiers are
unable to immediately gauge the significance of the combat; in the
aftermath of the Battle
of Waterloo, some British officers were in doubt as to whether
the day's events merited the title of "battle" or would be passed
off as merely an "action".
The effects of a battle
Battles affect the individuals who take part, as well as the political actors. Personal effects of battle range from mild psychological issues to permanent and crippling injuries. Many battle-survivors have nightmares about the conditions they encountered, or abnormal reactions to certain sights or sounds. Some suffer flashbacks. Physical effects of battle can include scars, amputations, lesions, loss of hearing, blindness, and paralysis, and of course, death.Battles also affect politics. A decisive battle can
cause the losing side to surrender, while a Pyrrhic
Victory such as the Battle
of Isandlwana, can cause the winning side to reconsider its
long term goals. Battles in civil wars
have often decided the fate of monarchs or political factions.
Famous examples include the War of
the Roses, as well as the Jacobite
Uprisings. Battles also affect the commitment of one side or
the other to the continuance of a war, for example the Battle of
Inchon and the Battle of
Hue during the Tet
Offensive.
See also
References
Sources
- Glantz, D.M., Soviet military operational art: In pursuit of deep battle, Frank Cass, London, 1989
- The Face of Battle
- Dupuy, T.N. (Col. ret.), Understanding war: History and Theory of combat, Leo Cooper, London, 1992
- von Clausewitz, Carl, Bemerkungen über die reine und angewandte Strategie des Herrn von Bülow oder Kritik der darin enthaltenen Ansichten, Verstreute kleine Schriften, Ed. Werner Hahlweg, (Osnabrück: Biblio Verlag, 1979), 77.
- Tucker, T.G., Etymological dictionary of Latin, Ares Publishers, Chicago, 1985
- Richardson, F.M., (Maj.Gen. ret.), Hunt, Sir Peter, (Gen.ret.) (Forward), Fighting spirit: A study of psychological factors in war, Leo Cooper, London, 1978
battle in Catalan: Batalla
battle in Cebuano: Bataille
battle in Czech: Bitva
battle in German: Schlacht
battle in Spanish: Batalla
battle in Esperanto: Batalo
battle in French: Bataille
battle in Scottish Gaelic: Cath
battle in Galician: Batalla
battle in Korean: 전투
battle in Croatian: Bitka
battle in Indonesian: Pertempuran
battle in Italian: Battaglia
battle in Hebrew: קרב
battle in Hungarian: Csata
battle in Dutch: Veldslag
battle in Japanese: 戦闘
battle in Norwegian Nynorsk: Militært slag
battle in Polish: Bitwa
battle in Portuguese: Batalha (guerra)
battle in Romanian: Bătălie
battle in Russian: Битва
battle in Simple English: Battle
battle in Slovenian: Bitka
battle in Serbo-Croatian: Bitka
battle in Finnish: Taistelu
battle in Swedish: Slag (krig)
battle in Ukrainian: Битва
battle in Chinese: 战役
Synonyms, Antonyms and Related Words
Actium,
Adrianople, Aegates
Isles, Aegospotami,
Agincourt, Antietam, Anzio, Arbela-Gaugamela, Ardennes, Austerlitz, Ayacucho, Balaclava, Bannockburn,
Bataan-Corregidor, Bismarck Sea, Blenheim, Bosworth Field,
Bouvines, Boyne, Brunanburh, Bunker Hill,
Cannae, Caporetto, Chancellorsville,
Crecy, Dunkirk, El Alamein, Flodden, Fontenoy, Fredericksburg, Gaza, Gettysburg, Granicus River,
Guadalcanal, Hampton
Roads, Hastings,
Hohenlinden,
Inchon, Long Island,
Marathon, Midway, Poitiers, Sedan, Singapore, Solferino, Waterloo, action, aerial combat, affray, agonize, all-out war, altercation, antagonize, appeal to arms,
argument, arm, armed combat, armed conflict,
armor, armor-plate,
armored combat, assail,
assault, attack, bank, barricade, battle royal, beat
against, beat up against, belligerence, belligerency, blockade, bloodshed, bombard, box, brawl, breast the wave, broil, brush, buck, buffet, buffet the waves,
bullfight, bulwark, campaign, carry on hostilities,
castellate, clash, clash of arms, close, close with, cockfight, collide, combat, come to blows, compete
with, competition,
conflict, contend, contend against,
contest, crenellate, crusade, cut and thrust, dig in,
dispute, dogfight, duel, embattle, embroilment, encounter, engage in
hostilities, engagement, entrench, exchange blows,
exchange of blows, fence,
feud, fight, fight a duel, fight
against, fighting, fire
fight, fortify, fracas, fray, garrison, give and take, give
satisfaction, grapple,
grapple with, ground combat, grunt and sweat, hand-to-hand combat,
hand-to-hand fight, hassle, hostilities, hot war,
house-to-house combat, huff and puff, join battle with, jostle, joust, la guerre, labor against,
make war, man, man the
garrison, melee, might of
arms, military operations, militate against, mine, mix it up, naval combat,
offer resistance, onset,
onslaught, open
hostilities, open war, oppugn, palisade, passage of arms,
pitched battle, quarrel,
rassle, reluct, reluctate, resort to arms,
riot, rival, rumble, run a tilt, running
fight, scramble,
scrimmage, scuffle, shed blood, shooting
war, shoving match, skirmish, sortie, spar, spill blood, stand-up fight,
state of war, stem the tide, street fight, strive, strive against, struggle, struggle against,
take on, tauromachy,
the sword, thrust and parry, tilt, total war, tourney, tug, tug-of-war, tussle, vie with, wage war,
wall, war, warfare, warmaking, warring, wartime, wrestle