Montoneros
Official seal of Montoneros.
Dates of operation	1970–1979
Leader	Mario Firmenich
Motives	Establishment of a socialist state in Argentina.[1]
Active region(s)	Argentina
Ideology	Far-left Peronism, Marxism
Major actions	Individual terror, Improvised explosive devices
Notable attacks	Kidnap and execution of Pedro Eugenio Aramburu, sniper kill of José Ignacio Rucci
Status	Decree 261 by Isabel Martínez de Perón considered it a subversive group, and ordered its annihilation. The group was utterly defeated by the Argentine Anticommunist Alliance and the National Reorganization Process.

Montoneros (Spanish: Movimiento Peronista Montonero-MPM) was an Argentine Peronist urban guerrilla group, active during the 1960s and 1970s. The name is an allusion to 19th century Argentinian history. After Juan Perón's return from 18 years of exile and the 1973 Ezeiza massacre, which marked the definitive split between left and right-wing Peronism, the Montoneros were expelled from the Justicialist party in May 1974 by Perón. The group was almost completely destroyed by 1977, during the Dirty War.

From 1970 to Videla's military junta[link]

The Montoneros formed around 1970 out of a confluence of Roman Catholic groups, university students in social sciences, and leftist supporters of Juan Domingo Perón. "The Montoneros took their name from the pejorative term used by the 19th-century elite to discredit the mounted followers of the popular caudillos." Montonera referred to the raiding partys composed by native american people in Argentina. Hence the spear in the montoneros seal^[2] Their best-known leader was Mario Firmenich. Montoneros hoped that Perón would return from exile in Francoist Spain and transform Argentina into a "Socialist Fatherland".

The Montoneros initiated a campaign to destabilize by force what they deemed a pro-American regime. In 1970, claiming to act in retribution for the June 1956 León Suárez massacre and Juan José Valle's execution, the Montoneros kidnapped and executed former dictator Pedro Eugenio Aramburu (1955–1958) and others who they said were his collaborators, such as unionists, politicians, diplomats, and businessmen. In November 1971, in solidarity with militant car workers, Montoneros took over a car manufacturing plant in Caseros, sprayed 38 Fiats with petrol, and then set them afire.^[3]

Flag of the MPM

In July 1972, they laid explosives in the Plaza de San Isidro in Buenos Aires that injured three policemen, blinded one fireman, and killed another.^[4] In April 1973, Colonel Héctor Irabarren, head of the 3rd Army Corps' Intelligence Service, was killed when resisting a kidnap attempt by the Mariano Pojadas and Susana Lesgart Platoons of the Montoneros.^[4] On 17 October 1972, a powerful bomb detonated inside the Sheraton Hotel in Buenos Aires, to the horror of nearly 700 guests, killing a Canadian woman and gravely wounding her husband.^[5] The Montoneros and the Revolutionary Armed Forces later claimed responsibility for the attack.^[6] The Montoneros financed their operations by kidnapping and collecting ransom for businessmen or executives, making as much as $14.2 million in a single abduction of an Exxon executive in 1974.

On 11 March 1973, Argentina held general elections for the first time in ten years. Perón loyalist Héctor Cámpora became president, before resigning in July to allow Perón to win the new elections held in October. However, a feud developed between right-wing Peronists and the Montoneros. The right wing of the Peronist party, the unions, and the Radical Party led by Ricardo Balbín favored a social pact between trade unions and employers rather than a violent socialist revolution. Right-wingers and Montoneros clashed at Perón's homecoming ceremony during the 20 June 1973 Ezeiza massacre, leaving 13 dead and more than 300 wounded. Perón supported the unions, the radicals led by Ricardo Balbín, and the right-wing Peronists. Among the latter was a former federal police corporal, José López Rega, who was the founder of the Alianza Anticomunista Argentina ("Triple A") death squads, which had organized the massacre.

On 21 February 1974, the Montoneros killed Teodoro Ponce, a right-wing Peronist labor leader in Rosario.^[7] He had sought refuge in a business locality after being shot at while driving by a car load of masked gunmen. One of the gunmen who got out of the car shot him dead while he lay on the floor and also shot a woman, who screamed out "Murderer."

In May 1974, the Montoneros were expelled from the Justicialist movement by Perón. However, the Montoneros waited until after the death of Perón in July 1974 to react, with the exception of the assassination of José Ignacio Rucci, general secretary of the CGT (General Confederation of Labour) on 25 September 1973, and some other military actions.

The Montoneros claimed to have what they called the "social revolutionary vision of authentic Peronism" and started guerrilla operations against the government. In the government the more radically right-wing factions quickly took control; Isabel Perón, President since Juan Perón's death, was essentially a figurehead under the influence of Rega.

On 15 July 1974, Montoneros assassinated Arturo Mor Roig, a former foreign minister. On 17 July, they murdered journalist and editor-in-chief of El Día newspaper, David Kraiselburd. In September, in order to finance their operations, they kidnapped the two brothers of the Bunge and Born family business. Some 20 urban guerrillas, dressed as policemen shot dead a bodyguard and chauffeur, and diverted traffic in this well-orchestrated ambush that saw some 30 militants and sympathizers among the civilian population provide safe houses to the participating guerrillas and the means of escape.^[8] They demanded and received as ransom $60 million in cash and $1.2 million worth of food and clothing to be given to the poor. This ransom is the highest ever paid according to the Guinness Book of Records.

The Triple A under López Rega's orders began hunting down, kidnapping, and killing members of Montoneros and the People's Revolutionary Army (ERP) as well as other leftist militant groups, or anyone in general considered a leftist subversive or sympathizer, like their deputies or lawyers.

The Montoneros and the ERP went on to attack business and political figures throughout Argentina as well as raid military bases for weapons and explosives. The Montoneros killed executives from General Motors, Ford and Chrysler. On 16 September 1974 about forty Montoneros bombs exploded throughout Argentina,^[9] targeting foreign companies and also ceremonies commemorating the military revolt which had ended Juan Perón's first term as president. Targets included three Ford showrooms; Peugeot and IKA-Renault showrooms; Goodyear and Firestone tire distributors, the pharmaceutical manufacturers Riker and Eli Lilly, the Union Carbide Battery Company, the Bank of Boston, Chase Manhattan Bank, the Xerox Corporation, and the soft drink companies, Coca-Cola and Pepsi-Cola. Discouragement of foreign investment in Argentina came in the form of blowing up executives' homes. For example, in 1975 the homes of five executives of Lazar Laboratories were attacked with bombs in the suburb of La Plata in Buenos Aires.^[10]On 22 February 1975, in an ambush in the Lomas de Zamora suburb of Buenos Aires, three policemen (First Sergeant Nicolás Cardozo, Corporal Roberto Roque Fredes and Constables Eugenio Rodriguez and Abel Pascuzzi) are killed after their patrol car comes under fire from Montoneros guerrillas. On 26 February 1975, the Montoneros kidnapped 62-year-old John Patrick Egan, the US consul in the city of Córdoba, in the country's northern interior and executed him on 28 February 1975. That same day, three policemen were killed in their patrol car in another ambush by the urban guerrillas in Buenos Aires and an army conscript was killed by a booby-trapped bomb in Tucumán province.^[11] On 5 March 1975, a Montoneros bomb detonates in the underground parking at Plaza Colón of the Argentine Army High Command and a garbage truck driver, Alberto Blas García is killed and 28 others are wounded,^[12] including four colonels and 18 other ranks.^[13] On 25 July 1975 four policemen were wounded in attacks in which the Peronist guerrillas employed bazookas and firebombs. On 26 August 1975, 26-year-old Fernando Haymal is killed by fellow Montoneros for allegedly cooperating with government forces.^[14]

The Montoneros' leadership was keen to learn from the ERP's Compañía de Monte Ramón Rosa Jiménez operating in the Andean province of Tucumán and in 1975 sent "observers" to spend a few months with the ERP platoons^[15] operating against the 5th Infantry Brigade, then consisting of the 19th, 20th and 29th Mountain Infantry Regiments.^[16] On 28 August 1975 the Montoneros, in a gesture of solidarity with the ERP, planted a bomb in a culvert at the Tucumán air base airstrip. The blast destroyed an Air Force C-130 transport carrying 116 anti-guerrilla commandos of the Gendarmerie heading for home leave, killing five and wounding forty, one of whom died of his injuries.^[17] At the same time, with the underground network of Montoneros militants largely uprooted in the capital of Tucumán province, several hundred ERP militants took the streets in the Argentine city of Córdoba in the last week of August 1975, in an effort to divert attention from the military operations being waged in the jungles and mountains of Tucumán and 5 policemen were killed as a result, after the police headquarters was attacked with gunfire and the police radio communications centre bombed.^[18] As a result, the elite 4th Airborne Infantry Brigade that had received orders to deploy to assist operations in Tucumán province would remain stationed in the capital Córdoba province for the remainder of the year. On 5 October 1975, in perhaps the most elaborate Montoneros operation ever, the 5th Brigade suffered another blow at the hands of Montoneros,^[19] when a Montonero force numbering perhaps several hundred guerrillas and militants hijacked of a civilian airliner bound for Corrientes from Buenos Aires. The guerrillas redirected the plane towards Formosa province, where they took over the provincial airport. Along with a tactical support from a local militant group, the invaders broke into the barracks of the 29th Infantry Regiment, firing automatic weapons and throwing hand grenades. A montoneros officer, Reinaldo Ramón Briggiler Mazzei managed to shoot several conscripts as they lay resting in their quarters. They Montoneros however, soon met with fierce resistance from a group of conscripts and NCOs who recovered from their initial surprise. In the aftermath, a second lieutenant (Ricardo Massaferro), a sergeant (Víctor Sanabria) and ten soldiers (Antonio Arrieta, Heriberto Ávalos, José Coronel, Dante Salvatierra, Ismael Sánchez, Tomás Sánchez, Edmundo Sosa, Marcelino Torantes, Alberto Villalba and Hermindo Luna) were killed and several wounded; the Montoneros lost 16 men in the fighting and mop-up operations that night.^[20] Two policemen died later of their wounds.^[21] A female attacker, María Ana Testa had caused the fatal injuries that resulted in the death of policeman Nori Argentino Alegre at the airport after having shot him with an Ithaka shotgun. The Montonero attackers made good their escape by air towards a remote area in adjoining Santa Fe province. The aircraft, a Boeing 737, landed on a crop field not far from the city of Rafaela. The Peronist guerrillas radioed for assistance and fled to waiting cars on a highway nearby.^[22] The sophistication of the operation, and the getaway cars and hideouts they used to escape the military crackdown, suggest the involvement several hundred guerrillas and militants. Under the presidency of Nestor Kirchner, the families of all the Montoneros killed in the attack were later compensated with the payment of around US$200,000 each. During February 1976, the Montoneros sent assistance to the hard-pressed Compañía de Monte Ramón Rosa Jiménez fighting in Tucumán province, in the form of a company of their elite "Jungle Troops", while the ERP backed them up with a company of their own guerrillas from Cordoba.^[23] The Baltimore Sun reported at the time, "In the jungle-covered mountains of Tucuman, long known as "Argentina's garden," Argentines are fighting Argentines in a Vietnam-style civil war. So far, the outcome is in doubt. But there is no doubt about the seriousness of the combat, which involves 2,000 or so leftist guerrillas and perhaps as many as 10,000 soldiers."^[24]

The Montoneros were inspired by the British and Italian wartime commando raids on warships, and on 1 November 1974 the Montoneros successfully blew up General Commissioner Alberto Villar, the chief of the Argentine federal police in his yacht. His wife was also killed in the spot.^[25] On 24 August 1975 their frogmen planted a mine on the river's bed below the hull of a navy destroyer, the ARA Santísima Trinidad , as she remained docked at Rio Santiago before her commissioning. The explosion caused considerable damage to the ship's computer and electronic equipment. On 14 December 1975, using the same techniques, Montoneros frogmen placed explosives on the naval yacht Itati in an attempt to kill the Commander-in-Chief of the Argentine Navy, Admiral Emilio Massera.^[26] While Massera was not injured, the yacht was badly damaged by the explosives.^[27]

While the ERP fought the army in Tucumán, the Montoneros were active in Buenos Aires. The Montonero leadership dismissed the tactics of the ERP in Tucumán as "old fashioned" and "inappropriate".^[28] On 26 October 1975 five policemen were killed in Buenos Aires when their patrol cars were ambushed near the San Isidro Cathedral.^[29] Two of the captured policemen are reported to have been executed in this operation under the orders of the Montoneros commander Eduardo Pereyra Rossi (nom de guerre Carlon).^[30] In December 1975, Montoneros raided an armaments factory in the capital's Munro neighborhood, fleeing with 250 assault rifles and submachineguns. That same month, a Montonero bomb exploded at the headquarters of the Argentine Army in Buenos Aires, injuring at least six soldiers.^[31] By the end of 1975, a total of 137 military regulars and national servicemen and police had been killed that year by left wing terrorism. U.S. journalist Paul Hoeffel in an article written for the Boston Globe concluded that, "Although there is widespread reluctance to use the term, it is now impossible to ignore the fact that civil war has broken out in Argentina."^[32]

In January 1976, the son of retired Lieutenant-General Julio Alsogoray, Juan Alsogaray (El Hippie), copied from his father's safe a draft of "Battle Order 24 March" and passed it to the head of the Montoneros intelligence, Rodolfo Walsh, who informed the guerrilla leadership of the planned military coup.^[33] Private Daniel Tarnopolsky serving in the Argentine Marine Corps in 1976, also passed on valuable information to Walsh regarding the tortures and killings of left-wing guerrillas taking place in ESMA.^[34] He was later that year made to disappear along with his father Hugo and mother Blanca and sister Betina and brother Sergio in revenge for a bomb that he planted in the detention center that failed to explode.^[35] On 2 February 1976 about fifty Montoneros attacked the Juan Vucetich Police Academy in the suburb of La Plata but were repelled when the police cadets fought back and reinforcements arrived.^[36] On 13 February 1976, the Argentine Army scored a major success when the 14th Airborne Infantry Regiment ambushed the 65-strong Montoneros Jungle Company, in an action near the town of Cadillal in Tucumán province.^[37] The 2nd Airborne Infantry Regiment was also released from garrison duties in the city of Córdoba after the ERP armed uprising that killed 5 policemen there in August 1975^[18] and would achieve similar success against the ERP's Decididos de Córdoba company sent to rekindle the insurgency in Tucumán province. In the week preceding the military coup, the Montoneros killed 13 policemen as part of its Third National Military Campaign.^[38] The ERP guerrillas and their supporting network of militants came under heavy attack in April 1976, and the Montoneros were forced to come to their assistance with money, weapons and safe houses.^[39] On 2 July 1976 the Montoneros detonated a powerful bomb in the Argentine Federal Police in Buenos Aires, killing 24 and injuring 66 people.^[40] An Argentine Army report entitled Informe Especial: Actividades OPM "Montoneros" año 1976, gave the following surviving Montoneros totals for September 1976: 9,191 members with 991 guerrillas (391 officers and 600 other ranks), 2,700 armed militants and 5,500 sympathizers and active collaborators.^[41] On 12 September 1976 a Montoneros car bomb destroyed a bus carrying police officers in Rosario, killing 9 policemen^[42] and a married couple: 56-year-old Oscar Walter Ledesma and 42-year-old Irene Ángela Dib. There were at least 50 wounded.^[43] On 17 October a Montoneros bomb blast in an Army Club Cinema in downtown Buenos Aires killed 11 and wounded about 50 officers and their families. On 9 November, eleven police officers were wounded when a Montoneros bomb exploded at the police headquarters of La Plata during a meeting of the Buenos Aires police chiefs.^[44] On 16 November, about 40 Montoneros guerrillas stormed the police station at Arana, 30 miles south of Buenos Aires. Five policemen and one army captain were wounded in the battle.^[45] On 15 December, another Montoneros bomb planted in a Defense Ministry movie hall killed at least 14 and injured 30^[40] officers and their families. The worst year of the insurgency, 1976, saw 156 Argentine servicemen and police killed.^[46]

By the time Videla's military Junta took power in March 1976, approximately five thousand political prisoners were being held in various prisons around Argentina, some with political connections and some just guilty by association^{[citation needed]}. These political prisoners were held throughout the years of the dictatorship, many of them never receiving trials, in prisons such as La Plata, Devoto, Rawson, and Caseros.

Terence Roehrig, who has written The prosecution of former military leaders in newly democratic nations. The cases of Argentina, Greece, and South Korea (McFarland & Company, 2001) estimates that of the disappeared "at least 10,000 were involved in various ways with the guerrillas". The Montoneros later admitted losing 5,000 guerrillas killed,^[47] and the Marxist-Leninist People's Revolutionary Army (Ejército Revolucionario del Pueblo or ERP) admitted the loss of another 5,000 of their own armed fighters killed.^[48] Some 11,000 Argentines have applied for and received up to US$200,000 as monetary compensation for the loss of loved ones during the military dictatorship.^[49]

Under Jorge Videla's junta[link]

On 24 March 1976 Isabel Perón was ousted and a military junta installed, led by General Jorge Rafael Videla. On 4 April 1976, Montoneros assassinated a naval commander (Jose Guillermo Burgos), a Chrysler executive (Jorge Ricardo Kenny) and ambushed and killed three policemen in a patrol car.^[50]On 26 April 1976, Montoneros guerrillas killed Colonel Abel Héctor Elías Cavagnaro outside his home in Tucumán province. During the first few months of the military government, more than 70 policemen were killed in leftist guerrilla attacks.^[51]On 4 January 1977, Montoneros guerrillas shot and killed Private Guillermo Félix Dimitri of the 10th Mechanized Infantry Brigade on a drive-by shooting while he was on roadblock duty outside the Chrysler factory in the San Justo suburb of Buenos Aires. On 15 February 1977, army corporal Osvaldo Ramón Ríos was killed after his patrol came under fire from a group of Montoneros that had barricaded themselves inside a house in the Ezpeleta suburb of Buenos Aires. On 23 May 1977, the leftist guerrillas in Buenos Aires killed two policemen and a retired inspector as he entered his home.^[52]On 1 September 1976, David Kraiselburd, the 2-year-old son of Argentine newspaper publisher Paul Kraiselburd, was kidnapped and killed. On 5 September 1977 five Montoneros confessed to the killing of the child, four of them were later murdered while held in a prison camp in La Plata.^[53] The Junta redoubled the Dirty War anti-guerilla campaign. During 1977, in just Buenos Aires alone, 36 police were reported killed in actions involving urban guerrillas^[54] On 14 August 1977 Susana Leonor Siver and her partner Marcelo Carlos Reinhold, both Montoneros fighters, were kidnapped from Reinold's mother home along with a friend by a 15-strong naval intelligence team and taken to the ESMA naval detention camp. After a brutal torture session in front of his wife, Marcelo was supposedly "transferred" to another camp but nothing has been heard of him since. In February 1978, Susana was disappeared by the military authorities soon after giving birth to a blonde girl.^[55] Adriana and Gaspar Tasca, both identified as montoneros, were taken into custody between 7 and 10 December 1977 and remain unaccounted for. On 6 October 1978, José Pérez Rojo and Patricia Roisinblit, both montoneros members, were made to disappear. According to different sources, 8,000 to 30,000 people,^[56] are estimated to have disappeared and died during the military dictatorship that ruled Argentina from 1976 to 1983. Some 11,000 Argentines have applied for and received up to US $200,000 as monetary compensation from the state for the loss of loved ones during the military dictatorship.^[57] The commander of the Montoneros, Mario Firmenich, in a radio interview in late 2000 from Spain later stated that "In a country that experienced a civil war, everybody has blood in their hands."^[58] The Junta relied on mass illegal arrests, torture, and executions without trial to stifle any political opposition. Some victims were thrown from transport planes into the Atlantic Ocean on what have become famously known as death flights. Others had their corpses left on streets as intimidation of others. The Montoneros admit 5,000 of their guerrillas killed.^[59]

The Montoneros were effectively finished off by 1977, although their "Special Forces" did fight on until 1981. The Montoneros tried to disrupt the World Cup Soccer Tournament being hosted in Argentina in 1978 by launching a number of bomb attacks.^[60] In late 1979, the Montoneros launched a "strategic counteroffensive" in Argentina, and the security forces killed more than one hundred of the exiled Montoneros, who had been sent back to Argentina^[61] after receiving special forces training in camps in the Middle East.^[62] Among the Montoneros killed in this operation were Luis Francisco Goya and María Lourdes Martínez Aranda who after crossing the Chilean border into Argentina were abducted in the city of Mendoza in 1980 and never seen again, with their son Jorge Guillermo being adopted and raised by an army NCO, Luis Alberto Tejada and his wife Raquel Quinteros.^[63] During the 1980s a captured Sandinista commando revealed that Montoneros "Special Forces" were training Sandinista frogmen and conducting gun runs across the Gulf of Fonseca to the Sandinista allies in El Salvador, FMLN guerrillas.^[64] During the Falklands War against Great Britain, the Argentine military conceived the aborted Operation Algeciras, a covert plan to support and convince some Montoneros, by appealing to their patriotism, to sabotage British military facilities in Gibraltar. Argentina's defeat led to the fall of the Junta, and Raúl Alfonsín became president in December 1983, thus initiating the democratic transition.

Members[link]

• Esther Norma Arrostito
• Dardo Cabo
• Juan Gelman
• Francisco Urondo
• Rodolfo Walsh
• Hector G. Oesterheld

See also[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Montoneros

• Peronist Armed Forces
• People's Revolutionary Army
• Dirty War
• Argentine Anticommunist Alliance

References[link]

Books[link]

• Brown, Jonathan C. 2010. A brief history of Argentina. 2nd edition. Facts on File, Inc.
• Guerrillas and Generals: The Dirty War in Argentina, by Paul H. Lewis (2001).
• Argentina's Lost Patrol: Armed Struggle 1969–1979 by María José Moyano (1995).
• Argentina, 1943–1987: The National Revolution and Resistance, by Donald C. Hodges (1988).
• Soldiers of Perón: Argentina's Montoneros, by Richard Gillespie (1982).
• Guerrilla warfare in Argentina and Colombia, 1974–1982, by Bynum E. Weathers, Jr. (1982).
• Guerrilla politics in Argentina, by Kenneth F. Johnson (1975).

The black king has been checkmated; the game is over.

Checkmate (frequently shortened to mate) is a situation in chess (and in other boardgames of the chaturanga family) in which one player's king is threatened with capture (in check) and there is no way to meet that threat. Or, simply put, the king is under direct attack and cannot avoid being captured. Delivering checkmate is the ultimate goal in chess: a player who is checkmated loses the game. In normal chess the king is never actually captured – the game ends as soon as the king is checkmated because checkmate leaves the defensive player with no legal moves.^{[note 1]} In practice, most players resign an inevitably lost game before being checkmated. It is considered bad etiquette to continue playing in a completely hopeless position (Burgess 2000:481).^{[note 2]}

If a king is under attack but the threat can be met, then the king is said to be in check, but is not in checkmate. If a player is not in check but has no legal move (that is, every possible move would put the king in check), the result of the game is stalemate, and the game ends in a draw. (See rules of chess.)

A checkmating move is denoted in algebraic chess notation with the hash symbol (#) – for example, 34.Qh8# or by "++". (The symbol "++" is sometimes used to indicate double check.)

This article uses algebraic notation to describe chess moves.

Examples[link]

Fool's mate

	a	b	c	d	e	f	g	h
8									8
7									7
6									6
5									5
4									4
3									3
2									2
1									1
	a	b	c	d	e	f	g	h

White has been checkmated

D. Byrne vs. Fischer

	a	b	c	d	e	f	g	h
8									8
7									7
6									6
5									5
4									4
3									3
2									2
1									1
	a	b	c	d	e	f	g	h

After 41... Rc2, checkmate

Checkmate with a rook

	a	b	c	d	e	f	g	h
8									8
7									7
6									6
5									5
4									4
3									3
2									2
1									1
	a	b	c	d	e	f	g	h

Black has been checkmated

A checkmate may occur in as few as two moves with all of the pieces still on the board (as in Fool's mate, in the opening phase of the game), in a middlegame position (as in the 1956 game called the Game of the Century between Donald Byrne and Bobby Fischer),^[1] or after many moves with as few as three pieces in an endgame position.

History[link]

In early Sanskrit chess (ca. 500-700) the king could be captured and this ended the game. The Persians (ca. 700-800) introduced the idea of warning that the king was under attack (announcing check in modern terminology). This was done to avoid the early and accidental end of a game. Later the Persians added the additional rule that a king could not be moved into check or left in check. As a result, the king could not be captured (Davidson 1949:22). Checkmate was thus the logical and only decisive way of ending a game (since if it was checkmate, any move would be illegal) (Davidson 1949:63–64).

Before about 1600 the game could also be won by capturing all of the opponent's pieces other than the king (annihilation or robado) (see bare king). In Medieval times players began to consider it nobler to win by checkmate, so annihilation became a half-win for a while, until it was abandoned (Davidson 1949:63–64).

Etymology[link]

The term checkmate is an alteration or Hobson-Jobson of the Persian phrase "Shāh Māt" which means, literally, "the King is helpless" (or "ambushed", "defeated", or "stumped", but not "dead").^[2][3] It is a common misconception that it means "the King is dead", as chess reached Europe via the Islamic world, and Arabic māta مَاتَ means "died" or "is dead" (Hooper & Whyld 1992), (Davidson 1949:70), (Sunnucks 1970), (McKean 2005), (Golombek 1976:27).^[4]

Moghadam traced the etymology of the word mate. It comes from a Persian verb mandan, meaning "to remain", which is cognate with the Latin word manco. It means "remained" in the sense of "abandoned" and the formal translation is "surprised", in the military sense of "ambushed" (not in the sense of "astonished"). So the king is in mate when he is ambushed, at a loss, or abandoned to his fate (Davidson 1949:70–71).

The term "checkmate" also has origins in the term "check", which means temporarily stop, and which also is in the chessplaying context related to the term "chess", which derives from the French word "echecs", which is derived from the alternating black and white pattern of an eschequier, or counting table, a pattern which was duplicated in larger form in some countries on the floor of the exchequer, a central bank, and whence such related terms as "checkers" and "checkered" were brought about.

The term checkmate in modern parlance is a dead metaphor for an irrefutable and strategic victory.^[5]

Two major pieces[link]

	a	b	c	d	e	f	g	h
8									8
7									7
6									6
5									5
4									4
3									3
2									2
1									1
	a	b	c	d	e	f	g	h

White checkmates easily

	a	b	c	d	e	f	g	h
8									8
7									7
6									6
5									5
4									4
3									3
2									2
1									1
	a	b	c	d	e	f	g	h

Checkmate with queen and rook

Two major pieces (queens or rooks) can easily force checkmate on the edge of the board, even without the help of their king. The process is to put the two pieces on adjacent ranks or files and gradually force the king to the side of the board, where one piece keeps the king on the edge of the board while the other delivers checkmate (Pandolfini 1988:18–20).

In the first diagram, White checkmates easily by forcing the black king to the edge a rank at a time or a file at a time:

1. Qg5+ Kd4

2. Rf4+ Ke3

3. Qg3+ Ke2

4. Rf2+ Ke1

5. Qg1# (second diagram) (Silman 2007:7–8).

The checkmate with two queens or with two rooks is similar (Pandolfini 1988:20).

	a	b	c	d	e	f	g	h
8									8
7									7
6									6
5									5
4									4
3									3
2									2
1									1
	a	b	c	d	e	f	g	h

Mid-board checkmate with king and two rooks

	a	b	c	d	e	f	g	h
8									8
7									7
6									6
5									5
4									4
3									3
2									2
1									1
	a	b	c	d	e	f	g	h

Mid-board checkmate with two queens

	a	b	c	d	e	f	g	h
8									8
7									7
6									6
5									5
4									4
3									3
2									2
1									1
	a	b	c	d	e	f	g	h

Another mid-board checkmate with two queens

Checkmate can be forced even away from the edge of the board with two rooks and a king, or with a queen, rook, and king, while two queens are able to force checkmate in the center without the help of the king (Pandolfini 2009:32–33).

Basic checkmates[link]

Here are the common fundamental checkmates when one side has only his king and the other side has only the minimum material needed to force checkmate, i.e. (1) one queen, (2) one rook, (3) two bishops on opposite-colored squares, or (4) a bishop and a knight. The king must help in accomplishing all of these checkmates. If the superior side has more material, checkmates are easier (Silman 2007:33).

The checkmate with the queen is the most important, but it is also very easy to achieve. It often occurs after a pawn has queened. The next most important one is the checkmate with the rook, and it is also very easy to achieve. The checkmates with the two bishops and with a bishop and knight are not nearly as important, since they only occur infrequently. The two bishop checkmate is fairly easy to accomplish, but the bishop and knight checkmate is difficult and requires precision.

King and queen[link]

	a	b	c	d	e	f	g	h
8									8
7									7
6									6
5									5
4									4
3									3
2									2
1									1
	a	b	c	d	e	f	g	h

Checkmate with the queen

	a	b	c	d	e	f	g	h
8									8
7									7
6									6
5									5
4									4
3									3
2									2
1									1
	a	b	c	d	e	f	g	h

A second checkmate with the queen

	a	b	c	d	e	f	g	h
8									8
7									7
6									6
5									5
4									4
3									3
2									2
1									1
	a	b	c	d	e	f	g	h

A third type of checkmate

	a	b	c	d	e	f	g	h
8									8
7									7
6									6
5									5
4									4
3									3
2									2
1									1
	a	b	c	d	e	f	g	h

A fourth type of checkmate

The first two diagrams show representatives of the basic checkmate positions with a queen, which can occur on any edge of the board. Naturally, the exact position can vary from the diagram. In the first of the checkmate positions, the queen is directly in front of the opposing king and the white king is protecting its queen. In the second checkmate position, the kings are in opposition and the queen mates on the rank (or file) of the king. See Wikibooks - Chess/The Endgame for a demonstration of how the king and queen versus king mate is achieved.

	a	b	c	d	e	f	g	h
8									8
7									7
6									6
5									5
4									4
3									3
2									2
1									1
	a	b	c	d	e	f	g	h

White checkmates easily