Battle

Generally, a battle "is a conceptual component in the hierarchy of combat in warfare between two or more armed forces, or combatants. A war sometimes consists of many battles. Battles generally 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 mobility. 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 cannot be arrived at solely through the names of historical battles, many of which are misnomers. The word battle is a loanword in English from the Old French bataille, first attested in 1297, from Late Latin battualia, meaning "exercise of soldiers and gladiators in fighting and fencing", from Late Latin (taken from Germanic) battuere "beat", from which the English word battery is also derived via Middle English batri, and comes from the staged battles in the Colosseum in Rome that may have numbered 10,000 individuals.

Melle Mel

Melvin Glover (born May 15, 1961), better known as Melle Mel /ˈmɛli ˈmɛl/ and Grandmaster Melle Mel, is an American hip-hop musician – one of the pioneers of rap as lead rapper and main songwriter for Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five.

Biography

Melvin Glover, of a Cherokee mother, was the first rapper to call himself "MC" (Master of Ceremonies). Other Furious Five members included his brother The Kidd Creole (Nathaniel Glover), Scorpio (Eddie Morris), Rahiem (Guy Todd Williams) & Cowboy (Keith Wiggins). While a member of the group, Cowboy created the term "hip-hop" while teasing a friend who had just joined the US Army, by scat singing the words "hip/hop/hip/hop" in a way that mimicked the rhythmic cadence of marching soldiers.

Battle of Melle

The Battle of Melle was a small meeting engagement fought on 9 July 1745, during the War of the Austrian Succession, between forces of the Pragmatic Allies and the French following the battle of Fontenoy that would have serious consequences for the Pragmatic Army of the allies and Flanders. The allies, under Lieutenant General Moltke, were attempting to send more troops to defend the city Ghent, one of their major supply depots. The French, commanded by Lieutenant General Du Chayla, had sent their force to establish a crossing and a post south of the river Scheldt around the town of Melle to begin isolating Ghent. The allied force was driven off with significant losses, allowing the French to capture Ghent.

Preliminary maneuvers

After the French victory at the battle of Fontenoy and the capture of the city of Tournai, Marshal Saxe began to exploit the weakness of the allies and maneuvered so as to threaten Brussels and Brabant, Ghent and Flanders forcing Duke of Cumberland, over-all commander of the allies, to choose which places to defend. Of the allies' two major magazines, Ghent and Brussels, Ghent was of more value as the supplies there had been reserved while those in Brussels had been used. However, Cumberland decided to defend Brabant and Brussels with the field army while sending some troops to increase the garrison of Ghent and issuing orders to transport the supplies out of Ghent.

October 19

October 19 is the 292nd day of the year (293rd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 73 days remaining until the end of the year.

Events