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Mount Carmel

Mount Carmel (הַר הַכַּרְמֶל; جبل الكرمل), also known in Arabic as Mount Mar Elias (جبل مار إلياس), is a coastal mountain range in northern Israel stretching from the Mediterranean Sea towards the southeast. The range is a UNESCO biosphere reserve. A number of towns are situated there, most notably Haifa, Israel's third largest city, located on the northern and western slopes.

Etymology
The word karmel has been interpreted to mean: "garden-land" (of uncertain origin); "vineyard of God", as a compound of kerem and el; or a clipping of kar male, meaning "full kernel." Martin Jan Mulder suggested a third etymology, that of kerem + l with a lamed sufformative, but this is considered unlikely as evidence for the existence of a lamed sufformative is weak.

Geography and geology
The phrase "Mount Carmel" has been used in three distinct ways, referring to either one of the following three areas:
 * The 39 km long mountain range all the way to Jenin, including the Manasseh Hill Country and the heights southeast of it.
 * The northwestern 21 km of the mountain range.
 * The headland at the northwestern end of the range.

The Carmel range is approximately 6.5 to 8 km wide, sloping gradually towards the southwest, but forming a steep ridge on the northeastern face, 546 m high. The Jezreel Valley lies to the immediate northeast. The range forms a natural barrier in the landscape, just as the Jezreel Valley forms a natural passageway, and consequently the mountain range and the valley have had a large impact on migration and invasions through the Levant over time.

The mountain formation is an admixture of limestone and flint, containing many caves, and covered in several volcanic rocks. While most of the sedimentary rock originates in the late Cretaceous, some of the north east sediments are from the early Cretaceous, and the edges also feature sediments from the pleistocen.

The sloped side of the mountain is covered with luxuriant vegetation, including oak, pine, olive, and laurel trees.

Several modern towns are located on the range, including Yokneam on the eastern ridge; Zikhron Ya'akov on the southern slope; the Druze communities of Daliyat al-Karmel and Isfiya on the more central part of the ridge; and the towns of Nesher, Tirat Hakarmel, and the city of Haifa, on the far northwestern promontory and its base. There is also a small kibbutz called Beit Oren, which is located on one of the highest points in the range to the southeast of Haifa. Mount Carmel Naval Base is also located just near the mountain and is the logistical hub of Israeli Navy.

Palaeolithic and Epipalaeolithic
As part of a 1929–1934 campaign, between 1930 and 1932, Dorothy Garrod excavated four caves, and a number of rock shelters, in the Carmel mountain range at el-Wad, el-Tabun, and Es Skhul. Garrod discovered Neanderthal and early modern human remains, including the skeleton of a Neanderthal female, named Tabun I, which is regarded as one of the most important human fossils ever found. The excavation at el-Tabun produced the longest stratigraphic record in the region, spanning 600,000 or more years of human activity.

The four caves and rock-shelters, Tabun, Jamal, el-Wad, and Skhul, together yield results from the Lower Paleolithic to the present day, representing roughly a million years of human evolution. There are also several well-preserved burials of Neanderthals and Homo sapiens and the transition from nomadic hunter-gatherer groups to complex, sedentary agricultural societies is extensively documented at the site. Taken together, these emphasize the paramount significance of the Mount Carmel caves for the study of human cultural and biological evolution within the framework of palaeo-ecological changes."

In 2012, UNESCO's World Heritage Committee added the sites of human evolution at Mount Carmel to the List of World Heritage Sites. The World Heritage Site includes four caves (Tabun, Jamal, el-Wad, and Skhul) on the southern side of the Nahal Me'arot/Wadi El-Mughara Valley. The site fulfils criteria in two separate categories, "natural" and "cultural".

Of great interest for the Near East Epipalaeolithic is Kebara Cave. In December 2020, archaeologists from the University of Haifa announced the discovery of the oldest known tool used for grinding or scraping, dating back about 350,000 years at the Tabun Cave at Mount Carmel site. According to researchers, this cobble belongs to the Acheulo-Yabrudian complex from the late Lower Paleolithic and was used by hominids for abrading surfaces.

Ancient agriculture: olive oil and wine
Archaeologists have discovered ancient wine and oil presses at various locations on Mount Carmel.

Hebrew Bible
Due to the lush vegetation on the sloped hillside, and many caves on the steeper side, Carmel became the haunt of criminals. Thickly-wooded Carmel was seen as a hiding place, as implied by the Book of Amos. According to the Books of Kings, Elisha travelled to Carmel straight after cursing a group of young men because they had mocked him and the ascension of Elijah by jeering, "Go on up, bald man!" After this, bears came out of the forest and mauled 42 of them. This does not necessarily imply that Elisha had sought asylum there from any potential backlash, although the description in the Book of Amos, of the location being a refuge, is dated by textual scholars to be earlier than the accounts of Elisha in the Books of Kings.

Ottoman period
During the Ottoman Period, Mount Carmel was part of Turabay Emirate (1517–1683), which encompassed also the Jezreel Valley, Haifa, Jenin, Beit She'an Valley, northern Jabal Nablus, Bilad al-Ruha/Ramot Menashe, and the northern part of the Sharon plain.

The Druze settlement in the Carmel region is relatively recent, with the exact timing unclear. According to one tradition accepted by scholars, they settled in the ruins of ancient Huseife, now Isfiya after the defeat of the Lebanon-centered House Ma'an. Daliyat al-Karmel's population consisted of refugees from Aleppo who arrived in the early 19th century. Despite facing attacks from neighboring villages, the largest towns, Isfiya and Daliyat al-Carmel, persevered, possibly following the withdrawal of Ibrahim Pasha's army.

World War I
During World War I, Mount Carmel played a significant strategic role. The Battle of Megiddo took place at the head of a pass through the Carmel Ridge, which overlooks the Valley of Jezreel from the south. General Edmund Allenby led the British in the battle, which was a turning point in the war against the Ottoman Empire. The Jezreel Valley had played host to many battles before, including the historically very significant Battle of Megiddo between the Egyptians and Canaanites in the 15th century BCE, but it was only in the 20th-century battle that the Carmel Ridge itself played a significant part, due to the development in artillery and munitions.

Canaanites
In ancient Canaanite culture, high places were frequently considered to be sacred, and Mount Carmel appears to have been no exception; Egyptian pharaoh Thutmose III lists a holy headland among his Canaanite territories, and if this equates to Carmel, as Egyptologists such as Maspero believe, then it would indicate that the mountain headland was considered sacred from at least the 15th century BCE.

Altar to God
According to the Books of Kings, there was an altar to God on the mountain, which had fallen into ruin by the time of Ahab, but Elijah built a new one.

Elijah
In mainstream Jewish, Christian, and Islamic thought, Elijah is indelibly associated with the mountain, and he is regarded as having sometimes resided in a grotto on the mountain. Indeed, one Arabic name for Mount Carmel is جبل مار إلياس (Jabal Mar Elyas, lit. "Mount of Saint Elias"). In the Books of Kings, Elijah challenges 450 prophets of Baal to a contest at the altar on Mount Carmel to determine whose deity was genuinely in control of the Kingdom of Israel. The role of the mountain in this story reflects its status as sacred. As the narrative is set during the rule of Ahab and his association with the Phoenicians, biblical scholars suspect that the Baal in question was probably Melqart.

According to chapter 18 of the Books of Kings in the Hebrew Bible, the challenge was to see which deity could light a sacrifice by fire. After the prophets of Baal had failed, Elijah had water poured upon his sacrifice to saturate the altar. He then prayed. Fire fell and consumed the sacrifice, wood, stones, soil and water, which prompted the Israelite witnesses to proclaim, "The LORD, He is God! The LORD, He is God!" In the account, Elijah also announced the end to a long three-year drought, which had previously been sent as divine punishment for Israel's idolatry.

Though there is no biblical reason to assume that the account of Elijah's victory refers to any particular part of Mount Carmel, Islamic tradition places it at a point known as El-Maharrakah or rather El-Muhraqa, meaning the burning.

Two areas have been hypothesized as the possible site for the story about the battle against the priests of Baal. The slaughter could have taken place near the river Kishon, at the mountain base, in an amphitheater-like flat area. The site where the offering took place is traditionally placed on the mountain above Yokneam, on the road to the Druze village of Daliyat el-Karmil, where there is a monastery, built in 1868, called El-Muhraqa ("the burning", possibly related to the burnt sacrifice"). It is regarded as one of the must-visit tour sites in the area of Haifa. (See below under "Carmelites (12th c.–present): El-Muhraqa site" for more).

Although archaeological clues are absent, the site is favoured because it has a spring, from which water could have been drawn to wet Elijah's offering. There is also a sea view, where Elijah looked out to see the cloud announcing rain. However, the biblical text states that Elijah had to climb up to see the sea. There is an altar in the monastery which is claimed to be that which Elijah built in God's honour, but that is unlikely, as it is not made of the local limestone.

Druze venerate Elijah, and he is considered a central figure in Druzism, and due to his importance in Druzism, the settlement of Druze on Mount Carmel had partly to do with Elijah's story and devotion. There are two large Druze towns on the eastern slopes of Mount Carmel: Daliyat al-Karmel and Isfiya.

Hellenistic and Roman periods
Iamblichus describes Pythagoras visiting the mountain on account of its reputation for sacredness, stating that it was the most holy of all mountains, and access was forbidden to many, while Suetonius states that there was an oracle situated there, which Vespasian visited for a consultation; Tacitus states that there was an altar there, but without any image upon it, and without a temple around it.

The existence of a pagan temple on Mount Carmel is supported by the Periplus of Pseudo-Scylax, a fourth century periplus that mentions Mount Carmel as the "mount and temple of Zeus".

Carmelites (12th century – present)
A Catholic religious order was founded on Mount Carmel in 1209, named the Carmelites, in reference to the mountain range; the founder of the Carmelites is still unknown (d.1265). In the original Rule or 'Letter of Life' given by Albert, the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem who was resident in Acre, around the year 1210, this hermit is referred to simply as 'Brother B'; he probably died around the date 1210 and could have been either a pilgrim, someone serving out a penance or a crusader who had stayed in the Holy Land.

Although Louis IX of France is sometimes named as the founder, he was not, and had merely visited it in 1252.

 * Stella Maris site

The Order was founded at the site that it claimed had been the location of Elijah's cave, 1700 ft above sea level at the northwestern end of the mountain range.

Though there is no documentary evidence to support it, Carmelite tradition suggests that a community of Jewish hermits had lived at the site from the time of Elijah until the Carmelites were founded there; prefixed to the Carmelite Constitution of 1281 was the claim that from the time when Elijah and Elisha had dwelt devoutly on Mount Carmel, priests and prophets, Jewish and Christian, had lived "praiseworthy lives in holy penitence" adjacent to the site of the "fountain of Elisha" in an uninterrupted succession.

A Carmelite monastery was founded at the site shortly after the Order itself was created, and was dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary under the title of "Star of the Sea" ("stella maris" in Latin), a common medieval presentation of her.

The Carmelite Order grew to be one of the major Catholic religious orders worldwide, although the monastery at Carmel has had a less successful history. During the Crusades the monastery often changed hands, frequently being converted into a mosque. In 1799 the building was finally converted into a hospital, by Napoleon, but in 1821 the surviving structure was destroyed by the pasha of Damascus. A new monastery was later constructed directly over a nearby cave, after funds were collected by the Carmelite Order for restoration of the monastery. The cave, which now forms the crypt of the monastic church, is termed "Elijah's grotto" by the Discalced Carmelite friars who have custody of the monastery.

 * El-Muhraqa site

Under Islamic control the location at the highest peak of the Carmel came to be known as "El-Maharrakah" or "El-Muhraqa", meaning "place of burning", in reference to the account of Elijah's challenge to the priests of Hadad. This, perhaps not coincidentally, is also the highest natural point of the mountain range.

 * The Scapular of Our Lady of Mount Carmel

One of the oldest scapulars is associated with Mount Carmel and the Carmelites. According to Carmelite tradition, the Scapular of Our Lady of Mount Carmel was first given to St. Simon Stock, an English Carmelite, by the Blessed Virgin Mary. The Carmelites refer to her under the title "Our Lady of Mount Carmel," and celebrate 16 July as her feast day.

Baháʼí Faith
Mount Carmel is considered a sacred place for followers of the Baháʼí Faith, and is the location of the Baháʼí World Centre and the Shrine of the Báb. The location of the Baháʼí holy places has its roots in the imprisonment of the religion's founder, Bahá'u'lláh, near Haifa by the Ottoman Empire during the Ottoman Empire's rule over Palestine.

The Shrine of the Báb is a structure where the remains of the Báb, the founder of Bábism and forerunner of Bahá'u'lláh in the Baháʼí Faith, have been laid to rest. The shrine's precise location on Mount Carmel was designated by Bahá'u'lláh himself and the Báb's remains were laid to rest on March 21, 1909, in a six-room mausoleum made of local stone. The construction of the shrine with a golden dome was completed over the mausoleum in 1953, and a series of decorative terraces around the shrine were completed in 2001. The white marbles used were from the same ancient source that most Athenian masterpieces were using, the Penteliko Mountain.

Bahá'u'lláh, the founder of the Baháʼí Faith, writing in the Tablet of Carmel, designated the area around the shrine as the location for the administrative headquarters of the religion; the Baháʼí administrative buildings were constructed adjacent to the decorative terraces, and are referred to as the Arc, on account of their physical arrangement.

Ahmadiyya Muslims
The Ahmadiyya Muslim Community has its largest Israeli mosque on Mount Carmel, in the Kababir quarter of Haifa, known as the Mahmood Mosque. It is a unique structure with two minarets. The mosque was once visited by the president of Israel, Shimon Peres, for an iftar dinner.

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Operation Sonnenblume

Operation Sonnenblume (Unternehmen Sonnenblume, "Operation Sunflower") was the name given to the dispatch of German and Italian troops to North Africa in February 1941, during the Second World War. The Italian 10th Army (10ª Armata) had been destroyed by the British, Commonwealth, Empire and Allied Western Desert Force attacks during Operation Compass (9 December 1940 – 9 February 1941). The first units of the new Deutsches Afrikakorps (DAK), commanded by Generalleutnant Erwin Rommel, departed Naples for Africa and arrived on 11 February 1941. (In the English-speaking world, the term Afrika Korps became a generic term for German forces in North Africa.) On 14 February, advanced units of the 5th Light Afrika Division (later renamed the 21st Panzer Division), Aufklärungsbataillon 3 (Reconnaissance Battalion 3) and Panzerjägerabteilung 39 (Anti-tank Detachment 39) arrived at the Libyan port of Tripoli and were sent immediately to the front line east of Sirte.

Rommel arrived in Libya on 12 February, with orders to defend Tripoli and Tripolitania, albeit using aggressive tactics. General Italo Gariboldi replaced Maresciallo d'Italia (Marshal of Italy) Rodolfo Graziani as the Governor-General of Libya on 25 March and Generale d'Armata Mario Roatta, Commander in Chief of the Royal Italian Army (Regio Esercito), ordered Graziani to place Italian motorised units in Libya under the new Italian–German command. The first German troops reached Sirte on 15 February, advanced to Nofilia on 18 February and a German raiding party ambushed a British patrol near El Agheila on 24 February. On 24 March, the Axis captured El Agheila and on 31 March attacked Mersa Brega. The understrength 3rd Armoured Brigade failed to counter-attack and began to retreat towards Benghazi the next day.

When the 3rd Armoured Brigade moved, its worn-out tanks began to break down, as had been predicted. The brigade failed to prevent Axis flanking moves in the desert south of the Cyrenaican bulge, which left Australian infantry in Benghazi no option but to retreat up the Via Balbia. Rommel split his forces into small columns to harry the British retreat as far the Axis fuel and water shortage permitted. A considerable British force was captured at Mechili, which led to the British retreat continuing to Tobruk and then on to the Libyan–Egyptian frontier. Axis forces failed to capture Tobruk in the first rush and Rommel then had to divide the Axis forces between Tobruk and the frontier.

Sonnenblume succeeded because the ability of the Germans to mount an offensive was underestimated by General Archibald Wavell, the Commander in Chief Middle East, the War Office and Winston Churchill. Rommel transformed the situation by his audacity, which was unexpected, despite copious intelligence reports from the decryption of signals from the German Enigma coding machine and MI14 (British Military Intelligence). Many experienced British units had been transferred to Greece in Operation Lustre and others to Egypt to refit. Some commanders appointed by Wavell to Cyrenaica Command (CYRCOM) failed to live up to expectations and Wavell relied on maps that were found to be inaccurate, when he later arrived to see for himself. In 1949, Wavell wrote, "I had certainly not budgeted for Rommel after my experience of the Italians. I should have been more prudent...".

Italian invasion of Egypt
Operazione E was the Italian invasion of Egypt in 1940 to seize the Suez Canal and which began the Western Desert Campaign (1940–1943). The Italians were opposed by British, Commonwealth, and Free French forces. After numerous delays, the scope of the offensive was reduced to an advance by the 10th Army (Marshal Rodolfo Graziani) into Egypt, as far as Sidi Barrani and attacks on any British forces in the area. The 10th Army advanced about 65 mi into Egypt but only made contact with the British screening force from the 7th Armoured Division and did not engage the main force around Mersa Matruh. On 16 September, the 10th Army halted and took up defensive positions around the port of Sidi Barrani, intending to build fortified camps, while waiting for engineers to extend the Litoranea Balbo (Via Balbia) with the Via della Vittoria. Graziani intended to use the road to accumulate supplies for an advance on Mersa Matruh, about 80 mi further east, where the remainder of the 7th Armoured Division and the 4th Indian Division were based.

Operation Compass
The British Western Desert Force (WDF, Lieutenant-General Sir Richard O'Connor) attacked the 10th Army in western Egypt and Cyrenaica, the eastern province of Libya from December 1940 to February 1941. The WDF, with about 30,000 men, advanced from Mersa Matruh in Egypt for a five-day raid against the 10th Army. The Italian force had about 150,000 men in fortified posts around Sidi Barrani and further west, over the border in Cyrenaica. The 10th Army was swiftly defeated, Sidi Barrani and Sollum were re-captured, and the British continued the operation, attacking through Cyrenaica to capture Bardia, Tobruk, and Derna. The British then pursued the 10th Army along the Via Balbia around the Jebel Akhdar (Green Mountain) towards the western province of Tripolitania. Combe Force, an ad hoc flying column, moved through the desert south of the Jebel and intercepted the last organised units of the 10th Army at the Battle of Beda Fomm. The WDF then chased the remnants of the 10th Army to El Agheila on the Gulf of Sidra. The British captured 138,000 Italian and Libyan prisoners, hundreds of tanks, and over 1,000 guns and aircraft, while suffering only 1,900 casualties, killed or wounded.

The British were unable to continue beyond El Agheila, due to supply difficulty and worn-out vehicles. In February 1941, the British War Cabinet decided to hold Cyrenaica with the minimum of forces and send the remainder to Greece. The most experienced, best-trained, and best-equipped units of the WDF were diverted to the Greek Campaign in Operation Lustre in March and April 1941. In Cyrenaica, the 6th Australian Division was up to strength but the vehicles of the 7th Armoured Division were worn out. The 2nd New Zealand Division had two brigades available and the 6th Infantry Division in Egypt had no artillery and was training for operations in the Dodecanese Islands. The 7th Australian Division (Major-General John Lavarack) and the 9th Australian Division were poorly-equipped and still training, a Polish Brigade Group was short of equipment and two armoured regiments, detached from the 2nd Armoured Division to the 7th Armoured Division, had also been worn out in the later stages of Operation Compass. The rest of the division had two cruiser tank regiments whose tanks had worn-out tracks and two light tank regiments; the divisional commander had died suddenly and been replaced by Major-General Michael Gambier-Parry.

Siege of Giarabub
The Siege of Giarabub (now Jaghbub), took place in the aftermath of the defeat of the 10th Army. The fortified Italian position at the Al Jaghbub Oasis was besieged by parts of the 6th Australian Division. The 6th Australian Divisional Cavalry Regiment began the siege in December 1940, leaving the Italian garrison dependent for supplies on the Regia Aeronautica (the Italian Royal Air Force). Air transport proved insufficient and hunger prompted many of the locally recruited troops to desert. After being reinforced by the 2/9th Australian Battalion and a battery of the 4th Royal Horse Artillery, the Australians attacked on 17 March 1941 and forced the Italian garrison to surrender on 21 March.

Terrain
The war was fought primarily in the Western Desert, which was about 240 mi wide, from Mersa Matruh in Egypt to Gazala on the Libyan coast, along Via Balbia, the only paved road. The Sand Sea 150 mi inland marked the southern limit of the desert at its widest at Giarabub and Siwa; in British parlance, Western Desert came to mean eastern Cyrenaica too. From the coast, extending south lies a raised, flat plain of stony desert about 500 ft above sea level, about 200 – from north to south, as far as the Sand Sea. Scorpions, vipers and flies populated the region, which was inhabited by a small number of Bedouin nomads.

Bedouin tracks like the Trigh el Abd and Trigh Capuzzo, linked wells and the easier traversed ground; navigation was by sun, star, compass and "desert sense", good perception of the environment gained by experience. When Italian troops advanced into Egypt in September 1940, the Maletti Group left Sidi Omar and got lost, having to be found by reconnaissance aircraft. In spring and summer, the days are miserably hot and nights are very cold. The Sirocco (also known as Gibleh or Ghibli), a hot desert wind, blows clouds of fine sand which reduces visibility to a few yards and coats eyes, lungs, machinery, food,and equipment. Motor vehicles and aircraft need special oil filters. In such barren country, supplies for military operations have to be transported from outside. German engines, particularly motorcycles, tended to overheat and tank engine life fell from 1400 – to 300 –, made worse by difficulties of maintaining diverse German and Italian motor types.

Supply
The normal sea route for Italian supplies to Libya went west round Sicily, then close to the coast to the port of Tripoli, to avoid interference from British aircraft, ships and submarines based at Malta; a third of the Italian merchant marine had been interned after Italy declared war and the diversion increased the voyage to about 600 mi. On land, supplies had to be carried huge distances by road or in small consignments by coaster. After the Italian defeat in Operation Compass, Tripoli was the last remaining Axis port, with a maximum unloading capacity of four troopships or five cargo ships at once, enough for the delivery of about 45000 LT of freight per month. The distance from Tripoli to Benghazi was 652 km along the Via Balbia, which was only half-way to Alexandria.

The road could flood, was vulnerable to attacks by the Desert Air Force (DAF) and using desert tracks increased vehicle wear. A German motorised division needed 350 LT of supplies per day and moving those supplies 300 mi was calculated to need 1,170 2 LT lorries on top of the divisions own vehicles. With seven Axis divisions, air and naval units, 70000 LT of supplies per month were needed. From February to May 1941, a surplus of 45000 LT was delivered from Italy. British attacks from Malta had some effect but in May, the worst month for shipping losses, 91 per cent of the supplies arrived. Lack of transport in Libya left German supplies stranded in Tripoli, while the Italians had only 7,000 lorries for deliveries to 225,000 men. A record amount of supply arrived in June but at the front, shortages worsened.

German intervention
German involvement in the western Mediterranean began with the arrival in Italy during June 1940, of General der Deutschen Luftwaffe beim Oberkommando der Königlich Italienischen Luftwaffe (Italuft), General Maximilian von Pohl), a liaison organisation to handle intelligence matters. Luftwaffe air units arrived in Italy in October, to carry Italian troops to Albania and then on 15 November, Luftflotte 2 (Generalfeldmarschall Albert Kesselring) transferred from Germany and Fliegerkorps X (General der Flieger Hans Geisler) moved from Norway to Sicily. By January 1941, Fliegerkorps X had 120 long-range bombers, 150 dive bombers, forty twin-engined fighters, and twenty reconnaissance aircraft. Fliegerkorps X took over Luftwaffe operations in southern Italy, Sicily, and part of Sardinia, and later took over in North Africa, with orders to secure the sea route from Italy to North Africa by neutralising Malta. Attacks were to be made on British supply routes to Egypt and Axis forces in North Africa were to be supported by the Fliegerführer Afrika (General Stefan Fröhlich). The first sorties of the Fliegerkorps were flown on 7 January, against a British convoy and escorts off the Algerian coast.

On 24 October 1940, after an investigation of the possibility of military operations in North Africa, General Wilhelm Ritter von Thoma reported to Adolf Hitler that supply difficulties determined what could be achieved, given the North African climate and terrain, and British control of the Mediterranean. The minimum necessary force to capture Egypt was four divisions, which was also the maximum force which could be supplied from Italy, but Hitler refused to consider sending more than one armoured division. On 12 November, Hitler issued Directive 18, ordering that a panzer division be prepared to move to North Africa. Even this was cancelled after the Italian advance into Egypt in Operazione E. After the magnitude of the Italian defeat during Operation Compass was realised, Hitler issued Directive 22 on 11 January 1941, ordering the dispatch of a Sperrverband (blocking detachment), initiating Unternehmen Sonnenblume (Operation Sunflower). On 3 February, Hitler agreed to send another panzer division to join the 5th Light Afrika Division (Generalmajor Johann von Ravenstein). The first German troops reached Libya on 14 February and the first tanks on 20 February. A panzer corps of two divisions had been recommended by General Hans von Funck after a visit to Libya in January, and by General Enno von Rintelen, the senior military attaché in Rome; Hitler agreed only to send another panzer regiment. Other elements of the 15th Panzer Division (Oberst Maximilian von Herff) began to arrive in late April.

Deutsches Afrikakorps
On 19 February, the Afrikakorps (DAK), was formed as a Sperrverband (barrier detachment) to defend Tripolitania. After the Battle of France (10 May – 25 June 1940), the Heer (German army) began bolting extra plates to its tanks and most of those in Panzer Regiment 5 and Panzer Regiment 8 were of the modified type. The tanks were also adapted for desert conditions, with better engine cooling achieved by increasing the speed of the radiator fan and by cutting holes in the hatch covers of the engine compartment. Panzer Regiment 5 of the 5th Light Afrika Division arrived in North Africa aboard two convoys from 8 to 10 March 1941.

The regiment had 155 tanks, three kleiner Panzerbefehlswagen (small command vehicles) and four Panzerbefehlswagen (command vehicles). Another 25 Panzer I Ausf A to reinforce the regiment arrived in Tripoli on 10 May. The tanks in Panzer Regiment 5 were still painted dark grey (RAL 7021 dunkelgrau) and carried the 3rd Panzer Division emblem of an inverted Y with two strikes. On 18 January, Panzer Regiment 8 with 146 tanks, part of the 10th Panzer Division was transferred to the new 15th Panzer Division, which had been created from the 33rd Infantry Division. Panzer Regiment 8 was shipped to Libya in three convoys from 25 April to 6 May 1941 and by 28 May, had completed its assembly in North Africa.

Axis command
After General Giuseppe Tellera was killed on 7 February at the Battle of Beda Fomm, General Italo Gariboldi took over command of the remnants of the 10th Army and on 25 March, replaced Graziani as the Governor-General of Libya. Generalmajor Erwin Rommel was promoted to Generalleutnant, appointed to command the DAK and arrived in Libya on 12 February. Rommel had been ordered in January by the Commander in Chief of the German army, Generalfeldmarschall Walther von Brauchitsch, to defend Tripoli and Tripolitania, albeit using aggressive tactics. The Commander in Chief of the Regio Esercito and head of Comando Supremo (Italian army high command) Generale d'Armata Mario Roatta, put Rommel under the command of Gariboldi and ordered Gariboldi to put all Italian motorised units under the tactical command of Rommel. Rommel sent XX Corps with the 27th Infantry Division "Brescia" (Brescia Division), 17th Infantry Division "Pavia" (Pavia Division) and the last 60 tanks of the 132nd Armoured Division "Ariete" (Ariete Division) forward. Oberkommando der Wehrmacht (OKW) the supreme command of the German armed forces was intend only on stabilising the military situation in Africa. On a visit to Berlin, Rommel was told not to expect reinforcements, even after the limited advance from Tripoli, 270 mi along the Gulf of Sirte to Sirte and then another 92 mi on to Nofilia on 19 March.

CYRCOM
The 9th Australian Division and the 2nd Armoured Division (minus a brigade group sent to Greece), were left to garrison Cyrenaica under Cyrenaica Command (Lieutenant-General Henry Maitland Wilson), despite the inadequacy of the force if the Germans sent troops to Libya. Command in Egypt was taken over by Lieutenant-General Richard O'Connor and the XIII Corps HQ was replaced by the HQ of the 1st Australian Corps (Lieutenant-General Thomas Blamey). It was believed by General Archibald Wavell, the Commander-in-Chief Middle East and GHQ in Egypt, that the Germans could not be ready until May, by when the 2nd Armoured Division tanks would have been overhauled, two more divisions and support troops, particularly artillery, would be ready, along with the 9th Australian Division. The 2nd Armoured Division had a reconnaissance regiment; the 3rd Armoured Brigade had an understrength light tank regiment and one equipped with captured Fiat M13/40 tanks. The cruiser regiment arrived in late March, after many breakdowns en route, which brought the division up to an understrength armoured brigade. Two brigades of the 9th Australian Division were swapped with two from the 7th Australian Division, which were less well trained and were short of equipment and transport.

Attempts by the British to re-open Benghazi were frustrated by lack of transport, poor weather and the Luftwaffe which began bombing and mining of the harbour in early February. The attacks led the British to abandon attempts to use it to receive supplies and to evacuate the Italian stores and equipment captured during Operation Compass. Lack of transport made it impossible to supply a garrison west of El Agheila, the most favourable position for a defensive line and restricted the 2nd Armoured Division to movement between supply dumps, reducing its limited mobility further. In February, Lieutenant-General Philip Neame took over CYRCOM and predicted that many of the tanks would break down as soon as they moved. (Neame also discovered that he had to rely on the local telephone system, staffed by Italian operators.) Neame wanted a proper armoured division, two infantry divisions and adequate air support to hold the area. Wavell replied that there was little to be sent and nothing before April. In early March, the 9th Australian Division began to relieve the 6th Australian Division at Mersa Brega for Operation Lustre, which demonstrated the difficulty of tactical moves with insufficient transport. On 20 March, the Australians were withdrawn north of Benghazi to Tocra, near Er Regima for ease of supply and the 2nd Armoured Division took over.

There were no easily defended positions between El Agheila and Benghazi, the terrain being open and good tank country. Neame was ordered to conserve the tank units as far as possible, yet inflict losses on the Axis forces if they attacked, fight a delaying action as far as Benghazi if pressed and abandon the port if necessary. There was no prospect of reinforcement before May so the high ground of the escarpment nearby and the defiles to the north near Er Regima and Barce in the Jebel Akhdar, were to be held for as long as possible. The 2nd Armoured Division would move inland south of the Jebel to Antelat and operate against the flank and rear of the Axis forces, when they moved up the coast road (Via Balbia) or cut across the desert towards Mechili and Tobruk. The tanks would have to use depots at Msus, Tecnis, Martuba, Mechili, Timimi, El Magrun and Benghazi as a substitute for lorry-borne supply. The 3rd Indian Motor Brigade (Brigadier Edward Vaughan) arrived at Martuba in late March with its transport but no tanks, artillery, anti-tank guns and only half its wireless sets, to be ready to move towards Derna, Barce or Mechili if the Axis attacked.

24 March – 2 April
On 24 March, Rommel advanced with the new Afrikakorps towards the positions of the British 3rd Armoured Brigade, south-east of Mersa Brega, where the 2nd Support Group held an 8 mi front; the Australians were 150 mi to the north, minus a brigade left at Tobruk, deficient in much equipment and out of contact with the 2nd Armoured Division. British air reconnaissance had observed German troops west of El Agheila on 25 February and by 5 March, it was expected that the German commander would consolidate the defence of Tripolitania, try to recapture Cyrenaica and then invade Egypt. The Germans were expected to use Sirte and Nofilia as bases but not before April; Rommel was identified on 8 March but local intelligence was hard to find. The mileage restrictions necessary to maintain the few troops and vehicles near the front and the danger from fast German Schwerer Panzerspähwagen (eight-wheeler armoured cars) inhibited British reconnaissance units, whose armoured cars were slower and had inferior armament.

On 1 April, Rommel sent two columns to capture Mersa Brega, with Panzer Regiment 5, Machine-Gun Battalion 8, Reconnaissance Unit 3 and anti-tank guns and artillery moving along the Via Balbia as Machine-Gun Battalion 2 and some anti-tank guns made an outflanking move through the desert to the south. The British withdrew from Mersa Brega, followed up by the Germans as the Ariete Division and the Brescia Division advanced from Tripoli. The 5th Light Afrika Division was ordered on to Ajdabiya (Agedabia) and the harbour of Zuetina, despite Italian objections. Air reconnaissance on 3 April, revealed that the British were still retiring and Rommel ordered a probe around the southern flank by an Italian detachment and several German platoons were sent under Lieutenant-Colonel Gerhard von Schwerin towards Maaten el Grara, from where they were to observe the ground towards Msus, south-east of Benghazi and Ben Gania further south. Reconnaissance Unit 3 was ordered to reconnoitre towards Soluch and Ghemines; during the evening Rommel ordered them on to Benghazi.

3–5 April
On 3 April, Gambier-Parry had received a report that a large enemy armoured force was advancing on Msus (now Zawiyat Masus in the Fati Municipality), site of the main divisional supply dump. The 3rd Armoured Brigade (Brigadier Reginald Rimington) moved there and found that the petrol had been destroyed to prevent capture. The tank brigade had already been reduced by losses and breakdowns to 12 cruiser tanks, 20 light tanks and 20 Italian tanks. Neame received conflicting reports about the positions of the British and Axis forces and on 5 April, reports that a large Axis force was advancing on El Abiar, led him to order the 9th Australian Division back to Wadi Cuff north-east of Benghazi and the elements of the 2nd Armoured Division to guard the desert flank and retire on Mechili. Conflicting reports led Neame to countermand these orders, which caused the Australians much confusion. On 6 April, British air reconnaissance reported that there were Axis columns in the desert and the 3rd Indian Motor Brigade repulsed an attack at Mechili, which led to O'Connor at the CYRCOM headquarters (Neame had left to visit Gambier-Parry), to order a general withdrawal.

The headquarters of the 2nd Armoured Division and the 2nd Support Group were ordered back to Mechili followed by the 3rd Armoured Brigade. Rimington decided that the armoured brigade lacked the fuel to reach Mechili and ordered a move to Maraura, where a small amount of petrol was found. Rimington planned to move to Derna via Giovanni Berta to obtain more fuel; Rimington was captured with his deputy when he motored ahead. The brigade continued on and crowded the Australians, who were bypassing Derna, as they withdrew to Gazala. The Australians had collected every vehicle that could move and withdrawn at 5:00 p.m., behind extensive demolitions, covered by the 1st Battalion King's Royal Rifle Corps (1st KRRC), a motor battalion recently arrived from Egypt. (The 2/13th Australian Battalion was rushed to Martuba to block the track from Mechili and the first units of the division reached Tmimi by 4:30 a.m. on 7 April, where the 26th Australian Brigade held the town, until the division and stragglers from other units passed through.)

The 5th Light Afrika Division, between Agedabia and Zuetina, reported that it needed four days to refuel but Rommel ordered that every supply vehicle be unloaded and along with spare fighting vehicles, sent back 40 mi west of El Agheila, to collect fuel within 24 hours, while the rest of the division waited. Despite more objections from Gariboldi, Rommel decided that the advance must go faster if the British were to be trapped. On the night of 3/4 April, Reconnaissance Unit 3 entered Benghazi and that morning Rommel ordered it to continue to Mechili, as soon as the Brescia Division arrived. As units reached Benghazi, Rommel formed them into columns, Group Schwerin was sent to Tmimi and Group Fabris, composed of motorcyclists and the Ariete divisional artillery, to Mechili followed by the rest of the Ariete Division. General Streich, the 5th Light Afrika Division commander, was ordered on to Tobruk with Machine-Gun Battalion 8, part of Panzer Regiment 5 and an anti-tank company. Lieutenant-Colonel Olbrich, the Panzer Regiment 5 commander, was sent with Machine-Gun Battalion 2, artillery and an armoured battalion of the Ariete Division, via Msus to Mechili or on to Tmimi and Major-General Heinrich Kirchheim, who was in the area by coincidence, was shanghaied and ordered to advance with two columns along the Via Balbia and through the Jebel Akhdar with the Brescia Division.

By late on 4 April, Group Schwerin was out of fuel and stranded near Ben Gania, with the Italian contingents trailing behind and Group Streich had got only as far as Maaten el Grara; next day a party from Group Streich reached Tengeder with the rest straggling behind for 20 –. Reconnaissance Unit 3 was stopped by the 2nd Support Group artillery west of Charruba and Group Olbrich reached Antelat, with a machine-gun unit having pressed on to the east of Sceleidima; Group Kirchheim had a column at Driana and the other at Er Regima. Air reconnaissance on 5 April, showed that the British were still retreating; Rommel ordered the Axis columns to meet at Mechili. Group Fabris and the Ariete Division were stalled between Ben Gania and Tengeder, south of Mechili and in the evening Rommel detached Machine-gun Battalion 8 (Lieutenant-Colonel Gustav Ponath) from Group Streich and led it to Mechili, where the advanced units of Group Schwerin arrived early on 6 April. Ponath was sent on towards Derna with a small party, by which time Group Kirchheim had one column near Maddalena and the other east of El Abiar. Reconnaissance Unit 3 had hardly moved and Group Olbrich had run out of fuel again. Ponath reached the coast road and advanced on the airfield south of Derna early on 7 April.

6–8 April
Kirchheim sent the non-mechanised parts of the Pavia Division (General Pietro Zaglio) and the Brescia Division along the Via Balbia and the mechanised and motorised units through the Jebel Akhdar. On 6 April, the Ariete Division reached Mechili and at noon, Ponath re-assembled his group near Derna airfield and cut one of the British withdrawal routes. The 5th Royal Tank Regiment (Lieutenant-Colonel H. D. Drew), repulsed two determined attacks and then counter-attacked with the last four British tanks. The rest of the British disengaged before the tanks were knocked out and the road was left open for stragglers in Derna. Neame had ordered CYRCOM headquarters to move back to Tmimi, west of Tobruk, where the Chief of Staff, Brigadier John Harding arrived early on 7 April, to find no sign of Neame or O'Connor. Harding ordered CYRCOM to move into Tobruk and reported his fears to Wavell in Egypt. During the withdrawal, Neame, O'Connor and Brigadier Combe had left Maraua at 8:00 p.m. and taken a desert track at Giovanni Berta but then took a wrong turning north towards Derna, instead of east to Tmimi and ran into Group Ponath near Martuba.

Rommel had intended to attack Mechili on 7 April but the Axis forces were scattered, short of fuel and tired. Group Fabris moved forward during the morning but the Ariete Division and Group Streich took all day to arrive, having been attacked by the RAF; A Squadron of the Long Range Desert Group had appeared from the south, to harass Axis movements. By nightfall on 7 April, the 9th Australian Division (less the 24th Australian Infantry Brigade) with the 2nd Support Group had blocked the Via Balbia at Acroma, about 15 mi west of Tobruk, where the 18th and 24th Australian Infantry brigades were preparing the defences. (The 18th Australian Infantry Brigade had arrived from Egypt by sea after the dispatch of the 7th Australian Division to Greece had been cancelled.) A small force held El Adem, south of Tobruk to observe the approaches from the south and south-west and at Mechili, Gambier-Parry had the 2nd Armoured Division headquarters soft-skinned vehicles and a cruiser tank, most of the 3rd Indian Motor Brigade, M Battery 1st Royal Horse Artillery, part of the 2/3rd Australian Anti-tank Regiment and elements of other units.

The Germans tried twice to bluff Gambier-Parry into surrender but he had received orders from CYRCOM to break out and retreat to El Adem, Gambier-Parry decided to attack at dawn, to gain a measure of surprise. On 8 April, A Squadron of the 18th Cavalry broke through and then turned to attack Italian artillery, as some Indian troops of the 11th Prince Albert Victor's Own Cavalry (Frontier Force) got away. Most of the garrison was pinned down but during a second attempt at 8:00 a.m., small parties of the 2nd Royal Lancers escaped. The garrison had fired most of its small arms ammunition at the vision slits of the German tanks, which had hung back in fear of mines and when Italian infantry attacked, had little ammunition left. Gambier-Parry and 2,700–3,000 British, Indian and Australian troops surrendered to Major-General Pietro Zaglio, commander of the Pavia Division.

Tobruk
By 8 April, the most advanced German units had arrived at Derna but some units which had cut across the chord of the Jebel, ran out of water and fuel at Tengeder. Prittwitz, the commander of the 15th Panzer Division was sent ahead with a column of reconnaissance, anti-tank, machine-gun and artillery units, to block the eastern exit from Tobruk, as the 5th Light Afrika Division moved from the south-west and the Brescia Division advanced from the west. Rommel hoped to pursue CYRCOM across Egypt and take Alexandria but overstretched supply lines, opposition from OKW and the British defence of Tobruk made this impossible.

On 10 April, Rommel made the Suez Canal the objective of the DAK and ordered that a breakout from Tobruk was to be prevented. Next day the port was invested but the rush ended with the 5th Light Afrika Division on the east side, Group Prittwitz to the south (Prittwitz having been killed) and the Brescia Division to the west. Reconnaissance Unit 3 went on to Bardia and a composite force was sent on to Sollum to try to reach Mersa Matruh but was prevented by the British Mobile Force (Brigadier William Gott) on the frontier, which conducted a delaying action around Sollum and Capuzzo. Tobruk was defended by a force of about 25,000 British and Australian troops, well stocked with supplies and linked to Egypt by the Navy. The garrison had armoured cars and captured Italian tanks, which could raid Axis supply convoys as they passed Tobruk for the frontier and made impossible an Axis invasion of Egypt.

Analysis
In 1956, I. S. O. Playfair, the British official historian, wrote that British assumptions about the time needed for an Axis counter-offensive were not unrealistic but were confounded by the boldness of Rommel and the fact that the 3rd Armoured Brigade was a brigade in name only, no tanks were available for the re-equipping of the brigade or the two in the 7th Armoured Division back in Egypt. When the DAK attacked there was no armoured force capable of counter-attacking or cutting Axis communications. By the time the British had retreated into the Jebel Akhdar, the infantry lacked mobility, the tanks of the 3rd Armoured Brigade had fallen to pieces and the only reserve was a motor brigade without tanks, artillery and anti-tank guns. For as long as the Axis forces had the fuel to manoeuvre, the British had no defence against outflanking attacks to the south. The retreat to Tobruk succeeded but the first Italo-German offensive had been an operational success and a "triumph for Rommel".

The Luftwaffe and Regia Aeronautica had little influence on operations, despite the disadvantages faced by the DAF during the retreat. The Fliegerführer Afrika was not under army authority and chose the objectives of the air forces. Many strafing attacks were made on parties of British troops and vehicles but these were not concentrated on bottlenecks, despite the few routes of retreat round the Cyrenaican bulge and south of the Jebel Akhdar. The DAF had been depleted to provide squadrons for Greece and had only two fighter and one bomber squadron until 8 April when another bomber squadron arrived. The fighter squadrons had to resort to wasteful standing patrols over important areas and were able occasionally to give cover to traffic jams but were unable to prevent air attacks on two petrol convoys, which were destroyed. The British lacked the aircraft to keep air superiority and the Axis air forces made no consistent attempt to seize it, leading to the influence of both sides being sporadic.

Supply constraints had made it impossible for the Axis to advance much beyond the frontier wire on the Libyan–Egyptian border by mid-April. As long as the port of Tobruk was held by the British, the Axis position on the border was unstable, as the Italo-Germans were distracted by the siege, while the British could rebuild their strength in Egypt. The British Mobile Force columns based at Halfaya, Sofafi, Buq Buq and Sidi Barrani began to harass the Germans in the area around Capuzzo and Sollum and after an ambush near Sidi Azeiz, the local German commander sent an alarmist report to Rommel, leading to an attack by Group Herff from 25 to 26 April, that pushed the British back to Buq Buq and Sofafi but the April attacks on Tobruk were costly failures.

Cooper wrote in 1978, that Tobruk had been invested on 11 April, after a twelve-day advance. German tanks had proved superior to their British counterparts but the Axis could not maintain a force further east than Sollum, without Tobruk. German forces probed the Tobruk defences from 11–12 April, attacked from 13 to 14 April and again from 16 to 17 April. On 2 May, Rommel accepted that the Axis force was not sufficient to capture Tobruk. Preparations would have to be made to repel a British counter-attack from Egypt, the chronic lack of fuel determining movement more than tactics. Comando Supremo (Italian Armed Forces High Command) wanted a pause before advancing into Egypt, as did Hitler, who also considered the capture of Tobruk to be essential; Rommel demanded more aircraft to carry ammunition, fuel and water forward. General Friedrich Paulus, a deputy Chief of the General Staff, was sent to Africa to report on the situation. The British received through Ultra a decrypt of the Paulus report but the "considerable intelligence coup" was mishandled, encouraging the premature attack of Operation Brevity.

In 1993, Harold Raugh wrote that the diversion of so many British units to Greece was the main reason for the success of Sonnenblume, along with the transfer of units to Egypt to refit, the appointment by Wavell of incompetent commanders and his failure properly to study the terrain. The potential of the Germans to mount an offensive was underestimated and the capability, audacity and potential Rommel had to transform the situation was overlooked by Wavell, the War Office and Winston Churchill, despite copious intelligence reports from Ultra and MI 14 (British Military Intelligence). In 1949, Wavell wrote that he had taken an unwarranted risk in Cyrenaica, having formed expectations of the Axis based on the experience of fighting the Italian army; "I had certainly not budgeted for Rommel after my experience of the Italians. I should have been more prudent...."

Casualties
The British lost 3,000 men when much of the 3rd Indian Motor Brigade was forced to surrender at Mechili on 8 April. Lieutenant-generals Philip Neame and Richard O'Connor, Richard Gambier-Parry, the 2nd Armoured Division commander, Brigadier Reginald Rimington and Lieutenant-Colonel John Combe were captured. From 24 March – 14 May, the 3rd Armoured Brigade lost most of its tanks to mechanical breakdown, fuel shortage and demolitions to prevent them being captured. About twenty tanks had been returned earlier to Tobruk for repairs and another three unserviceable tanks were salvaged during the retreat; 103–107 German tanks were knocked out but many were recovered later and repaired.

Siege of Tobruk
From 11 to 12 April, Panzer Regiment 5 probed the defences of the 20th Australian Brigade near the El Adem road and was repulsed by artillery fire; German infantry who reached the anti-tank ditch were forced back by Australian infantry. The Germans were surprised, having assumed that the shipping at Tobruk was there to evacuate the garrison and planned an attack by the 5th Light Afrika Division for the night of 13/14 April. Groups of Axis vehicles were attacked by 45 Squadron and 55 Squadron RAF, which rearmed at the airfields inside the perimeter. The attack began with an attempt to get over the anti-tank ditch west of the El Adem road, in the 2/17th Australian Battalion sector and was repulsed. Another attempt was made later and by dawn a small bridgehead had been established; Panzer Regiment 5 drove through and turned northwards, ready to divide into one column for the harbour and one to move west and cut off the garrison but the advance was stopped. The Italians had been slow to provide blueprints for the port fortifications and after three weeks, Rommel suspended the attacks and resumed the siege. Italian infantry divisions took up positions about the fortress, while the bulk of the DAK maintained a mobile position south and east of the port, keeping the frontier in easy reach.

Operation Brevity
Operation Brevity (15–16 May), was a limited British offensive, planned as a rapid blow against the weak Axis front-line forces around Sollum, Fort Capuzzo and Bardia on the Egyptian–Libyan frontier. The British had received an Ultra intercept of the report compiled by Paulus, which dwelt on the exhaustion and the dire supply situation facing the Axis at Tobruk and the frontier, which encouraged a premature attempt to inflict losses on the Axis frontier garrisons and to capture jumping-off places for a later attack towards Tobruk. The garrison of Tobruk, 100 mi to the west, had resisted Axis attacks and its Australian and British troops could still endanger the Axis supply line from Tripoli, which led Rommel to give priority to the siege, leaving the front line thinly held. On 15 May, Gott attacked with a mixed infantry and armoured force in three columns.

Halfaya Pass was taken against determined Italian opposition and in Libya, the British captured Fort Capuzzo but German counter-attacks regained the fort during the afternoon, inflicting a costly defeat on the defenders. The operation had begun well and had thrown the Axis commanders into confusion but most of its early gains were lost to counter-attacks and with German reinforcements arriving from Tobruk, the operation was called off. Gott became concerned that his forces risked being caught in the open by German tanks and conducted a staged withdrawal to the Halfaya Pass on 16 May. From 26 to 27 May, German troops recaptured the pass in Operation Skorpion. The British resumed preparations for Operation Battleaxe which began on 15 June.

Deutsches Afrikakorps
Data taken from Pitt (2001) unless indicated.

 * Comandante Superiore: Generale d'Armata General Italo Gariboldi

 * Generalmajor Erwin Rommel

5th Light Afrika Division
 * Panzer Regiment 5
 * 50 Panzer I
 * 45 Panzer II
 * 71 Panzer III
 * 20 Panzer IV
 * 3 kleine Panzerbefehlswagen
 * 4 Panzerbefehlswagen
 * Reconnaissance Battalion 3

15th Panzer Division (arrived in stages up to May 1941)
 * Panzer Regiment 8 (I & II Battalions)
 * 45 Panzer II
 * 71 Panzer III
 * 20 Panzer IV
 * 4 kleine Panzerbefehlswagen
 * 6 Panzerbefehlswagen
 * Motorized Rifle Regiment 104 (1 lorried battalion, 1 motor-cycle battalion, 1 battalion on foot)
 * Motorcycle Battalion 15
 * Reconnaissance Battalion 33
 * Motorized Artillery Regiment 33 (I, II & III Battalions)
 * Engineer Battalion 33
 * Battery, Anti-tank Battalion 33
 * Battery, anti-aircraft (88 mm)
 * 33rd divisional services

10th Army (Italy)

 * 17th Infantry Division "Pavia"
 * 27th Infantry Division "Brescia"
 * 132nd Armored Division "Ariete"

Cyrenaica Command and British Troops Egypt
Middle East Command, General officer commanding General Archibald Wavell

General Officer Commanding & Military Governor of Cyrenaica Philip Neame, VC

GHQ Middle East Forces

Libya Cyrenaica Command 2nd Armoured Division 2nd Support Group 3rd Armoured Brigade 9th Australian Division 3rd Indian Motor Brigade
 * 1st King's Royal Rifle Corps
 * 1re Bataillon d'Infanterie de Marin (1 BIM)
 * 143rd Field Park Troop, RE attached from 7th Armoured Division
 * 4th Field Squadron RE attached from 7th Armoured Division
 * 1st King's Dragoon Guards
 * 2nd Armoured Division Signals
 * 9th Rifle Brigade (renamed from 1 Bn, Tower Hamlets Rifles, 15 January 1941)
 * 1re Compagnie, 1re Bataillon d'Infanterie de Marin (1 BIM)
 * 'D/J' Battery, 3rd Royal Horse Artillery
 * 104th (Essex Yeomanry) Royal Horse Artillery
 * 1st Company, Free French Motor Battalion attached
 * 3rd The King's Own Hussars
 * 5th Royal Tank Regiment
 * 6th Royal Tank Regiment
 * 16th Australian Antitank Company attached
 * 1st Royal Horse Artillery attached
 * 2/3rd Antitank Regiment, Royal Australian Artillery (9th Battery only, 10th & 11th Batteries detached to 3rd Indian Motor Brigade, 12th Battery in Palestine until 5 April 1941)
 * 51st Field Regiment, RA attached
 * 2/13th Field Company, Royal Australian Engineers
 * 2/3rd Field Company, Royal Australian Engineers
 * 2/7th Field Company, Royal Australian Engineers
 * 1st Royal Northumberland Fusiliers attached.
 * One company detached to 9th Rifle Brigade from 26 March 1941
 * 2/1st Australian Pioneer Battalion
 * 20 Australian Infantry Brigade
 * 2/13th Australian Battalion
 * 2/15th Australian Battalion
 * 2/17th Australian Battalion
 * 20th Australian Antitank Company
 * 24th Australian Infantry Brigade
 * 2/28th Australian Battalion
 * 2/43rd Australian Battalion
 * 24th Australian Antitank Company
 * 26 Australian Infantry Brigade
 * 2/23rd Australian Battalion
 * 2/24th Australian Battalion
 * 2/48th Australian Battalion
 * 26th Australian Antitank Company
 * 18th King Edward VII's Own Cavalry
 * 2nd Royal Lancers (Gardner's Horse)
 * Prince Albert Victor's Own Cavalry (11th Frontier Force)
 * 2/3rd Antitank Regiment, Royal Australian Artillery
 * 10 & 11 Batteries attached from 9th Australian Division

Egypt

HQ British Troops Egypt
 * 11th Hussars (Prince Albert's Own)
 * 1st (Royal) Dragoons
 * 107th (South Notts Hussars) Royal Horse Artillery
 * 4th Royal Horse Artillery
 * 11th Czechoslovak (Middle Eastern) Battalion

Spring 1941
 * 4th Royal Tank Regiment
 * 7th Royal Tank Regiment
 * 7th Armoured Division
 * 4th Armoured Brigade
 * 2nd Royal Tank Regiment
 * 7th Queen's Own Hussars
 * 7th Armoured Brigade
 * 1st Royal Tank Regiment
 * 8th (King's Royal Irish) Hussars
 * 7th Support Group
 * 2nd Battalion, The Rifle Brigade
 * 'C' Battery, 4th Royal Horse Artillery
 * 3rd Royal Horse Artillery
 * 'M/P' Battery only, 'D/J' Battery with 2 Support Group
 * Polish Independent Carpathian Rifle Brigade
 * I Rifle Battalion
 * II Rifle Battalion
 * III Rifle Battalion
 * 1st Anti-tank Company
 * 2nd Anti-tank Company
 * Carpathian Artillery Regiment
 * Engineers Group (HQ, 2 Companies)
 * The Legion of Polish Officers attached
 * Carpathian HMG Battalion
 * Medical Services (2 Companies, 2 Sections, Forward Hospital)
 * Transport Column (3 Platoons)
 * Carpathian Lancers Regiment
 * Signals Group (HQ, 1 Company, 3 Platoons)

Alexandria Sub-Area
 * 18th Australian Infantry Brigade
 * Part of 7th Australian Division, en route for Greece
 * 2/10th Australian Battalion
 * 2/12th Australian Battalion
 * 2/9th Australian Battalion
 * 2/4th Field Company, Royal Australian Engineers
 * 6th Australian Divisional Cavalry Regiment

Mersa Matruh Sub-Area
 * 8th Field Regiment, RA

Suez Canal Sub-Area
 * GHQ Troops
 * 6th Infantry Division
 * 54th Field Company, RE
 * 16th Infantry Brigade
 * 1st Argyll & Sutherland Highlanders (Princess Louise's)
 * 2nd Leicestershire Regiment
 * 2nd Queen's Royal Regiment (West Surrey)
 * 22nd (Guards) Infantry Brigade
 * 1st Durham Light Infantry
 * 2nd Scots Guards
 * 3rd Coldstream Guards
 * Layforce (attached)
 * 'A' Battalion Commando
 * 'B' Battalion Commando
 * 'C' Battalion Commando
 * 'D' Battalion Commando

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Operation Sonnenblume


text:
Tabu search

Tabu search (TS) is a metaheuristic search method employing local search methods used for mathematical optimization. It was created by Fred W. Glover in 1986 and formalized in 1989.

Local (neighborhood) searches take a potential solution to a problem and check its immediate neighbors (that is, solutions that are similar except for very few minor details) in the hope of finding an improved solution. Local search methods have a tendency to become stuck in suboptimal regions or on plateaus where many solutions are equally fit.

Tabu search enhances the performance of local search by relaxing its basic rule. First, at each step worsening moves can be accepted if no improving move is available (like when the search is stuck at a strict local minimum). In addition, prohibitions (hence the term tabu) are introduced to discourage the search from coming back to previously-visited solutions.

The implementation of tabu search uses memory structures that describe the visited solutions or user-provided sets of rules. If a potential solution has been previously visited within a certain short-term period or if it has violated a rule, it is marked as "tabu" (forbidden) so that the algorithm does not consider that possibility repeatedly.

Background
The word tabu comes from the Tongan word to indicate things that cannot be touched because they are sacred.

Tabu search is a metaheuristic algorithm that can be used for solving combinatorial optimization problems (problems where an optimal ordering and selection of options is desired).

Current applications of TS span the areas of resource planning, telecommunications, VLSI design, financial analysis, scheduling, space planning, energy distribution, molecular engineering, logistics, pattern classification, flexible manufacturing, waste management, mineral exploration, biomedical analysis, environmental conservation and scores of others. In recent years, journals in a wide variety of fields have published tutorial articles and computational studies documenting successes by tabu search in extending the frontier of problems that can be handled effectively — yielding solutions whose quality often significantly surpasses that obtained by methods previously applied. A comprehensive list of applications, including summary descriptions of gains achieved from practical implementations, can be found in

Basic description
Tabu search uses a local or neighborhood search procedure to iteratively move from one potential solution $$x$$ to an improved solution $$x'$$ in the neighborhood of $$x$$, until some stopping criterion has been satisfied (generally, an attempt limit or a score threshold). Local search procedures often become stuck in poor-scoring areas or areas where scores plateau. In order to avoid these pitfalls and explore regions of the search space that would be left unexplored by other local search procedures, tabu search carefully explores the neighborhood of each solution as the search progresses. The solutions admitted to the new neighborhood, $$N^*(x)$$, are determined through the use of memory structures. Using these memory structures, the search progresses by iteratively moving from the current solution $$x$$ to an improved solution $$x'$$ in $$N^*(x)$$.

Tabu search has several similarities with simulated annealing, as both involve possible downhill moves. In fact, simulated annealing could be viewed as a special form of TS, whereby we use "graduated tenure", that is, a move becomes tabu with a specified probability.

These memory structures form what is known as the tabu list, a set of rules and banned solutions used to filter which solutions will be admitted to the neighborhood $$N^*(x)$$ to be explored by the search. In its simplest form, a tabu list is a short-term set of the solutions that have been visited in the recent past (less than $$n$$ iterations ago, where $$n$$ is the number of previous solutions to be stored —  is also called the tabu tenure). More commonly, a tabu list consists of solutions that have changed by the process of moving from one solution to another. It is convenient, for ease of description, to understand a “solution” to be coded and represented by such attributes.

Types of memory
The memory structures used in tabu search can roughly be divided into three categories:
 * Short-term: The list of solutions recently considered. If a potential solution appears on the tabu list, it cannot be revisited until it reaches an expiration point.
 * Intermediate-term: Intensification rules intended to bias the search towards promising areas of the search space.
 * Long-term: Diversification rules that drive the search into new regions (i.e., regarding resets when the search becomes stuck in a plateau or a suboptimal dead-end).

Short-term, intermediate-term and long-term memories can overlap in practice. Within these categories, memory can further be differentiated by measures such as frequency and impact of changes made. One example of an intermediate-term memory structure is one that prohibits or encourages solutions that contain certain attributes (e.g., solutions that include undesirable or desirable values for certain variables) or a memory structure that prevents or induces certain moves (e.g. based on frequency memory applied to solutions sharing features in common with unattractive or attractive solutions found in the past). In short-term memory, selected attributes in solutions recently visited are labelled "tabu-active." Solutions that contain tabu-active elements are banned. Aspiration criteria are employed to override a solution's tabu state, thereby including the otherwise-excluded solution in the allowed set (provided the solution is “good enough” according to a measure of quality or diversity). A simple and commonly used aspiration criterion is to allow solutions which are better than the currently-known best solution.

Short-term memory alone may be enough to achieve solutions superior to those found by conventional local search methods, but intermediate and long-term structures are often necessary for solving harder problems. Tabu search is often benchmarked against other metaheuristic methods — such as simulated annealing, genetic algorithms, ant colony optimization algorithms, reactive search optimization, guided local search, or greedy randomized adaptive search. In addition, tabu search is sometimes combined with other metaheuristics to create hybrid methods. The most common tabu search hybrid arises by joining TS with scatter search, a class of population-based procedures which has roots in common with tabu search, and is often employed in solving large non-linear optimization problems.

Pseudocode
The following pseudocode presents a simplified version of the tabu search algorithm as described above. This implementation has a rudimentary short-term memory, but contains no intermediate or long-term memory structures. The term "fitness" refers to an evaluation of the candidate solution, as embodied in an objective function for mathematical optimization.

Lines 1-4 represent some initial setup, respectively creating an initial solution (possibly chosen at random), setting that initial solution as the best seen to date, and initializing a tabu list with this initial solution. In this example, the tabu list is simply a short term memory structure that will contain a record of the elements of the states visited.

The core algorithmic loop starts in line 5. This loop will continue searching for an optimal solution until a user-specified stopping condition is met (two examples of such conditions are a simple time limit or a threshold on the fitness score). The neighboring solutions are checked for tabu elements in line 9. Additionally, the algorithm keeps track of the best solution in the neighbourhood, that is not tabu.

The fitness function is generally a mathematical function, which returns a score or the aspiration criteria are satisfied — for example, an aspiration criterion could be considered as a new search space is found. If the best local candidate has a higher fitness value than the current best (line 18), it is set as the new best (line 19). The local best candidate is always added to the tabu list (line 21), and if the tabu list is full (line 22), some elements will be allowed to expire (line 23). Generally, elements expire from the list in the same order they are added. The procedure will select the best local candidate (even if it has worse fitness than the current best) in order to escape the local optimal.

This process continues until the user specified stopping criterion is met, at which point the best solution seen during the search process is returned (line 26).

Example: the traveling salesman problem
The traveling salesman problem (TSP) is sometimes used to show the functionality of tabu search. This problem poses a straightforward question: given a list of cities, what is the shortest route that visits every city? For example, if city A and city B are next to each other, while city C is farther away, the total distance traveled will be shorter if cities A and B are visited one after the other before visiting city C. Since finding an optimal solution is NP-hard, heuristic-based approximation methods (such as local searches) are useful for devising close-to-optimal solutions. To obtain good TSP solutions, it is essential to exploit the graph structure. The value of exploiting problem structure is a recurring theme in metaheuristic methods, and tabu search is well-suited to this. A class of strategies associated with tabu search called ejection chain methods has made it possible to obtain high-quality TSP solutions efficiently

On the other hand, a simple tabu search can be used to find a satisficing solution for the traveling salesman problem (that is, a solution that satisfies an adequacy criterion, although not with the high quality obtained by exploiting the graph structure). The search starts with an initial solution, which can be generated randomly or according to some sort of nearest neighbor algorithm. To create new solutions, the order that two cities are visited in a potential solution is swapped. The total traveling distance between all the cities is used to judge how ideal one solution is compared to another. To prevent cycles – i.e., repeatedly visiting a particular set of solutions – and to avoid becoming stuck in local optima, a solution is added to the tabu list if it is accepted into the solution neighborhood, $$N^*(x)$$.

New solutions are created until some stopping criterion, such as an arbitrary number of iterations, is met. Once the simple tabu search stops, it returns the best solution found during its execution.

title: Tabu search


text:
Talk:The Lord's Supper

I have tried to add some content to turn this stub into an article. IMO, it still needs a lot of work. Rlvaughn 16:48, 28 Nov 2003 (UTC)

 * Rlvaughn, such a strong identification shouldn't be made between this terminology and the Zwinglian position. Protestant groups tend to use this term, including Lutherans and calvinistic Reformed churches - which are not Zwinglian.  Mkmcconn

I was trying to work with the topic as already started, but any suggestions or corrections are welcomed. Maybe a complete makeover would be in order, or maybe this material ought to just be added to the communion article. Though I can't speak practically for the usage among various Protestant bodies, I can speak for many "believers church" traditions in that it is not so much the names we use as the names we do not use - sacrament, eucharist. Rlvaughn 23:11, 28 Nov 2003 (UTC)

 * Mkmcconn, I added the following statement - Nevertheless, churches holding other views, such as Lutherans and Reformed churches, also use the terminology - to deflect some of that problem and criticism. - Rlvaughn 22:13, 3 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Someone deleted this article without comment, so I have restored it. - Rlvaughn 03:23, 10 May 2005 (UTC)

Consecration
Some churches, such as the Disciples of Christ-Churches of Christ allow lay consecration of the elements.

That's utterly, utterly wrong, at least for the Churches of Christ. We don't say the elements are "consecrated," and in the Church of Christ we do not have a clergy/laity distinction.

Maybe instead this stub section should say what consecration is (I honestly have no idea ... I thought that was something only practitioners of Mass/Eucharist believed) and then go on to say that some churches do not practice it.

In the Churches of Christ, the Lord's Supper is a simple repetition of what Jesus did in the Bible: pray thanking God for the bread and Christ's body which it represents, distribute the bread and eat it, pray thanking God for the cup and Christ's blood which it represents, distribute the fruit of the vine and drink it. A few introductory words or a Scripture reading usually occur at the beginning. There's nothing in the world called consecration. Any Christian man may be asked to lead the prayers, and this will almost always not be the minister or the elders, simply because they have so many other duties. 199.176.87.2 13:46, 12 July 2005 (UTC)

Merge
This page needs to be merged with Eucharist. --JW1805 17:46, 30 July 2005 (UTC)

Maybe so, but it's important to preserve the differing points of view. My religious tradition never even uses the term "Eucharist." Jdavidb 20:14, 30 July 2005 (UTC)
 * I agree, but that should be clearly explained in the Eucharist page. On other subjects that are called different names by different people, the Wikipedia community just has to decide what the name of the article should be (like Gasoline/Petrol).  In this case, the concept of "eating bread and wine in church" is located at Eucharist (actually, I would rather see it at Communion, which is a disamb page.)  The Lord's Supper page just seems to be all alone, when it should be on the other page.--JW1805 21:09, 30 July 2005 (UTC)

title: Talk:The Lord's Supper


text:
Block (programming)

In computer programming, a block or code block or block of code is a lexical structure of source code which is grouped together. Blocks consist of one or more declarations and statements. A programming language that permits the creation of blocks, including blocks nested within other blocks, is called a block-structured programming language. Blocks are fundamental to structured programming, where control structures are formed from blocks.

Blocks have two functions: to group statements so that they can be treated as one statement, and to define scopes for names to distinguish them from the same name used elsewhere. In a block-structured programming language, the objects named in outer blocks are visible inside inner blocks, unless they are masked by an object declared with the same name.

History
Ideas of block structure were developed in the 1950s during the development of the first autocodes, and were formalized in the Algol 58 and Algol 60 reports. Algol 58 introduced the notion of the "compound statement", which was related solely to control flow. The subsequent Revised Report which described the syntax and semantics of Algol 60 introduced the notion of a block and block scope, with a block consisting of " A sequence of declarations followed by a sequence of statements and enclosed between begin and end..." in which "[e]very declaration appears in a block in this way and is valid only for that block."

Syntax
Blocks use different syntax in different languages. Two broad families are:

 * the ALGOL family in which blocks are delimited by the keywords " " and " " or equivalent. In C, blocks are delimited by curly braces - " " and " ". ALGOL 68 uses parentheses.
 * Parentheses - " " and " ", are used in the MS-DOS batch language
 * indentation, as in Python
 * s-expressions with a syntactic keyword such as  or   (as in the Lisp family)
 * In 1968 (with ALGOL 68), then in Edsger W. Dijkstra's 1974 Guarded Command Language the conditional and iterative code block are alternatively terminated with the block reserved word reversed: e.g.,   and

Limitations
Some languages which support blocks with declarations do not fully support all declarations; for instance many C-derived languages do not permit a function definition within a block (nested functions). And unlike its ancestor Algol, Pascal does not support the use of blocks with their own declarations inside the begin and end of an existing block, only compound statements enabling sequences of statements to be grouped together in if, while, repeat and other control statements.

Basic semantics
The semantic meaning of a block is twofold. Firstly, it provides the programmer with a way for creating arbitrarily large and complex structures that can be treated as units. Secondly, it enables the programmer to limit the scope of variables and sometimes other objects that have been declared.

In early languages such as Fortran IV and BASIC, there were no statement blocks or control structures other than simple forms of loops. Conditionals were implemented using conditional goto statements:

The logical structure of the program is not reflected in the language, and analyzing when a given statement is executed can be difficult.

Blocks allow the programmer to treat a group of statements as a unit, and the default values which had to appear in initialization in this style of programming can, with a block structure, be placed closer to the decision:

Use of blocks in the above fragment of Pascal clarifies the programmer's intent, and enables combining the resulting blocks into a nested hierarchy of conditional statements. The structure of the code reflects the programmer's thinking more closely, making it easier to understand and modify.

The above source code can be made even clearer by taking the inner if statement out of the outer one altogether, placing the two blocks one after the other to be executed consecutively. Semantically there is little difference in this case, and the use of block structure, supported by indenting for readability, makes it easy for the programmer to refactor the code.

In primitive languages, variables had broad scope. For instance, an integer variable called IEMPNO might be used in one part of a Fortran subroutine to denote an employee social security number (ssn), but during maintenance work on the same subroutine, a programmer might accidentally use the same variable, IEMPNO, for a different purpose, and this could result in a bug that was difficult to trace. Block structure makes it easier for programmers to control scope to a minute level.

In the above Scheme fragment, empno is used to identify both the manager and their underlings each by their respective ssn, but because the underling ssn is declared within an inner block it does not interact with the variable of the same name that contains the manager's ssn. In practice, considerations of clarity would probably lead the programmer to choose distinct variable names, but they have the choice and it is more difficult to introduce a bug inadvertently.

Hoisting
In some languages, a variable can be declared at function scope even within enclosed blocks. For example, in JavaScript, variables declared with  have function scope.

title: Block (programming)


text:
Operation Megaphone

Operation Megaphone was the Canadian naval operation to board a Vincentian-flagged, American-owned merchant ship in the Atlantic, in order to recover $223 million worth of military materiel being transported back to Canada at the conclusion of operations in Kosovo.

Background
At the conclusion of Operation Kinetic, the Canadian contribution to a NATO peacekeeping force in Kosovo and Macedonia, the Department of National Defence contracted SDV Logistics Canada Ltd to transport military assets, including 580 vehicles, 390 sea containers of equipment and three Canadian soldiers who were escorting the cargo.

SDV Logistics subcontracted Andromeda Navigation Co. of Montreal, which chartered a St Vincent-flagged ship, GTS Katie (owned by Annapolis, Maryland-based Third Ocean Marine Navigation Company), to move the cargo.

The vessel was scheduled to leave Greece on 27 June 2000 and was to arrive in Canada on 15 July. Three Canadian military personnel were also on board the ship to escort the cargo, which included five armoured vehicles, rifles, ammunition, and communications equipment.

Prior to leaving Greece, three crew members had complained to authorities there, and the ship was restrained. Though it was not clear why the crew members complained, the ship was allowed to sail on 28 June after posting a US$30,000 bond.

During the voyage, a dispute between the various contracting parties arose over payments due, and Third Ocean claimed that $288,000 remained outstanding from Andromeda. As a result of the dispute, Third Ocean ordered the Russian captain of Katie, Vitaly Khlebnikov, not to enter Canadian waters.

Boarding
Negotiations continued between the Canadian government and the shippers, however an ultimatum was given and the three contractors failed to reach an agreement by a certain deadline, according to Art Eggleton, then the Minister of National Defence.

A diplomatic note was sent to the government of St. Vincent and the Grenadines, where the ship was registered, who authorized Canadians to board the vessel.

On 30 July, the destroyer HMCS Athabaskan (DDG 282) received orders to close with Katie about 225 kilometres off Newfoundland, in international waters, and maintain visual contact with her. The following day, the frigate HMCS Montréal (FFH 336) joined Athabaskan.

At 1:45 pm on 3 August, fourteen sailors boarded Katie in a helicopter-borne assault from a Sea King, led by Captain Drew Robertson, during which the crew of Katie offered no resistance. Captain Khlebnikov would later complain the boarding of the ship was "dangerous" and described the boarding as an "attack", although Captain Robertson had observed that Katie began erratic, evasive manoeuvering after being warned of the imminent boarding.

Defence Minister Eggleton described the action as "fully within the bounds of international law."

Aftermath
Katie arrived in Becancourt, Quebec, on 6 August under the control of the Canadian boarding party. Some of the cargo, including explosives, were removed at Becancourt, before the ship was brought further up the St Lawrence River to Montreal where the armoured and other military vehicles were unloaded.

Third Ocean filed an action in rem against the Canadian government, who owned the freight, on 27 July 2000, in the Federal Court of Canada, including a warrant for arrest of the freight. The matter was heard on 18 September, after the ship had already been seized by the Canadian navy. The court quashed the warrant and dismissed the action, on the basis of the immunity of the Crown, under the Crown Liability and Proceedings Act.

The Canadian Navy contracted Katie – and routinely contracts cargo ships – because it has no sea transport capability. The Canadian Forces have since then acquired four CC-177 Globemaster III strategic airlift cargo aircraft, each capable of carrying a payload of up to 72,000 kg, which were delivered in 2007. In 2010, shipbuilding was identified as a key procurement priority by the Canadian Forces, outlined in its Canada First Defence Strategy.

title: Operation Megaphone


text:
Aylesbury (disambiguation)

Aylesbury is the county town of Buckinghamshire, England.

Aylesbury may also refer to:

People

 * Aylesbury Baronets
 * Sir Thomas Aylesbury, 1st Baronet (1576–1657), English civil servant
 * Thomas Aylesbury (theologian) (fl. 1622–1659), theologian
 * William Aylesbury (1612–1656), English translator
 * Eadgyth of Aylesbury (7th century), Catholic saint from Anglo-Saxon England

Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire

 * Aylesbury (HM Prison)
 * Aylesbury (UK Parliament constituency)
 * Aylesbury and Buckingham Railway
 * Aylesbury College
 * Aylesbury F.C.
 * Aylesbury High Street railway station
 * Aylesbury Hundred
 * Aylesbury railway station
 * Aylesbury Rural District
 * Aylesbury United F.C.
 * Aylesbury Urban Area
 * Aylesbury Vale
 * Aylesbury Vale Parkway railway station
 * Battle of Aylesbury
 * Municipal Borough of Aylesbury

Other uses

 * Aylesbury, Saskatchewan, Canada
 * Aylesbury, Tallaght, Ireland
 * Aylesbury, New Zealand
 * Aylesbury Estate, Walworth, South London, England
 * Aylesbury duck, a breed of domesticated duck bred in Aylesbury
 * Aylesbury, Massachusetts, a fictional town created by H. P. Lovecraft

title: Aylesbury (disambiguation)


text:
Talk:Nicholas Roerich

Untitled
This site suggests that it was Secretary of Agriculture Wallace who suggested to FDR that the Great Seal be placed on the back of the US One Dollar Bill: [http://www.greatseal.com/levels/fdr1935.html Wallace's letter to Dal Lee, February 6, 1951]. Is there a citation to show how it is Roerich's suggestion? — Alex756 17:11, 28 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Sorry, you are absolutely right. I have corrected this error. I think. Please emend as needed of course! Wallace was a devotee of Roerich's. Google "Roerich Wallace Seal" for the connection. Caltrop 23:35, Feb 3, 2005 (UTC)

How could Roerich take his first painting classes in the same class with Shevchenko if Shevchenko died in 1861 and Roerich was born in 1874?

Also, I thought that Kobzar was Shevchenko's influential book of poems. Please correct me if Kostomarov has also written an influential book of poems under the same title.

Nazi-Soviet Pact
The quote from Roerich about invading Russia is dated 1940. Russia had not been invaded in 1940, as the Pact was still in force. So, when did he say it?

Also, what was Roerich's attitude toward the Nazis in the time of the Pact? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.191.135.66 (talk) 20:30, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Request
Please translate article from the Russian Wikipedia. http://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Рерих,_Николай_Константинович --Deodarvostok (talk) 09:42, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

Agni Yoga Society
It is usual to expand statements that are in the introduction of the article in the body of the article. Since Agni Yoga is mentioned in the introduction, there should be some explanation of the importance of AY in Roerich's life. Malcolm Schosha (talk) 13:41, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

I, too wonder what reason there can be for expunging all mention of theosophy in connection with Roerich. Obviously it takes little scrutiny of his life to discover how closely he and his wife were connected to many famous theosophists, Blavatsky for example, ... and with Agni Yoga (q.v.),  which the Roerichs founded. Clearly this was a central part of NR's life, and essential to understanding him. It is not acceptable to omit such important features of a subject's biography, whether or not some editors find the facts either boring or embarrassing. Indeed, it's hard to understand the first half of the 20th century without understanding how important such alternative religious movements were, in culture and the arts, in psychology, in politics, etc. Such omissions serve as further examples of how often Wikipedia falls short of authenticity... let alone keen insight. Twang (talk) 06:35, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

Manchurian Expedition
"Certain activities of Roerich so severely embarrassed the U.S. government politically..."

What did he do?? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.191.135.66 (talk) 20:40, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Seconded. That was the whole reason I read the thing. The article feels more like a eulogy than like an encyclopedia entry. 70.117.19.89 (talk) 07:22, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

YES! Also why I read it. The whole article reads like a wacky Russian hagiography, it's obvious that the guy was pretty out there, so let's hear some more about his wacky beliefs. Hell, apparently they were crazy enough to cost a man the presidential election. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 188.179.67.128 (talk) 04:43, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

I also agree that this article reads more like a hagiography than a neutral encyclopedia article. Roerich's association with Vice-President Henry A. Wallace was in itself a major controversy when Wallace made his third-party presidential bid in 1948, and Wallace himself bitterly broke with Roerich in the 1950s, even going so far as to call him a "fraud" (you can read about this in the Wallace biography American Dreamer). This article relentlessly praises the guy and has almost no criticisms whatsoever - and there were numerous criticisms made of Roerich's claims and activities. It needs to be rewritten with far more citations and more balance (neutrality). Just a thought. 70.145.229.162 (talk) 17:25, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

 * Here's some lengthy information from a source that I don't consider reliable, but since it is mostly factual, it should be easy enough to find sources, if it's accurate:

 * ... the US State Department informed Roerich’s patron Wallace that the Soviets had sent a confidential protest to the American government, complaining that the dangerous émigré Roerich was wandering along the borders of Red Mongolia. The Bolsheviks were worried that “the armed party is now making their way toward the Soviet Union ostensibly as a scientific expedition but actually to rally former White elements and discontented Mongols.”[Meyer, Karl Ernest and Shareen Blair Brysac, Tournament of Shadows: The Great Game and the Race for Empire in Central Asia, New York: Basic Books, 2006, p. 488] To the last moment, Wallace backed up Roerich and dismissed all insinuations against his “botanist.” Only when he realised the painter was a diplomatic embarrassment and that his own career was now on the line did the secretary of agriculture call off the expedition, cutting funding and terminating all his contacts with his former guru. Eventually, along with Louis Horch, another sponsor who dropped Roerich, Wallace turned against the painter, initiating a tax-evasion lawsuit against him and seizing his properties in the United States. FDR, embarrassed by the whole situation, personally intervened, promising Horch and Wallace to call the judge who handled the case in order to guarantee the “correct” verdict. Sure enough, Roerich, who trusted Horch to handle his finances, was indicted. Betrayed and humiliated by his partners, Roerich never returned to the United States, wisely choosing to settle in India.

 * -- John Broughton (♫♫) 05:32, 26 December 2019 (UTC)

 * I found a source that elaborates on why the expedition was controversial, and contradicts the account of the article about the Manchurian Expedition. "In their sixteen-month journey through Asia, the Roerichs had produced a total of 20 plants-13 grasses and 7 leguminous plants. By contrast, the brief MacMillan expedition had sent back 59 grasses and 41 other plants. Another two-man Agriculture Department expedition, operating in Asia at the same time, sent back more than 2,000 plants, including 726 soil-conserving grasses. Although the expedition had ended, the fiasco was far from over." [American dreamer : the life and times of Henry A. Wallace by Culver, John C., 1932-; Hyde, John p. 143]. The current article doesn't mention any controversy and has a different plant figure. It also doesn't cite any sources. Should I edit it to be more accurate? Kinda new to wikipedia so I dont really know what to do. YesIKhan (talk) 09:58, 5 February 2020 (UTC)

Excellent refs
Have added a new quote to clarify Roerich's position and have also noted that the source in question: Moscow & St. Petersburg 1900-1920: Art, Life & Culture by John E. Bowlt, Vendome, 2008 is one of the best refs I've come across in a long time Re: Russian 'silver Age' art and culture. For those interested. Truly inter/multi disciplinary approach bordering on polymathic (not intended as book review purely enthusiastic NPOV). Ernstblumberg (talk) 18:53, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

81,000 paintings?
Really? A previous version of the article states 7000 and even that is a lot of paintings.69.149.72.17 (talk) 23:27, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

Not possible, 81K paintings would mean one painting every four hours of his waking life since age ten until his death... 7,000 is possible. Picasso started in early childhood and painted an estimated 13,000 to 20,000 paintings and total attributed works estimated at 50K but no one is certain (up to 250K pieces of sculpture and prints are attributed to his studio efforts).Iconoclast.Horizon (talk) 03:25, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

Butchered in Translation
The first of this article is a disaster of translations from Russian with incorrect tenses and word/phrase associations completely incoherent. Either it needs to be rewritten or retranslated by someone who speaks both English and Russian. There is enough information out there on Nicholas Roerich for an english speaker to tackle this portion of the article again.Iconoclast.Horizon (talk) 02:42, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

 * I have restored an earlier neutral and english-language version of the article rather than the absurdly adulatory and incomprehensible google translate cut and paste version. μηδείς (talk) 03:07, 16 July 2012 (UTC)

Second World War. Service to Russia
This section reads like Propaganda and violates the NPOV at least:

"predicting the Russian people’s victory against the fascism."

"When fascist forces occupied extensive Soviet territories, N. Roerich..."

Despite this language, there's no mention of Roerich's relationship with the Soviet Government at the time, for instance, the name "Stalin" appears nowhere in this piece.

 * The section was an unreferenced cut and paste from the Russian article and I have removed it as violating copyright as well as being biased and almost incomprehensible. μηδείς (talk) 03:08, 16 July 2012 (UTC)

Categories
We have categories called Ballets designed by Nicholas Roerich and Ballets by Nikolai Roerich. When these appear in the same article, such as The Rite of Spring, one could almost be forgiven for thinking these were two different gentlemen.

As he is virtually always known in the West as Nicholas Roerich, hence our article name, can the Nikolai category be renamed, please? --  Jack of Oz   [Talk]  02:30, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

New images of paintings
I've uploaded several images of paintings by Roerich from Google Art Project's collections from the International Centre of the Roerichs and Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya in Barcelona (below). The Centre's are all published in 1922 (with three from the «Sancta» Series), the others are earlier. Feel free to use any of them if useful. Dcoetzee 07:00, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

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title: Talk:Nicholas Roerich