title: Adelaide 36ers

text: On 2 October 2022, the 36ers became the first NBL team to beat an NBA team when they defeated the Phoenix Suns.


title: Susan Ann Sulley

text: Susan Ann Sulley (born 22 March 1963), formerly known as Susanne Sulley and Susan Ann Gayle, is an English singer who is one of the two female vocalists in the synth-pop band The Human League.


title: Susan Ann Sulley

text: Born and raised in Sheffield, England, as a schoolgirl in 1980, Sulley (aged 17) and her friend Joanne Catherall were "discovered" in the Crazy Daisy Nightclub in Sheffield by Philip Oakey, the lead singer and a founding member of The Human League. They soon were asked to provide full vocals by Oakey as an experiment.


title: Susan Ann Sulley

text: Sulley is a joint business partner in the band, which still records and performs. The Human League has dominated Sulley's life; she has been a singer all her adult life and has never had any other full-time job. She explains: "Joanne and I weren't ambitious; we didn't want to be in a pop group. We were just two girls at school who wanted to go to university."


title: Susan Ann Sulley

text: Sulley was born in Sheffield, UK, on 22 March 1963. She spent all her early years in the Gleadless suburb of the city. For her final education, she attended the city's Frecheville Comprehensive School from the late 1970s until mid-1981. Her best friend from the age of 13 was fellow lifelong Sheffield resident and Frecheville student Joanne Catherall. By early 1981, she was calling herself 'Susanne Sulley', a familiar amalgamation of her two first names, a nickname by which she had been casually known at school. Whilst still at school in 1980, she had a part-time job in a Sheffield hairdressing salon and a casual summer job selling ice cream at a Sheffield cinema, the only jobs she has had in her life apart from music.


title: Susan Ann Sulley

text: The Human League had recently split acrimoniously over creative differences, leaving only two of the original four members, Oakey and Adrian Wright, to continue. Crucially, The Human League was contracted to a European tour starting within a week. Already in debt to Virgin Records, Oakey had to recruit new band members in a matter of days for the tour or be sued by the tour's promoters, face bankruptcy, and see the end of the band. Oakey went into Sheffield one evening to recruit a single female backing singer for the tour, needed to replace the original high backing vocals of the now departed Martyn Ware. He immediately noticed Catherall and Sulley dancing together in the Crazy Daisy and now states that they stood out from all the other girls in the club due to their unique dress sense, immaculate make-up, and idiosyncratic but sophisticated dance moves. Without preamble, Oakey asked both girls to join the tour as dancers and incidental vocalists.


title: Susan Ann Sulley

text: Catherall now states that she knew it was a genuine offer, as Oakey was well known in Sheffield; she and Sulley already had tickets to see The Human League on the Doncaster leg of their tour. Catherall and Sulley agreed to the offer immediately, despite having no singing or professional dancing experience.


title: Susan Ann Sulley

text: However, the girls were 17 and 18 years old and the final decision regarding going on the tour lay with their parents. The parents of both the girls were unhappy with the idea and initially refused to give their consent. This was overturned reluctantly when Oakey, complete with his then trademark lop-sided haircut, red lipstick and high heeled shoes, visited both sets of parents to convince them that the girls would come to no harm. Catherall and Sulley's school also agreed to the absence, as it was thought visiting Europe would be educational.


title: Susan Ann Sulley

text: The first European tour of The Human League got underway with the two young recruits assigned to dancing and incidental vocal duties. The girls at this stage were just guests in the group on a salary of £30 a week. Although the tour was a success, the crowds were largely hostile to Catherall and Sulley, as fans had bought tickets for the original all male line-up. Catherall recalls dodging several beer cans thrown at her during the tour and was often heckled. During the tour, Oakey had experimented with the girls singing on a number of the original tracks and was impressed with the results; he was also impressed with the girls' professionalism and determination during the tour.


title: Susan Ann Sulley

text: The group recorded "Dare", their most commercially successful album to date, in 1981. The release of the album also coincided with a steep rise in the use of music videos and the launch of MTV. In the video for "Don't You Want Me", released in November as the fourth single from the album, Sulley plays a successful actress walking out on her bitter Svengali lover (played by Oakey), who laments her success and departure. Set on a "film shoot" on a wet winter night, Sulley sings directly to the camera whilst walking through the atmospheric set, immaculately made up and wearing a distinctive trench coat. The single, aided by the classic video, was a commercial breakthrough for the group, going to number one in the charts in both the UK and the US. Sulley was still at school when "Dare" was recorded and often jokes that she "has never had a proper job in her life".


title: Susan Ann Sulley

text: The international stardom that "Dare" brought was short-lived. The group took three years to release their next full album, 1984's "Hysteria". A stop-gap EP, "Fascination!", was issued in America in 1983. From these releases, the group had a number of top-ten singles in the UK and the US, including "(Keep Feeling) Fascination" and "Mirror Man", which both charted at number two in the UK. The single "Human" from "Crash" was the group's last real commercial success of the decade, charting at number one in the US and number eight in the UK. From then, the group's mainstream popularity plunged, with subsequent releases not even breaking the top forty. It also was about 1986 that she stopped calling herself Susanne, opting for the more formal Susan.


title: Susan Ann Sulley

text: The mid-to-late 1980s were not a particularly happy time for Sulley, as she had to deal with the personal problems unexpected international fame brought her. Also, internal disputes and pressure to produce more hits caused conflict, and eventually splits, within The Human League. When asked in late 1995 to describe that period, Sulley said: "I hated the 1980s; it was horrible… absolutely all of it."


title: Susan Ann Sulley

text: In 1990, the band released their last album for Virgin Records, "Romantic?", which included the minor hit single "Heart Like a Wheel". The "Romantic?" album did not re-capture the group's huge commercial success of 1981; with the album's second single "Soundtrack for a Generation" flopping, Virgin chose not to renew the band's recording contract. During the recording of "Romantic?", Sulley suffered the first of two nervous breakdowns, exacerbated by a disastrous short-lived marriage. Although disheartened, the group remained together and persevered with new material. The Human League made a surprise comeback in 1994, now signed to East West Records, with the single "Tell Me When" giving them their first major hit since 1986's "Human" and the accompanying album "Octopus" going Gold.


title: Susan Ann Sulley

text: In 1995, the "Octopus" album gave the UK another hit single with "One Man in My Heart". This provided Sulley her highest public profile in the band's history. The song was a ballad sung by Sulley on lead vocals, with Oakey and Catherall providing supporting vocals. The stylish accompanying video, set in a Parisian café, gave (the now 32-year-old) Sulley the best opportunity to demonstrate her considerable screen presence since "Don't You Want Me". Although only moderately successful (it reached number thirteen in the UK charts), it was described years later in "The Guardian" as "one of the best love songs of the 1990s", and has been remixed and re-released a number of times since.


title: Susan Ann Sulley

text: The group regularly play to sell-out venues worldwide. In 2006, they played to an audience of 18,000 at the Hollywood Bowl, and appeared on the network US television show "Jimmy Kimmel Live!". In late 2006, The Human League completed another tour of the UK and Europe, again with many venues sold out. In a 2007 interview, Sulley stated that the main effort of The Human League in the immediate future was the recording of new material, with the possibility of a new studio album, while continuing to play live at a variety of venues both in the UK and internationally.


title: Susan Ann Sulley

text: Sulley, when asked (in 2004) to pick the highlight of her career, said: "I think it's still happening. I think the fact we're still doing it now. After all these years – I'm 41 now, and really, I shouldn't be in a pop group any more, but I am and it's still my job! I wake up in the morning and I haven't got to go to a nine-to-five. I've got this life and I'm very, very lucky!


title: Susan Ann Sulley

text: Victoria Beckham of The Spice Girls has stated that it was Sulley who inspired her to enter pop music.


title: Susan Ann Sulley

text: Although her birth name is Susan Ann Sulley, she has been known professionally by a number of variants throughout her career; the table below shows the chronology. Because she rarely corrects journalists using an incorrect name, it is possible to find any of these currently in use in the media.


title: Special effect

text: Special effects (often abbreviated as SFX, F/X or simply FX) are illusions or visual tricks used in the theatre, film, television, video game, amusement park and simulator industries to simulate the imagined events in a story or virtual world.


title: Special effect

text: Special effects are traditionally divided into the categories of mechanical effects and optical effects. With the emergence of digital film-making a distinction between special effects and visual effects has grown, with the latter referring to digital post-production and optical effects, while "special effects" refers to mechanical effects.


title: Special effect

text: Mechanical effects (also called practical or physical effects) are usually accomplished during the live-action shooting. This includes the use of mechanized props, scenery, scale models, animatronics, pyrotechnics and atmospheric effects: creating physical wind, rain, fog, snow, clouds, making a car appear to drive by itself and blowing up a building, etc. Mechanical effects are also often incorporated into set design and makeup. For example, prosthetic makeup can be used to make an actor look like a non-human creature.


title: Special effect

text: Optical effects (also called photographic effects) are the techniques in which images or film frames are created photographically, either "in-camera" using multiple exposure, mattes or the Schüfftan process or in post-production using an optical printer. An optical effect might be used to place actors or sets against a different background.


title: Special effect

text: Since the 1990s, computer-generated imagery (CGI) has come to the forefront of special effects technologies. It gives filmmakers greater control, and allows many effects to be accomplished more safely and convincingly and—as technology improves—at lower costs. As a result, many optical and mechanical effects techniques have been superseded by CGI.


title: Special effect

text: In 1857, Oscar Rejlander created the world's first "special effects" image by combining different sections of 32 negatives into a single image, making a montaged combination print. In 1895, Alfred Clark created what is commonly accepted as the first-ever motion picture special effect. While filming a reenactment of the beheading of Mary, Queen of Scots, Clark instructed an actor to step up to the block in Mary's costume. As the executioner brought the axe above his head, Clark stopped the camera, had all of the actors freeze, and had the person playing Mary step off the set. He placed a Mary dummy in the actor's place, restarted filming, and allowed the executioner to bring the axe down, severing the dummy's head. Techniques like these would dominate the production of special effects for a century.


title: Special effect

text: It wasn't only the first use of trickery in cinema, it was also the first type of photographic trickery that was only possible in a motion picture, and referred to as the "stop trick". Georges Méliès, an early motion picture pioneer, accidentally discovered the same "stop trick." According to Méliès, his camera jammed while filming a street scene in Paris. When he screened the film, he found that the "stop trick" had caused a truck to turn into a hearse, pedestrians to change direction, and men to turn into women. Méliès, the stage manager at the Theatre Robert-Houdin, was inspired to develop a series of more than 500 short films between 1896 and 1914, in the process developing or inventing such techniques as multiple exposures, time-lapse photography, dissolves, and hand painted color. Because of his ability to seemingly manipulate and transform reality with the cinematograph, the prolific Méliès is sometimes referred to as the "Cinemagician." His most famous film, "Le Voyage dans la lune" (1902), a whimsical parody of Jules Verne's "From the Earth to the Moon", featured a combination of live action and animation, and also incorporated extensive miniature and matte painting work.


title: Special effect

text: From 1910 to 1920, the main innovations in special effects were the improvements on the matte shot by Norman Dawn. With the original matte shot, pieces of cardboard were placed to block the exposure of the film, which would be exposed later. Dawn combined this technique with the "glass shot." Rather than using cardboard to block certain areas of the film exposure, Dawn simply painted certain areas black to prevent any light from exposing the film. From the partially exposed film, a single frame is then projected onto an easel, where the matte is then drawn. By creating the matte from an image directly from the film, it became incredibly easy to paint an image with proper respect to scale and perspective (the main flaw of the glass shot). Dawn's technique became the textbook for matte shots due to the natural images it created.


title: Special effect

text: During the 1920s and 1930s, special effects techniques were improved and refined by the motion picture industry. Many techniques—such as the Schüfftan process—were modifications of illusions from the theater (such as pepper's ghost) and still photography (such as double exposure and matte compositing). Rear projection was a refinement of the use of painted backgrounds in the theater, substituting moving pictures to create moving backgrounds. Lifecasting of faces was imported from traditional maskmaking. Along with makeup advances, fantastic masks could be created which fit the actor perfectly. As material science advanced, horror film maskmaking followed closely.


title: Special effect

text: Many studios established in-house "special effects" departments, which were responsible for nearly all optical and mechanical aspects of motion-picture trickery. Also, the challenge of simulating spectacle in motion encouraged the development of the use of miniatures. Animation, creating the illusion of motion, was accomplished with drawings (most notably by Winsor McCay in "Gertie the Dinosaur") and with three-dimensional models (most notably by Willis O'Brien in "The Lost World" and "King Kong"). Naval battles could be depicted with models in studio. Tanks and airplanes could be flown (and crashed) without risk of life and limb. Most impressively, miniatures and matte paintings could be used to depict worlds that never existed. Fritz Lang's film "Metropolis" was an early special effects spectacular, with innovative use of miniatures, matte paintings, the Schüfftan process, and complex compositing.


title: Special effect

text: An important innovation in special-effects photography was the development of the optical printer. Essentially, an optical printer is a projector aiming into a camera lens, and it was developed to make copies of films for distribution. Until Linwood G. Dunn refined the design and use of the optical printer, effects shots were accomplished as in-camera effects. Dunn demonstrating that it could be used to combine images in novel ways and create new illusions. One early showcase for Dunn was Orson Welles' "Citizen Kane", where such locations as Xanadu (and some of Gregg Toland's famous 'deep focus' shots) were essentially created by Dunn's optical printer.


title: Special effect

text: The development of color photography required greater refinement of effects techniques. Color enabled the development of such "travelling matte" techniques as bluescreen and the sodium vapour process. Many films became landmarks in special-effects accomplishments: "Forbidden Planet" used matte paintings, animation, and miniature work to create spectacular alien environments. In "The Ten Commandments", Paramount's John P. Fulton, A.S.C., multiplied the crowds of extras in the Exodus scenes with careful compositing, depicted the massive constructions of Rameses with models, and split the Red Sea in a still-impressive combination of travelling mattes and water tanks. Ray Harryhausen extended the art of stop-motion animation with his special techniques of compositing to create spectacular fantasy adventures such as "Jason and the Argonauts" (whose climax, a sword battle with seven animated skeletons, is considered a landmark in special effects).


title: Special effect

text: During the 1950s and 1960s numerous new special effects were developed which would dramatically increase the level of realism achievable in science fiction films. Sci-fi special effects milestones in the 1950s included the "Godzilla" films, "The Day the Earth Stood Still" (featuring Klaatu), and 3-D films.


title: Special effect

text: The tokusatsu genre of Japanese science fiction film and television, which include the "kaiju" sub-genre of monster films, rose to prominence in the 1950s. The special-effects artist Eiji Tsuburaya and the director Ishirō Honda became the driving forces behind the original "Godzilla" (1954). Taking inspiration from "King Kong" (1933), Tsuburaya formulated many of the techniques that would become staples of the tokusatsu genre, such as so-called suitmation—the use of a human actor in a costume to play a giant monster—combined with the use of miniatures and scaled-down city sets. "Godzilla" changed the landscape of Japanese cinema, science fiction and fantasy, and kickstarted the "kaiju" genre in Japan called the "Monster Boom", which remained extremely popular for several decades, with characters such as the aforementioned Godzilla, Gamera and King Ghidorah leading the market. Tokusatsu films, notably "Warning from Space" (1956), sparked Stanley Kubrick's interest in science fiction films; according to his biographer John Baxter, despite their "clumsy model sequences, the films were often well-photographed in colour ... and their dismal dialogue was delivered in well-designed and well-lit sets."


title: Special effect

text: In 1968, Stanley Kubrick assembled his own effects team (Douglas Trumbull, Tom Howard, Con Pederson and Wally Veevers) rather than use an in-house effects unit for "". In this film, the spaceship miniatures were highly detailed and carefully photographed for a realistic depth of field. The shots of spaceships were combined through hand-drawn rotoscoping and careful motion-control work, ensuring that the elements were precisely combined in the camera—a surprising throwback to the silent era, but with spectacular results. Backgrounds of the African vistas in the "Dawn of Man" sequence were combined with soundstage photography via the then-new front projection technique. Scenes set in zero-gravity environments were staged with hidden wires, mirror shots, and large-scale rotating sets. The finale, a voyage through hallucinogenic scenery, was created by Douglas Trumbull using a new technique termed slit-scan.


title: Special effect

text: The 1970s provided two profound changes in the special effects trade. The first was economic: during the industry's recession in the late 1960s and early 1970s, many studios closed down their in-house effects houses. Technicians became freelancers or founded their own effects companies, sometimes specializing on particular techniques (opticals, animation, etc.).


title: Special effect

text: The second was precipitated by the blockbuster success of two science-fiction and fantasy films in 1977. George Lucas's "Star Wars" ushered in an era of science-fiction films with expensive and impressive special effects. Effects supervisor John Dykstra, A.S.C. and crew developed many improvements in existing effects technology. They created a computer-controlled camera rig called the "Dykstraflex" that allowed precise repetition of camera motion, greatly facilitating travelling-matte compositing. Degradation of film images during compositing was minimized by other innovations: the Dykstraflex used VistaVision cameras that photographed widescreen images horizontally along stock, using far more of the film per frame, and thinner-emulsion filmstocks were used in the compositing process. The effects crew assembled by Lucas and Dykstra was dubbed Industrial Light & Magic, and since 1977 has spearheaded many effects innovations.


title: Special effect

text: That same year, Steven Spielberg's film "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" boasted a finale with impressive special effects by "" veteran Douglas Trumbull. In addition to developing his own motion-control system, Trumbull also developed techniques for creating intentional "lens flare" (the shapes created by light reflecting in camera lenses) to provide the film's undefinable shapes of flying saucers.


title: Special effect

text: The success of these films, and others since, has prompted massive studio investment in effects-heavy science-fiction films. This has fueled the establishment of many independent effects houses, a tremendous degree of refinement of existing techniques, and the development of new techniques such as computer-generated imagery (CGI). It has also encouraged within the industry a greater distinction between special effects and visual effects; the latter is used to characterize post-production and optical work, while "special effects" refers more often to on-set and mechanical effects.


title: Special effect

text: The use of computer animation in film dates back to the early 1980s, with the films "Tron" (1982) and "" (1983). Since the 1990s, a profound innovation in special effects has been the development of computer generated imagery (CGI), which has changed nearly every aspect of motion picture special effects. Digital compositing allows far more control and creative freedom than optical compositing, and does not degrade the image as with analog (optical) processes. Digital imagery has enabled technicians to create detailed models, matte "paintings," and even fully realized characters with the malleability of computer software.


title: Special effect

text: Arguably the biggest and most "spectacular" use of CGI is in the creation of photo-realistic images of science-fiction/fantasy characters, settings and objects. Images can be created in a computer using the techniques of animated cartoons and model animation. "The Last Starfighter" (1984) used computer generated spaceships instead of physical scale models. In 1993, stop-motion animators working on the realistic dinosaurs of Steven Spielberg's "Jurassic Park" were retrained in the use of computer input devices. By 1995, films such as "Toy Story" underscored the fact that the distinction between live-action films and animated films was no longer clear. Other landmark examples include a character made up of broken pieces of a stained-glass window in "Young Sherlock Holmes", a shape-shifting character in "Willow", a tentacle formed from water in "The Abyss", the T-1000 Terminator in "", hordes and armies of robots and fantastic creatures in the "Star Wars (prequel)" and "The Lord of the Rings" trilogies, and the planet, Pandora, in "Avatar".


title: Special effect

text: Although most visual effects work is completed during post-production, it must be carefully planned and choreographed in pre-production and production. A visual effects supervisor is usually involved with the production from an early stage to work closely with the Director and all related personnel to achieve the desired effects.


title: Special effect

text: Practical effects also require significant pre-planning and co-ordination with performers and production teams. The live nature of the effects can result in situations where resetting due to an error, mistake, or safety concern incurs significant expense, or is impossible due to the destructive nature of the effect.


title: Special effect

text: Live special effects are effects that are used in front of a live audience, such as in theatre, sporting events, concerts and corporate shows. Types of effects that are commonly used include: flying effects, laser lighting, theatrical smoke and fog, CO effects, and pyrotechnics. Other atmospheric effects can include flame, confetti, bubbles, and snow.


title: Special effect

text: One notable example of live special effects in theatre production is in the Bregenz Festival with its use of a large, intricate stage that moves to supplement what's being acted on stage.


title: Special effect

text: Mechanical effects encompass the use of mechanical engineering to a greater degree. Cars being flipped and hauled over buildings are usually an effect built on specialized rigs and gimbals. Usually a team of engineers or freelance film companies provide these effects to producers. Camera workers, stunt artists or doubles, directors and engineers collaborate to produce the proper effect as the action is recorded against a green screen. It is then edited and reviewed before final release to the public.


title: Alejandra Guzmán

text: Gabriela Alejandra Guzmán Pinal (born February 9, 1968), known professionally as Alejandra Guzmán, and nicknamed "La Reina de Corazones" (The Queen of Hearts) is a Mexican musician, singer, composer, and actress. With more than 30 million albums sold throughout her career, and winner of a Latin Grammy, she is one of the most successful Mexican female singers. She is the daughter of actress Silvia Pinal and singer Enrique Guzmán.


title: Alejandra Guzmán

text: Gabriela Alejandra Guzmán Pinal was born February 9, 1968 in Mexico City, to her mother’s third marriage. Guzmán has three siblings: two older half-sisters, actress Sylvia Pasquel and Viridiana Alatriste. Her younger brother, Luis Enrique Guzmán is her only sibling from the same father and mother.


title: Alejandra Guzmán

text: Her first song "Bye Mamá", a song dedicated to her mom was the start to her career in 1988. In 1990s, she released several of her biggest albums like "Eternamente Bella", "Flor de Piel", as well as "Libre" which launched with a signed contract to BMG Ariola. Her success placed her in being nominated to a Grammy, Latin Grammy, and her albums to be labeled Gold and Platinum.


title: Alejandra Guzmán

text: With all her success, she has been labeled to be "La Reina del Rock", and one of the most successful female artists of Mexico.


title: Alejandra Guzmán

text: Throughout her career, she has had success throughout Mexico and the United States. She has done duets with Franco De Vita, Mario Domm, Fonseca, and the most known Gloria Trevi. Her along with Trevi had several duets together and did the together from 2017-2018.


title: Alejandra Guzmán

text: She served as judge of the second season of "Va Por Ti". She also served as coach of "La Voz...México". On July 5, 2018, Telemundo announced Alejandra Guzmán as a coach on La Voz (U.S.). Guzmán joined Luis Fonsi, Carlos Vives and Wisin as coaches on the Spanish-language version of NBC singing-competition "The Voice". In 2020, Amazon announced her starring role in the Amazon Prime series "El juego de las llaves".


title: Alejandra Guzmán

text: Alejandra Guzman grew up in the entertainment world, having two superstars as her parents. She had her fair share of being bullied, but managed to pull through. At age 14, the death of her older sister Viridiana Alatriste, who died in a car crash, was one of the saddest moments in her life. After her sister's passing, she became quite rebellious and enjoyed life to the fullest. She routinely sneaked out of her house to join the vibrant night-life of Mexico City. During those times, Alejandra met Kenny Aviles from the band Kenny y Los Electricos who became her rock mother/mentor. It was then that she came to realize she belonged on the stage. Alejandra Guzmán has had several relationships throughout her life. Her first public relationship was with Erik Rubin which did not last long due to conflict with Mexican singer Paulina Rubio over him. She later started a relationship with Pablo Moctezuma, a businessman with whom Guzmán has a daughter, Frida Sofía, born March 1992. She and Moctezuma later separated.


title: Alejandra Guzmán

text: Guzmán married American businessman Farrell Goodman in 1998. The marriage was destroyed right after, when Goodman was arrested due to carrying narcotics in an airport in Germany. Her last public relationship to date was a little after her divorce from Goodman, with Gerardo Gómez de la Borbolla. They initially had a great relationship but things ended after she suffered a miscarriage and fell into a deep depression, during which time he also wanted to be part of her work team as well as launching a singing career of his own. Alejandra revealed years later that she ended up having an abortion from a second pregnancy with him.


title: Alejandra Guzmán

text: In 2007 she was diagnosed with breast cancer and was able to survive due to early detection. In 2009 Alejandra almost died a few months after she had butt enhancement injections from unlicensed estheticians. She was injected with polymers which caused infections and for several years she has had over 30 surgical procedures to remove them from her body.


title: Alejandra Guzmán

text: Since 2020 Guzmán and her daughter Frída Sofía have been estranged. In 2021 Frída Sofía caused a huge scandal by asserting that Guzmán's father Enrique had sexually molested her since she was 5. Guzmán has sided fully with her father, who denies the accusations and has stated she hopes this will be solved soon enough.


title: Alejandra Guzmán

text: In 2021, she joined the cast of the second season of the Amazon Prime Video series El Juego de las Llaves created by Marisa Quiroga, and produced by Amazon Studios, Corazón Films, and Pantaya. Guzmán was also a featured performer on the American music TV series A Tiny Audience produced by February Entertainment. for HBO Max and aired in Latin America by DirecTV Latam.


title: Alejandra Guzmán

text: In 2022, Guzmán appeared in the premiere episode of the music-TV show ¡LaNoche!, produced by February Entertainment and aired in the US in Univision and , alongside Paulina Rubio, and it was the first time the two artists shared a stage. The show included cameos by their mothers, Mexican actresses Silvia Pinal and Susana Dosamantes. In 2022 Alejandra Guzmán and Paulina Rubio, embarked on a 20-city US tour. The mostly sold-out, historic PERRÍSIMAS US TOUR 2022 kicked off in April 2022, and included major cities such as Chicago, El Paso, New York, Miami, and Las Vegas, before wrapping up on May 22 in Los Angeles.


title: Alejandra Guzmán

text: In July 2022, La Guzmán kicked off her TUYA TOUR with a sold-out show at the Arena CDMX joined by special guests Silvia Pinal, Fey, Erik Rubín, and Aleks Syntek. In November 2022, Guzmán will perform a series of concerts at the Venetian Las Vegas.


title: Gregg Turkington

text: Gregg Turkington (born November 25, 1967) is an Australian-born American entertainer, actor, musician and writer. He is known for his performances as Neil Hamburger, a stand-up comedian persona he developed in the 1990s. Alongside Tim Heidecker, Turkington also stars as a fictionalized version of himself on the comedic web series "On Cinema" (2011–). In addition, he formed one-half of the band Zip Code Rapists and has collaborated on numerous projects with musicians including Trey Spruance (Mr. Bungle, Secret Chiefs 3).


title: Gregg Turkington

text: In the 1990s, Turkington ran an independent label, Amarillo Records, which distributed his original albums and albums of other artists from the San Francisco punk scene. In 2015, he starred as a variant of the Neil Hamburger character for the feature-length drama film "Entertainment", directed by Rick Alverson, and subsequently gave his first interviews as himself instead of an assumed persona. Turkington also was a regular voice actor on the Disney XD series "Gravity Falls", and had a supporting role in the Marvel Cinematic Universe films "Ant-Man" (2015) and "" (2023).


title: Gregg Turkington

text: Turkington rose to prominence in the mid-1980s as the publisher of underground zine "Breakfast Without Meat" which brought punk respectability to "square" musical artists such as Tiny Tim, Jimmy Webb, the 101 Strings, and Richard Harris through feature articles. A frequent contributor to the zine was Derrick Bostrom of the Meat Puppets.


title: Gregg Turkington

text: In the 1980s, Turkington also performed in obscure San Francisco bands such as Caroliner, Hello Kitty on Ice and Bean Church, and worked at Subterranean Records, contributing artwork and live recordings to Flipper's "Public Flipper Limited Live 1980-1985" album.


title: Gregg Turkington

text: In the early 1990s, Turkington operated the Amarillo Records label, which released works by many artists from San Francisco's post-punk avant-garde music scene. He was a member of The Easy Goings, Totem Pole of Losers and the Zip Code Rapists (with John Singer). He collaborated with Trey Spruance of Mr. Bungle in The Three Doctors, Faxed Head (with James Goode, Trey Spruance, and Phil Franklin), Secret Chiefs 3, Colonel Truth (with Brandan Kearney and Rebecca G. Wilson) and The Bon Larvis Band. Many of these bands appeared on 1996's Amarillo Records compilation CD, "You Gan’t Boar Like An Eabla When You Work With Turkrys", along with the likes of Sun City Girls, Thinking Fellers Union Local 282, U.S. Saucer, Harvey Sid Fisher, Dieselhed, and Church of Satan founder Anton Szandor LaVey. He was also a tour manager for both Link Wray and Mr. Bungle. He contributed lead vocals to two tracks by the Secret Chiefs 3.


title: Gregg Turkington

text: In the late 1990s, Turkington had abandoned Amarillo Records and all of his musical projects and moved to Melbourne, Australia, where he lived until 2003. Since then, he has written the book "Warm Voices Rearranged: Anagram Record Reviews" with fellow Three Doctors alumnus Brandan Kearney, also of World of Pooh, Caroliner, and Archipelago Brewing Co. He was a contributing editor to the British version of "Maxim" in 2005 and 2006, as well as to Johan Kugelberg's 2013 book "Enjoy The Experience: Homemade Records 1958–1992".


title: Gregg Turkington

text: In 2005 and 2006, after ten years of inactivity, his musical duo Zip Code Rapists did a handful of reunion shows, performing in San Francisco, Saint Paul, Minnesota, Toronto, and Montreal.


title: Gregg Turkington

text: He has provided various voices for the animated series "The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack", "Aqua Teen Hunger Force", "Adventure Time", "Sanjay and Craig", and "Gravity Falls". A parody screenplay entitled "Bicycle Built for Two" which was co-written with Tim Heidecker was published in McSweeney's #36 in December 2010.


title: Gregg Turkington

text: Turkington appears in the full-length independent drama "The Comedy", directed by Rick Alverson and starring Tim Heidecker. The film premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January 2012.


title: Gregg Turkington

text: Tim Heidecker and Gregg Turkington star in Adult Swim's web series "On Cinema at the Cinema", portraying a pair of hapless movie reviewers. Turkington's persona in the series is that of a self-described movie expert, although he rarely provides any useful criticism, lauds forgettable films, and often fails to correctly answer simple trivia questions. The series has run for thirteen seasons thus far, with guest appearances by Jimmy McNichol, Joe Estevez, Sally Kellerman, Candy Clark, Peyton Reed, and John Aprea. In 2013 the "On Cinema Film Guide" app was released, featuring the voices of Turkington and Heidecker reviewing over 17,000 films. Turkington also co-stars as Special Agent Kington in the "On Cinema at the Cinema" spin-off series "Decker."


title: Gregg Turkington

text: Turkington had a role in Marvel Studios' 2015 movie "Ant-Man". He appeared in the series finale of "" as bombing suspect Lawrence Territo.


title: Gregg Turkington

text: In 2022, Turkington appeared as his "On Cinema" persona in the episode about The Wizard of Oz of the Shudder movie documentary series Cursed Films.


title: Gregg Turkington

text: Turkington is best known for creating anti-comedian Neil Hamburger. In 1992, Turkington released an album of prank phone calls with several tracks featuring an early version of the character and soon after began developing a stand-up comedian persona. The character constantly clears his throat while telling off-paced jokes that, for the most part, fail. Neil's unique brand of comedy has thrilled, perplexed and repulsed audiences worldwide. Since 1998, he has released a number of records on the Drag City record label.


title: Gregg Turkington

text: In the 2000s, he appeared on "Jimmy Kimmel Live!", "Tom Green Live", "Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job!", and Fox News' "Red Eye". He also appeared in the short film "Left For Dead in Malaysia", and had a brief cameo appearance in the 2006 film "Tenacious D in The Pick of Destiny". The Neil Hamburger character plays the role of Osric in the 2014 film, "Hamlet A.D.D.", a live action and animated version of William Shakespeare's "Hamlet". He was rumored to appear in his Neil Hamburger persona in Greg Mottola's 2011 ensemble comedy film "Paul", but he did not.


title: Gregg Turkington

text: Turkington co-wrote and starred in the 2015 feature film "Entertainment", directed by Rick Alverson, with a supporting cast including John C. Reilly, Tye Sheridan, Lotte Verbeek, Amy Seimetz, Michael Cera, David Yow, and Annabella Lwin. The film premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January 2015. While unnamed, the character in the film is a clear adaptation of the Hamburger character.


title: Gregg Turkington

text: Turkington was born in Darwin, Northern Territory, Australia, to American parents, and grew up in Tempe, Arizona, and San Francisco, California. He lives in Los Angeles with his wife, Simone Turkington. He is a vegan.


title: Carmine Agnello

text: Carmine "The Bull" Agnello (born 1960) is a New York mobster of the Gambino crime family who ran a scrap metal recycling operation.


title: Carmine Agnello

text: On February 5, 1994, Agnello was charged with criminal mischief for damaging a police scooter. The officer was ticketing cars parked outside of Agnello's scrapyard. Agnello came out to argue with the officer, then started his Ford Bronco and rammed the police vehicle, pushing it down the street. In June 1994, Agnello and several Gambino members brawled with police outside the same location, again over parking tickets, and Agnello was again arrested. On June 6, 1997, Agnello was arrested on assault charges for beating a former employee with a telephone. The victim later dropped the complaint.


title: Carmine Agnello

text: On January 20, 2000, Agnello was charged with racketeering and arson. Undercover New York Police Department (NYPD) officers had set up a phony scrap metal business in Willets Point, Queens. Agnello then used firebombings and other illegal tactics to coerce them to sell their scrap to him at a below-market price. According to testimony, Agnello promised a cooperating witness $2000 to "buy glass bottles (and) fill them up (with gasoline) and throw them all around the truck" of a competitor. Defense documents claimed that Agnello was on medication for bipolar disorder, which led him to bad judgment. On August 16, 2001, Agnello accepted a plea bargain in return for a reduced sentence. On October 26, 2001, Agnello was sentenced to nine years in federal prison and ordered to forfeit $10 million in assets to the court. He was released from federal custody on January 16, 2008.


title: Carmine Agnello

text: In July 2015, Agnello was arrested in Cleveland, Ohio on charges of theft, money laundering, and conspiracy, as well as drugging his own race horses with performance-enhancing drugs. He operated a $3 million stolen car and scrap metal scam at his scrapyard in Cleveland. In 2017, he accepted a plea deal that involved a large fine, but no prison time.


title: Carmine Agnello

text: In 1979, according to John Alite's 2007 court testimony, Gambino boss John Gotti retaliated against Agnello for assaulting his daughter, Victoria Gotti. Several Gambino associates ambushed Agnello, beat him with a baseball bat, and then shot him in the buttocks. In 1984, Agnello married Victoria despite her parents' disapproval. The couple had three sons, Carmine, John, and Frank. The family lived in a mansion in Westbury, New York, that was the location in 2004 for the reality television series, "Growing Up Gotti".


title: Carmine Agnello

text: In 2003, while Agnello was in jail, Victoria Gotti divorced him on grounds of constructive abandonment.


title: Carmine Agnello

text: On February 19, 2008, Agnello quietly married Danielle Vangar, the daughter of activist Mourad Topalian. Vangar met Agnello in prison when she was visiting her father. Agnello and Vangar have a son, who was born in 2009. Agnello and his second family lived in Cleveland, Ohio. He owned a business in Ohio that towed junk cars.


title: Castrol

text: Castrol is a British oil company that markets industrial and automotive lubricants, offering a wide range of oil, greases and similar products for most lubrication applications. The name "Castrol" was originally just the brand name for company's motor oils, but the company eventually changed its name to "Castrol" when the product name became better-known than the original company name "CC Wakefield".


title: Castrol

text: Since 2000, Castrol Limited has been a subsidiary of BP, which acquired the company for $4.73 billion.


title: Castrol

text: left a job at Vacuum Oil to start a new business in London, selling lubricants for trains and heavy machinery. The company launched its first lubricant in 1906. The new business was established in Cheapside in London to commercialise lubricants for trains and other heavy machinery. Eight former Vacuum Oil employees joined Wakefield in his new company.


title: Castrol

text: In early 20th. century, Wakefield Co. developed lubricants especially suited for automobiles and aeroplanes. The brand "Castrol" originated after researchers added measured amounts of castor oil (a vegetable oil derived from castor beans) to their lubricant formulations.


title: Castrol

text: By 1960, the name of the motor oil had eclipsed the company's name itself so "CC Wakefield & Company" became "Castrol Limited". In 1966, Castrol was acquired by company Burmah Oil, which was renamed "Burmah-Castrol". Burmah-Castrol was purchased by London-based multinational BP (then, "BP Amoco plc") in 2000.


title: Castrol

text: At the time of purchase, Burmah-Castrol had a turnover of nearly £3 billion with operating profits of £284 million. The company also had 18,000 employees worldwide, with operations in 55 countries. Respectively, BP Amoco had 80,400 employees worldwide and revenues of more than £63 billion.


title: Castrol

text: The brand has been involved in Formula One for many years, supplying to a number of teams, including McLaren (1979–1980 and 2017–2020), Williams (1997–2005), Team Lotus (1992–1993), Brabham (1983–1984), Jaguar (2000–2004), Renault/Alpine (2017–present) and Walter Wolf Racing.


title: Castrol

text: Castrol has sponsored the Ford World Rally Team and M-Sport in the World Rally Championship since 2003, and the Chip Ganassi Racing Ford GT factory team from 2016, to 2019. It has also sponsored Volkswagen Motorsport activities in the Dakar Rally and later the World Rally Championship since 2005. Audi Sport's activities in rallying and touring car racing have been sponsored by Castrol, as well as its Le Mans Prototypes program since 2011. BMW Motorsport was sponsored by Castrol from 1999 to 2014.


title: Castrol

text: Toyota Motorsport had Castrol sponsorship in the World Rally Championship from 1993 to 1998, and Hyundai Motorsport did so from 2000 to 2002. Also, the Honda factory team at the World Touring Car Championship has Castrol sponsorship since 2012. In the All-Japan GT Championship, the TOM'S Toyota Supra and later the Mugen Honda NSX had Castrol sponsorships.


title: Castrol

text: In North America, Castrol has been an active sponsor of NHRA drag racing. Castrol sponsored John Force Racing under the GTX brand from 1987 until the end of the 2014 season. Also, the All American Racers had Castrol sponsorship in the CART World Series from 1996 to 1999. In 2014, Castrol sponsored former Indy 500-winning IndyCar team Bryan Herta Autosport, with English rookie Jack Hawksworth behind the wheel.


title: Castrol

text: Castrol is the name sponsor of Castrol Raceway, a multi-track oval, drag, and motocross racing facility in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. Castrol is the sponsor of D. J. Kennington in the NASCAR Canadian Tire Series and NASCAR Cup Series.


title: Castrol

text: In Australia, Castrol has a long history with the Supercars category, and between 1993 and 2005, Castrol was the title sponsor of Perkins Engineering. It also sponsored Longhurst Racing between 1995 and 1999, Ford Performance Racing between 2007 and 2009, and Paul Morris Motorsport in 2010. In conjunction with a multi-year series sponsorship, between 2014 - 2016 several race events acquired Castrol naming rights including the Castrol Edge Townsville 500 and the Castrol Gold Coast 600. Castrol was the title sponsor of Team Bray, owned by Australian drag car legend, Victor Bray for 17 years.


title: Castrol

text: Castrol was the main sponsor of the Castrol International Rally in Canberra for 11 years between 1976 and 1986. The same was true for an International Rally held in South Africa, ending annually in neighbouring Swaziland.


title: Castrol

text: It was the most prestigious event on the South African rally calendar at the time, until Castrol ended its sponsorship of this event. Later only some competitors' cars were carrying the bright green and red colours of Castrol sponsorship in national rally events, notably the S.A. Toyota dealer team.


title: Castrol

text: In 2019, Castrol extended their sponsorship activities by re-forming a partnership with Jaguar, this time supporting them in Formula E and also NASCAR Cup Series giants Roush Fenway Racing-Ford since 2020 season.


title: Castrol

text: Castrol advertising has been a part of telecasts of the National Football League for years. In 2011, Castrol's Edge brand became the official motor oil sponsor for the league, along with Minnesota Vikings running back Adrian Peterson endorsing the product; it has since been renewed until the 2017 season. The endorsement deal with Peterson was terminated on 16 September 2014, due to ongoing child abuse allegations.


title: Castrol

text: The Castrol Cricket Index for a team is a dynamic indicator of the overall performance of the cricket team. It is calculated by taking into consideration the batting momentum, the bowling efficiency, the performance of the teams in the quick start overs and the extreme performance overs and many other factors. Castrol Cricket also ranks cricketers based on their overall performance. India centric initiatives being undertaken like Castrol World Cup ka Hero was created during the 2011 Cricket World Cup.


title: Castrol

text: In 2011, Castrol signed a four-year sponsorship deal for the Australian national rugby union team and as the naming rights sponsor of The Rugby Championship.


title: Castrol

text: From 1995 until 1997, Castrol were also the shirt sponsors of English Football League side Swindon Town.


title: Castrol

text: Castrol products are still marketed under the red, white and green colour scheme that dates from the launch of Castrol motor oil in 1909. Advertisements for Castrol oil historically featured the slogan "Castrol – liquid engineering". This was more recently refreshed and reintroduced as "It's more than just oil. It's liquid engineering."


title: Castrol

text: For many years, the opening notes of the second "Nachtmusik" movement of Mahler's Seventh Symphony were used as the signature theme of Castrol TV commercials.


title: Castrol

text: Wakefield vehicles advertised the company and Castrol on their sides; models of them were made by Dinky Toys, and in later times became sought-after collectors' items. One example from 1934 to 1935, in very good to excellent condition, was estimated to fetch £1,000-£1,500 at auction in 2016.


title: Battle of Arras (1917)

text: The Battle of Arras (also known as the Second Battle of Arras) was a British offensive on the Western Front during the First World War. From 9 April to 16 May 1917, British troops attacked German defences near the French city of Arras on the Western Front. The British achieved the longest advance since trench warfare had begun, surpassing the record set by the French Sixth Army on 1 July 1916. The British advance slowed in the next few days and the German defence recovered. The battle became a costly stalemate for both sides and by the end of the battle, the British Third Army and the First Army had suffered about 160,000 casualties and the German 6th Army about 125,000.


title: Battle of Arras (1917)

text: For much of the war, the opposing armies on the Western Front were at stalemate, with a continuous line of trenches from the Belgian coast to the Swiss border. The Allied objective from early 1915 was to break through the German defences into the open ground beyond and engage the numerically inferior German Army () in a war of movement. The British attack at Arras was part of the Anglo-French Nivelle Offensive, the main part of which was the Second Battle of the Aisne to the south. The aim of the French offensive was to break through the German defences in forty-eight hours. At Arras the Canadians were to capture Vimy Ridge, dominating the Douai Plain to the east, advance towards Cambrai and divert German reserves from the French front.


title: Battle of Arras (1917)

text: The British effort was an assault on a relatively broad front between Vimy in the north-west and Bullecourt to the south-east. After a long preparatory bombardment, the Canadian Corps of the First Army in the north fought the Battle of Vimy Ridge, capturing the ridge. The Third Army in the centre advanced astride the Scarpe River and in the south, the Fifth Army attacked the Hindenburg Line () but made few gains. The British armies then conducted smaller attacks to consolidate the new positions. Although these battles were generally successful in achieving limited aims, they came at considerable cost.


title: Battle of Arras (1917)

text: When the battle officially ended on 16 May, the British had made significant advances but had been unable to achieve a breakthrough. New tactics and the equipment to exploit them had been used, showing that the British had absorbed the lessons of the Battle of the Somme and could mount set-piece attacks against field fortifications. After the Second Battle of Bullecourt (3–17 May), the Arras sector became a quiet front, typical of most of the war in the west, except for attacks on the Hindenburg Line and around Lens, culminating in the Canadian Battle of Hill 70 (15–25 August).


title: Battle of Arras (1917)

text: At the beginning of 1917, the British and French were still searching for a way to achieve a strategic breakthrough on the Western Front. The previous year had been marked by the costly success of the Anglo-French offensive astride the River Somme, while the French had been unable to take the initiative because of intense German pressure at Verdun until after August 1916. The battles consumed enormous quantities of resources while achieving virtually no strategic gains on the battlefield. The cost to Germany of containing the Anglo-French attacks had been enormous and given that the material preponderance of the Entente and its allies could only be expected to increase in 1917, Field Marshal Paul von Hindenburg and General Erich Ludendorff decided on a defensive strategy on the Western Front for that year. This impasse reinforced the French and British commanders' belief that to end the stalemate they needed a breakthrough; while this desire may have been the main impetus behind the offensive, the timing and location were influenced by political and tactical considerations.


title: Battle of Arras (1917)

text: The mid-war years were momentous times. Governing politicians in Paris and London were under great pressure from the press, the people and their parliaments to win the war. Hundreds of thousands of casualties had been suffered at the battles of Gallipoli, the Somme and Verdun, with little prospect of victory in sight. The British Prime Minister, H. H. Asquith, resigned in early December 1916 and was succeeded by David Lloyd George. In France, Prime Minister Aristide Briand, along with Minister of Defence Hubert Lyautey were politically diminished and resigned in March 1917, following disagreements over the prospective Nivelle Offensive. The United States was close to declaring war on Germany; American public opinion was growing increasingly incensed by U-boat attacks upon civilian shipping, which had begun with the sinking of in 1915 and culminated in the torpedoing of seven American merchantmen in early 1917. The United States Congress declared war on Imperial Germany on 6 April 1917 but it would be more than a year before a suitable army could be raised, trained and transported to France.


title: Battle of Arras (1917)

text: The French, Russians and British had intended to launch a joint spring offensive in 1917 but this strategy foundered in February when the Russians admitted that they could not meet their commitments. The spring offensive was reduced from attacks on the Eastern and Western fronts to a French assault along the Aisne River. In March, the German army in the west (), withdrew to the Hindenburg line in Operation Alberich, negating the tactical assumptions underlying the plans for the French offensive. Until French troops advanced into the former Noyon Salient during the Battles of Arras, they encountered no German troops in the assault sector and French doubts over the wisdom of the offensive increased. The French government desperately needed a victory to avoid civil unrest but the British were wary of proceeding, given the rapidly changing tactical situation. In a meeting with Lloyd George, French commander-in-chief General Robert Nivelle persuaded the British Prime Minister, that if the British launched a diversionary assault to draw German troops away from the Aisne sector, the French offensive could succeed. It was agreed in the London Convention of 16 January, that the French assault on the Aisne would begin in mid-April and that the British would make a diversionary attack in the Arras sector approximately one week prior.


title: Battle of Arras (1917)

text: Three of the armies of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF, Field Marshal Sir Douglas Haig) were in the Arras sector, the Fifth Army (General Hubert Gough) in the south, the Third Army (General Edmund Allenby) in the centre and the First Army (General Henry Horne) in the north and the plan was devised by Allenby. The British used the lessons of the Somme and Verdun the previous year and planned to attack on an front, from Vimy Ridge in the north to Neuville-Vitasse, south of the Scarpe river. The preliminary bombardment was planned to last about a week except for a much longer and heavier barrage at Vimy Ridge.


title: Battle of Arras (1917)

text: In December 1916, the training manual replaced of 8 May 1916 and marked a significant step in the evolution of the BEF into a homogeneous force, well adapted to its role on the Western Front. The duties of army, corps and divisions in planning attacks were standardised. Armies were to devise the plan and the principles of the artillery component. Corps were to allot tasks to divisions, which would then select objectives and devise infantry plans subject to corps approval. Artillery planning was controlled by corps with consultation of divisions by the corps General Officer Commanding, Royal Artillery (GOCRA) which became the title of the officer at each level of command who devised the bombardment plan, which was coordinated with neighbouring corps artillery commanders by the army GOCRA. Specific parts of the bombardment were nominated by divisions, using their local knowledge and the results of air reconnaissance. The corps artillery commander was to co-ordinate counter-battery fire and the howitzer bombardment for zero hour. Corps controlled the creeping barrage but divisions were given authority over extra batteries added to the barrage, which could be switched to other targets by the divisional commander and brigade commanders. provided the basis for the operational technique of the BEF for the rest of 1917.


title: Battle of Arras (1917)

text: The training manual of February 1917 marked the end of attacks made by lines of infantry with a few detached specialists. The platoon was divided into a small headquarters and four sections, one with two trained grenade-throwers and assistants, the second with a Lewis gunner and nine assistants carrying of ammunition, the third section comprised a sniper, scout and nine riflemen and the fourth section had nine men with four rifle-grenade launchers. The rifle and hand-grenade sections were to advance in front of the Lewis-gun and rifle-grenade sections, in two waves or in "artillery formation", which covered an area wide and deep, with the four sections in a diamond pattern, the rifle section ahead, rifle grenade and bombing sections to the sides and the Lewis gun section behind, until resistance was met. German defenders were to be suppressed by fire from the Lewis-gun and rifle-grenade sections, while the riflemen and hand-grenade sections moved forward, preferably by infiltrating around the flanks of the resistance, to overwhelm the defenders from the rear.


title: Battle of Arras (1917)

text: The changes in equipment, organisation and formation were elaborated in "The Normal Formation For the Attack" of February 1917, which recommended that the leading troops should push on to the final objective, when only one or two were involved but that for a greater number of objectives, when artillery covering fire was available for the depth of the intended advance, fresh platoons should "leap-frog" through the leading platoons to the next objective. The new organisations and equipment gave the infantry platoon the capacity for fire and manoeuvre, even in the absence of adequate artillery support. To bring uniformity in adoption of the methods laid down in the revised manuals and others produced over the winter, Haig established a BEF Training Directorate in January 1917, to issue manuals and oversee training. and its companion manuals provided British infantry with "off-the-peg" tactics, devised from the experience of the Somme and from French Army operations, to go with new equipment made available by increasing British and Allied war production and better understanding of the organisation necessary to exploit it in battle.


title: Battle of Arras (1917)

text: In a new manual published on 1 December 1916 by (OHL, supreme command of the German army), (Principles of Command for Defensive Battles in Positional Warfare), the policy of unyielding defence of ground, regardless of its tactical value, was replaced by the defence of positions suitable for artillery observation and communication with the rear, where an attacking force would ""fight itself to a standstill and use up its resources while the defenders conserve[d] their strength"". Defending infantry would fight in areas, with the front divisions in an outpost zone up to deep behind listening posts, with the main line of resistance placed on a reverse slope, in front of artillery observation posts, which were kept far enough back to retain observation over the outpost zone. Behind the main line of resistance was a (battle zone), a second defensive area deep, on ground hidden from enemy observation, as far as possible while in view of German artillery observers. A (rear battle zone) further back was to be occupied by the reserve battalion of each regiment.


title: Battle of Arras (1917)

text: Given the growing Allied superiority in munitions and manpower, attackers might still penetrate to the second (artillery protection line), leaving in their wake German garrisons isolated in resistance nests () still inflicting losses and disorganisation on the attackers. As the attackers tried to capture the and dig in near the German second line, and of the counter-attack divisions would advance from the into the battle zone, in an immediate counter-attack (). If the immediate counter-attack failed, counter-attack divisions would take their time to prepare a methodical attack if the lost ground was essential to the retention of the main position. Such methods required large numbers of reserve divisions ready to move to the battlefront. The reserve was obtained by creating by internal reorganisation of the army, bringing divisions from the eastern front and by shortening the Western Front, in Operation Alberich. By the spring of 1917, the German army in the west had a strategic reserve of


title: Battle of Arras (1917)

text: "Experience of the German 1st Army in the Somme Battles", () was published on 30 January 1917 by Ludendorff but new defensive methods were controversial. During the Battle of the Somme in 1916 Colonel Fritz von Loßberg (Chief of Staff of the 1st Army) had been able to establish a line of relief divisions (), with the reinforcements from Verdun, which began to arrive in greater numbers in September. In his analysis of the battle, Loßberg opposed the granting of discretion to front trench garrisons to retire, as he believed that manoeuvre would not evade Allied artillery fire, which could blanket the forward area and invited French or British infantry to occupy vacant areas. Loßberg considered that spontaneous withdrawals would disrupt the counter-attack reserves as they deployed and further deprive battalion and division commanders of the means to conduct an organised defence, which the dispersal of infantry over a wide area had already made difficult. Loßberg and others had severe doubts as to the ability of relief divisions to arrive on the battlefield in time to conduct an immediate counter-attack () from behind the battle zone. Sceptics wanted the tactic of fighting in the front line to continue, with authority devolved no further than battalion, to maintain organizational coherence in anticipation of a methodical counter-attack () by the relief divisions after Ludendorff was sufficiently impressed by Loßberg's memorandum to add it to the new "Manual of Infantry Training for War".


title: Battle of Arras (1917)

text: General Ludwig von Falkenhausen, commander of the 6th Army arranged the infantry at Arras for the rigid defence of the front-line, supported by methodical counter-attacks (), by the "relief" divisions () on the second or third day. Five were placed behind Douai, away from the front line. The new Hindenburg line ended at Telegraph Hill between Neuville-Vitasse and Tilloy lez Mofflaines, from whence the original system of four lines apart, ran north to the Neuville St Vaast–Bailleul-aux-Cornailles road. About behind were the Wancourt–Feuchy and to the north the Point du Jour lines, running from the Scarpe river north along the east slope of Vimy ridge. The new "Wotan" line, which extended the Hindenburg position, was built around further back and not entirely mapped by the Allies until the battle had begun.


title: Battle of Arras (1917)

text: Just before the battle, Falkenhausen had written that parts of the front line might be lost but the five could be brought forward to relieve the front divisions on the evening of the second day. On 6 April, General Karl von Nagel, the 6th Army Chief of Staff, accepted that some of the front divisions might need to be relieved on the first evening of battle but that any penetrations would be repulsed with local immediate counter-attacks () by the front divisions. On 7 April, Nagel viewed the imminent British attack as a limited effort against Vimy ridge, preparatory to a bigger attack later, perhaps combined with the French attack expected in mid-April. Construction of positions to fulfil the new policy of area defence had been drastically curtailed by shortages of labour and the long winter, which affected the setting of concrete. The 6th Army commanders had also been reluctant to encourage the British to change their plans if the British detected a thinning of the front line. The Germans were inhibited by the extent of British air reconnaissance, which observed new field works and promptly directed artillery fire on them. The 6th Army failed to redeploy its artillery, which remained in lines easy to see and bombard. Work on defences was also divided between maintaining the front line, strengthening the third line and the new (Drocourt–Quéant switch line) further back.


title: Battle of Arras (1917)

text: After the Allied conference at Chantilly, Haig issued instructions for army commanders on 17 November 1916, with a general plan for offensive operations in the spring of 1917. The Chief engineer of the Third Army, Major-General E. R. Kenyon, composed a list of requirements by 19 November, for which he had 16 Army Troops companies, five with each corps in the front line and one with XVIII Corps, four tunnelling companies, three entrenching battalions, eight RE labour battalions and 37 labour companies. Inside the old walls of Arras were the Grand Place and Petit Place, under which there were old cellars, which were emptied and refurbished for the accommodation of 13,000 men. Under the suburbs of St Sauveur and Ronville were many caves, some huge, which were rediscovered by accident in October 1916. When cleared out, the caves had room for 11,500 men, one in the Ronville system housing 4,000 men. The Crinchon sewer followed the ditch of the old fortifications and tunnels were dug from the cellars to the sewer.


title: Battle of Arras (1917)

text: Two long tunnels were excavated from the Crinchon sewer, one through the St Sauveur and one through the Ronville system, allowing the 24,500 troops safely sheltered from German bombardment to move forward underground, avoiding the railway station, an obvious target for bombardment. The St Sauveur tunnel followed the line of the road to Cambrai and had five shafts in no man's land but the German retirement to the Hindenburg Line forestalled the use of the Ronville tunnels, when the German front line was withdrawn and there was no time to extend the diggings. The subterranean workings were lit by electricity and supplied by piped water, with gas-proof doors at the entrances; telephone cables, exchanges and testing-points used the tunnels, a hospital was installed and a tram ran from the sewer to the St Sauveur caves. The observation post for the VI Corps heavy artillery off the St Sauveur tunnel, had a telephone exchange with 750 circuits; much of the work in this area being done by the New Zealand Tunnelling Company.


title: Battle of Arras (1917)

text: On the First Army front German sappers also conducted underground operations, seeking out Allied tunnels to assault and counter-mine, in which 41 New Zealand tunnellers were killed and 151 wounded. The British tunnellers had gained an advantage over the German miners by the Autumn of 1916, which virtually ended the German underground threat. The British turned to digging 12 subways about down, to the front line, the longest tunnel being long of the dug. In one sector, four Tunnelling companies of 500 men each, worked around-the-clock in 18-hour shifts for two months to dig of subways for foot traffic, tramways with rails for hand-drawn trolleys and a light railway system. Most tunnels were lit by electricity, accommodated telephone cables and some had trams and water supplies. Caverns were dug into the sides for brigade and battalion HQs, first aid posts and store-rooms. The subways were found to be a most efficient way to relieve troops in the line, form up for the attack and then to evacuate wounded. Some of the tunnels were continued into Russian saps with exits in mine craters in no man's land and new mines were laid. Galleries were dug to be opened after the attack for communication or cable trenches, the work being done by the 172nd, 176th, 182nd and 185th Tunnelling companies (Lieutenant-Colonel G. C. Williams, Controller of Mines First Army).


title: Battle of Arras (1917)

text: Although the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) entered the battle with inferior aircraft to the "Luftstreitkräfte", this did not deter their commander, General Trenchard, from adopting an offensive posture. Dominance of the air over Arras was essential for reconnaissance and the British carried out many aerial patrols. RFC aircraft carried out artillery spotting, photography of trench systems and bombing. Aerial observation was hazardous work as, for best results, the aircraft had to fly at slow speeds and low altitude over the German defences. It became even more dangerous with the arrival of the Red Baron, Manfred von Richthofen in March 1917. The presence of "Jasta" 11 led to sharply increased losses of Allied pilots and April 1917, became known as Bloody April. A German infantry officer later wrote,


title: Battle of Arras (1917)

text: The average flying life of a RFC pilot in Arras in April was 18 hours and from 4 to 8 April, the RFC lost 75 aircraft and 105 aircrew. The casualties created a pilot shortage and replacements were sent to the front straight from flying school; during the same period, 56 aircraft were crashed by inexperienced RFC pilots.


title: Battle of Arras (1917)

text: To keep enemy action to a minimum during the assault, a creeping barrage was planned. This required gunners to create a curtain of high explosive and shrapnel shell explosions that crept across the battlefield in lines, about one hundred metres in advance of the assaulting troops. The Allies had previously used creeping barrages at the Battle of Neuve Chapelle and the Battle of the Somme but had encountered two technical problems. The first was accurately synchronising the movement of the troops to the fall of the barrage: for Arras, this was overcome by rehearsal and strict scheduling. The second was the barrage falling erratically as the barrels of heavy guns wore swiftly but at differing rates during fire: for Arras, the rate of wear of each gun barrel was calculated and calibrated accordingly. While there was a risk of friendly fire, the creeping barrage forced the Germans to remain in their shelters, allowing Allied soldiers to advance without fear of machine gun fire. The new instantaneous No. 106 Fuze had been adapted from a French design for high-explosive shells so that they detonated on the slightest impact, vaporising barbed wire. Poison gas shells were used for the final minutes of the barrage.


title: Battle of Arras (1917)

text: The principal danger to assaulting troops came from enemy artillery fire as they crossed no man's land, accounting for over half the casualties at the first day of the Somme. A further complication was the location of German artillery, hidden as it was behind the ridges. In response, specialist artillery units were created to attack German artillery. Their targets were provided by 1st Field Survey Company, Royal Engineers, who collated data obtained from flash spotting and sound ranging. (Flash spotting required Royal Flying Corps observers to record the location of telltale flashes made by guns whilst firing.) On Zero-Day, 9 April, over 80 per cent of German heavy guns in the sector were neutralised (that is, "unable to bring effective fire to bear, the crews being disabled or driven off") by counter-battery fire. Gas shells were also used against the draught horses of the batteries and to disrupt ammunition supply columns.


title: Battle of Arras (1917)

text: Forty tanks of the 1st Brigade were to be used in the attack on the Third Army front, eight with XVIII Corps and sixteen each in VII Corps and VI Corps. When the blue line had been reached, four of the VII Corps tanks were to join VI Corps for its attack on the brown line. The black line (first objective) was not to be attacked by tanks, which were to begin the drive to the front line at zero hour and rendezvous with infantry at the black line two hours later. The tanks were reserved for the most difficult objectives beyond the black line in groups of up to ten vehicles. Four tanks were to attack Neuville Vitasse, four against Telegraph Hill, four against The Harp and another four against Tilloy lez Mofflaines and two were to drive down the slope from Roclincourt west of Bois de la Maison Blanche. Once the blue line had fallen, the tanks still running were to drive to rally points.


title: Battle of Arras (1917)

text: The preliminary bombardment of Vimy Ridge started on 20 March; and the bombardment of the rest of the sector on 4 April. Limited to a front of only , the bombardment used 2,689,000 shells, over a million more than had been used on the Somme. German casualties were not heavy but the men became exhausted by the endless task of keeping open dug-out entrances and demoralised by the absence of rations caused by the difficulties of preparing and moving hot food under bombardment. Some went without food altogether for two or three consecutive days. By the eve of battle, the front-line trenches had ceased to exist and their barbed wire defences were blown to pieces. The official history of the 2nd Bavarian Reserve Regiment describes the front line as "consisting no longer of trenches but of advanced nests of men scattered about". The 262nd Reserve Regiment history writes that its trench system was "lost in a crater field". To add to the misery, for the last ten hours of bombardment, gas shells were added.


title: Battle of Arras (1917)

text: Zero-Hour had originally been planned for the morning of 8 April (Easter Sunday) but it was postponed 24 hours at the request of the French, despite reasonably good weather in the assault sector. Zero-Day was rescheduled for 9 April with Zero-Hour at 05:30. The assault was preceded by a hurricane bombardment lasting five minutes, following a relatively quiet night. When the time came, it was snowing heavily; Allied troops advancing across no man's land were hindered by large drifts. It was still dark and visibility on the battlefield was very poor. A westerly wind was at the Allied soldiers' backs blowing "a squall of sleet and snow into the faces of the Germans". The combination of the unusual bombardment and poor visibility meant many German troops were caught unawares and taken prisoner, still half-dressed, clambering out of the deep dugouts of the first two lines of trenches. Others were captured without their boots, trying to escape but stuck in the knee-deep mud of the communication trenches.


title: Battle of Arras (1917)

text: The main British assault of the first day was directly east of Arras, with the 12th (Eastern) Division attacking Observation Ridge, north of the Arras–Cambrai road. After reaching this objective, they were to push on towards Feuchy, as well as the second and third lines of German trenches. At the same time, elements of the 3rd Division began an assault south of the road, with the Devil's Wood, Tilloy-lès-Mofflaines and the Bois des Boeufs as their initial objectives. The ultimate objective of these assaults was the , a trench running between Wancourt and Feuchy and an important component of the German defences. Most of these objectives, including Feuchy village, had been achieved by the evening of 10 April though the Germans were still in control of large sections of the trenches between Wancourt and Feuchy, particularly in the area of the fortified village of Neuville-Vitasse.


title: Battle of Arras (1917)

text: The following day, troops from the 56th (1/1st London) Division were able to force the Germans out of the village, although the was not fully in British hands until a few days later. The British were able to consolidate these gains and push forward towards Monchy-le-Preux, although they suffered many casualties in fighting near the village. One reason for the success of the offensive in this sector was the failure of Falkenhausen to employ a defence in depth. In theory, an attacker would be allowed to make initial gains, thus stretching their lines of communication. Reserves held close to the battlefield would be committed once the initial advance had bogged down, before enemy reinforcements could be brought up. The defenders would thus be able to counter-attack and regain any lost territory. In this sector, Falkenhausen kept his reserve troops too far from the front and they were too late for a useful counter-attack on either 10 or 11 April.


title: Battle of Arras (1917)

text: At roughly the same time, in perhaps the most carefully crafted portion of the entire offensive, the Canadian Corps launched an assault on Vimy Ridge. Advancing behind a creeping barrage and making heavy use of machine guns – eighty to each brigade, including one Lewis gun in each platoon – the corps was able to advance through about of German defences and captured the crest of the ridge at about 13:00. Military historians have attributed the success of this attack to careful planning by Canadian Corps commander Julian Byng and his subordinate General Arthur Currie, constant training and the assignment of specific objectives to each platoon. By giving units specific goals, troops could continue the attack even if their officers were killed or communication broke down, thus bypassing two major problems of combat on the Western Front. The Canadian troops could see the Germans in retreat across the Douai Plain away from the ridge. There was nevertheless an inflexibility to the plan which prevented the leading troops from continuing the advance and on 10 April the Germans began to stop the gaps with reserves.


title: Battle of Arras (1917)

text: After the territorial gains of the first two days, a lull followed as British guns, ammunition and transport links were moved forward. Battalions of pioneers built temporary roads across the churned up battlefield; heavy artillery (and its ammunition) was manhandled into position in new gun pits; food for the men and feed for the draught horses was brought up and Casualty Clearing Stations were established in readiness for the inevitable counter-attacks. Allied commanders also faced a dilemma: whether to keep their exhausted divisions on the attack and run the risk of having insufficient manpower or replace them with fresh divisions and lose momentum.


title: Battle of Arras (1917)

text: The news of the battle reached General Ludendorff during his 52nd birthday celebrations at his headquarters in Kreuznach who wrote, "I had looked forward to the expected offensive with confidence and was now deeply depressed". He telephoned each of his commanders and "gained the impression that the principles laid down by "OHL" were sound but the whole art of leadership lies in applying them correctly". (A later court of inquiry found that Falkenhausen had indeed misunderstood the principles of defence in depth.) Ludendorff immediately ordered reinforcements. On 11 April, he sacked Falkenhausen's chief of staff and replaced him with Loßberg. Loßberg went armed with (the right to issue orders in the army commander's name) and within hours, Loßberg began to restructure the German defence. The British aimed to consolidate the gains made in the first days of the offensive, to keep the initiative and to break through in concert with the French at Aisne. From 16 April, it was apparent that the French part of the Nivelle Offensive on the Aisne had not achieved a breakthrough. Haig continued to attack at Arras, to divert troops from the French on the Aisne.


title: Battle of Arras (1917)

text: At 04:45 on 23 April, following two days of poor visibility and freezing weather, British troops of the Third Army (VI and VII corps), attacked to the east along an approximate front from Croisilles to Gavrelle, on both sides of the Scarpe. The 51st (Highland) Division attacked on the northern side in determined fighting on the western outskirts of Roeux Wood and the chemical works. On their left, the 37th Division, attacked the buildings west of Roeux Station and gained the line of their objectives on the western slopes of Greenland Hill, north of the railway. On the left of the main British attack, the 63rd (Royal Naval) Division made rapid progress against Gavrelle and secured the village. To the south of the Scarpe and east of Monchy-le-Preux the 29th Division gained the western slopes of the rising ground known as Infantry Hill. The Cojeul river marked a divisional boundary within the VI Corps. Guémappe on the north side of the river was the objective of the 15th (Scottish) Division, attacking east from Wancourt towards Vis-en-Artois. The objective was commanded by the higher ground on the south bank and it was not until the 50th (Northumbrian) Division captured the rise on the south side of the Cojeul that the village was taken. Several determined German counter-attacks were made and by the morning of 24 April, the British held Guémappe, Gavrelle and the high ground overlooking Fontaine-lès-Croisilles and Cherisy; the fighting around Roeux was indecisive.


title: Battle of Arras (1917)

text: The principal objective of the attack was to tie down German reserves to assist the French offensive against the plateau north of the Aisne traversed by the Chemin des Dames. Haig reported,


title: Battle of Arras (1917)

text: Although the Canadian Corps had taken Vimy Ridge, difficulties in securing the south-eastern flank had left the position vulnerable. To rectify this, British and Canadian troops launched an attack towards Arleux on 28 April. The village was captured by Canadian troops with relative ease but the British troops advancing on Gavrelle met stiffer resistance. The village was secured by early evening but when a German counter-attack forced a brief retreat, elements of the 63rd (Royal Naval) Division were brought up as reinforcements and the village was held. Subsequent attacks on 29 April failed to capture more ground. The attacks achieved the limited objective of securing the Canadian position on Vimy Ridge but casualties were high and the result was disappointing.


title: Battle of Arras (1917)

text: After securing the area around Arleux at the end of April, the British determined to launch another attack east from Monchy to try to break through the and reach the , another German defensive position in the Douai Plain. This was scheduled to coincide with the Australian attack at Bullecourt to present the Germans with a two–pronged assault. British commanders hoped that success in this venture would force the Germans to retreat further to the east. The British launched another attack using regiments from the 4th Division near the Scarpe on 3 May. Neither effort made a significant advance and the attack was called off the following day after incurring many casualties. The British learned important lessons about the need for close liaison between tanks, infantry and artillery, which they used in the Battle of Cambrai, 1917.


title: Battle of Arras (1917)

text: The Hindenburg Line defences enclosing the village of Bullecourt formed a re-entrant for about to the (Balcony Trench) around Quéant, defended by the German 27th Division. On 8 April it was announced that wire cutting, begun on 5 April, would take another eight days. At dusk on 9 April, patrols went forward and found that the Hindenburg Line was occupied but that the wire cutting bombardment had made several lanes through the wire. Preparations were made in a rush, the 4th Australian Division to attack with two brigades, the 4th on the right and 12th on the left. The attack had to cover to the wire and another to the first trench at about an hour and 48 minutes before the sun rose to evade crossfire in the re-entrant between Quéant and Bullecourt. Artillery-fire would continue as normal until zero hour then maintain barrages ion the flanks.


title: Battle of Arras (1917)

text: At Bullecourt was subjected to a gas bombardment by Livens projectors and Stokes 4-inch mortars as the Australians assembled and waited for the tanks to arrive. Six battalions were out in the snow of no man's land. The left of the 12th Australian Brigade was only from Bullecourt and dawn was approaching. Zero hour was put back but the tanks had only reached Noreuil and Holmes ordered the infantry back under cover; snow began to fall again and shielded the retirement. Patrols of the 2/7th and 2/8th battalions, West Yorkshire Regiment began to advance from and at the patrols began to retire. The patrols suffered


title: Battle of Arras (1917)

text: At a conference at the 4th Australian Division HQ, it was decided that the infantry would advance fifteen minutes after the tanks, rather than wait on a signal from them. Only four tanks reached their start line by but drowning the sound of their engines with machine-gun fire failed and they were heard in the German defences. The tank on the right flank deviated to the right, suffered mechanical difficulties and returned to the railway. Another tank also veered right and crossed the first trench of the opposite Grenadier Regiment 123 and was knocked out by machine-guns firing armour-piercing (K bullet) ammunition. The next tank to reach the German lines was snagged by wire, then crossed the first trench before being knocked out. The last tank started late and followed a similar path to the first. The four tanks comprising the left-hand section were late and two were knocked out short of the German trenches; the third tank arrived behind the Australian infantry and silenced a machine-gun in Bullecourt. The tank was hit twice, returned to the railway and was hit again.


title: Battle of Arras (1917)

text: The Australian infantry in the German defences were cut off and the 4th Australian Brigade was forced back; many of its troops were taken prisoner and those who tried to retreat suffered many more casualties. In the 12th Australian Brigade, the 46th Australian Battalion in the first trench was forced out and the 48th Australian Battalion further forward was surrounded. The artillery of the 2nd Guard Division and 220th Division added to the barrage in no man's land and prevented another Australian attack. As the Australians were being forced back, they were unable to salvage ammunition and grenades from the dead and wounded. The British and Australian artillery had eventually begun to fire but this fell on the Australian-occupied trenches, making them untenable. At the 48th Australian Battalion, the last in the German trenches, made an orderly retreated over the bullet-swept ground. By noon the German counter-attack had succeeded; few Australians had managed to re-cross no man's land through artillery and machine-gun fire.


title: Battle of Arras (1917)

text: Observing that the 1st Australian Division was holding a frontage of , the local German corps commander General Otto von Moser, commanding (XIV Reserve Corps) planned a spoiling attack to drive back the advanced posts, destroy supplies and guns and then retire to the Hindenburg defences. OHL had added an extra division to his and added two more from to the south, further to strengthen the attack. The four divisions provided 23 battalions for (Operation Battering Ram). The German forces managed to penetrate the Australian front line at the junction on the 1st Australian Division and 2nd Australian Division, occupying the village of Lagnicourt and destroyed six Australian artillery pieces. Counter-attacks from the 9th and 20th Australian battalions restored the front line and the action ended with the Germans having suffered and the Australians .


title: Battle of Arras (1917)

text: After the initial assault around Bullecourt failed to penetrate the German lines, British commanders made preparations for a second attempt. British artillery began an intense bombardment of the village, which by 20 April had been virtually destroyed. Although the infantry assault was planned for 20 April, it was pushed back a number of times and finally set for the early morning of 3 May. At 03:45, elements of the 2nd Australian Division attacked east of Bullecourt village, intending to pierce the Hindenburg Line and capture Hendecourt-lès-Cagnicourt, while British troops from the 62nd (2nd West Riding) Division attacked Bullecourt, which was finally taken by the British 7th Division and despite determined effort by the Germans was held by the 62nd (2nd West Riding) Division. German resistance was fierce and when the offensive was called off on 17 May, few of the initial objectives had been met. The Australians were in possession of much of the German trench system between Bullecourt and Riencourt-lès-Cagnicourt but had been unable to capture Hendecourt. To the west, British troops managed to push the Germans out of Bullecourt but incurred considerable losses, failing also to advance north-east to Hendecourt.


title: Battle of Arras (1917)

text: By the standards of the Western Front, the gains of the first two days were nothing short of spectacular. A great deal of ground was gained for relatively few casualties and a number of tactically significant points were captured, notably Vimy Ridge. The offensive drew German troops away from the French offensive in the Aisne sector. In many respects, the battle might be deemed a victory for the British and their allies but these gains were offset by high casualties after the first two days and the failure of the French offensive at the Aisne. By the end of the offensive, the British had suffered more than 150,000 casualties and gained little ground since the first day. Despite significant early gains, they were unable to break through and the situation reverted to stalemate. Although historians generally consider the battle a British victory, in the wider context of the front, it had very little impact on the strategic or tactical situation. Ludendorff later commented "no doubt exceedingly important strategic objects lay behind the British attack but I have never been able to discover what they were". Ludendorff was also "very depressed; had our principles of defensive tactics proved false and if so, what on Earth


title: Battle of Arras (1917)

text: On the Allied side, twenty-five Victoria Crosses were awarded. On the German side, on 24 April 1917, Kaiser Wilhelm awarded Loßberg the Oakleaves (similar to a bar for a repeat award) for the Pour le Mérite he had received at the Battle of the Somme the previous September.


title: Battle of Arras (1917)

text: The most quoted Allied casualty figures are those in the returns made by Lieutenant-General Sir George Fowke, Haig's adjutant-general. His figures collate the daily casualty tallies kept by each unit under Haig's command. Third Army casualties were 87,226; First Army 46,826 (including 11,004 Canadians at Vimy Ridge) and Fifth Army 24,608, a total of 158,660. German losses are more difficult to determine. and suffered 79,418 casualties but the figures for are incomplete. The writers of the German Official History , recorded casualties, losses to the end of April and another by the end of May, a total of German records excluded those "lightly wounded". Captain Cyril Falls, the author of "Military Operations France and Belgium 1917*" (the History of the Great War volume on the battle) estimated that 30 per cent needed to be added to German returns for comparison with the British. Falls made "a general estimate" that German casualties were "probably fairly equal". Nicholls puts them at 120,000 and Keegan at 130,000.


title: Battle of Arras (1917)

text: Although Haig paid tribute to Allenby for the "great initial success"; Allenby's subordinates "objected to the way he handled the ... attritional stage" and he was sent to command the Egyptian Expeditionary Force in Palestine. He regarded the transfer as a "badge of failure" but "more than redeemed his reputation by defeating" the Ottomans in battles that were fought in the Sinai and Palestine campaign from 1917 to 1918. Haig stayed in his post until the end of the war. When the failures of the 6th Army command became apparent, Ludendorff removed Falkenhausen (who never held a field command again, spending the rest of the war as Governor-General of Belgium) and several staff officers. Ludendorff and Loßberg discovered that although the Allies were capable of breaking through the first position, they could probably not capitalise on their success if they were confronted by a mobile, clever defence. Ludendorff immediately ordered more training in manoeuvre warfare for the divisions. Loßberg was soon promoted to general and directed the defensive battle of the 4th Army against the Flanders Offensive of the summer and late autumn; he had become "legendary as the fireman of the Western Front; always sent by OHL to the area of crisis".


title: Battle of Arras (1917)

text: Siegfried Sassoon makes reference to the battle in the poem . The Anglo-Welsh lyric poet Edward Thomas was killed by a shell on 9 April 1917, during the first day of the Easter Offensive. Thomas's war diary gives a vivid and poignant picture of life on the Western front in the months leading up to the battle. C. K. Scott Moncrieff, the translator of Proust, was severely wounded on 23 April 1917 leading an assault on the German trenches outside Monchy-le-Preux (for which he was awarded the MC), while the composer Ernest John Moeran was wounded during the attack on Bullecourt on 3 May 1917.


title: Historicism

text: Historicism is an approach to explaining the existence of phenomena, especially social and cultural practices (including ideas and beliefs), by studying their history, that is, by studying the process by which they came about. The term is widely used in philosophy, anthropology, and sociology.


title: Historicism

text: This historical approach to explanation differs from and complements the approach known as functionalism, which seeks to explain a phenomenon, such as for example a social form, by providing reasoned arguments about how that social form fulfills some function in the structure of a society. In contrast, rather than taking the phenomenon as a given and then seeking to provide a justification for it from reasoned principles, the historical approach asks "Where did this come from?" and "What factors led up to its creation?"; that is, historical explanations often place a greater emphasis on the role of process and contingency.


title: Historicism

text: Historicism is often used to help contextualize theories and narratives, and is a useful tool to help understand how social and cultural phenomena came to be.


title: Historicism

text: The historicist approach differs from individualist theories of knowledge such as strict empiricism and de-contextualised rationalism, which neglect the role of traditions. Historicism may be contrasted with reductionist theories—which assume that all developments can be explained by fundamental principles (such as in economic determinism)—or with theories that posit that historical changes occur entirely at random.


title: Historicism

text: The term "historicism" ("Historismus") was coined by German philosopher Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel. Over time, what historicism is and how it is practiced have developed different and divergent meanings. Elements of historicism appear in the writings of French essayist Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592) and Italian philosopher G. B. Vico (1668–1744), and became more fully developed with the dialectic of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831), influential in 19th-century Europe. The writings of Karl Marx, influenced by Hegel, also include historicism. The term is also associated with the empirical social sciences and with the work of Franz Boas. Historicism tends to be hermeneutic because it values cautious, rigorous, and contextualized interpretation of information; or relativist, because it rejects notions of universal, fundamental and immutable interpretations.


title: Historicism

text: Hegel viewed the realization of human freedom as the ultimate purpose of history, which could be achieved only through the creation of the perfect state. Historical progress toward this state would occur through a dialectical process: the tension between the purpose of humankind (freedom) and humankind's current condition would produce the attempt by humankind to change its condition to one more in accord with its nature. However, because humans are often not aware of the goal of humanity and history, the process of achieving freedom is necessarily one of self-discovery.


title: Historicism

text: Hegel saw progress toward freedom as conducted by the "spirit" (Geist), a seemingly supernatural force that directs all human actions and interactions. Yet Hegel makes clear that the spirit is a mere abstraction and comes into existence "through the activity of finite agents." Thus, Hegel's determining forces of history may not have a metaphysical nature, though many of his opponents and interpreters have understood him as holding metaphysical and determinist views.


title: Historicism

text: Hegel's historicism also suggests that any human society and all human activities such as science, art, or philosophy, are defined by their history. Consequently, their essence can be sought only by understanding said history. The history of any such human endeavor, moreover, not only continues but also reacts against what has gone before; this is the source of Hegel's famous dialectic teaching usually summarized by the slogan "thesis, antithesis, and synthesis". (Hegel did not use these terms, although Johann Fichte did.) Hegel's famous aphorism, "Philosophy is the history of philosophy," describes it bluntly.