History.

The Mumbai Suburban Railway is an offshoot of the first passenger railway to be built by the British East India Company, and is also the oldest railway system in Asia. The first train was run by the Great Indian Peninsula Railway (now Central Railway) between Bori Bunder (now Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus) and Thane, a distance of 34 km, on 16 April 1853 at 15:35. The 14-coach train took 1.25 h to complete the 34 km journey, with a halt at Sion to refill the train's water tanks.  The next major train was run between Virar and Churchgate by the Bombay, Baroda and Central India Railway (now Western Railway), in April 1867. Colaba was also added as a station on this route, but later shut down. On 3 February 1925, the first EMU Service was started from Victoria Terminus (now Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus) to Coorla Harbour (now Kurla) on the Central line which was run on 1.5 kV DC traction and also started on the Western line from Churchgate to Borivali on 5 January 1928. By 2016, the entire network had been converted to 25 kV 50 Hz AC traction.  The "Bombay Railway History Group" has been striving to document railway heritage along these lines.

Rolling stock.

The suburban services are run by electric multiple units (EMUs) in 191 rakes (train sets) of 12-car and 15-car composition. To alleviate the problems of overcrowding, the nine-car trains have been phased out and replaced with 12-car ones. 15-coach trains were introduced on 21 November 2009. However, these are few in number. Equipment makers include DMU(Direct Multiple Unit), Jessop, Siemens, Bombardier, and Medha. The trains are manufactured at the Integral Coach Factory in Chennai, Tamil Nadu. All routes are electrified at power supply from overhead lines. The Indian Railways plans to build a 700 MW gas-based plant in Thakurli to generate electricity to run the Mumbai trains.

Manufacturing.

The current fleet of both the Western and Central railways features increasingly fewer old rakes built by BEML, BHEL, ICF (Perambur) which are capable of a maximum speed of 85 km/h, MRVC Siemens Rakes which are capable of and 100 km/h and ICF built Bombardier rakes capable of running at speeds of 120 km/h under light traffic conditions. The actual average speed of the rakes on the slow lines is about 35 km/h, while rakes on fast lines average about 45–50 km/h on a typical run.  On 12 November 2007, the first of 129 new 12-coach rakes with upgraded facilities was inducted into the fleet of the Western Railways under the MUTP project. The coaches are built of stainless steel, and have non-cushioned seats, emergency fluorescent lights, bigger windows with polycarbonate panes, better suspension systems, roof-mounted forced ventilation to reduce carbon dioxide levels in packed trains, and GPS based passenger information systems in all coaches. The new rakes are much cooler and airy than the old EMUs. The motors of the new rakes also make less noise than the older ones. Since 2010 the front of the EMUs is painted yellow so that the maintenance workers on the tracks can see the train easily. These rakes have been procured under the project at a total cost of 19 billion (US$431.0 million). Five Siemens rakes that had to be delivered as part of the first phase were sent to the city in early January 2014.  New EMUs with Bombardier Electrical procured under the World Bank-funded Mumbai Urban Transport Project-2 built at the Integral Coach Factory (ICF) in Chennai started arriving into Mumbai by April 2014. The first of these trains, to be run on Western Railway, was, however, flagged off by Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu at Lokmanya Tilak Terminus, Kurla on Central Railway on Sunday, 27 October 2013. However, a delay of two years was anticipated due to the demands of automatic sliding doors on the trains. Under the Make in India initiative, the first Indian-made rake was made by Medha. Nine-car trains have a capacity of 2,628 (876 seated and 1,752 standing). Twelve-car trains have a capacity of 3,504 (1,168 seated and 2,336 standing). In fall 2013, brand new 12-car rakes were introduced on the railway. Recently new UTTAM RAKES Were manufactured by ICF.

Air-conditioned rakes.

Discussion on AC Coaches first began in 2002 and was planned to be introduced in 2013. However, major delays in finalizing the rakes' design and procurement of material deferred the project.  The first air-conditioned rake for use on the suburban system was built by the Integral Coach Factory in Chennai-BHEL EMU at a cost of over, and arrived in Mumbai on 5 April 2016. The rake has a seating capacity of 1,028 passengers, and standing room for up to 6,000 passengers. The 12 coach rake is configured as two sets of six interconnected bogies, meaning passengers can walk between coaches but only up to a maximum of 6 coaches. The train is also equipped with a new electrical system and software, automatic doors with emergency opening features, and GPS-based destination display on LED indicators. The old system of pulling a chain to halt the train was replaced by four intercoms per coach that enable commuters to communicate with the driver.  Both CR and WR competed to acquire the rake, with WR even announcing a time table for operating the air-conditioned rake. Union Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu announced that the rake would be transferred to CR on 16 March 2016. However, at a height of 4.335 metres the rake exceeds the maximum clearance height of 4.270 metres for EMU coaches on the Central Line. In particular, the rake cannot clear some of the low height British-era bridges between CST and Kurla. Then Central Railway general manager Sunil Kumar Sood insisted that CR was conduct trials and operate the rake on the Harbour Line. After acquiring the rake, CR conducted tests, safety, and mobility checks, and trial runs under the supervision of the RDSO. However, following Sood's retirement, CR abandoned plans to operate the rake in December 2016. CR informed the Railway Board that it could not operate the rake due to the clearance issue, and the Railway Board directed them to transfer the rake to WR. The rake was transferred to WR on 12 May 2017. WR General Manager Anil Kumar Gupta stated that rake would begin commercial operations on the Western Line after WR conducted its own tests and trial runs and receiving regulatory approvals. Although there are some clearance issues on the Western Line as well, Gupta stated that these could be rectified.  The First AC EMU was Flagged off on 25 December 2017. The first and only AC local train in Mumbai so far began operation in December 2017 and crossed the 10 lakh passenger mark within the first five months. The summer months of March and April saw over 3 lakh passengers take the AC local each month. The train, operated by Western Railway (WR), currently plies between Churchgate and Virar. It has a seating capacity of 1,028 seats and can carry 5,964 passengers. The monthly pass on the AC local train will cost between Rs570 to Rs820 (till Bandra) to Rs1,240 (till Andheri) to Rs1,640 (till Borivali), capping at Rs2,040 till Virar. Seven new halts were introduced after commuters demand at Marine Lines, Charni Road, Grant Road, Dahisar, Mira Road. Data shows that among all the stations between Churchgate and Virar. Borivali was the highest earner for the Ac train. Monthly earning of Ac train is approximately 71 lakhs per month after adding seven new halts.  Second Air – conditioned rake on Mumbai Suburban Rail Network & first for Central Railway has been commissioned on Transharbour line from Thane to Panvel / Vashi from 31 January 2020.

Network.

The Mumbai Suburban Railway system is operated by Indian Railways' two zonal divisions Western Railways (WR) and Central Railways (CR). The fast commuter rail corridors on Central Railway as well as Western Railway are shared with long-distance and freight trains, while inner suburban services operate on exclusive parallel tracks. WR operates the Western Line and CR operates the Central Line, Harbour Line, Trans-Harbour Line as well as the Vasai Road-Bhiwandi-Diva-Panvel line.

Central Line.

The Central Line in Mumbai consists of 3 major corridors, which bifurcate as they run into suburban satellite towns. Two corridors (one local and other through) follow the Central Railway run from Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus (CSMT) to Kalyan (54 km), from where it bifurcates into two lines – one to Kasara (65 km) in the north-east and the other to Khopoli (61 km) in the south-east. These two corridors constitute the'main' Central Line. There is also an 18-km corridor between Kurla and Thane stations for use of outstation and cargo trains. The outstation corridor is being extended further from Thane to Kalyan now as a part of the main line, but is halted because of the costs of tunnelling the parsik hills.  The Central Line has two interchange stations with the Western Line at Parel and Dadar and the Harbour line at Masjid, Sandhurst Road and Kurla. Rolling stock consists of a fleet of AC and Alternate Current new Bombardier and Siemens EMUs. The major car sheds on this line are at Kurla and Kalwa. There are fast and slow locals here for suburban service. Slow locals halt at every station, while fast locals halts vary between Byculla, Dadar, Kurla, Ghatkopar, Vikhroli, Bhandup, Mulund, Thane, Diva, Dombivali and Kalyan. All services plying beyond Kalyan run as slow service (halting at every station).

Western Line.

The Western Line follows the Western Railway northwards from Churchgate parallel to the west coast. Local services by electric multiple units (EMUs) ply between Churchgate and Dahanu (124 km) on exclusive parallel tracks up to Virar (60 km) while Mainline Electrical Multiple Units (MEMUs) service the section beyond Virar to Dahanu Road (64 km). On 16 April 2013 EMU has extended up to Dahanu Road. MEMUs also operate between Dahanu Road and Panvel via a branch line from Bhiwandi road-Vasai Road. There are EMU carsheds at Mumbai Central, Kandivali and Virar. The largest EMU car shed in Asia is located at Virar. A repair shop for EMUs is situated at Mahalaxmi.  Western Railway's EMU fleet consists of EMUs completely powered by alternating current (25 kV) power. EMUs are 12 car or 15 car formations and are differentiated as slow and fast locals. Slow trains halt at all stations, while fast ones halt at important stations only and are preferable over longer distances.

Harbour Line.

The Harbour Line is part of the Central Railway, and runs from Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus (CSTM) to Goregaon and Panvel. All Harbour Line services operate as slow services. The line operates from two separate platforms at Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus (CSTM), and the tracks cross over the main line at Sandhurst Road, to head towards stations along Mumbai's eastern dock area. A branch line from Wadala Road joins the Western Line at Mahim and continues towards Goregaon.  The Harbour Line has an interchange station with the main line at Kurla, where it turns east towards Navi Mumbai. The Harbour Line further bifurcates at Vashi into two lines – one rejoins the main lines at Thane, while the other continues to Panvel. The shed for these trains is in Sanpada. A partial section of the Harbour Line is elevated.

Trans-Harbour Line.

The Trans-Harbour Line connects Navi Mumbai to Thane. It runs from Thane to Vashi, Nerul and Panvel.

Nerul–Uran Line.

The Nerul-Uran Line connects Navi Mumbai to Uran. It runs from Nerul and Seawoods Darave to Uran.

Services.

Mumbai Suburban Railway services have trains with three main designations:

Travel classes.

The suburban fleet consists of 12 and 15-coach rakes. There are two main classes of travel; the First and Second classes. The first class fare is approximately 8 times more expensive than second class, and therefore tends to be less crowded during the non rush hours, though at times it is equally or more crowded than the general compartments during rush hour, due to most office employees having a first class transport pass provided by their employer. First class and Senior Citizen compartments also have cushioned seating, while the rest are typically plastic. There are following classes of travel:  There are also women-only cars (termed "ladies"), and since 1992, "Ladies Special" trains with the entire trainset reserved for women passengers. A semi ladies special is a train with a few (e.g., 3) coaches reserved for women. These designations can be combined with "fast", "slow", etc., with terms such as "Slow Ladies Special".

Air-Conditioning.

The Mumbai Suburban Railways are known for their open doors and windows. This is because there is no ventilation system on the trains, and the train relies on natural air ventilation. This was introduced as a cost-saving measure, as an Air-Conditioning system would be rendered useless during rush hour. Leaving the doors open also allows for a fast boarding process, as the trains stop for only 10 seconds, to combat overcrowding. In 2016, the Indian Railways manufactured first local train for journey (particularly for hot and humid summer season). This rake is manufactured at Integral Coach factory, Chennai. It has several new facilities, such as connected vestibules, cushioned seats and sliding doors. It runs from Virar to Churchgate, AC trains are fast locals and started their run at 1 January 2018.

Ticketing.

The Mumbai Suburban Railway uses a proof-of-payment fare collection system. Tickets can be purchased at every train station. Travelling without a valid ticket is an offence and if caught can result in a penalty. The penalty is steeper for passengers travelling in first class without a valid ticket.  Tickets can be bought for a single journey (one way) or a return journey. A return ticket is valid till the next day on weekdays and till Monday if purchased on a Friday. The ticket counters usually have long queues.  Tourist tickets are valid for one, three, or five days that can be purchased up to three days in advance.  Platform Tickets are required to be purchased by those members of the public not boarding trains, but who wish to access the platforms at all stations, perhaps for the purpose of receiving or seeing off a passenger and also to use footbridges. These cost. A person can be penalised for non-possession of this ticket.  To save time, a Coupon Booklet can be purchased and the coupons can be punched for the designated fare at Coupon Validating Machines (CVMs) at every station. The ticket fares matrix is pasted above the CVM. As of October 2012, there are approximately 575 CVMs on Mumbai Suburban Railway stations. The Central Railway network has 350 and the Western Line has 225.  In early 2015, the authorities decided to discontinue CVMs w.e.f 1 April 2015. This decision was taken due to extensive duplication of the coupons, and the lack of transparency. The coupons were also lacking a way to trace them.  There are also Smart Cards available that can be topped up (recharged with some amount) and one can use it to print tickets for themselves from an Automatic Ticket Vending Machine (ATVMs). A Season Ticket can be purchased if one is commuting regularly. One can choose the validity of these tickets from 1-month, 3 months to a year. Season Tickets are the most cost-effective and time-efficient option for regular commuters.  The ticket counters usually have long queues. In order to bring a solution to this problem, the UTSOnMobile app was launched by railways minister Suresh Prabhu at Dadar railway station in December 2014. This app was launched initially for Android and Windows Phone, with the iOS version developed later.  To use this app, the user has to sign up with his/her mobile number. After signing up, the user has the option to load the prepaid RWallet built in the app, using credit/debit cards, net banking, IMPS or private mobile based apps. After the RWallet is loaded, the app can be used to book tickets on the entire network. Alternatively, the user may book tickets directly using credit/debit cards, net banking, IMPS, UPI, or various digital wallets such as PayTM, MobiKwik etc. for payments within the app without having to load the prepaid RWallet.  Initially, the ticket booked on the app had to be printed from the ATVMs. This step was found tedious by the commuters and was criticised. Later, in July 2015, an update for the app was launched, which made e-tickets acceptable. The update also brought technical changes, like, the tickets could be booked only within a radius of 30m to 5 km of the origin station, and not from the platform. This move was well-received by commuters, which resulted in over 50,000 downloads on the launch day.

Security.

The Railway Protection Force (RPF) and the Government Railway Police (GRP) are responsible for the Security of the Mumbai Suburban Railway.  The RPF is a security force under the authority of the Indian Ministry of Railways established by the Railway Protection Force Act, 1957 has the power to search, arrest, investigate and prosecute, though the ultimate power rests in the hands of the GRP.  The GRP is the main police force established by the "Railways Act, 1989". The GRP's responsibility is to observe law and order on all railway property. The force is under joint-control of the Indian Ministry of Railways and the Maharashtra Police. Its duties correspond to those of the District Police in the areas under their jurisdiction, such as patrolling, but only on railway property. It also aids and provides assistance to the Railway Protection Force

Safety issues.

Doors.

The Mumbai Suburban Railway is known for its open doors and windows. This is because there is no ventilation system on the trains and the train relies on natural air ventilation. This was introduced as a cost-saving measure, as an Air-Conditioning system would be rendered useless during rush hour. Leaving the doors open also allows for a fast boarding process and turnaround time, as the trains stop for only 10 seconds, and are at most 5 minutes apart, to combat overcrowding. Passengers often end up hanging off the edge of the footboard, off door ledges and during rush hour can lose balance and fall to their death. Teenagers and adults also attempt to perform stunts off the doorway and door ladders, thus risking their life. Windows also have a wired grill on them, to prevent theft and chain snatching. However, passengers frequently spit "paan", mava and gutka while hanging off doors, which ends up entering through the open window grills. There are also numerous records of people tripping and falling down everyday while getting on and off the train, when the train is in motion, thus resulting in injury.

Overcrowding.

Due to its extensive reach across the Mumbai Metropolitan Region, and its intensive use by the local urban population, the Mumbai Suburban Railway suffers from the most severe overcrowding in the world. Over 4,500 passengers are packed into a 12-car or 15-car rake during peak hours, as against the rated carrying capacity of around 2,000. This has resulted in what is known as "Super-Dense Crush Load" of 14 to 16 standing passengers per square metre of floor space.

Fatalities.

On average, about 2,000 people die annually on the Mumbai Suburban Rail network; between 2002 and 2012, more than 36,152 people died and 36,688 people were injured. A record 17 people died every weekday on the city's suburban railway network in 2008. One of the reason for accidents and deaths is overcrowding (see above). Another cause of death is passengers crossing the tracks on foot to avoid footbridges. Some passengers die when they sit on train roofs to avoid the crowds and are electrocuted by overhead electric cables, or fall while hanging from doors and window bars. However, the fatality rates have declined recently. To reduce the risk of such fatalities, longer platforms and more frequent trains are being implemented.  Central Railways in association with a behaviour architecture firm deployed neuroscience based interventions at the Wadala station, reducing fatalities by about 75%. Times of India carried a news item regarding the success of this experiment.  In 2010, Western Railway has pledged that its trains will stop running if "even a single person" is seen travelling on the roof.  In mid-2011 a viral video depicted a youth performing stunts while dangling from the compartment of a Harbour Line train. Following this, a boy was killed while imitating the actions performed in the video.  The Western and Central Railways have been using the Auxiliary Warning System (AWS), a type of Train Protection & Warning System (TPWS), since 1996.  The Central Railway and Western Railway introduced a Blue Light (Virtual Gate) concept, The Blue beam light unit which will be mounted on the top of each Gate, which Guide the Commuter for Safe Boarding, avoid overcrowding and Safe clearance in the Platforms. It also helps to create a Cultural Transformation in the Behavior of the Commuter.

Terrorism.

The Mumbai Suburban Railway has suffered 8 blasts and around 368 people are believed to have died as a result.

Tourism.

Tourist usage of the Mumbai Suburban Railways has seen popularity as a way to explore the day-to-day life of the city, and as such, the Central Railway has issued circulars advising tourists not to travel in the trains from 07:00 to 11:00 and 17:00 to 22:00 during weekdays because of overcrowding.

Employment.

The Mumbai Suburban railway in addition to being such a huge part of the commuters life provides huge employment opportunities for people. Apart from the government jobs provided it also provides an opportunity for people who own small businesses to test out their products in these railways.

Expansion.

To enable the Mumbai Suburban Railway to meet the demands of the ever-growing passenger traffic, the federal Government of India's Ministry of Railways and the state Government of Maharashtra have jointly envisioned the constitution of a separate corporate entity to operate the system.  The Mumbai Railway Vikas Corporation Ltd (MRVC), a public sector unit of the Government of India under the Ministry of Railways, was incorporated under the (Indian) Companies Act, 1956 on 12 July 1999, with an equity capital of to implement the rail component of an integrated rail-cum-road urban transport project, called Mumbai Urban Transport Project (MUTP). The cost of the rail component of the project is to be shared equally by the Ministry of Railways and the Government of Maharashtra.  Mumbai Railway Vikas Corporation (MRVC) under the Mumbai Urban Transport Project-II is extending the Harbour Line up to Goregaon. Service began as of 29 March 2018. Further extension of this line has been accepted under MUTP III till Borivali.  CR has proposed constructing a 22.5 km line linking Seawoods Darave with Uran. The proposed line would have 10 stations.  CR has proposed a service from to, giving a boost to commuters to and from Nasik, since there are currently only three Intercity trains to Manmad (Godavari Express, Panchvati Express and Manmad Rajya Rani Express) operating from Mumbai. This distance is 132 km regular, meeting the Indian Railways criteria for EMU services CR has announced that it will carry out trial runs, however it has difficulty due to the Kasara ghat tunnels.

In popular culture.

Film.

The Mumbai Suburban Railway has regularly been used for film shoots. Some movies that have used the Mumbai Suburban Railway for filming are:

The Mumbai Suburban Railway (colloquially called local trains or simply locals) consists of exclusive inner suburban railway lines augmented by commuter rail on main lines serving outlying suburbs to serve the Mumbai Metropolitan Region. Spread over, the suburban railway operates 2,342 train services and carries more than 7.5 million commuters daily. By annual ridership (2.64 billion), the Mumbai Suburban Railway is one of the busiest commuter rail systems in the world. Trains run from 04:00 until 01:00, and some trains also run up to 02:30. It is the second largest suburban rail network in terms of route length after the Kolkata Suburban Railway.


Early life and career.

Hoàng was born in Cót, in the Từ Liêm District of Vietnam, one of seven children of fabric merchant Hoàng Thuc Tan. Her mother died when she was eight years old, and she was raised by a stepmother. She has also frequently been said to be the granddaughter of Vietnamese mathematician Hoàng Xuân Hãn. She completed a bachelor's degree in 1951 in Hanoi, studying English and French, and then traveled to Paris for a second baccalaureate in mathematics. She stayed in France to study for an "agrégation" at the University of Toulouse, which she completed in 1959, before returning to Vietnam to become a mathematics teacher at the Hanoi National University of Education. Hoàng became the first female mathematician in Vietnam and at that time was one of a very small number of mathematicians there with a foreign education.

Work with Grothendieck.

The French mathematician and pacifist Alexander Grothendieck visited North Vietnam in late 1967, during the Vietnam War, and spent a month teaching mathematics to the Hanoi University mathematics department staff, including Hoàng, who took the notes for the lectures. Because of the war, Grothendieck's lectures were held away from Hanoi, first in the nearby countryside and later in Đại Từ. After Grothendieck returned to France, he continued to teach Hoàng as a correspondence student. She earned her doctorate under Grothendieck's supervision from Paris Diderot University in 1975, with a handwritten thesis. Her thesis research, on algebraic structures based on categorical groups but with a group law that holds only up to isomorphism, prefigured much of the modern theory of 2-groups.

Later accomplishments.

When she was promoted to full professor Hoàng became the first female full professor in Vietnam in any scientific or technical field. In 1988 she founded the first private university in Vietnam, Thang Long University in Hanoi, and became the president of its board of directors.

Recognition.

In 2003 she was awarded France's "Ordre des Palmes Académiques" for her "contributions to boosting cooperation in culture and science between the two nations" of France and Vietnam.

Hoàng Xuân Sính (born September 8, 1933) is a Vietnamese mathematician, a student of Grothendieck, the first female mathematician in Vietnam, the founder of Thang Long University, and the recipient of the "Ordre des Palmes Académiques".


Gameplay.

The player's goal in each level is to search for notes and logs from the hospital's past, referred to as "remnants", by looking for markings using glow sticks. Once all remnants in a level have been collected, the player is able to acquire a "sigil", an item of significance to the hospital's past, such as a teddy bear and a Bible. Bringing the sigil to "the Seal of Shadows" will unlock the next part of the building, allowing the player to advance further into the hospital and, possibly, to freedom.  Discovering remnants can cause a marking on her arm, which attracts the dangerous "shadow people". The player can either make them disappear by using flares or lose them by running away. The player cannot access any weapons; the only tools available are glowsticks, flares, and a cell phone. The environment layout is randomly generated. The enemies and other antagonists are procedurally spawned.  The game's interface includes the number of remnants the player has to find and the threat level in the hospital. As threat level increases, monsters are more likely to appear.

Plot.

The plot is centered around a woman named Sarah who regains consciousness in an abandoned hospital with no memory of how she got there. A mysterious voice tells her to find the secrets of the hospital. With a cell phone, which is her map, she must explore the haunted hospital and its criminal past in order to escape.

Reception.

"Daylight" received mixed reviews from critics. Aggregating review website Metacritic gave the PC version 51/100, and the PlayStation 4 version 48/100. "GameZone" Joe Donato opined ""Daylight" accomplishes nothing. Its attempt to expand on the "" formula is only enjoyable for as long as you'd ever want to play Slender anyway, and it isn't nearly as effective."

Daylight is a survival horror video game developed by Zombie Studios and published by Atlus for Microsoft Windows and PlayStation 4. It was the first game to be powered by Unreal Engine 4.


History.

As a consequence of the result of the December 2016 constitutional referendum, in which the Senate reform was rejected, the two chambers of the Italian Parliament ended up with two different electoral laws, which lacked uniformity. As a matter of fact, the electoral law for the Chamber of Deputies passed by Matteo Renzi's government, the so-called "Italicum", based on a strong winner-take-all principle, was still in effect, whereas in the Senate a pure proportional system (the remnants of the so-called "Porcellum", the electoral law approved by the cabinet of Silvio Berlusconi in 2005 and then declared extensively unconstitutional by the Constitutional Court in January 2014) was in force. The two systems differed on several aspects, among which the possibility of forming coalitions before the elections (only allowed at the Senate) and the election thresholds.  In June 2017, the Democratic Party together with the Five Star Movement, Forza Italia and Lega Nord agreed on a law, known as "Tedeschellum", which was based on a similar system to the one used in Germany. However, the agreement among the four parties did not survive a secret-ballot vote during the first reading at the Chamber of Deputies and the bill was put aside.  After few weeks Ettore Rosato, the leader of the group of the Democratic Party at the Chamber of Deputies, proposed a new bill based on a mixed system, with half of the seats allocated using the first-past-the-post and the other half using a proportional allocation. The bill was not popular in its original version, since several opposition parties considered the number of seats allocated with the FPTP system too high.  A later and revised version of the "Rosatellum", known as "Rosatellum bis" was approved by PD, FI, LN, AP and ALA in October 2017, becoming the new electoral law for both the houses of the Parliament.

Main characteristics and operation.

The national elections use a parallel voting system, with 36.% of seats allocated using a first-past-the-post electoral system and 63.% using a proportional method (the latter including the seats allocated to Italians abroad), with one round of voting. The Senate and the Chamber of Deputies did not differ in the way they allocated the proportional seats, both using the largest remainder method of allocating seats.  The Senate of the Republic included 315 elected members, of whom:  The Senate is elected on a single ballot. The ballot includes the district's member, on a purely plurality basis and the parties and party-lists were listed that supported him, which was used to determine the proportional seats, allocated within one single national constituency, with a 3% minimum threshold for party representation.  The Chamber of Deputies had 630 members, of whom  As the Senate, the Chamber of Deputies is elected on a single ballot.  The complicated mechanism known as scorporo, which was used to tabulate PR votes in the "Mattarellum", was abolished in the new electoral law.  The law also re-introduced a closed list system for the party lists on the second ballot, i.e., excluding voters from the decision as to which members of that party would enter parliament, thereby guaranteeing reelection of party leaders whose popular support was rapidly declining (new elections were to be held once the new electoral law was fully implemented).

Voting paper.

The voting paper, which is a single one for the first-past-the-post and the proportional systems, shows the names of the candidates to single-member constituencies and, in close conjunction with them, the symbols of the linked lists for the proportional part, each one with a list of the relative candidates.  The voter will be able to cast his vote in three different ways:  In an effort to mitigate fragmentation, split-ticket voting is not allowed.

Adaptation to constitutional reform.

Law 51/2019 was meant to adapt the "Rosatellum" to a reduction of the number of seats in both houses of the Italian Parliament. It became law on 26 June 2019. It has been called a "riformina electorale", or little electoral reform.  A constitutional amendment procedure was initiated during the 18th legislature by the Five Stars Movement, to cut the size of both houses by more than a third (from 630 and 315 members, to 400 and 200). To avoid incompatibility with the proposed amendment, the 2019 law adapts the "Rosatellum" law, and sets fractions for each type of seat (proportional or majoritary) instead of exact numbers. The ratio of single-winner districts over the total number of seats in "Rosatellum" was equal to 3/8 in both houses, and the law 51/2019 retains those proportions.  Besides the Five Stars Movement, the law was supported by the League and was opposed by the Democratic Party, until it joined the Conte II Cabinet in August 2019.

Previous systems.

Italicum (2015–2017).

The Italian electoral law of 2015, better known as "Italicum", a name given to it in 2014 by the Democratic Party secretary and subsequently head of government Matteo Renzi, who was its main proponent (until the end of January 2015 with the support of Forza Italia's leader Silvio Berlusconi) provides for a two-round system based on party-list proportional representation (the former being ruled out as unconstitutional), corrected by a majority bonus and a 3% election threshold. Candidates run for election in 100 multi-member constituencies with open lists, except for a single candidate chosen by each party who is the first to be elected.  The law, which came into force on 1 July 2016, regulates the election of the Chamber of Deputies, replacing the previous electoral law of 2005, modified by the Constitutional Court in December 2013 after judging it partly unconstitutional.  The law was written under the assumption that, by the time it came into force, the upper house would have become an indirectly-elected body representing regions, with greatly reduced powers, thus making a reform of its electoral system unnecessary. The upper-house reform, rejected in the 4 December 2016 Constitutional Referendum, was originally assumed to be adopted without a Referendum by 1 July 2016.  It is the first electoral law approved by the Italian Parliament but never used in a general election.

History.

The electoral law passed by the centre-right government in 2005 immediately received widespread criticism: among other things, critics called into question the use of long closed lists of candidates (which gave party executives great power in deciding the composition of the Parliament), and the regional mechanism of allocation of seats in the Senate (which made the existence of a "clear winner" of the elections less likely).  After two unsuccessful attempts at repealing the law by referendum, in the 2013 general election the law failed to produce a majority in the Senate; as a consequence, the only way to form a government was by means of a grand coalition between left-wing and right-wing parties that had harshly fought each other in the election. The resulting Letta Cabinet was perceived by many people as the second "unelected government" in a row (after the Monti Cabinet).  While the coalition agreed that a new electoral law was needed, it failed to agree on a specific model. The Democratic Party executive and prime minister Enrico Letta even went as far as requesting that his party vote against a parliamentary initiative by fellow democrat Roberto Giachetti to restore the previous Mattarella law. This was probably done out of concern that the grand coalition supporting his government would not hold.  On 4 December 2013, the Constitutional Court judged the electoral law of 2005 partly unconstitutional: in particular, its unlimited majority bonus was repealed. This made an electoral reform ever more urgent, since proportional representation without majoritarian correction is thought to be incompatible with the competitive party system of Italy.  A few days after, on 8 December 2013, Matteo Renzi became the new leader of the Democratic Party. In his victory speech, he vowed to change the electoral law against the risk of ""stabilized grand coalitions"". Renzi's initiative ultimately led to him taking Letta's place as the prime minister. Finally, Renzi made a deal with Silvio Berlusconi for a set of institutional reforms, including a new majority-assuring law based on a two-round system, conceived to make the event of a forced Grand Coalition impossible.  The bill still faced harsh opposition, even from members of the proposing parties: however it was approved by the Chamber of Deputies on 12 March 2014 and, in an amended form, by the Senate on 27 January 2015 with the support of a large majority.  After the election of Sergio Mattarella as the new President of Italy on 31 January 2015, Berlusconi withdrew his support of the bill. In order for it to receive its final approval by the Chamber of Deputies, the government decided to link it to a confidence vote (hinting at a snap election in case of a negative outcome). The bill was finally approved on 4 May 2015 and signed by President Mattarella two days later.

Main characteristics and operation.

The Italicum system regulates the attribution of 617 of the 630 seats of the Chamber of Deputies, excluding 12 seats attributed to representatives of Italians living abroad, and one seat for the Aosta Valley region. An uncommon feature of this system is that it is "majority assuring", thanks to a jackpot that is assigned to the winning party, possibly after a second electoral round.  The territory of Italy is divided into 100 constituencies electing between 3 and 9 deputies depending on their size. For each constituency, the parties designate a list of candidates: "head of list" candidates can run in up to 10 constituencies, while other candidates are limited to a single constituency. Gender balance is promoted by requiring that, in each region, head of lists of either sex for the same party should not exceed 60% of the total; additionally, candidates in all lists must be in a sequence alternating by gender.  At the first round, electors receive a ballot allowing them to vote for a single party and for its head of list candidate (pre-printed on the ballot), and are given the option to express up to two additional preference votes for other candidates of that party, by writing their name next to the party symbol. If two preference votes are expressed, they must be of a different sex: otherwise, the second preference is discarded.  Only parties passing a 3% minimum threshold in the first round are assigned seats. If the party receiving the plurality of the votes passes a 40% threshold, it is attributed a minimum of 340 seats (54%). The remaining seats are allocated to the other parties in a proportional fashion, and no second round takes place.  If no party has been able to pass the 40% threshold, a second round takes place two weeks after the first one: this time electors receive a ballot where they are allowed to choose between the two parties that received most votes in the first round. The party winning the second round is attributed 340 seats, and the remaining 277 seats are allocated to the other parties in a proportional fashion, according to the results of the first round.  The proportional allocation of seats follows the largest remainder method. Each party receives a certain number of seats depending on its national result: these seats are then projected onto the 100 constituencies and attributed to the candidates of that constituency, starting from the head of list and then according to the number of preference votes.  An amendment, known as "Erasmus amendment", makes sure Italians studying abroad in the Erasmus programme can vote.

Constitutional review.

On February 24, 2016 a court in Messina sent the election law for review to the Constitutional Court: declaring admissible the application by petitioners, the judges called for the Constitutional Court to decide whether eight out of the petitioners' 13 claims that the Italicum breached the Italian Constitution. The Constitutional Court might still decide that the unconstitutionality hypothesis is not founded, and even refuse to examine it. The court's decision is not expecting until after 2017 January.  A constitutional reform bill passed by the Italian Parliament in April 2016, which is still awaiting popular confirmation by referendum, will require the Constitutional Court to decide on the consititutional legitimacy of the electoral law even if the aforementioned application is rejected. This extraordinary procedure will only take place if the referendum confirms the bill.

Porcellum (2005–2015).

The previous electoral law had a series of thresholds to encourage parties to form coalitions. It replaced an Additional Member electoral system which had been introduced in the 1990s. The attempt to change the law with the referendum failed and was the Constitutional Court, the judgment no. 1 of 2014, to eliminate various unconstitutional elements that were part of the law.  The block voting system is nationwide-based for the House, and regional-based for the Senate. Italy is divided into a certain number of districts for the Chamber of Deputies, whereas each Region elects its senators. Each district is assigned a number of seats proportionate to its total of the population of Italy. The winning coalition receives at least 55% of the seats on national level in the House, and on regional level in the Senate, while the remaining seats are proportionally divided between minority parties. For the House, seats won by each party are then allocated at district level to decide the elected candidates. Candidates on the lists are ranked in order of priority, so if a party wins for example ten seats, the first ten candidates on its list receive seats in parliament.  The law officially recognized coalitions of parties: to be part of a coalition, a party must sign its official program and indicate its support for the coalition's candidate to the prime-ministership.

Chamber of Deputies.

For the Chamber of Deputies, Italy is divided into 26 constituencies: Lombardy has three constituencies, Piedmont, Veneto, Lazio, Campania, and Sicily each have two, and all other regions have one. These constituencies jointly elect 617 MPs. Additionally one MP is elected from the Aosta Valley and 12 are elected by a constituency consisting of Italians living abroad. Seats are allocated among the parties that pass thresholds of the total vote on a "national basis":  Also, parties representing regional linguistic minorities obtain seats if they receive at least 20% of the ballots in their constituency.  In order to guarantee a working majority, a coalition or party which obtains a plurality of the vote, but less than 340 seats, is assigned additional seats to reach that number, corresponding roughly to a 54% majority.  Inside each coalition, seats are divided between parties with a Hare method, and consequently assigned to each constituency to elect single candidates.

Senate of the Republic.

For the Senate, the constituencies correspond to the 20 regions of Italy, with 6 senators allocated for Italians living abroad. The electoral system is partly similar to the one for the lower house, but is in many ways transferred to regional basis. After judgment 1/2014 of the Constitutional Court, the voting system for the Senate aims at party-list proportional representation without majority bonus. The thresholds are different, and applied on a "regional basis":  The electoral system for the senate, proportional representation without majority bonus, does not guarantee a clear majority for any party-list in the Senate, unlike the national super-assignment system in the Chamber of Deputies.

Criticism.

The new electoral law has come under wide criticism from the centre-left opposition since its introduction for a series of reasons:

Mattarellum (1993–2005).

Between 1991 and 1993, resulting from two referendums and legislation, Italian electoral law was altered substantially. Electoral law in Italy is determined by Parliament, not by the constitution. This, along with the concurrent collapse of the Italian party system, marks the transition between the First and Second Italian Republics.

Two referendums.

The nearly pure proportional representation system of the First Republic had resulted not only in party fragmentation and therefore governmental instability, but also insulation of the parties from the electorate and civil society. This was known in Italian as "partitocrazia", in contrast to democracy, and resulted in corruption and pork-barrel politics. The Italian constitution allows, with substantial hurdles, "abrogative referendums", enabling citizens to delete laws or parts of laws passed by Parliament (with exceptions).  A reform movement known as "COREL" (Committee to Promote Referendums on Elections), led by maverick DC-member Mario Segni, proposed three referendums, one of which was allowed by the Constitutional Court (at that time packed with members of the PSI and hostile to the movement). The June 1991 referendum therefore asked voters if they wanted to reduce the number of preferences, from three or four to one, in the Chamber of Deputies, to reduce the abuse of the open-list system by party elites and ensure accurate delegation of parliamentary seats to candidates popular with voters. With 62.5% of the Italian electorate voting, the referendum passed with 95% of those voting in favor. This was seen as a vote against the "partitocrazia", which had campaigned against the referendum.  Emboldened by their victory in 1991, and encouraged by the unfolding Mani pulite scandals and the substantial loss of votes for the traditional parties in the 1992 general elections, the reformers pushed forward with another referendum, abolishing the proportional representation system of the Italian Senate, implicitly supporting a plurality system that would theoretically force parties to come together around two ideological poles, thereby providing governmental stability. This referendum was held in April 1993, and passed with the support of 80% of those voting. This caused the Amato government to collapse three days later. Municipal elections were held in June 1993, further illustrating the lack of legitimacy the sitting parliament held. The President of Italy, Oscar Luigi Scalfaro, thereupon appointed a technocratic government, led by former head of the Bank of Italy, Carlo Azeglio Ciampi, with the sole task of writing a new electoral law.  As it was under no constitutional obligation to enact a purely majoritarian system (nor were they under obligation to promulgate a new electoral law for the Chamber of Deputies), and cognizant of its declining popular support, the sitting parliament enacted a new electoral law in August 1993 that provided for single-member districts while reflecting their own interests. Despite this, many of them would be voted out of office in the national election in March 1994.

The electoral law.

The national elections used an Additional Member System, which in Italy was a mixed system, with 75% of seats allocated using a First Past the Post electoral system and 25% using a proportional method, with one round of voting. The Senate and the Chamber of Deputies did not differ in the way they allocated the proportional seats, both using the D'Hondt method of allocating seats.  The Senate included 315 elected members, of whom:  The Senate was elected on a single ballot. All those votes not contributing to a winning candidate were thrown into a regional pool, where the seats were allocated proportionally. There was no electoral threshold for the Senate.  The Italian Chamber of Deputies had 630 members, of whom  The Chamber of Deputies used two ballots. The first ballot elected that district's member, on a purely plurality basis. The second ballot, in which only parties and party-lists were listed, was used to determine the proportional seats, allocated within one single national constituency, with a 4% minimum threshold for party representation.  A complicated mechanism known as scorporo, a previously unknown word in Italian politics, was used to tabulate PR votes. The number of votes cast for candidates coming in second place on the "first ballot (SMD)" would be subtracted from the number of votes earned on the "second ballot (PR)" by the party of the winning candidate in the first ballot. This would be repeated for each single-member district. This was developed – against the overwhelming opinion expressed in the referendums – to dampen the effect of the first-past-the-post system, which it was feared that it might promote the prevalence of one political party, especially parties that were strong in one geographical area.  The law also introduced a closed list system for the party lists on the second ballot, i.e., excluding voters from the decision as to which members of that party would enter parliament, thereby guaranteeing reelection of party leaders whose popular support was rapidly declining (new elections were to be held once the new electoral law was fully implemented). Ironically, that is what allowed Mario Segni, the leader of the reform movement, to enter parliament on the proportional ballot after the March 1994, elections, having broken with his party in March 1993, and then reunited with one of its shattered remnants that December.  The system did not accomplish the goals desired by the voters. The first parliament elected after the electoral reform produced Silvio Berlusconi's first government, which lasted eight months. Small parties still enter parliament and form unstable coalitions. On the other hand, political parties in Italy seem to be coalescing around two poles, if imperfectly so, and governments have lasted much longer, at least by Italian standards. On that level, the electoral reform can be seen as an improvement over the electoral law prior to it, even if Italy has now returned to a party-list system.

The 1946–1993 electoral system.

Between 1946 and 1993, Italy used an electoral system that was a nearly pure proportional representation system, which was subject to two insignificant thresholds:  Furthermore, voters were able to list their preferences for candidates on a party list, in order to prevent the parties from exploiting the power they acquired from being able to write their party lists. In practice, however, parties were able to manipulate these numbers so that preferred members, i.e., members loyal to one faction within a party, could enter parliament.  As neither of these thresholds was difficult to achieve, this system naturally benefitted the small parties. This was exacerbated by the fact that the Lower House has 630 seats. Because of the design of the electoral law did not provide for any mechanism to exclude small parties (indeed, it seemed designed to encourage them) or provide any incentives to avoid splintering, this resulted in highly unstable coalition governments (the average length was nine months) and political turbulence; and because voters had little control over which candidates entered parliament, political parties were insulated from the wishes of civil society. Relations between political elites and the masses therefore became clientelistic; voter behavior and politics in general became a contest as to which party could secure more pork-barrel investment for a specific region. It also allowed politicians to become corrupt.

The Italian Electoral law of 2017, colloquially known by the nickname Rosatellum bis or simply Rosatellum, after Ettore Rosato, the Democratic leader in the Chamber of Deputies who first proposed the new law, is a parallel voting system, which act as a mixed system, with 37% of seats allocated using a first past the post electoral system and 61% using a proportional method, with one round of voting. The Senate and the Chamber of Deputies did not differ in the way they allocated the proportional seats, both using the largest remainder method of allocating seats.


Organization.

Headquartered outside Baltimore in Linthicum, Maryland near the BWI Airport, Northrop Grumman Electronic Systems was organized into the following divisions:  Northrop Grumman Electronic Systems provided airborne radar systems, secondary surveillance systems, inertial navigation systems and sensors, electronic warfare systems, precision weapons, air traffic control systems, air defense systems, communications systems, space systems, marine systems, naval systems, integrated avionics systems, and postal automation and information systems.  Key products included active electronically scanned array fire control radars for the F-16, F-22 and F-35 fighter aircraft, as well as the Longbow Fire Control Radar for the AH-64 Apache helicopter. Other principal products included the AWACS radar, the Boeing 737-based Wedgetail MESA airborne early warning and control system, E-8 Joint STARS air-to-ground surveillance radar sensor, the Longbow Hellfire missile, the ALQ-135 radar jammer for the F-15 Eagle, ALQ-218 Tactical Jamming Receiver for the EA-18G Growler and EA-6B ICAP III Prowler, tactical military radars, countrywide air defense systems, Directional Infrared Counter Measures, sophisticated undersea warfare systems, and naval propulsion and power generation systems.

History.

Electronic Systems' direct roots date to 1938, when Westinghouse Electric Corporation’s Radio Division moved to Baltimore, Maryland from Massachusetts and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.  In 1939, Westinghouse more than doubled its manufacturing area in its Baltimore location to accommodate production of the then highly-secret SCR-270 aircraft warning radar. In 1941, an SCR-270 radar detected the December 7 attack on Pearl Harbor; its warnings went unheeded because of high-level uncertainty about the new technology's reliability. The first ground-based radar built for the Army Signal Corps, the SCR-270 proved to be the only model to stay in action throughout all of World War II. From 1941–1945 the Westinghouse Radio Division manufactured approximately 50 products during the war. Until 1942, most of this was radio equipment; later production shifted to radar products. Wartime production included ground-based and naval radio and radar, electronic fuses, and torpedoes.  In 1953, the unit patented key technologies for Pulse-Doppler radar, making possible airborne systems that can detect both stationary and moving targets, determine range, and distinguish targets from background "clutter." Pulse-Doppler is the basis for all airborne radars in use today. By 1966, the division designed and developed a miniaturized black-and-white camera that captured images from the Project Apollo Lunar Module that landed on the Moon on July 20, 1969. In 1967, The world's first solid-state radar, the AN/APQ-120 for the F-4 Phantom II fighter, was produced by the division. In 1947, Westinghouse acquired Joshua Hendy Iron Works.  In 1974, the division began development of the AN/APG-66 radar for the F-16; the unit has produced over 6,000 radars for various versions of the F-16. In 1976, Westinghouse Electronic Systems delivered the first E-3 Sentry AWACS long-range airborne surveillance radar. In 1996, Westinghouse was selected to design, build and test the radar for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, what became the AN/APG-81.

Expansion within Northrop Grumman.

Electronic Systems was central to Northrop Grumman's aggressive merger and acquisition strategy since its own acquisition in 1996. Parts or all of the following companies or organizations were part of the sector: Westinghouse Electronic Systems, California Microwave, Litton Industries Advanced Electronics division, Solystic SA, Xetron Corporation, Aerojet Corporation Electronics & Information Systems, and Fibersense Technology Corp. During the period from 1996 to 2005, Electronic Systems' annual sales increased from US$2.3B to US$6.6B through organic growth as well as acquisitions.

References.

Northrop Grumman Electronic Systems (NGES) was a sector (business segment) of Northrop Grumman from 1996 to 2015 until a reorganization on January 1, 2016 merged other Northrop Grumman businesses into NGES to form a new sector called Mission Systems. NGES had originally been created by Northrop Grumman's acquisition of Westinghouse Electronic Systems Group in 1996. The Electronic Systems sector was a leading designer, developer, and manufacturer of a wide variety of advanced defense electronics and systems. The division had 120 locations worldwide, including 72 international offices, and approximately 24,000 employees. Accounting for 20% of company sales in 2005, it was the single largest sector (business unit) in the corporation.


Some features.

"Suanfa Tongzong" has some noteworthy features. As Jean-Claude Martzloff, a historian of Chinese mathematics has observed, it is an encyclopedic hotch-potch of ideas which contains everything from A to Z relating to the Chinese mystique of numbers. There are sections in the book which explains how computation should be taught and studied. The book is considered as an authoritative text on Chinese Zhusuan which is the knowledge and practices of arithmetic calculation through the abacus. There are descriptions of topics generally thought of as mathematical recreations and mathematical curiosities of different types. In particular, the book contains descriptions of several different types of magic circles. There is a collection of problems without solutions given as challenges to the readers. Also, some of the formulas and some of the problems are presented in verse for easy remembrance.  Magic circles and squares in "Suanfa Tongzong"

Some sample problems.

The following is a list of sample problems appearing in the book:

Popularity of the book.

After its first publication in 1592, it was republished several times later and it became widely popular. Practically everybody who is involved in mathematics had a copy of the book. It was popular even beyond the limited circle of people interested in mathematics. Even in the mid-20th century (1964), the well-known historians of Chinese mathematics Li Yan and Du Shiran remarked that: "Nowadays, various editions of the Suanfa Tongzong can still be found throughout China and some old people still recite the versified formulae and talk to each other about its difficult problems."

Suanfa tongzong (General Source of Computational Methods) is a mathematical text written by sixteenth century Chinese mathematician Cheng Dawei (1533–1606) and published in the year 1592. The book contains 595 problems divided into 17 chapters. The book is essentially general arithmetic for the abacus. The book was the main source available to scholars concerning mathematics as it developed in China's tradition. Six years after the publication of Suanfa Tongzong, Cheng Dawei published another book titled "Suanfa Zuanyao" ("A Compendium of calculating Methods"). About 90% of the content of the new book came from the contents of four chapters of the first book with some rearrangement. It is said that when Suanfa Tongzong was first published, it sold so many copies that the cost of paper went up and the lucrative sales resulted in unscrupulous people beginning to print pirated copies of the book with many errors. It was this that forced the author to print an abridged version.


Start of the siege.

Gibraltar was ruled by the Kingdom of Castile between 1309 and 1333, after having been in Muslim hands for almost 600 years. The Marinid ruler Abu al-Hasan Ali ibn Othman allied with his Granadan counterpart, Muhammed IV, to mount a siege of the fortified town between February–June 1333. The Castilian garrison held out for over four months but starvation forced it to capitulate only a few days before a relief force under the Castilian king, Alfonso XI, was due to arrive.  Alfonso already had a fleet in the Bay of Gibraltar under the command of Admiral Alfonso Jofre de Tenorio. His army's overland march from Jerez de la Frontera had been held up by squabbles with his nobles, whom he had to persuade to continue on after the news of Gibraltar's fall arrived on 20 June. He pointed out that the Moors would not yet have secured their position in the fortress; they would still be taking stock, repairing the damage that they had caused to the fortifications and reprovisioning the new garrison. There was no time to lose in pressing a counter-attack.  The Castilians left their encampment by the Guadalete river near Jerez and marched first to Alcalá de los Gazules, taking the direct but mountainous route to Gibraltar. On 26 June they reached Castellar de la Frontera on the upper reaches of the Guadarranque river and marched down the river's left bank towards the old Roman city of Carteia at the head of the Bay of Gibraltar. A 6,000-strong Moorish force from nearby Algeciras under Abd al-Malik followed them on lower ground near the coast. Alfonso stuck to the high ground of the Sierra Carbonera from which the Moors sought to lure him into an ambush as his army descended the slope towards Gibraltar. The Castilian king realised the Moors' intentions and set a trap for them in turn. He sent his rear guard directly down the slope while his cavalry, archers and lancers outflanked the Moors by working their way through the woods on the sides of the mountain. Alfonso anticipated that the Moors would seek to gain the crest, from where they would descend to attack the rear guard. His flankers would in turn occupy the newly vacated crest, sandwiching the Moors between two Castilian forces. The king's prediction of the Moors' strategy proved accurate and they were routed, losing 500 men.  Despite Alfonso's orders that his men were not to pursue the retreating Moors beyond the Guadarranque, a large contingent disobeyed and pressed on to the next river, the Palmones. The Castilians nearly ran into disaster when a fresh Moorish force emerged from Algeciras but were saved by Alfonso's naval force, which rowed up the Palmones to block the Moors. As night fell, the two sides disengaged with the Moors returning to Algeciras and the Castilians encamping on the east side of the Guadarranque.

Attempt to land on Gibraltar.

Indiscipline was also to doom Alfonso's first attempt to assault Gibraltar. His troops were transported by Admiral Jofre's galleys to the Red Sands on the poorly fortified southern side of Gibraltar. However, Alfonso's field commanders – Rui Lopez and Fernan Yañez de Meira – failed to control their troops or coordinate their landings. The first wave of Castilians were meant to cover the landing of the second wave, whereupon the entire force would take up siege positions on both sides of the town. Instead, the first wave ignored their orders and charged up the side of the Rock of Gibraltar in an attempt to reach the Moorish Castle. As the second wave was landing without cover, the Moorish garrison launched a sally and caught the Castilians landing on the beach. Many were killed there, forcing the remainder to retreat and cutting off around 1,500 men still on the upper slopes. The Moors positioned themselves to block any further landings, raining arrows on approaching boats and cavalry lined up to deal with any Castilians who made it ashore. Both Lopez and de Meira were killed.  Alfonso now faced a severe dilemma. A persistent Levanter wind had prevented his resupply ships from entering the bay and his army now had only a day's rations left. He reluctantly agreed to his nobles' insistence that they had to withdraw to Castilian territory, abandoning the men left on the Rock, who were to "take their stand on whatever God might wish to give them." However, the situation changed again only a few miles into the retreat from their base at Carteia. Accounts differ as to what happened; some say that Alfonso persuaded his nobles that it would be dishonorable to abandon the trapped men, while others say that the winds changed at the last minute and permitted the resupply vessels to enter the bay after all. Whichever happened, it is evident that the Castilians marched back to their original position to resume the assault on Gibraltar.  It was decided that the same plan of attack would be used again, but more competently executed this time. More experienced commanders – Don Jaime de Jerica and the brothers Laso and Sancho de Rojas – were put in charge of a fresh assault on the Red Sands. The Castilians sought to overwhelm the Moors by rushing them "en masse", using every small boat at their disposal to carry soldiers, crossbowmen and even cavalry with their horses. As the crossbowmen laid down covering fire, the knights saddled up and drove the Moorish forces on the beach back within the town walls. At the same time, Admiral Jofre sought to destroy the Moorish galleys anchored in Gibraltar's dockyard. His move failed, as the Moors had built a heavy roof over the dockyard to protect ships there from bombardment and had emplaced massive wooden booms across the entrance to prevent enemies from gaining access. The naval attack was beaten back with heavy loss of life, but Jofre did succeed in establishing an effective blockade of Gibraltar's sea routes.

Bombardment and stalemate.

The Castilians dug in around Gibraltar to lay siege from the south, from the high ground of the Upper Rock and from the isthmus to the north, where Alfonso remained with his main force. The Castilian king had hoped to retake the town in a quick counter-attack but now faced a lengthy siege. Consequently, he set about demolishing the town's fortifications with six catapults that he had brought from Seville, three of which were hoisted by ropes up from the isthmus to the Upper Rock where they could overlook the whole of the town. The Moorish Castle was heavily bombarded and seriously damaged, while Castilian Almogavars sought to undermine its structure from below. The defenders inflicted casualties by throwing stones over the parapets and burning pitch at the attackers, destroying some of the Castilian siege machines.  Both sides faced harsh conditions in the siege. The Moors were being progressively starved by the Castilians, but the Castilians also had supply problems. They were deep within enemy territory and relied entirely on resupply from the sea, which was dependent on the winds and tides being right. Food was in short supply for both sides. Some Castilians tried to defect to the Moorish side but were enslaved and sold on at Algeciras for a price equivalent to an eighth of the value of a cow. Matters worsened for the Castilians when the army of Muhammed IV marched towards Gibraltar with the apparent intention of relieving the besieged garrison. Alfonso pulled back his own army to the isthmus immediately north of Gibraltar and had a defensive ditch dug right across it. This successfully deterred Muhammed IV from attacking, but cut the Castilians off from their supply of firewood in the hills of the Sierra Carbonera; henceforth, they had to eat their food raw.  The siege now developed into a stalemate. The Moors were not strong enough to break out of Gibraltar, nor to assault the Castilians from the north across their ditch. They also did not have the naval power required to outflank the Castilians by sea or to break the naval blockade of Gibraltar, which was bringing the garrison close to starvation. The Castilians did not have the strength either to storm Gibraltar or to drive away Mohammad IV's troops on the Sierra Carbonera. Alfonso XI also received the news that three powerful nobles – Juan Núñez III de Lara, Juan Alfonso de Haro and Juan Manuel, Prince of Villena – had revolted against him and were ravaging the king's own lands. Both sides thus found that they had pressing reasons to reach a peace agreement.  The agreement which was eventually signed on 24 August 1333 was based on a Moorish proposal for a four-year truce and an annual tribute of 10,000 doubloons to be paid to Castile. In return, the Moors were to be allowed to purchase oil and cattle from Castilian territory, and Alfonso and his army would be given safe conduct through Moorish territory on their way home. The Castilian king accepted and sealed the agreement in person with Muhammed IV at a lavish dinner in which he exchanged gifts with his Moorish counterpart. Muhammed is said to have given Alfonso a sword with gold sheath studded with emeralds, rubies and sapphires and a helmet with two rubies "the size of chestnuts" while Alfonso gave Muhammed a type of doublet. As the Castilians prepared to withdraw, Abd al-Malik's forces returned to Algeciras and Muhammed IV made preparations to go back to Granada. On the night after the peace agreement was signed, Muhammed IV was murdered by two of his nobles who were angry that the sultan had eaten with a Christian and feared that he had converted to Christianity. The assassination did not prevent the Castilians from withdrawing safely but resulted in renewed hostilities for a while as the new Granadan king, Yusuf I, sought to establish his authority. The inconclusive outcome of the siege meant that the struggle for control of Gibraltar remained unresolved, and Alfonso was to make another attempt to recapture it in the Fifth Siege of Gibraltar in 1349.

The Fourth Siege of Gibraltar, fought from June until August 1333, pitted a Christian army under King Alfonso XI of Castile against a large Moorish army led by Muhammed IV of Granada and Abd al-Malik Abd al-Wahid of Fes. It followed on immediately from the Third Siege of Gibraltar, fought earlier in 1333. The siege began inauspiciously with a disastrous landing by Castilian forces on the west side of Gibraltar, before developing into a stalemate in which neither side had the strength to capture Gibraltar, nor to break out or lift the siege. Both sides faced acute shortages of food – the Gibraltar garrison was cut off from resupply, while the Castilians, deep within enemy territory, could only be resupplied via an unreliable sea route. After two months of inconclusive siege warfare, the Castilians and Moors reached a truce agreement that allowed both sides to make an honourable exit from the siege. Although the Moors managed to keep Gibraltar, the truce cost Muhammed IV his life when he was assassinated by disgruntled nobles the day after signing it.


Background.

During 1941, as the Allies perceived the possibility of war with Japan, the island of Ambon was seen to be a strategic location, because of its potential as a major air base. The Australian government and military commanders saw that it could be used in raids on northern Australia and decided to reinforce the Dutch forces on the island. On 14 December 1941, a convoy composed of escorts and with the Dutch ships "Both", "Valentijn", and "Patras" carrying 1,090 troops of "Gull Force" departed Darwin and arrived at Ambon on 17 December. escorting "Bantam" arrived with reinforcements on 12 January 1942, remaining through raids on 15–16 December until 18 December.

Geography.

Ambon is located in the Maluku (Moluccas) islands, just south of the much larger island of Seram (Ceram). Ambon has what might be described as a "figure eight" or "hourglass" shape, and consists of two peninsulas separated by a narrow isthmus, with long narrow bays on either side of the isthmus. The key airport at Laha is in the west of the Hitu Peninsula – northern part of the island – facing Ambon Bay. The town of Ambon is at the opposite side of the bay, on the southern part of the island, Laitimor Peninsula.

Opposing Forces.

Allies.

Infantry.

At the outbreak of war on 8 December, Ambon was garrisoned by the 2,800-strong "Molukken Brigade" of the Royal Netherlands East Indies Army (KNIL) garrison, commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Joseph Kapitz and consisting of Indonesian colonial troops, under European officers. The garrison was poorly equipped and trained, partly as a result of the Netherlands having been defeated and occupied by Nazi Germany. The KNIL units were not equipped with radios and relied on landlines and written communications. They included 300 partly trained reservists.  The Australian Army's 1,100-strong Gull Force, commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Leonard Roach, arrived on 17 December. The force consisted of the 2/21st Battalion from the Australian 8th Division, as well as some divisional artillery and support units. Kapitz was appointed Allied commander on Ambon. Roach had visited the island before Gull Force's deployment and requested that more artillery and machine gun units be sent from Australia.  On 6 January, after Dutch and British territories to the north fell to Japan, Ambon came under attack from Japanese aircraft. Roach complained about the lack of response to his suggestions, and as a result he was replaced by Lieutenant Colonel John Scott on 14 January.  Kapitz's headquarters was at Halong, between Paso and the town of Ambon. It included four armoured cars, an anti-aircraft machine gun detachment and four 40 mm AA guns. In the belief that the terrain on the south coast of Laitimor was too inhospitable for landings and that any attack was likely to be in the east, around the Bay of Baguala, the KNIL forces were concentrated at Paso, near the isthmus, under Major H. H. L. Tieland. There were small KNIL detachments at likely landing places in the north of Hitu.  Two companies of the 2/21st Battalion and 300 Dutch troops were at Laha Airfield, under the command of Major Mark Newbury. They were accompanied by Dutch artillery: four 75 mm field artillery pieces, four 37 mm anti-tank guns, four 75 mm anti-aircraft (AA) guns, four 40 mm AA guns, an AA machine gun platoon and an AA machine gun battery.  However, Lieutenant Colonel Scott, Gull Force HQ and the remainder of the Australian troops were concentrated in the western part of Laitimor Peninsula, in case of an attack from the Bay of Ambon. "A" Company of the 2/21st and one KNIL company were stationed at Eri, on the south west side of the bay. The 2/21st Battalion's pioneer platoon was on the plateau around Mt Nona (the highest point on Laitimor), with a Dutch anti-aircraft machine gun detachment. Smaller Australian detachments were at: Latuhalat, near the south western tip of Laitimor and at Cape Batuanjut, just north of Eri. Gull Force HQ and a strategic reserve, "D" Company, were located on a line from the Nona plateau to Amahusu beach, between Eri and the town of Ambon.

Air Forces.

The Allies had few aircraft to spare. The KNIL Air Service sent No. 2 Flight, Group IV ("2-Vl. G.IV") from Java to Laha. Of an original four Brewster Buffalos, two crashed en route to Ambon. The Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) sent two flights, comprising 12 Lockheed Hudson Mk 2 light bombers, from No. 13 and No. 2 Squadrons, to the area, under Wing Commander Ernest Scott (who was not related to Lieutenant Colonel John Scott). One flight was based at Laha, and another was sent to Namlea on the neighbouring island of Buru.  The U.S. Navy's Patrol Wing 10, with Consolidated PBY Catalinas, was based at the Halong seaplane station from 23 December. Wing Headquarters moved to Java on 9 January, but American Catalinas mounted patrols from Halong until 15 January when an air raid destroyed three patrol aircraft and damaged several others. The Allies then abandoned the base as it was too exposed. The Wing’s seaplane tenders supported patrols, but left after 8 January. Tender-based patrols from and at anchorages further south continued until 5 February.  The Royal Netherlands Naval Air Service ("Marineluchtvaartdienst") flew patrols from Ambon/Halong; GVT 17 with Catalina flying boats continued from the start of war through 14 January, when it was ordered to Java.  U.S. Navy and RAAF aircraft made several very dangerous evacuation flights into Ambon/Laha in the last days of January.

Naval forces.

, a Royal Netherlands Navy minelayer, left Ambon in early January, after mining approaches to the island. By mid-January, the minesweeper USS "Heron" was the only Allied combat ship at Ambon.

Japan.

Naval forces.

The Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) task force for the invasion of Ambon, commanded by Rear Admiral Ibō Takahashi consisted of:  The 2nd Carrier Division was assigned to support the operation:

Infantry.

The Japanese ground forces were made up of about 5,300 personnel: the Itō Detachment of the Imperial Japanese Army (IJA), under Major General Takeo Itō, comprising the 38th Division HQ and the 228th Infantry Regiment, along with marines from the 1st Kure Special Naval Landing Force (part of the China Area Fleet), and two platoons of the Sasebo SNLF under Rear Admiral Koichiro Hatakeyama.

Battle.

30 January.

From 6 January onward, Ambon was attacked by Japanese aircraft. Allied aircraft made some sorties against the approaching Japanese fleet, with little success. On 13 January, the two Brewster Buffalo fighters, piloted by Lt Broers and Sgt Blans, attacked a flight of 10 Mitsubishi A6M Zero fighters. Broers' aircraft was hit and caught fire, but he continued to attack until it became uncontrollable, at which point he abandoned the Buffalo, using his parachute and landed in the sea. Blans was also shot down but also managed to use his parachute, landing in trees on Ambon. Both men were rescued. Broers suffered severe burns and Blans had 17 different wounds.  The naval aviation base at Halong was soon rendered unusable by Japanese air raids, and was abandoned by the Dutch and U.S. navies in mid-January.  On 30 January, about 1,000 Japanese marines and IJA personnel landed at Hitu-lama on the north coast. Other elements of the 228th Regiment landed on the southern coast of the Laitimor Peninsula. Although the Japanese ground forces were numerically not much bigger than the Allies, the Japanese had overwhelming superiority in air support, naval and field artillery, and tanks. The remaining Allied aircraft were withdrawn that day, although RAAF ground staff remained. Within a day of the Japanese landings, the Dutch detachments in their vicinity were overrun and/or had withdrawn towards Paso. The destruction of bridges on Hitu was not carried out as ordered, hastening the Japanese advance.  There was a second wave of landings, at Hutumori in south-eastern Laitimor, and at Batugong, near Paso. An Australian infantry platoon was detached to reinforce the pioneers on Nona plateau. The defences at Paso had been designed to repel attacks from the north and west, and now faced assault from the south. A KNIL platoon was detached from Paso to resist the attack on Batugong, causing a gap in the Dutch lines. The Japanese took advantage of this, and were assisted by the failure of a KNIL telephone line.

31 January.

Batugong fell in the early hours of 31 January, enabling the Japanese to encircle the eastern flank of the Passo positions. Meanwhile, Kapitz ordered the Ambonese KNIL company at Eri to take up a position at Kudamati, which appeared prone to attack.  At noon on 31 January, Kapitz moved his headquarters from Halong to, closer to. Telephone communications between Kapitz and his subordinates, including Lieutenant Colonel Scott, ceased when the Japanese cut the lines. The Japanese force which had landed at Hitu-Lama then attacked the Passo defences from the north-east. Then, in the words of the Australian official historian:  It is not clear who authorised the surrender. There was no immediate response from the Japanese, and – in a meeting with company commanders – Kapitz and Tieland ordered the Dutch troops to recommence fighting. However, when Tieland and the company commanders returned to their positions, they found that their troops had been taken prisoner, and they were forced to surrender.  The first land attack on Laha occurred on the afternoon of 31 January. An Australian platoon north-east of the airfield was attacked by a stronger Japanese force, which it repelled.  Japanese forces were also approaching the town of Ambon from the south west. At about 04:00pm on 31 January, the Japanese captured the town, including an Australian casualty clearing unit.

1 February.

Several Japanese attacks were launched simultaneously on 1 February: The Australian positions were also receiving large numbers of Dutch personnel fleeing from Paso. At 22:30, Scott ordered a withdrawal of the Allied forces at Amahusu and the south-west, to Eri. The position at Kudamati was effectively encircled.

2–3 February.

On 2 February (some sources say 1 February), the Japanese W-7-class minesweeper "W-9" struck a mine laid by the Dutch minelayer HNLMS Gouden Leeuw in the Ambon Bay and sank. Two other Japanese minesweepers were also damaged by mines.  After dawn on 2 February, the main Australian force on Nona plateau, commanded by Lieutenant Bill Jinkins, was in danger of encirclement. Jinkins ordered a withdrawal to Amahusu, where he became aware that the Dutch had surrendered. Unable to ascertain the disposition of Lieutenant Colonel Scott's force, Jinkins decided to meet senior Japanese officers under truce at the town of Ambon. They allowed him to speak to Kapitz, who wrote another note advising the Australian commander to surrender. Jinkins set off to find Lieutenant Colonel Scott.  Meanwhile, the Japanese forces attacking Laha were reinforced and a concentrated assault on the Allies began, including naval artillery, dive bombers, fighter planes and probing attacks by infantry. A Japanese night attack in high grass near the beach, between two Allied positions, was beaten back by an Australian platoon. However, a massive Japanese offensive commenced at dawn on 2 February. By 10:00am, only about 150 Australians and several KNIL personnel were still able to fight at Laha, and Newbury ordered them to surrender.  By the morning of 3 February, the Australians around Eri were struggling to cope with increasing air and naval attacks, wounded Australians, the influx of Dutch personnel, diminishing supplies and widespread fatigue. A Japanese flag had been seen flying on the other side of the bay, at Laha. By the time Jinkins reached Lieutenant Colonel Scott, the latter had himself met the Japanese and decided to surrender. The Allied position at Kudamati was surrendered separately at midday.

Aftermath.

Laha massacre.

Allied casualties in the battle were relatively light. However, at intervals for a fortnight after the surrender, IJN personnel chose more than 300 Australian and Dutch prisoners of war at random and summarily executed them, at or near Laha airfield. In part, this was revenge for the sinking of the Japanese minesweeper, as some surviving crew of the minesweeper took part. Those killed included Wing Commander Scott and Major Newbury. According to an Australian War Memorial principal historian, Dr Peter Stanley, over the following three and a half years, the surviving POWs:  In 1946, incidents which followed the fall of Ambon became the subject of one of the largest ever war crimes trials: 93 Japanese personnel were tried by an Australian military tribunal at Ambon. Rear Admiral Hatakeyama was found to have ordered the Laha massacres, however he had died before he could be tried. Commander Kunito Hatakeyama, who was in direct command of the massacres, was sentenced to execution by hanging. Lieutenant Kenichi Nakagawa was sentenced to 20 years imprisonment. Three other Japanese officers were executed for mistreatment of POWs and/or civilians on other occasions, during 1942–45. (The trials were the basis for the feature film "Blood Oath", released in 1990.)  General Itō was sentenced to death that same year for war crimes committed in other parts of the Pacific.

Other subsequent events.

Approximately 30 Australian soldiers, including Jinkins, escaped from Ambon, in the space of several weeks after the surrender, often by rowing prahus (canoes) to Seram.  Another result of the capture of Ambon was the realisation of Australian fears of air attacks, when Japanese planes based at Ambon took part in major air raids on Darwin, Australia on 19 February.

References.

Footnotes Citations

The Battle of Ambon (30 January – 3 February 1942) occurred on the island of Ambon in the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia), during World War II. Japan invaded and conquered the island in a few days, facing Dutch, American and Australian forces. The chaotic and sometimes bloody fighting was followed by a series of major Japanese war crimes.


Geology.

The geology of Gatineau Park, which encompasses these foothills, is related to the Eardley Escarpment, which is a fault line that lies along the southern edge of the hills. This escarpment makes the park an attractive location for rock climbers and hikers, offering a beautiful view of the relatively flat fields below, which extend to the Ottawa River. The Eardley Escarpment is part of the northern side of the Ottawa-Bonnechere Graben, which is an ancient rift valley.

History.

The Algonquin people settled in the Ottawa valley more than 4000 years ago. French explorers arrived in the early seventeenth century. The Gatineau Hills' pine forests were logged extensively in the early 1800s, with many roads built for mining and farming. The deforestation raised increasing concern from the public. Historical records show interest for the creation of a wilderness park in the Gatineau Hills in 1903; many reports, plans and actions were made over the years to protect the area until it became as it looks today.

Tourism.

The Gatineau Hills are also significant as a skiing destination, serving the neighbouring communities of Ottawa, Ontario and Gatineau, Quebec. Gatineau Park contains over 190 km of cross-country trails, and plays host to the annual "Gatineau Loppet" competition. Downhill skiing is available at locations including Camp Fortune, Mont Cascades, Mont Ste. Marie, Edelweiss, and Vorlage. The hills are small compared to the ski areas in the northeast, such as Mont Tremblant and Mont-Sainte-Anne, or in Vermont, New Hampshire and New York.  The location of the hills are also useful for communications, and Ryan Tower, a prominent communications tower at Camp Fortune, provides a large portion of the area's broadcast television and radio signals.  The area is a prime tourist attraction, particularly during the October weeks when the foliage is turning colour. Photographs and paintings of the area are a popular tourist item.  The Gatineau Hills are located in the city of Gatineau, and in Les Collines-de-l'Outaouais Regional County Municipality, Quebec.

The Gatineau Hills () are a geological formation in Canada that makes up part of the southern tip of the Canadian Shield, and acts as the northern shoulder of the Ottawa Valley. They are also the foothills of the Laurentian Mountains which stretch east through Quebec, beginning north of Montreal and joining up with others into Vermont and New Hampshire.


Early life.

Magbanua's date of birth is variously reported as 13 October 1863, 13 October, 1868, or 4 November 1871. She was born in Pototan, Iloilo, Philippines, to affluent parents. "Don" Juan Magbanua, a judge, sat on the Court of First Instance in Iloilo City, while Doña Alejandra Ferraris was the daughter of Captain Benito Ferraris. Teresa was the Magbanua's second child, joining her sisters María and Paz, and younger brothers Manuel, Pascual and Elias. Magbanua was recorded to have been a precocious child, remembered by one of her sisters as a "dynamic personality, restless, and unafraid of any man."  Magbanua studied teaching in college, first at the Colegio de San José in Jaro, Iloilo, and later in Manila, where she studied at three different girls' schools: Colegio de Santa Rosa (1894), Santa Catalina College (1886), and Colegio de Doña Cecilia. She earned a teaching certificate at Colegio de Doña Cecilia in 1894 and a master's degree soon after from the University of Santo Tomás. She then returned home to Pototan and began teaching, where her students knew her as a disciplinarian. After four years of teaching in Pototan, Magbanua moved north to Sara, Iloilo, and became a schoolteacher there, meeting Alejandro Balderas whom she married in 1898. Balderas was a wealthy landowner, and after she married, Magbanua quit her teaching job and became a housewife. While working on her husband's lands, Magbanua learned how to shoot a pistol and ride a horse. Her horseback skills improved to the point that she would ride on horseback from Sara to her hometown of Pototan, a distance over rugged terrain.

Philippine Revolution.

War broke out between the Filipinos and Spanish in 1896, and Magbanua became a member of the Katipunan revolutionaries. While the Katipunan "largely excluded (women) from the revolutionary army", the movement also recognized the role women had played in the struggle against the Spanish, so much that the Katipunan organized a woman's chapter as early as 1893.  In October 1898, the war entered Iloilo province and two of her brothers joined the revolutionary army. While Magbanua wanted to help out the war effort, her husband was against it. Magbanua didn't listen; however, and went to her uncle, Major General Perfecto Poblador, who commanded the Northern Zone at the time. Magbanua asked him to join the Army and who would later take charge of the Administrative Division. While hesitant at first, General Poblador eventually gave in to his niece and gave Magbanua command of a battalion of bolo troops.  Magbanua fought in several key battles during the revolution. On 3 December 1898, her forces fought and defeated Spanish troops at the Battle of Barrio Yoting, which took place in Pilar, Capiz. She led her troops into this, her first battle, on horseback. Her efforts during the Battle of Barrio Yoting earned Magbanua the nickname "Visayan Joan of Arc". She was also affectionately known among her troops as "Nanay Isa" or "'Nay Isa" ("Nanay" being the Visayan word of "mother", and "Isa" a shortening of her name.)  On 3 December 1898. Magbanua lead her troops against Spanish forces at the Battle of Sapong Hills near Sara. Magbanua prevailed, despite the odds being heavily in favor of the Spanish. After these battles, Magbanua's forces were joined by revolutionary forces from Antique, under the command of General Leandro Fullon, for a march on Iloilo City.  On 24 December 1898, Magbanua participated in the liberation of Iloilo City, alongside Generals Martin Delgado, Roque Lopez, Quintin Salas and others. Along with the other generals, Magbanua helped circle Iloilo City, allowing General Delgado to enter and retake the city from the Spanish.

Philippine–American War.

During the Philippine–American War, Magbanua participated in several battles against American forces, as did her brothers. Her brothers were both ranking officers—Pascual was a general while Elias was a major. On 11 February 1899, Magbanua fought in the Battle of Iloilo City. Along with General Martin Delgado, Magbanua defended Iloilo City against the advancing forces of Brigadier General Marcus Miller. This battle ended in defeat for Magbanua and Delgado, as American forces took Iloilo without a single reported casualty. On 10 March 1899, Magbanua participated in the Battle of Balantang, Jaro, along with her brother Pascual. This battle resulted in Philippine forces retaking Jaro from the Americans. For her valor, Magbanua was given a prominent place in the celebration that followed, and led her troops into the city while riding a white horse. Also in 1899, Magbanua participated in the defense of the Balantang-Tacas-Jiabo-an line.  The celebrations would not last long, and Magbanua soon suffered personal tragedy. General Pascual Magbanua died in December 1899 at the age of 24, under mysterious circumstances. Her other brother, Major Elias Magbanua, also died mysteriously at the age of 19, and both deaths dealt a blow to Magbanua. She began using guerrilla tactics after the Filipino's regional headquarters in Santa Barbara fell to the Americans. She surrendered her troops to the American forces in 1900 and returned to farming.  There is no official record that proves Magbanua was a commissioned officer; however, she is referred to by the honorific "general" in many texts.

Later life.

While not an active fighter during World War II, Magbanua did what she could to resist Japanese forces during the Japanese occupation of the Philippines. She sold her personal belongings to purchase food and supplies, which she would then give to the local guerrillas. Shortly after the outbreak of the war, her husband Alejandro Balderas died and Magbanua sold her property in Iloilo to help finance the guerrillas.

Death.

Magbanua moved to Pagadian, Zamboanga in Mindanao, after the end of World War II and lived there with her sister Maria. She never remarried after Baldaras' death, and their marriage produced no children. Magbanua died on an unknown date in August 1947. Her burial was attended only by her close friends; there were no announcements made of her death at the time.

Legacy.

While not as well known as her brothers, Magbanua was recognized for her courage and service. There are streets named after Magbanua in Pototan and Iloilo City. Several awards are also given out in her name, including the Gawad Teresa Magbanua Award given to teachers in Davao, and the Teresa Magbanua award for women's and children's rights given to Ilonggos in Iloilo. October 13 is officially Teresa Magbanua Day in Pototan; it was first observed in 2006.

Teresa Ferraris Magbanua (born Teresa Magbanua y Ferraris; October 13, 1868 – August 1947), better known as Teresa Magbanua and dubbed as the "Visayan Joan of Arc", was a Filipino schoolteacher and military leader. Born in Pototan, Iloilo, Philippines, she retired from education and became a housewife shortly after her marriage to Alejandro Balderas, a wealthy landowner from Sara, Iloilo. When the 1896 Philippine Revolution against the Spanish Empire broke out, she became one of only a few women to join the Panay-based Visayan arm of the Katipunan, the initially secret revolutionary society head by Andrés Bonifacio.


Background.

In the second half of the 13th century, the Margraviate of Brandenburg had established the Neumark along the lower Warthe (Warta) river. In 1374/1388, the Lords of Wedel transferred their rights on territories around Schivelbein and Falkenburg to the Teutonic Order state, their eastern neighbor.  On September 29, 1402, Sigismund of Luxembourg, King of Hungary and Margrave of Brandenburg, who inherited Neumark after the death of his brother John of Görlitz in 1396, pawned the whole of the Neumark to the Teutonic Order. After the First Peace of Thorn (1411), Grand Master (Hochmeister) Heinrich von Plauen intended to pawn the Neumark to the Polish king, and prepared a respective treaty. The noble estates of the Neumark however, on the basis of their privileges, prevented the ratification of the treaty.  On September 8, 1429, the Teutonic Order acquired the pawn as a full possession from Sigismund of Luxembourg. In February 1454, the Order was at the verge of the Thirteen Years' War following a rebellion of the Prussian Confederation, who was allied with the Kingdom of Poland. The Order's military and financial weakness resulted in an urgent need for money to attract and pay mercenaries. To that end, the Grand Master Ludwig von Erlichshausen pawned the Neumark to Brandenburg and many of his Prussian holdings to mercenary groups in 1454.

Treaties.

On 22 February 1454, a treaty was concluded in Cölln (now part of Berlin) between elector Frederick II of Brandenburg and the Landvogt (Landkomtur) Friedrich von Polenz (Polentz) in the name of Grand Master, wherein the Neumark was pawned to Brandenburg for 40,000 Rhenish guilders. On 6 March, Frederick II arrived at Landsberg an der Warthe to receive the homage of the estates. The nobles accepted the treaty on 31 March. The Polish king Casimir IV Jagiellon had also announced an interest in receiving the Neumark and upon hearing of the Teutonic offer to Brandenburg, entered negotiations with the Neumark nobles. Yet the estates and the Grand Master had favoured the Elector of Brandenburg.  In June, the noble estates of the Schivelbein area approached the Brandenburgian elector for protection against frequent Polish and Pomeranian raids. They argued that because of the Teutonic Order's crisis the vogt of the Neumark was unable to keep a sufficient number of men in arms. During the following year, Frederick II continued his efforts to permanently re-gain the Neumark for Brandenburg. Without success, he held talks with the Polish king in Bromberg (Bydgoszcz) about a peace between Poland and the Order. The latter had not handed over the Schivelbein and Driesen areas with the rest of the Neumark after the Cölln treaty to pressure Frederick II to assist it in the war, also had the Holy Roman Emperor asked Frederick to mediate in the dispute. On 7 April 1455, Frederick II received the hommage of the estates and asserted their privileges.  On 16 September 1455, another treaty was concluded at the Order's castle in Mewe between Frederick II and Ludwig von Erlichshausen, wherein the Neumark was sold to Frederick for 100,000 Rhenish guilder. The Schivelbein and Driesen areas were explicitly included. The payment of 40,000 guilder resulting from the treaty of Cölln was included in the sum agreed on in Mewe. The Order was granted the right to buy the Neumark back after Frederick II's death. Brandenburg further granted the Order's forces safe conduct.

Aftermath.

When by the Second Peace of Thorn (1466) the Teutonic Order State lost several territories to Poland, Frederick II was concerned that a Polish king might in place of the Order claim the right to buy the Neumark according to the Mewe treaty. He wrote down a respective memorandum, directed at his successors, wherein the latter were urged to not accept such claims, keep the Neumark within the "German lands and the Holy Roman Empire and the worthy Electorate Mark of Brandenburg" and not have it "brought to non-German tongue".  In 1517, Joachim I, Elector of Brandenburg and Albert (Albrecht), Grand Master of the Teutonic Knights, agreed in Berlin that the Order relinquished its right to purchase back the Neumark from Brandenburg, in turn, Joachim I obliged himself to aid Albert with 500 horse and 600 foot in the expected war with Poland-Lithuania.

The Treaties of Cölln and Mewe, concluded in 1454 and 1455, transferred the Neumark (New March) from the State of the Teutonic Order to the Electorate of Brandenburg. The Teutonic Knights had received the area as a pawn from Brandenburg in 1402, and as a possession in 1429. Financial shortages due to the onset of the Thirteen Years' War (1454–1466) forced Ludwig von Erlichshausen, Grand Master of the Teutonic Order, to pawn the Neumark to Frederick II, Elector of Brandenburg, by the Treaty of Cölln on 22 February 1454, and to subsequently sell it by the Treaty of Mewe on 16 September 1455.