Here are the answers to Peter’s quiz from July last year.
Q01a What was the name of the disastrous battle in the early 1stC AD in which three Roman legions were destroyed
Answer: Teutoburger Wald
Q01b Give the date (within 5 yrs), and/or one of the commanders
Answer: AD9, Publius Quinctilius Varus, Arminius
Q02a Identify this WW2 aircraft
Answer: De Havilland Mosquito
Q02b What was it’s nickname
Answer: The Wooden Wonder
Q03a Name this character from The Lord of the Rings
Answer: Treebeard
Q03b Where was his home
Answer: Fangorn (Forest)
Q04a Name the Avalon-Hill boardgame which covers major ship-to-ship combats from the age of sail?
Answer: Wooden Ships & Iron Men
Q04b When was the song “Hearts of Oak” made popular? Give the war and/or year.
Answer: During the Seven Years War; 1759, the year of victories
Q05a What was the first major battle of The Hundred Years War which saw widespread use of the longbow
Answer: Crecy (1346)
Q05b How long is it generally agreed that the war lasted
Answer: 116 years (minus points for anyone who says 100!)
Q06a General Sherman said “…the man must be stopped…even if it takes 10,000 men and bankrupts this treasury…”. Which Confederate general was he talking about?
Answer: Nathan Bedford Forest
Q06b Which post-war organisation is this person said to have helped to found?
Answer: Ku Klux Klan
Q07a What is the official name of this branch of a fictional military force?
Answer: USCMC / ‘Colonial Marines’
Q07b What is the name or number of the planet to which they accompany Ellen Ripley
Answer: LV426 / ‘Hadley’s Hope’
Q08a Which 17thC French engineer gave his name to an entire system of fortifications?
Answer: Vauban
Q08b What is the term for a covered trench heading towards the enemy, which gave rise to specialised engineer units of the same name
Answer: Sap
Q09a Although imitated later, the 18ft pike was the favoured weapon of mercenaries from which country during the early Renaissance Wars?
Answer: Swiss
Q09b Before embarking on their lucrative & violent career as mercenaries, how did they contribute to the unification of France under a single crown?
Answer: Killed the Duke of Burgundy (at the battle of Nancy, 1477)
Q10a Which war was expected to be so short that troops would be “…Home before the leaves fall from the trees…”?
Answer: WW1
Q10b Who is credited with saying that
Answer: Kaiser Wilhelm II
Q11a What is this Napoleonic soldier commonly called
Answer: Polish Lancer (1st Polish Light Cavalry Regiment of the Imperial Guard)
Q11b Which nationality originally supplied the 2nd ‘Red’ Lancer Regt?
Answer: Dutch
Q12a In 2012, the MWS put on a game featuring the daring WW2 attack on which bridges
Answer: Orne River and Caen Canal bridges (“Pegasus Bridge”)
Q12b Who was the actor who played Major Howard in the film ‘The Longest Day’, and why was he a good choice
Answer: Richard Todd; he served in 7th Para Batalion, reinforcing the glider borne troops who seized the bridges