Lesson plan
Broken square
by Adolph Northen depicting a French infantry square being broken. A broken square is an infantry square that has collapsed or broken up in battle. Specific incidents that this expression may refer to are all in the Mahdist War in the Sudan: * At the Battle of Abu Klea: the breach was small and soon closed itself, leaving the intruders trapped inside the square, whose inner ranks faced-about and quickly defeated the intruders. See Battle of Abu Klea#Battle for the real events at Abu Klea. In an after-battle report, The Times newspaper incorrectly had it that a British square broke. * At the Battle of Tamai: *# The Black Watch formed one side of a big square under attack, and was ordered by top command to leave that post (leaving their side of that square open) and attack another enemy force which was hidden down a desert gully. *# The restricted rocky irregular ground in that gully made it difficult to form a solid square to resist attack; that square came under intense attack from Sudanese (here, mostly Hadendoa). The square was flooded with a rush of tribesmen and a brutal hand-to-hand fight resulted. The Black Watch were driven back but rallied and eventually drove the Sudanese out, with the square being reformed.…
Article summary
by Adolph Northen depicting a French infantry square being broken. A broken square is an infantry square that has collapsed or broken up in battle. Specific incidents that this expression may refer to are all in the Mahdist War in the Sudan: * At the Battle of Abu Klea: the breach was small and soon closed itself, leaving the intruders trapped inside the square, whose inner ranks faced-about and quickly defeated the intruders. See Battle of Abu Klea#Battle for the real events at Abu Klea. In an after-battle report, The Times newspaper incorrectly had it that a British square broke. * At the Battle of Tamai: *# The Black Watch formed one side of a big square under attack, and was ordered by top command to leave that post (leaving their side of that square open) and attack another enemy force which was hidden down a desert gully. *# The restricted rocky irregular ground in that gully made it difficult to form a solid square to resist attack; that square came under intense attack from Sudanese (here, mostly Hadendoa). The square was flooded with a rush of tribesmen and a brutal hand-to-hand fight resulted. The Black Watch were driven back but rallied and eventually drove the Sudanese out, with the square being reformed.…
Key claims
No claims recorded.
Discussion questions
- Summarise the article in your own words. Which single claim would you verify first, and why?
- Which claim in this article is most likely to be revised as the sources update? How would you check its current status?
- If two sources disagreed about one of these facts, what would you need in order to trust one over the other?
Bibliography
No sources recorded.
Key claims and bibliography are generated from the same tracked claims and sources as the article page.