On 18 May 1944 a patrol of the Polish 2nd Corps under General Władysław Anders raised its flag over the ruined abbey of Monte Cassino in Italy, ending the fourth battle for the heights and opening the road to Rome. On the same day in 1863 Ulysses S. Grant's Union army reached the defenses of Vicksburg, Mississippi.
Monte Cassino, 1944
The fourth battle of Monte Cassino began on the night of 11 May 1944, when the Allied armies in Italy opened Operation Diadem to break the German defenses that barred the road to Rome. The Polish 2nd Corps of Lieutenant General Władysław Anders, serving with the British Eighth Army, was given the mountain and the ruined Benedictine abbey on its summit. Three earlier battles for the heights had failed since January.1
The first Polish assault, on 11 and 12 May, ran into well-entrenched German defenders and was called off after heavy losses. The Poles attacked again, and on 17 May the German command ordered its troops to withdraw from Monte Cassino.2
On the morning of 18 May a patrol of the 12th Podolian Lancers entered the ruins of the abbey. At 10:20 the lancers raised their regimental pennant over the ruins, and the white and red Polish flag soon followed. Later that day Emil Czech, a soldier of the corps, played the Hejnał Mariacki, St Mary's trumpet call, from the rubble.3
The fall of Monte Cassino opened the road to Rome. The Polish 2nd Corps lost 923 men killed, 2,931 wounded and 345 missing in the battle. The dead lie in the Polish war cemetery on the slope below the abbey, where General Anders was later buried as well. More in our article on the Battle of Monte Cassino.4
Battle of Tourcoing, 1794: how the annihilation plan fell apart
18 May 1794 · 232 years ago
Near Tourcoing, north of Lille, a French Republican army under Souham and Moreau faced encirclement by a coalition army under Prince Josias of Coburg. The French struck the scattered, poorly coordinated coalition columns and defeated them.
Read the full story of Battle of Tourcoing, 1794: how the annihilation plan fell apart ›The Siege of Vicksburg, 1863: the Confederacy split in two
18 May to 4 July 1863 · 163 years ago
Ulysses S. Grant's Union army captured Vicksburg, Mississippi, on 4 July 1863 after a six-week siege. The surrender gave the Union control of the entire Mississippi River and split the Confederacy in two.
Read the full story of The Siege of Vicksburg, 1863: the Confederacy split in two ›Also on this day
1565: The Ottoman fleet appeared off Malta, the island of the Knights of St John, on 18 May. The Abbé de Vertot counts 159 oared galleys and galliots carrying 30,000 soldiers, while Prescott, citing Francisco Balbi's account, gives 130 royal galleys and fifty smaller vessels. Royal Museums Greenwich dates the siege from 18 May to 11 September 1565 and writes that the Turks eventually retreated after thousands of their troops had been killed.5
