Field Marshal in the context of José de Canterac

An alliance is a relationship among people, groups, or states that have joined together for mutual benefit or to achieve some common purpose, whether or not an explicit agreement has been worked out among them. Members of an alliance are called allies. Alliances form in many settings, including political alliances, military alliances, and business alliances.

The Schlieffen Plan (German: Schlieffen-Plan, pronounced [ʃliːfən plaːn]) is a name given after the First World War to German war plans, due to the influence of Field Marshal Alfred von Schlieffen and his thinking on an invasion of France and Belgium, which began on 4 August 1914. Schlieffen was Chief of the General Staff of the German Army from 1891 to 1906. In 1905 and 1906, Schlieffen devised an army deployment plan for a decisive (war-winning) offensive against France. German forces were to invade France through the Netherlands, Luxembourg and Belgium rather than across the common border.

After losing the First World War, the German official historians of the Reichsarchiv and other writers, described the plan as a blueprint for victory. Generaloberst (Colonel-General) Helmuth von Moltke the Younger had succeeded Schlieffen as Chief of the German General Staff in 1906 and was dismissed after the First Battle of the Marne (5–12 September 1914). German historians claimed that Moltke had ruined the plan by tampering with it, out of timidity. They managed to establish a narrative that Moltke failed to follow the blueprint devised by Schlieffen, condemning the belligerents to four years of attrition warfare.

LZ 129 Hindenburg (Luftschiff Zeppelin #129; registration: D-LZ 129) was a German commercial passenger-carrying rigid airship, the lead ship of its class, the longest class of flying machine and the largest airship by envelope volume. It was designed and built by the Zeppelin Company (Luftschiffbau Zeppelin GmbH) on the shores of Lake Constance in Friedrichshafen, Germany, and was operated by the German Zeppelin Airline Company (Deutsche Zeppelin-Reederei). It was named after Field Marshal Paul von Hindenburg, who was President of Germany from 1925 until his death in 1934.

The airship first flew from March 1936 as a Nazi propaganda vessel until it burst into flames 14 months later on May 6, 1937, while attempting to land at Lakehurst Naval Air Station in Manchester Township, New Jersey, at the end of the first North American transatlantic journey of its second season of service. This was the last of the great airship disasters; it was preceded by the crashes of the British R38, the US airship Roma, the French Dixmude, the USS Shenandoah, the British R101, and the USS Akron.

Prince George Louis of Hessen-Darmstadt (25 April 1669 – 13 September 1705) was a Field Marshal in the Austrian army. He is known for his career in Habsburg Spain, as Viceroy of Catalonia (1698–1701), head of the Austrian army in the War of the Spanish Succession (1701–1705) and governor of Gibraltar in 1704. He was killed during the Siege of Barcelona the following year. He was known in Spanish as Jorge de Darmstadt and in Catalan as Jordi Darmstadt.

The Battle of Ligny, in which French troops of the Armée du Nord under the command of Napoleon I defeated part of a Prussian army under Field Marshal Blücher, was fought on 16 June 1815 near Ligny in what is now Belgium. The result was a tactical victory for the French, but the bulk of the Prussian army survived the battle in good order, was reinforced by Prussian troops who had not fought at Ligny, and played a role two days later at the Battle of Waterloo. Ligny was the last victory in Napoleon's military career. In the culminating moment of this battle Blücher was wounded and carried off the battlefield, and was replaced by his chief of staff, Lieutenant General Gneisenau.

Grand Duke Nicholas Nikolaevich of Russia (Russian: Великий князь Николай Николаевич; 8 August 1831 – 25 April 1891) was the third son and sixth child of Tsar Nicholas I of Russia and Alexandra Feodorovna. He may also be referred to as Nicholas Nikolaevich the Elder to tell him apart from his son, Grand Duke Nicholas Nikolaevich of Russia (1856–1929). Trained for the military, as a Field Marshal he commanded the Russian army of the Danube in the Russo-Turkish War, 1877–1878.

Birindji ferik, birinci ferîk or ferîk-i evvel (corresponding to the earlier Ottoman rank of Serdar) was a military rank of the Ottoman Army. The title means "First Ferîk" and was senior to a Ferîk and junior only to the Müşîr (equivalent to Field Marshal).

The collar mark (later shoulder mark) and cap (until 1933) of a Birinci Ferîk had three stripes and three stars during the early years of the Turkish Republic.

Finckenstein Palace (German: Schloss Finckenstein; Polish: Pałac w Kamieńcu) is a ruined Baroque palace situated in the village of Kamieniec, about 25 mi. (40 km) south of Elbląg, in northern Poland. Formerly part of West Prussia, it was designed by the architect John von Collas and erected in the years 1716–1720 by Prussian Field Marshal, Marquess, and Count Albrecht Konrad Reinhold Finck von Finckenstein. It remained in the possession of the Finck von Finckenstein family until 1782. After that the Counts Dohna-Schlobitten lived in it until 1945. Red Army soldiers set the palace on fire January 22, 1945, during their conquest of Prussia in World War II. The last owner/resident was Alfred (1917–1988), son of Hermann Dohna-Finckenstein (1894–1942).

The palace became famous in 1807, when Napoleon made it his residence from April through June of that year. When he saw the palace for the first time, he said: Enfin un chateau ("Finally, a castle"). The Treaty of Finckenstein between France and Persia was signed here. Here, Napoleon met his Polish mistress Maria Walewska, with whom he lived in the palace. The Hollywood movie Conquest depicted the palace with Greta Garbo and Charles Boyer but was actually filmed in Monterey, California.

Field Marshal Jan Christian Smuts, OM, CH, DTD, ED, PC, KC, FRS (baptismal name Jan Christiaan Smuts, 24 May 1870 – 11 September 1950) was a South African statesman, military officer and philosopher. In addition to holding various military and cabinet posts, he served as Prime Minister of the Union of South Africa from 1919 to 1924 and 1939 to 1948.

Smuts was born to Afrikaner parents in the British Cape Colony. He was educated at Victoria College, Stellenbosch, before reading law at Christ's College, Cambridge, on a scholarship. He was called to the bar at the Middle Temple in 1894 but returned home the following year. In the leadup to the Second Boer War, Smuts practised law in Pretoria, the capital of the South African Republic. He led the republic's delegation to the Bloemfontein Conference and served as an officer in a commando unit following the outbreak of war in 1899. In 1902, he played a key role in negotiating the Treaty of Vereeniging, which ended the war and resulted in the annexation of the South African Republic and Orange Free State into the British Empire. He subsequently helped negotiate self-government for the Transvaal Colony, becoming a cabinet minister under Louis Botha.

The Second Battle of Artois (French: Deuxième bataille de l'Artois, German: Lorettoschlacht) from 9 May to 18 June 1915, took place on the Western Front during the First World War. A German-held salient from Reims to Amiens had been formed in 1914 which menaced communications between Paris and the unoccupied parts of northern France. A reciprocal French advance eastwards in Artois could cut the rail lines supplying the German armies between Arras and Reims. French operations in Artois, Champagne and Alsace from November–December 1914, led General Joseph Joffre, Generalissimo (Commander in Chief) and head of Grand Quartier Général (GQG), to continue the offensive in Champagne against the German southern rail supply route and to plan an offensive in Artois against the lines from Germany supplying the German armies in the north.

Field Marshal Sir John French, commander of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF), co-operated with the French strategy to capture Vimy Ridge by planning British attacks against Aubers Ridge. The attacks would confront the German 6th Army with a joint offensive, on a 70 mi (110 km) front, eastwards into the Douai plain, where an advance of 10–15 mi (16–24 km) would cut the railways supplying the German armies as far south as Reims. The French attacked Vimy Ridge and the British attacked further north in the Battle of Aubers Ridge (9 May) and the Battle of Festubert (15–25 May).

The Battle of (the) Linth River (25–26 September 1799) saw a French division under General of Division Jean-de-Dieu Soult face a force of Austrian, Imperial Russian, and Swiss rebel soldiers led by Feldmarschall-Leutnant Friedrich Freiherr von Hotze in Switzerland. Soult carefully planned and his troops carried out a successful assault crossing of the Linth River between Lake Zurich and the Walensee. Hotze's death early in the action disorganized the Allied defenders who were defeated and forced to retreat, abandoning supplies accumulated for Field Marshal Alexander Suvorov's approaching army. On the same day, General of Division André Masséna's French Army of Helvetia defeated Lieutenant General Alexander Korsakov's Russian army in the Second Battle of Zurich and Brigadier General Gabriel Jean Joseph Molitor's French brigade turned back another Austrian force near Mollis. Both Korsakov's Russians and Hotze's survivors, led by Feldmarschall-Leutnant Franz Petrasch withdrew north of the Rhine River.

These defeats were the result of a mismanaged Allied strategy that planned to unite the forces of Korsakov and Hotze with Suvorov's Russian army coming north from Italy. In accordance with the strategy, Feldzeugmeister Archduke Charles, Duke of Teschen's powerful Austrian army had marched from Zürich to southern Germany a few weeks before. Masséna and Soult won their victories in the narrow time window between Charles' departure and Suvorov's arrival. On 24 September, Suvorov's Russians captured the Gotthard Pass and marched into Switzerland. However, with Korsakov and Petrasch driven out of the country, Masséna turned his full attention upon Suvorov's army, setting the stage for an epic alpine campaign.

The Battle of Junín was a large cavalry engagement of the Peruvian War of Independence, fought in the highlands of the Junín Region on 6 August 1824. The preceding February the royalists had regained control of Lima, and having regrouped in Trujillo, Simón Bolívar in June led his rebel forces south to confront the Spanish under Field Marshal José de Canterac. The two armies met on the Plain of Junín in the Bombon Plateau [es], northwest of the Jauja Valley.

The Battle of Craonne (7 March 1814) was a battle between an Imperial French army under Emperor Napoleon I opposing a combined army of Imperial Russians and Prussians led by Prussian Field Marshal Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher. The War of the Sixth Coalition engagement began when the bulk of Napoleon's army tried to drive Mikhail Semyonovich Vorontsov's 22,000 Russians off the Chemin des Dames plateau to the west of Craonne. After a bitter struggle, Napoleon's attacks compelled Vorontsov's force to withdraw, but French casualties exceeded Russian losses. While the battle raged, Blücher's attempt to turn Napoleon's east flank ended in failure due to poor planning.

In late February 1814, Blücher's army separated from the main Allied army of Austrian field marshal Karl Philipp, Prince of Schwarzenberg, moving northwest and making a dash at Paris. Napoleon left Marshal Jacques MacDonald with one army to observe Schwarzenberg and started after Blücher with another army. Blücher evaded Napoleon's attempt to trap him and retreated north toward Laon, picking up reinforcements as he went. Russian forces under Ferdinand von Wintzingerode and a Prussian corps led by Friedrich Wilhelm Freiherr von Bülow would soon give Blücher a huge numerical advantage over the French. Napoleon came into contact with Vorontsov's corps on the evening of 6 March, believing that he had Blücher on the run. The next contest would be the Battle of Laon on 9–10 March.

Karl Philipp, Fürst zu Schwarzenberg (or Charles Philip, Prince of Schwarzenberg; 18/19 April 1771 – 15 October 1820) was an Austrian Generalissimo and former Field Marshal. He first entered military service in 1788 and fought against the Turks. During the French Revolutionary War, he fought on the allied side against France and in that period rose through the ranks of the Imperial Army. During the Napoleonic Wars, he fought in the Battle of Wagram (1809), which the Austrians lost decisively against Napoleon. He had to fight for Napoleon in the battles of Gorodechno and Wolkowisk (1812) against the Russians and won. During the War of the Sixth Coalition, he was in command of the allied army that decisively defeated Napoleon in the Battle of Leipzig (1813).He participated in the Battle of Paris (1814), which forced Napoleon to abdicate.