If you want to read more about Harry you can find his autobiography for free at archive.org.

 
Harry Smith

With Ian Hughes joining the regulars, they discuss the problem of gaps in the historical evidence that have to be negotiated when looking at the period, and the long lasting conflict with Rome.

Rome’s wars with the Sassanids

In the summer of 1779, American Major General John Sullivan marched his 5,000 Continentals into the Finger Lakes region of western New York. Known as Sullivan’s Expedition, it was the longest military campaign of the American Revolutionary War. Ordered by General George Washington, this campaign was a direct invasion into the once impenetrable Iroquois Confederacy lands in retaliation for several brutal massacres by British Rangers and their Indian allies.

Crown of Serpents

This episode was written by Michael Karpovage.

Michael is the author of the mystery thriller Crown of Serpents, the backstory of which involves the discovery of Lt. Thomas Boyd’s campaign journal. The novel mixes factual military history in a present day suspense thriller. Karpovage is a Freemason and lives in Atlanta, Georgia. for more information on Michael visit CrownofSerpents.com

Betrayed by a Mason? The Tragic Mission of Lieutenant Thomas Boyd

On May 7th 1954 the French garrison at Dien Bien Phu surrendered to Ho Chi Minh’s Communist forces. For the last 54 days it had been cut off and the surrender was the culmination of an operation that had seen the French troops almost constantly under-fire for 209 days. Comprehensibly beaten it signaled the end of French Indochina.

Dien Bien Phu

The Varangian Guard

The difficulties involved in hunting the snipe gave rise to the term “sniper,” being someone who went hunting for the snipe…and from there it transcended to referring to a skilled anti-personnel military sharpshooter.

Sniper

Now in control of much of the Middle East, the British occupied the land with little thought of the future. “The Secretary of State for India had asked her opinion on which way the political winds were blowing among the various constituencies: the educated Sunnis in town, the Shiite majority in the provinces, the large Jewish community in Baghdad, the Christians in Mosul.” The British did not know how they would govern the territory and requested the advice of their experts. Arnold Wilson recalled, “As explained in Chapter 1, we had to replace, over the whole of this area, every working part of the former civil administration, which had disappeared, with almost all its records, leaving practically no officials even of the humblest rank behind.” Bell set out into the desert once again to weave Mesopotamia’s destiny.

The Formation of Iraq Part 2: Gertrude Bell

Protect thyself. Shields, helmets and armor.

In 1918, after years of devastating warfare, the Ottoman Empire finally collapsed and the British, expanding into the Middle East, attempted to control the area. However, the area proved to be too vast and troublesome for the British Empire. The British suffered greatly in the war and could no longer maintain a tight grip over their holdings. The empire began to buckle. The British needed an Arab ally to rule as their proxy. After months of haggling and policy-making, the Cairo Conference of 1921 established the British Mandate of Mesopotamia with Faisal bin al-Hussein as its king. Secretary of State of the Colonies Winston Churchill called together some of the top minds in British Middle Eastern policy to establish such a friendly territory. Men such as Percy Cox, T.E. Lawrence, Gilbert Clayton, Arnold Wilson, and Churchill would become most responsible for creating Iraq, but they all relied on a single source of advice. Diplomacy was a man’s world during the early twentieth century, but one woman was present—a woman who had spent the last fifteen years in the Middle East and earned the trust of both Arab chieftains and British diplomats alike. Her name was Gertrude Bell and she demonstrated great influence in the creation of modern Iraq.

The Formation of Iraq Part 1: The Fall of the Ottoman Empire