Category: Military
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3809 – The (second) battle of Mantinea
“At the battle of Leuctra in 371 BC, a resurgent Thebes led by its great statesmen and tactician reformers Epaminondas and Pelopidas defeated the army of Sparta. The defeat was one of the greatest shocks Greece had witnessed – not only did the Thebans defeat the Spartans but the Spartans turned and fled from the…
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3808 The Battles of Hedgeley Moor and Hexham 1464 – Part 2
‘John Neville probably marched along the north bank of the River Tyne along Carrel Gate. This route put Bywell castle under threat, but we do not hear of Henry leaving (although he must have if this was the line of march – and other alternatives still put Bywell under threat). In his march west, Neville…
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3807 – The battles of Hedgeley Moor and Hexham, 1464
A combination of two battles fought close together in Northumberland in April and May 1464 brought Lancastrian resistance to the Yorkist king Edward IV to an end during the Wars of the Roses until 1469. These battles are of extreme importance but are confused in the primary sources and often elided in modern accounts into…
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3806 – The Shingle Street Invasion That Never Was
“Picture the Suffolk coast on a stormy night in 1940. Waves crash against a bleak shingle bank, the wind howls through the marshes, and blackout shades cover every window in the tiny hamlet of Shingle Street. It was a place where the war felt uncomfortably close. Just across the North Sea lay occupied Europe. German…
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3805 – Valour Lost, part 3
“George Ravenhill joined the 1st Battalion of The Royal Scots Fusiliers when he was seventeen, in 1889. He spent six years in India before transferring to the 2nd Battalion in South Africa during the Second Boer War. There, at the battle of Colenso on December 15th, 1899, Ravenhill made several forays to assist the artillery…
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3804 – Valour Lost, part 2
“Thomas Lane was born in Cork, County Cork, Ireland in May 1836. He enlisted with the 47th Regiment of Foot and served with them throughout the Crimean War (1854-1856). He then enlisted in the 67th Regiment of Foot. In 1860, Lane’s regiment was posted to China as part of an expedition for the closing stages…
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3803 – Valour Lost, part 1
In this three part series we look at the eight recipients of the Victoria Cross who forfeited the award due to their later actions, as well as other recipients who fell on hard times, and with particular reference to the case of modern Victoria Cross for Australian recipient Ben-Roberts Smith, accused of murder and war…
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3802 – Colenso: Ireland’s Forgotten Sacrifice in the Boer War
“Yet another war believed to be over by Christmas. The Second Boer War was fought between the greatest empire the world had ever seen and a nation of farmers with a population fewer than that of Brighton, England. It took the might of the British Empire three years to subdue these farmers who were known…
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3801 – Alvarado’s Leap: Construction of a Legend
“Modern historical scholarship has little lenience for hyperbole, and any event that appears exaggerated is heavily scrutinised. The Spanish Conquest of Mexico provides ample folklore for historians to examine. One tale depicts renowned conquistador Pedro de Alvarado vaulting across a canal to escape certain doom. An episode since identified as the Salto de Alvarado (Alvarado’s…
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3710 – Soccer pitch invasion! Vienna’s battlefield and Carnuntum, AD 170
“In late October 2024, under a Vienna sports field (Ostbahn-XI-Platz) on the Danube in the Simmering district, a site of ancient mass burial was discovered. 129 bodies were discovered (intermixed bones may mean there were up to 150 bodies buried), all male, mostly between 20 and 30 years old, all roughly 1.7 metres tall, and…