Category: Military
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3001 – The Vicksburg Campaign
By the winter of 1862, the American Civil War was going poorly for the Union. Begun in 1861 with the secession of eleven Confederate states from the United States, Confederate forces had more than held their own in the field against Union Armies. In the Eastern Theater, the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia under General…
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2910 – After Cannae: Dark Days for the Roman Republic
At the Battle of Cannae, 2 August, 216 B.C., Carthaginian general Hannibal Barca administered one of Rome’s most crushing military defeats. Depending upon the ancient source, Roman losses on the Apulian battlefield numbered anywhere from roughly 50,000, as Livy relates, to around 70,000, as Polybius insists. Hannibal had enacted a double envelopment of the Roman…
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2909 – Army exercises in the English countryside, 1853-1914
The last pitched battles on English soil were Sedgemoor in 1685 and Preston in 1715. But after that the army still needed to train and practice. The first land on Salisbury Plain was not bought for army training until 1897 and Catterick Camp was opened after the outbreak of WW1. So from 1853 when there…
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2908 – The First Victoria Cross (part 2)
When the first actions were gazetted in The London Gazette on February 24th, 1857, the first name to appear was that of Cecil Buckley. The action for his award was performed in May 1855 while he was a lieutenant but he had been promoted Commander soon after and so was the highest ranking naval officer…
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2907 – The First Victoria Cross (part 1)
During the Crimean War (March 1854-February 1856), the movement to recognise the valour of the ordinary fighting man of the various branches of the British armed forces gained immense momentum. The Crimean War was the first conflict where newspaper reporters were with the troops (today we’d use the term ‘embedded’) and wrote back to their…
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2906 – Royal Navy actions during the Battle of Britain: Continuing a long tradition
‘Ask most people about the Battle of Britain, and they will think of the Spitfires and Hurricanes of RAF fighter command in combat with the German Luftwaffe over southern England in 1940. History books will often also mention Bomber Command carrying out raids on the French and Belgian ports where the Germans were assembling the…
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2905 – Charlemagne: The Father of Europe pt2
The machinery of war which Charlemagne inherited from his father. Pepin the Short, and grandfather (Charles Martel, ‘the hammer’) was singularly well tuned to wage war. All of Charlemagne’s vassals were expected to serve militarily and all free men were expected to serve if needed. This service included bishops, abbots and abbesses; they too could…
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The Doolittle Raiders and their Fight for Justice
The skill and bravery of the Doolittle raiders during WWII, who bombed Tokyo in 1942 captured the American public’s imagination, but not all the crews returned. Eight US flyers became Japanese prisoners of war who were tortured, put on trial for war crimes and found guilty… Not all of these men would make it home.…
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2904 – Charlemagne: The Father of Europe
Charles the Great, known as Charlemagne and the father of Europe, created an empire which would last 1,000 years. To secure it he fought continuously, on multiple fronts, throughout his long reign. Charlemagne came to power at a time when Europe was made up of many small kingdoms and principalities. Since the fall of the…
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2903 – Battles of Thermopylae, Artemisium and Salamis part 2
‘Thermopylae and Artemisium were never intended to be decisive stands even though the defeat of the 300 Spartans at Thermopylae has gone down in history as just such a stand. There were also 700 Thespians and 400 Thebans at that defeat but their sacrifice has been all but been ignored. (indeed the historian Herodotus goes…