Category: Military
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3604 – The Siege of Belgrade 1456
‘Twelve years have passed since the disastrous Crusader Battle of Varna and three years since the fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Empire in 1453. Europe is reeling under the relentless pressure of Ottoman advances: Serbia fell in 1455, and Sultan Mehmed II had now amassed his forces for an invasion of the Kingdom of…
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3603 – Italian Invasion of British Somaliland
“The Italian invasion of British Somaliland is an often-overlooked action of the Second World War. Although small and a backwater of the British empire, the region would see several significant firsts of the Second World War. The loss of the colony in mid-1940 was the first significant loss of British colonial territory during the war.…
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3602 – Heroics of the Second Anglo-Afghan War
‘Among the many brave acts of the Second Anglo-Afghan War (November 1878-September 1880), sixteen were awarded the Victoria Cross. Among this relatively small collection of awards, however, are several remarkable circumstances. The war saw the last Victoria Cross awarded to a civilian and the same award was the first to a clergyman (Reverend James Adams).…
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3601 – The Italo-Turkish War
‘At the turn of the nineteenth century, Italy, a newly unified upstart Great Power, was looking to expand its political and economic influence into neighbouring North Africa. Just a few years earlier, France had taken effective control of the North African coast from Tunisia to Morocco, while Egypt was a British protectorate. Just two areas…
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3510 – The New Zealand Division and the capture of La Basseville, July 1917
‘The Battle of Passchendaele, or the Third Battle of Ypres, in Flanders, raged from July to November 1917 and was fought for control of the commanding, 80-metre high, ridges which ran south and east from the Belgian city of Ypres. These ridges bulged into the Germans lines creating a salient and capturing them would prove…
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3509 – The Disaster at Adrianople, AD 378 (part II)
“The marching Romans soon came upon the Gothic wagon laager. Scouts reported that it was perfectly circular (literally “turned by a lathe”) and probably sited on a hill as earlier wagon laagers of the previous two years had been. The Goths at the wagons uttered a “fierce and hideous yell” and the Roman officers began…
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3508 – The Disaster at Adrianople, AD 378 (part I)
‘In AD 376 an entire nation of Goths (the Theruingi) gathered on the northern banks of the Danube and asked permission to enter and settle within the Eastern Roman Empire. The Eastern Emperor, Valens (r. 364–78), agreed and this set off a series of events which would end in the greatest disaster for Rome since…
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3507 – Hanoi Hero: James Bond Stockdale
‘It is a rare thing that a man be awarded his country’s highest award for bravery because of his actions as a Prisoner of War, but that is exactly why Air Wing Commander James Stockdale was singled out. He was the highest ranking US Prisoner of War during Vietnam from 9 September 1965 until 12…
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3506 – Eddie Rickenbacker
‘By the time of America’s entry into WWI in April 1917, Eddie Rickenbacker was already famous. Always obsessed with engines, he had become a mechanic to Lee Frayer in the 1906 Vanderbilt Cup at the age of only 15. In 1910 he became a race-car driver himself, racing in the Indianapolis 500 in 1911. He…
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3505 – The Battle of the Milvian Bridge, AD 312
‘In late October AD 312, the fate of the future of the Roman world was decided near the Pons Milvius, the Milvian Bridge (the modern Ponte Milvio, Italy), crossing the River Tiber some 5 kilometres north of Rome on the via Flaminia. The battle was the culmination of the war between rival Roman emperors, Maxentius…