Category: Military

On the field of Marathon, the Persians and Athenians faced off against each other for days on end. Finally, when it was the strategos Miltiades’ day of command, the Athenians took action. Herodotus tells us that: ‘The Athenian army moved into position for the coming struggle. The right wing was commanded by Callimachus – for…

‘On September 10th 490 BC, hoplites from the Greek city of Athens faced an invasion force sent from the enormous and powerful Persian Empire to the east on the field at Marathon, a bay 26.2 miles (42.195 kilometres) northeast of Athens. The Athenians were outnumbered but the result would not be what anyone expected.’ This…

In his account of Xerxes’ invasion of Greece, the historian Herodotus goes out of his way to give an account of Artemisia, female tyrant of Halicarnassus, before, during and in the aftermath of the battle Salamis in 480 BC. This account, and Artemisia herself, are remarkable for a variety of reasons but the idea of…

There have been very few occasions since the 1300’s when a foreign navy or army have been able to damage English ports and land troops, but this occurred twice within a month during June and July 1667.  The Dutch raid on the River Medway is fairly well known, a humiliating defeat for the Royal Navy. …

For centuries naval warfare consisted of vessels in relative close proximity to one, another fighting it out. This combat might take the form of ships in the ancient world ramming, or with the development of gunpowder vessels would launch broadsides at short range into the opposition. There would be many technological advances in naval warfare,…

In this second episode of the life of Charles V Holy Roman Emperor we continue the story of his reign and of the conflicts in the first half of the 16th Century that shaped Europe and the world. The ruler of an empire is forever in the saddle and so it was with Charles. Conflict…