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It was a sorry tale. A brilliant general, military hero, and faithful servant of the state, blind and reduced to penury in his old age, sitting on the main street of Constantinople begging for his living. Read more
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Richard Gatling was born in Hertford County, NC, on December 12, 1818. His father was a prosperous farmer and inventor, and the son was destined to inherit the “invention bug.” Read more
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When one thinks of the guns that won the West, one naturally envisions such familiar weapons as the Winchester, Henry, and Spencer repeating rifles, the trapdoor Springfield, the Smith & Wesson revolver, and the Colt Peacemaker. Read more
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Twenty-six year-old Napoleon Bonaparte took command of France’s 23,000-strong Army of Italy in Nice, France, in late March 1796. Read more
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Marshal Auguste Marmont watched intently as the left wing of his French army maneuvered against the Anglo-Portuguese army during the Battle of Salamanca at mid-afternoon on July 22, 1812. Read more
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By mid-afternoon on September 7, 1812, Russian troops had lost control of the earthworks on their left flank at Borodino. Read more
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In May 1798 English spies in Toulon, on the French Mediterranean coast, stood aghast at the gathering of an invasion fleet three times the size of the Spanish Armada: 13 ships of the line, 40 frigates and smaller warships, and 130 cargo vessels bearing more than 17,000 troops, 700 horses, and 1,000 cannons. Read more
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On March 18, 1799, a strange thing happened in the Near East backwater that today is Israel. In the years that followed the birth of Jesus, the rise of Christianity, and the fall of Byzantium, things in the region had quieted down considerably since the Mohammedan conquests (apart from the Crusades). Read more
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In the face of disaster, few military commanders in history maintained the British stiff upper lip as well as Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington. Read more
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By Eric Niderost
On the evening of July 4, 1809, Emperor Napoleon’s Grande Armee prepared to cross a narrow waterway from Lobau Island to Marchfelt, a large, flat plain that bordered the eastern banks of the sinuous Danube River. Read more
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One of the most decisive battles in American history is also one little discussed, the April 21, 1836 Battle of San Jacinto. Read more
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As the fateful day drew to a close, the exhausted World War I soldiers of the German 25th and 82nd Reserve Divisions huddled in their trenches. Read more
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Although the terrain around the Battle of Borodino presented the Russians with a number of good opportunities for a defensive battle, they further strengthened their positions with hastily constructed earthworks. Read more
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Before Napoleon left for Syria, he ordered 30-year-old General Louis Desaix to subdue Upper Egypt, that is, the region upstream (or south) of Cairo, if need be all the way to the borders of Sedan. Read more
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Early in 1944, German Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, the defeated hero of North Africa and now head of Army Group B in France, was tasked with strengthening the Atlantic Wall defenses against Allied invasion. Read more
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[Editor’s note: The following are participant accounts—mainly those of Alfred Armand Robert Saint-Chamans—of Napoleon’s 1813 campaign in Germany ending in the decisive battle of Leipzig. Read more
