Governor-General Charles Gordon’s Death in Khartoum

By Joshua Shepherd

For British authorities in Egypt, the contents of the diary that had been smuggled out of Khartoum, Sudan, contained devastating intelligence. Read more

Confederate Major General Earl Van Dorn

By William F. Floyd, Jr.

Confederate Maj. Gen. Earl Van Dorn had a glaring flaw. Although the Mississippi-born general had a son and daughter from his marriage to Caroline Godbold, he committed adultery on multiple occasions. Read more

Battle of Hurtgen Forest: Hell in a Dark Wood

By Raymond E. Bell

At the town of Schmidt in the Hürtgen Forest, it was hard to see through the thick mist and steady drizzle on the cold and damp morning of Saturday, November 4, 1944. Read more

Reassessing Rommel: Anti-Nazi Hero or Opportunist?

By Blaine Taylor

Even before the end of World War II, German General Erwin Rommel’s fame was such that he was already being elevated into the Valhalla of such legendary warriors as Hannibal against the Roman Empire, Napoleon during his defensive campaigns of 1813-1814, and Robert E. Read more

The U.S. 3rd, 5th, and 4th Marine Divisions: Uncommon Valor at Iwo Jima

By Nathan N. Prefer

“You know,” said Marine Maj. Gen. Clifton B. Cates to a war correspondent on the eve of Operation Detachment, the invasion of Iwo Jima, “if I knew the name of the man on the extreme right of the right-hand squad of the right-hand company of the right-hand battalion, I’d recommend him for a medal before we go in.” Read more

Ironclad Clash at Lissa

By David A. Norris

Narrrowly avoiding a fatal blow from the Italian ironclad ram Affondatore, Commodore Anton von Petz, commander of Austrian wooden-hulled ship of the line Kaiser, came under fire from the heavy rifled guns of another enemy ironclad, the Re di Portogallo, on July 20, 1866, near the Dalmatian island of Lissa in the Adriatic Sea. Read more

The Wars of the Roses: The Weapons That Defined the English Civil Wars

By William F. Floyd, Jr.

The men of Bridport on the coast of southwestern England kept extra weapons on hand to deal with the raids endemic during the Hundred Years War that preceded the Wars of the Roses. Read more

Russian Bear’s Rampage

By Robert Heege

It was late in the morning of November 30, 1853, and the Black Sea was living up to its name. Read more

Showdown at Grunwald

By Viktor Kamenir

From his position opposite the left wing of the Teutonic Knights, Lithuanian Grand Duke Vytautas watched closely as the Teutonic Order redressed its lines at mid-morning in the already sweltering summer sun. Read more

Armored in Lorraine: Battle of Arracourt

By Arnold Blumberg

Scouts for the U.S. Third Army on foot and in armored vehicles cautiously approached the town of Luneville on the east side of the Moselle River in the rolling hills of north- eastern France on September 15, 1944. Read more

Wild Weasels and the AGM-45 Shrike Missile

By Christopher Miskimon

Captain John E. Donovan, an electronic warfare officer, monitored the equipment in his F-100F Super Sabre fighter. It was December 22, 1965, and his plane was part of a strike mission searching out enemy antiaircraft sites. Read more

Rome Avenged: Hannibal in Italy

By Eric Niderost

Two Generals met in the Fall of 202 BC in a last-ditch attempt to secure a mutually agreeable peace between their respective nations. Read more

Hungary’s National Hero

By Ludwig Heinrich Dyck

Janos Hunyadi, Hungary’s national hero, was one of the great captains in the war between Europe and the Ottoman Turks. Read more

The Lion’s Last Roar

By Eric Niderost

King Gustavus II Adolphus of Sweden rode forward confidently, digging his heels into Streiff, his war horse, signaling the animal to quicken his pace and jump the ditch that was just ahead. Read more

Frankish Disaster in Saxony

By William E. Welsh

The Saxon warriors worked tirelessly from dawn to dusk atop the mountain felling trees, cutting them into logs, and adding them to the field fort they were building on a flat spur of the Suntel Mountains in the heart of their homeland. Read more

Sabers, Scimitars, and Swords

By Victor Kamenir

On the coat of arms of Finland, a crowned lion tramples upon a curved sword with his hind paws while brandishing a straight sword in his right forepaw. Read more

Naval Carnage at Navarino

By Victor Kamenir

At 2 PM on October 20, 1827, Allied squadrons sailed into the Bay of Navarino on the west coast of the Peloponnese peninsula. Read more

Panzer General Strachwitz

By Ludwig H. Dyck

The wide tracks of Soviet T-34S and colossal KV-1S crunched through the snow. Night had fallen west of Belgorod on March 15, 1943. Read more

Books for January 2017

By Christopher Miskimon

The sun shone brightly overhead as the thin line of U.S. Marines lay in a beet field in France. Read more

Nazi Propagandist William Joyce

By Blaine Taylor

The most famous of the English-Language radio broadcasters from Nazi Germany was Brooklyn, New York-born William Joyce, known by the disparaging moniker Lord Haw Haw. Read more