Charles The Hammer At Tours

In the late spring of ad 732, an 80,000-man-strong Muslim army spilled northward through gaps in the western Pyrenees onto the verdant, gently rolling landscape of Gascony. Read more

Nuremburg Prosecutor

On March 23, 1991, at a reunion of the postwar Nuremberg International Military Tribunal staffers in Washington, I had occasion to meet the former American prosecutor, Brigadier General Telford Taylor. Read more

Fernando Alvarez de Toledo, the Duke of Alva

The Eighty Years’ War between Spain and the Netherlands, which lasted from 1568 to 1648, developed not only from economic difficulties but also from religious tensions that eventually resulted in several Dutch riots in 1566. Read more

The Battle of Britain: WWII’s Most Consequential Campaign?

Two decades after the carnage of the Great War, the world was again plunged into the cauldron of armed conflict. Read more

Blood In The Soil

In 1939 the one thing that Adolf Hitler and Josef Stalin could agree on was the partition of Poland. Read more

The Great Baltimore Riot of 1812

One of Baltimore’s less flattering nicknames is “Mob Town,” and there have been several notable riots in the city’s history. Read more

Third Reich Women at War

During the 12 years of the highly militarized society of the Third Reich, some 20 million Germans—men and women as well as children—donned a uniform of one kind or another.  Read more

Liberating Slaves in the U.S. Sloop of War Constellation

The U.S. sloop of war Constellation was sailing off the coast of Africa, not far from the Congo River, and both officers and crew were enjoying a night so beautiful it seemed almost like a dream. Read more

Sole Survivor

On December 1, 1942, a 431st Bomb Squadron Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress named Omar Khayyam – The Plastered Bastard took off from a base codenamed Cactus on a photo-reconnaissance mission toward enemy-held Bougainville Island in the Pacific. Read more

WWII: German Rations and Feeding the Troops of the Third Reich

It was Napoleon Bonaparte who purportedly said, “An army travels on its stomach.” Toward the goal of feeding his particular army’s stomach more efficiently, in 1795 the French general came up with an interesting solution to the problem. Read more

Lend-Lease on the High Seas

At high tide on the night of March 28, 1942, an American-built British destroyer disguised as a German torpedo boat steamed boldly up the estuary of the Loire River in occupied France. Read more

Caesar’s Grand Siege at Alesia

As Julius Caesar’s Roman army began its march on a late summer day in 52 BC in eastern France it discovered Gallic cavalry barring the way of its vanguard. Read more

Struggle for Stalin’s Skies

By Kelly Bell

On February 3, 1943, Lieutenant Herbert Kuntz of the 100th Bomber Group made the last flight by any German pilot over the Soviet city of Stalingrad. Read more

Lust for Glory: Napoleon’s Egypt Campaigns Helped With Invading Europe

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

The 1st Polish Armoured Division Served with Honor

Polish Major General Stanislaw Macze, commander of the 1st Polish Armoured Division stood tall and watched as General Guy Simonds, II Canadian Corps, delivered very harsh news to the half dozen German generals and admirals of the 1st Parachute Army, General Erich Straub commanding. Read more

Massacre At Malmédy

The surrender did not begin well. As First Lieutenant Virgil Lary stood in the road next to a snow-covered field just south of Malmédy, Belgium with his hands raised, one of the German tankers poked his head out of the hatch and fired twice at him with his pistol. Read more

‘Hallowed war grave’ is world’s deepest discovered shipwreck

The Battle of Leyte Gulf, from October 23-26, 1944, was the largest air and sea battle of World War II. An important part of the battle took place off Samar Island on October 25, 1944. Read more

Joe Johnson’s Ordeal

Private Joe Johnson wakes on the floor of the Pasay schoolhouse, a few miles south of downtown Manila, capital of the Philippines. Read more

Shootout At Rubio Ranch

When Brig. Gen. John S. Pershing began assembling a force of 10,000 infantry and cavalry for a punitive incursion into Mexico in the spring of 1916, almost every soldier in the U.S. Read more

Gallant Charge at Antietam

The Union soldiers of Colonel Harrison Fairchild’s brigade prepared to attack uphill against a key Rebel position on the outskirts of Sharpsburg at 3 pm on September 17, 1862. Read more