Articles Archive

The Duke of Marlborough: Masterstroke at Blenheim

By Jonas L. Goldstein

When Louis XIV assumed the throne of France in 1661, Europe was at peace. He acknowledged as much in his memoirs: “Everything was quiet everywhere. Read more

The B-25 Mitchell Bomber and the Man Behind the Plane

By Sam McGowan

During the 1920s, roughly two decades before the B-25 Mitchell bomber came into service, U.S. Army Air Service commander Brig. Read more

American tanks and armored gun carriers drive over snow-covered terrain to Samree during the Battle of the Bulge. Capture of the city opened the way to Houffallize, heart of the Bulge.

The End of the Battle of the Bulge

By Arnold Blumberg

Wednesday, December 27, 1944, found the military situation in the Ardennes Forest of Belgium stalemated. After 12 days of unrelenting struggle, the American and German forces on this part of the Western Front found themselves locked in brutal combat, unable to drive each other back. Read more

German cruiser SMS Konigsberg, displacing 3,400 tons, sailed from Germany for Africa in April 1914, just before the outbreak of World War I.

The German Cruiser Konigsberg

By Michael Vogel

The field telephone rang on the bridge of the trapped German cruiser SMS Konigsberg. On the other end of the line, the coast watcher spoke the words that had been dreaded for almost eight months—the British were coming. Read more

The third-century Great Ludovisi Sarcophagus in Rome shows Romans battling Goths. This detail depicts Hostilian, younger son of Emperor Decius. His other son, Herrenius, was killed in the battle.

Philippolis: Roman Disaster on the Western Border

By Ludwig Heinrich Dyck

It was early spring, ad 235, on the Rhine frontier. In the imperial tent of a Roman encampment, 26-year-old Emperor Severus Alexander wept at his mother’s side. Read more

Operation Greif: Assassinate Eisenhower?

By Charles Whiting

On the morning of Monday, December 18, 1944, a mixed group of white MPs and black American service troops stood guard on the little bridge at Aywaille in the Ardennes Forest of Belgium. Read more

Baron Manfred von Richthofen was not the first flyer to be awarded the “Blue Max.” In fact, he waited anxiously for it. The award goes back to the 17th century.

The Pour le Mérite

By Robert Whiter

It was early in the year 1917, and a member of the Luftstreiknafte (German Army Air Service), Freiherr (Baron) Manfred von Richthofen, was feeling a trifle disgruntled. Read more

Operation Catapult: Churchill’s Desperate Measure

By Brooke C. Stoddard

Steaming through the summer Mediterranean night, the world having gone sour in two awful months, British Vice Admiral Sir James Somerville read the message just sent to him from London: “You are charged with one of the most disagreeable and difficult tasks that a British Admiral has ever been faced with, but we have complete confidence in you and rely on you to carry it out relentlessly.” Read more

Famous Military Commanders: Admiral Philip Vian

By the time the British Pacific Fleet began staging air strikes against the Japanese in the spring of 1945, its aircraft carrier commander had already seen plenty of naval action since the beginning of World War II. Read more

Rifles in hand, a French patrol proudly poses for the camera in front of a log blockhouse fortification atop a rocky outcrop in Belgium.

The 1940 Battle of Gembloux

By Jonathan F. Keiler

On May 10, 1940, a daring group of German parachutists descended on the mighty Belgian fortress of Eben Emael, compelled its surrender, and opened the way for the German Army’s drive into Belgium. Read more

Civil War veteran Capt. Joseph A. Faris completed a depiction of the fight at Point Pleasant long after the action but with a soldier’s sensibilities to combat and terrain.

Lord Dunmore’s War: The Battle of Point Pleasant

By James K. Swisher

In the lengthening shadows of a late October afternoon, a column of tired marchers attired in dusty, fringed hunting dress emerged from the trees along the north bank of the Kanawha River, raising an exhilarating shout upon sighting its confluence with the Ohio. Read more

West Virginia: Seceding from the Confederacy

By Don Roberts

During the Civil War western Virginia was crucial to the Union. The region that lay west of the Shenandoah Valley and north of the Kanawha River held nearly a quarter of Virginia’s nonslave population when the war began in 1861. Read more

Lilya Litvak: The Red Air Force’s Female Fighter Ace

By Michael D. Hull

When German panzer and infantry columns rumbled across the frontier into Russia on June 22, 1941, the Soviet Air Force was woefully unready for war. Read more

In this combat photo from April 6, 1944, soldiers of Company K, 25th Infantry Regiment, 93rd Infantry Division return fire from a Japanese biovac.

The Fight Near Hill 250: K Company at the Battle of Bougainville

By John Kennedy Ohl

In an article in the Pittsburgh Courier on April 15, 1944, correspondent Billy Rowe, who was covering the activities of the 93d U.S. Read more

The Medieval Crossbow: Redefining War in the Middle Ages

By Arnold Blumberg

Anna Comnena, daughter of the Byzantium Emperor Alexius Comnenus, writing at about the time of the First Crusade (1096-1099), said of the medieval crossbow, a military tool new to her part of the world, “The crossbow is a weapon of the barbarians [western Europeans], absolutely unknown to the Greeks [Byzantines].” Read more