The City That Would Not Die: Siege of Leningrad
By Richard RuleLeningrad, the old imperial capital, was the most beautiful city in Russia and had for centuries been her cultural heartland. Read more
The Arquebus
By William J. McPeakIn 1503, near the northern Italian town of Cerignola, the famous Spanish commander Gonsalvo de Cordova, Viceroy of Naples (to be known to military history as “The Great Captain”), resolved to turn and stand before the pursuing French army. Read more
Elizabethans vs. “The Naturals”
By Eric NiderostOn April 26, 1607, three small English ships arrived at the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay after a grueling and contentious four-month voyage. Read more
Patton’s Death
By Blaine TaylorIt was 11:45 am, on December 9, 1945, and former U.S. Third Army Commanding General George Smith Patton, Jr., Read more
Clash in the Sibuyan Sea
By John WukovitsIn warfare, desperate times call for desperate measures, and in the fall of 1944 the empire of Japan found itself in precisely that predicament. Read more
Forteresse de Salses
By Susan Ludmer-GliebeIn the autumn of 1495, three years after the Christian reconquest of Islamic Spain, Queen Isabella I of Castile and her husband, King Ferdinand II of Aragon, sent a letter to their master architect. Read more
The Duke of Marlborough: Masterstroke at Blenheim
By Jonas L. GoldsteinWhen 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 End of the Battle of the Bulge
By Arnold BlumbergWednesday, 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
The German Cruiser Konigsberg
By Michael VogelThe 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
Philippolis: Roman Disaster on the Western Border
By Ludwig Heinrich DyckIt 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 WhitingOn 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
The Bloody Triangle along WWII’s Eastern Front
By Victor J. KamenirIn 1941, the year of the Battle of the Bloody Triangle, the northwestern corner of the Ukraine was not what one would call tank country. Read more
The Pour le Mérite
By Robert WhiterIt 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
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
The 1940 Battle of Gembloux
By Jonathan F. KeilerOn 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
Lord Dunmore’s War: The Battle of Point Pleasant
By James K. SwisherIn 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 RobertsDuring 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. HullWhen 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
The Fight Near Hill 250: K Company at the Battle of Bougainville
By John Kennedy OhlIn 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 BlumbergAnna 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
