Military History Archives

A British soldier searches for a dead comrade’s identity disc after the disastrous attack at the Somme. Painting by Frank Crozier, who also took part in a similar British rout at Gallipoli.

Military History

A Hobbit on the Somme

By O’Brien Browne

Smoke and ash drifted across the shattered ground. Dead faces peered up with lidless eyes from pools of stagnant water. Read more

Military History

Collecting War Comics

By Peter Suciu

For the brave soldiers of Easy Company, it must have seemed as though World War II would never end. Read more

Military History

Freedom or Death: The Hungarian Uprising of 1956

By Todd Avery Raffensperger

“To the Great Stalin, from the grateful Hungarian People,” read the inscription on a 24-foot-high bronze statue of Joseph Stalin on the grounds of Budapest City Park, erected in 1951 to honor the tyrant of the Soviet Union. Read more

Colonial troops under Lord Stirling retreat across Gowanus Creek after holding off the British long enough for Washington’s army to regroup along Brooklyn Heights.

Military History

William Alexander: Hero of the American Revolution

By William Be. Allmon

Of all the generals who fought on the Patriot side during the American Revolution, none was more renowned than New York City native William Alexander, better known to his contemporaries as “Lord Stirling.” Read more

A young George Washington, mounted at right, accompanied his Virginia militia onto the field at Great Meadows, exposing everyone to the French and Indians concealed in the woods. From the Robert Griffing mural, A Charming Field for an Encounter.

Military History

Fort Necessity: George Washington’s First Defeat

By Kevin M. Hymel

George Washington looked down at the surrender documents. They were soaked from pouring rain and the ink was splotched. Read more

A joint English and French naval force launches an assault on the Russian-held port of Petropavlovsk on August 29, 1854. Attacking ships, left right, include Obligado, Virago, Eurydice, and Pique.

Military History

Petropavlovsk: The Crimean War’s Forgotten Battle

By Mark N. Lardas

The Crimean War is usually considered a Black Sea conflict, but it actually took place on several frontiers of the Russian empire, including the Baltic and White Seas. Read more

Kaiser Wilhelm I, standing on the dais, proclaims a new German empire in the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles on January 18, 1871. He is flanked by Crown Prince Frederick Wilhelm and the Grand Duke of Baden. Otto von Bismarck stands at the base of the steps in a white uniform.

Military History

Wilhelm I, Accidental King of Prussia

By Blaine Taylor

In mid-October 1806, four days after Napoleon had crushed the Royal Prussian Army at the twin battles of Jena and Auerstädt, a distraught Queen Louise sat down with her two sons at the royal castle in Schwedt. Read more

Hotspur had as good a claim to the throne as Henry Bolingbroke, but a well-aimed arrow fatally struck him in the face when he raised his visor.

Military History

Like Apples Fallen In Autumn: The Battle of Shrewsbury

By Al Hemingway

By the middle of July 1403, a series of seemingly inevitable events had led two armies to a field near the small and hitherto unheralded village of Shrewsbury in Shropshire, approximately 150 miles northwest of London. Read more

Burly bluejackets from the Royal Navy muscle the landing craft to shore during the British amphibious landing at Aboukir Bay, Egypt, on March 8, 1801, in this contemporary oil painting by Philippe Jacques de Loutherbourg.

Military History

Alexandria: Redcoats in the Land of the Pharaohs

By Eric Niderost

It was a spectacle never to be forgotten by those few who were lucky enough to witness it. Read more

A hard-bitten Prussian recruiting officer dragoons a reluctant peasant into the service in Louis Joseph Watteau’s 1770 painting, The Unwilling Recruit.

Military History

To Field an Army: A Short History of the Draft

By Mike Haskew

The call of a nation on its civilian population either to create a military force or to augment a standing army is virtually as old as civilization itself. Read more

French artillerymen efficiently handle a 75mm cannon and caisson at the First Battle of the Marne, September 1914. French artillery was key to holding off the rampaging German Army and keeping it out of Paris.

Military History

The French 75 Gun: The Secret Cannon Used for Over Half a Century

By Christopher Miskimon

A regiment of Bavarian infantry advanced quietly in the dark, rising from its own trenches and moving toward the French lines across the desolate no-man’s-land in between. Read more

Military History

Sergeant Amos Humiston at Gettysburg

By Kevin Hymel

Two brigades of Confederate soldiers crested a slight hill above a wheat field and looked down on the blue clad soldiers waiting for them in the brickyard below. Read more

This painting by Marine Corps artist Col. Charles H. Waterhouse depicts Marines and Cuban insurgent allies fighting Spanish troops during the Battle of Cuzco Well on June 14, 1898.

Military History

Marines at the Battle of Guantanamo Bay

By A.B. Feuer

The capture of Guantànamo Bay, Cuba, by U.S. Marines in 1898 was a brief but violent phase of the Spanish-American War. Read more

Medal of Honor recipient Major Bruce Crandall climbs skyward in his UH-1D helicopter after dropping off air cavalrymen at Landing Zone X-ray in the Ia Drang Valley in 1965.

Military History

Valor in the Valley of Death

By Kevin Seabrooke

For about half an hour artillery and rockets fired from UH-1B helicopters from the Aerial Rocket Artillery battalion had pounded an area in Vietnam’s Central Highlands between Chu Pong, the 1,000-foot massif straddling the border with Cambodia, and the Ia Drang River. Read more

In this painting by German artist Paul Hey, fallen British soldiers in the foreground bear testament to earlier fighting as a German battery pulled by a team of horses makes its way through St Julien near Ypres, Belgium, in the Great War.

Military History

Prelude to Stalemate: The First Battle of Ypres

By Eric Niderost

News that the Germans had been halted at the Marne River, a scant 30 miles from Paris, filled France and Britain with a sense of joy and relief. Read more

Military History

Heavy Roman Cavalryman, First Century CE

Artwork: Johnny Shumate

Roman cavalry before 400 BCE was recruited from the aristocracy in limited numbers. As the cavalry expanded, recruits came from beyond the aristocracy. Read more

Military History

Revolvers in American Military Service

By Ian McCall

The Texas sun beat down in early June, 1844, as 75 Comanche lay hidden in the thick underbrush along the bank of a small creek. Read more

The relief decoration on this Roman sarcophagus depicts the battle between the Greeks and Persians at Marathon.

Military History

Marathon: The Rise of Athens

By Martin Leavitt

In the late summer of 490 BCE, a large Persian army landed at the plain of Marathon just 26 miles from Athens. Read more

African Senegalese soldiers marching down a street in a town in France during World War I.

Military History

The Tirailleurs Sénégalais

By Kevin Seabrooke

The German capture of Fort Douaumont overlooking Verdun was a major blow to French morale in February of 1916. Read more

Military History

Cornelius Ryan

Anyone interested in reading military history sooner or later comes around to Cornelius Ryan, known to his friends as Connie. He wrote stunning books on World War II: The Last Battle, about the struggle for Berlin; A Bridge Too Far, about the ill-fated race to cross the Rhine bridge at Arnhem in 1944; and, of course, the book with which his fame will always be linked, The Longest Day. Read more

Military History

From Around the Network

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The St. Nazaire Raid

Thomas Sheppard’s ‘Commanding Petty Despots’

Battle for Monte Cassino: Hell on a Mountaintop