Military History

The sky lit with explosions, the 3rd Australian Division moves out of the trenches at Messines. During the attack, Captain Jacka’s company captured three machine gun nests and an artillery position.

Military History

Australia’s Venerable Albert Jacka

By Thomas G. Bradbeer

He had the distinction of being the first Commonwealth soldier to receive the Victoria Cross for valor in World War I, and many observers felt that Australian-born Albert Jacka should have earned at least three of Great Britain’s highest award. Read more

Military History

The U.S. Splinter Fleet

By A.B. Feuer

When the United States entered World War I in April 1917, the nation’s Navy was shockingly short of combat ships—particularly the submarine chasers that would be vital to combating the German U-boat menace. Read more

Military History

Shaky Stand at Bladensburg

By Blaine Taylor

The British Army of soldiers, Royal Marines and naval infantry—actually sailors from His Majesty’s Navy fighting on dry land with musket, pike and cutlass—were marching full-tilt for the capital of the United States this hot, sweltering August 24, 1814. Read more

Military History

Revolutionary War Weapons: The American Long Rifle

By David Alan Johnson

By the mid-1700’s, the American long rifle had acquired an almost supernatural reputation. To the British troops who were unfortunate enough to come up against it in combat during the Revolutionary War, the rifle was more an affliction than a weapon. Read more

Roman legionaries clamber out of galleys and wade toward the battle on the English shore.

Military History

Julius Caesar’s Expedition to Brittania

By Ludwig Dyck

By the summer of 55 bc, 45-year-old Roman proconsul Gaius Julius Caesar was a veteran military campaigner. For the past three years, under his lead, the tramp of hobnailed sandals had resounded across the countryside of Gaul, the westernmost province of the Roman empire. Read more

French survivors from the Battle of Leipzig push through the Austro-Bavarian lines of General Karl Philipp von Wrede during the climax of the Battle of Hanau.

Military History

Last-Ditch Roadblock at Hanau

By Matthew R. Lamothe

Tired, hungry, and typhoid-ridden, the French veterans in the Grand Army of Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte staggered through the Fulda Gap in central Germany on October 27, 1813. Read more

Military History

The Duke of Marlborough at Malplaquet

by Herman T. Voelkner

England’s survival hung in the balance. She had only recently clashed with an imposing Continental alliance, in a futile war characterized by unprecedented slaughter on obscure fields in Flanders. Read more

Military History

The Marines and North Vietnamese at Khe Sanh

By John Walker

In early 1967, the thinly populated, rugged, and mountainous Khe Sanh plateau lay in the northwest corner of South Vietnam, bordered by Laos to the west and the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) and North Vietnam to the north. Read more

Military History

Manhattan’s First Terror Attack: Decades Before 9/11

By Cowan Brew

In the summer of 1916, America was an island of peace in an ocean of war. The guns of August 1914 had been blazing away in Europe for nearly two years now, primed by a booming American munitions industry that found itself growing rich on the long-distance suffering of others. Read more

Military History

The Duke of Wellington in Assaye in India

By Charles Hilbert

Years after he had saved the world from the ambitions of Napoleon, Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington, was asked by his friend, George William Chad, to recall the “best thing” he had ever done as a soldier. Read more

Continental Army units march toward Guilford Courthouse in a modern painting by Keith Rocco. Greene would use similar tactics to those employed by Brig. Gen. Daniel Morgan in his triumph over British forces at Cowpens two months earlier.

Military History

Showdown at Guilford Courthouse

By William E. Welsh

American militiamen with their lungs heaving, hearts pounding, and eyes bulging with terror ran for their lives as soon as the British and Hessian troops in their bright red and blue uniforms came ashore at Kips Bay on Manhattan Island. Read more

Military History

The Redoubts At Yorktown

By Jessica J. Sheets

At nightfall on October 14, 1781, 150 British and Hessian soldiers sheltered in two small earthen fortifications at Yorktown, Virginia. Read more

A tongue-in-cheek British cartoon from 1819 lampoons the idea of adapting the newly invented bicycle for military use.

Military History

Military Bicycles

By Peter Suciu

Anyone who has ever visited Europe—particularly France, Italy, and the Netherlands—knows that the people in those countries love their bicycles. Read more

From Around the Network

  • On March 15, 1781, Nathanael Greene lost in a hard fight against General Cornwallis at Guilford Courthouse. Cornwallis won the battle, but sustained heavy casualties.

    Military History

    On This Day in History: The Battle of the Guilford Courthouse
    Read More
  • In this 1943 painting by an unknown German war artist, paratroopers use a Kettenkrad to pull a trailer through the dusty streets of a Tunisian village.

    WWII

    The Sd.Kfz. 2 Kleines Kettenkraftrad HK 101
    Read More
  • Although she cared deeply for Adolf Hitler, Eva Braun became a kept woman and never received the attention she wanted from the Nazi Führer.

    WWII

    Eva Braun: Adolf Hitler’s Bauble
    Read More
  • During the crucial Battle of Stalingrad, a German Sturmgeschutz III self-propelled assault gun rumbles across the snow covered landscape while Wehrmacht soldiers hitch a ride.

    WWII

    Stalingrad: Battle in the Cauldron
    Read More