Military History Archives

A newly decorated group of French soldiers poses for a photo while wearing the 1915 “Adrian” helmets.

Military History

Militaria: WWI Helmets from French Troops

By Peter Suciu

Thick metal helmets were used since ancient times to offer protection to their wearers in combat and are among the earliest forms of armor. Read more

Military History

Hell on Hill 1338

By Edward F. Murphy

The morning calm was shattered by the sharp crack of rifle fire. Though the nearly impenetrable jungle vegetation and a dense layer of fog dampened the noise, the paratroopers of Alpha Company, 2nd Battalion, 503rd Infantry, 173rd Airborne Brigade tensed immediately. Read more

Military History

Byzantine Cataphract, 10th-13th Century CE

By Giuseppe Rava

The Byzantine Empire extended from the 4th century through the fifteenth century, with one of the most effective militaries in the world. Read more

Polish troops from the Vistula Legion, part of Napoleon’s army besieging the Spanish city of Saragossa in 1809, attack the Santa Engracia convent during the building-to-building fighting. Artist Baron Louis Lejeune, who saw service during the campaign as aide-de-camp to Marshal Lannes, depicted himself wounded at the base of the monument.

Military History

The Siege of Saragossa

From the Memoirs of Heinrich von Brandt Translated and with commentary by Jonathan North

Napoleon’s invasion of Spain and Portugal sparked a cataclysmic conflict that shook Napoleonic Europe to its very core. Read more

Military History

When the Gods Die: the Battle of Otumba

By Brian Geeslin

In the morning hours of July 8, 1520 Hernando Cortés, with the remnants of his army of Spanish adventurers and Indian allies, neared the crest of mountains overlooking the plain of Otumba (the Spanish corruption of the Nahuatl name of Otompan), an Indian city dominating the valley along Cortés’s line of march. Read more

French Revolutionary troops campaigning in Italy benefitted from the high morale that comes from believing in a cause; however, they suffered greatly in the 1799 campaign from Napoleon Bonaparte's absence. Painting © 2022 Keith Rocco; www.keithrocco.com

Military History

Death in the Italian Vineyards

By William E. Welsh

As the sun dipped low in the west on August 13, 1799, Russian Field Marshal Count Alexander Suvorov rode slowly south towards the heights on which was perched the walled town of Novi, in Italy’s Piedmont region. Read more

Images from the 1800 edition of Baron von Steuben’s “Blue Book” illustrate part of the Manual of Arms as practiced by the Continental Army at Valley Forge in 1778.

Military History

Collecting Field Manuals

By Peter Suciu

It has long been said that there is a right way to do things, a wrong way to do things—and the military way to do things. Read more

On December 30, 1460, the heirs to the Lancastrian nobles killed at St. Albans five years earlier at last had their revenge, trapping the Duke of York and the Earl of Salisbury near Wakefield. Painting by Graham Turner.

Military History

The War of the Roses: A Red Storm Rising

By William E. Welsh

Indolent, weak-willed, and prone to periodic fits of madness, King Henry VI had let England slide downhill since coming of age in 1437. Read more

Justin of Nassau hands the keys to the city of Breda to Ambrogio Spinola in 1625 following his successful siege of a city that was considered impregnable at the time.

Military History

Ambrogio di Spinola

By William E. Welsh

The crown of Spain and the wealthy banking families of Genoa had a symbiotic relationship during the Renaissance. Read more

In this painting by Harry Payne, British cavalry of the Queen's Bays rout Indian mutineers at Lucknow, March 6, 1858.

Military History

Indian Rebellion of 1857: Two Years of Massacre and Reprisal

By John Brown

Three months before the Indian Rebellion of 1857, British East India Company officials manning outstations in the northwestern provinces of India began to notice the revival of a strange and disturbing local custom. Read more

Military History

Gas Masks of the Great War

By Peter Suciu

With World War I in a seeming stalemate, German forces in late April 1915 introduced a horrific new weapon to the fighting. Read more

An Iraqi tank crashes forward through the Hawizeh swamp region near the village of Al Azayr on March 18, 1985. By then, the Iran-Iraq War had been going on for over four years.

Military History

The Iran-Iraq War: New Borders, Old Enemies

By John Walker

The world awoke to ominous news on September 22, 1980. Iraqi despot Saddam Hussein had launched a massive armored and air attack across the Iraq-Iran border. Read more

Military History

World War I Weapons: Germany’s Big Guns

By William Scheck

World War I’s stalemate on the Western Front ushered up varied solutions. The Allies developed tanks for traversing no man’s land to get at the enemy. 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

Military History

The Corporal M2 Missile

By Peter A. Goetz

Six days after the Allies’ D-Day landings on the coast of Normandy in June 1944, Germany retaliated by launching its first Vergeltungswaffe, or Vengeance Weapon, at the city of London. Read more

Military History

Britannia Triumphant at the Nile

By Joshua Shepherd

Smoke drifted across the quarterdeck of H.M.S. Vanguard, occasionally obscuring the figure of a slender officer bowed with battle wounds and outright exhaustion. Read more

Military History

Collecting Tanker Helmets

By Peter Suciu

Since the first tanks rolled across the battlefield in World War I, armored crews have required specialized equipment to protect them inside the giant metal beasts. Read more

Cloaked in distinctive white mantles with red crosses, a charge of the “warrior monks” known as the Knights Templar was a fearsome sight. The devout medieval Catholic military order was established to protect Christian pilgrims after the Holy Land was reopened following the First Crusade.

Military History

Bloody Brotherhood

By Kelly Bell

By 1119, the Holy City of Jerusalem had been back under Christian control for 20 years. The soldiers of the First Crusade had secured the city and re-opened it as a center for Christian pilgrimage. Read more

In July 1781 a company of African American soldiers of the Continental Army’s Rhode Island Regiment under Lt.-Col. Jeremiah Olney marches through Philadelphia on their way to Yorktown.

Military History

Black Soldiers in the American Revolution

By Kevin Seabrooke

When the first shots of the Revolutionary War were fired at Lexington Green on the morning of April 19, 1775, Black men had already been serving in colonial militias for some time, particularly in New England. Read more