British Empire
Until weapons technology made it redundant, the infantry square was a most effective and versatile formation. It needed no ditches or palisades; it could stand its ground, advance, or retreat; and it could offer a wall of fire on all four sides. Read more
British Empire
Despite the incessant German shelling that had been hammering away at the French lines to their immediate left near the rubble-strewn city of Ypres in northwestern Belgium, the largely untested soldiers of the Canadian 1st Division found the early spring day of April 22, 1915, surprisingly warm and pleasant. Read more
British Empire
On the morning of December 15, 1899, the serene, windswept wilderness of northern Natal was punctuated by the sound of 18,000 British soldiers trudging north to relieve the besieged town of Ladysmith. Read more
British Empire
The crew of the HMS Alexandria waited anxiously for battle in the minutes before 7:00 am on July 11, 1882. Read more
British Empire
It is not always the actions of the brave and mighty that determine a battle’s outcome—victory or defeat can hinge on the most mundane of events. Read more
British Empire
For British authorities in Egypt, the contents of the diary that had been smuggled out of Khartoum, Sudan, contained devastating intelligence. Read more
British Empire
“We won because we smothered the enemy in an avalanche of production, the like of which he had never seen, nor dreamed possible.” Read more
British Empire
From atop the bluff overlooking a ford on the Buffalo River, Captain Alan Gardner, a staff officer in the British Army’s 24th Regiment of Foot, looked down at the chaos and carnage being played out below him. Read more
British Empire
By 1901, the Small Arms Committee—the body within the War Office tasked with arming the British Army with weapons—sought to replace their then-standard issue rifle: the Magazine Lee-Metford Rifle Mark II. Read more
British Empire
Captain John T. Myers’ detachment of U.S. Marines was far from home on July 3, 1900, in the thick of the Boxer Rebellion. Read more
British Empire
Lieutenant William Leefe Robinson was not a happy man, and his sour mood was made worse by the weather. Read more
British Empire
Still stunned by the sneak Japanese onslaught on the Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor, American families tried to summon up their Christmas spirit in December 1941. Read more
British Empire
In late 1940, fortune seemed entirely against the United Kingdom. France had fallen, Italian troops threatened imperial holdings, and Britain’s few allies were still gravely threatened. Read more
