Cairo Archives

Cairo

A Pyrrhic Parachute Victory in Crete

By Richard Rule

In May 1941, General Kurt Student’s elite paratrooper forces descended like an anvil on the British garrison defending Crete. Read more

Turkish troops dug into their trenches and awaiting attack near Gaza.

Cairo

The Haversack Ruse In Gaza Impressed Even Lawrence Of Arabia

By Harold E. Raugh, Jr.

Since the days of the Trojan Horse, military deception and ruse have been effective instruments when used by an innovative commander to deceive and defeat an enemy, minimizing friendly casualties and expenditure of valuable resources in the process. Read more

Soldiers of the 42nd Highlanders maneuver in the jungle during the Ashanti War of 1874. Their general, Garnet Joseph Wolseley, disliked war correspondents but put them to good use.

Cairo

General Garnet Wolseley & The First War Correspondents

By Harold E. Raugh, Jr.

War correspondents are relatively new to history. The Crimean War (1854-1856), pitting Great Britain, France, Turkey, and Sardinia against Russia, was the first conflict in which an organized effort was made for civilian correspondents reporting news directly to the civilian population of the home country. Read more

Saint Louis, King Louis IX of France receives Robert of Nantes, Patriarch of Jerusalem, in Damietta, Egypt, in June of 1249. Robert is lending his knights to the battle ahead, the Seventh Crusade. Nineteenth century painting by French artist Oscar Gué.

Cairo

The Battle of Al Mansourah and the Seventh Crusade, 1251

By Douglas Sterling

After a century and a half of efforts—with mixed success—by Western Europe to seize control of the Holy Land, the Seventh Crusade of 1250 led by Louis IX of France was the last best chance to change the political and military situation in the Eastern world before the Reformation. Read more

Embattled Tobruk lies under a pall of smoke during Rommel’s push to capture the vital North African port city in the spring of 1941.

Cairo

The Siege of Tobruk: WWII’s Debacle in the Desert

by Michael D. Hull

Sidi Barrani, Bardia, Sollum, Sidi Rezegh, Mersa Matruh, Bir Hacheim, El Agheila, Beda Fomm, Sidi Omar, Benghazi … The names of many remote villages in North Africa were written into history in 1941-1942 as British and Axis armies battled back and forth across the scrubby desert wastelands of northern Egypt and Libya. Read more

Recent excavations in Egypt have for the first time provided evidence for a gruesome practice previously known only from texts and temple reliefs.

Cairo

Severed Hands: Trophies of War in New Kingdom Egypt

by Robin Ngo

Excavations conducted in a Hyksos palace at Tell el-Daba (ancient Avaris) in Egypt have for the first time provided archaeological evidence for a gruesome practice previously known only from texts and temple reliefs, according to an article by the Biblical Archaeology Review. Read more

Cairo

The Real English Patient Behind the Ralph Fiennes Film

By Ron Gilliam

On the morning of May 15, 1942, a strange motorcade rolled out of Campo Four, located 170 hot, dusty miles south of the Italian base at Jalo oasis in northeast Libya. Read more

Cairo

No Deserts for Il Duce: The Italian Rout in East Africa

By John W. Osborn Jr.

“I am not a collector of deserts,” Mussolini declared regarding his imperial ambitions. Instead, he would be a loser of them, most publicly in North Africa and, in one of World War II’s least-known campaigns, in East Africa. Read more

Cairo

Commando Kidnapping: Capturing General Kreipe on Crete

By John W. Osborn Jr.

Several Allied operations targeted a single enemy commander: the unsuccessful raid on General Erwin Rommel’s headquarters in North Africa to kill the Desert Fox; the assassination of the Butcher of Prague, SS Reichsprotektor of Bohemia and Moravia Reinhard Heydrich; and the shooting down of Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto’s plane in the sky above Rabaul in 1943. Read more