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Shortly before dawn on June 3, 1098, Bohemund of Taranto, one of the leaders of the First Crusade and the survivor of many campaigns, stood in the shadow of the Tower of the Two Sisters, one of the strongest points in the defenses of the ancient city of Antioch. Read more
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Although the great Crusades were over by 1309 ad, one old crusading order continued to evolve, flourish, and make enemies—the Knights Hospitallers of St. Read more
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Numerous pictorial representations show us the arms and armor of the 12th-century Anglo-Norman knight, the most famous being the Bayeux Tapestry. Read more
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Although Union Colonel Silas Colgrove had previously led his men through some of the most horrific fighting in the eastern theater of the Civil War, the order he received on the morning of July 3, 1863, in the woods near Culp’s Hill at Gettysburg, was the most unnerving he had ever received. Read more
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Early in June 1940, refugees from northern France and the low Countries who had flooded Paris in May fled with the residents of the city as the German advance neared. Read more
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The men of Bridport on the coast of southwestern England kept extra weapons on hand to deal with the raids endemic during the Hundred Years War that preceded the Wars of the Roses. Read more
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Early in 1944, German Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, the defeated hero of North Africa and now head of Army Group B in France, was tasked with strengthening the Atlantic Wall defenses against Allied invasion. Read more
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It was nearly 11 on the morning of September 20, 1863, and the woods around slow-moving Chickamauga Creek in northwest Georgia were ominously quiet. Read more
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Pikes and most similar pole weapons disappeared from European armies by the early 1700s. After all, bayonets let each man convert his flintlock into a pike that fired bullets. Read more
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In early 1942 things could have hardly looked bleaker for the Allies. In Europe, Hitler’s war machine had steamrolled across the entire continent and was now battling before the gates of Moscow. Read more
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The kapu kulu, made up of the regularly paid troops, provided the backbone of the Ottoman Empire army. Read more
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Although formal training in the use of the pike—an ash-handled spear 18 to 20 feet long—did not begin until the 15th century, ancient Greeks and Romans used so-called “long spears” as standard infantry issue against cavalry. Read more
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It is true that the Normans were greatly outnumbered at the Battle of Civitate, likely by as much as two to one or more. Read more
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The golden age of armor lasted from about 1400 to 1550. And what an age it was. Who can look at a fine suit of armor from this period and not feel a mixture of pity and awe? Read more
