Piracy
KEELHAUL
In February 1945, Major Denis Hills, an officer of the British Eighth Army in Italy, was given command of a POW camp at Taranto containing 8,000 men of the 162 Turkoman Infantry Division, classified as ârepatriatesâ. His charges had been conscripted into the Red Army, been captured on the Eastern Front by the Germans, and had endured starvation and cannibalism…
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Norman Kingdom of Sicily
The island of Sicily was conquered and settled by Muslim invaders from North Africa in the ninth century and was reconquered by the Normans of southern Italy in the period 1061-1091. Thereafter the island and various mainland territories came to form a kingdom that became one of the major powers…
THE DEMISE OF JOLLY ROGERÂ I
The Suppression of Piracy in the East Indies and the South China Sea, 1855â69 As trade between Europe and the Far East developed, so did piracy, on a scale that dwarfed the activities of the Caribbean buccaneers of the previous century. It has been suggested that the pirates of the…
THE DEMISE OF JOLLY ROGERÂ II
Once a gunboat had been sent to the Far East it was Admiralty policy that she should end her days there, with any necessary repairs being carried out at Hong Kong. Commissions lasted between three and four years, with replacement crews being sent out aboard transports or troopships. Service aboard…
AN EXEMPLARY MARITIME REPUBLIC: VENICE AT THE END OF THE MIDDLE AGES Part II
Venetian Galley Bernard Doumerc In 1302, the Venetian government implemented a revision of âthe corrections and additionsâ to the Arsenal regulations.8 This action was necessary to encourage the full development of the technological revolution that would maximise the Republicâs naval potential. A short time later, between 1304 and 1307, the…
AN EXEMPLARY MARITIME REPUBLIC: VENICE AT THE END OF THE MIDDLE AGES Part III
Bernard Doumerc Henceforth, the state owned the merchant fleet, chartering galleys to merchants who operated them. The operator was the highest bidder in the auction for charters. Only nobles were allowed to participate in this auction, an exclusive privilege that gave them control of the financial and commercial operations of…
âWar of the Three Jeannesâ
The War of Breton Succession, which took place at the beginning of the Hundred Yearsâ War, is referred to by Klausmann, Meinzerin, and Kuhn as the âWar of the Three Jeannesâ due to the women at the center of the action: Jeanne de Montfort, Jeanne de Clisson, and Jeanne de…