Battle
The Battle of Narva, 1944 Part I
Narva: Castles/Crossing/Town Background to a Battle The German army of 1944 was no longer the seemingly invincible military force that had conquered most of Europe in the first years of World War II. In the previous year, the Red Army had pushed the German Army Group Center back over 400 miles, from Voronezh to Kiev. Another 400 miles had been…
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Battle of Talas River – Redux
In 751 a Tang (T’ang) dynasty army commanded by Gao Xianzhi (Kao Hsien-chih), military governor of Anxi (An-hsi) in the Western Regions, met an Arab army in battle at Talas River near Samarkand. The Chinese were defeated. Although this was not a major military confrontation, it had great consequences. Tang…
Final Assault on the Reichstag
A total of 89 heavy artillery guns and Katyusha rocket launchers were trained on the Reichstag for a thunderous barrage before the infantry stormed it, turning the structure into a ruin. When the Reichstag was finally taken on 30 April 1945, Soviet soldiers swarmed through its elegant hallways to scrawl…
Battle of Nördlingen
This contemporary painting by Pieter Meulener conveys a good impression of the often confused fighting of most 17thcentury battles. The Victory of Nördlingen by Cornelius Schut, 1635.This typical early Baroque painting shows the youthful Ferdinand triumphing with divine assistance. Date September 6, 1634 Location Nördlingen in Bavaria, southern Germany Opponents…
Raid on Medway I
Upnor Castle, which lies opposite the dockyard at Chatham, played an important part in the defence of the yard at the time of the Dutch raid. Attack on the Medway, June 1667 by Pieter Cornelisz van Soest, painted c. 1667. The captured ship the Royal Charles is right of centre.…
Raid on Medway II
De Zeven ProvinciĂ«n was a Dutch ship of the line, originally armed with 80 guns. The name of the ship was also written as De 7 ProvinciĂ«n. The literal translation is “The Seven Provinces”, the name referring to the fact that the Dutch Republic in the 17th century was a…
THE BATTLE OF THE GRANICUSÂ RIVER
Arsites, satrap of Hellespontine Phrygia, had hastily summoned various generals to the town of Zelea (Sarikoy), about 20 miles from the Macedonian camp. Everyone present had an opinion about how to defeat the Macedonians, but the most prudent advice came from Memnon of Rhodes, the leader of a contingent of…