Battle
Verdun (1916)
In choosing Verdun as the main German objective for 1916, General Erich von Falkenhayn, Chief of the German General Staff and Minister for War, pre-dated the jibe that the British would fight to the last man in the armies of their allies. Falkenhayn reasoned that, for the British, the European fronts in the First World War represented nothing more than…
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Disaster at Ankara
Battle of Ankara, 1402 The huge Turkish victory at Nicopolis made the position of Constantinople look even more perilous than ever. The city did not fall to an Ottoman siege this time, but the loss of the allied army on the Danube made it less likely in future for any…
Algiers 1816
The depredations of the north African pirates had been a menace to sea-borne trade for centuries. At times they had plundered not only in the Mediterranean but in the Atlantic and, on occasions, even so far afield as the North Sea. The larger powers had frequently made treaties with the…
Battle of Frigidus River, 5–6 September 394
Arbogastes’ continual high-handed treatment of the emperor Valentinian II caused the latter to give him publicly a letter that terminated his command. Arbogastes, however, after having read the letter simply tore up it and stated that Valentinian had not given him his command and therefore could not sack him. Now…
The Battle of Badr, 13 March 624
Every year the Quraysh sent out two major caravans, one in the winter and the other in the summer, to biannually balance the lion’s share of their wealth. Besides these two, there were always a number of smaller caravans to raid, but the two major ones, established by Hashim ‛Abd…
The Hessians Part I
“On the 28th of October the engagement at White-Plains took place. But it has been asserted, that, by my not attacking the lines on the day of action, I lost an opportunity of destroying the rebel army … Sir, an assault upon the enemy’s right, which was opposed to the…
Battle of Ager Sanguinis, (1119) Part I
The campaign that ended in the battle of Ager Sanguinis was born out of Frankish strength rather than weakness. It was the complacency and overconfidence of that strength which caused the Antiochene army to behave in a way which broke with the established norms of crusader campaigning. The protocols were…