Biography

Dorgon (1612–1650) prince regent of China

Biography China 4 Min Read

Prince Dorgon was regent for his nephew between 1644 and 1650. He seized the opportunity offered by Ming general Wu Sangui (Wu San-kuei) to lead the Manchu forces inside the Great Wall and together to defeat the rebels who had seized Beijing (Peking) that ended the Ming dynasty. After defeating the rebels Dorgon placed his six-year-old nephew on the vacant…

Newsletter

Get the latest from Weapons and Warfare right to your inbox.

Follow Us

Most Recent

Biography 18 Min Read

John Singleton Mosby

Born December 6, 1833 Powhatan County, Virginia Died May 30, 1916 Washington, D.C. Confederate guerrilla leader Tormented Union forces in northern Virginia from 1863 to 1865 as commander of “Mosbís Rangers” During the course of the Civil War, groups of armed raiders known as “guerrillas” or “rangers” sprouted up all…

Battle Biography Germany Ottoman Poland Russia 6 Min Read

Augustus II of Poland (1670-1733)

“Friedrich Augustus. Elector of Saxony (1694-1733); king of Poland (1697-1704; 1709-1733).” A member of the Wettin dynasty and an elector of the Holy Roman Empire (Saxony), Augustus was elected king of Poland in 1697, after deeming that Warsaw was worth a Mass, converting to Catholicism, and agreeing to permit extraordinary…

Austria Biography 6 Min Read

Johann Joseph Wenzel Graf Radetzky von Radetz, (1766–1858)

Chief of the general staff of the Austrian armies against Napoleon and commanding general of Austrian forces during the revolution of 1848 in Italy. In his youth, Radetzky proved his bravery as a soldier; he was wounded numerous times, and he was noted for his intelligence and initiative. As a…

Biography Germany Naval 60 Min Read

Jürgen Oesten and the End of the U-boats

Jürgen Oesten Jürgen Oesten, like so many of his comrades, was approaching the end of a war that Germany was bound to lose, and everything in his life was going to change again. Oesten brought U-861 into the harbor of Trondheim, Norway, on 19 April 1945, after a three-month passage…

Biography Ottoman Russia 10 Min Read

Fedor Mateyevitch Apraxin, (1661-1728)

Russian admiral. Along with Peter I, Apraxin was the founder of the modern Russian Navy. In 1700 Peter appointed Apraxin governor of Azov, where he was ordered to build and sustain a Black Sea fleet for operations against the Ottoman Empire. He built blue-water ships and river boats and barges,…

Battle Biography Naval 6 Min Read

Maarten van Tromp, (1598-1653)

Dutch admiral. While at sea with his father on a Vereenigde Oostindische Compaagnie (VOC) ship to India, he was taken prisoner by an English pirate and made to serve as a cabin boy for two years. He saw his first naval action in 1617 against the Barbary corsairs. He signed…

Most Popular

SOVIET FIGHTER ACES IN KOREA

Russian MiG-15 Aces in Korea, from left to right: Aleksandr P. Smorchkov (8 kills), Nikolai…

DEMETRIUS I, KING OF MACEDON

Marble bust of Demetrius I Poliorcetes. Roman copy from 1st century AD of a Greek…

The Legacy of the Danubian Emperors

Some of the most prominent of the so-called “Illyrian” Emperors (from left to right): Aurelian,…

Arthur Ernest Percival, (1887-1966)

British army general who commanded in Malaya in 1941 and 1942. Born at Aspenden, Herts,…