Biography
The Rise of Jan Sobieski
Portrait of John III by Jan Tricius Sobieski meeting Leopold I, by Artur Grottger. The Battle of Vienna took place at Kahlenberg Mountain near Vienna on 12 September 1683 after the imperial city had been besieged by the Ottoman Empire for two months. The battle was fought by the Habsburg Monarchy, the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth and the Holy Roman Empire, under…
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Prince Frederick, Duke of York — 1763-1827 Part I
Positions of the armies at the start of the 1794 campaign. There reached a point in many of the young Prince’s games where the number of servants available for duty on the lawn proved insufficient for the lesson at hand. Frederick, fifteen years of age during the summer of 1778,…
Prince Frederick, Duke of York — 1763-1827 Part II
Anderson, William; Frederick Augustus (1763-1827), Duke of York, Reviewing Troops in Flanders; National Army Museum; http://www.artuk.org/artworks/frederick-augustus-17631827-duke-of-york-reviewing-troops-in-flanders-182516 Frederick Augustus (1763–1827), Duke of York, Reviewing Troops in Flanders The Napoleonic Wars (and it is fair to call them such from this time, when Bonaparte had become the most powerful figure in the…
LADY CAPTAIN
In the early years of the nineteenth century, wealthy shipowner Laskarina Bouboulina (1771–1825) commanded a fleet in the War of Greek Independence against the Ottoman Empire. Bouboulina was the daughter of a Greek ship’s captain from the island of Hydra, Stavrianos Pinotsis, and his wife, Skevo. Stavrianos was imprisoned for…
KATHERINE THE QUEEN
When we think of Katherine of Aragon, we tend to think of her as Henry VIII’s aggrieved first wife—worn out by miscarriages, humiliated by false pregnancies, and abandoned for a newer model because she was unable to satisfy Henry’s obsession for a male heir. The battles we associate with her…
Wellington’s Staff
Napoleon, according to Wellington’s recollection of a conversation with one of the emperor’s subordinates, never had a plan of campaign. ‘He always decided according to the circumstances of the moment. “It was always his object,” added the Duke, “to fight a great battle; my object on the contrary was in…
The Escape of Flying Officer Tom Wingham, RAF
Tom Wingham, together with the other members of the crew of their Halifax II bomber, belonging to No. 102 (Ceylon) squadron, had just returned from a bombing trip to Germany, when they were told to report to Boscombe Down to test the latest Halifax bomber – the Halifax III prototype.…