Personnel
The Praetorian Guard – Second Century II
The governor of Britain, like any provincial governor, enjoyed the prestige of having his own military staff, singulares, drawn from soldiers in the provincial garrison, including the auxilia, and serving on detachment. These men were known as beneficiarii, literally because they benefited from the privileges and status afforded by the job, and carried out the governor’s orders. They were not…
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Waffen-SS 1944-45
 But what the regime increasingly required was a military force that fought out of fanatical National Socialist commitment. This was in fact available, in the shape of the Military SS (Waffen-SS). Its history went back to the early days of the Third Reich, when Hitler had formed an armed…
Buffalo Soldiers
African-American troops serving mainly in the American Southwest during the late nineteenth century. During the American Civil War, more than 180,000 African-Americans served in the United States Army under white officers in segregated, so-called colored regiments. After the war, with the reduction in size of military forces, these troops were…
THE SIXTH ARMY GERMANÂ SOLDIER
There was little hurrah patriotism in the ranks of the German Sixth Army and no artificial Nazi propaganda and feelings concerning the likely outcome of this war were mixed. The average Landser (German equivalent to `Tommy’) was inclined to be cynical. He was well trained, hardy and frugal, aggressive in…
LANDSKNECHTE
Landsknechte. “Companions of the country.” French: “lansquenets.” Mercenary infantry originally formed in the late 15th century from petty war bands (“Knabenschaften”) of wild youths. These were unemployed older apprentices overflowing from the highly restrictive Guilds, or other surplus young males produced by a time of demographic expansion. Such “lads” (“Knechte”)…
The Pomest’e System
Ivan III began the process of asserting centralized authority over the army. Before his reorganization, the armies available to the grand prince directly reflected the political character of the Russian lands. Each ruling prince, as well as some of the prominent boyars, maintained his own military retinue. This arrangement enabled…
Tlaxcala
Tlaxcallan soldiers Source: “Armies of the Sixteenth Century – The armies of the Aztec and Inca Empires, other native peoples of the Americas, and the Conquistadores 1450-1608” by Ian Heath. A powerful kingdom in Mexico at the time of the Spanish conquest, Tlaxcala was a fierce rival of the Aztecs…