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Colonel-General Heinrich von Vietinghoff-Scheel High-ranking military officers had possibilities of a wider perspective on the war than might be expected among the rank-and-file. What did the generals see as the purpose of still fighting on at this stage? Was there any sense of rationality, or was nothing left beyond a fatalistic dynamic that could not be halted short of total…
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The Monitors were the battleships of the Mobile Riverine Force. They were equipped with varied armament including 105mm cannon in…
At the pinnacle of the Ottoman hierarchy was the sultan-caliph, an absolute monarch whose right to rule was derived from…
Hitler seized upon the Anglo-French guarantees to Poland as a pretext for abrogating the Anglo-German Naval Treaty. He did so…
When the Civil War began, leaders in both the North and the South thought that it would be a short war, but the two sides had very different military strategies regarding how to bring about…
Following the attack on Fort Sumter and the secession by the Confederacy the Union devised a strategy to limit the length of the war. Lincoln had no desire for further bloodshed and thus wanted a…
The entire goal of the American Revolution including the penning of the Declaration of Independence was to gain the colonists and the newly formed American nation legitimacy internationally. The Declaration of Independence was written to…
The Achaemenid Empire (559 BC–330 BC) was the first of the Persian Empires to rule over significant portions of Greater…
PRINCIPAL COMBATANTS: Sarmatians and Byzantine Empire vs. Goths and allied Germanic tribes; subsequently, Sarmatians vs. Byzantine Empire PRINCIPAL THEATER(S): Dacia…
Fought two days before Waterloo, the Battle of Quatre Bras took place around the crossroads of the highways from Nivelles…
MAXIM QF 1-POUNDER “POM-POM” Pom-pom. So named from the sound of its report, a small-caliber automatic cannon whose reloading mechanism…
German Waffen-Schutzstaffel (Waffen-SS) officer. Born in Berlin on 30 January 1915, Joachim Peiper came from a military family. He was well educated and was fluent in both English and French. Peiper joined first the Hitler Youth, then the SS. Commissioned in the SS in 1936, he served on Heinrich Himmler’s…
Aerial view of the damaged Austrian cruiser Novara following the Battle of the Otranto Straits, 15 May 1917. Generally the term Austro-Hungarian navy refers to the navy of the Hapsburg Empire, even though the dual monarchy of Austria and Hungary did not exist until 1867. Previously equipped only with small…
The production of trench news-sheets offered a legitimate vent for frustrations expressed as humour as did the popular songs which ridiculed aspects of army life and authority. In his book on troop morale and popular culture, J. G. Fuller informs us that the R.M.R. Growler, the trench journal of the…
The huge scale and unique nature of Cromwell’s achievement speaks for itself: he was a soldier who never lost a battle or failed in a siege, the only commoner ever to be offered the Crown of England, and the only person ever to be offered that crown who preferred to…
The gunboat HMS Firefly, one of the ‘Fly Class’ gunboats used against the insurgents. Once more the commanding officer scanned the derailed armoured train and the surrounding desert while he and his fellow officers strained their ears for any sound of firing. However, it now seemed certain that all resistance…
Sweden’s re-armament in the face of increasing concern over Russia’s assertive steps against neighbouring countries has extended to re-establishing mobile coastal defence missile systems disbanded after the end of the Cold War. Local press reports suggest that some land-based launch equipment for the potent RBS-15 Mk.3 missile has had to…
HMS Resolution breaking the surface of the sea. On 26 February 1964, about a year after the project started, the keel for the first Ship Submersible Ballistic Nuclear (SSBN) was laid at the Vickers yard at Barrow, but it was not quite the normal keel-laying ceremony in this case. A…
The Soviets learned several very important lessons during the Great Patriotic War. The first was that it is virtually impossible to conceal one’s intent to attack, even at the outset of hostilities. However, masking the scale, timing and direction can be at least as effective as concealing the intent: an…
British coastal assault on St Cast in Brittany in September 1758. A German map, published…
Schnellboot S-80 torpedo boat Camo Operations with the Kriegsmarine S-boats were often used to patrol…
American Lend-Lease supplies to the USSR 1941–45. Soviet historiography is mocked in the West, where…
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