Early Modern | War History

The Janissaries – An Elite Ottoman Army Unit Who Became Public Enemy No1

The walls of Vienna trembled on 27th of September, 1529, as strange music echoed close by. The sound of hundreds of drums stopped the heartbeats…

Civil War Spies: The Secret, Underground Peace Societies Of The American Civil War

Though we may think of the South as a unified place in which the Confederacy was born and fought for, it was a place divided…

A New Breed of Soldier: How the French Revolution Made Napoleon’s Career Possible

Napoleon Bonaparte’s rise to power marked the death knell of the French Revolution. His autocratic government ended the attempts at increased democracy that had shaken…

7 Ways English Lords Fought Against Welsh Raiders

Andrew Knighton

Throughout the 13th century, there was conflict in the border region between England and Wales. This area, known as the Welsh March, contained both English…

Even in The USA, There Are Still Many Things Folks Don’t Know Too Much About The American Civil War

The American Civil War was fought from April 12, 1861, to May 9, 1865, between the Confederate States (Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina,…

5 Types of Wargames From Medieval Tournaments

Andrew Knighton

The heart of the high medieval army was its knights and men-at-arms, heavily armoured soldiers from wealthy backgrounds who often fought from horseback. Using lances…

The Battle of Pliska – a Byzantine military disaster

Andrew Knighton

Though they clung to the name of the Roman Empire, the Byzantines never achieved the glory of their predecessors. Theirs was an empire in slow…

The Battle of Arsuf – To Win the Day, One Man Must Defy His Own King

Malcolm Higgins

Beneath the relentless beating of the midday sun, under a seemingly endless rain of arrows, The Grand Master’s patience had all but run out. Garnier…

Single Combat At The Siege of Bayonne, 1131AD

Jack Beckett

Pedro de Lara was bored. His had lived a full life, a life of personal pride and skill at arms, of politics, wine and of…

Samurai, Ninja, Ronin, And More – Seven Different Warrior Classes Of Feudal Japan

Greg Jackson

Feudal Japan is remembered as the era of the samurai. Like the knights of feudal Europe, they were the expensively equipped warrior aristocracy. They were,…

The Battle of Morgarten – against all the Odds, One Small Army Changes the Course of Military History

Malcolm Higgins

The supremacy of heavy cavalry and mounted knights on the battlefield came to an end one cold November morning in 1315, and it began with…

The Birth of the 54th Massachusetts Regiment in the American Civil War

The recruitment of African-American soldiers was one of the most important moments in the American Civil War. In practical terms, it provided soldiers for the…