How Artillery Evolved During The Brutal And Merciless 100 Years War
The Hundred Years War (1337-1453) saw the first appearances of gunpowder artillery in English and French warfare. These fearsome weapons, which had been largely unused…
Nine Factors That Caused The First Crusade To Happen
On the surface, the First Crusade looks like something with a simple cause – the hatred of one religious group for another. In reality, the…
7 Types of Medieval Armor – From Quilted Cloth to Full Steel Plate
More than any other artifact of war, armor dominates visual images of medieval Europe. From the chainmail carefully stitched onto each warrior in the Bayeux…
The Slave Who Stole A Confederate Ship, Met President Lincoln And Bought His Former Master’s House
In 1862, Robert Smalls stole a Confederate ship, gave it to the Union Army, freed slaves, and met President Abraham Lincoln. After the war, he…
How Napoleon Managed His Vast Armies
The wars fought by Napoleon Bonaparte were like nothing that had ever come before. His armies were vast in scale and constant in their activity,…
Siege of Vienna: Led by a Mercenary, This Desperate Army Turned the Tide on the Ottoman Empire
For four hundred years, the Crusades had seen European powers take war deep into lands far from home, under the banner of Christianity. The clash…
10 Medieval Knightly Orders – And What Made Each One Unique
Combining knightly warfare and a monastic lifestyle, the knightly crusading orders were one of the strongest institutions of medieval Europe. Through them, men sought a…
Napoleon’s Great Military Innovations Might Not Have Been As Original They Seemed
The success of Napoleon Bonaparte stands as a testament to his extraordinary talent as a general. For twenty years, his armies dominated the battlefields of…
The beginning of the end for the Teutonic Knights, Grunwald 1410
For more than two hundred years the might of the Order of Teutonic Knights had been steadily growing. It was forged in 1190, in the…
It Took A Huge Effort To Keep Armies Supplied During The Hundred Years War
Far from home and at constant threat of attack, the armies of the Hundred Years War between England and France were reliant on supply lines…
Who Led The Knights And How: Military Leadership In The Hundred Years War
The Hundred Years War was one of the most protracted wars of the Middle Ages. For over a century, the French and English monarchies battled…
The Night Attack – Vlad the Impaler ambushes the Ottoman Sultan
Mehmet II, known as Mehmet the Conqueror, was one of the greatest military commanders of his day. The Ottoman Empire under his rule was vast,…