Tanga Fiasco: Poorly Led British Defeated By Germans, And Bees
In the sweltering heat of East Africa, the British received one of their first defeats of World War One. The attempt to seize the port…
In These Battles, Fighting Spirit Overcame The Odds To Gain Victory
Battles can be lost for a hundred different reasons. Poor numbers, unwise strategy, inferior weapons, the list goes on. But just occasionally, a fighting force…
VC: In WWI Horace Augustus Curtis Charged The Enemy Trenches, Capturing 6 Machine Guns and 100 Infantry
Horace Augustus Curtis wasn’t supposed to be a war hero. He was supposed to be a nobody who lived and died in relative poverty in…
How a band of German Pirates Captured 15 Ships During World War 1
On Christmas day, 1916 a Norwegian clipper ship, the Irma, was boarded by the British cruiser, Avenger. There was nothing particularly unusual, the captain spoke…
3 Wars That Paved the Way for World War I
The First World War was devastating in its scope and utterly unlike what national leaders expected. As such, it was seen by many as an…
Fromelles: The Worst 24 Hours In Australia’s Entire History – July 19th 1916
Horrifying loss was the defining feature of the First World War. For much of 1916, the focus of that horror on the Western Front was…
Reasons World War I Became Inevitable
The First World War was a conflict of unprecedented scale and destructiveness. Though its impact was unexpected, the arrival of war itself was not. Though…
Battle of WWI merchant raiders: HMS Alcantara v SMS Greif
On February 27, 1916, the Norwegian cargo ship Rena steamed out of Cuxhaven on Germany’s North Sea coast. In peacetime, this would not have been…
The First Yale Unit: College Students Form a Flying Squadron in 1916 an amazing group of guys
In the Spring of 1916, as WWI was raging in Europe, the students at Yale University’s class of 1918 were preparing themselves for a summer of…
Sergeant York – I hear you have captured the whole German army “No Sir, only 132”
Sergeant Alvin York was seemingly born to a hardscrabble existence and anonymity in death, but World War One changed that forever. The story of York is…
Key Artillery Techniques of WWI
One of the great revelations of the First World War was the vast destructive power of artillery. Never before had so many guns of such…
6 Great Aviators of the First World War
The First World War saw the birth of aerial combat. Initially used to provide reconnaissance for ground forces, biplanes soon started fighting each other above…