Balaklava is one of the most-famous battles in British history. It stands alongside Hastings, Blenheim, Trafalgar, Waterloo, the Somme, the Battle of Britain, and El Alamein in that regard.
Yet it cannot really be compared with any of these – all of which were large-scale struggles with great issues at stake. Balaklava was little more than three skirmishes on the flank of a British expeditionary force that had been landed – for no very good reason – on the remote Crimean peninsula.
In our special this time, Patrick Mercer – a Crimean War specialist who has walked the ground many times – picks apart some of the myths and puts Balaklava in its proper perspective.
Ayn Jalut, on the other hand, a battle between Mongols and Mamluks in AD 1260, was by any account decisive – as William Welsh explains – for it largely determined the fate of the medieval Middle East.
Also in this issue, we have an investigation of the perilous struggle between ‘patriots and traitors’ in the Nazi-occupied Netherlands; the second part of our analysis of First World War trench fighting, focusing on post-1916 infantry tactics; and a ‘Sideshow’ feature that reviews the extraordinary career of Frederick Russell Burnham, one of the most-renowned military scouts of the late 19th century.