In our special feature for this issue, Stephen Roberts first traces the life of this highly effective but undeniably divisive commander, then looks in more detail at the Battle of Plassey, the key victory that helped launch Britain’s empire in the subcontinent.
Infographics: Calum Henderson / Images: Wikimedia Commons
In the second part of our series on Napoleon’s rise and fall, Graham Goodlad analyses his extraordinary run of military successes in the decade between 1800 and 1810.
Reviewing the best military history exhibitions with Christopher Warner.
This image shows the remains of a horse excavated recently from a trench at Mont-Saint-Jean Farm in Waterloo, Belgium. The farm was the site of a field hospital for the Duke of Wellington’s troops in the aftermath of the battle…
In 1809, a young Royal Navy midshipman, Charles Hare, made a daring escape from a Napoleonic prison – with a French uniform as his disguise and a dog in tow. Now, two centuries later, Hare’s uniform, along with a fascinating…
• Napoleon at war: the rise of a military colossus
• The last Roman: Flavius Aetius versus Attila the Hun
• Winston at 150: Churchill and the code-breakers
• Hidden figures: native levies in foreign wars
• Thunder in the East: armoured warfare in Asia & the Pacific
• Flashman: scoundrel or hero?
Graham Goodlad analyses the clashes that made Napoleon’s name as a soldier of genius.
In our special two-part feature in this issue, Graham Goodlad explores, first, the part played by Napoleon’s generalship in his progress from unknown artillery officer to ruler of France. Then he analyses in depth two battles Napoleon fought in his 1796-1797 Italian campaign.
Infographics: Calum Henderson
The use of ‘native levies’ has long been a feature of foreign wars – but their employment and their sacrifice reached a peak during the British colonial era. Stephen Roberts uncovers a forgotten story.
Any novelist approaching a publisher with an idea for a series of stories centred around a cowardly, bullying racist, who is also a serial philanderer, would nowadays be very quickly shown the door. Yet George MacDonald Fraser achieved celebrity and surprising academic respect for just such a series, which consisted of 12 books published between 1969 and 2005.
REVIEW BY NICK HEWITT No matter how long you study a subject, there is always something new to learn, and this reviewer learned a great deal from Michael Barritt’s excellent account of ‘how Thomas Herd made hydrographic capability a crucial…
With Marc DeSantis
This image shows a castle door, which was etched with some macabre graffiti by English soldiers during the Napoleonic era. The simple wooden plank door, from the top of a remote tower in Dover Castle, was rediscovered years ago, but…
Nick Spenceley recalls one of the great works of military history
With Marc DeSantis
In the second part of our series on Britain’s rise as a naval power, Graham Goodlad explains how supremacy at sea became closely linked with the 18th-century career of Admiral Edward Vernon.
In this image, a diver surveys one of the five cannon found during an archaeological exploration in Dry Tortugas National Park, off the south-west coast of Florida. The cannon played a crucial role in confirming that a nearby wreck, first…
Reviewing the best military history exhibitions with Peter Popham.
Nick Spenceley recalls one of the great works of military history.
After the Russian Revolution, one young officer forged a career so strange that it went down in legend. Tim Newark examines the short and bloody life of Baron Roman von Ungern-Sternberg, and recalls his bizarre mission to create his own barbarian empire in the Russian far east.
Amid the turmoil of the American Indian wars, a tiny band of US Army irregulars held out against a far larger force of Native American warriors. Fred Chiaventone tells the remarkable story of Major George Forsyth’s desperate last stand on an island in the Arikaree River.
One of the crucial battles of the Franco-Prussian War was also the scene of perhaps the last successful cavalry charge in Western European warfare, as William E Welsh explains.
TAYLOR DOWNING reviews the latest film releases.
REVIEW BY GRAHAM GOODLAD Ian Knight has gained a deserved reputation as an expert on the Anglo-Zulu War. In Warriors in Scarlet, he turns his attention to a broader canvas. His subject is the British army in the first half…
Hundreds of relics from the American Civil War have been recovered from the Congaree River in Columbia, South Carolina. The artefacts, which included some live ordnance, were removed during an extensive clean-up operation of the river which concluded last autumn.…
Considered by many the finest cavalry officer of the American Civil War, Nathan Bedford Forrest was also responsible for one of its worst atrocities. Edmund West examines a troubling legacy.
Graham Goodlad assesses the events that led to the defeat of Napoleonic France in the Peninsular War.
Graham Goodlad describes the capture of two key frontier fortresses, whose fall opened Spain to the advance of Wellington’s army.
Your thoughts on issues raised by the magazine.
A painting depicting a key moment before the Battle of Waterloo has gone on public display for the first time in a generation. Dawn of Waterloo, painted by Victorian artist Lady Butler, was acquired by the National Army Museum (NAM)…
• Nelson and the Nile: The Battle of Aboukir Bay, 1798
• Europe 1943: turning the tide of WWII
• Cromwell and Fairfax: how the English Civil War was won
• Terror in Tuscany: the cruel siege of Siena
• American Patriot: Paul Revere’s ‘midnight ride’
Just over 30 years after the Battle of Chancellorsville in 1863, a young reporter who had never heard a shot fired in anger managed to produce a literary classic that not only captured the intensity and confusion of the bitter…
To mark the 225th anniversary of Nelson’s spectacular victory off the coast of Egypt, Stephen Roberts analyses the battle that made his name as a naval commander.
John Lock resumes his occasional series on the ‘Butterfly Effect’ by examining another event that would have unforeseen consequences. This time, he turns his attention to Paul Revere’s ‘midnight ride’ and the events that became known as the ‘shot heard round the world’.