Description
Highlights:
- Hitler’s Fortress Europe: Planning for defeat?
- D-Day: Before the storm
- Dressing for battle: Arms and armour in the Roman Empire
- The ghost of Genghis Khan
- Looking death in the face: The battle for Beecher Island, September 1868
- The Lionheart in winter: Richard I’s last campaign, 1194-1199
It is sometimes said that if the Waffen SS had been manning the German defences that guarded the beaches of Normandy on 6 June 1944, the outcome of D -Day might have been very different.
As it was, when the Allied invasion force hurled it self against Hitler’s so – called ‘Atlantic Wall’ 80 years ago this summer, the resistance that it encountered was in many instances a far cry from what had been feared.
In our two-part special feature for this issue – the first of two devoted to the events of the Normandy Landings – we look at some of the reasons for this. First, Taylor Downing uncovers the brilliant deception operation which fooled the Germans as to where and when the invasion would take place; then, Graham Goodlad examines the German defences themselves, to understand why the Atlantic Wall was always likely to crumble.
Elsewhere, we travel further back in time with Richard Abdy, lead curator of Legion: life in the Roman army, an acclaimed new exhibition at the British Museum, who reveals the role played by arms and armour at the height of the Roman Empire.
Also in this issue, Stephen Roberts analyses Richard I’s last campaign to understand whether England’s ‘Crusader King’ deserves his reputation as a martial genius; while Fred Chiaventone looks at the Battle of Beecher Island, a desperate last stand fought out on America’s Great Plains in 1868.
And finally, Tim Newark examines the bloody li fe of Baron Roman von Ungern-Sternberg, and recalls his bizarre mission to create a barbarian empire in the aftermath of the Russian Revolution.
Cover Date: Apr / May 2024, Volume 12 Issue 7
