Description
In this issue:
The Norman ConquestHazel Blair profiles the men who fought at Hastings in 1066 and analyses the battle, while Jack Watkins explores the castles built by William the Conqueror in the years following his invasion. Includes:
– Background
– Warriors
– Battles
– Castles
– Timeline
Chemists at War: chemical weapons, 1914-1918. The First World War made ever-increasing demands on chemistry. Michael Freemantle explores ‘the chemists’ war’.
The Athenian Navy: the Battles of Chalcis and Naupactus, 429 BC. Marc DeSantis studies two battles fought by the Athenian Navy in its heyday.
Tukhachevsky: ‘the Red Napoleon’. Bill Wenger examines the little-known career of the Red Army’s Marshal Tukhachevsky.
Regiment: the Louisberg Grenadiers. Patrick Mercer recalls the role of the Louisberg Grenadiers in General Wolfe’s decisive victory at Quebec in 1759.
Plus: news, reviews, museums, opinion columns, and much more!
From the Editor:
The Battle of Hastings -fought 950 years ago this month -was one of the most decisive in British history. It installed a long succession of foreign rulers on the English throne. It dispossessed the entire Anglo-Saxon aristocracy of their estates. It created a bitter division between a French-speaking feudal elite and the English-speaking common people that lasted for centuries: in the 17th-century revolution, radicals still spoke of ‘the Norman yoke’.
In our special feature this issue, Hazel Blair analyses the opposing forces and the course of the battle, and Jack Watkins discusses the vital contribution of William I’s programme of castle-building to the Norman consolidation of power. A critical issue arises. Was the battle a triumph of feudal heavy cavalry and the inauguration of a new era in British military history? Or was the defeat of the Anglo-Saxon ‘shield-wall’ really just down to bad luck?
But there is much more this issue. Marc DeSantis takes us back to 5th-century BC Greece with an analysis of two battles that confirmed the maritime supremacy of the trireme fleet of the city-state of Athens.
Also this time, Michael Freemantle explains why the First World War came to be called ‘the chemists’ war’, while Bill Wenger reports on the military career of ‘the Red Napoleon’ -the interwar Soviet marshal Mikhail Tukhachevsky.
Finally, Patrick Mercer continues our Regiment series by recalling the exploits of the Louisberg Grenadiers at Quebec in 1759.
Cover Date: Oct-2016, Volume 7 Issue 1