cavalry

Binchester Roman Fort

The excavated remains of Vinovia, a major cavalry fort and civilian settlement near Bishop Auckland, have reopened to the public under the management of The Auckland Project. CA reports.

109 Roman mounts: Excavating a military horse cemetery

Investigating the environs of a Roman fort at Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt, in south-west Germany, has revealed the remains of a remarkable number of cavalry horses. Sarah Roth explains what these can teach us about a key instrument of Roman power.

Fit for an emperor? Excavating a monumental building in Roman Carlisle

Excavations at Carlisle Cricket Club are uncovering the remains of the largest Roman building ever found on Hadrian’s Wall. Carly Hilts visited the site and spoke to Frank Giecco to find out more.

The ghost of Genghis Khan

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.

Looking death in the face: The battle for Beecher Island, September 1868

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.

From the Caucasus to Cambridgeshire: Retracing the story of Offord Cluny’s ‘Sarmatian’ burial

Roman histories attest that thousands of Sarmatian warriors – renowned horse-riders from the Caucasus – were resettled in Britain after their defeat by Marcus Aurelius in AD 175, but vanishingly few archaeological traces of their presence here have been found. Now scientific analysis of a skeleton found during the excavation of a Roman farmstead in Cambridgeshire has produced what is thought to be the first genetic evidence of an individual from that region. Carly Hilts reports.

The last charge: The Battle of Mars-la-Tour and Von Bredow’s ‘Death Ride’, 16 August 1870

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.

Dark shadows: Nathan Bedford Forrest & Fort Pillow, 1864

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.

War of Words – ‘Parting Shot’

With Marc DeSantis

Pair of rare Roman-era swords found in Gloucestershire

A pair of Roman swords – the first to be found in the Cotswolds, and thought to be only the second time two have been found in the same context in the whole of Britain – has been discovered during…

The British Templars: A new warrior elite

The Knights Templar were renowned for their extraordinary feats of bravery in defence of the Holy Land. But the British contribution to their story is often overlooked, argues Steve Tibble.

Turning the tide in the north: The Battle of Marston Moor, 2 July 1644

Graham Goodlad analyses the events that enabled Parliament to win control of northern England.

The Hinterland of Hadrian’s Wall and Derbyshire

REVIEW BY MARTIN HENIG The Hinterland of Hadrian’s Wall and Derbyshire is the last of 11 ‘fascicules’ produced under the auspices of the British Academy’s Corpus Signorum Imperii Romani, which aims to catalogue all the sculptures of Roman Britain. This…

Right The sword belonging to General Everard Bouverie, pictured [far right] in 1860. Some 45 years earlier, he had used it during the Battle of Waterloo.

Rare sword used at Waterloo acquired by Northamptonshire Abbey

The weapon belonged to General Everard Bouverie, of the Royal Horse Guards.

War of words – ‘revolver’

‘There are probably in Texas about as many revolvers as male adults,’ wrote one correspondent for The New York Times in 1854.

BELOW Tapestry depicting the Battle of Pavia in northern Italy in 1525. On the left, German Landsknechts clash with Swiss pikemen. On the right, a formidable field fortification bristles with cannon.

Renaissance warfare: a military revolution

Neil Faulkner analyses the changing nature of warfare in early 16th-century Europe.

RIGHT English cavalry and Scottish infantry in close quarters fighting at Pinkie, September 1547. The battle is now recognised as having taken place over two days.

Record of Scotland’s largest battle to be updated

The Battle of Pinkie was the last large-scale pitched battle between Scotland and England before the 1603 Union of Crowns.

RIGHT This sandstone relief, featuring a naked horseman, was recently uncovered during excavations at Vindolanda.

Rare Roman relief revealed at Vindolanda

Measuring 160mm by 215mm, the stone depicts a naked male figure holding a spear and standing in front of either a horse or a donkey.

The Battle of Kircholm, 1605 – Sweden’s Greatest Defeat

Poltava is more famous, but, explains historian Magnus Olofsson, Kircholm was probably the greatest defeat in Swedish history.

Allenby: making the modern Middle East

Edward Henry Hynman Allenby was born in 1861 in Brackenhurst, Nottinghamshire in comfortable circumstances – a Victorian squire perhaps destined to help govern the British Empire on behalf of the Queen-Empress.