infantry

The Tsar’s last victory: The Brusilov Offensive, June-September 1916

It was the greatest Russian triumph of World War I – but the Brusilov Offensive also sowed the seeds of revolution, as David Porter reports.

An armoured Balaklava: Lessons from the Gothic Line

Less well-known than the invasion of Normandy, the Allied campaign in northern Italy saw some of the bloodiest fighting of the Second World War. Eighty years on, Patrick Mercer looks in detail at one action to understand how things went wrong.

War of Words – ‘Javelin’

With Marc DeSantis

Imphal & Kohima: Turning point in Burma

Graham Goodlad analyses Slim’s crucial victory, which dispelled the myth of Japanese invincibility.

Footsloggers: an infantry battalion at war 1939-45

REVIEW BY ANDREW MULHOLLAND Britain’s ‘poor bloody infantry’ did most of her fighting and dying during World War II. For all the glamour of the SAS or the prestige of the Grenadier Guards, it was the humble county regiments who…

At First Light: a true World War II story of a hero, his bravery, and an amazing horse

REVIEW by MARC DeSANTIS Popular memory of the Second World War is inconsistent. Certain events, such as the Battle of Britain, El Alamein, the Atlantic Campaign, D-Day, and Operation Market Garden, loom large in modern consciousness. Other events and fronts,…

Hitler’s Airborne Elite and the Battle for Crete

Neil Faulkner introduces an elite Nazi strike-force and sets the scene for the epic Battle of Crete in May 1941.

BELOW Company of 107th infantry, photographed by Alexander Gardner in 1865 at Fort Woodbury.

‘I never saw braver men’: black soldiers in the American West

Fred Chiaventone recalls the service of the US Army’s first black regiments.

OPPOSITE This depiction of the Battle of Pavia in 1525 gives a sense of what the fighting at Bicocca three years earlier was like. Note the close terrain, the dense formations, and the combination of horse and foot, pike and shot, and entrenched cannon.

The Battle of Bicocca, 27 April 1522

Neil Faulkner analyses a typical battle of the Italian Wars, a clash between a French and an Imperialist army near the northern Italian city of Milan, fought 500 years ago this spring.

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.

OPPOSITE The Death of General Wolfe at Quebec, detail from a 1770 painting by Benjamin West. Despite losing his life, Wolfe’s success shaped British strategy for a century and a half.

Wolfe at Quebec: a new analysis

Sam Allison and Jon Bradley offer a forensic reappraisal of General James Wolfe’s spectacular victory.

BELOW British infantry fight against the French heavies at Corunna. Moore recognised the need for an agreed and coherent light infantry system across the whole British Army.

Sir John Moore and the Battle of Corunna

Andrew Mulholland analyses a masterful tactical defence by one of the finest British commanders of the Napoleonic Wars.

The Battle of Catarelto: September/October 1944

Patrick Mercer recalls a grim battle between two military elites, British Guards and Waffen SS, on the heavily fortified Gothic Line in northern Italy.

War of Words: ‘PAWN’

Pawn emerges etymologically from the Anglo-Norman poun, which itself comes from the medieval Latin pedo (‘footsoldier’), derived from the Latin pes (‘foot’).

War of Words – ‘Grenade’

‘Grenade’ derives from the Old French pome grenate, on account of the bomblet’s similarity in shape to the pomegranate fruit.

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.

ABOVE Soviet armour in action during the Battle of Berlin. BELOW The last pictures of Hitler inspecting some of the teenage boys he was sending into battle against Zhukov’s insuperable forces.

Seelow Heights and Berlin

Marking the 75th anniversary of the end of the Second World War in Europe, David Porter analyses the last stand of Hitler’s Third Reich.

LEFT The Charge of the Light Brigade and [inset] one of the men who charged: Cornet John Wilkin of the 11th Hussars, photographed by Roger Fenton.

Balaklava: a battle or three skirmishes?

In this second part of his special on Balaklava, Patrick Mercer analyses the events of 25/26 October 1854.

Left Around 8,000 terracotta warriors were created to guard the burial place of China’s first emperor. Among them was this armoured infantryman, whose right hand once clasped a weapon. The finished sculpture was painted and traces of the original red can still be seen.

Army for the dead: inside the first Chinese emperor’s underground kingdom

Creating the Terracotta Army was an extraordinary achievement. Around 8,000 life-size ceramic men and horses were created in battle formation to protect the burial place of China’s first emperor. But what can modern technology reveal about these faithful soldiers? As a cadre of the figures go on display at Liverpool’s World Museum, Xiuzhen (Janice) Li revealed to Matthew Symonds some of the secrets they took to the grave.