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MHM128 Letters

Your thoughts on issues raised by the magazine.

MHM 128 Competition and Crossword

Put your military history knowledge to the test with our competition and crossword

MHM BOOK AWARDS 2022

The winners of this years MHM Book Awards...

War Classics: On War (Vom Kriege)

Patrick Mercer recalls one of the great works of military history.

Military History events, exhibitions, and galleries in summer 2022

A round-up of some of the best military history events and exhibitions to check out in 2022, including a new exhibition at the Imperial War Museum.

RIGHt A suit of samurai armour, one of four belonging to the Royal Collection. It was presented as a gift to the British monarch in the early 17th century to help facilitate trade.

Rare suits of Japanese samurai armour go on display together for the first time

The collection forms part of a new exhibition, Japan: courts and culture, which is being shown at the Queen’s Gallery in Buckingham Palace.

Women War Photographers

Calum Henderson explores the lives and works of war photographers Gerda Taro, Endre Friedmann, Françoise Demulder, Anja Niedringhaus, Lee Miller, and Catherine Leroy.

Above The prototype Covenanter with the short lived Besa machine gun position alongside the driver.

Back to the Drawing Board: the Cruiser Tank Mark V ‘Covenanter’ (A13 Mk III)

DAVID PORTER ON MILITARY HISTORY’S DOOMED INVENTIONS.

Below The Battle of Marathon, ‘the battle that saved Greek civilisation’, 490 BC. Some 26 miles from Athens, heavily armoured Athenian hoplites broke the Persian line to defeat a numerically superior army.

The myth of decisive battle

Ashley Cooper and Stephen Cooper question the hallowed notion of decisive battle.

Russia: Revolution and Civil War 1917-1921

Over a career as one of Britain’s most prolific military historians, Sir Antony Beevor has produced some of the most compelling narratives of 20th-century conflict. Perhaps most famous for Stalingrad, Beevor has subsequently published a series of well-received studies of…

LEFT The now broken plaque to the Great Yarmouth bombing, unveiled by Lady Soames in 1994. A replacement memorial will be unveiled this May.

Campaign launched to commemorate biggest loss of female army life in British history

Nearly 80 years on, the Women’s Royal Army Corps Association is working to ensure that the names of the victims are included in war memorials across the country.

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.

LEFT German mountain infantry gather by their aircraft, before their flight to Crete, 1941.

The Battle for Crete: 20 May-1 June 1941

Neil Faulkner analyses one of the Second World War’s most curiously asymmetrical battles.

Resistance: The Underground War in Europe, 1939-45

REVIEW BY DAVID PORTER. This is a highly detailed (936 pages!) study of resistance across Europe during the Second World War, from its tentative beginnings in 1939 to the large-scale partisan warfare of 1944-1945. Indeed, the author’s coverage of the…

The Battle of Sluys

Edmund West reports on a medieval naval battle that is little known but was of decisive significance.

WAR ON FILM – Operation Mincemeat

The newly released, star-studded British movie Operation Mincemeat is, on one level, about the invasion of Sicily in July 1943. On another, more profound level, it is about how people deceive one another. In its opening commentary, the film announces…

The New Model Army: Agent of Revolution

REVIEW BY DAVID FLINTHAM. Created in 1645, the New Model Army was a truly formidable fighting force: in the first six years of its existence, it crushed Royalist resistance in England, Ireland, and Scotland, and brought about the execution of…

REVIEW: Bentley Priory Museum

REVIEWING THE BEST MILITARY HISTORY EXHIBITIONS
WITH Graham Goodlad.

LEFT Belhus Park from above. The photograph from April 1944 [TOP] shows a military camp located on the parkland. This housed troops preparing for the D Day invasion. By May 1946 [BOTTOM], a larger camp with regimented rows of tents is visible.

Aerial photography reveals wartime role of Belhus Park

Visible in the photograph are more than 300 small circular bell tents, most likely soldiers’ accommodation.

German civilians gather around a British tank, Hamburg station, May 1945

This photograph, showing soldiers lounging on their tank and citizens going about their daily business, was taken outside Hamburg railway station in May 1945.

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.

ABOVE The Tank Museum in Bovington, Dorset. With around 300 vehicles from 26 countries in its collection, it is one of the largest museums of its kind in the world.

University partners with Tank Museum to preserve historic vehicles

Many of the tanks on display and in storage are examples of British engineering heritage.

The King’s culprits: what became of the prisoners of 1798?

Inspired by the American and French revolutions, the Irish Rebellion of 1798 saw thousands take up arms against against British rule. But though it would inspire future generations of republicans, the rising was quickly crushed and many of the rebels were taken prisoner. Patrick Mercer looks at what happened next.