It is hard to disagree with the observation, made by the distinguished military historian John Keegan (1934-2012), that ‘all battles are in some degree… disasters’. But if the brutal nature of warfare means that all such conflicts end in calamity,…
At which battle in 216 BC did Hannibal lure a much larger Roman army into a deadly trap?
In his latest book, the distinguished historian Peter Burke considers the many ways that misunderstandings, arrogance, and lack of knowledge can affect events on the battlefield.
REVIEW BY ANDREW MULHOLLAND It is a mistake to approach this book simply as a ‘German perspective’ on the history of the First World War. It is actually much more, in that Holger Afflerbach brings great breadth to his work,…
Graham Goodlad assesses the career of Britain’s best-known and most controversial general of the Second World War.
Graham Goodlad analyses Montgomery’s epic clash with Rommel’s forces, which signalled the end for Nazi Germany’s ambitions in the Middle East.
Chandler sees Napoleon as a gifted improviser whose operations were nonetheless underpinned by certain consistent principles. Amongst his key skills as a commander were a personal charisma that inspired and moulded others to his will
REVIEW BY GRAHAM GOODLAD The Second World War at sea has been the subject of several outstanding overviews in recent years. Phillips Payson O’Brien’s innovative How the War was Won (2015) argued for the critical importance of sea (and air)…
What makes a good or bad military leader? Is it just the winning and losing of battles, or does personality also play a part? A new book looks at some of the most disastrous commanders down the centuries. Here, three historians explain their choices.
The winners of this years MHM Book Awards...
Patrick Mercer recalls one of the great works of military history.
Ashley Cooper and Stephen Cooper question the hallowed notion of decisive battle.
The daring German capture of Crete in May-June 1941 is not often mentioned alongside more celebrated military upsets. But still, there were many levels on which Operation Merkur (Mercury) – as it was codenamed – was a victory against the odds.
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…
REVIEW BY GRAHAM GOODLAD. Over the past decade, Peter Caddick-Adams has established himself as a leading historian of land warfare in the second half of World War II. 1945: Victory in the West completes a trilogy in which the author…
‘Siege’ derives from the Old French sege and had appeared in English by the 14th century.
The bleakest moment for Britain's wartime prime minister came not in 1940 – when his popularity soared and he was convinced a German invasion was impossible – but in 1942, as Taylor Downing explains.
The arrival of which 42,900-ton German battleship in Norwegian waters posed a grave threat to Allied shipping convoys in January 1942?
TAYLOR DOWNING reviews the latest film releases.
John Lock resumes his series on the ‘Butterfly Effect’. Last time (MHM June/July 2021) he assessed the possible impact of Stonewall Jackson’s accidental shooting at the Battle of Chancellorsville. This time, equally controversially, he turns his attention to the Battle of Britain.
Sam Allison and Jon Bradley offer a forensic reappraisal of General James Wolfe’s spectacular victory.
David Porter analyses the Japanese surprise attack on the US Pacific fleet.
What can six battles across a thousand years of history tell us about the nature of warfare? Probably not a lot, as Allan Mallinson himself admits. In his latest book, he is not so much out to make a point…
In the autumn of 1939, after they signed a pact agreeing to carve up Poland, Hitler and Stalin were depicted in a cartoon as a newly wed couple walking down the aisle. Hand in hand, with Stalin the bride and…
Nigel Jones explored the vexed relationship between President Lincoln and General McClellan in the first year of the American Civil War last issue. This time, he takes a look at Prime Minister Churchill’s relationship with the British generals in WWII.
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President Abraham Lincoln and Prime Minister Winston Churchill have such iconic status as the victorious leaders of their countries in the American Civil War and World War II respectively that they often seem beyond criticism. Yet, at the height of the conflicts, they both risked all by firing their leading generals. Although Lincoln had no previous military knowledge or experience, whereas Churchill had fought in battles and witnessed war both as a soldier and war correspondent, they acted with similar decision and despatch when their generals seemed either incompetent or not to be fighting with the aggressive spirit they demanded. In the first of two articles, Nigel Jones describes Lincoln’s long search for a war-winning general, and his feud with the ultra-cautious General George B McClellan.
Few events in military history have been picked over as much as Operation Market Garden, now notorious only because it resulted in a German victory when it was believed that, halfway through 1944, German victories were a thing of the…
This is the first of a planned three-part history of the First World War organised by theatre. The second volume will deal with the Eastern Front (including Italy and the Balkans), the third with the wider war (mainly the Middle…
Which was more important, D-Day or Operation Bagration? Chris Bambery argues that it was on the Eastern Front that the fate of Nazi Germany was sealed.
Medieval warfare was not just a matter of crude feudal violence, argues Steve Tibble.
Eighty years ago next month, on 22 June 1941, Adolf Hitler unleashed the largest military invasion force in history, when he ordered almost 3,700,000 Axis troops with 3,000 tanks, 7,000 guns and 2,300 aircraft to advance into the Soviet Union along a front that extended from the Baltic to the Black Sea. Less than six months later, following startling early successes, leading German units would reach almost to the gates of Moscow, before plummeting temperatures and the onset of the Russian winter finally brought their advance to a halt.
David Porter analyses the tense relationship between the two most powerful dictators in Europe during the countdown to the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union.
When Napoleon invaded Russia in 1812, he had an army of approximately 685,000 men. How many times larger was the army with which Hitler invaded the Soviet Union on 22 June 1941?
In 1982, Britain went to war in the Falklands, relying for the last time on an aircraft that was entirely made within the country: the Harrier Jump Jet. Not only this, but the head of the department that produced the…
From slings and arrows to cyberwarfare, conflict is innate to human nature despite the peace much of the modern world now enjoys. In the latest addition to the bestselling ‘shortest history’ series, historian Gwynne Dyer summarises the story of conflict…