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MEDIEVAL MILITARY HISTORY: c.500-c.1500

At the beginning of the Early Modern era (1500-1800 CE) Italy was divided into a dozen city states, some ruled by old medieval institutions (kingdoms, duchies and the Papal State), while others experimenting with a type of neo-republicanism modeled after ancient Rome. This was also a time when Italy found itself at the mercy of greater European powers. The Italian Wars (1494-1559) began when King Charles VIII of France (r.1483-1498)) crossed the Alps and invaded the Italian city states, humbling the mercenary-based Italian armies in the first early modern war. Afterwards, invasions by other great European powers continued for more than half a century. (Click image for the complete article)

18TH AND 19TH CENTURY WAR AND CONFLICT

In 1773, two years before the American Revolution erupted, Benjamin Franklin, who was in England representing the interests of colonial America, published a satirical essay titled, Rules for Reducing a Great Empire to a Small One. Dedicated to his detractor and opponent of colonial pleas and petitions, Alexander Wedderburn (later Baron of Loughborough), Franklin’s essay employed humor to illustrate why exactly the colonies were on the verge of revolt. “An ancient sage valued himself upon this,” Franklin began, “that though he could not fiddle, he knew how to make a great city of a little one.  (Click image for the complete article)

WORLD WAR II: D-DAY AND THE WAR IN WESTERN EUROPE

In the autumn of 1944, with Paris liberated and Allied forces advancing across France and Belgium, a sense of optimism permeated the Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force (SHAEF). The rapid pursuit of a seemingly defeated German army, however, created a severe logistical crisis. Supply lines, stretching precariously from the beaches of Normandy, could not sustain the momentum. The solution lay in the Belgian port of Antwerp, one of Europe's largest deep-water ports, captured intact by the British 11th Armoured Division on 4 September 1944. Yet, possessing the port was not enough; it was unusable as long as German forces controlled the Scheldt Estuary, the 50-mile waterway connecting Antwerp to the North Sea. (Click image for the complete article)

WORLD WAR I

The Armistice of 11 November 1918 marked a historic moment in world history, as it brought an end to the First World War, or World War I, that had ravaged large parts of Europe and beyond. The signing of the armistice was a significant moment for the Entente, which had been engaged in a bitter struggle against the Central Powers, led by Germany. The truce was signed at Le Francport near Compiègne, following negotiations initiated by the German government with the American President Woodrow Wilson. The basis for the ceasefire was the earlier declared "Fourteen Points" by President Wilson, which later formed the basis of the German surrender at the Paris Peace Conference the following year. (Click the image to read the complete article)

VIETNAM WAR ERA: 1955-1975

The Battle of Ia Drang during the Vietnam War is a significant military engagement that is notable for being the first major battle between the United States Army and the People's Army of Vietnam. The battle was part of the Pleiku Campaign conducted early in the Vietnam War at the eastern foot of the Chu Pong Massif in the central highlands of Vietnam in 1965. The battle is significant because it set the blueprint for the Vietnam War, with the U.S. forces relying on air mobility, artillery fire, and close air support, while the PAVN neutralized that firepower by quickly engaging American forces at very close range. (Click image for the complete article)

WAR IN THE PACIFIC

The Battle of Tarawa, fought on 20-23 November 1943, was another turning point in the Allied campaign against Japan during World War II. Tarawa, an atoll in the Gilbert Islands, was the most fortified island that the Americans attempted to invade during the Pacific Campaign. The Japanese garrison at Betio, the main island of Tarawa, was heavily fortified with concrete bunkers, seawalls, trenches, and an airstrip, supported by a variety of artillery including heavy and light machine guns and light tanks. (Click image for the complete article)

WORLD WAR II: WAR IN THE PACIFIC

In the vast theater of the Pacific War, the island-hopping campaign executed by the United States was a methodical and often brutal strategy to advance toward the Japanese mainland. Each island, no matter how small, represented a critical objective, a potential airbase, or a fortified bastion to be overcome. Among these was Makin Atoll, part of the Gilbert Islands, which became the focus of two separate American operations. The first, a commando raid in 1942, served as a prelude to the second, a full-scale invasion in November 1943. While often overshadowed by the simultaneous and far bloodier battle on nearby Tarawa, the Battle of Makin was a significant engagement that offered hard-won lessons for the U.S. military. (Click image for the complete article)

KOREAN WAR: 1950-1953

The Battle of Chosin Reservoir took place in the harsh and freezing winter of 1950, when the People’s Volunteer Army (PVA) of China entered the war to counter the presence of United Nations Command (UNC) troops in North Korea. The Chinese force, numbering around 120,000, launched a surprise attack on the US X Corps, an element of the larger UNC contingent, that was stationed near the Chosin Reservoir. The battle had become one of the toughest and most infamous battles for the U.S. Marine Corps since World War II. Fought over brutal mountain terrain and extreme cold weather in North Korea, temperatures had reached -36 degrees Fahrenheit causing frostbite casualties. (Click image for the complete article)

WORLD WAR II

29 November 1941, at Sea in the Pacific Aboard the USS Arizona
The nationally-ranked Navy Midshipmen football team was down 6-0 at halftime to the United States Military Academy at West Point. The 1941 inter-service rivalry was being played in front of 98,924 fans at Municipal Stadium on a sunny Saturday in Philadelphia. Lieutenant Commander Samuel Fuqua, Damage Control Officer for the USS Arizona, a ’23 graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy, listened intently to the football game in the Wardroom Officer’s Stateroom along with his friend Major Alan Shapley, USMC. (Click image for the complete article)

AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

The winter of 1864 marked a pivotal moment in the American Civil War. As General William T. Sherman carved his destructive path through Georgia toward the sea, another drama unfolded in Tennessee that would effectively end Confederate hopes in the Western Theater. The Franklin–Nashville Campaign, led by Confederate General John Bell Hood, represents one of the war's most tragic and consequential military disasters—a desperate gamble that would shatter the Army of Tennessee and seal the Confederacy's fate. (Click image for the complete article)

WORLD WAR II: WAR IN THE PACIFIC

In the immediate aftermath of the attack on Pearl Harbor, as Japanese forces launched a sweeping offensive across the Pacific, a small, isolated American outpost became the scene of a dramatic and determined defense. The Battle of Wake Island, fought from 8 December to 23 December 1941, pitted a vastly outnumbered contingent of U.S. Marines, sailors, and civilian contractors against a formidable Japanese invasion force. While the battle ultimately ended in an American surrender, the tenacity of Wake's defenders captured the imagination of the American public and became a powerful symbol of resolve in the early, dark days of the war. (Click image for the complete article)

AMERICAN CIVIL WAR: 1861-1865

The Battle of Fredericksburg was one of the bloodiest battles of the American Civil War, fought from 11 December to 15 December 1862, in and around Fredericksburg, Virginia. The Union army, led by General Ambrose Burnside, suffered a crushing defeat at the hands of Confederate General Robert E. Lee's forces. The battle was fought in the Eastern Theater of the Civil War, and the two armies represented the largest number of armed men that had ever confronted each other. The battle was fought between the Union Army of the Potomac, commanded by Major General Ambrose Burnside, and the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia, commanded by General Robert E. Lee.(Click image for the complete article)

WORLD WAR II: CHINA-BURMA-INDIA THEATER

The Rape of Nanking in 1937 is often described as one of the most appalling events in human history. The mass murder of Chinese civilians in Nanjing, orchestrated by the Imperial Japanese Army, saw an unprecedented level of brutality and inhumanity that shook the world. The atrocities, which included mass rape, looting, and arson, began on 13 December 1937, and lasted for six weeks, leaving a death toll ranging from 40,000 to over 300,000, with rape cases ranging from 20,000 to over 80,000 cases. (Click image for the complete article)

WORLD WAR II: WAR IN WESTERN EUROPE

The Battle of the Bulge, also known as the Ardennes Offensive, was a crucial moment in World War II’s Western Front. Occurring from December 1944 to January 1945, it was Hitler’s last-ditch attempt to turn the tide of the war around. The Allied forces had already achieved significant victories on the Western Front, and the Germans were on the retreat. The Allied forces' resilience during the battle, despite the losses incurred, signified important psychological victories. The German forces never regained their footing after the campaign, and it signaled the beginning of the end of the Second World War in Europe. (Click image for the complete article)

WORLD WAR I: ON THE WESTERN FRONT

The Battle of Verdun, taking place from 21 February to 18 December 1916, is recognized as one of the most extensive, harrowing, and defining confrontations in military history. This engagement between the German and French armies on the Western Front did not revolve around the occupation of vast territories, but rather the desire to break the opponent’s morale and capacity to fight. The operational goal, articulated by German Chief of the General Staff Erich von Falkenhayn, was to “bleed the French army white” by compelling the French command to defend a point of both symbolic and practical importance. The outcome was a ten-month ordeal of endurance set amidst the fortifications and woodlands of Verdun, forever altering the character of World War I. This analysis provides a comprehensive exploration of the battle’s historical underpinnings, principal phases, the evolution of strategies, and the repercussions endured by both the warring armies and the broader conflict. (Click image for the complete article)

WORLD WAR I

The Christmas Truce of 1914, an event that took place during World War I, is one of the most poignant and memorable moments of the war. In the midst of the fighting, soldiers on both sides of the Western Front, exhausted and cold from months of conflict, paused for a moment of peace and goodwill. Despite the efforts of the military authorities to prevent such a truce, the men on the front lines, driven by a shared humanity, broke ranks and came together in a unique display of fraternity. (Click image for the complete article)

WORLD WAR II: WAR IN THE PACIFIC

On the second day after D-day, the action report of 27 December read "'Rains continued for the next five days. Water backed up in the swamps in rear of the shoreline, making them impassable for wheeled and tracked vehicles. The many streams which emptied into the sea in the beachhead area became raging torrents. Some even changed course. Troops were soaked to the skin and their clothes never dried out during the entire operation.' These are comments from the action report." Such was the setting for the Battle of Cape Gloucester between the Japanese and Allied forces on the island of New Britain, Territory of New Guinea, from 26 December 1943 to 16 January 1944. For the U.S. Marines who fought and suffered at Cape Gloucester, the men "remember the place more for the jungle than for the Japanese." (Click image for the complete article)

WORLD WAR II: WAR IN THE PACIFIC

In the early months of 1942, the Empire of Japan executed a swift and successful invasion, conquering the entirety of the Philippines and dealing a significant blow to Allied morale in the Pacific. For over two years, the archipelago remained under Japanese occupation. The strategic tide began to shift dramatically on October 20, 1944, when Allied forces, under the command of General Douglas MacArthur, launched a daring amphibious assault on the island of Leyte. This operation marked the beginning of a concerted campaign to liberate the Philippines, involving immense strategic planning and the coordination of multinational troops, ships, and aircraft. The resulting Allied victory at Leyte set the stage for the next, and arguably most crucial, phase of the campaign: the battle for Luzon (Click image for the complete article)

WORLD WAR II: D-DAY

The 23rd Headquarters Special Troops, popularly known as the “Ghost Army,” was one of the most innovative and unique units of the United States Army during the Second World War. Officially designated as a tactical deception unit, the Ghost Army was responsible for misleading and deceiving the enemy by creating illusionary military formations and positions, thereby contributing significantly to the Allied victory in Europe. Activated on 20 January 1944, the Ghost Army comprised an authorized strength of 82 officers and 1023 men under the leadership of Colonel Harry L. Reeder, a veteran of the US Army. The unit was a top-secret project that was tasked with simulating two whole divisions, comprising approximately 30,000 men, using visual, sonic, and radio deception techniques. The Ghost Army achieved this daunting task by using fake tanks, sound trucks, fake radio transmissions, scripts, and pretense. (Click image for the complete article)

THE VIETNAM WAR

In the rugged, mist-shrouded highlands of South Vietnam's Quảng Trị Province, just a few miles from the Laotian border and the demilitarized zone (DMZ), lies a plateau known as Khe Sanh. In 1968, this remote outpost became the epicenter of one of the longest, deadliest, and most controversial battles of the Vietnam War. The 77-day siege of the Khe Sanh Combat Base pitted elite U.S. Marine and Army units against a numerically superior force of the People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN), creating a brutal crucible of attrition, airpower, and infantry resolve. The battle would become a symbol of the American war effort, highlighting both the immense destructive power of its military and the perplexing strategic questions that defined the conflict. (Click image for the complete article)

THE VIETNAM WAR ERA: 1955-1975

The Vietnam War was characterized by numerous military campaigns and operations, but Operation Dewey Canyon stands out as one of the significant engagements by the United States Marine Corps. In the latter stages of the conflict, particularly throughout 1967 and 1968, Marine units in the northern I Corps region of South Vietnam had been tethered to combat bases along the border in alignment with the strategic defensive blueprint known as the McNamara Line. This system – a meld of infantry hubs and electronic ground sensors – was devised with the intent to stymie the North Vietnamese Army (PAVN) infiltration into South Vietnamese territory via the concealed routes of the Ho Chi Minh Trail. However, the stationary and defensive posture required by the McNamara Line contrasted sharply with the traditional and aggressive combat style historically favored by the Marines. (Click image for the complete article)

WORLD WAR II: CODEBREAKERS

During the Second World War, one of the most guarded secrets of the Allies was the work done at a seemingly nondescript country house in Bletchley, Milton Keynes. This was Bletchley Park, which became the nerve centre of Allied code-breaking. The work done here helped to shorten the war by two to four years, and without it, the outcome of the war would have been uncertain. The establishment of Bletchley Park can be traced back to the First World War, during which the British intelligence broke the German diplomatic code. In the Second World War, the Germans had vastly improved their encryption systems, and the Allies were struggling to decipher them. (Click image for the complete article)

WORLD WAR II: THE HOLOCAUST

On 27 January 1945, the Soviet army entered Auschwitz concentration camp and liberated around 7,000 prisoners still alive in the Main Camp, Birkenau, and Monowitz. For years, this complex had served as a killing center for Nazi Germany, where over 1.1 million people had been murdered, mostly Jews. The prisoners who were mostly ill and dying greeted them as true liberators. This historic moment marked the end of the deadliest phase of the Holocaust, which saw millions of Jews and others brutally killed by Nazi Germany between 1940 and 1945 (Click image for the complete article)

WORLD WAR II: WAR IN THE PACIFIC

The Raid at Cabanatuan, also known as the Great Raid, was one of the most daring and successful rescue missions of World War II. The mission, which took place on 30 January 1945, involved a small force of United States Army Rangers, Alamo Scouts, and Filipino guerrillas who traveled over thirty miles behind Japanese lines to liberate over 500 American and other Allied prisoners of war and civilians from the Cabanatuan prison camp in Nueva Ecija, Philippines. In a daring and heroic mission during World War II, the U.S. Army's 6th Ranger Battalion, C Company, commanded by Captain Robert Prince and reinforced with F Company's platoon, accompanied by Lt. Colonel Henry Mucci, set out to rescue 511 prisoners of war from deep behind Japanese lines in the Philippines. (Click image for the complete article)

WORLD WAR II: WAR IN THE PACIFIC

The Gilbert and Marshall Islands campaign marked a significant chapter in the Pacific theatre of World War II, with a series of battles spanning from August 1942 to February 1944. Led by the United States Pacific Fleet and Marine Corps, the primary objective was to establish airfields and naval bases, vital for air and naval support operations across the Central Pacific. Under the code names Operation Galvanic, Kourbash, Flintlock and Catchpole, the campaign involved seizing control of strategic locations such as Tarawa, Makin, Kwajalein, Eniwetok and Majuro. The fiercely fought battles during the Battle of Tarawa on 20–23 November and the Battle of Makin on 20–24 November 1943 were particularly significant, with several military tactics and warfare strategies employed. The successful seizing of these islands allowed the United States to establish a firm foothold in the Central Pacific, paving the way for further missions and ultimately, contributing to the outcome of the overall Pacific theatre of World War II. (Click image for the complete article)

THE VIETNAM WAR

The Battle of Hue, also known as the Siege of Hue, was one of the most significant and bloody events of the Vietnam War. The intense fighting between the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong forces, and U.S. Marines and Army soldiers and ARVN (South Vietnamese troops) lasted from 31 January to 2 March 1968, resulting in the death of thousands of soldiers and civilians. This battle challenged the confidence of the American public, who increasingly questioned the U.S. military involvement in the conflict. The battle for the city of Hue was a significant moment in the larger military operations that were being conducted across Vietnam. The city was a vital transportation hub on the vital coastal Highway 1, which was essential to the supply routes used by both the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) and the United States military. Subsequently, controlling Hue was a high priority for the North Vietnamese. Strategically, control over the city would have been a significant blow to the Allied efforts in the region.(Click image for the complete article)