Articles from 2002

12/28/02 - The Poetry of Wilfred Owen
The text is taken from the 1921 edition of Owen's work; interested readers may with to consult Jon Stallworthy's Complete Poems and Fragments for alternate versions.

12/14/02 - Biography: Wilfred Owen
A compassionate poet, Wilfred Owen's work provides the finest description and critique of the soldier's experience during World War One.

11/30/02 - Symbols of Empire: Bismarck and Hood

11/16/02 - The Poetry of Rupert Brooke
The poems of Rupert Brooke, including all his famous war works.

11/09/02 - Biography: Rupert Brooke
Poet, academic, campaigner and aesthete who died serving in World War One, but not before his verse and literary friends established him as one of the great poet-soldiers.

11/03/02 - Bonaparte or Buonaparte?
A look at when the Buonparte family changed their name...

11/02/02 - Biography: Pauline Borghese
Pauline Bonaparte was the favourite sibling of her elder brother Napoleon, the twice emperor of France. Unlike many of her family, Pauline developed a reputation independently of her brother, creating a life-story which reads more like a salacious novel than a history.

10/26/02 - Biography: Carlo Bonaparte
A political opportunist, social climber and probable hedonist, Carlo Buonaparte's place in history was assured by one of his children: Napoleon Bonaparte, Emperor of France.

10/19/02 - Biography: Letizia Bonaparte
Letizia Bonaparte experienced poverty and opulent wealth thanks to the actions of her children, the most famous of whom was Napoleon Bonaparte, the twice Emperor of France.

10/12/02 - Biography: Napoleon Bonaparte
One of the greatest military commanders and a risk taking gambler; a workaholic genius and an impatient short term planner; a vicious cynic who forgave his closest betrayers; a misogynist who could enthrall men; Napoleon Bonaparte was all of these and more, the twice-emperor of France whose military endeavors and sheer personality dominated Europe in person for a decade, and in thought for a century.

10/05/02 - Review: The Greenhill Napoleonic Wars Data Book by Digby Smith
With information on over 2000 battles, this book contains more statistics than you can possibly know what to do with. It's a fantastic achievement - easily five stars - but to be honest, how many people will want it?

9/29/02 - Review: Uniforms of Waterloo by Haythornthwaite, Cassin-Scott and Chappell
Anyone with an interest in Waterloo - be they historian, wargamer or re-enactor - will benefit from this volume, a book which fuels your imagination and educates about a subject modern readers may consider, wrongly, to be irrelevant.

9/22/02 - Review: Passchendaele and the Battles of Ypres 1914-18 by Martin Marix Evans
Passchendaele's concise text provides an excellent introduction to the region's battles, while the artwork will still be of interest when the reader has moved on to detailed histories and source materials.

9/15/02 - Full Review: The Dark Valley - A Panorama of the 1930s by Piers Brendon
An ambitious and successful examination of the world during the 1930's, The Dark Valley balances itself perfectly between internal politics and global systems, illuminating the era which produced totalitarian states and New Deals.

09/11/02 - Blood and Silver: The Battle for Celaya
In 1916 the Mexican Civil War's bloodiest battle was fought at Celaya. The peasant hero Pancho Villa commanded one side; his opposition was Alvaro Obregon, a man informed by the bloody failures of Europe's Great War.

09/04/02 - William III: Prince of Orange
England's Dutch-born King William III pursued his lifelong war against King Louis XIV of France with strategic diplomacy and personal courage in battle.

08/28/02 - Italy's MAS Torpedo Boats
Mosquitoes with a deadly sting, Italy's tiny MAS torpedo boats cut enemy battleships down to size.

08/21/02 - The Claymore Mine
Named after a large, two-edged Scottish sword, the Claymore mine could cut a wide swath of its own.

08/14/02 - Siege of the Moles
The high tide of Ottoman expansion to the west saw the Turks burrowing underground in an attempt to take Vienna.

08/07/02 - San Pietro: Capturing the Face of War
Immortalized on film, the fight for an Italian mountain town became symbolic of the arduous Allied trek toward the Eternal City.

07/31/02 - Jack London, War Correspondent
A winter in the Yukon seasoned Jack London for the hardships and rigors of reporting the Russo-Japanese War.

07/25/02 - Forces Engaged in the Italian Campaign of 1859
A deeper look at those who fought in the Italian Campaign.

07/24/02 - The Italian Campaign of 1859
Combining such technical innovations as railroads and rifled firearms with Napoleonic-era tactics, French Emperor Napoleon III's short but bloody bid for glory even left the French emperor sickened, but it laid the foundation for a united Italy--and the International Red Cross.

07/17/02 - French Valor at Verdun
A line of bayonets protruding from the earth still testifies to French valor at Verdun in World War I.

07/10/02 - French Farce at Fishguard
Two centuries ago, Britain experienced its last foreign invasion. The confrontation that followed in Wales was more farcical than fatal.

07/04/02 - Cromwell: A Powerful Historical Figure
A look at the rise of Oliver Cromwell.

07/03/02 - The Cromwellian Conquest of Ireland
Oliver Cromwell's Irish campaign is remembered for both its brilliance and its bloody-handed ruthlessness.

06/26/02 - Italy's Breda Ba.65
Italy's Breda Ba.65 was not the best ground-attack plane to see action in World War II - it may well have been the worst.

06/19/02 - Fateful Voyage of Lusitania
The Cunard liner's captain expected a safe Atlantic crossing, but a German U-boat would bring Lusitania's journey to a devastating end.

06/012/02 - Genesis of the AEF (American Expeditionary Force)
Retired French Marshal Jacques 'Papa' Joffre helped shape the American Expeditionary Force in World War I.

06/05/02 - Napoleon Takes Charge
In October 1795, the hero of Toulon was a destitute officer without a command. Then duty suddenly called again - in the streets of Paris, as France's revolutionary Convention came under attack

05/29/02 - Costly Retreat from Moscow
After achieving 'victory,' Napoleon was trapped by fire in Moscow and then had to escape winter's icy grip, his path blocked by a thaw-swollen river that had no bridge.

05/22/02 - Goal With A Price to be Paid
For the Americans determined to prove themselves, the bloody Argonne suddenly began to look like a gigantic trap...a real disaster. But Pershing pushed them onward anyway.

05/15/02 - From Boy-King to 'Madman of Europe'
In this article Gary K. Shepherd recounts the life, and battles, of Sweden's Charles XII, who became king of the enlarged Swedish kingdom at 15 and went on to fight Russia, and Peter the Great, during the Northern Wars of 1700 - 1721.

05/09/02 - A German Attack On America?
German battleships shelling Boston? Infantry battalions storming the streets of New York? These events might read like something from science fiction, but new research suggests that Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany was considering an attack on the United States.

05/02/02 - Franco-Prussian War: Traitor or Scapegoat?
Marshal Francois Achille Bazaine was a veteran of wars in Algeria, the Crimea and Mexico. But none of those conflicts had prepared him for Prussia's Helmuth von Moltke, or the actions of his own side.

04/25/02 - Battle at Flood Tide
At the twin villages of Aspern and Essling in the spring of 1809, Napoleon was prepared for battle with Austrian Archduke Charles. He was halfway across the Danube... and then came the flood tide!

04/18/02 - "You May Fire When You Are Ready, Gridley"
U.S. Navy Captain Charles Gridley earned a place in history on May 1, 1898, during the Battle of Manila Bay.

04/11/02 - Arctic Tragedy Revealed
It took 30 years to learn the fate of the first expedition to fly across the North Pole, an expedition led by Sweden's Saloman Andrée.

04/04/02 - High Drama: Scotland's Dunnottar Castle
Dunnottar Castle has a long history of drama, ranging from the traditionally historical to the very modern.

03/21/02 - The Swan of the East
The exploits of a lone, resourceful cruiser caught world attention, established tactics for commerce raiding and gave tradition to a new navy.

03/14/02 - 'Splendid Fellows, Splendidly Led'
In 1878, Bulgaria had no army. By 1913, it had one of the most formidable land forces in Europe.

03/07/02 - Bloody Battle On Peace Day
On November 11, 1918, World War I officially ended, but for American troops in the Russian town of Toulgas, the war was just beginning.

02/28/02 - Personality: Louis XIV: French Mastermind
Although seldom seen on the battlefield, King Louis XIV masterminded the rise of France to a world power.

02/21/02 - Estévanico the Moor
Tales of the adventures that befell three conquistadores and their Moorish slave during the sixteenth century led to Spain's Francisco Vásquez de Coronado's exploration of what is now the American Southwest.

02/14/02 - Ernst Udet: Rise and Fall of a German Ace
Germany's second-highest-scoring ace of World War I, the colorful and boisterous Ernst Udet had one of the most remarkable flying careers of the first half of the 20th century.

02/07/02 - The Great Zeppelin Raid That Never Was
A daring German raid against London and England's industrial Midlands ended in disaster in August 1918.

02/01/02 - The Triplane Fighter Craze of 1917
First the British, then the Germans believed that three wings would give them a fighter with good pilot visibility, tight maneuverability and a better climb rate. But one other issue remained to be addressed: speed.

01/25/02 - Unholy War: An Interview with David Kertzer
An interview with Professor David I. Kertzer about his book Unholy War - published in the US as The Popes Against the Jews - an excellent, but controversial, examination of the Vatican's role in modern anti-Semitism in Europe.

01/02/02 - Biography: Pope John Paul I
The first Pope to bear two names, John Paul I died 34 days after his election, making his the shortest pontificate since Leo XI's in the April of 1605.

01/02/02 - Biography: Pope John Paul II
A biography of Karol Wojtyla, the third Pope of 1978 and the first non-Italian to hold the office since Hadrian VI, 455 years earlier.

More Features:
2003 Features
2001 Features