Click for part 1 USS Hornet Sunk, 1829 A large US Navy sloop-of-war was lost in 1829, albeit in a maritime disaster rather than a military one. The USS Hornet was a 440-ton ship armed with 20 cannon and had a distinguished record as the first U.S. Navy ship to capture a British privateer in... Continue Reading →
Worst British Military Disaster of Each Decade, 1770s-1820s (part. 2)
Click for Part 1 Battles of Saratoga, 1777 Almost two years into the counter insurgency campaign to end the American Revolution, British General John Burgoyne set off from Quebec with mixture of 7,200 loyalist Americans and Germanic troops to meet two other armies with the aim of cutting off the particularly insurgent New England region from... Continue Reading →
Worst British Military Disaster of Each Decade, 1700s-1760s (pt.1)
'We lose every battle but the last one' is a proverb referring to how the British prevailed in a catalogue of conflicts from the British Empire's inception in 1707 until its end in the 1950s, yet were mauled on many an occasion. This 4-part article includes the worst military calamity of every decade - failures... Continue Reading →
The Last Cavalry Charge in History, 1942
Amidst the mechanisation of the Eastern Front in WW2, Italy's much maligned military reputation received a shot in the arm when the Italian Savoia Cavalleria horse-mounted regiment charged the Soviet army. It was August 1942 and the tide of WW2 was just beginning to turn in favour of the Red Army after the surging, seemingly... Continue Reading →
The Battle of Nibley Green – England’s Last Private Battle
The little known story of two English nobles who fought the last ever private battle on English soil. The rural folk of one quiet corner of Great Britain have let much of the island's long, tumultuous history pass them by. In the year 1470, a traveller might have set out from London and headed due... Continue Reading →