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As a Section Commander in one of the British Army's toughest Infantry regiments, Darren Ware spent a decade with the Royal Green Jackets and fought a vicious border war with the Provisional IRA in Northern Ireland. In the 80' and 90's Northern Ireland was a bloody battleground that claimed the...

In May 2023, Israel will celebrate the 75th anniversary of its founding as a state, and also the 75th anniversary of the establishment of its air force. The maturation of what was once the Israel Defence Force/Air Force (IDF/AF), and since 2005 is the Israeli Air-Space Force (IASF), is a...

In May 2023, Israel will be celebrating the 75th anniversary of its founding as a state, and also the 75th anniversary of the establishment of its air force. The maturation of what was once the Israel Defence Force/Air Force (IDF/AF), and since 2005 is the Israeli Air-Space Force (IASF), is a...

Since the publication of The Rifles Are There in 2005, which dealt with the 1st and 2nd Battalions Royal Ulster Rifles in the Second World War, it was felt by many that a follow up volume dealing with the Korean conflict was overdue. A limited yet competent history had been produced in 1953 by...

This is the story of the Troubles in Northern Ireland told from the perspective of the British soldiers who served there between 1969 and 1998. This was a war against terrorists who knew no mercy or compassion; a war involving sectarian hatred and violent death. Over 1,000 British lives were...

The naval warfare of the last few decades appears dominated by operations of fast missile craft and a wide diversity of other minor vessels in so-called ‘littoral warfare’. On the contrary, skills and knowledge about anti-submarine warfare on the high seas – a discipline that dominated much of...

This volume consists of two diaries by William Bamford, an Irish officer in the British Army in the mid-18th century: The first is ‘A narrative of the campaigns and feats of arms of the 35th Regiment (Royal Sussex)’. It covers the regiment’s activities during the French and Indian War and...

The Israeli Air Force grew from humble beginnings to one of the largest and most experienced air combat teams in the world. This came through several major and minor wars with its Arab neighbors, almost continuous military actions short of war, and preparation for power-projection operations...

The majority of narratives about the October 1973 Arab-Israeli War stress that air power did not play a dominant role. The deployment of strong, well-integrated air defences by Egypt and Syria, that caused heavy losses to the Israeli air force early during that conflict, not only spoiled...

Kenneth Estes studies the 100,000 West Europeans who fought against Russia as volunteers for the Wehrmacht and Waffen-SS. A retired Marine Corps lieutenant colonel, Estes shows tremendous knowledge of combat and writes gripping battlefield prose. Two-thirds of the West European volunteers came...

The Indian Air Force was formed on 8 October 1932. Tested in the Second World War and in subsequent India-Pakistan conflicts, the force enters its 90th year as one of the largest air forces in the world. However, it also faces enhanced challenges in the region as it seeks to replace legacy...

This work examines the nature of the relationship between the British Government and the Polish Government-in-Exile, 1939-1945. The relationship was extremely difficult owing to the extremity of the time and the situations of the two governments. Before 1939 there had been little contact between...

Long out of print, this new Edition memoir by an intelligent and articulate other rank", provides fascinating insights into the Great War infantryman's experience. In autumn 1915, twenty-year-old Gerald Dennis enlisted in Kitchener s Army. Assigned to the 21st (Service) Battalion of the King s...

General George Monck once described the Royalist horse as “a rabble of gentility”. Modern research has largely dispelled this image of the King's cavalry. However the description seems at first sight appropriate to the body of cavalry known as the “Northern Horse”. Formed from those elements of...

At a time when multiple wars are raging across much of the Middle East, it is almost forgotten that it was Abu al-Qasim Abbas ibn Firnas ibn Wirdas at-Takurni – an Andalusian inventor, physician and engineer – who was the first person to undertake experiments in flying with any degree of...

Despite all the works on airborne forces published since 1945, the full story of Britain's 'airborne armour' has remained untold. This book is intended to correct that omission. The story has two main strands - the project to fly tanks onto the battlefield to support airborne forces, and the...

Volume 4 of Air Power and the Arab World, 1918-1936, continues the story of the men and machines of the first half century of military aviation in the Arab world. The earliest of the Arab air forces to be established trace their histories back to the 1920s and 1930s when the overwhelming...

Always at the forefront of Arab states when it came to the development of its armed forces and armament industry, during the 1970s Iraq embarked on an ambitious program of becoming self-sufficient in production of almost all equipment and ammunition necessary for its armed forces. Indeed, during...

Based on diverse interpretations of the Real Ceduls (Royal Proclamations) by the Spanish monarchs of earlier centuries, the almost 200-year-old border dispute between Ecuador and Peru became one of the longest-running international armed conflicts in the Western hemisphere. Numerous attempts at...

The Indian Army was the largest volunteer army during the Second World War. Indian Army divisions fought in the Middle East, North Africa and Italy - and went to make up the overwhelming majority of the troops in South East Asia. Over two million personnel served in the Indian Army - and India...

September 1914, and the whole of Europe was at war following the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his beloved wife Sophie by Gavrilo Princip in Sarajevo on 28th June 1914. In France and Belgium, the British ExpEditionary Force were struggling to hold back the German hoards as their...

This book is called ‘An Agony Continued’ because it was simply that: an agony. It was an agony which commenced at the end of the 1960s and as the new decade of the 80s arrived, so the pain, the grief, the loss and the economic destruction of Northern Ireland continued. Little did any of us know...

The years immediately prior to the outbreak of the Second World War saw the earliest and the more recently established Arab Air Forces attempting to play a role on the regional if not yet on the world stage for the first time. It was a period when those Arab states which had real or merely...

Rowland Hill was one of the Duke of Wellington’s most trusted subordinates, known for caring deeply for the welfare of his men, but the battles of Arroyomolinos (1811) and Almaraz (1812) show that he was far more than just ‘Daddy Hill’ and a safe pair of hands. He was also a general of...

Much of the Arab World remains ravaged by war or threatened by war. Meanwhile the decades old Arab-Israeli conflict remains fundamentally unresolved. Consequently, even the Arab air forces and other Arab armed forces remain either at war or on a virtual war footing, or at least in a state of...

The American Revolutionary War was a conflict that Britain did not want, and for which it was not prepared. The British Army in America at the end of 1774 was only 3,000 strong, with a further 6,000 to arrive by the time that the conflict started in the spring of 1775. The Royal Navy, on which...

An Active Service traces a young Sid Dowland from civilian life into the tough environment of the Guards Depot in the 1930's and then on to a Guards service Battalion in London and pre-war Egypt. The outbreak of war found Sid taking part in the retreat to Dunkirk and then service in North Africa...

The Series of sharp clashes between Ecuador and Peru of 1981 left the dispute between the two countries unresolved as there was still no definitive delimitation of the border. During the following years, both parties had to deal with a Series of internal and external issues and, ultimately...

Volume 8 of the Air Power and the Arab World 1909–1955 mini-Series continues the story of the men and machines involved in the first half century of military aviation in the Arab world. These years opened with the Arab countries and their military forces still caught up in the final years of the...

In Abolishing the Taboo, Brian Madison Jones takes a new look at the integral role played by Dwight D. Eisenhower in the creation of a new nuclear creed for the United States during the Cold War. The author centers the narrative on Eisenhower, the man, the general, and the president, with...

The Indo-Pakistani War of 1971 was a major military confrontation between India and Pakistan. Fought on two fronts of the Indian sub-continent between 3 and 17 December 1971, it pitted two major conventional armed forces in an all-out war over the fate of the former East Pakistan, and resulted...

Volume 6 of the Air Power and the Arab World mini-Series continues the story of the men and machines of the first half century of military aviation in the Arab world. These years saw the Arab countries and their military forces caught up in the events of the Second World War. For those Arab...

Containing chapters from some of the leading specialists in the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars this volume covers a diverse range of topics that examine in detail aspects of the armies that fought for and against France from 1792-1815. Containing chapters from some of the leading specialists...

All For One, One For All provides a contemporary perspective of the baptism of fire of one of the oldest, most resourceful and well-trained war fighting institutions in Latin America: the Argentine Navy. It offers a rare insight into the relationship between institutional culture and modern...

At a time when multiple wars are raging across much of the Middle East, it is almost forgotten that it was Abu al-Qasim Abbas ibn Firnas ibn Wirdas at-Takurni – an Andalusian inventor, physician and engineer – who was the first person to undertake experiments in flying with any degree of...

Volume 7 of the Air Power and the Arab World, 1909-1955 mini-Series continues the story of the men and machines of the first half century of military aviation in the Arab world. These years saw the Arab countries and their military forces already caught up in the events of the Second World War...

This book originally saw the light of day as a long running Series of articles in Wargames Illustrated in the late 1980’s. Due to growing interest in the wars of the late 17th century, the author of the original features has compiled them along with new research and made them available again for...

The author could be described as a 'veteran' in every sense of the word, even though he was only aged 21 when the war ended. Armin Scheiderbauer served as an infantry officer with the 252nd Infantry Division, German Army, and saw four years of bitter combat on the Eastern Front, being wounded...

Disputes between Ecuador and Peru are nearly 200 years old and revolve around the question of Ecuador’s territory extending beyond the Andes and into the Amazonian basin – or not. Based on diverse interpretations of the Real Cedulas (Royal Proclamations) Spain used to define its colonial...

The period under review covers the years of 1984-87 - nearing the end of the third decade of the Troubles. It will use research and oral contributions from the mid to late 1980s and will show not only how the Provisional IRA (PIRA) grew in financial and logistical strength, but also how the...

Austria was one of the five major players of the Napoleonic Wars. In early 19th century, the Austrian army (Kaiserliche-Königliche Heer) was the third largest and one of the best-trained armies in the world.The individual regiments performed well and were considered solid. However, hampered by...

The Armed Forces of the English-speaking Caribbean have a rich, albeit brief history. This book covers their story from the post-Second World War West India Regiment to the independence of the former British Colonies in the 1960s and 1970s. The failed West India Federation led directly to the...

This book chronicles the final conflict over the now almost forgotten “Schleswig-Holstein Question”, once a pivotal issue for the great powers of Europe. The campaign of Schleswig and Jutland was also the first of Otto von Bismarck’s Wars of German Unification, which together created a united...

Nigeria was a unique concept in the formation of modern Africa. It began life as a highly lucrative if climatically challenging holding of the Royal Niger Company, a British Chartered Company under the control of Victorian capitalist Sir George Taubman Goldie. It was handed over to indigenous...

Though the dynamics of the Congo Crisis have received, and continue to receive, a good deal of literary and scholarly attention, missing from the canon of work on military forces in the Congo is a study of the Force Publique, a paramilitary police force established by King Léopold II to secure...

An hour and a half before sunup, nine B-29s of the 307th Bombardment Wing lifted off from Kadena Air Force Base, Okinawa on a bombing mission against Namsi, a North Korean airfield under construction in the heart of MiG Alley. Five and a half hours later they would engage in an air battle that...

The climactic death-throes of Soviet Communism during the 1980s included a last-gasp attempt at strategic franchise expansion in Southern Africa. Channelled through Castro's Cuba, oil-rich Angolan armed forces (FAPLA) received billions of dollars of advanced weaponry including MiG 23 and Sukhoi...

“An Army marches on its stomach”, observed Napoleon; a hundred and fifty years later General Rommel remarked that the British should always be attacked before soldiers had had an early morning cup of tea. This book, written to raise money for the Army Benevolent Fund and with a Foreword by...

Cromwell’s alliance with France in 1657 opened for the English Republic and Charles II’s army in exile a new theatre of war in Flanders - in addition to England’s ongoing war with Spain. It resulted in the old opponents of the Civil Wars in Britain meeting in combat once again. This book tells...

During the 18th Century, the Electorate of Saxony was a rich state of the Holy Roman Empire. Northern Saxony was one of most fertile parts of Germany, though fertility diminishes toward the Ore Mountains of the south where Saxony long had important mineral production. The House of Wettin ruled...

During the 18th Century, the Electorate of Saxony was a rich state of the Holy Roman Empire. Northern Saxony was one of most fertile parts of Germany, though fertility diminishes toward Ore Mountains of the south where Saxony long had important mineral production. The House of Wettin ruled...

This book considers a relatively unknown Series of actions of the victorious Hundred Days of 1918: the operations at the River Selle. Between 9-24 October, the British Fourth Army drove elements of two German armies back from the Hindenburg support line in the ‘Pursuit to the Selle’ (9-11...

Revised Edition This new Edition features new colour aircraft and vehicle profiles from Tom Cooper and David Bocquelet. Battle for Cassinga is the first-hand account by a South African paratrooper who was involved in the 1978 assault on the Angolan headquarters of PLAN, SWAPO’s armed wing. The...

Although Belgium officially withdrew its military forces from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) in July 1960, unofficially the former colonial ruler of this central African country maintained a political, economic, and military presence throughout the period known as the Congo Crisis...

This is a revised and expanded Edition with added chapters. "As you know 'blood clot' means blood cells coming together to form a strong clot that forms and sticks together to keep the wound sealed enabling it to repair. The Parachute Regiment's 'blood clot' acts the same, whether downtown...

Almost half a century has passed since the Nigerian Civil War ended. But memories die hard, because a million or more people perished in that internecine struggle, the majority women and children, who were starved to death. Biafra’s war was modern Africa’s first extended conflict. It lasted...

Black Hawks Rising - the title of this book - acknowledges the formation and deployment of the African Union Mission to Somalia (AMISOM) in March 2007. Initially confined to peacekeeping within the Mogadishu enclave, it transformed into a peace-making mission. Many - including the author, who...

"It's a very weird sensation to be shot at… Very often you see the gunman when it's too late or you don't see him at all. You might as well just be targets on a rifle range. I often wondered if I would get through this tour ok, and even now I still do… " In the four-month period during 1971 that...

It has been over four decades since the Union Jack was lowered on the colony of Rhodesia, but the bitter and divisive civil war that preceded it has continued to endure as a textbook counter-insurgency campaign fought between a mobile, motivated and highly trained Rhodesian security...

Written as a sequel to the award-winning German Failure in Belgium, August 1914: How Faulty Reconnaissance Exposed the Weakness of the Schlieffen Plan (2019), which won the Tomlinson Book Award for best First World War English language book in 2020, this volume stands alone as the German army...

From the moment the DDR was formed in 1949, many of its citizens chose to leave to start a new life in the West. By the mid-1950s, the trickle had turned into a flood as large numbers rejected Walter Ulbricht’s Communist paradise. His ‘Workers’ & Peasants’ State’ could not afford to lose the...

At the end of the Second World War, the victorious Allies split Germany into three zones of occupation, and Berlin into four sectors, one each for the British, Americans, French and Soviets. It did not take long for the wartime alliances to crumble into distrust, obstruction, acrimony, and the...

The battlefields of Edgehill, Newbury and Marston Moor are the first terms that come to mind when discussing the 17th-century conflict known as the English Civil War, and whilst their importance to the conflict is undeniable, they detract from the power struggle that occurred between the...

Charles XII’s planned conquest of Norway died with him at Fredriksten fortress on 30 November 1718 (OS), and the small Swedish-Finnish army simultaneously besieging Trondheim was ordered to return to Sweden. Setting off on the final stage across the mountains on New Year's Day 1719 the army was...

In 1970, Salvador Guillermo Allende Gossens, a physician and leftist politician, was elected the President of Chile. Involved in political life for nearly 40 years, Allende adopted a policy of nationalisation of industries and collectivisation – measures that brought him on a collision course...

On the last day of the year 1802 the Maratha Peshwa Bajirao II signed the treaty of Bassein which sparked the 2nd Anglo-Maratha War. What began as a seemingly straightforward operation to restore the Peshwa and complete Lord Wellesley’s expansionist policy turned into a full-scale conflict for...

Lacking funding to purchase and operate own aircraft, the Rhodesian police established the British South Africa Police Reserve Air Wing (PRAW). Equipped with private aircraft, mostly flown by owner pilots, this extended policing across a country that had few roads, reaching remote villages and...

From the searing heat of the Zambezi Valley to the freezing cold of the Chimanimani Mountains in Rhodesia, from the bars in Port St Johns in the Transkei to the Drakensberg Mountains in South Africa, this is the story of one man's fight against terror, and his conscience. Anyone living in...

At the end of the Second World War, the city of Berlin was located 100 miles (160 km) inside the Soviet Occupation Zone of Germany. The Western Allies insisted on keeping part of the city for themselves, and so it was divided into four sectors, mimicking the rest of Germany. Stalin needed to...

On 6 June 1944 British, American, Canadian and French troops landed in Normandy by air and sea. This was one of the key moments of the Second World War, a long-anticipated invasion which would, ultimately, lead to the defeat of Nazi Germany. By the day’s end a lodgement had been effected and...

Historians consider the Battle of Rzhev "one of the bloodiest in the history of the Great Patriotic War" and "Zhukov's greatest defeat". Veterans called this colossal battle, which continued for a total of 15 months, "the Rzhev slaughterhouse" or "the Massacre", while the German generals named...

This is Ken Wharton's second oral history of the Northern Ireland troubles told again from the perspective of the ordinary British soldier. This book looks deeper into the conflict utilising stories from new contributors providing revealing and long-forgotten stories of the troubles from the...

CIA Paramilitary Operations in Tibet is the story of how the US government – primarily through the CIA and often in cooperation with India – came to harness, nurture, and encourage Tibetan defiance in one of the most extreme covert campaigns of the Cold War. In particular, it details an...

"Cavalier Capital", the first detailed account of Oxford’s role as "Royalist capital" to appear for almost three-quarters of a century, examines all aspects of Oxford’s experience in the English Civil War. As well as the effects on the town and university, special emphasis is placed on the...

By Defeating My Enemies is a military biography of Charles XII of Sweden, the first written in English in over 50 years. It challenges several traditions created by historians of both the old and new schools of Carolean historiography and through a chronological review provides a balanced...

The idea of an anti-ship ballistic missile has taken root in China’s military planning. The country is not only building more of its first version of such a weapon, the DF-21D, but has developed an anti-ship warhead for another such missile, the more-numerous DF-26, billed as having a 2,500-mile...

On 1 October 1990, hundreds of Banyarawanda militants that served with the Ugandan Army deserted their posts to form the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) and invade Rwanda. Thus began the Rwandan Civil War, which was to culminate in the famous genocide of nearly one million of Tutsi and moderate...

The Bushman soldiers were the most outstanding all-round fighters of the Border War. As the first of the indigenous population to take up arms on South Africa's behalf, they were among the last to lay them down. The border's oldest and most bush-wise people, they became feared as relentless...

London was the critical location throughout the English Civil Wars - a fact that has been emphasised by countless historians, with some going as far to say that by fleeing his capital in January 1642, King Charles I lost the war several months before the fighting actually started. Most studies...

Post-independence events in the Republic of the Congo are a veritable Gordian knot. The ambitions of Congolese political leaders, Cold War rivalry, Pan- Africanism, Belgium's continued economic interests in the country's mineral wealth, and the strategic perceptions of other southern African...

The book describes and analyses the Scanian War, which was fought from 1675 to 1679 between, on one side, primarily Brandenburg and Denmark–Norway and, on the other, Sweden. The war was mainly fought in Scania, the former Danish lands along the border with Sweden, and in northern Germany. The...

This is the story of one man's service in the British South Africa Police of Rhodesia during his service of nearly fifteen years, between the years 1965 and 1979, and in many ways forms a sequel to the author's book Mad Dog Killers. The struggle to keep Rhodesia out of black nationalist hands...

From 1954 Paraguay was held in the grip of a Right-wing dictatorship under General Alfredo Stroessner. In the years that followed, a number of opposition groups resorted to armed struggle in order to achieve their aims. Government countermeasures were brutal, with torture and extra-judicial...

In his historical Series Hinze provides the only comprehensive account of events on the central and southern portions of the German Eastern Front during the years of German retreat. This volume covers events on the southern portion of the Eastern Front from late 1943, in the aftermath of the...

To say that the Pakistan Air Force has an eventful history would not be an overstatement. Right from inception it was in the thick of things supporting ground troops in Kashmir, while trying to stand on its own feet. Two major wars ensued in which it performed well against a numerically superior...

Before he entered Germany in 1630, Swedish King Gustav II Adolf had to face Polish army in Prussia. Between 1626 and 1629, under command of brilliant Hetman Stanisław Koniecpolski, the Poles were engaged in a bitter struggle against Swedes. During this conflict both sides learnt a lot from each...

Best known in the USA as a former colony and exotic tourist location, the Republic of the Philippines has seen civil unrest, insurgencies and separatism movements ever since independence in 1946. Endemic corruption, human rights violations, ethnic strife and a shaky economy have fuelled wars...

Early in the morning of 2 August 1990, aircraft of the Iraqi Air Force bombed Kuwaiti air bases, and then the Iraqi Republican Guards stormed into the country. Thus began what would be called the ‘Gulf War’ – also the ‘II Gulf War’, and sometimes the ‘II Persian Gulf War’ – fought between...

Portugal was the first colonial power to arrive in Africa and the last to leave. As other European states were granting independence to their African possessions, Portugal chose to stay and fight despite the small odds of success. That it did so successfully for thirteen years across the three...

By the end of 1780 the war for American independence appeared to be approaching a stalemate. After five years of war, Washington’s armies remained in the field. Once France, and then Spain, joined the war, Lord Sandwich as First Lord of the Admiralty was faced with a constant struggle to balance...

Just over three centuries ago, there was a major battle in Scotland that was to decide the fate of the newly established – and bitterly contested - union of England and Scotland. On one hand there was a numerically superior army, trained and armed but officered by men of varying experience...

Dirty War is the first comprehensive look at the Rhodesia’s top secret use of chemical and biological weapons (CBW) during their long counterinsurgency against native African nationalists. Having declared its independence from Great Britain in 1965, the government—made up of European settlers...

Many books have been written about the Second World War and the majority of them either concentrate on a particular battle campaign or unit. Individual accounts are certainly in a minority and those from the lower ranks even more scarcer. Helion and Co Ltd are therefore pleased to announce the...

Days of Battle describes a hitherto neglected part of the military history of Hungary during World War II. Dr Norbert Számvéber presents detailed accounts of four important clashes of German-Hungarian and Soviet armour north of the river Danube, in the southern territory of the historical Upper...

During the Cold War, communist Czechoslovakia was one of the largest arms exporters to the Middle East among the Soviet Bloc countries. The third volume of this mini-Series describes the history of arms exports from Czechoslovakia to Egypt including related military assistance. Although Egypt...

This is the first detailed study of the origins of the standing Saxon army. Created by elector John George III (r. 1680-1691), it quickly won its laurels in the battle of Vienna (1683) and later in campaigns against the Ottomans and the French. This book gives a broad analysis on this army...

Eager to fully use its excess arms manufacturing capacities to earn as much hard currency as possible, communist Czechoslovakia became one of the principal arms suppliers to the Middle East during the Cold War. After the end of the Second World War, Czechoslovakia became an integral part of the...

After the end of the Second World War, Czechoslovakia became an integral part of the Soviet Bloc which was heralded by the communist coup d’état in February 1948. Eager to fully use its excess arms manufacturing capacities to earn as much hard currency as possible, communist Czechoslovakia...

This work is a re-examination of the decisions regarding the 1944 Warsaw Uprising made by the leadership of the underground Polish Army (AK), as well as the questionable attitudes of senior Polish commanders in exile in London. The questions raised are, was the uprising necessary and why was it...

Eagles of Destiny Volume 2 is a detailed account of the transformation of the Pakistan Air Force (PAF) with the help of the first US assistance program, and how its leadership utilized this opportunity to create a modern air force. It provides detailed coverage of the PAF's participation in the...

On 3 September 1650, two former allies fought a bitter clash of arms in the rain-soaked fields around the quiet seaside town of Dunbar. For one, it was a signal mercy which cemented his reputation and paved the way for political as well as military supremacy. For the other, it meant defeat...

This is the perfect add-on supplement not just for Helion's famous 'Paper Boys' book Series but for other wargames periods and systems too. In this book you will find all the building you need for a 18th and 19th rural or city landscaped terrain. Here will be some 22 pages of artwork intended to...

This book is the first part of a two-volume investigation into the clothing orders of the British late Georgian army, combined and contrasted with an analysis of fashion in the same army- comparing the regulated dress with the 'modes of the army' as revealed by contemporary writing and...

This book includes, for the first time and in great detail,the current types of aircraft in service in the Ejército delAire (EdA), the Spanish Air Force, with a brief history of theirincorporation into the various Wings, Squadrons and Groups.Several tables, updated in 2021, contain the name...

Fighter pilot Manfred von Richthofen (the Red Baron) lacked innate aerobatic ability. As a tyro, he attempted to solve this problem through denial, going so far as to sneer at stunting as pointless. Great War air combat experience proved quite the reverse, and so we would anticipate a short and...

For his exploits and astuteness, Roland de Vries has rightfully been called the ‘Rommel of the SADF’. In this forthright, warts-and-all but compassionate autobiography he recounts the fascinating story of the transformation of a small, colonial army into, pound-for-pound, the best fighting force...

Forging a Special Operations Force: The U.S. Army Rangers details the origins and development, combat philosophy, and key engagements of America's elite fighting force. Structured topically, the book gives a chronological review of the history of the Ranger from the 17th century to the present...

The second part of an investigation into the clothing orders of the late-Georgian British Army, combined and contrasted with an analysis of fashion in the same army - comparing the regulated dress with the 'modes of the army' as revealed by contemporary writing and illustrations. The first...

Fighting for Liberty gives a gritty blow-by-blow account of the campaigns of 1685. A conflict that starts in Orkney and ends on the battlefield of Sedgemoor. Today there is a myth that the rebels were a misguided peasant rabble, easily put down by disciplined lines of red-coated soldiers, but...

From the Restoration of England’s monarchy until the end of the War of the League of Augsburg, nearly every country in Europe experienced conflict. Until recently, this period was perceived as a wargaming backwater overshadowed by the Thirty Years War fought 1618-1648 and the War of the Spanish...

A severe social and political crisis in El Salvador during politicians, religious figures and activists through strikes but organised the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMNL) and launched an armed insurrection against the government in early 1981. Within months, the FMLN established...

Following the 1952 reorganization of the Portuguese Air Force from the army and naval air arms, Portugal now had an entity dedicated solely to aviation that would bring it into line with its new NATO commitment. As it proceeded to develop a competence in modern multi-engine and jet fighter...

Grounded in primary archival research and published sources, this book provides a focused, and up-to-date assessment of the rebellion aimed at overthrowing the recalled Rump Parliament, led by Sir George Booth in 1659. Although nominally part of a wider ‘revolt’ against the Cromwellian State...

As the United Nations armed forces found themselves struggling to quell a Series of armed rebellions, towards the end of 1962 the United States increased its military role in the Congo Crisis by providing the Congolese government with a small air force recruited by the Central Intelligence...

On June 25, 1950, as he was flying back to Washington D.C. to deal with the outbreak of war in Korea, US President Harry Truman thought, “In my generation, this was not the first occasion when the strong had attacked the weak. I recalled some earlier instances: Manchuria, Ethiopia, Austria. I...

The émigrés who left, or were driven from, Revolutionary France included a large part of the officer corps of the former royal army. Joined by others who wished to fight for the restitution of the monarchy in their homeland, these officers soon served this cause in the pay of countries facing...

This book records the actions of those Irish soldiers (and others) who were awarded the Victoria Cross in the event known to the British public in 1857 as 'The Indian Mutiny'. Since then, revisionist historians have applied other names to what occurred: a 'war of independence', 'a revolt', or 'a...

The Crookenden brothers – Henry, Napier and Spencer - were born into a military dynasty. Their father, Arthur, was a renowned Cheshire Regiment officer and had served as a Brigade Major in Gallipoli and on the Western Front during the First World War. Napier followed in his father’s footsteps -...

The proportion of wartime soldiers dying of disease as against combat injury, ran at about 70-75 percent in armies campaigning in Europe in the century and a half (1648-1789) between the end of the Thirty Years War and the French Revolution. During this time, field armies doubled in size and...

The Dutch Republic was one of the great European powers during the 17th and 18th centuries. Generally, the Dutch Republic was considered to have lost that status after the Peace of Utrecht (1713); however, when the Republic entered the War of Austrian Succession in 1740, it was able to field an...

The Dutch Republic was one of the great European powers during the 17th and 18th Centuries. Generally, the Dutch Republic was considered to have lost that status after the 1713 Peace of Utrecht; however, when the Republic entered the War of Austrian Succession in 1740, it was able to field an...

A brilliant young poet, leading a gallant band whose epic adventure ends in defeat, betrayal and execution. Montrose was a doomed King's general who dared to win - and lost it all. The Scottish Royalist armed forces, along with its principal leader, the Marquis of Montrose, have had a romantic...

Ethiopia, a country of ancient origins in eastern Africa, remains a military powerhouse. Currently involved in the war in neighbouring Somalia, Ethiopia has also been involved in half a dozen other armed conflicts during the last 60 years. The Eritrean War of Independence was a crucial conflict...

Throughout the long drawn out war at sea during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, it was a cardinal principle of British naval strategy to blockade the port of Brest, the largest and most important of the French naval bases that threatened the security of the British Isles. It was a...

Ethiopia, a country of ancient origins in eastern Africa, has remained a military powerhouse of that continent until the present day. Currently involved in the war in neighbouring Somalia, Ethiopia was also involved in half a dozen of other armed conflicts during the last 60 years. One of the...

England and the Dutch Republic fought three naval wars in the middle of the 17th century, arising principally from a clash of mercantile interests. In the first of these, under the Commonwealth, England had much the better, due largely to the outstanding leadership of Robert Blake. The second...

On 3 September 1978, a Russian-supplied heat-seeking missile shot down an Air Rhodesia Viscount civilian airliner shortly after it took off from the lakeside holiday resort of Kariba in the Zambezi Valley. Miraculously, 18 people, including small children, survived the crash only for most of...

In 1792 France unleashed a new form of warfare in Europe. Faced with the well-drilled Austrian and Prussian armies, the French introduced the tactic of mass skirmishing by tirailleurs. Soldiers were thrown forwards and told to fight in open order. Moving quickly and making use of cover, they...

The life of Pulteney Malcolm, a Royal Navy officer active during and after the Napoleonic Wars, is now all but forgotten, except perhaps for his role in guarding Napoleon on St Helena. However in his time he was famous, celebrated for his daring and seamanship. For six years Malcolm commanded...

“Handbrake!”: the codeword that was shouted aboard Royal Navy ships upon the detection of an emission from the Thomson-CSF/EMD Agave radar of the Argentine Super Étendard, which carried the dreaded AM-39 Exocet missiles. Argentina had bought these aircraft and their weapons from France in 1980...

It was almost exactly 15.00 hours local time, on 25 June 1950, when nine Yakovlev Yak-9P fighters of the North Korea’s ‘Korean People’s Air Force’ (KPAF) simultaneously attacked Seoul International Airport and the Kimpo Airfield outside Seoul, the capitol of South Korea. In the course of their...

Revised Edition This new Edition features a revised and corrected text, twelve new colour aircraft and vehicle profiles from Tom Cooper and three colour figure artworks from Anderson Subtil France in Centrafrique explores the early colonial and post-colonial history of French Equatorial Africa...

This book deals with a Series of military operations that occurred in Portugal in 1762 and 1763, during the Seven Years’ War, and which have been largely dismissed by the historiography. They are collectively called the Guerra Fantástica ,’Fantastical War’, given the fact that the military units...

Great Lakes Holocaust is the first in two volumes covering military operations in Zaire - as the Congo was named from 1971 until 1997 - and the Democratic Republic of Congo at the turn of the 21st century. This volume explores the events of the 1980s and 1990s in Rwanda and Uganda, which...

Undoubtedly, America's attempt to push back communism in Vietnam is the most well-known war fought in Asia since 1945. However, it was preceded by a conflict between French and Vietnamese forces that resulted in the deaths of over 75,000 members of France's armed forces from December 1946 to...

Great Lakes Conflagration is the second in two volumes covering military operations in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) at the turn from the 21st century. This volume explores developments in the DRC that led to the outbreak of violence in August 1998, and systematically details the...

Like many Germans, Berlin schoolboy Erwin Bartmann fell under the spell of the Zeitgeist cultivated by the Nazis. Convinced he was growing up in the best country in the world, he dreamt of joining the Leibstandarte, Hitler's elite Waffen-SS unit. Tall, blond, blue-eyed, and just...

When the Task Force of the Royal Navy started its southbound voyage, as the second major act during the Falklands/Malvinas War of 1982, its commanders assessed the Argentine submarines as the greatest threat. Even if limited in total size and scope, this threat was so conditioning that the...

In 1778, when the expected war finally broke with France, Lord Sandwich, the long serving First Lord of the Admiralty, had to find the resources to match the French fleet not only in the Channel but in other theatres of war such as the West Indies, the Mediterranean and the Indian Ocean. In...

Brutally honest and devoid of hyperbole, this is Roelf van Heerden's Executive Outcomes. Unapologetic, unassuming and forthright, the combat exploits of Executive Outcomes (EO) in Angola and Sierra Leone are recounted for the first time by a battlefield commander who was physically on the ground...

Dave Barr had had a penchant for trouble since day one, born in the back of a car, shooting by the time he was five, riding a motorbike at seven, Dave regularly got into fights at school. The only reading Dave would do growing up involved motorbikes, shooting, westerns and the military. After...

In the spring of 1870 an Anglo-Canadian military force embarked on a 1,200 mile journey, half of which would be through the wilderness, bound for the Red River Settlement, the site of present day Winnipeg. At the time the settlement was part of the vast Hudson's Bay Company controlled...

Designed to recreate actual battles, In Deo Veritas focuses on the command decisions needed to maintain the motivation of the army. The six actual battle scenarios provide a range of different challenges from the warfare of the seventeenth century. Battles are played at the brigade level with...

Following the Civil War of 1994, Yemen experienced few years of relative peace. This was rudely interrupted in 2004, when the government opened the first of six campaigns against the movement colloquially known as ‘Houthis’. The Yemeni Air Force – partially re-equipped over the previous years –...

In Europe, the first two decades of the eighteenth century were characterised by almost constant warfare. Western and Central Europe had been involved in the Nine Years’ War that ended in 1697. The peace was shortlived and by 1701 Western Europe was once again plunged into a new conflict, the...

The Austro-Hungarian Stormtroopers and the Italian Arditi of World War I were elite special forces charged with carrying out bold raids and daring attacks. These units were comprised of hand-picked soldiers that possessed above-average courage, physical prowess as well as specific combat skills...

‘Hey For Old Robin!’ was the cry of the Earl of Essex’s army during the First Civil War as, contrary to modern popular belief, Robert Devereux was well-liked by the men he led. This book fills a gap in the literature of the Civil Wars, taking up the challenge to write a new history of Essex and...

In early October 1966, the fresh and inexperienced 196th Light Infantry Brigade of the US Army was conducting a Series of routine patrols in War Zone C. A lucky discovery of a rice cache led to the uncovering of a planned base area being established by the Viet Cong insurgents of South Vietnam...

The campaigns of the War of the Spanish Succession in Flanders and Germany are well known in the English-speaking world. Those are fought in Spain are perhaps less so. However, the Italian front of the conflict is almost unheard of.Although there were no Allied armies fighting in Italy, William...

On 16 October, 1944, the 3rd White Russian Front launched its massive offensive against Heeresgruppe Mitte. The German 4th Armee, whose line of defense stretched from Nowograd on the Narew to Memel, was quickly broken through. This is the very personal war-diary of the adjutant of Volkssturm...

In a Raging Inferno is the first English-language book ever to recount the story of the Hitler Youth and its combat role at the end of World War II. During the desperate final months of the Third Reich boys (and girls) as young as ten were thrown into action against the advancing British...

Designed by Sydney Camm as a swept wing, daytime interceptor with excellent manoeuvrability, the Hunter became the first jet aircraft manufactured by Hawker for the Royal Air Force. It set numerous aviation records and saw widespread service with a large number of RAF units in Europe and abroad...

The early 1960s are considered to be a period of failure in the fight against the Viet Cong. However, new research reveals that the VC came very close to being defeated. They were – in their own words – being ‘cut up’. Hunting the Viet Cong: Counterinsurgency in South Vietnam 1961–1963 presents...

Albrecht von Wallenstein! His very name is synonymous with the Thirty Years War. From a poor nobleman he rose to become the Duke of Friedland and Mecklenburg. Many see his assassination at Eger in 1634 as the end of the “interesting” period of the war, since he was the last of the war’s titans...

Nominally at least, the bloody and ruinous eight-year war fought between Iran and Iraq was a confrontation dominated by operations on land. The traditional impression is that the resources devoted to naval warfare were minute in comparison to those of its major land battlefields. As so often...

Equipped with well-balanced air wings, huge aircraft carriers have formed the backbone of the United States Navy’s doctrine and strategy since the Second World War. Packing an enormous punch, their purpose is to exercise control over enormous portions of airspace – in the offence or defence...

Sweden was neutral during the Second World War, but despite this, thousands of Swedes wanted to participate in the war - the largest group in Finland, where over 10,000 Swedes applied to fight against the Red Army. Another much smaller group which saw action against the same enemy was the...

The development of the F-5 lightweight supersonic fighter in the mid-1950s was almost a gamble for the Northrop Corporation, but ultimately resulted in one of most commercially successful combat aircraft in modern history. Iran was one of its major export customers, yet the long and often...

The events in Jet Age Man took place during the early Cold War, an era that will go down as a period when civilization teetered on the edge of the abyss. To some, nuclear deterrence appeared as utter madness, and was in fact commonly referred to as M.A.D. The concept of Mutually Assured...

Originally envisaged as a privately funded project for a possible future NATO-fighter, the Dassault Mirage F.1 evolved into one of the most aesthetically attractive and commercially most successful combat aircraft of the 1970s and 1980s. Developed into more than a dozen of different variants and...

This book throws new light on the men who fought for the Stuarts in Scotland from the beginning of the Jacobite cause in 1689 to Glenshiel in 1719 by drawing on the work of historians and a wide range of primary sources and therefore presenting a picture based on the evidence available. I am...

Based on the written testimonies and personal archives of two veterans of the 508th Parachute Infantry Regiment attached to the famous US 82nd Airborne Division, this book tells the story of two young Americans who unwittingly became actors in one of the greatest crusades against tyranny the...

In 1799, as part of the Second Coalition against France, an Anglo-Russian army landed in Holland to overthrow the Batavian Republic and to reinstate the Stadtholder William V of Orange. Initially called ‘The Secret Expedition’, although not really a secret for both sides, the description of the...

This book is the first study to reassess the nature of the royalist cause in the North midland counties of Derbyshire, Leicestershire, Nottinghamshire Rutland and Staffordshire during the first civil war (1642-1646). Previous accounts of the war in the region have been heavily dependent on...

In the early 1960s, the American-backed South Vietnamese government began an aggressive counterinsurgency programme aimed at eliminating the Viet Cong. The policy – known as the Strategic Hamlet Programme – seriously hurt and ‘cut up’ the VC. The second volume in this Series, Hunting the Viet...

Operation HOREV – the Israeli winter offensive from December 1948 until January 1949 – practically ended Israel’s War for Independence (also known as the 1948 Arab-Israeli War), with an Israeli victory that forced Egypt to seek ceasefire and to negotiate a settlement with the fledgling nation...

A paperback reprint of the most complete guide to the organisation, structure and units of the First World War German Army yet published. A detailed account of the composition, structure and organisation of the First World War German Army has long been needed by English-language readers - this...

A companion volume to our very successful In a Raging Inferno - Combat Units of the Hitler Youth, Hans Kissel's study offers a highly detailed account of the German Volkssturm, or Home Guard. Formed from men unfit for military service, the young, and the old, this ad-hoc formation saw extensive...

This seminal work documents the clandestine sea borne operations undertaken by South Africa's 4 Reconnaissance Commando Regiment. It breathtakingly reveals the versatility and effectiveness of this elite unit which worked with a range of other South African and Rhodesian forces, including the...

This is a translation of the 1867 work by Alexander Hold, Geschichte der Feldzugs in Italien 1866, which describes in detail the campaign of the previous year, fought between the armed forces of the Austrian empire and the kingdom of Italy in the Austrian province of Venetia and the southern...

Since September 1962, hardly a week has passed without a major armed confrontation or an outright war in Yemen. The number of long-lasting insurgencies, mutinies, rebellions, or terrorism-related activities that took place during this period numbers in the dozens. Despite the duration of all...

Koevoet (Afrikaans for ‘Crowbar’) tells of the origination and deployment of the South West African Police’s elite counter-insurgency capability during the South African Border War of 1978–1989. Drawing upon previously unpublished sources and from interviews with a number of key personalities...

In contrast to the existing biographies which treat Kitchener as British, the author of Kitchener: The Man, considers him an outsider within the British establishment. Of his 64 years, a mere 11, and those not consecutive, were spent in England. He learned from those around him, ways that were...

From author George Cassar’s experience in researching and writing about various aspects of the First World War, he became convinced long ago that Kitchener was made a scapegoat by his political enemies in the cabinet, not only because they found him difficult to work with, but perhaps more...

While the first volume in this mini-Series spanned the first decade of confrontations between Libya and several of its neighbours, but foremost the USA and France, between 1973 and 1985, the second is to cover the period of less than a year – between mid-1985 and March 1986, when this...

Between 1973 and 1989, various Western powers and Libya were entangled in a seemingly never-ending exchange of blows. Supposedly launched in retaliation for one action or the other, this confrontation resulted in a number of high-profile, even though low-scale, clashes between the Libyan Arab...

Once known as the ‘Switzerland of the Middle East’, an island of economic stability and social progress, Lebanon was shattered by a civil war that raged from 1975 until 1990. While Volume 1 of this mini-Series concentrated on the conflict pitting the central government against different factions...

Following years of growing tensions and mutual provocations, in June 1982 Israel launched an all-out invasion of Lebanon. During the night from 5 to 6 June 1982, four armoured divisions of the Israeli Defence Force moved into starting positions near the border with Lebanon, while a force of...

During the Napoleonic wars it was customary for British troops ordered on active service to take some of their wives with them. The usual proportion was six women per hundred men. The wives who were to accompany their husbands were chosen by ballot: excitement for the lucky ones and anguish for...

The 2019 From Reason to Revolution conference took as its theme the experiences of the ordinary British soldier in the era 1721-1815, from enlistment, through service at home, to life on campaign and the experience of battle. This book presents the proceedings of that conference in full, along...

In the dying days of World War Two, when the fate of nations was being decided by the triumvirate of Winston Churchill, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Josef Stalin, Hitler’s Austrian homeland provided a scenic backdrop for the last stand of Army Group South. Killing Hitler’s Reich, The Battle For...

Whether or not Henry Sinclair Horne was the 'silent' General he might certainly, if he were still alive, lay claim to being the 'forgotten' General of the Western Front. Though he wrote no memoirs nor kept anything more than sketchy diaries, it is still surprising that such an important...

The 28th SS Volunteer Grenadier Division ‘Wallonien’, which mostly consisted of French-speaking citizens of the Kingdom of Belgium – first as part of the Wehrmacht, and later in the ranks of the Waffen SS – fought as one of the national legions against the Red Army on the Eastern Front in...

In 1999, less than one year after both countries tested nuclear weapons, India and Pakistan found themselves locked in another armed conflict. In spite of a ray of hope for peace in February 1999, when the Indian Prime Minister, A.B. Vajpayee, visited Pakistan and signed the Lahore declaration...

There were more sieges than there were battles during the Jacobite campaign in Scotland and England in 1745-1746, yet no one work has concentrated on these episodes. Siege warfare was more common than set piece battles in Europe at this time and the ‘45 was no exception. There were two sieges of...

The Battle of Minden is justifiably celebrated by the British infantry and artillery regiments involved, but it was a close-run affair. Like a Brazen Wall echoes that celebration, but also sets a fresh balance: appropriately applauding, where due, the dash and élan of the French and Saxon...

An international bestseller since its release over 20 years ago, this new Edition of Jim Hooper's classic captures the courage, fear and intensity of the Namibian bush war. Never before had an outsider been given unrestricted access to Koevoet, the elite South West African Police...

‘Hangman Hawley’ is one of the villains of the ‘45 and holds a prominent place in Jacobite demonology but was also held in contempt by those who hated the Jacobite cause. He is reputed to have been a man who enjoyed hanging his own soldiers, looting from his enemies, and harrying defeated foes...

Formerly known as the ‘Switzerland of the Middle East’, an island of economic stability and social progress, Lebanon was shattered by a civil war that raged from 1975 until 1990. Pitting the central government against different factions and alliances of Christians, Sunni and Shi’a Moslems...

Interest in the First World War, or Great War, continues unabated. New angles are sought, fresh interpretations penned. Equally, much previously published material resides long-forgotten in the pages of now-rarely-consulted journals and periodicals. Landrecies to Cambrai reprints an extensive...

Confrontations between Libya, and the USA and France reached their highest point in the period between April 1986 and early 1989. In response to a Libyan-instigated and supported Series of terror attacks against US citizens and interests in Europe, in April 1986 the USA launched Operation El...

Kangzhan: Guide to Chinese Ground Forces 1937–45 is the first ready reference to the organization and armament of Chinese ground forces during the Sino-Japanese War of 1937–45. The work integrates Chinese, Japanese and Western sources to examine the details of the structure and weapons of the...

The communist victory in the Chinese civil war resulted in the formation of a new socialist state – the People’s Republic of China. The Soviets were the first to recognize the PRC, and subsequently provided China with considerable assistance. After Stalin’s death, however, relations rapidly...

The book describes the development of the Swedish Army during the Great Northern War, 1700-1721, when Sweden fought against a coalition of Russia, Denmark-Norway and Poland-Saxony. For parts of the war, Prussia and Hanover also joined the enemy coalition. The book describes how the Army was...

In Paris, the progress of the French Revolution was marked by violent rivalries amongst political factions. Occasionally these spilled out into other regions where there were also truly counter-revolutionary movements which portrayed strong regional characteristics, particularly in Western...

The victory of the communists in the Chinese civil war resulted in the formation of a new socialist state in Asia – the People’s Republic of China (PRC). The Soviet leadership was the first to recognize the PRC, and subsequently provided China with considerable economic, scientific, and military...

After the battle of Sedan on September 1, 1870 and the collapse of the Second Empire, followed by the investment of Paris, the Government of National Defense set about raising fresh armies. These had as their first objective the relief of the capital. The German troops covering the investment...

The history of the Irish Brigade remains fascinating more than three centuries after its creation in the late seventeenth century and is regularly revived in the English-speaking world as well as in Western Europe thanks to historians, journalists, and even politicians. The military feats of...

While some military historians of the English Civil Wars continue to focus on the national conflict and major campaigns, and assert that the considerations of counties and regions was little more than a disconnected Series of petty local struggles, several new interpretations about the nature...

An often neglected aspect of Marlborough’s war is its crucial campaign in Spain and Portugal, also known as the First Peninsula War of 1702–1712. Whilst this campaign was critical to the outcome of the war, relatively little information is available about it or the army that fought it. This work...

This book captures the experience of the South African Air Force helicopter pilot as never before; from 'rookie' to seasoned combat aviator in one of history's most intense counter-insurgency conflicts - the South African Border War. Nick Lithgow's work relates the gruelling endurance of SADF...

It was close to the small southern Belgian town of Mons that the shooting war began for the British ExpEditionary Force in August 1914. It was close to the same town that it ended for them over fifteen hundred days later. Neither the BEF nor the German Army planned or foresaw that first...

Thomas Jackson’s autobiography provides a colourful account of his experiences as a militiaman, Coldstreamer, and Chelsea pensioner. Son of a Walsall bucklemaker, Jackson joined the Staffordshire Militia aged 17 and spent a decade on home service, much of it passed at Windsor Castle and Weymouth...

Most studies of the 1940 Western Campaign have tended to focus on a narrow range of topics principally those relating the German forces or the epic of Dunkirk. The publication of this title is aimed at redressing the balance by providing a detailed account of the operations of the Dutch army...

Using a combination of new perspectives and new evidence, this book presents a reinterpretation of how 21st Army Group produced a successful combined arms doctrine by late 1944 and implemented this in early 1945. Historians, professional military personnel and those interested in military...

In 1975 Spain relinquished control of its former colony of Spanish Sahara following a short conflict with the Polisario, the armed movement representing many of the native Sahrawi people. In the wake of Spain’s withdrawal, neighbouring Morocco and Mauritania divided and occupied the territory...

This is the story of a Spanish army, commanded by the Marqués de La Romana, which was sent to Denmark by Napoleon in 1807, whilst France and Spain were allies bound by the Treaty of San Ildefonso, signed in 1796. When relations between the two countries broke down in May 1808 they were soon at...

During 1779, armies under the command of American General George Washington and British General Sir William Clinton were locked in a strategic stalemate. Washington’s Continental forces were deployed around Middlebrook, in northern New Jersey, while Clinton’s forces defended New York. The entry...

Apart from the nursery rhyme ‘The Grand Old Duke of York’, Britain’s war against Revolutionary France is today a largely forgotten prelude to the Napoleonic Wars. The campaign in Flanders was Britain’s attempt to stem the power of the new republic as it threatened to engulf its neighbours, but...

The Second World War forever altered the complexion of the British Empire. From Cyprus to Malaya, from Borneo to Suez, the dominoes began to fall within a decade of peace in Europe. Africa in the late 1940s and 1950s was energized by the grant of independence to India, and the emergence of a...

The year of 1914 had been a difficult one for the British ExpEditionary Force the war that had started in August had not been over by the expected time of Christmas. Additionally many of its original members had become casualties and replacements were difficult to find. 1915 did not go much...

Before the first shots were fired at Gettysburg - for many, the most significant engagement of the American Civil War - a private battle had been raging for weeks. As the Confederate Army marched into Union territory, the Federal Forces desperately sought to hunt them down before they struck at...

This book introduces the reader to an unknown Ally of the Second World War. Few people remember that Mexico, like Brazil, took an active part in that conflict. This volume covers Mexican participation in the Second World War for the first time using photos, documents and testimony from official...

The Hungarian armed forces (known as the Honvédség) were built up in the 1930s, their expansion gaining momentum once Hungary became free of the strict post-WWI Trianon treaty limitations in August 1938. Politically, Hungary was looking for a strong ally, who would help it to recover at least...

In the early hours of 22 November 1970, six Portuguese warships surrounded Conakry, the capital of the Republic of Guinea, on the West African coast. Taking advantage of the darkness of the night, a military force landed on the northern and southern coasts of the sleeping city. At the head of...

As with many other aspects of the British army the outbreak of World War One started a process of change that was to result in a radically different provision of chaplaincy care once the war was over. Nothing was ever simple with army chaplaincy. The war saw an increase in the number of churches...

When Helmuth von Moltke took over as Chief of the Prussian General Staff, the Prussian army had not fought for more than forty years. Yet within a decade and a half he had brought it to the point where it was the strongest in Europe. His successes on the battle field led to his methods being...

Hundreds of fighter-bombers of Soviet design and manufacture served in the air forces of multiple frontline Arab states during the first half of the 1960s. Not only older Mikoyan i Gurevich MiG-15s and MiG-17s, but also newer types such as the MiG-19 and MiG-21 were acquired in continuously...

When Egypt and Czechoslovakia signed the so-called ‘Czechoslovak Arms Deal’ in the mid-1950s, thy initiated a unique era of close cooperation between major Arab military powers, the Union of the Soviet Socialist Republics and its allies. Within few years, the air forces of Egypt, followed by...

Following a protracted research and development phase, Mikoyan Gurevich’s MiG-23 finally entered service with the former Soviet Air Force in the early 1970s. Almost immediately, a number of foreign customers pressed Moscow for deliveries of this long-overdue type, expected to succeed the popular...

In the wake of the US invasion of Nicaragua in 1912, the country came under the rule of the Somoza family, which imposed a brutal and corrupt military dictatorship. A low-scale insurgency of students, supported by peasants and other anti-Somoza elements of the society developed already in the...

In 1979, the Sandinista government established itself in power in Managua, the capitol of Nicaragua. It found the country ruined by the long war against the Somosa dictatorship and natural disasters alike, and nearly half of the population either homeless or living in exile. Attempting to...

Was Britain’s implementation of NATO strategy credible? After the adoption of Flexible Response in 1967 NATO relied on conventional forces to defend the West. Britain had a central role in NATO’s plans, but was British defence planning adequate for the task? How did the Government plan for the...

Based on previously-unpublished personal letters and military records, this biography provides a unique insight into the life, ambitions, opinions, and actions of Wellington’s most trusted, professional, and thoughtful staff officer, described as ‘the only man received into the unlimited...

The end of the Cold War introduced an altered global dynamic. The old bond of East/West patronage in Africa was broken, weakening the first crop of independent revolutionary leadership on the continent who no longer had the support of one or other of the superpowers. With collapse of the Soviet...

On 24 March 1999, the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) launched Operation Allied Force against Serbia. Lasting 78 days, this was an unusual conflict fought at several levels. The campaign was fought at the negotiation tables, in the media, and via cyber warfare. In the air, NATO sought...

When released into independence from Great Britain, in 1948, the stunningly beautiful island of Ceylon, re-named Sri Lanka in 1972, was expected to become a sort of ‘South Asian Singapore’. However, stable political order and bright economic prospects proved insufficient to maintain peace. A...

Upon achieving independence from Great Britain in 1948, the stunningly beautiful island of Ceylon, re-named Sri Lanka in 1972, was expected to become a sort of ‘South Asian Singapore’. However, stable political order and bright economic prospects proved insufficient to maintain peace. A host of...

In 1988, the Indian Army and Air Force, ably supported by the Indian Navy, carried out a daring intervention in the Maldives. The government of the Maldives, led by Maumoon Abdul Gayoom, facing an attempted coup by PLOTE, a renegade group of Tamil insurgents from Sri Lanka, sent out a request...

Operation Deliberate Force describes the air war fought over the former Yugoslav Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1992-1995. Based on extensive research and with the help of participants, the first part of this book provides a detailed reconstruction of the emergence of three local air...

This book provides a history of the roots of FNLC (Front for the National Liberation of the Congo: ex-Katanga Gendarmerie) in Angola and Zaire, political situation under Mobutu regime, FNLC incursions into Zaire border since 1977 (“Shaba Wars I and II”) and subsequent hostage taking in mining...

Early in the morning of 2 August 1990, aircraft of the Iraqi Air Force bombed Kuwaiti air bases, and then the Iraqi Republican Guards stormed into the country. Thus began what would be called the ‘Gulf War’ – or the ‘II Gulf War’ or ‘II Persian Gulf War’ – fought between January and March 1991...

The famed American Volunteer Group (AVG) created in August 1941, under the command of Claire Lee Chennault set an example of heroism for the American public opinion at the onset of the Second World War. This band of volunteer aviators serving under the Chinese Government tried to stem the tide...

This is the riveting true story of Paul Martelli, a fifteen-year-old German-Italian, who fought in Pomerania, on the Eastern Front, in 1945 as a member of the 33. Waffen-Grenadier-Division der SS "Charlemagne" and, later, as a soldier with French forces during three years (1951-1954) in the...

On 20 November 1916 the newly promoted Brigadier-General Frank Percy Crozier took command of 119 Brigade, one of three infantry brigades that made up the 40th Division, once labelled “the forgotten Fortieth”. This book brings the history and achievements of the brigade to a wider audience and...

Ninety miles from the US coast of Florida, dictators and zealots ruled the island of Cuba for hundreds of years. The last half of the 20th century saw dictator Fulgencio Batista deposed by rebel leader Fidel Castro and his followers. Proclaiming himself a supporter of Cubanism not Communism...

In June 1990, just three months after the Indian Peace Keeping Force withdrawal from Sri Lanka, the war between the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and the Sri Lankan government resumed and was to continue unabated until another formal ceasefire in the fi rst days of January 1995. This...

Startling in its innovation and daringly suicidal, Operation Dingo was not only the Fireforce concept writ large but the prototype for all the major Rhodesian airborne attacks on the external bases of Rhodesian African nationalist insurgents in the neighbouring territories of Mozambique and...

On 24 March 1999, the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) launched Operation Allied Force against Serbia, claiming that Serb forces in Kosovo were engaged in ethnic cleansing and gross violations of human rights. Serbia, in turn, claimed to be fighting against an insurgency. This would be...

Since the 1998 nuclear tests and the publication of India’s Nuclear Doctrine, India has continued to face endemic security challenges from both China and Pakistan. The latter, through the apparent induction of tactical nuclear weapons into the equation and a rapid expansion of its fissile...

In 1984, the Indian Army carried out a stunning operation that captured the Siachen Glacier in the northernmost regions of what is now the Union Territory of Ladakh. Since that time, a full brigade of Indian troops has faced off against a similar number of Pakistani soldiers in the highest...

In recent years, there has been a renewed interest in the military history of the English Civil War and its associated conflicts in Ireland and Scotland. Historians are increasingly paying attention to the ‘actualities of war’ (to use Sir Basil Liddell Hart’s phrase) during these conflicts, and...

In the summer of 1745, a charismatic (but inexperienced) young Prince sailed to Scotland - determined to wrest the crowns of Great Britain from the head of George II. In a few short weeks, he raised an army large enough to challenge the government’s forces in Scotland and, against the odds...

On 2 September 1898, the Anglo-Egyptian army under General Kitchener crushed the Mahdist Sudanese army of the Khalifa Abdallahi at the battle of Omdurman. Depictions of the battle, in books and films, have too often depicted it as the hapless slaughter of the Mahdists by a modern, well-equipped...

South African Mirages and Cuban MiG-21s dogfighting over Cuito Cuanavale, the largest tank battle on African soil since El Alamein; Puma troopships shot out of the skies by Strela missiles and RPG-7 rockets; Alouette III gunships hovering menacingly above Koevoet tracker-combat teams as they...

Rossbach and Leuthen are included in the Great Battles of History. Frederick made himself one of the Great Captains by these victories. Prussian military prowess became legendary. The Franco-German army swept away at Rossbach, and the Austrian army routed at Leuthen, were not only larger and had...

The 5th Battalion of the 60th (Royal American) Regiment was the first rifle battalion in the regular British Army. Raised in 1797, it marked a significant step in the development of British light infantry and rifle corps. Lieutenant Colonel Francis de Rottenburg, the battalion’s commander for...

Royal Navy Officers of the Seven Years War provides detailed reference information on over 2,000 commissioned officers of the Royal Navy: all of those whose career as a commissioned officer included the Seven Years War (1756-1763). In addition, those officers commissioned during and after 1748...

This book provides a full listing of the troop and company commanders who served in the New Model Army during the first four years of its existence. A second volume covering the final years of the army s existence is currently very close to completion. It will be published during 2016. This is...

This is the first comprehensive study of Gerhard Scharnhorst in any language. Other than the author’s The Enlightened Soldier: Scharnhorst and the Militärische Gesellschaft in Berlin, 1801-1805 (1989), there exists no other work on Scharnhorst in English. Of the major German works, Das Leben des...

On 11 November 1965, Rhodesian prime minister Ian Smith unilaterally declared his country independent of Britain. International sanctions were immediately instituted against the minority white regime as Robert Mugabe's ZANLA and Joshua Nkomo's ZIPRA armies commenced their armed struggle, the...

Rikugun: Guide to Japanese Ground Forces 1937-1945 is the first nuts-and-bolts handbook to utilize both the voluminous raw allied intelligence documents and post-war Japanese documentation as primary sources. This first volume covers the tactical organization of Army and Navy ground forces...

Revolución Libertadora – or the Liberating Revolution –is the name by which the military dictatorship that ruled Argentina is known after overthrowing the constitutional president, Juan Domingo Perón, closing the National Congress, deposing the members of the Supreme Court, the provincial and...

In the Spring of 1848, revolution threatened to sweep away the old order throughout Europe. In the Austrian-occupied north of Italy, newly nurtured nationalism, further fuelled by economic issues, prompted open revolt in Lombardy and Venetia. The Austrian army in Italy, commanded by 82 year old...

This is the story of military aviation in Rhodesia from the romantic days of 'bush' flying in the 1920s and '30s-when aircraft were refuelled from jerrycans and landing grounds were often the local golf course-to the disbandment of the Rhodesian Air Force (RhAF) on Zimbabwean independence in...

On 19 August 1812, lookouts of the British frigate HMS Guerriere spotted the American frigate, USS Constitution. Captain James Dacres, Guerriere’s commander, was eager for a fight and confident of victory. He had the weight of Britain’s naval reputation and confidence behind him. Yet when the...

Thailand is often thought of in the West as a tropical paradise and a holiday destination, indeed, it is sometimes referred to as 'The Land of Smiles'. In practice however, Thailand – a deeply conservative nation holding its monarchy in great esteem – is a country beset by security problems and...

The city of Trieste stands as a symbol of the Italian-Yugoslav border dispute in the first decade after the Second World War. The problem included a much larger territory which covers the wider area of Trieste: ranging from the Julian Alps in the north to the base of the Istrian peninsula in the...

Revolución Libertadora – or the Liberating Revolution –is the name by which the military dictatorship that ruled Argentina is known after overthrowing the constitutional president, Juan Domingo Perón, closing the National Congress, deposing the members of the Supreme Court, the provincial and...

Portugal's three wars in Africa in Angola, Mozambique and Portuguese Guinea (Guiné-Bissau today) lasted almost 13 years - longer than the United States Army fought in Vietnam. Yet they are among the most underreported conflicts of the modern era. Commonly referred to as Lisbon's Overseas War...

During the 13-year insurgency (1961–74) in Portuguese Africa, more than 800,000 men and women served in the Portuguese armed forces. Of this number, about 9,000 served as commandos (or about 1 percent). Yet their combat losses ? 357 dead, 28 missing in action and 771 wounded ? represented 11.5...

From 1963 to 1974, Portugal and its nationalist enemies fought an increasingly intense war for the independence of "Portuguese" Guinea, then a colony but now the Republic of Guinea-Bissau. For most of the conflict, Portugal enjoyed virtually unchallenged air supremacy, and increasingly based...

Between 1961 and 1974 Portugal fought a war to retain its African colonies of Angola, Guinea-Bissau, and Mozambique. Collectively known as the Campaigns for Africa, the origin of the conflict stems from the post-World War II atmosphere of nationalism and anti-colonial fervour. The Angolan...

Rikugun: Guide to Japanese Ground Forces 1937-1945 is the first nuts-and-bolts handbook to utilize both the voluminous raw allied intelligence documents and post-war Japanese documentation as primary sources. This second volume covers the armament of the ground forces. It takes advantage not...

After many years of political struggle, the Belgian Congo was finally granted its independence in June 1960. Becoming the Republic of the Congo (and later the Democratic Republic of the Congo), what was supposed to be a momentous occasion in the country's history was rapidly transformed into a...

William Hay had a varied and exciting military career during the later years of the Napoleonic Wars, which took him to the Peninsula, to Waterloo, and, after 1815, to Canada. Graduating from the Royal Military College at Marlow, of which he begins his memoirs with a rare account, he was first...

Paymaster John Harley wrote his memoirs in the mid to late 1830’s, some fifteen years after he had left the army under questionable circumstances. He apparently published this memoir privately in two volumes in 1838 a few years before his death - quite possibly as he had not found a mainstream...

A major gap in the body of work available in print to researchers into the military history of the English Civil War is army lists of the New Model Army. Reconstructing the New Model Army, of which this is the second volume, presents for the first time listings by regiment of the commissioned...

With heightened tensions mounting in the Cold War, President Dwight Eisenhower's request for more accurate intelligence information on the Soviet Union was the spark that ignited the U-2 project. Modified USAF bombers began overflights of the Soviet Union in 1951, but existing lower flying...

Late in the summer 1759, Québec, the capital of New France, was under siege. British Major General James Wolfe had the city surrounded and cut off from reinforcements in Montréal, Vice Admiral Charles Saunders was in firm control of the rivers surrounding the city as well as the supply routes...

Formed in 1973 by the legendary Lieutenant-Colonel Ron Reid-Daly at the behest of Rhodesian military supremo General Peter Walls, the Selous Scouts were to write their name into the annals of military history as one of the finest counterinsurgency units of all time, through their innovative...

This biography celebrates the 250th anniversary of the birth of Sir James McGrigor, widely regarded as the father of British Army Medical Services, and explains why he rose to great prominece during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. McGrigor had a great interest in the medical...

The primary aim of Special Operations Executive: Polish Section is to ascertain the ultimate effectiveness of SOE assistance provided to the Second Polish Republic during the Second World War. The first chapter examines early contacts made between British and Polish military authorities...

The reign of Louis XIV of France had a great impact on the course of European and world history. The years 1643 to 1715 were a defining epoch for western military, diplomatic, economic and cultural matters. It was an era during which the French and eventually all armies saw extraordinary changes...

This fourth and final part of our study concentrates on the early 18th century War of Spanish Succession. It was the largest and most difficult conflict in Europe since the Thirty Years War and unsurpassed until the Napoleonic Wars. It started because of Bourbon France and Habsburg Austria’s...

The reign of Louis XIV of France had a great impact on the course of European and world military history. The years 1643 to 1715 were a defining epoch for western military, diplomatic, and economic matters. Most of those years were marked by conflict between major European powers and the Sun...

This is the first full-length detailed study of the uniforms, organization, personnel and campaigns of the numerous Swiss units that served in the armies of Revolutionary, Directorate, and Imperial France from the campaigns of 1798 in Switzerland until the Hundred Days of 1815. The author covers...

Making extensive use of previously unpublished material this book gives an unprecedented view of the Waterloo Campaign from the viewpoint of a single regiment. It reveals the preparations that preceded the battle, the role of the regiment in the battle, and the long months spent in France after...

The reign of Philip IV of Spain is fascinating, as after a century of dominance in Europe, the Spanish hegemony was seriously challenged by France. At the beginning of Philip IV’s reign, Spanish dominions were vast, not only in Europe but also in South America, Asia and Africa. The defense...

Sniping in France provides a detailed and richly-informative account of how the snipers of the Great War British army trained and fought, and measures taken against their German counterparts. The author was responsible for organising a cohesive structure to the training of the snipers via the...

The third volume of the Target Saigon mini-Series describes the opening stages of the final communist offensive against South Vietnam. The decision of President Nguyen Van Thieu to evacuate the Central Highlands was part of a wider scheme that envisaged an extensive redeployment of South...

After two protracted years of fighting that wore down the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN), the North Vietnamese decided to launch their final offensives in January 1975. The president of South Vietnam, Nguyen Van Thieu, decided upon a wide range of strategic withdrawals to consolidate his...

The year 1989 was crucial for Paraguay. After a long period of 35 years of dictatorship, General Alfredo Stroessner was finally overthrown by a violent coup d’état. In a sort of prophetic way, he once said …”I came to power by arms and I will only leave by arms” and that came true on 2 February...

After 27 years of conflict it seemed that peace would finally settle on the Indochina peninsula on 27 January 1973 with the signing of a peace accord in Paris. The North Vietnamese had previously launched their greatest offensive against South Vietnam but fell short of their objectives, the...

Drawing on a wide range of Vietnamese-language sources, the author presents a detailed account of the continuing efforts of North Vietnam to invade the South, enlivened by a large number of previously unpublished photographs, and colour profiles for modellers. A year after the Paris peace accord...

As the events of the Second World War fade into the distance it is important that the activities of a small band of brothers are not overlooked. In the dark days following Dunkirk in 1940 these men volunteered for what was euphemistically termed 'Special Service'. Often given very little idea of...

In February 2019, the Indian Air Force struck at targets in Pakistan in retaliation for a terrorist attack on a convoy of the Indian Central Reserve Police Force in Kashmir. The next day, Pakistan retaliated in an inconclusive air battle. These were the most recent actions in a conflict between...

In 1685, James, Duke of York, ascended to the thrones of England, Ireland and Scotland. As the first catholic monarch in 150 years many believed that his reign would be short and that he would be succeeded by his eldest daughter Mary, a protestant, who was married to her cousin William, Prince...

Join 'The Terrible Ones' on clandestine operations and in conventional warfare during the harsh bush war that raged through southern Angola in the 1980s. The conflict ended with the last major battle of the Cold War, one of the largest land battles of the latter part of the 20th century. This...

Before the birth of the Roman Empire the history of the Classical world was dominated by the history of Greece, its cities, and kingdoms. The best known of these stories is the achievement of Alexander, son of Philip of Macedon, who would become known to the world as Alexander the Great. The...

‘The Armed Forces of the Gulf States, Volume 2’, covers the military, police, and selected para-military services of the Muscat & Oman, and the successor Sultanate of Oman in period from 1921 until 2012. Great Britain and Oman have had various mutual defence treaties since centuries. This...

In 1655 Oliver Cromwell, England’s Lord Protector, sent a fleet to attack and seize Spanish possessions in South America. The English were flexing their muscles on the international stage and for political, religious and commercial reasons chose to attack a weakened Spain in the West Indies...

This is an outstanding personal memoir penned by a German infantry officer recalling his experiences during the initial days and weeks of the war in the West, July-September 1914. Walter Bloem was a Captain in the German 12th Grenadier Regiment (Royal Prussian Grenadier Regiment Prinz Carl von...

Stout Hearts is a book which offers an entirely new perspective on the British Army in Normandy. This fresh study explores the anatomy of war through the Army's operations in the summer of 1944, informing and entertaining the general non-fiction reader as well as students of military history...

During the Cold War, Africa became a prime location for proxy wars between the East and the West. Against the backdrop of a steep rise in liberation movements backed by Eastern Bloc communist countries such as Cuba and the Soviet Union, southern Africa saw one of the most intense wars ever...

Nothing sums up the tragedy of the English Civil War more than the friendship between Sir Ralph Hopton and the Parliamentarian general Sir William Waller as “this war without an enemy.” Hopton was one of the first commanders to support the king and helped secure Cornwall for the Royalist cause...

The former colony of Spanish Sahara saw frequent outbursts of tribal and ethnic rebellions while ruled by the colonial authorities in the late 19th and through the early 20th Century. Its vastness and distances essentially dictated the application of air power in response. While most of these...

This all-new work chronicles the experiences of Paul French who, upon leaving the British Army's 21 SAS (V), sought adventure and excitement in C Squadron of the Rhodesian SAS. Upon passing the arduous Rhodesian SAS selection course, Paul was thrown into the maelstrom that was the Rhodesian Bush...

The Syrian Civil War experienced an entirely unexpected transformation during its first two years. It started as unrest and a Series of mass demonstrations within the Syrian population in the context of wider protest movements in the Middle East and North Africa in 2011, known as the Arab...

Some 50,000 British Territorials served in India during the Great War. Astonishingly, it has taken a century for a book on them to be written. The Territorials – citizen soldiers, members of a force formed before the war for home defence – never expected to serve abroad, but volunteered for...

The reign of Louis XIV of France had a great impact on the course of European and world military history. The years 1643 to 1715 were a defining epoch for western military, diplomatic and economic matters. Most of those years were marked by conflict between major European powers and the Sun...

The Mikoyan i Gurevich MiG-21 has been built in greater numbers than any other combat aircraft since 1945. It also saw service with more air forces than any other type manufactured over the last 70 years. Locally designated the ‘L’ (for Lovac or fighter), for more than half a century over 260...

The former colony of Spanish Sahara saw frequent outbursts of tribal and ethnic rebellions already while ruled by colonial authorities, in the late 19th and through early 20th Century. Its vastness and distances de-facto dictated the application of air power in response. While most of these...

The Sikh Confederacy consisting of military units or Misls rose from the ashes of the crumbling Mughal Empire in the eighteenth century. As a result, under the leadership of General Baghel Singh they conquered the Red Fort of Delhi in 1783 leading to the Sikh Empire being formed in the Punjab...

The Chaco War was the first modern conflict in South America. Over time, it became the topic of many volumes published in both Bolivia and Paraguay – first by veterans, such as the commanders-in-chief, and the commanders of army corps’, regiments or battalions, and by other ranks, in the form of...

The Army of George II is often forgotten, as 18th century British military history is bookended by the victories of the Duke of Marlborough during the War of the Spanish Succession and the final defeat of Napoleon by the Duke of Wellington. Yet it was in this period that Britain rose to...

As well as being Emperor of the French it is often forgotten, or simply overlooked, that Napoleon was also King of Italy – a state that essentially comprised all Italy north of the Kingdom of Naples. The Army of the Kingdom of Italy fought alongside that of France in all of the major campaigns...

Nothing sums up the tragedy of the English Civil War more than the friendship between Sir William Waller and his opponent Sir Ralph Hopton as “this war without an enemy.”However, Waller was also a general respected by both sides during the war, the Royalist Colonel Walter Slingsby described him...

The Chaco War was probably the first ‘modern’ conflict in Latin America where military aviation was widely used in all roles. Bolivia had a very powerful military air force but its high army command did not take full advantage of it. On the other hand, the Paraguayan Commander-in-Chief, General...

Between James’ accession in February 1685 and flight in December 1688 the British Armies increased four fold (the English, Scots and Irish Armies were still separate institutions and were to remain so until the early 18th Century, in the case of the Scots, and the early 19th Century in the case...

The sixteen-year-long war in Mozambique between the Frelimo government and Renamo rebels remains one of the most overlooked and misunderstood of the conflicts that raged across Africa during the height of the Cold War. While usually viewed as mere sideshow to more high-profile wars in Angola...

The Campaign in Alsace presents an excellent military history of two important battles during the opening rounds of the Franco-Prussian war in 1870. On 4 August 1870 General Abel Douay's French division was surprised and virtually destroyed by Bavarian and Prussian troops at Wissembourg. Two...

Its tercentenary is approaching, but the battle of Glenshiel is not well known. Glenshiel: The Jacobite Rising in 1719 therefore takes a fresh view of this curious and remarkable, but part-forgotten engagement. It was fought on 10 June 1719, during the long daylight hours of a summer evening in...

William Brown’s autobiography is a unique historical document, since he is the only memoirist to have come to light from the ranks of the 45th (1st Nottinghamshire) Regiment of Foot for the period of the Peninsula War – a regiment that was one of Wellington’s longest-serving and most valiant in...

In the broad history of the Cold War, the Battle of Cuito Cuanavale was the climax of a far-off, but nonetheless important African war. It was waged between the apartheid South African Defence Force (SADF) and the armed forces of the communist MPLA government in Angola and the People’s Republic...

The battle of Königgrätz was the largest battle ever fought in western Europe until 1914 and its political consequences were no less epic - the demise of Austria as a European Great Power, the loss of her historic pre-eminence among the German nations, and the final, incontestable rise of...

There has not been an account of the first attempt made in Scotland to restore the exiled Stuarts at the end of the seventeenth century for three decades; most accounts stop with the death of the movement's first leader, ?Bonnie Dundee'. This book is the first full length account of the military...

When the French declared war on Great Britain in 1793, they undermined the chosen policy of William Pitt, which had been to avoid conflict in order to repair the nation’s finances. The result of this policy was an understrength and inadequately resourced army. Whether campaigning on the...

In this series, renowned historical illustrator, Peter Dennis breathes life into the 19th Century paper soldier and invites the reader to re-fight the wars that surged across Europe as Louis XIV fought to establish French dominance over its neighbours. Refight the colour and spectacle of the...

The war fought in northern Oman from 1954 until the mid-1960s is almost completely forgotten. Even amongst contemporary military historians, it is considered less frequently than the subsequent – and widely published – Dhofar War. Though ‘small’, it was a conflict of crucial importance for the...

The Whole Armour of God examines and reassesses the role of the Anglican army chaplains in the Great War. The tensions and ambiguities of their role in the trenches resulted in criticism of their achievements. As with other groups such as army generals, the chaplains were given a bad press in...

Synonimous with the starvation that killed almost two million people, Biafra was a parastate that voted to secede from Nigeria in May 1967. Formally recognized by Gabon, Ivory Coast, Tanzania, and Zambia, and supported by France, Israel, Portugal, Spain, South Africa, Rhodesia, and even the...

The aftermath of the Second World War saw many colonial empires in a state of upheaval. In South East Asia, what had been armed resistance against the Japanese invaders and occupiers was now often turned into national liberation movements seeking independence from the European empires. The...

The Bavarian Army has been overshadowed by those of Gustavus Adolphus’ and Wallenstein’s Armies, but it was one of only a few armies to have fought throughout the Thirty Years War, first as part of the Catholic League and then an independent army after the Peace of Prague. Among the generals of...

Reflecting on the Battle of Montgomery, Sir Thomas Myddelton - who had jointly commanded the victorious Parliamentarian Army - later described it as: 'as great a victory as hath been gained in any part of the kingdom'. Fought on 18 September 1644 in mid-Wales, Montgomery was the largest...

The Battle of the White Mountain and the Bohemian Revolt, 1618-1622 looks not only at the battle of the White Mountain, but also the campaigns and events leading up to the battle, such as the Bohemian Army’s march on Vienna, the sieges of Pilsen and Bautzen and the battle of Zablat. These events...

The ignominious rout of a British force at the battle of Majuba on 27 February 1881 and the death of its commander, Major General Sir George Pomeroy-Colley, was the culminating British disaster in the humiliating Transvaal campaign of 1880–1881 in South Africa. For the victorious Boers who were...

This account, penned by a noted British military historian of the late 19th century, remains one of the best narratives of a 19th-century battle yet published. The Battle of Spicheren was fought in early August 1870, and like many of the battles in the opening phase of the Franco-Prussian war...

In the first of a potential new series Florian Richter presents colour profile models of every ship on both sides in this epic battle. In a change to previous paper soldier titles, these ships can be cut straight out of the book to create the British, French and Spanish fleets...

The Darkest Hour presents the Imperial Japanese Navy offensive in the Indian Ocean area in March–April 1942, the main goal of which was to destroy the Royal Navy in the Far East and achieve domination on the western flank of the Pacific War on the eve of the Battle of Midway. The bold operation...

In the second part of this comprehensive all-new two-volume military history of the Franco-Prussian War, the author continues his narrative from the fall of the Second Empire until the ending of the war, and the founding of a unified Germany.The war against the Government of National Defence...

In the first part of this comprehensive all-new two-volume military history of the Franco-Prussian War, Quintin Barry presents a detailed account of the war against the French Imperial Army waged by the armies of the German Confederation, directed by that supreme military mind, Helmuth von...

The Furthest Garrison focuses on Imperial Forces in New Zealand, with particular reference to Auckland. Existing work has focused solely on the conduct of the New Zealand (Maori) Wars between 1846 and 1866. While this in itself is of undoubted significance, there is an additional unexplored...

True, the concept of Britain dates back to Roman times, but it was James I that founded Britain in the modern sense. With his accession to the throne in 1603 for the first time Scotland, England, Wales and Ireland were united - with James bestowing on himself the title of 'King of Great...

The Fallschirmtruppe of the Wehrmacht won recognition for their valor and endurance not only from their fellow German soldiers, but from their former enemies as well. On the basis of careful and comprehensive research, including utilizing extensive unpublished documentary and personal materials...

A considerable part of the military history of the 17th century is dominated by the conflict between the Christian powers and the Ottoman Empire. Much has been written about the politics and the campaigns that led to the siege of Vienna in 1683 and the defeat suffered by the Sultan's armies...

On 30 March 1972 the South Vietnamese positions along the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) that separated the North from South Vietnam were suddenly shelled by hundreds of heavy guns and multiple rocket launchers. Caught in a series of outposts of what was the former ‘McNamara Line’, the shocked...

In 1961, Portugal found itself fighting a war to retain its colonial possessions and preserve the remnants of its Empire. It was almost completely unprepared to do so, and this was particularly evident in its ability to project power and to control the vast colonial spaces of Africa. Following...

During a National Security Council meeting in March 1971, Henry Kissinger commented to those around the table, "When the CIA reaches the point of having the largest army in Southeast Asia, we better review the program!" He was referring to the secret war brewing in Laos, where the Central...

The 1974 Carnation Revolution came as a blessing for independence movements in Portugal's African colonies: Angola, Mozambique and Portuguese Guinea. As had been the case in a number of sub-Saharan countries suddenly finding themselves free of the colonial yoke, the political vacuum left behind...

Made up of members of the Coldstream and Scots Guards, British yeomanry cavalry regiments, New Zealanders, South Africans, and Indian Army men, the Long Range Desert Group was perhaps the most effective of all the "special forces" established by the Allies during the Second World War. It was...

In 1961, Portugal found itself fighting a war to retain its colonial possessions and preserve the remnants of its empire. It was almost completely unprepared to do so, and this was particularly evident in its ability to project power and to control the vast colonial spaces in Africa. Following...

The Darkest Hour presents the Imperial Japanese Navy offensive in the Indian Ocean area in March–April 1942, the main goal of which was to destroy the Royal Navy in the Far East and achieve domination on the western flank of the Pacific War on the eve of the Battle of Midway. The bold operation...

Best known by their French acronym for Forces Armées du Royaume – FAR – the Royal Lao Armed Forces were the official defence force of the Kingdom of Laos – what is now the Lao People’s Democratic Republic – from 1949 until 1975. Founded in 1947, when King Sisavang Vong declared Laos an...

During a closed-door meeting of Washington policy makers on 31 March 1971, a senior CIA officer informed National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger that the agency was controlling up to 8 divisions of indigenous troops in Laos. “When the CIA reaches the point of having the largest army in...

On 30 March 1972, while peace negotiations had been dragging on for four years in Paris, the North Vietnamese launched a wide scale offensive in order to break the stalemate. At that date, practically no American ground forces remained in South Vietnam where a limited offensive was expected in...

The Shangani or Allan Wilson’s Patrol was a minor incident in the British expansion in Africa. Much smaller in scale than the massacre of Isandlwana, the fate of the Patrol was a black mark on the British South Africa Company’s conquest of Matabeleland. The Patrol was part of the Ndebele War of...

The war of 1864 between Austria and Prussia on the one side and Denmark on the other was short but important for European history. The two Germanic great powers combined to force a much weaker but intransigent Denmark to cede its two provinces of Schleswig and Holstein, which freed German...

More than 200 years ago - under the inspiration and leadership of Bonaparte - a revolutionary French Army invaded Egypt, then part of the Ottoman Empire; this presence lasted beyond Bonaparte’s own departure and subsequent rise to power as First Consul. It ended with another invasion - this time...

In mid-July 1789, after the storming of the Bastille, the municipality of Paris organized a Garde Nationale, heir to the militias of the Ancien Régime. Something of a myth, the story of its origins is closely linked to the emblematic figure of the Marquis de La Fayette, its commanding general...

"If you can keep your head when all about you Are losing theirs and blaming it on you; If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you, But make allowance for their doubting too: If you can …" A rollicking biography of Dr Leander Starr Jameson-hero, rogue and rascal of Empire and the man who...

During the late 1980s, the former Socialist Federal Republic of Jugoslavia (SFRJ) – a country dominating the Balkans – experienced a period of major crisis. Led by the Communist Party, the nation’s leadership failed to understand the depth of political changes all over Eastern Europe, and then...

At the beginning of the Second World War the Nazi hierarchy had, at an early stage, fully recognised the importance of controlling the depiction of military conflict in order to ensure the continued morale of their combat troops by providing a bridge between the soldiers and their families...

From the middle of the 16th century to the early years of the 18th century, cavalry experienced significant changes in doctrine, deployment, and the equipment it used. The Men-at-Arms, carrying lances and arranged in large formations, were replaced by more lightly-armed cavalrymen fighting with...

The fourth volume of the Military and Police Forces of the Gulf States provides an in-depth examination of the security arrangements and forces ‎of three Arabian Gulf states – Bahrain, Kuwait, and Qatar – during the period from ‎the aftermath of the First World War up to 1980. Drawing on a...

In 1947, India and Pakistan were partitioned by their former colonial ruler, Great Britain. A job that should have taken ten-years was done in a few months. Britain, drained by two world wars in 40 years, no longer had the will or the money to guide the subcontinent to a peaceful partition by...

Sir William Waller called his defeat at the Battle of Roundway Down, the most heavy stroke that ever befell him. He also said it turned victory into mourning and glory into shame. Indeed his loss in July 1643 was both dramatic and unexpected but what exactly happened has posed questions to...

Portuguese paratroopers or “paras” began as a stepchild of the army and found a home in the Portuguese Air Force in 1955. Initially, the post-World War Two Portuguese Army seemed to have had mixed emotions about the need for elite, special-purpose forces that operated in small units with the...

In 1947, India and Pakistan were partitioned by their former colonial ruler, Great Britain. A job that should have taken ten-years was done in a few months. Britain, drained by two world wars in 40-years no longer had the will or the money to guide the subcontinent to a peaceful partition by...

This study details the preparation, planning and execution of the invasion of Portugal in 1810 by the French Armée de Portugal under Marshal Massena, and the defensive measures taken by the British and their Portuguese and Spanish allies. It also covers the practice of all armies involved during...

The Iran-Iraq War was one of the bloodiest conflicts of the 20th Century and accidentally created the current nightmare of Islamic fundamentalist terrorism. There have been many books on the conflict but this is the first detailed military history using materials from both sides, as well as...

The Iran-Iraq War was one of the bloodiest conflicts of the 20th Century and accidentally created the current nightmare of Islamic fundamentalist terrorism. There have been many books on the conflict but this is the first detailed military history using materials from both sides, as well as...

The Year 1932 was not only the year in which the famous carnival of Rio de Janeiro was organized for the first time, or the giant statue of the Christ the Redeemer was placed on top of the Corcovado mountain ridge: tragically, it was also the year of the last civil war fought in Brazil. On 9...

Although the Battle of Naseby (14 June 1645) is generally regarded as the decisive action of the First Civil War, dooming the Royalist cause to inevitable defeat, fierce fighting continued for over a year, including several pitched battles and numerous sieges. By the end of 1645, with his forces...

The Jacobite Rising of 1745 could not have taken place without French support. French ships carried Charles Edward Stuart to Scotland, French gold financed his campaign, and French weapons equipped many of his troops. Yet the actual French military contribution to the campaign was small, and its...

The Other Side of the Wire brings to life a period long forgotten in the decades that have passed since the Great War ended in 1918. Until recently most books written on the Battle of the Somme concentrated almost exclusively on the British effort with only a brief mention of the period before 1...

The so-called Seven Weeks' War of 1866 between Prussia and Italy and Austria was notable not only for its effect on future German history but also because it was the last time the armies of the smaller German states fought as independent contingents. Forces from 30 smaller states were involved...

The English troops serving in Ireland were vital source of experienced and possibly war-winning manpower sought after by both King and Parliament in the Civil War. The “cessation” or truce which King Charles reached with the Irish Confederates in September 1643 enabled him to begin shipping over...

The Iran-Iraq War was one of the bloodiest conflicts of the 20th century and accidentally created the current nightmare of Islamic fundamentalist terrorism. There have been many books on the conflict, but this is the first detailed military history using materials from both sides, as well as...

Overshadowed by the better known Spanish Armada of 1588, three centuries ago, the final Spanish Armada set sail against England and Scotland. This little known invasion is often treated as part of the little known Jacobite campaign of 1719. However, this invasion and the subsequent campaign in...

The second title in the Paperboys on Campaign Series, some 46 pages of artwork enabling you to make French, British, Portuguese, Spanish, and several other countries' troops who fought for and against the Iron Duke in his epic campaign against Napoleon's forces...

The careers of the three Norfolk admirals were intimately related. Narbrough and Shovell came from the small North Norfolk hamlet of Cockthorpe and Myngs from nearby Salthouse. In the 1660s, Myngs was the captain, Narbrough the lieutenant and Shovell the lowly cabin boy in the same ship. It is...

In January 1839, Captain S.B. Haines of the Indian Marine, the East India Company’s navy, occupied Aden, a magnificent natural harbour located at the junction of the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean. Britain recognised its strategic importance, and this began a period of rule which lasted until 29...