Military History, Book Reviews, and Other Things

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The First Battle of the Marne & the End of the Schlieffen Plan

The first Battle of the Marne was fought from 5-12 September, 1914.  It was the turning point of the opening campaign in what would be known as the Western Front during World War I.  First Marne represented the death of… Continue Reading →

Little known facts: Today in 1282, the English completed the extinction of the Welsh Royal dynasty when they captured and killed  Llywelyn ap Gruffydd, the last independent Prince of Wales.

Book Review: Kirov by John Schettler

[FULL DISCLOSURE: I received my copy of this book free from the author. I was not paid for this review and the opinion expressed is purely my own] Kirov by John Schettler is the Philadelphia Experiment in reverse.  It is the tale of… Continue Reading →

Happy Veterans Day

Today is Veteran’s Day in the US and Armistice Day in Britain and France. It is a day to remember the end of the fighting in World War I on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh… Continue Reading →

The Fronts of World War I in 1917 & 1918

The tactical and strategic situation at the beginning of 1917 was little changed from that at the beginning of 1916.   All that the offensives on the Western Front had managed to accomplish the previous year were minor changes in… Continue Reading →

The Fronts of World War I in 1915 & 1916

After Turkey’s entry into the war towards the end of 1914, the Dardanelles was closed to allied shipping and thus the only warm water route to Russian ports was closed.   The allied solution to this dilemma was to use… Continue Reading →

The Opening Months of World War I in the East and Elsewhere

The opening months of World War I on the Eastern Front did not proceed at as the German General Staff thought they would.   When General Alfred von Schlieffen (1833-1912) was drawing up the German war plan that would subsequently… Continue Reading →

Europe and the Crusading Impulse

Europe in the tenth and eleventh centuries was a continent in transition.   The states of Europe were still in flux and the kings of Europe had limited authority outside their own personal demesne.   Although individual French kings did… Continue Reading →

The Opening Months of World War I in the West

This will be a series of posts laying out the general history of the major Fronts in World War I. The First World War was unnecessary in that if the diplomats of Europe had truly wanted to stop the war… Continue Reading →

Combatant Military Strategic Thought in 1914

All classical military theorists point out that military strategy and national policy are intermingled.   Clausewitz devotes a lengthy portion of his treatise to the ways in which military action should serve the needs of the state; indeed, his most… Continue Reading →

Why the Western Front Stalemated in WWI

The conventional explanation for why the Western Front in World War I settled into a stalemate is that the power of defensive weapons was stronger than the offensive methods employed.   The theory is that the defensive potential of machine-guns,… Continue Reading →

The Crimean War part one – The Narrative

This war has always interested me; mainly because of the use of technology and the admittedly fuzzy reasoning for the war in the first place.   The war was probably the last European Great Power War that was fought for… Continue Reading →

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