The Battle of Arsuf – To Win the Day, One Man Must Defy His Own King
Beneath the relentless beating of the midday sun, under a seemingly endless rain of arrows, The Grand Master’s patience had all but run out. Garnier…
Krak des Chevaliers – The Impenetrable Castle, Captured With A Single Sheet of Paper
A hulking edifice of sun-bleached stone, Krak des Chevaliers loomed against a clear blue sky. How many men had died to hold those walls, and…
Single Combat At The Siege of Bayonne, 1131AD
Pedro de Lara was bored. His had lived a full life, a life of personal pride and skill at arms, of politics, wine and of…
The Night Attack – Vlad the Impaler ambushes the Ottoman Sultan
Mehmet II, known as Mehmet the Conqueror, was one of the greatest military commanders of his day. The Ottoman Empire under his rule was vast,…
Sappers and Siege engines – Ivan the Terrible Conquers The city of Kazan
The army had been in place under the city walls for weeks. Ivan the Fourth, Tsar of all the Russians, accompanied his force in the…
The beginning of the end for the Teutonic Knights, Grunwald 1410
For more than two hundred years the might of the Order of Teutonic Knights had been steadily growing. It was forged in 1190, in the…
The Battle of Pliska – a Byzantine military disaster
Though they clung to the name of the Roman Empire, the Byzantines never achieved the glory of their predecessors. Theirs was an empire in slow…
732 Battle of Tours: Charles Martel the ‘Hammer’ preserves Western Christianity
Few Empires emerged as quickly as that of the Muslim Caliphates. Bursting out from Saudi Arabia in the mid-7th century, the Islamic Caliphate swarmed outward…
The last battle of the Vikings – Fighting The Scots
It was the age of the Great Mongol Khans. It was the age of Byzantium, of the Holy Roman Empire. The wars of the Reconquista…
11 Facts You Never Knew About Medieval Warhorses
The warhorse was a vital part of the European medieval military machine. Cavalry charges by heavily armoured knights made horseback attacks a terrifying part of…
12 Battles That Defined the Crusades
The Crusades, Christian Europe’s attempt to drive back other nations and religions, were among the most ambitious and badly thought out campaigns in military history.…
7 Reasons the Conquistadors Beat the Incas
Francisco Pizarro’s conquest of the Incan empire is one of the most extraordinary achievements in military history. In the space of a single day in…