MHQ: The Quarterly Journal of Military History

Parliamentarians and Royalists clash in England’s bloody Civil War which would see the rise to power of Oliver Cromwell and the infamous beheading of King Charles I. TODAY: Archaeologists excavating a site in Warwickshire, England in 2023 near the Ci

I lived in Northern Virginia for a good while, where a lot is named after Colonel John Mosby, but I thought of him as purely a southern bandit. In “To Catch the Gray Ghost” in the Winter 2023 issue, I was surprised to learn that after the war, Mosby

The history of bullets predates firearms by thousands of years. Bullets of many materials, even including lead, were used throughout the ancient and classical worlds by highly trained, deadly soldiers. Although the term conjures up images of suburban

What actually started the Spanish-American War? What were the reasoning and objectives behind it? Geoffrey A. Walker, Worcester, Mass. By 1825 the once-intercontinental empire of Spain had declined to the point that its mainland colonies had achieved

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In spring 1942, Japan’s military was the virtual master of its area of operations. It had overrun most of Southeast Asia and a huge swathe of the western Pacific with startling speed after Dec. 7, 1941, and the campaigns in mainland China seemed well

American soldiers look at the looming wreck of a Messerschmitt 323 at Tunisia’s El Aouina airport circa June 1943. The Germans hoped the six-engine transport plane, designed to carry 140 troops, could help reinforce their strength in North Africa, bu

When Italy entered World War I in 1915, Italian Army Chief of Staff Luigi Cadorna set his sights on a 400-mile line down the Isonzo River from northeastern Italy to present-day Slovenia, offering options of either seizing the port of Trieste or threa

Shohei Ooka was drafted into the Imperial Japanese army shortly after New Year’s Day in 1944. The 35-year-old Ooka was an unlikely soldier. A professional literary critic fluent in French and English, he loved European culture and considered himself

In 1238, a 40,000-man Mongol horde led by Genghiz Khan’s grandson, Batu Khan, embarked on a campaign of conquest against the Rus. By the end of 1238 they had taken 14 major cities and razed them for failing to heed Batu’s ultimatums. Only two major c

Everyone, it seems, is familiar with highways constructed by the ancient Romans. Those elegant, stone-paved roads pop up as supporting actors in every novel, film, or television show set in Roman times. Yet few people seem aware that this vast Roman

Pistol grip The combined pistol grip and magazine housing gives the weapon an excellent center of balance in the grip hand and fast reloading through an intuitive “hand-finds-hand” principle. As an additional safety feature, the button on the back of

Chinese spy balloons. North Korean nuclear “saber-rattling.” Taiwan invasion threat. South China Sea land grab. U.S. ICBM test targets Pacific island. Russia challenges Japan over Kuril Islands. With today’s news headlines filled with such reports fr

Emelio Viaña went out to farm sweet potatoes with his two sons, Protacio and Diony, both in their early teens, at their farm near Yapusan on the western side of Lubang Island in the Philippines. It was March 8, 1961—the day before his 53rd birthday.

Sunday, June 8, 1862 dawned bright and cool in Virginia’s beautiful Shenandoah Valley. Confederate Maj. Gen. Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson was in the central valley town of Port Republic, headquartered at Madison Hall, the residence of Dr. George W.

On the night before Christmas 1941, a tall athletic man crept unseen onto an Italian airstrip at Tamet, on the Libyan coast, midway between Tripoli to the west and Benghazi in the east. Lt. Robert Blair Mayne, “Paddy” to his acquaintances, was accomp

In his two-volume book series, “In the Centennial Footsteps of the Great War,” photographer and author Attila Szalay-Berzeviczy not only recreates famous battle scenes but revisits former battlefields and key war-related sites around the globe. His p

On the same day Alexander III of Macedonia was born in 356 BCE, the famous temple of Artemis at Ephesus was destroyed by fire. The soothsayers wailed that somewhere in the world a torch had been lit that would consume all Asia. The portent proved tru

In October 663 ce, at the decisive Battle of Baekgang, a historical era ended in bloody fashion. At the mouth of the Keum River, a combined Korean-Chinese force soundly defeated a Korean-Japanese one in a momentous event that had profound effects upo

“Varus! Give me back my legions!” shouted the enraged Roman Emperor Augustus according to ancient Roman historian Suetonius in The Twelve Caesars. Augustus was raging against his losing commander in one of Rome’s greatest military defeats—the disastr

“He is a frequent and faithful and capable officer in the civil service, but he is charged with an unpatriotic disinclination to stand by the flag as a soldier, like the Christian Quaker.” So wrote Mark Twain in Harper’s magazine in 1897, reflecting

Against the protests of his staff, Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery used an M3 General Grant tank to get close to the frontlines during World War II battles in North Africa as he commanded his troops. This silver model of Monty’s tank was mounted on

Wartime artist Howard Brodie captured this portrait of war-weary U.S. Army Staff Sgt. Elwin Miller, recipient of the Purple Heart, Silver Star and British Military Medal, smoking a cigarette in Germany during World War II in 1945. The portrait was dr

By Adrian Goldsworthy 144 pages. Osprey Publishing, 2023. $20. Reviewed by Jerry Morelock Arguably, the deadliest “war machine” prior to the invention of gunpowder was the Roman Legion, particularly after the “Marian Reforms” instituted by Gaius Mari