The History Network

May 8, 1945 marked the end of the War in Europe while August 15 marked the same in the Pacific theatre. With the defeated nations being occupied and made into new allies, an entirely different conflict for the world was now beginning. The Cold War had begun. Dur: 22mins File: .mp3

Jasper, Josho, Murray and Lindsay discuss Ancient Warfare Magazine VII.2 Struggle for Control: Wars in Ancient Sicily "Created by the gods and land of the giants, Sicily was a wealthy but deadly prize that dangled in front of many ancient powers. The unfortunate island would be subjected to a seemingly endless series of wars fought by people from all over the ancient Mediterranean. For centuries, the Greeks and Carthaginians would bludgeon each other to the point of exhaustion over a desire to dominate the island. Heeding the siren’s call, the power of Athens would be dashed against Sicily’s rocks. Like a lover forced to choose between two suitors, Sicily would choose Rome over Carthage and thus accelerate the demise of the latter." More

"Ye Sons of Great Britain! come join with me And sing in praise of the gallant British Armie, That behaved right manfully in the Soudan, At the great battle of Omdurman". So go the opening lines of The Battle of Omdurman by William McGonagall. It was indeed a great battle where the British and Egyptian forces were heavily outnumbered by the Dervishes of the Mahdist leader Abdullah al-Taashi. It involved a gallant British cavalry charge in which Winston Churchill took part, and it was a battle with which the discipline of a modern army won over a vastly larger force with older weapons. As the French historian and writer Hilaire Belloc put it: "Whatever happens, we have got... The Maxim gun, and they have not". Dur: 19mins File: .mp3

On January 20, 1889, the following death notice appeared in the New York Times: "MACKENZIE—At New Brighton, Staten Island, on the 19th of January, Brig. Gen. Ranald Slidell Mackenzie, United States Army, in the 48th year of his age." Such a death notice, lacking much detail into his life and career, could be expected if the officer was a minor figure of the late 19th century army, having played little or no role in the Civil War or the more recent Indian Wars. However, this notice is not fitting for an officer who graduated at the top of his class at West Point in 1862 and in three short years, rose to the rank of brevet major general. Dur: 29mins File: .mp3

In 1909, famed mystery writer Sir Arthur Conan Doyle published The Crime of the Congo, an exhaustive book cataloguing the evils of Congo Free State. On the first page, Doyle included unsettling photographs of African women with severed hands, cut off in the course of forced labor or punitive acts. Doyle's ruthless critique of King Leopold II was published in the context of mounting international criticism against Belgian colonialism, which resulted in the annexation of the territory in 1908. Dur: 29mins File: .mp3

Jasper, Josho, Murray and Lindsay are joined by Egyptologist Arianna Sacco to discuss Ancient Warfare Magazine VII.1 Warriors of the Nile, Conflict in ancient Egypt. "One of the earliest civilizations in the world, the culture of ancient Egypt blossomed along the banks of the River Nile. Around 3000 BC, the country was already a unified kingdom ruled by a single king. Its powerful rulers built impressive monuments in the form of the famous pyramids during the so-called Old and Middle Kingdoms, many of which still endure to this day. Egyptian civilization would reach even greater heights during the New Kingdom (1549–1069 BC), when its warrior-kings ventured more boldly beyond the safety of their own borders to forge an actual empire." more Dur: 38min

Jasper, Josho, Michael and Lindsay discuss the meaty topic of the Celts in the classical world (issue VI 6). "In 106 BC, a Roman army captured the Gallic stronghold of Tolosa and appropriated a vast treasure hoard. It was soon claimed that they had recaptured the spoils that a band of marauding Gauls had originally looted from the Greek sanctuary at Delphi in 279 BC. The claim, while dubious at best, nonetheless illustrates the ancient tendency to lump Celtic peoples together, treating separate raids by distinct peoples as part of a single menace. In the ancient retelling, both Rome and Greece were sacked by a chieftain named Brennus (albeit in different centuries), a neat onomastic coincidence that is likely too good to be true." More

The legend of the triumphal German Panzer Divisions sweeping all before them during the Blitzkrieg across Europe in 1939-40 gives the impression of a modern mechanized force, but what we rarely hear about is that behind this spearhead was the bulk of the infantry who relied upon its use of horses. So dependant upon the lowly horse were they that at its height the Wehrmacht used over 1.1 million of them! Dur: 20mins File: .mp3

Germanicus Caesar is a famous name in the annals of Roman military history yet his life story is known to remarkably few. It is a Boy's Own tale of adventure, courage and derring-do, but it is also the chronicle of the man who was intended to be the third emperor of Rome, but never was. Dur: 41mins File: .mp3

We have all seen it - on coins, stamps, postcards, t-shirts, billboards, and classroom walls. In 1851 Emanuel Gottlieb Luetze painted "Washington Crossing the Delaware", an iconic image of the General's attack on Trenton during a bitter December night in 1776. Lost in all of the painting's fame, however, is the irony that the German-born artist was glamorizing the defeat of German auxiliary forces as the turning point in the American Revolution. Dur: 46mins File: .mp3

Kublai Khan, the Grandson of Genghis Khan, became emperor of Mongolia in 1260. Northern China was already under his control and Korea gave him access to the sea, with Japan just 100 miles away. Five times, between 1266 and 1274, Kublai Khan sent emissaries to the Emperor of Japan, addressing him as "the ruler of a small country", demanding he pay tribute and become a vassal state. Five times the emissaries returned empty-handed. Dur: 18mins File: .mp3

Turning points are sometimes controversial but it is generally accepted that the Battle of Gettysburg was the major turning point of the American Civil War. It marked the high point of Confederate arms in that it was their last venture into the north and the furthest they reached. After Gettysburg the South was essentially permanently on the defensive and never regained the capability of significant offensive action against the North. Dur: 27mins File: .mp3

With only 8 moving parts, the AK-47 assault rifle is simple to maintain and its simplicity of use and durability are legendary. It can fire 600 rounds a minute and every single bullet is potentially still lethal at distances of more than a kilometre or two-thirds of a mile. 70+ Million have been produced (over 100 million if you count its variants). Its initial design was submitted as a competition entry after the Soviet Army asked for designs for a reliable weapon capable of withstanding all that the then Russian front could throw at a weapon. Dur: 23mins File: .mp3

Jasper, Josho and Michael are joined by Jason Klazmer to look at the the armies of Diocletian (Ancient Warfare Magazine VI-5) "When Emperor Alexander Severus was assassinated in AD 235, the Roman Empire fell into an abyss that it would only crawl out of after almost fifty years. Roman armies clashed in struggles for the throne, with generals proclaimed emperor by their troops and then meeting violent ends a few months later – often at the hands of those same troops. Besides this internal power struggle, the Empire was also plagued by attacks from without."  Dur: 40min 49sec

The origins of the Zulu War of 1879 can be traced to the first decade of the 19th century. It was then, that a rather minor clan of the Bantu people begun to grow into a formidable military force united under a single warrior chief. Zulu were always united in their ways by kinship. Dur: 28mins File: .mp3

Contrary to the 2010 film version of Robin Hood there was no medieval landing craft version of the "Saving Private Ryan" ilk. Before the Landing Craft Vehicle Personnel (the LCVP), boats needed to be beached and their occupants jump over the side into water. Vital time was lost. Dur: 23mins File: .mp3

From early in 1754 the Seven Year war started to bubble into full scale global conflict. In North America French and British colonists clashed over trade and disputed territory. In May 1756 the first naval action took place at Minorca in the Mediterranean where the British were forced to withdraw, opening up hostilities in Europe. In India the French and British East India Companies vied for influence over the region in a series for proxy conflicts as each would support local rulers against one another. At Plassey Robert Clive won a victory that would help secure the close relationship between Britain and India for the next 200 years. Dur: 16mins File: .mp3

The history of Cyber-warfare can be traced back to the advent of the telegraph communications in the first half of the 19th century. During the First World War the importance of codes and wired communications came of age with such famed episodes as the intercepting by the British Intelligence of the Zimmerman Telegram dispatched by the Foreign Secretary of the German Empire, Arthur Zimmermann, to the German ambassador in Mexico, Heinrich von Eckardt. Dur: 19mins File: .mp3

In this our first video / audio recording Jasper, Michael, Lindsay and Josho look at Pyrrhus. Pyrrhus was the second cousin to Alexander the Great, and at only two years he began his career as a penniless exile after his father was dethroned. Pyrrhus would rise to become King of Epirus, King of Macedon and King of Sicily...

In the early morning of 18th July 1972 nine British SAS soldiers stationed at a fort outside the coastal town of Mirbat in Southern Oman saw approaching in the distance what they believed to be the local troops returning from night watch. That was until they opened fire - they were in fact up to 300 Adoo Communist rebels...For six hours the SAS and a handful of local soldiers held out. Dur: 17mins File: .mp3