This Japanese kawari-kabuto, or individualized helmet, dating from the 17th century sports the shape of a crouching rabbit forged from a single piece of iron. The helmet’s ear guards are shaped like ocean waves.

Rabbits are commonly depicted with waves in Japanese art, particularly during the early Edo period in the 1600s. It is said that ocean whitecaps resembled white rabbits darting over the waters in the moonlight. A Noh play called Chikubushima which centers around a mystical island has a famous verse referring to a “moon rabbit” darting over the waters.

But why would a warrior want to go into battle wearing the image of a rabbit? Was it just about literature or culture?

Perhaps the symbol on this helmet is more directly related to battle. In another famous legend called “The Hare of Inaba,” a white rabbit outsmarts a group of predatory sea creatures by deceiving them and darting across them over the ocean, showing not only wisdom but strength and agility.

The warrior who chose this helmet may have wanted to express not only a sense of mystical power, but also cleverness and speed facing enemies. 

this article first appeared in military history quarterly

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The war hammer, as crude as it seems, was a practical solution to a late-medieval arms race between offense and defense. From the 14th century, steel plate armor spread amongst the warrior classes. The angled and hardened surfaces of plate armor were highly resistant to thin-edged blows from swords and axes. The war hammer was one solution to defeat this protection.

War hammers relied on concussion rather than penetration to fell armor-clad opponents. Although there are ancient examples of war hammers across cultures, the weapon became commonplace in Europe from the second half of the 14th century.

Design

The basic war hammer design consisted of a long haft (one-handed or two-handed versions were developed) terminating in a metal hammer head. Swung with force, the hammer would deliver a crushing blow to the head, limbs or body of an armored opponent, inflicting enough blunt force trauma to stun, disable or kill.

Between the 14th and 15th centuries, war hammer design was improved for both functionality and lethality. In addition to the hammer head, the weapon acquired various designs of sharpened picks on the opposite side, these designed to penetrate armor or to act as hooks for pulling warriors off horses, or to grab reins or shield rims. Some war hammers also acquired a thin top spike for stabbing attacks; warriors soon learned to stun the opponent with the hammer, then finish him off with the pick or spike.

Developments

The Swiss refined the hammer head into a three- or four-pronged affair, which with a long spike and pick plus a 6 1/2-foot haft created the terrifying ‘Lucerne’ war hammer. Hafts were often strengthened with all-metal langets. War hammers were mainly used by cavalry, although they did find widespread service amongst infantry ranks.

In Western Europe, they continued in use into the 16th century until the introduction of firearms rendered plate armor obsolete, but in Eastern Europe they were wielded by Polish hussars through the 17th century and into the early 18th century.

Hammer

The hammer head had a cross-section of only about 2 inches square, to concentrate the impact of the blow into a small area, increasing the concussive effect.

Pick

Spiked heads could be straight, hooked, thick, thin, short or long. If the weapon was swung with full force, the pick was capable of puncturing plate armor.

Haft

The haft of a war hammer varied anywhere between 2 feet to 6 1/2 feet in length, the short variants used for close-quarters combat, the longer variants for deep swinging attacks from the back of a horse. 

Langets

Metal reinforcement strips running up the side of the haft prevented the weapon from being shattered by enemy sword blows.

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Kilts allowed Scottish warriors increased mobility in battle as they dashed around the Highlands, but these proud traditional tartan garments had one major problem: no pockets. A man without pockets to stash things in is a man in a state of clutter and confusion. This was as true in the Middle Ages as it is today. Yet as early as the 12th century, Highlanders had developed a clever solution in a small all-purpose bag which became known as the sporran. 

The sporran, which is still a part of traditional Scottish menswear, was the ideal travel bag for the Scottish warrior on the go. Worn slung from a belt over the kilt, the sporran could be used to stash knives, food, bullets as soon as they were invented and whatever else an enterprising warrior wanted to take on the road. Early sporrans were made from leather or animal hide. Starting in the late 17th century, sporrans were furnished with metal clasps and gradually came to incorporate more intricate metal designs. 

Ceremonial sporrans were developed for military use in the 18th century. These are made with animal hair and are known as sporran molach. Animal hair used to make them have typically included goat hair, horsehair and rabbit fur. Soldiers’ sporrans feature tassels, which swing when the kilt-wearing trooper is marching. The number of tassels, as well as their placement, weave and colors, are rich in meaning and vary depending on regiment and wearer.

Some officers have had custom sporrans made for them. The Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders have traditionally worn a tassel arrangement known as the “Swinging Six” style and sporrans made from badger heads. Sometimes fox heads have been used for sporrans as well. A sporran can be worn sideways over the hip or more boldly front and center.

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Judas Maccabeus (190-160 bce)

The third of five sons born to Mattathias of the Hasmonean family, priest (cohen) of Modein—the others being Eleazar, Simon, John and Jonathan—the man more widely known by his Greek name was known in Hebrew as Yehuda HaMakab, or Judah the Hammer. Judas was a cohen in his own right and would have remained so had his Seleucid overlord, Antiochus IV Epiphanes (“God Manifest”), not sought to promote homogeneity in his multi-ethnic kingdom by imposing Hellenic culture and religion on all his subjects in 168 bce. That included installing images of Hellenic gods in the Second Temple of Jerusalem, provoking a revolt by Mattathias, his sons and other Jewish pietists. 

During this war for control over Judea, Judas came to the fore. After winning a string of victories, he led his makeshift army into Jerusalem on the 25th day in the Hebrew month of Kislev (approximately December), 164 bce. In the course of cleansing the Temple, tradition has it that there was only enough oil to light it for a single day, but it burned through eight nights until more oil was found. 

The fighting was far from over, however. Eleazar was killed in 161 and at Elasa in 160. Judas was outgeneraled by Bacchides and died fighting. His burial ended with a quotation from King David’s lament to King Saul: “How the mighty have fallen!” Jonathan and Simon subsequently died, leaving John the last Maccabee standing by 142 bce, when Judea finally won autonomy within the Seleucid kingdom and independence in 141.

Narses (c.ad 478-568)

The exact dates of Narses’ birth and death are uncertain, as is how he came to be castrated. What is known is that he was a Romanized Armenian who served as steward, chief treasurer and grand chamber of the court to the Eastern Roman Emperor Justinian I. 

He played a vital role in putting down the Nika riots on 532, but there is no evidence of military training leading to Justinian’s ordering him in 538 to Italy, where Count Flavius Belisarius, after having conquered the Vandals in North Africa in 533, was trying to wrest the Western Roman Empire from the Ostrogoths. Although Narses demonstrated a surprising grasp of command, he and Belisarius did not trust one another and Justinian recalled Narses. Working with minimal resources, Belisarius conduced a brilliant defense of Rome in 538, but in 541 Justinian, suspecting his loyalty, reassigned him to fight the Sassanians in Mesopotamia. Narses took Belisarius’ place in Italy and by June 551 was the supreme commander at age 73 with a string of victories. In 554 the undersized eunuch was feted to the first Triumph held in Rome in 150 years—and the last. On Nov. 14, 565, Justinian died and the new emperor, Justin II, recalled Narses to Constantinople in 567. Some accounts claim he died enroute in April 568, but others describe his death in peaceful retirement in 574 at what might have been age 96—itself an achievement in the treacherous cauldron of Byzantine politics. 

Genghis Khan (c. 1162-1227)

Born to a Mongol chieftain of the Borjigin clan, Temujin was eight when his father died. Certainly he would have learned the standard Mongol mounted warrior repertoire, but his accomplishments had gone far beyond that by 1206, when a kurultai of his peers elected him their first khagan, under the name of Genghis Khan. Among the most intriguing mysteries surrounding his rise to power is how he learned, hands-on, to forge alliances, turn an unwieldy collection of steppe warriors into a vast, well-disciplined army capable of conquering continents and, while he was at it, create a political entity of unprecedented scope to administer his holdings, complete with a codified legal system—all conceived virtually from scratch.

Although the victims of his ruthless expansion of empire have been estimated as high as 17 million—one-fifth the earth’s population at the time—Genghis Khan conquered the largest contiguous land mass in history and laid the foundation for a meritocracy allowing universal religious tolerance, which in times of peace connected the western world by pan-Eurasian trade. All this was without precedent in the Mongol world, but it lasted a quarter of a millennium. Is it any wonder that, however controversial he is elsewhere, Genghis Khan is still at the top of Mongolia’s hierarchy of national heroes?

Johann Tserclaes, Count of Tilly (1559-1632)

Born in the Brabant in the Spanish Netherlands (now Belgium), Johann Tserclaes, Count of Tilly attended Jesuit school in Cologne, but at age 15 enlisted as a soldier in the Spanish army against the Dutch in the Eighty Years War. In 1600 he served in a mercenary unit with the Holy Roman Empire fighting Ottoman forces in Hungary and Transylvania. It was not uncommon for professional soldiers to learn hands-on as they rose in the ranks in the 17th century, but Tilly was exceptional in that he ascended from private to field marshal in just five years. In 1610 Duke Maximilian I gave him command of the Catholic League. 

When the Thirty Years War broke out in Bohemia in 1618, Tilly’s victory at White Mountain in 1620 knocked Bohemia out of the conflict at almost the beginning. As other Protestant countries rose against the Empire, Tilly defeated each in turn, seeming to be invincible.

Tilly’s career began to tarnish when King Gustavus II Adolphus put the Thirty Years War through a new phase with his innovatively mobile Swedish army. After a 20-day siege, on May 20, 1631 Tilly’s forces stormed Magdeburg and for the first time he lost control over his troops, who butchered 20,000 of the city’s 25,000 population. On Sept. 17, Tilly confronted Gustavus at Breitenfeld and was convincingly outmaneuvered and beaten, suffering 27,000 casualties. Tilly scored a modest victory at Bamberg on March 9, 1632, but at Rain am Lech on April 15 he was struck in the thigh by an arquebus round and died of osteomyelitis in Ingolstadt on the 30th.

Oliver Cromwell (1599-1658)

When the English Civil War broke out, its most famous—and notorious—figure was known among the merchant community and had been a member of Parliament for his home county of Huntingdon in 1628-29 and 1640-42. His only military experience had been raising a cavalry troop in Cambridgeshire for the Parliamentarians, which arrived too late to participate in the opening battle at Edgehill on Oct. 23, 1642. Oliver Cromwell proved avid at learning from experience, most notably at Gainesborough on July 23, 1643, at which point he was a colonel. He was involved in redeveloping the Parliamentary forces into a “New Model Army,” which proved its worth in the pivotal battles of Marston Moor in July 1644 and Naseby on June 14, 1645. By 1652 Cromwell’s subsequent campaigns in Scotland and Ireland sealed his place among Britain’s most successful generals. If appraised by his own standard, however—“warts and all”—he is also remembered as a regicide (he was the third of 59 to sign King Charles I’s death warrant), the revolutionary who dissolved Parliament and made himself “Lord Protector,” i.e. dictator, and one of those oppressors the Irish still love to hate.

Nathanael Greene (1742-1786)

Born in Warwick, Rhode Island, Nathanael Greene was running a mill when the American Revolution broke out, but he was an avid reader with—despite being a Quaker—a fascination with military science. That and his advocating the break with Britain led to his being expelled from his congregation, although he still regarded himself as a Quaker. When the battles of Lexington and Concord occurred, Greene’s only contribution was to form a militia unit, the Kentish Guard. On June 14, 1775 Greene met Maj. Gen. George Washington, the new commander of the Continental Army, in Boston, and the two became close friends. Serving as quartermaster-general, Greene distinguished himself in combat at Brandywine Creek, Valley Forge and Monmouth Court House. On Dec. 2, 1780 Washington sent Greene to Charlotte, N.C., where he reorganized the beaten Continental forces in the southern colonies and set out to retake them from British Lt. Gen. Charles Cornwallis’ army. Greene choreographed an artful campaign of fighting retreats, climaxing at Guilford Court House, N.C., on March 15, 1781. Although Cornwallis ended up holding the ground and technically winning the battle, the 633 casualties he suffered compelled him to disengage and retire to Virginia. While Cornwallis was trapped at Yorktown, Greene took the offensive, driving the last British in the South from Charleston, S.C. on Dec. 14, 1782. Before his death of heatstroke in Georgia on June 19, 1786, Greene summed up how he wore Cornwallis down: “We fight, get beat, rise and fight again.”

François-Dominique Toussaint Louverture (1743-1803)

The son of an educated slave on French-owned Saint-Domingue, François-Dominique Toussaint got some education of his own from Jesuit contacts while serving as a livestock handler, herder, coachman and steward until 1776, when he attained freedom. A slave revolt broke out between oppressed blacks and their white and mulatto overseers in August 1791. By 1793 he was leading rebels in a self-developed guerrilla force and had adopted the surname “Louverture” (“opening”). Later that year he and his followers helped a newly-Republican France fight off Spanish and British forces and was encouraged to learn that the French National Assembly ended slavery in May 1794. Over the following years Louverture displayed a remarkable grasp of civil leadership, restoring the economy in 1795 and overrunning Spanish San Domingo in January 1801, declaring the liberation of its white, black and mulatto population. In January 1802, however, Sainte-Domingue was invaded by a French army led by Maj. Gen. Charles Victoire Emmanuel Leclerc, brother-in-law of First Consul Napoleon Bonaparte, with orders to reinstate slavery on the island. Overwhelmed and losing followers, Louverture agreed to lay down his arms in May and retire to his plantation. Instead, Bonaparte ordered his arrest. He died in Fort-de-Joux in the Jura Mountains on April 7, 1803. 

Bonaparte’s treachery backfired. Leclerc died of yellow fever in November 1802. On May 18, 1803 Bonaparte made some quick cash for his European operations by approving American President Jefferson’s Louisiana Purchase, effectively writing off his ambitions in the New World. On Jan. 1, 1804 one of Louverture’s disciples, Jean-Jacques Dessalines, declared himself governor-general of Haiti, the world’s first black republic. 

Thomas-Alexandre Dumas-Davy de la Pailleterie (1762-1806)

Thomas-Alexandre Dumas-Davy de la Pailleterie was the issue of Alexandre Davy, Marquis de la Pailleterie, a minor French noble plantation owner in Jérémie, Saint-Domingue (now Haiti), and one of his slaves, Marie-Céssette Dumas (whose surname Thomas-Alexandre adopted). The boy accompanied his father to France, where he could be free and get an education. In 1786, however, he enlisted in the French army’s 5th Dragoon Regiment (Queen). When the French Revolution broke out, he found numerous opportunities to show his military talents. On June 2, 1792 he was promoted to corporal, but over the next few years he was commissioned a lieutenant, then rose to lieutenant colonel and, in July 1793–the first person of African descent in history to attain the rank of brigadier general. Although not the most gifted strategist, he was exceptionally strong and reveled in leading by example. Among others, Dumas commanded the Army of the West in 1796 and the Army of Italy in 1796. On March 25, 1797, during a fighting retreat from Brixen and Botzen in the Tyrol, Dumas held the Brixen bridge against an Austrian cavalry squadron singlehanded. From 1798 to 1799 he served in Napoleon Bonaparte’s Army of the Orient. 

Retiring in 1802, Dumas died of stomach cancer in 1806. Undoubtedly his lifetime of adventure inspired his son, Alexandre Dumas Sr., to write adventure novels, such as The Three Musketeers, The Man in the Iron Mask and The Count of Monte Cristo. His grandson, Alexandre Dumas Jr. also became an esteemed novelist and playwright, best known for La Dame aux Camélias.

Benjamin H. Grierson (1826-1911)

One of the iconic names in American Civil War cavalry had no military training and was afraid of horses. Born in Pittsburgh, Pa. on July 8, 1826, Benjamin Henry Grierson was nearly kicked to death by a horse at age eight and distrusted the beasts ever since. Educated in Ohio, he became a music teacher and shopkeeper in Illinois when war broke out and joined the U.S. Army at Cairo on May 8, 1861, as a volunteer aide to Brig. Gen. Benjamin M. Prentiss. On Oct. 24, however, Grierson was assigned to the 6th Illinois Cavalry and on March 26, 1862 his men elected him colonel.

Mastering his horse problem, Grierson led his troopers on raids and skirmishes throughout Tennessee and Mississippi. This climaxed with a diversionary raid in which Grierson led 1,700 troopers of the 6th and 7th Illinois and 2nd Iowa Cavalry regiments from La Grange, Tenn. on April 17, 1863 600 miles to Baton Rouge, La. on May 2. A step ahead of Confederate pursuers, Grierson’s raiders inflicted 100 casualties, took 500 prisoners, captured 3,000 arms and destroyed 50 to 60 railroad and telegraph lines. Of greatest strategic importance, the raid diverted a division’s worth of Confederate soldiers while Maj. Gen. Ulysses Grant’s forces slipped south of the Mississippi fortress of Vicksburg, leading to its July 4 surrender. After the war, Grierson decided to make a career of Army service, spending most on the frontier, his commands including the 10th U.S. Cavalry Regiment (Colored). On April 5, 1890 he was given a rare promotion to brigadier general in the Regular Army, shortly before retiring on July 8 of that year. 

Vo Nguyen Giap (1911-2013)

The son of a well-to-do farmer who died in a French prison, Vo Nguyen Giap attended a Catholic lycée in Hue, joined the Indochinese Communist Party in 1931, gained a law degree in 1938 and worked as a history teacher while self-studying military history. In May 1940 he met Ho Chi Minh in China, where he learned tactics and strategy as practiced by Mao Zedong. By the end of World War II Giap was Minister of Defense for the communist-nationalist People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN). 

Between 1946 and 1954 Giap blended guerrilla and conventional warfare, winning some campaigns and suffering some stinging defeats but learning from experience. His decisive victory over the French at Dien Bien Phu in 1954 shocked the Western powers, as did his success in wearing down U.S. forces between 1965 and 1973. Giap viewed himself as more soldier than politician, which may explain his being sidelined by North Vietnamese General Secretary Le Duan, whose “big battle” strategy prevailed over Giap’s during the 1968 Tet and 1972 Easter offensives, resulting in bloody tactical defeats. In the end, the PAVN prevailed over the American-backed Saigon government in 1975. In 1978 Giap oversaw an invasion of Kampuchea that toppled Pol Pot’s radical Maoist Khmer Rouge government. When the Chinese retaliated with a punitive expedition into Vietnam on Feb. 12, 1979, the PAVN’s stout defense convinced the invaders to withdraw on March 16. 

Although Vo Nguyen Giap is widely touted as one of the military geniuses of his century, much of his self-taught strategy and tactics could only have worked in Indochina’s unique conditions in the second half of the 20th century.

this article first appeared in military history quarterly

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As an instrument of war, the flail was a handheld, two-piece, jointed weapon, consisting of a wooden handle of varying length (up to 5-6 feet long) and a shorter, perhaps 1–2-feet long, heavy impact rod serving as a “striking-head” which was attached to the handle by a flexible rope, leather strap or chain links, allowing it to swing freely up and down and in a full circle.

By making a sweeping, downward blow with the flail’s handle, the weapon’s wielder greatly increased the impact energy of his blow through the increased energy generated by the centripetal force of the free-swinging “striking-head,” thereby inflicting a more powerful blow on the target. Some flail wielders even increased the lethality of their flail’s striking-head by replacing the rod with a longer-chain-linked, spiked head, orb-shaped ball, creating the Kettenmorgenstern (chain morning star).

Peasant farmers just trying to survive medieval combat added spikes and metal studs, considering any lethal enhancement a battlefield “plus” if it helped them get through a battle alive.

Flail weapons are best classified as “peasant levy’ weapons” since they evolved from the flail grain thresher, an agricultural tool typically used by farmers to separate grain from their husks (dating from ancient Roman times) through heavy beating, and therefore one of the commonly-available farming tools that peasant levies who were involuntarily conscripted into military service had readily available.

Other such peasant farming/foresting tools that could be quickly converted into military use when peasants were called up included axes, billhooks, knives, adzes and heavy mallets. Certainly, at least by the 15th century—as Czech Hussite peasant infantry who fought with flails demonstrate—flails were in use and there are accounts confirming its use through the 17th century.

Variations of the flail weapon were developed in widespread world regions. In medieval Russia and East Asia, steppe warriors wielded kisten, flails with smooth metal or bone balls attached to the haft by rope or a leather strap. Similar, flail-like, hand-wielded impact weapons were developed by the Chinese (nunchakus, three-section-staff, and the knotted-rope knout) and the Koreans (pyeongong). Yet, the most famous flail-pattern weapon may never have been part of the Medieval armored knight’s weapons array.

Today, the most popular and well-known image of the flail weapon—perpetuated by modern-era novels and films—is of fully-armored Medieval knights (literally) “flailing” away in knight-to-knight combat, bashing at each other brandishing short-hafted “morning star” flails sporting long-chain-linked, spiked balls.

Yet, today’s medieval armored knight combat historians are at odds as to whether such weapons even existed. Contemporary paintings depict such weapons, and post-medieval examples do exist, but many historians doubt if these were more than conceptual imaginings. Indeed, a short-handled, long-chained “morning star” flail, in practical use, could have been more dangerous to the flail weapon’s wielder than to the weapon’s target!

Certainly, the flail was used in medieval combat, but the version depicted in 19th century and later romantic “knighthood” novels and films was likely never used in knightly combat.

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The Mongol Subjugation of Novgorod (1238)

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 cities in the northern Rus territories were spared: Pskov and Novgorod, which pledged fealty to the Great Khan and agreed to annually pay a tax based on 10 percent of their produce. Novgorod, a vital fur-trading center, was surrounded by potential enemies, including not only the Mongols, but the Swedes and an order of German warrior-monks known as the Teutonic Knights.

Both western powers coveted the lands to the east, declaring their purpose to spread Catholicism while destroying the Eastern Orthodox Church. Appointed kniaz (prince) of Novgorod in 1236 at age 15, Alexsandr Yaroslavich was compelled to choose his friends and enemies carefully. He knew resisting the Mongols was suicide, but they tended to spare those who surrendered and left them to their own domestic affairs…whereas the Swedes would seize land and the Germans would kill nearly everybody.

As the Mongols marched on Novgorod in 1238, the spring thaws hampered their horses, halting the campaign 120 kilometers short of its objective. Seizing his opportunity, Alexsandr met the Mongols and accepted their terms. Pskov did the same. The Mongols moved on, establishing their western headquarters at Sarai under a yellow banner for which their force became known as the Golden Horde. Alexsandr made the right choice. He would later have to battle both his western enemies, defeating the Swedes on the Neva River on July 15, 1240 (for which he acquired the moniker Alexsandr Nevsky) and the Livonian Knights at Lake Peipus on April 5, 1242. Credited with preserving Russian civilization at a time of terrible duress, Alexsandr did so by knowing both when to fight and when not to.

The 335-Years War (1651-1986)

What if they gave a war and nobody came? Better still, what if they gave a war and nobody noticed? During the English Civil War, the United Provinces of the Netherlands sided with the English Parliament. As one consequence many Dutch ships were seized or sunk by the Royalist navy, which by 1651 was based in the Isles of Scilly, supporting the last diehards in Cornwall.

On March 30 Lt. Adm. Maarten Harpertsoon Tromp arrived at Scilly, demanding reparation for damages to Dutch ships. Receiving no satisfactory answer, Tromp declared war but then sailed away—and never returned. Critics of that so-called “war” have since noted that as an admiral, not a sovereign, Tromp was really in no position to formally declare war. The issue seemed moot in June 1651 when a Parliamentarian fleet under General at Sea Robert Blake arrived at Scilly to compel the last Royalists to surrender.

So things stood until 1986, when historian Roy Duncan chanced upon Tromp’s idle threat and in the course of investigation concluded that, the utter lack of hostilities notwithstanding, the Netherlands and Isles of Scilly had spent the past 335 years at war but had never gotten around to declaring peace. That oversight was finally remedied on April 17, 1986, when Dutch ambassador to Britain Jonkheer Rein Huydecoper formally declared one of history’s longest conflicts at an end—adding that it must have horrified the islands’ inhabitants “to know we could have attacked at any moment.” 

The Kettle War (1784)

Along with winning independence, in 1585 the Republic of the Netherlands closed off the Scheldt River to trade from the Spanish Netherlands to the south, adversely affecting Antwerp’s and Ghent’s access to the North Sea while serving to Amsterdam’s advantage. Spain accepted that arrangement again in the 1648 Treaty of Westphalia, but in 1714 Spain ceded the southern Netherlands to Habsburg Austria. Between 1780 and 1784 the Netherlands allied with the fledgling United States of America in hopes of gaining an advantage over Britain but was defeated. Seeking to take advantage of that situation, on Oct. 9, 1784, Holy Roman Emperor Joseph II sent three ships, headed by the large merchantman Le Louis, into the Scheldt.

Calling his bluff, the Dutch sent the warship Dolfijn to intercept the Austrians, firing a shot through a soup kettle aboard Le Louis. At this point the Austrian flagship surrendered. On Oct. 30 Emperor Joseph declared war and the Netherlands began mobilizing its forces. Austrian troops invaded the Netherlands, razing a custom house and occupying Fort Lillo, whose withdrawing garrison broke the dikes and inundated the region, drowning many locals but halting the Austrian advance. France mediated a settlement signed on Feb. 8, 1785, as the Treaty of Fontainebleau, upholding the Netherlands’ control over the Scheldt but recompensing the Austrian Netherlands with 10 million florins.

The Anglo-Swedish War (1810–1812)

With the signing of the Treaty of Paris on Jan. 6, 1810, Emperor Napoleon imposed his Continental System throughout Europe and placing a trade embargo on one of his remaining enemies, Great Britain. That included Sweden, Britain’s longtime trading partner. A booming smuggling trade led Napoleon to issue an ultimatum on Nov.13, 1810, giving his reluctant ally five days to declare war and confiscate all British shipping and goods found on Swedish soil, or itself face war from France and all its allies. Sweden duly declared war on Nov. 17, but there were no direct hostilities over the next year and a half—in fact, Sweden looked the other way while the Royal Navy occupied and used its isle of Hanö as a base.

Ironically, this delicate standoff was upset by a Frenchman, Marshal Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte, who with the death of Sweden’s Crown Prince Charles August on May 28, 1810, was elected crown prince on Aug. 21. Although King Charles XIII was Sweden’s official ruler, his illness and disinterest in national affairs caused him to leave Crown Prince Bernadotte as the de facto ruler—who put Swedish interests above France’s. Relations with Napoleon deteriorated until France occupied Swedish Pomerania and the isle of Rügen in 1812. Bernadotte’s response included the Treaty of Örebro on July 18, 1812, formally ending the bloodless war against Britain and thus declaring a soon-to-be bloodier war against Napoleon’s France.

The Aroostook War (1838–1839)

Both the American Revolutionary War and the War of 1812 ended with unfinished business regarding the boundaries between the United States and British North America. On several occasions both countries came to the brink of further conflicts. One such was the “Aroostook War” regarding unresolved land claims between Lower Canada and Massachusetts, exacerbated in 1820 when a new state, Maine, broke away from Massachusetts. By 1839 the U.S. had raised 6,000 militia and local posses to patrol the disputed territory while British troop strength rose to as high as 15,000.

There were no direct confrontations.

Two British militiamen were injured by bears. The decisive action came in 1842 in the form of negotiations between British Master of the Mint Alexander Baring, 1st Baron Ashburton and U.S. Secretary of State Daniel Webster. As was often the case, the resultant Webster-Ashburton Treaty was a compromise. Most land went to Maine, leaving a vital area northeast for the Halifax Road to connect Lower Canada with the Maritime provinces of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. In 1840 Maine created Aroostook County to administer civil authority in its expected territory, from which the incident got its name in the history books.  

The Pig War (1859)

Since at least the 1844 American presidential election that got James K. Polk elected on a slogan of “Fifty-four-Forty or Fight,” the United States set its sights on raising the northern border of the “Oregon Territory” (including what is now Oregon, Washington, Idaho and British Columbia) to 54 degrees 40 minutes north latitude, rather than 49 degrees north as it had been in 1846. That border bisected San Juan Island, in the Straits of Juan de Fuca between Seattle and Vancouver, where on June 15, 1859, American resident Lyman Cutlar caught Charlie Griffin’s pig rooting in his garden and shot it dead.

Cutlar subsequently offered to compensate his British neighbor $10 for his loss. Griffin angrily demanded that local authorities arrest Cutlar. The U.S. authorities would not countenance Britain arresting an American citizen. Soon both sides were reinforcing the island with troops and offshore warships. Things came to a head when the governor of British Columbia ordered the commander of the British Pacific Fleet, Adm. Robert Baynes, to invade the island.

At that critical hour Baynes became the voice of reason when he disobeyed the order, declaring that he would “not involve two great nations in a war over a squabble about a pig!”

News of the standoff spurred Washington and London to negotiate while reducing troop strength on San Juan to 100 each. Finally in 1872, an international commission headed by Kaiser Wilhelm I of Germany settled the matter by ceding the entire island to the United States. Total casualties: one British pig.

The Pembina Raid (1871)

Following the American Civil War a committee of radical nationalists called the Irish Brotherhood, or Fenians, embarked on three attempts to capture large areas of British North America to ransom for an independent Irish republic. Although the participants were mostly hardened Civil War veterans—from both sides—their first attempt to seize the Niagara Falls peninsula in 1866 failed. A second attempt launched from New York and Vermont in 1870 was a greater failure—largely because the Fenians were facing better-prepared militiamen now defending their own sovereign state, the Dominion of Canada. Although the Irish Brotherhood itself had given up on the idea, Col. John O’Neill set out west for one more try, planning to invade Manitoba and form an alliance with the half-blood Métis, then rebelling against the Canadian authorities for land, ethnic and religious rights. By late 1871, however, Ottawa was acquiescing to Métis demands. Consequently the Métis had no intention of allying with the Fenians. 

Undeterred, at 7:30 a.m. on the morning of Oct. 5, 1871, O’Neill led 37 followers to seize the Hudson’s Bay Company trading post and the nearby East Lynne Customs House in Pembina. Of 20 people taken prisoner, a young boy escaped and ran to the U.S. Army base at Fort Pembina. While about a thousand Canadian militia marched south to deal with the threat, Capt. Loyd Wheaton led 30 soldiers of Company I, 20th U.S. Infantry Regiment to the settlement. O’Neill later said he was loath to fight bluecoats alongside whom he had served during the Civil War.

The Fenians fled north, but O’Neill and 10 others were quickly captured. By 3 p.m. the crisis was over. Canada had seen off its last invasion threat without firing a shot. Taken to St. Paul, Minnesota, O’Neill was tried twice for violating the Neutrality Acts and twice acquitted on the grounds that he had not really done so. Unknown to O’Neill, in May 1870 the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers had straightened out the disputed Canadian border, resulting in Pembina no longer being a quarter mile north of the border, but three-quarters of a mile south in Dakota Territory. O’Neill gave up his invasion ambitions under an avalanche of public ridicule over not only failing to conquer Canada but failing to even find Canada!

The Lobster War (1961–1963)

There have been numerous conflicts over territory and others over the natural resources they produce. One example began in 1961 when French fishermen seeking spiny lobsters off Mauretania tried their luck on the other side of the Atlantic and discovered crustacean gold on underwater shelves 250 to 650 feet deep. Soon, however, the French vessels were intercepted and driven off by Brazilian corvettes upholding a government claim that that part of the Continental Shelf was their territory, as was any sea life that walked on it. On Jan. 1, 1962 Brazilian warships apprehended the French Cassiopée, but the next time two Brazilian corvettes went after French lobstermen they were in turn intercepted by the French destroyer Tartu.

By April 1963 both sides were considering war. Fortunately, an international tribunal summarized the French claim as being that lobsters, like fish, were swimming in the sea, not walking on the shelf. This prompted Brazilian Admiral Paolo Moreira da Silva’s counterclaim that that argument was akin to saying that if a kangaroo hops through the air, that made it a bird.

The matter was finally settled by the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea on Dec. 10, 1964. By it, Brazilian coastal waters were extended to 200 nautical miles but permitted 26 French ships to catch lobsters for five years in “designated areas,” paying a small percentage of their catch to Brazil. Otherwise the two nations might have warred for a pretender to the throne of the true lobster—spiny lobsters, a.k.a. langustas, don’t have claws like their North Atlantic cousins and are thus not considered true lobsters. Although often used for “lobster tails,” some might not find them tasty enough “to die for.” 

The Sumdorong Chu Standoff (1986–1987)

While the United States and the Soviet Union were having a nuclear Cold War faceoff, in October 1962 border tensions in the Himalayas between India and the People’s Republic of China flared when Indian troops seized Thag La Ridge. The People’s Liberation Army reacted in force, inflicting a stinging defeat on the Indians at Namka Chu. Over the next 24 years both sides reformed and improved their military capabilities while still eying one another suspiciously. On Oct. 18-20, 1986, India staged Operation Falcon, an airlift that occupied Zemithang and several other high ground positions, including Hathung La ridge and Sumdorong Chu. The PLA responded by moving in reinforcements, calling on India for a flag meeting on Nov. 15. This was not forthcoming.

In the spring of 1987 the Indians conducted Operation Chequerboard, an aerial redeployment of troops involving 10 divisions and several warplane squadrons along the North East India border. China declared these activities a provocation, but India showed no intention of withdrawing from its positions. By May 1997 soldiers of both powers were staring down each other’s gun barrels while Western diplomats, recognizing similar language to that preceding the 1962 clash, braced for a major war.

Cooler heads seem to have prevailed, for on Aug. 5, 1987, Indian and Chinese officials held a flag meeting at Bum. Both sides agreed to discuss the situation and in 1988 Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi visited Beijing, reciprocating for the first time Zhou Enlai’s April 1960 visit to India. The talks were accompanied by mutual reductions in forces from a Line of Actual Control that was agreed upon in 1993. With the crisis defused, there would be no major Sino-Indian border incidents again until 2020.

The Whisky War (1984–2022)

The disagreement over the exact national boundaries dividing little Hans Island involved two of the least likely adversaries, both members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization: Canada and Denmark. Lying in the Kennedy Channel between Ellesmere and the autonomous Danish territory of Greenland, Hans was divided in half by a line that left a gap in its exact border descriptions. That gap went ignored until 1980, when the Canadian firm Dome Petroleum began four years of research on and around the island.

Matters took a more specific direction in 1984, however, when Canadian soldiers landed on Hans and left behind a Maple Leaf flag and a bottle of whisky. In that same year the Danish Minister for Greenland Affairs arrived to plant the Danish flag with a bottle of schnapps and a letter saying, “Welcome to the Danish Island.” These provocations heralded decades of escalating mutual visits and gestures that left all manner of souvenirs behind. Finally, on Aug. 8, 2005—following a particularly busy July—the Danish press announced that Canada wished to commence serious negotiations to settle the remaining boundary dispute once and for all.

Even so, it took the Russian “special military operation” against Ukraine to remind the world how serious war could be, resulting in the rivals unveiling a plan on June 14 for satisfactorily dividing the unresolved remnants of Hans Island between the Canadian territory of Nunavut and Danish Greenland.

this article first appeared in military history quarterly

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Fought on Sept. 17, 1631, the Battle of Breitenfeld was the first major Protestant victory of the Thirty Years’ War. The epic clash pitted the opposing factions’ most outstanding generals against one another. King Gustavus II Adolphus of Sweden commanded both his own Swedish forces and those of the Protestant Electorate of Saxony. Johann Tserclaes, Count of Tilly, commanded the combined forces of the Holy Roman empire and the Catholic League. Sparked by the Reformation, the war was among the costliest conflicts in European history, with combat, disease and famine claiming as many as 8 million soldiers and civilians. Neither Gustavus nor Tilly would live to see its conclusion.

Born in 1559 to devoutly Roman Catholic parents in Walloon Brabant (in present-day Belgium), Tilly fought Protestant Dutch rebels during the Eighty Years’ War (c. 1566–1648) and Ottoman Turks in Hungary and Transylvania in 1600. In 1610 Duke Maximilian I of Bavaria appointed the veteran field marshal commander of the Catholic League forces. From the outset of the Thirty Years’ War in 1618 Tilly’s impressive string of victories included the Battle of White Mountain (1620), the Battles of Wimpfen and Höchst (1622), the Siege of Heidelberg (1622), the Capture of Mannheim (1622), the Battle of Stadtlohn (1623), the Battle of Lutter (1626) and the nightmarish Sack of Magdeburg (1631). Tilly’s cavalry commander at both Magdeburg and Breitenfeld, four months later, was the fearsome Gottfried Heinrich, Count of Pappenheim. Together they formed one of the most dominating command combinations in the history of warfare.

Contrary to widespread belief, the Thirty Years’ War was far more complex than a strictly religious struggle between Catholics and Protestants, though it more or less started that way. With the signing of the Peace of Augsburg in 1555 subjects of the Holy Roman empire were required to follow the religion of their local princes. Most German princes around the turn of the 17th century were Protestant—either Lutheran or Calvinist—though the Duke of Bavaria was Catholic. Outside of Germany proper, most other members of the loosely knit empire, including Bohemia, much of northern Italy and Austria, were predominantly Catholic. The Austrian capital of Vienna was the seat of the empire.

In theory the emperorship was an elective, rather than a hereditary, position. That said, the Catholic House of Hapsburg had held the imperial throne since 1440 and fully intended to keep it. Whenever an emperor died, seven prince electors (three spiritual and four secular) determined who his successor would be. All three spiritual electors—the archbishops of Mainz, Trier and Cologne—were Catholics loyal to the Hapsburgs. Of the four secular electors—the rulers of Bohemia, Brandenburg, Saxony and the Palatinate—only the king of Bohemia was Catholic, though his realm did have a large and growing Protestant minority. Thus, the Hapsburgs could count on a 4-to-3 majority. The trouble started in 1618 when Ferdinand II, Holy Roman emperor and king of Bohemia, started cracking down on the rise of Protestantism in his kingdom. As it wasn’t part of Germany proper, Bohemia did not fall under the terms of the Peace of Augsburg, thus its citizens were used to considerably more religious freedom. That May a group of angry Bohemian Protestants stormed into the royal palace in Prague and tossed two of the leading Catholic regents and their secretary out of a third-floor window—an act remembered as the “Defenestration of Prague.”

Though the men survived their fall, the incident was too much for Ferdinand. He sent military forces marching toward Prague, and the Thirty Years’ War was on. Everything exploded in August 1619 when Frederick V, the elector Palatine, accepted the throne of Bohemia from the Protestant Bohemian electorate. Thus, Frederick held two electoral seats, giving Protestants the 4-to-3 majority when selecting a future new emperor. Ferdinand was determined to make an example of the Protestant rebels.

On Nov. 8, 1620, Catholic League forces under Tilly crushed the Protestants at the Battle of White Mountain near Prague, and Frederick fled Bohemia. Given his short reign, he’s been known to history ever since as the “Winter King.” Ferdinand later stripped Frederick of his lands in the Palatinate (roughly comprising the present-day German state of Rhineland-Palatinate) and transferred them to Maximillian of Bavaria, along with the electorship. The emperor also had his son, the future Emperor Ferdinand III, installed on the Bohemian throne, shifting the electoral advantage 5-to-2 in favor of the Catholics.

Although Catholic, the ruling Bourbons of France were bitter enemies of the Hapsburgs, who also ruled Spain at the time. Cardinal Armand-Jean du Plessis, Duke of Richelieu, was the chief minister of King Louis XIII. Seeing a chance to strike at the Austrian Hapsburgs while they were tied down with the brewing war in Germany, Cardinal Richelieu financed Protestant Swiss mercenaries to fight the German Catholics. When the Spanish Hapsburgs started putting pressure on France from the south, Richelieu made a further alliance with Protestant King Christian IV of Denmark to oppose the combined forces supporting the emperor. Christian was also the Duke of Holstein and, therefore, had a direct stake in any conflict in northern Germany. England and the Dutch Republic also pledged financial support for Denmark.

On the orders of Emperor Ferdinand, Tilly marched his Catholic League army north and crushed the Danes at the Battle of Lutter on Aug. 27, 1626. Meanwhile, Ferdinand’s imperial army, under the command of Bohemian generalissimo Albrecht Wenzel Eusebius von Wallenstein, started marching to the east along the Baltic coast, threatening to overrun the free port cities of the Hanseatic League. If imperial forces managed to gain control of the south coast, that—in tandem with extant Polish and Russian control of most of the eastern Baltic—would effectively seal off Protestant Sweden from the rest of the world. Of more immediate concern, the Baltic ports could be used by the Holy Roman emperor as a base for an invasion of Sweden.

In mid-May 1628 Wallenstein launched a siege against the strongly fortified Hanseatic port of Stralsund, Pomerania. On concluding an alliance with Stralsund weeks later, Sweden’s King Gustavus sent a small garrison to defend the port. They were the first Swedish soldiers in history to set foot on German soil. Wallenstein conducted a landward siege only, as he lacked the necessary naval forces to blockade the harbor. The local and Swedish forces, with considerable support from Scottish mercenaries and the Danish fleet, held out until Wallenstein gave up and lifted the siege on August 4. It marked Wallenstein’s first defeat in the Thirty Years’ War and contributed to his temporary dismissal from command in 1630. That in turn left Tilly as sole commander of the combined Catholic League and imperial forces, which numbered some 80,000 troops in Germany. The siege of Stralsund also brought Sweden into the war as a full participant.

Gustavus’ first order of business was to control the southern Baltic and thus keep the Catholic powers from severing his lines of communication. A gifted military reformer, he was the greatest commander of the Thirty Years’ War. Though only 35 years old in 1630, he had already been king for 19 years. His well-equipped and -trained army had been honed by decades of fighting in Denmark-Norway, Poland and Russia, during which Gustavus perfected an innovative system of tactics derived from his study of ancient Greek and Roman warfare.

Gustavus reduced the size of the large and unwieldy cavalry squadrons of the period, increasing their speed and mobility, and he widened the intervals between his infantry battalions. Rather than rely on the usual single battle line, he deployed his forces in two echelons, the second line held as a reinforcement for the first. He further reinforced his cavalry by deploying supporting infantry among the horse. In modern parlance his tactical system is known as “combined arms.” Considered the father of modern field artillery, Gustavus employed highly mobile guns with high rates of fire. He excluded anything heavier than a 12-pounder from his field batteries. His bronze 3-pounder regimental gun could be towed by a single horse or three men and boasted a rate of fire half again faster than muskets of the period.

Gustavus was a deeply religious Protestant whose troops went into battle singing hymns. He forbade his troops from pillaging, looting and mistreating civilians, unlike most armies of the medieval period. He also required them to pay for all supplies received from towns and villages along their line of march. As a result, locals generally welcomed, or at least tolerated, the Swedish army wherever it went.

The Swedish king invaded Pomerania with an initial force of 13,000 troops, landing near Peenemünde on July 6, 1630. They were soon reinforced by a follow-on echelon of 5,300 troops from Sweden and Finland. That fall the Swedish king concluded an alliance with Bogislaw XIV, Duke of Pomerania. Recruiting locally, Gustavus was able to assemble a force of 43,000. Seizing the opportunity to strike a further blow against the Hapsburgs, Cardinal Richelieu signed the Treaty of Bärwalde with Gustavus, providing him with financial support of one million livres per year. Richelieu even went so far as to encourage the Ottoman Turks to increase their pressure on Austria from the east.

The imperial court at Vienna initially greatly underestimated the Swedish threat, dismissively calling Gustavus the “Snow King”—held together by the cold of the north, but who inevitably would melt and disappear the farther south he went into Germany. Overconfident of his earlier successes in Germany, Emperor Ferdinand in 1629 had sent a large German army over the Alps to support the Spanish Hapsburgs, who were fighting the French in northern Italy over the succession of the Duchy of Mantua. Gustavus, meanwhile, managed to drive all Catholic forces out of Pomerania, forcing Ferdinand to refocus his attention on the main theater of war, as the Swedish king pushed ever deeper into Germany.

The Saxon city of Magdeburg, on the left bank of the Elbe River, was among the most important commercial centers in medieval Germany. It was also a Protestant stronghold. With a population of more than 35,000, Magdeburg at the outbreak of the Thirty Years’ War sought to remain neutral. As imperialist pressures on the town grew, however, the city council entered into an alliance with Gustavus in August 1630. That November, in anticipation of an imperial siege, the Swedish king sent Dietrich von Falkenberg, an experienced Protestant German officer, to Magdeburg to organize its defense and command the garrison, which ultimately numbered 2,400 trained troops and perhaps another 3,000 local militia. Gustavus, meanwhile, continued his operations to clear the Baltic coast and establish a secure base of operations. In April 1631 he captured the key Brandenburg town of Frankfurt an der Oder.

By March 1631, meanwhile, imperial forces under Tilly and Pappenheim, numbering 24,000, had closed in on Magdeburg. When Tilly demanded its capitulation, Falkenberg refused, believing the Swedes would soon come to his relief. Gustavus, however, was well beyond striking distance. Tilly put his artillery into battery and commenced a fierce bombardment of the city, but Falkenberg still refused to surrender. Finally, on May 20 imperial forces assaulted the town, penetrating its defenses in short order. Falkenberg was shot dead while trying to organize a counterattack. Emboldened imperial troops set fire to the town, and many attackers went rogue, looting, raping and massacring civilians over several days. More than 20,000 defenders and inhabitants were killed or died in the spreading fire. In the aftermath, imperial troops had to dump more than 6,000 bodies into the Elbe to clear the streets. At least that many had been consumed by the flames. (A census taken a year later tallied only 449 residents in Magdeburg, and much of the city remained a rubble field into the 1700s.)

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A month later Pope Urban VIII sent Tilly a congratulatory letter, writing, “You have washed your victorious hands in the blood of sinners.” But the Sack of Magdeburg, the single worst atrocity of the Thirty Years’ War, became a cause célèbre for the Protestant princes of Germany, stiffening their resolve to resist the Catholics. Saxony and Brandenburg, whose rulers were both electors, allied with Gustavus. It didn’t hurt that Gustavus was married to the sister of Georg Wilhelm, the elector of Brandenburg. For the first time in the war the Protestants had something close to a unified command, and the combined forces gave the Swedish king the necessary strength to march south into Germany and seek decisive battle with Tilly.

After Johann Georg I, Elector of Saxony, formally allied himself with Gustavus on Sept. 11, 1631, Tilly initiated a punitive campaign, setting out to ravage Saxony with about 36,000 troops. On September 15 he captured Leipzig, which his men looted. But the imperial commander neglected the opportunity to attack the weak Saxon army of 16,000 troops before they managed to link up with Gustavus’ 26,000 Swedes at Düben, some 40 miles north of Leipzig. On the urging of his cavalry commander, Pappenheim, Tilly abandoned town and took up a position at Breitenfeld, 5 miles to the north.

The opposing forces sighted each other early on the morning of September 17. Tilly deployed his single line of infantry in the center with cavalry on the wings. He commanded the center and right, Pappenheim the left. The imperial artillery was massed in the center and center right and emplaced on high ground to the rear. Gustavus deployed his troops in his signature two lines. Rather than the traditional Spanish-designed tercio square formation of massed pikemen with musketeers on its corners, the Swedish infantrymen were grouped in smaller, more mobile formations, with musketeers predominating and pikemen protecting. Throughout the forthcoming battle Gustavus’ lighter and more mobile artillery would exact a heavy toll on the densely packed imperial formations.

Saxon infantry, cavalry and artillery under Elector Johann Georg held the left of the Protestant line, while Swedish and other German infantry units occupied the center and right. Most of the Swedish cavalry deployed on the right wing, opposite Pappenheim. Gustavus’ reserve cavalry was at the center, between the two echelons of infantry. Finnish Field Marshal Count Gustav Horn commanded the Swedish left (the overall Protestant center) directly against Tilly, while the Swedish king positioned himself on the far right, opposite Pappenheim.

Tilly made the opening move. Rather than launch an immediate attack, he resolved to pound the enemy for as long as possible with his heavier, longer-range guns. He ordered the imperial artillery to open up as Gustavus’ force was deploying. The firing continued until midday, prevailing winds blowing the thick gun smoke and dust directly into the faces of the Swedes and Saxons. When the firing ceased, the impetuous Pappenheim, acting without orders, led his cavalry in an attempt to turn the Swedish right flank. In a brilliant move, Gustavus wheeled his reserve horse, catching Pappenheim between his two cavalry forces. The Swedish king also rapidly repositioned his light guns and opened up with grapeshot against the imperial horse. Gustavus’ guns and musketeers easily outranged the pistol fire of the imperial cavalry. Pappenheim hit the Swedish line seven times, and each time he was repulsed with greater losses, finally forcing him to withdraw.

Only then did Tilly advance against the Saxons. The rapid, accurate fire from the Swedish line drove his men increasingly to the right, but ultimately the Saxons broke, Elector Johann Georg himself falling back on Eilenberg, a dozen miles to the east. Messengers prematurely set out toward Munich and Vienna carrying news of the Catholic victory.

Meanwhile, Tilly turned against the exposed Swedish left flank. Gustavus immediately redeployed three regiments from his right to shore up his left. While Horn’s infantry held off Tilly’s attack, Gustavus routed the remainder of the Catholic left wing. With his own right wing freed, the king then advanced against the Catholic guns on the high ground to Tilly’s rear, rolling up Tilly’s left flank in the process. On capturing the imperial guns, Gustavus’ gunners turned them on their former owners from the rear.

After seven hours of fighting, Gustavus’ forces had almost wholly enveloped Tilly’s troops. Protected by four veteran regiments that had never fled from a fight, Tilly fought his way out of the encirclement. Once free of the Swedes, the disciplined imperials formed a defensive perimeter and continued to resist until nightfall, at which point the wounded Tilly had only 600 effectives under his command. The surviving Catholic forces withdrew toward Halle, some 17 miles to the west. On reaching safety, Tilly and Pappenheim were able to muster only about 2,000 men between them. The imperial forces had lost around 7,000 dead, 6,000 captured, 3,000 wounded and 3,400 missing. The Swedes had lost some 2,100 killed, the Saxons 3,000.

Leaving Johann Georg and his Saxon troops to clear Leipzig, Gustavus turned southwest and drove deeper into Germany. After clearing the Palatinate of imperial forces, he established winter quarters near the Rhine. Hoping for a return to his throne, deposed Elector Frederick V met Gustavus at Frankfurt in February 1632. The Swedish king, however, said he would support Frederick only if the latter would hold the Palatinate as a fief of the king of Sweden. Gustavus also insisted that Frederick, a staunch Calvinist, agree to grant equal rights to Lutherans in the Palatinate. Frederick refused, the two parted, and the hapless elector never regained his throne.

That March Gustavus turned west and invaded Bavaria. On April 15 he again faced Tilly at the Battle of Rain, waged over defensive works centered on that town along the River Lech. Outnumbering the Bavarians roughly 37,500 to 22,000, the Swedish king won a decisive victory, thanks largely to his superb artillery. Tilly took a bullet to his thigh and died of infection 15 days later at age 73. On May 17 Gustavus made a triumphal entry into Munich. He then quickly cleared most of Bohemia. On the verge of panic, Emperor Ferdinand recalled Wallenstein from forced retirement and again put him in command of all imperial and Catholic forces.

Gustavus and Wallenstein clashed for the first time that September 3 and 4 at the Battle of the Alte Veste, near Nuremberg. In that largest battle of the war, which pitted nearly 90,000 men against one another, the previously invincible Gustavus suffered his first tactical defeat, though the strategic results were indecisive. The two great commanders met once more, on November 16, at the Battle of Lützen. While this time Wallenstein was soundly defeated, Gustavus was killed after becoming separated from his troops while leading a cavalry charge on his flank. About the time Gustavus fell, Pappenheim, the great imperial cavalry commander, was mortally wounded on another part of the field.

The death of the Swedish king broke the Protestant momentum, and the course of the war waffled back and forth. Unfortunately for the people of central Europe, the Thirty Years’ War ground on another horrific 16 years. After losing to Gustavus, Wallenstein grew increasingly disillusioned with Emperor Ferdinand and opened secret peace negotiations variously with France, Sweden, Saxony and Brandenburg. When the Holy Roman emperor learned of his field marshal’s covert dealings, he charged Wallenstein with treason and issued orders for him to be brought to Vienna—dead or alive. Wallenstein was at his headquarters in Eger (present-day Cheb, Czech Republic), on the Bohemian-Bavarian border, when a group of his own Scottish and Irish mercenary officers assassinated him on Feb. 25, 1634.

Thus, none of the war’s four greatest battlefield commanders lived to see its resolution. Sweden remained in the fight, mostly under the command of Field Marshal Horn, and the Thirty Years’ War finally ended in 1648 with the Peace of Westphalia, which again allowed rulers of the imperial member states to choose their own religious affiliation.

Gustavus’ remains were eventually repatriated and interred at Stockholm’s Riddarholmen Church on June 22, 1634. His fellow Swedes posthumously granted the warrior-king the title den Store (“the Great”), making him the only Swedish monarch so honored.

Retired U.S. Army Maj. Gen. David T. Zabecki is History-Net’s chief military historian. For further reading he rec-ommends The Thirty Years’ War, by Geoffrey Parker; and History of the Thirty Years’ War, by Friedrich Schiller.

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It is a tale of paranoia, revenge, of kings and divided loyalties, and one family’s quest for honor. No, it is not the Wars of the Roses nor Julius Caesar’s civil war in Rome. It is the story of Spain’s Guzman family, and their epic generational mission to dominate the narrow peninsula of Gibraltar, slightly less than 3 miles wide, known popularly as “The Rock.”

Cue up the “Game of Thrones” theme song and envision a giant boulder in the middle of the ocean.  

The Ancestor Who Started It All  

Gibraltar, the tip of the Iberian Peninsula known for its iconic rock formation that shoots up 1,398 feet into the air, had been a traffic stop for a motley assortment of Romans, Phoenicians, Visigoths, Byzantines and whoever else happened to be floating around the coast of Spain at any given time. The Almohad Caliphate constructed a large fortress upon it—which might have contributed to the Rock envy that gripped various neighboring powers for the next several centuries.

Gibraltar eventually fell into the hands of the Marinid Sultanate and was basking in scenic isolation when King Ferdinand IV of Castile decided he wanted to claim it as part of Spain’s Reconquista in 1309.

The man chosen for this task was Alonzo Perez de Guzman, the king’s loyal retainer, known as Guzman “the Good.” But Guzman had not earned the epithet of “the Good” for his congenial personality. In fact he was notoriously ruthless. A loyal buddy of the king, Guzman had previously (in)famously refused to negotiate the release of his own son from captivity by one of the king’s rivals—instead Guzman is reputed to have offered his own knife to be used for the execution. The boy was murdered, and his head was allegedly catapulted into the midst of Guzman’s men to their great distress. Guzman however remained emotionless and is said to have informed his wife about the whole thing later. She is reported to have been, justifiably, horrified. In any case, the king considered “Guzman the Good” an ideal henchman. Guzman also had another son, who would carry on his legacy for years to come.

Arriving at Gibraltar in June 1309, Guzman attacked the peninsula by land and sea and bombarded the place with catapults. The Muslim garrison surrendered by September, and Gibraltar became a feather in Spain’s cap.

But Guzman’s success was short-lived. Although by then an older man over 50, he was ever eager to be in the thick of slaughter and mayhem. He sallied forth to Algeciras, where the king’s forces successfully ousted a Muslim garrison. Apparently Guzman failed to notice that enemy troops had not been ousted from the surrounding countryside, which he decided to “tour” with his troops. The tour was short-lived—Muslim forces annihilated Guzman along with his encampment.

In a show of generosity, the king awarded governorship of Gibraltar to Guzman’s son, Juan Alonso Perez de Guzmán y Coronel, thereby tying the family to “the Rock” for which they would battle for years to come.

Guzman 2.0 and Even More Sieges

Unlike his famous father, Juan Alonso Perez de Guzmán y Coronel proved to be an absentee warrior. He appears not to have been present on Gibraltar when the Emirate of Granada, unhappy that the Rock had been unceremoniously snatched by the Spanish, tried to reclaim it in 1315 but failed during the peninsula’s second siege.

This was far from the end of the story. The Marinid Sultanate hadn’t given up on the Rock and made a grab for Gibraltar in 1333. This time they took it—much to the despair of Juan Alonso Perez de Guzmán y Coronel, who finally showed up at Gibraltar. He arrived too late for the third siege, just in time to see victory go to the opposing side.  

The Spanish decided they weren’t just going to accept this new score, so they immediately mounted a rematch—the fourth siege, also in 1333. Guzman wanted to make good on his name this time…or at least as much as he was able to. He is described as vigorously helping make preparations for the great reconquest. What he actually did during the battle is unknown, since there don’t seem to be many, if any, historical sources describing him doing any fighting during the siege. However he was at least in attendance for it.

A Stalemate

The end result of the fourth siege was that both sides exhausted each other, ran out of food, and became so miserable that they drew up a truce agreement. The Spanish sailed away without taking the Rock and the sultan of Granada was assassinated by indignant followers who, despite the fact that they were technically victorious, didn’t approve of the truce being signed.

A fifth siege took place afterwards, which ended with a fizzle after King Alfonso XI of Castile died of the Plague in 1350. Guzman—again—seems to have failed to appear for that engagement.

Gibraltar was out of Spain’s hands. A sixth siege took place between two opposing Muslim factions when the Spanish weren’t looking, with the victors being the Nasrid kingdom of Granada.

Drowned On Arrival

Two generations later the Guzman family was at it again—specifically, Enrique Pérez de Guzmán y Castilla, who launched an adventure in 1436 to take the Rock for his family honor once and for all…and failed with a freak accident.

After temporarily abandoning their conquest of the Rock, the Guzmans had married into Spain’s royal family. Their fortunes and standing had improved. Enrique intended to imitate his famous ancestor, Guzman the Good, and seize Gibraltar for honor and glory in a feat of military might. He organized a campaign and rallied men to his cause. They were going to launch assaults from both land and sea. They were going to take the Rock.

Things quickly went askew. Enrique failed to take the high tide into account. When D-Day arrived, Enrique and his men washed up on the wrong side of the Rock below the sheer cliffs. Landing boats flipped over and men were tossed overboard. Among them was Enrique.

Legend says he was trying to save his men when the accident happened. No one knows for sure. In any case his boat was overloaded with men from another boat who didn’t want to drown and thus inevitably sank, drowning their commander.

Thus Enrique Pérez de Guzmán y Castilla died before the seventh siege even began. We can only wonder what the Muslim garrison, looking down from the cliffs, must have thought as they watched the Spanish floundering in the water below.

In any case, the Muslim defenders recovered Enrique’s body from the surf, posthumously decapitated him and hung his body in a basket from the fortress walls, presumably as a warning to would-be besiegers.

A Son’s Revenge—Siege No. 8

Meanwhile, on another side of the Rock, Enrique’s son, who was supposed to be commanding the land forces, fell into despair at his father’s drowning. He pulled back his troops and is said to have tried to negotiate with the Muslim garrison to return his father’s body, but was rebuffed. The young man withdrew in anger and humiliation…but, in classic Guzman fashion, he would definitely return. His name was Juan Alonso de Guzmán y Suárez de Figueroa Orozco. He was determined to avenge the accidental death of his father.

Guzman came back to Gibraltar to roost 26 years later in 1462, resolved that the Rock would be his at last. He had spent years fuming about the failure to possess Gibraltar and his father’s ignominious demise. An informant brought news to Spain that the Muslim garrison at Gibraltar had been slacking off in terms of its defenses.

Forces led by Alonzo of Arcos were the first to get there, but couldn’t do the job without help and asked for aid from Spanish nobles. Guzman decided it was the right time to settle scores and jumped into the fray. The eighth siege was soon underway.

However, if Guzman had inherited the iron pride of his ancestor Guzman the Good, he also seems to have been plagued by the curse of another ancestor—he arrived late. The siege was pretty well over and Rodrigo Ponce de Leon, Duke of Cadiz, was already in control of the city gates, ready to accept surrender, when the indignant Guzman finally arrived on the scene.

There was a spat such as could only have happened between two proud Spanish noblemen. According to lore, Guzman and Ponce de Leon narrowly avoided a physical fight over which one of them would be allowed to actually take the Rock. To avoid an all-out duel, they worked out a deal to walk into the fortress together and politely set up their banners at the same time. Thus the siege ended and the families hated each other ever since.

Rebelling against The Crown

To add insult to injury, King Enrique IV of Spain gave Guzman the boot after the siege was won. Ordering Guzman to leave the Rock’s premises, the king awarded himself the title of “King of Gibraltar.” Of course Guzman would have none of it. Guzman launched the ninth siege of Gibraltar, against his own king, on July 26, 1467—and actually achieved his life’s goal of taking the Rock for his family.

However, after all of that trouble, his son Enrique Perez de Guzmán y Fonseca didn’t seem to have been very passionate about the Rock or building up family roots there. He was more interested in money than war. Reputed to have been the richest man in Spain, he was known for crooked dealings and treating those who engaged in business with him unjustly.

Queen Isabella I of Castile gave him the title of Marquis of Gibraltar, but changed her mind after he died and took the title away from the family. Seemingly it was Isabella’s chance to rectify the fact that the Rock had technically been stolen from the crown previously.

In the style of his ancestors before him, the late nobleman’s son, Juan Alonso Pérez de Guzmán y de Ribera, was furious that the Rock had been taken away from him and dared to write to the queen exactly what he thought about it. It seems that Isabella ignored him. She removed the Guzman family banners from Gibraltar and decorated the place with Spanish royal emblems.

After Isabella died in 1504, Guzman decided he was going to reverse this redecorating project and restore the Rock to Guzman family ownership. Gathering an army, he mounted the tenth siege of the Rock with the help of his son, named Enrique.

The Fate of Gibraltar

Guzman expected that the city would welcome him with open arms. The opposite occurred. Royal troops in the fortress barricaded themselves inside and local Gibraltarians rallied to Spain’s cause. The Guzmans sat outside the city for four months before eventually realizing that victory just wasn’t going to happen.

Counseled by the church, the Guzman family finally gave up on Gibraltar—temporarily. Juan de Guzman firmly believed that the Rock was his rightful property and was actually planning to launch an eleventh siege before he perished at age 40 in 1507.

After having shed blood, sweat and tears for Gibraltar from 1309 to 1507, the Guzman family ceased to besiege the Rock. However it definitely wasn’t the last time the family would leave an unusual footprint in Spain’s military history.    

A Guzman descendant, Alonso Pérez de Guzmán y de Zuniga-Sotomayor, was placed in charge of the doomed Spanish Armada in 1588—against his wishes. In contrast to his fierce ancestors, Guzman protested against being given command, pleading ignorance of naval matters and an alleged tendency toward seasickness.

Nevertheless Guzman got the job despite expressly not wanting it. Needless to say the Spanish Armada was soundly defeated by the English, who would also ultimately take ownership of the Guzman family treasure, Gibraltar.   

A peculiar drink materializes across the United States every winter holiday season—at Christmas parties, in grocery stores, and at family gatherings for example. It is eggnog. As its name suggests, it contains eggs, along with milk, sugar, and heavy cream, plus spices such as nutmeg, vanilla or cinnamon. Alcoholic spirits, like whiskey, rum or bourbon, can also add some zing to eggnog.

The creamy drink is a weird mix, and it tends to divide opinion. Maybe the mere sight of it is enough to make you duck for cover…or alternatively you might be called an eggnog hog. How did this strange beverage find its way into our lives in the first place?  

Medieval Remedy

There are debates about how exactly eggnog came to be. However, most people who have probed its mysterious origins agree that it seems to have morphed from an English drink called “posset.”

Posset was used as a remedy in England as far back as the 15^th century. One early reference to it is Russell’s “Boke of Nurture,” which dates from about 1460. Posset’s main ingredient was milk, which was heated, flavored with alcoholic drinks, and curdled before being sweetened with the same types of spices used for eggnog—namely, nutmeg and cinnamon.

It was considered a healthy and comforting drink, and was thought to help people recover from various colds and illnesses. Posset varied and evolved over time; it could include ingredients like egg yolks, and sometimes breadcrumbs. Wealthier people who had more dairy products on hand—and who could afford to make more frivolous use of them—whipped up possets as desserts. Sets for making possets were popular gifts among the well-to-do.

Posset might have been “the medieval eggnog,” according to Smithsonian Magazine. It made several cameo appearances in the writings of William Shakespeare, including being used as a Mickey Finn by Lady Macbeth on two unsuspecting guards.

George Washington And The Eggnog Riot

It is likely that eggnog sprung up as a colonial cousin of posset in British North America. It was generally easier for ordinary people in the American colonies to make their own versions of “posset” due to entrepreneurial spirit and sheer abundance of resources. Dairy farms were everywhere and there was no shortage of brewers of alcoholic beverages.

The term “eggnog” started popping up in North America in the late 1700s. As well as the name, the ingredients differ from what went into a traditional English posset, and are more or less the same as what we have now.

Aside from being “first in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen,” George Washington is also rumored to be among the first Americans to publicize his own boozy eggnog recipe for Christmas parties. Yet contrary to popular belief, Washington is unlikely to have written his own eggnog recipe. The one commonly attributed to him contained rye whiskey, brandy, rum and sherry, but Mount Vernon claims the recipe has no tie to Washington.

Although it might not be linked to the first commander-in-chief, eggnog has an inglorious tie with the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. The academy became the scene of the infamous Eggnog Riot of 1826, in which cadets revolted against a disciplinarian superintendent who attempted to ban them from drinking alcohol. The cadets got their hands on some strong eggnog and ran wild, smashing windows and attacking officers. The aftermath of the Eggnog Riot saw 11 cadets expelled and five more withdraw from West Point.

As to its funny name? Historical debates rage as to where it might have come from. It has been claimed that “nog” either derives from a primordial English ale cup called a “noggins,” or from the slang term “grog” (also known to mean rum, or booze in general to those of us who are less picky). Even if its historical mysteries go unsolved, eggnog remains an indisputable part of the American winter holiday season.

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Three hundred twenty-five years ago—on Sept. 5, 1697—wooden warships from England and France waged a bitter, hours-long battle in Hudson Bay. Though long since forgotten, the clash marked the largest naval action ever fought off what today is far northeastern Canada. 

What historian Peter C. Newman called “the greatest Arctic sea battle in North American history” pitted the French fourth-rate ship of the line Pélican, commanded by Pierre Le Moyne d’Iberville, against English Capt. John Fletcher’s fourth-rate frigate HMS Hampshire and two armed merchant ships. The brutal fight epitomized the struggle between the rival European powers to control the newly discovered, largely unknown and potentially lucrative lands just south of the Arctic Circle and led to the largest transfer of territory in the New World to date. 

Hudson Bay

Hudson Bay was named after English explorer Sir Henry Hudson, who first probed its reaches in 1610–11 at the behest of the Dutch East India Co., only to be set adrift by mutineers and left to an unknown fate. It is the second largest bay in the world (after the Bay of Bengal), with a surface area of some 470,000 square miles. If measured by shoreline, however, Hudson Bay is the world’s largest. Unlike many other large bodies of water, it is relatively shallow, with an average depth of only 330 feet. 

Hydrographically an extension of the Arctic Ocean, Hudson Bay extends from 62 degrees north latitude at its southern limit to 66 degrees north, just a few miles south of the Arctic Circle. Geographically part of the Precambrian Canadian Shield, the shoreline is generally rocky, with shallow vegetation typically classified as boreal forest trending to tundra in its northern reaches. 

James Bay, extending from the southeast end of Hudson Bay, is often viewed as an appendage of the larger body of water. Named after Welsh explorer Thomas James, who reconnoitered its shoreline and islands in the early 1630s, it is the outlet for scores of freshwater rivers that drain in a northerly direction and flow through Hudson Bay toward the Arctic Ocean, becoming saltier as the waters mingle. James Bay is some 275 miles long by 135 miles wide and also quite shallow, with an average depth of 200 feet.

The shorelines of both James Bay and southern Hudson Bay are festooned with numerous smaller bays, inlets, marshes and floodplains, though hundreds of shoals and rocky bars make inshore navigation treacherous. The overall catchment area of the Hudson Bay region is vast—nearly 1,500,000 square miles—extending across present-day central Canada into the Northern Plains of the United States.

A Struggle Over Settlements

During the last few decades of the 17th century the quest for dominance over the Hudson Bay region inflamed tensions between France and England. Incorporated by English royal charter in 1670, the Hudson’s Bay Co. (HBC) began trading with the various Amerindian groups in the northern settlements, while the French had the lands to the south firmly in their grasp, with control of the St. Lawrence River anchored on their citadel at Quebec City.

In colonial North America the initial trading settlements (often given names like fort, factory, house and post) comprised little more than wood-and-stone buildings staffed by a few traders, adventurers and the odd administrator. Such “forts” were rarely manned by trained troops, as it proved logistically problematic to deploy soldiers to remote locations and even harder to provide them with the necessary support, especially when waterways froze over during the region’s harsh winters.

For much of the late 1600s, as English and French adventurers traded with local Inuits and Amerindians, posts regularly changed hands and names depending on who had more armed men on hand. For example, York Factory, just inside the mouth of the Hayes River on the western shore of Hudson Bay, was known at various times as Fort York, Fort Bourbon and Kischewaskaheegan (Cree for “Big House”). As newcomers were unfamiliar with the topography and weather, they often had to relocate their posts due to high tides, winter storms and flooding deltas. Given their transient nature, the structures themselves were hastily built.

In 1682 Quebec-based financiers seeking to counter the growing economic reach of the HBC formed the Compagnie du Nord, with the goal of running the English out of Hudson Bay. Its traders subsequently mounted a series of overland expeditions, following a water route blazed a decade earlier by Jesuit priest and explorer Charles Albanel. In 1686 an armed incursion led by d’Iberville managed to wrest control of all the HBC posts except York Factory. 

In 1694 d’Iberville returned by sea with two warships and captured the holdout English post, renaming it Fort Bourbon. A year later a trio of English frigates recaptured York Factory. The seesaw fight for the post augured a far more serious clash in the fall of 1697, one involving French and English flotillas sent to contest the disputed region.

On April 8, 1697, Pélican and the supply ships Profond, Palmier and Wesp sailed from France, stopping briefly in Placentia Harbor, Newfoundland, to refit and reorganize. Damaged during the Atlantic crossing, Wesp did not join the other vessels when they left Placentia bound north along the Newfoundland/Labrador coast. It was a challenging voyage. The French flotilla encountered foul weather, thick fog, fields of ice and rough seas as they sailed west.

Separated from the supply vessels by the weather and drift ice, Pélican was the first to arrive in Hudson Bay. D’Iberville immediately sailed to the west coast. Anchoring at the mouth of the Hayes River on September 3, he landed a party of soldiers to scout out York Factory and made siege preparations while awaiting the other French ships. On the morning of September 5 Pélican’s lookouts spotted sails on the horizon.

By sheer coincidence HBC’s annual fleet—that year comprising HMS Hampshire (captained by Fletcher) and the company ships Dering (under Michael Grimmington) and Royal Hudson’s Bay (helmed by Richard Smithsend)—had reached Hudson Bay in the immediate wake of the French flotilla. The English had also had a difficult Atlantic crossing, with one of its vessels, the HBC ship Owner’s Love, presumed lost at sea. Unknown to d’Iberville, days earlier the English ships had traded shots to little effect with Profond, Palmier and Wesp, the latter of which had caught up with its sister vessels. D’Iberville initially assumed the approaching sails propelled his own straggling ships. Only as they drew closer and their markings became distinct did the French commander realize his enemy was at hand. 

The 44-gun Pélican was at a distinct disadvantage, given that Hampshire carried 56 guns, Dering 36 and Royal Hudson’s Bay 32. Yet d’Iberville elected fight over flight. What ensued was an epic battle that would test the seamanship, wits and sheer mettle of the outnumbered and outgunned French captain. 

Pélican immediately went on the offensive, engaging the English ships in a two-and-a-half-hour running sea battle. With superior tactics—and a healthy dose of luck—d’Iberville managed to not only escape initial destruction, but also inflict damage on the HBC ships. At the outset of the battle his gunners disabled Dering’s mainsail, and when Royal Hudson’s Bay came to the aid of its sister ship, Pélican similarly crippled the second company vessel. Having neutralized two enemy ships, d’Iberville was thus able to turn the engagement from a lopsided fight into a single-ship action.

Close-Range Combat

Naval warfare in the late 17th century was a haphazard venture. A captain’s seamanship, the prevailing conditions and, yes, luck were all contributing factors to victory at sea. Ships’ guns of the era were crude, inaccurate, prone to misfire and tended to inflict little damage at long range. Conventional naval tactics of the time thus dictated a warship first close on an opponent, raking the target vessel’s rigging and decks with cannon and musket fire, then use grappling hooks to draw it alongside. Armed boarding parties would then cross over and subdue the enemy crew in hand-to-hand combat. Captured vessels proved a source of additional supplies and, in some cases, replacement sailors.

At the climax of what became known as the Battle of Hudson Bay both Pélican and Hampshire adhered to such textbook tactics, pounding one another with round shot and small-arms fire for more than an hour, each attempting to disable the other. At the height of the action Fletcher reportedly yelled across the yards of water separating the warships, demanding d’Iberville surrender. The French commander refused, and Fletcher is reported to have raised a glass of wine in salute to his worthy foe. Hampshire’s captain did not have long to admire his foe, for as he tacked away from a Pélican broadside, the English frigate struck an uncharted shoal, broke up and sank with the loss of all hands.

At the sudden and unexpected destruction of Hampshire, the disabled Royal Hudson’s Bay lowered its flag and surrendered to Pélican even as Dering crowded on all sail and fled. As Pélican itself had been holed below the waterline in the exchange with Hampshire, d’Iberville was in no position to give chase. 

With the immediate English threat neutralized and foul weather closing in, d’Iberville concentrated on saving his surviving crew. Ordering Pélican run aground, he was able lead his men ashore through neck-deep icy water, though 18 died of exposure. Royal Hudson’s Bay also ran aground, its French prize crew and captive English sailors managing to wade ashore. Those English able to elude their captors made their way to the fort. Over the next few days d’Iberville and his men stripped Pélican of all useful items and awaited the French supply ships. Their arrival on September 8 provided d’Iberville sufficient men and materiel to besiege York Factory, which surrendered five days later.

With his victories at sea and on land d’Iberville had not only defeated a superior English naval force and captured York Factory, but also secured French primacy in Hudson Bay. The reach of the French empire in the New World now extended from the St. Lawrence River in the south to Hudson Bay in the north and east to the unclaimed lands of Labrador. 

Aftermath

In his three volume Histoire du Canada (1845–48) French-Canadian writer François-Xavier Garneau judged that Pélican’s “splendid victory ensured the mastery on Hudson’s Bay to the French.” Unfortunately for his countrymen, d’Iberville’s triumph was ultimately overshadowed by the realities of a broader European conflict. 

The Battle of Hudson Bay was a mere sideshow of the Nine Years’ War (aka War of the Grand Alliance or War of the League of Augsburg). That 1688–97 conflict pitted King Louis XIV’s France against a small European coalition that included William III’s England. Though fought mainly in continental Europe, the war spilled over to other contested regions, including North America and India. Some historians consider it the first truly global conflict. Complicating the terminology, the conflict that played out between English and French settlers and their respective Indian allies in the North American theater is commonly known as King William’s War.

With the 1713 signing of the Treaty of Utrecht, capping British victory in the follow-on Queen Anne’s War in North America, a defeated France recognized British sovereignty over Hudson Bay and its vast drainage and refocused its aspirations in Canada around the Great Lakes and the St. Lawrence River basin. Shortly after signing the treaty, France resettled its displaced colonists on Île Royale (present-day Cape Breton Island), bridging the Gulf of St. Lawrence and the Atlantic Ocean between British-held Acadia to the west and Newfoundland to the east. In 1719 the French founded the fishing port of Louisbourg, which by the 1740s had grown into one of the largest and most expensive fortified cities in Canada. 

The ultimate fall of New France came amid the 1754–63 French and Indian War—a mere half century after the Treaty of Utrecht—with British Maj. Gen. James Wolfe’s masterful 1758 capture of Fortress Louisbourg and 1759 defeat of French Lt. Gen. Louis-Joseph de Montcalm on the Plains of Abraham. The latter cost both generals their lives and prompted the French evacuation of Quebec. With that, Britain became the dominant regional power, and the hard-won advances of d’Iberville and other French adventurers were consigned to the dustbin of history. Yet, for a short time France did legitimately hold vast swaths of the continent, and one cannot help but wonder how North American history might have evolved had France anchored and expanded its northern Canadian empire—fairly won by the gallant actions of d’Iberville and Pélican.

Jon Bradley is a retired associate professor with the faculty of education at Montreal’s McGill University. Sam Allison is a former high school history teacher and seasonal lecturer at McGill. For further reading they recommend Lemoyne d’Iberville: Soldier of New France, by Nellis M. Crouse; History of Canada, From the Time of Its Discovery Till the Union Year 1840–41, by François-Xavier Garneau; and The Royal Navy: A History From the Earliest Times to the Present, by William Laird Clowes.

this article first appeared in Military History magazine

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Steel plate armor is commonly associated with medieval times. However, studies reveal that the production of plate armor fully encasing the human body dates back to the early 15th century and reached its zenith a century later during the Renaissance. 

Although developed initially for military purposes, so-called “suits of armor” took on different roles in society. Indeed, armor became a staple of social life and came to be viewed as a status symbol. Armor in fact performed various functions, and each suit was designed to be ideal for a specific purpose—whether for combat, tournaments, festivals or merely grand public events. 

The Vienna Art History Museum (Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien) recently provided a highly detailed examination of the various forms, functions and types of armor in an exhibit entitled “Iron Men: Fashion in Steel” (Iron Men—Mode in Stahl) which ran from March through June, 2022 and showcased about 170 artifacts. The exhibit was Vienna’s first major exhibit about armor and sparked detailed studies of European steel plate armor by leading experts which provide useful insights to modern historians. Notably, the exhibit provided glimpses of rarely seen items from Vienna’s Imperial Armory, excellent examples of the flexibility of armor both as a military tool and as a statement ostentatiously declaring the wearer’s elevated social status. 

“While some of these pieces were actually used in the bloodiest conflicts of the Middle Ages and Renaissance, others were worn at ceremonies like coronations and parades,” wrote Ronald S. Lauder, Director of Vienna’s Imperial Armory, in a museum book containing scholarly articles focused on the exhibition. “However all of them had one thing in common: breathtaking artisanship is present in every detail.” 

The Origins of Steel Plate Armor

Suits of plated steel body armor were a European invention. Although commonly viewed as heavy and awkward by members of the general public today, they were in fact engineered to provide flexibility in combat as well as personal protection. Stefan Krause, curator of the Vienna Art History Museum, writes that a typical suit of steel armor weighed from between 40 to 60 pounds. He contends that wearing a suit of armor is comparable to firefighters, soldiers, or astronauts wearing protective equipment today—for example, the combat load (body armor, weapon, ammunition, water, supplies, etc.) carried by a typical Army or Marine infantryman in field operations today weighs 70 to 100 pounds or more! The Vienna museum’s suits of armor weigh substantially less than their modern counterpart gear, demonstrating that heavy gear can still be efficient, functional and offer mobility. 

Steel plate armor was designed to withstand bladed, impact and bow-launched weapons from the early 15th to early 17th centuries, including polearms, swords, war hammers, arrows, crossbows and eventually early, primitive firearms. However, the advent over time of more powerful firearms featuring more efficient and reliable gunpowder, along with the development of increasingly-advanced military technology eventually rendered steel plate body armor obsolete. 

Armor By Design

Armor production was overseen by master armorers, who honed their craft over many years and sold designs from workshops staffed by multiple employees. German and Austrian artisans in particular took armor production to a whole new level. With special focus on the intricacies of metal-working and engineering, they created workshops that were more like small factories where craftsmen worked in assembly lines and suits of armor were mass-produced—as well as custom made by special order. Notable armorers including members of the Seusenhofer family of Innsbruck, Austria and the Helmschmied family of Augsburg, southern Germany in addition to numerous armorers in Nuremberg, Germany, produced armor en masse and designed custom pieces for high-paying clients.

Master armorers were essentially the managers of these workshop “factories”—although responsible for the armor which carried their unique “brand,” they did not personally create every piece. They were however very involved in designing custom-made pieces by special commission. 

Plate armor was created from sheets of metal cut and shaped by tools including shears, hammers and chisels. It was formed using various different shapes of anvils. Armorers also used molds. Steel sheets were usually worked cold, although sometimes bulges in the metal were removed through heating, according to Fabian Brenker in the Vienna museum’s exhibition book. Each piece of plate armor was specially crafted to fit and move in unison with other pieces.

Master armorers took care to ensure that all pieces fit together with precision and did not get stuck, chafe or open up awkward gaps exposing areas of the body when moving. Each piece had to be carefully aligned, and in fact no piece went into the final stages of production alone. Each element of the entire suit proceeded into the final stages of creation in unison. A single suit of steel plate armor could consist of as many as 200 individual pieces.

Fast-Produced, Not Just Mass Produced

Mass-produced armor was typically made of cheaper material and made available for common soldiers. It was not usually polished. Custom designed suits, often commissioned by aristocrats, were embellished and at times polished to create mirror-like surfaces. Polishing techniques included the use of large water-powered whetstones as well as smoothing using files. Extra polishing could be done using leather straps and emery mineral powder. 

Despite the meticulous craftsmanship needed to make good steel plate armor, expert armorers could accomplish their work with remarkable speed. Records show that Austrian armorer Jörg Seusenhofer, son of armorer Hans Seusenhofer and nephew of the more eminent armorer Konrad Seusenhofer, could produce an output of 90 pieces of mass-produced steel armor a week at his workshop, with his employees hammering 30 breastplates and backplates simultaneously per day. His famous uncle Konrad wrote in 1514 that he could produce two full suits of armor for a member of Italy’s famous Medici family within a mere two months with some added time needed for gilding. Konrad employed six masters and journeymen for detail work plus six or seven additional craftsmen for intensive labor, as well as four grinders and polishers, and support staff consisting of two day-laborers and one blacksmith.

Historical records indicate that smithing workshops in Nuremberg also used women to assist with polishing armor pieces and some detail-oriented tasks. Armor workshops often became generational family businesses.

Armor By “Mail Order”

Master armorers faced a unique challenge in taking the measurements of their clients. The best plate armor fit like a glove, encasing its wearer like a hard but fluid exoskeleton. Measurement was thus essential to producing a truly fine—and perfectly functional—product. However, the highest-paying clients were often royals or nobles who commissioned special suits from across long geographical distances throughout Europe. England’s King Henry VIII, for example, contracted Konrad Seusenhofer to produce a suit of plate armor, which when finished had to be delivered from Austria to England. Master armorers did not usually travel but made exceptions for royalty and heads of state. 

Both armorers and their clients came up with creative ways to circumvent distance and get business done. Armorers sometimes sent paper templates for clients to try on, mark measurements on and return in a “mail-order” type of phenomenon. At other times clients sent pieces of their clothing to armorers. German armorer Konrad Richter, based in Augsburg, once used stuffing to fill clothes sent to him by a client to create a well-fitting steel suit. In one unique case, Emperor Charles V of Austria in 1526 created models of his legs using wax casts and molten lead and sent them to Augsburg to obtain custom-made greaves and cuisses from Kolman Helmschmied. 

Embellishing armor became an art form unto itself. Armor pieces designed for aristocratic clients could be decorated using filing techniques, engraving, gilding, or riveting with copper alloy, and also painted—historical evidence suggests that painted pieces of armor were more common than previously realized. 

The Many Uses And Variations of Armor

The appearance of a particular suit of steel plate armor largely depended on its intended use. Wealthy clients commissioned armor for public appearances at specific events such as festivals, ceremonies and tournaments. Some suits of armor served purely decorative functions, while others, such as tournament armor, were intended not only to be festive but functional in combat.

Armor also varied based on what type of combat it was intended for. For example, specific types of armor were made for jousting. Yet even jousting armor varied, Krause writes, depending on whether it would be used for high-impact jousting between individuals or jousting skirmishes between groups organized in “teams.” 

Although it might seem like a finished suit of armor’s appearance was permanently fixed, it could actually be modified later. Clever master armorers sometimes developed upgrades called garnitures, which were essentially interchangeable pieces a man could swap out from his suit of armor depending on what activity he was engaging in. For example, pieces in the garniture set could be interchanged for tournament activities such as jousting or hand-to-hand combat on the battlefield. Garnitures were fashioned according to a cohesive design so that they did not appear mismatched when modifying a suit of armor.

A Matter of Prestige

Garnitures however were not the answer to every problem, and armor was incapable of being modified past a certain point. Men could outgrow their armor—particularly in early adulthood and middle age. Although master armorers could adjust suits of armor that did not fit their clients, or which needed some tweaking for comfort, it was simply impossible for even the best armorer to adjust a suit for significant alterations in size or weight. Thus, older adolescents would have had to forsake a favorite suit of armor after experiencing late growth spurts. Middle-aged men with any notable expanse in waistline would have been incapable of surreptitiously squeezing back into a lean suit of armor from their agile youth. Most often, men were required to obtain multiple suits of armor throughout their lifetimes. Commissioning new suits was always expensive, but for soldiers, knights and men who held leadership positions or influence in society, it was necessary. 

Ceremonial armor could be shaped to imitate the fluid, curving intricacies of cloth, such as sleeves and skirts. Faux buttons and patterns could also be created, not to mention pictorial engravings that told stories in images across the wearer’s body. The creative possibilities were endless. South German Landsknecht mercenaries had a particular influence on fashion and also therefore steel armor. Seeking to distinguish themselves as an elite fighting force, they sported fancy clothing with dramatically puffed sleeves, bold colors and feathered hats. These mercenaries essentially sparked a bouffant fashion craze that spread throughout Renaissance Europe and quickly found its way into armorers’ workshops, and consequently into the portraits of nobles, military leaders and heads of state. Rulers and members of the aristocracy were quick to seize on the latest trends and show them off in the form of steel armor—it was a matter not only of style but prestige.

“Steel armor was a symbol of strength,” writes Krause. “Few other forms of representation symbolically brought out such an expression of the wearer’s prestige, his dignity, his political and military might—or at least his aspirations towards them.”

The Art of Helmets

In contrast to plate armor, metal helmets had already been decorated since practically time immemorial, and thus they were not as much of a novelty as steel plate armor. However, like plate armor, helmets adapted in form and function from the 12th century well into the Renaissance. With alternately ornamental or formidable appearances, steel helmets could appear as intimidating screens on the battlefield or whimsical headgear for festivals. Some common elements used to decorate helmets included plumes of feathers, horns, crowns, wings, or ancient family crests. Gold applique could also be used to create striking designs on helmets. The Landsknecht fashion trend during the Renaissance saw helmets made to appear like extravagant hats. 

Helmets worn with steel plate armor are often presumed to offer minimal visibility to knights on the battlefield. While it is true that helmet visors provided narrow and limited fields of vision, additional vision was created by breathing holes in the visor. Larger breathing holes were ideal not only for vision but also to allow for inhaling more oxygen. Fewer and smaller openings in helmet visors did not allow for heat and carbon dioxide from exhalation to exit the helmet quickly, and limited breathing of oxygen could result in exhaustion, especially if the wearer was involved in intense physical activity. Historical records show that improving visor design was an issue and knights resorted to opening their visors in some instances despite the risk of exposing their faces in battle. 

During the Renaissance, it also became fashionable to create costumes for festivals and tournaments harkening back to ancient times, or to faraway places. Noblemen sometimes cast themselves as heroes of ancient Rome or Greece, or even as mythological creatures, with classical or grotesque helmet designs. 

How Armor Influenced…Fashion?

Although developed for military purposes, steel armor also revolutionized textile clothing. Men in Europe usually wore long tunics until about 1350, but a fundamental shift in men’s clothing style occurred during the middle of the 14th century as steel plate armor developed. The use of plated armor also required the use of close-fitting mail shirts. Soldiers and knights had already been wearing padded gambesons under mail or as an alternative to it in the 12th to 14th centuries. However, the development of more form-fitting steel armor pieces in the 14th century made tight padding beneath the steel too restrictive for movement. Quilted arming doublets with chainmail voiders or sleeves came into play, and from 1430 to 1470, padded material was restricted to protect the torso area. Tunics were thus no longer very practical and went out of style as shirts in general became shorter and tighter. 

Another practical reason for this tectonic shift in outerwear was the fact that steel does not breathe and is not conducive to air circulation, thus trapping body heat. Doublets and lighter garments beneath the breastplate functioned to drain heat and perspiration and prevented wearers from becoming easily overheated. 

Changes made not only to armor but everyday garments made the male silhouette more visible. While mail was initially worn to protect the lower body, detailed armor plates for the legs and lower body were engineered, including the codpiece. 

The Humble But Proud Codpiece

The codpiece, known in German as the “modesty plate” (Schamplatte), has a unique history. It appears prominently in suits of armor and representations of Renaissance men. In her detailed study of codpieces in the Vienna museum book, Marina Viallon writes that figures wearing mail breeches with codpieces are depicted in stone funerary effigies from Germany from the late 14th century. Without padded codpieces, common infantrymen had minimal protection for the groin area in battle. The Landsknechts, whose influence on fashion might have eclipsed their military achievements, began wearing exaggerated codpieces to broadcast virility. The practice spread throughout the aristocracy of 15th century Europe—perhaps since noblemen wished to avoid the awkwardness of outwardly appearing less “virile” than commoners under their command. 

Codpieces were adapted into steel armor pieces. Although worn during certain tournament activities, such as during single combat displays, they were never adapted for cavalry armor for practical reasons. Expensive to produce, they were sometimes decorated by gilding or engraving, and symbolized masculine power. “Worn like the prow of a ship, it was part of the body language of the ruling class, expressing confidence and authority,” writes Viallon. 

Not Clunky, But Haut Couture

Whatever its purpose, every suit of armor constructed for a knight or highborn man was intended to reflect nobility of character. Concepts of knighthood influenced members of the gentry, with the result that knights and aristocrats—perhaps alternatively called “gentlemen”—were generally expected to be well-mannered, educated, and display social graces. They were different from common soldiers in that they were expected not to engage in undisciplined behavior such as public drunkenness. Brawling and disrespect towards ladies were also frowned upon. Thus, bespoke suits of armor created for high-ranking military men and members of the aristocracy were intended not only to symbolize power but to reflect greatness of spirit.

Steel suits of armor have been underestimated in modern times—incorrectly portrayed in popular films as clunky or dysfunctional relics from a bygone era. However, taking a closer look at the art, function and form of steel plate armor reveals much about not only the ingenuity of European artisans and craftsmen who developed it but also the high spirit of idealism that expressed itself in these sleek, strong bodies of metal.

It’s no secret that redheads are rare—between 1 and 2 percent of the world’s population has natural red hair. Yet despite the fact that they are a genetic minority, redheads have tended to make waves in history. Alternately loved or feared, hated or admired, redheads have divided people’s opinions for centuries.

Here are some famous redheads who rocked history’s boat. They led very different lives, but most of them share the traits of being bold and unconventional people.

Erik the Red

This redheaded Viking explorer got his nickname from his fiery locks and allegedly also his fiery temper. Unwelcome in Norway and Iceland after various feuds, he discovered Greenland, which he named, and started a Viking colony there.

King Henry VIII

Who doesn’t know the story of the famously hotheaded king of England and his six wives? During his lifetime, Henry broke his nation’s ties with the Pope, founded the Church of England, and became notorious for his series of divorces (not to mention for ordering his various wives’ executions once they had fallen from favor.) He also became the father of Queen Elizabeth I.

Queen Elizabeth I

Inheriting her father’s aggressive disposition in addition to his red hair, Elizabeth made her mark on history as one of England’s most powerful and successful rulers. A survivor of royal intrigues and a strategist, Elizabeth I gave her kingdom a newfound sense of stability, independence and pride.

Barbarossa

Also known as “Red Beard the Pirate,” this Barbary pirate and later Ottoman admiral was feared and admired for the sway he held over the Mediterranean.

George Washington

Despite being characterized as a white-wig-wearing figure, Washington did actually have red hair. He tended to display a calm and self-controlled demeanor, although he did elegantly lose his temper at the Battle of Monmouth in 1778.

Winston Churchill

The famed British Prime Minister was nicknamed “copper knob” while attending school at Harrow due to his red hair. Churchill’s talent for eloquent and impassioned speeches and his ability to rally members of the public to a common cause proved indispensable to Great Britain during World War II.

Richard the Lionheart

The archetypal medieval warrior-king and enthusiastic crusader, Richard I of England is alleged to have had red hair in addition to being very tall. He spent most of his lifetime fighting.

Malcolm X

Famous Civil Rights leader Malcolm X was nicknamed “Detroit Red” due to his red hair, which derived from his Scottish ancestry. He is alleged to have disliked the color of his hair.

Mark Twain

Author and humorist Samuel L. Clemens, better known as Mark Twain, made his red hair the subject of his jokes. “While the rest of the species is descended from apes, redheads are descended from cats,” he is alleged to have quipped.

Vincent Van Gogh

One of the world’s most famous artists known for his vibrant paintings, Van Gogh sported equally vibrant red hair, which took on a particularly fiery hue in his beard.

Whether or not you think of Mary Shelley’s 1818 gothic novel or Mel Brooks’ 1974 film spoof, the name “Frankenstein” inevitably conjures up images of a mad scientist and a monster spawned from ghastly experiments on the dead. It could be written off as a work of complete horror fiction, of course—except for the fact that there is actually a Frankenstein castle (Burg Frankenstein) located in Hesse, Germany. Is there a historical connection?

The Mad Scientist

The castle was the birthplace of Johann Konrad Dippel, who would certainly qualify as a “mad scientist.” The son of a preacher, Dippel was schooled in theology but ventured into alchemy after deciding that he more or less hated organized religion. After dabbling in alchemy in Strasbourg for a year from 1695-6 he became convinced he could turn silver and mercury into gold—which he tried and failed to make a living at doing in Berlin from 1704 to 1707.

Dippel spent the rest of his life as only a mad scientist could—attempting to blend science with occultism, trying to create a “universal cure,” becoming notorious for gruesome dissection experiments and penning pamphlets about his purported esoteric knowledge. In one of his papers, he claimed that he could transfer life from one corpse to another by using a funnel. He was rumored to have robbed graves to carry out his experiments.

Needless to say Dippel made many enemies—probably enough to storm his castle with torches and pitchforks, just like you might expect in any Frankenstein-themed movie. He had become a rather infamous character in Germany. While some intellectuals admired him for his experiments and abstract musings, most ordinary folk viewed him as an evil sorcerer.

But Dippel’s life ended without any high gothic drama. Shortly after declaring that he would live until the age of 135, he was found dead in bed, and was alleged by many of his contemporaries to have been poisoned.

Where does Mary Shelley Come In?

In 1814, the famed author-to-be of Frankenstein, Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, took a tour along the Rhine accompanied by her husband, Percy Bysshe Shelley. Mary visited the town of Gernsheim, located about 10 miles from Frankenstein castle, and traveled around the surrounding region, interacting with locals.

Many people, including biographers of Mary Shelley, regard it as possible that she could have heard ghastly tales about Dippel from local people. Others theorize that she may have heard about him from the Brothers Grimm via her folklorist stepmother Mary Jane Clairmont, but this seems far less likely.

In any case, the fact that Shelley produced her famous monster novel four years after visiting Gernsheim doesn’t seem to be a complete coincidence. However Shelley never claimed that Dippel was a direct inspiration for her story.

The Facts

Some of the stories about Dippel which have been repeated over time have been embroidered into myths. Although some have claimed that he used Frankenstein castle as a base to conduct medical experiments, there is no evidence proving that Dippel returned there after his alchemy studies.

The Hessian government webpage dedicated to local castles seeks to present a more dignified view of Burg Frankenstein and distance the place—if that were possible—from the wild horror stories. (Not quite to the level of “It’s pronounced Frankensteen” –but the website does state firmly that, “Novelist Shelley was never there” and implies that the idea of the castle inspiring her novel is a “fantasy.”)  

The castle has nevertheless remained most associated with Dippel and Shelley’s novel, and has capitalized on this association over time. American servicemen stationed in Germany in the decades following World War II found the castle an ideal spot for Halloween gatherings. The spooky parties there took on a life of their own after the mid-1970s, and the castle became the venue for one of Europe’s largest Halloween festivals.

Thus thanks to Shelley’s monster—and the creepy stories still circulating about Dippel—the place has become, according to Germany’s Hessenschau news, “one of the most important cultural sites in southern Hesse.”

That tradition is on the rocks, however. The castle’s walls are crumbling. Both the castle and its restaurant are due to undergo extensive renovations, which will mean that the famed Halloween parties will cease indefinitely from 2024.

Elizabeth Johnson Jr., the final Massachusetts resident to be still considered a witch under state law, has finally been exonerated, The New York Times reports. All it took was 329 years and some very persistent eighth graders.

Last week, Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker signed the state budget. It included an amendment formally clearing Johnson of any wrongdoing — the fruits of a multiyear campaign spearheaded by civics teacher Carrie LaPierre and students at North Andover Middle School.

The Salem witch trials occurred in northeastern Massachusetts between 1692 and 1693, when around 200 locals were accused of witchcraft, with 20 executed. Johnson escaped with her life but not her reputation in 1693 after she was tried, sentenced to death and then granted a reprieve. (More than 20 members of Johnson’s family were also suspects.) 

Witch Trial Escapee

LaPierre learned about Johnson from historian Richard Hite, the author of a book about the Salem witch trials. Most Massachusetts residents accused of witchcraft (including Johnson’s own mother) had already been legally cleared, with her being the lone holdout. 

“The assumption is she had no direct descendants to push for her exoneration” LaPierre told CBC News. “She actually tried to get herself exonerated, but the general assembly didn’t take up her case.”

LaPierre sought justice for Johnson, engaging her civics students in letter-writing and outreach campaigns as they studied primary sources from the Salem witch trials, including Johnson’s own trial testimony. The crusaders forged a personal connection with the long-dead woman, whom they nicknamed “E.J.J.” When their efforts hit a stalemate, state Sen. Diana DiZoglio swooped in and offered a helping hand, introducing the key legislation and adding it to the budget bill.

Targeting Outsiders

Biographical details of Johnson are scarce, although we do know she was single and died in 1747 at age 77. Those accused of witchcraft in Puritan times — mostly women, though men were also targeted — were frequently social outsiders.

During her trial on Aug. 11, 1692, Johnson testified that another Salem woman, Martha Carrier, allegedly “perswaded her to be a witch,” according to the University of Virginia’s Salem Witch Trials Documentary Archive and Transcription Project. (False confessions were sometimes made to escape the gallows, as those who “came clean” seemingly faced better odds of survival.)

Massachusetts filmmakers who followed LaPierre and her students throughout their campaign are currently producing a documentary about Johnson.

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My favorite three-letter word in the English language? P-I-E. But though it’s one of the first words you learn as a child — and one of the simplest and shortest words in English — the pie has been around since before the existence of either the United States of America or the country of England. Pies are even older than the English language.

The origins of pie date back to the early Egyptian culture. Their pie had a honey filling encased in a crusty cake made from barley, oats, rye or wheat. One Egyptian tablet created before 2000 B.C. provided a recipe for chicken pie. Both sound pretty delicious, and it shows the nation liked both sweet and savory pies. The ancient Greeks got in on the pie business around the fifth century B.C. The pie pastry is mentioned in the plays of Aristophanes, and heeven suggests there was a vocation of pastry chef, totally separate from a baker.  

ROMAN PIES 

It was the Roman Empire that expanded on the covering of pies. They made a pastry of flour, oil and water to cover up their meat of choice, but it initially was not meant to be consumed with the savory inside — it was strictly added to preserve the juices. “Apicius,” a Roman cookbook though to have been written anywhere from the first century A.D. to the fifth century A.D., has many recipes that include a pie casing. The clever Romans even developed a cheesecake called “placenta,” which had a pastry base. Because of their development of roadways, Roman concoctions traveled across Europe with a vibrant trade system. So the world of pies expanded across the continent.  

THE ENGLISH PERFECT PIE 

However, it was Great Britain that vaulted pies to a higher level. Definitions of pie from the 1300s clearly stated it was either meat or fish covered in a pastry. Like the Romans, these coverings were meant to contain the savory food inside instead of being eaten with it. The pastry topping also served to preserve the meat or fish inside on long voyages abroad and as a space saver for ships with limited storage. This eliminated the need to bring along a cook and the live animals it would take to create the pies.  

The only knock on British pies was the terminology associated with them. The word pie was spelled “pye,” which wasn’t so bad, but the pastry covering was called a “coffyn,” more frequently spelled today as “coffin.” Many pie coverings were actually a rectangular shape, thus justifying the moniker. Still, this was definitely a term you did not want to associate with such a delicious treat, but more on that later. One bad habit when serving fowl in a pastry was to leave the bird’s legs hanging outside of the covering to make it easier to pick up. This method was certainly a crude presentation not suitable for modern sensibilities.  

During the era of knights in armor and damsels in England, pies became a focus at opulent banquets. It became vogue to remove the covering to showcase the inner delicacies. (Except for cases like Arya Stark’s revenge pie in “Game of Thrones”). The elaborate pies included in this period were sometimes outlandish. Imagine a huge pie that contained musicians or jesters. There were few limits to the lengths these medieval people would explore. But if you think about it, today’s stunts involve sometimes putting a person inside a large cake for birthdays and other events — even British nursery rhymes mentioned “Four and 20 blackbirds baked in a pie.” Some thought this just a tall tale, but royalty and aristocracy really would attempt to impress their guests by creating pies with live animals inside.  

Geoffrey Chaucer branched out to pastries with fruit contained within. He published a recipe for apple pie long before it became synonymous with moms showcasing the wholesomeness of traditional American values. In addition to the apples, ingredients included figs, pears and raisins but did not contain any sugar. (Sounds like a healthy version of pie today, using the natural sweeteners within the fruits.)  

A letter exists from a baker to Jane Seymour, third wife of Henry VIII stating, “… hope this pasty reaches you in better condition to the last one …” showing royalty continued to indulge in the delicacies.  

THE FIRST CHERRY PIE 

In the middle of the 1500s, England created a new type of pie especially for Queen Elizabeth I. The very first documented cherry pie was made specifically for the queen. No mention of her reaction to the taste is recorded, but pastries continued to be a staple in England. When pie prices became too inflated for most commoners, King Richard II issued an ordinance limiting the ceiling on the cost within London’s city limits.   

Over the years, Great Britain continued to develop many types of pies. In Scotland, they have a Scotch pie (or mutton pie). As with pies with steak or kidney fillings, mutton pie is often seasoned with copious amounts of pepper. Sometimes the inside of the pie will also include potatoes, eggs, baked beans or gravy to complement the meat.  

Even the British miners developed their own version of pies that catered to their surroundings underground called Cornish pasties. These were filled with beef or venison, potatoes and rutabagas or sometimes just fruit. Like in earlier days, these pasties would last a whole week, being rolled up in a paste made of flour and lard. Once baked, the hardened crust created a seal for the food inside. They were also easily tucked into a miner’s pocket until needed. 

PIES IN THE US 

So when did pie first travel to what would become the original 13 colonies? It may sound cliché but the first pies arrived on the Mayflower with the Pilgrims at Cape Cod in 1620. (Remember the pies made for long ship voyages?) Unfortunately, the first Thanksgiving did not mention any pie being consumed.  

Tastier pies were on the horizon, as colonial America contained such sweeteners as maple syrup, cane syrup, molasses and honey collected from imported English bees. The very first American cookbook, dated 1796, contained a recipe for “Pompkin Pudding,” which was baked in a crust. Varieties of the principal ingredients included pumpkins, blueberries, pear, apple and quince. The popularity of pies along the East Coast grew, and as the country expanded west, pies went along for the ride. The fillings of the pies grew, as well, on the westward trek with cream, custard, lemons, coconuts, blackberries, strawberries and many more.  

PIES AS WEAPONS IN THE CIVIL WAR 

When the American Civil War erupted in 1861, pies were consumed across both sides of the Mason-Dixon Line. And some citizens used people’s universal love of pie to wage the war.  

On Sept. 12, 1861, a “free colored woman” named Mrs. Welton was arrested for selling poisoned pies to Union soldiers on the streets of St. Louis, Missouri. Pittsburgh was a hotbed of poison pie incidents, as well. A resident, Mrs. Nevins, managed to dispatch her husband, a retuning soldier, via a poisoned pie. She joined another Pittsburgh woman named Grinder in garnering a sentence of death.  

Arsenic and strychnine were the principle culprits put into deadly pies. However, women in the South branched out with such death-dealing pie ingredients as ground glass and diamond dust gathered from a jeweler’s floor.  

Members of the 52^nd Massachusetts Infantry stationed in Louisiana were particular targets of female Southerners. After the reoccupation of Baton Rouge in late December 1862, this Yankee unit accidentally burned down the state capitol building. That, combined with the haughty attitudes of the Northerners, compelled the local ladies to gain a bit of revenge on the invaders. One Bay State soldier had earlier been writing home about how much he missed his mother’s custard pie. By February, 1863, he wrote home that his “captain had forbidden them to buy any pies from these Rebel women.” A comrade had “bought one yesterday but was dead today.”  

Even the elderly got in on the pie action. A grandmother in Plaquemine, Louisiana, across the Mississippi River from Baton Rouge, had come home to find her 12-year-old grandson murdered by the occupying Federals for making rifle cartridges at home. She set about to fight back the only way she knew how, which was to include some ground glass into pies she sold to soldiers on the streets in Baton Rouge. 

Not all deadly pies were intentional: Accidents caused some of the people to pass away from eating pies. On Dec. 1, 1864, a Minnesota newspaper lamented the poisoning of seven enlisted men from eating a cracker pie. Fortunately, no one died, and it was discovered “arsenic had been used by mistake for tartaric acid.” Saleratus, the precursor to baking powder, contained some dangerous properties and when not mixed right was fatal. 

THE BOSTON CREAM PIE QUESTION 

A less stomach-churning controversy over pies arose back in Boston in the mid-1800s. Today, there are not many people in the United States who have not heard of the famous Boston cream pie. But each time someone thinks they have proof of its true origin, another record is found to refute the actual year the popular pie was first made.  

Local legend has the pie being created in 1856. Claims have it being served for the grand opening of Boston’s Parker House. However, many cannot or will not explain the existence of the Dedham Cream Pie. Published recipes of the tasty Dedham, Massachusetts, pie come out around the same time, and one recipe for it was published in the city of Boston. The person documenting the Dedham dessert was a female physician and nurse.         

EMPANADAS AND CALZONES 

Eventually, the pie made its way to the Americas via different European cultures. For instance, the Spanish brought over their version of the pie, the empanada. The name literally translates into “enbreaded” or “wrapped in bread.” These treats were variously filled with meat, cheese, tomatoes or corn, among other foods. Once they crossed the sea to North and South America, many empanadas were baked but subject to being fried as well.  

Like a pastry, the dough is simply folded over the ingredients inside. The contents and shapes may vary dependent on where they are located, but the principle is the same. One city in Louisiana embraced these savory treats, dubbing them “Natchitoches meat pies.” They are served in restaurants or even at convenience stores right off the I-49 exit and come mild or spicy beef or filled with crawfish. Don’t despair if you live far away, as they are even frozen and sent across the United States boxed up.  

The Italians followed suit with a wonderful rendition of a savory pie called a calzone. It is almost like a pizza folded over, and is popular across the U.S. 

THE WAR AGAINST PIES 

In the early 1900s, pies went from being used in warfare to being the focus of a war against them. As the country embarked on a nationwide health movement, pie became the focus of a smear campaign. Ladies Home Journal published two articles condemning the popular dessert, with the author, Sarah Tyson Rorer, stating: “The inside of a pie is injurious [and] pies and cakes ae indigestible.”  

Since the 1950s, though, pie has returned to being the phenomenon it deserves to be treated as. The range of fillings has only increased over the years, including Key lime, potato chips and Oreos. So the next time you dig into a pie of any flavor, think about the long journey it took over centuries, oceans and continents to get to you.

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We’ve had public schools in America since before we actually had America. On April 23, 1635, the Boston Latin School opened in Boston. (Its alumni include John Hancock and Samuel Adams.)

We haven’t, however, always had uniform approaches to schooling. For instance, Massachusetts continued to lead the way for public education, requiring children to attend school in 1852. It was 1918 when Mississippi finally signed on, making it universal across the country.

Of course, many children attended school before it was required. Sometimes they attended a lot of it. New York City schools were open 248 days per year in 1842, compared to their current 180.  (Most states go with 180 today. There are variations. North Carolina has a bit more at 185; Colorado sets its minimum at just 160.) Even more impressively, those days were stretched out over an incredible 49 weeks. This wasn’t uncommon in cities back then. Philadelphia actually topped New York, with a reported 251.5 days.

So what happened to all those days, particularly during the summer? There were two key developments, both a bit haphazard but each with a lasting impact.

Looking for the Lowest Common Denominator

As the 19th century progressed, there was an increasing desire for something approaching a uniform approach to public education, first on a more regional level, then on a national one. (For instance, in 1874 New York City enacted its first compulsory attendance law for primary grades.)

So let’s say a city wants every school to offer the same number of days, but finds different neighborhoods use different amounts. If you force a school to offer more days, additional money is needed. If you allow a school to reduce its days, your costs go down. The result: a shrinking school year.

So days needed to be cut. Which ones would go?

Beat the Heat

For New York, there was definitely a time when nobody wanted to be in a crowded school: summer. As modern New Yorkers can tell you, even with air conditioning the Big Apple is a rough place come August. Indeed, city dwellers with money then (as now) often fled to cooler locations in the summer and took their kids with them. That made it an obvious choice for New York: Shut down in summer.

In metropolitan areas in general, in fact, summer was a logical time for a break. (Air conditioning wasn’t invented until 1902 and it would be additional decades before most people had ready access to it.) So as the 19th century neared a conclusion and there came a push to have a standard approach to school schedules, the urban areas already had a plan — and the rural schools came to accept it.

Which suited city more than country.

Not for Farmers

Did summer break benefit less-developed areas? Not really.

After all, a summer vacation is decidedly not based on an agrarian schedule. When do farmers need the most labor? Typically they need it planting in the spring and then they need it again harvesting in the fall. There’s still work to do between those seasons, of course, but a lengthy summer vacation clearly wasn’t ideal for agriculture.

Or, arguably, for education in general.

The Summer Slide

Many educators argue we shouldn’t have a long summer vacation. Research suggests a “summer slide,” as lengthy educational gaps cause students to regress, particularly if they come from disadvantaged backgrounds. (After all, wealthy parents can ensure their children attend enriching programs all summer, while those struggling just to pay the bills probably can’t do the same for their kids.)

Other experts push back against this theory. Unfortunately, they aren’t so much defending an extended summer as indicting our educational system as whole: They believe it’s not that students regress; it’s that they failed to learn in the first place.

Leading to the question: Is there a better way? After all, for some countries, including Australia and Japan, it’s year-round schooling.

All Year Long

Let’s operate on the assumption that a year-round (or balanced calendar) school would have the same number of days as our current approach. With this new schedule, a school might have a break each quarter — say, two or three weeks — with that time off then subtracted from the standard summer vacation.

Why do it? California’s Department of Education noted it could potentially allow for more students to attend a school:

“The advantage of a multitrack system is that it expands the seating capacity of a school facility. For example, if a school with a seating capacity of 1,000 uses a four-track system, it could potentially enroll 1,333 students, increasing its capacity by 33 percent. In practice, four-track plans typically expand the seating capacity by about 25 percent.”

Many parents also support it. Back in 2013, columnist LZ Granderson laid out his argument in The New York Times. Discussing how Duke University’s Harris Cooper, an education professor and chairman of the psychology and neuroscience department, had found kids can forget months worth of math and reading during summer, Granderson concluded, “This is why I equate summer vacations with putting change in a pocket that has a small hole in it. The longer the problem is ignored, the bigger the problem becomes.”

There are critics of this approach, too. They argue a shortened summer could make it difficult for students to get summer jobs and receive that work experience and income. Some argue students simply need a break. Psychologist Lisa Damour noted the pandemic only emphasized that kids, particularly teens, require sufficient time to recover from a school year.

“[I]t’s important to remember that building psychological muscle is a lot like building physical muscle,” she wrote the Times in 2021. “Any kid who has spent time in a gym knows that you gain strength when a period of exertion is followed by an interval of sufficient recovery.”

Teachers may also prefer the longer summer. It allows for greater time to revamp lesson plans and, quite frankly, because they may need summer jobs of their own — a reminder the budgeting issues that shrank our school years in the 19th century are still very much with us today.

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In 1615 Japanese warlord Tokugawa Ieyasu surveyed his last battlefield, the blood-soaked ground of Tennoji near Osaka. He’d seen much conflict across the width and breadth of the empire, but at age 72 his work was done. All
of Japan had been brought under consolidated military rule—his rule, a fact made clear to all when the emperor named him shogun, meaning roughly “barbarian-quelling generalissimo.”

Yet Ieyasu hadn’t reached this peak by himself. The foundation for a unified Japan had been laid by his peers Oda Nobunaga and Toyotomi Hideyoshi. That Ieyasu not only knew but also fought both against and alongside his predecessors makes the story of Japan’s bloody unification unique in the annals of military history.

Nobunaga The Conqueror

Nobunaga was a minor daimyo (feudal lord) when he embarked on his own path to greatness. Born within the precincts of Nagoya in 1534, he wrested leadership of the Oda clan when his father died in 1551. Through a series of campaigns concluding in 1559 he established control of Owari Province, the heavily fortified, rice-rich base of operations for all that followed.

Gauging the Oda clan weakened by the effort, the neighboring Imagawa clan struck, capturing castles at Washizu and Marune on the periphery of Nobunaga’s territory. With the visionary goal of seizing the imperial seat of power at Kyoto and declaring himself shogun, Imagawa Yoshimoto marched at the head of 25,000 men. While the Imagawa army rested in a distant gorge, Nobunaga force marched 3,000 Oda warriors into position and ambushed the far larger enemy force in a legendary victory that boosted his and his clan’s prestige.

Samurai (Japan’s hereditary military nobility) flocked to his banner. Among them was an ambitious peasant named Kinoshita Tokichiro, who was destined for things far greater than his humble birth suggested. Generations of Japanese would come to know him as Toyotomi Hideyoshi.

Nobunaga’s victory at the 1560 Battle of Okehazama sent the Imagawa into steep decline, weakening the clan’s hold over lesser daimyo and allowing them to be poached by Nobunaga. Among the spoils were Matsudaira Moto-
yasu, his lands and his small but capable army. Motoyasu would become known to history as Tokugawa Ieyasu. Thus by 1561 all three warlords who would forge a unified Japan had surfaced in the historical record.

That same year, with the death of a key rival, Nobunaga moved on Mino Province, due north of his base in Owari. Capping off that campaign in 1567, he seized Inabayama Castle, an imposing fortification more than 1,000 feet above the valley floor with clear lines of sight in all directions. Renaming it Gifu Castle, Nobunaga made it his headquarters, while a network of lower castles barracked his growing army. As his power grew, Nobunaga adorned the fortified complex with increasingly luxurious palace grounds at the foot of the mountain. It remained his primary residence until the completion of Azuchi Castle in 1579.

With Mino secured and his forces ensconced around Gifu, Nobunaga marched on Omi Province, the gateway to Kyoto. His ostensible intentions were to install Ashikaga Yoshiaki as shogun to resolve a succession dispute within the latter’s failing shogunate.

This was Nobunaga’s moment, and he clearly recognized it as such. His troops effortlessly rolled across Omi and entered Kyoto in 1568, bringing him instant fame for the rapidity and decisiveness with which he’d struck.

Securing the support of the new shogun—who, after all, owed his succession to the Oda clan—Nobunaga headed north into Echizen Province in 1570 to take on the allied Asakura and Azai clans. Though he faced an initial setback from a growing anti-Oda alliance, by 1573 he had crushed both the Asakura and Azai, seizing their respective Ichijodani and Odani castles and forcing their leaders to commit seppuku (ritual suicide).

Nobunaga then turned his wrath on the Ikko-ikki, a militant Buddhist sect that had joined the doomed opposition forces and fought him in the past. Pitting an army of religious zealots against Nobunaga’s seasoned samurai warriors, the resulting campaign featured prolonged sieges of Nagashima Castle and the fortified temple complexes of Mount Hiei and Ishiyama Hongan-ji, the main Ikko-ikki stronghold at Osaka. While the sect survived the onslaught, it lost all momentum and was eradicated as an effective armed force.

By 1573 the shogun, Yoshiaki, had tired of being a puppet and threw his support behind Nobunaga’s enemies. In response the mighty warlord deposed the thankless Yoshiaki. Having made himself the most powerful daimyo in all Japan, Nobunaga inevitably clashed with contemporary rivals. He proved equal to the task. Conflict with the potent Takeda clan, for example, all but ended after the Takeda rashly besieged Tokugawa-aligned Nagashino Castle in 1575, prompting a forced march by Oda and Tokugawa warriors to relieve its defenders. In the resulting battle Nobunaga’s and Ieyasu’s allied forces decimated Takeda’s vaunted cavalry corps with what was arguably history’s first recorded use of volley fire by massed firearms.

With these victories Nobunaga, with clear designs on further conquest, secured control of central Honshu. He had refused several official titles offered by the deposed shogun, leaving no doubt who was really in charge. But treachery waited in the wings.

In 1582 one of Nobunaga’s subordinate generals, Akechi Mitsuhide, directed his army to surround Honno-ji Temple, where the daimyo was enjoying a tea ceremony with only his bodyguard and servants in attendance. The subsequent skirmish was fierce, but Nobunaga was trapped and committed seppuku rather than suffer the shame of capture.

To keep his head from falling into the traitor’s hands, he ordered his page to set the temple ablaze around them.

Thus ended the life of Japan’s most auspicious military leader to date. It remains unclear what motivated Mitsuhide to rebel against his liege. What is clear is that the general sought to turn the murder into a coup, sending out letters entreating the Mori clan to join him.

Hideyoshi, out east pressing the Mori on Nobunaga’s behalf, promptly terminated his campaign and returned to Kyoto like an avenging angel. Defeating Mitsuhide days later at the Battle of Yamazaki, Hideyoshi then stepped into the shoes of his late patron as leader of the consolidated forces.

hideyoshi the Former Peasant

Born in Nakamura to peasants in 1536, Hideyoshi blazed the most remarkable path to success recorded in the Sengoku period. His father had served among the ashigaru—peasant foot soldiers who constituted the rank and file of the samurai armies. While many legends obscure Hideyoshi’s upbringing, he is thought to have been initially subordinate to the Imagawa before absconding with funds entrusted to him by that clan. By 1558, however, Hideyoshi was firmly in the employ of Nobunaga.

Nobunaga must have divined something special in the lowborn ashigaru, as he entrusted Hideyoshi with ever increasing responsibility, such as repairing fortifications and negotiating on his master’s behalf. The relatively easy 1561 seizure of Inabayama Castle is thought to have reflected Hideyoshi’s efforts, and by 1568 he was one of Nobunaga’s favorite generals. In 1573, following several successes, including a successful rearguard action that shielded his lord’s withdrawal from Echizen Province, Hideyoshi was made a daimyo in his own right, and the Oda clan granted him three districts in Omi.

His steady ascension of the ranks put Hideyoshi in precisely the right place after Nobunaga’s 1582 assassination. Having avenged his benefactor’s death, he assumed command of the largest Japanese army ever assembled. Perhaps more important, Hideyoshi shared Nobunaga’s vision for a unified Japan.

In a bold move Hideyoshi ordered the construction of a massive new fortress at Osaka. Built atop the very ashes of Hongan-ji Temple, in which Nobunaga had perished, the fortress represented an unambiguous statement of intent. Osaka Castle would remain the headquarters of the Toyotomi clan until its destruction in 1615. Having made all necessary logistical arrangements to see the project through, Hideyoshi put his army in order and drafted plans for continued conquest—though he first had to tie up a few loose ends.

Not everyone was happy a former peasant had assumed control of Oda’s armies. Among the disgruntled were Nobunaga’s surviving second son, Nobukatsu, who convinced the powerful Ieyasu of the legitimacy of his hereditary claim. The succession crisis precipitated inconclusive battles at Komaki and Nagakute. While the remarkable military leaders never directly faced one another in combat, Hideyoshi worked behind the scenes to inhibit Ieyasu’s allies, ultimately forcing the latter’s Tokugawa clan to come to terms. Ieyasu remained Hideyoshi’s ally, albeit a reluctant one, for the rest of the latter’s extraordinary life.

Ineligible to receive the title shogun due to his lowly birth, Hideyoshi arranged to have himself named kampaku, imperial regent, providing him necessary legitimacy. Under the auspices of that political mantle Hideyoshi then devoted his attentions to achieving Nobunaga’s goal. In 1585 he seized Kii Province, crushing the warrior monks of Negoro-ji (onetime allies of the extinct Ikko-ikki), burning neighboring Ota Castle to the ground and slaughtering anyone who escaped the conflagration.

Using Kii as a base, Hideyoshi sent a 113,000-man invasion force to Shikoku, the smallest of Japan’s main islands, where he crushed the ruling Chosokabe clan following a 26-day siege of Ichinomiya Castle. Expanding in multiple directions at once, he simultaneously attacked Etchu Province to the north with 100,000 men.

Having completed these conquests by 1586, Hideyoshi dispatched his half-brother to invade Kyushu, Japan’s third largest island. Meanwhile, Hideyoshi himself, with some 200,000 men, conquered all of western Honshu in a drive to link up with his brother. By year’s end the siblings met in Satsuma Province, at the southern tip of Kyushu, where they forced 30,000 warriors of the Shimazu clan to surrender.

That left only one major opposition clan: the Hojo of Honshu’s Kanto Region, centered on the fortified village of Edo (present-day Tokyo). Repositioning his forces, Hideyoshi launched the inevitable assault on the Hojo in 1590. In the final showdown at Odawara Castle his 220,000 troops faced some 82,000 Hojo defenders. By then Hideyoshi’s power was undisputed, and the end was never in doubt.

After a three-month siege Hideyoshi compelled the Hojo to surrender by means of an ingenious ruse. While investing Odawara, he ordered the construction of a new fortress, Ishigakiyama Ichiya, beyond a distant tree line. When its walls were complete—a feat accomplished in a mere 80 days—Hideyoshi had his men fell the intervening trees. Beholding what appeared to be an enemy fortress built overnight, the starving defenders lost their will to fight and surrendered. With that, all of Japan was under Hideyoshi’s dominion.

Yet unification created a new set of problems. The empire had been at war with itself for 123 years. Conflict was all Japan’s warrior class had known, thus the sudden arrival of peace generated tension.

Absent combat, how was an ambitious young samurai to achieve greatness? With internal warfare outlawed, how could one increase the lands of family and clan?

The samurai grew restless, nowhere more so than on Kyushu, where most warriors had surrendered rather than confront the massive invasion force. Just as threatening to Hideyoshi, who was a staunch Zen Buddhist, was the thoroughly foreign Christian religion practiced by large numbers of the Kyushu samurai.

The cunning kampaku soon devised a plan to rid himself of the most troublesome samurai while consolidating his rule back home. Hideyoshi fomented a foreign war, ostensibly affording an opportunity for the quarrelsome warriors to secure both lands and honor. In 1592, with the stated goal of conquering China and India, he launched back-to-back invasions of Joseon Korea.

Though the operations were poorly planned, Hideyoshi’s armies boasted significant tactical advantages over the Korean forces they encountered and thus pushed rapidly north, brushing aside all resistance. Ultimately, however, inadequate logistics, an ineffectual navy and intervention by the Ming Chinese undid the exertions of his soldiers. By the time Hideyoshi died in 1598, the Japanese had withdrawn to a string of fortifications along Korea’s southern coast, where they hunkered down, waiting for a chance to return home. Hideyoshi’s death, while a boon to the troops enduring privation on the continent, bred problems of its own. The kampaku left behind a single male heir, 5-year-old Hideyori. On realizing his life was ebbing, Hideyoshi had sought to ensure his toddler son’s rise to power by drawing chief allies and daimyos into a balanced regency of Hideyori.

Notwithstanding the regency or his oath to the dying kampaku, Ieyasu—the former vassal to Nobunaga and reluctant ally to Hideyoshi—wasn’t about to stand by and allow a child to rule Japan.

Ieyasu The Rebellious Vassal

Ieyasu was born in 1542 at Okazaki Castle, southeast of Nagoya. In 1548, amid the violent interclan politics of the time, the Oda abducted 6-year-old Ieyasu and held him hostage. Nobunaga’s father, Nobuhide, threatened to kill Ieyasu if the Tokugawa refused to sever all ties with the Imagawa. Though Ieyasu’s father refused, Nobuhide didn’t carry through with his threat. Had he done so, Japan’s history might have turned out very differently.

Ieyasu’s captivity, by first the Oda and then the Imagawa, lasted until he was 14, though as a potential future ally he was reportedly treated well. Once released to assume leadership of his clan, Ieyasu remained subordinate to the Imagawa and even led forces against the Oda for a time, by all accounts commanding well. The final defeat of the Imagawa in 1560 enabled him to assert a measure of independence, which he did by forming a lifelong alliance with Nobunaga.

Ieyasu was far more earnest in service to the Oda than to Hideyoshi, though why remains unclear. Perhaps he was disdainful of the latter’s humble origins, or maybe he foresaw he would have to contend with Hideyoshi for dominance.

Following Hideyoshi’s rise to power and the inconclusive power struggles that followed, Ieyasu negotiated an alliance with the former in 1585. Their combined victory at Odawara in 1590 left the whole of Hojo territory to be distributed as the kampaku saw fit.

Wisely uncomfortable with having Ieyasu so close to his base at Osaka, Hideyoshi offered him the eight provinces of the Kanto Region in exchange for lands near Nagoya. Ieyasu agreed, taking ownership of the rich plains east of Mt. Fuji. That in turn provided Ieyasu with the physical distance he would need to formulate his own plans for domination.

In the wake of Hideyoshi’s 1598 death Ieyasu led an army west to Fushimi Castle, near Kyoto, within a day’s march of Osaka Castle, where the appointed heir, Hideyori, was being raised. This alarmed the other regents, who formed an alliance to oppose the potential usurper. The aggressive moves prompted a nationwide split into a western faction, supporting young Hideyori’s regency, and an eastern faction, allied with the Tokugawa clan.

In 1600 Ieyasu marched his forces north in a preemptive strike on the Uesugi clan, steadfast allies of Hideyori. Before he could land the blow, however, he received word a western army was fast approaching and turned to meet the greater threat. In the subsequent Battle of Sekigahara his 89,000-man eastern army met the 82,000-man western army in a fog-shrouded, confused engagement.

Amid the fighting Ieyasu’s preeminence as a strategist became evident, and a sizeable portion of his opponent’s force defected, leading to a decisive defeat of the westerners.

Over the next few days the victors hunted down and killed all surviving opposition leaders, leaving Ieyasu the master of all Japan.

Showdown at Osaka Castle

Though Ieyasu was declared shogun in 1603, a final act remained in the saga of Tokugawa hegemony. In 1614 young Hideyori, still alive despite so much death on his behalf, rallied dispossessed ronin (masterless samurai) and his late father’s onetime supporters into a force with which he intended to recover his birthright. Refusing Ieyasu’s order to abandon Osaka Castle, Hideyori instead prepared for war. Emerging from official retirement, Ieyasu led a 164,000-man army against the 120,000 westerners holding out inside the vast bastion, surrounding the fortress in January 1615.

The resulting siege of Osaka Castle is noteworthy for the presence of artillery on both sides—a rare sight on medieval Japanese battlefields. The shogunate fielded more than 300 pieces, including light Japanese cannons and larger, long-range European guns. Having failed to breach the outer walls by direct assault over the course of six weeks, Ieyasu resorted to a continuous, heavy bombardment and within three days negotiated a cease-fire. Yet Hideyori continued his saber-rattling.

The impasse stretched into summer when Ieyasu returned and, in a signal victory south of Osaka at Tennoji, solidified his reign and that of his descendants. It was Ieyasu’s final battle, and with it he cemented the unified Japan we recognize today.

Contemporary Japanese acknowledge with reverence the work of their three great unifiers. Oda Nobunaga, Toyotomi Hideyoshi and Tokugawa Ieyasu took a continually warring mass of feudal domains and mercilessly hammered them into a nation.

In present-day Japan, the only country in the world with a pacifist constitution, there is no pining for a return to those bellicose times, when wars never ceased, and samurai held the power of life and death over everyone. Yet there remains a very real sense Japan would not be the nation it is today had it not passed through such a fiery crucible. Thus its people maintain tremendous pride in the accomplishments of these three men, uttering their names with all the respect and admiration they earned by conquest at the edge of the sword. MH

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The cap badge is a special part of British Army headdress that took shape in the late 1800s and continues to be worn today. Each regiment of the British Army has a rich historical lineage filled with accomplishments and traditions reflected by these unique badges.

Cap badges have a long and complex history. The concept behind their creation dates back to the Middle Ages, when noblemen used various heraldic insignia, colors and symbols to identify themselves and rally troops under their command on chaotic medieval battlefields. In 1645, Oliver Cromwell’s New Model Army introduced red coats and silver uniform badges to Parliamentarian soldiers which created newfound unity among previously diverse local troops. In years following, regiments were privately raised and funded by colonels, who designed their own insignia. In 1751, King George II issued a Royal Warrant in an attempt to bring regimental symbols under royal control; however, this effort was not entirely successful. In 1806, regimental devices began to be regulated by an Inspector of Regimental Colours, an office controlled since then by the heraldic College of Arms. The ultimate approval of designs, mottoes and crests worn in the army has since rested under the authority of the British monarchy.

How british cap badges stay unique

Despite being overseen by royal authority, regiments were allowed to retain their individuality. Indeed, the British Army has shown an exceptional ability to preserve what might be called the “birthright” of individual regiments despite amalgamations and changes made over time.

Every cap badge is intended to embody the essence of its regiment. The anatomy of a cap badge can include:

• Symbols or wording representing battle honors
• Ancient or heraldic imagery
• A motto (often in Latin, but also in other languages such as English, German, or French)
• Symbols denoting the duty or expertise of a particular regiment
• Mythological figures or beasts

So how did regimental insignia come to be worn on caps? During the 1800s, the British Army underwent a military fashion crisis that pitted style against practicality. Average soldiers endured a changing series of conspicuous headpieces including shakos, spiked cloth helmets modeled after the uninviting German Pickelhaube and even an infamous, mushroom-shaped forage cap known as the Brodrick. The Brodrick was universally despised by wearers due to its unflattering appearance—so much so that a 1906 news report claimed that one British soldier committed suicide due to his humiliation at having to wear it. During this period of wardrobe upheaval, the army realized it was possible to display regimental crests on helmet plates. This was done and eventually crests came to be displayed on caps.

When did british soldiers First wear Cap badges?

The first cap badges were worn by British soldiers in 1897 and conformed to a general style in 1898. The advent of khaki service dress brought with it a variety of peaked khaki caps, which tended to be more practical, comfortable and pleasing to the eye. At last, the army had developed a viable solution to the hat crisis—and had also found a way to place an identifying regimental mark on soldiers’ headgear. This evolution resulted in the standard modern British Army cap badge.

During World Wars I and II, the majority of cap badges were made from copper-alloy metal, with many “bimetal” versions also made from brass and white metal. Due to metal shortages during World War II, the British resorted to producing cap badges from plastic. These are known as plastic economy badges.

Cap badges became a source of pride for soldiers. With elegant designs echoing medieval heraldry, the badges provide a visible connection to a soldier’s unique regiment, with all its glory, quirks, and traditions. The badge bridges the soldier’s own service with the heroism of predecessors in past wars. Regimental insignia on the cap badge has provided soldiers with a sense of belonging to a distinctive, yet shared, British tradition. Cap badge designs have also often been reproduced as “sweetheart badges” to be worn by loved ones.

MOnty’s cap badges

During World War II, Bernard Law Montgomery—the first British general to wear battledress—became famous for wearing the regimental cap badges of soldiers under his command as a way of identifying with his troops and showing pride in their achievements. Montgomery’s unorthodox manner of wearing cap badges did not conform to army dress regulations and was disapproved of by military officials, but he won his cap badge battle.

Montgomery’s example bears witness to the fact that cap badges are versatile and can be worn on not only on peaked caps, but a variety of other military headdress including berets and slouch hats. Cap badges are also worn on turbans by Sikh service members.

A distinctive sight during both world wars, cap badges continue to be worn by soldiers in the United Kingdom and Commonwealth nations today.

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In June 1675 warriors of the Wampanoag sachem, or elected chief, Metacom—known to New England colonists as King Philip—laid siege to the Plymouth Colony town of Swansea, killing settlers, burning homes and igniting a conflict known today as King Philip’s War. Although the murder trial and execution of a trio of Wampanoags by the English had been a pretext for the war, tensions had long been building between the tribe and colonists in Plymouth and adjacent Massachusetts Bay. “The pent-up passions of many years, fanned into flame, were past suppression,” one observer later noted.

Bordering Massachusetts Bay and Plymouth to the south and west was the tiny colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations (united by royal charter in 1663). Of all the English colonies it was the smallest in population, the most divided in sentiment and the least effectively organized for the carrying out of any public policy. Yet it was at this point that Rhode Island, which had been excluded from the military alliance of the United Colonies of New England, was thrust into conflict with the powerful native Narragansetts and their fellow Algonquians the Wampanoags.

Settlers in Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, as well as those in the United Colonies of Massachusetts Bay, Plymouth and Connecticut, all sought to keep the Narragansetts—who occupied most of present-day Rhode Island—neutral in the war and prevent them from joining forces with Metacom. To that end colonial officials, at the urging of Rhode Island founder Roger Williams, held several councils with the Narragansetts and their sachem, Canonchet (or Quanonchet). The Narragansetts also realized war with the English would be a disaster, and Canonchet assured the colonists he had not allied with Metacom.

During the summer of 1675, however, Wampanoag refugees drifted south into Narragansett territory, and Canonchet gave them shelter. In response to what they felt was a violation of Narragansett neutrality, the commissioners of the United Colonies met in Boston in late September 1675. In attendance were several Narragansett sachems, including Canonchet, who agreed to turn over the enemies of the English they were harboring by October 28.

When asked to turn over Indian fugitives from the brewing King Philip’s War, Narragansett sachem Canonchet shot back, ‘No, not a Wampanoag nor the paring of a Wampanoag’s nail’

But when that day arrived, Canonchet didn’t turn over the refugees. When asked if he would surrender them, the sachem reportedly answered, “No, not a Wampanoag nor the paring of a Wampanoag’s nail.” Although the Narragansetts still insisted they had no formal alliance with Metacom, they would not betray their fellow Algonquians to appease the English.

Colonial fears of an alliance between the Wampanoags and Narragansetts became so great that on November 2 the commissioners of the United Colonies took the extraordinary step of authorizing a pre-emptive attack against the Narragansetts to knock them out of the war before they had a chance to join forces with Metacom. Canonchet’s claims of neutrality were not good enough. “In the excited state of mind that existed among both magistrate and people of New England at the time, neutrality was impossible,” wrote George Ellis and John Morris in their 1906 history of the conflict. Rhode Islanders were oblivious to the coming invasion.

The commissioners selected Governor Josiah Winslow of Plymouth to command the colonial army. Massachusetts provided 527 militiamen (under Maj. Samuel Appleton), Connecticut 315 (under Governor Robert Treat) and Plymouth 158 (under Maj. William Bradford). Some 150 allied Mohegan and Pequot warriors from Connecticut accompanied the column. The officers chose “Smith’s Castle,” Richard Smith Jr.’s fortified trading post in Cocumscussoc (present-day Wickford, R.I.), as the rallying point and forward supply base.

While the colonists were preparing for war, the Narragansetts were settling in for the winter. They established their principal settlement in the Great Swamp—thousands of acres of wetlands, open marshes, forest and impenetrable undergrowth roughly a dozen miles southwest of Smith’s Castle. The settlement was huge for an American Indian village. Spanning anywhere from 3 to 6 acres, it held some 500 lodges sheltering the Narragansett warriors, the Wampanoag refugees and thousands of women, children and older men.

The Narragansett palisade had a chink in its armor. As one period chronicler noted after the battle, ‘They had not quite finished the said work’ before the English attacked

Around the settlement the Narragansetts erected a defensive palisade of logs set vertically into the ground with an inner rampart of stacked stone and clay. While the tribe had constructed such fortified villages long before the arrival of English settlers, this one was particularly stout. The Narragansetts built blockhouses at intervals along the perimeter wall to create interlocking fields of fire at every approach. As a final measure they arranged felled trees outside the wall as a defensive abatis to slow the advance of any attacking force. Yet the palisade had a chink in its armor. As one period chronicler noted after the battle, “They had not quite finished the said work” before the English attacked.

The Massachusetts Bay and Plymouth regiments of the colonial army arrived at Smith’s Castle on December 13. Five days later they united with the Connecticut militiamen and their tribal allies at Jireh Bull’s recently ransacked farm in Pettaquamscutt, 7 miles to the south. The winter of 1675–76 was brutal even by New England standards. In Narragansett country 2-foot-deep snow with drifts up to 3 feet covered the ground. When Winslow’s men reached the smoldering ruins of Bull’s farmhouse, they went into bivouac—without tents.

That night Winslow held a council of war with his officers. The army was in a precarious position. They were deep in Narragansett country, short on provisions in the midst of winter, and the men lay exposed to the elements. Had a Narragansett informer with the English name Peter Freeman not betrayed the location of his tribe, the colonists would have had no idea where to find their adversaries. Furthermore, Freeman had agreed to lead the army to the fortified village in the Great Swamp, about 8 miles west of Bull’s homestead. Having come that far, faced with the choice of attacking or retreating, Winslow chose to attack.

Before dawn on Sunday, December 19, the largest army ever assembled by the United Colonies marched off to find the Narragansett stronghold. A Massachusetts company under Capt. Samuel Moseley led the vanguard, followed by the remainder of the Massachusetts regiment. The smaller Connecticut and Plymouth regiments brought up the rear, while the Mohegan and Pequot scouts screened the army’s flanks.

Aware of the approaching English, the Narragansetts initially chose not to contest their advance. Then, shortly after noon, the lead elements of the army were ambushed not far from the Narragansett stronghold. After firing a volley, the warriors retreated inside “ostentatiously” by the principal entrance. But Freeman led the Massachusetts companies around to the right, directly to an unfinished section of the palisade. While a blockhouse guarded that section of the wall, and a large log spanned the gap, no abatis of felled trees obstructed the approach. In another stroke of good fortune for the English, the bitterly cold temperatures had frozen the normally swampy ground solid, granting them good footing over terrain that in warmer temperatures would have been an impassable quagmire.

On spotting the gap, the three Massachusetts companies in the vanguard rushed in without conducting reconnaissance or waiting for the remainder of the army to advance. Their field officers paid a heavy price for such impulsiveness, as on entering the fort, the men were raked by a deadly enfilading fire. Captain Isaac Johnson was slain outside the palisade, while Capt. Nathaniel Davenport entered the fort only to be killed by a withering volley that decimated his company. The two other Massachusetts companies entering the fray were similarly battered.

Stunned by the ferocity of the Narragansett defense, the Massachusetts men poured from the gap in retreat, Capt. Samuel Gardner barely gaining the swamp before being shot dead. Just then Maj. Appleton arrived in their midst. “They run!” he shouted, seeking to rally his men. “They run!” Appleton then led the Massachusetts troops into the breach once more. Again the Narragansetts poured musket fire into the attackers, but the English pressed forward. Driving into the fort, they passed the point where enfilading fire from the blockhouses could reach them. Waiting Connecticut troops, who were taking heavy fire from the walls and blockhouses, then forced the gap, followed by the two Plymouth companies.

The English surged forward, pushing the Narragansetts deeper into the village. The warriors continued to resist, pouring fire on the militiamen from all directions, many attackers taking shots to the back from defenders atop the palisade. The soldiers set fire to a lodge or two, and soon the village was ablaze. As the Narragansett powder supplies ran short, the resistance collapsed.

What followed was not war, but murder.

As Narragansett women, children and older men fled the burning village, the advancing English indiscriminately cut down scores of them with musket and sword. “The shrieks and cries of the women and children, the yelling of the warriors, exhibited a most horrible and appalling scene,” one participant recalled. Survivors fled into the brutally cold winter night. To screen their escape, warriors remained outside the palisade to snipe at any English foolish enough to go in pursuit.

Though the militiamen had won the battle, they were the midst of enemy territory and surrounded by a dangerous foe. Furthermore, they were out of provisions and had not eaten all day. Temperatures were dropping, and the men were exhausted from lack of sleep, having marched all morning before fighting a four-hour battle. Winslow’s aide, Capt. Benjamin Church—an experienced Indian fighter—suggested the army stay the night in the village. That way the men could gather what supplies remained, cook a meal, treat their dozens of wounded and get a good night’s sleep in the shelter of the blockhouses before returning to Smith’s Castle. But a certain doctor accompanying the expedition insisted the wounded be kept moving, or they would grow stiff and be difficult to transport. With few good options, Winslow chose to heed the doctor’s advice and reject Church’s suggestion. Then, despite his men’s desperate need for the food stored in the Narragansett lodges, he ordered the village razed. Not until dusk did he start his depleted army on the long march back to Smith’s Castle.

The journey proved as horrific as Church had predicted. As the soldiers trudged through the deep snowdrifts, the temperatures plummeted further. Despite the doctor’s counsel, nearly two dozen wounded succumbed during the retreat

The journey proved as horrific as Church had predicted. As the soldiers trudged through the deep snowdrifts, the temperatures plummeted further. Despite the doctor’s counsel, nearly two dozen wounded succumbed during the retreat. After an 18-mile forced march the main body of the army finally reached Smith’s Castle at 2 a.m. Winslow and a smaller contingent got turned around in the dark and didn’t arrive for another five hours. But the famished, exhausted soldiers weren’t out of the woods yet, as the castle was out of food.

Soon after the English marched out, Narragansetts began returning to their settlement, only to find the bodies of their kin littering the ground and their food stores largely destroyed. After gathering what supplies and provisions remained, they abandoned the village. From the Great Swamp they traveled north through the freezing cold to seek shelter among friendly tribes in western Massachusetts. Estimates of Narragansett casualties at the Great Swamp Fight vary wildly from a handful to hundreds of warriors killed. “Although badly hurt by the English raid, the Narragansett threat had not been extinguished,” wrote Len Travers and Sheila McIntyre of the Colonial Society of Massachusetts. “In fact, the colonists’ actions transformed the formerly neutral survivors into committed enemies.”

At Smith’s Castle the timely arrival of a supply ship sent by the United Colonies spared the army from starvation. Still, English casualties in what was remembered as the Great Swamp Fight were fearful. More than 70 militiamen were either killed immediately or died of their wounds. Another 150 were wounded but survived. Thus nearly one in four Englishmen was a casualty, a testament to the ferocity of the Narragansett defense. Casualties among the officers were particularly appalling. Half of the 14 men commanding militia companies were slain on the field or soon died of their wounds, three each from Massachusetts and Connecticut, and one from Plymouth. The Connecticut regiment had been so severely mauled that it was forced to withdraw from the campaign, over the protests of the other colonies. Winslow did not report Mohegan and Pequot casualties.

Some historians have suggested the Narragansetts purposely left a section of their palisade unfinished, then allowed the English to capture the traitorous Peter Freeman so he might lead them to the killing zone the defenders had established. Such a strategy seems overly complicated and fraught with danger, however. Without Freeman’s help the English wouldn’t have been able to find the enemy settlement, let alone exploit the gap in the palisade. It seems improbable the Narragansetts would prepare such an elaborate fortification to defend their families and food stores only to have the English led to its very gates.

Given the casualties suffered during the Great Swamp Fight, the withdrawal of the Connecticut contingent and the poor condition of survivors, Winslow had no choice but to hold position at Smith’s Castle until the colonies sent sufficient reinforcements for him to resume the offensive. Not until late January 1676 was the army strong enough to retake the field. After leaving Rhode Island, the colonists marched into western Massachusetts in a fruitless search for the Narragansetts, who had withdrawn deep into the wilderness. Again the English nearly starved before Winslow abandoned the campaign.

Meanwhile, the vengeful Narragansetts pursued alliances with other tribes, and by March they were ready to take the offensive. The United Colonies had launched their winter campaign without a formal notice of war, so residents of Rhode Island were unprepared for the coming storm. While rogue Narragansetts had attacked individual settlers, the colony had largely escaped the destruction experienced by Massachusetts and Plymouth. Thanks to the pre-emptive English attack in the Great Swamp, however, the Rhode Island settlers and Narragansetts were soon embroiled in a war they didn’t want.

Retribution was swift and deadly. On March 17 Narragansett warriors entered deserted Warwick, burning the settlement to the ground. Residents of Simsbury, Marlboro and Providence had likewise fled before the Narragansetts struck on March 26 and torched most of their houses, including the Providence home of Rhode Island founder Roger Williams. That same day a force of Narragansett warriors all but annihilated a Plymouth company comprising 63 colonists and 20 Indian allies. Two days later they attacked old Rehoboth (present-day East Providence). By then all but the troops and the most resolute settlers had abandoned Narragansett Bay. The destruction of Rhode Island was complete. Survivors fled to Aquidneck Island, where they lived in constant fear of Indian attack.

Despite their successes, time was running out for the Narragansetts and Wampanoags. On April 3 Connecticut troops captured Canonchet encamped by a hill on the fringes of present-day Pawtucket, R.I., and transported him to Stonington, Conn. There colonial authorities offered to spare his life if he would order the Narragansetts to end the war. He refused. Officials then turned Canonchet over to his enemies the Pequots and Mohegans, who shot the sachem, quartered and burned his remains, then sent his head to the capital at Hartford as a trophy.

With the arrival of spring colonial armies struck back, burning Indian villages, destroying crops, and killing warriors and noncombatants alike. By midsummer Algonquian resistance had collapsed. On August 12 a company of colonial rangers and Indian allies, led by Winslow’s former aide, Capt. Church, killed Metacom near his headquarters at Mount Hope (in present-day Bristol, R.I.).

The Narragansetts never recovered from King Philip’s War. “The Indians had been practically exterminated,” wrote Ellis and Morris. “Their lands had passed to the whites; a few scantily inhabited villages were all that was left of the mighty tribe of the Narragansetts.…Never again did the southern New England tribes menace the people of these colonies.” As another writer put it, the Narragansetts were “scattered to the winds of Heaven.” Several hundred captive Narragansetts were sold into slavery in the English-held Caribbean and later in Spain. While Rhode Island officially prohibited the enslavement of Indians, officials allowed for the bondage of Narragansetts within its boundaries for a number of years. One small enclave of surrendered Narragansetts remained free in southern Rhode Island, while other individuals settled among the English, often as apprentices. Still other Narragansett survivors drifted west to join tribes in upstate New York. Some eventually migrated west to Brothertown, Wis.

Individual settlers and Rhode Island officials continued to seize Narragansett lands. By 1880 the tribe had lost most of its remaining lands, and the state stripped it of tribal status. The Narragansetts persevered, and in 1978 Rhode Island returned 1,800 acres of tribal land. Five years later the Narragansetts received federal recognition as a tribe.

Neither the Narragansetts nor the settlers of Rhode Island wanted war. Most understood the conflict would bring only devastation to their people. It took an invasion of Rhode Island and Narragansett territory by an uninvited colonial army, followed by a massacre of Narragansetts at the Great Swamp, to spawn the bitter war both sides had avoided. “By the United Colonies [the Narragansetts] were forced to war,” one Rhode Island historian noted, “thereby involving us in such hazards, charges and losses.” Although the colony soon rebounded, the English victory in King Philip’s War forever crushed the power of the Narragansetts. MH

Retired Army officer Douglas L. Gifford specializes in American military history. For further reading he recommends King Philip’s War: The History and Legacy of America’s Forgotten Conflict, by Eric B. Schultz and Michael J. Tougias; King Philip’s War: Based on the Archives and Records of Massachusetts, Plymouth, Rhode Island and Connecticut and Contemporary Letters and Accounts, by George W. Ellis and John E. Morris; and A Brief History of the Warr With the Indians in New England, by Increase Mather.

Due in part to its readiness to fight, Switzerland has spent centuries in relative peace

Behind Switzerland’s long-standing policy of armed neutrality is a tradition of maintaining a strong citizen militia ready to defend the nation’s land and airspace with proven ferocity. Beginning with the victory of the cantons of Schwyz, Uri and Unterwalden over Hapsburg Duke Leopold I at Morgareten on Nov. 15, 1315, Switzerland expanded into a confederation of cantons that united against any threat—as demonstrated in battle against Austrians at Sempach on July 9, 1386.

Although Swiss national expansion ended after its defeat by a Franco-Venetian force at Marignano on Sept. 13–14, 1515, Swiss mercenary companies continued to provide foreign armies with a formidable edge. That tradition survives in the Vatican’s Swiss Guard.

Switzerland’s last major conflict was the internal Sonderbund War of Nov. 3–29, 1847, after which its principal martial—or rather, anti-martial—contribution was Henry Dunant’s conceptualization of the International Red Cross in 1863.

The Swiss managed to keep largely out of both world wars, although venturesome individuals fought in the French Foreign Legion and other forces. In World War II the Swiss air force did clash with German aircraft that violated its airspace in May–June 1940, shooting down 11 for the loss of two fighters and a reconnaissance plane. Swiss fighters and antiaircraft batteries also shot down 15 encroaching Allied aircraft, killing 36 airmen, while losing one plane to combat with a U.S. fighter in September 1944.

The present-day Swiss armed forces comprise a small nucleus of regulars, the rest being male conscripts aged 19 to 34 and male or female volunteers aged 18 to 49. Obligatory service lasts 300 days, followed by 10 years in reserve. Like the U.S. Army National Guard, Swiss forces assist in the event of local emergencies.

In 2003 Switzerland deployed 31 soldiers to Afghanistan for service alongside Germans in the NATO-affiliated International Security Assistance Force. Its last two officers returned home in 2008. MH

This article appeared in the December 2021 issue of Military History magazine. For more stories, subscribe and visit us on Facebook.