The June 2015 issue of Military History Monthly, the leading British military history magazine, is on sale now.
IN THIS ISSUE WE COVER:
Dark Age Byzantium
MHM reports on two major barbarian onslaughts which put the mighty walls of Constantinople to the ultimate test: the Avars in AD 626, and Bulgars in AD 813. This 19-page special feature includes:
– Battle map
– Timeline
– Warriors and weaponry
– Avar siege analysis
– Bulgar siege analysis
The Battle of Chapultepec, 1847
‘No scene could have been more animating or glorious’
David Norris looks at the battle at which Robert E Lee and Ulysses S Grant cut their teeth.
Shot at Dawn – WWI executions
Joe O’Neill considers the arguments surrounding the controversial topic of British Army executions in the First World War.
Toxic Warfare – Gas in WWII
Andrew Sangster exposes the American cover-up of the Bari port disaster of 1943.
Also in this issue:
Behind the Image
MHM examines a photograph of a Huey Helicopter during Operation MacArthur.
Conflict Scientists
Patrick Boniface charts the career of John Philip Holland, ‘the father of the modern submarine’.
War Culture
MHM features nine artworks from the IWM’s new exhibition, WithDraw.
War on Film
Taylor Downing reviews Peter Weir’s WWI epic, Gallipoli.
Book of the Month
Curtis Hutchinson on Alan Allport’s Browned O and Bloody-Minded.
Books
Jules Stewart on 17 Carnations by Andrew Morton and Spying on the World by Richard J Aldrich, Rory Cormac, and Michael S Goodman; and David Flintham on An Alternative History of Britainby Timothy Venning.
Museum
Stephen Miles explores the Wolf’s Lair museum in Poland.
Listings
MHM brings you the best military history events for June.
Top Five
Britain’s most heavily fortified castles.
PLUS: News, Competitions – win tickets to this year’s Battle Proms, Battlefield Tours Guide, Letters, Waterloo Guide, and more.
From the editor
Neil Faulkner, Editor
Rome fell, Byzantium endured. But the Eastern Roman Empire was beset by barbarian enemies in the centuries that followed. Usually outnumbered, sometimes defeated, again and again the Byzantines had to retreat behind the mighty walls of Constantinople.
The city was the strongest fortress in the world, with sea on three sides and a moat, ditch, and double wall on the fourth. Defended by heavily armoured, highly disciplined soldiers, protected by the greatest fleet in the Mediterranean, equipped with cutting-edge war engines, and harbouring its own secret WMDs – flamethrowers fuelled by ‘Greek Fire’ – the City of Constantine held out each time the barbarians approached.
They came from the steppes of Central Asia, fierce nomadic horse-archers, wave upon wave of Huns, Avars, Bulgars, Turks, and Mongols, led by great warlords like Khan Krum, who drank from a cup made from the skull of a slain rival.
This month’s Military History Monthly charts the Avar siege of AD 626 and the Bulgar siege of AD 813, and analyses the armies, weapons, and tactics that determined the outcomes.
Also this issue, David Norris describes the 1847 Mexican War battle where Robert E Lee and Ulysses S Grant fought side by side, Joe O’Neill reviews the controversy around the 346 British Army executions of World War I, and Andrew Sangster exposes the official cover-up of a World War II chemical-warfare disaster.