The September 2015 issue of Military History Monthly, the leading British military history magazine, is on sale now.
IN THIS ISSUE WE COVER:
The Spanish Civil War
This month MHM tackles the infamous clash between democracy and fascism in Spain from 1936 to 1939, with a special focus on the Siege of Madrid.
– Battle map
– Timeline
– Weapons and tactics
– The Siege
‘Don’t duck, Fred!’ Last chance on Gallipoli
A hundred years on, David Saunders describes the last-ditch attempt to turn the tide at Gallipoli.
The Battle of Yarmuk Arab conquest, AD 636
Chris Bambery tells the story of the little-known Arab victory that turned the Middle East Muslim.
The Armenian Massacre Precursor to the Nazi Holocaust
MHM Editor Neil Faulkner explores the atrocities that took place in the eastern Ottoman Empire in 1915.
Also in this issue: Behind the Image, Conflict Scientists, War Culture, War on Film, Book Reviews, Museum, Listings, Briefing Room, and Competitions
From the editor
Neil Faulkner, Editor
Our main focus this issue is the Spanish Civil War. Fought with ferocity and bitterness – half a million people were killed, about a quarter of them in summary executions – it has always been overshadowed by the Second World War, which began within six months of the fall of Madrid.
Yet it was both a proxy war and a dress-rehearsal that heralded the greater conflict to come. Pitting workingclass revolutionaries against traditional elites, democrats against fascists, Stalinists against Fascists, it was the main European news story throughout the three years that it lasted.
It was also a military training-ground. Tanks were tested and found wanting. Aircraft practised the bombing of cities. Italian conscripts proved unwilling combatants, but German Nazis displayed their ruthlessness.
Idealists like Caudwell, Orwell, Hemingway, Wintringham, and many others, rallied to a noble cause. Some discovered how easily it could be betrayed. Others learnt lessons that would be passed on to the defenders of Britain in 1940.
Jules Stewart describes the battle for Madrid, David Porter analyses the military technology, and we have our usual timeline and background article.
Also this issue, Chris Bambery gives an account of the epic Islamic victory at the Yarmuk in AD 636, one of world history’s most decisive battles, David Saunders describes the last major British attack at Gallipoli in August 1915, and there is a harrowing account of the Armenian Genocide in the same year.