MHM 68 – May 2016

The May 2016 issue of Military History Monthly, the leading British military history magazine, is on sale now.

IN THIS ISSUE WE COVER:

The Battle of the Little Bighorn, 1876

It is 140 years since Native Americans won their greatest victory over United States forces on 25 June 1876. This month, Fred Chiaventone reassesses this most famous collision.

– Background
– Custer: the backstory
– Custer at the Little Bighorn
– Weapons
– Casualties
– Maps

Air power – a century of military flight

Jeremy Black explains why the heady claims of air-power proponents have fallen so wide off the mark.

Clausewitz’s lost battle – Sehestedt, 1813

Donald Stoker finds military theorist Carl von Clausewitz in the thick of battle.

Smoke and fire – flame weapons from the ancient world to 1900

David Porter begins a two-part series on incendiary weapons in warfare.

Regiment: the Royal Berkshires

Patrick Mercer uncovers the role of ‘The Fighting Tenth’ at Anzio in 1944.

ALSO IN THIS ISSUE:

Behind the Image
MHM looks at a photograph of the Churchill’s visit to Caen in 1944.

War composers
Tim Rayborn on the wartime experiences of George Butterworth.

War Culture
MHM examines extracts from First World War scrapbooks.

War on Film
Taylor Downing reviews Desert Victory.

Book of the Month
Nick Hewitt reviews The Last Big Gun: at war and sea with HMS Belfast by Brian Lavery.

Books
Jules Stewart reviews The Seven Years War by Martin Robson; Gary Rossin reviews Poppyganda by Matthew Leonard; and Dave Sloggett reviews The Secret War by Max Hastings.

Museum
Hazel Blair reviews the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight Visitor Centre in Lincolnshire.

Listings
The best military history events coming up in May.

Briefing Room
All you need to know about Cesare Borgia.

PLUS: News, Letters, Competitions, and much more.

From the editor

Little Bighorn may be the most popularised battle in history. It is probably the subject of more films and documentaries than any other. The character of its most-famous protagonist – George Armstrong Custer – and the sequence of events which led to the destruction of his command on 25 June 1876 have been endlessly debated for 140 years.

Why the fascination? One reason, surely, is that most battles of the colonial era were little more than one-sided slaughter. As such, they lack both drama and interest. The essential ingredient of uncertain outcome is missing. Is this not  why we remember Isandlwana better than Ulundi, Maiwand better than Kandahar.

Little Bighorn is, of course, the battle the Indians won. The tragic record of ethnic-cleansing – for such it was – by which the American West was cleared of indigenous people to make way for white settlers was, for a moment, reversed. The underdog fought back and triumphed.

Perhaps, too, there is satisfaction in the fate of Custer, who seems to have been a man of exceptional arrogance, callousness, and ambition, wholly without redeeming moral qualities. He had it coming, we feel.

US military historian Fred Chiaventone tells the story of the Little Bighorn this issue, while Jeremy Black analyses a century of air power, Donald Stoker reveals Clausewitz at war, David Porter begins a two-parter on incendiary weapons, and Patrick Mercer continues our regiment series by recalling the epic resistance of the Royal Berkshires at Anzio.

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