The March issue of Military History Matters, the British military history magazine, is now on sale.
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In this issue:
ON THE COVER:
Defeating Hannibal
Shakespeare said that Julius Caesar was the ‘greatest Roman of them all’. Yet title of ‘greatest Roman’ could instead go to Publius Cornelius Scipio (236-183 BC), who turned a clumsy militia into a ruthless fighting machine that terminated Hannibal’s long campaign in Italy. In our special this time, Graham Goodlad offers an overview of Scipio’s military career, and Neil Faulkner provides a detailed analysis of Zama, the final battle of the Second Punic War.
A failed Dunkirk: the loss of the Highland Division
Andrew Mulholland on the forgotten division that failed to escape the Nazi clutches.
The blind warlord: Jan Zizka
Tim Newark on the warrior who revolutionised medieval warfare.
Regiment: 100th Gebirgsjäger Regiment
Patrick Mercer on the elite German unit at the Battle of Gemmano, 1944.
Sideshow: Hitler’s hangmen
The Nazi plan for a Fascist coup in Britain.
Also in this issue:
Christopher Warner’s new series on War Athletes, Behind the Image, War Culture, Book Reviews, Museum Review, Back to the Drawing Board, Listings, and more.
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From the editor
Who was ‘the greatest Roman of them all’? The conventional answer, of course, is Julius Caesar, but in our special this issue we advance the claim of another candidate: Publius Cornelius Scipio, titled Africanus, the conqueror of Hannibal, and the general who should perhaps be regarded as the true founder of the Roman Empire.
From an ancient commander to a medieval one: Tim Newark offers a feature on Jan Zizka, ‘the blind warlord’, the military leader of the radical Hussites in the early 15th century and a Czech national hero. With his discussion of the famous Hussite wagon forts, Tim tells part of the story of the fall of feudal chivalry to the new infantry of the Late Medieval period.
Then we have three very different WWII stories:
Andrew Mulholland returns to describe the destruction of the Highland Division in June 1940 and to review the controversy around it. Did Churchill sacrifice the Highlanders?
Patrick Mercer, in his Regiment piece, takes a look on ‘the other side of the hill’, recounting the epic resistance of an elite German mountain regiment on the Gothic Line in September 1944.
Finally, in Sideshow, Brian Letts lifts the lid on the little-known story of Hitler’s plan for a mass breakout of German POWs in alliance with British Fascists at the end of the war.
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