The June issue of Military History Monthly, the British military history magazine, is on sale today.
In the latest issue we cover:
Marlborough’s Musketeers – The Battle of Malplaquet, 1709
We continue our occasional ‘Frontline’ series with a battle from the War of the Spanish Succession, joining the action at a full-scale frontal assault of massed musketry.
History of the British Army – Caen, 6 June-6 August 1944
MHM assesses a two-month battle of attrition that tested the British Army against the elite Waffen-SS.
Gettysburg – The Confederate invasion
Marking 150 years since it was fought, Julian Brazier begins a four-part series on this most pivotal and iconic of American battles.
Ludendorff – Imperial Germany’s flawed mastermind
Graham Goodlad assesses the military career of General Erich Ludendorff, architect of Germany’s final desperate bid for victory on the Western Front in 1918.
Caged Nazis – Guarding Rudolf Hess
Historian Adrian Greaves has had a lifetime fascination for top Nazi Rudolf Hess. We asked him to explain.
Also in this issue:
Back to the Drawing Board, War Zone, Museum Review, Your Military History, War Culture, Book Reviews and much more.
From the editor
- Neil Faulkner, Editor
Gettysburg, the greatest battle ever fought in the Western Hemisphere, took place 150 years ago this summer. To mark the anniversary, Julian Brazier, former soldier, politician, and expert on the American Civil War, starts a four-part series this issue.
Julian offers a blow-by-blow analysis of the campaign and the battle, detailing the calculations of the commanders, the movements of the armies, and the clash of arms.
The tension was electric in those critical days of late June/early July 1863 as the armies manoeuvred in the summer sunshine of backcountry Pennsylvania. A Southern victory would have opened the way to Washington, and could well have broken the Northern people’s will to fight. The United States might have been permanently sundered, and slavery might have endured on the North American continent.
Gettysburg created modern America. The American Revolution had severed the tie with Britain, and founded a new, eager, independent republic. But it left unfinished business and deep divisions that made the proud claim that ‘all men are created equal’ a lie. It took the American Civil War to complete the work of the Revolution.
Also this issue, we have the second in our new occasional series looking at frontline combat experience. This month we hear the testimony of one of Marlborough’s infantry officers. What was it like to face massed, close-range musketry in 1709?
On the World Wars, we have Graham Goodlad’s assessment of Erich Ludendorff, the military brain behind Imperial Germany’s stormtrooper offensive of spring 1918; our own analysis of the Battle of Caen, the penultimate instalment in the British Battles series; and an intriguing article by military historian Adrian Greaves, who, as a young post-war officer, guarded three top Nazis in Spandau Prison, and formed a close relationship with Albert Speer.