Military History

Highlights of the History of Warfare

Battle of Borodino — Battle of Borodino: French and Russian Cavalry Clash Behind the Raevsky Redoubt. Details from Roubaud’s Panoramic Painting.
Public domain image from Wikipedia.

Readings in the histories of armies, navies, air forces and the military as a whole by some of the greatest writers.

Some Years listed below are approximate.

Year	Title	Author(s)
1184 BC	Fall of Troy	George Grote
660 BC	Japan’s First Emperor	Sir Edward Reed
490 BC	The Battle of Marathon	Sir Edward Shepherd Creasy
480 BC	Battle of Thermopylae	Herodotus
413 BC	Syracuse Defeats Athens	Sir Edward S. Creasy
400 BC	Crisis of Xenophon’s Quest for Home	Xenophon
388 BC	Brennus Burns Rome	Barthold Georg Niebuhr
331 BC	Alexander the Great Wins the Battle of Gaugamela	Sir Edward S. Creasy
322 BC	Alexander the Great Reduces Tyre	Oliver Goldsmith
280 BC	Pyrrhus Attacks Rome	Plutarch
264-149 BC	Rome Versus Carthage	Florus

Year	Title	Author(s)
207 BC	Battle of Metaurus	Sir Edward Creasy
202 BC	Scipio Africanus Crushes Hannibal At Zama And Subjugates Carthage	Livy
200 BC	Tartars Invade China 200 BC	Demetrius Charles Boulger
165-141 BC	Maccabaeus Liberates Judea	Josephus
52 BC	Caesar Conquers Gaul	Napoleon III
9 AD	Arminius Drives Romans Out of Germany	Sir Edward Creasy
14 AD	Germanicus in Germany	Tacitus
60 AD	Romans Conquer Britain	Oliver Goldsmith
70 AD	Romans Crush Jewish Revolt; Destroy Great Temple	Josephus
449-579	Germans Conquer Britain	John R. Green\| \|Charles Knight
451	Attila the Hun Invades the Western Roman Empire	Sir Edward S. Creasy\| \|Edward Gibbon

Year	Title	Author(s)
636	Muslims Conquer Syria	Simon Ockley
711	Saracens Invade Spain	Ahmed Ibn Mahomet Al-Makkari
732	Battle of Tours	Edward S. Creasy
1000	Muslims Invade India	Alexander Dow
1066	Battle of Hastings	Sir Edward Creasy
1096-1099	The First Crusade	Sir George W. Cox
1118	Knights Templar Founded	Charles G. Addison
1146	Roger Ravages the Byzantine Empire	George Finlay
1187	Saladin Takes Jerusalem From the Christians	Sir George W. Cox
1189-1194	The Third Crusade	Henry Von Sybel
1190-1809	The Teutonic Knights	Frederick C. Woodhouse
1202	Philip Breaks the Angevin Empire	Kate Norgate
1086-1214	Islamic Power Declines in Spain	Samuel A. Dunham
1270	Louis IX Leads The Last Crusade	Joseph François Michaud
1273	Hapsburg Dynasty Founded	William Coxe
1281	Japan Repels The Mongols	Edward H. Parker\| \|Marco Polo

Year	Title	Author(s)
1302	The War of the Flemings with Philip the Fair of France	Eyre Evans Crowe
1305	William Wallace, Braveheart	Sir Walter Scott
1314	Battle of Bannockburn	Andrew Lang
1340	Battles that Began the 100 Years War	Sir John Froissart
1358	The Jacquerie Rebellion	Jean Froissart
1370-1405	Timur’s (Tamerlane) Conquests	Edward Gibbon
1386	The Swiss Win Independence	F. Grenfell Baker\| \|Lina Hug and Richard Stead
1415	The Battle of Agincourt	James Gairdner
1429	Joan of Arc at Orleans	Sir Edward S. Creasy
1453	Ottomans Conquer Constantinople	George Finlay
1455-1485	Wars of the Roses	David Hume
1456	John Hunyady Repulses the Turks	Ármin Vámbéry
1490	Spain Conquers Grenada	Washington Irving
1500	Ivan the Great Unites Russia and Breaks the Tartar Yoke	Robert Bell

Year	Title	Author(s)
1521	Sweden Liberated	Eric Gustave Geijer
1524	The Peasants’ War in Germany	Jean-Henri Merle d’Aubigné
1525	The Battle of Pavia	William Robertson
1527	Charles V Sacks Rome	Benvenuto Cellini\| \|T. Adolphus Trollope
1546	Protestant Struggle Against Charles V – The Smalkaldic War	Edward Armstrong
1558	England Looses Her Last French Territory	Charles Knight
1571	The Battle of Lepanto and the Destruction of the Turkish Navy	Sir William Stirling-Maxwell
1573	From the Heroic Years of the Dutch	Thomas Henry Dyer
1581	The Cossacks Conquer Siberia	Nikolay M. Karamzin
1587	Drake Captures Cartegena; Raids Cadiz	Julian Corbett
1588	Defeat of the Spanish Armada	Sir Edward Creasy

Year	Title	Author(s)
1603	Earls Flee Ireland	Justin McCarthy
1618	The Thirty Years War	Samuel R. Gardiner\| \|Charles F. Horne
1632	Gustavus Adolphus at Lutzen	Benjamin Chapman
1649	The English Civil War	Lord Thomas Macaulay\| \|Charles Knight
1649	Cromwell’s Ireland Campaign	Frederic Harrison
1660	When Fighting Sail Matured	Alfred Thayer Mahan
1671	Buccaneers Sack Panama	Johann W. Von Archenholz
1672	The Dutch Crisis 1672	C.M. Davies
1675	King Philip’s War	Richard Hildreth
1683	Last Turkish Invasion of Europe	Sutherland Menzies
1685	Monmouth’s Rebellion	Gilbert Burnet
1690	James II Invades Ireland	Tobias G. Smollott
1704	The Battle of Blenheim	Sir Edward Creasy
1709	The Battle of Poltava	Kazimierz Waliszewski

Year	Title	Author(s)
1717	Turkish Threat on Europe Finally Vanquished	Prince Eugene Of Savoy
1739	Nadir Shah Captures Delhi	Sir John Malcolm
1740	Prussia Invades Silesia	William Smyth
1755	Braddock’s Defeat	Winthrop Sargent\| \|George Washington\| \|Captain De Contrecoeur
1756-1763	The Seven Years War	Wolfgang Menzel\| \|Frederick The Great
1757	Clive Establishes British Supremacy in India	Sir Alexander J. Arbuthnot
1759	Britain Captures Quebec	Arthur G. Bradley
1763	Pontiac’s Uprising	E.O. Randall
1775	Battle of Lexington	Richard Frothingham
1775	The Battle of Bunker Hill	John Burgoyne, James Grahame, and John Heneage Jesse
1775	Canada Chooses Not Join American Revolution	John McMullen
1777	The Battle of Saratoga	Sir Edward Shepherd Creasy
1779	“I Have Not Yet Begun to Fight!”	Alexander Slidell Mackenzie

Year	Title	Author(s)
1781	Yorktown Surrenders	Henry B. Dawson\| \|Lord Charles Cornwallis
1792	Europe’s First Battle Against Republican France	Alphonse M. L. Lamartine
1794	Poland’s Downfall	Sir Archibald Alison
1796	Napoleon’s First Campaign	Sir Walter Scott
1798	Napoleon’s Egyptian War	Charles Knight
1804	The Tripolitan War of 1804	James Fenimore Cooper
1805	The Battle of Trafalgar	Robert Southey
1805	The Battle of Austerlitz	Pierre Lanfrey
1806	Napoleon Crushes Prussia	Sir Walter Scott
1808-1813	Wellington’s Peninsular Campaign	John Richard Green
1809	Bolivar and South American Independence	Alfred Deberle
1812	Napoleon’s Russian Retreat	Charles A. Fyffe\| \|Francois Guizot

Year	Title	Author(s)
1812	Canada Versus USA 1812-1814	Agnes M. Machar\| \|David Ramsay
1813	Battle of Lake Erie	Theodore Roosevelt
1813	Leipzig Battle of the Nations	Wolfgang Menzel
1814	British Burns Washington, D.C.	Richard Hildreth\| \|George R. Gleig
1815	The Battle of New Orleans	James Parton
1815	The Battle of Waterloo	Wolfgang Menzel\| \|William Siborne\| \|Victor Hugo
1825	Siege of Missolonghi	George Finlay
1827	The Battle of Navarino	Harriet Martineau
1830	Franch Takes Algiers	Francis Pulszky
1831	Poland 1831 Revolt	Alfred Rambaud
1836	The Texas Rebellion	Sam Houston\| \|Charles Edwards Lester

Year	Title	Author(s)
1837	Abd-el-Kader and France’s Conquest of Algeria	Edgar Sanderson
1840	The Opium War of 1840	Demetrius Charles Boulger
1846	California Acquired by the United States	Henry B. Dawson
1847	Scott Captures Mexico City	John Bonner
1855	Capture of Sevastopol Ends Crimean War	Edward B. Hamley\| \|Evelyn Wood
1857	The Sepoy Mutiny	J. Talboys Wheeler
1859	The Second War of Italian Independence	Pietro Orsi
1860	Kingdom of Italy Established	Giuseppe Garibaldi\| \|John Webb Probyn
1861	The First Battle of Bull Run	Horace Greeley
1862	The USS Monitor Versus CSS Merrimac	John Senison Champlin

Year	Title	Author(s)
1862	McClellan’s Peninsula Campaign	Rossiter Johnson
1862	Farragut Captures New Orleans	Alfred Thayer Mahan
1863	Battle of Gettysburg	Orville J. Victor\| \|Edward A. Pollard\| \|Abraham Lincoln
1863	Fall of Vicksburg	Charles A. Dana\| \|James H. Wilson
1864	The USS Kearsarge Versus CSS Alabama	Raphael Semmes\| \|John Ancrum Winslow
1864	Sherman’s March Across Georgia	Rossiter Johnson
1865	Lee Surrenders at Appomatox	Ulysses S. Grant
1866	The Austro-Prussian War	Charles A. Fyffe
1870	Battle of Sedan	Helmuth von Moltke\| \|Otto von Bismark
1871	German Siege of Paris	Charles F. Horne
1877-1878	Russo-Turkish War 1877	Wilhelm Mueller
1879	First Combat Between Modern Warships	Clements R. Markham
1881	Chile Captures Lima	Clements R. Markham
1894	The Sino-Japanese War of 1894	J. MacGowan\| \|Jurichi Inouye

1936-39The Spanish Civil War Video

Year	Title	Author(s)
1897	Greco-Turkish War of 1897	Sir Ellis Ashmead Bartlett
1898	The Cuban Campaign of the Spanish-American War	Andrew S. Draper\| \|Theodore Roosevelt\| \|Pascual
1898	The Battle of Manila Bay	Hubert Howe Bancroft
1900	The Boer War	Arthur Conan Doyle\| \|James F.J. Archibald\| \|
1904	Early U.S. Battleships	Jack Le Moine
1904	The Russo-Japanese War	Charles F. Horne\| \|Leo Tolstoy
1911	The Turkish-Italian War	William T. Ellis
1912	Militarism Before World War I	Norman Angell\| \|Sir Max Waechter
1912	The First Balkan War	J. Ellis Barker\| \|Frederick Palmer\| \|Stephen P. Duggan
1913	The Second Balkan War	Stephen P. Duggan\| \|Capt. A.H. Trapmann
1914	Battle of First Marne	Jack Le Moine
1916	Arabs Enter World War I	Lowell Thomas
1917	Lawrence Launches Arab Desert Campaign	Lowell Thomas
1936-39	The Spanish Civil War	Video
1941-45	The Russian Front in World War II	Video
1942	Marines Land on Guadalcanal	Henry I. Shaw, Jr.
1944	D-Day Summary (infographics)	Corey Truman
1945	The First Atomic Bomb	Carl Maag\| \|Steve Rohrer

Year	Title	Author(s)
– – – –	France’s Wars Series	Jack Le Moine

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