In the 15th Century the Ottomans were racing through Europe, conquering everything in their path. By 1493 they had reached Croatia and the last bastion of strong defense before Vienna. On 9 September 1493, the Battle of Krbava Field in Croatia began one hundred years of war between the Ottomans and what would become the …
Royalty dictates that every dynasty and Kingdom is eternal, until history dictates that the dynasty abruptly ends and the Kingdom is shattered. Often the end is peaceful, with one generation failing to produce an heir, and another family stepping in to take leadership and divide up the territory. Sometimes the end is violent, on the …
Sometimes it feels like there was never a world without Top Gun. There was, of course. Aircraft in combat and thrilling dogfights had to originate somewhere. That place was the sky over Serbia. And the when was August 25, 1914 at the first battle of World War I – the Battle of Cer. As it …
The nineteenth century wasn’t a great time for the Ottoman Empire. It wasn’t the worst time, that would be the beginning of the twentieth century when everything collapsed. But for an empire that had been the strong conqueror of Europe out of Asia, it was a catastrophe. The coming fall of the Ottomans was so …
On 10 July 1914, the Russian Minister to Belgrade dropped dead in the house of the Austrian Minister to Belgrade while the two met to discuss the assassination of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo just two weeks before. It is safe to say that Baron Nikolai Hartwig’s ill-timed but stress-induced heart attack led the …
National-level warfare in the 21st century depends on air power. Armies without air support are lost against enemies with modern aircraft and precision weapons. Air Forces without ground components can win against a numerically-superior enemy, stopping an offensive or paving the way for an attack, although notably, they can not occupy territory. World War I …
On 28 July 1914, Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia. The rest of Europe would soon choose a side, and within a month the guns of August were sounding. Although the world knew about the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in June, everyone expected the reaction to be localized and within appropriate bounds. Everyone, that is, …
On 4 July 1914, Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sofie were buried at their estate of Artstetten. Emperor Franz Josef of Austria-Hungary didn’t even attend the funeral of his nephew and heir. Royal gossip in Europe was well aware that the Archduke had been disliked by the Emperor. Franz Josef and his court had …
The Gambia is an interesting place. It was a part of both the Mali and Songhai Empires. Ibn Battuta visited in the 1300s and had lovely things to say about the justice-minded people who lived there. It’s nearly completely surrounded by Senegal. And it is littered with stone circles resembling versions of Stonehenge. Not much …
Young. Charismatic. Athletic. Leader. Conqueror. And… Feminist. Granted, the form feminism took in 336 BC was not the same sort we see today describing themselves as a numbered wave or discussing the glass ceiling. In Greek culture the ceiling wasn’t made of glass, it was impenetrable stone, and it was stone that whichever male in …
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