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On this day in 1941 during the early stages of World War II rebel Iraqi forces surrendered Baghdad to Great Britain ending the month long Anglo-Iraqi War. Though it is a short and little know conflict the battles for the Iraqi cities of Baghdad, Basra, Fallujah, and Habbaniya were apart of a critical proxy war and anti-insurgent operation won by the British against Iraqi rebel militia armies with the diplomatic support and later military support/intervention of Nazi Germany's Luftwaffe squadron  Fliegerführer Irak . German airplane that served in the expedition to Iraq in May 1941 Great Britain's interest diplomatically and militarily in Iraq was definitely a form of neo-cololiasm in the 'Inter War' era following Iraq's League of Nations mandate to Great Britain in 1920. In 1930 a mutual assistance treaty cemented Anglo-Iraqi relations for 25 years, in 1932 Iraq gained its independence but Britain's influence remained strong because of oil interests which domi...

Following their defeat in Ethiopia expansionist & imperialist sentiment was very quiet while Italy recovered in the wake of unrest that rocked most of the free world in the late 1890's and 1900's. Italy would play a major role nevertheless in the inter-state conflicts that preceded the Great War in North Africa, the Mediterranean, and the Balkans, leading inevitably into buildup of nationalist sentiments that stoked the fires of a great conflict in 1914-1915. Captain Piazza’s Blériot XI during the campaign in Libya 1911 The Italian desire for expansion in North Africa, a more natural region geographically speaking to conquer, or acquire diplomatically than Ethiopia would have been, led the Italians to seek war with Turkey ( and the Ottoman Empire) over control of Libya, known then by the regional states of Tripolitania, Fezzan, & Cyrenaica. The Italians used gunboat diplomacy  successfully  where the German Empire had failed in the Moroccan crisis w...

Following the annexations of coastal territories by the Italians which cut off the growing Ethiopian Empire from the sea to East, Emperor Yohannes IV and one of his most trusted lords, Ras Alula raised armies to combat further Italian incursion, which by early 1887 had slowly begun to move inland. The most significant clash of this early period came at the Battle of Dogali on January 26 1887. Ras Alula Engida, a respected and influential military commander and Ethiopian lord around 1890 Ras Alula and around 10,000 of his men attacked a column of 500 Italian regulars who had set out to relieve forces attacked the previous at Fort Saati. Despite inflicting heavy casualties on the attacking Ethiopians the Italians were routed, loosing 23 officers and 407 enlisted men in the process.  Like most victories over Imperial powers the Ethiopians could only enjoy their success for a time and by the end of year 18,000 Italian troops were in Eritrea. By 1888 these force...

The following three part series seeks to trace the military and diplomatic origins & course of Italian Imperialism in the mid to late 19th century to the early 20th century, especially at it pertains to Ethiopia and Northeastern Africa.  Check out the Mad Monarchists blog post on the Italian Colonial Empire http://italianmonarchist.blogspot.com/2012/03/italian-colonial-empire.html Of the several great Imperial powers worth studying in the 19th and early 20th centuries, Italy always seems to fall short of the standards of conquest, through military and/or diplomatic means, that defined the course of history for Europe but more importantly the developing nations and republics which formed after the retreat of imperialism and colonialism in Africa especially. Like in Germany or even America in the mid to late 19th century, Italy's national identity was fragmented due regional attitudes which eschewed the very idea of a centralized empire controlling all of the natio...

Like Lions They Fought: The Last Zulu War  By: Robert B. Edgerton (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London 1988) 244 pages. Perhaps no other conflict in the pantheon of British (United Kingdom) military history is as surrounded by  mysticism and falsities bore out of legend, like the Zulu War of 1879. Edgerton's Like Lions They Fought fills a very important gap in academic and popular research into the heavily studied and revisited period of British rule in South Africa and their greater military conquests of Africa in the mid to late 19th century. The author does a flawless job bridging the socio-cultural analysis of both the British and Zulu societies of this era with a concise and an engaging narrative of the conflict that became one of the most, if not they most celebrated colonial conflict of the 19th century. British forces arrive under the field command of Colonels Henry Pulleine and Anthony Durnford Unlike almost any other book on the topic of the Zulu War or ...

Some collaborators of the Second World War served a strictly military purpose or role, like the conscript and volunteer legions of Denmark, Sweden, and the Belgian and Dutch who fought in the Wehrmacht or in the Waffen-SS. If an occupied or even enemy nation had manpower to offer up to the Nazis often accepted, politically and strategically speaking this was often advantageous. A variety of factors and needs must have created the desire to recruit non German regiments, cultural and ethnic divisions or hatred in actual fact was apart of this, as was a general fear of communism. Perhaps the Nazi's brand of brutality alone motivated others. For the Third Reich collaboration served an equally important propaganda role in furthering their own twisted ideologies of racial purity and the like. Of course militarily speaking they helped to fulfill a manpower shortage needed by the Nazi high command for service on the Eastern Front originally. The Waffen-SS was invaluable because it used the...

One of the largest and most destructive wars in Latin American history was the Chaco War, or the Gran Chaco War fought from 1932-1935 between the South American nations Paraguay and Bolivia. Fought over the more than 250,000 square miles of hot and arid desert terrain of the Gran Chaco known also as the Chaco Boreal , on the border with Paraguay, Bolivia, Argentina, and Brazil. What started as a 19th century territorial dispute over vast amounts of lands never formally annexed by the many South America republics that emerged after the Napoleonic Age and the end of imperialism, developed into a major Inter-War era conflict that saw mass mobilization of conscripted soldiers and true war economies on both sides. The diplomatic situation in the Chaco which had been unstable in the late 1920's escalated into total war following the break down of peace talks in Washington D.C.  on July 8, 1932 between Paraguayan/Bolivian representatives and the American governmen...

Churchill’s War Lab: Code-breakers, Scientists, and the Mavericks Churchill led to victory. By: Taylor Downing. (Overlook Press, New York . 2011. 397 pp.) Reviewed By: Benjamin Sparks Taylor Downing’s book Churchill’s War follows the already well covered topic that is Sir Winston Churchill during World War II. This book follows his life and his leadership record, from his adventures in Africa at the end of Queen Victoria ’s reign to World War I and onto World War II. As the title suggests however this book focuses on Sir Churchill’s rather hands on approach to his countries war with Nazi Germany over occupied Europe from 1939-1945. This book looks to construct the image of Churchill as not just the stoic leader of Britain ’s wartime government but as a forward thinking “outside the box” strategist who was ahead of his time in many regards. Downing’s account starts slow explaining the childhood and early record of Churchill, the reader is quickly reintroduced to this ambitious, if no...

Greetings fellow historians & students of military history and warfare studies. Welcome to the Warfare Historian , a blog dedicated to the study & analysis of battles, conflicts, warfare (strategy & tactics) & other related military history topics. Contact me at Benjaminsparks15@gmail.com or Tweet us @HistoryWarfare on  Twitter The Warfare Historian was created to explore and analyze warfare and military history across the ancient, pre-modern, and modern ages, covering all nationalities, regions, and cultures collective military histories. About the blog author: Ben Sparks earned his BA in history at Worcester State University in 2012. He is a member of the National Historical Honor Society, Phi Alpha Theta , Upsilon Rho chapter. He is also a member of the Society for Military History . If there is a military/warfare studies topic you would like to read about, Tweet us a topic or two on Twitter @HistoryWarfare Some of our Most Popular Posts Spartacus' Wa...