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On this day in 1864 the Union Army under the command of General Ambrose Burnsides, (b.1824-1881) in an attempt to break the Siege of Petersburg, Virginia (June 1864-April 1865), exploded an over 500 foot mine dug under Confederate defense in the weeks before in an attempt to overrun General Robert E. Lee's (b.1807-1870) positions. Battle of the Crater, July 30, 1864 Burnsides, the now iconic namesake of sideburns became infamous for this half-cocked, immensely dangerous and ultimately very costly assault. He became the scapegoat and was truly to blame for the disastrous & pointless attacks that followed the explosion of 320 kegs of black powder in the mine dug weeks before by engineers. The explosion failed to open a significant breach anywhere along the Confederate lines. It succeeded in creating a large and relatively deep crater, a sort of canyon or hole which later cost thousands of Union lives during futile charges and assaults to break t...

Allies At Dieppe, 4 Commando and the US Rangers: Operation Cauldron Written By Will Fowler. Osprey Publishing, UK, 2012. Digital Release available on Amazon, iTunes, & NOOK Books Review by: Ben Sparks,  The Commando Raid on Dieppe, France, August 19, 1942, codenamed Operation Jubilee, was one of the first major attempts undertaken by British and Allied forces before the June 6th landings of D-Day 1944, to attack the Nazi’s. The US Rangers among the other more numerous British and Commonwealth forces of 4 Commando cut their teeth in Operation Cauldron, one of the only successful actions of the bloody Raid on Dieppe. While this wasn’t the first operation of the Commandos, the bloodbath at Dieppe became a blemish on the celebrated but heavily critiqued reputation of the special forces units of Britain and the Commonwealth from 1940-1945. Fowler’s Allies at Dieppe, looks to debunk the assumption that the Dieppe Raid was a complete failure, narrating the operations of 4 Commando an...

On this day in 1643 the Battle of Roundway Down was fought near Dervizes, Wiltshire England during the English Civil War, 1642-1651. Battle of Roundway Down, July 13, 1643 It is generally accepted that the battle at Roundway Down was a complete victory for the Royalists, apart of their campaign in the West of England during the early stages of the First English Civil War 1642-1645. The Royalist defeat of the Parliamentarian armies relived the siege of Devizes castle and signaled the downfall of Parliaments Western Association Armies. The previous weeks Battle of Lansdowne , July 5, 1643 saw heavy Royalist casualties and a grave injury suffered to the Royalist commander, Lord Ralph Hopton, who had led Royalist armies to a string of victories before being besieged at Devizes Castle by the Parliamentarians. The Battle of Roundway Down began around 3 o’clock in the afternoon when a combined force of Parliamentarian infantry, horse dragoons, and artillery met Lord Hopton’s and Lord Hen...

The English Civil Wars 1642-1651 , especially the early years of conflict and societal anarchy in 1642-1645, were heavily influenced by a number of forces, from the tyranny of the Personal Rule of King Charles I from 1629-1640, to religious revival and fervor, and the infleunce continental politics and wars of the late 1500's and early 1600's. The earliest years of the English Civil were in many ways marred by the mostly indecisive military campaigns fought throughout England & Scotland, juxtaposed with the often brutal, unethical, immoral, and generally rigid Puritan or Independent religious fervor which had become radical. Parliamentarians many of whom were Independents brazenly denounced King Charles and all Royalists as Ricardian-esque tyrants, men “against the Lord’s cause,” and literally allied with the devil himself. One result of this religious revival or awakening was the frightlfully alarming practice which had been borrowed from the equally devout Scots in th...

Cross of Iron, directed by Sam Peckinpah. EMI Films, 1977. 132 minutes.   Based on The Willing Flesh by Willi Heinrich (1955). Reviewed by: Ben Sparks, Worcester State University 2012 Famed 1960’s and 1970’s director Sam Peckinpah’s, Cross of Iron, is a gritty, dark, violent, and yet highly stylized and analytical film, detailing the daily struggles and dangers faced by Wehrmacht soldiers stationed on the Eastern Front during World War II from 1943-1945. In particular the audience experiences the deeds of anti-hero Sergeant Rolf Steiner, played by James Coburn, and his ragtag platoon during their deployment in Russian at the Kuban bridgehead in 1943.  The title of the film comes from the other lead, Captain Stransky, played by Maximilian Schell who is an ambitious aristocrat of the Prussian officer corps. He sought transfer to the Eastern Front in order to win the Iron Cross. This “heroic horses ass” as he calls himself in jest, helps to carry much of the later plot of the fi...

Of the great wars that the Roman Republic & its Legions fought, one of the most memorable and culturally importantly in the modern age is the revolt of Spartacus and his gladiators in 73-71 BC. Spartacus and his diverse rebel legion of slaves, prisoners-of-war, peasants, and former gladiators terrorized Southern Italy in a bloody revolt, eventually threatening the security and the pride of Rome itself. Known as the Gladiator War   and also the T hird Servile War   in relation to the two other preceding major slave revolts in Sicily 135-132 BC and in 104-110 BC, the war which Spartacus brought to the doorstep of Rome itself was significant because not only was it fought on the Roman mainland, it threatened the existence (in theory) of the Roman Empire. Indeed one of the most sacred institutions of Roman culture up to this point in history of Rome, the gladiator, threatened to destroy its own creator and benefactor in one armed slave revolt. A 19th centur...

Conflict in the Caucasus region has been a major diplomatic and political issue abroad and in the Russian Federation since the collapse of the Soviet Union and its satellite republics in 1991. Rebel Chechens in the First Chechen War December 1994-May 1996 No other former Soviet region besides  Yugoslavia and its republics  perhaps, has experienced as much bloodshed, sectarian revolt, and conflict as the Caucasus . To date the Russian Federation has fought in 5 major conflicts in Caucasus: The First Chechen War 1994-1996, the Second Chechen War from 1999-2009 and the ongoing insurgency in Chechnya, conflicts against Georgia and the breakaway Abkhazia state, and the anti-insurgency campaign against Islamists which continue to this day. Russian military in the Caucasus. Similiar perhaps to those "advisors" sent by the Russian Federation to Syria recently  as of March 2012. The campaigns in the Caucasus especially against the Islamist factions of Doku Umarov (b....

Mali is a Western African country in the heart of the Sahara desert. Granted independence in 1960 from France it is a leading cotton producer (amongst other raw materials) who has struggled through years of poverty, disease, famine, military dictators, and rebellions. Tuareg Rebels with the Azawad Flag A breakaway state, Azawad, proclaimed its independence from Mali on April 6, 2012 with its capital in Timbukutu. This was initiated in Northern Mali by the Tuaregs, nomad peoples of the Sahara from Libya, Algeria, and the surrounding nations, who had fought previously in Libya, and the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad or MNLA. Even more recently however as of last week, the MNLA appear to have been routed by the Ansar Dine. An Islamist guerrilla movement once allied with the MNLA and the Tuaregs, Ansar Dine is believed by many Western sources to be an Al-Qaeda allied Islamist fundamentalist terrorist movement. As of JJuly 1st and 2nd 2012, the MNLA seem to be in retreat fo...

On this day in 1898, the 1st Volunteer cavalry known popularly as the Rough Riders, under the command of the future 26th President of the United States, Theodore Roosevelt (b.1858-1919), made their famous assault on the Spanish positions at San Juan Hill in Cuba during the Spanish-American War of April-December 1898. Roosevelt's Rough Riders won national and international recognition for their part in the greater American victory in the Spanish-American conflict fought in Cuba, Puerto Rico, the Philippines, and Guam. Roosevelt in his Brooke's Brothers tailored uniform, 1898 The Spanish-American War began in 1898 after the mysterious explosion of the USS Maine in  Havana  harbor. At first the war was Naval clash of arms, between the rising United States of America, fighting together as a whole nation once again, and a declining empire, Spain, who as a result of the war would loose all over their overseas possessions except for Morocco. After the  US  congress pas...