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Kiribati, known formerly as the the Gilbert Islands , the tiny stretch of islands and atolls in the expansive Pacific Ocean which make up the modern day Republic of Kiribati, was home to one of the most unique and curiously armored & armed infantry forces in the history of warfare.The Kiribati warrior culture of the Gilbertise Islanders developed both as a distinct part of the proud Polynesian warrior culture, which established itself from New Zealand to the Hawaiian Islands by the 14 th and 15 th centuries but from the unique materials with which the inhabitants of the Gilbert Islands armed themselves with. Early 20th century depiction of the Kiribati Warrior For the Kiribati warrior, his armor and weapons were the products of the readily available raw materials available from the islands and from the sea, combining the two for a unique armament approach. His armor was made of coir, a strong fiber material harvested from coconut trees, woven together it forms a durable and stro...

Part I, Great Anglo-Boer War, 1899-1900 As Field Marshall Frederick Roberts looked for a decisive conclusion to hostilities between his armies and the Afrikaner Boer guerrillas, his chief-of-staff, Lord General  Kitchener was tasked with rounding up Boer pockets of resistance near the Cape Colonies in the former Transvaal and Orange Free State . He had come down with the flu shortly after his arrival in South Africa  and thus it would be  Kitchener basically who had complete control over most of the British forces in country as the next highest ranking general and as the chief-of-staff. He took to his task of defeating the Boer insurgency with quickly and with fervor, marching across the Modder River to engage Piet Cronje’s commando Held up in a laager on the banks of the Moddan River at the Paardeberg Drift. The old Boer was with his wife and 4,200 Boer guerrillas under arms. Cronje would be a major prize for the British army if he could be neutralized. The victor o...

Part II, Great Anglo-Boer War, 1900-1902 The Second Anglo-Boer War, or Second Boer War of 1899-1902, brought the British Empire into conflict yet again with the Afrikaner-Boers, the European pioneers of South Africa , who sought independence from England for their brother-nations, the Orange Free State and Transvaal republics. Led by an aging Queen Victoria, Sir Alfred Milner, High Commissioner for South Africa, and Joseph Chamberlain, Colonial Secretary, and a slew of regular army generals, the British land forces looked to establish commonwealth control over the Boer republics, utterly rich in diamond and gold mines, the colonial importance of South Africa was paramount to  the military and political spheres in London  throughout the years leading up to conflict, 1896-1899. Remembered today as one of the last major colonial conflicts of the 19 th century, the Great Anglo-Boer War , named so rather heroically by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (b.1859-1930), left dead 22,000...

On March 20th in the year 624, Islamic prophet and general Muhammad defeated his Meccan (Quraysh) enemies at the wells of Badr southwest of Medina  (in what is today Saudi Arabia), in one of the most important battles and decisive victories in the early history of Islam. As the Prophet Muhammad (b.570-d.632) gained followers he gained enemies as well, especially amongst the various tribes of Medina and the outer lying provinces around Mecca and later Medina . Charge of the Muslims at Badr by the Persian historian Rashid-al-Din (b.1247-1318) Both the sedentary and nomadic peoples of these regions feared Muhammad’s growing influence, these kuffār (or kafirs, Arabic for unbeliever or infidel) being the greatest threat to the growth of Islam as a major religion. Long persecuted by the Quraysh and the smaller associated tribes near Mecca , the growing Muslim population and its military apparatus, prepared for an inevitable clash with their neighbors after the Prophet and his followers...