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On leap year eve of February 28, 1864, during the American Civil War (1861-1865), a large Union cavalry raid was launched on the Confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia by the infamous Union cavalry general, Hugh J. Kilpatrick (b.1836-1881). Dahlgren Attacks Confederate Homeguards, March 1, 1864 A force of almost 4000 blue jacketed cavalrymen attacked Richmond in and around the James River in an ultimately costly and failed raid which threatened the very heart of the Confederacy. This attack on Richmond can be termed the Kilpatrick-Dahlgren Raid or Dahlgren’s Raid by military historians, the former in posthumous honor (or infamy) of the young cavalry officer, Colonel Ulric Dahlgren (b.1842-1864) whose 450 Union raiders nearly succeeded in penetrating Richmond. Known to modern historians as the Dahlgren Affair, this failed Union attempt to storm Richmond in order to free Union prisoners of war and to controversially assassinate Confederate President Jefferson Davis and his rebel cabin...

The Yankee-Pennamite Wars, 1769-1794, were a series of American colonial conflicts that took place before, during, and after the American Revolution, between  Connecticut   settlers and their militias, and the armed forces and militias of the  Pennsylvania  colonists in what is today the  Wyoming  and Luzerne counties of the US state of  Pennsylvania . The Connecticut Colonies' land claims in Eastern Pennsylvania dated back to 1662 when England’s newly restored King Charles II (b.1630-1685) granted a Royal charter to settle the Wyoming Valley to the Connecticut ‘Yankees’, originally a pejorative Dutch name for Englishman in North America. In 1681 King Charles granted a similar charter to William Penn who had become the founder of the new colony. This was to be an event which sowed the seeds for a long and relatively bloody conflict for the rights and land deeds to settle what became Western Pennsylvania. Other important preceding conflicts or events in...

Of the many celebrated, little known, or completely forgotten conflicts of the late 18 th  and early 19 th  centuries, the Haitian Revolution fought from 1791-1804 is one of the most culturally relevant conflicts. Currently the Haitian Revolution has garnered more attention from military and popular historians, which as a study as a revolt, rebellion and colonialist war nevertheless deserves more attention from historians. Luckily a resurgence in the study and historical interpretation of this period has occurred, with more many books written or currently being written on Napoleon’s ‘West Indian Policy’ and campaign within the context of the greater Haitian Revolution period from the Haitian/Caribbean perspective. Soldier & Haitian patriot, François-Dominique Toussaint Louverture As a French colony, Saint Domingue what is today the nation of  Haiti,  and the greater  island  of  Hispaniola in general , split in half by the Spanish an...

The Decima Flottiglia MAS (Decima Flottiglia Mezzi d'Assalto) known as La Decima or Xª MAS, the Italian 10th Assault Vehicle Flotilla was an elite naval unit active in World War from 1940-1945. This elite brigade of frogmen, sailors, and naval commandos most renowned service came between 1941-1943 when they undertook an ultimately failed but rather costly campaign against Allied military vessels and commerce shipping in the Mediterranean. Artist Depiction of Italian  Regia Marina  Frogmen, c.1941 When examining the impact that the Italian 10th MAS had during its years of service for Benito Mussolini’s (b.1883-1945) government from 1940-1943, one must understand the diverse composition of the brigade itself. Essentially four different branches comprised the unit during its fight against the British Royal Navy and Allied shipping, the Gamma frogmen, manned torpedo craft, midget submarines, and assault motorboat craft. Early Development of the Italian Assault Flotillas, 1917-1940...

Warfare 1917 , Con Artist Games, Chris “Con” Condon, Play for Free at Armor Games.Com Warfare 1917 is a free-to-play World War I game inspired by the brutal and seemingly wasteful loss of human life in the trenches and in no-man’s-land of Western Europe c.1917-1918. Behind this game’s gritty and simple exterior and basic controls is an addicting and challenging game play experience. This game is surprisingly historically accurate as well as fun and simple to play. For such a small game the creators and producers over at Con Artist Games did a wonderful job balancing each sides units. Warfare 1917 offers two standard campaign modes, the British or German Empire. A third mode allows the player to create a custom game keeping the replayability factor moderately high. In this mode the player can set their own parameters for the battle making themselves or their enemies as strong or as weak as they like. Tommies (British Infantry) in the trenches from Warfare 1917 In any mode the basic gam...

Finland’s Civil War ( Suomen sisällissota ) was one of the first major conflicts connected with the Russian Revolution and subsequent Civil War that was fought throughout the former Empire of Russia which began in October of 1917. Before and immediately after declaring independence from the Russian Empire on 6 December 1917, Finland (Suomi) had first flirted with an independent monarchy when the German Prince Charles Frederick of Hesse was elected King of Finland before the collapse of the German Empire in October 1917. Red Guard during the Finnish Civil War A republican government was established instead of monarchy by the politician and lawyer Pehr Evind Svinhufvud. Kaarlo Juho Ståhlberg (b.1865-1952) became the first president of an independent Finnish Republic in the year 1919. There was mass opposition to the early post-independence government led by the “socialists” and the numerous Bolshevik-Communist supporters in Finland, mainly the Suomen Kommunistinen Puolue , the Finnish Co...