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Behind the Lines | Unwilling Accomplice
In 1939 Poland’s Nazi occupiers made Adam Czerniaków the leader of the Jews in Warsaw. Three years later he would reach the breaking point. In 1939, even before Germany had completed its conquest of...
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Laws of War: Mutineers or Scapegoats?
ON JULY 17, 1944, THE SS E. A. BRYAN, A NEWLY COMMISSIONED LIBERTY SHIP, was moored to a pier at the Port Chicago Naval Magazine in Port Chicago, California, to load ammunition, bombs, and artillery...
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The Waste of War
Lethal diseases have ravaged militaries across the millennia. Enemy No. 1: poor sanitation. IN MOST OF THE ERAS RECORDED BY MILITARY HISTORY, it was a reliable truism that an army could lose more men...
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Laws of War | A Neck for a Neck?
In 1782, just a few years into its nationhood, the United States was forced to grapple with the issue of revenge as an instrument of war. IN THE SPRING OF 1782, GEORGE WASHINGTON WAS A MAN IN THE GRIP...
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Mistaken Targets: When Six B-24s Accidentally Bombed Zurich
In 1945 six American B-24H Liberators accidentally bombed Zurich, in neutral Switzerland. Two airmen were court-martialed for the error. Neutrality in warfare has existed as a legal or social...
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John Byng: The Scapegoating of an Admiral
In 1756 British admiral John Byng failed “to use all possible means” to stop the French from taking Minorca. He paid for it with his life. On March 14, 1757, Admiral John Byng was shot by a firing...
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Disparate Justice: The 1946 Lichfield Courts-Martial
The punishments meted out in the Lichfield courts-martial of 1946 underscored the long-held belief that military justice is far from fair. In June 2003, four months after the United States invaded Iraq...
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Tempest in Texas: The Controversial Courts-Martial of an All-Black Regiment
On December 11, 1917, at sunrise, 13 men were hanged on a single gallows just outside Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio, Texas. Nine months later, six more men were hanged at the same spot. The condemned...
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Legitimate? What Qualifies as a Military Target in Societies Throughout History
Societies throughout history have struggled with the matter of who, or what, can be a legitimate target for military action When a Roman army under the command of Scipio Aemilianus besieged the city of...
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How the U.S. Used ‘Laws of War’ to Hang Dakota Indians After 1862 Uprising
On the morning of December 26, 1862, 38 men were hanged on a single gallows in Mankato, Minnesota. It was the largest simultaneous execution in American history. The execution of these men, all Dakota...
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Where Do International Waters Begin?
.image-13763928 { max-height: 100%; --left: 61.14%; --top: 62.53%; } The Dutch jurist Hugo Grotius is most often cited for his contributions to the development of international laws of war. Before he...
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How Did Corporal Punishment End in the Military?
.image-13785765 { max-height: 100%; --left: 88.02%; --top: 15.52%; } The British Army of the early 19th century had a well-earned reputation for deplorable conditions of service and excessively harsh...
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Were Messengers Really Killed In Ancient And Medieval Times?
In international conflict, most belligerents have long recognized the tangible benefit that exists in mutually recognizing and adhering to the idea that certain persons should be immune from attack or...
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What’s in a Name? The Unlucky Military History of the Name ‘Hood’
.image-13788038 { max-height: 100%; --left: 50.00%; --top: 50.00%; } Drowned in a storm: Capt. Arthur Hood (1755–1775) Three Hood brothers (Arthur, Alexander, and Samuel) all served in the Royal Navy...
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Why Were These WWI Soldiers Executed by Their Own Country?
.image-13788910 { max-height: 100%; --left: 53.86%; --top: 43.03%; } In his First World War memoir Good-Bye to All That, the British poet and former infantry officer Robert Graves wrote, “I had my...
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How Awful Life Was For A Napoleonic Soldier
.image-13789288 { max-height: 100%; --left: 39.58%; --top: 56.84%; } What was life like for infantrymen during the Napoleonic Wars? Imagine, if you will, two different soldiers of those days: a...
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During WWII the Japanese Created A Law To Commit War Crimes
.image-13790813 { max-height: 100%; --left: 46.91%; --top: 34.64%; } In spring 1942, Japan’s military was the virtual master of its area of operations. It had overrun most of Southeast Asia and a huge...
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How Hitler Encouraged His Troops to Commit War Crimes
.image-13792830 { max-height: 100%; --left: 58.75%; --top: 66.30%; } Even before Operation Barbarossa, Germany’s invasion of the Soviet Union began in 1941, several orders from the Oberkommando des...
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Was Shakespeare’s ‘Band of Brothers’ Really As Dramatic As Seen in Film?
.image-13792843 { max-height: 100%; --left: 52.09%; --top: 54.10%; } Medieval chroniclers were often marvelously casual with numbers when they wrote about battles and armies, and the problem of...
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Most POWs Want to Go Home—But After World War II, Some Faced Death on Arrival
.image-13794223 { max-height: 100%; --left: 47.44%; --top: 28.69%; } When the Second World War in Europe ended in May 1945, the United States military had custody of a staggering number of enemy...
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