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Questions tagged [battle]

Questions related to an historical battle, being a single engagement or combat in warfare between two or more armed forces.

5 votes
1 answer
323 views

What was the custom/consensus regarding irregular combatants 19th century?

Immediately prior to the battle of Sedan, the German soldiers who captured the town of Bazeilles executed a number of armed civilians who had been firing on German troops that day. This happened in ...
user3663's user avatar
62 votes
5 answers
25k views

Why did the Germans spare Allied troops trapped at Dunkirk?

I haven't seen the movie but know enough of the story to understand that Allied troops had fallen back to Dunkirk for evacuation but were trapped there until transport came. I also understand that ...
The_MN_MechE's user avatar
  • 1,258
9 votes
5 answers
2k views

Was the American Civil War the first to include multiple multi-day battles?

Looking at wikipedia reveals that there were plenty of multi-day battles in the American Civil War. I looked at its article on the Crimean War, which as far as I know was the previous significant ...
user avatar
9 votes
2 answers
1k views

Who was the oldest recorded participant in a battle whom we know of?

This is a record of a eighy-year-old's participation in a battle -- the Battle of Vienna in 1683 -- from Andrew Weatcroft's The Enemy At the Gate: Habsburgs, Ottomans and the Battle for Europe; he ...
Drux's user avatar
  • 14.4k
0 votes
2 answers
3k views

Has there ever a period in history when people were not killing each other? [closed]

Has there ever a period in history when people were nice to each other and not killing each other? In other words, since humans arrived, have the inhabitants of this planet ever enjoyed world peace? ...
End Antisemitic Hate's user avatar
40 votes
3 answers
8k views

In the Battle of the Coral Sea, how could two Japanese scouts grossly mis-identify two American ships?

I've been reading the Wikipedia pages about the Pacific theatre in WW2; in the page describing the battle of the Coral Sea there is the following passage: [...] the scout [from Shōkaku] confirmed ...
Vorbis's user avatar
  • 711
28 votes
7 answers
12k views

Why did trench warfare accept deadlocks?

As someone who has never studied military history or strategy I find it very hard to understand how and why both sides got locked into relatively short lines of heavily defended trench warfare with ...
Flexo's user avatar
  • 395
25 votes
7 answers
17k views

Did the Celts really go into battle naked?

Yes, this of-repeated tale was reported by the Romans all the time, but it sounds a lot like rumor. Stuff the victors write about their former enemies, "they were so stupid, they went into battle ...
user809695's user avatar
18 votes
2 answers
2k views

English monarchs on the battlefield

It seems that in English 'older times' it was expected for the King or monarch to lead the armies in battle. My research suggests that this was the case in the 12th century in the civil war between ...
Andrew Thompson's user avatar
16 votes
4 answers
5k views

How did ancient armies keep the route of supplies to their battlefield?

How did ancient armies like the Romans, Greeks, Persians, Chinese, or even in later times, the Arabs and Mongols keep the route of supplies going to support their armies marching through the vast ...
The Byzantine's user avatar
12 votes
2 answers
10k views

Physics of a heavy cavalry charge?

Can someone explain a heavy cavalry charge? A bunch of 500kg animals smashes into a dense crowd of men at speed of 40km/h. This simply cannot end good for neither side. Let's say the charge fails. The ...
Jotunn's user avatar
  • 651
9 votes
2 answers
2k views

Why weren't the Egyptians attacked on sight in the ancient Battle of Megiddo?

In 1457 BC, Thutmose III and his army had to pass the mountains to reach Megiddo. He had three passes he could go through, one in the North, called Jokneam Pass, and another pass in the South, called ...
Kareem's user avatar
  • 507
4 votes
0 answers
259 views

What was the Indian nobility's reaction to the construction of Veeranam Eri (வீராணம் ஏரி)?

Background Information In the South of Medieval India, there was a wealthy and powerful empire called the Chola Empire. In between the years 907-955 AD, the king (or Raja) Parantaka the First (...
Proud Tamil Indian's user avatar