MHM

CONTENTS

December 2023/January 2024

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FEATURES

UPFRONT

Welcome

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Notes from the Frontline 6 Behind the Image 8 An experimental catapult from WWII

War Classics

Fred Chiaventone recalls Thermopylae: the battle for the West by Ernle Bradford

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SPECIAL

The Thirty Years’ War

It was one of the most destructive confl icts in European history, but the Thirty Years’ War was also horrifi c for the manner in which it was conducted, with atrocities and massacres such as that which occurred during the Sack of Magdeburg. What had begun as a local dispute over the anti-Protestant policies of a future Holy Roman Emperor escalated into Europe’s apocalypse: part of the wars of religion between Catholic and Protestant, but also part of a more complex struggle involving most of the continent’s great powers. This issue, we off er an analysis of the war, then take a detailed look at the crucial Battle of Lützen.

12 The corpse that fooled Hitler The Deceivers

In the second part of our series on the use of deception in WWII, Taylor Downing tells the extraordinary story of Operation Mincemeat.

34 Cromwell’s ‘general at sea’ The making of Britain’s imperial navy

Graham Goodlad profi les Robert Blake, the republican commander who laid the foundations of sea power a er the Civil Wars.

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www.military-history.org

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They’re coming! The invasion scares of 1805 & 1940 Napoleon and Hitler both drew up detailed plans for the invasion of Britain. David Porter compares the threats they posed.

48 Dark shadows Nathan Bedford Forrest

Edmund West traces the life of the Confederate cavalry offi cer responsible for one the worst atrocities of the American Civil War.

December 2023/January 2024