I am Massimo Predonzani, an Italian artist, art teacher, and illustrator. For over twenty years, I have been dedicated to the study and research of the history of the Italian Wars of the 15th and 16th centuries. I have published eight books to date with various publishers, including Il Cerchio (Rimini), Acies Edizioni (Milan), and the French publishing house Historic’One. I currently work with the British publisher Helion & Co, with whom I have just completed a five-book series on the Italian Wars of the 16th century.
My research focuses on the study of original documents—manuscripts, chronicles, letters, and other historical sources. In my books, which primarily examine the battles of the period, I analyze the historical context, the composition of the armies, the course of the battles, and casualty figures. I cross-reference various—often conflicting—sources to reconstruct these events. However, the central theme of my work is the study of military heraldry.
Most historical essays rarely focus on, or entirely overlook, the visual and symbolic elements—such as the garments, insignia, and colors—worn by the main actors. The attention is almost always on tactics, troop movements, weapons, and armor. Yet questions such as what emblem Sir Bayard wore on his surcoat, or what standard was carried by Gonzalo Fernández de Córdoba, the Great Captain, are often left unanswered.
Francis Ist, King of France
This has always intrigued me—and it’s why I devoted myself to this line of research. I began by exploring the history of my own country, with a book on the Battle of Anghiari (1440). This battle is depicted on a Florentine wedding chest (cassone) held in Dublin. The artwork is almost unique, portraying in meticulous detail the numerous emblems shown on horse barding, surcoats, and banners—almost like an ex-voto. Through textual research, I was able to decode these emblems and identify nearly all the figures represented in the scene.
I continued my investigation into Italian military heraldry of the 15th and 16th centuries, identifying many condottieri and the colors of their companies, and publishing my findings over time. I discovered that Bernardino della Carda, portrayed in the Uffizi’s painting of the Battle of San Romano (1432), is not the knight at the centre of the painting—as often thought—but appears in the background, clearly represented by his device of the twin wings.
I also identified the flag of Captain Pietro dal Monte, who was killed at Agnadello in 1509. The flag is preserved in the Appenzell Museum in Switzerland, which knew the origin of the standard but not its bearer.
Later, for my book on the War for the Kingdom of Naples (1502–1504), I identified the liveries of both the French commander, the Duke of Nemours, and his adversary, the Great Captain. It is worth noting that, during the Renaissance, liveries were the most commonly used elements of military heraldry. Unlike noble coats of arms, which belonged to a family, liveries were personal—although sometimes inherited. These were worn not only by nobles but also by less wealthy captains.
Mirabello castle, in the heart of Pavia Park
In a poem about the Siege of Florence (1529–1530), I discovered all the infantry banners of the mercenaries serving the Republic—each one unique in subject and colour.
As the Italian Wars progressed, identifying symbols became essential: the white cross for the French, the red cross for the English and Spanish, and the cross of St. Andrew for the Empire. But I also uncovered and published lesser-known signs—such as the white sash with red crosses worn by Italians at Fornovo, or the white cross with papal keys used by the Swiss at Marignano—as well as many other previously unpublished emblems and liveries, all of which I have illustrated in my books.
Heavily armed cavalry at the battle
As I mentioned, I am also an illustrator. I use watercolours and pencils to reconstruct the appearance of historical soldiers in detail.
Currently, I am working on the Battle of Pavia (1525). As a passionate student of iconography, I have chosen to work with the Capodimonte tapestries, which are among the most accurate visual records of this historical event. I have compared these images with contemporary accounts from Italian, Spanish, German, and French chroniclers, as well as reports from participants in the siege and battle.
This comparison has allowed me to identify many of the figures depicted in the tapestries and their heraldic emblems. Of course, the main characters—such as the King of France, Pescara, Bourbon, Lannoy, Alençon, and others—had already been identified in previous studies, as their names were woven into swords, bridles, or garments by the tapestry makers. However, others had not been identified—or had been misidentified—such as the four French knights accompanying the King in the first tapestry, or the two knights labelled as French in the scene where the Imperial forces sortie from Pavia and pursue the fleeing Swiss (their allies) toward the Ticino.
In another tapestry, the Imperial eagle appears on a tent in the French camp, and among the fleeing troops, Swiss infantry are shown with the red Imperial cross, though they should have been bearing the white one. I’ve also tried to attribute many other unclear emblems, mottos, and banners.
The Battle of Pavia 1525: From the Chronicles and Tapestries of The Capodimonte Museum is available to buy here.
The major geopolitical features of the Mediterranean today and most of today’s great European nations were forged in iron and fire in the 5th and 6th centuries. At the heart of the battles where Antiquity died and the Middle Ages dawned, the imperial army was led from Constantinople, or in other words, Byzantium. Very Late Roman Army or brand new Byzantine one? That is the question! This book breaks with the historiographical habit of studying the Romano-Byzantine army only under Justinian, neglecting the Eastern emperors who preceded him after 476, the fateful year of the fall of the Western Empire. It also investigates until the year 641, which marked the end of the reign of Heraclius, the last soldier emperor of Late Roman tradition. It is of any help to say that in the 165 years between these two dates, the Romano-Byzantine army could absolutely not remain unchanged. For it is not one of the small paradoxes of the period that the enduring persistence of the imperial State in its eastern half around Byzantium or Constantinople was under the authority of a legal emperor. The civilian populations, mostly Greek-speaking, still obeyed the emperor and his efficient administration. They were submitted to the tax financing a State professional army that must stand up to the Balkans, the Caucasus, Mesopotamia, Palestine and the Western desert facing their multiple warlike Barbarians. Alongside the professional soldiers watching these ever-threatened borders, the Late Roman tradition of private troops of bodyguards and of barbarian mercenaries was perpetuated. The military ranks also remained with a strong Latin-speaking legacy. Moreover, this “Roman” army, as Procopius of Caesarea named it, was not a purely defensive and static army. In some twenty years it reconquered North Africa and Italy, torn from the Vandals and the Ostrogoths, two Germanic peoples unduly occupying these Latin lands. It is necessary to remind that the Late Western Roman army had infamously lost these areas, Rome included. So, another question arises: was the early army of Byzantium better than the 5th-century Late Roman army? A key point must also be clearly understood, as shown in the book: the profound Christianization of Romano-Byzantine society did not demilitarize it in any way. On the contrary, Christianity, with the help of military Saints and of the Holy Mother, reinvigorated the warrior spirit by sanctifying its weapons and banners. The imperial army remained the central actor of the period.
Philippe Richardot is a specialist in military history and the author of eleven books and nearly 200 articles. His main subject of study is the Late Roman army and the warriors of the early Middle Ages, but he also places himself in the broader perspective of comparative military history. A graduate of the regional sessions of the Hautes Études de l’Armement and the Institut des Hautes Études de la Défense nationale (France), he has also been a member of the Scientific Committee of the Centre d’Histoire et de Prospective Militaires de Lausanne-Pully (Switzerland) and research director at the Institut für vergleichende Taktik in Vienna-Potsdam (Austria-Germany). He has written regularly for the Revue Militaire Suisse for nearly three decades, and for three years directed dissertations at the École de Guerre (Paris).
How to recreate the past and put some credible hypothesis. The example of the Emperor Justinian I (reign 527–565). What did he look like? We have a description of him from the historian John Malalas (491–578): small in size, strong nose, short red hair, greying-like beard… It could be the portrait of Justinian at the end of his long reign. But no beard or red greying hair are recorded on the two contemporary iconographic portraits of him: the mosaic in the Basilica San Vitale of Ravenna and a porphyry head of a statue nicknamed “The Carmagnola” from St. Mark’s Basilica in Venice. In both cases he has strong eyebrows and is wearing a diadem with pearls and gems.
Birth of the Byzantine Army 476-641 CE Volume 1 Still Late Roman? is now available here.
The captain of Bayan was just finishing his lunch:
… I was already leaving to go up to the bridge, when suddenly I heard the signalman cry out, ‘Pallada exploded!’ I was on the bridge in less than two seconds, and the following picture presented itself to me: instead of Pallada, there was a huge column of smoke with a cap on top and smoke still coming out from below in the form of a roller at the base of the column. We were quickly approaching it. I set the engine telegraph levers to full astern …
Seconds passed, and I was still waiting for the smoke to clear and for Pallada to appear. By inertia, we approached its location to within one cable [200m], the smoke was blown away by the wind, and a smooth, ripple-free surface appeared before our eyes, as after a mine explosion – there were neither people nor debris from Pallada.[1]
On 11 October 1914, the armoured cruiser Pallada had been leading her sister ship Bayan back to port, at the end of a routine patrol. Pallada’s entire crew of nearly 600 perished in the catastrophic magazine explosion. The cause had been a torpedo fired by U.26.
The flagship of the Russian Baltic Fleet in 1914, the armoured cruiser Ryurik (courtesy Eesti Meremuuseum,SA MMF4817)
The First World War in the Baltic saw a vast range of naval activity: battleship actions, cruiser actions, convoy raids, destroyer clashes, amphibious landings, coastal bombardments, audacious submarine attacks, mining, commerce warfare and air operations. There were terrible disasters and great triumphs. The fortunes of the two opposing fleets ebbed and flowed. These arose from the interplay of shifting strategy, powerful personalities and tactical innovation. Control of the Baltic and the trade routes that ran through it ultimately had a fundamental impact on the war effort of both sides in the war. I will be covering all this and more over the course of my three-volume history, The First World War in the Baltic Sea.
Despite its interest and importance, material in English is patchy, and skewed by the narrow range of sources used. I suspected that there was a much bigger story to tell. A deep dive in the archive records and personal accounts of all three navies that took part in the conflict did not disappoint. The research has uncovered this story, dispelling the assumptions, omissions and hearsay in existing literature.
Russian plan for the defence of the Gulf of Finland in the event of war with Germany
Admiral Nikolay fon Essen led the Russian fleet in the Baltic, reinforced by a force of British submarines. Like all great commanders, Essen had his weaknesses, but his tactics successfully applied the lessons learned in Russia’s defeat by Japan in the 1904–5 war. He drove an innovative strategy, employing intelligence information, stealth and misdirection to the full, but above all, he provided inspiring leadership.
The dramatic loss of Pallada had marked a low point in the fortunes of the Russian fleet during the opening campaign. However, by February 1915, these fortunes had reversed. Grossadmiral Prinz Heinrich von Preussen, the brother of Kaiser Wilhelm, led the German naval forces in the Baltic, with his enterprising field commander, Kontreadmiral Ehler Behring. Both ultimately failed to understand the true threat until it was too late. As a result, the German fleet had to abandon the eastern and central Baltic.
The lessons that emerge from this campaign for the successful conduct of naval operations are as relevant today as they were then and are the subject of the first volume. It is a tale full of unexpected twists and turns.
When people picture the nuclear standoff of the Cold War, they usually imagine missile silos, long-range bombers, or the nightmare of intercontinental ballistic missiles arcing over the poles. But another, lesser-known front existed far from the headlines — a hidden contest fought in the deep oceans, where submarines carried weapons powerful enough to end civilisation in minutes.
In Doomsday Torpedoes: Live Testing of Soviet Naval Nuclear Weapons, 1954–1962, historian Krzysztof Dąbrowski shines a light on this secret world. His new volume in Helion’s Technology@War series examines how the Soviet Union, outmatched by the vast nuclear-armed carrier fleets of the United States, sought to redress the balance through the only means available: by giving its submarines and surface warships nuclear weapons of their own.
Nuclear parity beneath the waves
In the years after 1945, the Soviet Navy faced a humiliating truth. While the Red Army dominated on land, the USSR’s fleet was small, battered, and technologically backward. The US Navy, by contrast, could strike from multiple oceans with carrier-borne aircraft capable of delivering nuclear bombs. Soviet planners quickly concluded that conventional weapons could never bridge that gap. What they needed was a “leveller” — a single, devastating blow that could destroy a carrier group outright.
The solution they devised was as audacious as it was terrifying. Soviet scientists began designing compact nuclear warheads small enough to fit onto torpedoes and anti-ship missiles. The result was the T-5 “Doomsday” torpedo, mated to the RDS-9 nuclear device and tested live in the frigid waters of Novaya Zemlya in 1955. The detonation, though “only” 10 kilotons, confirmed that a submerged submarine could unleash a blast capable of obliterating any fleet within several miles.
A world on the brink
Through meticulous research, Dąbrowski reconstructs the fraught story of these weapons and the submariners who trained to use them. Drawing on Soviet and Western sources alike, he chronicles the design and deployment of the post-war Whiskey, Zulu, Foxtrot and Romeo-class submarines — the vessels that formed the core of the USSR’s nuclear torpedo force. He also traces how their missions evolved as the Cold War intensified, culminating in the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, when several Soviet submarines armed with nuclear torpedoes were cornered by US destroyers. In those tense hours, one wrong signal or misinterpreted order could have triggered a nuclear exchange.
Doomsday Torpedoes shows that these near-disasters were not isolated incidents. As both blocs tested and deployed new nuclear systems, the margin for error shrank dramatically. The book reveals how the Soviets used live testing to understand the effects of underwater blasts — from the pressure waves that could crush a ship’s hull to the radioactive contamination of seawater and atmosphere. These tests were both scientific experiments and rehearsals for a war that everyone hoped would never come.
Innovation, secrecy and risk
Beyond the weapons themselves, Dąbrowski situates this dangerous programme within the broader technological and political race of the 1950s. He explores the role of the Soviet design bureaus that pioneered nuclear-capable torpedoes, missiles and submarines; the engineers of Gidropribor and KB-11; and the Admirals such as Sergey Gorshkov, who pushed the Navy into the nuclear age. The story becomes one not only of scientific progress, but of rivalry, paranoia and state secrecy — a reminder of how innovation and existential fear were entwined in the Cold War’s most perilous decade.
Richly illustrated and meticulously researched
As with all volumes in Helion’s Technology@War series, Doomsday Torpedoes combines authoritative analysis with striking visual presentation. More than a hundred rare photographs, maps, and full-colour artworks by Tom Cooper and Anderson Subtil depict the aircraft, submarines and missiles that defined the Soviet quest for naval parity. Readers will find illustrated profiles of the Li-2, Il-28, Tu-16 and other aircraft used in nuclear testing, as well as detailed renderings of the submarines that carried the T-5 torpedo and early ballistic missiles.
The result is both a history and a cautionary tale — a vivid reminder that the nuclear age was not merely a contest of numbers and warheads, but of men working at the edge of the unknown. By focusing on the Soviet Navy’s little-known live nuclear tests, Dąbrowski restores a crucial piece of the Cold War story that has long been overshadowed by the land and air arms races.
A chilling new chapter in the Technology@War series
Doomsday Torpedoes brings the reader face to face with the reality of an era when the world came closer to annihilation than most realised. It is a gripping account of how the pursuit of deterrence almost unleashed disaster — and how, by a mixture of restraint, chance and exhaustion, the planet survived.
For anyone interested in Cold War strategy, submarine warfare or the evolution of nuclear technology, this volume is an essential addition to the Technology@War library.
Doomsday Torpedoes Live Testing ofSoviet Naval Nuclear Weapons, 1954-1962 is now available here.
On the rare occasions that they are examined by historians, galloglass are usually called ‘mercenaries’. While the description is truthful up to a point, it is a long way from the whole truth. Write my new book for Helion, I have become aware of just how misunderstood – and often plain ignored – medieval Gaelic armies are. Historians sometimes imply that medieval Ireland, and also Scotland, were so factional and so ‘dog eat dog’ that they were places of non-stop anarchy and division. There undoubtedly was much disorder in medieval Ireland and Scotland – but medieval England was also often disorderly.
We must not romanticise galloglass but they were clearly motivated by more than simply financial profit or power as an end in itself. They were more culturally and politically committed than that. What follows is an attempt to get us away from thinking of galloglass as straightforwardly ruthless soldiers of fortune, and instead see them as Gaelic Ireland’s professional warrior class who, whenever possible, would attach themselves to causes that advanced Gaelic control of Ireland, and diminished English control of Ireland.
The galloglass lord Maol Mhuire Mac Suibhne (MacSweeney) escaping from an English ship by jumping into the Foyle and swimming for it (painted by Fergus Cannan-Braniff).
Culture & Politics
‘Galloglass’, or in its Gaelic form gallóglach (singular) or gallóglaigh (plural), were originally Scots who carved out a name for themselves in Ireland as well-equipped, well-trained soldiers of fortune. It is true they came to Ireland seeking land, wealth and advancement, and so one might expect galloglass to have been the very epitome of Machiavellianism. But, just as Michael Mallett found when researching the mercenaries of renaissance Italy, the galloglass clans were not outcasts, but active and involved parts of local cultural and religious life.[1] Doubtless some galloglass were extremely unpleasant people, but to call the galloglass Machiavellian in the sense of being unscrupulous or unprincipled is to ignore other important aspects of their character. If one had to select three words which best capture the mentality of the galloglass, one would find that none of the three words particularly imply nihilistic ruthlessness: Gaelic, religious, military.
Although following a profession which was destructive, it is not illuminating to see galloglass as mindless thugs. Hiram Morgan’s definition of galloglass as ‘the heavy infantrymen of the Gaelic revival’ conveys much better than words like ‘mercenary’ the sort of cultural loyalties these people had.[2] There were political patterns and recurring themes to their violence. Factional rather than anarchic, galloglass became integral to the great Fitzgerald-Butler rivalry in Ireland, and they played a consistently prominent role in risings against English rule all the way down to the advent of the Stuart age. They also had a keen sense of their own status, ancestry and honour, the galloglass leadership building their own castles and becoming landed gentry as well as axe-wielding warriors.
The evidence suggests galloglass had an esteem for their own Gaelic culture. I believe they came to Ireland from Scotland regarding themselves not as foreigners but as fellow Gaels, speaking Gaelic and with an evident respect for Gaelic customs and traditions. Yet the galloglass commanders knew their family trees which gave them a distinctness among the Irish nobility. Even though his ancestors had migrated to Ireland several centuries earlier, a member of the famous Mac Síthigh (MacSheehy) family of galloglass in Munster was nevertheless still described as a Scot.[3]
The long twilight of the Irish Middle Ages: Máire Rua or ‘Red Mary’ O’Brien with courtiers, somewhere around the middle years of the 17th century, painted by Fergus Cannan-Braniff.Away from Anglicised areas of authority, some Irish landowners were able to maintain enclaves of traditional Gaelic life, and so we have imagined Máire as attended on by her dogs, a harper (for entertainment and the preservation of folklore), a henchman (reminiscent of a galloglass, albeit a rather tatty one, for protection), and an old crone-like maid in a shaggy cloak (for gossipy company and meeting Máire’s every whim). The henchman’s ragged cloak references the fact that although Máire had thousands of acres she was not a wealthy woman in the sense of money or possessions by the time of her death in 1686.
Galloglass were mercenaries in the sense of being available to the highest bidder, but they had a clear preference for Gaelic or Gaelicised employers. The stop-start, usually fairly limited inter-clan wars they fought in were aimed at obtaining greater power within the Gaelic status quo, not overturning the system and building something radically different. None of this should make the galloglass seem nice people. In a way it makes them even more frightening because it shows there was thought and planning in their actions. Galloglass could be duplicitous, but their political ideal seems to have been that Ireland and Scotland should be run by Gaels, or at least by rulers who would respect their status and customs – or, failing that, at least leave them to their own devices.My impression is that when galloglass accepted work or land from the English authorities in Ireland, it was not their first preference but a case of short-term deals to be accepted until something better came along. When they did surrender or swap sides, fear and a simple desire to survive were probably just as common motivating factors as Machiavellian cunning, perhaps especially among the galloglass rank-and-file.
Unlike the Swiss or German Landsknechte, galloglass did not take their trade outside their native realms. Allowing for the fact that there is a debate to be had over whether Dürer had seen with his own eyes the galloglass-like Irishmen he depicted in 1521, it is nevertheless fair to say that galloglass remained rooted within the Gaelic world. On the other hand, they did not live in isolation from the outside world; instead they seem to have been able to adapt and develop militarily. But as well as soldiers, the galloglass leadership were patrons of bardic verse, and they produced some interestingly intellectual descendants, suggesting there had always been more to them culturally and economically than just fighting.[4] Indeed, rather than simply fighters, galloglass may well have been integral to the running of local estates, , perhaps involved with duties like the collection of taxes and tributes, and the enforcement of law.
Perhaps there was a jolly side to the galloglass as well. It would be no be surprise if galloglass were musical people, given that they lived in an age where singing and the performing and enjoying of music was normal and common to all ages and social backgrounds. An illustration in John Derrick or Derricke’s Image of Irelande (published 1581) shows, albeit mockingly, a Mac Suibhne or MacSweeney (one of the best known galloglass families) enjoying himself amid his entourage which includes a harper. Quite possibly galloglass used bagpipers in their military units. Another illustration in Derricke’s Image of Irelande shows what seems to be a galloglass unit formed up behind a piper, and a set of bagpipes is shown amongst galloglass in John Thomas’ picture-map of the battle of Erne Fords (1593).
Perhaps some of this regard for music passed down through the generations. The uilleann piper Tarlach Mac Suibhne (1818/32-1916) was an itinerant piper descended from the Mac Suibhne galloglass of Doe Castle. Living in tiny thatched cabins, Tarlach grew up playing the fiddle as well as the pipes, claiming his skill at the pipes was limited until an encounter with fairies.[5] While the ancestry of the harpist and poet Cahir Mac Cába (born something like 1670) is unknown, the fact that he was from County Cavan (where Mac Cába or MacCabe galloglass had settled), strongly suggests galloglass lineage.[6]
Another possible window onto the things galloglass held dear is their heraldry. Galloglass heraldry (and how, if ever, they used heraldry while they were still actually galloglass) is a topic worthy of further study. They appear to have had banners, but heraldry was not traditionally a part of the Gaelic conception of noble status. However, when galloglass families did adopt coats of arms they selected proud emblems like axes – always considered the classic gallóglach weapon – and symbols relating to the countryside (such as deer) and seafaring (such as ships). As well as powerful visual references to their family histories, their coats of arms indicate, I think, a degree of affection for local landscapes and natural surroundings. By this time the traditional Gaelic order was crumbling in Ireland and galloglass coats of arms also feel an attempt at keeping the old ways alive.[7]
Pious Mercenaries
When we consider galloglass from a religious angle, we again find that appearances can be deceptive. At least some of the galloglass leaders gave considerable attention to their devotions. As a statement of religious belief we surely have to take seriously the poetry in the ‘Tinnakill Duanaire’. This book of Gaelic poetry was probably commissioned by Aodh Buidhe Mac Domhnaill, galloglass captain of Tinnakill castle who died 1619. The poetry is so heavily religious that, as Anne O’Sullivan comments, one might think this was a collection of poetry commissioned by an ecclesiastic rather than a commander of galloglass.[8]
Both the Mac Suibhne galloglass of Fanad and the Mac Suibhne galloglass of Boghaineach (or Banagh) established monastic houses.[9] There is a memorable description of a Mac Suibhne and his retinue at Clondavaddog church in Donegal, who lay decorated swords on the altar, and bring with them, at least on feast days, satchels filled with musical instruments and books.[10] When Killybegs harbour was raided in 1513 it was believed that a young member of the Mac Suibhne family and a scratch force of shepherds and farmers had been able to defeat the raiders due to the ‘miracles of God and St Catherine’.[11]
Living in often violent times and following a military profession perhaps enhanced a preoccupation among the galloglass with the afterlife, faith and fate. I doubt there was a clear line in their minds between their devotions and their activities as soldiers. It does not seem that Gaelic beliefs about the relationship between reason and religion in warfare were fundamentally different from those found across pre-reformation western Europe. In poetry and song, the ideal medieval soldier was often a person of unquestioning Christian faith who surrendered himself to the will of God – or in the case of some medieval tales, a military adventurer who was happy to follow wherever fate and chance took him, fighting and questing as an end in itself.
But some of the more intellectual medieval discussions about war emphasised that God was unlikely to grant victory to fools. Medieval thought-leaders therefore reasoned it is commanders of armies and nations, not God, who are responsible for planning, tactics and logistics.[12] What humans could not control (luck, fate, fortune) was in the hands of God. Yet even then one could not automatically expect God to intervene. A 16th-century life of St. Colum Cille, a saint venerated by the Mac Suibhne galloglass and their Ó Domhnaill (O’Donnell) overlords in Donegal, warns that God does not like to answer prayers concerning worldly matters such as victory in battle – even when those prayers come direct from Colum Cille himself.[13]
Irish lord and his court, 16th century, sketched by Fergus Cannan-Braniff.
The Red Stone
There are also more mystical, supernatural threads to the galloglass, principally a belief in charms, rituals and saints, which have passed unnoticed by scholars. Those seeking to recreate the gallóglaigh through re-enactment, wargaming or model-making cannot achieve authenticity with conveying these (sometimes seemingly contradictory) characteristics of piety, ritual, wasteful lavishness, pride in ancestry and belief in fate and the supernatural. The Mac Suibhne family, for example, are said to have had a gold ring with a precious stone which made one invincible in combat.[14]
A fascinating glimpse of how sound military preparation could go hand in hand with a belief in ritual and the supernatural is contained in a document, again concerning the Mac Suibhne galloglass, in the Royal Irish Academy entitled ‘the Will of Donall O’Gallagher aged 41 years concerning all the ‘old customs of O’Donnell in the territory of Tirconnell A.D. 1626’.[15] The original 17th-century document is apparently lost, but what the Royal Irish Academy have is a translation from Irish into English made by John O’Donovan, one of the most famous and interesting of Ireland’s early historians. Cambridge University also have a copy in Irish made by an anonymous scribe in the 18th century of the same lost document.[16]
There is much to say about the ‘old customs’ described here. For a start, Donall’s family name is significant, given that the Ó Gallchobhair or O’Gallagher chiefs were ‘marshals’ of Ó Domhnaill’s forces. Born in 1806 the son of a Catholic tenant farmer, O’Donovan studied Gaelic Irish history with an energy and enthusiasm that few others have had, before or since. Among many interesting details in the Royal Irish Academy’s ‘old customs’ document is the pact between three Mac Suibhne septs and Ó Domhnaill, which was to supply 300 galloglass (a very formidable force) and also ‘a person to carry the armour and stone of St Columbkille.’[17]
What was this stone, and how and why was it carried? St. Colum Cille (Columcille, Columkille, Columba) is a major figure in Celtic Christianity. One of Ireland’s patron saints (Patrick being the primary patron), Colum Cille is said to have been born at Gartan, Donegal, around 521.[18] Asterisked at the bottom of his translation, O’Donovan has added the question: ‘Is not this Columkille’s reade stone mentioned in the Inquisitions.’[19]
Galloglass at prayer, circa 1600, at the chapel of Gartan in Donegal, birthplace of St. Colum Cille; painted by Fergus Cannan-Braniff. The ruins of the chapel, known to have been once thatched, still stand. We have attempted here a of a late galloglass, based on an interpretation of John Thomas’ picture-map of the battle of Erne Fords. The galloglass here has a ceramic hand grenade on the ground next to him, based on an example now in the Ulster Museum which came from a Spanish ship, Trinidad Valencera; the ship had participated in the 1588 Armada campaign and was wrecked in Kinnagoe Bay, Donegal.
It looks like O’Donovan was right. In ‘the year of our Lord 1532,’ Maghnas Ó Domhnaill, chief of Tír Conaill, dictated ‘from his own lips’ the life of Colum Cille which we quoted from earlier.[20] Maghnas’ book mentions several stones, including a flagstone on which Colum Cille was born (but Maghnas tells us it remained at Gartan), and a flagstone on which Colum Cille was baptised, and thereafter had the power to heal – but this one, Maghnas recounts, was lost.[21] The saint’s ‘armour’ and ‘read’ or red stone cannot have been that big as it sounds like there was only one person assigned to carry them. This means we can rule out ‘St. Columba’s Pillow’, which is 48cm long and, was found near Iona Abbey (who now care for it), and not in Ireland.
Mac Suibhne chiefs were, it is true, originally inaugurated at Iona by Colum Cille’s successors there, but from the time of Toirdhealbhach Ruadh Mac Suibhne of Fanad (died perhaps c. 1438), inauguration of each Mac Suibhne Fánad was performed at the Columban foundation of Kilmacrenan in Donegal, the ceremonial rites overseen by the Ó Firghil (O’Friel) family. The same family also inaugurated each Ó Domhnaill ruler.[22]
To find the ‘red stone’ we need to turn back Maghnas Ó Domhnaill’s account of Colum Cille, in which he tells of a ‘round stone’ which was the ‘colour of blood’ known was ‘An Cloch Ruadh’ (= ‘The Red Stone’), which Colum Cille left to Gartan to work miracles.[23] Perhaps it was used as a healing stone to prevent or cure wounds. Two other healing stones are known in Donegal, and a protective ‘charmstone’ was possessed by the Highland Campbells of Glenorchy.[24] Maghnas says the red stone could not be covered with gold or silver, though people had tried, but it would ‘suffer’ a case made from those metals.[25] In 1609 it was recorded that a member of the Ó Náthan (or O’Nahan/Nawn) family, who was coarb (hereditary successor) of Gartan, ‘carrieth Columkillie’s read stone’.[26] Surely this is the stone carried by the man – likely a cleric of the Ó Náthan family, rather than a galloglass – supplied by Mac Suibhne Boghaineach.
Armour for the Body, Armour for the Soul
The attachment the Ó Domhnaill dynasty and their followers had for Colum Cille went beyond the fact that that this was a local saint of regal ancestry. There is a violence to elements of Colum Cille’s legend and in the language used to tell that story, and no doubt this resonated with the Ó Domhnaill and Mac Suibhne families. Even Colum Cille does not escape painful physical punishment when an angel strikes him for his disobedience.[27]
Maghnas tells, as well, the story of Colum Cille and his people slaughtering the enemy in a great battle at Cúl Dreimne, aided by the archangel Michael taking the form of a great warrior.[28] Colum Cille, then, was something of a military saint (he is also said to have subdued the Loch Ness monster),[29] and this brings us to the question of Colum Cille’s ‘armour’. At this point comparison between O’Donovan’s translation and a recent translation of the Cambridge manuscript is worthwhile. The Cambridge University copy of the ‘old customs’ uses the Irish word ‘lúirigh’, from the Latin lorica (a general term meaning ‘body armour’). O’Donovan opted for the general word ‘armour’, but the recent translation of the Cambridge version renders this as ‘breastplate of Columcille’.[30]
Yet ‘lorica’ is the term for a protection prayer, as well as body armour. It does not seem medieval people thought of armour as something which only protected the body; armour could protect both body and soul. And so we find warfare with physical weaponry and warfare of the spirit in Maghnas’ biography of Colum Cille, a saint who, Maghnas says, destroyed carnal enemies with ‘the arms of battle’, and spiritual enemies with the ‘weapons’ of ‘abundant vigils’ and the ‘frequent shedding of tears.’[31] Again, the very old (at least 8th century) ‘breastplate’ prayer of St Patrick appeals to Christ to ‘protect me to-day / Against poison, against burning / Against drowning, against wound,’ and Ephesians 6:14 urges us to ‘Stand firm … with the breastplate of righteousness in place.’
Real armour could act as a charm. Possibly the fact that armour is uncomfortable to wear meant it was seen as a way to strengthen the spirit. To medieval ears, it was good that St. Richard, bishop of Chichester until his death in 1253, had worn a ‘hairshirt’ and ‘breastplate’ (what form of armour this means is unclear), and so ‘inflicted on his flesh the arms of this world, so that his spirit would more easily bear the arms of Heaven.’[32]
All the same, the Gaelic word ‘lúirigh’ or luireach used in the Cambridge University copy of the ‘old customs’ was often used by early writers to mean specifically a mail shirt.[33] Given the connection with galloglass, we might expect this to mean the ‘hawberk’ of Colum Cille. Galloglass used other forms of armour, but they are often described as wearing mail shirts. This would not be the only known example of holy or ‘magic’ mail armour in Ireland (if that is what it was). The National Museum of Ireland has a crozier and band of rivetted mail associated with St Mura. This piece of mail and crozier are recorded as having been presented to the antiquary and artist George Petrie, who died in 1866, by a Mr Woods of Sligo. Variously described as ‘bronze’ or ‘brass’ (although it cannot be brass in the modern sense of the word), the mail band is 2.4 metre-long.[34] An uneven number of rings have been used, indicating bits are missing and that this could be the remnant of a garment.
Mura was the patron saint of the Ó Neill dynasty.[35] If the crozier and mail does have a connection with Mura, it is conceivable Ó Neill’s Mac Domhnaill (MacDonnell) galloglass knew of them, and had perhaps even drawn strength from them in their rituals. It is, just to confuse matters, possible that this mail band and crozier actually came from the church of St Lommán of Portloman, Lough Owel (Co. Westmeath), where a crozier and chain of Lommán’s are recorded, the chain being wrapped around women to heal and protect them during childbirth.[36] But either way, one suspects that Colum Cille’s ‘lúirigh’ was a piece of actual armour – quite possibly mail – which was believed to have belonged to the saint, perhaps at the battle of Cúl Dreimne.
Along with the ‘red stone’, Colum Cille’s ‘lúirigh’ may well have been a talisman used in rituals, led by a Ó Náthan, involving protective prayers or oath-swearing, with perhaps the stone and armour carried for public display in a portable altar. We know Richard II made Irish nobles swear allegiance on St. Patrick’s crozier or staff,[37] and Richard Stanihurst tells us in his De Rebus in Hibernia Gestis (1584) that upon enrolment galloglass traditionally swore with ‘religious solemnity’ never to turn their backs on the enemy.[38] We can easily imagine such oaths being sworn in front of the Colum Cille relics; to those swearing their oaths such objects may well have felt as potent and powerful as battlefield weaponry.
But a Hollow Laugh (No Doubt) from Machiavelli
It would be interesting to know whether the galloglass oaths mentioned by Stanihurst were focussed solely on battlefield courage or if they contained any wider political or religious ideals. But it is, in my opinion, clear that words like ‘Machiavellian’ and ‘mercenary’ do not tell the whole story when it comes to the gallóglaigh. There remains another question to consider, though: what Machiavelli himself said about mercenaries. Machiavelli, whose ideas were read with interest around Europe, warned in The Prince, which he wrote in 1513,that mercenaries ‘are useless and dangerous’, and that a state who relies on them ‘will never be either stable or safe.’[39] Elements of this are certainly true of the galloglass. The English issued pardons and land grants to galloglass leaders, and hired units of galloglass and Irish ‘kern’ light infantry. Yet members of these supposedly English-aligned groups of galloglass and kern turned on the authorities when they had the chance, the government’s Mac Domhnaill galloglass in Leinster being described in a report as ‘a nowghty race’ who are ‘disposed to Rebellion.’[40]
Machiavelli would no doubt have uttered a hollow laugh at this. But his analysis of mercenaries does not in other ways ring true for the galloglass. For if we consider the evidence carefully, we find the galloglass were rather more complex characters who had political scruples, a code of honour and a high regard for their own traditions and religious practices. Often caught up in extremely difficult political events, the galloglass clans survived for as long as they did by following a mix of caution, belligerence and hard-headed realism. But beneath the Machiavellian exterior existed values, agendas and long-term political goals based around fairly consistent ideals of culture, identity, religion, ancestry and clan.
The Gaelic World at War: Soldiers & Soldiering in Ireland 1366-1547 is now available to buy here.
[1] M. Mallett, Mercenaries and Their Masters: Warfare in Renaissance Italy (2024), chap. 8.
[2] H. Morgan’s review of S. Duffy (ed.), World of the Galloglass, in Scottish Historical Review, vol. 89, pt. 1 (April 2010), p. 102.
[3] M. MacCarthy-Morrogh, ‘The Munster Plantation, 1583-1641’ (Royal Holloway College PhD thesis, 1983), p. 182.
[4] Such as (if we are right that they are MacSweeneys) Eugene Swiney, an eminent printer, publisher and bookseller who was probably born around 1730 in Limerick city, and Owen Mac Swiney, born 1680 in Co. Wexford, who, although apparently a soldier as a young man became a playwright and London theatre manager (see Dictionary of Irish Biography entries for both). Others were successful in commerce: in the early 18th century Sheehys were noted Catholic merchants in Limerick and Cork.
[5] ‘Mac Suibhne (McSweeney), Tarlach’, Dictionary of Irish Biography (entry by D. McCabe).
[6] Perhaps Mac Cába’s ‘erudite literacy in the Gaelic verse tradition’ and that he would not accept money for his bardic performances, indicate a long-standing Mac Cába respect for poetry and music: ‘MacCabe (Mac Cába), Cathaoir (Cahir)’, Dictionary of Irish Biography, (entry by D. McCabe).
[7] For MacDonnell arms: B. Burke, The General Armory of England, Scotland, Ireland, and Wales (1989), p. 638; E. MacLysaght, Irish Families: Their Names, Arms & Origins, 4th edn. (1991), p. 166. For MacDowell arms: Burke, General Armory, p. 639. For MacSheehy arms: Burke, General Armory, p. 918; MacLysaght, Irish Families, p.184. For MacCabe arms: F. Cannan, Galloglass 1250-1600: Gaelic Mercenary Warrior, illus. by S. Ó’Brógáin (2010), p. 47; Fairburn’s Crests, rev. by L. Butters (1989), p. 305; MacLysaght, Irish Families, p. 161. For MacSweeney arms: Cannan, Galloglass, p. 27; MacLysaght, Irish Families, p. 184; Burke, General Armory, p. 647; see also the MacSweeney arms in MS 125, GO 60 in the Office of the Chief Herald of Ireland. I am grateful to Fergus Gillespie, former Chief Herald of Ireland, for discussing the heraldry of families of galloglass origin with me.
[8] The ‘Tinnakill Duanaire’ (Trinity College Dublin MS 1340), the commissioning of which perhaps involved Aodh’s wife Mary O’More, can be viewed online, together with O’Sullivan’s very useful article, at the Irish Script on Screen website.
[9] The Church of Ireland clergyman Mervyn Archdall, born in Dublin in 1723, found that near Killybegs town, in Donegal, Mac Suibhne Boghaineach constructed a ‘small house’ for Franciscan friars. When the friary was no more, the local people made from its ruins a church dedicated to St. Catherine – Archdall, Monasticon Hibernicum (1873), vol. 1, p. 199; see also ‘Mac Suibhne Boghaineach’ in F. Gillespie, ‘Gaelic Families’, in W. Nolan, L. Ronayne & M. Dunlevy (eds.), Donegal: History and Society (1995). For the Fanad family’s involvement with religion see Gillespie, ‘Gaelic Families’, p. 781; K. Simms, ‘Images of the Galloglass in Poems to the MacSweeneys’, in S. Duffy (ed.), The World of the Galloglass: Kings, Warlords and Warriors in Ireland and Scotland, 1200-1600 (2007), p. 106; Leabhar Chlainne Suibhne: An Account of the MacSweeney Families in Ireland, ed. P. Walsh (1920), p. xxviii.
[10] J.J. Silke, ‘Raphoe and the Reformation’, in Nolan, Ronayne & Dunlevy, Donegal, pp. 271-272.
[12] See C. Tyerman, How to Plan a Crusade: Reason and Religious War in the High Middle Ages (2016), esp. chap. 1, for a good outline of the place of reason in medieval military thought.
[13] Manus O’Donnell, The Life of Colum Cille, ed. B. Lacey (1998), p. 99.
[15] Royal Irish Academy Miscellaneous O’Donovan MS, labelled ‘Ordnance Survey, Ireland’, 14/B/7, p. 423.
[16] Cambridge University Library MS Add. 2766(20)(7), which has been translated in D. McGettigan, Red Hugh O’Donnell and the Nine Years War (2005), ‘Appendix One: Administrative Documents Connected with Red Hugh’.
[17] Royal Irish Academy Miscellaneous O’Donovan MS, labelled ‘Ordnance Survey, Ireland’, 14/B/7, p. 423.
[18] Alban Butler, Lives of the Saints, ed. B. Kelly, 4th edn. (1936), vol. 2, p. 614; M. Manser (ed.), Collins Dictionary of Saints (2004), p. 57.
[19] Royal Irish Academy Miscellaneous O’Donovan MS, labelled ‘Ordnance Survey, Ireland’, 14/B/7, p. 423.
[24]R. Ó Floinn, ‘Sandhills, Silver and Shrines – Fine Metalwork of the Medieval Period from Donegal’, in Nolan, Ronayne & Dunlevy, Donegal, p. 141, note 113; F. Cannan, ‘A Family of Highland Blacksmiths: The Macnabs of Barachastlain’, Journal of the Antique Metalware Society, vol. 19 (2011), pp. 34-35.
[32]Saint Richard of Chichester: The Sources for His Life, ed. D. Jones (Sussex Record Society vol. 79), p. 185.
[33] P. Harbison, ‘Native Irish Arms and Armour in Gaelic Literature, 1170-1600’, Irish Sword, vol. 12 (1975-1976), pp. 173-199 & 270-284; F. Cannan, Scottish Arms and Armour (2009), p. 18; Cannan, Galloglass, pp. 18-21, 61.
[34] National Museum of Ireland object record; Ó Floinn, ‘Sandhills’, in Nolan, Ronayne & Dunlevy, Donegal,pp. 113-116.
[35] W. Reeves, ‘Saint Mura’, Ulster Journal of Archaeology, vol 1 (1853), p. 272.
[36] National Museum of Ireland object record; Ó Floinn, ‘Sandhills’, in Nolan, Ronayne & Dunlevy, Donegal,pp. 113-116.
[37] D. McGettigan, Richard II and the Irish Kings (2016), p. 112.
[38] Richard Stanihurst, Great Deeds in Ireland, ed. J. Barry & H. Morgan (2015), p. 123.
[39] Machiavelli, The Prince, Selections from the Discourses and Other Writings, ed. J. Plamentatz (1972), p. 91.
Another new book on the battles of the Wars of the Roses might warrant an apology, or at least an explanation. Since Tony Goodman and John Gillingham published their ground-breaking work on the military aspects of the Wars over forty years ago, there have been dozens of books published on individual battles, prominent individuals or the campaigns in general. Academic historians and popular historians alike have written on Towton – often said to the biggest and bloodiest battle fought on English soil – Barnet and Bosworth, as well as lesser-known encounters like Mortimer’s Cross and Hexham.
Yet what these accounts, at least for 1459 to 1461, have in common is their reliance on battle narratives drawn mainly from the Tudor chroniclers. These were embellished by the fertile imaginations of nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century historians. The accepted version of the Battle of Towton, for example, is almost entirely derived from the mid-Tudor chronicler Edward Hall, while the various explanations for the ‘battle’ of Wakefield come from a mish-mash of later fifteenth- and sixteenth-century chroniclers and Victorian historians with a sprinkling of Shakespeare added in for good measure. Equally, the confusing and contradictory accounts of the Second Battle of St. Albans in February 1461 are usually made sense of by recourse to the theory of ‘Inherent Military Probability’ and the work of the Great War artillery officer Alfred Burne. In fact, very little of the generally accepted narrative of this first stage of the Wars of the Roses – from Blore Heath on 1459 to Ferrybridge and Towton eighteen months later – is borne out by the contemporary sources.
The base of ‘Dacre’s Cross’ at Towton. Often thought of as a contemporary memorial of the battle, it was in fact erected in the early 20th century. (Author’s photograph)
This book, the first in a three-volume military history of the Wars of the Roses covering the period 1455 to 1471, offers a new account of these well-known battles. It questions many of the commonly held assumptions about the Wars. It is firmly grounded in the contemporary documentary evidence and underpinned by a careful contextualisation of the chronicle evidence.
The first and most fundamental misunderstanding about the military campaigns of the Wars of the Roses is the nature of the conflict itself. The Wars were not a long, drawn-out civil war involving vast armies raised by squabbling nobles all competing in a bloody struggle for the English throne. Contemporaries understood very well what constituted a civil war and wrote about such conflicts in France and elsewhere in Europe, illuminated by the concept of civil war as applied to the Roman Republic and other Classical exemplars. It is important to realise that no fifteenth-century Englishman (or woman), as far as we know, referred to the conflicts of their own time as a ‘civil war.’ Instead, the ‘Wars of the Roses’ (a concept first used in the seventeenth century referring to the heraldic badges of the houses of Lancaster and York) was a series of rebellions against royal authority, some successful and others not, understood within the legal framework of treason and notions of good and effective lordship.
Understanding that the Wars of the Roses were not a civil war, but an intermittent series of rebellions helps us appreciate the nature of the campaigns. Between May 1455 and March 1461, there was probably only some three to four months of active campaigning in England. The crown and its aristocratic rivals had neither the time nor the resources to assemble and maintain armies of the size raised for expeditions abroad (which took months, if not years, of preparation and careful negotiations with local communities to fund and supply). ‘Overmighty subjects’, such as the dukes of York and Somerset and the earl of Warwick, did not routinely maintain armies of hundreds, let alone thousands, of retainers, nor could they mobilise thousands of tenants and servants at short notice to take the field. The armies of this first stage of the Wars were significantly smaller than the numbers given in contemporary (and later) chronicles and were probably smaller than even the most conservative estimates given by recent historians.
Part of the Historic England Registered Battlefield on Towton Dale looking down towards ‘Bloody Meadow.’ (Author’s photograph)
Appreciating that these campaigns were not sustained affairs waged by large armies in the context of a long-running and all-consuming civil war also has a bearing on the way we understand how the battles were fought. There was probably no massed archery at Blore Heath, Towton or any battle between 1455 and 1461. The battles were predominantly fought by the retainers and household men of the various lords, many more of whom probably wore full harness than we might imagine. Englishmen rode to battle, contemporary observers tell us, but usually fought on foot, but in many of these battles, speed of movement and opportunity may have played more of a role than previously thought. Mounted troops probably determined the nature of battle at St. Albans and Ferrybridge/Towton and perhaps also at other times and places. While battles were frequently fatal for the losing commanders, there is little evidence of mass casualties among the rest of the armies. There seems little significant economic impact, no obvious spikes in the number of deaths recorded in probate records, nor evidence of large numbers of wounded or invalided seeking charity. We can be certain that tens of thousands of men were not killed on Palm Sunday 1461 nor in any other battle during these years.
This manuscript illustration of the fighting on Palm Sunday 1461 was produced in the Low Countries, probably in the 1490s, for a copy of the chronicle of the so-called ‘Monstrelet Continuator.’ (Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Manuscrit Français 2679)
Yet if that was the case, why have the Wars been portrayed as one of the darkest periods of English history? On one level the answer is simple: it suited the Yorkists and later the Tudors to stress how they rescued the realm from chaos through strong royal government. On a broader level, the Wars of the Roses played an important part in the grand sweep of English history and the emergence of the stable and justly governed parliamentary monarchy of the nineteenth century. Stripping the mythology from the Wars of the Roses and the battles fought between 1455 and 1461 by returning to the strictly contemporary sources will, I hope, give a better understanding of the events and places that continue to fascinate us today and shape our common heritage.
The Wars of the Roses, Volume 1: The Triumph of York 1455-1461 is now available to buy here.
Almost every year seems to bring out a new biography of Alexander the Great. Many now try to set themselves apart from the pack by taking some new angle (Alexander was an alcoholic; he suffered from PTSD; he was a lousy general; he owed all his success to his father). Perhaps surprisingly, rather less has been published over the years about what it was that made Alexander’s conquests possible, his army.
There has been much academic debate about specific aspects of the army. This has centred chiefly on trying to resolve several particularly thorny issues in the sources, such as the number of units in the phalanx, or the number of hipparchies and the identity of the hipparchs. The chief objective of such scholarship has been to identify and enumerate the various units of the army – little consideration has been given to how these units were equipped, and almost none to how they were used in battle.
The number of book-length examinations of Alexander’s army remains relatively small – a situation in strange contrast to the vast range of publications dealing with the Roman army. The most important is still, after several decades, Nick Sekunda’s The Army of Alexander the Great, published by Osprey in 1984. Sekunda’s approach is rigorously based on archaeological evidence, but the limited page count of an Osprey publication does mean that the book goes into less depth and covers less of the army than might be desired. Of similar vintage, though covering a much broader chronological period, is Duncan Head’s Armies of the Macedonian and Punic Wars. This book is astonishingly comprehensive and deeply researched but again suffers a little from the format.
A few more titles have appeared in recent years dealing with Alexander’s army specifically or Macedonian armies in general. Stephen English’s The Army of Alexander the Great is a very sound analysis of the army and its use in battle, while David Karunanithy’s The Macedonian War Machine is an outstanding account of numerous neglected aspects of Macedonian armies of the period. Gabriele Esposito’s The Macedonian Army of Philip II and Alexander the Great is generally disappointing but does include some useful photography of reenactors.
None of these titles, however, seemed to me to be precisely what I was looking for in a book on Alexander’s army. What I wanted was a book that covered all of Alexander’s army, not just the core Macedonian units; that included but was not limited to discussion of ‘orders of battle’, the size and composition of the various units; that covered clothing (‘uniforms’) and equipment; that was illustrated, including with reconstructions of the various units identified; and that also covered the use of the army in combat, both in pitched battle and in other types of operations. Following the publication of my own analysis of one component of Macedonian armies, The Macedonian Phalanx, I was approached by Helion to write a book on Alexander’s army, so I jumped at the chance. I was aiming for a book that combined academic rigour with accessibility for a general audience, one that would be of interest for scholars of Alexander and that would also contain all the information needed by a wargamer wanting to build and use a model army.
Writing the book involved revisiting the notes I have acquired over several decades of reading and thinking about Alexander’s campaigns and army. The problem lies, as in much of ancient history, in trying to keep on top of a positive avalanche of modern writing on the subject, all of which is built on a relatively modest amount of original source material. These sources consist chiefly of the writings of historians in antiquity, and especially the ‘big four’ of Arrian, Diodorus, Quintus Curtius and Plutarch, all of whom wrote several hundred years after the time of Alexander but are the nearest we have to contemporary sources. This material can be supplemented by a growing amount of archaeological evidence, though Alexander’s army in general is poorly served by archaeology, with the exception of a few well-known monuments and (if the chronological parameters are stretched a little) a number of recently discovered Macedonian tombs. Most of the detailed scholarly debates are too involved to be dealt with in depth in the type of book I had in mind, and I did not want to refer extensively to modern literature, preferring to provide a higher-level account of the army without getting into too many of the details of the modern scholarly debate. The text of Arrian provided the basis for most of my account. It is fashionable now to denigrate Arrian’s writings and to place greater emphasis on the ‘vulgate’ authors, Diodorus and Quintus Curtius, but my experience has been that in military matters at least Arrian’s text is far more reliable and contains more detailed information, and that where conflicts arise between the various sources, Arrian is almost always to be preferred. Even so, Arrian himself can be at times frustratingly vague about matters of organisation and equipment, or the course of the major battles. My view is that it is better to be open about the limitations of the sources and to admit that often we simply do not and cannot know exactly what happened or why, especially in battle. Some readers, I know, seek certainty in modern accounts of the past, but I feel that acknowledging the limitations of the evidence, while not being so bound by the need for certainty as to be unable to offer reasonable speculations, is the best approach.
When it comes to the reconstruction drawings of clothing and equipment, I have been lucky enough to work with an artist (Renato Dalmaso) whose precise but dramatic illustrations do a great job of depicting the various soldiers of the army. I have not adopted the strict approach of Sekunda’s book, where every detail had to be justified by archaeological evidence. Perhaps surprisingly, there are very few contemporary depictions of Alexander’s army, and very little surviving equipment that belonged to it. To provide comprehensive coverage of the army, it is necessary to take a slightly more speculative approach and pull in evidence from the period shortly after Alexander’s reign to supplement what little direct evidence we do have. The reconstructions give a general idea of how Alexander’s army looked, even though we cannot provide definitive details on every aspect of its appearance.
How successful I have been in my objectives readers will soon be able to judge. I certainly have not written the ultimate book on Alexander’s army. Too much had to be left out (it is much easier to write a long book on this army than a short one) and there are too many questions for which it is not possible to provide definite answers. But I hope that I have at least covered a wide range of topics, and provided the sort of information that most people with an interest in Alexander’ army will be looking for.
You can now purchase The Army of Alexander the Greathere.
On the recent 80th Anniversary of VE day, 20 years after the passing of the soldier in my story, it felt like a great responsibility fulfilled to have the book about his escape ready for publication.
Hearing the witness accounts of the last few survivors was moving, as well as reassuring for me as writer of a book based on an untold personal account from that time. Many of the details they mentioned, and that remained vivid in their long memories, connected immediately with those I had gathered: the sorrow for the fellow servicemen and women who did not get to have a long life; the worry of those back home, waiting, hoping, and not knowing; the awareness that there was so much sheer luck in who survived and who didn’t; the overwhelming joy when a long-missed loved-one returned home.
The account is inspired by the factual war time record of Captain R. E. Selby, dictated in the late 1980s and supplemented by the family’s research in subsequent years. Knowing and hearing from some of the close members of his family too, his sister and step-brother and his sister-in-law, means I have been able to try to capture how it felt for them at home, having their loved-one in peril and not to know for many months at a time if he was alive or dead. I hope I have captured at least some of their emotions, alongside the courage and determination of the soldier and of all those who helped him in his escape to freedom.
The TV commentary around the VE Day celebrations focused repeatedly on the need to record the experiences of those who served, to keep their stories alive and to share them with the next generation. The young today will not get to meet with and talk to people who were actually there. They can learn the facts of strategy and outcome, but it is the accounts given by many individuals that make such unimaginable experiences feel a little closer – as if we could touch the past even as the horrors and joys in their accounts touch our hearts.
Like many, Reginald Selby was taken prisoner in North Africa and shipped to a prisoner of war camp in Italy. When Italy changed sides in September 1943, Reg was one of fewer than five thousand from the seventy or eighty thousand Allied men then in Italy to survive and escape recapture to get safely home.
It seemed right to record his experiences and journey for our own family’s new generations to hear and I was delighted when Helion accepted the manuscript for their military publications. This was all the more significant, since Reginald was the second generation in succession in his family to spend the best years of his youth – most of his twenties – fighting for his country. His father had won the DSM in World War I as a young man and had gone on to witness many more years of that brutal conflict.
Both father and son survived to return, have families and live full lives, but each kept their war experiences closed away. When Reginald was finally persuaded to dictate the record of his experiences, it prised open a door not just to the account of an individual’s role within Allied military exercises, but to the courage, love, fear and sheer determination of individuals and families that are hard to imagine, 80 years on.
At a time of conflict in Europe again, especially between peoples, nations, with so much apparently in common, it feels significant to add another story, inspired by his untold account, to the wider record of that past battle for freedom.
Helion Wargames and other stuff editor Charles Singleton was in the hood so we decided to have a game with his newly painted Italian Wars army, and a beautiful thing it is too. I let Charles choose a scenario from the new ‘Wargaming the Italian Wars’ book and he chose Marignano 1515AD, mainly I think to get his Swiss on the table.
The battle was a two day affair, on the first there was ferocious fighting as the Swiss tried to breach the French defences and silence their artillery, it was only the onset of darkness which called a halt. The next day the Swiss again assaulted the French line to no avail as the artillery and massed arquebusier fire scythed their ranks, charges by the French cavalry also pinned them and with the arrival of the Venetians even the vaunted Swiss had had enough.
I set the game up as per the new book using Furioso rules, immediately I had my doubts just how effective the cavalry would be, the Gendarmes like the real battle could only throw themselves at the pike blocks to wear them down, they probably could not actually stop them. This meant that for most of the action I simply repositioned the heavy cavalry to attack any pike block which made it across the bulwark, the light cavalry to my front I hoped would annoy the Swiss and cause some casualties and weaken them before they came to push of pike. In the end they too were pulled off to the flanks to give my guns a clear line of fire.
A view from the French position.
The French camp.
The French.
As the Swiss advanced they too had a problem getting the best use out of their artillery and the Milanese cavalry as the battlefield funneled troops between the road and the dry ditch. My artillery at first was desultory to say the least and even with the addition of my missile troops the Swiss easily shrugged off the odd casualty. I decided to let my men at the breastworks take the brunt of the enemy attack then hopefully when they were disordered and struggling send in my Landsknechts to finish them off. A heavy fusilade forced back the first block that tried to force the works but it came back again and managed to maintain its order as it cut down some crossbowmen along with a smaller French pike block. I had moved two Landsknecht blocks up for just this occurance as a large hole appeared in my line, one failed to contact while the other charged in but was pushed back by the victorious Swiss.
The Swiss left.
Milanese and artillery.
The Swiss advance.
A second and then a third enemy kiel smashed into my entrenchments, I lost an artillery piece but the defenders held helped by the fact that both of the new combatants had become disordered by the terrain. The main Swiss block on my right was now beginning to suffer as casualties mounted and a second Landsknecht block hit them. I rained down curses on the Germans as even with a wounded Swiss kiel to their front they were pushed back, my cavalry, now set up to hit the enemy in the flank looked on waiting their moment. The Landsknechts took the hint and reversed their backward slide and dealt out enough hurt to disorder their opponents.
Nearly there.
The French in disarray.
A fight between mortal enemies.
With all three Swiss blocks held and disordered and with fresh mercenaries ready to enter the fray supported by Gendarmes on the wings we called a halt. Despite the fact that my cavalry had not made one charge due to the outstanding performance of my infantry they would no doubt have mopped up any Swiss survivors who cleared the breastworks. The battle is a huge ask for the Swiss commander but once we got to grips it kept us amused for several hours of fighting back and forth along the defences. I would be tempted to fight it again despite the long odds.
The rest of the Swiss hit the breastwork.
The end.
Charles kindly left me with a copy of the Helion book and if I say so myself it is an excellent wargame guide for the period which covers every aspect from the history to flags and scenarios.
You can buy All is Lost, Save Honour: A Wargames Guide to the Italian Warshere.
Recently Charles Singleton, who oversees the (amongst the other things) Century of the Soldier 1618-1721 series, asked me to write new entry for the Helion & Company blog. I was to write something about the new book, ‘Confrontation of Kings, 1656. The Three-Day Battle of Warsaw in the Swedish Deluge, 1655-1660’, that I co-authored with Michael Fredholm von Essen. My first thought was to write some overall information about the battle, typical mix of interesting facts about the armies and commanders involved, maybe something about the sources we that we used. But then I have completely new idea: what about writing about the process itself, about how two authors co-operated while writing the book? And here how the story goes…
It was July 2022, when Charles contacted me, mentioning that Michael had some proposal for me. I then received an email from Michael himself, in which he mentioned that he was contracted to write a book about the Battle of Warsaw in 1656, largest fight of the 1655-1660 Polish-Swedish was, known also as ‘The Deluge war’. He thought it would be more interesting and useful, if such book presents new perspectives of the battle. That’s why he wanted to check, if I may be interested in co-writing the book about the battle. At that time, I was still writing my Against the Deluge. Polish and Lithuanian armies during the war against Sweden 1655-1660, so I already had quite a lot of researched materials for the Battle of Warsaw itself. At the same time, I already had another volume (The Khotyn Campaign of 1621. Polish, Lithuanian and Cossack Armies against the Ottoman Empire) planned, so I could not commit to another book until mid-2023. Considering that Michael also had some of his books in writing, he very generously agreed to wait with our new ‘joint venture’ until I finish my already started projects. Charles was happy to wait for the new book as well, so he gave us a green light.
Fast forward to August 2023, when the work on the new book, at that stage still untitled, could begin. Considering that Michael lives in Sweden, and I live in Scotland, one can imagine that there were plenty of emails exchanged since then. Already in 2022 Michael prepared very good overall plan of the work, which was a great start, as we could more easily divide the topics we would individually focus on. It was very new and very interesting experience for me, as I never worked as a co-author on the historical book. I have my own ways of research and writing, so had to learn a new approach and aligning my text with my co-author. Luckily Michael, with his vast knowledge and with so many books under his name, was a brilliant leader of this project. Small suggestion or correction here and there, good discussions on the topics where we may have some minor disagreement or a different point of view, plenty of sharing the information and updating the text. He also showed a lot of patience, even though at the time I was rather stubborn on certain matters.
As for the way how, we divided the work. Michael focused on Swedish and Brandenburg armies, I wrote about Polish and Lithuanian ones. Tatar auxiliary force was very good example of the co-authoring, with some basic outline written by me but then vastly updated by Michael. In similar way we wrote about the three days of the battle, with overall framework of the text gradually updated, corrected and improved to show different point of view on the battle. We used plenty of the primary sources, available in Swedish, Polish, German and French. More modern research was utilised as well and we often pointed out how the way that the battle was described by different researchers changed through the years. We also co-operate closely on the choice of the proper illustrations, to ensure that they highlight the text and provide the good visual company to the description of the battle. As for the colour plates, so closely associated with the Century of the Soldier 1618-1721 series, we worked with our long-time collaborated, very talented Sergey Shamenkov.
There is a question I am often asked by my readers: how long it took to write a book? In this case, thanks to the long trail of emails between Michael and me, it is fairly easy to trace it. If we take August 2023 as a start of the work, it would be just over a year to finish it, as by mid-September 2024 manuscript was sent to Helion & Company. Afterwards of course few months working on corrections, proofreading, updates to the colour plates – all those necessary steps to ensure that book end up the way both authors and publisher wants.
Working on Confrontation of Kings, 1656. The Three-Day Battle of Warsaw in the Swedish Deluge, 1655-1660 was definitely very interesting experience for me. I am very grateful to Michael for inviting me to co-write this book and to Charles and lovely folks at Helion & Company for their support. I think this new book would be of a great interest to readers on the English-language market, as it provides with very detailed description of the armies and the events of the battle. Having authors from both Sweden and Poland helped with showing a wider perspective and different points of view, providing most up to the date study of the battle available in English. There are many more interesting battles between the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and Sweden, so who knows, maybe we will see some more co-authored efforts in future…
Confrontation of Kings, 1656: The Three-Day Battle of Warsaw in the Swedish Deluge, 1655-1660 is now available to buy here.
The Helion & Co. Military Book Blog