Military History Photo Friday: Decorative Shields in the Uffizi Gallery

Medusa on shield, painted by Caravaggio c. 1595-98. It brings to mind the Classical tale of how Perseus beheaded Medusa and later gave the head to the goddess Athena, who put it on her shield. This piece was a gift from Cardinal Francesco Maria del Monte to Grand Duke Ferdinando I in 1598.

Shortly after my last trip to Tangier, I got to spend a few days in Florence. Besides brushing off a pickpocket and admiring some grotesque art, I also spent a wonderful day in the famous Uffizi Gallery. They have a fine collection of Classical and Renaissance art. Of interest to military historians are two decorative shields. Of course these would have never seen a battle, but were rather for parades or simply hanging on the wall.

The back of the Medusa shield.

A buckler (small shield) with spike and etched decoration. Made c. 1570-80 by an unknown artist, it was kept in the Medici Armory together with the Medusa shield.

Military History Photo Friday: The L3/35 Tankette

I was digging through some old photos the other day and came across this one of yours truly at a military museum in Rome. I'm standing beside an Italian L3/35 tankette. Tankettes were a popular idea for some nations in the Interwar period. As the name implies, they were miniature tanks, smaller and faster than the behemoths of the First World War.

The L3/35 was first mass produced in 1936 and measured 3.17 x 1.4 x 1.3 m (10.4 × 4.59 × 4.27 ft). It had a top speed of 42 km/h (26 mph), weighed 3.2 tons, and had a crew of two--a driver and gunner. Armament was a pair of machine guns. At its thickest, the armor was only 12 mm (.47 inches).

The tankette served in the Italian invasion of Abyssinia (Ethiopia) and large numbers of them were sent to help the fascists during the Spanish Civil War. Their thin armor made them vulnerable, and having the guns fixed to the front meant the tankette had to be turned to bring the weapons to bear. Abyssinian warriors would rush up behind the tank and stuck their swords into the tracks, which was often enough to disable them! In the Spanish Civil War they had to face tanks sent to the Republican army by the Soviet Union like the BT-5 and T-26. These were real tanks with cannons and turrets and everything. You can guess how well the little Italian models fared.

By World War Two, the L3/35 was obsolete, but that didn't stop the Italians from fielding large numbers of them in North Africa. The British made short work of them. It's amazing any survived to end up in this museum!

Military History Photo Friday: The Pharaoh Ramesses II Smiting the Enemies of Egypt

This carving is from the National Museum in Cairo and shows Pharaoh Ramesses II (1279-1212 BC) smiting the traditional enemies of Egypt. Shown from left to right are a Nubian, a Libyan, and an Asiatic (perhaps a Hittite). The "smiting pose" was a popular one for pharaonic imagery. Ramesses has an axe in his hand.

Ramesses II campaigned against all three of these peoples, but is most famous for his long war with the Hittites, an empire based in what is now Turkey that had spread into the Levant and threatened Egypt. His victory at the Battle of Kadesh was recorded in a long and bombastic text that was copied onto many later buildings.

Sorry for the grubby picture and the light reflection. The National Museum needs to clean its display cases!

Military History Photo Friday: The Volkshandgranate 45, A Grenade Made Out Of Concrete:

I've been reading Antony Beevor's excellent history book Berlin: The Downfall 1945 as part of my research for my Volkssturm novel. The Volkssturm were a German civilian militia formed in October 1944 in a last desperate bid to stop the Allied advance. The Volkssturm called up all able-bodied men aged 16 to 60 who weren’t already in uniform. It also called up some women.

A passing mention in Beevor's book told me of a weapon I didn't know about--the Volkshandgranate 45, or the "people's hand grenade 1945". This crude grenade was developed in the last months of the war and was the product of a chronic shortage of raw material. By this time most of the Third Reich's industrial base had been taken by the Russians, and the Germans resorted to making hand grenades out of concrete. These would be filled with bits of scrap metal, gravel, and nuggets of cement. The whole thing was fitted with a fuse and some explosive. Beevor says the Volkshandgranate 45 was more dangerous to the user than the target, and yet hundreds of thousands of them were produced in the last months of the war and distributed to the Volkssturm, Wehrmacht, and even some elite SS units.

It just goes to show how desperate the Third Reich had become in the last months of its existence. As the Nobel Prize winning author Heinrich Böll, who was drafted in to the army during the war, put it, the men were fighting not for their country, but for survival, and their only hope was that they would somehow survive after they were defeated.

Military History Photo Friday: Historic Forts in Saudi Arabia

When we think of Saudi Arabia, we generally don't think of castles, but a fair number dot the arid landscape of the desert kingdom. One of the most impressive is Marid Castle, pictured above. Located in the ancient city of Dumat al-Jandal in the north of the country. The city dates all the way back to at least the tenth century BC. It's unclear how old the fort is, but it existed by 272 AD. It was the site of numerous battles, most recently in 1853 and 1909. During the second attack it withstood a siege of ten months before finally falling.

Perhaps the most impressive fortification was Ajyad Fortress, an Ottoman citadel built in 1780 overlooking Mecca in order to protect the holy city from raiders. Despite the Bedouin being Muslims themselves, they weren't averse to robbing Muslim pilgrims. In a controversial move, the Saudi government demolished the historic fort in 2002 in order to build luxury a hotel for rich pilgrims. This has been part of an ongoing campaign to demolish historic sites, especially ones from the pre-Islamic period or sites that remind the Saudis of the time when they were part of the Ottoman Empire.

Many small forts were built at oases along the pilgrimage route to protect the pilgrims from bandits.  Some date to the reign of the Ottoman Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent (ruled 1520-1566), who had forts built to protect the main routes. This one at Dhat al-Hajj still stands, although in poorer condition than this photo from 1907 shows. It's a simple structure, but that would be all that would be needed to ward off the Bedouin, who lacked artillery.

A similar fort stands at Al-Ukhaydir, and was also built by Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent. This photo from 1907 shows the fort at the center and some Bedouin tents to the left.


Photos courtesy Wikimedia Commons, because that's probably the closest I'll ever get to Saudi Arabia.

Military History Photo Friday: World War One Medals and Mementoes

Hello from Oxford! I'm here for my usual research trip, and as a matter of fact this is my tenth year. It's been a rainy summer so I haven't gotten to explore much of the countryside like I usually do. Luckily last weekend the clouds cleared and my family and I went on a hike to visit Minster Lovell, a fine old ruin of a medieval manor. Follow the link for an article I did on it.

We set out from the small town of Whitney, which has a fine little local history museum. Here are a couple of shots from the World War One section. I've always enjoyed small-town museums since the collection comes from old neighbors instead of some rich patron. I wonder who donated these?

Military History Photo Friday: The Screw Picket, A Simple Yet Brilliant Invention of World War One

In war, sometimes it's the little details that make the difference between life and death. In the early part of the war, when both sides started sneaking into No Man's Land at night to string barbed wire to protect their trenches, the Allies couldn't figure out how the Germans were doing it so quietly. The British and French wiring parties would often attract unwanted attention while hammering in the pickets to hold the barbed wire. Although they used padded mallets and put more padding on the tops of the pickets, they couldn't help but make some noise, and the alert Germans would hear it, send up a flare, and spot them. You can imagine what happened next.

Then, on 15 August 1915, the Indian Corps discovered the secret. The Germans used a different type of picket to suspend barbed wire. Called a "screw picket", it had a corkscrew on the bottom and an eye at the top through which to stick a bayonet or entrenching tool. Then all the soldier had to do was twist and screw the picket into the soil. This was much quieter than hammering, and once the Allies learned the trick they saved many lives.

The above photo, courtesy Wikimedia Commons, shows a British wiring party moving forward. Since it's daytime, this is either staged or in a rear area. You can clearly see the corkscrew on the bottom and the eye on the top.

Military History Photo Friday: El Castillo de San José in Lanzarote, Canary Islands

As I mentioned on Monday, I was on vacation in Lanzarote all last week. Even though I wasn't writing, I was keeping my eye out for interesting blog post material. This week on Black Gate I blogged about the island's Piracy Museum, and next week will see another Lanzarote post as well.

And here's something for this blog, a fort called El Castillo de San José, which guarded the approach to the port of Arrecife. It was built between 1776 and 1779. The whole island is dotted with forts to protect the various harbors from pirates and rival powers such as the British.

A combination double-header outhouse and gun turret. The soldiers were apparently not shy, or just lonely.

This particular fort was actually built in a time of relative peace as a make-work project for the islanders, who were going through tough economic times thanks to a drought and a volcanic eruption that ruined the crops. Thus it earned the name Fortaleza del Hambre (Hunger Fortress).

It now houses a contemporary art museum and a cool restaurant/bar that retains its 1970s decor.

The restaurant gives a fine view of the fishing port.

The original Seventies interior is intact.

Even the stairs to the bathroom are groovy!

Military History Photo Friday: Sixteenth Century Ivory Powder Horns

Sometimes even the most common objects can be turned into works of art. Here are some powder horns from the sixteenth century, intricately carved in ivory. This was the age of wheellock firearms, and these powder horns, used to hold gunpowder, would have been carried by the nobility on hunting expeditions. Common soldiers had to settle for more basic models.

I discovered these beauties at the Museo Lazaro Galdiano here in Madrid, the same place I saw that amazing roll top desk from my last post. They have a large collection of art, arms and armor, sculpture, even retro toys!

To see more of the museum's collection, check out my post on the Black Gate blog on the Museo Lazaro Galdiano.

This one seems to have been carved out of an animal leg bone. Nothing went to waste in those days!

Military History Photo Friday: A Viennese Death Organ from 1678

I was rummaging through some old photos yesterday and came across some from the Military History Museum in Vienna I took back in 2013. The museum has an incredible collection from the 16th century up to modern times, with an especially strong World War One section. More on that in a later post. Today I'm sharing something from a bit earlier, an attempt to make a quick firing gun from 1678. It was constructed by Daniel Kollman, a gun maker for the Holy Roman Empire.

By this time guns were in common use on the battlefield and armor was on its way out, but guns still suffered from the fact that they could only fire one shot and took a while to reload. Various attempts were made to solve this, such as making guns with two or more barrels. Another solution was to put rows of guns on a carriage. This device was called a ribauldequin and appeared as early as the 14th century. It also earned the name "organ gun" since its barrels looked like the barrels of a church organ, although the music wasn't as good.

Because I couldn't get behind the ribauldequin, I couldn't see its firing mechanism. I presume it was a series of flintlocks that set off the powder in the barrels. It would have made quite a nasty antipersonnel weapon against a closely packed group of pike men, one of the more common infantry formations at the time. Reloading it must have taken ages!

Military History Photo Friday: Traditional African Weapons

A collection of Kpinga, a type of throwing knife used by the Azande people of southern Egypt and northern Sudan. They were equipped with various blades to increase the risk of cutting when thrown. They were high status items, only used by elite warriors (it must have taken some training to throw one accurately!) and were also given as part of the bride price when a man wanted to get married.

Last week I blogged about an interesting collection of African shields at the Ethnological Museum in Cairo. It's one of many attractions in that wonderful city that I got to visit while writing my next novel, The Masked Man of Cairo, which I'm happy to say is almost done.

Besides the shields, the museum also has a collection of African weapons, mostly, I believe, from the Sudan and captured during the Anglo-Sudan War, when the British fought the Mahdi from 1896-99. Like with the shields, I'm hardly an expert, so any help identifying these objects would be highly appreciated.

All photos copyright Sean McLachlan. Sorry about the quality of some of them. The display cases are in desperate need of a good cleaning!

Various knives and cleavers.

The sign says "sticks used by drummers" but they look like clubs to me, and are in the weapons room, after all.

A variety of spears. The broad-leafed blades are typical of those carried by the Mahdi's army.

The top broadsword was a typical type used by the Mahdi's men. The sword on the bottom has a sheath made of crocodile skin. What better way to show off your manliness?

Military History Photo Friday: African Shields

A variety of shields. The small round ones in the center are Ethiopian. One on the left has decorated brass fittings. The one next to it is made of hippopotamus hide. I believe the other shields are from the Sudan and Kenya, but I'm not sure. That skinny one on the lower left is a Dinka shield. The Dinka are from south Sudan and their shields only covered the hand, with the rod being used to parry blows. The shield on the right just above the elephant tusk is made of a turtle shell.

One of the more unusual museums I visited on my recent trip to Cairo was the Ethnological Museum. This is a very old-school museum with displays that don't look like they've been changed much in the past fifty years. It contains a good collection of costume, day-to-day objects, and weapons and armor. This includes an impressive array of East African shields that I'm showing here. In the upper floor is the Ethnographic Society with a lovely Victorian lecture hall and a sizeable library.

Located just off Tahrir Square, the heart of the famous 2011 revolution, it's one of the best guarded museums I have ever seen. Part of the grounds have been converted into a police headquarters. To get onto the property I had to go through a metal detector and show my passport. Then a cop with a machine gun escorted me to the museum. From there a museum official followed me from room to room until I left. No one is stealing these shields!

I'm far from an expert on African shields, although I am familiar with the Ethiopian forms. Unfortunately there was no signage in this room to help me. My identifications should thus be taken with a grain of salt. Any help identifying these fascinating pieces of African militaria would be highly appreciated!

The top shield is made of the plastron (belly part of the shell) of a giant turtle.

Two more shields. Like the vast majority of the shields in this collection, they are made of animal hide, which was strong enough to counter blows from clubs, arrows, and spears, but useless against bullets.

Two Ethiopian style shields. They may actually be from Sudan as this shield type was used there as well. They may, in fact, have been captured during the Anglo-Sudan War, when the British fought the Mahdi from 1896-99. Several weapons in the collection certainly come from the Mahdist army. I'll be showing those in a later post.

Military History Photo Friday: Roman Crocodile Armor

Yes, it's been almost a month since I posted. Sorry about that! I was on a research trip to Oxford and London, plus I was slammed with a ghostwriting deadline. Hopefully I'm now back on track for more regular blog posts.

I spotted this lovely suit of armor in the British Museum. It's from Manfalout, Egypt, from the 3rd or 4th century AD. This town is in Middle Egypt where there were many sacred grottoes to the crocodile-headed god Sobek, god of the Nile. These grottoes had sacred crocodiles that were often mummified after death. Roman soldiers often took on local religions and the troops in Manfalout were no exception. They would hold religious processions in honor of Sobek while wearing crocodile armor.

Photo copyright Sean McLachlan. Sorry for the reflection in the middle of the shot. I twisted and turned every which way and this was the best I could get. They really needed to invent artifact cases that don't reflect at all!

Military History Photo Friday: A Walking Stick Gun

I spotted this interesting weapon in the Medieval Museum in Bologna last month. It dates from the 18th century. As you can see, if combines a flintlock musket with a gentleman's walking stick. The perfect thing for a relaxing stroll!

Italy was a lot of fun. I'm writing a series of articles about it every Wednesday for Black Gate. I've already posted on the medieval towers of Bologna, and the Etruscan treasures in the city's archaeological museum. Another post will follow this coming Wednesday!

Military History Photo Friday: Roman Warship Ram

I haven't blogged in a while because I've been up in Oxford for my usual summer research and writing trip. Besides that, I've been hiking and visiting museums. The best exhibition of the summer is certainly the Ashmolean Museum's Storms, War & Shipwrecks Treasures from the Sicilian Seas, which I've written up for Black Gate. This show looks at the amazing finds from more than a dozen shipwrecks around Sicily.

One of the more unusual displays shows three warship rams from the Battle of the Egadi Islands, fought between the Roman and Carthaginian navies in 241 BC. It was the final battle of the First Punic War and an important Roman victory. A fleet of 200 Roman warships ambushed a convoy of 250 heavily laden Carthaginian warships. The Romans sunk 50 ships and captured 70, while losing only 30 of their own. They seized control of Sicily and began to dominate the Mediterranean. Of course it would take two more Punic Wars before the Romans vanquished their rivals once and for all.

The ram shown here once adorned the prow of a Roman warship. You can just see on the top a decoration in the form of a helmet. The spiky bits would have been just below the waterline and apparently they made a direct hit on some poor Carthaginian vessel, because a chunk of wood is still stuck in the bottom groove!

Check out my article for more on this great exhibition. I blog on Black Gate every Wednesday.

The Battle of Bannockburn: A Victory for Scottish Independence

On the first day of battle, Scottish leader Robert the Bruce engaged in single combat with the English knight Henry de Bohun and knocked his brains out with an axe. This led to a surge in Scottish morale and a charge that broke the English lines. Robert the Bruce later complained that this blow broke his favorite axe.

In the light of current events, I thought I'd mention that it's the 702nd anniversary of the Battle of Bannockburn, when on 23-24 June 1314, a Scottish force destroyed an invading English army, securing Scottish independence.

The First War for Scottish Independence was already well underway. Stirling Castle in Scotland was held by the English but under siege by a Scottish force. The defenders had already agreed to surrender if they weren't relieved by mid-summer. The castle was vital to the war effort of both sides since it dominated the route into the Highlands.

King Edward II of England personally led an army of an estimated 2,000 heavy cavalry and 15,000 infantry, most of them longbowmen, to relieve the castle. Facing him was an army under the Scottish king Robert the Bruce numbering no more than 10,000, only about 500 of whom were mounted.

Stirling Castle

Repeated English cavalry charges failed to break the Scottish formations and after two days of bloody fighting, the English withdrew, having suffered heavy losses. They would suffer more. As they made their way south, they were harassed by a Scottish pursuing force and isolated English soldiers were set upon by local peasants. King Edward got away, but 700 men-at-arms were killed, another 500 captured for ransom, and up to 11,000 English infantry never made it home. The Scottish lost at most 4,000 men, although some historians put their casualties much lower. Stirling Castle surrendered and Scottish independence was secure for a time.

Scotland did, of course, end up in the United Kingdom eventually, but will it remain so? With every single Scottish county voting against leaving the European Union, some by huge margins, there is almost certainly going to be another vote in Scotland regarding the independence issue. Hopefully no one will get their heads caved in with an axe this time.

Images courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

The earliest depiction of the battle comes from the Scotichronicon (c.1440), a book of Scottish history written by Walter Bower

Military History Photo Friday: Images of the Mexican-American War

I'm currently taking a break from book four of my Toxic World post-apocalyptic series to write Warpath Into Sonora, a Western about a group of Apaches getting caught up in the Mexican-American War. So here are a couple of images from that conflict.

The top image is a daguerreotype of the Virginia regiment and Webster's battalion in Saltillo, Mexico, courtesy of the Yale Collection of Western Americana. It was taken in 1847 or 1848, making it one of the earliest military photographs ever taken. The men are formed up in front of a row of buildings while a couple of people on the right stare at the camera, probably wondering how that strange box on legs worked.

Below is a painting commissioned by the U.S. Army. It shows a fight in Resaca de la Palma, Texas, 9 May 1846. Captain Charles A. May's squadron of the 2d Dragoons (now 2d Armored Cavalry Regiment) slashed through the enemy lines in an attack that climaxed the opening campaigns of the war. A force of 2,500 American soldiers under Zachary Taylor shattered the Mexican force of 6,000 and ejected it from Texas

Warpath Into Sonora is proceeding well and I should have it to my beta readers by early July. Then it's back to the apocalypse!

Military History Photo Friday: Armor in the Museo Cerralbo, Madrid

This week over at Black Gate I blogged about the amazing collection at the Museo Cerralbo, Madrid. Enrique de Aguilera y Gamboa (1845-1922), 17th Marquis of Cerralbo, gathered together a vast collection of art and antiquities in his mansion in Spain's capital. He had everything from old books and Roman intaglios to ornate brass lamps and suits of armor. It's now a fun museum.

Sadly, there isn't much signage in the museum and I'm not much of an expert, so I won't be able to tell you much about these pieces. If you can identify any, please drop me a line in the comments section! Hit the link above to see the full article!

Photos copyright Sean McLachlan.

A lovely suit of samurai armor.

A German zweihander (two-handed sword), plus bits of barding (horse armor), and two types of polearm--a halberd (left) and a corseque (right)

Military History Photo Friday: The Volkssturm

An often-reproduced photo of the Volkssturm on parade. In reality they weren't this well armed. They had been given the weapons for the parade and had to return them afterwards!

As I mentioned last Friday, I'm researching my next Trench Raiders book, which will focus on the tunnelers of World War One. I'm also in the beginning stages of researching a book set in the waning days of World War Two titled Volkssturm.

The Volkssturm was a German national militia started in October 1944, which called up all able-bodied Germans, both men and women, aged 16 to 60.

A female member of the Volkssturm learning how to use a Panzerfaust.

By this late in the war the Germans were getting pretty desperate. The Red Army was crushing them in the east; the Americans, British, and Canadians were rolling through France; and the Allies dominated the skies. The fall of Nazi Germany has always been an epic subject, and it will be interesting to write characters stuck in this backdrop. War stories tend to focus on soldiers or, less often, civilians. This novel will focus on civilians forced to be soldiers. The characters are still forming in my mind. So far they're both men and women from a range of ages, most with only lukewarm and waning support for the ideology that has led their nation to disaster. Being civilians, they are far more concerned with their homes, families, and future than the strategy and tactics of war. Now that the war has come to them they each have to make a choice of what to do about it.

As I said, I'm only just beginning to research this topic so I won't start writing for a while. I have a few other projects lined up first. Stay tuned!

At the front in East Prussia, January 1945.

 

Building an anti-tank barrier in Cologne in February 1945. Note the wagons. By this point the Germans had a critical shortage of gasoline. Advancing Allied armies would often find perfectly usable vehicles abandoned by the side of the road because the retreating Germans had run out of gas.

The Volkssturm had no uniform. Some members got castoff uniforms from various units, including a lot of uniforms from the mostly grounded Luftwaffe. Many of the civilians soldiers had no other identification than this armband.

Photos courtesy Bundesarchiv.