This article examines German attempts to mobilize political and religious identities among prisoners of war during the First World War, focusing on recruitment to the Irish Brigade and propaganda directed at Asian and North African prisoners in camps such as Wünsdorf and Zossen. Rather than measuring ideological success, it argues that captivity altered the conditions under which political persuasion operated. Under confinement, surveillance and administrative dependency, ideological appeals shaped participation, refusal and social visibility in ways distinct from conventional political mobilization. The article argues that prisoner-of-war camps became sites for managing politically significant identities within multinational imperial armies.
Officially, the First World War shows a numerically inferior and less successful German air force on the Western Front somehow standing its ground. Although it's known that official Entente numbers were inflated, they continue to be used, making comparative study impractical. To explain the German contradiction, a proper basis for comparison must first be established. For that, the performance of all Blue Max Level aces (the top scoring 225 flyers) and 10,000 air-to-air claims was analysed, using 250,000 data points. This new approach, confirmed pro rata airplane claims analysis, allows comparison, explains the success, and offers surprising new insights.
This article examines the origins of organized mutiny in early modern Spanish armies. Rather than treating Spanish military mutinies as a natural by-product of professionalization, it argues that their distinctive forms of organization were shaped by contact with German and Swiss mercenaries during the Italian Wars. Focusing on a mutiny in Gonzalo Fernández de Córdoba's army in Naples in 1504, described in the Crónica manuscrita and corroborated by archival and narrative evidence, the article suggests that Spanish soldiers adopted practices of collective leadership, negotiation, and self-discipline from a broader German mercenary culture influenced by Swiss military models.
The Mongol 1220–1224 western campaign is noted for its operational art, yet its purpose is disputed. In the absence of Mongol-stated intent, outcome-based judgments are insufficient. Objectives become clearer when sources are disciplined and analysis privileges decisions under constraint. Jebe and Subutai's mission emerges as a unified enterprise of neutralization, enabled by a mature operational precedent: conditional pursuit. It was first tasked with eliminating the Khwarazmshah, and then reoriented towards the Mongols’ last major steppe rival, the Qipchaq. This study offers a way to navigate a field of models and sources to identify intent in pre-modern warfare.
