Battalia Volume III 2025
The ‘Battle’ of Wakefield of 1460 Reconsidered
Paul L. Dawson and David Grummitt
Abstract
The Battle of Wakefield in December 1460 was a crucial encounter in the first stage of the Wars of the Roses. It saw the death of Richard, Duke of York and his brother-in-law, Richard Neville, Earl of Salisbury, in a series of events which contemporaries and later historians have struggled to explain. Various theories have been offered for York’s defeat, but almost all modern accounts agree that, contrary to all military logic, the duke left his stronghold of Sandal Castle and was overwhelmed by a much larger Lancastrian force. The earliest contemporary records, however, do not support this explanation. They suggest that, instead of being killed in battle, York was captured and murdered in cold blood. Moreover, they suggest that the favoured date of the battle – 30 December – was the date of Duke Richard’s death and that he was captured in an engagement which took place the previous day, 29 December 1460. Indeed, it is difficult to see how events at Wakefield constituted a battle in any meaningful sense. Our understanding of Wakefield has important ramifications for how we consider and reconstruct the battles of the Wars of the Roses more generally.
British Civil War Field Words and Field Signs – An Initial Hand List
Simon Marsh
Abstract
Field words and field signs were used by soldiers to identify friend from foe on early modern battlefields, where a lack of uniformity in military dress made such differentiation difficult. Field words were usually a single word or short phrase and field signs a readily accessible object, such as a piece of foliage, paper or cloth, which could be displayed by a soldier. Such words and signs were helpful when opposing troops intermingled during melee or rout, though the problem of enemy soldiers learning the word or sign was recognised. Both sides using the same or very similar field words was also an issue. An analysis of 44 field words from the British Civil Wars listed in the appendix to this article reveals that the royalists appear to have favoured field words relating to the king and royal family, possibly acting to remind the soldiery who they fought for. Parliamentarian field words often had a religious aspect, possibly reflecting the more providential outlook of the senior officer corps. Insufficient data is available to judge with any certainty the reasons why Scottish covenantors and Irish confederates chose particular field words, though there is a hint that covenantor field words from the 1650s reflect a desire to promote Scottish identity in the face of an invading English army. Whilst common field signs such as foliage and white objects were used in the Civil Wars, change of dress style was also used to denote allegiance.
Review Article: The Ottoman Empire and the First World War
Charles J. Esdaile
E. Rogan, The Fall of the Ottomans: the Great War in the Middle-East, 1914-1920 (London: Penguin, 2015), xxvi + 483, ISBN: 978-1-846-14439-4; S. McMeekin, The Ottoman Endgame (London: Random House, 2015), xviii + 550, ISBN: 978-0-718-19971-5; R. Johnson, The Great War and the Middle-East (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016), xviii + 354, ISBN. 978-0-199-68329-1; B. Morris and D. Ze’evi, The Thirty-Year Genocide: Turkey’s Destruction of its Christian Minorities, 1894-1924 (Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 2019), xvi + 656, ISBN: 978-0-674-25143-4; Y. Akin, When the War Came Home: the Ottomans’ Great War and the Devastation of an Empire (Stanford CA: Stanford University Press, 2019), x + 270, ISBN: 978-1-503-60490-2; K. Wolf, Victory at Gallipoli 1915: the German-Ottoman Alliance in the First World War (Barnsley: Pen & Sword, 2022), 384, ISBN 978-1-526-76816-2; S. McMeekin, The Berlin-Baghdad Express: the Ottoman Empire and Germany’s Bid for World Power, 1898-1918 (London: Penguin, 2010), xv + 461, ISBN. 978-0-141-04765-2; E.J. Erickson, Gallipoli: the Ottoman Campaign (Barnsley: Pen & Sword, 2010), xvi = 271, ISBN. 978-1-783-46166-0; E.J. Erickson, Palestine: the Ottoman Campaigns of 1914-1918 (Barnsley: Pen & Sword, 2016), ix + 230, ISBN: 978-1-399-01977-4; M. Uyar, The Ottoman Army in the First World War (Abingdon: Routledge, 2021), ISBN. 978-0-367-47177-4.
