Ft. Leavenworth Series

Stapleton Cotton, later Field Marshal Stapleton Cotton, first Viscount Combermere, was cavalry commander under the Duke of Wellington for nearly six years in the Peninsula War. Yet, at Waterloo, he was not invited to command Wellington’s cavalry. Mark T. Gerges examines Cotton’s early career in the Peninsula and his role in the command of Wellington’s […]

The unification of Germany was forged by the Hohenzollern dynasty, one of the more remarkable ruling houses Europe ever saw. Given this history, there were high expectations for Frederick William, the eldest son of Wilhelm I, when Prussia began its campaign to unify Germany. Ethan S. Rafuse discusses one of the most fascinating figures in […]

Frank Jack Fletcher commanded carrier task forces in the critical first year of World War II in the Pacific. He served as senior commander in three famous naval battles (the Coral Sea, Midway and the Eastern Solomons), winning all three and damaging the Japanese Navy, which prevented it from accomplishing its operational objectives. John Kuehn […]

The early reign of Philip II of France was an exhibition of poor generalship, but by the early 1200s, Philip had seized most of the counties and duchies under the control of England’s King John. These victories would construct the territorial basis for modern France. Philip’s crowning victory at the Battle of Bouvines in 1214 […]

John Monash was a reserve colonel in the Australian army before World War I, but once the conflict began, he would become a full-time army officer. Promoted to brigadier general, major general and eventually lieutenant general, he commanded the Australian Corps on the Western Front. Monash was one of the first true advocates of combined […]

From 1942 to 1945, Frank “Pinkie” Dorn, a Chinese linguist and country expert, served in the China-Burma-India theater. Geoff Babb shares the story of Dorn, a colorful and talented officer, writer, mapmaker and artist who had previously served in China as a language student and army attaché. These duties would prepare him for his long […]

Convention says that Napoleon’s downfall came as a result of his misadventures in Spain, starting in 1808, and his disastrous invasion of Russia in 1812. While both undoubtedly contributed to his ultimate defeat, the War of the Fifth Coalition in 1809 was Napoleon’s turning point. It saw his first undisputed battlefield defeat at Aspern-Essling and […]

With guest speaker Gates Brown. The Tet Offensive of 1968 was a dramatic turning point for both the U.S. and the North Vietnamese in the Vietnam War. Each had their assumptions shattered in the offensive. The North Vietnamese hoped to prove the validity of their revolutionary ideology. The success of the counterattack of the U.S.-led […]

Although the turning points of the American Civil War and World War II occurred in the middle of those conflicts, the outcome of the Great War was not decided until the last months of the war. The Ludendorff Offensives had pushed both sides into a deadly race against time that pitted German tactical successes against […]

Dr. Kuehn’s talk will dispute the claim that the Battle of Midway is the turning point of the Pacific War and offer an argument that the campaign on Guadalcanal from August 1942 to early February 1943 constitutes the actual turning point in the war. This presentation examines the campaign from this vantage point and emphasizes […]

Few years in modern history have been as eventful as 1941. For most Americans, the December 7 Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor resonates as the year’s signal event, an action that thrust the United States into World War II. For the Soviet Union and its clients, Operation Barbarossa, the sudden Nazi attack of June 22, […]

In an effort to thwart the ambitions of his political rivals, the Hohenstaufen ruler Frederick Barbarossa invaded Italy in 1167 with the goal of driving all the way to Sicily. Following successful sieges in northern Italy, he took his army to Rome: he captured the city on July 24 and then stirred its citizens into […]