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Dmitry Ivanovich became Prince of Moscow in 1359 at nine years old, in a Rus' of squabbling principalities that paid tribute to the Golden Horde. The Khan took the title of Grand Prince of Vladimir from Moscow, but the city's boyars won it back by 1365 with bribes and force. As an adult Dmitry defied the Horde's authority: in 1375 he forced Mikhail of Tver, who held a decree from the warlord Mamai, into a humiliating treaty. The Horde, split by decades of civil war, could not respond at once. Dmitry refused Mamai's higher tribute demands, captured Bulgar in 1376, and in 1378 beat a Mongol force at the Vozha River by blocking the crossing.

In 1380 Mamai allied with Lithuania and Ryazan and marched on Moscow. Dmitry gathered a coalition at Kolomna, crossed the Don on September 8, ordered the bridges destroyed, and fought on the narrow Kulikovo field, where ravines, oak groves and rivers stopped the Horde from outflanking him. The victory earned him the name Donskoy, of the Don, but in 1382 the Khan Tokhtamysh, a true descendant of Genghis Khan, burned Moscow and forced it back into submission. Kulikovo still broke the belief that the Horde could not be beaten.

• Dmitry gave his royal armor to the boyar Mikhail Brenok, who stood under the main banner as a decoy while Dmitry fought in plain armor.
• The Horde cut down the banner and killed Brenok, believing it had killed the Russian commander.
• An ambush regiment of heavy cavalry under Dmitry's brother-in-law waited in an oak grove until the Russian left flank was collapsing, then struck.
• The Russians chased the broken Horde army for about 50 kilometers, though some sources say a third of the Russian commanders died.
• Early chronicles had Dmitry fighting unhurt, while later church texts said he was found wounded and unconscious under a felled tree.

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The crossbow solved a human problem: a heavy war bow forces the archer to hold enormous tension while aiming, but a mechanical latch holds it for him. The trade-off is physics. A crossbow's short stroke means even a huge draw weight transfers energy inefficiently, and loading is slow, yet a farmer could become a lethal marksman in an afternoon. Ancient China saw this first. Cast bronze crossbow locks date to around 650 BC, examples lie buried with the Terracotta Army, and under the Qin and Han dynasties three-piece bronze triggers were cast to such uniform tolerances that parts were interchangeable. Han inventories favored crossbows over bows, and massed volleys were credited with victories over northern nomadic cavalry.

A parallel line ran through the Mediterranean, from the Greek gastraphetes, or belly bow, of the 5th century BC to the Roman crossbowmen Vegetius mentioned without bothering to describe. Medieval Europe moved from wooden prods to composite bows in the 13th century and solid steel in the 14th, which demanded windlasses and geared cranequins to span. Gunpowder pushed the weapon off the open battlefield after Cerignola in 1503, but it survived in niches: World War I grenade launchers, booby-trap clearance, counterterrorism and marine biology.

• The spine of the Han trigger's J-shaped nut stuck up above the stock and served as an elevation sight lined up with the bolt tip.
• Entry-level Han soldiers had to span a 168-pound crossbow, and elite troops used their legs and backs to draw bows of up to 750 pounds.
• A medieval crossbowman managed about two shots a minute, working behind a full-body pavise shield held by a partner.
• The French and British Sauterelle, or grasshopper, of World War I weighed over 50 pounds and lobbed grenades into enemy trenches.
• Researchers fire blunt-stopped bolts at whales and dolphins that bounce off and collect a small plug of blubber for biopsy.

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John Churchill was born in 1650 to a royalist family ruined by the English Civil War and raised under his grandmother's roof. His way into royal service came through his sister Arabella's affair with the Duke of York, the future James II, which won him a page's post and a commission in the foot guards. He learned his trade in a brigade attached to the French army under Marshal Turenne, studying the logistics of the power he would later fight. Against his family's wishes he married Sarah Jennings, aged 15, for love, and the couple became a political partnership. In 1685 he crushed the Monmouth Rebellion at Sedgemoor for James II, then in 1688 rode over to William of Orange, kept up a secret correspondence with the exiled James, and was sent to the Tower of London.

His fortunes turned in 1702 when Queen Anne took the throne. Sarah, her closest confidant, controlled the privy purse and access to the queen, and Churchill became Duke and Captain General of the allied forces in the War of the Spanish Succession. After victories at Blenheim, Ramillies and Oudenarde, the costly win at Malplaquet in 1709 soured opinion, Sarah's friendship with Anne collapsed, and the Tories moved against him. He was dismissed mid-war, charged with embezzlement, and lived in exile until Anne's death in 1714. He died in 1722 after a series of strokes.

• Restrained by Dutch civilian deputies, he deceived them in 1704 by pretending to move along the Moselle, then marched about 250 miles to the Danube.
• Lines of credit with Frankfurt bankers paid for food, shoes and medical care waiting at each camp, and his troops called him Corporal John.
• At Blenheim his infantry laid fascines across a marsh the French thought impassable, letting his cavalry break the French center.
• Allied casualties at Malplaquet were roughly double those of the retreating French.
• Tory propagandists including Jonathan Swift painted him as a greedy war profiteer prolonging the conflict to enrich himself.

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In October 732 Charles Martel, mayor of the palace of Austrasia and the real power behind the figurehead Merovingian kings, faced the army of the Umayyad Caliphate somewhere between Tours and Poitiers. Frankish armies were normally seasonal levies of farmers, so Charles used papal money and confiscated church lands to build a full-time professional core of Rhineland Franks. When the Umayyad commander Abd al-Rahman crushed Duke Odo of Aquitaine at Bordeaux and the Garonne, Charles agreed to help only after Odo submitted himself and Aquitaine to Frankish rule. He then marched off the Roman roads through forest to avoid enemy scouts and took a wooded hill above the Umayyad line of advance toward the rich Abbey of Saint Martin at Tours.

Neither side moved for seven days. Charles's men, used to the cold, waited in wolf pelts and wool while the Umayyad troops froze and their supply lines thinned. When Abd al-Rahman finally sent his cavalry uphill through the trees, the Frankish infantry held a tight shield wall from morning to dusk, and Abd al-Rahman was killed. Later chroniclers inflated the result into a clash of civilizations, while modern historians see a raid in force at the limit of Umayyad expansion. Either way, the victory set up the Carolingian dynasty of Pepin the Short and Charlemagne.

• Odo had earlier broken an Umayyad siege of Toulouse in 721 with a surprise flank attack, but lost on open ground where heavy cavalry could deploy.
• The Franks planted the butts of their spears in the ground so charging horses impaled themselves or balked and threw their riders.
• At dawn the Umayyad tents still stood but the army had gone, and Charles forbade any advance until scouts ruled out a feigned retreat.
• Christian writers later claimed 375,000 Umayyad dead against 1,500 Franks; modern estimates put each army at 20,000 to 30,000 men.
• Edward Gibbon argued that without Charles the Quran might be taught at Oxford, and Charles earned the name Martel, the hammer, in later campaigns at Avignon and Nîmes.

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The chariot began around 2000 BC on the Eurasian steppes with the Sintashta-Petrovka culture, nomadic herders in what is now Russia and Kazakhstan who buried their dead inside their vehicles. Its decisive breakthrough was the spoked wheel, which replaced the heavy solid disc and drew its strength from tension rather than mass. Historians still argue whether those first steppe vehicles were true chariots or fast carts, but the design spread into the Near East and set off a Bronze Age arms race. By the 17th century BC the Hittites had moved the axle toward the center to carry a three-man crew, while the Egyptians, who first met the chariot through the invading Hyksos around 1650 BC, kept the axle at the rear for a fast two-man archery platform. The two philosophies met at Kadesh around 1274 BC, the largest chariot battle in history.

Bigger chariots proved to be a dead end. The Neo-Assyrians of the 7th century BC built lumbering four-man vehicles just as selective breeding produced horses large enough to ride, and cavalry took over. In China, chariots went from Shang royal burials around 1250 BC to the measure of state power, until Warring States infantry with long halberds and pikes and the crossbow made them obsolete. Rocky Greece abandoned them for war, Celtic Britain used them for hit-and-run raids that Julius Caesar described, and Rome turned them into mass entertainment and religious and philosophical symbols.

• The Mitanni horse trainer Kikkuli wrote a seven-month conditioning program for chariot horses in the 15th century BC, including precise diets, swimming and forced marches.
• Egyptian drivers tied the reins around their waists and steered by shifting their body weight, leaving both hands free for a shield or bow.
• In ancient China a state of 10,000 chariots counted as a superpower, a scale that implied some 40,000 trained horses for the primary teams alone.
• Caesar recorded Celtic warriors running out along the chariot pole between galloping horses to hurl javelins before leaping down to fight on foot.
• The Circus Maximus held up to 250,000 spectators watching 12 chariots race at once, and fans of factions like the Blues and Greens rioted over results.

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By summer 48 BC Julius Caesar was the one in trouble. His blockade of Pompey at Dyrrachium had collapsed, and he retreated into Thessaly, sacking Gomphi to feed his men. Pompey planned to starve him out, but the optimates in his camp, already dividing future offices, shamed him into battle. Near the Enipeus River, Pompey fielded about 45,000 infantry, modern estimates 36,000 to 38,000, in roughly 110 cohorts plus 5,000 to 7,000 cavalry. Caesar had about 22,000 infantry and 1,000 horse. Pompey massed his cavalry, archers and slingers on his open left under Labienus and stacked his infantry ten deep.

Caesar thinned his lines to six deep, pulled veterans from his third line to form a hidden fourth line behind his right, and held back the rest until he raised a flag. On Gaius Triarius' advice Pompey's infantry stood still, but Caesar's veterans halted midway to catch their breath and reform. When Labienus charged, the fourth line thrust their pila at riders' faces, the cavalry fled, and the Pompeian left was rolled up. Pompey retreated to camp, shed his commander's cloak and escaped. Appian estimates 1,200 Caesarian dead against 6,000 Pompeians and 24,000 captured. Caesar burned Pompey's letters unread and pardoned Marcus Junius Brutus, while Pompey was assassinated in Egypt on the orders of Ptolemy XIII.

• The Roman calendar was so far out of step that the August 9 battle was fought in early summer heat.
• Pompey's army drew Greeks, Thracians, Anatolians, Syrians, Phoenicians and Jews, plus riders conscripted from his own slaves.
• Caesar later criticized the order to stand still, writing that a charge fires up the men.
• Caesar claimed only 200 soldiers and 30 centurions lost against 15,000 Pompeians.
• Ancient authors called the site Palaepharsalus, an area linked to Phthia, legendary homeland of Achilles.

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Tenth century Ireland had fewer than 500,000 people and over 150 kings. Brian, born around 941 at Kincora in modern County Clare, was the 12th son of a Dál gCais chief and was sent to study on Inisfallen. At about 10 he and his brother Mathgamain watched Limerick Vikings sail up the River Shannon, raid their home, and kill their mother and several brothers. When Mathgamain, king of Munster, made peace with Limerick, Brian waged a guerrilla war from the hills, at one point down to 15 men, until his brother rejoined him. Together they won at Sulcoit in 968 and sacked Limerick.

After Máel Muad killed Mathgamain in 976, Brian killed Limerick's Viking governor and his sons in the sanctuary of Scattery Island, then defeated Máel Muad in 978 to take Munster. From 982 to 997 he fought the high king Máel Sechnaill, moving a fleet of 300 ships up the Shannon alongside his land army, until the two split Ireland in 997. By 1002 Brian was high king. In 1005 he laid 22 ounces of gold on the altar at Armagh and had himself recorded as Emperor of the Gaels. His wife Gormflaith's brother, king of Leinster, and her son Sitric Silkbeard of Dublin rebelled, bringing the Orkney and Isle of Man Norse to Clontarf on April 23, 1014.

• Máel Sechnaill cut down the sacred tree where Brian's ancestors had been inaugurated.
• A large part of Brian's river fleet was ambushed and destroyed in Connacht.
• Folklore says a banshee warned Brian he would die, a story that may have been added to dignify his death.
• Brian's bodyguard Ulf the Quarrelsome caught his killer Brodir and executed him by forcing him to walk around a tree on his own intestines.
• Brian was buried at Armagh, Máel Sechnaill resumed the high kingship, and Brian's O'Brien descendants traded on his legend for centuries.

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In 10th century Ireland the Uí Néill dynasty held the prestigious high kingship of Tara, while the Dál gCais of modern County Clare were a minor southwestern kingdom. Brian's father Cennétig and brother Mathgamain expanded it, and Mathgamain became king of Munster before rivals killed him in 976. Brian took control of Munster, forced Leinster to submit, and in 997 met the Uí Néill high king Máel Sechnaill at Clonfert, where they split Ireland north and south and exchanged hostages as diplomatic collateral. In 999 the two kings together crushed a Leinster and Dublin revolt at Glenmama.

In 1000 Brian marched north across the agreed border, and in 1002 at Athlone Máel Sechnaill submitted, making Brian high king. Brian enforced his rule with armed circuits of the north, and in 1011 made a northern king travel south to submit in person. In 1013 Leinster and Sitric Silkbeard, Norse king of Dublin, revolted; Brian besieged Dublin until winter. Sitric recruited Sigurd of Orkney and Brodir of the Isle of Man. On Good Friday, April 23, 1014, at Clontarf, the Norse broke and an incoming tide cut off their ships, but Brian's son Murchad and grandson Toirdelbach died and Brodir killed Brian in his tent.

• Hostages were royal kin kept as honored guests at a rival court, to be executed if a treaty was broken.
• According to the sagas, Sitric promised his allies the high kingship and his mother's hand in marriage.
• Sitric watched the battle from Dublin's walls beside his wife, who was Brian's own daughter.
• In 1860 the scientist Samuel Haughton calculated that high tide that day matched the medieval accounts.
• A 2018 network study of over 1,000 relationships in the Cogadh Gáedel re Gallaib found both a Norse versus Irish divide and heavy violence within the Irish side.

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In 1870 France under Napoleon III watched Prussia, fresh from crushing Austria in 1866 and leading the North German Confederation, with alarm. When Spain offered its vacant throne to a Prussian prince, French pressure forced him to withdraw, but the French ambassador then demanded a permanent guarantee from King Wilhelm I at the spa town of Ems. Wilhelm refused and telegraphed an account to Berlin. Otto von Bismarck edited it to read like a mutual insult and released it on July 14, Bastille Day. France declared war, letting Bismarck bring Bavaria, Württemberg and the other southern German states in under defense treaties.

France had the superior Chassepot rifle and the Mitrailleuse, but chaotic mobilization. Helmuth von Moltke's general staff used railways and the telegraph to move over a million men. At Mars-la-Tour on August 16, 30,000 Prussians attacked 160,000 French and so unnerved Marshal Bazaine that he failed to break out. At Sedan on September 1 and 2, Krupp artillery shelled the encircled army, and Napoleon III surrendered with over 100,000 men. Paris declared a republic on September 4, Bazaine surrendered 173,000 men at Metz in October, and besieged Paris starved through winter. The German Empire was proclaimed at Versailles, and the Treaty of Frankfurt took Alsace and part of Lorraine.

• The breech-loading Chassepot used a rubber seal and reached up to 1,500 meters.
• Napoleon III, suffering from gallstones, was on the field at Sedan when the white flag went up.
• Trapped in Metz, Bazaine proposed marching his army on Paris to restore the empire, an offer Bismarck and Moltke laughed off.
• Starving Parisians ate animals from the Jardin des Plantes, including the elephants Castor and Pollux, and sent mail out by balloon.
• The five billion franc indemnity matched what Napoleon Bonaparte had once forced Prussia to pay.

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On January 22, 1879, the main British column under Lord Chelmsford was destroyed at Isandlwana. A few miles away, Lieutenants John Chard of the Royal Engineers and Gonville Bromhead held Rorke's Drift, a former trading post serving as a hospital and supply depot. The Zulu reserve, the Undi corps of 3,000 to 4,000 men under Prince Dabulamanzi kaMpande, had missed the fighting and crossed into Natal against King Cetshwayo's order. When survivors brought the news, commissary officer James Dalton argued that ox wagons carrying the sick would be run down in the open, so the garrison built walls of 200-pound mealie bags and biscuit boxes.

When colonial troops fled, the defenders fell from about 400 to just over 150, including 39 patients. From about 4:30 in the afternoon the Zulu attacked for over 11 hours. The hospital's thatched roof caught fire, and Privates John Williams and Henry Hook and others hacked through wattle and daub walls with bayonets, dragging patients from room to room; nine of 11 got out. The garrison fired 19,100 rounds before the Zulu withdrew at dawn. Seventeen British died, against 351 counted Zulu dead and perhaps 500. Wounded Zulu were then killed, and 11 Victoria Crosses followed amid accusations that the awards masked Isandlwana.

• In the Zulu military system a man often could not marry until he had washed his spear in battle.
• Zulu warriors could cover up to 50 miles a day on foot and still fight at the end of it.
• Pinned below the barricade, Zulu fighters grabbed rifle barrels and stabbed upward with the assegai.
• Martini-Henry barrels grew so hot that men wrapped them in rags, and recoil bruised shoulders to the bone.
• Sir Garnet Wolseley called it monstrous to make heroes of men who fought like rats for their lives, while Victor Davis Hanson defends the feat.