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David Charlwood

This short history sheds light on the slaughter and expulsion of ethnic Armenians during WWI with stories of those who witnesses the terror firsthand.
 
 Twenty years before the start of Hitler’s Holocaust, over 1.5 million Armenians were murdered by the Turkish state. They were crammed into cattle trucks and deported to camps, shot and buried in mass graves, or force-marched to death. It was described as a crime against humanity and Turkey was condemned by Russia, France, Great Britain and the United States. But two decades later the genocide had been conveniently forgotten. Hitler justified his Polish death squads by asking in 1939: ‘Who after all is today speaking about the destruction of the Armenians?’
 
 In Armenian Genocide, historian David Charlwood presents a gripping short history of a forgotten genocide. With vivid eyewitness accounts, this volume recalls the men and women who died, the few who survived, and the diplomats who tried to intervene.

Pen & Sword Military

History of Terror

Armenian Genocide: The Great Crime of World War I

Gerry van Tonder

A history of the controversial underground group that employed political violence in its quest to create an independent Israel. Includes photos.

In October 1944, the US Office of Strategic Services described the Irgun Tsvai Leumi—National Military Organization—as “an underground, quasi-military organization with headquarters in Palestine … fanatical Zionists who wish to convert Palestine and Transjordan into an independent Jewish state [and] advocate the use of force both against the Arabs and the British to achieve this maximal political goal. ”

This book delves into the origins and history of Irgun. In 1925, Ze’ev Jabotinsky founded the Revisionist Zionism organization, whose secular, right-wing ideology would lead to the formation of the Irgun and, ultimately, of the Likud Party. Commencing operations in the British Mandate of Palestine in 1931, Irgun adopted a mainly guarding role, while facilitating the ongoing immigration of Jews into Palestine. In 1936, Irgun guerrillas started attacking Arab targets. The British White Paper of 1939 rejected the establishment of a Jewish nation, and as a direct consequence, Irgun guerrillas started targeting the British.

The authorities executed captured Irgun operatives found guilty of terrorism, while deporting hundreds to internment camps overseas. As details of Jewish genocide—the Holocaust—emerged, Irgun declared war on the British in Palestine. Acts of infrastructural sabotage gave way to the bombing of buildings and police stations, the worst being the bombing of the King David Hotel in Jerusalem—the hub of British operations and administration—in July 1946, killing ninety-one. Freedom fighters or terrorists, Irgun was only dissolved when the independent Jewish state of Israel was born on May 14, 1948. This is their story.

Irgun: Revisionist Zionism, 1931–1948

Phil Carradice

The dramatic history behind one of the great landmarks of ancient Israel.

In the spring of 73 AD, the rock fortress of Masada on the western shore of the Dead Sea was the site of an event that was breathtaking in its courage and self-sacrifice. Here the last of the Jewish Zealots who, for nearly eight years, had waged war against the Roman occupiers of their country made their last stand. The Zealots on Masada had withstood a two-year siege but with Roman victory finally assured, they were faced by two options: capture or death. 

They chose the latter, and when the Roman legions forced their way into the hill fort the following morning they were met only with utter silence by row upon row of bodies. Rather than fall into enemy hands the 960 men, women, and children who had defended the fortress so heroically had committed suicide.

The story of the siege and eventual capture of Masada is unique, not just in Israeli legend but in the history of the world. It is a story of bravery that even the Roman legionaries, well used to death and brutality, could see and appreciate. It was a massacre but a massacre with a difference: carried out by the victims themselves. This book tells the story, also covering the excavation of the remote hilltop site in the twentieth century.

Masada: Mass Suicide in the First Jewish-Roman War, C. AD 73

Robin Binckes

The historian and author of The Great Trek recounts the devastating period of violence among indigenous peoples in early 19th century southern Africa.

From 1815 to 1840, southeastern Africa experienced a devastating period of warfare between the Zulus, the Matabele, and other indigenous peoples. Though the causes of the unrest—which the Zulu called the Mfecane—are still debated by historians, we know that hundreds of thousands of lives lost. Some estimate the total number of deaths to be near two million.

At the center of the turmoil was the Zulu Kingdom and its King Shaka, whose wars of expansion sparked mass migrations among smaller tribes. One of Shaka’s lieutenants, Mzilikazi Khumalo, escaped execution and began a trail of destruction from Zululand north to the Highveld. Refugees from Mzilikazi’s warpath then formed their own alliance—including with the Dutch-speaking Voortrekkers, arriving on their own “Great Trek” to escape British control. Finally defeated in 1836 by the Voortrekkers in a nine-day battle, Mzilikazi and his followers crossed the Limpopo River and founded the kingdom of the Matabele in what is now Zimbabwe.

Zulu Terror: The Mfecane Holocaust, 1815–1840

Miguel Miranda

This “extensively researched and well-illustrated” history recounts the bloody fight to liberate Manila from occupation during WWII (WWII History Magazine).

For nearly four years during the Second World War, Japanese occupation had devastated the Philippines. Then, in 1944, General MacArthur led a massive army of American and Filipino forces determined to take back the island nation. Essential to the Philippine Campaign was recapturing the country’s once-glittering capital city, Manila. In late January of 1945, the Allied forces embarked on the necessary and urgent mission.

Trapped within the old University of Santo Tomas were thousands of ailing prisoners at risk of torture and death by their captors. As the desperate Japanese navy fought to keep the advancing Americans at bay, Japanese troops began killing civilians caught in the crossfire—or using them as human shields. Thousands of Filipinos were trapped in what became the most bitter combat seen in the Pacific Theater.

Battle of Manila: Nadir of Japanese Barbarism, 3 February–3 March 1945

The tragic history of Queen Mary I and her brief reign of terror against Protestants in sixteenth century England—includes illustrations.

When Mary Tudor, eldest daughter of Henry VIII, succeeded to the throne of England in 1553, she enjoyed a degree of popularity rarely seen on the accession of a British monarch. Yet at her death only five years later, she was so reviled by her people that she was posthumously awarded the sobriquet Bloody Mary. The change of public opinion was not without reason.

During her short reign, Mary restored the Catholic faith to England and had over 280 Protestant martyrs burned at the stake. Noblemen like the Duke of Northumberland, would-be queens like Lady Jane Grey, churchmen like Thomas Cranmer and bishops Latimer and Ridley, all fell victim to Mary’s fires or the executioner’s axe.

In Bloody Mary, historian Phil Carradice investigates the backstory behind the queen’s violent loathing for the religion her father established, the unfulfilled potential of her reign, and the needless bloodshed that became her tragic legacy.

Bloody Mary: Tudor Terror, 1553–1558

Paul Chrystal

As with everything else, there were good and bad Roman emperors. The good, like Trajan (98117), Hadrian (117138), Antoninus Pius (138161) and Marcus Aurelius (161180) were largely civilized and civilizing. The bad, on the other hand, were sometimes nothing less than monsters, exhibiting varying degrees of corruption, cruelty, depravity and insanity. It is a sobering thought that these ogres were responsible for governing the greatest civilization in the world, simultaneously terrorizing, brutalizing and massacring.

Tiberius, Caligula, Nero, Domitian, Commodus, Caracella, Elagabalus, Septimius Severus, Diocletian, Maximinus Thrax, Justinian and Theodora all had more bad days than good; they are all covered in this book. Their exploits have, of course, been well documented since classical times but much of the coverage can only be called gratuitous, sensationalist or tabloid. This book is different because it is based on primary sources and evidence and attempts to balance out the shocking with any mitigating aspects in each of their lives. 

Many of our monsters have some redeeming factors and it is important that these are exposed if a true record of their lives is to be conveyed. The book also examines how each of the twelve has been treated for posterity in literature, theatre and film, and the lessons intended to be drawn from popular culture through the ages.

Emperors of Rome: The Monsters: From Tiberius to Theodora, AD 14–548

The historian and author of The Shanghai Massacre presents an in-depth chronicle of Hitler’s plot to eliminate political rivals and his own SA Brownshirts. 

In the summer of 1934, Adolf Hitler conducted a ruthless purge of his own fascist colleagues, many of whom had helped the Nazi Party rise to power. The brawling street thugs of the SA had bludgeoned Hitler’s political opposition into submission and played a significant role in transforming Germany into a dictatorship. But in order to safeguard his absolute authority, Hitler chose to eliminate any potential rivals. And it was the SA that he feared most.

Officially called Operation Hummingbird, the swift and merciless “blood purge” came to be known as The Night of the Long Knives. Among Hitler’s victims were personal friends like SA co-founder Ernst Röhm, former German Chancellor Kurt von Schleicher, and even former party comrades like Gregor Strasser. Breaking the back of the SA and settling political scores, the operation took somewhere between three hundred and a thousand lives.

Night of the Long Knives: Hitler's Excision of Rohm's SA Brownshirts, 30 June – 2 July 1934

On 19 February 1927, the city of Shanghai fell silent as a general strike gripped the factories of the industrial district. A magnet for foreign traders and businessmen (British, French, American, then later Japanese), by the 1920s the pursuit of profit had produced one of the most cosmopolitan cities that the world has ever seen. Known as the Whore of the Orient, Shanghai was a melting pot where every imaginable experience or luxury from East or West could be enjoyed. But in 1927, the city's wealth was under threat: advancing from Guangzhou in the south of China was a Guomindang army, backed by the Soviet Union and in alliance with the Chinese Communist Party, which seemed to be a clear danger to the businessmen of Shanghai. However, the army's commander, Chiang Kai-shek, a conservative, was tiring of his allies. Plotting with Shanghai's most influential gangster, Chiang planned to rid himself of the Communists once and for all. The stage was set for bloodletting in the streets of the city of Shanghai.

The Shanghai Massacre: China's White Terror, 1927

Al J. Venter

Sierra Leone's eleven-year guerrilla war that left 200,000 people dead was brief, bloody and mindlessly brutal. It was also the second African war in which mercenaries were hired to counter some of the worst atrocities that Africa had on offer. By the time it ended in 2002, several groups of mercenaries including an air wing equipped with a pair of ageing Mi-24 helicopter gunships and backed by the British Army and the Royal Navy played significant roles in quelling the bush rebellion. It was an idiosyncratic war, which started with the Foday Sankoh's Revolutionary United Front (RUF) chanting the slogan No more slaves, no more masters, power and wealth to the people and ended with a series of battles for control for Sierra Leone's diamond mines in the interior. By then the Liberian tyrant Charles Taylor and Libya's Muammar Gadaffi were the prime movers for the rebel cause, one of the reasons why anyone deemed to be the enemy doctors, journalists, civil servants, missionaries, nuns and teachers was slaughtered. The war gradually deteriorated into some of the most barbaric violence seen in any African struggle and which sometimes included cannibalism, with an army of 11,000 child soldiers some as young as nine or ten high on drugs rounding up entire neighbourhoods to machine-gun them en masse or burn them alive in their homes. Amputations of limbs of women, the very young and the very old were commonplace.