Volume 90, Number 1 · January 2026

The Sassanids engaged in a series of conflicts with the Hephthalites between 474 and 484; the most significant culminated at the Battle of Merv in 484 with the death of King Pērōz I on the field of battle, plunging the Sassanid Empire into a protracted political crisis. This paper reconsiders Pērōz’s generalship and the tactics at the Battle of Merv, focusing on the use of the battlefield trench by the Hephthalite Huns. By building up a picture of how accurate our primary sources are in their description of the battlefield and how detailed are the accounts about the preparations for the battle by the Hephthalite troops, it explains King Pērōz’s decision to ignore lessons from previous battles against steppe armies and order a full-scale charge against the Hephthalite army.

This article explains the first stage of a two-stage process by which Ferdinand Foch, France’s pre-eminent pre-war military theorist, mastered the First World War’s static industrialized battlefield and delivered victory by rethinking warfare from first principles. At the emergent operational level of war, battle had to be appropriate to the forces, abilities, and objectives of armies. Evaluating his early operational command experience in 1914 and 1915 in the light of his pre-war thought, Foch advocated a new “scientific” battle operational method attuned to battlefield realities. The scientific method ensured appropriate command and control and the integration of material and manpower that restored operational effectiveness by the late 1916 Battle of the Somme.

Lieutenant Colonel (acting) Elbert E. Farman Jr., the first U.S. military attaché to Poland, arrived at his new post as the war with the Russian Soviet Republic got underway. His reports and dispatches to the Military Intelligence Division (MID) offered the War Department and other agencies essential data and analysis on not only Poland’s war effort but also Soviet capabilities and operations. This accounting later became the basis of the first English-language monograph treating the 1920 campaign. Farman’s contributions, taken together, offer a picture of uncertain governments, rude conditions, and ragged armies. Despite the conditions, in this fight over lands and peoples, the two sides waged guerre à outrance. Political violence was a feature, and noncombatants paid a heavy price. The contest presented operational changes from the Great War, and Farman analyzed mobile warfare in the region. Farman’s reports illuminate a critical episode in miliary and diplomatic history—the reconstruction of East Central Europe. Analysis offers insight into the attaché, his role, and the problem of attaché intelligence.

While the lack of propellants as factor in the strategic defeat of the Luftwaffe in WWII has been well documented, the centrality of liquid oxygen to the German rocket program has been overlooked. Based on new archival research of surviving V-2 files, this study argues that building and protecting the liquid oxygen supply network, given the “use it or lose it” characteristics of the substance, became the over-riding operational focus of military program leadership. The scope of oxygen supply was neither reduced nor challenged throughout the war, suggesting the Reich saw a strategic role for the weapon.

Historians have generally presented the wartime alliance between Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy as one of incoherence that followed a broadly linear path of decline until its violent denouement. While true for many aspects of the war, there were some exceptions. This article focuses on the Mediterranean war (1940–1943), examining it at different levels. It demonstrates that there, the relationship both declined and improved simultaneously. While Italo-German command relationships in the Mediterranean became increasingly toxic, tactical and technical coordination became closer and more effective. It is too simplistic to view the Italo-German wartime military relationship as one solely characterized by incoherence, decline, mistrust, and rivalry.

This article explores the strategic alliance between the Italian Royal Navy and the Jewish Yishuv in Mandatory Palestine after World War II. It highlights two main contributions: facilitating Aliyah Bet, the clandestine immigration of thousands of Holocaust survivors to Palestine by sea, and training recruits for the nascent Israeli navy. These efforts, the article argues, were instrumental in the eventual establishment of the State of Israel. While Aliyah Bet has received considerable scholarly attention, the Italian navy’s involvement in supporting and shaping Israel’s maritime forces remains largely overlooked. This study seeks to illuminate that crucial yet understudied dimension.

Women’s Contested Integration into the U.S. Military and the Persistent Inequities That Affect Their Health and Well-Being,” by Veronica X. Vela and Daniel Habib, 163–75

This paper surveys the progressive integration of women into the military and women’s compensation and benefits during and after their service. The study traces the historical milestones of women’s military participation, highlighting differences in military status, compensation and benefits. Over time, the need for larger forces led to the expansion of women’s roles and movement towards equality in military status, pay and rank. Once women secured equality in these areas, however, differences in benefits and healthcare remained. Today, women veterans represent a rapidly growing demographic, yet inequities persist.