Bøker i Armies Across History-serien

During the 19th century, coming under the increasing military pressure exerted by the colonial military powers of Europe, several Muslim countries of both Africa and Asia were forced to modernize - in a progressive way - their armies in order to face the new menaces coming from abroad. As a result of the above, by the outbreak of World War I in 1914, several "westernized" Muslim armies already existed around the world. The most important of these was the Ottoman Army, which was gradually reformed following the end of the Napoleonic Wars. The Turkish troops played an important role in several pivotal conflicts of the 19th century - like the Crimean War - and developed their own distinctive identity across the decades. Following the Ottomans' example, during the central decades of the 19th century, several other Muslim nations reformed their military forces along "westernized" lines: Egypt, Tunisia, Morocco, Persia and Afghanistan. The Egyptian Army soon became a major military power of the Mediterranean area, while the reformed troops of Tunisia and Morocco were mostly tasked with contrasting French expansionism in the Maghreb. Persia developed a strong army having western uniforms and weapons, which confronted the British; Afghanistan, instead, played a prominent role in the so-called "Great Game" that took place in Central Asia between Russia and Great Britain. The main aim of the present book is to provide a detailed analysis of the history, organization and uniforms of the Muslim armies that emerged during the 19th century; this will be made also thanks to the use of dozens of color uniform plates depicting the dress of the various corps taken into account.

Until 1825 Spain controlled a vast colonial empire in the Americas, which stretched from Mexico in the north to Argentina in the south; following several years of bloody wars, however, most of the American colonies of Spain became independent republics. As a result, in 1828, the Spanish colonial military forces were completely reorganized with the objective of defending in a more effective way the rich overseas possession that were still controlled by Spain: the flourishing Caribbean islands of Cuba and Puerto Rico, as well the Asian archipelago of the Philippines and some small islands in the Pacific. During the 1850s, Spain created her own colony in Africa by settling the small territory of Equatorial Guinea; in 1898, however, she lost both the Caribbean colonies and the Philippines to the USA as a result of the disastrous Spanish-American War. The dramatic events of 1898, however, did not brought the Spanish colonial empire to an end. During the early decades of the XX century, in fact, Spain greatly expanded her territories in North Africa - which included the cities of Ceuta and Melilla since centuries - by establish a "protectorate" over the northern portion of Morocco. In the same years the Spaniards also settled the vast region that later became known as "Spanish Sahara", being located on the Atlantic coastline of Africa just south of Morocco. The main aim of the present book is to present a detailed analysis of the history, organization and uniforms of the Spanish colonial military forces from their reorganization of 1828 to the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War in 1936. Thanks to the presence of dozens of uniform plates in color, full details will be provided about the flamboyant dress of all the colonial troops deployed by Spain during the period taken into account.