War is a matter of vital importance to the State:
The Province of life or death:
The Road to Survival or Ruin:
It is mandatory that it be thoroughly studied.
Sun Wu

The Xenophon Group International was organized to promote the study of military history. We began by publishing a magazine devoted to Early Modern Military History, Gorget & Sash of which copies are available, and we have added the 12 issues to this web site, the links are in the index. In 1991 we expanded our focus to facilitate meetings and exchanges between Americans, Ukrainians and Russians, especially but not exclusively military historians. We have organized a number of successful visits and conferences in Russia and Ukraine. This page serves as a central link to topical pages relating to these subjects which are listed as they are created in the Index, below. We are members of the Military Conflict Instituteand the West-Point alumni group
Special - here is a link to our very long time associate and artist Dana Lombardy's full selection of the excellent production he is publishing .

The content of our multiple web sites has expanded so much we provide here a new alphabetical listing all the various topics.

INDEX

Please download this index file periodically to keep current with new changes. In the index are links to descriptions of some of our products including previously published articles and historical materials developed during these visits.
For readers interested in military history we also provide a listing of military topics here.
We added an important essay by Dr. Neal Wood on Xenophon.
and another essay on the Russo-Turkish war. We are adding extensive material from the lectures from the Soviet Academy of General Staff - Voroshilov.
We revised and expanded the text and photography of St. Petersburg for which we have a completely revised section including separate sections on Hermitage, Peterhof, Tsarskoye Selo, Gatchina and Pavlovsk palaces. We also have text history and many photos of Moscow. We are preparing to add pictures and text describing many churches in Moscow. We have visited many cities along the Volga river as well as St Petersburg and Moscow. These are included in the Russian cities section. and many photographs are now at Volga and photographs from past cruises are at Volga cruise . In 2005 we led a tour group for the Moscow - St. Petersburg cruise on Vantage travel charter ship - the N. Chernishevski. It was a terrific cruise with many extra and exciting activities along the way. We have over 2000 additional photos and text for the interesting places on that route such as Kizhi Island and Mandrogi, as well as more for Moscow, St. Petersburg, Uglich and Yaroslavl. See tour2005. We have added first photos from inside the Kremlin Armory Museum. We returned from a fabulous 3 weeks' Vantage tour to China including cruise on Yangtze River in May 2007. The text and photos are on line at China. . One interesting section has photos taken in the huge and marvelous Military Museum in Beijing and the second section is from the Chinese Aviation Museum. We have photos also of Xi'an and the Terra Cotta Warrior museum.
We have extensive text and over 180 photos of the huge Museum of Artillery, Engineer and Signal troops in St Petersburg and have now created an entirely new web site for this museum at Artillery Museum The museum staff prepared captions for the current photography and we now have photos of new exhibits posted with our 2005 tour report. We have added the text reports of our visits to Russia or Ukraine in 1991, Jan 1992, Summer 1992, 1997, 1998, 2005- We added photography of the Russian aviation museum at Monino from visits in 1992-3-7. From our first two visits to the new National Museum of the U. S. Marine Corps we have the first of what will be an expanding section of photographs. We added photographs of Fort Frederick, Maryland; Fort Boreman, West Virginia; and of the Freedom Museum in Manassas, Virginia; and the American War Museum due to open in Woodbridge, VA.
We have manuscripts, book reviews, chronologies, about Russian medieval military history.

If you are considering travel to Ukraine, Russia or any of the other republics please contact our outstanding local travel agent, Larysa Ryazantseva in Kyiv at Olymp Travel LTD Olymp or write her at 24 Shavkovychva St. Kyiv 01024 Ukraine -her web site is Olymp-travel..

We have added more photos not only to Kopor'ye but also Ivangorod, Pechora monastery, Izborsk and Pskov fortresses. There is now a new section with photography of the Russian Central Army Museum in Moscow. See the index for links. We added a fascinating collection of Old Believer Brass Icons. We also now have the full text of the U.S. Army's manual on the Red Army of WWII - Handbook on U.S. S. R. Military on CDROM in PDF format. And two more U.S. Army manuals on the Red Army in HTM and JPG format - Dept of Army Pamphlet # 30-4-1 Vol I Artillery and Dept of Army Pamphlet 30-50-1 Handbook on the Soviet Army. For example covers go here.
A long time friend, Dana Lombardy, has published an extraordinary book - Grant Rising - which has spectacular maps, illustrations and details of Grant's first campaigns in the Civil War. He also has excellent military history material at and information on a stunnning new book on Napoleonic era warfare at and limited back issues of the excellent Naoleon Journal at
We have found a spectacular reproduction of a Roman Calix - beautiful and with highest worksmanship - check athttp://www/caliximperium.com/calix_imperium.htm.
We highly recommend David Kushner's book Crimean Circle: A Russian Jewish Tale of the Crimean War which is available at all the major book stores - www.Crimeancircle.com.
We added the entry on Afghanistan from the 11th edition of Encyclopedia Britannica and articles on ammunition, army, artillery, arms and armor, and Caesar
We have photos made in VietNam in 1967 -1968 and Korea from 1956-57
Also added - summary and comment on Philip Bobbitt's book Terror and Consent and reviews of Pete Tsouras' book Disaster at Stalingrad, and Max Boot's book Invisible Armies; and many others shown in the index.

We have 5 spectacular aerial photos of Kam'yanetz-Podilski, the fortress city in Ukraine that we visited in 1997 and have featured for several years with many photos at Kam'yanetz. We have just expanded sections on Yaroslavl, Trinity monastery, Novgorod, Smolensk, Vyborg, and Rostov. After you visit our web site, you can call upon Ukrintour to get you to these cities. And we now have an article on the Thirty Years' War. We have added sections on the U. S.Army Aviation Museum at Ft. Rucker, Alabama, and the famous Ogden paintings showing the history of the uniforms of the U. S. Army. All these are listed in the index.
We added the study on Desert Warfare with supplements by German officers commissioned by the U. S. Army. We now add several of the U. S. Army Board Reports on artillery and armor produced after World War II; and the Records of the Adjutant General's reports and a list of Combat Interviews..
And now the articles from the 11th edition of Encyclopedia Britinnica on the history of Army and on the history of Artillery. - photos of Bukhara and Samarkand from visit in 1964
Here is a copy of the famous Soviet study on the Civil War.
We have a copy in Russian if Suvorov's "Science of Victory" and a translation of sections of Chernov's book on the development of Russian armed forces in the 15-17th centuries.
We are adding articles and book reviews about Hannibal, Cannae battle and the Second Punic War in this section. A new section on the uniforms of the Imperial and Royal Austrian Army of 1618 - 1765. We have revised the section featuring photos of the exhibits at the 1st Cavalry Division museum at Ft. Hood and we have expanded the photography of the former 4th ID Division at Ft Hood (which has moved to Ft Carson). So the same museum displays are now for the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment (Brave Rifles) - We have added several more US military museums. We now have added several hundred photos of the uniforms of the Russian Army of Alexander I.

We are in process of adding a new section to the Rulers of medieval Russia directory - these will be tables showing the princes acccording to their generation from Rurik, counted as generation 1. There are at least 22 generations to be listed and we are currently working on generation 10. Please go to this link.
We have section of photography at Ft. Steuben, Ohio.

We added a new section on the Punic Wars - three chapters from Theodore Mommsen's classic History of Romethat describe the Second Punic War. And we are preparing a review of a new book on the Battle of Cannae. We are now adding photos of individual and sets of military figuresfrom our collections - some of these will be available for purchase and we will endavor to order any others that may be of interest. Here is a link to a Spanish company that creates gorgeous swords that are replicas of the kind of edged weapons various warriors in history might have carried, You can check it out here Marto Swords - Limited Edition

With much more historical material available than we have room for at this web site, we do appreciate recommendations and responses about what you find useful. Our web pages on French medieval history and on the American Revolution are at Xenophongroup.

Above we have the front and rear views of a special military model of a Russian grenadier officer of the Lief-Kompanii of Kavalegard of the reign of Elizabeth made by Dave Kennedy, painted by Ron Wherman and in the Xenophon collection.
Special notice: Here is the stunning web site of the State Hermitage museum in St. Petersburg link. Among the many items on display are a gorgeous bakterets and other arms and armor. Another interesting web page is the index of Russian museums at museums. We will be adding direct links to some marvelous collections of photography by Russian photographers, so check the index.

This page was last edited on 6 December, 2019.