All articles in Military
19th February, 2016 in Military
Verdun: Setting the scene
The Battle of Verdun was the longest single battle during the First World War and one of the bloodiest in human history. Fought between the German and French armies from February to December 1916, this brutal battle of attrition claimed one million casualties with 300,000 killed….
19th February, 2016 in Military
Verdun timeline
A timeline of the Battle of Verdun, which lasted for 303 days between February and December 1916 and became the longest and one of the most costly battles in human history. Drianty’s Defence and Douaumont’s Fall 1916 21 February – The Battle of Verdun begins with a leng…
8th February, 2016 in Local & Family History, Military
The Derbyshire Yeomanry in the First World War
By early 1916 the Derbyshire Yeomanry were having quite a different war than the standard text-book image of the Western Front. No trenches, no endless shelling, no blasted landscapes, no gas attacks and no no-man’s-land. In fact, it was more akin to what we might call modern war…
14th January, 2016 in Military, Sport
‘War by other means’: Rugby and warfare
Henry Allingham, one of the last two veterans to pass away in 2009, said of the Great War: ‘Of course I remember. I was there. I have no choice but to remember’. We, who were not there, do have a choice. We must choose to remember. In October 2009, I set out not to write a book,…
13th January, 2016 in Biography & Memoir, Military
Private Henry Tandey VC and Adolf Hitler
The story of Private Henry Tandey VC, DCM, MM has once again entered the public domain following the publication of Michael Morpurgo’s latest book An Eagle in the Snow and sadly, in my opinion, for the wrong reasons. In 2010, I came across the story of Adolf Hitler’s life being s…
18th December, 2015 in Local & Family History, Military, Society & Culture, Women in History
East End suffragettes in the First World War
In popular accounts of the outbreak of the First World War in Britain, mention is sometimes made of the fact that the Women’s Social and Political Union suspended their militant campaign for the vote to take up an intensely nationalist, pro-war agenda. Sylvia Pankhurst and the ra…
18th December, 2015 in Local & Family History, Military
London in the Second World War
London is a fascinating place, that is something we all know, but I find it even more so when looking back at the city as it was during the Second World War. Despite all the bombing, a vast amount of Second World War history has survived. However, for every building that has an o…
18th December, 2015 in Local & Family History, Military
The Manchester Blitz
2020 marked the 80th anniversary of the World War II Luftwaffe raids on Manchester, Salford, and Trafford Park. The attacks reached a climax just before Christmas 1940, when on two consecutive nights thousands of incendiary bombs and hundreds of high-explosive devices were u…
18th December, 2015 in Local & Family History, Military
The First World War and Eastern England
The Centenary of the First World War is still under the shadow of the 50th Anniversary around 1964. This created powerful stereotypes of lions and donkeys, butchers and bunglers and Oh! What a Lovely War – Joan Littlewood, Alan Clark and A.J.P Taylor were some of the main se…
17th December, 2015 in Military
The forgotten front: East Africa 1914-1918
The inspiration behind the Humphrey Bogart film The African Queen, the East African campaign of the First World War is the largest conflict yet to take place on African soil in terms of scale and impact. Yet, it has languished in undeserved obscurity over the years…
17th December, 2015 in Military
The first Victoria Crosses of the First World War
Mons, the capital of the Belgian province of Hainaut, is an important place which is associated with the history of the British Army. During 1709, the Duke of Marlborough defeated the French at the nearby battlefield of Malplaquet. Two centuries later during 1914, soldiers of the…
17th December, 2015 in Military
Tactics at Ypres
The British had learned hard lessons in the Boer War at the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The Boers were natural riders, hunters and marksmen equipped with excellent German Mauser rifles that fired smokeless ammunition. The British soldiers who had fought ill-ar…