The Inquisition
This was a Catholic tribunal founded on a temporary basis in France and Germany. Its purpose was to seek out heresy, prosecute and punish it. In the thirteenth and later centuries how you decided to...
View ArticleWar in the air Part II: Per Ardua Ad Astra
The Blizkrieg from Nazi Germany that opened the Second War in 1939 showed that apart from tank power, air power was a vital component of Hitler’s war efforts. Germany pounded the meagre defences...
View ArticleColonization
These days the word strikes a sour note, arousing images of rough settlements, starving ‘piccaninies’, whips, shackles, thoughtless government from a distance of thousdands of miles etc. If there are...
View ArticleThe Freemasons
Even today, in predominantly Roman Catholic countries the word Mason, or Francmason or Masonería is taboo in polite society. Spanish people assure you that Masons are only one step better than the...
View ArticleThe Occupation of the Rhur
The valley of the Rhur, which would become famous enough for a major film to be made of the bombing of its dams during the Second War, was the heart of Germany’s coal, iron and steel production. The...
View ArticleThe Reparations in Germany
Even if the end of the Great War was, or at least to many people seemed to be, unsatisfactory, the victors still demanded ‘compensation for all damage done to the civilian population of the Allied . ....
View ArticleThe Campaign in Normandy, June & August, 1944
This was the real turning point in the Second World War, although it came much later than it should have done, due mainly to inappropriate weather conditions for a sea-based landing. The British Isles...
View ArticleWho were ‘the Free French?’
Germany attacked France in May, 1940. 136 German divisions faced 125 British, French and Belgian ones. The Germans had over two thousand tanks, but even their commander admitted half were obsolete. The...
View ArticleErich von Falkenhayn
This Junker was born in 1861. As a child at severe schools he was perceived as self-reliant, honest and intelligent. He must have used these talents well because by 1913 he was Minister for War at...
View ArticleFriedrich Engels
Marx and Engels go together like Marks and Spencer; Karl and Groucho are however better known than Engels, though without him we would probably have had less Marxism, and therefore less Communism. In...
View ArticleWilliam the ‘Sailor King’
William IV King of Great Britain and Ireland was born in the eighteenth century (1765) and died seventy-two years later. He was also King of Hanover from 1830 to 1837, because he was the third son of...
View Article‘The Stab in the Back’– Myth or Reality
After the Normandy Invasion of 1944, the failed attempt to assassinate Hitler, and during the last few months of the Third Reich, with Russian and Allied armies closing on Berlin, Hitler gave orders to...
View ArticleColonization
These days the word strikes a sour note, arousing images of rough settlements, starving ‘piccaninies’, whips, shackles, thoughtless government from a distance of thousdands of miles etc. If there are...
View ArticleThe Freemasons
Even today, in predominantly Roman Catholic countries the word Mason, or Francmason or Masonería is taboo in polite society. Spanish people assure you that Masons are only one step better than the...
View ArticleThe Occupation of the Rhur
The valley of the Rhur, which would become famous enough for a major film to be made of the bombing of its dams during the Second War, was the heart of Germany’s coal, iron and steel production. The...
View ArticleHelmuth von Moltke
Born in Prussia in 1800, Moltke lived to the astonishing age of ninety-one, almost spanning the nineteenth century. He was born to be a soldier, being Prussian, and became Chief of the General Staff at...
View ArticleThe beginnings of Soviet Russia
The February Revolution (1917) It is easy enough to say that the origin of the Revolution in Russia was mainly due to the unpopularity of the Tsar; but that would preclude other, deeper origins. The...
View ArticleWho was this fellow Clausewitz?
It is a fair bet that many readers have noticed a reference to ‘Clausewitz’ in the history books they are reading, or even in novels; it is a name they know, though they are not sure why. Nor are they...
View ArticleThree battles at Ypres (1914, 1915 & 1917)
Ypres is a place in Belgium, known mainly by Great War enthusiasts who are taken on guided tours. In October and November of the first year of the war a major German offensive to outflank the British...
View ArticleThe Austro-Prussian War (1866)
Though it has been put into the shadow by the Franco-Prussian War, this was one of the most important conflicts in the 19th century, because it overturned the balance of power, at least in Central...
View Article
