Category Archives: War

The Sledgehammer and the Scalpel: Hamburg 1943 and Amiens 1944

Posted on June 16, 2017 by

Introduction The Germans achieved a stupendous military victory in the summer of 1940 leaving Britain isolated behind the English Channel, which acted as a ‘moat’. It quickly became apparent the Germans couldn’t invade Britain and vice versa. A military impasse … Continue reading →

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The importance of the battle of Mukden (1905)

Posted on April 21, 2017 by

The carnage of the first world war wasn’t inevitable. The horrendous losses suffered could have been avoided by high commands sensitive to the evolution of warfare techniques. Their ‘war games’ were a hapless iteration of previous obsolete military experiences. Nine … Continue reading →

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The Ricardian Curse, Margaret Thatcher and North Sea Oil

Posted on January 27, 2017 by

The Ricardian Curse is normally associated with third world countries who are ‘blessed’ with a bonanza of wealth from natural resources. The ‘curse’ is that sudden increases in wealth negatively impact on the immature countries who often fail to effectively … Continue reading →

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The women of Paris during the battle of Verdun 1916*

Posted on January 24, 2017 by

As if by the germination of a tiny quantity of yeast, apparently of spontaneous generation, young women now went about all day with tall cylindrical turbans on their heads, as a contemporary of Mme Tallien’s might have done, and from … Continue reading →

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Flogging and Courage: the British Army 1800-81

Posted on January 12, 2017 by

Discipline in the British Army was sadistic. There was institutional savagery with floggings and public execution occurring so frequently they were normalised. The army had a subliminal desire to ‘toughen’ up soldiers for the ordeals that lay ahead of them. … Continue reading →

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The Double V Campaign: The struggle for racial equality in the US Armed Forces in the Second World War

Posted on November 17, 2016 by

The festering sore that was American segregation became a burning issue after Hitler’s declaration of war (11th December 1941). The world’s worse racist state declared war on a country which enshrined segregation. America’s non-white soldiers were officially second class citizens. … Continue reading →

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Sound advice from a father during the Warsaw Uprising 1944*

Posted on September 13, 2016 by

The Warsaw Uprising museum has numerous videos with survivors recounting their experiences. One video shows a man telling the story of how, when he was fifteen years old, he asked his parents if he could join the uprising. First he … Continue reading →

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