Europe

The Grand Tour 1814-1815

During the last grim stages of the Napoleonic struggle, writes Jane Aiken Hodge, a gay young Englishman and his genial employer made an adventurous journey around Europe.

The Protocols of the Elders of Zion

Christopher Sykes describes how the last Tsar of Russia, as well as Adolf Hitler and other anti-Semites, were among those taken in by this spurious publication.

The Battle of Amiens

How a resounding British victory convinced the German military leaders that they had lost the First World War. 

Noel ‘Gracchus’ Babeuf, Prophet of Elitism

The legend that Babeuf had created and the doctrines of Babouvism became a powerful force in nineteenth-century Europe. W.J. Fishman writes how, among those whom it inspired, were the authors of the Bolshevik Revolution.

New Light on Hitler’s Youth

Thin, pale, solitary, a day-dreamer, opinionated, rebellious, with sudden bursts of energy that quickly evaporated, D.C. Watt writes that Hitler as a boy is a strange forerunner of the would-be world-conqueror.

The Dismissal of Sir John French

In 1914 the British Expeditionary Force entered the field under the command of Sir John French; Alan Clark describes how, after a year of frustration and defeat, French's leadership was strongly criticized, none of his critics being more effective than his onetime friend Sir Douglas Haig.

The Austro-Prussian War, 1866

The result of the Seven Weeks’ War in 1866 subordinated the Austrian Empire to Prussian ambitions. Brian Bond describes the last lightning victory in the Napoleonic manner, until Hitler’s blitzkrieg of 1940.

Napoleon’s Cavalry

General and trooper alike, Napoleon's cavalry brought a superb panache to the drab business of war. James Lunt describes how, for fifteen years, there was “hardly a village in Europe between Moscow and Madrid” through which these dashing horsemen did not ride.