Military

Michael Srigley describes how, on November 30th, 1718, one of the foremost soldiers of the age was shot while besieging a fortress in Norway. Did he succumb to a stray bullet, or was he assassinated?

Exile to the Netherlands following the First World War chastened Kaiser Wilhelm II, but Robin Bruce Lockhart cannot believe that the former ruler of imperial Germany was ever either the mountebank, or the monster, which his biographers have tried to make him.

Alastair Hennessy draws parallels between Carlist Spain of the nineteenth century and Franco's twentieth century fascist regime.

Gibraltar, writes Charles Dimont, provides one of the examples of how the British Empire was “acquired in a fit of absence of mind.” 

The great Confederate commander was fatally wounded at Chancellorsville on May 2nd, 1863.

Few foresaw the horror of the First World War. The financier Jan Bloch did and he outlined his vision to Britain’s military establishment, as Paul Reynolds explains.

Britain’s loss of Singapore in February 1942 was a terrible blow. But Japan failed to make the most of its prize, says Malcolm Murfett.

Of the many immigrants from the United Kingdom who took up arms in the war, only a small number were English. Daniel Clarke explores the experiences of those who served.

The tall army recruits known as the Potsdam Giants, F.L. Carsten writes, played a considerable part in the British diplomacy during the early 18th century, and the efforts of the Prussian recruiting sergeants to procure men of the desired size extended to the British Isles.

A discussion between Napoleon, exiled in St. Helena, and Henry Ellis, returning with Lord Amherst’s embassy to China, about England's international standing.

Only a staff composed of men of military genius, and backed by a decisive and imaginative government at Westminster, could have secured a victory in the American War of Independence. Eric Robson reflects on how men of considerable talent, and of much good-will, failed in an impossible task.

Roger Howard recalls a moment 50 years ago when Israel was rocked by exaggerated claims of a threat posed by Egypt.

The German First World War commander Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck has been described as the 20th century’s greatest guerrilla leader for his undefeated campaign in East Africa. Is the legend justified? Dan Whitaker considers the wider picture.