Military

In the autumn of 1936, on Communist inspiration, a shock force was internationally recruited to assist the Republican Army in the Spanish Civil War. Where did the Brigades come from and why? By Hugh Thomas.

At the crisis of the battle Napoleon withheld the Imperial Guard, writes Michael Barthorp, only to commit it piecemeal at a later stage to its first and last defeat.

Territorial concessions in Anatolia were promised to the Greeks during the First World War but, writes Cyril Falls, hope of fulfilment was defeated by the resurgent republicans of Turkey.

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 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.

A.W. Palmer describes how the troubled politics of Serbia played a large part in precipitating the first World War. By a policy of violence and assassination, a group of army conspirators, known as the “Black Hand,” laid a fuse to the Balkan powder-keg.

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.

F.J. Hebbert and G.A. Rothrock introduce the greatest military engineer of his age, Vauban, who served Louis XIV with unflagging devotion.

William Allan introduces the Napoleonic military genius; in Napier’s words, ‘the best loved Frenchman England ever fought’.

The supreme direction of the First World War has remained a matter of controversy; in this essay, John Terraine contrasts Lloyd George’s hopes with the manner of their realization.