First World War

A century ago, the Women’s Congress met with the aim of revolutionising a ravaged political landscape.

Few foresaw the horror of the First World War. The financier Jan Bloch did and in 1901 he outlined his vision to Britain’s military establishment.

The people of Brighton offered a warm welcome to the Indian soldiers sent to convalesce at the Sussex resort in the First World War. But the military authorities found much to be nervous about.

Roger Hudson details the political and social events that provided Tsar Nicholas II’s prewar visit to Kiev with a tense background. 

Britain’s contribution to the war was not merely confined to the trenches of the Western Front.

Roger Hudson examines a 1915 photograph of the medieval Cloth Hall in the Belgian city of Ypres following heavy German shelling.

The presence of these two ships in the Mediterranean at the opening of the First World War gave the Germans a dangerous advantage. Their escape to the Dardanelles, writes David Woodward, had a manifold influence on Allied strategy.

The successful Battle of Guise, fought by the French Fifth Army, among many misunderstandings with their Allies and between their own commanders, was an essential prelude to the Battle of the Marne, on which the fortunes of the First World War so largely turned. By John Terraine.

The second phase of the Battle of Jutland was dominated by Jellicoe's resolve to renew the action and Scheer’s determined and successful efforts to escape. By Geoffrey Bennett.

The first news of the Battle of Jutland in 1916 startled the British public, who had looked forward to an emphatic victory at sea. Geoffrey Bennett asks, what exactly happened in the course of this momentous and controversial engagement?