Military

Jeremy Black examines A.J.P. Taylor’s account of the Crimean War, published in February 1951.

The messages sent by British soldiers of the First World War to their loved ones back home have long been valued for what they tell us about daily life in the trenches. But their authors were often at pains not to reveal too much of the horror they endured. Anthony Fletcher considers what these documents reveal about the men’s inner lives.

Graham Goodland assesses the impact of developments in non-military technology on the conduct of war in the modern era.

John Matusiak pricks the imperial pretension of the monarch who came to the throne 500 years ago

In 1759 a British army under General James Wolfe won a momentous battle on the Plains of Abraham. A neglected ingredient in Wolfe’s dramatic victory was the professionalism of the army he had helped to create.

The tactics adopted by the Gallic leader Vercingetorix to resist Julius Caesar’s conquest of Gaul played into Roman hands.

The German army’s training, discipline and Blitzkrieg tactics – directed by the supremely confident Führer – swept away Polish resistance in 1939. It took the shell-shocked Allies another three years to catch up, writes Andrew Roberts.

Richard Overy examines recent analyses of how Europe became embroiled in major conflict just two decades after the trauma of the Great War and we look at events and broadcasts commemorating September 1939. 

With the trial of the former Bosnian Serb President Radovan Karadzic due to begin, Nick Hawton reflects on his time reporting in a region where history is still used to justify war.

Peter H. Wilson unravels one of the most notoriously bloody and complex conflicts in European history to answer the question.