Military

As  the 150th anniversary of the Victoria Cross is celebrated, Richard Vinen looks beyond the individual acts of heroism that have merited the honour, to the wider social, cultural and historical significance of  the medal.

James Exelby unearths the activities of a forgotten British spy whose documents and memoir provide a fascinating insight into the circumstances surrounding the British occupation of Egypt.

The history of our times has witnessed violence on an unimaginable scale. George Kassimeris reflects on the age-old horrors of warfare and struggles to find reasons for what leads men to perpetrate inexplicable acts of brutality.

Jonathan Phillips sees one of the most notorious events in European history as a typical ‘clash of cultures’.

Charles Stephenson introduces a plan for chemical warfare in the Napoleonic navy, devised by Thomas Cochrane, Lord Dundonald, the model for Patrick O’Brien’s Jack Aubrey.

Michael Broers argues that the influence of Napoleon’s Empire was out of all proportion to its duration.

Graham Goodlad examines the management of public opinion by British governments between the French Revolutionary conflict and the Great War.

The English triumph at Poitiers in September 1356 was the dramatic culmination of Edward III’s visionary approach to waging war, the consequences of which are still with us today.

As Battle of Britain Day approaches Brian James has been finding out why some of today’s leading military historians argue that it was not the RAF but the Royal Navy that saved Britain in 1940.

Federico Guillermo Lorenz looks at Argentinian memories of the Second World War during and after the Malvinas-Falklands War of 1982.