Earning the Enemy’s Respect: Victoria Cross Recommendations from the Other Side
Reading time: 7 minutes
Many readers will be familiar with the 1964 epic movie Zulu, which depicts the 1879 landmark Battle of Rorke’s Drift in the Anglo-Zulu War. In the film, perhaps the most iconic scene takes place at the end of the movie, whereby the Zulu warriors chant in respectful salutation towards the British soldiers before withdrawing after the battle. Moving, cinematic, and honourable, it’s clear why the scene lives so memorably in the hearts of fans today.
History’s Greatest Nicknames
Reading time: 7 minutes
A browse through any military history book will no doubt bring up titles of famous officers, often bearing unusual, surprising, or sometimes downright hilarious nicknames. In many cases, it’s clear where the sobriquet originated, while other examples hold a less-obvious significance.
Australian Ace Bobby Gibbes’ Desert War – Video
Bobby Gibbes commanded No. 3 Squadron RAAF during the crucial desert battles of 1942-43, including the battles of El Alamein.
Why Oliver Cromwell may have been Britain’s greatest ever general – new analysis of battle reports
Reading time: 6 minutes
At the age of 43 Cromwell had strapped on his sword for the first time – as a captain of a troop of horses in parliament’s army at the beginning of the English Civil War.
Richard O’Connor and Operation Compass: Britain’s Comeback in the Desert
Reading time: 8 minutes
Early in the Second World War, when Britain’s empire stood alone, one man was responsible for the early successes which broke the myth of Axis invincibility. His name was Richard O’Connor.
Ireland and the Battle of The Somme
Reading time: 8 minutes
The Somme was the first great action by a British Army on a continental scale. It was the longest, bloodiest battle of World War One, a campaign lasting four and a half months, and fought over a twenty-mile front near the Somme. In February 1916 Allied commanders had decided to launch an infantry offensive there,
The debate on the origins of the First World War
Reading time: 5 minutes
The way historians have viewed the causes of WWI has changed in the hundred years since war broke out. This article explores the origins of the Great War.
Forgotten: Britain’s civilian mass prison camps from World War I
Reading time: 6 minutes
In 1914, Britain stood at the forefront of organising one of the first civilian mass internment operations of the 20th century. 30,000 civilian German, Austrian and Turkish men who had been living or travelling in Britain in the summer of that year found themselves behind barbed wire, in many cases for the whole duration of World War I.
How German PoWs staged their greatest World War I escape from a camp now part of a British university
Reading time: 5 minutes
Escape was a romantic ideal rather than a rational expectation. Gunter Pluschow, who escaped from another PoW camp at Donington Hall, in Leicestershire, was the only German to make it home in World War I, largely because he managed to adopt a disguise and stow away on board a cargo ship at Harwich.
Stonehenge first stood in Wales: how archaeologists proved parts of the 5,000 year-old stone circle were imported
Reading time: 6 minutes
According to Geoffrey of Monmouth, whose History of the Kings of Britain was written in 1136, the mysterious monoliths at Stonehenge were first spirited there by the wizard Merlin, whose army stole them from a mythical Irish stone circle called the Giants’ Dance.
Remember El Alamein
Reading time: 5 minutes
Exactly 75 years ago, Australians dressed in steel helmets and khaki shorts, and often not much else, sat in weapon pits in the Egyptian sun about 120 kilometres west of Alexandria. They were preparing for what history would call the second battle of El Alamein, the great offensive planned by Lieutenant-General Bernard Montgomery. In the summer heat of July 1942, his predecessor, Archibald Wavell, had held the German–Italian drive towards Egypt, a battle in which the 9th Australian Division had played a notable part. Now, after gathering more troops, tanks and guns, Montgomery was ready to launch his Eighth Army against General Erwin Rommel’s Panzer Armée Afrika, a commander and a force admired and respected even by their adversaries.