How opening an archive caused consternation in the Netherlands
Reading time: 1 minute Generally speaking, making an archive accessible to the public isn’t...
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Category: Military History
Wars of the Roses: how the French meddled in this very English conflict
Reading time: 6 minutes
The Wars of the Roses are normally portrayed as a series of battles between two warring houses, York and Lancaster, over who was rightly king of England. However, they were about much more than that. In many ways, the wars were really about standards of government.
The story of Nancy Wake
Reading time: 7 minutes
Nancy Wake (1912–2011) was an agent for the Special Operations Executive and the most wanted woman in France during the Second World War. Dubbed the ‘White Mouse’ by the Nazis, she was the one who always got away.
Rome’s Greatest Technological Developments
Reading time: 7 minutes
Rome.
The capital city of modern day Italy, and one of the most famous, successful and longest-lasting empires to ever exist on planet Earth.
The Romans, both in the eras of the Roman Republic and the Empire, had a knack for stealing, adapting, and improving upon technologies, tactics, and ideas they encountered from other cultures – often those they fought, ranging from the Etruscans to the Greeks and Persians.
The sources of Russian conduct
Reading time: 14 minutes
This essay examines the sources of Russian power and conduct from an historical, cultural and geopolitical perspective. It aims to help assessment of Russia’s future behaviour. My approach is based on the essay The Sources of Soviet Conduct written by the famous US State Department diplomat and leading Russian expert George Kennan (under the pseudonym ‘X’) in the journal Foreign Affairs in 1947. Kennan was struggling to get Washington to understand the threat from the Soviet Union so soon after the end of World War II, when the USSR had been an ally of the United States.
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On a Wing and a Prayer – Vimy to Australia 1919-2019
Reading time: 4 minutes On this day 100 years ago, G-EAOU, a converted World War I...
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Adventurous identities: intersex soldiers and cross-dressing women at war
Reading time: 4 minutes
Pulaski is a hero of the struggles for Polish and American independence. He is credited with saving George Washington’s life in battle and with establishing the first American cavalry force. According to the documentary, DNA testing has confirmed a female-appearing skeleton is indeed Pulaski’s. This new evidence is the first hint that Pulaski – who seems to have lived as male from childhood – was anything other than a cisgendered man.
Menzies’ call on Vietnam changed Australia’s course
Reading time: 4 minutes
In 1965, Australia was involved in two crises in Southeast Asia, one in Vietnam and the other in Indonesia. The connection between the two was vital to Menzies’ decision to increase our involvement in Vietnam. Having already committed a battalion to Malaysia to support resistance to the Konfrontasi policy of Indonesia’s Sukarno government, the logical next step for Menzies was to look to Vietnam. He did this with the support of his Cold War warrior and minister for external affairs, Paul Hasluck. They decided to send an Australian battalion to South Vietnam, partly to ensure continued American interest in the region.
Fighting to the Finish: Australia in 1945 – Strategy, Victory and Legacy Conference, Melbourne. Book Now!
Military History & Heritage Victoria is excited to announce that tickets are now on sale for...
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Combat in the High Himalayas: the Sino-Indian War of 1962
Reading time: 13 minutes
There are corners of the map where the neat lines of national boundaries, so carefully laid and plotted over the modern era, begin to blur and bleed. Aksai Chin, the bleak “White Stone Desert” which sits just inside China’s western border, is one of these.
The Thucydides Trap: Vital lessons from ancient Greece for China and the US … or a load of old claptrap?
Reading time: 5 minutes
The so-called Thucydides Trap has become a staple of foreign policy commentary over the past decade or so, regularly invoked to frame the escalating rivalry between the United States and China.
Coined by political scientist Graham Allison — first in a 2012 Financial Times article and later developed in his 2017 book “Destined for War” — the phrase refers to a line from the ancient Greek historian Thucydides, who wrote in his “History of the Peloponnesian War,” “It was the rise of Athens and the fear that this instilled in Sparta that made war inevitable.”
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The Greek and Cretan evacuations: Australians tell their stories
Reading time: 7 minutes The Battle of Greece is a story of grit, determination, and sheer...
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