European Archives

The sources of Russian conduct

by History Guild | Jul 28, 2025 | Military History, Political and Economic History | 0

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.

A Belgian farmer moved a rock and accidentally annexed France: the weird and wonderful history of man-made borders

by History Guild | Jul 23, 2025 | Political and Economic History, Social and Cultural History | 0

Reading time: 5 minutes
Nations establish their borders through treaties. Rivers are sometimes relied on to set boundaries, but even here tensions rise when there are disputes about interpretation. Is the boundary on the river banks, the deepest part of the river, or the very centre of the flow?

The World’s Sweet Tooth: A Brief History of Chocolate

by History Guild | Jul 16, 2025 | Social and Cultural History | 0

Reading time: 6 minutes
It’s hard to imagine the modern Western world without chocolate. Whether it’s a treat on the weekend, or as a gift for Christmas or Valentines’, chocolate has become one of those foods that feels like it must’ve been around forever.
Yet the sweet chocolate bars we know and love today are surprisingly new, historically speaking.

Cubism and Colonialism: How African Art Shaped Picasso’s Vision

by History Guild | Jun 25, 2025 | Social and Cultural History | 0

Reading time: 6 minutes
In the early decades of the 20th century, modernism forever changed artistic representation. Artists like Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque, whose experiments formed the foundations of Cubism, were just some of the many innovators responding to changes in technology and urbanization.
Picasso is possibly one of the most well-known artists today, and much is known about his life and inspirations. However, one influence behind his innovative style is less explored in popular culture—the impact of colonialism. The cubist movement arguably would not be what it became without the legacies of colonialism and imperial conquest.

Here are the five ancient Britons who make up the myth of King Arthur

by History Guild | May 19, 2025 | Social and Cultural History | 0

Reading time: 6 minutes
King Arthur is probably the best known of all British mythological figures. He is a character from deep time celebrated across the world in literature, art and film as a doomed hero, energetically fighting the forces of evil. Most historians believe that the prototype for Arthur was a warlord living in the ruins of post-Roman Britain, but few can today agree on precisely who that was.

Why we are still living with the legacy of Waterloo – that ‘most bloody battle’

by History Guild | May 5, 2025 | Historical Sites, Military History, Social and Cultural History | 0

Reading time: 6 minutes
Our views of war are sanitised today. In an age of professional armies trained for increasingly technical tasks, few of us have witnessed combat, much less taken part in it. In that vein, commemorations of the 200th anniversary of Waterloo will focus on the battle’s strategic significance. There are, though, individual accounts that give us a glimpse into what sword fights and cavalry charges must have been like – and the deadly consequences of defeat.

Flies, filth and bully beef: life at Gallipoli in 1915

by History Guild | Apr 24, 2025 | Military History | 0

Reading time: 6 minutes
Many factors contributed to making the Gallipoli battlefield an almost unendurable place for all soldiers. The constant noise, cramped unsanitary conditions, disease, stenches, daily death of comrades, terrible food, lack of rest and thirst all contributed to the most gruelling conditions.

Gallipoli’s rich history of conflict started well before 1915

by History Guild | Apr 17, 2025 | Historical Sites, Military History, Social and Cultural History | 0

Reading time: 5 minutes
There are few geographical areas that have seen as much military action as the Gallipoli region, the site of the Anzac landings in 1915. The conflicts in the region include some of the most renowned wars from Greek antiquity.

What exactly is the Holy Grail – and why has its meaning eluded us for centuries?

by History Guild | Apr 14, 2025 | Social and Cultural History | 0

Reading time: 6 minutes
Type “Holy Grail” into Google and … well, you probably don’t need me to finish that sentence. The sheer multiplicity of what any search engine throws up demonstrates that there is no clear consensus as to what the Grail is or was. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t plenty of people out there claiming to know its history, true meaning and even where to find it.

Does the Roman road network influence European prosperity even today?

by History Guild | Apr 7, 2025 | Political and Economic History | 0

Reading time: 5 minutes
If there’s one thing the ancient Romans are famous for, its their roads. The empire was criss-crossed with them, mainly to quickly shuttle the legions about, but they also facilitated trade. We know this network survived the collapse of the empire, but could it influence the European economy to this day?

The Strangest Battle of World War II? Uncovering the Battle of Castle Itter

by History Guild | Apr 3, 2025 | Military History | 0

Reading time: 6 minutes
In the waning hours of the war, exactly five days after Hitler shot himself in his bunker, a bizarre battle would commence in a small Austrian town, just south of the German border.
Seven hundred years after its construction in the 1200s, Castle Itter would host a battle between the Waffen-SS (the Nazi party’s specialist paramilitary) and a combined force of defecting German Wehrmacht troops, American soldiers, Austrian resistance fighters, and various French political prisoners.

Medieval Christians saw the lunar eclipse as a sign from God — but they also understood the science

by History Guild | Mar 10, 2025 | Social and Cultural History | 0

Reading time: 5 minutes
This has been cited as evidence that some people believed that lunar eclipses were caused by magicians or moon-hungry monsters. However, it is important to remember this comes from a source written by an educated churchman who may have exaggerated evidence of superstitious beliefs in order to then condemn them. Yet even if we allow for these beliefs, the range of ideas surrounding lunar eclipses in medieval Europe reveal it was not the dark age of superstition and ignorance it is often assumed to have been.

Tag: European