Just over halfway through her excellent new book on Germany between the Franco-Prussian War and the First World War, Katja Hoyer tells the story of the ‘Captain of Köpenick’ incident. In 1906, an petty criminal called Wilhelm Voigt went around…
‘Grenade’ derives from the Old French pome grenate, on account of the bomblet’s similarity in shape to the pomegranate fruit.
Despite depictions of the Battle of Britain as a campaign waged by grown-up men and women, the average age of an RAF fighter pilot at the height of the Second World War was just 20 – with those involved in…
David Porter analyses the tense relationship between the two most powerful dictators in Europe during the countdown to the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union.
David Porter analyses the largest military invasion in history.
Finally completed in April 1861,Napoleon’s remains were transferred into this huge object of red aventurine quartzite from a quarry in northern Russia.
This is a fine, deeply researched book, with Frank Whittle’s story beginning with a lad of humble origin who, aged just 16, entered the RAF as an apprentice fitter, already with strong views about the viability of gas-turbine aero engines…
A crisis over a small island south of the mainland United States in the autumn of 1962 was the closest the world ever came to a devastating nuclear war. Award-winning historian Serhii Plokhy, who recently chronicled the 1986 Chernobyl disaster,…
John Lock looks at the Battle of Chancellorsville in 1863 in the first of a series of articles looking at the Butterfly Effect – where small incidents have significant consequences.
In 1982, Britain went to war in the Falklands, relying for the last time on an aircraft that was entirely made within the country: the Harrier Jump Jet. Not only this, but the head of the department that produced the…
To coincide with the battle’s 275th anniversary, which fell earlier this year, the National Trust of Scotland (NTS) has published a manifesto, which it hopes the Scottish parliament will back, to grant the site UNESCO World Heritage Site status.
The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor of 80 years ago not only brought the United States into a war, but provoked a wave of hostility to Japanese immigrants and their children across America. Daniel James Brown here explores the lives…
Like all the Why We Fight films, it is a highly charged, emotional account, always looking to create maximum impact.
‘I trust no one, not even myself.’ So the merciless dictator of the Soviet Union reportedly once said. In this new book, Sean McMeekin explores the Second World War from Joseph Stalin’s perspective. From his complex relations with both Winston…
What did the leaders of the ‘Big Three’ superpowers during the Second World War have in common? Well, Franklin Roosevelt’s five children went through 19 marriages between them. Meanwhile, Stalin laughed off his son’s suicide attempt and chronically neglected his…
The best military history events, lectures, and exhibitions in May 2021, including an online course delving into the discovery of King Richard III in a car park, and an exhibit on Disney wartime propaganda.
More than 90% of the Disney company’s wartime output was dedicated to assisting in the struggle against Japan, Nazi Germany, and their allies.
‘A volley fired by a young Virginian in the backwoods of America set the world on fire.’ That was the judgement of Horace Walpole. Fred Chiaventone tells the story.
He became known as the ‘Flying Sikh’ because he wore a specially designed helmet that fitted over his turban.
From slings and arrows to cyberwarfare, conflict is innate to human nature despite the peace much of the modern world now enjoys. In the latest addition to the bestselling ‘shortest history’ series, historian Gwynne Dyer summarises the story of conflict…
The Eastern Front remains the forgotten child of Western histories of the Second World War. Even the phrase ‘Eastern Front’ is a reflection of a Western-centric view that sees the struggle between the USSR and Germany as an afterthought compared…
MHM Editor Neil Faulkner recalls one of the great works of military history.
The series is based on Donald L Miller’s non-fiction book of the same name on the American 8th Air Force.
Patrick Mercer begins an occasional series looking at some of history’s less well-known battles.
The British Museum claims it will present Nero, who was also widely admired for popular policies, extravagant games, and building projects, in a balanced light and allow visitors to make up their own minds.
Heavily outnumbered and outgunned, she nonetheless fought valiantly against her larger opponents, allowing time for the escort carriers she was protecting to escape. Of the ship’s 327-man crew, only 141 survived the battle.
Thirty years ago, the wreck of the Mary Rose, pride of Henry VIII’s navy, rose from the seabed to the gasps of a live TV audience of millions. Neil Faulkner takes the opportunity to review the rise of English seapower in the early 16th century.
During the Second World War, Turing worked at the British Government’s Code and Cypher School (GC&CS) at Bletchley Park in Buckinghamshire.
Britain at War in Colour, released later this spring, reveals 100 of the best original images from the IWM collection. Some of them have been previously published – either in American magazines after the war, or more recently in books – but others are appearing in print for the first time.
In June 1864, Cold Harbor was the site of a fortnight-long battle during the American Civil War.
A year later, photographer John Reekie visited the battlefield and captured pictures of men as they roamed the fields, collecting and reburying the bones of dead soldiers.
No other Australian was so dear to the public as ‘Bluey’ Truscott... He was idolised and idealised, but not put on a pedestal.
In the last year of WWI, airpower became a major factor – so much so that the British turned their air contingents, previously treated as adjuncts of the Army or the Navy into a unified RAF. Was the diversion of resources worth it?
John Sweetman analyses the relative failure of repeated Fleet Air Arm attacks on the German battleship Tirpitz.
The Swiss army of the late Middle Ages ruthlessly used terrain to its advantage and had a genius for knowing which battles not to fight.
The British authorities were preparing for a brutal underground war in the event of German invasion and occupation in 1940.
Patrick Mercer reports on a tough fighting regiment of the Napoleonic Wars, let down by dismal command in 1809.