The army is too woke for war
Last month, in a two-page letter to colonels of corps and regiments, the Deputy Chief of the General Staff, Lieutenant-General…
When, why and how came the fall – the success and sorry decline of the British Army
An impressively detailed chronicle by an analyst well up to the task. Read it and weep
The greatest military folly of modern times
Kevin Passmore explains why the construction of the Maginot Line, France’s vast defensive network of the interwar years, proved such a failure
The importance of honouring the enemy war dead
Local communities who tend the graves of enemy casualties of the two world wars do more for reconciliation than most politicians and diplomats, says Tim Grady
The good soldier Maczek – a war hero betrayed
After fighting for the Allies in Hungary, France, Belgium and Holland, Stanislaw Maczek finds himself stripped of his Polish citizenship as a result of the Yalta conference
Eighty years on, the planning of Operation Neptune remains awesome
The seaborne invasion went so smoothly, it might have been thought plain-sailing. But that was far from the truth. Nick Hewitt describes the meticulous forethought that preceded it
Why was the British army so ill-prepared to fight the second world war?
After 1918, the general staff ceased to focus on who they might have to fight next and how, leading to the abysmal performance of the army in Norway and France in 1940
Ancient stalemate
History is always relevant, says Adrian Goldsworthy – and Rome’s long war with Parthia-Persia, ending in deadlock, should make Putin wary
Quick thinking in the dark
The answer is, we shall never know – but one Norwegian colonel’s quick decision may have ensured Churchill’s premiership and the success of Dunkirk
Via sacra
This profound and emotion-laden book ends, as did the first world war, in hope, and no little catharsis. It begins,…
The right not to bear arms
As I’ve occasionally come to think is the case with The Spectator, this book is perhaps best begun at the…
A principled pragmatist
A headline in the Mail on Sunday, taken up eagerly by the BBC’s Todayprogramme, claimed recently: ‘The SAS is getting…
Debacle at Dieppe
In my mother’s final days we had a long conversation about the second world war. I asked if she’d ever…
Forewarned, but not forearmed
The most extraordinary thing, still, about Operation Barbarossa is the complete surprise the Wehrmacht achieved. In the early hours of…
Rag-tag heroes
‘Old men forget; yet all shall be forgot,/ But he’ll remember, with advantages,/ What feats he did that day.’ Peter…
Secrets of the double cross
Für dich, Tommy, ist der Krieg vorbei. However, many British servicemen, officers especially, didn’t want their war to be over.…
The shape of things to come
To begin not at the beginning but at the end of the beginning. Or rather, to begin at another beginning,…
In praise of Thomas Graham, unsung hero of the Peninsular War
Why does a man join the army? The answer was probably more obvious in the 18th century than now, but…
Snatching victory from the jaws of defeat: the triumph of Rorke’s Drift
On 22 January last year, the entrance whiteboard at London Underground’s Dollis Hill carried a brief factual statement: On this…
The history of Britain’s secret war on Napoleon is astonishing, inspiring and disturbing
Laws and sausages, we know, are better not seen in the making; and neither are ‘black ops’. Waterloo may have…
Why do people risk their lives to fight for a foreign cause?
What’s the point of a cover if not to judge a book by? One look at the image on the…
Field Marshal Lord Bramall on why we should use force for peace
It is always a delight to drive the country roads of Hampshire to see the man known throughout the army…
The German Lion of Africa
What’s going on with book reviews? Here is the Pulitizer prizewinning (for ‘criticism’) Michael Dirda in the Washington Post, on…
A fighting chance
‘We remember it not only for the rain that fell, the mud that weighed down the living and swallowed the…
Who will guard the guards?
The history of an army is essentially the history of its deeds. The history of an army within an army…
