First World War
Even near the front line, there were flowers on the ward
It’s the tub of bright red geraniums at the heart of the picture that startles. How did anyone have time…
Portrait of the week
Home The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge joined 50 heads of state at the St Symphorien cemetery near Mons to…
Spectator letters: A defence of nursing assistants, a mystery shotgun, and a response to Melanie Phillips
Poor treatment Sir: Jane Kelly’s article (‘No tea or sympathy’, 2 August) on the lack of empathy and emotional support…
Why I’m against posthumous pardons, even for Alan Turing
Ross Clark is a columnist I try to read because he is never trite. So I was sorry to miss…
The gardener-soldiers of the First World War
First, a confession. Even an ardent radio addict can enjoy a fortnight away from the airwaves, disconnected, switched off, unlistening.…
Paul Johnson’s diary: Boris would make a great PM – but he must strike now
I feel an intense antipathy for Vladimir Putin. No one on the international scene has aroused in me such dislike…
Gas gangrene, shell shock and flinty women: BBC One's new Sunday night offering is no soother
Sunday nights. What are they for? Eggs. Tea. Toast. Nerves about the week ahead. Something comforting on TV. But comfort…
How I became editor of The Spectator - aged 27
Thirty years ago this Saturday, I became editor of this magazine. In the same month, the miners’ strike began, Anthony…
Do wars always start in years ending ‘14’?
Years of war Imaginative souls have tried to compared the situation in Ukraine with that which preceded the first world…
Niall Ferguson’s diary: Brazil is overtaking us – but it no longer feels like that
São Paolo It was back in 2001 that my good friend Jim O’Neill of Goldman Sachs coined the acronym ‘Bric’,…
Spectator letters: Wind and bias, and the Scots at war
Caution over wind Sir: While the broadcast media have assailed their audiences with simplistic yet blanket coverage of the floods…
Brave Tommies and dim earls — Oh What a Lovely War is hoity-toity reductionism
Here it is. Fifty years late. Oh What a Lovely War was originally staged at Stratford East in 1964. It…
The Spectator's notes: What shall we call the Country Formerly Known as Britain?
Last week, David Cameron said that we have ‘seven months to save the most extraordinary country in history’. He meant…
How the first world war inspired the EU
To understand the real meaning of the EU, you must grasp that it originated in the first world war, rather than the second
When No Man's Land is home
Countless writers and film-makers this year will be trying their hand at forcing us to wake up and smell the…
Bye-bye Bric, hello Mint — are Mexico, Indonesia, Nigeria and Turkey really the new boom economies?
New year new ideas as we woke up on Monday morning to find ourselves in Lagos with Evan Davies trying…
How radio — and the digital age — help us to remember the first world war
Perhaps the most moving programme of all amid the huge range that will mark the coming centenary of the Great…
Sebastian Faulks's diary: Inside the official first world war commemorations
A year or so ago I was asked to sit on a committee that advises the government on how to…
Norman Stone: From Syria to Iraq, the mess of the first world war is with us still
So many of the world’s troubles, even today, can be traced back to the empire-builders of 1914 – and the peace-makers of 1919
The Briton whose achievement equals that of the Pharaohs'
We constantly need to be reminded that the consequence of war is death. In the case of the first world…
Charles Moore's notes: It's great there's a World Islamic Economic Forum — now can we have a Jewish one?
As I write, the World Islamic Economic Forum is opening in London, the first time it has been held in…
Why Jeremy Paxman's Great War deserves a place on your bookshelf
The Great War involved the civilian population like no previous conflict. ‘Men, women and children, factory, workshop and army —…
Come over here, Tom Stoppard
David Blackburn talks to Gwyneth Williams,who wants to revitalise Radio 4’s coverage of the arts
What caused the first world war?
In pre-1914 cosmopolitan society, everyone seemed to be related — ambassadors as well as monarchs. But increased militarisation was fast obliterating old family ties, says Jane Ridley
Meeting the Enemy, by Richard Van Emden; 1914, by Allan Mallinson - review
The Great War was an obscene and futile conflict laying waste a generation and toppling emperors. Yet here are two…
