Sir Maurice Hankey, 1921 (Library of Congress) A century ago today, David Lloyd George, the new Prime Minister, held the first meeting of his War Cabinet. In the process he...
Winston Churchill in a speech in the House of Commons in October 1943 famously described the unique and ancient friendship between England and Portugal as an alliance “without parallel in world history”.[1] It is 630 years since a treaty of …
How should a responsible government deal with the threat of military invasion? This question is not one that many British governments have had to consider. Yet for a 12-month period after May 1940 it was one that exercised those in …
A look at the role of troops from the British Empire, Dominions and foreign nationals in the UK Armed Forces during the Second World War. Forces from across the British...
...this time with their photographs and paintings. Here Cecil Beaton captures a welder working on the deck of a new ship in Tyneside, 1943. ©Crown Copyright IWM A member of...
...be felt later as an example studied across the world by students such as the future US General George S Patton and the knowledge gained would feed into preparations for...
100 years ago today saw the first German airship raids on Britain when two Zeppelins attacked the coastal towns of Great Yarmouth and King's Lynn, Norfolk. In this post, Professor Edgar Jones discusses the effects of air raids over the …
The early years of the First World War brought a large number of casualties to the army of Great Britain and despite the number of volunteers the government was soon in dire need of more troops. On the 2nd March 1916 …
Britain’s involvement in the Second World War began at 11am on 3 September 1939. The declaration came after eleven days of mounting international tension and was just one part of a flurry of governmental activity. Over three million people had …
The centenary year of the outbreak of the First World War has encouraged a variety of reflections. To previous generations, the role played by their prime ministers would have been amongst the first items worthy of comment. In a less …