...Using a German code which he knew had been broken by the British, he transmitted the message ‘The British are now running France’. Unsurprisingly, the French intercepted it. In spring...
...arrive and were often written in code in case they were stolen by foreign spies. When his conduct at the 1814 Congress of Vienna was later challenged in Parliament, Castlereagh...
![Extract of the draft note from 2 January 1917 on 10 Downing Street headed paper which reads 'To: The Private Secretary, the Prime Minister has decided, with a view to keeping himself in close touch with the several departments, to establish a ['Secretariat' is crossed out and replaced by 'Department'] in connection with Office of the First Lord of the Treasury. The following gentlemen have been appointed to act as secretaries to the ['First Lord of the Treasury' is crossed out and replaced by 'new Department']](https://history.blog.gov.uk/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/01/edited-1024x753.jpg)
...A hundred years ago today, on 5 January 1917, in the midst of the Great War, an important note was circulated around Whitehall departments. J. T. Davis, private secretary to...
...weakened Labour government and complacent thinking by company and government officials. He also highlighted an inability to project military power following the loss of India, and a lack of support,...
75 years ago today, on 15 February 1942, British forces surrendered the ‘impregnable fortress’ of Singapore to the Japanese army. Defeat had come swiftly after the landing of Japanese forces...
...India in the run-up to independence and in Palestine in 1947 under 'Operation Polly' at the end of the British Mandate. Plans even existed to evacuate British families from the...
Portrait Photograph, President John F. Kennedy. White House | US National Archives Fifty years ago today, the 35thPresident of the United States of America was shot dead as his...
...India and Ireland with mixed results. It was partly at Pitt’s prompting that William Wilberforce took up the issue of the slave trade. Among his most striking initiatives were financial...
...full flow, he simply said ‘No’. Clement Attlee (The National Archives reference INF 14/19) It is difficult to envisage a twenty-first century politician passing up the opportunity to promote their...
...then Aldborough in 1754. Although widely acknowledged as a formidable Commons performer, Pitt lacked a large personal following and George II still treated him with suspicion. He was not promoted...