History Today

August 1914: The Shadows Lengthen

The Concert of Europe, the diplomatic model championed by Britain in the run-up to the First World War, was doomed by the actions of competing nationalisms. Britain’s entry into the conflict became inevitable, despite its lack of military preparation, as Vernon Bogdanor explains.

Garibaldi in London

Marcella Pellegrino Sutcliffe examines the political machinations behind a visit to England in 1864 of the Italian patriot and ‘liberator’, darling of the English establishment and radicals alike.