History Today

Elizabeth Wiskemann describes how Hitler ruthlessly consolidated his power in Germany by the slaughter of some of his closest former colleagues.

The achievements of the Meiji regime in transforming Japan into one of the most powerful of modern states are regarded as among the most remarkable events in history. But the restoration of the Emperor and the fall of the Shogun was brought about at the cost of a fierce domestic struggle.

‘The enemy’s resistance was beyond our powers,’ Ludendorff wrote, ‘the German Supreme Command was forced to take the extremely hard decision to abandon the attack on Amiens for good.’ The date was April 5th, 1918. By John Terraine.

John Terraine describes how, late in the First World War, the German Supreme Command launched a massive attack upon the Allied lines in France which very nearly succeeded.

In the 1860s a group of the younger Samurai launched the Meiji revolution in the Emperor's name. This event, writes Henry McAleavy, helped convert Japan into a modern country, with Western fashions and techniques imposed upon the national habits of centuries.

On August 20th, 1914, writes John Terraine, the British public was startled to read the first authentic newspaper accounts of “heavy losses” and “broken regiments” during the fierce fighting in Belgium.

During an industrial conflict that lasted five weeks and brought the Port of London to a standstill, writes R.B. Oram, the “close fraternity of the docks” struck for better working conditions and more generous rates of pay.

K. Theodore Hoppen describes how the victory of the ultramontanes in 1870 meant that for a considerable time the largest Church in Christendom adopted an attitude hostile to the modern world.

The Vatican Council now in session, writes John Raymond, faces many issues very different from that which dominated its predecessor nearly a century ago.

The Battle of Majuba Hill during the First Boer War, had immense political and military significance to British arms—and not only in South Africa. Its chief cause, writes Brian Bond, was a gross underestimation of the Boer’s tactical aptitude and courage.