Military

In September 1939, writes J.V. Woolford, a British war in Europe seemed alien to many Dutch South Africans, but General Smuts changed the country’s mind.

Though the Decembrist rising against the Tsar was quickly put down, writes Michael Whittock, the officers and land-owners who led it created an heroic revolutionary tradition that influenced Russians of every class.

Of the British officers who fell at Waterloo, writes Antony Brett-James, none was more distinguished than General Sir Thomas Picton.

Thin, pale, solitary, a day-dreamer, opinionated, rebellious, with sudden bursts of energy that quickly evaporated, D.C. Watt writes that Hitler as a boy is a strange forerunner of the would-be world-conqueror.

“Treat the Pope as though he had an army of 200,000 men"—Napoleon. By E.E.Y. Hales.

Lenin’s return to Russia by German agency in April 1917, writes David Woodward, was one of the turning points in 20th-century history.

Between the Congress of Vienna and the Year of Revolutions, Vienna enjoyed a homely, idyllic period of gaiety, security and peace. In 1848, writes Tudor Edwards, the idyll was shattered by bloody revolts throughout the Empire.

Widespread fever followed military sloth, writes Antony Brett-James, and the fiasco on Walcheren brought down the tottering British Government.

Adam Zamoyski describes how the Poles under German occupation were experts in subversion.

During the years that led up to the Anglo-American Treaty of 1842, writes Henry I. Kurtz, both countries played a dangerous game of “brinksmanship” along the Canadian border.