Military

Murder Near the Cathedral

W. Bruce Lincoln explains how Russian terrorists decided that ‘by the will of the people’ the Tsar Alexander II must be assassinated.

The Walcheren Failure, Part I

Prompted by news of a French defeat in 1809, the British Government launched an offensive expedition against the Low Countries which ended in gallant failure. By Anthony Brett-James.

The Death of Charles XII of Sweden

Michael Srigley describes how, on November 30th, 1718, one of the foremost soldiers of the age was shot while besieging a fortress in Norway. Did he succumb to a stray bullet, or was he assassinated?

The Dambusters: Barnes Wallis and Bomber Command

The Dambusters Raid is one of the best known operations of the Second World War. But, as James Holland explains, the development of the ‘bouncing bomb’ took place against a background of bitter rivalry between the armed services.

The Kaiser in Exile

Exile to the Netherlands following the First World War chastened Kaiser Wilhelm II, but Robin Bruce Lockhart cannot believe that the former ruler of imperial Germany was ever either the mountebank, or the monster, which his biographers have tried to make him.

Gibraltar, 1704-1954

Gibraltar provides one of the examples of how the British Empire was 'acquired in a fit of absence of mind'. 

Singapore Subdued

Britain’s loss of Singapore in February 1942 was a terrible blow. But Japan failed to make the most of its prize, says Malcolm Murfett.