Military

Re-running Marathon

The Battle of Marathon has long been presented as the decisive moment at which Greeks led by the newly democratic Athenians gained the upper hand over the despotic Persians. Barry Baldwin reappraises the battle, and explains why it is still a byword for endurance.

Napoleon and German Identity

How Napoleon laid up trouble for future generations of Frenchmen by kick-starting Prussian and German domination of Eastern Europe.

Arms Dumps and the IRA, 1923-32

John Horgan examines the attempts by the new Irish Free State government to disarm the IRA at the end of the civil war in 1923 and the way in which the issue of the IRA arms dumps rumbled on in Irish politics for the next ten years. 

Napoleon and Europe

The Spirit of the Age or The Scourge of Nations? Jeremy Black sets the scene for our major series on the impact of Napoleon on Europe.

Sakhalin: the Japanese Under Soviet Rule

Mariya Sevela gathers oral recollections from the people of Karafuto, a Japanese colony on the island of Sakhalin from 1905 until the arrival of the Soviet army forty years later.

War and Faith in Dresden

Dresden was carpet-bombed by the allied forces over two nights in February 1945. Anthony Clayton on how the aftermath of war has tested belief in the city.