Political

Harold Kurtz describes how, ordered by Louis XVIII to arrest Napoleon on his return from Elba in 1815, Marshal Ney went over to his former master.

Anthony Rhodes introduces Diocletian, the first sovereign to voluntarily resign power, and how, at the opening of the fourth century, he spent his last years in a huge fortified seaside palace of his own construction.

Richard Harris describes the various forces of change at play in China's tumultuous first half century.

Roger L. Williams assesses exactly how enlightened a despot was Louis-Napoléon, in light of later European events.

Alfred Cobban traces the ups and downs of the quintessential Bourbon king of France.

C.H. Brown studies French imperial achievement in Morocco during the first half of the 20th century, as well as the nationalism with which it eventually came into conflict.

Nancy Mitford describes how Louis XV never talked politics out of the Council Chamber. Hunting was his only distraction until Madame de Pompadour introduced him to “plans and designs ... bibelots and stuffs ... gaiety and lightness.”

Julian Piggott, former British Commissioner in Cologne, tells the story, as he witnessed it, of the French attempt in 1923 to create a buffer state on their eastern frontier. The first part of this articles can be found here.

C.V. Wedgwood on the the links between the Stuart monarchy and its German relatives preceding, and throughout, the Civil War period. 

E.E.Y. Hales profiles Pope Pius IX (1846-78), who saw the end of the Papacy as a temporal power as the opening of a new era in its world-relationships.