Sparta and things Spartan
A typical Spartan helmet / medievalweapon.info.com Sparta as the English call this spectacular place in the southern Peloponnese (Greece) was a city/state, and the capital of the state of Laconia. This small country [...]
The campaign in North-West Europe (September 1944 – May 1945)
This campaign was the advance of the Allies through France following the successful invasion of D-Day. It is important because it contains the blindest and most incomprehensible mistake made by a commander-in-chief in all [...]
Some naval mutinies
Mutiny at sea / www.history.com The very nature of living together in ships sailing sometimes alone in a thousand square miles of ocean used to mean discomfort, hard discipline and rigid [...]
The foundations of modern Socialism
The cellar in the house at Ekaterinburg / angelfire.com Socialism has many names and faces: Marxism, Bolshevism, Leninism, Stalinism and Social Democracy all mean Socialism, which is a political theory of [...]
IG Farben
This was a cartel formed by the leading chemical companies in Germany after the First World War. ‘IG Farben’ is the diminutive of the rather more tongue-stretching Interessen Gemeinschaft Farbenindustrie which has been translated as [...]
The first Empire upon which the sun never set
A Spanish fleet / bbc.co.uk Four hundred years before the British Empire never enjoyed the setting sun, the Spanish Empire rose, flourished, dwindled and vanished. From the late fifteenth century, Spain, a fraction [...]
The Malayan Campaign and Emergency
Gen. Sir Gerald Templer / allmalaysia.info The campaign was a military action in South-East Asia between December 1941 and August, 1945 during the Second World War. General Tomoyuki secured free [...]
The character of Franz-Josef (1830 – 1916)
The Emperor in military uniform / pragueguide.com It is difficult not to feel sympathy for Franz Josef, Emperor of Austria/Hungary. A dashing European prince of eighteen, he succeeded to the [...]
Knights Hospitaller & Knights Templar: the difference
The difference is simple, and not very subtle; the Templars ceased to exist, and the Hospitallers certainly exist right now, working for the sick. Originally the latter were of a military order, the Knights Hospitallers [...]
King George’s War & King William’s War
The assault on Cape Breton Island was successful / louisbourghistory.blogspot.com The War of the Austrian Succession in Europe actually saw a component part in North America, the first time such a thing [...]
What really happened to William II (Rufus) in 1100?
Rufis falls dying, struck by an arrow that ‘bounced off’ a stag / daviddarling.info William the ‘Red-faced’ was the second son of William, Duke of Normandy and William I of England, [...]
Gunboat diplomacy
It might well have been Lord Palmerston (twice Prime Minister of Britain, 1855- 58, 1859- 65, q.v.) who concreted this term, though gunboat diplomacy in its various forms has been with us for centuries. [...]
Louis-Philippe, last King of France (see footnote)
Louis-Philippe, also called Égalité like his father Duke of Orleans / commons.wikimedia.org This not very fortunate man was born in 1773, some sixteen years before the beginnings of the French [...]
The ‘Glorious Revolution’ in England and Scotland
James II, painted by Sir Peter Lely / thebooksmuggler.com In most of the recorded history of the British Isles there have only been three ‘civil wars’: the first, known as the [...]
The SECOND Reich
Von Bismarck / numaudes.blogspot.com We assume our studious blogwatchers know all that is to be known about the Third Reich, because it was notorious, racist, and the direct cause of half a billion [...]
The Bourbon Dynasty
Louis XIII / wikipedia.org This is essential reading for any serious student of world history; the Bourbon family and its influences have been popping in and out of recorded history since [...]
The Cherokee
The Cherokee, a painting by Nick Freemon / fineartamerica.com In the story of the Cherokee nation can be found the finest and saddest elements of the early history of the [...]
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