[Cross-posted at Revise and Dissent.] It’s time again for my six-monthly look at that portion of the blogosphere devoted to military history, as defined by the ‘Wars and Warriors’ section of Cliopatria’s blogroll. So, let’s begin. Not a lot has changed since September, actually, and this plot shows why: the number of military history blogs […]
This has been all over the news here today, though I suspect interest is somewhat less outside Australia: the wreck of HMAS Sydney has been found. On 19 November 1941, Sydney was returning to Fremantle, Western Australia, after escorting a troopship north to Sunda Strait. It encountered the German commerce raider Kormoran somewhere out in
Prime Minister Lord Salisbury, speech to the Lord Mayor’s banquet, 9 November 1897: Remember this — that the federation of Europe is the only possible structure of Europe which can save civilisation from the desolating effects of a disastrous war. You notice that on all sides the instruments of destruction, the piling up of arms
Rome, beautiful Rome! Is there anything I can say about the Eternal City that hasn’t been said before? No, but I won’t let that stop me trying. It was fantastic both in the sense of great and in the sense of unbelievable — it’s almost hard to believe I really was there. But I have
A curious snippet from Margaret MacMillan’s account of the Paris Peace Conference, Peacemakers (2002): Why not give it to Hughes of Australia, suggested Clemenceau.1 The ‘it’ was Heligoland, a small island in the North Sea, off the north-western coast of Germany. For most of the 19th century it had belonged to Britain, which swapped it
“Slough” by John Betjeman (1937): Come friendly bombs and fall on Slough! It isn’t fit for humans now, There isn’t grass to graze a cow. Swarm over, Death! Come, bombs and blow to smithereens Those air-conditioned, bright canteens, Tinned fruit, tinned meat, tinned milk, tinned beans, Tinned minds, tinned breath. Mess up the mess they
In 1923, the Salisbury Committee enquired into the proper relationship between the RAF, on the one hand, and the Army and Navy, on the other. According to Andrew Boyle’s biography of Hugh Trenchard, the then Chief of the Air Staff quoted a recent statement by Sir Ian Hamilton (the commander at Gallipoli) at some point
My second (and last) day in Edinburgh was unfortunately pretty much overcast the whole day, so my pictures are a bit dull. But as I spent most of the time indoors, this didn’t matter too much. (Above, Edinburgh Castle from the Princes Street Gardens.)
I’ve finally gotten around to adding Montagu of Beaulieu (pronounced ‘Bewley’, apparently) to my irregular series of biographies of airpower propagandists. He’s an important, but somewhat neglected figure, some of whose papers I’ve examined (those held at King’s College London). He helped found the Air League of the British Empire in 1909, and devised the
Carl von Clausewitz. On War. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1989 [1832]. Probably something anybody with pretensions to being a military historian should have to hand, even if other strategists have been more influential in different contexts, places and times. (I recently came across Trenchard speaking of Edward Hamley in the same breath as Clausewitz and
