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When the word ‘Kindertransport’ is heard, one name often comes to the fore: Sir Nicholas Winton. Made famous by British TV’s ‘That’s Life’ programme in the late 1980s and the recent film ‘One Life’ starring Anthony Hopkins. Winton’s name has become synonymous with the rescue of unaccompanied Jewish children from Nazi-controlled Europe in the late […]
The relatively recent Kingsmen film (The King’s Man) had Ralph Fiennes and his co-star combatting an international conspiracy based around the First World War. A secret cabal, known as ‘the Shepherd’s Flock’, involving Grigorii Rasputin, Mata Hari and Gavrilo Princip (the killer of Franz Ferdinand), is the driving force of this story. The group is […]
By 1943, the tide of the Second World War was turning against the Axis powers. In Italy, internal dissent reached a crescendo with the overthrow of Benito Mussolini, (Duce). Several of his colleagues were close to revolt, and Mussolini was forced to summon the Grand Council on the July 24, 1943. This was the first […]
This month, the seventh in my year of reading nothing new, I delved back further than usual. My edition of July’s featured title was published in 2020, but the original came out some considerable time before that, in 1881. The English translation of The Posthumous Memoirs of Brás Cubas is a collaboration between two translators […]
The Union forces consisted of approximately 100,000 troops from the Army of the Potomac (AoP), led by General George Meade, and an additional 15,000 soldiers from the independent IX Corps, commanded by General Ambrose Burnside. Both Meade and Burnside reported to General Grant, who oversaw the entire operation. On the opposing side, General Robert E […]
Who was Simon Fraser? Winston Churchill, in a letter to Stalin, referred to Lord Lovat aka Simon Fraser as “the handsomest man who ever cut a throat.” The Fifteenth Lord Lovat, Simon Fraser, was a professional soldier with a long running Scottish ancestry some of whom had also made their presence known in history. Those […]
Strategic Importance and Objectives Lake Comacchio, a large lagoon in northern Italy, presented a formidable natural barrier. The area was heavily fortified by the Germans, who used the wetlands to their advantage, creating a series of defensive positions that were difficult to assault. The primary objective of Operation Roast was to outflank these defenses, secure […]
The Spanish Inquisition was not a medieval institution. Before 1300, Inquisitions were virtually nonexistent in Spain.[1]The Spanish kingdom of Castile never had an inquisition, and Aragón’s was effectively defunct by around 1450.[2] It might surprise many readers to discover that, while the last person executed by the Inquisition died in 1826 (by hanging, though the […]
Early Life and Career Halleck was born on a farm in Upstate New York and hated that life. He was raised by an uncle who set him up for a military career. He went to West Point where he excelled, graduating 3rd in his class. He was a favorite student of Dennis Hart Mahan. He […]
Early Life and Entry into the Royal Navy Born on the 14th of December, 1775, in Annsfield, Scotland, Thomas Cochrane was the son of Archibald Cochrane, the 9th Earl of Dundonald, a man of scientific curiosity and perpetual financial woes. This backdrop of intellectual vigor and economic struggle likely influenced Thomas’s character—imbuing him with a […]