DR AIMÉE FOX-GODDEN & DR DAVID MORGAN-OWEN This post reflects upon an event held on January 12th in the River Room at King’s College London. The symposium featured contributions from Prof Jay Winter, Dr Helen McCartney, Prof Annika Mombauer, Hanna Smyth, Dr Jenny Macleod, Dr Heather Jones, and Dr Catriona Pennell. Recordings of all of… Read More Conference Report: Commemorating the Centenary of the First World War
LOUIS HALEWOOD Louis is a current DPhil student at the University of Oxford. He holds an MA in History from the University of Calgary. Louis is co-organiser of the upcoming ‘Economic Warfare and the Sea’ Conference, to be held at All SoulS College in July 2017. A recording of the talk this post is drawn from is… Read More Sea Power, Alliances, and Diplomacy: British Naval Supremacy in the Great War Era
By Dr Rod Thornton Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has recently repeated his country’s long-held territorial claim to Mosul and the whole of northern Iraq. Such a claim is based on the belief prevalent in Turkey that this area had, as territory of the Ottoman empire, been illegally seized by the British in November 1918… Read More Erdogan and the National Pact: the fallout today from the British Army’s seizing of Mosul in 1918
Hanna Smyth (with Adam Luptak & Louis Halewood) – War Time co-organisers, Globalising and Localising the Great War, University of Oxford. The 9th conference of the International Society for First World War Studies was held at the University of Oxford on 9-11 November. Each year a different theme is chosen (such as ‘Landscapes’ and ‘Other… Read More Conference Report: International Society for First World War Studies conference, ‘War Time’
By Dr David Jordan 100 years after the conclusion of the Battle of the Somme, there is still a tendency – a quite understandable one – within the wider public discourse on the First World War to concentrate upon the first day of the Battle, on 1 July 1916 because of its appalling casualties, and… Read More The Battle of the Somme: The First Proving Ground for British Air Power?
DR ANDREW STEWART The last few years have witnessed a feverish period of remembering Britain’s military and the battles it and others fought during the Great War (what I recall increasingly vaguely as having been referred to at school more commonly as the First World War). A centenary is a historical marker worthy of reflection,… Read More The First Victory…
DR. ROBERT T. FOLEY On 1 July 1916, the infantry of British 4th Army and the French 6th Army launched what their strategic leadership hoped would be the beginning stages of a decisive campaign against the German army in northeastern France. Initially, the German strategic leadership welcomed the start of the Anglo-French offensive on the… Read More The Battle of the Somme and German ‘Battle Management’
ALEXANDER HOWLETT Throughout its long history, the Royal Navy has been both an innovator of, and adapter to, technological change. By the end of the 19th century, the sailing warship of Nelson’s day had been transformed into the all steel construction, reciprocating engine, electric powered and radio equipped, battleship. As formidable an implement of sea… Read More Keeping the Genie in the Bottle: RNAS Anti-Submarine Warfare, 1912-1916
This short-series of posts coincides with the Command, Leadership and Management phase of the ACSC. In it, members of the Department reflect upon aspects of the leadership, broadly defined. DR DAVID MORGAN-OWEN Rarely has an individual whose most famous achievements came in the realm of military administration captured the historical imagination in the manner of Admiral… Read More Command, Leadership & Management: the Power of Perception
by DR ROBERT T. FOLEY This summer, I was fortunate to have been invited to present a paper at the Australian War Memorial’s 1916: The Cost of Attrition conference. In late July, a number of academics from the Anglophone world assembled in Canberra to explore the events of 1916, focusing on the impacts of this… Read More Conference Report: 1916: The Cost of Attrition
Defence-In-Depth 