First World War

The opening naval battle of the First World War took place not in the North Sea but in Central Africa in August 1914. It would change the course of the African conflict in Britain’s favour, says Janie Hampton.

Why did the diplomatic deceits and deceptions that took place across Europe in the summer of 1914 lead to the First World War? Annika Mombauer seeks answers to one of history’s most complex and controversial questions.

Cyril Falls profiles perhaps the ideal soldier in war and, certainly, the ideal British Commander-in-Chief.

In March 1914, writes Robert Blake, it seemed that Ulster might have to he coerced into accepting the Irish Home Rule Bill. A crisis was provoked when a number of British Army officers resolved to he dismissed rather than obey the Government's orders.

David Woodward describes how the crews of the destroyer flotilla of the German High Sea Fleet mutinied at the end of the First World War.

The cultural events planned to mark the centenary of the First World War have taken a turn for the bizarre.

Esmond Wright offers the second part of his study of the early 20th century American president and moralist.

Esmond Wright offers a study of the steps by which the political moralist, who was President of the United States between 1912 and 1920, found himself reluctantly drawn from high-principled neutrality into a crusading intervention on behalf of democracy.

Nick Lloyd revisits John Terraine’s article on the decisive Allied victory at Amiens in 1918 and asks why this remarkable military achievement is not as well known as the first day of the Somme.

As a peacetime premier Herbert Asquith was held in high regard, but the First World War undid his reputation. That is an unfair judgment, argues Roland Quinault.