Modern – Military History Monthly

Jane Austen: a wartime writer?

War and violence are the last things one would associate with that 19th-century doyenne of English literature, Jane Austen. Ambles in the countryside, flirtatious glances, frocks with lace and frills, and the relentless pursuit of wealthy bachelors are the more likely images conjured by her name.

Yet conventional interpretations of the novelist’s work lack reference to a crucial context – that of war. For most of Jane Austen’s life, Britain was involved in conflicts of varying existential significance across the globe.

Kaiserschlacht, Spring 1918

Could the Germans have won the First World War in 1918? Almost certainly. A quarter of a century later, the tide of war would turn irretrievably against Hitler’s Third Reich in 1942/1943. The massive industrial power of the Soviet Union and the United States combined – still rising towards a wartime peak –guaranteed eventual defeat. The outcome was far more open in 1917/1918.

Interview: Mark Bowden on Vietnam

‘Easily the bloodiest single battle fought in the war.’ Mark Bowden, the journalist and acclaimed author of Black Hawk Down and Killing Pablo, talks about his new book Hué 1968.

Lee and Jackson

What is the role of the individual in history? The collaboration between Robert E Lee and Thomas ‘Stonewall’ Jackson changed the course of the American Civil War. Before Lee’s appointment, and his choice of Jackson as second-in-command, the conflict would likely have ended in 1862. We look back at one of history’s great military partnerships.

Fields of Battle, Lands of Peace: 1914-1918

As the years draw on, the events of the First World War slowly fade from living memory. Scattered across the globe, the battlefields – once witness to the carnage of industrialised slaughter – today rest in relative peace.

CROPPED 173rd-Airborne-Brigade-paratrooper-after-an-early-morning-firefight.-July-14,-1966.

The Vietnam War

The war devastated Vietnam and tore America apart. As the body bags returned home in their thousands, US generals – who once believed victory was assured – started to wonder how best to admit defeat and withdraw. Over 50 years after it began, MHM looks back on the Vietnam War.

The Russian Civil War

How did the Russian Civil War betray a popular revolution? MHM Editor Neil Faulkner assesses the historical significance of the conflict. It matched in scale, drama, and significance the American Civil War half a century before. Yet the Russian Civil War, which began a century ago this year, is only dimly remembered. The conflict raged […]

American naval power: Abraham Lincoln and the Union Navy

Patrick Boniface analyses the expansion and transformation of the US Navy during the American Civil War. ‘Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I shall spend the first four sharpening the axe.’ So said Abraham Lincoln, one of America’s greatest presidents, and he might well have been speaking about the creation of the […]

LtoR George Kemp, Jake Morgan, Kevin Brewer, James Dutton, Peter Losasso, Dan Tetsell. The Wipers Times-Photographer Philip Tull-108

Theatre: The Wipers Times by Ian Hislop and Nick Newman

‘The War is not funny, Sir.’ – Colonel Howfield. ‘I’ve a feeling that may be the point.’ – General Mitford. Seema Syeda reviews Ian Hislop and Nick Newman’s hit sensation, The Wipers Times. Lovers of satire, puns, and slap-stick comedy will delight in this new gem of a play from writers Ian Hislop and Nick Newman, The Wipers […]

Churchill’s Great Escape

Patrick Boniface examines the lives of history’s most daring wartime captives. In November 1899, the 25-year-old Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill was travelling in an armoured train transiting between Frere and Chieveley, in the British colony of Natal in South Africa. The soldiers were making a fast reconnoitre of the territory, and Churchill was there to send […]