Rob Johnson’s achievement in this book is to take Colonel T E Lawrence seriously as a theoretician and practitioner of war, and to produce the most comprehensive assessment of his contribution ever published.
WWI
REVIEW – Missing: the need for closure after the Great War
In the post-war years, they were remembered on monuments and in cemeteries, ‘made present’ by absence, by anonymity rather than by naming. The bereaved had no bodies over which to grieve, only the landscape itself and a few souvenirs sent home from the front.
‘Enormous’ WWI bunker system uncovered in Flanders
The bunker, under the village of Wijtschate in Flanders, is more than 20 feet underground and is believed to have accommodated up to 300 troops.
German U-boat surveyed over a century after wartime sinking
The U-boat went down with all hands and has rested on the seabed, some 37km (23 miles) off the coast of Yorkshire, ever since.
REVIEW – Hunger: how food shaped the course of the First World War
Hunger is breezy in its approach, but the subject Blom discusses is a serious one. Indeed, the spectre of food – or lack of it – haunts the First World War.
Wreck of German warship off Kent coast given protected status
During a training session in the English Channel in May 1878, SMS Grosser Kurfürst was accidentally rammed by another German warship, SMS König Wilhelm, while attempting to avoid a collision with two sailing ships.
War Athletes: Anthony Wilding
Handsome and charming, Wilding embraced a life full of adventure that also involved racing motorcycles across both hemispheres.
War of Words – ‘Zeppelin’
‘Zeppelin’ appeared in English that same year in Whitaker’s Almanack: ‘The Zeppelin Air-ship… is a cylindrical frame of aluminium in partitions, each holding a gas-bag.’
War Athletes: Donald Bell
Temporary 2nd Lieutenant Donald Bell, relying on adrenaline and instinct, led two men from his company through the mud of no-man’s land, firing his revolver with one hand and hurling a well-aimed Mills bomb with the other.
Somme diary found in barn sold at auction
Written by Private Arthur Edward Diggens, the diary was found in a Midlands barn and contains astonishing insights into the author’s experiences.
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