Many of us are familiar with the phrase “Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel”, a quote that remains as true today as it was when it was first coined and is still evident by many politicians in particular around the world. Not so many people though are familiar with the equally if not… Continue reading Edith Cavell – Patriotism Is Not Enough
Category: WW1
Posts predominantly WW1 related.
The Greatest Emergency Landings In History
This week many of us have been amazed and horrified in equal measure by the sight of a British Airways Boeing 777 which made an aborted take-off following a catasphrophic engine failure. Thanks to the incredible reactions of the flight crew and most especially Captain Chris Henkey who after 42 years of piloting was performing… Continue reading The Greatest Emergency Landings In History
Gallipoli and ANZAC Day – One of the biggest disasters in history
The Gallipoli campaign in the Dardanelles region of modern day Turkey was a landmark battle of World War One. It is counted as perhaps the greatest Ottoman Turkish victory in the war and set about creating a Turkish nationalism that went on to create a modern country out of the ashes of defeat at the… Continue reading Gallipoli and ANZAC Day – One of the biggest disasters in history
100th Anniversary of the Armenian Genocide
Most of us are familiar with the holocaust in WW2 enacted by Nazi Germany against Jewish people, Gypsies, communists and the mentally ill but this week sees the 100th anniversary of another holocaust or Genocide, the Armenian Genocide in Turkey. Historically The Ottoman Empire had far outshone most European states for centuries in terms of… Continue reading 100th Anniversary of the Armenian Genocide
The Christmas Truce and football match of 1914.
Whilst we are getting ready to enjoy or in some cases already enjoying our Christmas in 2014, it is worth remembering what was happening 100 years ago not so far from where I am writing today. In what is perhaps one of the most inhuman situations in history a series of events played out that… Continue reading The Christmas Truce and football match of 1914.
PS. Thanks for being my hero
As long-time and regular readers will be aware, I have been for some time been interested in a particular family relation of mine, Serjeant Reuel Dunn who served in the Royal Flying Corps, the precursor to the RAF. He was an experience flyer himself and had a number of kills to his name before bad… Continue reading PS. Thanks for being my hero
Sights of the WW1 battlefields
This my penultimate post for now on WW1 and my recent tour to the battlefields of France and Belgium. There are simply so many places to see and despite being out all day, every day for a week, we only scratched the surface. One of the first places that we visited was Vimy Ridge. This… Continue reading Sights of the WW1 battlefields
Paying homage at the Thiepval Memorial to family and strangers alike.
During my trip to the WW1 battlefields in September there were a number of places I wanted to visit for the first time and just as many as I wanted to revisit after a gap of several years. Thiepval though is one of the must-sees for the area, if there can be such a thing… Continue reading Paying homage at the Thiepval Memorial to family and strangers alike.
The Lochnagar Crater and a relic of war
At the end of September I visited some of the WW1 battlefields in northern France and Belgium and thought in the lead up to Armistice Day on 11th November I would dedicate some of my posts to what I saw. One of the places that we visited was the Lochnagar Crater in The Somme. This… Continue reading The Lochnagar Crater and a relic of war
The Angel of Mons
Whilst writing and researching my WW1 history book, Lest We Forget, I came across a number of semi-mythical events and accounts that went from the completely unbelievable to those that actually occurred despite being hugely unlikely. There is the grim tale of the Crucified Soldier which went from being common knowledge in WW1 to increasingly… Continue reading The Angel of Mons
Stephen Liddell 