Military

The conflict that broke out between France and an ambitious new German state 150 years ago can lay claim to be the first modern war.

The mobilisation of economic, diplomatic and military resources.

The need to preserve alliances was a compelling reason not to use nuclear weapons in Vietnam.

Two imperial ventures, in the same Middle East town a century apart, reveal the similarities – and differences – in the exercise of power.

There is nothing new about uncrewed aircraft.

European powers sought to colonise the world. They could not do so without the support of indigenous peoples.

The work of military nurses at Passchendaele transformed the perception of women’s war service, showing they could perform life-saving work and risk their lives at the front.

Since the Iliad, war has inspired stories – mixing fact and fiction – which reveal as much, if not more, about the realities of conflict as academic studies. John E. Talbott examines writing about ‘the human condition at its most extreme’.

Unpicking a tangle of history, myth and misunderstanding reveals why, for so long, we believed King Harold was shot through the eye at the Battle of Hastings.