Winston Churchill was many things a writer, politician, journalist, painter but the defining aspect of his career was as a war leader. Warfare infused his life from its very beginning due to his relation to the Duke of Marlborough and a childhood re-enacting the Battle of Waterloo in the ground of Blenheim Palace. As a young man, he saw conflict at first hand both as a soldier and a reporter in Cuba, India, Sudan and South Africa. In the political wilderness following the disaster of Gallipoli during the First World War, he undertook service on the Western Front. These experiences were what made Churchill uniquely qualified as Prime Minister in 1940 to lead Britain through its great ever military crisis and onto victory in the Second World War. Joining Dan to discuss how the military experiences of his formative years shaped him for the difficult military decisions he took in office is Anthony Tucker-Jones. Anthony is a former defence intelligence officer, widely published military expert and author of the upcoming book: Churchill, Master and Commander: Winston Churchill at War 1895–1945. They examine Churchill's military career, his role as commander in chief and the decisions he took both good and bad.
The result of his complicated legacy, the death of South Africa's last apartheid president, F W de Klerk, on November 11 2021 generated a flood of differing assessments. De Klerk wrote himself into the history of South Africa on February 2 1990, when he announced the unbanning of the African Nati...
One mile south of Hadrian’s Wall, Vindolanda was a busy fort and military community on the edge of the Roman Empire. Now, the site is busy again, this time with archaeologists. In this episode we return to Northumberland to speak to Dr Andrew Birley and Marta Alberti who, alongside their team of ...
2 December is a special date for those fascinated by Napoleon Bonaparte. Not only is this the date he crowned himself Emperor of France in 1804, but also the date of his greatest victory a year later, the Battle of Austerlitz. James Rogers is joined by world-leading historian Andrew Roberts to di...
