Posts in History
Hitler bans political parties

My latest for The Rebel: On July 14 1933 Adolph Hitler banned all political parties in Nazi Germany except his own. Which was obviously in retrospect part of a plan to impose totalitarianism. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SVo6ergLQKc

The audio-only version is available here: [podcast title="Rebel audio, July 14"]http://www.thejohnrobson.com/podcast/John2016/July/160714Rebel.mp3[/podcast]

History, PodcastJohn Robson
The Seven Immortals

My latest for The Rebel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6w0BYHSJ9pI

On June 30, in 1688, William of Orange received a letter from the “Seven Immortals” inviting him to bring an army to England, oust James II and assume the throne along with his wife, James’s Protestant daughter Mary.

The “Immortals” were aristocratic toffs, Earls, Viscounts and Bishops, not the sort we’d expect to champion the rights of ordinary people. Indeed not people whose names we can recall today without Googling.

But they were statesman who crossed party lines and risked reputation, estate and life to defend the liberty of citizens. Whereas today the studiously common-touch politicians we elect by mass voting are partisan hacks who continually expand the powers of the state.

Perhaps we should recall the Seven Immortals after after all.

The audio-only version is available here: [podcast title="Rebel, June 30"]http://www.thejohnrobson.com/podcast/John2016/June/160630Rebel.mp3[/podcast]

History, PodcastJohn Robson
The Battle of the Somme

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2JfQb-P-CPA July 1, 2016 marks the 100th anniversary of the start of the notorious World War I Somme offensive. But this battle deserves a second look. Long a byword for futile slaughter, for callous unimaginative generals sending a generation to their pointless deaths, it was in fact a necessary operation to relieve pressure on the desperate French at Verdun. And it succeeded.

It did not merely prevent the Germans from breaking through on the Western Front and winning the war in the fall of 1916. It so battered the Kaiser’s army that the Germans withdrew into the Hindenburg Line and launched the unrestricted submarine warfare that brought the United States into the conflict and assured Allied victory.

The conditions were appalling and the cost horrific. But neither the generals nor the politicians had a choice, other than surrender to an aggressive regime that had begun the war by attacking its neighbours and occupying much of their territory.

So yes, we must recall the cost. But also the victory it bought, tactically in 1916 and strategically in 1918.

Documentaries, History, MilitaryJohn Robson
Rock solid

My latest for The Rebel: On June 16, 1779, the Spanish laid siege to Gibraltar. Yet more than 1300 days later it was still in British hands. And a very good thing to.

Britain moved somewhat ruthlessly to seize the Rock in 1704, it is true. But even then Britain was a bastion of liberty… unlike Spain. And in the darkest part of the Second World War, when the former was led by Churchill and the latter by the Nazi sympathizer Franco, the long-ago tenacity of the garrison had a pivotal impact in the survival of freedom as the UK was able to maintain vital ocean supply lines in its struggle against Hitler.

https://youtu.be/K0bvQ5g0bgo

The audio-only version is available here: [podcast title="Rock solid"]http://www.thejohnrobson.com/podcast/John2016/June/160616Rebel.mp3[/podcast]

History, PodcastJohn Robson