Last updated: 9 June 2011
On the outbreak of World War One (1914-18) in August 1914, the British Army was a small professional force of 270,000, and its soldiers were stationed throughout the British Empire. In contrast, the German Army, based on universal military...
During Christmas 1914, along parts of the Western Front unofficial truces between British and German soldiers took place. In the trenches on Christmas morning carols were sung and rations thrown across the opposing lines. It was not long before...
Indian and British troops serving on the Western Front in 1914 received Princess Mary boxes from the Royal Family. These were metal cases engraved with an outline of the princess and filled with chocolates, sweets, cigarettes and tobacco. Great...
On 10 March 1915, following a preliminary bombardment by British artillery, a battle commenced to retake Neuve Chapelle, located midway between Bethune and Lille in the Pas de Calais département of northern France. As happened elsewhere on the...
Heerajee Cursetjee (1885-1964) was one of the 1.27 million Indians who served the British Empire as combatants and labourers on the Western Front, in the Middle East, East Africa and Gallipoli during World War One. Born in Bombay, he studied...
The light machine gun was the centre of a British platoon's firepower during the 1930s and the Second World War. The French designer Adolphe Berthier invented this example. In 1925 the Vickers Engineering Company purchased the manufacturing...
The Smith Gun was designed by the Trianco toy company at the beginning of the Second World War (1939-45). It was one of several homemade pieces of artillery produced in Britain during the desperate days of 1940 when the threat of German invasion...
D-Day, 6 June 1944, marked the start of the Allied invasion of Normandy, the greatest amphibious operation in history. A fleet of over 5,000 ships and landing craft crossed the Channel. The Allies achieved complete surprise and heavy bombing...
In the summer of 1944 General Montgomery came up with a daring scheme to cross the River Rhine and advance into Germany. Codenamed MARKET GARDEN, his plan involved the seizure of key Dutch bridges by the 101st and 82nd US and 1st British Airborne...
Between October 1942 and December 1943, the Japanese Imperial Army used forced labour to build a railway that cut 260 miles (420km) through mountainous jungle to link Burma (now Myanmar) and Siam (now Thailand). The project was designed to...