Sublime

After being briefed by Stirling on an impending attack on Benghazi, and the way that the SAS represented ‘a new form of warfare’ which had ‘awesome potential’, Churchill quoted to Smuts the lines from Byron’s Don Juan: ‘He was the mildest-mannered man / That ever scuttled ship or cut a throat.’ The next day, he summoned Stirling to the Embassy to d

T. E. Lawrence and the Arab Revolt

“When war broke out the art of underground warfare was unknown in England. There was nothing to build on, no past experience and no precedents.”

Niven had pulled over and changed into uniform, so he could proceed relatively unmolested. Unfortunately, two eagle-eyed Home Guard officers had spied him doing so, overpowering Niven before his change of clothing was complete. Clarke had duly taken a call from Scotland Yard, but had managed to convince them that their prisoner was indeed the famou

Believing that Conner was “exceptionally well qualified” to carry out the critical planning functions required of the Operations Section, Palmer resolved to “pry him loose” from the Inspector General. Palmer took his request to Chief of Staff Harbord, who warned Palmer of a potential problem with Conner’s transfer to the Operations Section: Conner

Projecting the aisled halls and villas of the late Roman province, which tell of thriving rural lordship, into the century after, say, 450 is a tough ask. Archaeology has little to say of individuals like Vortigern, Hengest, Arthur or Ambrosius, although one might ascribe to them, as a governing class, the planning and execution of the linear earth

But “an initial American landing without British ground forces offers a real chance that there would be no French resistance or only a token resistance.”55 If the United States was to provide most of the troops for the invasion of North Africa, it was logical that the operation should be commanded by an American. Eisenhower was in London, he was ma