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Operation Barbarossa: Part One
On June 22nd 1941 Nazi Germany and its allies launched the largest invasion in history against the Soviet Union. The attack on the USSR had consequences that would be felt for the rest of the 20th Ce…
Published on 8 years ago
British setbacks in the Desert War 1941-42
Despite impressive advances against the Axis powers in 1940 and 1941, the organisation and leadership of Rommel's Afrika Korps devastated Britain's position in North Africa by the summer of 1942. Inf…
Published on 8 years ago
Russian proto-fascism 1903-7
The prolonged crisis of the Russian Empire throughout the 19th and early 20th Centuries that resulted from the advance of modernisation led to the creation of revolutionary tensions not just from the…
Published on 8 years ago
Britain, Pakistan and the Partition of India
The British, aware of their imminent loss of world power in Asia, encouraged the partition of India. Military planners and politicians hoped that a Muslim state, favourable to British interests and o…
Published on 8 years ago
Austria after the Anschluss 1938-45
The annexation of Austria by Nazi Germany presented the country and its exiles with the first of several crises. The disastrous outcome of the war for Nazi Germany meant that not just Germany's but A…
Published on 8 years ago
Britain's war with Nazi Germany and Vichy France in Iraq and Syria: 1941
Despite British setbacks and failures in Greece and an overstretched force in North Africa, Churchill was determined to seize Syria from the French Vichy collaborationist regime. The fighting to take…
Published on 8 years ago
The origins of Stalinist purges and show trials
Paranoia and the obsessional belief that the party and state were infiltrated by enemies and saboteurs created a culture of confession and interrogation. This existed at all levels of society from th…
Published on 8 years ago
Roosevelt, Wilkie and the 1940 Presidential Election
With ever more alarming new unfolding in Europe and the fate of Britain hanging in the balance, Franklin Roosevelt decided to stand for re-election for a second time, breaking with tradition that a p…
Published on 8 years, 1 month ago
Lenin and the founding of the British Communist Party: 1920
The formation of the Communist Party of Great Britain had direct organisational, financial and ideological input from Lenin himself. He saw it as essential to have a political foothold in Britain, fo…
Published on 8 years, 1 month ago
Hitler's Reich Governors
The Nazi regime's consolidation of power led to an assault on the structures of Germany's federal system. It resulted in the creation of regional governors, but these were local tyrants soon left wit…
Published on 8 years, 1 month ago