Irish on the somme

On a beautiful summer’s morning almost 110 years ago, men of the British Army stepped out into no-man’s land at 7.30am. It was 1 July 1916, and the start of what was then called ‘The Big Push’. With h

How the Red Army pushed back German forces and what they discovered in their wake as WWII turned

Three months after German forces captured Fort Douaumont in February 1916 (see issue 1 of Iron Cross) a calamity befell the occupiers, predominantly comprising troops from the Prussian Brandenburg reg

On 21 October 1805, smoke filled the skies over the seas west of Cape Trafalgar, a headland in the Province of Cádiz in the southwest of Spain, as a fierce battle raged. After nearly five hours of int

The fighting in Europe was over, but lifting up a shattered nation would be a battle of a different kind

We ended last month looking at the soldier’s pocket books of the 19th century. Sadly very few of these documents survive. They are NOT included in any Army papers that have been stored over the years.