During the autumn and winter of 1914, much of the front line in France and Flanders had turned into a muddy morass. The intensity of the fighting declined as men struggled to maintain their trenches and keep dry, and the first Christmas of the war was...
Collections in Context
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Over 130,000 Allied civilians - 50,000 men, 42,000 women and 40,000 children - were interned in the Far East; the majority of these were Dutch nationals from the Netherlands East Indies. They were held in more than 350 camps across the Far East....
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Clothes rationing came into effect in Britain from 1 June 1941. It lasted, albeit in a gradually reduced format, until March 1949. As with food rationing, the main aim of the scheme was to ensure fair shares. But it was also intended to reduce consumer...
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'From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has descended across the continent.’ Churchill’s words in a 1946 speech recognised that the relationship between the Allies and the USSR had irrevocably changed. The ambition of the...
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The first Nazi concentration camps were established to incarcerate political opponents. The first camp, Dachau, near Munich was opened in March 1933. During the Second World War the concentration camp system saw a massive expansion. From the four...
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The end of the Cold War did not bring an end to conflict. Issues such as nationalism, national self-determination, liberation and religion continued to trigger war and instability. In the Gulf War, 1990-1991, an international coalition was formed to...
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Britain depended on vital supplies of food, equipment and raw materials from overseas, notably from North America and the Empire. These goods were transported in thousands of merchant ships, which were vulnerable to attack by German submarines (U-boats...
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Preparations for the liberation of Western Europe had begun soon after the evacuation of Allied troops from Dunkirk in 1940. By the end of 1941, Britain had been joined by the Soviet Union and the United States in the ‘Grand Alliance’ against Hitler. In...
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The daily routine of front line service varied from the mundane to the dramatic. A typical day would begin with 'stand to arms' at dawn, with all men manning the front line trench. Weapons would be cleaned, a tot of rum and breakfast consumed. Day...
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A daring operation headed by Guy Gibson to destroy three German dams, the Dambusters raid led to a revolutionary weapon - the bouncing bomb.
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By late 1914, movement on the Western Front had ground to a halt. Some Allied leaders suggested opening new fronts to break the deadlock, shorten the war and avoid heavier loss of life. Soon after the start of the new year, Great Britain and France...
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David Lloyd George was British Chancellor of the Exchequer during Asquith’s pre-war Liberal government. He oversaw a series of enlightened social welfare reforms underpinned by his 'People's Budget' of 1909. Following the outbreak of war in August 1914,...
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After the Second World War, the disintegration of Britain’s empire transformed global politics. Before the war, Britain maintained colonies all over the world, providing valuable raw materials, manpower and strategic bases. By 1945, however, colonies...
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The outbreak of war brought many new rules and regulations, the most notable being the Defence of the Realm Act, (DORA), passed on 8 August 1914 'for securing public safety'. It regulated virtually every aspect of the British home front. Though it was...
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On 10 May 1940, the German Army invaded France and the Low Countries, pushing the British Expeditionary Force (BEF), along with French and Belgian troops, back to the French port of Dunkirk. A huge rescue, Operation 'Dynamo', was organised by the Royal...
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The Eighth Army, formed in September 1941, was a diverse formation made up of units from all corners of the British Empire. The original core of the army was based on the Western Desert Force, comprising the 7th Armoured Division and 4th Indian Division...
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The codename given to decrypts of German radio messages encoded on Enigma machines, ‘Ultra’ was the Allies’ most important source of intelligence for Britain about its enemies’ plans, strengths and movements. Churchill called them his ‘Golden Eggs’. The...
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Fear of German bombing caused the government to evacuate children, mothers with infants and the infirm from British towns and cities. Evacuation took place in several waves. The first came two days before the outbreak of war. Over the course of three...
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There were six extermination camps in Nazi-occupied Poland. Four of them - Belzec, Chelmno, Sobibor and Treblinka - a were given over solely to mass murder, while two - Auschwitz and Majdanek - were also concentration camps. Auschwitz-Birkenau was the...
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On 2 April 1982, Argentinian forces invaded the British overseas territory of the Falkland Islands. Argentina had claimed sovereignty over the islands for many years and their ruling military junta did not believe that Britain would attempt to regain the...
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Field Marshal Sir Alan Brooke is seen by many historians as one of the key architects of Allied victory. He was Chief of the Imperial General Staff (CIGS) from 1941 to 1946 and Winston Churchill’s principal military adviser. Alan Brooke served as a Royal...
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The First World War was the first total modern war. It was a conflict that involved the full mobilisation of whole societies and empires, blurring the boundaries between home and fighting fronts. It was a war of industry and technology, utilising modern...
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When war was declared on 4 August 1914, it was expected that the Football Association (FA) would follow the example soon set by cricket and cancel all matches. But, despite opposition, matches were played in the Football League throughout the 1914-1915...
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On 8 September 1939, the Football Association declared that all football except that organised by the armed forces was suspended 'until official notice to the contrary'. This was in contrast to 1914, when professional football had continued during the...
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A specific assault within the larger Dardanelles strategy, the Gallipoli campaign began at dawn on 25 April 1915. The campaign was intended to allow the Allied ships to pass through the Dardanelles and capture Constantinople (now Istanbul). General...
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The trench warfare of the Western Front encouraged the development of new weaponry to break the stalemate; poison gas was one such development. The first significant gas attack occurred at Ypres in April 1915, when the Germans released clouds of...
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The first Second World War captives taken in Britain were German pilots or aircrew who had parachuted to safety and naval personnel brought ashore. In the first few years of the war, their numbers were small as they were generally sent further away to...
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On a damp misty morning, British and Allied troops were met with a huge concentration of German artillery, gas, smoke and infantry. That day, 21 March 1918, heralded the start of Operation 'Michael', the first of the German Spring Offensives. It was...
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After the Nazis occupied Poland, they revived the medieval practice of segregating Jews in ghettos, usually the most run-down area of a city. By mid 1941, nearly all the Jews of occupied Poland had been forced into these overcrowded districts. In the...
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On 2 August 1990 Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait, a tiny oil-producing state in the Persian Gulf. The response of the international community was swift. The United Nations demanded Iraqi withdrawal, and imposed a trade embargo. A US-led...
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The Hurricane saw action on all fronts during the Second World War and played a pivotal role during the Battle of Britain in the summer of 1940 alongside its contemporary, the Spitfire. Despite not being as fast as the Spitfire, the Hurricane accounted...
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Liberal politician and statesman, 'H H Asquith' was Prime Minister of Great Britain between 1908 and 1916. His pre-war liberal government laid the foundations of today's 'welfare state' introducing old age pensions and unemployment insurance. Social...
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HMS Belfast is a unique ship. She is the Royal Navy’s last surviving cruiser, the largest preserved warship in Europe, and the only surviving cruiser built in the 1930s. Belfast was launched in March 1938, at a time when navies were competing to build...
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'The Holocaust' is the term used to describe the systematic and wholesale slaughter of the Jews of Europe by the Nazis and their collaborators during the Second World War. Two-thirds of European Jewry perished between 1939 and 1945. On coming to power in...
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The Home Guard was set up in May 1940 as Britain’s ‘Last Line of Defence’ against German invasion. Members of this ‘Dad’s Army’ were usually men above the age of conscription, boys or those unfit for front line military service. On 14 May 1940, Anthony...
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After surviving the German Spring Offensives, Allied forces launched a counter-punch of their own. From the summer of 1918 onwards, the Allies were constantly on the advance. Through the harsh experiences of the past the Allies had developed advanced...
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The First World War changed the world forever. Empires were destroyed and new nations were created. The cost of the war undermined Britain’s ability to sustain her vast empire while the United States began to emerge as a dominant world power. The legacy...
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On 20 March 2003, a United States-led international coalition - which included Britain - launched an invasion of Iraq. The stated aims were to disarm the country of weapons of mass destruction, end Saddam Hussein's support for terrorism and free the...
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The conflict in Northern Ireland has bordered on undeclared civil war since 'The Troubles' of the 1960s. After decades of violent sectarian unrest, political and religious, by the end of the twentieth century, Ireland seemed to be on the road to lasting...
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The Imperial War Museum opened its first 'permanent' exhibition at Crystal Palace on 9 June 1920. After three years of temporary exhibitions and scattered storage it appeared the museum had found a home. Sir Alfred Mond, Chairman of the Museum Committee...