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Hasekura Tsunenaga: 1571–1622?
A replica of the Japanese-built galleon San Juan Bautista, in Ishinomaki, Japan. December 1613. A samurai retainer from northern Japan stands on the deck of his ship as it clips along, sails billowing in the wind. For centuries, craft of all kinds have ferried passengers, troops and trade goods around…
The Abwehr’s War in the Caucasus
The ‘Lenin’ oil refinery in the city of Grozny. Even before the Second World War, the Deputy Führer Rudolf Hess formulated the Nazi concept of ‘total espionage’. It consisted of three fundamental precepts: ‘Everyone can be a spy’, ‘Everyone should be a spy’ and ‘There is no secret that cannot…
The Origins of Chinese Strategic Thinking
For the past three millennia, the Chinese have looked inward, presumed and cherished their moral superiority, and disdained but feared outside marauders and invaders. Here, of course, one has to distinguish ethnic Han emperors from the Khitan, Mongol, and Manchu rulers who imposed their dominion on the Middle Kingdom for…
Franz Joseph’s Empire, Sisi, and Hungary I
Austrian Emperor Franz Joseph with his troops at the Battle of Solferino, 1859 On 6 October 1849, the former prime minister of Hungary, Count Louis Batthyány, was taken into the courtyard of the main gaol of Pest. An Austrian military court had condemned him to hang for treason on account…
Metternich and the Map of Europe
Clemens von Metternich came to office as Austrian foreign minister in 1809. A Rhinelander who had lost all to revolutionary France and Napoleon, his debts were at the time of his appointment reckoned at 1.25 million gulden. His master, Emperor Francis II (1792–1835), was bankrupt too. Unable to redeem the…
WERNER HEISENBERG
In 1933 Werner Heisenberg was at his peak, one of Germany’s youngest and most brilliant physicists and with aspirations to be at the helm of German science. That year, at the age of 31, he received both the Max Planck Medal from the German Physical Society and the Nobel Prize.…
“Black May” – Biscay Bay in May 1943 Part II
As for new attacks on the Biscay bases, which the Admiralty’s earlier Memorandum advocated, the U-boats and their essential services were sheltered under impenetrable concrete, Harris reminded the Committee, and the 10,000 tons dropped recently on the bases at Lorient and St.-Nazaire had, as the Admiralty themselves conceded, no appreciable…
Haunted by History
What did 1997 mean? On 1 July that year the People’s Republic of China resumed the exercise of sovereignty over Hong Kong. China’s senior leadership and British government ministers and officials took part in a punctiliously choreographed midnight handover ceremony. Rain poured down, and tears were shed for all the…
Deutsche Reichsbahn: Strength through Standardization II
A letter in Railway World in April 1969 from John F. Clay, a member of the Stephenson Society, argued the case for Mallard: ‘The difference between the maximum speeds for Mallard and 05.002 is so small as to be in the range of uncertainty present even with the most sophisticated…
Gytha and the sons of the Godwin House II
Gytha, grand-daughter of Gytha, given in wedlock by Svein Estrithsson (on Harold’s behalf) to Valdemar the Grand Prince of Smolensk and Koenungagard (Kiev) Younger Gytha It was probably from Flanders, where they had accompanied or followed the ladies of the family, that King Harold’s sons, Godwine and Edmund, journeyed to…