HistoryExtra
type: channel
link: https://www.historyextra.com
description: Home of Britain’s bestselling history magazine and award-winning podcast
date: 2024-10-16T08:32:24.000Z
update period: hourly
update frequency: 1
update base: 2000-01-01T12:00+00:00
items: What drives our addiction to war?
items: “They changed the way war is run”: Ben Macintyre on the early SAS
items: 10 things you (probably) didn’t know about the Second World War
items: The lion and the rising sun: Britain and Japan's 400-year relationship
items: The Marshall Plan and the Cold War
items: The Last Kamikazes
items: El Alamein: the line in the sand
items: China in World War Two
items: The incredible tale of the WW2 Poles who fought back
items: Postwar occupations and Raleigh bicycles

What drives our addiction to war?
type: item
date: 2024-10-15T16:26:41.000Z
subject: General History
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: The global war
description: War has been a constant of the human experience for millennia. The question that continues to trouble historians is: why? Richard Overy considers the major factors that have fuelled conflict since before the emergence of the state, and what that might mean for us in the 21st century
encoded: Why war? Albert Einstein posed this question to the psychologist Sigmund Freud in a series of letters sent in 1932, at the prompting of the League of Nations Institute for Intellectual Cooperation. He was disappointed with the answer. Freud told him that all animals – humans included – possessed a destructive “death drive” that could explain why they fought and why they would continue to do so. Since that exchange, many of the world’s brightest minds have sought an answer that explains our propensity for collective violence – both over the millennia of recorded history and in all parts of the globe. This line of thought prompts two more questions. What is warfare? And for how long have we been fighting wars? These points have, unsurprisingly, sparked major disagreements. What is the definition of ‘war’? Historians and social scientists have tended to define war as something that is a product of the state as an entity. They have been fought in periods when, and in places where, they could be planned, armies raised and resources paid for – in other words, over the past 4,000–5,000 years in areas where states emerged. Any violence below the level of the state is not warfare but, rather, feuding or raiding or ritual contests. Evolutionary biologists and psychologists, on the other hand, see the emergence of warfare as having occurred much deeper in the human past, when small groups of hunter-gatherers or fishers competed for food or resources and fought to protect their kin. Warfare in this early environment was almost certainly sporadic and brief, albeit potentially deadly, and has influenced behaviours into the modern era. Cultural anthropologists have also suggested that warfare evolved before the state, both in the remote past and among tribal communities more recently. It was waged by pre-state peoples in a variety of ways – from ritual stand-offs to full-scale massacres – and was, in many cases, reinforced by a prevailing culture that endorsed violence when necess…

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“They changed the way war is run”: Ben Macintyre on the early SAS
type: item
date: 2022-11-30T17:01:54.000Z
subject: 20th Century
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: Second World War
subject: Second World War battles
subject: The global war
description: Ben Macintyre has written the first authorised history of the SAS in the Second World War. He tells Rob Attar how a group of bearded ruffians mastered covert warfare in the north African desert
encoded: The SAS (Special Air Service) was founded in north Africa in July 1941 with the aim of attacking airfields and other targets deep behind enemy lines. At a time when the north African campaign was going badly for the Allies, the British were prepared to attempt a new form of warfare, which, despite a number of reverses, proved highly successful. The unit rapidly grew from a few dozen men to several thousand. In Europe, the SAS was active in both the Italy campaign and the attacks on France, the Netherlands and Germany. At the end of the war the SAS was disbanded, but was later reformed in 1947 and continues to operate today. We have an image today of the SAS as a ruthless, efficient unit. Does your research into its wartime inception tally with this idea? It may be hard to believe now, but in the early days the SAS was amateur. Things went very right for the unit at times, but also spectacularly wrong at others. And these were not over-muscled exemplars of butch masculinity in all cases. The man who founded the SAS, David Stirling, was about as far as you could get from that image: he was 6ft 6ins and not very robust at all. Yet he was a brilliant leader of men who had a fantastically good idea that changed the way war is run. I hope my research will also cast a new light on the qualities that went into this kind of military action. There was a kind of mental toughness to the people who founded the SAS that is pretty unique. They are an interesting combination of qualities and not all of them expected. Indeed, as one character says, they were the sweepings of the public schools and the prisons. They were people who would not fit into normal military shape, but they were extraordinarily courageous. Read more | The real 'Rogue Heroes' of the early SAS The SAS’s origins are quite unusual. Could it only really have been created in that particular circumstance at that particular time? That’s right and luck played a huge part. The idea for the SAS came to Stirling while he…

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10 things you (probably) didn’t know about the Second World War
type: item
date: 2019-08-13T10:00:20.000Z
subject: Period
subject: Second World War
subject: Family and parenting
subject: Second World War battles
subject: The global war
description: When it comes to the Second World War, most people will be able to tell you the important dates and historical facts. But did you know that Britain actually had the least rationing in Europe? Or that Germany had a unique way of treating its flying ‘aces’? Here, historian James Holland reveals several lesser-known details about the conflict
encoded: France had more tanks, guns and men than Germany in 1940 It is always assumed that during the Second World War the Germans bludgeoned their way to victory with a highly modern and mechanised army and Air Force that was superior to anything the Allies could muster in May 1940. The reality of WW2 was very different. On 10 May 1940, when the Germans attacked, only 16 of their 135 divisions were mechanised – that is, equipped with motorised transport. The rest depended on horses and cart or feet. France alone had 117 divisions. France also had more guns: Germany had 7,378 artillery pieces and France 10,700. It didn't stop there: the Germans could muster 2,439 tanks while the French had 3,254, most of which were bigger, better armed and armoured than the German panzers. 10 of the most important Second World War dates Why did the Second World War happen? The priority for manpower in the UK is surprising Britain had decided before the war began that it would make air and naval power the focus of its fighting capability, and it was only after the fall of France that British powers realised that the Army would have to grow substantially too. However, right up until the spring of 1944, the priority for manpower in the UK was not the navy, RAF, army, or even the merchant navy, but the Ministry of Aircraft Production. In the war, Britain alone built 132,500 aircraft, a staggering achievement – especially when considering that Fighter Command in the Battle of Britain never had more than 750 fighters. View Riddle on the source website Allied merchant shipping losses were just 1 per cent Allied shipping losses in the Second World War in the North Atlantic, Arctic and Home Waters were just 1.48 per cent. Overall, there were 323,090 individual sailings, of which 4,786 were sunk. Of these, 2,562 were British, but on average, there were around 2,000 British ships sailing somewhere around the world on any given day. Convoys, for the most part, were pretty safe, even though a few suffer…

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The lion and the rising sun: Britain and Japan's 400-year relationship
type: item
date: 2019-05-01T08:39:21.000Z
subject: General Modern
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: The global war
description: Antony Best picks out eight key moments in the relationship between Britain and Japan that has veered from violent hostility to cultural and economic partnerships
encoded: 1613: Will Adams leads England’s first foray onto Japanese soil In 1613 the East India Company opened the era of formal Anglo-Japanese relations when, emulating its European rivals, it established a trading ‘factory’ at Hirado. Its efforts were aided by the presence of a sailor called Will Adams, who had arrived on a Dutch ship 13 years previously. With his knowledge of nautical science and his political tact, Adams had carved out an influential position for himself at the court of the military leader (or Shogun) Ieyasu Tokugawa, who ruled Japan on behalf of the emperor. Adams had even been made an honorary samurai. With Adams as its leading figure, the factory operated for 10 years, but in 1623 a lack of profits forced it to close. By this time, storm clouds were, in any case, gathering, for the shogunate was growing increasingly anxious about the foreign presence in Japan. In 1635 Ieyasu’s grandson, Iemitsu, banned Christianity and announced that foreign trade would be restricted to one Dutch and one Chinese trading post at the port of Nagasaki. And thus, for 200 years Japan was largely cut off from the world. Was the US justified in dropping atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki during the Second World War? You debate The big question: Why did the west dominate history for so long? A brief history of samurai warfare 1858: Japan opens for business again The 1850s saw Japan’s long policy of seclusion come to an end. The United States took the lead in ‘reopening’ the country but the British were not far behind: in 1858 Lord Elgin took time out from waging war on China to sign a commercial treaty with the shogunate The British were highly satisfied with the visit, one of Elgin’s staff declaring: “I must beg to state that the impression which Japan and the Japanese have left on the minds of all, is of the most pleasing description”. The British enthusiasm may be explained by the fact that the treaty placed Japan in a subordinate position, forcing it to open ports, an…

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The Marshall Plan and the Cold War
type: item
date: 2018-03-15T17:13:44.000Z
subject: 20th Century
subject: Cold War
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: Second World War
subject: The global war
description: Benn Steil explains the background to the 1947 US aid initiative to Europe and considers how it helped shape relations between the USA and USSR
encoded: Economist and author Benn Steil explains the background to the 1947 US aid initiative to Europe and describes how it helped shape relations between the USA and USSR. He also considers what impact it had on European recovery after the Second World War What was the Marshall Plan? Why do we call it the 'Cold War'? Plus 8 other key questions

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The Last Kamikazes
type: item
date: 2017-11-06T16:26:32.000Z
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: Second World War
subject: Second World War battles
subject: The global war
description: Mariko Oi discusses her experiences of interviewing some of the last survivors of the notorious Japanese raids in World War Two
encoded: BBC journalist Mariko Oi discusses her experiences of interviewing some of the last survivors of the notorious Japanese raids in World War Two, in advance of her new documentary on BBC World Service.

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El Alamein: the line in the sand
type: item
date: 2017-11-01T12:24:05.000Z
subject: Membership
subject: Second World War
subject: Period
subject: Second World War battles
subject: The global war
description: No more reverses. That was the message that the British Eighth Army carried into the second battle of El Alamein in October 1942. What happened next transformed British fortunes in the desert war. But, asks James Holland, did victory come at too high a price?
encoded: At around 9.40pm on Friday 23 October 1942, Flight Lieutenant Tommy Thompson, a Battle of Britain and Malta veteran, was flying over the Alamein line on his return from a strafing mission. Suddenly, the guns below opened up and it seemed to Thompson that one massive flash of fire had erupted in a long line. Mesmerised, he circled around at just 3,000 feet and watched. Further away he spotted a wave of bombers pounding enemy positions too. “A magnificent sight,” he recalled. “What an artillery battle.” On the ground, 22-year-old Corporal Albert Martin of 2nd Battalion, Rifle Brigade had never heard anything like it in the two long years he’d been in the desert. He’d been feeling on edge and nervy all day, knowing they would be going into battle that night and that it would be a tough fight. One hundred and sixteen thousand Germans and Italians were dug in behind millions of mines, thick entanglements of wire, and supported by guns, tanks, machine-guns and mortars. Nor was Martin pleased about his role. The Rifle Brigade had been used to independence and mobility, beetling about the desert in trucks. That night, as the battle began, their job was to protect the engineers as they cleared six paths through the minefields. It was through these lanes, each the width of a tennis court, that the mass of armour was due to pour, get in behind the enemy and then exploit their advantage. As Martin listened to the deafening blast of 900 guns, and felt the shockwaves pulsing through the ground, he knew the wait was over. As the gunners’ loading rhythm changed, so the sky became a kaleidoscope of flickering colour. The second battle of Alamein had begun, and if successful, as the British Eighth Army commander General Montgomery had assured them it would be, then the Germans and Italians could be driven from all of Africa for good. Bickering and bellyaching Eighth Army had undergone quite some transformation since ignominious defeats at Gazala and Tobruk back in June. However, it w…

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China in World War Two
type: item
date: 2017-08-07T14:12:06.000Z
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: Second World War
subject: The global war
description: Hans van de Ven and Rana Mitter discuss China’s role in the Second World War and the connections to the country’s communist revolution
encoded: Expert historians Hans van de Ven and Rana Mitter discuss China’s lengthy war against Japan and consider its impact on the country’s civil war and Chinese participation in the later conflict in Korea.

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The incredible tale of the WW2 Poles who fought back
type: item
date: 2017-07-13T11:48:06.000Z
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: Second World War
subject: The global war
description: In 1940, thousands of Poles were deported to Siberia and left to rot in Stalin's gulags. Four years later, they were taking the fight to the Nazis in Italy. Monica Whitlock has spoken to some of the survivors of a wartime odyssey...
encoded: This article was first published in the July 2017 issue of BBC History Magazine Behind the Jala photography shop in Isfahan, Iran stands an old outbuilding. It is filled with boxes of glass negatives taken by Abdolqasem Jala, a brilliant photographer in the middle of the 20th century. The plates, surprisingly intact, include portraits of Polish people who found refuge here during the Second World War. Most of the negatives show women and children, including some of the 13,000 Polish orphans who lived in Isfahan. A few of these orphans are still alive. “To us, Iran was a paradise,” remembers Henrika Levchenko, who married and settled in the Middle East. “People were so kind. Iran was a wonderful place, after everything we had been through.” Henrika is one of around 1 million men, women and children deported from Poland by the Soviet authorities in 1941. They were sent to labour camps in the USSR and later dispersed around the world, founding the Polish communities that we know today, from Tel Aviv to London to Melbourne. For decades, the story of their odyssey was hardly known. In Poland, it did not fit the wartime narrative generated under communism. Abroad, immigrants finding their feet had neither time nor appetite to look back. Many deportees concealed their stories even from their own children. This missing history is now emerging, through the testimony of survivors and evidence scattered around the world. A pile of gramophone records, a cinema poster, a suitcase of letters – all are clues being assembled by scholars and by a new generation of Poles eager to make sense of their past. Poland pulverised On 17 September 1939, Soviet troops invaded Poland – 16 days after Nazi Germany launched its deadly strike, devastating the populations of western Poland and pulverising Warsaw. Under the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact between Germany and the Soviet Union, the latter laid claim to the eastern borderlands. This region comprised prosperous cities like Vilnius, Białostok and…

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Postwar occupations and Raleigh bicycles
type: item
date: 2017-03-09T15:59:32.000Z
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: Second World War
subject: The global war
description: Susan L Carruthers tells the story of American forces in Germany and Japan after World War Two, while Steve Humphries previews his new BBC Four documentary Pedalling Dreams
encoded: Professor Susan L Carruthers tells the story of American forces who occupied Germany, Japan and other defeated powers after World War Two. Meanwhile, we are joined by TV producer Steve Humphries to chat about his upcoming BBC Four documentary Pedalling Dreams, which charts the history of the iconic Raleigh bicycle.

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