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The Nazi German concentration camp and center for the extermination of Jews created during World War II on the outskirts of Oświęcim. Initially it consisted only of Auschwitz I, created in the spring of 1940, later also of the considerably larger Birkenau camp, and later still of Monowitz and almost…

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CBBC Newsround: Hiroshima - A survivor's story in animation

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BBC Two - The Children of the Holocaust - Clips

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Clips from The Children of the Holocaust

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The Tattooist of Auschwitz by Heather Morris | Waterstones

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On 27 January 1945 Soviet soldiers entered the gates of the Auschwitz concentration camp in south-west Poland. The site had been evacuated by the Nazis just days earlier. Thus ended the largest mass murder in a single location in human history.

Precise numbers are still debated, but according to the US Holocaust Memorial Museum, the German SS systematically killed at least 960,000 of the 1.1 million to 1.3 million Jews sent to the camp. Other victims included approximately 74,000 Poles, 21,000 Roma, 15,000 Soviet PoWs and at least 10,000 from other nationalities. More people died at Auschwitz than at any other Nazi concentration camp.

Susan Pollack and Ivor Perl were children when they were transported to the camp, two of an ever decreasing number of survivors who are able to provide first-hand testimony of what happened to them. They speak to Anushka Asthana about their time at Auschwitz, and how they rebuilt their lives afterwards.
With thanks to Arthur Cary. His documentary The Last Survivors features Susan and Ivor. It is on BBC2 at 11.30pm on Monday 27th January.

The Guardian is editorially independent. And we want to keep our journalism open and accessible to all. But we increasingly need our readers to fund our work.

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On 27 January 1945 Soviet soldiers entered the gates of the Auschwitz concentration camp in south-west Poland. The site had been evacuated by the Nazis just days earlier. Thus ended the largest mass murder in a single location in human history.

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Historical Anti-Semitism

Anti-Semitism in Europe did not begin with Adolf Hitler. Though use of the term itself dates only to the 1870s, there is evidence of hostility toward Jews long before the Holocaust-even as far back as the ancient world, when Roman authorities destroyed the Jewish temple in Jerusalem and forced Jews to leave Palestine.

The Enlightenment, during the 17th and 18th centuries, emphasized religious tolerance, and in the 19th century Napoleon Bonaparte and other European rulers enacted legislation that ended long-standing restrictions on Jews. Anti-Semitic feeling endured, however, in many cases taking on a racial character rather than a religious one.

Did you know? Even in the early 21st century, the legacy of the Holocaust endures. Swiss government and banking institutions have in recent years acknowledged their complicity with the Nazis and established funds to aid Holocaust survivors and other victims of human rights abuses, genocide or other catastrophes.

Hitler's Rise to Power

The roots of Adolf Hitler's particularly virulent brand of anti-Semitism are unclear. Born in Austria in 1889, he served in the German army during World War I. Like many anti-Semites in Germany, he blamed the Jews for the country's defeat in 1918.

Soon after World War I ended, Hitler joined the National German Workers' Party, which became the National Socialist German Workers' Party (NSDAP), known to English speakers as the Nazis. While imprisoned for treason for his role in the Beer Hall Putsch of 1923, Hitler wrote the memoir and propaganda tract " Mein Kampf " (or "my struggle"), in which he predicted a general European war that would result in "the extermination of the Jewish race in Germany."

Hitler was obsessed with the idea of the superiority of the "pure" German race, which he called "Aryan," and with the need for "Lebensraum," or living space, for that race to expand. In the decade after he was released from prison, Hitler took advantage of the weakness of his rivals to enhance his party's status and rise from obscurity to power.

On January 30, 1933, he was named chancellor of Germany. After the death of President Paul von Hindenburg in 1934, Hitler anointed himself Fuhrer, becoming Germany's supreme ruler.

Concentration Camps

The twin goals of racial purity and territorial expansion were the core of Hitler's worldview, and from 1933 onward they would combine to form the driving force behind his foreign and domestic policy.

At first, the Nazis reserved their harshest persecution for political opponents such as Communists or Social Democrats. The first official concentration camp opened at Dachau (near Munich) in March 1933, and many of the first prisoners sent there were Communists.

Like the network of concentration camps that followed, becoming the killing grounds of the Holocaust, Dachau was under the control of Heinrich Himmler, head of the elite Nazi guard, the Schutzstaffel (SS) and later chief of the German police.

By July 1933, German concentration camps ( Konzentrationslager in German, or KZ) held some 27,000 people in "protective custody." Huge Nazi rallies and symbolic acts such as the public burning of books by Jews, Communists, liberals and foreigners helped drive home the desired message of party strength and unity.

In 1933, Jews in Germany numbered around 525,000-just one percent of the total German population. During the next six years, Nazis undertook an "Aryanization" of Germany, dismissing non-Aryans from civil service, liquidating Jewish-owned businesses and stripping Jewish lawyers and doctors of their clients.

Nuremberg Laws

Under the Nuremberg Laws of 1935, anyone with three or four Jewish grandparents was considered a Jew, while those with two Jewish grandparents were designated Mischlinge (half-breeds).

Under the Nuremberg Laws, Jews became routine targets for stigmatization and persecution. This culminated in Kristallnacht, or the "Night of Broken Glass" in November 1938, when German synagogues were burned and windows in Jewish home and shops were smashed; some 100 Jews were killed and thousands more arrested.

From 1933 to 1939, hundreds of thousands of Jews who were able to leave Germany did, while those who remained lived in a constant state of uncertainty and fear.

Euthanasia Program

In September 1939, Germany invaded the western half of Poland, starting World War II. German police soon forced tens of thousands of Polish Jews from their homes and into ghettoes, giving their confiscated properties to ethnic Germans (non-Jews outside Germany who identified as German), Germans from the Reich or Polish gentiles.

Surrounded by high walls and barbed wire, the Jewish ghettoes in Poland functioned like captive city-states, governed by Jewish Councils. In addition to widespread unemployment, poverty and hunger, overpopulation and poor sanitation made the ghettoes breeding grounds for disease such as typhus.

Meanwhile, beginning in the fall of 1939, Nazi officials selected around 70,000 Germans institutionalized for mental illness or physical disabilities to be gassed to death in the so-called Euthanasia Program.

After prominent German religious leaders protested, Hitler put an end to the program in August 1941, though killings of the disabled continued in secrecy, and by 1945 some 275,000 people deemed handicapped from all over Europe had been killed. In hindsight, it seems clear that the Euthanasia Program functioned as a pilot for the Holocaust.

'Final Solution'

Throughout the spring and summer of 1940, the German army expanded Hitler's empire in Europe, conquering Denmark, Norway, the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg and France. Beginning in 1941, Jews from all over the continent, as well as hundreds of thousands of European Romani people, were transported to Polish ghettoes.

The German invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941 marked a new level of brutality in warfare. Mobile killing units of Himmler's SS called Einsatzgruppen would murder more than 500,000 Soviet Jews and others (usually by shooting) over the course of the German occupation.

A memorandum dated July 31, 1941, from Hitler's top commander Hermann Goering to Reinhard Heydrich, chief of the SD (the security service of the SS), referred to the need for an Endlösung ( Final Solution) to "the Jewish question."

Yellow Stars

Beginning in September 1941, every person designated as a Jew in German-held territory was marked with a yellow, six-pointed star, making them open targets. Tens of thousands were soon being deported to the Polish ghettoes and German-occupied cities in the USSR.

Since June 1941, experiments with mass killing methods had been ongoing at the concentration camp of Auschwitz, near Krakow, Poland. That August, 500 officials gassed 500 Soviet POWs to death with the pesticide Zyklon-B. The SS soon placed a huge order for the gas with a German pest-control firm, an ominous indicator of the coming Holocaust.

Holocaust Death Camps

Beginning in late 1941, the Germans began mass transports from the ghettoes in Poland to the concentration camps, starting with those people viewed as the least useful: the sick, old and weak and the very young.

The first mass gassings began at the camp of Belzec, near Lublin, on March 17, 1942. Five more mass killing centers were built at camps in occupied Poland, including Chelmno, Sobibor, Treblinka, Majdanek and the largest of all, Auschwitz.

From 1942 to 1945, Jews were deported to the camps from all over Europe, including German-controlled territory as well as those countries allied with Germany. The heaviest deportations took place during the summer and fall of 1942, when more than 300,000 people were deported from the Warsaw ghetto alone.

Warsaw Ghetto Uprising

Amid the deportations, disease and constant hunger, incarcerated people in the Warsaw Ghetto rose up in armed revolt.

The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising from April 19-May 16, 1943, ended in the death of 7,000 Jews, with 50,000 survivors sent to extermination camps. But the resistance fighters had held off the Nazis for almost a month, and their revolt inspired revolts at camps and ghettos across German-occupied Europe.

Though the Nazis tried to keep operation of the camps secret, the scale of the killing made this virtually impossible. Eyewitnesses brought reports of Nazi atrocities in Poland to the Allied governments, who were harshly criticized after the war for their failure to respond, or to publicize news of the mass slaughter.

This lack of action was likely mostly due to the Allied focus on winning the war at hand, but was also partly a result of the general incomprehension with which news of the Holocaust was met and the denial and disbelief that such atrocities could be occurring on such a scale.

'Angel of Death'

At Auschwitz alone, more than 2 million people were murdered in a process resembling a large-scale industrial operation. A large population of Jewish and non-Jewish inmates worked in the labor camp there; though only Jews were gassed, thousands of others died of starvation or disease.

In 1943, eugenics advocate Josef Mengele arrived in Auschwitz to begin his infamous experiments on Jewish prisoners. His special area of focus was conducting medical experiments on twins, injecting them with everything from petrol to chloroform under the guise of giving them medical treatment. His actions earned him the nickname "the Angel of Death."

Nazi Rule Ends

By the spring of 1945, German leadership was dissolving amid internal dissent, with Goering and Himmler both seeking to distance themselves from Hitler and take power.

In his last will and political testament, dictated in a German bunker that April 29, Hitler blamed the war on "International Jewry and its helpers" and urged the German leaders and people to follow "the strict observance of the racial laws and with merciless resistance against the universal poisoners of all peoples"-the Jews.

The following day, Hitler died by suicide. Germany's formal surrender in World War II came barely a week later, on May 8, 1945.

German forces had begun evacuating many of the death camps in the fall of 1944, sending inmates under guard to march further from the advancing enemy's front line. These so-called "death marches" continued all the way up to the German surrender, resulting in the deaths of some 250,000 to 375,000 people.

In his classic book Survival in Auschwitz, the Italian-Jewish author Primo Levi described his own state of mind, as well as that of his fellow inmates in Auschwitz on the day before Soviet troops liberated the camp in January 1945: "We lay in a world of death and phantoms. The last trace of civilization had vanished around and inside us. The work of bestial degradation, begun by the victorious Germans, had been carried to conclusion by the Germans in defeat."

Legacy of the Holocaust

The wounds of the Holocaust-known in Hebrew as "Shoah," or catastrophe-were slow to heal. Survivors of the camps found it nearly impossible to return home, as in many cases they had lost their entire family and been denounced by their non-Jewish neighbors. As a result, the late 1940s saw an unprecedented number of refugees, POWs and other displaced populations moving across Europe.

In an effort to punish the villains of the Holocaust, the Allies held the Nuremberg Trials of 1945-46, which brought Nazi atrocities to horrifying light. Increasing pressure on the Allied powers to create a homeland for Jewish survivors of the Holocaust would lead to a mandate for the creation of Israel in 1948.

Over the decades that followed, ordinary Germans struggled with the Holocaust's bitter legacy, as survivors and the families of victims sought restitution of wealth and property confiscated during the Nazi years.

Beginning in 1953, the German government made payments to individual Jews and to the Jewish people as a way of acknowledging the German people's responsibility for the crimes committed in their name.
Sources
The Holocaust. The National WWII Museum.
What Was The Holocaust? Imperial War Museums.
Introduction to the Holocaust. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.
Holocaust Remembrance. Council of Europe.
Outreach Programme on the Holocaust. United Nations.

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Holocaust: Definition, Remembrance & Meaning - HISTORY

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The Holocaust was the persecution and murder of millions of Jews, Romani people, political dissidents and homosexuals by the German Nazi regime from 1933-1945.

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Primo Levi - one of the most famous survivors - was lying in a camp hospital with scarlet fever when the liberators arrived.

The men cast "strangely embarrassed glances at the sprawling bodies, at the battered huts and at us few still alive", he would later write.

"They did not greet us, nor did they smile; they seemed oppressed not only by compassion but by... the feeling of guilt that such a crime should exist."

"We saw emaciated, tortured, impoverished people," soldier Ivan Martynushkin said of liberating the death camp. "We could tell from their eyes that they were happy to be saved from this hell."

In just over four-and-a-half years, Nazi Germany systematically murdered at least 1.1 million people at Auschwitz. Almost one million were Jews.

Those deported to the camp complex were gassed, starved, worked to death and even killed in medical experiments. The vast majority were murdered in the complex of gas chambers at Auschwitz II-Birkenau camp.

Six million Jewish people died in the Holocaust - the Nazi campaign to eradicate Europe's Jewish population. Auschwitz was at the centre of that genocide.

What was the Holocaust?

When the Nazis came to power in 1933 they began to strip Jewish people of all property, freedoms and rights under the law. After the German invasion and occupation of Poland in 1939, the Nazis started deporting Jewish people from the Third Reich to parts of Poland, where they created ghettos to separate them from the rest of the population.

In 1941, during the German invasion of the USSR, the Nazis began their campaign of extermination in earnest. Nazis spoke about their invasion as a race war between Germany and Jewish people, as well as the Slavic population and the Roma.

Groups of German soldiers called Einsatzgruppen set out across newly conquered lands in Eastern Europe to massacre civilians. By the end of 1941, they had killed 500,000 people, and by 1945 they had murdered about two million - 1.3 million of whom were Jewish.

Behind the lines, Nazi commanders were experimenting with ways to kill en masse. They feared that shooting people was too stressful for their soldiers, and so came up with more efficient means of murder.

Experimental gas vans had been used to kill mentally disabled people in Poland as early as 1939. Poisonous fumes were pumped into a sealed compartment to suffocate those inside. By the winter of 1941, the Nazis had constructed gas chambers at Auschwitz.

Nazi leaders met in January 1942 at the Wannsee Conference to coordinate the industrial slaughter - what they called a "final solution to the Jewish question" - killing the entire European Jewish population, 11 million people, by extermination and forced labour.

What was Auschwitz?

Auschwitz was originally a Polish army barracks in southern Poland. Nazi Germany invaded and occupied Poland in September 1939, and by May 1940 turned the site into a jail for political prisoners.

This area - with the infamous lie Arbeit Macht Frei written above the entrance in German - meaning work sets you free - became known as Auschwitz I.

But as the war and the Holocaust progressed, the Nazi regime greatly developed the site.

The first people to be gassed were a group of Polish and Soviet prisoners in September 1941. Work began on a new camp, Auschwitz II-Birkenau, the following month. This became the site of the huge gas chambers where hundreds of thousands were murdered until November 1944, and the crematoria was where their bodies were burned.

German chemicals company IG Farben built and operated a synthetic rubber factory at Auschwitz III-Monowitz. Other private companies like Krupp and Siemens-Schuckert also ran factories nearby, to use the prisoners as slave labour. Both Primo Levi and Nobel Prize winner Elie Wiesel survived Monowitz concentration camp.

When Auschwitz was eventually liberated, it had more than 40 camps and subcamps. How Auschwitz became centre of Nazi Holocaust

How did Auschwitz work?

People from all over Europe were crammed into cattle wagons without windows, toilets, seats or food, and transported to Auschwitz.

There they were sorted into those who could work and those who were to be immediately killed.

The latter group were ordered to strip naked and sent to the showers for "delousing" - a euphemism used for the gas chambers.

Guards from the so-called "Hygienic Institute" would then drop powerful Zyklon-B gas pellets into the sealed chambers, and wait for people to die. It took about 20 minutes. The thick walls could not hide the screams of those suffocating inside.

Then Sonderkommandos - other prisoners, usually Jews forced to work for the guards or be killed - would remove artificial limbs, glasses, hair and teeth before dragging the corpses to the incinerators. Ashes of the bodies were buried or used as fertiliser.

Belongings of those gassed and those sent to work were taken for sorting in a part of the camp known as "Canada" - so named because the country was seen as a land of plenty.

Who were the victims?

SS guards sought to hide their crimes as Soviet troops closed in, and tried to destroy their extensive prisoner records - making it hard to fully quantify the number of victims.

Academic studies since agree that in total close to 1.3 million people arrived at Auschwitz. About 1.1 million of them died there.

Jews from all across Nazi-controlled Europe made up the vast majority of the victims. Almost one million Jewish people were murdered at Auschwitz.

One specific example was Hungary's Jewish population. In the space of just two months, between May and July 1944, Hungary transported 420,000 of the 437,000 Jewish people it sent to Auschwitz.

Tens of thousands of Hungarian Jews were sent to Auschwitz every day. Three quarters of them were killed on arrival.

Some 75,000 Polish civilians, 15,000 Soviet prisoners of war, 25,000 Roma and Sinti, as well as Jehovah's Witnesses, homosexuals and political prisoners were also put to death by the German state at the Auschwitz complex.

German authorities ordered a halt to gassing and the destruction of the gas chambers and crematoria in late 1944, as Soviet troops advanced westward. The stockpile of stolen valuables in the Canada sector was shipped to Germany shortly afterwards.

Determined to erase the evidence of their crimes, the Nazis ordered 56,000 remaining prisoners to march west to other concentration camps, such as Bergen-Belsen, Dachau and Sachsenhausen. Those too sick to walk were left behind; any who fell behind on the march itself were killed.

Soviet forces found only a few thousand survivors when they entered the camp on 27 January 1945, along with hundreds of thousands of clothes and several tonnes of human hair. Soldiers later recalled having to convince some survivors that the Nazis had truly gone.

Elie Wiesel later said in a speech to mark the 50th anniversary of the liberation that the Nazi crimes at Auschwitz "produced a mutation on a cosmic scale, affecting man's dreams and endeavours".

"After Auschwitz, the human condition is no longer the same. After Auschwitz, nothing will ever be the same."

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Auschwitz: How death camp became centre of Nazi Holocaust

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Primo Levi - one of the most famous survivors - was lying in a camp hospital with scarlet fever when the liberators arrived. The men cast "strangely embarrassed glances at the sprawling bodies, at the battered huts and at us few still alive", he would later write.

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BBC World Service - Witness History, World War Two - Downloads

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(c) D-Day in Colour (2004), narrated by John Hurt New 480p version: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fhsYY7SY55Q D-Day, 6th June 1944: the launch of Operation Overlord. The battle that began the liberation of Europe. The last moment the German Army might have rescued the fate of Adolf Hitler. The beginning of the end of the Second World War.

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Mapped: 1940 Christmas blitz bomb sites in Manchester

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The M.E.N. has used data compiled by the Commonwealth and War Graves Commission to show - in heartbreaking detail - where hundreds of civilians were killed just before Christmas in 1940

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They fought against Hitler and helped rebuild Britain - yet the contributions of thousands of men and women from Caribbean colonies during World War Two have been largely forgotten.

Some 10,000 left their families and homes to join the British armed forces, working behind the scenes and on the frontline to defeat the Nazis.

"We were British subjects and that was something to be proud of," said Victor Brown, a Jamaican who fought with the Merchant Navy.

Although Britain was initially reluctant to let black people join the war effort, the rules were relaxed as the war progressed and casualties mounted.

Enthusiasm to defend "King and Empire" was widespread across the Caribbean and Mr Brown, like thousands of others, was quick to sign up.

In 1942, he was one of only two black men serving on an oil tanker in the North Atlantic when it was torpedoed by the Nazis. He is credited with saving several lives on board and still remembers the incident vividly.

"We rushed out to the deck and we could see the periscope out of the water," he said.

As the ship listed, he used an axe to cut down a lifeboat, and cleared the vessel.

"If we had have left it, the ship would have eventually dragged the lifeboat down with it," he said.

Winston Murphy, the only other black member of the 42-strong crew, was among the survivors. Seventy years on he said he has never forgotten his friend's quick thinking.

"Had he not chopped that rope we would never have got clear of that boat," he added.

'Like a miracle'

The friends, now aged 94, swapped stories during a recent reunion.

"It's almost like a miracle," said Mr Brown. "I never thought we'd live long enough to meet again after all the years we've been separated."

The pair were lucky to survive. The death toll for black merchant seamen during World War Two was high. Thousands perished, while others died serving with the Royal Air Force and the Army.

Allan Wilmot, from Jamaica, volunteered to join the Royal Navy in 1941 when he was just 15.

"Being young you didn't realise the danger until you were actually there. You hear the guns fire and realise this ain't no joke," he said.

Away from the frontline, life also presented challenges. Many servicemen struggled to adapt to Britain's cold climate and had to fend off racial prejudice.

"Being British you feel like you are coming home but when we came here it was like we dropped out of the sky. Nobody knew anything about us," said Mr Wilmot.

Those who survived the war were given the chance to return to their home countries, but many opted to remain in Britain and created an enduring multicultural legacy.

Jake Jacobs served as an equipment assistant with the RAF at Burtonwood. He briefly returned to Trinidad after his period of service came to an end, but returned to Britain in search of work.

He fell in love and married a local woman, prompting a backlash from members of the public who disagreed with mixed-race relationships.

'Days crying'

"They just went dumb. They just stared," explained his wife Mary from their home in Solihull.

The pair struggled to find accommodation after their wedding and Mrs Jacobs lost touch with members of her family.

"I spent days and days crying," she added.

Nevertheless the couple persevered. Ex-servicemen were offered jobs by the state and Mr Jacobs began working in telecommunications.

Like thousands of his former colleagues he stayed to help rebuild post-war Britain, changing its cultural landscape forever.

Despite their countless sacrifices, some veterans feel their war time experiences have been forgotten and have spent their lifetimes fighting for equality.

Sam King MBE was born in Jamaica in 1926 and served as a ground crew engineer with the RAF.

"I don't think we are being recognised for our contribution," he said. "Many young people don't realise that so many volunteered during the war and fought and died."

The British Empire and Dominions raised a total of 8,586,000 men for military service

More than 5,000,000 came from the British Isles

1,440,500 hailed from India, while 136,000 came from South Africa

Of those who fought 629,000 were Canadians

413,000 came from Australia and 128,500 from New Zealand

More than 134,000 travelled from other colonies, including some 10,000 from the Caribbean

The West Indian Association of Service Personnel was established to offer support to ex-servicemen and commemorate those who lost their lives in battle.

"If we didn't form that association the public wouldn't know the participation of black West Indians who served the British Empire in their hour of need," said Mr Wilmot.

In November 2014 a memorial dedicated to African and Caribbean soldiers was unveiled in Brixton, south London, where many ex-servicemen settled after the war.

However, the monument has now been placed in storage, until a permanent home for it can be found.

Next year Mr King, who now lives in Camberwell, south-east London, will celebrate his 90th birthday.

But his determination to remember his comrades shows no sign of fading.

"We just carry on," he said.

The veterans' stories feature in the BBC Four documentary, Fighting for King and Empire: Britain's Caribbean Heroes, which airs at 21:00 BST on 13 May. It is based on the film, Divided by Race, United in War and Peace, by the-latest.com.

Britain's Caribbean Heroes will broadcast on BBC World News on Saturday 6 and Sunday 7 August 2016.

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Soldiers of the Caribbean: Britain's forgotten war heroes

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They fought against Hitler and helped rebuild Britain - yet the contributions of thousands of men and women from Caribbean colonies during World War Two have been largely forgotten. Some 10,000 left their families and homes to join the British armed forces, working behind the scenes and on the frontline to defeat the Nazis.

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The following is a concise World War 2 timeline. For other timelines of specific events in the war, we recommend a timeline of D-Day, and a timeline of the emergence of Nazi Germany.

10 July - 31 October 1940

Battle of Britain

The Battle of Britain comprised four phases:
1. During July Hitler sent his Luftwaffe bombers to attack British ports. His aim was also to assess the speed and quality of response by the RAF.?
2. During August the attacks on shipping continued but bombing raids were concentrated on RAF airfields.
3. The Blitz - From September 7th the city of London was heavily bombed. Hitler hoped to destroy the morale of the British people.
4. Night Bombing - With the failure of daylight bombing raids Hitler began a series of nightly bombing raids on London and other important industrial cities.
The RAF defended the skies and by October 31 the raids had ceased.

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If you are interested in more information like this World War 2 timeline, we recommend our comprehensive resource on D-Day and the Allied Invasion of Normandy.

Cite This Article

"World War Two Timeline" History on the Net
© 2000-2021, Salem Media.
October 6, 2021 <https://www.historyonthenet.com/world-war-2-timeline-2>
More Citation Information.

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Loading... The following is a concise World War 2 timeline. For other timelines of specific events in the war, we recommend a timeline of D-Day, and a timeline of the emergence of Nazi Germany. 10 July - 31 October 1940 Battle of Britain The Battle of Britain comprised four phases: 1.

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Everything you ever wanted to know about Nazi Germany, but were afraid to ask

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Richard J Evans responds to listener queries and popular search enquiries about the Third Reich

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KS3 History Germany learning resources for adults, children, parents and teachers.

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History File Nazi Germany: Life in Hitler's Germany

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Hallie Rubenhold (author)

Paperback 432 Pages / Published: 30/01/2020

A passionate condemnation of the misogyny Jack the Ripper's victims have been held in for over a century, The Five tells an engrossing group biography of Victorian womanhood, blighted by poverty and powerless against casual and constant abuse.

Shortlisted for the Wolfson History Prize 2020 Winner of the Baillie Gifford Prize 2019
Five devastating human stories and a dark and moving portrait of Victorian London - the untold lives of the women killed by Jack the Ripper.

Annie, Elizabeth, Catherine and Mary-Jane are famous for the same thing, though they never met. They came from Fleet Street, Knightsbridge, Wolverhampton, Sweden and Wales. They wrote ballads, ran coffee houses, lived on country estates, they breathed ink-dust from printing presses and escaped people-traffickers. What they had in common was the year of their murders: 1888.

The person responsible was never identified, but the character created by the press to fill that gap has become far more famous than any of these five women. For more than a century, newspapers have been keen to tell us that 'the Ripper' preyed on prostitutes. Not only is this untrue, as historian Hallie Rubenhold has discovered, it has prevented the real stories of these fascinating women from being told.

Now, in this devastating narrative of five lives, Rubenhold finally sets the record straight, revealing a world not just of Dickens and Queen Victoria, but of poverty, homelessness and rampant misogyny. They died because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time - but their greatest misfortune was to be born a woman.

Publisher: Transworld Publishers Ltd
ISBN: 9781784162344
Number of pages: 432
Weight: 305 g
Dimensions: 198 x 127 x 26 mm

MEDIA REVIEWS

'An angry and important work of historical detection, calling time on the misogyny that has fed the Ripper myth.' - The Guardian

'At last, the Ripper's victims get a voice... An eloquent, stirring challenge to reject the prevailing Ripper myth.' - The Mail on Sunday

'Devastatingly good. The Five will leave you in tears, of pity and of rage.' - Lucy Worsley

'What a brilliant and necessary book' - Jo Baker

'A Ripper narrative that gives voice to the women he silenced; I've been waiting for this book for years. Beautifully written and with the grip of a thriller, it will open your eyes and break your heart.' - Erin Kelly

'How fitting that in the year when we celebrate the 100th anniversary of women's suffrage, dignity is finally returned to these unfortunate women.' - Professor Dame Sue Black

'This haunting book does something to redress the balance.' - The Times

"THE book to read of 2019"

Wow! now this is definitely a 5* read.
I couldn't put this book down, throughout reading I was just wanting more and more you can definitely tell that a huge amount of research went into every inch of this book.... More

"1888 - LIFE ENDED FOR THE FIVE- IT'S TIME TO GIVE THEM VOICES"

A wonderful book. One of the best books I have ever read. Halle Rubenhold has written this moving and powerful book with care and respect for the VICTIMS. It's heartbreaking and thought provoking.
The VICTIMS... More

"This book gives the victims a voice."

The 'Five' victims of Jack the Ripper are only ever remembered as exactly that - the victims. Most know their names and think of them all as 'the prostitutes' he sought out in his reign of terror.... More

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The Five by Hallie Rubenhold | Waterstones

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Hallie Rubenhold (author) Paperback 432 Pages / Published: 30/01/2020 A passionate condemnation of the misogyny Jack the Ripper's victims have been held in for over a century, The Five tells an engrossing group biography of Victorian womanhood, blighted by poverty and powerless against casual and constant abuse.

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The Manchester Ship Canal linking the ports of Liverpool and Manchester

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Some houses consisted of just two rooms, one on top of the other; some were back-to-back with no through ventilation; all shared with neighbouring houses earth-closets built over cesspits, and took their water from a common standpipe. In such places it was impossible to keep either bodies or dwellings clean; it was often easier to defecate in the streets, over gratings or in hidden corners than in the filthy crowded privies of the poor.

Tyndall's Buildings and their like may have been the archetypal slums of Victorian London but in fact slums came in many forms. In the early 19th century, as London grew and pressure on house-room increased, any open space - remnants of market gardens, marshy meadows not previously profitable for building, or the grounds of former farmhouses - became valuable terrain for the jerry-builder. These fag-end parcels of London clay would be leased for 21 years or even less, so builders had every incentive to put up hovels that would last no longer than that: without foundations; with dirt floors; with walls just half a brick thick; with yards and streets unpaved and without drains.

Such places were slums as soon as they were built. They might be clustered in large numbers in shanty towns which were sometimes named after the entrepreneur who had first developed the land. In London there was Tomlin's New Town in Paddington; Agar Town, north of Battle Bridge and today's King's Cross; and the Potteries, self-built colonies of potters', brickmakers' and pig-keepers' cottages west of Notting Hill.

"A Village - Not Picturesque," was how Mary Bayly, an evangelical 'bible-woman' active among the poor of North Kensington, described the Potteries in 1859, citing a passage from Household Words, Charles Dickens's first weekly magazine, to make her point: "There are foul ditches, open sewers, and defective drains, smelling most offensively... not a drop of clean water can be obtained - all is charged to saturation with putrescent matter. Wells have been sunk on some of the premises, but they have become, in many instances, useless, from organic matter soaking into them. In some of the wells the water is perfectly black and fetid. The paint on the window-frames has become black from the action of the sulphuretted hydrogen gas. Nearly all the inhabitants look unhealthy; the women especially complain of sickness and want of appetite; their eyes are sunken, and their skin shrivelled."

It was to deal with places such as the Potteries and Tyndall's Buildings, in almost every part of built-up London and on all its scabrous margins, that a new London government was established in 1855. London's local vestries, each of which appointed a Medical Officer of Health and sanitary inspectors, would be responsible for public health, while the London-wide Metropolitan Board of Works would take on the tasks of draining London, driving new streets through congested districts and, later, clearing the slums through 'Improvement Schemes'.

Remapping with road and rail

There were, though, as many ways of dealing with the slums as there were types of slums themselves. Road-building had long given London's governors - crown and parliament before 1855, local government thereafter - the excuse and opportunity to rid the metropolis of great nests of troublesome neighbourhoods. Commercial Street was driven along the course of Rose Lane, Spitalfields, around 1840, and a little later New Oxford Street was built through the Irish rookery ('The Holy Land') of St Giles in the Fields. Victoria Street cleared part of the 'Devil's Acre' near Westminster Abbey, while Farringdon Road and the underground railway destroyed much of the notorious Field Lane. Even late in the 19th century and into the Edwardian era, the slum-clearance potential of Rosebery Avenue, Clerkenwell, and Kingsway, Holborn were crucial factors when deciding whether public money could be granted for such projects.

Elsewhere railways, those great drivers of London's prosperity at mid-century, swept away Agar Town; this short-lived shanty of the 1840s was destroyed within two decades for the Midland Railway's giant warehouses. It is estimated that railway clearances elsewhere in the metropolis, mainly in the 1860s, evicted 56,000 people, most from the poorer working classes. Suburban development by speculative builders also cleared some slums: in this way Tomlin's New Town was remodelled out of all recognition by 'Tyburnia', north of Hyde Park, in the 1830s.

The slum clearance role of railway schemes was strictly secondary to the commercial needs of the companies, and the primary purpose of road schemes was ostensibly to facilitate London's constipated traffic flows rather than to dislodge the poor, with their dangers and diseases, from the places they had to call home. It was not until the first official slum clearance measure - the Artizans' and Labourers' Dwellings Improvement Act of 1875 - that London government was given a weapon to strike directly at the heart of the city's unhealthy slums.

Health was the driving force behind this act, though almost everywhere it was the most turbulent districts - long known for crime and disorder even more than for infectious disease and high mortality - that were chosen to fall to the housebreaker's hammer. Flower and Dean Street (in the Spitalfields district), Bedfordbury (St Martin-in-the-Fields), Old Pye Street (Westminster), Tabard Street (Southwark) and a host of other districts had long been notorious as criminal haunts, home to large numbers of prostitutes and thieves.

In fact, there were so many potential targets that the Metropolitan Board of Works overreached itself, evicting thousands while the housing associations who should have provided new homes proved unable or unwilling to build, and cleared sites lay empty and undeveloped for years to come. Indeed, by the time of the greatest clearance of all - that for the 'Jago', the Boundary Street area of south-west Bethnal Green, in the 1890s - the London County Council, the replacement authority for the discredited Board of Works, decided itself to build working-class housing on the site. By the turn of the 20th century the Boundary Street Estate would become the first great municipal housing venture in London.

Suburban slums

By that time, however, a new sort of slum had become all too evident. Exuberant building speculations during the three decades following 1845 built a seemingly endless expanse of middle-class housing north of the river, from Pimlico in the west to Dalston in the east. At first there seemed to be a bottomless market for three- and four-storey London properties built in long terraces - but the demand proved illusory. One of the consequences was that product of late-Victorian building: the suburban slum.

This was much more difficult to deal with than the irredeemably shoddy towns of Agar and Tomlin. These houses were solid enough, and certainly pretentious; they were intended for lower middle-class families, with rooms for one or two servants in the attics and a kitchen in the basement. But they either never found those ideal tenants, or quickly lost them to a host of competing streets nearby. Some of these slums were isolated streets that had lost cachet, such as Sultan Street in Camberwell, Litcham Street in Kentish Town, and Campbell Road in Finsbury Park - later described as "the worst street in north London" - albeit being surrounded by respectable streets.

The slum clearance legislation of 1875 was never designed for houses as generous in size, with dedicated sanitary and washing facilities, and sturdily built to last the full length of a 99-year lease. The problem was not so much the houses themselves but the way they were used. Instead of a single middle-class family in occupation, these properties became 'tenement houses' or 'houses let in lodgings', with a working-class family on each floor - increasingly, one in every room.

The most troublesome and intractable of these new suburban slums lay next to the Potteries of North Kensington. Notting Dale, built from the early 1860s, absorbed the older district's habits, and corrupted the streets built nearby to the south and west. Notting Dale became known as 'The West-end Avernus' or 'hell on earth'. By 1896 it was 'home' to more than 4,000 people. Its houses were densely overcrowded, many occupied by 20 people and more, often sharing a single toilet. Here, 43 children out of every 100 would die before reaching their first birthday. According to the local authority, though, the houses were far less of a problem than the people, prone especially to "drunkenness" and "inherited disease". Notting Dale's population was said to be "largely made up of loafers, cab-runners, beggars, tramps, thieves, and prostitutes".

When, at the end of the 19th century, the social reformer Charles Booth pondered how to deal with the "semi-criminal and degraded" populations of Bangor Street, Crescent Street and the other notorious places of Notting Dale and beyond, he could suggest only that they "be harried out of existence". Demolishing homes and dispersing 'savages' was one way of attempting this - but was easier said than done. Notting Dale would not see significant demolitions until the end of the 1930s, and much of the surrounding district retained its evil reputation for another two decades. Even in the early 1960s, and in a very different London, this part of North Kensington would continue to be known as 'a troubled area'.
Jerry White is professor in history at Birkbeck, University of London, specialising in working-class London life since 1700, and author of London in the Nineteenth Century (Jonathan Cape, 2007). This article complemented a five-part BBC Two series The Victorian Slum, showing modern families living in simulated slums, which aired in autumn 2016.
Slum clearances: evicting the lowly
Between 1878 and 1899, slum clearance schemes in central London led to 45,334 men, women and children being evicted. Those, at least, are the official figures; the real numbers may be much higher, because it was in the slum landlord's interest to evict as many people as he could before the official valuation of his property - empty rooms having greater letting potential than houses filled to the rafters. There is no figure for those thus 'winkled out', but even the official number is huge - equivalent to the population of Rotherham in the 1890s. Who were these people? The short answer is: we don't know. The voice of the evicted slum-dweller is, for all practical purposes, silent. Some among them would have been intelligent and articulate, literate and skilled. Most, though, were the nameless poor, who lived large parts of their lives in hunger, cold and semi-nakedness. Perhaps word of mouth told them to stay put for the few shillings of compensation that came their way, but that is all they got. At the end, as the social reformer the Earl of Shaftesbury described in the House of Lords in 1875, when the bailiffs arrived "perplexity and dismay are everywhere; the district has all the air of a town taken by assault". The slums were not cleared to benefit people like these. They were cleared to get rid of them. The Metropolitan Board of Works, and its successor, the London County Council, provided or enabled housing associations to provide dwellings for 46,934 persons. On the face of it, that was a small gain. But those new dwellings were never intended for those who had been evicted. The slum dwellers were kept out by rules with which they couldn't comply, and by rents they couldn't afford. So where did they go? It's likely that they melted into neighbouring streets, or moved to congenial 'slums' nearby or even farther afield. Only a few score of the 45,000 people evicted ever occupied the new London that replaced their old homes. This article was first published in the October 2016 issue of BBC History Magazine

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Life in 19th-century slums: Victorian London's homes from hell

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Some houses consisted of just two rooms, one on top of the other; some were back-to-back with no through ventilation; all shared with neighbouring houses earth-closets built over cesspits, and took their water from a common standpipe.

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Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Industrial Revolution, a period of rapid technological development which brought widespread social and intellectual change to Britain.

In the first of two programmes, Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the Industrial Revolution.Between the middle of the eighteenth century and the early years of the nineteenth, Britain was transformed. This was a revolution, but not a political one: over the course of a few generations industrialisation swept the nation. Inventions such as the machine loom and the steam engine changed the face of manufacturing; cheap iron and steel became widely available; and vast new cities grew up around factory towns.All this had profound effects - not all of them positive - as an agrarian and primitive society was turned into an industrial empire, the richest nation on Earth. But why did this revolution take place here rather than abroad? And why did it begin in the first place?With:Jeremy BlackProfessor of History at the University of ExeterPat HudsonProfessor Emerita of History at Cardiff UniversityWilliam AshworthSenior Lecturer in History at the University of Liverpool.Producer: Thomas Morris.

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BBC Radio 4 - In Our Time, The Industrial Revolution

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Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Industrial Revolution, a period of rapid technological development which brought widespread social and intellectual change to Britain. In the first of two programmes, Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the Industrial Revolution.Between the middle of the eighteenth century and the early years of the nineteenth, Britain was transformed.

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Urban Slums - Timelines.tv History of Britain A12

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Factories and Machines - Timelines.tv History of Britain A11

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Another common issue in industrial cities was smallpox, despite the fact that a vaccine had been developed by Edward Jenner at the beginning of the 19th century. The fact that cities were tightly packed meant the disease could spread easily.

Other major health issues were the diseases typhoid and typhus, which were both fairly common in the Industrial Revolution. Typhus was carried by lice while typhoid was was found in infected water.

Despite all of these disease, tuberculosis (TB) was the biggest killer in the cities. TB attacks the body's lungs and as a result the organs produces what are known as tubercles, which in turn become spongy and yellow - the infected person breaks into fits of coughing in an attempt to spit out the tubercles.

It was usually the malnourished that were struck down by TB, although it did also affect people in damp and dirty homes. The disease can be spread by the sputum of someone who already has the disease, which is then inhaled by someone else. Again, the fact that cities were overcrowded made them the perfect environment for the spread of the disease.

The records, although hard to come by, suggest that TB accounted for a third of death between 1800 and 1850 in Britain.

Louis Pasteur first discovered microbes in 1864. Up until this time there were a number of theories about what caused diseases. One such belief, which dated back to Medieval England, claimed disease was spread by bad smells and invisible poisonous clouds (miasmas). Few people suspected that polluted water supplies could be the cause.

When a typhoid outbreak blighted Croydon in 1852, the local Board of Health tried to find the bad smell it believed would be the cause, whereas in reality the outbreak was caused by sewage contaminated the town's water supply.

John Snow, an English physician, was one of the first sceptics of the miasma theory. His observation of the evidence led him to discount the theory of foul air. He published his investigation into the role of the water supply in the Soho epidemic of 1854, in which he identified the source of the epidemic as a public water pump.

The Public Health Act was passed in 1875 thanks to efforts from reformers like Dr Thomas Smith and Edwin Chadwick. It required all new housing to include running water and an internal drainage system; prohibited the construction of shoddy housing and ensured that every public health authority had a medical officer and sanitary inspector.

See also Are We Wrong About Smallpox blog post.

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Diseases in industrial cities in the Industrial Revolution

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Another common issue in industrial cities was smallpox, despite the fact that a vaccine had been developed by Edward Jenner at the beginning of the 19th century. The fact that cities were tightly packed meant the disease could spread easily. Other major health issues were the diseases typhoid and typhus, which were both fairly common in the Industrial Revolution.

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In the late 18th and 19th centuries, Britain experienced its industrial revolution . With it came a rapid growth in population as well as a huge movement of people from rural areas to industrial towns.

By 1841, Wales had become the first industrial nation with over 50 per cent of its population living in towns and earning a living from industrial work.

Though great progress was made in industry and technology, living and working conditions remained poor and were a major cause of illness and disease.

Industrial towns , like Merthyr and Cardiff, grew rapidly without planning and were overcrowded . The government believed in laissez-faire . This meant that public health schemes were not introduced until the latter part of the 19th century. There were no regulations about the basic standards for housing, sewage and water supply. In the slum areas of cities, diseases like cholera, typhus and diphtheria were endemic . Some could be linked to poor sanitation (cholera) and poor housing (TB) while others were spread by body lice (typhus).

In addition, there were the new industrial diseases . In Wales, coal miners and slate quarrymen died from a range of lung diseases, eg silicosis and pneumoconiosis, while copper workers in Swansea suffered from TB and bronchial conditions. Employers wrongly argued that not only was copper smoke harmless, it was actually healthy.

With dangerous working conditions and little attention to health and safety, industrial accidents also left many dead or injured for life.

There were many reasons why industrial towns were so disease-ridden.

Streets were narrow, often built in courts, with little air or sunlight. Families shared houses so overcrowding was common.

Houses had no clean running water and families shared standpipes which often ran dry in hot summers.

Families also shared privies. These often overflowed on to the street or into the wells from which people drew water.

There was no refuse collection, so rubbish piled up, attracting rodents.

Graveyards were overcrowded, especially during an epidemic, and bodies were not buried deeply enough.

The houses were jerry-built , with the aim of making money for landlords rather than providing warm and healthy accommodation for workers.

Houses were damp inside and hard to heat. Roofs and window frames often leaked.

Worst of all were the cellar dwellings, which were very damp and sometimes flooded with rain or sewage.

The diets of the working population remained poor as they could not afford fresh food.

People rarely washed themselves or their clothes, so became infested with lice and fleas.

Victorian slum housing

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The effects of industrialisation - Causes of illness and disease - WJEC - GCSE History Revision - WJEC - BBC Bitesize

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1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Page 4of 7 In the late 18th and 19th centuries, Britain experienced its industrial revolution . With it came a rapid growth in population as well as a huge movement of people from rural areas to industrial towns.

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The National Archives | Exhibitions | Citizenship | Struggle for democracy

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Changes came in 1833 when the Factory Act was passed. The Act not only created the post of factory inspector, but also made it illegal for textile factories to employ children less than 9 years of age.

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HISTORY CRUNCH - History Articles, Biographies, Infographics, Resources and More

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The Industrial Revolution was a major event in world history and had a profound effect on societies around the world. In particular, the Industrial Revolution impacted the lives of working class people and the children of industrial societies. Child labor was a common feature in industrial societies as children as young as four years old were often employed in the factories and mines that developed during the time. This was particularly true in Britain, where the Industrial Revolution first began in the 1700s.

Child labor was especially common in the late 18th century, during the early years of the Industrial Revolution. At the time, industrial cities and towns grew dramatically due to the migration of farmers and their families who were looking for work in the newly developed factories and mines. The living conditions in the cities and towns were miserable and characterized by: overcrowding, poor sanitation, spread of diseases, and pollution. As well, workers were paid low wages that barely allowed them to afford the cost of living associated with their rent and food. As a result, many of these working-class families needed the extra income that their children earned while working.

The factories and mines of the late 18th century and early 19th century were dangerous and unforgiving places to work in. The working conditions that working-class people faced were known to include: long hours of work (12-16 hour shifts), low wages that barely covered the cost of living, and workplaces with little or no rights. These conditions were difficult for all workers but especially so for children. As such, children often faced incredible hardships and suffered abuse in the workplace. To better understand the situation, its first important to understand the political ideology of the time, which historians refer to as classical liberalism. Classical liberalism is an ideology characterized by laissez-faire capitalism, which means that the government played as little a role in the economy as possible. As a result, there were little to no rules in place for workers in the Industrial Revolution, and the wealthy owners could act in any manner that they wanted. For example, the factories and mines were incredibly dangerous places with very few safeguards.

Because children were small and could fit into tighter spaces, they were often tasked with unclogging machines that had stopped operating. As a result, children often suffered horrible injuries to their hands and fingers when the machines suddenly began working again. For example, a doctor from Manchester, England gave the following report in an 1819 interview. "When I was a surgeon in the infirmary, accidents were very often admitted to the infirmary, through the children's hands and arms having being caught in the machinery; in many instances the muscles, and the skin is stripped down to the bone, and in some instances a finger or two might be lost. Last summer I visited Lever Street School. The number of children at that time in the school, who were employed in factories, was 106. The number of children who had received injuries from the machinery amounted to very nearly one half. There were forty-seven injured in this way." As his report suggests, the injuries that the children suffered were painful and disfiguring and relatively common.

Another hardship that many workers faced in the factories was the grueling heat produced by the numerous machines. Factories in the Industrial Revolution were cramped and contained spaces. Often times, they were built without windows or proper ventilation and as a result the machines would quickly cause the inside temperature of the factory to increase dramatically. For example, in 1824, William Cobbett, a British parliamentarian commented on his visit to a factory. "What... must be the situation of the poor children who are doomed to toil fourteen hours a day, in an average of eighty-two degrees? Can any man, with a heart in his body, and a tongue in his head, refrain from cursing a system that produces such slavery and such cruelty?"

Not only were children forced to work in hot, dangerous and cramped conditions, but if they were injured on the job they had little to no rights to receive compensation. Because the government practised laissez-faire capitalism, this meant that they did not have initiatives in place to force factories to protect workers or to compensate them when they became injured and could no longer work. For example, a report from the British House of Commons in 1832 commented that "workers are often abandoned from the moment that an accident occurs; their wages are stopped, no medical attendance is provided, and whatever the extent of the injury, no compensation is afforded."

As well as working in factories, many children were also employed in coal mines. Coal was one of the key resources necessary for industrialization and one of the reasons that Britain was the first country to industrialize in the 1700s. As well, with the creation of the steam engine, coal became an even more important resource as it was used to power the factories and methods of transportation, such as: ships and trains. Children were used in coal mines to do all sorts of work. In general, their small bodies were ideal for going into deep channels in order to carry coal to the surface. This was a common job completed by children and involved them being connected to a coal cart by a strap so that they could pull the cart of coal behind them. As well, children were also used to sort coal and remove any impurities. Coal mining was difficult and dangerous work for children for several reasons, including: the mine shafts were constantly susceptible to collapse and the air quality was extremely poor and led to breathing problems.

In all, child labor was a common feature of the Industrial Revolution and involved children suffering under horrible and abusive conditions. Whether it was in factories, mines or other workplaces, children were expected to work in hot and dangerous conditions for low amounts of pay and long gruelling hours.

The first major legislation created to place limits on child labor were a series of Factory Acts passed by the British parliament throughout the 1800s. These acts limited the number of hours that children could work and placed regulations on workplaces in terms of safety and cleanliness. For example, by 1819, the Factory Acts limited the workday for British children at 12 hours. By 1833, child labor was further regulated when it became illegal for children under 9 years old to work, and children under 13 were not allowed to work more than 9 hours a day.

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child labor in the industrial revolution

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child labor in the industrial revolution

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child labor in the industrial revolution

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child labor in the industrial revolution

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Child Labor in the Industrial Revolution

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Child Labor in the Industrial Revolution - Child labor was especially common in the late 18th century, during the early years of the Industrial Revolution. At the time, industrial cities and towns grew dramatically due to the migration of farmers and the

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When Was the Industrial Revolution?

Though a few innovations were developed as early as the 1700s, the Industrial Revolution began in earnest by the 1830s and 1840s in Britain, and soon spread to the rest of the world, including the United States.

Modern historians often refer to this period as the First Industrial Revolution, to set it apart from a second period of industrialization that took place from the late 19th to early 20th centuries and saw rapid advances in the steel, electric and automobile industries.

Spinning Jenny

Thanks in part to its damp climate, ideal for raising sheep, Britain had a long history of producing textiles like wool, linen and cotton. But prior to the Industrial Revolution, the British textile business was a true "cottage industry," with the work performed in small workshops or even homes by individual spinners, weavers and dyers.

Starting in the mid-18th century, innovations like the spinning jenny (a wooden frame with multiple spindles), the flying shuttle, the water frame and the power loom made weaving cloth and spinning yarn and thread much easier. Producing cloth became faster and required less time and far less human labor.

More efficient, mechanized production meant Britain's new textile factories could meet the growing demand for cloth both at home and abroad, where the British Empire's many overseas colonies provided a captive market for its goods. In addition to textiles, the British iron industry also adopted new innovations.

Chief among the new techniques was the smelting of iron ore with coke (a material made by heating coal) instead of the traditional charcoal. This method was both cheaper and produced higher-quality material, enabling Britain's iron and steel production to expand in response to demand created by the Napoleonic Wars (1803-15) and the later growth of the railroad industry.

Impact of Steam Power

An icon of the Industrial Revolution broke onto the scene in the early 1700s, when Thomas Newcomen designed the prototype for the first modern steam engine. Called the "atmospheric steam engine," Newcomen's invention was originally applied to power the machines used to pump water out of mine shafts.

In the 1760s, Scottish engineer James Watt began tinkering with one of Newcomen's models, adding a separate water condenser that made it far more efficient. Watt later collaborated with Matthew Boulton to invent a steam engine with a rotary motion, a key innovation that would allow steam power to spread across British industries, including flour, paper, and cotton mills, iron works, distilleries, waterworks and canals.

Just as steam engines needed coal, steam power allowed miners to go deeper and extract more of this relatively cheap energy source. The demand for coal skyrocketed throughout the Industrial Revolution and beyond, as it would be needed to run not only the factories used to produce manufactured goods, but also the railroads and steamships used for transporting them.

Transportation During the Industrial Revolution

Britain's road network, which had been relatively primitive prior to industrialization, soon saw substantial improvements, and more than 2,000 miles of canals were in use across Britain by 1815.

In the early 1800s, Richard Trevithick debuted a steam-powered locomotive, and in 1830 similar locomotives started transporting freight (and passengers) between the industrial hubs of Manchester and Liverpool. By that time, steam-powered boats and ships were already in wide use, carrying goods along Britain's rivers and canals as well as across the Atlantic.

Banking and Communication in the Industrial Revolution

In 1776, Scottish social philosopher Adam Smith, who is regarded as the founder of modern economics, published The Wealth of Nations. In it, Smith promoted an economic system based on free enterprise, the private ownership of means of production, and lack of government interference.

Banks and industrial financiers soon rose to new prominence during this period, as well as a factory system dependent on owners and managers. A stock exchange was established in London in the 1770s; the New York Stock Exchange was founded in the early 1790s.

The latter part of the Industrial Revolution also saw key advances in communication methods, as people increasingly saw the need to communicate efficiently over long distances. In 1837, British inventors William Cooke and Charles Wheatstone patented the first commercial telegraphy system, even as Samuel Morse and other inventors worked on their own versions in the United States.

Cooke and Wheatstone's system would be used for railroad signaling, as the speed of the new steam-powered trains created a need for more sophisticated means of communication.

Labor Movement

Though many people in Britain had begun moving to the cities from rural areas before the Industrial Revolution, this process accelerated dramatically with industrialization, as the rise of large factories turned smaller towns into major cities over the span of decades. This rapid urbanization brought significant challenges, as overcrowded cities suffered from pollution, inadequate sanitation, miserable housing conditions and a lack of safe drinking water.

Meanwhile, even as industrialization increased economic output overall and improved the standard of living for the middle and upper classes, poor and working class people continued to struggle. The mechanization of labor created by technological innovation had made working in factories increasingly tedious (and sometimes dangerous), and many workers-including children-were forced to work long hours for pitifully low wages.

Such dramatic changes and abuses fueled opposition to industrialization worldwide, including the " Luddites," known for their violent resistance to changes in Britain's textile industry.

Did you know? The word "luddite" refers to a person who is opposed to technological change. The term is derived from a group of early 19th century English workers who attacked factories and destroyed machinery as a means of protest. They were supposedly led by a man named Ned Ludd, though he may have been an apocryphal figure.

In the decades to come, outrage over substandard working and living conditions would fuel the formation of labor unions, as well as the passage of new child labor laws and public health regulations in both Britain and the United States, all aimed at improving life for working class and poor citizens who had been negatively impacted by industrialization.

The Industrial Revolution in the United States

The beginning of industrialization in the United States is usually pegged to the opening of a textile mill in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, in 1793 by the recent English immigrant Samuel Slater. Slater had worked at one of the mills opened by Richard Arkwright (inventor of the water frame) mills, and despite laws prohibiting the emigration of textile workers, he brought Arkwright's designs across the Atlantic. He later built several other cotton mills in New England, and became known as the "Father of the American Industrial Revolution."

The United States followed its own path to industrialization, spurred by innovations "borrowed" from Britain as well as by homegrown inventors like Eli Whitney. Whitney's 1793 invention of the cotton gin (short for "engine") revolutionized the nation's cotton industry (and strengthened the hold of slavery over the cotton-producing South).

By the end of the 19th century, with the so-called Second Industrial Revolution underway, the United States would also transition from a largely agrarian society to an increasingly urbanized one, with all the attendant problems.

By the mid-19th century, industrialization was well-established throughout the western part of Europe and America's northeastern region. By the early 20th century, the U.S. had become the world's leading industrial nation.

Effects of the Industrial Revolution

Historians continue to debate many aspects of industrialization, including its exact timeline, why it began in Britain as opposed to other parts of the world and the idea that it was actually more of a gradual evolution than a revolution. The positives and negatives of the Industrial Revolution are complex.

On one hand, unsafe working conditions were rife and environmental pollution from coal and gas are legacies we still struggle with today. On the other, the move to cities and ingenious inventions that made clothing, communication and transportation more affordable and accessible to the masses changed the course of world history.

Regardless of these questions, the Industrial Revolution had a transformative economic, social and cultural impact, and played an integral role in laying the foundations for modern society.

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Sources

Robert C. Allen, The Industrial Revolution: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007
Claire Hopley, "A History of the British Cotton Industry." British Heritage Travel, July 29, 2006
William Rosen, The Most Powerful Idea in the World: A Story of Steam, Industry, and Invention. New York: Random House, 2010
Gavin Weightman, The Industrial Revolutionaries: The Making of the Modern World, 1776-1914. New York: Grove Press, 2007
Matthew White, "Georgian Britain: The Industrial Revolution." British Library, October 14, 2009

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Industrial Revolution: Definition, Inventions & Dates - HISTORY

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The Industrial Revolution of the 1800s, a time of great growth in technologies and inventions, transformed rural societies into industrialized, urban ones.

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Set during World War I, Private Peaceful charts eight hours in the life of Tommo, a young soldier at the Front, as he looks back over the formative events of his life: his father's early death, his relationship with his loving mother and brothers, Big Joe and Charlie, and their beloved schoolfriend Molly - all set among an evocative and beautifully realised rural landscape.

Passionate, beguiling and moving, this award-winning story is also an unflinching examination of the horrors of war and the injustice surrounding the execution of soldiers by firing squad, on the - often false - grounds of desertion or cowardice. Former Children's Laureate Michael Morpurgo uses all his superb storytelling skills to weave this powerful, poignant tale of the horrors of World War I, which will touch readers of all ages.

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Set during World War I, Private Peaceful charts eight hours in the life of Tommo, a young soldier at the Front, as he looks back over the formative events of his life: his father's early death, his relationship with his loving mother and brothers, Big Joe and Charlie, and their beloved schoolfriend Molly - all set among an evocative and beautifully realised rural landscape.

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Joey is a young farm horse, sold to the army at the beginning of the First World War. Through his eyes the reader experiences the devastation of the Western Front, his capture by the Germans and his entrapment in No Man's Land.

Joey's tremendous courage touches soldiers of both armies; in turn, he experiences warmth and kindness amid the carnage of war, and homesickness for his old life on the farm.

Morpurgo has approached this bitter conflict from an unusual and moving perspective, focusing on the valuable role that animals played throughout the war, and the dignity that both creatures and men showed in the face of suffering.

Some might say that Michael Morpurgo is the nation's storyteller. A titan of literature, children all over the planet love and devour his books.

These chapter books are perfect for engaging children who love animals, with something for everyone from reluctant readers to those reading above their age level.

These books about World War I will offer young readers a range of different perspectives on the conflict, ranging from picture books to teen novels there's something here for everyone.

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Joey is a young farm horse, sold to the army at the beginning of the First World War. Through his eyes the reader experiences the devastation of the Western Front, his capture by the Germans and his entrapment in No Man's Land.

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First World War

In 1914, the Germans and their allies went to war not just with Britain, but with the whole of the British Empire. Over 3 million soldiers and labourers from across the Empire and Commonwealth served alongside the British Army in the First World War.

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The Commonwealth and the First World War

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Over 3 million soldiers and labourers from across the Empire and Commonwealth served alongside the British Army in the First World War.

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Walter came from a mixed-race family. His mother, Alice, was a Folkestone local. His father, Daniel, moved from Barbados to England. He married twice and had six children.

After Daniel's death in 1897, Walter's stepmother had to move Walter and his brother Edward to an orphanage in East London.

The city was busy and noisy. It was very different to the farms and countryside Walter was used to.

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Who was Walter Tull and what were his achievements during World War One? Find out in this year 5/6 primary history guide from BBC Bitesize.

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At 7.30am on 1 July 1916, whistles were blown along a line of British soldiers.

Thousands of men then climbed on to what was known as no man's land.

This was the first day of the Somme - one of the deadliest battles of World War One.

Thousands of soldiers died in a very short amount of time.

In total, more than one million soldiers were killed or wounded on both sides of the fight.

The people in charge said that the battle had to happen to win the war, but even now people can't agree on whether it was the right decision or a huge mistake.

Why did the battle take place?

On 4 August 1914, Britain declared war on Germany.

It became known as "The Great War" because it affected people all over the world and was the biggest war anyone had ever known.

The war was fought between two powerful groups - the Allied Powers, which Britain and France were part of, and the Central Powers, led by Germany with Austria-Hungary.
Guide: World War One
A lot of the fighting took place along the Western Front where the soldiers had dug out special ditches called trenches.

The two sets of trenches faced each other across an area called no man's land.

The soldiers lived in the trenches and mounted attacks using things like rifles, machine guns and poison gas.

The aim of the Allied attacks were to break through the enemy's trenches and push the German Army back towards the centre of Europe.

Breaking through the trenches wasn't easy.

So the British and French planned a really big attack that became known as the Battle of the Somme.

What happened in the Battle of the Somme?

To weaken the German defences, the Allied forces fired shells from artillery guns. The shelling, called a bombardment, went on for a whole week.

When it had finished, the British and French soldiers came out of their trenches and headed towards the German lines.

They weren't expecting much of a fight because everyone thought that the shells would have killed the German soldiers.

But there was a problem. When the shelling started the Germans hid in special shelters called dug-outs.

They waited underground for a week and when the shelling finished they came out and fired machine guns at the advancing Allied troops.

The British troops were caught in no man's land and couldn't hide from the German bullets.

Many soldiers lost their lives.

How long did it last?

The fighting started on 1 July 1916.

Because it's called a battle you might imagine that it all happened in a few days, but it actually went on for months and finally finished in November 1916.

Who were the soldiers?

The battle was between the German Army on one side and the British and French on the other.

The German Army was thought to be a better fighting force because more of its soldiers had been given full training. They were mostly professional soldiers and trained reservists.

The British Army also had professional soldiers but it was mostly made up of volunteers.

It was the start of the war so the soldiers who died were those who had been first to volunteer.

The British often fought in groups nicknamed Pals Battalions, where everyone in the battalion came from the same towns and villages.

How many people were killed?

More than one million soldiers were killed or wounded in the Battle of the Somme.

On the first day of the battle, nearly 20,000 British soldiers were killed, another 40,000 were injured. This was the biggest single loss of life in the history of the British Army.

The fighting continued over the next five months and by the end of the battle about 420,000 British soldiers had died.

Was the battle a failure?

The British and French troops made only a small advance into the German-held areas.

Because of this, many people saw it as a failure and thought that General Haig, who was in charge of the British Army, had not done a good job.

Most people who study this part of history do agree that the Battle of the Somme drained the German Army and this was an important first step towards the Allied victory in 1918.

Where is the Somme?

The Somme is a river in northern France and the fighting was along a 40km line north and south of the river, between Serre and Curlu.

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What was the Battle of the Somme? - CBBC Newsround

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At 7.30am on 1 July 1916, whistles were blown along a line of British soldiers. Thousands of men then climbed on to what was known as no man's land. This was the first day of the Somme - one of the deadliest battles of World War One.

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Soldiers who witnessed and took part in the first day of the Battle of the Somme give their accounts of it in recordings drawn from the IWM and BBC sound archives.

The final programme in this instalment of Voices of the First World War focuses on the first catastrophic ten minutes of the Battle of the Somme, with men recalling the orders they were given, the reality on the ground as it became clear the German wire hadn't been cut by the British bombardment and their memory of those around them being mown down by machine gun fire as they attempted to cross No Man's Land. Dan Snow brings together first hand accounts drawn from the sound archives of the IWM and the BBC, some vivid and detailed and others clearly clouded by the trauma of their experience and the intervening years, to reveal the devastation on the battlefield, and surviving soldiers' feelings about the heavy losses suffered by the British by the end of the day on 1st July.

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BBC Radio 4 - Voices of the First World War, The Somme: Over the Top

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Soldiers who witnessed and took part in the first day of the Battle of the Somme give their accounts of it in recordings drawn from the IWM and BBC sound archives.

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Why did Commonwealth soldiers serve in the First World War?

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Soldiers from the Empire and Commonwealth made a significant contribution to the Somme offensive. On 1 July 1916 a battalion from Newfoundland, attacked with the 29th Division, while the 1st Battalion, The Lincolnshire Regiment included a contingent from the Bermuda Volunteer Rifle Corps. Soldiers of the British West Indies Regiment were not given the opportunity to fight as equals alongside white soldiers. Instead, the War Office largely limited their participation to 'labour' duties, but the use of BWIR soldiers in supporting roles intensified during the Battle of the Somme as casualties among fighting troops meant that reinforcements were needed in the front line.

A division of Indian cavalry and a South African brigade were among the reserve forces of Fourth Army ready to help exploit any breakthrough on the first day. Both went into action on 14 July 1916. They were joined by Australians, New Zealanders and Canadians, and all took part in the fierce attritional fighting that characterised the Somme.

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The Role Of Empire And Commonwealth Troops During The Battle Of The Somme

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Soldiers from the Empire and Commonwealth made a significant contribution to the Somme offensive. On 1 July 1916 a battalion from Newfoundland, attacked with the 29th Division, while the 1st Battalion, The Lincolnshire Regiment included a contingent from the Bermuda Volunteer Rifle Corps.

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BBC4 doc Walter Tull Forgotten Hero first 15mins.mov

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First 15 mins of BBC4 doc Walter Tull Forgotten Hero Sign the e-petition for Walter to be awarded his Military Cross at http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/41209

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Stories From The Somme | Great Battles Of The Great War (WW1 Documentary) | Timeline

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On 1 July 1916, 150,000 British men emerged from their trenches to assault the German lines near the River Somme. For seven days previously, the enemy's position had been relentlessly shelled, but the line had withstood the bombardment, and the British infantry found the German machine guns waiting.

The assault failed disastrously, and at massive human cost. The British army suffered 60,000 casualties in just the first day.

German and British army veterans recall their experiences of the Battle of the Somme.

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BBC Two - Bitesize Secondary, History, The Battle of the Somme

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On 1 July 1916, 150,000 British men emerged from their trenches to assault the German lines near the River Somme. For seven days previously, the enemy's position had been relentlessly shelled, but the line had withstood the bombardment, and the British infantry found the German machine guns waiting.

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They were the forgotten voices of the first world war: 1.5 million men, mostly illiterate villagers from northern India, fighting under the command of colonial masters who repaid their bravery and sacrifices with brutality and prejudice.

More Indians fought with the British from 1914 to 1918 than the combined total of Australian, New Zealand, Canadian and South African troops. Some 34,000 Indian soldiers were killed on battlefields in Europe, Africa and the Middle East. But the part they played in the war has been largely whitewashed from history.

Now, just before the 11 November armistice centenary, the last testimonies of the British Empire's first world war Indian servicemen - 1,000 pages of veteran interview transcripts - have been offered to the British Library.

The first-hand accounts paint a picture of racial segregation and discrimination alongside extraordinary bravery and an awakening hunger for civil rights and independence.

Oral histories were taken from Indian veterans in the 1970s by a team led by DeWitt Ellinwood, an American historian and anthropologist. Transcripts of the recordings have been offered to the British Library by George Morton-Jack, a British historian who traced the material to Ellinwood's house in upstate New York where it had been stored for decades.

Many of the Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs who served under British command came from poor villages in colonial Punjab and other rural areas. Until now, the best known source on their service has been the letters home from a small proportion of Indian soldiers on the western front, translations of which are held in the British Library and are available online.

The letters - mostly dictated to scribes by illiterate Indian soldiers - were composed in the knowledge that they would be read by censors. "They were careful about what they said. They knew dissent could be punished by the British as their colonial masters. So they habitually held back their true feelings," said Morton-Jack, the author of The Indian Empire at War.

"But the interviews show they had a strong sense of the racial discrimination they suffered under the British, and their growing belief that they should have civil rights, they shouldn't be subject to colonial domination, and they should live in their own free country. They describe how those feelings developed through the war," he said.

Sujan Singh, who was 80 when he was interviewed, said: "We were slaves." Nand Singh spoke of a "curtain of fear" separating the Indian and white soldiers. They were subject to floggings and other inhumane physical punishment, paid less than their white counterparts, segregated in camps and on trains and ships, denied home leave, and barred from positions of command.

"The British treatment of them was painful in many ways, but at the time they routinely did not speak the truth of their hearts to British power. Their feelings come out in the transcripts," said Morton-Jack.

Their war service also opened their minds to new ideas about colonial rule. "I felt that Indians should also enjoy freedom like the people of other countries," said Narain Singh.

Matt Singh, who was 85 when interviewed, said: "When we were in France, we felt the French people were so lucky and were enjoying their freedom. So we also felt that India should be free - this war showed us the right path."

After the war it took another 30 years before the British Raj ended and India became an independent state. Morton-Jack said: "It's difficult to overstate how special these transcripts are. There are two messages from these forgotten voices. The negative one is the racial discrimination they suffered. But the positive one is the increasing recognition that the British were denying them civil and political rights and their inner drive for racial equality."

Over the past four years, British Asians have joined in the centenary commemorations of the first world war, but many feel there should be greater acknowledgement of the role of Indian troops.

"The first world war has traditionally been presented in schools, history books and cinema as a white war. But many in the UK's British Asian community are saying: we were there too," said Morton-Jack.

After Ellinwood and his team completed their recordings, he led the mammoth task of transcribing and analysing the content. But he was diverted by other projects, and eventually stored the material at his home in Albany, New York.

Morton-Jack was alerted to their existence by a footnote in one of Ellinwood's academic articles. By the time he made contact, the US historian was in his 80s and knew he would never complete his work on the Indian veterans.

Ellinwood, who died in 2012, bestowed the transcripts to Morton-Jack with the suggestion that eventually the British Library might take them. Morton-Jack has also discussed the possibility of making them publicly accessible in India. "Ultimately, the transcripts should be available to all, including families of Indian servicemen remembering their part in the war 100 years ago."
The Indian Empire at War: From Jihad to Victory, the Untold Story of the Indian Army in the First World War by George Morton-Jack is published by Little, Brown (£25). To order a copy for £22 go to guardianbookshop.com or call 0330 333 6846.
* Of the British empire's colonies, India contributed the most men to the war effort - around 1.5 million - while self-governing nations within the Commonwealth, including Canada, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand and Newfoundland, contributed a further 1.3 million men.

* In proportional terms, New Zealand made one of the largest contributions to the war: 5% of its men aged 15-49 were killed.

* Over 16,000 from the West Indies served, including 10,000 from Jamaica. Others came from Trinidad and Tobago, Barbados, the Bahamas, British Honduras (Belize), Grenada, British Guiana (Guyana), the Leeward Islands, St Lucia and St Vincent.

* At least 180,000 Africans served in the Carrier Corps in east Africa, providing logistics support to the front.
Topics

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Indians in the trenches: voices of forgotten army are finally to be heard

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They were the forgotten voices of the first world war: 1.5 million men, mostly illiterate villagers from northern India, fighting under the command of colonial masters who repaid their bravery and sacrifices with brutality and prejudice. More Indians fought with the British from 1914 to 1918 than the combined total of Australian, New Zealand, Canadian and South African troops.

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In the autumn of 1918, Germany and its allies were exhausted. Their armies were defeated and their hungry citizens were beginning to rebel. As early as 29 September German General and Stategist Erich Ludendorff decided that a cessation of hostilities must be sought. The need became more urgent as Germany's allies began to drop out of the war.

The German government approached the United States with a request for an armistice. They hoped that this would be based on the 'Fourteen Points' laid down in January 1918 by US President Woodrow Wilson as a foundation for 'peace without victory'. By October however, with their troops bloodily engaged on the Western Front, American attitudes had hardened.

The armistice negotiations were not in fact conducted by the Allied governments, but by their commander-in-chief, Ferdinand Foch. He ensured that its conditions made it impossible for the German Army to recommence fighting.

The abdication of Kaiser Wilhelm II and the formation of a democratic government in Germany were necessary adjuncts to the armistice. The generals ensured that the new Socialist government was tarnished with the humiliation of the defeat for which they themselves were responsible.

The signing of the armistice was greeted with varied responses. In many Allied towns and cities - especially those freed from enemy occupation - there were scenes of happiness. However, the celebratory mood was tempered by the grief of the many thousands who mourned for the war dead. Away from the Western Front, the signing of armistices did not necessarily mean an end to conflict. Fighting continued while peace negotiations got under way.

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How Did The Armistice End The First World War?

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In the autumn of 1918, Germany and its allies were exhausted. Their armies were defeated and their hungry citizens were beginning to rebel. As early as 29 September German General and Stategist Erich Ludendorff decided that a cessation of hostilities must be sought.

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Approximately 1.3 million Indian soldiers served in World War One, and over 74,000 of them lost their lives. But history has mostly forgotten these sacrifices, which were rewarded with broken promises of Indian independence from the British government, writes Shashi Tharoor.

Exactly 100 years after the "guns of August" boomed across the European continent, the world has been extensively commemorating that seminal event. The Great War, as it was called then, was described at the time as "the war to end all wars". Ironically, the eruption of an even more destructive conflict 20 years after the end of this one meant that it is now known as the First World War. Those who fought and died in the First World War would have had little idea that there would so soon be a Second.

But while the war took the flower of Europe's youth to its premature grave, snuffing out the lives of a generation of talented poets, artists, cricketers and others whose genius bled into the trenches, it also involved soldiers from faraway lands that had little to do with Europe's bitter traditional hatreds.

The role and sacrifices of Australians, New Zealanders, Canadians and South Africans have been celebrated for some time in books and novels, and even rendered immortal on celluloid in award-winning films like Gallipoli. Of the 1.3 million Indian troops who served in the conflict, however, you hear very little.

Find out more

Shashi Tharoor is a former minister in India's Congress party and a former UN diplomat. He is the author of a number of books on the history, culture, politics, and foreign policy of India.

Delhi - Parting Words broadcasts on BBC Radio 3's The Essay: World War One Round the World on Thursday 2 July at 22:45 BST as part of a global year-long partnership between the British Council, BBC World Service and BBC Radio 3 called The War That Changed the World. You can catch up via the BBC iPlayer.

As many as 74,187 Indian soldiers died during the war and a comparable number were wounded. Their stories, and their heroism, have long been omitted from popular histories of the war, or relegated to the footnotes.

India contributed a number of divisions and brigades to the European, Mediterranean, Mesopotamian, North African and East African theatres of war. In Europe, Indian soldiers were among the first victims who suffered the horrors of the trenches. They were killed in droves before the war was into its second year and bore the brunt of many a German offensive.

It was Indian jawans (junior soldiers) who stopped the German advance at Ypres in the autumn of 1914, soon after the war broke out, while the British were still recruiting and training their own forces. Hundreds were killed in a gallant but futile engagement at Neuve Chappelle. More than 1,000 of them died at Gallipoli, thanks to Churchill's folly. Nearly 700,000 Indian sepoys (infantry privates) fought in Mesopotamia against the Ottoman Empire, Germany's ally, many of them Indian Muslims taking up arms against their co-religionists in defence of the British Empire.

The most painful experiences were those of soldiers fighting in the trenches of Europe. Letters sent by Indian soldiers in France and Belgium to their family members in their villages back home speak an evocative language of cultural dislocation and tragedy. "The shells are pouring like rain in the monsoon," declared one. "The corpses cover the country, like sheaves of harvested corn," wrote another.

These men were undoubtedly heroes - pitchforked into battle in unfamiliar lands, in harsh and cold climatic conditions they were neither used to nor prepared for, fighting an enemy of whom they had no knowledge, risking their lives every day for little more than pride. Yet they were destined to remain largely unknown once the war was over: neglected by the British, for whom they fought, and ignored by their own country, from which they came.

Part of the reason is that they were not fighting for their own country. None of the soldiers was a conscript - soldiering was their profession. They served the very British Empire that was oppressing their own people back home.

The British raised men and money from India, as well as large supplies of food, cash and ammunition, collected both by British taxation of Indians and from the nominally autonomous princely states. In return, the British had insincerely promised to deliver progressive self-rule to India at the end of the war. Perhaps, had they kept that pledge, the sacrifices of India's First World War soldiers might have been seen in their homeland as a contribution to India's freedom.

But the British broke their word. Mahatma Gandhi, who returned to his homeland for good from South Africa in January 1915, supported the war, as he had supported the British in the Boer War. The great Nobel Prize-winning poet, Rabindranath Tagore, was somewhat more sardonic about nationalism. "We, the famished, ragged ragamuffins of the East are to win freedom for all humanity!" he wrote during the war. "We have no word for 'nation' in our language."

India was wracked by high taxation to support the war and the high inflation accompanying it, while the disruption of trade caused by the conflict led to widespread economic losses - all this while the country was also reeling from a raging influenza epidemic that took many lives. But nationalists widely understood from British statements that at the end of the war India would receive the Dominion Status hitherto reserved for the "White Commonwealth".

It was not to be. When the war ended in triumph for Britain, India was denied its promised reward. Instead of self-government, the British imposed the repressive Rowlatt Act, which vested the Viceroy's government with extraordinary powers to quell "sedition" against the Empire by silencing and censoring the press, detaining political activists without trial, and arresting without a warrant any individuals suspected of treason against the Empire. Public protests against this draconian legislation were quelled ruthlessly. The worst incident was the Jallianwallah Bagh massacre of April 1919, when Brigadier-General Reginald Dyer ordered his troops to fire without warning on 15,000 unarmed and non-violent men, women and children demonstrating peacefully in an enclosed garden in Amritsar, killing as many as 1,499 and wounding up to 1,137.

The fact that Dyer was hailed as a hero by the British, who raised a handsome purse to reward him for his deed, marked the final rupture between British imperialism and its Indian subjects. Sir Rabindranath Tagore returned his knighthood to the British in protest against "the helplessness of our position as British subjects in India". He did not want a "badge of honour" in "the incongruous context of humiliation".

With British perfidy providing such a sour ending to the narrative of a war in which India had given its all and been spurned in return, Indian nationalists felt that the country had nothing to thank its soldiers for. They had merely gone abroad to serve their foreign masters. Losing your life or limb in a foreign war fought at the behest of your colonial rulers was an occupational hazard - it did not qualify to be hailed as a form of national service.

Or so most Indian nationalists thought, and they allowed the heroism of their compatriots to be forgotten. When the world commemorated the 50th anniversary of the First World War in 1964, there was scarcely a mention of India's soldiers anywhere, least of all in India.

India's absence from the commemorations, and its failure to honour the dead, were not a major surprise. Nor was the lack of First World War memorials in the country: the general feeling was that India, then freshly freed from the imperial yoke, was ashamed of its soldiers' participation in a colonial war and saw nothing to celebrate.

The British, however, went ahead and commemorated the war by constructing the triumphal arch known as India Gate in New Delhi. India Gate, built in 1931, is a popular monument, visited by hundreds daily who have no idea that it commemorates the Indian soldiers who lost their lives fighting in World War One.

In the absence of a national war memorial, many Indians like myself see it as the only venue to pay homage to those who have lost their lives in more recent conflicts. I have stood there many times, on the anniversaries of wars with China and Pakistan, and bowed my head without a thought for the men who died in foreign fields a century ago.

As a member of parliament, I twice raised the demand for a national war memorial (after a visit to the hugely impressive Australian one in Canberra) and was told there were no plans to construct one here. It was therefore personally satisfying to me, and to many of my compatriots, when the government of India announced in its budget for 2014-15 its intention finally to create a national war memorial. We are not a terribly militaristic society, but for a nation that has fought many wars and shed the blood of many heroes, and whose resolve may yet be tested in conflicts to come, it seems odd that there is no memorial to commemorate, honour and preserve the memories of those who have fought for India.

The centenary is finally forcing a rethink. Remarkable photographs have been unearthed of Indian soldiers in Europe and the Middle East, and these are enjoying a new lease of life online. Looking at them, I find it impossible not to be moved - these young men, visibly so alien to their surroundings, some about to head off for battle, others nursing terrible wounds. My favourite picture is of a bearded and turbaned Indian soldier on horseback in Mesopotamia in 1918, leaning over in his saddle to give his rations to a starving local peasant girl. This spirit of compassion has been repeatedly expressed by Indian peacekeeping units in United Nations operations since, from helping Lebanese civilians in the Indian battalion's field hospital to treating the camels of Somali nomads during the UN operation there. It embodies the ethos the Indian solider brings to soldiering, whether at home or abroad.

For many Indians, curiosity has overcome the fading colonial-era resentments of British exploitation. We are beginning to see the soldiers of World War One as human beings, who took the spirit of their country to battlefields abroad. The Centre for Armed Forces Historical Research in Delhi is painstakingly working to retrieve memorabilia of that era and reconstruct the forgotten story of the 1.3 million Indian soldiers who served in the First World War. Some of the letters are unbearably poignant, especially those urging relatives back home not to commit the folly of enlisting in this futile cause. Others hint at delights officialdom frowned upon - some Indian soldiers' appreciative comments about the receptivity of Frenchwomen to their attentions, for instance.

Astonishingly, almost no fiction has emerged from or about the perspective of the Indian troops. An exception is Mulk Raj Anand's Across the Black Waters, the tale of a sepoy, Lalu, dispossessed from his land, fighting in a war he cannot understand, only to return to his village to find he has lost everything and everyone who mattered to him. The only other novel I have read about Indians in the war, John Masters' The Ravi Lancers, inevitably is a Briton's account, culminating in an Indian unit deciding to fight on in Europe "because we gave our word to serve".

Dear Father...

This letter was written by an Indian soldier, Ram Singh (soldier in the Garhwal Rifles) from the Kitchener Indian Hospital in Brighton, to his father. The original letter (pictured) was censored and is held by Professor KC Yadav, Gurgaon/India. The British Library has put the translations of a number of letters from Indian soldiers online, including this one.

Ram Singh acknowledges that letters are being censored. "We're not allowed to write about the war," he writes. He complains how difficult the war was proving to be. He writes that the information printed in the newspapers was lies, implying that the stories of progress made in capturing ground were exaggerated, when in fact they had "only captured 400 yards of trenches".

But Indian literature touched the war experience in one tragic tale. When the great British poet Wilfred Owen (author of the greatest anti-war poem in the English language, Dulce et Decorum Est) was to return to the front to give his life in the futile First World War, he recited Tagore's Parting Words to his mother as his last goodbye. When he was so tragically and pointlessly killed, Owen's mother found Tagore's poem copied out in her son's hand in his diary:

The Commonwealth War Graves Commission maintains war cemeteries in India, mostly commemorating the Second World War rather than the First. The most famous epitaph of them all is inscribed at the Kohima War Cemetery in North-East India. It reads, "When you go home, tell them of us and say/ For your tomorrow, we gave our today".

The Indian soldiers who died in the First World War could make no such claim. They gave their "todays" for someone else's "yesterdays". They left behind orphans, but history has orphaned them as well. As Imperialism has bitten the dust, it is recalled increasingly for its repression and racism, and its soldiers, when not reviled, are largely regarded as having served an unworthy cause.

But they were men who did their duty, as they saw it. And they were Indians. It is a matter of quiet satisfaction that their overdue rehabilitation has now begun.

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Why the Indian soldiers of WW1 were forgotten

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Only now are the sacrifices made by thousands of Indians who lost their lives in WW1 beginning to be remembered, writes Shashi Tharoor.

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Walter Tull. It's a name every player and football fan should know. But in reality, few know the story of this incredible man and his contribution to society and the game. I believe this needs to be addressed.

Tull was one of the very first black professional footballers. Born in east London, he made his debut for Tottenham Hotspur in September 1909, before going on to play for Northampton Town. He was also the first black officer in the British army to lead white troops. A pioneer in football and the armed forces, he was tragically killed serving his country. His story has all the elements of a Hollywood blockbuster.

Tull and the other pioneering black players from that era - such as Arthur Wharton and Andrew Watson - led the way for Kylian Mbappé, Neymar, Raheem Sterling and icons including Pelé, Eusébio and Ronaldo. And yet their stories are so unknown.

The same can be said of women's football - the first female player of colour is thought to have made her senior debut in 1895. Some believe her name to be Emma Clarke, and historians are still debating her story. Whatever her identity, that the history of BAME women in the game is virtually unknown says so much about this neglected narrative.

I have a personal synergy with Tull; like his, my father is from Barbados. My curiosity about Tull's story led me to organise a trip to his ancestral home on the island. Thanks to Phil Vasili, the world's leading expert on Tull, I was able to identify the Clifton Hall Estate Plantation as a place where his father once lived.

I was enthusiastic travelling to the estate to learn more about the Tull family but soon found the brutal reality of where I was heading difficult to comprehend. This wasn't a trip where I would be viewing family pictures on the walls - Tull's family were slaves. His father was part of the first generation born free, but his grandfather was not.

On arrival at the great house it is hard not to be impressed by the beauty of the huge building and its surrounding grounds. But before long I was thinking about the horrors of slavery, somethingthat is impossible to fully get your head around. I also wondered how much Tull's father would have shared with his son - who never visited Barbados - about the family's life on the island. The family must have gone through so much. Could this have been where Tull got his resolve and bravery?

The owner of the estate, Massimo Franchi, a charismatic Glaswegian - and coincidentally a football agent - had no idea of Tull's connection to the property. He was delighted to know more and said he would ensure the Tull family would now feature as part of the estate tours.

The visit really moved me. Football is the world's game; it touches people. Black professional footballers are found in the majority of leagues across the globe - and yet our appreciation of a pioneer such as Tull is minimal. This surely needs to change.

After all, every black professional footballer owes a lot to him. Scratch that, football as a whole owes him. Can you imagine a game without black players?

Racism in football has been well documented: exclusion, abuse and humiliation. Without black pioneers opening doors for the generations that followed, where would we be? Personally I feel I owe a debt of gratitude to those who went before me.

And yet, before a friend made me aware of Tull a few years ago, I knew nothing about his story. In the 15 years I've been in and around professional football I cannot remember his name being mentioned. Not at training, not in the dressing room, not on the team bus.

It's important to recognise that lots of good people and organisations have been trying to raise awareness of Tull. Phil Vasili has dedicated much of his life to this, as have Howard Holmes at FURD (Football Unites, Racism Divides), Kick It Out, Fare Network, the Football Black List and the PFA. The armed services and others have worked hard to share the Tull story, too, while Northampton Town have proudly highlighted and celebrated Tull - there is a pub named after him outside the ground on Walter Tull Way and a statue in the centre of the town.

But imagine if Tottenham Hotspur named part of their new ground after him? Could Fifa pay tribute to him - naming a tournament or cup after Tull? How about incorporating his story into the education of apprentices across professional club academies?

My connection to Tull grew much stronger when I found out that his father was from Barbados and he was also of mixed heritage. I have worked to raise awareness of him on the island. Barbados has someone who should be an icon in the world game.

For a long time I've been doing community and charity work in an area of Barbados called Pine. I go there during the off-season when I visit family on the island. It's a place where young people are determined to do something positive with their lives, but they face low employment and a history of gang-related problems. Beyond the pictures of Barbados in the holiday brochures, life for those who live there can be tough.

Football has played a crucial role in bringing the community together. I saw first hand how the game was changing lives there thanks to the amazing staff at Pinelands Youth Soccer Academy and I wanted to bring Tull's story to them. We organised school visits and a tournament in his name. The response was wonderful. The pride the young people had in the association with Tull was evident on each occasion we told his story. Barbados has a football icon and they wanted to know more.

Walter Tull's impact on the young Barbadians was magical to see, and my community work in the country will always feature him. I will also be making a point of sharing his story more widely with teammates and friends.

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We can all learn something from Tull's story. For me, it underlined the importance of pioneers. I'm told I am the first British Jewish footballer to play in the Premier League. I hope by doing more to share that myself, it will encourage players from the community to follow my lead.

So let's make a greater effort to maximise the positive change Tull's story can encourage, and celebrate this genuine hero of the world game.
Nick Blackman currently plays for Maccabi Tel Aviv Topics

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Walter Tull: football's hidden pioneer whose story everyone should know

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Walter Tull. It's a name every player and football fan should know. But in reality, few know the story of this incredible man and his contribution to society and the game. I believe this needs to be addressed. Tull was one of the very first black professional footballers.

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ne hundred years ago today remains the worst day in British army history, as 19,240 soldiers lost their lives on the first day of the battle of the Somme. Guardian readers have been sharing wartime letters, diaries and photographs passed on to them by relatives or friends who were involved. From young recruits to a nurse and a chaplain here are some of their stories about the Somme.

The 19-year-old barman and Lancashire clerk who died on the first day

Born in 1897 in Plaistow, Essex, Pte Charles John Harvey was in the No 1 section, 64th company, Machine Gun Corps (Infantry). He had three sibings and worked as a barman before he enlisted. Charles was killed during the advance on the village of Fricourt on 1 July.

His last letter home was written four days before he died:

Dear Mother and Dad,

I now take the pleasure of writing to you hoping the letter will find you in the best of health as it leaves me at the time of writing. Also to let you know that I have just got your letter with the birthday cards and I thank you very much for them - they both have very good tokens on them and are very pretty. I will look after them and each time I look at them will remind me of the first birthday I have ever had away from my home. But I am living in great hope that by next June 1917 I will be with you all at home and enjoying myself.

Well I am very pleased to hear that you are getting on a bit better and that Dad is at work again, and I must say that i am getting on with the life well. I think I shall soon be a regular pipe smoker which will be better for my chest as you know I am very short winded and it's a great trouble to me out here. I would be glad if I could get my wind back again. Well I am quite satisfied with the cards and I won't forget that home and Mother and Dad are my best friends when I am in trouble again. I think I done wrong when I joined up the second time but all being well, and with God's help, I will soon be with you all again.

I think this is all I can tell you at the time of writing. So I close this letter with best love to all at home wishing you all the very best prospects of the year.

From your Loving Son,
Charlie

Kisses for Dollie xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
From her Loving Brother Charlie

Tell Aunt Lizzie that I thank her for the card she sent.

A loving heart but far away but thinks of home every day, though the war may last long I hope to come home well and strong.

Submitted by great-niece Elizabeth Dean
Born in Ulverston, Lancashire on 8 November 1889, Cpl Frank Porter was a clerk in an estates office when he enlisted in the King's Own Royal Lancaster Regiment. He and his twin sister, Ethel, were the youngest of five children born to Robert and Jane Porter.

Frank went to Ulverston National School and worked for a solicitor after he left. He then joined the Old Volunteers in which he served for three years, and was a corporal in the new territorial force for 12 months. He died aged 26 at Serre on the first day of the battle of the Somme.

A letter to Frank's mother from one of his comrades said:

It is with deep regret I write these few lines informing you of the death of your son Frank, which occurred on 1st July, 1916. He was in the same platoon as myself, and we were very great chums, and I think it my duty to write to you. He was well liked by all in the company, and by his death we have lost a good comrade. He died doing his duty - leading his section in action, and I can assure you he got a good name and a proper burial, and the platoon and myself share our sympathy with you in your sad bereavement.

Submitted by great-nephew Andy Porter
The capture of Trônes Wood: the missing soldier and the prisoner of war

Harry Norman Snape, born in 1893, was a prisoner of war (POW) after being captured at the battle of Trônes Wood. He wrote many letters during his time at the front until his capture on 10 July 1916.

One of them dated 20 June refers to "The Day", which was to become the first day of the battle of the Somme:

We are training for 'The Day'. We are only here for a day or two and then back. I can't say when it'll come off but when it does I think that we all shall be ready. Honestly, kid, I am going to try and do something. Nothing rash of course but I'm going to have a good try for honours. There are three of us here pals together, Clem Nixon, a chap we call 'Ginger' (H Rogers) & myself. The aforesaid Ginger is in for a Military Medal for attending the wounded under shell fire ... This is the last letter I can write for a bit for post is stopped from here after tonight.

Best Love Harry.
Don't worry. I shall be A1.
Love to all.

A few days later Harry's battalion assembled in Maricourt, just west of Trônes Wood, as part of a strategic offensive to capture the village of Guillemont. Although they crossed the first 200 yards of no man's land without incident, they encountered heavy shell fire from the Germans.

The Germans retaliated and Trônes Wood came under heavy bombardment. The allied troops found themselves locked in and were eventually bombed out. All were killed or, as in the case of Harry Snape, captured. Over 200 men were missing after the battle of Trônes Wood.

Due to wounds on his hands and wrist Harry was hospitalised before being transferred to the POW camp in Hammelburg. He continued to write during his time there until his release and subsequent return home.

Submitted by John Willmott
John Patrick Connolly was 23-years-old when he went missing during the assault. What follows is an extract from the regimental diary of the 2nd battalion Yorkshire Regiment.

The Attack on Trones Wood, Somme, 8th July 1916.

5-45am - The battalion moved off up the valley by Talus Boisse to a position just west of Bernafay Wood with orders to attack and take the southern portion of Trones Wood.

This accomplished the Wiltshires were to attack from Maltz Horn Alley their right joining up with the left of the French who were attacking at the same time.

The 19th Manchesters were in trenches behind available for support and the 18th Kings Liverpools were detailed to provide carrying parties, battalion HQ was at the Briqueterie.

7-15am - "C" Company under Capt Maude entered Bernafay Wood followed in succession by the bombing sections, "D" Company under Capt Belcher, "B" Company under 2nd Lt Hubbard and "A" Company under Capt Colley.

8-00am - Under severe shellfire which caused casualties before starting and added to some confusion caused by the passage through the wood.

"C" Company emerged from the wood and commenced to cross the open space between it and Trones Wood.

For about 80 yards rising ground gave some cover but immediately this was topped a very heavy machine gun and rifle fire was opened from the edge of Trones Wood and the front line was practically hit to a man.

Some men got into Trones Alley a communication trench between the two woods and Lt Field with the battalion bombers made an attempt to bomb up it and get into the wood, snipers in trees defeated this and seeing that without further and more powerful artillery support a direct attack was hopeless and a withdrawal to Bernafay Wood was ordered at 8-30am

The Germans now commenced a heavy and constant bombardment of Bernafay Wood with guns of every calibre.

Cover was poor and for the rest of the day the battalion could do nothing but hold on under heavy punishment.

Casualties were numerous and the removal of wounded was a matter of the greatest difficulty.

Mens nerves were subjected to probably the greatest strain the battalion had yet to bear in this war and it was with great relief that at 7-00pm orders were received to withdraw.

Casualties were,

Officers killed = 3

Officers wounded = 4.

Other ranks killed = 19

Wounded = 116

Missing = 17.

Submitted by great nephew Martin Renwick
The nurse who worked on an ambulance train that collected wounded from the front line

Ruby Chapman (née Cockburn) worked as a British Red Cross service nurse on the No 16 ambulance train that collected the wounded from the frontline during the battle of Somme in 1916.

The train was fitted with wards, kitchens, a dispensary, office, storerooms and accommodation. Ruby worked on the train for six months travelling to and from the casualty clearing stations near the front. Her pay throughout the war was £1 1s 0d a week, which is roughly £370 in today's money.

Working on an ambulance train was hard work and there was a high illness rate among the personnel. The train often travelled at a snail's pace. Air raids were frequent and the windows blew in with the force of the explosions.

Coping with large amounts of wounded men on the move made work incredibly intense. When not needed Royal Army Medical Corps staff sometimes went on long walks or played cricket and football with teams from other trains. Unlike military nurses, Red Cross nurses were allowed a degree of freedom when it came to mixing with men. Sometimes personnel returned to find the train no longer in the sidings and had to hitch a ride to get back on board.

In June 1918 No 16 train was hit by a bomb during a heavy raid in Etaples and it caught fire but luckily nobody was killed or badly injured.

In 1918 Ruby was awarded a Royal Red Cross second class. After the war she married Lt Philip Chapman in June 1919 and they moved to Yorkshire. Ruby was widowed in 1923 and moved south to support her young daughter. She died in the late 1960s surrounded by family in Bournemouth.
Submitted by granddaughter Sheila Brownlee with notes from British military nurse historian Sue Light
The RAF pilot with a bird's eye view

Second Lieutenant EJ Watkins was a Canadian pilot in the Royal Air Force. He became an instructor after having survived a number of aircraft failures. Examples can be found in his logbook where he wrote that on two separate occasions the, "propeller came off [and he] ran out of oil".

As part of his role taking pictures of the fronts Watkins flew many most of the RAF's aircrafts. Based at the Canadian Forces Base Borden in Ontario, he kept the last telegraph order on the last day of the war, which said, "all flying to cease immediately".

Submitted by grandson Jim Watkins
An order of battle for September 1916

The document shows an order of battle for 12 September 1916 belonging to Arthur John Cooper. Born in 1892 he worked in Norwich as a shoemaker before fighting as a young man in the Norfolk Regiment.

The map shows the German positions (the flags) at the time as well as the position of the frontline. On the same day as the order, Ginchy was captured from the Germans by the French Sixth Army in what was its biggest attack of the battle so far.

Orders of battle were created to show the organisation, formation and command structure of armed forces. They recorded tactics employed and mapped the locations of friendly and enemy forces, as well as attempting to estimate their capabilities and their plans.

Submitted by granddaughter Jenny Downing
The Irish chaplain who died during service

Fr Donal O'Sullivan was a Roman Catholic chaplain to the forces who died at the age of 26. Born in Killarney, Ireland, he was not assigned to any specific regiment nor did he limit his care solely to Irish soldiers or Catholics.

Donal kept a diary; a brief but moving record of four months in 1916 between his departure from Killarney on 28 February and his death on 5 July. He used to set up a field altar, visit the wounded and distribute general absolution to the troops along with "sweets from home".

Two days before his death, he wrote: "Ulster Division Rifles under heavy fire. Heavy casualties. Wounded, wounded, wounded! Busy day for chaplains."

Donal was killed by a shell at the front as he gave an English soldier the last rites. The soldier survived and after the war made the long journey to Killarney to visit Donal's mother, Hannah O'Sullivan, and give a first-hand account of his death. The Englishman described Donal hearing confessions on horseback at the front while the shells flew and the penitent held the reins.

Submitted by great niece Jean O'Sullivan
The German pharmacist and keen photographer

Born in Münster in 1883, Gottfried Darup served as a pharmacist and was deployed in France. As a pharmacist he had more spare time than most and, as he had a good camera, he took many photographs during the war.

He survived the war and returned to Bremen where he owned a pharmacy until his death in 1956.

Submitted by grandson Jens Darup
The letters sent home from the frontline

Second Lieutenant Arthur James Sloan enlisted into the Royal Field Artillery in 1914 and trained with his division until they went to France in May 1915.

In 1916 he was in action during the battle of the Somme, including the attacks on High Wood and the battle of the Ancre, capturing Beaumont Hamel and taking more than 2,000 prisoners.

During his time at the front he sent several letters to his wife, Margaret. One is dated 3 September 1916 and recounts his worry as he tried to find his twin brother, Andrew, who was also at the front.

Dearest Margaret,

I am sorry to say Margaret that we have had no further word of the poor boy. Father has written to quite a number of the ones who were in the charge with him, & who are now in various hospitals, but they have all much the same tale to tell. He seems to have been one of the last survivors of his lot & the man who seems to have seen him last states that when he was wounded & crawling back he passed Andrew, who was rolling up some bombs.

He says that Andrew was alright then & gave him a nod & shout in passing. So, whether he got knocked over or taken prisoner after that we must just wait & pray for the best. The only thing is, if he is a prisoner & badly wounded he won't get the attention that would have been given him if he had been under British doctors.

Altho' I don't even yet realize it Margaret dear, I have had more time to think about it this last week & I sometimes try to think what like it would be after the war & we all get back to things again, if we had to do without Andrew, but there's no use talking like this just now darling, we must just wait & whatever it is to be, will, I suppose, be for some good purpose, altho' it may not seem so to us at present.

Thanks so much dear for wanting me to get a short rest, but it was just what I wanted, a spell that time to write, even few lines to you dear one & pour out my thoughts, for they were sore & there is no one that I could write to, as I can to you. Well I must stop now, my lights should have been out ten minutes ago & if I'm much longer there will be a row, so good bye just now darling.

With all my love, your own loving Arthur.

After 18 months in France, Arthur became sick and was sent home. He recovered and returned to France in the spring of 1918. He was killed in action while leading his men in the second battle of Arras.
Submitted by Jimmy Brammer

The painter whose brushstrokes recorded the battle

Reginald Hanson Fawcett served in the Royal Engineers in France and Belgium. He travelled with a small artist's pad and watercolour paints recorded his experiences of WW1, including the battle of the Somme.

Born in Wilsden, near Bradford, he worked in signals, which involved laying cables close to the front. Surviving the war, Reginald was discharged in 1919 and returned to his hometown to become the village's postmaster.

Submitted by grandson Tim Brown
The apprentice draughtsman and the Canadian soldier who survived

Herbert Scott joined the army in 1914 with several of his school friends from Manchester Grammar School. He fought at the battle of the Somme, was wounded twice and lived to the age of 95 but never married.

Born in Horsforth near Leeds, he became an apprentice draughtsman after school and went to Wodecote Farm Park Camp, Epsom for training when he enlisted. During his time in the Somme he was wounded on 29 October 1916 and returned to the UK to recover.

Soon after the war he emigrated to Canada and became a chicken farmer. He moved back to the UK in December 1926, and set up a small restaurant in Norwich called the Cloverleaf until it closed in 1975.
Submitted by goddaughter Mary Blathwayt
John Meaney had six siblings, two of whom were in active service during the first world war. Born in Ireland he emigrated to Canada in 1912.

After being wounded in South Africa during the Boer War, his military experience also included six years in the Inniskilling Dragoons and more than a year with Remington's Scouts. His regiment also spent time in India around 1908.

During the first world war John was part of the Second Canadian Mounted Rifles. He was killed in the Somme area on 15 September 1916.

Submitted by great grandnephew John McMahon

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'Heavy casualties. Wounded, wounded, wounded': stories of the battle of the Somme

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ne hundred years ago today remains the worst day in British army history, as 19,240 soldiers lost their lives on the first day of the battle of the Somme. Guardian readers have been sharing wartime letters, diaries and photographs passed on to them by relatives or friends who were involved.

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How the Assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand Unfolded with Dan Snow

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First World War poetry described the terror of the trenches and the futility of war

The nation will fall silent at 11am today, 100 years on from the two-minute silence first observed on Armistice Day on 11 November 1919.

Others will take solace and inspiration from the poetry from Britain's greatest war.

The First World War was "one of the seminal moments of the twentieth century in which literate soldiers, plunged into inhuman conditions, reacted to their surroundings in poems", writes English lecturer Dr Stuart Lee on Oxford University's First World War Poetry Digital Archive.

According to BBC's HistoryExtra, "some 2,200 writers published poetry about the Great War between 1914 and 1918, 25 per cent of them women and fewer than 20 per cent men in uniform".

Below are some of the best, written during the years of the First World War and beyond.

In Flanders Fields, by John McRae

Marching Men, by Marjorie Pickthall

The Soldier, by Rupert Brooke

A Dead Boche, by Robert Graves

My Boy Jack, by Rudyard Kipling

For the Fallen, by Robert Laurence Binyon

The Cenotaph, by Charlotte Mew

Not yet will those measureless fields be green again
Where only yesterday the wild sweet blood of wonderful youth was shed;
There is a grave whose earth must hold too long, too deep a stain,
Though for ever over it we may speak as proudly as we may tread.
But here, where the watchers by lonely hearths from the thrust of an inward sword have more slowly bled,
We shall build the Cenotaph: Victory, winged, with Peace, winged too, at the column's head.
And over the stairway, at the foot - oh! here, leave desolate, passionate hands to spreadV
iolets, roses, and laurel with the small sweet twinkling country things
Speaking so wistfully of other Springs
From the little gardens of little places where son or sweetheart was born and bred.
In splendid sleep, with a thousand brothers
To lovers - to mothers
Here, too, lies he:
Under the purple, the green, the red,
It is all young life: it must break some women's hearts to see
Such a brave, gay coverlet to such a bed!
Only, when all is done and said,
God is not mocked and neither are the dead.
For this will stand in our Market-place -
Who'll sell, who'll buy
(Will you or I
Lie each to each with the better grace)?
While looking into every busy whore's and huckster's face
As they drive their bargains, is the Face
Of God: and some young, piteous, murdered face.

To his love, by Ivor Gurney

Dulce et Decorum Est, by Wilfred Owen

In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues, --
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.

To Germany, by Charles Hamilton Sorley

MCMXIV, by Phillip Larkin

Break of Day in the Trenches, by Isaac Rosenberg

The darkness crumbles away.
It is the same old druid Time as ever,
Only a live thing leaps my hand,
A queer sardonic rat,
As I pull the parapet's poppy
To stick behind my ear.
Droll rat, they would shoot you if they knew
Your cosmopolitan sympathies.
Now you have touched this English hand
You will do the same to a German
Soon, no doubt, if it be your pleasure
To cross the sleeping green between.
It seems you inwardly grin as you pass
Strong eyes, fine limbs, haughty athletes,
Less chanced than you for life,
Bonds to the whims of murder,
Sprawled in the bowels of the earth,
The torn fields of France.
What do you see in our eyes
At the shrieking iron and flame
Hurled through still heavens?
What quaver - what heart aghast?
Poppies whose roots are in man's veins
Drop, and are ever dropping;
But mine in my ear is safe -
Just a little white with the dust.

For a survivor of the Mesopotamian campaign, by Elizabeth Daryush

War's wasted era is a desert shore,
As know those who have passèd there, a place

Here dead we lie, by A. E. Housman

June, 1915, by Charlotte Mew

Who thinks of June's first rose today?
Only some child, perhaps, with shining eyes and
rough bright hair will reach it down.
In a green sunny lane, to us almost as far away
As are the fearless stars from these veiled lamps of town.
What's little June to a great broken world with eyes gone dim
From too much looking on the face of grief, the face of dread?
Or what's the broken world to June and him
Of the small eager hand, the shining eyes, the rough bright head?

Perhaps, by Vera Brittain

(Dedicated to her fiance Roland Aubrey Leighton, who was killed at the age of 20 by a sniper in 1915, four months after she had accepted his marriage proposal)

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The most moving First World War poems | The Week UK

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First World War poetry described the terror of the trenches and the futility of war The nation will fall silent at 11am today, 100 years on from the two-minute silence first observed on Armistice Day on 11 November 1919. Others will take solace and inspiration from the poetry from Britain's greatest war.

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The Start of WW1 | Frightful First World War | Horrible Histories

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How World War I Started: Crash Course World History 209

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First World War poetry described the terror of the trenches and the futility of war

The nation will fall silent at 11am today, 100 years on from the two-minute silence first observed on Armistice Day on 11 November 1919.

Others will take solace and inspiration from the poetry from Britain's greatest war.

The First World War was "one of the seminal moments of the twentieth century in which literate soldiers, plunged into inhuman conditions, reacted to their surroundings in poems", writes English lecturer Dr Stuart Lee on Oxford University's First World War Poetry Digital Archive.

According to BBC's HistoryExtra, "some 2,200 writers published poetry about the Great War between 1914 and 1918, 25 per cent of them women and fewer than 20 per cent men in uniform".

Below are some of the best, written during the years of the First World War and beyond.

In Flanders Fields, by John McRae

Marching Men, by Marjorie Pickthall

The Soldier, by Rupert Brooke

A Dead Boche, by Robert Graves

My Boy Jack, by Rudyard Kipling

For the Fallen, by Robert Laurence Binyon

The Cenotaph, by Charlotte Mew

Not yet will those measureless fields be green again
Where only yesterday the wild sweet blood of wonderful youth was shed;
There is a grave whose earth must hold too long, too deep a stain,
Though for ever over it we may speak as proudly as we may tread.
But here, where the watchers by lonely hearths from the thrust of an inward sword have more slowly bled,
We shall build the Cenotaph: Victory, winged, with Peace, winged too, at the column's head.
And over the stairway, at the foot - oh! here, leave desolate, passionate hands to spreadV
iolets, roses, and laurel with the small sweet twinkling country things
Speaking so wistfully of other Springs
From the little gardens of little places where son or sweetheart was born and bred.
In splendid sleep, with a thousand brothers
To lovers - to mothers
Here, too, lies he:
Under the purple, the green, the red,
It is all young life: it must break some women's hearts to see
Such a brave, gay coverlet to such a bed!
Only, when all is done and said,
God is not mocked and neither are the dead.
For this will stand in our Market-place -
Who'll sell, who'll buy
(Will you or I
Lie each to each with the better grace)?
While looking into every busy whore's and huckster's face
As they drive their bargains, is the Face
Of God: and some young, piteous, murdered face.

To his love, by Ivor Gurney

Dulce et Decorum Est, by Wilfred Owen

In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues, --
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.

To Germany, by Charles Hamilton Sorley

MCMXIV, by Phillip Larkin

Break of Day in the Trenches, by Isaac Rosenberg

The darkness crumbles away.
It is the same old druid Time as ever,
Only a live thing leaps my hand,
A queer sardonic rat,
As I pull the parapet's poppy
To stick behind my ear.
Droll rat, they would shoot you if they knew
Your cosmopolitan sympathies.
Now you have touched this English hand
You will do the same to a German
Soon, no doubt, if it be your pleasure
To cross the sleeping green between.
It seems you inwardly grin as you pass
Strong eyes, fine limbs, haughty athletes,
Less chanced than you for life,
Bonds to the whims of murder,
Sprawled in the bowels of the earth,
The torn fields of France.
What do you see in our eyes
At the shrieking iron and flame
Hurled through still heavens?
What quaver - what heart aghast?
Poppies whose roots are in man's veins
Drop, and are ever dropping;
But mine in my ear is safe -
Just a little white with the dust.

For a survivor of the Mesopotamian campaign, by Elizabeth Daryush

War's wasted era is a desert shore,
As know those who have passèd there, a place

Here dead we lie, by A. E. Housman

June, 1915, by Charlotte Mew

Who thinks of June's first rose today?
Only some child, perhaps, with shining eyes and
rough bright hair will reach it down.
In a green sunny lane, to us almost as far away
As are the fearless stars from these veiled lamps of town.
What's little June to a great broken world with eyes gone dim
From too much looking on the face of grief, the face of dread?
Or what's the broken world to June and him
Of the small eager hand, the shining eyes, the rough bright head?

Perhaps, by Vera Brittain

(Dedicated to her fiance Roland Aubrey Leighton, who was killed at the age of 20 by a sniper in 1915, four months after she had accepted his marriage proposal)

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The most moving First World War poems | The Week UK

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First World War poetry described the terror of the trenches and the futility of war The nation will fall silent at 11am today, 100 years on from the two-minute silence first observed on Armistice Day on 11 November 1919. Others will take solace and inspiration from the poetry from Britain's greatest war.

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On 1 July 1916, 150,000 British men emerged from their trenches to assault the German lines near the River Somme. For seven days previously, the enemy's position had been relentlessly shelled, but the line had withstood the bombardment, and the British infantry found the German machine guns waiting.

The assault failed disastrously, and at massive human cost. The British army suffered 60,000 casualties in just the first day.

German and British army veterans recall their experiences of the Battle of the Somme.

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BBC Two - Bitesize Secondary, History, The Battle of the Somme

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On 1 July 1916, 150,000 British men emerged from their trenches to assault the German lines near the River Somme. For seven days previously, the enemy's position had been relentlessly shelled, but the line had withstood the bombardment, and the British infantry found the German machine guns waiting.

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Archduke Franz Ferdinand

Tensions had been brewing throughout Europe-especially in the troubled Balkan region of southeast Europe-for years before World War I actually broke out.

A number of alliances involving European powers, the Ottoman Empire, Russia and other parties had existed for years, but political instability in the Balkans (particularly Bosnia, Serbia and Herzegovina) threatened to destroy these agreements.

The spark that ignited World War I was struck in Sarajevo, Bosnia, where Archduke Franz Ferdinand -heir to the Austro-Hungarian Empire-was shot to death along with his wife, Sophie, by the Serbian nationalist Gavrilo Princip on June 28, 1914. Princip and other nationalists were struggling to end Austro-Hungarian rule over Bosnia and Herzegovina.

The assassination of Franz Ferdinand set off a rapidly escalating chain of events: Austria-Hungary, like many countries around the world, blamed the Serbian government for the attack and hoped to use the incident as justification for settling the question of Serbian nationalism once and for all.

Kaiser Wilhelm II

Because mighty Russia supported Serbia, Austria-Hungary waited to declare war until its leaders received assurance from German leader Kaiser Wilhelm II that Germany would support their cause. Austro-Hungarian leaders feared that a Russian intervention would involve Russia's ally, France, and possibly Great Britain as well.

On July 5, Kaiser Wilhelm secretly pledged his support, giving Austria-Hungary a so-called carte blanche, or "blank check" assurance of Germany's backing in the case of war. The Dual Monarchy of Austria-Hungary then sent an ultimatum to Serbia, with such harsh terms as to make it almost impossible to accept.

World War I Begins

Convinced that Austria-Hungary was readying for war, the Serbian government ordered the Serbian army to mobilize and appealed to Russia for assistance. On July 28, Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia, and the tenuous peace between Europe's great powers quickly collapsed.

Within a week, Russia, Belgium, France, Great Britain and Serbia had lined up against Austria-Hungary and Germany, and World War I had begun.

The Western Front

According to an aggressive military strategy known as the Schlieffen Plan (named for its mastermind, German Field Marshal Alfred von Schlieffen), Germany began fighting World War I on two fronts, invading France through neutral Belgium in the west and confronting Russia in the east.

On August 4, 1914, German troops crossed the border into Belgium. In the first battle of World War I, the Germans assaulted the heavily fortified city of Liege, using the most powerful weapons in their arsenal-enormous siege cannons-to capture the city by August 15. The Germans left death and destruction in their wake as they advanced through Belgium toward France, shooting civilians and executing a Belgian priest they had accused of inciting civilian resistance.

First Battle of the Marne

In the First Battle of the Marne, fought from September 6-9, 1914, French and British forces confronted the invading German army, which had by then penetrated deep into northeastern France, within 30 miles of Paris. The Allied troops checked the German advance and mounted a successful counterattack, driving the Germans back to the north of the Aisne River.

The defeat meant the end of German plans for a quick victory in France. Both sides dug into trenches, and the Western Front was the setting for a hellish war of attrition that would last more than three years.

Particularly long and costly battles in this campaign were fought at Verdun (February-December 1916) and the Battle of the Somme (July-November 1916). German and French troops suffered close to a million casualties in the Battle of Verdun alone.

World War I Books and Art

The bloodshed on the battlefields of the Western Front, and the difficulties its soldiers had for years after the fighting had ended, inspired such works of art as " All Quiet on the Western Front" by Erich Maria Remarque and " In Flanders Fields"by Canadian doctor Lieutenant-Colonel John McCrae. In the latter poem, McCrae writes from the perspective of the fallen soldiers:

Published in 1915, the poem inspired the use of the poppy as a symbol of remembrance.

Visual artists like Otto Dix of Germany and British painters Wyndham Lewis, Paul Nash and David Bomberg used their firsthand experience as soldiers in World War I to create their art, capturing the anguish of trench warfare and exploring the themes of technology, violence and landscapes decimated by war.

The Eastern Front

On the Eastern Front of World War I, Russian forces invaded the German-held regions of East Prussia and Poland but were stopped short by German and Austrian forces at the Battle of Tannenberg in late August 1914.

Despite that victory, Russia's assault forced Germany to move two corps from the Western Front to the Eastern, contributing to the German loss in the Battle of the Marne.

Combined with the fierce Allied resistance in France, the ability of Russia's huge war machine to mobilize relatively quickly in the east ensured a longer, more grueling conflict instead of the quick victory Germany had hoped to win under the Schlieffen Plan.

Russian Revolution

From 1914 to 1916, Russia's army mounted several offensives on World War I's Eastern Front but was unable to break through German lines.

Defeat on the battlefield, combined with economic instability and the scarcity of food and other essentials, led to mounting discontent among the bulk of Russia's population, especially the poverty-stricken workers and peasants. This increased hostility was directed toward the imperial regime of Czar Nicholas II and his unpopular German-born wife, Alexandra.

Russia's simmering instability exploded in the Russian Revolution of 1917, spearheaded by Vladimir Lenin and the Bolsheviks, which ended czarist rule and brought a halt to Russian participation in World War I.

Russia reached an armistice with the Central Powers in early December 1917, freeing German troops to face the remaining Allies on the Western Front.

America Enters World War I

At the outbreak of fighting in 1914, the United States remained on the sidelines of World War I, adopting the policy of neutrality favored by President Woodrow Wilson while continuing to engage in commerce and shipping with European countries on both sides of the conflict.

Neutrality, however, it was increasingly difficult to maintain in the face of Germany's unchecked submarine aggression against neutral ships, including those carrying passengers. In 1915, Germany declared the waters surrounding the British Isles to be a war zone, and German U-boats sunk several commercial and passenger vessels, including some U.S. ships.

Widespread protest over the sinking by U-boat of the British ocean liner Lusitania-traveling from New York to Liverpool, England with hundreds of American passengers onboard-in May 1915 helped turn the tide of American public opinion against Germany. In February 1917, Congress passed a $250 million arms appropriations bill intended to make the United States ready for war.

Germany sunk four more U.S. merchant ships the following month, and on April 2 Woodrow Wilson appeared before Congress and called for a declaration of war against Germany.

Gallipoli Campaign

With World War I having effectively settled into a stalemate in Europe, the Allies attempted to score a victory against the Ottoman Empire, which entered the conflict on the side of the Central Powers in late 1914.

After a failed attack on the Dardanelles (the strait linking the Sea of Marmara with the Aegean Sea), Allied forces led by Britain launched a large-scale land invasion of the Gallipoli Peninsula in April 1915. The invasion also proved a dismal failure, and in January 1916 Allied forces staged a full retreat from the shores of the peninsula after suffering 250,000 casualties.

Did you know? The young Winston Churchill, then first lord of the British Admiralty, resigned his command after the failed Gallipoli campaign in 1916, accepting a commission with an infantry battalion in France.

British-led forces also combated the Ottoman Turks in Egypt and Mesopotamia, while in northern Italy, Austrian and Italian troops faced off in a series of 12 battles along the Isonzo River, located at the border between the two nations.

Battle of the Isonzo

The First Battle of the Isonzo took place in the late spring of 1915, soon after Italy's entrance into the war on the Allied side. In the Twelfth Battle of the Isonzo, also known as the Battle of Caporetto (October 1917), German reinforcements helped Austria-Hungary win a decisive victory.

After Caporetto, Italy's allies jumped in to offer increased assistance. British and French-and later, American-troops arrived in the region, and the Allies began to take back the Italian Front.

World War I at Sea

In the years before World War I, the superiority of Britain's Royal Navy was unchallenged by any other nation's fleet, but the Imperial German Navy had made substantial strides in closing the gap between the two naval powers. Germany's strength on the high seas was also aided by its lethal fleet of U-boat submarines.

After the Battle of Dogger Bank in January 1915, in which the British mounted a surprise attack on German ships in the North Sea, the German navy chose not to confront Britain's mighty Royal Navy in a major battle for more than a year, preferring to rest the bulk of its naval strategy on its U-boats.

The biggest naval engagement of World War I, the Battle of Jutland (May 1916) left British naval superiority on the North Sea intact, and Germany would make no further attempts to break an Allied naval blockade for the remainder of the war.

World War I Planes

World War I was the first major conflict to harness the power of planes. Though not as impactful as the British Royal Navy or Germany's U-boats, the use of planes in World War I presaged their later, pivotal role in military conflicts around the globe.

At the dawn of World War I, aviation was a relatively new field; the Wright brothers took their first sustained flight just eleven years before, in 1903. Aircraft were initially used primarily for reconnaissance missions. During the First Battle of the Marne, information passed from pilots allowed the allies to exploit weak spots in the German lines, helping the Allies to push Germany out of France.

The first machine guns were successfully mounted on planes in June of 1912 in the United States, but were imperfect; if timed incorrectly, a bullet could easily destroy the propeller of the plane it came from. The Morane-Saulnier L, a French plane, provided a solution: The propeller was armored with deflector wedges that prevented bullets from hitting it. The Morane-Saulnier Type L was used by the French, the British Royal Flying Corps (part of the Army), the British Royal Navy Air Service and the Imperial Russian Air Service. The British Bristol Type 22 was another popular model used for both reconnaissance work and as a fighter plane.

Dutch inventor Anthony Fokker improved upon the French deflector system in 1915. His "interrupter" synchronized the firing of the guns with the plane's propeller to avoid collisions. Though his most popular plane during WWI was the single-seat Fokker Eindecker, Fokker created over 40 kinds of airplanes for the Germans.

The Allies debuted the Handley-Page HP O/400, the first two-engine bomber, in 1915. As aerial technology progressed, long-range heavy bombers like Germany's Gotha G.V. (first introduced in 1917) were used to strike cities like London. Their speed and maneuverability proved to be far deadlier than Germany's earlier Zeppelin raids.

By the war's end, the Allies were producing five times more aircraft than the Germans. On April 1, 1918, the British created the Royal Air Force, or RAF, the first air force to be a separate military branch independent from the navy or army.

Second Battle of the Marne

With Germany able to build up its strength on the Western Front after the armistice with Russia, Allied troops struggled to hold off another German offensive until promised reinforcements from the United States were able to arrive.

On July 15, 1918, German troops launched what would become the last German offensive of the war, attacking French forces (joined by 85,000 American troops as well as some of the British Expeditionary Force) in the Second Battle of the Marne. The Allies successfully pushed back the German offensive and launched their own counteroffensive just three days later.

After suffering massive casualties, Germany was forced to call off a planned offensive further north, in the Flanders region stretching between France and Belgium, which was envisioned as Germany's best hope of victory.

The Second Battle of the Marne turned the tide of war decisively towards the Allies, who were able to regain much of France and Belgium in the months that followed.

The Harlem Hellfighters and Other All-Black Regiments

By the time World War I began, there were four all-Black regiments in the U.S. military: the 24th and 25th Infantry and the 9th and 10th Cavalry. All four regiments comprised of celebrated soldiers who fought in the Spanish-American War and American-Indian Wars, and served in the American territories. But they were not deployed for overseas combat in World War I.

Blacks serving alongside white soldiers on the front lines in Europe was inconceivable to the U.S. military. Instead, the first African American troops sent overseas served in segregated labor battalions, restricted to menial roles in the Army and Navy, and shutout of the Marines, entirely. Their duties mostly included unloading ships, transporting materials from train depots, bases and ports, digging trenches, cooking and maintenance, removing barbed wire and inoperable equipment, and burying soldiers.

Facing criticism from the Black community and civil rights organizations for its quotas and treatment of African American soldiers in the war effort, the military formed two Black combat units in 1917, the 92nd and 93rd Divisions. Trained separately and inadequately in the United States, the divisions fared differently in the war. The 92nd faced criticism for their performance in the Meuse-Argonne campaign in September 1918. The 93rd Division, however, had more success.

With dwindling armies, France asked America for reinforcements, and General John Pershing, commander of the American Expeditionary Forces, sent regiments in the 93 Division to over, since France had experience fighting alongside Black soldiers from their Senegalese French Colonial army. The 93 Division's 369 regiment, nicknamed the Harlem Hellfighters, fought so gallantly, with a total of 191 days on the front lines, longer than any AEF regiment, that France awarded them the Croix de Guerre for their heroism. More than 350,000 African American soldiers would serve in World War I in various capacities.

Toward Armistice

By the fall of 1918, the Central Powers were unraveling on all fronts.

Despite the Turkish victory at Gallipoli, later defeats by invading forces and an Arab revolt that destroyed the Ottoman economy and devastated its land, and the Turks signed a treaty with the Allies in late October 1918.

Austria-Hungary, dissolving from within due to growing nationalist movements among its diverse population, reached an armistice on November 4. Facing dwindling resources on the battlefield, discontent on the homefront and the surrender of its allies, Germany was finally forced to seek an armistice on November 11, 1918, ending World War I.

Treaty of Versailles

At the Paris Peace Conference in 1919, Allied leaders stated their desire to build a post-war world that would safeguard itself against future conflicts of such a devastating scale.

Some hopeful participants had even begun calling World War I "the War to End All Wars." But the Treaty of Versailles, signed on June 28, 1919, would not achieve that lofty goal.

Saddled with war guilt, heavy reparations and denied entrance into the League of Nations, Germany felt tricked into signing the treaty, having believed any peace would be a "peace without victory," as put forward by President Wilson in his famous Fourteen Points speech of January 1918.

As the years passed, hatred of the Versailles treaty and its authors settled into a smoldering resentment in Germany that would, two decades later, be counted among the causes of World War II.

World War I Casualties

World War I took the lives of more than 9 million soldiers; 21 million more were wounded. Civilian casualties numbered close to 10 million. The two nations most affected were Germany and France, each of which sent some 80 percent of their male populations between the ages of 15 and 49 into battle.

The political disruption surrounding World War I also contributed to the fall of four venerable imperial dynasties: Germany, Austria-Hungary, Russia and Turkey.

Legacy of World War I

World War I brought about massive social upheaval, as millions of women entered the workforce to replace men who went to war and those who never came back. The first global war also helped to spread one of the world's deadliest global pandemics, the Spanish flu epidemic of 1918, which killed an estimated 20 to 50 million people.

World War I has also been referred to as "the first modern war." Many of the technologies now associated with military conflict-machine guns, tanks, aerial combat and radio communications-were introduced on a massive scale during World War I.

The severe effects that chemical weapons such as mustard gas and phosgene had on soldiers and civilians during World War I galvanized public and military attitudes against their continued use. The Geneva Convention agreements, signed in 1925, restricted the use of chemical and biological agents in warfare and remain in effect today.

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World War I: Summary, Causes & Facts | HISTORY

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World War I began in 1914, after the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, and lasted until 1918. During the conflict, Germany, Austria‑Hungary, Bulgaria and the Ottoman Empire (the Central Powers) fought against Great Britain, France, Russia, Italy, Romania, Japan and the United States (the Allied Powers).

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Here are 10 facts that tell the story of the build-up to World War One.

Historians are still divided over why exactly the war happened, which events were most significant and who ultimately bears the burden of responsibility. On the last point it seems to be shared fairly evenly - a complex and fragile alliance network created the framework for a pan-European conflict, and it only required a conflagration between two minor nations to send the larger countries hurtling towards war.

1. In 1914 Europe was divided between two major alliance systems - the Triple Alliance and the Triple Entente

The Triple Entente consisted of France, Russia and Great Britain, while the Triple Alliance included Germany, Austria-Hungary and Italy. However, once war broke out Italy reneged on its commitment.

2. Britain and Germany were engaged in a naval arms race in the early 20th century

But by 1914 it was all but over: Britain had 38 dreadnoughts and dreadnought battle cruisers to Germany's 24.

3. The combined Russian & French peacetime armies in 1913-14 had 928,000 more troops than Germany & Austria Hungary

If Britain's peacetime force of 248,000 is also included, the Triple Entente had a significant manpower advantage over the Dual Alliance.

4. After two Balkan wars in 1912 and 1913, Serbia emerged as an empowered, nationalistic state

Serbia's pan-Slavic intentions ran counter to Austro-Hungary's imperial ambitions. Any conflict between Serbia and Austria-Hungary threatened to at least involve Russia, who was sympathetic to Serbian nationalism.

5. Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated around 11:00 am on Sunday 28 June 1914

The Austro-Hungarian heir to the throne was murdered by Serbian nationalist Gavrilo Princip in Sarajevo. The assassination precipitated the July Crisis.

6. The first war declaration was Austria-Hungary on Serbia on 28 July 1914

The declaration caused a domino effect in the alliance system. Russia mobilised her army, which Germany considered an act of war.

7. The German war plans were called the Schleiffen Plan, and required Germany to defeat France in 6 weeks to avoid a two front war

The Schleiffen plan was fundamentally flawed: 8 of the divisions planned for use did not exist. It did fail after the German army was outmanoeuvred on The Marne.

8. 3/4s of the British parliamentary party were for "absolute non-interference at any price"

According to Prime Minister Herbert Asquith. Britain was not required by any treaty to support France or Russia in the event with war Germany. Many British politicians were against intervention.

9. Britain declared war on Germany on 4 August after Germany had invaded Belgium

Britain was obliged by the Treaty of London (1839) to protect Belgium's sovereignty.

10. The Ottoman Empire entered the war on 1 November 1914 when Russia declared war

Russia, followed soon by France and Britain, was compelled to declare war on the Ottoman Empire when it joined the Central Powers in August, signing the Turco-German alliance.

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10 Facts About the Build-Up to World War One

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Here are 10 facts that tell the story of the build-up to World War One. Historians are still divided over why exactly the war happened, which events were most significant and who ultimately bears the burden of responsibility.

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It's possibly the single most pondered question in history - what caused World War One? It wasn't, like in World War Two, a case of a single belligerent pushing others to take a military stand. It didn't have the moral vindication of resisting a tyrant.

Rather, a delicate but toxic balance of structural forces created a dry tinder that was lit by the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo. That event precipitated the July Crisis, which saw the major European powers hurtle toward open conflict.

M-A-I-N

The M-A-I-N acronym - militarism, alliances, imperialism and nationalism - is often used to analyse the war, and each of these reasons are cited to be the 4 main causes of World War One. It's simplistic but provides a useful framework.

Militarism

The late nineteenth century was an era of military competition, particularly between the major European powers. The policy of building a stronger military was judged relative to neighbours, creating a culture of paranoia that heightened the search for alliances. It was fed by the cultural belief that war is good for nations.

Germany in particular looked to expand its navy. However, the 'naval race' was never a real contest - the British always s maintained naval superiority. But the British obsession with naval dominance was strong. Government rhetoric exaggerated military expansionism. A simple naivety in the potential scale and bloodshed of a European war prevented several governments from checking their aggression.

Alliances

A web of alliances developed in Europe between 1870 and 1914, effectively creating two camps bound by commitments to maintain sovereignty or intervene militarily - the Triple Entente and the Triple Alliance.

The Triple Alliance of 1882 linked Germany, Austria-Hungary and Italy.

The Triple Entente of 1907 linked France, Britain and Russia.

A historic point of conflict between Austria Hungary and Russia was over their incompatible Balkan interests, and France had a deep suspicion of Germany rooted in their defeat in the 1870 war.

The alliance system primarily came about because after 1870 Germany, under Bismarck, set a precedent by playing its neighbours' imperial endeavours off one another, in order to maintain a balance of power within Europe

Imperialism

Imperial competition also pushed the countries towards adopting alliances. Colonies were units of exchange that could be bargained without significantly affecting the metro-pole. They also brought nations who would otherwise not interact into conflict and agreement. For example, the Russo-Japanese War (1905) over aspirations in China, helped bring the Triple Entente into being.

It has been suggested that Germany was motivated by imperial ambitions to invade Belgium and France. Certainly the expansion of the British and French empires, fired by the rise of industrialism and the pursuit of new markets, caused some resentment in Germany, and the pursuit of a short, aborted imperial policy in the late nineteenth century.

However the suggestion that Germany wanted to create a European empire in 1914 is not supported by the pre-war rhetoric and strategy.

Nationalism

Nationalism was also a new and powerful source of tension in Europe. It was tied to militarism, and clashed with the interests of the imperial powers in Europe. Nationalism created new areas of interest over which nations could compete.

For example, The Habsburg empire was tottering agglomeration of 11 different nationalities, with large slavic populations in Galicia and the Balkans whose nationalist aspirations ran counter to imperial cohesion. Nationalism in the Balkan's also piqued Russia's historic interest in the region.

Indeed, Serbian nationalism created the trigger cause of the conflict - the assassination of the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, Archduke Franz Ferdinand.

The spark: the assassination

Ferdinand and his wife were murdered in Sarajevo by Gavrilo Princip, a member of the Bosnian Serbian nationalist terrorist organization the 'Black Hand Gang.' Ferdinand's death, which was interpreted as a product of official Serbian policy, created the July Crisis - a month of diplomatic and governmental miscalculations that saw a domino effect of war declarations initiated.

The historical dialogue on this issue is vast and distorted by substantial biases. Vague and undefined schemes of reckless expansion were imputed to the German leadership in the immediate aftermath of the war with the 'war-guilt' clause. The notion that Germany was bursting with newfound strength, proud of her abilities and eager to showcase them, was overplayed.

The almost laughable rationalization of British imperial power as 'necessary' or 'civilizing' didn't translate to German imperialism, which was 'aggressive' and 'expansionist.' There is an on-going historical discussion on who if anyone was most culpable.

Blame has been directed at every single combatant at one point or another, and some have said that all the major governments considered a golden opportunity for increasing popularity at home.

The Schlieffen plan could be blamed for bringing Britain into the war, the scale of the war could be blamed on Russia as the first big country to mobilise, inherent rivalries between imperialism and capitalism could be blamed for polarising the combatants. AJP Taylor's 'timetable theory' emphasises the delicate, highly complex plans involved in mobilization which prompted ostensibly aggressive military preparations.

Every point has some merit, but in the end what proved most devastating was the combination of an alliance network with the widespread, misguided belief that war is good for nations, and that the best way to fight a modern war was to attack. That the war was inevitable is questionable, but certainly the notion of glorious war, of war as a good for nation-building, was strong pre-1914. By the end of the war, it was dead.

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It's possibly the single most pondered question in history - what caused World War One? It wasn't, like in World War Two, a case of a single belligerent pushing others to take a military stand. It didn't have the moral vindication of resisting a tyrant.

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Nominated for 7 Primetime Emmys. Another 4 wins & 44 nominations. See more awards "

Storyline

An adaptation of Alex Haley's "Roots", chronicling the history of an African man sold to slavery in America, and his descendants.

Taglines:

The groundbreaking series reimagined

Did You Know?

Trivia

The author Alex Haley was sued successfully for plagiarizing by novelist Harold Courlander. The works he plagiarized led to the book that served as the basis for the mini-series Roots. Haley paid $650,000 in an out of court settlement. See more "

Goofs

(From the trailer) A Confederate Infantryman is shown firing a Henry Rifle. These were available only to a limited number of soldiers, all Union. Even if taken from a Union soldier, the gun would be useless to a Confederate as there would be no source of ammunition. See more "

Connections

Referenced in Jeopardy!: Episode #33.20 (2016) See more "

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Details

Release Date:

30 May 2016 (USA)

Company Credits

Technical Specs

See full technical specs "

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Nominated for 7 Primetime Emmys. Another 4 wins & 44 nominations. See more awards " An adaptation of Alex Haley's "Roots", chronicling the history of an African man sold to slavery in America, and his descendants. Taglines: The groundbreaking series reimagined Trivia The author Alex Haley was sued successfully for plagiarizing by novelist Harold Courlander.

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Top Rated Movies #202 | Won 3 Oscars. Another 238 wins & 335 nominations. See more awards "

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:

Storyline

Based on an incredible true story of one man's fight for survival and freedom. In the pre-Civil War United States, Solomon Northup, a free black man from upstate New York, is abducted and sold into slavery. Facing cruelty personified by a malevolent slave owner, as well as unexpected kindnesses, Solomon struggles not only to stay alive, but to retain his dignity. In the twelfth year of his unforgettable odyssey, Solomon's chance meeting with a Canadian abolitionist will forever alter his life. Written by Fox Searchlight

Taglines:

The extraordinary true story of Solomon Northup

Did You Know?

Trivia

The film won the ADAM, UPC Audience Award at Amsterdam Film Week 2013. See more "

Goofs

In the opening shots, a violin is being played and tuned. The light passes completely through the strings revealing they are not made of any natural product or twining, but plastic or nylon. See more "

Quotes

[first lines]
: Alright now, y'all fresh niggers. Y'all gonna be in the cuttin' gang.
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Soundtracks

Cotton Song
Written by Nicholas Britell
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Details

Release Date:

8 November 2013 (USA)

Also Known As:

Twelve Years a Slave

Box Office

Budget:

$20,000,000 (estimated)

Opening Weekend USA:

$923,715, 20 October 2013

Cumulative Worldwide Gross:

$187,733,202

Company Credits

Technical Specs

See full technical specs "

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Top Rated Movies #202 | Won 3 Oscars. Another 238 wins & 335 nominations. See more awards " Cast overview, first billed only: Based on an incredible true story of one man's fight for survival and freedom. In the pre-Civil War United States, Solomon Northup, a free black man from upstate New York, is abducted and sold into slavery.

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The slave trade was huge - British ships transported 2.6 million enslaved people. It has been estimated overall, about 12 million Africans were enslaved and taken to the Americas.

The majority of enslaved West Africans were taken to South America. More than 55 per cent of those enslaved were taken to Brazil and Spanish South America. Brazil now has the second largest black population of any country in the world outside of Nigeria. Around 35 per cent were taken to the West Indies; less than five per cent were taken to North America.

The death rate of the enslaved people was horrific.

Unknown millions died in Africa before they even made it to the ships.

It has been estimated that at least 2 million enslaved Africans died on the Middle Passage across the Atlantic.

In the Americas, the death rate amongst enslaved people was also very high. Some historians suggest that the death rate in the 'seasoning camps' was up to 50%.

Enslaved Africans took with them their agricultural knowledge, skilled craftsmanship, religion, traditions, cooking, clothes, music and dance. For example, West Africans brought brought their rice variety and cultivation techniques to parts of the southern United States. Their expertise in growing rice in the hot and swampy conditions led to rice being one of the biggest cash crops in the entire country. Musical instruments such as the banjo, language such as Haitian Creole, food such as rice and peas and dances such as the Brazilian Samba and Capoeira were imported and influenced by West Africans enslaved in the Americas.

Slavery and white supremacy

Many historians think that white supremacist racism grew in the United States and Europe in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries because racism had been developed and hardened to justify enslaving the peoples of Africa. This racism did not disappear with abolition.

Before the slave trade many kingdoms in Africa were places of wealth and power, European travellers wrote about them with admiration. The slave trade negatively affected the continent of Africa because of the constant wars and the loss of millions of people. Africa fell behind the rest of the world. The historian Walter Rodney wrote that racism, coupled with what he called the underdevelopment of Africa due to the slave trade, allowed European countries to justify their colonisation of the continent in the 19th century.

The African historian Joseph Inikori (1987) suggested that the slave trade allowed the Industrial Revolution to happen in Britain. He believes that British industry benefited by supplying the factory-made goods in exchange for enslaved people and that profits made in the slave trade provided money for investment in British industry.

After Britain abolished the slave trade in 1807, the 'West Africa Squadron' of the Royal Navy patrolled the Atlantic Ocean trying to stop the slave trade. The British also signed anti-slavery treaties with many African rulers.

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Consequences of the slave trade - The transatlantic slave trade - KS3 History Revision - BBC Bitesize

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The slave trade was huge - British ships transported 2.6 million enslaved people. It has been estimated overall, about 12 million Africans were enslaved and taken to the Americas. The majority of enslaved West Africans were taken to South America. More than 55 per cent of those enslaved were taken to Brazil and Spanish South America.

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Drawing on extensive archival records, this digital memorial allows analysis of the ships, traders, and captives in the Atlantic slave trade. The three databases below provide details of 36,000 trans-Atlantic slave voyages, 10,000 intra-American ventures, names and personal information.

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The history, practise, and legacy of the transatlantic slave trade.

Episode fourteen - the history and legacy of the transatlantic slave trade.

For millions of people in Africa the transatlantic slave trade meant subjugation, transportation, isolation and degradation. But what was slavery's legacy on a continent where people were both slaves and slave traders? And how did African communities protect themselves?

"When slavery was rampant, our great great ancestor King Tanja Musa built this great wall to ward away slave raiders and slave traders from coming into Gwolu to enslave our people." Chief Koro Liman IV, of the Gwolu Area.

Presented by Hugh Quarshie.

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BBC World Service - The Story of Africa, The Transatlantic Slave Trade

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The history, practise, and legacy of the transatlantic slave trade. Episode fourteen - the history and legacy of the transatlantic slave trade. For millions of people in Africa the transatlantic slave trade meant subjugation, transportation, isolation and degradation. But what was slavery's legacy on a continent where people were both slaves and slave traders?

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Harriet Tubman tells the story how she escaped slavery and then helped others to do so too.

Harriet Tubman tells the story of her life and how she escaped slavery.Told in the first person, and brought to life with a mix of drama, movement, music and animation, the story begins when Harriet was a child. Born into slavery in 1820, she grew up working in the cotton fields. She witnessed another slave escape and when she was older, escaped herself. It was a long and lonely journey to freedom. However, when she reached the border with Pennsylvania, she realised she needed to help others escape too. A network of helpers, known as 'The Underground Railroad', helped slaves on their way to freedom. We see Harriet take groups of slaves through the forest to freedom and hear how throughout her life she helped to free over 70 slaves.

Teaching History?

You could ask pupils to take notes as they view the film, to help them draw up a timeline of Harriet Tubman's life. They should note important dates, places and events in Harriet's life. After viewing, the children could go on to draw timelines. They could supplement their timelines with information gleaned from their own research using a variety of sources including the internet. You could also ask them to add the dates of other significant events in Harriet's life-time, as well as noting significant dates in the emancipation of slaves after Harriet's time. Ask: "How was Britain involved in the slave trade?" Pupils could go on to research more about Britain's involvement in the slave trade.

This film would be relevant for teaching history at Key Stage 1 and 2 in England, Wales and Northern Ireland and First and Second Level in Scotland.

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BBC Two - True Stories, Episode 1, The life and work of Harriet Tubman

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Harriet Tubman tells the story how she escaped slavery and then helped others to do so too. Harriet Tubman tells the story of her life and how she escaped slavery.Told in the first person, and brought to life with a mix of drama, movement, music and animation, the story begins when Harriet was a child.

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The Atlantic slave trade: What too few textbooks told you - Anthony Hazard

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The Atlantic Slave Trade: Crash Course World History #24

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The statue of slave trader Edward Colston that was toppled from its plinth and pushed into the docks by protesters has long caused anger and divided opinion in Bristol.

The 5.5-metre (18ft) bronze statue had stood on Colston Avenue since 1895 as a memorial to his philanthropic works, an avenue he developed after divesting himself of links to a company involved in the selling of tens of thousands of slaves. His works in the city included money to sustain schools, almshouses and churches.

Although Colston was born in the city in 1636, he never lived there as an adult. All his slave-trading was conducted out of the City of London.

Colston grew up in a wealthy merchant family in Bristol and after going to school in London he established himself as a successful trader in textiles and wool.

In 1680 he joined the Royal African Company (RAC) company that had a monopoly on the west African slave trade. It was formally headed by the brother of King Charles II who later took the throne as James II. The company branded the slaves - including women and children - with its RAC initials on their chests.

It is believed to have sold about 100,000 west African people in the Caribbean and the Americas between 1672 and 1689 and it was through this company that Colston made the bulk of his fortune, using profits to move into money lending.

He sold his shares in the company to William, Prince of Orange, in 1689 after the latter had orchestrated the Glorious Revolution and seized power from James the year before.

Colston then began to develop a reputation as a philanthropist who donated to charitable causes such as schools and hospitals in Bristol and London. He briefly served as a Tory MP for Bristol before dying in Mortlake, Surrey, in 1721. He is buried in All Saints Church in Bristol.

His philanthropy has meant the Colston name permeates Bristol. Besides the statue, there is Colston's, an independent school, named after him, along with a concert hall, Colston Hall, a high-rise office office block, Colston Tower, Colston Street and Colston Avenue.

Campaigners have argued for years that his connections with slavery mean his contribution to the city should be reassessed. It was decided in 2018 to change the statue's plaque to include mention to his slave-trading activities but a final wording was never agreed.

A petition that gathered thousands of signatures in the past week said he had "no place" in the city.

"Whilst history shouldn't be forgotten, these people who benefited from the enslavement of individuals do not deserve the honour of a statue. This should be reserved for those who bring about positive change and who fight for peace, equality and social unity," the petition reads.

"We hereby encourage Bristol city council to remove the Edward Colston statue. He does not represent our diverse and multicultural city."

Bristol Museums has sought to explain the reason for Colston's statue remaining the city and says on its website that "Colston never, as far as we know, traded in enslaved Africans on his own account".

But it added: "What we do know is that he was an active member of the governing body of the RAC, which traded in enslaved Africans, for 11 years."

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Who was Edward Colston and why was his Bristol statue toppled?

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Slave trader was a member of the Royal African Company which had a monopoly on the west African trade in the late 17th century

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You're Dead To Me - Mansa Musa - BBC Sounds

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Catch up on your favourite BBC radio show from your favourite DJ right here, whenever you like. Listen without limits with BBC Sounds.

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Mansa Musa and Islam in Africa: Crash Course World History #16

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Mansa Musa, one of the wealthiest people who ever lived - Jessica Smith

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This West African city-long synonymous with the uttermost end of the Earth-was added to the World Heritage List in 1988, many centuries after its apex.

Timbuktu was a center of Islamic scholarship under several African empires, home to a 25,000-student university and other madrasahs that served as wellsprings for the spread of Islam throughout Africa from the 13th to 16th centuries. Sacred Muslim texts, in bound editions, were carried great distances to Timbuktu for the use of eminent scholars from Cairo, Baghdad, Persia, and elsewhere who were in residence at the city. The great teachings of Islam, from astronomy and mathematics to medicine and law, were collected and produced here in several hundred thousand manuscripts. Many of them remain, though in precarious condition, to form a priceless written record of African history.

Now a shadow of its former glory, Timbuktu strikes most travelers as humble and perhaps a bit run down.

But the city's former status as an Islamic oasis is echoed in its three great mud-and-timber mosques: Djingareyber, Sankore, and Sidi Yahia, which recall Timbuktu's golden age. These 14th- and 15th-century places of worship were also the homes of Islamic scholars known as the Ambassadors of Peace.

Most of Timbuktu's priceless manuscripts are in private hands, where they've been hidden for long years, and some have vanished into the black market in a trade that threatens to take with it part of Timbuktu's soul. There is hope that libraries and cultural centers can be established to preserve the precious collection and become a source of tourist revenue. Some fledgling efforts toward this end are now under way.

Religion wasn't the city's only industry. Timbuktu sits near the Niger River, where North African's savannas disappear into the sands of the Sahara, and part of its romantic image is that of a camel caravan trade route. This characterization had roots in reality and in fact continues to the present in much reduced form. Salt from the desert had great value and, along with other caravan goods, enriched the city in its heyday. It was these profitable caravans, in fact, that first brought scholars to congregate at the site.

In the 16th century Moroccan invaders began to drive scholars out, and trade routes slowly shifted to the coasts. The city's importance and prestige waned and scholars drifted elsewhere. French colonization at the close of the 19th century dealt another serious blow to the former glories of Timbuktu.

Things in Timbuktu deteriorated to the point that, though recognized as a World Heritage site only a few years before, it was placed on the List of World Heritage in Danger in 1990. But with major improvements to the preservation of the three ancient mosques Timbuktu earned its way off that list in 2005.

Timbuktu struggles to draw tourist revenue and develop tourism in a way that preserves the past-new construction near the mosques has prompted the World Heritage Committee to keep the site under close surveillance. Perched as it is on the edge of the Sahara, relentless encroachment of the desert sands is also a threat to Timbuktu.

In 2012, Timbuktu was once again placed on the List of World Heritage in Danger because of threats related to armed conflict.

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Discover the Striking Earthen City of Timbuktu

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This West African city-long synonymous with the uttermost end of the Earth-was added to the World Heritage List in 1988, many centuries after its apex. Timbuktu was a center of Islamic scholarship under several African empires, home to a 25,000-student university and other madrasahs that served as wellsprings for the spread of Islam throughout Africa from the 13th to 16th centuries.

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The history of Europe in the Middle Ages is often misunderstood. The medieval era of those nations outside of Europe is doubly ignored, first for its disreputable time frame (the "Dark Ages"), and then for its apparent lack of direct impact on modern western society.

Africa in the Middle Ages

Such is the case with Africa in the Middle Ages, a fascinating field of study that suffers from the further insult of racism. With the unavoidable exception of Egypt, the history of Africa before the incursion of Europeans has in the past been dismissed, erroneously and at times deliberately, as inconsequential to the development of modern society.

Fortunately, some scholars are working to correct this grave error. The study of medieval African societies has value, not only because we can learn from all civilizations in all time frames, but because these societies reflected and influenced a myriad of cultures that, due to the Diaspora that began in the 16th century, have spread throughout the modern world.

The Kingdom of Mali

One of these fascinating and near-forgotten societies is the medieval Kingdom of Mali, which thrived as a dominant power in West Africa from the thirteenth to the fifteenth century. Founded by the Mande-speaking Mandinka people, early Mali was governed by a council of caste-leaders who chose a "​Mansa" to rule. In time, the position of Mansa evolved into a more powerful role similar to a king or emperor.

According to tradition, Mali was suffering from a fearful drought when a visitor told the king, Mansa Barmandana, that the drought would break if he converted to Islam. This he did, and as predicted the drought did end.

Other Mandinkans followed the king's lead and converted as well, but the Mansa did not force a conversion, and many retained their Mandinkan beliefs. This religious freedom would remain throughout the centuries to come as Mali emerged as a powerful state.

The man primarily responsible for Mali's rise to prominence is Sundiata Keita. Although his life and deeds have taken on legendary proportions, Sundiata was no myth but a talented military leader. He led a successful rebellion against the oppressive rule of Sumanguru, the Susu leader who had taken control of the Ghanaian Empire.

After the Susu downfall, Sundiata laid claim to the lucrative gold and salt trade that had been so significant to Ghanaian prosperity. As Mansa, he established a cultural exchange system whereby the sons and daughters of prominent leaders would spend time in foreign courts, thus promoting understanding and a better chance of peace among nations.

Upon Sundiata's death in 1255 his son, Wali, not only continued his work but made great strides in agricultural development. Under Mansa Wali's rule, the competition was encouraged among trading centers such as Timbuktu and Jenne, strengthening their economic positions and allowing them to develop into important centers of culture.

Next to Sundiata, the most well-known and possibly the greatest ruler of Mali was Mansa Musa. During his 25-year reign, Musa doubled the territory of the Malian Empire and tripled its trade. Because he was a devout Muslim, Musa made a pilgrimage to Mecca in 1324, astonishing the peoples he visited with his wealth and generosity. So much gold did Musa introduce into circulation in the Middle East that it took about a dozen years for the economy to recover.

Gold was not the only form of Malian riches. Early Mandinka society venerated creative arts, and this did not change as Islamic influences helped to shape Mali. Education was also highly valued; Timbuktu was a significant center of learning with several prestigious schools. This intriguing blend of economic wealth, cultural diversity, artistic endeavors, and higher learning resulted in a splendid society to rival any contemporary European nation.

Malian society had its drawbacks, yet it is important to view these aspects in their historical setting. Enslavement was an integral part of the economy at a time when the institution had declined (yet still existed) in Europe; but the European serf, bound by law to the land, was rarely better off than someone who was enslaved.

By today's standards, justice could be harsh in Africa, but no harsher than European medieval punishments. Women had very few rights, but such was certainly true in Europe as well, and Malian women, just like European women, were at times able to participate in business (a fact that disturbed and surprised Muslim chroniclers). War was not unknown on either continent, just as today.

After the death of Mansa Musa, the Kingdom of Mali went into a slow decline. For another century its civilization held sway in West Africa until Songhay established itself as a dominant force in the 1400s. Traces of medieval Mali's greatness still remain, but those traces are fast disappearing as the unscrupulous plunder the archaeological remains of the region's wealth.

Mali is just one of many African societies whose past deserves a closer look. We hope to see more scholars explore this long-ignored field of study, and more of us open our eyes to the splendor of Medieval Africa.

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A Look Back at the Kingdom of Mali and the Splendor of Medieval Africa

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The history of Europe in the Middle Ages is often misunderstood. The medieval era of those nations outside of Europe is doubly ignored, first for its disreputable time frame (the "Dark Ages"), and then for its apparent lack of direct impact on modern western society.

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The Empire of Mali was one of the largest empires in West African History, and at its height, it spanned from the Atlantic Coast to central parts of the Sahara desert [i]. The Empire was founded in 1235 CE by the legendary King Sundiata [ii] and lasted until the early 1600s CE [iii]. The Empire's most famous ruler was named Mansa Musa, and chroniclers of the times wrote that when he travelled to Mecca on a pilgrimage he distributed so much gold that he caused great inflation lasting a decade [iv].
History
The development of the empire began in its capital city of Niani, which was also coincidentally the birthplace of the empire's founder and King Sundiata [xi]. Sundiata built a vast empire that stretched from the Atlantic Coast south of the Senegal River to Goa on the east of the Middle Niger bend.
Economy and Society in the Empire of Mali
The Mali Empire consisted of outlying areas and small kingdoms. All these Kingdoms pledged allegiance to Mali by offering annual tributes in the form of rice, millet, lances and arrows [xii]. Mali prospered from taxes collected from its citizens, and all goods brought in and out of the Empire were heavily taxed while all gold nuggets belonged to the King. However, gold dust could be traded and at certain times gold dust was used as currency together with salt and cotton cloth [xiii]. Cowrie shells from the Indian Ocean were later used as currency in the internal trade of Western Sahara [xiv].

Mali, and especially the city of Timbuktu, was famous a centre of learning and spectacular architecture [xv] such as the Sankara Madrassa - a great centre of learning - and the University of Sankore which continued to produce a great many astronomers, scholars and engineers long after the end of the Empire of Mali. French colonial occupation is considered to have contributed to the University's decline in its quality of education [xvi].

While Mali was a monarchy ruled by the Mansa or Master, much of the state power was in the hands of court officials [xvii]. This meant that the Empire could survive several periods of instability and a series of bad rulers. The Empire of Mali was also a multi-ethnic and multi-linguistic empire, and Islam was the dominant religion [xviii].
Leadership
Mali's rulers adopted the title of 'Mansa' [xix]. Mali's founder, Sundiata, firmly established himself as a strong leader in both the religious and secular sense [xx], claiming that he had a direct link to spirits of the land, thus making him the guardian of the ancestors. His empire extended from the fringes of the forest in the southwest through the grassland country of the Malinké to the Sahel and Southern Sahara ports of the Walatta and Tandmekka [xxi], and Arabic scholars estimate that Sundiata ruled for about 25 years and died in 1255 [xxii].

The leadership trouble in the Malian Empire would continue after the ascension of Abu Bakr. Abu Bakr was deposed in a coup by a man named Sakura, who was either a slave [xxx] or a military commander [xxxi]. The low stature of Sakura perhaps implies that the royal family had lost much of its popularity amongst the common people [xxxii]. Sakura's reign, however, would also be a troubled one; after he had converted to Islam, Sakura undertook a pilgrimage to Mecca but was killed by the Danakil people [xxxiii] during his return journey while in the city of Tadjoura [xxxiv]. It is disputed why Sakura was in Tadjoura, as it was not a natural route to take when returning from Mecca to Mali, and also for what reasons he was killed [xxxv]. Some suggest that he was killed because the Danakil wanted to steal his gold [xxxvi].
The famous Mansa Musa
It was in this context that the Empire of Mali's most famous ruler, Mansa Musa, ascended to the throne. It is debated by historians whether Mansa Musa was the grandson of one of Sundiata's brothers, thus making him Sundiata's grand-nephew, or if he was the grandson of Abu Bakr [xliii]. What is known is that Mansa Musa converted to Islam and underwent a pilgrimage to Mecca in 1324, accompanied by 60 000 individuals and large quantities of gold [xliv]. His generosity was supposedly so great that by the time he left Mecca he had used every piece of gold he had taken with him, and had to borrow money for the return trip [xlv].
The decline of the Mali Empire
Mansa Musa II died in 1387 and was succeeded by his brother Mansa Magha II, who would also be the puppet of powerful court officials [lviii]. After a year Mansa Musa II was killed, thus ending the line of kings which descended from Mansa Musa I [lix]. This triggered the decline of the Empire of Mali and in 1433 the city was conquered by Tuareg nomads [lx]. For the next 100 years the Empire would slowly give way to the Songhay conquerors from the east, and by the 1500s it had been reduced to only its Malinké core lands [lxi]. During the 17th century Mali had broken into a number of minor independent chiefdoms and thus the Mali Empire was no longer the superpower it had been in its prime [lxii].
Endnotes
[i] Conrad, David C. 2009. Great Empires of the Past. Empires of Medieval West Africa: Ghana, Mali, and Songhay. New York: Facts on File, Inc. Page 39. ↵

[ii] Innes, Gordon. 1974. Sunjata: Three Mandinke Versions. School of Oriental and African Studies University of London. Male Street, London. Page 1. ↵

[iii] Conrad, David C. 2009. Great Empires of the Past. Empires of Medieval West Africa: Ghana, Mali, and Songhay. New York: Facts on File, Inc. Page 59. ↵

[v] Conrad, David C. 2009. Great Empires of the Past. Empires of Medieval West Africa: Ghana, Mali, and Songhay. New York: Facts on File, Inc. Page 39. ↵

[vi] Levtzion, N. 1963. "The Thirteenth- and Fourteenth- Century Kings of Mali" in Journalof African History, IV, 3 (I963), pp. 34I-353. Page 341. ↵

[vii] C. 2009. Great Empires of the Past. Empires of Medieval West Africa: Ghana, Mali, and Songhay. New York: Facts on File, Inc. Page 42. ↵

[viii] Ibid. Page 17. ↵

[ix] Gordon. 1974. Sunjata: Three Mandinke Versions. School of Oriental and African Studies University of London. Male Street, London. Page 1. ↵

[x] Innes, Gordon. 1974. Sunjata: Three Mandinke Versions. School of Oriental and African Studies University of London. Male Street, London. Page 1. ↵

[xi] Conrad, David C. 2009. Great Empires of the Past. Empires of Medieval West Africa: Ghana, Mali, and Songhay. New York: Facts on File, Inc. Page 34. ↵

[xii] Togola, Téréba. 1996. "Iron Age Occupation in the Méma Region, Mali" in The African Archaeological Review, Vol. 13, No. 2 (Jun., 1996), pp. 91-110. Page 95. ↵

[xiii] Conrad, David C. 2009. Great Empires of the Past. Empires of Medieval West Africa: Ghana, Mali, and Songhay. New York: Facts on File, Inc. Page 34. ↵

[xv] Shuriye, Abdi O. and Ibrahim, Dauda Sh. 2013. "Timbuktu Civilization and its Significance in Islamic History" in Mediterranean Journal of Social Sciences MCSER Publishing, Rome-Italy Vol 4 No 11 October 2013. Page 697. ↵

[xvi] Ibid. Page 698. ↵

[xvii] Levtzion, N. 1963. "The Thirteenth- and Fourteenth- Century Kings of Mali" in Journal of African History, IV, 3 (I963), pp. 34I-353. Page 350. ↵

[xviii] Conrad, David C. 2009. Great Empires of the Past. Empires of Medieval West Africa: Ghana, Mali, and Songhay. New York: Facts on File, Inc. Page 34. ↵

[ixx] David C. 2009. Great Empires of the Past. Empires of Medieval West Africa: Ghana, Mali, and Songhay. New York: Facts on File, Inc. Page 45. ↵

[xxii] Ibid. Page 44. ↵

[xxiii] Ibid. ↵

[xxv] Levtzion, N. 1963. "The Thirteenth- and Fourteenth- Century Kings of Mali" in Journal ↵

[xxvii] Ibid. ↵

[xxviii] Ibid. Page 344. ↵

[xxx] Ibid. Page 345.. ↵

[xxxi] C. 2009. Great Empires of the Past. Empires of Medieval West Africa: Ghana, Mali, and Songhay. New York: Facts on File, Inc. Page 45. ↵

[xxxii] Ibid. ↵

[xxxiii] Beckingham, C.F. 1953. "Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies" in African Studies. Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies / Volume 15 / Issue 02 / June 1953, pp 391-392. ↵

[xxxiv] Levtzion, N. 1963. "The Thirteenth- and Fourteenth- Century Kings of Mali" in Journal of African History, IV, 3 (I963), pp. 34I-353. Page 345. ↵

[xxxvi] Ibid. ↵

[xxxvii] Conrad, David C. 2009. Great Empires of the Past. Empires of Medieval West Africa: Ghana, Mali, and Songhay. New York: Facts on File, Inc. Page 45. ↵

[xxxviii] Togola, Téréba. 1996. "Iron Age Occupation in the Méma Region, Mali" in The African Archaeological Review, Vol. 13, No. 2 (Jun., 1996), pp. 91-110. Page 95. ↵

[xxxix] McDowell, Linda and Mackay, Marilyn. 2005. Teacher's Guide for World History Societies of the Past. Portage and Main Press. Winnipeg, Canada. Page 246. ↵

[xli] Conrad, David C. 2009. Great Empires of the Past. Empires of Medieval West Africa: Ghana, Mali, and Songhay. New York: Facts on File, Inc. Page 45. ↵

[xlii] Ibid. Page 17. ↵

[xliii] Levtzion, N. 1963. "The Thirteenth- and Fourteenth- Century Kings of Mali" in Journal of African History, IV, 3 (I963), pp. 34I-353. Page 347. ↵

[xliv] C. 2009. Great Empires of the Past. Empires of Medieval West Africa: Ghana, Mali, and Songhay. New York: Facts on File, Inc. Page 49. ↵

[xlvii] Ibid. ↵

[xlviii] Shuriye, Abdi O. and Ibrahim, Dauda Sh. 2013. "Timbuktu Civilization and its Significance in Islamic History" in Mediterranean Journal of Social Sciences MCSER Publishing, Rome-Italy Vol 4 No 11 October 2013. Page 697. ↵

[l] Conrad, David C. 2009. Great Empires of the Past. Empires of Medieval West Africa: Ghana, Mali, and Songhay. New York: Facts on File, Inc. Page 45. ↵

[li] Levtzion, N. 1963. "The Thirteenth- and Fourteenth- Century Kings of Mali" in Journal of African History, IV, 3 (I963), pp. 34I-353. Page 350. ↵

[liii] Ibid. Page 351. ↵

[lvii] Conrad, David C. 2009. Great Empires of the Past. Empires of Medieval West Africa: Ghana, Mali, and Songhay. New York: Facts on File, Inc. Page 55. ↵

[lviii] Ibid. Page 56. ↵

[lx] Hunwick, John O. 2000. "Timbuktu" in Encyclopaedia of Islam. Volume X (2nd ed.), Leiden: Brill, pp. 508-510. Page 508. ↵

[lxi] Conrad, David C. 2009. Great Empires of the Past. Empires of Medieval West Africa: Ghana, Mali, and Songhay. New York: Facts on File, Inc. Page 59. ↵

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The Empire of Mali was one of the largest empires in West African History, and at its height, it spanned from the Atlantic Coast to central parts of the Sahara desert [i]. The Empire was founded in 1235 CE by the legendary King Sundiata [ii] and lasted until the early 1600s CE [iii].

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Directed by Ken Hughes. With Richard Harris, Alec Guinness, Robert Morley, Dorothy Tutin. Oliver Cromwell can no longer tolerate King Charles' policies, and the self-interest of the ruling class, and leads a civil war to install Parliament as the ultimate ruler of England.

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BBC Radio 4 - In Our Time, The Trial of Charles I

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Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the trial of Charles I.

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How did these conflicts affect their lives?

In 1642 war broke out between King and Parliament. Both sides called up men to fight for them as a result of a series of disagreements about religion and the way that the country should be ruled. During the 1630s King Charles I ruled without calling a Parliament. Many changes and events during this period caused distrust between the King and the people.

In the 1630s the Archbishop of Canterbury, William Laud, endeavoured to reform the church by ensuring that church buildings were made beautiful again and services made more elaborate. William Laud wanted to raise the Church of England to its former glory, but many people thought that he was returning it to the ways of the Roman Catholic Church and how it had been before the Reformation. Puritans, groups of radical Protestants, in particular disliked these changes.

Parliament was one of the main ways that monarchs raised money, by asking for taxes to be raised. As King Charles did not summon a Parliament during this time he had to use alternative ways of finding money. Some of these made him unpopular. For example, he raised money from people across the country via a tax known as Ship Money. However, because this was traditionally raised from coastal counties and only in times when the coastline was threatened, many resented it.

Finally, when rebellion broke out in Scotland in 1637 against Laud's unpopular prayer book reforms, Charles I was forced to call a Parliament. Relationships between Charles and the MPs were now so strained that they struggled to agree on matters of religion and finance. Some people had also began to question whether the King ruled by 'Divine Right' (meaning that his power came directly from God and not from any earthly power). When war broke out in Ireland in 1641 an army was needed to subdue it, but the mistrust had grown so great that neither trusted the other in charge of armed forces. In August 1642 the country descended into civil war.

War was fought between King and Parliament in a series of prolonged campaigns between 1642 and 1651. In 1649 Charles I was executed and rule without a King was established until 1660 when Charles II, his son, returned to England.

Historians have estimated that during these wars perhaps as many as 7% of the population died as a result of the fighting and from diseases spread by moving armies. People from all parts of society were impacted by these wars, and this included women. Many women were the wives and mothers of soldiers, some of whom never returned from war, as well as carrying out other wartime activities such as nursing.

These sources tell us something about the lives of these women during the English Civil Wars and focus on the different roles that they played. Each source is an original document, or an extract from one, that was created or received by Parliament at the time. Some of the documents contain the words of women themselves, others are about women, but all contain interesting stories about how women participated in the events of this period.

Tasks
Petition from Mary Robinson to the Committee for Compounding, July 1646

1. Which side did Mary support?

2. Why is she making this petition or request?

3. How might the Civil Wars have put families in a difficult situation?

The mark of Mary Robinson

How has Mary signed her name in this document? Do you think that she was able to write her own petitions?
Petition from 'many hundreds of widows of Liverpool' to the Committee for Compounding, April 1648

1. What does this source tell us about what happened when a city came under attack during the civil wars?

2. What might it have been like to live through a civil war siege as a civilian?

3. What could have been the reason for these widows and children joining together with Colonel John Moore in order to send their petition?

Letter from Elizabeth Alkin to the Admiralty Commissioners, July 1655

1. During the seventeenth century there was no National Health Service and medical advances such as anaesthetics and antibiotics did not exist. What do you think this would have meant for soldiers who were wounded in battle?

2. What does this source also tell us about the type of care that Elizabeth Alkin provided to wounded soldiers?

Reverse side of letter showing the note 'Parliament Joan's Letter'.
The back of a letter often gave the address details of the recipient as people did not use envelopes in this period. Instead, letters were folded and sealed.

Can you see the lines where the letter would have been folded?

In addition, the author of the letter was also written on the back when it was filed. This letter says that the author was 'Parliament Joan', another name for Elizabeth Alkin because as well as being a nurse, she carried out more secret duties for Parliament.
Information of Constance Stringer to Parliament, February 1651
Constance Stringer was also a spy, or 'informer' for Parliament like Elizabeth Alkin. They passed on information about who was fighting for the King to Parliament.

1. What might have motivated Constance Stringer to spy for Parliament?

2. Could this have been a dangerous thing to do?

3. In what ways might it have been easier for women to act as spies rather than men?

Report of the Parliamentary Committee in Shropshire on Mary Crompton, November 1645

1. What is Parliament accusing Mary Crompton of doing in this source?

2. Does it surprise you that a woman might have been accused of this?

3. This is a Parliamentary report and does not give us a chance to hear Mary's side of the story. If she was able to defend herself, what do you think she could have said?

'The Resolution of the Women of London to the Parliament' (1642) and 'The Parliament of Women' (1646) © British Library
So far you have looked at manuscript sources in this lesson which were hand written and either produced by a government department or sent into the government. At the time, however, they would probably only have been read by a small selection of people. However, during the Civil War the use of print increased dramatically and more people had access to pamphlets and newsletters that were produced by the printing press.

Both of these images come from the front pages of pamphlets that were available for members of the public to purchase and read. Some pamphlets would contain news or gossip, and some were official publications of Parliament. These pamphlets have images of women on them and tell us something about the ways in which people at the time represented women and thought they should act.
Questions

1. Look at both pictures. The first source contains a speech bubble to show what the woman was saying to the man. If there were similar speech bubbles on the second image what do you think the women might be saying?

2. Take another look at the first picture. Woodcuts were used to produce images such as this in this period and they were often reused because they were expensive. Do you think that this image was originally intended for this pamphlet? What makes you think this?

3. Which image do you think depicts women in a more positive way? Explain your reasons why.

Teachers' notes

This lesson could be used as part of a teaching programme for any of the thematic studies for the GCSE history courses relating to the study of Warfare and British society or Power and Authority. It explores the stories of some of those women whose lives were changed by the English Civil Wars. The documents reveal that they played a variety of roles, a few of which may surprise us. Throughout history, wartime has impacted on all different types of people. The lives and experiences of women are sometimes harder to gauge, particularly further back in time. However, it is possible to discover more about the important roles that women had in these wars and in others. It is also important to include different types of people: men and women, young and old, rich and poor, when we study history. The lives and experiences of ordinary people help us to understand what it might have been like to live through war then as well as now.

We hope that these documents will offer students a chance to develop their powers of evaluation and analysis. Alternatively, teachers may wish to use the sources to develop their own lesson in a different way or combine with other sources available from our Civil War website

All sources in this lesson have been provided with a transcript and more difficult language has been explained in square brackets to support students. Obvious differences in the spelling have not been altered. Each source is captioned and dated to provide a sense of what the document is about. All document images and can be downloaded as a pdf file for educational purposes.
Connections to the curriculum Key stage 3
The development of Church, state and society in Britain 1509-1745
Key stage 4
Edexcel GCSE History (9-1). Unit: Warfare and British Society, c1250-present, option 12, Warfare and English Society in the Early Modern Period: the experience of war.

OCR GCSE, History A, Explaining the Modern World (J410). This lesson provides support for the unit: War and British Society c.790-2010: The Civil Wars of 1642-1651 in England, Scotland and Ireland: the nature of these wars; their impact on the people of England, Scotland and Ireland.

AQA GCSE History (8145). Thematic study 2B Britain: Power and the People c1170 to the present day, part two: Challenging royal authority: the short and long term impact of the English Revolution.

Sources

Source 1: Petition from Mary Robinson to the Committee for Compounding [a Parliamentary Committee that dealt with confiscated lands], July 1646 (SP 23/184 f.916)

Source 2: The mark of Mary Robinson (SP 23/184 f.921)

Source 3: Petition from 'many hundreds of widows of Liverpool' to the Committee for Compounding, April 1648 (SP 23/188 f.939)

Source 4a: Letter from Elizabeth Alkin to the Admiralty Commissioners [a Parliamentary committee that dealt with the navy], July 1655 (SP 18/38 f.9r)

Source 4b: Reverse side of letter showing the note 'Parliament Joan's Letter'.

Source 5: Information of Constance Stringer to Parliament, February 1651 (SP 23/120 f.33)

Source 6: Report of the Parliamentary Committee in Shropshire on Mary Crompton, November 1645 (SP 23/77 f.587)

Source 7: 'The Resolution of the Women of London to the Parliament' (1642) and 'The Parliament of Women' (1646) © British Library

External links

Civil War News Stories, a British Library learning activity using original newspaper sources from the English Civil Wars.

BCW Project, a useful content website on the English Civil Wars.

Civil War and Revolution, a themed collection of articles by leading historians.

Related resources

Use our Civil War website to find out about archival sources and investigate the conflict involving King Charles I, Parliament, the people and Oliver Cromwell.

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Women and the English Civil Wars - The National Archives

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How did these conflicts affect their lives? In 1642 war broke out between King and Parliament. Both sides called up men to fight for them as a result of a series of disagreements about religion and the way that the country should be ruled. During the 1630s King Charles I ruled without calling a Parliament.

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We English like to think of ourselves as gentlemen and ladies; a nation that knows how to queue, eat properly and converse politely. And yet in 1642 we went to war with ourselves. Pitting brother against brother and father against son, the English civil war is a blot on our history. Indeed, there was barely an English 'gentleman' who was not touched by the war.

Yet how did it start? Was it simply a power struggle between king and Parliament? Were the festering wounds left by the Tudor religious roller coaster to blame? Or was it all about the money?

Divine right - the God given right of an anointed monarch to rule unhindered - was established firmly in the reign of James I (1603-25). He asserted his political legitimacy by decreeing that a monarch is subject to no earthly authority; not the will of his people, the aristocracy or any other estate of the realm, including Parliament. Under this definition any attempt to depose, dethrone or restrict the powers of the monarch goes against the will of God. The concept of a God given right to rule was not born in this period however; writings as far back as AD 600 infer that the English in their varied Anglo-Saxon states accepted those in power had God's blessing.

This blessing should create an infallible leader - and there is the rub. Surely if you have been given power to rule by God, you should demonstrate an ability to wield this responsibility with a degree of success? By 1642 Charles I found himself nearly bankrupt, surrounded by blatant corruption and nepotism and desperate to hold onto the thin veil that masked his religious uncertainty. He was by no means an infallible leader, a fact that was glaringly obvious to both Parliament and the people of England.

Parliament had no tangible power at this point in English history. They were a collection of aristocrats who met at the King's pleasure to offer advice and to help him collect taxes. This alone gave them some influence, as the king needed their seal of approval to legitimately set taxes in motion. In times of financial difficulty that meant the King had to listen to Parliament. Stretched thinly through the lavish lifestyles and expensive wars of the Tudor and Stuart period, the Crown was struggling. Coupled with his desire to extend his high Anglican (read here thinly disguised Catholic) policies and practices to Scotland, Charles I needed the financial support of Parliament. When this support was withheld, Charles saw it as an infringement on his Divine Right and as such, he dismissed Parliament in March 1629. The following eleven years, during which Charles ruled England without a Parliament, are referred to as the 'personal rule'. Ruling without Parliament was not unprecedented but without access to Parliament's financial pulling power, Charles's ability to acquire funds was limited.
Above: Parliament in the time of King Charles I
Charles's personal rule reads like a 'how to annoy your countrymen for dummies'. His introduction of a permanent Ship Tax was the most offensive policy to many. Ship Tax was an established tax that was paid by counties with a sea border in times of war. It was to be used to strengthen the Navy and so these counties would be protected by the money they paid in tax; in theory, it was a fair tax against which they could not argue.

Charles's decision to extend a year-round Ship Tax to all counties in England provided around £150,000 to £200,000 annually between 1634 and 1638.. The resultant backlash and popular opposition however proved that there was growing support for a check on the power of the King.

This support did not just come from the general tax paying population but also from the Puritanical forces within Protestant England. After Mary I, all subsequent English monarchs have been overtly Protestant. This stabilization of the religious roller coaster calmed the fears of many in Tudor times who believed if a civil war was to be fought in England it would be fought along religious lines.

While outwardly a Protestant, Charles I was married to a staunch Catholic, Henrietta Maria of France. She heard Roman Catholic mass every day in her own private chapel and frequently took her children, the heirs to the English throne, to mass. Furthermore, Charles' support for his friend Archbishop William Laud's reforms to the English Church were seen by many as a move backwards to the popery of Catholicism. The re-introduction of stained glass windows and finery within churches was the last straw for many Puritans and Calvinists.
Above: Archbishop William Laud
To prosecute those who opposed his reforms, Laud used the two most powerful courts in the land, the Court of High Commission and the Court of Star Chamber. The courts became feared for their censorship of opposing religious views and were unpopular among the propertied classes for inflicting degrading punishments on gentlemen. For example, in 1637 William Prynne, Henry Burton and John Bastwick were pilloried, whipped, mutilated by cropping and imprisoned indefinitely for publishing anti-episcopal pamphlets.

Charles's continued support for these types of policies continued to pile on support for those that were looking to put a limit on his power.

By October 1640, Charles' unpopular religious policies and attempts to extend his power north had resulted in a war with the Scots. This was a disaster for Charles who had neither the money nor the men to fight a war. He rode north to lead the battle himself, suffering a crushing defeat that left Newcastle upon Tyne and Durham occupied by Scottish forces.

Public demands for a Parliament were growing and Charles realised that whatever his next step was to be, it would require a financial backbone. After the conclusion of the humiliating Treaty of Ripon that let the Scots remain in Newcastle and Durham whilst being paid £850 a day for the privilege, Charles summoned Parliament. Being called upon to help King and country instilled a sense of purpose and power into this new Parliament. They now presented an alternative power in the country to the King. The two sides in the English Civil war had been established.

The slide to war becomes more pronounced from this stage onwards. That is not to say it was inevitable, or that the subsequent removal and execution of Charles I was even a notion in the heads of those who opposed him. However, the balance of power had begun to shift. Parliament wasted no time arresting and putting on trial the Kings closest advisers, including Archbishop Laud and Lord Strafford.

In May 1641 Charles conceded an unprecedented act, which forbade the dissolution of the English Parliament without Parliament's consent. Thus emboldened, Parliament now abolished Ship Tax and the courts of The Star Chamber and The High Commission.

Over the next year Parliament began to introduce increased emboldened demands, and by June 1642 these were too much for Charles to bear. His bullish response in barging into the House of Commons and attempting to arrest five MPs lost him the last remnants of support among undecided MPs. The sides were crystallized and the battle lines were drawn. Charles I raised his standard on 22nd August 1642 in Nottingham: the Civil War had begun.
Above: King Charles preparing before the Battle of Edgehill
So the origins of the English Civil War are complex and intertwined. England had managed to escape the Reformation relatively unscathed, avoiding much of the heavy fighting that raged in Europe as Catholic and Protestant forces battled in The Thirty Year War. However, the scars of the Reformation were still present beneath the surface and Charles did little to avert public fears about his intentions for the religious future of England.

Money had also been an issue from the outset, especially as the royal coffers had been emptied during the reigns of Elizabeth I and James I. These issues were exacerbated by Charles's mismanagement of the public coffers and through introducing new and 'unfair' taxes he simply added to the already growing anti-Crown sentiment up and down the country.

These two points demonstrate the fact that Charles believed in his Divine Right, a right to rule unchallenged. Through the study of money, religion and power at this time it is clear that one factor is woven through them all and must be noted as a major cause of the English Civil War; that is the attitude and ineptitude of Charles I himself, perhaps the antithesis of an infallible monarch.

Battles of the English Civil War:
Banner image by David Muscroft / Shutterstock.com

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The Origins & Causes of the English Civil War

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We English like to think of ourselves as gentlemen and ladies; a nation that knows how to queue, eat properly and converse politely. And yet in 1642 we went to war with ourselves. Pitting brother against brother and father against son, the English civil war is a blot on our history.

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Revised and rewritten for younger readers, Olusoga's insightful and invaluable history of the Black experience in the British Isles ranges from forgotten Africans in the Roman legions to the multicultural society of the present day.

A short, essential introduction to Black British history for readers of 12+ by award-winning historian and broadcaster David Olusoga.

When did Africans first come to Britain?

Who are the well-dressed black children in Georgian paintings?

Why did the American Civil War disrupt the Industrial Revolution?

These and many other questions are answered in this essential introduction to 1800 years of the Black British history: from the Roman Africans who guarded Hadrian's Wall right up to the present day.

This new children's version of the bestseller Black and British: A Forgotten History is Illustrated with maps, photos and portraits.

Macmillan Children's Books will donate 50p from every copy sold to The Black Curriculum.

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"Well written and hugely interesting"

I'm only a chapter or so into this book but I'm ashamed to say I have learnt more about black history in Britain in those pages than I have in my whole life until now.
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This is both a thorough piece of historical research and a very moving read. The author's account In his preface of the racism faced by his family is deeply moving and the scale of the hidden history was a revelation.... More

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This book has changed my perspective on British history and what British identity means in the modern world. Olusoga narrates the history with great poise and alongside reading I watched the BBC documentaries on... More

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Black and British: A short, essential history by David Olusoga | Waterstones

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Revised and rewritten for younger readers, Olusoga's insightful and invaluable history of the Black experience in the British Isles ranges from forgotten Africans in the Roman legions to the multicultural society of the present day. A short, essential introduction to Black British history for readers of 12+ by award-winning historian and broadcaster David Olusoga.

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Who Was John Blanke? Celebrating this Black Tudor, & ways of interpreting historical figures

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Click here to edit.

​ 'Intricately researched and brilliantly written...Through these biographies Kaufmann paints a wider panorama of a Renaissance England that was globally aware and in contact with Africa and her people. This is history on the cutting edge of archival research but accessibly written and alive with human details and warmth. Black Tudors is a critical book that allows us to better understand an era of our national past that fascinates us like no other.' - DAVID OLUSOGA

Think you know the Tudors?

Think again...
We know what they wore. We know what they ate. We know the details of their monarchs' sex lives, and how they caused seismic changes in our country's religious and political history. But what about Black Tudors? Until now, the story of the Africans who lived and died in sixteenth-century England has remained untold...

BLACK TUDORS tells the stories of ten Africans. Miranda Kaufmann traces their tumultuous paths in the Tudor and Stuart eras, uncovering a rich array of detail about their daily lives and how they were treated. She reveals how John Blanke came to be the royal trumpeter to Henry VII and Henry VIII: the trouble Jacques Francis got himself into while working as a salvage diver on the wreck of the Mary Rose; what prompted Diego to sail the world with Drake, and she pieces together the stories of a porter, a prince, a sailor, a prostitute and a silk weaver.

They came to England from Africa, from Europe and from the Spanish Caribbean. They came with privateers, pirates, merchants, aristocrats, even kings and queens, and were accepted into Tudor society. They were baptised, married and buried by the Church of England and paid wages like other Tudors.
Yet their experience was extraordinary because, unlike the majority of Africans across the rest of the Atlantic world, in England they were free. They lived in a world where skin colour was less important than religion, class or talent: before the English became heavily involved in the slave trade, and before they founded their first surviving colony in the Americas. Their stories challenge the traditional narrative that racial slavery was inevitable and that it was imported to colonial Virginia from Tudor England. They force us to re-examine the 17th century to find out what had caused perceptions to change so radically.

Introducing Black Tudors means a reassessment of our national story and what it means to be British today. They are just one piece in the diverse jigsaw of migrations that make up our island's multicultural heritage. The knowledge that Africans lived free in one of the most formative periods of our national history can move us beyond the invidious legacies of the slavery and racism that blighted later periods in our history. BLACK TUDORS challenges the accepted narrative that racial slavery was all but inevitable and forces us to re-evaluate our shared history.

Here's a short film of me explaining more about the book, and why I wanted to write it:

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Click here to edit. ​ 'Intricately researched and brilliantly written...Through these biographies Kaufmann paints a wider panorama of a Renaissance England that was globally aware and in contact with Africa and her people. This is history on the cutting edge of archival research but accessibly written and alive with human details and warmth.

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What Were the Crusades?

By the end of the 11th century, Western Europe had emerged as a significant power in its own right, though it still lagged behind other Mediterranean civilizations, such as the Byzantine Empire (formerly the eastern half of the Roman Empire) and the Islamic Empire of the Middle East and North Africa.

However, Byzantium had lost considerable territory to the invading Seljuk Turks. After years of chaos and civil war, the general Alexius Comnenus seized the Byzantine throne in 1081 and consolidated control over the remaining empire as Emperor Alexius I.

In 1095, Alexius sent envoys to Pope Urban II asking for mercenary troops from the West to help confront the Turkish threat. Though relations between Christians in the East and those in the West had long been fractious, Alexius's request came at a time when the situation was improving.

When Were the Crusades?

In November 1095, at the Council of Clermont in southern France, the Pope called on Western Christians to take up arms to aid the Byzantines and recapture the Holy Land from Muslim control. This marked the beginning of the Crusades.

Pope Urban's plea was met with a tremendous response, both among the military elite as well as ordinary citizens. Those who joined the armed pilgrimage wore a cross as a symbol of the Church.

The Crusades set the stage for several religious knightly military orders, including the Knights Templar, the Teutonic Knights, and the Hospitallers. These groups defended the Holy Land and protected Christian pilgrims traveling to and from the region.

Did you know? In a popular movement known as the Children's Crusade (1212), a motley crew including children, adolescents, women, the elderly and the poor marched all the way from the Rhineland to Italy behind a young man named Nicholas, who said he had received divine instruction to march toward the Holy Land.

The First Crusade (1096-1099)

Four armies of Crusaders were formed from troops of different Western European regions, led by Raymond of Saint-Gilles, Godfrey of Bouillon, Hugh of Vermandois and Bohemond of Taranto (with his nephew Tancred). These groups departed for Byzantium in August 1096.

A less organized band of knights and commoners known as the "People's Crusade" set off before the others under the command of a popular preacher known as Peter the Hermit.

Ignoring Alexius' advice to wait for the rest of the Crusaders, Peter's army crossed the Bosporus Strait in early August. In the first major clash between the Crusaders and Muslims, Turkish forces crushed the invading Europeans at Cibotus.

Another group of Crusaders, led by the notorious Count Emicho, carried out a series of massacres of Jews in various towns in the Rhineland in 1096, drawing widespread outrage and causing a major crisis in Jewish-Christian relations.

When the four main armies of Crusaders arrived in Constantinople, Alexius insisted that their leaders swear an oath of loyalty to him and recognize his authority over any land regained from the Turks, as well as any other territory they might conquer. All but Bohemond resisted taking the oath.

In May 1097, the Crusaders and their Byzantine allies attacked Nicea (now Iznik, Turkey), the Seljuk capital in Anatolia. The city surrendered in late June.

The Fall of Jerusalem

Despite deteriorating relations between the Crusaders and Byzantine leaders, the combined force continued its march through Anatolia, capturing the great Syrian city of Antioch in June 1098.

After various internal struggles over control of Antioch, the Crusaders began their march toward Jerusalem, then occupied by Egyptian Fatimids (who as Shi'ite Muslims were enemies of the Sunni Seljuks).

Encamping before Jerusalem in June 1099, the Christians forced the besieged city's governor to surrender by mid-July.

Despite Tancred's promise of protection, the Crusaders slaughtered hundreds of men, women and children in their victorious entrance into Jerusalem.

The Second Crusade (1147-1149)

Having achieved their goal in an unexpectedly short period of time after the First Crusade, many of the Crusaders departed for home. To govern the conquered territory, those who remained established four large western settlements, or Crusader states, in Jerusalem, Edessa, Antioch and Tripoli.

Guarded by formidable castles, the Crusader states retained the upper hand in the region until around 1130, when Muslim forces began gaining ground in their own holy war (or jihad) against the Christians, whom they called "Franks."

In 1144, the Seljuk general Zangi, governor of Mosul, captured Edessa, leading to the loss of the northernmost Crusader state.

News of Edessa's fall stunned Europe and caused Christian authorities in the West to call for another Crusade. Led by two great rulers, King Louis VII of France and King Conrad III of Germany, the Second Crusade began in 1147.

That October, the Turks annihilated Conrad's forces at Dorylaeum, the site of a great Christian victory during the First Crusade.

After Louis and Conrad managed to assemble their armies at Jerusalem, they decided to attack the Syrian stronghold of Damascus with an army of some 50,000 (the largest Crusader force yet).

Damascus' ruler was forced to call on Nur al-Din, Zangi's successor in Mosul, for aid. The combined Muslim forces dealt a humiliating defeat to the Crusaders, decisively ending the Second Crusade. Nur al-Din added Damascus to his expanding empire in 1154.

The Third Crusade (1187-1192)

After numerous attempts by the Crusaders of Jerusalem to capture Egypt, Nur al-Din's forces (led by the general Shirkuh and his nephew, Saladin) seized Cairo in 1169 and forced the Crusader army to evacuate.

Upon Shirkuh's subsequent death, Saladin assumed control and began a campaign of conquests that accelerated after Nur al-Din's death in 1174.

In 1187, Saladin began a major campaign against the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem. His troops virtually destroyed the Christian army at the battle of Hattin, taking back the important city along with a large amount of territory.

Outrage over these defeats inspired the Third Crusade, led by rulers such as the aging Emperor Frederick Barbarossa (who was drowned at Anatolia before his entire army reached Syria), King Philip II of France, and King Richard I of England (known as Richard the Lionheart).

In September 1191, Richard's forces defeated those of Saladin in the battle of Arsuf, which would be the only true battle of the Third Crusade.

From the recaptured city of Jaffa, Richard reestablished Christian control over some of the region and approached Jerusalem, though he refused to lay siege to the city.

In September 1192, Richard and Saladin signed a peace treaty that reestablished the Kingdom of Jerusalem (though without the city of Jerusalem) and ended the Third Crusade.

The Fourth Crusade (1202-1204)

Though Pope Innocent III called for a new Crusade in 1198, power struggles within and between Europe and Byzantium drove the Crusaders to divert their mission in order to topple the reigning Byzantine emperor, Alexius III, in favor of his nephew, who became Alexius IV in mid-1203.

The new emperor's attempts to submit the Byzantine church to Rome was met with stiff resistance, and Alexius IV was strangled after a palace coup in early 1204.

In response, the Crusaders declared war on Constantinople, and the Fourth Crusade ended with the devastating Fall of Constantinople, marked by a bloody conquest, looting and near-destruction of the magnificent Byzantine capital later that year.

Final Crusades (1208-1271)

Throughout the remainder of the 13th century, a variety of Crusades aimed not so much to topple Muslim forces in the Holy Land but to combat any and all groups seen as enemies of the Christian faith.

The Albigensian Crusade (1208-29) aimed to root out the heretical Cathari or Albigensian sect of Christianity in France, while the Baltic Crusades (1211-25) sought to subdue pagans in Transylvania.

A so-called Children's Crusade took place in 1212 when thousands of young children vowed to march to Jerusalem. Although it was called the Children's Crusade, most historians don't regard it as an actual crusade, and many experts question whether the group was really comprised of children. The movement never reached the Holy Land.

In the Fifth Crusade, put in motion by Pope Innocent III before his death in 1216, the Crusaders attacked Egypt from both land and sea but were forced to surrender to Muslim defenders led by Saladin's nephew, Al-Malik al-Kamil, in 1221.

In 1229, in what became known as the Sixth Crusade, Emperor Frederick II achieved the peaceful transfer of Jerusalem to Crusader control through negotiation with al-Kamil. The peace treaty expired a decade later, and Muslims easily regained control of Jerusalem.

From 1248 to 1254, Louis IX of France organized a crusade against Egypt. This battle, known as the Seventh Crusade, was a failure for Louis.

The Mamluks

As the Crusaders struggled, a new dynasty, known as the Mamluks, descended from former slaves of the Islamic Empire, took power in Egypt. In 1260, Mamluk forces in Palestine managed to halt the advance of the Mongols, an invading force led by Genghis Khan and his descendants, which had emerged as a potential ally for the Christians in the region.

Under the ruthless Sultan Baybars, the Mamluks demolished Antioch in 1268. In response, Louis organized the Eighth Crusade in 1270. The initial goal was to aid the remaining Crusader states in Syria, but the mission was redirected to Tunis, where Louis died.

Edward I of England took on another expedition in 1271. This battle, which is often grouped with the Eighth Crusade but is sometimes referred to as the Ninth Crusade, accomplished very little and was considered the last significant crusade to the Holy Land.

The Last Crusade

In 1291, one of the only remaining Crusader cities, Acre, fell to the Muslim Mamluks. Many historians believe this defeat marked the end of the Crusader States and the Crusades themselves.

Though the Church organized minor Crusades with limited goals after 1291-mainly military campaigns aimed at pushing Muslims from conquered territory, or conquering pagan regions-support for such efforts diminished in the 16th century, with the rise of the Reformation and the corresponding decline of papal authority.

Effects of the Crusades

While the Crusades ultimately resulted in defeat for Europeans and a Muslim victory, many argue that they successfully extended the reach of Christianity and Western civilization. The Roman Catholic Church experienced an increase in wealth, and the power of the Pope was elevated during the Crusades.

Trade and transportation also improved throughout Europe as a result of the Crusades. The wars created a constant demand for supplies and transportation, which resulted in shipbuilding and the manufacturing of various supplies.

After the Crusades, there was a heightened interest in travel and learning throughout Europe, which some historians believe may have paved the way for the Renaissance.

Among followers of Islam, however, the Crusaders were regarded as immoral, bloody and savage. The ruthless and widespread massacre of Muslims, Jews and other non-Christians resulted in bitter resentment that persisted for many years. Even today, some Muslims derisively refer to the West's involvement in the Middle East as a "crusade."

There's no question that the years of warfare and conflict brought by the Crusades had an impact on Middle East and Western European nations for many years, and they still influence political and cultural views held today.

Sources

Timeline for the Crusades and Christian Holy War to c.1350: United States Naval Academy.
The Crusades: A Complete History: History Today.
The Crusades: LordsAndLadies.org.
Crusades: New Advent.
What Were the Crusades and How Did They Impact Jerusalem?: Bible History Daily.

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The Crusades: Definition, Religious Wars & Facts - HISTORY

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The Crusades were a series of religious wars between Christians and Muslims, occurring from 1096 and 1291, primarily to secure control of Middle Eastern holy sites.

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Summary of key events of the Crusades - The Crusades - KS3 History Revision - BBC Bitesize

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Learn and revise about the Crusades when Christian countries attempted to conquer the Holy Land for over 200 years with BBC Bitesize KS3 History.

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Why is the Magna Carta so Important? | Hunting for History | BBC Teach

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1066: Battle of Hastings - Mark Morris by History Hit Podcast Network

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The Battle of Hastings was fought on 14 October 1066 between the Norman-French army of William, the Duke of Normandy, and an English army under the Anglo-Saxon King Harold Godwinson, beginning the Norman conquest of England. It took place approximately 7 miles (11 kilometres) northwest of Hastings, close to the present-day town of Battle, East Sussex, and was a decisive Norman victory.
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Producer: Dan Morelle
Check out Treasures of British History by Peter & Dan Snow, out now!

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Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Magna Carta, the charter issued by King John in 1215 that is often seen as the basis of English liberties.

Melvyn Bragg and guests Nicholas Vincent, David Carpenter and Michael Clanchy discuss the Magna Carta, the oft-proclaimed foundation of English liberties.The Magna Carta has been cited ever since its issue in 1215 as a foundation stone of English liberties. It includes clauses of universal justice, some of which are still on the statute book, but also sorted out the fishing rights in the upper Thames. Whether Magna Carta is a genuine proclamation of universal liberty or a hotchpotch of baronial self-interest has been debated ever since. Melvyn and his guests examine the ideas contained within it, assess their legacy and find out what really happened all those years ago in a tent in Runnymede.

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BBC Radio 4 - In Our Time, The Magna Carta

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Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Magna Carta, the charter issued by King John in 1215 that is often seen as the basis of English liberties. Melvyn Bragg and guests Nicholas Vincent, David Carpenter and Michael Clanchy discuss the Magna Carta, the oft-proclaimed foundation of English liberties.The Magna Carta has been cited ever since its issue in 1215 as a foundation stone of English liberties.

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'If we allow the Human Rights Act's destruction, the precious house of rights we've built together will come tumbling down.' Reflecting on the 800th anniversary of Magna Carta, Shami Chakrabarti warns us that today's human rights legislation is under threat.

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Magna Carta is one of the most celebrated documents in history. Examine the British Library's copy close-up and learn more about its history and legacy.

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The Norman Conquest is a six-part animated series that explores the key events of the battle for the throne in 1066 and how William the Conqueror secured power.

These short animated films might be suitable for teaching Key Stage 2 (teacher review is recommended prior to use in class), up to Key Stage 3, GCSE and National 4 and 5.

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History KS3 / GCSE: 1066 and the Norman Conquest

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The story of the Norman Conquest told across a six-part animated series that explores the key events of the battle for the throne in 1066 and how William the Conqueror secured power. Suitable for teaching Key Stage 3 and GCSE.

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Building A Medieval Castle Using Authentic Tools | Secrets Of The Castle | Timeline

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Battle of Hastings 1066 | Live Schools Event With Dan Snow

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Anglo-Saxons - KS3 History - BBC Bitesize

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KS3 History Anglo-Saxons learning resources for adults, children, parents and teachers.

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Harold Godwinson

Harald Hardrada

William of Normandy

When Edward the Confessor died, Harold Godwinson, Earl of Wessex , was immediately crowned king and became Harold II. The royal council, known as the Witan , supported him. He gathered an army to defend the kingdom.

Edgar Ethling was Edward's closest direct relative, but this was a distant connection as he was Edward's father's grandson by his first marriage. Edgar was weak and lacked credibility due to being a child in exile in Hungary.

Harald Hardrada was king of Norway. He invaded Yorkshire with a fleet of ships, but was defeated and killed by Harold's army at the Battle of Stamford Bridge.

While Harold II was in the north of England fighting Hardrada, William, Duke of Normandy invaded Sussex. Harold rushed back south to fight him.

On 14 October 1066, Harold II fought William's army at the Battle of Hastings and lost. Harold was killed, perhaps with an arrow in his eye - although this is disputed by some historians.

William was crowned king of England on Christmas Day 1066, but it took years more fighting to conquer the whole country. His cruellest campaign was the 'Harrying of the North' in 1069, where he slaughtered the inhabitants of the north-east and destroyed their food stores so that even the survivors starved to death.

The Norman Conquest changed the face of England forever. William ruled as unquestioned conqueror and the Saxons became merely an unpaid workforce for their new lords (see ). The feudal system and the Domesday Book

The Norman Conquest also changed the history of Europe - adding the wealth of England to the military might of Normandy made the joint-kingdom a European super-power.

In warfare, it was the start of the age of the knight-on-horseback.

You may wish to compare the Norman Conquest with the Glorious Revolution, covered in the UK government through time , the only other successful invasion in England's history after AD1000 - they were very different.

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A summary of the Norman Conquest - The Norman Conquest - KS3 History Revision - BBC Bitesize

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Harold Godwinson Harald Hardrada William of Normandy When Edward the Confessor died, Harold Godwinson, Earl of Wessex , was immediately crowned king and became Harold II. The royal council, known as the Witan , supported him. He gathered an army to defend the kingdom.

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5 January 1066

The most tumultuous year in the history of England began with the death of the old regime. On 5 January 1066 Edward the Confessor - a direct descendant of Alfred the Great (died 899), whose family had forged the kingdom of England in the 10th century - died heirless at the age of 62 after a 24-year reign. He was buried the following day in the church of St Peter's, Westminster, built by his order on the banks of the Thames, and which had been consecrated only the week before.

Edward's death opened the doors to chaos, with two major claimants vying for the English throne. The first, Harold Godwinson, was Earl of Wessex, brother of Edward's wife, Edith, and the wealthiest man in England after the king. The other was William, Duke of Normandy, Edward's cousin through his mother and one of the most formidable warriors in northern Europe. Both sides claimed that the late king had promised them the throne. Both may have been telling the truth - or both may have been lying.

Kings of England could not just promise the crown to whomsoever they pleased. Since the early ninth century, royal power had customarily passed from father first to the elder sons and then to the younger ones. There was one true-born successor to Edward's title. He was Edgar Ætheling - the grandson of Edward's half brother, Edmund Ironside. But circumstances were about to conspire against him.

6 January 1066

Edgar Ætheling was perhaps 14 years old when Edward the Confessor died. Young though this was, some previous kings had been younger. So it may be that the crowning of Earl Harold on 6 January, the day of Edward's funeral, was nothing less than the successful completion of a coup d'état.

The man who was now king had spent his life in close proximity to the throne. Harold's father, Godwin, Earl of Wessex, had apparently grown powerful while Cnut of Denmark was king of England (1016-35), acquiring an earldom and many plum (formerly royal) manors. After Edward the Confessor succeeded in 1042, Godwin's power grew further. As the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle reports, Godwin was "exalted so high, even to the point of ruling the king and all England, and his sons were earls and the king's favourites and his daughter was married to the king". This, then, was the uniquely glittering family into which Harold was born and which, after Godwin's death in 1053, he was to lead.

In the early 1060s Harold proved himself an able general, repeatedly defeating the forces of the Welsh king Gruffydd ap Llywelyn until the latter was assassinated and his head sent to Harold. Harold was well travelled, having visited Rome, Flanders, Germany and Normandy where, according to later Norman historians, he is said to have fought valiantly in a campaign against the Bretons and pledged to support William's claim to the English throne.

Wealthy, talented and well connected, Harold was perfectly positioned for a leading role in public life, and the death of the childless Edward placed the English nobility in a difficult position. Should they accept the claims of a foreign duke, who would certainly bring his own men to England? Look to the boy Edgar? Or crown one of the most powerful men in England - perhaps one of the few who had actually fought a battle (there had been very few engagements involving the English since 1016)? It may have seemed that there was really no choice to be made.

c10 September 1066

As well as Harold and William, there was a third man contesting the kingdom of England - one famous across Europe for his military prowess. Harald Hardrada, king of Norway, had cut his teeth captaining the Byzantine emperor's Varangian Guard (a special division of Russians and Vikings) and had amassed huge wealth and a reputation for violence. On returning home he captured and consolidated the Norwegian kingdom, and pursued a claim against Denmark. Harald reasoned that, as the heir to previous Danish kings, he also had a right to the English throne - though Scandinavian claims to England had, for the previous 200 years, been derived more from might than right.

Harald's fleet of perhaps 300 ships (according to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle) sailed first to Shetland and Orkney where they garnered reinforcements before reaching the mouth of the Tyne around 10 September. There he was met by Tostig, Harold Godwinson's errant younger brother, who joined forces with him. Tostig had been evicted from his earldom of Northumbria the previous year, since when he had been looking for ways to cause trouble. In the summer he had raided the Isle of Wight, Kent and Lincolnshire before being chased into Scotland. Indeed, he may have incited Hardrada to invade England in order to oust his rival sibling. So it was that, as autumn began, at the mouth of the Tyne, the last great Viking assault on England got under way.

20 September 1066

The forgotten battle of 1066 at Fulford, near York, saw Harald Hardrada's forces engage and defeat the Anglo-Saxon armies of Mercia and Northumbria. Precious little is known about Fulford and, consequently, its importance has often been downplayed, but it is likely to have played a huge role in the year's events. According to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, "Earl Edwin [of Mercia] and Earl Morcar [of Northumbria] assembled from their earldom as large a force as they could muster, and fought against the invaders and caused them heavy casualties and many of the English host were killed, and drowned and put to flight, and the Norwegians remained masters of the field."

If the Anglo-Saxon levies of the Midlands and the north were routed, it meant that the force subsequently available to King Harold was much smaller than it might otherwise have been. But as Harald Hardrada's army is unlikely to have escaped unscathed, his ultimate fate may have been determined by the losses he sustained at Fulford.

25 September 1066

Less than a week after the battle of Fulford, King Harold caught Harald and Tostig off guard at Stamford Bridge, Yorkshire. Later storytellers claimed that before the battle a horseman from Harold approached the Norwegian lines to offer Tostig: "peace and the whole of Northumbria" if he would leave Hardrada and join him. "And what," Tostig asked, "will he offer King Harald?" "Seven feet of English soil," came the reply.

The only vaguely detailed account of the fighting we have comes from the legendary Hardrada's Saga, written in the 13th century, which states that there were three phases to the battle. First, the English cavalry circled the Norwegian spearmen, charging them and being driven off, until Hardrada led his men into the fray, fighting in a rage before he was shot through the windpipe with an arrow, after which Tostig took up the Norwegian royal banner. There was a pause in the fighting as Harold again offered his brother peace - and again it was declined.

Finally, Hardrada's brother-in-law, Eystein Orre, reinforced the Norwegian army and rallied them - an engagement remembered as 'Orre's Storm' - before they were cut down. By night, "numberless men with them both Norwegians and English" had perished. Harold's English army had succeeded in ending the career of one of Europe's most formidable opponents - though perhaps at fatal cost to Harold's own forces.

14 October 1066

William of Normandy landed at Pevensey in Sussex on 28 September, just three days after Harold's victory over Hardrada in the north. William appears to have chosen a base from which he could cause terrible harm to some of Harold's own estates, thereby luring the king into combat. For his part, Harold seems to have made a terrible error in force-marching his recently bloodied troops south to fight another battle; perhaps, having defeated Hardrada, overconfidence got the better of him.

A number of extraordinary stories surround the battle of Hastings (actually fought at nearby Senlac Hill) in early accounts, most notably that of the duke's chaplain, William of Poitiers, written around 1077. We're told that, to counter rumours of his death during the battle, Duke William rode along his frontline with his helmet up to reassure his troops. It's also been claimed that the Norman forces tricked the English into charging down from their strategic hilltop position by feigning retreat before turning and charging them. Then there's the belief that Harold was felled by an arrow in his eye.
Listen: Marc Morris tackles some of the big questions about William the Conqueror and his followers, on this episode of the HistoryExtra podcast:
It would be wonderful to know that such stories were true. But, as Dr George Garnett has pointed out, many of the supposed details of the battle are actually taken from Julius Caesar 's accounts of his campaigns (particularly the invasion of Britain) and Vegetius's famous ancient manual on warfare, De Re Militari. William of Poitiers had dramatised his master's victory - so much so that we cannot now tell how much is fiction and how much fact.

An earlier - albeit considerably shorter - account, written by William of Jumièges around 1071, is almost entirely different. According to this version of events, Harold rode all night, reaching the battlefield early in the morning. "At first light, having disposed his troops in three lines of battle, [William] advanced undaunted against the terrible enemy. The battle began at the third hour of day, and continued amid a welter of carnage and slaughter until nightfall. Harold himself, fighting amid the front rank of his army, fell covered with deadly wounds. And the English, seeing their king dead, lost confidence in their own safety, and as night was approaching they turned and fled."

Whatever the precise details, the basic facts remain: Harold was killed and the Normans won. The monks of Waltham, Harold's family abbey, later said that Harold's body was so disfigured that his mistress, Edith Swannesha ('gentle swan'), was asked to identify it by "certain marks, known only to her". In penance William later built Battle Abbey on Senlac Hill, its high altar supposedly erected on the spot where Harold died.

Late 1066

The man - or, rather, boy - who should have inherited from Edward the Confessor was Edgar Ætheling ('royal prince'). He was the grandson of Edmund II, known as 'Ironside', who had briefly inherited the kingdom from Æthelred the Unready. After Ironside was finally defeated by the Danish king Cnut in 1016, his son Edward Ætheling fled to Hungary in an attempt to evade capture by Cnut's allies, and Edgar was probably born there. Edward returned to England in 1057 but died almost immediately.

When Edward the Confessor died, Ætheling's claim to the throne was trumped by Harold's greater number of supporters, his large swathes of land and his vast wealth. However, in late 1066, with Harold dead, some thought Edgar their best bet.

On an unknown date after Hastings, archbishop Ealdred of York and the citizens of London chose him to be king "as was his proper due by birth", as the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle put it. The earls of Mercia and Northumbria, Edwin and Morcar, "promised that they would fight on his side," said the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, "but always the more it ought to have been forward the more it got behind". Without the full support of these key nobles it was only a matter of time before Edgar would have to submit to the Conqueror. He did so at Berkhamsted in December 1066.

25 December

With all other claimants now truly defeated, William entered London in triumph. He was crowned in Westminster Abbey on Christmas Day - the date, no doubt, chosen to echo the imperial coronation of Charlemagne in Rome in 800. The service emphasised that William was Edward the Confessor's designated and rightful heir - as was his claim and wish. Legend has it that the day did not run smoothly. During the crowning ceremony the congregation was required to shout their acclamation of the new king - a noise reputedly taken by the Norman guards outside the abbey to indicate foul play within, leading them to burn local houses. William's reign had started as it would continue - with brutality.
Alex Burghart is a historian specialising in the Anglo-Saxon period. He previously lectured at King's College London. BBC Two's series 1066: A Year to Conquer England begins on 28 February 2017. This article was first published in the November 2016 issue of BBC History Magazine

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After the death of King Edward the Confessor on 5 January 1066, England became a battleground contested by Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Norman rivals. Edward's death opened the doors to two major claimants vying for the English throne - Harold Godwinson, Earl of Wessex, and William, Duke of Normandy.