The History Network

The Abwehr, the German intelligence service during the second world war was not known for its resounding successes. But in Nazi occupied Netherlands its Operation North Pole, or "the England Game" was a resounding success. Captured resistance agents tried to warn their British handlers, but to no avail. Agents were repeatedly inserted, captured and executed. Dur: 22mins File: .mp3

In August 1914 the airplane was seen as an interesting toy by the High commands of all the powers. The British Royal Flying Corps took five squadrons to France, consisting of some 60 planes of different varieties. The pilots being generally rich sportsmen, who had learned to fly in their own aircraft before the war. The planes were fragile, slow and very expensive ­an airplane cost over £1,000, at a time when the average weekly wage was £2 for a labourer – so close to 10 years’ pay! Dur: 35mins File: .mp3

In this episode Angus is joined by Josh Brouwers, Lindsay Powell, Mark McCaffery and Joseph Hall. We look at Ancient Warfare Magazine volume VIII, issue 5 "Rebellion against the Empire: The Jewish-Roman wars"

"It is well known that in the opening statement of his Jewish War, Flavius Josephus imitates the fifth-century BC Athenian Thucydides when he says that "the war of the Jews against the Romans is not only the greatest of the wars of our own time, but so far as accounts have reached us, nearly of all whichever broke out between cities or nations"."

In this episode Angus is joined by Josho Brouwers, Mark McCaffery and Marc DeSantis.

We look at Ancient Warfare Magazine volume 8, issue 4 "The ancient world's fragile giant: the Seleucid Empire at war".

"Seleucus, who eventually acquired the epithet ‘Nicator’ was not a prime candidate to succeed to the largest share of Alexander the Great’s empire when the king died in Babylon in 323 BC. He certainly held some rank in Alexander’s chain of command, but he was not a member of the inner circle, and a host of men had greater claim to rule. As things turned out, this was a good thing for Seleucus, as an early start in the age of the successors usually meant an early end."

From the time of Homer a small strait of water from the aegean to the black sea has proved both a strategic crossing point and a symbolic one, being the divide between Europe and Asia. It has provided a line from which invasions have started, and a channel when blocked that prevents access to the wider world from the Black sea. Dur: 23mins File: .mp3

"The battlefield is the place: where one toasts the divine liquor in war, Where are stained red the divine eagles, Where the tigers howl, Where all kinds of precious stones rain from ornaments, Where wave headdresses rich with fine plumes, Where princes are smashed to bits." The poet of these verses, the Aztec emperor Nezahualcoyotl, captures the spirit and pageantry of Aztec warfare. The empire known to us as the Aztecs was an alliance of city-states in the Valley of Mexico. From 1428 to 1521, the Aztecs ruled and terrorized Mesoamerica. The Mexica, once a scorned, nomadic people, ultimately became the dominant power in this alliance. “Aztec” – a name these people did not use – derives from Atzlan, the semi-legendary homeland of the Mexica. Dur: 36mins File: .mp3

After World War Two, former New Zealand prisoner of war Gunner Jim Henderson wrote "We used to say after the war the Red Cross should take over the world and run it. They'd shown what they could do in a world mad with war." Most people know about the Red Cross: during the War of Italian Unification between imperial Austria and the Franco-Sardinian alliance, Swiss businessman Henri Dunant visited the northern Italian battlefield of Solferino in 1859. Deeply affected by the 40,000 mostly unattended casualties on the battlefield, Dunant wrote A Memory of Solferino, founded the relief society that became the Red Cross and was the first recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1901. Dur: 36mins File: .mp3