Conflict, and the accompanying possibility of nearby wars proliferating across continents, is again making the headlines – whether that be Ukraine or across the Middle East. The temptation might be to assess the Second World War as history, fixed and settled, generations ago now. But Anthony Seldon would claim precisely the opposite. His 1,300 kilometre walk from the French-Swiss border to Auschwitz, the concern of his latest book, The Path of Light, scans not only the landscapes blighted by the deadliest conflict in human history, but also the questions of morality those place names persist in asking us today.

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In this episode of the Aspects of History⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ podcast, historian and author Gautam Hazarika joins Phil Craig to discuss the experiences of Indian soldiers captured by the Japanese following the fall of Singapore in February 1942. He explains how an unexpected discovery of a manuscript produced inside Changi Prison led him to investigate a largely overlooked aspect of the war in Southeast Asia.

Gautam’s book, The Forgotten Indian Prisoners of World War II: Surrender, Loyalty, Betrayal and Hell, documents the experiences of those who escaped Singapore, the difficult reintegration of soldiers on both sides of the divide, and the families left behind, including the ‘waiting wives’ who spent years without news of their husbands. This is a story not simply about strategy and battle, but about memory and the human cost of war.

Episode Links

The Forgotten Indian Prisoners of World War II: Surrender, Loyalty, Betrayal and Hell⁠

Gautam Links

Gautam online

Gautam on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Twitter /X⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Gautam on Facebook

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Phil on ⁠⁠The Scandal Mongers

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AoH on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Twitter /X⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

AoH on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Substack⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

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From The Editor

I came out thinking that this was the film I’d wanted the Odyssey to be… its first part Résistance running at a brisk 158 minutes, De Gaulle, a biopic of the eponymous general-later-president spanning World War Two and depicting the rocky journey of his government-in-exile and the troops of Free France, opens in the UK this weekend – taking the morning off to watch a press screening is yet another perk of this gig.

The familiar, slightly exasperated tone of Mark Kermode’s voice, as he signed in ahead of me in the queue, left me starstruck – how many shows of his on BBC Radio 5 Live I would have tuned into over the years, I don’t know. As did the towering figure of the Telegraph’s Robbie Collin, occasional stand-in for Kermode on his slot with Simon Mayo and in whose footprints I once trod when writing for the university newspaper at St Andrews. It was almost like being a real journalist…

The film itself was not as slow and ponderous as surprised as I was that its epic scale didn’t bely its 5-hour duration. It was light-hearted, laugh-out-loud funny at times, but tense, brutal too, and always grand, both in its performances and ambition. Set-pieces like Mers El Kébir (brilliantly retold in the magazine earlier this year by Edward Abel Smith), events at Bir Hakeim, and the efforts to rally the French colonies in sub-Saharan Africa – the entire Francocentric perspective alters my understanding of the conflict on its head, imparting an utterly different viewpoint of, and meaning to, the on-the-ground realities of Nazism, invasion, Vichy collaboration and resistance. It is also telling that it has been a surprise hit among younger audiences in the couple of months since release the other side of the Channel.

Keep an out for a review or two of the film, and do yourself a favour and book in!

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This Week at Aspects of History

Recovering the Last Emperor and Empress of China

In his new book, Paul French discusses how a recently discovered diary from an American tutor who lived with Puyi and Wanrong offers an new perspective on the young couple’s marriage and the usual portrayal of China’s last emperor and empress as political symbols, victims or exotic caricatures.

It’s astonishing how firmly the tragic story of Puyi and Wanrong, the last emperor and empress of China’s Qing Dynasty, remains in the public imagination.

In the West, much of that fascination comes from Bernardo Bertolucci’s lavish 1987 epic The Last Emperor – now 38 years old. In China, the doomed couple, their gilded-cage existence in the Forbidden City and their eventual downfall at the hands of the Japanese continue to inspire histories, novels, soap operas, websites and graphic novels. On weekends, children in Beijing even cosplay as Puyi and Wanrong and wander around the former imperial city.

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When the Country House Went to War

Wartime requisitioning of Britain’s country houses transformed the lives of owners, servants and occupiers, explains Judith S. Lewis in The Country House at War, published by Yale University Press, and the consequences were far-reaching.

What was it like to have your house requisitioned during the war? To share your home with occupiers, whether Land Girls, POWs, soldiers, or spies? What compensation did families receive for the loss of their homes? And how did it all work? These were the questions I initially wanted answered when I began The Country House at War.

The idea for writing a book on requisitioned country houses during World War II came because I couldn’t find a book that answered them. There were memoirs of course, and wonderful architectural histories of individual houses, but as a social historian, I wanted to find patterns in lived experience. And as someone who had written about upper-class women and their houses in the 18th and 19th centuries, I was well-positioned to do so. I just had to enter a new time zone.

Read on →

Mark Grenside

The thriller writer discusses his fascination with overlooked corners of history and the inspiration behind his Marcus Riley thrillers and his forthcoming title, The Dolos Legacy.

Welcome to Aspects of History, Mark. What first attracted you to the period or periods you work in?

It’s not periods per se. I like to uncover nuggets of history that I can build on and weave into a modern-day setting. I have an insatiable appetite for trivia and love peering into the dark underbelly of formally taught history.

Can you tell us a little about how you research? Has the process changed over the years?

Once I have an idea it’s like a pebble. I follow the ripples out. It’s surprising how quite disparate events in history can actually collide. Recently there was a tie-up between Romanov treasures, the connection of the Vedic faith brought to India from the Urals and the betrayal of Stalin of his communist colleagues to the Czar’s secret police. Clearly AI, if used correctly, is a fabulous resource that has made obtaining information much quicker. Just don’t take everything it tells you as being 100% correct!

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Themistocles: The Rise and Fall of Athens’s Naval Mastermind, by Michael Scott

The classicist has achieved one of the hardest tasks for an ancient historian, this portrayal possessing accessibility, narrative zip and a desirable balance between the political and the personal, maintains the Editor.

If one was to conceive of Themistocles’ story as an altarpiece (and it seems the eponymous subject did so!), the central image would be a well-known one: the Athenian slipping surreptitiously out of the Greek naval command’s evening deliberations to send his manservant to invite the Persians fleet into the shallows of Attica. The preparations for Salamis that night tethers together what came before and what followed, but Professor Michael Scott’s stirring account of one of ancient history’s canniest operators offers far more than the events on one single evening across the 65 years of his life.

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From the Archive

Churchill and De Gaulle: Artists of History

The two Allied leaders were not just makers of history but performers, Richard Vinen argues, selective of their actions and words during wartime and as empires fell.

De Gaulle wrote of Churchill, and might well have written of himself, that he was an ‘artist of history.’ Both men were artists in how they wrote their history, but also lived their lives as thought they were constructing a work of art. They understood that every act of theirs would contribute to an image that would be passed down to posterity. When he went into battle in the Sudan at the age of 23, Churchill left a lancer riding behind the main body of troops so that someone would survive to record the incident if Churchill himself were killed. When, at the age of 71, de Gaulle stepped calmly from a car that had been riddled with the bullets of would-be assassins, he knew that his icy self-control would contribute to the mystical sense that his destiny was intertwined with that of France.

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On the Podcast

Reign of Secrets with James P. Cain

On this week’s episode, Zeb Baker-Smith⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ is joined by author, James P. Cain, whose remarkable career from politics, law and professional sport, to the world of international diplomacy as U.S. Ambassador to Denmark inspired the gripping narrative of ⁠Reign of Secrets⁠, the first novel in the Whit Ransom thriller series

The murder of a Danish prince becomes a tale of espionage, diplomacy and ancient secrets, as American and Irish diplomats become caught up in a struggle involving the Crown of Denmark, a thousand-year-old mystery and Vladimir Putin’s schemes for a resurgent Russian empire.

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Coming up on Saturday…

In Search of Light – An Interview with Anthony Seldon

The educator and historian reflects on his pilgrimage to Auschwitz, the enduring legacy of war in Europe and why stories of courage, resistance and reconciliation continue to be of consequence.

Conflict, and the accompanying possibility of nearby wars proliferating across continents, is again making the headlines – whether that be Ukraine or across the Middle East. The temptation might be to assess the Second World War as history, fixed and settled, generations ago now. But Anthony Seldon would claim precisely the opposite. His 1,300 kilometre walk from the French-Swiss border to Auschwitz, the concern of his latest book, The Path of Light, scans not only the landscapes blighted by the deadliest conflict in human history, but also the questions of morality those place names persist in asking us today.

This exclusive feature will only be available to paid subscribers.

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Have a great Bank Holiday!

Zeb Baker-Smith⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, Editor of ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Aspects of History.

In January 1932, Gu Jiegang boarded a train from Beijing to Hangzhou. A 38-year-old professor of history at Yenching University, he was travelling south to visit his father and stepmother. It should have been a routine family journey. Yet as the train passed through Tianjin, Nanjing and Shanghai, Gu noticed that the carriages were unusually crowded. People were fleeing the worsening crisis in the north.

Only a few months earlier, on 18th September 1931, a bomb had exploded on a railway line near Mukden in Manchuria. The blast had been planted by Japanese officers of the Kwantung Army, who blamed Chinese dissidents and used the incident to justify military occupation. Gu could not yet know it, but the spark that would ignite a global war had already been struck in China.

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⁠Reign of Secrets⁠ is the first novel in the Whit Ransom thriller series and, on this week's episode, Zeb Baker-Smith⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, Editor of ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Aspects of History⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, is joined by its author, James P. Cain, whose remarkable career from politics, law and professional sport, to the world of international diplomacy as U.S. Ambassador to Denmark inspired the gripping narrative.

His experiences at the heart of American politics and transatlantic affairs, paired with a serious engagement with European history, saw him discuss the enduring significance of monarchies, ways in which historical narratives are being manipulated for geopolitical ends, and the changing relationship between America and Europe.

Episode Links

Reign of Secrets

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Jim ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠online⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Jim on Instagram

Jim on Facebook

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AoH ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠online⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

AoH on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Twitter /X⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

AoH on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Substack⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

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From The Editor

Amid heatwaves and a move back to London to lead a nomadic existence on sofas and the odd spare bed, the last couple of months have been busy ones. After ten months living in and traipsing across Malawi, the shift and readjustment has proved refreshing and bewildering in equal measure. It all sounds a bit ‘Gap Yah’, but perspective-changing is another apt adjective.

When flicking through new releases, one of the best bits about this role is the ability to track down a book and commission an author’s contribution from someone observing history with a different perspective. Jonathan Fennell’s article (coming to paid subscribers this Saturday!) on Collapse, the first of a mooted trilogy focused on a global history of the Second World War, is an example of the opportunity to strike off in an alternative (yet still convincing) direction away from the well-known narratives. His use of ordinary people’s correspondence highlights the very human cost of war to unheard and unfamiliar voices across still-disregarded continents that also witness conflict throughout the 1930s.

Not that this is microhistory in the strictest terms, but the death in June of one of the subdiscipline’s founders, Carlo Ginzburg, historian and author of The Cheese and the Worms, also underlined the importance of altering the historical lens, to ask major questions of smaller figures and communities who might be considered to be on the periphery. That should always be a priority.

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This Week at Aspects of History

Churchill’s Most Hateful Decision

With Britain facing the prospect of standing alone against Nazi Germany in the summer of 1940, Winston Churchill ordered one of the most controversial actions of the entire war: the attack on the French fleet at Mers el-Kébir as told by Edward Abel Smith.

In the early hours of 3rd July 1940, a powerful British fleet cut steadily through the Mediterranean towards the Algerian coast. Led by HMS Hood, one of the largest and most formidable warships afloat, Force H moved with quiet determination through the warm darkness, its bows slicing cleanly through the calm water beneath a sky not yet touched by dawn.

On deck, the mood was tense but controlled. Sailors moved quietly, checking ammunition, adjusting equipment, speaking in hushed tones. The great guns were already trained and ready. There was no uncertainty about what lay ahead. They were heading into battle.

Read on →

The Voice from the Well

Sixty years on from Indonesia’s anti-Communist purge, Rory Cormac discusses a British propaganda campaign demonstrates how fabricated voices, forged documents and psychological warfare helped grease the wheels of regime change against Sukarno.

“Subandrio! Subandrio! Subandrio! Can you hear us Subandrio? Of course you can! For you can never close your ears to our voices. The voices you tried to smother in the Well. The voices of us the dead. Those voices will always ring in your ears, calling you a traitor and murderer… for it was you who planned our torture and mutilation… Worms may feed upon our rotting flesh, but our voices have becomed [sic] the voices of the Nation’s conscience…”

The eery, disembodied, voice, continued, echoing into the night.

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How Protestantism Became a Global Religion – An Interview with Alec Ryrie

Protestantism’s early movements across the globe reveal a tangled world of rivalry with Catholicism, complicity with empire and slavery, and failures that exposed the limits of Europe’s religious imagination – all discussed with Alec Ryrie on the Aspects of History podcast.

That word, mission, might make you think of Robert De Niro or Jeremy Irons, perhaps a young Liam Neeson, in Jesuit robes clambering up the Iguazu Falls in deepest South America, but, forgotten and less-documented as their efforts may be, there was a Protestant expansion too, a clear, not-so-Papist will to propagate the Gospel to the world, that challenges those preconceptions.

That was the starting point for Professor Alec Ryrie, whose latest book, The World’s Reformation, published by Yale University Press, examines these attempts to globalise Protestantism across several continents and over three centuries: “It seemed to me that there was an untold story there of this first phase of Protestantism spreading itself around the world – or trying to.

“At first I thought I’d be writing a short article about something that didn’t happen. The more I dug into it, the more those handful of exceptions grew and grew. I had to look this thing in the eye and say, ‘Hang on a second, we’ve got this wrong!’ If nobody’s told this story, then I’d probably better do it myself.”

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The Fourth Queen, by Νicola Cornick

A novel full of political intrigue, complex relationships and a romance that spans the centuries is effortlessly compelling and atmospheric, notes Ella Beales

The Fourth Queen is Nicola Cornick’s latest Tudor historical fiction, set in the aftermath of the 1539 dissolution of the monasteries under King Henry VIII. Whilst Cornick is perhaps best known for her time-slip novels, The Fourth Queen takes a slightly different approach by exploring reincarnation through a dual timeline following Marris and her modern-day counterpart, Jenna. The result is a fresh perspective on Tudor history, and an imaginative and emotional story that explores memory, identity, the enduring bonds of sisterhood and the power of the past.

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From the Archive

Historical Heroes: Prince Rupert of the Rhine

A dashing cavalier or a Prince Robber? Mark Turnbull’s 2025 biography examines the life of a key figure in the tumult of the 17th century.

Though this is an article about Rupert as an historical hero, I should, ironically, start by pointing out that he is also considered to be a historical villain! In his heyday enemy propaganda named him ‘Prince Robber’ or ‘The Diabolical Cavalier’. There were at least eight other pseudonyms. Yet, I would hazard a guess that this very practical man would not have been particularly concerned about how he was remembered. The fact he remains such a polarising figure, that he still endures in historical study, and moreover is a recognisable and popular subject, has much to do with his character, tragedies, and creativity.

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On the Podcast

Ball of the Century with Brendan Cooper

Joining Zeb Baker-Smith this week on the pod, author Brendan Cooper presents his new book, ⁠Ball of the Century⁠, a remarkable exploration of Shane Warne’s iconic first Ashes delivery at Old Trafford on 4th June 1993.

He traces the story of the Australian leg spinner’s rise, the psychological hold he exerted over English cricket, and the wider cultural landscape of Britain and the Ashes during the 1990s. We discuss how sporting mythology, memory and the enduring power of Ashes folklore combined to transcend the boundaries of sport and transform Warne into a cultural icon.

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Coming up on Saturday…

The World War Before the World War, by Jonathan Fennell

Long before Hitler invaded Poland, the international order was coming apart. From Manchuria to Ethiopia, from Shanghai to Madrid, the historian argues that the 1930s were not a prelude to global war, but its opening act

In January 1932, Gu Jiegang boarded a train from Beijing to Hangzhou. A 38-year-old professor of history at Yenching University, he was travelling south to visit his father and stepmother. It should have been a routine family journey. Yet as the train passed through Tianjin, Nanjing and Shanghai, Gu noticed that the carriages were unusually crowded. People were fleeing the worsening crisis in the north.

Only a few months earlier, on 18th September 1931, a bomb had exploded on a railway line near Mukden in Manchuria. The blast had been planted by Japanese officers of the Kwantung Army, who blamed Chinese dissidents and used the incident to justify military occupation. Gu could not yet know it, but the spark that would ignite a global war had already been struck in China.

This exclusive feature will only be available to paid subscribers.

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Enjoy all…

Zeb Baker-Smith⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, Editor of ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Aspects of History.

There is, in the origin story of communism, something akin to what happens the first lines of the Book of Genesis. Left-wing politics in the 1830s are like the biblical “formless void”, with the early workers’ movement mesmerised by pointless speculative Utopias. Then Marx turns up in Paris in 1843, armed with the dialectical logic he has learned at Berlin University, and says, “Let there be light!”

An intellectual system is formed, based on the principles of social science. It conquers the European labour movement in the back half of the century, is ported over into the extreme social conditions of Russia by Lenin, gets rocket boosters from the slaughter of the Great War, and by 1949 bestrides Russia, China and half of Europe.

Read more

This week on the podcast, ⁠⁠Zeb Baker-Smith⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, Editor of ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Aspects of History⁠⁠⁠⁠, is joined by author Brendan Cooper to discuss his new book, ⁠Ball of the Century⁠, a remarkable exploration of Shane Warne's iconic first Ashes delivery at Old Trafford on 4th June 1993.

He traces the story of the Australian leg spinner's rise, the psychological hold he exerted over English cricket, and the wider cultural landscape of Britain and the Ashes during the 1990s. We discuss how sporting mythology, memory and the enduring power of Ashes folklore combined to transcend the boundaries of sport and transform Warne into a cultural icon.

Episode Links

Ball of the Century

Brendan Cooper Links

Brendan ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠online⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Brendan on Twitter/X

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AoH ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠online⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

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From The Editor

Morning all! This is the second of our weekly newsletters as we settle into the routines of our revamped Substack.

As ever, it’s been a busy week on the frontline of history books, featuring and promoting more titles for our authors and publishers, arranging and conducting interviews for the site and the podcast. Do get in touch here or via the website or social media if you have releases we could lend a hand in pushing!

As we bring together the strands of the August magazine, in an effort to get it all done, I’ve taken refuge a couple of days a week at my cousin’s office just off Brick Lane. Picture a ‘co-working space’, great views towards the city, playfully kitsch and funky furniture with ‘breakout’ areas for meetings and all occupants in jeans and t-shirts – despite that, the awkwardness of asking a ‘colleague’ with carton of milk in hand to leave it out of the fridge at the free coffee station still survives the surface-level informality… this trendy, post-Covid floating corporate world we find ourselves in, eh!?

But it wasn’t always this chic in the East End. The building itself was first a carpet factory in the 60s. Before that, 138 years ago next month in fact, the body of one of the Ripper’s victims, Annie Chapman, was discovered the next block of tenements along, when the area was considered one of the worst rookeries in Europe, let alone the capital.

This strange gentrification process, from Huguenot, Jewish and Irish settlers to startup founders and tour groups, that historical dissonance, added to the dislocation of arriving back in the metropolis after endless months spent away, is occupying my thoughts. It is a reminder of the various pasts one passes each day in the City of London and the suburbs.

Keep those subscriptions coming in and we hope you enjoy the offerings we have for you below!

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This Week at Aspects of History

Sir Gruffydd Donne: Knight of Kidwelly

John Pitts traces one man’s journey from the shadow of his grandfather’s support for Owain Glyndwr to a career fighting for Henry V and Henry VI, and explores a Welsh family whose fortunes hinged on some of the defining conflicts of medieval Britain.

The Donnes of Kidwelly represented generations of Welsh warriors and nobility whose lives ran in parallel with major events in the history of both Wales and England, not from the sidelines, but often playing significant parts. My book tells the story of how the life of Gruffydd Donne, unfairly tainted by the treasonous support for Owain Glyndwr’s rebellion by his grandfather, led to a successful military career as a knight of the realm, serving both Henry V and Henry VI. From a distant ancestor who stole the treasure of a king, what Gruffydd established lived on through his sons, one of whom eventually achieved greater fame and established a family line that can be traced to our present Royal family. The three great estates around Kidwelly are still identifiable today; all are functioning farms which bear, to some degree, remains of the 15th-century manor houses.

Read on →

Eadric Streona: Archvillain of English History

Adam Staten lays out one of Anglo-Saxon England’s most notorious figures, Eadric Streona’s murderous ambition and repeated betrayals which triggered Danish conquest and the upheavals that resulted in 1066.

‘The worst traitor there ever was.’

Writing in the 12th Century, this is how the chronicler Henry of Huntingdon describes Eadric Streona. John of Worcester described him as ‘crafty and treacherous’. William of Malmesbury called him ‘the dregs of mankind and a disgrace to his countrymen, a criminal debauchee and a cunning rascal’. His name, ‘Streona’, is a nickname meaning ‘the grasper’ or ‘the acquisitor’ and tells us much about this man’s character and motivations. But who was he?

Read on →

Harold: Warrior King - Tom Licence Interviewed

The medieval historian discusses fronting up to long-held myths surrounding the last Anglo-Saxon king with Paul Bernardi, explains his approaches to the primary sources that recount 1066, and considers the man behind the defeat at Hastings – all in his new book Harold: Warrior King, published by Yale University Press.

One of the most compelling sections of the book comes towards the end in respect of your rethink of Harold’s movements in September and October 1066. I’m interested to know how you came to your assertion that the ‘forced march’ might be a thing of myth and that Harold may have actually transported most of his troops on ships. Did you go looking for that or did you happen upon it by chance?

When I came to the campaigns of 1066, I thought – right – I must go back to the sources, collect every detail, weigh their accounts and reconstruct Harold’s movements, month by month, day by day. I read the Latin and Old English, guarding against assumptions, and one thing I soon spotted was that the translators of a key text (William of Poitiers) had inserted the idea of the forced march into their translation, when it wasn’t in the Latin. Twice. I then went looking for references to any marching – surely they must be somewhere? No, not at all. There were no references to marching/ riding down from Yorkshire. But there were multiple references to Harold having and using a fleet.

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Conquest: A History of Roman Britain, by Ferdinand Addis

A reappraisal of a much-researched topic reveals how diplomacy, trade and cultural exchange were and still are as fundamental to Rome’s conquest of these islands, our landscape and British identity today as military force, posits Zeb Baker-Smith

There is a lot that has been said, written and mulled over when it comes to Roman Britain, and, consequently, a reader glimpsing Ferdinand Addis’ Conquest (published by Head of Zeus) on the shelves might be forgiven for thinking it another interpretation of those well-trodden stories and a landmass that has been dug up more than any other imperial province. Except that reader would be wrong. There is ambition from the contents pages – a challenging story retold through physical features, scenery, landscape, as much about what came before and after Rome as it is about headliners like Caesar, Claudius and Boudicca and those familiar dates of landings and invasion.

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From the Archive

Historical Heroes: Ninette de Valois

Novelist Lucy Ashe argues that British ballet has this Irish-born diva to be thankful for since she established dance in the interwar period and gave choreography in the country its distinctive flavour.

Dame Ninette de Valois was an ever-present figure throughout my years training at the Royal Ballet School, her name repeated in ballet studios, her influence permeating every rehearsal room. I saw her only once, at a celebration of her 100th birthday at the Royal Ballet School in 1998 when I was a junior associate of the school. And yet her legacy as founder of the Royal Ballet has been of great significance to me, both during my time as a dancer and more recently when researching and writing my two ballet-themed historical novels: Clara & Olivia and The Sleeping Beauties. Ninette de Valois, or Madam as she was known by her dancers, transformed British ballet from its humble reputation as divertissements in music halls to a great art form, alongside music, opera, drama, and the visual arts.

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On the Podcast

The Path of Light: Walking to Auschwitz with Anthony Seldon

Our episode this week sees Zeb Baker-Smith⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, Editor of ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Aspects of History⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, discusses The Path of Light with Anthony Seldon, his remarkable account of a journey on foot from Kilometre Zero on the Swiss border to Auschwitz. The power of pilgrimage, the enduring legacy of war, and the significance and delicate nature of truth, memory and reconciliation in an age of renewed global instability – each of these proved to be the inescapable findings of a 1,300km walk across the landscapes of Central Europe, so scarred by conflict over the centuries.

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Coming up on Saturday…

Rethinking Communism’s History, by Paul Mason

In his forthcoming book, Reds: A Global History of Communism (published by Head of Zeus), the award-winning journalist maintains that Karl Marx was never the original architect of the communist tradition, which traces deeper roots from French revolutionary thought and the utopian ideals of Babeuf and Blanqui.

There is, in the origin story of communism, something akin to what happens the first lines of the Book of Genesis. Left-wing politics in the 1830s are like the biblical “formless void”, with the early workers’ movement mesmerised by pointless speculative Utopias. Then Marx turns up in Paris in 1843, armed with the dialectical logic he has learned at Berlin University, and says, “Let there be light!”

An intellectual system is formed, based on the principles of social science. It conquers the European labour movement in the back half of the century, is ported over into the extreme social conditions of Russia by Lenin, gets rocket boosters from the slaughter of the Great War, and by 1949 bestrides Russia, China and half of Europe.

This exclusive article from our upcoming August magazine will only be available to paid subscribers.

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Catch up with you all on Saturday!

Zeb Baker-Smith⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, Editor of ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Aspects of History.

Great to have you back in the Aspects of History hotseat, Sebag. What inspired you to tackle such a complex, knotty challenge as untangling a century of complexity and mayhem in the modern Middle East?

The Cauldron is a history of the entire Middle East – all 19 countries, all sects, all peoples – over the last 125 years. Its mission is to tell the history of how the region of today was created since 1900 and it ends with the American-Israeli attacks on Iran on 28th February 2026 so it is pretty up to date. I wanted to write this book, because, surprisingly, this book did not yet exist.

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From The Editor

Welcome to the first of our newsletters as we begin August with a revamp of the Aspects of History Substack!

The question is always there: how can we make our offering on Substack more useful and more rewarding for our subscribers?

From this week then, Wednesday’s delivery will become our editorial newsletter – we see this as an opportunity to share the best new content from our website, revisit articles, both new and from the archive, the latest episode from the podcast, interviews and reviews. All with the intention of providing our readers with a glimpse behind the scenes at what we’ve been working on.

Then, each Saturday, our paid subscribers (monthly or, even better, yearly) will receive an exclusive from the latest or forthcoming issue of the Aspects of History magazine: features, interviews and insight from bestselling historians and authors that don’t appear on our website.

We hope this new set-up allows you the best possible chance to enjoy Aspects of History. Thanks, as ever, for reading, and for being part of our growing community.

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This Week at Aspects of History

Fleming’s Raiders

Ian Fleming created the most famous fictional agent in the world, James Bond. However, when he worked for Naval Intelligence during WWII, he made significant contributions to the real world of intelligence, outlines Alan Bardos, author of Hunter Class.

One of Fleming’s most important contributions was the formation of 30 Commando, a specialist unit that captured enemy intelligence.

After a disastrous debut on the Dieppe raid, 30 Commando had success during Operation Torch when they captured an Abwehr Enigma machine. They continued to make a name for themselves during the invasion of Sicily, where they seized another Enigma machine, radar and radio equipment, along with handbooks, logs and codes.

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Lumberjills: The Women in Britain’s Forests Who Helped Win the War

Joanna Foat shares the remarkable story of Britain’s forgotten Women’s Timber Corps – and the decade-long journey that inspired her four books including her latest novel, The Lumberjills Under Suspicion.

When I first stumbled across the story of the Women’s Timber Corps more than a decade ago, I was astonished that I had never heard of them. These young women had felled trees, driven timber lorries, worked in dangerous sawmills and helped keep Britain fighting during the war, yet their contribution had almost disappeared from public memory. That discovery changed the course of my life.

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Greg Lewis

The author reflects on the lifelong influences behind his passion for the Second World War, his people-first approach to research and storytelling, and his determination to uncover the forgotten acts of courage in his new book, The Nazi Ghost Train.

What first attracted you to the period or periods you work in?

My work has taken in many areas, but my focus has been World War Two and I suppose I have to ask myself where that interest came from. There’s no doubt I was influenced by what I read as a child – everything from Warlord magazine and Commando books to Alistair MacLean and Jack Higgins. But one of the things which ignited my interest in resistance and the evasion lines, in particular, was the BBC TV series Secret Army which hooked me as a child and which I still revisit every few years. My passion is story-telling, bringing people and events alive for modern readers.

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A Tibetan Girl Called Ata, by Xiao Hei

A powerful novel that melds an intimate cross-cultural love story with the political tensions of modern Tibet, assesses Margarita Salcevich.

There are historical novels that inform you, and there are historical novels that unsettle you, and it’s rare to find one that manages both. A Tibetan Girl Called Ata, the first English-language novel from Xiao Hei (the pen name of Zhang Pu, brother of Wild Swans author Jung Chang), is firmly the latter. Translated by Esther Tyldesley and set against the 2008 unrest in Lhasa, it follows Han Ge, a middle-aged antiques dealer from Chengdu, and Ata, a Tibetan folk singer whose voice pulls him into a love affair neither of them is really equipped to survive.

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From the Archive

Historical Heroes: Robert Oppenheimer

As the 71st anniversary of Hiroshima being bombed approaches, our archive pick this week sees David Boyle outline the accusations of communism that dogged ‘the father of the atomic bomb’ for the rest of his life.

“The atomic clock ticked faster and faster. We may anticipate a state of affairs in which two great powers will each be in a position to put an end to the civilisation and life of the other, though not without risking its own. We may be likened to two scorpions in a battle, each capable of killing the other, but only at the risk of his own life… This prospect does not make for serenity.”

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On the Podcast

The Aspects of History Film Club: The Odyssey Effect with Erica Stevenson (aka MoAn Inc.) and Henry Thackray

This week on the pod, Zeb Baker-Smith⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, Editor of ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Aspects of History⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, is joined first by classicist and YouTuber Erica Stevenson (aka MoAn Inc.) to discuss her new book, The Odyssey Effect, and explore the extraordinary afterlife of Homer’s poem, from the epic tradition’s oral beginnings to this year’s long-awaited adaptation, before welcoming film editor Henry Thackray for an in-depth chat about the film itself.

Listen now →

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Coming up on Saturday…

The Making of the Modern Middle East – An Interview with Simon Sebag Montefiore

The bestselling historian is set to discuss his forthcoming title, The Cauldron, with Justin Doherty, pinpointing how empire, religion, ideology and geopolitics have shaped one of the world’s most disputed regions.

Great to have you back in the Aspects of History hotseat, Sebag. What inspired you to tackle such a complex, knotty challenge as untangling a century of complexity and mayhem in the modern Middle East?

The Cauldron is a history of the entire Middle East – all 19 countries, all sects, all peoples – over the last 125 years. Its mission is to tell the history of how the region of today was created since 1900 and it ends with the American-Israeli attacks on Iran on 28th February 2026 so it is pretty up to date. I wanted to write this book, because, surprisingly, this book did not yet exist.

This exclusive interview will only be available to paid subscribers.

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Until Saturday morning then…

Zeb Baker-Smith⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, Editor of ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Aspects of History.

Welcome to the Aspects of History podcast, Erica. Congratulations on the release of The Odyssey Effect. What inspired you to trace the afterlife of Homer’s epic rather than focusing solely on its origins?

Well, it was a job that was given to me by the publishers. So they came to me and they had a really clear vision of what the book was going to be. They knew even the little things that they wanted in it. They knew the films they wanted me to discuss, the books they wanted me to discuss and the time period. Really it was my job as the historian to either agree with some of those or to throw in my own and say, “I think maybe this would suit your project a bit better,” and go through it that way.

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In this episode, the first of the newly-rebooted Film Club, Zeb Baker-Smith⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, Editor of ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Aspects of History⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, is joined first by classicist and YouTuber Erica Stevenson (aka MoAn Inc.) to discuss her new book, The Odyssey Effect, and explore the extraordinary afterlife of Homer’s poem, from the epic tradition’s oral beginnings to this year’s long-awaited adaptation, before welcoming film editor Henry Thackray for an in-depth chat about the film itself.

Together, the guests examine why Homer's epic continues to inspire successive generations, debate Nolan's interpretation of the character of Odysseus, the challenge of translating the poem to the screen, the director's commitment to practical effects and spectacle, and whether the film succeeds both as a blockbuster and as adaptation of one of history and literature’s greatest stories.

Episode Links

The Odyssey Effect: How Homer's Epic Poem Shaped the World

Erica Stevenson Links

Erica ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠online⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Erica on ⁠Instagram

Erica on ⁠⁠YouTube

Erica on Facebook

Erica on X/Twitter

Henry Thackray Links

Henry ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠online

Henry on ⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Aspects of History Links

AoH ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠online⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

AoH on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Twitter /X⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

AoH on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Substack⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Zeb Links

Zeb on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Twitter /X⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Zeb on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠

Zeb on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Substack⁠

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

It is little over a year since Donald Trump stood in the White House Rose Garden and announced a raise in tariffs on foreign imports into the US for nearly every country in the world. ‘Liberation Day’ as he branded 2nd April 2025, and the fall-out from it, was the provocation that historian James Holland cited when discussing his latest book, ⁠The Visionaries: The Making of the Post World War II Order in the West⁠⁠, a noticeable pivot from his back catalogue of battlefield histories.

“I was really struck by what was going on with the current administration in the United States, the tariffs and the bullying tactics,” begins Holland in his interview with Phil Craig for Aspects of History (available to download as a podcast above). “It struck me that this was in such marked contrast to the very successful alternative approach taken by Franklin D. Roosevelt. You can moan and get cross about it, or you can actually do something about it.”

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Over the last six years, Aspects of History has brought you the best historical writing from established and new authors alike, whether non-fiction or fiction. So we are now excited to outline a new chapter for the Aspects of History Substack.

Our website has grown into a treasure trove of articles, interviews, book reviews and podcasts. It will continue to do exactly that: bringing you free, accessible content from some of the world’s leading historians, novelists and commentators.

But we also realise that many of our readers are in the market for something more.

That’s where our revamped Substack comes in – starting in August.

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Two newsletters each week

Our new schedule is simple.

Wednesdays: Free

Every Wednesday you’ll receive our editorial newsletter at no cost.

Rather than simply sending links, we plan to curate and gather the best of Aspects of History each week, including:

• An editor’s introduction reflecting on a theme, anniversary or the history behind a current debate.

• The week’s best articles from our website.

• Recommendations from our archive.

• Podcast episodes.

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Whether you’re a long-term subscriber or have only just discovered us, Wednesday will be your weekly notice of the very best that Aspects of History has to offer.

Saturdays: Paid

Every Saturday, paid subscribers will receive something you will not find anywhere else.

With every new issue of Aspects of History, we commission features, interviews and contributions of the highest quality from A-list historians and bestselling authors. Many of these have previously been confined to the pages of the magazine.

Now, we will be delivering them directly to your inbox.

Each week, paid subscribers will receive one exclusive magazine feature from the current issue – carefully selected and introduced by our editorial team and sometimes before we go to ‘print’. Over the course of each two-month magazine cycle, subscribers will enjoy a steady stream of long-form historical writing from the biggest names out there.

It’s a new way to experience our bimonthly magazine: one feature at a time.

And, as a bonus, there will be plenty of book recommendations from the Aspects of History authors on their picks.

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Why we’re making this change

We wanted our paid subscription to offer something genuinely valuable.

Paid subscribers will also receive information on giveaways, special promotions and exclusive interviews and articles only available to them.

Our website will continue to be the place to discover free articles, interviews, reviews podcasts and other features. But the paid subscription on Substack will become home to our most exclusive magazine content.

In short:

• The website remains free and open to everyone.

• The Wednesday newsletter keeps you connected with the latest from Aspects of History.

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We believe this creates a fresh and more rewarding experience for our readership.

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When you subscribe, you are doing more than unlocking exclusive articles.

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Your support will allow us to continue publishing thoughtful, provoking and independent history writing while building a direct relationship with readers who value depth, variety and great storytelling.

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Join us!

For just £5 per month or £50 per year, you will receive:

• One exclusive magazine feature every Saturday.

• Weekly access to original interviews, essays and author contributions unavailable on the website.

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• Ongoing access to the best writing from each issue of Aspects of History, delivered throughout the publication cycle.

Monthly members will always receive two newsletters each week, but included in the annual Substack bundle is a magazine subscription too, whereby you will be able to read the rest of the issue as soon as it arrives directly into your inbox every couple of months.

If you subscribe to the yearly membership, you will be able to choose and receive a paperback copy of one of the six titles in our History in the Making series!

Throughout the year, we plan to reward those subscribing annually by arranging regular giveaways of selected books by the authors we will be featuring on Substack and in each issue.

Subscribe today and live a little in the past.

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In the popular mind, World War Two endures as the ‘Good War’: a heroic struggle against evil with a happy ending. But there have always been nagging questions, not least whether any conceivable post-war world was worth the sacrifice of 50 or 60 million dead. Why did a war ostensibly waged on behalf of Poland in 1939 end with that country’s dismemberment? If ‘freedom’ triumphed over ‘totalitarianism,’ why did eastern Europe and the Balkans succumb to Communist dictatorship, followed by China, North Korea, and Vietnam? Why were the earliest freedom fighters against ‘Axis’ aggression – Chiang Kai-Shek’s Chinese nationalists, the Poles, Mihailovic’s Chetniks in Yugoslavia – abandoned by the victorious Allies, even while clients of Stalin, Hitler’s fellow totalitarian dictator and key strategic ally from 1939-41, won? Why did the ‘Good War’ consign nearly half the human race from Berlin to Beijing, to the agonies of communism?

The morally perverse outcome of World War Two was no accident. The expansion of Soviet power westward into Europe, and eastward into Asia resulted from deliberate policy choices both by Stalin and Molotov in Moscow, carrying out an expansionist foreign policy with ruthless consistency, and by Stalin’s accidental British and American allies who were either manipulated into furthering Soviet foreign policy designs (as with Churchill abandoning Mihailovic and falling in with Stalin’s client Tito in Yugoslavia) or, in Roosevelt’s case, did so quite voluntarily.

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In this episode of the podcast, author and historian Anthony Seldon joins Zeb Baker-Smith⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, Editor of ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Aspects of History⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, to discuss The Path of Light, the remarkable account of his journey from Kilometre Zero on the Swiss border to Auschwitz. Following the success of The Path of Peace, he set out across Germany, the Czech Republic and Poland in search of the men and women, figures of light who stood against tyranny and genocide during the Second World War, uncovering stories of courage, conscience and humanity and explaining why this search remains as relevant today as ever.

Episode Links

The Path of Light: Walking to Auschwitz

Anthony Seldon Links

Anthony ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠online⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Anthony on Twitter/X

Aspects of History Links

AoH ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠online⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

AoH on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Twitter /X⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

AoH on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Substack⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Zeb Links

Zeb on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Twitter /X⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Zeb on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Substack⁠

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

At 17,000 feet and halfway from India to China, pilot Joseph Dechene had lost both his aircraft’s engines to ice. His lumbering C-46 cargo plane was now a glider. With white, ice-laden clouds pressed tight against the glass of its windows, the cockpit was like the inside of a bathysphere, a contraption of glass and metal churning in an abyss. The violence of the winds aloft had blown the plane so far off course that the pilots and radio operator had no idea where they were, knowing only that the peaks of high mountains were somewhere close below. Shining a light through the cockpit window, they could see ice building on the wings, but as they did a lurch of turbulence, the worst the experienced senior pilot had ever encountered, heaved the plane upward “like an express train,” as he reported. “We came busting out the top of the thunderhead at 20,000 feet with twenty-four tons of airplane and no engine.” Above the clouds, he got the engines running again and so, eventually, safely concluded another trip over the Hump. “The Hump” was the name that U.S. airmen gave to one the most perilous aviation missions of WW2: flying transport planes overloaded with fuel, materiel and other supplies over the eastern spur of the Himalayas, from India to China, in the little-known China-Burma-India (CBI) theatre.

The Japanese capture of Burma (now Myanmar) in April 1942 had closed the Burma Road, the last land route into China, whose ports were already in Japanese hands. President Roosevelt had pledged that no “matter what . . . ways will be found to deliver airplanes and munitions of war to the armies of Generalissimo Chiang Kaishek,” and with the closure of the Burma Road the only remaining way was by air. Unfortunately for the U.S. airmen who had to fly it, the 800-mile route from northeast India to Kunming, China passed through a unique convergence of extreme weather systems—warm, moist air from the east and west and frigid winds from the north. The combination of high terrain and violent weather proved deadly, and soon a trail of wreckage lay scattered across mountainsides and jungle beneath the flight path, which airmen dubbed “the aluminum trail.”

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In the history of the British Secret Service, SIS/MI6, two of its intelligence networks have been given high acclaim and both were in Belgium. They were La Dame Blanche (the White Lady) in the First World War and the Clarence Service in the Second World War. La Dame Blanche, hitherto the White Lady, is described in the official MI6 history as “the most successful single British human intelligence operation of the First World War.” And Claude Dansey, a former deputy head of MI6, said of its successor network, the Clarence Service, that “by the quality and quantity of the messages and documents which it provided, Clarence was the highest among the networks of military information of all occupied Europe.”

And yet the existence of these two highly significant MI6 networks are still largely unknown by the general public. Today, the sources for their history can be reconstructed from archives in the Imperial War Museum in London, and the State Archives in Brussels and State Security Archives in CegeSoma in the same city. The vast majority of the material is in French, but occasionally Dutch and Flemish.

Many patriotic and loyal Belgian women and men operated in clandestine missions and intelligence-gathering in both world wars. They were strong leaders, agents, couriers and spies who were at the very heart of these two MI6 networks. They collected information on troop movements and defences behind the German lines, and wrote coded reports and messages which were then smuggled out of Belgium to British intelligence in Rotterdam, Holland. Families set up safehouses, ran letterboxes and established courier networks.

The agents delivered critical eyewitness information that enabled British intelligence and Allied commanders in the field to build a picture of German positions behind the lines, and in which geographical regions the troops were located, and the enemy’s fighting capability. Information on the movement of troops in a particular direction enabled a prediction of the area for the next German offensive against Allied positions, often along the front line

Women were prominent in the network and not incidental to its success; women like Thérèse de Radiguès who ran a whole intelligence section from the region around Ciney and sent agents into the German-occupied Grand Duchy of Luxembourg. Like the men, the women swore an oath of allegiance and were given a military rank and in some cases they outranked the men.

Over 40 agents initially worked for the White Lady and theirs was a great sacrifice because if captured, they suffered brutality and torture during interrogation by the Germans. Yet, knowing this, they continued their work because they understood the importance of their operations for the Allies. The network was led by Dieudonné Lambrecht, a patriotic Belgian from Liège, from December 1914 until April 1916 when he was captured by the Germans. He was shot for espionage on 18 April 1916 at the Citadel of the Chartreuse, Liège. His 34-year-old cousin Walthère Dewé took over.

By the armistice in November 1918, agent numbers in the White Lady had risen to over 1,500. For these brave women and men, it was a war without uniform, passing invisibly through enemy-occupied Belgium and northern France to gather vital intelligence for MI6. In the nascent years of the British Secret Service, which had only been formed in 1909, these Belgians were developing early spy techniques, including invisible ink, knitting coded messages into jumpers, and organising the structure of an effective intelligence network, that would come to define spycraft going forwards.

When the call came again in 1939 and 1940, many of the same men and women, albeit older, did it all again for the successor network called the Clarence Service.

On 3 September 1939, the day Britain declared war on Nazi Germany, fifty-nine-year-old Walthère Dewé was contacted by a British secret service agent, known only as “Daniel”. MI6 had an important mission for him and the old guard of the White Lady. He was asked to re-establish an intelligence network in Belgium, modelled on the White Lady, but modernised and with methods of spycraft modified for a new era. MI6 was under no illusion that Germany might seize the country again. The Clarence Service set up observation posts as an early warning system of a German invasion, which did indeed occur in May 1940 when German troops crossed the border and began to occupy Belgium again.

A new leader emerged alongside Dewé and that was Hector Demarque (codename Clarence). The network was named after him. As before, its members were militarised and again, women were indispensable and operated as heads of intelligence sectors, couriers, agents and ran letterboxes and safehouses. They were as courageous as the men and undertook the same personal risks. Thérèse de Radiguès and the Tandel sisters were once again a central part of the leadership and operated as agent handlers. Thérèse’s sector went on to deliver crucial V-weapon intelligence from behind enemy lines, including the positions of V-1 installations.

From the London end, operations were headed by “Major Page”, the pseudonym for Lieutenant Colonel Frederick Jempson, who headed the Belgian section of MI6. Working with him was MI6 officer Ruth Clement Stowell (née Wright). She was an agent handler who organised the training and planned the secret missions of the agents being parachuted into both Belgium and the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg. She oversaw the missions, often being the last person to see the agents as they left on their flight from Tempsford airfield in Bedfordshire.

The Clarence Service did not only operate in Belgium, but dispatched agents over the border into northern France, where they were particularly active along the coastline and near sites of German defences. Other agents were secretly sent from Belgium into Germany. As the war progressed, they went deeper into Nazi Germany to gather information on military capability, new weaponry and technology as well as German units.

The observation posts set up by the Clarence Service provided an extraordinary volume of detailed military intelligence across the war. Intelligence reports in the nine months prior to D-Day, for example, provided volumes of valuable information on German troops and their movements, reports of the results of Allied bombing sorties on engine sheds and locomotives, enemy activity at aerodromes, and sketches of a range of important sites, including railways and docks. Blueprints of stations and rail lines were smuggled out to London. These are the impressive blue and white technical plans which unfurl to a length of two to three metres, and survive today in the archive of the Clarence Service at the Imperial War Museum.

Just a fortnight before D-Day, reports were urgently required by MI6 on the markings on enemy aircraft, types of aircraft engines in production as well as manufacture of special equipment and weapons, the movement of planes, location of headquarters, and the state of the railways and traffic in Belgium and Northern France. Clarence Service agents were able to provide MI6 with updated material on this. The vast intelligence-gathering across Belgium, into northern France and the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg by the Belgian agents was simple but effective.

What emerges from a study of this Belgian history is a story of defiance, heroism, ingenuity and leadership that saw Belgian women and men engaged in daring acts of espionage behind the German lines. These networks sprang from the initiative and courage of ordinary Belgians. The White Lady and Clarence Service are important parts of intelligence history, largely missing in focus for far too long, and it is hoped that more historians and researchers will begin to study the numerous other clandestine Belgian networks in declassified files. So far, these files have barely been consulted outside Belgium.

I have only tapped the surface of this country’s espionage history for my latest book, but there is already a sense emerging of the strategic importance of Belgium. Belgium may emerge as the highest asset to the Allies during two world wars and outweigh other countries that have been the focus of war studies for the last 30 to 40 years. Importantly, today, Belgium should have due recognition for its heroic role and the enormous part it played in the defeat of the occupying German forces and the restoration of democracy in Europe in the twentieth century.

Helen Fry is a historian of the Second World War with a particular focus on intelligence, and the author of The White Lady: The Story of British Secret Service Networks Behind German Lines.

With Zeb Baker-Smith⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, Editor of ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Aspects of History, on the podcast this week is Edmund Richardson, historian and classicist, whose book, ⁠Alexander: God, King, Man⁠, re-examines its title character through newly translated sources, groundbreaking archaeology and a wealth of evidence to reveal a conqueror far more uncertain, contradictory and human than legend would suggest.

Episode Links

Alexander: God, King, Man

Edmund Richardson Links

Edmund ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠online⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Aspects of History Links

AoH ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠online⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

AoH on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Twitter /X⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

AoH on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Substack⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Zeb Links

Zeb on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Twitter /X⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Zeb on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Substack⁠

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