Narrative history at its best – and bloodiest
Anyone thinking of bringing out a book on Waterloo at the moment must be very confident, very brave or just…
If you want to admire Napoleon, it helps not to have met Gaddafi
Napoleon’s exploits may have captured the world’s imagination, but the great European drama, played out over 20 years, was ultimately tawdry and pointless, says David Crane
An old soldier sees through the smoke of Waterloo
David Crane on an old soldier’s account of a 200-year-old battle that will never fade away
Patrick Leigh Fermor and the long, daft tradition of Brits trying to save Greece
Twenty-odd years ago, while on holiday in the deep Mani at the foot of the Peloponnese, I got into conversation…
Look again – the first world war poets weren't pacifists
The patriotism of the Great War’s finest poets was neither narrow nor triumphalist but reflected an intense devotion to an endangered country and to a way of life worth dying for, says David Crane
War is good for us
The argument that mankind’s innate violence can only be contained by force of arms may make for a neat paradox, but it fails to convince David Crane
How Denmark’s Jews escaped the Nazis
Of all the statistics generated by the Holocaust, perhaps some of the most disturbing in the questions they give rise…
How we beat Napoleon
We are accustomed to the thrill and glamour of the grands tableaux, but a nuts-and-bolts study of Napoleonic warfare makes for equally gripping reading, says David Crane
Why does Max Hastings have such a hatred for the British military?
David Crane is taken aback by the particular contempt Max Hastings appears to reserve for the British at the outbreak of the first world war
