David Crane

Burying the dead of Waterloo

Narrative history at its best – and bloodiest

11 October 2014 9:00 am

Anyone thinking of bringing out a book on Waterloo at the moment must be very confident, very brave or just…

What, in the end, was it all for? In a French caricature of 1814, Napoleon precariously spans Madrid and Moscow and begins to topple. Fontainebleau — scene of his abdication — is depicted centre-stage

If you want to admire Napoleon, it helps not to have met Gaddafi

4 October 2014 9:00 am

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

‘The Final Advance of the Guard’ by Nicolas Toussaint Charlet

An old soldier sees through the smoke of Waterloo

21 June 2014 8:00 am

David Crane on an old soldier’s account of a 200-year-old battle that will never fade away

Patrick Leigh Fermor as a major in the parachute regiment, October 1945

Patrick Leigh Fermor and the long, daft tradition of Brits trying to save Greece

31 May 2014 9:00 am

Twenty-odd years ago, while on holiday in the deep Mani at the foot of the Peloponnese, I got into conversation…

Three of the best: Edward Thomas (left), Wilfred Owen (above right) and Edmund Blunden

Look again – the first world war poets weren't pacifists

10 May 2014 9:00 am

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

‘There was no better way’: Ancient Celts or Gauls go into battle against the massed ranks of Rome, and are slaughtered for the good of posterity

War is good for us

5 April 2014 9:00 am

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

8 March 2014 9:00 am

Of all the statistics generated by the Holocaust, perhaps some of the most disturbing in the questions they give rise…

How we beat Napoleon

2 November 2013 9:00 am

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?

14 September 2013 9:00 am

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