Category: Not Salonika

Readers may well be interested in the following webinars* from the Western Front Association. To join, please register using the links below. Start time for all webinars is 8pm (UK time).  

1. Monday 15 May – Delayed in the Desert: The Gaza Stalemate and Beersheba Breakthrough

In this presentation, Robert Fleming will talk about how in 1917, British Prime Minister David Lloyd George ordered the Egyptian Expeditionary Force to capture Jerusalem by Christmas. This was – arguably – a diversion from the main focus of the war on the western front. He believed this would be a good ‘Christmas Present’ for the British people. However, the route to Jerusalem was across the Sinai desert and blocked by the Ottoman defences at Gaza and Beersheba. The eventual Allied victory at the Battle of Beersheba was a grave setback for the Ottoman Empire and led to the eventual defeat of the Central Powers in what was then Palestine.

To register for this webinar, click this link: Delayed in the Desert

2. Monday 22 May – Allenby’s Checkmate: Jerusalem to Victory in the Middle East, 1918

Robert Fleming will follow up from the previous week’s talk by picking up the story after the capture of Beersheba, and exploring how Allenby skilfully mustered and mastered his resources to defeat the Ottoman Army at the Battle of Megiddo and end the war in the Middle East.

To register for this webinar, click this link: Allenby’s Checkmate

3. Monday 5 June – The Road to 11 November: War and Politics in 1918

This presentation by Prof David Stevenson will reappraise the final stages of the First World War in Western Europe, analysing the factors that led Germany to seek an armistice and led the Allies and the United States to grant one. Particular attention will be given to the turn of the tide and to the sources of Allied superiority on the Western Front; and to the interaction of political and military considerations in shaping decision-making during the ceasefire negotiations of October-November 1918.

To register for this webinar, click this link: The Road to 11 November

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*Webinars are also subsequently published on the WFA’s YouTube Channel.

The Western Front Association is offering two more of its popular webinars this December. To attend, please follow the link for each webinar to register.

From Plumstead to Palestine – Some Cockney War Stories,  Clive Harris
Monday 12 December, 8pm (UK time)
The size and story of London’s contribution in the Great War fades into the pages of history somewhat. This presentation charts the story of London’s regiments, its people and the city’s sacrifices.
To register for this event click here

The Russian Civil War and the Allied Intervention Force, Gordon Corrigan
Monday 19 December, 8pm (UK time)
In this presentation, Gordon will explain how the Russian civil war was supported by a British led Allied Intervention Force. This force included not only British but American, French, Czech and Japanese troops and the Royal Navy operating in the Baltic and the Black Sea and with gunboats on the rivers. 
To register for this event click here

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Featured image by Wynn Pointaux from Pixabay

Now that winter evenings are setting in, why not watch and participate in an online webinar? The Western Front Association (WFA) and The Gallipoli Association are offering the following online talks in October and November:

1. The Western Front Association

Monday 31 October – The Flying Sikh – Hardit Singh Malik, the RFC and the First World War
From his arrival in the UK alone in 1908 as a fourteen-year-old, to Balliol College, Oxford and into the Royal Flying Corps during the First World War, Hardit Singh Malik lived an extraordinary life, often in the face of great adversity, yet always with charm and good humour. He played cricket for Sussex and was an Oxford blue in golf, playing with the Prince of Wales.
This presentation by Stephen Barker describes Hardit Singh Malik’s fascinating story.
To register for this webinar, click here: The Flying Sikh

Monday 7 November – The Coal Black Sea: Winston Churchill and the Worst Naval Catastrophe of the First World War
On the morning of 22 September 1914, just six weeks into the First World War, three Royal Navy armoured cruisers were sunk by a German U-boat in the southern North Sea. The action lasted less than 90 minutes but the lives of 1,459 men and boys were lost – more than the British losses at the Battle of Trafalgar or in the sinking of RMS Lusitania. Yet, curiously, few have ever heard of the incident.
Using a range of official and archival records, Stuart Heaver exposes this false narrative and corrects over a century of misinformation to honour those who lost their lives in the worst naval catastrophe of the First World War. 
To register for this webinar, click here: The Coal Black Sea

Monday 14 November – Investigating the Australians at Pozieres
The victorious capture of the village of Pozieres on 23 July 1916 won the 1st Anzac Corps a reputation as a competent and polished formation, but a closer examination of ongoing activity along the Pozieres Ridge indicates that this is anything but the case. The lessons learned were deeply flawed, and indicative of the desperate nature of fighting on the Somme.
Dr Meleah Hampton was until recently a historian in the Military History Section, Australian War Memorial. She is a graduate of the University of Adelaide and completed her PhD with a thesis on the 1916 battles for Pozières and Mouquet Farm. Her primary interest is in the operational conduct of the First World War on the Western Front. 
To register for this webinar, click here: Investigating the Australians at Pozieres

Monday 28 November  – The Searchers: The Quest for the Lost of the First World War
By the end of the First World War, the whereabouts of more than half a million British soldiers were unknown. Most were presumed dead, lost forever under the battlefields of northern France and Flanders.
In this webinar, Robert Sackville-West brings together the extraordinary, moving accounts of those who dedicated their lives to the search for the missing. These stories reveal the remarkable lengths to which people will go to give meaning to their loss and the exhumation and reburial in military cemeteries of hundreds of thousands of bodies.
To register for this webinar, click here: The Searchers

To participate in the WFA webinars, you will need to register via the links above.

2. The Gallipoli Association

Wednesday 26 October – Gallipoli gallantry: Consistent courage, inconsistent recognition
In re-examining some of the most celebrated Victoria Cross actions of the 1915 Dardanelles campaign Stephen Snelling will look at the bureaucracy behind some of the awards as well as the erratic nature of some of the medals distributed. What his research has revealed is that bravery was not enough on its own to earn the highest honour. Determination and persistence on the part of those seeking to recognise acts of valour was often equally important.
Based in Norfolk, Stephen been a writer/ journalist for nearly 50 years, working variously as a sports editor, features editor and magazine editor. He is the author of eight books including one on the Victoria Cross recipients of the Gallipoli campaign and, most recently, a study of the V Beach landings, The Wooden Horse of Gallipoli.

Tuesday 29 November – 42nd Division at Gallipoli
A talk by author, Paul Knight on the 42nd Territorial Division at Gallipoli, and their exploits at Helles.

Gallipoli Association talks are free to GA members, but guests and the general public are encouraged to join the Association or make a small donation. To reserve a place, please email: education@gallipoli-association.org or warwickfus@btinternet.com

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Featured image source: IWM – Lives of the First World War