Free Republic

So asks Newsweek's cover, which features a full-length photo of the prime minister his people voted the greatest Briton of them all. Quite a tribute, when one realizes Churchill's career coincides with the collapse of the British empire and the fall of his nation from world pre-eminence to third-rate power. That the Newsweek cover was sparked by my book "Churchill, Hitler and The Unnecessary War" seems apparent, as one of the three essays, by Christopher Hitchens, was a scathing review. Though in places complimentary, Hitchens charmingly concludes: This book "stinks." Understandable. No Brit can easily concede my central thesis: The...

Private John Klopfenstein was our family member killed by German fire in France in WWI. Born April 15, 1896 in Indiana. He was employed at the Brass Foundry in Sturgis, Michigan where he entered the US Army on 9/19/1917. He was sent to Camp Custer, Michigan & was assigned to Company D, 328th Machine Gun Battalion & transferred to Camp Merritt New Jersey. He was subsequently sent overseas to Company C, 18th Infantry, 1st Division, "The Big Red One." John was killed while serving his country after being wounded on 09/13/1918, passing away 09/18/1918. He was laid to rest at...

For the first time in decades, members of the public will be allowed to walk on the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier Plaza — an honor typically reserved for presidents. "When we've seen the president in the past place the wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, that's the same location where the public will be able to place flowers at the tomb," Gerald Lowe, who coordinates major events at the cemetery, told CBS News' Catherine Herridge. The area will be open to the public for the two-day event happening on November 9 and 10 at Arlington National Cemetery...

In World War I, pilots on either side of the line enjoyed sudden lurches ahead in technology advances followed by steady declines into obsolescence. This created a seesaw effect in the air where Allied pilots would be able to blast their way through German lines for a few months, but then had to run scared if the enemy got the jump on them. So the Allied pilots found a way to fake their deaths in the air with a risky but effective maneuver. Some Nieuport planes had a tendency to break apart when pilots pulled them out of a steep...

The author of this 1917 narrative, who escaped from Germany and military service after 14 months of fighting in France, did not wish to have his name made public, fearing reprisals against his relatives. The vivid description of the life of a common German soldier during “The Great War” aroused much interest when it was published in the United States in serial form. Here was a warrior against his will, a hater of militarism for whom there was no romance in war, but only butchery and brutality, grime and vermin, inhuman toil and degradation. His story also contains the first...

On this date in 1916, Captain Charles Fryatt was shot at Bruges, Belgium as an illegal combatant. Fryatt was a 42-year-old civilian mariner captaining the SS Brussels on the Harwick-Hook of Holland route when, in March 1915, a German U-Boat ordered him to heave to. Fryatt wheeled the Brussels around on the submarine and attempted to ram it. The German ship escaped by a whisker only by scrambling an emergency dive. The Admiralty gave Fryatt a gold watch and a pat on the head for bravery. It was not until the following year that the Germans captured that same vessel...

On the west side of Djibouti City sits a sprawling military compound. Within its razor wire-topped walls are helipads, a dock large enough to fit aircraft carriers, and 2,000 troops alongside armored vehicles and gunboats. Opened in 2017, this is China's first overseas military base - but could soon be one of many located across Africa if those sounding the alarm in Washington are correct. The Department of Defense warned last year that Beijing has 'likely' sought bases in Angola, the Seychelles, Kenya, and Tanzania, and just this week General Stephen Townsend - America's top brass in Africa - warned...

THE BLACK stain on the ice was instantly recognisable. The technician checking a tarpaulin stretched over a section of the Presena Glacier in the Italian Alps—an experimental attempt to slow the melting— quickly called in a rescue party. The block of ice was airlifted to the nearby city of Vicenza. Inside were two soldiers who had fallen at the Battle of Presena in May 1918 and were buried in a crevasse.Their uniforms and their location indicated that they could well have been Kaiserschützen, specialised mountain troops who fought on behalf of the Austro-Hungarian Empire to defend these mountains from...

U.S. forces in Africa are keeping a watchful eye on China, worried Beijing is getting closer to establishing a network of military and naval bases across the continent. "We know the Chinese desire a network of bases around the globe," the head of U.S. Africa Command, General Stephen Townsend, told lawmakers Thursday, adding, "My concern is the greatest along the Atlantic coast of Africa." China established its first military base in on Africa’s east coast, in Doraleh, Djibouti, in 2017, raising concern among U.S. military officials who described the Chinese facility as being “right outside our gates” of the U.S....

Not since the 1970s has there been such an important discovery from the Great War in France. In woods on a ridge not far from the city of Reims, the bodies of more than 270 German soldiers have lain for more than a century - after they died the most agonising deaths imaginable.On 4 May 1917 the French launched an artillery bombardment targeting the two ends of the tunnel, sending up an observation balloon to get a sight on the north-facing slope. For once their accuracy was formidable. A shell fired from a naval gun hit the entrance, triggering more...

314 – Pope Sylvester I succeeds Pope Miltiades.1606 – Gunpowder Plot: Guy Fawkes is executed for plotting against Parliament and King James.1865 – American Civil War: The United States Congress passes the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, abolishing slavery and submits it to the states for ratification.1915 – World War I: Germany is the first to make large-scale use of poison gas in warfare in the Battle of Bolimów against Russia.1917 – World War I: Germany announces that its U-boats will resume unrestricted submarine warfare after a two-year hiatus.1918 – A series of accidental collisions on a...

Dogs have accompanied men into war probably for most of human history, but WWI was the first war where they were used in an official and broad capacity to find the wounded. Mercy dogs, also known as casualty dogs, or ambulance dogs, served on all sides of WWI, and saved thousands of lives. It is history that deserves to be remembered.

New standards proposed by the Minnesota Department of Education would banish lessons about World War I, World War II, the Holocaust, the Civil War, the American Revolution, communism, George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. Replacing those significant history topics will be "systemic racism," how democracy has "excluded certain groups," an "awareness" of "the LGBTQ+ community" and how the disenfranchisement of freed blacks during Reconstruction connects to "persistent discrimination and inequity" today.

Recent media reports claim that a covert Kenyan paramilitary team is responsible for the unconstitutional killing of terror suspects in nighttime raids. The reports are based on interviews with US and Kenyan diplomatic and intelligence officials. The team was trained, armed and supported by US and British intelligence officers. It has been reported that since 2004, a Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) programme has been operational in Kenya without public scrutiny. For its part, the British Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) has played a key role in identifying, tracking and fixing the location of targets. This has drawn renewed attention to the...

Local history librarian Joe Barbieri outlines how the 1918 flu epidemic hit Rockland County with photos and articles from the period.

The British military shot 306 soldiers for desertion or cowardice during World War I, but the very first of them was 19-year-old Thomas Highgate on September 8, 1914. This Kent farmhand and former seaman had enlisted back in 1913, before the world fell apart and that meant that even though Highgate was a trained up and ready to go when the Queen’s Own Royal West Kent Regiment deployed to France as part of the British Expeditionary Force. Young Master Highgate had the honor of participating in the first British engagement of the Great War, the Battle of Mons. The ensuing...

Fox News national security correspondent Jennifer Griffin reported Friday that two anonymous former “senior” U.S. officials had confirmed “key parts” of the Atlantic‘s story about the president, but could not confirm “the most salacious” part.

Virtually time travel back to 1918. Peering into this room in France is as if you are stepping into a time portal into the early 1900s. The bedroom, which belonged to a French soldier, hasn't been touched since 1918. If you drive three hours southwest of Paris, you'll find Belabre, a quaint French village with a population of fewer than 1,000. That is where you will discover the home of the parents of Hubert Guy Pierre Alphonse Rochereau. When World War I was ravaging Europe, a young Rochereau was deployed to the Belgian battlefield. Sadly, Dragoons' Second Lieutenant Hubert Rochereau...

Today is the 103rd anniversary of Woodrow Wilson’s speech to congress calling for a declaration of war on Germany. https://freedom-demokrasi-and-civilised-humanity.com/2020/04/02/woodrow-wilson-was-he-a-father-of-the-greatest-generation-or-globalist-disaster/ Why has this feature of the American system – congressional declaration of war as opposed to authorisation of military force – disappeared? Which method worked better? Is the rejection of the Democrats by the people at the elections of 2020 a fair judgement on Wilson’s presidency? Who were the fathers of The Greatest Generation?

...I have long maintained – and the film 1917 brought it vividly back to mind – that one of the causes of the collapse of religion in Europe, and increasingly in the West generally, was the moral disaster of the First World War, which was essentially a crisis of Christian identity. Something broke in the Christian culture, and we’ve never recovered from it. ...For five awful years, an orgy of violence broke out among baptised people – English, French, Canadian, American, Russian and Belgian Christians slaughtering German, Austrian, Hungarian and Bulgarian Christians. And this butchery took place on a scale...