History Cafe

RE-RELEASING FOR WOMEN'S HISTORY MONTH. The WSPU – the Pankhurst Suffragettes - begin in the Manchester Labour Party in the 1890s and learn their publicity-grabbing tactics from Labour. But these tactics turn out to have the worst possible effect – making women’s votes even less likely than before. They are so bad, in fact, it makes you wonder whether the Suffragette leadership had some other agen...

RE-RELEASE for Women's History Month. We go back to the great number of unsung women and men who made great strides towards women’s votes and female emancipation by 1900. Emmeline Pankhurst sets up her Women’s Social and Political Union in 1903 as a pressure group for votes for poor working-women in the cotton mills. By then a majority of MPs is already consistently in favour. But the public are u...

RE-RELEASE for Women's History Month. Mrs Pankhurst claims she won women the vote through ‘marvellous leadership.’ An all-male conference of MPs counters that it gifted women the vote. We reveal that neither is true. The door to women’s suffrage is finally opened in January 1917 through brilliant negotiations behind the scenes by Millicent Fawcett, the president of the National Union of Women’s Su...

On 14 July 1916 senior officers finally decided to ignore Haig. At the Battle of Bazentin Ridge they put to use everything that was good practice and broke in to the German lines. But because junior officers at the front were not permitted to take a decision, and their commanders in their chateaux were hopelessly out of touch, it was never converted into a ‘break through.’ Another 9,000 lives lost...

At the southern end of the line, next to the French, British units took all their objectives on the first day of the battle. They succeeded mainly because their maverick commanders had learnt from the French how to bombard the Germans accurately, putting them out of action long enough for the infantry to mop up. They’d also been assisted by the French big guns. By lunchtime some of these units wer...

The French decided they only had enough artillery to attack on a 9-mile front if they were to neutralise the German guns so that their infantry were not needlessly slaughtered. Haig had fewer guns – enough for perhaps 4 miles of front – but he chose to attack across 16 miles. 57,000 British soldiers died on the very first day, 1 July 1916, and no ground was gained. The French achieved all their ob...

On the eve of the Somme the British had far too few artillery guns, and most of the ones they had were the wrong sort. They needed five times as many heavy guns before they could launch an attack. The few big guns they did have were grossly inaccurate, sometimes missing a target by one mile. They were firing shells that were not fitted with delayed-action fuses which meant the German machine-gunne...

The British Army wanted to throw men against machines. Its generals had not thought about how to cross 100-200 yards of open space with wire entanglements. They had been offered plenty of designs for armoured tractors with caterpillar tracks but had ignored them. It was Churchill, head of the Royal Navy, who eventually funded the development of the first ‘tank’. But they arrived late at the Somme...

Unlike the Royal Navy, the British Army proved itself over the course of decades incapable of taking new ideas on board: trench warfare, the machine gun and the tank to name a few. And at the heart of the problem was that too many men in the army refused to take orders. Not the rank and file, you understand, who were executed for any refusal to march into a hail of bullets. But the officers. The r...

1 July 1916. Had British Corps commanders understood machine gun warfare they would not have sent British infantrymen across No Man’s Land unprotected from the German machine gun crews. In fact we explain why the British army need never have been in the position it was in on the Somme, scrabbling about at the bottom of hills, peering up at German fortifications in all the strategic locations. We l...

Hogmanay Special. Synopsis: In 1983 Professor Hugh Trevor Roper wrote a famous paper that claimed that Scottishness had been invented. Actually, what the Professor meant by ‘Scottishness’ was mainly just Scottish highland dress – tartan kilts. We enjoyably demolish Trevor Roper’s theory and reveal that the commercialisation of romantic Scottishness in the nineteenth century had far deeper and dark...

Rereleasing series on why Britain went to war in 1914 ahead of new series in New Year on the Battle of the Somme 1916. On first day 57,000 casualties. We have a new story to tell. Synopsis: One day after Britain goes to war - ‘at sea’ - on 4 August 1914 the first War Council unceremoniously throws out the army’s secret plan to send a few divisions to meet the Germans head on and win quick, painles...

Rereleasing why we went to war in 1914, ahead of new series in New Year on The Battle of the Somme, 1916. Extraordinary stories to tell. Synopsis: A right-wing anti-German contingent call their campaign for war, the weekend of 31 July-2 August 1914 a ‘pogrom’. All talks of peace are, in their words, a German-Jewish plot to keep Britain out of the war for financial reasons. They have the support of...

Rereleasing ahead of new series in New Year on The Battle of the Somme. New story to tell. Synopsis: 8pm German time the Kaiser orders champagne, halts the German advance towards Belgium, and sends a telegram of congratulations to his cousin George V at Buckingham Palace. The Liberal British Cabinet had voted to remain neutral on 31 July. Earlier on 1 August Foreign Secretary Grey met the German a...

Rerelease of this series, ahead of new series on The Battle of the Somme, 1916, to be released in the New Year. NEW story to tell. Synopsis:In 1912 a deal between War Secretary Haldane and the German chancellor Bethmann-Holweg to allow Britain to retain naval supremacy if they both remained neutral (if neither side had started the war), was rudely sabotaged. It involved lying to Cabinet that the G...

Rerelease ahead of new series on The Battle of the Somme 1 July 1916 after New Year. A new story to tell...Synopsis: How did what friendly chats between British and French generals since 1905 turn into a commitment to send a small British Expeditionary Force to France at the start of a war with Germany? A commitment that had not been agreed by Cabinet, Parliament or the Navy? Hosted on Acast. See...

Rereleasing why we got into the First World War ahead of our new series on the Battle of the Somme to be released in New Year - losses on the first day 1 July 1916 were largest in British history. We have a new story to tell. Synopsis: We look at anti-German hysteria in Britain 1906-1909. The British publishing phenomena of 1906 was The Invasion of 1910 (by Germans), serialised in the Daily Mail a...

Rereleasing ahead of our New Year series on the Battle of the Somme, and for those whose podcast platforms don't show our playlists per series. Synopsis: Britain’s main problem by 1910 was Russian expansion towards its Persian oil and India, the jewel in Britain’s crown. So why did Britain go to war to SUPPORT Russia and AGAINST Germany which was its closest European friend and trading partner? Ho...

Rereleasing series with greatest international following: Final stand-alone epSynopsis: Within days of 28 October 1962 two journalists publish the official but untruthful White House account, as instructed and edited by the President. They also call-out a political enemy for daring to consider a humiliating missile swap with the Soviets. But we show how the Kennedys had already suggested this very...

Rereleasing series with greatest international following for those whose podcast platforms don't show playlists per seriesSynopsis: 28 October 1962: by holding his nerve Kennedy defuses the crisis in just 13 days. He says it’s over although he’s unable to verify whether Khrushchev ever withdraws his missiles or not. The last missiles do indeed leave Cuba on day 48 of the crisis but for very differ...

Rereleasing our series with greatest international interest for those whose podcast platforms don't do playlists per seriesSynopsis: 22 October 1962: President Kennedy goes on prime-time TV and announces a blockade around Cuba to prevent more Soviet missiles reaching the island. But US sailors call the so-called ‘quarantine’ nothing but ‘grand theatrics.’ Not a single Soviet ship is stopped by the...

Rereleasing our series with the largest number of international fans, to help those whose podcast platforms don't provide playlists per series:Synopsis: 15 October 1962. Soviet nuclear missile sites are discovered. It’s only three weeks before the mid-term elections. Kennedy decides that to negotiate publicly with Khrushchev would be a disaster at the polls; as would ignoring them which is what hi...

Rereleasing our series with greatest international following for those whose podcast platforms don't do series playlists:Synopsis: The Cuban Missile Crisis begins not because Castro is a dangerous communist but because he is NOT. Khrushchev tells his ruling council: ‘The only way to save Cuba is to put missiles there’ - not only to prevent an American invasion, but also to keep Fidel Castro sweet....

Rereleasing our series with the greatest international following for those whose podcast platforms don't enable playlists per series. Do contact us on @historycafepod if you are enjoying our broadcasts:Synopsis: 1959: The first country the new revolutionary president of Cuba visits is the United States of America. And he’s a big hit. The students at Princeton carry him on their shoulders. Castro w...

Re-releasing our series with widest international appeal in order for those podcast platforms that don't enable series playlists. Synopsis: We have the memo to President Kennedy dated Day 2 of the crisis with his own security chiefs clarifying that 'these missiles do not significantly alter the balance of power.' So why does October 1962 develop into the closest we’ve ever come to nuclear war? Hos...