The Danger Zone (DZ)

Xerxes the wise ruler, making intelligent decisions, is on show in this programme. Decisions of great insight, brilliance even. In previous programmes we’ve seen examples of decisions by Xerxes of profound stupidity. But right now, I have no trouble in calling Xerxes a smooth operator. Tag words: Xerxes; Greeks; Persians; Thermopylae; Oracle at Delphi; Herodotus; The Histories;  penteconters;  Joh...

What were Xerxes plans for invading Greece. What were the Greek plans for resisting them? We’re now in the period of calm just before the storm. As John Gaddis says about plans in his book  On Grand Strategy  they involve drawing: upon principles extending across time and space, so that you'll have a sense of what's worked before and what hasn't. You then apply these to the situation a...

Sometimes we think of these ancient peoples that I’m talking about, like Xerxes the ruler of the Persian Empire, who lived in this ancient, primitive world, as not being as sophisticated as we are. But that might not be true. Was this campaign to invade Greece, just a part of his strategic plan to destroy the entire Greek world and its colonies including in Sicily? So was Xerxes pursuing a Grand S...

Xerxes was given a lesson in the determination of the Spartans not to give up their freedom to some foreign conquering ruler. They could have immortally told their tormentor, Xerxes,  Give me liberty or give me death  and beaten American Patrick Henry to the punch by 2,200 years, but the Spartans were fighting men with no time for fine words. The two Spartans who visited Xerxes spoke more bluntly....

Xerxes had bound Europe to Asia with the two bridges that he had had thrown across the Hellespont. Now his mighty army was ready to cross. It was going to take several days and nights to achieve this task and Xerxes delivered a pep talk to the leaders before they began on the expedition. Tag words: Xerxes; Artabanus; Susa; Persians; Herodotus; The Histories; Oracle of Dephi; Croesus; Cyrus; Aeschy...

Was Xerxes a hedgehog or a fox? Since there’s an overwhelming chance that you have no idea what I’m talking about I am going to have to explain aren’t I. But first to get some context. Xerxes plans for invading Greece had received an enthusiastic response from everyone except his uncle, Artabanus. Now poised on the brink of crossing from Asia to Europe, Xerxes wanted to revisit this question with...

Xerxes grand, triumphal parade to conquer Greece took a detour to visit the ruins of Helen’s legendary Troy. How Cyrus the Great conquered the most impregnable city fortress in the world without shedding any blood, while inside the city a ghostly hand was writing a message of doom to the ruler of Babylon. And finally Xerxes arranged to see the might and irresistible power that he had assembled to...

It was a triumphal victory march like none before or since even up to today, when Xerxes set out to conquer Greece, the whole of Europe even. John Lewis Gaddis, Professor of History at Yale University, founding director of the Brady-Johnson Programme in Grand Strategy, and 2012 Pullitzer Prize Winner for his biography of George F Kennan, an American diplomat who advocated a containment policy of t...

From the time of making the decision to invade Greece, military contingents, and their entourages from all over the Persian Empire descended on the capital, Susa. Herodotus tells us that this was made up of 2,641,610 fighting men. He says that he conservatively allows for an equal number of servants, camp followers, crews of provision boats and other craft that sailed with the expedition. So no le...

In the world of the ancients, humans were the playthings of the gods. Xerxes, as you will remember, was thinking about not invading Greece which, as you will soon learn, would have been defying his gods’ given destiny. He was beginning to think that Artabanus, his uncle, was right. Why invade Greece? To set Xerxes on the correct trajectory, the gods wanted him to take, a little prodding was going...

Let’s pretend that you are Xerxes, in charge of the greatest empire the world has ever seen. Your dad, Darius, had suffered a humiliating defeat, in 490 B.C. at the hands of the Athenians, losing the Battle of Marathon and having to flee back to Persia with his tail between his legs. Pretty embarrassing – very embarrassing in fact. Your dad decided to revenge himself on the Greeks. He started the...

In 480 BC a battle took place at the Thermopylae Pass, essentially between 300 Spartan warriors and the massive army of Xerxes, the mighty ruler of the mightiest empire that the world had ever seen, with 1,700,000 men at his command, so we are told. Although at another point we’re told that his forces numbered 5,283,220 men - pretty precise eh! Now you may think that ancient history isn’t your thi...

For the past few parts I’ve been like a dog with a bone. Looking at animals in war. In this programme I’m going to tell you about atomic bats, under cover pussies, tank destroying dogs and fighting chickens. Tag words: Smoky the  Yorkshire Terrier ; General Douglas MacArthur; I Shall Return; the bat bomb; Lyle S. Adams; National Research Defense Committee; Donald Griffin; Project X-Ray; CIA; Proje...

Animal heroes in war. Today I’m going to talk about a great Australian dog, a navy cat, parachuting turkeys, flaming pigs and did we do something disgusting to the horses that did so much for us in World War I and a whole lot more? Hang around for a surprising answer. Tag words: animal heroes; Avenue of Remembrance Yungaburra; Merlin; Razz; Andy; Nova; Herbie; Corporal Mark Donaldson; Taliban; Qua...

Animals make great friends – but in wartime, they can and do save lives. Animal heroism even has it’s own Victoria Cross – so let’s look at what animals, including slugs, have done for us in war. And let’s look at the Victoria Cross for animals. Tag words: Animals; Victoria Cross; Red Baron; Charles Schulz; Snoopy; Manfred von Richthofen; Gunner Cedric Popkin; Dickin Medal; For Gallantry; We Also...

The African campaign’s one of the most exciting of World War 2, even though it was just a side-show. It was on a small scale. So it’s easy to know the geography and the personalities. When you get to Russia the numbers and distances are so vast that it is nowhere as easy to get your heads around. In Rommel’s diary, of his experiences in World War 2, he gave his account about why he had failed in N...

Do you want to hear about the time when Adolf Hitler, the Führer, apologised to one of his generals? Tag words: Paul Carell; Foxes of the Desert; Field Marshall Erwin Rommel; Battle of El Alamein; Adolf Hitler; Führer; Panzerarmee Afrika; Field-Marshal Kesselring; James S Corum; Wolfram von Richthofen; Malta; Tobruk; Benghazi; Crete; General Auchinleck; Afrika Korps; General Jodl; Wolfsschanze; Wi...

Now I’ll tell you something that you might find hard to believe. Anti-Italian prejudices about their fighting spirit in North Africa abound, for people that know about the North African campaign, but it was the dogged fighting determination of the  Ariete  Division in early November 1942 that saved the  Panzerarmee Africa  possibly from annihilation. And this is a good time to tell you about Hitle...

By the time of the battles around El Alamein, July to August 1942, the best and newest Italian tanks, were woefully under gunned and under armoured compared to the new American made tanks that the British were getting. The Lee/Grant tanks first came into service in May 1942. By the time of the British Alamein offensive, those brand new 300 Sherman tanks that Marshall and Roosevelt had despatched t...

The fall of Tobruk to Rommel’s Panzerarmee Afrika was Rommel’s last absolute victory of the war. Certainly he would have great success in smashing the green American army at Kasserine Pass in 1943, but the split German command in Tunisia denied Rommel command of the 10th Panzer Division which might have allowed him to have delivered a major victory to the Axis.  So Tobruk was Rommel’s last undispu...

The big question now was, could Panzerarmée Afrika take Tobruk, that was something they had failed to do in 1941, and then, given its perilous petrol supplies and the distances that had to be covered to reach the Nile delta, how was it going to be possible to seize Cairo, Alexandria and the Suez Canal? From May 1942 things changed dramatically, and irreversibly, for the Italian armoured divisions...

Rommel was now ready to launch his 1942 summer offensive. The climax of the Third Reich was rapidly approaching. The Germans were fighting in the city of Stalingrad, its fall couldn’t be too far off. The Germans were advancing in the Caucasus with the Russian oil fields within reach. Maybe the German advance could continue through the Caucasus and link up with Rommel. He was about to unleash his t...

Italian battle honours in World War II. A contradiction in terms? Italian bravery. Italian tanks had 6 gears – 1 forward and 5 reverse. The Italian battle flag - a white lion rampant on a white background. But in this programme and a few of the following maybe, like me, you’re going to have second thoughts about these jokes that were and still are widely made at the expense of the Italians. In Eng...

When I grew up in the 50s and 60s, and even today, the contribution of the Italian armed forces in North Africa were/are the butt of many jokes. Nothing’s changed today as far as I can tell. But let me surprise you now with some of the remarkable feats of arms performed by the Italian armoured divisions serving under Rommel. Although it’s not part of the story of the supply nightmare that confront...

Rommel’s advance into Cyrenaica again in 1942 had once more stretched the ability of his quartermasters to keep him supplied. Martin Creveld, in his book,  Supplying War  says: On 9 February, 100 per cent supplies could no longer be guaranteed to the troops, and by the next day tactical developments had overtaken logistical possibilities to such an extent that, because of the enormous distances an...