Saul David | |
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Born | Julian Saul David 1966 |
Education | Ampleforth College |
Alma mater | |
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Julian Saul David (born 1966) is a British academic military historian and broadcaster. He is best known for his work on the Indian Rebellion of 1857 and the Anglo-Zulu War, as well as for presenting and appearing in documentaries on British television covering imperial and military themes.
Of Armenian ancestry through his father and originally named Davidian, [1] David was born in Monmouth, Monmouthshire, Wales, and was educated at various local schools in Herefordshire and Monmouthshire before studying for his A-levels at Ampleforth College. [2] He studied for an MA in history at Edinburgh University, for which he was awarded an upper-second class degree, and read for his PhD at the University of Glasgow. [2] [3] He was Visiting Professor of Military History at the University of Hull for 2007 – 2008. [4] In 2009 he was appointed professor of Military History at the University of Buckingham and has since been directing the institution's MA programme. [5]
David's books include The Indian Mutiny, which was shortlisted for the Duke of Westminster's Medal for Military Literature, [3] Military Blunders, Zulu: the Heroism and Tragedy of the Zulu War of 1879 (a Waterstone's Military History Book of the Year [6] ) and Zulu and Victoria’s Wars. He has presented and appeared in a number of BBC programmes, including Zulu: The True Story, Time Commanders , The Greatest Knight (2008) and Bullets, Boots and Bandages: How to really win at war (2012). [7] [8]
The Entebbe raid or Operation Entebbe, officially codenamed Operation Thunderbolt, was a 1976 Israeli counter-terrorist mission in Uganda. It was launched in response to the hijacking of an international civilian passenger flight operated by Air France between the cities of Tel Aviv and Paris. During a stopover in Athens, the aircraft was hijacked by two Palestinian PFLP–EO terrorists and two German RZ terrorists, who diverted the flight to Libya and then to Uganda, where they landed at Entebbe International Airport to be joined by other terrorists. Once in Uganda, the group enjoyed support from Ugandan dictator Idi Amin.
Lieutenant-General Sir John Bagot Glubb, KCB, CMG, DSO, OBE, MC, KStJ, KPM, known as Glubb Pasha and Abu Hunaik by the Jordanians, was a British soldier, scholar, and author, who led and trained Transjordan's Arab Legion between 1939 and 1956 as its commanding general. During the First World War, he served in France. Glubb has been described as an "integral tool in the maintenance of British control."
Sir Ranulph Twisleton-Wykeham-Fiennes, 3rd Baronet, commonly known as Sir Ranulph Fiennes and sometimes as Ran Fiennes, is a British explorer, writer and poet, who holds several endurance records.
Alfred Henry "Harry" Hook VC was an English recipient of the Victoria Cross, the highest and most prestigious award for valour in the face of the enemy that can be awarded to British and Commonwealth forces, for his actions at the Battle of Rorke's Drift.
Nevill Josiah Aylmer Coghill VC was a British Army officer and recipient of the Victoria Cross, the highest and most prestigious award for gallantry in the face of the enemy that can be awarded to British and Commonwealth forces.
The Battle of Ulundi took place at the Zulu capital of Ulundi on 4 July 1879 and was the last major battle of the Anglo-Zulu War. The British army broke the military power of the Zulu nation by defeating the main Zulu army and immediately afterwards capturing and burning the royal kraal of oNdini.
Hodder & Stoughton is a British publishing house, now an imprint of Hachette.
The Battle of Gingindlovu (uMgungundlovu) was fought on 2 April 1879 between a British relief column sent to break the Siege of Eshowe and a Zulu impi of King Cetshwayo.
The Battle of Intombe was an action fought on 12 March 1879, between Zulu troops loyal to Mbilini waMswati and British soldiers and African civilian conductors, drivers and voorloopers (scouts) defending a convoy of wagons on the road from Derby to Lüneberg. The convoy straggled badly along the road due to the rains and bogged on both sides of the Intombe river, which had risen and was in spate due to the rains. Most of the wagons were laagered, somewhat haphazardly, close to the river on the Derby side with a small party and two wagons on the Lüneberg side.
Robert Tillman Kendall is a Christian writer, speaker, and teacher who was pastor at Westminster Chapel for 25 years. He is author of more than 50 books, including Total Forgiveness. Kendall was part of the Word, Spirit, Power team, a non-denominational charismatic ministry.
Richard Alexander Hough was a British author and historian specializing in maritime history.
Eva Mary Barbara Reynolds was an English scholar of Italian Studies, lexicographer and translator. She wrote and edited several books concerning Dorothy Sayers and was president of the Dorothy L. Sayers Society. She turned 100 in June 2014. Her first marriage was to the philologist and translator Lewis Thorpe.
Erik Durschmied is a cinematographer, producer, director and also an author, military history professor and a former war correspondent for BBC, CBS. Newsweek called him a "supremely gifted reporter who has changed the media he works in", while The New York Times wrote "He has seen more wars than any living general." Durschmied is best known for his book The Hinge Factor. For the sum of his literary work, he received the honorary citizenship of Austria.
Max Arthur OBE was a military historian, author and actor who specialised in first-hand recollections of the twentieth century. In particular his works focussed on the First and Second World War.
William Hugh Edwards is a Western Australian former journalist, author and marine photographer who has written numerous books on maritime, local and natural history and diving.
Michael John Barthorp was a British historian and writer, specialising in military history and military uniforms. He lived in Jersey, Channel Islands.
Monmouthshire is a county and principal area of Wales. It borders Torfaen and Newport to the west; Herefordshire and Gloucestershire to the east; and Powys to the north. The largest town is Abergavenny, with the other major towns being Chepstow, Monmouth, and Usk. The county is 850 km2 in extent, with a population of 95,200 as of 2020. The present county was formed under the Local Government (Wales) Act 1994, which came into effect in 1996, and comprises some sixty percent of the historic county. Between 1974 and 1996, the county was known by the ancient title of Gwent, recalling the medieval Welsh kingdom. In his essay on local government in the fifth and final volume of the Gwent County History, Robert McCloy suggests that the governance of "no county in the United Kingdom in the twentieth century was so transformed as that of Monmouthshire".
More than 2.8 million German soldiers surrendered on the Western Front between D-Day and the end of April 1945; 1.3 million between D-Day and March 31, 1945; and 1.5 million of them in the month of April. From early March, these surrenders seriously weakened the Wehrmacht in the West, and made further surrenders more likely, thus having a snowballing effect. On March 27, Dwight D. Eisenhower declared at a press conference that the enemy were a whipped army. In March, the daily rate of POWs taken on the Western Front was 10,000; in the first 14 days of April it rose to 39,000, and in the last 16 days the average peaked at 59,000 soldiers captured each day. The number of prisoners taken in the West in March and April was over 1,800,000, more than double the 800,000 German soldiers who surrendered to the Russians in the last three or four months of the war. One reason for this huge difference, possibly the most important, was that German forces facing the Red Army tended to fight to the end for fear of Soviet captivity whereas German forces facing the Western Allies tended to surrender without putting up much if any resistance. Accordingly, the number of Germans killed and wounded was much higher in the East than in the West.
James "Jem" Rourke was a settler and trader of Irish-descent in southern Africa. He served as a civilian in the British Army commissariat in 1846 during the Seventh Xhosa War. In 1849, Rorke purchased a farmstead in the Colony of Natal, on the border with Zululand near a river crossing that became known as Rorke's Drift. He established a trading post that led to good relations with the Zulu. Rorke committed suicide in 1875. His homestead played a key role in the 1879 Anglo-Zulu War and was the site of the Battle of Rorke's Drift.
Fort Pearson was a fortification constructed by the British on the Natal side of the border with Zululand in the lead up to the 1879 Anglo-Zulu War. An earthen redoubt on a 300-foot (100 m) high cliff overlooking the Tugela River, the fort and its two external redoubts commanded an important river crossing. The crossing was used by one of the columns of the first invasion of January 1879, that was then besieged at Eshowe in Zululand. The crossing was used again by the Eshowe relief column in March and the second invasion in April. The fort was strengthened in April 1879 and connected to Pietermaritzburg by telegraph by June. The war was won by the British in July but the fort was briefly occupied again by British troops in 1883 during the Third Zulu Civil War.