How the Central Powers were defeated, July–November 1918

By high summer of 1918, German forces on the Western Front had been fought to a standstill. Having expended their reserves in a series of offensives collectively known as the […]

The end of the First World War

While not a ‘special’ as such, this issue has a particular end-of-First-World-War emphasis. Mark Phelan reminds us of how the Central Powers were eventually defeated (pp 24–7); Monika Barget, Pádraig […]

Under the hammer blow

Irish units facing the 1918 German spring offensive. By Mark Phelan By early 1918, after more than three years of bloody stalemate, the strategic situation on the Western Front was […]

Letters from the front, 1915–16

The First World War correspondence of Michael Bourke, Garvey’s Lane, Limerick. By Tadhg Moloney During the First World War, letters allowed soldiers in training or at the front to keep […]

The biggest explosion of the Great War?

Messines Ridge, 3am, 7 June 1917—an Irish soldier’s eyewitness account. By Seán Boyne Patrick Carroll would always remember the moment the massive explosion was set off by the sappers. It […]