Conservative History Journal

Tory Historian is always happy to learn something new. For instance, casual survey of the internet informs one that today is the anniversary of the last French invasion of Britain. Well, no, it is not the anniversary of the last successful invasion - that remains the Norman one of 1066 (though whether the Normans were actually French is debatable).This is a wonderful story of French ships arriving at Fishguard, being scared off by the canons...

L. P. Hartley, not one of Tory Historian’s favourite writers, started his best-known book (mostly because of the film with Julie Christie and Alan Bates) with the words: “The past is another country; they do things differently there”.As it happens, Tory Historian disagrees with that and feels that, maybe, novelists should not make comments about history (unless we are talking about Georgette Heyer). In essence, whatever the details may...

Tory Historian was delighted to hear that there are moves afoot to erect a permanent memorial in Edinburgh to one of the great heroes of the Second World War, Woytek the bear. A campaign is afoot (yes, OK, but I shall refrain from the obvious pun) to erect a statue to the ursine war hero near Edinburgh, his adopted city.In 1942 Polish soldiers who had not so long ago been released from Siberia and whose general had insisted that they fight...