Blog

Many people go on battlefield tours and treat them as a pilgrimage to see where a relative fought in World War One and in some cases died. Many of them have their relative’s medals and some wear them with great pride, especially on our Armistice Day Group Tours, myself included. But what many do not know is what the campaign medals were awarded for. I hope I can...

The Christmas truce of 1914 tends to be looked at in a romantic light rather than one of any political significance. The war had been raging for almost five months and all sides had suffered heavy casualties. With a heavy winter looming, both sides dug in and static trench warfare became the norm and with it in places a ‘live and let live’ policy existed where the...

Next year, 2017, sees a number of significant World War One anniversaries taking place and Rifleman has tours that cover them all. The first anniversary we come to is the 100th anniversary of the Battle of Vimy Ridge which was, in the great scheme of things, part of the Battle of Arras. This battle took place on Easter Monday, 9th April 1917. It was primarily part...

This year saw us take our fifth consecutive group to Ypres to commemorate the Armistice and there really is nowhere else that creates such an ambience over this period. Ypres was held by British and Allied forces for the duration of the First World War and in that time the town was practically destroyed. In fact if you were in the Grote Markt on horseback at the end...

By the autumn of 1918 Germany began to realise that she could not fight on much longer. Her allies were withdrawing from the fight and her people had started to rebel. On 29 September, the Supreme German Army Command informed Kaiser Wilhelm II and the Chancellor, Count Georg von Hertling, that the military situation facing the German army was hopeless. General Erich...

The poppy is the symbol of remembrance (and this should be explained explicitly to FIFA who helped install a WW1 memorial at Plugstreet to the Christmas Truce football match – what are they thinking?). Originally linked with the Great War, it has since become a symbol that allows us to remember our fallen armed servicemen who fell in many other wars and conflicts...