This edited article about warplanes originally appeared in Look and Learn issue number 701 published on 21 June 1975.

Lt Gavotti dropped small bombs from his plane as the Turks took pot shots at him (main picture); in 1794 the French used balloons for military observation of the Dutch (far left). Pictures by Wilf Hardy

On the waterfront of Tripoli harbour in Libya, Arab labourers sweated under the stern eyes of their new masters, the Italians.

Strange weapons of war were being unloaded from the Italian supply ship. These were the conqueror’s aeroplane flotilla – two Bleriot X1s, two Nieuport monoplanes, two Henri Farman biplanes and two Etrich Taubes.

It looked a formidable armada just to seize a desert coast from the ailing Ottoman Empire. But, helped by ferocious Senussi Arab tribesmen from the Libyan desert and volunteers on unofficial leave from the Egyptian Army, the tiny Ottoman Turkish garrisons of Libya had retreated to oases deep in the Sahara Desert from where they harried the invaders and refused all demands to surrender.

In reply the Italians threw in all the machinery of 20th-century war, including their aeroplane flotilla.

A few weeks after the Italians landed, on October 23, 1911. Captain Carlo Piazza had the distinction of making the first military reconnaissance flight in an aeroplane. Before long he had also made the first sea reconnaissance, the first photographic reconnaissance and the first night reconnaissance.

It was one of Captain Piazza’s junior officers, Second Lieutenant Giulio Gavotti, who had the dubious distinction of first raining death from the skies.

On November 1st, 1911, Lt. Gavotti took off in his Taube. With him he carried four tiny picric-acid bombs.

The Turks were used to the reconnaissance planes and were not particularly concerned as the Taube approached. This time, however, it was different. Holding the control stick between his knees, Gavotti screwed a detonator into the bomb and tossed it overboard. Three times he repeated the operation.

The air had now become an arena of war.

This edited article about King Harold originally appeared in Look and Learn issue number 698 published on 31 May 1975.

King Harold

Few people would have any doubts about the question posed by the title of this article. Harold unquestionably, they would say, died at the Battle of Hastings with an arrow in his eye.

Ah, but did he?

Let us re-live, for a little while, the last hours of that celebrated battle near the quiet Sussex seashore on October 14, 1066.

From nine o’clock in the morning of October 14 until three o’clock in the afternoon the fight had been an even one. The Normans pressed their attack with cavalry and each time the English, from behind their well placed barricades, repelled them. The Norman archers, who were achieving nothing with a frontal attack, altered their tactics and sent their arrows skywards, so they came down on the Englishmen’s heads.

The tactic was murderously effective, but the barricaded English line still held. Now the Normans resorted to a trick. They feigned a retreat with the intention of bringing the English out from behind their cover. The ruse worked: Harold’s men poured out after the fleeing Normans, who suddenly wheeled about and plunged back into the fight.

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This edited article about the Orkney Isles originally appeared in Look and Learn issue number 697 published on 24 May 1975.

Viking raiders left Norway for the Orkney Isles

In a large room, deeply carpeted, two men in naval uniform stood in front of a wall-chart of the North Sea. The older man, a stick in his hand, traced a line slowly from the German naval base at Kiel across to a group of islands off the north coast of Scotland – the Orkney Isles.

The year was 1939, With Lieutenant Prien, commander of U-boat U47, Admiral Doenitz, Flag Officer (Submarines) of the German Navy, was planning the impossible – an attack on Scapa Flow, the largest expanse of water at the southern end of the Orkneys.

Scapa Flow is almost surrounded by small islands, and for two world wars ships of the British Home Fleet were based there.

The reasons for choosing Scapa as a naval base were these: firstly, the route from the Atlantic to Germany must pass either through the English Channel, or between North Scotland and Norway. Battleships at Scapa Flow could easily sail to intercept any enemy ships using this last passage.

Secondly, tides and currents swirl dangerously through the channels which separate the little islands around the Flow, making those channels extremely dangerous for shipping, so providing a natural defence from attack from the sea.

Thus thought the Admiralty. Admiral Doenitz, however, thought otherwise.

“You will note, Lieutenant,” he rasped, “that on the east side of the Flow, between the Orkney mainland and the island of Burray, there are two channels through which you might pass. They are partly blocked by sunken ships; you will sail between them. That is all. Heil Hitler!”

On October 8, 1939, Lieutenant Prien’s submarine slipped quietly out of Kiel and into the North Sea. Five days later, as dawn broke, Prien could see a faint blue streak on the horizon. It was Orkney.

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This edited article about Cortes originally appeared in Look and Learn issue number 686 published on 8 March 1975.

Hernando Cortes arriving in the New World by Severino Baraldi

Tales of exciting expeditions to the newly discovered land of America stirred the imaginations of many young boys throughout Europe during the early 15th century.

One such boy was Hernando Cortes who was to become one of the greatest of the Spanish adventurers in the New World.

He was born at Medellin in Spain in 1485 and, though his parents wanted him to make a career in law, Hernando was determined to sail the seas and explore new and exciting lands. At the age of 19, he joined an expedition to San Domingo in the West Indies and stayed there for seven years. He then went on an expedition to conquer the Island of Cuba. In February 1519, Cortes was put in charge of an expedition to explore the Mexican coast. Having founded the town of Vera Cruz. Cortes planned to conquer the mighty city of Tenochtitlan (now Mexico City). This rich and powerful capital of the Aztecs was ruled by the Emperor Montezuma who was treated almost like a god and lived in great splendour. When Cortes and his army arrived in the city, he was treated with respect and kindness by the emperor, who did not realise what the adventurer’s plans were. Three months of bitter fighting ended with the victory of the Spaniards, for in the summer of 1521, Tenochtitlan fell to Cortes.

The Spaniard then tried to bring all the land round about under Spanish rule, by exploring and colonising and founding new towns. He was so successful that the Emperor Charles V in Spain grew jealous and frightened of his power, and ordered him to return to Spain. He ended his days a broken and forgotten man and, after a long legal battle to uphold his rights in Mexico, he died near Seville in Spain in 1547.

This edited article about Scotland originally appeared in Look and Learn issue number 671 published on 23 November 1974.

A Scottish highlander in the Jacobite uprising of 1745 by Dan Escott

They entered the Banffshire town of Keith, exhausted after a day’s march against a fierce nor’-easter. They roused the minister and received his permission to sleep in the church. Once inside the gloomy building they piled their arms on the floor, sprawled on the pews and slept. Colin Campbell of Ballimore, their leader, longed to stretch out, too, but first he posted a guard. He didn’t want to be caught unawares like his brother-officers in Perthshire. The Argyll Militia were already in disgrace over that little episode and he dared not risk further trouble. He set out twenty men around the church and its graveyard. More than enough, he reckoned. Then he slept.

From some woodland beyond the town Major Nicol Glascoe and his band of Jacobite raiders watched the lights in the church flicker into darkness. He allowed an hour to pass, time for the bitter winds to numb the sentries’ wits, then he turned to the traitor, McLean, who crouched beside him. ‘Now’, he whispered. McLean nodded and led the Major and his band towards the nearest sentry. They were almost upon him before the challenge was given. ‘Who goes there?’ ‘Friends,’ replied McLean, ‘Campbells’. The sentry grunted approval and slumped to the ground as McLean whipped out a dirk and slit his throat.

It was April 1745. Charles Edward Stuart, the Young Pretender, had led his army of Highlanders deep into England, hoping that Jacobite sympathisers would rise to support his claim to the British crown. They had failed him. So he had halted at Derby and was now back in the north of Scotland, twisting and turning to avoid defeat. His early victories over incompetent English commanders had stung the British Regular Army sharply and, led by the Duke of Cumberland, it was determined to have its revenge.

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This edited article about France originally appeared in Look and Learn issue number 670 published on 16 November 1974.

Henry VIII meets Francis I on the Field of the Cloth of Gold, by Peter Jackson

The death of Joan of Arc, burned in the market place at Rouen by the English army, did not result in the defeat of France, as England had hoped.

The French whom she had inspired began to win some rapid victories. It was as if Joan had said, “I am the spirit of France; remember me when I am dead and you will not lose a battle.”

In Joan, the French soldiers had found a burning spirit of patriotism. Their pride rekindled, they drove back the English everywhere.

By the year 1453, the Hundred Years War, in which the Kings of England had claimed the crown of France as well, in which heroes like the Black Prince and Bertrand du Guesclin had fought in legendary battles, was over.

The period that followed the Hundred Years War was distinguished in England by the civil wars called the Wars of the Roses. They culminated in the Battle of Bosworth, after which Henry the Seventh became King and founded the Tudor dynasty.

France, during this time, was ruled by a succession of strange kings. Charles the Eighth, who was Joan of Arc’s Dauphine, was so convinced that rebels were trying to poison him, that he refused to eat anything and eventually died of starvation.

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This edited article about France originally appeared in Look and Learn issue number 665 published on 12 October 1974.

The huge viking roughly kissed the King’s foot as an act of fealty on behalf of Duke Rollo

Christians living in Europe in the Dark Ages that followed the reign of the French Emperor Charlemagne knew where the devil came from. They knew, too, exactly what he was like, for each springtime, they shook with terror as they faced him.

He came from the sea in a long boat, with its prow shaped like a dragon and with horns on his helmet. He swept up the broad waterways of France, leapt on to the river banks, plundered, burned, and wasted the rich farmlands, and brutalised and murdered the terrified people.

He was the sea-king, the Viking, the Northman. He was the scourge of Europe.

No one knew from whence he came, except, they believed, from a land where the sun never rose in winter and never set in summer, and no one understood the bewildering jabber of his tongue. But when his sinew stiffened and his sword struck, then there was terror indeed!

A line of feckless kings, whose rule was weak and uninspiring, helped the Vikings to run rampant over northern France. The French gave most of their kings nicknames, for they found these names easier to remember than the traditional royal numbers.

First there was Louis the Good-Natured. He was so good-natured that he even smiled kindly at his warders when the people put him in prison.

Then came Charles the Bald, who was not bald, but was so called because he wore his hair short, instead of in the long, flowing style of his predecessors. Louis the Stammerer reigned for only 18 months; then came Charles the Fat. By now the monarchy was so devalued that the French wrote this king out of their history books. They numbered Charles the Bald, Charles the Second. Charles the Simple, who came after Charles the Fat, was Charles the Third.

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This edited article about France originally appeared in Look and Learn issue number 663 published on 28 September 1974.

Vercingetorix burned many towns to deny the Romans any resting place in Gaul

You may have heard of resistance fighters. They are the supreme patriots. They rise up from obscurity, when their land is under a conqueror’s heel, and “resist” by cunning sabotage and emotional assault, rather than text-book tactics.

Resistance fighters were much in evidence in France and other occupied countries during the Second World War. The Germans came to fear them. So, too, nearly two thousand years ago, did the Romans as they stamped their conquering heels across the untamed lands of Europe.

In those far off days Caesar’s legions met some immortal resistance fighters. In savage Britain they met Boudicca, or Boadicea, the wild-eyed Queen of the Iceni, who led her East Anglian chariots in short-lived triumph against the black Roman eagle. In Germany they met Arminius, or Hermann, who threw them back across the Rhine.

And in France, or Gaul as they called it, they met Vercingetorix.

More than a century and a half before they first came to Britain, the Romans had established a foothold in Gaul. They built a colony at Massilia, which is modern Marseilles. Gradually, over the years, it blossomed into the Roman province of Southern Gaul, where the hot, brassy sun shone almost as in Rome. The Gauls quickly learned to like and copy them, for the Romans knew how to live in style and comfort.

Who, then, should the Gauls call upon when they were in need of help other than their friends the Romans? And one day they did need help. The trouble was their German neighbours, who poured increasingly across the Rhine to ravage the fair land of Gaul.

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This edited article about the Aztecs originally appeared in Look and Learn issue number 663 published on 28 September 1974.

The Aztec city of Tenochtitlan in the time of Hernando Cortes

They set out at midnight, laden down with gold. It was cloudy and a steady drizzle was falling which helped conceal their progress across the great square of the city of Mexico, the mighty Aztec capital. The only signs of humanity were occasional corpses to remind the Spanish and their Indian allies of recent fighting.

They passed along lanes and alleys and stared down at the canals which divided the city into sections, like Venice. Where were the enemy? Were they hiding in ambush, waiting to pounce? Surely someone must hear the rumbling artillery and baggage trains?

They reached the causeway that was to take them to safety across the lake, carrying with them rapidly made prefabricated bridges which were to be laid across the eight open canals that broke the line of the causeway.

There were Aztec sentinels on guard at the start of the causeway, but an Aztec woman gave the first alarm, calling “Mexicans, come running! They are crossing the canal! Our enemies are fleeing!”

Suddenly, there were shouts from all directions, and from the temple at the top of the great pyramid in the heart of the city the huge war drum began to sound, as it only did in times of extreme crisis.

The enemy held back until the Spaniards were approaching the second gap in the causeway, then the air was filled with a sound like a forest shaken by the wind which grew steadily louder. It was the war cry of the Aztecs, and above the sound could be heard the splashing of thousands of oars as war canoes headed for the causeway. The Night of Sorrows (La Noche Triste), as the Spaniards call what happened next, had begun.

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This edited article about the Second World War originally appeared in Look and Learn issue number 662 published on 21 September 1974.

The Red Army’s merciless assault on Berlin by Severino Baraldi

Hitler had lost his last throw for victory in the Ardennes. The gambler was now bankrupt. From the German people’s point of view, the tragedy was that he refused to face the truth of his bankruptcy.

A massive Russian offensive on the Eastern Front brought the Red Army across Poland and East Prussia, to the line of the Rivers Oder and Neisse; and Hitler stripped his Western defences to prop up the Eastern Front against the Russians. Only the River Rhine, the Siegfried Line, and a scattering of weak and undermanned German divisions stood between the Anglo-Americans and the very heart of Hitler’s “Thousand-Year Reich.”

The command of the main assault across the Rhine was given to Montgomery, and for this purpose he was assigned three armies and a million men.

With the unhurried care and forethought that had been the hallmark of all Monty’s battles from Alamein onwards, he constructed a fool-proof battle plan that would take him across the greatest water obstacle in Western Europe.

Some of the American generals might be forgiven for thinking that their British colleague was making a ponderous job of constructing a sledge-hammer to crack a nut. Such a one was the famous, headstrong General Patton, whose fast-driving Third Army tanks smashed through the flimsy German defences and reached the Rhine at Coblenz in three days. Similarly, General Hodges’ First Army, striking towards the Rhine, was the first to capture a bridge over the river, at Remagen. Both these commanders were ordered by Eisenhower to sit tight and await Montgomery’s assault, timed for three weeks later.

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