29 FEBRUARY

BRITISH TREASURY HALTS RELIEF TO FAMINE STRUCK IRISH PEASANTS [ 17 July 1846 ] On this day in 1846, Charles Trevelyan, Assistant Secretary of the British Treasury, on learning of the ‘very unfavourable’ reports on the potato harvest’,  wrote to Sir Randolph Ralph, head of Ireland’s Relief Commission, warning him that ‘the only way to…

CHURCHILL “STRONGLY IN FAVOUR OF USING POISONED GAS AGAINST UNCIVILISED TRIBES.” On 12 May 1919 Winston Churchill, now widely acknowledged to be among the most admired Britons in history, wrote a memo in his newly appointed position as Secretary of State for Air regarding the best possible British military response to an anti-British insurgency in…

BRITISH ARMY URGES TOLERANT APPROACH TO LOYALIST PARAMILITARIES IN ITS RANKS. 12 June 1972 – British Military HQ in Northern Ireland urged the Ministry of Defence not to dismiss Ulster Defence Regiment soldiers with links to the paramilitary Ulster Defence Association, despite its many known terror links and its involvement in multiple bombings and shootings. …

BLAIR FRUSTRATED AT LEGAL CONCERNS OVER KILLING INNOCENT AFGHANS. [ 19 October 2001 ] On this day in 2001, during the American and British bombing of the Taliban in Afghanistan, Tony Blair became agitated over legal objections to some of the targeting on the basis that innocent civilians might be killed. Alastair Campbell, his Director…

BRITISH MAJOR IN INDIA RECOUNTS WITH PRIDE HIS EXTRA-JUDICIAL HANGINGS. 10 September 1857 – The Globe newspaper carries a report by Major MacDonald commanding the third irregular cavalry, in which he proudly recounts how he carried out executions of Indian suspects to a murder without any legal authorization. As he put it “I took on…

BRITISH ARMY MAKES NO ATTEMPT TO PREVENT EXECUTION OF  IRAQI CHRISTIAN. [ 24 December 2003 ] On this day in 2003 British soldiers failed to intervene when local Shia militia executed a Christian man in the town’s main marketplace for the crime of selling alcohol. Over the preceding months, following the joint British-American invasion in…