Scotland (South)

The President of The Western Front Association, Professor Gary Sheffield, will compare and contrast two famous retreats by British Expeditionary Forces - 1914 and 1940. Image: © IWM (Q 51489)Troops from the Middlesex Regiment under fire from German artillery, September 1914.      

David will examine the events surrounding the notorious multi-train rail crash at Quintinshill Junction, near Gretna, when a southbound troop train carrying territorials of the Leith based 1/7th Royal Scots slammed into a local service. With over 220 dead, and a similar number injured, it remains the worst crash in the history of the railways in...

Andrew's talk will trace the history of the Royal Naval Division from its baptism of fire at the 1914 defence of Antwerp to Gallipoli, the Somme and the Western Front. It will show how the Sea Soldiers, hastily-formed, half-trained and woefully ill-equipped when they landed at Gallipoli in 1915, were transformed into an elite force fighting at t...