Events

The Lecture Series 2014

The Trustees of
THE SECOND WORLD WAR EXPERIENCE CENTRE
invite you to their

FIFTEENTH ANNUAL LECTURE SERIES AUTUMN 2014

Professor CHRIS BELLAMY

Major General MUNGO MELVIN CB OBE

in THE STATE APARTMENTS
THE ROYAL HOSPITAL CHELSEA
By kind permission of the Governor

Sponsored by Serco

PROGRAMME

Professor Chris Bellamy
'70th anniversary of 1944: A comparison of the breakout from Normandy and the Belorussian Operation, Bagration'
The Royal Hospital, Chelsea
Tuesday 7^th October

Mungo Melvin
'Sevastopol: Crimea’s Wars from Potemkin to Putin'
The Royal Hospital, Chelsea
Tuesday 4^th November

Lectures begin at 6.40 pm
Reception & Refreshments 6.00 pm & after the Lecture from 8.00 till 8.45pm

King Charles II founded the Royal Hospital Chelsea, built by Sir Christopher Wren in 1682, for soldiers after long service or crippled in war. The Trustees of the Second World War Experience Centre are grateful to Serco , the Governor of the Royal Hospital, and the Lecturers, for making these evenings possible.

Tickets £25 for each lecture.

Telephone enquiries (01937) 541 274
email: enquiries@war-experience.org

Numbers are strictly limited so please apply as soon as possible.

Tuesday 7^th October
Chris Bellamy
Professor Chris Bellamy is the Director of the Maritime Institute and Professor of Maritime Security at the University of Greenwich. He was previously Director of the Security Studies Institute and Professor of Military Science and Doctrine at Cranfield University and academic provider to the Defence Academy of the United Kingdom at Shrivenham (1997-2010).
In this lecture, we will explore the realities of combat and life in the British Army of 1944-5 as it battled its way from the Normandy beaches to the Baltic, and reach a clearer understanding of the achievement of British soldiers in the most important campaign fought by the army in the Second World War.

His most recent major works are The Gurkhas: Special Force (John Murray, 2011), which has also been made into an audio book, and Absolute War: Soviet Russia in the Second World War (Pan/Macmillan, 2007, 2009), which won the 2008 Westminster Medal for Military Literature in 2008 and has been translated into numerous European languages. He is currently completing Crete 1897-1909: the first Modern International Peace Support Operation. Earlier works include Knights in White Armour: the New Art of War and Peace (Hutchinson 1996, Pimlico 1997) which addressed the radical changes taking place in international security following the end of the Cold War. He also had leading Editorial and contributor roles on The Oxford Companion to Military History (2001) and The Times Atlas of the Second World War (1989).

Chris is unusual among academics in his field in having practical experience of war, having been Defence Correspondent of the Independent newspaper from 1990-97. He reported from the 1991 Gulf War, from Bosnia between 1991 and 1996, and from Chechnya in 1995. He was shortlisted for Foreign Reporter of the Year in the British Press Awards 1996 for reporting from Chechnya.

His talk is timed to mark the 70th anniversary of 1944 and is a comparative analysis of the breakout from Normandy in June - July of that year and the giant Russian Operation Bagration. The latter was timed to coincide with it, cleared German forces from what is now Belarus, and destroyed Army Group Centre - the military-strategic Centre of Gravity on the Eastern Front. The comparison is striking as the western Allied forces in Normandy took a long time to eventually break out, whereas the Russian forces moved extremely fast. Was it the terrain, the density of forces, which was much greater in Normandy, experience and practice, or something else?

Tuesday 4^th November
Mungo Melvin
Recent events in Ukraine have threatened to return Europe to the old tensions of the Cold War, a war the West thought it had won, and one consigned to the history books. The Russian annexation of Crimea in March 2014 serves to remind us that military power still matters. The driving force of the Russian intervention was to safeguard their Black Sea Fleet base at Sevastopol, together with associated airfields, logistics and communications facilities in Crimea. For Russia, Sevastopol is no some distant Gibraltar: it is their Portsmouth, a vital national naval citadel. Prince Potemkin annexed Crimea in 1783 on behalf of Catherine the Great and recommended the foundation of Sevastopol. The city was the object of two great sieges in 1854-55 and 1941-44, 'heroic defences' in Russian eyes. In 1954, Khrushchev 'gave' Crimea to Ukraine. Now Russia controls Crimea and Sevastopol again, as Putin reminded the world on 9 May 2014. Mungo Melvin will tell the story of this remarkable place, highlighting its enduring strategic significance and emotional appeal to Russians down the centuries.

Major General (Ret’d) Mungo Melvin CB OBE is a Senior Associate Fellow, Royal United Services Institute. His military career spanned from 1974 to 2011. His final tour was as the Senior Directing Staff (Army) at the Royal College of Defence Studies in London, responsible for strategic research, analysis and teaching. He is now Senior British Army Adviser for the First World War centenary commemorations, and in this capacity is editing a battlefield guide of the Western Front. He is also an adviser to the House of Commons Defence Committee, and is President of the British Commission for Military History. He is the author of the prize-winning Manstein: Hitler’s Greatest General (2010). His major new work, Sevastopol: Crimea’s Wars from Potemkin to Putin, is due to be published in 2016.