Fighting for her rightful inheritance of the English crown, Empress Matilda (1110–1125) proved to be a grandmaster in the Anarchy’s bloody chess game.

The war of dynastic succession in 12th century England and Normandy is known as the Anarchy. (1135-1154). Barons and nobles of all ranks joined in the family quarrel over the succession to Henry I. Matilda, Henry’s only surviving legitimate child and widow of Holy Roman Emperor Henry V, challenged her cousin and rival Stephen of Blois, who managed to seize the crown. This was a game of chess or chequers, in which seizing castles and fortified towns was what mattered, as well as bringing nobles with their retainers over to one’s side. Matilda played astutely but only won when she ceased to pursue the crown for herself and demanded it for her son. She continued as the power behind Henry II’s throne from Normandy.

This episode’s guest, Dr Catherine Hanley, is the author of the latest scholarly biography of Empress Matilda, Matilda: Empress, Queen, Warrior (Yale University Press, 2019). Holding a PhD in Medieval Studies from the University of Sheffield, she is the author of several history books.

Modern Turkey was forged by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk from the Ottoman Empire’s collapse. In this episode, Dr Mesut Uyar joins us to discuss Atatürk’s legacy of strategic leadership.

Mustafa Kemal Atatürk was the most important Turkish political leader since the Ottoman Empire’s expansion was checked at Vienna in 1683. A career officer educated from the age of 12 in military academies – where he excelled, earning the nickname Kemal (‘the Perfect’) – he saw service in Tripolitania (modern Libya) and the Balkans. He entered the world stage during the First World War, especially for his command of the Ottoman 19th Division defending the Gallipoli peninsula against the Allied forces’ landings in 1915–16.

His ascent was secured through his command in the war with Greece over the frontiers of the Turkish rump-state in 1919–1922, which ended in a population exchange. His military successes paved the way for his political leadership, which was inspired by French Republican views. He transformed Turkey through a profound programme of modernisation, which earned him a new title, Ata-Türk – father of Turkey. Despite his small stature, he cast a long shadow over Turkey that endures today.

Dr Mesut Uyar, our guest for this episode, graduated from the Turkish Military Academy and from Istanbul University (Political Sciences). As a Turkish career military officer twice wounded in action, he served as an instructor in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and did several tours for the UN in Georgia and as a staff officer in Afghanistan. He has lectured on Ottoman military history at the University of New South Wales, Canberra, and at Antalya Bilim University. He is currently a visiting professor at the University of New South Wales, Canberra.

H.R. McMaster shares his extensive experience of strategy-making and strategic leadership as a military officer, academic and former United States’ national security advisor.

‘The Iconoclast General’, H.R. McMaster has a distinguished record serving his country. Commissioned from West Point into the armoured cavalry, he retired as a Lieutenant General after thirty-four years’ service, including operational service in Iraq and Afghanistan. His success in fighting counter-insurgency campaigns saw him involved in the development of the United States’ Army and Marine Corps’ counter-insurgency field manual (FM3-24). One of Time Magazine’s 100 most influential people in April 2014, he was described by Lieutenant General (retired) David Barno as ‘the 21st century Army's pre-eminent warrior-thinker’.

Appointed by President Trump, H.R. McMaster served as the 25th National Security Advisor between February 2017 to March 2018. His account of his time in the White House is described with typical balance and candour in At War With Ourselves. Consultation, bringing top leaders together and getting them to thrash out what the problem is and what one should do about it, and then to issue directives to a (sometimes) reluctant bureaucracy, that was his recipe. In this episode, he describes how the National Security Strategy of 2017 was negotiated during his time in office, the methodology, some of its main tenets, and how it was translated into policy making. And how an historical perspective offers lessons and consolation today.

A historian by training, he has a PhD from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill on the flaws and inadequacies of U.S. strategy in the Vietnam War, and now lectures at Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business. He hosts the podcast series Battlegrounds: Vital Perspectives on Today’s Challenges and is a regular on GoodFellows, both of which are produced by the Hoover Institution. He is a Distinguished University Fellow at Arizona State University.

The world’s first independent air force owes its survival and shape to its ‘father’, Hugh Trenchard. We explore how with the RAF Museum’s Dr Harry Raffal.

Described as ‘the architect and patron saint of modern air power’, Marshal of the RAF Viscount Hugh Trenchard (1873–1956) was the first Chief of the Air Staff (January–April 1918 and 1919–1930).

An army officer badly wounded in the Boer War, he was among the first British military pilots and the frontline commander of the Royal Flying Corps during the First World War.

The RAF was formed on 1 April 1918, and Trenchard set firm foundations for its survival and development, often against bitter hostility from the other Services. His administrative skills, realism, tenacity and willingness to be unpopular created an organisation that saved the nation during the Battle of Britain.

His friend TE Lawrence (Season 3, Episode 7) argued that ‘The RAF is the finest individual effort in history. No other man has been given a blank sheet and told to make a Service from the ground up. It is your single work…’

Following retirement from the RAF, Trenchard was appointed as Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, where he set about a substantial reform agenda with the same single-mindedness.

Dr Harry Raffal is Head of Collections and Research at the RAF Museum. His doctorate, from the University of Hull, explores RAF and Luftwaffe operations during the evacuation of Dunkirk. He is a Committee member of the RAF Historical Society and the British Commission for Military History, and Vice-Chair of the Royal Aeronautical Society’s Aeronautical Heritage Group.

The 3rd Marquess of Santa Cruz de Marcenado (1684–1732), soldier, diplomat and scholar, pioneered humanist ways to prevent or suppress insurgencies in his Military Reflections.

In his time, Marcenado was the most widely read Spanish author on war. He drew on his own rich experiences of the Spanish War of Succession to complement his erudition based on existing publications from antiquity to the Age of Enlightenment.

In a work comprising 11 volumes, he examined subjects ranging from the ethical question of whether it is right to go to war, to the leadership qualities required in a general, to the merits and dangers of battle or the recruitment of soldiers. Intended as guidance for practitioners, his work set standards in both erudition and the human approach to war. This applies particularly to his thoughts on how to prevent, contain or pacify insurgencies. Marcenado was also a diplomat charged with negotiating on behalf of his kingdom to end the Anglo-Spanish War of 1727. His writing on war thus transcends the merely military, and the greater political dimension behind it can already be discerned.

Dr Pelayo Fernández García of the University of Oviedo – our guest for this episode – is the greatest living expert on this Spanish thinker and practitioner, whose ideas are strikingly modern even for our times.

Voted Britain’s ‘greatest general’ by the National Army Museum in 2011, ‘Uncle Bill’ Slim led the XIVth Army from defeat to victory. Dr Robert Lyman tells us about Slim’s strategic leadership.

Field Marshal William Slim (1891–1970) is famous for transforming troops who had retreated almost 1,000 miles through Burma pursued by the Japanese Army into a force that emerged from the Second World War victorious. Whether in defeat – where his leadership ensured his forces maintained their order and discipline – or in the campaign that led to their victory, his men loved him, giving him the affectionate title ‘Uncle Bill’. To have achieved this is all the more remarkable given the diversity of forces under his command. A master of combined and joint warfare, his forces included African, American, British, Chinese, Gurkha and Indian troops, and his ability to integrate air into his campaign predates – but acts as an exemplar for – the relationships needed for the air-land battle.

Admiral Lord Louis Mountbatten stated about our subject that: “Whenever leadership is spoken of or written about, tribute is regularly paid to his supreme qualities as the finest leader of fighting men in the Second World War”. Our guest, Dr Robert Lyman MBE, agrees with this; he is a former officer in the British Army and a renowned author. His books include a biography of William Slim – Slim, Master of War (Constable & Robinson, 2004); a record of the Battle of Kohima (Kohima, 1944, published by Osprey Press, 2010); and, with General Lord Richard Dannatt, Victory to Defeat (Osprey, 2023). Dr Lyman is also a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society.

In this episode we discuss Admiral Katsu Kaishū’s transformation of the modern Japanese navy into a force that defeated the Russians in 1905.

For 200 years, Japan was largely isolated from the world. By the 19th century, as countries in Europe and North America were expanding into its neighbourhood, Japan’s military capability had atrophied. In response, the Tokugawa Shogunate created a navy in 1853 and Katsu became a naval officer. Trained by the Dutch, he became an expert in Western gunnery and commanded the Kanrin Maru on the first deployment of a Japanese warship to a Western port. There he could observe how a Western navy worked – ideas he brought back to Japan as the basis for the modern Japanese Navy.

By 1867, under the Meiji government, he was responsible for overseeing the Navy’s transition from sail to steam technology. He introduced profound changes to the Navy’s organisation, strategy and tactics, including shore-based defences, harbours, shipyards and human resource systems that allowed access to the talent needed by a more technological service. Ultimately, the foundations he laid helped the Japanese defeat the Russian Navy at the battle of Tsushima in 1905.

Commander Dr Hiroyuki Kanazawa, our first guest for this episode, serves in the Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force, and his PhD examines the Japanese Navy in the Late Tokugawa Period (1853–1868). Dr Haruo Tohmatsu, our other participant, is Professor of Diplomatic and War History at the National Defense Academy. His PhD in Politics and International Relations is from the University of Oxford. He has published numerous works in English, including Pearl Harbor (London: Cassell, 2001) and World War Zero: The Russo-Japanese War in Global Perspective, vol. 2 (Leiden: Brill, 2006).

Lieutenant General George Flynn describes how his friend and former boss General Gray, the 29th Commandant, transformed the US Marine Corps’ warfighting, ethos and capabilities.

General Alfred Mason Gray Jnr (1928–2024) was not the most obvious choice to lead the US Marine Corps when he became its 29th Commandant in 1987, but he succeeded in transforming the Corps into one of the world’s premier fighting forces. He moved the Corps’ culture and ethos towards one that prioritised manoeuvre warfare, in which all Marines became warfighters first and foremost. His changes included new processes and equipment, but were primarily focused on the human – a conceptual transformation as much as it was a transformation of capabilities. He embraced the indirect approach from Basil Liddell Hart (Season 2 Episode 10) and John Boyd (Season 1 Episode 7), as well as William Lind’s thinking on dislocating adversary decision-making that was so effective in the 1991 Gulf War, yet he situated these inside the Marine Corps’ traditions and values.

Lieutenant General George Flynn (retd) served in the US Marine Corps for 38 years, including as General Gray’s aide in 1989–1991, as Chief of Staff at Special Operations Command and as Deputy Commander Multinational Corps Iraq, and created the Joint Force Development Directorate at the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Now on the Board of Regents at the Potomac Institute, he is also a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.