Development of Warfare Tour

Tour Introduction

To support thematic studies focusing on Warfare and British Society, Anglia has a range of multi-centre tours which explore the changing nature and experience of warfare

For those comparing medieval and modern warfare our 2-day tour to Agincourt and the Somme starts by exploring how Henry V‘s army used longbows and defensive ground to such great effect, challenging the accepted doctrines of warfare, before moving on to examine how trenches, barbed wire, artillery and machine guns combined in the Great War to Create a situation where the ‘poor bloody infantry’ found their task almost impossible to achieve.

If your focus is the twentieth century then we can begin on the Ypres Salient by examining how trench warfare developed on the Western Front, looking in particular at the weapons available to the British Army at the time. This is followed by a day exploring the ground held by the British Army in 1940, where we consider the difference in preparations for this war and how Blitzkrieg theory, born in the final months of the Great War, shaped the conflict that would follow.

If you prefer, we can offer you a programme to a single location, like the Somme,  where our expert guides will use the backdrop of the 1916 battlefied to explore how and where weaponry, tactics, communication and the experience of the ordinary fighting man changed during the Great War, through the conflicts of the twentieth century to the modern day.