Waterloo, Ypres and Dunkirk

Tour Introduction

To support Thematic studies focusing on Warfare and British Society, Anglia has created a range of tours exploring the relationship between war and society and the changing nature and experience of warfare itself.

Examining the industrialisation of warfare, this 4-day tour begins in Belgium with the story of the greatest single-day battle in European history. At Waterloo the Grand Armies of the early modern age would be seen for the last time, as mass infantry and cavalry charges met concentrated artillery and volley fire from massed ranks of muskets. The need to seek cover from industrial firepower would become apparent in the Great War one hundred years later and the tour will explore how the Great Powers responded to this relatively new and unexpected form of warfare and the challenges it posed, considering the realities of trench warfare and the new technologies and tactics designed to break the stalemate.

The theories and practice of Blitzkrieg and the experience of British soldiers in 1940 will bring this tour to a fitting conclusion as we follow the route of the retreating troops to Dunkirk.