Several years ago, I posted about my friend Jerry McBrien and his military history research.

Jerry presents a lecture series at the University of the Third Age (U3A), hosted at my local university – the Sunshine Coast University. A dedicated group of us attend Jerry’s lectures every Tuesday afternoon during the term.

The material he assembles is always interesting.

But there’s a bonus for those who can’t attend. Each of his lectures is free to download from his website. I’ve provided a link here: https://jerrymcbrien.com/

A Historian’s Holiday Snaps

This year he began his lecture series with A Historian’s Holiday Snaps. While this might sound unexciting, I promise you it isn’t. Each of his ‘holiday snaps’ comes with a detailed explanation of the location’s role in war in Europe and the associated events. He supplements this with contemporary images and maps to illustrate his point.

For anyone considering a similar tour through northern Europe with a focus on military history, I believe the information Jerry has researched and assembled would be a good starting point to aid in the understanding of some of the key locations. As with all the lectures he has given, the notes can be downloaded as a PDF from the link above.

Whose Fault was the First World War?

Jerry delves back into 19th century European history to begin this new series on the origins of the First World War – Whose fault was the First World War

This lecture was of particular interest to my wife when I told her about it as he begins with the fight for the control of the duchies of Schleswig/Holstein and Lauenburg between Prussia/Germany and Denmark. In a short memoir written by her paternal grandfather, it emerged that the family migrated to Australia through the freeport of Hamburg to escape Prussian aggression. That was in 1864.

There is much, much more on Jerry’s website to download for free. Much of his early work concentrated on the war in the Pacific, but he has also researched the Empire Air Training Scheme and the war in North Africa.

For anyone interested in those topics, it is a wonderful resource.