John Kiszely Archives - Aspects of History

Ismay’s People

A study of ‘Pug’ Ismay, February's Book Club pick, reveals that, while his public persona and memoirs were models of discretion and diplomacy, his private letters and papers expose sharp judgments of his peers.

John Kiszely

'Pug' Ismay was the personification of discretion and diplomacy. His book, The Memoirs of Lord Ismay, is testimony to this: no revelations are included, no confidences betrayed, no secrets exposed. There is hardly an unkind word about any of the people he met or...

AoH Book Club: John Kiszely on General Hastings ‘Pug’ Ismay: Soldier, Statesman, Diplomat – A New Biography

Shaping Britain’s war and the post-war world from behind the scenes and proving that power was often exercised not on the battlefield but in the committee room – John Kiszely talks through the career of ‘Pug’ Ismay with the Editor.

John Kiszely

John – your book, General Hastings 'Pug' Ismay: Soldier, Statesman, Diplomat was published nearly two years ago. Can you give us an outline of the life of ‘Pug’ Ismay, a man you describe as ‘an unusual subject for a biography’? Who was he, and provide us with some...

Episode 211

Episode 202

The Extraordinary Life of General Hastings `Pug` Ismay

The author of a new biography explores the many achievements of General Hastings `Pug` Ismay.

John Kiszely

Few people have ever heard of him. Yet he was successively: Churchill`s chief staff officer throughout the Second World War; chief of staff to the last British viceroy of India during the Partition in 1947; a cabinet minister when Churchill returned to power in 1951;...

A Cautionary Tale. Norway, 1940

The tactical failures that led to the British campaign in Norway serve as a cautionary tale.

John Kiszely

A Cautionary Tale. Norway, 1940 Campaigns that end in ignominious failure tend to be quickly forgotten. Yet there is often far more to be learned from such operations than from those that were successful. A graphic example is the largely-neglected British campaign in...

John Kiszely

John talks history, interests and inspiration.

John Kiszely

John Kiszely, what first attracted you to the period or periods you work in? From early childhood I`ve been an avid reader of history. Indeed, for most of my schooldays, when asked what I wanted for Christmas or birthday my answer was always `a history book, please`....

John Kiszely

John Kiszely was commissioned into the Scots Guards from Sandhurst and served in the British army for forty years. His operational service included Northern Ireland, the Falkland Islands, Bosnia and Iraq (as deputy coalition commander). He served three tours of duty in the Ministry of Defence, latterly as Assistant Chief of the Defence Staff. His final appointment was Director General of the UK Defence Academy. He has been a visiting professor in war studies at Kings College London and a visiting research fellow at the Changing Character of War Centre at the University of Oxford. He has published widely in contributions to books and journals on strategy and approaches to warfare. For his first book, Anatomy of a Campaign. The British Fiasco in Norway 1940, he was awarded the Royal United Service Institute`s 2018 Duke of Wellington Medal for Military History.

John Kiszely

Books Click on any of the books covers below to either buy or get more information on Amazon Interviews[dpdfg_filtergrid custom_query="advanced" multiple_cpt="author_interviews" use_taxonomy_terms="on" multiple_taxonomies="name_of_author" include_terms="709"...