3rd November 2016 Skopje, North Macedonia
On 11 November we will mark the ninety-eighth anniversary of the Armistice which ended the First World War. The guns on the Western Front finally fell silent at eleven o’clock on the eleventh day of the eleventh month of 1918 after four years of war which left millions of victims and devastated countries. Each year […]
19th August 2016 Skopje, North Macedonia
It’s been three years since I was posted as Defence Attaché for Macedonia, Kosovo and Albania and during that time I have enjoyed the opportunity to attend the different army celebration events in the region. For Macedonia it is 18 August, the Macedonian Army Day. It is a day when the President, as Commander-in-Chief, heads […]
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8th March 2016 Skopje, North Macedonia
Today we are marking International Women’s Day. It is usually the day when we are reminded that women are today represented in a multitude of fields: community builders and advisers, soldiers, diplomats, homemakers, doctors, analysts and officials. Different countries have different policies and different gender representation, but there are some issues which are shared topics […]
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8th December 2015 Melbourne, Australia
Estonian Armed Forces get the job done with minimal fuss and I love that. Not my words, but those of Prince Harry when in Estonia last year, certainly another big fan of the Estonian military, having worked alongside them in Afghanistan. His assessment of their service in Afghanistan would no doubt be shared by the […]
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11th November 2015 Skopje, North Macedonia
This year I was privileged to take part in a Remembrance ceremony in Skopje at the invitation of the British Embassy. Although I am currently serving in EUFOR in Sarajevo Bosnia Herzegovina, this was my first visit to the Republic of Macedonia and I was delighted to get the opportunity not only to be part […]
21st May 2015 Toronto, Canada
If you didn’t, I’d thoroughly recommend it. It’s a dramatisation of Alan Turing and others’ work, capturing the herculean task that the code breakers of Bletchley Park undertook to help our war effort. Historians estimate that the code breakers shortened the war by two years and saved thousands of lives…
6th January 2015 Oslo, Norway
Contributed by Lt Col Matt Skuse RM, British Defence Attaché in Norway. On 28 December 2014 the British Embassy was invited to participate in a ceremony commemorating the 100 year anniversary of a Captain Scott memorial monument raised on the mountain plateau at Finse. Captain Robert Falcon Scott, a British Royal Navy Officer and explorer, […]
2nd December 2014
I wrote a blog last year called “Why Turkey can be confident”. The point of that blog was to say that, given that Turkey was a large country with a trillion-dollar economy playing an influential role in world affairs, I couldn’t understand why some people argued that events inside Turkey were determined to a large […]
17th November 2014 Ottawa, Canada
In a quiet corner of Ottawa by the junction of Sussex Avenue and Stanley Drive, there stands a fine memorial to the Canadian Officers loaned to Great Britain during the Second World War…
14th November 2014 Skopje, North Macedonia
Remembrance is a hugely significant event for the British people and particularly poignant for members of Her Majesty’s armed forces. This year I joined the British Ambassador, Mr Charles Garrett at a service at the Commonwealth War Graves Commission cemetery in Skopje. We were joined by the Minister of Defence, Dr Zoran Jolevski, representatives of […]