# Lees Knowles Lecture

The Lees Knowles Lectureship was established at Trinity College, Cambridge in 1912 and first started in 1915. Lectures are given by distinguished experts in military and naval history and selection for this lectureship is considered one of the highest honours available to specialists in military history and affairs. The lectureship was established by a bequest by Trinity alumnus and military historian Sir Lees Knowles.
List of Lecturers and Lectures :
| Year | Lecturers | Lectures |
| 1915 | Sir Julian Corbett | The Great War after Trafalgar |
| 1922 | Col. Maxwell Earle | The principal strategical problems affecting the British Empire |
| 1923 | Col. Maxwell Earle | The principles of war |
| 1924 | Col. M.A. Wingfield | The eight principles of war as exemplified in the Palestine campaign, 1915–1918 |
| 1924 | Lt.-Col. F. Nosworthy | Russia before, during and after the Great War |
| 1925 | Major-Gen. Sir Frederick Maurice | Statesmen and soldiers in the American civil war |
| 1927 | Major-Gen. Sir Wilkinson Bird | Some early crises of the war, and the events leading up to them: Western Front 1914 |
| 1928 | Major Gen. Sir George Aston | Problems of empire defence |
| 1929 | A.R. Hinks | Frontiers and boundary delimitations |
| 1930 | W.W. Tarn | Hellenistic military developments |
| 1931 | Adm. Sir Herbert Richmond | Capture at sea in war |
| 1932 | Capt. Basil Liddell Hart | The movement of military thought from the eighteenth to the twentieth century, and its influence on European history |
| 1933 | John Buchan (Lord Tweedsmuir) | Oliver Cromwell as a soldier |
| 1934 | Air Com. L E O Charlton | Military aeronautics applied to modern warfare |
| 1936 | C.R.M.F. Cruttwell | The role of British strategy in the Great War |
| 1937 | Gen. Sir Edmund Ironside | British military history from 1899 to the present |
| 1939 | Gen. Sir Archibald Wavell | Generalship |
| 1940 | Gen. Sir Frederick Maurice | Public opinion in war |
| 1941 | Capt. Cyril Falls | The nature of modern warfare |
| 1942 | Maj. Gen. Sir George Lindsay | War on the civil and military fronts |
| 1943 | Admiral of the Fleet. The Lord Keyes | Amphibious Warfare and Combined Operations |
| 1946 | Col. A.H. Burne | Military strategy as exemplified in World War II |
| 1947 | Air-Marshal Sir Arthur Tedder | Air power in modern warfare |
| 1948 | Adml. Sir William James | The influence of sea power upon the history of the British people |
| 1949 | Sir Ronald Weeks | Organisation and equipment for war |
| 1950 | Sir Henry Tizard | The influence of war on science |
| 1951 | Gen. Sir William Platt | The campaign against Italian East Africa, 1940–1 |
| 1951 | Capt. G.H. Roberts, RN, | The battles of the Atlantic |
| 1952 | Air Chief Marshal Sir Roderic Hill | Some human factors in war |
| 1953 | Sir Fitzroy Maclean | Irregular warfare |
| 1954 | Gen. Sir Brian Horrocks | Are we training for the last war? |
| 1956 | Prof. P.M.S. Blackett | Atomic weapons, 1945–1955 |
| 1957 | John Ehrman | Cabinet government and war, 1890–1940 |
| 1958 | Field Marshal John Harding, 1st Baron Harding of Petherton | Mediterranean strategy in the 2nd World War |
| 1958 | Sir Leslie Rowan | Arms and economics: the changing challenge |
| 1960 | Capt. Stephen Roskill | Maritime strategy in the twentieth century |
| 1961 | Field Marshal William Slim, 1st Viscount Slim | The military mind and the spirit of an army |
| 1962 | Lt. Gen. Sir John Hackett | The profession of arms |
| 1963 | Dr. Noble Frankland | The strategic air offensive |
| 1965 | Sir Solly Zuckerman | Science and military affairs |
| 1966 | Prof Michael Howard | Conduct of British strategy in the 2nd World War |
| 1968 | Prof. R.V. Jones | Command |
| 1969 | Alastair Buchan | The changing functions of military force in international politics |
| 1970 | Prof. Geoffrey Best | Conscience and the conduct of war, from the French Revolution through the Franco-Prussian war |
| 1971 | Prof. F. Harry Hinsley | War and the development of the international system |
| 1972 | Prof. John Erickson | Soviet soldiers and Soviet society |
| 1973 | Dr. Piers Mackesy | Problems of an amphibious power 1795–1808 |
| 1974 | Donald Cameron Watt | European armed forces and the approach of the 2nd World War 1933–39 |
| 1974 | Prof. Herman Bondi | Science and defence |
| 1975 | Dr. R.L. Clutterbuck | Guerilla warfare and political violence |
| 1977 | Prof. Christopher Thorne | Anglo-American relations and war against Japan 1941–45 |
| 1979 | Field-Marshal Lord Carver | Apostles of mobility |
| 1981 | Prof. Laurence W. Martin | Evolution of nuclear strategic doctrine since 1945 |
| 1983 | Alistair Horne | The French army and politics 1870–1970 |
| 1985 | Dr. Geoffrey Parker | European warfare 1520–1660 |
| 1986 | John Keegan | Some fallacies of military history |
| 1989 | Dr. Alan Bowman | Vindolanda and the Roman Army: New documents from the northern frontier |
| 1990 | Maurice Keen | English military experience, c.1340 – c.1450 |
| 1992 | Prof. William Hardy McNeill | Dance, drill and bonding in human affairs |
| 1995 | Prof. Hew Strachan | The politics of the British Army 1815–1914 |
| 1996 | Field-Marshal Sir Peter Inge | Military force in a changing world |
| 1998 | Prof. Keith Jeffery | ‘For the freedom of small nations’: Ireland and the Great War |
| 2000 | Prof. Brian Bond | Britain and the First World War: The challenge to historians |
| 2002 | Antony Beevor | The experience of war |
| 2004 | Dr. David Parrott | War, Armies, and Politics in Early Modern Europe: The Military Devolution, 1560–1660 |
| 2006 | Ben Shephard | What Makes a Soldier? And What Does Not? |
| 2008 | Peter Paret | 1806: The Cognitive Challenge of War |
| 2010 | Andrew Roberts Prof. Nicholas Rodger Prof. Richard Overy Sir Max Hastings | The creation of Anglo-American grand strategy 1941–45 The British Navy in the Second World War Air Power in the Second World War: A War Winner? The British Army in the Second World War |
| 2012 | Prof. Amir Weiner | Total War: The Soviet Union and the Eastern Front in a Comparative Framework |
| 2013 | | |
| 2014 | Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles | Folly in foreign policy: On the British misadventure in Afghanistan |
| 2015 | | |
| 2016 | Dr. James Howard-Johnston | The Byzantine Art of War |
| 2018 | Dr. Nicholas Rodger | The Culture of Naval War, ca 1850 – 1950 |
| 2020 | Gen. David Petreaus | |
| 2022 | Prof. Jay Winter | The Civilianization of War |