The British islands were considered principally a strategic possession, but were planted when economic conditions were particularly favourable.

Disraeli saw the situation as a matter of British imperial and strategic interests, keeping to Palmerston's policy of supporting the Ottoman Empire against Russian expansion.

The French Directory investigated a number of strategic options to counter British opposition, including projected invasions of Ireland and Britain, and the expansion of the French Navy to challenge the Royal Navy at sea.

The effect on the strategic situation in the Mediterranean was immediate, reversing the balance of the conflict and giving the British control at sea that they maintained for the remainder of the war.

In spite of the overwhelming British victory in the climactic battle, the campaign has sometimes been considered a strategic success for France.

With most of the strategic reserve sent to the Western Front, an Egyptian Expeditionary Force of two British infantry and one Australian and New Zealand mounted division in Eastern Force, successfully defend the Suez Canal and Romani in 1916 from German and Ottoman incursions.

In 1901, he was caught planning to sabotage strategic British installations in Cape Town and sentenced to life in prison ; however, he escaped and was re-captured several times again throughout his life.

In the Middle East, during the Sinai and Palestine Campaign mounted forces ( British, Indian, Ottoman, Australian, Arab and New Zealand ) retained an important strategic role both as mounted infantry and cavalry.

He also insisted that the British give him exclusive command over all strategic air forces to facilitate Overlord, to the point of threatening to resign unless Churchill relented, as he did.

Reinforcements were needed, and in 87 or 88, Domitian ordered a large-scale strategic withdrawal of troops in the British province.

Admiral John Jellicoe, described by Churchill as the only man who could " lose the war in an afternoon " by losing the strategic British superiority in dreadnought battleships, was not a dashing showman like David Beatty.

Although it was tactically inconclusive, with significantly higher losses in the British fleet but with the German fleet fleeing the field of battle, it was effectively a strategic defeat for Germany.

Washington was not involved in any other major fighting on the expedition, and the British scored a major strategic victory, gaining control of the Ohio Valley, when the French abandoned the fort.

It was a major strategic mistake for the British, and Washington rushed to Philadelphia to engage Howe, while closely following the action in upstate New York.

In early 1915, attempting to seize a strategic advantage by capturing Constantinople, the British authorised an attack on the peninsula.

In some areas, such as parts of British West Africa, colonial control was tenuous and intended for simple economic extraction, strategic power, or as part of a long term development plan.

Before the Industrial Revolution in the mid-to-late 19th century, demand for oriental goods remained the driving force behind European imperialism, and ( with the important exception of British East India Company rule in India ) the European stake in Asia remained confined largely to trading stations and strategic outposts necessary to protect trade.

If Germany were to occupy oil-rich Romania, this would undercut all of the British strategic assumptions based on Germany's need to import oil from the Americas.

The British government had decided, primarily for strategic reasons, to build a railway linking Mombasa with the British protectorate of Uganda.

The Naval and Army Air Services also directed a number of strategic raids against Britain, leading the way in bombing techniques and also forcing the British to bolster their anti-aircraft defences.

The Sudeten Crisis highlighted German unprepardness to conduct a strategic air war ( although the British and French were in a much weaker position ), and Hitler ordered the Luftwaffe be expanded by five times.

However, in 1942, with the entry of Japan into the Second World War, the island gained a strategic importance in the Indian Ocean and thus the British government hastily built a new airport in the south of the island at Plaisance.

" That day, Hitler told the British ambassador to Berlin that the pact with the Soviets prevented Germany from facing a two front war, changing the strategic situation from that in World War I, and that Britain should accept his demands regarding Poland.

The idea of an " aerial torpedo " was shown in the British 1909 film The Airship Destroyer, where flying torpedoes controlled wirelessly are used to bring down airships bombing London.

* 1982 – Droppin Well bombing: The Irish National Liberation Army detonate a bomb in Ballykelly, Northern Ireland, killing eleven British soldiers and six civilians.

It disappeared after a British bombing raid destroyed the library at Elbing but before then facsimiles had been made.

* 1945 – World War II: On the first day of the bombing of Dresden, the British Royal Air Force and the United States Army Air Forces begin fire-bombing Dresden, the capital of the German state of Saxony.

The Soviets were also helped indirectly by the American and British bombing campaigns, which forced the Luftwaffe to shift many of its fighters away from the Eastern Front in defense against these raids.

* 1974 – M62 coach bombing: The Provisional Irish Republican Army ( IRA ) explodes a bomb on a bus carrying off-duty British Armed Forces personnel in Yorkshire, England.

The Haganah carried out violent attacks in Palestine, such as the liberation of interned immigrants from the Atlit camp, the bombing of the country's railroad network, sabotage raids on radar installations and bases of the British Palestine police.

* July 26, 1946 The bombing of British administrative headquarters at the King David Hotel, killing 91 people — 28 British, 41 Arab, 17 Jewish, and 5 others.

* October 31, 1946 The bombing by the Irgun of the British Embassy in Rome.

Missions were flown in a wide range of theatres, from the Western Front to the plains of Russia, and as far away as bombing raids on British Suez Canal positions in support of the Ottoman offense in 1915.

It was not until 1942 that the Germans started to develop bombing policy in which civilians were the primary target, although The Blitz on London and many other British cities involved indiscriminate bombing of civilian areas.

Despite intense bombing, it could not deliver Goring's promise to destroy the British Expeditionary Force, which escaped to continue the war.

* 1972 – The Troubles: a car bombing outside a crowded pub in Belfast sparks a two-day gun battle involving the Provisional IRA, Ulster Volunteer Force and British Army.

* 1986 – Nezar Hindawi is sentenced to 45 years in prison, the longest sentence handed down by a British court, for the attempted bombing on an El Al flight at Heathrow.

* 1917 – First British bombing of Germany in World War I.

This proposition was immediately rejected by the U. S. Shortly afterward, the same day, United States and British forces initiated military action against the Taliban, bombing Taliban forces and al-Qaeda terrorist training camps.

On Sunday 7 October 2001, American and British forces began an aerial bombing campaign targeting Taliban forces and al-Qaeda.

* The Nazi occupation of Poland and the Allied bombing of Peenemünde are depicted in the British feature film Battle of the V-1 ( 1958 ) ( called Missiles From Hell in the United States and some other countries ), which starred the actor Michael Rennie.

The British government later admitted the bombing had been unjustified and that it had been executed on receipt of erroneous information.

On October 7, 2001, the War in Afghanistan began when U. S and British forces initiated aerial bombing campaigns in Afghanistan targeting Taliban and Al-Qaeda camps, then later invaded Afghanistan with ground troops of the Special Forces.

* October 12 – The Provisional Irish Republican Army ( PIRA ) attempts to assassinate Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and the British Cabinet in the Brighton hotel bombing.