Download or read book Alan Brooke Churchill s Right Hand Critic written by Andrew Sangster and published by Casemate. This book was released on 2021-04-05 with total page 369 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This new biography of Churchill’s top WWII advisor is “an excellent book for anyone interested in military leadership” (The NYMAS Review). Voted the greatest Briton of the twentieth century, Winston Churchill has long been credited with almost single-handedly leading his country to victory in World War II. But without Alan Brooke, a skilled tactician, at his side the outcome might well have been disastrous. Brooke, Chief of the Imperial General Staff, more often than not served as a brake on some of Churchill’s more impetuous ideas. However, while Brooke’s diaries reveal his fury with some of Churchill’s decisions, they also reveal his respect and admiration for the wartime prime minister. In return Churchill must surely have considered Brooke one of his most difficult subordinates—but later wrote that he was “fearless, formidable, articulate, and in the end convincing.” As CIGS, Brooke was integral to coordination between the Allied forces, and so had to wrestle with the cultural strategy clash between the British and Americans. Comments in his diaries offer up his opinions of both his British and American military colleagues—his negative assessments of Mountbatten’s ability, and acerbic comments on the difficult character of de Gaulle and the weaknesses of Eisenhower. Conversely, he was clearly overindulgent in the face of Montgomery’s foibles. Brooke was often seen as a stern and humorless figure, but a study of his private life reveals a little-seen lighter side, a lifelong passion for birdwatching, and abiding love for his family. The two tragedies that befell his immediate family were a critical influence on his life. Andrew Sangster completes this new biography with a survey of the way various historians have assessed Brooke, explaining how he has lapsed into seeming obscurity in the years since his crucial part in the Allied victory in World War II.

Download or read book Alan Brooke Churchill s Right Hand Critic written by Andrew Sangster and published by Casemate. This book was released on 2021-04-30 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A new biography of Lord Alanbrooke, following his life from childhood through to his role as Chief Imperial General Staff, shaping Allied strategy in World War II.

Download or read book Alanbrooke written by David Fraser and published by A&C Black. This book was released on 2011-09-28 with total page 725 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: First published in 1982, this is the story of 'Alanbrooke,' of whom General MacArthur wrote, 'is undoubtedly the greatest soldier that England has produced since Wellington.' He fought with the artillery in the First World War, had a brilliant career as a peacetime soldier, and conducted his Corps with exemplary calm and courage in the retreat to Dunkirk. In November 1941 Churchill selected him as Chief of the Imperial General Staff, and from that moment he became indispensable in Whitehall, the one man who could never be spared for the more spectacular feats of war on the battlefield which he longed to undertake. Alanbrooke was the master strategist of the British military effort. His partnership with Churchill - the statesman's imagination and inspired energy perfectly complementing the soldier's clarity of mind and unflinching realism - was often turbulent, yet endlessly fruitful. Under his chairmanship the Chiefs of Staff became the most efficient machine for the conduct of war which Britain, perhaps the world, had ever seen. His influence in the shaping of global strategy was immeasurable.

Download or read book War Diaries 1939 1945 written by Alan Brooke Alanbrooke (Viscount) and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2003-06 with total page 830 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first complete and unexpurgated publication of the diaries of Lord Alanbrooke, who during World War II was Chief of the Imperial General Staff of the British Empire and Churchill's most prominent advisor -- and rival.

Download or read book Allied Master Strategists written by David Rigby and published by Naval Institute Press. This book was released on 2012-11-15 with total page 234 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Awarded NASOH's 2012 "John Lyman Book Award for Best U.S. Naval History," Allied Master Strategists describes the unique and vital contribution to Allied victory in World War II made by the Combined Chiefs of Staff. Based on a combination of primary and secondary source material, this book proves that the Combined Chiefs of Staff organization was the glue holding the British-American wartime alliance together. As such, the Combined Chiefs of Staff was probably the most important international organization of the Twentieth Century. Readers will get a good view of the personalities of the principals, such as Field Marshal Sir Alan Brooke and Fleet Admiral Ernest J. King. The book provides insight into the relationships between the Combined Chiefs of Staff and Allied theater commanders, the role of the Combined Chiefs regarding economic mobilization, and the bitter inter-Allied strategic debates in regard to OVERLORD and the war in the Pacific. This book is a must-read for anyone interested in the British American alliance in World War II. Careful attention is paid in the book to the three organizations that contributed the principal membership of the Combined Chiefs of Staff; i.e., the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, the British Chiefs of Staff Committee, and (in the case of Sir John Dill) the British Joint Staff Mission in Washington. After providing a biographical background of the principal member so the Combined Chiefs of Staff, Rigby provides information on wartime Washington, D.C. as the home base for the Combined Chiefs of Staff organization. Detailed information is given regarding the Casablanca Conference, but the author is careful to distinguish between the formal nature of the big Allied wartime summit meetings and the much less formal day-to-day give and take which characterized British-American strategic debates between the British Joint Staff Mission in Washington and the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff. Indeed, it is a major contention of the book that it is critical to remember that more than half of the meetings of the Combined Chiefs of Staff took place in Washington, D.C. in a regularly scheduled weekly pattern and not at the big Allied conferences such as Yalta. The role of the Combined Chiefs of Staff in directing the war in the Pacific and in planning the OVERLORD cross-channel invasion of western Europe, respectively, is covered in detail. These were the two most contentious issues with which the Combined Chiefs of Staff had to deal. Rigby attempts to answer the question of why two combative, fearless, warriors like Churchill and Brooke would be so unwilling to go back across the Channel, and to explain the tug-of-war the British Chiefs of Staff had to conduct with Churchill before a British battle fleet could join the American Central Pacific Drive late in the war. The book also provides a wealth of information on the role played by members of the Combined Chiefs of Staff in the spheres of economic mobilization and wartime diplomacy. Most of all, what Allied Master Strategists does is to give the Combined Chiefs of Staff what they have long deserved—a book of their own; a book that is not weighted towards the U.S. Joint Chiefs on the one hand or the British Chiefs of Staff on the other; a book that is not strictly a “naval” book, an “army” book, or an “air” book, but a book that like the western alliance during World War II, is truly “combined” in an international as well as an interservice manner.

Download or read book Churchill written by Stephen Napier and published by The History Press. This book was released on 2018-08-24 with total page 552 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Churchill has gone down in history as one of the greatest leaders the world has ever known. From the day the Second World War was declared he stood out as the only man wanting to take offensive action. But is this accolade deserved? The first few years of the war were nothing short of disastrous, and author Stephen Napier shows how Churchill's strategies - and his desire not to be the first British prime minister to surrender the nation - brought the war effort to the brink of ruin and back again. Did his series of retaliatory raids in response to a German accidental bombing help cause the Blitz? Were plans already at large for the US to join the war, with Churchill as the primary puppet master? Napier explores all this and more in a shocking examination of Churchill's leadership using first-person accounts from his peers and his electorate.

Download or read book Hap Arnold written by Bill Yenne and published by Regnery Publishing. This book was released on 2013-10-14 with total page 354 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: General Henry Harley “Hap” Arnold is widely considered the father of the United States Air Force. But his long list of accomplishments doesn’t begin or end there. He was also the first and only five-star general of the US Air Force; one of the first US military aviators; the first American to carry air mail; and the architect of the war-winning air strategy of World War II. In this new biography of one of the American military’s most towering figures, author Bill Yenne weaves the story of Hap Arnold’s life, from his youthful days as a cunning prankster to his sunset career as an elder statesman. All along, Yenne unfolds General Arnold’s life like the adventure story it is. A bold advocate for technological advancement, Hap Arnold was a powerful character in the golden age of aviation, an innovative warrior in the conflict that defined the modern era, and the creator of an entirely new branch of the US military. Hap Arnold: The General Who Invented the US Air Force is a page-turning adventure biography for history buffs, aviation enthusiasts, and anyone interested in the events that shaped America and the world in the first half of the twentieth century.

Download or read book Supreme Leadership in Modern War written by James Lacey and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2023-10-26 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This edited volume focuses on civil-military relations before and during great power conflicts, and comprises historical case studies of modern supreme leadership. It aims to provide a guide for the future by shining a light on what worked and what failed in the civil-military relationships that steered great powers during the last era of rapid global change. While future civil-military relationships will have to adapt to the current global environment, the past remains, as always, a prelude. Thus, crucial concepts that underpin all such relationships are eternal and are waiting to be drawn out by historians trained to examine and present them to those who can put them to immediate good use. This volume demonstrates the relevance of history in every chapter, as readers will see parallels to today’s problems throughout every case study. The world is entering an age of great challenges, many of which require nations – particularly the most powerful – to establish civil-military relationships capable of navigating dangerous currents without a repeat of the calamities reminiscent of the last century. Each chapter focuses on a particular civil-military relationship as it developed before and during a great war. The editors have gathered leading experts on each of these periods to produce a concise but thorough essay on each relationship's intricacies. This book will be of much interest to students of military and strategic studies, military history and international relations, as well as professional miliary colleges and policymakers.

Download or read book War Diaries 1939 1945 written by Alan Brooke Alanbrooke (Viscount) and published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson. This book was released on 2002 with total page 763 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first complete and unexpurgated edition of the war diaries of Field Marshall Lord Alanbrooke - the most important and the most controversial military diaries of the modern era. Alanbrooke was CIGS - Chief of the Imperial General Staff - for the greater part of the Second World War. He acted as mentor to Montgomery and military adviser to Churchill, with whom he clashed. As chairman of the Chiefs of Staff committee he also led for the British side in the bargaining and the brokering of the Grand Alliance, notably during the great conferences with Roosevelt and Stalin and their retinue at Casablanca,Teheran, Malta and elsewhere. As CIGS Alanbrooke was indispensable to the British and the Allied war effort. The diaries were sanitised by Arthur Bryant for his two books he wrote with Alanbrooke. Unexpurgated, says Danchev, they are explosive. The American generals, in particular, come in for attack. Danchev proposes to centre his edition on the Second World War. Pre and post-war entries are to be reduced to a Prologue and Epilogue). John Keegan says they are the military equivalent of the Colville Diaries (Churchill's private secretary), THE FRINGES OF POWER. These sold 24,000 in hardback at Hodder in 1985.

Download or read book Churchill Master and Commander written by Anthony Tucker-Jones and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2021-11-25 with total page 401 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'Masterful research, impeccable detail, with a beautifully flowing narrative of which Churchill himself would have been proud.' - Professor Peter Caddick-Adams From his earliest days Winston Churchill was an extreme risk taker and he carried this into adulthood. Today he is widely hailed as Britain's greatest wartime leader and politician. Deep down though, he was foremost a warlord. Just like his ally Stalin, and his arch enemies Hitler and Mussolini, Churchill could not help himself and insisted on personally directing the strategic conduct of World War II. For better or worse he insisted on being political master and military commander. Again like his wartime contemporaries, he had a habit of not heeding the advice of his generals. The results of this were disasters in Norway, North Africa, Greece and Crete during 1940–41. His fruitless Dodecanese campaign in 1943 also ended in defeat. Churchill's pig-headedness over supporting the Italian campaign in defiance of the Riviera landings culminated in him threatening to resign and bring down the British Government. Yet on occasions he got it just right: his refusal to surrender in 1940, the British miracle at Dunkirk and victory in the Battle of Britain, showed that he was a much-needed decisive leader. Nor did he shy away from difficult decisions, such as the destruction of the French Fleet to prevent it falling into German hands and his subsequent war against Vichy France. In this fascinating new book, acclaimed historian Anthony Tucker-Jones explores the record of Winston Churchill as a military commander, assessing how the military experiences of his formative years shaped him for the difficult military decisions he took in office. This book assesses his choices in the some of the most controversial and high-profile campaigns of World War II, and how in high office his decision making was both right and wrong.

Download or read book The Kremlin Letters written by David Reynolds and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2018-11-27 with total page 693 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A penetrating account of the dynamics of World War II’s Grand Alliance through the messages exchanged by the "Big Three" Stalin exchanged more than six hundred messages with Allied leaders Churchill and Roosevelt during the Second World War. In this riveting volume—the fruit of a unique British-Russian scholarly collaboration—the messages are published and also analyzed within their historical context. Ranging from intimate personal greetings to weighty salvos about diplomacy and strategy, this book offers fascinating new revelations of the political machinations and human stories behind the Allied triumvirate. Edited and narrated by two of the world’s leading scholars on World War II diplomacy and based on a decade of research in British, American, and newly available Russian archives, this crucial addition to wartime scholarship illuminates an alliance that really worked while exposing its fractious limits and the issues and egos that set the stage for the Cold War that followed.

Download or read book Pug Churchill s Chief of Staff written by Andrew Sangster and published by Pen and Sword Military. This book was released on 2023-06-30 with total page 317 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: General Hasting Ismay, invariably referred to as ‘Pug’, was one of the most intriguing, yet less well known, leading military characters of his era. This overdue biography describes how an officer who fought tribesmen in India and Dervishes in North-East Africa, thereby playing no significant role in The Great War, found himself as Winston Churchill’s Chief of Staff throughout the Second World War. In this hugely influential position, he eased the often fraught relationship between a determined and obstinate Prime Minister and his top military advisors. His tact and diplomacy were tested to their limits oiling the wheels with our American allies, both political and military, even those with Anglophobic tendencies. Based in 10 Downing Street, Pug accompanied Churchill on his overseas visits and to the major conferences. Post-war Ismay assisted Mountbatten in the partitioning of the Indian sub-continent before becoming the first NATO Secretary General, a measure of the high regard the United States and other nations held him in. Despite the influence he wielded during and after the Second World War, Ismay remains a mysterious figure who somehow managed to maintain the trust of those with whom he worked and dealt with under the most testing and stressful conditions. This insightful biography is a most welcome and valuable addition to the history of the period.

Download or read book The Maisky Diaries written by Gabriel Gorodetsky and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2015-09-24 with total page 633 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The terror and purges of Stalin’s Russia in the 1930s discouraged Soviet officials from leaving documentary records let alone keeping personal diaries. A remarkable exception is the unique diary assiduously kept by Ivan Maisky, the Soviet ambassador to London between 1932 and 1943. This selection from Maisky's diary, never before published in English, grippingly documents Britain’s drift to war during the 1930s, appeasement in the Munich era, negotiations leading to the signature of the Ribbentrop–Molotov Pact, Churchill’s rise to power, the German invasion of Russia, and the intense debate over the opening of the second front. Maisky was distinguished by his great sociability and access to the key players in British public life. Among his range of regular contacts were politicians (including Churchill, Chamberlain, Eden, and Halifax), press barons (Beaverbrook), ambassadors (Joseph Kennedy), intellectuals (Keynes, Sidney and Beatrice Webb), writers (George Bernard Shaw, H. G. Wells), and indeed royalty. His diary further reveals the role personal rivalries within the Kremlin played in the formulation of Soviet policy at the time. Scrupulously edited and checked against a vast range of Russian and Western archival evidence, this extraordinary narrative diary offers a fascinating revision of the events surrounding the Second World War.

Download or read book The Devils Will Get No Rest written by James B. Conroy and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2023-06-13 with total page 432 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first full account of the Casablanca Conference of January 1943, the secret ten-day parlay in Morocco where FDR, Churchill, and their divided high command hammered out a winning strategy at the tipping point of World War II. The Devils Will Get No Rest is a character-driven account of the Casablanca Conference of January 1943, an Anglo-American clash over military strategy that produced a winning plan when World War II could have gone either way. Churchill called it the most important Allied conclave of the war. Until now, it has never been explored in a full-length book. In a secret, no-holds-barred, ten-day debate in a Moroccan warzone, protected by British marines and elite American troops, Franklin Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, Charles de Gaulle, George C. Marshall, Dwight D. Eisenhower, George S. Patton Jr., Sir Alan Brooke, Lord Louis Mountbatten, Sir Harold Alexander, and their military peers questioned each other’s competence, doubted each other’s vision, and argued their way through choices that could win or lose the war. You will be treated to a master class in strategy by the legendary statesmen, generals, and admirals who overcame their differences, transformed their alliance from a necessity to a bond, forged a war-winning plan, and glimpsed the postwar world.

Download or read book Churchill written by Paul Johnson and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2009-11-03 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the “most celebrated and best-loved British historian in America” (Wall Street Journal), an elegant, concise, and revealing portrait of Winston Churchill In Churchill, eminent historian Paul Johnson offers a lively, succinct exploration of one of the most complex and fascinating personalities in history. Winston Churchill's hold on contemporary readers has never slackened, and Johnson’s analysis casts new light on his extraordinary life and times. Johnson illuminates the various phases of Churchill's career—from his adventures as a young cavalry officer in the service of the empire to his role as an elder statesman prophesying the advent of the Cold War—and shows how Churchill's immense adaptability and innate pugnacity made him a formidable leader for the better part of a century. Johnson's narration of Churchill's many triumphs and setbacks, rich with anecdote and quotation, illustrates the man's humor, resilience, courage, and eccentricity as no other biography before, and is sure to appeal to historians and general nonfiction readers alike.

Download or read book Masters and Commanders written by Andrew Roberts and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2009-04-24 with total page 722 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Masterly. . . . Roberts’s portrait of the relationship between the four men who made Allied strategy through the war years is a triumph of vivid description, telling anecdotes, and informed analysis." —Max Hastings, The New York Review of Books An epic joint biography, Masters and Commanders explores the degree to which the course of the Second World War turned on the relationships and temperaments of four of the strongest personalities of the twentieth century: political masters Winston Churchill and Franklin D. Roosevelt and the commanders of their armed forces, General Sir Alan Brooke and General George C. Marshall. Each was exceptionally tough-willed and strong-minded, and each was certain that only he knew best how to win the war. Andrew Roberts, "Britain's finest contemporary military historian" (The Economist), traces the mutual suspicion and admiration, the rebuffs and the charm, the often-explosive disagreements and wary reconciliations, and he helps us to appreciate the motives and imperatives of these key leaders as they worked tirelessly in the monumental struggle to destroy Nazism.

Download or read book Neville Chamberlain s Legacy written by Nicholas Milton and published by Pen and Sword. This book was released on 2019-12-27 with total page 410 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A biography reassessing the man whose name became a synonym for appeasement: “An important read for anyone with an interest in the prelude to World War II.” —The NYMAS Review Neville Chamberlain has gone down in history as the architect of appeasement, the prime minister who by sacrificing Czechoslovakia at Munich in September 1938 put Britain on an inevitable path to war. In this radical new appraisal of one of the most vilified politicians of the twentieth century, historian Nicholas Milton claims that by placating Hitler, Chamberlain not only reflected public opinion but also embraced the zeitgeist of the time. Chamberlain also bought Britain vital time to rearm when Hitler’s military machine was at its zenith. It is with the hindsight of history that we understand Chamberlain’s failure to ultimately prevent a war from happening. Yet by placing him within the context of his time, this fascinating new history provides a unique perspective into the lives and mindset of the people of Britain during the lead up to the Second World War. Never before have Chamberlain’s letters been accessed to tell the story of his life and work. They shed new light on his complex character and enable us to consider Chamberlain the man, not just the statesman. His role as a pioneer of conservation is revealed, alongside his work in improving midwifery and championing the introduction of widows’ pensions. Neville Chamberlain’s Legacy is a reminder that there is often more to political figures than many a quick judgment allows.