Download or read book Hitler s Mediterranean Gamble written by Douglas Porch and published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson. This book was released on 2005 with total page 796 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For many years, historians have argued that the war in the Mediterranean was merely a sideshow to the big events that took place in Russia and Northern Europe during the Second World War. This new and extremely accessible study of the conflict turns that argument on its head. For Douglas Porch, the Mediterranean theatre was absolutely central to the success of the Allies. This book covers every aspect of the Mediterranean conflict, from the Italian attack on Greece in 1940 right through to the advance on the Gothic Line in northern Italy towards the end of the war. While concentrating on the major battles in North Africa and Italy, the author also covers the less well-documented aspects of the war, some of which have produced strong echoes in our own time: the 1941 civil war in Yugoslavia, Churchill's pre-emptive invasion of Iraq, and the continual threat of an Arab uprising in Palestine.
Download or read book Battle Of Crete Hitler s Airborne Gamble written by Major Maria A. Biank and published by Pickle Partners Publishing. This book was released on 2014-08-15 with total page 115 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As Adolf Hitler conquered most of the European continent in 1939-1941, the small island of Crete in the Mediterranean Sea became vital to future operations in the Mediterranean region for both the Axis and Allied powers. If the Allies controlled Crete, their air and sea superiority would not allow the Germans a strategic military foothold in the region. For the Germans, Crete would secure the Aegean Sea for Axis shipping, loosen Great Britain’s grasp in the eastern Mediterranean Sea and provide air bases to launch offensives against British forces in Egypt. Therefore, the central research question is: Did the results of the German campaign in Crete justify its execution? The operational results of the German campaign in Crete and the strategic advantages gained from its success did not justify the execution of the battle. Although Germany’s conquest of Crete achieved all of the strategic advantages, Hitler did not accomplish the strategic objectives set forth at the beginning of the campaign. Crete was not used as a staging base from which to engage the British in offensive operations against the Suez Canal or North Africa. German losses to the highly trained air corps were staggering and Hitler never again employed parachutists on a large-scale airborne operation. Future war efforts were deprived of this elite, highly mobile striking force. Hitler did not capitalize on the hard fought victory in Crete by using the island as a stepping-stone, ultimately controlling the eastern Mediterranean region because he was hypnotized by the invasion of Russia.
Download or read book Hitler s American Gamble written by Brendan Simms and published by Basic Books. This book was released on 2021-11-16 with total page 344 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A riveting account of the five most crucial days in twentieth-century diplomatic history: from Pearl Harbor to Hitler’s declaration of war on the United States By early December 1941, war had changed much of the world beyond recognition. Nazi Germany occupied most of the European continent, while in Asia, the Second Sino-Japanese War had turned China into a battleground. But these conflicts were not yet inextricably linked—and the United States remained at peace. Hitler’s American Gamble recounts the five days that upended everything: December 7 to 11. Tracing developments in real time and backed by deep archival research, historians Brendan Simms and Charlie Laderman show how Hitler’s intervention was not the inexplicable decision of a man so bloodthirsty that he forgot all strategy, but a calculated risk that can only be understood in a truly global context. This book reveals how December 11, not Pearl Harbor, was the real watershed that created a world war and transformed international history.
Download or read book The Great Sea written by David Abulafia and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2011-06-01 with total page 849 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Connecting Europe, Asia, and Africa, the Mediterranean Sea has been for millennia the place where religions, economies, and political systems met, clashed, influenced and absorbed one another. In this brilliant and expansive book, David Abulafia offers a fresh perspective by focusing on the sea itself: its practical importance for transport and sustenance; its dynamic role in the rise and fall of empires; and the remarkable cast of characters-sailors, merchants, migrants, pirates, pilgrims-who have crossed and re-crossed it. Ranging from prehistory to the 21st century, The Great Sea is above all a history of human interaction. Interweaving major political and naval developments with the ebb and flow of trade, Abulafia explores how commercial competition in the Mediterranean created both rivalries and partnerships, with merchants acting as intermediaries between cultures, trading goods that were as exotic on one side of the sea as they were commonplace on the other. He stresses the remarkable ability of Mediterranean cultures to uphold the civilizing ideal of convivencia, "living together." Now available in paperback, The Great Sea is the definitive account of perhaps the most vibrant theater of human interaction in history.
Download or read book Hitler s Great Gamble written by James Ellman and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2019-09-20 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On June 22, 1941, Hitler invaded the Soviet Union in Operation Barbarossa, one of the turning points of World War II. Within six months, the invasion bogged down on the outskirts of Moscow, and the Eastern Front proved to be the decisive theater in the defeat of the Third Reich. Ever since, most historians have agreed that this was Hitler’s gravest mistake. In Hitler’s Great Gamble, James Ellman argues that while Barbarossa was a gamble and perverted by genocidal Nazi ideology, it was not doomed from the start. Rather it represented Hitler’s best chance to achieve his war aims for Germany which were remarkably similar to those of the Kaiser’s government in 1914. Other options, such as an invasion of England, or an offensive to seize the oil fields of the Middle East were considered and discarded as unlikely to lead to Axis victory. In Ellman’s recounting, Barbarossa did not fail because of flaws in the Axis invasion strategy, the size of the USSR, or the brutal cold of the Russian winter. Instead, German defeat was due to errors of Nazi diplomacy. Hitler chose not to coordinate his plans with his most militarily powerful allies, Finland and Japan, and ensure the seizure of the ports of Murmansk and Vladivostok. Had he done so, Germany might well have succeeded in defeating the Soviet Union and, perhaps, winning World War II. Drawing on a wealth of primary and secondary sources (including many recently released), Hitler’s Great Gamble is a provocative work that will appeal to a wide cross-section of World War II buffs, enthusiasts, and historians.
Download or read book Hitler s Soldiers written by Ben H. Shepherd and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2016-01-01 with total page 681 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A penetrating study of the German army's military campaigns, relations with the Nazi regime, and complicity in Nazi crimes across occupied Europe For decades after 1945, it was generally believed that the German army, professional and morally decent, had largely stood apart from the SS, Gestapo, and other corps of the Nazi machine. Ben Shepherd draws on a wealth of primary sources and recent scholarship to convey a much darker, more complex picture. For the first time, the German army is examined throughout the Second World War, across all combat theaters and occupied regions, and from multiple perspectives: its battle performance, social composition, relationship with the Nazi state, and involvement in war crimes and military occupation. This was a true people's army, drawn from across German society and reflecting that society as it existed under the Nazis. Without the army and its conquests abroad, Shepherd explains, the Nazi regime could not have perpetrated its crimes against Jews, prisoners of war, and civilians in occupied countries. The author examines how the army was complicit in these crimes and why some soldiers, units, and higher commands were more complicit than others. Shepherd also reveals the reasons for the army's early battlefield successes and its mounting defeats up to 1945, the latter due not only to Allied superiority and Hitler's mismanagement as commander-in-chief, but also to the failings--moral, political, economic, strategic, and operational--of the army's own leadership.
Download or read book Coalition Warfare written by Kjeld Hald Galster and published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing. This book was released on 2013-07-16 with total page 199 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It is unquestionable that the warfare of various post-Cold War 'coalitions-of-the-willing' has drawn much attention over recent years. However, we may also notice that associations of nations fighting, or preparing to fight, for common causes are no novelty. Multi-national co-operation in fields as costly and as fateful as war depends on considerations and caveats concerning political purpose, risks, mutual trust, national wealth and pride, compatibility of military forces and a glut of inta ...
Download or read book Monty and Rommel written by Peter Caddick-Adams and published by Abrams. This book was released on 2013-09-24 with total page 446 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “An accessible, well-honed study of two fascinating characters” who famously fought each other in numerous battles during WWII, from Egypt to D-Day (Kirkus). Bernard Montgomery and Erwin Rommel faced one another in a series of extraordinary battles that established each man as one of the greatest generals in history. Born four years apart, their lives were remarkably similar. Each came from provincial roots, nearly died in WWI, yet emerged from that great conflict with glowing records. Through their many duels, including their legendary conflicts in North Africa and later at the Normandy D-Day invasion, Peter Caddick-Adams tracks and compares their military talents and personalities. Monty and Rommel explores how each general was raised to power by their war leaders, Churchill and Hitler, and how the innovative military strategy and thought of both permeate down to today's armies.
Download or read book Hitler s New Command Structure and the Road to Defeat written by Andrew Sangster and published by Pen and Sword Military. This book was released on 2024-11-30 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As the war progressed Hitler did not need obedient bureaucrats like Keitel, failures like Paulus and was paranoid about having military leaders who were loyal. The three field marshals in this book were amongst the best. Field Marshal Kesselring gained a reputation in Italy as an expert in defense, and his Allied code name was The Emperor. Kesselring was diplomatic, charming, known as Smiling Albert, but convicted as a war criminal which may not have happened had it not been for the bitter partisan war. Field Marshal Rommel is surrounded by myths which need disentangling. He possessed exceptional qualities of command and leadership, with personal courage and determination, but had problems caused by two major reasons. The first was his relentless ambition, which prevented him from self-criticism and self-evaluation. The second was his meteoric rise in command, and like many other commanders driven by ambition. Field Marshal Model when on the battlefield led his men so well it is surprising that little is known of him. He fought defensive battles in a way hardly matched by any other German general. He had the immense capability of keeping his nerve, but his skills as a commander, were not matched by the sort of personality which may have given him a similar status as with Rommel, and not helped by challenging Hitler. Model had a reputation of being so tough even Hitler claimed he would not want to serve under him, he was known as the Frontschwein (front-line pig).
Download or read book Introduction to Global Military History written by Jeremy Black and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2014-06-03 with total page 353 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This lucid account of military developments around the modern world begins with the American War of Independence and the French revolutionary wars and continues chronologically to the latest 21st century conflicts. It combines determinedly global coverage with thought-provoking analysis not only of the military aspects of conflict but also its social, cultural, political and economic dimensions and consequences. By placing familiar events alongside the largely unknown, the reader is forced to reassess the standard grand narrative of military history that rests on assumptions of Western cultural and technological superiority. It will be essential reading for students worldwide, whether studying modern military history, modern world history, history and international relations or war and society. This fully updated second edition includes: chapter introductions and conclusions to assist study and revision 'Voices of War' sourced extracts from the field of conflict case studies in each chapter to support the narrative and provoke discussion a 12-page colour map section and over 20 other integrated maps annotated references from the latest publications in the field
Download or read book Final Solution written by David Cesarani and published by Macmillan + ORM. This book was released on 2016-11-08 with total page 1401 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: David Cesarani’s Final Solution is a magisterial work of history that chronicles the fate of Europe’s Jews. Based on decades of scholarship, documentation newly available from the opening of Soviet archives, declassification of Western intelligence service records, as well as diaries and reports written in the camps, Cesarani provides a sweeping reappraisal that challenges accepted explanations for the anti-Jewish politics of Nazi Germany and the inevitability of the “final solution.” The persecution of the Jews, as Cesarani sees it, was not always the Nazis’ central preoccupation, nor was it inevitable. He shows how, in German-occupied countries, it unfolded erratically, often due to local initiatives. For Cesarani, war was critical to the Jewish fate. Military failure denied the Germans opportunities to expel Jews into a distant territory and created a crisis of resources that led to the starvation of the ghettos and intensified anti-Jewish measures. Looking at the historical record, he disputes the iconic role of railways and deportation trains. From prisoner diaries, he exposes the extent of sexual violence and abuse of Jewish women and follows the journey of some Jewish prisoners to displaced persons camps. David Cesarani’s Final Solution is the new standard chronicle of the fate of a heroic people caught in the hell that was Hitler’s Germany.
Download or read book Destiny in the Desert written by Jonathan Dimbelby and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2021-11-15 with total page 770 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The definitive history of the battle of El Alamein?"The end of the beginning," as Churchill said?the bloody conflict that would change the course of World War II. It was the Allied victory at the Battle of El Alamein in November 1942 that inspired one of Churchill's most famous aphorisms: “This is not the end, it is not even the beginning of the end, but it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.” In this thrilling historical account, Jonathan Dimbleby describes the political and strategic realities that lay behind the battle, charting the nail-biting months that led to the victory at El Alamein in November 1942. Drawing on official records and the personal insights of those involved, Dimbleby creates a vivid portrait of a struggle which for Churchill marked the turn of the tide?and which for the soldiers on the ground involved fighting and dying in a foreign land. 16 pages of B&W photographs
Download or read book Manstein written by Mungo Melvin and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2011-06-07 with total page 714 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the preeminent British military strategist comes this riveting biography of Manstein, Hitler's most controversial general. Among students of military history, the genius of Field Marshal Erich von Manstein (1887–1973) is respected perhaps more than that of any other World War II soldier. He displayed his strategic brilliance in such campaigns as the invasion of Poland, the Blitzkrieg of France, the sieges of Sevastopol, Leningrad, and Stalingrad, and the battles of Kharkov and Kursk. Manstein also stands as one of the war's most enigmatic and controversial figures. To some, he was a leading proponent of the Nazi regime and a symbol of the moral corruption of the Wehrmacht. Yet he also disobeyed Hitler, who dismissed his leading Field Marshal over this incident, and has been suspected by some of conspiring against the Führer. Sentenced to eighteen years by a British war tribunal at Hamburg in 1949, Manstein was released in 1953 and went on to advise the West German government in founding its new army within NATO. Military historian and strategist Mungo Melvin combines his research in German military archives and battlefield records with unprecedented access to family archives to get to the truth of Manstein's life and deliver this definitive biography of the man and his career.
Download or read book Myths Amnesia and Reality in Military Conflicts 1935 1945 written by Pier Paolo Battistelli and published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing. This book was released on 2017-01-06 with total page 310 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Stalin fabricated the myth that the Germans carried out the Katyń massacre and the West accepted it while always suspecting the reality. In the same way, each country tried to forget the more painful memories of its past and construct its own mythology. The Germans were never taken to task at Nuremberg for bombing because the Anglo-Americans virtually carried out a war of annihilation. The French Gaullist myth was that it was decadent politicians who caused the defeat, and that fighting France freed itself. In a similar vein, the Italian resistance was fostered as a myth and used postwar to cover the fascist period of their history. British and American popular history tends to portray their countries as the main victors often ignoring the massive Russian contribution, and generally concentrates on the barbarity of the Eastern war. Much is forgotten and much enhanced; both incidents and leaders. The Italian military historian of this book writes in depth about the Italian war so often ignored in western history, and tackles the myth of Italian cowardice, while the British author takes a cold, calculated look at Anglo-American leaders such as Montgomery, Mountbatten, Clark, Patton, and questions the myth of the special relationship between Great Britain and the USA, as well as the official and unofficial amnesia relating to self-inflicted gas wounds in Italy.
Download or read book Britain s War A New World 1942 1947 written by Daniel Todman and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2020-03-17 with total page 993 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The second volume of Daniel Todman's account of Great Britain and World War II The second of Daniel Todman's two sweeping volumes on Great Britain and World War II, Britain's War: A New World, 1942-1947, begins with the event Winston Churchill called the "worst disaster" in British military history: the Fall of Singapore in February 1942 to the Japanese. As in the first volume of Todman's epic account of British involvement in World War II ("Total history at its best," according to Jay Winter), he highlights the inter-connectedness of the British experience in this moment and others, focusing on its inhabitants, its defenders, and its wartime leadership. Todman explores the plight of families doomed to spend the war struggling with bombing, rationing, exhausting work and, above all, the absence of their loved ones and the uncertainty of their return. It also documents the full impact of the entrance into the war by the United States, and its ascendant stewardship of the war. Britain's War: A New World, 1942-1947 is a triumph of narrative and research. Todman explains complex issues of strategy and economics clearly while never losing sight of the human consequences--at home and abroad--of the way that Britain fought its war. It is the definitive account of a drama which reshaped Great Britain and the world.
Download or read book Conquer We Must written by Robin Prior and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2022-01-01 with total page 839 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A major new account of Britain's military strategy between 1914-1945, including the two world wars and everything between The First and Second World Wars were separated by a mere two decades, making the period 1914-1945 an unprecedentedly intense and violent era of history. But how did Britain develop its complex military strategy during these wars, and how were decisions made by those at the top? Robin Prior examines the influence politicians had on military operations, in the first history to assess both world wars together. Drawing uniquely on both military and political archives and previously unexamined sources Prior explores the fraught relationships between civilian and military leaders: from Lloyd George's remarkably interventionist stance on military tactics during the First World War to Churchill's near-constant arguments with American leaders during the Second. Conquer We Must tells the complex story of this military decision-making, revealing how politicians attempted to control strategy--but had little influence on how the army, navy, and air force actually fought.
Download or read book Hitler s Last Gamble written by Jacques Nobécourt and published by . This book was released on 1967 with total page 322 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
