Download or read book The Day of Battle written by Rick Atkinson and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2008-09-16 with total page 852 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the second volume of his epic trilogy about the liberation of Europe in World War II, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Atkinson tells the harrowing story of the campaigns in Sicily and Italy.

Download or read book The White War written by Mark Thompson and published by Basic Books. This book was released on 2009-03-17 with total page 466 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In May 1915, Italy declared war on the Habsburg Empire. Nearly 750,000 Italian troops were killed in savage, hopeless fighting on the stony hills north of Trieste and in the snows of the Dolomites. To maintain discipline, General Luigi Cadorna restored the Roman practice of decimation, executing random members of units that retreated or rebelled. With elegance and pathos, historian Mark Thompson relates the saga of the Italian front, the nationalist frenzy and political intrigues that preceded the conflict, and the towering personalities of the statesmen, generals, and writers drawn into the heart of the chaos. A work of epic scale, The White War does full justice to the brutal and heart-wrenching war that inspired Hemingway's A Farewell to Arms.

Download or read book Fornovo 1495 written by David Nicolle and published by Greenwood. This book was released on 2005 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Charles VIII led Europe's most potent army to victory against one Italian province after another. The Italian states rallied though, and at Fornovo they fought the French juggernaught to a standstill. Here began the bloody Italian Wars.

Download or read book Nothing Less than Victory written by John David Lewis and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2013-12-26 with total page 369 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How aggressive military strategies win wars, from ancient times to today The goal of war is to defeat the enemy's will to fight. But how this can be accomplished is a thorny issue. Nothing Less than Victory provocatively shows that aggressive, strategic military offenses can win wars and establish lasting peace, while defensive maneuvers have often led to prolonged carnage, indecision, and stalemate. Taking an ambitious and sweeping look at six major wars, from antiquity to World War II, John David Lewis shows how victorious military commanders have achieved long-term peace by identifying the core of the enemy's ideological, political, and social support for a war, fiercely striking at this objective, and demanding that the enemy acknowledges its defeat. Lewis examines the Greco-Persian and Theban wars, the Second Punic War, Aurelian's wars to reunify Rome, the American Civil War, and the Second World War. He considers successful examples of overwhelming force, such as the Greek mutilation of Xerxes' army and navy, the Theban-led invasion of the Spartan homeland, and Hannibal's attack against Italy—as well as failed tactics of defense, including Fabius's policy of delay, McClellan's retreat from Richmond, and Chamberlain's appeasement of Hitler. Lewis shows that a war's endurance rests in each side's reasoning, moral purpose, and commitment to fight, and why an effectively aimed, well-planned, and quickly executed offense can end a conflict and create the conditions needed for long-term peace. Recognizing the human motivations behind military conflicts, Nothing Less than Victory makes a powerful case for offensive actions in pursuit of peace.

Download or read book Anatomy of Victory written by John D. Caldwell and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2018-11-09 with total page 569 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This groundbreaking book provides the first systematic comparison of America’s modern wars and why they were won or lost. John D. Caldwell uses the World War II victory as the historical benchmark for evaluating the success and failure of later conflicts. Unlike WWII, the Korean, Vietnam, and Iraqi Wars were limited, but they required enormous national commitments, produced no lasting victories, and generated bitter political controversies. Caldwell comprehensively examines these four wars through the lens of a strategic architecture to explain how and why their outcomes were so dramatically different. He defines a strategic architecture as an interlinked set of continually evolving policies, strategies, and operations by which combatant states work toward a desired end. Policy defines the high-level goals a nation seeks to achieve once it initiates a conflict or finds itself drawn into one. Policy makers direct a broad course of action and strive to control the initiative. When they make decisions, they have to respond to unforeseen conditions to guide and determine future decisions. Effective leaders are skilled at organizing constituencies they need to succeed and communicating to them convincingly. Strategy means employing whatever resources are available to achieve policy goals in situations that are dynamic as conflicts change quickly over time. Operations are the actions that occur when politicians, soldiers, and diplomats execute plans. A strategic architecture, Caldwell argues, is thus not a static blueprint but a dynamic vision of how a state can succeed or fail in a conflict.

Download or read book Bitter Victory written by Carlo D'Este and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2009-06-02 with total page 491 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Bitter Victory illuminates a chapter of World War II that has lacked a balanced, full-scale treatment until now. In recounting the second-largest amphibious operation in military history, Carlo D'Este for the first time reveals the conflicts in planning and the behind-the-scenes quarrels between top Allied commanders. The book explodes the myth of the Patton-Montgomery rivalry and exposes how Alexander's inept generalship nearly wrecked the campaign. D'Este documents in chilling detail the series of savage battles fought against an overmatched but brilliant foe and how the Germans—against overwhelming odds—carried out one of the greatest strategic withdrawals in history. His controversial narrative depicts for the first time how the Allies bungled their attempt to cut off the Axis retreat from Sicily, turning what ought to have been a great triumph into a bitter victory that later came to haunt the Allies in Italy. Using a wealth of original sources, D'Este paints an unforgettable portrait of men at war. From the front lines to the councils of the Axis and Allied high commands, Bitter Victory offers penetrating reassessments of the men who masterminded the campaign. Thrilling and authoritative, this is military history on an epic scale.

Download or read book Command Of The Air written by General Giulio Douhet and published by Pickle Partners Publishing. This book was released on 2014-08-15 with total page 620 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the pantheon of air power spokesmen, Giulio Douhet holds center stage. His writings, more often cited than perhaps actually read, appear as excerpts and aphorisms in the writings of numerous other air power spokesmen, advocates-and critics. Though a highly controversial figure, the very controversy that surrounds him offers to us a testimonial of the value and depth of his work, and the need for airmen today to become familiar with his thought. The progressive development of air power to the point where, today, it is more correct to refer to aerospace power has not outdated the notions of Douhet in the slightest In fact, in many ways, the kinds of technological capabilities that we enjoy as a global air power provider attest to the breadth of his vision. Douhet, together with Hugh “Boom” Trenchard of Great Britain and William “Billy” Mitchell of the United States, is justly recognized as one of the three great spokesmen of the early air power era. This reprint is offered in the spirit of continuing the dialogue that Douhet himself so perceptively began with the first edition of this book, published in 1921. Readers may well find much that they disagree with in this book, but also much that is of enduring value. The vital necessity of Douhet’s central vision-that command of the air is all important in modern warfare-has been proven throughout the history of wars in this century, from the fighting over the Somme to the air war over Kuwait and Iraq.

Download or read book Strange Victory written by Ernest R. May and published by Hill and Wang. This book was released on 2015-07-28 with total page 604 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ernest R. May's Strange Victory presents a dramatic narrative-and reinterpretation-of Germany's six-week campaign that swept the Wehrmacht to Paris in spring 1940. Before the Nazis killed him for his work in the French Resistance, the great historian Marc Bloch wrote a famous short book, Strange Defeat, about the treatment of his nation at the hands of an enemy the French had believed they could easily dispose of. In Strange Victory, the distinguished American historian Ernest R. May asks the opposite question: How was it that Hitler and his generals managed this swift conquest, considering that France and its allies were superior in every measurable dimension and considering the Germans' own skepticism about their chances? Strange Victory is a riveting narrative of those six crucial weeks in the spring of 1940, weaving together the decisions made by the high commands with the welter of confused responses from exhausted and ill-informed, or ill-advised, officers in the field. Why did Hitler want to turn against France at just this moment, and why were his poor judgment and inadequate intelligence about the Allies nonetheless correct? Why didn't France take the offensive when it might have led to victory? What explains France's failure to detect and respond to Germany's attack plan? It is May's contention that in the future, nations might suffer strange defeats of their own if they do not learn from their predecessors' mistakes in judgment.

Download or read book Cornelius Nepos Life of Hannibal written by Bret Mulligan and published by Open Book Publishers. This book was released on 2015-10-05 with total page 176 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Trebia. Trasimene. Cannae. With three stunning victories, Hannibal humbled Rome and nearly shattered its empire. Even today Hannibal's brilliant, if ultimately unsuccessful, campaign against Rome during the Second Punic War (218-202 BC) make him one of history's most celebrated military leaders. This biography by Cornelius Nepos (c. 100-27 BC) sketches Hannibal's life from the time he began traveling with his father's army as a young boy, through his sixteen-year invasion of Italy and his tumultuous political career in Carthage, to his perilous exile and eventual suicide in the East. As Rome completed its bloody transition from dysfunctional republic to stable monarchy, Nepos labored to complete an innovative and influential collection of concise biographies. Putting aside the detailed, chronological accounts of military campaigns and political machinations that characterized most writing about history, Nepos surveyed Roman and Greek history for distinguished men who excelled in a range of prestigious occupations. In the exploits and achievements of these illustrious men, Nepos hoped that his readers would find models for the honorable conduct of their own lives. Although most of Nepos' works have been lost, we are fortunate to have his biography of Hannibal. Nepos offers a surprisingly balanced portrayal of a man that most Roman authors vilified as the most monstrous foe that Rome had ever faced. Nepos' straightforward style and his preference for common vocabulary make Life of Hannibal accessible for those who are just beginning to read continuous Latin prose, while the historical interest of the subject make it compelling for readers of every ability.

Download or read book A Global History of War written by Gérard Chaliand and published by University of California Press. This book was released on 2014-11-17 with total page 308 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: While many books examine specific wars, few study the history of war worldwide and from an evolutionary perspective. A Global History of War is one of the first works to focus not on the impact of war on civilizations, but rather on how civilizations impact the art and execution of war. World-renowned scholar Gérard Chaliand concentrates on the peoples and cultures who have determined how war is conducted and reveals the lasting historical consequences of combat, offering a unique picture of the major geopolitical and civilizational clashes that have rocked our common history and made us who we are today. Chaliand’s questions provoke a new understanding of the development of armed conflict. How did the foremost non-European empires rise and fall? What critical role did the nomads of the Eurasian steppes and their descendants play? Chaliand illuminates the military cultures and martial traditions of the great Eurasian empires, including Turkey, China, Iran, and Mongolia. Based on fifteen years of research, this book provides a novel military and strategic perspective on the crises and conflicts that have shaped the current world order.

Download or read book The Cambridge History of the Second World War Volume 2 Politics and Ideology written by Richard Bosworth and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2017-11-23 with total page 718 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: War is often described as an extension of politics by violent means. With contributions from twenty-eight eminent historians, Volume 2 of The Cambridge History of the Second World War examines the relationship between ideology and politics in the war's origins, dynamics and consequences. Part I examines the ideologies of the combatants and shows how the war can be understood as a struggle of words, ideas and values with the rival powers expressing divergent claims to justice and controlling news from the front in order to sustain moral and influence international opinion. Part II looks at politics from the perspective of pre-war and wartime diplomacy as well as examining the way in which neutrals were treated and behaved. The volume concludes by assessing the impact of states, politics and ideology on the fate of individuals as occupied and liberated peoples, collaborators and resistors, and as British and French colonial subjects.

Download or read book The Path to Victory written by Douglas Porch and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2004 with total page 840 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Mediterranean theater in World War II has long been overlooked by historians who believe it was little more than a string of small-scale battles--sideshows that were of minor importance in a war whose outcome was decided in the clashes of mammoth tank armies in northern Europe. But in this ground-breaking new book, one of our finest military historians argues that the Mediterranean was World War II's pivotal theater. Douglas Porch examines the Mediterranean as an integrated arena, one in which events in Syria and Suez influenced the survival of Gibraltar. Without a Mediterranean alternative, the Western Allies would probably have committed to a premature cross-Channel invasion in 1943 that might well have cost them the war. Brilliantly argued, with vivid portraits of Churchill, Montgomery, FDR, Rommel, and Mussolini, this original, accessible, and compelling account of a little-known theater emphasizes the importance of the Mediterranean in the ultimate Allied victory in Europe in World War II.

Download or read book Rome Resurgent written by Peter Heather and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2018-05-01 with total page 409 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Between the fall of the western Roman Empire in the fifth century and the collapse of the east in the face of the Arab invasions in the seventh, the remarkable era of the Emperor Justinian (527-568) dominated the Mediterranean region. Famous for his conquests in Italy and North Africa, and for the creation of spectacular monuments such as the Hagia Sophia, his reign was also marked by global religious conflict within the Christian world and an outbreak of plague that some have compared to the Black Death. For many historians, Justinian is far more than an anomaly of Byzantine ambition between the eras of Attila and Muhammad; he is the causal link that binds together the two moments of Roman imperial collapse. Determined to reverse the losses Rome suffered in the fifth century, Justinian unleashed an aggressive campaign in the face of tremendous adversity, not least the plague. This book offers a fundamentally new interpretation of his conquest policy and its overall strategic effect, which has often been seen as imperial overreach, making the regime vulnerable to the Islamic takeover of its richest territories in the seventh century and thus transforming the great Roman Empire of Late Antiquity into its pale shadow of the Middle Ages. In Rome Resurgent, historian Peter Heather draws heavily upon contemporary sources, including the writings of Procopius, the principal historian of the time, while also recasting that author's narrative by bringing together new perspectives based on a wide array of additional source material. A huge body of archaeological evidence has become available for the sixth century, providing entirely new means of understanding the overall effects of Justinian's war policies. Building on his own distinguished work on the Vandals, Goths, and Persians, Heather also gives much fuller coverage to Rome's enemies than Procopius ever did. A briskly paced narrative by a master historian, Rome Resurgent promises to introduce readers to this captivating and unjustly overlooked chapter in ancient warfare.

Download or read book Britain and Italy in the Era of the Great War written by Stefano Marcuzzi and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2020-12-10 with total page 397 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is an important reassessment of British and Italian grand strategies during the First World War. Stefano Marcuzzi sheds new light on a hitherto overlooked but central aspect of Britain and Italy's war experiences: the uneasy and only partial overlap between Britain's strategy for imperial defence and Italy's ambition for imperial expansion. Taking Anglo-Italian bilateral relations as a special lens through which to understand the workings of the Entente in World War I, he reveals how the ups-and-downs of that relationship influenced and shaped Allied grand strategy. Marcuzzi considers three main issues – war aims, war strategy and peace-making – and examines how, under the pressure of divergent interests and wartime events, the Anglo-Italian 'traditional friendship' turned increasingly into competition by the end of the war, casting a shadow on Anglo-Italian relations both at the Peace Conference and in the interwar period.

Download or read book Strategy in the Contemporary World written by John Baylis and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2016 with total page 455 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book offers a comprehensive introduction to the role of military power in today's world. It explores both the enduring and historical issues which have shaped the study of strategy and the contemporary issues that dominate today's headlines.

Download or read book How the Weak Win Wars written by Ivan Arreguín-Toft and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2005-12-08 with total page 277 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this 2005 book, Ivan Arreguín-Toft examines the nature of asymmetric conflicts to explain how weaker powers can win.

Download or read book The Norman Conquest of Southern Italy and Sicily written by Gordon S. Brown and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2015-05-12 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Normans originally came to Italy and Sicily in the 11th and 12th centuries looking for adventure or a livelihood, but once there, found opportunity for fame and fortune. The story of the Norman conquest in Italy and Sicily is indeed one of knights and adventurers, great battles and lowly pillage, opportunism and statesmanship, and crusade and coexistence. This rich and often dramatic study focuses on the eight sons of Tancred of Hauteville, especially Robert Guiscard, who has been called "the most dazzling military ruler between Julius Caesar and Napoleon," and his youngest brother Roger, who conquered Sicily. It discusses how they expanded their lands throughout southern Italy, and then took Sicily from its Muslim rulers. The brothers, often in conflict with each other, challenged both the Papacy and the Byzantine Empire, became the main supporters of the reformed Papacy, and founded a rich, sophisticated kingdom that lasted until the nineteenth century.