Download or read book The German Invasion of Belgium France written by George Herbert Perris and published by Leonaur Limited. This book was released on 2014-08-28 with total page 344 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Two essential first hand accounts and histories of the French Army in 1914 Experienced British correspondent George Herbert Perris accompanied French troops during the opening campaigns of the First World War, and the two books he wrote concerning his observations and experiences have provided us with an essential view and history of the conflict. Accounts of the period, by those who were there, are usually written from the perspective of the writer's own country and armed forces, so there are a number of books by British writers about the B. E. F and its activities on the far western flank, including the retreat from Mons and stand around Le Cateau. These books, written in English but concerning the French at war are therefore fundamentally different. The first of these two linked accounts deals with the outbreak of war and the invasion of German forces through Flanders and into France. Particular attention is given to the activities of the French Army on the eastern end of the front and Perris provides us with perspectives on French Army actions that are free of the usual biased interpretations given by observers with the British Army. Interesting observations on British actions are also included. Perris' second book concerns the great turnaround before the gates of Paris, which confounded the momentum of the German plan for a quick, incisive and conclusive victory. There can be little doubt that the Battle of the Marne, which resulted in a massive reversal for German forces, the retreat back to Ypres and the war of stalemate and attrition which ensued, was the first step on the bloody path to eventual victory. Although British forces took part in the battle, it is usually accepted that the Marne was a French battle and victory, so Perris's observations are invaluable. Leonaur editions are newly typeset and are not facsimiles; each title is available in softcover and hardback with dustjacket; our hardbacks are cloth bound and feature gold foil lettering on their spines and fabric head and tail bands.
Download or read book The German Failure in Belgium August 1914 written by Dennis Showalter and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2019-05-21 with total page 226 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: If wars were wagered on like pro sports or horse races, the Germany military in August 1914 would have been a clear front-runner, with a century-long record of impressive victories and a general staff the envy of its rivals. Germany's overall failure in the first year of World War I was surprising and remains a frequent subject of analysis, mostly focused on deficiencies in strategy and policy. But there were institutional weaknesses as well. This book examines the structural failures that frustrated the Germans in the war's crucial initial campaign, the invasion of Belgium. Too much routine in planning, command and execution led to groupthink, inflexibility and to an overconfident belief that nothing could go too terribly wrong. As a result, decisive operation became dicey, with consequences that Germany's military could not overcome in four long years.
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 France 1940 written by Philip Nord and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2015-03-01 with total page 209 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this revisionist account of France’s crushing defeat in 1940, a world authority on French history argues that the nation’s downfall has long been misunderstood. Philip Nord assesses France’s diplomatic and military preparations for war with Germany, its conduct of the war once the fighting began, and the political consequences of defeat on the battlefield. He also tracks attitudes among French leaders once defeat seemed a likelihood, identifying who among them took advantage of the nation’s misfortunes to sabotage democratic institutions and plot an authoritarian way forward. Nord finds that the longstanding view that France’s collapse was due to military unpreparedeness and a decadent national character is unsupported by fact. Instead, he reveals that the Third Republic was no worse prepared and its military failings no less dramatic than those of the United States and other Allies in the early years of the war. What was unique in France was the betrayal by military and political elites who abandoned the Republic and supported the reprehensible Vichy takeover. Why then have historians and politicians ever since interpreted the defeat as a judgment on the nation as a whole? Why has the focus been on the failings of the Third Republic and not on elite betrayal? The author examines these questions in a fascinating conclusion.
Download or read book The Rape of Belgium written by Larry Zuckerman and published by NYU Press. This book was released on 2004-02 with total page 476 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The author presents a compelling and untold story of Germany's occupation of Belgium after WW1. It's a great, trade history book from a wonderful storyteller.
Download or read book The German Decision to Invade Norway and Denmark written by Earl F. Ziemke and published by . This book was released on 1960 with total page 28 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book May 1940 written by and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2010-04-27 with total page 496 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Drawing on new research, this book provides the first comprehensive English-language account of the German assault on the Netherlands in May 1940. It presents fresh and incisive analyses of German and Dutch actions at tactical, operational and strategic levels.
Download or read book The Fall of France written by Julian Jackson and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2004-04-22 with total page 296 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On 16 May 1940 an emergency meeting of the French High Command was called at the Quai d'Orsay in Paris. The German army had broken through the French lines on the River Meuse at Sedan and elsewhere, only five days after launching their attack. Churchill, who had been telephoned by Prime Minister Reynaud the previous evening to be told that the French were beaten, rushed to Paris to meet the French leaders. The mood in the meeting was one of panic and despair; there was talk of evacuating Paris. Churchill asked Gamelin, the French Commander in Chief, 'Where is the strategic reserve?' 'There is none,' replied Gamelin. This exciting book by Julian Jackson, a leading historian of twentieth-century France, charts the breathtakingly rapid events that led to the defeat and surrender of one of the greatest bastions of the Western Allies, and thus to a dramatic new phase of the Second World War. The search for scapegoats for the most humiliating military disaster in French history began almost at once: were miscalculations by military leaders to blame, or was this an indictment of an entire nation? Using eyewitness accounts, memoirs, and diaries, Julian Jackson recreates, in gripping detail, the intense atmosphere and dramatic events of these six weeks in 1940, unravelling the historical evidence to produce a fresh answer to the perennial question of whether the fall of France was inevitable.
Download or read book Rehearsals written by Jeff Lipkes and published by Leuven University Press. This book was released on 2007 with total page 817 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "People screamed, cried, and groaned. Above the tumult I could distinguish the voices of small children. All this time the soldiers were singing.... Sometime after the first salvo, there was another round of fire and, once again, I was not hit. After this I heard fewer cries, save from time to time a small child calling its mother."?Félix Bourdon, survivor of a mass execution in Dinant, BelgiumIn August 1914, without any legitimate pretext, German soldiers killed nearly 6,000 Belgian noncombatants, including women and children, and burned some 25,000 homes and other buildings. Rehearsals is the first book to provide a detailed narrative history of the German invasion of Belgium as it affected civilians. Based on extensive eyewitness testimony, the book chronicles events in and around the towns of Liége, Aarschot, Andenne, Tamines, Dinant, and Leuven, where the worst of the German depredations occurred. Accounts of the killing, looting, and arson have long been dismissed as "atrocity propaganda," particularly in the United Kingdom and the United States. Rehearsals examines the campaign by revisionists that led to voluminous and compelling testimony about German war crimes being discredited.Recently, the case has been made that the violence that came to a peak between August 19 and August 26, 1914, was the result of a spontaneous outbreak of German paranoia about civilian sharpshooters. In Rehearsals, Jeff Lipkes offers compelling evidence that the executions were in fact part of a deliberate campaign of terrorism ordered by military authorities. In his shocking account of events that have been largely overlooked by historians of World War I, Lipkes commemorates the heroism as well as the suffering of the Belgian victims of German aggression.
Download or read book The Fall of France written by Julian Jackson and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2004-04-22 with total page 300 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On 16 May 1940 an emergency meeting of the French High Command was called at the Quai d'Orsay in Paris. The German army had broken through the French lines on the River Meuse at Sedan and elsewhere, only five days after launching their attack. Churchill, who had been telephoned by Prime Minister Reynaud the previous evening to be told that the French were beaten, rushed to Paris to meet the French leaders. The mood in the meeting was one of panic and despair; there was talk ofevacuating Paris. Churchill asked Gamelin, the French Commander in Chief, 'Where is the strategic reserve?' 'There is none,' replied Gamelin.This exciting book by Julian Jackson, a leading historian of twentieth-century France, charts the breathtakingly rapid events that led to the defeat and surrender of one of the greatest bastions of the Western Allies, and thus to a dramatic new phase of the Second World War. The search for scapegoats for the most humiliating military disaster in French history began almost at once: were miscalculations by military leaders to blame, or was this an indictment of an entire nation?Using eyewitness accounts, memoirs, and diaries, Julian Jackson recreates, in gripping detail, the intense atmosphere and dramatic events of these six weeks in 1940, unravelling the historical evidence to produce a fresh answer to the perennial question of whether the fall of France was inevitable.
Download or read book Why We Came to Help Belgium written by Henry William Massingham and published by . This book was released on 1914 with total page 12 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Tuberculosis and War written by J.F. Murray and published by Karger Medical and Scientific Publishers. This book was released on 2018-03-27 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Tuberculosis (TB) remains the largest cause of adult deaths from any single infectious disease, and ranks among the top 10 causes of death worldwide. When TB and war occur simultaneously, the inevitable consequences are disease, human misery, suffering, and heightened mortality. TB is, therefore, one of the most frequent and deadly diseases to complicate the special circumstances of warfare. Written by internationally acclaimed experts, this book provides a comprehensive analysis of the status of TB before, during and after WWII in the 25 belligerent countries that were chiefly involved. It summarizes the history of TB up to the present day. A special chapter on “Nazi Medicine, Tuberculosis and Genocide” examines the horrendous, inhuman Nazi ideology, which during WWII used TB as a justification for murder, and targeted the disease by eradicating millions who were afflicted by it. The final chapter summarizes the lessons learned from WWII and more recent wars and recommends anti-TB measures for future conflicts. This publication is not only of interest to TB specialists and pulmonologists but also to those interested in public health, infectious diseases, war-related issues and the history of medicine. It should also appeal to nonmedical readers like journalists and politicians.
Download or read book German Atrocities 1914 written by John Horne and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2001-01-01 with total page 632 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Is it true that the German army, invading Belgium and France in August 1914, perpetrated brutal atrocities? Or are accounts of the deaths of thousands of unarmed civilians mere fabrications constructed by fanatically anti-German Allied propagandists? Based on research in the archives of Belgium, Britain, France, Germany, and Italy, this pathbreaking book uncovers the truth of the events of autumn 1914 and explains how the politics of propaganda and memory have shaped radically different versions of that truth. John Horne and Alan Kramer mine military reports, official and private records, witness evidence, and war diaries to document the crimes that scholars have long denied: a campaign of brutality that led to the deaths of some 6500 Belgian and French civilians. Contemporary German accounts insisted that the civilians were guerrillas, executed for illegal resistance. In reality this claim originated in a vast collective delusion on the part of German soldiers. The authors establish how this myth originated and operated, and how opposed Allied and German views of events were used in the propaganda war. They trace the memory and forgetting of the atrocities on both sides up to and beyond World War II. Meticulously researched and convincingly argued, this book reopens a painful chapter in European history while contributing to broader debates about myth, propaganda, memory, war crimes, and the nature of the First World War.
Download or read book Historical Perspectives of the Operational Art written by Michael D. Krause and published by Government Printing Office. This book was released on 2006-05 with total page 520 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NOTE: NO FURTHER DISCOUNT FOR THIS PRINT PRODUCT--OVERSTOCK SALE -- Significantly reduced list price while supplies last Historical Perspectives of the Operational Art, a companion volume to Clayton R. Newell's and Michael D. Krause's On Operational Art, captures the doctrinal debate over the evolving concept of operational art-the critical link between strategy and tactics-in the face of the new complexities of warfare and the demands of irregular operations in the twenty-first century. Consisting of fifteen original essays selected and edited by Michael D. Krause in collaboration with R. Cody Phillips, the well-organized anthology presents the collective view of distinguished military historians and scholars that operational art must be adjusted to accommodate the changing circumstances happening around the world, especially when dealing with broad coalitions and alliances in regional environments and at an international level. Related products: The Rise of iWar: Identity, Information, and the Individualization of Modern Warfare can be found here: https://bookstore.gpo.gov/products/sku/008-000-01198-2 Yemen: A Different Political Paradigm in Context can be found here: https://bookstore.gpo.gov/products/sku/008-070-00865-3 A Masterpiece of Counterguerrilla Warfare: BG J. Franklin Bell in the Philippines 1901-1902 is avaialble here: https://bookstore.gpo.gov/products/sku/008-000-01000-5 Operational Culture for the Warfighter: Principles and Applications is available here: https://bookstore.gpo.gov/products/sku/008-000-01061-7
Download or read book The Fall of France written by Charles River Charles River Editors and published by Createspace Independent Publishing Platform. This book was released on 2018-02-08 with total page 108 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: *Includes pictures *Includes accounts of the fighting *Includes online resources and a bibliography for further reading *Includes a table of contents "My Luftwaffe is invincible...And so now we turn to England. How long will this one last - two, three weeks?" - Hermann Goering, June 1940 One of the most famous people in the world came to tour the city of Paris for the first time on June 28, 1940. Over the next three hours, he rode through the city's streets, stopping to tour L'Opera Paris. He rode down the Champs-Elysees toward the Trocadero and the Eiffel Tower, where he had his picture taken. After passing through the Arc de Triomphe, he toured the Pantheon and old medieval churches, though he did not manage to see the Louvre or the Palace of Justice. Heading back to the airport, he told his staff, "It was the dream of my life to be permitted to see Paris. I cannot say how happy I am to have that dream fulfilled today." Four years after his tour, Adolf Hitler would order the city's garrison commander, General Dietrich von Choltitz, to destroy Paris, warning his subordinate that the city "must not fall into the enemy's hand except lying in complete debris." Of course, Paris was not destroyed before the Allies liberated it, but it would take more than 4 years for them to wrest control of France from Nazi Germany after they took the country by storm in about a month in 1940. That said, it's widely overlooked today given how history played out that as the power of Nazi Germany grew alarmingly during the 1930s, the French sought means to defend their territory against the rising menace of the Thousand-Year Reich. As architects of the most punitive measures in the Treaty of Versailles following World War I, France was a natural target for Teutonic retribution, so the Maginot Line, a series of interconnected strongpoints and fortifications running along much of France's eastern border, helped allay French fears of invasion. The true flaw in French military strategy during the opening days of World War II lay not in reliance on the Maginot fortifications but in the army's neglect to exploit the military opportunities the Line created. In other words, the border defense performed as envisioned, but the other military arms supported it insufficiently to halt the Germans. The French Army squandered the opportunity not because the Maginot Line existed but because they failed to utilize their own defensive plan properly; the biggest problem was that the Germans simply skirted past the intricate defensive fortifications by invading neutral Belgium and swinging south, thereby avoiding the Maginot Line for the most part. The French had not expected the Germans would be able to move armored units through the Ardennes Forests, a heavily wooded region spanning parts of Belgium, France and the Netherlands. To the Allies' great surprise, the Germans had no trouble rolling across these lands in the span of weeks. And by invading France from the north, the Germans simply avoided the Maginot Line. The French surrendered in June 1940, and the British narrowly escaped disaster by transporting thousands of soldiers and equipment across the English Channel at Dunkirk. Thus, by the middle of 1940, the Axis powers and the Soviet Union had overrun nearly all of Western Europe. With France out of the war, and without active participation by the United States, Great Britain virtually stood alone. The Fall of France: The History of Nazi Germany's Invasion and Conquest of France During World War II chronicles the background and construction of the much maligned defensive fortifications. Along with pictures of important people, places, and events, you will learn about the fall of France like never before, in no time at all.
Download or read book The French Defeat of 1940 written by Joel Blatt and published by Berghahn Books. This book was released on 1997-08-01 with total page 380 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why France, the major European continental victor in 1918, suffered total defeat in six weeks at the hands of the vanquished power of 1918 only two decades later remains moot. Why the stunning reversal of fortunes? In this volume thirteen prominent scholars reexamine the French debacle of 1940 in interwar perspectives, utilizing fresh analysis, original approaches, and new sources. Although the tenor of the volume is critical, the contributors also suggest that French preparations for war knew successes as well as failures, that French defeat was not inevitable, and that the Battle of France might have turned out differently if different choices had been made and other paths been followed.
Download or read book The Angels of Mons written by Arthur Machen and published by . This book was released on 1915 with total page 98 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
