Download or read book Rommel Caporetto written by John Wilks and published by Casemate Publishers. This book was released on 2012-10-24 with total page 402 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This fascinating biographical history reveals how the future German general established his reputation at the WWI Battle of Caporetto. Erwin Rommel was to become the most famous and influential German general of World War Two. But in 1917, no one outside of a small clique in the German Army had heard of him. His ascent to prominence began with his exploits on the Italian Front of World War I. In 1917, the Allied armies launched a series of offensives against the Austro-Hungarian forces along the Isonzo River. The final battle was a catastrophic defeat for the Allies, thanks in part to the infiltration tactics of Lieutenant Rommel. His battalion outflanked the Italian forces and executed a devastating attack from behind enemy lines. Based on official histories and archival documents, as well as Rommel’s own account, Rommel & Caporetto offers new insight into the skills and tactics he would later employ in France and in North Africa.
Download or read book Rommel written by Ian F. W. Beckett and published by Pen and Sword. This book was released on 2013-12-02 with total page 268 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How should history judge the life and career of Erwin Rommel, the most famous German general of the Second World War, seventy years after his death on 14 October 1944? In his own time and in the years immediately after the war his reputation as a great and chivalrous commander grew to the point where it took on almost legendary proportions, and the legend is still with us today. His apparent support for the plot to remove Hitler from power in 1944 and the manner of his death, committing suicide in order to protect his family from Nazi retribution, further enhanced his image as an honourable, professional soldier.But does he deserve this legendary status? Can his exploits as a soldier and commander and his conduct of the war be separated from the aggressive aims of Hitler and the Nazis whom he and the German army served?These are among the key questions Ian Beckett and his team of expert contributors seek to answer in this stimulating and timely study of Rommel and his legacy. They look critically at every stage of Rommel's brilliant career, from the early fame he achieved as a daring young officer fighting on the Italian front in the First World War, through his exploits as a panzer leader during the German invasion of France in 1940, and his generalship in the Western Desert when he commanded the German and Italian forces fighting the British. These achievements and the publicity that went with them gave him an extraordinary, perhaps overinflated reputation within Germany and among the opposing Allies.As featured in Cornwall Today.
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 Caporetto and the Isonzo Campaign written by John Macdonald and published by Pen and Sword. This book was released on 2011-12-13 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This illustrated WWI history sheds light on a major campaign fought along the significant yet often neglected Italian Front. From 1915 to 1917 the armies of Italy and the Austro-Hungarian Empire were locked in a series of battles along the River Isonzo, a sixty-mile front from the Alps to the Adriatic Sea. The campaigns were fought in unforgiving terrain, with casualty counts that exceeded those of the Great War’s more famous battles. The twelfth and final battle, Caporetto, was a major victory for the Central Powers as they broke through the Italian Front. Historian John Macdonald chronicles the Isonzo battles with vivid descriptions of the battlefields and of the atrocious conditions in which the soldiers fought. The text is supported by a selection of original photographs that record the terrible reality of the conflict. The intervention of British, French and German troops is covered, as are the parts played by famous individuals, including Erwin Rommel, Benito Mussolini, Pietro Badoglio and Luigi Cadorna, the notorious Italian commander in chief. Caporetto and the Isonzo Campaign examines an aspect of the First World War that was pivotal in the history of Italy, Austria and the Balkans.
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 Rommel Reconsidered written by Ian F. W. Beckett and published by Stackpole Books. This book was released on 2014-07-15 with total page 210 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: New look at the notorious Desert Fox of World War II by leading military historians. • Thought-provoking reassessment of the most famous German general of the war • Fresh insights into Rommel's performance in France in 1940, Africa in 1941-42, and Normandy in 1944 as well as his relationship with Hitler and the Nazis
Download or read book Rommel s Ghost Division written by David Mitchelhill-Green and published by Pen and Sword Military. This book was released on 2024-07-25 with total page 355 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Adolf Hitler invaded Western Europe on 10 May 1940. After breaking through the supposedly ‘impenetrable’ Ardennes, Erwin Rommel was at the forefront of the Wehrmacht’s audacious drive through France. Rommel, who had no prior experience leading an armored division in combat, moved with such speed and nerve that he frequently surprised French units by arriving far earlier than expected. Crossing the Meuse River, we follow Rommel—in what he referred to as ‘practically a lightning Tour de France’—as he pushed through northern France to the English Channel. His spectacular victory at the coastal port of Saint-Valéry-en-Caux was crowned by the capture of Cherbourg. Following the armistice, Rommel was involved in reenacting certain battles, such as crossing the Somme, for the documentary Sieg im Westen (Victory in the West). This is the story of Rommel and the 7th Panzer Division—the so-called ‘Ghost Division’—in France, 1940.
Download or read book Piercing the Fog of War written by Martin Samuels and published by Helion and Company. This book was released on 2019-05-14 with total page 334 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Since the late 1970s, anglophone and German military literature has been fascinated by the Wehrmacht‘s command system, especially the practice of Auftragstaktik. There have been many descriptions of the doctrine, and examinations of its historical origins, as well as unflattering comparisons with the approaches of the British and American armies prior to their adoption of Mission Command in the late 1980s. Almost none of these, however, have sought to understand the different approaches to command in the context of a fundamental characteristic of warfare – friction. This would be like trying to understand flight, without any reference to aerodynamics. Inherently flawed, yet this is the norm in the military literature. This book seeks to address that gap. First, the nature of friction, and the potential command responses to it, are considered. This allows the development of a typology of eight command approaches; each approach then being tested to identify its relative effectiveness and requirements for success. Second, the British and German armies’ doctrines of command during the period are examined, in order to reveal similarities and differences in relation to their perspective on the nature of warfare and the most appropriate responses. The experience of Erwin Rommel, both as a young subaltern fighting the Italians in 1917, and then as a newly-appointed divisional commander against the French in 1940, is used to test the expression of the German doctrine in practice. Third, the interaction of these different command doctrines is explored in case studies of two key armoured battles, Amiens in August 1918 and Arras in May 1940, allowing the strengths and weaknesses of each to be highlighted and the typology to be tested. The result is intended to offer a new and deeper understanding of both the nature of command as a response to friction, and the factors that need to be in place in order to allow a given command approach to achieve success. The book therefore in two ways represents a sequel to the author’s earlier work, Command or Control? Command, Training and Tactics in the British and German Armies, 1888-1918 (London: Cass, 1995), in that it both takes the conceptual model of command developed there to a deeper level, and also takes the story from the climax of 1918 up to the end of the first phase of the Second World War.
Download or read book Target Rommel written by Stephen Wynn and published by Pen and Sword Military. This book was released on 2022-01-28 with total page 178 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From a German perspective, the highly decorated and well respected General Erwin Rommel was one of their biggest and brightest assets: a military strategist who thought ‘outside of the box’, a tactic which more than once either brought him an unexpected victory, or saved him from almost certain defeat. His reputation had been gained early in the Second World War, whilst commander of the 7th Panzer Division during the invasion of France, and as the commander of German forces during the North African campaign between 1941 and 1943. Such was his influence not only as a military strategist but on the morale of the men who served under him, as well as that of the German public, that the British government decided it needed to make concerted efforts to try to capture or eliminate him, making Rommel the only German officer of the Second World War that the allied authorities were prepared to put such time, manpower and commitment into eliminating. Two operations were put in to place to try to achieve this: Operation Flipper in November 1941, and Operation Gaff in July 1944. Both operations failed for different reasons, but just three months after the latter of the two operations, Rommel was dead, forced to commit suicide by Adolf Hitler for his part in the attempt to assassinate him on 20 July 1944. Such was the level of Rommel’s popularity and importance that the Nazi authorities reported the cause of his death to be injuries sustained in an attack on his staff car by enemy aircraft. Indeed, it was only after the war that the truth behind his death was revealed.
Download or read book Rommel s Lieutenants written by Samuel W. Mitcham and published by Stackpole Books. This book was released on 2008-12-17 with total page 239 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Covers Erwin Rommel's World War II battles before he led the legendary Afrika Korps First work to recognize the talented staff officers and company, battalion, and regimental commanders who supported Rommel One of the most famous soldiers to fight in World War II, Erwin Rommel achieved immortality as the Desert Fox in the sands of Africa, but his first field command was the 7th Panzer Division, the so-called Ghost Division. During the 1940 campaign in France, the unit suffered more casualties than any other German division and at the same time inflicted heavy losses on the Allies, taking almost 100,000 prisoners. The Ghost Division's success owed much to Rommel's subordinates, who aided Rommel more than he admitted in his papers and whom historians have generally overlooked. This book remedies that oversight.
Download or read book Isonzo written by John R. Schindler and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2001-04-30 with total page 435 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the first account in English of a much-overlooked, but important, First World War battlefront located in the mountains astride the border between Italy and the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Not well known in the West, the battles of Isonzo were nevertheless ferocious, and compiled a record of bloodletting that totaled over 1.75 million for both sides. In sharp contrast to claims that neither the Italian nor the Austrian armies were viable fighting forces, Schindler aims to bring the terrible sacrifices endured by both armies back to their rightful place in the history of 20th century Europe. The Habsburg Empire, he contends, lost the war for military and economic reasons rather than for political or ethnic ones. Schindler's account includes references to remarkable personalities such as Mussolini; Tito; Hemingway; Rommel, and the great maestro Toscanini. This Alpine war had profound historical consequences that included the creation of the Yugoslav state, the problem of a rump Austrian state looking to Germany for leadership, and the traumatic effects on a generation of young Italian men who swelled the ranks of the fascists. After nearly a century, Isonzo can assume its proper place in the ranks of the tragic Great War clashes, alongside Verdun, the Somme, and Passchendaele.
Download or read book Great Military Leaders written by William T. Worthington and published by Nova Publishers. This book was released on 2002 with total page 254 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Great Military Leaders - A Bibliography with Vignettes
Download or read book Conflict Landscapes written by Nicholas J. Saunders and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2021-06-24 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Conflict Landscapes explores the long under-acknowledged and under-investigated aspects of where and how modern conflict landscapes interact and conjoin with pre-twentieth-century places, activities, and beliefs, as well as with individuals and groups. Investigating and understanding the often unpredictable power and legacies of landscapes that have seen (and often still viscerally embody) the consequences of mass death and destruction, the book shows, through these landscapes, the power of destruction to preserve, refocus, and often reconfigure the past. Responding to the complexity of modern conflict, the book offers a coherent, integrated, and sensitized hybrid approach, which calls on different disciplines where they overlap in a shared common terrain. Dealing with issues such as memory, identity, emotion, and wellbeing, the chapters tease out the human experience of modern conflict and its relationship to landscape. Conflict Landscapes will appeal to a wide range of disciplines involved in studying conflict, such as archaeology, anthropology, material culture studies, art history, cultural history, cultural geography, military history, and heritage and museum studies.
Download or read book The Battle of Caporetto written by Cyril Falls and published by . This book was released on 1966 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Account of the Austro-German offensive in northeast Italy in 1917, which routed the Italians but ended in a Central Powers' defeat.
Download or read book Parameters written by and published by . This book was released on 1979 with total page 834 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Rommel written by Ralf Georg Reuth and published by Haus Publishing. This book was released on 2020-01-15 with total page 219 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Erwin Rommel is the best-known German field commander of World War II. Repeatedly decorated for valor during the First World War, he would go on to lead the German Panzer divisions in France and North Africa. Even his British opponents admitted to admiring his apparent courage, chivalry and leadership, and he became known by the nickname “Desert Fox.” His death, in October 1944, would give rise to speculation for generations to come on how history should judge him. To many he remains the ideal soldier, but, as Reuth shows, Rommel remained loyal to his Führer until forced to commit suicide, and his fame was largely a creation of the master propagandist Joseph Goebbels. Stripping away the many layers of Nazi and Allied propaganda, Reuth argues that Rommel’s life symbolizes the complexity and conflict of the German tragedy: to have followed Hitler into the abyss, and to have considered that to be his duty.
Download or read book The German War Machine in World War II written by David T. Zabecki and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2019-12-02 with total page 457 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This invaluable resource offers students a comprehensive overview of the German war machine that overran much of Europe during World War II, with close to 300 entries on a variety of topics and a number of key primary source documents. This book provides everything the reader needs to know about the German war machine that developed into the potent armed force under Adolf Hitler. This expansive encyclopedia covers the period of the German Third Reich, from January 1933 to the end of World War II in Europe, in May 1945. Dozens of entries on key battles and military campaigns, military and political leaders, military and intelligence organizations, and social and political topics that shaped German military conduct during World War II are followed by an illuminating epilogue that outlines why Germany lost World War II. A documents section includes more than a dozen fascinating primary sources on such significant events as the Tripartite Pact among Germany, Italy, and Japan; the Battle of Stalingrad; the Normandy Invasion; the Ardennes Offensive; and Germany's surrender. In addition, six appendices provide detailed information on a variety of topics such as German aces, military commanders, and military medals and decorations. The book ends with a chronology and a bibliography of print resources.
