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David T. Zabecki

Known as the War to End all Wars and the Great War, World War I introduced new forms of mass destruction and modern technological warfare. When the Bolsheviks pulled Russia out of the war in late 1917, the Germans turned their offensive efforts to the Western Front in an attempt to win the war in 1918. But as fresh American troops entered Europe, the strategic scales tipped against Germany.

Much of how World War I played out turned on the plans and decisions of the senior-most German and Allied commanders. The Generals' War explores the military strategies of those generals during the last year of the Great War. These six very different men included Germany's Field Marshal Paul von Hindenburg and General Erich Ludendorff; France's Marshals Ferdinand Foch and Philippe Pétain; Great Britain's Field Marshal Sir Douglas Haig; and the United States' General John Pershing. Although history remembers none of them as great captains, these six officers determined for better or worse how World War I was fought on the battlefields of the Western Front between November 1917 and November 1918.

The Generals' War is a landmark exploration of the generalship that shaped the very framework of modern warfare as we know it today and provides a comprehensive and detailed analysis on the senior commanders of the Great War.

Indiana University Press

Twentieth-Century Battles

The Generals' War: Operational Level Command on the Western Front in 1918

Glyn Harper

“A well-researched and highly readable account of one of World War II’s most important ‘turning point’ battles.”—Jerry D. Morelock, Senior Editor at HistoryNet. com

In the early years of World War II, Germany shocked the world with a devastating blitzkrieg, rapidly conquered most of Europe, and pushed into North Africa. As the Allies scrambled to counter the Axis armies, the British Eighth Army confronted the experienced Afrika Corps, led by German field marshal Erwin Rommel, in three battles at El Alamein. In the first battle, the Eighth Army narrowly halted the advance of the Germans during the summer of 1942. However, the stalemate left Nazi troops within striking distance of the Suez Canal, which would provide a critical tactical advantage to the controlling force. War historian Glyn Harper dives into the story, vividly narrating the events, strategies, and personalities surrounding the battles and paying particular attention to the Second Battle of El Alamein, a crucial turning point in the war that would be described by Winston Churchill as “the end of the beginning.” Moving beyond a simple narrative of the conflict, The Battle for North Africa tackles critical themes, such as the problems of coalition warfare, the use of military intelligence, the role of celebrity generals, and the importance of an all-arms approach to modern warfare.

The Battle for North Africa: El Alamein and the Turning Point for World War II

Graydon A. Tunstall

The Tomlinson Prize–winning, “stimulating and informative” account of one of the most significant clashes on the Eastern Front of the Great War (Journal of Military History).

Bloodier than Verdun, the battles for Fortress Przemyl in present-day Poland were pivotal to victory on the Eastern Front during the early years of World War I. Control of the fortress changed hands three times during the fall of 1914. In 1915, the Austro-Hungarian armies launched three major offensives to penetrate the Russian encirclement and relieve the 120,000 people trapped in the besieged fortress. Drawing on myriad sources, historian Graydon A. Tunstall tells of the impossible conditions facing the garrison: starvation, “horse-meat” diets, deplorable medical care, prostitution, alcoholism, dismal morale, and a failed breakout attempt.

By the time the fortress finally fell to the Russians on March 22, 1915, the Hapsburg Army had sustained 800,000 casualties; the Russians, over a million. The fortress, however, had served its purpose. Tunstall argues that the besieged garrison kept the Russian army from advancing farther and obliterating the already weakening Austro-Hungarian forces at the outset of the War to End All Wars.

The World War I Historical Association awarded Written in Blood the 2016 Tomlinson Prize.

Written in Blood: The Battles for Fortress Przemyl in WWI

Ronnie Day

“A detailed, up-to-date, integrated air-land-sea history” of a pivotal WWII campaign in the Pacific from both American and Japanese perspectives (Vincent P. O'Hara, author of In Passage Perilous).
 
 In 1942, the Solomon Islands formed the stepping stones toward Rabaul, the main base of Japanese operations in the South Pacific, and the Allies’ primary objective. The stunning defeat of Japanese forces at the Naval Battle of Guadalcanal in November marked the turning point in the war against Japan and the start of an offensive in the Central Solomons aimed at New Georgia.
 
New Georgia: The Second Battle for the Solomons tells the story of the land, sea, and air battles fought there from March through October 1943. Making careful and copious use of both Japanese and Allied sources, Ronnie Day masterfully weaves the intricate threads of these battles into a well-crafted narrative of this pivotal period in the war. As Day makes clear, combat in the Solomons exemplified the war in the Pacific, especially the importance of air power, something the Japanese failed to understand until it was too late, and the strategy of island hopping, bypassing Japanese strongholds (including Rabaul) in favor of weaker or more strategically advantageous targets. This multifaceted account gives the fighting for New Georgia its proper place in the history of the drive to break the Japanese defensive perimeter and bring the homeland within range of Allied bombers.

New Georgia: The Second Battle for the Solomons

Tobias R. Philbin

The definitive study of one of the pivotal naval battles of the Great War.
 
 On January 24, 1915, a German naval force commanded by Admiral Franz von Hipper conducted a raid on British fishing fleets in the area of the Dogger Banks. The force was engaged by a British force, which had been alerted by a decoded radio intercept. The ensuing battle would prove to be the largest and longest surface engagement until the Battle of Jutland the following summer. While the Germans lost an armored cruiser with heavy loss of life and Hipper’s flagship was almost sunk, confusion in executing orders allowed the Germans to escape. The British considered the battle a victory; but the Germans had learned important lessons and they would be better prepared for the next encounter with the British fleet at Jutand. Tobias Philbin’s Battle of Dogger Bank provides a keen analytical description of the battle and its place in the naval history of World War I.
 
 “Tobias Philbin has written a very entertaining and informative book on the Battle of Dogger Bank. It will be enjoyed by a wide audience including naval historians, strategists, and those interested in how broader long-term decision-making determines the manner in which battles are fought, won and lost.” —The International Journal of Maritime History
 
 “The author’s research in British and German archives and knowledge of secondary sources produces a significant work on the war at sea.” —Stand-To
 
 “An interesting and stimulating book that is a useful contribution to the history of the First World War in the North Sea.” —The Mariner’s Mirror

Battle of Dogger Bank: The First Dreadnought Engagement, January 1915

Michael B. Barrett

An authoritative study of World War I’s often-overlooked Romanian front.
 
 In contrast to the trench-war deadlock on the Western Front, combat in Romania and Transylvania in 1916 foreshadowed the lightning warfare of World War II. When Romania joined the Allies and invaded Transylvania without warning, the Germans responded by unleashing a campaign of bold, rapid infantry movements, with cavalry providing cover or pursuing the crushed foe. Hitting where least expected and advancing before the Romanians could react―even bombing their capital from a Zeppelin soon after war was declared―the Germans and Austrians poured over the formidable Transylvanian Alps onto the plains of Walachia, rolling up the Romanian army from west to east, and driving the shattered remnants into Russia. Prelude to Blitzkrieg tells the story of this largely ignored campaign to determine why it did not devolve into the mud and misery of trench warfare, so ubiquitous elsewhere.
 
 “This work will stand as the definitive study of the Central Powers part of the campaign for some time to come.” —Journal of Military History
 
 “Barnett’s book is a valuable addition to the field. He writes well and with authority. He has been able to illuminate a little-known corner of the First World War and provide a state-of-the-art operational history combining detailed narrative with prescient analysis.” —American Historical Review

Prelude to Blitzkrieg: The 1916 Austro-German Campaign in Romania

Harold M. Tanner

“A well-organized and excellently researched work” (H-War) on one of the crucial battles of China’s civil war.

In the spring of 1946, Communists and Nationalist Chinese were battled for control of Manchuria and supremacy in the civil war. The Nationalist attack on Siping ended with a Communist withdrawal, but further pursuit was halted by a ceasefire brokered by the American general, George Marshall. Within three years, Mao Zedong’s troops had captured Manchuria and would soon drive Chiang Kai-shek’s forces off the mainland. Did Marshall, as Chiang later claimed, save the Communists and determine China’s fate? Putting the battle into the context of the military and political struggles fought, Harold M. Tanner casts light on all sides of this historic confrontation and shows how the outcome has been, and continues to be, interpreted to suit the needs of competing visions of China’s past and future.

“A genuine addition to our knowledge about this battle and the Chinese civil war in general.” — Mark Wilkinson, Virginia Military Institute

The Battle for Manchuria and the Fate of China: Siping, 1946

S.P. MacKenzie

An “excellent history” of a massive Communist offensive and the brigades that resisted it (H-War).

The sacrifice of the British regiment known as the “Glorious Glosters” in defense of the Imjin River line and the hilltop fights of Australian and Canadian battalions in the Kapyong Valley have achieved great renown. Using official and unofficial source material ranging from personal interviews to war diaries, this in-depth study, the first of its kind, seeks to disentangle the mythology surrounding both battles and explain why events unfolded as they did. Based on thorough familiarity with all available sources, many not previously utilized, it sheds new light on fighting “the forgotten war.”

“In Korea, on the night of 22nd April 1951, communist forces unleashed what remains, to this day, their greatest offensive since Zhukov’s storm on Berlin. In the desperate fighting that followed, the key flanks of free world forces were held by one British and one Commonwealth brigade. The former took on a Chinese army; the latter, a Chinese division. Six decades later, an American historian has dismantled the barriers between Australian, British, Canadian, and New Zealand accounts of those whirlwind days to compose the only comparative analysis of the tragedy on the Imjin and the stand at Kapyong.”—Andrew Salmon, author of Scorched Earth, Black Snow: Britain and Australia in the Korean War, 1950

The Imjin and Kapyong Battles: Korea, 1951

Vincent P. O'Hara

An invaluable account of one of the most overlooked sea battles of World War II.
 
 By mid-1942 the Allies were losing the Mediterranean war: Malta was isolated and its civilian population faced starvation. In June 1942 the British Royal Navy made a stupendous effort to break the Axis stranglehold. The British dispatched armed convoys from Gibraltar and Egypt toward Malta. In a complex battle lasting more than a week, Italian and German forces defeated Operation Vigorous, the larger eastern effort, and ravaged the western convoy, Operation Harpoon, in a series of air, submarine, and surface attacks culminating in the Battle of Pantelleria. Just two of seventeen merchant ships that set out for Malta reached their destination. In Passage Perilous presents a detailed description of the operations and assesses the actual impact Malta had on the fight to deny supplies to Rommel’s army in North Africa. The book’s discussion of the battle’s operational aspects highlights the complex relationships between air and naval power and the influence of geography on littoral operations.
 
 “An important and highly recommended addition to the literature on World War II in the Mediterranean.” —IPP Naval Maritime History

In Passage Perilous: Malta and the Convoy Battles of June 1942

Richard C. Hall

“An important account of a very overlooked aspect of the Great War. ” —Strategy Page

With the transfer of German units to the western front in the spring of 1918, the position of the Central Powers on the Macedonian front worsened. Materiel became scarce and morale among the Bulgarian forces deteriorated. The Entente Command perceived in Macedonia an excellent opportunity to apply additional pressure to the Germans, who were already retreating on the western front. In September, Entente forces undertook an offensive directed primarily at Bulgarian defenses at Dobro Pole. Balkan Breakthrough tells the story of that battle and its consequences. Dobro Pole was the catalyst for the collapse of the Central Powers and the Entente victory in southeastern Europe―a defeat that helped persuade the German military leadership that the war was lost. While decisive in ending World War I in the region, the battle did not resolve the underlying national issues there.

“[Hall’s] recreation of the morale crisis that eroded the fighting capability of the Bulgarian Army generally, and underlay its collapse at Dobro Pole and afterward, is a welcome addition to the history of a largely ignored front of the First World War. ” —International History Review

“Incredibly rich … well written, and thoroughly researched. For those unfamiliar with the critical role of the Balkans in World War I historiography, this will be an extremely useful introduction. ” —Graydon Tunstall, University of South Florida

Balkan Breakthrough: The Battle of Dobro Pole 1918

Anthony P. Tully

“[Tully] paints Admiral Nishimura's high-speed run into history with an entirely fresh palette of detail.” —James D. Hornfischer, New York Times–bestselling author of Neptune’s Inferno
 
 Surigao Strait in the Philippine Islands was the scene of a major battleship duel during the Battle of Leyte Gulf. Because the battle was fought at night and had few survivors on the Japanese side, the events of that naval engagement have been passed down in garbled accounts.
 
 Anthony P. Tully pulls together all of the existing documentary material, including newly discovered accounts and a careful analysis of US Navy action reports, to create a new and more detailed description of the action. In several respects, Tully's narrative differs radically from the received versions and represents an important historical corrective. Also included in the book are a number of previously unpublished photographs and charts that bring a fresh perspective to the battle.
 
 “By giving a fuller view of the Japanese side, Tully's work forces a substantial revision of the traditional picture of the battle. Battle of Surigao Strait is not only military history based on scrupulous use of a plethora of new source materials, but is a spanking good read. Highly recommended.” —War in History
 
 “Tully has managed to trace the complicated flow of and reason for events on the nights of 24-25 October with a skill and aplomb that forces one to reconsider previously held views.” —Naval History

Battle of Surigao Strait

Harold J. Goldberg

“The narrative moves smoothly and crisply. There is effective treatment of strategy, preparations, and then the invasion and battle for Saipan itself.” —Spencer C. Tucker, author of American Revolution

In June 1944 the attention of the nation was riveted on events unfolding in France. But in the Pacific, the Battle of Saipan was of extreme strategic importance. This is a gripping account of one of the most dramatic engagements of World War II. The conquest of Saipan and the neighboring island of Tinian was a turning point in the war in the Pacific as it made the American victory against Japan inevitable. Until this battle, the Japanese continued to believe that success in the war remained possible. While Japan had suffered serious setbacks as early as the Battle of Midway in 1942, Saipan was part of her inner defense line, so victory was essential. The American victory at Saipan forced Japan to begin considering the reality of defeat. For the Americans, the capture of Saipan meant secure air bases for the new B-29s that were now within striking distance of all Japanese cities, including Tokyo.

“Harold Goldberg’s riveting story of this conflict brings the dead back to life by blending rigorous research with dramatic narratives by hundreds of survivors. He has written a superb account of a pivotal, little-known, and heart-breaking battle.” —Col. Joseph H. Alexander, USMC (ret.),author of Storm Landings

“Using recent interviews he conducted with extant US veterans, [Goldberg] skillfully develops the soldiers’ view of the battle for Saipan in an engaging, clearly written and interesting volume.” —The Journal of Military History

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Twentieth-Century Battles - Поредицата книги

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