Burning Tanks And An Empty Desert

The Successes and Sacrifices of the British Army in 1914 This work is a study of military history from the top down and also from the bottom up. It describes a brigade—four thousand men—of the old British Regular Army that fought in the British Expeditionary Force in France in 1914. This army was of the highest quality but was very small. The book describes the strategy and tactics of the fighting, in which the British played a major role. But the work also describes the fighting from the point of view of junior officers and men in the ranks from the bottom up. Johnny: The Legend and Tragedy of General Sir Ian Hamilton Hamilton was a heroic leader of men. He had an extremely successful career until his last and biggest campaign, the assault on the Gallipoli peninsula in 1915. This was a disaster because Hamilton, despite all his other qualities, was an inadequate strategist. General Sir Roger Wheeler, chief of the general staff and professional head of the British Army, wrote an enthusiastic foreword to the book. It was also very favourably received by the Royal United Services Institute. Battles of a Gunner Officer: Tunisia, Sicily, Normandy and the Long Road to Germany This book describes some of the most important campaigns fought by the British army during the Second World War. The unique feature of the book is that the campaigns are revealed through the eyes of a successful battery commander in the Royal Artillery (widely considered to be the most successful individual element of the British army). General Sir Richard Barrons, a senior serving officer and head of the Joint Forces Command, wrote the foreword to the book and commented on the unique nature of the work.

Adolf Hitler’s war in Africa arose from the urgent need to reinforce the Italian dictator, Benito Mussolini, whose 1940 invasion of Egypt had been soundly beaten. Of secondary importance to his ideological dream of conquering the Soviet Union, Germany’s Führer rushed a small mechanised force into the unfamiliar North African theatre to stave off defeat and avert any political fallout. This fresh account begins with the arrival of the largely unprepared German formations, soon to be stricken by disease and heavily reliant upon captured materiel, as they fought a bloody series of see-sawing battles across the Western Desert. David Mitchelhill-Green has gathered a wealth of personal narratives from both sides as he follows the brash exploits of General Erwin Rommel, intent on retaking Libya; the Nile firmly in his sights. Against this backdrop is the brutal human experience of war itself.

The Second World War involved most of the countries of the world and left so many millions dead and maimed, disorganised and devastated through personal and communal loss. This book recovers some of South Africa’s soldiers’ experiences from the physical and mental debris of the war. Individuals are important; their lives – used as lenses – give us colour and texture, and their voices tell the stories of ordinary soldiers. Using their memoirs and diaries, the vitality of their endeavours is reasserted, their successes and failures, victories and indecencies are re-examined, and their magnanimity and the general triumph of the human spirit are celebrated.

QUEEN VICTORIAS PALADINS The unique feature of this book is that it is a dual biography. Garnet Wolseley (18331913) and Frederick Roberts (18321914) were the most important British soldiers during the last quarter of the nineteenth century. They both became field marshals and were both raised to the peerage and entered the House of Lords. Wolseley and Roberts were Queen Victorias paladins. Their reputations were built on the expeditions they led. Wolseley commanded forces in North America and Africa; Roberts commanded in Afghanistan and, at the end of his career, in South Africa. Both men were army reformers, and Roberts dedicated his retirement to a campaign to introduce a brief period of compulsory army service for all physically fit young men, with the objective of building a large reserve of partially trained soldiers. However, this proposal was not acceptable to any British government. Both Wolseley and Roberts left extensive well-written personal memoirs, and their campaigns also generated a substantial literature. They both attracted followers. The officers who surrounded themsome of them highly talentedbecame known as the Wolseley Ring and the Roberts Ring. Queen Victorias paladins devoted their lives to the British Empire. They demonstrated formidable strategic and tactical skills and won a succession of wars against brave but militarily backward opponents. This book compares Wolseley and Roberts as commanders. It also touches on whether Wolseley and Roberts can be compared with generals like Wellington and Montgomery, who won their battles against large, well-organized, and well-armed enemy armies. It is by no means certain that Wolseley and Roberts would have done well in such different circumstances.

A journalist who accompanied a senior commanding general as he led his troops into battle during Desert Storm gives an insider's view of the heroism and tragedy that she witnessed on the front line. Molly Moore, senior correspondent for The Washington Post, didn’t think she’d be the only US journalist with a close-up view of the Gulf War, but when Lt. Gen. Walter Boomer, commander of the US Marine forces, invited her to shadow him while his troops planned and executed the invasion of Kuwait, that’s exactly the situation she found herself in. The result of this brave journalistic effort is a vivid and dramatic account of the Gulf War—one that does justice to the diligent, gutsy marines that successfully drove Saddam Hussein’s military from the country, without romanticizing the horrors of battle. Tense, chaotic, and thrumming with emotional resonance, Moore’s examination of the invasion offers indispensable insight into the 100-hour invasion that formed the overture to America’s War on Terror.

This political and military history of World War II traces the global conflict from its origins in the 1920s and 1930s to Japan's final surrender in 1945.

"The story of the Battle of Kursk - the greatest single land-and-air combat engagement in military history"--Dust jacket.