Peter Crichton seized the outbreak of the Second World War to escape his journalistic job in London. Ever adventurous and somewhat impetuous he quickly transferred regiments to the 4th Queen's Own Hussars who were destined for North Africa. In no time he found himself fighting a desperate and ill-fated rear-guard action in the mountains of Northern Greece. One of only 180, out of 600, of his Regiment to be evacuated, he was soon involved in the brutal battles of Alam Halfa and El Alamein. While the 4th Hussars recovered and re-trained, the Author found time to play polo and fall in love. By a twist of fate, he was ordered to deploy to Yugoslavia where he was attached to Tito's partisans as they fought their way North, island by island, hurrying the Germans' withdrawal. After four and a half years' absence, he reached London on VE Day, 1945, surprised but grateful to be alive, unlike so many of his contemporaries. Although he wrote up his experiences with admirable clarity and modesty, his papers remained unpublished until Robert, his son, decided to bring them to a wider audience. The result is an action-packed and graphic memoir of unusual breadth.

The first Rolls-Royce armoured car was a privately owned vehicle fitted with a machine-gun and a limited amount of armour plate, used by the Royal Naval Air Service in Flanders in 1914. By 1915, nearly 100 had been built and turned over to the Army. From then on, as Sir Albert Stern said 'They searched the world for war', operating as far apart as the northwest frontier of India, the Middle East and southern Africa. The cars were fast, quiet and reliable but above all powerful. 'A Rolls in the desert is above rubies,' said Lawrence of Arabia. After World War I, the War Office continued to produce the Rolls-Royce while tinkering with the design. These further cars served all across the Empire, including in Ireland and even later Shanghai, returning for a final brief appearance in the early stages of World War II.This book tells the complete story of the Rolls-Royce Armoured Car, following its design and development as it fought from theatre to theatre during World War I and the turbulent inter-war years.

Learning, innovation and adaptation are not concepts that we necessarily associate with the British army of the First World War. Yet the need to learn from mistakes, to exploit new opportunities and to adapt to complex situations are enduring and timeless. This revealing work is the first institutional examination of the army's process for learning during the First World War. Drawing on organisational learning and management theories, Aimee Fox critiques existing approaches to military learning in wartime. Focused around a series of case studies, the book ranges across multiple operational theatres and positions the army within a broader context in terms of its relationships with allies and civilians to reveal that learning was more complex and thoroughgoing than initially thought. It grapples with the army's failings and shortcomings, explores its successes and acknowledges the inherent difficulties of learning in a desperate and lethally competitive environment.

The Austrian artillery of the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars was a creation of the renowned Lichtenstein system of the early 1750s. This weight system produced a series of weapons of 3-, 6- and 12-pdr. calibre along with 7- and 10-pdr. Howitzers. In the 1780s they were joined by cavalry artillery guns with their 'Wurst' seats. In 1811 Austria also began the establishment of rocket troops based upon the British invention, whilst their heavy and siege pieces throughout the period remained the 12-, 18- and 24-pdrs. This title by David Hollins describes this system as well as its operational use throughout the period.

Selected for the 2019 Commandant's Professional Reading List J. Glenn Gray entered the army as a private in May 1941, having been drafted on the same day he was informed of his doctorate in philosophy from Columbia University. He was discharged as a second lieutenant in October 1945, having been awarded a battlefield commission during fighting in France. Gray saw service in North Africa, Italy, France, and Germany in a counter-espionage unit. Fourteen years after his discharge, Gray began to reread his war journals and letters in an attempt to find some meaning in his wartime experiences. The result is The Warriors, a philosophical meditation on what warfare does to us and an examination of the reasons soldiers act as they do. Gray explains the attractions of battle—the adrenaline rush, the esprit de corps—and analyzes the many rationalizations made by combat troops to justify their actions. In the end, Gray notes, “War reveals dimensions of human nature both above and below the acceptable standards for humanity.”

The fourteenth and fifteenth centuries were a time of great upheaval for medieval France. In 1328 the Capetian line came to an end. This was the trigger for the Hundred Years War (1337-1453) as successive English kings attempted to uphold their claim to the French throne. Catastrophic defeats at Crecy and Poitiers shook the French kingdom to its core. A period of respite followed under Bertrand du Guesclin, but an even more devastating assault was to follow, under the warrior-king par excellence Henry V, and the French disintegration continued until 1429. This book details how the French began a recovery, partly triggered by the young visionary Joan of Arc, that would end with them as the major European military power.

The 8th century heralded the start of a golden age in the history of the Islamic world. At this time, the Sunni Muslim 'Abbasid Caliphate, with its capital at Baghdad, ruled virtually the entire Islamic world. Islamic military power peaked in the 9th century, but by the end of this golden age in the 11th century, the 'Abbasid Caliphs had little political and virtually no military power. Featuring numerous photographs of artefacts and eight full colour plates by Graham Turner, David Nicolle's book examines the recruitment, organization, weaponry and uniforms of the armies of the Caliphates from 862-1098.

Osprey's study of the German Afrikakorps of World War II (1939-1945). The campaign in North Africa between September 1940 and May 1943 holds not only an enduring fascination for postwar generations; but also a perhaps unique degree of nostalgia for some surviving participants. The campaign was no less costly in terms of human lives and material than many others; but regret at the cost is accompanied by positive memories in the minds of many veterans. This is not to suggest that the dead have been forgotten; but an almost mystical bond nevertheless exists, even between former enemies, amongst veterans of the desert campaign. Gordon Williamson examines the history, organisation and uniforms of Rommel's Afrikakorps.

Physical training in the US Army has a surprisingly short history. Bodies for Battle by Garrett Gatzemeyer is the first in-depth analysis of the US Army's particular set of practices and values, known as its physical culture, that emerged in the late nineteenth century in response to tactical challenges and widespread anxieties over diminishing masculinity. The US Army's physical culture assumed a unity of mind and body; learning a physical act was not just physical but also mental and social. Physical training and exercise could therefore develop the whole individual, even societies. Bodies for Battle is a study of how the US Army developed modern, scientific training methods in response to concerns about entering a competitive imperial world where embodied nations battled for survival in a Social Darwinist framework. This book connects social and cultural worries about American masculinity and manliness with military developments (strategic, tactical, technological) in the early twentieth century, and it links trends in the United States and the US Army with larger trans-Atlantic trends. Bodies for Battle presents new perspectives on US civil-military relations, army officers' unease with citizen armies, and the implications of compulsory military service. Gatzemeyer offers a deeply informed historical understanding of physical training practices in the US Army, the reasons why soldiers exercise the way they do, and the influence of physical culture's evolution on present-day reform efforts. Between the 1880s and the 1950s, the army's set of practices and values matured through interactions between combat experience, developments in the field of physical education, institutional outsiders, application beyond the military, and popular culture. A persistent tension between discipline and group averages on one hand and maximizing the individual warrior's abilities on the other manifested early and continues to this day. Bodies for Battle also builds on earlier studies on sport in the US military by highlighting historical divergences between athletics and disciplinary and combat readiness impulses. Additionally, Bodies for Battle analyzes applications of the army's physical culture to wider society in an effort to "prehabilitate" citizens for service.

In this first volume of a planned two-volume set, Zamulin takes a close look at the condition of the German and Soviet forces following the winter campaign. Analyzing first the German side, the author demonstrates that the Germans were in a woeful condition, especially with respect to the number of serviceable armored vehicles and the lack of infantry. However, Hitler was determined to regain the initiative in the East, though some German commanders expressed concerns. Zamulin then looks at the German plans for the summer of 1943 and the process of rebuilding its forces. As he shows through data, the Germans struggled to replenish Army Group South and Model's Ninth Army in the north, and the latter was hampered almost right up to the launching of Operation Citadel by the need to conduct a major anti-partisan operation in the woods and thickets in the German rear, using panzer and infantry divisions that had been earmarked for Citadel. Zamulin next examines the Soviet side, and discusses the planning for the summer campaign, including the decision to adopt a pre-meditated defense of the Kursk salient and to create a multi-echeloned system of defense (though incomplete in depth). The author demonstrates that the Red Army was able quickly to replenish its forces and also create a large mobile reserve, the Steppe Front. Thus, the delay in launching Citadel was not the fatal German error, and it would have failed even if launched earlier.

At the very beginning of the Second World War Germany invaded and occupied Belgium. Yet less than a year later some of Belgium's citizens volunteered to join the Waffen-SS and go and fight on the newly formed Eastern Front against Stalin's Soviet Union. By the end of the war thousands had volunteered. Casualties were high, but there were survivors and they returned home, often to face condemnation and retribution. This book is about the war they fought in their own words, the very few who remain, the last testament before they are all gone. The motivations of these men were complex: the Flemings have their own culture and identity and some longed for a state independent of French-speaking Belgium. Some volunteered through a deep hatred of communism, often fuelled by their Catholic faith. Some, of course, were simply persuaded by Hitler's vision of a new world order. The Flemish Waffen-SS, in various configurations, saw action on the Eastern Front from 1941 onwards - at the siege of Leningrad, in the Ukraine, then retreating into Germany itself with the remnants surrendering to the Allies as the Reich lay in ruins. This was hard fighting: and for those men who had chosen this path, the war was not over. Some stayed in Germany, some returned home, perhaps to trial as war criminals. The interviews and images gathered by Jonathan Trigg are vital historical documents.

Conducted between 27 May and 4 June 1940, Operation Dynamo was the evacuation from Dunkirk of most of the British Expeditionary Force cut off and surrounded during Fall Gelb - phase one of Germany's invasion of France. Despite the impression that British forces had no further presence there until D-Day, this was not the case. From 5 to 18 June 1940, during Fall Rot - phase two of the campaign, several British and Empire infantry and armoured formations and an RAF contingent fought on in France. Two further British and Empire divisions were despatched to be part of a 'Second BEF' but the blitzkrieg advance of the German panzers and mechanised infantry proved unstoppable. Operation Cycle was a further evacuation from Le Havre, though the attempted rescue of the 51st Highland Division from St Valery-en-Caux ended in its surrender. Nevertheless, a rear-guard campaign allowed remaining troops to be evacuated from several ports during Operation Aerial. This book examines an important yet considerably under-appreciated aspect of British participation in the Battle of France. It describes the many desperate struggles against German forces that were overwhelmingly superior in numbers, equipment and flexibility and tactics on the battlefield, by improvised British formations, often of rear echelon and territorial troops. Usually short of arms and ammunition, equipment and organisation, they never lacked courage and determination. This story has been largely overlooked but it deserves to be told and for full acknowledgement to be given to the heroism and the sacrifices made by those who were there.

This all-new volume chronicles the events that climaxed on the field of Austerlitz in one of the most famous battles of the Napoleonic Wars (1799-1815). Not only was it the first campaign that Napoleon waged as Emperor of France, but also the first great test for his Grande Armee. The Emperor himself regarded it as his greatest victory and it undoubtedly won him a mastery of Europe that would remain unbroken for almost a decade. Most accounts of the campaign have until now been based almost exclusively on French sources, but following extensive research in the Austrian archives Ian Castle is now able to provide a far more balanced account of Austerlitz.

An Unappreciated Field of Endeavour is not a comprehensive examination of British Expeditionary Force (BEF) logistics on the Western Front, nor indeed a short history. To achieve the former would involve several volumes and the latter would omit much fascinating detail. It does however bring a new and fresh perspective by analysing, in a series of engaging essays, the critical contribution of particular components of military and commercial logistics to the preparations and operations of the British and Empire Armies in the pre-war period and during the Great War on the Western Front, through the lens of specific elements and themes, each of which, cast penetrating light into dark corners of an important, yet mainly forgotten story. An Unappreciated Field of Endeavour explains how pre-war strategic, economic, political and defence dynamics constrained military logistic resilience but influenced the plans to rely upon commercial assets to support military and naval operations, before examining the role of the commercial railways and mercantile marine in the planning, preparation and execution of Defence mobilization and movement in the United Kingdom during Transition To War in 1914. The role of British railways in playing a defining part in a critical moment of European history is explored in depth as are the technical processes and managerial interfaces that enabled them. The contribution of British commercial and business leaders and managers to enhancing the combat capability of the BEF is examined through the lens of the increasing industrialization of logistic support to operations. In particular, the influence of commercial practice in improving military logistic efficiency and effectiveness, whilst also subtly changing military culture is matched to the dynamics and frictions of employing commercial logistic advisers in the operational environment of the Western Front. Whilst, the exploits of the combat elements of the BEF in 1914 have been analysed in depth, the contribution of the logisticians who kept the BEF in the fight has effectively marched into the mists of time. An Unappreciated Field of Endeavour explores the success of the BEF's Quartermaster-General, Wully Robertson, in utilizing the skill of his logistic planners and soldiers to deliver the agile operational logistic capability that was the salvation of the BEF in 1914. Also examined, is the long forgotten but extraordinary logistic feat of deploying Indian Expeditionary Force A to France, through the mobilization and transportation of its soldiers across deserts and oceans before its complex logistic integration to the BEF in France. The solutions to the challenges in executing these operations by military and civilian logisticians from Britain, France and India, offer unusual insight into Coalition co-operation from three culturally diverse countries. Rarely studied, logistic planning, resources and execution played a crucial role in the preparations for the Battle of the Somme. These important aspects are analysed to highlight a developing capability, the military 'learning curve' of which, is of at least equal significance to those in the operational and tactical environments. The influence of the BEF's Wheeled Motor Transport (WMT) component upon the operational art on the Western Front is reviewed, including its impact upon the deployment and employment of armour, infantry, artillery and aviation. These were all affected by the expanding use of WMT, creating a requirement to improve its efficiency and effectiveness. Logistics were fundamental to the use of tanks in the Great War, an aspect comprehensively examined, to assess how transportation in particular, constrained the development of operational deployments. An Unappreciated Field of Endeavour also analyses how, in 1918, the BEF's logisticians were able to generate the capability to sustain All-Arms mobile three dimensional combat operations in a chemical warfare environment, whilst maintaining the momentum of the advance, having focused mainly upon supporting siege warfare for the previous four years. The corporate memory of the commercial aspect is even more faded than the military one but it was an essential component of the British and Empire endeavours on the Western Front and is lucidly exposed. The combined military and commercial story has many facets: innovative people, constant training, emerging technology, developing doctrine, fresh ideas, new equipment, maturing experience, complex planning, increasing mechanization and relentless industry. An Unappreciated Field of Endeavour draws these threads from the bobbins to weave a colourful pattern of achievement, whilst illustrating how logistics evolved to overcome complex challenges and in doing so, transformed operations, creating a Great War legacy that links to defence logistics in the 21st Century, particularly in the expanding arena of contractor support to operations. Logistics however, do not swim alone in the military pond. At the operational level, the role of logistics is to develop, sustain and regenerate combat power to ensure that the tempo and effectiveness of the operations maintain momentum. Equally, logistics places constraints on strategy and tactics. On the Western Front, the BEF's enormous logistic capability was not an end in itself but a vital means to achieve the military aim, an observation as valid today as it was in 1918. Great War military logistics, not generally perceived to be racy, has, for far too long, held its light behind a bushel, its practitioners, from General to Private, long gone and the experiences they had and lessons they learnt, lying in dusty volumes in archives and libraries. An Unappreciated Field of Endeavour brings their important work to life, whilst assessing the significant aspects and identifying relevant lessons for military logistics in the 21st Century.

A wide-eyed South African conscript relates his small share of the war in Angola and Namibia in the 1980s. This is not the usual military history, written by a commander armed with facts, nor a researched story of a war or campaign. It is a personal experience. Being brutally honest it will resonate not only with readers of all things military but also with a wider literary audience, for its poetic prose and subtle sentiments, and for its entertaining narrative. It may thus be of interest not only to the South African men who were there, but to their women who were left behind, and to all men and women anywhere. It is a book by a non-warrior dumped into a war, which nevertheless provides vivid alternative first-hand accounts whose validity cannot simply be brushed aside by professional historians. Descriptive writing takes readers right into the colourful past, into action and into personal interactions. Notes made at the time preserve intimate details of what it was like to be a White South African during Apartheid, and the surprisingly humane culture within its small but effective White-led Army. Dialogue is remembered verbatim as is the unique jargon and profanity of the time, with English translations where Afrikaans is spoken. After a brief life background the narrative moves chronologically through two years of military training, deployment, combat and demobilisation, with comments on the human effect of these experiences. The result is a compelling time capsule: the South African Defence Force ceased to exist in 1994 when South Africa began its non-racial democracy. Surprisingly, because it was a humane army it was a good one. This is not just a liberal attitude. It meant that when a thing needed doing, it was done conscientiously and thoroughly, with thought for secondary effects. It was a dangerous opponent to have, inflicting maximum casualties where this was necessary, but when the need passed, it switched easily to a humanitarian purpose. There was much lost that being unique (and laudable) in the Old South African culture and in its Army's approach and attitude, is fascinating today.

The unputdownable and action-packed story of Ancient Rome.Correus and Flavius are half-brothers, sons of a brilliant general. One, son of a slave, is a born warrior destined to excel. The other, a nobleman by birth, must struggle relentlessly to succeed. When they both join the Centuriate, a position Flavius has always known he will inherit, and one that Correus has long coveted, together they face the brutal reality of war. Fighting German barbarians will prove dangerous, not only to their bodies, but to their souls as well... The Centurions is an epic Roman adventure, perfect for fans of Simon Scarrow and Ben Kane.

Cady Hoyte, like many other young lads of his generation, proudly joined the army in 1915 to fight for his King and Country. From the Warwickshire town of Nuneaton, he joined the Warwickshire Yeomanry as a gunner in the Machine Gun Corps and quickly found that army life made no concessions for an eager young 19 year old. Never having ridden a horse before, he develops a relationship with the horses, which made it all the harder when he had to say farewell and leave them behind to sail aboard the stricken ship, the Leasowe Castle, to fight in the trenches of France. Written with humour, Cady's diary gives a detailed account of the daily struggles and constant dangers of army life in the First World War without ever losing sight of his respect for human life.

Part 1. A historical background of the British conquest of India, from the Honourable East India Company to the Army of the Crown. World Wars One & Two. Part 2. Regimental histories, class composition and uniforms. Annexes : Ranks in the Indian Army - list of Governors General - list of Commanders in Chief - military personalities - wars and campaigns - Victoria Cross recipients - abbreviations - glossary - Native sovereigns - Some geographical sites - sketches of Indian soldiers - recommended reading.

This is a well-researched and authoritative account by a military historian, Maj Gen Syed Ali Hamid. It embraces the evolution of the Pakistan Armoured Corps, including its culture, organisation, doctrine, equipment, operational performance, overseas deployment, garrisons, personalities and a myriad of events that together portray what and why the corps is at this point in time. Beginning with the mechanization of the Indian cavalry in 1938, it spans nearly 95 years and chronicles the corps remarkable growth. It narrates how a redundant horse mounted force went through various stages of metamorphosis, surmounted the challenges of Independence and transformed from a small supporting arm into the mechanized spearhead of the Pakistan Army. Its richness lies in the portrayal the Muslim clans that form the rank and file of the Armoured Corps, as well as tracing the development of its officer corps from its genesis and onwards through the Second World War and leading onto post-Independence. This includes an assessment of many personalities who performed a leading role in the development of the corps. It also provides an interesting insight into the culture of the Pakistan Armoured Corps which is a unique blend of values and traditions inherited from its predecessor, with those of a post-Independence national army. This highly informative book compliments publications on the Pakistan Army by elaborating on the role and structure of one of its principal arms. Since it covers in some detail the Pakistan-India conflicts, it also compliments books published by the Indian authors by presenting a view from 'the other side of the hill.' To place the evolution and development of the armoured corps in context, the author has painstakingly researched and presented hitherto fragmented information on the Pakistan Army. Consequently the book also emerges as a work of value to an audience which is interested in how the Pakistan Army evolved and the milestones in its development. Having served in the Pakistan Army for 50 years, the author has a unique insight into the evolution of the corps and is linked with its past through his father Maj Gen Syed Shahid Hamid who was commissioned from Sandhurst into the cavalry of British India in 1933. Shahid was one of the pioneers of the Pakistan Army and the author of several books on political and military history of the sub-continent. The publication is liberally illustrated with a large number of photographs, many of them unpublished, which makes for very interesting reading. There is also a liberal use of maps to support the text. For a serious student of the military history of the Pakistan-India Subcontinent, this book is a major scholarly work with footnotes / endnotes, a bibliography of ten pages of primary and secondary references, and two large indexes.

In 1939 more than 140,000 New Zealanders enlisted to fight overseas during World War II. Of these, 104,000 served in the Second New Zealand Expeditionary Force. Initially thrown into the doomed campaign to halt the German blitzkrieg on Greece and Crete (1941), the division was rebuilt under the leadership of MajGen Sir Bernard Freyberg, and became the elite corps within Montgomery's Eighth Army in the desert. After playing a vital role in the victory at El Alamein (1942) the 'Kiwis' were the vanguard of the pursuit to Tunisia. In 1943-45 the division was heavily engaged in the Italian mountains, especially at Cassino (1944); it ended the war in Trieste. Meanwhile, a smaller NZ force supported US forces against the Japanese in the Solomons and New Guinea (1942-44). Fully illustrated with specially commissioned colour plates, this is the story of the Second New Zealand Expeditionary Force's vital contribution to Allied victory in World War II.

Fascist Italy's ultimate defeat was foreordained. It was a pygmy among giants, and Hitler's failure to destroy the Soviet Union in 1941 doomed all three Axis powers. But Italy's defeat was unique; the only asset that it conquered - briefly - with its own unaided forces in the entire Second World War was a dusty and useless corner of Africa, British Somaliland. And Italy's forces dissolved in 1943 almost without resistance, in stark contrast to the grim fight to the last cartridge of Hitler's army or the fanatical faithfulness unto death of the troops of Imperial Japan. This book tries to understand why the Italian armed forces and Fascist regime were so remarkably ineffective at an activity - war - central to their existence. It approaches the issue above all from the perspective of military culture, through analysis of the services' failure to imagine modern warfare and through a topical structure that offers a social-cultural, political, military-economic, strategic, operational, and tactical cross-section of the war effort.

The Allies' M10 Tank Destroyer and the Germans' Sturmgeschutz (StuG) lll were the unsung workhorses of the northwest European battlefields of 1944-45. While their mission was not principally fighting one another, their widespread use ensured their frequent encounters, from the Normandy Bocage, to the rubble-strewn streets of Aachen. The StuG lll was the quintessential assault gun, a low-slung, heavily armoured, turret-less vehicle intended to provide direct fire support for infantry formations, whilst the M10 3in Gun Motor Carriage was originally developed as a tank destroyer. However, by 1944 the 3in gun proved ineffectual against the most thickly armored German tanks, and was consequently relegated to infantry support too. Widely deployed in roles their designers had not envisaged, these two armoured fighting vehicles clashed repeatedly during the 11-month campaign, which saw the Allies advance from Normandy to the heart of the Reich. Fully illustrated with specially commissioned artwork, this is the story of their confrontation at the height of World War ll.

From the 10th to the mid-17th century, religious organisations played an important part in the social, political and military life in Japan. Known as sohei ('monk warriors') or yamabushi ('mountain warriors'), the warrior monks were anything but peaceful and meditative, and were a formidable enemy, armed with their distinctive, long-bladed naginata. The fortified cathedrals of the Ikko-ikki rivalled Samurai castles, and withstood long sieges. This title follows the daily life, training, motivation and combat experiences of the warrior monks from their first mention in AD 949 through to their suppression by the Shogunate in the years following the Sengoku-jidai period.

Many types of cavalryman are established in the imagination of the British public, but the Ironside retains his place as symbolic of the one occasion when the army took an active role in British politics. One reason is that he represents a unique period when ordinary people displaced the established order to take political control into their own hands. In the 19th century a rash of historical publications, paintings and statues with a civil war theme reflected the political divisions of Victorian society and Royalist and Parliamentarian causes were argued over again, reflecting the subtext of contemporary political struggles. This book attempts to take a wider view of the Ironside as a warrior who evolved from the experiments of the 16th and early 17th centuries to combine firepower with the armoured cavalryman. It reflects his wider service in the Royalist as well as the Parliamentarian armies and beyond the civil wars.