A Moonlight Massacre

Author : Michael LoCicero
Publisher : Wolverhampton Military Studies
Page : 0 pages
File Size : 48,6 Mb
Release : 2014
Category : History
ISBN : 190998292X

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A Moonlight Massacre by Michael LoCicero Pdf

The Third Battle of Ypres was officially terminated by Field Marshal Sir Douglas Haig with the opening of the Battle of Cambrai on 20 November 1917. Nevertheless, a comparatively unknown set-piece attack - the only large-scale night operation carried out on the Flanders front during the campaign - was launched twelve days later on 2 December. This volume is a necessary corrective to previously published campaign narratives of what has become popularly known as 'Passchendaele'. It examines the course of events from the mid-November decision to sanction further offensive activity in the vicinity of Passchendaele village to the barren operational outcome that forced British GHQ to halt the attack within ten hours of Zero. A litany of unfortunate decisions and circumstances contributed to the profitless result. At the tactical level, a novel hybrid set-piece attack scheme was undermined by a fatal combination of snow-covered terrain and bright moonlight. At the operational level, the highly unsatisfactory local situation in the immediate aftermath of Third Ypres' post-strategic phase (26 October-10 November) appeared to offer no other alternative to attacking from the confines of an extremely vulnerable salient. Perhaps the most tragic aspect of the affair occurred at the political and strategic level, where Haig's earnest advocacy for resumption of the Flanders offensive in spring 1918 was maintained despite obvious signs that the initiative had now passed to the enemy and the crisis of the war was fast approaching. "A Moonlight Massacre" provides an important contribution and reinterpretation of the discussion surrounding Passchendaele, based firmly on an extensive array of sources, many unpublished, and supported by illustrations and maps.

Author : McKinley Zumwalt
Publisher : Texas A&M University Press
Page : 296 pages
File Size : 43,6 Mb
Release : 2022-09-29
Category : Fiction
ISBN : 9780875658308

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Moonlight Massacres by McKinley Zumwalt Pdf

When outlaws in the Nueces Strip ruthlessly massacre innocents by the light of every full moon, Texas Ranger C. W. Wallace is dispatched to stop the next bloody murder. The crime and brutality rampant in the 1877 South Texas brush country threatens people in every community, but using Texas Rangers to combat the problem is as controversial as the violence itself, so C. W. rides alone and is rarely welcomed where he goes. To track the cattle thieves, he and other Rangers need the civilian population to become their extra eyes and ears. Clues at an isolated homestead suggest that a secretive young widow could be a valuable resource, but C. W. is hesitant to trust her. In an effort to identify the ringleaders, C. W. and the widow, Esther, ride breakneck for the border and illegally cross the Rio Grande into Mexico. But disaster plagues them, and C. W. realizes Esther is herself a target for death, even as his affections turn toward her. Now Ranger Wallace must do all he can to prevent Esther’s murder and discover where the marauders have planned the next moonlight massacre.

Author : Ali Cobby Eckermann
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 0 pages
File Size : 48,5 Mb
Release : 2015
Category : Aboriginal Australians, Treatment of
ISBN : 0990340724

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Ruby Moonlight by Ali Cobby Eckermann Pdf

Tells the story of a young Aboriginal woman in the late nineteenth century who survives the massacre of her entire family. Wandering alone through Ngadjuri land, in South Australia, she encounters a luckless Irish trapper whose loneliness matches her own. Drawn together for comfort, they discover a momentary paradise along riverbanks and across arid plains that proves fragile in the face of frontier violence and colonization.

Author : Nick Lloyd
Publisher : Penguin UK
Page : 432 pages
File Size : 42,6 Mb
Release : 2017-05-04
Category : History
ISBN : 9780241970119

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Passchendaele by Nick Lloyd Pdf

Between July and November 1917, in a small corner of Belgium, more than 500,000 men were killed or maimed, gassed or drowned - and many of the bodies were never found. The Ypres offensive represents the modern impression of the First World War: splintered trees, water-filled craters, muddy shell-holes. The climax was one of the worst battles of both world wars: Passchendaele. The village fell eventually, only for the whole offensive to be called off. But, as Nick Lloyd shows, notably through previously unexamined German documents, it put the Allies nearer to a major turning point in the war than we have ever imagined.

Author : Jim Storr
Publisher : Casemate Publishers
Page : 500 pages
File Size : 44,9 Mb
Release : 2019-05-09
Category : History
ISBN : 9781913118495

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The Hall of Mirrors by Jim Storr Pdf

The military scholar and author of The Human Face of War analyses the nature of 20th-century war and warfare in this wide-ranging study. The 20th Century was possibly the most violent and turbulent century in history. The wars waged in those ten decades reshaped the globe and wreaked an incalculable toll on human life. In The Hall of Mirrors, military analyst and historian Jim Storr explores what can we learn from war, and warfare, in the 20th century. Rather than presenting a narrative history, The Hall of Mirrors takes a deep look at the nature of 20th Century war and warfare. Storr looks at the strategy, operational art, and tactics employed. He analyzes how technology developed, and how those technologies affected military events. He also considers the effect of individual human beings and organizations. By 1919 the First World War was already over. Millions had died, empires had crumbled, new nations had been born. And yet the so-called Great War was merely setting the stage for another eighty years of crisis, conflict, and change; of alliances forged and broken; of apparent chaos that can appear futile, and yet has enormous consequence.

Author : Neal Dando
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 216 pages
File Size : 44,9 Mb
Release : 2016-04-21
Category : History
ISBN : 9781912174423

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From Tobruk to Tunis by Neal Dando Pdf

This book focuses on the extent to which the physical terrain features across Egypt, Libya and Tunisia affected British operations throughout the campaign in North Africa during the Second World War. One main theme of the work analyses the terrain from the operational and tactical perspective and argues that the landscape features heavily influenced British operations and should now be considered alongside other standard military factors. The work differs from previous studies in that it considers these additional factors for the entire campaign until the Axis surrender in May 1943. Until now it has been widely assumed that much of the Western Desert coastal plateau was a broadly level, open region in which mobile armored operations were paramount. However this work concentrates on the British operations to show they were driven by the need to capture and hold key features across each successive battlefield. At the operational level planning was led by the need to hold key ground across Libya and especially the province of Cyrenaica during the crucial middle period of the campaign. A secondary theme of the work argues that British forces began to improvise certain tactical doctrines, which altered the early practice of combined arms assaults into one of the Infantry and Armored formations fighting largely separated battles until the autumn of 1942. Other developments in doctrine which were affected by the terrain included the practice of unit dispersal to hold key ground and the use of temporary units such as Jock columns to harass and engage the enemy. The two themes are inter-linked and contribute fresh insights to the debate on British methods of warfare. The author has consulted key primary documents, reports, war diaries and published memoirs, from major UK archives and compared these with the campaign historiography to develop the main themes of the work. These include the National Archives, the Churchill Archives Center, the Liddell-Hart Center for Military History, the National Army Museum, John Rylands Center, Imperial War Museum at London and Duxford and London and the Tank Museum Archives at Bovington. The sources include unit war diaries, after action reports, along with many of the key published and some unpublished memoirs. His text is supported by 24 pages of specially commissioned color maps.

Author : Charles Forrester
Publisher : Helion and Company
Page : 176 pages
File Size : 49,5 Mb
Release : 2015-08-19
Category : History
ISBN : 9781912174539

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Monty's Functional Doctrine by Charles Forrester Pdf

Using a combination of new perspectives and new evidence, this book presents a reinterpretation of how 21st Army Group produced a successful combined arms doctrine by late 1944 and implemented this in early 1945. Historians, professional military personnel and those interested in military history should read this book, which contributes to the radical reappraisal of Great Britain’s fighting forces in the last years of the Second World War, with an exploration of the reasons why 21st Army Group was able in 1944–45 to integrate the operations of its armor and infantry. The key to understanding how the outcome developed lies in understanding the ways in which the two processes of fighting and the creation of doctrine interrelated. This requires both a conventional focus on command and a cross-level study of Montgomery and a significant group of commanders. The issue of whether or not this integration of combat arms (a guide to operational fighting capability) had any basis in a common doctrine is an important one. Alongside this stands the new light this work throws on how such doctrine was created. A third interrelated contribution is in answering how Montgomery commanded, and whether and to what extent, doctrine was imposed or generated. Further it investigates how a group of ‘effervescent’ commanders interrelated, and what the impact of those interrelationships was in the formulation of a workable doctrine. The book makes an original contribution to the debate on Montgomery’s command style in Northwest Europe and its consequences, and integrates this with tracking down and disentangling the roots of his ideas, and his role in the creation of doctrine for the British Army’s final push against the Germans. In particular the author is able to do something that has defeated previous authors: to explain how doctrine was evolved and, especially who was responsible for providing the crucial first drafts, and the role Montgomery played in revising, codifying and disseminating it.

Author : Geoffrey Jackson
Publisher : UBC Press
Page : 348 pages
File Size : 40,6 Mb
Release : 2019-04-01
Category : History
ISBN : 9780774860178

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The Empire on the Western Front by Geoffrey Jackson Pdf

When Great Britain and its dominions declared war on Germany in August 1914, they were faced with the formidable challenge of transforming masses of untrained citizen-soldiers at home and abroad into competent, coordinated fighting divisions. The Empire on the Western Front focuses on the development of two units, Britain’s 62nd (2nd West Riding) Division and the Canadian 4th Division, to show how the British Expeditionary Force rose to this challenge. By turning the spotlight on army formation and operations at the divisional level, Jackson calls into question existing accounts that emphasize the differences between the imperial and dominion armies.

Author : Gary Sheffield
Publisher : Aurum
Page : 427 pages
File Size : 43,6 Mb
Release : 2016-05-19
Category : History
ISBN : 9781781316177

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Douglas Haig by Gary Sheffield Pdf

'Well written and persuasive ...objective and well-rounded....this scholarly rehabilitation should be the standard biography' - Andrew Roberts, Mail on Sunday 'A true judgment of him must lie somewhere between hero and zero, and in this detailed biography Gary Sheffield shows himself well qualified to make it ... a balanced portrait' - The Sunday Times 'Solid scholarship and admirable advocacy' - Sunday Telegraph Douglas Haig is the single most controversial general in British history. In 1918, after his armies had won the First World War, he was feted as a saviour. But within twenty years his reputation was in ruins, and it has never recovered. Drawing on previously unknown private papers and new scholarship unavailable when The Chief was first published, eminent First World War historian Gary Sheffield reassesses Haig's reputation, assessing his critical role in preparing the army for war.

Author : Alan Warren
Publisher : Rowman & Littlefield
Page : 269 pages
File Size : 44,6 Mb
Release : 2021-02-01
Category : History
ISBN : 9781538143117

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Slaughter and Stalemate in 1917 by Alan Warren Pdf

What went wrong for British forces in 1917? Relive the key battles through first-hand accounts and little-known incidents of World War I. This book offers a fresh, critical history of the 1917 campaign in Flanders. Alan Warren traces the three major battles fought by the British Expeditionary Force in the final months of 1917, from the mines of Messines to the mud of Passchendaele and the tanks at Cambrai. Drawing on a rich array of sources, Warren provides a vivid account of two tragically mismanaged battles, showing that Cambrai further underlined what went wrong for British forces at Passchendaele and thus more fully explains the course of events on the Western front. His compelling narrative history features first-hand accounts, little-known dramatic incidents, and portraits and assessments of the main generals. All readers interested in World War I and the tragic mistakes that led, in the words of Winston Churchill, to “a forlorn expenditure of valour and life without equal in futility” will find this an invaluable military history.

Author : Richard van Emden
Publisher : Casemate Publishers
Page : 526 pages
File Size : 54,7 Mb
Release : 2017-06-30
Category : History
ISBN : 9781473891920

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The Road to Passchendaele by Richard van Emden Pdf

Passchendaele is the next volume in the highly regarded series of books from the best-selling First World War historian Richard van Emden. Once again, using the winning formula of diaries and memoirs, and above all original photographs taken on illegally held cameras by the soldiers themselves, Richard tells the story of 1917, of life both in and out of the line culminating in perhaps the most dreaded battle of them all, the Battle of Passchendaele. His pervious book, The Somme, has now sold nearly 20,000 copies in hardback and softback, proving that the public appetite is undiminished for new, original stories illustrated with over 150 rarely or never-before-seen battlefield images. The author has an outstanding collection of over 5,000 privately taken and overwhelmingly unpublished photographs, revealing the war as it was seen by the men involved, an existence that was sometimes exhilarating, too often terrifying, and occasionally even fun. Richard van Emden interviewed 270 veterans of the Great War, has written extensively about the soldiers' lives, and has worked on many television documentaries, always concentrating on the human aspects of war, its challenge and its cost to the millions of men involved. This book will be published in June 2017, in time for the 100th anniversary of the epic Battle of Passchendaele which began on 31st July 1917 Richard van Emdens books sold over 650,000 books and have appeared in The Times bestseller chart on a number of occasions. He lives in West London and regularly appears on television, mostly recently as BBC1s historian for the national commemorations of the Somme Battle. He has appeared on over forty television documentaries and has written nineteen books on the First World War.

Author : Ian S. Johnson
Publisher : Pen and Sword Military
Page : 1111 pages
File Size : 40,8 Mb
Release : 2021-12-08
Category : History
ISBN : 9781526735324

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The Newcastle Commercials by Ian S. Johnson Pdf

The planning for the raising of what was to become 16th (Service) Battalion, Northumberland Fusiliers, started within two days of the outbreak of the war. The initial efforts took on a more professional look within a month, when the Newcastle Chambers of Commerce set about raising money and aiming to raise several battalions in response to Lord Kitchener's call for men. The outcome was a Pals battalion, the 1st Newcastle Commercials. Arriving in France at the end of 1915, the battalion, like so many others of its type, had its first experience of a major action on the Somme on 1st July 1916, in its case in the forlorn attempt to capture the German front line village of Thiepval. The outcome is well known; a disaster that ravaged the battalion's ranks. However, the battalion was reinforced, reorganized, and took its part in actions at Ovillers and along the Ancre as the battle grinder on over the next four and a half months. In 1917 it was involved in the advance on the Hindenburg Line and was then transferred to the North Sea coast, with the intention of taking part in the daring plan to launch a major amphibious landing behind the German lines in the summer. This was thwarted by a masterly pre-emptive German counter stroke. By the end of the year the battalion was engaged in operations in the northern part of the Salient after the Battle of Third Ypres (Passchendaele) had formally ended. In early February 1918 the battalion was disbanded as part of a general reorganization of the BEF, which saw divisions losing three of their twelve infantry battalions. In outline it is a common story; but, as for all the Pals battalions, its unusual origins and its very close connection to a local area, in this case Newcastle, provides an enduring fascination for today's generation. Ian Johnson has worked extraordinarily hard to gather documents from members of the battalion - letters, diaries, and recollections - as well as numerous photographs. He has prepared extensive appendices on its membership and its casualties. The outcome is a fitting tribute to these young men from Newcastle men of a century ago who, for whatever motive, answered their country's call, all too many of whom paid for it with their lives or their health.

Author : Thomas Henry White
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 536 pages
File Size : 49,6 Mb
Release : 1849
Category : English literature
ISBN : NLS:B900279104

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The Marigold Window, Or, Pictures of Thought by Thomas Henry White Pdf

Author : Robin Prior,Trevor Wilson
Publisher : Yale University Press
Page : 293 pages
File Size : 54,6 Mb
Release : 2016-07-26
Category : History
ISBN : 9780300222227

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Passchendaele by Robin Prior,Trevor Wilson Pdf

No conflict of the Great War excites stronger emotions than the war in Flanders in the autumn of 1917, and no name better encapsulates the horror and apparent futility of the Western Front than Passchendaele. By its end there had been 275,000 Allied and 200,000 German casualties. Yet the territorial gains made by the Allies in four desperate months were won back by Germany in only three days the following March. The devastation at Passchendaele, the authors argue, was neither inevitable nor inescapable; perhaps it was not necessary at all. Using a substantial archive of official and private records, much of which has never been previously consulted, Trevor Wilson and Robin Prior provide the fullest account of the campaign ever published. The book examines the political dimension at a level which has hitherto been absent from accounts of "Third Ypres." It establishes what did occur, the options for alternative action, and the fundamental responsibility for the carnage. Prior and Wilson consider the shifting ambitions and stratagems of the high command, examine the logistics of war, and assess what the available manpower, weaponry, technology, and intelligence could realistically have hoped to achieve. And, most powerfully of all, they explore the experience of the soldiers in the light—whether they knew it or not—of what would never be accomplished.

Author : Gregory Liedtke
Publisher : Helion and Company
Page : 248 pages
File Size : 53,5 Mb
Release : 2016-09-19
Category : History
ISBN : 9781911096870

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Enduring the Whirlwind by Gregory Liedtke Pdf

This work seeks to address the notion of German numerical-weakness in terms of Germany's ability to replace its losses and regenerate its military strength, and assess just how accurate this argument was during the crucial first half of the Russo-German War (June 1941-June 1943).