Author: William F. Stewart
Publisher: McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP
ISBN: 0773598014
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 408
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Book Description
Lieutenant-General Sir Richard Turner (1871-1961) was a capable but controversial Canadian general who played a critical role in the development of the Canadian Corps up to 1917 and contributed significantly to its success thereafter. Despite his many accomplishments (including being awarded the Victoria Cross), Turner is often portrayed as a political appointee and repeated failure - representations that ignore, minimize, or misconstrue his successes as a combat commander and head of Canadian forces in England. In The Embattled General, William Stewart reveals Turner's tactical, operational, and administrative contributions to the Canadian war effort. Uniquely, Turner held senior commands in both combat arms and administration. Stewart narrates and analyzes Turner's successes and failures in the Boer War and the First World War's battles of Ypres, Festubert, St Eloi, and the Somme. He also studies Turner's career after his transfer to command Canadian forces in England in December 1916, where Turner reformed an administration in chaos. After the war, Turner post-war played a key role in the formation of the Royal Canadian Legion. Based on exhaustive research from over 1,200 volumes of material, including many previously untouched sources, The Embattled General provides a balanced and just re-evaluation of Turner, identifying his merits as well as his flaws.
Author: William Frederick Stewart
Publisher: McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP
ISBN: 0773546251
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 393
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Book Description
A re-evaluation of a controversial Canadian general that overturns much of what is known about him.
Author: Geoffrey Jackson
Publisher: Wilfrid Laurier Univ. Press
ISBN: 177112508X
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 387
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Book Description
The diary of David Watson, who rose through the officer ranks to command one of the four divisions in the Great War, is an exceptional document that details with candid insight the responsibilities of senior command and shows the talent required to rise through the CEF to divisional command. The only published diary of a Canadian who held this rank in the last two (critical) years of the war, it focuses on the evolution of military leadership and associated challenges that Watson (and his peers) faced during the Great War. It recounts how he navigated not only the military battlefield in France and Belgium but also the political battlefield of the Canadian Expeditionary Force and larger British Expeditionary Force. The divisional commanders played a central role in the Corps’ transformation into a first-rate professional army, a transformation that coincided with Watson’s tenure at the 4th Division. Major-General David Watson’s personal accounts offer valuable insights into the innermost workings of the Canadian Corps at various stages during the war and in particular its emergence as an elite fighting force and the pride of a nation
Author: Timothy D. Johnson
Publisher: LSU Press
ISBN: 0807183288
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 261
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Book Description
Long overshadowed by the American Civil War, the Mexican-American War (1846–1848) has received significantly less attention from historians partly because of its questionable origin and controversial outcome. Rather than treat the conflict with a form of historical amnesia, the contributors to this volume argue that the Mexican-American War was a formative experience for the more than three hundred future Civil War generals who served in it as lower-grade officers. The Mexican War was the first combat experience for many of them, a laboratory that equipped a generation of young officers with practical lessons in strategy, tactics, logistics, and interpersonal relationships that they would use later to command forces during the Civil War.
Author: Robert Vaughan
Publisher: Dell Publishing Company
ISBN: 9780440022985
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 324
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Book Description
Author: Ronald Lewin
Publisher: Pen and Sword
ISBN: 1844150402
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 293
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Book Description
As the Germans wreaked havoc in Europe in the early 1940s, the war in Northern Africa seemed relatively insignificant. Yet a series of surprising victories by the Afrika Korps forced Winston Churchill to refocus his attention. In the desert, one of the war's most brilliant commanders was blooming - Commander Erwin Johannes Eugen Rommel. In this provocative study, Ronald Lewin, prizewinning author of Slim: The Standardbearer and Ultra Goes to War charts the course of Rommel's military career. The Desert Fox, was a tactical genius - his personal leadership and ability to improvise on the battlefield with minimal resources were exemplary. Yet lapses in Rommel's judgment, combined with Churchill's heightened defences and Hitler's neglect, led to a crushing defeat for the Afrika Korps at Alamein in 1942. As Rommel's success waned, so did his relations with Hitler. Rommel was an exceptional commander - not only for his skills, but for the integrity with which he carried himself. This integrity, admired even by his adversaries, proved fatal. Unafraid to voice his objections to Hitler's military decisions, Rommel was associated with the 1944 plot to kill the dictator. In the wake of the plot's failure, Rommel was forced to take his own life.
Author: Eric J. Wittenberg
Publisher: Potomac Books, Inc.
ISBN: 1612344399
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 294
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Book Description
Provides insight into the real personality of the famous warrior
Author: James M. McPherson
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199726582
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 946
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Book Description
Filled with fresh interpretations and information, puncturing old myths and challenging new ones, Battle Cry of Freedom will unquestionably become the standard one-volume history of the Civil War. James McPherson's fast-paced narrative fully integrates the political, social, and military events that crowded the two decades from the outbreak of one war in Mexico to the ending of another at Appomattox. Packed with drama and analytical insight, the book vividly recounts the momentous episodes that preceded the Civil War--the Dred Scott decision, the Lincoln-Douglas debates, John Brown's raid on Harper's Ferry--and then moves into a masterful chronicle of the war itself--the battles, the strategic maneuvering on both sides, the politics, and the personalities. Particularly notable are McPherson's new views on such matters as the slavery expansion issue in the 1850s, the origins of the Republican Party, the causes of secession, internal dissent and anti-war opposition in the North and the South, and the reasons for the Union's victory. The book's title refers to the sentiments that informed both the Northern and Southern views of the conflict: the South seceded in the name of that freedom of self-determination and self-government for which their fathers had fought in 1776, while the North stood fast in defense of the Union founded by those fathers as the bulwark of American liberty. Eventually, the North had to grapple with the underlying cause of the war--slavery--and adopt a policy of emancipation as a second war aim. This "new birth of freedom," as Lincoln called it, constitutes the proudest legacy of America's bloodiest conflict. This authoritative volume makes sense of that vast and confusing "second American Revolution" we call the Civil War, a war that transformed a nation and expanded our heritage of liberty.
Author: Neil J. Diamant
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
ISBN: 0742557685
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 478
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Book Description
This groundbreaking book examines the treatment of veterans of the People's Liberation Army and military families as an illuminating window into Chinese patriotism, citizenship, and legitimacy. Using a wealth of recently declassified archival documents and employing a wide comparative perspective, Neil J. Diamant presents the first large-scale study of these groups in comparison to similar populations in other parts of Asia and in the West. He offers an unprecedented look at the "everyday interactions" among veterans, military families, state officials, and ordinary citizens as they attempted to secure urban residence, jobs, spouses, medical care, and respect. Often celebrated by the government for their glorious and patriotic service, veterans and military families were the beneficiaries of many policies, such as affirmative action in hiring and access to political power. But, the author asks, if veteran and military families were heroic, why did many of them compare their situation to "donkeys slaughtered after grinding the wheat" and "tossed-away dirty socks?" And what explains the thousands of suicides among veterans, rampant discrimination, and ongoing protests against the government? By comparing veterans in China to their counterparts in the United States, the Soviet Union, Israel, and elsewhere, this book provides important answers to the larger question of what circumstances lead to better or worse treatment of veterans, and what this treatment tells us about patriotism, legitimacy, and respect for military service.
Author: JoAnn Smith Bartlett
Publisher: Xlibris Corporation
ISBN: 1436344751
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 271
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Book Description
Abner Doubleday: His Life and Times is a full-length biography of a man who lingered on the fringes of history for nearly 150 years. His story is one of a man who was remembered for a myth, not his actual deeds. This story sheds light on the man who was as complex as any modern person; a man who was far ahead of his time. When General John F. Reynolds fell at the beginning of the Battle of Gettysburg, it was Doubleday who took on the command of the troops during the first day. As the Union retreated at the end of the day and the two armies flowed through the streets, Abner was seen in the midst of the wounded and stragglers as he tried to learn more details of the action. He "rode rapidly back to the front. His horse was covered with foam and the flushed face of the General bespoke the tremendous strain under which he was laboring." A subordinate officer described Abner, "He handles his troops under fire with the same composure he would exhibit at a review or parade. (He is) a man of unquestioned bravery, cool and clear sighted on the battlefield."
