The Mediterranean and Middle East: The early successes against Italy (to May 1941)

The Mediterranean and Middle East: The early successes against Italy (to May 1941) PDF Author: Ian Stanley Ord Playfair
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : World War, 1939-1945
Languages : en
Pages : 606

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Book Description
The campaigns in this theater from 1939 to 1945 presented as the joint story of the activities of the three British services.

The Mediterranean and Middle East: The early successes against Italy (to May 1941)

The Mediterranean and Middle East: The early successes against Italy (to May 1941) PDF Author: Ian Stanley Ord Playfair
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : World War, 1939-1945
Languages : en
Pages : 606

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Book Description
The campaigns in this theater from 1939 to 1945 presented as the joint story of the activities of the three British services.

The Mediterranean and Middle East

The Mediterranean and Middle East PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780116309464
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :

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Book Description


The Mediterranean and Middle East: Volume I The Early Successes Against Italy (To May 1941) [Illustrated Edition]

The Mediterranean and Middle East: Volume I The Early Successes Against Italy (To May 1941) [Illustrated Edition] PDF Author: Major-General I.S.O. Playfair C.B. D.S.O. M.C.
Publisher: Pickle Partners Publishing
ISBN: 1782895582
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 700

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Book Description
Illustrated with 30 maps and 40 photos. “Britain defeats Italy on land and sea in Africa and the Mediterranean in 1940. “The first of eight volumes in the 18-volume official British History of the Second World War covering the Mediterranean and Middle Eastern theatres. After setting the political and military scene, the authors open the action with Italy's declaration of war and France's collapse in June 1940. Britain's painful neutralisation of the French fleet at Oran and Alexandria is followed by the first blows against the Italian empire in East Africa, and Italy's attacks on Egypt and Greece. The Fleet Air Arm's triumphant attack on the Italian Fleet at Taranto, masterminded by Admiral Cunningham, is trumped by General Wavell's even more successful Battle of Sidi Barrani in December, when vast numbers of Italians were captured for negligible British losses. The victory was followed up by Britain's capture of Bardia and Tobruk, and the founding of the Long Range Desert Group - the germ of the SAS. The mopping-up of General Graziani's forces in Cyrenaica, however, ominously resulted in Germany's decision to rescue their ally with General Rommel's Afrika Korps. However, the volume concludes optimistically with the successful campaign against Italy in Ethiopia, in which General Orde Wingate's irregular Gideon Force plays a prominent part. The military narrative is accompanied by descriptions of diplomatic developments and technological innovations such as the arrival of the Hurricane fighter plane, the Matilda tank and radar. The text is accompanied by ten appendices.”-Print Edition

The Secret War for the Middle East

The Secret War for the Middle East PDF Author: Youssef Aboul-Enein
Publisher: Naval Institute Press
ISBN: 1612513360
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 290

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Book Description
It can be argued that the Middle East during the World War II has been regarded as that conflict’s most overlooked theater of operations. Though the threat of direct Axis invasion never materialized beyond the Egyptian Western Desert with Rommel’s Afrika Korps, this did not limit the Axis from probing the Middle East and cultivating potential collaborators and sympathizers. These actions left an indelible mark in the socio-political evolution of the modern states of the Middle East. This book explores the infusion of the political language of anti-Semitism, nationalism, fascism, and Marxism that were among the ideological byproducts of Axis and Allied intervention in the Arab world. The status of British-dominated Middle East was tailor-made for exploitation by Axis intelligence and propaganda. German and Italian intelligence efforts fueled anti-British resentments; their influence shaped the course of Arab nationalist sentiments throughout the Middle East. A relevant parallel to the pan-Arab cause was Hitler’s attempt to bring ethnic Germans into the fold of a greater German state. In theory, as the Sudeten German stood on par with the Carpathian German, so too, according to doctrinal theory, did the Yemeni stand in union with the Syrian in the imagination of those espousing pan-Arabism. As historic evidence demonstrates, this very commonality proved to be a major factor in the development of relations between Arab and Fascist leaders. The Arab nationalist movement amounted to nothing more than a shapeless, fragmented, counter position to British imperialism, imported to the Arab East via Berlin for Nazi aspirations.

The First Victory

The First Victory PDF Author: Andrew Stewart
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300208553
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 337

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Book Description
A riveting new account of the long-overlooked achievement of British-led forces who, against all odds, scored the first major Allied victory of the Second World War Surprisingly neglected in accounts of Allied wartime triumphs, in 1941 British and Commonwealth forces completed a stunning and important victory in East Africa against an overwhelmingly superior Italian opponent. A hastily formed British-led force, never larger than 70,000 strong, advanced along two fronts to defeat nearly 300,000 Italian and colonial troops. This compelling book draws on an array of previously unseen documents to provide both a detailed campaign history and a fresh appreciation of the first significant Allied success of the war. Andrew Stewart investigates such topics as Britain's African wartime strategy; how the fighting forces were assembled (most from British colonies, none from the U.S.); General Archibald Wavell's command abilities and his difficult relationship with Winston Churchill; the resolute Italian defense at Keren, one of the most bitterly fought battles of the entire war; the legacy of the campaign in East Africa; and much more.

The Mediterranean Air War

The Mediterranean Air War PDF Author: Robert S. Ehlers, Jr.
Publisher: University Press of Kansas
ISBN: 0700620753
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 536

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Book Description
Without what the Allies learned in the Mediterranean air war in 1942–1944, the Normandy landings—and so, perhaps, the Second World War II—would have ended differently. This is one of many lessons of The Mediterranean Air War, the first one-volume history of the vital role of airpower during the three-year struggle for control of the Mediterranean Basin in World War II—and of its significance for the Allied successes in the war's last two years. Airpower historian Robert S. Ehlers opens his account with an assessment of the pre-war Mediterranean theater, highlighting the ways in which the players' strategic choices, strengths, and shortcomings set the stage for and ultimately shaped the air campaigns over the Middle Sea. Beginning with the Italian invasion of Abyssinia, Ehlers reprises the developing international crisis—initially between Britain and Italy, and finally encompassing France, Germany, the US, other members of the British Commonwealth, and the Balkan countries. He then explores the Mediterranean air war in detail, with close attention to turning points, joint and combined operations, and the campaign's contribution to the larger Allied effort. In particular, his analysis shows how and why the success of Allied airpower in the Mediterranean laid the groundwork for combined-arms victories in the Middle East, the Indian Ocean area, North Africa, and the Atlantic, northwest Europe. Of grand-strategic importance from the days of Ancient Rome to the Great-Power rivalries of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the Middle Sea was no less crucial to the Allied forces and their foes. Here, in the successful offensives in North Africa in 1942 and 1943, the US and the British learned to conduct a coalition air and combined-arms war. Here, in Sicily and Italy in 1943 and 1944, the Allies mastered the logistics of providing air support for huge naval landings and opened a vital second aerial front against the Third Reich, bombing critical oil and transportation targets with great effectiveness. The first full examination of the Mediterranean theater in these critical roles—as a strategic and tactical testing ground for the Allies and as a vital theater of operations in its own right—The Mediterranean Air War fills in a long-missing but vital dimension of the history of World War II.

In Passage Perilous

In Passage Perilous PDF Author: Vincent P. O'Hara
Publisher: Indiana University Press
ISBN: 0253006058
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 404

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Book Description
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

The Origins of the Grand Alliance

The Origins of the Grand Alliance PDF Author: William T. Johnsen
Publisher: University Press of Kentucky
ISBN: 0813168368
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 293

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Book Description
This “uncommonly astute study” examines the early development of the US-UK military alliance that would eventually lead to victory in WWII (Paul Miles, author of FDR’s Admiral). On December 12, 1937, Japanese aircraft sank the American gunboat Panay outside Nanjing, China. Although the Japanese apologized, President Roosevelt set Captain Royal Ingersoll to London to begin conversations with the British admiralty about Japanese aggression in the Far East. While few Americans remember the Panay Incident, it was the start of what would become the “Special Relationship” between the United States and Great Britain. In The Origins of the Grand Alliance, William T. Johnsen provides the first comprehensive analysis of Anglo-American military collaboration before the Second World War. He sets the stage by examining Anglo-French and Anglo-American coalition military planning from 1900 through World War I and the interwar years. Johnsen also considers the formulation of policy and grand strategy, operational planning, and the creation of the command structure and channels of communication. He addresses vitally important logistical and materiel issues, particularly the difficulties of war production. Drawn from extensive sources and private papers held in the United Kingdom, Canada, and the United States, Johnsen’s exhaustively researched study casts new light on the twentieth century’s most significant alliance.

Operational Warfare at Sea

Operational Warfare at Sea PDF Author: Milan Vego
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1315402920
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 532

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Book Description
This work explains and critically examines the main theoretical aspects of operational warfare at sea. It utilizes diverse examples from naval history, ranging from the ancient era to the present day, to offer a comprehensive description and analysis of the key components of operational warfare at sea today. Specifically, it explains the military/naval objectives, levels of war, types of major naval/joint operations and maritime campaigns, and their main elements. In contrast to many works, this book focuses on the role of the naval operational commanders in command and control and decision-making. It also describes in great detail the main elements of naval operational leadership and operational thinking, which are illustrated by examples of successful warfighting admirals. This new edition has been completely revised and updated, with three new chapters, and analyses in even more detail the planning and execution of major naval/joint operations and maritime campaigns. This book is intended to serve as a primer of how to plan, prepare, and execute major naval/joint operations and maritime campaigns for naval operational commanders and their staffs, but will also be of great interest to students of naval power, strategic studies, and military history in general.

The Politics of Crisis

The Politics of Crisis PDF Author: G. Fry
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 0230628117
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 315

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Book Description
The Politics of Crisis is an interpretation of the most dramatic periods of modern British political history - the decade and a half between 1931 and 1945. Formed to sustain the British economy in the midst of the Great Depression, the National Governments of the 1930s achieved this and more, and electoral popularity unmatched since. Yet the conventional wisdom about those Governments is full of the unemployment that they inherited, as it is of the image of Neville Chamberlain trying and failing to buy peace from Hitler at Munich. For then comes the Second World War and Winston Churchill and victory of a kind for Britain, and a curious form of domestic politics that, with peace restored, witnesses the victor turned out of office. The Politics of Crisis clinically assesses the evidence and these events and provides a challenging and new interpretation of them.