Monash's Masterpiece

Monash's Masterpiece PDF Author: Peter FitzSimons
Publisher: Hachette Australia
ISBN: 0733640095
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 409

Get Book Here

Book Description
The Battle of Le Hamel on 4 July 1918 was an Allied triumph, and strategically very important in the closing stages of WWI. A largely Australian force, commanded by the brilliant Sir John Monash, fought what has been described as the first modern battle - where infantry, tanks, artillery and planes operated together as a coordinated force. Monash planned every detail meticulously, with nothing left to chance. Integrated use of tanks, planes, infantry, wireless (and even carrier pigeons!) was the basis, and it went on from there, down to the details: everyone used the same maps, with updated versions delivered by motorbike despatch riders to senior commanders, including Monash. Each infantry battalion was allocated to a tank group, and they advanced together. Supplies and ammunition were dropped as needed from planes. The losses were relatively few. In the words of Monash: 'A perfected modern battle plan is like nothing so much as a score for an orchestral composition, where the various arms and units are the instruments, and the tasks they perform are their respective musical phrases.' Monash planned for the battle to last for 90 minutes - in the end it went for 93. What happened in those minutes changed for the rest of the war the way the British fought battles, and the tactics and strategies used by the Allies. Peter FitzSimons brings this Allied triumph to life, and tells this magnificent story as it should be told.

Monash's Masterpiece

Monash's Masterpiece PDF Author: Peter FitzSimons
Publisher: Hachette Australia
ISBN: 0733640095
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 409

Get Book Here

Book Description
The Battle of Le Hamel on 4 July 1918 was an Allied triumph, and strategically very important in the closing stages of WWI. A largely Australian force, commanded by the brilliant Sir John Monash, fought what has been described as the first modern battle - where infantry, tanks, artillery and planes operated together as a coordinated force. Monash planned every detail meticulously, with nothing left to chance. Integrated use of tanks, planes, infantry, wireless (and even carrier pigeons!) was the basis, and it went on from there, down to the details: everyone used the same maps, with updated versions delivered by motorbike despatch riders to senior commanders, including Monash. Each infantry battalion was allocated to a tank group, and they advanced together. Supplies and ammunition were dropped as needed from planes. The losses were relatively few. In the words of Monash: 'A perfected modern battle plan is like nothing so much as a score for an orchestral composition, where the various arms and units are the instruments, and the tasks they perform are their respective musical phrases.' Monash planned for the battle to last for 90 minutes - in the end it went for 93. What happened in those minutes changed for the rest of the war the way the British fought battles, and the tactics and strategies used by the Allies. Peter FitzSimons brings this Allied triumph to life, and tells this magnificent story as it should be told.

Battle of Arginusae

Battle of Arginusae PDF Author: Debra Hamel
Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press+ORM
ISBN: 1421416824
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 139

Get Book Here

Book Description
An Athenian triumph against Sparta end in disaster and infamy in this naval history of Ancient Greece in the 5th century B.C. Toward the end of the Peloponnesian War, nearly three hundred Athenian and Spartan ships fought a pivotal skirmish in the Arginusae Islands. Larger than any previous naval battle between warring Greeks, the Battle of Arginusae was a crucial win for Athens. Its aftermath, however, was a major disaster for its people. Due to numerous factors, the Athenian commanders abandoned the crews of twenty-five disabled ships. Thousands of soldiers were left clinging to wreckage and awaiting help that never came. When the failure was discovered back home, the eight generals in charge were deposed. Two fled into exile, while the other six were tried and executed. In The Battle of Arginusae, historian Debra Hamel describes the violent battle and its horrible aftermath. Hamel introduces readers to Athens and Sparta, the two thriving superpowers of the fifth century B.C. She provides a summary of the events that caused the long war and discusses the tactical intricacies of Greek naval warfare. Recreating the claustrophobic, unhygienic conditions in which the ships’ crews operated, Hamel unfolds the process that turned this naval victory into one of the most infamous chapters in the city-state’s history.

The Battle of Hamel

The Battle of Hamel PDF Author: John Laffin
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780864179708
Category : Le Hamel (Amiens, France)
Languages : en
Pages : 176

Get Book Here

Book Description
The amazing and inspiring story of the capture of the German front line in July of 1918. It was the turning point of WWI, which came to a victorious end shortly after. Laffin is one of the world's most distinguished military historians and has written more than 60 books concerning war.

The Secret History of Soldiers

The Secret History of Soldiers PDF Author: Tim Cook
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0735235279
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 452

Get Book Here

Book Description
There have been thousands of books on the Great War, but most have focused on commanders, battles, strategy, and tactics. Less attention has been paid to the daily lives of the combatants, how they endured the unimaginable conditions of industrial warfare: the rain of shells, bullets, and chemical agents. In The Secret History of Soldiers, Tim Cook, Canada's foremost military historian, examines how those who survived trench warfare on the Western Front found entertainment, solace, relief, and distraction from the relentless slaughter. These tales come from the soldiers themselves, mined from the letters, diaries, memoirs, and oral accounts of more than five hundred combatants. Rare examples of trench art, postcards, and even song sheets offer insight into a hidden society that was often irreverent, raunchy, and anti-authoritarian. Believing in supernatural stories was another way soldiers shielded themselves from the horror. While novels and poetry often depict the soldiers of the Great War as mere victims, this new history shows how the soldiers pushed back against the grim war, refusing to be broken in the mincing machine of the Western Front. The violence of war is always present, but Cook reveals the gallows humour the soldiers employed to get through it. Over the years, both writers and historians have overlooked this aspect of the men's lives. The fighting at the front was devastating, but behind the battle lines, another layer of life existed, one that included songs, skits, art, and soldier-produced newspapers. With his trademark narrative abilities and an unerring eye for the telling human detail, Cook has created another landmark history of Canadian military life as he reveals the secrets of how soldiers survived the carnage of the Western Front.

Surviving the Great War

Surviving the Great War PDF Author: Aaron Pegram
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108486193
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 285

Get Book Here

Book Description
Surviving the Great War is the first detailed analysis of Australians in German captivity in WW1. By placing the hardships of prisoners of war in a broader social and military content, this book adds a new dimension to the national wartime experience and challenges popular representations of Australia's involvement in the First World War.

Heroes of Hamel

Heroes of Hamel PDF Author: Stephen Dando-Collins
Publisher: Random House Australia
ISBN: 0143787616
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 338

Get Book Here

Book Description
The battle of Hamel was remarkable for its speed, the tactics employed, numerous acts of extreme bravery, and the fact that for the first time in history American troops fought under Australian command. The Battle of Hamel, explores the preparations and ramifications for this blitzkreig and the parts played by six men in particular: · General John Monash, a former Melbourne engineer who had risen through militia ranks to become the first Australian corps commander of WWI, and who put his career on the line by conceiving and commanding the bold Hamel assault, implementing it despite the reservations of his British superior and the interference of American commander General Pershing and Monash’s own Australian prime minister, Billy Hughes. · Australians Private Henry Dalziel and Lance Corporal Jack Axford, who both won the Victoria Cross (VC) for their gallantry during the battle, and Sergeant Ned Searle (who is related to Stephen Dando-Collins), who set out to win a Victoria Cross during the battle. · Colonel Joseph B Sanborn, at 64 supposedly much too old for front line service, yet who, as commander of the American 131st Regiment, defied the orders of US commander General Pershing to lead his men into battle alongside the Australians. On General Monash’s recommendation, Sanborn was awarded the British Distinguished Service Cross (DSC). · American Corporal Thomas Pope, who won America’s highest gallantry award, the Medal of Honor (MOH), for his part in the Battle of Hamel, becoming the first member of the US Army to be awarded the Medal of Honor in World War One. Pope would live to 94, becoming the last WWI Medal of Honor winner to pass away.

Black Hearts

Black Hearts PDF Author: Jim Frederick
Publisher: Crown
ISBN: 0307450988
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 474

Get Book Here

Book Description
“Riveting. . . a testament to a misconceived war, and to the ease with which ordinary men, under certain conditions, can transform into monsters.”—New York Times Book Review This is the story of a small group of soldiers from the 101st Airborne Division’s fabled 502nd Infantry Regiment—a unit known as “the Black Heart Brigade.” Deployed in late 2005 to Iraq’s so-called Triangle of Death, a veritable meat grinder just south of Baghdad, the Black Hearts found themselves in arguably the country’s most dangerous location at its most dangerous time. Hit by near-daily mortars, gunfire, and roadside bomb attacks, suffering from a particularly heavy death toll, and enduring a chronic breakdown in leadership, members of one Black Heart platoon—1st Platoon, Bravo Company, 1st Battalion—descended, over their year-long tour of duty, into a tailspin of poor discipline, substance abuse, and brutality. Four 1st Platoon soldiers would perpetrate one of the most heinous war crimes U.S. forces have committed during the Iraq War—the rape of a fourteen-year-old Iraqi girl and the cold-blooded execution of her and her family. Three other 1st Platoon soldiers would be overrun at a remote outpost—one killed immediately and two taken from the scene, their mutilated corpses found days later booby-trapped with explosives. Black Hearts is an unflinching account of the epic, tragic deployment of 1st Platoon. Drawing on hundreds of hours of in-depth interviews with Black Heart soldiers and first-hand reporting from the Triangle of Death, Black Hearts is a timeless story about men in combat and the fragility of character in the savage crucible of warfare. But it is also a timely warning of new dangers emerging in the way American soldiers are led on the battlefields of the twenty-first century.

Somme

Somme PDF Author: Hugh Sebag-Montefiore
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674545192
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 680

Get Book Here

Book Description
The notion of battles as the irreducible building blocks of war demands a single verdict of each campaign—victory, defeat, stalemate. But this kind of accounting leaves no room to record the nuances and twists of actual conflict. In Somme: Into the Breach, the noted military historian Hugh Sebag-Montefiore shows that by turning our focus to stories of the front line—to acts of heroism and moments of both terror and triumph—we can counter, and even change, familiar narratives. Planned as a decisive strike but fought as a bloody battle of attrition, the Battle of the Somme claimed over a million dead or wounded in months of fighting that have long epitomized the tragedy and folly of World War I. Yet by focusing on the first-hand experiences and personal stories of both Allied and enemy soldiers, Hugh Sebag-Montefiore defies the customary framing of incompetent generals and senseless slaughter. In its place, eyewitness accounts relive scenes of extraordinary courage and sacrifice, as soldiers ordered “over the top” ventured into No Man’s Land and enemy trenches, where they met a hail of machine-gun fire, thickets of barbed wire, and exploding shells. Rescuing from history the many forgotten heroes whose bravery has been overlooked, and giving voice to their bereaved relatives at home, Hugh Sebag-Montefiore reveals the Somme campaign in all its glory as well as its misery, helping us to realize that there are many meaningful ways to define a battle when seen through the eyes of those who lived it.

The Great War

The Great War PDF Author: Les Carlyon
Publisher: Picador Australia
ISBN: 0330424963
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 879

Get Book Here

Book Description
Winner of the inaugural Prime Minister's Prize for History, 2007The Great War is Les Carlyon's extraordinary account of the Anzacs on the Western Front from 1916 to 1918. This new Picador edition is designed to sit alongside a matching edition of Gallipoli, his other classic work on Australia's involvement in the First World War.Destined to become an Australian classic... "The Great War is a deeply moving monument to a generation and what they endured. Read this book and weep." (West Australian)"A remarkably lucid and powerful narrative... This is a seasoned writer at the height of his powers." (Courier Mail)"Monumental... An emotional journey back to the Western Front that is at times almost unbearably poignant... In The Great War Carlyon has succeeded triumphantly in bringing back to life the essential character of the men of the First AIF in France. The Australians who fought long ago at Mouquet Farm, Messines, Polygon Wood and Passchendaele have gone, but, thanks to Carlyon, they are still with us. To paraphrase Bean, The Great War will stand as a lasting monument to that body of great-hearted men." (The Australian)

Landrecies to Cambrai

Landrecies to Cambrai PDF Author: Graeme Chamley Wynne
Publisher: Helion Studies in Military His
ISBN: 9781909384033
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Get Book Here

Book Description
Interest in the First World War, or Great War, continues unabated. New angles are sought, fresh interpretations penned. Equally, much previously published material resides long forgotten in the pages of now-rarely-consulted journals and periodicals. Landrecies to Cambrai reprints an extensive series of articles that ran, on an irregular basis, in the Army Quarterly from January 1924 until April 1939. Each article presents a detailed account of a specific German military operation on the Western Front - usually with detail down to battalion level. The author utilized an extensive array of original German sources, including regimental histories and operational-level narratives, ensuring a remarkable amount of color and detail are present in the text. Operations covered include: The night attack at Landrecies, 25 August 1914; Neuve Chapelle, 10-12 March 1915; Aubers Ridge, 9 May 1915; The fight for Hill 70, 25-26 September 1915; The German attack at Vimy Ridge, May 1916; The German defence during the Battle of the Somme July 1916; The German defence of Bernafay and Trônes Woods, 2-14 July 1916; Mametz Wood and Contalmaison, 9-10 July 1916; Delville Wood, 14-19 July 1916; The Somme, 15 September 1916; The capture of Thiepval, 26 September 1916; In front of Beaumont-Hamel, 13 November 1916; Battle of Arras, 9 April 1917; The Battle of Vimy Ridge, 9 April 1917; The fight for Inverness Copse, 22-24 August 1917; The fight for Zonnebeke, 26 September 1917; Cambrai - the action of the German 107th Division. All original maps are also included. Landrecies to Cambrai offers a unique perspective and much hitherto-overlooked material relating to a wide variety of German operations on the Western Front 1914-17.