Napoleon disavowed any suggestion that he worked from formula ("Je n'ai jamais eu un plan d'opérations"), but military historian David Chandler demonstrates this was at best only a half-truth. To be sure, every operation Napoleon conducted contained unique improvisatory features. But there were from the first to the last certain basic principles of strategic maneuver and battlefield planning that he almost invariably put into practice. To clarify these underlying methods, as well as the style of Napoleon's fabulous intellect, Mr. Chandler examines in detail each campaign mounted and personally conducted by Napoleon, analyzing the strategies employed, revealing wherever possible the probable sources of his subject's military ideas. The book opens with a brief account of Bonaparte's early years, his military education and formative experiences, and his meteoric rise to the rank of general in the army of the Directory. Introducing the elements of Napoleonic "grand tactics" as they developed in his Italian, Egyptian, and Syrian campaigns, Mr. Chandler shows how these principles were clearly conceived as early as the Battle of Castiglione, when Napoleon was only twenty -six. Several campaigns later, he was Emperor of France, busily constructing the Grande Armée. This great war machine is described in considerable detail: the composition of the armies and the élite Guard; the staff system and the methods of command; the kind of artillery and firearms used; and the daily life of the Grande Armée and the all-seeing and all-commanding virtuoso who presided over every aspect of its operation in the field. As the great machine sweeps into action in the campaigns along the Rhine and the Danube, in East Prussia and Poland, and in Portugal and Spain, David Chandler follows closely every move that vindicates -- or challenges -- the legend of Napoleon's military genius. As the major battles take their gory courses -- Austerlitz, Jena, Fried-land -- we see Napoleon's star reaching its zenith. Then, in the Wagram Campaign of 1809 against the Austrians -- his last real success -- the great man commits more errors of judgment than in all his previous wars and battles put together. As the campaigns rage on, his declining powers seem to justify his own statement: "One has but a short time for war." Then the horrors of the Russian campaign forever shatter the image of Napoleonic invincibility. It is thereafter a short, though heroic and sanguinary, road to Waterloo and St. Helena. Napoleon appears most strikingly in these pages as the brilliant applier of the ideas of others rather than as an original military thinker, his genius proving itself more practical than theoretical. Paradoxically, this was both his chief strength and his main weakness as a general. After bringing the French army a decade of victory, his methods became increasingly stereotyped and, even worse, were widely copied by his foes, who operated against him with increasing effectiveness toward the end of his career. Yet even though his enemies attempted to imitate his techniques, as have others in the last century and a half, no one ever equaled his success. As these meticulous campaign analyses testify, his multifaceted genius was unique. Even as the end approached, as David Chandler points out, his eclipse was "the failure of a giant surrounded by pygmies." "The flight of the eagle was over; the 'ogre' was safely caged at last, and an exhausted Europe settled down once more to attempt a return to former ways of life and government. But the shade of Napoleon lingered on irresistibly for many years after his death in 1821. It lingers yet."

    By the end of the 56-day siege, a determined Viet Minh guerrilla force had destroyed a large, tactical French colonial army in the heart of Southeast Asia. The Vietnamese victory would not only end French occupation of Indochina and offer a sobering premonition of the U.S.'s future military defeat in the region, but would also provide a new model of modern warfare on which size and sophistication didn't always dictate victory.Before his death in Vietnam in 1967, Bernard Fall, a critically acclaimed scholar and reporter, drew upon declassified documents from the French Defense Ministry and interviews with thousands of surviving French and Vietnamese soldiers to weave a compelling account of the key battle of Dien Bien Phu. With maps highlighting the strategic points of conflict, with thirty-two pages of photos, and with Fall's thorough and insightful analysis, Hell in a Very Small Place has become one of the benchmarks in war reportage.

    It was also one of the war's bloodiest and most pivotal battles, whose outcome would shape international politics for decades to come.Cornelius Ryan's compelling account of this final battle is a story of brutal extremes, of stunning military triumph alongside the stark conditions that the civilians of Berlin experienced in the face of the Allied assault. As always, Ryan delves beneath the military and political forces that were dictating events to explore the more immediate imperatives of survival, where, as the author describes it, “to eat had become more important than to love, to burrow more dignified than to fight, to exist more militarily correct than to win.”It is the story of ordinary people, both soldiers and civilians, caught up in the despair, frustration, and terror of defeat. It is history at its best, a masterful illumination of the effects of war on the lives of individuals, and one of the enduring works on World War II.

    To reconstruct the tumultuous hundred days between Yalta and the fall of Berlin, John Toland traveled more than 100,000 miles in twenty-one countries and interviewed more than six hundred people—from Hitler’s personal chauffeur to Generals von Manteuffel, Wenck, and Heinrici; from underground leaders to diplomats; from top Allied field commanders to brave young GIs. Toland adeptly weaves together these interviews using research from thousands of primary sources. When it was first published, The Last 100 Days made history, revealing after-action reports, staff journals, and top-secret messages and personal documents previously unavailable to historians. Since that time, it has come to be regarded as one of the greatest historical narratives of the twentieth century.

    Tow ferocious, excruciating years later, his forces met a final devastating defeat in the frozen streets of Stalingrad. Now this entire campaign has been recreated so accurately and vividly by the author of The Foxes of the Desert that you can hear its noise, feel its exhaustion, gasp at the blunders on both sides, follow every movement of the great armies.

    book

    

    s/t: The Amazing True WWI Story of a German-Light Cruiser and Her Courageous CrewThe true story of the most extraordinary and little-known escapades of a German light cruiser called into the thick of battle during World War I.

    11-7.  On cover: Special Studies. Describes battles on three fronts within the European theater: Arnaville, France; Monte Altuzzo, Italy; and Schmidt, Germany from September through November of 1944. Pictures the difficulties of small unit commanders and soldiers in executing missions assigned by higher headquarters.

    Fall wrote as a journalist & a scholar, backed by credentials that include being the recipient of Fulbright, SEATO & Guggenheim fellowships. This is a collection of his articles from publications including The NY Times Magazine, The Nation, The New Republic & Foreign Affairs. Denying that the war was unavoidable, Fall contends that in their day-to-day decisions, Paris, Saigon & Washington repeatedly ignored vital information & chose the course least likely to produce beneficial long-term results.Introduction1 France loses IndochinaSolution in Indochina (March, 1954) The French communists and Indochina (April, 1955) The failure of the Navarre plan (December, 1956) Representative government in the State of VietNam, 1949-54 (August, 1954) The cease-fire- an appraisal (September, 1954) Settlement at Geneva- then and now (May,1965) 2 The north: two decades of revolutionThe grass-roots rebellion (March,1954) Crisis in the North (January,1957) Inside Hanoi (November, 1962) A contemporary profile (July, 1965)3 The South: stillborn experiment? Religion in politics (July, 1955) Danger signs (May, 1958) The birth of insurgency (July, 1958)The Montagnards (October, 1964) The agonizing reappraisal (February, 1965) The scars of division (July, 1964) 4 The unseen enemyCommunist military tactics (October, 1956)The Viet-Cong (April, 1965) The new communist army (September, 1965)5 The west at bayThe stakes in Southeast Asia (November, 1962)Full circle, 1954-64 (May, 1964) The roots of conflict (January, 1965)6 The second Indochina warThe impersonal war (October, 1965) The statistics of war (July, 1965)The year of the Hawks (December, 1965)Old war, new war (March, 1966)EpilogueBibliographyIndex

    Describes ways to use tannerite, aluminum powder, thermite, fuse cords, fuse igniters, and more in unconventional warfare—and much more.U.S. Army Special Forces Guide to Unconventional Warfare contains incredibly detailed information and visuals provided by the U.S. Army. With this guide, you will be able to easily apply its material to understand and create initiators, igniters, and incendiary materials.This is an anarchist cookbook of sorts by army guys. It is an improvised munitions handbook made from U.S. Army intelligence. The table of contents includes gelled gasoline, fire fudge, napalm, silver nitrate, concentrated sulfuric acid, fuse cords, spontaneous combustion, and delay mechanisms. Brimming with special forces secrets, this guide is a critical tool for any provocateur-in-training and provides insight into how American special forces are fighting our enemies overseas.

    

    The requirements vary, depending on subject, though the essential ingredients would appear to be urbanity and zest. Stringfellow Barr, the famous founder of the St. John's Great Books curriculum, here presents his fine companion volume to The Will Of Zeus. That volume chronicled Grecian antiquity; the current work describes the shaping, triumphs, and eventual demise of the Roman Empire. It is, of course, a not unfamiliar tale: the curtain rises on the death of Alexander, the various Caesars march across the stage, the arts of war, politics, commerce, and poetry flourish, the Byzantine world emerges, and the house lights dim as the Christian emperor Constantine exits from the scene. To encompass so many centuries, to draw upon such a plethora of primary and secondary sources, and to infuse urgency with panoramic scope, is a difficult job. Barr has the specialist's training, so his account is always historically disciplined. Happily, it is rarely smothered with off-putting details dear to the heart of academics. The portraiture is especially good: Hadrian and Aurelius, for instance, are dramatically characterized. Extracts from Pliny or Tacitus or Cicero are aptly chosen; the military struggles, imperial claims, conflicting ideas and religions gain much from Barr's wise insistence on keeping them within a Graeco-Roman focus. True, there are some unwieldy stretches, but the rich canvas absorbs them all."

    Army Historical Series