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.

    Forester's classic seafaring tales about Horatio Hornblower from the author of The Good Shepherd, now a major-motion picture starring Tom Hanks'A joyous creation, a perfection in words. Young Hornblower is, simply, one of the most complete creations of character in fiction' Conn Iggulden, The IndependentJoin Horatio Hornblower and as he sets sail on a world of adventure, fighting against the ruthless Napoleonic France, taking command in the West Indies, and leading his squadron through the vicious seas.Hornblower shows his relentless courage time and time again in the face of battle, tackling times of trouble with his signature strength, resourcefulness, and with his squadron by his side.This omnibus edition contains:· Flying Colours · The Commodore · Lord Hornblower· Hornblower in the West Indies

    The two-day murder of 33,771 Jewish civilians on September 29-30, 1941 in the Kiev ravine was one of the largest single mass killings of the Holocaust.The novel begins as follows: "Everything in this book is true. When I recounted episodes of this story to different people, they all said I had to write the book. The word ‘document’ in the subtitle of this novel means that I have provided only actual facts and documents without the slightest literary conjecture as to how things could or must have happened."

    In its every turn and crease, it bears the marks of the true." --Irving Howe, New Republic"This remarkable memoir...is the autobiography of an extraordinarily acute conscience. With the ear of a poet and the eye of a novelist, Amery vividly communicates the wonder of a philosopher--a wonder here aroused by the 'dark riddle' of the Nazi regime and its systematic sadism." --Jim Miller, Newsweek"Whoever has succumbed to torture can no longer feel at home in the world. The shame of destruction cannot be erased. Trust in the world, which already collapsed in part at the first blow, but in the end, under torture, fully, will not be regained. That one's fellow man was experienced as the antiman remains in the tortured person as accumulated horror. It blocks the view into a world in which the principle of hope rules. One who was martyred is a defenseless prisoner of fear. It is fear that henceforth reigns over him." --Jean AmeryAt the Mind's Limits is the story of one man's incredible struggle to understand the reality of horror. In five autobiographical essays, Amery describes his survival--mental, moral, and physical--through the enormity of the Holocaust. Above all, this masterful record of introspection tells of a young Viennese intellectual's fervent vision of human nature and the betrayal of that vision.

    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.

    On that day 600 prisoners armed with stolen guns and grenades attacked the Nazi guards, burned the camp, and fled into the nearby Polish forests. Of these, forty survived to bear witness to man's courage in the face of the greatest evil human history has produced.

    To save the long-term future of their village, the people in the Italian village of Santa Vittoria decide to hide over a million bottles of their famous (and expensive) wine from the occupying Nazis.

    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.

    It was the beginning of Hitler's Operation Barbarossa, one of the most brutal campaigns in the history of warfare. Four years later, the victorious Red Army has suffered a loss of seven million lives. Alan Clark's incisive analysis succeeds in explaining how a fighting force that in one two-month period lost two million men was nevertheless able to rally to defeat the Wehrmacht. The Barbarossa campaign included some of the greatest episodes in military history: the futile attack on Moscow in the winter of 1941-42, the siege of Stalingrad, the great Russian offensive beginning in 1944 that would lead the Red Army to the historic meeting with the Americans at the Elbe and on to victory in Berlin.Barbarossa is a classic of miltary history. This paperback edition contains a new preface by the author.

    In 1940 Harinxma, then a young tugboat officer, escapes to Britain. The Kwel company has managed to get away much of its fleet and personnel, one jump ahead of the advancing Germans, and sets up to continue operations from London. Harinxma gets his first command, at an earlier age and under much more difficult conditions than he would otherwise have had, specifically acting as a "rescue boat" for the often suicidal Allied convoys to Murmansk.

    A Pictoral history of World War II; More than 720 great photographs from World War II

     Now only fifteen are left to call themselves the Glasshouse Gang Commando Unit, and live on their wits and their desert knowledge and their fighting skills, and evade both the Eighth Army and Rommel’s Afrika Korps. One far-sighted general at Cairo H.Q. had seen a use for John Offer’s misfits and sent them to wreak death and destruction behind Rommel’s lines. And now the Germans hold hostages—two of the Glasshouse Gang, prisoners in the hands of the S.S. in Benghazi. They will not live long unless their comrades can pull off another of their daring exploits... Praise for Gordon Landsborough “An exciting tough, fast and moving novel” – Times Literary Supplement “It has everything…supremely good characterisation, descriptive brilliance, and masterly in its simplicity" - Birmingham Post "A punchy tale coupled with plenty of action - an engaging read!" - Philip McCormac Gordon Landsborough was a publisher, author and bookseller. In the 1950s to 1980s, the publishing industry went through significant changes. Landsborough found himself at the forefront of this and used this opportunity to bring forth his innovative ideas. Other works by Landsborough included, The Violent People (1960), The Dead Commando (1976) and Black Death (1951), among many more.

    Author Charlotte Delbo was one of the 49 who survived. Now available in English for the first time, this haunting volume is Delbo's testament to those who formed the convoy to the hell that was Auschwitz. The prisoners came from all regions of France and represented a wide range of social backgrounds and political views. With a gripping simplicity and poignancy, Delbo recounts the unique life history of each woman, from her childhood to her involvement in the Resistance, from her arrest to her horrifying experience in the concentration camp. Collectively, these stories are a powerful and stirring reminder of the atrocities perpetrated by the Nazis.

    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.

    book

    This carefully revised edition not only brings the original analysis up to date but adds two entirely new chapters: one on terrorism, the most celebrated form of political violence throughout the 1970s, and one on theories of revolution from Brinton to the present day.

    In more than 720 great photographs and color pictures (collected from archives all over the world), in a superlative narrative by C. L. Sulzberger, and in dozens of eyewitness accounts -- here is the essence and the drama and the real look of World War II.

    Since these editions were published, other material on SOE has become available. It was, therefore, agreed in 2000 that Professor Foot should produce a revised version. In so doing, in addition to the material in the first edition, the author has had access to previously closed government records, as well as drawing upon his own invaluable wartime experiences and the recollections of those involved. SOE in France begins by explaining what SOE was, where it fitted into the Allied war machine, and how it worked in France. The narrative then recounts the adventures of its agents who worked on French soil. This intricate tale concentrates on the work of the 400 hand-picked men and women of the 'independent French' section, although it also covers SOE's five other sections that operated mainly in France. All told, the six sections despatched over 1,800 clandestine agents, who between them changed the course of the war. This updated new edition will be essential reading for scholars and for all those with an informed general interest in the activities of the SOE.

    

    This work paved the way for the exploration of the black military experience in other wars. This edition, with a new foreword by Herman Hattaway and bibliographical essay by the author, makes available once again a pioneering work that will be especially useful for scholars and students of Civil War, black, and military history.

    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

    

    Edward Beach's father commanded the Memphis, one of the largest battle cruisers built by the U.S. Navy up to that time--bigger and faster than a battleship. The Memphis (originally Tennessee) was demolished by monstrous tsunami waves in Santo Domingo Harbor in August 1916, killing forty-three sailors, and Beach Jr. literally grew up with the tragedy and its effects, which are as profound today as they were eighty years ago.Based on his father's reminiscences and private papers, official documents, and interviews with survivors, Beach's reexamination of the disaster and his father's court-martial ranks among the finest analyses of the responsibilities and demands placed on the commanding officer of a U.S. Navy ship. A record-setting submarine skipper himself and the acclaimed author of Run Silent, Run Deep, Beach brought personal knowledge to a story that has become a classic in the years since its original publication in 1966. His prose was never more incisive and vigorous. In an introductory essay written for this new edition, Beach discusses the design of the Memphis, her role in the fleet that fought in World War I, and object lessons that have influenced U.S. naval history since the disaster.

    American Curtiss Hawk biplanes against Japanese Zero fighters, jungle air strips barely long enough to get a plane off the ground, sky fighting soldiers of fortune in the shark-faced planes of the Flying Tigers -- this is the epic story of the early air war in the Pacific.

    Extensively researched. Greene includes an extensive collection of quotes by US French and Vietnamese government entities and political figures. Written in 1966, it's amazing how much information was actually accessible at the time but that was somehow unnoticed by so many people. There are lots of photographs too, but the real impressive stuff is the historical facts and discussion of the circumstance that Greene supplies. He even provides the the Summery of the Ten-Point Program of the National Liberation Front of South Vietnam (announced as of December 20, 1960) and the Four Points of the Democratic Republic of Vientam (1965). Over all a fascinating time capsule.

    In this book, General Moshe Dayan, who masterminded the invasion and commanded the Israeli troops in the field, gives his personal account of the campaign and examines the events leading up it.

    Swearing eternal allegiance to Adolf Hitler, it infiltrated every aspect of German life and was responsible for the deaths of millions. This gripping history recounts the strange and, at times, absurd true story of Hitler's SS. It exposes an organization that was not directed by some devilishly efficient system but was the product of accident, inevitability, and the random convergence of criminals, social climbers, and romantics. Above all, this eye-opening book describes in fascinating detail the chaotic political conditions that allowed the SS-despite rivalries and bizarre conditions-to assume and exercise unaccountable power.

    This book shows how wrong that assessment is. The Terrible Rain, a companion volume to Brian Gardner’s anthology of the poetry of World War I, Up the Line to Death, has established itself as a classic collection of poetry of World War II. From the outbreak of war, through the Blitz, to fighting on land, sea, and in the air, the poems mirror each phase of action in every theater from the front line to the Home Front. An outstanding record of the time, the volume includes poems by W. H. Auden, William Plomer, Edith Sitwell, Louis MacNeice, Stephen Spender, Dylan Thomas, Keith Douglas, Laurie Lee, and many others. The overall quality of the poetry shows a remarkable maturity of response and is an extraordinary record of the spirit of their time.

    Army Historical Series

    

    . . . It is of exceptional merit and interest. Its excellence is so outstanding as to set it apart from the general run of published (and unpublished) personal narrative.”—Bell Irwin Wiley“Richard B. Harwell, who knows as much about Confederate lore as anyone, finds Patterson’s diary ‘the finest personal narrative of Confederate experiences since Henry Kyd Douglas’s I Rode with Stonewall.’ Happily, Yankee Rebel, long out of print, can now be shared with new generations of readers.”—from the Foreword by Nathaniel Cheairs Hughes Jr.Edmund DeWitt Patterson was nineteen when the Civil War began. Born in Ohio, he had left home just after his seventeenth birthday and gone south to seek his fortune, first as a book salesman, then as a schoolmaster and clerk. When the war broke out, he volunteered for the army of the Confederacy, much to the dismay of his Unionist family. The day he enlisted he began a diary that, for the sharpness of its observations and the literary force of its narration, makes it a splendid firsthand account of the Civil War. Patterson, who later had a distinguished career as a lawyer and judge in Tennessee, was more than a soldier. He was a scholar, reporter, humorist, and everyday philosopher of surprisingly mature views—for he was not old enough to vote until the war was half over.Patterson’s journal, originally published in 1966, moves through his participation in the major battles of Williamsburg, Seven Pines, Seven Days, Fredericksburg, his capture at Gettysburg, and his months in a Federal prison within a few miles of his Northern family. The accounts of combat are vivid and moving, not only telling in detail what happened in battle but also giving a clear and realistic account of the author’s reactions to combat. Engaging and valuable information on morale, religion, diversions, food, shelter, clothing, attitudes toward Federals, and relations with comrades—all enlivened with Patterson’s delightful sense of humor—make this a journal of outstanding quality. The latter portion of the diary provides a fresh and absorbing account of his prison life on Johnson’s Island in Lake Erie and his exchange and return to Richmond in the final days of the war.“I do not know of any other soldier account which gives a more realistic and vivid representation of what a Civil War battle was like. . . . It is of exceptional merit and interest. Its excellence is so outstanding as to set it apart from the general run of published (and unpublished) personal narrative.”—Bell Irwin Wiley“Richard B. Harwell, who knows as much about Confederate lore as anyone, finds Patterson’s diary ‘the finest personal narrative of Confederate experiences since Henry Kyd Douglas’s I Rode with Stonewall.’ Happily, Yankee Rebel, long out of print, can now be shared with new generations of readers.”—from the Foreword by Nathaniel Cheairs Hughes Jr.Edmund DeWitt Patterson was nineteen when the Civil War began. Born in Ohio, he had left home just after his seventeenth birthday and gone south to seek his fortune, first as a book salesman, then as a schoolmaster and clerk. When the war broke out, he volunteered for the army of the Confederacy, much to the dismay of his Unionist family. The day he enlisted he began a diary that, for the sharpness of its observations and the literary force of its narration, makes it a splendid firsthand account of the Civil War. Patterson, who later had a distinguished career as a lawyer and judge in Tennessee, was more than a soldier. He was a scholar, reporter, humorist, and everyday philosopher of surprisingly mature views—for he was not old enough to vote until the war was half over.Patterson’s journal, originally published in 1966, moves through his participation in the major battles of Williamsburg, Seven Pines, Seven Days, Fredericksburg, his capture at Gettysburg, and his months in a Federal prison within a few miles of his Northern family. The accounts of combat are vivid and moving, not only telling in detail what happened in battle but also giving a clear and realistic account of the author’s reactions to combat. Engaging and valuable information on morale, religion, diversions, food, shelter, clothing, attitudes toward Federals, and relations with comrades—all enlivened with Patterson’s delightful sense of humor—make this a journal of outstanding quality. The latter portion of the diary provides a fresh and absorbing account of his prison life on Johnson’s Island in Lake Erie and his exchange and return to Richmond in the final days of the war.John G. Barrett is professor emeritus of history at Virginia Military Institute. He is author of The Civil War in North Carolina and Sherman’s March Through the Carolinas and coeditor of North Carolina Civil War Documentary and Letters of a New Market Cadet.