A History of the Great War, 1914–1918

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Author :
Publisher : Chicago Review Press
ISBN 13 : 0897336607
Total Pages : 688 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (973 download)

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Book Synopsis A History of the Great War, 1914–1918 by : C.R.M.F. Cruttwell

Download or read book A History of the Great War, 1914–1918 written by C.R.M.F. Cruttwell and published by Chicago Review Press. This book was released on 2019-09-03 with total page 688 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This vivid, detailed history of World War I presents the general reader with an accurate and readable account of the campaigns and battles, along with brilliant portraits of the leaders and generals of all countries involved. Scrupulously fair, praising and blaming friend and enemy as circumstances demand, this has become established as the classic account of the first world-wide war.

The Western Front: A History of the Great War, 1914-1918

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Author :
Publisher : Liveright Publishing
ISBN 13 : 1631497952
Total Pages : 652 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (314 download)

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Book Synopsis The Western Front: A History of the Great War, 1914-1918 by : Nick Lloyd

Download or read book The Western Front: A History of the Great War, 1914-1918 written by Nick Lloyd and published by Liveright Publishing. This book was released on 2021-03-30 with total page 652 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “A tour de force of scholarship, analysis and narration.… Lloyd is well on the way to writing a definitive history of the First World War.” —Lawrence James, Times The Telegraph • Best Books of the Year The Times of London • Best Books of the Year A panoramic history of the savage combat on the Western Front between 1914 and 1918 that came to define modern warfare. The Western Front evokes images of mud-spattered men in waterlogged trenches, shielded from artillery blasts and machine-gun fire by a few feet of dirt. This iconic setting was the most critical arena of the Great War, a 400-mile combat zone stretching from Belgium to Switzerland where more than three million Allied and German soldiers struggled during four years of almost continuous combat. It has persisted in our collective memory as a tragic waste of human life and a symbol of the horrors of industrialized warfare. In this epic narrative history, the first volume in a groundbreaking trilogy on the Great War, acclaimed military historian Nick Lloyd captures the horrific fighting on the Western Front beginning with the surprise German invasion of Belgium in August 1914 and taking us to the Armistice of November 1918. Drawing on French, British, German, and American sources, Lloyd weaves a kaleidoscopic chronicle of the Marne, Passchendaele, the Meuse-Argonne, and other critical battles, which reverberated across Europe and the wider war. From the trenches where men as young as 17 suffered and died, to the headquarters behind the lines where Generals Haig, Joffre, Hindenburg, and Pershing developed their plans for battle, Lloyd gives us a view of the war both intimate and strategic, putting us amid the mud and smoke while at the same time depicting the larger stakes of every encounter. He shows us a dejected Kaiser Wilhelm II—soon to be eclipsed in power by his own generals—lamenting the botched Schlieffen Plan; French soldiers piling atop one another in the trenches of Verdun; British infantryman wandering through the frozen wilderness in the days after the Battle of the Somme; and General Erich Ludendorff pursuing a ruthless policy of total war, leading an eleventh-hour attack on Reims even as his men succumbed to the Spanish Flu. As Lloyd reveals, far from a site of attrition and stalemate, the Western Front was a simmering, dynamic “cauldron of war” defined by extraordinary scientific and tactical innovation. It was on the Western Front that the modern technologies—machine guns, mortars, grenades, and howitzers—were refined and developed into effective killing machines. It was on the Western Front that chemical warfare, in the form of poison gas, was first unleashed. And it was on the Western Front that tanks and aircraft were introduced, causing a dramatic shift away from nineteenth-century bayonet tactics toward modern combined arms, reinforced by heavy artillery, that forever changed the face of war. Brimming with vivid detail and insight, The Western Front is a work in the tradition of Barbara Tuchman and John Keegan, Rick Atkinson and Antony Beevor: an authoritative portrait of modern warfare and its far-reaching human and historical consequences.

Ring of Steel

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Publisher : Basic Books
ISBN 13 : 0465056873
Total Pages : 451 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (65 download)

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Book Synopsis Ring of Steel by : Alexander Watson

Download or read book Ring of Steel written by Alexander Watson and published by Basic Books. This book was released on 2014-10-07 with total page 451 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A prize-winning, magisterial history of World War I from the perspective of the defeated Central Powers For the Central Powers, the First World War started with high hopes for an easy victory. But those hopes soon deteriorated as Germany's attack on France failed, Austria-Hungary's armies suffered catastrophic losses, and Britain's ruthless blockade brought both nations to the brink of starvation. The Central powers were trapped in the Allies' ever-tightening Ring of Steel. In this compelling history, Alexander Watson retells the war from the perspective of its losers: not just the leaders in Berlin and Vienna, but the people of Central Europe. The war shattered their societies, destroyed their states, and imparted a poisonous legacy of bitterness and violence. A major reevaluation of the First World War, Ring of Steel is essential for anyone seeking to understand the last century of European history.

Britain's Economic Blockade of Germany, 1914-1919

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Author :
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1135771286
Total Pages : 226 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (357 download)

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Book Synopsis Britain's Economic Blockade of Germany, 1914-1919 by : Eric W. Osborne

Download or read book Britain's Economic Blockade of Germany, 1914-1919 written by Eric W. Osborne and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2004-06-24 with total page 226 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This text studies Great Britain's economic blockade of Germany in World War I, one of the key elements to the victory of the Entente.

African Kaiser

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Publisher : Penguin
ISBN 13 : 0698411528
Total Pages : 450 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (984 download)

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Book Synopsis African Kaiser by : Robert Gaudi

Download or read book African Kaiser written by Robert Gaudi and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2017-01-31 with total page 450 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The incredible true account of World War I in Africa and General Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck, the last undefeated German commander. “Let me say straight out that if all military histories were as thrilling and well written as Robert Gaudi’s African Kaiser, I might give up reading fiction and literary bio­graphy… Gaudi writes with the flair of a latter-day Macaulay. He sets his scenes carefully and describes naval and military action like a novelist.”—Michael Dirda, The Washington Post As World War I ravaged the European continent, a completely different theater of war was being contested in Africa. And from this very different kind of war, there emerged a very different kind of military leader.... At the beginning of the twentieth century, the continent of Africa was a hotbed of international trade, colonialism, and political gamesmanship. So when World War I broke out, the European powers were forced to contend with one another not just in the bloody trenches, but in the treacherous jungle. And it was in that unforgiving land that General Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck would make history. With the now-legendary Schutztruppe (Defensive Force), von Lettow-Vorbeck and a small cadre of hardened German officers fought alongside their fanatically devoted native African allies as equals, creating the first truly integrated army of the modern age. African Kaiser is the fascinating story of a forgotten guerrilla campaign in a remote corner of Equatorial Africa in World War I; of a small army of ultraloyal African troops led by a smaller cadre of rugged German officers—of white men and black who fought side by side. But mostly it is the story of von Lettow-Vorbeck—the only undefeated German commmander in the field during World War I and the last to surrender his arms.

A Scrap of Paper

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Author :
Publisher : Cornell University Press
ISBN 13 : 0801470641
Total Pages : 425 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (14 download)

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Book Synopsis A Scrap of Paper by : Isabel V. Hull

Download or read book A Scrap of Paper written by Isabel V. Hull and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2014-04-16 with total page 425 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In A Scrap of Paper, Isabel V. Hull compares wartime decision making in Germany, Great Britain, and France, weighing the impact of legal considerations in each. She demonstrates how differences in state structures and legal traditions shaped the way the three belligerents fought the war. Hull focuses on seven cases: Belgian neutrality, the land war in the west, the occupation of enemy territory, the blockade, unrestricted submarine warfare, the introduction of new weaponry, and reprisals. A Scrap of Paper reconstructs the debates over military decision-making and clarifies the role law played—where it constrained action, where it was manipulated, where it was ignored, and how it developed in combat—in each case. A Scrap of Paper is a passionate defense of the role that the law must play to govern interstate relations in both peace and war.

Planning Armageddon

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Publisher : Harvard University Press
ISBN 13 : 0674063066
Total Pages : 662 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (74 download)

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Book Synopsis Planning Armageddon by : Nicholas A. Lambert

Download or read book Planning Armageddon written by Nicholas A. Lambert and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2012-01-01 with total page 662 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Before the First World War, the British Admiralty conceived a plan to win rapid victory in the event of war with Germany-economic warfare on an unprecedented scale.This secret strategy called for the state to exploit Britain's effective monopolies in banking, communications, and shipping-the essential infrastructure underpinning global trade-to create a controlled implosion of the world economic system. In this revisionist account, Nicholas Lambert shows in lively detail how naval planners persuaded the British political leadership that systematic disruption of the global economy could bring about German military paralysis. After the outbreak of hostilities, the government shied away from full implementation upon realizing the extent of likely collateral damage-political, social, economic, and diplomatic-to both Britain and neutral countries. Woodrow Wilson in particular bristled at British restrictions on trade. A new, less disruptive approach to economic coercion was hastily improvised. The result was the blockade, ostensibly intended to starve Germany. It proved largely ineffective because of the massive political influence of economic interests on national ambitions and the continued interdependencies of all countries upon the smooth functioning of the global trading system. Lambert's interpretation entirely overturns the conventional understanding of British strategy in the early part of the First World War and underscores the importance in any analysis of strategic policy of understanding Clausewitz's "political conditions of war."

German Battlecruisers of World War One

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Publisher : Seaforth Publishing
ISBN 13 : 1848323077
Total Pages : 1161 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (483 download)

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Book Synopsis German Battlecruisers of World War One by : Gary Staff

Download or read book German Battlecruisers of World War One written by Gary Staff and published by Seaforth Publishing. This book was released on 2014-11-29 with total page 1161 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The most comprehensive English-language study of the German Imperial Navy’s WWI battlecruisers, fully illustrated with drawings, diagrams and photographs. In this in-depth study, naval historian and author of Battle on the Seven Seas Gary Staff presents a full analysis of Imperial Germany’s battlecruisers. Known as Panzerkreuzer, the eight ships of this class were involved in several early North Sea skirmishes before their historic victory against the Royal Navy in the Battle of Jutland. Staff details the design and construction of these ships, and traces the full-service history of each one, recounting their actions, largely from first-hand German sources and official documents. Detailed line drawings and maps augment the text throughout, as do a wealth of contemporary photos that depict the vessels at sea as well as in dock, where many aspects of their design—as well as damage sustained in action—can be viewed in close up. A superb series of full-color computer graphics show full length profiles and top-down views of each ship in precise and clear detail. German Battle Cruisers of World War One presents a major contribution to German naval history in the English language. It is a must-have volume for Great War historians and enthusiasts, as well as battlecruiser modelers.

Naval Warfare 1914–1918

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Author :
Publisher : Amber Books Ltd
ISBN 13 : 1908273127
Total Pages : 226 pages
Book Rating : 4.9/5 (82 download)

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Book Synopsis Naval Warfare 1914–1918 by : Tim Benbow

Download or read book Naval Warfare 1914–1918 written by Tim Benbow and published by Amber Books Ltd. This book was released on 2014-03-03 with total page 226 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With the aid of over 300 photographs, complemented by full-colour maps, Naval Warfare provides a detailed guide to the background and conduct of World War I naval operations, describing the struggle to win control of the high seas around the globe.

The Chinese Navy

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Publisher : Government Printing Office
ISBN 13 : 9780160897634
Total Pages : 348 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (976 download)

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Book Synopsis The Chinese Navy by : Institute for National Strategic Studies

Download or read book The Chinese Navy written by Institute for National Strategic Studies and published by Government Printing Office. This book was released on 2011-12-27 with total page 348 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Tells the story of the growing Chinese Navy - The People's Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) - and its expanding capabilities, evolving roles and military implications for the USA. Divided into four thematic sections, this special collection of essays surveys and analyzes the most important aspects of China's navel modernization.

Preparing for Blockade 1885-1914

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Publisher : Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.
ISBN 13 : 1409473228
Total Pages : 355 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (94 download)

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Book Synopsis Preparing for Blockade 1885-1914 by : Dr Stephen Cobb

Download or read book Preparing for Blockade 1885-1914 written by Dr Stephen Cobb and published by Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.. This book was released on 2013-04-28 with total page 355 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Today, the First World War is remembered chiefly for the carnage of the Western Front, but at the time the Royal Navy's blockade of Germany was a more frequent source of debate. For, even at a time of war, there were influential voices in Britain who baulked at a concept of economic warfare that hindered the free passage of goods on the high seas, and brought German society to the brink of famine. To further our understanding of these issues, this book looks at the background to the blockade, and the effects of its implementation in 1914. It argues that there was a widely shared, but largely unwritten, strategic culture within British naval circles which accepted that in a war with a major maritime power the British response would be to attack enemy trade. This is demonstrated by the fact that from at least the late 1880s the Royal Navy planned for the use of armed merchantmen to enforce an economic blockade of an enemy. This it did by entering into detailed arrangements with major British shipping companies for the design and subsidy of liners with the potential for use as merchant cruisers, and stockpiling their prospective armament. In line with the contemporary, Corbettian, view that seapower depends upon free communications, the book concludes by asserting that the primary role of the Grand Fleet in the First World War was to guarantee the ability of the merchant cruisers on the Northern Patrol to interdict German seaborne trade, rather than to engage in large set-piece battles.

War on the Waters

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Publisher : UNC Press Books
ISBN 13 : 0807837326
Total Pages : 288 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (78 download)

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Book Synopsis War on the Waters by : James M. McPherson

Download or read book War on the Waters written by James M. McPherson and published by UNC Press Books. This book was released on 2012-09-17 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Although previously undervalued for their strategic impact because they represented only a small percentage of total forces, the Union and Confederate navies were crucial to the outcome of the Civil War. In War on the Waters, James M. McPherson has crafted an enlightening, at times harrowing, and ultimately thrilling account of the war's naval campaigns and their military leaders. McPherson recounts how the Union navy's blockade of the Confederate coast, leaky as a sieve in the war's early months, became increasingly effective as it choked off vital imports and exports. Meanwhile, the Confederate navy, dwarfed by its giant adversary, demonstrated daring and military innovation. Commerce raiders sank Union ships and drove the American merchant marine from the high seas. Southern ironclads sent several Union warships to the bottom, naval mines sank many more, and the Confederates deployed the world's first submarine to sink an enemy vessel. But in the end, it was the Union navy that won some of the war's most important strategic victories--as an essential partner to the army on the ground at Fort Donelson, Vicksburg, Port Hudson, Mobile Bay, and Fort Fisher, and all by itself at Port Royal, Fort Henry, New Orleans, and Memphis.

Before Jutland

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Publisher : US Naval Institute Press
ISBN 13 : 9781591143499
Total Pages : 0 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (434 download)

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Book Synopsis Before Jutland by : James Goldrick

Download or read book Before Jutland written by James Goldrick and published by US Naval Institute Press. This book was released on 2015 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Before Jutland is an effort to understand what happened at sea in northern European waters in 1914-15 when the German High Sea Fleet faced the Grand Fleet in the North Sea and the Russian Fleet in the Baltic. The book is an extensively revised and extended version of the author's 1984 work The King's Ships Were at Sea. It covers the first six months of the First World War because very important things occurred in that time and, despite the loose ends that inevitably remain with four more years of conflict to follow, important things can be said. The focus is primarily on the British, but both the Germans and the Russians are integral to the study because neither the British nor the Germans' North Sea activities can be fairly assessed without giving due weight to the Baltic theatre of operations. This is an operational history, which balances coverage of the major incidents with treatment of the continuum of activity. The intent within the scene setting chapters is not to attempt a complete survey of the events of the previous decade, but to situate each navy within the environment of 1914. Before Jutland includes the battles of Heligoland Bight and the Dogger Bank, as well as the shock of the submarine and its effect on the operations of all the protagonists. In analyzing these events, it seeks to provide the context within which the protagonists were actually working, without the application of excessive hindsight, because in 1914 so much was new and experimental. Observers are inclined to consider what is known as the 'Fisher Era' as a continuum from Admiral Fisher's accession as First Sea Lord in the British Admiralty in 1904; in reality the pace of operational development not only accelerated but became truly multi-lane only after about 1909, just before the great reformer went into his first retirement. The pressures at all levels within navies were therefore intensifying in the years immediately before the outbreak of the war in ways that were not fully understood, nor necessarily recognized. In short, those involved were struggling to learn a new language of naval operations and warfare with an incomplete dictionary and very little grammar. In all, Before Jutland tries to show not only what happened, but how the services evolved to meet the challenges that they faced at the opening of the Great War and whether or not that evolution was successful." --Publisher description.

Norwegian Shipping in the 20th Century

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Author :
Publisher : Springer
ISBN 13 : 3319956396
Total Pages : 336 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (199 download)

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Book Synopsis Norwegian Shipping in the 20th Century by : Stig Tenold

Download or read book Norwegian Shipping in the 20th Century written by Stig Tenold and published by Springer. This book was released on 2019-01-01 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is open access under a CC BY NC ND 4.0 license. This open access book discusses how Norwegian shipping companies played a crucial role in global shipping markets in the 20th century, at times transporting more than ten per cent of world seaborne trade. Chapters explore how Norway managed to remain competitive, despite being a high labour-cost country in an industry with global competition. Among the features that are emphasised are market developments, business strategies and political decisions The Norwegian experience was shaped by the main breaking points in 20th century world history, such as the two world wars, and by long-term trends, such as globalization and liberalization. The shipping companies introduced technological and organizational innovations to build or maintain a competitive advantage in a rapidly changing world. The growing importance of offshore petroleum exploration in the North Sea from the 1970s was both a threat and an opportunity to the shipping companies. By adapting both business strategies and the political regime to the new circumstances, the Norwegian shipping sector managed to maintain a leading position internationally.

Wielding the Dagger

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Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN 13 : 0313052522
Total Pages : 280 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (13 download)

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Book Synopsis Wielding the Dagger by : Mark D. Karau

Download or read book Wielding the Dagger written by Mark D. Karau and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2003-10-30 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In August 1914, Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz convinced the German armed forces to create a new unit, called the MarineDivision Flandern, to garrison the Belgian coastline and prepare naval bases in for the implementation of a naval guerrilla war against Great Britain. The Germans called their strategy Kleinkrieg, or little war, and they intended to whittle away at British naval superiority by using their submarines and destroyers. Later expanded into the MarineKorps, the unit soon found itself in the middle of a land war as well. What had been intended as a garrison unit found itself on the frontlines when the war stalemated. The British had traditionally seen Belgium as a dagger pointed at the throat of England, and the Royal Navy feared what use the Germans might make of the position. The result was an active naval campaign in the English Channel. Karau brings to light the contributions of the MarineKorps Flandern, a force often neglected by historians. He examines the role of the MarineKorps in both land and naval wars and reaffirms the increasingly important role played by aircraft in the Flanders theater. If Belgium was a weapon pointed at the British throat, were the Germans properly equipped to wield the dagger?

The Rise And Fall of British Naval Mastery

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Author :
Publisher : Penguin UK
ISBN 13 : 0141983833
Total Pages : 592 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (419 download)

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Book Synopsis The Rise And Fall of British Naval Mastery by : Paul Kennedy

Download or read book The Rise And Fall of British Naval Mastery written by Paul Kennedy and published by Penguin UK. This book was released on 2017-01-26 with total page 592 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Paul Kennedy's classic naval history, now updated with a new introduction by the author This acclaimed book traces Britain's rise and fall as a sea power from the Tudors to the present day. Challenging the traditional view that the British are natural 'sons of the waves', he suggests instead that the country's fortunes as a significant maritime force have always been bound up with its economic growth. In doing so, he contributes significantly to the centuries-long debate between 'continental' and 'maritime' schools of strategy over Britain's policy in times of war. Setting British naval history within a framework of national, international, economic, political and strategic considerations, he offers a fresh approach to one of the central questions in British history. A new introduction extends his analysis into the twenty-first century and reflects on current American and Chinese ambitions for naval mastery. 'Excellent and stimulating' Correlli Barnett 'The first scholar to have set the sweep of British Naval history against the background of economic history' Michael Howard, Sunday Times 'By far the best study that has ever been done on the subject ... a sparkling and apt quotation on practically every page' Daniel A. Baugh, International History Review 'The best single-volume study of Britain and her naval past now available to us' Jon Sumida, Journal of Modern History

Command Of The Air

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Author :
Publisher : Pickle Partners Publishing
ISBN 13 : 1782898522
Total Pages : 620 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (828 download)

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Book Synopsis Command Of The Air by : General Giulio Douhet

Download or read book Command Of The Air written by General Giulio Douhet and published by Pickle Partners Publishing. This book was released on 2014-08-15 with total page 620 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the pantheon of air power spokesmen, Giulio Douhet holds center stage. His writings, more often cited than perhaps actually read, appear as excerpts and aphorisms in the writings of numerous other air power spokesmen, advocates-and critics. Though a highly controversial figure, the very controversy that surrounds him offers to us a testimonial of the value and depth of his work, and the need for airmen today to become familiar with his thought. The progressive development of air power to the point where, today, it is more correct to refer to aerospace power has not outdated the notions of Douhet in the slightest In fact, in many ways, the kinds of technological capabilities that we enjoy as a global air power provider attest to the breadth of his vision. Douhet, together with Hugh “Boom” Trenchard of Great Britain and William “Billy” Mitchell of the United States, is justly recognized as one of the three great spokesmen of the early air power era. This reprint is offered in the spirit of continuing the dialogue that Douhet himself so perceptively began with the first edition of this book, published in 1921. Readers may well find much that they disagree with in this book, but also much that is of enduring value. The vital necessity of Douhet’s central vision-that command of the air is all important in modern warfare-has been proven throughout the history of wars in this century, from the fighting over the Somme to the air war over Kuwait and Iraq.