Three Armies on the Somme

Three Armies on the Somme PDF Author: William Philpott
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 0307278379
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
For decades, the Battle of the Somme has exemplified the horrors and futility of trench warfare. Here William Philpott argues that the battle ultimately gave the British and French forces on the Western Front the knowledge and experience to bring World War I to a victorious end. Philpott shows that twentieth-century war as we know it simply didn’t exist before the battle: new technologies like the armored tank made their debut, while developments in communications lagged behind commanders’ needs. Attrition emerged as the only means of defeating industrialized belligerents that were mobilizing all their resources for war. An exciting, indispensable work of military history, Three Armies on the Somme challenges our received ideas about the Battle of the Somme, and about the very nature of war.

Three Armies on the Somme

Three Armies on the Somme PDF Author: William Philpott
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 0307278379
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
For decades, the Battle of the Somme has exemplified the horrors and futility of trench warfare. Here William Philpott argues that the battle ultimately gave the British and French forces on the Western Front the knowledge and experience to bring World War I to a victorious end. Philpott shows that twentieth-century war as we know it simply didn’t exist before the battle: new technologies like the armored tank made their debut, while developments in communications lagged behind commanders’ needs. Attrition emerged as the only means of defeating industrialized belligerents that were mobilizing all their resources for war. An exciting, indispensable work of military history, Three Armies on the Somme challenges our received ideas about the Battle of the Somme, and about the very nature of war.

Bloody Victory

Bloody Victory PDF Author: William Philpott
Publisher: Hachette UK
ISBN: 0349142653
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 760

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Book Description
1 July 1916: the first day of the Battle of the Somme. The hot, hellish day in the fields of northern France that has dominated our perception of the First World War for just shy of a century. The shameful waste; the pointlessness of young lives lost for the sake of a few yards; the barbaric attitudes of the British leaders; the horror and ignominy of failure. All have occupied our thoughts for generations. Yet are we right to view the Somme in this way? Drawing on a vast number of sources such as letters, diaries and numerous archives, Bloody Victory describes in vivid detail the physical conditions, the combat and exceptional bravery against the odds but it also, uniquely, captures how the Somme defined the twentieth century in so many ways. This is an utterly gripping new analysis of one of the most iconic campaigns in history.

Somme

Somme PDF Author: Hugh Sebag-Montefiore
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674970039
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 650

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Book Description
Rescuing from history the heroes on the front line whose bravery has been overlooked, and giving voice to their bereaved relatives at home, Hugh Sebag-Montefiore reveals the Battle of the Somme in all its glory and 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 Somme

The Somme PDF Author: Peter Hart
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1605987654
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 624

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Book Description
One of the bloodiest battles in world history—a military tragedy that would come to define a generation. On July 1, 1916, the British Army launched the “Big Push” that was supposed to bring an end to the horrific stalemate on the Western Front between British, French, and German forces. What resulted was one of the greatest single human catastrophes in twentieth century warfare. Scrambling out of trenches in the face of German machine guns and artillery fire, the Allied Powers lost over twenty thousand soldiers that first day. This “battle” would drag on for another four bloody months, resulting in over one million causalities among the three powers. As the oral historian at the Imperial War Museum in London, Peter Hart has brought to light new material never before seen or heard. The Somme is an unparalleled evocation of World War I’s iconic contest—the definitive account of one of the major tragedies of the twentieth century.

The Somme

The Somme PDF Author: Robin Prior
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300220286
Category : Somme, 1st Battle of the, France, 1916
Languages : en
Pages : 399

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Book Description
"Despite superior air and artillery power, British soldiers died in catastrophic numbers at the Battle of Somme in 1916. What went wrong, and who was responsible? This book meticulously reconstructs the battle, assigns responsibility to military and political leaders, and changes forever the way we understand this encounter and the history of the Western Front"--Publisher description.

Communications and British Operations on the Western Front, 1914-1918

Communications and British Operations on the Western Front, 1914-1918 PDF Author: Brian N. Hall
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107170559
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 363

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Book Description
This book reveals the impact of communications on the military operations of the British Expeditionary Force during the First World War.

The Somme

The Somme PDF Author: Robin Prior
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300220294
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 399

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Book Description
Published in a new edition on the centenary of the seismic battle, this book provides the definitive account of the Somme and assigns responsibility to military and political leaders for its catastrophic outcome. “A magisterial piece of scholarship. . . . It is a model of historical research and should do much to further our understanding of the Great War and how it was fought.”—Contemporary Review “Revisionist history at its best.”—Library Journal (starred review) “A major addition to the literature on the military history of the Great War.”—Jay Winter

The Dynamics of Doctrine

The Dynamics of Doctrine PDF Author: Timothy T. Lupfer
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Electronic government information
Languages : en
Pages : 84

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Book Description
This paper is a case study in the wartime evolution of tactical doctrine. Besides providing a summary of German Infantry tactics of the First World War, this study offers insight into the crucial role of leadership in facilitating doctrinal change during battle. It reminds us that success in war demands extensive and vigorous training calculated to insure that field commanders understand and apply sound tactical principles as guidelines for action and not as a substitute for good judgment. It points out the need for a timely effort in collecting and evaluating doctrinal lessons from battlefield experience. --Abstract.

The Face of Battle

The Face of Battle PDF Author: John Keegan
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1440673993
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 368

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Book Description
John Keegan's groundbreaking portrayal of the common soldier in the heat of battle -- a masterpiece that explores the physical and mental aspects of warfare The Face of Battle is military history from the battlefield: a look at the direct experience of individuals at the "point of maximum danger." Without the myth-making elements of rhetoric and xenophobia, and breaking away from the stylized format of battle descriptions, John Keegan has written what is probably the definitive model for military historians. And in his scrupulous reassessment of three battles representative of three different time periods, he manages to convey what the experience of combat meant for the participants, whether they were facing the arrow cloud at the battle of Agincourt, the musket balls at Waterloo, or the steel rain of the Somme. The Face of Battle is a companion volume to John Keegan's classic study of the individual soldier, The Mask of Command: together they form a masterpiece of military and human history.

The Battle of the Somme

The Battle of the Somme PDF Author: Alan Axelrod
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1493022091
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 291

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Book Description
offensive to be waged against Germany even as France poured incredible numbers of men into the slaughterhouse that was the desperate defense of Verdun. élan vital” of the French people, a quality, he argued, that set the Gallic race apart from the rest of the world. French losses were just under 200,000. The Germans lost at least 650,000. Just as the French refused to give up ground at Verdun, the Germans held on stubbornly at the Somme—so stubbornly that General Ludendorff actually complained that his men “fought too doggedly, clinging too resolutely to the mere holding of ground, with the result that the losses were heavy.” The only thing “conclusive” about the Somme was the ineluctable fact of death. No battle ever fought in any conflict provided a stronger incentive for all sides to reach a negotiated peace—the “peace without victory” that Woodrow Wilson, still standing on the sidelines, urged the combatants to agree upon. Instead, the Kaiser, appalled both by Verdun and the Somme, relieved Falkenhayn and replaced him with Hindenburg and Ludendorff, who had achieved great success on the Eastern Front. The new commanders created two new defensive lines, both well behind the Somme front. On the one hand, it was a retreat. On the other, it was a commitment to draw the French and British farther east and invite them to sacrifice more of their soldiery. The modest advance the British made was but the prelude to additional slaughter.