Filter to

Hampered by tactical mistakes in preparation for the invasion and by severely stretched resources, the Germans nevertheless almost repelled the Allies in June 1944 and the Battle of Normandy remained in the balance for two months. This assessment of the D-Day landings and the subsequent struggle for the Falaise Pocket from the defenders' perspective, focuses on the performance of the German commanders on the ground and uses first-hand accounts to give an insight into conditions and contemporary attitudes.

Based on rare material from German and Russian original sources, this collection of field reports details the tactics and combat activities of the Wehrmacht in Russia. Compiled by historian Bob Carruthers, and supplemented with illustrations from US intelligence files, it focuses on neglected military features including armoured trains, the construction of field defences, street fighting techniques and improvised anti-tank measures.

This volume comprises archive material from British sources, by men of all ranks in the cavalry, infantry and artillery. The many revealing details include failed horse charges, friendly fire, letters from surgeons attending casualties and the camaraderie among Peninsular veterans, with authors such as Sir Hussey Vivan; Frederick Ponsonby, who describes his battlefield wounding; and Daniel Mackinnon, famous for the defence of Hougoumont.

Richard Evans has visited each of the ancient battle sites analysed in this volume and brings new perspectives based on an understanding of the terrain and the latest archaeological finds. The study covers the famous battles of the Persian Wars such as Marathon and Thermopylae, Caesar's campaigns in Iberia, and Vitellius’s battles of Bedriacum in 69 CE.

In the early stages of First World War, the BEF was driven back from Mons before advancing to the River Aisne, after which they faced the stalemate of trench warfare and the attritional Battle of Ypres. Drawing on the Official History and other sources, Rawson gives an in-depth British account of each battle and skirmish, with over 60 explanatory maps.

As well as a successful military operation, the Normandy invasion of June 1944 was one of the most impressive logistical feats in the history of warfare. Using contemporary photographs and over 90 detailed maps, including declassified secret documents, this analysis explains how the Allies conceived the plan. It reveals how they co-ordinated several armies and deception schemes, meticulously assessed and charted German defences, and organized the 5,000 craft and 150,000 troops for the assault and subsequent breakout from the beachheads.

On 31 January 1916, nine German Zeppelins bombed several major towns in the Midlands, killing 70 people in the worst air raid of the First World War. Using local newspapers, coroner’s reports and GCHQ documents, this history records the routes taken by each airship and where its bombs fell, and names the officers, crew members and those who died.

This first-hand account of the Peninsular War covers the 1812 advance to Aranjuez, the winter retreat and the 1813 campaign that pushed the French back across the Ebro. As well as giving an insight into the military operations, the book includes personal observations of the countryside, customs and people, and an overview of the career of Captain Webber, who was wounded at Waterloo.

Historian Anthony Dawson draws on previously unpublished sources to cast new light on the most destructive war of the nineteenth century. Focusing on the Siege of Sevastopol, during which artillery bombardments, dysentery, cholera and the freezing winter exacted a huge death toll, the book highlights particular aspects including the storming of the Redan and the Mamelon, and the Battle of the Tchernaya, the Russians’ desperate attempt to break the siege.

With its high casualty count, Fromelles (19–20 July 1916) is generally considered a failure resulting from incompetent British generalship. By analysing the process of planning the battle, Lee gives a more nuanced picture of the command structure’s strengths and weaknesses.

The War of the Spanish Succession was fought across much of Europe, but this history focuses on the lesser-known campaign in Spain itself. It examines the size and composition of the British and Dutch forces fighting under the Duke of Marlborough and charts all the engagements in this theatre, from smaller skirmishes to Almanza. Historic paintings, prints and maps, alongside new colour plates, illustrate the narrative.

Valeriy Zamulin has written extensively on the Battle of Kursk. Here he takes a closer look at aspects of it that have been subject to debate, including examples of friendly fire censored from Soviet history, German preparations for the counterattack, and myths about battlefield tactics.

After the Allies secured Sicily and invaded Italy in 1943, Mussolini was deposed and an armistice was signed with the Italians. However the subsequent long, bloody campaign only ended just before the German surrender in 1945. This chronological history by a leading Irish historian covers the crucial battles of Monte Cassino in early to mid-1944, with a particular focus on the Northern Irish troops involved.

In March and April 1942 more bombs fell on Malta than on Britain during the first year of the Blitz. Rommel was determined to take the island, from which the Allies could attack Axis supply lines to North Africa. This book tells the story through eyewitness accounts: the fighter pilots, anti-aircraft gunners and submariners, and the late cabaret dancer-turned RAF plotter Christina Ratcliffe.

The doomed Gallipoli campaign – the Allied military effort to force a passage through the Dardanelles Straits and knock Ottoman Turkey out of the war – has been controversial since the final evacuation of troops from the Peninsula in January 1916. Focusing on the MEF, this volume presents original research by more than 20 historians: Part I covers the structure of the battle; Part II discusses command and control; Part III deals with support and enablers, including British air power, nurses, chaplains and mining.

A leading military historian, who specializes in the Second World War’s Eastern Front, analyses one of the most intriguing periods of the Battles for Kharkov, when German forces retook the city. The conquest seemed decisive, but the complex daily troop manoeuvres and tactical switches that were involved laid the groundwork for the Soviets to reframe their strategy for a final victory later in the year.

In 1794 during the war against Revolutionary France, the first Earl Grey led a Caribbean campaign to capture Martinique and Guadalope. Supported by maps and illustrations, this book demonstrates that although the campaign ultimately failed, the unorthodox tactics that were deployed showed a flexibility that would influence several notable subalterns who went on to success in Wellington's Peninsular army and Royal Artillery and, in the case of Richard Fletcher, the Royal Engineers.

For the bombers of the RAF and USAF, supporting the invasion on D-Day was the culmination of a planned series of strategic raids in preparation for the landings. Focusing on the service of eight crews, and drawing on first-hand accounts, this analysis of the campaign explains the wider strategy and describes the personal experiences of the airmen, from raids on German infrastructure in spring 1944 to supporting land forces several months after D-Day.

This analysis of the crucial 1914 encounters on the Western Front, collectively known as the Battle of Ardennes, encompasses both German and French viewpoints on moments of success and failure, and explores the underlying political, bureaucratic and military issues in the years before the war.

‘The Battle of Hastings, 1066, remains a key date in British collective memory’, but Ashley Hern goes on to ask: ‘what do we actually know of the battle itself?’ He returns to primary sources to re-examine the evidence for issues such as the site, King Harold’s death and William’s claim to the English throne; and discusses how the ‘facts’ were portrayed by contemporary writers, and how our understanding of Hastings has been shaped by the myths, interpretations and concerns of later generations.

This first volume begins with the political and military decisions and manoeuvres that led to war and follows the opening engagements up to the first great battles at Abensberg on 20 April, Eggmühl two days later and the storming of Regensburg on 23 April.This volume is part of John Gill’s epic three-part history of the Franco-Austrian War of 1809 and that watershed year in the military history of the Napoleonic Wars. Each volume includes a preface or prologue, extensive appendices containing the orders of battle and notes, and an index.

Volume II takes up the story with the march on Vienna and, after the fall of the Habsburg city, goes on to Napoleon’s first repulse at the Battle of Aspern-Essling. It also looks across the Alps to events in Italy, and Eugene de Beauharnais’ counter-offensive.This volume is part of John Gill’s epic three-part history of the Franco-Austrian War of 1809 and that watershed year in the military history of the Napoleonic Wars. Each volume includes a preface or prologue, extensive appendices containing the orders of battle and notes, and an index.

This classic account, first published in 1976, analyses the ill-conceived operation in 1940 to capture French West Africa and the related dismissal of a British Admiral for allowing Vichy French ships to join the battle.

First published in 1909 and still held in high esteem, Petre’s history gives a full account of the clash of Napoleon and his most formidable continental opponent, the Archduke Charles of Austria. The book follows the hard-fought Franco-Austrian Campaign in the valley of the Danube up to its culmination in the Battle of Wagram in 1809.

The six tours in this guide follow the route of Edward III’s victorious English army across northern France from St-Vaast-la-Hougue via Abbeville to the battlefield itself. Illustrated with colour photographs and maps, each tour has information on public transport and local facilities.

The story of the doomed cavalry charge is well known, but told here from the point of view of soldiers on both sides, using letters, diaries, memoirs and official reports. It is illustrated with photographs showing the terrain as it appeared to participants.

Overshadowed by the events of the Napoleonic Wars in Europe, British military campaigns in the South Atlantic in 1805–7 nevertheless had a profound effect in shaping the destiny of the Cape Colony and Spanish possessions in South America. Describing the capture of Cape Town and the ultimately unsuccessful attacks on Buenos Aires and Montevideo, this analysis also assesses the longer-term repercussions in encouraging independence movements in South America and shaping the population and politics of South Africa.

These despatches from the Crimean War comprise the original battle reports, written by the field commanders themselves, including Lord Raglan and Admiral Lyons. The accounts and the actions they describe bear testament to the superior professionalism and effectiveness of the Senior Service at the time.

Robert Goetz tells the story of ‘the beginning of the Napoleon of history and the Grande Armée of legend’ – the 1805 campaign that culminated in the Battle of Austerlitz. In a meticulously detailed account, Goetz traces events from the formation of Britain, Russia and Prussia’s coalition to Austerlitz and the aftermath of Napoleon’s victory. First published in 2005.

The colour maps drawn for this account of the 1944 D-Day landings, which includes commentary on operational planning, Europe’s defences, beachhead battles and the Allied break-out from the region, depict military units, their movements, weaponry, and geographical obstacles. There are line illustrations and archival photographs supporting the maps, an Allied High Command hierarchy chart, a complete list of Allied and German divisions, and a glossary of codewords connected with D-Day at the back.

This extraordinary collection of 170 photographs, taken surreptitiously by soldiers over the course of 1917 when spirits on the front line were at their lowest, captures not only the physical destruction of the war, but moments of respite away from the shelling when the men could swim, dine and relax. Equally poignant are the excerpts from soldiers’ memoirs which, in describing their own conditions and activities, tell personal stories of hope and, all too often, bewilderment.

When Clive of India and his tiny detachment of army officers and mercenaries defeated the Nawab of Bengal and his French allies in a mango grove near Plassey, he secured all of Bengal and, eventually, the whole of India for the East India Company. Drawing on an extraordinary collection of private papers, this study of the battle and the 13 months of campaigns leading up to it commemorates the men on both sides who fought and died in the conflict.

John Sadler describes the decisive military engagements within Scottish borders that have been most significant in their scale or consequences, from Mons Graupius (84 CE), which marked the Romans’ most northward advance, to the Jacobite defeat at Culloden in 1746. He discusses the battles’ historical contexts and the development of equipment and fighting styles, as well as using detailed battle plans for tactical analyses. New edition.

If much of the attention in Summer 1944 was on Normandy and the progress of the Allies through France, another enormous multinational army was also fighting doggedly further south and facing the last formidable barrier of German defensive positions, the Gothic Line, stretching from the Adriatic to the Mediterranean across mountainous northern Italy. This analysis of a year of fighting on the front tells the story through the varied experiences of 13 men and women from seven different countries.

Defeat of the British occupying forces by the rebellious Boers at the Battle of Majuba Hill was seen as a military disaster by the British public, the ‘uncivilized’ tactics of the Boers condemned as savage and despicable. This account of Majuba Hill begins with a detailed history of the annexation of Transvaal by the British in 1877, assesses preceding battles and skirmishes, including Bronkhorstspruit and Laing’s Nek, and features battlefield maps, photographs and illustrations.

This handsomely illustrated volume tells the story of one of the greatest battles of all time, examining the strengths and weaknesses of the three leaders, Wellington, Napoleon and Marshal Blücher, the nature of their armies and available weaponry, and the controversies surrounding the French defeat. Featuring journals and letters describing troop movements and conditions during the campaign, this account identifies the generals who made mistakes, and questions whether the victory was really Wellington’s alone.

This volume shows Britain getting ready for battle and illustrates some of women’s wartime roles, including aircraft assembly, WAAF radio technicians and pilots of the Air Transport Auxiliary.

The German aerial assault of the summer of 1940 resulted in a great many Luftwaffe losses over Britain. This collection of photographs shows some of the bombers brought down and crew members that survived during 1940.

Engaged in various theatres around the world, Britain was expanding its influence in the early years of the 19th century, having achieved dominance at sea after the Battle of Trafalgar. This collection of the original despatches from commanders in the immediate aftermath of engagements includes several from Wellington during his campaigns in Portugal and Spain, and from Waterloo, as well as accounts of the attacks on Copenhagen, Spanish territories in South America, the Dardanelles and Mauritius.

The German operation to invade Russia progressed rapidly in the summer of 1941 but stalled as the siege of Leningrad began and the Red Army launched its Winter Offensive in December. This book selects archive photographs from Russian and German sources depicting the fighting during this first phase of the struggle on the Eastern Front, highlighting the harsh conditions and difficult terrain as well as capturing off-duty moments for the combatants.

Following the defeat of Germany in 1945, the US Army collected a series of military studies of the D-Day invasion by senior German officers. If the accounts are coloured by the officers being at the time captive, and in some cases under the threat of prosecution for war crimes, their immediacy, while memory was still fresh, nevertheless makes them a valuable resource in understanding the Wehrmacht's preparations for invasion and the progress of battle from a German point of view.

The first encounter at sea of the Second World War took place along the South American coast when three British ships inflicted enough damage on the German pocket battleship Admiral Graf Spee to corner it in Montevideo harbour. The captain, encouraged by British misinformation, chose to scuttle his ship rather than face destruction. This account of the famous episode was first published in 1956 and also contains the official despatch from the British commander.

Both Britain and Germany claimed victory in the Battle of Jutland in May 1916; the Royal Navy losing more ships and men but successfully containing the German fleet for the duration of the war. The outcome, its significance and the performance of the commanders during the battle has been debated ever since, and this book provides a picture of how events unfolded and what people thought at the time through official records and despatches, newspaper reports and detailed personal accounts.

The naval battle at Actium, when the future emperor Augustus defeated the forces of Antony and Cleopatra, was perhaps the most significant military engagement in Roman history. Yet many details of exactly what happened on that September day continue to elude scholars. This study of the literary and historical sources offers a fresh examination of the evidence, with close analysis of hitherto unconsidered allusions to Actium in the description of an equestrian engagement in Book Eleven of Virgil’s Aeneid.

Considered something of a sideshow on the Eastern Front in the Second World War, the Crimea was nevertheless strategically significant and the fighting over it more desperate due to the difficulty of access to the peninsula. This collection of archive photographs charts the struggle from the bitter fighting of 1941–2, before Sevastopol fell, to Crimea’s liberation by the Red Army in 1944, preceded by the mass evacuation of Axis troops across the Black Sea.

When a Cambridge professor found wiring beneath the floor of his house, he had little idea of the building’s astonishing past. In April 1945 Farm Hall was used to house ten of Germany’s top nuclear scientists captured during the collapse of the Reich. This gripping narrative probes a murky world of espionage to tell how their conversations, bugged by MI6, revealed the extent of the Nazis’ nuclear ambitions, and investigates whether they were kidnapped to thwart not Hitler, but Stalin.

Noticing an isolated gun position had been abandoned during the Spring Offensive of 1918, Private Bertie Columbine took control of the Vickers gun and managed to repel German attacks for several hours before he was finally killed. This biography of the Victoria Cross-winning soldier traces his family background and characterizes the world in which he grew up as well as giving an account of his wartime service and the campaign to commemorate his heroism. Foreword by Dame Judi Dench.

Slapton Sands in South Devon was a good match for the projected landing area of Utah Beach on D-Day and so elaborate rehearsal exercises were set up there in 1944. Drawing on first-hand accounts, this book tells the story of how over 20,000 acres of land was requisitioned, and its residents evacuated and compensated, and describes the various military manoeuvres, including the friendly-fire catastrophe of Exercise Tiger that cost almost 750 lives.

The defending German army faced an overwhelmingly superior force in terms of troop numbers and materiel during the Normandy campaign in 1944, but that did not always mean that the soldiers had respect for their enemy's fighting qualities. This book reveals the attitudes and opinions of Wehrmacht soldiers through contemporary orders, field reports, letters, diaries and PoW interviews, mostly drawn from the intelligence summaries of the First Canadian Army, which also contained material from British and American sources.

With most of Spain overrun by Napoleon’s forces, the Spanish government remained free, but forced to find refuge in the fortress-port of Cádiz, assisted by British warships and troops under the command of Sir Thomas Graham. This study describes the ‘forgotten battle’ when, urged by the Spanish Junta, and with everything to lose, an Anglo-Spanish force met the besieging French army on the heights of Barossa.

Italy's surrender in September 1943 opened the opportunity for the Allies to take control of strategically important Greek islands. The British moved to strengthen the Italian garrison on Leros, only to lose it in one of the last significant Allied defeats of the war. Drawing on first-hand accounts, this book tells the story of the siege and battle, the daring escapes from the German invaders and the years of incarceration for those captured.

Hitler could have marshalled his resources for the defence of Berlin more effectively had he not clung on to ground on the Baltic coast on the theory that fortified enclaves could be more easily defended than attacked. There were, however, valid reasons for protecting the territory beyond this so-called 'wave-breaker' concept. Analysing Hitler's strategy and his military thinking in general, this book provides a detailed appraisal of the Russian campaign between 1941 and 1945.

After initial success, the German campaign to capture Moscow in the last months of 1941 was bogged down in the mud, buying precious time for the Soviets to regroup and hit back. Examining this first serious setback of the war for Hitler, the book assesses the tactics of both sides and the part played by the winter weather, and draws on personal diaries and letters to give the perspective of both ordinary soldier and general.

It was British policy at the beginning of the Boer War not to share intelligence with locally raised forces or employ black people in any military capacity. This proved disastrously misguided and thousands of lives were lost before the commanders on the ground remodelled their forces to meet the specific challenges of the Boers' tactics. This book looks at the war with a focus on the experiences of the people of Natal, both combatants and civilians of all ages.

Outlining the 80th Regiment of Foot’s involvement in the various actions of the Zulu War, this volume provides a detailed body of research about the personnel of the regiment and, in particular, the medals awarded. It also gives an overview of the wider campaign, culminating in the decisive victory at the Battle of Ulundi in 1879.

Initially a naval operation to secure the Dardanelles sea route to Russia from the Mediterranean, the Gallipoli campaign soon escalated to a lengthy and attritional land battle. The result was a humiliating defeat for Britain, which led to the ousting of First Sea Lord Winston Churchill and a change of government. This book reproduces the original despatches from Admirals Sackville Carden and John de Robeck and land commanders Ian Hamilton and his replacement Charles Monro.

The Napoleonic Wars were fought as far afield as South America and the Caribbean as well as in Europe, and in line with British military procedure every action was reported to the Admiralty or War Office in an official dispatch. This book collects these original communiqués from over 50 battles, up to 1806, including Nelson's victories at Trafalgar and the Nile and the first encounter with Napoleon Bonaparte himself, as a young captain, at the Siege of Toulon in 1793.

Agincourt is one of the most celebrated battles in English history, a victory that made Henry V a national hero and still resonates six centuries later. This title peels away the layers of myth to tell the human story through the eyes of key participants, from the king himself to a Somerset squire and an archer from Dorset. Drawing on historic accounts, it assesses the casualties and discusses the massacre of French prisoners that shocked contemporaries.

The military potential of aviation was first exploited in the First World War, when London and other major cities were attacked by Zeppelins and, from 1917, Gotha and Staaken 'Giant' biplanes. This book examines the offensive and defensive strategies, the impact of each of the attacks and their legacy in defence planning. This is an updated, single volume version of London 1914–17: The Zeppelin Menace (2008) and London 1917–18: The Bomber Blitz (2010).

Attempting to open up another front against Napoleon, Britain sent a force of 40,000 men and 600 ships to the Dutch coast at Walcheren in 1809. Although 4,000 men were lost in the debacle, few of them were casualties of any fighting but rather a mysterious disease that became known as Walcheren Fever. A Fellow of the Royal Colleges of Physicians and Pathologists, author Martin Howard applies medical as well as historical analysis to this account of the campaign.

The exhaustive official History of the Great War gives a largely positive account of the British Expeditionary Force's performance in 1914, but Adrian Gilbert's research reveals significant failings as well as strengths. Covering the seven infantry divisions and cavalry of the original BEF of 1914 and drawing on contemporary accounts of the battles, including Mons, Le Cateau, the Aisne and Ypres, this book re-examines the decisions of senior officers and their consequences for the men at the front.

On 25 April 1915 Allied forces landed on the Gallipoli Peninsula, to secure the Dardanelles and give the Allied fleet access to Constantinople. In this book, the bestselling Australian author Peter Fitzsimons recreates the disastrous campaign as experienced by those who endured it or perished in the attempt; and he goes beyond the battlefields to the deliberations of the British War Council and the Ottoman administration who sent armies to a 'natural crossroads for Emperors embarked on imperialism'.

The struggle that raged at Stalingrad in the winter of 1942/43 is often cited as the turning point in the Second World War, after which the tide flowed inexorably toward the defeat of Germany two years later. Shedding light on the real events, this historical dramatization of the battle imagines how it might have gone differently, postulating small but entirely plausible alternative paths that would have led to a radically different outcome at Stalingrad and for the wider war.

Following their improbable canoe assault on the port of Bordeaux in 1942, the heroes of Operation Frankton were left to make their own escape from France on foot. This study of the famous mission relies on meticulous new research to tell the complete story of the attack and its aftermath and profiles all the leading figures as well as revealing previously unnamed players in the drama.

Drawing on both Allied and German sources and approaching the Normandy landings and the days that followed as a multitude of small-scale struggles, Robert Kershaw, himself a former soldier, is able to offer new insights into the successes and failures of both sides during the hard-fought battle for Normandy.

The story of Germany’s nominally successful airborne attack on Crete in late May 1941, looking at how heavy losses and further military action in the Mediterranean delayed the

Russia played a decisive role in the fighting that overthrew Napoleon in 1814, but its perspective on the campaign has been largely overlooked in the West because of the lack of translated sources. This book fills the gap, presenting the letters, memoirs and diaries of Russian participants, from generals to ordinary soldiers. These first-hand accounts, never before published in English, offer a fresh and richly human insight into an event that changed the course of history.

The Bellicourt Tunnel is a 3.5-mile underground stretch of the canal that connects the cities of Cambrai and St Quentin. In 1918 it formed a part of the German defensive Hindenburg Line and the battles that took place in the vicinity played an important part in Germany's ultimate defeat. This detailed history examines the roles of the British, Australian and American troops in the fighting and assesses the performance of Field Marshal Haig and other senior commanders in the field.

The final phase of the Second World War began on 6 June 1944 but it had been years in the planning and preparation. This collection of archive reports, photographs and facsimile pages from the Daily Mirror captures the drama as it unfolded, from the growing political clamour for a Western front and the trial attack on Dieppe in 1943 to the preparation and execution of D-Day and the subsequent advance across Europe to Berlin.

Brendan O’Shea, an Observer with the European Community Monitoring Mission during the Bosnian conflict, 1992–5, gives an account of the war in the Bihac Pocket in north-west Bosnia: a microcosm of the wider conflict.

Published in partnership with the National Archives, this collection of previously unpublished documents captures the reality of Operation Overlord on 6 June 1944. After a section of ten historical sources addressing aspects of the Normandy landings such as intelligence reporting, the ship's log of HMS Warspite, and the roles of Navy, Army and Air Force, the book presents all the available divisional, brigade and battalion war diary entries for the Anglo-Canadian formations that spearheaded the invasion.

After D-Day, German defeat may have been inevitable but there was still almost a year of fighting before Berlin finally fell. This book recounts experiences of the last months of war from British, Canadian, Dutch, German, Polish and American sources. Slightly off-mint.