The Battle for North Africa

The Battle for North Africa

Author: Glyn Harper

Publisher: Indiana University Press

Published: 2017-06-06

Total Pages: 301

ISBN-13: 0253031435

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

“A well-researched and highly readable account of one of World War II’s most important ‘turning point’ battles.” —Jerry D. Morelock, Senior Editor at HistoryNet.com In the early years of World War II, Germany shocked the world with a devastating blitzkrieg, rapidly conquered most of Europe, and pushed into North Africa. As the Allies scrambled to counter the Axis armies, the British Eighth Army confronted the experienced Afrika Corps, led by German field marshal Erwin Rommel, in three battles at El Alamein. In the first battle, the Eighth Army narrowly halted the advance of the Germans during the summer of 1942. However, the stalemate left Nazi troops within striking distance of the Suez Canal, which would provide a critical tactical advantage to the controlling force. War historian Glyn Harper dives into the story, vividly narrating the events, strategies, and personalities surrounding the battles and paying particular attention to the Second Battle of El Alamein, a crucial turning point in the war that would be described by Winston Churchill as “the end of the beginning.” Moving beyond a simple narrative of the conflict, The Battle for North Africa tackles critical themes, such as the problems of coalition warfare, the use of military intelligence, the role of celebrity generals, and the importance of an all-arms approach to modern warfare.


The Battle of Adwa

The Battle of Adwa

Author: Raymond Jonas

Publisher: Harvard University Press

Published: 2011-11-15

Total Pages: 426

ISBN-13: 0674062795

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

In March 1896 a well-disciplined and massive Ethiopian army did the unthinkable-it routed an invading Italian force and brought Italy's war of conquest in Africa to an end. In an age of relentless European expansion, Ethiopia had successfully defended its independence and cast doubt upon an unshakable certainty of the age-that sooner or later all Africans would fall under the rule of Europeans. This event opened a breach that would lead, in the aftermath of world war fifty years later, to the continent's painful struggle for freedom from colonial rule. Raymond Jonas offers the first comprehensive account of this singular episode in modern world history. The narrative is peopled by the ambitious and vain, the creative and the coarse, across Africa, Europe, and the Americas-personalities like Menelik, a biblically inspired provincial monarch who consolidated Ethiopia's throne; Taytu, his quick-witted and aggressive wife; and the Swiss engineer Alfred Ilg, the emperor's close advisor. The Ethiopians' brilliant gamesmanship and savvy public relations campaign helped roll back the Europeanization of Africa. Figures throughout the African diaspora immediately grasped the significance of Adwa, Menelik, and an independent Ethiopia. Writing deftly from a transnational perspective, Jonas puts Adwa in the context of manifest destiny and Jim Crow, signaling a challenge to the very concept of white dominance. By reopening seemingly settled questions of race and empire, the Battle of Adwa was thus a harbinger of the global, unsettled century about to unfold.


The New Scramble for Africa

The New Scramble for Africa

Author: Pádraig Carmody

Publisher: John Wiley & Sons

Published: 2013-04-16

Total Pages: 258

ISBN-13: 0745672949

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Once marginalized in the world economy, the past decade has seen Africa emerge as a major global supplier of crucial raw materials like oil, uranium and coltan. With its share of world trade and investment now rising and the availability of natural resources falling, the continent finds itself at the centre of a battle to gain access to and control of its valuable natural assets. China's role in Africa has loomed particularly large in recent years, but there is now a new scramble taking place involving a wider range of established and emerging economic powers from the EU and US to Japan, Brazil and Russia. This book explores the nature of resource and market competition in Africa and the strategies adopted by the different actors involved - be they world powers or small companies. Focusing on key commodities, the book examines the dynamics of the new scramble and the impact of current investment and competition on people, the environment, and political and economic development on the continent. New theories, particularly the idea of Chinese "flexigemony" are developed to explain how resources and markets are accessed. While resource access is often the primary motive for increased engagement, the continent also offers a growing market for low-priced goods from Asia and Asian-owned companies. Individual chapters explore old and new economic power interests in Africa; oil, minerals, timber, biofuels, food and fisheries; and the nature and impacts of Asian investment in manufacturing and other sectors. The New Scramble for Africa will be essential reading for students of African studies, international relations, and resource politics as well as anyone interested in current affairs.


Zulu Warriors

Zulu Warriors

Author: John Laband

Publisher: Yale University Press

Published: 2014-05-27

Total Pages: 358

ISBN-13: 0300180314

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

"The Anglo-Zulu War, the most famous of Britain's lte ninetweenth-century campaigns of colonial conquest, was not fought in isolation. Along with the two Anglo-Pedi wars, the Ninth Cape Frontier War and the Northern Border War, it was one in a brutal series of interconnected and overlapping wars which the British waged between 1877-1879 to crush and disarm the remaining independent black states of South Africa. [Fusing] the widely differing African and European perspectives on events, [the author] probes the fateful decisions taken by statesmen and military commandrs, analyses military operations and their destructive impact on combatants and civilians alike, and explores why so many Africans chose to fight as auxiliaries and levies alongside the Bruitish instead of against them. ..."--Jacket.


Battle for the Bundu

Battle for the Bundu

Author: Charles Miller

Publisher: MacMillan Publishing Company

Published: 1974

Total Pages: 382

ISBN-13: 9780025849303

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Det ene af C. Millers værker om 1. Verdenskrig i Afrika - "Lunatic Express" haves ikke.


The War for Africa

The War for Africa

Author: Fred Bridgland

Publisher: Casemate Publishers

Published: 2017-06-19

Total Pages: 337

ISBN-13: 1612004938

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

A “gripping” story of the Angolan Civil War and how it evolved into a Cold War struggle between superpowers (New York Journal of Books). Lasting over a quarter of a century, from 1975 to 2002, the Angolan Civil War began as a power struggle between two former liberation movements, the MPLA and UNITA—but became a Cold War struggle with involvement from the Soviet Union, Cuba, South Africa, and the United States. This book examines the height of the Cuban-South African fighting in Angola in 1987–88, when three thousand South African soldiers and about eight thousand UNITA guerrilla fighters fought in alliance against the Cubans and the armed forces of the Marxist MPLA government, a force of over fifty thousand men. Fred Bridgland pieced together the course of the war, fought in one of the world’s most remote and wild terrains, by interviewing the South Africans who fought it, and many of their stories are woven into the narrative. This classic account of a Cold War struggle and its momentous consequences for the participants and the continent now includes a new preface and epilogue. “Highlights just how much political and social considerations dictate the outcome of war . . . A highly detailed work of military history, The War for Africa can tell us a lot about the nature of counter-insurgency warfare and how small states can become contested battlegrounds between superpowers.” —New York Journal of Books


The Battle of Bangui

The Battle of Bangui

Author: Warren Thompson

Publisher: Penguin Random House South Africa

Published: 2021-02-10

Total Pages: 528

ISBN-13: 1776094743

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

In March 2013, South Africa suffered its worst military defeat since the end of apartheid. After a battle that lasted almost two days, 200 crack troops who engaged 7 000 rebels in the Central African Republic were forced to negotiate a ceasefire at their base. Thirteen South African soldiers died in the battle, with two more later succumbing to their wounds. The mission was shrouded in mystery from the start. The deployment and the diplomatic machinations that led to it were kept secret from the South African public and Parliament. So, too, were an assortment of shadowy commercial interests held by businessmen, some with close ties to the African National Congress. In an investigation spanning more than seven years, the authors gained exclusive access to the soldiers who fought valiantly against overwhelming odds; travelled to Bangui to obtain documentation and meet the rebel leaders who took part in the battle; interviewed a deposed dictator living in exile in Paris; and spoke to the widows of the fallen soldiers. They also met influen¬tial fixers and dealmakers, and unearthed secret files containing bribe agreements to unravel an intricate web of corruption and patronage reaching the highest echelons of power in South Africa and the CAR. After close to a decade of speculation and rumour, The Battle of Bangui lays bare for the first time both the litany of strategic, tactical and logistical blunders that ended in military disaster, and the secret diplomatic and commercial deals that led to South Africa’s worst foreign misad¬venture of the democratic era. It’s also a cracking war story filled with heroism, camaraderie, terror, pathos and triumph over adversity.


Battle For Angola

Battle For Angola

Author: Al J. Venter

Publisher: Helion and Company

Published: 2017-04-03

Total Pages: 562

ISBN-13: 191311810X

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Following the publication of Al Venter’s successful Portugal’s Guerrilla Wars in Africa - shortlisted by the New York Military Affairs Symposium’s 'Arthur Goodzeit Book Award for 2013' - his Battle for Angola delves still further into the troubled history of this former Portuguese African colony. This is a completely fresh work running to almost 600 pages including 32 pages of color photos, with the main thrust on events before and after the civil war that followed Lisbon’s over-hasty departure back to the metrópole. There are also several sections that detail the role of South African mercenaries in defeating the rebel leader Dr Jonas Savimbi (considered by some as the most accomplished guerrilla leader to emerge in Africa in the past century). There are many chapters that deal with Pretoria’s reaction to the deteriorating political and military situation in Angola, the role of the Soviets and mercenaries in the political transition, as well as the civil war that followed. With the assistance of several notable military authorities he elaborates in considerable detail on South Africa’s 23-year Border War, from the first guerrilla incursions to the last. In this regard he received solid help from the former the head of 4 Reconnaissance Regiment, Colonel Douw Steyn, who details several cross-border Recce strikes, including the sinking by frogmen of two Soviet ships and a Cuban freighter in an Angolan deepwater port. Throughout, the author was helped by a variety of notable authorities, including the French historian Dr René Pélissier and the American academic and former naval aviator Dr John (Jack) Cann. With their assistance, he covers several ancillary uprisings and invasions, including the Herero revolt of the early 20th century; the equally troubled Ovambo insurrection, as well as the invasion of Angola by the Imperial German Army in the First World War. Former deputy head of the South African Army Major General Roland de Vries played a seminal role. It was he - dubbed ‘South Africa’s Rommel’ by his fellow commanders - who successfully nurtured the concept of ‘mobile warfare’ where, in a succession of armored onslaughts ‘thin-skinned’ Ratel Infantry Fighting Vehicles tackled Soviet main battle tanks and thrashed them. There is a major section on South African Airborne – the ‘Parabats’ –by Brigadier-General McGill Alexander, one of the architects of that kind of warfare under Third World conditions. Finally, the role of Cuban Revolutionary Army receives the attention it deserves: officially there were almost 50,000 Cuban troops deployed in the Angolan war, though subsequent disclosures in Havana suggest that the final total was much higher.