German Soldier Vs British Soldier

German Soldier Vs British Soldier

Author: Stephen Bull

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2024-09-10

Total Pages: 81

ISBN-13: 1472861175

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This illustrated study pits the Kaiser's troops against their British opponents during the climactic year of 1918 on the Western Front. Launched on 21 March 1918, the Spring Offensive saw Germany use veteran, highly trained assault troops and innovative assault tactics to encircle and outflank the British and Empire forces manning the front line, hoping to force the French to seek terms and hand victory to Germany. After this attempt stalled, the Allied armies mounted a series of offensives during the so-called 'Hundred Days', actions that pushed the Kaiser's forces back and prompted the demoralized German High Command to sue for peace. In this book, Stephen Bull shows how the British Army on the Western Front fared as it survived the Spring Offensive and then went on the attack during the Hundred Days. While the picked units spearheading the German offensive were well-trained and -armed but short of supplies, the regular divisions following in their wake would prove much less resolute. The fighting would see both sides' forces tested to the limit and beyond, as initial German progress gave way to stalemate and the Allies then took the offensive, driving the Germans back. Featuring specially commissioned artwork and mapping, carefully chosen archive photos and expert analysis and commentary, this study assesses the fighting men on both sides during the climactic months of fighting on the Western Front in 1918.


German Forces and the British Army

German Forces and the British Army

Author: M. Wishon

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2013-07-19

Total Pages: 368

ISBN-13: 1137284013

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This book examines the partnerships between Britain's famed redcoats and the foreign corps that were a consistent and valuable part of Britain's military endeavors in the eighteenth century. While most histories have portrayed these associations as fraught with discord, a study of eyewitness accounts tells a different story.


Enduring the Great War

Enduring the Great War

Author: Alexander Watson

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2008-04-17

Total Pages: 377

ISBN-13: 1139867253

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This book is an innovative comparative history of how German and British soldiers endured the horror of the First World War. Unlike existing literature, which emphasises the strength of societies or military institutions, this study argues that at the heart of armies' robustness lay natural human resilience. Drawing widely on contemporary letters and diaries of British and German soldiers, psychiatric reports and official documentation, and interpreting these sources with modern psychological research, this unique account provides fresh insights into the soldiers' fears, motivations and coping mechanisms. It explains why the British outlasted their opponents by examining and comparing the motives for fighting, the effectiveness with which armies and societies supported men and the combatants' morale throughout the conflict on both sides. Finally it challenges the consensus on the war's end, arguing that not a 'covert strike' but rather an 'ordered surrender' led by junior officers brought about Germany's defeat in 1918.


French Soldier vs German Soldier

French Soldier vs German Soldier

Author: David Campbell

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2020-03-19

Total Pages: 81

ISBN-13: 1472838181

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On 21 February 1916, the German Army launched a major attack on the French fortress of Verdun. The Germans were confident that the ensuing battle would compel France to expend its strategic reserves in a savage attritional battle, thereby wearing down Allied fighting power on the Western Front. However, initial German success in capturing a key early objective, Fort Douaumont, was swiftly stemmed by the French defences, despite heavy French casualties. The Germans then switched objectives, but made slow progress towards their goals; by July, the battle had become a stalemate. During the protracted struggle for Verdun, the two sides' infantrymen faced appalling battlefield conditions; their training, equipment and doctrine would be tested to the limit and beyond. New technologies, including flamethrowers, hand grenades, trench mortars and more mobile machine guns, would play a key role in the hands of infantry specialists thrown into the developing battle, and innovations in combat communications were employed to overcome the confusion of the battlefield. This study outlines the two sides' wider approach to the evolving battle, before assessing the preparations and combat record of the French and German fighting men who fought one another during three pivotal moments of the 101⁄2-month struggle for Verdun.


The Wehrmacht Retreats

The Wehrmacht Retreats

Author: Robert M. Citino

Publisher: University Press of Kansas

Published: 2016-09-16

Total Pages: 440

ISBN-13: 0700623434

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Throughout 1943, the German army, heirs to a military tradition that demanded and perfected relentless offensive operations, succumbed to the realities of its own overreach and the demands of twentieth-century industrialized warfare. In his new study, prizewinning author Robert Citino chronicles this weakening Wehrmacht, now fighting desperately on the defensive but still remarkably dangerous and lethal. Drawing on his impeccable command of German-language sources, Citino offers fresh, vivid, and detailed treatments of key campaigns during this fateful year: the Allied landings in North Africa, General von Manstein's great counterstroke in front of Kharkov, the German attack at Kasserine Pass, the titanic engagement of tanks and men at Kursk, the Soviet counteroffensives at Orel and Belgorod, and the Allied landings in Sicily and Italy. Through these events, he reveals how a military establishment historically configured for violent aggression reacted when the tables were turned; how German commanders viewed their newest enemy, the U.S. Army, after brutal fighting against the British and Soviets; and why, despite their superiority in materiel and manpower, the Allies were unable to turn 1943 into a much more decisive year. Applying the keen operational analysis for which he is so highly regarded, Citino contends that virtually every flawed German decision-to defend Tunis, to attack at Kursk and then call off the offensive, to abandon Sicily, to defend Italy high up the boot and then down much closer to the toe-had strong supporters among the army's officer corps. He looks at all of these engagements from the perspective of each combatant nation and also establishes beyond a shadow of a doubt the synergistic interplay between the fronts. Ultimately, Citino produces a grim portrait of the German officer corps, dispelling the longstanding tendency to blame every bad decision on Hitler. Filled with telling vignettes and sharp portraits and copiously documented, The Wehrmacht Retreats is a dramatic and fast-paced narrative that will engage military historians and general readers alike.


Instructions for British Servicemen in Germany 1944

Instructions for British Servicemen in Germany 1944

Author: Bodleian Library

Publisher:

Published: 2007

Total Pages: 82

ISBN-13:

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Nine-and-a-half months after D-Day, 30,000 British troops crossed the Rhine as part of the Allied assault on Germany. Two years earlier, work had already started on a guide to assist them in negotiating everyday life in what then was still enemy territory.This extraordinary document was intended to educate soldiers on a range of topics, including German history, the national character, politics, culture, food and drink, currency, and to explain the current situation, including the effect of war on Germany and the German attitudes to the British. It was also intended to condition them to resist the effect of German propaganda by means of a healthy dose of British propaganda.The result is a remarkable booklet, often unintentionally humorous and sometimes crudely stereotypical, it reads by turns like a travel guide (advising on the excellence of German sausages and beer - 'one of the pleasantest in Europe') and a crash course in psychological warfare. It is very much a document of the period, revealing as much about British wartime attitudes towards Germany as it does about British hopes and fears.'If you have to give orders to German civilians, give them in a firm, military manner. The German civilian is used to it and expects it.''The Germans are not good at controlling their feelings. They have a streak of hysteria. You will find that Germans may often fly into a passion if some little thing goes wrong.''Don't be too ready to listen to stories told by attractive women. They may be acting under orders.'


US Soldier vs British Soldier

US Soldier vs British Soldier

Author: Gregg Adams

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2021-02-18

Total Pages: 81

ISBN-13: 1472841689

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Between June 1812 and January 1815, US and British forces, notably the regular infantrymen of both sides (including the Canadian Fencibles Regiment), fought one another on a host of North American battlefields. This study examines the evolving role and combat performance of the two sides' regulars during the conflict, with particular reference to three revealing battles in successive years: Queenston Heights, Crysler's Farm, and Chippawa. Featuring full-color artwork and battle maps, this fully illustrated study investigates the US and British regular infantry's role, tactics, junior leadership, and combat performance on three battlefields of the War of 1812. The actions assessed here notably demonstrate the evolution of US regulars from their initial poor showing to an emerging professionalism that allowed them to face their British opponents on equal terms.


George, Nicholas and Wilhelm

George, Nicholas and Wilhelm

Author: Miranda Carter

Publisher: Knopf

Published: 2010

Total Pages: 561

ISBN-13: 1400043638

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In the years before World War I, the great European powers were ruled by three first cousins: King George V, Kaiser Wilhelm II, and Tsar Nicholas II. Carter uses the cousins' correspondence and a host of historical sources to tell their tragicomic stories.


The Wehrmacht's Last Stand

The Wehrmacht's Last Stand

Author: Robert M. Citino

Publisher: University Press of Kansas

Published: 2020-07-09

Total Pages: 632

ISBN-13: 0700630384

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By 1943, the war was lost, and most German officers knew it. Three quarters of a century later, the question persists: What kept the German army going in an increasingly hopeless situation? Where some historians have found explanations in the power of Hitler or the role of ideology, Robert M. Citino, the world’s leading scholar on the subject, posits a more straightforward solution: Bewegungskrieg, the way of war cultivated by the Germans over the course of history. In this gripping account of German military campaigns during the final phase of World War II, Citino charts the inevitable path by which Bewegungskrieg, or a “war of movement,” inexorably led to Nazi Germany’s defeat. The Wehrmacht’s Last Stand analyzes the German Totenritt, or “death ride,” from January 1944—with simultaneous Allied offensives at Anzio and Ukraine—until May 1945, the collapse of the Wehrmacht in the field, and the Soviet storming of Berlin. In clear and compelling prose, and bringing extensive reading of the German-language literature to bear, Citino focuses on the German view of these campaigns. Often very different from the Allied perspective, this approach allows for a more nuanced and far-reaching understanding of the last battles of the Wehrmacht than any now available. With Citino’s previous volumes, Death of the Wehrmacht and The Wehrmacht Retreats, The Wehrmacht’s Last Stand completes a uniquely comprehensive picture of the German army’s strategy, operations, and performance against the Allies in World War II.