The conflict soon took on some of the ugliest aspects of class warfare between poorer mountain whites, who were usually Unionists, and the more well-to-do mountain property owners, who supported the Rebels. Mountain Partisans penetrates the shadowy world of Union and Confederate guerrillas, describes their leaders and bloody activities, and explains their effect on the Civil War and the culture of Appalachia."--BOOK JACKET.
"Dramatic, heartbreaking and sweeping in scope." —Wall Street Journal The acclaimed author of A Train in Winter returns with the "moving finale" (The Economist) of her Resistance Quartet—the powerful and inspiring true story of the women of the partisan resistance who fought against Italy’s fascist regime during World War II. In the late summer of 1943, when Italy broke with the Germans and joined the Allies after suffering catastrophic military losses, an Italian Resistance was born. Four young Piedmontese women—Ada, Frida, Silvia and Bianca—living secretly in the mountains surrounding Turin, risked their lives to overthrow Italy’s authoritarian government. They were among the thousands of Italians who joined the Partisan effort to help the Allies liberate their country from the German invaders and their Fascist collaborators. What made this partisan war all the more extraordinary was the number of women—like this brave quartet—who swelled its ranks. The bloody civil war that ensued pitted neighbor against neighbor, and revealed the best and worst in Italian society. The courage shown by the partisans was exemplary, and eventually bound them together into a coherent fighting force. But the death rattle of Mussolini’s two decades of Fascist rule—with its corruption, greed, and anti-Semitism—was unrelentingly violent and brutal. Drawing on a rich cache of previously untranslated sources, prize-winning historian Caroline Moorehead illuminates the experiences of Ada, Frida, Silvia, and Bianca to tell the little-known story of the women of the Italian partisan movement fighting for freedom against fascism in all its forms, while Europe collapsed in smoldering ruins around them.
An in-depth look at a crucial, little-known World War II episode—the failed Allied policy in Yugoslavia and its ramifications in the Balkans and beyond Winston Churchill called it one of his biggest wartime failures—the shift of British and U.S. support from Yugoslavia's Draža Mihailovic and his royalist resistance movement to Tito and his communist Partisans. This book illuminates the complex reasons behind that failure through the incredible story of what has been called the greatest rescue of Allied airmen from behind enemy lines in World War II history, a rescue executed, incredibly, with minimal official support from the United States and none such support from Great Britain. Recounts an unknown chapter of World War II history and the single largest rescue operation of the war Starting with Serbia's tragedy and triumph in World War II through civil war in Yugoslavia during World War I, focuses on the history of the Balkans, a tragically misunderstood part of the world Sheds new light on the OSS-SOE relationship and manipulations of intelligence that profoundly altered policy decision making Reveals how failed Allied policy set the stage for Yugoslavia's breakup in the 1990s Details the wartime camaraderie of unlikely warriors who became fast friends, outcasts, and heroes in executing the rescue Written with the drama of a novel and the insight of serious history, Shadows on the Mountain is essential reading for anyone interested in World War II, European history, and the Balkans.
There were many unsung heroes of world war two, but none more neglected than the partisans that fought the fascist regimes and German Nazi occupiers under the direst circumstances. By 1940, in every occupied country in Europe there arose a resistance movement that engaged in espionage, disrupted communication lines, damaged railways, blew up bridges, hid and smuggled Jews and other targeted groups out of the country, rescued downed Allied pilots, and all at maximum risk to themselves. This book is a fictional account of a group of determined Slovakian partisans and their heroic struggle the against the fascist regime that had assumed power in 1938, and the German Nazi army that occupied their neighboring countries. They lived in the forests and coped with the harsh freezing winters, were constantly hunted by Nazi patrols, took enormous personal risks during their many raids on enemy supply lines, and yet faced these challenges with indefatigable courage and perseverance. This was a heterogenous group of Jews and non- Jews, disillusioned army officers, and people from all walks of life.
The brutal repressive measures of the German Wehrmacht during the Second World War led to uprisings and partisan actions all over the vast captured territories that were occupied during their triumphal years of 1940 and 1941. Few regions caused as much trouble for the occupying forces than the provinces of Russia, many of whom broke into almost open revolt. This book chronicles the operations of the Ignatov brother’s partisan unit which did a great deal of damage to the German war effort in the Kuban. The account is based on a diary that the unit kept during their struggle against the invaders.
The gripping story of a New Zealand solider who escaped the clutches of a prisoner-of-war camp to join the Yugoslav freedom fighters during the Second World War After a daring escape from a prisoner-of-war camp in occupied Yugoslavia, John Denvir reached the Slovenian capital of Ljubljana, where he joined a partisan band as a machine-gunner. Believed shot and killed by New Zealand forces and his family in New Zealand, from January 1942 until the end of 1943, Denvir led brave and heroic attacks on German and Italian soldiers from behind enemy lines. He was wounded four times, received the Soviet Medal for Valour and was eventually appointed brigade commander. When 'Corporal Frank' was demobilised he returned to New Zealand and became a taxi driver in the small South Island town of Temuka. Originally published in 1945 and out of print for many years, this is his remarkable true story.
The WWII Soviet guerilla training manual that became an essential text for freedom fighters across the globe—complete with illustrations. When Germany invaded the Soviet Union during World War II, the Red Army began recruiting local partisans to help mount a resistance. This edition of The Partisan’s Companion is the last and best Red Army manual used to train these men to fight Nazi invaders. Besides field craft, it covers partisan tactics, German counter-guerrilla tactics, demolitions, German and Soviet weapons, scouting, camouflage, anti-tank warfare, and antiaircraft defense for squad and platoon-level instruction. It contains the Soviet lessons of two bitter years of war and provides a good look at the tactics and training of a mature partisan force. While this handbook was a vital part of Soviet victory over the Nazis, its usefulness outlived the Second World War. It was later used to train guerrilla groups in the developing world during their wars of national liberation in the 1950s–70s. Even the fedayeen guerrillas who fought US and coalition forces in Iraq relied on this manual for training, tactics, and general approach to combat. A selection of the Military Book Club.
This magnificent novel by one of America’s finest writers is the epic of one man’s remarkable journey, set in nineteenth-century America against the background of a vanishing people and a rich way of life. At the age of twelve, under the Wind moon, Will is given a horse, a key, and a map, and sent alone into the Indian Nation to run a trading post as a bound boy. It is during this time that he grows into a man, learning, as he does, of the raw power it takes to create a life, to find a home. In a card game with a white Indian named Featherstone, Will wins—for a brief moment—a mysterious girl named Claire, and his passion and desire for her spans this novel. As Will’s destiny intertwines with the fate of the Cherokee Indians—including a Cherokee Chief named Bear—he learns how to fight and survive in the face of both nature and men, and eventually, under the Corn Tassel Moon, Will begins the fight against Washington City to preserve the Cherokee’s homeland and culture. And he will come to know the truth behind his belief that “only desire trumps time.” Brilliantly imagined, written with great power and beauty by a master of American fiction, Thirteen Moons is a stunning novel about a man’s passion for a woman, and how loss, longing and love can shape a man’s destiny over the many moons of a life.
On this battlefield, there are no victors...only survivors. In the rugged mountains of Yugoslavia, the dogged Marshall Tito and his Partisans are on the run, pursued by their most feared enemy: the lethal SS Division Handschar—a fanatical band of Muslim warriors fighting alongside the Nazis. Soon the entire region will be in German hands. To turn the tide, the Allies send a commando team, led by Major Walter Merritt, to destroy a nearly inaccessible high-altitude bridge in the mountains, a key link in the Handschar supply chain. Blowing up the bridge will be difficult—but getting there may be impossible. After parachuting into Yugoslavia, the team must fight a running battle alongside Tito’s forces in a life-or-death struggle against a foe who would rather die than give up the fight….
