Haig's Intelligence

Haig's Intelligence
Author: Jim Beach
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 386
Release: 2013-10-24
Genre: History
ISBN: 1107039614

Haig's Intelligence confronts a perennial question about the British on the Western Front: why did they think they were winning?

Do Unto Others

Do Unto Others
Author: Alan H. Smith
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 301
Release: 2011-06-30
Genre: History
ISBN: 1921941650

Since 1899, the significant role Australian gunners have played in supporting the Australian Military Forces' campaigns has been well-documented. They have gallantly and whole-heartedly supported Australian, British, New Zealand and Indian armies in both World Wars, the Korean and Borneo Confrontation Wars and most recently the Vietnam War. Do Unto Others is a comprehensive account of the history of counter bombardment, including the development of Australian techniques, equipment and procedures through the campaigns up until Vietnam, with references to the techniques and actions of the British and American artillery included where appropriate to place the Australian experience in perspective. It is also the story of the brave men behind the artillery and their outstanding efforts and results across these varied campaigns.

Salient

Salient
Author: Elizabeth T. Gray Jr
Publisher: New Directions Publishing
Total Pages: 126
Release: 2020-05-26
Genre: Poetry
ISBN: 0811229254

A riveting lyrical constellation centered on the Battle of Passchendaele in Flanders Fields and tibetan protective magic In the foreword to her book-length poem, Salient, Elizabeth Gray writes, “This work began by juxtaposing two obsessions of mine that took root in the late 1960s: the Battle of Passchendaele, fought by the British Army in Flanders in late 1917, and the chöd ritual, the core ‘severance’ practice of a lineage founded by Machik Lapdrön, the great twelfth-century female Tibetan Buddhist saint.” Over the course of several decades, Gray tracked the contours and traces of the Ypres Salient, walking the haunted battlefield ground of the contemporary landscape with campaign maps in hand, reading “not only history, poetry, and fiction, but also unit diaries; contemporary reports and individual accounts; survey information and maps of all kinds; treatises on aerial photography and artillery tactics; and manuals on field engineering and tactical planning.” Out of this material, through a process of collage, convergence, and ritual chöd visualization, Gray has composed a spare, fascinating lyrical engagement with The Missing, in shell hole and curved trench, by way of amulets and obstacles. What is salient rises from the secret signs in song, like a blessing, protected from harm.

The Eye of War

The Eye of War
Author: Antoine Bousquet
Publisher: U of Minnesota Press
Total Pages: 244
Release: 2018-10-09
Genre: History
ISBN: 145295805X

How perceptual technologies have shaped the history of war from the Renaissance to the present From ubiquitous surveillance to drone strikes that put “warheads onto foreheads,” we live in a world of globalized, individualized targeting. The perils are great. In The Eye of War, Antoine Bousquet provides both a sweeping historical overview of military perception technologies and a disquieting lens on a world that is, increasingly, one in which anything or anyone that can be perceived can be destroyed—in which to see is to destroy. Arguing that modern-day global targeting is dissolving the conventionally bounded spaces of armed conflict, Bousquet shows that over several centuries, a logistical order of militarized perception has come into ascendancy, bringing perception and annihilation into ever-closer alignment. The efforts deployed to evade this deadly visibility have correspondingly intensified, yielding practices of radical concealment that presage a wholesale disappearance of the customary space of the battlefield. Beginning with the Renaissance’s fateful discovery of linear perspective, The Eye of War discloses the entanglement of the sciences and techniques of perception, representation, and localization in the modern era amid the perpetual quest for military superiority. In a survey that ranges from the telescope, aerial photograph, and gridded map to radar, digital imaging, and the geographic information system, Bousquet shows how successive technological systems have profoundly shaped the history of warfare and the experience of soldiering. A work of grand historical sweep and remarkable analytical power, The Eye of War explores the implications of militarized perception for the character of war in the twenty-first century and the place of human subjects within its increasingly technical armature.

The Great War

The Great War
Author: Ian F. W. Beckett
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 812
Release: 2014-01-14
Genre: History
ISBN: 1317866142

The course of events of the Great War has been told many times, spurred by an endless desire to understand 'the war to end all wars'. However, this book moves beyond military narrative to offer a much fuller analysis of of the conflict's strategic, political, economic, social and cultural impact. Starting with the context and origins of the war, including assasination, misunderstanding and differing national war aims, it then covers the treacherous course of the conflict and its social consequences for both soldiers and civilians, for science and technology, for national politics and for pan-European revolution. The war left a long-term legacy for victors and vanquished alike. It created new frontiers, changed the balance of power and influenced the arts, national memory and political thought. The reach of this acount is global, showing how a conflict among European powers came to involve their colonial empires, and embraced Japan, China, the Ottoman Empire, Latin America and the United States.

Loos 1915

Loos 1915
Author: Nick Lloyd
Publisher: The History Press
Total Pages: 285
Release: 2008-10-01
Genre: History
ISBN: 0752496557

The battle of Loos was one of the most hard-fought battles that the British Expeditionary Force waged during the First World War. This work presents an interpretation of Loos, placing it not only within its political and strategic context, but also discussing command and control and the tactical realities of war on the Western Front during 1915.

Fields of Battle

Fields of Battle
Author: P. Doyle
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 246
Release: 2013-03-14
Genre: Science
ISBN: 9401715505

Terrain has a profound effect upon the strategy and tactics of any military engagement and has consequently played an important role in determining history. In addition, the landscapes of battle, and the geology which underlies them, has helped shape the cultural iconography of battle certainly within the 20th century. In the last few years this has become a fertile topic of scientific and historical exploration and has given rise to a number of conferences and books. The current volume stems from the international Terrain in Military History conference held in association with the Imperial War Museum, London and the Royal Engineers Museum, Chatham, at the University of Greenwich in January 2000. This conference brought together historians, geologists, military enthusiasts and terrain analysts from military, academic and amateur backgrounds with the aim of exploring the application of modem tools of landscape visualisation to understanding historical battlefields. This theme was the subject of a Leverhulme Trust grant (F/345/E) awarded to the University of Greenwich and administered by us in 1998, which aimed to use the tools of modem landscape visualisation in understanding the influence of terrain in the First World War. This volume forms part of the output from this grant and is part of our wider exploration of the role of terrain in military history. Many individuals contributed to the organisation of the original conference and to the production of this volume.

Grasping Gallipoli

Grasping Gallipoli
Author: Peter Chasseaud
Publisher: The History Press
Total Pages: 321
Release: 2015-03-02
Genre: History
ISBN: 0750963573

The failure of the Gallipoli campaign was instantly blamed on a great untruth – that the War Office was unprepared for Dardanelles operations and gave Sir Ian Hamilton little in the way of maps and terrain intelligence. This myth is repeated by current historians. The Dardanelles Commission became a battleground of accusation and counter-accusation. This book, incorporating much previously unpublished material, demonstrates that geographical intelligence preparations had indeed been made by the War Office and the Admiralty for decades. They had collected a huge amount of terrain information, maps and charts covering the topography and defences, and knew a great deal about Greek plans to capture the Gallipoli Peninsula. At least one plan was Anglo-Greek! Much of this material, which is here identified and evaluated, was handed over to Hamilton's Staff. Additional material was obtained in theatre before the landings, T. E. Lawrence playing a part. This book, which is the first to examine the intelligence and mapping side of the Dardanelles campaign, looks closely at its terrain, and describes the production and development of new operations maps, and clarifies whether the intelligence was properly processed and efficiently used. It also examines the use of aerial photos taken by the Royal Naval Air Service during the campaign, and charting, hydrographic and other intelligence work by the Royal Navy.

Rats Alley

Rats Alley
Author: Peter Chasseaud
Publisher: The History Press
Total Pages: 791
Release: 2017-08-01
Genre: History
ISBN: 0750984902

This book makes it possible to comprehend, via the trench naming, the daily life in the trenches, the vast range of weaponry and the lethal nature of the titanic battles. Names such as Lovers Lane, Doleful Post, Cyanide Trench and Gangrene Alley are as revealing as any history. While based upon the British trenches, there is a comparison with French and German practice. While a poignant concordance of suffering and an intriguing study of language itself, this book is also a vital research tool for military and family historians.