Fall of the Double Eagle

Fall of the Double Eagle PDF

Author: John R. Schindler

Publisher: U of Nebraska Press

Published: 2015-12-01

Total Pages: 357

ISBN-13: 1612347657

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"Examination of the Battle for Galicia (23 August-11 September 1914), the most historically and strategically consequential of the Great War's three opening campaigns"--

Fall of the Double Eagle

Fall of the Double Eagle PDF

Author: John R. Schindler

Publisher: U of Nebraska Press

Published: 2015-12

Total Pages: 432

ISBN-13: 1612348041

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Despite the renewed interest in the First World War, the opening campaigns that decided the course of the global conflict remain under-examined; this is especially true for the Battle for Galicia in August 1914. Not only was Galicia, a historical region located in today's southern Poland and western Ukraine, the site of the bloodiest battle of the conflict, but the impulses that precipitated the engagement and the unprecedented carnage that resulted also effectively doomed the Austria-Hungarian Empire just six weeks into the war. In "The Fall of the Double Eagle," John R. Schindler draws on extensive archival research, memoirs, and diverse secondary sources in a dozen languages to explain how Austria-Hungary, despite military weakness and the inevitable consequences, consciously chose war in 1914. Through close examination of the Austro-Hungarian military, especially its elite General Staff, Schindler shows how even a war Vienna would likely lose appeared a preferable option to the "foul peace" the top generals loathed. The study considers how the polyglot empire was outgunned and unable to subdue Serbia, resulting in a humiliating defeat that generals sought to cover up. Worse was to come, when Austro-Hungarian divisions launched an offensive into Russian Poland in hopes of defeating the numerically superior enemy. By the time the Russians were halted at the gates of Cracow, over 400,000 Austro-Hungarian troops had been lost in just three weeks, a figure equal to the prewar standing army and a loss from which the empire would never recover. While Austria-Hungary's ultimate defeat and dissolution was postponed until the autumn of 1918, its fate was preordained in in the late summer of 1914 on the plains and hills of Galicia.

The Dragon and the Eagle

The Dragon and the Eagle PDF

Author: Sunny Y. Auyang

Publisher: M.E. Sharpe

Published: 2014-03-15

Total Pages: 428

ISBN-13: 0765644118

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This stimulating, uniquely organized, and wonderfully readable comparison of ancient Rome and China offers provocative insights to students and general readers of world history. The book's narrative is clear, completely jargon-free, strikingly independent, and addresses the complete cycles of two world empires. The topics explored include nation formation, state building, empire building, arts of government, strategies of superpowers, and decline and fall.

Eagle Against the Sun

Eagle Against the Sun PDF

Author: Ronald H. Spector

Publisher: Free Press

Published: 2020-11-03

Total Pages: 624

ISBN-13: 1982135239

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“The best book by far on the Pacific War” (The New York Times Book Review), this classic one-volume history of World War II in the Pacific draws on declassified intelligence files; British, American, and Japanese archival material; and military memoirs to provide a stunning and complete history of the conflict. This “superbly readable, insightful, gripping” (Washington Post Book World) contribution to WWII history combines impeccable research with electrifying detail and offers provocative interpretations of this brutal forty-four-month struggle. Author and historian Ronald H. Spector reassesses US and Japanese strategy and shows that the dual advance across the Pacific by MacArthur and Nimitz was more a pragmatic solution to bureaucratic, doctrinal, and public relations problems facing the Army and Navy than a strategic calculation. He also argues that Japan made its fatal error not in the Midway campaign but in abandoning its offensive strategy after that defeat and allowing itself to be drawn into a war of attrition. Spector skillfully takes us from top-secret strategy meetings in Washington, London, and Tokyo to distant beaches and remote Asian jungles with battle-weary GIs. He reveals that the US had secret plans to wage unrestricted submarine warfare against Japan months before Pearl Harbor and shows that MacArthur and his commanders ignored important intercepts of Japanese messages that would have saved thousands of lives in Papua and Leyte. Throughout, Spector contends that American decisions in the Pacific War were shaped more often by the struggles between the British and the Americans, and between the Army and the Navy, than by strategic considerations. Spector vividly recreates the major battles, little-known campaigns, and unfamiliar events leading up to the deadliest air raid ever, adding a new dimension to our understanding of the American war in the Pacific and the people and forces that determined its outcome.

The Idea of Galicia

The Idea of Galicia PDF

Author: Larry Wolff

Publisher: Stanford University Press

Published: 2012-01-09

Total Pages: 504

ISBN-13: 9780804774291

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Galicia was created at the first partition of Poland in 1772 and disappeared in 1918. Yet, in slightly over a century, the idea of Galicia came to have meaning for both the peoples who lived there and the Habsburg government that ruled it. Indeed, its memory continues to exercise a powerful fascination for those who live in its former territories and for the descendants of those who emigrated out of Galicia. The idea of Galicia was largely produced by the cultures of two cities, Lviv and Cracow. Making use of travelers' accounts, newspaper reports, and literary works, Wolff engages such figures as Emperor Joseph II, Metternich, Leopold von Sacher-Masoch, Ivan Franko, Stanisław Wyspiański, Tadeusz "Boy" Żeleński, Isaac Babel, Martin Buber, and Bruno Schulz. He shows the exceptional importance of provincial space as a site for the evolution of cultural meanings and identities, and analyzes the province as the framework for non-national and multi-national understandings of empire in European history.

Double Eagle

Double Eagle PDF

Author: Sneed B. Collard III

Publisher: Holiday House

Published: 2011-05-17

Total Pages: 182

ISBN-13: 1561456063

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Mike and Kyle must outrun both a hurricane and thieves who will do anything to get their hands on a fortune in Confederate gold! The year is 1862. The Skink, a Confederate ship, is attacked by Union forces and sinks off the Alabama coast in the Gulf of Mexico. Although the ship was rumored to be carrying newly minted gold coins, no trace of the wreck and not even a single piece of Confederate gold is ever found. Fast forward to 1973. Mike is prepared for another routine summer in Pensacola with his marine biologist father. But plans suddenly change and Mike finds himself on Shipwreck Island—right near the site where the Skink went down. Mike and his new friend Kyle are intrigued by a salvage ship anchored just offshore. Some say it was brought in by fortune hunters, but when the boys scale a fence at the fort on the island, they realize that the fortune hunters may be looking in the wrong place. There in the sand-covered floor of an abandoned chamber they spot something shiny: an old double-eagle gold coin. Mike and Kyle agree to keep their discovery a secret and start their own investigation into the shipwreck and the missing gold. Award-winning author Sneed B. Collard III blends history and mystery to create a dramatic, page-turning story featuring a strong friendship and plenty of action.

Eagle Down

Eagle Down PDF

Author: Jessica Donati

Publisher: PublicAffairs

Published: 2021-01-19

Total Pages: 320

ISBN-13: 1541762576

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A Wall Street Journal national security reporter takes readers into the lives of frontline U.S. special operations troops fighting to keep the Taliban and Islamic State from overthrowing the U.S.-backed government in the final years of the war in Afghanistan. A FINANCIAL TIMES BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR “Powerful, important, and searing." —General David Petraeus, U.S. Army (ret.), former commander, U.S. Central Command, former CIA director In 2015, the White House claimed triumphantly that “the longest war in American history” was over. But for some, it was just the beginning of a new war, fought by Special Operations Forces, with limited resources, little governmental oversight, and contradictory orders. With big picture insight and on-the-ground grit, Jessica Donati shares the stories of the impossible choices these soldiers must make. After the fall of a major city to the Taliban that year, Hutch, a battle-worn Green Beret on his fifth combat tour was ordered on a secret mission to recapture it and inadvertently called in an airstrike on a Doctors Without Borders hospital, killing dozens. Caleb stepped on a bomb during a mission in notorious Sangin. Andy was trapped with his team during a raid with a crashed Black Hawk and no air support. Through successive policy directives under the Obama and Trump administrations, America came to rely almost entirely on US Special Forces, and without a long-term plan, failed to stabilize Afghanistan, undermining US interests both at home and abroad. Eagle Down is a riveting account of the heroism, sacrifice, and tragedy experienced by those that fought America’s longest war.

The Double Eagle

The Double Eagle PDF

Author: James Twining

Publisher: HarperCollins UK

Published: 2012-03-29

Total Pages: 561

ISBN-13: 0007389582

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James Bond meets The Thomas Crown Affair in a spellbinding tale of international intrigue and suspense. Now available in e-book format for the first time.

Unholy Terror

Unholy Terror PDF

Author: John R. Schindler

Publisher:

Published:

Total Pages: 380

ISBN-13: 9781616739645

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Al-Qa’ida: in the 80s they were in Afghanistan, supported by America and fighting the Russians. In the new century they have metastasized throughout the world’s geopolitical body. Where were they in the 90s? Unholy Terror provides the answer, with all its terrifying implications for our world today. This book provides the missing piece in the puzzle of al-Qa’ida’s transformation from an isolated fighting force into a lethal global threat: the Bosnian war of 1992 to 1995. John R. Schindler reveals the unexamined role that radical Islam played in that terrible conflict--and the ill-considered contributions of American policy to al-Qa’ida’s growth. His book explores a truth long hidden from view: that, like Afghanistan in the 1980s, Bosnia in the 1990s became a training ground for the mujahidin. Unholy Terror at last exposes the shocking story of how bin Laden successfully exploited the Bosnian conflict for his own ends--and of how the U. S. Government gave substantial support to his unholy warriors, leading to blowback of epic proportions.