The Battle of Adwa

The Battle of Adwa PDF

Author: Raymond Jonas

Publisher: Harvard University Press

Published: 2011-11-15

Total Pages: 426

ISBN-13: 0674062795

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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.

Victory in Italy

Victory in Italy PDF

Author: Richard Doherty

Publisher: Pen and Sword

Published: 2015-01-30

Total Pages: 392

ISBN-13: 1473842808

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While the main focus in early 1945 was on the advance to The Fatherland, 15 Army Group's 5th (US) and 8th (British) Armies were achieving remarkable results in Northern Italy.Superb generalship (Truscott 5th Army and McCreery 8th Army under General

The Day of Battle

The Day of Battle PDF

Author: Rick Atkinson

Publisher: Macmillan

Published: 2008-09-16

Total Pages: 852

ISBN-13: 9780805088618

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In the second volume of his epic trilogy about the liberation of Europe in World War II, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Atkinson tells the harrowing story of the campaigns in Sicily and Italy.

Bitter Victory

Bitter Victory PDF

Author: Carlo D'Este

Publisher: Harper Collins

Published: 2009-06-02

Total Pages: 535

ISBN-13: 006194081X

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Bitter Victory illuminates a chapter of World War II that has lacked a balanced, full-scale treatment until now. In recounting the second-largest amphibious operation in military history, Carlo D'Este for the first time reveals the conflicts in planning and the behind-the-scenes quarrels between top Allied commanders. The book explodes the myth of the Patton-Montgomery rivalry and exposes how Alexander's inept generalship nearly wrecked the campaign. D'Este documents in chilling detail the series of savage battles fought against an overmatched but brilliant foe and how the Germans—against overwhelming odds—carried out one of the greatest strategic withdrawals in history. His controversial narrative depicts for the first time how the Allies bungled their attempt to cut off the Axis retreat from Sicily, turning what ought to have been a great triumph into a bitter victory that later came to haunt the Allies in Italy. Using a wealth of original sources, D'Este paints an unforgettable portrait of men at war. From the front lines to the councils of the Axis and Allied high commands, Bitter Victory offers penetrating reassessments of the men who masterminded the campaign. Thrilling and authoritative, this is military history on an epic scale.

Sicily and the Surrender of Italy

Sicily and the Surrender of Italy PDF

Author: Lieutenant Albert Garland

Publisher: CreateSpace

Published: 2015-07-16

Total Pages: 644

ISBN-13: 9781515100430

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(Includes maps) This volume, the second to be published in the Mediterranean Theater of Operations subseries, takes up where George F. Howe's Northwest Africa: Seizing the Initiative in the West left off. It integrates the Sicilian Campaign with the complicated negotiations involved in the surrender of Italy. The Sicilian Campaign was as complex as the negotiations, and is equally instructive. On the Allied side it included American, British, and Canadian soldiers as well as some Tabors of Goums; major segments of the U.S. Army Air Forces and of the Royal Air Force; and substantial contingents of the U.S. Navy and the Royal Navy. Opposing the Allies were ground troops and air forces of Italy and Germany, and the Italian Navy. The fighting included a wide variety of operations: the largest amphibious assault of World War II; parachute jumps and air landings; extended overland marches; tank battles; precise and remarkably successful naval gunfire support of troops on shore; agonizing struggles for ridge tops; and extensive and skillful artillery support. Sicily was a testing ground for the U.S. soldier, fighting beside the more experienced troops of the British Eighth Army, and there the American soldier showed what he could do. The negotiations involved in Italy's surrender were rivaled in complexity and delicacy only by those leading up to the Korean armistice. The relationship of tactical to diplomatic activity is one of the most instructive and interesting features of this volume. Military men were required to double as diplomats and to play both roles with skill.

Italy at War

Italy at War PDF

Author: Henry Hitch Adams

Publisher: Time Life Medical

Published: 1982

Total Pages: 207

ISBN-13: 9780809434237

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In 1934, the Italians who shouted "Duce! Duce!" did not know their leader would take them into world war and national ruin.

Morale and the Italian Army during the First World War

Morale and the Italian Army during the First World War PDF

Author: Vanda Wilcox

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2016-07-04

Total Pages: 239

ISBN-13: 1316692469

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Italian performance in the First World War has been generally disparaged or ignored compared to that of the armies on the Western Front, and troop morale in particular has been seen as a major weakness of the Italian army. In this first book-length study of Italian morale in any language, Vanda Wilcox reassesses Italian policy and performance from the perspective both of the army as an institution and of the ordinary soldiers who found themselves fighting a brutally hard war. Wilcox analyses and contextualises Italy's notoriously hard military discipline along with leadership, training methods and logistics before considering the reactions of the troops and tracing the interactions between institutions and individuals. Restoring historical agency to soldiers often considered passive and indifferent, Wilcox illustrates how and why Italians complied, endured or resisted the army's demands through balancing their civilian and military identities.

Italy In The Second World War: Memories And Documents

Italy In The Second World War: Memories And Documents PDF

Author: Marshal Pietro Badoglio

Publisher: Pickle Partners Publishing

Published: 2015-11-06

Total Pages: 190

ISBN-13: 1786257416

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Marshal Pietro Badolgio was involved in the highest levels of the Italian political hierarchy ever since his early successes in the First World War, for which he was promoted General. He was head of the Italian Armed Forces from 1925 to 1940, and did his best to raise the military to a level that might match the expansionist views of Mussolini. He presided over the brutal invasion of Ethiopia, but nationally he acted as a counter-balance to Mussolini’s pre-World War II schemes. Unable to stop the inevitable disaster following the Italian-German Pact of Steel and the onset of war, he resigned as Chief Of Staff after the humiliating reverses of the Italian invasion of Greece. He was brought back into the political spotlight in 1943, after the fall of Mussolini, and was named Prime Minister of Italy during the turbulent months of their volte face change of sides. His position was unenviable, caught between the Italian people who cried out for peace and the Allied powers who pursued German defeat in Italy by armed force. In this fascinating book he recounts his memories and recollections of Italy during the Second World War, particularly focussed on his attempts to hold the country together in 1943 and 1944.