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Men, ideas and tanks reviews the development of British military ideas on armoured forces from 1903 to 1939. Great Britain was the nation which first developed the tank, first used it in action and first gained dramatic results by employment. The British continued to be world leaders in the field of mechanised warfare until the early 1930s. Now available in paperback for the first time, J. P. Harris original work offers new interpretations of the early history of British armoured forces and explains why Great Britain had lost the lead by the outbreak of the Second World War. This work will be of interest to all those concerned with British military history in the first half of the twentieth century, with the history of mechanised warfare and with the history of military thought.
"Tanks were one of the great but unknown, and unreliable, innovations of World War I. Manned by a motley 'band of brigands', amongst them mechanics, plumbers, motorcyclists, circus performers and polar explorers, they were developed in great secrecy, prepared as a surprise advantage for the frontline of trench warfare. The men of the British Tank Corps went on to see battle at its most brutal. Tasked with crushing and burning the enemy to carve a path for the infantry, they fought in stifling armoured boxes packed with petrol and explosives, aware that at any moment a shell-hit might incinerate them all. Christy Campbell, former defence correspondent for the Sunday Telegraph tells properly for the first time the remarkable and harrowing story of how the first men in tanks went to war."--Cover
The idea of a mobile strong-point, out of which the tank developed, probably occurred to most minds after our first experience of attacking strongly entrenched positions; I first heard it suggested by an Intelligence Corps officer as early as the Battle of the Aisne....the suggestion of using the 'Caterpillar tractor, which has been experimented with at Aldershot in 1914, immediately arose....but it was so obvious a development that it must have occurred simultaneously in many regiments and staff messes.' Thus stated Jphn Charteris, Sir Douglas Haig's Director of Military Intelligence Obvious development it may have been, but the birth and infancy of the tank were nevertheless weighed down by the by a truly remarkable burden of handicaps in which the endeavour to solve the enormous number of technical problems which the construction of such a vehicle presented at times to pale into insignificance compared with the endless squabbles between the headstrong band of 'midwives' and 'monthly nurses' who gathered in it's nursery. It is essentially upon this ill-associated bunch of intevnters, engineers, soldiers and politicians which Jack Smithers concentrates on this fascinating study of the vehicle which was born out of the stalemate of the Western Front in the First World War. As is inevitable in almost any work of history set in the first half of the century , the figure of Winston Churchill looms large in the foreground, but the role that he played in this instance is remarkable even by his standard when it is remembered that at the crucial time he was First Lord of the Admiralty and theoretically had nothing to do with warfare on land. Foremost amongst the leading actors in the drama come Sir Eustance Tennyson-d'Eyncourt, Sor Earnest Swinton, Bertie Stern, Sir William Tritton and Walter Gordon Wilson. Of the last- few named will have heard, but as the author says, 'but for him there would have been no tank. Not, at any rate, in 1916.' This is the first exhaustive study of the men behind the earliest tanks and to quote the author again, 'they quarrelled-furiously at times- is hardly surprising, for these were strong-willed men and great matters were at stake. Who was right and who was wrong hardly matters There is honour enough for all of them.' The story of their quarrels and the machines they produced combine, under Smithers' skill full pen, to make a remarkable and compelling study.
British Tank Production and the War Economy, 1934-1945 explores the under-researched experiences of the British tank industry in the context of the pressures of war. Benjamin Coombs explores the various demands placed on British industry during the Second World War, looking at the political, military and strategy pressures involved. By comparing the British tank programme with the Canadian, American, Russian and Australian equivalents, this study offers an international perspective on this aspect of the war economy. Topics covered include the premature contraction of the tank programme and dependence on American armour, the supply of the Valentine tank to the Russian authorities and the ongoing employment of the tank in the postwar peacetime markets.
This book charts the history of armoured warfare from the first use of the tank in 1916 right through to the 21st century, adopting military, political and global perspectives. Alaric Searle explores the origins of the tank, the part it played in the First World War and its contribution to the outcome of the war. He considers its role as a tool of propaganda, the military controversies of the interwar period and the employment of armoured forces in all the major theatres in the Second World War. Since the First World War, major and medium-sized powers have invested heavily in armoured forces. Searle looks at the conduct of mechanised warfare in Korea, Indo-China and Vietnam, and during conflicts such as the Arab-Israeli Wars and the Gulf Wars. Armoured Warfare adopts a global perspective, providing the most comprehensive survey of the history of the subject currently available. With a detailed bibliography of both primary and secondary sources, it is an ideal companion for those studying armoured warfare, modern military history and war studies.
After bitter debate, South Africa, a dominion of the British Empire at the time, declared war on Germany five days after the invasion of Poland in September 1939. Thrust by the British into the campaign against Erwin Rommel’s German Afrika Korps in North Africa, the South Africans fought a see-saw war of defeats followed by successes, culminating in the Battle of El Alamein, where South African soldiers made a significant contribution to halting the Desert Fox’s advance into Egypt. This is the story of an army committed somewhat reluctantly to a war it didn’t fully support, ill-prepared for the battles it was tasked with fighting, and sent into action on the orders of its senior alliance partner. At its heart, however, this is the story of men at war.
A history of the Tank Corps from 1919 up until the time when, as the Royal Tank Regiment, it went to war again in 1939. The book chronicles the events and innovations of the years between the wars.
The original version of this text was published in 1984 as a textbook on military history for officers in the U.S. Army. The revised version includes an appendix of terms and acronyms, and concepts are explained in nontechnical terms, making it more comprehensible to the general reader. Also incorporated is a description of combined arms warfare from the late-1970s to the end of the 20th century, which takes into account developments that were not obvious in 1984. The main topics are how the major armies of the world fight on the battlefield; what concepts, weapons, and organizations have developed for this purpose; and how the different armies have influenced each other in these developments. House is a former military officer and analyst for the Joint Chiefs of Staff. c. Book News Inc.
What went wrong for British forces in 1917? Relive the key battles through first-hand accounts and little-known incidents of World War I. This book offers a fresh, critical history of the 1917 campaign in Flanders. Alan Warren traces the three major battles fought by the British Expeditionary Force in the final months of 1917, from the mines of Messines to the mud of Passchendaele and the tanks at Cambrai. Drawing on a rich array of sources, Warren provides a vivid account of two tragically mismanaged battles, showing that Cambrai further underlined what went wrong for British forces at Passchendaele and thus more fully explains the course of events on the Western front. His compelling narrative history features first-hand accounts, little-known dramatic incidents, and portraits and assessments of the main generals. All readers interested in World War I and the tragic mistakes that led, in the words of Winston Churchill, to “a forlorn expenditure of valour and life without equal in futility” will find this an invaluable military history.
Reframing difference is the first major study of two overlapping strands of contemporary French cinema, cinema beur (films by young directors of Maghrebi immigrant origin) and cinema de banlieue (films set in France's disadvantaged outer-city estates). Carrie Tarr's insightful account draws on a wide range of films, from directors such as Mehdi Charef, Mathieu Kassovitz and Djamel Bensalah. Her analyses compare the work of male and female, majority and minority film-makers, and emphasise the significance of authorship in the representation of gender and ethnicity. Foregrounding such issues as the quest for identity, the negotiation of space and the recourse to memory and history, she argues that these films challenge and reframe the symbolic spaces of French culture, addressing issues of ethnicity and difference which are central to today's debates about what it means to be French. This timely book is essential reading for anyone interested in the relationship between cinema and citizenship in a multicultural society.