Search results for ""After the Battle""

In his latest book, esteemed philosopher John Kekes draws on anthropology, history, and literature in order to help us cope with the common predicaments that plague us as we try to take control of our lives. In each chapter he offers fascinating new ways of thinking about a particular problem that is fundamental to how we live, such as facing difficult choices, uncontrollable contingencies, complex evaluations, the failures of justice, the miasma of boredom, and the inescapable hypocrisies of social life. Kekes considers how we might deal with these predicaments by comparing how others in different times and cultures have approached them. He examines what is good, bad, instructive, and dangerous in the sexually charged politics of the Shilluk, the Hindu caste system, Balinese role-morality, the religious passion of Cortes and Simone Weil, the fate of Colonel Hiromichi Yahara during and after the battle for Okinawa, the ritual human sacrifices of the Aztecs, and the tragedies to which innocence may lead. In doing so, he shakes us out of our deep-seated ways of thinking, enlarging our understanding of the possibilities available to us as we struggle with the problems that stand in the way of how we want to live. The result is a highly interesting journey through time and space that illuminates and helps us cope with some of the most basic predicaments we all face as human beings.

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In the 1840s and 50s, the Jicarilla Apache were the terror of the Santa Fe Trail and the Rio Arriba. They repeatedly clashed with the cavalry and raided wagon trains, and there was bad blood between the band and the Army after the Battle of San Pasqual, when they were on opposite sides during the Mexican American War. In 1854, as traffic was on the increase along the historic trade route, the Jicarilla soundly defeated the 1st United States Dragoons in the Battle of Cieneguilla. Cieneguilla was the worst defeat of the US Army in the West up to that time, and it was just one of the first major battles between the US Army and Apache forces during the Ute Wars. According to one version of events, the 60 dragoons, under the direction of a Lt. Davidson, had engaged in an unauthorized attack on theJicarilla while they were out on patrol. Others claimed that the Jicarilla either ambushed the Army or taunted them into attack. Kit Carson, who was agent for the Jicarilla, would defend Davidson’s actions—and after this fight, he served as a scout against the Jicarilla. Much like the Sioux defeat of Custer at Little Big Horn, the Jicarilla’s victory over the Army led to retribution and disaster. The Jicarilla were defeated and faded from memory before the Civil War. These are the events that brought them to ruin.

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Almost two books in one, A Right Royal Scandal recounts the fascinating history of the irregular love matches contracted by two successive generations of the Cavendish-Bentinck family, ancestors of the British Royal Family. The first part of this intriguing book looks at the scandal that erupted in Regency London, just months after the Battle of Waterloo, when the widowed Lord Charles Bentinck eloped with the Duke of Wellington's married niece. A messy divorce and a swift marriage followed, complicated by an unseemly tug-of-war over Lord Charles' infant daughter from his first union. Over two decades later and while at Oxford University, Lord Charles' eldest son, known to his family as Charley, fell in love with a beautiful gypsy girl, and secretly married her. He kept this union hidden from his family, in particular his uncle, William Henry Cavendish-Scott-Bentinck, 4th Duke of Portland, upon whose patronage he relied. When his alliance was discovered, Charley was cast adrift by his family, with devastating consequences.A love story as well as a brilliantly researched historical biography, this is a continuation of Joanne and Sarah's first biography, An Infamous Mistress, about the eighteenth-century courtesan Grace Dalrymple Elliott, whose daughter was the first wife of Lord Charles Bentinick. The book ends by showing how, if not for a young gypsy and her tragic life, the British monarchy would look very different today.

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Stalingrad was not only the most-crucial battle on the Eastern Front, it was the main turning point of the whole Second World War in Europe. The Third Reich had suffered setbacks earlier, notably at El Alamein in North Africa in October 1942, but the scale of the fighting on the Eastern Front was incomparably larger than any of the other war fronts and it was the fate of the armies there that decided the outcome of the global conflict. After the demise of the German 6. Armee at Stalingrad in February 1943 it was clear that Nazi Germany would lose the war. This book brings together three After the Battle stories devoted to that historic struggle. It opens with a detailed account of the fight for the city of Voronezh. Lying on the great Don river, it was a prime initial objective of the German summer offensive towards the Caucasus launched on June 28, 1942. Possession of Voronezh would secure an eastern anchor point for a northern defensive line needed for the southward advance to Stalingrad. The city was taken with relative ease in early July but, when the Soviets launched a counter-offensive, the Heeresgruppe S d commander, Generalfeldmarschall Fedor von Bock, allowed his panzer and motorised divisions to be drawn into the protracted fight. This week-long delay which infuriated Hitler severely disrupted the timetable for the main offensive, and fatally contributed to the failure to seize Stalingrad in a surprise raid. The main part of the book is taken up by a comprehensive description of the gargantuan seven-month battle for Stalingrad itself. All stages are described in detail: the advance of the German armies to the city in August, the stubborn and heroic defence of the besieged Soviet 62nd Army against overwhelming German superiority in September-November; and the subsequent encirclement and annihilation of the doomed 6. Armee in the winter, ending in total capitulation on February 2, 1943. Due to the wholesale destruction of the embattled city, it was long thought impossible to apply After the Battle s then and now format to Stalingrad but with the help of a local expert and acknowledged student of the battle, Alexander Trofimov, we managed to match up numerous combat photos taken all over the city, giving full treatment to the months-long struggle for the city on the Volga. The same goes for Voronezh where we found another local expert, Sergey Popov, who achieved equally astounding comparisons. Without them, this book could not have been made. The German catastrophe at Stalingrad, with around 150,000 men killed or succumbing to the winter cold and around 100,000 taken prisoner (of whom only some 5,000 survived captivity), remained a national trauma in Germany. Coming to terms with the event proved difficult, the sorrow over the loss of so many German lives being surmounted by guilt over the fact that Germany had been the aggressor. In many ways, Stalingrad became a taboo, remembered in silence but avoided in public discussion. Illustrative of this is the fact that it took a full 50 years before a major feature film on Stalingrad could be produced in Germany. It was only in 1992 that the German film industry felt the time was ripe and produced and released Stalingrad, the first full-fledged war movie on the battle. We include the story of the making of this film as an epilogue to the main story.

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The first extensive study of the depiction of the armour in the Thun-Hohenstein Album against the vibrant artistic and cultural contexts that created it. In late medieval and early modern Europe, armour was more than a defensive technology for war or knightly sport. Its diverse types formed a complex visual language. Luxury armour was fitted precisely to a wearer's body, and its memorable details declared his status. Empty armour could evoke an owner's physical presence, prompting recollection of knightly personae, glittering pageantry, and impressive feats of arms. Its mnemonic power persisted long after the battle had ended, the trumpets had gone silent, and the dust had settled in the tournament arena. Previously believed to contain preliminary designs sketched by master armourers, the Thun-Hohenstein album is a bound collection of drawings by professional book painters depicting some of the most artistically and technologically innovative armours of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Like a paper version of the princely armories that first formed during the 1500s, the album's images offered rich sites of meaning and memory. Their organization within the codex suggests the images' significance to their compiler. At the same time, the composition and details allow the reader to trace the transmission of recognizable armours, and the memories they embodied, from the anvil to the page. This book is the first to examine the album, and the armor it depicts, in their vibrant artistic and cultural context. In five thematic chapters, it moves from case studies of these drawings to explore the album's complex intersections with the genres of martial history, material culture, and literature. It also reveals the album's participation in cultures of remembrance that carried mythic, knightly personae constructed around powerful Habsburg princes forward in time from the Middle Ages into the early modern era, from the courts of the Holy Roman Empire to emerging urban audiences.

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First ever standalone edition of one of J.R.R. Tolkien’s most important poetic dramas, that explores timely themes such as the nature of heroism and chivalry during war, and which features unpublished and never-before-seen texts and drafts. In 991 AD, vikings attacked an Anglo-Saxon defence-force led by their duke, Beorhtnoth, resulting in brutal fighting along the banks of the river Blackwater, near Maldon in Essex. The attack is widely considered one of the defining conflicts of tenth-century England, due to it being immortalised in the poem, The Battle of Maldon. Written shortly after the battle, the poem now survives only as a 325-line fragment, but its value to today is incalculable, not just as an heroic tale but in vividly expressing the lost language of our ancestors and celebrating ideals of loyalty and friendship. J.R.R. Tolkien considered The Battle of Maldon ‘the last surviving fragment of ancient English heroic minstrelsy’. It would inspire him to compose, during the 1930s, his own dramatic verse-dialogue, The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth Beorhthelm’s Son, which imagines the aftermath of the great battle when two of Beorhtnoth’s retainers come to retrieve their duke’s body. Leading Tolkien scholar, Peter Grybauskas, presents for the very first time J.R.R. Tolkien’s own prose translation of The Battle of Maldon together with the definitive treatment of The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth and its accompanying essays; also included and never before published is Tolkien’s bravura lecture, ‘The Tradition of Versification in Old English’, a wide-ranging essay on the nature of poetic tradition. Illuminated with insightful notes and commentary, he has produced a definitive critical edition of these works, and argues compellingly that, Beowulf excepted, The Battle of Maldon may well have been ‘the Old English poem that most influenced Tolkien’s fiction’, most dramatically within the pages of The Lord of the Rings.

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William Clarke of Prestonpans, Scotland, joined the 2nd Royal North British Dragoons, the Scots Greys, in 1803\. Clarke had risen to the rank of sergeant by the time the regiment was ordered to Belgium on the news that Napoleon had escaped from Elba. Forming part of what became known as the Union Brigade, the Scots Greys played a key role in Napoleon s defeat at Waterloo. The John Rylands Library, Manchester, recently acquired William Clarke s 600-page, hand-written memoir describing his enlistment and military career, the highlight of which was the Waterloo campaign, which he describes in unusual detail in the vernacular of the day, presented and annotated by the renowned historian Garth Glover. Thanks to this rare discovery, the reader can follow the movements of the Scots Greys at every stage of the action throughout the three days from Quatre-Bras to that climatic encounter on the Mont St Jean. Clarke naturally portrays the charge of the Union Brigade in dramatic and heroic terms, but he claims that the man who led the charge, Major General William Ponsonby, was killed by a musket ball and not cut down by French cavalry, as is usually stated, for recklessly charging too far. After the battle, Clarke was part of the Burial Party. He then graphically describes the sad scene as he does the trail of the defeated French army as the pursuing Prussians cut a merciless path on their way to Paris. A Scots Grey at Waterloo provides the reader with an exceptionally in-depth account of the actions of the cavalry at Waterloo that will mark this memoir out as one of the most significant to have been published in the last 200 years.

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Edition with English translation of a document shedding huge light on one of the most important figures of her time. The household roll of Eleanor, countess of Leicester and Pembroke, offers a fascinating insight into one of the most important domestic establishments in England during the Second Barons' War of 1263-7. As the wife of Simon de Montfort, earl of Leicester, the leading figure within the baronial regime, and the sister and aunt of King Henry III and the Lord Edward, respectively, Countess Eleanor occupied a position at the heart of English political affairs up to, and after, her husband's death at the Battle of Evesham on 4 August 1265. This volume is a critical edition of the extant thirteen membranes of Countess Eleanor's household account roll for that momentous year, 1265 (British Library, Additional MS 8877). Presented here in the original Latin and with an accompanying English translation, Countess Eleanor's roll includes her diet account for the period from 19 February to 29 August 1265, listing her visitors and the different items of food and drink consumed on each day at each castle at which she was resident, including Wallingford, Odiham and Dover. The roll also incorporates a "wardrobe journal", covering the period up until 1 October 1265, detailing expenditure on the purchase and repair of household furnishings, goods and utensils, on clothing and wages, on the Montfortian war effort in the South, and on messengers travelling to and from the countess, Earl Simon, her sons and associates, in the months before and after the Battle of Evesham.

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The Nine of Diamonds: Surroial Mordantless is a book in nine parts constructed to play the Butcher - the Duke of Cumberland - in a Gaelic interpretation of the ghost gamble. Given the command on the back of a nine of diamonds - the Curse of Scotland - that the Highlanders should all be slaughtered, the persecution of Jacobite sympathisers after the Battle of Culloden under the Butcher was one of the worst atrocities carried out on British soil. Using a kaleidoscope, a deck of tarot cards and an 1895 Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, The Nine of Diamonds is influenced by French surrealism and opens with the Gaelic visionary practice of inducing visions behind a waterfall. Treating the Highlands as a Gaelic garden, the rebels on the run as herds of deer, and the preservation of Gaelic culture as a type of sugar-cured mummification, The Nine of Diamonds is set in a phantasmagoric landscape described in the Scots of Henryson and Dunbar but evoking Scots Gaelic concepts and motifs to mix Highland and Lowland experience with magical and occult terminology. With the deer as a central image, MacGillivray's poems draw from Nijinsky as gravity-defying faun, from Mallarme, Duchamp and Breton.Written in the run up to the 2014 Scottish referendum, The Nine of Diamonds operates as a powerful wish-text. In this strange vision populated by badly-wired and furious neon unicorns, escorticati preparing their own bodies, Second World War MacLeod fighter pilots with talismanic photographs of the clan's Fairy Flag in their uniform pockets, pole-dancing fauns, stained glass knights and rusty kaleidoscopes, the underlying message is clear: in playing the Butcher back, MacGillivray is still here.

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'Never before had the world seen four such giants co-existing. Sometimes friends, more often enemies, always rivals, these four men together held Europe in the hollow of their hands.' Four great princes - Henry VIII of England, Francis I of France, Charles V of Spain and Suleiman the Magnificent - were born within a single decade. Each looms large in his country's history and, in this book, John Julius Norwich broadens the scope and shows how, against the rich background of the Renaissance and destruction of the Reformation, their wary obsession with one another laid the foundations for modern Europe. Individually, each man could hardly have been more different ­- from the scandals of Henry's six wives to Charles's monasticism - but, together, they dominated the world stage. From the Field of the Cloth of Gold, a pageant of jousting, feasting and general carousing so lavish that it nearly bankrupted both France and England, to Suleiman's celebratory pyramid of 2,000 human heads (including those of seven Hungarian bishops) after the battle of Mohács; from Anne Boleyn's six-fingered hand (a potential sign of witchcraft) that had the pious nervously crossing themselves to the real story of the Maltese falcon, Four Princes is history at its vivid, entertaining best. With a cast list that extends from Leonardo da Vinci to Barbarossa, and from Joanna the Mad to le roi grand-nez, John Julius Norwich offers the perfect guide to the most colourful century the world has ever known and brings the past to unforgettable life.

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In July 1484 Tudor agent William Collingbourne – executed for treason in 1484 – tacked up a lampoon to the walls of St Paul’s Cathedral: ‘The Catte, the Ratte and Lovell our dogge rulyth all Englande under a hogge.’ That cat was Sir William Catesby, one of Richard III’s principal councillors and Chancellor of the Exchequer, executed after the Battle of Bosworth. The rat was Sir Richard Ratcliffe, who fought with Richard during the Scottish campaigns. And the dog was Francis Lovell, not only an ally of Richard III but his closest friend, and one of the wealthiest barons in England. Author Michèle Schindler returns to primary sources to reveal the man who was not only a boyhood friend of the king-to-be as a ward of Edward IV, but also linked to him by marriage: his wife, Anne FitzHugh, was first cousin to Richard’s wife, Anne Neville. Lovell served with the Duke of Gloucester, as Richard then was, in Scotland in 1481. At Richard’s coronation, Lovell bore the third sword of state. In June 1485 he was tasked with guarding the south coast against the landing of Henry Tudor. His loyalty never wavered – even after Bosworth. He organised a revolt in Yorkshire and was behind an attempt to assassinate Henry VII. Having fled to Flanders, he played a prominent role in the Lambert Simnel enterprise. He fought at the Battle of Stoke Field in 1487 and was seen escaping, destination unknown. His final demise provides an intriguing puzzle that the author teases out.

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The Battles for Cassino encompassed one of the few truly international conflicts of the Second World War. A strategic town on the road to Rome, the fighting lasted four months and cost the lives of more than 14,000 men from eight nations. Between January and May 1944, forces from Britain, Canada, France, India, New Zealand, Poland and the United States, fought a resolute German army in a series of battles in which the advantage swung back and forth, from one side to the other. From fire-fights in the mountains to tank attacks in the valley; from river crossings to street fighting, the four battles of Cassino encompass a series of individual operations unique in the history of the Second World War. Authors Jeff Plowman and Perry Rowe have spent several years studying the conflict together and walking the battlefield to take the hundreds of comparison photographs which are the raison d'etre of all After the Battle publications. Photographs have been selected from archives and private collections around the world to present a balanced view, combined with maps, orders of battle, citations and detailed captions. The Cassino battles, epitomised by the controversial bombing of the monastery which towers menacingly over the battlefield, stand at the centre of the Italian campaign. The dogged defence by a 100,000 men of the German XIV. Panzerkorps under General Frido von Senger und Etterlin, facing a greater multi-national force, was only routed in the end by a gallant French flanking manoeuvre, with the Poles marking the final victory by hoisting their national flag over the ruins of the Monastery.

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The key roles played by the Royal Observer Corps in the Second World War have, all too often, been overshadowed by more glamourous arms of the defence forces. The teams in the Sector Stations, plotting the battles raging above, and the Spitfires and Hurricanes swooping upon the formations of enemy fighters and bombers, present easily-imagined and dramatic scenes. Yet between the radar stations, detecting the German aircraft approaching over the Channel, and the Sector Controls were the little sand-bagged posts of the Observer Corps that provided over-land tracking of the enemy formations. The Royal Observer Corps (the Royal' prefix being approved in 1941) proved a vital link in the communication chain in the defence of the UK, particularly in the Battle of Britain, as it provided the only means of tracking enemy aircraft once they had crossed the coastline. The highly-skilled Observers were also able to identify and count the enemy aircraft, turning blips on a screen into actual types and numbers of German machines. Even after the threat from the Luftwaffe receded after the Battle of Britain and the Blitz, the ROC again came to the fore when the V1s opened a new reign of terror in 1944. Because these small, fast weapons were so hard to detect the RAF's fighter controllers moved into the ROC's operations rooms so that they could respond to the V-1 threat more rapidly. In this official history of the ROC written shortly after the war, the corps' operations throughout the conflict are set out in great detail. This includes a section on the last flight of Rudolf Hess, as well as one detailing the work of those who were selected for employment as Seaborne Observers on ships during the D-Day landings, where their specialist identification skills were used to prevent the all-too prevalent instances of friendly fire'.

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For many people the Sioux, as warriors and as buffalo hunters, have become the symbol of all that is Indian colorful figures endowed with great fortitude and powerful vision. They were the heroes of the Great Plains, and they were the villains, too.Royal B. Hassrick here attempts to describe the ways of the people, the patterns of their behavior, and the concepts of their imagination. Uniquely, he has approached the subject from the Sioux's own point of view, giving their own interpretation of their world in the era of its greatest vigor and renown -the brief span of years from about 1830 to 1870.In addition to printed sources, the author has drawn from the observation and records of a number of Sioux who were still living when this book was projected, and were anxious to serve as links to the vanished world of their forebears.Because it is true that men become in great measure what they think and want themselves to be, it is important to gain this insight into Sioux thought of a century ago. Apparently, the most significant theme in their universe was that man was a minute but integral part of that universe. The dual themes of self-expression and self-denial reached through their lives, helping to explain their utter defeat soon after the Battle of the Little Big Horn. When the opportunity to resolve the conflict with the white man in their own way was lost, their very reason for living was lost, too.There are chapters on the family and the sexes, fun, the scheme of war, production, the structure of the nation, the way to status, and other aspects of Sioux life.

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As the Battle of Waterloo reached its momentous climax, Napoleon's Imperial Guard marched towards the Duke of Wellington's thinning red line. The Imperial Guard had never tasted defeat and nothing, it seemed, could stop it smashing through the British ranks. But it was the Imperial Guard that was sent reeling back in disorder, its columns ravaged by the steady volleys of the British infantry. The credit for defeating the Imperial Guard went to the 1st Foot Guards, which was consequently honoured for its actions by being renamed the Grenadier Guards. The story did not stop there, however, as the 52nd Foot also contributed to the defeat of the Imperial Guard yet received no comparable recognition. The controversy of which corps deserved the credit for defeating the Imperial Guard has continued down the decades and has rightly become a highly contentious subject over which much ink has been spilled. But now, thanks to the uncovering of the previously unpublished journal of Charles Holman of the 52nd Foot, Gareth Glover is able to piece together the exact sequence of events in those final, fatal moments of the great battle. Along with numerous other first-hand accounts, Gareth Glover has been able to understand the most likely sequence of events, the reaction to these events immediately after the battle and how it was seen within the army in the days after the victory. Who did Wellington honour at the time? How did the Foot Guards gain much of the credit in London? Was there an establishment cover-up? Were the 52nd robbed of their glory? Do the recent much-publicised arguments stand up to impartial scrutiny? _The Great Waterloo Controversy_ is the definitive answer to these questions and will finally end this centuries-old conundrum.

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More than one hundred years after the battle of Jutland, the first and largest engagement of Dreadnoughts in the twentieth century, historians are still fighting this controversial and misunderstood battle. What was in fact a strategic victory stands out starkly against the background of bitter public disappointment in the Royal Navy and decades of divisive acrimony and very public infighting between the camps supporting the two most senior commanders, Jellicoe and Beatty. This book not only re-tells the story of the battle from both a British and German perspective based on the latest research, but it also helps clarify the context of Germany's inevitable naval clash. It then traces the bitter dispute that ensued in the years after the smoke of war had cleared; right up to his death in 1935, Admiral Jellicoe was embroiled in what became known as the Jutland Controversy. Nick Jellicoe is uniquely placed to tell the story of Jutland. His naval connections are strong: his father, the second Earl served as First Lord of the Admiralty while his grandfather, Sir John Jellicoe commanded the Grand Fleet for the first two years on the war, from 1914 to 1916, and was famously described by Churchill as being the only man who could have lost the war in an afternoon. This new paperback edition has been completely revised and offers the best and most balanced account of the battle available and can be read alongside the author's interactive website. 'This is a marvellously enthralling account . . that combines academic thoroughness with a unique element of personal observation. I found it totally absorbing and cannot recommend it highly enough.' _Warship World_

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'...In this year celebrating the centenary of the conquering of the South Pole - it is more than fitting to have one of the unregarded figures of Antarctic history brought into the limelight of remembrance'. Extract from Introduction by Dr. Ross D.E. MacPhee, American Museum of Natural History As senior surgeon on board Discovery, Dr. Reginald Koettlitz played a vital role in the heroic period of polar exploration when Nansen, Amundsen, Shackleton and Scott dominated the headlines. He was awarded a medal by the Royal Geographical Society for his role in the Discovery Expedition, 1901-04. During the earlier successful three-year Jackson-Harmsworth Expedition to Franz Josef Land, Koettlitz fine-tuned his measures to prevent scurvy, became an experienced ski runner, dog and pony handler and expert in polar survival. These skills were available when Koettlitz was appointed senior surgeon on the Discovery Expedition led by Scott, but due to personal reasons and the inability to acknowledge Koettlitz's polar experience, both Scott's expeditions were beset by major life-threatening issues that Koettlitz had faced and resolved on Franz Josef Land. On the ill-fated Terra Nova Expedition Scott and his four companions died on their failed attempt to be the first to reach the South Pole. In addition, Koettlitz travelled across north-east Africa from Berbera to Cairo on foot, mule and camel, crossing the Blue Nile to Khartoum shortly after the Battle of Omdurman. Before leaving for South Africa he assisted Shackleton in planning the Nimrod Expedition which almost resulted in the South Pole being reached. This well-researched account is enriched with previously unseen archive material such as correspondence with Nansen and photographs relating to polar history during the period 1890-1916.

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Luke Skywalker and Lando Calrissian return in this essential novel set between Return of the Jedi and The Force Awakens.The Empire is dead. Nearly two decades after the Battle of Endor, the tattered remnants of Palpatine's forces have fled to the farthest reaches of the galaxy. But for the heroes of the New Republic, danger and loss are ever-present companions, even in this newly forged era of peace.Jedi Master Luke Skywalker is haunted by visions of the dark side, foretelling an ominous secret growing somewhere in the depths of space, on a dead world called Exegol. The disturbance in the Force is undeniable . . . and Luke's worst fears are confirmed when his old friend Lando Calrissian comes to him with reports of a new Sith menace.After Lando's daughter was stolen from his arms, he searched the stars for any trace of his lost child. But every new rumor leads only to dead ends and fading hopes-until he crosses paths with Ochi of Bestoon, a Sith assassin tasked with kidnapping a young girl.Ochi's true motives remain shrouded to Luke and Lando. For on a junkyard moon, a mysterious envoy of the Sith Eternal has bequeathed a sacred blade to the assassin, promising that it will answer the questions that have haunted him since the Empire fell. In exchange, he must complete a final mission: Return to Exegol with the key to the Sith's glorious rebirth-Rey, the granddaughter of Darth Sidious himself.As Ochi hunts Rey and her parents to the edge of the galaxy, Luke and Lando race into the mystery of the Sith's lingering shadow and aid a young family running for their lives.

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The Battle for Hong Kong lasted eighteen days. It was always going to be a losing battle. Winston Churchill knew that Hong Kong could not be defended or relieved if attacked. It had become an isolated outpost to be held as long as possible. After reaching the limits of endurance the British administration surrendered the Crown Colony on Christmas Day, December 1941. The military defeat ushered in a brutal occupation by the Imperial Japanese Army, who ruled the captured territory under martial law. The occupation lasted for three years and eight months until the Japanese capitulation in August 1945. During the occupation, there were shortages of food, firewood, and electricity. Almost everything was in short supply. The Japanese rationed necessities, such as rice, oil, flour, salt and sugar. Ration cards were only issued to those employed in roles that were supporting the Japanese concept of Greater Asia and the co-prosperity sphere. Many died in the streets from starvation and there were outbreaks of cannibalism. The Japanese set about reducing the population, by forced deportation, from 1.65 million to an estimated 500,000 by August 1945. Some were deported to work in coal mines on Hainan Island, some were put on boats which were then sunk or set alight, others were marooned on uninhabited islands. Philip Cracknell brings his unrivalled knowledge of the ground to bear, as he did in Battle for Hong Kong December 1941 to tell the harrowing story of suffering and courage during the Imperial Japanese occupation of Hong Kong. The story follows the civilian through the battle, the aftermath, the internment, and finally liberation. It is the story of the civilian during and after the Battle for Hong Kong.

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Shows how the system of supply was perfected during the later part of the Napoleonic Wars, enabling fleets to stay at sea on a permanent basis. After the Battle of Trafalgar, the navy continued to be the major arm of British strategy. Decades of practice and refinement had rendered it adept at executing operations - fighting battles, blockading and convoying - across theglobe. And yet, as late as 1807, fleets were forced from their stations due to an ineffective provisioning system. The Transformation of British Naval Strategy shows how sweeping administrative reforms enacted between 1808and 1812 established a highly-effective logistical system, changing an ineffective supply system into one which successfully enabled a fleet to remain on station for as long as was required. James Davey examines the logistical support provided for fleets sent to Northern Europe during the Napoleonic War and shows how this new supply system successfully transformed naval operations, enabling the navy to pursue crucial objectives of national importance, protect essential exports and imports and attack the economies of the Napoleonic Empire. The Transformation of British Naval Strategy is a detailed study of national policy, administrative and political reform and strategic viability. It delves into the nature of the British state, its relationship with the private sector and its ability to reform itself in a time of war. Bureaucratic restructuring represented the last stage in a century-long process of logistical improvement. As a result of the reforms, the navy was able to conduct operations beyond the realms of possibility even twenty years earlier and saw the reach of its power transformed. Military and Napoleonic historians will find this book invaluable. JAMES DAVEY is Research Curator at the National Maritime Museum and Visiting Lecturer at the University of Greenwich, where he teaches British naval history.

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Simon Bolivar Buckner Jr. was a major figure of the Pacific War, both for his command in Alaska and in his key role heading Tenth Army during the Battle of Okinawa in the spring of 1945. Buckner was the senior U.S. officer killed by enemy fire in World War II when Japanese artillery cut him down on June 18, 1945, one month shy of his 59th birthday. The shelling ended a remarkable life – son of a Confederate Lieutenant General and governor of Kentucky, the "Child of the Democracy" in the 1896 Presidential election campaign, educated at West Point, myriad service as a student and instructor at various Army posts and schools from 1917 to 1936, command in Alaska from 1940 to 1944, and ultimately of Tenth Army from 1944 to his death.General Buckner kept a diary covering the period from January 1, 1944 to June 17, 1945, which has never been fully published until now. Buckner made notes every day, often in great detail; his chief of staff thought Buckner wanted to write a memoir after the war, but the papers were scattered after his death. In addition to the Okinawa material, Buckner's diaries discuss his departure from Alaska and service in Hawaii as Tenth Army commander. Topics include his daily life in wartime Hawaii, troop training, comments on war events, gossip, notes on his travels to Guam and the Philippines, and his role in the Smith vs Smith controversy after the Battle of Saipan. The diary text is augmented by letters from General Buckner to his wife Adele during March to June 1945, and a letter from the Tenth Army Chief of Staff to Adele detailing Buckner's death. Tenth Army Commander is an important account from a too-long-silent voice among Pacific War leaders.

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The last the boy Papa saw of his Momma, she was galloping away on her horse Precious in the saddle her father took from a dead Mexican officer after the Battle of San Jacinto, fleeing from his Daddy, Old Karl, a vicious, tight-fisted horse trader. Momma’s flight sets Papa on a relentless quest to find her that thrusts him and his scrappy little dog Fritz into adventures all across the wild and woolly Hill Country of Central Texas, down to Mexico, and even into the realm of the ghostly “Shimmery People.” In The Devil’s Backbone, master storyteller Bill Wittliff takes readers on an exciting journey through a rough 1880s frontier as full of colorful characters and unexpected turns of events as the great American quest novel Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.Wittliff grew up listening to stories and memories like these in his own family, and in this imaginative novel, they come to vivid life, creating an engrossing story of a Texas Huck Finn that brims with folk wisdom and sly humor. A rogue’s gallery of characters thwart and aid Papa’s path—Old Karl, hell-bent on bringing the boy back to servitude on his farm, and Herman, Papa’s brother who’s got Old Karl’s horse-trading instincts and greed; Calley Pearsall, an enigmatic cowboy with “other Fish to Fry” who might be an outlaw or a trustworthy “o’Amigo”; o’Jeffey, a black seer who talks to the spirits but won’t tell Papa what she has divined about his Momma; Mister Pegleg, a three-legged coyote with whom Papa forms a poignant, nearly tragic friendship; the “Mexkins” Pepe and Peto and their father Old Crecencio, whose longing for his lost family is as strong as Papa’s; and blind Bird, a magical “blue baby” who can’t see with his eyes but who helps other people see what they hold in their hearts. Papa’s adventures draw him ever nearer to a mysterious cave that haunts his dreams—an actual cave that he discovers at last in the canyons of the Devil’s Backbone—but will he find Momma before Old Karl finds him?

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Collector’s slipcased edition of the first ever standalone presentation of one of J.R.R. Tolkien’s most important poetic dramas, that explores timely themes such as the nature of heroism and chivalry during war, and which features unpublished and never-before-seen texts and drafts. In 991 AD, vikings attacked an Anglo-Saxon defence-force led by their duke, Beorhtnoth, resulting in brutal fighting along the river Blackwater, near Maldon in Essex. The attack is widely considered one of the defining conflicts of tenth-century England, and is immortalised in the poem, The Battle of Maldon. Written shortly after the battle, the poem survives only as a 325-line fragment, but its value to today is incalculable. J.R.R. Tolkien considered The Battle of Maldon ‘the last surviving fragment of ancient English heroic minstrelsy’. It would inspire him to compose, during the 1930s, his own dramatic verse-dialogue, The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth Beorhthelm’s Son, which imagines the aftermath of the great battle when two of Beorhtnoth’s retainers come to retrieve their duke’s body. Leading Tolkien scholar, Peter Grybauskas, presents for the first time Tolkien’s own prose translation of The Battle of Maldon together with the definitive treatment of The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth and its accompanying essays; also included and never before published is the lecture, ‘The Tradition of Versification in Old English’. Illuminated with insightful notes and commentary, he offers a definitive critical edition of these works, and argues compellingly that, Beowulf excepted, The Battle of Maldon may well have been ‘the Old English poem that most influenced Tolkien’s fiction’, most dramatically within the pages of The Lord of the Rings. This slipcased edition includes a colour frontispiece reproducing a page of Tolkien’s original manuscript of The Homecoming, and is printed on acid-free paper with a ribbon marker. It is quarterbound with a unique illustration by Bill Sanderson gold-foiled on grey boards and is housed in a custom-built slipcase. It also includes a digitally remastered recording of The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth read by J.R.R. Tolkien & Christopher Tolkien, which is available on CD for the first time.

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The Dunker Church is one of the most iconic structures of the American Civil War. Surprisingly, few people know much if anything about its fascinating story or the role it played within the community of Sharpsburg and its importance during and after the Battle of Antietam. September Mourn: The Dunker Church of Antietam by Alann D. Schmidt and Terry W. Barkley rectifies this oversight in the first book-length study of its kind. On September 17, 1862, two mighty armies grappled across the rolling hills, fields, and woodlots surrounding Sharpsburg, Maryland. The combat left more than 23,000 Union and Confederate soldiers killed, wounded, or captured, repulsed Lee’s invading Virginia army, and paved the way for the Emancipation Proclamation. Ironically, in the epicenter of that bloodiest day in American history stood a small whitewashed building dedicated to peace, equality, and the brotherhood of man. The German Baptist Brethren, or Dunkers (Dunkards) as they were colloquially known, built the Mumma Church of the Manor congregation in 1853 just nine years before Antietam. In addition to being a house of worship with important ties to the local community, the history of the Dunker Church is interwoven with such notable figures as Stonewall Jackson, Clara Barton, Abraham Lincoln, and even Mark Twain. The structure was heavily damaged during the battle, housed torn bodies as a hospital in its aftermath, and suffered a complete collapse before undergoing the long and arduous process of being rebuilt. Schmidt’s and Barkley’s impressive September Mourn is based upon years of meticulous research from both a Church of the Brethren (Dunkers) and a National Park Service perspective. The authors establish the importance of the structure to Sharpsburg and its citizens, its role during the battle and its aftermath, and how it helped establish tourism and education for future generations of Americans. The Dunker Church can finally take its place alongside the Alamo and Shiloh churches as one of the most notable houses of worship in American military history. September Mourn: The Dunker Church of Antietam is a must-read for anyone interested in the full story of the monumental battle and the community who lived through it.

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Students of the Civil War tend to think the story of Robert E. Lee’s 1862 Maryland Campaign is complete, and that any new study of the subject must by necessity rely on interpretations long-since accepted and understood. But what if this is not the case? What if the histories previously written about the first major Confederate operation north of the Potomac River missed key sources, proceeded from mistaken readings of the evidence, or were influenced by Lost Cause ideology? Alexander B. Rossino, the author of Six Days in September, demonstrates that distortions like these continue to shape modern understanding of the campaign in Their Maryland: The Army of Northern Virginia From the Potomac Crossing to Sharpsburg in September 1862. Rossino reassesses the history of the Confederate operation in seven comprehensive chapters, each of which tackles a specific major issue: - Did Robert E. Lee Intend to Foment Rebellion in Maryland in September 1862? - The Army of Northern Virginia Crosses the Potomac to Liberate Maryland - Confederate Encampments Near Frederick City and the Implications for the Lost Orders Debate - Maryland Civilians and Confederate Failure in the State - Rebels Photographed in Frederick, Maryland: The Case for September 1862 - A Critical Re-Assessment of Robert E. Lee’s Defensive Strategy at Sharpsburg - Robert E. Lee on the Field at Sharpsburg Did supply problems in Virginia force Lee north to press the advantage he had won after the Battle of Second Manassas? What did Rebel troops believe about the strength of secessionist sentiment in Maryland, and why? Did the entire Army of Northern Virginia really camp at Best’s Farm near Frederick, Maryland? Did D. H. Hill lose Special Orders No. 191, or is there more to the story? How did Maryland civilians respond to the Rebel army in their midst, and what part did women play? Finally, why did Robert E. Lee choose to fight at Sharpsburg, and how personally was he involved in directing the fighting? Rossino makes extensive use of primary sources to explore these and other important questions, and in doing so reveals that many long-held assumptions about the Confederate experience in Maryland do not hold up under close scrutiny. The result is a well-documented reassessment that sheds new light on old subjects.

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The story of the RAF, and in particular Fighter Command, during the Battle of Britain has been told many times. It is a tale of the gallant pilots of The Few', in their Hurricanes and Spitfires, with the nation's back to the wall, fighting off the Luftwaffe's airborne assault against enormous odds. But the story of Fighter Command's operations immediately after the Battle of Britain is less well known. Marshal of the Royal Air Force Hugh Montague Trenchard commanded the Royal Flying Corps in the First World War. His policy then had been for his aircraft and men to be continually on the offensive, always over the German lines taking the fight to the enemy. After being promoted to command the RAF, Trenchard retired in 1930. In November 1940, Trenchard showed up again at the Air Ministry and proposed that the RAF should Lean Towards France' - that it should go on the offensive. The RAF would, claimed Trenchard, win the resulting battle of attrition. One of the main outcomes of the RAF's new offensive stance was the introduction of the Circus sorties. These were attacks undertaken by a small force of bombers with a powerful fighter escort. They were intended to lure enemy fighters into the air so that they could be engaged by RAF fighters, the primary objective being the destruction of Luftwaffe fighters, followed by the protection of the bombers from attack. A further development of the Circus missions were Ramrods, Rhubarbs and Rodeos, all of which were variations on the same theme. A Ramrod was similar to a Circus, though in this instance the primary objective was the destruction of the target, the main role of the accompanying fighters being to protect the bombers from attack. A Rhubarb was a small-scale attack by fighters using cloud cover and/or surprise, the object of which was to destroy German aircraft in the air and/or striking at ground targets, whilst a Rodeo consisted of a fighter sweep over enemy territory with no bombers. Drawing on official documents and archive material, as well as accounts by many of those involved, James Starkey reveals just how Trenchard's views won through and the RAF went on the offensive from late 1940 into 1941. Was it a failed strategy? If so, why was it not halted once the results began to be seen?

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A kaleidoscope of human-interest stories exposing long-kept secrets, mysteries and heroics for the first time. Wars always generate stories and everybody loves a story. Rob Milne has compiled this selection of Anglo-Boer War stories from all over South Africa and recounts them in a book that saddens, mystifies, but most of all entertains. There's the devotion of the English fiancee who for 60 years sent a sprig of heather to the Lake Chrissie Post Office for her beloved's grave, the tale of the lone Boer sniper who held off the entire Guards Brigade for more than a day after the battle of Bergendal, the sighting of UFOs near Pretoria at the beginning of the war and the story of how an unfortunate British soldier ended up being buried under a toilet on a railway station. Read about Sergeant Woodward's two graves in Heidelberg and the ghosts of the British officers that still haunt the Elands River Valley. During the past 12 years since the publication of the first edition, Milne has relentlessly followed up on his stories; but sometimes the stories have followed him ...with unexpected results! There's a photo of the ghosts of the Bergendal farm girl and her British soldier lover who appeared in broad daylight on the battlefield while Milne was investigating the story in 2011. There's the unnamed Welshman who found the long-lost British paymaster's gold 60 years after the military train was ambushed and looted near Greylingstad. Learn the truth of how Churchill and his fellow officers received the daily war news in Morse code while they were prisoners of war at the State Model School in Pretoria, why Prime Minister Botha was sued after the war for stealing the 'Kruger Millions' when entrusted to his care as Commandant-General during the retreat to the Mozambican border. And there's the love story, 'The Legend of the Flowers', about Martha, a Boer girl, and a British soldier, George, which unfolded in Ventersdorp and how Martha involved the author in her story from beyond the grave. A unique and delightfully refreshing read.

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The Western Front evokes images of mud-spattered men in waterlogged trenches, shielded from artillery blasts and machine-gun fire by a few feet of dirt. This iconic setting was the most critical arena of the Great War, a 400-mile combat zone stretching from Belgium to Switzerland where more than three million Allied and German soldiers struggled during four years of almost continuous combat. It has persisted in our collective memory as a tragic waste of human life and a symbol of the horrors of industrialized warfare. In this epic narrative history, the first volume in a groundbreaking trilogy on the Great War, acclaimed military historian Nick Lloyd captures the horrific fighting on the Western Front beginning with the surprise German invasion of Belgium in August 1914 and taking us to the Armistice of November 1918. Drawing on French, British, German, and American sources, Lloyd weaves a kaleidoscopic chronicle of the Marne, Passchendaele, the Meuse-Argonne, and other critical battles, which reverberated across Europe and the wider war. From the trenches where men as young as 17 suffered and died, to the headquarters behind the lines where Generals Haig, Joffre, Hindenburg, and Pershing developed their plans for battle, Lloyd gives us a view of the war both intimate and strategic, putting us amid the mud and smoke while at the same time depicting the larger stakes of every encounter. He shows us a dejected Kaiser Wilhelm II—soon to be eclipsed in power by his own generals—lamenting the botched Schlieffen Plan; French soldiers piling atop one another in the trenches of Verdun; British infantryman wandering through the frozen wilderness in the days after the Battle of the Somme; and General Erich Ludendorff pursuing a ruthless policy of total war, leading an eleventh-hour attack on Reims even as his men succumbed to the Spanish Flu. As Lloyd reveals, far from a site of attrition and stalemate, the Western Front was a simmering, dynamic “cauldron of war” defined by extraordinary scientific and tactical innovation. It was on the Western Front that the modern technologies—machine guns, mortars, grenades, and howitzers—were refined and developed into effective killing machines. It was on the Western Front that chemical warfare, in the form of poison gas, was first unleashed. And it was on the Western Front that tanks and aircraft were introduced, causing a dramatic shift away from nineteenth-century bayonet tactics toward modern combined arms, reinforced by heavy artillery, that forever changed the face of war. Brimming with vivid detail and insight, The Western Front is a work in the tradition of Barbara Tuchman and John Keegan, Rick Atkinson and Antony Beevor: an authoritative portrait of modern warfare and its far-reaching human and historical consequences.

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In the history of Nazi concentration camps, and particularly labour camps, there is probably no place that bears the same stigma of wretchedness as 'Dora-Mittelbau' at Nordhausen. Located in the Harz mountains in central Germany, next to a quarry tunnel system in the Kohnstein mountain, it served to house thousands of slave workers for an underground factory known as the Mittelwerk, which produced three of Germany's best-known secret weapons: the V1 flying bomb, the V2 rocket and jet engines for the Me 262 and Ar 234 fighters. With over 20 kilometres of underground galleries, it was the largest underground factory in the world. Many of the inmates died in indescribable misery, being forced to extend the tunnels with meagre equipment and under ghastly conditions, sometimes not seeing daylight for weeks on end. Started in August 1943, Dora-Mittelbau in due course became the centre of a whole complex of underground factories in the Nordhausen area, with several subsidiary camps being set up. In all, of some 60,000 prisoners sent there between 1943 and 1945, 20,000 were driven to extinction to implement Nazi Germany's secret weapons programme, but they laboured late and in vain, for the products they yielded had little impact on the war. The V1 and V2 are the only weapons which cost more lives in production than in deployment: far more people died producing them than were killed from their impact in London, Antwerp and elsewhere. The history of Nordhausen, already gruesome in itself, ended in a crescendo of violence when, in the final weeks of the war, the surviving inmates were evacuated from the camps in death marches . One group of over a thousand men then became victim of one of the most horrendous of all Nazi atrocities. On April 13, 1945, just outside the town of Gardelegen, their SS camp guards, helped by local troops and Hitlerjugend, locked the prisoners in a big barn and set fire to the inside, burning those inside, killing them with hand-grenades, and shooting anyone who tried to escape from the burning, smoke-filled building. A total of 1,016 men died as a result. When discovered by American troops two days later, Gardelegen quickly became known as the site of one most notorious war crimes committed by the Nazis. In this book, Karel Margry recounts the history of Nordhausen concentration camp and of the Gardelegen massacre in full detail. Both stories are illustrated with unique Then and Now comparison photographs. The book contains the following two stories from ATB magazine: Issue 101: Nordhausen Author: Karel Margry. 18,165 words, 118 black and white photos. Issue 111: The Gardelegen Massacre Author: Karel Margry. Text: 16,189 words, 78 black and white photos. Note: After the Battle s account of Nordhausen, when first published in 1998, was considered so accurate and comprehensive that the Nordhausen Camp Memorial asked whether they could translate it into German and use it as one of their brochures. Thus a special German edition of issue 101 appeared under the title Damals und Heute, which has been reprinted several times.

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