Search results for ""Author David Mathieson""

With a foreword by Jon Snow. In July 1936 insurgent Spanish troops organized a military coup to oust the elected Republican government in Madrid. The rebel generals expected to force a quick, clean regime change but they failed. The botched uprising turned into a bloody civil war. Hundreds of thousands died in a bitter conflict which tore the country apart and rapidly turned into the prelude for an even greater conflict yet to com--the Second World War. The siege of Madrid was the key battle of the war. The world watched and waited for the city to surrender as General Franco's Nationalist army, backed by Hitler and Mussolini, closed in on the Spanish capital. But Madrid did not fall. Madrilenos fought tooth and nail to defend their city. Helped by volunteers from fifty other countries--the International Brigades--they held out against all the odds until the end of the conflict in 1939. Despite its central role in twentieth-century history, the siege of Madrid is an episode largely hidden from today's visitor. There is no guide to the war sites and few clues for the inquisitive traveller who wants to know more. Frontline Madrid fills that gap. This unique guide book explains what life was like in the city under siege and what happened in the battlefield dramas. The simple to follow maps and diagrams make it easy to visit the frontline sites. The vividly written descriptions bring events and people compellingly to life. The role of prominent individuals, British and American--Orwell, Hemingway, John Cornford - is explored. Off the beaten track, from the University district in the city centre to the mountains of Guadarrama less than an hour away, the remains of the war in Madrid can still be found--gun emplacements, bunkers, trenches and occasional debris. Frontline Madrid retraces the footsteps of those who lived through the conflict to take the reader on a tour in time. The usual tourist traps are left far behind to enter the gripping world of a war which shaped modern European history.

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Munich is one of Europe s most enchanting cities. Exploring its narrow cobbled streets or wide sunlight boulevards with views of the Bavarian Alps is a delight. Each autumn, millions of revellers from around the world join locals in their legendary Octoberfest, one of the world's biggest festivals. Yet many visitors also know that Munich has a past so dark that it cast a looming shadow over the twentieth century: this was the city which played a unique role in the ascent of Nazism, the Third Reich and Adolf Hitler. It was in Munich that Hitler first entered the murky world of beer Keller politics after the First World War. It was here that he established the fanatical base of his NSDAP party so that the city was, in his words, the capital of the movement'. This illustrative new book explains how Munich and its surrounds became inextricably linked with the rise and fall of Nazism. It provides the modern reader with a detailed guide to what happened where in the city, why those events were important in the unfolding history of the Third Reich - and why they remain a timely warning today.

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