Villers Bretonneux Somme Battleground Europe Wwi

Author : Peter Pedersen
Publisher : Pen and Sword
ISBN 13 : 147382026X
Total Pages : 299 pages
Book Rating : 4.65/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Villers-Bretonneux written by Peter Pedersen and published by Pen and Sword. This book was released on 2004-01-20 with total page 299 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Villers-Bretonneux was the key to the strategically important communications centre of Amiens, a principal objective of the German offensive that began in March 1918. Until the Germans took the town, Amiens would remain beyond their grasp. The successful defence of Villers-Bretonneux has come to be regarded as an Australian battle but British formations were heavily involved as wel

Author : Dr Peter Pedersen
Publisher : Pen and Sword
ISBN 13 : 1844150615
Total Pages : 193 pages
Book Rating : 4.18/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Villers Bretonneux written by Dr Peter Pedersen and published by Pen and Sword. This book was released on 2004-01-20 with total page 193 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Villers-Bretonneux was the key to the strategically important communications centre of Amiens, a principal objective of the German offensive that began in March 1918. Until the Germans took the town, Amiens would remain beyond their grasp. The successful defence of Villers-Bretonneux has come to be regarded as an Australian battle but British formations were heavily involved as wel

Author : Mary Middlebrook
Publisher : Casemate Publishers
ISBN 13 : 1844155331
Total Pages : 395 pages
Book Rating : 4.30/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Middlebrook Guide to the Somme Battlefields written by Mary Middlebrook and published by Casemate Publishers. This book was released on 2007-01-01 with total page 395 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Since Roman times, the French department of the Somme has witnessed many wars, including Grecy (1346), Agincourt (1415), the Franco-Prussian War of 1870 and, of course, the two World Wars. It is the Great War that has the dubious distinction of being the most notorious and 1 July 1916, the opening day of the Battle of the Somme, was the costliest in our nation's long history with some 60,000 British casualties. Thirty-five years ago Martin Middlebrook opened his literary career by writing The First Day on the Somme and, seven years later, The Kaiser's Battle, his description of the first day of the German 1918 Spring Offensive over much the same area. Having also taken numerous tours and given many lectures he knows the ground intimately. This superb guide book sets out to describe every place on the Somme where there is a military cemetery, memorial, preserved trench or crater not just from the First World War but throughout the ages until the Allies swept away the Nazi armies during their 1944 advance. Aided by his wife Mary, Martin has used his encyclopaedic knowledge to make this a truly formidable work. It is more than just a guide book as readers will benefit from the descriptive powers and sound research that are the hallmarks of this highly respected historian.

Author : Tonie Holt
Publisher : Pen and Sword
ISBN 13 : 1783035099
Total Pages : 589 pages
Book Rating : 4.90/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Major & Mrs Holt's Battlefield Guide to the Somme written by Tonie Holt and published by Pen and Sword. This book was released on 2008-06-15 with total page 589 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Major and Mrs. Holt's Battlefield Guide to the Somme is, without doubt, one of the best-selling guide books to the battlefields of the Somme. This latest updated edition, includes four recommended, timed itineraries representing one day's traveling. Every stop on route has an accompanying description and often a tale of heroic or tragic action.Memorials, private and official, sites of memorable conflict, the resting places of personalities of note are all drawn together with sympathetic and understanding commentary that gives the reader a sensitivity towards the events of 1916.

Author : Peter Pedersen
Publisher : Casemate Publishers
ISBN 13 : 1783400285
Total Pages : 267 pages
Book Rating : 4.87/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Hamel: Somme written by Peter Pedersen and published by Casemate Publishers. This book was released on 2003-03-19 with total page 267 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On 4 July 1918, American and Australian troops captured the village of Hamel and the ridge overlooking it. It was not a big battle: the equivalent of one Australian division and one battalion of newly arrived Americans were the only infantry involved. Although Hamel is not a famous named battle it is noteworthy for an increased level of sophistication . At Hamel machines went a long way towards relieving the infantry of the obligation to fight its way forward. After the battle, Haig's Headquarters promulgated its lessons for other commanders. Among the senior officers who visited Monash's Headquarters was Brigadier-General Bernard Montgomery. The military thinker and former Tank Corps officer, Major-General J.F.C. Fuller, thought Hamel more important in making the reputation of the Tank Corps than the battle of Cambrai.

Author : David R. Higgins
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN 13 : 1780960069
Total Pages : 187 pages
Book Rating : 4.67/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Mark IV vs A7V written by David R. Higgins and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2013-01-20 with total page 187 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The German A7V and the British Mark IV were similar in weight, size, and speed, but differed significantly in armour, armament and maneuverability. The A7V had thicker armour, and had nearly double the horsepower per ton. The Mark IV's pair of side-mounted 6pdr cannons forced the vehicle to present its side arc to an enemy in order to fire one of its main guns. Possessing twice as many machine guns as the Mark IV, the A7V had a frontally mounted 57mm gun that proved capable of defeating the Mark IV's armour. The Mark IV's rhomboid design proved superior in crossing trenches, climbing obstacles and moving over rough terrain. As the first tank-versus-tank engagement in history, the fighting around Villers-Bretonneux showcased the British Mark IV and German A7V designs. Although not purpose-built to combat enemy armour, both vehicles proved the viability of such operations, which during the postwar period led to key advances in suspension, armour, gunsights, ammunition, and command and control. While the British continued to develop their armoured forces, German armour development never materialized, and only in the postwar period did they address the issue.

Author : Mike O'Connor
Publisher : Pen and Sword
ISBN 13 : 1473811759
Total Pages : 329 pages
Book Rating : 4.51/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Airfields & Airmen: Somme written by Mike O'Connor and published by Pen and Sword. This book was released on 2001-08-01 with total page 329 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The latest volume in the Airfields and Airmen series covers the Arras area. It includes a visit to the grave of Albert Ball VC and the graves of Waterfall and Bayly, the first British fliers killed in action. There is a visit to the aerodrome from which Alan McLeod took off from to earn his VC and to the grave of Viscount Glentworth, killed while flying with 32 Squadron. The German side is well covered with visits to their cemeteries and aerodromes. This well researched book relives the deadly thrills of war in the air over the battlefields of the Western Front.

Author : Michael Stedman
Publisher : Pen and Sword
ISBN 13 : 1473811643
Total Pages : 269 pages
Book Rating : 4.45/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Advance to Victory, 1918 written by Michael Stedman and published by Pen and Sword. This book was released on 2001-02-22 with total page 269 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Battleground series is designed for both the battlefield visitor and the reader at home. For the former, this book is an invaluable guide and each site is described in detail. For everyone there are graphic descriptions of action, often through first-hand accounts, supported by illustrations, diagrams and maps.

Author : Peter FitzSimons
Publisher : Random House Australia
ISBN 13 : 174275953X
Total Pages : 784 pages
Book Rating : 4.31/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Victory at Villers-Bretonneux written by Peter FitzSimons and published by Random House Australia. This book was released on 2016-10-31 with total page 784 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It's early 1918, and after four brutal years, the fate of the Great War hangs in the balance. On the one hand, the fact that Vladimir Lenin and the Bolsheviks have seized power in Russia - immediately suing for peace with Germany - means that no fewer than one million of the Kaiser's soldiers can now be transferred from there to the Western Front. On the other, now that America has entered the war, it means that two million American soldiers are also on their way, to tip the scales of war to the Allies. The Germans, realising that their only hope is striking at the Allied lines first, do exactly that, and on the morning of 21 March 1918, the Kaiserschlacht, the Kaiser's battle, is launched - the biggest set-piece battle the world has ever seen. Across a 45-mile front, no fewer than two million German soldiers hurl themselves at the Allied lines, with the specific intention of splitting the British and French forces, and driving all the way through to the town of Villers-Bretonneux, at which point their artillery will be able to rain down shells on the key train-hub town of Amiens, thus throttling the Allied supply lines. For nigh on two weeks, the plan works brilliantly, and the Germans are able to advance without check, as the exhausted British troops flee before them, together with tens of thousands of French refugees. In desperation, the British commander, General Douglas Haig, calls upon the Australian soldiers to stop the German advance, and save Villers-Bretonneux. If the Australians can hold this, the very gate to Amiens, then the Germans will not win the war. 'It's up to us, then,' one of the Diggers writes in his diary. Arriving at Villers-Bretonneux just in time, the Australians are indeed able to hold off the Germans, launching a vicious counterattack that hurls the Germans back the first time. And then, on Anzac Day 1918, when the town falls after all to the British defenders, it is again the Australians who are called on to save the day, the town, and the entire battle . . . Not for nothing does the primary school at Villers-Bretonneux have above every blackboard, to this day, 'N'oublions jamais, l'Australie.' Never forget Australia. And they never have.

Author : Gavin Stamp
Publisher : Profile Books
ISBN 13 : 1847650600
Total Pages : 227 pages
Book Rating : 4.03/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Memorial to the Missing of the Somme written by Gavin Stamp and published by Profile Books. This book was released on 2010-08-06 with total page 227 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Edwin Lutyens' Memorial to the Missing of the Somme at Thiepval in Northern France, visited annually by tens of thousands of tourists, is arguably the finest structure erected by any British architect in the twentieth century. It is the principal, tangible expression of the defining event in Britain's experience and memory of the Great War, the first day of the Battle of the Somme on 1 July 1916, and it bears the names of 73,000 soldiers whose bodies were never found at the end of that bloody and futile campaign. This brilliant study by an acclaimed architectural historian tells the origin of the memorial in the context of commemorating the war dead; it considers the giant classical brick arch in architectural terms, and also explores its wider historical significance and its resonances today. So much of the meaning of the twentieth century is concentrated here; the Thiepval Memorial to the Missing casts a shadow into the future, a shadow which extends beyond the dead of the Holocaust, to the Gulag, to the 'disappeared' of South America and of Tianenmen. Reissued in a beautiful and striking new edition for the centenary of the Somme.