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Little-known yet fascinating tales of notable and notorious Welshmen during the war.

Military and battlefield archaeology has always been viewed as a sub-discipline to that of traditional historical archaeology. Once considered the pursuit of learned history professors and their disciples today, military archaeology has flourished around the world into what can only best be described as a hugely popular pastime, and in some instances a multi-million-pound business.With technologies available today, even the student on the most modest of budgets can become an archaeologist (if only in the layman's term). Yet despite it's popularity in unearthing answers to the questions of our turbulent past, there are surprisingly few texts available on what is arguably a fascinating and historically important subject. The objective herein is to present an analysis of various battles fought around the world from medieval times to the present, and the archaeology recovered from investigations carried out by professionally sanctioned groups and hobbyists. The context here includes general battlefield recovered artifacts, military aviation crash sites, Second World War pill boxes, air raid shelters, POW Camps and other structures. There is also emphasis on Britain's ally in both world wars, the United States of America, examining the artifacts, wreckology, structures and dumping grounds left behind by the American military forces at the end of the Second World War both in the UK and Europe.Military Archaeology: How Detectorists and Major Finds Improve our Understanding of History is a valuable addition to the military and literary analysis of the archaeology of warfare from the Boudiccan uprising to the 2003 Invasion of Iraq.

Fresh in-depth up-to-date exploration of Viking warfare.

The Long War for Britannia is unique. It recounts some two centuries of 'lost' British history, while providing decisive proof that the early records for this period are the very opposite of 'fake news'. The book shows that the discrepancies in dates claimed by many scholars are illusory. Every early source originally recorded the same events in the same year. It is only the transition to Anno Domini dating centuries afterward that distorts our perceptions.Of equal significance, the book demonstrates that King Arthur and Uther Pendragon are the very opposite of medieval fantasy. Current scholarly doubts arose from the fact that different British regions had very different memories of post-Roman British rulers. Some remembered Arthur as the 'Proud Tyrant', a monarch who plunged the island into civil war. Others recalled him as the British general who saved Britain when all seemed lost. The deeds of Uther Pendragon replicate the victories of the dread Mercian king Penda. These authentic - yet radically different - narratives distort history to this very day.

While tanks were the most recognized armored vehicles during the Cold War, NATO and Warsaw Pact (WP) armies fielded a wide array of armored fighting vehicles (AFVs). These included armored cars, armored personnel carriers (APCs), anti-aircraft vehicles and self propelled artillery. Over the Cold War years nations both progressively developed series of AFVs and introduced entirely new ranges.APCs, vital to all frontline units, evolved from machine gun-armed battlefield taxis such as the US M113 and Soviet BTR-60 series into sophisticated infantry fighting vehicles. The Soviet BMP-1, US Bradley M2/M3, West German Marder and British Warrior and CVR series were classic examples of the latter, with numerous variants.The Soviet BRDM-2 series was the most numerous armored car. The British Army fielded the Saladin, Ferret and Fox and the German Army introduced the eight-wheeled Luchs and tracked SPZ11-2 Kurz.Early anti-aircraft vehicles, such as the American M42 with two 40mm Bofors, were superseded by the formidable Soviet ZSU-23-4 Shilka and the West German Geopard with radar-guided guns.This authoritative and superbly illustrated book covers the full range of AFVs in service with NATO and WP armies over the four decades of the Cold War. It will be an invaluable addition to the libraries of the expert and layman alike.

The lives of Tudor women often offer faint but fascinating footnotes on the pages of history. The life of Catherine - or Katryn as her husband would one day pen her name - Carey, the daughter of Mary Boleyn and, as the weight of evidence suggests, Henry VIII, is one of those footnotes.As the possible daughter of Henry VIII, the niece of Anne Boleyn and the favorite of Elizabeth I, Catherine's life offers us a unique perspective on the reigns of Henry and his children. In this book, Wendy J. Dunn takes these brief details of Catherine's life and turns them into a rich account of a woman who deserves her story told. Following the faint trail provided of her life from her earliest years to her death in service to Queen Elizabeth, Dunn examines the evidence of Catherine's parentage and views her world through the lens of her relationship with the royal family she served.This book presents an important story of a woman who saw and experienced much tragedy and political turmoil during the reigns of Henry VIII, Edward VI, and Mary I - all of which prepared her to take on the vital role of one of Elizabeth I closest and most trusted women. It also prepared her to become the wife of one of Elizabeth's privy councilors - a man also trusted and relied on by the queen. Catherine served Elizabeth during the uncertain and challenging first years of her reign, a time when there was a question mark over whether she would succeed as queen regnant after the failures of England's first crowned regnant, her sister Mary.Through immense research and placing her in the context of her period, Henry VIII's True Daughter: Catherine Carey, A Tudor Life draws Catherine out of the shadows of history to take her true place as the daughter of Henry VIII and shows how vital women like Catherine were to Elizabeth and the ultimate victory of her reign.

The name Mrs Beeton has endured for well over a century, synonymous with all things reassuringly culinary, while her contemporary Agnes Bertha Marshall remains somewhat of an enigma.Both Isabella Beeton and Agnes Bertha Marshall lived within a short distance of each other in Pinner, worked in London, wrote about, and shared a passion for food, all just a couple of decades apart.While Isabella Beeton compiled one successful book of collected recipes, Agnes built a cookery empire, including a training school, the development of innovative kitchen equipment, a range of cooking ingredients, an employment agency and a successful weekly journal, as well as writing three incredibly popular recipe books.Mrs Beeton and Mrs Marshall: A Tale Of Two Victorian Cooks intrudes on the private lives of both these women, whose careers eclipsed two very different halves of the Victorian era. While there are similarities between the two, their narratives explore class and background, highlight the social and economic contrasts of the nineteenth century, the ascension of the cookery industry in general and the burgeoning power of suffragism.

Britain and the Ocean Road uses new firsthand research and unconventional interpretations to take a fresh look at British maritime history in the age of sail.The human stories of eight shipwrecks serve as waypoints on the voyage, as the book explores how and why Britain became a global sea power. Each chapter has people at its heart - sailors, seafaring families, passengers, merchants, pirates, explorers, and many others. The narrative encompasses an extraordinary range of people, ships and events, such as a bloody maritime civil war in the 13th century, a 17th-century American teenager who stepped from one ship to another - and into a life of piracy, a British warship that fought at Trafalgar (on the French side), and the floating hell of a Liverpool slave-ship, sunk in the year before the slave trade was abolished.The book is full of surprising details and scenes, including England's rudest and crudest street-name, what it was like to be a passenger in a medieval ship (take a guess), how a fragment of the English theater reached the Far East during Shakespeare's lifetime, who forgave who after a deadly pirate duel, why there were fancy dress parties in the Arctic, and where you could get the best herring.Britain and the Ocean Road is the first of two works aimed at introducing a general audience to the gripping (and at times horrifying) story of Britain, its people and the sea. The books will also interest historians and archaeologists, as they are based on original scholarship. The second book, Breaking Seas, Broken Ships will take the story from the age of steam to the 21st century.

It was to the south-west of Leeds that one of the key lines in the development of Britain's railway network - the Middleton Railway - established the principle of seeking parliamentary sanction for the construction of a new form of transport. Five decades later in the early nineteenth century it was again the Middleton Railway that was at the forefront of the use of steam - rather than animal - power to move coal from colliery to market.From the early 1830s through until the early years of the twentieth century the local railway network continued to expand; indeed, if it had not been for the outbreak of the First World War in 1914 the area would have played host to one of the last first-generation main lines to be constructed with the Midland Railway planning - and partially constructing - a new main line north from Royston. In the event the line was never completed, consigning Bradford to be served by no more than glorified branch lines.Providing a largely illustrated account to the history of the railway development of the area, the book includes a fascinating selection of illustrations that focus on the evolution of the network in the almost eighty years since the end of the Second World War.

The Han-Xiongnu War (133 BC - AD 89) pitted the Han dynasty of China against a confederation of nomadic steppe peoples, the Xiongnu Empire. In campaigns waged on a huge scale by the standards of contemporary Western warfare (perhaps half a million soldiers were fielded at the Battle of Mobei in 119 BC), the two states fought for control of Central Asia, hungry for its rich resources and Western trade links. China's victory set the stage for millennia of imperial rule and a vast sphere of influence in Asia.Scott Forbes Crawford examines the war in a lively, engaging narrative. He builds a mosaic encompassing the centuries of conflict through biographies of fifteen historical figures: the Chinese and Xiongnu emperors who first led their armies into battle; 'peace bride' Princess Jieyou, whose marriage to a steppe king forged a vital Chinese alliance; the explorer-diplomat Zhang Qian, who almost-inadvertently established the Silk Road, among other key individuals. Their stories capture the war's breadth, the enduring impact on Han society and statecraft in what became a Chinese golden age, and the doomed resistance of the Xiongnu to an ever-strengthening juggernaut.

During the first few weeks of Operation Barbarossa, Hitler's invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941, Heinz Guderian's Second Panzer Group played a leading role, cutting through the defenses on the border, then taking part in the massive encirclement battles near Minsk, Smolensk, and Kiev. The extraordinary speed of the advance reflects the experience of the Wehrmacht as a whole during the first phase of the war on the Eastern Front. That is why David Higgins's graphic narrative, which describes how Guderian's forces achieved enormous success before they were forced to halt, is such compelling reading. It is a fascinating story, vividly told.Drawing on a wide range of official German and Soviet records, he reconstructs the entire course of Second Panzer Group's advance, covering each stage in unprecedented detail. His narrative offers a German perspective and an inside view of what the opposing commanders knew during each operation and shows how important logistics became as the German supply lines stretched deep into the Soviet Union. It also explains how Soviet resistance and reinforcements, declining strength and the onset of the Russian winter combined to bring Guderian to a stop at Tula where he was relieved of his command.The high hopes with which the German army had launched the campaign were dashed only a few months later before Moscow. This in-depth study the of operations of Second Panzer Group gives the reader a telling insight into what went wrong.

General Hans von Seekt (1866-1936) was the military counterpart of the Weimar Republic, both attempted to restore Germany's international acceptance and security following defeat in World War I and the Treaty of Versailles of 1919. And the failure of both led eventually to the rise of Hitler and Nazi Germany. Hans von Seekt was from the traditional German officer caste, served with distinction on the war and became Chief of the Army Command at the Reichewehr Ministry of the Weimar Republic and Germany's 'supreme soldier' and major military strategist. His role was to re-build the shattered German army in face of the punitive terms of post-war settlement imposed by the victorious Entente Powers which drastically reduced its strength and imposed crippling financial conditions. He aimed to build a modern and efficient military - a new German army - with a main strategy of peaceful defense purposes, and to re-introduce Germany into the community of nations. This original and far-sighted policy was opposed by the movement seeking revenge for defeat - a 'stab in the back' - led principally by his rival, General Erich Ludendorff, whose aim was re-build the once-mighty German imperial army as a major international force. The failure of von Seekt's experiment was mirrored by the fall of the Weimar Republic, and the rise of rise of Hitler and Nazi Germany.

Now preserved for almost sixty years, the former Midland Railway branch from Keighley to Oxenhope to the west of Bradford may not be one of the country's longest - indeed it only stretches for just under five miles - but it is one of the country's most popular preserved lines.With a history stretching back to the mid-nineteenth century, the Keighley & Worth Valley provided an essential link for the communities that it served for almost a century. The harsh economic realities of the 1950s made its future uncertain and its fate was, theoretically, sealed before the infamous Beeching Report of March 1963.However, there were a number of local enthusiasts who, having previously witnessed the demise of the ex-Great Northern Railway Queensbury Triangle routes in the mid-1950s, were determined that the Oxenhope line would not suffer a similar fate.With the line preserved, services were triumphantly restored in 1968 and the line has been providing pleasures for tourists and enthusiasts ever since.

What greater pride might a young man feel than to serve shoulder to shoulder with his friends in time of war? To enlist into the army with his pals, chums, mates, filling the ranks of battalions that drew their strength from the local community, from amongst factory workers, miners, shop-workers and tradesmen. In August 1914, what more fitting role was there to play than to answer the country's call to arms?The past is another country, of course: the world in which these men grew up and the mores that took them to the Western Front might appear innocent and naive today. The Somme battle eviscerated many of these free-spirited battalions. But the raising of this New Army - a purely volunteer army - lives on in the public consciousness, their collective story part of our heritage.Who were these volunteers who poured into recruiting offices, overwhelming the staff? What motivated these men - too often just boys - to join up? How did they feel about one another and the new military regime into which so many ran with enthusiasm, without much thought as to the future?After the success of his previous books, The Somme, The Road to Passchendaele, and 1918, best-selling Great War historian Richard van Emden returns to the beginning of the War with this, his latest volume, including an unparalleled collection of soldiers' own photographs taken on their privately-held cameras. Drawing on long-forgotten memoirs, diaries and letters written by the men who enlisted, Richard tells the riveting story of Kitchener's volunteers, before they went to fight.

In 2015 the Salvation Army celebrated the 150th anniversary of its birth in the poverty and squalor of London's East End. Today the Army is to be found in towns and cities throughout Britain, its members readily recognized through their military uniform and their reputation for good works widely acknowledged. Many people, however, are unaware of the origins and subsequent development of the organization. At times Salvationists were imprisoned, beaten up in street riots and ridiculed in the press for their religious beliefs. Despite this persecution the Army put in place a program of help for the poor and marginalized of such ambition that it radically altered social thinking about poverty.There have been very few attempts at writing a wider and accessible account which locates the Army in its historical context. This is something of an omission given that it has made a unique contribution to the changing social, cultural and religious landscape of Britain. The Salvation Army: 150 years of Blood and Fire aims to provide a history of the organization for the general reader and is for anyone who is interested in the interplay of people, ideas and events. The book reveals how the story of the Salvation Army raises fundamental questions about issues of power, class, gender and race in modern society; all as pertinent today as they were in Victorian Britain. The Salvation Army: 150 years of Blood and Fire also makes an extensive use of pictures illustrative of the Army's history gathered from around the world, most of which have never previously been published.

Arguably the greatest Olympian of all time, Michael Phelps, with twenty-eight Olympic medals to his name, was asked if he would like his children to follow in his footsteps. His answer, 'Honestly, in a perfect world, I'd say no. Just because I don't want them to live in my footsteps. And I also know everything about it - I know the ins and the outs, the good, the bad, and the ugly. So, you know, as a parent, it just - it frightens me.' The truth is that the vast majority of the public don't understand this alarming answer from Phelps. The question as to why so many elite sportspeople fall off the edge of a cliff in life when they retire is often answered in either a too complicated or too simplistic way to give people a meaningful answer. This book changes that. Using brutally honest interviews with sport stars Matthew Hoggard, Paul Walsh, Gail Emms, Tom May, Johnny Nelson and Clare Shine, Luke Sutton breaks down why this happens for a reader in a way that hasn't been done yet. Anyone fascinated by sport or elite performance in general will be enthralled by this book. There is so much to take from it.

This book examines in words and pictures the network of British branch lines and other secondary routes that survived the mass closures of the 1960s. While nearly 4,000 route miles were lost between 1963 and 1970, the cuts were less severe than they might have been. Some lines were reprieved because of their social importance, even though they would never pay their way in purely commercial terms. They included some lengthy rural routes, such as those serving the Far North of Scotland, Central Wales and the Cumbrian Coast, as well as some urban backwaters such as Romford to Upminster and the St Albans Abbey branch. As the 1970s progressed, closures became scarce, but cost-cutting measures included the singling of some lines as well as scaled-down stations and simplified signaling. Yet even today, some pockets of traditional operation survive. Mechanical signal boxes still control many hundreds of miles across the network, in areas as diverse as West Cornwall, East Lincolnshire and South West Scotland. This book also celebrates several reopened and new lines, ranging from the major Borders Railway project in Scotland to the Stansted Airport and Barking Riverside branches in South East England - making the point that the branch line concept is far from dead.

The ships that dominate so much of the history of the Royal Navy in the Second World War are more often than not the carriers or battleships - Ark Royal, Warspite, Hood - and rarely do ships smaller than cruisers move center stage. Apart that is from one class, the Tribal class destroyers, heroes of the Altmark incident, of the battle of Narvik, and countless actions across all theaters of operation. Yet there has been surprisingly little written about these critical ships, still less about their wartime successors, the Battle class, or their postwar incarnations, the Daring class.This book seeks to rectify this by describing the three classes, each designed under different circumstances along destroyer lines but to general-purpose light cruiser form, from the interwar period through to the 1950s, and the author explains the procurement process for each class in the context of the needs and technology of the times. Taken together these classes represent the genesis of the modern general-purpose destroyer, breaking from the torpedo boat destroyer form into a self-reliant, multi-purpose combatant capable of stepping up to the cruiser's traditional peacetime patrol missions whilst also fulfilling the picket and fighting duties of the wartime light cruiser or heavy destroyer.This is the first work to analyze these three classes side by side, to examine their conception, their creation and their operational stories, many heroic, and provide an insight into ship design, operation and culture; and in doing so the book aims to contribute a better understanding of one of the most significant periods in the Royal Navy's history. In its clear description of the genesis of the modern destroyer, this book will give the reader a clearer picture of its future as well. Historians, professionals and enthusiasts will all enjoy this wide-ranging and detailed study.

The first systematic examination both of the German coastal campaign and the British response to it.

Paul McDonald is a former RAF fast-jet pilot whose flying career spanned 34 years. He spent 14 years on operational tours overseas including 2 tours at the height of the Cold War on a Tornado tactical nuclear squadron in Germany.

This book describes the background to and the development of the Nazi Party Rallies held at Nuremberg each September from 1933 to 1939. These Reichsparteitage (National Party Days) were vast and meticulously staged managed extravaganzas in which ritual and ceremony played an important part.The Rallies had two key objectives. The first was to focus public attention on the successes of the Nazi Party and connect with the public conscience and build a close bond between Party and people.Even more important was the Rallies role in presenting Adolf Hitler as the saviour of the German nation sent to restore national pride, power and prosperity after the shame and economic disaster of the post war years and the deeply resented Versailles Treaty. The Hitler Cult was blatantly promoted with revolutionary use of propaganda by the latest technology and iron control of the media.Using the authors superb collection of postcards and images, The Nazis Nuremberg Rallies takes the reader on a visual journey through each years Reichsparteitage. A truly fascinating way to understand this uniquely successful and threatening phenomena.

The epic of Dunkirk has been told many times, but the numerous accounts from surviving soldiers and sailors were often a blur of fear and fighting with the days mingling into each other, leaving what is, at times, a confusing picture. In this book, adopting a day by day approach, the author provides a clear portrayal of the unfolding drama on the perimeter around Dunkirk, in the port itself and along the beaches to La Panne and the Belgian border.Reports from many of the captains of the vessels which took part in the great evacuation were submitted to the Admiralty immediately after the conclusion of Operation Dynamo. With access to these, and supported by the various records maintained by the Army and RAF, the author has been able to finally piece together the movements and actions of the many of the squadrons, units and ships involved.With the Admiralty reports and a mass of other first-hand accounts, many of which have never been published before, the true tale of the heroism of the rescued and the rescuers is laid bare. Operation Dynamo saw civilian volunteers and Royal Navy personnel manning every type of craft from the anti-aircraft cruiser HMS Calcutta to the cockle boats of the Thames Estuary. The accounts of the men who crewed these vessels tell of being bombed and strafed by the Luftwaffe or shelled from the shore. There are stories of collisions in the dark, chaos on the beaches and tragic losses as ships went down. Similar tales are told by the men waiting on the beaches, defending the perimeter or flying in the skies overhead in a valiant effort to hold the German Army and Luftwaffe at bay.Yet this is ultimately a story, as Churchill described it, of 'deliverance', for against all the predictions, the BEF was saved to fight again another day. With civilians and servicemen working without respite for days and nights on end under almost continual attack to rescue the army, the nation pulled together as never before. It truly was Britain's finest hour.

This book covers the inception, growth and employment of Britain's airborne forces (parachute and glider-borne formations) between June 1940 and March 1945. It takes a comparative approach and follows tailored lines of development. Each of these lines influence each other.

Over sixty years ago, a battle took place that, if it had succeeded, could have shortened the Second World war by six months. The operation to take the bridges at Arnhem was given the code name 'Operation Market Garden', Market being the airside of the operation and Garden the subsequent ground operation. The main problem was communications between the ground forces and the resupply aircraft of the Royal Air Force.

Determined to 'do his bit', Des Evans absconded from a reserved occupation in 1939 and joined the newly formed Reconnaissance Corps. After parachute training, he joined C Troop in time to play his role in Operation Market Garden, the ill-fated but glorious attempt to seize the Rhine Bridge at Arnhem. In this gripping memoir, Des vividly describes b

This is a bold, painstakingly researched and wide-ranging assessment of the British Cheer in the Napoleonic era. Reference to the Cheer in accounts of the time is virtually ubiquitous and repeatedly the claim was made for cheering as an integral part of British offensive operations. However, more recent historians have tended to overlook this evidence.Based upon a vast range of contemporary sources, this book suggests that the Cheer wielded genuine power as a true 'weapon of war'. This book first surveys the history of acclamations in battle worldwide and British battle-cries from all periods, before addressing the question of what the British Cheer actually sounded like. Issues of acoustics, physics and the psychology of battlefield morale are considered, along with commentaries from significant military scholars throughout history. Examination of the Napoleonic-era Cheer then reveals the practically invincible 'recipe' of volley-cheer-charge that propelled the British Army to victory upon victory. Comparison is drawn with French and other national patterns of vocalizing, along with analysis of those occasions when the Cheer might be suppressed. Finally, the attitude of the Duke of Wellington towards cheering is reconsidered, with surprising results.This study encompasses a vast canvas of place and time in pursuit of the elusive yet galvanizing Cheer: from the Mahratta wars in India, through campaigns in Egypt, the Mediterranean, Flanders, the Caribbean and South America, as well as the war of 1812. The Peninsular and Waterloo campaigns feature prominently as the Cheer is heard thrillingly from Vimeiro to Talavera, Salamanca to Vitoria, Orthez to Toulouse and the shocking siege of Badajoz to the charge of the Scots Greys on the ridge of Mont Saint Jean. Anyone interested in the wars of Revolutionary France and Napoleon, the British army, the career of the Duke of Wellington, or indeed the wider questions of the psychological motivations of combat will find this book illuminating and thought-provoking.

In the Russian-Ukrainian war, both sides depended heavily on rockets and missiles. Some of these date from Soviet times and some are very modern, being deployed in warfare for the first time.The outbreak of the civil war in the east of Ukraine in 2014 showed that rockets and missiles, beside the artillery, are among the decisive factors in both regular Ukrainian military, and paramilitary nationalistic formations as well as in the separatists' bodies. For eight years hardly any day passed without these weapons being fired.On 24 February 2022, Russia unleashed a 'limited military operation' (as President Putin defined it) with a barrage of new equipment - cruise missiles and tactical ballistic missiles - pounding Ukrainian targets. The West responded with a pledge to supply modern weapons to the otherwise outdated Ukrainian military to counter the Russian threat, especially armor. Ukraine was turned into a vast depot for NATO ammunition and weapons including short-range air defense systems and antitank rockets. Western stocks gradually shrank while numerous cargo lanes transported these weapons to Poland to be hauled by trucks and railways to the Ukrainians. In the meantime, Russia pounded these locations and large quantities of the Western aid disappeared in flames and explosions - as yet more equipment poured into Ukrainian hands. The sheer amount is hard to estimate but large quantities were captured by the Russians and occasionally turned against the former owners.This book is a comprehensive guide to all missiles and rockets used by both sides as well as their effect on both military and civilian targets, including Russian ship-borne weapons and anti-ship missiles used so effectively by Ukraine against the Russian cruiser Moskva. Besides the numerous ex-Soviet, Ukrainian, and Russian anti-armor rockets (RPGs) and missiles, of particular interest are the anti-armor missiles and rockets supplied by NATO which includes Javelin and British NLAW, and Brimstone.The war in Ukraine was a full-scale conventional war between the two largest armies in Europe. But without modern weapons, Ukraine's ability to hold out for an extended period was limited. Its only hope was help by the West. Yet NATO supplies were precisely tracked and often destroyed immediately after unloading. Nevertheless, the Russian-Ukrainian war allowed manufactures and military experts to assess the true effectiveness of their weapons in the most realistic setting of all - the battlefield.In his examination of the weaponry used in the conflict, the author toured the Ukraine as the conflict unfolded, to photograph and report on the first major war of the twenty-first century.

Following the end of the First World War, the newly reformed state of Poland was wedged uncomfortably between the two dominant nations of Germany and the Soviet Union. With their diametrically opposed political philosophies, both of Poland's neighbors plotted continuously to reclaim its lands that had up until recently been part of the once great but now defunct German and Russian empires. In order to protect itself, Poland was obliged to plot and negotiate with both of its neighbors to try and prevent them from realizing their ambitions to eviscerate the country.The United States had been instrumental in the creation of the Polish state after the First World War, Wilson in particular stoking the Poles' growing powerful nationalistic fervor. As Norman Ridley reveals, this was the beginning of a turbulent period for Poland. There was, for example, the dramatic and improbable 'Miracle on the Vistula' when Polish forces defeated the communist Red Army in 1920 - and in so doing halted the spread of communism across eastern Europe. As well as bitter ethnic battles between Germany and Poland for the political control of Upper Silesia, there were also the burning ambitions of Weimar Germany, and later Nazi Germany, to reclaim lands stripped from them and incorporated into the new state of Poland at Versailles.Despite America's initial support after the war, the US thereafter showed little interest in Poland's predicament. While France was a traditional friend to the Polish peoples, and a significant supplier of military aid, its political influence over eastern European affairs weakened as its own political institutions fell prey to extremes of both left and right and its immediate post-war dominance waned. Britain was interested only in commerce and that made Germany and Russia significantly more important as trading partners than the predominantly agricultural and technically backward state of Poland.Despite the dominance of right-wing politics in Poland, the emergence of Hitler and the Nazis in Germany did little to bring the countries together. This even drove them further apart as the Führer ramped up his rhetorical assault on the perceived injustices of Versailles, which were soon to translate into territorial expansion over Austria and Czechoslovakia. Poland was to be the next in line.Britain and France belatedly roused themselves to challenge the threat posed by Hitler and the Nazis. After the capitulation of the Anschluss and the humiliation of Munich, London and Paris found themselves in the disagreeable position of seeing no option but to throw their whole weight behind the integrity of the Polish state if they were ever going to make any sort of stand against Nazi aggression.

The second of three volumes, this book represents the first English translation of the memoirs that rank among the best in the vast Napoleonic memoir literature. The author, Ilya Timofeyevich Radozhitskii, served with distinction during the wars against Napoleon and wrote down his reminisces shortly after the war based on the notes that he kept while campaigning. Born in 1788, Radozhitskii studied at the Imperial Orphanage, enlisted in the artillery unit in 1806, and steadily rose through the ranks, earning a reputation of a capable officer.Napoleon's invasion of Russia in 1812 changed his life. Serving as an artillery lieutenant, he saw action in virtually every major battle of that historic campaign. In 1813-1814, Radozhitskii took part in the War of the German Liberation and the invasion of France, serving with distinction at Bischofswerde, Bautzen, Katzbach, and Leipzig before finishing the war as a staff captain in Paris in 1814. Upon Napoleon's return in 1815, Radozhitskii was assigned to the Russian Expeditionary Corps that was dispatched to France but arrived too late to confront Napoleon.Radozhitskii offers fresh insight into the life and daily experiences of Russian officers during the Napoleonic Wars. This volume follows Radozhitskii across Germany as the Russian army, buoyed by the victory over Napoleon in 1812, marched on to liberate German states. Radozhitskii's narrative contains striking descriptions of the wartime experiences of soldiers and officers, vivid accounts of the battles, and heartrending stories from the French retreat. When published in Russia, these memoirs garnered considerable public attention and Leo Tolstoy consulted them extensively while writing his famous "War and Peace".The first volume, entitled The Russian Campaign of 1812, was published by Pen & Sword in 2023.