Bir Hacheim: Desert Citadel

Ballantine's Illustrated History of World War II / the Violent Century: Battle #23

by Richard Holmes

8vo size softcover

Genres: World War II

158 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1971

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name.
See this thread for more information.

Edward Richard Holmes was Professor of Military and Security Studies at Cranfield University and the Royal Military College of Science. He was educated at Cambridge, Northern Illinois, and Reading Universities, and carried out his doctoral research on the French army of the Second Empire. For many years he taught military history at the Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst.

A celebrated military historian, Holmes is the author of the best-selling and widely acclaimed Tommy and Redcoat: The British Soldier in the Age of Horse and Musket. His dozen other books include Dusty Warriors, Sahib, The Western Front, The Little Field Marshal: Sir John French, The Road to Sedan, Firing Line, The Second World War in Photographs and Fatal Avenue: A Traveller’s History of Northern France and Flanders (also published by Pimlico).

He was general editor of The Oxford Companion to Military History and has presented eight BBC TV series, including ‘War Walks’, ‘The Western Front’ and ‘Battlefields’, and is famous for his hugely successful series ‘Wellington: The Iron Duke’ and ‘Rebels and Redcoats’.

Reviews

[Nadir · Rating 2 out of 5]

This isn't a bad book per se, but I was disappointed at how little of it actually dealt with the battle of Bir Hakim itself (most of the book is France's lead up to war, the rise of the Vichy, etc.). I was sorely disappointed that the only map of the battle showed the Bir Hakim position at about 1/4" on a side - in other words, no detail whatsoever on unit positions or where key parts of the battle occurred. Perhaps these faults are due in part to the age of the book - I doubt something so lacking on its titled subject would be published today. Oh well...

[Lana · Rating 3 out of 5]

I've read a translation of the book, in portuguese. The book has a lot of information but there is no use having so many details if it's so superficially explained... There are many names, places, etc. without a context or explanation of its importance, geographic location or date. For the translation, the name is completely different (what it would be more or less 'Free French: from the desert to the Danube') and suggests a very different subject and coverage.