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Pre-WW2 Conflicts
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Jerome wrote: "A July release:
by Norman RidleyDescription:
Almost since the advent of warfare ..."
Sounds like an informative and fascinating book; thanks for the "heads up" on its release, Jerome. I've added it to my ever-growing "Want to Read" list.
Side comment -> my "Read" list never grows as fast as my "Want to Read" list - anyone else have that predicament? :-) Seriously, though, I'm thankful for all the recommendations in this group. Happy reading!
BA wrote: "Jerome wrote: "A July release: by Norman RidleyDescription:
Almost since the advent of warfare ..."
Soun..."
All the time, BA, haha. I'll often add books to my "to-read" list knowing that I'll never get to them in my lifetime, but knowing that at least a book on the topic exists. Oh, well!
I've started reading; "Eight Hundred Heroes" and in the second chapter - 'Revolution and the Republic' - the author mentioned the Great Plains War:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central...
"Eight Hundred Heroes" - Another very interesting aspect of this conflict is the involvement of the German military on the side of the Chinese Nationalists:"During the Battle of Shanghai, around 50 German advisers in Chinese uniforms helped plan operations and they were often on the front line directing the fighting against the Japanese. 'We all agreed', Falkenhausen remarked, 'that as private citizens in Chinese employment there could be no question of our leaving our Chinese friends to their fate. Therefore I assigned the German advisers wherever they were needed, and that was often in the frontlines.' Japanese soldiers even referred to the battle as 'the German war'."
Germans assisting Chinese forces:
https://www.historynet.com/bring-in-t...
https://medium.com/war-is-boring/that...
"Eight Hundred Heroes" - Here is a look at the Sihang warehouse which is central to the story of the book:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8iXYV...
"Eight Hundred Heroes" - Here is a decent trailer for the movie:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BbI5I...
'Aussie Rick' wrote: ""Eight Hundred Heroes" - Here is a decent trailer for the movie:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BbI5I..."
Looks like some intense action, will go see it.
I've got the movie on DVD and I am going to try and watch it again. it's not too bad for a foreign film.
Rick,That’s very interesting. I feel very enlightened after reading those articles that you posted.
A few years ago, I read the Shanghai Dairy, which is about a Jewish family moving / escaping to China (from Berlin) in 1939 just before Japan took over the city in 1941. If I remember correctly, China was the only country that would allow them emigrate in their country.
Positive Kate wrote: "Rick,That’s very interesting. I feel very enlightened after reading those articles that you posted.
A few years ago, I read the Shanghai Dairy, which is about a Jewish family moving / escaping ..."
In the book the author mentioned that Shanghai appeared to be a major entry port for many fleeing Jews from Europe.
"Eight Hundred Heroes" - The author provides details on the actions of the heroine, Yang Huimin, a Girl Guide who delivered a Chinese flag to the defenders of Sihang Warehouse:https://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiw...
"Eight Hundred Heroes" - A bit more on the German advisors to the Chinese Nationalist Army:"German advisers continued to assist Chiang Kai-shek in Wuhan and Falkenhausen oversaw the raising of new divisions and helped the Chinese High Command plan operations. In the first half of 1938, the Chinese won a series of battles against the overextended Japanese during the Xuzhoa campaign, which restored morale. During the Battle of Taierzhuang, the most notable victory to date, Chinese forces with German assistance executed a crushing encirclement battle that annihilated the Japanese 10th Division and only 2000 enemy troops escaped the pocket, leaving behind 16,000 dead."
Battle of Taierzhuang:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_...
'Aussie Rick' wrote: "During the Battle of Taierzhuang, the most notable victory to date, Chinese forces with German assistance executed a crushing encirclement battle that annihilated the Japanese 10th Division and only 2000 enemy troops escaped the pocket, leaving behind 16,000 dead.".."Amazing battle, I have never heard of it before. Our common understanding is the Chinese were simply not a match for the Japanese Army. Not so.
With the right training and some decent weapons they appeared to be more than a match for the Japanese. They lacked heavy weapons though which didn't help in a head-to-head battle.
"Eight Hundred Heroes" - Alexander von Falkenhausen, Germanys military adviser to Chiang Kai-shek had an interesting career and did not appear to be a friend of the Nazi's:https://ww2db.com/person_bio.php?pers...
"Eight Hundred Heroes" - Xie Jinyuan was the Chinese Nationalist army officer in charge of the defence of the Sihang Warehouse. Sadly he was subsequently assassinated by some of his own soldiers who had been bribed by the Chinese-Japanese collaborationist government.Xie Jinyuan:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xie_Jin...
https://www.beastsofwar.com/project-e...
'Aussie Rick' wrote: ""Eight Hundred Heroes" - Xie Jinyuan was the Chinese Nationalist army officer in charge of the defence of the Sihang Warehouse. Sadly he was subsequently assassinated by some of his own soldiers wh..."This book looks excellent. And it seems that US and Western readers about Japan's war in China may have been missing a great deal of what was happening on the ground.
Its quite an interesting book DoctorM, it covers the post war period and the use of this event by both the Chinese Nationalist on Taiwan and the Communists on mainland China.
"Eight Hundred Heroes" - The author mentioned that numerous Chinese POW's, including some of the 800 Heroes, ended up on Japanese held Rabaul during the war. They were subsequently released by Australian soldiers when they took the Japanese surrender at the end of the war. This is a story I've not heard about before. Here are a few internet articles I've found on this story:
https://www.laitimes.com/en/article/1...
https://forum.axishistory.com/viewtop...
https://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/s...
"Eight Hundred Heroes" - Below is an interesting article on the defence of the Sihang Warehouse during the Sino-Japanese War:https://warfarehistorynetwork.com/chi...
Eight Hundred Heroes: China's Lost Battalion and the Fall of Shanghai by Stephen Robinson
"Eight Hundred Heroes" - The author mentioned this incident in 2017:"On 8 August 2017, four young Chinese men - all university students ad collectors of Japanese military memorabilia - posted photographs of themselves on social media standing in front of Sihang Warehouse wearing Imperial Japanese Army uniforms, which had been taken five days earlier."
This obviously caused some outrage:
https://www.scmp.com/news/china/socie...
http://www.shine.cn/news/metro/170823...
"Eight Hundred Heroes" - A few more interesting articles on the Sihang Warehouse and its relevance today:https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/20210...
https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/20200...
https://news.cgtn.com/news/2020-08-30...
Today's arrival in the mail, thanks to someone mentioning the book in this group :)
Tank Combat in Spain: Armored Warfare During the Spanish Civil War 1936-1939 by Anthony J Candil
'Aussie Rick' wrote: "Today's arrival in the mail, thanks to someone mentioning the book in this group :)[book:Tank Com..."I have a copy too, AR. Unread.
Nice MR9! It looks like it will be a pretty interesting read :)
'Aussie Rick' wrote: "Today's arrival in the mail, thanks to someone mentioning the book in this group :)[book:Tank Com..."that should be a good acqusition.
I'm hoping so Dj :)
I was wondering if anyone would know of a good book on the "Breaker Morant" case during the Boer War. I know there is a book written by one of the soldiers in the case, but was wondering if there are any others. I put my comment here because it's obviously a Pre-WW2 Conflict. Thanks.
Joseph wrote: "I was wondering if anyone would know of a good book on the "Breaker Morant" case during the Boer War. I know there is a book written by one of the soldiers in the case, but was wondering if there a..."Hi, Joseph, I do recall this book coming out last year, but I don't know of any others:
by Peter FitzSimons
This book was published a few years back and offered a different perspective to the story of Breaker Morant:
Major Thomas: The bush lawyer who defended Breaker Morant and took on the British Empire by Greg GrowdenThis is the classical account of Breaker Morant:
Scapegoats of the Empire: The True Story of Breaker Morant's Bushveldt Carbineers by Edward Witton
I just finished this:
by Harald Jähner (he also wrote
)A very well written book about the time between the wars (see review for details).
In German - I'm sure a translation is on the way.
A January 2024 release:
by Charles StephensonDescription:
In early October 1935 and without any declaration of war some two hundred thousand men, comprising soldiers and airmen of the Italian armed forces, Fascist ‘Blackshirt’ Militia, Eritrean ascari and Somali dubats, invaded the independent state of Ethiopia (Abyssinia). It was an operation entirely of choice, the chooser being Il Duce: Benito Mussolini.
The resultant conflict is often described as a colonial war. Whilst it was certainly launched with the intent of turning Ethiopia into an Italian possession, it was in fact a war of aggression against an independent, sovereign, state with membership of the League of Nations. A state that had, according to one of its nineteenth-century rulers, been ‘for fourteen centuries a Christian island in a sea of pagans’. The swiftness of the Italian victory resulted from their possession and ruthless use of technology; most particularly aircraft, mustard gas, and motorisation/mechanisation. Since they were fighting an enemy who possessed none of these things, then they were able to wage, indeed inaugurate, what the prominent military theorist JFC Fuller dubbed ‘totalitarian warfare’ or, as it became known a few years later, total war. This, he opined, was the Fascist, the scientific, way of making war. In his considered view, the Fascist Army that waged it was ‘a scientific military instrument.’ This book examines that campaign in military and political terms.
A November release:
by Jonathan WhiteheadDescription:
The Spanish Civil War ended in Alicante. After Catalonia fell to the Hitler and Mussolini backed military rebellion of Franco’s Nationalists at the outset of 1939, the legitimate Republican government of Dr. Negrín was faced with a choice between apparently futile resistance or unconditional surrender to the triumphant Nationalists. Choosing the path of continued defiance until they could force concessions or at least implement a mass evacuation of those Republicans most at risk in Franco’s new Spain, the government withdrew to Elda in the province of Alicante.
However, their plans were thwarted by a new rebellion of Republican officers, led by Colonel Segismundo Casado, who resented Negrín’s reliance on the Communist Party and the USSR and believed themselves better equipped to negotiate a peace settlement with Franco. They were misguided: Franco had no wish, and ultimately no need to negotiate. Meanwhile, faced with the imminent risk of arrest by the new junta, the Prime Minister and his cabinet were forced to abandon Spain from the tiny aerodrome of Monóvar. A relatively quiet port on the eastern, Mediterranean coast of Spain, Alicante had remained at some distance from the frontlines throughout the fighting on the ground, but swiftly became a target for Italian bombers operating out of bases in the Balearic Islands. In May 1938, at the height of the air offensive, Italian bombers attacked the marketplace, causing a massacre as tragic as the events in Guernica, yet largely ignored by historians. As the war drew towards its conclusion, Alicante became increasingly significant as attention focused on the plight of the defeated Republicans.
In the second half of March 1939, the fronts collapsed, and Madrid finally fell to the insurgents. Tens of thousands of refugees descended on Alicante in the forlorn hope of rescue by French and British ships that had been promised but which failed to materialise. Amid the tragedy, as the British and French governments declined to engage in any humanitarian intervention that might offend Hitler and Mussolini, a single hero emerged; Captain Archibald Dickson, the Welsh master of the Stanbrook who ditched his cargo and transported 3,000 refugees to safety in North Africa. On 30 March 1939, Franco’s vanguard, the Italian ‘Volunteer’ Corps under General Gastone Gambara, occupied a town already under the control of the Fifth Column. Two days later the Generalísimo issued a communiqué from his headquarters in Burgos, declaring that the war was over. The bulk of the Republicans surrounded and captured in the port were marched to an improvised internment camp, known as the Campo de los Almendros (Field of Almond Trees). They were then transferred to the infamous concentration camp at Albatera to share the fate of defeated Republicans across Spain and to undergo the programme of ideological cleansing of the new fascist authorities.
Two interesting books to keep an eye out for! Thanks Jerome.
Last night I started Ronald Liversedge’s personal account of service with Canada’s Mackenzie-Papineau battalion of the International Brigade in Spain. Liversedge grew up in meager working class circumstances in Keighley, West Yorkshire. He fought in WW I with the West Yorkshire Regiment, was wounded twice, and discharged in 1918 due to his second wound. The war radicalized him. He joined the Communist Party of Great Britain in 1921 – indicating on his application his qualification as a Number 1 Machine Gunner. Afterward, due to continued unemployment, he took government assistance to relocate to Australia, but did not find regular work there. He spent four years as a swagman occasionally working on farms and in sheep sheds, returning to the UK in 1926. In 1927 he again accepted government transport only this time to Canada. Landing in Quebec, he made his way westward and settled in British Columbia. Liversedge joined the Communist Party of Canada in 1933 and became a leader in the Relief Camp Workers’ Union and later an organizer in the lumber industry unions.
Mac-Pap: Memoir of a Canadian in the Spanish Civil War bt Ron Liversedge.
Manray9 wrote: "Last night I started Ronald Liversedge’s personal account of service with Canada’s Mackenzie-Papineau battalion of the International Brigade in Spain. Liversedge grew up in meager working class cir..."Ronald Liversedge certainly sounds like he had an interesting life!
From Ron Liversedge's Mac-Pap: Memoir of a Canadian in the Spanish Civil War.Liversedge endured hardship before setting a foot in Spain. He and a large group of other volunteers of the International Brigade were smuggled across France by a network of trade unionists and Communists. In Marseilles the group boarded the steamship Ciudad de Barcelona for the final leg to Spain. Not far from their destination the vessel was torpedoed by an Italian submarine. It sank quickly. Liversedge and others were pulled from the water by fishing boats. The ship was lost with half her crew and 163 International Brigade volunteers went down with her. The volunteers lost everything. Liversedge spent two years in Spain and never had a pair of socks. He had lost his boots and was restricted to wearing Spanish alpargatas – canvas shoes.
From Ron Liversedge's Mac-Pap: Memoir of a Canadian in the Spanish Civil War.In the attempt to take Saragossa, the Mac-Paps and other elements of the International Brigade suffered from little artillery and air support, insufficient ammo, scarce food and water, and even a lack of shovels and picks. Pinned down by fascist fire on a flat plain outside Fuentes de Ebro, Liversedge wrote perceptively:
The ground in Aragón is hard, and a tin dinner plate a poor shovel, but machine-gun fire is a good persuader.
Eventually the Mac-Paps scraped out a “trench” about two feet deep. It helped – a little.
Two great stories MR9 - I quite liked this; "The ground in Aragón is hard, and a tin dinner plate a poor shovel, but machine-gun fire is a good persuader."
Today the nice lady from the USPS delivered --
Spain Betrayed: The Soviet Union in the Spanish Civil War by Ronald Radosh, Mary Habeck, and Grigory Sevostianov.
Manray9 wrote: "Today the nice lady from the USPS delivered -- Spain Betrayed: The Soviet Union in the Spanish Civil War ..."That sounds like a pretty interesting book MR9! I will be keen to hear what you think once you have had a chance to read it.
A March 2025 release:
by Leonard R. HeinzDescription:
In July 1936 a military revolt brought civil war to Spain; it erupted into a bitter political contest and a brutal land war which have been well covered by historians – a less appreciated dimension of the conflict was the crucial role played by the navies of both sides.
This new book describes and explores the naval operations that played out over thirty-eight months and spread well beyond the seas of Spain. Spanish guns thundered off the English coast and as far south as the Bay of Guinea. Submarines lurked in the Aegean, waiting to torpedo ships bringing supplies from the Black Sea. To the west, operations extended into the Atlantic as warships searched for blockade runners and moved between the Bay of Biscay and the Mediterranean.
The book begins by describing of the Spanish navy pre-war, then covers the generals’ revolt of July 1936 and its effect in the fleet. Subsequent chapters deal with the naval war as it unfolded. It describes Franco’s attempts to move the battle-hardened Spanish troops in Africa to the Spanish mainland, then shifts focus to the northern Spanish coast, where an isolated Republican enclave depended on the sea to receive weapons, food, and fuel. The author then pursues a split narrative, interweaving developments in the north and the Mediterranean and following the war to its conclusion. Significant actions fought between the two navies are all covered in detail. In addition, the book describes the crucial roles played by the British, French, German, and Italian navies in the Spanish struggle.
Throughout, the author challenges the common view that the Republican navy was incompetent and inert. Based on primary as well as secondary sources, in both the English and Spanish languages, this book sheds genuinely new light on the Spanish navies of this civil war era and brings into focus their significance in the broader struggle.
Should be an interesting account! Thanks for posting the details, Jerome.
THE WORLD WAR TWO GROUP
Books mentioned in this topic
The Fleet that Fought Itself: The Spanish Navy and the Civil War 1936–39 (other topics)Spain Betrayed: The Soviet Union in the Spanish Civil War (other topics)
Spain Betrayed: The Soviet Union in the Spanish Civil War (other topics)
Mac-Pap: Memoir of a Canadian in the Spanish Civil War (other topics)
Mac-Pap: Memoir of a Canadian in the Spanish Civil War (other topics)
More...
Authors mentioned in this topic
Leonard R. Heinz (other topics)Jonathan Whitehead (other topics)
Charles Stephenson (other topics)
Harald Jähner (other topics)
Greg Growden (other topics)
More...
Description:
Almost since the advent of warfare, civilians have suffered ‘collateral damage’, but the concept of Total War – a war without limits – only surfaced in the early part of the twentieth century. The idea of huge numbers of aircraft raining death upon defenseless cities was seen by many as not only barbaric but, in practical terms, quite unrealistic given the logistical challenges that would have to be overcome in order to put them into practice.
Any complacency over the threat, however, was rudely shattered on 26 February 1935, when Adolf Hitler officially signed a decree authorizing the formation of the Luftwaffe. The third branch of Germany’s armed forces erupted on to the European military landscape. Its blustering claims of irrepressible air power sent waves of panic rippling through ministries of war throughout the world.
Framing a realistic response to Hitler’s propaganda offensive proved to be problematic given the lack of detailed knowledge of not only the numbers, but also the true performance capabilities of his new generation of aircraft and the ways in which they had expanded the boundaries of war. It was, therefore, of huge interest to all modern military establishments when these machines were deployed during the Spanish Civil War which broke out in July 1936. Notwithstanding the limited scope of this conflict, it offered, for the participating nations, a testing ground for new machines and, for the interested observers, a window into the future of aerial warfare.
When the Spanish Civil War was less than a year old it had already seen air power employed in most of the ways that it would be used in the Second World War. This not only included airlifting troops, reconnaissance, interdiction, close support and strategic bombing, but also the deliberate targeting of civilians as a means of achieving military objectives.
This book looks at all the significant aerial engagements of the war and examines them against the background of the wider global context. In this way, the Spanish Civil War’s part in the evolution of air power is confirmed, as is the way in which its lessons were learned, or ignored, in the context of the much greater conflagration that was to come.