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Tanks and Armour at Leningrad 1941–1944
At dawn on 22 June 1941, along an 1,800-mile-long invasion front, three million German soldiers on the frontier of the Soviet Union unleashed the largest offensive in military history – Operation Barbarossa. Spearheading this titanic clash was Field Marshal Ritter von Leeb, commander of Army Group North. With 500,000 men at his disposal, comprising almost thirty divisions, six of them armoured and motorized, with 1,500 Panzers and 12,000 heavy weapons, plus an air fleet of nearly 1,000 planes, he was determined to strike through the Baltic states of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, straight towards their objective – Leningrad.Leeb’s offensive on Leningrad was rapid. Its armoured force was the backbone of the advance comprising of the 3rd and 4th Panzer Group with Field Marshal Erich von Manstein commanding the LVI Motorized Corps and General Rudolf Schmidt’s XXXIX Motorized Corps that included the 12th, 18th and 20th Panzer Divisions.Tanks and Armour at Leningrad 1941–1944 provides a powerful visual chronicle of how the Panzerwaffe attacked and supported the infantry that battled around the besieged city of Leningrad. With 150 rare and often unpublished images, this book provides a unique insight into German armour that operated around Leningrad from its early triumphant days in 1941 and 1943 to its slow and painful retreat in early 1944.
Rocket Interceptors 1941–1947
During its short life, the rocket interceptor, a concept that reached maturity towards the end of the Second World War, attracted the attention of top scientists, designers and aeronautical engineers in Germany, the USSR, the United States and Japan. It was universally agreed that an interceptor capable of flying 300 mph faster than any other aircraft would give the wielding power untouchable aerial superiority. However, this new technology was unable to adapt to the realities of war.The complexity of the propulsion system and the need to develop new aerodynamic concepts were challenges too great for the aeronautical industries of the major powers at the time, which specialized in the mass construction of piston fighters. Nor were fighter pilots able to adapt to the high-G combat conditions that came with achieving speeds of nearly 900 mph; it was simply not possible for them to aim and fire.In 280 immaculate technical drawings, each set within its historical context and with full performance specifications, Rocket Interceptors 1941–1947 presents 125 project, prototype and combat rocket-powered aircraft developed by Germany, the United States, the USSR and Japan in the 1940s, though initial development for some can be traced as far back as the 1920s. This is the last word on a technology that, had it been properly harnessed, might have changed the course of the Second World War.
Memoir of a Polish Resistance Fighter
Stanislaw Franciszek Czekaj was born on 10 August 1924. His early life was tough. His father, a veteran, died the following year, weakened by his incarceration in a Russian POW camp. His paternal grandparents had some property but when this was destroyed by arson Stan's mother took him to live with her parents. They scraped a living on a smallholding with dirt floors and no electricity. He was still only fifteen years old when the Germans invaded Poland on 1 September 1939\. He vividly recalls the war arriving with 'a terrible roar of aeroplanes and exploding bombs and machine gun fire' as the Luftwaffe attacked the airfield near his village. Under German occupation, Stan and his neighbours suffered food shortages and a reign of terror by the Gestapo. Brutality, summary arrest, deportation and executions were rife and 'everybody was afraid to talk in front of strangers in case there was an informer present and even in front of people that you knew'. When he was about seventeen, Stan joined the Polish Provisional Brigade (Brygasa Swietokrzyska) and adopted the alias Zwierz (Animal). Caught between two enemies, who then went to war with each other it was a perilous existence, fighting the Nazi occupiers, and then, once they were pushed out, resisting the returning Soviets. Stan's participation in numerous operations, including the elimination of informers (described in sometimes-graphic detail: ?How many people have you betrayed? then I pulled the trigger pointing at his head'), resulted in a "Dead or alive" price being put on his head. Eventually he was forced to escape via Germany under the assumed name of Stanislaw Wozniak. He describes these experiences as a refugee, life in the DP (displaced person) camps, a stint in a Belgium coalmine and finally to Britain, where he was to spend the rest of his life. AUTHOR: Stanislaw Franciszek Czekaj was born on 10 August 1924 in Poland. His childhood and life in the Polish resistance are the subject of this book, told in his own words as he remembered and wrote them post-war. He died in 1990, still only 66 years old. His son, Len Czekaj has added an epilogue describing Stan's post-war life. He lives in Cardiff. 16 b/w illustrations
Strange Will Requests and Bequests
Tucked away in the vaults of Somerset House lies one of Britain’s most revealing and eccentric historical treasures: a vast archive of Last Wills and Testaments. These documents, often the final words of the dead, hold more than just legal instructions; they’re windows into the character of those gone before, into their conflicts and lives. From vengeful codicils and heartfelt farewells, to wills etched on eggshells or hidden in hollow bedposts, this book uncovers a trove of bizarre and entertaining bequests. Here are men and women who used their final words to settle scores, impose odd conditions, or deliver one last laugh — sometimes at the expense of expectant heirs. For family historians, these wills offer more than just names and dates. They reveal values, relationships, secrets, and social customs that breathe life into ancestral records. Whether you're tracing your ancestors or simply enjoy tales of posthumous mischief, this journey into the strange world of testamentary history proves that death doesn’t always mean silence.
Great Women of London
Today you’ve probably benefited from something that women generations before gave time, money, their health, liberty and in some instances even their lives, for you to enjoy. From the vote, to safer working environments, reproductive rights, infant welfare and other NHS services, every day we benefit from the sacrifices they made. Yet there are no statues, and rarely any blue plaques to many of these women. Beyond a few big names, most aren’t even in the traditional history books. These were poor women, migrant women, queer women, disabled women; young women. Alone they didn’t have the power to create change, so they worked in unions, tenants associations and other solidarity movements. Together they took on Britain's most powerful institutions, and won. Following years of archival research and oral history interviews, we now have one of the most comprehensive retellings of how women’s rights in Britain were secured. Even those familiar with women’s history will find rare gems inside; names they’ve never come across before, with some stories being published for the very first time. For those new to it all, this is an accessible walk through how women have shaped the last 150 years. Whatever your level of knowledge, get ready to be inspired and so you can keep fighting for gender equality today.
Stalin's Secret Services
From the shadows of Tsarist Russia to the brutal heights of Stalin's reign, Stalin's Secret Services: Henchman and Poisoned Tipped Umbrellas traces the evolution of the Soviet secret services and the men who wielded their terrible power. At its centre was Lavrentiy Beria, head of the NKVD and whose ruthless ambition helped build a criminal state where paranoia reigned and murder was policy. The narrative continues with Pavel Sudoplatov, a shadowy assassin known as an illegal, who orchestrated the assassination of Trotsky and the theft of America's atomic secrets. As the line between ideology and brutality blurs, the book draws disturbing parallels between Stalin's Soviet Union and Hitler's Nazi regime, exposing the dangerous symmetry between two of history's most feared dictators in acts such as the 1940 Katyn massacre. In the final chapter, the book takes a step back, examining the deeper philosophical questions behind autocracy: the fragility of intellectual and moral freedom, the corrupting allure of power and the enduring importance of free will. Stalin's Secret Services is a sobering reminder of how easily nations ? and individuals ? can be swept into darkness. AUTHOR: Andrew Sangster has six degrees, in Law, Theology and four in history including his doctorate. An ordained priest, he has trespassed away from the Church to teaching and the study of history. He has taught in grammar schools and at Eton College, was a headmaster for some nine years and has assisted post-graduate students of history. He has more than twenty published history books both in the United Kingdom and overseas with some co-authored with Pier Paolo Battistelli, the well-known Italian historian. When not called for Church duties he studies the lesser-known aspects of modern history and plays chess for relaxation. 16 b/w illustrations
Wellington and the British Army's Indian Campaigns 1798 - 1805
The Peninsular War and the Napoleonic Wars across Europe are subjects of such enduring interest that they have prompted extensive research and writing. Yet other campaigns, in what was a global war, have been largely ignored. Such is the case for the war in India which persisted for much of the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic periods and peaked in the years 1798-1805 with the campaigns of Arthur Wellesley – later the Duke of Wellington – and General Lake in the Deccan and Hindustan. That is why this new study by Martin Howard is so timely and important. While it fully acknowledges Wellington’s vital role, it also addresses the nature of the warring armies, the significance of the campaigns of Lake in North India, and leaves the reader with an understanding of the human experience of war in the region. For this was a brutal conflict in which British armies clashed with the formidable forces of the Sultan of Mysore and the Maratha princes. There were dramatic pitched battles at Assaye, Argaum, Delhi and Laswari, and epic sieges at Seringapatam, Gawilghur and Bhurtpore. The British success was not universal.
Mary Queen of Scots' Secretary
Maitland was the most able politician and diplomat during the lifetime of Mary Queen of Scots. It was he who master-minded the Scottish Reformation by breaking the ‘Auld Alliance’ with France, which presaged Scotland’s lasting union with England. Although he gained English support to defeat French troops defending Mary’s Scottish throne, he backed her return to Scotland, as the widowed Queen of France. His attempts to gain recognition for her as heir to the English crown were thwarted by her determined adherence to Catholicism. After her re-marriage, he spearheaded the plotting to bring down her objectionable husband, Lord Darnley, leading to his murder, after concluding that English and Scottish interests were best served by creating a Protestant regency for their son, Prince James. With encouragement from Cecil in England and the Protestant Lords in Scotland, he concocted evidence to implicate her in her husband’s murder, resulting in her imprisonment and deposition from the Scottish throne. Despite her escape to England, he remained personally loyal to her and attempted to conjure Scottish support for her restoration by backing her allies holding Edinburgh Castle on her behalf. When it fell in 1573, he resorted to suicide.
Every Monument Will Fall
‘An extraordinary intervention. If you want to understand the stakes and the limitations of contemporary conflict over culture and colonial history this bold, provocative book is an indispensable resource’ Paul Gilroy, founding Director of the Sarah Parker Remond Centre for the Study of Race and Racism at UCL‘Hicks’ must-read book describes how it was possible for a human skull to be made into a drinking cup and used in a genteel Oxford college, well into the 21st century, as if empire were an eternal state of nature . . . Read it to learn new ways to be anti-racist, abolitionist and to tell other stories than those commemorated by the monuments that surround us, from statues, to museums and the police’ Nicholas Mirzoeff, author of White Sight‘Brave and clear-sighted. Hicks opens up an extraordinary conversation between the past and the present. This is a book about falling statues, but so much more. It’s about how we’ve been lied to, and how we can approach the past with honesty. Hicks asks whether history and archaeology should be used to justify actions we know impinge on the rights of others - or to understand ourselves better’ Alice Roberts, bestselling author of Crypt ‘Dan Hicks writes with grace and fierce focus about what we choose to remember and why, in our patterns of thought, our institutions and the built environment in which we live’ Eyal Weizman, director of Forensic ArchitectureThe culture war is over. If you want it to be. It wasn’t even a culture war; it was a war on culture. A sustained attack, Dan Hicks argues, in the form of the weaponisation of civic museums, public art, and even universities — and one that has a deeper history than you might think. Tracing the origins of contemporary conflicts over art, heritage, memory, and colonialism, Every Monument Will Fall joins the dots between the building of statues, the founding of academic disciplines like archaeology and anthropology, and the warehousing of stolen art and human skulls in museums — including the one in which he is a curator. Part history, part biography, part excavation, the story runs from the Yorkshire wolds to the Crimean War, from southern Ireland to the frontline of the American Civil War, from the City of London to the University of Oxford — revealing enduring legacies of militarism, slavery, racism and white supremacy hardwired into the heart of our cultural institutions. Every Monument Will Fall offers an urgent reappraisal of how we think about culture, and how to find hope, remembrance and reconciliation in the fragments of an unfinished violent past. Refusing to choose between pulling down every statue, or living in a past that we can never change, the book makes the case for allowing monuments to fall once in a while, even those that are hard to see as monuments, rebuilding a memory culture that is in step with our times.
The Hunt for Hitler
Why did the Soviet Union hide the facts surrounding the death of Adolf Hitler at the end of the Second World War? Australian documentary-producer Cyril Jones provides a fascinating insight into how one woman had the courage to take on the Soviet bureaucracy to get the truth to the West, and how his ground-breaking documentary on the Führer’s death enabled her to do it. Only slowly and reluctantly did the Soviets let the light in on the events which occurred in bunker of the Reich Chancellery in Berlin in 1945; it was Elena Rzhevskaya who prised open the archival vault. Rzhevskaya was a Russian military translator who was the first to speak with those still alive in the bunker within minutes of Soviet soldiers taking control of it. Her first words to them was: ‘Where is Hitler?’ Told that he was dead and his body set alight, she demanded to know where his body was. She then set about unravelling the mystery of the death of the Führer, but as soon as she discovered the whole story Soviet leader Josef Stalin instructed her to ‘keep her mouth shut’. He wanted to keep the secret to himself. Because of that the Western Allies were fed lies, it even being suggested that Hitler might still be alive. It took another twenty years of digging for the truth to come out. Rzhevskaya herself was responsible for that, having dedicated herself to lifting the veil of secrecy and ensuring the world knew of Stalin’s duplicity. In this book Cyril Jones reveals how he managed to get previously unseen film footage from the Soviet and Russian archives, material which helped reveal the facts. The author also details interviews with Elena Rzhevskaya which shows the paths she took to tell the real story. The Hunt for Hitler expands upon our understanding of those momentous days following the end of the Second World War and provides an absorbing insight into the background surrounding the fate of Hitler’s body as the chilling blast of the Cold War swept across Europe.
Rethinking Capital Punishment
The death penalty was accepted almost universally until the eighteenth century, when Giuseppe Pelli of Florence and Cesare Beccaria of Milan produced works calling for its abolition. Why was this form of punishment so integrated into laws and customary practices? And what is the pre-history of the arguments in favour of its abolition? This book is the first to trace the origins of these ideas, beginning with the Lex Talionis in the Code of Hammurabi and moving across the Bible, Plato, to the Renaissance, and the emergence of utilitarianism in the 18th century. It also explores how the advance of the abolition of the death penalty was held up for a time in Britain, and stalled, apparently permanently, in America. Peter Garnsey ranges across philosophy, theology, law, and politics to provide a balanced and accessible overview of the beliefs about crime and punishment that underlay the arguments of the first abolitionists. This study is a compelling and original contribution to the history of ideas about capital punishment.
Fatal Flights of the Rich and Famous
Everyone loves adventure, mystery and the notion of celebrity and this book combines all of these with new unpublished material, supported by high quality previously unpublished images. Aviation history is full of evocative stories about the evolution of aeroplanes; flying and the perils of air travel and there are many ways of looking at these. The theme of this book is to recall some of those perils through the eyes of twenty-three internationally-famous celebrity air travellers between 1919 and 2020. What brings them all together here is that, as well as presenting the personalities, the stories showcase aeroplanes from the golden age of biplanes to helicopters, biz-jets and airliners. They also illustrate the fallibility of people and technology, while giving a flavour of the social progress of air transport over the past 100 years. Sadly, the climax of these particular stories culminates in air crashes that took the lives of the celebrities involved. While the final selection of the stars might be open to debate, the breadth of celebrity representation in these stories is very wide, being drawn from the fields of aeronautics; cinema; exploration; fashion; music; politics and sport. Mysteries and myths have grown up around some of these incidents and while some of these can be debunked, others will pose unanswered questions. All, though, will demonstrate that Fame and Fortune alone are no protection from Fate.
The Hunt for Anna Pavlovna’s Stolen Jewels
On the night of 25 September 1829, the jewels of the Princess of Orange disappeared from her palace in Brussels. Suspicion quickly fell on her husband, Prince Willem of Orange, a Waterloo veteran known to be deeply in debt. But when the police failed to find any witnesses or leads, the investigation ground to a halt. In 1831, Anna Pavlovna’s jewels surfaced in New York in the hands of a former Napoleonic deserter named Constant Polari. Dutch officials scrambled to reclaim the jewels and extradite Polari, hoping a public trial would clear their prince’s name. But President Andrew Jackson’s customs collector preferred to confiscate the jewels, sell them, and pocket his share of the proceeds. When Polari’s lover dug up a buried portion of the gems and sailed for Europe, it triggered a race across the Atlantic, a kidnapping from Bellevue prison, and a sensational trial with a last-minute twist. True crime meets royal history in this long-forgotten caper that pitted the old world’s diplomacy against the new world’s self-determinism. Drawing on previously neglected case documents and sources in five languages, the tale of Anna Pavlovna’s stolen jewels unfolds against a backdrop of war, revolution, corruption, and betrayal.
The Early Churchill
No other twentieth-century political figure endured so many precipitous falls followed by unlikely resurrection. Across fifty turbulent years he enjoyed – if that is the correct term - at least four separate, high-level, political careers interspersed with periods in the doldrums. As one of his numerous enemies and detractors, of whom there was never a shortage, was to write: Winston is never down, or rather will never allow that he is down.’Whilst much has been written about Churchill at the Admiralty, and even more concerning his wartime premiership, the ups and downs in-between have received somewhat less attention. Hence this volume, which seeks to tell the tale of the period beginning with him being unceremoniously sacked in 1915. As Lloyd George’s mistress and confidante wrote: ‘It seems strange that Churchill should have been in politics all these years, & yet not have won the confidence of a single party in the country, or a single colleague in the Cabinet.’She was mistaken. One politician still valued Churchill’s gifts: the Prime Minister from 1916, David Lloyd George himself. But he had to act cautiously. Only in July 1917, during a broader reshuffle, did he dare risk appointing Churchill as Minister of Munitions. This was a courageous move. As one Tory grandee put it: ‘some of us myself included only joined L[loyd] G[eorge] on the distinct understanding that W[inston] Ch[urchill] was not to be a member of the Gov[ernmen]t.’Lloyd George got away with it however, and few would dispute that his judgement was vindicated. As the man responsible for providing the British and wider Allied cause with the munitions of war, a vast undertaking by any standards, Churchill proved both competent and effective. Indeed, he was still in post at the end of the conflict in 1918, which is where this book ends.
Cromwell Against the Scots
Although also known as the Third English Civil War, the author makes it clear that this was the last war between the Scots and English as separate states. He narrates in detail the the events following the exiled King Charles II’s landing in Scotland and his alliance with the Scots Covenanters, erstwhile allies of the English Parliamentarians. Cromwell’s preemptive invasion of Scotland led to the Battle of Dunbar, a crushing defeat for the Scots under David Leslie, though this only unified the Scottish cause and led to the levying of the Army of the Kingdom under Charles II himself. Charles II led a desperate counter-invasion over the border, hoping to raise a royalist rebellion and forcing Cromwell to follow him, though he left Monck to complete the pacification of Scotland. Cromwell caught up with Charles II at Worcester, where the Scots/Royalist army was decisively defeated and destroyed, thousands of the prisoners being sold into slavery in the West Indies and the American colonies. This revised and updated edition contains an expanded chapter on the aftermath of the war and the fate of the POWs, drawing on major new archaeological evidence, as well as an expanded Conclusion.
Remembering the Wars of Religion
In the aftermath of civil war, often the most daunting task is to reconcile former opponents who continue to demand justice--or even vengeance--for wartime suffering. Remembering the Wars of Religion offers a historical perspective on the painful legacy of civil war by focusing on memories of violence and victimhood after the French Wars of Religion. Officially, these wars ended in 1598, when the Edict of Nantes proclaimed peaceful coexistence between Catholics and Protestants, and ordered them to bury the memory of the troubles that had begun in 1562. Below the surface, however, the conflict would simmer for generations, as neither side was able to forgive and forget the violence they had suffered. Moving away from the corridors of state power in Paris to the cities of Lyon, Montpellier, and La Rochelle, Remembering the Wars of Religion examines the local memory wars between Catholics and Protestants as they resurfaced throughout the seventeenth century. David van der Linden shows that the Wars of Religion left behind a kingdom divided by memory: Catholics and Protestants developed sectarian narratives of the troubles, victimizing their own community while assigning blame to the other. The massacres, looting, material losses, and forced displacement that had punctuated the wars proved impossible to forget, let alone forgive, as vindictive memories were continuously reconstructed by later generations. This constant weaponizing of the past undermined the state-led process of peacebuilding and the practice of toleration in France's biconfessional communities. Ultimately, these memories of victimhood fed a new cycle of violence during the reign of Louis XIV, who in 1685 revoked the Edict of Nantes and forced his Protestant subjects to convert to Catholicism. Remembering the Wars of Religion thus offers a fresh perspective on the challenge of religious coexistence and reconciliation, both past and present. It shows that besides state policies of intolerance and ideological differences rooted in the Reformation, it was the manipulation of wartime memories by subsequent generations that fuelled long-term animosity. This is an open access title available under the terms of a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 International licence. It is free to read on the Oxford Academic platform and offered as a free PDF download from OUP and selected open access locations.
Amphibious Warfare Post WWII
Amphibious Warfare Post WWII is a collection of essays and articles written for various military publications during the author’s 32 years’ service. Following retirement he was able to express his opinions and views in a rather more forthright manner as the Editor of Jane’s Amphibious and Special Forces. As a renowned practitioner of amphibious operations much of what he has to say remains relevant and seminal to this day. The author also describes his time as a European Community Monitor in the Former Yugoslavia (from which he resigned after being ordered to falsify his daily reports to Brussels) and his experiences as a company commander during the Dhofar War.
Armies of the Roman Civil Wars and Slave Revolts, 135 BC–AD 69
The year 135 BC saw the outbreak of the so-called ‘First Servile War’, which proved to be just the first of a series of conflicts that ravaged the Roman Republic during the following century and changed forever the institutions of the Roman state. This bloody and violent period of civil wars and recurrent slave revolts (most famously that of Spartacus) saw the ascendancy of many famous generals who obtained great military victories, including: Marius, Sulla, Crassus, Pompey, Julius Caesar, Mark Antony and Octavian. They fought for complete dominance over Rome but, at the same time, conducted a series of imperialist campaigns that greatly expanded the territorial extension of the Roman Republic. In discussing these campaigns of conquest, the author shows how they were strongly linked with the civil conflicts and how the events that started in 135 BC progressively led to the birth of the Roman Empire under Octavian (Augustus). The author also describes the only civil war taking place during the Early Empire, i.e. that of AD 69 (‘The Year of the Four Emperors’) before providing a detailed description of the organization and equipment of the varied military forces that took part in the Roman civil wars during this crucial period, outlining crucial developments across the period. As usual for the Armies of the Past series, there are dozens of colour photos depicting replica arms, armour and dress in use.
Cromwell's Convicts
On 3 September 1650 Oliver Cromwell won a decisive victory over the Scottish Covenanters at the Battle of Dunbar – a victory that is often regarded as his finest hour – but the aftermath, the forced march of 5,000 prisoners from the battlefield to Durham, was one of the cruellest episodes in his career.The march took them seven days, without food and with little water, no medical care, the property of a ruthless regime determined to eradicate any possibility of further threat. Those who survived long enough to reach Durham found no refuge, only pestilence and despair. Exhausted, starving and dreadfully weakened, perhaps as many as 1,700 died from typhus and dysentery. Those who survived were condemned to hard labour and enforced exile in conditions of virtual slavery in a harsh new world across the Atlantic.Cromwell''s Convicts describes their ordeal in detail and, by using archaeological evidence, brings the story right up to date. John Sadler and Rosie Serdiville describe the battle at Dunbar, but their main focus is on the lethal week-long march of the captives that followed. They make extensive use of archive material, retrace the route taken by the prisoners and describe the recent archaeological excavations in Durham which have identified some of the victims and given us a graphic reminder of their fate.
V kategórii populárno - náučné encyklopédie nájdete široký výber kníh, ktoré vám poskytnú poznatky z rôznych oblastí zaujímavým a zrozumiteľným spôsobom. Encyklopédie vám pomôžu získať komplexný prehľad o rôznych témach, ako ľudské telo a človek, príroda, vesmír, veda a technika a história.
Naša ponuka encyklopédií populárno-náučného charakteru vám umožní objaviť fascinujúci svet poznania a rozšíriť svoje vedomosti o rôznych témach.
