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‘Deeply regret to inform you that 2/Lt C F B Hodgins 2/Wiltshire Regt is reported killed Sept 25/26. Lord Kitchener desires to express his sympathy. Secretary War Office.’ – Telegram from the War Office dated 29 September 1915This is the true and previously untold story of one man’s war on the Western Front during the First World War. As a young man, still in his teens, Charles Francis Burgoyne Hodgins, known as Charlie, answered the call to ‘do his bit’ for King and Country. Like so many others, he was never to return. He was killed on 25 September 1915, on the opening day of the Battle of Loos, and is one of many thousands who now lie in cemeteries near the former battlefields of northern France. According to an officer in his battalion, he died ''leading his men with great gallantry, and even when wounded, tried to rise and take them on''.Drawing on the many letters, photographs and telegrams Charlie sent home, along with newspaper articles, war archives and other personal accounts, historian Peter Jacobs has pieced together the final moments of Charlie’s short life. This is a compelling and poignant tale of personal courage and one family’s loss. But it also tells of the tragedy and suffering experienced by a generation of men during the First World War.

''The definitive study of the battle that launched Hitler''s conquest of Western Europe.'' — Andrew LambertA lesser-known event during World War II, the sinking of the Blücher is key part of naval history that marked the beginning of the Norwegian Campaign. The Sinking of the Blücher is a comprehensive investigation into why the German cruiser, named for Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher (Prussian victor of the Battle of Waterloo), was approaching Oslo on the night of 9th April 1940, why and how she was sunk and the ramifications and significance of the event. The text also explores the influence of the British government and military on the reasons behind Operation Weserübung, the German invasion of Norway.This book is a methodical, unbiased compilation of primary sources and archival material. It details the sequence of events leading to the sinking of the Blücher, the flagship of the force that was to seize Oslo, from setting sail for Norway, to evading British submarines in the Skagerrak, and finally sinking to the bottom of the Drobak Narrows after being struck by Oscarsborg fortress gunfire and torpedoes. The text, which connects intricate accounts of the attacks, paints a picture of the sinking and explains the politics behind the military operations, and the result of the sinking which enabled King Haakon and his Government to escape to Britain, join the Allies and continue the resistance from there. Simultaneously, the primary source material individualise the sailors and military personnel involved in the sinking from both sides. The writing is accompanied by multiple maps and upwards of 200 stunning, photographs, many never-before-seen.

Growing up in a working-class family in Manchester, Harry Furness joined the army in 1939 at the age of 16. Having always been captivated by the stories of First World War snipers, he immediately volunteered for sniper training when the army began to recruit soldiers in 1941. He did exceptionally well, qualifying as a marksman whilst a pre-war army cadet and was quickly promoted to lance corporal.Just prior to D-Day, he was promoted to corporal in the Green Howards Regiment and landed at Gold Beach on 6th June 1944. Together, he and his comrades began a hard fight across North-West Europe, gradually moving through Northern France, Belgium, Holland and eventually into Germany as they pushed the Germans back towards the Rhine.The manifold dangers and occasional humour of Harry Furness’s experiences of war come across in a very matter-of-fact but compelling way in the dozens of previously unpublished letters, personal interviews and images that make up Martin Pegler’s fascinating, moving biography of Furness and his extraordinary life.

The coup remains the single most common form of power change throughout the world.How to Stage a Military Coup explores these violent and often bloody appropriations of authority, alongside the political, military, and social conditions out of which they arise. Taking into account factors such as timing, media control, popular support and government organisational structure, and by drawing on examples of coups from all over the world, both failed and successful, the authors reveal exactly what it takes to carry out a successful government take-over.This latest, updated edition includes a new foreword by David Hebditch.

Linda Dangoor’s dining table is as rich as the gripping journeys she has been on. It tells stories of families, of movement, of chicken buried in aromatic rice, of the love of food and life itself. Such a generous cookbook!'' — Yotam Ottolenghi''Exciting flavours evoke a lost paradise and new beginnings in an engaging story of migration and identity.'' — Claudia Roden''What a life. What a time. What a world. One could ask for no better guide through it than Linda Dangoor, and certainly no lovelier writer about its food.'' — Giles Coren''Whether she writes about the taste of exile or the sweetness of quince candy - Linda Dangoor is a master of storytelling, cooking and love.'' — Gil Hovav  ''A gem of a book to savour, immerse into, and cherish. A delicious journey blending recipes, stories, and iconic places.'' — Silvia Nacamulli  This beautifully designed book traces Jewish food writer Linda Dangoor’s journey from her home in Baghdad, and through the various countries she stayed or lived in before finally making her new home in London.Part cookbook, part memoir, it interweaves delicious recipes with personal stories and musings on the meaning of home and belonging, reflecting the idea that we are where we have trod and so much more.The first half of the book includes recipes from countries that hug the Mediterranean basin, where the Arab conquests and the Jewish diaspora left their culinary mark. In the second part, the author welcomes the reader into her kitchen, sharing some of the dishes that she cooks for her family and friends on a daily basis.

The Kaiser’s Panzers charts the development of German armoured vehicles during the First World War. Late to adopt the tank as an offensive weapon, in a theatre characterized by bloody trench warfare, the Imperial German Army’s fledgling tank force fielded only twenty A7V tanks by the time of the November 1918 Armistice. To address this shortcoming, the German Army pressed more captured British Mark IV tanks into service through a dedicated workshop facility in Belgium during the final year of the war. A handful of these vehicles later saw service in the Freikorps to suppress left-wing uprisings in Berlin and Leipzig.Although German tanks played an insignificant part in the conflict, two early commanders rose to prominence in the Third Reich: Ernest Volckheim a leading interwar armour theorist and later Panzer commander; Josef ‘Sepp’ Dietrich a SS Panzer general implicated in the 1945 Malmedy massacre.Drawing on contemporary records, newsreels and newspaper accounts, The Kaiser’s Panzers is a heavily illustrated record of Germany’s first tanks, the predecessor force to Adolf Hitler’s vaunted Panzertruppen, and will be enjoyed by all military history enthusiasts.

In 1930, as a young woman, Christa Schroeder became a stenographer for the Nazi party, before being noticed by Hitler who, in 1933, hired her as his private secretary. Schroeder remained by Hitler’s side, fiercely loyal, for twelve years, living at the Wolfsschanze and even joining him and his staff in the Führerbunker in Berlin in January 1945.In 1945, interned in the Augsburg camp, Christa Schroeder was interrogated by French liaison officer Albert Zoller who asked her to recount her years spent with the Führer. Schroeder’s testimony, published here in the form of interviews with Zollers, gives an intimate, astonishing and incredibly detailed insight into the private life and personality of Adolf Hitler throughout the 1930s and 1940s.An exceptional testimony, Twelve Years With Hitler is an essential source document on Nazi Germany and Adolf Hitler. Translated into English here for the first time, Albert Zoller’s interviews with Christa Schroeder are guaranteed to shock and fascinate any military history enthusiast.Albert Zoller was a French liaison officer who interviewed Adolf Hitler''s private secretary Christa Schroeder while she was in detention in the Augsburg camp, Germany, in 1945.

“Got a question?” asks Mom.Definitely! I thought. “Who invented spoons?” I ask. “What kind of meal is a matzoh meal? Can spicy stuff make you breathe fire?”In their apartment, the ever-inquisitive Sami is watching his mother prepare pot roast for the Passover seder. Noticing that both ends of the roast have been cut off, Sami wants to know why, but his mother can’t give him an answer – only that her mother always did it. Determined to get to the bottom of this, Sami runs upstairs to his Grandma Shirley’s apartment to ask her – amongst other things – the same question. But Grandma Shirley can only give him the same answer as his mother: “Because that’s how my mother always did it”. Not giving up, Sami runs up one more flight of stairs to ask Great-Grandma Lee, who finally gives him an answer and encourages him to keep asking questions, no matter what.This beautifully illustrated, light-hearted story has family and Jewish traditions – in particular Passover and the Four Questions – at its core. It teaches young readers about the importance of being curious, asking questions and not giving up until you find an answer.

Shortly after the outbreak of the Second World War, a young Peter Calvocoressi was serving in the Ministry of Economic Warfare, his role largely consisting of reviewing shipping manifests day in day out. In 1940, he decided to volunteer for the War Office but was turned away on account of a recently-sustained head injury. The note on his file? "No good for anything – not even intelligence.” In spite of this, Calvocoressi was able to apply to the Air Ministry, was commissioned in RAF intelligence and, by early 1941, found himself at Bletchley Park.Calvocoressi was assigned to a section of Bletchley dealing with Luftwaffe Ultra intelligence where – as deputy head and, from 1944, as head – he spent the rest of the war translating and interpreting decrypted Enigma signals.The codebreaking operations at Bletchley Park came to an end in 1946, however all information about this wartime enterprise was classified and remained a secret until the mid-1970s, after which Calvocoressi recounted his experiences at Bletchley in Top Secret Ultra, published in 1980. This comprehensive new edition of Calvocoressi’s book features exciting new material from his son David and from renowned historian and author (specialising in signals intelligence) Dr Joel Greenberg. This is required reading for anybody with an interest in this utterly and indisputably fascinating aspect of the Allied war effort during World War II.

"We are guardians of a great treasure. We are links in a precious chain,” Papa paused, and Beatriz felt her heart pounding. This sounded very exciting! Her Papa looked up and his dark eyes caught hers. “My daughter, we are Jews.”The Girl with the Secret Name tells the inspiring true story of Beatriz de Luna or ‘Dona Gracia’ Mendes Nasi, the 16th-century Jewish Portuguese philanthropist who saved the lives of hundreds of conversos across Europe during the Inquisition by establishing an escape network for them.The book recounts almost all of Dona Gracia’s remarkable life, beginning in 1522 on the eve of her 12th birthday when she learns that her family are secretly Jewish. It then follows her journey throughout the 1500s as she and her family move from Portugal to the Netherlands, and on to Italy and Turkey, trying to escape danger, while saving the lives of conversos as they went, up to her death in Istanbul in 1569.Highly informative and moving, Yael Zoldan’s retelling of Dona Gracia’s story will teach young readers about the importance of family, community and standing up for yourself and others when you know something is not right.

The Eastern Front was where the war against Nazi Germany was lost and won. More people died there in the battles and destruction than all the other theatres put together. From the Arctic snows of Finland to the vast steppes of the Ukraine, the fighting took place in every sort of landscape and every weather condition: sub-zero temperatures that froze engines and weapons, mosquito-infested swamps, the raputitsa mud that brought mechanised armies to a halt, and the huge industrial cities that were fought over street by street and house by house.What was it like to fight there? Hitler''s War of Extinction from the Eastern Fronttakes the reader into the thick of the battle lines in vivid colour. First-hand accounts from reports and diaries provide soldiers'' insights to accompany the candid photos of life and death to provide an evocation of what it was like to fight for survival on the Eastern Front.Boasting more 250 original colour photographs, Hitler''s War of Extinction:  Rare German Colour Photographs shows the visceral nature of the battle between two intolerant ideologies that would leave upwards of 25 million servicemen and civilians dead.

Dawn on Sunday 22 June 1941 saw the opening onslaughts of Operation Barbarossa as German forces stormed forward into the Soviet Union. Few of them were to survive the five long years of bitter struggle.A posting to the Eastern Front during the Second World War was rightly regarded with dread by the German soldiers. They were faced by the unremitting hostility of the climate, the people and even, at times, their own leadership. They saw epic battles such as Stalingrad and Kursk, and yet it was a daily war of attrition which ultimately proved fatal for Hitlers ambition and the German military machine.In this classic account leading military historian James Lucas examines different aspects of the fighting, from war in the trenches to a bicycle-mounted anti-tank unit fighting against the oncoming Russian hordes. Told through the experiences of the German soldiers who endured these nightmarish years of warfare, War on the Eastern Front is a unique record of this cataclysmic campaign.

The longest continuous military campaign of World War II, the Battle of the Atlantic is widely considered one of the most complex naval battles in history. Between 1939 and 1945, German U-Boats and warships, together with the Luftwaffe, fought against the Royal Navy, the Royal Canadian Navy, the United States Navy and convoys of Allied merchant ships in a series of devastating battles. In Warfare Beneath The Waves, eminent naval historian Axel Niestlé focuses on three particular convoy battles that took place during this period: the German attacks on Allied Convoy SC 7 in October 1940, on Allied Convoy SC 118 in February 1943 and on Allied Convoys JW 66 and RA 66 in April and May 1945. Niestlé takes readers through these individual battles in incredible detail, with a host of photographs, maps and diagrams supporting his detailed explanation and examination of the history, tactics and key personages behind these campaigns. The end of secrecy embargoes and the increasing availability of online archives, together with Niestlé’s unmatched expertise in this area of military history, have come together to make Warfare Beneath The Waves a meticulously researched and incredibly important piece of writing about the Battle of the Atlantic. This is a must-read not only for fans of naval history, but for all fans of military history in general.

The remarkable story of the Seychelles Affair began in 1978 when representatives of the exiled Seychelles president approached legendary mercenary commander Mike Hoare – who had successfully quelled the uprisings in the Congo in the early 1960s – to help overthrow the Marxist regime then in power. The coup was to take place in 1981, with Hoare’s band of men disguised as a rugby club on board a flight to the Seychelles – AK-47s hidden in the bottom of their luggage. What happened when they arrived has gone down as one of the most astonishing events in the history of mercenary warfare.Hoare''s eyewitness account of his escapades reads like a thriller, detailing the backroom scheming, the tense action at the airport on Mahé, the forced landing of the Air India Boeing and the subsequent escape of Hoare''s band of mercenaries. The book also details their eventual capture and time spent in the South African prison, and their prosecution by those who had helped them prepare for the coup. This updated edition of this classic work is essential reading for anyone interested in mercenary warfare and military history.