Innholdsfortegnelse for No. 113 i History of War

Eighty years ago this month, the tug of war in the Western Desert tipped decisively in favour of British and Commonwealth forces. The Second Battle of El Alamein was a resounding triumph for Bernard Montgomery and the Eighth Army. By the winter of 1942, the Axis forces in the region were firmly on the back foot, beginning their retreat west. This resounding result came after weeks and months of careful planning, misdirection and preliminary assaults by the Eighth Army, as well as the essential intelligence and reconnaissance provided by the Long Range Desert Group. This issue historians Gavin Mortimer and John Sadler each recount how these critical missions made victory in the desert possible. CONTRIBUTORS GAVIN MORTIMER Gavin is a journalist and historian based in France, with a number of…

Throughout the 19th century, the steam engine drove the Industrial Revolution and the railways it brought transformed societies, fortunes and even landscapes. Its influence was powerful and far-reaching and it didn’t take military thinkers long to start dreaming up ways to repurpose this mighty commercial tool to fight wars. Initially, trains were recognised as an efficient means of transporting large amounts of men and materiel to battlefields. The Prussian, Russian and Austrian armies were the first to do this in the 1840s. The British, too, were early adopters and during the Crimean War (1853-56) built the first-ever military railway when they constructed a 13km track from the port of Balaklava to resupply troops besieging the city of Sevastopol. It wasn’t until the American Civil War (1861-65), however, that the full…

Author: Mark Urban Publisher: Viking Price: £25.99 Mark Urban’s meticulously researched account of the formation of one of the first airborne units, the 2nd Battalion, provides the main focus for weaving together a series of personal tales. The narrative links the stories of men who served in this unit, allowing the reader to follow the trajectory of those who were carried to different places by the tides of war. The wartime founders were volunteers from a highly diverse range of professional backgrounds and beliefs, from circus performers to solicitors, policemen and grave-diggers, from Christians and Jews to communists. The author follows the exploits of a handful of these trailblazers of the Parachute Regiment who shed blood for their country, of whom two would not survive the conflict. Their individual fates…

SOLDIERS AND CIVILIANS, 21 January 1972 A woman eyes a British soldier on patrol in the republican New Lodge district of Belfast. A predominantly Catholic, working class area north of the city centre, New Lodge saw much violence during ‘The Troubles’. The month before this photograph was taken, 15 people were killed and 17 injured when the Ulster Volunteer Force bombed McGurk’s Bar on North Queen Street. Constant battles between the British Army, Provisional IRA and Loyalist paramilitaries meant that parts of New Lodge were among the most dangerous places in Northern Ireland. CARRYING CHARLES XII 1878 Painted by Gustaf Cederström, Bringing Home the Body of King Charles XII depicts the repatriation of the Swedish monarch after he was killed in Norway. Charles XII (1682 – 1718) had been an…

The war the British Army found itself fighting on the Western Front in 1914 bore little resemblance to the conflict it had won in South Africa just 15 years earlier. Although mobile at first, it soon became bogged down in a quagmire of trenches and barbed wire. In such a static conflict, there was no significant role for armoured trains to play. However, by late 1914 the need for mobile heavy artillery that could strike deep behind enemy lines was apparent, and railway guns were soon being considered. The idea of mounting artillery on trains had been tried before. In 1882, during the Anglo-Egyptian war, the British had mounted naval guns on rail trucks to serve as heavy artillery support and had done the same thing with coastal defence guns…

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VENTILATION On the right-hand side of the Saracen there were two armoured air vents used by the internal ventilation system. Duction inside the Saracen carried cool air to the driver and commander and also to the troops in the back. OFF-ROAD Six large wheels enabled the Saracen to scale vertical rises up to 1ft 6in (46cm) and span gaps of 5ft (1.52m). The front four wheels were used for steering, and it could keep going if one of them was damaged. DE-BUSING Unlike Soviet APCs, the rear doors on the back of the Saracen were large. This helped the eight infantry soldiers and their NCO to get out quickly. The doors opened sideways, providing some protection from small arms fire. STOWAGE Although the Saracen was spacious compared to other armoured…

Author: Timandra Slade Publisher: Troubador Price: £18.99 (Hardback) Timandra Slade tells the story of the extraordinary escape from enemy captivity in Occupied France by four officers of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) during World War II. These men were tasked to harass or slow down the advancing enemy to allow the main BEF body to get safely off the beaches of Dunkirk or the Port of Le Havre. Once their mission was accomplished, the strategy was for the foursome to then make their getaway to safe quarters. It did not go according to plan: the four were captured, but each took the decision to escape at the earliest possible moment. One was the author’s father, Chris Waters, a lieutenant in the Royal Engineers. Slade recounts in detail the adventures of…

1846-51 PRUSSIAN DEVELOPMENTS Powered rail transport is a relatively new concept and soon put to military use. Prussia transports soldiers and materiel by railway to Kraków in 1846. It then transports troops by rail during the First Schleswig War against Denmark. 1855-56 01 GRAND CRIMEAN CENTRAL RAILWAY The British build a military railway during the Crimean War to supply Allied forces at the Siege of Sevastopol. Headquartered at Balaklava, the line eventually runs for 23km (14 miles) and plays a crucial role in helping the Allies defeat the Russians at the siege. 1859 SECOND ITALIAN WAR OF INDEPENDENCE The French Army transports tens of thousands of soldiers into Italy to fight the Austrians. The French use of trains prompts the Austrians to destroy the Valenza railway bridge in Piedmont. This is…

While hospital trains can also have civilian purposes, since their advent they have mostly been used by armed forces around the world, to treat wounded and ill military personnel. Their use stretches back almost as far as the introduction of military railways and were first used during the Crimean War (1853-56). Opened in 1855, the Grand Crimean Central Railway was built by the British to initially supply ammunition and provisions to Allied soldiers fighting the Russians at the Siege of Sevastopol. It eventually stretched to 23km in length between Sevastopol and the British military headquarters at Balaklava. A major factor in the Allied success during the siege, the railway was mostly horse-drawn, and from April 1855 the British soon realised they could use empty trains to take injured and sick…

September 1942 was one of the worst months that the Long Range Desert Group (LRDG) had experienced in North Africa. A series of raids launched by British special forces – including the Special Air Service (SAS) and the Special Boat Service (SBS) – against Libyan ports had resulted in the death, capture or injury of several of the LRDG’s most experienced soldiers. Two officers, David Lloyd Owen and Nick Wilder, were in hospital beds recovering from wounds and one of the unit’s best navigators, Mike Carr, had been captured by the Italians at Jalo. The raids had been hastily planned and were too ambitious in scale, so it was a relief for the LRDG’s commanding officer, Lieutenant Colonel Guy Prendergast, that their next task was a reversion to what they…

The name Hitler evokes many feelings and emotions to this very day: hatred, evil, monster and warmonger to name but a few. But what about patriot? Even more specific, Allied patriot? William Patrick Hitler struck out to forge his own path, to the ire of his controlling uncle, which would eventually lead him to the United States along with his mother, where he would play his part in the fight against ‘Uncle Adolf’ and his Nazi regime. William’s story truly begins with that of his mother, Bridget Elizabeth Dowling of Dublin. It was here in 1910 during a horse show that Bridget met a young waiter by the name of Alois Hitler. After a four-month courtship, much to the disapproval of Bridget’s father, the couple eloped to London. Their relationship…

On 15 September 1745, the sound of bells echoed throughout the city of Edinburgh. They clanged a warning; the Jacobite army of Charles Edward Stuart, ‘Bonnie Prince Charlie’, was on its way south. People rushed into the streets in panic, for the city, with the exception of the castle, was ill prepared for battle. Efforts were made to improve its defences and arms were handed out to enthusiastic volunteers. But when a letter from Prince Charles arrived the next day warning citizens that he was determined to enter the city – and could not answer for the consequences if anyone opposed him – many urged capitulation. Rumours spread – one said that 16,000 Highlanders were going to take the city – and the volunteers lost their courage and marched swiftly…

Petr Jakl assembles a strong cast and a budget of over US$20 million to direct the most expensive Czech film ever made: a depiction of national hero Jan Zizka. Zizka’s military career in 15th century Bohemia was remarkable: the one-eyed commander never lost a battle, and managed to defend Prague with a force of just 80 men against thousands of rampaging crusader knights. But Jakl takes a big risk in stepping away from such episodes to focus on Zizka’s early career instead, when he led a small band of mercenaries as rival claimants (Wenceslaus IV King of Bohemia and Sigismund I of Hungary) sought to become Holy Roman Emperor. In reality, little is known about this period, but the action sequences and location shots are superb. In one battle, there…