Includes more than 20 illustrations by James McBey and the World War One In The Desert Illustration Pack- 115 photos/illustrations and 19 maps spanning the Desert campaigns 1914-1918 “Written by the foremost accredited London newspaper journalist in the Middle East during the Great War, William Massey covered the war in the Middle East as it was fought against the Ottoman Turkish Empire, its German ally and the tribes of the region who supported them. He was aware of the hardships suffered by the British and Colonial troops serving in the difficult climate and later became a champion of those who fought there. He writes of the complete conflict from the battles in the western desert with the Senussi to Aleppo and beyond to the borders of Turkey.”-Print Edition “Mr. Massey, who was the official correspondent with our forces, was moved to write this highly interesting account of the campaigns in Egypt on being told by a colleague on the Western Front that the Army in Egypt should " come to. France to see what war is." He shows that the British, Australian, New Zealand, and South African troops in Eastern and Western Egypt had a very arduous experience of war, and that the battle of Romani in August, 1916, was a hard-fought and decisive victory, in which the Turks lost nearly half their strength. At first we were content to hold the line of the Canal, Leaving the Desert to the Turks. But this defensive policy involved grave risks. Mr. Massey reminds us that the Turks repeatedly tried to lay mines in the Canal, and once succeeded in damaging a ship, so that traffic was delayed for half-a-day. The true policy, afterwards adopted, of holding a line far to the east of the Canal, and then of clearing the Turks out of Sinai altogether, meant very hard work for the Army and the Labour Corps, but was completely successful. Mr. Massey describes at the close the remarkable little operations against the Senussi in Western Egypt.”-review in The Spectator 24th May 1918

THE STORY OF THAT SEESAW WAR FROM SEPTEMBER, 1940, WHEN THE ITALIAN ARMY INVADED EGYPT UNTIL MAY 1943 WHEN THE COMBINED BRITISH AND AMERICAN FORCES DROVE THE AXIS DESERT ARMY INTO TUNISIA AND FORCED ITS SURRENDER. THE BOOK CONTAINS 114 ILLUSTRATIONS.

A new study of Captain T. E. Lawrence "of Arabia," his ideas on warfare, and the context of the military campaigns, the peace settlements, and the legacies that followed. One hundred years ago, Captain Lawrence and an unlikely band of Arab irregulars captured the strategic port of Aqaba after an epic journey through waterless tracts of desert. Their attacks on railways during the Great War are well known and have become the stuff of legend, but while Lawrence himself has been the subject of fascinating biographies, as well as an award-winning film, the context of his war in the desert, and his ideas on war itself, are less well-known. This new title offers a high-paced evaluation of T. E. Lawrence “of Arabia” and the British military operations in the Near East, revising and adding to conventional narratives in order to tell the full story of this influential figure, as well as the Ottoman-Turkish perspective, and the Arabs' position, within the context of the war. It is also a study of warfare and the manner in which Lawrence, and others, made their assessments of what was changing, what was distinctive, and what was unique to the desert environment. This book sets Lawrence in context, examines the peace settlement he participated in, and describes how Lawrence's legacy has informed and inspired those partnering and mentoring local forces to the present day.

A highly illustrated, absorbing account of the first battle of the desert war: the British against the Italians. Operation Compass was originally envisaged as a spoiling attack, combined with a reconnaissance in force to disrupt the Italian forces that had advanced into Egypt in September 1940. Lt Gen. Richard O'Connor launched what amounted to a British 'Blitzkrieg'. In less than two months the British forces swept 500 miles along the coast of North Africa. 7th Armoured Division raced across the desert to cut off the retreating Italians, and O'Connor's men destroyed 9 Italian divisions, and took 130,000 prisoners. In March 1941 General Rommel and the Afrikakorps landed at Tripoli.

An expertly written, illustrated new analysis of the Desert Storm air campaign fought against Saddam Hussein's Iraq, which shattered the world's fourth-largest army and sixth-largest air force in just 39 days, and revolutionized the world's ideas about modern air power. Operation Desert Storm took just over six weeks to destroy Saddam Hussein's war machine: a 39-day air campaign followed by a four-day ground assault. It shattered what had been the world's fourth-largest army and sixth-largest air force, and overturned conventional military assumptions about the effectiveness and value of air power. In this book, Richard P. Hallion, one of the world's foremost experts on air warfare, explains why Desert Storm was a revolutionary victory, a war won with no single climatic battle. Instead, victory came thanks largely to a rigorously planned air campaign. It began with an opening night that smashed Iraq's advanced air defense system, and allowed systematic follow-on strikes to savage its military infrastructure and field capabilities. When the Coalition tanks finally rolled into Iraq, it was less an assault than an occupation. The rapid victory in Desert Storm, which surprised many observers, led to widespread military reform as the world saw the new capabilities of precision air power, and it ushered in today's era of high-tech air warfare.

The air campaign that opened the Gulf War in January 1991 was one of the most stunning in history. For five weeks, American and other Coalition aircraft pounded enemy targets with 88,000 tons of bombs. Sorties—more than 100,000 of them—were launched from bases in Saudi Arabia, from aircraft carriers in the Persian Gulf and Red Sea, and even from bases in the United States. The skies over Iraq and Kuwait were filled with a dizzying array of new and improved weapons—Tomahawk and Hellfire missiles, stealth aircraft, and laser-guided smart bombs—and the results were impressive. The Coalition swiftly established air superiority and laid the foundation for the successful five-day ground campaign that followed. The results were also highly visible as the American people watched the bombings unfold in grainy green video-game-like footage broadcast on CNN and the nightly news. The overwhelming success of the Desert Storm air campaign has made it influential ever since, from the “shock and awe” bombing during the Iraq War in 2003 to more recent drone operations, but the apparent ease with which the campaign was won has masked the difficulty—and the true achievement—of executing such a vast and complex operation. Using government reports, scholarly studies, and original interviews, Jim Corrigan reconstructs events through the eyes of not only the strategists who planned it, but also the pilots who flew the missions.

WWI was a complex conflict: an air war, a land war fought in the Balkans, NW Europe, Italy, Africa, Turkey and the Middle East, and a naval war in the North Sea, South Atlantic, South Pacific and Indian Oceans. Including over 180 detailed maps, World War I Illustrated Atlas is an invaluable reference guide to this global war.

Includes the War in North Africa Illustration Pack - 112 photos/illustrations and 21 maps. This study is a historical analysis to determine why Rommel’s tactical success on the battlefield could not accomplish strategic objectives in North Africa. Rommel’s operations are reviewed from his arrival in North Africa in February 1941 through his last offensive to destroy the British Eighth Army at Alamein in August-September 1942. The study compares his ability to conduct tactical operations with his apparent inability to plan and execute actions at the operational level of war. Rommel’s problems with operational planning are addressed within the scope of campaign planning principles set forth in FM 100-5, Operations, (Final Draft). His planning is expressly judged on how he shaped his operational plans by using the concepts of aims, resources, constraints, and restrictions to conform to strategic guidance. Rommel’s tactical execution is contrasted with his operational performance. This comparison is based on the AirLand Battle tenets of agility, initiative, depth, and synchronization. The study concludes that Rommel’s failure lies in planning operations that exceeded his resources and conducting needless operations that resulted in the loss of the initiative at the decisive point. Rommel’s plans exceeded the strategic objectives desired by the theater strategists. His execution was ultimately defeated by his quest for tactical victories without regard to how they contributed to achieving campaign objectives. Rommel’s weakness at the operational level led to failure to sequence tactical victories to achieve campaign goals. This failure illustrates the importance of understanding how operational art orchestrates tactical activities to achieve strategic objectives within a theater of operations.

Chased each other back and forth across the unforgiving North African landscape. Book jacket.

This book gives intimate portraits of the five men who led the British Army through the battles of the Desert campaign in 1940-43: Sir Richard O'Connor, Sir Alan Cunningham, Sir Neil Ritchie, Sir Claude Auchinleck, and Field Marshal Montgomery.