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"Command of troops-History-20th century"
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The Weight of Command : Voices of Canada's Second World War Generals and Those Who Knew Them
\"Three-quarters of a century after the Second World War, almost all the participants are gone. This book contains interviews with and about the Canadian generals who led the troops during that war. Edited and introduced by one of the foremost military historians of our time, this carefully curated collection brings to life the generals and their wartime experiences. The content is revealing and conversations frank. Peers and subordinates alike scrutinize key commanders of the war, sometimes offering praise but often passing harsh judgment. We learn of their failings and successes--and of the heavy weight of command borne by all.\"-- Provided by publisher.
Book
Leadership and Responsibility in the second World War
Leadership and Responsibility in the Second World War examines how well political, diplomatic, and military leaders, particularly in Great Britain, handled the daunting challenge of a worldwide conflagration. It seeks to determine if a connection can be delineated between leadership, responsibility, success, and failure - specifically if any connection can be found between reluctance to shoulder responsibility and failure to produce results. In doing so, the authors challenge widely accepted views on major wartime controversies, such as the role of Neville Chamberlain and his Conservative party at the outbreak of the war, the reasons the British failed to reach an alliance with the Soviet Union in 1939, and the motives that drove Claus von Stauffenberg to attempt to assassinate Adolf Hitler.
eBook
Command : the twenty-first-century general
\"In the wake of the troubled campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq, military decision-making appears to be in crisis and generals have been subjected to intense and sustained public criticism. Taking these interventions as a starting point, Anthony King examines the transformation of military command in the twenty-first century. Focusing on the army division, King argues that a phenomenon of collective command is developing. In the twentieth century, generals typically directed and led operations personally, monopolising decision-making. They commanded individualistically, even heroically. As operations have expanded in range and scope, decision-making has multiplied and diversified. As a result command is becoming increasingly professionalised and collaborative. Through interviews with many leading generals and vivid ethnographic analysis of divisional headquarters, this book provides a unique insight into the transformation of command in western armies\"-- Provided by publisher.
Book
In the Company of Generals
Pierpont Stackpole was a Boston lawyer who in January 1918 became aide to Lieutenant General Hunter Liggett, soon to be commander of the first American corps in France. Stackpole's diary, published here for the first time, is a major eyewitness account of the American Expeditionary Forces' experience on the Western Front, offering an insider's view into the workings of Liggett's commands, his day-to-day business, and how he orchestrated his commands in trying and confusing situations.
Hunter Liggett did not fit John J. Pershing's concept of the trim and energetic officer, but Pershing entrusted to him a corps and then an army command. Liggett assumed leadership of the U.S. First Army in mid-October of 1918, and after reorganizing, reinforcing, and resting, the battle-weary troops broke through the German lines in a fourth attack at the Meuse-Argonne—accomplishing what Pershing had failed to do in three previous attempts. The victory paved the way to armistice on November 11.
Liggett has long been a shadowy figure in the development of the American high command. He was \"Old Army,\" a veteran of Indian wars who nevertheless kept abreast of changes in warfare and more than other American officers was ready for the novelties of 1914–1918. Because few of his papers have survived, the diary of his aide—who rode in the general's staff car as Liggett unburdened himself about fellow generals and their sometimes abysmal tactical notions—provides especially valuable insights into command within the AEF.
Stackpole's diary also sheds light on other figures of the war, presenting a different view of the controversial Major General Clarence Edwards than has recently been recorded and relating the general staff's attitudes about the flamboyant aviation figure Billy Mitchell. General Liggett built the American army in France, and the best measure of his achievement is this diary of his aide. That record stands here as a fascinating and authentic look at the Great War.
eBook
The Vietnam War : an assessment by South Vietnam's generals
\"Collects seventeen essays by top military leaders of South Vietnam, composed shortly after the end of the Vietnam War. Covers a wide range of topics to present a remarkably candid and self-critical assessment of the war. Contains an introduction and epilogue by Lewis Sorley\"--Provided by publisher.
Book
The Commander's Dilemma
Why do some military and rebel groups commit many types of
violence, creating an impression of senseless chaos, whereas others
carefully control violence against civilians? A classic catch-22
faces the leaders of armed groups and provides the title for Amelia
Hoover Green's book. Leaders need large groups of people willing to
kill and maim-but to do so only under strict control. How can
commanders control violence when fighters who are not under direct
supervision experience extraordinary stress, fear, and anger?
The Commander's Dilemma argues that discipline is not
enough in wartime. Restraint occurs when fighters know why they are
fighting and believe in the cause-that is, when commanders invest
in political education.
Drawing on extraordinary evidence about state and nonstate
groups in El Salvador, and extending her argument to the Mano River
wars in Liberia and Sierra Leone, Amelia Hoover Green shows that
investments in political education can improve human rights
outcomes even where rational incentives for restraint are weak-and
that groups whose fighters lack a sense of purpose may engage in
massive violence even where incentives for restraint are strong.
Hoover Green concludes that high levels of violence against
civilians should be considered a \"default setting,\" not an
aberration.
eBook
The echo of battle : the Army's way of war
From Lexington and Gettysburg to Normandy and Iraq, the wars of the United States have defined the nation. But after the guns fall silent, the army searches the lessons of past conflicts in order to prepare for the next clash of arms. In the echo of battle, the army develops the strategies, weapons, doctrine, and commanders that it hopes will guarantee a future victory.
In the face of radically new ways of waging war, Brian Linn surveys the past assumptions--and errors--that underlie the army's many visions of warfare up to the present day. He explores the army's forgotten heritage of deterrence, its long experience with counter-guerrilla operations, and its successive efforts to transform itself. Distinguishing three martial traditions--each with its own concept of warfare, its own strategic views, and its own excuses for failure--he locates the visionaries who prepared the army for its battlefield triumphs and the reactionaries whose mistakes contributed to its defeats.
Discussing commanders as diverse as Dwight D. Eisenhower, George S. Patton, and Colin Powell, and technologies from coastal artillery to the Abrams tank, he shows how leadership and weaponry have continually altered the army's approach to conflict. And he demonstrates the army's habit of preparing for wars that seldom occur, while ignoring those it must actually fight. Based on exhaustive research and interviews, The Echo of Battle provides an unprecedented reinterpretation of how the U.S. Army has waged war in the past and how it is meeting the new challenges of tomorrow.
eBook