On the morning of 3 July 1815, the French General R mi Joseph Isidore Exelmans, at the head of a brigade of dragoons, fired the last shots in the defence of Paris until the Franco-Prussian War sixty-five years later. Why did he do so? Traditional st…
Since it was first published in 1989, Men of the Battle of Britain, the complete third edition of which was published in 2015, has become a standard reference book for academics and researchers interested in the Battle of Britain. This remarkable pu…
A professional soldier, Hans von Luck joined the Panzerwaffe in its earliest days, serving under Erwin Rommel. Skilled in the art of armoured warfare, von Luck fought in the invasion of Poland in 1939 and was present as the Blitzkrieg swept across t…
In this sumptuous guide to twelve centuries of military development, Peter Connolly combines a detailed account of the arms and armies of Greece and Rome with his superb full-colour artwork. Making use of fresh archaeological evidence and new materi…
Signal intelligence is the most secret, and most misunderstood, weapon in the modern espionage arsenal. As a reliable source of information, it is unequalled, which is why Government Communications Headquarters, almost universally known as GCHQ, is…
When Napoleon returned to Paris after exile on the Island of Elba, he appealed to the European heads of state to be allowed to rule France in peace. His appeal was rejected and the Emperor of the French knew he would have to fight to keep his throne…
The often unseen and unrecognised element in aerial warfare, is that of training the pilots and crews, yet it its value is beyond calculation. In this fundamental role, a wide variety of aircraft were used by the Luftwaffe, with trainee pilots progr…
The most iconic German aircraft of the Second World War, the Messerschmitt Bf 109 was the Luftwaffe's principal fighter from 1939 until 1942 when the superior Focke-Wulf Fw 190 came into greater prominence. The Bf 109 served in every theatre of the…
In November 1942, as the Battle of Stalingrad continued to rage, the Red Army launched a devastating counter-attack from outside the city. The Soviet forces smashed the German siege and encircled Stalingrad, trapping some 290,000 soldiers of the Ger…
The story of the last world war, as told by Grand Admiral Karl Doenitz himself. His memoir covers his early career with submarines in the First World War and follows both his successes and failures through the Second World War, with great detail on…
Born on 17 June 1900, Martin Ludwig Bormann became one of the most powerful and most feared men in the Third Reich. An obsessive bureaucrat, it was Bormann who helped steer Hitler's apparatus of terror so effectively that he became the clandestine r…
We visualise dashing and daring young men as the epitome of the pilots of the Second World War, yet amongst that elite corps was one person who flew no less than 400 Spitfires and seventy-six different types of aircraft and that person was Mary Wilk…
The success of German submarines during the First World War in almost cutting off Britain's vital imports had not been forgotten by Adolf Hitler and when, in March 1935, he repudiated the Treaty of Versailles, Britain, magnanimously, signed up to an…
The Defence of Heaven brings together, for the first time in one volume, a complete history of the Jin, Song and Ming dynasties' wars fought against the Mongols. Lasting nearly two centuries, these wars, fought to defend Chinese civilisation against…
In the second volume of this epic work, John H. Gill traces Napoleon's progress as he sought to complete his victory over the Habsburgs. The war had erupted on April 10th with Austria's invasion of Germany and Italy. After just two weeks, Napoleon h…
Many indeed, are the biographies of Winston Churchill, one of the most influential figures of the twentieth century. But what was that influence and how did he use it in the furtherance of his and his country's ambitions? For the first time, Profess…
HMS Glamorgan was in the thick of the fighting throughout the war. Her role for most of the time was that of an expendable escort and she became the only ship to survive an Exocet hit. Incorporating vivid first-hand accounts and illustrated with pho…
On 22 June 1941, German forces launched Operation Barbarossa - Hitler's invasion of the Soviet Union. Instead of the swift knock-out blow that the Germans had anticipated, the war against the Soviets ground on relentlessly for almost four years. It…
Following the success of Jeffrey L. Forgeng's translation of Joachim Meyer's The Art of Sword Combat the author was alerted to an earlier recension of the work which was discovered in Lund University Library in Sweden. The manuscript, produced in St…
Memoirs of British soldiers who fought in the Peninsular War are commonplace and histories of the momentous campaigns and battles of Sir John Moore and Sir Arthur Wellesley, the future Duke of Wellington, can be numbered by the score. Yet surprising…
The Teutonic Knights were powerful and ferocious advocates of holy war. Their history is suffused with crusading, campaigning and struggle. Feared by their enemies but respected by medieval Christendom, the knights and their Order maintained a firm…
Since it was first published in 1989, Men of the Battle of Britain has become a standard reference book for academics and researchers interested in the Battle of Britain. Copies are also owned by many with purely an armchair interest in the events o…
Jagdgeschwader 26, the German elite fighter unit, was more feared by the Allies than any other Luftwaffe group. Based on extensive archival research in Europe, personal combat diaries and interviews with more than 50 surviving pilots, Caldwell has a…
Michael Haygarth left home a few weeks before his seventeenth birthday to join the Royal Air Force as a Weapons Technician. At the time, everything seemed very normal and routine, but his thirty-eight-year career turned out to be anything but. From…
'A magnificent biography which finally provides recognition to one of Bletchley's and Britain's lost heroes.' Michael Smith The Official Secrets Act and the passing of time have prevented the Bletchley Park story from being told by many of its key p…
'Macksey's blend of what actually happened and what might have been makes for a piece of writing comparable to Frederick Forsyth at his best.' Jack Higgins 'Convincingly described and excellently illustrated.' The Daily Telegraph In June 1940, Germa…
A decorated First World War pilot, Hans Baur was one of the leading commercial aviators of the 1920s before being before becoming Adolf Hitler's personal pilot, a role he first undertook during the election campaign in 1932\. Hitler, who loathed fly…
Encouraged by the success of an attack on Messines Ridge on 7 June 1917, Field Marshal Haig ordered that his generals should continue their preparations for the Third Battle of Ypres. Delayed due to a number of reasons, one of which was poor weather…
Described as one of the greatest mass-murderers in history, Rudolf Hoss, was born in Baden-Baden, on the edge of Germany's Black Forest region, on 11 December 1901\. As a child, his aim was to join the priesthood, but in his early youth he became di…
The teaching of Historical European Martial Arts has widespread appeal with numerous clubs in many countries. However, comparatively few people who run their own club have qualifications that would make them an instructor in traditional martial arts…
_The Lost Samurai_ reveals the greatest untold story of Japan's legendary warrior class, which is that for almost a hundred years Japanese samurai were employed as mercenaries in the service of the kings of Siam, Cambodia, Burma, Spain and Portugal,…
Without doubt it was one of the toughest jobs. Faced with ruthless criminal, trigger-happy gunslingers and assorted desperados, the lawmen of the Old West tried, and sometimes died, in their efforts to bring some semblance of order to their towns an…
The key roles played by the Royal Observer Corps in the Second World War have, all too often, been overshadowed by more glamourous arms of the defence forces. The teams in the Sector Stations, plotting the battles raging above, and the Spitfires and…
Born in 1360, Jan Zizka was a formidable figure whose life and military career was set amidst the whirlwind of monumental revolutions - military, religious, political and social - that engulfed medieval Europe in the 14th and 15th centuries. The lea…
Born into a distinguished Burgundian family in 1770, Louis Nicolas d'Avout began his military career with the French Royal Army but fully embraced the principles of the French Revolution, joining the Republican army as the commander of a battalion o…
The miracle' of Dunkirk is one of the most inspiring stories of all time. The British Expeditionary Force had been all but surrounded, and, with the French armies collapsing on all sides, it appeared that Britain was about to suffer the heaviest def…
Whilst there have been many memoirs written by U-boat commanders of the Second World War, a book such as this, based upon the diaries of a senior Petty Officer telegraphist, written in 'real time' is something very special. Wolfgang Hirschfeld, whos…
"Gentlemen, we are going to capture Tobruk and destroy it." 'Operation Agreement' started as a fairly simple plan to destroy Rommel's bomb-proof oil-storage tanks at Tobruk on the eve of Alamein. But, catching the imagination of GHQ, the plan snowba…
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 Seco…
When the US Marine Commandant, Major General Thomas Holcomb, announced the formation of what became the US Marine Corps Women s Reserve, legend has it that the portrait of the fifth Commandant, Archibald Henderson, fell off the wall and crashed to t…
On 22 June 1941, Hitler s armies launched Operation Barbarossa and swept in to the Soviet Union. On the same day, the Spanish Foreign Minister, Ramon Serrano Suner, contacted the German embassy in Madrid with an extraordinary proposal would the Germ…
This gripping book tells the remarkable story of Germany's special forces - military, naval and aerial - during the Second World War. Although capable of stunning achievements against all the odds, the absence of proper coordination and planning res…
Anglo-German naval rivalry before 1914 had been expected to culminate in a cataclysmic fleet action in the North Sea once war was declared, a battle upon which the outcome of the war would depend: yet the two fleets met only once, at Jutland in 1916…
This is a story from Britain's hour of greatest peril in 1940, drawn from original research using hitherto little-seen documents in the UK National Archives including recently declassified MI5 Files. It is about the million and a half men of the Hom…
This gripping history details the remarkable exploits of a Commando and Special Operations Executive operative during the Second World War. It is a story of extreme courage and a revealing portrait of a man who ultimately gave his life for the liber…
The story of America's cavalry is extraordinarily rich in colourful, and often flamboyant, personalities and exciting action. Indeed, much of the early military history of the United States is dominated by the exploits of its horse-soldiers.In this…
