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Bayonets before Bullets is the first comprehensive institutional and operational history of the Imperial Russian Army during the crucial period of its modernization, 1861-1914. Bruce W. Menning surveys the development of organization, doctrine, and strategy from the aftermath of Russia's defeat in the Crimean War through the wars against Turkey in 1877-1878 and Japan in 1904-1905, to the eve of World War I. Describing how the Russian army organized, trained, and armed itself to fight during a critical era of change, Menning weaves analysis of reforms in technology and military art with lively accounts of combat operations and portraits of the personalities involved. Enhanced by superb battlefield maps, operational diagrams, and rare photographs of the leading Russian military commanders, Bayonets before Bullets provides a fascinating account of how the Imperial Russian Army struggled to modernize in a Darwinian world that dealt harshly with those who failed to adapt to changes in technology and military art.
This volume examines how Imperial Russia's armed forces sought to adapt to the challenges of modern warfare. From Peter the Great to Nicholas II, rulers always understood the need to maintain an army and navy capable of preserving the empire's great power status. Yet they inevitably faced the dilemma of importing European military and technological innovations while keeping out political ideas that could challenge the autocracy's monopoly on power. Within the context of a constant race to avoid oblivion, the impulse for military renewal emerges as a fundamental and recurring theme in modern Russian history.
Like Volume one, Volume two of The Russo-Japanese War in Global Perspective examines the Russo-Japanese War in its military, diplomatic, social, political, and cultural context. In this volume East Asian contributors focus on the Asian side of the war to flesh out the assertion that the Russo-Japanese War was, in fact, World War Zero, the first global confl ict of the 20th century. The contributors demonstrate that the Russo-Japanese War, largely forgotten in the aftermath of World War I, actually was a precursor to the catastrophe that engulfed the world less than a decade after the signing of the Treaty of Portsmouth. This study also helps us better understand Japan as it emerged at the beginning of its fateful 20th century.
This collection of essays by international experts in military history reassesses the war plans of 1914 in a broad diplomatic, military, and political setting.
The People in Arms, first published in 2002, is concerned with the mass mobilization of society for war. It takes as its starting point the French levée en masse of 1793, which replaced former theories and regulations concerning the obligation of military service with a universal concept more encompassing in its moral claims than any that had prevailed under the Ancien Régime. The levée en masse has accordingly gone down in history as a spontaneous, free expression of the French people's ideals and enthusiasm. It also became a crucial source for one of the most powerful organizing myths of modern politics: that compulsory, mass social mobilizations merely express, and give effective form to, the wishes or higher values of society and its members. The aim of the papers presented here is to analyse and compare episodes in which this distinctive ideological configuration has played a leading role.
This study examines the American military's experience with urban operations in Somalia, particularly in the capital city of Mogadishu. That original focus can be found in the following pages, but the authors address other, broader issues as well, to include planning for a multinational intervention; workable and unworkable command and control arrangements; the advantages and problems inherent in coalition operations; the need for cultural awareness in a clan-based society whose status as a nation-state is problematic; the continuous adjustments required by a dynamic, often unpredictable situation; the political dimension of military activities at the operational and tactical levels; and the ability to match military power and capabilities to the mission at hand.
Combining original research with the latest scholarship Warfare and Society in Europe, 1792 - 1914 examines war and its aftermath from Napoleonic times to the outbreak of the First World War. Throughout, this fine book treats warfare as a social and political phenomenon no less than a military and technologial one, and includes discussions on: * The French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars * Napoleon III and the militarization of Europe * Bismark, Molkte, and the Franco-Prussian War, 1870-71 * new technologies and weapons * seapower, imperialism and naval warfare * the origins and outbreak of the First World War. For anyone studying, or with in interest in European warfare, this book details the evolution of land and naval warfare and highlights the swirling interplay of society, politics and military decision making.
This new book examines the role of the Tsarist General Staff in studying and administering Russia’s Asian borderlands. It considers the nature of the Imperial Russian state, the institutional characteristics of the General Staff, and Russia’s relationship with Asia. During the nineteenth century, Russia was an important player in the so-called ‘Great Game’ in central Asia. Between 1800 and 1917 officers of the Russian General Staff travelled extensively through Turkey, central Asia and the Far East, gathering intelligence that assisted in the formation of future war plans. It goes on to consider tactics of imperial expansion, and the role of military intelligence and war planning with respect to important regions including the Caucasus, central Asia and the Far East. In the light of detailed archival research, it investigates objectively questions such as the possibility of Russia seizing the Bosphorus Straits, and the probability of an expedition to India. Overall, this book provides a comprehensive account of the Russian General Staff, its role in Asia, and of Russian military planning with respect to a region that remains highly strategically significant today.
Der er her tale om et to-binds værk om ovennævnte krig på over 1200 sider. Værket er skrevet på grundlag af en række fremtrædende militære forskeres undersøgelser af bl.a. nyåbnede russiske og tidligere ubrugte japanske kilder. Værkets hovedtese er, at denne krig er en direkte forløber for første verdenskrig, hvorfor forfatterne benævner den russisk-japanske krig, World War Zero. Bind I vurderer den russiske side og den vestlige kontekst, medens bind II ser på den asiatiske side af krigen. I begge bind ses på følgende forhold: Militære, diplomatiske, sociale, politiske, økonomiske og kulturelle sammenhænge, der alle har spillet en rolle.