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By Their Deeds Alone: America’S Combat Commanders on the Art of War - Softcover

Hooker, Richard

 
9780891418078: By Their Deeds Alone: America’S Combat Commanders on the Art of War
Softcover
ISBN 10: 0891418075 ISBN 13: 9780891418078
Verlag: Presidio Press, 2003

Inhaltsangabe

An anthology of battle histories, written by twelve top combat commanders, is compromised of dramatic retellings and relevant interpretations of twentieth-century campaigns, in a volume for modern military leaders as well as history and military buffs. Original.

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Aus dem Klappentext

• Lt. Col. Robert R. Leonhard, “Soldiers of Gideon: The Defense of the Golan, Oct. 1973”–how Israel bested a Syrian onslaught, typified by the effort of Lt. Zvi “Zwicka” Greengold, who convinced his adversaries they were up against a force of tanks, when he was armed with only one.<br><br>From the Battle of Gallipoli in 1915 to the Allied chase of German forces across France in 1944 to the crippling of the Russian Army by Chechen rebels in 1995, battlefield fights and fireworks throughout the century are recounted in brilliant detail, revealing all the action–and wisdom–they have to offer, in powerful prose by military professionals. <br><b><i>“Leadership, not machines, not doctrine, not even logistics, is the supreme element in war.” </i></b>These are the words of Lt. Col. Richard Hooker, editor of <i>By Their Deeds Alone</i>. They describe the lesson taught by this extraordinary collection, a gripping and inspiring anthology of battle histories written by brave men who’ve been there themselves. Here are dramatic retellings and relevant interpretations of campaigns recent and remote, famous and forgotten–designed to teach tactics to today’s military leaders as well as inform and entertain any history or military buff.<b><i> <br></i></b><br>Ten accomplished historians–at once combat commanders and acclaimed authors–transport you to the front lines of real battles in wars from around the world, including: <br><br>• Col. John Antal, “A Most Daring Enterprise: The Conquest of Fortress Singapore”–in a cautionary tale for any country facing a “weaker” foe, the Imperial Japanese Army defeats a superior force of overconfident British–and conquers the supposedly impregnable fortress of Singapore<br><br>• Col. James R. McDonough, “African Holocaust: The Rwandan Civil War”–in 1994, quiet and introverted master of infiltration Paul Kagame took the nation’s capital, Kigali, with his Rwandan Patriotic Front, defeating a foreign-funded government force.<br><br>• Lt. Col. Robert R. Leonhard, “Soldiers of Gideon: The Defense of the Golan, Oct. 1973”–how Israel bested a Syrian onslaught, typified by the effort of Lt. Zvi “Zwicka” Greengold, who convinced his adversaries they were up against a force of tanks, when he was armed with only one.<br><br>From the Battle of Gallipoli in 1915 to the Allied chase of German forces across France in 1944 to the crippling of the Russian Army by Chechen rebels in 1995, battlefield fights and fireworks throughout the century are recounted in brilliant detail, revealing all the action–and wisdom–they have to offer, in powerful prose by military professionals.

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Michael R. Fenzel

“I Order You to Die”: Kemal at Gallipoli

How many armies have sworn to conquer or perish? How many have kept their oath? —Ardant du Picq

On 25 April 1915, Allied forces began to land on the narrow beaches below Gaba Tepe on the Gallipoli peninsula, not far from the fabled Plains of Troy. From the high ground of Sari Bair above, a small band of Turkish infantry watched in terror, mesmerized at the sight of the British fleet disgorging its cargo. As the first Australian patrols approached, the peasant soldiers defending the heights began to stream to the rear. At that moment, a lean-faced, mustachioed Turkish colonel galloped up, his face a mask of utter disdain. “Where are you going?” he shouted. “Fix your bayonets and face the enemy!” The soldiers of the Turkish 19th Infantry Division obeyed instantly, for they knew their fiery commander well. Though unknown to the outside world, he would rise to greatness as the savior and father of the modern Turkish state. His name was Mustafa Kemal.

In the summer of 1915 the Allies—France, Britain, and Russia—faced stalemate and possible defeat on the continent of Europe at the hands of Germany and Austria. The nightmare of trench warfare had already settled over the battlefield in the west, while in the east the Russians had suffered catastrophes at Tannenberg and the Masurian Lakes. Seeking to break the stalemate, British First Lord of the Admiralty Winston Churchill suggested Gallipoli as a likely place to strike back with British sea power.

The Gallipoli peninsula, located on the northeastern corner of the Aegean Sea, controlled the approaches to the Dardanelles Straits, Constantinople, and ultimately the Black Sea. For the Allies, control of the Dardanelles would open a sea-lane to key ports in Russia and, it was hoped, help encircle Germany. With Churchill its passionate advocate, the Gallipoli operation was given the grudging support of Lord Horatio Kitchener, the British war minister, who was always reluctant to draw forces away from the main theater of war. At first the British, with French support, attempted to force the Na on the Asiatic side with naval forces alone. When that failed with the loss of four warships, the Allies planned an amphibious assault to take the barren peninsula.

General Sir Ian Hamilton, a Kitchener protégé and veteran of the Boer War, commanded the Allied effort. Experienced, highly intellectual, and gentlemanly to a fault, the sixty-two-year-old Hamilton was known throughout the British army as a brilliant soldier and must have seemed an inspired choice. Hamilton’s forces initially totaled some 80,000 troops and 118 guns, supported by powerful naval forces. The ground force consisted of two divisions of untested Australians and New Zealanders (30,000 men) under Lt. Gen. Sir William Birdwood, the regular army 29th Division (19,000 men) commanded by Lt. Gen. Sir Aylmer Hunter-Weston, the Royal Naval Division (11,000 men) led by Major General Paris, a French contingent of roughly division size commanded by General d’Amade, and service troops.

Hamilton’s opposite number was Generalleutnant Limon von Sanders, a distinguished German officer of strong leadership qualities and stable temperament. Sanders was a man of impressive authority with the trained habit of command. At Gallipoli he commanded the Ottoman Fifth Army, six divisions strong, drawn from all over the Ottoman Empire and stiffened by German staff officers and commanders. Two divisions protected the Asiatic shore, buttressed by German gunners under a German admiral. Another two guarded the Bulair lines to the north at the neck of the Gallipoli peninsula. One was stationed at Cape Helles, at the southern tip. The last was Kemal’s division, posted in the center of the peninsula on the high ground running across its spine, ready to move wherever the Allies gained a foothold. Watching von Sanders and his frighteningly efficient staff officers, members of the young Turkish officer corps, who had taken over the ailing government, were convinced that “it was not these generals who would lose.”

Mustafa Kemal was a study in contrasts. Brooding, driven, passionate, the young lieutenant colonel had just returned from Salonika. Trained at a formal military school in Turkey, his life’s desire was to achieve military success and then use it as a springboard to political power. No dilettante, Kemal had served in the 1909 officer’s mutiny and in campaigns in Albania, Tripolitania, and the Balkans—all of which enhanced his reputation in military circles. A difficult subordinate who was proud, willful, and obstinate, Kemal possessed genuine military talent and was not afraid of responsibility. To his credit, von Sanders recognized these gifts and overlooked Kemal’s abrasive personality.

Recalled from unimportant duties in the backwaters of the empire, Kemal had commanded in the area years before and was familiar with the unforgiving terrain and craggy cliffs that sliced into the Aegean. He wasted no time in readying his forces. The rumor spreading through Constantinople was that the Allies were going to attempt to breach the Dardanelles with a naval force. Pushing his men relentlessly, Kemal prepared them and himself for the ordeal that lay ahead.

General Ian Hamilton, though personally selected by Lord Kitchener to command the expedition, was essentially a staff officer, not a battlefield commander. Outstandingly brave as a younger officer in the late-nineteenth-century colonial wars, his greatest moment had come in the Boer War, where, as an acting lieutenant general, he had served as Kitchener’s chief of staff. In a military career filled with achievement, Hamilton had never commanded a division or corps in a major campaign. Upon receiving his appointment to command the Mediterranean Expeditionary Force, Hamilton assembled a makeshift staff and left immediately for Gallipoli in HMS Phaeton, a Royal Navy cruiser capable of making thirty knots. In his briefcase he carried a travelogue and an out-of-date book on the Turkish army—all the intelligence that could be provided by the Imperial General Staff. He arrived in time to see the naval defeat of 18 March, when three obsolete battleships—Ocean, Irresistible, and the French Bouvet—went to the bottom with more than seven hundred sailors after striking the Turkish minefields.

The Allied forces assembling in the eastern Mediterranean faced daunting obstacles as they readied themselves for the amphibious assault on Gallipoli. No accurate maps or reliable information about the enemy were available. Moreover, with less than a month remaining before the scheduled 25 April landing, none would be forthcoming. None of the Allied troops had been trained in amphibious operations, which were in any case rudimentary since no doctrine or specialized equipment such as assault landing craft existed. The operation was makeshift in every sense of the word. Still, the Allied soldiers and sailors at Gallipoli belonged to professional armies and navies with great experience and strong traditions, and, at least in the beginning, Allied confidence was high.

The Turks Dig In

At the start of the campaign, Gallipoli was garrisoned by eleven forts with seventy-two guns between them, along with floating minefields and antisubmarine nets spread across the Narrows. The heavier guns were sited at Kum Kale and Sedd el Bahr at the mouth of the Straits. The Germans added eight 6-inch howitzer batteries that could change position rapidly and eight searchlights. Another hundred guns were deployed along the peninsula’s eastern coast, although only ten were relatively modern and the Turks were short on ammunition.

With an Allied invasion...

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Verlag
Presidio Press
Erscheinungsdatum
2003
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
0891418075
ISBN 13 
9780891418078
Einband
Taschenbuch
Anzahl der Seiten
240
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Verantwortliche Person
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