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Mustafa Kemal Atatürk was one of the most significant political leaders of the twentieth century. He rose from obscure origins to become the founder of the new Republic of Turkey out of the ashes of the Ottoman Empire and go on to radically transform Turkish society. How should one understand Atatürk and his legacy? In this book, George Gawrych studies Atatürk's career in detail, showing how Atatürk married the traits of the classic military man-of-action with those of the intellectual, theorist and pragmatist as a statesman. Gawrych places Atatürk in the context of his times to reveal how he harnessed wider forces to set Turkey on a path of secular nationalism and comprehensive moderni...
Includes 8 maps and more than 20 illustrations Armies appear to learn more from defeat than victory. In this regard, armed forces that win quickly, decisively, and with relative ease face a unique challenge in attempting to learn from victory. The Israel Defense Forces certainly fell into this category after their dramatic victory over the combined armies of Egypt, Jordan, and Syria in the Six Day War of June 1967. This study analyzes the problems that beset Israel in the aftermath of its decisive victory in the Six Day War over the Arabs. In the 1973 War, Anwar Sadat, Egypt’s president, was able to exploit Israeli vulnerabilities to achieve political success through a limited war. An impo...
In 1967, the Israeli Defense Forces defeated the combined armies of Egypt, Jordan, and Syria in a mere six days. This remarkable military accomplishment would, however, have the ultimate effect of creating an albatross around the neck of the Israeli Army, as Israelis would now expect the next conventional war with the Arabs to achieve similar results: a quick, decisive victory with relatively few casualties. Although Egyptian forces were militarily inferior to those of Israel, President Anwar Sadat developed a successful limited war strategy designed to exploit this unrealistic expectation. Rather than aiming to achieve a military victory or to seize strategic terrain, Sadat merely sought to...
"The Crescent and the Eagle" examines the awakening of Albanian national identity from the end of the 19th century to the outbreak of the First World War - a period of intense nationalism in the Balkans - from an Ottoman perspective. Drawing on Ottoman and European archival material, the book undermines the customary negative stereotypes of Ottoman rule, offering a more nuanced interpretation. Gawrych provides a critical but objective examination of the evolution of government policies toward Albanians, from attempts to mould them into an "iron barrier" to the establishment of a uniform system of administration. He argues that this was a result of a complicated set of conflicting allegiances...
Winner of a 2014 Distinguished Book Award from The Society of Military History and Shortlisted for the 2014 Longman-History Today Book Prize Mustafa Kemal - latterly and better known as Ataturk - is without doubt the most famous figure in modern Turkish history. But what was his path to power? And how did his early career as a soldier in the Ottoman army affect his later decisions as President? The Young Ataturk tracks the lesser covered period of Kemal's life - from the War of Independence to the founding of the Republic. George W. Gawrych shows that it is only by understanding Kemal's military career that one can fully comprehend how he evolved as one of the twentieth century's most extrao...
[Includes 12 maps and 4 tables] In recent years, the U.S. Army has paid increasing attention to the conduct of unconventional warfare. However, the base of historical experience available for study has been largely American and overwhelmingly Western. In Russian-Soviet Unconventional Wars in the Caucasus, Central Asia, and Afghanistan, Dr. Robert F. Baumann makes a significant contribution to the expansion of that base with a well-researched analysis of four important episodes from the Russian-Soviet experience with unconventional wars. Primarily employing Russian sources, including important archival documents only recently declassified and made available to Western scholars, Dr. Baumann pr...
In the seventy years that have passed since the tank first appeared, antitank combat has presented one of the greatest challenges in land warfare. Dramatic improvements in tank technology and doctrine over the years have precipitated equally innovative developments in the antitank field. One cycle in this ongoing arms race occurred during the early years of World War II when the U.S. Army sought desperately to find an antidote to the vaunted German blitzkrieg. This Leavenworth Paper analyzes the origins of the tank destroyer concept, evaluates the doctrine and equipment with which tank destroyer units fought, and assesses the effectiveness of the tank destroyer in battle.
Ottoman naval technology underwent a transformation under the rule of Sultan Selim III. New types of sailing warships such as two- and three-decked galleons, frigates and corvettes began to dominate the Ottoman fleet, rendering the galley-type oared ships obsolete. This period saw technological innovations such as the adoption of the systematic copper sheathing of the hulls and bottoms of Ottoman warships from 1792-93 onwards and the construction of the first dry dock in the Golden Horn. The changing face of the Ottoman Navy was facilitated by the influence of the British, Swedish and French in modernising both the shipbuilding sector and the conduct of naval warfare. Through such measures as training Ottoman shipbuilders, heavy reliance on help from foreign powers gave way to a new trajectory of modernization. Using this evidence Zorlu argues that although the Ottoman Empire was a major and modern independent power in this period, some technological dependence on Europe remained.