The Cambridge History of Warfare For Mohsin

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CHAPTER 12: THE INDUSTRIALIZATION OF WAR
1. Common interest in settling 25 yr war in 1815: con nationalistic emotion sweeping Eur & gen
exhaustion.
2. Grant of easy peace to Fr by restoring Bourbon monarchy & frontiers of 1792.
3. Two advtgs to Prussia: by trading Polish lands for german territory relatively homogenous pop & Ruhr
valley second great seat of industrial rev.
4. Congress of Vienna one of the most successfully negotiated treaties of W civilization by accommodating
interests of all the maj powers.
5. In 1830 rev in Fr tumbled the Bourbon monarchy: only a dynastic change.
6. In 1848 more serious challenge started from Fr spread to cen Eur; con imposed by CoV collapsed
intervention by Russia helped to crush Hung rebels & preserve Habsburg monarchy: revolution
underlined depth of nationalism underlying Eur equiblibrium.
Crimean War
1. Success in avoiding revolution of 1848 and crushing Hungarian nationalists encouraged the Tsar to follow
a more aggressive policy in Balkans.
2. Fought as a result of Russian attack on Ottoman Empire in 1854 when Russian armies crossed the
Danube; Brits could not let Russians dir access to Med.
3. British and French declared war; sent armies to Constantinople to def Turks; could not let the Russians
benefit from a weak Ottoman empire. Austrians also stepped in disp astonishing ingratitude for Russia
aid in 1849; Fought not as a total war but a conflict fought over obscure issues.
4. Russian withdrawal from Danube removed casus belli prompted the Anglo-French comds to invade
Crimea to teach them a lesson.
5. First time fighting saw dir impact of science & tech on Bfd: minie bullet for rifled musket tripled rg,
steam ships in navies, telegraph.
6. Sep 1854, French and British attacked Russian naval base at Sebastopol.
7. Russian army deployed on heights overlooking Alma River was decimated by superior firepower. Victory
at Alma due to tech superiority not trg/discp.
8. Siege of Sebastopol; two attempt by Russians to B-out; At Balaclava ‘Charge of the Light Brigade’
British cavalry ill-fated attempt to attack Russian artillery positions.
9. 2nd Russian attempt to reach Sebastopol was Battle of Inkerman: Russian 12,000 and Allies 3,000
casualties.
10. Winter made short the British campaign and French bore brunt of the fighting in 1855.
11. Attempts by Russians to relieve port; last rel attempt in mid-Aug resulting in loss of life Russians 8,000
and Allies 2,000.
12. 8 Sep 1855 French stormed the fortress of Malakoff rendering further defense of port impossible. Officers
leading assault synchronized watched for the first time.
13. Crimean War had little impact, temporarily halted Russian ambitions in Balkans; put off Turkey’s
collapse for another century; advances in weaponry marked the conduct of war on tactical level
underlining science & tech crucial to Bfd success.
American Civil War
1. Most imp conflict of 19th century because for the first time opp govts harnessed pop enthusiasm of Fr
rev to industrial tech.
2. North fighting for restoration of Union; South for independence: both under est opponents pol will.
3. North enjoyed advantage of population (25 million), industry and railway, control of Army, Navy and
bureaucratic machinery.
THE CAMBRIDGE HISTORY OF WARFARE

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4. South (9 million incl 3 million slaves) enjoyed advtg of geography: large distances across wilderness to
launch military ops in Western theatre whereas; Eastern theatre was relatively close to North centers.
5. Without rly & steamships N could not have brought its eco potential to bear and probably would have lost
the war. South possessed the advtg that it did not have to win.
6. Both sides ill-prepared, without regular troops/ training and underestimating their opponent: CW story mil
improvisation & learning on the BFd.
7. First prob for both sides: gathering, trg & sup large mil forces (ironically S enjoyed advtg as it possessed
no reg army).
8. 1861 displayed Lincoln’s political talents and North was by and large successful: crucial strat issue of
Border States.
9. Maryland: dir mil intervention by fed auth overawed secessionists in Annapolis.
10. Missouri: loc pol/sldrs loyal to Union seized con & drove off rebel sp, G war in back cty.
11. Kentucky: legislature/pop remained loyal but governor favored secession, state declared neut but S tps
invaded & forced pro-Unionists to sp the S.
12. South imposed embargo on cotton prompting European interference which failed; Fr & Brit pop pop
pro-union; deprived them of substantial earnings and import of arms and ammunition.
13. East. Battle of Bull Run 1861 won by southern rebels who c-attk and marched upto Washington
(heroism to comedy/ ladies brought out to watch).
14. Defeat at Bull Run underlined Union hopes of single victory ending CW were idle.
15. “Little Mac” George McClellan appointed as comd (self-obsessesed, over cautious).
16. 1861 lost to inaction of McClellan, in 1862 marched Army of Potomac up river James against Richmond
(confederate capital).
17. By end of May they were at gates of Richmond and prep to lay siege but Gen Lee counter attacked and
drove the Unionists back.
18. John Pope appointed by Lincoln as new comd in wake of James peninsula disaster who antagonized his
Corps and Div comds and lost resoundingly in second battle of Bull Run at the hands of Lee.
19. In view of recent success Lee invaded North, marched into Maryland and Jackson destroyed a federal force
in Virginia.
20. Mac again appointed comd, although Lee’s plans fell into Union hands Mac moved cautiously allowing
Confeds to conc forces: Antietam bloodiest single day in American military history with 20,000
casualties Mac claimed victory though at best it was a draw.
21. Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation based on limited success of battlefield on 1 Jan 1863:
slaves free in all rebellious states (dir attk on social structure of S).
22. Ambrose Burnside appointed as comd (as Mac opposed to freedom of slaves) recklessly threw his forces
against Fredericksburg and was subsequently sacked.
23. West. Gen Ulysses Grant gained success in west opened up Cumberland and Tennessee rivers by
destroying forts (Henry & Donelson) holding them and advanced upto Alabama, secured Kentucky, cut
off the only east-west railroad in confederacy.
24. At Shiloh, Ulysses fought against Johnston, caught by surprise on first day but reinforced by Buell during
night. Drove confederates off the field on second day second significant victory of war.
25. Two days at Shiloh saw terrible cas & exposed the inadequacy of Napoleonic tactics to accommodate
tech advancements (N realized complete conquest was req).
26. After Shiloh & Antietam: def digging trenches while attk-er confronting the prob of Xing killing zone.
27. Victory at Shiloh opened up adv to open river Mississippi, navy already seized New Orleans, Halleck
assumed comd of Grant and Buell armies and advanced even more slowly than Mac.
28. Confederates counter attacked in Tennessee and Kentucky reached Ohio river.
29. Grant advanced on Vicksburg to control river Mississippi but failed in opening moves.
30. East. In 1863, Hooker (pro-coup) assumed comd and advanced against Lee, caught him by surprise but
Lee recovered, divided his army and hit Hooker’s flank at Chancellorsville; only evening saved entire
Union right fom collapse; Hooker could not recover and ordered retreat.

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31. South faced with two options Lee wanted to invade north while others wanted to reinforce west where
Grant had trapped a Confed army at Vicksburg: loss of maj army & Mississipi.
32. Lee won and marched the Army of Northern Virginia to Pennsylvania; Meade (old snapping turtle)
new comd of Army of Potomac went in pursuit, both armies fought for three days in classic encounter
battle at Gettysburg.
33. First day Confederates, second day draw, third day Union as Lee withdrew: only saved by bayonet charge
to keep intact Union left flk.
34. Lee’s defeat at Pennsylvania orchestrated defeat in west where Confederates lost Mississippi and
Tennessee opened up for invasion; disregarded tac realities/ strat sit of S.
35. West. Weight of the war shifted west in 1863.
36. Grant started spring campaign with stunning mov: sailed past Vicksburg cutting off his line of
communication separated the two southern armies and besieged Vicksburg which surrendered on 4 Jul,
1863 and opened up Mississippi.
37. Halleck dismissed Grant’s request to move against the crucial port of Mobile and distributed his forces
among other commands.
38. By Aug, Rosecrans (Union) maneuvered Bragg (Confederate) out of Tennessee but Georgia held on
reinforced by Longstreet’s Corps from east sent by Lee.
39. At Battle of Chickamauga, Longstreet’s attack penetrated union defense resulting in a great south victory
(incompetence of staff offrs, Rosecrans inability to get along with sub-ord). Rosecrans withdrew only
to be besieged at Chattanooga.
40. Lincoln responded by giving Grant command of entire western theatre, 2x corps sent from east (Army
of Potomac) to reinforce west.
41. Grant concentrated forces in Chattanooga, opened up supply lines and then attacked Bragg. Flanking
attacks were partially successful but probing attack by George Thomas succeeded: restored balance in the
west.
42. In stark contrast of success in W & failure in E: Grant was appointed commander in chief of all Union
forces and made Lt Gen who planned to attack on all fronts to end the war.
43. In 1862, Lincoln strat for N to pressurize S in all theatres downplayed by Lil Mac.
44. 1864. In east, Army of Potomac would attack Army of Northern Virginia, Army of James would strike
south of Richmond to cut off Lee from supplies, one army would move down the Shenandoah.
45. In the west, Sherman would move against Johnston’s army of Tennessee, Banks would move against
Mobile and force Johnston to divide his forces.
46. War would have ended in 1864 but Banks, Butler and Siegel pol gens lacking competence to play their
part and it all rested on Sherman and Grant.
47. Grant did not complain as he realized their pol importance for re-elec of Lincoln in Nov, 1864.
48. Grant placed himself with Army of Potomac perhaps the unluckiest army in US history in terms of
missed opportunities: did not win decisive engagement till Battle of Five Forks in 1865.
49. Defeat of South: four basic elms blockade of coast, capture of Richmond, opening of Mississippi &
bringing war home to S eco/pop.
50. Army of Potomac barely survived a flank attack in Battle of Wilderness, Grants attempt to outflank Lee
missed by narrow margin and a second killing battle ensued as Confederates reached Spotsylvania
Courthouse. Sedgwick sniped by rebel.
51. One week of fighting left both armies exhausted, Grant tried to cut off Lee by capturing Petersburg and
break S LofComm but failed.
52. Success would have forced Lee to abandon Virginia/Richmond & wdr to NCaro; however by now Lee’s
Army had lost its potential to undertake offensive ops.
53. So everything now came down to what Sherman could achieve against Johnston; In May Sherman
began his offensive against Atlanta, out maneuvered Johnston but failed to achieve significant success.

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54. Hood appointed by Confederates in place of Johnston, launched three savage attacks to regain the
offensive edge but was repulsed by Sherman and forced Hood to abandon Atlanta (blamed failure on lack
of offn spirit in tps).
55. Sherman’s capture of Atlanta was crucial to Lincoln’s re-election; cas suffered by S during Hood attks
highlt S was still willing to suffer terrible losses in pursuit of indep.
56. Hood moved to cut off Sherman’s supply lines but innovatively he moved into Georgia severing it
himself in march to the sea.
57. Hood pursued Thomas’s force (other part of Sherman’s force) to Franklin where the entrenched Federals
inflicted heavy losses on Confederates; Hood then proceeded to Nashville where Thomas destroyed the
remnants of the Confederate Army.
58. Sherman marched through Georgia & South Carolina inflicting heavy collateral damage and sending
message to Confederates that their homes were not safe and destroying their will to fight; Chimneyvilles
left in wake of adv.
59. Grant unleashed Sheridan (very capable battle fd comd) on Shenandoah with orders to lay waste to the
land. Wherever they moved they destroyed the institution of slavery.
60. By early 1865, the position of Confederacy was hopeless; re-elec of Lincoln in autumn 1864 removed its
last hope.
61. Union armies moved at will through Confederate states, Lee’s army was weakened by desertion, Sherman
wrecked South Carolina with passion as it was the first state to start the war of secession by firing on
Fort Sumter four years ago.
62. North Carolina soon fell under pressure and the last Confederate port Fort Fisher fell to a comb navy-
army op.
63. Lee’s position at Petersburg collapsed after defeat in Battle of Five Forks and he surrendered; he
assumed the role of statesman urging cty-men to accept the results.
64. Before 1861: “United States are” after 1865: “United States is”.
65. Civil war was the first modern war to approach the boundaries of total war built on popular support and
industrialization.
66. Maint of united nation in N America crucial to winning both world wars against Ger.
67. 625,000 soldiers died on both sides indicating that new technology could feed the battlefield almost
indefinitely and future wars would have heavy toll in lives.
68. War of attrition was North strategy rather than decisive battle aimed at breaking the popular will of the
South.
Bismarck’s Wars
1. Series of wars to achieve unification of German under Prussian leadership to learn diff lessons from ACW:
neither tac nor tech superiority of Prussian armies but brilliance of statesmanship & professionalization
of offr corps.
2. Success relied on trained officer Corps by Kriegsakademie (War College) estb after loss at Jena-
Auerstadt in 1806.
3. Success in managing myriad details in fighting Nap prevented dismantling of Kriegsakademie.
4. Helmut von Moltke appointed as CGS in 1858 pushed for laying of strategic railways throughout
Germany. By 1860 Prussia had 3500 miles of railway.
5. Prussian army’s advantage lay in speedy mob, depl and sp of its forces and adopting of breech-load rifle
which allowed soldiers to load 3-4 times faster while lying down.
6. Otto von Bismarck sized up the weakness in Europe: Britain had removed itself from continental affairs
after Crimean War, Austria and Russia were at odds, French had no strat policy.
7. Austro-Prussian War. Danish king died without heir and in 1864, the German confederation refused to
recognize the Dutch claims to the duchies of Schleswig-Holstein (first opportunity for Bismarck).

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8. Allied armies of German states captured the duchies and Bismarck wanted to negotiate with the Austrians
as lines of communication ran through Prussian territory but they instead courted war not realizing
potential of Prussian army.
9. Fr believed that Austro-Prussian would be prolonged affair in which they could intervene to advtg.
10. Prussia Disadvtgs: other states rallied to Austria; Prussian territory was divided in two and Bohemia
provided a good launching pad for Austrian forces to attack Berlin.
11. Moltke capitalized on the challenges, a Prussian army disposed of Hanover and united the Prussian
territory.
12. In Jun 1866, utilizing the railway sys Moltke deployed 3x German armies on Austrian front with the
intention of uniting them in Bohemia.
13. Austrians gathered in Bohemia slowly due to casual apch to profession of arms and Westernmost
Prussian army overran Saxony. 1:5 ratio for casualties due to needle gun.
14. Austrian army commanded by Prince Benedek numbered 190,000 with 25,000 saxons in sp whereas
Prussian forces with two armies was 200,000 plus.
15. Battle of Konniggratz began on 3 Jul 1866, Benedek ordered used of superior artillery to keep troops
safe from needle gun but on ground commanders launched rptd counter attacks to dislodge limited success
gained by 7th Prussian Army Div.
16. 49 out of 59 Bns used 28 annihilated and Austrian right wing wrecked by superior Prussian firepower.
17. Elbe army worked around the left flank and Benedek army was all but surrounded by Prussian forces.
Austrian 40,000 dead & 20,000 POWs.
18. Road to Vienna and destruction of Habsburg monarchy was imminent but Bismarck halted the
Prussian advance and opened negotiations; knowing that prolonged war would benefit French and
Russians who could jump in at any advantageous moment.
19. Bismarck’s inspired statesmanship ensured that: Prussia absorbed north German states and con mil and
foreign policy of South German states; Austria did not lose any territory so they accepted and the deal
completely excluded the French.
20. Bismarck felt no great desire to create unified Ger as S was bastion of two of his great hates liberalism
& cathoclisim.
21. Franco-Prussian War. French refused to accept the results of 1866 and tried to buy the duchy of
Luxembourg but British and German protests forced them to back down; diplomatic setback did not end
Fr interference in S Ger.
22. Napoleon-III was faced with pressure at home to liberalize the constitution and set to relieve it by
diverting attention to mil success.
23. Prussian army had the advantage of mob and depl armies rapidly by virtue of their staff work and
railroad sys; effective reservist sys, Moltke OS op comd, snr offrs experienced.
24. French enjoyed the advantage of the chassepot gun (superior to the needle gun) and the mitrailleuse (first
machine gun) but the Prussians had improved their artillery (new steel breech-loaded cannons).
25. Bismarck manipulated minor incident and France declared war: both sides mobilized. French 224,000
sldrs as compared to 380,000 Prussian on frontier and 95,000 watching Austria.
26. Napoleon-III org two armies under field marshals who lacked the experience and staff/ logistics to fd such
magnitude of forces.
27. French op ineptitude counter-balanced their success on the tac B fd.
28. On 6 Aug, Prussian army bested the French at Wissenberg, 6,000 cas on both sides but Prussian army was
able to get around Marshal MacMahon’s army and forced them to retreat.
29. Marshal Bazaine army came under attack from Prussian First and Second Armies interposed between the
two French armies by Moltke. On the heights of Spickern the French inflicted 5,000 cas and suffered
3,000.
30. Encounter battle at Mars-la-Tour: Prussians were close to enveloping their opponents, French 16,000 cas
and Prussians 17,000.

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31. Bazaine retreated northwards increasing chances of encirclement and two days later the forces entangled
again at St Privat. Bazaine’s 6 Corps of 23,000 held off 100,000 Prussians which if rft would have
converted tac success into op significance.
32. French possessed the advantage at this time as two Prussian Corps entangled at Gravelotte and French
smashed the German attack so decisively that it collapsed.
33. Germans lost 20,163 and French only 12,273 a counter attk at this point could have reversed the gains
of Prussians but local comd failed to react and Bazaine like Lil Mac at Antietam did not intervene.
34. Bazaine pulled back his force to Metz allowing the Prussians to entrap his entire force which proved to be
political disaster for Napoleon-III who rode out with all his might.
35. MacMahon lead alongwith the emperor, the army maneuvered along the Belgian frontier perhaps the most
unfortunate route of apch.
36. Moltke moved his Army around the flank and trapped and destroyed the second French army at
Sedan with arty: which marked the end of the Second Empire.
37. With the destruction of Metz pocket Moltke moved on Paris, French attempted to put back their army
together by levee en masse enlisting nationalists as France was declared a republic (all professional sldrs
were in Prussian PoW camps).
38. Siege of Paris began and Bismarck ordered bombardment to force the French to the negotiations table.
39. A short guerilla war ensued on Prussian lines of comm with hy cas and no gains which further
embittered the war.
40. French surrendered to the logic of its sit but also under threat of revolution in Paris but the peace that
resulted had severe repercussions.
41. Firstly, occupation of Alsace and Lorraine by Germans created a permanent rift in the two nations.
42. Secondly, it gave wrong msg to Eur gen/statesmen wars in modern age would be brief/ relatively painless;
missed remarkable statesmanship of Bismarck; gross incompetence of Prussia’s opponent at start/op
lvls.
43. Most dangerous result was impact on Ger who believed they had won because of their prowess on Bfd;
discounting Bismarck’s pol/strat realism & restraint; convinced Ger that mil/op concerns should always
outweigh strat/pol factors.
44. The new German Empire proclaimed in the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles.
CHAPTER 13: TOWARDS WORLD WAR
43 Yrs Gap
1. 43 yrs gap b/w Franco-Prussian War & WW-II unprecedented peace in Eur: common interest among
European powers in expanding their colonial rule in Asia, Africa and Pacific.
2. Acceleration of industrialization in US, Europe and Russia participated in expansion of W eco power
which provided resources for the catastrophic wars of 20th century.
3. Western sys rested on competition between distinct national states with the exception of Austria-Hungary
(Habsburg monarchy).
4. Political sys could not reign in the mil and economic power which fueled nationalist ambitions regardless
of pol/ strat consequences.
5. In contrast to broad sophistication of Prussian offrs in 1813 the new European mil ldrs viewed the world
with a narrowing view.
6. Two causes attributed: inc complexity of societies/ mil orgs and tech revolution.
7. European armies followed the German model of professionalization of offrs careers and staff colleges
founded at Camberley (UK) and Leavenworth (US) but the Royal Navy lacked a staff college and proper
naval staff till 1911.

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8. Probs confronting gens before WW-I: no major war since 1871, rapid tech advancement which rendered
obsolete every tac op concept, reliance on civ wildly inaccurate est of eco and pol stability of Europe.
9. Tech advancements more pronounced on navy (advent of cruisers /destroyers /submarines /ac carriers)
while armies retained the tac and op concepts of 19th century.
10. Generation of peace before 1914 prevented Eur gens from full understanding implications of murderous
comb of tech & conscription.
British Campaigns
1. As the greatest col power Britain was involved in the largest no of conflicts with non-Eur.
2. Constr of Suez Canal gave Egypt a cen posn in British Empire because of the LofComm to ind.
3. In 1882, severe anti-western rioting in Alexandria prompted British intervention.
4. Sir Garnet Wolseley launched a surprise attk and crushed Egyptian Army at Tel-el-Kebir finishing the war
and placing Egypt under British rule for the next 74 yrs.
5. In 1883, followers of the Islamic fundamentalist ruler The Mahdi wiped out an Egyptian army of 10,000
and thus preserved independence of Sudan for another decade.
6. In 1896, the British started a systematic conquest of the region under Gen Horatio Kitchener who was sp
by a railroad constr as he advanced.
7. At Omdurman, 40,000 dervishes & 26,000 Anglo-Egyptian tps but superior firepower prevailed; 21st
Lancers launched one of the last cav charges of history to crush the dervish attk, British 500 while
30,000 Sudanese cas.
8. South Africa would have drifted into oblivion for the British after the constr of Suez Canal but for the
discovery of the world’s greatest lode of diamonds along Orange River.
9. In Apr 1877, the British annexed Transvaal a Boer stronghold and acquired the loc probs with Zulu
neighbors.
10. Zulu king Shaka had created a very efficient mil sys and could fd 40,000 warriors but possessing arms/tac
cap of primitive romans: Zulu impis march long dist, cam, fortitude.
11. In 1879, Lord Chelmsford set out to punish the Zulus but they moved around his adv forces and attk the
base camp at Isandhlwana on 22 Jan slaughtering almost everyone (sup sys based on written chits for
ammo as it was exp).
12. Later that day, 100 British sldrs at a small outpost of Rorke’s Drift held off waves of zulu warriors in an
epic defence.
13. On 4 Jul 1879, Chelsmford reached Zulu capital (4,200 European & 1,000 native sldrs) and faced off zulu
impis of 10,000 sldrs; Eur slaughtered the attk-ers and broke the back of Zulu power.
14. In 1880, the Boers rose in Transvaal within a month they had invaded Natal and defeated the British
forces.
15. In Feb 1881, Boers caught the British in the open and inflicted a second defeat forcing the British to
accept their independent republic.
16. The discovery gold in Transvaal in 1886 further added to the worth of Boer Republics.
17. Through the annexation of Zulu territory in 1887 the British were cutting off the Boer’s access to the
ocean.
18. Boers did not have a regular army; they had guerillas with modern rifles who were excellent marksmen.
19. Boers aware of the British buildup initiated hostilities by invading Natal in Oct 1899 thereby forfeiting
possibility of manipulating British pub opinion in their favor.
20. Eur sympathy lay with Boers but Royal Navy prevented this sympathy from turning into meaningful sp.
21. Boer columns soon isolated both Mafeking and Kimberley and within a month trapped a third force at
Ladysmith.
22. By the end of Nov, Gen Metheun with 10,000 tps fought his way to the Modden River in an effort to reach
Kimberley but lost 500 men while the Boers scarcely lost a man.

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23. In the second wk of Dec 1989, British suffered a series of defeats collectively known as the “Black
Week”.
24. On 10 Dec, Boers ambushed a column under Sir William Gatarce near Stormberg and inflicted hy cas. At
Magersfontein the same day, Metheun launched attks on entrenched Boer posns with no success (210 dead
& 675 wounded).
25. On 15 Dec, Gen Redvers Buller Comd-in-Chief at South Africa tried to turn the flank of Boer forces
after crossing Tugela River but failed as Boer rfn devastated their columns: British arty failed to make
out def posns.
26. Boers lost 50 men whereas the attackers 143 dead, 756 wounded and 220 missing.
27. Boers lack of discp and trg dissuaded them from converting victories to genuine success; the commandos
disbanded thinking that the war was over as the British withdrew.
28. British rallied tps from Britain, Canada, Australia, New Zealand to save face while Buller made two
botched attempts to break through Boer posns at Spion Kop and Vaal Kranz.
29. Gen Roberts assumed comd of the force with Kitchener as COS and used cav to outflank Boer posns.
30. In Feb 1900, British relieved Kimberley and broke the maj Boer force in Magersfontein.
31. Kitchener launched a direct attk on en laager at Paardeburg which failed (320 killed, 1,000 wounded).
32. Boers could have escaped but their comd Piet Cronje refused to abandon his wounded and by the end of
the month Roberts had captured Cronje’s Boers.
33. Buller broke across the Tulega River and relieved Ladysmith; British soon finished off the Boer republics
and annexed the Orange Free state in May and Transvaal in Sep, 1900.
34. Boers now resorted to guerilla warfare hitting sup & comm lines. British turned on the civ population
on whom the Boer guerillas depended.
35. 120,000 Boer women/children were placed in camps where 20,000 perished.
36. Persecution of the civ populace (beastliness) eventually broke the guerillas and in May 1902, Boers
accepted British sovereignty.
37. British won because of their willingness to conc power in South Africa: 300,000 sldrs.
38. Boer War had a considerable impact on British Army as it resulted in emphasis on inf trg which came out
useful in 1914 but it had little if any eff on the officer corps but it did little to change basic attitude in the
offr corps.
US Conquest of the West
1. Native Americans were skilled fighters but lacked the org ability and cap to sustain a conflict; US sought
to end the frontier in the west and bring civilization to the entire area.
2. Mid 1870’s largest police action against the Sioux; In Jun 1876, US tps fought a pitched battle with the
Sioux under Crazy Horse.
3. Custer was sent with 7th Cav to cut off the Sioux, but he violated orders and attk the main Indian camp:
Custer and his tps perished in this attempt.
4. The victorious Sioux continued to elude the US tps and the campaign prolonged into winter; In Nov 1876,
US tps discovered the main Indian encampments and in a surprise night attk destroyed its inhabitants.
5. In Jan 1877, US tps caught up with Crazy Horse (ldr of the Sioux) and stampeded his camp breaking the
Sioux resistance.
6. Nez Perce tribe of Oregon led by Chief Joseph was more defiant than the Sioux; In the summer of 1877,
Joseph led 300 warriors and 700 tribesmen and fought his way through superior number of US sldrs to
reach Montana.
7. Seeking sanctuary in Canada the Nez Perce were finally intercepted at Eagle Creek where a US force of
ratio 10:1 forced them to surrender.

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8. Ten yrs later the US were fighting a guerilla war against the Apaches in Arizona particularly frustrating
was their ability to cover long dist on foot and only by massing enormous forces in the region were they
able to succeed.
Misc
1. Russians waged campaigns in Central Asia; French having brought Algeria under control by 1847
expanded their empire to incl Indo-China and territories in Central Africa.
2. Ottoman Empire continued its long decline towards extinction in WW-I; In 1876, the Turks put down a
rebellion by the Christians in Bosnia; Serbs joined to help but were defeated.
3. In 1877, the Russians intervened by seizing the mouth of the Danube and then won a series of victories
over the Turks adv rapidly to destroy Turkish con in the Balkans.
4. Russians halted to attk the fortress of Plevna which they conquered in five months and carried their
campaign to the gates of Constantinople.
5. Maj powers intervened at this point to prevent Russia from reaping the fruits of its victory.
6. Treaty of San Stefano (1878) recognized the independent states of Serbia, Montenegro, Romania whereas
Bulgaria became autonomous.
7. Europeans remained too fragmented to complete the destruction of the Ottoman Empire who maint its
presence in Europe and con over Middle East.
Russo-Japanese War
1. Of the non-western civilizations only the Japanese adapted the wpns of the West and turned them against
their developers.
2. From early 17th century the Tokugawa shoguns having destroyed their rivals sought to demilitarize
Japanese society while discouraging cntct with outside world; foreign trade conc in remote part of
Nagasaki.
3. Japan prospered due to two centuries of peace, did not possess power driven machines but had skilled cfn
and efficient commercial and fin nw.
4. US exerted pressure to open Japan to world trade first in 1853. Tokugawa regime fell in 1868 and the new
ldrs realized that Japan must adapt or succumb.
5. Within qtr of a century the cty had modernized so effectively that it was able to fd forces on the Asian
mainland; with navy trained by British, army by Germans they routed the Chinese (1894-95).
6. Japanese acquired Formosa and lost direct con over Korea due to Russian interference.
7. Racial prejudice would lead the West to under-est Japs right down to PH in 1941.
8. Over the next decade Japan and Tsarist Russia mov towards conflict as they aimed to con Korea and
Manchuria; but Russia was tipped to win easily.
9. Russia faced two probs: depl of forces across Siberia was restricted at Lake Baikal on the Trans-
Siberian rly and Nicholas-II policies had precipitated Russia into revolution.
10. Japanese could muster 250,000 men on Asian mainland & res could double those forces whereas Russians
only had 10,000 sldrs east of Baikal and req laborious sup and buildup.
11. On the naval side the Japanese had a superior fleet in the Asian waters whereas the Russian Baltic fleet
faced an extraordinary journey to reach the Pacific.
12. Japanese had a def alliance with British which provided them security and Russia could not receive
direct help from French without bringing British in the war.
13. In Feb 1904, Japanese torpedo boats attk the Russian fleet in Port Arthur before the declaration power;
the attk-er sank a few vessels they also attk Russian ships at Inchon.
14. One wk later, the Japanese First Army landed and seized Seoul. With a firm base in Korea they mov north
to Yalu and dir mil action against Russian tps in Manchuria.
15. Russian comd Gen Kuropatkin planned to wdr into depths of Manchuria and allow Port Arthur to
stand siege as he awaited rft across Siberia but Tsar ordered him to attk.

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16. Consequently, Japanese first army inflicted defeat on the Russians def Yalu.
17. Second Japanese army landed NE of Port Arthur on Liaotung Peninsula and third army landed west of Yalu
as they prep to lay siege to Port Arthur while screening the siege from the Russian forces in Manchuria:
resembled siege of Sebastopol 1854-5.
18. In late May 1904, Japanese forces launched first attk and drove the Russians from the hts at Nanshan
while suffering cas to the ratio 3:1.
19. Russians were well stocked and in a str posn to last the siege, but in mid-Aug Japanese launched a massive
attk capturing crucial Russian posns (15,000 Japs, 3,000 Russian cas).
20. Japs launched attks in Sep, Oct & Nov with no significant gain and hy losses.
21. Japs then conc on occupying 203 Metre Hill the lynchpin of Russian def and managed to capture it by 5
Dec but suffering 11,000 cas in the process.
22. Possession of the hill allowed Jap arty to destroy the remnants of Russia’s Far Eastern fleet but they
could not force complete surrender till Jan, 1905.
23. In Jun 1904, fighting had also commenced in Manchuria. The battle of Liaoyang took place in late Aug
with Japs at 125,000 and Russians 158,000 after first rft from Siberia.
24. Russians attk first but Jap ctr attk forced them to reconsider; cas on both sides were almost equal (Japs
23,000 & Russians 20,000) but Russia conceded defeat.
25. In Oct, Russian forces built up to 200,000 while Japs were 170,000. At Sha-Ho Russians attk Jap right to
cut-off lines of comm but Jap ctr-attk the centre almost breaking through.
26. Kuropatkin stopped the attk and shored up the centre, Russians suffered more hy cas: 40,000 as
compared to 20,000 Japs.
27. By mid-Jan 1905, Russian forces had built up to 300,000 while Japs were 220,000 despite Manchurian
winter. On 26/27 Jan Russians attk and were close to breaking through but a snowstorm saved the Japs.
28. By the end of Feb, Japs rft from Port Arthur finally made the two armies equal at 310,000.
29. On 21 Feb, the battle of Mukden began with Fd Marshal Oyama launched the Third army to out flk the
Russians.
30. Entire campaign focused on outflk opponents but speed of adv tps & lethality of wpns made it inevitable
that such attempts would fail.
31. The Japs put the Russians in dire straits and their entire res were committed to save the sit.
32. After two weeks of fighting the Japs entered Mukden having thoroughly defeated the Russians who went
into gen retreat three days later (Russians 100,000 & Japs 70,000 cas).
33. Russian Baltic fleet embarked on an epic 20,000 miles journey to relieve Port Arthur as fighting raged
on in Manchuria (lacked trg/ material prep).
34. 32x Russian vessels reached the Tsushima Straits on 27 May 1905 only to find themselves outnumbered
and out maneuvered.
35. Fleet action lasted through the ni where Jap superiority was even more pronounced and although a few
vessels managed to escape the Russian Baltic fleet ceased to exist.
36. Russia came on the brink of revolution and the defeat at the hands of the Japs served as the last straw
but Nicholas regime did not fall, Japs were also at the brink of fin collapse.
37. In Sep 1905, both sides accepted a peace accord brokered by Theodore Roosevelt: Russians abandoned
Port Arthur, Korea and Manchuria.
38. After defeat in Asia Russians now focused their mil ambitions towards Europe and the Balkans.
39. War in Manchuria reflected what was to be expected in WW-I, dominant firepower killed sldrs in large
qty; it also cfm the belief that nations could not withstand eco/pol pressures over a prolonged pd of time
(Russian at brink of revolution, Jap fin collapse).
40. Lesson learnt was tht nation must win the war at the outset using every ounce of power.
Road to Armageddon
1. WChurchill: defective con of indls on world fortunes, more error than design.

11
2. Bismarck’s strat triumphs had placed Germany at a unique posn in Europe, but his successors lacked the
pol wisdom to inhibit the use of force; partly Bismarck’s fault as he created state with no constitutional
con over mil instrument.
3. While Bismarck had treated mil like a tool after his dismissal by the Kaiser Wilhelm–II in 1890 the mil
was worshipped; believed Ger possessed infinite potential & by virtue of that potential a place in the sun.
4. Snr German officials dispensed with Clausewitz’s belief in primacy of strat and considered op necessity
alone.
5. German Foreign Office persuaded Wilhelm to dispense with “Reinsurance Treaty” with Russia signed in
1887 promising neutrality in case of war with third party.
6. They could not foresee Russia and France as allies but one year later they had become allies and
Germany faced the likelihood of a two-front war (Tsar standing bareheaded for new Fr rev anthem
Marseillaise).
7. In 1894, Kaiser realized true supremacy rested in the creation of a great fleet as prophesized by Alfred
Thayer Mahan (US) in his works.
8. In 1897, he found Admiral Tirpitz who possessed the ambition and pol acumen to carry out his dreams.
9. Tirpitz assumed wrongfully: British would not join the arms race, British would not ally with Russia &
France, and German fleet would eventually defeat the Royal Navy.
10. Ger never devised a plan right down to the outbreak of war in 1914 of how they would use their navy if
British did not launch a close blockade of Ger ports.
11. Geo had given the British an unassailable naval posn from which they could block the Germans in the
English Ch/ exits from North Sea and shield their own trade routes.
12. In 1906, Admiral Fisher intro the dreadnought rendering all other battleships obsolete.
13. In 1902, alliance with Jap, In 1904, the British in view of German naval build-up entered in to entente
with France (Ger responded by creating diplomatic crisis in Morocco).
14. In 1907, a similar entente with the Russians: these actions allowed British to conc their fleet in North
Sea against Germans.
15. Britain strengthened its ties with France and in 1912 they pulled Mediterranean fleet into North Sea in
return for the British promise to protect French interests in Atlantic Fr agreed to prot British interests in
the Med.
16. Largest cmt not reported to the whole cabinet: British Expeditionary force was to be sent to France if
need arose.
17. Germany did not desist from its armament progm that endangered Reich’s long rg strat interests but till
1913 lacked sufficient tps to implement the Schlieffen plan which was the mainstay.
18. Two reasons: staff failed to give complete war picture to ministry and the offr corps was reluctant to
relinquish con of the aristocracy on mil in an expanding army with inc middle cl offrs diluting offr corps.
19. Kaised lacked cen auth to run the army.
20. 1n 1912, Col Ludendorff finally succeeded in getting inc in army auth which inc in peace time from
544,000 to 877,000 (165,000 inducted in 1912 and 1913). Thus the army would have enough tps in 1914
(Ludendorff removed from gen staff posted to obscure comd).
21. Series of crises in the Balkans provided the basis for the War. Weakness of the Ottoman Empire
appealed to both the Russians and Austrians for exploitation.
22. 1n 1903, nationalist offrs seized power in Serbia pursuing anti-Austria policy, sp by Russia and France.
23. In 1908, the Austrians made a deal with Russia to isolate Serbia in which Austria got Bosnia-
Herzegovina in return for opening Bosporus for Russian ships.
24. Austria annexed Bosnia but world powers intervened so that Russia got nothing and an active role was
played by Kaiser in humiliating them.
25. In 1911, trouble in Balkans cont as Italians attk Libya (Turkish province) this prompted the Balkan
states to attk Turks and Serbia, Bulgaria, Montenegro and Greece all participated.
26. Thieves fell out amongst each other over spoils and Serbia, Greece, Montenegro and even Romania banded
together to pummel Bulgaria even Turks joined in.

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27. Serbians doubled their estate but Austrians prevented them from reaching the Adriatic, once again the
Germans deterred the Russians from sp Serbia who conceded.
28. Ger in grave danger internally as Soc Dems became largest pol party in Reich.
29. Externally: Austria was the last significant ally of the Germans on the continent as British(naval race
no closer to resolution), Russians (def progm for completion in 1917 to proj mil power in Eur) and French
(improving gr forces) had all banded together.
30. Habsburg monarchy only power in Eur that did not base its legitimacy on nationalism was under threat
from inside as Czechs, Poles and Slovaks clamoured for independence and even the Hungarians were not
reliable.
31. Germany grasped most eagerly at war as highlt in 1912 conf between the Kaiser and the CGS Moltke who
urged preventive war “the sooner the better”.
32. On 28 Jun, 1914 that chance occurred when a gp of Ts trained sp and org by Serbia assassinated the
Austro-Hungarian heir as he visited the newly annexed Bosnia.
33. Austria hesitated investigating the incident with traditional incompetence, Europe was outraged, British
tried to mediate, and Germany played a double game urging Austria to take decisive action against
Serbia.
34. Austria issued ultimatum to Serbia on 23 Jul and declared war on 28 Jul but, Austrian incompetence
prevented war for another two wks while they shelled Belgrade to ensure that the Rubicon remained
crossed.
35. Russians confronted with sit that surrender to Ger/Austrian pressure would do irremediable harm to its
interests in the Balkans.
36. Of all plans for that Eur armies cast before 1914 only Britain did not expect its army to achieve decisive
results. (foresaw sp decisive Fr offn to defeat Ger).
37. Experts believed that the next war would be short as states could not eco/ pol sp a long war and so strat
was to win quickly before pol/ fin collapse.
38. Foremost example of pol assumptions comb with mil perceptions to produce strat disaster is Schlieffen
Plan.
39. Schlieffen plan reflected the str and weaknesses of the German way of war it was formulated by Alfred
von Schlieffen who became CGS in 1891.
40. Faced with the possibility of two front war with Russia and France he concluded that the vastness of
Russia prevented a single decisive victory.
41. France had solid barrier of fortresses on the border with Germany but Schlieffen realized that envelopment
was the only route to decisive victory like Hannibal at Canae.
42. He proposed to sweep around the fortifications by invading Belgium, out flank the French defenses and
destroy the French army in a single gigantic envelopment East of Paris; Russia could then be dealt with
leisurely.
43. Most obvious weakness lay in strat: violation of Belgian neut.
44. The Schlieffen plan rested on a short duration war in which even if Britain interfered its army would be
swept up with the French and indifference of the US on violation of Belgian neutrality.
45. Schlieffen plan depended on the en fol actions chalked out: French committing to the invasion of Alsace-
Lorraine, Belgium acceding to German invasion (any serious Belgian resistance would confront Ger
with enormous log probs).
46. Moreover it did not account for the prob of Paris as to where the tps to blockade the city would come from
and would the French army not have enough time to redeploy.
47. Moltke the new CGS modified by the Schlieffen plan by adding tps to the centre and left but left the
right as str. The most disastrous tinkering was discarding altn plan for attk on Russia for an offn depl
against Russia.
48. Ger opening mov would be made in the West; three armies would fan out from Liege to be taken by M-12;
Brussels subdued by M-19; Fr frontier X-ed by M-22; Paris captured by M-39: Fr knocked out of war in
six wks time req by Russia for complete mob so forces could now swing E to meet Russia in E Prussia.

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49. Russia had backed down twice before the Austrian-German pressure in the last decade they were not
prep to do it again.
50. When the Tsar made half-hearted mob of his forces on the Austrian side only, the generals convinced him
that this would give Germans the advantage.
51. When Russia ordered full-scale mob on 30 Jul the Germans acted, the Kaiser ordered mob on 1 Aug
and war as dictated by the Schlieffen plan.
52. French also announced mob and assured Germans that their forces would stay behind the frontier which
was irrelevant as when Germany declared war on France on 3 Aug its tps were already in Luxembourg
and Belgium in sp of Austria’s claims against Serbia.
CHAPTER 14: THE WEST AT WAR
1. German resilience in the face of three greatest powers of the world Britain, France, Russia sp by US
achieved total victory in E & at one pt were close to it in W.
2. Despite their op/tac skills not overcome the flawed strat and weight of coalition.
3. Russians aimed to grab East Prussia and deal Austria a crushing blow while the French aimed to drive
through Alsace-Lorraine to the Rhineland; Fr mistook size/ power of Ger main attk through Belgium.
1914: The Opening Moves
4. West. 4 Aug 1914, one million German tps started the invasion of Belgium, consequently the British in
view of their cmt to France imed declared war.
5. Germans had to gain Liege (eastern province of Belgium) and its gap to depl its forces: three armies of 32
Divs against Fr left.
6. Col Ludendorff drove into Liege which surrendered on 16 Aug having been wrecked by mortars.
Ludendorff appt as COS of East Prussian forces.
7. Wdr of Belgian Army to Antwerp threatened the German flk so two corps were det to deal with the
threat.
8. Belgians sabotaged rds, wrecked comm, blew up rly tunnels/ brs and sniped at the en; Germans retaliated
by bombing Louvain (univ town) and shooting civs: 664 at Dinant and 150 Aerschot.
9. French fol their strat Plan XVII prep by Joseph Joffre CGS. Just as Schlieffen had anticipated French 1st
and 2nd Armies mov into Alsace-Lorraine in mid-Aug.
10. German defenders under Crown Prince Rupprecht of Bavaria slaughtered them and the French reeled back
shaken.
11. Rupprecht req permission to pursue which was granted by Moltke COS in the hope that his forces would
carry out double envelopment essentially violating the Schlieffen plan which was to roll up Fr from the
left.
12. French attk shifted into Ardennes which Germans drove back but this action pushed the French out of the
trap that Schlieffen had hoped to set.
13. Fifth Army comd Lanrezac realized the threat and wdr timely from Ardennes whereas the British EF
badly mauled at Mons on 23 Aug, also wdr.
14. Germans were poised to envelop entire Allied left but Bulow (comd right) denied Kluck (1 st Army comd)
permission to swing west and envelop BEF.
15. German adv and Allied retreated towards Paris at 20 miles/ day. Allies were falling back on their sup
dumps whereas the Germans short of resources were soon exhausted.
16. Moreover, German HC pulled two corps from the right wing because of the Russian threat in East
Prussia.
17. On 1st Sep German swung east by-passing Paris intending to finish off the French army, exposing the first
weakness of the Schlieffen plan: insufficient tps to attk or screen the capital.

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18. Joffre struck with rft he had rushed to the capital when ae recce revealed Germans had mov east of Paris
resulting in the Battle of Marne (5 – 10 Sep) involving 2 million sldrs.
19. French attk forced Kluck’s 1st Army to face west opp to Bulow’s 2 nd Army facing due east; BEF stood
poised to exploit this gap and destroy the German right wing but it mov too slowly.
20. Germans were in serious straits: right wing had fragmented, log sys had collapsed and tps were
exhausted.
21. Col Hentsch rep of Moltke sent to assess the sit ordered retreat to Aisne: Schlieffen plan had failed
France had survived.
22. On Aisne, when the front stabilized opposing armies attempted to regain freedom of maneuver by out flk
their opponents creating a ragged line of trenches to the Channel.
23. In Oct, Falkenhayn new CGS ordered offensive in Flanders to drive the Allies from Antwerp and the
Channel ports.
24. Germans took Antwerp but 6,000 remained unscathed out of 36,000 univ res corps of which Adolf Hitler
was one.
25. By Nov, opposing armies were locked in a tight embrace over 500 miles front running from Switzerland
to the Channel.
26. After 4 months of fighting 0.5 million French, British and German sldrs lay dead, resulting in a stalemate
that defined battle lines which changed minimally over the next 3 yrs.
27. East. Schlieffen had accepted the temp loss of East Prussia as Germany committed her main forces in
the west.
28. By 1914 however, Russia’s mil org had improved significantly and it managed to depl and mob two
armies that struck East Prussia.
29. Rennenkampf’s forces attk Konigsburg from east while Samsonov attk from Poland and struck north, the
two armies lacked coordination otherwise they had some prospect of capturing East Prussia and
destroying the German 8th Army.
30. Rennenkampf mov first and defeated German forces at Gumbinnen on 19-20 Aug; German comd in East
Prussia panicked, was sacked by Moltke/ Kaiser and replaced by Hindenberg as comd and Ludendorff as
COS.
31. Hoffman GSO had laid the basis of victory in the lt of sigs int that revealed Rennenkampf planned to
remain stationary and a brief window existed to destroy Samsonov as he adv from Poland.
32. Hoffman wdr most of his forces facing Rennenkampf and cocn them at Tannenberg against Samsonov; By
26 Aug, Samosnov realized his army was under threat but stayed to fight in belief that Rennenkampf
would mov rapidly to his rescue.
33. German attk overwhelmed both Samsonov’s flks, Rennenkampf failed to adv and moderate success of
Russians in the centre drove them deeper into the net.
34. By 30 Aug, Germans had destroyed Samsonov’s army and captured 92,000 Russians and 400 guns.
35. They now mov east and 8th Army chased Rennenkampf out of East Prussia inflicting hy cas on his army
as well.
36. Main Russian effort in 1914 was however dir against Austro-Hungarian empire in Galicia.
37. Austrians struck first as their COS Hotzendorf launched three armies on divergent axis into Poland: 3rd
Army fell back to its starting pt and Russians almost cut off the 4th Army.
38. Austrians eventually fought their way out and retreated in shambles.
39. In late Sep, Russians almost adv to the Hungarian Plains which could have triggered the Austrian
collapse but their adv was halted due to log probs and hy cas.
40. Both sides attempted to pick up the pieces of their wrecked war plans through autumn as fighting continued
on a front double that in the west.
41. Russian industry was incapable of restocking what the army had expended due to incompetently mob by
Nicholas II whereas it had already pushed its res eqpt/ ammo fwd mortgaging its future.
42. Germany had to bolster Austria with 18 Divs and only after desperate efforts were the combined forces of
Central Powers able to fight their adversaries to a standstill in early winter.

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43. Defeat of Austria-Hungary in autumn 1914 removed its army as a maj player on the Eastern front for the
remainder of the war.
44. In Oct 1914, Ottomans decided to attk Russia (exhausted & weakened) with offn ops in the Caucasus and
raids in Black Sea.
1915: The Year of Allied Failure
1. Towards the end of 1914, Churchill was of the opinion that only mech means could break the tac
deadlock (that would take yrs to dev).
2. West. French had to bear the brunt of fighting in the west in 1915 as British regular army had incurred
hy cas in 1914 and volunteers were not ready yet.
3. French considered morale to be the most imp factor in battle, but their tps lacked the tech, arty and tac
prowess to break through the German def.
4. In Mar & May, French launched maj attks on the Champagne front while British attk further north only to
be repulsed with hy cas (German 2nd line def in imp sectors).
5. Strat of the allied comds relied on saturation of en def with arty fire to allow attackers to cross the
killing zone but this served only to alert the Germans to mov their res.
6. Sep 1915, at Loos Sir John French of BEF succeeded in breaking through but res was placed too far and
Germans were able to close the gap before rft arr.
7. In 1915, over a million Frenchmen were killed or wounded in return for no significant gain.
8. East. In 1915, Falkenhayn decided to assume the offn in the east in view of Austrian weakness.
9. His aim was not a massive invasion of Russia but a ltd campaign to damage Russian army and push it
back so that they did not pose strat threat to Austria.
10. Ger embarked on a sophisticated effort to undermine Russian pol/mil morale which culminated in the
Russian Revolution of 1917.
11. Germans forced Russians to fight at the end of long/ inadequate lines of comm; Initial German offn came
in Galicia on 2 May 1915, Mackensen attk Russian posn b/w Gorlice and Tarnow catching them by
surprise and driving them off within two weeks.
12. In one month the Germans had adv 100 miles and captured 400,000 Russians.
13. In Jul, Falkenhayn ordered Hindenburg from north and Mackensen from south to drive the Russians out of
Poland.
14. Ludendorff COS asked for rft but was refused by Falkenhayn as he was more concerned with eliminating
Serbia (rptd failed attempts by Austria) and to deal with the British assault on the Dardanelles.
15. British assault on Dardanelles was a masterstroke (Churchill’s brainchild) which threatened Central
Powers posn in Balkans and necessitated holding back substantial res in case of an Ottoman collapse.
16. Success of Attk on Dardanelles would force Turkey from the war, open up crucial sup lines to Russia,
bring Romania & Bulgaria into the war on Allied side, provide dir sp to Serbia and create third front
against Austria-Hungary.
17. The op lacked the op/ tac exec on gr; Royal Navy’s attempt to force its way through the forts protecting
the Dardanelles were thwarted by Turkish shore btys and mines.
18. Failed attempt to reach Sea of Marmara and attk Constantinople prompted detailing of gr forces
comprising 29th Reg Div and Imperial tps in Egypt under Sir Ian Hamilton.
19. On 25 Apr 1915, Allied forces struggled ashore on the Gallipoli peninsula with no amphibious trg or
prep.
20. British tps made successful landings at some places with no en resistance but had no idea what to do and
loc comds disp no initiative.
21. They gained footholds but not the hts. At a place later called Anzac cove Aus & NZ tps landed but
moved too slowly and Col Mustafa Kemal rushed rfts to hold hts.
22. Landing settled into a murderous stalemate as modern wpns made it impossible for either side to break
the deadlock: Turks held hts & imperial tps shore.

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23. In Aug, British raised the stakes with rft Hamilton’s staff planned an impossible ni attk against the hts at
Anzac Cove in which Aus & NZ tps suffered hy cas.
24. At Suvla Bay new divs comd by Gen Stopford landed but did not occupy hts 4 miles east of Suvla by the
time they mov three days later Turks were ready.
25. These two failures sealed the fate of the Gallipoli campaign and the British wdr in winter.
26. 0.5 million Allied tps fought in the area half became cas, Bulgaria joined the CP and eliminated Serbia
by the end of the yr estb CP stranglehold over the Balkans.
27. In May, Italians joined the war against Austria miscalculating that the war was over.
28. Confronted with breaking Austrian posns in the Alps they only succeeded in throwing the poorest/ peasants
in endless offn against Austrian posns along the Isonzo River.
29. By Nov 1918, Italians had lost over 500,000 dead only to pin down for three years considerable Austro-
Hungarian tps which could have fought on the Eastern Front.
1916: The Killing War
1. At the end of 1915, Falkenhayn presented a strat memo to the Kaiser enumerating: massive struggle of
attrition against opponents with greater resources and manpower, no possibility of decisive victory in any
theatre, Britain main en but no means of striking it dir.
2. West. Fortress city of Verdun ideal tgt for breaking French morale through battle of attrition.
3. Falkenhayn con all th res; did not info the comd on gr that aslt would on Verdun was only to lead to
attrition & mov the attk on rt bank of Meuse taking away the elm of surprise.
4. Falkenhayn assumed that unprecedented use of arty would allow German forces to make substantial
gains at min cost and then slaughter all French ctr attks.
5. Initial attk came close to success as four days later on 21 Feb, 1916 the Germans captured Douaumont
(outer ring of def).
6. Germans suffered hy cas at the hands of French defenders on the bank of Meuse than expected, res did not
arr on time due to cautious policies of Falkenheyn.
7. Germans succeeded in drawing in the French to def Verdun at all costs. Petain (best gen) also brought in
who reinforced French arty on the left bank, restored morale and conducted offn def of Verdun.
8. By 1 Apr, German losses had mounted to the extent that Crown Prince (comd) recom Falkenhayn to shut
the battle down but he misled by optimistic int reports ordered a last attempt to capture the city.
9. On 7 Jun, Germans took Fort Vaux suffering 3,000 cas at the hands of 100 defenders and seemed on the
brink of success when Russian success against Austria and British offn on Somme forced Falkenheyn to
abandon offn & rush rft to other fronts.
10. French ctr attk when Germans were just 6 miles from Verdun.
11. Tac dev by Capt Laffarge emp small units and decentralized ldrship; forces under Gen Neville
recaptured Douaumont and Vaux and drove the Germans back to their start line.
12. Verdun had cost both sides 400,000 dead & 800,000 wounded split equally b/w them.
13. At a conf in Dec, 1915 the allies had chosen Somme for their maj effort in 1916 and Britain emerged as
maj player on western front as French involvement was ltd due to Verdun.
14. Sir Haig comd BEF faced two probs: strong German def (deep dugouts, low-wire entanglements) and
volunteer British tps novices in the business of war.
15. Sir Rawlinson suggested a gigantic siege and small distinct attks but Haig ordered a great arty
bombardment and massive inf attk on wrecked German posns.
16. After prep of one wk, 1,437 arty pieces fired 1.5 million shells on the German posns and on reaching its
climax on 1 Jul, fourteen British divs came on in waves on an 18 mile front.
17. Haig’s intended eff on German posns was not achieved and of the 120,000 British inf that went over the top
19,240 killed, 35,493 wounded, 2,152 missing and 585 PoW.

17
18. British focused on ltd attks after the first day and utilized their superior arty while the Germans fought to
hold onto every inch of French territory, dominated fwd edge of B Fd and ctr attk all British gains.
19. 2 Jul, onwards British inflicted equal cas ratio, Rawlinson’s 1 st Army of 22,000 men punched a hole 6000
yds wide but failure of res to mov quickly prevented break through.
20. Materialschalacht (battle of resources) highlt at Somme & Verdun was driving Germany towards
defeat.
21. Kaiser dismissed Falkenhayn in Aug and appt Hindenburg and Ludendorff (dominant); misshapen
industrial/pol policies but also recasting of Ger battle doctrine.
22. Ludendorff went to the front to gain firsthand account of battle realized that army’s tac apch was max
Ger cas; then turned the prob to expert gen staff offrs who dev new doctrine “Conduct of Def Battle” by
autumn.
23. Germans reinvented the B Fd which prolonged the war upto 1918.
24. Saleints: thin screen of machine gnrs on front posn instead of massing inf, bulk inf behind out of the reach
of arty to launch ctr attk on penetrations, inc dense series of str pts in depth and devolution of auth to Lt/
Capts to take decisions to retreat, hold or ctr attk.
25. East. Conrad suggested in early 1916 that CP should knock Italians out of the war which was turned
down by Falkenhayn.
26. Austrians without info Germans went ahead anyway siphoning off tps from the Eastern front just before
Russians launched a maj offn under desperate French pleas.
27. After successful ops against Turks in the Caucasus, the STAVKA (Russian high comd) focused on series
of ltd offn with Gen Brussilov (meticulous planner) army in the south.
28. On 4 Jun, Brussilov’s offn began and the Austrians collapsed; within two wks the Russians had captured
200,000 PoWs and adv 40 miles and only by shutting down Verdun could Falkenhayn rally enough tps
to bolster its ally.
29. Brussilov’s success prompted the Romanians to rashly declare war on the CP (assuming that Austria-
Hungary was collapsing).
30. Romanians were thrashed by rft German/ Austrian forces to gain their wheat & oil.
31. Romania’s entry into the war only served to extend the front the weary Russian forces had to defend.
32. 1916 was dismal for all players: Verdun for French, Somme for Britain, Russia on brink of revolution,
series of defeats for Austria and an unaffordable rate of attrition for Germans.
1917: The Darkest Year
1. At the end of 1916 the French replaced Joffre with Nivelle who had built up reputation as an innovator by
the def of Verdun.
2. He set out to change the battle doctrine in lt of a pamphlet written by Andre Laffarge(which had also
influenced Ger) which aimed at dev decentralized mnvr tac to break into & through en def.
3. West. Nivelle proposed a great offn thrust in spring 1917, to break through German lines at the base
of the bulge formed by en depl in France.
4. Ludendorff ordered wdr from much of the bulge allowing def to be sited in lt of new doctrine and bonus
tps aval courtesy a shortened front.
5. “Alberich” (German retreat) removed op rationale for Nivelle’s offn; but he cont with his plan
promising hope to the exhausted/ mistreated French sldrs that this op would break German army; Ger sys
of def undercut the new Fr attk tac.
6. French forces faced little difficulty in getting through the 1 st line of def as intended by Ludendorff but the
deeper they drove the higher cas they suffered.
7. By the second day 120,000 French sldrs lay dead or wounded moreover Nivelle refused to halt the offn; as
a result the tps mutinied.
8. France trembled on the brink of collapse and the ruthless George Clemenceau was sought to bring order
to Paris.

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9. Clemenceau appt Petain to rebuild the army; 23 mutineers were shot dead and 250 marched into no
man’s land and annihilated with arty.
10. Petain visited all the divisions to hear complaints and order reforms but the French army remained
incapable of maj mil offn for the remainder of 1917, rev in Russia, US just beginning mob so burden of
fighting fell on BEF.
11. Haig of BEF failed to learn from the mistakes of 1916. No centralized effort by Britains to dev coherent
doctrine unlike Germans, resp was left to indl armies.
12. Plumer’s army ex BEF achieved ltd success in its carefully planned attk emp surprise and deception by
capturing Messines Ridge in Jun 1917 having suffered light cas.
13. Haig desired a brilliant breakthrough on the Western front which could not be achieved with these tac so he
resorted to the bold and unrealistic proposals of cavalryman Gough.
14. Haig chose Flanders (U-boat bases threat to Allied shipping); his plan (like 1916) was based on
Napoleonic war: arty bombardment, inf breakthrough, cav charge to pursue en.
15. Flanders had been a swamp where drainage canals had been built and Aug brought rainfall at this precise
instant Haig planned his offn.
16. On 15 Jul 1917, British bombardment began and cont for the next sixteen days wrecking the drainage sys,
when the inf went over at Passchendaele on 31 Jul the rains started.
17. The gr had been turned to glutinous mud, bombardment had only damaged German outposts maj def posns
were intact and British initial attks gained little ground.
18. Like Somme, Passchendaele turned into a grim battle of attrition as Haig bolstered by false reports
from his int chief Charteris and COS Kiggell cont the offn.
19. On 13 Sep Plumer’s army attk with a precursor of 3.5 million arty shells with little success.
20. Haig finally called off the Passchendaele offn at the end of Oct, British cas had reached 300,000 with
imperial and French the total was 400,000; the Germans lost 270,000.
21. In Nov 1917, Haig’s leaden apch was replaced with the plan of tank corps comd Ellis to launch tank raid on
German posns away from Flanders.
22. On 20 Nov, British tanks (that first appeared in Somme) attk German posn infront of Cambrai which
collapsed (no res and Class B divs weakest in German army).
23. In one day at a cost of 5,000 cas British tks sp inf gained more gr than the entire Passchendaele offn in
three months.
24. Within a wk a murderous German ctr attk using the new offn doctrine prep by Ludendorff pushed the
British beyond their start line (no def prep, no res).
25. East. In Feb 1917, the Tsarist govt collapsed and ill-prep pol parties estb provisional republic.
Germans sent outlawed revolutionary leader Lenin back to Russia.
26. Throughout 1917-18 Germans sp Lenin and his Bolshevik party to run a campaign of subversion as he
urged imed end to war.
27. Bolshevik propaganda undermined the provisional republic and adversely affected the army’s morale; an
ill-planned offn in Jul fuelled the collapse of discp in Russian army.
28. In Jul, Bolshevik coup in St Petersburg failed but four months later gen collapse of the army and civ govt
allowed Lenin to seize power.
29. Initial negotiation failed but rapid German adv (100 miles from Russian capital in Mar, 1918) forced Lenin
to realize rev rhetoric could not halt mil might & made peace at Brest-Litovsk.
30. Russia surrendered Baltic states, Poland, Finland and much of Ukraine.
31. German territorial ambitions were limitless; Ludendorff did not tfr tps to the west instead by May, 1918
Germans had occupied rest of Ukraine, Crimea and Finland and dreamt of empire stretching to the
Urals.
32. Treaty of Brest and its aftermath underlined Ger territorial ambitions and gave hollow ring to her
protests at Treaty of Versailles injustices.
33. Germans provided a small gp of elite divs to Austria for a new attk on Italy (Italian army in shambles).

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34. 24 Oct, 1917 Austro-German offn forced collapse of first line within a day at Isonzo valley at Caporetto
(Erwin Rommel captured 10,000 italians with only a reinforced coy).
35. Italians would have had to sue for peace but considerable help from Anglo-French forces halted the adv
at Piave as Germans could not sustain a long offn in this theatre and Austria alone did not possess the str
req.
1918: The Year of Decision
1. By autumn 1917, Ludendorff’s tac experts had created a new offn doctrine “Attk in Depth” to parallel the
highly successful “Def in Depth”.
2. Forty storm troop divs received new eqpt, best NCOs/ offrs and solid dose of trg in new concepts.
3. New apch emphasized delegation of auth down to NCOs and mnvr closely tied and sp by firepower.
Tempo was key to drive into en’s rear area quickly and ruthlessly.
4. Ludendorff was faced with the challenge of winning the war with his few elite divs before the US arr
and aimed the first great blow against Gough’s 5th and Plumer’s 3rd Army.
5. Ger had admirably fought through tac probs of Bfd but had little conception of how tac success might
translate into victory.
6. BEF def was still org with inf in fwd posns in rg of arty, lack of coord b/w inf & arty and offr lacking the
trg to op independently once the comd structure broke down.
7. At 5 am on 21 Mar 1918, German offn began with 6,437 howitzers opened up on a forty mile front with a
bombardment that saturated every trench, bty posn and sup dump.
8. At 0935 3,500 trench mor added their voice to the bombardment and 5 mins later 32x divs adv and 39x divs
stood in res; over a million German sldrs in the “Michael” offn.
9. Almost imed the British def unraveled and by the second day German’s had shattered Gough’s 5th
Army however Plumer’s force def more effectively.
10. Ludendorff threw away the last chance of winning the war by rft the northern drive that achieved little
whereas the southern drive was threatening to split the British and French.
11. Haig was prep to fall back to the Channel and cut links with the French but: Petain rushed rft from the
south and Allied govts estb a supreme comd to con & coord the overall effort.
12. Ferdinand Foch (brilliant mil teacher & ldr) became C-in-C of Allied forces; within a wk his tps had
halted the offn.
13. German emerged as real losers from op Michael as they suffered hy cas, gained nothing of op/ strat
importance and the new lines proved more difficult to def.
14. Ludendorff shifted focus to the northern portion of British line but had only 11 divs aval. Germans
achieved tac success which could not translate to op breakthroughs.
15. With Allied res conc in the North, Ludendorff decided to attk French along the Aisne and by the end of
May, he had conc 44x divs along the Chemin des Dames.
16. Petain ordered prep of def in depth but on gr comds disobeyed and even the British who knew better
packed the front trenches with inf.
17. On 27 May massive bombardment by 4,000 guns started and three hours later German inf went over the
top.
18. The Allied line collapsed and in one day the German 7th Army crossed 2 or 3 rivers to create a salient
12 miles into Allied lines with a 25 mile base.
19. Four divs holding the line, four divs moving up were destroyed Ludendorff cont the adv although the
purpose was only to draw the Allied res from north.
20. On 30 May, Germans had reached Marne less than 40 miles from Paris. Govt panicked and prep to
decamp to Bordeaux but Petain remained composed.
21. Within a day of the start of the battle he had mov 16x divs towards Marne and made it clear that Anglo-
French had to hold just for a couple of months before the US arr.

20
22. On 4 Jun at Chateau Thierry US tps (tac inept but enthusiastic/ vigourous) with French sp halted the
German adv.
23. Germans planned their fourth offn to cover the gap b/w the salients of spring offn but French had fore-
warning and despite packing the trenches with inf they inflicted hy cas.
24. Ludendorff aimed his last blow at Rheims, strike was codenamed Friedensturm (peace offn) for
purpose of morale but the French had forewarning.
25. Def were finally prep in depth and Foch provided 11x divs as rft. The aslt cost the Germans more than
the Nivelle spring offn of 1917.
26. Since launching Michael one million German sldrs had been killed or wounded, morale fell so low after 4
yrs of fighting that 0.5 million German tps deserted: Ludendorfs incessant attks had ruined the army and
brought it to breaking pt.
27. Allied str however was on the upswing as hundreds of thousands of US tps arr.
28. On 18 Jul the French attk first when their 10th Army struck the western side of the Marne salient and
within the first hrs Soissons (German sup pt) was threatened. Germans escaped but they had suffered the
first significant defeat of 1918.
29. On 8 Aug, Imperial tps Aus and Can sp by British tks struck unprep opponent at Amiens: 6x Germans
divs collapsed and even attempted to prevent the res from restoring the front.
30. British armd cars got into rear areas disrupting prep for ctr attk and two-third of German losses were
PoWs.
31. Ludendorff said “8 Aug Black Day of War for Germany”.
32. Tks were a war winner but snr ldrship of BEF failed to recognize its potential; used tks in small packets
and relied on inf/arty attks.
33. By Sep BEF had broken the main German def in the west, the Siegfried Line pushing the en from
Belgian coast and almost recaptured Brussels.
34. But the success of the BEF came at a great cost, British cas from Aug to Nov, 1918 exceeded those of the
Passchendaele offn but gains were on another lvl.
35. First maj US offn came against the Saint-Mihiel salient SE of Verdun but US prep were so inept that
Germans thought it was a deception.
36. Germans were wdr to shorten their lines the moment the US struck sp by 1,000 planes and the salient was
captured.
37. The US forces now moved against the formidable en posn at Meuse-Argonne sector which proved to be a
killing gr similar to other theatres of war.
38. Defeat stalked the Germans on the Western Front, virtually nothing remained of the storm tps, def divs
fell to 20% of their TO& E.
39. Western Front was not the least of their worries as sit at home deteriorated; famine stalked the homeland
while strikes/ protests jeopardized industrial production.
40. In Sep & Oct, German allies Bulgaria & Turkey exhausted after 4 yrs made peace, by Nov the Allied
tps from Salonika had reached the Hungarian plain while British and Italian tps crossed the Piave and
moved on Austria which signed armistice on 3 Nov.
41. Ludendorff tried with pol help to secure cease-fire but Germany had no cards left to play and the High
Comd’s confession that the war was lost unleashed revolution at home.
42. Navy added to the Reich’s troubles by taking the High Seas Fleet for a death ride to maint their honour
but the tps raised the red flag and revolution with the demise of Bismarck’s empire fol.
43. Hostilities on the Western Front ceased on 11 Nov 1918. Emperor chose dishonour over death and fled to
Holland, Ludendorff escaped to Sweden.
The War at Home
1. Politicians proved equally in-adept at adjusting to the challenges of War; French govt fled Paris to
Bordeaux in 1914 and remained there for the rest of the war: could not challenge Jofre.

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2. British PM Asquith confronted crisis in 1915 due to Gallipoli and Churchill fell from power.
3. In Dec 1916, David Lloyd George exec a palace coup and replaced Asquith in the process destroying his
own party and undermining govt’s ability to con Haig.
4. In France, weak govt and army’s collapse in 1917 brought the ferocious Clemenceau to power.
5. Germany turned war to the Gens instead of a strong pol ldr prompting rise of Hindenburg and
Ludendorff to virtual dictatorship.
6. Declaration of war on US provided the most egregious example of mil rule deficiency.
7. Hindenburg plan with its crippling demands on industry wrecked national unity and eventually the eco.
Germans aimed at Weltmach oder Niedergang (world power or defeat) and got the latter.
8. Tsarist Russia extended its people to breaking pt by amateur decisions of its rulers, until mil collapse
triggered revolution and made the Russian long for the ineptitude of the Tsar.
9. Austrians muddled through the war but their multi-national state splintered and the fragments still
plague the world in places like Bosnia.
10. Human cost of War 70 M mob 9 M died: 700k British + 250k Dominions, 500k Italians, 1.1 M Austrians,
1.3 M French, 2 M Germans.
11. Massive social changes through Europe as women went to factories and workplaces: gt of women’s
suffrage in Britain/US a small indication.
12. Collapse in Eur morale indicated by triumph of radical ideologies both left/right in post-war world.
CHAPTER 15: THE WORLD IN CONFLICT
1. In early 1919, the victorious ldrs met in Versailles to settle the enormous issues created by the defeat of
Germany, collapse of Russia, Austria- Hungary, Turkey and the specter of left wing revolution.
2. Probs: Allied tps remained outside German territory at the time of signing of armistice; Germany remained
the strongest European nation in terms of eco/pol potential.
3. In Eastern Europe, plethora of weak states in place of huge empires, Marxists came to power in Russia
removed them from Eur discourse for 70 yrs, Britain refused to involve itself in the politics of the continent
and US wdr from world affairs after 1920.
4. France was left to contain the furious Germans having to abide by the humiliating terms of the Treaty of
Versailles. French const the Maginot Line in response.
5. By early 1920s Ger believed their defeat in 1918 had resulted from pol sabotage by Jews and commies
within the Reich.
6. Feeling of outrage existed in Germans exacerbated by: French pressure to pay hy reparations, surrender
of territory to Poland, Denmark & Belgium confiscation of overseas empire & navy.
7. Mil/pol elite resp for the defeat settled blame for their own errors on the new Weimar Republic who had
accepted the peace terms.
8. In 1923 the Weimar Republic fell behind on its reparation payments and French occupied the Ruhr.
9. Ger ldrs replied by cmt eco suicide deliberate inflationary policies which destr the savings of the middle
cl.
Prep for the Next War
1. Army. In 1923, Europe enjoyed illusory stability with loans from unstable US; the Wall Street crash in
1929 forced them to recall their loans Central European eco collapsed and the Weimar Republic was
dissolved.
2. Hitler became chancellor in 1933 and joined Mussolini, Stalin and militarists of Japan in a desire to
overturn this world order.
3. German: Crucial elm in German innovation was the appt of von Seeckt as C-in-C and Reichswehr was
the only army to undertake a ruthless study of the war to learn lessons.
4. Seeckt faced with the challenge to reduce army to 100,000 and offrs to 4,000; he placed the general staff
under the army and offr corps.

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5. He created 57 committees to re-examine the war and the offn/ def doctrines created in 1917/18 which had
proved so effective, dev a coherent picture of the 1918 B Fd and resultantly published Die
Truppenfuhrung (Troop Ldrship) doctrinal manual.
6. Germany innovated during the inter war pd on this solid foundation and the armr force (crucial
evolutionary mil cap) was created on a coherent op and tac framework.
7. Hitler initiated a massive rearmament progm in 1933 mainly involving C-in-C Fritsch and CGS Beck
(focused on inf divs due to lack of resources to create all mech/mob forces), did not interfere with tac/
op decisions of army comds.
8. In 1934 Beck conducted general staff ex to assess potential of panzer corps/ armies well before the auth
of such fmns (British experimentation of 1920s & 1930s in view).
9. German army boasted three panzer divs by 1935, six by 1939 and ten by 1940. They op as Divs in Ckia,
1938; Corps in Poland/France in 1939 and panzer gps (armies in all but name) in Russia, 1941.
10. British: Failed to assess the lessons of the war until 1932 and even then the findings of a highly
controversial paper were buried by CGS Montgomery.
11. Fuller and Liddell Hart pushed for reform. Milne (CGS) expended scarce resources on experimentation but
British adv ran into a dead end in 1934.
12. Reasons: Public opinion/ pol sentiment opposed British involvement in Europe resulting in aloc of min
budget to the army till 1939 and traditional regt attitude of the offr corps who refused to devote time/
study to the profession of war.
13. French: Devoted some study to the war which overshadowed by the events of 1914-17 created a careful
cautious apch to war termed the “methodical battle” by small gp of offrs of the French War College to
avoid the cas of the last war.
14. Army’s snr comd led by Gamelin refused to accept new ideas and proved incapable of imagining or prep
for possibilities beyond their own narrow conceptions.
15. Russian: In 1920s & 30s (well before the existence of a valid threat) the regime lavished production from
its industrialization on the mil creating two distinct gps: traditional peasant army and a mech well-
equipped partially trained force.
16. But in 1937, Stalin began a purge of the Russian army and all those in favour of innovation and change
were liquidated (tens of thousands of offrs) by NKVD.
Air and Sea Power
1. Air. Ac had appeared in all roles by the end of WW-I but post war air prophets displayed little interest in
lessons of the past and focused on the future potential.
2. Two schools of thought emerged as to the use of air power: European led by Douhet (Ita) and
Trenchard (British) bombing of civ centers to break national morale and US tgt en eco power ie
crucial industries to bring industrial production to a halt.
3. Theory depended on bombers cap to fly great dist, suffer few losses and hit tgt with pinpoint accuracy.
4. Role of air def was marginalized until late 1930s when Chamberlain forced the RAF to dev def sys based
on radar and fighter ac and resp was given to Dowding.
5. German Luftwaffe accepted a sp role to army mnvrs and dev a broad doctrine based on co op with other
svcs.
6. Nazi ideology sp bombing civ centres as they felt German population could withstand the most pressure
hence dev: sophisticated nav and blind bombing devices cap of op in ni/ bad weather (which RAF did not
have until 1942).
7. Tech difficulties in engine dev and mistakes in HE 177 progm prevented the Nazis from dev a strat
bomber.
8. Navy. Navies paid the least attention to the lessons of WW-I. Royal Navy spent the interwar yrs
planning a replay of Jutland; having dev sonar they felt they had mastered the threat of the sub-
marines and devoted little effort and resources on the subj.

23
9. Germans on resuming rearmament focused on building a great fleet taking for granted British sonar and
ignoring the success of U-Boats to attk North Atlantic trade.
10. Japanese and US innovated centering their prep on the Pacific foreseeing a climactic clash b/w their
fleets: dev B ships, fleet carries and nava ac.
The Road to War
1. Hitler’s appt as chancellor on 30 Jan 1933 set in motion events that resulted in WW-II.
2. Hitler’s aim was restructuring of entire continent for Germans rather than merely restoring borders of 1914;
ident en of civilization in terms of race; beware of insidious danger of Jews and their twin creation
capitalism & communism.
3. Dismantled the Versailles agreement and began massive progm of re-armament in 1933.
4. 1935 naval agreement with Britain and in 1936 ordered remilitarization of Germany.
5. Europe chose to be distracted by Mussolini’s attk and annexation of Ethiopia and 3 yr civil war in Spain.
6. Eur left feared fascism as an internal pol threat.
7. Hitler replaced his snr gens and ministers in 1938 and within a month invaded Austria as the British
looked on and the French govt resigned in protest.
8. The lack of intl pressure convinced Hitler that he could also destroy Czechoslovakia which was now
surrounded on three sides by the Reich.
9. British PM Chamberlain (could not fathom courting of war after WW-I) soadopted a policy of
appeasement and made three trips to Germany in Sep,1938 on the last of which he, Hitler, Mussolini and
Fr premier dismembered Ckia to Germany’s advantage.
10. Britain surrendered Fr most imp E ally in return of promises of good behavious from Hitler; def it by
claiming appeasement would work & Britain’s def demanded peaceful settlement.
11. Eco/fin gains from Austria/Ckia aided Ger strat posn; In Mar 1939, Hitler annexed the remains of Ckia
and the lightning German occupation of Prague finally awoke the European ldrs to the extent of German
threat.
12. Chamberlain tried to rally together the remaining smaller nations of Eastern Europe to isolate Germany
but failed to apch Soviets (Stalin favored deal with Hitler).
13. Britain’s guarantee of independence to Poland in Mar 1939 infuriated Hitler; under-est pol pressure in
which British govt op & Chamberlain’s moral str.
14. On 23 Aug, Hitler and Stalin signed pact of non-aggression: Germany would have its war against Poland
and possibly western powers w/o Soviet intervention and Russia would get eastern Poland, Baltic
states, Finland & Bessarabia (Romanian province).
15. Assured of Soviet neutrality, Hitler took the plunge on 1 Sep, 1939 as German tps invaded Poland and
two days later Britain and France reluctantly declared war.
Germany’s Easy War
1. Two Army gps designated for Polish campaign with 1.5 M men: AGN under Fedor von Bock and AGS
Gerd von Rundstedt.
2. AGN would destroy en in the ‘Polish Corridor’ its armoured forces would then drive deep behind Polish
front as the main attk came from AGS with three armies to reach Warsaw.
3. Poles attempted to def everything (loose fmns all along borders); within a wk German panzer fmns were
apch Warsaw as they chopped up Polish army into isolated pockets; Luftwaffe made diff Polish sit
impossible.
4. On 29 Sep, Hitler and Stalin (whose forces had invaded just before the Polish collapse) partitioned
Poland.
5. Poles: 70,000 killed, 133,000 wounded, 700,000 captured while Germans: 11,000 killed, 30,000 wounded
and 3,400 missing.

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6. Hitler and army high comd were entangled over the next several months: the former desired imed action in
the backdrop of the Reich’s precarious posn (oil & econ) while the latter opined that the army req more
trg for maj offn action against the West.
7. Anglo-Fr blockade imposed after attk drastically reduced Ger oil imports; throughout war Ger synthetic
oil factories & Romanian imports would keep up with wartime demands of mil/eco loss of either would
threaten Reich’s strat stability.
8. In 1939, imports from Romania dried up and Germany’s oil res dropped dangerously low Hitler pushed his
gens to launch imed offn before econ difficulty compromised German ability to wage war.
9. In the end bad weather & Allied inaction allowed Ger to delay attk till spring.
10. Meanwhile, Soviets having occupied eastern Poland and Baltic states according to plan attk Finand in
Nov, 1939.
11. Finnish workers did not rally to join workers/peasants paradise; Russian forced armistice in Mar, 1940
but only after suffering hy cas at the hands of Finns; seriously damaging the reputation of the Red Army
(200,000 killed against 24,000 Finns).
12. Threatened by Allied mov to sp Finns and possible blockade of Swedish iron ore; Hitler launched pre-
emptive strike on Scandinavia in Apr.
13. Denmark fell with hardly a shot; further North the Germans (screened by their battle fleet and asst by
Norwegian treason) seized key harbours and paratroopers key airfields.
14. In the Oslo fjord Norwegians res mounted a successful def, sank the hy cruiser Blucher and stalled the
Germans long enough for the govt to escape.
15. Royal Navy’s response was hesitant except at Narvik where they sank ten German destroyers isolating
mtn tps from rft.
16. Two positive outcomes of Scandinavian campaign for Allies: Firstly, Chamberlain’s fell from power and
on 10 May, 1940 Sir Winston Churchill became PM.
17. Secondly, German navy was crippled (one hy cruiser + four destroyers only on 1 Jul, 1940) insufficient
for cross ch invasion.
The Fall of France
1. In early Oct 1939, Hitler ordered army high comd to draw up plans for occupation of Netherlands,
Belgium, Luxembourg and northern France upto Somme.
2. Serious differences about timing of Op Yellow (plan for W offn) existed as Hitler urged on by AG A’s
COS Manstein redepl several panzer divs to the Ardennes from where they could bypass the Maginot
Line and attk Allied def on the river Meuse.
3. In Feb 1940, COS Halder though skeptical about the Ardennes drive but placed virtually all the German
armr in the area but ordered inf fmns to follow up; armr comd retained auth to act on their own.
4. The new plan envisaged: panzers driving to the coast at Abbeville and trapping the French, British and
Belgians with their backs to the sea, airborne/ gr forces attk NLands, main army attk on Belgium and a
smaller force with no armr to engage Maginot Line.
5. Gamelin French C-in-C played into the German hands by holding the Maginot line right and centre and
mov res (7th Army) far left to link up with the Dutch: removing Fr entire op res from the board.
6. On 10 May 1940, the Germans mov: paratroopers took key bridges reaching into Nlands to allow 9 th
Panzer Div to break in while airborne tps attempted to seize the main airfd at Hague and capture the govt.
7. Although the coup-de-main failed but Dutch def crumbled as Germans blasted Rotterdam causing 3,000
civ cas ad the Dutch army who had not fought since 1830 under threat of similar attks capitulated on 14
May.
8. Meanwhile, Bock’s AG B kept up a hammering adv against the Belgians; seizure of Fort Eben Emael
(impregnable) by glider borne inf added to the Allied bewilderment.
9. French/ BEF expected replay of Schlieffen plan which was also indicated by Bock’s adv; while
unhindered by Allied ac nine panzer Divs in three Corps adv through the Ardennes.

25
10. French/ Belgian tps put up min resistance as the three corps reached the Meuse and next morn attempted
xing at Dinant.
11. Rommel’s 7th panzer rifle regt estb a foothold suffered 70% cas but tks got across and French def
crumbled ready for exploitation.
12. Panzers failed to breakthrough in centre, in the south at Sedan Guderian’s force ran into tenacious
resistance, 2nd Panzer couldn’t get across, 10 th Panzer could only get a coy across but 1 st Panzer broke
French def and gained western hts overlooking the Meuse.
13. Guderian expanded his BHd over the next three days and the race for Channel was on, on 17th Guderian
subverted orders for recce only as army/Ger high comd became nervous; tks raced down the Somme
valley.
14. On 20 May, they reached Abbeville just as Bock’s army took Brussels (according to plan).
15. Allied response changed from lethargic to panic, Gamelin was sacked and Weygand appt with the war all
but over.
16. Germans halted the panzers adv after the capture of Boulogne on 26th and capitulation of Belgium on 28 th
letting inf/ Luftwaffe finish off.
17. Royal Navy conducted Op Dynamo and wdr 350,000 Allied tps allowing Britain to fight on, while
Spitfires’ and put up stiff resistance in the air against the Luftwaffe.
18. Rest of the campaign went smoothly as Petain (Verdun’s aged def) emerged to sign armistice with the
victors on 22 June (start of French collaboration with the Nazis).
The Battle of Britain
1. Hitler envisioned end of war with the fall of France and peace overtures from Britain but Churchill calc
that US couldn’t remain aloof for long and German/ Russian alliance could not hold for ever and rallied
the nation to stand.
2. In Jun, Roosevelt cfm wpn/eco sp for a price and no negotiations with Hitler.
3. By the end of Jul, Germans ack the British stance and cobbled together an air offn against the British
Isles if it didn’t work, Op Sealion (cross channel invasion) was planned.
4. Op Sealion sounded far-fetched as German navy had been annihilated at Norway and Rhine barges to
tpt tps across the channel stood little chance against the Royal Navy.
5. Luftwaffe had suffered hy cas in France and faced daunting probs in attk the British centers of power
(lack of int regarding RAF, first such air offn).
6. On the other hand, under Sir Dowding’s ldrship RAF with an effective force of fighters, early wng sys
and radars mounted a befitting response.
7. British also enjoyed the advantage of being able to decipher top secret txmn of German high comd and
getting ‘Ultra’ msgs to comds in the fd (provided by polish secret svc).
8. Initial Luftwaffe offn drove the RAF back from the Channel but provided them useful experience of their
tac/ops.
9. On 13 Aug, Ger began air duel with RAF: in the north attk failed but in the south Fighter Comd sqns/
bases were rocked.
10. In Sep, German switched to London (decision which allowed Fighter Comd time to recover) to knock out
British before the weather changed but the decimation of 15 Sep raid ended the daytime offn cap of
Luftwaffe.
11. German’s cont blind bombing at ni; war’s first strat bombing offn ended thus with Anglo-US air forces
absorbing few of its lessons.
War in the Balkans
1. On 10 Jun 1940, Mussolini declared war on Britain & France with no strat or op conception except to
regain lost domination in the Mediterranean.

26
2. In Sep, Mussolini forced Graziani in Libya to mov against Egypt where his forces reached Sidi Barrani
entrenching themselves in isolated def posns.
3. In the Balkans, Hitler mov in Sep to secure Romania and its oil by sending military advisers: panzer/mot
inf div, two flak regts, two fighter sqns without info Italians.
4. Ita retaliated by attk Greece in Oct without info Hitler; Ita army had just demob its res only enough Ita in
Albania (launching pad) to achieve 1:1 ration w/o Greece mob, lack of ports in Albania for buildup of maj
mil offn.
5. Within a wk the Greeks drove back the Italians in disorderly retreat to Albania upsetting the bal of the
Balkans and British tps arr in Crete and Greece.
6. Further Italian disasters fol: sinking of three Ita B ships in Med in Nov 1940 by British torpedo boats;
British raid on posns in Sidi Barrani driving them out of Libya in Dec; invasion of Ita Somaliland, Eretria
and Ethiopia by May 1941 by commonwealth tps.
7. Germans acted when Ita misadventures threatened to unravel the Axis posn in the Med/ Balkans and
even drive Ita from the war; Rommel led adv gd of Afrikan Corps to Tripoli and attk imed to drive the
British back to Egypt (weakened by 60k sent to Greece).
8. To restore the Balkan sit, get back at Greeks and ease pressure on Ita in Albania, Germans negotiated
deals with Hungarians, Romanians and Bulgarians.
9. In Mar 1941, Yugoslav envoys signed alliance with Axis but a coup by Serb offrs overthrew their govt
infuriating Hitler who ordered bombing Belgrade off the face of earth.
10. Hitler ordered the Wehrmacht to beat Yugoslav down: Luftwaffe wrecked Yugoslav capital in round the
clock bombing for two wks (17,000 citizens killed) and panzers destroyed their def in twelve days
overwhelming the cty.
11. Germans wdr quickly from Yugoslav to prep for Barbarossa leaving thousands of Yugoslav sldrs hiding
in mtns to launch a ferocious guerilla war eventually costing Germany dearly.
12. Campaign in Greece proceeded smoothly as Germans outflk the Greeks def on Bulgarian borders
through Yugoslavia.
13. Britsih scurried to escape and most CW sldrs got away, but the Greeks on Bulgarian front and those
fighting in Albania landed in Axis PoW camps.
14. Crete was still in British con from where RAF could launch strikes against Romanian oil wells.
15. Hitler ack the threat and realized any aslt would hav to come by air: 7th AirBorne world’s first paratroop
div sp by 5th Mtn div exec the attk.
16. British had the advantage: twice as many tps as anticipated by German int, early wng of massive airborne
attk via Ultra but chose to disregard int and prep for amph attk.
17. On 20 May 1941, most of the airborne tps were butchered but Germans estb a precarious toehold at
Maleme but once the airfd was taken the Luftwaffe flew in rft and bal shifted.
18. Royal Navy conducted another successful wdr but the Germans gained Crete and Allies would not be
able to attk Romanian oilfields till 1944 from Ita bases.
19. Germans lost 60% of their tpt ac, paratroopers suffered such hy cas that Hitler refused to order airborne
attks in future. British and US created airborne units on similar lines.
Barbarossa
1. At the end of 1940, ideological/ strat reasons pushed Hitler to invade the Soviet Union; Ger came as
conquerors not liberators.
2. Hitler aimed to destr E Eur Jewry as the adv progressed and enslave the Slavic people: special cdos
Einsatzgruppen accompanied each AG to liquidate undesirables.
3. Barbarossa was to unleash an ideological conflict.
4. Size of Russia would be maj factor in campaign as it would be difficult to sp adv beyond Riga, Smolensk
& Kiev.

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5. Hitler wanted to tgt Ukraine (grain) and Leningrad (birthplace of revolution) while army/ German high
comd wanted to tgt Moscow (fall of capital would trigger the collapse of Soviet Union).
6. High comd planned to destr the Red Army in the border areas to prevent it from wdr to the interior.
7. German army had been honed after two yrs of success but weaknesses for Barbarossa were: no res, eqpt
scraped together from all over Europe for invasion, armr mov at twice the speed of inf (had to wait for sup/
rft).
8. Stalin’s policies favoured German action: decimation of offr corps, initiative hampered at all lvls, belief
that Hitler would stick to the 1939 non-aggression pact and fearful of his pol vuln packing of frontier
districts with Red Army with orders not to wdr under any circumstances.
9. On 22 Jun 1940, arnd 0300 hrs German arty opened fire on a 2,000 mile front from North Cape to Black
Sea, air attks began and over 3M Axis tps rolled east.
10. Within four days the Soviets had lost over 3,000 ac while German armr drove deep into Soviet rear areas:
Manstein’s corps in the north covered 200 miles and reached Dvina river at Dvinsk.
11. In AG Centre’s sector Hoth and Guderian encircled 324,000 tps at Minsk and knocked out 3,300 tks; by
mid-July they had swept out to entrap 300,000 PoWs and 3,000 tks near Smolensk.
12. Germans only faced effective resistance in the South but even there they had reached the gates of Kiev by
mid-Jul.
13. By the end of Jul German adv halted: inf divs lagged behind, log could barely sp the panzer/ motorized
divs with fuel and ammo, res fmns of Russian army kept up rft.
14. During Aug, fwd German units fought to survive, log struggled to con the desperate sup sit and inf
marched to catch up: 400,000 cas (over 10%) by mid-Aug.
15. By late Aug, (as per Hitler’s desire) after having amassed sufficient sup Germans resumed their adv: AG
North surrounded Leningrad while AG Centre drove south towards Ukraine.
16. Stalin’s henchman at Leningrad neither stocked the city for siege nor allowed the civs to mov out
eventually over 1M died.
17. In the center, Guderian’s panzer gp encircled 600,00 Russian in the Kiev pocket as Stalin refused to wdr.
18. Success at Leningrad and Kiev prompted Hitler/ snr comds to throw everything into a final aslt on
Moscow; log altn was to spend the winter stretched on an arbitrary line of def from Leningrad to Crimea.
19. In late Sep, Op Typhoon began with Guderian’s panzer gp moving first and the other two panzer gps attk
on 1st Oct completing two more encirclements within a wk at Bryansk and Vyazma (600,00 Russian sldrs).
20. Autumn rains slowed the adv to a crawl enabling the Russians to scrape together a last ditch stand but in
Nov the cold froze over the mud and restored mob to the B Fd.
21. Germans made a last attempt to encircle Moscow before the winter set in but they had shot their bolt: tks/
eqpt failed to op in extreme cold, units exhausted and no sup.
22. On 6 Dec, a day before the Japanese attk US Pacific Fleet in Pearl Harbour the Red Army c-attk to relieve
pressure on Moscow: Hitler’s attempt to conquer Russia in a single campaign had failed.
CHAPTER 16: THE WORLD AT WAR
1. In Dec 1940/ Jan 1941 German army marooned in a series of fortified pts (hedgehogs); Soviet Army ctr
attk AG Center seeking victory in all sectors (no conc on single front) thus failed to achieve complete
success. (Stalin vs Zhukov)
2. Japan’s entry into war prompted Hitler to declare war on US on 11 Dec (sealing fate).
3. By mid-Mar both sides had were fought out but Hitler (dir comd of armies now) believed that Soviet
Union must be finished off before US potential told.
4. In Apr 1942, Hitler decided to be on def in North/ Center and launch offn in the south to gain the oil of
Caucasus.

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5. He remained uncertain driving into Caucasus or capturing Stalingrad on the Volga to block northern
mov of the oil and cont to vacillate during the entire campaign.
6. In May, Soviets mov first but attk on Kharkov failed destroying all res on the southern front in the
process.
7. Germans attk in Crimea, Manstein’s 11th Army broke the remaining Russian posns; the main offn began
on 27 Jun striking west at Voronezh.
8. Germans estb a blocking posn and swung down the Don but this time the Soviets gave away (avoided
encirclement); Rom,Hun & Ita sldrs mov to cover AG South’s flk.
9. By late Jul, German forces had swept fwd to the Don and a month later reached Volga.
10. On 13 Sep, a ferocious aslt over 12 miles hit Stalingrad for two months the city became the Verdun of
WW-II; by mid-Nov German 6th Army had taken the city by driving the Soviets back to the Volga.
11. Red Army fed only enough sldrs in Stalingrad to keep the fight going and maint rft of theater for ctr attk
(ltd aim destruction of 6th Army).
12. On 19 Nov, 1942 Op Uranus (Soviet ctr attk) launched: 1M sldrs, 13,000 guns and 900 tks.
13. 6th Army was caught by surprise, as the spearheads met 4 days later behind Stalingrad trapping over
200,000 men.
14. Manstein (prom FM) assumed con of rel effort, Goring assured Luftwaffe would sup 6th Army and Hitler
ordered Paulus to hold and await relief.
15. German ctr attk came close to Stalingrad but Paulus refused to break out on Manstein’s order seeking
Hitler’s approval who declined.
16. In Dec, Soviets launched another attk (indicating shift of bal) against Ita/Hun armies along the upper Don
causing their collapse, shutting down airlift to Stalingrad and Paulus surrendered on 31 Jan, 1943.
17. Stalingrad cost Germans dearly: over 1 M man affected, AG South exposed.
18. Manstein barely got 1st Panzer army out of Caucasus/ 17th Army in Kuban Peninsula for summer offn 1943.
19. Soviets cont their adv and threatened to cut off AG South by reaching Black Sea north of Crimea but
overextended themselves and Manstein pounced on this weakness.
20. In late Feb/ early Mar, Manstein dealt them a devastating ctr thrust taking back Kharkov causing a temp
halt.
The Mediterranean and Allied Strat
1. In North Africa, the British suffered a series of humiliating defeats at the hands of Rommel reflecting an
army that learned too little too late from its Bfd experience; Rommel disp initiative, speed &
exploitation; reached El Alamein (70 miles from Alexandria) by Jul, 1942.
2. British and US stepped up industrial production to sp the war from summer 1940 while the Germans
maint “guns/butter” eco till 1942.
3. Hitler’s armament minister Speer performed miracles in the second half of the war but by 1942 Germans
had lost the race: by 1944 US fleet was greater than all the navies of the world combined.
4. Roosevelt facing declarations of war from Japan and Germany decided on a Germany first policy and
called for X-Ch invasion in 1943.
5. British COS argued that it should be delayed for buildup of sufficient forces, another yr of war in the
Med and Russian for further decimation of German forces; US co-op.
6. Maj op in W Med: Op Torch launched tgt Morocco and Algeria to squeeze out the Axis from the west.
7. Before Op Torch, British attk Rommel in El Alamein by 8 th Army comd by Montgomery who did not have
time to correct tac dft of his tps (determined to make Germans fight to the str of 8 th Army: battle of
attrition not mov).
8. On 23 Oct, with 230,000 men and 1,030 tks Montgomery attk the 100,000 men and 500 tks Afrikan Corps
who started retreat on 3 Nov and did not stop till it reached Tunisia.
9. As Montgomery pursued Rommel, on 8 Nov US/ British forces landed at several pts on French Morocco
and Algeria.

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10. French put up stiff resistance but eventually surrendered and the Germans decided to create a fortified
redoubt at Tunisia.
11. Decision to rft NA one of the worst blunders by Hitler: kept Med closed for six months and adversely
affected Allied shipping; valuable German tps tied up in indefensible posn like Stalingrad with no escape,
Luftwaffe made to fight an unaffordable war of attrition.
12. North African campaign which lasted till May, 1943 had important consequences: defeat at Kasserine
Pass exposed US dft, prevented X-Ch invasion in 1943.
13. In Jan 1943, Sicily decided as next obj in conf of Anglo-American pol/ mil ldrs in Casablanca instead of
X-Ch invasion.
14. Allied forces landed successfully on 10 Jul and by 17 Aug had over run the entire island but the German
forces managed to escape: invasion of Sicily prompted the Ita king to remove Mussolini.
15. Badoglio attempted to negotiate Ita way out of war but failed due to his lack of resolve allowing German
to str their forces on peninsula.
16. Allied forces failed to cross-over to the mainland till early Sep; few nasty engagements at Salerno then
drove to Naples where their adv came to a halt in the mud of Apennines.
17. In Feb 1944, Allies got amph forces ashore at Anzio achieving surprise but failed to take advantage;
WChurchill Allies wanted to throw wild cat on shore but ended up with beached whale.
18. In May, Allies broke the stalemate in Ita spearheaded by Free French inf closed in on Rome xing
impassable terrain threatening German 10th Army.
19. US comd Gen Clark wanted glory of Rome’s capture for US which allowed the Germans to escape; over
the summer Germans driven north of Florence (Ita back theater by then).
The Battle of the Atlantic
1. Successful def of sea lines-of-comm was most imp victory of WW-II in west (proj of mil power/ eco) for
British and US.
2. In 1939 neither the Royal Navy nor Kriegsmarine had expected great U-boat war against commerce.
3. U-boat fleet (50) inflicted hy losses on British convoys in 1939; they were aided by naval bases of France
and Norway in 1940.
4. Kriegsmarine conc on production of B ships so U-boat fleet grew gradually.
5. Losses to U-boats reduced dramatically in 2nd half of 1941 when RN gained cipher keys.
6. At the end of 1941, U-boats tgt US east coast after declaration of war by Hitler and made easy prey of US
ships not fol British advice/ SOP; Ger intro new complexity in codes.
7. In 1942 as US ships adopted SOP; Donitz had U-boats tgt Caribbean.
8. German errors: many boats kept in def role to protect Norway/ North Africa and op against Allied
shipping in Med, Donitz ex over con of the boats depriving initiative/ flex; Ger staff was so small that it
lost cntct with bigger pic; 18th century tac in 20th century age of tech.
9. In 1943, sit shifted to Allied advantage: production inc, long rg ae surv, advancement in tac/ tech, Brits
regained cap to pen U-boat msg tfc. Battle of Atlantic culminated in spring 1943.
10. In Mar U-boats (40) sank 627,000 tons of merchandise on convoys SC122/HX 229 (21 vessels sunk for
loss of one U-boat); In Apr, U-boats (41) aslt convoy ONS5; 12 vessels sunk, seven U-boats sunk, five
damaged.
11. In May, Germans lost 41 U-boats with hardly any success forcing Donitz to pull his boats from the
Atlantic.
The Air War
1. No other aspect of Allied war effort has occasioned more controversy than the Comb Bomber Offn.
2. Until Feb 1942, when Harris took over Bomber Comd, British efforts to bomb Reich’s eco centres had
failed (Harris still believed that area bombing would break en morale).
3. In May, the 1,000 bomder raid destroyed Cologne (only success that yr).

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4. In spring 1943, living upto Harris expectations: destroyed Ruhr and end of Jul destroyed Hamburg
(40,000 citizens killed).
5. Speer warned Hitler that German morale would break if BComd achieved similar effects in five/six
other cities.
6. BComd turned on Berlin in late autumn which almost wrecked BComd: German ni fighters very
effective, long dist/deep tgts inc vuln of Brit Bombers.
7. In Mar 1944, disastrous aid against Nuremberg forced Harris to abandon attks against remote tgts: 105
ac lost.
8. US began daylight bombing of German industrial tgts in Jun 1943, falsely assuming that large fmns of B-
17s could get through German def w/o hy cas.
9. In Aug, sixty bombers were lost in attk on Schweinfurt/ Regensburg and sixty-two more in another attk on
ball-bearing factories of Schweinfurt two months later.
10. US lost 30% of their crews per month in 1943 but also imposed hy losses on the Luftwaffe: second
Schweinfurt catastrophe forced US to abandon unescorted deep raids.
11. In early 1944, the P-51 Mustang long rg escort fighter became aval to US 8th air force who struck tgts in
the heart of Germany waging terrible of attrition: Luftwaffe broke in May.
12. 2.6 M tons of bombs dropped on Fortress Europe did not win the war but had significant impact on Ger
morale.
13. Prompted Ger to invest into V-1/ V-2 progms to the extent that 24,000 fighter ac coud have been
produced in 1944 alone; engaged 0.5 M German sldrs with 12,000 AA guns each night.
14. Most imp of all daylight air offn gained air superiority over Europe pre-requisite for X-ch invasion.
15. Bombing of French rds/ rlys proved crucial for gr battle in Normandy, destruction of synthetic oil
factories lamed Wehrmacht/ Luftwaffe.
16. Sys bombing of German tpt nw over winter of 1944-45 broke Ger war eco & explains why there was no
last ditch def of Reich
17. Combined Bomber Offn achieved success at the cost of 158,000 pers and 650,000 civs and made an
essential contr to Allied victory.
The Eastern Front 1943-44
1. Soviet success/ German ctr attk in early 1943 had left a great bulge/ salient around Kursk b/w Orel and
Kharkov.
2. Manstein convinced Hitler that destruction of Soviet forces in the bulge would stabilize the front.
3. Fuhrer delayed offn (codename Zitadelle) till German Army reached peak str.
4. Model’s 9th Army three panzer corps (900 tks) north of Kursk, in south Manstein with four panzer corps
(1000 tks), Luftwaffe conc 2,500 ac.
5. Soviets were prep planned to catch Ger in web of def 200 miles deep before launching armr.
6. Moreover their int had picked up day/hr of German attk (dawn on 5th Jul 1943) and launched the greatest
pre-emptive barrage in history.
7. Within two days the German effort had stalled and Soviets cmt their tk armies: at Prokhorovka to the south
on 12 Jul over 1,000 tks clashed and Soviet ctr attk fol.
8. Kursk proved that Red Army had acquired formidable skills at op lvl.
9. Mastered deception/ Maskirova which ensured that every maj Soviet attk took Germans by surprise from
the end of 1942 onwards.
10. After victory at Kursk, Stalin cmt 2.6 M men, 51,000 guns/mor, 2,400 tks and 2,850 cbt ac on a 400 mile
front from the Pripet marshes to Azov Sea.
11. They first retook Kharkov and by the end of Sep as AG South’s flk unraveled entered into a race with
the Germans for the Dneiper: Soviets regained the agricultural/industrial portions of Ukraine and also
reached the Black Sea to isolate the German 17th Army in Crimea.

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12. Oct rains gave Germans some respite but the Russian op with 4 M tps and 4,000 tks over the winter to
reach Carpathians and frontiers of Romania/ Hungary by May 1944.
13. Other attks pried Germans from their posns around Leningrad and recaptured Crimea destroying the
17th Army in the process.
14. In late spring, Soviets fed bogus int to Germans about maj attk against AG South in prep for driving into
the Balkans whereas force buildup was against AG Center.
15. Stalin bided his time till after the Anglo-American landings in Normandy and then on 22 Jun 1944,
launched Op Bagration aimed at German line around Minsk.
16. Hitler ordered his tps to hold out till the last rd and by 20 Jul AG Center had been destroyed with
seventeen Divs annihilated and fifty losing half or more of their str.
17. On 29 Aug 1944, Stalin called a halt when the Red Army reached Vistula near Warsaw.
18. Stalin waited for Germans to act against the Polish undergr (anti-commie/anti-Nazi) which had risen.
19. Red Army was poised to participate in the kill if Anglo-American forces won an over whelming victory
and carried the war to Germany; in the meantime Stalin set out to achieve his strat aims in the Balkans.
20. On 20 Aug 1944, Soviets arty pounded German/ Romanian posns north of the Danube Delta latter
crumbled imed; more than a mil collapse as in three days the Romanians abandoned the German
alliance, within a wk most of Romania was under Soviet con with Romanians attk Germans.
21. Bulgaria quit on the heels of Romania but German tps in Greece/Macedonia had time to escape and reknit
a front in Hungary.
22. Hungarians also tried to abandon the sinking ship but Germans nipped an anti-German coup in the bud;
by the end of Nov fighting had reached suburbs of Budapest.
23. Soviets had gained con over much of what was going to be their empire in the Cold War.
Victory in the West
1. Most complex mil op of the war was the Allied landing in Fr, 1944.
2. Failure of sea-borne raid on Dieppe in 1942 demo that seizing port at start of invasion would prove
almost impossible: invaders would need to bring landing gear with them.
3. By 1944 Allies had enough landing craft/ log sp to attempt Allied landing
4. By Jan US Eisenhower (overall comd) and Montgomery (comd gr forces) were in place.
5. Landing force was enhanced from one paratroop and three inf divs to three and five resp; paratps would
protect flks as inf would seize the shore for log buildup.
6. Confusion existed in Germans: Rommel prep the def realizing that the invasion must be stopped on the
beaches, Rundstedt overall comd of Western Europe had a fundamentally diff apch and Hitler retained
emp of armr res.
7. At dawn on 6 Jun 1944, 6,500 naval vessels protected by 12,000 ac brought the invaders to Normandy;
177,000 men got ashore on first day.
8. German response was hesitant/ slow; only at Omaha beach they caused serious delay.
9. Victory for Allied deception that Hitler/ High Comd believed for much of the battle that further landings
would be around Pas de Calais.
10. On the eastern front British/ Canadians failed to break through or gain access to plains beyond Normandy
on the west US captured Cherbourg but then were bogged down in bocage cty.
11. During Jun & Jul, massive of war of attrition reminiscent of WW-I.
12. Eventually Montogomery’s persistent attks pinned down German armr in the E and US levered en away
from coast to capture Avranches.
13. From here US had a chance to envelop entire German front instead they chose to head west into Brittany
but Hitler played in to Allied hands by ordering attk on Mortain.
14. ‘Ultra’ int warned the Allies who stopped the attk cold and US forces finally turned east to threaten the
entire German front at Normandy.
15. On 15 Aug Allies effected another successful landing on Med coast of occupied France.

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16. Campaign now turned into a wild pursuit to the German frontier.
17. Montgomery argued for narrow adv into Reich under his comd but Eisenhower pursued broad front
strat (though provided Mont with nec sup).
18. On 2 Sep, British liberated Brussels, two days later captured Antwerp with dockyards intact.
19. Mont halted the adv to prep for op Market Garden designed to out flk the German def by attk through
Nlands and capture of bridges across the Rhine at Arnheim.
20. Germans recovered and 15th Army escaped into Nlands closing off access to Antwerp.
21. Op MG started two wks later but German managed to hold on to their western borders till winter:
British 1st AirBorne failed to secure Arnheim, armr adv lethargically, plans fell into German hands in the
first hrs.
22. Allies faced the uphill task of dislodging Germans from prep posns/difficult terrain having suffered hy
losses themselves; destruction of French infrastructure by Allied bombing made sup of forces in
Germany difficult till access to Antwerp was opened in late Nov.
The End in Europe
1. By autumn 1944, Germany stood on the def on all fronts: en were at the gate of Reich, air pounded
German industry/cities yet they held on b/w fanatic determination & desperate resignation.
2. Length of campaigns to to regain territories from Wehrmacht allow Nazis to cont crimes against
humanity till spring of 1945.
3. Extermination kept working till autumn 1944 largely undisturbed as tenacious resistance/ bad weather
kept Allies at bay.
4. On 16 Dec, Germans struck at the US def in Ardennes aiming to separate the British/ Canadian forces in
the north from US tps in south to recapture/destroy Antwerp.
5. The US def buckled/collapsed as the two res airborne Divs were rushed: 82 nd on north of growing German
bulge and 101st to Bastogne.
6. Allied high comd response was swift as 101 st Div put up an epic resistance con the critical road junction
adding to the attk-er probs as they only had fuel to reach halfway to Antwerp.
7. Patton’s 3rd Army mov to asst US forces in Ardennes even before getting formal orders.
8. As the weather cleared Allied airforce inflicted hy cas and the Germans fell back by end of Dec; Battle of
Bulge destr the Reich’s last op res.
9. Allied airforce strat/tac wrecked German tpt nw: rly loadings by Dec 60% of normal, by Feb 1945 20% of
normal resultantly production of mil eqpt/ ammo ceased.
10. There would be no twilight of the Gods death struggle because w/o tools of war Ger had no cap to resist.
11. In mid-Jan 1945, Russians attk in east and East Prussia, Pomerania and Silesia fell to terrible violence as
Germans reaped the whirlwind of the ideological war they had sown in 1941.
12. Red Army closed on the Oder and its comds halted for last push on Berlin.
13. In the north British/Canadians mov to the Rhine by early Mar US tps reached the Rhine and German
resistance collapsed.
14. At Remagen, they captured the Ludendorff br intact and rushed tps over imed joking about Mont
apparently superfluous prep.
15. By Apr, in the W Allied forces could mov freely: north German plain, Ruhr, Bavaria and even into
Austria.
16. In the south German forces in Italy surrendered, in the east Soviets slammed across the Oder into
Berlin; on 30 Apr Hitler committed suicide his comds surrendered a wk later.
Japan’s Expansion
1. Greatest indication of US str was relentless struggle against Japan despite role in Africa/ Eur.
2. Japan and US had been on a collision course since early decades of 20th century: US immigration/tariff
policies, Japan’s conquest of China worsened relation through 1930s.

33
3. By closing their markets during the depression the W powers encouraged aggressive Jap policies towards
the Asian mainland thus helped Jap militarists to gain power.
4. In 1931, Japanese army seized Manchuria without Tokyo’s auth; six yrs later initiated war against
China and soon con Chinese coastal areas/ maj cities.
5. Japan’s Imperial Def Plan ident Russia as the maj threat but even as war in China sucked in its forces, it
initiated a series of incidents on the Manchurian frontier to test Red Army.
6. In Aug 1939, Soviet forces comd by Gen Zhukov annihilated a reinforced Jap Div at Kalkhin Gol on the
Mongolian border indicating clearly that Red Army was not easy tgt.
7. In Jun 1940, Japs occupied the northern portion of French Indo-China and in Sep signed a ten yr treaty of
mil/ eco cooperation with Germany and Italy.
8. On 13 Apr 1941, in anticipating war with western powers Japs signed a non-aggression pact with Russia
to protect its northern flk.
9. US made no response until Japs extended influence to southern provinces of Indo-China in Jul 1941, US
imposed trade embargo sp by British and Dutch.
10. Dependent on US for 80% of oil imports Japs were faced with either war or surrendering mainland gains
since 1931.
11. Japs devised a plan to conquer SE Asia and estb def perimeter around their gains to thwart against any
ctr attk relying on a long drawn war to sap the US potential.
12. On 7 Dec 1941, Japs launched air attk (entirely from carriers) on Pearl Harbour, HQ US Pacific Fleet
Hawaii: sank five Bships, damaged sixth, three cruisers, 200 ac destroyed.
13. Japs mistakes: attk united the US, WW-I vintage ships destroyed (no carriers), did not tgt oil storage
tanks/ power sup sta (could have forced US Navy to shift to San Diego for 1.5 yrs).
14. Colonial rule dismantled in SE Asia: US def of Philippines was a disgrace, British lost two capital ships
in Malaya in Dec 1941 and 130,000 tps in Singapore in Feb 1942.
15. Dutch lost their empire in Indonesia by Mar, Burma was occupied between Jan-May as British forces were
driven back to India.
16. Japs achieved their goals faster than even the most optimistic plans and with min losses and cmt of gr
forces but their luck ran out by May 1942.
17. In the Coral Sea, the first battle in which opposing fleets never sighted each other; the US sank one
carrier, damaged another, inflicted hy cas on Jap airforce and prevented landing at New Guinea.
18. US broke Jap int code ‘Magic’ which revealed that strat perimeter was created with dangerously
dispersed forces: one force aimed to capture certain Aleutian islands off Alaska, second Kure/Midway
islands in cen Pacific, third patrolled as strat res.
19. Magic’ revealed Jap intentions; just as Jap carriers turned windward to launch decks full of ac, AA guns
depressed to handle anti-torpedo attk and air patrol Zero fighters at deck lvl, US dive bombers appeared.
20. The three Jap carriers were destroyed/ had to be abandoned a fourth carrier was destroyed by the end of the
battle irrevocably shifting the bal in the Pacific to US.
21. In Aug 1942, first US offn mov in Pacific: 1st Marine Div landed on Guadalcanal (island in Solomons).
Setback as Japs sank four hy cruisers in battle of Savo Island.
22. The fighting cont for 9 months in Guadalcanal and Port Moresby (New Guinea) as Allies failed to win
decisive victory but ground the Japs down.
23. US internal pol (MacArthur’s cnxn with Republicans/Hearst Press) compelled Roosevelt to keep him in
charge of southwest Pacific theatre and Nimitz of Central Pacific theatre.
24. In summer/autumn 1943, as MacArthur drove Japs back in New Guinea navy launched drive in cen Pacific
on arr of Essex carriers (27,000 tons, 32 knots, 100 ac).
25. Essex and Independence (light carrier) produced @ one a month and ‘Hellcat’ fighter superior to Zero
ensured US dominance at sea and air.
Japan’s Defeat

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1. Nimitz first mov against Tarawa in Gilbert Islands was fraught with mistakes resultantly 1,000 marines
dead and 2,000 wounded.
2. Mistakes: bombardment too short, misestimated tides causing aslt tps to cross 700m open water under fire
and comm breakdown.
3. In early 1944, next blow came on the Marshalls as Nimitz forced his fleet comds to attk the centre of the
island chain and rely on carriers to neutralize en air.
4. Jap def was not ready as yet and Kwajalein fell; a month later US tps seized Eniwetok while neutralizing
the naval base at Truk with airstrikes.
5. MacArthur mov Admiralty islands backed by Keaney’s tac air units; attk Biak (island 300 miles west of
New Guinea) capturing it by mid-May putting Philippines in rg of air strikes.
6. Jap resolved to launch their fleet against forces at Biak but Nimitz attacked Saipan in the Marianas con
of which would put Home islands in rg of US air.
7. Saipan caused 14,000 US cas, Jap navy sortied against the Marianas; huge air battle called “great
Mariana turkey shoot” ensued.
8. US sank three en carriers (two by submarines) but crucial result was destruction of Jap naval airforce
with few US losses. Victory at Saipan/ Biak poised US for invasion PPines.
9. By end of 1943, US submarines swung into gear earlier plagued by defective torpedos & weak ldrship
aided by ‘Magic’ sunk half of Jap merchant fleet and two-thirds of tankers: raw materials and oil sup
stopped.
10. In Oct, MacArthur and Nimitz attk PPines; as inf landed on Leyte the Japs again sortied.
11. Japs adopted three apch: from north carriers with no ac (to draw off US main fleet), two small task forces
mov through Surigao straits while main main B fleet mov through San Bernardino straits to attk invasion
fleet of Leyte.
12. Jap plan almost worked: although US destroyed Jap vessels in Surigao straits but they took the bait and
went north.
13. Jap main force made it through San Bernardino straits with some losses and encountered a weak force
which mounted a heroic def to persuade the Jap admiral to wdr.
14. US victory at Leyte Gulf ended the ability of Jap navy to fight a maj naval action.
15. Japs fought on: held Burma till May 1945 when CW forces under William Slim recaptured Rangoon.
16. In PPines under Gen Yamashita (conqueror of Malaya/Singapore) put up resistance till end of war but by
early 1945 strat pts were in US con.
17. In autumn 1944, B-29s based in Marianas began ops against Home Islands: to provide emergency landing
strips & neut radar marines attk Iwo Jima in Feb 1945.
18. Two marine divs bled white wresting Iwo Jima from Jap con (prep bombardment of four days instead of
req ten): US 6,821 dead, 20,000 wounded and 21,000 Japs dead.
19. Next came Okinawa where US encountered Jap forces greater than divs (70,000 sldrs on southern corner in
prep posn): Conquest of Okinawa bloodiest chapter in history of Pacific war.
20. On 1 Apr, invasion began by 6 Apr Japs launched kamikaze ac (700 ac on 6 alone) cont throughout the
war.
21. Kamikaze sank thirty ships, damaged 368, 5,000 marines killed and 5,000 wounded. In the end all 70,000
Japs killed and over 100,000 civs killed.
Dropping the Bomb
1. Conquest of Okinawa cost the US 65,631 cas foretelling the toll an invasion of Home Islands against a
massed Jap army.
2. The US selected 1 Nov 1945, as date for Op Olympic with a great attk on island of Kyushu in an op
twice the size of D-Day: Jap anticipated correctly.
3. Olympic would have had catastrophic cas for Japs/US but it never occurred as US embarked on area
bombing of Home Islands with B-29s like Bomber Comd in Europe.

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4. On 8 Mar ni, destroyed Tokyo: 83,000 killed and 41,000 injured. Proceeded to destroy Jap cities one by
one so that by summer Japan was totally isolated and helpless.
5. Jap army sought honorable death for its men and offrs and showed little interest in ending the war.
6. On 6 Aug, three B-29s flew over Hiroshima one dropped atomic bomb 90,000 died meanwhile Russian
broke the non-aggression pact and crossed the Manchurian frontier.
7. On 9 Aug, second atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki and 35,000 died. The emperor stepped in to
resolve the deadlock and ordered general surrender.
8. On 2 Sep, reps of Jap govt signed the terms on surrender on the deck of Bship Missouri; and Japan like
Germany came under Allied occupation.
CHAPTER 17: THE POST-WAR WORLD
1. Aftermath of WW-II: science as the dominant theme in war, 45 yrs of uneasy peace ‘Cold War’,
unparalleled time of stability, European colonial empires crumbled.
2. Vietnam underlined tech could not compensate for defects in tac,strat,policy; humiliation of European
armies by Japs destr legitimacy of W domination of SE Asia.
3. Roosevelt committed to Stalin: US tps would stay 3yrs after war in Europe (1920 testimony of US flight
from resp). US sole power in west as France, Britain, Germany etc wrecked.
4. In the east, Russia lost 25mil sldrs/civ, Eastern Europe (area acq in war) was in ruins. Japan cities in ruins,
merchant fleet sunk and economy destroyed. China ravaged by Japan.
5. Truman’s initial steps: prep for confrontation but offered to extend Marshall Plan (aid package to assist
western Europe recovery) to eastern Europe but rejected by Russia for fear of US prying its shattered eco.
6. US sent tps to Greece and Turkey in 1947 when British forces withdrew but sponsorship of NATO was
clear signal of continued US pol/mil sp of western Europe.
7. US stripped conv forces to min lvl on the basis of nuc wpns till 1950: onset of Korean War.
8. In the first yr of war: 585k enlisted 806k res recalled. Soviets (till death of Stalin in 1953) continued to pose
as a significant/direct challenge to western values.
9. Late 1940s: US efforts to deter Russia/ contain communism: fought two wars in Asia, cmt tps to for def of
Europe.
10. During Cold War relied on USAF and Polaris subs in 1960s (Navy).
11. Till late 1980s: focus of USAF on nuc msn(deterrence). Air affected mil bal in conv war.
12. US Tech revolution: miniaturization of nuc wpns, cruise msl, ballistic msl. 1980s cptr revolution stemmed
in demand for space/ mil progms.
13. Soviets lagged: made tks, arty, APCs, jets but tech adv rendered them obsolete. Gulf War 1991 highlt lag in
nuc subs, guided msls, space-based caps (broke morale/ eco).
The Korean War
1. Two separate states due to casual decisions by US/Russia in 1945 to disarm Japs surrendering in Korea: in
North communist under Kim Il-Sung; in South equally xenophobic but minus communism under Sungman
Rhee.
2. By 1950 South was in eco/pol trouble (min US aid); Stalin allowed Kim to invade South (worst mistake by
the dictator).
3. In Jun 1950: NK armies swept aside SK forces and began class cleansing. SK rallied against communism
US stepped in surprisingly and cloaked def efforts under UN flag.
4. From Japan Gen McArthur rushed tps to Korea but NK in a series of humiliating defeats drove the US/ SK
tps back to port of Pusan where front stabilized & US firepower/ac took terrible toll on attk-ers.
5. MacArthur’s masterstroke in Sep 1950: threw combined marine/army force ashore at Inchon near Seoul,
caught NK by surprise. Inchon and then Seoul fell: posn around Pusan collapsed & NKs captured/ fled.
6. In 1949, Truman had rejected MacArthur’s proposal to arm Chinese Nationalists against communists who
drove them off mainland; but now agreed to cross 38th parallel into NK.

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7. China warned against US adv to Yalu River (its border with Korea): discounted by MacArthur: US cont
adv in two separate pushes and in autumn China intervened.
8. In the west: Army fell pell-mell to the south; in east marines put up some resistance and fought through
encircling Chinese armies: honed by yrs of fighting Japs & Nationalists.
9. Chinese forces adv swiftly over mtn terrain with min log sp as they drove south of Seoul MacArthur
suggested options from use of nuc wpns to abandoning peninsula.
10. Omar Bradley US CJCS noted about all-out war with China that it would be: the wrong war, at the wrong
place, at the wrong time with the wrong en.
11. Truman and MacArthur estranged. By Jan 1951, sit stabilized south of Seoul; UN forces under WW-II Gen
Ridgway who bolstered morale and conc firepower against massed CA attks.
12. Long sup lines of CA were hy bombarded and Ridgway’s forces c-attk regaining Seoul.
13. In Apr 1951 commies tried to recapture SK capital but failed; UN forces resumed offn as CA had
exhausted itself; CA took massive cas in the face of overwhelming US firepower and desperately appealed
for talks.
14. US halted adv and began peace talks (serious mistake of Cold War era) as it allowed en to regroup and
ended their need for armistice.
15. Reasons: Truman in Apr dismissed MacArthur who pushed Asia-first strat which could have pushed the
war to mainland China.
16. Korea was a pawn in a bigger geo-pol game between US and Russia whose main theatre was western
Europe. Peace in Asia was key to safegd CWs crucial theatre WEur.
17. In summer of 1951 both US and China wanted Korean War to end; but Stalin did not as it was putting
strain on US.
18. Armistice talks dragged on for two yrs as WW-I style fighting cont. For strat reasons US did not inc tps,
used USAF to interdict CA sp for gr tps and stalemate ensued. Stalemate pitched W firepower against
masses of Chn rev sldr.
19. MacArthur stated “there is no substitute for victory”. US elected new pres Eisenhower in 1952 as Truman
had became highly unpopular because of length of war and no results.
20. Eisenhower threatened communists with use of nuc wpns but armistice in summer of 1953 was largely due
to death of Stalin in Mar and succession crisis in Russia.
21. Korea turning pt in Cold War, brought US full potential back to contest, stabilized East Asia, restored Jap
to eco superpower status, but also started communist witch-hunt in US and ended efforts of reconciliation
with Russia; cmt of conv forces for def of Eur became possible.
The Thirty Years War: Vietnam Part I
1. In 19th century, Vietnamese grudgingly accepted French rule having successfully warded off Chn pol/ cul
adv; Fr misnamed it Indo-Chn; Laotians/Cambodians/Vietnamese.
2. By 20th century Fr edn turning out nationalists who were challenging French rule on its own terms; most
significant was Ho Chi Minh who set in motion revolution to defeat first French then US.
3. In Mar 1945, Japs destroyed remnants of Fr power in Vt. US refused sp and when 6 months later Japs
surrendered Chn Nat tps occupied North and British tps South to disarm Japs.
4. In the vacuum only discp force was Ho’s Viet Minh; Fr initially accepted Ho’s regime but Fourth Republic
could not enforce its decision and comds cmt their tps to impose Fr rule.
5. Fr re-estb con of cities but G warfare ensued in cty-side. With Mao coming to power in Chn substantive
trg/ wpns was imparted to Viet Minh Gs.
6. In Oct 1950, Ho’s forces dismantled Fr posn in N Vt. With Kor War in progress US sent substantial mil aid
to Fr which allowed them to make a stand in Red River Valley.
7. In early 1951, Giap mil comd of Ho launched offn against Fr but realized cant win in open B Fd in face of
overwhelming Fr firepower and ldrship.

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8. Stalemate till end of Kor War when Chn provided more aid and Fr tried to con a worsening sit by baiting
Giap. AB attk captured Dien Bien Phu critical to log sp of Vt tps.
9. Fr hoped to destroy Viet Minh as it tried to retake the key posn but greatly under est their en. In Mar 1954,
Giap: struck overwhelming the outerdef, A fd useless, hy arty on Fr posns.
10. In Apr, US intervention could have salvaged sit but US watched as Dien Bien Phu went down Franco-US
relations soured, anti-comm regime in S Vt instl by US as a result of peace accord signed in Geneva in
Jul,54.
The Algerian War
1. On 1 Nov 1954, Alg rebels attk Fr posns across N Afr for nat lib. Failed to win outright victory but mob
Arab sentiment against Fr.
2. European pop of Alg refused to ack any change in status and G activity inc by FLN similar to Vt but here
they could strike Eur pop.
3. Fr determined not to repeat mistakes of Vt War. In 1956 turning pt, intro inexperienced conscripts to the
war who ran into difficulty; while in Sep FLN took war to the cities dir attk Fr citizens.
4. Failure of Anglo-Fr ops against Suez Canal in Nov worsened the sit: mil doubting pol ldrs.
5. By late 1956 FLN con arab qtrs of maj cities; Fr sent Army in cities in Jan 1957, Gen Massu’s paratroopers
took con of Algiers, all-out war against FLN.
6. Ptl of Casbah, torture, detention, disregard of civ rights: broke FLN but also eroded sp for conflict in metro
Eur.
7. Fr govt fell on 15 Apr 1958 being unable to adds Alg issue; no replacement adm for 37 days and Fr army
fury on pol ldrship mounted.
8. In mid-May a mob in Algiers sp by army took over the govt bldgs and demanded that Charles de Gaulle ldr
of Fr govt in exile in WW-II take over the bankrupt state.
9. By 1 Jun 1958, de Gaulle in power but adopted diff/contradictory policy towards Alg for 4 yrs.
10. As early as Sep 1959, de Gaulle was offering self-determination; Fr Army isolated FLN from its bases in
Tunisia and Morocco; sophisticated use of hels/ mob fmns; but de Gaulle wanted to extricate.
11. In retaliation Fr offrs joined T org (OAS) which tried to assassinate de Gaulle but he survived and pulled
France out of Alg without civ War. Alg became indep in 1962; gens could boast of mil victory but lost pol
war.
Unconventional War: The British Experience
1. Brits came out of decolonization relatively unscathed as compared to French, freed India with a comb of
statesmanship at home and mil ldrship on the scene.
2. In Feb 1948, comm Gs in Malaya began campaign to terminate Brit rule, gaining str over the next 4 yrs. In
Feb 1952, Brits began a drive against the insurgency.
3. Pop was mix of Malay and Chn. Comm drew sp from Chn but as no border was shared with comm nat Gs
found it diff to get arms/ ammo.
4. Brits realizing I was a pol prob announced imminent indep and encouraged Malay bationalism to further
separate Chn from Malays & Gs. Mil effort was bolstered by sldrs who knew jungle better than Gs.
5. Recreated several special units like SAS Regt who had performed well in WW-II, would pay dividends
later in conflicts from Kenya and Aden to Ulster and Falklands.
6. By 1954, the war had sputtered out and comm high comd had wdr to Thailand; Brits won pol/mil struggle.
The Thirty Years War: Vietnam Part II
1. Although Eisenhower had decided in 1954 that Vt was not worth the blood/treasure to defeat Viet Minh but
a series of half measures drew US into involvement.

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2. Anti-comm regime in S Vt led by Ngo Dinh Diem comb worst aspects of Fr colonialism and mandarin rule
moreover it lacked legitimacy in the cty-side.
3. As Saigon remained low on US strat pri till 1961, mil/civ advisors from US bureaucracy who knew neither
Fr nor Vt, using Kor as paradigm prep conv army to defeat conv en.
4. Ho’s regime in N Vt toiled to create Socialist paradise of Stalin, provoking rebellion amongst peasants of
Red River Valley which they put down.
5. In 1959, sensing weakness of Diem, launched campaign of infil, pol action, mil and log sp to overthrow
regime. Incl const of rd through Laos & Cambodia named Ho Chi Minh Trail.
6. Sit grew worse till JFK became pres in 1961 who vowed to defeat comm at any cost.
7. US mil ill-prep to confront Viet Minh(Cong) as they had prep for nuc/conv war against Russia, failed to
absorb lessons of war throughout conflict, lack of understanding culture and 1-yr tours rft these
weaknesses.
8. JFKs secretary of def was McNamara, made US mil fight the war on the basis of statistical indices
eliminating uncertainty/ ambiguity from def analysis/ conduct of war.
9. JFK & McNamara inherited first crisis from Eisenhower: invasion of Cuba by bde of exiles org by CIA.
10. In Apr 1961 with JFK blessing 1500 exiles stormed shores at Bay of Pigs; swiftly dealt with by Castro;
groupthink adopted; msls discovered on Cuba 18 months later; sub-gp adopted; initially air strikes on Cuba
favored in 1962 but settled for blockading the island.
11. JFK upto his assassination in Nov 1963, adopted an aggressive strat while under est the en & over est
Saigon allies; Comd of advisory effort Gen Harkins painted a rosy pic in contrast to media reports.
12. In autumn 1962, US realized Diem was a loser and threats to wdr by US mil prompted coup by Vt mil and
assassination of dictator and his bro.
13. By summer 1964, resistance in S Vt was collapsing due to inept Gens who followed Diem.
14. New US pres Johnson was not prep to accept defeat at the hands of Vt, air raids against N Vt navy in
response to attk on US destroyers in Gulf of Tonkin.
15. Ho refused to succumb to firepower, confident after defeating Fr. Johnson was re-elec pres and auth
bombing campaign in 1965 “Rolling Thunder” against severely ltd tgts in N Vt.
16. RT was a failure so now Johnson tipped US tps under Gen Westmoreland into war who showed disdain for
the Fr exp of Vt: US mil rptd the same mistakes.
17. Serious tac/op probs in Ia Drang Valley battles incl destr of Bn of 1st Air Cav at LZ Albany.
18. Gen WLd did not reform S Vt mil, denied corps request that MACV setup lesson learnt bd and pacification
remained at bottom of pri till 1967.
19. US effort dir to tgt main en units and no focus on pol war in cty-side; My Lai massacre (Vt peasants) to
rake in pts in mathematical apch to war.
20. US cleared areas of cty-side to deny N Vt sp and dumped IDPs at hands of ill-equip govt.
21. US illusion of mil victory by emp tremendous firepower even more mindlessly than Fr.
22. In summer 1964, US senate passed Gulf of Tonkin Res to auth air raids on N Vt tgts. US mil throughout the
world stripped to fight in Vt: govt draft in mil only poor whites/ blacks.
23. Tet and After. Through 1965-66 US mil held off S Vt defeat; in 1967 N Vt changed strat of dir mil
confrontation and US mil possessing less firepower in N was tgt.
24. In 1968, again changed the game and massive Tet offn was launched on S Vt cities; with intention of
triggering uprisings (as in RRV attks in 1951) but Giap proved to be wrong; in mil sense Tet & ancillary
ops proved disasters for N Vt & its sldrs.
25. Hy cas incurred by Viet Cong, S Vt mil fought tenaciously, cty-side did not rise in rebellion; US brought
down overwhelming firepower. Giap reinforced failure by cont offn throughout 1968; commie
sympathisers in S ident & dealt with.
26. Tet offn brought reality of war to US pub, Johnson wdr from pres race, Gen Wld cont asking for more of
everything till prom to COS and removal from Saigon.

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27. Gen Abrams disp more imagination and focused on Vietnamization: trg/ arms to Vt mil. Domestic pressure
to pull-out of bloody war; Nixon open/ secret negotiations with N Vt as a result of savage blood-letting of
1968.
28. Nixon pulled out US tps but cont to provide massive sp to S Vt, in 1970 launched op in Cambodia to destr
N Vt log bases.
29. As last US tps pulled out in 1972, N Vt launched a massive conv invasion to destr S Vt and humiliate US:
miscalc as USAF/ Navy inflicted hy cas on adv colms.
30. Nixon ordered air aslt against N Vt: USAF laid waste to much of eco infra of N Vt in wks. N Vt were
brought to negotiating table to allow US to wdr with dignity but walked out at last min. Nixon relec in 1972
unleashed USAF.
31. Paris Accords of 1973 failed to end war in Vt. Watergate ltd Nixon sp, Congress undercut S Vt. In 1975 N
Vt launched another offn which succeeded in the absence US sp or aid.
32. US dismal in 1975, CIA even failed to destr int files exposing S Vt sympathizers. Vt War sobering exp for
US as first defeat since 1812. Vt was united as cty but devastated eco.
The Arab-Israel Wars
1. During WW-I British promised Arabs independence from Ottoman rule and Zionists home in Palestine. Js
immigration to Palestine had become arab/jew conflict by 1930s.
2. Orde Wingate BA Capt/ volunteer Js in BA during WW-II broadened mil knowledge among Palestinian Js.
3. In 1948, Brits withdrew from the area, UN declared partition bw communities but Arabs rejected this
settlement and launched mil ops against Israel.
4. Lack of coord/ mil ability enabled Isr to defeat loc Arabs and invading armies and a result of 1948-49 war
acq considerable territory otherwise assigned to Palestinian Arabs by UN.
5. Isr faced rising tide of T-ism in 1950s; Arabs refused to recognize/ proclaimed to destroy it. Dir threat from
Egypt who acq arms from Russia.
6. In 1956, when invited by Brits/ Fr to take action against Eg who had seized Suez Canal agreed; utilizing
paratps/armr blocked Mitla Pass in Sinai and then destr Eg army.
7. Arab armies drawn from stratified cl sys couldn’t face Isr on modern B Fd due to its superior trg, cohesion
& morale; within a wk Isr were close enough to SC to watch Brits/ Fr attk Eg army in the area. Russia/ US
stepped in to end the war.
8. Egyptian dictator Gemal Abdul Nasser who had lost the war in every mil way, won in pol terms as Isr
surrendered its gains in Sinai to UN force in exch for passage through straits of Tiran.
9. GAN got Russia to sup him with latest wpns/ mil eqpt and for 10 yrs till 1967 ack the parity of forces with
Isr. In May came to believe that Isr was about to attk; told UN forces to leave Sinai, depl Egyptian tps,
blocked straits of Tiran.
10. Jordan/ Syria joined cause with Eg and Isr stood little chance esp without US (stuck in Vt).
11. On 5 Jun 1967, Isr AF destr Eg AF and turned to sp gr offn. Isr armr cut off Gaza Strip, broke through Eg
posns and Isr AF destr Eg tks/ vehs escaping through Mitla Pass.
12. Within four days Isr had reached SC having captured all of Sinai; Egyptians incapable of adapting to tempo
of Isr ops.
13. Jordan joined the conflict thinking Eg AF had destr Isr AF. Extent of Eg defeat was not clear till 3 rd day but
by then Jor defeat was unavoidable.
14. Fighting started in Jerusalem where Isr had 3 Bdes but Jor who fought good small unit actions were no
match on op lvl. By 7 Jun, Isr con West Bank of river Jordan.
15. Isr now turned to Syria who had till now resorted to shelling of settlements below Golan Hts. On 9 Jun, Isr
having redepl attk the Golan Hts and seized it and the region behind; Syr army pulled back to Damascus.
16. In Six Days the war was over and Isr had humiliated 3 Arab nations. Isr over est their victory in 6-Day war
and became complacent, held on to all the conquered territory thinking Arabs wouldn’t think of another
offn; Eg cont war of attrition along the SC; series of T incidents around the world further angered Isr.

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17. Isr hardline towards Arabs left no choice for them but ponder further mil action. Anwar Sadaat new Eg ldr
planned with Syr to attk Isr in 1973.
18. US & Isr int picked up many sigs of imminent attk but remained confident, on 6 Oct 1973 Yom Kippur
(Day of Atonement) when they realized the reality they could only start mob.
19. At 2.05pm massive Eg air strike and arty fire on fwd Isr posns on SC fol by well-rehearsed all out attk:
broke through Bar Lev line isolating Isr posns.
20. Isr res armd bde c-attk without arty/ inf sp and suffered devastating cas. Isr AF tried to intervene but
Russian air-def made them suffer hy losses (like USAF in Vietnam).
21. Isr drew the wrong lesson from 6-Day war that armr could op alone rather than as CAT.
22. One def mnvr paid off: mov of res armr Bde to Golan hts. In N Golan Isr lost their outpost on Mount
Hermon but 7th armd bde shattered attk of two Syr Divs.
23. In S, Syr almost succeeded to regain hts but success in north allowed conc of res in south and held off Syr.
24. C-attk drove the Syr beyond start line and opened up possibility of adv to Damascus. Thus forcing the Eg
to come out of anti-aircraft/A tk def and engage Isr in mob warfare.
25. In largest open tk battle since Kursk Isr devastated the attk. Driving across the canal they gained Br H on
western bank and unleashed their armr.
26. Driving south Isr tks eliminated the Eg anti-aircraft msl sites and surrounded the Eg 3 rd Army. At this pt the
war ended with both sides claiming victory.
27. Yom Kippur War took Isr by surprise; once they gained equilibrium proved adept at adapting doctrine to
cbt realities. Arabs fought courageously but cbt orgs reflect societies that spawn them; class, edn, tech skill,
weak mil culture significant weaknesses.
28. Eg-Isr peace treaty was signed through US efforts. However prompted OPEC to throw its weight behind
Arab effort to stop western sp for Isr (250% price hike triggered recession).
The Gulf Wars
1. Vt defeat had its toll on US mil forces, 1970s to restore sit but in 1980s a no of factors bolstered it:
translation of Clausewitz’s On War, self-exam by offrs, Reagan mil build-up brought revolution in tech to
Bfd.
2. Small op in Grenada exposed inter-svc coord flaws. Reagan build-up against conv/ nuc threat of Russia and
after the collapse of Soviet Union in 1989 reductions started.
3. Saddam Hussein rose to power in Ba’ath party, took advantage of sit in Iran after religious ideologues
seized power in 1979 and invaded.
4. Irn c-attks drove Irq armies back. Ba’athist ideology pitted against Islamic fundamentalism: Irq bought
Russian arms, Irn sent youth to clear m fds with feet.
5. In 1988, a series of attks by Irq broke Irn: less of mil competence more of opponents weakness.
6. SH sought eco/ pol con of ME and planned to address the 500 yrs of wrongdoings on Arabs by west.
7. In summer of 1990, burdened by debt of Irn war and not anticipating dir US mil involvement invaded oil-
rich Kuwait which collapsed in less than a day.
8. UN put pressure on SH to wdr which he refused. US pres Bush put together a broad coalition of forces to
liberate Kuwait.
9. US and western allies depl massive mil forces into the Gulf under UN mandate; Irq under est the US mil
might, tech adv, ability to take cas and guts to take on victors of Irn-Irq war.
10. Tech destr SH in the first 10 hrs of war in Jan 1991: comb of stealth ac, cruise msls, precision guided
munitions took apart Irq AD sys.
11. Ae offn wrecked Irq mil infra, gr forces with min damage to civ pop. When Allied gr tps rolled into Irq the
en surrendered with min resistance: their morale shattered.
12. Pol necessity for Allied gr forces to defeat Irq; trg, discp, org imp; “This was the first time in history when
gr campaign sp the air campaign” US marine Gen.

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13. The Aftermath of Victory. Speed of victory in Op Desert Storm (less than 4 days of gr cbt) that drove Irq
back from Kuwait took US by surprise.
14. Appeared as if did not know how to terminate the war and on On 27 Feb 1991, Pres Bush without
consulting theater comds declared ceasefire from midnight (100 hrs after start).
15. Catastrophic decision for three reasons: CF had not sealed the Irq-Kuwait border allowing SH tps to escape,
elite RG remained intact to protect regime against loc oppn, Kuwait free but security/ stability of PG no
better.
16. SH survived in power: eco/ mil sanctions, no fly-zones, stopped pre-war NBCW progms, Irq civs suffered
from sanctions, could not regain mil might.
17. In the armistice US allowed Irq use of hel which were utilized to crush Kurds in North, Shi’ites in South
when they rebelled (on the promise of US sp) with chem/bio/conv wpns.
18. US wanted quick/ ostentatious declaration of victory and extrication after Vt defeat (idea of hosting
armistice talks on USS Missouri where Japs surrendered in 1945).
19. US left substantial forces depl in SArabia as QRF which offended Muslims.
20. Aura of US invincibility created by Op Desert Storm soon faded when in 1992, when 33k UN (28k US tps)
went to Somalia on peacekeeping msn and got sucked in loc conflict.
21. In Oct 1993, after a botched attempt to capture loc warlord his militia killed 18 US, 78 cas and one hostage
shot down two Blackhawk hel.
22. Pub opinion forced new US pres Clinton to wdr forces like Reagan after 200 US killed in Lebanon a decade
ago.
23. Fearing cas: US refused to intervene in 1994 when Hutu massacred 500-800k Tutsi and caused 2mil to flee,
avoided sending US tps to Haiti at first and then wdr as quickly as possible, refused sending peacekeeping
forces to stop genocide in Bosnia/ Kosovo.
The Chechen Wars
1. Humanitarian intervention in these savage conflicts could scarcely have jeopardized US security as in 1991,
SU disintegrated into Commonwealth of Indep States.
2. Only the largest Russian Fed cont to take orders from Moscow: biggest threat to US eliminated.
3. Several mil struggles in Caucasus and Balkans resulted; most of which were resolved without war: like con
of Black Sea fleet, nuc sites in Ukraine, Belarus & Kazakhistan.
4. Worst conflict in Chechnya region in Caucasus mtns: 1mil Chechens refused Moscow auth declared indep
and started persecution of Rus minority arnd cap Grozny (the Terrible).
5. In 1993, civ war broke out among diff Muslim gps and forced Rus to send tps to preserve order and maint
con of vital oil pipelines. Armr captured cities but Gs in mtns remained.
6. 70k cas in war caused Chs to unite and in 1996 reinforced by foreign Muslim fighters they launched ctr-
offn and took Grozny.
7. Unwilling to destr the city in order to take it, in Aug 1996, Rus comd negotiated ceasefire wdr forces and
Chechnya became indep in all but name.
8. During the next yrs Chechans carried out T attks in Moscow and sp other Muslim gps to break free from
Moscow prompting Boris Yeltsin to re-depl 100k tps.
9. Another boolbath fol as Grozny/ other cities were destr while Chechans remained str in mtns and cont to
carry out T attks.
10. Assassination of Rus appointed pres, downing of two Rus commercial planes, numerous suicide bombings
in Rus Fed, taking hostage school children/ teachers.
11. Beslan school sit: death of 300 hostages (half of them children) and 500 wounded.
The Balkan Wars
1. On collapse of SU ethnic div resurfaced in Yugoslavia a fed of 6 republics: Serbia, Croatia, Macedonia,
Bosnia-Herzegovina, Slovenia & Montenegro; auth comm regime.

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2. In 1980, death of fed’s founder, eco declined, internal divs widened, unempl rose.
3. In 1990, after multi party elec nationalists rose to power prompting Slovenia and Croatia to declare indep in
Jun 1991.
4. Yugoslav govt under Slobodan Milosevic attk but in Jan1992 after much bloodshed/ destr US diplomats
and UN peacekeepers forced him to accept secession of two states.
5. Civ war broke out in BH the most ethnically diverse republic: Serbs stay in union with Belgrade while
Muslims and Croats wanted indep.
6. From Apr 1992, the three gps sought to cleanse their held areas but Serbs sp by fed came to con 70% of BH
within a yr (non-Serb men killed/ women raped).
7. Sarajevo (Muslim con capital) was besieged but held out for 3 yrs despite famine/ losses: one of the longest
sieges in W history.
8. In 1994, US pres Clinton persuaded Muslims & Croats to form fed but Serbs refused. In summer of 1995,
their mil comd Ratko Mladic launched last aslt on Muslim enclaves.
9. Thousands of Muslims had taken refuge in UN safe haven protected by 200 lightly armed Dutch tps (incl
town of Srebrenica east of Sarajevo).
10. Mladic’s tps began shelling town on 6 Jul and three days later shot one dutch peacekeeper and took 14
hostage.
11. On 11th Dutch comd Karremans called NATO planes to bomb Serb posns but Mladic threatened to kill
Dutch hostages.
12. Karremans crumbled, Mladic entered Srebrenica ordering Muslims to surrender wpns in exch of safe
passage. Mladic separated men and women/ children allowed to depart.
13. Mladic offered to free Dutch hostages if they gave up wpns and left, Karremans accepted giving up
thousands of Muslim boys/men under his protection.
14. Serbs promptly killed over 8k dumped them in shallow graves and adv on other Muslim posns: worst mil
atrocity since WW-II.
15. NATO started belated bombing campaign forcing Serbs to retreat and Croatian gr forces to adv gaining
territory.
16. In Nov, Serbs (abandoned by Milosevic) bowed to US pressure accepted settlement: Serb republic,
Muslim-Croat Fed created. UN high rep in Sarajevo mon peace process.
17. 3yr war: 250k lives & 20k missing. By Aug, 2mil refugees from Yugoslavia (half from Bosnia).
18. In 2002, UN $12.5mil for Srebrenica, entire Dutch cabinet resigned on report of Dutch I of W Docu.
19. Milosevic charged by IWCC. Not until Jun 2004 did Bosnian Serb officials admit any wrongdoing.
20. In 1990 Milosevic unilaterally ended semi-autonomy enjoyed by Kosovo in Serbia; mostly Muslim pop;
KLA formed after six yrs of passive resistance.
21. KLA attks on loc Serbs prompted Milosevic to carryout ethnic cleansing; threat of armed intervention by
NATO in 1998-9 led to peace discussions but rejected by Milosevic.
22. NATO air msn failed; Serbs preserved most of their armament; cont looting, raping, burning; eventually
admitted defeat more through Russian intervention that 11-wk NATO bombing campaign.
23. 600k muslims fled Kosovo, thousands men killed/ women raped; only when 40k NATO tps KFOR entered
in Jun 99 did Serb forces leave and KLA laid down its arms.
24. Other Cas of War. Besides Srebrenica in the 1990s, ethnic violence flared up in Eritrea, Somalia, Sudan,
Rwanda. Civ war raged in Algeria, Angola, Liberia, Sierra Leone & Zaire.
25. In Asia, civ war raged in Sri Lanka and parts of Indonesia. Muslim world high birthrate prompted youth to
find refuge in madrassas who demonized West/ Isr.
26. In 1987 civ disobedience mov Intifada (shake off) started in Isr occupied territories: 100 Isr, 1k Pals killed.
27. In the mid 90s peace seemed diff but under intense US pressure Isr/Pals ldrs agreed interim govts for West
Bank & Gaza Strip.
28. Isr forces wdr but Pal ldr YA rejected further plan to create two separate states and 2 nd Intifada began in
2000.

43
29. 2006 elections delivered maj seats in Palestinian Legislative Council to Harkat al Muqawwama al Islamiya
(HAMAS) meaning zeal; pol goal destr of Isr.
30. Isr faced maj security prob in N in 1982 after attk launched on its territory from Lebanon by exiles Isr
invaded S part of cty; led to fmn of Hezbollah (Party of God).
31. In 2000 Isr wdr forces from Lebanon partly due to its successful G tac; Hezbollah attks cont till Jul 2006
when Isr reacted by land/air/sea; CF imposed by UN.
32. Isr ability to pen/disable Syr def sys, jets destr suspected nuc instl in 2007 showed it retained edge in conv
ops.
33. In Latin America, negotiations terminated long-runing civ wars in Nicaragua & Guatemala while in Peru
capture of Maoist Shining Path ldr opened way to peace.
34. In Northern Ireland, where Brit tps had struggled in vain for 30yrs to end armd violence bw Protestant &
Catholic militants, Clinton intervention facilitated accord on Good Friday 1998; Brit army wdr after longest
cont depl in history 38 yrs.
Lessons Not Learnt
1. Air on its own can not achieve desired results and req “boots on gr”: estb as early as 1922 Irq insurgency &
rft by Fr/ US AF failure in Vt, Gulf Wars and Kosovo genocide.
2. US not putting tps on gr unless it dir treatened US security: Kosovo highlt this US mindset it was also
publicized so, Milosevic got free hand (rft of impression created in Somalia).
3. Embedded reporting: SH allowed western journalists to report from Baghdad throughout GW, Boris
Yeltsin allowed only Rus journos to embed and report Chechan war.
4. Impact of internet: Chechens broadcasted live images to highlt atrocities and empty claims of Moscow’s
imminent victory during both invasions, sp of Milosevic staged rock concerts during ae bombing to highlt
their contempt and inaccuracy of NATO.
5. David Rohde of Chri Sc Mon two days after satellite images revealed mass graves around Srebrenica singe-
handedly exposed killing fds to the world.
6. Urban GW: Ops in Somalia/ Chechnya revealed its tenacity. Two probs for invaders: prolonged conflict
gets more diff & high tech wpns relatively ineffective.
America Under Attk
1. Al-Qaeda (the Base)op from Sudan under OBL who in early 1992 issued fatwa calling on all Ms to
undertake holy war aginst western tps occupying M lands (SArabia).
2. Somalia was his first proving gr fol by Chechnya & Bosnia. Dir tgt US (head of snake).
3. Noted unsuccessful attempt to bring down twin towers by another M gp in 1993. In 1995, AQ detonated car
bomb at US-Saudi jt trg facility in Riyadh killing 5 US.
4. Intl demand for Sudan to surrender OBL forced him to flee to Afg where in 1996 Kabul fell to Tbn who
facilitated him and estb camps where 10-20k Ms could train.
5. In Feb 1998, issued another fatwa claiming US had declared war against Islam and murder of US
citizens(civ/mil) was duty of all Ms everywhere.
6. In Aug 1999, AQ SBs drove expl laden trucks into US embassies in Nairobi, Kenya & Dar-es-
Salam,Tanzania killing 12 US and over 200 other nationals wounding thousands.
7. OBL claimed resp and went into hiding in Afg cty-side, two wks later US msls struck factory in Sudan
allegedly making nerve gas for AQ killing 20-30 indls.
8. In 1999, AQ planned to attk oil-tk with boat laden with expl but obj was changed to US wship: aim was to
pressurize US forces to leave holy lands.
9. In Jan 2000, SBs tried to sink one in port of Aden but failed, 8 months later another gp damaged USS Cole
killing17 US and wounding 40.
10. No strike fol for two reasons: controversial US election result, dir action without proof of OBL
involvement could create M backlash as last strike in 1998 had created 10k more Ts.

44
11. Attk on USS Cole provided AQ with rect material and it pondered fresh tgts. Bush as pres focuded on msl
shield to protect US as nuc cap ctys inc.
12. On 11 Sep 2001, 19 AQ members hijacked 3 commercial airliner and crashed them into WTC and
Pentagon. Fourth plane was forced to crash in Psylvania.
13. OBL with budget of 500k $, 19 indls in less than 1 hr killed 3000 US and loss of billions of $.
The Empire Strikes Back
1. On 20 Sep 2001, Bush issued ultimatum to Tbn to hand over Ts. Next day approved ae bombardment plans
fol by small-scale invasion.
2. Ae offn started on 7 Oct, coinciding with the defeat of Ottoman Turks at Lepanto in 1571.
3. Tbn regime unpopular after 5yrs of brutal rule collapsed in two months as US/ Allies launched 6.5k air
strikes. Op cost coalition less than 20 dead.
4. Afg forces opposed to Tbn with US units asst attk survivng AQ fighters in ToraBora mtns on eastern
border.
5. In 2004, Hamid Karzai exiled politician became pres in first elec: but cty largely con by loc warlords.
6. Afg campaign restored US mil might. Bush oulined detailed response to 9/11 in 25 Oct 2001, Nat Sec Pres
Dir 9: “Defeating T threat to US” envisaging global war against T-ism.
7. US treasury froze assets of gps suspected of sp AQ, IRA etc. Regimes favoring AQ also came under
scritiny and Irq was likely suspect: somehow SH had sponsored 9/11 attks.
8. Pres ruled out double-strike but planning for Irq invasion started, in 2002 the Brits commisioned svy for
WMDs in four ctys later narrowed down to Irq only.
9. In Sep, Blair was certain Irq had WMDs cap of being depl in 45 mins; used as excuse by Bush to declare
Irq-Irn-NK axis of evil and began shifting mil resources from Afg.
10. Bush sough mandate for Irq invasion from UN/ NATO which was not forthcoming, sympathy for 9/11
starting to fade: huge anti-war demostrations worldwide(Feb 2003).
11. In Mar 2003, Bush issued ultimatum for SH to leave Irq on expiration of which USAF started spectacular
bombing campaign “Shock & Awe” of Irq govt bldgs/ infra on 19 Mar.
12. CF invaded Irq from Kuwait (Turkey not involved) US inf with CAS surprisingly in less than 3 wks
captured Baghdad. US AB tps with Kurdish fighters took N cities and Brits took Basra.
13. By end of 2003 captured SH and top aides who had disappeared. But criticism for war mounted as till end
of war no WMDs or proof of Irq sposorship of AQ were found.
14. In op terms it was success as less than 150 dead but probs soon fol as delay in reconst process, lack of pub
sp and less no of forces compounded diff.
15. CF 130k mostly reservists as compared to 500k in GW; Irq size of Cali & 25mil pop allowed to retain
arms, pop (hostile) suffering fom eco/ material damage of war/sanctions.
16. Bush’s inability to create broader coalition at outset, not allowing contractors from non-participant ctys in
reconst process caused delay and widespread loc resistance to US.
17. Tfr of power to Interim Irq Auth appt by US in Jun 2004 and elecs in Feb 2005 failed to end campaign of
violence/ sabotage against US tps.
18. CF B Fd success was eroded by media coverage, besides US embedded journos Arab/ Fr journos exposed
Irq resistance, videos of Abu Gharaib served to inc outrage against US.
19. CF became tied down in urban warfare, AQ ldrs tgt ctys that pledged sp to CF using sp gps in Turkey,
Morocco, Indonesia.
20. Greatest success in Spain noting PM Anzar’s sp for invasion of Irq. On 11 Mar 2004, 3 days before elec
detonated bombs on trains near Madrid killing 200/ wounding hundreds.
21. Anzar blamed Basque separatists and ordered coverup but voters turned out to bring Socialist Party in
power promising to bring back Spanish tps from Irq.
22. By end of 2004, Irq war had caused 100k Irq dead and 1k CF. AQ attks on westerners rect more
mujahideen. War cost US $354bil in 2001 to $547bil in 2004 and was far from won.

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1

CHAPTER 12: THE INDUSTRIALIZATION OF WAR

American Civil War

THE CAMBRIDGE HISTORY OF WARFARE

THE CAMBRIDGE HISTORY OF WARFARE

THE CAMBRIDGE HISTORY OF WARFARE

THE CAMBRIDGE HISTORY OF WARFARE

THE CAMBRIDGE HISTORY OF WARFARE

CHAPTER 13: TOWARDS WORLD WAR

THE CAMBRIDGE HISTORY OF WARFARE

THE CAMBRIDGE HISTORY OF WARFARE

US Conquest of the West

THE CAMBRIDGE HISTORY OF WARFARE

THE CAMBRIDGE HISTORY OF WARFARE

THE CAMBRIDGE HISTORY OF WARFARE

THE CAMBRIDGE HISTORY OF WARFARE

THE CAMBRIDGE HISTORY OF WARFARE

CHAPTER 14: THE WEST AT WAR

1914: The Opening Moves

THE CAMBRIDGE HISTORY OF WARFARE

THE CAMBRIDGE HISTORY OF WARFARE

1915: The Year of Allied Failure

THE CAMBRIDGE HISTORY OF WARFARE

1916: The Killing War

THE CAMBRIDGE HISTORY OF WARFARE

1917: The Darkest Year

THE CAMBRIDGE HISTORY OF WARFARE

THE CAMBRIDGE HISTORY OF WARFARE

1918: The Year of Decision

THE CAMBRIDGE HISTORY OF WARFARE

The War at Home

THE CAMBRIDGE HISTORY OF WARFARE

CHAPTER 15: THE WORLD IN CONFLICT

Prep for the Next War

THE CAMBRIDGE HISTORY OF WARFARE

Air and Sea Power

THE CAMBRIDGE HISTORY OF WARFARE

The Road to War

Germany’s Easy War

THE CAMBRIDGE HISTORY OF WARFARE

The Fall of France

THE CAMBRIDGE HISTORY OF WARFARE

The Battle of Britain

War in the Balkans

THE CAMBRIDGE HISTORY OF WARFARE

THE CAMBRIDGE HISTORY OF WARFARE

CHAPTER 16: THE WORLD AT WAR

THE CAMBRIDGE HISTORY OF WARFARE

The Mediterranean and Allied Strat

THE CAMBRIDGE HISTORY OF WARFARE

The Battle of the Atlantic

The Air War

THE CAMBRIDGE HISTORY OF WARFARE

The Eastern Front 1943-44

THE CAMBRIDGE HISTORY OF WARFARE

Victory in the West

THE CAMBRIDGE HISTORY OF WARFARE

The End in Europe

THE CAMBRIDGE HISTORY OF WARFARE

THE CAMBRIDGE HISTORY OF WARFARE

Dropping the Bomb

THE CAMBRIDGE HISTORY OF WARFARE

CHAPTER 17: THE POST-WAR WORLD