As a British infantry officer in the Royal Gurkha Rifles Emile Simpson completed three tours of Southern Afghanistan. Drawing on that experience & on a range of little-known case studies ranging from Nepal to Borneo War From The Ground Up offers a distinctive perspective on contemporary armed conflict: while most accounts of war look down at the battlefield from an academic perspective or across it as a personal narrative the author looks up from the battlefield to consider the concepts that put him there & how they played out on the ground. Simpson argues that in the Afghan conflict & in contemporary conflicts more generally liberal powers & their armed forces have blurred the line between military & political activity. More broadly they have challenged the distinction between war & peace. He contends that this loss of clarity is more a response to the conditions of combat in the early twenty-first century particularly that of globalisation than a deliberate choice. The issue is thus not whether the West should engage in such practices but how to manage gain advantage from & mitigate the risks of this evolution in warfare. War From The Ground Up draws heavily on personal anecdotes from the frontline related to historical context & strategic thought to offer a re-evaluation of the concept of war in modern conflict. ...

A special lavishly illustrated new edition of Michael Foremans classic story. Its 1914 when everything changes for a group of bys growing up & playing football in the Suffolk countryside. Far away in a place called Sarajevo an Archduke has been killed & a web of global events results in a call for all British men to do their duty for King & Country & join the army to fight the germans overseas. The boys sign up for what sounds like an adventure & a chance to see the world. After basic training the boys sail to France where they find themselves fighting on the front line. Living in the trenches in constant fear for their lives is nothing like they expected & only a bombed-out wasteland no-mans-land separates their trences from those of their German enemies. Then on Christmas Day something remarkable happens as the German & British armies stop fighting & meet in the middle of no-mans-l&. The enemies talk play football & become friends. But the war isnt over the two sides resume fighting & the group of Suffolk lads are ordered to charge across no-mans-l&... ...

All you will need to fight wargames covering the armies of the eighteenth century Following on from his fathers great wargaming classic The War Game Charles Grant Jr. has collated years of rule development alteration & additions to make this the updated & complete set of rules. This set of rules is all you will need to fight wargames covering the armies of the eighteenth century & will do very well even for later periods. The rules help you to organise your armies then cover play sequence movement rates for all troop types firing infantry & artillery how to melee fighting in built up areas morale engineers river transport special soldier types scaling down & much more! These are the master rules from the master wargamer. ...

The bedlam of battle had begun. All around me men cried & fell to the ground & horses reared & screamed in an agony of fear & pain. The shells whined & roared overhead & every explosion seemed like an earthquake to us. A stunning wartime classic. In the deadly chaos of the First World War one horse witnesses the reality of battle from both sides of the trenches. Bombarded by artillery with bullets knocking riders from his back Joey tells a powerful story of the truest friendships surviving in terrible times. One horse has the seen the best & the worst of humanity. The power of war & the beauty of peace. This is his story. From Michael Morpurgo former children's laureate come this thrilling & epic tale of one horse's journey through the trenches First World War. Now adapted by Steven Spielberg as a major motion picture & shown on stage in London's West End & also on Broadway. ...

War Horse is a 2011 British-American war drama film directed by Steven Spielberg & is intended for release in the United States on 25 December 2011 & in the United Kingdom on 13 January 2012. It is based on both War Horse a childrens novel set during World War I by British author Michael Morpurgo first published in the UK in 1982 & the 2007 National Theatre stage adaptation of the same name. Set in Devon at the outbreak of World War 1 Joey young Albert Narracotts beloved horse is sold to the cavalry & shipped to France. He serves in the British & German armies which takes him on an extraordinary odyssey serving on both sides before being alone in no mans l&. ...

This moving story based on the novel by National Curriculum recommended author Michael Morpurgo & adapted for the stage by Nick Stafford is an incredibly moving portrayal of the bond between a soldier & his horse in the deadly chaos of the First World War. Sold to the army in 1914 & separated from his beloved young master Albert farm horse Joey is thrust into the midst of the Western Front. Albert vows to follow Joey to war & to be reunited with his friend but will they find one another? ...

Besides being the only British territory occupied by the Germans in the World War II it is perhaps less generally known that the Channel Islands were fortified out of all proportion to the rest of Hitlers Atlantic Wall: a legacy that is explored in individual chapters on Alderney Guernsey Jersey & Sark. First-hand accounts of all seven Commando raids are brought together plus a summary of how the islands hotels were put to use by their German guests may intrigue present day visitors. There is a review of war museums which aims to give an insight into the variety of relics that enthusiasts have had the foresight to preserve. The war cemeteries are described & there is a list of every grave of both sides of the two World Wars. Annotated aerial photographs also form an important aspect of this work. ...

War in the Wilderness" is the most comprehensive account ever published of the human aspects of the Chindit war in Burma. The word Chindit will always have a special resonance in military circles. Every Chindit endured what is widely regarded as the toughest sustained Allied combat experience of the Second World War. The Chindit expeditions behind Japanese lines in occupied Burma 1943
- 1944 transformed the morale of British forces after the crushing defeats of 1942. The Chindits provided the springboard for the Allies later offensives. The two expeditions extended the boundaries of human endurance. The Chindits suffered slow starvation & exposure to dysentery malaria typhus & a catalogue of other diseases. They endured the intense mental strain of living & fighting under the jungle canopy with the ever-present threat of ambush or simply bumping the enemy. Every Chindit carried his kit & weapons (equivalent to two heavy suitcases) in the tropical heat & humidity. A disabling wound or sickness frequently meant a lonely death. Those who could no longer march were often left behind with virtually no hope of survival. Some severely wounded were shot or given a lethal dose of morphia to ensure they would not be captured alive by the Japanese. Fifty veterans of the Chindit expeditions kindly gave interviews for this book. Many remarked on the self-reliance that sprang from living & fighting as a Chindit. Whatever happened to them after their experiences in Burma they knew that nothing else would ever be as bad. There are first-hand accounts of the bitter & costly battles & the final wasteful weeks when men were forced to continue fighting long after their health & strength had collapsed. " War in the Wilderness" continues the story as the survivors returned to civilian life. They remained Chindits for the rest of their days members of a brotherhood forged in extreme adversity."
...

The author an Anglo-American married to an Italian landowner in 1924 found herself raising a family during the civil war & foreign invasion in the remote Tuscan countryside. This diary records her concerns to keep her household & sixty orphans together & save a rural community from annihilation. It is a story of confusion & bewilderment as a peasant society is confronted by disaster when in the space of a few months a whole way of life is changed completely beyond recognition. It is also a story of tragedy & suffering of individual courage generosity & heroism. ...

An utterly gripping thriller that sees former cavalry Major turned hardened mercenary Alex Devereux plunged into conflict in the dark heart of Africa as he battles the dominant militia in the Congo. China intends to take over the Kivu region in The Democratic Republic of Congo a tribal slaughterhouse of rival militias who are butchering the local population & fighting over mineral resources. Alex's mission is to defeat the dominant militia the FDLR. But details of how Kivu will be governed under the new order are sketchy & Alex must run the gamut of the United Nations the Congolese army & the clash of superpower claims on the region. Alex knows that the plan is risky. But he can't resist -- could he succeed in bringing stability when everyone else has failed? He & his crack regiment take on their toughest assignment yet. But the road to hell is paved with good intentions & Alex is about to find out why the region has been called the dark heart of Africa! ...