John Bourne - The Great World War 1914–1945 - 1. Lightning Strikes Twice

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First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 2000

Copyright © Dr Peter Liddle, Dr John Bourne and Dr Ian Whitehead 2000

The editors assert the moral right to be identified as the authors of this work

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

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Source ISBN: 9780007116171

Ebook Edition © SEPTEMBER 2014 ISBN: 9780007598182

Version: 2014–10–09

To the generations who experienced the lightning strikes 1914–1945

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Editors’ Introduction

PART I THE FRONT LINE EXPERIENCE

Chapter 1 A personal reflection on the two World Wars

J. M. Bourne

Chapter 2 Preparing for war: the experience of the Cameronians

John Baynes and Cliff Pettit

Chapter 3 Waging the undersea war: a British perspective

Jeff Tall

Chapter 4 The merchant seaman at war

Tony Lane

Chapter 5 War in the air: the fighter pilot

David Jordan

Chapter 6 War in the air: the bomber crew

Christina Goulter

Chapter 7 The Desert War experience

Niall Barr

Chapter 8 War in the Pacific

Eric Bergerud

Chapter 9 War in the Tropics: East Africa and Burma

Phillip Parotti

Chapter 10 Hitting the beach: the amphibious experience

Geoffrey Till

Chapter 11 British Special Forces operations behind enemy lines

Julian Thompson

Chapter 12 Partisans and guerrillas

Malcolm Mackintosh

Chapter 13 The experience of being abroad: doughboys and GIs in Europe

James J. Cooke

Chapter 14 German soldiers in victory, 1914 and 1940

Benjamin Ziemann and Klaus Latzel

Chapter 15 The experience of defeat: Kut (1916) and Singapore (1942)

Robin Neillands

Chapter 16 The experience of killing

Joanna Bourke

Chapter 17 The experience of captivity: British and Commonwealth prisoners in Germany

Peter H. Liddle and S. P. McKenzie

Chapter 18 Casualties and British medical services

Nick Bosanquet and Ian Whitehead

Chapter 19 Spies, codebreakers and secret agents

M. R. D. Foot

PART II THE EXPERIENCE OF LEADERSHIP

Chapter 20 Monarchy in wartime: King George V and King George VI

Hugo Vickers

Chapter 21 Political leaders in wartime: Lloyd George and Churchill

George H. Cassar

Chapter 22 Erich Ludendorff and Tôjô Hideki: some comparisons

Peter Wetzler

Chapter 23 Foch and Eisenhower: Supreme Commanders

Frank E. Vandiver

Chapter 24 General Brusilov and Marshal Zhukov, June 1916 and June 1944

John Erickson

Chapter 25 Reflections on the experience of British generalship

G. D. Sheffield

Chapter 26 Coalition war: the Anglo-American experience

Dennis E. Showalter

Chapter 27 Coalition war: Britain and France

William Philpott

Chapter 28 Coalition war: Germany and her Allies, Austria-Hungary and Italy

Gary W. Shanafelt and G. T. Waddington

PART III THE EXPERIENCE OF OCCUPATION

Chapter 29 The experience of occupation: Belgium

Mark Derez

Chapter 30 The experience of occupation: Northern France

Margaret Atack

Chapter 31 The experience of occupation: Poland

Anita J. Prazmowska

Chapter 32 The experience of displacement: refugees and war

Guy S. Goodwin-Gill

Chapter 33 The experience of genocide: Armenia 1915–16 and Romania 1941–42

Mark Levene

Keep Reading

Notes

Index

Acknowledgements

About the Publisher

Editors’ Introduction

A part from debates about the international ramifications of the Treaty of Versailles, historians have tended to study the two world wars in isolation. This has been justified by the assumption that the two conflicts were qualitatively and quantitatively different. The First World War has more often than not been regarded as a ‘bad’ war resulting from failures in diplomacy, and a war characterised by the ‘futile’ sacrifices of trench warfare on the Western Front; standing in stark contrast to the justifiable and necessary struggle, between 1939 and 1945, against Nazi tyranny and aggressive Japanese militarism. In the First World War the civilian populations of the belligerent powers played an increasingly vital part in the war effort. But it is the Second World War, with its indiscriminate bombing of cities placing civilians in the front line, and technology taking man’s destructive powers to new heights, that is more usually seen as the first truly ‘total’ war. To treat the wars separately in this fashion, however, is to ignore a significant historical reality – all those who were over forty years of age in 1940 would have had their adult lives in some sense defined by their participation, or non-participation, in these two global conflicts. It is this continuum of human experience that firmly unites the world wars, and which is the focus both of this book and its successor volume.

The aim throughout is to demonstrate the diversity of personal experience in the two world wars. This volume examines uniformed service and such aspects of civilian experience as occupation, displacement and genocide. It discusses the exercise of political and military leadership and details the difficulties of prosecuting coalition warfare. The later volume deals with the national experiences of both belligerent and neutral states and considers the role of civilians in war. There are also sections dealing with moral and cultural issues.

The comparative approach that underpins the book reveals striking parallels between the two global conflicts of the twentieth century. It is clear that in many respects lightning did indeed strike twice – when considering the development of modern warfare, its challenges and its impact, there is much that unites the two conflicts. Indeed, it is tempting to conclude that, in relation to human experience, there was nothing fundamentally new in the Second World War. There were, however, important differences, none more significant than the ideological basis of the struggle between Nazi Germany and her opponents. The First World War was, in part at least, the product of ancient Balkan savageries and the fate of the Armenians gave warning of the human capacity for organised atrocity on the scale of genocide, a word not yet then coined. But a new register is required to measure the consequences of ideological warfare in the Second World War. German and Japanese conduct of the Second World War was driven by racism and political dogma. This and the response it provoked from the Soviets on the Eastern Front, the Americans in the Pacific and the British and Americans in the skies above Germany and occupied Europe ensured that the Second World War extended the frontiers of human degradation and misery well beyond the boundaries ‘achieved’ in the earlier struggle.