The years 1915–17 saw the Imperial German Army forced to adapt to the new realities of static trench warfare.Prewar uniforms and equipment had to be modified, for both utility and economy; on battlefields ruled by machine guns and artillery the steel helmet reappeared, as well as masks to protect against poison gas. Fashionable cavalry regiments soon proved irrelevant on the Western Front; many were dismounted to join the infantry, while new units usurped their pre...

A comprehensive overview of the troops involved in the First World War campaigns in Southeastern Europe.It was events in the Balkans which sparked off the Great War, with the assassination of the Austrian heir Prince Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo, and the consequent invasion of Serbia by Austro-Hungarian armies on 2 August 1914. Nevertheless, the subsequent four-year war in that theatre is always overshadowed by the simultaneous campaigns on the Western Front.

The Royal Hungarian Army was Germany's largest ally on the Eastern Front, but information about the Hungarian Army in English is rare.Deployed in Ukraine at the beginning of the war, the Hungarian Army was involved in a number of brutal encounters with the Red Army, including stubborn resistance in Transylvania in the summer of 1944, and the brave defense of Budapest in the face of overwhelming odds.The Hungarian Army was a varied and colourful force, rangi...

In August 1914 the mobilization of Imperial Germany's 800,000-strong army ushered in the first great war of the modern age - a war which still stands as the greatest slaughter of soldiers in history.That German Army is also the best example of a particular period of military thought, when virtually the whole manpower of the European nations was integrated into mass conscript armies, supported by several age categories of reservists and by dedicated industrial and t...

On 1 September 1939, when Germany attacked Poland, the Wehrmacht numbered 3,180,000 men.It eventually expanded to 9,500,000, and on 8-9 May 1945, the date of its unconditional surrender on the Western and Eastern Fronts, it still numbered 7,800,000. The Blitzkrieg period, from 1 September 1939 to 25 June 1940, was 10 months of almost total triumph for the Wehrmacht, as it defeated every country, except Great Britain, that took the field against it.In this f...

Once the sore throat and aching limbs of a cold begin, what you need is something that will quickly relieve the symptoms and get you back onto the road to recovery. Cayenne pepper is the very thing.Although there are many over the counter products that claim to be able to do this, cayenne pepper is a natural product that has a huge healing benefit.These healing properties have remained unknown to the majority of people, whilst those in the know have used them to their advan...

Surely nobody who had suffered the ferocity of the Nazi invasion could consider switching sides and joining the Germans? Yet that is exactly what up to 400,000 Soviet citizens did in World War II.These included not only the 'legions' recruited from non-Russian ethnic groups eager for freedom from Stalin's dictatorship, but also some 100,000 Russians and Cossacks. What began as small local security units of 'Ostruppen', enrolled for the ongoing campaigns against Sov...

Operation Barbarossa, the attack on the Soviet Union, commenced on 22 June 1941.It became the biggest conflict in military history, with some three million German troops and about 900,000 allies facing almost 4.7 million Soviet troops. The effects would colour postwar European history for the next 50 years.This title examines the history of the conflict, and the organisation, uniforms and insignia of the German Army on the Eastern Front from 1941-43. The bo...

Between 1941–45, the Germans recruited around 175,000 men from a number of minorities in the USSR, distinguishing between 'Turkomans' (predominantly Muslims) and 'Caucasians' (predominantly Orthodox Christians).Of these, many formed rear-area auxiliary units, but at least 55,000 were combat troops. The first recruits formed two battalions in the 444th Security Division raised as early as November 1941; during 1942–43 seven legions were formed, each of several batta...

Immediately following the end of World War I, amid the collapse of the German, Austro-Hungarian and Russian Empires, bitter fighting broke out in the Baltic region as Poland, Finland, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania struggled for their independence, and Red and White Russian armies began their civil war.There were also German forces still active in what had been the northern end of Germany's Eastern Front. This book offers a concise but detailed introduction to this ...

Millington and Jay, two very discreet, middle-aged men living in Montreal, are in the fourth year of a marriage that seems idyllic to their friends. But the marriage is hidden from their parents, who live in St Vincent, and it is fraught with Millington's problems from untreated trauma and his former career as a Methodist minister. And Then Again Begin (volume 4 of The No Safeguards Quartet) reveals their surprising discoveries as they attempt to resolve these problems.

This scholarly collection examines the origins, history, and contemporary nature of Chinese Judaism in the community of Kaifeng. These essays, written by a diverse, international team of contributors, explore the culture and history of this thousand-year-old Jewish community, whose synthesis of Chinese and Jewish cultures helped guarantee its survival. Part I of this study analyzes the origin and historical development of the Kaifeng community, as well as the unique cultural synthesis it e...