Andrew Rawson Book order

A quick and accessible read on one of the most dramatic battles of the Second World War

The Balkans witnessed several bloody conflicts during the twentieth century. New nations emerged in 1913, after 500 years of Ottoman rule, only for them to go to war just weeks later. The assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo in June 1914 sparked the series of events that led to the Great War. Most of the belligerents would be drawn into the region, while the post-war border changes created tensions.Italian designs on the Balkans resulted in the occupation of Albania in March 1939, but it failed to take control of Greece over the winter of 1940-41. A German blitzkrieg quickly defeated both Yugoslavia and Greece in the spring of 1941, and the population of both countries then suffered terribly as the occupying forces encouraged collaboration and punished resistance.The area was rife with guerrilla activity, as monarchists, nationalists and communists fought each other as often as the occupying troops. This, in turn, led to communism sweeping across most of the region in the post-war years, while Greece was taken over by a fascist regime.Communism eventually ended, but ethnic troubles resulted in a ten-year conflict across Yugoslavia. It would be divided into Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo, at the end of the bloodiest conflict in Europe since World War II.

Poland was re-created as an independent nation at the end of the First World War, but it soon faced problems as Nazi Germany set about expanding its control on Europe. The Wehrmacht's attack on 1 September 1939 was followed by a Red Army invasion two weeks later.

The men who went to war in August 1914 fought completely differently to those who survived until the Armistice on 11 November 1918. This is a study of the bloody learning process the British Expeditionary Force had to go through on the Western Front.

An in depth account of the German offensive on the Somme in March 1918.

An in depth account of Operation Georgette, the attack against Second and First Armies in April 1918.

An in depth account of the Allied offensives in July, August and September 1918.

An in depth account of the final days of the Advance to Victory.

An in depth account of Third Army s attack against the Hindenburg Line in November 1917.

An in-depth account of the retreat to the Hindenburg Line in February and March 1917.