Page 42 - Australian Defence Magazine - July 2018

www.militarybooksaustralia.wordpress.com
COMPILED BY PETER MASTERS | BRISBANE
AUSTRALIANS ON THE WESTERN FRONT 1918 VOL 1 RESISTING THE GERMAN OFFENSIVE
By David W Cameron Published by Viking/ Penguin Random House RRP $34.99 in paperback ISBN 9780143788614 Noted military historian David Cameron has turned his attention to the final year of WWI – 1918 and in particular the crucial battles fought in March and April. 1917 had been a bloody year for the allies, culminating
in the terrible battle of Passchendaele where the
DEFENDING THE ROCK
HOW GIBRALTAR
DEFEATED HITLER
By Nicholas Rankin Published by Faber & Faber; Dist. by Allen and Unwin RRP $39.99 in hardback ISBN 9780571307708
The actual Rock of Gibraltar is a chunk of Jurassic limestone at the very southern tip of Spain at the entrance to
the Mediterranean Sea. It became a British protectorate in 1704 when the English, aided by the Dutch, ousted the Spanish governor. The Rock became the portal for British expansion eastwards
British Commonwealth suffered close to 350,000 casualties. A fresh German offensive was expected in early 1918. The offensive
duly eventuated when the Germans launched their attack on 21 March. They initially made significant inroads into the British Fifth Army’s line with the aim of pushing them back to the vital railway hub
of Amiens. Cameron gives
a detailed account of how
the attack unfolded and the role the Australians played
in eventually repulsing the Germans. Drawing heavily
on battalion diaries and soldiers’ letters, he weaves a compelling narrative around the campaign’s significant moments including the Australian Army Corps’ heavy involvement in the battles
of Dernancourt, Villers- Bretonneux and Hazebrouck. Volume 2 will cover the great Allied offensive of August 1918.
as far as the Suez Canal. Fast forward to WW II. Gibraltar
is menaced on all sides – by Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, Vichy France and Francoist Spain. By 1940, civilians
were being compulsorily evacuated to Morocco. By 1942, Gibraltar became US General Eisenhower’s HQ for the invasion of North Africa,
the campaign that led to Allied victory in the Mediterranean. Rankin suggests it was Hitler’s failure to commit to ridding himself of his last opponent – England – either by invasion, blockade or cutting its Mediterranean links of Gibraltar, Malta and the Suez that was pivotal to the outcome of the war. While the sub-title of this book, ‘How Gibraltar defeated Hitler’, seems a bridge too
far, Rankin has nevertheless written a fascinating book, demonstrating the strategic value of Gibraltar within the broader context of the war in Europe.
MONASH & CHAUVEL
HOW AUSTRALIA’S TWO GREATEST GENERALS CHANGED THE COURSE OF WORLD HISTORY
By Roland Perry
Published by Allen
and Unwin
RRP $34.99 in paperback ISBN 9781760291433
John Monash commanded the Australian forces on the Western Front at a critical time. With his German Jewish heritage, Monash was an outsider who had risen to his position through merit. He learned the lessons of past failures, devising
HUE 1968
A TURNING POINT
OF THE AMERICAN
WAR IN VIETNAM
By Mark Bowden Published by Grove Press; Dist. by Allen and Unwin RRP $32.99 in paperback ISBN 9781611855104
31 January 1968 was a pivotal date in the Vietnam War; the US military hierarchy was caught by surprise. Known
as the Tet Offensive, its aim was to overrun the American and South Vietnamese armies thus triggering a popular uprising which the Viet
Cong hoped would result in
tactics that broke through the stalemate of trench warfare. In the war against the Ottoman Empire in the Middle East, Harry Chauvel led the 34,000-strong Desert Mounted Column. Chauvel considered himself as British first, Australian second but his attitude changed during the course of the war when he realised he would have to ignore the directives of his British superiors and take the initiative in planning battle tactics himself to defeat the Turks. He did this at Romani in the Sinai in August 1916; at Beersheba on 31 October 1917; and in the final 1918 drive. By the end of the
war Monash and Chauvel had brought a distinctly Australian sensibility to their areas of operation. This is
a highly readable account
of the two most important Australian field commanders of the First World War.
the overthrow of the South Vietnamese government. The early days of the campaign saw nearly 10,000 North Vietnamese troops capture
all but two embattled compounds in the city of Hue, the historic capital of Vietnam. Mark Bowden reconstructs hour by hour how a much inferior sized force of US
and South Vietnamese
troops were finally able to emerge victorious after 25 days of bitter urban warfare. While the Tet Offensive eventually failed, the North Vietnamese did score a major psychological victory. Support for the war in America
started to decline resulting in President Lyndon Johnson announcing he would not seek re-election. The belief that an American victory was inevitable had been severely undermined and Bowden believes that “never again would Americans fully trust their leaders”.
42 | July 2018 | www.australiandefence.com.au
BOOKS OF INTEREST