Mud, Blood & Cold Steel: The Retreat from Nashville, December 1864 takes a fresh look, for the first time with campaign and battle maps, at the unprecedented and brutal pursuit of the Army of Tennessee by Federal troops following the decisive Battle of Nashville. The non-stop action begins at Compton's Hill and surges 120 miles in ten days over rugged terrain and in horrendous winter conditions to the final showdown between Wilson's blueclad troopers and Forrest's stubborn rearguard. This thrilling tale, written by historian Mark Zimmerman, author of Guide to Civil War Nashville, is told largely in the words of the participants themselves and draws from the research and opinions of other historians and authors. Well-organized chapters help explain the complicated flow of events as they happened. Designed not as a scholarly definitive reference, Mud, Blood & Cold Steel is written for general audiences interested in thrilling American history, as well as for Civil War and military buffs.

""Mud, Blood, and Ghosts" is a thoughtful, creative, and deeply researched story about the origins of Populism in America and its anti-immigrant and racist attitudes"--

It is 1915 and the Great War has been raging for a year when Edward Rowbotham, a coal miner from the Midlands, volunteers for Kitchener’s Army. Drafted into the newly formed Machine Gun Corps, he is sent to fight in places whose names will forever be associated with mud and blood and sacrifice: Ypres, the Somme and Passchendaele. He is one of the ‘lucky’ ones, winning the Military Medal for bravery and surviving more than two-and-a-half years of the terrible slaughter, which wiped out all but six of his original company.He wrote these memoirs fifty years later, but found his memories of life in the trenches had not diminished at all. The sights and sounds of battle, the excitement, the terror, the extraordinary comradeship, are all vividly described as if they had happened to him only yesterday.

This military history of the WWII Battle of Greece presents a vivid and detailed account with special focus on the Greek forces defending their homeland. On October 28th, 1940, the Greek Prime Minister Ioannis Metaxas refused to accept an ultimatum from Italy’s Fascist leader Benito Mussolini. Immediately upon his refusal, Italian forces began the invasion of Greece via Albania. This aggression was prompted by Mussolini's desire for a quick victory to rival Hitler's rapid conquest of France and the Low Countries. But Mussolini had underestimated the skill and determination of the defenders. Within weeks, the Italian invaders were driven back over the border and Greek forces actually advanced deep into Albania. Eventually, Hitler was forced to intervene, sending German forces into Greece via Bulgaria on April 6th. The Greeks, assisted by British forces, were overwhelmed by the Germans and their blitzkrieg tactics. After Athens fell on April 27th, the British evacuated to Crete. But the following month, German airborn troops invaded and eventually took the strategically vital island. John Carr's masterful account of these desperate campaigns draws heavily on Greek sources to emphasize the oft-neglected experience of Greeks soldiers and their contribution to the fight against fascism.

On 28th October 1940, the Greek premier, Ioannis Metaxis, refused to accept a deliberately provocative ultimatum from Mussolini and Italian forces began the invasion of Greece via Albania. This aggression was prompted by Mussolini's desire for a quick victory to rival Hitler's rapid conquest of France and the Low Countries. On paper, Greek forces were poorly equipped and ill-prepared for the conflict but Mussolini had underestimated the skill and determination of the defenders. Within weeks the Italian invasion force was driven back over the border and Greek forces actually advanced deep into Albania.??A renewed Italian offensive in March 1941 was also given short shrift, prompting Hitler to intervene to save his ally. German forces invaded Greece via Bulgaria on 6 April. The Greeks, now assisted by British forces, resisted by land, sea and air but were overwhelmed by the superior German forces and their blitzkrieg tactics. Despite a dogged rearguard action by Anzac forces at the famous pass of Thermopyale, Athens fell on the 27th April and the British evacuated 50,000 troops to Crete. This island, whose airfields and naval bases Churchill considered vital to the defence of Egypt and the Suez Canal, was invaded by German airborne troops the following month and eventually captured after a bitter thirteen-day battle. The remaining British troops were evacuated and the fall of Greece completed. ??John Carr's masterful account of these desperate campaigns, while not disparaging the British and Commonwealth assistance, draws heavily on Greek sources to emphasize the oft-neglected experience of the Greeks themselves and their contribution to the fight against fascism.

Using a unique approach of weaving anthology with a continuous commentary, Hot Blood and Cold Steel describes what it was really like to live and fight in the trenches during the Great War.Domestic life on the line - accommodations, food and drink, wiring and carrying, the whole day and night routine - are investigated along with the operational aspects of trench life - raiding and patrolling in no-man's-land and the German lines. But as well as the blood and gore of battle, the book examines the attitudes of front line soldiers, officers and their men, to each other; to the staff; to their allies and the enemy; to wounds; to God; to the sheer horror of it all.This all encompassing portrayal of the front line grips the reader and refuses to let go, communicating a genuine understanding of what it was really like to have fought in the trenches of the Western Front

This is the first published comprehensive survey of naval action on the Mississippi River and its tributaries for the years 1863-1865. Following introductory reviews of the rivers and of the U.S. Navy's Mississippi Squadron, chronological Federal naval participation in various raids and larger campaigns is highlighted, as well as counterinsurgency, economical support and control, and logistical protection. The book includes details on units, locations and activities that have been previously underreported or ignored. Examples include the birth and function of the Mississippi Squadron's 11th District, the role of U.S. Army gunboats, and the war on the Upper Cumberland and Upper Tennessee Rivers. The last chapter details the coming of the peace in 1865 and the decommissioning of the U.S. river navy and the sale of its gunboats.