Bøger af Anthony Clayton

World War I from the French point of view: the first ever account in English

The events of February 2014 need to be seen against the whole sad history of Ukraine. This vast fertile country on the north shore of the Black Sea, with no geographic features to defend itself against centuries of assaults from Asia, Cossacks, Poles, and both Imperial and Soviet Russians. These all in turn sought to impose their political and economic structures by ruthless violence. People over the centuries were persecuted, expelled, and massacred. Nevertheless 150 years ago a Ukrainian consciousness, a distinct culture and a language differing from Russian emerged but at the same time industry rapidly expanded, needing a Russian workforce. The privileges and corruption of successive ruling elites corroded the whole of society. Flag independence in 1991 aroused questions of national identity. Post Soviet Russia returned to the view of a historic right to intervene as in the days of Peter and Catherine the Great, Lenin and Stalin; in a territory seen as "the near abroad" by President Putin.

In the 1870s, to supplement their early steam engines, French warships were still rigged for sail. In the 1970s the Marine Nationale's ships at sea included aircraft carriers operating supersonic jets, and intercontinental ballistic missile submarines propelled by nuclear engines.

In this concise biography, Anthony Clayton traces the vertiginous changes in fortune of a soldier whose loyalty to France and to the French army was unwavering.

Fighting in woods and forests is a very special form of war. Avoided by military commanders unless such terrain is to their advantage, for soldiers forest battles are a chaotic mix of dread, determination, and, all too often, death. Adversaries remain in constant fear of concealed ambush, casualties usually must be abandoned, and prisoners who cannot be guarded are killed. Heightened fear can lead to excesses. Too often, armies have been badly prepared and trained for such warfare and have suffered severely for it. In Warfare in Woods and Forests, noted military historian Anthony Clayton describes major events in woods and forest warfare from the first century CE to the 21st. These events involve Roman soldiers in Germany 2,000 years ago; North Americans in 18th- and 19th-century conflicts; invaders of Russia in 1812 and 1941; British, French, and Americans in France in 1916 and 1918; Americans in the Hurtgen Forest in 1944; and modern-day Russian soldiers in Chechnya.

Focusing on warfare in Africa since 1950, the text explores two themes: that in North Africa warfare has been a matter of identity and that south of the Sahara is comparable with that of pre-colonial Africa.

An Army officer must lead men into frightening and dangerous situations and sometimes make them do things that they never thought they could do. This book recounts how British officers have led their men, and commanded their respect, from the days of Marlborough to the Second Iraq war of 2003.

Drawing upon a survey of former police officers in the six British colonies of Ghana, Nigeria, Kenya, Uganda, Zambia, and Malawi, Clayton and Killingray examine the work of colonial law enforcement during the last years of British supremacy.

This survey draws together the two major wars of decolonization fought by France in Indochina and Algeria (as well as the lesser conflicts in Madagascar, Tunisia and Morocco) in a single, integrated account.