Charles Stephenson – författare

The story of the British Eastern Fleet, which operated in the Indian Ocean against Japan, has rarely been told. Although it was the largest fleet deployed by the Royal Navy prior to 1945 and played a vital part in the theatre it was sent to protect, it has no place in the popular consciousness of the naval history of the Second World War. So Charles Stephenson's deeply researched and absorbing narrative gives this forgotten fleet the recognition it deserves.British pre-war naval planning for the Far East is part of the story, as is the disastrous loss of the battleship Prince of Wales and battlecruiser Repulse in 1941, but the body of the book focuses on the new fleet, commanded by Admiral Sir James Somerville, and its operations against the Japanese navy and aircraft as well as Japanese and German submarines. Later in the war, once the fleet had been reinforced with an American aircraft carrier, it was strong enough to take more aggressive actions against the Japanese, and these are described in vivid detail.Charles Stephenson's authoritative study should appeal to readers who have a special interest in the war with Japan, in naval history more generally and Royal Navy in particular.

In this collection of essays a number of distinguished scholars examine the proletarianization process and its relation to social protest and class formation. The authors consider how the social origins of the industrial work force and the migration patterns that brought workers to industrial areas shaped the workers' developing identity and led them to participate in mass protests. The essays provide an overview of proletarianization in industrializing regions and in several different countries. Although the authors of these articles employ a variety of disciplines--anthropology, history, and sociology--all the essays deal with historical aspects of the process of class formation and the forging of a modern working class. The essays span three continents and two centuries, and the volume includes a comprehensive annotated bibliography of relevant works drawn from the suggestions of the contributors.

No other twentieth-century political figure endured so many precipitous falls followed by unlikely resurrection. Across fifty turbulent years he enjoyed – if that is the correct term - at least four separate, high-level, political careers interspersed with periods in the doldrums. As one of his numerous enemies and detractors, of whom there was never a shortage, was to write: Winston is never down, or rather will never allow that he is down.’Whilst much has been written about Churchill at the Admiralty, and even more concerning his wartime premiership, the ups and downs in-between have received somewhat less attention. Hence this volume, which seeks to tell the tale of the period beginning with him being unceremoniously sacked in 1915. As Lloyd George’s mistress and confidante wrote: ‘It seems strange that Churchill should have been in politics all these years, & yet not have won the confidence of a single party in the country, or a single colleague in the Cabinet.’She was mistaken. One politician still valued Churchill’s gifts: the Prime Minister from 1916, David Lloyd George himself. But he had to act cautiously. Only in July 1917, during a broader reshuffle, did he dare risk appointing Churchill as Minister of Munitions. This was a courageous move. As one Tory grandee put it: ‘some of us myself included only joined L[loyd] G[eorge] on the distinct understanding that W[inston] Ch[urchill] was not to be a member of the Gov[ernmen]t.’Lloyd George got away with it however, and few would dispute that his judgement was vindicated. As the man responsible for providing the British and wider Allied cause with the munitions of war, a vast undertaking by any standards, Churchill proved both competent and effective. Indeed, he was still in post at the end of the conflict in 1918, which is where this book ends.

In early October 1935 and without any declaration of war some two hundred thousand men, comprising soldiers and airmen of the Italian armed forces, Fascist ‘Blackshirt’ Militia, Eritrean ascari and Somali dubats, invaded the independent state of Ethiopia (Abyssinia). It was an operation entirely of choice, the chooser being Il Duce: Benito Mussolini. The resultant conflict is often described as a colonial war. Whilst it was certainly launched with the intent of turning Ethiopia into an Italian possession, it was in fact a war of aggression against an independent, sovereign, state with membership of the League of Nations. A state that had, according to one of its nineteenth-century rulers, been ‘for fourteen centuries a Christian island in a sea of pagans’.The swiftness of the Italian victory resulted from their possession and ruthless use of technology; most particularly aircraft, mustard gas, and motorisation/mechanisation. Since they were fighting an enemy who possessed none of these things, then they were able to wage, indeed inaugurate, what the prominent military theorist JFC Fuller dubbed ‘totalitarian warfare’. This, he opined, was the Fascist, the scientific, way of making war. In his considered view, the Fascist Army that waged it was ‘a scientific military instrument.’ This book examines that campaign in military and political terms.

There can be few statesmen whose lives and careers have received as much investigation and literary attention as Winston Churchill. Relatively little however has appeared which deals specifically or holistically with his first senior ministerial role; that of Secretary of State for the Home Office. This may be due to the fact that, of the three Great Offices of State which he was to occupy over the course of his long political life, his tenure as Home Secretary was the briefest.The Liberal Government, of which he was a senior figure, had been elected in 1906 to put in place social and political reform. Though Churchill was at the forefront of these matters, his responsibility for domestic affairs led to him facing other, major, challenges departmentally; this was a time of substantial commotion on the social front, with widespread industrial and civil strife. Even given that Home Secretaries never do have an easy time', his period in office was thus marked by a huge degree of political and social turbulence. The terms Tonypandy' and Peter the Painter' perhaps spring most readily to mind. Rather less known is his involvement in one of the burning issues of the time, female suffrage, and his portrayal as the prisoners' friend' in terms of penal reform.Aged 33 on appointment, and the youngest Home Secretary since 1830, he became empowered to wield the considerable executive authority inherent in the role of one of His Majesty's Principal Secretaries of State, and he certainly did not shrink from doing so. There were of course commensurate responsibilities, and how he shouldered them is worth examination.

The German-Japanese War was a key, yet often neglected, episode in the opening phase of the First World War. It had profound implications for the future, particularly in respect of Japans acquisition of Germanys Micronesian islands. Japans naval perimeter was extended and threatened the United States naval strategy of projecting force westward. The campaign to relieve Germany of Tsingtau, the port and naval base in China, and its hinterland posed a grave threat to Chinese independence. The course of the Second World War in China and the Pacific cannot be explained without reference to these events.Charles Stephenson's account makes fascinating reading. The siege of Tsingtau by the Japanese, with token British participation, forms the core of his story. He draws on Japanese and German primary sources to describe the defences, the landings, the course of the siege, and eventual German surrender. His study will be absorbing reading for anyone interested in the campaigns of the First World War outside of Europe, in German colonial expansion and the rise to power of Japan.

Did Japan surrender in 1945 because of the death and devastation caused by the atomic bombs dropped by the Americans on Hiroshima and Nagasaki or because of the crushing defeat inflicted on their armies by the Soviet Union in Manchukuo, the puppet state they set up in north-east China? Indeed, the Red Army's rapid and total victory in Manchukuo has been relatively neglected by historians.Charles Stephenson, in this scholarly and highly readable new study, describes the political, diplomatic and military build-up to the Soviet offensive and its decisive outcome. He also considers to what extent Japan's capitulation is attributable to the atomic bomb or the stunningly successful entry of the Soviet Union into the conflict.The military side of the story is explored in fascinating detail - the invasion of Manchukuo itself where the Soviet 'Deep Battle' concept was employed with shattering results, and secondary actions in Korea, Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands.But equally absorbing is the account of the decision-making that gave rise to the offensive and the political and diplomatic background to it, and in particular the Yalta conference. There, Stalin allowed the Americans to persuade him to join the war in the east; a conflict he was determined on entering anyway.Charles Stephenson's engrossing narrative throws new light on the last act of the Second World War.

On 2 July 1900 the people of Friedrichshafen, Germany, witnessed a momentous occasion - the first flight of LZ 1, Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin's first airship.Although deemed a failure, a succession of better craft (LZ2 to 10) enabled the Zeppelin to expand into the consumer market of airship travel, whilst also providing military craft for the German Army and Navy. The years of the Great War saw the Zeppelins undertake strategic bombing missions against Great Britain.This engaging, illustrated study covers the post-war fate of the Zeppelins, including the crash of the Hindenburg, and their use by the Luftwaffe at the beginning of World War II.

An illustrated history of the defences of this pivotal position in the Mediterranean, an outpost between North Africa and the soft underbelly of Europe, and one of the most fortified places in the world.Following the successful defence of the island during the Great Siege of 1565, the Knights Hospitaller built new walls and fortifications. These defences failed when Napoleon occupied Malta in 1798, and the island was retaken by the British in 1800. From this point onwards, Malta’s defences were modernised throughout the 19th century and the island’s final test came during World War II.This book examines all these different styles of fortification from the 16th to the 20th century.

Following the fall of France and the surrender of Paris on 14 June 1940, the British Government announced that the Channel Islands had no strategic importance and would not be defended.The Germans occupied the islands from the end of June onwards and remained in control until the end of the war. On 10 October 1941 Hitler announced his intention to 'convert them into an impregnable fortress', and the islands formed the most heavily fortified and defended section of the entire Atlantic Wall.This book describes the design, construction and manning of these defensive positions, as well as considering more widely the occupation of the Channel Islands by the Germans.

An overview of Germany's naval and imperial activities in East Asia and the Pacific in the years leading up to the First World War.This book examines German attempts to acquire colonial territories in East Asia and the Pacific, and discusses the huge impact this had on local and other international powers. It covers the German acquisition of Kiautschou in 1897, which had profound consequences for China, beginning a "scramble for concessions" by other western powers; the formation of the powerful German East Asiatic Cruiser Squadron which was seen by the British as a major threat, andwhich resulted in the advent of the Fleet-Unit concept and the birth of the Royal Australian Navy; the Japanese siege and capture of the key German base of Tsingtau in 1914, and the fate of the various former German colonies afterGermany's defeat in 1918. The book contains many illustrations from the author's extensive private collection. Charles Stephenson is an extensively published military historian, whose books include: Moel Famau and the Jubilee Tower of King George III (2008); Servant to the King for His Fortifications: Paul Ive and the Practise of Fortification (2008); The Admiral's Secret Weapon, published by Boydell in 2006; Fortifications ofthe Channel Islands, 1941-45: Hitler's Impregnable Fortress (2006); The Fortifications of Malta, 1530-1945 (2004); and Zeppelins: German Airships, 1900-1940 (2004).

Life and Labor brings together the most stimulating scholarship in the field of labor history today. Its fifteen essays explore the impact of industrialization and technology on the lives of working people and their responses to the changes in society over the past one-hundred-fifty years. Focusing on the everyday life of working-class Americans, it discusses such topics as production technology, occupational mobility, industrial violence, working women, resistance to exploitation, fraternal organizations, and social and leisure-time activities.The essays are written in a lively manner accessible to an undergraduate audience and also provide insights and a solid background for graduate students and scholars in the field of American labor and social history. The book presents the work of members of the generation of labor and social historians who matured in the 1970s and who are now establishing themselves as leaders in their fields.