Nik Cornish – författare

Often overshadowed by D-Day Operation Bagration, the code name for the Red Army's summer offensive of 1944, broke the back of the Axis on the Eastern Front. Coincidentally beginning on the third anniversary of Hitler's invasion of the Soviet Union, Bagration demonstrated that the Red Army had learnt the lessons of mobile warfare and was capable of putting them into ruthless practice. A series of well-coordinated attacks combined with major partisan strikes struck the defence lines of Army Group Centre in Belarus. Weak in armour and air support AGC had not been the target Hitler had anticipated that the Soviets would chose for this operation. It was only when the Red Army had almost outrun its supply lines and panzer formations had be relocated from elsewhere on the Eastern Front in early July that the Germans managed to defend effectively.However, this book only covers the fighting until the liberation of Minsk in early July. The Soviet's summer offensive would not officially end until the last week of August by which time Finland had sued for an armistice, Romania had switched sides and the German forces had been savaged, holding a line hundreds of kilometres to the west of its original positions outside the gates of Warsaw

The partisan war in the Soviet Union from 1941 to 1944 has been the subject of considerable political manipulation in the decades following 1945.In great part this was due to the need to project the image of a country united behind Joseph Stalin and the Communist regime when the truth was much more complex than that. The opening weeks of Operation Barbarossa had exposed the lack of unity in the Soviet Empire as nationalist and anti-Communist groups emerged in the western provinces such as Belo Russia, Galicia, Bukovina, Ukraine and the Baltic states of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia. Consequently it was vital for the survival of the Soviet Union that such groups were countered in situ and that the authority of Moscow was maintained in what were known as the Occupied Territories. During the summer of 1941 plans, dormant since the 1930s, for the conduct of partisan warfare behind the lines of an invading force were resurrected.The plans were intended to make life for the invaders as problematic as possible by acts of sabotage, but most important of all to maintain the physical presence of Soviet authority.

The partisan war in the Soviet Union from 1941 to 1944 has been the subject of considerable political manipulation in the decades following 1945. In great part this was due to the need to project the image of a country united behind Joseph Stalin and the Communist regime when the truth was much more complex than that. The opening weeks of Operation Barbarossa had exposed the lack of unity in the Soviet Empire as nationalist and anti-Communist groups emerged in the western provinces such as Belo Russia, Galicia, Bukovina, Ukraine and the Baltic states of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia. Consequently it was vital for the survival of the Soviet Union that such groups were countered in situ and that the authority of Moscow was maintained in what were known as the Occupied Territories. During the summer of 1941 plans, dormant since the 1930s, for the conduct of partisan warfare behind the lines of an invading force were resurrected. The plans were intended to make life for the invaders as problematic as possible by acts of sabotage, but most important of all to maintain the physical presence of Soviet authority.

The partisan war in the Soviet Union from 1941 to 1944 has been the subject of considerable political manipulation in the decades following 1945. In great part this was due to the need to project the image of a country united behind Joseph Stalin and the Communist regime when the truth was much more complex than that. The opening weeks of Operation Barbarossa had exposed the lack of unity in the Soviet Empire as nationalist and anti-Communist groups emerged in the western provinces such as Belo Russia, Galicia, Bukovina, Ukraine and the Baltic states of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia. Consequently it was vital for the survival of the Soviet Union that such groups were countered in situ and that the authority of Moscow was maintained in what were known as the Occupied Territories. During the summer of 1941 plans, dormant since the 1930s, for the conduct of partisan warfare behind the lines of an invading force were resurrected. The plans were intended to make life for the invaders as problematic as possible by acts of sabotage, but most important of all to maintain the physical presence of Soviet authority.

For 100 years little attention has been paid to the Russian army that fought the Germans and the Austro-Hungarians in the First World War on the Eastern Front. Yet the Tsar's army played a critical part in the global conflict and was engaged in a sequence of shattering campaigns that were waged on a massive scale on several fronts across eastern Europe. 

Nik Cornish, in this heavily illustrated account, seeks to set the record straight. In a selection of almost 200 archive photographs he gives a graphic impression of the Russian army of the time, of the soldiers and commanders, and of the conditions in which they fought. He describes the key stages in the struggle - the battles of Tannenberg and the Masurian Lakes, the Przemysl siege, the Gorlice-Tarnow and Brusilov offensives and the Romanian and Turkish campaigns.

His book is a fascinating photographic record of the army under the Tsar Nicholas II, then under the Provisional Government and the Bolshevik rule that succeeded him. The impact of the Russian revolution is also revealed in the photographs which take the story through from the initial outbreaks of discontent and the abdication of the Tsar to Lenin's take-over and the end of Russia's war - and of the imperial army – in 1917.

The third volume in Nik Cornish's photographic history of the Second World War on the Eastern Front records in vivid visual detail the sequence of Red Army offensives that pushed the Wehrmacht back across Russia after the failure of the Operation Citadel, the German attack at Kursk. Previously unpublished images show the epic scale of the build-up to the Kursk battle and the enormous cost in terms of lives and material of the battle itself. They also show that the military initiative was now firmly in Soviet hands, for the balance of power on the Eastern Front had shifted and the Germans were on the defensive and in retreat. Subsequent chapters chronicle the hard-fought and bloody German withdrawal across western Russia and the Ukraine, recording the Red Army's liberation of occupied Soviet territory. Not only do the photographs track the sequence of events on the ground, they also show the equipment and the weapons used by both sides, the living conditions experienced by the troops and the devastation the war left in its wake.

The world was not prepared for the massive onslaught launched by Nazi Germany on the Soviet Union on 22 June 1941 – the scale of the invasion, the speed of the German advance, the hundreds of thousands of Red Army soldiers taken prisoner, the chaotic, headlong retreat of Stalin’s forces eastwards, towards Leningrad and Moscow. But equally it was not prepared for the Soviet fight back. For, despite all the predictions, the Red Army stemmed the Wehrmacht’s advance, held the lines before Leningrad and Moscow, and mounted a counter-offensive that changed the course of the campaign and the outcome of the Second World War. These are the historic events that Nik Cornish portrays in the selection of rare wartime images he’s selected for this graphic history of the war on the Eastern Front. The key aspects of the opening year of the war are vividly recorded – Operation Barbarossa; the German and Soviet forces as they marched and fought their way across the countryside and through the villages and towns of the Ukraine, Belarus and the Baltic states; the clashes at Brest, Smolensk, Kiev; the failure of Operation Typhoon, the turning point in this phase of the war which denied to Hitler the anticipated quick victory in the East.

In April and May 1945 the city of Berlin was the site of the final destructive act of the Second World War in Europe. The German capital became a battleground. After three weeks of ruthless fighting against a desperate, sometimes suicidal, defense, the Red Army took the city and crushed the last remaining German armies in the East. This momentous battle and the elaborate preparations for it were recorded in graphic detail by photographers whose images have come down to us today. These images, which give us an unforgettable glimpse into the grim reality of mid-twentieth-century warfare, are the raw material of Nik Cornish’s evocative book.Using a rich selection of rare photographs from the Russian archives as well as images from German sources, most of which have not been published before, he traces the course of the entire campaign. The battles fought in East Prussia, eastern Germany and Hungary – in particular the assault on Budapest – are covered. But the body of his book is devoted to the battle for Berlin itself - the monstrous onslaught launched by Zhukov’s armies on the Seelow Heights, the bitter street fighting through the suburbs, then the ultimate confrontation, the merciless room-by-room struggle for the center of the city and the Reichstag.

Often the drama of the October Revolution and the Bolshevik seizure of power overshadow the disastrous Russian-German war that preceded it and the extended, confusing, many-sided civil war between the Reds and the Whites that followed. But Nik Cornish’s vivid photographic history gives equal coverage to each of these momentous events and shows how the Russian empire of the Romanovs was transformed into the Soviet dictatorship. Contemporary photographs show the leading characters in the drama – Tsar Nicholas II, Kerensky, Lenin and Trotsky and other Bosheviks, and the White commanders Denikin, Kolchak, Wrangel and the rest. But they also record, in an unforgettable way, the ordinary people who were caught up in the surge of events – civilian crowds on the city streets, peasant groups in the villages, the faces of common soldiers on all sides who fought on multiple fronts across Russia from Poland, the Baltic states and the White Sea to the Black Sea and Siberia. The scale of the conflict was remarkable, as was the intensity of the experience of those who took part and witnessed it, and this collection of historic photographs gives a poignant insight into the conditions of their time. It is a fascinating introduction to a period that saw a sea change in Russian history.

The 900-day siege of the Soviet city of Leningrad by the combined forces of the Germans and the Finns is one of the most remarkable, and terrible, events of the Second World War, yet until recently it has not received the attention it deserves it has been overshadowed by other massive confrontations on the Eastern Front, at Stalingrad and Kursk. And rarely has the compelling story of the siege been told through graphic wartime photographs like those that author Nik Cornish has collected for this book. Many of these images have not been published before, and they give an unflinching insight into the reality of the conditions of the siege as it was experienced by the soldiers on each side and by the civilians trapped in the city who were threatened by starvation, disease, shelling and assault. The entire course of the siege is covered, from the encirclement of September 1941, through the successive attempts by the Wehrmacht to break in and the dogged, sometimes desperate defense put up by the Red Army, to the withdrawal of the Germans and the lifting of the siege in January 1944. Nik Cornishs portrait of the ruthless struggle of Hitlers armies to capture the second city of the Soviet Union and the determination and suffering of the defenders will be fascinating reading for everyone who is interested in the war on the Eastern Front.

This illustrated WWII history captures the brutal conditions and bitter combat of the Battle of Stalingrad through rare wartime photographs. The Soviet victory over the Germans at Stalingrad was a decisive moment for the war on the Eastern Front and the Second World War as a whole. The story of the long, bitter battle on the banks of the Volga has fascinated historians ever since. While it has been the subject of countless histories, memoirs and eyewitness accounts, the grueling reality of the battle on the ground has rarely been recorded photographically. In this volume, historian Nik Cornish documents every aspect of the fighting, including the dreadful conditions endured by the soldiers, the jagged outline of the ruined city, the harrowing realities of urban warfare, as well as the casualties and the dead. Cornish also depicts the tremendous efforts behind the frontlines as both the Germans and the Soviets attempted to sustain their men in what had become a fight to the death. These rare archival photographs give readers a close-up look at one of the most terrible battles in history.

Between 1941 and 1944, in the war on the Eastern Front, Soviet partisans fought a ruthless underground campaign behind the German lines. During those three terrible years of occupation they spied on the Germans, disrupted their communications, sabotaged road and rail routes and carried out assassinations and raids, and thousands of these irregular soldiers lost their lives. Yet their exploits are frequently overlooked in general histories of the conflict, and their experience of the war and their contribution to the Soviet victory are rarely recognized. That is why Nik Cornishs collection of photographs of the Soviet partisans is a landmark in the field. In a sequence of over 150 images, most of them previously unpublished, he gives a fascinating all-round portrait of the lives of the partisans and their struggle to resist and survive in a war that was waged with almost unparalleled cruelty on both sides. And, in his commentary, he outlines the history of the partisans - their desperate, chaotic beginnings in the wake of the German attack, their increasing coordination, daring and effectiveness as the war went on, and the key role they played as the Germans were forced back. He also records, through the photographs, the merciless counter-measures taken by the Germans and the reprisals. His book gives a compelling insight into one of the most important side shows of the Second World War.

Between 1941 and 1944, in the war on the Eastern Front, Soviet partisans fought a ruthless underground campaign behind the German lines. During those three terrible years of occupation, they spied on the Germans, disrupted their communications, sabotaged road and rail routes and carried out assassinations and raids, and thousands of these irregular soldiers lost their lives. Yet their exploits are frequently overlooked in general histories of the conflict, and their experience of the war and their contribution to the Soviet victory are rarely recognized. That is why Nik Cornish’s collection of photographs of the Soviet partisans is a landmark in the field. In a sequence of over 150 images, most of them previously unpublished, he gives a fascinating all-round portrait of the lives of the partisans and their struggle to resist and survive in a war that was waged with almost unparalleled cruelty on both sides. In addition, in his commentary, he outlines the history of the partisans - their desperate, chaotic beginnings in the wake of the German attack, their increasing coordination, daring and effectiveness as the war went on, and the key role they played as the Germans were forced back. He also records, through the photographs, the merciless counter-measures taken by the Germans and the reprisals. His book gives a compelling insight into one of the most important sideshows of the Second World War.

Often overshadowed by the drama of its catastrophic collapse in the November 1917 Revolution, the Imperial Russian Army's record in 1914-16 included some notable victories.Its human qualities of patriotism and endurance were remarkable, and in 1916 the 'Brusilov Offensive' on the South-Western Front outdistanced anything that was being achieved in France. The variety of its uniforms - infantry and cavalry, Guards and Line, Cossacks, armour and Air Service crewmen, even a priest - are splendidly captured here by Russia's leading military artist.Nik Cornish's expert text is supported by tables of insignia and many rare photographs.

The 900-day siege of the Soviet city of Leningrad by the combined forces of the Germans and the Finns is one of the most remarkable, and terrible, events of the Second World War, yet until recently it has not received the attention it deserves – it has been overshadowed by other massive confrontations on the Eastern Front, at Stalingrad and Kursk. And rarely has the compelling story of the siege been told through graphic wartime photographs like those that author Nik Cornish has collected for this book. Many of these images have not been published before, and they give an unflinching insight into the reality of the conditions of the siege as it was experienced by the soldiers on each side and by the civilians trapped in the city who were threatened by starvation, disease, shelling and assault. The entire course of the siege is covered, from the encirclement of September 1941, through the successive attempts by the Wehrmacht to break in and the dogged, sometimes desperate defense put up by the Red Army, to the withdrawal of the Germans and the lifting of the siege in January 1944. Nik Cornish’s portrait of the ruthless struggle of Hitler’s armies to capture the second city of the Soviet Union and the determination and suffering of the defenders will be fascinating reading for everyone who is interested in the war on the Eastern Front.

The Soviet victory over the Germans at Stalingrad was decisive for the war on the Eastern Front and for the Second World War as a whole, and the story of the long, bitter battle on the banks of the Volga has fascinated historians ever since. While it has been the subject of countless histories, memoirs and eyewitness accounts, the grueling reality of the battle on the ground, in the shattered streets and buildings of the city, has rarely been recorded photographically.The great strength of Nik Cornish's selection of unforgettable images is in its scale. He documents every aspect of the fighting - the dreadful conditions endured by the soldiers, the jagged outline of the ruined city, the harrowing daily routine of street fighting and close-quarter combat, the casualties and the dead, and the battle behind the lines - the tremendous effort made by the Germans and the Soviets to sustain their men in what had become a fight to the death. But perhaps most memorable of all, the photographs give us glimpses of the lives and deaths of soldiers on both sides who participated in one of the most terrible battles in history.