The Wrath of Achilles: Essays on Command in Battle

By Combat Studies Institute Press

The Wrath of Achilles Essays on Command in Battle Battle command, particularly of higher formations, is extraordinarily complex, like brain surgery under Fire. In all of history, only a relative few have mastered it. Others have been skilled practitioners, though they may have lacked the spark of genius what Napoleon called "coup d'oeil" -- that marks the great captains. Only the chosen few will succeed. But they will make history. This anthology was inspired by its authors and the Soldiers and Marines they lead. They have succeeded brilliantly in translating the reality of combat to a rising generation of combat leaders. Many were moved to delve deeply into military history as the wellspring of their profession, even as they fought America's wars and half-wars and rose to command themselves. Their experiences and reections appear in this volume, a collection of battle studies that focus on leadership success, and failure, in the great campaigns of the last 150 years. From brigade- to army-group level, these lessons in battle command speak across the decades to the key questions of success in war. The authors are soldier-scholars of the First rank, some of whom are Fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan today and will rise to lead our military in tomorrow's battles and campaigns. Here we see the Prussians, ably led by General von Alvensleben, attack a force Five times their size to win the decisive battle of Mars-la-Tours, the "Death Ride" of the Prussian cavalry in the 1870 Franco-Prussian War. In the opening days of the Great War, we see German Corps Commander Herman von Francois haughtily ignore the supreme command to make Tannenberg, the "modern Cannae," a reality against all odds. In command of the largest mounted force in British history, Australian Lieutenant General Sir Harry Chauvel takes Beersheba, the "key to Jerusalem," in 1917 with a cavalry charge of bayonet wielding Aussies who must take the "Wells of Abraham" or see their horses die of thirst. The 1939 Winter War shows Finnish Colonel Hjalmer Siilasvou, calmly annihilating two huge Russian divisions, juggling his slender forces with "Motti" tactics north of the Arctic Circle. In 1940, British Lieutenant General Sir Richard O'Connor, undaunted by the huge Italian forces facing him, conducts a graduate seminar on deception and maneuver and scores one of the most decisive and glittering victories in the long history of the Commonwealth. In other chapters, U.S. General Manton Eddy takes the measure of Rommel's matchless troopers at Bizerte in 1943 as his 9th Division, the "Old Reliables," comes of age. An old adage holds that more can be learned from defeat than from victory, as we see in Hitler's disastrous strategic fumbling during Barbarossa , the German invasion of Russia in 1941, which threw away a succession of brilliant tactical and operational victories and changed the course of world history for the next 50 years. Surrounded at Chipyong-Ni in 1951, Colonel Paul L. Freeman's 23rd Regimental Combat Team Fights an epic rear guard battle, saved at the last moment by the timely intervention of crusty, Fifty-year-old Colonel Marcel Gustave Crombez, yellow scarf at his throat and the 5th Cavalry Regiment at his back. Israeli General "Bren" Adan battles both the Egyptians and Ariel Sharon to cross the Suez and end the war in the 1973 "War of Atonement." Brigadier Julian Thompson, 8,000 miles from home, leads his Royal Marines and Paras on an epic "yomp" of 70 miles in winter to attack and defeat the Argentines in the 1982 Falklands War, where 2 Para commander "H" Jones wins a posthumous Victoria Cross at Goose Green.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: B0F5MJTXLN
• ISBN13: 9798280442139
• Release Date: April 2025
• Publisher: Independently published
• Length: 215 Pages
• Dimensions: 9.0" x 0.5" x 6.0"