Combat and morale in the North African campaign : the Eighth Army and the path to El Alamein / Jonathan Fennell.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Fennell, Jonathan, 1979- author.

Series:

Cambridge military histories.

Cambridge military histories

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Great Britain. Army. Army, Eighth.

Great Britain.

World War, 1939-1945--Campaigns--Africa, North.

World War, 1939-1945.

El Alamein, Battle of, Egypt, 1942.

World War, 1939-1945--Psychological aspects.

Morale.

Combat--Psychological aspects.

Combat.

Psychology, Military.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xxix, 341 pages) : digital, PDF file(s).

Other Title:

Combat & Morale in the North African Campaign

Place of Publication:

Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 2011.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Military professionals and theorists have long understood the relevance of morale in war. Montgomery, the victor at El Alamein, said, following the battle, that 'the more fighting I see, the more I am convinced that the big thing in war is morale'. Jonathan Fennell, in examining the North African campaign through the lens of morale, challenges conventional explanations for Allied success in one of the most important and controversial campaigns in British and Commonwealth history. He introduces new sources, notably censorship summaries of soldiers' mail, and an innovative methodology that assesses troop morale not only on the evidence of personal observations and official reports but also on contemporaneously recorded rates of psychological breakdown, sickness, desertion and surrender. He shows for the first time that a major morale crisis and stunning recovery decisively affected Eighth Army's performance during the critical battles on the Gazala and El Alamein lines in 1942.

Contents:

1. Morale crisis and recovery; 2. Technology, firepower and morale; 3. Quality of manpower and morale; 4. Environment, provisions and morale; 5. Welfare, education and morale; 6. Leadership, command and morale; 7. Training and morale; 8. In search of a theory to explain combat morale in the desert; Conclusion.

Notes:

Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 05 Oct 2015).

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

1-107-21409-2

1-139-03611-4

1-283-05211-3

9786613052117

1-139-04157-6

1-139-04234-3

1-139-04497-4

1-139-03843-5

0-511-92151-9

1-139-04080-4

OCLC:

710974864