Dissertations/Thesis/Academic works Online Index

[Rob Stuart]

Andy H - thank you very much for sharing.

Worthy of better Memory: The Royal Navy and the defence of the Eastern Empire 1935 - 1942
http://bear.buckingham.ac.uk/109/2/A%20 ... lished.pdf

You've provided link only to volume 2, link to volume 1 is here: http://bear.buckingham.ac.uk/109/1/A%20 ... lished.pdf

Boyd's thesis appears to be the basis of his excellent 2017 book The Royal Navy in Eastern Waters Linchpin of Victory 1935-1942

[The Ibis]

The Illusory Threat: Enemy Aliens in Britain during the Great War, Martin John Farrar, Ph.D thesis

https://kclpure.kcl.ac.uk/portal/en/the ... 511f).html

In 1914 there were around 53,000 Germans immigrants living in Britain, yet by the end of the Great War, there were only 22,000 left. During the war the British government spent a lot of time and effort producing legislation directly aimed at protecting domestic security and against enemy aliens.
This thesis understands and explores the methodology and workings of the infant intelligence community and places the use of intelligence and work of the Secret Service Bureau at the centre of the governmental decision making process in relation to the enemy alien question during the First World War.
By assessing the intelligence available on enemy aliens at the beginning of the Twentieth Century, the thesis seeks to understand what the real issues were and why decisions were made with regards to internment and repatriation legislation in the Great War. It arises that the British government had a co-ordinated enemy alien policy, which was not borne out of a reaction to press and public pressure for change.
Chapter one focuses on pre-war; developments that facilitated the British government’s adoption of the premise that enemy aliens were a potential domestic security threat to the home front in the event of a war with Germany. These developments were the birth of the Secret Service Bureau and the activity surrounding the compilation of the unofficial register of aliens. Chapters two and three examine the role of the Secret Service Bureau in relation to the enemy alien question and the Bureau’s influence with other government departments during the First World War. Chapter four considers the Secret Service Bureau’s role in developing enemy alien legislation between 1909 and 1918. Finally Chapter five considers the patterns and impact of press and public pressure on the British government’s alien enemy policy.

[Mori]

Wednesday, May 15, 1940 at La Horgne : from Memory to History. The 1940 May-June campaign of the 3rd Spahis Brigade.
15 mai 1940, le mercredi de La Horgne : de la mémoire à l'histoire. : La campagne de mai-juin 1940 de la 3e Brigade de Spahis.

(In French).https://tel.archives-ouvertes.fr/tel-01468845

Wednesday, May 15, 1940, in the small Ardennes village of La Horgne, west of Sedan, the troopers of the 3rd [Cavalry] Brigade of Spahis (2nd Regiment of Algerian Spahis from Tlemcen and 2nd Regiment of Moroccan Spahis from Marrakech) try to stop a part of the most modern Panzer-Division of the Wehrmacht. Commemorative History has focused on a 3rd Brigade of Spahis that was simply "annihilated" in about ten hours of fighting, but not before putting out of action a thousand German soldiers. For its part, the scientific History takes into account 50 Spahis and 31 German soldiers killed in action. More than 76 years after the fact, it is more than time to put an end to the legend of the "useless slaughter of 700 Spahis charging German tanks on horseback at La Horgne."

Among other things, it includes a nice appendix criticizing the German photographs of the French campaign, pointing the many actually coming from the 1941 movie "Victory in the West".

[Mr.No one]

Hi everyone,

Hitler as military commander : from Blau to Edelweiß, January - November 1942

PhD submitted by Alan Donohue at Trinity College (Dublin, Ireland), Department of History, in 2015. Page count: 419.

The following thesis addresses the role of Adolf Hitler as a military commander from a subjective point of view. It deals with his strategy in relation to the war against the Soviet Union in 1942 as well as his operational command of Army Group A towards the end of the year. This was the only time during the Second World War when he held such a command, though his influence on the campaign which it waged in the Caucasus has never been analysed in great detail. The majority of the sources used are from the records of the Wehrmacht, including orders, reports and war diaries. They serve as an important foundation from which to judge the actions of a commander in an objective manner. Secondary literature is used where it challenges the consensus that Hitler was an amateur strategist and commander who refused the sage advice of professionals - whether military or civilian. The dissertation sheds new light on Hitler as a commander of men from the strategic to the tactical level of warfare. Important aspects of his personality are discussed, such as his opinions on military command in the First World War and his directives and commands for his own armed forces in the Second, especially the orders which affected the front-line troops. It will be shown that the men of Army Group A were supplied and given air support within the parameters of the possible, though this was not generally acknowledged in the memoirs of the generals who fought in this formation. Hitler was concerned as much with the fighting capabilities o f his Axis partners as he was with his own troops. The thesis stresses the measures he took in order to provide these countries with modern weaponry - often to the detriment of the Wehrmacht - though circumstances dictated that he was not always in a position to help his allies as much as he might have wished. Other neglected areas of research are also addressed, such as logistics and military intelligence. It will be shown that Hitler was determined to rectify the transport problems which plagued the Wehrmacht in the first year of the war against the Soviet Union, and that operational decisions which he made were based on the sober assessment of reports coming from the front.

Link to thesis: http://www.tara.tcd.ie/handle/2262/79574

Donohue has also just published an article in the Journal of Slavic military Studies, which appears to be at least partly based on his PhD: http://www.tara.tcd.ie/handle/2262/79574

All the best,
Sean

[Art]

"Auswahl und Ausbildung junger Offiziere 1930-1945. Zur sozialen Genese des deitschen Offizierkorps" (Selection and training of junior-grades officers. On social origin of the German officer corps) a PhD thesis by Dirk Richhardt in German:
https://d-nb.info/975984101/34

[Boby]

Title: Triumph of the Null: the War Within the German High Command 1933-1945
Author: Geoffrey P. Megargee
Place: Ohio State University
Year: 1998
https://etd.ohiolink.edu/pg_10?::NO:10: ... BID:146641

[Boby]

Hi everyone,

Hitler as military commander : from Blau to Edelweiß, January - November 1942

PhD submitted by Alan Donohue at Trinity College (Dublin, Ireland), Department of History, in 2015. Page count: 419.

The link is dead...

[Andy H]

Hi

Neglected Skies : The Far East Demise of British Naval Superiority 1922-1942 by Angus Britt
https://ses.library.usyd.edu.au/handle/2123/13595

Regards

Andy H

[Andy H]

Hi

Where Was Canada?: The Canadian Military Contribution to the British Commonwealth Second World War Campaign in North Africa
https://kclpure.kcl.ac.uk/portal/en/pub ... 8bc2).html

Regards

Andy H

[The Ibis]

Understanding necessity in war and conflict by Louis Bujnoch

http://theses.gla.ac.uk/81421/1/2019BujnochPhD.pdf

Abstract

The concept of necessity is frequently invoked in the context of war and conflict and in the
context of the application of force more broadly. References by politicians, lawyers and
military officers to a necessity that compels (non-)action are numerous in circumstances of
violent crisis situations such as wars and conflicts. Despite this backdrop, the concept of
necessity has, with few exceptions, largely escaped systematic study. The purpose of this
thesis is to examine how necessity is understood in the context of war and conflict and
investigates the extant concept across five separate knowledge communities - ad bellum &
in bello international law, military strategy, reason of state and the Just War tradition.

Using methodological tools of Begriffsgeschichte, this thesis treats necessity as a contested
concept and examines how necessity is understood in each respective discourse and
elucidate whether necessity has a uniform meaning or is a function of the discourse it is
invoked in. This thesis will show that necessity is differently understood in each respective
knowledge community and invoked to differing effects and for different purposes, thereby
providing a more nuanced explanation of ways in which the (non-)use of force is justified
and legitimised.

[Andy H]

Hi

Abstract

This dissertation examines the role of intelligence in the application of close air support by both the Royal Air Force (RAF) and United States Army Air Force (USAAF) during the campaigns in the Western Desert and Tunisia during the Second World War. It was in this theatre that the foundations for the organization, control, and direction of close air support for the remainder of the war were laid. It was also the first instance of a combined Anglo/American ground campaign, and many of the problems and solutions first appeared there. More importantly, however, it was a theatre in which intelligence was fundamentally important to both ground and air operations. This dissertation begins with an examination of the interwar doctrines of both the RAF and USAAF, and argues that while neither air force had an evolved close air support doctrine, each possessed a theoretical understanding of the subject and had officers capable of creating a doctrine when the time came. The remaining chapters are chronological, and show how with improved command, control, communication, and intelligence systems, aircrew ability, and the right kind of aircraft, the ability of the RAF and later the Northwest African Tactical Air Force to provide close air support improved dramatically. The dissertation concludes by arguing that both the RAF and USAAF adopted the doctrine evolved in the desert, and this system, which relied heavily on intelligence for its success, continued to govern the control of tactical air power for the rest of the war and beyond.

https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10106179/

Regards

Andy H

[Andy H]

Hi

FROM FALAISE TO NIJMEGEN WITH BRITISH SECOND ARMY
CHASING THE CHIMERA: PRECONCEPTION AND SELF-DECEPTION IN WAR
http://www.tomcubbage.com/history/Chasi ... himera.pdf

Regards

Andy H

[Andy H]

Hi

The Other Ultra: Signal Intelligence and the Battle to Supply Rommel’s Attack toward Suez

Since the revelation of the Ultra secret in 1974, it has been widely accepted that Ultra intelligence—that is, high-grade Axis codes decrypted by a cen- tralized British interservice unit called the Government Code and Cypher School (GC and CS) at Bletchley Park—gave Great Britain a decisive advantage over its Axis foes and that this advantage was particularly significant in the battle against shipping to North Africa.

https://digital-commons.usnwc.edu/cgi/v ... nwc-review

Regards

Andy H

[Andy H]

In Defeating the U-boat: Inventing Antisubmarine Warfare, Newport Paper 36, Jan. S. Breemer tells the story of the British response to the German submarine threat. His account of Germany's 'asymmetric' challenge (to use the contemporary term) to Britain's naval mastery holds important lessons for the United States today, the U.S. Navy in particular.

https://digital-commons.usnwc.edu/usnwc ... particular.

Regards

Andy H

[Attrition]

Thanks