Political and Military Leadership in the World Wars: The Closest Concert

The book approaches the World Wars and the decades between them as a single unit in modern history, highlighting the establishment, revision, and collapse of the Versailles settlement and the League of Nations system between 1919 and 1939. The strategic thought of the interwar years is especially instructive in assessing the prosecution of WWII, as the military ventures of Fascist Italy and Japan pointed toward future developments. Britain, France, and the United States began an incremental conversion to new approaches to war in the air and on the sea.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 214 pages
Publication date: 26 September 2022
Publisher: Taylor & Francis Ltd

This book takes a comprehensive look at the World Wars and the intervening decades in modern history, treating them as a unified and interconnected narrative. To fully comprehend the causes and conduct of the 1939-1945 war, it is essential to have a deep understanding of the issues that remained unresolved after the 1914-18 conflict. The period between the World Wars saw significant developments in the establishment, revision, and eventual collapse of the Versailles settlement and the League of Nations system. The 1919 settlement, initially contested by Fascist Italy, began to unravel irreparably in 1931 with Japan's incursion into Manchuria. Therefore, the strategic thinking of the interwar years holds immense value in assessing the prosecution of World War II. The military ventures of these two revisionist powers, particularly Germany's adoption of a new way of war, foreshadowed future developments that would shape the course of the conflict.

Concurrently, Britain, France, and the United States began to adopt new approaches to warfare, particularly in the air and on the sea. The interwar decades can be best understood as a period of calibrated rearmament by all the powers, driven by assumptions about the likelihood of future wars and the nature of their prosecution. This comprehensive approach allows for a deeper understanding of the events that led to the outbreak of World War II and its subsequent impact on the world.

Weight: 408g
Dimension: 229 x 152 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9780367721015