Derrière les dangers mortels que représentèrent, lors de la dernière guerre, les meutes des sous-marins allemands écumant les mers pour intercepter et tenter d’anéantir le trafic maritime allié à destination de l’Angleterre, se profile l’inflexible silhouette de leur chef suprême Karl Dönitz, grand ordonnateur de la Bataille de l’Atlantique, aussi redouté de ses adversaires qu’adulé de ses hommes qui le surnommaient « Le Lion ». Combattant fanatique, patriote jusqu’à l’aveuglement, ce fut ...

Sweeping from the frigid waters of the North Atlantic to the steaming South Pacific, this riveting chronicle of submarine warfare is the first to cover all the major submarine campaigns of the war, describing, in detail, the operations of the British, American, Japanese, Italian, and German submarine and anti-submarine forces. Beginning with a vivid re-creation of the sinking of the passenger liner Athenia by a German U-boat in September 1939, critically acclaimed military historian Peter ...

In this outstanding book, naval historian Peter Padfield explores the ways in which maritime strength has influenced political power from the mid-nineteenth century to the modern age.Freedom of expression and individual enterprise have distinguished the societies of powers dominant at sea; and since supreme maritime nations have prevailed over their territorial rivals in the great wars of the modern era, it is they who have created today's world.In this fin...

In Maritime Power and the Struggle for Freedom, Peter Padfield presents a superb description and analysis of naval campaigns, conducted between 1788 and 1851, that shaped the modern world.Winner of the Mountbatten Maritime Prize, this is the second of Padfield's masterful trilogy that traces the impact of naval power on modern history, and the means by which it has been enacted. The book combines vivid and engrossing descriptions of historically important ...

In the great wars of modern history, maritime powers have always prevailed over land-based empires, whether Habsburg, Napoleonic, Nazi or Soviet.In contrast to the rigid hierarchies and centralization of land-based empires, those nations attaining mastery at sea have been distinguished by liberty, flexibility, and enterprise. The seventeenth-century Dutch were the first to achieve naval and trading dominance and, exploring the effects on daily life, industry, art a...