Nigel Thomas

Featuring specially commissioned full-color artwork, this engaging study explains and illustrates the armies that fought in the epic struggle for the rebirth of the independent Polish nation, in the bitter aftermath of World War I and the Russian Revolution. In 1917 Poland was recognized as a state by Russia, but the Bolshevik coup threatened this. The Polish leader Marshal Pilsudski hurried to...

Given the merciless way in which the war on the Eastern Front of World War II was conducted, it is difficult to imagine soldiers changing allegiance from one side to another. Yet after the German invasion of Russia in Operation Barbarossa, well over 400,000 former Soviet Citizens went on to fight for Nazi Germany in some capacity. These included not only the 'legions' recruited from non-Russian et...

Immediately following the end of World War I, amid the collapse of the German, Austro-Hungarian and Russian Empires, bitter fighting broke out in the Baltic region as Poland, Finland, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania struggled for their independence, and Red and White Russian armies began their civil war. There were also German forces still active in what had been the northern end of Germany's Easter...

The armies of Scandinavia and the Low Countries bore the first crushing impact of Hitler's mighty Blitzkrieg war machine in Western Europe, in campaigns that astonished and terrified the world. Informed by the latest research and drawing upon archival records and period photography, this absorbing study explains the organization and combat performance and depicts the appearance of the armies of...

Following the death of the Yugoslavian strongman President Tito in 1980, the several semi-autonomous republics and provinces that he had welded into a nation in 1945 moved inexorably towards separation. After a deceptively clean break for independence by Slovenia in 1991, the world watched a series of wars rip through this modern European state. In this first of two volumes, experts on the Balkan ...

Following the death of the Yugoslavian President Tito in 1980, the semi-autonomous republics and provinces that he had welded into a multi-cultural nation in 1945 slid gradually towards separation. For ten years following 1991, the world watched in horror as a series of bloody wars ripped a modern European state apart, and the intolerable spectacle eventually forced international intervention. Ill...

This title presents a detailed analysis of the Soviet Army at the outbreak of World War II (1939-1945), including the Red Army's campaigns against Japan on the Manchurian plains as well as in Finland. It also covers the Red Army's first operations during Operation Barbarossa when the Red Army was forced to defend Mother Russia against the German onslaught. With a breakdown of all the armed forces ...

In this second volume of a three-part series on the Soviet Armed Forces in World War II (1939-1945), author Nigel Thomas turns his attention to the mid-war period. Focusing on the uniforms and organization of Soviet troops during the campaigns of the Caucasus, Stalingrad and Kursk, this book offers a detailed breakdown of all the armed forces which conducted the valiant defensive campaigns, includ...

This book presents a detailed analysis of the Soviet armed forces during the final days of the war, covering the soldiers that successfully turned the tide against the Nazi onslaught and pushed it back into Germany itself. This final part of the series documents the Red Army's push through Germany to Berlin, which eventually culminated in the surrender of the German forces to the Allies in 1945. I...