World War II in Europe: an encyclopedia (in 2 vols): Volume 2

COVERAGE AND ARRANGEMENT:This encyclopedia includes entries on all aspects of the Second World War in Europe,in 2 volumes. Volume 1 is sub-arranged into 3 sections, with entries arranged alphabetically within each section. Section I - Social and Political Issues and Events includes: the background and underlying conditions of the war, such as the Treaty of Versailles, isolationism and so on. Social and political topics during the war include e.g. the wartime governments of the major participants, the Holocaust, Resistance Movements and the role of women in the principal militaries. Section II - Leaders and Individuals includes: Biographical sketches of major political and military leaders, including lesser known figures. Section III - Units and Organizations, focuses on the military organizations that fought the war, but also some paramilitary and political organizations. Many of the articles in this section include order of battle tables. This Volume also includes Strategic Maps of World War II Military Operations.Volume II is similarly arranged into a further 3 sub-sections. Section IV - Weapons and Equipment - includes articles on e.g. the capabilities and limitations of equipment, how it was used, how it affected battle outcomes and also technical data tables. Section V - Strategy, Tactics, and Operational Techniques - addresses e.g. questions like why did some operations fail and some succeed? What influence did World War II have on the development of subsequent military theory? Section VI - contains 226 articles which describe the actual fighting, preceded by a geographical and chronological index that shows the various battles, campaigns and operations in relation to each other. The Index's five major groupings are: I. The Preliminaries, II. Intelligence and deception, III. Air Actions, IV. Naval actions, and V. Land and combined actions. At the end of this Volume there are also a number of appendices: Chronology of the war in Europe; Tables of comparative ranks; Glossary of acronyms, abbreviations, and foreign and military terms; Allied and Axis code names; and a selected bibliography. The index of military units and warships and the general index are also included in this Volume.