Overview
Modern military strategists speak of the "hinge factor," but they mean the same thing: chance and uncertainty, the improbable, unexpected, and often absurd elements that have decided the fate of battle - and altered the course of human history.
In a series of gripping narratives, award-winning war correspondent Erik Durschmied tells the fascinating story of how bizarre, unpredictable events affected history's greatest battles. Travel with him to the place and time of such world-shaping conflicts as:
-Troy, 1184 B.C. - the Greek's deadly gift
-Agincourt, October 25, 1415 - the triumph of Britain's Henry V
-Waterloo, June 18, 1815 - the end of the Napoleonic era
-Balaclava, October 25, 1854 - the charge of the Light Brigade
-Antietam, September 17, 1862 - the struggle that lengthened the Civil War
-Spoien Kop, January 24, 1900 - the Boer War battle that began twentieth-century combat
-Tanga, November5, 1914 - the spread of WWI to German East Africa
-The North Atlantic Ocean, May 27, 1941 - the sinking of the Bismarck
-Vietnam, January 31, 1968 - the photo that shook the world's conscience
-Berlin, November 9, 1989 - the Wall comes tumbling down
-The Gulf, January 17, 1991 - the war that looked like a video game