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Just got to thinking about this from another thread.

My pick is Don Juan of Austria, and I think he's hard to beat for top place.

Bastard son of an emperor who was raised without knowing his heritage, he becomes a member of the royal household of his half-brother Philip II of Spain. While barely an adult he leads the Holy League fleet to one of the most stunning and important victories in history at Lepanto. Basically says to the Turks, "Hey! Nice fleet! I'll be taking that now." He doubles the power of the Spanish Fleet, and starts the Ottomans on their long, slow march out of Europe.

He wins some battles in Flanders, but dies soon, still at a young age. Its an interesting question what would have happened to the rest of the 16th Century had he lived.

Also a very interesting character on a personal level. Yes, he is the Don Juan all the love stories refer to. At the same time, he is an ardent Catholic.

A great general and admiral, and a man of two worlds.https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/7539811

Among other things, he was probably Philip's top pick for commander of the Armada Catholica, and was a very different man than the Duke of Medina Sidonia. That England would have survived him is probably not a good bet.

So who's your pick?

James Gavin, initially of the 82nd Airborne in WW2 and then brought in to clear up the mess left by that megalomaniac lunatic MacArthur in Korea.

I know he didn't give the UN a glorious victory or anything like that, but given the situation he was put in he did all that could be expected and kept most of his troops alive

 Skinflint Games wrote:
James Gavin, initially of the 82nd Airborne in WW2 and then brought in to clear up the mess left by that megalomaniac lunatic MacArthur in Korea.

I know he didn't give the UN a glorious victory or anything like that, but given the situation he was put in he did all that could be expected and kept most of his troops alive

Interesting take on an awkward situation.

A lot of "great" generals are really mostly personality, and IMHO, that describes MacArthur. His greatness, and I will grant him some, was largely in keeping the casualties in the Pacific relatively low, and as a publicity figure for the American public.

In Italy, the war was a meat grinder, and the Wehrmacht was slugging it out punch for punch. Despite the success of D-Day, France wasn't much better, and even while their armies were being devoured in Russia, the Nazi's managed some coups in France and the low countries, especially with the Battle of the Bulge (not a victory, but it threw Eisenhower and Montgomery back for a moment) and the scare that Skorzeny put into the public, the press, and, accordingly, Washington and London. They did not want to see Eisenhower assassinated, and, while there were no indications after the war that this was actually the plan, their fear of Skorzeny and he political and press nightmare that would follow if it did happen was keeping everybody in Washington up at night.

The point is that, for all the publicity Hollywood could churn out, the war was close to the point of becoming unpopular. Thus Washington wanted to keep casualties relatively low in t he Pacific (and they were, relatively) and MacArthur seemed to be accomplishing just that.

But the Red Chinese were a totally different enemy than Japan. The USA had finally run into the enemy that could throw more bodies at the enemy's bullets than it could, and four times over.

Interesting, I'll have to think about that one. IMHO, Mac was the man for the job in the Philippines, etc., but when i came to North Korea, not so much.

Gotta throw Charles Martel's name into the hopper, right? Won the battle of Tours, largely due to his leadership, turned back the Umayyads, and expanded the frankish Territories.

 Polonius wrote:
Gotta throw Charles Martel's name into the hopper, right? Won the battle of Tours, largely due to his leadership, turned back the Umayyads, and expanded the frankish Territories.

Hmm. Great general, certainly, but underrated? I always thought historians agreed that ole' Charles the Hammer wuz wun bad mo fo. Have you run into somebody saying otherwise?

NapoleonInSpace wrote:

 Skinflint Games wrote:
James Gavin, initially of the 82nd Airborne in WW2 and then brought in to clear up the mess left by that megalomaniac lunatic MacArthur in Korea.

I know he didn't give the UN a glorious victory or anything like that, but given the situation he was put in he did all that could be expected and kept most of his troops alive

Interesting take on an awkward situation.

A lot of "great" generals are really mostly personality, and IMHO, that describes MacArthur. His greatness, and I will grant him some, was largely in keeping the casualties in the Pacific relatively low, and as a publicity figure for the American public.

In Italy, the war was a meat grinder, and the Wehrmacht was slugging it out punch for punch. Despite the success of D-Day, France wasn't much better, and even while their armies were being devoured in Russia, the Nazi's managed some coups in France and the low countries, especially with the Battle of the Bulge (not a victory, but it threw Eisenhower and Montgomery back for a moment) and the scare that Skorzeny put into the public, the press, and, accordingly, Washington and London. They did not want to see Eisenhower assassinated, and, while there were no indications after the war that this was actually the plan, their fear of Skorzeny and he political and press nightmare that would follow if it did happen was keeping everybody in Washington up at night.

The point is that, for all the publicity Hollywood could churn out, the war was close to the point of becoming unpopular. Thus Washington wanted to keep casualties relatively low in t he Pacific (and they were, relatively) and MacArthur seemed to be accomplishing just that.

But the Red Chinese were a totally different enemy than Japan. The USA had finally run into the enemy that could throw more bodies at the enemy's bullets than it could, and four times over.

Interesting, I'll have to think about that one. IMHO, Mac was the man for the job in the Philippines, etc., but when i came to North Korea, not so much.

I dunno, he certainly had the guts to suggest actually using nuclear weapons to stop the ChiComs from flooding into North Korea. Was that a good idea? Perhaps not, but he wanted to actually WIN the war, not end it in a stalemate leaving the North under the thumb of a brutal dicatorship. I read an interesting trilogy by Harry Turtledove called The Hot War that basically suggests that MacArthur's plan was tried and led to a global nuclear war, and it was pretty scary to think that that might have actually happened.

Polonius wrote:Gotta throw Charles Martel's name into the hopper, right? Won the battle of Tours, largely due to his leadership, turned back the Umayyads, and expanded the frankish Territories.

Definitely not an underrated figure; isn't Charles Martel better known as Charlemagne?

Charlermagne was his great grandson.

M.

MacArthur: Not saying he was a bad general, I don't think he was, and, as I said, in the Pacific, he was the man for the job.

As to throwing around nukes? Tough call. In my opinion, cooler heads should have and did prevail. Does that mean we don't have problems now as a result? No. I think we do, but given that situation, I'd probably have sided with Harry Truman. One world war was just over. Did we want another so soon?

Charles Martel: Not Charlemagne. Different guy.

I'll put in Admiral William Agustus "Ching" Lee.

Long and short, he was a gunnery expert on every level from the rifle to the big guns of battleships. And he was one of the first U.S. Admirals to really understand the enormous advantage radar, and radar-guided gunnery, could bring the U.S. Navy.

And he used that advantage in the Naval Battle of Guadalcanal, allowing the U.S.S Washington to absolutely paste the IJN Kirashima with 16" gunfire and sink it.

Blücher, but not the Prussian one. Vassili Blücher the Soviet general who founded Whampoa military academy where guomindang and pla officers trained

I throw in Admiral Alexander Kolchak, barely known at all, who was de-facto and de-jure ruler of Russia for a couple of years,and had an all-around insane (and short) life, and whose memory was immediately distorted and slandered by the nascent Soviet Union which explains the 'underrated' part. Absolutely a character that would have been hailed as a national hero or even founding father if events turned out differently, relegated to the heap of historic figures nobody likes to talk about much because it's embarrassing in your day-to-day dealings (several western powers supported Kolchak, a fact they very much downplayed once they had to deal with his enemies regularly).

Kurt von Hammerstein-Equord and James Longstreet.

chaos0xomega wrote:
Kurt von Hammerstein-Equord and James Longstreet.

Certainly Longstreet is well respected among Southerners.

The first guy I've never heard of, I'll look him up.

Love your tag line. So true.

pelicaniforce wrote:
Blücher, but not the Prussian one. Vassili Blücher the Soviet general who founded Whampoa military academy where guomindang and pla officers trained

Speaking of Whampoa, Chiang Kai-shek gets a raw deal as a general. His encirclement campaigns utterly destroyed the Chinese Red Army and the Long March would have accomplished nothing if the Japanese hadn't invaded and forced a Second United Front.

Two other candidates: Francisco Franco, who overcame considerable odds to win the Spanish Civil War (read my book about it) and George Thomas, the Rock of Chickamauga and the only commander - North or South - who actually annihilated an enemy field army during the American Civil War. He died in 1870 and was a loyal Virginian, which meant no one was there to build a legend around him.

 NapoleonInSpace wrote:

chaos0xomega wrote:
Kurt von Hammerstein-Equord and James Longstreet.

Certainly Longstreet is well respected among Southerners.

That's a joke/sarcasm, right?

Alois von Reding.

Somehow from an oligarchical family, a degeneration of local Landsgemeinde democracy and shouldn't have been liked, yet manages to actually do good including massive reforms in education and economy and engratiate himself by the local populus got elected multiple times.

Not only that, singlehandedly carries more or less reforms through to turn subjects into fully fledged citizens, managing to make them join your resistance to the french puppet regime during the invasion of directory france against the old confederacy.

Casually beeing outnumbered 2:1 and still putting up a better fight than the far mightier Bern. To the point that you are not forced to completly capitulate, aka you are not getting forcefully disarmed. Allowing central switzerland to resist the Helvetic Republic fiercly on multiple occaisions and the locals to help out the austrians and russians.

Consequently after being shortly imprisoned carrying the federalist party in the helvetic republic on your back and in opposition to the centralist regime, launching a coup d etat to prevent Napoleon to cut off valais form switzerland, getting couped and then casually launching another revolt (stecklikrieg, or basically wooden club war) against the puppet regime unifying literally every single swiss party and canton (which considering how hillariously fragmented swiss politics were is nuts ) doing so not only as a "reactionary" conservative but also as a catholic which is a minority. Forcing Napoleon to declare the act of mediation and by extention win/liberate switzerland, kinda sorta.

Maybee not the best in the field, even though considering what he could call upon were either former swiss mercenaries in the service of the french royal army which ranged from guard type regiments in a minority to ehh lineinfantry in quality or Landsturmtype / cantonal militiaforces is impressive.

chaos0xomega wrote:

 NapoleonInSpace wrote:

chaos0xomega wrote:
Kurt von Hammerstein-Equord and James Longstreet.

Certainly Longstreet is well respected among Southerners.

That's a joke/sarcasm, right?

I think the novel The Killer Angels and its film adaptation did a great deal to rehabilitate Old Pete.

In the north, yes. Longstreet is still largely hated in the South and considered a traitor to the Confederate cause and a major contributor to their ultimate loss. It'll probably remain that way until the lionization of Bobby Lee ends and people finally recognize that he was mostly average.

chaos0xomega wrote:
In the north, yes. Longstreet is still largely hated in the South and considered a traitor to the Confederate cause and a major contributor to their ultimate loss. It'll probably remain that way until the lionization of Bobby Lee ends and people finally recognize that he was mostly average.

That makes him unpopular, but not underrated.

Another factor is that he was always a subordinate commander. That limited the scope of either what he could do, for good or ill.

Commissar von Toussaint wrote:

pelicaniforce wrote:
Blücher, but not the Prussian one. Vassili Blücher the Soviet general who founded Whampoa military academy where guomindang and pla officers trained

Speaking of Whampoa, Chiang Kai-shek gets a raw deal as a general. His encirclement campaigns utterly destroyed the Chinese Red Army and the Long March would have accomplished nothing if the Japanese hadn't invaded and forced a Second United Front.

Two other candidates: Francisco Franco, who overcame considerable odds to win the Spanish Civil War (read my book about it) and George Thomas, the Rock of Chickamauga and the only commander - North or South - who actually annihilated an enemy field army during the American Civil War. He died in 1870 and was a loyal Virginian, which meant no one was there to build a legend around him.

Franco was an amazing figure in a lot of ways. He ousted the communists in Spain when that really should have been impossible. He drove Hitler to fret that he never again wanted to face Franco at the negotiating table again, and he survived the war as an independent power without ever joining the allies.

Formidable, to say the least.

Charles Martel definitely isn't underrated but he is probably not as famous as you'd think he would be given the monumental effect he had on human history.

I think it's also fair to note that Longstreet was one of the Confederacy's best generals, but his shift after the war largely led future generations of rampant Southern Apologists to dismiss and diminish his talents and efforts.It's especially heartbreaking when you look into it and get the strong impression Picket's Charge, and being forced to give that order, seemed to completely break the man. He never fully forgave Lee for making him do it. He became embittered to the entire Confederate enterprise in the aftermath.

And donkey-cave apologists love trying to shift the blame for Gettysburg onto his shoulders when the entire loss really rests squarely on Lee's shoulders. Longstreet is right up there with Grant as a brilliant general Southerners and apologists would bend over backwards and do cartwheels to sully as much as possible. Grant has seen a massive rehabilitation of his image that has only grown since the 1980s. Longstreet is still lagging. He's famous, but you'd be surprised how often he only gets credit or reference before Gettysburg and then is conveniently forgotten about.

Another commonly unrecognized figure;

Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa, the primary military mind behind the battlefield success of future emperor Augustus Ceasar and one of the greatest generals Rome ever produced. Generally overlooked in the popular mind in favor of Augustus, who probably never wouild have become Emperor if not for Agrippa.

Alcibiades of Athens is also a pretty wacky and hilarious entertaining guy. Usually successful when given military command and the freedom to act on his own initiative. Politically, he was too eccentric a personality even for Athens.

On the other side of the world, Fa Zheng, a brilliant military strategist who was the main architect of Liu Bei's most successful military campaign during his war with Cao Cao. Chinese History and popular memory would do him a massive disservice in centuries to follow by reassigning the credit for his brilliance to Zhuge Liang rendering Fa Zheng a largely overlooked and unknown historical figure.

And now for the most controversial name I can think of;

Xerxes of Persia.

Often given a very bum rap by the Greeks and Classical history, discard a lot of post-Persian War Greek nostalgia goggles, and Xerxes is arguably one of the greatest leaders of the Classical World if not the greatest before Alexander the Great. It's amazing he could mount an expedition as far as Greece and he fought multiple rebellions in his lifetime that mostly kept the Persian Empire whole. From his own perspective, he probably never saw the defeat at Platae and Salamis as significant because 1) he wasn't there, 2) his foremost goal was to pull off a big show and get his realm to do what he said, and 3) burn Athens to the ground in retribution for the burning of Sardis and secure Persian control of the Ionian Greek cities. He achieved all those goals, then turned right around and reconquered Eygpt on the other side of his Empire.

It's really only in the aftermath plus a few hundred years history would twist itself around and massively inflate the Greek victory in the Persian Wars to a significance far beyond anything Xerxes himself probably assigned to the conflict.

You don't hear much about Russian generals here in the west.

Alexander Suvorov (undefeated in battle) was a very interesting character, as was Bagration (excellent defensive general). Suvorov v napoleon is one of the great historical 'what ifs'.

Back in the day, the check.general Jan zizka did some extraordinary things too, more notable since his armies were often untrained peasants.

I'd also add the vandal/roman stilicho as an interesting but relatively unknown general, though he was more politician than general.

Deadnight wrote:
You don't hear much about Russian generals here in the west.

Alexander Suvorov (undefeated in battle) was a very interesting character, as was Bagration (excellent defensive general). Suvorov v napoleon is one of the great historical 'what ifs'.

Back in the day, the check.general Jan zizka did some extraordinary things too, more notable since his armies were often untrained peasants.

But Suvorov was defeated? Not only that but his Alpine campaign was a disaster in regards to losses even though he had massive local support atleast in the innerswiss regions.

Not Online!!! wrote:

Deadnight wrote:
You don't hear much about Russian generals here in the west.

Alexander Suvorov (undefeated in battle) was a very interesting character, as was Bagration (excellent defensive general). Suvorov v napoleon is one of the great historical 'what ifs'.

Back in the day, the check.general Jan zizka did some extraordinary things too, more notable since his armies were often untrained peasants.

But Suvorov was defeated? Not only that but his Alpine campaign was a disaster in regards to losses even though he had massive local support atleast in the innerswiss regions.

Not defeated in battle. :p (though it gets a bit greyer if you dig into it- couple of battles in the seven years war were defeats, apparently but im not sure qbout his rank?)

Appalling situation, isolated, surrounded by French, other russian forces had been defeated he retreated(though he never called it that, hehe). Then he died a few short months after.

Still an interesting character, if for no other reason than fairly unknown here in the west.

Deadnight wrote:

Not defeated in battle. :p (though it gets a bit greyer if you dig into it)

Appalling situation, isolated, surrounded by French, other russian forces had been defeated he retreated(though he never called it that, hehe). Then he died a few short months after.

Still an interesting character, if for no other reason than fairly unknown here in the west.

He got defeated by all but name at the Teufelsbrücke in the Schöllenenschlucht. The frenchies needed to buy time and that they did successfully. So succesfully they completely denied him shipping at the Vierwaldstädtersee and casually curbstomped the coalition at the second battle of Zürich. Then later on as you stated he had to hightail it and only got away because of the blunders of his two opponents.

Also i wouldn't say that he isn't remembered in the west unless you apply that moniker to solely an english speaking sphere. Between museums locally and a 12m Granite cross in memory of his that is more than Reding got for his efforts. Granted Reding in typical innerswiss and especially Schwyzer attitude didn't want to do anything with the proto-federal nation after the act of mediation so decided to not take them up on their multiple offers to join that confederational government but then again he was a man of principle and his principle more or less was: Landsgemeinde sovereignity and faith.



Granted part of why Reding didn't get anything at all in regards to memory is because he was from a Häupter family. Innerswiss Häupter ( = heads, familial heads, actually more aptly described as something between a patrician, aristocrat but mostly oligarchical in nature) have an somewhat ambivalent historical conscioussness and trackrecord associated to them. Basically their social strata is a failure / oligarchisation of the Landsgemeinde and partially responsible for the quick collapse of the old confederacy during the french invasion. For one they firmly fall into the category of "your betters" and the usual mechanics of innerswiss political and historical conscioussness isn't particulary nice to "your betters" be they people that want to create a nation or just merely want to govern you. Hence why most of them were broadly disliked if tolerated because you require educated people and there weren't other people to fill that category otoh, you get people like him which basically represented everything the Häupter should've been from a common citizens perspective and in regards to moral standards the Häupter claimed to fullfill.

Not Online!!! wrote:


Also i wouldn't say that he isn't remembered in the west unless you apply that moniker to solely an english speaking sphere.

You raise an interesting point. Bear in mind what follows is partly in jest.

In my defense, the anglosphere tends to be rather dismissive (or oblivious) of anything that isn't done in english or using english as a first language. I mean, it's understandable with all these uppity forinners on the continent that it's obviously not proper.

Obviously I'm.guilty in assuming this perspective (ie suvorov being 'unknown' etc) was common across the west as as a whole - clearly not. I'd genuinely never heard of suvorov until a couple of years ago falling down a wiki hole into napoleons march into russia.

I get the impression folks on the continent would fill the history books with very different things given the chance*. Except said books are not in English so we'll just ignore them. :p

*for example I've felt for years there was a massive emphasis on the 'western' campaigns in ww2 or the 'big' events and 'bullet points'. Battle of Britain, Dunkirk, d-day, stalingrad, kursk, Rommel and North Africa. You very rarely see anything from outside the anglosphere eg operation bagration which bled army group centre white in a couple of weeks.

Obviously I use ww2 as an 'obvious' example but I feel the same about others. I'm rather fascinated by the eastern front in ww1 buy since so little is written in english or its rather niche, folks are oblivious to.it.

Deadnight wrote:

Not Online!!! wrote:


Also i wouldn't say that he isn't remembered in the west unless you apply that moniker to solely an english speaking sphere.

You raise an interesting point. Bear in mind what follows is partly in jest.

In my defense, the anglosphere tends to be rather dismissive (or oblivious) of anything that isn't done in english or using english as a first language. I mean, it's understandable with all these uppity forinners on the continent that it's obviously not proper.

Obviously I'm.guilty in assuming this perspective (ie suvorov being 'unknown' etc) was common across the west as as a whole - clearly not. I'd genuinely never heard of suvorov until a couple of years ago falling down a wiki hole into napoleons march into russia.

I get the impression folks on the continent would fill the history books with very different things given the chance*. Except said books are not in English so we'll just ignore them. :p

*for example I've felt for years there was a massive emphasis on the 'western' campaigns in ww2 or the 'big' events and 'bullet points'. Battle of Britain, Dunkirk, d-day, stalingrad, kursk, Rommel and North Africa. You very rarely see anything from outside the anglosphere eg operation bagration which bled army group centre white in a couple of weeks.

Obviously I use ww2 as an 'obvious' example but I feel the same about others. I'm rather fascinated by the eastern front in ww1 buy since so little is written in english or its rather niche, folks are oblivious to.it.

I think it's less the "foreigners" and more the fact that the average person doesn't need to or even CAN understand other peoples history or concepts. Especially when language starts to become an hinderance in actually understanding the matter at hand.
An exemple: "Mehren" has a swiss german meaning and one in "normal" german, fundamentally the word means to increase something even according to the oxford dictionary which coppies the german Duden which dubs it also as out of fashion and points it out as a form of the verb "vermehren" which also means increasing. In a swiss german context, it's a word used to name the voting and election acts since the early modern period and is still in use. And that is "the same language".

F.e another far more complex academic exemple is the frankfurt school and Adorno and his negative universalism being used to justify the disavowal of universalist theories and reinforcement or supremacy of particularist structures in morals and academic history despite not actually making that point but rather that NEITHER enforcement leads to an accurate assessment. Granted his exemple is complex and written in the typical overcomplex german academic language which has a history of its own as to why it developped such a "high-language".

For WW1 and the eastern front further problematic is the fact that with Austira-hungary and russia you got two massivly multi-cultural and ethnical entities fighting it out and by extention source work especially for the K you K empire is basically requires an multilingual language study beforehand, f.e. if you isolate galicia-lodomoria you are confronted with: Polish, ukrainian, jiddish, german, slowak, czeck and romanian. And both entities basically collapsed rather explosivly and had inheritors that were sometimes very short existences, or were in violent confrontations with their neighbours meaning that sources may well got destroyed, looted, lost, etc.

Not Online!!! wrote:


I think it's less the "foreigners" and more the fact that the average person doesn't need to or even CAN understand other peoples history or concepts. Especially when language starts to become an hinderance in actually understanding the matter at hand.

You'd be surprised. The 'islander' mentality is strong here; there is a not-insignificant strain of suspicion towards the continent and beyond, and at-worst outright xenophobia for forinners and not-english over here.
There is a certain entitlement, for want of a better word, in the English speaking world where its expected you'll speak our language for us, but to demand we speak yours is being cheeky, frankly. Its the reason english abroad are 'expats' but any forinners over here are 'immigrants' with the associated suspicion.

You might dismiss ot as just a handful of bigots but sadly its more than a handful. Anyways I digress...

Not Online!!! wrote:

For WW1 and the eastern front further problematic is the fact that with Austira-hungary and russia you got two massivly multi-cultural and ethnical entities fighting it out and by extention source work especially for the K you K empire is basically requires an multilingual language study beforehand, f.e. if you isolate galicia-lodomoria you are confronted with: Polish, ukrainian, jiddish, german, slowak, czeck and romanian. And both entities basically collapsed rather explosivly and had inheritors that were sometimes very short existences, or were in violent confrontations with their neighbours meaning that sources may well got destroyed, looted, lost, etc.

That's why I find it so.fascinating. I'd love to read/know more, you know? Like ww1 officially ended in 1918 - truth be told conflicts raged for another, what?.five? Six years? Especially across Poland/ukraine/Russia. Greece too

 NapoleonInSpace wrote:
Franco was an amazing figure in a lot of ways. He ousted the communists in Spain when that really should have been impossible. He drove Hitler to fret that he never again wanted to face Franco at the negotiating table again, and he survived the war as an independent power without ever joining the allies.

Formidable, to say the least.

Not sure where the notion that outsitting the communists was a challenge when the governments of Spain had been unstable and unpopular, which is exactly why the Civil War kicked off in the first place. The Nationalist forces were primarily made of up either experienced soldiers or gendarmes while the Republicans largely consisted of volunteer militias. The international support the Nationalists received was far superior, especially from the Italians, and had the benefit of being explicit rather than with the Soviets who attempted to hide much of their involvement in the war.
The Republicans were also far less unified than the Nationalists, as the latter's composite parties all had at least one idea in common, the preservation and continuance of Catholicism in Spain, while the Republicans were made up of parties with often radically different ideologies such as communism and anarchism. This division was furthered by the NKVD who would assassinate those deemed a threat to Stalin's regime in Spain. The acts of the Stalinist Spanish were what soured George Orwell towards communism and Stalin.

Deadnight wrote:

That's why I find it so.fascinating. I'd love to read/know more, you know? Like ww1 officially ended in 1918 - truth be told conflicts raged for another, what?.five? Six years? Especially across Poland/ukraine/Russia. Greece too

There are a lot of excellent autobiographic works from that period of time, that do a lot to allow for some sort of 'cracked caleidoscope' look at things, which is about the only thing you can realistically manage if you don't want to invest significant amounts of time into seriously studying the era and area. Galicia features prominently in Albert Lorenz's Schattenreiter(memoirs of an austrian upper-middleclass youth that does his military service in KuK cavalry in Galicia just before WW1), Isaac Babel's Odessa Stories delivers slice-of-life stories between jewish, ukrainian and other ethnic underclasses in zarist and early-USSR Odessa on the eve of the pogroms, Salica Landmann did a delightful little book about Jewish Jokes that is about 300 pages, 60 of which constitue the best introduction to the jewish mentalitly ca. 1750-1940 in eastern europe, as well as their general mode of life and specific problems they were confronted with, that i've ever read. Joseph Roth's Job is another dramatic tale that concerns jews that were forced to emmigrate from Galicia; Stefan Zweigs The world of Yesterday is an autobiographic report about interwar Austria, mostly Vienna, with both the highlights of culture and ceremony and the low-lights of rising antisemitism and nazism. A text that got something of a reputation and is constantly in print because it's very much a core text in right-wing revolutionary circles until today is Ernst von Salomon's The Outlaws which presents his own (fictionalized) accounts of his time as a Freikorps fighter in the Balticum and Poland after the 'official' end of WW1.