Founded in the spring of 2004, the magazine Batailles (Battles) aims to review military history of the 20th Century from a particular perspective centred on the lynchpin of this end of the millennium: the terrible devastation of the Second World War (1939-1945). For its first numbers, the “backbone” of Batailles deals with themes about the liberation of France: Normandy Landings, landings in Provence, Allied armies, German armies fighting on French soil, French resistance in action in most of the regions, etc. A new approach to these themes - a more intimate spirit - enables different angles and points of view to be confronted, to bring out further new knowledge about a subject which is perhaps sometimes not as well-known as one thinks. As well as a wealth of period photographic material, Batailles includes pictures of certain objects such as headgear, insignia, and documents which belonged to the innumerable participants in the immense drama that was WWII, giving striking relief to both text and lay-out. The contents of each number of Batailles proposes regular columns and features which are just as many answers to the questions asked by the upcoming generations:
The strategic choices which confronted the leaders during WWII: could Hitler really have won the war? How were Churchill and Roosevelt going to manage their relationship with Stalin?
Portraits of the war leaders: from Rommel to Patton, Leclerc to Montgomery. What were the personalities under the uniform?
The men and the units: in Normandy in 1944 what was a German infantry division worth against an American armoured division? How did the French resistance movement and its men hold up the German forces in the centre of the country to relieve the Normandy front?
Fortifications and material: was the Atlantic Wall merely an illusion?
Could the German secret weapons really turn the situation around?
Finally, the tours of the great 1939-1945 battlegrounds: the high points which today still breathe history; military cemeteries over which the aura of the combatants still hovers; museums, memorials and all sorts of monuments which recall the devastating passage of WWII.
As well as the bi-monthly magazine, Batailles regularly brings out special editions which, under the editorship of Philippe Charbonnier, offer very richly illustrated thematic analyses, widening the scope of the magazine: thus alongside a visual day-by-day report on the liberation of Paris, there are fundamental subjects on the war in Indochina or on German artillery in 1914-1918, for example. Every two months, with Batailles there are 84 pages with more than 200 illustrations (period documents, photos of objects and coloured maps) and you will plunge into these important moments of history which have forged our present.
Yves Buffetaut
Editor
Batailles
