For Honour's Sake - The War of 1812 and the Brokering of an Uneasy Peace

"This volume, and indeed the entire [Canadian Battle] series, can only cement Zuehlke's position as among our foremost chroniclers of Canada at war." -- Globe and Mail

"Zuehlke's signature achievement has been to offer Canadians that missing story. He writes brilliantly...With On to Victory, Zuehlke continues building a canon all his own." -- Quill & Quire

"This is good history, told well, and makes for powerful reading." -- Canada's History

The ninth book in the Canadian Battle Series, On to Victory is the little-told story of the tense final days of World War II, remembered in the Netherlands as "the sweetest of springs," which saw the country's liberation from German occupation. The Liberation Campaign, a series of fierce, desperate battles during the last three months of the war, was bittersweet. A nation's freedom was won and the war concluded, but these final hostilities cost Canada 6,298 casualties, including 1,482 dead. With his trademark "you are there" style that draws upon official records, veteran memories, and a keen understanding of the combat experience, Mark Zuehlke brings to life this concluding chapter in the story of Canada in World War II.

Published to coincide with the 65th anniversary of Canada's dramatic liberation of Holland. May 4, 2010, will mark the 65th anniversary of the end of the fighting for Canada's army and the conclusion of the Netherlands' liberation. Major events of remembrance, both here and in the Netherlands, will celebrate this milestone.

Book six in the Canadian Battle Series, Terrible Victory, is a gripping account of Canada's bloody liberation of western Holland, one of our finest, and most costly, military victories.

On September 4, 1944, Antwerp, Europe's largest port, fell to the Second British Army and it seemed the war would soon be won. But Antwerp was of little value unless the West Scheldt Estuary linking it to the North Sea was also in Allied hands. In his greatest blunder of the war, Field Marshal Montgomery turned his back on the port, leaving the First Canadian Army to fight its way up the long coastal flank.

By the time the Canadians and others serving with them reached the area, it had been transformed into a fortress manned by troops ordered to fight to the death. Crushing the Nazi defenders required all of the Canadians' courage, endurance and skill. The battle that raged until November was Canada's bloodiest of World War II, costing more than 6,000 casualties.

The second book in the Canadian Battle series, details the Allied Armies fighting their way up the Italian boot in early 1944. Rome was the prize that could only be won through one of the greatest offensives of the war. Mark Zuehlke, following his book, Ortona, returns to the Mediterranean theatre of World War II with this gripping story of courage in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds.

The Liri Valley was a long, flat corridor through miles of rugged mountains. At one end stood the formidable Monte Cassino, at the other, Rome. In May 1944, I Canadian Corps drops up this valley toward the Italian captial, facing the infamous Hitler Line -- a bastion of concrete bunkers fronted by wide swaths of tangled barbed wire, minefields, and "Tobruk" weapon pits. The ensuing battle resulted in Canada's single bloodiest day of the Italian campaign. But the sacrifice of young Canadians during the twenty-four days of relentless combat it took to clear the valley paved the way for the Allies to take Rome.

The Liri Valley is testament to the bravery of such Canadians as Victoria Cross-winning Jack Mahony, Panzer killer Private J.A. Thrasher, and the badly wounded Captain Pierre Potvin who survived more than thirty hours alone in the hell of no man's land. This book, like the battle it records, will live long in reader's memories.

Book three in the Canadian Battle Series. Stretching like an armour-toothed belt across Italy's upper thigh, the Gothic Line was the most fortified and fiercely defended position the German army had yet thrown in the path of the advancing Allied forces. On August 25, 1944, it fell to I Canadian Corps to spearhead the famed Eighth Army's major offensive, intended to rip through the Gothic Line.

Never had the Germans in Italy brought so much artillery to bear or deployed such a great number of tanks. For twenty-eight days, the battle raged as the Canadians, with British and Polish troops advancing on their flanks, slugged into the German defences. On September 22 the Canadians finally won, opening the way for the next phase of the Allied advance. The price was high-the greatest toll in casualties suffered during the long years of the Italian campaign.

The Gothic Line: Canada's Month of Hell in World War II Italy brings the story of what renowned military historian Jack Granatstein hails as Canada's most momentous World War II battle to vivid life by telling the story through the eyes of the soldiers. It is a suspenseful, dramatic book that gives back to Canadians a forgotten and neglected part of their historical heritage.

In one blood-soaked, furious week fo fighting, from December 20 to December 27, 1943, the 1st Canadian Infantry Division took Ortona, Italy, from elite German paratroopers ordered to hold the medieval port town at all costs. Infantrymen serving in the Loyal Edmonton Regiment and the Seaforth Highlanders, supported by tankers of the Three Rivers Regiment, moved from house to house in hand-to-hand combat amid heavy shelling and wrested the town from the grip of the fierce German defenders. When the vicious battle was over, 2339 Canadians were dead or wounded. But the town that had become known as "Little Stalingrad" was now in Allied hands.

Ortona, the first book in the Canadian Battle Series, brings Canada's first major triumph of the war to life in a dramatic, suspenseful narrative, weaving reminiscences of the Canadians, Germans, and Italians who were there together with a blow-by-blow account of the fighting that raged in December 1943 from the Moro River Valley through the infamous Gully and finallly into the streets of Ortona itself. It is masterful work, a story told from the soldier's-eye view.

By dawn on June 6, 1944, the rough seas facing three small resort towns in Normandy bristled with an immense armada. More than 6,500 ships prepared to disembark Allied troops in a do-or-die effort: D-Day. The 14,500 Canadians among them were to take "Juno Beach," a five-mile-long stretch protected by a seawall, barbed wire, underwater obstacles, hundred of mines -- and heavily armed German forces inside concrete bunkers, fortified houses, and trenches.

In this, book four of the Canadian Battle Series, acclaimed military historian Mark Zuehlke recreates this pivotal day of World War II, from planning through attack. Falling through a black night, praying to land on target were the newly trained Canadian para-troopers, among the first Allies on French soil. Canadian soldiers, most untested in battle, crossed the English Channel during a night storm and ran off landing craft into a deadly sea. Juno Beach is their story, shared at last in the rich detail their achievement deserves.