August Capital

PIERRE-AUGUSTE RENOIR (1841-1919) was born in Limoges, the son of a tailor who moved with his family to Paris when Renoir was a young child. His early ambition was to become a decorator of porcelain but, finding himself at the hub of the art world, he became a student at the Gleyre Academy where he made the acquaintance of Monet, Bazille and Sisley and where his career was redirected to painting. He had already attained some measure of success before he exhibited with them in the first Impressionist exhibition in 1874 when he was aged 33. His career was furthered by his early success as a portrait-painter but it was as a painter of "la vie Parisenne, of the bars and theatres of the capital, of the Seine and ultimately, of the female form that he is best known. Later he ventured further afield to the South of France, working for a time with Cezanne where they painted similar subjects such as Mont Sainte-Victoire together. He also visited Algeria and Venice, through which he enlarged the range of his work. Later in his life he turned his attention to sculpture despite suffering crippling arthritis in his hands and wrists. In spite of al this, Renoir continued to paint almost until the day he died.

How close did Germany come to winning World War II? Did Hitler throw away victory in Europe after his troops had crushed the Soviet field armies defending Moscow by August 1941? R. H. S. Stolfi offers a dramatic new picture of Hitler's conduct in World War II and a fundamental reinterpretation of the course of the war. Adolf Hitler generally is thought to have been driven by a blitzkrieg mentality in the years 1939 to 1941. In fact, Stolfi argues, he had no such outlook on the war. From the day Britain and France declared war, Hitler reacted with a profoundly conservative cast of mind and pursued a circumscribed strategy, pushing out siege lines set around Germany by the Allies. Interpreting Hitler as a siege Fuhrer explains his apparent aberrations in connection with Dunkirk, his fixation on the seizure of Leningrad, and his fateful decision in the summer of 1941 to deflect Army Group Center into the Ukraine when both Moscow and victory in World War II were within its reach. Unaware of Hitler's siege orientation, the German Army planned blitz campaigns. Through daring operational concepts and bold tactics, the army won victories over several Allied powers in World War II, and these led to the great campaign against the Soviet Union in the summer of 1941. Stolfi postulates that in August 1941, German Army Group Center had the strength both to destroy the Red field armies defending the Soviet capital and to advance to Moscow and beyond. The defeat of the Soviet Union would have assured victory in World War II. Nevertheless, Hitler ordered the army group south to secure the resources of the Ukraine against a potential siege. And a virtually assured German victory slipped away.