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Books > Social sciences > Warfare & defence > War & defence operations > Battles & campaigns
The quantity of journalism produced during World War I was unlike
anything the then-budding mass media had ever seen. Correspondents
at the front were dispatching voluminous reports on a daily basis,
and though much of it was subject to censorship, it all eventually
became available. It remains the most extraordinary firsthand look
at the war that we have. Published immediately after the cessation
of hostilities and compiled from those original journalistic
sources-American, British, French, German, and others-this is an
astonishing contemporary perspective on the Great War. This replica
of the first 1919 edition includes all the original maps, photos,
and illustrations, lending an even greater immediacy to readers a
century later. Volume II covers August 1914 through July 1915 on
the Western Front, from the German advance on Paris to the first
use of aeroplanes and zeppelins. American journalist and historian
FRANCIS WHITING HALSEY (1851-1919) was literary editor of The New
York Times from 1892 through 1896. He wrote and lectured
extensively on history; his works include, as editor, the
two-volume Great Epochs in American History Described by Famous
Writers, From Columbus to Roosevelt (1912), and, as writer, the
10-volume Seeing Europe with Famous Authors (1914).
An 'Old Contemptible' recounts the campaign of 1914
At the outbreak of the First World War, units of the British
regular army-the B. E. F-were despatched to the continent to assist
the French in an attempt to stem the tide of the advancing Imperial
German Army as it marched inexorably towards Paris. The enemy
viewed the 'Tommies' as 'that contemptible little army.' In that
way peculiar to the British the insult became a byword for courage
and honour as the highly trained and motivated soldiers in khaki
demonstrated just what a contemptible little army could do.
However, this was a war of attrition and despite the
'contemptibles' magnificent performance the 'grey horde' could not
initially be halted. What followed was the memorable retreat from
Mons. The author of this book was a subaltern officer serving in
one of the county regiments of the B. E. F and chose as his title
for this book the proudly worn designation 'Contemptible.' Although
the book was written under a pseudonym it is widely believed that
the writer was Arnold Gyde who served with the South Staffordshire
Regiment and was one of the first British soldiers to set foot on
the continent. Although the account of this vital aspect of the
opening months of the conflict is presented in a 'factional' style
it is clearly based on the author's first hand experiences.
Leonaur editions are newly typeset and are not facsimiles; each
title is available in softcover and hardback with dustjacket; our
hardbacks are cloth bound and feature gold foil lettering on their
spines and fabric head and tail bands.
The Shelf2Life WWI Memoirs Collection is an engaging set of
pre-1923 materials that describe life during the Great War through
memoirs, letters and diaries. Poignant personal narratives from
soldiers, doctors and nurses on the front lines to munitions
workers and land girls on the home front, offer invaluable insight
into the sacrifices men and women made for their country.
Photographs and illustrations intensify stories of struggle and
survival from the trenches, hospitals, prison camps and
battlefields. The WWI Memoirs Collection captures the pride and
fear of the war as experienced by combatants and non-combatants
alike and provides historians, researchers and students extensive
perspective on individual emotional responses to the war.
The first two books in an excellent trilogy of the Great War in the
Middle East
W. T Massey was the foremost accredited journalist reporting on
behalf of the London newspapers covering the Great War in the
Middle East as it was fought against the Ottoman Turkish Empire,
its German ally and the tribes of the region who threw in their lot
with them. He possessed a deeply held conviction that this theatre
of operations was far more important than those who only concerned
themselves with the conflict in Europe believed. He was
particularly aware of the hardships suffered by British and
Colonial troops serving in difficult climates and over unrelenting
terrain and he became, through his long association with the entire
campaign, a champion of those who fought in it. This volume in the
two book Leonaur edition-which covers the complete conflict from
the war in the Western Desert against the Senussi to the actions at
Aleppo and beyond-begins appropriately with the first book, 'The
Desert Campaigns' and follows with the campaign that culminated in
Allenby's historic walk into Jerusalem in 'How Jerusalem was Won.'
Part history, part first hand account this is a valuable history
imbued with the insight of one who was there.
On the evening of March 31, 1945, hours before the invasion of
Okinawa, Max Stripe, Billy Thornhill, and five other crewmen manned
the forward twin 40 mm mount of LST 791. Riley was stationed up in
the Conn, tracking enemy planes from bogey reports that came in
over the radio. An increase in air attacks could be expected at
sunset and dawn because-for a brief time-aircraft could see the
ships clearly, but it was difficult for the ships to see the
planes. Suddenly, a group of transports astern of the 791 came
under attack-tracers could be seen across the expanse of water and
air. The job of the LST crew was to deliver the troops, tanks, and
supplies to hostile beaches and, if necessary, defend those assets
with their lives. All were ordinary men; they knew they had a job
to do, and they did it. Succeeding so that they could return home
to their families was their goal. In "Pacific LST 791, " Stephen C.
Stripe, author and son of LST crewman Max Stripe, brings us the
incredible true story of the vital actions of LST 791 and her crew
in the Pacific Theater of WWII. Our admiration and thanks belong to
this hardworking, gallant breed, for their heroic courage and
sacrifice brought us hope, victory, and ultimately peace.
Two first accounts by early aviators
This special Leonaur 'good value' edition contains two accounts of
the early days of powered flight. The first book, written just
before the outbreak of the First World War, describes in depth the
training of French military pilots up to the point where they are
qualified. It contains much of historical interest and the process
is explained, in considerable detail, from the trainee pilot's
viewpoint as he grappled to master his machine. His numerous errors
and how the aircraft performed as they were made are elaborated.
The author came into contact with several types of aircraft and he
describes the characteristics, performance and mechanics of each.
So this book provides essential insights into the practicalities of
being a fighter pilot in the imminent conflict. The second work is
by a British pilot who was fully engaged in the air war over
France. He was shot down and captured by the 'Bosch, ' he escaped
and was again captured, and he underwent many other adventures
before finally returning to his homeland. Accounts of pilots and
aviation from the pioneer days of flying are comparatively few in
number and these two short first hand narratives, essential reading
for students of the subject, would have been unlikely to see
republication as individual books.
Leonaur editions are newly typeset and are not facsimiles; each
title is available in softcover and hardback with dustjacket; our
hardbacks are cloth bound and feature gold foil lettering on their
spines and fabric head and tail bands.
A young British soldier who went to war on two wheels
When the Great War broke out, the author of this book decided to
leave his university studies and join the struggle. What attracted
him immediately was the potential to combine his military service
with his love of motorcycles and so it was that he found himself
one of a select group of motorcycle despatch riders within the 5th
Division of the 'Contemptible Little Army' that went to France and
Belgium to halt the overwhelming numerical superiority of the
advancing German Army. This book, an account of his experiences in
the early months of the war, tells the story of a conflict of fluid
manoeuvre and dogged retreat. Together with congested roads filled
with military traffic and refugees, the ever present threat of
artillery barrage and changing front lines the author had to
constantly be aware of the presence of the deadly Uhlans-mounted
German Lancers-who were always ready to pitch horseflesh against
horsepower.
The First Crusade was arguably one of the most significant events
of the Middle Ages. It was the only event to generate its own epic
cycle, the Old French Crusade Cycle. The central trilogy at the
heart of the Cycle describes the Crusade from its beginnings to the
climactic battle of Ascalon, comprising the Chanson d'Antioche, the
Chanson des Chetifs and the Chanson de Jerusalem. This translation
of the Chetifs and the Jerusalem accompanies and completes the
translation of the Antioche and makes the trilogy available to
English readers in its entirety for the first time. The value of
the trilogy lies above all in the insight it gives us to medieval
perceptions of the Crusade. The events are portrayed as part of a
divine plan where even outcasts and captives can achieve salvation
through Crusade. This in turn underlies the value of the Cycle as a
recruiting and propaganda tool. The trilogy gives a window onto the
chivalric preoccupations of thirteenth-century France, exploring
concerns about status, heroism and defeat. It portrays the material
realities of the era in vivid detail: the minutiae of combat,
smoke-filled halls, feasts, prisons and more. And the two newly
translated poems are highly entertaining as well, featuring a
lubricious Saracen lady not in the first flush of youth, a dragon
inhabited by a devil, marauding monkeys, miracles and much more.
The historian will find little new about the Crusade itself, but
abundant material on how it was perceived, portrayed and performed.
The translation is accompanied by an introduction examining the
origins of the two poems and their wider place in the cycle. It is
supported by extensive footnotes, a comprehensive index of names
and places and translations of the main variants.
"Lean men, brown men, men from overseas,
Men from all the outer world; shy and ill at ease
" There were Canadian Mounties, American cowboys, Arctic explorers,
adventurers, rogues, big game hunters and sportsmen. There were
famous men like Cherry Kearton, the naturalist and explorer and the
grand old man of Africa-Frederick Selous himself. All these men had
come together under the Union Flag to do battle against colonial
Imperial Germany in East Africa. They came under the command of
Driscoll of Driscoll's Scouts who performed with renown during the
Boer War. These were the men of the 25th Royal Fusiliers-The Legion
of Frontiersmen-and their battlegrounds were to be the great plains
of Africa rich in wildlife and elemental danger. This is their
story through the years of the Great War told by one of their own
officers in vivid detail. It is a story of campaigns and hardship
which would be equal to the best of them and lay many a 'lean,
brown man' in a shallow grave in the red earth before it was
concluded.
In 1942, with a black-market chicken under his arm, Leo Marks left
his father's famous bookshop, 84 Charing Cross Road, and went to
war. He was twenty-two and a cryptopgraher of genius. In Between
Silk and Cyanide, his critically acclaimed account of his time in
SOE, Marks tells how he revolutionised the code-making techniques
of the Allies, trained some of the most famous agents dropped into
France including Violette Szabo and 'the White Rabbit', and why he
wrote haunting verse including his 'The Life that I have' poem. He
reveals for the first time the disastrous dimensions of the code
war between SOE and the Germans in Holland; how the Germans were
fooled into thinking a Secret Army was operating in the Fatherland
itself, and how and why he broke General de Gaulle's secret code.
Both thrilling and poignant, Marks's book is truly one of the last
great Second World War memoirs.
The quantity of journalism produced during World War I was unlike
anything the then-budding mass media had ever seen. Correspondents
at the front were dispatching voluminous reports on a daily basis,
and though much of it was subject to censorship, it all eventually
became available. It remains the most extraordinary firsthand look
at the war that we have. Published immediately after the cessation
of hostilities and compiled from those original journalistic
sources-American, British, French, German, and others-this is an
astonishing contemporary perspective on the Great War. This replica
of the first 1919 edition includes all the original maps, photos,
and illustrations, lending an even greater immediacy to readers a
century later. Volume I covers June through October 1914, from the
causes of the war-including how the local matter of the
assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria grew into a
global conflagration and the various declarations of war among the
world powers-through the early battles on the Western Front.
American journalist and historian FRANCIS WHITING HALSEY
(1851-1919) was literary editor of The New York Times from 1892
through 1896. He wrote and lectured extensively on history; his
works include, as editor, the two-volume Great Epochs in American
History Described by Famous Writers, From Columbus to Roosevelt
(1912), and, as writer, the 10-volume Seeing Europe with Famous
Authors (1914).
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