The First World War quickly escalated from a European war into a global conflict that would cause fundamental changes in the Middle East, Africa, Asia and the Americas. Its end signalled the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire, which had controlled most of the Arab Middle East. Over the wartime period, millions of people across the Empire died as a result of warfare, epidemics, famines and massacres. However, for the Ottoman leaders their entry into the war was not just a response to a life-or-death struggle, but rather presented them with an opportunity to transform the empire into a new type of state. Syria in World War I brings together leading scholars working with original Turkish, Arabic, Armenian and German sources, to present a comprehensive examination of this key period in Syria's history. Together, the chapters demonstrate how the war represented a radical break from the past for the Syrian lands, which underwent crucial political, economic, social and cultural transformations. It contextualises various facets of the then Unionist ruler of Syria, Djemal Pasha, as well as exploring the impact of the Ottoman leaders' divergent policies on the Syrian lands and people, which would undergo a series of political, economic and ecological catastrophes whose traces are still evident in the region's collective memory. Introducing a significant body of new information and considerably expanding the parameters of current debates, Syria in World War I is of key interest to students and scholars of Middle East History, as well as History of the Late Ottoman Empire and World War I History.

In World War I, 104 African American doctors joined the United States Army to care for the 40,000 men of the 92nd and 93rd Divisions, the Army's only black combat units. The infantry regiments of the 93rd arrived first and were turned over to the French to fill gaps in their decimated lines. The 92nd Division came later and fought alongside other American units. Some of those doctors rose to prominence; others died young or later succumbed to the economic and social challenges of the times. Beginning with their assignment to the Medical Officers Training Camp (Colored) - the only one in U.S. history - this book covers the early years, education and war experiences of these physicians, as well as their careers in the black communities of early 20th century America.

The period immediately following the end of the First World War witnessed an outpouring of artistic and literary creativity, as those that had lived through the war years sought to communicate their experiences and opinions. In Germany this manifested itself broadly into two camps, one condemning the war outright; the other condemning the defeat. Of the former, Erich Maria Remarque's All Quiet on the Western Front remains the archetypal example of an anti-war novel, and one that has become synonymous with the Great War. Yet the tremendous and enduring popularity of Remarque's work has to some extent eclipsed a plethora of other German anti-war writers, such as Hans Chlumberg, Ernst Johannsen and Adrienne Thomas. In order to provide a more rounded view of German anti-war literature, this volume offers a selection of essays published by Brian Murdoch over the past twenty years. Beginning with a newly written introduction, providing the context for the volume and surveying recent developments in the subject, the essays that follow range broadly over the German anti-war literary tradition, telling us much about the shifting and contested nature of the war. The volume also touches upon subjects such as responsibility, victimhood, the problem of historical hiatus in the production and reception of novels, drama, poetry, film and other literature written during the war, in the Weimar Republic, and in the Third Reich. The collection also underlines the potential dangers of using novels as historical sources even when they look like diaries. One essay was previously unpublished, two have been augmented, and three are translated into English for the first time. Taken together they offer a fascinating insight into the cultural memory and literary legacy of the First World War and German anti-war texts.

The course of events of the Great War has been told many times, spurred by an endless desire to understand 'the war to end all wars'. However, this book moves beyond military narrative to offer a much fuller analysis of of the conflict's strategic, political, economic, social and cultural impact. Starting with the context and origins of the war, including assasination, misunderstanding and differing national war aims, it then covers the treacherous course of the conflict and its social consequences for both soldiers and civilians, for science and technology, for national politics and for pan-European revolution. The war left a long-term legacy for victors and vanquished alike. It created new frontiers, changed the balance of power and influenced the arts, national memory and political thought. The reach of this acount is global, showing how a conflict among European powers came to involve their colonial empires, and embraced Japan, China, the Ottoman Empire, Latin America and the United States.

Using a collection of over one thousand popular songs from the war years, as well as around 150 soldiers' songs, John Mullen provides a fascinating insight into the world of popular entertainment during the First World War. Mullen considers the position of songs of this time within the history of popular music, and the needs, tastes and experiences of working-class audiences who loved this music. To do this, he dispels some of the nostalgic, rose-tinted myths about music hall. At a time when recording companies and record sales were marginal, the book shows the centrality of the live show and of the sale of sheet music to the economy of the entertainment industry. Mullen assesses the popularity and significance of the different genres of musical entertainment which were common in the war years and the previous decades, including music hall, revue, pantomime, musical comedy, blackface minstrelsy, army entertainment and amateur entertainment in prisoner of war camps. He also considers non-commercial songs, such as hymns, folk songs and soldiers' songs and weaves them into a subtle and nuanced approach to the nature of popular song, the ways in which audiences related to the music and the effects of the competing pressures of commerce, propaganda, patriotism, social attitudes and the progress of the war.

First published in 1933, this title presents the inner workings and diplomatic culture of the League of Nations in Geneva, at a time when the increasing strain of international relations was beginning to take its toll and disillusionment towards the League was growing. Written as a series of short sketches, Max Beer's communicates a variety of insights into the League of Nations. Delving into the machinations and bewildering configurations of diplomatic relations that predominated, while at the same time maintaining a very human perspective, this volume represents a unique resource for students of this period in European politics.

Using a collection of over one thousand popular songs from the war years, as well as around 150 soldiers' songs, John Mullen provides a fascinating insight into the world of popular entertainment during the First World War. Mullen considers the position of songs of this time within the history of popular music, and the needs, tastes and experiences of working-class audiences who loved this music. To do this, he dispels some of the nostalgic, rose-tinted myths about music hall. At a time when recording companies and record sales were marginal, the book shows the centrality of the live show and of the sale of sheet music to the economy of the entertainment industry. Mullen assesses the popularity and significance of the different genres of musical entertainment which were common in the war years and the previous decades, including music hall, revue, pantomime, musical comedy, blackface minstrelsy, army entertainment and amateur entertainment in prisoner of war camps. He also considers non-commercial songs, such as hymns, folk songs and soldiers' songs and weaves them into a subtle and nuanced approach to the nature of popular song, the ways in which audiences related to the music and the effects of the competing pressures of commerce, propaganda, patriotism, social attitudes and the progress of the war.

In reading this memoir a person can learn first hand what it was like to be a soldier in the American army during World War I. It is a vivid account of one man's experience of being inducted into the army; his basic training; and being sent to France where he and his fellow soldiers were then taken to the front to begin their part in the fighting of the war. This is the story of friendships formed during this time; frightening, difficult situations; loss of friends on the battlefield; the seemingly endless fight for survival, and finally because of an injury being able to leave the battlefield-thus ending his part in the war. In spite of all the seriousness, this is a personal and compelling memoir that is hard to put down. You get to know this young man from Louisiana; his thoughts and beliefs about this war and life. Undoubtedly the whole experience stayed with him all his life. One cannot read this memoir without learning more about World War I--the so called Great World War.

During World War I, the Second Division, American Expeditionary Force, saw more action and captured more ground and enemy combatants than any other division in that war, including the vaunted First Division. The 4th Marine Brigade, especially, earned a reputation as a steadfast unit of superb fighting men. This riveting volume follows those Marines through their service in France in 1917 and 1918, during the post-war occupation of Germany, and their arrival in New York City in August, 1919. Seven battalion-oriented chapters, along with one dedicated to the entire 4th Marine Brigade, recount the Brigade's role in some of the most intense battles of the war, including at Belleau Wood, Soissons, St. Mihiel, Blanc Mont, and the Meuse River. Descriptions of the Armistice, welcome home parades, and the brigade's disbandment at Quantico in August 1919 complete this comprehensive chronicle of one of the American military's most distinguished units.

Despite the substantial output of revisionist scholarship over the last decade reappraising the performance of the British Army on the Western Front during the First World War, there still remains a stubborn perception that its commanders were incompetent, inflexible and unimaginative. Whilst much ink has been spilled vilifying or defending individual commanders, or looking for overarching trends and 'learning curves', this is the first work to examine systematically the vertical nature of command - that is the transmission of plans from the high-command down through the rank structure to the front line. Through such an investigation, a much more rounded measure of the effectiveness of British commanders can be gained; one moves the argument beyond the overly simplistic 'casualties to ground gained' equation that is usually offered. The Battle of Fromelles (19-20 July 1916) was selected as the case study as it was relatively small in scale, in the right period, and retains sufficient primary sources available to sustain the analysis. It also witnessed the first time Australian forces were used in offensive operations on the Western Front, and thus looms large in wider Commonwealth perceptions of 'Bumbling British Generals'. The book follows the progress of the battle plan from its inception in the strategic designs of the supreme commander down through the various intermediate level commands at operational and tactical headquarters until it became the orders that sent the infantry forward into the attack. In so doing it provides a unique insight into the strengths and weaknesses of British command structure, allowing a much more scholarly judgement of its overall effectiveness.

The origins of the First World War remain one of the greatest twentieth century historical controversies. In this debate the role of military planning in particular and of militarism in general, are a key focus of attention. Did the military wrest control from the civilians? Were the leaders of Europe eager for a conflict? What military commitments were made between the various alliance blocks? These questions are examined in detail here in eleven essays by distinguished historians and the editor's introduction provides a focus and draws out the comparative approach to the history of military policies and war plans of the great powers.

This book tells the story of three small Lancashire villages and their contrasting fortunes in the Great War. One was among the fortunate few in England which passed through not only the First World War but the Second without losing a single man - a 'Doubly Thankful' village. The second survived the conflict almost without loss, while the third lost a harrowing total of ten young men from its tiny population. The stories of these villages and the triumphs and tragedies war brought to them have been painstakingly researched by the author, who has painted compassionate portraits of some of the men who returned, and some of those who did not. A fascinating historical adventure.

The British army was almost unique among the European armies of the Great War in that it did not suffer from a serious breakdown of discipline or collapse of morale. It did, however, inevitably suffer from disciplinary problems. While attention has hitherto focused on the 312 notorious 'shot at dawn' cases, many thousands of British soldiers were tried by court martial during the Great War. This book provides the first comprehensive study of discipline and morale in the British Army during the Great War by using a case study of the Irish regular and Special Reserve batallions. In doing so, Timothy Bowman demonstrates that breaches of discipline did occur in the Irish regiments but in most cases these were of a minor nature. Controversially, he suggests that where executions did take place, they were militarily necessary and served the purpose of restoring discipline in failing units. Bowman also shows that there was very little support for the emerging Sinn Fein movement within the Irish regiments. This book will be essential reading for military and Irish historians and their students, and will interest any general reader concerned with how units maintain discipline and morale under the most trying conditions. -- .

Healing the Nation is a study of caregiving during the Great War, exploring life behind the lines for ordinary British soldiers who served on the Western Front. Using a variety of literary, artistic, and architectural evidence, this study draws connections between the war machine and the wartime culture of caregiving: the product of medical knowledge and procedure, social relationships and health institutions that informed experiences of rest, recovery and rehabilitation in sites administered by military and voluntary-aid authorities. Rest huts, hospitals, and rehabilitation centres served not only as means to sustain manpower and support for the war but also as distinctive sites where soldiers, their caregivers and the public attempted to make sense of the conflict and the unprecedented change it wrought. Revealing aspects of wartime life that have received little attention, this study shows that Britain's 'generation of 1914' was a group bound as much by a comradeship of healing as by a comradeship of the trenches. The author has used an extensive collection of illustrations in his discussion, and the book will make fascinating reading for students and specialists in the history of war, medicine and gender studies. -- .

Shortly after the end of the First World War, General Sir George Macdonagh, wartime director of British Military Intelligence, revealed that Lord Allenby's victory in Palestine had never been in doubt because of the success of his intelligence service. Seventy-five years later this book explains Macdonagh's statement. Sheffy also adopts a novel approach to traditional heroes of the campaign such as T E Lawrence.

In 1914 Herbert Hoskins joined the Royal Warwickshire Regiment to fight in the First World War. As a captain, he soon found himself serving in the muddy, disease-ridden trenches of the Somme. Captain Hoskins' letters, carefully compiled by his grandson, reveal the horrific experiences Captain Hoskins and his men endured and the extraordinary courage and stoicism they displayed as they faced illness, treacherous weather and an indefatigable enemy during the most gruelling years of the conflict. The letters reveal not only the hardship they suffered but the indomitable spirit that helped Hoskins and his men - some of them - survive. A remarkable blend of tragedy and stiff upper lip British humour, Thank You Mister Bosh, That's Close Enough! is a moving account of the war that killed nine million men.

This new volume explores the history of an important, but neglected sector of the Western Front between 1914 and 1918 in the context of its portrayal in the media. The analysis sheds new light on of the role of the mass media in generating national mythologies. The book focuses on the largely forgotten Armentieres and La Bassee sector, a section of the Western Front which saw fighting from many different nationalities on almost every day of the war. Through analysis of this section of the Western Front, this book examines the way the First World War was interpreted, both in official and semi-official sources as well as in the mass media, comparing what was apparently happening on the Western Front battlefield to what was reported in the newspapers. It follows the different sides as they responded to the changing nature of warfare and to each other, showing how reporting was adapted to changing perceptions of national needs.

The First World War changed the face of Europe - two empires (the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the Ottoman Empire) collapsed in its wake and as a result many of the boundaries of Europe were redrawn and new states were created. The origins of many of the international crises in the late twentieth century can be traced back to decisions taken in these critical years, Yugoslavia being the most obvious example. An understanding of the peace settlements is thus crucial for any student studying international history/international relations, which is what this book offers. This book provides and accessible and concise introduction to this most important period of history.

This book explores the historical background to Irish participation in the Great War, and the ways in which issues raised in 1914-18 still reverberate in contemporary Northern Ireland. The complications of Irish politics are such that Irish memory of the Great War has often been repressed. Nevertheless, Irish writers throughout the century have been preoccupied with the events and images of the Great War. The work of the Irish poets discussed here - from W. B. Yeats and Ireland's soldier-poets through to Seamus Heaney and contemporary Northern Irish writing - challenges reductive versions of history, and of the literary canon, in relation to Ireland and the First World War.

The Western Front dominates our memories of the First World War. Yet a million and half men died in North East Italy in a war that need never have happened, when Italy declared war on the Habsburg Empire in May 1915. Led by General Luigi Cadorna, the most ruthless of all the Great War commanders, waves of Italian conscripts were sent charging up the limestone hills north of Trieste to be massacred by troops fighting to save their homelands. This is a great, tragic military history of a war that gave birth to fascism. Mussolini fought in these trenches, but so did many of the greatest modernist writers in Italian and German - Ungaretti, Gadda, Musil, Hemingway. It is through these accounts that Mark Thompson, with great skill and empathy, brings to life this forgotten conflict.

Remembering the First World War brings together a group of international scholars to understand how and why the past quarter of a century has witnessed such an extraordinary increase in global popular and academic interest in the First World War, both as an event and in the ways it is remembered. The book discusses this phenomenon across three key areas. The first section looks at family history, genealogy and the First World War, seeking to understand the power of family history in shaping and reshaping remembrance of the War at the smallest levels, as well as popular media and the continuing role of the state and its agencies. The second part discusses practices of remembering and the more public forms of representation and negotiation through film, literature, museums, monuments and heritage sites, focusing on agency in representing and remembering war. The third section covers the return of the War and the increasing determination among individuals to acknowledge and participate in public rituals of remembrance with their own contemporary politics. What, for instance, does it mean to wear a poppy on armistice/remembrance day? How do symbols like this operate today? These chapters will investigate these aspects through a series of case studies. Placing remembrance of the First World War in its longer historical and broader transnational context and including illustrations and an afterword by Professor David Reynolds, this is the ideal book for all those interested in the history of the Great War and its aftermath.