This volume deals with the multiple impacts of the First World War on societies from South Europe, Latin America, Asia and Africa, usually largely overlooked by the historiography on the conflict. Due to the lesser intensity of their military involvement in the war (neutrals or latecomers), these countries or regions were considered "peripheral" as a topic of research. However, in the last two decades, the advances of global history recovered their importance as active wartime actors and that of their experiences. This book will reconstruct some experiences and representations of the war that these societies built during and after the conflict from the prism of mediators between the war fought in the battlefields and their homes, as well as the local appropriations and resignifications of their experiences and testimonies.

In forming the Royal Air Force on 1 April 1918, Britain created the world's first independent air service. Britain entered the First World War with less than 200 ill-assorted flying machines divided between the army and the navy, but by the end of the war the RAF mustered almost 300,000 personnel and 22, 000 aircraft. Originally published in 1986, more than 65 years after the event, the decision to form the RAF remained poorly understood and Malcolm Cooper presented the first detailed modern analysis of its creation, shedding new light on the process by which Britain entered the air age. Set against the background of the build-up of air power during the First World War, the book explains how deepening political concern at failures in home air defence, public demands for retaliatory air action against Germany, problems of mobilization and expansion in the aircraft industry, and disagreements between the existing army and navy air services combined to create the conditions for an independent air force. The author argues that the pressures of war were insufficient to give real substance to the RAF's independence and that its failure to escape from its wartime role as an ancillary service was also of crucial significance in the evolution of British air strategy in later years. Based on an extensive study of official documents and private papers and amply illustrated with contemporary photographs, this title will prove invaluable in understanding both strategic thinking in the Great War and the early development of a form of warfare which dominated military and naval operations in the twentieth century.

The First World War was an epic event of huge proportions that lasted over four years and involved the armies of more than twenty nations, resulting in 30 million casualties, including more than 8 million killed. Set against the backdrop of this massive carnage, The Search for Negotiated Peace is the gripping story of the events that moved high profile American and European citizens, particularly women, into the international peace movement. This small, transatlantic network put forth proposals for changing the international system of negotiation. They supported non-annexationist war aims and attempted to discredit nations' secret diplomacy, militarism and narrowly nationalistic practices. Instead, they wanted to develop a 'new diplomacy.' David Patterson skillfully develops the interactions of many of the notable leaders of the movement, including Jane Addams, Aletta Jacobs, and Rosika Schwimmer, into an absorbing narrative that brings together the various strands of women's history, international diplomatic history, and peace history for the first time. The Search for Negotiated Peace is an essential read for anyone interested in the social history of World War I and the foundations of citizen activism today.

The Victorian private solider was a despised figure. A working man had to be desperate indeed to take the Queen's shilling. Yet in the first sixteen months of the Great War two and a half million men from the UK and many more from the empire, flocked to the colours - without any form of legal compulsion. There had never been a volunteer army like it. What was in the air of England in the generation or so before 1914 to bring about such collective exultation? How did it come about that, in a society which - in oft-proclaimed contrast to Germany - rejected conscription and prided itself on having no taint of militarism, men could be induced to volunteer in such numbers? The nation's general state of mind, system of values and set of attitudes derived largely from the upper middle class, which had emerged and become dominant during the nineteenth century. The book examines the phenomenon of 1914 and the views held by people of that class, since it was under their leadership that the country went to war. -- .

For seventy years Douglas Haig had been portrayed on the one hand as the 'Butcher of the Somme' - inept, insensitive and archaic; and on the other as the 'Saviour of Britain' - noble, unselfish and heroic. This polarised, strident and ultimately inconclusive argument had resulted in Haig becoming detached from his own persona; he had become a shallow symbol of a past age to be pilloried or praised. The middle ground in the Haig debate had been as barren as No Man's Land. There should be no mystery about Haig. Certain from a very early age of his own greatness, he preserved every record of his achievements: diaries, letters, official reports etc. The opinions of his contemporaries are likewise readily available. But until this book the material had not been used to construct a complete and accurate picture. Critics and supporters have raided the historical records for evidence of the demi-god or demon and have ignored that which conflicts with their preconceptions. They have likewise raced through his early life in order to get to the war, in the process ignoring the complex process of his development as a soldier. Analyses of Haig's command have consequently been as shallow as the prevailing images of the man. After eight years of painstaking and detailed research into previously neglected sources, Gerard De Groot gave us a more complete and balanced picture. This book, originally published in 1988, which will appeal both to the general and the specialised reader, is not simply a critique of Haig's command in the war, but an exploration into his personality. Close attention to his early life and career reveals him as a creature of his society, a man who mirrored both the virtues and the faults of Edwardian Britain. What emerges is an intense, dedicated, but ultimately flawed servant of his country whose ironic fate it was to grow up in one age and to command in another.

Australia's War, 1914-18 explores Australia's involvement in the First World War and the effect this had on the nation' s society. In this very accessible book, Joan Beaumont, Pam Maclean, Marnie Haig-Muir and David Lowe focus on: where Australians fought and why; the tensions and realignments within Australian politics in the period of 1914-18; the stresses of the war on Australian society, especially on women and those whom wartime hysteria cast in the role of the 'enemy' at home; the impact of the war on the country's economy; the role played by Australia in international diplomacy; and finally, the creation and influence of the Anzac legend. Once dominated by the battlefield and official accounts of the war correspondent and official historian, C.E.W. Bean, Australian writing on the war has acquired a new depth and sophistication. Studies of the home front reveal a society riven by divisions without precedent in the nation's history. This single volume will be invaluable to tertiary students and of enormous interest to the reader concerned with the social, political and military history of Australia.

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.

This work concerns the Battle of Caporetto in October 1917, where the Austro-German Army broke through the Italian lines forcing them to retreat after losing half their force. The book examines why, having routed the Italian Army, the Central Alliance forces were not capable of forcing the surrender of Italy.

What was life really like for the ordinary soldier, sailor, airman, and civilian during World War I? Was it different for the British, French, and Americans than it was for the Germans? This work brings to life the military and civilian experiences of ordinary people on both sides of the war. Rich with information not available elsewhere, this engagingly written narrative focuses on the real details of living in wartime: how men were recruited and trained, the equipment they used, what they ate, trench warfare as a way of life, and the phenomenon of combat.

The life of seamen and the novel experience of the first airmen provide contrast to the life of the soldier in the trenches. Also described are the medical system for treating casualties, the life of a prisoner of war, and the experience of military nurses and the first women in uniform. This book also details how life on the home front changed in myriad ways, including the education of schoolchildren, the fevered prosperity of a wartime economy, and the change in women's traditional roles from homemaker to essential laborer.

This clear, concise account of the First World War examines the experience of nations drawn into the conflict from the perspectives of both the Home Front and the Trenches.

• The history of the First World War, its origins and consequences are still of global significance
• Benefits from being brought up-to-date with the latest reasearch
• Contains a new section on current debates about interpreting and remembering the war
• Includes all the usual seminar study features such as Who's Who, Glossary and Chronology of Key Events.

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World War I found American soldiers overseas participating in unprecedented acts of bravery and valor. Faced with the need to recognize these outstanding deeds by soldiers of all ranks and creeds, the United States established the Silver Star citation, consisting of a small star which was placed on a Victory Medal Ribbon by the honored soldier. These citations were issued by each division as well as by the Armed Expeditionary Force. This sometimes resulted in duplicate honors for one feat of valor and contributed to the general lack of a consistent process for awarding such citations. Nevertheless, the Silver Star, along with more prestigious awards such as the Medal of Honor and the Distinguished Service Cross, reflected the significant contributions U.S. soldiers made to the war effort. This volume contains a complete accounting of every member of the Fourth Marine Brigade who received an award of some kind during World War I. Beginning with an overview of the brigade's contributions to the war effort, the book lists each individual and the honors he received. Citations, which were generally written by a superior (usually an officer), read as originally written and consequently do not always provide an accurate representation of the heroic act. Prewar and postwar experience is noted when available. The award entry site - designated as Verdum, Belleau Wood, Soissons, St. Mihiel, Blanc Mont or Meuse Argonne - is also listed. Foreign honors such as the French Croix de Guerre, the Montenegrin Silver Medal of Valor and Italian War Cross are denoted when applicable. An appendix contains detailed information on the inauguration of the Silver Star citation.

"Exceptional military history worthy of its heroic subject." -Matthew J. Davenport In the vein of Band of Brothers and American Sniper, a riveting history of Alvin York, the World War I legend who killed two dozen Germans and captured more than 100, detailing York's heroics yet also restoring the unsung heroes of his patrol to their rightful place in history-from renowned World War I historian James Carl Nelson. October 8, 1918 was a banner day for heroes of the American Expeditionary Force. Thirteen men performed heroic deeds that would earn them Medals of Honor. Of this group, one man emerged as the single greatest American hero of the Great War: Alvin Cullum York. A poor young farmer from Tennessee, Sergeant York was said to have single-handedly killed two dozen Germans and captured another 132 of the enemy plus thirty-five machine guns before noon on that fateful Day of Valor. York would become an American legend, celebrated in magazines, books, and a blockbuster biopic starring Gary Cooper. The film, Sergeant York, told of a hell-raiser from backwoods Tennessee who had a come-to-Jesus moment, then wrestled with his newfound Christian convictions to become one of the greatest heroes the U.S. Army had ever known. It was a great story-but not the whole story. In this absorbing history, James Carl Nelson unspools, for the first time, the complete story of Alvin York and the events that occurred in the Argonne Forest on that day. Nelson gives voice, in particular, to the sixteen "others" who fought beside York. Hailing from big cities and small towns across the U.S. as well as several foreign countries, these soldiers included a patrician Connecticut farmer whose lineage could be traced back to the American Revolution, a poor runaway from Massachusetts who joined the Army under a false name, and a Polish immigrant who enlisted in hopes of expediting his citizenship. The York Patrol shines a long overdue spotlight on these men and York, and pays homage to their bravery and sacrifice. Illustrated with 25 black-and-white images, The York Patrol is a rousing tale of courage, tragedy, and heroism.

In contrast to the plethora of works focusing on the tragic loss of human lives during the First World War, little is known about the more hopeful realities of thousands of prisoners of war from Britain, France, Germany and Belgium who were sent to Switzerland from 1916. This book explores the everyday lives of these prisoners and their impact on Switzerland. Internees were warmly welcomed by local people and given education, training and employment. Leading relatively free lives, they were able to engage in leisure activities and develop new relationships. However, they also contributed to the country's economy, helping to keep Swiss tourism alive at a time when businesses were struggling and alleviating Switzerland's labour shortage as Swiss men were called-up to defend their borders and preserve the country's neutrality. Drawing on a wide range of sources from official records to magazines and postcards, Susan Barton provides an absorbing account of the social and cultural history of internment in Switzerland.

This is a major new contribution to the historiography of the First World War. It examines the lively battle of ideas which helped to destroy Austria-Hungary. It also assesses, for the first time, the weapon of 'front propaganda' as used by and against the Empire on the Italian and Eastern Fronts. Based on material in eight languages, the work challenges accepted views about Britain's primacy in the field of propaganda, while casting fresh light on the creation of Yugoslavia and the viability of the Habsburg Empire in its last years.

In 1927, at the request of his superiors, John W. Thomason set out to chronicle the history of the U.S. Army 2nd Division, particularly during the bloody action of 1918. A proven writer with a solid military background through his service in the Marine Corps and two successful books under his belt, Thomason was a natural choice to write this important document. The project ran into trouble, however, when Thomason made unflattering discoveries regarding command decisions of both Army and Marine officers. His subsequent removal from the project (probably at his own request) left the document permanently incomplete. Here is Thomason's manuscript, faithfully reproduced. The work of editor George Clark is deliberately limited to matters of spelling and consistency, with Clark's comments (clearly set apart from Thomason's work) present only when necessary for clarification. Clark also includes a short biography of Thomason and a brief historical sketch of the 2nd Division to place the action within the framework of the war as a whole. Illustrations include Thomason's own maps and drawings originally intended to accompany the work.

At the tactical level of war the Germans are widely regarded as having had the most innovative and proficient army of World War I. Likewise, many historians would agree that the Germans suffered from serious, if not fatal, shortcomings at the strategic level of war. It is at the middle level of warfare, the operational level, that the Germans seem to be the most difficult to evaluate.
Although the operational was only fully accepted in the 1980s by many Western militaries as a distinct level of warfare, German military thinking well before the start of World War I clearly recognized the Operativ as a realm of warfighting activity between the tactical and the strategic. But the German concept of the operational art was flawed at best, and actually came closer to tactics on a grand scale. The flaws in their approach to operations cost the Germans dearly in both world wars.
Through a thorough review of the surviving original operational plans and orders, this book evaluates the German approachto the operational art by analyzing the Ludendorff Offensives of 1918. Taken as a whole, the five actually executed and two planned but never executed major attacks produced stunning tactical results, but ultimately left Germany in a far worse strategic position by August 1918. Among the most serious operational errors made by the German planners were their blindness to the power of sequential operations and cumulative effects, and their insistence in mounting force-on-force attacks, instead of attacking key Allied vulnerabilities.
The Allies, and especially the British, were exceptionally vulnerable in certain elements of their warfighting system. By attacking those vulnerabilities theGermans might well have achieved far better results than by attacking directly into the Allied strength. Specifically, the British logistics system was extremely fragile, and their rail system had two key choke points, Amiens and Hazebrouck. During Operations MICHAEL and GEORGETTE, the Germans came close to capturing both essential rail centers, but never seemed to grasp fully their operational significance. The British and French certainly did. After the Germans attacked south to the Marne during Operation BLUCHER, they fell victims themselves to an inadequate rail network behind their newly acquired lines. At the operational level, then, the respective enemy and friendly rail networks had a decisive influence on the campaign of March-August 1918.

Under the banner of a Holy War, masterminded in Berlin and unleashed from Constantinople, the Germans and the Turks set out in 1914 to foment violent revolutionary uprisings against the British in India and the Russians in Central Asia. It was a new and more sinister version of the old Great Game, with world domination as its ultimate aim. Here, told in epic detail and for the first time, is the true story behind John Buchan's classic wartime thriller Greenmantle, recounted through the adventures and misadventures of the secret agents and others who took part in it. It is an ominously topical tale today in view of the continuing turmoil in this volatile region where the Great Game has never really ceased.

This volume synthesises the latest scholarship on First World War veterans in post-war Britain and Ireland, investigating the topic through its political, social and cultural dynamics. It examines the post-war experiences of those men and women who served and illuminates the nature of the post-war society for which service had been given. Complicating the homogenising tendency in existing scholarship it offers comparison of the experiences of veterans in different regions of Britain, including perspectives drawn from Ireland. Further nuance is offered by the assessment of the experiences of ex-servicewomen alongside those of ex-servicemen, such focus deeping understanding into the gendered specificities of post-war veteran activities and experiences. Moreover, case studies of specific cohorts of veterans are offered, including focus on disabled veterans and ex-prisoners of war. In these regards the collection offers vital updates to existing scholarship while bringing important new departures and challenges to the current interpretive frameworks of veteran experiences in post-war Britain and Ireland.

The civilian police during the First World War in Great Britain were central to the control of the population at home. This book will show the detail and challenges of police work during the First World War and how this impacted on ordinary people's daily lives. The aim is to tell the story of the police as they saw themselves through the pages of their best-known journal, The Police Review and Parade Gossip, in addition to a wide range of other published, archival and private sources.

This book tackles cultural mobilization in the First World War as a plural process of identity formation and de-formation. It explores eight different settings in which individuals, communities and conceptual paradigms were mobilized. Taking an interdisciplinary approach, it interrogates one of the most challenging facets of the history of the Great War, one that keeps raising key questions on the way cultures respond to times of crisis. Mobilization during the First World War was a major process of material and imaginative engagement unfolding on a military, economic, political and cultural level, and existing identities were dramatically challenged and questioned by the whirl of discourses and representations involved.

After the World War ended, the families of the American war dead were faced with a difficult choice. Political leaders like former President Theodore Roosevelt were encouraging families to leave the dead with their comrades in European cemeteries to create stronger political ties between the United States and Europe. Grieving families found that their decision on where to bury the dead had become a political choice. How did families advocate for their own views? How were disputes within families resolved? And how did families make their final decisions about where the dead should be buried? Through an in-depth examination of the correspondence between the United States government and the families of the dead, this book will examine how families fought to ensure that the government gave them what they needed. As the months stretched into years before the war dead were given final burials, the families of the dead demanded that the government give them the respect and honor they felt they deserved as the next of kin of those who had given their lives for the nation. The practices and traditions that the government developed in response to these demands set patterns that still guide the way that the military treats the families of the war dead today.

While the history of food on the home front in wartime Britain has mostly focused on rationing, this book reveals the importance and scale of nation-wide communal dining schemes during this era. Welcomed by some as a symbol of a progressive future in which 'wasteful' home dining would disappear, and derided by others for threatening the social order, these sites of food and eating attracted great political and cultural debate. Using extensive primary source material, Feeding the People in Wartime Britain examines the cuisine served in these communal restaurants and the people who used them. It challenges the notion that communal eating played a marginal role in wartime food policy and reveals the impact they had in advancing nutritional understanding and new food technologies. Comparing them to similar ventures in mainland Europe and understanding the role of propaganda from the Ministry of Food in their success, Evans unearths this neglected history of emergency public feeding and relates it to contemporary debates around food policy in times of crisis.

The First World War was an epic event of huge proportions that lasted over four years and involved the armies of more than twenty nations, resulting in 30 million casualties, including more than 8 million killed. Set against the backdrop of this massive carnage, The Search for Negotiated Peace is the gripping story of the events that moved high profile American and European citizens, particularly women, into the international peace movement. This small, transatlantic network put forth proposals for changing the international system of negotiation. They supported non-annexationist war aims and attempted to discredit nations??? secret diplomacy, militarism and narrowly nationalistic practices. Instead, they wanted to develop a ???new diplomacy.???

David Patterson skillfully develops the interactions of many of the notable leaders of the movement, including Jane Addams, Aletta Jacobs, and Rosika Schwimmer, into an absorbing narrative that brings together the various strands of women's history, international diplomatic history, and peace history for the first time. The Search for Negotiated Peace is an essential read for anyone interested in the social history of World War I and the foundations of citizen activism today.

In the early part of the twentieth century, as Europe began its descent into the First World War, the Ottoman world - once the largest Empire in the Middle East - began to experience a revolution which would culminate in the new, secular Turkish state. Alongside this, in 1915, as part of an increasing nationalism, it enacted a genocide against its Armenian citizens. In this new study, Hans-Lukas Kieser marshals a dazzling array of scholars to re-evaluate the approach and legacy of the Young Turks - whose eradication of the Armenians from Asia Minor would have far-reaching consequences. Kieser argues that genocide led to today's crisis-ridden Middle East and set in place a rigid state system whose effects are still felt in Turkey today.Featuring new and groundbreaking work on the role of bureaucracy, the actors outside of Istanbul and re-centreing Armenian agency in the genocide, The End of the Ottomans is a vital new study of the Ottoman world, the Armenian Genocide and of the Middle East.

Adolf Hitler enlisted in the Bavarian Army in August 1914 as a war volunteer. Fanatically devoted to the German cause between 1914 and 1918 Hitler served with distinction and sometimes reckless bravery, winning both classes of Iron Cross. Using memoirs, military records, regimental, divisional and official war histories as well as (wherever possible) Hitler's own words, this book seeks to reconstruct a period in his life that has been neglected in the literature. It is also the story of a German regiment (16th Bavarian Reserve Infantry, or List Regiment), which fought in all the main battles on the Western Front. As a frontline soldier Hitler began his 'study' of the black art of propaganda; and, as he himself maintained, the List Regiment provided him with his 'university of life'.
This is not only an account of the fighting, however. Some of the most profound influences on Hitler occurred on home leave or as a result of official wartime propaganda, which he devoured uncritically. His conversion from passive pathological anti-Semitism began while invalided in Germany in 1916-17. The language of anti-Bolshevik 'Jewish virus' propaganda became Hitler's language, confirmed, as he saw it, by the 'infected' recruits to the List Regiment in 1918.
Hitler is here presented less as the product of high-cultural forces than as an avid reader and gullible consumer of state propaganda, which fed his prejudices. He was a 'good soldier' but also a 'true believer' in fact and practice. It is no exaggeration to say that every military decision made by Hitler between 1939 and 1945 was in some way influenced or colored by his experiences with the List Regiment between 1914 and 1918.