Women from across the social spectrum had their lives transformed by World War I. The literary culture of the early 20th century led a surprising number of women to write about their experiences, recording everything from their emotional responses and political impulses to their new experiences of the world of work. Writing by women as diverse as Sylvia Pankhurst, Virginia Woolf and Vesta Tilley are blended with extracts from the private diaries and letters of unknown women, to provide a sometimes tragic, sometimes comic testimony. From patriotic rhetoric to the gritty realism of the Front Line, this anthology juxtaposes fact and fiction and aims to present a rounded picture of World War I as it was lived and fought by women across Britain.

The two-volume Life of Gregory Zilboorg is a meticulously researched biography of the Russian-American psychoanalyst Gregory Zilboorg and chronicles the period from his birth as a Jew in Tsarist Russia to his prominence as a New York psychoanalyst on the eve of the Second World War. Drawing on previously unpublished sources, including family papers and archival material, this biography offers a dramatic narrative that will appeal to general readers as well as scholars interested in the First World War, the Russian revolution, the Jewish diaspora, and the history of psychoanalysis.

The World Crisis is considered by many to be Winston S. Churchill's literary masterpiece. Published across five volumes between 1923 and 1931, Churchill here tells the story of The Great War, from its origins to the long shadow it cast on the following decades. At once a history and a first-hand account of Churchill's own involvement in the war, The World Crisis remains a compelling account of the conflict and its importance. The third volume of The World Crisis covers the climax and the end of the war, from 1916-1918. Churchill here explores some of the most important moments of the conflict, including the battles of Verdun, Jutland, Passchendaele and the Somme as well as the American entry into the war that marked the beginning of its end. Churchill here also recounts his time on the front line during his brief exile from political office and his return to government in Lloyd-George's wartime coalition as Minster of Munitions.

Now available in paperback, this study of the cultural impact of the Armistice of 11 November 1918 contains fourteen new essays from scholars working in literature, music, art history and military history. The Armistice brought hopes for a better future, as well as sadness, disappointment and rage. Many people in all the combatant nations asked hard questions about the purpose of the war. These questions are explored in complex and nuanced ways in the literature, music and art of the period. This book revisits the silence of the Armistice and asks how its effect was to echo into the following decades. The essays are genuinely interdisciplinary and are written in a clear, accessible style. -- .

This book examines the British soldiers on the Western Front and how they responded to the war landscape they encountered behind the lines and at the front. Using a multidisciplinary perspective, this study investigates the relationship between soldiers and the spaces and materials of the warzone, analyzing how soldiers constructed a 'sense of place' in the hostile, unpredictable environment. Drawing upon recent developments within First World War Studies and the anthropological examination of the fields of conflict, an ethnohistorical perspective of the soldiers is built which details the various ways soldiers responded to the physical and material world of the Western Front. This study is also grounded in the wider debates on how the First World War is remembered within Britain and offers an alternative perspective on the individuals who fought in the world's first global conflagration nearly a century ago.

The World Crisis is considered by many to be Winston S. Churchill's literary masterpiece. Published across five volumes between 1923 and 1931, Churchill here tells the story of The Great War, from its origins to the long shadow it cast on the following decades. At once a history and a first-hand account of Churchill's own involvement in the war, The World Crisis remains a compelling account of the conflict and its importance. The second volume of Churchill's history covers 1915 - the first full year of a conflict that most of the antagonists had expected to be over in a matter of months. Churchill here covers the intractable deadlock on the western front, the use of tanks and gas on the battlefields and the unsuccessful attempts by both sides to break through. In addition, Churchill also considers his own involvement in the Dardanelles campaign (Gallipoli).

Despite the voluminous historical literature on the First World War, a volume devoted to the theme of communication has yet to appear. From the communication of war aims and objectives to the communication of war call-up and war experience and knowledge, this volume fills the gap in the market, including the work of both established and newly emerging scholars working on the First World War across the globe. The volume includes chapters that focus on the experience of belligerent and also neutral powers, thus providing a genuinely representative dimension to the subject.

Soon after the guns in Belgium and France had signalled the commencement of what would become the world's single most destructive conflict to date, the British, Ottoman, German, Russian, Austro-Hungarian, French and Belgian Empires were at war. Empires in World War I marks a turn away from the pre-eminence of the Western Front in the current scholarship, and seeks to reconstitute our understanding of this war as a truly global struggle between competing empires. Based on primary research, this book opens up new debates on the effects of the Great War in colonial arenas. The book assesses the effects of the war on Native Americans in the United States for example, as well as on the relationship between India and Pakistan, the British justice system in Palestine and the 'imperial scramble' in the Asia-Pacific region. Empires in World War I will be essential reading for students and scholars of the twentieth century.

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.

The First World War appears as a fault line in Britain 's twentieth-century history. Between August 1914 and November 1918 the titanic struggle against Imperial Germany and her allies consumed more people, more money and more resources than any other conflict Britain had hitherto experienced. For the first time, it opened up a Home Front that stretched into all parts of the British polity, society and culture, touching the lives of every citizen regardless of age, gender and class. Even vegetables were grown in the gardens of Buckingham Palace.

Britain and World War One throws attention on these civilians who fought the war on the Home Front. Harnessing recent scholarship, and drawing on original documents, oral testimony and historical texts, this book casts a fresh look over different aspects of British society during the four long years of war. It revisits the early war enthusiasm and the making of Kitchener 's new armies; the emotive debates over conscription; the relationships between politics, government and popular opinion; women working in wartime industries; the popular experience of war and the question of social change.

The book also explores areas of wartime Britain overlooked by recent histories, including the impact of the war on rural society; the mobilization of industry, and the importance of technology, as well as exploring responses to air raids, food and housing shortages; the challenges to traditional social and sexual mores and wartime culture. Britain and World War One is an essential book for all students and interested lay readers of the First World War.

The Indian Army was one of the most important colonial institutions that the British created. From its humble origins as a mercantile police force to a modern contemporary army in the Second World War, this institution underwent many transitions. This book examines the Indian Army during the later colonial era from the First Afghan War in 1839 to Indian independence in 1947. During this period, the Indian Army developed from an internal policing force, to a frontier army, and then to a conventional western style fighting force capable of deployment to overseas' theaters. These transitions resulted in significant structural and doctrinal changes in the army. The doctrines, and tactics honed during this period would have a dramatic impact upon the post-colonial armies of India and Pakistan. From civil-military relations to fighting and structural doctrines, the Indian and Pakistani armies closely reflect the deep-seated impact of decades of evolution during the late colonial era.

For much of the later nineteenth-century Britain regarded Russia as its main international rival, particularly as regarded the security of its colonial possessions in India. Yet, by 1907 Russia's political revolution, financial collapse and military defeat by Japan, transformed the situation, resulting in an Anglo-Russian rapprochement. As this book makes clear, whilst international affairs lay at the root of this new relationship, personal factors also played an important role in reversing many years of mutual animosity and suspicion. In particular the study explores the influence of the liberal anglophile Count Aleksandr Benckendorff, the Russian ambassador in London between 1903 and 1916. By 1905, Russia's multiple weaknesses required a prolonged period of external peace by eliminating frictions with the principal rival powers, Britain and Germany, while France and Britain realised that a British rapprochement with Russia would be necessary to counter Germany's power. Benckendorff, as one of the most important figures in the Russian diplomatic service, persuaded Nicholas II and his Foreign Minister, V.N. Lamsdorff, to drop their objections to various long-standing British demands in order to pave the way for a Triple Entente. Although the overarching Russian strategy was conceived as 'balancing' the imperial rivalries of Britain and Germany, numerous factors - not least Benckendorff's energetic pro-British stance - upset the scales and resulted in a stand-off with the Central Powers. Demonstrating how Benckendorff's fear of losing Britain's friendship made him oppose all Russia's efforts at improving Russo-German relations, this book underlines the pro-Entente policy's role in setting Russia on the road to war. For when the Sarajevo crisis struck; there was now no hope of appealing to German goodwill to help defuse the situation. Instead Russia's status within the Entente depended on a show of determination and strength, which lead inexorably to a disaster o

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.

Originally published in 1920. The 231st Infantry Brigade, with which this diary is chiefly concerned, came into extence in January 1917, at a time when its compoent parts were engaged in the campaign against the Senussi, distributed in the Western Desert of Egypt and the Oases, from Sollum to Dakhala. The diary opens on October 1st 1917, when the preparations for the simultaneous attacks on Beersheba and Gaza were nearing completion.

Why, despite the appalling conditions in the trenches of the Western Front, was the British army almost untouched by major mutiny during the First World War? Drawing upon an extensive range of sources, including much previously unpublished archival material, G.D. Sheffield seeks to answer this question by examining a crucial but previously neglected factor in the maintenance of the British army's morale in the First World War: the relationship between the regimental officer and the ordinary soldier.

The central focus of this book is the traumatized German war veteran. Using previously unexplored source material written by the psychologically scarred veterans themselves, this innovative work traces how some of the most vulnerable members of society, marginalized and persecuted as 'enemies of the nation,' attempted to regain authority over their own minds and reclaim the authentic memory of the Great War Under Weimar Germany and the Third Reich, the mentally disabled survivor of the trenches became a focus of debate between competing social and political groups, each attempting to construct their own versions of the national community and the memory of the war experience. Views on class, war, masculinity and social deviance were shaped and in some cases altered by the popularised debates that surrounded these traumatized members of society. Through the tortured words of these men and women, Jason Crouthamel reveals a hidden layer of protest against prevailing institutions and official memory, especially the Nazi celebration of war as the cornerstone of the 'healthy' male psyche. He also shows how these 'social outsiders' attempted to reform healthcare and reconstruct notions of 'comradeship', 'manliness' and the national community in ways that complicate the history of the veteran in this highly militarised society. By examining the psychological effects of war on ordinary Germans and the way these war victims have shaped perceptions of madness and mass violence, Crouthamel is able to illuminate potent and universal problems faced by societies coping with war and the politics of how we care for our veterans.

Explore the Eastern Front battle that resulted in one of the greatest defeats of World War I, in which an entire Russian army was annihilated by German arms. Tannenberg is a major battle that deserves a fully illustrated treatment all of its own, and for the first time this book brings the epic Eastern Front clash to life in visual detail. No other book on this topic walks you through the action like this one, using detailed maps to provide unit locations and movements and help explain key command decisions, while period photographs and colour battlescenes put soldiering back at the core of the events by revealing the military material culture of the opposing sides. Michael McNally guides you through the initial border engagements and the battles of Gumbinnen and Stallupoenen, before moving on to explore the massive, often confused running battle of Tannenberg in easy to follow and concise detail. This work helps you understand how the Germans managed to maul Samsonov's Second Army and all but destroyed the Russians as a fighting force. The Russian war plan of using overwhelming numbers to gain a quick victory before conducting further operations would soon lie in pieces on the ground. It also assesses the contribution modern technology - such as railways, aerial reconnaissance, radio and telegraphy - made to the emphatic German victory.

A gripping chronicle of the personal and political rivalries from the birth of Queen Victoria to the unification of Germany during the decades leading up to WW1 from Pulitzer Prize winner Robert K. Massie 2018 marks the centenary of the end of the First World War. How did it all begin? With the biographer's rare genius for expressing the essence of extraordinary lives, Massie brings to life a crowd of glittering figures: the young, ambitious Winston Churchill; the ruthless, sycophantic Chancellor Bernhard von Bulow; Britain's greatest twentieth-century Foreign Secretary, Sir Edward Grey; and Jacky Fisher, the eccentric admiral who revolutionised the British Navy and brought forth the battleship, H.M.S. Dreadnought. Their story, and the story of the era, filled with misunderstanding and tensions, missed opportunities, and events leading to unintended conclusions, unfolds like a Greek tragedy in this powerful narrative. Intimately human and dramatic, Dreadnought is history at its most riveting. 'History at its best, a fantastic mix of anecdote, observation and intelligent thinking' Dan Snow, Daily Express

Germany in the Great War Illustrated - Mobilisation and the Western Advance is the first volume of a projected six-part series that details, graphically, the Central Powers - Germany and Austro-Hungary - fighting to the west during the concluding months of 1914. This superbly illustrated and highly researched book covers the schema of a 'quick victory' on the WestFront (Western Front). From preparatory build-up, to mobilisation and to subsequent annexation and occupation, (90 per cent of northern France and the Kingdom of Belgium), this title manifest the 'German' perspective - a pictorial digest. Evincing German offense against the BEF (British Expeditionary Force), French and Belgium armies at the Battle of Mons, heralding the mass exodus of British troops from region, the siege of Antwerp and the breakthrough toward Paris. Each successive chapter includes a short, introductory narrative, documenting holistically events and is accompanied by a wealth of fully captioned and rarely before seen photographs: over 500 images.

The unprecedented scope and intensity of the First World War has prompted an enormous body of retrospective scholarship. However, efforts to provide a coherent synthesis about the war's impact and significance have remained circumscribed, tending to focus either on the operational outlines of military strategy and tactics or on the cultural legacy of the conflict as transmitted bythe war's most articulate observers. This volume departs from traditional accounts on several scores: by exploring issues barely touched upon in previous works, by deviating from the widespread tendency to treat the experiences of front and homefront isolation, and by employing a thematic treatment that, by considering the construction of authority and identity between 1914 and 1918, illuminates the fundamental question of how individuals, whether in uniform or not, endured the war's intrusion into so many aspects of their public and private lives.

Following the career of one relatively unknown First World War general, Lord Horne, this book adds to the growing literature that challenges long-held assumptions that the First World War was a senseless bloodbath conducted by unimaginative and incompetent generals. Instead it demonstrates that men like Horne developed new tactics and techniques to deal with the novel problems of trench warfare and in so doing seeks to re-establish the image of the British generals and explain the reasons for the failures of 1915-16 and the successes of 1917-18 and how this remarkable change in performance was achieved by a much maligned group of senior officers. Horne's important career and remarkable character sheds light not only on the major battles in which he was involved; the progress of the war; his relationships with his staff and other senior officers; the novel problems of trench warfare; the assimilation of new weapons, tactics and training methods; and the difficulties posed by the German defences, but also on the attitudes and professionalism of a senior British commander serving on the Western Front. Horne's career thus provides a vehicle for studying the performance of the British Army in the first quarter of the Twentieth Century. It also gives an important insight into the attitudes, ethos and professionalism of the officer corps which led that army to victory on the Western Front, exposing not only its flaws but also its many strengths. This study consequently provides a judgment not only on Horne as a personality, innovator and general of great importance but also on his contemporaries who served with the British Armies in South Africa and France during an era which saw a revolution in military affairs giving birth to a Modern Style of Warfare which still prevails to this day.

On the 25th August 1895, Ernest Alfred Hall was born into a pioneering Australian family that lived on a 313-acre property called 'Cloverdale' near the hamlet of Beech Forest, south of the Otway Ranges, some 200 kilometres south west of Melbourne, Victoria. As a child, it seemed he would be destined for the life of a farmer in a country that was just realising its independence through Federation, yet his path was to be diverted by the cataclysmic events that befell Europe and the British Empire. So it was, that one month short of his 20th birthday, Ernest caught the train to Melbourne and enlisted in the Australian Imperial Force. At only 5' 3" he was never going to be the biggest soldier in the army, but as his father said to him, "It's not the size of the dog in the fight, son, but the size of the fight in the dog." Like so many, Ernest Hall embarked for the war to end all wars. Unlike so many, his letters and records survived. This is his story.

The unprecedented scope and intensity of the First World War has prompted an enormous body of retrospective scholarship. However, efforts to provide a coherent synthesis about the war's impact and significance have remained circumscribed, tending to focus either on the operational outlines of military strategy and tactics or on the cultural legacy of the conflict as transmitted bythe war's most articulate observers. This volume departs from traditional accounts on several scores: by exploring issues barely touched upon in previous works, by deviating from the widespread tendency to treat the experiences of front and homefront isolation, and by employing a thematic treatment that, by considering the construction of authority and identity between 1914 and 1918, illuminates the fundamental question of how individuals, whether in uniform or not, endured the war's intrusion into so many aspects of their public and private lives.

The World Crisis is considered by many to be Winston S. Churchill's literary masterpiece. Published across five volumes between 1923 and 1931, Churchill here tells the story of The Great War, from its origins to the long shadow it cast on the following decades. At once a history and a first-hand account of Churchill's own involvement in the war, The World Crisis remains a compelling account of the conflict and its importance. Volume I covers the origins and earliest days of the war from 1911-1914, as well as the longer history of the collapse of the Great Power system from the Franco Prussian war onwards. Churchill here explores the international tensions over the Balkan states that triggered the conflict as well as the arms race between the British and German navies.