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Books > Humanities > History > World history > From 1900 > First World War
World War I and its aftermath witnessed a global revolution. This
was reflected in the revolutionary war aims of most of the
belligerents, the technological revolution that made the war so
deadly, the revolutionary sentiment that grew among ordinary
combatants, and the revolutionary pressures that led to the
collapse of the Romanov, Habsburg, and Ottoman empires. In this
revised edition of World War One, Lawrence Sondhaus synthesizes the
latest scholarship on the war and incorporates insights from the
vast body of work published during the war's centenary. He charts
the political, economic, social and cultural history of the war at
home and on the frontlines as well as the war's origins, ending and
transformative effects on societal norms and attitudes, gender and
labor relations, and international trade and finance. The
accessible narrative is supported by chronologies, personal
accounts, guides to key controversies and debates, and numerous
maps and photographs.
World War I directly and indirectly caused events and social and
political trends which defined the history of the world for the
rest of the century, including the Russian Revolution and the rise
of communism to the Great Crash of 1929 which lead to the Great
Depression and the rise of Hitler and Nazi Germany. It marked a
turning point in world history as the end of the historical era of
European dominance and the ushering in of a period which
accelerated demands for freedom and autonomy in colonial settings.
India played a significant role in the war and in the Allied
victory on the battlefield. This book explores India's involvement
in the Great War and the way the war impacted upon the country from
a variety of different viewpoints including case studies focusing
on key individuals who played vital roles in the war. The long and
short term impacts of the war on different locations in India are
also explored in the chapters which offer an analysis of the
importance of the war on India while commemorating the sacrifices
which were made. A new, innovative and multidisciplinary
examination of India and World War I, this book presents a select
number of case studies showing the intimate relationship of the
global war and its social, political and economic impacts on the
Indian subcontinent. It will be of interest to academics in the
field of War Studies, Colonial and Imperial History and South Asian
and Modern Indian History.
Following the defeat of Napoleon in 1814, an event that signalled
an end to nearly fourteen years of French domination, Florence
seemed to enter a new cultural 'golden age' and by 1824 was
described as 'an Earthly Paradise' by the political and liberal
writer, Pietro Giordano. Politically, economically and culturally,
the city prospered in this new era. After 1814 it seemed as if the
Enlightenment had found a new beginning in Florence. Aubrey
Garlington, a scholar of long standing in the music of early
nineteenth-century Florence, considers the roles played by John
Fane, Lord Burghersh, an English aristocrat, diplomat and
dilettante composer together with his wife, Priscilla, in the
development of the richly homogeneous culture that blossomed in
Florence at this time. Burghersh, known today for being
instrumental in the founding of the English Royal Academy of Music,
composed six operas that were performed privately on numerous
occasions at the English Embassy, his best known work being "La
Fedra". Lady Burghersh became known for her painting and dilettante
theatrical performances. Garlington provides a thorough
re-examination of the categories 'professional' and 'dilettante'
which were so important in the concept of music at this time. The
notions of boundaries between public and private activity are
discussed, and the operas themselves are examined specifically.
Through the contemplation of the Burghershs's sixteen year stay in
Florence, the significance of dilettante orientations are
demonstrated to have been essential components for the city's
musical and social life. Garlington draws together an impressive
compilation of documentation regarding the part music played in
shaping society and culture. In this way, the book will appeal not
only to opera historians, musicologists and critics working on the
nineteenth century, but also to historians and scholars of cultural
theory.
Around 250,000 Belgian refugees who fled the German invasion spent
the First World War in Britain - the largest refugee presence
Britain has ever witnessed. Welcomed in a wave of humanitarian
sympathy for 'Poor Little Belgium', within a few months Belgian
exiles were pushed off the front pages of newspapers by the news of
direct British involvement in the war. Following rapid repatriation
at British government expense in late 1918 and 1919 Belgian
refugees were soon lost from public memory with few memorials or
markers of their mass presence. Reactions to Belgian refugees
discussed in this book include the mixed responses of local
populations to the refugee presence, which ranged from extensive
charitable efforts to public and trade union protests aimed at
protecting local jobs and housing. This book also explores the
roles of central and local government agencies which supported and
employed Belgian refugees en masse yet also used them as a
propaganda tool to publicise German outrages against civilians to
encourage support for the Allied war effort. This book covers
responses to Belgian refugees in England, Scotland, Ireland and
Wales in a Home Front wartime episode which generated intense
public interest and charitable and government action. This book was
originally published as a special issue of Immigrants and
Minorities: Historical Studies in Ethnicity, Migration and
Diaspora.
"An illustrated analytical study, Words and the First World War
considers the situation at home, at war, and under categories such
as race, gender and class to give a many-sided picture of language
used during the conflict." The Spectator First World War expert
Julian Walker looks at how the conflict shaped English and its
relationship with other languages. He considers language in
relation to mediation and authenticity, as well as the limitations
and potential of different kinds of verbal communication. Walker
also examines: - How language changed, and why changed language was
used in communications - Language used at the Front and how the
'language of the war' was commercially exploited on the Home Front
- The relationship between language, soldiers and class - The idea
of the 'indescribability' of the war and the linguistic codes used
to convey the experience 'Languages of the front' became linguistic
souvenirs of the war, abandoned by soldiers but taken up by
academics, memoir writers and commentators, leaving an indelible
mark on the words we use even today.
The Sunday Times Top Ten Bestseller 2014 New York Times top ten
bestseller 2014 Amazon.com's Top Ten History Books of the Year 2014
New York Times Book of the Year 2014 The Arab Revolt against the
Turks in World War One was, in the words of T.E. Lawrence, 'a
sideshow of a sideshow'. Amidst the slaughter in European trenches,
the Western combatants paid scant attention to the Middle Eastern
theatre. As a result, the conflict was shaped to a remarkable
degree by a small handful of adventurers and low-level officers far
removed from the corridors of power. At the centre of it all was
Lawrence. In early 1914 he was an archaeologist excavating ruins in
the sands of Syria; by 1917 he was battling both the enemy and his
own government to bring about the vision he had for the Arab
people. Operating in the Middle East at the same time, but to
wildly different ends, were three other important players: a German
attache, an American oilman and a committed Zionist. The
intertwined paths of these four young men - the schemes they put in
place, the battles they fought, the betrayals they endured and
committed - mirror the grandeur, intrigue and tragedy of the war in
the desert.
Volume 3 of The Cambridge History of the First World War explores
the social and cultural history of the war and considers the role
of civil society throughout the conflict; that is to say those
institutions and practices outside the state through which the war
effort was waged. Drawing on twenty-five years of historical
scholarship, it sheds new light on culturally significant issues
such as how families and medical authorities adapted to the
challenges of war and the shift that occurred in gender roles and
behaviour that would subsequently reshape society. Adopting a
transnational approach, this volume surveys the war's treatment of
populations at risk, including refugees, minorities and internees,
to show the full extent of the disaster of war and, with it, the
stubborn survival of irrational kindness and the generosity of
spirit that persisted amidst the bitterness at the heart of
warfare, with all its contradictions and enduring legacies. This
volume concludes with a reckoning of the costs and consequences of
The Great War.
The First World War was above all a war of logistics. Whilst the
conflict will forever be remembered for the mud and slaughter of
the Western Front, it was a war won on the factory floor as much as
the battlefield. Examining the war from an industrial perspective,
Arming the Western Front examines how the British between 1900 and
1920 set about mobilising economic and human resources to meet the
challenge of 'industrial war'. Beginning with an assessment of the
run up to war, the book examines Edwardian business-state relations
in terms of armament supply. It then outlines events during the
first year of the war, taking a critical view of competing
constructs of the war and considering how these influenced decision
makers in both the private and public domains. This sets the
framework for an examination of the response of business firms to
the demand for 'shells more shells', and their varying ability to
innovate and manage changing methods of production and
organisation. The outcome, a central theme of the book, was a
complex and evolving trade-off between the quantity and quality of
munitions supply, an issue that became particularly acute during
the Battle of the Somme in 1916. This deepened the economic and
political tensions between the military, the Ministry of Munitions,
and private engineering contractors as the pressure to increase
output accelerated markedly in the search for victory on the
western front. The Great War created a dual army, one in the field,
the other at home producing munitions, and the final section of the
book examines the tensions between the two as the country strove
for final victory and faced the challenges of the transition to the
peace time economy.
This book demonstrates how people were kept ignorant by censorship
and indoctrinated by propaganda. Censorship suppressed all
information that criticized the army and government, that might
trouble the population or weaken its morale. Propaganda at home
emphasized the superiority of the fatherland, explained setbacks by
blaming scapegoats, vilified and ridiculed the enemy, warned of the
disastrous consequences of defeat and extolled duty and sacrifice.
The propaganda message also infiltrated entertainment and the
visual arts. Abroad it aimed to demoralize enemy troops and stir up
unrest among national minorities and other marginalized groups. The
many illustrations and organograms provide a clear visual
demonstration of Demm's argument.
Belgian Museums of the Great War: Politics, Memory, and Commerce
examines the handling of the centennial of World War I by several
museums along the Western Front in Flanders, Belgium. In the
twenty-first century, the museum has become a strategic space for
negotiating ownership of and access to knowledge produced in local
settings. The specific focus on museums and commemorative events in
Flanders allows for an in-depth evaluation of how each museum works
with the remembrance and tourist industry in the region while
carving a unique niche. Belgian Museums of the Great War writes the
history of these institutions, analyzes the changes made in advance
of the anniversary years, and considers the site-specificity of
each institution and its architectural frame. Since museums not
only transmit information but also shape knowledge, as Eileen
Hooper-Greenhill has noted, the diverse narratives and community
programs sponsored by each museum have served to challenge prior
historiographies of the war. Through newly revamped interactive
environments, self-guided learning, and an emphasis on the
landscape, the museums in Flanders have a significant role to play
in the ever-changing dialogue on the meaning of the history and
remembrance of the Great War.
Traditionally the military community held the intelligence
profession in low esteem, spying was seen as dirty work and
information was all to often ignored if it conflicted with a
commander's own view. Handel examines the ways in which this
situation has improved and argues that co-operation between the
intelligence adviser and the military decision maker is vital.
This volume focuses on a formative period in the history and
archaeology of northern Greece. The decade following 1912, when
Thessaloniki became part of Greece, was a period marked by an
extraordinary internationalism as a result of the population
movements caused by the shifting of national borders and the troop
movements which accompanied the First World War. The papers
collected here look primarily at the impact of the discoveries of
the Army of the Orient on the archaeological study of the region of
Macedonia. Resulting collections of antiquities are now held in
Thessaloniki, London, Paris, Edinburgh and Oxford. Various
specialists examine each of these collections, bringing the
archaeological legacy of the Macedonian Campaign together in one
volume for the first time. A key theme of the volume is the
emerging dialogue between the archaeological remains of Macedonia
and the politics of Hellenism. A number of authors consider how
archaeological interpretation was shaped by the incorporation of
Macedonia into Greece. Other authors describe how the politics of
the Campaign, in which Greece was initially a neutral partner, had
implications both for the administration of archaeological finds
and their subsequent dispersal. A particular focus is the
historical personalities who were involved and the sites they
discovered. The role of the Greek Archaeological Service,
particularly in the protection of antiquities, as well as promoting
excavation in the aftermath of the 1917 Great Fire of Thessaloniki,
is also considered.
At its dawn in the early twentieth century, the new technology of
aviation posed a crucial question to American and British cavalry:
what do we do with the airplane? Lacking the hindsight of
historical perspective, cavalry planners based their decisions on
incomplete information. Harnessing the Airplane compares how the
American and British armies dealt with this unique challenge. A
multilayered look at a critical aspect of modern industrial
warfare, this book examines the ramifications of technological
innovation and its role in the fraught relationship that developed
between traditional ground units and emerging air forces. Cavalry
officers pondered the potential military uses of airplanes and
other new technologies early on, but preferred to test them before
embracing and incorporating them in their operations. Cavalrymen
cautiously examined airplane capabilities, developed applications
and doctrine for joint operations, and in the United States, even
tried to develop their own, specially designed craft. Throughout
the interwar period, instead of replacing the cavalry, airplanes
were used cooperatively with cavalry forces in reconnaissance,
security, communication, protection, and pursuit - a collaboration
tested in maneuvers and officially blessed in both British and
American doctrine. This interdependent relationship changed
drastically, however, during the 1930s as aviation priorities and
doctrine shifted from tactical support of ground troops toward
independent strategic bombardment. Henning shows that the American
and British experiences with military aviation differed. The
nascent British aviation service made quicker inroads into
reconnaissance and scouting, even though the British cavalry was
the older institution with more-established traditions. The
American cavalry, despite its youth, contested the control of
reconnaissance as late as the 1930s, years after similar arguments
ended in Britain. Drawing on contemporary government reports,
memoirs and journals of service personnel, books, and professional
and trade journals and magazines, Harnessing the Airplane is a
nuanced account of the cavalry's response to aviation over time and
presents a new perspective on a significant chapter of
twentieth-century military history.
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
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Petain
(Hardcover)
Nicholas Atkin
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Petain (1856-1951) remains one of the most controversial figures in
the history of modern France. He was saviour of his country at
Verdun in 1916 during the First World War, but tried for treason as
head of state of the collaborationist Vichy government after World
War II. Were his actions those of a traitor? - or a patriot facing
the total disintegration of his country? In exploring the actions
of this controversial figure, Nicholas Atkin also reveals the
divisions and uncertainties of France herself.
What happened in women's history after the vote was won? Was the
suffragette spirit quashed by the advent of the First World War,
and due to the achievement of women's partial (1918) and then equal
(1928) suffrage thereafter, by having to wait to be reclaimed by
the Women's Liberation Movement only in the late 1960s? This
collection explores how individual feminists and the feminist
movement as a whole responded to the achievement of the central
goal of votes for women. For many, the post-suffrage years were
anti-climactic, and there is no disputing that the movement was in
numerical decline, struggling to appeal to a younger generation of
women who knew nothing of the sacrifices that had been made to
secure their citizenship rights and new freedoms. However,
feminists went in new and different directions, identifying
pressing issues from pacifism to religious reform, from local
activism to party politics. Women also organised around causes that
were not explicitly feminist or were even anti-feminist, and this
book makes the important distinction between women in politics and
women's feminist activism. The range of feminist activism in the
aftermath of suffrage speaks for the successes and mainstreaming of
feminism, and contributors to this volume contest the narrative of
a terminal feminist decline between the wars. This book was
originally published as a special issue of Women's History Review.
For a brief period, the attention of the international community
has focused once again on the plight of religious minorities in
Iraq, Syria, and Turkey. In particular, the abductions and
massacres of Yezidis and Assyrians in the Sinjar, Mosul, Nineveh
Plains, Baghdad, and Hasakah regions in 2007-2015 raised questions
about the prevention of genocide. This book, while principally
analyzing the Assyrian genocide of 1914-1925 and its implications
for the culture and politics of the region, also raises broader
questions concerning the future of religious diversity in the
Middle East. It gathers and analyzes the findings of a broad
spectrum of historical and scholarly works on Christian identities
in the Middle East, genocide studies, international law, and the
politics of the late Ottoman Empire, as well as the politics of the
Ottomans' British and Russian rivals for power in western Asia and
the eastern Mediterranean basin. A key question the book raises is
whether the fate of the Assyrians maps onto any of the concepts
used within international law and diplomatic history to study
genocide and group violence. In this light, the Assyrian genocide
stands out as being several times larger, in both absolute terms
and relative to the size of the affected group, than the Srebrenica
genocide, which is recognized by Turkey as well as by international
tribunals and organizations. Including its Armenian and Greek
victims, the Ottoman Christian Genocide rivals the Rwandan,
Bengali, and Biafran genocides. The book also aims to explore the
impact of the genocide period of 1914-1925 on the development or
partial unraveling of Assyrian group cohesion, including
aspirations to autonomy in the Assyrian areas of northern Iraq,
northwestern Iran, and southeastern Turkey. Scholars from around
the world have collaborated to approach these research questions by
reference to diplomatic and political archives, international legal
materials, memoirs, and literary works.
Originally published in 1915 in the middle of World War I,
Carpenter explores the effects that the war was having on society
and humankind as a whole from first-hand experience. In particular,
papers focus on the differences between Germany and England, the
causes of the war and suggestions for restoration and recovery when
the war has ended. Carpenter details all of this in a realistic way
drawing on matters such as class to put forward his anti-war stance
as well as philosophical approaches to coping with tragedy. This
title will be of interest to students of history, sociology and
politics.
The Americans had considerable initial success when they launched
their huge offensive against the Germans in the Meuse-Argonne in
the last days of September 1918. However, not everything went
smoothly and the attack became bogged down, held up by the several
lines of the Hindenburg System and logistical challenges. A major
additional obstacle was the presence of batteries of German
artillery on the high ground on the right bank of the Meuse, almost
untroubled by any significant assaults by the allied forces. These
guns created severe problems for the American commanders and their
troops. Eventually sufficient resources were allocated for an
American-French attack on the right bank, with the aim of removing
the German artillery and pushing the Germans off the Meuse Heights,
part of the renewed offensive on the Left Bank and the Argonne
Forest. The action often took place over ground that had already
seen ferocious fighting during the Battle of Verdun in 1916 and the
French offensive of late summer 1917. It also involved the very
difficult achievement of getting large bodies of troops over the
River Meuse and its associated canal. The terrain is rugged and,
even then, quite heavily wooded. The American and French troops
often had to fight uphill and in the face of German defences that
had been developed over the previous twelve months. On the other
hand, the quality of the defending troops was not high, as Germany
faced so much pressure in other sectors, and included a significant
number of Austro-Hungarian troops. Popular opinion tends to be
dismissive of the fighting quality of these Austrian troops who, in
fact, performed well. The tours take the visitor over some
beautiful countryside, with stunning views over the Meuse and the
Woevre Plain. There are significant vestiges of the war still to be
seen, including numerous observation bunkers and shelters as well
as trenches. An unusual feature of the area are the traces of part
of the Maginot Line, notably bunkers (some of which are very large)
and the rail infrastructure to support it, sometimes making use of
lines that the Germans built during the First World War. One of
these tours follows the fate of Henry Gunther, officially the last
American soldier to be killed in action in the Great War. There is
substantial myth about Gunther; the facts surrounding his death are
examined, as well as placing his last action on the ground. There
is a tour dedicated just to him.
This book contributes to the growing literature on the role of the
British non-settler empire in the Great War by exploring the
service of the Cypriot Mule Corps on the Salonica Front, and after
the war in Constantinople. Varnava encompasses all aspects of the
story of the Mule Corps, from the role of the animals to the
experiences of the men driving them both during and after the war,
as well as how and why this significant story in the history of
Cyprus and the British Empire has been forgotten. The book will be
of great value to anyone interested in the impact of the Great War
upon the British Empire in the Mediterranean, and vice- versa. -- .
Perceptions of the Great War have changed significantly since its
outbreak and children's authors have continually attempted to
engage with those changes, explaining and interpreting the events
of 1914-18 for young readers. British Children's Literature and the
First World War examines the role novels, textbooks and story
papers have played in shaping and reflecting understandings of the
conflict throughout the 20th century. David Budgen focuses on
representations of the conflict since its onset in 1914, ending
with the centenary commemorations of 2014. From the works of Percy
F. Westerman and Angela Brazil, to more recent tales by Michael
Morpurgo and Pat Mills, Budgen traces developments of understanding
and raises important questions about the presentation of history to
the young. He considers such issues as the motivations of
children's authors, and whether modern children's books about the
past are necessarily more accurate than those written by their
forebears. Why, for example, do modern writers tend to ignore the
global aspects of the First World War? Did detailed narratives of
battles written during the war really convey the truth of the
conflict? Most importantly, he considers whether works aimed at
children can ever achieve anything more than a partial and skewed
response to such complex and tumultuous events.
Between 1910 and 1945 the United States transformed itself into a
Super Power. By 1945, with rivals in Europe and Asia shattered by
world war, she dominated global economic, financial and political
arrangements and monopolised the atomic bomb. This new Companion to
History is an indispensable guide to this critical period in US
history. It includes: chronologies listing all the major events,
both foreign and domestic; social and economic history, with many
tables based on inaccessible data; scores of mini-biographies;
listings of the major office holders; and maps.
This book's contribution to the discussion on the origin's of the
First World War is a pioneering study of both the British General
Staff and the evolution of military strategy in the period
immediately prior to the war. It describes the development of the
General Staff, Britain's agency for strategic planning, and goes on
to give an account of its role in devising strategy. Problems are
examined as they arose at grass-roots level in the War Office and
progressed upward towards the Cabinet. The complex cross-currents
involving the Admiralty, Foreign Office, Treasury and individuals
from Edward VII downwards are charted. The account covers British
military policy up to 1916, interpreting the Gallipoli campaign and
explanation for its failure.
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