This extended study of one of the critical campaigns of World War I sheds light on vital strategic consequences for both sides. Published during the centennial of the events it considers, this book provides a comprehensive examination of one of the most interesting and influential campaigns of World War I, a campaign that was the apex of mobile warfare at the time. By the late summer of 1915, the Russian threat to Austria-Hungary had been eliminated by the Central Powers. That allowed Erich von Falkenhayn, head of the German supreme command, to turn his attention to his next strategic target-the conquest of Serbia-which was imperative to opening a land route to the Ottoman Empire. Until that task was accomplished, matters on the all-important Western Front would have to wait. This first major study of the invasion of Serbia covers events primarily from the viewpoint of the Central Powers, which played the most pivotal role in the campaign. The book considers the impact of factors as diverse as diplomacy, command, coalition warfare, mountain warfare, military technology, and the harsh environment in which the campaign was conducted. Readers will come away with an understanding of and appreciation for the importance of the Serbian campaign as it affected the outcome of the war and the ultimate destruction of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Examines the campaign from the perspective of the Central Powers, rather than from the Serbian point of view Shows that the assault on Serbia was pivotal in that it led to the unraveling of the overall conflict for Germany Features research conducted at the German federal military archives in Freiburg, the Bavarian military archives in Munich, the Austrian archives in Vienna, and the Baden-Wurttemberg archives in Stuttgart Draws from official histories, regimental histories, memoirs, and first-person accounts Marks the 100th anniversary of the 1915 campaign

How can we understand what caused World War I? What role did Germany play? This book encourages us to re-think the events that led to global conflict in 1914.Historians in recent years have argued that German leaders acted defensively or pre-emptively in 1914, conscious of the Reich's deteriorating military and diplomatic position. Germany and the Causes of the First World War challenges such interpretations, placing new emphasis on the idea that the Reich Chancellor, the German Foreign Office and the Great General Staff were confident that they could win a continental war. This belief in Germany's superiority derived primarily from an assumption of French decline and Russian weakness throughout the period between the turn of the century and the eve of the First World War. Accordingly, Wilhelmine policy-makers pursued offensive policies - at the risk of war at important junctures during the 1900s and 1910s.The author analyses the stereotyping of enemy states, representations of war in peacetime, and conceptualizations of international relations. He uncovers the complex role of ruling elites, political parties, big business and the press, and contends that the decade before the First World War witnessed some critical changes in German foreign policy. By the time of the July crisis of 1914, for example, the perception of enemies had altered, with Russia - the traditional bugbear of the German centre and left - becoming the principal opponent of the Reich. Under these changed conditions, German leaders could now pursue their strategy of brinkmanship, using war as an instrument of policy, to its logical conclusion.

Civilian into Soldier - A Novel Of The Great War. By John A. Lee. Originally published in 1937. A fictionalised but autobiographical account of a New Zealand man's fighting role in the fighting of World War I, written by a man who became a political force in a post-war New Zealand. Contents Include Sling Insubordination Hel-Fire for Orators-Klink Not so tough after all The road to Estaples Estaples War Logic About it and about Arrival Fatigue and fire-step Adapation Talk, Talk, Talk From Fleux Baix to Le Bezit Le Bezit Torches and Meteors Plugstreet Point De Neippe The Incubation of Chaos Raid on the Left Rehearsal Vicious Appetites Lot of Prepardness Fretfull Argumant Claim Twilight came Gas Nerves Up and Over The Hysterical Hero Enter Fear Any Bearers Look, The Cavalry-Counter Attack Bull Ring Philosophy Eyewash after chaos Rest, disintegration Pagan death but Christian burial Eve of offensive The advance of the refinery The brass hat who was a mad hatter Good sport Comedy or tragedy Tragedy or comedy Rest camp On the road gaily without a crust of bread Nerves nerves nerves The attack on the pay office In which the infantry have a jolly good time parley voo Good-byeee Many of the earliest books, particularly those dating back to the 1900s and before, are now extremely scarce and increasingly expensive. Home Farm Books are republishing these classic works in affordable, high quality, modern editions, using the original text and artwor

The African and Chinese battles of the First World War
Historian Edmund Dane wrote some excellent concise histories of various theatres of the First World War and the first work in this unique volume from Leonaur is one of them. There is much interest among students of the period in the campaigns fought in Africa which drew into conflict the regular troops of the principal protagonists together with a colourful array of colonial and imperial troops on both sides. This book covers Botha's campaign in South-West Africa, the East African Campaign which pitted Smuts against the exemplary generalship of von Lettow-Vorbeck and the campaigns in Togoland and the Cameroons. Dane includes in his book's title the campaign in the Pacific and although the single chapter dedicated to this topic is of undeniable interest the contemporary reader may judge the piece too short. To remedy this we have included an in depth work on the siege and fall of Tsingtau in China by an American journalist who was an eye-witness. This was a vital outpost for the Germans in the region. The Royal Navy was involved and the South Wales Borderers were engaged; the main assault, however, was undertaken by Imperial Japanese forces. The author's forecasts as to Japan's ambitions in the region turned out to be chillingly accurate.
Leonaur editions are newly typeset and are not facsimiles; each title is available in softcover and hardback with dustjacket; our hardbacks are cloth bound and feature gold foil lettering on their spines and fabric head and tail bands.

This transnational, interdisciplinary study of traumatic neurosis moves beyond the existing histories of medical theory, welfare, and symptomatology. The essays explore the personal traumas of soldiers and civilians in the wake of the First World War; they also discuss how memory and representations of trauma are transmitted between patients, doctors and families across generations. The book argues that so far the traumatic effects of the war have been substantially underestimated. Trauma was shaped by gender, politics, and personality. To uncover the varied forms of trauma ignored by medical and political authorities, this volume draws on diverse sources, such as family archives and narratives by children of traumatized men, documents from film and photography, memoirs by soldiers and civilians. This innovative study challenges us to re-examine our approach to the complex psychological effects of the First World War.

World War I was a global war originating in Europe that lasted from 1914 to 1918. Contemporaneously known as the Great War or "the war to end all wars", it led to the mobilisation of more than 70 million military personnel, including 60 million Europeans, making it one of the largest wars in history. This series of Eight volumes provides year by year analysis of the war that resulted in the death of more than 17 million deaths worldwide.

The First World War began in the Balkans, and it was fought as fiercely in the East as it was in the West. Fighting persisted in the East for almost a decade, radically transforming the political and social order of the entire continent. The specifics of the Eastern war such as mass deportations, ethnic cleansing, and the radicalization of military, paramilitary and revolutionary violence have only recently become the focus of historical research. This volume situates the 'Long First World War' on the Eastern Front (1912-1923) in the hundred years from the mid-19th to the mid-20th century and explores the legacies of violence within this context. Content Jochen Boehler/Wlodzimierz Borodziej/Joachim von Puttkamer: Introduction I. A World in Transition Joachim von Puttkamer: Collapse and Restoration. Politics and the Strains of War in Eastern Europe Mark Biondich: Eastern Borderlands and Prospective Shatter Zones. Identity and Conflict in East Central and Southeastern Europe on the Eve of the First World War Jochen Boehler: Generals and Warlords, Revolutionaries and Nation-State Builders. The First World War and its Aftermath in Central and Eastern Europe II. Occupation Jonathan E. Gumz: Losing Control. The Norm of Occupation in Eastern Europe during the First World War Stephan Lehnstaedt: Fluctuating between 'Utilisation' and Exploitation. Occupied East Central Europe during the First World War Robert L. Nelson: Utopias of Open Space. Forced Population Transfer Fantasies during the First World War III. Radicalization Maciej Gorny: War on Paper? Physical Anthropology in the Service of States and Nations Piotr J. Wrobel: Foreshadowing the Holocaust. The Wars of 1914-1921 and Anti-Jewish Violence in Central and Eastern Europe Robert Gerwarth: Fighting the Red Beast. Counter-Revolutionary Violence in the Defeated States of Central Europe IV. Aftermath Julia Eichenberg: Consent, Coercion and Endurance in Eastern Europe. Poland and the Fluidity of War Experiences Philipp Ther: Pre-negotiated Violence. Ethnic Cleansing in the 'Long' First World War Dietrich Beyrau: The Long Shadow of the Revolution. Violence in War and Peace in the Soviet Union Commentary Joern Leonhard: Legacies of Violence: Eastern Europe's First World War - A Commentary from a Comparative Perspective

This book fully revises standard regimental history by establishing the framework and background to the regiment's role in the Great War. It tests the current theories about the British army in the war and some of the conclusions of modern military historians. In recent years a fascinating reassessment of the combat performance of the British Army in the Great War has stressed the fact that the British Army ascended a 'learning curve' during the conflict resulting in a modern military machine of awesome power. Research carried out thus far has been on a grand scale with very few examinations of smaller units. This study of the battalion of the Buffs has tested these theoretical ideas. The central questions addressed in this study are: * The factors that dominated the officer-man relationship during the war. * How identity and combat efficiency was maintained in the light of heavy casualties. * The relative importance of individual characters to the efficiency of a battalion as opposed to the 'managerial structures' of the BEF. * The importance of brigade and division to the performance of a battalion. * The effective understanding and deployment of new weapons. * The reactions of individual men to the trials of war. * The personal and private reactions of the soldiers' communities in Kent. Using previously uncovered material, this book adds a significant new chapter to our understanding of the British army on the Western Front, and the way its home community in East Kent reacted to experience. It reveals the way in which the regiment adjusted to the shock of modern warfare, and the bloody learning curve the Buffs ascended as they shared the British Expeditionary Force's march towards final victory.

The twenty-seven original contributions to this volume investigate the ways in which the First World War has been commemorated and represented internationally in prose fiction, drama, film, docudrama and comics from the 1960s until the present. The volume thus provides a comprehensive survey of the cultural memory of the war as reflected in various media across national cultures, addressing the complex connections between the cultural post-memory of the war and its mediation. In four sections, the essays investigate (1) the cultural legacy of the Great War (including its mythology and iconography); (2) the implications of different forms and media for representing the war; (3) 'national' memories, foregrounding the differences in post-memory representations and interpretations of the Great War, and (4) representations of the Great War within larger temporal or spatial frameworks, focusing specifically on the ideological dimensions of its 'remembrance' in historical, socio-political, gender-oriented, and post-colonial contexts.

Whether victorious or not, Central European states faced fundamental challenges after the First World War as they struggled to contain ongoing violence and forge peaceful societies. This collection explores the various forms of violence these nations confronted during this period, which effectively transformed the region into a laboratory for state-building. Employing a bottom-up approach to understanding everyday life, these studies trace the contours of individual and mass violence in the interwar era while illuminating their effects upon politics, intellectual developments, and the arts.

This book project traces the thought of several Roman Catholic Modernists (and one especially virulent anti-Modernist) as they confronted the intellectual challenges posed by the Great war from war from 1895 to 1907.

Between 1917 and 1919 women enlisted in the Women's Land Army, a national organisation with the task of increasing domestic food production. Behind the scenes organisers laboured to not only recruit an army of women workers, but to also dispel public fears that Britain's Land Girls would be defeminized and devalued by their wartime experiences.

COLONIAL SETTLERS, ASKARIS AND MASAI SCOUTS. AMBUSH AND BATTLE AMONG WILD ANIMALS AS DANGEROUS AS THE ENEMY ITSELF. Colonial neighbours in British & German East Africa fought their war far from the Western front across country familiar today as the great game reserves. The East African Mounted Rifles were six squadrons amalgamated from hastily formed volunteer units such as Bowkers Horse and the Legion of Frontiersmen. Encounters with enraged lions, horses camouflaged as zebras, a brief period as marines all form part of this most unusual account of a most unusual campaign.

An incredible adventure from the Great War
This is a unique and riveting book. The steamer Tara and her crew spent the early part of WW1 patrolling the Northern Channel between England and Ireland before a transfer to coastal duties off Egypt and Libya. There she was torpedoed and sunk by a German U-Boat operating from a secret base on the Libyan coast. To ensure no intelligence of it's presence leaked to the British, the Germans towed the survivors-including this book's author, the Tara's captain, into captivity at the hands of the Senussi-religious zealots in league with the Ottoman Turkish forces. Then began a tortuous ordeal for the crew who suffered abuse, starvation and in some cases death at the hands of their gaolers. Abortive escape attempts across the relentless 'Red Desert' followed before rescue finally came in the form of a dramatic hunt and final assault by the forty armoured cars of the Duke of Westminster's squadron. An absolutely essential and gripping read which will be a delight to all those interested in the fortunes of British seamen, the war in the Middle East and well told accounts of true adventure.

The East African Campaign through a British Army Doctor's eyes The author of this book-a practicing doctor in the British Army-had already served on the Western Front in the early months of the Great War and had actually become a P. O. W. at the hands of the German enemy. Now in the East African Campaign he explains-in writings originally intended for his own family-every aspect of war in this little reported theatre. We learn about the movements of troops and battle actions, but also of the character of troops from many countries and of the African tribes who fought for each side. We hear of the trials of the motor transport men-dodging ambush and wild animals equally-and of the adventures of the "behind the lines" intelligence gatherers living thrilling and dangerous lives in the bush. Finally we are shown the difficulties of keeping men healthy and the problems of saving lives under the most arduous conditions. This is an unusual and interesting perspective on war from a medical man in Africa.

Nets, mines and bullets
Very rarely, as we warm our hands by a coal fire or eat our fish supper, do we think about what it took to heat our rooms or fill our plates. We may feel grateful that the task was fortunately undertaken by others-that it is something we would not wish to do ourselves-but nothing more. The life of the fishermen of Northern waters is, and always has been, a perilous one, many brave sailors have drowned in pursuit of food for our nation. When war came the fishing fleet, aware of its duty, did not dry dock and hang its nets until peace returned. It still set out to fish, aware that the perils of its trade would be worsened by the presence of an enemy that knows that a hungry nation will be subdued more quickly. It would have been enough if that was all British fishermen had done, but they also gathered intelligence, cleared mines, fought actions from armed fishing vessels and many other incredible acts of courage and devotion. These were not men whose achievements were seen as glamorous, but they were nonetheless brave, unsung heroes in war as well as in peace. This book details the actions of British Fishermen in Northern waters during the First World War; it is, of course, an account so full of action and incident that it is essential reading for those interested in the study of maritime warfare.
Leonaur editions are newly typeset and are not facsimiles; each title is available in softcover and hardback with dustjacket; our hardbacks are cloth bound and feature gold foil lettering on their spines and fabric head and tail bands.

The commander of the BEF's view of the Great War
This book, written by Sir John French, concerns his period of command during the first period of the Great War. Predictably, as in many commander's memoirs it displays much partiality as to his own actions and those of others. This is particularly noteworthy since the consensus view of the history of the time does not judge-with much justification-French kindly. At the outbreak of the war French was the obvious choice for command and his views accorded with the government establishment if not with more forward thinking military men under his command. Fast moving German offensives revealed French's military strategy with its faith in inflexible defensive strongpoints to be hopelessly out of date. Events overtook him and were it not for Smith-Dorrien's aggressive action during the First Battle of Mons-for which seemingly French never forgave him-the BEF could easily have been overwhelmed. French became increasing out of touch and indecisive and was replaced in 1915 by Haig. This book is far from a balanced history, but is an important account of how a nineteenth century soldier saw his twentieth century war. It also contains much factual information on the dispositions of troops and actions in what was a fluid stage of the conflict.

An insightful account of the devastating impact of the Great War, upon the already fragile British colonial African state of Northern Rhodesia. Deploying extensive archival and rare evidence from surviving African veterans, it investigates African resistance at this time.

In Jewish Integration in the German Army in the First World War David J. Fine offers a surprising portrayal of Jewish officers in the German army as integrated and comfortably identified as both Jews and Germans. Fine explores how both Judaism and Christianity were experienced by Jewish soldiers at the front, making an important contribution to the study of the experience of religion in war. Fine shows how the encounter of German Jewish soldiers with the old world of the shtetl on the eastern front tested both their German and Jewish identities. Finally, utilizing published and unpublished sources including letters, diaries, memoirs, military service records, press accounts, photographs, drawings and tomb stone inscriptions, the author argues that antisemitism was not a primary factor in the war experience of Jewish soldiers.

The front-line soldiers of the First World War endured appalling conditions in the trenches and suffered unprecedented slaughter in battle. Their morale, as much as the strategy of their commanders, played the crucial part in determining the outcome of `the war to end all wars'. J. G. Fuller examines the experience of the soldiers of the British and Dominion armies. How did the troops regard their plight? What did they think they were fighting for? Dr Fuller draws on a variety of contemporary sources, including over a hundred magazines produced by the soldiers themselves. This is the first scholarly analysis of the trench journalism which played an important role in the lives of the ordinary soldiers. Other themes explored include the nature of patriotism, discipline, living conditions, and leisure activities such as sport, concert parties, and the music hall. Dr Fuller's vivid and detailed study throws new light on the question of warfare, and in particular how the British and Dominion armies differed from those of their allies and opponents, which were wracked by mutiny or defeat as the war went on.

In October 1911, Winston S. Churchill was an accomplished young Liberal politician who, as the newly appointed First Lord of the Admiralty, still wore his ambition and emotion on his sleeve. Robert L. Borden was the new Canadian Prime Minister, less emotional and much older than Churchill. They became companions in an attempt to provide naval security for the British Empire as a naval crisis loomed with Germany. Their scheme for Canada to provide three Dreadnought battleships for the Royal Navy as part of an Imperial squadron was hotly debated by the Canadian Parliament and rejected by the Senate. It was one of the most divisive debates in Canadian parliamentary history. Churchill invested considerable time and effort in trying to deliver the scheme and even believed he might need to resign when it failed. The decision had great implications for the future, leading to the crises in shipbuilding foreshadowing the outbreak of WW1.