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 Drawing upon an extensive range of sources, including much previously unpublished archival material, G. D. Sheffield seeks to answer this question by examining a crucial but previously neglected factor in the maintenance of the British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.

Booth offers a complex portrait of the relation between British Great War culture and modernist writings. She notes that unlike civilians, modernist writers and combatants shared a concern with the divide between language and experience, and draws connections between the sensibility of the modernist writer and the soldier, particularly regarding efforts to describe dying and the dead. Her analysis extends to memorials, posters, and architecture of the Great War, though her emphasis is on literary works by Robert Graves, E.M. Forster, Vera Brittain, and others.

I cannot stop while there are lives to be saved
Edith Cavell
Nurse Edith Cavell was a British Nurse and humanitarian who became famous during the First World War for not only nursing and saving the lives of battle casualties with no regard for the nationality of the combatants, but also for her work in assisting some 200 Allied soldiers to escape incarceration by the victorious German Army in Belgium during the early stages of the conflict. This middle aged nurse was discovered by the Germans, who considered her actions treasonable, abetting the escape of troops who might return to the battle front. Cavell was subsequently tried by court marshal, sentenced to be executed and shot by firing squad in October 1915, aged 50 years. The event was widely reported by the world press and the effect on the public at large was electric providing a propaganda triumph for the Allied cause and an equal disaster for the German cause-although they considered their actions fair and reasonable by the rules of war. Cavell's influence on nursing in Belgium has been an enduring one. This book contains two accounts brought together by Leonaur for interest and good value. The first, The Martyrdom of Nurse Cavell by William Thomson Hill, provides an overview of the Cavell story whilst the second, With Edith Cavell in Belgium by Jacqueline Van Til, was written by a young nurse who worked closely with Cavell and who had inside knowledge and personal experience of the dramatic events as they unfolded. Available in softcover and hardcover with dust jacket.

During a pivotal few months in the middle of the First World War all sides-Germany, Britain, and America-believed the war could be concluded. Peace at the end of 1916 would have saved millions of lives and changed the course of history utterly. Two years into the most terrible conflict the world had ever known, the warring powers faced a crisis. There were no good military options. Money, men, and supplies were running short on all sides. The German chancellor secretly sought President Woodrow Wilson's mediation to end the war, just as British ministers and France's president also concluded that the time was right. The Road Less Traveled describes how tantalizingly close these far-sighted statesmen came to ending the war, saving millions of lives, and avoiding the total war that dimmed hopes for a better world. Theirs was a secret battle that is only now becoming fully understood, a story of civic courage, awful responsibility, and how some leaders rose to the occasion while others shrank from it or chased other ambitions. "Peace is on the floor waiting to be picked up!" pleaded the German ambassador to the United States. This book explains both the strategies and fumbles of people facing a great crossroads of history. The Road Less Traveled reveals one of the last great mysteries of the Great War: that it simply never should have lasted so long or cost so much.

The definitive history of the British soldiers executed by their own Army during the First World War. Three hundred and fifty-one men were executed by British Army firing squads between September 1914 and November 1920. By far the greatest number, 266 were shot for desertion in the face of the enemy. The executions continue to haunt the history of the war, with talk today of shell shock and posthumous pardons. Using new material released from the Public Records Office and other sources, the authors reveal what really happened and place the story of these executions firmly in the context of the military, social and medical context of the period.

More than 400 photographs detail the American military experience in World War I on the ground, in the air, and at sea, from recruitment to the Armistice. This is the premier visual history of the United States in the Great War to be published during these centennial years. * Features not only the infamous Doughboys and Devil Dogs, but also flying aces, doctors and nurses, seamen, and the German enemy * Color photos of weapons and equipment, uniforms, insignia, medals, and posters * Richly informative text and captions by an expert on World War I and battlefield interpretation.

The Great War is still seen as a mostly European war. The Middle Eastern theater is, at best, considered a sideshow written from the western perspective. This book fills an important gap in the literature by giving an insight through annotated translations from five Ottoman memoirs, previously not available in English, of actors who witnessed the last few years of Turkish presence in the Arab lands. It provides the historical background to many of the crises in the Middle East today, such as the Arab-Israeli confrontation, the conflict-ridden emergence of Syria and Lebanon, the struggle over the holy places of Islam in the Hejaz, and the mutual prejudices of Arabs and Turks about each other.

This is a major new history of the British army during the Great War written by three leading military historians. Ian Beckett, Timothy Bowman and Mark Connelly survey operations on the Western Front and throughout the rest of the world as well as the army's social history, pre-war and wartime planning and strategy, the maintenance of discipline and morale and the lasting legacy of the First World War on the army's development. They assess the strengths and weaknesses of the army between 1914 and 1918, engaging with key debates around the adequacy of British generalship and whether or not there was a significant 'learning curve' in terms of the development of operational art during the course of the war. Their findings show how, despite limitations of initiative and innovation amongst the high command, the British army did succeed in developing the effective combined arms warfare necessary for victory in 1918.

Over 185,000 British military servicemen were captured by the Germans during the First World War and incarcerated as prisoners of war (POWs). In this original investigation into their experiences of captivity, Wilkinson uses official and private British source material to explore how these servicemen were challenged by, and responded to, their wartime fate. Examining the psychological anguish associated with captivity, and physical trials, such as the controlling camp spaces; harsh routines and regimes; the lack of material necessities; and, for many, forced labour demands, he asks if, how and with what effects British POWs were able to respond to such challenges. The culmination of this research reveals a range of coping strategies embracing resistance; leadership and organisation; networks of support; and links with 'home worlds'. British Prisoners of War in First World War Germany offers an original insight into First World War captivity, the German POW camps, and the mentalities and perceptions of the British servicemen held within.

From the Treaty of Versailles to the 2018 centenary and beyond, the history of the First World War has been continually written and rewritten, studied and contested, producing a rich historiography shaped by the social and cultural circumstances of its creation. Writing the Great War provides a groundbreaking survey of this vast body of work, assembling contributions on a variety of national and regional historiographies from some of the most prominent scholars in the field. By analyzing perceptions of the war in contexts ranging from Nazi Germany to India's struggle for independence, this is an illuminating collective study of the complex interplay of memory and history.

Empires, Soldiers, and Citizens 2/e offers a vivid range of eyewitness perspectives - from female munitions workers to Indian troops in France - which explore the social, cultural, and military dimensions of World War I. This second edition includes added material to reflect the very latest historical thinking. * Combines documents and themes that have proven successful in the first edition with new sources and topics that are currently at the forefront of historical debate and research * Now features 59 new documents which illustrate the imperial dimensions of the conflict and broaden the coverage of 'war culture' and developments in Eastern Europe * Documents have been included which pay particular attention to the experiences and perspectives of ordinary people, whose voices are often underrepresented in broad accounts * The bibliography has been expanded and completely updated, complemented by a new series of maps and illustrations

The motorised wheels of war begin to turn
In 1914 as the B. E. F was quickly hurried to the battle lines-by whatever means possible-British troops were amused to see familiar commercial vehicles trundle past, resplendent with their colourful advertisements for household products. The French civilian population was equally amused, bemused and occasionally confused by this incongruous sight. The Great War, with powered flying machines, submarines, motor transport and tanks, was the first major mechanised war. The invention of the internal combustion engine metamorphosed the waging of war. Motor transport could efficiently move both men and materials, the dispatch rider was no longer the glittering aide-de-camp but a drab, goggled corporal on a motorcycle, and weapons of destruction could be carried behind the steel plating of motorised armoured cars and tanks. This subject fascinates those interested in the history of modern warfare and to mark the centenary of the outbreak of the First World War in 1914, the Leonaur Editors have compiled this special three-in-one book about the Great War from the perspective of 'the motor.' The first title here is an excellent overview of the subject, accompanied by useful illustrations and diagrams, which covers each aspect of the motor at war. Next is a manufactures catalogue with detailed views and elevations of the very commercial vehicles that carried British troops to the front in 1914. The final piece is an extract about motor transport and armoured vehicles in the first decades of the 20th century. This is a useful reference guide for all military vehicle enthusiasts.
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.

2017 is the 100th anniversary of America's declaration of war against Germany. Many historians take a diminutive stance regarding America's involvement but it cannot be underestimated by any means. It was the reason that brought Germany to it is knees and forced them to accept an armistice that was a victory of sorts achieved over the German forces and their allies. There is global renewed interest in World War One. All the protagonists are long dead but many of their relatives are still with us. This volume will draw you into the whole experience from the home front to the hell of the trenches. These are the voices of those who were never heard but their suffering and their involvement was total and uncompromising, and now finally they can breathe again. They are not forgotten.

The year 1916 witnessed two events that would profoundly shape both politics and commemoration in Ireland over the course of the following century. Although the Easter Rising and the Battle of the Somme were important historical events in their own right, their significance also lay in how they came to be understood as iconic moments in the emergence of Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic. Adopting an interdisciplinary approach drawing on history, politics, anthropology and cultural studies, this volume explores how the memory of these two foundational events has been constructed, mythologised and revised over the course of the past century. The aim is not merely to understand how the Rising and the Somme came to exert a central place in how the past is viewed in Ireland, but to explore wider questions about the relationship between history, commemoration and memory.

Glasgow men on the Western Front
As every student of the Great War is aware, the escalating scale of the conflict on the Western Front required the formation of new battalions-a new citizen army formed to be equal to the size of the challenge. This is the unit history of one of them, The Seventeenth Highland Light Infantry (Glasgow Chamber of Commerce) Battalion. As its name suggests it was but one of many additional battalions raised in Scotland which would bear the name of an old regiment of the British Army in this case the 71st Foot, the HLI. Many of these battalions, particularly those raised in large urban centres, took on the character of their place and community of origin. This battalion's sister unit, the Sixteenth, for example was styled, 'The Glasgow Boy's Brigade' Battalion. The Glasgow men were dispatched to France and into the trenches with all its hardships, grinding routine and frequent raiding. The battalion served through the Battle of the Somme and went on the see action around Hulluch, Beaumont-Hamel and the Ypres Salient among others. This invaluable book also contains honours and award rolls making it invaluable for genealogists. Available in softcover and hard over with dust jacket.

The execution of British matron Edith Cavell by occupying German forces was portrayed by the allies as one of the key atrocities of the Great War. This book recovers and interprets the worldwide reaction to Cavell's death, exploring its contextual relationship within imperial and international history, as well women's history and gender history.