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Books > Humanities > History > World history > From 1900 > First World War
International contributors from the fields of political science,
cultural studies, history, and literature grapple with both the
local and global impact of World War I on marginal communities in
China, Syria, Europe, Russia, and the Caribbean. Readers can
uncover the neglected stories of this World War I as contributors
draw particular attention to features of the war that are
underrepresented such as Chinese contingent labor, East Prussian
deportees, remittances from Syrian immigrants in the New World to
struggling relatives in the Ottoman Empire, the war effort from
Serbia to Martinique, and other war experiences. By redirecting
focus away from the traditional areas of historical examination,
such as battles on the Western Front and military strategy, this
collection of chapters, international and interdisciplinary in
nature, illustrates the war's omnipresence throughout the world, in
particular its effect on less studied peoples and regions. The
primary objective of this volume is to examine World War I through
the lens of its forgotten participants, neglected stories, and
underrepresented peoples.
A classic text that has been updated across the chapters, giving
students a broad perspective on all the work done since the text
was originally written, as well as the original perspective. A new
introduction examines the topics and arguments that historians have
raised since the original text was written, explaining what is new
about them and their impact on the original text, giving students
the tools to anaylse the context of the new material. Includes a
new timeline, and fully updated further reading, providing extended
context for students reading the text.
The First World War's centenary generated a mass of commemorative
activity worldwide. Officially and unofficially; individually,
collectively and commercially; locally, nationally and
internationally, efforts were made to respond to the legacies of
this vast conflict. This book explores some of these responses from
areas previously tied to the British Empire, including Australia,
Britain, Canada, India and New Zealand. Showcasing insights from
historians of commemoration and heritage professionals it provides
revealing insider and outsider perspectives of the centenary. How
far did commemoration become celebration, and how merited were such
responses? To what extent did the centenary serve wider social and
political functions? Was it a time for new knowledge and
understanding of the events of a century ago, for recovery of lost
or marginalised voices, or for confirming existing cliches? And
what can be learned from the experience of this centenary that
might inform the approach to future commemorative activities? The
contributors to this book grapple with these questions, coming to
different answers and demonstrating the connections and
disconnections between those involved in building public knowledge
of the 'war to end all wars'.
The literary canon of World War I - celebrated for realizing the
experience of an entire generation - ignores writing by women. The
war brought home to women the sorrow of the loss of husbands,
lovers and relatives as well as more revolutionary knowledge gained
through the experience of working in munitions factories and as
ambulance drivers, police, nurses and spies. During all this time
women wrote - letters, poetry, novels, short stories and memoirs.
This volume of mutually reflective essays brings writing from
Britain, America, France, Germany, Australia and Russia into
literary focus.
The acclaimed British historian offers a majestic, single-volume
work incorporating all major fronts-domestic, diplomatic,
military-for "a stunning achievement of research and storytelling"
("Publishers Weekly")
It was to be the war to end all wars, and it began at 11:15 on the
morning of June 28, 1914, in an outpost of the Austro-Hungarian
Empire called Sarajevo. It would end officially almost five years
later. Unofficially, it has never ended: the horrors we live with
today were born in the First World War.
It left millions-civilians and soldiers-maimed or dead. And it left
us with new technologies of death: tanks, planes, and submarines;
reliable rapid-fire machine guns and field artillery; poison gas
and chemical warfare. It introduced us to U-boat packs and
strategic bombing, to unrestricted war on civilians and
mistreatment of prisoners. Most of all, it changed our world. In
its wake, empires toppled, monarchies fell, whole populations lost
their national identities as political systems, and geographic
boundaries were realigned. Instabilities were institutionalized,
enmities enshrined. And the social order shifted seismically.
Manners, mores, codes of behavior; literature and the arts;
education and class distinctions-all underwent a vast sea change.
And in all these ways, the twentieth century can be said to have
been born on the morning of June 28, 1914.
"One of the first books that anyone should read in beginning to
try to understand this war and this century."
-"The New York Times Book Review" (cover)
A war in the skies above the waves
As early as 1908 the Royal Navy understood the potential for the
use of aircraft in naval warfare. By 1914 the Royal Naval Air
Service consisted of 93 aircraft, 6 airships, 2 balloons and 727
personnel. By 1918 when the RNAS was combined with the RAF it had
nearly 3,000 aircraft and more than 55,000 personnel. Aircraft
working in concert with the Royal Navy and against enemy shipping
and coastal installations had come to stay. This interesting book
looks at the RNAS from a much more personal perspective-that of one
young navy pilot, Harold Rosher. The book tells the story of
Rosher's war, based around Dover and engaged in patrolling over and
across the English Channel and attacking enemy held coastal
defences such as Zeebrugge, principally through letters to his
family and provides vital insights into the First World War in the
air as experienced by an early naval pilot. Available in softcover
and hardcover with dust jacket
Many believe that World War I was only fought "over there," as the
popular 1917 song goes, in the trenches and muddy battlefields of
Northern France and Belgium - they are wrong. There was a secret
war fought in America; on remote railway bridges and waterways
linking the United States and Canada, aboard burning and exploding
ships in the Atlantic Ocean, in the smoldering ruins of America's
bombed and burned-out factories, munitions plants and railway
centers and waged in carefully disguised clandestine workshops
where improvised explosive devices and deadly toxins were designed
and manufactured. It was irregular warfare on a scale that caught
the United States woefully unprepared. This is the true story of
German secret agents engaged in a campaign of subversion and terror
on the American homeland before and during World War I.
In 1915, shortly after the outbreak of World War I, between twelve
hundred and two thousand women representing twelve nations
journeyed to The Netherlands to plead for peace at The Hague. At
this first International Congress of Women they called for
"continuous mediation" until peace was restored, and they met with
representatives of the warring governments in an idealistic attempt
to halt the military clash. Although they did not stop the war,
their proposals are still used as guidelines for most diplomatic
negotiations between hostile nations. Three highly talented,
progressive women led the American delegation: two Nobel Peace
Prize winners--Jane Addams (cofounder of Hull-House in Chicago) and
Emily G. Balch (a distinguished sociologist who taught at Wellesley
College)--as well as Alice Hamilton (the first industrial physician
in the United States and also the first woman to join the faculty
of Harvard University).This book is the first-hand report by these
three remarkable women of their mission for peace. Balch and
Hamilton devote several chapters to a description of their travels,
their visits with various heads of state, and meetings with
pacifists in different countries. In a controversial chapter,
Addams sharply criticizes the older male patriarchal leadership
that manipulates young men to fight needless wars. Addams concludes
the volume by advocating women's full participation as voting
citizens to promote the cause of peace and the spirit of
internationalism. This edition is enhanced by an introduction by
University of Nebraska scholar Mary Jo Deegan, this new edition of
a valuable historical document will be of interest to students of
women's studies, history, and international relations.
In a unique collection of international and interdisciplinary
research, this book focuses on commemorative events around the
world on the same day: 11 November 2018, the centenary of Armistice
Day, the end of the First World War. It argues that we need to move
beyond discourse, narrative and how historical events are
represented to fully understand what commemoration does, socially,
politically and culturally. Adopting an experiential reframing
treats sensory, affective and emotional feelings as fundamental to
how we collectively understand shared histories, and through them,
shared identities. The volume features 15 case studies from ten
countries, covering a variety of settings and national contexts
specific to the First World War. Together the chapters demonstrate
that a new conceptualisation of commemoration is needed: one that
attends to how it feels.
The Battle of the Somme as originally described by The Times war
correspondents is republished in this highly illustrated volume
from The Times Archive. Hundreds of original photographs,
illustrations, and maps are presented alongside a comprehensive
history of the battle, key events, people and places, reproduced
exactly as they were at the time. Relive the original intensity
through the detailed descriptions of the correspondents on the
ground and visualize the nature of the conditions illustrated by
the fascinating black and white original photographs. When war was
declared in August 1914 The Times under its chief editor, Wickham
Steed, embarked on an extraordinary project. As well as
authoritative daily war reports in the paper itself, a separate
weekly supplement would be produced, with 40 extra, illustrated
pages of in-depth analysis. The result was The Times History of the
War, collected into 22 massive volumes in 1921: 11,000 pages; 6
million words; thousands of photographs, graphics, illustrations
and maps. The pages detailing The Battle of the Somme have been
extracted from those volumes to produce a detailed history of the
bloody battle as told 100 years ago.
Nearly 100 years ago, on October 4, 1918, on a muddy, poison
gas-soaked hillside in France, the U.S. 26th Infantry Regiment
jumped-off amidst a hail of shell fire and machine-gun fire to
begin the final push to end World War I. For the next 39 days, with
little respite, the regiment fought desperately against a
determined, well-armed foe. This is the story of a single regiment
in a successful, highly acclaimed "Regular Army" division, during
the greatest American battle to date. This is not a dry recitation
of facts, but an in-depth examination of a single regiment that
allows the reader to appreciate the intricacies of small-unit
action and the problems associated with leading platoons,
companies, and battalions in battle during the Great War, while at
the same time depicting the human drama associated with the
terrible carnage
This set of essays introduces readers to new historical research on
the creation of the new order in East-Central Europe in the period
immediately following 1918. The book offers insights into the
political, diplomatic, military, economic and cultural conditions
out of which the New Europe was born. Experts from various
countries take into account three perspectives. They give equal
attention to both the Western and Eastern fronts; they recognise
that on 11 November 1918, the War ended only on the Western front
and violence continued in multiple forms over the next five years;
and they show how state-building after 1918 in Central and Eastern
Europe was marked by a mixture of innovation and instability. Thus,
the volume focuses on three kinds of narratives: those related to
conflicts and violence, those related to the recasting of civil
life in new structures and institutions, and those related to
remembrance and representations of these years in the public
sphere. Taking a step towards writing a fully European history of
the Great War and its aftermath, the volume offers an original
approach to this decisive period in 20th-century European history.
Chaplain G.A. Studdert Kennedy has been described as the most
popular British chaplain of the First World War. Widely known as
"Woodbine Willie" for the cigarettes he distributed to the troops,
his wartime poetry and prose communicated the challenges, hardships
and hopes of the soldiers he served. As a chaplain, he was subject
to the same hardships as his soldiers. This book analyses his
experiences through the contemporary understanding of
psychological, moral and spiritual impact of war on its survivors
and suggests that the chaplain suffered from Combat Stress, Moral
Injury, and Spiritual Injury. Through the analysis of his wartime
and postwar publications, the author illustrates the continuing
impact of war on the life of a veteran of the Great War.
This book examines British responses to genocide and atrocity in
the Ottoman Empire during the aftermath of World War I. The authors
analyze British humanitarianism and humanitarian intervention
through the advice and policies of the Foreign Office and British
government in London and the actions of Foreign Officers in the
field. British understandings of humanitarianism at the time
revolved around three key elements: good government, atrocity, and
the refugee crises; this ideology of humanitarianism, however, was
challenged by disputed policies of post-war politics and goals
regarding the Near East. This resulted in limited intervention
methods available to those on the ground but did not necessarily
result in the forfeiture of the belief in humanitarianism amongst
the local British officials charged with upholding it. This study
shows that the tension between altruism and political gain weakened
British power in the region, influencing the continuation of
violence and repression long after the date most perceive as the
cessation of WWI. The book is primarily aimed at scholars and
researchers within the field; it is a research monograph and will
be of greatest interest to scholars of genocide, British history,
and refugee studies, as well as for activists and practitioners.
The book is a sociocultural microhistory of migrants. From the
1880s to the 1930s, it traces the lives of the occupants of a
housing complex located just north of the French capital, in the
heart of the Plaine-Saint-Denis. Starting in the 1870s, that
industrial suburb became a magnet for working-class migrants of
diverse origins, from within France and abroad. The author examines
how the inhabitants of that particular place identified themselves
and others. The study looks at the role played, in the construction
of social difference, by interpersonal contacts, institutional
interactions and migration. The objective of the book is to carry
out an original experiment: applying microhistorical methods to the
history of modern migrations. Beyond its own material history, the
tenement is an observation point: it was deliberately selected for
its high degree of demographic diversity, which contrasts with the
typical objects of the traditional, ethnicity-based scholarship on
migration. The micro lens allows for the reconstruction of the
itineraries, interactions, and representations of the tenement's
occupants, in both their singularity and their structural context.
Through its many individual stories, the book restores a degree of
complexity that is often overlooked by historical accounts at
broader levels.
Why did Asquith take Britain to war in 1914? What did educated
young men believe their role should be? What was it like to fly
over the Somme battlefield? How could a trench on the front line be
'the safest place'? These compelling eye-witness accounts convey
what it was really like to experience the first two years of the
war up until the fall of Asquith's government, without the benefit
of hindsight or the accumulated wisdom of a hundred years of
discussion and writing. Using the rich manuscript resources of the
Bodleian Libraries, the book features key extracts from letters and
diaries of members of the Cabinet, academic and literary figures,
student soldiers and a village rector. The letters of politicians
reveal the strain of war leadership and throw light on the downfall
of Asquith in 1916, while the experiences of the young Harold
Macmillan in the trenches, vividly described in letters home,
marked the beginning of his road to Downing Street. It was
forbidden to record Cabinet discussions, but Lewis Harcourt's
unauthorised diary provides a window on Asquith's government,
complete with character sketches of some of the leading players,
including Winston Churchill. Meanwhile, in one Essex village, the
local rector compiled a diary to record the impact of war on his
community. These fascinating contemporary papers paint a highly
personal and immediate picture of the war as it happened. Fear,
anger, death and sorrow are always present, but so too are
idealism, excitement, humour, boredom and even beauty.
The author charts the growth of the German community in Britain and
dramatically details the story of its destruction under the
intolerance which gripped the country during World War I.
At the outbreak of World War I, Lieutenant Colonel Paul Emil von
Lettow-Vorbeck, commander of Germany's East African Colony, planned
to divert British troops from Europe to East Africa. Knowing he
could not defeat them in pitched battle, he led a small force-never
more than 15,000 men-familiar with bush-fighting and the harsh
environment, on raids into British territory. A gifted tactician,
von Lettow-Vorbeck attacked only when odds were in his favor, then
fought defensive withdrawals into the Colony, maintaining short
lines of supply while drawing the enemy deeper into hostile
territory. The British and their allies committed 160,000 troops in
East Africa. He led them in a game of "catch me if you can,"
punishing them for every mistake. Promoted to major-general by the
Kaiser in 1917, von Lettow-Vorbeck led the only undefeated German
force to surrender to the Allies, well after the end of hostilities
in Europe. This history follows what began as a campaign of
conquest and devolved into a hunt for a single general and his
small, loyal command.
Athanasios Souliotis-Nikolaidis (1878-1945) was a Greek military
officer, undercover agent, author, and politician who is not as
well known in Greece today as he should be. Inasmuch as he is
remembered at all today, Souliotis-Nikolaidis is associated with
the much better-known Ion Dragoumis with whom he was connected with
bonds of friendship and ideology. In this work the author examines
the subject's role and contribution to Greece's irredentist
activities of the early 20th century and answers some key
questions. What were Souliotis-Nikolaidis's achievements as an
undercover agent in Ottoman Macedonia? What was his
behind-the-scenes role in the early elections of the Ottoman Empire
following the Young Turk Revolt? What was his relationship with
important individuals and organizations of the Greek Diaspora? What
was his contribution to the unique idea about the future of Greeks
and Turks in a unified federal state? In this work the author
reveals that Souliotis-Nikolaidis, far from being a minor player in
Greek irredentism was an important actor whose many contributions
deserve recognition.
From the moment the German army moved quietly into Luxemburg on 2
August 1914, to the Armistice on 11 November 1918, the fighting on
the Western Front in France and Flanders never stopped. There were
quiet periods, just as there were the most intense, savage,
huge-scale battles. The war on the Western Front can be thought of
as being in three phases: first, a war of movement as Germany
attacked France and the Allies sought to halt it; second, the
lengthy and terribly costly siege warfare as the entrenched lines
proved impossible to crack (late 1914 to mid-1918); and finally a
return to mobile warfare as the Allies applied lessons and
technologies forged in the previous years. As with previous wars,
British Commanders-in-Chief of a theatre of war or campaign were
obliged to report their activities and achievements to the War
Office in the form of a despatch and those written from the Western
Front provide a fascinating, detailed and compelling overview of
this part of the First World War. This volume concludes with Field
Marshal Sir Douglas Haig's fascinating despatch, originally
published in 1919, on the execution of the fighting on the Western
Front.
For Home and Empire is the first book to compare voluntary wartime
mobilization on the Australian, Canadian, and New Zealand home
fronts. Steve Marti shows that collective acts of patriotism
strengthened communal bonds, while reinforcing class, race, and
gender boundaries. Which jurisdiction should provide for a
soldier's wife if she moved from Hobart to northern Tasmania?
Should Welsh women in Vancouver purchase comforts for hometown
soldiers or Welsh ones? Should Maori enlist with a local or an
Indigenous battalion? Such questions highlighted the diverging
interests of local communities, the dominion governments, and the
Empire. Marti applies a settler colonial framework to reveal the
geographical and social divides that separated communities as they
organized for war.
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