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Books > History > World history > From 1900 > First World War
This beautifully illustrated book provides information on the air
arms of the nations which took part in aerial warfare during the
First World War featuring the Aces and their mounts. The war was a
global conflict with 57 nations involved, but with aviation being
in its infancy only eight nations had a major air arm to their
fighting Services. The Allies: Britain, America, Italy, Belgium,
France, and Russia and then the Central Powers comprising Germany
and Austria-Hungary. This book is not intended to be comprehensive,
for to provide such a work would require many volumes totalling
thousands of pages. Instead this should be viewed as a relatively
detailed overview; a general introduction to the topic of military
aviation in the First World War. The aim has been to produce a
well-illustrated book to maintain the interest of the reader with
some short biographies of the leading Aces and basic information on
the aircraft types used, and their development during the First
World War. Furthermore, this book focuses on the air arms initially
developed by the respective armies, and therefore the air arms of
the navies, although fleetingly touched upon, are not dealt with in
much detail. To provide reasonable coverage for the Royal Naval Air
Service alone would require a separate and substantial additional
volume. In a similar manner, although Zeppelins, other airships and
balloons are mentioned and illustrated, little detail is given. The
book contains details of the top Aces for each nation and in
extensive illustration sections provides an extensive summary of
the aircraft flown. While much of the focus is on the Aces, the
book provides information on the aircraft flown and also has a
separate illustrated section on Manfred von Richthofen and his
'flying circus'.
Afterlives documents the lives and historical pursuits of the
generations who grew up in Australia, Britain and Germany after the
First World War. Although they were not direct witnesses to the
conflict, they experienced its effects from their earliest years.
Based on ninety oral history interviews and observation during the
First World War Centenary, this pioneering study reveals the
contribution of descendants to the contemporary memory of the First
World War, and the intimate personal legacies of the conflict that
animate their history-making. -- .
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.
Writers at War addresses the most immediate representations of the
First World War in the prose of Ford Madox Ford, May Sinclair,
Siegfried Sassoon and Mary Borden; it interrogates the various ways
in which these writers contended with conveying their war
experience from the temporal and spatial proximity of the warzone
and investigates the multifarious impact of the war on the
(re)development of their aesthetics. It also interrogates to what
extent these texts aligned with or challenged existing social,
cultural, philosophical and aesthetic norms. While this book is
concerned with literary technique, the rich existing scholarship on
questions of gender, trauma and cultural studies on World War I
literature serves as a foundation. This book does not oppose these
perspectives but offers a complementary approach based on close
critical reading. The distinctiveness of this study stems from its
focus on the question of representation and form and on the
specific role of the war in the four authors' literary careers.
This is the first scholarly work concerned exclusively with
theorising prose written from the immediacy of the war. This book
is intended for academics, researchers, PhD candidates,
postgraduates and anyone interested in war literature.
Different international relations theorists have studied political
change, but all fall short of sufficiently integrating human
reactions, feelings, and responses to change in their theories.
This book adds a social psychological component to the analysis of
why nations, politically organized groups, or states enter into
armed conflict. The Disequilibrium, Polarization, and Crisis Model
is introduced, which draws from prospect theory, realism,
liberalism, and constructivism. The theory considers how humans
react and respond to change in their social, political, and
economic environment. Three case studies, the U.S. Civil War, the
Yugoslav Wars (1991-1995), and the First World War are applied to
illustrate the model s six process stages: status quo, change
creating shifts that lead to disequilibrium, realization of loss,
hanging on to the old status quo, emergence of a rigid system, and
risky decisions leading to violence and war.
This is the first scientific biography of Milan Rastislav Stefanik
(1880-1919) that is focused on analysing the process of how he
became the Slovak national hero. Although he is relatively unknown
internationally, his contemporaries compared him "to Choderlos de
Laclos for the use of military tactics in love affairs, to Lawrence
of Arabia for vision, to Bonaparte for ambition ... and to one of
apostles for conviction". He played the key role in founding an
independent Czechoslovakia in 1918 through his relentless worldwide
travels during the First World War in order to create the
Czechoslovak Army: he visited Serbia and Romania on the eve of
invasion by the Central Powers, Russia before the February
revolution, the United States after it declared war on Germany,
Italy dealing with the consequences of defeat in the Caporetto
battle, and again when Russia plunged into Civil War. Several
historical methods are used to analyse the aforementioned central
research question of this biography such as social capital to
explain his rise in French society, the charismatic leader to
understand how he convinced and won over a relatively large number
of people; more traditional political, military, and diplomatic
history to show his contribution to the founding of Czechoslovakia,
and memory studies to analyse his extraordinary popularity in
Slovakia. By mapping his intriguing life, the book will be of
interest to scholars in a broad range of areas including history of
Central Europe, especially Czechoslovakia, international relations,
social history, French society at the beginning of the 20th century
and biographical research.
During the last two centuries, ethnolinguistic nationalism has been
the norm of nation building and state building in Central Europe.
The number of recognized Slavic languages (in line with the
normative political formula of language = nation = state) gradually
tallied with the number of the Slavic nation-states, especially
after the breakups of Czechoslovakia, the Soviet Union and
Yugoslavia. But in the current age of borderless cyberspace,
regional and minority Slavic languages are freely standardized and
used, even when state authorities disapprove. As a result, since
the turn of the 19th century, the number of Slavic languages has
varied widely, from a single Slavic language to as many as 40.
Through the story of Slavic languages, this timely book illustrates
that decisions on what counts as a language are neither permanent
nor stable, arguing that the politics of language is the politics
in Central Europe. The monograph will prove to be an essential
resource for scholars of linguistics and politics in Central
Europe.
This is a detailed study of some 150 unpublished and
never-before-seen images of soldiers of the American Expeditionary
Force (AEF) and the Army of Occupation taken in France and Germany
during and after World War I. As opposed to the stateside
training-camp photos and formal portraits taken on return to the
USA, this is an in-depth look at what the AEF looked like as they
were actively engaged in the business of making the world safe for
democracy. These images cover every rank and grade of soldier in
the AEF from General Pershing to fresh-faced privates, and every
occupational specialty from infantryman to cook. Details of
uniforms and equipment, locations, times, and places have been
painstakingly researched for each image.
The outbreak of the First World War saw an upsurge of patriotism.
The Church generally saw the war as justified, and many clergy
encouraged the men in their congregations to join the army. There
was, however, already a strong strand of anti-war sentiment,
opposed to the dominant theology of the Establishment. This was
partly based on traditional Christian pacifism, but included other
religious, social and political influences. Campaigners and
conscientious objectors voiced a growing concern about the huge
human cost of a conflict seemingly endlessly bogged down in the mud
of the Flanders poppy fields. 'Subversive Peacemakers' recounts the
stories of a strong and increasingly organised opposition to war,
from peace groups to poets, from preachers to politicians, from
women to working men, all of whom struggled to secure peace in a
militarised and fragmenting society. Clive Barrett demonstrates
that the Church of England provided an unlikely setting for much of
this war resistance. Barrett masterfully narrates the story of the
peace movement, bringing together stories of war-resistance until
now lost, disregarded or undervalued. The people involved, as well
as the dramatic events of the conflict themselves, are seen in a
new light.
First World War-based ex-servicemen's organisations found
themselves facing an existential crisis with the onset of the
Second World War. This book examines how two such groups, the
British and American Legions, adapted cognitively to the emergence
of yet another world war and its veterans in the years 1938 through
1946. With collective identities and socio-political programmes
based in First World War memory, both Legions renegotiated existing
narratives of that war and the lessons they derived from those
narratives as they responded to the unfolding Second World War in
real time. Using the previous war as a "learning experience" for
the new one privileged certain understandings of that conflict over
others, inflecting its meaning for each Legion moving forward.
Breaking the Second World War down into its constituent events to
trace the evolution of First World War memory through everyday
invocations, this unprecedented comparison of the British and
American Legions illuminates the ways in which differing
international, national, and organisational contexts intersected to
shape this process as well as the common factors affecting it in
both groups. The book will appeal most to researchers of the
ex-service movement, First World War memory, and the cultural
history of the Second World War.
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.
Australia, Wilkommen (1990) documents the rich and varying
contribution made by Germans in Australia. Originally welcomed as
hardy pioneers, German settlers were responsible for discovering
and opening up vast tracts of land. German scientists and
entrepreneurs played a large role in the Australian economy. But as
the German empire expanded into the Pacific, and Britain and
Australia were drawn into two world wars, perceptions of Germany
and its people changed and immigrants were caught in the crossfire
between the old and new worlds. This book examines these issues
surrounding German immigration into Australia, and the shifting
perceptions of both the immigrants and the nation itself.
On a summer's day on the Somme in 1916, one brave battalion lost
half its men to enemy fire in an hour. What went wrong? Martha
Kearey dressed in black for the rest of her life in memory of the
four sons she lost on that day in the First World War, proudly
wearing each of their medals in turn on Sundays. Nearly a century
on, her grandson Terence has set out to do justice to the memory of
his uncles and their colleagues with a full account of the role of
their Battalion, the Kensingtons, on the Somme in the summer of
1916. The Kensingtons, guardians of the right flank on the
battlefront at Gommecourt, were ordered to march on the enemy
without proper preparation in a move later condemned as foolhardy
and suicidal. That summer's day, cut to pieces by enemy artillery,
they lost half their men in less than an hour. Kearey sets out a
candid account of the action, examining why this tragic and
unnecessary slaughter was allowed to happen.
All the guns examined in this new paperback edition of Machine Guns
of World War 1 belong to the class known as "automatic" and seven
classic World War 1 weapons are illustrated in some 250 color
photographs. Detailed sequences shows them in close-up: during
step-by-step field stripping, and during handling, loading and live
firing trials with ball ammunition, by gunners wearing period
uniforms to put these historic guns in their visual context. These
fascinating photographs are accompanied by concise, illustrated
accounts of each weapon's historical and technical background. The
reader will learn exactly what it looked like, sounded like and
felt like to crew the German, British and French machine guns which
dominated the battlefields of the Western Front in 1914-18, and
which changed infantry tactics forever.
Virginia played an important role during World War I, supplying the
Allied forces with food, horses and steel in 1915 and 1916. After
America entered the war in 1917, Virginians served in numerous
military and civilian roles-Red Cross nurses, sailors,
shipbuilders, pilots, stenographers and domestic gardeners. More
than 100,000 were drafted-more than 3600 lost their lives. Almost
every city and county lost men and women to the war. The author
details the state's manifold contributions to the war effort and
presents a study of monuments erected after the war.
Historical research into the Armenian Genocide has grown
tremendously in recent years, but much of it has focused on
large-scale questions related to Ottoman policy or the scope of the
killing. Consequently, surprisingly little is known about the
actual experiences of the genocide's victims. Daily Life in the
Abyss illuminates this aspect through the intertwined stories of
two Armenian families who endured forced relocation and deprivation
in and around modern-day Syria. Through analysis of diaries and
other source material, it reconstructs the rhythms of daily life
within an often bleak and hostile environment, in the face of a
gradually disintegrating social fabric.
This book examines the history of Herbert Hoover's Commission for
Relief in Belgium, which supplied humanitarian aid to the millions
of civilians trapped behind German lines in Belgium and Northern
France during World War I. Here, Clotilde Druelle focuses on the
little-known work of the CRB in Northern France, crossing
continents and excavating neglected archives to tell the story of
daily life under Allied blockade in the region. She shows how the
survival of 2.3 million French civilians came to depend upon the
transnational mobilization of a new sort of diplomatic actor-the
non-governmental organization. Lacking formal authority, the
leaders of the CRB claimed moral authority, introducing the
concepts of a "humanitarian food emergency" and "humanitarian
corridors" and ushering in a new age of international relations and
American hegemony.
America's Arab Nationalists focuses in on the relationship between
Arab nationalists and Americans in the struggle for independence in
an era when idealistic Americans could see the Arab nationalist
struggle as an expression of their own values. In the first three
decades of the twentieth century (from the 1908 Ottoman revolution
to the rise of Hitler), important and influential Americans,
including members of the small Arab-American community,
intellectually, politically and financially participated in the
construction of Arab nationalism. This book tells the story of a
diverse group of people whose contributions are largely unknown to
the American public. The role Americans played in the development
of Arab nationalism has been largely unexplored by historians,
making this an important and original contribution to scholarship.
This volume is of great interest to students and academics in the
field, though the narrative style is accessible to anoyone
interested in Arab nationalism, the conflict between Zionists and
Palestinians, and the United States' relationship with the Arab
world.
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.
World War I was a global cataclysm that toppled centuries-old
dynasties and launched ""the American century."" Yet at the outset
few Americans saw any reason to get involved in yet another
conflict among the crowned heads of Europe. Despite its declared
neutrality, the U.S. government gradually became more sympathetic
with the Allies, until President Woodrow Wilson asked Congress to
declare war on Germany to ""make the world safe for democracy." Key
to this shift in policy and public opinion was
""Anglo-Saxonism""-the belief that the English-speaking peoples
were inherently superior and fit for world leadership. Just before
the war, British and American elites set aside former disputes and
recognized their potential for dominating the international stage.
By casting Germans as "barbarians" and spreading stories of
atrocities, the Wilson administration persuaded the
public-including millions of German Americans-that siding with the
Allies was a just cause.
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