On the 25th August 1895, Ernest Alfred Hall was born into a pioneering Australian family that lived on a 313-acre property called 'Cloverdale' near the hamlet of Beech Forest, south of the Otway Ranges, some 200 kilometres south west of Melbourne, Victoria. As a child, it seemed he would be destined for the life of a farmer in a country that was just realising its independence through Federation, yet his path was to be diverted by the cataclysmic events that befell Europe and the British Empire. So it was, that one month short of his 20th birthday, Ernest caught the train to Melbourne and enlisted in the Australian Imperial Force. At only 5' 3" he was never going to be the biggest soldier in the army, but as his father said to him, "It's not the size of the dog in the fight, son, but the size of the fight in the dog." Like so many, Ernest Hall embarked for the war to end all wars. Unlike so many, his letters and records survived. This is his story.

The First World War appears as a fault line in Britain 's twentieth-century history. Between August 1914 and November 1918 the titanic struggle against Imperial Germany and her allies consumed more people, more money and more resources than any other conflict Britain had hitherto experienced. For the first time, it opened up a Home Front that stretched into all parts of the British polity, society and culture, touching the lives of every citizen regardless of age, gender and class. Even vegetables were grown in the gardens of Buckingham Palace.

Britain and World War One throws attention on these civilians who fought the war on the Home Front. Harnessing recent scholarship, and drawing on original documents, oral testimony and historical texts, this book casts a fresh look over different aspects of British society during the four long years of war. It revisits the early war enthusiasm and the making of Kitchener 's new armies; the emotive debates over conscription; the relationships between politics, government and popular opinion; women working in wartime industries; the popular experience of war and the question of social change.

The book also explores areas of wartime Britain overlooked by recent histories, including the impact of the war on rural society; the mobilization of industry, and the importance of technology, as well as exploring responses to air raids, food and housing shortages; the challenges to traditional social and sexual mores and wartime culture. Britain and World War One is an essential book for all students and interested lay readers of the First World War.

This book examines the British soldiers on the Western Front and how they responded to the war landscape they encountered behind the lines and at the front. Using a multidisciplinary perspective, this study investigates the relationship between soldiers and the spaces and materials of the warzone, analyzing how soldiers constructed a 'sense of place' in the hostile, unpredictable environment. Drawing upon recent developments within First World War Studies and the anthropological examination of the fields of conflict, an ethnohistorical perspective of the soldiers is built which details the various ways soldiers responded to the physical and material world of the Western Front. This study is also grounded in the wider debates on how the First World War is remembered within Britain and offers an alternative perspective on the individuals who fought in the world's first global conflagration nearly a century ago.

Cautious Crusade explores how Americans viewed Nazi Germany during World War II, the extent to which the public opposed the president's vision for planning both Germany's defeat and future, and how opinion and policy interacted as the Roosevelt administration grappled with various aspects of the German problem during this period.

Germany in the Great War Illustrated - Mobilisation and the Western Advance is the first volume of a projected six-part series that details, graphically, the Central Powers - Germany and Austro-Hungary - fighting to the west during the concluding months of 1914. This superbly illustrated and highly researched book covers the schema of a 'quick victory' on the WestFront (Western Front). From preparatory build-up, to mobilisation and to subsequent annexation and occupation, (90 per cent of northern France and the Kingdom of Belgium), this title manifest the 'German' perspective - a pictorial digest. Evincing German offense against the BEF (British Expeditionary Force), French and Belgium armies at the Battle of Mons, heralding the mass exodus of British troops from region, the siege of Antwerp and the breakthrough toward Paris. Each successive chapter includes a short, introductory narrative, documenting holistically events and is accompanied by a wealth of fully captioned and rarely before seen photographs: over 500 images.

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.

The central focus of this book is the traumatized German war veteran. Using previously unexplored source material written by the psychologically scarred veterans themselves, this innovative work traces how some of the most vulnerable members of society, marginalized and persecuted as 'enemies of the nation,' attempted to regain authority over their own minds and reclaim the authentic memory of the Great War Under Weimar Germany and the Third Reich, the mentally disabled survivor of the trenches became a focus of debate between competing social and political groups, each attempting to construct their own versions of the national community and the memory of the war experience. Views on class, war, masculinity and social deviance were shaped and in some cases altered by the popularised debates that surrounded these traumatized members of society. Through the tortured words of these men and women, Jason Crouthamel reveals a hidden layer of protest against prevailing institutions and official memory, especially the Nazi celebration of war as the cornerstone of the 'healthy' male psyche. He also shows how these 'social outsiders' attempted to reform healthcare and reconstruct notions of 'comradeship', 'manliness' and the national community in ways that complicate the history of the veteran in this highly militarised society. By examining the psychological effects of war on ordinary Germans and the way these war victims have shaped perceptions of madness and mass violence, Crouthamel is able to illuminate potent and universal problems faced by societies coping with war and the politics of how we care for our veterans.

For much of the later nineteenth-century Britain regarded Russia as its main international rival, particularly as regarded the security of its colonial possessions in India. Yet, by 1907 Russia's political revolution, financial collapse and military defeat by Japan, transformed the situation, resulting in an Anglo-Russian rapprochement. As this book makes clear, whilst international affairs lay at the root of this new relationship, personal factors also played an important role in reversing many years of mutual animosity and suspicion. In particular the study explores the influence of the liberal anglophile Count Aleksandr Benckendorff, the Russian ambassador in London between 1903 and 1916. By 1905, Russia's multiple weaknesses required a prolonged period of external peace by eliminating frictions with the principal rival powers, Britain and Germany, while France and Britain realised that a British rapprochement with Russia would be necessary to counter Germany's power. Benckendorff, as one of the most important figures in the Russian diplomatic service, persuaded Nicholas II and his Foreign Minister, V.N. Lamsdorff, to drop their objections to various long-standing British demands in order to pave the way for a Triple Entente. Although the overarching Russian strategy was conceived as 'balancing' the imperial rivalries of Britain and Germany, numerous factors - not least Benckendorff's energetic pro-British stance - upset the scales and resulted in a stand-off with the Central Powers. Demonstrating how Benckendorff's fear of losing Britain's friendship made him oppose all Russia's efforts at improving Russo-German relations, this book underlines the pro-Entente policy's role in setting Russia on the road to war. For when the Sarajevo crisis struck; there was now no hope of appealing to German goodwill to help defuse the situation. Instead Russia's status within the Entente depended on a show of determination and strength, which lead inexorably to a disaster o

In forming the Royal Air Force on 1 April 1918, Britain created the world's first independent air service. Britain entered the First World War with less than 200 ill-assorted flying machines divided between the army and the navy, but by the end of the war the RAF mustered almost 300,000 personnel and 22, 000 aircraft. Originally published in 1986, more than 65 years after the event, the decision to form the RAF remained poorly understood and Malcolm Cooper presented the first detailed modern analysis of its creation, shedding new light on the process by which Britain entered the air age. Set against the background of the build-up of air power during the First World War, the book explains how deepening political concern at failures in home air defence, public demands for retaliatory air action against Germany, problems of mobilization and expansion in the aircraft industry, and disagreements between the existing army and navy air services combined to create the conditions for an independent air force. The author argues that the pressures of war were insufficient to give real substance to the RAF's independence and that its failure to escape from its wartime role as an ancillary service was also of crucial significance in the evolution of British air strategy in later years. Based on an extensive study of official documents and private papers and amply illustrated with contemporary photographs, this title will prove invaluable in understanding both strategic thinking in the Great War and the early development of a form of warfare which dominated military and naval operations in the twentieth century.

A fascinating, beautifully illustrated study of the daring war in East Africa waged by German colonial forces under Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck against the wide array of colonial and expeditionary forces of the Allied Powers. The East African Campaign in World War I comprised a series of battles and guerrilla actions which began in German East Africa in 1914 and spread to portions of Portuguese Mozambique, northern Rhodesia, British East Africa, the Uganda Protectorate, and the Belgian Congo. German colonial forces under Lieutenant-Colonel Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck attempt to divert Allied forces from the Western Front. Despite the efforts of the Allied forces, Lettow-Vorbeck's troops remained undefeated at the end of the war. In this fascinating work, David Smith documents how a wide array of British, Indian, South African, Belgian, Portuguese and local native forces invaded German East Africa and slowly ousted the German forces, a process made tortuous by Lettow-Vorbeck's masterful management of the campaign. Among the events covered in this work are the Battle of Tanga, the scuttling of the Koenigsberg, the German railway campaign, and the battles at Salaita Hill, Kondoa-Irangi, Mahenge, Mahiwa and Namacurra. Colourful period and specially commissioned illustrations bring to life a wide-ranging and eventful campaign in which a high price was extracted for every inch of ground given up.

The World Crisis is considered by many to be Winston S. Churchill's literary masterpiece. Published across five volumes between 1923 and 1931, Churchill here tells the story of The Great War, from its origins to the long shadow it cast on the following decades. At once a history and a first-hand account of Churchill's own involvement in the war, The World Crisis remains a compelling account of the conflict and its importance. Volume I covers the origins and earliest days of the war from 1911-1914, as well as the longer history of the collapse of the Great Power system from the Franco Prussian war onwards. Churchill here explores the international tensions over the Balkan states that triggered the conflict as well as the arms race between the British and German navies.

Originally published in 1957, the original blurb reads: 'From these studies of the secret diplomacy surrounding the entry of Turkey and Italy into the First World War, emerges a picture of the complex machinery behind the obvious wheels of international politics. The activities of statesmen and diplomats are related to the ramifications of big business, banks, oil and armament companies. The story of each move and counter-move, told mostly in the actors' own words and with many quotations from actual memoranda and dispatches, is based on sources which are quite new. The Russian collections of confidential correspondence, which include foreign diplomatic dispatches intercepted and deciphered in Russia, and the latest Documenti Diplomatici Italiani are practically unknown to the British public. This material has been integrated with that taken from all the available collections of British, French, German, Austro-Hungarian and American diplomatic documents, official publications, contemporary periodicals and economic and financial data, and such mines of information as the diaries, recollections and private letters of those involved. This unusual combination of source material allows some general conclusions to be drawn as to the laws and logic of the diplomacy of power politics. The most striking fact, perhaps, is the diplomatic war among allies. The book brings out the deep-seated conflicts of interests in the German-Austro-Hungarian coalition, and those dividing Britain, France, Russia and Italy in the Near East, the Balkans and the Mediterranean. Another point of special interest is the inter-group and party struggle inside the countries for or against war; and another is the genesis of some of the fateful Secret Treaties which bedevilled the peace settlements of 1919-20.' Today it can be read and enjoyed in its historical context.

Australia's War, 1914-18 explores Australia's involvement in the First World War and the effect this had on the nation' s society. In this very accessible book, Joan Beaumont, Pam Maclean, Marnie Haig-Muir and David Lowe focus on: where Australians fought and why; the tensions and realignments within Australian politics in the period of 1914-18; the stresses of the war on Australian society, especially on women and those whom wartime hysteria cast in the role of the 'enemy' at home; the impact of the war on the country's economy; the role played by Australia in international diplomacy; and finally, the creation and influence of the Anzac legend. Once dominated by the battlefield and official accounts of the war correspondent and official historian, C.E.W. Bean, Australian writing on the war has acquired a new depth and sophistication. Studies of the home front reveal a society riven by divisions without precedent in the nation's history. This single volume will be invaluable to tertiary students and of enormous interest to the reader concerned with the social, political and military history of Australia.

The First World War was a watershed in global history. Both terrible and terrifying, it shredded the social order and ushered in a bleak new world. Inevitably, the war led to major advances in military strategy and tactics that were reflected in the weapons used on the battlefield. This book offers an extended introduction to the arms and armour of the Great War, with particular focus on iconic weapons such as the Maxim machine gun. It is a unique insight into the material culture that not only enabled the horrors of the Somme, Passchendaele and Gallipoli but also provided the means to bring peace in 1918.

Following the career of one relatively unknown First World War general, Lord Horne, this book adds to the growing literature that challenges long-held assumptions that the First World War was a senseless bloodbath conducted by unimaginative and incompetent generals. Instead it demonstrates that men like Horne developed new tactics and techniques to deal with the novel problems of trench warfare and in so doing seeks to re-establish the image of the British generals and explain the reasons for the failures of 1915-16 and the successes of 1917-18 and how this remarkable change in performance was achieved by a much maligned group of senior officers. Horne's important career and remarkable character sheds light not only on the major battles in which he was involved; the progress of the war; his relationships with his staff and other senior officers; the novel problems of trench warfare; the assimilation of new weapons, tactics and training methods; and the difficulties posed by the German defences, but also on the attitudes and professionalism of a senior British commander serving on the Western Front. Horne's career thus provides a vehicle for studying the performance of the British Army in the first quarter of the Twentieth Century. It also gives an important insight into the attitudes, ethos and professionalism of the officer corps which led that army to victory on the Western Front, exposing not only its flaws but also its many strengths. This study consequently provides a judgment not only on Horne as a personality, innovator and general of great importance but also on his contemporaries who served with the British Armies in South Africa and France during an era which saw a revolution in military affairs giving birth to a Modern Style of Warfare which still prevails to this day.

For seventy years Douglas Haig had been portrayed on the one hand as the 'Butcher of the Somme' - inept, insensitive and archaic; and on the other as the 'Saviour of Britain' - noble, unselfish and heroic. This polarised, strident and ultimately inconclusive argument had resulted in Haig becoming detached from his own persona; he had become a shallow symbol of a past age to be pilloried or praised. The middle ground in the Haig debate had been as barren as No Man's Land. There should be no mystery about Haig. Certain from a very early age of his own greatness, he preserved every record of his achievements: diaries, letters, official reports etc. The opinions of his contemporaries are likewise readily available. But until this book the material had not been used to construct a complete and accurate picture. Critics and supporters have raided the historical records for evidence of the demi-god or demon and have ignored that which conflicts with their preconceptions. They have likewise raced through his early life in order to get to the war, in the process ignoring the complex process of his development as a soldier. Analyses of Haig's command have consequently been as shallow as the prevailing images of the man. After eight years of painstaking and detailed research into previously neglected sources, Gerard De Groot gave us a more complete and balanced picture. This book, originally published in 1988, which will appeal both to the general and the specialised reader, is not simply a critique of Haig's command in the war, but an exploration into his personality. Close attention to his early life and career reveals him as a creature of his society, a man who mirrored both the virtues and the faults of Edwardian Britain. What emerges is an intense, dedicated, but ultimately flawed servant of his country whose ironic fate it was to grow up in one age and to command in another.

*Telling tales about men* explores some of the ways in which conscientious objectors to compulsory military service were viewed and treated in England during the First World War. In doing so it considers these men's experiences, their beliefs, perceptions and actions. This volume will be essential reading for scholars in the fields of the First World War, pacifism, militarism and gender. It is also aimed at those with a general interest in the Great War and the military as well as in peace movements and pacifism. -- .

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. -- .

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.

Prior to the end of World War I, President Wilson gathered a group of expert geographers, historians, economists, and political scientists - The Inquiry - to make plans for the coming peace conference. The Inquiry produced a secret document, the Black Book, containing maps and plans for the territorial settlements to be negotiated. This secret plan was brought daily by the President into negotiations and much of it came to fruition on the world map. This work takes an in-depth look at the Black Book and the lasting legacy of American negotiators at the Paris Peace Conference. Many of the successes, and failures, from these peace settlements trace directly back to this remarkable, and heretofore, almost unstudied plan.

The First World War was a period of turbulent and unprecedented political upheaval that witnessed contrasting fortunes for Britain's major political parties. This book demonstrates how the Conservative Party was able to respond effectively in these years by refining a wartime patriotism that ensured its unity as a party, helped define its electoral fortunes and shaped ideological cohesion. Concepts of patriotism determined not only attitudes to the prosecution of the war, to voluntary and forced military enlistment, but also to class politics, Irish Unionism, democratic reform and the relationship between citizen and state. Fundamental conclusions about modern Conservatism emerge: its organic ideological genesis into a property-defending party; its peculiar willingness and capacity to adapt not only to the immense challenges of 'total war', but also to the new political climate awakened by the conflict. Conservatism was therefore at once flexible and ideological. Filling the historiographical gap created by an overemphasis upon its rival Liberal and Labour parties, and using previously unused party sources, this study sheds new light on many aspects of the war, of Conservative Party history and its regeneration following three disastrous general election defeats in succession, and of British politics in the twentieth century.

This book focuses on how Irish remembrance of the First World War impacted the emerging Irish identity in the postcolonial Irish Free State. While all combatants of the "war to end all wars" commemorated the war, Irish memorial efforts were fraught with debate over Irish identity and politics that frequently resulted in violence against commemorators and World War I veterans. The book examines the Flanders poppy, the Victory and Armistice Day parades, the National War Memorial, church memorials, and private remembrances. Highlighting the links between war, memory, empire and decolonization, it ultimately argues that the Great War, its commemorations, and veterans retained political potency between 1914 and 1937 and were a powerful part of early Free State life.

The stories of the individual men and women who led German Social Democracy's failed efforts to fend off the Nazi onslaught in 1933 have largely been lost in the wake of the cataclysmic war, the Holocaust, and the division of Europe that followed Hitler's victory. Confronting Hitler recovers their stories and places them at center stage. In a series of biographical essays focusing on the experiences of ten leading Social Democratic activists, Smaldone examines their defeat in 1933 from the perspective of individuals enmeshed in political struggle. This study reveals what aspects of these activists' lives were most important in shaping their political outlook during the republic's final crisis and it illustrates the key factors that guided their actions in the effort to keep the republic alive. In addition, the biographies raise the important issue of the degree to which the defeat of German Social Democracy in 1933 is comparable to the experiences of other democratic socialist movements in the twentieth century.

Contested Objects breaks new ground in the interdisciplinary study of material culture. Its focus is on the rich and varied legacy of objects from the First World War as the global conflict that defined the twentieth century. From the iconic German steel helmet to practice trenches on Salisbury Plain, and from the 'Dazzle Ship' phenomenon through medal-wearing, diary-writing, trophy collecting, the market in war souvenirs and the evocative reworking of European objects by African soldiers, this book presents a dazzling array of hitherto unseen worlds of the Great War. The innovative and multidisciplinary approach adopted here follows the lead established by Nicholas J. Saunders' Matters of Conflict (Routledge 2004), and extends its geographical coverage to embrace a truly international perspective. Australia, Africa, Italy, Germany, France, Belgium and Britain are all represented by a cross-disciplinary group of scholars working in archaeology, anthropology, cultural history, art history, museology, and cultural heritage. The result is a volume that resonates with richly documented and theoretically informed case studies that illustrate how the experiences of war can be embodied in and represented by an endless variety of artefacts, whose 'social lives' have endured for almost a century and that continue to shape our perceptions of an increasingly dangerous world.