Drawing from newspapers, journals, government reports, and archival records, Terry Copp - one of Canada's leading military historians - tells the story of how citizens in Canada's largest city responded to the challenges of the First World War. Montreal at War addresses responses to the outbreak of war in Europe and the process of raising an army for service overseas. It details the shock of intense combat and heavy casualties, studies the mobilization of volunteers, and follows the experience of battalions from Montreal to the Battle of Vimy Ridge. Challenging long-held assumptions, Montreal at War aims to understand the war experience as it unfolded, approaching history from the perspective of those who lived through it.

This edited volume examines the experience of World War I of small nations, defined here in terms of their relative weakness vis-a-vis the major actors in European diplomacy, and colonial peripheries, encompassing areas that were subject to colonial rule by European empires and thus located far from the heartland of these empires. The chapters address subject nations within Europe, such as Ireland and Poland; neutral states, such as Sweden and Spain; and overseas colonies like Tunisia, Algeria and German East Africa. By combining analyses of both European and extra-European experiences of war, this collection of essays provides a unique comparative perspective on World War I and points the way towards an integrated history of small nations and colonial peripheries. Contributors are Steven Balbirnie, Gearoid Barry, Jens Boysen, Ingrid Bruhwiler, William Buck, AUde Chanson, Enrico Dal Lago, Matias Gardin, Richard Gow, Florian Grafl, Donal Hassett, Guido Hausmann, Roisin Healy, Conor Morrissey, Michael Neiberg, David Noack, Chris Rominger, Danielle Ross and Christine Strotmann.

The Great and Holy War offers the first look at how religion created and prolonged the First World War. At the one-hundredth anniversary of the outbreak of the war, historian Philip Jenkins reveals the powerful religious dimensions of this modern-day crusade, a period that marked a traumatic crisis for Western civilization, with effects that echoed throughout the rest of the twentieth century.

The war was fought by the world's leading Christian nations, who presented the conflict as a holy war. Thanks to the emergence of modern media, a steady stream of patriotic and militaristic rhetoric was given to an unprecedented audience, using language that spoke of holy war and crusade, of apocalypse and Armageddon. But this rhetoric was not mere state propaganda. Jenkins reveals how the widespread belief in angels and apparitions, visions and the supernatural was a driving force throughout the war and shaped all three of the major religions--Christianity, Judaism and Islam--paving the way for modern views of religion and violence. The disappointed hopes and moral compromises that followed the war also shaped the political climate of the rest of the century, giving rise to such phenomena as Nazism, totalitarianism, and communism.

Connecting numerous remarkable incidents and characters--from Karl Barth to Carl Jung, the Christmas Truce to the Armenian Genocide--Jenkins creates a powerful and persuasive narrative that brings together global politics, history, and spiritual crisis as never before and shows how religion informed and motivated circumstances on all sides of the war.

The cup that cheers
The First World War was considered the pinnacle in the development of warfare following the dawn of the industrial age. For the first time conflict on a global stage was fought on land, on and under the sea and in the skies. This war of the machines swept away swathes of humanity by the use of ruthlessly efficient means of slaughter. Every human resource was needed because it could not be waged solely by male armies on the fields of battle. This meant that the role of women in western society would be changed forever. Women became the industrial workforce, agricultural workers and the custodians of transport and logistics. Thousands more, from nurses to drivers, mechanics to entertainers, volunteered to provide essential services to support the fighting men on the front line. Many new and established organisations willingly put all their resources into the war effort. To the troops of the allied armies these volunteers-both men and women-were little short of angels, providing for body and spirit under the most difficult circumstances and their contribution to the morale of the soldiers in action cannot be over estimated. The Y. M. C. A was at the forefront of these activities, providing everything from essentials to much appreciated little luxuries, from the opportunity for a bath and shave to that mainstay of English or American life, a good, hot and much needed 'cuppa' tea or coffee, accompanied by a kind smile or a supportive word. This special Leonaur edition contains three accounts of these remarkably brave volunteers on the Western Front. Theirs was essential but often dangerous work and many of them made the ultimate sacrifice. This fascinating book relates an often unsung aspect of the Great War, but one which will be of enormous interest to those who require a complete understanding of the conflict and are interested in the changing role of women in the early years of the 20th century.
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.