Petain (1856-1951) remains one of the most controversial figures in the history of modern France. He was saviour of his country at Verdun in 1916 during the First World War, but tried for treason as head of state of the collaborationist Vichy government after World War II. Were his actions those of a traitor? - or a patriot facing the total disintegration of his country? In exploring the actions of this controversial figure, Nicholas Atkin also reveals the divisions and uncertainties of France herself.

The Wet Flanders Plain was first published in 1929. It was in good company for that year also saw the first publication of Erich Maria Remarque's All Quiet on the Western Front, Robert Graves's Goodbye to All That, Ernest Hemingway's A Farewell to Arms, R. C. Sherriff's Journey's End and Ernst Junger's Storm of Steel."" It doesn't suffer by comparison. But it is different from them. Unlike almost all the Great War classics this book isn't based on delayed recollection, it is more immediate than that.

In 1928, Henry Williamson and another unnamed veteran revisited the battlefields of Flanders and Northern France. In Williamson's own words he wanted to 'return to my old comrades . . . to the brown, the treeless, the flat and grave-set plain of Flanders - to the rolling, heat-miraged downlands of the Somme - for I am dead with them, and they live in me again.' He wanted to be rid of the 'wraith of the war'.

As he continued to be haunted by his experiences as a soldier, and continued to write at length about the Great War in both fiction and non-fiction works, it is doubtful if he was successful in that but what he does give us is a memoir that, as one reviewer put it, 'emerges from the mass of War books as the most beautiful and the most terrible.'

What happened in women's history after the vote was won? Was the suffragette spirit quashed by the advent of the First World War, and due to the achievement of women's partial (1918) and then equal (1928) suffrage thereafter, by having to wait to be reclaimed by the Women's Liberation Movement only in the late 1960s? This collection explores how individual feminists and the feminist movement as a whole responded to the achievement of the central goal of votes for women. For many, the post-suffrage years were anti-climactic, and there is no disputing that the movement was in numerical decline, struggling to appeal to a younger generation of women who knew nothing of the sacrifices that had been made to secure their citizenship rights and new freedoms. However, feminists went in new and different directions, identifying pressing issues from pacifism to religious reform, from local activism to party politics. Women also organised around causes that were not explicitly feminist or were even anti-feminist, and this book makes the important distinction between women in politics and women's feminist activism. The range of feminist activism in the aftermath of suffrage speaks for the successes and mainstreaming of feminism, and contributors to this volume contest the narrative of a terminal feminist decline between the wars. This book was originally published as a special issue of Women's History Review.

The true and extraordinary story of the satirical newspaper created in the mud and mayhem of the Somme, interspersed with comic sketches and spoofs from the vivid imagination of those on the front line. In a bombed out building during the First World War in the French town of Ypres (mispronounced Wipers by British soldiers), two officers discover a printing press and create a newspaper for the troops. Far from being a sombre journal about life in the trenches, they produced a resolutely cheerful, subversive and very funny newspaper designed to lift the spirits of the men on the front line.

A companion volume to German Aces of World War I - The Pictorial Record (Norman Franks & Greg VanWyngarden, Schiffer, 2004), this new book covers the British and Commonwealth fighter aces of the Great War. One chapter covers the aces with ten or more victories, and an additional chapter lists the fighter aces with nine down to five victories, giving their squadrons, where they hailed from, and in many cases their subsequent fate. For the American aces, the author lists every fighter ace of the period, from Rickenbacker's twenty-six down to those with five victories.

Originally published in 1915 in the middle of World War I, Carpenter explores the effects that the war was having on society and humankind as a whole from first-hand experience. In particular, papers focus on the differences between Germany and England, the causes of the war and suggestions for restoration and recovery when the war has ended. Carpenter details all of this in a realistic way drawing on matters such as class to put forward his anti-war stance as well as philosophical approaches to coping with tragedy. This title will be of interest to students of history, sociology and politics.

Anglo-American relations were transformed during the First World War. Britain was already in long-term economic decline relative to the United States, but this decline was accelerated by the war, which was militarily a victory for Britain, but economically a catastrophe. This book sets out the economic, and in particular, the financial relations between the two powers during the war, setting it in the context of the more familiar political and diplomatic relationship. Particular attention is paid to the British war missions sent out to the USA, which were the agents for much of the financial and economic negotiation, and which are rescued here from underserved historical obscurity.

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.

This book illustrates the relationship between British military policy and the development of British war aims during the opening years of the First World War. Basing his work on a wide range of unpublished documentary sources, David French reassesses for the benefit of students and scholars alike what was meant by 'a war of attrition'.

First published in 1916, this book comprises of a set of notes by G. Lowes Dickinson on his interpretation of the causes of the First World War. Writing during this time, the author admits that a complete comprehension of the causes of the First World War was impossible as no one knew the secrets of the few men who directly brought it about. Dickinson argues that the feeling of every nation about itself and about its neighbours is determined by the history of the past and by the way that history is regarded and, as a consequence, the picture looks different from every point of view. In this knowledge, the author gives his account.

First published in 1923, this book examines the causes and evils of War. Being published soon after the First World War, this becomes the basis for much of the volume's experience. The author G. Lowes Dickinson argues that war and civilisation are incompatible and that the pursuit of war will end in the destruction of mankind.

Originally published in 1960, Captain Franz Roeder's ability to bring to life the rigours in the Hessian Lifeguards during Napoleon's ill-fated invasion of Russia in 1812-13, together with Helen Roeder's skilful narrative, make this book one of the most compelling accounts of the sufferings of the Napoleonic Army. This is both an impelling personal story and a document of outstanding historical interest.

Between 1910 and 1945 the United States transformed itself into a Super Power. By 1945, with rivals in Europe and Asia shattered by world war, she dominated global economic, financial and political arrangements and monopolised the atomic bomb. This new Companion to History is an indispensable guide to this critical period in US history. It includes: chronologies listing all the major events, both foreign and domestic; social and economic history, with many tables based on inaccessible data; scores of mini-biographies; listings of the major office holders; and maps.

This volume covers the essential facts about Britain's role in the First World War, not only militarily but also from a domestic point of view: the political and economic organisation of Britain for war, the extension of state control, the problems set by shortages of shipping and food. The book goes beyond the military defeat of Germany and her Allies to the armistice of November 11, 1918, the Peace Conference and the Treaty of Versailles.

This book, originally published in 1981, tells the story of the regular soldiers and reservists of the British Expeditionary Force (B. E. F.) who fought in the first six months of the First World War on the Western Front. This photographic history of the B. E. F. is unique in that the photographs were taken not by official war photographers, but either by the few press photographers who were able to get near the Front or by members of the B. E. F themselves. Complementing the photographs are many first-hand accounts of their experiences by 'Old Contemptibles' and an authoritative text by Keith Simpson.

This revealing book illustrates how the passion for war was fostered and promoted. The author provides detailed evidence of how and why an image of Germany as a nation determined upon world hegemony was deliberately promoted by a group of British newspaper editors, proprietors and journalists. This book examines the role of these 'scaremongers'. Were they as influential as their critics claimed? Did they influence the minds of their readers and shape events? Were they guilty of creating a climate of opinion that ensured that their prophecies of inevitable Anglo-German war became fact in 1914?

This volume describes and analyses the methods Germany used to reinforce Spain's independence thereby preventing Madrid's entry into the war on the Allied side. While there have been many studies dealing with the wartime economic histories of Holland, Switzerland, Denmark and Iceland, Spain, physically large and strategically situated has been largely ignored, with little American study of Spanish relations with the European belligerents having been done. Particular attention is paid to the forceful personality of Spanish King Alfonso XIII, who shrewdly used his special friendship with Kaiser Wilhelm II for Spanish profit: he remained a Francophile who shrewdly manipulated the Germans into thinking he favoured their side. At the same time Alfonso fended off the embrace of the Entente.

This history, originally published in 1962, by the then lone remaining figure in the leadership of the Russian Social Democratic Party, is an important contribution to the understanding of the Soviet October Revolution of 1917. It covers in detail the period from the February revolution of 1917 until the outbreak of the Second World War, passing through the phases of the October Revolution, the Peace of Brest-Litovsk, the Civil War, the struggle for the leadership of the party and the triumph of Stalin.

This volume gives students and researchers an insight into British central government in 1914, how and why it altered during the war years and what permanent changes remained when the war was over. The war saw the scope of governmental intervention widened in an unprecedented manner. The contributors to this book analyse the reasons for this expansion and describe how the changes affected the government machine and the lives of the citizens. They consider why some innovations did not survive the coming of peace while others permanently transformed the duties and procedures of government.

The Great War transformed the Middle East, bringing to an end four hundred years of Ottoman rule in Arab lands while giving rise to the Middle East as we know it today. A century later, the experiences of ordinary men and women during those calamitous years have faded from memory. "A Land of Aching Hearts" traverses ethnic, class, and national borders to recover the personal stories of the civilians and soldiers who endured this cataclysmic event.

Among those who suffered were the people of Greater Syria comprising modern Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Israel, and Palestine as well as the people of Turkey, Iraq, and Egypt. Beyond the shifting fortunes of the battlefield, the region was devastated by a British and French naval blockade made worse by Ottoman war measures. Famine, disease, inflation, and an influx of refugees were everyday realities. But the local populations were not passive victims. Fawaz chronicles the initiative and resilience of civilian emigres, entrepreneurs, draft-dodgers, soldiers, villagers, and townsmen determined to survive the war as best they could. The right mix of ingenuity and practicality often meant the difference between life and death.

The war s aftermath proved bitter for many survivors. Nationalist aspirations were quashed as Britain and France divided the Middle East along artificial borders that still cause resentment. The misery of the Great War, and a profound sense of huge sacrifices made in vain, would color people s views of politics and the West for the century to come."

In the momentous period -- barely 30 years -- covered by this systematic reference/guide, the Edwardian world was transformed unrecognisably, through war, technological progress and social change, into the Nuclear Age. It saw the coming of mass democracy, the apogee of empire, the Depression, the threat of fascism, the development of suburban society, and, as yet scarcely understood, the end of Britain's international hegemony. Andrew Thorpe's superb contribution to the Companions series illuminates all this and much else. It will be indispensable to anyone interested in the history and politics of modern Britain.

In this study, Sharon Ouditt examines the traumatic and constantly shifting nature of women's experience during the World War I. By examining propaganda, journals, women's magazines, unpublished memoirs and contemporary fiction, the author reveals the challenge to feminine identity which the War demanded and attempted to restrict. Rather than achieve sudden and unproblematic independence through their entry into the public sphere of work and politics, women found themselves having to construct complex ideological structures in order to legitimate their role as "temporary" citizens - whether as crusading nurses, landworkers or pacifist activists. At once historically committed and theoretically informed, this text should appeal to anyone interested in the ways in which women managed their involvement during the First World War, in the relationship between literature and history, and in the ambiguity and flexiblity of "femininity" in the context of dramatic social change.

People throughout the world are now commemorating the centenary of the start of the First World War. For historians of international business and finance, it is an opportunity to reflect on the impact of the war on global business activity. The world economy was highly integrated in the early twentieth century thanks to nearly a century of globalisation. In 1913, the economies of the countries that were about to go war seemed inextricably linked. The Impact of the First World War on International Business explores what happened to international business organisations when this integrated global economy was shattered by the outbreak of a major war. Studying how companies responded to the economic catastrophe of the First World War offers important lessons to policymakers and businesspeople in the present, concerning for instance the impact of great power politics on international business or the thesis that globalization reduces the likelihood of inter-state warfare. This is the first book to focus on the impact of the First World War on international business. It explores the experiences of firms in Britain, France, Germany, Japan, China, and the United States as well as those in neutral countries such as the Netherlands, Sweden, and Argentina, covering a wide range of industries including financial services, mining, manufacturing, foodstuffs, and shipping. Studying how firms responded to sudden and dramatic change in the geopolitical environment in 1914 offers lessons to the managers of today's MNEs, since the world economy on the eve of the First World War has many striking parallels with the present. Aimed at researchers, academics and advanced students in the fields of Business History, International Management and Accounting History; this book goes beyond the extant literature on this topic namely due to the broad range of industries and countries covered. The Impact of the First World War on International Business covers a broad range of geographical areas and topics examining how private firms responded to government policy and have based their contributions mainly on primary sources created by business people.

Concise, comprehensive and engaging evaluation of the war's significance in American history Balance chronological narrative and introduction of broader concepts Maps and key primary source documents give students the resources they need to grapple with the question of how the conflict revolutionized 20th Century American warfare Updated to reflect most recent scholarship on the subject Author has an outstanding reputation among military historians