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Books > History > World history > From 1900 > First World War
This work explores the reasons for the Allied intervention into
Russia at the end of the Great War and examines the military,
diplomatic and political chaos that resulted in the failure of the
Allies and White Russians to defeat the Bolshevik Revolution.
The collapse of the Habsburg Monarchy at the end of World War I
ushered in a period of radical change for East-Central European
political structures and national identities. Yet this transformed
landscape inevitably still bore the traces of its imperial past.
Breaking with traditional histories that take 1918 as a strict line
of demarcation, this collection focuses on the complexities that
attended the transition from the Habsburg Empire to its successor
states. In so doing, it produces new and more nuanced insights into
the persistence and effectiveness of imperial institutions, as well
as the sources of instability in the newly formed nation-states.
This book discusses British cinema's representation of the Great
War during the 1920s. It argues that popular cinematic
representations of the war offered surviving audiences a language
through which to interpret their recent experience, and traces the
ways in which those interpretations changed during the decade.
Letters from under the Guns
Observation Posts, a special Leonaur book, brings together two
books by Dawson concerning warfare as experienced by the men in the
trenches during the First World War on the Western Front. 'Carry
On' and its sequel 'Living Bayonets' are based on the author's time
as an artillery officer and principally comprise his letters to his
family. Dawson was an intelligent, thoughtful correspondent who in
fine prose has left posterity an intimate 'gunner's' view of the
Great War making this book an essential source work for students of
the period. This good value 'two-in-one' Leonaur edition enables
collectors to own these uncommon and related accounts in a single,
value-for-money volume.
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.
World War I utterly transformed the lives of Jews around the world:
it allowed them to display their patriotism, to dispel antisemitic
myths about Jewish cowardice, and to fight for Jewish rights. Yet
Jews also suffered as refugees and deportees, at times
catastrophically. And in the aftermath of the war, the replacement
of the Habsburg Monarchy and the Russian and Ottoman Empires with a
system of nation-states confronted Jews with a new set of
challenges. This book provides a fascinating survey of the ways in
which Jewish communities participated in and were changed by the
Great War, focusing on the dramatic circumstances they faced in
Europe, North America, and the Middle East during and after the
conflict.
Provides an account of war veterans and their associations which
spanned French politics. Their work is distinguished from other
European veterans' organizations by their commitment to civic
rather than military virtues. The author has prepared a new
introduction for this English edition."
British children were mobilised for total war in 1914-18. War
dominated their teaching and school experience, it was the focus of
their extra curricular activities and they enjoyed it as a source
of entertainment in literature and play. Children were not shielded
from the war because it was believed their support was vital for
Britain's present and future.
The study of children's lives provides a unique perspective on
British society during the First World War. It lets us get to the
very essence of how Britain's adults perceived the war and allows
us to explore the methods society used to communicate with itself.
Children's connection to the war, however, was personal. Millions
had a relative in the army and those that did not had friends,
neighbours and teachers involved in the fighting. Their
participation, therefore, while shaped by adults, was motivated by
a desire to remain in touch with their absent fathers and
brothers.
Despite acts of female heroism, popular memory, as well as official
memorialization in monuments and historic sites, has ignored French
women's role in the First World War. This book explores stories
that were never told and why they were not. These include the
experiences of French women in the war, the stories they themselves
told about these experiences and how French society interpreted
them.The author examines the ways French women served their country
- from charity work, nursing and munitions manufacture to
volunteering for military service and espionage. In tracing stories
about war heroines, but also about villainesses like Mata Hari,
this fascinating study shows what these stories reveal about French
understanding of the war, their hopes and fears for the future.
While the masculine war story was unitary and unchanging, the
feminine story was multiple and shifting. Initially praised for
their voluntary mobilization, women's claims of patriotism were
undercut by criticisms as the war bogged down in the trenches. Were
nurses giving solace or seeking romance? Were munitions workers
patriots or profiteers? The prosecutions of Mata Hari for espionage
and Hel'ne Brion for subversion show how attitudes to women's claim
of patriotism changed. French women's relationship to the war
called into question ideas about gender, definitions of citizenship
and national identity.This book is the first study of women at war
to treat both their experiences and its representations, which
shaped nationalism, war and gender for the rest of the twentieth
century. It makes an important contribution to the burgeoning
history of collective memory and of the First World War.
For nearly all of the Great War, the Jewish doctor Bernhard Bardach
served with the Austro-Hungarian army in present-day Ukraine. His
diaries from that period, unpublished and largely overlooked until
now, represent a distinctive and powerful record of daily life on
the Eastern Front. In addition to key events such as the 1916
Brusilov Offensive, Bardach also gives memorable descriptions of
military personalities, refugees, food shortages, and the
uncertainty and boredom that inescapably attended life on the
front. Ranging from the critical first weeks of fighting to the
ultimate collapse of the Austrian army, these meticulously written
diaries comprise an invaluable eyewitness account of the Great War.
"Whiz-Bangs and Woolly Bears" is a story about a soldier of the
Great War and his experiences as an artillery gunner in France. I
used to listen carefully to his stories while we worked on his farm
in Carleton County, New Brunswick. He had kept a diary during the
war, and I later had a chance to look at it.
The short entries did not begin to describe the horrors of the
Western Front in 1917 and 1918. As I grew older, I began to write
him to ask about the details. He responded to questions about major
battles in this example: "Passchendaele was just one glorious
mudhole. We were there 42 days. Kept 24 men on the guns and lost 42
in the time, an average of one a day." This is the essence of what
"Whiz Bangs and Woolly Bears" is about. It is a running discourse
between a grandfather, Walter Ray Estabrooks and his grandson Hal
Skaarup, now in the army as well.
Although the story is essentially about Walter Estabrooks, his
experiences during the Great War, it is also about the fact that he
lived to tell the tale. So many did not.
Karen Shelby addresses the IJzertoren Memorial, which is dedicated
to the Flemish dead of the Great War, and the role the monument has
played in the discussions among the various political, social and
cultural ideologies of the Flemish community.
Two battles of the first year of conflict
This concise book contains two accounts, by H. W. Carless-Davis, of
the conflicts of the first year of the Great War, brought together
in one value for money volume because the short length of each
account means that it is improbable that either would be
republished individually in modern times. Each account includes a
campaign overview, illustrations and maps, dispatches and in some
cases first hand accounts from those who fought. The first account
concerns, 'the Great Retreat' which took place in the late summer
of 1914 after the British Army had fought its holding action
against the advance of the attacking Germans. This was a long,
fighting withdrawal which might have spelled disaster at an early
stage of the war but for the professionalism of the B. E. F and
Smith-Dorrien's inspired command at Le Cateau. The second piece
covers the Battle of Ypres-Armentieres fought in October of 1914.
Available in softcover and hardcover with dustjacket.
Words from the Front
This poignant firsthand account of war on the Western Front during
the Great War was written by the colonel of the 1st Battalion of
the Royal Irish Rifles a famous regiment of the British Army with
its origins in Ulster. This is an intimate narrative of the
experience of trench warfare with its attacks, raids, skirmishes,
the slow loss of valued officers and men and the very debilitating
matter of existing within the muddy confines of trenches and
dugouts perpetually subject to the menace of the snipers bullet or
the barrage of hostile artillery. Filled with detail and anecdotes,
this is a fine view of a senior regimental officer's war told in
letter form and an interesting addition to any library of the
history of the Great War and the war the infantry knew.
The Irish Guards in the Great War - The 2nd Battalion of the Irish
Guards - The entire First World War History.This, the second volume
of Rudyard Kipling's history of the Irish Guards in the First World
War, focuses attention on the activities of the Second Battalion
and its total war service. This junior battalion first saw action
in 1915 and it is in the first pages of the book that we read of
the death of Kipling's son John. The battles of the Western Front
are described in detail from the battalion's perspective and there
is much within the narrative to remind us that this is the work of
a master writer. This volume contains a comprehensive honour roll
of the men of both 1st and 2nd Battalions and the Reserve Battalion
of the Irish Guards who were killed in action or died of wounds or
disease during the war; also included is a full list of those
decorated - making this book an invaluable resource for
genealogists.
This book reframes British First World War literature within
Britain's history as an imperial nation. Rereading canonical war
writers Siegfried Sassoon and Edmund Blunden, alongside war writing
by Enid Bagnold, E. M. Forster, Mulk Raj Anand, Roly Grimshaw and
others, the book makes clear that the Great War was more than a
European war.
The beginning of the age of independent armoured fighting vehicles
This fascinating book is essential reading for those who are
interested in how the battle tank came into being and the first
steps that led to the creation of the leviathans of the modern
battlefield. Whilst this book contains elements of the progress of
allied tanks in their first actions, its principal focus is upon
the development of the tank itself, its associated equipment and
the process of persuading a reactionary command structure as to its
potential on the field of battle. This book benefits from the
inclusion of diagrams of many of the types of battle tank together
with specifications of engines, gearing etc. Available in soft
cover and hard cover with dust jacket for collectors.
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