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Books > History > World history > From 1900 > First World War
This lively book re-evaluates six salient aspects of Lloyd George's role in the "lost peace" of Versailles. In a reexamination of six controversial episodes 1919-1940, it reviews his protean role at the Paris Peace conference, 1919, his strategy on reparations, his abortive guarantee treaty to France, and the emergence at the Conference of Appeasement. It then reassesses his controversial visit to Hitler, and his bids to halt WWII after the fall of Poland and France.
The Shelf2Life WWI Memoirs Collection is an engaging set of
pre-1923 materials that describe life during the Great War through
memoirs, letters and diaries. Poignant personal narratives from
soldiers, doctors and nurses on the front lines to munitions
workers and land girls on the home front, offer invaluable insight
into the sacrifices men and women made for their country.
Photographs and illustrations intensify stories of struggle and
survival from the trenches, hospitals, prison camps and
battlefields. The WWI Memoirs Collection captures the pride and
fear of the war as experienced by combatants and non-combatants
alike and provides historians, researchers and students extensive
perspective on individual emotional responses to the war.
The dawn of combat in the air
Today everyone is so familiar with aircraft, air travel and the
fact that virtually every nation's defence force includes an aerial
component, so it is easy to forget that there are many people still
alive whose parents were born before any practical form of working
aircraft. The Wright Brothers had achieved sustained heavier than
air flight in 1903-just over 100 years ago; that was only eleven
years before the outbreak of the First World War, the first war in
which combat took to the the skies. During the four years of the
conflict the potential for aircraft in all their various forms and
in all their viable tactical roles was pursued and exploited as
much as the technology of the time would allow. This change in the
nature of warfare (which added the first new dimension to conflict
in millennia) was seen as incredible to many at the time. Certainly
the impetus given to the development of powered flight by the First
World War cannot be overestimated. A number of books were written
during those early days of air warfare, though their number remains
comparatively few, some were written by aviators themselves and
some were general or unit histories. Others gathered incidents,
experiences and anecdotes into anthologies which enabled an eager
readership to understand what combat in the skies actually
involved. This is one of those books. It covers pilot training and
includes, among other things, accounts of aerial warfare from the
allied perspective including night flights, bombing, Zeppelin
hunting, raids, dog fights and sea-plane activity. 'The Way of the
Air' concludes with an interesting hypothesis of how manned flight
could have developed in the post-war period. This interesting First
World War 'reader' will be a welcome addition to the libraries of
all those interested in the early days of aerial warfare.
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.
This book, first published in 1963, discusses the events of the
Paris Peace Conference- the meeting of Allied victors following the
end of World War I to set peace terms. Lord Hankey discusses the
political and military terms and issues, as well as those of
individual countries. This book is ideal for students of modern
history.
Georges Guynemer, Knight of the Air
by Henry Bordeaux
The Chevalier of Flight: Captain Guynemer
by Mary R. Parkman
'Until one has given all, one has given nothing'
Georges Guynemer
This special Leonaur edition contains two accounts of one the most
most honoured French fighter aces of the First World War, Georges
Guynemer. Born into a wealthy Parisian family, Guynemer was a
sickly child and was initially rejected for military service, but
through determination and perseverance he was first accepted as a
mechanic in the opening year of the war and later qualified as a
pilot flying a Morane-Saulnier aircraft in Escadrille MS. 3. In
1915 the squadron was renamed Escadrille N. 3 and re-equipped with
Nieuport 10 fighter aircraft. It was while flying the Nieuport that
Guynemer became an acknowledged 'ace' and established himself as a
hero of his nation. By the end of 1916 he had 25 'kills' to his
credit and his face-and his famous aircraft with the stork
insignia-had became iconic. Lionised by the press and now
influential, Guynemer involved himself in aircraft development and
in 1917, flying a Spad VII-one of the aircraft he had helped
improve-he was the first pilot to shoot down a German Gotha GIII
heavy bomber. By July 1917 Guynemer had chalked up 50 kills. Shy
and embarrassed by the attention he received as a national figure,
Guynemer struggled with his fame, but this, ironically, made him
even more attractive to a public eager for a 'chevalier' to divert
their thoughts from the industrial scale, grinding attrition of the
trenches. Georges Guynemer was reported lost in action over Belgium
in September 1917 at the age of 22. Awarded many of his country's
highest honours he remained an inspirational figure to the French
throughout the Great War.
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.
A famous battalion on the Western Front
The appalling losses to the British regular army during the first
period of the Great War prompted the creation of the New Army-an
enormous influx of citizen soldiers driven by feelings of
patriotism determined to 'do their bit' for the cause. Such a
massive increase in the size of the army required a huge expansion
in the number of battalions to accommodate them. These came under a
myriad of identities-public schools, chums, footballers etc-and
included adding battalions to well known regiments of the regular
army. The Royal Fusiliers gained many such battalions and the
subject of this book, the 23rd, was one of the most notable. As its
name suggests the battalion attracted a distinctive
type-particularly those with a spirit of sportsmanship and
adventure. The war service of this battalion was as exemplary as
any that served on the Western Front and the places it
fought-listed in detail within these pages-are a catalogue of the
famous actions of the conflict, though perhaps its greatest day of
reckoning came at Delville Wood in 1916 during the Somme offensive.
Available in soft cover and hard cover with dust jacket for
collectors.
This book provides a historical narrative to tell the story of
interwar German reparations the debates, controversies and
diplomacy surrounding the issue from the 1919 Paris peace
conference to the abandonment of reparations at the Lausanne
Conference in 1932.
Copywriter: include this in European/French History rather than
British This is a comparative study of national labour movements in
France and Britain during the First World War. Historians of labour
in this period have concentrated on pacifism, and on the post-war
radicalism and emergent communism to which that contributed. John
N. Horne focuses instead on the majorities in both the French and
the British labour movements which continued to support the war to
its end. He examines the terms of their support, and the broader
working-class experience which this reflected, showing how a
critical programme of socialist reforms was gradually developed.
Labour at War is a genuinely comparative analysis, based on
intensive primary research in both countries. It is an important
contribution both to labour history, and to the social and
political history of the First World War.
Donald Hankey was a writer who saw himself as a 'student of human
nature' and peacetime Edwardian Britain as a society at war with
itself. Wounded in a murderous daylight infantry charge near Ypres,
Hankey began sending despatches to The Spectator from hospital in
1915. Trench life, wrote Hankey, taught that 'the gentleman' is a
type not a social class. In one calm, humane, eyewitness report
after another under the byline 'A Student in Arms', Hankey revealed
how the civilian volunteers of Kitchener's Army, many with little
stake in Edwardian society, put their betters to shame nonetheless.
A runaway best-seller on both sides of the Atlantic, Hankey's prose
vied in popularity with the poetry of Rupert Brooke. After he was
killed on the Somme in another daylight infantry charge, Hankey
joined Brooke as an international symbol of promise foregone.
British propaganda backed publication in the-then neutral United
States, yet at home Hankey had to dodge the censors to tell the
truth as he saw it. This, the first scholarly biography, has been
made possible by the recovery of Hankey papers long thought lost.
Dr Davies traces the life of an Edwardian rebel from privileged
birth into a banking dynasty that had owned slaves to spokesman for
the ordinary man who, when put to the test of battle, proves to be
not-so-ordinary. This study of Hankey's life, writing and vast
audience - military and civilian - enlarges our understanding of
how throughout the English-speaking world people managed to fight
or endure a war for which little had prepared them.
The famous camel borne infantry of the Middle East campaigns
Oliver Hogue's account of the Imperial Camel Corps in action during
the desert and Palestine campaigns of the First World War is one of
the first books written on the subject shortly after the events
themselves took place. Hogue was a serving Australian soldier with
the unit and so had the advantage of witnessing the events
portrayed here at first hand. His is an easy reading, personable
and journalistic style-very much of its day-which weaves a romance
into this story of war against the declining Ottoman Turkish Empire
and it's German allies. There are very few books concerning the
Camel Corps and this is a true rarity and its re-publication after
so many years will be warmly greeted by aficionados of the subject.
"Spies of the Kaiser" examines the scope and objectives of German
covert operations in Great Britain before and during the First
World War. It assesses the effect of German espionage on
Anglo-German relations and discusses the extent to which the fear
of German espionage in the United Kingdom shaped the British
intelligence community in the early twentieth century. The study is
based on original archival material, including hitherto unexploited
German records and recently declassified British documents.
Two linked books of the Irish on many fronts of the Great War
This book concerns the service of the regiments of the British Army
raised in Ireland before and during the First World War together
with those with Irish affiliations. So within its pages readers
will discover not only The Irish Guards, the Connaught Rangers, The
Royal Munster Fusiliers and many other regiments with long and
venerable histories and battle honours but also the London Irish,
the Tyneside Irish and the battalions of the new army. Each chapter
features a particular front or action providing an excellent
overview of the Irish in action throughout the conflict. Here we
join them on the Retreat from Mons, on the Gallipoli peninsula, at
Loos and during the Somme offensive. No account of the Irish could
possibly be complete without the inclusion, as here, of anecdotes
from the irrepressible Irish soldier himself, with all his wry
humour and indomitable bravery and fighting prowess. This book
brings together two volumes on the same theme by the same author.
Available in softcover and hardcover with dust jacket.
This book shows the strong influence of judgements made of Wilson
by the British diplomatists during the early years of his national
prominence (1912-1914) on the way the British dealt with Wilson at
the Paris Peace Conference. It also shows the strong effect which
practitioners of the so-called "Old Diplomacy" had on Lloyd George
on this key issue of wartime and peace diplomacy. It shows that the
British diplomatists viewed Wilson as a very successful American
politician, but not as a prophet, or saviour. The religious imagery
used by certain historians and more junior British diplomats, such
as Harold Nicolson and John Maynard Keynes does not reflect the
views of their more senior colleagues.
The Shelf2Life WWI Memoirs Collection is an engaging set of
pre-1923 materials that describe life during the Great War through
memoirs, letters and diaries. Poignant personal narratives from
soldiers, doctors and nurses on the front lines to munitions
workers and land girls on the home front, offer invaluable insight
into the sacrifices men and women made for their country.
Photographs and illustrations intensify stories of struggle and
survival from the trenches, hospitals, prison camps and
battlefields. The WWI Memoirs Collection captures the pride and
fear of the war as experienced by combatants and non-combatants
alike and provides historians, researchers and students extensive
perspective on individual emotional responses to the war.
Clash of Fleets is an operational history that records every naval
engagement fought between major surface warships during World War
I. Much more than a catalog of combat facts, Clash of Fleets
explores why battles occurred; how the different navies fought; and
how combat advanced doctrine and affected the development and
application of technology. The result is a holistic overview of the
war at sea as it affected all nations and all theaters of war. A
work of this scope is unprecedented. Organized into seven chapters,
the authors first introduce the technology, weapons, ships, and the
doctrine that governed naval warfare in 1914. The next five
chapters explore each year of the war and are subdivided into
sections corresponding to major geographic areas. This arrangement
allows the massive sweep of action to be presented in a structured
and easy to follow format that includes engagements fought by the
Austro-Hungarian, British, French, German, Ottoman, and Russian
Navies in the Adriatic, Aegean, Baltic, Black, Mediterranean, and
North Seas as well as the Atlantic, India, and Pacific Oceans. The
role of surface combat in the Great War is analyzed and these
actions are compared to major naval wars before and after. In
addition to providing detailed descriptions of actions in their
historical perspectives, O'Hara and Heinz advance several themes,
including the notion that World War I was a war of navies as much
as a war of armies. They explain that surface combat had a major
impact on all aspects of the naval war and on the course of the war
in general. Finally, Clash of Fleets illustrates that systems
developed in peace do not always work as expected in war, that some
are not used as anticipated, and that others became unexpectedly
important. There is much for today's naval professional to consider
in the naval conflict that occurred a century ago.
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