From its origins to its terrible legacy, the tortuous course of the Great War is vividly set out in a series of 174 fascinating maps. Together the maps form a comprehensive and compelling picture of the war that shattered Europe, and illustrate its military, social, political and economic aspects. Beginning with the tensions that already existed, the atlas covers:

• the early months of the war: from the fall of Belgium to the fierce fighting at Ypres and Tannenberg:
• the developing war in Europe: from Gallipoli to the horrors of the Somme and Verdun
• life at the front: from living underground, the trench system and the mud of Passchendaele to the war graves
• technology and the new horrors: from phosgene gas attacks to submarines, tanks and mines
• the home fronts: from German food riots to the air defence of Britain, the Russian Revolution and the collapse of Austria-Hungary
• the aftermath: from war debts and war deaths to the new map of Europe.

This third edition contains an entirely new section depicting the visual remembrance of the war; a fascinating visitors' guide to the memorials that commemorate the tragedy of the Somme.

Imprisoned in a remote Turkish POW camp during the First World War, two British officers, Harry Jones and Cedric Hill, cunningly join forces. To stave off boredom, Jones makes a handmade Ouija board and holds fake seances for fellow prisoners. One day, an Ottoman official approaches him with a query: could Jones contact the spirits to find a vast treasure rumoured to be buried nearby? Jones, a lawyer, and Hill, a magician, use the Ouija board - and their keen understanding of the psychology of deception-to build a trap for their captors that will lead them to freedom. The Confidence Men is a nonfiction thriller featuring strategy, mortal danger and even high farce - and chronicles a profound but unlikely friendship.

Tigers on the Western Front
The 5th Leicestershire Regiment rallied to the colours almost to a man as so many Territorial units did at the outbreak of the First World War. It served on the Western Front as part of the 46th (North Midland) Division which consisted of the Leicestershire, Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire, Lincolnshire and Staffordshire brigades. The Leicestershire's were in the 138th Brigade commanded initially by General A. Taylor and subsequently by General R. Clifford. In the pages of this book Actions are described on the Salient, on Vimy Ridge, at Gommecort, Monchy, Lens, Hill 65, St. Elie, Pontruet, Fresnoy, Riquerval Woods and many other engagements where the men with the tiger cap badge distinguished themselves. This history of the regiment was written by a serving officer who has produced a thorough and engaging account of the regiment's time during the Great War which will be of interest both to students of the British infantry at war and those who wish to trace their ancestors to those momentous days in world history. The book includes honour and roster rolls of especial interest to genealogists. Available in softcover and hardcover with dustjacket for collectors.

In this collection of essays of incomparable scholarship, Stephen Badsey explores in individual detail how the British Army fought in the First World War, how politics and strategy affected its battles and the decisions of senior commanders such as Douglas Haig, and how these issues were intimately intertwined with the mass media portrayal of the Army to itself and to the British people. Informative, provocative, and often entertaining, based on more than a quarter-century of research, these essays on the British Army in the First World War range through topics from a trench raid to modern television comedy. As a contribution to progressive military history, "The British Army in Battle and Its Image 1914-1918" proves that the way the British Army fought and its portrayal through the media cannot be separated. It is one of a growing number of studies which show that, far from being in opposition to each other, cultural history and the history of battle must be combined for the First World War to be properly understood. For more information visit Stephen Badsey's website www.stephenbadsey.com

On November 30, 1916, an apparently ordinary freighter left harbor in Kiel, Germany, and would not touch land again for another fifteen months. It was the beginning of an astounding 64,000-mile voyage that was to take the ship around the world, leaving a trail of destruction and devastation in her wake. For this was no ordinary freighter--this was the "Wolf, "a disguised German warship.
In this gripping account of an audacious and lethal World War I expedition, Richard Guilliatt and Peter Hohnen depict the "Wolf "'s assignment: to terrorize distant ports of the British Empire by laying minefields and sinking freighters, thus hastening Germany's goal of starving her enemy into submission. Yet to maintain secrecy, she could never pull into port or use her radio, and to comply with the rules of sea warfare, her captain fastidiously tried to avoid killing civilians aboard the merchant ships he attacked, taking their crews and passengers prisoner before sinking the vessels.
The "Wolf "thus became a huge floating prison, with more than 400 captives, including a number of women and children, from twenty-five different nations. Sexual affairs were kindled between the German crew and some female prisoners. A six-year-old American girl, captured while sailing across the Pacific with her parents, was adopted as a mascot by the Germans.
Forced to survive on food and fuel plundered from other ships, facing death from scurvy, and hunted by the combined navies of five Allied nations, the Germans and their prisoners came to share a common bond. The will to survive transcended enmities of race, class, and nationality.
It was to be one of the most daring clandestine naval missions of modern times. Under the command of Captain Karl Nerger, who conducted his deadly business with an admirable sense of chivalry, the "Wolf "traversed three of the world's major oceans and destroyed more than thirty Allied vessels.
We learn of the world through which the "Wolf "moved, with all its social divisions and xenophobia, its bravery and stoicism, its combination of old-world social mores and rapid technological change. The story of this epic voyage is a vivid real-life narrative and simultaneously a richly detailed picture of a world being profoundly transformed by war.

The First World War cannot be sufficiently documented and understood without considering the analytical category of gender. This exciting volume examines key issues in this area, including the 'home front' and battlefront, violence, pacifism, citizenship - and emphasizes the relevance of gender within the expanding field of First World War Studies. By addressing such a broad range of topics through case studies and chapters on British and French heroines, Austro-Hungarian war nurses, gendered representations of bereavement and modern war technology, this volume provides a transnational and comparative approach to the subject, integrating research on Western and Central Europe with that on marginalized regions in Italy, Austria-Hungary, Slovenia, and Lithuania.

At the end of the First World War, there were 270,000 demobilised Australian soldiers in Europe. Getting them home after the Armistice was a task of epic proportions that would take more than two years. In the meantime, how to keep these disgruntled, damaged men with guns occupied? In a word: sport. The Oarsmen tells the story of the servicemen who survived the war to row for the coveted King's Cup at the 1919 Royal Henley Peace Regatta. Competing against crews from the US, New Zealand, France, the UK and Canada, the Australians were a ragtag bunch of oarsmen thrown in an old-fashioned boat and expected to race. Many had seen the worst of the action during the war at Gallipoli and the Western Front, and carried scars both physical and psychological. The baggage they brought to the boat would soon threaten to capsize the whole endeavour. Combining first-hand accounts with lively prose, this never-before-told story approaches the First World War from peacetime and illuminates history in vivid and compelling detail. Interweaving the soldiers' personal stories from before, during and after the war, The Oarsmen paints a fascinating picture of how these men, and society, transitioned from an unprecedented war to a new sort of peace.

The first of four volumes that together provide a comprehensive account of World War I, this book unravels the complicated and tragic events of the war's Eastern Front. In particular, this book details the history of conflict between Germany and Russia, which proved disastrous for the Russian forces and would ultimately pave the way for the Bolshevik seizure of power in 1917.

In France the decade preceding the outbreak of the First World War was characterized by a revival of nationalism and militarism. Wesseling analyzes the ideas current in France in this period about the use, value, and beauty of war, the army, and army life. In examining the French army of the period, Wesseling found that at the same time that new forms were sought, old values were being emphasized. Attempts at reforms were most frequent in those areas where antimilitarist writers had concentrated their criticism. Next to this there also was a new glorification of traditional military virtues: disinterestedness, submission, and discipline.

In conceptualizing war, as Wesseling shows, a distinction can be made between speculations on war as a concrete phenomenon and as an abstract notion. During the period, war was looked upon as a factor of renewal and regeneration. The years from 1905 to 1914 were of great importance for the history of the military problem in France. A new appreciation of the ideals that were preached in the army came into being. Though this did not lead to militarism in the sense that the military determined politics, as Wesseling illustrates, it did lead to a militarist attitude.

Afterlives documents the lives and historical pursuits of the generations who grew up in Australia, Britain and Germany after the First World War. Although they were not direct witnesses to the conflict, they experienced its effects from their earliest years. Based on ninety oral history interviews and observation during the First World War Centenary, this pioneering study reveals the contribution of descendants to the contemporary memory of the First World War, and the intimate personal legacies of the conflict that animate their history-making. -- .

During the Great War, books and stories for young men were frequently used as unofficial propaganda for recruitment and to sell the war to British youth as a moral crusade. Until now, this literature has been neglected by academics, but the image of the war these fictions created was remarkably enduring and, despite the appearance of post-war literature of disillusioned veterans, continued to shape the attitudes of the young well into the 1930s. This is the first detailed account of how adventure fiction represented the Great War for British boys between 1914 and the end of the war. Paris examines how such literature explained the causes of the war to boys and girls and how it encouraged young men to participate in the noble crusade on the Western Front and in other theaters. He explores the imagery of the trenches, the war in the air, and the nature of war in the Middle East and Africa. He also details the links between popular writers and the official literary propaganda campaign. The study concludes by looking at how these heroic images remained in print, enduring well into the inter-war years.

This work shows the importance of analyzing the "low" politics of areas that have traditionally been dominated by "high" politics. The role of bodies such as the Liberal Summer School and the Women's Liberal Federation are examined, along with the work of thinkers such as JM Keynes and Ramsay Muir. The text should make two major contributions to our knowledge of the role of international relations in British politics in the inter-war years. First, by analysing the Liberal Party's principles and policies on international relations, it offers a perspective on British Liberalism. Second, by exploring the Liberal Party's alternative to the Baldwin-Chamberlain policy of appeasement, it enters the historical debate on the options open to Britain in the 1930s, and shows that there was a Liberal alternative to appeasement.

In 1916 a group of German saboteurs blew up Black Tom Island, a spit of land in New York Harbour. The brazen attack destroyed the harbour and the ammunition housed there - and the subsequent hail of missiles and gunpowder devastated much of lower Manhattan. The attack - so massive that as far away as Maryland people could feel the ground shake - had been shockingly easy. America was littered with networks of German agents plotting further, more deadly, attacks. Twenty years later the German government had still managed to evade responsibility for the crime - and probably would have continued to, were it not for the determination of three lawyers named McCloy, Peaslee, and Martin. These men made it their mission to solve a mystery that began during the first World War and barely ended before the second. They were litigators, spies, historians and, ultimately, defenders of the truth. THE DETONATORS is a fascinating portrait of these men and their time; the dramatic love story of John and Ellen McCloy; and the first full accounting of a crime and a cover-up that resonates strongly in a post-9/11 America.

"Defending Albion" is the first published study of Britain's response to the threat of invasion from across the North Sea in the first two decades of the twentieth century. It examines the emergency schemes designed to confront an enemy landing and the problems associated with raising and maintaining the often derided Territorial Force. It also explores the long-neglected military and political difficulties posed by the spontaneous and largely unwanted appearance of the "Dad's Army" of the Great War, the Volunteer Force.

The Amazon History Book of the Year 2013 is a magisterial chronicle of the calamity that befell Europe in 1914 as the continent shifted from the glamour of the Edwardian era to the tragedy of total war. In 1914, Europe plunged into the 20th century's first terrible act of self-immolation - what was then called The Great War. On the eve of its centenary, Max Hastings seeks to explain both how the conflict came about and what befell millions of men and women during the first months of strife. He finds the evidence overwhelming, that Austria and Germany must accept principal blame for the outbreak. While what followed was a vast tragedy, he argues passionately against the 'poets' view', that the war was not worth winning. It was vital to the freedom of Europe, he says, that the Kaiser's Germany should be defeated. His narrative of the early battles will astonish those whose images of the war are simply of mud, wire, trenches and steel helmets. Hastings describes how the French Army marched into action amid virgin rural landscapes, in uniforms of red and blue, led by mounted officers, with flags flying and bands playing. The bloodiest day of the entire Western war fell on 22 August 1914, when the French lost 27,000 dead. Four days later, at Le Cateau the British fought an extraordinary action against the oncoming Germans, one of the last of its kind in history. In October, at terrible cost they held the allied line against massive German assaults in the first battle of Ypres.The author also describes the brutal struggles in Serbia, East Prussia and Galicia, where by Christmas the Germans, Austrians, Russians and Serbs had inflicted on each other three million casualties. This book offers answers to the huge and fascinating question 'what happened to Europe in 1914?', through Max Hastings's accustomed blend of top-down and bottom-up accounts from a multitude of statesmen and generals, peasants, housewives and private soldiers of seven nations. His narrative pricks myths and offers some striking and controversial judgements. For a host of readers gripped by the author's last international best-seller 'All Hell Let Loose', this will seem a worthy successor.

Prelude to the Easter Rising casts light upon the clandestine activities of Sir Roger Casement in Imperial Germany from 1914 to 1916. German military intelligence and the Imperial Foreign Office had far-reaching plans to use the Irish in the war against Britain. Radical Irish-American leaders were behind Casement's mission to Berlin. It took some time for the highly sensitive and idealistic Casement to realize that neither the German General Staff nor the Imperial Chancellor was able or willing to lend full military support to the Irish. When Casement began to see that the rising would be a bloody massacre, he left for Ireland to halt the fatal development and, if necessary, sacrifice his own honour and life. The carefully edited documents contained in this volume, mostly from the German Foreign Office archives in Bonn, present a full record of Casement's activities prior to Easter 1916. Over 80 years later, these papers have lost none of their emotional intimacy.

The Lion's Pride is the first book to tell the full story of Theodore Roosevelt and his family in World War I. It is both a poignant group biography and an insightful study of the Rooseveltian notion of noblesse oblige.