Between 1914 and 1918, military, press and amateur photographers produced thousands of pictures. Either classified in military archives specially created with this purpose in 1915, collected in personal albums or circulated in illustrated magazines, photographs were supposed to tell the story of the war. Picturing the Western Front argues that photographic practices also shaped combatants and civilians' war experiences. Doing photography (taking pictures, posing for them, exhibiting, cataloguing and looking at them) allowed combatants and civilians to make sense of what they were living through. Photography mattered because it enabled combatants and civilians to record events, establish or reinforce bonds with one another, represent bodies, place people and events in imaginative geographies and making things visible, while making others, such as suicide, invisible. Photographic practices became, thus, frames of experience. -- .

How the Great War came to the cinema screen
Everyone familiar with motion picture footage of the First World War on the Western Front will certainly have witnessed the talent, daring, uniquely invaluable and enduring work of the author of this book, Geoffrey Malins. Malins was one of two 'Official War Office Kinematographers' authorised to film the allied armies in action in France. There have been comments detrimental to Malins' character, he might have been guilty of embellishment as regards his own actions (no strange phenomenon in a military memoir) and he certainly downplayed the role of his colleague J. B. McDowell to the point of invisibility, but it is pointless to concentrate on the imperfections of the man when balanced against his indisputable achievements. One thing is certain, our knowledge of the Great War would be poorer without Malins. Here was a 'movie man' prepared to go into the danger zone to record the reality of the war of wire, the blood and trenches the ordinary 'Tommy' knew, while dragging around the most cumbersome equipment. His most famous film, 'The Battle of the Somme, ' filmed in 1916 and considered to be excessively graphic by many at the time, was viewed by over 20 million people and is shown on television to the present day. Despite producing some now well known fake 'over the top' sequences, Malins was responsible for the iconic footage of the blowing of the Hawthorn Crater and anyone interested in the Great War and the earliest days of war cinematography will be fascinated to read the story of how it came about. The exploits of Malins and his colleagues make no less gripping reading.
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 noted World War I scholar examines the critical decisions and events that led to Germany's defeat, arguing that the German loss was caused by collapse at home as well as on the front. Much has been written about the causes for the outbreak of World War I and the ways in which the war was fought, but few historians have tackled the reasons why the Germans, who appeared on the surface to be winning for most of the war, ultimately lost. This book, in contrast, presents an in-depth examination of the complex interplay of factors-social, cultural, military, economic, and diplomatic-that led to Germany's defeat. The highly readable work begins with an examination of the strengths and weaknesses of the two coalitions and points out how the balance of forces was clearly on the side of the Entente in a long and drawn-out war. The work then probes the German plan to win the war quickly and the resulting campaigns of August and September 1914 that culminated in the devastating defeat in the First Battle of the Marne. Subsequent chapters discuss the critical factors and decisions that led to Germany's loss, including the British naval blockade, the role of economic factors in maintaining a consensus for war, and the social impact of material deprivation. Starts a new and fuller discussion of Germany's defeat that goes beyond the battlefields of the Western Front Argues that Germany's defeat was caused by a complex interplay of domestic, social, and economic forces as well as by military and diplomatic factors Integrates the internal problems the German people experienced with Germany's defeats at sea and on land Highlights the critical role played by Britain and the United States in bringing about Germany's defeat Discusses the failures of German military planning and the failure of the nation's political leaders and military leaders to understand that war is the continuation of diplomacy by other means

First published in 1914, this is a systematic treatment of the people whose contribution to civilization of the Nile Valley was for so long a source of controversy.

This book tackles cultural mobilization in the First World War as a plural process of identity formation and de-formation. It explores eight different settings in which individuals, communities and conceptual paradigms were mobilized. Taking an interdisciplinary approach, it interrogates one of the most challenging facets of the history of the Great War, one that keeps raising key questions on the way cultures respond to times of crisis. Mobilization during the First World War was a major process of material and imaginative engagement unfolding on a military, economic, political and cultural level, and existing identities were dramatically challenged and questioned by the whirl of discourses and representations involved.

Healing the nation is a study of caregiving during the Great War, exploring life behind the lines for ordinary British soldiers who served on the Western Front. Using a variety of literary, artistic, and architectural evidence, this study draws connections between the war machine and the wartime culture of caregiving: the product of medical knowledge and procedure, social relationships and health institutions that informed experiences of rest, recovery and rehabilitation in sites administered by military and voluntary-aid authorities. Rest huts, hospitals, and rehabilitation centres served not only as means to sustain manpower and support for the war but also as distinctive sites where soldiers, their caregivers and the public attempted to make sense of the conflict and the unprecedented change it wrought. Revealing aspects of wartime life that have received little attention, this study shows that Britain's 'generation of 1914' was a group bound as much by a comradeship of healing as by a comradeship of the trenches. The author has used an extensive collection of illustrations in his discussion, and the book will make fascinating reading for students and specialists in the history of war, medicine and gender studies. -- .

• Designed to be concise yet comprehensive with the undergraduate student in mind • Will serve as a companion to many secondary and primary sources on Wilson • Contains primary source documents to help bring the subject to life

The war for colonial Africa
This very substantial book, written by the two South African official correspondents on the campaign, narrates the expedition in 1914-15 which led to the conquest of German South-West Africa (the region now known as Namibia). One author accompanied the Northern Army and the other, the Southern Army. During the 19th century the great powers of Europe raced to establish themselves in all corners of the globe for colonisation, trade and political influence. In the 'great scramble for Africa, ' the British and German empires had established themselves, by degrees, in the east and west of the continent. In the years before the outbreak of the First World War these colonies existed, more or less, in harmony but once hostilities erupted German and British settlers found themselves living in very close proximity to hostile forces. The British had the advantage of numbers since colonisation had long been a policy, though the Germans compensated for this measure with the abilities of their military commanders and the expertise and quality of their European and locally raised troops. (South Africa itself entered the fray, its forces led by commanders who a little over a decade earlier had led the Boer burghers in their attempts to form a nation independent of the British Empire.) This campaign of mobility was fought in the searing heat of a desert region and was often a 'tip and run affair' as mounted troops traversed huge tracts of inhospitable terrain. Those interested in the First World War often find it's 'side-show' theatres fascinating because they differed so completely from the war of stalemate and attrition on the Western Front. This is a very thorough and comprehensive book written by competent authors who experienced the campaign at first hand and were well qualified to record both their personal impressions and an informed overview of the events they witnessed. This edition of the text is liberally enhanced by the inclusion of many photographs taken on the campaign.
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.

On April 25th 1915, during the First World War, the famous Anzacs landed ashore at Gallipoli. At the exact same moment, leading figures of Armenian life in the Ottoman Empire were being arrested in vast numbers. That dark day marks the simultaneous birth of a national story - and the beginning of a genocide. When We Dead Awaken - the first narrative history of the Armenian Genocide in decades - draws these two landmark historical events together. James Robins explores the accounts of Anzac Prisoners of War who witnessed the genocide, the experiences of soldiers who risked their lives to defend refugees, and Australia and New Zealand's participation in the enormous post-war Armenian relief movement. By exploring the vital political implications of this unexplored history, When We Dead Awaken questions the national folklore of Australia, New Zealand, and Turkey - and the mythology of Anzac Day itself.

This is the first ever major study examining of the views of the Conservative Party towards the key aspects of Anglo-German relations from 1905 to 1914. Drawing on a wide variety of original sources, it examines the Conservative response to the German threat, and argues that the response of the Conservative Party towards Germany showed a marked absence of open hostility towards Germany. Overall, this important new study provides a powerful and overdue corrective to the traditional depiction of the Conservative Party in opposition as 'Scaremongers' and the chief source of Germanophobic views among the British political parties.

The war of the French volunteers
This book does not concern the Battle of Verdun in 1916--widely considered to be the largest battle in world history, rather it positions the action geographically for the reader. Written during wartime this account concerns the personal experiences of a young officer of the French infantry from the earliest days of the Great War through a period of comparative fluidity of movement before the stalemate of trench warfare. The fighting concerns the actions about the Meuse and the Marne in the first year of the war from a French perspective and concludes as the 'armies go to earth' in the early part of 1915. Genevoix takes the reader into the heart of his enthusiastic young group of comrades and soldiers on campaign to provide valuable insights into the opening phases of the great conflict the French infantry knew. Available in soft cover and hard cover with dust jacket.

During the First World War approximately 210,000 Irish men and a much smaller, but significant, number of Irish women served in the British armed forces. All were volunteers and a very high proportion were from Catholic and Nationalist communities. This book is the first comprehensive analysis of Irish recruitment between 1914 and 1918 for the island of Ireland as a whole. It makes extensive use of previously neglected internal British army recruiting returns held at The National Archives, Kew, along with other valuable archival and newspaper sources. There has been a tendency to discount the importance of political factors in Irish recruitment, but this book demonstrates that recruitment campaigns organised under the auspices of the Irish National Volunteers and Ulster Volunteer Force were the earliest and some of the most effective campaigns run throughout the war. The British government conspicuously failed to create an effective recruiting organisation or to mobilise civic society in Ireland. While the military mobilisation which occurred between 1914 and 1918 was the largest in Irish history, British officials persistently characterised it as inadequate, threatening to introduce conscription in 1918. This book also reflects on the disparity of sacrifice between North-East Ulster and the rest of Ireland, urban and rural Ireland, and Ireland and Great Britain.

This book, the second in a planned three-part series, looks at the remainder of Sankes aviator cards numbered 544-685. Sanke, Liersch and NPG postcards featuring German World War I aviators have been collected, traded, and reproduced in many publications over the years, but no author until now has focused on determining when, where, why, and by whom these pictures were taken, or when and why they were issued as postcards. This work pursues the answers to those questions, and while doing so unfolds like a detective story. At its heart is the vast collection of supportive photographs, including some of the original images behind the postcards - many have rarely, if ever, been viewed by the modern public.

SHORTLISTED FOR THE HISTORICAL WRITERS' ASSOCIATION CROWN AWARDS 2022 'Compelling and often horrifying' THE TIMES Best Paperbacks of 2022 The epic, moving stories of Britain's search to recover, identify and honour the missing soldiers of the First World War By the end of the First World War, the whereabouts of more than half a million British soldiers were unknown. Most were presumed dead, lost forever under the battlefields of northern France and Flanders. In The Searchers, Robert Sackville-West brings together the extraordinary, moving accounts of those who dedicated their lives to the search for the missing. These stories reveal the remarkable lengths to which people will go to give meaning to their loss: Rudyard Kipling's quest for his son's grave; E.M. Forster's conversations with traumatised soldiers in hospital in Alexandria; desperate attempts to communicate with the spirits of the dead; the campaign to establish the Tomb of the Unknown Warrior; and the exhumation and reburial in military cemeteries of hundreds of thousands of bodies. It was a search that would span a century: from the department set up to investigate the fate of missing comrades in the war's aftermath to the present day, when DNA profiling continues to aid efforts to recover, identify and honour these men. As the rest of the country found ways to repair and move on, countless families were consumed by this mission, undertaking arduous, often hopeless, journeys to discover what happened to their husbands, brothers and sons. Giving prominence to the personal battles of those left behind, The Searchers brings the legacy of war vividly to life in a testament to the bravery, compassion and resilience of the human spirit.