Why did Asquith take Britain to war in 1914? What did educated young men believe their role should be? What was it like to fly over the Somme battlefield? How could a trench on the front line be 'the safest place'? These compelling eye-witness accounts convey what it was really like to experience the first two years of the war up until the fall of Asquith's government, without the benefit of hindsight or the accumulated wisdom of a hundred years of discussion and writing. Using the rich manuscript resources of the Bodleian Libraries, the book features key extracts from letters and diaries of members of the Cabinet, academic and literary figures, student soldiers and a village rector. The letters of politicians reveal the strain of war leadership and throw light on the downfall of Asquith in 1916, while the experiences of the young Harold Macmillan in the trenches, vividly described in letters home, marked the beginning of his road to Downing Street. It was forbidden to record Cabinet discussions, but Lewis Harcourt's unauthorised diary provides a window on Asquith's government, complete with character sketches of some of the leading players, including Winston Churchill. Meanwhile, in one Essex village, the local rector compiled a diary to record the impact of war on his community. These fascinating contemporary papers paint a highly personal and immediate picture of the war as it happened. Fear, anger, death and sorrow are always present, but so too are idealism, excitement, humour, boredom and even beauty.

Histories you can trust. The First World War, now a century ago, still shapes the world in which we live, and its legacy lives on, in poetry, in prose, in collective memory and political culture. By the time the war ended in 1918, millions lay dead. Three major empires lay shattered by defeat, those of Germany, Austria-Hungary, and the Ottomans. A fourth, Russia, was in the throes of a revolution that helped define the rest of the twentieth century. The Oxford History of the First World War brings together in one volume many of the most distinguished historians of the conflict, in an account that matches the scale of the events. From its causes to its consequences, from the Western Front to the Eastern, from the strategy of the politicians to the tactics of the generals, they chart the course of the war and assess its profound political and human consequences. Chapters on economic mobilization, the impact on women, the role of propaganda, and the rise of socialism establish the wider context of the fighting at sea and in the air, and which ranged on land from the trenches of Flanders to the mountains of the Balkans and the deserts of the Middle East.

The First World War required the mobilisation of entire societies, regardless of age or gender. The phrase 'home front' was itself a product of the war with parts of Britain literally a war front, coming under enemy attack from the sea and increasingly the air. However, the home front also conveyed the war's impact on almost every aspect of British life, economic, social and domestic. In the fullest account to-date, leading historians show how the war blurred the division between what was military and not, and how it made many conscious of their national identities for the first time. They reveal how its impact changed Britain for ever, transforming the monarchy, promoting systematic cabinet government, and prompting state intervention in a country which prided itself on its liberalism and its support for free trade. In many respects we still live with the consequences.

The essential resource on military and political strategy and the making of the modern world.

The New Makers of Modern Strategy is the next generation of the definitive work on strategy and the key figures who have shaped the theory and practice of war and statecraft throughout the centuries. Featuring entirely new entries by a who’s who of world-class scholars, this new edition provides global, comparative perspectives on strategic thought from antiquity to today, surveying both classical and current themes of strategy while devoting greater attention to the Cold War and post-9/11 eras. The contributors evaluate the timeless requirements of effective strategy while tracing the revolutionary changes that challenge the makers of strategy in the contemporary world. Amid intensifying global disorder, the study of strategy and its history has never been more relevant. The New Makers of Modern Strategy draws vital lessons from history’s most influential strategists, from Thucydides and Sun Zi to Clausewitz, Napoleon, Churchill, Mao, Ben-Gurion, Andrew Marshall, Xi Jinping, and Qassem Soleimani.

With contributions by Dmitry Adamsky, John Bew, Tami Davis Biddle, Hal Brands, Antulio J. Echevarria II, Elizabeth Economy, Charles Edel, Eric S. Edelman, Andrew Ehrhardt, Lawrence Freedman, John Lewis Gaddis, Francis J. Gavin, Christopher J. Griffin, Ahmed S. Hashim, Eric Helleiner, Wayne Wei-siang Hsieh, Seth G. Jones, Robert Kagan, Jonathan Kirshner, Matthew Kroenig, James Lacey, Guy Laron, Michael V. Leggiere, Margaret MacMillan, Tanvi Madan, Thomas G. Mahnken, Carter Malkasian, Daniel Marston, John H. Maurer, Walter Russell Mead, Michael Cotey Morgan, Mark Moyar, Williamson Murray, S.C.M. Paine, Sergey Radchenko, Iskander Rehman, Thomas Rid, Joshua Rovner, Priya Satia, Kori Schake, Matt J. Schumann, Brendan Simms, Jason K. Stearns, Hew Strachan, Sue Mi Terry, and Toshi Yoshihara.

There are many histories of how wars have begun, but very few which discuss how they have ended. This book fills that gap. Beginning with the Stone Age and ending with globalized terrorism, it addresses the specific issue of surrender, rather than the subsequent establishment of peace. At its heart is the individual warrior or soldier, and his or her decision to lay down arms. In the ancient world surrender led in most cases to slavery, but a slave still lived rather than died. In the modern world international law gives the soldiers rights as prisoners of war, and those rights include the prospect of their eventual return home. But individuals can surrender at any point in a war, and without having such an effect that they end the war. The termination of hostilities depends on a collective act for its consequences to be decisive. It also requires the enemy to accept the offer to surrender in the midst of combat. In other words, like so much else in war, surrender depends on reciprocity - on the readiness of one side to stop fighting and of the other to accept that readiness. This volume argues that surrender is the single biggest contributor to the containment of violence in warfare, offering the vanquished the opportunity to survive and the victor the chance to show moderation and magnanimity. Since the rules of surrender have developed over time, they form a key element in understanding the cultural history of warfare.

Discussing the key issues of modern warfare, Hew Strachan's work examines the theory and practice of land warfare in Europe since 1700. Looking at warfare in the context of social and political change, Dr. Strachan interprets his subject matter as widely as possible, and European Armies and the Conduct of War considers the roles of air power and the impact of the United States on European military developments. Through the eyes of the major theorists of the day, European Armies examines: * how the social and political influences which shape armies, also mould the attitude of those armies to warfare * the story of techicnal innovation * the mounting pace of industrialization and its impact of warfare. Recent military history has tended to focus on the relationship between armies and society and there has been much original research on the subject of the conduct of war. This book brings these approaches together, providing information and insight vital to the study of this fascinating era.

This is a fascinating new insight into the British army and its evolution through both large and small scale conflicts.

To prepare for future wars, armies derive lessons from past wars. However, some armies are defeated because they learnt the wrong lessons, fighting new conflicts in ways appropriate to the last. For the British Army in the twentieth century, the challenge has been particularly great. It has never had the luxury of emerging from one major European war with the time to prepare itself for the next.

The leading military historians show how ongoing commitments to a range of small wars have always been part of the Army s experience. After 1902 and after 1918 they included colonial campaigns, but they also developed into what we would now call counter-insurgency operations, and these became the norm between 1945 and 1969. During the height of the Cold War, in 1982, the Army was deployed to the Falklands. Since 1990 the dominant tasks of the Army have been peace support operations.

This is an excellent resource for all students and scholars of military history, politics and international relations and British history.

The book sets out to show how in the 20th century the British army has learnt lessons from one war in order to prepare for the next. For the British Army in the twentieth century the challenge has been particularly great as it has never had the luxury of emerging from one major European war and then preparing itself for the next but has always has to reckon with ongoing commitments to a range of "small wars" that included after 1902 and again after 1918 colonial campaigns, counter-insurgency operations between 1945 and 1969 and almost predominantly since 1990 peace support operations. As the Army's current doctrine is still that by preparing for major war it also enables itself to prepare for lesser conflicts, this volume explores the historical dimension to this debate and offers analyses by the most prominent experts in the field including Hew Strachan, Edward Spiers, David French, Paul Cornish, Daniel Marston, David Benest, Simon Ball and Colin McInnes.
This book will be of great interest to students of military history and strategic studies, in general, and of particular interest to students of the British Army and British military doctrine.

Breaking with the tradition that literature about the direction and coordination of military forces should only deal with technology and procedures, this work also takes into account the underlying domestic conditions of a conflict, including cultural, personal and political relations. The book focuses on two instances, where fundamental assumptions were at loggerheads and provides a theoretical nuts and bolts approach introduced within the opening chapters.

Breaking with the tradition that literature about the direction and coordination of military forces should only deal with technology and procedures, this work also takes into account the underlying domestic conditions of a conflict, including cultural, personal and political relations. The book focuses on two instances, where fundamental assumptions were at loggerheads and provides a theoretical nuts and bolts approach introduced within the opening chapters.

At the turn of the millennium, the British Army finds its position in relation to British society paradoxical. One one level it enjoys public support; it is seen as a highly professional organization in which the civil population has great trust. On another, its values are portrayed as out of touch with society; its policies or its behaviour in relationship to gender, sex and race are attacked in the press; society is seen to have changed, but the Army has not. The Army's response is that at least some of the differences betwen Army and society are necessary given that particular nature of its task: ultimately the soldier's profession is one unlike any other, because it requires him (or her) to be ready to die in the course of duty.

The First World War required the mobilisation of entire societies, regardless of age or gender. The phrase 'home front' was itself a product of the war with parts of Britain literally a war front, coming under enemy attack from the sea and increasingly the air. However, the home front also conveyed the war's impact on almost every aspect of British life, economic, social and domestic. In the fullest account to-date, leading historians show how the war blurred the division between what was military and not, and how it made many conscious of their national identities for the first time. They reveal how its impact changed Britain for ever, transforming the monarchy, promoting systematic cabinet government, and prompting state intervention in a country which prided itself on its liberalism and its support for free trade. In many respects we still live with the consequences.

Discussing the key issues of modern warfare, Hew Strachan's work examines the theory and practice of land warfare in Europe since 1700. Looking at warfare in the context of social and political change, Dr. Strachan interprets his subject matter as widely as possible, and European Armies and the Conduct of War considers the roles of air power and the impact of the United States on European military developments. Through the eyes of the major theorists of the day, European Armies examines: * how the social and political influences which shape armies, also mould the attitude of those armies to warfare * the story of techicnal innovation * the mounting pace of industrialization and its impact of warfare. Recent military history has tended to focus on the relationship between armies and society and there has been much original research on the subject of the conduct of war. This book brings these approaches together, providing information and insight vital to the study of this fascinating era.

Over the last decade (and indeed ever since the Cold War), the rise of insurgents and non-state actors in war, and their readiness to use terror and other irregular methods of fighting, have led commentators to speak of 'new wars'. They have assumed that the 'old wars' were waged solely between states, and were accordingly fought between comparable and 'symmetrical' armed forces. Much of this commentary has lacked context or sophistication. It has been bounded by norms and theories more than the messiness of reality. Fed by the impact of the 9/11 attacks, it has privileged some wars and certain trends over others. Most obviously it has been historically unaware. But it has also failed to consider many of the other dimensions which help us to define what war is--legal, ethical, religious, and social.
The Changing Character of War, the fruit of a five-year interdisciplinary program at Oxford Univeresity of the same name, draws together all these themes, in order to distinguish between what is really changing about war and what only seems to be changing. Self-evidently, as the product of its own times, the character of each war is always changing. But if war's character is in flux, its underlying nature contains its own internal consistency. Each war is an adversarial business, capable of generating its own dynamic, and therefore of spiralling in directions that are never totally predictable. War is both utilitarian, the tool of policy, and dysfunctional. This book brings together scholars with world-wide reputations, drawn from a clutch of different disciplines, but united by a common intellectual goal: that of understanding a problem of extraordinary importance for our times.
This book is a project of the Oxford Leverhulme Program on the Changing Character of War.

The wars since 9/11, both in Iraq and Afghanistan, have generated frustration and an increasing sense of failure in the West. Much of the blame has been attributed to poor strategy. In both the United States and the United Kingdom, public enquiries and defence think tanks have detected a lack of consistent direction, of effective communication, and of governmental coordination. In this important book, Sir Hew Strachan, one of the world's leading military historians, reveals how these failures resulted from a fundamental misreading and misapplication of strategy itself. He argues that the wars since 2001 have not in reality been as 'new' as has been widely assumed and that we need to adopt a more historical approach to contemporary strategy in order to identify what is really changing in how we wage war. If war is to fulfil the aims of policy, then we need first to understand war.

Over the last decade (and indeed ever since the Cold War), the rise of insurgents and non-state actors in war, and their readiness to use terror and other irregular methods of fighting, have led commentators to speak of 'new wars'. They have assumed that the 'old wars' were waged solely between states, and were accordingly fought between comparable and 'symmetrical' armed forces. Much of this commentary has lacked context or sophistication. It has been bounded by norms and theories more than the messiness of reality. Fed by the impact of the 9/11 attacks, it has privileged some wars and certain trends over others. Most obviously it has been historically unaware. But it has also failed to consider many of the other dimensions which help us to define what war is - legal, ethical, religious, and social. The Changing Character of War, the fruit of a five-year interdisciplinary programme at Oxford of the same name, draws together all these themes, in order to distinguish between what is really changing about war and what only seems to be changing. Self-evidently, as the product of its own times, the character of each war is always changing. But if war's character is in flux, its underlying nature contains its own internal consistency. Each war is an adversarial business, capable of generating its own dynamic, and therefore of spiralling in directions that are never totally predictable. War is both utilitarian, the tool of policy, and dysfunctional. This book brings together scholars with world-wide reputations, drawn from a clutch of different disciplines, but united by a common intellectual goal: that of understanding a problem of extraordinary importance for our times. This book is a project of the Oxford Leverhulme Programme on the Changing Character of War.

Clausewitz's On War has, at least until very recently, been regarded as the most important work of theory on its subject. But since the end of the Cold War in 1990, and even more since the 9/11 attacks on the United states in 2001, an increasing number of commentators have argued that On War has lost its analytical edge as a tool for understanding war. They have argued that Clausewitz was concerned solely with inter-state war and with properly defined armies, and that the sorts of conflicts which he discussed are therefore part of a historical pattern which dominated Europe between 1648, the end of the Thirty Years War, and 1990 itself. Some have gone further, and suggested that Clausewitz's best known aphorism, that war is a continuation of policy by other means, is not only irrelevant today but also inapplicable historically. Clausewitz in the Twenty-First Century reconsiders the principal themes in Clausewitz's writings from a contemporary perspective, and finds in them much more inspiration and insight than these generalisations allow. Embracing the perspectives of history, philosophy and political science, the book reconsiders both the text and its current implications. Traditional interpretations of On War are put into fresh light; neglected passages are re-examined; and new insights are derived from the conjunction between Clausewitz's text and today's challenges. This book is a project of the Oxford Leverhulme Programme on the Changing Character of War.

The wars since 9/11, both in Iraq and Afghanistan, have generated frustration and an increasing sense of failure in the West. Much of the blame has been attributed to poor strategy. In both the United States and the United Kingdom, public enquiries and defence think tanks have detected a lack of consistent direction, of effective communication, and of governmental coordination. In this important book, Sir Hew Strachan, one of the world's leading military historians, reveals how these failures resulted from a fundamental misreading and misapplication of strategy itself. He argues that the wars since 2001 have not in reality been as 'new' as has been widely assumed and that we need to adopt a more historical approach to contemporary strategy in order to identify what is really changing in how we wage war. If war is to fulfil the aims of policy, then we need first to understand war.

In one of the finest autobiographies to come out of the First World War, the acclaimed poet Edmund Blunden records his devastating experiences in France and Flanders. Enlisting at the age of twenty, he took part in the disastrous battles of the Somme, Ypres and Passchendale, describing the latter as 'murder, not only to the troops but to their singing faiths and hopes'. In his compassionate yet unsentimental prose, he tells of the endurance, heroism - and despair - among the men of his battalion.

This volume, which contains a selection of Blunden's war poems, also reveals his close affinity with the natural world: the 'shepherd in a soldier's coat' whose love of the rural landscape gave him some refuge from the terrible betrayal enacted in Flanders fields.

'One of them shouted "A Merry Christmas English. We're not shooting tonight." . . . [then] they stuck up a light. Not to be outdone, so did we. Then up went another. So, we shoved up another. Soon the lines looked like an illuminated fete.' Rifleman Leslie Walkington On Christmas Eve 1914, a group of German soldiers laid down their arms, lit lanterns and started to sing Christmas carols. The British troops in nearby trenches responded by singing songs of their own. The next day, men from both sides met in No Man's Land. They shook hands, took photos and exchanged food and souvenirs. Some even played improvised football games, kicking around empty bully-beef cans and using helmets for goalposts. Both sides also saw the lull in fighting as a chance to bury the bodies of their comrades. In some parts of the front, the truce lasted a few hours. In others, it continued to the New Year. But everywhere, sooner or later, the fighting resumed. Today, the Christmas Truce is seen as a poignant symbol of hope in a war that many people regard as unnecessary and futile. But what was the real story of those remarkable few days? In this fascinating new book, historian Anthony Richards has brought together hundreds of first-hand reminiscences from those who were there - including previously unpublished German accounts - to cast fresh light on this extraordinary episode.

A brilliant and penetrating new history of the First World War by one of the world's foremost experts on the conflict. Reissued with a new introduction from the author. Hew Strachan is one of the world's foremost experts on the Great War of 1914-18. His on-going three-volume history of the conflict, the first of which was published in 2001, is likely to become the standard academic reference work: Max Hastings called it 'one of the most impressive books of modern history in a generation', while Richard Holmes hailed it as a 'towering achievement'. Now, Hew Strachan brings his immense knowledge to a one-volume work aimed squarely at the general reader. The inspiration behind the major Channel 4 series of the same name, to which Hew was chief consultant, THE FIRST WORLD WAR is a significant addition to the literature on this subject, taking as it does a uniquely global view of what is often misconceived as a prolonged skirmish on the Western Front. Exploring such theatres as the Balkans, Africa and the Ottoman Empire, Strachan assesses Britain's participation in the light of what became a struggle for the defence of liberalism, and show how the war shaped the 'short' twentieth century that followed it. Accessible, compelling and utterly convincing, this is modern history writing at its finest.

This book is a photographic odyssey through the lands of the First World War. For more than ten years the photographer travelled from the dust of the Namib deserts to the frozen heights of the Vosges to create a unique collection of images that document how time and nature have transformed these places of horror and killing into landscapes of great beauty and tranquillity...If anyone wants the reason for these photographs then they need look no further than the thoughts of a veteran leaving the shattered fields of the Somme who wrote: "No, they would not be lonely, I saw that bare country before me...the miles and miles of torn earth...the litter, the dead trees. But the country would come back to life, the grass would grow again, the wild flowers return. They would lie still and at peace below the singing larks, beside the serenely flowing rivers. They could not feel lonely, they would have one another. And...though we were going home and leaving them behind, we belonged to them, and they would be a part of us for ever." (P. J. Campbell).

Hew Strachan's monumental account has been heralded as the definitive work on the First World War. His narrative, always readable and incisive, brings together an unparalleled range of material. Military and strategic perspectives are combined with those of cultural, diplomatic, economic, and social history. The viewpoints of Germany, England, and France are represented with equal clarity. The result is an account that breaks the bounds of national preoccupations to become both global and comparative.

To Arms is Hew Strachan's most complete and definitive study of the opening of the First World War. Now, key sections from this magisterial work are published as individual paperbacks, each complete in itself, and with a new introduction by the author. Ever since its outbreak in 1914, the causes of the First World War have been one of the major debates in world history. For some it was a war engineered by Germany, and a pointer towards Hitler. For others it was the product of miscalculation - a verdict whose poignancy is heightened by the knowledge of what followed. The Outbreak of the First World War eschews either extreme. Instead, the first half of this book approaches the issues from the perspectives of those who grappled with conflicting priorities and vital national interests. The second considers the responses of their peoples and the so-called 'ideas of 1914'. This was the crisis which, more than any other, shaped the twentieth century.