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By Peter Kilduff. 2009
This biography of the WWI fighter pilot offers &“an intimate portrait of the last recipient of the &‘Blue Max&’&” (Barrett…
Tillman). One of the most noteworthy German fighter pilots of World War I was Leutnant der Reserve Carl Degelow, whose squadron of mostly black Fokker D.VII fighters posed a formidable threat to some of Britain&’s most celebrated air units on the Western Front. Black Fokker Leader, filled with new information and original photos, is based on the author&’s research of significant German archival material and documentation, as well as British, French, and Belgian sources, shedding new light on this legendary ace. The biography offers previously unpublished material about Degelow and his comrades: how he was almost court-martialed; how his career was saved by Josef Jacobs; how Degelow helped Willy Rosenstein escape from Nazi Germany; and much more. Also included are new insights into men like Field Marshal Erhard Milch, Degelow&’s wing commander in WWI; and V-2 rocket chief Gen. Hans Jeschonnek, a Degelow protégé in 1918.By David W. Cameron. 2024
The August Offensive or &‘Anzac Breakout&’ at Gallipoli was an attempt to break the stalemate of the campaign. It saw…
some of the bloodiest fighting since the landing as Commonwealth and Turkish troops fought desperate battles at Lone Pine, German Officers&’ Trench, Turkish Quinn&’s, The Chessboard, The Nek, The Farm, Hill Q, Chunuk Bair, and Hill 971. The offensive was designed to allow the allied forces to &‘break out&’ of the Anzac beachhead below the Sari Bair Range. The capture of Chunuk Bair by the New Zealanders resulted in some of the bloodiest fighting at Gallipoli and was key to the entire August offensive. While it was taken and held for a few days - it&’s recapture by the Turks on 10 August 1915 decided the fate of the Gallipoli Campaign. Within four months the Allies were forced to evacuate the peninsula, leaving it to the Turks - a decisive victory for the Ottoman Empire Death on Bloody Ridge: Chunuk Bair - the battle that decided the fate of the Gallipoli Campaign, focuses solely on this one decisive battle.By Andrew Faulkner. 2024
This is a story of a forgotten battle. Other than in the haunted memories of those who fought there, and…
the families of those who died there, this battle is a footnote in the history books: a backwater off a side road at the end of a cul-de-sac on the battlefield tour trail. Guts Glory and Blunder reaches into the valley beneath the vaunted Hindenburg Line to draw out the men who fought and died seizing the French village of Noreuil in 1917. It finds hardened Anzacs and raw reinforcements fighting and dying shoulder-to-shoulder, step by bloody step, on the path to victory. Beginning on Gallipoli&’s fatal shore, Guts Glory and Blunder follows the Anzacs to the Somme trenches and the race to the Hindenburg Line. This is a story of the 50th Battalion&’s uncommon valour in its fiercest battle. How ordinary men performed superhuman feats despite a flawed plan, &‘friendly&’ fire, enemy atrocities – a POW massacre and human shield tactics – and a combat mutiny. How a larrikin private was awarded a Victoria Cross for one of the most audacious stunts in the history of the medal. Guts Glory and Blunder is a story of how the diggers prevailed against all odds.By Chad L. Williams. 2023
A Washington Post Notable Book of 2023The dramatic story of W. E. B. Du Bois's reckoning with the betrayal of…
Black soldiers during World War I—and a new understanding of one of the great twentieth-century writers.When W. E. B. Du Bois, believing in the possibility of full citizenship and democratic change, encouraged African Americans to “close ranks” and support the Allied cause in World War I, he made a decision that would haunt him for the rest of his life. Seeking both intellectual clarity and personal atonement, for more than two decades Du Bois attempted to write the definitive history of Black participation in World War I. His book, however, remained unfinished. In The Wounded World, Chad Williams offers the dramatic account of Du Bois’s failed efforts to complete what would have been one of his most significant works. The surprising story of this unpublished book offers new insight into Du Bois’s struggles to reckon with both the history and the troubling memory of the war, along with the broader meanings of race and democracy for Black people in the twentieth century.Drawing on a broad range of sources, most notably Du Bois’s unpublished manuscript and research materials, Williams tells a sweeping story of hope, betrayal, disillusionment, and transformation, setting into motion a fresh understanding of the life and mind of arguably the most significant scholar-activist in African American history. In uncovering what happened to Du Bois’s largely forgotten book, Williams offers a captivating reminder of the importance of World War I, why it mattered to Du Bois, and why it continues to matter today.By Vivien Newman, David A. Semeraro. 2017
The Untold Story of Rgina Diana tells of the rebellious daughter of working-class French-Italian parents from a run-down area of…
Geneva who, trained by the most ruthless spymaster of them all, Elisabeth Schragmller (aka Fraulein Doktor), became a much-adored French caf-concert singer, a discreet and highly prized prostitute plying her trade, and a successful German Great War spy.Reginas spy operations were full of intrigue: a network spanning four countries based in the shamed city of Marseille, with her performing abilities and sexual charms allowing her to lure men from privates to generals into giving her vital information.This book is not just about Rgina, but also explodes the much-vaunted myth of Swiss neutrality. Switzerland, a nest of spies, was riven between support for Germany and France; in an extraordinary penetration of the upper echelons of Swiss society, the Swiss Army Commander-in-Chief was married to former German Chancellor Otto von Bismarks daughter.Yet exhuming Rgina from her unmarked grave involved a tantalizing journey - getting past her disavowal by both France and Switzerland, unraveling the truth behind a three-line report about a pretty Swiss singers execution and overcoming the obfuscation of French military archivists. Even her execution was fittingly exceptional. So determined were the French authorities that she should die, her firing squad numbered not the usual twelve, but twenty-five smoking rifles.By Michael Harrison. 2016
Bois de Fourcaux, a luxuriant woodland covering 75 acres, set in the area of the battlefields of the Somme, dominates…
the surrounding landscape today, as it did in the summer of the year 1916. Known to the British Army as High Wood, the invading Germans had occupied the wood as it proved to be a natural field fortification and a menace that had to be neutralized if the British were to find a way forward in their attempts to breach the trench systems of the German Army and break out into the Green Fields Beyond.This insightful publication will take the battlefield visitor, and also those who are unable to visit the site, on a journey through the history of the battles for High Wood and its environs. It covers the most significant dates in the British Armys struggle to eject the invader and the Germans determination to hold that which they considered to be their new National Frontier. This is the story of the largely amateur British Army of 1916. Lessons were learned in the roaring furnace of the Somme that would transform the fighting ability of the British irrevocably: High Wood was at the epicentre of that learning process.The book contains detailed maps from the time of the High Wood battles using the excellent British Trench maps and, importantly, an explanation on the use of the numbered grid system, which enables the visitor to locate, to within 5 yards, the site of an action that took place 100 years ago. Photographs are also included to enhance the visitor experience. Join us for the journeyBy Gerard DeGroot. 2014
World War One had a devastating, cataclysmic impact on the world and the British people. As its reverberations were so…
long-lasting and significant, it is easy to assume that the social consequences were as profound. In this highly readable and moving survey of life back at home during the First World War, Gerard DeGroot challenges this assumption, finding pre-war social structures were surprisingly resilient. Despite economic and technological changes, the British peoplemanaged to cling onto their usual ways of life as much as possible in this new world. Back in Blighty has been fully revised to take into account new scholarship and historical perspectives, and is full of fascinating glimpses into everyday life during the war. The lives of ordinary people are illuminated and given historical significance in this powerful portrait of the British people and their culture.By John Buckley, Spencer Jones. 2023
‘The Armchair General team has done it again. An absorbing read for Christmas.’Peter Caddick-Adams‘Brilliant and immersive.’Harry SidebottomThe second book in…
the Armchair General series, where YOU choose the fate of the First World War________________________________HISTORY IS WRITTEN BY THE VICTORS. WILL IT BE YOU?TAKE THE HOTSEATAssume the role of real historic decision-makers: general, leaders, soldiers and intelligence officers of the Allied Forces during World War I.EXAMINE THE INTELLIGENCEExplore eight key moments from the First World War, using real contemporaneous intelligence: including the July Crisis, the Battle of the Somme, and the Russian Revolution.CONSIDER THE SCENARIO & MAKE YOUR DECISIONFrom battlefields to the Royal Courts, each tactical and strategic decision you make leads to a different outcome.Will you follow the path of the past - or shape a new history...?________________________________PRAISE FOR THE ARMCHAIR GENERAL SERIES'An original and exciting approach...The Armchair General adds enormously to our understanding of the conflicts' JAMES HOLLAND'A reminder that history is a never ending now, a relentless and endless present that comes without the luxury of hindsight' AL MURRAY'Wonderfully original...putting readers at the heart of the decision-making process and allowing them, literally, to change the course of history. This is counterfactual history at its very best' SAUL DAVIDBy Paul Atterbury. 2014
To mark the centenary of the start of World War I, the Antiques Roadshow team filmed a series of specials…
at the Somme, where the public brought in their family's war memorabilia and photographs. These 'antiques' weren't financially valuable, or in some cases even very beautiful, but the stories that came attached to these momentoes were priceless. Antiques Roadshow: World War I in 100 Family Treasures takes 100 of the most fascinating and moving stories and shows how they fit in to the wider history that was occuring around them. From Rifleman Frank Edwards, who led the 'big push' in September 1915 kicking a football in front of the troops (and survived to tell the tale) to the formidable Catherine Murray Roy, one of the first 50 nurses to be sent to the front lines in France. The story behind each object paints an intimate portrait of a long-lost relative, and quotes from the modern-day participants in the roadshow provide a moving link between the families then and now. Fully illustrated, and featuring all the stories from the show, this is a truly unique way of telling the story of those ordinary lives that were, by the onset of war in 1914, thrown into the most extraordinary of circumstances.THE ULTIMATE SURVIVAL GUIDE for anyone who thinks they'd survive the world's most hostile environments - or at least imagine…
they could do.-----------------------------First issued to British airmen in the 1950s the beautifully illustrated Air Ministry Survival Guide provides invaluable practical tips and instruction on how to keep calm and carry on in any hostile environment.Whether you're lost in the desert, arctic, jungle, or adrift on the open ocean, you'll be better off armed with sensible advice on how to:- Build a structurally sound igloo- Pull faces to prevent frostbite (and when to expect bits to fall off should you fail)- Fashion a mask to prevent snowblindness- Make a hat out of seat cushions- Behave in the event of meeting hostile locals- Stay safe from poisonous reptiles and insects- Use a 'fire thong'- Punch man-eating sharks (which are cowards)By Robert Kershaw. 2016
The first day of the Somme has had more of a widespread emotional impact on the psyche of the British…
public than any other battle in history. Now, 100 years later, Robert Kershaw attempts to understand the carnage, using the voices of the British and German soldiers who lived through that awful day.In the early hours of 1 July 1916, the British General staff placed its faith in patriotism and guts, believing that one ‘Big Push’ would bring on the end of the Great War. By sunset, there were 57,470 men – more than half the size of the present-day British Army – who lay dead, missing or wounded. On that day hope died.Juxtaposing the British trench view against that from the German parapet, Kershaw draws on eyewitness accounts, memories and letters to expose the true horror of that day. Amongst the mud, gore and stench of death, there are also stories of humanity and resilience, of all-embracing comradeship and gritty patriotic British spirit. However it was this very emotion which ultimately caused thousands of young men to sacrifice themselves on the Somme.By Allan Mallinson. 2013
‘No part of the Great War compares in interest with its opening’, wrote Churchill. ‘The measured, silent drawing together of…
gigantic forces, the uncertainty of their movements and positions, the number of unknown and unknowable facts made the first collision a drama never surpassed…in fact the War was decided in the first twenty days of fighting, and all that happened afterwards consisted in battles which, however formidable and devastating, were but desperate and vain appeals against the decision of fate.’On of Britain's foremost military historians and defence experts tackles the origins - and the opening first few weeks of fighting - of what would become known as 'the war to end all wars'. Intensely researched and convincingly argued, Allan Mallinson explores and explains the grand strategic shift that occurred in the century before the war, the British Army’s regeneration after its drubbings in its fight against the Boer in South Africa, its almost calamitous experience of the first twenty days’ fighting in Flanders to the point at which the British Expeditionary Force - the 'Old Contemptibles' - took up the spade in the middle of September 1914: for it was then that the war changed from one of rapid and brutal movement into the more familiar vision of trench warfare on Western Front. In this vivid, compelling new history, Malliinson brings his experience as a professional soldier to bear on the circumstances, events, actions and individuals and speculates – tantalizingly – on what might have been...By Dennis Goodwin, Henry Allingham. 2008
Henry Allingham is the last British serviceman alive to have volunteered for active duty in the First World War and…
is one of very few people who can directly recall the horror of that conflict. In Kitchener's Last Volunteer, he vividly recaptures how life was lived in the Edwardian era and how it was altered irrevocably by the slaughter of millions of men in the Great War, and by the subsequent coming of the modern age.Henry is unique in that he saw action on land, sea and in the air with the British Naval Air Service. He was present at the Battle of Jutland in 1916 with the British Grand Fleet and went on to serve on the Western Front. He befriended several of the young pilots who would lose their lives, and he himself suffered the privations of the front line under fire.In recent years, Henry was given the opportunity to tell his remarkable story to a wider audience through a BBC documentary, and he has since become a hero to many, meeting royalty and having many honours bestowed upon him.This is the touching story of an ordinary man's extraordinary life - one who has outlived six monarchs and twenty-one prime ministers, and who represents a last link to a vital point in our nation's history.By Trevor Royle. 1990
This anthology is the first ever acknowledgement of Scotland's unique contribution to the literature of the First World War. Here…
are gathered together well-known writers like John Buchan, Eric Linklater, Hugh MacDiarmid and Compton Mackenzie, as well as poets like Joseph Lee and Roderick Watson Kerr, who found their true voices fighting in a war to end wars. There is also a substantial contribution from women writers in the work of Violet Jacob, Naomi Mitchison and Mary Symon.By R. C. Sherriff. 1993
Set in the First World War, Journey's End concerns a group of British officers on the front line and opens…
in a dugout in the trenches in France. Raleigh, a new eighteen-year-old officer fresh out of English public school, joins the besieged company of his friend and cricketing hero Stanhope, and finds him dramatically changed ...Laurence Olivier starred as Stanhope in the first performance of Journey's End in 1928; the play was an instant stage success and remains a remarkable anti-war classic.By Gerry Docherty, James MacGregor. 2013
Think you know about British history and the causes of the First World War? Think again. This fascinating and gripping…
study of events at the turn of the Twentieth Century is a remarkable insight into how political and social factors that we widely accept to be the causes of The Great War, were really just a construct put together by a very small, but powerful, political elite...'Thought-provoking . . . Docherty and Macgregor do not mince their words . . . their arguments are powerful' -- Britain at War'Simply astonishing' -- ***** Reader review'Very illuminating' -- ***** Reader review'You simply MUST read this book' -- ***** Reader review'This is a page-turner' -- ***** Reader review***********************************************************************************Hidden History uniquely exposes those responsible for the First World War. It reveals how accounts of the war's origins have been deliberately falsified to conceal the guilt of the secret cabal of very rich and powerful men in London responsible for the most heinous crime perpetrated on humanity. For ten years, they plotted the destruction of Germany as the first stage of their plan to take control of the world. The assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand was no chance happening. It lit a fuse that had been carefully set through a chain of command stretching from Sarajevo through Belgrade and St Petersburg to that cabal in London.Our understanding of these events has been firmly trapped in a web of falsehood and duplicity carefully constructed by the victors at Versailles in 1919 and maintained by compliant historians ever since. The official version is fatally flawed, warped by the volume of evidence they destroyed or concealed from public view.Hidden History poses a tantalising challenge. The authors ask only that you examine the evidence they lay before you . . .William Stone died on 10 January 2009 aged 108. He received a hero's funeral. Born in rural Devon, he joined…
the navy during the First World War, travelled the globe just before the British Empire's light began to fade and saw action in some of the most significant sea battles of the Second World War. Afterwards, he returned to Devon to run a barber's shop, an altogether more peaceable existence.As time passed, he became one of a dwindling number of men still alive who had served in the Great War. This meant that for some of the most momentous anniversaries clocked up recently - including the 90th anniversary of the end of the First World War - William was a guest of honour. This autobiography bridges two wars and encompasses the remarkable episodes and adventures. It was an ordinary life lived in extraordinary times. He died at a time when the navy is attempting to embrace new ships that bear scant resemblance to those that William knew and face the challenges of a world that shrinks with every bold technological advance. His was a different kind of boldness. This is his astonishing story.By Isobel Charman. 2014
During the First World War three quarters of a million British people died – a figure so huge that it…
feels impossible to give it a human context. Consequently we struggle to truly grasp the impact this devastating conflict must have had on people's day-to-day lives. We resort to looking at the war from a distance, viewing its events in terms of their political or military significance. The Great War: The People's Story is different. Like the all-star ITV series it accompanies, it immerses the reader in the everyday experiences of real people who lived through the war. Using letters, diaries, and memoirs – many of which have never previously been published – Isobel Charman has painstakingly reconstructed the lives of people such as separated newly-weds Alan and Dorothy Lloyd, plucky enlisted factory-worker Reg Evans and proudly independent suffragist Kate Parry Frye. A century on, they here tell their stories in their own words, offering a uniquely personal account of the conflict.The Great War: The People's Story is both a meticulously researched piece of narrative history and a deeply moving remembrance of the extraordinary acts of extremely ordinary people.By Jeremy Paxman. 2013
Jeremy Paxman's magnificent history of the First World War tells the entire story of the war in one gripping narrative…
from the point of view of the British people.***We may think we know about it, but what was life really like for the British people during the First World War?The well-known images - the pointing finger of Lord Kitchener; a Tommy buried in the mud of the Western Front; the memorial poppies of Remembrance Day - all reinforce the idea that it was a pointless waste of life. So why did the British fight it so willingly and how did the country endure it for so long?Using a wealth of first-hand source material, Jeremy Paxman brings vividly to life the day-to-day experience of the British over the entire course of the war, from politicians, newspapermen, campaigners and Generals, to Tommies, factory workers, nurses, wives and children. It shows how both British life and identity were utterly transformed - not always for the worst - by the enormous upheaval of the war.Rich with personalities, surprises and ironies, this lively narrative history paints a picture of courage and confusion, doubts and dilemmas, and is written with Jeremy Paxman's characteristic flair for storytelling, wry humour and pithy observation.***"A fine introduction to the part Britain played in the first of the worst two wars in history. The writing is lively and the detail often surprising and memorable" Guardian"He writes so well and sympathetically, and chooses his detail so deftly, that if there is one new history of the war that you might actually enjoy from the very large centennial selection this is very likely it" The Times1916. The Somme. With over a million casualties, it was the most brutal battle of World War I.It is a…
clash that even now, over 90 years later, remains seared into the national consciousness, conjuring up images of muddy trenches and young lives tragically wasted. Its first day, July 1st 1916 - on which the British suffered 57,470 casualties, including 19,240 dead - is the bloodiest day in the history of the British armed forces to date. On the German side, an officer famously described it as 'the muddy grave of the German field army'. By the end of the battle, the British had learned many lessons in modern warfare while the Germans had suffered irreplaceable losses, ultimately laying the foundations for the Allies' final victory on the Western Front.Drawing on a wealth of material from the vast Imperial War Museum Sound Archive, Forgotten Voices of the Somme presents an intimate, poignant, sometimes even bleakly funny insight into life on the front line: from the day-to-day struggle of extraordinary circumstances to the white heat of battle and the constant threat of injury or death. Featuring contributions from soldiers of both sides and of differing backgrounds, ranks and roles, many of them previously unpublished, this is the definitive oral history of this unique and terrible conflict.