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Rock of the Marne
By Stephen L. Harris. 2015
The stirring account of the Third U.S. Infantry Division in the Second Battle of the Marne--where the tide of World…
War I was finally turned...The soldiers of the Third U.S. Infantry Division in World War I were outnumbered and inexperienced young men facing hardened veterans, but their actions proved to be a turning point during the last German offensive of World War I.In stopping three German divisions from crossing the Marne River, these heroic American soldiers blocked the road to Paris east of Château-Thierry, helped save the French capital and, in doing so, played a key role in turning the tide of the war. The Allies then began a counteroffensive that drove the enemy back to the Hindenburg Line, and four months later the war was over.Rock of the Marne follows the Third Division's Sixth Brigade, which took the brunt of the German attack. The officers, many of them West Pointers and elite Ivy Leaguers, fighting side-by-side with enlisted men--city dwellers and country boys, cowboys and coal miners who came from every corner of America along with newly planted immigrants from Europe--answered their country's call to duty.This is the gripping true account of one of the most important--yet least explored--battles of World War I.INCLUDES PHOTOSThe Ottoman Endgame
By Sean Mcmeekin. 2015
An astonishing retelling of twentieth-century history from the Ottoman perspective, delivering profound new insights into World War I and the…
contemporary Middle EastBetween 1911 and 1922, a series of wars would engulf the Ottoman Empire and its successor states, in which the central conflict, of course, is World War I--a story we think we know well. As Sean McMeekin shows us in this revelatory new history of what he calls the "wars of the Ottoman succession," we know far less than we think. The Ottoman Endgame brings to light the entire strategic narrative that led to an unstable new order in postwar Middle East--much of which is still felt today.The Ottoman Endgame: War, Revolution, and the Making of the Modern Middle East draws from McMeekin's years of groundbreaking research in newly opened Ottoman and Russian archives. With great storytelling flair, McMeekin makes new the epic stories we know from the Ottoman front, from Gallipoli to the exploits of Lawrence in Arabia, and introduces a vast range of new stories to Western readers. His accounts of the lead-up to World War I and the Ottoman Empire's central role in the war itself offers an entirely new and deeper vision of the conflict. Harnessing not only Ottoman and Russian but also British, German, French, American, and Austro-Hungarian sources, the result is a truly pioneering work of scholarship that gives full justice to a multitiered war involving many belligerents. McMeekin also brilliantly reconceives our inherited Anglo-French understanding of the war's outcome and the collapse of the empire that followed. The book chronicles the emergence of modern Turkey and the carve-up of the rest of the Ottoman Empire as it has never been told before, offering a new perspective on such issues as the ethno-religious bloodletting and forced population transfers which attended the breakup of empire, the Balfour Declaration, the toppling of the caliphate, and the partition of Iraq and Syria--bringing the contemporary consequences into clear focus.Every so often, a work of history completely reshapes our understanding of a subject of enormous historical and contemporary importance. The Ottoman Endgame is such a book, an instantly definitive and thrilling example of narrative history as high art.German Commerce Raiders 1914-18
By Paul Wright, Ryan Noppen. 2015
This is the story of Germany's commerce raiders of World War I, the surface ships that were supposed to starve…
the British Isles of the vast cargoes of vital resources being shipped from the furthest reaches of the Empire. To that end pre-war German naval strategists allocated a number of cruisers and armed, fast ocean liners, as well as a complex and globe-spanning supply network to support them - known as the Etappe network. This book, drawing on technical illustrations and the author's exhaustive research, explains the often overlooked role that the commerce raiders played in World War I. Whilst exploring the design and development of the ships, it also describes their operational history, how they tied up a disproportionate amount of the British fleet on lengthy pursuits, and how certain raiders such as the SMS Emden were able to wreak havoc across the oceans.War's Waste: Rehabilitation in World War I America
By Beth Linker. 2011
With US soldiers stationed around the world and engaged in multiple conflicts, Americans will be forced for the foreseeable future…
to come to terms with those permanently disabled in battle. At the moment, we accept rehabilitation as the proper social and cultural response to the wounded, swiftly returning injured combatants to their civilian lives. But this was not always the case, as Beth Linker reveals in her provocative new book, War's Waste. Linker explains how, before entering World War I, the United States sought a way to avoid the enormous cost of providing injured soldiers with pensions, which it had done since the Revolutionary War. Emboldened by their faith in the new social and medical sciences, reformers pushed rehabilitation as a means to "rebuild" disabled soldiers, relieving the nation of a monetary burden and easing the decision to enter the Great War. Linker's narrative moves from the professional development of orthopedic surgeons and physical therapists to the curative workshops, or hospital spaces where disabled soldiers learned how to repair automobiles as well as their own artificial limbs. The story culminates in the postwar establishment of the Veterans Administration, one of the greatest legacies to come out of the First World War.Undertones of War
By Edmund Blunden. 1928
“I took my road with no little pride of fear; one morning I feared very sharply, as I saw what…
looked like a rising shroud over a wooden cross in the clustering mist. Horror! But on a closer study I realized that the apparition was only a flannel gas helmet. . . . What an age since 1914!” In Undertones of War, one of the finest autobiographies to come out of World War I, the acclaimed poet Edmund Blunden records his devastating experiences in combat. After enlisting at the age of twenty, he took part in the disastrous battles at the Somme, Ypres, and Passchendaele, describing them as “murder, not only to the troops but to their singing faiths and hopes. ” All the horrors of trench warfare, all the absurdity and feeble attempts to make sense of the fighting, all the strangeness of observing war as a writer—of being simultaneously soldier and poet—pervade Blunden’s memoir. In steely-eyed prose as richly allusive as any poetry, he tells of the endurance and despair found among the men of his battalion, including the harrowing acts of bravery that won him the Military Cross. Now back in print for American readers, the volume includes a selection of Blunden’s war poems that unflinchingly juxtapose death in the trenches with the beauty of Flanders’s fields. Undertones of War deserves a place on anyone’s bookshelf between Siegfried Sassoon’s poetry and Robert Graves’s Goodbye to All That.In Flanders Fields: 100 Years
By Amanda Betts. 2015
A beautifully designed collection of essays on war, loss and remembrance to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the writing of…
Canada's most famous poem. In early 1915, the death of a young friend on the battlefields of Ypres inspired Canadian soldier, field surgeon and poet John McCrae to write "In Flanders Fields." Within months of the poem's December 1915 publication in the British magazine Punch it became part of the collective consciousness in North America and Europe, and its extraordinary power has endured over the decades and across generations. In this anthology, Canada's finest historians, novelists and poets contemplate the evolving meaning of the poem; the man who wrote it and the World War I setting from which it emerged; its themes of valour, grief and remembrance; and the iconic image of the poppy. Among the thirteen contributors: Lieutenant-General Roméo Dallaire (ret'd) writes about the emotional meaning of the poem for war veterans; Tim Cook describes the rich and varied life of McCrae; Frances Itani revisits her time in Flanders, and mines the acts of witnessing and remembering; Kevin Patterson offers a riveting depiction of the adrenaline-fueled work of a WWI field surgeon; Mary Janigan reveals the poem's surprisingly divisive effect during the 1917 federal election; Ken Dryden tells us how lines from the poem ended up on the wall of the Montreal Canadiens' dressing room; and Patrick Lane recalls a Remembrance Day from his childhood in a moving reflection on how war shapes us all. Gorgeously designed in full colour with archival and contemporary images, In Flanders Fields: 100 Years will reflect and illuminate the importance of art in how we process war and loss.The Early Poetry of Robert Graves: The Goddess Beckons
By Kersnowski, Frank L.. 2002
Like many men of his generation, poet Robert Graves was indelibly marked by his experience of trench warfare in World…
War I. The horrific battles in which he fought and his guilt over surviving when so many perished left Graves shell-shocked and disoriented, desperately seeking a way to bridge the rupture between his conventional upbringing and the uncertainties of postwar British society. In this study of Graves's early poetry, Frank Kersnowski explores how his war neurosis opened a door into the unconscious for Graves and led him to reject the essential components of the Western idea of reality—reason and predictability. In particular, Kersnowski traces the emergence in Graves's early poems of a figure he later called "The White Goddess," a being at once terrifying and glorious, who sustains life and inspires poetry. Drawing on interviews with Graves's family, as well as unpublished correspondence and drafts of poems, Kersnowski argues that Graves actually experienced the White Goddess as a real being and that his life as a poet was driven by the purpose of celebrating and explaining this deity and her matriarchy.The First Blitz
By Ian Castle. 2015
This book tells the story of Germany's strategic air offensive against Britain, and how it came to be neutralized. The…
first Zeppelin attack on London came in May 1915 - and with it came the birth of a new arena of warfare, the 'home front'. German airships attempted to raid London on 26 separate occasions between May 1915 and October 1917, but only reached the capital and bombed successfully on nine occasions. From May 1917 onwards, this theatre of war entered a new phase as German Gotha bombers set out to attack London in the first bomber raid. London's defences were again overhauled to face this new threat, providing the basis for Britain's defence during World War II.This comprehensive volume tells the story of the first aerial campaign in history, as the famed Zeppelins, and then the Gotha and the massive Staaken 'Giant' bombers waged war against the civilian population of London in the first ever 'Blitz'.Into the blizzard: walking the fields of the Newfoundland dead
By Michael Winter. 2014
Michael Winter’s narrative follows two parallel journeys: the first is that of the young men who came from Newfoundland’s outports,…
fields, villages and narrow city streets to join the storied regiment that led many of them to their deaths at Beaumont-Hamel during the Battle of the Somme on July 1, 1916. The second is the author’s, taken a century later as he walks in the footsteps of the dead men to discover what remains of their passage across land and through memory. Part unconventional history, part memoir-travelogue, part philosophical inquiry, the author uniquely captures the extraordinary lives and landscapes, both in Europe and at home, scarred by a war that is just now disappearing from living memory. 2014.Fifth Business (Deptford Trilogy #1)
By Robertson Davies. 1970
The first novel in Davies's celebrated "Deptford Trilogy" introduces Ramsay, a man who returns from World War I decorated with…
the Victoria Cross who is destined to be caught in a no man's land where memory, history, and myth collide.Letters home: Maritimers and the Great War, 1914 1918
By Ross N Hebb. 2014
With personal letters gathered from public archives and the relatives of those who fought in the First World War, historian…
Ross Hebb tells the story of Canadian soldiers, from recruitment to deployment to return, in their own words. Organized chronologically, the letters describe crossing the Atlantic, training in England, the confusion and anticipation leading up to combat, and for some, the journey home. c2014.The Flamethrower
By Chris Mcnab, Steve Noon. 2015
Fire is one of humanity's most rudimentary tools, but also one of its oldest killers. This focus of this book…
is a weapon that has literally placed the power of fire in human hands - the man-portable flamethrower. From its very first use in World War I to its deployment in Vietnam, the weapon has proven to be devastatingly effective, not least because of its huge psychological impact on enemy troops - few other weapons in history have caused such terror. Yet despite this, the man-portable flamethrower has always been vulnerable, suffering from a very particular set of limitations, all of which are explored here, as are some lesser-known capabilities such as the ability to 'bounce' a stream of flammable liquid off the interior surfaces of fortified structures. Featuring expert analysis, first-hand accounts, and a startling array of illustrations and photographs, this book is the definitive guide to an extraordinary chapter in the history of military technology.Ottoman Navy Warships 1914-18
By Paul Wright, Ryan Noppen. 2015
At the start of the 20th century the Ottoman Navy was a shadow of its former might, a reflection of…
the empire as a whole - the "Sick Man of Europe". Years of defeat, nepotism, and neglect had left the Ottoman Navy with a mix of obsolete vessels, whilst the list of prospective enemies was ever-growing. An increasing Russian naval presence in the Black Sea and the alarming emergence of Italy and Greece as regional Naval powers proved beyond all doubt that intensive modernization was essential, indeed, the fate of the Empire as a naval power depended on it. So the Ottoman Navy looked to the ultimate naval weapon of the age, the dreadnought battleship, two of which were ordered from the British with extreme alacrity. But politics intervened, and a succession of events culminated in the Ottoman Navy fielding a modern German battlecruiser and state-of-the-art light cruiser instead - with dramatic consequences. In this meticulous study, Ryan Noppen presents a fresh appraisal of the technical aspects and operations of the warships of the Ottoman Navy in World War I. It is the first work of its kind in the English language - produced with a wealth of rare material with the cooperation of the Turkish Consulate and Navy. Packed with precise technical specifications, revealing illustrations and exhaustive research, this is an essential guide to a crucial chapter in the Aegean arms raceFrom the Trade Paperback edition.Armies of the Greek-Turkish War 1919-22
By Philip Jowett. 2015
This is a comprehensive guide to the armies that fought a devastating and decisive conflict in the Eastern Mediterranean between…
the two World Wars of the 20th century. From the initial Greek invasion, designed to "liberate" the 100,000 ethnic Greeks that lived in Western Turkey and had done for centuries, to Mustapha Kemal Ataturk's incredibly efficient formation of a national government and a regular army, this was a war that shaped the geopolitical landscape of the Mediterranean to this day. It gave birth to the modern Turkish state, displacing millions and creating bitter memories of atrocities committed by both sides. Augmented with very rare photographs and beautiful illustrations, this ground-breaking title explores the history, organization, and appearance of the armies, both guerilla and conventional, that fought in this bloody war.Great War, Total War: Combat and Mobilization on the Western Front, 1914-1918
By Roger Chickering, Stig F rster, Christof Mauch, David Lazar. 2000
This volume analyzes the First World War in light of the concept of "total war," particularly the systematic erosion of…
the distinction between the military and civilian spheres. Leading scholars from Europe and North America explore the efforts of soldiers and statesmen, industrialists and financiers, professionals and civilian activists to adjust to the titanic, pervasive pressures that the military stalemate on the western front imposed on belligerent and neutral societies.The British Sailor of the First World War
By Quintin Colville. 2015
In 1914 Great Britain had the largest and most powerful navy the world had ever seen - a well-known fact,…
but what of the everyday experience of those who served in her? This fully illustrated book looks at the British sailor's life during the First World War, from the Falkland Islands to the East African coast to the North Sea. Meals in the stokers' mess and the admiral's cabin; the claustrophobic terrors of the engine room or submarine; the long separations from loved ones that were the shared experience of all ranks; the perils faced by Royal Naval Air Service pilots in the air; the possessions treasured by sailors while at sea - drawing on a wealth of previously unpublished materials from the National Maritime Museum archives, this is an authoritative and vivid account of lives lived in quite extraordinary circumstances.German Infantryman vs Russian Infantryman: 1914-15
By Robert Forczyk, Adam Hook. 2015
The Eastern Front of World War I is sometimes overshadowed by the fighting in the West. But the clashes between…
Imperial Germany and Tsarist Russia in East Prussia, Poland and Lithuania were every bit as gruelling for the participants as the great battles in Western Europe. In spite of the crushing German victory at Tannenburg in August 1914, the war in the East would grind on for two more years. Featuring full-color artwork, specially drawn maps and archive photographs, this study assesses the tactics, leadership and combat performance of German and Russian footsoldiers fighting in battles at Gumbinnen, Göritten and Mahartse, revealing the evolving nature of infantry warfare on the Eastern Front during World War I.Paris at the End of the World
By John Baxter. 2014
A preeminent writer on Paris, John Baxter brilliantly brings to life one of the most dramatic and fascinating periods in…
the city's history. During World War I, the terrifying sounds of the nearby front could be heard from inside the French capital; Germany's "Paris Gun" and enemy aviators routinely bombarded the city.And yet in its darkest hour, the City of Light blazed more brightly than ever. Its taxis shuttled troops to the front; its great railway stations received reinforcements from across the world; its grand museums and cathedrals housed the wounded; and the Eiffel Tower hummed at all hours, relaying messages to and from the trenches. At night, Parisians lived with urgency and without inhibition, embracing the lush and the libertine. The rich hosted parties that depleted their wine cellars of the finest vintages. Artists such as Pablo Picasso achieved new creative heights. And the war brought a wave of foreigners to the city for the first time, including Ernest Hemingway and Baxter's own grandfather, Archie, whose diaries he uses to reconstruct a soldier's-eye view of the war years.Uncovering a thrilling chapter in Paris's history, John Baxter's revelatory new book shows how this extraordinary period was essential in forging the spirit of the city we love today.From Vimy to victory: Canada's fight to the finish in World War I
By Hugh Brewster. 2014
All was not quiet on the Western Front during the last years of WWI. Soldiers faced mud, trench foot, bombardments,…
barbed wire, snipers, and poison gas. Despite dreadful odds, the Canadian Corps moved forward, reaching deep inside enemy-occupied Belgium. The war cost Canada 60,661 of its finest citizens and thousands more who were wounded in body and mind. After their hard-won victory at Vimy Ridge, Canadians earned the admiration of the world — and a reputation as soldiers who could get the job done. From that moment in 1917, Canadian soldiers proved themselves again and again on the bloody battlefields of Europe. Grades 3-6. 2014.Battle Tactics of the Western Front
By Paddy Griffith. 1994
Historians have portrayed British participation in World War I as a series of tragic debacles, with lines of men mown…
down by machine guns, with untried new military technology, and incompetent generals who threw their troops into improvised and unsuccessful attacks. In this book a renowned military historian studies the evolution of British infantry tactics during the war and challenges this interpretation, showing that while the British army's plans and technologies failed persistently during the improvised first half of the war, the army gradually improved its technique, technology, and, eventually, its' self-assurance. By the time of its successful sustained offensive in the fall of 1918, says Paddy Griffith, the British army was demonstrating a battlefield skill and mobility that would rarely be surpassed even during World War II.Evaluating the great gap that exists between theory and practice, between textbook and bullet-swept mudfield, Griffith argues that many battles were carefully planned to exploit advanced tactics and to avoid casualties, but that breakthrough was simply impossible under the conditions of the time. According to Griffith, the British were already masters of "storm troop tactics" by the end of 1916, and in several important respects were further ahead than the Germans would be even in 1918. In fields such as the timing and orchestration of all-arms assaults, predicted artillery fire, "Commando-style" trench raiding, the use of light machine guns, or the barrage fire of heavy machine guns, the British led the world. Although British generals were not military geniuses, says Griffith, they should at least be credited for effectively inventing much of the twentieth-century's art of war.