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In these stories, the heroics of war and noble self-sacrifice are completely absent; replaced by the gritty realism of life in WWI for the ordinary soldier, and the unflinching portrayal of the horrors of war. Written under the guidance of the master storyteller H. G. Wells, they are classics of the genre. 'The Somme' revolves around a futile attack in 1916 during the Somme campaign. Everitt, who is wounded and moved back through a series of dressing stations to the General Hospital at Rouen. Both in and out of the line he behaves selfishly and unheroically, but in a manner with which it is hard for the reader not to identify. Based on A D Gristwood's own wartime experiences, critics have said that few other accounts of the war give such an accurate picture of trench life. 'The Coward' concerns a man who shoots himself in the hand to escape the war, during the March 1918 retreat - an offense punishable by death.
The course of events of the Great War has been told many times, spurred by an endless desire to understand 'the war to end all wars'. However, this book moves beyond military narrative to offer a much fuller analysis of of the conflict's strategic, political, economic, social and cultural impact. Starting with the context and origins of the war, including assasination, misunderstanding and differing national war aims, it then covers the treacherous course of the conflict and its social consequences for both soldiers and civilians, for science and technology, for national politics and for pan-European revolution. The war left a long-term legacy for victors and vanquished alike. It created new frontiers, changed the balance of power and influenced the arts, national memory and political thought. The reach of this acount is global, showing how a conflict among European powers came to involve their colonial empires, and embraced Japan, China, the Ottoman Empire, Latin America and the United States.
The First World War has often been understood in terms of the combat experiences of soldiers on the Western Front; those combatants who served in the other theatres of the war have been neglected. Using personal testimonies, official documentation and detailed research from a diverse range of archives, The British Imperial Army in the Middle East explores the combat experiences of these soldiers. The army that fought the Ottoman Empire was a multinational and multi-ethnic force, drawing personnel from across Britain's empire, including Australia, New Zealand, and India. By taking a transnational and imperial perspective on the First World War, this book ensures that the campaigns in Egypt and Palestine are considered in the wider context of an empire mobilised to fight a total and global war.
During the First World War approximately 200,000 Irish men and 5,000 Irish women, many from Catholic and Nationalist communities, served in the British armed forces. This book provides a comprehensive analysis of Irish recruitment patterns. These varied notably between North-East Ulster and the rest of Ireland and between urban and rural areas.
In 1899 the Boers, armed with the latest European rifles and artillery, drove through Natal to help themselves to a seaport—Durban—only to spend their energies in laying siege to the market and railway town of Ladysmith.
The principal action that took place here in February 1917 was of short duration and failure but with fascinating overtones. This is the dramatic story of the events on the Somme after the great battle of 1916 ended and before the Germans withdrew to the Hindenburg Line. Its focus is on a ravine easily as impressive as that at Beaumont Hamel.
A comprehensive new history of the shaping and performance of the British army during the First World War.
Genocidal Conscription examines how some states have employed mandatory military service as a tool to capture and kill the victims of genocide by recruiting the perpetrators from other minorities, and shifting blame away from the state. The book highlights several unique intersections that connect military history, Holocaust studies, and genocide. The study details an original framework that encompasses intentions and outcomes of wartime casualties, Clausewitzian wastage, and genocidal massacres. Christopher Harrison traces and compares how two genocidal regimes at war – the Ottoman Empire during World War One and Axis-era Hungary in World War Two – implemented certain policies of milita...
On the 100th anniversary of the start of the First World War, this is a story that so far has never been told. The 18th Battalion Middlesex Regiment were not infantry men whose primary job was to go 'over the top' at the start or during battle. Nor were they deployed behind the lines away from the action with the generals and base camp workers. They had a different job – to build the infrastructure necessary to prosecute the war. These 'miners pals' played a vital role in the war. They dug and drained trenches, wired No Man’s Land, mined under enemy lines, made and repaired roads, filled in craters, constructed dug-outs, stock piled ammunition, built and improved billets, fetched and car...
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