Gripping, poignant, surprising and even humorous, the personal experiences of these soldiers, civilians, marines and medics from both sides tell us what it was really like to live through what was supposed to be the war to end all wars. Skilfully assembled by acclaimed author and historian Max Arthur using the IWM’s remarkable sound archive, Forgotten Voices of the Great War became an instant classic on first publication with close to half a million copies sold.In 1972, the Imperial War Museum began a momentous and important task. A team of academics, archivists and volunteers set about tracing First World War veterans and interviewing them in order to record the experiences of ordinary individuals in war. Since then the Sound Archive has grown to become the largest and most important oral history collections in the world. It now contains over 34,000 recordings, including interviews with veterans of both world wars – both service personnel and non-combatants – recordings relating to Britain and the Empire in the inter-war period 1919–1939, conflicts since 1945 and the Holocaust.In 2002, Ebury Press published the first edition of Forgotten Voices of the Great War. It was both the first time many of these recordings had been transcribed and published, and the only comprehensive oral history of the First World War. Twelve further books covering aspects of the Second World War, the Falklands and the Victoria Cross followed, selling well over a million copies to date.

    In 1914, Germany launched an invasion of France through neutral Belgium -- and brought the wrath of the world upon itself. Ypres became a place of horror, heroism, and terrifying new tactics and technologies: poison gas, tanks, mines, air strikes, and the unspeakable misery of trench warfare. Drawing on the journals of the men and women who were there, Winston Groom has penned a breathtaking drama of politics, strategy, and the human heart.

    Never was the phenomenon more clearly marked than in that war we still know as the Great War. Hundreds of what came to be known as the war poets saw their work in print between 1914 and 1918; others - including some of the best - were not published until afterwards. That rather unsatisfactory label includes very different kinds of writers - Owen and Sassoon, with their poems of passionate indignation, are a far cry from Edward Thomas's bleak and oblique rural ruminations. In this collection Stallworthy has gathered some of the most moving and unforgettable poetry born out of the horror of the trenches. He includes brief accounts of the lives and work of 12 of the most powerful of those poets who experienced and wrote about the worst war the world has ever known.

    Lusitania-- pride of the Cunard Line and one of the greatest ocean liners afloat-- became the target of a terrifying new weapon and a casualty of a terrible new kind of war. Sunk off the southern coast of Ireland by a torpedo fired from the German submarine U-20, she exploded and sank in eighteen minutes, taking with her some twelve hundred people, more than half of the passengers and crew. Cold-blooded, deliberate, and unprecedented in the annals of war, the sinking of the Lusitania shocked the world. It also jolted the United States out of its neutrality-- 128 Americans were among the dead-- and hastened the nation's entry into World War I.In her riveting account of this enormous and controversial tragedy, Diana Preston recalls both a pivotal moment in history and a remarkable human drama. The story of the Lusitania is a window on the maritime world of the early twentieth century: the heyday of the luxury liner, the first days of the modern submarine, and the climax of the decades-long German-British rivalry for supremacy of the Atlantic. It is a critical chapter in the progress of World War I and in the political biographies of Woodrow Wilson, William Jennings Bryan, Kaiser Wilhelm II, and First Lord of the Admiralty Winston Churchill. Above all, it is the story of the passengers and crew on that fateful voyage-- a story of terror and cowardice, of self-sacrifice and heroism, of death and miraculous survival.With a historian's insight and a novelist's gift for characterization and detail, Preston re-creates the events surrounding the Lusitania's last voyage, from the behind-the-scenes politics in each country and the German spy ring in New York, to the extraordinary scene as the ship sank and the survivors awaited rescue, to the controversial inquests in Britain and the United States into how the ship came to be hit and why she sank so quickly. Captain William Turner, steadfast and trustworthy but overconfident, believed that "a torpedo can't get the Lusitania-- she runs too fast."The passenger list included the rich and powerful (American millionaire Alfred Vanderbilt, theater producer Charles Frohman, Boston bookseller Charles Lauriat) as well as newlyweds and nursemaids, galley cooks and stokers, Quakers and cardsharps, ship's detectives and German stowaways. Preston weaves their voices throughout her compelling narrative, giving it a powerful immediacy.Drawing on a vast array of sources-- including interviews with survivors, letters and memoirs, recently released American and Admiralty archives, and previously untranslated German documents-- Diana Preston has resolved the controversies surrounding the Lusitania and written the definitive account of this pivotal event in western history.

    Utilizing superb characterization, these elegantly crafted stories offer an intriguing and rare look at war by presenting it through the eyes of "the enemy." Although a German soldier, Enemy Ace must still struggle with the agony of survival and the senseless deaths of young men. This book shows that war is not simply good guys versus bad guys but instead human versus human.Collecting: Our Army at War 151, 153, 155; Showcase 57-58; Star Spangled War Stories 138-142

    Each interview in Testaments of Honour: Personal Histories of Canada’s War Veterans begins with the question: “Why did you go?” In answering this question, history comes alive in the words and memorabilia of the veterans themselves, and through then-and-now photographs. These stories are undeniably powerful: a bomber relives the terror of his night-blind raids and the controversy of some of his attacks; one prisoner of war describes the unlikely friendship that developed between a German soldier and two of his Canadian prisoners. In every case, veterans detail their war years not to entertain or remember, but to understand themselves and be understood by others. In the words of our veterans — their memories and their unspoken courage — we see a mirror of who we are as a nation.“Canadian Veterans understand that life is a gift. They know this because they were given the chance to marry, to raise families, and build careers, when those who stood next to them in battle had these possibilities denied them. Our vets know what their lives cost and that to be Canadian means to have been given the boon of selfless determination. They also know that each of us is living on mortgaged time, because the men and women of their generation left their own lives to put their community and country first. We owe our veterans a debt. As you read these stories, look up from your own life and remember those who made it possible.” — From the Introduction to Testaments of Honour

    But by the mid-19th century, the emergence of massive armies and advanced weaponry - and the concomitant decline in the effectiveness of cavalry - had diminished the practicality of pursuit, producing campaigns that bogged down short of decisive victory. Great battles had become curiously indecisive, decisive campaigns virtually impossible.

    A group of teenagers from two families meet for a picnic, but the war across the Channel is soon to tear them away from such youthful pleasures. All too soon, the horror of what is to become known as The Great War engulfs them, their friends and the whole village. From the horror of the trenches, to the devastating reality seen daily by those nursing the wounded, they struggle to survive - and nothing will ever be the same again.A powerful and engrossing novel about love and war, from Carnegie Medal-winning author Theresa Breslin.

    The Treaty of Versailles contained a "war guilt" clause pinning the blame on the aggression of Germany and accusing her of "supreme offence against international morality". Here, Ponting rejects this thesis, having made a thorough study of the incredibly complex international diplomatic documents. His interpretation rejects also the thesis that Europe in 1914 had reached such a boiling point it was bound to erupt or that the origins of the war lay in a mighty arms race. Instead, he argues that the war occurred becauase of the situation in the Balkans, while he gives full weight to Austria-Hungary's desire to cripple Serbia instead of negotiating and to Russia's militaristic programme of expansion. Ponting begins with a dramatic recreation of the assassination in Sarajevo (he agrees that this was the starting point). He then examines what happened in the 13 days that led to war. His story criss-crosses Europe city-by-city - Belgrade, Paris, London, Budapest, St Petersburg, Vienna, Rome etc - and describes developments day by day, latterly indeed hour by hour, as the tension builds.

    Fleurbaix, Bapaume, Beaumetz, Lagincourt, Bullecourt, The Menin Road, Villers-Bretonneux, Peronne and Mont St. Quentin. Downing describes the mud, the rats, the constant pounding of the guns, the deaths, the futility, but also the humour and the heroism of one of the most compelling periods in world history. His writing is spare but vivid, and presents a graphic description of an ordinary person's struggle to survive.

    Essays also highlight the ideological conflict between Westernization and Russiafication, and the revolution that brought down the Romanovs in 1917.