Best of
World-War-I

2009

The Only Blue Door


Joan Fallon - 2009
    Their father has been killed at Dunkirk and their mother goes into hospital to have her fourth child, leaving the children with a neighbour. In one of the worst bombing raids of the war their home is destroyed and the neighbour is killed. Bewildered and frightened, the children wander the streets until they are taken in by some nuns. But their problems are not over; no-one can trace their mother and, labelled as orphans, they are sent as child migrants to Australia.The story traces their adventures in their new country, the homesickness, the heartbreak when Billy is separated from his sisters and the loneliness of life in a cold and unfeeling orphanage. Eventually the children make new lives for themselves, but Maggie is still convinced that her mother is alive and once she is old enough, begins to search for her.The story, a work of fiction, is based on the experiences of real people and reflects the attitudes of the day to child migration during and after the Second World War.

A Crisis of Brilliance: Five Young British Artists and the Great War


David Boyd Haycock - 2009
    From diverse backgrounds, they met at The Slade in London between 1908 and 1910, in what was later described as the school’s “last crisis of brilliance.” Between 1910 and 1918 they loved, talked, and fought; they admired, conspired, and sometimes disparaged each others’ artistic creations. They created new movements; they frequented the most stylish cafés and restaurants and founded a nightclub; they slept with their models and with prostitutes; and their love affairs descended into obsession, murder, and suicide.

George, Nicholas and Wilhelm: Three Royal Cousins and the Road to World War I


Miranda Carter - 2009
    Together, they presided over the last years of dynastic Europe and the outbreak of the most destructive war the world had ever seen, a war that set twentieth-century Europe on course to be the most violent continent in the history of the world.Miranda Carter uses the cousins' correspondence and a host of historical sources to tell the tragicomic story of a tiny, glittering, solipsistic world that was often preposterously out of kilter with its times, struggling to stay in command of politics and world events as history overtook it. George, Nicholas and Wilhelm is a brilliant and sometimes darkly hilarious portrait of these men--damaged, egotistical Wilhelm; quiet, stubborn Nicholas; and anxious, dutiful George--and their lives, foibles and obsessions, from tantrums to uniforms to stamp collecting. It is also alive with fresh, subtle portraits of other familiar figures: Queen Victoria--grandmother to two of them, grandmother-in-law to the third--whose conservatism and bullying obsession with family left a dangerous legacy; and Edward VII, the playboy "arch-vulgarian" who turned out to have a remarkable gift for international relations and the theatrics of mass politics. At the same time, Carter weaves through their stories a riveting account of the events that led to World War I, showing how the personal and the political interacted, sometimes to devastating effect.For all three men the war would be a disaster that destroyed forever the illusion of their close family relationships, with any sense of peace and harmony shattered in a final coda of murder, betrayal and abdication.

The Australian Light Horse


Roland Perry - 2009
    Most of the men were from the outback, had a special bond with their horses (which were all brought from Australia) - and they knew how to survive and fight in the desert. The greatest part of the Allied victory over the Turks was theirs. Colonel Lawrence had a strategy for actually defeating the Turks - as opposed to the British High Command's acceptance of the status quo. What Lawrence needed was a mobile, elite force to join his own troops - and in the Light Horse he had them. Battle-hardened by Gallipoli and the repulse of the Turkish invasion of Egypt, the Australians were ready. Under their brilliant commander, Sir Harry Chauvel they won great victories in the Sinai, Palestine and Syria - culminating in the last great cavalry charge in our military history, and the taking of Beersheba in 1917. Every Australian has heard of the Light Horse - but practically none have read their story. Roland Perry brings their story to life, and tells it with colour, emotion - and authority.

The Wolf: The German Raider That Terrorized the Southern Seas During World War I in an Epic Voyage of Destruction and Gallantry


Richard Guilliatt - 2009
    The long-forgotten drama of a WWI secret German warship and floating international prison.

Imperialism and the Split in Socialism


Vladimir Lenin - 2009
    And having in our Party literature fully established, first, the imperialist character of our era and of the present war [1], and, second, the inseparable historical connection between social-chauvinism and opportunism, as well as the intrinsic similarity of their political ideology, we can and must proceed to analyse this fundamental question. We have to begin with as precise and full a definition of imperialism as possible. Imperialism is a specific historical stage of capitalism. Its specific character is threefold: imperialism is monopoly capitalism; parasitic, or decaying capitalism; moribund capitalism. The supplanting of free competition by monopoly is the fundamental economic feature, the quintessence of imperialism. Monopoly manifests itself in five principal forms: (1) cartels, syndicates and trusts -- the concentration of production has reached a degree which gives rise to these monopolistic associations of capitalists; (2) the monopolistic position of the big banks-three, four or five giant banks manipulate the whole economic life of America, France, Germany; (3) seizure of the sources of raw material by the trusts and the financial oligarchy (finance capital is monopoly industrial capital merged with bank capital); (4) the (economic) partition of the world by the international cartels has begun. There are already over one hundred such international cartels, which command the entire world market and divide it "amicably" among themselves -- until war redivides it. The export of capital, as distinct from the export of commodities under non-monopoly capitalism, is a highly characteristic phenomenon and is closely linked with the economic and territorial-political partition of the world; (5) the territorial partition of the world (colonies) is completed."

Fighter Heroes of WWI: The Untold Story of the Brave and Daring Pioneer Airmen of the Great War


Joshua Levine - 2009
    They became icons for the soldiers in the trenches, and a stark contrast to the thousands on the ground fighting faceless thousands as men fought aircraft to aircraft and man to man - for the first time the air became a battlefield of its own.The war changed flying forever. In 1914 aircraft were a questionable technology, used for only basic reconnaissance. But by 1918, hastened by the terrible war, aircraft were understood to be the future of modern warfare.The Wright brothers' achievements of a mere ten years earlier and Blériot's crossing of the Channel just a few years before the war seemed a distant memory as aircraft became killing machines - the war becoming the ancestor of the fearsome air wars of later years.The stories reveal the feelings of those who defended the trenches from above and witnessed the war from a completely different perspective -the men who were the first fighter heroes of the air.

Gallipoli: The End of the Myth


Robin Prior - 2009
    A failure in all respects, the operation ended in disaster, and the Allied forces suffered some 390,000 casualties. This conclusive book assesses the many myths that have emerged about Gallipoli and provides definitive answers to questions that have lingered about the operation.Robin Prior, a renowned military historian, proceeds step by step through the campaign, dealing with naval, military, and political matters and surveying the operations of all the armies involved: British, Anzac, French, Indian, and Turkish. Relying substantially on original documents, including neglected war diaries and technical military sources, Prior evaluates the strategy, the commanders, and the performance of soldiers on the ground. His conclusions are powerful and unsettling: the naval campaign was not “almost” won, and the land action was not bedeviled by “minor misfortunes.” Instead, the badly conceived Gallipoli campaign was doomed from the start. And even had it been successful, the operation would not have shortened the war by a single day. Despite their bravery, the Allied troops who fell at Gallipoli died in vain.

The Road Home: The Aftermath of the Great War Told by the Men and Women Who Survived It


Max Arthur - 2009
    Starting from the moment the guns all fell silent, the aftermath of World War I and its mark on history are reflected in the stories of the brave soldiers of the British, German, French, and Russian armies.

On the Front Line: True World War I Stories


Jon E. Lewis - 2009
    The result was a revolutionary book unlike any other of the period; for as Malcolm Brown notes in his introduction 'I believe it might fairly be described as a rediscovered classic'. It was the very first collection to reveal the many dimensions of the war through the eyes of the ordinary soldier and offers heart-stopping renditions of the very first gas attack; aerial dogfights above the trenches; the moment of going over the top. It is told chronologically, from the first scrambles of 1914, the drudgery of the war of attrition once the trenches had been dug, to the final joy of Armistice.

We Will Remember Them: Voices From the Aftermath of the Great War


Max Arthur - 2009
    Featuring an introduction by the 110-year-old Henry Allingham—the only living survivor of the Battle of the Somme—this new anthology will contain interviews with the families of World War I veterans as well those still alive from the British, German, French, Russian, and other armies. These men have left their mark on history, and their personal stories are deeply moving. A concluding chapter places the “Great War” in context.

The German Army at Cambrai


Jack Sheldon - 2009
    After an introductory chapter tracing the development of the Hindenburg Line, the author concentrates on German aspects of the bitterly fought battle of Cambrai from 20 November to 6 December 1917.The narrative splits easily into two parts. First the defensive battle 20 - 29 November followed by the counter-attack which saw the German Army regain not only most of the ground lost in the opening phase but more besides. Detailed descriptions are given of the struggle for Flesqui�res Ridge and the see-saw battles for key terrain, including Bourlon Wood, as the German Army rushed reinforcements to the sectors under attack before we witness the German offensive.As with his other books full use is made of primary source material from the Munich Kriegsarchiv, the Hauptstaatsarchiv in Stuttgart, regimental histories and personal accounts. Of particular interest are the controversial interventions in operational matters of Ludendorf which were sharply criticized by Crown Prince Rupprecht. But for many the most fascinating aspect will be the experiences of the front line soldiers.

Bloody Victory: The Sacrifice on the Somme and the Making of the Twentieth Century


William J. Philpott - 2009
    The shameful waste; the pointlessness of young lives lost for the sake of a few yards; the barbaric attitudes of the British leaders; the horror and ignominy of failure. All have occupied our thoughts for generations. Yet are we right to view the Somme in this way? Drawing on a vast number of sources such as letters, diaries and numerous archives, Bloody Victory describes in vivid detail the physical conditions, the combat and exceptional bravery against the odds but it also, uniquely, captures how the Somme defined the twentieth century in so many ways. Moreover, it was the fundamental turning point of WW1 in the same way Stalingrad was in WW2. This is an utterly gripping new analysis of one of the most iconic campaigns in history.

No Labour, No Battle: The Labour Corps In The First World War


John Starling - 2009
    This book presents a record of the role played by Military Labour in the First World War.

Men of War: Masculinity and the First World War in Britain


Jessica Meyer - 2009
    This book presents a nuanced investigation of masculine identity in Britain during and after the First World War.

The Resurrection and Collapse of Empire in Habsburg Serbia, 1914-1918: Volume 1


Jonathan E. Gumz - 2009
    This occupation ran along a distinctly European-centered trajectory radically different from other great power colonial projects or occupations during the 20th century. Unlike these projects and occupations, the Habsburg Army sought to denationalize and depoliticize Serbia, to gradually reduce the occupation's violence, and to fully integrate the country into the Empire. These aims stemmed from 19th-century conservative and monarchical convictions that compelled the Army to operate under broad legal and civilizational constraints. Gumz's research provides a counterpoint to interpretations of the First World War that emphasize the centrality of racially inflected, Darwinist worldviews in the war.