In Britain, people are debating a new dance called ‘the tango’. In Germany, they are fascinated by the wedding of the Kaiser’s daughter to the Duke of Brunswick. Little did they know that their world was on The Eve of War, a catastrophe that was to engulf the continent, cost millions of lives, and change the course of the century. And yet behind the scenes, the Great Powers were marching towards what they thought was an inevitable conflict. In this controversial and concise essay, the military historian Paul Ham argues that the First World War was not an historical mistake, a conflict into which the Great Powers stumbled by accident. Nor was it a justified war, in which uncontained German aggression had to be defeated. Instead the politicians and generals of the day willed the war, and prepared for it – but eventually found themselves caught up in an inferno they could no longer control. The Eve of War is a brilliant re-examination of the causes of the First World War that is both an introduction to one of the most complex subjects in history and an original and thought-provoking contribution to the debate over the origins of the conflict. Praise for Paul Ham '[A] vivid, comprehensive and quietly furious account...Paul Ham brings new tools to the job, unearthing fresh evidence of a deeply disturbing sort. He has a magpie eye for the telling detail.' - Ben Macintyre, The Times. 'Provocative and challenging...A voice that is both vigorous and passionate.' - Christopher Sylvester, Daily Express. 'Controversial...Well documented and stringently argued.' - Peter Lewis, Daily Mail. Paul Ham is the author of the forthcoming 1914: The Year the World Ended, to be published by Random House in Britain in 2014. He has previously written the acclaimed Sandakan, Kokoda, Vietnam: The Australian War and Hiroshima Nagasaki. A former Australia Correspondent of the Sunday Times, he was born in Sydney and educated in Australia and Britain. He now lives in Sydney and Paris.

    Covering famous battles, the birth of the air force, naval engagements, the War Department, and experiences of the troops, this indispensable volume is again available in paperback for students and general readers.

    It was also one of the war's bloodiest and most pivotal battles, whose outcome would shape international politics for decades to come.Cornelius Ryan's compelling account of this final battle is a story of brutal extremes, of stunning military triumph alongside the stark conditions that the civilians of Berlin experienced in the face of the Allied assault. As always, Ryan delves beneath the military and political forces that were dictating events to explore the more immediate imperatives of survival, where, as the author describes it, “to eat had become more important than to love, to burrow more dignified than to fight, to exist more militarily correct than to win.”It is the story of ordinary people, both soldiers and civilians, caught up in the despair, frustration, and terror of defeat. It is history at its best, a masterful illumination of the effects of war on the lives of individuals, and one of the enduring works on World War II.

    Four great empires - Austria-Hungary, Germany, Russia, and Turkey - were part of the war's rubble. Far from restoring order, the diplomats who met in 1919 at Paris and Versailles plunged the world into the chaos of the twentieth century. Here, from award-winning historian Charles Mee, is the account of what happened when the three most powerful heads of state gathered to establish a new order.

    Army's 1st Division climbed from their trenches, charged across the shell-scarred French dirt of no-man's-land, and captured the hilltop village of Cantigny from the grip of the German Army. Those who survived the enemy machine-gun fire and hand-to-hand fighting held on for the next two days and nights in shallow foxholes under the sting of mustard gas and crushing steel of artillery fire.Thirteen months after the United States entered World War I, these 3,500 soldiers became the first "doughboys" to enter the fight. The operation, the first American attack ever supported by tanks, airplanes, and modern artillery, was ordered by the leader of America's forces in Europe, General John "Black Jack" Pershing, and planned by a young staff officer, Lieutenant Colonel George C. Marshall, who would fill the lead role in World War II twenty-six years later.Drawing on the letters, diaries, and reports by the men themselves, Matthew J. Davenport's First Over There tells the inspiring, untold story of these soldiers and their journey to victory on the Western Front in the Battle of Cantigny. The first American battle of the "war to end all wars" would mark not only its first victory abroad, but the birth of its modern Army.

    People everywhere saw Paris as the centre of Europe and the hub of culture, fashion and invention. But suddenly France, not least to the disbelief of her own citizens, was gripped in the vice of the Prussian armies and forced to surrender on humiliating terms. Almost immediately Paris was convulsed by the savage self-destruction of the newly formed Socialist government, the Commune.In this brilliant study of the Siege of Paris and its aftermath, Alistair Horne researches first-hand accounts left by official observers, private diarists and letter-writers to evoke the high drama of those ten tumultuous months and the spiritual and physical agony that Paris and the Parisians suffered as they lost the Franco-Prussian war.'Compulsively readable'  The Times'The most enthralling historical work'  Daily Telegraph'Essential reading for anyone who wants to understand the civil war that still stirs the soul of France'  Evening StandardOne of Britain's greatest historians, Sir Alistair Horne, CBE, is the author of a trilogy on the rivalry between France and Germany, The Price of Glory, The Fall of Paris and To Lose a Battle, as well as a two-volume life of Harold Macmillan.

    The fighting that raged from East Prussia, through occupied Poland, to Galicia and the Carpathian Mountains was every bit as bloody as comparable battles in Flanders and France, but - with the exception of Tannenberg - remains relatively unknown. As was the case in the West, generals struggled to reconcile their pre-war views on the conduct of operations and how to execute their intricate strategic plans with the reality of war. Lessons were learned slowly while the core of trained personnel, particularly officers and NCOs, in the armies of Germany, Austria-Hungary and Russia suffered catastrophic losses throughout 1914. Inadequacies in supply and support arrangements, together with a failure to plan for a long war, left all three powers struggling to keep up with events. In addition, the Central Powers had to come to terms with the dreaded reality of a war on two fronts: a war that was initially seen by all three powers as a welcome opportunity to address both internal and external issues, would ultimately bring about the downfall of them all. Prit Buttar, author of Battleground Prussia, provides a magisterial account of the chaos and destruction that reigned when three powerful empires collided.

    Professor Fischer's great work is possibly the most important book of any sort, probably the most important historical book, certainly the most controversial book, to come out of Germany since the war.

    Using a variety of resources, the Tusas are able to thoroughly layout new information from the trial. This was the closure for many to World War II, and it was one of the greatest judicial accomplishements. The Tusas provide a clear history of the events and fresh insight to what happened during the trial.

    So when World War I broke out, the European powers were forced to contend with one another not just in the bloody trenches, but in the treacherous jungle. And it was in that unforgiving land that General Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck would make history. With the now-legendary Schutztruppe (Defensive Force), von Lettow-Vorbeck and a small cadre of hardened German officers fought alongside their devoted native African allies as equals, creating the first truly integrated army of the modern age. African Kaiser is the fascinating story of a forgotten guerrilla campaign in a remote corner of Equatorial Africa in World War I; of a small army of loyal African troops led by a smaller cadre of rugged German officers—of white men and black who fought side by side. It is the story of epic marches through harsh, beautiful landscapes; of German officers riding bicycles to battle through the bush; of rhino charges and artillery duels with scavenged naval guns; of hunted German battleships hidden up unmapped river deltas teeming with crocodiles and snakes; of a desperate army in the wilderness cut off from the world, living off hippo lard and sawgrass flowers—enduring starvation, malaria, and dysentery. And of the singular intercontinental voyage of Zeppelin L59, whose improbable four-thousand-mile journey to the equator and back made aviation history. But mostly it is the story of von Lettow-Vorbeck—the only undefeated German commander in the field during World War I and the last to surrender his arms.

    Less well-known is that this savage war (1853-1856) killed almost a million soldiers and countless civilians; that it enmeshed four great empires—the British, French, Turkish, and Russian—in a battle over religion as well as territory; that it fixed the fault lines between Russia and the West; that it set in motion the conflicts that would dominate the century to come.In this masterly history, Orlando Figes reconstructs the first full conflagration of modernity, a global industrialized struggle fought with unusual ferocity and incompetence. Drawing on untapped Russian and Ottoman as well as European sources, Figes vividly depicts the world at war, from the palaces of St. Petersburg to the holy sites of Jerusalem; from the young Tolstoy reporting in Sevastopol to Tsar Nicolas, haunted by dreams of religious salvation; from the ordinary soldiers and nurses on the battlefields to the women and children in towns under siege..Original, magisterial, alive with voices of the time, The Crimean War is a historical tour de force whose depiction of ethnic cleansing and the West's relations with the Muslim world resonates with contemporary overtones. At once a rigorous, original study and a sweeping, panoramic narrative, The Crimean War is the definitive account of the war that mapped the terrain for today's world..

    Alan Clark quoted a German general's remark that the British soldiers were 'lions led by donkeys'. But he made it up.Indeed, many established 'facts' about 1914-18 turn out to be myths woven in the 1960s by young historians on the make. Gordon Corrigan's brilliant, witty history reveals how out of touch we have become with the soldiers of 1914-18. They simply would not recognize the way their generation is depicted on TV or in Pat Barker's novels.Laced with dry humour, this will overturn everything you thought you knew about Britain and the First World War. Gordon Corrigan reveals how the British embraced technology, and developed the weapons and tactics to break through the enemy trenches.

    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.

    Just three amazing stories of contact between the opposing sides in the Great War that eminent historian Richard van Emden has unearthed - incidents that show brutality, great humanity, and above all the bizarre nature of a conflict between two nations with long-standing ties of kinship and friendship. Meeting the Enemy reveals for the first time how contact was maintained on many levels throughout the War, and its stories, sometimes funny, often moving, give us a new perspective on the lives of ordinary men and women caught up in extraordinary events.

    At the one-hundredth anniversary of the outbreak of the war, historian Philip Jenkins reveals the powerful religious dimensions of this modern-day crusade, a period that marked a traumatic crisis for Western civilization, with effects that echoed throughout the rest of the twentieth century.The war was fought by the world's leading Christian nations, who presented the conflict as a holy war. Thanks to the emergence of modern media, a steady stream of patriotic and militaristic rhetoric was given to an unprecedented audience, using language that spoke of holy war and crusade, of apocalypse and Armageddon. But this rhetoric was not mere state propaganda. Jenkins reveals how the widespread belief in angels and apparitions, visions and the supernatural was a driving force throughout the war and shaped all three of the major religions—Christianity, Judaism and Islam—paving the way for modern views of religion and violence. The disappointed hopes and moral compromises that followed the war also shaped the political climate of the rest of the century, giving rise to such phenomena as Nazism, totalitarianism, and communism.Connecting numerous remarkable incidents and characters—from Karl Barth to Carl Jung, the Christmas Truce to the Armenian Genocide—Jenkins creates a powerful and persuasive narrative that brings together global politics, history, and spiritual crisis as never before and shows how religion informed and motivated circumstances on all sides of the war.