One dead German was lying on his back, with a rifle sticking straight up in the air, the bayonet of which was buried to the hilt in his chest. Across his feet lay a dead English soldier with a bullet hole in his forehead. This Tommy must have been killed just as he ran his bayonet through the German. Rifles and equipment were scattered about, and occasionally a steel helmet could be seen sticking out of the mud. At one point, just in the entrance to a communication trench, was a stretcher. On this stretcher a German was lying with a white bandage around his knee, near to him lay one of the stretcher-bearers, the red cross on his arm covered with mud and his helmet filled with blood and brains. Close by, sitting up against the wall of the trench, with head resting on his chest, was the other stretcher-bearer. He seemed to be alive, the posture was so natural and easy, but when I got closer, I could see a large, jagged hole in, his temple. The three must have been killed by the same shell-burst. The dugouts were all smashed in and knocked about, big square-cut timbers splintered into bits, walls caved in, and entrances choked. Tommy, after taking a trench, learns to his sorrow, that the hardest part of the work is to hold it. In our case this proved to be so. The German artillery and machine guns had us taped (ranged) for fair; it was worth your life to expose yourself an instant. Don't think for a minute that the Germans were the only sufferers, we were clicking casualties so fast that you needed an adding machine to keep track of them. Did you ever see one of the steam shovels at work on the Panama Canal, well, it would look like a hen scratching alongside of a Tommy "digging in" while under fire, you couldn't see daylight through the clouds of dirt from his shovel. After losing three out of six men of our crew, we managed to set up our machine gun. One of the legs of the tripod was resting on the chest of a half-buried body. When...

    By the time Owen was killed at the age of 25 at the Battle of Sambre, he had written what are considered to be the most important British poems of WWI. This definitive edition is based on manuscripts of Owen's papers in the British Museum and other archives.

    It took place in the improbable setting of the mud, cold rain and senseless killing of the trenches of World War I. It happened in spite of orders to the contrary by superiors; it happened in spite of language barriers. And it still stands as the only time in history that peace spontaneously arose from the lower ranks in a major conflict, bubbling up to the officers and temporarily turning sworn enemies into friends. Silent Night, by renowned military historian Stanley Weintraub, magically restores the 1914 Christmas Truce to history. It had been lost in the tide of horror that filled the battlefields of Europe for months and years afterward. Yet in December 1914 the Great War was still young, and the men who suddenly threw down their arms and came together across the front lines to sing carols, exchange gifts and letters, eat and drink and even play friendly games of soccer naively hoped that the war would be short-lived, and that they were fraternizing with future friends. It began when German soldiers lit candles on small Christmas trees, and British, French, Belgian and German troops serenaded each other on Christmas Eve. Soon they were gathering and burying the dead, in an age-old custom of truces. But as the power of Christmas grew among them, they broke bread, exchanged addresses and letters and expressed deep admiration for one another. When angry superiors ordered them to recommence the shooting, many men aimed harmlessly high overhead. Sometimes the greatest beauty emerges from deep tragedy. Surely the forgotten Christmas Truce was one of history's most beautiful moments, made all the more beautiful in light of the carnage that followed it. Stanley Weintraub's moving re-creation demonstrates that peace can be more fragile than war, but also that ordinary men can bond with one another despite all efforts of politicians and generals to the contrary.

    The total gain - a few thousand yards of indefensible slough - cost about a million Allied lives.

    Lawrence, “a sideshow of a sideshow.”  Amidst the slaughter in European trenches, the Western combatants paid scant attention to the Middle Eastern theater.  As a result, the conflict was shaped to a remarkable degree by a small handful of adventurers and low-level officers far removed from the corridors of power.   Curt Prüfer was an effete academic attached to the German embassy in Cairo, whose clandestine role was to foment Islamic jihad against British rule.  Aaron Aaronsohn was a renowned agronomist and committed Zionist who gained the trust of the Ottoman governor of Syria. William Yale was the fallen scion of the American aristocracy, who traveled the Ottoman Empire on behalf of Standard Oil, dissembling to the Turks in order gain valuable oil concessions.  At the center of it all was Lawrence.  In early 1914 he was an archaeologist excavating ruins in the sands of Syria; by 1917 he was the most romantic figure of World War One, battling both the enemy and his own government to bring about the vision he had for the Arab people. The intertwined paths of these four men – the schemes they put in place, the battles they fought, the betrayals they endured and committed – mirror the grandeur, intrigue and tragedy of the war in the desert.  Prüfer became Germany’s grand spymaster in the Middle East.  Aaronsohn constructed an elaborate Jewish spy-ring in Palestine, only to have the anti-Semitic and bureaucratically-inept British first ignore and then misuse his organization, at tragic personal cost.  Yale would become the only American intelligence agent in the entire Middle East – while still secretly on the payroll of Standard Oil.  And the enigmatic Lawrence rode into legend at the head of an Arab army, even as he waged secret war against his own nation’s imperial ambitions. Based on years of intensive primary document research, LAWRENCE IN ARABIA definitively overturns received wisdom on how the modern Middle East was formed.  Sweeping in its action, keen in its portraiture, acid in its condemnation of the destruction wrought by European colonial plots, this is a book that brilliantly captures the way in which the folly of the past creates the anguish of the present.

    The story of the Great War, told by the soldiers themselves.

    Soldiers were often unceremoniously dumped in a mass grave; officers shipped home for burial.The great cemeteries of WWI came about as a result of the efforts of one inspired visionary. In 1914, Fabian Ware joined the Red Cross, working on the frontline in France. Horrified by the hasty burials, he recorded the identity and position of the graves. His work was officially recognised, with a Graves Registration Commission being set up. As reports of their work became public, the Commission was flooded with letters from grieving relatives around the world.Critically acclaimed author David Crane gives a profoundly moving account of the creation of the great citadels to the dead, which involved leading figures of the day, including Rudyard Kipling. It is the story of cynical politicking, as governments sought to justify the sacrifice, as well as the grief of nations, following the ‘war to end all wars’.

    Perfect for readers of Max Hastings, Martin Middlebrook and Tim Cook. By 1915, the Western Front had descended into deadlock. Near the town of Ypres, soldiers from Canada, Britain, India, France, Belgium, the French Colonies and Germany sat in long winding trenches facing each other. German commanders sought to break through the Allied lines by using a new weapon: chlorine gas. At five o’clock on 22nd April 1915, German troops opened the valves on their deadly steel cylinders and chemical warfare entered the First World War. As the thick, yellow-green cloud of smoke was carried by the wind into Allied trenches it overcame all those who breathed in its poisonous vapours. By the end of the Second Battle of Ypres, thousands of men had been killed and even more were injured as a result of gas. J. McWilliams and R. J. Steel uncover this horrifying battle from beginning to end and explore what it was like the for the French Algerians who first witnessed the gas clouds approaching them, how the Canadians stubbornly refused to retreat in the face of gas, what the British and Indians hoped to achieve with their tragic counterattacks, and ultimately why the German offensive failed. Gas! The Battle for Ypres, 1915 discusses the course of the battle, not just from the perspective of generals, but also drawing information from the accounts of field commanders and men who were there in the trenches witnessing these terrifying events first-hand.

    Mussolini fought in these trenches, as did most of his collaborators. But so did many of the greatest modernist writers in Italian and German - Ungaretti, Gadda, Musil.

     However, the passion of Major Hesketh-Prichard – hunter and excellent marksman – for the promotion and advancement of sniping practices led to the implementation of brand new sniping methods by the British Army. These new practices contributed to the reversal of fortune of the Allied forces, tipping the balance in their favour towards victory in the sniping war. This excellent book, as told in the inimitable style of Major Hesketh-Prichard, recounts the genesis, development, and advancement of sniping style and practice, intermingled with a charming autobiographical style. Truly a classic account of war, this is a must read for avid military enthusiasts. Major Hesketh-Prichard, born in India in 1876, led a vibrant life as an explorer and adventurer, big-game hunter turned animal rights activist, novelist and travel writer, excellent cricket player, and marksman. He contributed significantly to the advancement of sniping practice in the British Army during the First World War, and the measures he introduced are credited as saving the lives of thousands of Allied soldiers. Albion Press is an imprint of Endeavour Press, the UK's leading independent digital publisher. For more information on our titles please sign up to our newsletter at www.endeavourpress.com. Each week you will receive updates on free and discounted ebooks. Follow us on Twitter: @EndeavourPress and on Facebook via http://on.fb.me/1HweQV7. We are always interested in hearing from our readers. Endeavour Press believes that the future is now.

    Called the "book of books" by Lawrence of Arabia, 'Her Privates We' is an expressionist classic that magnificently captures the horror of war.

    Yet it is also one of the most complex and misunderstood, in a war only imperfectly grasped.Conventional wisdom holds that the battle began in February 1916 and lasted until December, when the victorious French wrested all the territory they had lost back from the Germans. In fact, says historian John Mosier, from the very beginning of the war until the armistice in 1918, no fewer than eight distinct battles were waged for the possession of Verdun. These conflicts are largely unknown, even in France, owing to the obsessive secrecy of the French high command and its energetic propaganda campaign to fool the world into thinking that the war on the Western Front was a steady series of German checks and defeats.Although British historians have always seen Verdun as a one-year battle designed by the German chief of staff to bleed France white, Mosier’s careful analysis of the German plans reveals a much more abstract and theoretical approach.Our understanding of Verdun has long been mired in myths, false assumptions, propaganda, and distortions. Now, using numerous accounts of military analysts, serving officers, and eyewitnesses, including French sources that have never been translated, Mosier offers a compelling reassessment of the Great War’s most important battle.

    Driven by the idealism that infected many young Americans at the time (including Ernest Hemingway), author John Dos Passos joined the Ambulance Corps. His rapid and profound disillusionment forms the core of this fierce denouncement of the military and of the far-reaching social implications of its exploitation of young men. 400 pp.

    Beginning in 1914, alliances between powerful nations soon plunged the world into a global conflict. Fighting-including miserable trench warfare-broke out in practically every corner of Europe and spread around the world to Africa, Asia, and the Middle East. Inside you will read about... - The Causes of World War I - The War in Europe: The Western Front - The War in the Balkans and the Ottoman Empire - The United States - Russia and the War in Eastern Europe - The Impact of World War I And much more! Even the peace treaty in 1919, which occurred during a deadly worldwide influenza pandemic, brought no relief; another world war, intricately connected to the first, would break out in only two short decades.

    In December 1917, a freighter carrying 3,000 tons of explosives sailed from Brooklyn bound for the trenches of World War I—en route, a cataclysmic disaster awaited . . .Entering World War I’s fourth demoralizing year, the Allies hoped to break the grueling stalemate by sending thousands of fresh American troops and more munitions than ever to the trenches of France. Before the French freighter Mont-Blanc set sail from Brooklyn on December 1, 1917, with a staggering 3,000 tons of explosives, the captain banned his crew from lighting a single match, and secured the volatile cargo with copper nails because they don’t spark when struck. For four harrowing days, the floating powder keg bobbed up the Eastern seaboard, plowing through a wicked snowstorm and waters infested with German U-Boats, which had already torpedoed a thousand Allied ships that year alone. On December 6, the exhausted crew finally slipped into Halifax Harbour—just as the relief ship Imo was rushing to leave. At 8:45 a.m., the Imo struck the Mont-Blanc’s bow, knocking over barrels of airplane fuel. Fire swept across the decks, sending the Mont-Blanc’s crew scurrying to their lifeboats, while Halifax longshoremen, office workers, and schoolchildren walked down to watch it burn.At 9:04:35 a.m., the Mont-Blanc erupted, leveling 2.5 square miles of Halifax, killing 2,000 people, and wounding 9,000 more—all in one-fifteenth of a second.In this definitive account, bestselling author John U. Bacon recreates the recklessness that caused the tragedy, the selfless rescue efforts that saved thousands, and the inspiring resilience that rebuilt the town. Just hours after the explosion, Boston alone sent 100 doctors, 300 nurses, and a million dollars. The explosion would revolutionize ophthalmology and pediatrics; transform Canada and the U.S. from adversaries to allies; and show J. Robert Oppenheimer, who studied Halifax closely, how much destruction an atomic bomb could inflict on a city. Bacon brings to light one of the most dramatic events of the twentieth century, exploring the long shadow the world’s first “weapon of mass destruction” still casts on our world today.The Great Halifax Explosion includes 25 black-and-white photos.