Subaltern on the Somme is a record of his daily life, and ranges across different aspects of his war in the trenches - including fear, shellfire, drunkenness, mud, frustration and his views about his fellow officers and British army commanders. Subaltern on the Somme is for anybody who wonders what trench warfare was like for a junior officer.

    The First World War was a truly global conflict from the start, with many of the most decisive battles fought in or directly affecting the Balkans, Africa, and the Ottoman Empire. Even more than World War II, the First World War continues to shape the politics and international relations of our world, especially in hot spots like the Middle East and the Balkans. Strachan has done a masterful job of reexamining the causes, the major campaigns, and the consequences of the First World War, compressing a lifetime of knowledge into a single definitive volume tailored for the general reader. Written in crisp, compelling prose and enlivened with extraordinarily vivid photographs and detailed maps, The First World War re-creates this world-altering conflict both on and off the battlefield—the clash of ideologies between the colonial powers at the center of the war, the social and economic unrest that swept Europe both before and after, the military strategies employed with stunning success and tragic failure in the various theaters of war, the terms of peace and why it didn’t last. Drawing on material culled from many countries, Strachan offers a fresh, clear-sighted perspective on how the war not only redrew the map of the world but also set in motion the most dangerous conflicts of today. Deeply learned, powerfully written, and soon to be released with a new introduction that commemorates the hundredth anniversary of the outbreak of the war, The First World War remains a landmark of contemporary history.

    The achievements of the United States during that war, often underrated by military historians, were in fact remarkable, and they turned the tide of the conflict. So says John S. D. Eisenhower, one of today's most acclaimed military historians, in his sweeping history of the Great War and the men who won it: the Yanks of the American Expeditionary Force. Their men dying in droves on the stalemated Western Front, British and French generals complained that America was giving too little, too late. John Eisenhower shows why they were wrong. The European Allies wished to plug the much-needed U.S. troops into their armies in order to fill the gaps in the line. But General John J. "Black Jack" Pershing, the indomitable commander of the AEF, determined that its troops would fight together, as a whole, in a truly American army. Only this force, he argued -- not bolstered French or British units -- could convince Germany that it was hopeless to fight on. Pershing's often-criticized decision led to the beginning of the end of World War I -- and the beginning of the U.S. Army as it is known today. The United States started the war with 200,000 troops, including the National Guard as well as regulars. They were men principally trained to fight Indians and Mexicans. Just nineteen months later the Army had mobilized, trained, and equipped four million men and shipped two million of them to France. It was the greatest mobilization of military forces the New World had yet seen. For the men it was a baptism of fire. Throughout Yanks Eisenhower focuses on the small but expert cadre of officers who directed our effort: not only Pershing, but also the men who would win their lasting fame in a later war -- MacArthur, Patton, and Marshall. But the author has mined diaries, memoirs, and after-action reports to resurrect as well the doughboys in the trenches, the unknown soldiers who made every advance possible and suffered most for every defeat. He brings vividly to life those men who achieved prominence as the AEF and its allies drove the Germans back into their homeland -- the irreverent diarist Maury Maverick, Charles W. Whittlesey and his famous "lost battalion," the colorful Colonel Ulysses Grant McAlexander, and Sergeant Alvin C. York, who became an instant celebrity by singlehandedly taking 132 Germans as prisoners. From outposts in dusty, inglorious American backwaters to the final bloody drive across Europe, Yanks illuminates America's Great War as though for the first time. In the AEF, General John J. Pershing created the Army that would make ours the American age; in Yanks that Army has at last found a storyteller worthy of its deeds.

    Covering the twelve months of 1916, eminent historian Keith Jeffery uses twelve moments from a range of locations and shows how they reverberated around the world. As well as discussing better-known battles such as Gallipoli, Verdun and the Somme, Jeffery examines Dublin, for the Easter Rising, East Africa, the Italian front, Central Asia and Russia, where the killing of Rasputin exposed the internal political weakness of the country's empire. And, in charting a wide range of wartime experience, he studies the 'intelligence war', naval engagements at Jutland and elsewhere, as well as the political consequences that ensued from the momentous US presidential election. Using an extraordinary range of military, social and cultural sources, and relating the individual experiences on the ground to wider developments, these are the stories lost to history, the conflicts that spread beyond the sphere of Europe and the moments that transformed the war.

    From Hitler's postponement of the invasion of Britain, to ineptitude in the Western desert, from errors in the Battle of the Atlantic to the Japanese mistakes in the Pacific, see how an entire army's downfall can hinge on one momentous decision. A telling account of poor judgment--and of greed, arrogance, complacency, and misused manpower, even by those who tasted victory elsewhere.

    

    Like old soldiers everywhere, they are fading away. But these soldiers have an incredible and sometimes shocking story to tell. It certainly does not make for comfortable reading. Secrets which have been bottled up for a lifetime are revealed, stories are told at last and memories which have been hidden away for 60 years finally resurface. These are facets of history's most dreadful war being revealed for the very first time. "The Wehrmacht" is a remarkable personal record of the Third Reich's rise and fall from the inside: of how those responsible for the maelstrom sent their armies to conquer only to see them crushed as the world united against them; of men who were seduced by the siren call of Hitler, only to pay a terribly heavy price. It allows the human stories to unfold within the bigger picture behind the major campaigns of the Second World War - from the early Blitzkrieg successes through the submarine warfare of the Battle of the Atlantic, and the brutal hardships of the Russian Front, to the last days of the Reich and the fall of Berlin. "The Wehrmacht" is a brilliantly researched and thought-provoking book that reveals unique human dimensions of the world's greatest military conflict.

    Warring nations came together to honour tradition and celebrate their shared humanity, proclaiming an unofficial ceasefire as they swapped food, sung carols, and even played football matches against one another. It is one of those very rare moments during the bloody twentieth century which provide a glimmer of light. It is in some ways the great overlooked moment of the past century – moving, hopeful and filled with possibility. But how was it viewed at the time? And why did it never successfully happen again? What risks did the men in the trenches run, how did it come about, and did it change their view of the enemy? The Christmas Truce has become a symbol of hope for human beings working together in desperate situations. But historians have argued ever since about its significance, ranging from those who believe it was an irrelevance to those for whom it was a moment of enormous significance – and part of that argument is the question of when - and why - the truce officially ended. This book is designed to tell the story of the truce to a wider audience, as a compelling narrative, stitching together first-hand accounts of the soldiers who lived through it. A hundred years on, it is still a moment that resonates with audiences around the world.

    It was an unexpected climax to the railway age.' A. J. P. Taylor was one of the most acclaimed historians of the twentieth century. His most provocative legacy was his insistence on the roles of accident and inadvertence in the outbreak of both world wars. First published in 1969, his book 'War by Timetable' still resonates and informs debates. 'War By Timetable' is a history of the mobilisation of the armies of the Great Powers in 1914. Taylor not only argues that the circumstances were already set for a general war, he also examines the flaws in the war plans of the Great Powers. All the plans depended on railways, which had been timed to the minute, months or even years in advance. As the train platforms grew longer (to accommodate prospective armies) the odds upon a great conflict grew shorter. The timetables and limited resources that were meant to serve as a deterrent to war instead relentlessly drove the powers into a conflict that engulfed the world. A.J.P. Taylor (1906-90) was one of the most controversial historians of the twentieth century. He served as a lecturer at the Universities of Manchester, Oxford, and London. Taylor was significant both for the controversy his work on Germany and the Second World War engendered and for his role in the development of history on television. Endeavour Press is the UK's leading independent publisher of digital books.

    However the 18 divisions that went over the top between Arras and St-Quentin on the morning of 1 July 1916, walked into a battle that has gone down in the annals of human conflict as the slaughterhouse of a generation. The author has written other books about the history of World War I, including, They Called it Passchendaele and The Roses of No Man's Land.

    Our perspectives narrowed by hindsight, the world of that year is reduced to its most frivolous features—last summers in grand aristocratic residences—or its most destructive ones: the unresolved rivalries of the great European powers, the fear of revolution, violence in the Balkans.In this illuminating history, Charles Emmerson liberates the world of 1913 from this “prelude to war” narrative, and explores it as it was, in all its richness and complexity. Traveling from Europe’s capitals, then at the height of their global reach, to the emerging metropolises of Canada and the United States, the imperial cities of Asia and Africa, and the boomtowns of Australia and South America, he provides a panoramic view of a world crackling with possibilities, its future still undecided, its outlook still open.The world in 1913 was more modern than we remember, more similar to our own times than we expect, more globalized than ever before. The Gold Standard underpinned global flows of goods and money, while mass migration reshaped the world’s human geography. Steamships and sub-sea cables encircled the earth, along with new technologies and new ideas. Ford’s first assembly line cranked to life in 1913 in Detroit. The Woolworth Building went up in New York. While Mexico was in the midst of bloody revolution, Winnipeg and Buenos Aires boomed. An era of petro-geopolitics opened in Iran. China appeared to be awaking from its imperial slumber. Paris celebrated itself as the city of light—Berlin as the city of electricity.Full of fascinating characters, stories, and insights, 1913: In Search of the World before the Great War brings a lost world vividly back to life, with provocative implications for how we understand our past and how we think about our future.

     Free BONUS Inside! Until 1939, World War I was known as “the war to end all wars,” but when Nazi Germany capped its mounting aggression against its neighbors by invading Poland, Europe was plunged into a second global conflict that threatened the entire continent as well as the far-flung colonial possessions claimed by the French, British, and Dutch. German triumphs saw nation after nation fall until only Great Britain remained defiant against Hitler’s dreams of conquest. By late 1941, the United States was forced from neutrality into war after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Meanwhile Joseph Stalin’s Nonaggression Pact with the Germans became meaningless after Germany invaded the Soviet Union. In Europe, along the Eastern Front, and in the Pacific, the Allies battled the Axis Powers, and then, on D-Day, June 6, 1944, the invasion of Normandy brought the fighting closer and closer to Berlin. In the Pacific, the Allies fought the Japanese island by island in bloody battles where the bodies of fallen soldiers attested to the Japanese willingness to die for their emperor. Untested American President Harry Truman had to decide whether to continue the fighting in the conventional manner and allow more American troops to be slaughtered in battle, or to use a new and devastating secret weapon to bring the war to a cataclysmic conclusion. Discover a plethora of topics such as War Begins: The Invasion of Poland Europe under the Swastika The Eastern Front From Normandy to Berlin War in the Pacific: The Rising Sun Bringing the War to Japan And much more! So if you want a concise and informative book on World War II, simply scroll up and click the "Buy now" button for instant access!

    

    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.

    For nearly a century since, historians have debated the causes of the war. Some have cited the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand; others have concluded it was unavoidable.In Europe’s Last Summer, David Fromkin provides a different answer: hostilities were commenced deliberately. In a riveting re-creation of the run-up to war, Fromkin shows how German generals, seeing war as inevitable, manipulated events to precipitate a conflict waged on their own terms. Moving deftly between diplomats, generals, and rulers across Europe, he makes the complex diplomatic negotiations accessible and immediate. Examining the actions of individuals amid larger historical forces, this is a gripping historical narrative and a dramatic reassessment of a key moment in the twentieth-century.