Download or read book Somme written by Hugh Sebag-Montefiore and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2016-08-15 with total page 680 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The notion of battles as the irreducible building blocks of war demands a single verdict of each campaign—victory, defeat, stalemate. But this kind of accounting leaves no room to record the nuances and twists of actual conflict. In Somme: Into the Breach, the noted military historian Hugh Sebag-Montefiore shows that by turning our focus to stories of the front line—to acts of heroism and moments of both terror and triumph—we can counter, and even change, familiar narratives. Planned as a decisive strike but fought as a bloody battle of attrition, the Battle of the Somme claimed over a million dead or wounded in months of fighting that have long epitomized the tragedy and folly of World War I. Yet by focusing on the first-hand experiences and personal stories of both Allied and enemy soldiers, Hugh Sebag-Montefiore defies the customary framing of incompetent generals and senseless slaughter. In its place, eyewitness accounts relive scenes of extraordinary courage and sacrifice, as soldiers ordered “over the top” ventured into No Man’s Land and enemy trenches, where they met a hail of machine-gun fire, thickets of barbed wire, and exploding shells. Rescuing from history the many forgotten heroes whose bravery has been overlooked, and giving voice to their bereaved relatives at home, Hugh Sebag-Montefiore reveals the Somme campaign in all its glory as well as its misery, helping us to realize that there are many meaningful ways to define a battle when seen through the eyes of those who lived it.

Download or read book A Soldier Gone to Sea written by Charles Frederic Jerram and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2016-11-16 with total page 239 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this memoir spanning nine decades, Lieutenant Colonel C.F. Jerram (1882-1969) of the Royal Marines recounts his life and military service through both world wars. Jerram describes in candid detail his late 19th-century childhood in Devon and Cornwall, the late Victorian and Edwardian Royal Navy, the Royal Navy's Far East Station, a traditional Corps of Marines, the Gallipoli Campaign, the World War I Western Front and the interwar and World War II years. His experience and insight convey two fundamental lessons: "Know thy profession and look after those for whom you are responsible." An essay by the editor, based on other sources, provides a broader perspective on Jerram, whose approach to professional military service is still pertinent today.

Download or read book The Story of the 29th Division a Record of Gallant Deeds written by Stair Agnew Gillon and published by . This book was released on 1925 with total page 330 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is a history of the British Army's 29th Division and it's service during the Great War as told through narratives provided by the three divisional commanders and others. Though the majority of the men were English, there were also men from all over the British Isles and Empire, including the Royal Newfoundland Regiment. In describing the battles fought by these men, Gillon enlightens readers on the Division's hard work, success, and above all, courage.

Download or read book Neill s Blue Caps written by Harold Carmichael Wylly and published by . This book was released on 1923 with total page 392 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book 2 written by Sir Ian Hamilton and published by . This book was released on 1920 with total page 482 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Landings at Suvla Bay 1915 written by Michael J. Mortlock and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2015-03-21 with total page 251 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This work is an extensive analysis of the 1915 British landing at Suvla Bay, one of the most mismanaged and ineffective operations of World War I. Chapters examine the events that led to the landings on the Gallipoli peninsula, provide a comprehensive report on the landings themselves, and analyze the events and decisions contributing to their failure. Appendices provide first-hand accounts of the landings from period news articles, military documents and personal correspondence.

Download or read book A Slashing Man of Action written by Elaine McFarland and published by Peter Lang Gmbh, Internationaler Verlag Der Wissenschaften. This book was released on 2014 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Hailed by General Sir Ian Hamilton as 'a slashing man of action', Aylmer Hunter-Weston began the Great War as one of the British Army's rising stars. By its close, his reputation was very different. Drawing on original archival research, this is the first full-length study of his colourful and controversial career.

Download or read book Alive with death written by Jim Grundy and published by Little Gully Publishing. This book was released on 2024-08-18 with total page 679 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In December 1914, with their soldiers ‘chewing barbed wire in Flanders’, British politicians looked for alternatives to stalemate on the Western Front. Their gaze settled upon the Dardanelles. The Turks, recently defeated by lesser powers, couldn’t resist the combined might of the British and French empires. They would run at the sight of the Allied fleet. Or so some chose to believe. This book offers an unparalleled collection of first-hand accounts by those who made history and those who lived it, from prime ministers to private soldiers, from the offices of Whitehall to the dusty dugouts of the peninsula. All accounts were written at the time, without the benefit or bias of hindsight. How did a naval demonstration to aid the Russians lead to the first amphibious landings on a defended shore in modern times? Was it a flash of strategic genius, a worthwhile gamble or did ‘criminal idiots attempt the impossible’? Gain a new perspective on the Gallipoli Campaign as you watch the story unfold with each passing day.

Download or read book Laugh or Cry written by Peter Hart and published by Pen and Sword Military. This book was released on 2022-12-29 with total page 266 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Awakened by great shouted oaths below. Peeped over the side of the manger and saw a Belgian lass milking and addressing a cow with a comprehensive luridness that left no doubt in my mind that British soldiers had been billeted here before.' - Private Norman Ellison, 1/6th King’s Liverpool Regiment Humor helped the British soldier survive the terrible experiences they faced in the trenches of the Western Front during the Great War. Human beings are complicated, and there is no set pattern as to how they react to the outrageous stresses of war. But humor, often dark and representative of the horrors around them could and often did help. They may have been up to their knees in mud and blood, soaking wet and shot at from all sides, but many were still determined to see the ‘funny side’, rather than surrender to utter misery. Peter Hart and Gary Bain have delved deep into the archives to find examples of the soldier’s wit. The results are at times hilarious but rooted in tragedy. You have to laugh or cry.

Download or read book Gallipoli Diary written by Ian Hamilton and published by Good Press. This book was released on 2023-12-15 with total page 353 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This 2-volume book represents a personal account of the Gallipoli Campaign written from the perspective of a British Army officer. The Gallipoli Campaign was a military campaign in the First World War that took place on the Gallipoli peninsula February 1915 to January 1916. The Entente powers, Britain, France and Russia, sought to weaken the Ottoman Empire, one of the Central Powers, by taking control of the straits that provided a supply route to the Russian Empire. The Allies' attack on Ottoman forts at the entrance of the Dardanelles in February 1915 failed and was followed by an amphibious landing on the Gallipoli peninsula in April 1915 to capture the Ottoman capital of Constantinople. In January 1916, after eight months' fighting, with approximately 250,000 casualties on each side, the land campaign was abandoned and the invasion force withdrawn. It was a costly defeat for the Entente powers and for the sponsors, especially First Lord of the Admiralty (1911-1915), Winston Churchill. The campaign was considered a great Ottoman victory. Contents: The Start The Straits Egypt Clearing for Action The Landing Making Good Shells Two Corps or an Ally? Submarines A Decision and the Plan Bombs and Journalists A Victory and After K.'s Advice and the P.M.'s Envoy The Force – Real and Imaginary Sari Bair and Suvla Kavak Tepe Attack Collapses The Last Battle Misunderstandings The French Plan Loos and Salonika The Beginning of the End

Download or read book Gallipoli Diary written by Ian Hamilton and published by . This book was released on 1920 with total page 436 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Wooden Horse of Gallipoli written by Stephen Snelling and published by Casemate Publishers. This book was released on 2016-02-28 with total page 630 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The initial Allied landings on the Gallipoli Peninsula began on 25 April 1915. Many of those who went ashore at V Beach near Cape Helles did so from the SS River Clyde. In the first full-length study devoted entirely to River Clyde and the men who sailed in her, the author reveals a remarkable tale of human endeavor told in the words of the men who were there: from the naval captain whose brainchild it was, to the teenage midshipmen who risked their lives to rescue the operation from disaster; from the infantrymen who braved a storm of fire to the staff officers who led the assault that finally secured the beachhead; from the armored car machine-gunners whose covering fire saved hundreds of men marooned on the shore, to the navys own infantrymen who ventured out into the bullet-swept waters to succor the wounded.The Wooden Horse of Gallipoli tells the story of how this collier became an icon of the First World War, its stranded bulk synonymous with one of the most extraordinary exploits of a campaign doomed to failure.

Download or read book Gallipoli Diary 1915 written by Alec Riley and published by Little Gully Publishing. This book was released on 2021-11-11 with total page 362 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “We had a look around, through periscopes, at the remains of recent fighting. The dead were on top, and we, the living, were below the general ground-level. The usual order of life and death were reversed.” So wrote Alec Riley in his account of an ordinary soldier in an extraordinary conflict, the Gallipoli campaign of 1915. A signaller with the 42nd (East Lancashire) Division, Riley was well placed to serve as an eyewitness to the sharp end of the campaign, being with the infantry but not of it. His task, and that of the small unit he served with and whose story he tells, was to maintain communications between the forward trenches and senior commanders in the rear, a conduit for at times unrealistic orders one way, and all-too-real situation reports the other. During his time on the peninsula, Riley kept meticulous notes, which form the basis of this account. He also took his camera to war, the resulting photos—some of which were used in the British official history of the campaign—flesh out his detailed story of life in and behind the lines. After four months on the peninsula, suffering from jaundice, septic sores and dysentery, Riley was evacuated sick, destined first for Mudros and then Blighty. He made sure to save his diary and camera. Although Gallipoli had done for Riley, Riley was not done with Gallipoli. Even while on the peninsula, he and his comrades had looked beyond the war. “We tried to imagine what the place would be like when the armies had gone. Achi Baba would be green again, the trenches would fall in and flatten; communication-trenches, through which thousands of men had passed, would be long and shallow depressions, and frogs and tortoises the only inhabitants of gully and nullah.” Remarkably, Alec Riley returned to find out, revisiting the peninsula at least twice. In 1930, he spent ten days wandering across the now overgrown fields of battle on a lone pilgrimage, revisiting places he knew intimately 15 years before. This pilgrimage, and a subsequent second visit, was intended to form the basis of a book, again illustrated with his trusty camera. Sadly, the original manuscript has been lost. But the editors have identified two extracts that appeared in print, which they present alongside a faithful transcript of Riley’s diary and notes. Also included is an unpublished introduction by General Sir Ian Hamilton, commander of the Mediterranean Expeditionary Force of which Riley had been a small part, and with whom Riley had a decade-long correspondence. The editors of the diary, Michael Crane and Bernard de Broglio, have added copious footnotes and detailed biographical notes on the officers and men who come to life in Riley’s writings, as well as an order of battle and summary of arms for the 42nd Division at Gallipoli. Fourteen maps illustrate the actions, large and small, that Riley describes, alongside 47 black and white photographs, most showing the battlefield in 1915 and 1930. Gallipoli Diary 1915 will appeal to readers of WW1 and military history, but especially to those with an interest in the Gallipoli campaign. It will be bookended by two further diaries that record Alec Riley’s mobilisation and training in Egypt, and his time in the Royal Victoria Hospital, Netley. Collectively they offer a unique window into the experiences of a pre-war Territorial soldier, before, during and after Gallipoli.

Download or read book Douglas Haig written by Gary Sheffield and published by Aurum. This book was released on 2016-05-19 with total page 427 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'Well written and persuasive ...objective and well-rounded....this scholarly rehabilitation should be the standard biography' - Andrew Roberts, Mail on Sunday 'A true judgment of him must lie somewhere between hero and zero, and in this detailed biography Gary Sheffield shows himself well qualified to make it ... a balanced portrait' - The Sunday Times 'Solid scholarship and admirable advocacy' - Sunday Telegraph Douglas Haig is the single most controversial general in British history. In 1918, after his armies had won the First World War, he was feted as a saviour. But within twenty years his reputation was in ruins, and it has never recovered. Drawing on previously unknown private papers and new scholarship unavailable when The Chief was first published, eminent First World War historian Gary Sheffield reassesses Haig's reputation, assessing his critical role in preparing the army for war.

Download or read book The War Lords and the Gallipoli Disaster written by Nicholas A. Lambert and published by Oxford Studies in Internationa. This book was released on 2021 with total page 365 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book, based on comprehensive archival research in official and private papers, offers a new history of the infamous British disaster at Gallipoli in 1915. Contrary to all previous accounts, it shows that the campaign originated not in the search for an alternative to the Western Front, but in the need to lower the price of bread in Britain.

Download or read book Standing Up for Scotland written by David Torrance and published by Edinburgh University Press. This book was released on 2020-05-01 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: David Torrance combines nationalist theory with empirical historical and archival research to reassess the relationship between 'nationalism' and 'unionism' in Scottish politics, challenging a binary reading of the two ideologies with the concept of 'nationalist unionism'.

Download or read book Gallipoli Diary Vol I Illustrated Edition written by General Sir Ian Standish Monteith Hamilton GCB GCMG DSO TD and published by Pickle Partners Publishing. This book was released on 2015-11-06 with total page 694 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: udes Gallipoli Campaign Map and Illustrations Pack –71 photos and 31 maps of the campaign spanning the entire period of hostilities. The desperate losses and ultimate failure of the Gallipoli campaign are legendary even among the holocaust of the First World War. The man ultimately held responsible for the failure was General Ian Hamilton, the officer in charge of the operation; criticism has been heaped on him since the last Allied soldier left the Turkish peninsula in 1915. His diaries however paint a different picture; that of a General struggling with a task that was night-on impossible to begin with; Thrust in to a mad-cap operation he was given the scantest of details; “But my knowledge of the Dardanelles was nil; of the Turk nil; of the strength of our own forces next to nil. Although I have met K. almost every day during the past six months, and although he has twice hinted I might be sent to Salonika; never once, to the best of my recollection, had he mentioned the word Dardanelles.” Short of men, supplies and most all ammunition; his failure was not from a lack of effort. Fighting uphill against an entrenched enemy, the ground that he and his men fought over was some of the toughest on Earth to attack. Always too close to the fighting line he was out of his depth with the strategic thinking necessary in an army commander. There is much in his diaries that is of interest the serious student of the Gallipoli campaign and the casual reader of the story of the First World War.