Download or read book August 1914 A Novel written by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. This book was released on 2014-08-19 with total page 887 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In his monumental narrative of the outbreak of the First World War and the ill-fated Russian offensive into East Prussia, Solzhenitsyn has written what Nina Krushcheva, in The Nation, calls "a dramatically new interpretation of Russian history." The assassination of tsarist prime minister Pyotr Stolypin, a crucial event in the years leading up to the Revolution of 1917, is reconstructed from the alienating viewpoints of historical witnesses. The sole voice of reason among the advisers to Tsar Nikolai II, Stolypin died at the hands of the anarchist Mordko Bogrov, and with him perished Russia's last hope for reform. Translated by H.T. Willetts. August 1914 is the first volume of Solzhenitsyn's epic, The Red Wheel; the second is November 1916. Each of the subsequent volumes will concentrate on another critical moment or "knot," in the history of the Revolution. Translated by H.T. Willetts.
Download or read book August 1914 written by Aleksandr Isaevich Solzhenit︠s︡yn and published by London : Bodley Head. This book was released on 1972 with total page 658 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book July 1914 written by Sean McMeekin and published by Basic Books. This book was released on 2014-04-29 with total page 482 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When a Serbian-backed assassin gunned down Archduke Franz Ferdinand in late June 1914, the world seemed unmoved. Even Ferdinand's own uncle, Franz Josef I, was notably ambivalent about the death of the Hapsburg heir, saying simply, "It is God's will." Certainly, there was nothing to suggest that the episode would lead to conflict -- much less a world war of such massive and horrific proportions that it would fundamentally reshape the course of human events. As acclaimed historian Sean McMeekin reveals in July 1914, World War I might have been avoided entirely had it not been for a small group of statesmen who, in the month after the assassination, plotted to use Ferdinand's murder as the trigger for a long-awaited showdown in Europe. The primary culprits, moreover, have long escaped blame. While most accounts of the war's outbreak place the bulk of responsibility on German and Austro-Hungarian militarism, McMeekin draws on surprising new evidence from archives across Europe to show that the worst offenders were actually to be found in Russia and France, whose belligerence and duplicity ensured that war was inevitable. Whether they plotted for war or rode the whirlwind nearly blind, each of the men involved -- from Austrian Foreign Minister Leopold von Berchtold and German Chancellor Bethmann Hollweg to Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Sazonov and French president Raymond Poincaré- sought to capitalize on the fallout from Ferdinand's murder, unwittingly leading Europe toward the greatest cataclysm it had ever seen. A revolutionary account of the genesis of World War I, July 1914 tells the gripping story of Europe's countdown to war from the bloody opening act on June 28th to Britain's final plunge on August 4th, showing how a single month -- and a handful of men -- changed the course of the twentieth century.
Download or read book November 1916 A Novel written by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. This book was released on 2014-08-19 with total page 1042 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The month of November 1916 in Russia was outwardly unmarked by seismic events, but beneath the surface, society seethed fiercely. In Petrograd, luxury-store windows are still brightly lit; the Duma debates the monarchy, the course of war, and clashing paths to reform; the workers in the miserable munitions factories veer increasingly toward sedition. At the front all is stalemate except for sudden death's capricious visits, while in the countryside sullen anxiety among hard-pressed farmers is rapidly replacing patriotism. In Zurich, Lenin, with the smallest of all revolutionary groups, plots his sinister logistical miracle. With masterly and moving empathy, through the eyes of both historical and fictional protagonists, Solzhenitsyn unforgettably transports us to that time and place--the last of pre-Soviet Russia. Translated by H.T. Willetts. November 1916 is the second volume in Solzhenitsyn's multi-part work, the Red Wheel, following August 1914. The final volumes will deal with March and April of 1917. Each volume concentrates on a historical turning point, or "knot," as the wheel rolls on inexorably toward revolution.
Download or read book August 1914 written by Bruno Cabanes and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2016-08-23 with total page 210 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A renowned military historian closely examines the first month of World War I in France. On August 1, 1914, war erupted into the lives of millions of families across France. Most people thought the conflict would last just a few weeks . . . Yet before the month was out, twenty-seven thousand French soldiers died on the single day of August 22 alone—the worst catastrophe in French military history. Refugees streamed into France as the German army advanced, spreading rumors that amplified still more the ordeal of war. Citizens of enemy countries who were living in France were viciously scapegoated. Drawing from diaries, personal correspondence, police reports, and government archives, Bruno Cabanes renders an intimate, narrative-driven study of the first weeks of World War I in France. Told from the perspective of ordinary women and men caught in the flood of mobilization, this revealing book deepens our understanding of the traumatic impact of war on soldiers and civilians alike. “An exceptional book, a brilliant, moving, and insightful analysis of national mobilization.” —Martha Hanna, author of Your Death Would Be Mine: Paul and Marie Pireaud in the Great War “This book deserves a wide readership from historians, critics and anyone interested in the catastrophe of war.” —Mary Louise Roberts, Distinguished Lucie Aubrac and Plaenert-Bascom Professor of History, University of Wisconsin, Madison “The sounds, sights and emotions of August, 1914 are all evoked with exceptional skill.” —David A. Bell, author of The First Total War: Napoleon’s Europe and the Birth of Warfare as We Know It
Download or read book The Sleepwalkers written by Christopher Clark and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2013-03-19 with total page 680 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “A monumental new volume. . . . Revelatory, even revolutionary. . . . Clark has done a masterful job explaining the inexplicable.” — Boston Globe One of The New York Times Book Review’s 10 Best Books of the Year • Winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize (History) Historian Christopher Clark’s riveting account of the explosive beginnings of World War I. Drawing on new scholarship, Clark offers a fresh look at World War I, focusing not on the battles and atrocities of the war itself, but on the complex events and relationships that led a group of well-meaning leaders into brutal conflict. Clark traces the paths to war in a minute-by-minute, action-packed narrative that cuts between the key decision centers in Vienna, Berlin, St. Petersburg, Paris, London, and Belgrade, and examines the decades of history that informed the events of 1914 and details the mutual misunderstandings and unintended signals that drove the crisis forward in a few short weeks. Meticulously researched and masterfully written, The Sleepwalkers is a dramatic and authoritative chronicle of Europe’s descent into a war that tore the world apart.
Download or read book Between Two Millstones Book 1 written by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and published by University of Notre Dame Pess. This book was released on 2018-10-30 with total page 440 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Russian Nobel prize–winner Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (1918–2008) is widely acknowledged as one of the most important figures—and perhaps the most important writer—of the last century. To celebrate the centenary of his birth, the first English translation of his memoir of the West, Between Two Millstones, Book 1, is being published. Fast-paced, absorbing, and as compelling as the earlier installments of his memoir The Oak and the Calf (1975), Between Two Millstones begins on February 13, 1974, when Solzhenitsyn found himself forcibly expelled to Frankfurt, West Germany, as a result of the publication in the West of The Gulag Archipelago. Solzhenitsyn moved to Zurich, Switzerland, for a time and was considered the most famous man in the world, hounded by journalists and reporters. During this period, he found himself untethered and unable to work while he tried to acclimate to his new surroundings. Between Two Millstones contains vivid descriptions of Solzhenitsyn's journeys to various European countries and North American locales, where he and his wife Natalia (“Alya”) searched for a location to settle their young family. There are fascinating descriptions of one-on-one meetings with prominent individuals, detailed accounts of public speeches such as the 1978 Harvard University commencement, comments on his television appearances, accounts of his struggles with unscrupulous publishers and agents who mishandled the Western editions of his books, and the KGB disinformation efforts to besmirch his name. There are also passages on Solzhenitsyn's family and their property in Cavendish, Vermont, whose forested hillsides and harsh winters evoked his Russian homeland, and where he could finally work undisturbed on his ten-volume dramatized history of the Russian Revolution, The Red Wheel. Stories include the efforts made to assure a proper education for the writer's three sons, their desire to return one day to their home in Russia, and descriptions of his extraordinary wife, editor, literary advisor, and director of the Russian Social Fund, Alya, who successfully arranged, at great peril to herself and to her family, to smuggle Solzhenitsyn's invaluable archive out of the Soviet Union. Between Two Millstones is a literary event of the first magnitude. The book dramatically reflects the pain of Solzhenitsyn's separation from his Russian homeland and the chasm of miscomprehension between him and Western society.
Download or read book The German Failure in Belgium August 1914 written by Dennis Showalter and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2019-05-21 with total page 226 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: If wars were wagered on like pro sports or horse races, the Germany military in August 1914 would have been a clear front-runner, with a century-long record of impressive victories and a general staff the envy of its rivals. Germany's overall failure in the first year of World War I was surprising and remains a frequent subject of analysis, mostly focused on deficiencies in strategy and policy. But there were institutional weaknesses as well. This book examines the structural failures that frustrated the Germans in the war's crucial initial campaign, the invasion of Belgium. Too much routine in planning, command and execution led to groupthink, inflexibility and to an overconfident belief that nothing could go too terribly wrong. As a result, decisive operation became dicey, with consequences that Germany's military could not overcome in four long years.
Download or read book March 1917 written by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and published by University of Notre Dame Pess. This book was released on 2021-10-15 with total page 1122 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In March 1917, Book 3 the forces of revolutionary disintegration spread out from Petrograd all the way to the front lines of World War I, presaging Russia’s collapse. One of the masterpieces of world literature, The Red Wheel is Nobel prize–winner Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s multivolume epic work about the Russian Revolution told in the form of a historical novel. March 1917—the third node—tells the story, day by day, of the Russian Revolution itself. Until recently, the final two nodes have been unavailable in English. The publication of Book 1 of March 1917 (in 2017) and Book 2 (in 2019) has begun to rectify this situation. The action of Book 3 (out of four) is set during March 16–22, 1917. In Book 3, the Romanov dynasty ends and the revolution starts to roll out from Petrograd toward Moscow and the Russian provinces. The dethroned Emperor Nikolai II makes his farewell to the Army and is kept under guard with his family. In Petrograd, the Provisional Government and the Soviet of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies continue to exercise power in parallel. The war hero Lavr Kornilov is appointed military chief of Petrograd. But the Soviet’s “Order No. 1” reaches every soldier, undermining the officer corps and shaking the Army to its foundations. Many officers, including the head of the Baltic Fleet, the progressive Admiral Nepenin, are murdered. Black Sea Fleet Admiral Kolchak holds the revolution at bay; meanwhile, Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolaevich, the emperor’s uncle, makes his way to military headquarters, naïvely thinking he will be allowed to take the Supreme Command.
Download or read book Ten Days in August written by Terence Zuber and published by The History Press. This book was released on 2014-08-01 with total page 412 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In August 1914 the German main attack was conducted by the 2nd Army. It had the missions of taking the vital fortresses of Liège and Namur, and then defeating the Anglo-French-Belgian forces in the open plains of northern Belgium.The German attack on the Belgian fortress at Liège from 5 to 16 August 1914 had tremendous political and military importance. Nevertheless, there has never been a complete account of the siege of Liège. The German and Belgian sources are fragmentary and biased. The short descriptions in English are general, use a few Belgian sources, and are filled with inaccuracies. Making professional military use of both German and Belgian sources, this book for the first time describes and evaluates the construction of the fortress, its military purpose, the German plan, and the conduct of the German attack on the night of 5-6 August. Previous accounts emphasize the importance of the huge German “Big Bertha” cannon, to the virtual exclusion of everything else: the Siege of Liège shows that the effect of this gun was a myth, and shows how the Germans really took the fortress. This is how the whole bloody mess started.
Download or read book The Proud Tower written by Barbara W. Tuchman and published by Random House. This book was released on 2011-08-31 with total page 642 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The classic account of the lead-up to World War I, told with “a rare combination of impeccable scholarship and literary polish” (The New York Times)—from the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Guns of August During the fateful quarter century leading up to World War I, the climax of a century of rapid, unprecedented change, a privileged few enjoyed Olympian luxury as the underclass was “heaving in its pain, its power, and its hate.” In The Proud Tower, Barbara W. Tuchman brings the era to vivid life: the decline of the Edwardian aristocracy; the Anarchists of Europe and America; Germany and its self-depicted hero, Richard Strauss; Diaghilev’s Russian ballet and Stravinsky’s music; the Dreyfus Affair; the Peace Conferences in The Hague; and the enthusiasm and tragedy of Socialism, epitomized by the assassination of Jean Jaurès on the night the Great War began and an epoch came to a close. The Proud Tower, The Guns of August, and The Zimmermann Telegram comprise Barbara W. Tuchman’s classic histories of the First World War era.
Download or read book The Guns of August written by Barbara Wertheim Tuchman and published by . This book was released on 2008 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book A Pilgrim of the Infinite written by William Valentine Kelley and published by . This book was released on 1914 with total page 94 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book August 1914 written by Alexander Solzhenitsyn and published by . This book was released on 1974 with total page 744 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Warning to the West written by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 1976 with total page 158 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Speeches given to the Americans and to the British from June 30, 1975 to March 24, 1976.
Download or read book War Planning 1914 written by Richard F. Hamilton and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2010 with total page 281 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This collection of essays by international experts in military history reassesses the war plans of 1914 in a broad diplomatic, military, and political setting.
Download or read book 1914 written by Jean Echenoz and published by New Press, The. This book was released on 2014-01-07 with total page 130 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Five Frenchmen go off to war, two of them leaving behind a certain young woman who longs for their return. But the main character in 1914 is the Great War itself. Jean Echenoz, the multi–;award–;winning French literary magician whose work has been compared to Joseph Conrad and Lawrence Sterne, has brought that deathtrap back to life, leading us gently from a balmy summer day deep into the insatiable—and still unthinkable—carnage of trench warfare. With the delicacy of a miniaturist and with irony both witty and clear–;eyed, the author offers us an intimate epic with the atmosphere of a classic movie: in the panorama of a clear blue sky, a biplane spirals suddenly into the ground; a tardy piece of shrapnel shears the top off a man's head as if it were a soft–;boiled egg; we dawdle dreamily in a spring–;scented clearing with a lonely shell–;shocked soldier strolling innocently to a firing squad ready to shoot him for desertion. But ultimately, the grace notes of humanity in 1914 rise above the terrors of war in this beautifully crafted tale that Echenoz tells with discretion, precision, and love.
