Download or read book The First Birmingham Battalion in the Great War 1914 1919 written by J. E. B. Fairclough and published by Naval & Military Press. This book was released on 2023-08-09 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A very good Great War Battalion history: the 1st Birmingham Pals Battalion, Royal Warwickshire Regiment was formed in Birmingham in September 1914 by the Lord Mayor and a local committee. They proceeded to France on 21 November 1915. In December 1915, they transferred to 13th Brigade, 5th Division. In March 1916, 5th Division took over a section of front line between St Laurent-Blangy and the southern edge of Vimy Ridge, near Arras. They moved south in July to reinforce The Somme and were in action at High Wood, The Battle of Guillemont, The Battle of Flers-Courcelette, The Battle of Morval and The Battle of Le Transloy. In October they moved to Festubert and remained there until March 1917 when they moved in preparation for the Battles of Arras. In September 1917, 5th Division moved out of the line for a period of rest, before being sent to Flanders where they were in action during the Third Battle of Ypres. 5th Division was sent to Italy and took up positions in the line along the River Piave in late January 1918. They were recalled to France to assist with halting the German Advance in late March 1918 and were in action during the Battles of the Lys. They then moved to The Somme where they were more or less in continuous action over the old battlegrounds until late October 1918. They saw action in the Battles of the Hindenburg Line and the Final Advance in Picardy.

Download or read book Birmingham and the Great War 1914 1919 written by Reginald Henry Brazier and published by . This book was released on 1921 with total page 408 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Birmingham in the Great War Mobilisation and Recruitment written by Terry Carter and published by Casemate Publishers. This book was released on 2016-10-30 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How the experience of war impacted on the town, from the initial enthusiasm for sorting out the German Kaiser in time for Christmas 1914, to the gradual realization of the enormity of human sacrifice the families of Birmingham were committed to as the war stretched out over the next four years. A record of the growing disillusion of the people, their tragedies and hardships and a determination to see it through. Birmingham’s part in the Great War is well documented from the production of Rifles and Lewis Guns at the B.S.A. to the mind boggling 25 million rifle cartridges produced weekly at Kynochs. Airplanes, tanks, armored cars, military trucks, shell fuses, shell cases, Mills bombs and hundreds of other intricate parts needed to make military hardware. “The country, the empire and the world owe to the skill, the ingenuity, the industry and the resource of Birmingham a deep debt of gratitude,” to quote Prime Minister Lloyd George and former Minister of Munitions. But that is only part of the story. Around 150,000 Birmingham men enlisted and sadly approximately 14,000 did not return. No story of Birmingham’s war effort can be told without mentioning the wives, moms, sisters and girlfriends who toiled away night and day working in munitions. Four years of local war time newspapers have been trawled through unearthing personal experiences of Brummagem folk in the Great War.

Download or read book The First Buckinghamshire Battalion 1914 1919 written by Philip Lowndes Wright and published by . This book was released on 1920 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Britain Goes to War written by Peter Liddle and published by Pen and Sword. This book was released on 2015-11-30 with total page 442 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The First World War had a profound impact on British society and on British relations with continental Europe, the Dominions, the United States and the emerging Soviet Union. The pre-war world was transformed, and the world that we recognize today began to take shape. That is why, 100 years after the outbreak, the time is right for this collection of thought-provoking chapters that reassesses why Britain went to war and the preparations made by the armed forces, the government and the nation at large for the unprecedented conflict that ensued.A group of distinguished historians looks back, with the clarity of a modern perspective, at the issues that were critical to Britain's war effort as the nation embarked on the most intense and damaging struggle in its history. In a series of penetrating chapters they explore the reasons for Britain going to war, the official preparations, the public reaction, the readiness of the armed forces, internment, the impact of the opening campaign, the experience of the soldiers, recruitment, training, weaponry, the political implications, and the care of the wounded.

Download or read book Kitchener s Army written by Peter Simkins and published by Pen and Sword. This book was released on 2007-08-30 with total page 366 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Numbering over five million men, Britain's army in the First World War was the biggest in the country's history. Remarkably, nearly half those men who served in it were volunteers. 2,466,719 men enlisted between August 1914 and December 1915, many in response to the appeals of the Field-Marshal Lord Kitchener. How did Britain succeed in creating a mass army, almost from scratch, in the middle of a major war ? What compelled so many men to volunteer ' and what happened to them once they had taken the King's shilling ? Peter Simkins describes how Kitchener's New Armies were raised and reviews the main political, economic and social effects of the recruiting campaign. He examines the experiences and impressions of the officers and men who made up the New Armies. As well as analysing their motives for enlisting, he explores how they were fed, housed, equipped and trained before they set off for active service abroad. Drawing upon a wide variety of sources, ranging from government papers to the diaries and letters of individual soldiers, he questions long-held assumptions about the 'rush to the colours' and the nature of patriotism in 1914. The book will be of interest not only to those studying social, political and economic history, but also to general readers who wish to know more about the story of Britain's citizen soldiers in the Great War.

Download or read book Visiting the Fallen Arras South written by Peter Hughes and published by Pen and Sword. This book was released on 2015-10-30 with total page 418 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This companion volume to Visiting the Fallen: Arras North provides in-depth information of the WWI battlefield, its significance, and its cemeteries. Arras, France, was a frontline town throughout the Great War. In 1916, it became home to the British Army and it remained so until the Advance to Victory. The area around Arras is as rich in Commonwealth War Graves Commission cemeteries as anywhere on the Western Front, yet they remain largely unvisited. This book explores those cemeteries, and tells the story of the men who are buried there. Visiting the Front: Arras-South contains comprehensive coverage of over 60 Commonwealth War Graves Commission cemeteries to be found in Arras and to the south of the town. It has a wealth of gallantry awards, including their citations, and features hundreds of officers and other ranks who fell during the war. Many small actions, raids and operations are described in a book that tells the story of warfare on the Western Front through the lives of those who fought and died on the battlefields of Arras. This is an essential reference guide for anyone visiting Arras and its battlefields.

Download or read book Visiting the Fallen Arras North written by Peter Hughes and published by Pen and Sword. This book was released on 2015-05-30 with total page 371 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Like Ypres, Arras was a front line town throughout the Great War. From March 1916 it became home to the British Army and it remained so until the Advance to Victory was well under way. In 1917 the Battle of Arras came and went. It occupied barely half a season, but was then largely forgotten; the periods before and after it have been virtually ignored, and yet the Arras sector was always important and holding it was never easy or without incident; death, of course, was never far away. The area around Arras is as rich in Commonwealth War Graves Commission cemeteries as anywhere else on the Western Front, including the Somme and Ypres, and yet these quiet redoubts with their headstones proudly on parade still remain largely unvisited. This book is the story of the men who fell and who are now buried in those cemeteries; and the telling of their story is the telling of what it was like to be a soldier on the Western Front. 'Arras-North' is the first of three books by the same author. This volume contains in depth coverage of almost sixty Commonwealth War Graves Commission cemeteries and is a veritable 'Who's Who' of officers and other ranks who fell on this part of the Western Front. It provides comprehensive details of gallantry awards and citations and describes many minor operations, raids and other actions, as well as the events that took place in April and May 1917. It is the story of warfare on the Western Front as illustrated through the lives of those who fought and died on the battlefields of Arras.There are many unsung heroes and personal tragedies, including a young man who went out into no man's land to rescue his brother, an uncle and nephew killed by the same shell, a suicide in the trenches and a young soldier killed by a random shell whilst celebrating his birthday with his comrades. There is an unexpected connection to Ulster dating back to the days of Oliver Cromwell and William of Orange, a link to Sinn Fein and an assassination, a descendant of Sir Isaac Newton, as well as a conjuror, a friend of P.G. Wodehouse, a young officer said to have been 'thrilled' to lead his platoon into the trenches for the first time, only to be killed three hours later, and a man whose headstone still awaits the addition of his Military Medal after almost a century, despite having been involved in one of the most daring rescues of the war. This is a superb reference guide for anyone visiting Arras and its battlefields.

Download or read book British Infantry Battalion Commanders in the First World War written by Peter E. Hodgkinson and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-04-15 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Recent studies of the British Army during the First World War have fundamentally overturned historical understandings of its strategy and tactics, yet the chain of command that linked the upper echelons of GHQ to the soldiers in the trenches remains poorly understood. In order to reconnect the lines of communication between the General Staff and the front line, this book examines the British army’s commanders at battalion level, via four key questions: (i) How and where resources were found from the small officer corps of 1914 to cope with the requirement for commanding officers (COs) in the expanding army; (ii) What was the quality of the men who rose to command; (iii) Beyond simple overall quality, exactly what qualities were perceived as making an effective CO; and (iv) To what extent a meritocracy developed in the British army by the Armistice. Based upon a prosopographical analysis of a database over 4,000 officers who commanded infantry battalions during the war, the book tackles one of the central historiographical issues pertaining to the war: the qualities of the senior British officer. In so doing it challenges lingering popular conceptions of callous incompetence, as well more scholarly criticism that has derided the senior British officer, but has done so without a data-driven perspective. Through his thorough statistical analysis Dr Peter Hodgkinson adds a valuable new perspective to the historical debate underway regarding the nature of British officers during the extraordinary expansion of the Army between 1914 and 1918, and the remarkable, yet often forgotten, British victories of The Hundred Days.

Download or read book Great War Britain Birmingham Remembering 1914 18 written by Sian Roberts and published by The History Press. This book was released on 2014-09-01 with total page 215 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The First World War claimed over 995,000 British lives, and its legacy continues to be remembered today. Great War Britain: Birmingham offers an intimate portrayal of the city and its people living in the shadow of the Â'war to end all warsÂ'. A beautifully illustrated and highly accessible volume, it describes local reaction to the outbreak of war; charts the experience of individuals who enlisted; the changing face of industry; the work of the many hospitals in the area; the effect of the conflict on local children; the women who defied convention to play a vital role on the home front; and concludes with a chapter dedicated to how the city and its people coped with the transition to life in peacetime once more. The Great War story of Birmingham is told through the voices of those who were there and is vividly illustrated through evocative images from the archives of the Library of Birmingham.

Download or read book Slaughter and Stalemate in 1917 written by Alan Warren and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2021-02-01 with total page 269 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What went wrong for British forces in 1917? Relive the key battles through first-hand accounts and little-known incidents of World War I. This book offers a fresh, critical history of the 1917 campaign in Flanders. Alan Warren traces the three major battles fought by the British Expeditionary Force in the final months of 1917, from the mines of Messines to the mud of Passchendaele and the tanks at Cambrai. Drawing on a rich array of sources, Warren provides a vivid account of two tragically mismanaged battles, showing that Cambrai further underlined what went wrong for British forces at Passchendaele and thus more fully explains the course of events on the Western front. His compelling narrative history features first-hand accounts, little-known dramatic incidents, and portraits and assessments of the main generals. All readers interested in World War I and the tragic mistakes that led, in the words of Winston Churchill, to “a forlorn expenditure of valour and life without equal in futility” will find this an invaluable military history.

Download or read book The Sherwood Foresters in the Great War 1914 1919 written by W. C. C. Weetman and published by . This book was released on 1920 with total page 382 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Reflections on the Battlefield written by Robert J. Rider and published by Liverpool University Press. This book was released on 2001-01-01 with total page 172 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When Robert J. Rider died in 1961, he left to his descendants a typescript text, tentatively entitled Flashbacks, which would eventually become Reflections on the Battlefield. Broadly autobiographical, this text offers a unique account of its author who fought as an infantryman while also serving as a chaplain, thus exposing himself in peculiar directness to the ambiguities of chaplaincy service on the battlefield. A further particularity is that Rider was in a minority among chaplains, being a Methodist chaplain. In August 1914, Rider, aged twenty-five, was about to begin his third year of training for the ministry of the Wesleyan Methodist church, at Handsworth Theological College in Birmingham. Two months later he had enlisted with the First Birmingham Battalion, later termed the 14th Battalion, of the Royal Warwickshire Regiment. Rider's first-hand accounts of Ypres, the Somme and Arras reveal a man morally opposed to war and yet adamant that Germany and her allies needed to be defeated. Reflections on the Battlefield provides us with a personal and valuable contribution to the present-day debate about the contemporary understanding of the ethics of war, as expressed on the World War I battlefield.

Download or read book Peace at Last written by Guy Cuthbertson and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2018-11-06 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A vivid, intimate hour-by-hour account of Armistice Day 1918, including photographs: “A pleasure to read . . . full of fascinating tidbits.” —The Wall Street Journal This is the first book to focus on the day the armistice was signed between the Allies and Germany, ending World War I. In this rich portrait of Armistice Day, which ranges from midnight to midnight, Guy Cuthbertson brings together news reports, photos, literature, memoirs, and letters to show how the people on the street, as well as soldiers and prominent figures like D. H. Lawrence and Lloyd George, experienced a strange, singular day of great joy, relief, and optimism—and examines how Britain and the wider world reacted to the news of peace. “[A] brilliant portrayal of Britain on the day that peace broke out; when people could believe there was an end to the war to end all wars. He weaves a wonderful tapestry of the mood and events across the country, drawing on a wide range of local and regional newspapers . . . accessible history at its best . . . outstanding.” —The Evening Standard

Download or read book A Bibliography of Regimental Histories of the British Army written by Arthur S. White and published by Andrews UK Limited. This book was released on 2013-02-04 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is one of the most valuable books in the armoury of the serious student of British Military history. It is a new and revised edition of Arthur White's much sought-after bibliography of regimental, battalion and other histories of all regiments and Corps that have ever existed in the British Army. This new edition includes an enlarged addendum to that given in the 1988 reprint. It is, quite simply, indispensible.

Download or read book A Subject Bibliography of the First World War written by A. G. S. Enser and published by Routledge. This book was released on 1990 with total page 440 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is a bibliography of books published in English between 1914 and 1987, on the First World War. There are approximately 6800 entries, indexed by author or title, listed under 350 subject headings. The subject headings range, in alphabetical order, from addresses and speeches to Zimmerman. Each entry gives bibliographical details where possible, any changes in title between United Kingdom and United States of America editions and cross-references to other relevant subject headings. For quick reference there is an index of authors and an index of subject headings. While this bibliography aims to be a reference work for the scholar and researcher, it is also intended to be for more general use.

Download or read book The Honourable Artillery Company in the Great War 1914 1919 written by George Goold Walker and published by . This book was released on 1930 with total page 634 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: