Download or read book The Secret History of Soldiers written by Tim Cook and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2018-09-18 with total page 444 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: There have been thousands of books on the Great War, but most have focused on commanders, battles, strategy, and tactics. Less attention has been paid to the daily lives of the combatants, how they endured the unimaginable conditions of industrial warfare: the rain of shells, bullets, and chemical agents. In The Secret History of Soldiers, Tim Cook, Canada's foremost military historian, examines how those who survived trench warfare on the Western Front found entertainment, solace, relief, and distraction from the relentless slaughter. These tales come from the soldiers themselves, mined from the letters, diaries, memoirs, and oral accounts of more than five hundred combatants. Rare examples of trench art, postcards, and even song sheets offer insight into a hidden society that was often irreverent, raunchy, and anti-authoritarian. Believing in supernatural stories was another way soldiers shielded themselves from the horror. While novels and poetry often depict the soldiers of the Great War as mere victims, this new history shows how the soldiers pushed back against the grim war, refusing to be broken in the mincing machine of the Western Front. The violence of war is always present, but Cook reveals the gallows humour the soldiers employed to get through it. Over the years, both writers and historians have overlooked this aspect of the men's lives. The fighting at the front was devastating, but behind the battle lines, another layer of life existed, one that included songs, skits, art, and soldier-produced newspapers. With his trademark narrative abilities and an unerring eye for the telling human detail, Cook has created another landmark history of Canadian military life as he reveals the secrets of how soldiers survived the carnage of the Western Front.
Download or read book The Western Front A History of the Great War 1914 1918 written by Nick Lloyd and published by Liveright Publishing. This book was released on 2021-03-30 with total page 652 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “A tour de force of scholarship, analysis and narration.… Lloyd is well on the way to writing a definitive history of the First World War.” —Lawrence James, Times The Telegraph • Best Books of the Year The Times of London • Best Books of the Year A panoramic history of the savage combat on the Western Front between 1914 and 1918 that came to define modern warfare. The Western Front evokes images of mud-spattered men in waterlogged trenches, shielded from artillery blasts and machine-gun fire by a few feet of dirt. This iconic setting was the most critical arena of the Great War, a 400-mile combat zone stretching from Belgium to Switzerland where more than three million Allied and German soldiers struggled during four years of almost continuous combat. It has persisted in our collective memory as a tragic waste of human life and a symbol of the horrors of industrialized warfare. In this epic narrative history, the first volume in a groundbreaking trilogy on the Great War, acclaimed military historian Nick Lloyd captures the horrific fighting on the Western Front beginning with the surprise German invasion of Belgium in August 1914 and taking us to the Armistice of November 1918. Drawing on French, British, German, and American sources, Lloyd weaves a kaleidoscopic chronicle of the Marne, Passchendaele, the Meuse-Argonne, and other critical battles, which reverberated across Europe and the wider war. From the trenches where men as young as 17 suffered and died, to the headquarters behind the lines where Generals Haig, Joffre, Hindenburg, and Pershing developed their plans for battle, Lloyd gives us a view of the war both intimate and strategic, putting us amid the mud and smoke while at the same time depicting the larger stakes of every encounter. He shows us a dejected Kaiser Wilhelm II—soon to be eclipsed in power by his own generals—lamenting the botched Schlieffen Plan; French soldiers piling atop one another in the trenches of Verdun; British infantryman wandering through the frozen wilderness in the days after the Battle of the Somme; and General Erich Ludendorff pursuing a ruthless policy of total war, leading an eleventh-hour attack on Reims even as his men succumbed to the Spanish Flu. As Lloyd reveals, far from a site of attrition and stalemate, the Western Front was a simmering, dynamic “cauldron of war” defined by extraordinary scientific and tactical innovation. It was on the Western Front that the modern technologies—machine guns, mortars, grenades, and howitzers—were refined and developed into effective killing machines. It was on the Western Front that chemical warfare, in the form of poison gas, was first unleashed. And it was on the Western Front that tanks and aircraft were introduced, causing a dramatic shift away from nineteenth-century bayonet tactics toward modern combined arms, reinforced by heavy artillery, that forever changed the face of war. Brimming with vivid detail and insight, The Western Front is a work in the tradition of Barbara Tuchman and John Keegan, Rick Atkinson and Antony Beevor: an authoritative portrait of modern warfare and its far-reaching human and historical consequences.
Download or read book Living on the Western Front written by Chris Ward and published by A&C Black. This book was released on 2013-04-11 with total page 297 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Living on the Western Front provides a highly original history of the settler experience in Befland ([B]ritish [E]xpeditionary [F]orce land) during the First World War. Using an unusual representational form that involves the stitching together of over a hundred extracts from primary sources, which can then in turn be read either chronologically or thematically, Chris Ward brilliantly depicts a sense of settlers' lives in Great War Belgium, Northern France and Germany. Simultaneously an annal and an anthology of stories, this book tells us about landscapes, sounds, smells, food, journeys, memory and morale in the way that the Befland settlers actually lived and experienced them. The book also challenges popular conceptions of what history writing can or should be. It drags us away from the reassuringly commanding authorial voice of the conventional historical narrative towards an approach that brings a degree of uncertainty and encourages us to experiment with History and its relationship with the past in an exciting and rewarding way.
Download or read book All Quiet on the Western Front written by Erich Maria Remarque and published by Crw Publishing. This book was released on 2012 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This First World War classic novel is written in the first person by a young German soldier, Paul Bauer. Only eighteen when he is pressured by his family, friends and society in general, to enlist and fight at the front, he enters the army with six school friends, each filled with optimistic and patriotic thoughts. Within a few months they are all old men, in mind if not completely in body. They witness such horrors and endure such severe hardship and suffering, that they are unable to even speak about it to anyone but each other. The 1930 film adaptation won two Academy Award.
Download or read book Deserters of the First World War written by Andrea Hetherington and published by Pen and Sword Military. This book was released on 2021-07-07 with total page 283 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The story of First World War deserters who were shot at dawn, then pardoned nearly a century later has often been told, but these 306 soldiers represent a tiny proportion of deserters. More than 80,000 cases of desertion and absence were tried at courts martial on the home front but these soldiers have been ignored. Andrea Hetherington, in this thought-provoking and meticulously researched account, sets the record straight by describing the deserters who disappeared from camps and barracks within Great Britain at an alarming rate. She reveals how they employed a range of survival strategies, some ridding themselves of all connection with the military while others hid in plain sight. Their reasons for desertion varied. Some were already living a life of crime whilst others were conscientious objectors who refused to respond to their call-up papers. Boredom, protest, troubles at home or physical and mental disabilities all played their part in men deciding to go on the run. Andrea Hetherington’s timely book gives us a vivid insight into a hitherto overlooked aspect of the First World War.
Download or read book Living on the Western Front written by Chris Ward and published by A&C Black. This book was released on 2013-04-11 with total page 297 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Living on the Western Front provides a highly original history of the settler experience in Befland ([B]ritish [E]xpeditionary [F]orce land) during the First World War. Using an unusual representational form that involves the stitching together of over a hundred extracts from primary sources, which can then in turn be read either chronologically or thematically, Chris Ward brilliantly depicts a sense of settlers' lives in Great War Belgium, Northern France and Germany. Simultaneously an annal and an anthology of stories, this book tells us about landscapes, sounds, smells, food, journeys, memory and morale in the way that the Befland settlers actually lived and experienced them. The book also challenges popular conceptions of what history writing can or should be. It drags us away from the reassuringly commanding authorial voice of the conventional historical narrative towards an approach that brings a degree of uncertainty and encourages us to experiment with History and its relationship with the past in an exciting and rewarding way.
Download or read book All Quiet on the Western Front written by Erich Maria Remarque and published by Everyman's Library. This book was released on 2018-09-18 with total page 297 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A hardcover edition of the classic tale of a young soldier's harrowing experiences in the trenches, widely acclaimed as the greatest war novel of all time—featuring an Introduction by historian Norman Stone. Now a Netflix Film. When twenty-year-old Paul Bäumer and his classmates enlist in the German army during World War I, they are full of youthful enthusiam. But the world of duty, culture, and progress they had been taught to believe in shatters under the first brutal bombardment in the trenches. Through the ensuing years of horror, Paul holds fast to a single vow: to fight against the principle of hate that meaninglessly pits young men of the same generation but different uniforms against one another. Erich Maria Remarque's classic novel not only portrays in vivid detail the combatants' physical and mental trauma, but dramatizes as well the tragic detachment from civilian life felt by many upon returning home. Remarque's stated intention—“to tell of a generation of men who, even though they may have escaped shells, were destroyed by the war"—remains as powerful and relevant as ever, a century after that conflict's end." Everyman's Library pursues the highest production standards, printing on acid-free cream-colored paper, with full-cloth cases with two-color foil stamping, decorative endpapers, silk ribbon markers, European-style half-round spines, and a full-color illustrated jacket. Contemporary Classics include an introduction, a select bibliography, and a chronology of the author's life and times.
Download or read book Digging the Trenches written by Andrew Robertshaw and published by Pen and Sword. This book was released on 2014-08-19 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This comprehensive, illustrated survey of the latest in battlefield archaeology reveals “intimate insight into the realities of life” during WWI (Current Archaeology). Modern methods of archaeological, historical, and forensic research have transformed our understanding of the Great War. In Digging the Trenches, battlefield archaeologists Andrew Robertshaw and David Kenyon introduce the reader to this exciting new field and explore many of the remarkable projects that have been undertaken. Robertshaw and Kenyon show how archaeology can be used to reveal the positions of trenches, dugouts and other battlefield features, as well as what life on the Western Front was really like. They also show how individual soldiers are coming into focus as forensic investigation is so highly developed that individuals can be identified and their fates discovered. “An excellent introduction to the subject…Digging the Trenches is essential reading.”—Gary Sheffield, Military Illustrated “What a splendid book this is.”—Neil Faulkner, Current Archaeology
Download or read book Life Death and Growing Up on the Western Front written by Anthony Fletcher and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2013-10-28 with total page 347 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book was inspired by the author’s discovery of an extraordinary cache of letters from a soldier who was killed on the Western Front during the First World War. The soldier was his grandfather, and the letters had been tucked away, unread and unmentioned for many decades. Intrigued by the heartbreak and history of these family letters, Fletcher sought out the correspondence of other British soldiers who had volunteered for the fight against Germany. This resulting volume offers a vivid account of the physical and emotional experiences of seventeen British soldiers whose letters survive. Drawn from different regiments, social backgrounds, and areas of England and Scotland, they include twelve officers and five ordinary “Tommies.” The book explores the training, journey to France, fear, shellshock, and life in the trenches as well as the leisure, love, and home leave the soldiers dreamed of. Fletcher discusses the psychological responses of 17- and 18-year-old men facing appalling realities and considers the particular pressures on those who survived their fallen comrades. While acknowledging the horror and futility the soldiers of the Great War experienced, the author shows another side to the story, focusing new attention on the loyal comradeship, robust humor, and strong morale that uplifted the men at the Front and created a powerful bond among them.
Download or read book The Western Front written by Nick Lloyd and published by Penguin UK. This book was released on 2021-03-04 with total page 688 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A SUNDAY TIMES BOOK OF THE YEAR A TELEGRAPH BOOK OF THE YEAR 'A tour de force of scholarship, analysis and narration . . . Lloyd is well on the way to writing a definitive history of the First World War' Lawrence James, The Times 'This well-researched, well-written and cogently argued new analysis . . . will undoubtedly now take its rightful place as the standard account of this vital theatre of the conflict' Andrew Roberts, author of Churchill: Walking with Destiny _________________ In the annals of military history, the Western Front stands as an enduring symbol of the folly and futility of war. However, as bestselling military historian Nick Lloyd reveals in this highly-praised history - the first of an epic trilogy -- the story is not one of pointlessness and stupidity, but rather a heroic triumph against the odds. With a cast of hundreds and a huge canvas of places and events, Lloyd tells the whole tale, revealing what happened in France and Belgium between August 1914 and November 1918 from the perspective of all the main combatants - including French, British, Belgian, US and, most importantly, German forces. Lloyd examines the most decisive campaigns of the Great War and explains the unprecedented innovation, adaptation and tactical development that have been too long obscured by legends of mud, blood and futility, drawing upon the latest scholarship on the war, wrongly overlooked first-person accounts, and archival material from every angle. Conveying the visceral assault of the battlefield with vivid detail, Lloyd ultimately redefines our understanding of a crucial theatre in this monumental tragedy. _________________ 'Excellent on detail . . . Lloyd's book will be cherished by military history buffs' Max Hastings, Sunday Times 'It is the best modern single-volume history of war on the Western Front and is likely to remain the standard account for some time' Jonathan Boff, The Spectator
Download or read book All Quiet on the Home Front written by Richard van Emden and published by Pen and Sword. This book was released on 2017-04-30 with total page 369 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A “fascinating” look at hardship, heroism, and civilian life in England during the Great War (World War One Illustrated). The truth about the sacrifice and suffering among British civilians during World War I is rarely discussed. In this book, people who were there speak about experiences and events that have remained buried for decades. Their testimony shows the same candor and courage we have become accustomed to hearing from military veterans of this war. Those interviewed include a survivor of a Zeppelin raid in 1915; a Welsh munitions worker recruited as a girl; and a woman rescued from a bombed school after five days. There are also accounts of rural famine, bereavement, and the effects on families back home—and even the story of a woman who planned to kill her family to save them further suffering.
Download or read book The Western Front written by Richard Holmes and published by Random House. This book was released on 2008 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Richard Holmes brings the Western Front to life in this detailed and authoritative text, in a way that goes deep beneath scholarly debate, ripping off the veneer of cliche which now covers the war as it really was."
Download or read book The Western Front 1917 1918 written by Andrew Wiest and published by Amber Books Ltd. This book was released on 2014-02-23 with total page 226 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With the aid of over 300 photographs, complemented by full-colour maps, The Western Front 1917–1918 provides a detailed guide to the background and conduct of the conflict on the Western Front in the final years of World War I.
Download or read book Trench written by Stephen Bull and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2014-05-20 with total page 520 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A complete guide to trench warfare on the Western Front from an authority on the subject. Even now, 100 years on from the conflict, the image of trenches stretching across Western Europe – packed with young men clinging to life in horrendous conditions – remains a powerful reminder of one of the darkest moments in human history. In this excellent study of trench warfare on the Western Front, expert Dr Stephen Bull reveals the experience of life in the trenches, from length of service and coping with death and disease, to the uniforms and equipment given to soldiers on both sides of the conflict. He reveals how the trenches were constructed, the weaponry which was developed specifically for this new form of warfare, the tactics employed in mass attacks and the increasingly adept defensive methods designed to hold ground at all cost. Packed with photographs, illustrations, annotated trench maps, documents and first-hand accounts, this compelling narrative provides a richly detailed account of World War I, providing a soldier's-eye-view of life in the ominous trenches that scarred the land.
Download or read book All the Kaiser s Men written by Ian Passingham and published by The History Press. This book was released on 2011-10-21 with total page 419 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Convinced that both God and the Kaiser were on their side, the officers and men of the German Army went to war in 1914, confident that they were destined for a swift and crushing victory in the West. The vaunted Schlieffen Plan on which the anticipated German victory was based expected triumph in the West to be followed by an equally decisive success on the Eastern Front. It was not to be. From the winter of 1914 until the early months of 1918, the struggle on the Western Front was characterised by trench warfare. But our perception of the conflict takes little or no account of the realities of life 'across the wire' in the German trenches. This book redresses that imbalance and reminds us how similar these young German men were to our own Tommies. Drawing from diaries and letters, Ian Passingham charts the hopes and despair of the German soldiers, filling an important gap in the history of the Western Front.
Download or read book Tess of the d Ubervilles written by Thomas Hardy and published by Xist Publishing. This book was released on 2016-04-08 with total page 439 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Tess of the d'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy from Coterie Classics All Coterie Classics have been formatted for ereaders and devices and include a bonus link to the free audio book. “Did it never strike your mind that what every woman says, some women may feel?” ― Thomas Hardy, Tess of the D'Urbervilles Tess of the d'Urbervilles is a heartbreaking tale of a woman going to every length to try and do what is right, only to have fate tease her at each turn.
Download or read book Eight Stories written by Erich Maria Remarque and published by NYU Press. This book was released on 2018-05-29 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Seven of the eight short stories in this collection were originally published in Collier's magazine. The eighth story, Dreamt Last Night, was published in Redbook magazine.
