Download or read book Outside Verdun written by Arnold Zweig and published by Cargo Publishing. This book was released on 2014-05-19 with total page 556 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A forgotten masterpiece of First World War German literature, Outside Verdun is an utterly gripping, heart-breaking story of revenge and sacrifice based on the author's own first-hand experiences of combat, published in the anniversary year of the commencement of hostilities. 'The war, an operation instigated by men, still felt to him like a storm decreed by fate, an unleashing of powerful elements, unaccountable and beyond criticism.' A stunning new translation, this is the first UK publication of a forgotten masterpiece of First World War German literature in the anniversary year of the commencement of hostilities. Arnold Zweig's Outside Verdun was first published in 1933 and is entirely based on his own, first-hand experiences of the German army during World War 1. Following the unlawful killing of his younger brother by his own superiors, Lieutenant Kroysing swears revenge, using his influence to arrange for his brother's unit, normally safely behind the lines, to be reassigned to the fortress at Douaumont, in the very heart of the battle for France. Bertin, a lowly but educated Jewish private in a labour battalion, through whose eyes the story unfolds, is the innocent man caught in the cross-fire. Outside Verdun not only explores the heart-breaking tragedy of one individual trapped in a nightmare of industrialised warfare but also reveals the iniquities of German society in microcosm, with all its injustice, brutality, anti-Semitism and incompetence. Fiona Rintoul's brilliant translation captures all the subtleties, cadences and detachment of Zweig's masterful prose.

Download or read book The Fortifications of Verdun 1874 1917 written by Clayton Donnell and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2012-08-20 with total page 66 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The ring of fortifications protecting the city of Verdun on the Meuse River would become critical in the infamous battle of World War I. This book examines these fortifications, including the famous forts of Douaumont and Vaux that saw some of the fiercest fighting during the battle.

Download or read book Education Before Verdun written by Arnold Zweig and published by . This book was released on 1936 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book German Strategy and the Path to Verdun written by Robert T. Foley and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2005-01-06 with total page 324 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Almost 90 years since its conclusion, the battle of Verdun is still little understood. German Strategy and the Path to Verdun is a detailed examination of this seminal battle based on research conducted in archives long thought lost. Material returned to Germany from the former Soviet Union has allowed for a reinterpretation of Erich von Falkenhayn's overall strategy for the war and of the development of German operational and tactical concepts to fit this new strategy of attrition. By taking a long view of the development of German military ideas from the end of the Franco-German War in 1871, German Strategy and the Path to Verdun also gives much-needed context to Falkenhayn's ideas and the course of one of the greatest battles of attrition the world has ever known.

Download or read book Verdun written by John Mosier and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2014-10-07 with total page 400 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Alongside Waterloo and Gettysburg, the Battle of Verdun during the First World War stands as one of history’s greatest clashes. Perfect for military history buffs, this compelling account of one of World War I’s most important battles explains why it is also the most complex and misunderstood. Although British historians have always seen Verdun as a one-year battle designed by the German chief of staff to bleed France white, historian John Mosier’s careful analysis of the German plans reveals a much more abstract and theoretical approach. From the very beginning of the war until the armistice in 1918, no fewer than eight distinct battles were waged there. These conflicts are largely unknown, even in France, owing to the obsessive secrecy of the French high command. Our understanding of Verdun has long been mired in myths, false assumptions, propaganda, and distortions. Now, using numerous accounts of military analysts, serving officers, and eyewitnesses, including French sources that have never been translated, Mosier offers a compelling reassessment of the Great War’s most important battle.

Download or read book A Higher Form of Killing written by Diana Preston and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2015-02-24 with total page 508 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In six weeks during April and May 1915, as World War I escalated, Germany forever altered the way war would be fought. On April 22, at Ypres, German canisters spewed poison gas at French and Canadian soldiers in their trenches; on May 7, the German submarine U-20, without warning, torpedoed the passenger liner Lusitania, killing 1,198 civilians; and on May 31, a German Zeppelin began the first aerial bombardment of London and its inhabitants. Each of these actions violated rules of war carefully agreed at the Hague Conventions of 1898 and 1907. Though Germany's attempts to quickly win the war failed, the psychological damage caused by these attacks far outweighed the casualties. The era of weapons of mass destruction had dawned. While each of these momentous events has been chronicled in histories of the war, celebrated historian Diana Preston links them for the first time, revealing the dramatic stories behind each through the eyes of those who were there, whether making the decisions or experiencing their effect. She places the attacks in the context of the centuries-old debate over what constitutes “just war,” and shows how, in their aftermath, the other combatants felt the necessity to develop extreme weapons of their own. In our current time of terror, when weapons of mass destruction-imagined or real-are once again vilified, the story of their birth is of great relevance.

Download or read book The Verdun Affair written by Nick Dybek and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2018-06-12 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Across a continent still reeling from World War I, a “ravishingly beautiful” (Paula McClain) story about a love affair between two Americans and the lie that changes everything. France, 1921—Tom, a young American orphaned in World War I, is helping comfort the grieving families who travel through Verdun, seeking answers about their loved ones. But nothing in his past—not his rough Chicago childhood nor his experiences driving ambulances across French battlefields—can prepare Tom for the arrival of Sarah Hagen. From the moment he meets her, a disarmingly magnetic woman looking for news of her missing husband, he knows he will help her in any way he can—even if that means crossing an unforgivable line. As their affair takes them across a fractured Europe careening toward World War 2, Tom and Sarah learn how love can be both a cure for—and a distraction from—the realities of a world turned upside down. But they can only hide from the truth for so long. When news of an amnesiac soldier in Bologna reaches Tom in Paris, he sets off as a journalist to uncover the story, only to find Sarah at the soldier’s bedside, hopeful as ever. Both are surprised to encounter an Austrian journalist named Paul with his own interest in the amnesiac. As they confront the past, Tom’s actions come back to haunt him, and each is forced to make a choice that will change their lives forever. A deeply transporting novel about love and identity, truth and consequences, The Verdun Affair is a page-turning and vividly imagined “literary romance… [that] unravels a love triangle and its players’ secrets” (Los Angeles Times).

Download or read book Letters from Verdun written by William C. Harvey and published by Casemate. This book was released on 2009-12-05 with total page 241 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The dramatic experiences of an ambulance driver in the Great War, told through personal correspondence and photographs. Though the United States was late to enter the Great War, a number of idealistic young Americans wished to take part from the beginning. One of these was Avery Royce Wolf, a highly educated scion of a family in America’s burgeoning industrial heartland. Volunteering as an ambulance driver with the French Army in the Verdun sector, Royce sent back a constant stream of highly detailed letters describing the experience of frontline combat, as well as comments on strategy, the country he encountered, and the Allies’ prospects for success. This treasure trove of brilliant letters, only recently discovered, is accompanied by several albums worth of rare, high-quality photos depicting aspects of the Great War in France never previously published. Full of action, including the suspense and terror of the Ludendorff Offensive, and interesting firsthand analyses, such as comparing French and German trench works, Letters from Verdun brings the reader amazingly close to the frontlines of the Great War.

Download or read book Verdun written by Jules Romains and published by . This book was released on 1939 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Verdun 1917 written by Christina Holstein and published by Pen and Sword Military. This book was released on 2021-01-26 with total page 447 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A tour of the historic French battlefield that goes beyond the usual dates and places, and reveals the full story of the fighting after the fighting. Despite the popular view, the French army did not cease offensive operations after the disastrous Nivelle Offensive of spring 1917 and the subsequent mutinies. Nor did the fighting at Verdun come to an end in 1916. The successful French counteroffensives at the end of that year led to preliminary planning for a two Army operation in 1917 to break out of the Verdun salient and recapture the strategically very significant Briey coal basin. The French Army mutinies of May and June 1917 led to a more limited version of the plan being implemented, with the aim of establishing new lines for a breakout in 1918. The need to rebuild morale in the French army meant that nothing was left to chance. The immense logistical effort of this late summer 1917 campaign and the detailed planning and careful training at all levels brought success to an army weary of war but determined to win. The industrial nature of the preparations, the spectacular numbers of guns, and the first appearance of the Americans at Verdun presage the campaigns of 1918 and the final Allied victory. Christina Holstein, Britain’s premier expert in the battlefields around Verdun, leads the reader around the various vital points of this largely unknown battle of 1917, one which was crucial for the rebuilding of a French army that played such a notable part in the victorious Allied campaign of 1918. Like all the books in the Battleground Europe series, it is profusely illustrated and mapped using contemporary and modern material, with clear maps to support each of the tours.

Download or read book The Battle of Verdun 1914 1918 written by and published by Clermont-Ferrand : Michelin. This book was released on 1919 with total page 202 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Verdun written by Paul Jankowski and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2014-01-06 with total page 976 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: At seven o'clock in the morning on February 21, 1916, the ground in northern France began to shake. For the next ten hours, twelve hundred German guns showered shells on a salient in French lines. The massive weight of explosives collapsed dugouts, obliterated trenches, severed communication wires, and drove men mad. As the barrage lifted, German troops moved forward, darting from shell crater to shell crater. The battle of Verdun had begun. In Verdun, historian Paul Jankowski provides the definitive account of the iconic battle of World War I. A leading expert on the French past, Jankowski combines the best of traditional military history-its emphasis on leaders, plans, technology, and the contingency of combat-with the newer social and cultural approach, stressing the soldier's experience, the institutional structures of the military, and the impact of war on national memory. Unusually, this book draws on deep research in French and German archives; this mastery of sources in both languages gives Verdun unprecedented authority and scope. In many ways, Jankowski writes, the battle represents a conundrum. It has an almost unique status among the battles of the Great War; and yet, he argues, it was not decisive, sparked no political changes, and was not even the bloodiest episode of the conflict. It is said that Verdun made France, he writes; but the question should be, What did France make of Verdun? Over time, it proved to be the last great victory of French arms, standing on their own. And, for France and Germany, the battle would symbolize the terror of industrialized warfare, "a technocratic Moloch devouring its children," where no advance or retreat was possible, yet national resources poured in ceaselessly, perpetuating slaughter indefinitely.

Download or read book Walking Verdun written by Christina Holstein and published by Casemate Publishers. This book was released on 2009-01-01 with total page 195 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On 21 February 1916 the German Fifth Army launched a devastating offensive against French forces at Verdun and set in motion one of the most harrowing and prolonged battles of the Great War. By the time the struggle finished ten months later, over 650,000 men had been killed or wounded or were missing, and the terrible memory of the battle had been etched into the histories of France and Germany. This epic trial of military and national strength cannot be properly understood without visiting, and walking, the battlefield, and this is the purpose of Christina Holstein's invaluable guide. In a series of walks she takes the reader to all the key points on the battlefield, many of which have attained almost legendary status - the spot where Colonel Driant was killed, the forts of Douaumont, Vaux and Souville, the Mort Homme ridge, and Verdun itself.REVIEWS A new guide book from one of the most knowledgeable Western Front historians and guides. A New work by long-time battlefield guide and WFA member who also wrote an earlier Pen & Sword book on Ft. Douaumont.e: WWI Historical Association

Download or read book Fort Vaux written by Christina Holstein and published by Pen and Sword. This book was released on 2012-05-19 with total page 388 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The bitter fight for Fort Vaux is one of the most famous episodes in the Battle of Verdun—it has achieved almost legendary status in French military history. The heroic resistance put up by the forts commander, Major Raynal, and his small, isolated garrison in the face of repeated German assaults was remarkable at the time, and it is still seen as an outstanding example of gallantry and determination. But what really happened inside the besieged fort during the German attacks, and how can visitors to the Verdun battlefield get an insight into the extraordinary events that took place there almost a century ago? In this precise, accessible account, Christina Holstein, one of the leading authorities on the Verdun battlefield and its monuments, reconstructs the fight for the fort in graphic day-by-day detail. Readers get a vivid sense of the sequence of events, of the intense experience of the defenders and a wider understanding of the importance of Fort Vaux in the context of the German 1916 offensive.

Download or read book The Road to Verdun written by Ian Ousby and published by Anchor. This book was released on 2009-12-23 with total page 480 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On February 21, 1916, the Germans launched a surprise offensive at Verdun, an important fortress in northeastern France, sparking a brutal and protracted conflict that would claim more than 700,000 victims. The carnage had little impact on the course of the war, and Verdun ultimately came to symbolize the absurdity and horror of trench warfare. Ian Ousby offers a radical reevaluation of this cataclysmic battle, arguing that the French bear tremendous responsibility for the senseless slaughter. He shows how the battle’s roots lay in the Franco-Prussian war and how its legacy helped lay the groundwork for World War II. Merging intellectual substance with superb battle writing, The Road to Verdun is a moving and incisive account of one of the most important battles of the twentieth century. From the Trade Paperback edition.

Download or read book From the Marne to Verdun written by Charles Delvert and published by Pen and Sword. This book was released on 2016-10-31 with total page 350 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Charles Delverts diary records his career as a front-line officer in the French army fighting the Germans during the First World War. It is one of the classic accounts of the war in French or indeed in any other language, and it has not been translated into English before. In precise, graphic detail he sets down his wartime experiences and those of his men. He describes the relentless emotional and physical strain of active service and the extraordinary courage and endurance required in battle. His account is essential reading for anyone who is keen to gain a direct insight into the Great War from the French soldier's point of view, and it bears comparison with the best-known English and German memoirs and journals of the Great War.

Download or read book The Price of Glory written by Alistair Horne and published by Penguin UK. This book was released on 2007-06-28 with total page 663 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The battle of Verdun lasted ten months. It was a battle in which at least 700,000 men fell, along a front of fifteen miles. Its aim was less to defeat the enemy than bleed him to death and a battleground whose once fertile terrain is even now a haunted wilderness. Alistair Horne's classic work, continuously in print for over fifty years, is a profoundly moving, sympathetic study of the battle and the men who fought there. It shows that Verdun is a key to understanding the First World War to the minds of those who waged it, the traditions that bound them and the world that gave them the opportunity.