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How can we begin to make sense of the Great War now that over 100 years have passed since it ended with the defeat of Germany, Austria-Hungary, the Ottoman empire and Bulgaria, and the collapse of Tsarist Russia? The conflict had such a profound influence on world history that is it difficult to reconcile the different perspectives and draw clear conclusions. That is why this thought-provoking collection of original essays on the outcome of the war and its aftermath is of such value.It completes the trilogy of ground-breaking volumes conceived and edited by Peter Liddle which presents the latest scholarly thinking about the Great War from an international perspective. The first two volumes Britain Goes to War and Britain and the Widening War made this stimulating new writing accessible to a broad readership and this final volume has the same aim.A group of over twenty expert contributors reconsider the military reasons for the outcome of the fighting and look at the consequences for the principal nations involved. They explore the way the war and the peace settlement shaped the twentieth century and had an enduring impact within Europe and beyond.

In a series of concise, thought-provoking chapters the authors summarize and make accessible the latest scholarship on the middle years of the Great War 1915 and 1916 and cover fundamental issues that are rarely explored outside the specialist journals. Their work is an important contribution to advancing understanding of Britains role in the war, and it will be essential reading for anyone who is keen to keep up with the fresh research and original interpretation that is transforming our insight into the impact of the global conflict. The principal battles and campaigns are reconsidered from a new perspective, but so are more general topics such as military leadership, the discord between Britains politicians and generals, conscientious objection and the part played by the Indian Army. The longer-term effects of the war are also considered facial reconstruction, developments in communication, female support for men on active service, grief and bereavement, the challenge to religious belief, battlefield art, and the surviving vestiges of the war. Peter Liddle and his fellow contributors have compiled a volume that will come to be seen as a landmark in the field. Contributors: Andrew BamjiClive BarrettNick BosanquetJames CookeEmily GlassGraeme GoodayAdrian GregoryAndrea HetheringtonRobert JohnsonSpencer JonesPeter LiddleJuliet MacdonaldJessica MeyerDavid MillichopeNS NashWilliam PhilpottJames PughDuncan RedfordNicholas SaundersGary SheffieldJack SheldonJohn SpencerKapil Subramanian

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.

Expertly written and beautifully presented, this book of outstanding photographs, documents and art work captures the spirit of the British people as they faced and successfully came through the prolonged challenge of the First World War. Using previously unpublished material from the Liddle Collection in the University Library at Leeds and supporting this with photographs from private and public collections from many parts of the British Isles, Britons Experience the Great War brings the experience of soldiers, sailors and airmen graphically close. It is, however, not just the fighting fronts which are so well represented: from the industrial, agricultural, domestic, educational and war resistance scenes, the response to war of workers, wives, sweethearts, students, children, rebels and resisters is made clear. Fund raising, rationing, humour, anxiety and grief are documented in this book in a way which provides touching testimony of the spirit of the times.With almost four hundred illustrations, the book spans the British Isles and the most remote fighting fronts.

Expertly written and beautifully presented, this book of outstanding photographs, documents and art work captures the spirit of the British people as they faced and successfully came through the prolonged challenge of the First World War. Using previously unpublished material from the Liddle Collection in the University Library at Leeds and supporting this with photographs from private and public collections from many parts of the British Isles, Britons Experience the Great War brings the experience of soldiers, sailors and airmen graphically close. It is, however, not just the fighting fronts which are so well represented: from the industrial, agricultural, domestic, educational and war resistance scenes, the response to war of workers, wives, sweethearts, students, children, rebels and resisters is made clear. Fund raising, rationing, humour, anxiety and grief are documented in this book in a way which provides touching testimony of the spirit of the times.With almost four hundred illustrations, the book spans the British Isles and the most remote fighting fronts.

This book is an acknowledgement and celebration of Professor Carl Bridge's key contributions to the British World approach to history. His pioneering work was first published in several co-authored essays which appeared in 2003. Much of this grew out of a series of conferences held worldwide, starting in London in 1999 and culminating in Bristol in 2007. Scores of articles and book chapters have been produced – too numerous to mention here. At the nucleus of the project is Professor Bridge, who has encouraged a newer and younger generation of scholars – some of whom have contributed to this volume – to continue investigating the British World as a theoretical construct in the fields of British imperial and settler colonial history, with a particular focus on Australia. This book will appeal to scholars and students of the history of the British World, British imperial history, the history of the First World War, the history of Australian foreign policy, and the history of Australian national identity and culture.'As the editors of this collection point out, twenty years ago Carl Bridge, then head of the Australian Studies Centre in London, helped to turn what was little more than an hypothesis about the importance of the British World into a field of studies. At the very heart of Bridge's concept of the field was the belief that there existed a number of intricate and overlapping networks that had been created by British migration and settlement abroad, particularly to what ultimately became known as the British self-governing Dominions. A number of essays in this collection focus on this theme and show the importance of a comparative approach to the study of Britain's relations with its overseas Dominions. Some of the essays also focus on the significant contribution that Bridge has made to understanding the impact of the First World War on the evolution of the British-Dominions relationship, the intertwining of British and Australian politics, diplomacy and statecraft, and how autobiographical studies can assist in defining the nature of the Anglo-Australian identity in the British World. A number of the contributors also grapple with what they see as the limits and weaknesses in the British World approach, but none of them deny that this is now a robust and important field of study. The book is thus a fitting acknowledgment and tribute to the work of Carl Bridge.'—Professor Phillip Buckner, Emeritus Professor of History, University of New Brunswick'Professor Carl Bridge was a key figure in the establishment of what has become known as British World history. At its best, British World history sheds new light on the complex interactions between Britain and its former settler colonies, interrogating the nature, impact, and persistence of ‘Britishness'. This collection draws together a stimulating group of essays – and historians – inspired by Bridge's work, offering fresh perspectives on the ‘culture, diaspora, and identity'at the heart of this very particular imperial formation.'—Dr. Felicity Barnes, Senior Lecturer in History, Waipapa Taumata Rau University of Auckland

Examines the role of Christianity in British statecraft, politics, media, the armed forces and in the education and socialization of the young during the Second World War.This volume presents a major reappraisal of the role of Christianity in Great Britain between 1939 and 1945, examining the influence of Christianity on British society, statecraft, politics, the media, the armed forces, and on the education and socialization of the young. Its chapters address themes such as the spiritual mobilization of nation and empire; the limitations of Mass Observation's commentary on wartime religious life; Catholic responses to strategic bombing; servicemen and the dilemma of killing; the development of Christian-Jewish relations, and the predicament of British military chaplains in Germany in the summer of 1945.By demonstrating the enduring -even renewed- importance of Christianity in British national life, British Christianity and the Second World War also sets the scene for some major post-war developments. Though the war years triggered a'resacralization'of British society and culture, inherent racism meant that the exalted self-image of Christian Britain proved sadly deceptive for post-war immigrants from the Caribbean. Wartime confidence in the prospective role of the state in religious education soon transpired to be ill-founded, while the profound upheavals of war -and even the bromides of'BBC Religion'- were, in the longer term, corrosive of conventional religious practice and traditional denominational loyalties.This volume will be of interest to historians of British society and the Second World War, twentieth-century British religion, and the perennial interplay of religion and conflict.

This book explores the relationship between middle-class fathers and sons in England between c. 1870 and 1920. We now know that the conventional image of the middle-class paterfamilias of this period as cold and authoritarian is too simplistic, but there is still much to be discovered about relationships in middle-class families. Paying especial attention to gender and masculinities, this book focuses on the interactions between fathers and sons, exploring how relationships developed and masculine identities were negotiated from infancy and childhood to adulthood and old age.Drawing on sources as diverse as autobiographies, oral history interviews, First World War conscription records and press reports of violent incidents, this book questions how fathers and sons negotiated relationships marked by shifting relations of power, as well as by different combinations of emotional entanglements, obligations and ties. It explores changes as fathers and sons grew older and assesses fathers'role in trying to mould sons'masculine identities, characters and lives. It reveals negotiation and compromise, as well as rebellion and conflict, underlining that fathers and sons were important to each other, their relationships a significant – if often overlooked – aspect of middle-class men's lives and identities.

Sport and the Home Front contributes in significant and original ways to our understanding of the social and cultural history of the Second World War. It explores the complex and contested treatment of sport in government policy, media representations and the everyday lives of wartime citizens. Acknowledged as a core component of British culture, sport was also frequently criticised, marginalised and downplayed, existing in a constant state of tension between notions of normality and exceptionality, routine and disruption, the everyday and the extraordinary.The author argues that sport played an important, yet hitherto neglected, role in maintaining the morale of the British people and providing a reassuring sense of familiarity at a time of mass anxiety and threat. Through the conflict, sport became increasingly regarded as characteristic of Britishness; a symbol of the ‘ordinary'everyday lives in defence of which the war was being fought. Utilised to support the welfare of war workers, the entertainment of service personnel at home and abroad and the character formation of schoolchildren and young citizens, sport permeated wartime culture, contributing to new ways in which the British imagined the past, present and future. Using a wide range of personal and public records – from diary writing and club minute books to government archives – this book breaks new ground in both the history of the British home front and the history of sport.

Spanning the colonial campaigns of the Victorian age to the War on Terror after 9/11, this study explores the role sport was perceived to have played in the lives and work of military personnel, and examines how sporting language and imagery were deployed to shape and reconfigure civilian society's understanding of conflict.From 1850 onwards war reportage – complemented and reinforced by a glut of campaign histories, memoirs, novels and films – helped create an imagined community in which sporting attributes and qualities were employed to give meaning and order to the chaos and misery of warfare. This work explores the evolution of the Victorian notion that playing-field and battlefield were connected and then moves on to investigate the challenges this belief faced in the twentieth century, as combat became, initially, industrialised in the age of total warfare and, subsequently, professionalised in the post-nuclear world. Such a longitudinal study allows, for the first time, new light to be shed on the continuities and shifts in the way the ‘reality'of war was captured in the British popular imagination. Drawing together the disparate fields of sport and warfare, this book serves as a vital point of reference for anyone with an interest in the cultural, social or military history of modern Britain.

This book examines the role of the Irish medical profession in the First World War. It assesses the extent of its involvement in the conflict while also interrogating the effect of global war on the development of Ireland's domestic medical infrastructure, especially its hospital network. The study explores the factors that encouraged Ireland's medical personnel to join the British Army medical services and uncovers how Irish hospital governors, in the face of increasing staff shortages and economic inflation, ensured that Ireland's voluntary hospital network survived the war. It also considers how Ireland's wartime doctors reintegrated into an Irish society that had experienced a profound shift in political opinion towards their involvement in the conflict and subsequently became embroiled in its own Civil War. In doing so, this book provides the first comprehensive study of the effect of the First World War on the medical profession in Ireland.

How did Britain respond to the momentous events of 1919 and 1920 as it adjusted to peace after four years of war? What were the challenges the British people faced and how did they cope with the profound changes that confronted them? Now the War Is Over seeks to answer these questions. It looks at what happened in every sphere of life and it shows how, even today, we are still dealing with the consequences of those years of transition.Across Europe there were revolutions, a war for independence occurred in Ireland, and on mainland Britain there were widespread race riots. However, most servicemen simply wanted to come home to their families and a secure job. Some hoped for a return to the certainties of a pre-war world, but this was impossible too much had happened. As they explore the troubled state of Britain immediately after the war Simon Fowler and Daniel Weinbren give us a fascinating insight into how the global conflict changed the direction of the nation.

Widows of the Great War is the first major account of the experience of women who had to cope with the death of their husbands during the conflict and then rebuild their lives. It explores each stage of their bereavement, from the shock of receiving the news that their husband had been killed, through grief and mourning to the practical issues of compensation and a widow's pension. The way in which the state and society treated the widows during this process is a vital theme running through the book as it reveals in vivid detail how the bureaucracy of war helped and hindered them as they sought to come to terms with their loss. Andrea Hetherington also describes often overlooked aspects of bereavement, and she features many telling first-hand accounts from the widows themselves which show how they saw their situation and how they reacted to it. Her study gives us a fascinating insight into the way in which the armed services and the government regarded war widows during the early years of the twentieth century.

The danger to British democracy in the interwar period came from a different source to that which has thus far been assumed. It came from a network of radical conservatives who challenged the political system and sought to replace it with an authoritarian corporate state. In this book, Bernhard Dietz provides the first systematic analysis of this network and its members, which are called Neo-Tories. With strong links to the European right, yet a minority back home, this group of British conservatives are all the more fascinating today because it is on their ultimate failure that the success of British democracy rested.

In this biography Rodney Atwood details the life of General Lord Rawlinson of Trent (1864-1925), a distinguished British soldier whose career culminated in decisive victories on the Western Front in 1918 and command of the Indian Army in the early 1920s. He served his soldier's apprenticeship in the Victorian colonial wars in Burma, the Sudan and South Africa. His career provides a lens through which to examine the British Army in the late-19th and early-20th century. In the South African War (1899-1902) Rawlinson's ideas aided the defence of Ladysmith, and he distinguished himself leading a mobile column in the guerrilla war. In the First World War he held an important command in most of the British Expeditionary Force's battles on the Western Front. He bears a heavy part-responsibility for the disastrous first day of the Somme, but later in the battle his successful tactics inflicted heavy losses on the enemy. His Western Front career culminated in a series of victories beginning at Amiens. He commanded the Indian Army between 1920 and 1925 at a time of military and political tension following the 3rd Afghan War and the Amritsar Massacre. He introduced necessary reforms, cut expenditure at a time of postwar retrenchment and began commissioning Indians to replace British officers. He would have taken up the post of CIGS (Chief of the Imperial General Staff), thus being the only British soldier to hold these two top posts. He died, however, four days after his sixty-first birthday. Drawing extensively on archival material including Rawlinson's own engagingly-written letters and diaries, this thorough examination of his life will be of great interest to those studying British military history, imperial history and the First World War.

A radical rethinking of the Anglo-Saxon world that draws on the latest archaeological discoveriesThis beautifully illustrated book draws on the latest archaeological discoveries to present a radical reappraisal of the Anglo-Saxon built environment and its inhabitants. John Blair, one of the world's leading experts on this transformative era in England's early history, explains the origins of towns, manor houses, and castles in a completely new way, and sheds new light on the important functions of buildings and settlements in shaping people's lives during the age of the Venerable Bede and King Alfred.Building Anglo-Saxon England demonstrates how hundreds of recent excavations enable us to grasp for the first time how regionally diverse the built environment of the Anglo-Saxons truly was. Blair identifies a zone of eastern England with access to the North Sea whose economy, prosperity, and timber buildings had more in common with the Low Countries and Scandinavia than the rest of England. The origins of villages and their field systems emerge with a new clarity, as does the royal administrative organization of the kingdom of Mercia, which dominated central England for two centuries.Featuring a wealth of color illustrations throughout, Building Anglo-Saxon England explores how the natural landscape was modified to accommodate human activity, and how many settlements--secular and religious—were laid out with geometrical precision by specialist surveyors. The book also shows how the Anglo-Saxon love of elegant and intricate decoration is reflected in the construction of the living environment, which in some ways was more sophisticated than it would become after the Norman Conquest.

Arguably no nation is as closely associated with the term morale as Great Britain. Yet this concept that seems so innate to the British people was carefully cultivated within many spheres of modern national life. In this first critical history of morale, Daniel Ussishkin asks how is it that modern Britons have come to regard morale as a category of conduct, vital for the success of collective effort in war and peace, and a mark of good, modern, and human managerial practice, appropriate for a democratic age. He narrates the intellectual, cultural, and institutional history of morale in modern imperial Britain: its emergence as a new concept during the long nineteenth century, its changing meanings and significations, and the social and political goals those who discussed, observed, or managed morale sought to achieve. Formalized as a new military disciplinary problem during the long nineteenth century, morale came to permeate nearly every civilian sphere of life during the era of the two world wars as a new way of managing human conduct. This book traces how it gradually emerged from a problem that was regarded as residual at best to one that was seen as the epitome of proper managerial practice, its institutional manifestations and promotion by myriad organizations and the social-democratic state, and its emergence as a potent political concept from Britain's social-democratic moment until the ascendancy of the New Right. Daniel Ussishkin's Morale tells the history of concept central to the management of war, business, and civic society not just in Britain but in modern culture writ large.

Literature is at the heart of popular understandings of the First World War in Britain, and has perpetuated a popular memory of the conflict centred on disillusionment, horror and futility. This book examines how and why literature has had this impact, exploring the role played by authors, publishers and readers in constructing the memory of the war since 1918. It demonstrates that publishers were as influential as authors in shaping perceptions of the conflict, and it provides a detailed analysis of critical and popular responses to war books, tracing the evolution of readers'attitudes to the war between 1918 and 2014. By exploring the cultural legacy of the war from these two previously overlooked perspectives, Vincent Trott offers fresh insights regarding the emergence of a collective memory of the First World War in Britain.Drawing on a broad range of primary source material, including publishers'correspondence, dust jackets, adverts, book reviews and diary entries, and examining canonical authors such as Wilfred Owen, Siegfried Sassoon and Vera Brittain alongside long-forgotten texts and more recent autobiographical works by Harry Patch and Henry Allingham, Publishers, Readers and the Great War provides a rich and nuanced analysis of the climate within which First World War literature was written, published and received since 1918.

Research on soldier settlement has to be set within the wider history of emigration and immigration. This book examines two parallel but complementary themes: the settlement of British soldiers in the overseas or'white'dominions, Australia, Canada, New Zealand and South Africa, between 1915 and 1930. One must place soldier settlement within the larger context of imperial migration prior to 1914 in order to elicit the changes in attitude and policy which occurred after the armistice. The book discusses the changes to Anglo-dominion relations that were consequent upon the incorporation of British ex-service personnel into several overseas soldier settlement programmes, and unravels the responses of the dominion governments to such programmes. For instance, Canadians and Australians complained about the number of ex-imperials who arrived physically unfit and unable to undertake employment of any kind. The First World War made the British government to commit itself to a free passage scheme for its ex-service personnel between 1914 and 1922. The efforts of men such as L. S. Amery who attempted to establish a landed imperial yeomanry overseas is described. Anglicisation was revived in South Africa after the second Anglo-Boer War, and politicisation of the country's soldier settlement was an integral part of the larger debate on British immigration to South Africa. The Australian experience of resettling ex-servicemen on the land after World War I came at a great social and financial cost, and New Zealand's disappointing results demonstrated the nation's vulnerability to outside economic factors.

Using original personal and military diaries, with hundreds of carefully selected newspaper extracts, letters and photographs, this book traces individual stories of tragedy and heroism, involving tradesmen, apprentices, lawyers, musicians, sportsmen, brothers, husbands and fathers from Harrogate and the West Riding. As such, it characterises the experience of the British Infantryman in the Great War.The Territorials of the 1/5th Battalion West Yorkshire Regiment were the unsung heroes of the Great War. These Saturday Night Soldiers from York and the northern West Riding of Yorkshire went out to face the might of the German Army in April 1915. Through the hot summer and dark winter that followed, they stopped bullets at the Battle of Aubers Ridge and choked on Phosgene gas at Ypres. Caught in the carnage of the notorious first day on the Somme, the West Yorkshire Territorials were held up by General Haig as convenient scapegoats for his tactical failure, only for the 1/5th Battalion to prove him wrong and redeem itself as an attacking force at the Battle of Thiepval Ridge, and then again at Passchendaele in 1917. In the last year of the war, the battalion helped fight a rear-guard action on the Menin Road, and was effectively wiped out at the Second Battle of Kemmel Ridge, only to be re-constituted in time to take part in the bloody advances at Cambrai and Valenciennes, which helped bring the conflict to an end.

“The hitherto forgotten story of the development of the regimental band, mainly drummers and buglers. A rare piece of social history” (Books Monthly).The Instruments of Battle examines in detail the development and role of the British Army's fighting drummers and buglers, from the time of the foundation of the army up to the present day. While their principal weapon of war was the drum and bugle—and the fife—these men and boys were not musicians as such, but fighting soldiers who took their place in the front line.The origins of the drum and bugle in the classical period and the later influence of Islamic armies are examined, leading to the arrival of the drum and fife in early Tudor England. The story proper picks up post-English Civil War. The drum's period of supremacy through much of the eighteenth-century army is surveyed, and certain myths as to its use are dispelled. The bugle rapidly superseded the drum for field use in the nineteenth century—until developments on the battlefield consigned these instruments largely to barrack life and the parade ground. But there are surprising examples of the use of the bugle in the field through both world wars as the story is brought up to modern day and the instruments'relegation to an almost exclusively ceremonial role.This is all set against a background of campaigns, battles, changing tactical methods, and the difficult processes of command and control on the battlefield. Interwoven is relevant comparison with other armies, particularly American and French. Stories of the drummers and buglers themselves provide social context to their place in the army.

War girls reveals the fascinating story of the British women who volunteered for service in the First Aid Nursing Yeomanry (FANY) during the Great War. Examining their experiences on the Western Front with the Belgian, British and French armies, this book shows how the FANY worked as nurses and ambulance driver-mechanics, inspiring stories of female heroism and solidarity. The FANY created skilled gendered performances against the cultural myths of the time, and in concert with their emerging legend. Coming from privileged backgrounds, they drew upon and subverted traditional arrangements, crafting new and unconventional identities for themselves.The author shares the stories of the FANY - a fascinating, quirky and audacious group of women - and illustrates the ways the Great War subverted existing gender arrangements. It will make fascinating reading for those working in the field of gender and war, as well as those who wish to find out more about this remarkable group of women.

Harrogate and Ripon, just a few miles apart in one of the most beautiful localities in Yorkshire, have rarely had their contributions to the Great War told all together, in one volume. Stephen Wade has written an account of their importance, from the Ripon camps, where thousands of infantrymen for Kitcheners new Pals Battalions were trained, to the many Harrogate hospitals where casualties were cared for. Added to this are stories of local individuals, at home and in the European theatre of war, who played their part in this massive conflict. Harrogate and Ripon,made the usual contributions to the war effort, raising money and making food, but the local people experienced many of the significant Yorkshire events of the war, such as the explosion at Barnbow munitions factory and the housing of Belgian refugees. The book tells the stories of not only the heroes, such as Betty Stevenson and Donald Bell VC, but of the ordinary Yorkshire folk who endured the hardships and made great sacrifices. The book provides ample evidence that Harrogate and Ripon, along with their surrounding areas, have a fine record for courage and determination during the First World War.

The British invasion of Mesopotamia was initially successful in securing the oil fields around Basra by November 1914.Despite evidence of stiffening Turkish resistance and inadequate supply lines which relied solely on the River Tigris, the Expeditionary Force was disastrously ordered to advance on Baghdad under the command of the ambitious, capable but flawed Major General Charles Townshend. After a pyrrhic victory at Ctesiphon in November 1915 the British were forced to withdraw to Kut. After a five month siege Townshend had little option but to surrender due to heavy losses and inadequate supplies.Such was the humiliation and loss of life that the British Parliament ordered a Mesopotamia Commission to be set up. This attributed responsibility and blame to the toxic combination of incompetent leadership and wholesale military misjudgement.This fine book re-examines the circumstances and personalities that brought about such a disastrous and costly outcome to a classic example of mission creep.

This book explores the development of tactical air power in Britain between 1940 and 1943 through a study of the Royal Air Force's Army Co-operation Command. It charts the work done by the Command during its existence, and highlights the arguments between the RAF and Army on this contentious issue in Britain. Much is known about the RAF both in the years preceding and during the Second World War, particularly the exploits of Fighter, Bomber and Coastal Commands, yet the existence of the RAF's Army Co-operation Command is little-known. Through extensive archival research, Matthew Powell maps the creation and work of the RAF's Army Co-operation Command through an analysis of tactical air power developments during the First World War and inter-war periods, highlighting the debates and arguments that took place between the Air Ministry and the War Office.

The Battle of Jutland was the greatest naval engagement of the First World War, if not any war. Admiral Scheer had adopted a policy of launching attacks against the British coast. What he did not know was that the British had broken his naval codes and that they knew of his plans. Consequently, when Scheer threw his entire fleet in a mission to attack the British mainland in May 1916, he could not know that the Royal Navy at Scapa Flow were underway.This is a fresh account of this greatest naval engagement, it offers fascinating insight into the events preceding the action, the tactics during the battle and the political and military fall-out. The book draws on released official records and personal accounts.Jellicoe failed to ensnare Scheer and the bulk of the German fleet which escaped battered, but intact. The Germans knew however that despite their great fleet, it was the Royal Navy that controlled the North Sea.

Britain has been engaged in the Middle East for over two centuries. During the Napoleonic Wars it expelled the French from Egypt. During World War I it helped to dismantle the Ottoman empire. During World War II, it defeated the Italians and Germans. In the post-war years, it attempted to reassert its domination of the Middle East but with little success. Today British forces in the region are fighting ISIS. Variously seen as intruders by most of the local populations and nationalists and as protectors by local pliant rulers, the British have been key arbiters in Middle Eastern politics. They created new states, determined who could hold power, resolved disputes and offered security to their clients. In this major new study, Peter Mangold shows how Britain sought to protect its changing interests in the region and assesses the British response to Arab nationalism. He examines the successes and failures of British policy and the reasons it has often proved controversial and accident prone.And he evaluates Britain's complex legacy in the Middle East - its contribution to the stability of Jordan (at least to date) and the Gulf states, set against the instability which has plagued Iraq and the unresolved Palestine conflict.In tracing the history of Britain's relationship with the Middle East, Mangold reveals how Britain's involvement in the Middle East sowed the seeds for today's crises.

What exactly is military history? Forty years ago it meant battles, campaigns, great commanders, drums and trumpets. It was largely the preserve of military professionals and was used to support national history and nationalism. Now, though, the study of war has been transformed by the war and society approach, by the examination of identity, memory and gender, and a less Euro-centric and more global perspective. Generally it is recognised that war and conflict must be integrated into the wider narrative of historical development, and this is why Ian Becketts research guide is such a useful tool for anyone working in this growing field. It introduces students to all the key debates, issues and resources. While European and global perspectives are not neglected, there is an emphasis on the British experience of war since 1500. This survey of British military history will be essential reading and reference for anyone who has a professional or amateur interest in the subject, and it will be a valuable introduction for newcomers to it.

The Second World War challenged many of the concepts that had provided stability and unity in the world. As totalitarian regimes in Europe and Asia attempted to impose their world view on their neighbours, a struggle for what Winston Churchill described as `Christian civilisation took place on many fronts. On the home front, on land, on sea and in the air, as well as in the horrific concentration camps of Europe and prisoner of war camps in the Far East, people of a Christian faith found their beliefs challenged. However, for many this challenge provided an affirmation of that faith, as it provided a rock amidst the ever shifting sands of circumstance. This book contains the accounts of twenty such individuals, many drawn from previously unpublished sources. Their testimonies provide evidence that during a time of discord, disruption, dislocation and death, the Christian faith remained a key force in sustaining morale and a willingness to fight the good fight.Interesting Facts King George VI called National Days of Prayer during Britains darkest days in 1940Had Michael Benn survived the war, he would have become the 2nd Viscount Stansgate, meaning his brother, Tony, would not have had to fight to renounce his peerageBill Frankland avoided near certain death at the Alexandra Hospital Massacre by the toss of a coinStanley Warren only found out about the rediscovery of his Changi Murals during a chance work conversation in the 1950sAs a boy, Ken Tout was told by his parents to cross the street to avoid walking past the Catholic church. As a man he was invited to a private audience with Pope John Paul II.

The history of the First World War continues to attract enormous interest. However, most attention remains concentrated on combatants, creating a misleading picture of wartime Britain: one might be forgiven for assuming that by 1918, the country had become virtually denuded of civilian men and particularly of middle-class men who – or so it seems – volunteered en masse in the early months of war. In fact, the majority of middle-class (and other) men did not enlist, but we still know little about their wartime experiences. Civvies thus takes a different approach to the history of the war and focuses on those middle-class English men who did not join up, not because of moral objections to war, but for other (much more common) reasons, notably age, family responsibilities or physical unfitness. In particular, Civvies questions whether, if serviceman were the apex of manliness, were middle-class civilian men inevitably condemned to second-class, ‘unmanly'status?

This book explores the continuous British fascination with the American Civil War from the 1870s to the present. Analysing the War's place in British political discourse, military writing, intellectual life and popular culture, it traces the sources of Britons'appeal to the American conflict and their use of its representations at home and abroad.

In 1914 Great Britain had the largest and most powerful navy the world had ever seen – a well-known fact, but what of the everyday experience of those who served in her? This fully illustrated book looks at the British sailor's life during the First World War, from the Falkland Islands to the East African coast to the North Sea. Meals in the stokers'mess and the admiral's cabin; the claustrophobic terrors of the engine room or submarine; the long separations from loved ones that were the shared experience of all ranks; the perils faced by Royal Naval Air Service pilots in the air; the possessions treasured by sailors while at sea – drawing on a wealth of previously unpublished materials from the National Maritime Museum archives, this is an authoritative and vivid account of lives lived in quite extraordinary circumstances.

This controversial and stirring account of one of the bloodiest battles of the Great War recounts a heroic but disastrous engagement which left a lasting rift between the British and Australians. Drawing from a wealth of unpublished sources and eyewitness accounts, Jonathan Walker's study of the Battle of Bullecourt is vital to an understanding of the difficulties that faced Great War commanders. Central to The Blood Tub is a reassessment of Sir Hubert Gough, one of the Great War's most colourful generals.In the late spring of 1917, the Allies attacked at Arras, and a combined British and Australian force under General'Thruster'Gough assaulted the fortress village of Bullecourt. Despite using the new wonder weapon, the tank, Gough's first attack ended in disaster and bitter recriminations. He then launched a second massive attack. For the next two weeks, the Battle of Bullecourt dominated British offensive action on the Western Front. It was the excessive brutality and ferocity of the hand-to-hand fighting that earned Bullecourt the name'Blood Tub.'

Between September 1939 and June 1940, the British Expeditionary Force confronted the German threat to France and Flanders with a confused mind-set, an uncertain skills-set and an uncompetitive capability. This book explores the formation's origins, the scale of defeat in France and the campaign's considerable legacy.

This monograph analyzes the leadership characteristics that suggest a rapid acceptance of changing conditions in warfare among senior leaders and which leadership characteristics tend to suggest a more conservative approach. This conservative approach fails to recognize and adapt to the new emerging conditions. This research studied two World War I British leaders, General Sir Ivor Maxse and General Sir Hubert Gough, and compared and contrasted their leadership characteristics. From this, the research identified the most significant leadership characteristics that allowed these leaders to successfully adapt quickly in a time of transition.The criteria for analysis was based on four leadership characteristics as defined in FM 22-100, Army Leadership: Revised Final Draft, dated June 1998. The four leadership characteristics used as evaluation criteria were personal courage, initiative, tactical skill, and learning.A comparison of the role of the two World War I leaders yields the conclusion that certain leadership characteristics allowed them to adapt more easily in an evolving environment and facilitated successful battlefield leadership. These characteristics were moral courage, initiative, tactical skill and the application of knowledge through effective, continual learning.The monograph provides valuable insights into what leadership characteristics will allow current and future leaders to be successful, and unsuccessful, during a military transitional period. Our leaders must be creative, intuitive, dynamic, and able to make contemplated decisions, and have the courage and determination to act on them. The requirement for developing those leaders is an important one for the United States and a demanding one for the U.S. Army. An understanding of these leadership characteristics and the reasons that they facilitate successful battlefield leadership can provide an intellectual foundation beneficial to the Army as it prepares for future warfare.

Gary Sheffield is one of the most versatile and stimulating of military historians at work today, and this selection of his outstanding essays on the First World War is essential reading for anyone who is keen to broaden their understanding of the subject. For three decades, in a series of perceptive books and articles, he has examined the nature of this war from many angles from the point of view of the politicians and the high command through to the junior officers and other ranks in the front line. Command and Morale presents in a single volume a range of his shorter work, and it shows his scholarship at its best.Among the topics he explores is the decision-making of the senior commanders, the demands of coalition warfare, the performance of Australian forces, the organization and the performance of the army in the field, the tactics involved, the exercise of command, the importance of morale, and the wider impact of the war on British society. Every topic is approached with the same academic rigour and attention to detail which are his hallmarks and which explain why his work has been so influential. The range of his writing, the insights he offers and the sometimes controversial conclusions he reaches mean this thought provoking book will be indispensable reading for all students of the First World War and of modern warfare in general.

Much has been written about the Battle of the Somme. From July through late November 1916, British, French, and German armies fought one of the costliest battles of the twentieth century. Well over a million casualties and only a few miles of ground gained by the Allies were the result when the battle ended. Little, however, has been written about the second battle which occurred simultaneously, this one in the skies above the Somme, where for the first time in the history of warfare a deliberate attempt was made to control the sky. The British Royal Flying Corps, under the resolute command of General Sir Hugh Trenchard, fought to gain air supremacy from the German Air Service. Trenchard believed that the best way to support the ground force was to dominate and control the sky above the battlefield. This air campaign was critical because of its impact on the doctrine and theory of air warfare which followed it.This study examines the efforts of the Royal Flying Corps to gain air supremacy against the German Air Service before and during the Battle of the Somme.

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. Branded by some contemporaries as a «butcher» and a «mountebank», he has also been criticised by modern military historians both for his role in the Gallipoli campaign and also at the Somme, where his corps suffered the worst losses of any engaged on the first day of the battle. Drawing on original archival research, this is the first full-length study of his colourful and controversial career. It explores how he gained his sanguinary reputation, and asks how far this was actually deserved. Rejecting a simplistic «butchers and bunglers» approach, it argues that Hunter-Weston was an intelligent and highly professional soldier, whose failures can best be understood by reference to the structural challenges of modern war on a mass scale. There is no doubt that his personal flaws and idiosyncrasies contributed to his woeful image, but he also emerges as a transitional figure, frustrated by a battlefield in which managerial skills had become more important than heroic personal leadership. Indeed, his career offers valuable glimpses into the practical business of generalship, including the under-researched «political» role of senior officers. While not one of Britain's great commanders, «Hunter-Bunter» remains one of the most compelling.

Research into the impact of the First World War on European societies has recently begun on a major scale and Dr Waites has been one of the pioneers in this field in Britain. His book considers the War's effects on such major issues as popular images of class, the distribution of income and wealth in society, social relations within the working class, class consciousness and the educational experiences of children from different backgrounds. This study is noteworthy not only for its wide range of hitherto unpublished sources, but also for its attempt to bring social theory to bear upon the study of class relations in England during the first of this century's total wars.

“These previously unpublished diaries of an English woman surviving the war at home provide a fascinating insight into society and life” (Firetrench). Helena Hall's daily diary of the war years, from 1940 to 1945, is one of the most vivid, detailed and evocative personal records of the Second World War as it was experienced by people living in an English village. In her journal she describes her everyday activities alongside momentous national and international events. The war overshadows her narrative. Each daily entry gives us an insight into the extraordinary impact of the conflict on local lives, and shows how much energy and commitment ordinary people put into the war effort. This edited edition of her previously unpublished diary, written without embellishment or hindsight, shows how she heard about the war and how she reacted to it, and how it was reported and understood. It allows the reader today to connect directly with the wartime past and to see events clearly, as they were seen at the time. “A handwritten account of what war was like and how it affected people in their everyday lives... Truthful and unvarnished. There's fear and humour mixed up and the more you read the closer to Helena Hall you become.” —War History Online

The Home Front in Britain explores the British Home Front in the last 100 years since the outbreak of WW1. Case studies critically analyse the meaning and images of the British home and family in times war, challenging prevalent myths of how working and domestic life was shifted by national conflict.

Caring for the wounded of the First World War was tough and challenging work, demanding extensive knowledge, technical skill, and high levels of commitment. Although allied nurses were admired in their own time for their altruism and courage, their image was distorted by the lens of popular mythology. They came to be seen as self-sacrificing heroines, romantic foils to the male combatant and doctors'handmaidens, rather than being appreciated as trained professionals performing significant work in their own right. Christine Hallett challenges these myths to reveal the true story of allied nursing in the First World War — one which is both more complex and more absorbing. Drawing upon evidence from archives across the world, Veiled Warriors offers a compelling account of nurses'wartime experiences and a clear appraisal of their work and its contribution to the allied cause between 1914 and 1918, on both the Western and the Eastern Fronts. Nurses believed they were involved in a multi-layered battle. Primarily, they were fighting for the lives of their patients on the'second battlefield'of casualty clearing stations, transports, and military hospitals. Beyond this, they were an integral component of the allied military machine, putting their own lives at risk in field hospitals close to the front lines, on board hospital ships vulnerable to enemy submarine attack, and in base hospitals subject to heavy bombardment. As working women in a sometimes hostile, chauvinistic world, allied nurses were also fighting to gain recognition for their profession and political rights for their sex. For them, military nursing might help to win not only the war itself, but also a more powerful voice for women in the post-war world.

Contested Objects breaks new ground in the interdisciplinary study of material culture. Its focus is on the rich and varied legacy of objects from the First World War as the global conflict that defined the twentieth century. From the iconic German steel helmet to practice trenches on Salisbury Plain, and from the ‘Dazzle Ship'phenomenon through medal-wearing, diary-writing, trophy collecting, the market in war souvenirs and the evocative reworking of European objects by African soldiers, this book presents a dazzling array of hitherto unseen worlds of the Great War.The innovative and multidisciplinary approach adopted here follows the lead established by Nicholas J. Saunders'Matters of Conflict (Routledge 2004), and extends its geographical coverage to embrace a truly international perspective. Australia, Africa, Italy, Germany, France, Belgium and Britain are all represented by a cross-disciplinary group of scholars working in archaeology, anthropology, cultural history, art history, museology, and cultural heritage. The result is a volume that resonates with richly documented and theoretically informed case studies that illustrate how the experiences of war can be embodied in and represented by an endless variety of artefacts, whose ‘social lives'have endured for almost a century and that continue to shape our perceptions of an increasingly dangerous world.

The Greater War is an international history of the First World War. Comprising of thirteen chapters this collection of essays covers new aspects of the French, German, Italian and American efforts in the First World War, as well as aspects of Britain's colonial campaigns.

Selected complete chapter extracts from some ofPen & Swordsmost exciting, brand new,First World War titles, books included are;Slaughter on the Somme, by John Grehan and Martin MaceTeenage Tommy, by Richard Van EmdenLondoners on the Western Front, by David MartinVeteran Volunteer, edited by Jamie Vans and Peter WiddowsonCommand and Morale, by Gary SheffieldInto Touch, by Nigel McCreryConscientious Objectors of the Second World War, by Ann KramerHome Front in the Great War, by David Bilton

The Victorian era was one that teemed with multitudinous and sometimes opposing visions of polity yet rarely questioned the very existence of the State. What might be called the pragmatism of the elite gave rise to a form of democratic compromise, allowing the growth of political ideas that may still be found in contemporary political thought. Have reformist, socialist, liberal or utilitarian ideas avoided the dogmatism of twentieth century politics or paved the way to other forms of ideology? To what extent has the organization or gradual obliteration of the State been influenced by evolutionary theories, the quest for effective government and expertise or, more generally, refusal of the past? What was the impact of Victorian thinkers and ideas on the mutation of contemporary political ideas? Have we reached a post-Victorian period or are we still using a Victorian rhetoric as well as Victorian theories? Have we not, also, reached a stage in which retrieving some of those ideas might help to solve some of our contemporary political problems? The essays presented in this book all attempt to answer some of these questions and try to show how nineteenth century thought and culture have shaped British modern political debate and, for some, still continue to do so. It will prove useful to academics and the general public interested in contemporary politics as well as the history of ideas and political philosophy.

This book challenges scholarship which presents charity and voluntary activity during World War I as marking a downturn from the high point of the late Victorian period. Charitable donations rose to an all-time peak, and the scope and nature of charitable work shifted decisively. Far more working class activists, especially women, became involved, although there were significant differences between the suburban south and industrial north of England and Scotland. The book also corrects the idea that charitably-minded civilians'efforts alienated the men at the front, in contrast to the degree of negativity that surrounds much previous work on voluntary action in this period. Far from there being an unbridgeable gap in understanding or empathy between soldiers and civilians, the links were strong, and charitable contributions were enormously important in maintaining troop morale. This bond significantly contributed to the development and maintenance of social capital in Britain, which, in turn, strongly supported the war effort. This work draws on previously unused primary sources, notably those regarding the developing role of the UK's Director General of Voluntary Organizations and the regulatory legislation of the period.

A “superior history of the North African campaign” and the British WWII victory that Winston Churchill called the end of the beginning (Booklist). It was the Allied victory at the Battle of El Alamein in November 1942 that inspired one of Churchill's most famous aphorisms: “This is not the end, it is not even the beginning of the end, but it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.” And yet the true significance of this iconic episode remains unrecognized. In this thrilling historical account, Jonathan Dimbleby describes the political and strategic realities that lay behind the battle, charting the nail-biting months that led to the victory at El Alamein in November 1942. It is a story of high drama, played out both in the war capitals of London, Washington, Berlin, Rome, and Moscow, and at the front, in the command posts and foxholes in the desert.Destiny in the Desert is about politicians and generals, diplomats, civil servants, and soldiers. It is about forceful characters and the tensions and rivalries between them. Drawing on official records and the personal insights of those involved at every level, Dimbleby creates a vivid portrait of a struggle which for Churchill marked the turn of the tide—and which for the soldiers on the ground involved fighting and dying in a foreign land.

They may have been angels of mercy. But they were also angels with attitude – real women, with real guts. This is the little-known story of the gritty and free-spirited women who, in 1914, put aside their fight for the vote to set up a hospital in an abandoned French abbey to treat the appalling injuries sustained on the Western Front. Uniquely in that theatre, the hospital was staffed entirely by women – doctors, surgeons, nurses, bateriologists, radiographers, orderlies and ambulance drivers. In the face of opposition from the military and medical establishments, and in the teeth of many hardships, they succeeded in establishing one of the most effective and longest-serving frontline military hospitals of the First World War.

A “superior history of the North African campaign” and the British WWII victory that Winston Churchill called the end of the beginning (Booklist). It was the Allied victory at the Battle of El Alamein in November 1942 that inspired one of Churchill's most famous aphorisms: “This is not the end, it is not even the beginning of the end, but it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.” And yet the true significance of this iconic episode remains unrecognized. In this thrilling historical account, Jonathan Dimbleby describes the political and strategic realities that lay behind the battle, charting the nail-biting months that led to the victory at El Alamein in November 1942. It is a story of high drama, played out both in the war capitals of London, Washington, Berlin, Rome, and Moscow, and at the front, in the command posts and foxholes in the desert.Destiny in the Desert is about politicians and generals, diplomats, civil servants, and soldiers. It is about forceful characters and the tensions and rivalries between them. Drawing on official records and the personal insights of those involved at every level, Dimbleby creates a vivid portrait of a struggle which for Churchill marked the turn of the tide—and which for the soldiers on the ground involved fighting and dying in a foreign land.