Great War (1914-1918): The Society and Culture of the First World War discussion
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Gabriele
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Jul 18, 2011 01:52PM
I've read Forgotten Voices of the Great War as well, Kristina, and absolutely agree. It was most helpful to my research.
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Gabriele, I'll be putting "The Summer Before the Storm" on my to-read list!
Does anyone know where one can get a copy of this title in English? Thanks, Careyhttp://www.spiegel.de/international/e...
Carey wrote: "Does anyone know where one can get a copy of this title in English? Thanks, Careyhttp://www.spiegel.de/international/e..."
Hi Carey,
Is this the same book:
by Ernst JüngerIf so any decent book shop should have copies.
Hi Carey,What a fascinating article! I find Ernst Jünger's writing absolutely fascinating, so to read his diaries is an incredible opportunity!
It looks like the diary is only available in German, or, at least, Amazon.de was the only site on which I could find it:
http://www.amazon.de/Kriegstagebuch-1...
Hopefully, if it is getting press in English, we'll see an English translation eventually?
Hope this helps!
Hi Rick--no, it isn't Storm of Steel, it is Junger's war diary which he based SofS on. Bridget--yes, that is it. Guess we will have to wait on the English version. Thanks guys, I appreciate the quick responses.
Yes, I did some further reading last night and it appears SOS was "based"on his diaries - pretty propaganda-ish. But it looked like the publication was fairly recent so it may be a while before it is translated into English. Because neither Ave books nor Powell's had it but they had a number of other Junger books, many in German. Those are my two go-to stores. Although Abe's is Canadian most of the places to get books from are actually in America.
Mod
I just finished and reviewed "Now It Can Be Told" by Sir Philip Gibbs, an embedded journalist in WWI. It is well worth reading, and it is free (always a plus).
Kristina wrote: "I just wanted to mention a book that I just finished last week. It's called "Forgotten Voices of the Great War" by Max Arthur. It's the personal accounts of mostly British and some German soldiers ..."I fully agree with you there--it is a very immediate book which brings you rather close to the people.
Charles wrote: "I just finished and reviewed "Now It Can Be Told" by Sir Philip Gibbs, an embedded journalist in WWI. It is well worth reading, and it is free (always a plus)."Lovely review!
I agree that this is an important one. I'll add another reason for this: today there are those who want to make us believe that the general staff was much more knowledgeable, that they knew what they were doing, that indeed the attrition they engaged in was correctly calculated warfare and WWI was not half as bad as it was painted to be by "the leftist Blackadder blokes in the 1960s".
People like Gibbs *were* there, they went through that war and they wrote what they wrote directly afterwards. Gibbs held these opinions during the war even. So there can be no talk of this opinion having been found in hindsight another world war later. Makes Gibbs rather invaluable.
Good point. To think that the waste of human life on the Western front was "calculated warfare" is ludicrous. Grant, in 1864 in our Civil War, accepted high attrition rates--because he knew the South was taking similar losses and that they would be unable to replenish their ranks and be forced to surrender. The tactic was brutal, but it was both calculated and successful, helping end the war in 1865. Haig was still trying to re-create the cavalry action in South Africa that brought him his fame. Bah! Humbug!
A new release to be added to your shelves as pre-warThe War That Ended Peace: The Road to 1914
and another recent title
The White War: Life and Death on the Italian Front 1915-1919
I might be missing something, but I did not see Pat Barker's Regeneration Trilogy on the bookshelf.Regeneration
The Eye in the Door
The Ghost Road
Here is a novel based on the First World War that may pique the curiosity of the members of this group ---A Star for Mrs. Blake by April Smith
SUMMARY
"The United States Congress in 1929 passed legislation to fund travel for mothers of the fallen soldiers of World War I to visit their sons’ graves in France. Over the next three years, 6,693 Gold Star Mothers made the trip. In this emotionally charged, brilliantly realized novel, April Smith breathes life into a unique moment in American history, imagining the experience of five of these women.
"They are strangers at the start, but their lives will become inextricably intertwined, altered in indelible ways. These very different Gold Star Mothers travel to the Meuse-Argonne American Cemetery to say final good-byes to their sons and come together along the way to face the unexpected: a death, a scandal, and a secret revealed."
Dear All,My book, 'The Night Before Christmas 1914', is a thought provoking adaptation of the classic poem, based upon the Christmas Truce of World War 1. Available on Kindle for only 79p with 10% of royalties going to Help For Heroes. If you are an Amazon Prime member, you can borrow this book for FREE!
T'was the Night Before Christmas, and across every trench,
Not a soldier felt festive, neither British nor French.
Whilst some of them whispered their solitary prayer,
Others just hoped for an end to despair...
For those without a Kindle (or the app), it is to be released in March for Kobo, Sony and Nook eReaders, and also Apple iBooks.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Night-Bef...
http://www.amazon.com/Night-Before-Ch...
Thank you.
Just finished reading a great WWI spy story that I'd recommend. Although historical fiction, there was a huge amount of research and fact woven into the story line. What with the 100 year commemorations coming up, I thought it was a good introduction to some of the events in WWI that most people ignore (Balkans, Gallipoli, Austria).Kingdoms Fall - The Laxenburg Message
Hi everyone. I've just published my debut novel - an historical drama set during WW1. The story is about two friends, their relationship, and how everything is changed by the onset of war. I'd love to hear what you think...
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A while back, doing research, I came across a WWI novel about deserters living underground among the trenches. I found it a solid story and an interesting read, so I thought I'd share it: No Man's Land
by British crime writer Reginald Hill.
I may finally get around to read / slog through two collections in my library; the 1920 10 volume "The Literary Digest History of the World War" by Francis W. Halsey and the 5 volume "History of the World War" by Frank H. Simonds. Some of the fold out maps and photographs are priceless.
by Francis W. Halsey &
by Frank H. Simonds
Here's a new book that I'd like to recommend to all members of this Group ~The Baltimore Sabotage Cell: German Agents, American Traitors, and the U-Boat Deutschland During World War I by Dwight R Messimer
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
SUMMARY
"By the summer of 1915 Germany was faced with two major problems in fighting World War I: how to break the British blockade and how to stop or seriously disrupt the British supply line across the Atlantic. The solution to the former was to find a way over, through, or under it. Aircraft in those days were too primitive, too short range, and too underpowered to accomplish this, and Germany lacked the naval strength to force a passage through the blockade. But if Germany could build a fleet of cargo U-boats that were large enough to carry meaningful loads and had the range to make a round trip between Germany and the United States without refueling, the blockade might be successfully broken.
"Since the Imperial German Navy could not cut Britain's supply line to America, another answer lay in sabotaging munitions factories, depots, and ships, as well as infecting horses and mules at the western end of the supply line. German agents, with American sympathizers, successfully carried out more than fifty attacks involving fires and explosions and spread anthrax and glanders on the East Coast before America's entry into the war on 6 April 1917.
"Breaking the blockade with a fleet of cargo U-boats provided the lowest risk of drawing America into the war; at the same time, sabotage was incompatible with Germany's diplomatic goal of keeping the United States out of the war. The two solutions were very different, but the fact that both campaigns were run by intelligence agencies -- the Etappendienst (navy) and the Geheimdienst (army), through the agency of one man, Paul Hilken, in one American city, Baltimore, make them inseparable. Those solutions created the dichotomy that produced the U-boat Deutschland and the Baltimore Sabotage Cell. Here, Messimer provides the first study of the degree to which U.S. citizens were enlisted in Germany's sabotage operations and debunks many myths that surround the Deutschland."
Mod
Hodgkinson, Peter E. British Infantry Battalion Commanders in the First World War. Ashgate,
2015.
Jenna wrote: "I cannot find this book to add to our shelves, so until it appears in Goodreads:Hodgkinson, Peter E. British Infantry Battalion Commanders in the First World War. Ashgate,
2015."
Is this primarily a reference book? Looks a trifle expensive.
It's on the Goodreads shelves now. No,it's not primarily a reference book; it is a technical study for a limited audience thus the high price.
Mod
But there is one I just added, a collection of essays Humor, Entertainment, and Popular Culture during World War I [ISBN 9781137449092].
Rowdy ISBN 978-0-996060-0-0 is a brand new release on Amazon, B&N.com and http://www.rowdystory.com It is a creative historical biography centered on a New York senator, WWI hero who owned a 1916 yacht named Rowdy. I bring it to attention here because the first 180 pages present perhaps the most thorough accounting ever written on the 306th Field Artillery, 77th division. That portion is written in the first person, so the reader walks in Holland Duell's footsteps making it an exciting read. Rowdy has been the recipient of numerous literary awards and 5 star reviews. A very detailed description with pictures, reviews, awards sample pages etc is at http://www.rowdystory.com
A book of short stories by Dorothy Canfield Fisher came to my attention this morning. Home Fires in France. It is available free at Project Gutenberg.Perhaps the first thing which brought our boys to a halt, and a long, long look around them, was the age of the place. Apparently it has-the statement is hardly exaggerated-always been there. As a matter of historical fact it has been there for more than a thousand years. On hearing that, the American boys always gasped. They were used to the conception of the great age of "historical" spots, by which they meant cities in which great events have occurred-Paris, Rome, Stratford-on-Avon, Granada. But that an inconsiderable settlement of a thousand inhabitants, where nothing in particular ever happened beyond the birth, life, and death of its people, should have kept its identity through a thousand years gave them, so they said, "a queer feeling." As they stood in the quiet gray street, looking up and down, and taking in the significance of the fact, one could almost visibly see their minds turning away from the text-book idea of the Past as an unreal, sparsely settled period with violent historical characters in doublet and ruff or chain mail thrusting broadswords into one another or signing treaties which condemned all succeeding college students to a new feat of memory; you could almost see their brilliant, shadowless, New World youth deepened and sobered by a momentary perception of the Past as a very long and startlingly real phenomenon, full, scaringly full of real people, entirely like ourselves, going about the business of getting born, being married and dying, with as little conscious regard as we for historical movements and tendencies.And a review from here at GR: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
A few days ago, I began reading "I Chose the Sky" by Leonard H. Rochford, who had been a fighter pilot with the Royal Naval Air Service/Royal Air Force during the War. It's an eye-opening, fascinating account of Rochford's service on the Western Front during 1917-18. (The author, who didn't keep a diary during his military service, relied upon his flight logs and postwar research. This particular book was republished this year. Its original publication date: 1977.)
Mod
I just wanted to add that Big Byte Books has a 8 ebooks on World War 1 published including Two Colored Women with the AEF in France which I had been looking for.
Mod
Could you provide a link for that please?
Read Two Colored Women... about three years ago. Very good.
Today I acquired the following book ~Last of the Red Devils: America's First Bomber Pilot by Frank Joseph
The author, Frank Joseph, was fortunate enough to interview the last surviving American bomber pilot of the First World War, Lieutenant Edward Lindsay of the 96th Aero Squadron. Lindsay was trained by the French and saw considerable combat over France during the summer and autumn of 1918.
I've just added to my groaning wish list shelf Over Here: The First World War and American Society by David M. Kennedy, which I thought looked interesting.
Mod
It's a good book. I would read it in tandem with Herries The Last Days of Innocence: America at War, 1917-1918
Mod
British Battle Planning in 1916 and the Battle of Fromelles
A Case Study of an Evolving Skill. Roger Lee. 2015
Mod
9781409435518
Also not showing up in Goodreads yet.
Will try to add to our bookshelf later.
Mod
9781472441591
The Show Must Go On: Popular Song in Britain in the First World War
But I will try to remember to come back and add to list later.
Tripped over this one this evening - don't know if it's been on anyone's radar:Hero of the Angry Sky: The World War I Diary and Letters of David S.Ingalls, America's First Naval Ace by Geoffrey L. Rossano
Here is a new release. The 5th and 6th Marine Corps regiments were the only USMC regiments among the entire WWI American Expeditionary Forces. As you can see from the 5th Regiment enlisted figure below, the regiment comprised of Marines from all corners of America, was molded into an elite force. The historical book with facts, figures and roster lists may be for a limited audience, however I intend to read it because my paternal grandfather was a proud member of 1/5 in WWI.The 5th Marine Regiment Devil Dogs in World War I: A History and Roster
by Michael A EgglestonSynopsis
More than 8,000 men served in the Fifth Marine Regiment during World War I and the occupation of Germany. Marine units were among the first to arrive in war-torn Europe in 1917, and they sustained greater casualties than other American units. This book tells the story of the "Devil Dogs" in World War I and the years after through the recollections of veterans recorded over the past century. The influenza epidemic that raged during the war is discussed. An annotated roster of the regiment lists each Marine, with service details provided where known.
The AssassinsMy book 'The Assassins' has just been published by Endeavour Press as a Kindle book. It's historical fiction and is about the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand.
Link
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Assassins-Ala...
Publishers Blurb:
A heart-racing story of love, royal duty and political intrigue set at the outbreak of war.
1914.
Tensions are reaching boiling point in Europe and the threat of war is imminent.
Johnny Swift, a young and often brash diplomatic clerk employed by the British embassy is sent to infiltrate the ‘Young Bosnians’, a group of idealistic conspirators planning to murder Franz Ferdinand, the heir presumptive to the Austro-Hungarian throne, in a bid to liberate their country from the monarchy’s grip.
Johnny has been having an affair with his employer’s wife, Lady Elizabeth ‘Libby’ Smyth, and suspecting he’s being cuckolded, Sir George Smyth packs Johnny off on a mission to infiltrate the Young Bosnian cell with every confidence that that’s the last time he’ll be seeing his cocky young clerk.
But Johnny has a lot of living still to do and is not the type to embrace his ‘destiny’ when it starts to look like it will ultimately end in an untimely death.
In an action-packed thriller, the compelling and tragic story of the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, and his beloved wife ‘Sopherl’, Sophie, the Duchess of Hohenberg, in Sarajevo is played out against a backdrop of simmering international tensions that have world-changing political reverberations.
Johnny manages to infiltrate the Young Bosnian conspriators’ cell, helped by Lazlo Breitner, a Hungarian civil servant in the joint ministry of finance and a staunch monarchist acting on an anonymous tip-off about a serious threat to the Archduke’s life during his forthcoming visit to Sarajevo by a group of young local dissidents.
However, Johnny soon realises he’s in over his head, with gambling debts and a taste for beautiful women the very least of his problems as he struggles to survive on his wits in an increasingly complex world of political espionage and deadly threats.
In a convincing re-telling of the tragic real-life events that precipitated a world war, Alan Bardos manages to take the known facts – that the conspirators were young nationalist fanatics, able to dream of revolution but unable to act without the backing of the prominent Colonel ‘Apis’ Dimitrijevic, or that the whole thing was Apis’ idea, and that it was the Colonel himself who actively sought out, recruited and instructed the assassins for his own political agenda.
Whichever’s the case, in no time at all Johnny Swift finds himself embroiled deep within an increasingly deadly political situation that spans Europe and threatens to drag Britain to the coming inevitable war. Unable to trust anyone, and with the very lives of the royal couple unexpectedly in his hands, Johnny tries to avert catastrophe.
Using both fictional and actual characters and events, Bardos has crafted a heart-racing story of love, royal duty and political intrigue which expertly uses the historical evidence available to create a believable narrative arc, ultimately allowing the reader to draw their own conclusions as to what actually happened on one fateful day in Sarajevo…
Alan wrote: "The AssassinsMy book 'The Assassins' has just been published by Endeavour Press as a Kindle book. It's historical fiction and is about the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinan..."
Alan, any chance we get a paperback ?
Great War (1914-1918): The Society and Culture...
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