Showing titles in World War I

The Great War was the first truly global conflict and it changed the course of world history. In this magnum opus, critically acclaimed historian Peter Hart examines the conflict in every arena around the world, in a history that combines cutting-edge scholarship with vivid and unfamiliar eyewitness accounts, from kings and generals, and ordinary soldiers. 

On a cold winter morning, Jeff Power was lighting a fire in his remote Arizona cabin when he heard a noise, grabbed his rifle, and walked out the front door. Someone in the dark shouted, “Throw up your hands!” Shots rang out from inside and outside the cabin, and when it was all over, Jeff’s sons, Tom and John, emerged to find the sheriff and his two deputies dead and their father mortally wounded. Arizona’s Deadliest Gunfight describes an impoverished family that wanted nothing to do with modern civilization.

The Battle of Tannenberg was a significant World War I conflict fought between the Russian Empire and the German Empire in August 1914. It took place near the town of Tannenberg (now Stębark, Poland) in East Prussia.

A British soldier walked over to the German front line to deliver newspapers; British women married to Germans became ‘enemy aliens’ in their own country; a high-ranking British POW discussed his own troops’ heroism with the Kaiser on the battlefield. Just three amazing stories of contact between the opposing sides in the Great War that eminent historian Richard van Emden has unearthed - incidents that show brutality, great humanity, and above all the bizarre nature of a conflict between two nations with long-standing ties of kinship and friendship.

Parker Hitt's proactive mentorship of Army cryptology during World War I laid the groundwork for the modern American cryptologic system. Though he considered himself an infantryman, Hitt is best known as the "father of American military cryptology".

The First World War was fought over a century ago, its pursuit by the European powers utterly reckless and ending with great consequential misfortune for humanity. Four generations later, the "Great War" has been forgotten by most Americans. The European and Commonwealth nations staged elaborate and moving commemorations during the centennial years of 2014 to 2018 to remember the shared sacrifices and enormity of the war. The general lack of such events in the United States marked the stark difference between how Americans and their allies looked back on that calamity.

'I was anxious to fight. Hitler was the bastard who had started all this and he needed sorting out. We were under threat. Everything we stood for: our country, our families and our way of life was being attacked by this maniac. He could not be allowed to win. So for me and many, many others like me, there was no alternative. We were in a pickle and something had to be done.’ Johnny Johnson is 92 years old and one of very few men who can recall first-hand the most daring and ingenious air raid of all time.

From New York Harbor to the battlefields of France, relive World War One through the eyes of an unknown soldier, as told through his diary. See how the 100-year-old diary brings a father and his estranged son back together by retracing his experiences fighting in the battlefields of France in 1917 -1918 to his final resting place—the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington National Cemetery.

Intimate and richly detailed, The Beauty of Living begins with E. E. Cummings's Cambridge upbringing and his relationship with his socially progressive but domestically domineering father. It follows Cummings through his undergraduate experience at Harvard, where he fell into a circle of aspiring writers including John Dos Passos, who became a lifelong friend. Steeped in classical paganism and literary Decadence, Cummings and his friends rode the explosion of Cubism, Futurism, Imagism, and other "modern" movements in the arts. 

World War I, also known in its time as the “Great War” or the “War to End all Wars”, was an unprecedented holocaust in terms of its sheer scale. Fought by men who hailed from all corners of the globe, it saw millions of soldiers do battle in brutal assaults of attrition which dragged on for months with little to no respite. Such a war brought about technological innovation at a rate that made the boom of the Industrial Revolution seem stagnant. The Second Battle of Ypres resulted from the German decision to use poison gas against the Allied lines.

William Arthur Human was 22 years old and serving as a British soldier in India when war broke out in 1914. This is his story, in his own words, covering his first eight months on the Western Front and featuring the Battle of Neuve Chapelle. An extraordinarily vivid account that is heartfelt, captivating, and challenging in equal measure.

1916 — The year that tested nations, leaders, and the limits of endurance. 1916 continues Melina Druga’s vivid exploration of World War I through the headlines that shaped North America. As the Great War grinds on, the year 1916 tests nations’ resolve. In Canada, soldiers endure unimaginable losses at the Battle of the Somme where tanks debut and an entire generation is scarred. Meanwhile, across the border, Americans fiercely debate neutrality, nationalism and the re-election of President Woodrow Wilson who promises to “keep us out of the war.” Through authentic newspaper reports...

1918 — The year the war ended, and a new battle began. In the final volume of Melina Druga’s powerful nonfiction series, 1918 captures the dramatic close of the Great War and the global tragedy that followed. As Allied forces push Germany to surrender and the Armistice is signed on Nov. 11, North America erupts in celebration. Through vivid newspaper accounts, readers witness the joy in Ottawa, Winnipeg, New York and Chicago — and the heartbreak of families mourning those who would never return. Yet amid the jubilation, another enemy spreads: the deadly Spanish flu pandemic that kills...

In the mud and the madness, they built a kingdom too small for the war to see. Ypres Salient, 1917. Private Tommy Finch buys a scruffy ginger cat for a shilling. Officially, she is a ratter, meant to keep the trenches free of vermin. Unofficially, she becomes something else entirely: a silent companion in the mud and terror of the Western Front, an early warning system for shellfire and gas, and a small, living responsibility in a world dominated by death. When the cat—Penny—gives birth to kittens in a captured trench, the fragile family becomes a secret project for Tommy’s section, a...

The Ottoman Empire lasted more than six centuries. Its soldiers fought, died, and conquered lands on three different continents, making it one of the few stable multi-ethnic empires in history - and likely one of the last. Thus, it's somewhat inevitable that the history of its dissolution is at the heart of complex geopolitical disputes, as well as sectarian tensions that are still key to understanding the Middle East, North Africa and the Balkans.

FNH Audio presents an unabridged reading of this WWI naval history by an author who actually took part in the battle(s) described. This plain, unvarnished account, so far as is known, is the first attempt that has been made to link with the description of the Battle of the Falkland Islands, fought on December 8th 1914, to the events leading up to that engagement. Each phase presented has been read and approved by officers who participated.

Published in time for Remembrance Day 2008, the 90th anniversary of the end of the First World War, We Will Remember Them commemorates the veterans who are no longer among us. With an introduction by Henry Allingham, 110, only survivor of the Battle of the Somme and Britain's oldest living man, Max Arthur's new book expands the circle of contributors by interviewing the families of First World War veterans.

The tale of the American volunteer ambulance drivers of the First World War is one of gallantry amid gore, manners amid madness. Until now this stirring example of wartime courage has been recounted only in fragments. Arlen J. Hansen's Gentlemen Volunteers brings to life the entire story of the men - and women - who formed the first ambulance corps, and who went on to redefine American culture.

A unique collection of historic recordings covering the events of 1915, from the first Zeppelin raids to the ultimate failure at Gallipoli. In this selection of authentic eyewitness accounts, survivors describe the sinking of the Lusitania; the author Compton McKenzie remembers the Gallipoli...

As the power of Nazi Germany grew alarmingly during the 1930s, the French sought means to defend their territory against the rising menace of the Thousand-Year Reich. As architects of the most punitive measures in the Treaty of Versailles following World War I, the French government made natural targets for Teutonic retribution, so the Maginot Line, a series of interconnected strongpoints and fortifications running along much of France's eastern border, helped allay French fears of invasion.