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por Holger Afflerbach

Nearly fourteen million people died during the First World War. But why, and for what reason? Already many contemporaries saw the Great War as a "pointless carnage" (Pope Benedict XV, 1917). Was there a point, at least in the eyes of the political and military decision makers? How did they justify the losses, and why did they not try to end the war earlier? In this volume twelve international specialists analyses and compares the hopes and expectations of the political and military see more leaders of the main belligerent countries and of their respective societies. It shows that the war aims adopted during the First World War were not, for the most part, the cause of the conflict, but a reaction to it, an attempt to give the tragedy a purpose - even if the consequence was to oblige the belligerents to go on fighting until victory. The volume tries to explain why - and for what - the contemporaries thought that they had to fight the Great War.

por Martin Gilbert

“A stunning achievement of research and storytelling” that weaves together the major fronts of WWI into a single, sweeping narrative (Publishers Weekly, starred review).
 
It was to be the war to end all wars, and it began at 11:15 on the morning of June 28, 1914, in an outpost of the Austro-Hungarian Empire called Sarajevo. It would officially end nearly five years later. Unofficially, however, it has never ended: Many of the horrors we live with today are rooted in the First see more World War.
 
The Great War left millions of civilians and soldiers maimed or dead. It also saw the creation of new technologies of destruction: tanks, planes, and submarines; machine guns and field artillery; poison gas and chemical warfare. It introduced U-boat packs and strategic bombing, unrestricted war on civilians and mistreatment of prisoners. But the war changed our world in far more fundamental ways than these.
 
In its wake, empires toppled, monarchies fell, and whole populations lost their national identities. As political systems and geographic boundaries were realigned, the social order shifted seismically. Manners and cultural norms; literature and the arts; education and class distinctions; all underwent a vast sea change.
 
As historian Martin Gilbert demonstrates in this “majestic opus” of historical synthesis, the twentieth century can be said to have been born on that fateful morning in June of 1914 (Publishers Weekly, starred review).
 
“One of the first books that anyone should read . . . to try to understand this war and this century.” —The New York Times Book Review
 

por Hew Strachan

This is the first truly definitive history of the First World War, the war that has done most to shape the twentieth century. The first generation of its historians had access to only a limited range of sources, and their focus was primarily on military events. More recent approaches have embraced cultural, diplomatic, economic, and social history. In Hew Strachan's authoritative and readable history these fresh perspectives are incorporated with the military and strategic narrative. The see more result is an account that breaks the bounds of national preoccupations to become both global and comparative. To Arms, the first of three volumes in this magisterial study, examines not only the causes of the war and its opening clashes on land and sea, but also the ideas that underpinned it, and the motivations of the people who supported it. It provides full and pioneering accounts of the war's finances, of the war in Africa, and of the Central Powers' bid to widen the war outside Europe.

por Hew Strachan

“This serious, compact survey of the war’s history stands out as the most well-informed, accessible work available.” (Los Angeles Times)

Nearly a century has passed since the outbreak of World War I, yet as military historian Hew Strachan (winner of the 2016 Pritzker Literature Award) argues in this brilliant and authoritative new book, the legacy of the “war to end all wars” is with us still. The First World War was a truly global conflict from the start, with many of the see more most decisive battles fought in or directly affecting the Balkans, Africa, and the Ottoman Empire. Even more than World War II, the First World War continues to shape the politics and international relations of our world, especially in hot spots like the Middle East and the Balkans.

Strachan has done a masterful job of reexamining the causes, the major campaigns, and the consequences of the First World War, compressing a lifetime of knowledge into a single definitive volume tailored for the general reader. Written in crisp, compelling prose and enlivened with extraordinarily vivid photographs and detailed maps, The First World War re-creates this world-altering conflict both on and off the battlefield—the clash of ideologies between the colonial powers at the center of the war, the social and economic unrest that swept Europe both before and after, the military strategies employed with stunning success and tragic failure in the various theaters of war, the terms of peace and why it didn’t last.

Drawing on material culled from many countries, Strachan offers a fresh, clear-sighted perspective on how the war not only redrew the map of the world but also set in motion the most dangerous conflicts of today. Deeply learned, powerfully written, and soon to be released with a new introduction that commemorates the hundredth anniversary of the outbreak of the war, The First World War remains a landmark of contemporary history.

por Bill Price

Contents


Introduction1914 – The War Begins1915 – From the Trenches to Turkey1916 - The Great Offensives1917 - War in the Mud1918 – Breakthrough









The battles of World War I were fought on an unprecedented scale. Both sides made use of industrial technology to inflict horrendous numbers of casualties on the other and armies composed of millions of men confronted each other in cataclysmic encounters, the like of which had never been seen see more before. On one side were the Central Powers of Germany and the Austro-Hungarian Empire, who were joined by the Turkish Ottoman Empire and by Bulgaria, while the other was made up of the Entente Powers, the Allies of France, Russia and Britain, together with the countries of the British Empire and Commonwealth, principally Canada, India, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. Over the course of the war, other countries also joined the Allies, including Italy, Romania and, in April 1917, America, whose vast resources of manpower and huge industrial capacity dramatically altered the balance of power on the battlefield.

por John Keegan

The First World War created the modern world. A conflict of unprecedented ferocity, it abruptly ended the relative peace and prosperity of the Victorian era, unleashing such demons of the twentieth century as mechanized warfare and mass death. It also helped to usher in the ideas that have shaped our times--modernism in the arts, new approaches to psychology and medicine, radical thoughts about economics and society--and in so doing shattered the faith in rationalism and liberalism that had see more prevailed in Europe since the Enlightenment. With The First World War, John Keegan, one of our most eminent military historians, fulfills a lifelong ambition to write the definitive account of the Great War for our generation.

Probing the mystery of how a civilization at the height of its achievement could have propelled itself into such a ruinous conflict, Keegan takes us behind the scenes of the negotiations among Europe's crowned heads (all of them related to one another by blood) and ministers, and their doomed efforts to defuse the crisis. He reveals how, by an astonishing failure of diplomacy and communication, a bilateral dispute grew to engulf an entire continent.

But the heart of Keegan's superb narrative is, of course, his analysis of the military conflict. With unequalled authority and insight, he recreates the nightmarish engagements whose names have become legend--Verdun, the Somme and Gallipoli among them--and sheds new light on the strategies and tactics employed, particularly the contributions of geography and technology. No less central to Keegan's account is the human aspect. He acquaints us with the thoughts of the intriguing personalities who oversaw the tragically unnecessary catastrophe--from heads of state like Russia's hapless tsar, Nicholas II, to renowned warmakers such as Haig, Hindenburg and Joffre. But Keegan reserves his most affecting personal sympathy for those whose individual efforts history has not recorded--"the anonymous millions, indistinguishably drab, undifferentially deprived of any scrap of the glories that by tradition made the life of the man-at-arms tolerable."

By the end of the war, three great empires--the Austro-Hungarian, the Russian and the Ottoman--had collapsed. But as Keegan shows, the devastation ex-tended over the entirety of Europe, and still profoundly informs the politics and culture of the continent today. His brilliant, panoramic account of this vast and terrible conflict is destined to take its place among the classics of world history.

With 24 pages of photographs, 2 endpaper maps, and 15 maps in text

por Michael Howard

By the time the First World War ended in 1918, eight million people had died in what had been perhaps the most apocalyptic episode the world had known. This Very Short Introduction provides a concise and insightful history of the 'Great War', focusing on why it happened, how it was fought, and why it had the consequences it did. It examines the state of Europe in 1914 and the outbreak of war; the onset of attrition and crisis; the role of the US; the collapse of Russia; and the see more weakening and eventual surrender of the Central Powers. Looking at the historical controversies surrounding the causes and conduct of war, Michael Howard also describes how peace was ultimately made, and the potent legacy of resentment left to Germany. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.

por Freya Hardy

ContentsIntroduction
Gunther Pluschow: Escape from Donington Park
M C Simmons: The Canadian
Simmons Escapes Again
Escape Number Three
The Famous Holzminden Escape
E H Jones and C W Hill: The Madmen’s Plan
Frank Savicki: Doughboy on Tour


'He who runs the inside controls the outside.'
(Mexican Mafia prison gang saying)
  
At the end of the 19th century, following the Crimean and Austro-Prussian wars, the Hague Conventions were initiated by Tsar see more Nicholas II, so that politicians from all over the world could thrash out the legalities of war, particularly with reference to captured soldiers. Chapter two of the convention, which was eventually signed in 1907, states that:
‘Prisoners of war are in the power of the hostile Government, but not of the individuals or corps who capture them. They must be humanely treated. All their personal belongings, except arms, horses and military papers, remain their property.’ 


The principal countries that would go on to comprise both the Triple Entente (France, Russia and the United Kingdom), and the Triple Alliance (Germany, Austria-Hungary and Italy) in World War I, signed this document, and so were bound by international law to abide by it. However, nobody expected the scale of World War I – a war so destructive and all encompassing that it would one day rank high among the deadliest conflicts of all time. It was a dark and desperate time, and in the event, the standards laid out in The Hague Convention might as well have been written on toilet paper for all the relevance it had to the realities of POW life.

por Scott S. F. Meaker

 World War One: A Concise History - The Great War The First World War was supposed to be the war that ended all wars, hence the name, the Great War. 
The Great War was off to a bad start from the German perspective. The plan was to fend off France and Russia while focusing on the main purpose, helping Austria-Hungary deal with Serbia. 
The loss of life in the Great War was immense.


Scott’s Other Books: 
***Unforgettable World War II: Aftermath of the Extraordinary see more Second World War. 

***Unforgettable Vietnam War: The American War in Vietnam - War in the Jungle. 

***Hitler's War and the Horrific Account of the Holocaust 

***On the Brink of Nuclear War: Cuban Missile Crisis - Soviet Union, Cuba and the United States 

***The Forgotten Heroes: Untold Stories of the Extraordinary World War II - Courage, Survival, Resistance and Rescue. 
***The Forgotten Women Heroes: Second World War Untold Stories - The Women Heroes in the Extraordinary World War Two.


*** This is a (First World War) history book***

por Hew Strachan

The First World War, now a century ago, still shapes the world in which we live, and its legacy lives on, in poetry, in prose, in collective memory and political culture. By the time the war ended in 1918, millions lay dead. Three major empires lay shattered by defeat, those of Germany, Austria-Hungary, and the Ottomans. A fourth, Russia, was in the throes of a revolution that helped define the rest of the twentieth century. The Oxford History of the First World War brings together in one see more volume many of the most distinguished historians of the conflict, in an account that matches the scale of the events. From its causes to its consequences, from the Western Front to the Eastern, from the strategy of the politicians to the tactics of the generals, they chart the course of the war and assess its profound political and human consequences. Chapters on economic mobilization, the impact on women, the role of propaganda, and the rise of socialism establish the wider context of the fighting at sea and in the air, and which ranged on land from the trenches of Flanders to the mountains of the Balkans and the deserts of the Middle East. First published for the 90th anniversary of the 1918 Armistice, this highly illustrated revised edition contains significant new material to mark the 100th anniversary of the war's outbreak.