Prisoners of the Kaiser
Prisoners of the Kaiser

Author: Richard van Emden

Publisher: Pen and Sword

Published: 2009-06-11

Total Pages: 307

ISBN-13: 184468850X

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Based on interviews with survivors of German WWI prison camps, this account documents the heroism and perseverance of British troops in captivity. Drawing on the memories of the last surviving prisoners of the Great war, Prisoners of the Kaiser tells the dramatic story of life as a POW in Germany. Stories include the shock of capture on the Western Front, to the grind of daily life in imprisonment in German prison camps. Veterans recall work in salt mines, punishments, and escape attempts, as well as the torture of starvation and the relief at their eventual release. With over 200 photographs and illustrations, Prisoners of the Kaiser is filled with vivid, moving eye-witness accounts, almost all of which never been have published before.

Barbed Wire Disease
Barbed Wire Disease

Author: John Yarnall

Publisher: Pitkin

Published: 2011

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9780752456904

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The first book to examine treatment of both British and German prisoners of war during World War I.

The War Behind the Wire
The War Behind the Wire

Author: John Lewis-Stempel

Publisher: Weidenfeld & Nicolson

Published: 2014-01-30

Total Pages: 283

ISBN-13: 0297869256

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The last untold story of the First World War: the fortunes and fates of 170,000 British soldiers captured by the enemy. On capture, British officers and men were routinely told by the Germans 'For you the war is over'. Nothing could be further from the truth. British Prisoners of War merely exchanged one barbed-wire battleground for another. In the camps the war was eternal. There was the war against the German military, fought with everything from taunting humour to outright sabotage, with a literal spanner put in the works of the factories and salt mines prisoners were forced to slave in. British PoWs also fought a valiant war against the conditions in which they were mired. They battled starvation, disease, Prussian cruelties, boredom, and their own inner demons. And, of course, they escaped. Then escaped again. No less than 29 officers at Holzminden camp in 1918 burrowed their way out via a tunnel (dug with a chisel and trowel) in the Great Escape of the Great War. It was war with heart-breaking consequences: more than 12,000 PoWs died, many of them murdered, to be buried in shallow unmarked graves. Using contemporary records - from prisoners' diaries to letters home to poetry - John Lewis-Stempel reveals the death, life and, above all, the glory of Britain's warriors behind the wire. For it was in the PoW camps, far from the blasted trenches, that the true spirit of the Tommy was exemplified.

The Great War
The Great War

Author: Peter Hart

Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA

Published: 2013

Total Pages: 546

ISBN-13: 0199976279

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Named one of the Ten Best Books of 2013 by The Economist World War I altered the landscape of the modern world in every conceivable arena. Millions died; empires collapsed; new ideologies and political movements arose; poison gas, warplanes, tanks, submarines, and other technologies appeared. -Total war- emerged as a grim, mature reality. In The Great War, Peter Hart provides a masterful combat history of this global conflict. Focusing on the decisive engagements, Hart explores the immense challenges faced by the commanders on all sides. He surveys the belligerent nations, analyzing their strengths, weaknesses, and strategic imperatives. Russia, for example, was obsessed with securing an exit from the Black Sea, while France--having lost to Prussia in 1871, before Germany united--constructed a network of defensive alliances, even as it held a grudge over the loss of Alsace-Lorraine. Hart offers deft portraits of the commanders, the prewar plans, and the unexpected obstacles and setbacks that upended the initial operations.

Borrowed Soldiers
Borrowed Soldiers

Author: Mitchell A. Yockelson

Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press

Published: 2016-01-18

Total Pages: 370

ISBN-13: 0806155604

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The combined British Expeditionary Force and American II Corps successfully pierced the Hindenburg Line during the Hundred Days Campaign of World War I, an offensive that hastened the war’s end. Yet despite the importance of this effort, the training and operation of II Corps has received scant attention from historians. Mitchell A. Yockelson delivers a comprehensive study of the first time American and British soldiers fought together as a coalition force—more than twenty years before D-Day. He follows the two divisions that constituted II Corps, the 27th and 30th, from the training camps of South Carolina to the bloody battlefields of Europe. Despite cultural differences, General Pershing’s misgivings, and the contrast between American eagerness and British exhaustion, the untested Yanks benefited from the experience of battle-toughened Tommies. Their combined forces contributed much to the Allied victory. Yockelson plumbs new archival sources, including letters and diaries of American, Australian, and British soldiers to examine how two forces of differing organization and attitude merged command relationships and operations. Emphasizing tactical cooperation and training, he details II Corps’ performance in Flanders during the Ypres-Lys offensive, the assault on the Hindenburg Line, and the decisive battle of the Selle. Featuring thirty-nine evocative photographs and nine maps, this account shows how the British and American military relationship evolved both strategically and politically. A case study of coalition warfare, Borrowed Soldiers adds significantly to our understanding of the Great War.

Badges of the Regular Infantry, 1914–1918
Badges of the Regular Infantry, 1914–1918

Author: David Bilton

Publisher: Pen and Sword Military

Published: 2021-11-30

Total Pages: 871

ISBN-13: 1526758032

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Badges of the Regular Infantry, 1914-1918 is based on over thirty years research in museums, archives and collections. It is an exhaustive study of the development of the battalion, brigade and divisional signs of the twelve divisions that formed the regular army during the Great War. It also looks at the badges of those battalions left behind to guard the Empire. While the divisional signs are well known, there has been no authoritative work on the signs worn by the infantry battalions. The book will illustrate the cap and shoulder titles used, as well as cloth signs worn to provide easy recognition in the trenches. Each regular and reserve battalion of a regiment has a listing, which provides a brief history of the unit and detailed information on the badges worn. It is prodigiously illustrated and contains much information, like why a shape or color was chosen, when it was adopted, what size it was, whether it was worn on a helmet, what color the helmet was and even what colors were used on horse transport; the majority of this rich and detailed information has never been published before. What helps make the information accurate and authoritative is that much of it comes from an archive created at the time and from personal correspondence with hundreds of veterans in the 1980s, many of whom still had their badges and often had razor-sharp recollections about wearing them. The book also provides some comments from these veterans. Using the illustrations will allow many of those unidentified photos in family albums to come to life.

Enemy in our Midst
Enemy in our Midst

Author: Panikos Panayi

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2014-03-04

Total Pages: 325

ISBN-13: 184788184X

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With the approach of the First World War, the German community in Britain began to be assailed by a combination of government measures and popular hostility which resulted in attacks against individuals with German connections and confiscation of their property. From May 1915, a policy of wholesale internment and repatriation was to reduce the German population by more than half of its pre-war figure. The author of this study charts the growth of the German community in Britain before detailing the story of its destruction under the chauvinistic intolerance which gripped the country during the Great War.

Nelson at War 1914-1918
Nelson at War 1914-1918

Author: Roy Swales

Publisher: Pen & Sword Military

Published: 2019-10

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9781526761149

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The Royal Naval Division, a fighting formation of naval ratings and Royal Marines, was formed at the instigation of Winston Churchill at the beginning of the First World War. At first under the control of the Admiralty, it fought at the defense of Antwerp in October 1914 and through the whole of the Gallipoli campaign. In 1916 the Admiralty handed the Division over to Army control. Re-named the 63rd (Royal Naval) Division, it fought with great distinction and success with the BEF in France and Belgium. The division was always an odd ball formation, fighting under the White Ensign, and its eight naval battalions were named after great admirals. The greatest of them all, Vice Admiral Horatio, Viscount Nelson, gave his name to Nelson Battalion. Like the other naval battalions, the Nelson had a complement of officers and ratings of the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve and Royal Fleet Reserve seamen and stokers. Nearly 800 would lose their lives in the three and half years of its fighting existence. The book traces the history of Nelson Battalion from August 1914 to February 1918 when it was disbanded. Against the background of the battalions movements and battles the fate of its sailor-soldiers is revealed, more than 300 individuals being mentioned in the text. A full roll of honor is also included.