No Labour, No Battle
No Labour, No Battle

Author: John Starling

Publisher: The History Press

Published: 2014-09-01

Total Pages: 462

ISBN-13: 0750958790

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From 1917 British soldiers who were unfit or too old for front-line service were to serve unarmed and within the range of German guns for weeks or even months at a time undertaking labouring tasks. Both at the time and since they have arguably not been given the recognition they deserve for this difficult and dangerous work. From non-existence in 1914, by November 1918 Military Labour had developed into an organised and efficient 350,000-strong Labour Corps, supported by Dominion and foreign labour of more than a million men. Following the war, the grim and solemn tasks of clearing battlefields and constructing cemeteries, which continued until 1921, were also the responsibility of the Corps. Here, John Starling and Ivor Lee bring together extensive research from both primary and secondary sources to reveal how the vital, yet largely unreported, role played by these brave soldiers was crucial to achieving victory in 1918.

No Ordinary Time
No Ordinary Time

Author: Doris Kearns Goodwin

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 2008-06-30

Total Pages: 790

ISBN-13: 1439126194

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Doris Kearns Goodwin’s Pulitzer Prize–winning classic about the relationship between Franklin D. Roosevelt and Eleanor Roosevelt, and how it shaped the nation while steering it through the Great Depression and the outset of World War II. With an extraordinary collection of details, Goodwin masterfully weaves together a striking number of story lines—Eleanor and Franklin’s marriage and remarkable partnership, Eleanor’s life as First Lady, and FDR’s White House and its impact on America as well as on a world at war. Goodwin effectively melds these details and stories into an unforgettable and intimate portrait of Eleanor and Franklin Roosevelt and of the time during which a new, modern America was born.

The Egyptian Labor Corps
The Egyptian Labor Corps

Author: Kyle J. Anderson

Publisher: University of Texas Press

Published: 2021-12-14

Total Pages: 282

ISBN-13: 1477324569

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During World War I, the British Empire enlisted half a million young men, predominantly from the countryside of Egypt, in the Egyptian Labor Corps (ELC) and put them to work handling military logistics in Europe and the Middle East. British authorities reneged on their promise not to draw Egyptians into the war, and, as Kyle Anderson shows, the ELC was seen by many in Egypt as a form of slavery. The Egyptian Labor Corps tells the forgotten story of these young men, culminating in the essential part they came to play in the 1919 Egyptian Revolution. Combining sources from archives in four countries, Anderson explores Britain’s role in Egypt during this period and how the ELC came to be, as well as the experiences and hardships these men endured. As he examines the ways they coped—through music, theater, drugs, religion, strikes, and mutiny—he illustrates how Egyptian nationalists, seeing their countrymen in a state akin to slavery, began to grasp that they had been racialized as “people of color.” Documenting the history of the ELC and its work during the First World War, The Egyptian Labor Corps also provides a fascinating reinterpretation of the 1919 revolution through the lens of critical race theory.

The First World War and Health
The First World War and Health

Author:

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2020-04-14

Total Pages: 540

ISBN-13: 9004428747

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The First World War and Health: Rethinking Resilience considers how the First World War (1914-1918) affected mental and physical health, its treatment, and how the victims – not only soldiers and sailors, but also medics, and even society as a whole - tried to cope with the wounds sustained. The volume, which contains over twenty articles divided into four sections (military, personal, medical, and societal resilience), therefore aims to broaden the scope of resilience: resilience is more than the personal ability to cope with hardship; if society as a whole cannot cope with, or even obstructs, personal recovery, resilience is difficult to achieve. Contributors are Carol Acton, Julie Anderson, Leo van Bergen, Ana Carden-Coyne, Cédric Cotter, Dominiek Dendooven, Christine van Everbroeck, Daniel Flecknoe, Christine E. Hallett, Hans-Georg Hofer, Edgar Jones, Wim Klinkert, Harold Kudler, Alexander McFarlane, Johan Meire, Heather Perry, Jane Potter, Fiona Reid, Jeffrey S. Reznick, Stephen Snelders, Hanneke Takken, Pieter Trogh, and Eric Vermetten. See inside the book.

The Coolie's Great War
The Coolie's Great War

Author: Radhika Singha

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2020-12-15

Total Pages:

ISBN-13: 0197566901

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Though largely invisible in histories of the First World War, over??550,000 men in the ranks of the Indian army were non-combatants. From the porters, stevedores and construction workers in the Coolie Corps to those who maintained supply lines and removed the wounded from the battlefield, Radhika Singha recovers the story of this unacknowledged service. The labor regimes built on the backs of these 'coolies' sustained the military infrastructure of empire; their deployment in interregional arenas bent to the demands of global war. Viewed as racially subordinate and subject to 'non-martial' caste designations, they fought back against their status, using the warring powers' need for manpower as leverage to challenge traditional service hierarchies and wage differentials. The Coolie's Great War views that global conflict through the lens of Indian labor, constructing a distinct geography of the war--from tribal settlements and colonial jails, beyond India's frontiers, to the battlefronts of France and Mesopotamia.

Capturing Hill 70
Capturing Hill 70

Author: Douglas E. Delaney

Publisher: UBC Press

Published: 2016-11-07

Total Pages: 333

ISBN-13: 0774833629

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In August 1917, the Canadian Corps captured Hill 70, a vital piece of ground just north of the French industrial town of Lens. The Canadians suffered some 5,400 casualties and defeated three days of determined German counter attacks. This spectacularly successful but shockingly costly battle was as innovative as Vimy, yet only a handful of Canadians have heard of it or of subsequent attempts to capture Lens, which resulted in nearly 3,300 more casualties. In Capturing Hill 70, leading military historians mark the centenary of this triumph by dissecting different facets of the battle, from planning and the conduct of operations to long-term repercussions and commemoration. This richly illustrated and thought-provoking book reinstates Hill 70 to its rightful place among the pantheon of battles that helped forge the reputation of the famed Canadian Corps during the First World War, and it sheds new light on the key role played by Lieutenant-General Sir Arthur Currie, who fought his first major action as commander of the Canadian Corps.

Expeditionary Forces in the First World War
Expeditionary Forces in the First World War

Author: Alan Beyerchen

Publisher: Springer Nature

Published: 2019-09-03

Total Pages: 358

ISBN-13: 303025030X

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When war engulfed Europe in 1914, the conflict quickly took on global dimensions. Although fighting erupted in Africa and Asia, the Great War primarily pulled troops from around the world into Europe and the Ottoman Empire. Amid the fighting were large numbers of expeditionary forces—and yet they have remained largely unstudied as a collective phenomenon, along with the term “expeditionary force” itself. This collection examines the expeditionary experience through a wide range of case studies. They cover major themes such as the recruitment, transport, and supply of far-flung troops; the cultural and linguistic dissonance, as well as gender relations, navigated by soldiers in foreign lands; the political challenge of providing a rationale to justify their dislocation and sacrifice; and the role of memory and memorialization. Together, these essays open up new avenues for understanding the experiences of soldiers who fought the First World War far from home.

War and Empire in Mauritius and the Indian Ocean
War and Empire in Mauritius and the Indian Ocean

Author: A. Jackson

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2001-08-08

Total Pages: 256

ISBN-13: 1403919542

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By examining Mauritius and the Indian Ocean, this unique synthesis of imperial and naval/military history, reveals the depths of colonial involvement in the Second World War and the role of colonies in British strategic planning from the eighteenth century. In the century of total war, the British Empire was fully mobilized. The Mauritian home front became regimented, troops were recruited for service overseas, the Eastern fleet guarded the Indian Ocean, and Mauritius became a base for SOE operations and intelligence-gathering for Bletchley.

Contact Zones of the First World War
Contact Zones of the First World War

Author: Anna Maguire

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2021-08-26

Total Pages: 245

ISBN-13: 1108996914

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This is the first in-depth and comparative study of the experience of colonial encounters for troops from the British Empire during the First World War. Drawing on a rich variety of textual and visual material, Anna Maguire explores new contact zones that materialised beyond the battlefield, on troopships, in ports, in military camps and hospitals, in cafes and city streets. She reveals how the colonial mobilisation of troops during the conflict prompted the emergence of spaces for interactions, fleeting moments or ongoing relationships. Through their personal experiences, she uncovers how men from New Zealand, South Africa and the West Indies viewed themselves and their identities during a time of global conflict, simultaneously asserting the strength of the existing colonial order and challenging its enactment, through contact, conflict and collaboration. In spaces away from the frontlines, Maguire uses these cultural encounters of colonial troops to offer a more intricate understanding of imperial power relations.

Military Occupations in First World War Europe
Military Occupations in First World War Europe

Author: Sophie De Schaepdrijver

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2016-04-14

Total Pages: 139

ISBN-13: 1317587138

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Our view of the First World War is dominated by the twin images of the fronts and the home fronts yet the war also generated a third type of ‘front’, that of military occupation. Vast areas of Europe experienced the war under a military regime and this book deals with the occupations by the German and Austro-Hungarian empires. Their conquests ranged from Lille in the West to the Don River in the East, and from Courland in the north to Friuli and Montenegro in the south. They encompassed capital cities such as Brussels, Warsaw, Belgrade and Bukarest, as well as areas of crucial economic importance. Millions of people experienced military occupation and, even though they were civilians, the war had a deep impact on their lives. Conversely, occupied territories influenced the states that had conquered them and on the way these states waged war. The chapters in this book analyze military occupation in 1914-1918 both from the point of view of the occupied and from the point of view of the occupier. They study counter-insurgency warfare, forced labour, food regimes, underground patriotism, and cultural policies. They demonstrate that military occupation was an essential dimension of the Great War. This book was originally published as a special issue of First World War Studies.