The Ravi Lancers
The Ravi Lancers

Author: John Masters

Publisher:

Published: 1972

Total Pages: 464

ISBN-13:

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January, 1914. They had suffered at the hands of the Raj; now they were being asked to die in its name? Reinforcing all that Prince Krishna Ram admires about Britain, in Warren Bateman it seems the Ravi Lancers have a decent commanding officer. A professional soldier, when the Rajah?s heir volunteers the Ravi Lancers to accompany the Indian forces destined for Europe, it is Bateman who guides their path. In the opening months of the First World War, the fields of Flanders could not have been a tougher proving ground for them. But battle affects men in different ways, and while the bloody carnage draws Krishna ever closer to his men, Bateman retreats behind rigid military patriotism. As they slowly forge themselves from a prince?s private army into a unit as effective as any regulars on the front line, Bateman tramples over their customs and traditions. A clash with Krishna is inevitable? In the trenches far from home, the tear between allegiance to their own ancient deities and their debt to an alien god of war starts to cause a wound deeper than any man-made weapon. Dying for a cause not their own, every man of the Ravi Lancers faces the ultimate choice: who do they follow? Making their fateful choice, the consequences for all will be severe? nothing will be the same again.

The Indian Army in the Two World Wars
The Indian Army in the Two World Wars

Author: Kaushik Roy

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2011-10-14

Total Pages: 579

ISBN-13: 900418550X

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This collection of seventeen essays based on archival data breaks new ground as regards the contribution of the Indian Army in British war effort during the two World Wars around various parts of the globe.

The Great War
The Great War

Author: Rakhshanda Jalil

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2021-12-30

Total Pages: 208

ISBN-13: 9389867266

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It is very hard to endure the bombs, Father. It will be difficult for anyone to survive and come back safe and sound from the war. The son who is very lucky will see his father and mother... (Extract from a letter by an Indian soldier serving in France, written on 14 January 1915 to his father) The Great War, as the First World War was referred to, saw the service of over 1.3 million Indians, of whom 74,000 never made it back home. For their families, the War was something they could not fully fathom. Soldiers from the Indian subcontinent won over 12,908 awards for bravery, including 11 Victoria Crosses. Yet this unprecedented show of valour by Indian soldiers remains largely unsung and unrecognised-particularly in India. Commemorating hundred years of the end of the First World War, this volume brings together diverse voices-Rabindranath Tagore, Mulk Raj Anand, Sarojini Naidu, Mohamed Ali, Chandradhar Sharma Guleri and many more-that reflect a variety of attitudes among Indians towards the War. Included too are Rakhshanda Jalil's original translations of the works of Urdu poets of the time capturing their responses to the War. This volume of writings, originally written in Urdu, Hindi, Bengali and English, attempts to recognise and remember the contribution of the unknown soldiers to the Great War.

Game for Anything
Game for Anything

Author: Gideon Haigh

Publisher: Aurum Press Limited

Published: 2005-04-01

Total Pages: 344

ISBN-13: 178131005X

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Gideon Haigh's new book covers all the great figures and major issues of cricket, by collecting all his best writing about the game. There are profiles of players past and present - Bradman, Ranjitsinhji, Benaud and Sobers from the past, Steve Waugh, Shane Warne and Wasim Akram from the present. He covers the big issues in the game: sledging, match-fixing, Kerry Packer, Zimbabwe, umpiring. He writes about cricket's best writers - Swanton, C.L.R. James - and ponders the game's most halcyon and unique aspects: slow bowling, captaincy, the essence of good batting. Haigh has now established himself as one of the finest writers on the game - author of one acknowledged masterpiece, Mystery Spinner, a comic classic, Many a Slip - and one of its most most shrewd commentators, who gets widely reviewed both by the cricket media and the national press. This book is likely to attract the same attention.

Now, God be Thanked
Now, God be Thanked

Author: John Masters

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2014-12-30

Total Pages: 849

ISBN-13: 1448214777

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The gripping story of a world – and a family – at war. The Rowlands, powerful and rich, are at the centre of British high society, but they are blind to the changes that the Great War will bring. For the younger Rowlands, the excitement of war becomes a bloody reality in the mud-filled trenches of Flanders. For the older generation left at home, they must learn to swim with the new tide or face total ruin. But this isn't just a war for the upper classes. The Strattons, who have worked in the Rowland's factories for two generations, find themselves fighting with them as shells explode and death surrounds them. The war will prove a great leveller, one that could bring the aristocracy down, and lift the working classes up. Not only class will be put to the test, for, when all the men are gone, it is time for women to enter the work force, taking the roles thought to have been impossible and improper for them in the past. First published in 1979, Now, God Be Thanked explores living at war from the perspectives of the young aristocratic officers, the working men who volunteered and showed themselves equal to those previously thought their 'betters', the men that stayed at home maintaining industry, the women who waited for their husbands and sons, often in vain, and the young women who had to carve out a new identity for themselves in a changing world.

No Man's Land
No Man's Land

Author: Eric J. Leed

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 1979-05-31

Total Pages: 276

ISBN-13: 9780521224710

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Based on the firsthand accounts of German, French, British, and American front-line soldiers, No Man's Land examines how the first modern, industrialized war transformed the character of the men who participated in it. Ancient myths about war eroded in the trenches, where the relentless monotony and impotence of the solder's life was interrupted only by unpredictable moments of annihilation. Professor Leed looks at how the traumatic experience of combat itself and the wholesale shattering of the conventions and ethical codes of normal social life turned ordinary civilians into 'liminal men', men living beyond the limits of the accepted and the expected. He uses the concept of liminality to illuminate the central features of the war experience: the separation from 'home': the experience of pollution, death, comradeship, and 'the uncanny': and the ambivalence of returning veterans about civilian society. In a final chapter Professor Leed assesses the long-term political impact of the front experience. He finds that the end of hostilities did not mean the end of the war experience as much as the beginning of a process by which that experience was framed, institutionalized, celebrated and relived in political action as well as in fiction.

Heart of War
Heart of War

Author: John Masters

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2015-03-24

Total Pages: 875

ISBN-13: 1448214785

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January 1 1916: Europe is bleeding to death as the corpses rot from Poland to Gallipoli in the cruel grip of the Great War... Heart of War follows the fate and fortunes of the Rowland family and those people bound up in their lives: the Cate squirearchy, the Strattons who manage the Rowland owned factory, and the humble, multi-talented Gorse family. In this all-consuming conflict, not a single family will remain untouched. With Quentin and Boy Rowland fighting in the trenches and Guy flying the skies above, it would be a miracle for the whole family to come home untouched... During the years 1916 and 1917, the appalling slaughter of the Somme and Passchendaele cuts deep into the hearts of British people as military conscription looms over Britain for the first time in a thousand years. As babies are born, fathers, sons and brothers killed, and women strike out in the work-place, Britain looks to never be the same again. First published in 1980 – book two in a three volume saga including Now, God be Thanked, and By The Green of Spring – Heart of War explores the emotional turmoil of Britain at war from every angle: from the eyes of the upper class aristocracy who are losing their grip on power, to the lower classes rising up as they fight alongside those previously thought their betters.