In this, the second volume covering the war on the Western Front, Peter Simkins describes the last great battles of attrition at Arras, on the Aisne and at Passchendaele in 1917. Then he moves on to relate the successive offensives launched by Germany in the spring and summer of 1918 in an effort to achieve victory or a favourable peace before American manpower proved decisive. Again, questioning and correcting several myths and long-held assumptions about the nature and conduct of war on the Western Front, the author also looks at the aftermath and legacy of the 'war to end wars'.
The catastrophe of the First World War, and the destruction, revolution, and enduring hostilities it wrought, make the issue of its origins a perennial puzzle. Since World War II, Germany has been viewed as the primary culprit. Now, in a major reinterpretation of the conflict, Sean McMeekin rejects the standard notions of the war’s beginning as either a Germano-Austrian preemptive strike or a “tragedy of miscalculation.” Instead, he proposes that the key to the outbreak of violence lies in St. Petersburg. It was Russian statesmen who unleashed the war through conscious policy decisions based on imperial ambitions in the Near East. Unlike their civilian counterparts in Berlin, who would have preferred to localize the Austro-Serbian conflict, Russian leaders desired a more general war so long as British participation was assured. The war of 1914 was launched at a propitious moment for harnessing the might of Britain and France to neutralize the German threat to Russia’s goal: partitioning the Ottoman Empire to ensure control of the Straits between the Black Sea and the Mediterranean. Nearly a century has passed since the guns fell silent on the western front. But in the lands of the former Ottoman Empire, World War I smolders still. Sunnis and Shiites, Arabs and Jews, and other regional antagonists continue fighting over the last scraps of the Ottoman inheritance. As we seek to make sense of these conflicts, McMeekin’s powerful exposé of Russia’s aims in the First World War will illuminate our understanding of the twentieth century.
This eleventh edition was developed during the encyclopaedia's transition from a British to an American publication. Some of its articles were written by the best-known scholars of the time and it is considered to be a landmark encyclopaedia for scholarship and literary style.
A history of World War I and an analysis of its causes & effects, plus how the conflict was fought. The Great War of 1914–1918 was the first mass conflict to fully mobilize the resources of industrial powers against one another, resulting in a brutal, bloody, protracted war of attrition between the world’s great economies. Now, one hundred years after the first guns of August rang out on the Western front, historian William Philpott reexamines the causes and lingering effects of the first truly modern war. Drawing on the experience of front line soldiers, munitions workers, politicians, and diplomats, War of Attrition explains for the first time why and how this new type of conflict was fought as it was fought; and how the attitudes and actions of political and military leaders, and the willing responses of their peoples, stamped the twentieth century with unprecedented carnage on—and behind—the battlefield. War of Attrition also establishes link between the bloody ground war in Europe and political situation in the wider world, particularly the United States. America did not enter the war until 1917, but, as Philpott demonstrates, the war came to America as early as 1914. By 1916, long before the Woodrow Wilson’s impassioned speech to Congress advocating for war, the United States was firmly aligned with the Allies, lending dollars, selling guns, and opposing German attempts to spread submarine warfare. War of Attrition skillfully argues that the emergence of the United States on the world stage is directly related to her support for the conflagration that consumed so many European lives and livelihoods. In short, the war that ruined Europe enabled the rise of America. Praise for War of Attrition A Wall Street Journal Best Non-Fiction Book of 2014 “An incisive, colorful book. . . . War of Attrition succeeds both as an argument and a gripping narrative.” —Geoffrey Wawro, author of A Mad Catastrophe “Philpott argues persuasively that the stunning victories of the last hundred days of the war were the result of a steep learning curve necessitated by earlier bloodbaths.” —The Wall Street Journal “An astute examination by an expert war historian that sifts through the collective theatres of attrition in this unprecedented slaughter.” —Kirkus Reviews
Facing Armageddon is the first scholarly work on the 1914-18 War to explore, on a world-wide basis, the real nature of the participants experience. Sixty-four scholars from all over the globe deliver the fruits of recent research in what civilians and servicemen passed through, in the air, on the sea and on land.
World War Three 1946 - Book One - The Red Tide - Stalin Strikes First - Illustrated, Revised and Annotated edition. An almost total re-write, including end notes that assist the reader down the path of a convincing, alternate history. An alternate history based on facts and logic. * On the border of West Germany; Stalin has 60 mechanized divisions, composed of the battle hardened veterans. * The US and Britain have demobilized their armies. * Britain is bankrupt and rationing bread. Its empire is crumbling and its colonies are in revolt. * Tens of thousands of USAAF and RAF planes have been dumped into the ocean, pushed into piles, crushed and left rotting in jungles around the world. * Gangs of deserters roam the European country side. * The US has entered a period of isolationism. * The people of Europe are starving. * The Germans are being brutally punished for their part in the war. * The Soviet Union has acquired the major secrets of every strategic weapons system that the West has developed since 1935, including the atomic bomb. They have prototypes of every major German Wonder Weapon system produced since 1943. * Greece, Italy and even France are in danger of turning Communist. * The US and Britain have large Communist parties with thousands of sympathizers * 90% of the industry in the US and Britain has been transformed from producing weapons, to consumer goods. * Europe is in chaos and Capitalism has failed in the eyes of many. These are facts, and this was the state of the world in May 1946. This alternate history proposes that this was the opportune time for Stalin to strike. This was his best chance of furthering the cause of Communism. This was his moment. The Red Tide is the first in this series of fictional books. Alternate history explores the great "what ifs" of time. This is one of those great what ifs. The ribbons of time start to unravel and diverge from ours in 1943. Slowly at first and then faster and faster until a fateful day in May 1946. The Soviets have stopped the production of the US atomic bomb by incapacitating the majority of the American program's scientists. This systematic crippling of the US atomic program convinces Stalin that the time is right to fulfill his deepest ambitions and once and for all rid Western Europe of Capitalism. We were able to obtain copies of many of the actual post war strategic plans of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff. Many of the strategies proposed in these works, were developed from these actual plans, and would have been in effect for much of the 1946-1948 era. What if German designed jet fighters, jet bombers, rocket powered interceptors, super tanks, undetectable submarines, guided air to air and ground to air missiles were all in the hands of Joseph Stalin. The Wasserfall and the X4 missiles will sweep the skies clear. The V2 will strike without warning. A guided V1 will unerringly strike unsuspecting targets The Seehund will make the oceans unsafe once again. The Me 262, Me 163, He 162 and the AR 234 along with the Mig 9 and Yak 15 will duel with the Meteor and Shooting Star. Over 800,000 hits on the AlternativeHistory.com website. These books are not written in any traditional style but is a combination of historical facts, oral histories, third person and first person accounts. I was inspired by "The Good War": An Oral History of World War Two (1984 in literature-1984) by Studs Terkel and Cornelius Ryan's wonderful books "The Longest Day" and "A Bridge too Far." There is no hero or character development. The story is the story and not the characters. We hear from those who felt, saw, ran, lost and won as well as from officials and historians. The story is told using the techniques of reporters, oral historians, historians and politicians. Although told in a short stories, vignettes and in an episodic manner, the novel builds on what has gone before.
The Three Emperors by Miranda Carter is the juicy, funny story of the three dysfunctional rulers of Germany, Russia and Great Britain at the turn of the last century, combined with a study of the larger forces around them. Three cousins. Three Emperors. And the road to ruin. As cousins, George V, Kaiser Wilhelm II and the last Tsar Nicholas II should have been friends - but they happened also to rule Europe's three most powerful states. This potent combination together with their own destructive personalities - petty, insecure, bullying, absurdly obsessive (stamp collecting, uniforms) - led not only to their own dramatic fallouts and falls from grace, but also to the outbreak of the First World War. Miranda Carter's riveting account of how three men who should have known better helped bring down an entire world is a gripping story of abdication, betrayal and murder. 'Fascinating. A wonderfully fresh and beautifully choreographed work of history' Mail on Sunday 'Miranda Carter's story is full of vivid quotations...a romp though the palaces of Europe in their last decades before Armageddon' Sunday Times 'Fascinating. Carter is a gifted storyteller and has written a very readable account' Independent 'That these three absurd men could ever have held the fate of Europe in their hands is a fact as hilarious as it is terrifying. I haven't enjoyed a historical biography this much since Lytton Strachey's Victoria' Zadie Smith