World War I
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After the Final Whistle: The First Rugby World Cup and the First World War
When Britain’s empire went to war in August 1914, rugby players were the first to volunteer: they led from the front and paid a disproportionate price. When the Armistice came after four long years, their war game was over; even as the last echo of the guns of November faded, it was time to play rugby again. As Allied troops of all nations waited to return home, sport occupied their minds and bodies. In 1919, a grateful Mother Country hosted a rugby tournament for the King’s Cup, to be presented by King George V at Twickenham Stadium. It was a moment of triumph, a celebration of military victory, of Allied unity and of rugby values, moral and physical. Never before had teams from Australia, Canada, New Zealand, South Africa, Britain and France been assembled in one place. Rugby held the first ever ‘World Cup’ – football would not play its own version until 1930. In 2015 the modern Rugby World Cup returns to England and Twickenham as the world remembers the Centenary of the Great War. With a foreword by Jason Leonard, this is the story of rugby’s journey through the First World War to its first World Cup, and how those values endure today.
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Russia: Revolution and Civil War 1917-1921
‘A masterpiece of history’
DAILY TELEGRAPHBetween 1917 and 1921 a devastating struggle took place in Russia following the collapse of the Tsarist empire. Many regard this savage civil war as the most influential event of the modern era. An incompatible White alliance of moderate socialists and reactionary monarchists stood little chance against Trotsky’s Red Army and Lenin’s single-minded Communist dictatorship. Terror begat terror, which in turn led to even greater cruelty with man’s inhumanity to man, woman and child. The struggle became a world war by proxy as Churchill deployed weaponry and troops from the British empire, while armed forces from the United States, France, Italy, Japan, Poland and Czechoslovakia played rival parts.
Using the most up to date scholarship and archival research, Antony Beevor, author of the acclaimed international bestseller Stalingrad, assembles the complete picture in a gripping narrative that conveys the conflict through the eyes of everyone from the worker on the streets of Petrograd to the cavalry officer on the battlefield and the woman doctor in an improvised hospital.
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£8.40£10.40Russia: Revolution and Civil War 1917-1921
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St Helens Pals War Diary
The Great War Diary of the St Helens Pals, the 11th Battalion South Lancashire Regiment, following their journey through France and Flanders from 1914 to 1918.Read more
£7.60St Helens Pals War Diary
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The First World War: A Complete History
“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 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
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The First World War: A New History
A brilliant and penetrating new history of the First World War by one of the world’s foremost experts on the conflict. Reissued with a new introduction from the author.Hew Strachan is one of the world’s foremost experts on the Great War of 1914-18. His on-going three-volume history of the conflict, the first of which was published in 2001, is likely to become the standard academic reference work: Max Hastings called it ‘one of the most impressive books of modern history in a generation’, while Richard Holmes hailed it as a ‘towering achievement’.
Now, Hew Strachan brings his immense knowledge to a one-volume work aimed squarely at the general reader. The inspiration behind the major Channel 4 series of the same name, to which Hew was chief consultant, THE FIRST WORLD WAR is a significant addition to the literature on this subject, taking as it does a uniquely global view of what is often misconceived as a prolonged skirmish on the Western Front. Exploring such theatres as the Balkans, Africa and the Ottoman Empire, Strachan assesses Britain’s participation in the light of what became a struggle for the defence of liberalism, and show how the war shaped the ‘short’ twentieth century that followed it.
Accessible, compelling and utterly convincing, this is modern history writing at its finest.
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£7.30£10.40The First World War: A New History
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The Oxford History of the First World War
bHistories you can trust./bThe 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 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.
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£11.20£12.30The Oxford History of the First World War
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The Tommy of the First World War
‘Tommy Atkins’ has been the nickname given to soldiers of the British Army since the eighteenth century. The origin of the name is shrouded in mystery, but it has stuck. By 1914, the Tommy had changed dramatically since the days of Queen Victoria’s redcoats. Edwardian army reforms had improved recruitment and training and had re-organised the regular forces and reserves.When the First World War broke out, the system went smoothly into action and the BEF was carried across the Channel to France. But the British Army was relatively small and the First World War required a rapid expansion of the ranks. Lord Kitchener’s call for men raised the so-called New Army, half a million strong, but more were needed and conscription came into force. Many of those who volunteered together were also trained together and fought side by side in battle. In the fire of machine guns and amid the shell-fire, large numbers of men from city parishes, towns and villages fell together. Neil Storey takes us through the recruitment, equipment, training and experiences of these soldiers in the First World War: the Tommies, ‘the poor bloody infantry’.
This book is part of the Britain’s Heritage series, which provides definitive introductions to the riches of Britain’s past, and is the perfect way to get acquainted with the Tommy of the First World War.
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World War 1 for Teens: Amazing Facts, Key Players, Heroic Acts, Major Battles, and How the War Changed the World (What You Need to Know)
World War 1 for Teens will give you more than just the dates, facts, and figures; it will also tell the fascinating stories of what really happened, giving you all the details of how the battles were fought, and highlighting the key players. After reading this, you will know:
● The causes of the war and who was involved.
● The major battles and the turning points of the war, along with statistics and incredible stories of heroism.
● The new technology and weapons used in the war and the effects they had.
● What it was like to be a soldier in the trenches and what trench warfare was all about.
● What Winston Churchill was doing in this war.
● How General von Hindenburg won a major victory over Russia at Tannenberg in 1914.
● Why Woodrow Wilson kept America neutral during the first half of the war and why he finally stepped in from 1917 until the end.Filled with awesome tales of heroism and bravery, you will be transported back into the middle of the First World War. Read about leaders who fought for peace, and those who only wanted more power and territory. Experience the victories and defeats as if you were on the battlefield with the soldiers.
Also, look out for these add-ons throughout the book with some incredible extra insights into the war:
❖ AMAZING FACTS
Take a jump into the muddy trenches and find out everything you can about the war that changed the modern world!
Scroll up and click BUY NOW to step into World War 1!
Great for teenagers, but also children and kids of all ages – and even adults!
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