What is everyone reading on the First World War

Discussions on books and other reference material on the WW1, Inter-War or WW2 as well as the authors. Hosted by Andy H.
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Attrition
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Re: What is everyone reading on the First World War

#91

Post by Attrition » 09 Mar 2012, 09:12

The Operational Role of British Corps Command on the Western Front, 1914-18 by Andrew Simpson (the PhD off Ethos)

Very interesting on organisational nuts and bolts, chapter 4 (3rd Ypres) especially. I tried Zuber's book on Mons but took it back to the library yesterday as I think that to get the most out of it I need to devote my full attention to it. Reading it recreationally between other things made its stridency irritating.

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Re: What is everyone reading on the First World War

#92

Post by Attrition » 09 Mar 2012, 16:59

https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=34500
Xu Guoqi. Strangers on the Western Front: Chinese Workers in the Great War. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2011. 336 S. $39.95 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-674-04999-4.

Reviewed by Michael Neiberg (US Army War College)
Published on H-War (March, 2012)
Commissioned by Margaret Sankey

Neiberg on Xu

During a recent trip to Paris I found myself near Les Invalides and unexpectedly surrounded by policemen who were preventing pedestrians from either crossing the bridge or accessing the Métro. Soon a detachment of the Garde républicaine came riding by on their magnificent horses and wearing immaculate uniforms that looked like they came straight from the nineteenth century. I turned to a woman next to me and asked what was going on. She made a derisive sound and told me that President Sarkozy was entertaining the Chinese premier and they would be by at any moment. Sure enough, a procession of limousines and police cars came by with Sarkozy waving out the window to a crowd that barely registered his presence. After the show was over, the woman turned to me and said “Now I will be late. I hope Sarkozy gets enough money out of the Chinese to make it worth it.” Ctd....


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Re: What is everyone reading on the First World War

#93

Post by Imad » 20 Apr 2012, 12:38

The German Army on Vimy Ridge by Jack Sheldon.

Just couldn't wait for my copy of this one :D

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Re: What is everyone reading on the First World War

#94

Post by Attrition » 20 Apr 2012, 20:17

Mine arrived a couple of weeks ago....

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Re: What is everyone reading on the First World War

#95

Post by Imad » 20 Apr 2012, 23:44

Attrition wrote:Mine arrived a couple of weeks ago....
Let me have your input when you're done.

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Re: What is everyone reading on the First World War

#96

Post by Dutto1 » 14 Aug 2012, 23:30

Gallipoli by Les Carlyon.Pretty good up to now but seems to be more focused on the ANZAC aspect,lucliky i have Peter Hart's Gallipoli in the sidelines waiting.

Ron

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Re: What is everyone reading on the First World War

#97

Post by Dutto1 » 01 Oct 2012, 14:43

Have read two books in the last month.

The First Day of The Somme by Martin Middlebrook.


I have read this one before about 6 years ago it's a very good read with plenty of first-hand accounts from both sides of the wire.


All The King's Men by Nigel McCrery.


This book is about the famous Sandringham Company that went missing on the 12th August 1915 under the command of the King's Land Agent Captain Frank Beck.It's not a bad book but it's a subject that needs updating.
Last edited by Dutto1 on 02 Oct 2012, 11:05, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: What is everyone reading on the First World War

#98

Post by Attrition » 02 Oct 2012, 10:56

Imad wrote:
Attrition wrote:Mine arrived a couple of weeks ago....
Let me have your input when you're done.
I found it to be as good an example of the genre as Sheldon's earlier works. The worm's-eye view of life and death in the German army in the west is as eloquent as usual and a useful corrective to the anonymity that has been the fate of the German army in much anglophone writing. I'm most interested in the translations of the thinking and decisions of the higher commanders since this has explanatory power. With the excerpts from German writing in Terraine, Wynne's analysis of German defensive theory and practice, Sheldon gives us at least the outline of how it really was, during the dour defensive struggles of 1915-1917.

1915 arrived the other day....

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Re: What is everyone reading on the First World War

#99

Post by Imad » 02 Oct 2012, 14:35

I agree. Good job by Sheldon.

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Re: What is everyone reading on the First World War

#100

Post by Imad » 02 Oct 2012, 14:38

War on the Western Front edited by Gary Sheffield


Gem of a book. Gives a good run down on tactics, equipment and uniforms of Stosstruppen, Tommies, Poilus and Doughboys in the Great War. Contributions by five historians.

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Re: What is everyone reading on the First World War

#101

Post by Attrition » 12 Oct 2012, 23:12

The Unquiet Western Front: Britain's Role in Literature and History by Brian Bond.

As usual I started at the back with the last essay, Thinking the unthinkable, the First World World War as history which I rather liked, until this
Military historians nevertheless find these deep-rooted myths disturbing and are striving to dispel them, believing that they are not just narrow academic specialised issues, but have serious implications for our present attitudes and values and may well affect security decisions
so now we know, study of the Great War is intended to rehabilitate realpolitik.

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Re: What is everyone reading on the First World War

#102

Post by JeroenPollentier » 19 Oct 2012, 13:05

I'm reading "Drang nach Westen" by the Flemish historian Bruno Yammine. It deals with the German 'Flamenpolitik' in WW1, i.e. how they supported the Flemish independence movement to destabilize Belgium and use the Flemish people and economy for their own political, economic and strategic goals. Yamine argues that the Flemish movement wanted more rights and more respect for their language in an agressively francophone [my words] Belgium, but that they were still Belgian patriots at the same time. Flemish separatism was imposed artificially by the German imperialists (and this was already going on in the last decades of the 19th century), Yammine argues.

The books gives the impression that Flemish separatists = lackeys of the Germans; and that the Germans of 1870-1918 = nazis avant là lettre, who wanted to rule the world and kill everyone that had a different opinion or was of the "wrong" race. The author turns out to be a radical Belgian nationalist though, opposed to everything Flemish, so his thesis should be taken with a grain of salt, of course. Still, the parts where he makes an effort to remain neutral are fairly interesting

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Re: What is everyone reading on the First World War

#103

Post by Imad » 06 May 2014, 16:56

Catastrophe by Max Hastings

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Re: What is everyone reading on the First World War

#104

Post by Dutto1 » 15 Jul 2014, 12:43

I am currently reading-

The Other Side of the Wire Volume 1. With The German XIV Reserve Corps On The Somme, September 1914-June 1916 by Ralph J. Whitehead.

It is a outstanding book.Volume 2 is next.

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Re: What is everyone reading on the First World War

#105

Post by Furyman » 23 Aug 2014, 04:15

I've been up in the clouds ! Flying Fury by James McCudden..what a geat book ! Ace of The Black Cross by Ernst Udet,Winged Warfare by Billy Bishop,Black Fokker Leader By Peter Kilduff on Carl Degelow and Zepplins Over England by Kenneth Pullman are all excellent reads.Next up are Diary of a Night Bomber Pilot in WW1 by Clive Semple and then An American Pursuit Pilot in France 1917-1918.
Last fall I really struggled with The Guns of August....too much info for for me to comprehend in one go....if I was more "up" on the subject it probably would have been an easier read.

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