Posts Tagged ‘First World War’
The causes and origins of the First World War
Posted: June 22, 2012 in 1914Tags: austro-hungary, First World War, origins of war, princip, the kaiser, war one
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All Quiet on the Western Front
Posted: June 17, 2012 in 1914, 1915, 1916, 1917, 1918, Durham Light Infantry, Royal Air Force, Royal Flying Corps, Western Front, YpresTags: doddles, fear boredom, First World War, lady denbigh, proximity to death, tommy, western front, ww1
This is the must read at the top of any list of TEN.
See the film produced in 1930 too.
Can anything beat it? Let’s see how Daniel Radcliffe performs in this role when the latest remake comes up for release in 2014 and some of the myths of the First World War are given another boast.
The reality?
Fear
boredom
Junior Officer’s who did their best and their utmost
Generals who could have done no differently and did look for different ways to end the war (innovations, new fronts)
Before you get swamped by the new titles that will inevitably feature over the next couple of years, what would you considered to be the must reads?
I’ve just started ‘Tommy’ by the late Richard Holmes and recently completed the diary of the lady nurse, Lady Dorothy (Doddles) Denbigh which, despite the proximity to death, was somewhat alleviated by frequent rides, and fine dining with royalty and generals.
Who are the First World War scholars worth reading?
Posted: June 16, 2012 in ScholarshipTags: bill gamage, bryn hammond, dale blair, denis winter, desmond morton, dinkum diggers, First World War, georgian court university, history, imperial war museum, len smith, lyn macdonald, martin middlebrook, mike stedman, peter hart, peter simkins, peter stanley, scott bennett, tim bowman, tim cook, tony ashworth
Peter Simkins’ presentation to the Western Front Association (WFA)
on 14 April 2012 Mansfield College, Oxford read like a who’s who of the leading scholars on World War One history.
Prof Peter Simkins is the President of the WFA
He has been a professional historian for nearly 50 years (he graduated from the University of Liverpool in 1961) and as had 35 years at the Imperial War Museum.
The topic was something he looked in the 1990s: The state of scholarship in relation to WW1 from Junior Ranks and other ranks. Not memoirs, but studies.
He suggests caution over colouring how we see WW1 from war poets, to authors, to TV companies and even the well-rehearsed lines of veterans.
Over the last twenty+ years the key shifts in studying the First World War have been:
- Opening of the public record
- Assemblies of papers
- Growth of the WFA
The questions he asks are:
- What motivates a unit to perform well or fail badly in a particular action?
- What are the effects of continuity?
- How often were officers briefed or rehearsed?
- Was there a social cohesion?
Tim Cook No Place to Run: The Canadian Corps and Gas Warfare in the First World War
Dale Blair, Dinkum Diggers
Dale Blair The Battle of Bellicourt Tunnel
Tim Bowman, Irish Regiments of WW1
Scott Bennett, Professor of History, Georgian Court University
Bill Gamage
Bryn Hammond Cambria ‘Acting Head of Collections’ Imperial War Museum
Paul Kobes (Link)
Author of Cambrai 1917: The Myth of the First Great Tank Battle (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2008)
Glyn Harper ‘Dark Journey’ Dark Journey: Three key NZ battles of the western front
Peter Hart “Raw courage. Doggedness.”
Richard Holmes. ‘Tommy’
Geoffrey Ratcliff Husband (2012) Joffrey’s War: A Sherwood Forester in the Great War
A corrective to Blackadder goes forth, Birdsong and Downton Abbey.
An invaluable record of ta British Soldier who did his bit, but he only went over the top twice lasting 35 minutes (Author), J. M. Bourne (Editor), Bob Bushaway (Editor)
Julian Lewis-Temple (Link)
Peter Little (Link)
Lyn Macdonald ‘They Call it Passchandaele’
Helen McCartney, Citizen Soldiers.
‘Scholarly and very readable’.
Martin Middlebrook ‘The First Day of the Somme’.
Desmond Morton ‘When Your Number’s Up: The Canadian Soldier in the First World War ISBN 0-394-22388-8, (1994)
Jack Sheldon. http://www.jacksheldon.net/
• Le Cateau
• The Battle for Vimy Ridge
• The German Army at Cambrai
• The German Army at Ypres 1914 etc:
Len Smith, 5th French Division Between Mutiny and Disobedience
Soldiers developed self-determined rules of how they would or would not fight.
Peter Stanley. Men of Mont St Quentin September 1918. 9 men.
Mike Steadman. Manchester units.
Denis Winter ‘Haig’s Command – A Reassessment (1991)
I enjoy a series like this as however reduced every author and each era has its own take on the what, ehy, how, and who of WW1: the only thing they agree on is when. 1914-1918
Today a pocket series like this would be a dowlsd; though is the App going to help sell a newspaper?
The never ending war, rather than the war to end all wars: death as a way of life
Posted: June 12, 2012 in 1914, Western FrontTags: centenary, combatants, First World War, great war, grest, pointless war, war
However horrible and however pointless war appears to be, the very fact that some conflict is always in the news makes one wonder if it isn’t in our nature to be forever at eachother’s throats; perhaps a warmongering gene will be found to define us, just as we have a gene that makes us think in metaphors and so devise new ways of doing things (such as killing each other or defending ourselves from death).
Here’s a thought for a story, what if instead of the centenary of the First War in 2014 it was instead the 100th year of a conflict that is yet to end, the entire world bleeding itself dry and perfecting the means to slaughter, defend and produce ranks of fresh combatants in perfect self-destructive balance?
Missing in Action
Posted: June 7, 2012 in 1917, Machine Gun Corps, Passchendaele, Western Front, YpresTags: dick piper, First World War, gartenfeld, memorial
In 1992 Jack Wilson MM, a former Machine Gunner, visited the Western Front for only the second time in 75 years. (In 1919 he had gone to the grave of his younger brother Flight Lieutenant William Nixon Wilson ‘Billy’ who had died a few months AFTER Armistice delivering mail across Belgium in his RAF DeHavilland Bomber. He as only 19 or 20 a the time.
Here Jack is with the author Lynn Macdonald in front of the name of Gartenfeld, a fellow machine gunner who Jack had seen die in late October 1917 out on the edge of the Passchendaele Front; later this day he finds the spot where he ‘buried’ both Gartenfeld and Dick Piper.
Decorated ‘in the field’ with the Military Medal by Brigadier Sandilands
Posted: June 6, 2012 in 1915, Durham Light Infantry, Machine Gun CorpsTags: durham light infantry, First World War, Machine Gun Corps, military medal
A studio photo taken soon after joining the Durham Light Infantry, March 1915 before transfer to the Machine Gun Corps or ‘Suicide Squad’
This picture used in the Consett local paper when Jack Wilson was awarded the Military Medal
(This photograph from a faded original cutting from the paper originally kept by Jack’s mother Sarah Wilson nee Nixon)
A 95 year old Machine Gunner veteran is introduced to the King of Belgium at the Menin Gate, Ypres
Posted: May 9, 2012 in UncategorizedTags: First World War, jack wilson, king of belgium, Machine Gun Corps, menin gate, paschandale, royaul flying corps, western front, Ypres
John Arthur Wilson MM (Jack) meeting the King of Belgium in 1992 at the Menin Gate, Ypres. Jack served as a machine gunner on the Western Front from April 1915 to 25th December 1917 at which point he transferred to the Royal Flying Corps where he trained as a fighter pilot only just missing a return to Northern France in the late autumn of 1918.
Gerald Woods, Machine Gun Corps
Posted: November 13, 2011 in 1917, Machine Gun Corps, Western Front, YpresTags: First World War, MCG
Machine Gun Corps Officer 1917
Posted: November 11, 2011 in 1918, Machine Gun Corps, PasschendaeleTags: 1917, First World War, MCG, officer
