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World War 1 One ww1 wwII greatwar great 1914 1918 first battalion regiment
Recomended reading on the subject of the Great War 1914-1918
At discounted prices.
Army War College (U.S.)
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Artillery Operations of the Ninth British Corps at Messines, June 1917
Nigel Cave
The shell-ravaged landscape of Hill 60, some three miles south east of Ypres, conceals a labyrinth of tu nnels and underground workings. This book offers a guide to the memorials, cemeteries and museums at the site 'More information on:
Hill 60: Ypres (Battleground Europe)
Glyn Harper
They shall not grow old...In 1914, despite being forbidden, many a Kiwi soldier's kitbag included a portable camera, known as 'The Soldiers' Kodak'. In a major research project, Glyn Harper and the Queen Elizabeth II Army Memorial Museum have combined official war photographs with more informal images to produce a moving visual history. While primarily drawn from the Museum's collection, many photographs from private sources have been included. From more than 25,000 photographs, just over 800 have been selected - most of which have never been published. Chosen to depict each theatre of the 1914-18 war, including Gallipoli, Sinai-Palestine and the Western Front, poignant images from the home front are also included, along with graphic portraits of wounded soldiers, whose treatment marked the beginnings of modern plastic surgery. Despite the First World War being described as the most important and far-reaching political and military event of the twentieth century, pivotal in forging ourMore information on:
New Zealand and the Great War: A Photographic Record of New Zealanders at War 1914-1918
Will Davies
'Ten seconds, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one - fire! Down goes the firing switch. At first, nothing. Then from deep down there comes a low rumble, and it as if the world is spliting apart...' On 7th June 1917, nineteen massive mines exploded beneath Messines Ridge near Ypres. The largest man-made explosion in history up until that point shattered the landscape and smashed open the German lines. Ten thousand German soldiers died. Two of the mines - at Hill 60 and the Caterpillar - were fired by men of the 1st Australian Tunnelling Company, comprising miners and engineers rather than parade-ground soldiers. Drawing on the diaries of one of the key combatants, "Benealth Hill 60" tells the little-known, devastatingly brutal true story of this subterranean war waged beneath the Western Front - a stygian battle-ground where men drowned in viscous chalk, suffocated in the blue gray clay, choked on poisonous air or died in the darkness, caught up up in vicious hand-to-hanMore information on:
Beneath Hill 60 [Paperback]
Col. H. C. Wylly
Tightly written regimental history of the Border Regiment in the Great War, which blends the story of its 13 battalions in six theatres of war into one continuous narrative. lllustrated by 14 photographic plates and seven maps.More information on:
Border Regiment in the Great War
Reproduction of a book published before 1923More information on:
Diary of 2/4th Battalion the Border Regiment, 1914-19
Charles Herbert Lander
Charles Lander, had to wait until the chest measurement was reduced before he could apply as a private soldier with the Royal Warwickshire Regiment. Upon his commission, Charles was to serve in the 10th Battalion which was a part of 57th Brigade, 19th (Western) Division. Read on, and let Charles take you into the tumultuous world of the Great War, where moments of comedy, low points and sheer terror combine; and wonder as to how humans could endure, go home and live again in everyday society. Lt. Charles Herbert Lander truly had the skill to pull back the curtains on the window of time; with his words, he will take you to the now quiet fields of France and Flanders, now transformed from the most dangerous places on Earth to their former rural peace. He tells us how it was and who were the players in the great game, as they appear and all too often disappear from these pages.More information on:
Lander's War: The War Diaries of Lt. Charles Herbert Lander 10th Battalion, Royal Warwickshire Regiment.
Edward Rowbotham
It is 1915 and the Great War has been raging for a year, when Edward Rowbotham, a coal miner from the Midlands, volunteers for Kitchener's Army. Drafted into the newly-formed Machine Gun Corps, he is sent to fight in places whose names will forever be associated with mud and blood and sacrifice: Ypres, the Somme, and Passchendaele. He is one of the 'lucky' ones, winning the Military Medal for bravery and surviving more than two-and-a-half years of the terrible slaughter that left nearly a million British soldiers dead by 1918 and wiped out all but six of his original company. He wrote these memoirs fifty years later, but found his memories of life in the trenches had not diminished at all. The sights and sounds of battle, the excitement, the terror, the extraordinary comradeship, are all vividly described as if they had happened to him only yesterday. Likely to be one of the last first-hand accounts to come to light, Mud, Blood and Bullets offers a rare perspective of the First World WMore information on:
Mud, Blood and Bullets: Memoirs of a Machine Gunner on the Western Front.
John Sheen
The Durham Pals were the volunteer Geordie battalions of the Durham Light Infantry raised in the north-east in the Great War. The 18th Durhams had the proud distinction of being the first unit of Kitchener's New Armies to come under enemy fire before even leaving Blighty when German ships shelled Hartlepool in December 1914. The 19th were raised as Bantams ( men blow the minimum height requirement) ; the 20th (Wearside) hailed from Sunderland; while the 22nd was the last raised - and fought through the hard battles of 1918. After their baptism of fire while training in Hartlepool, the 18th were seriously blooded on July 1st 1916 as the battle of the Somme opened, when they fought in support of the Leeds and Bradford Pals. After fighting in the successful Messines offensive in June 1917 the 20th were sent to the Italian front; while the 19th distinguished themselves in Flanders during the final Allied advance of 1918. This book pay tribute to them all.More information on:
Durham Pals: 18th, 19th, 20th and 22nd Battalions of the Durham Light Infantry in the Great War
S. L. A. Marshall
A "full-dress history of the war by one of our most distinguished military writers" (NEW YORK TIMES), WORLD WAR I takes us from the first shots in Sarajevo to the signing of the peace treaty in Versailles and through every bunker, foxhole, and minefield in between. General S.L.A. Marshall drew on his unique firsthand experience as a soldier and a lifetime of military service to pen this forthright, forward-thinking history of what people once believed would be the last great war. Newly introduced by the Pulitzer Prize-winning historian, David M. Kennedy, WORLD WAR I is a classic example of unflinching military history that is certain to inform, enrich, and deepen our understanding of this great cataclysm.More information on:
World War I
G. J. Meyer
The First World War is one of history’s greatest tragedies. In this remarkable and intimate account, author G. J. Meyer draws on exhaustive research to bring to life the story of how the Great War reduced Europe’s mightiest empires to rubble, killed twenty million people, and cracked the foundations of the world we live in today.More information on:
A World Undone: The Story of the Great War, 1914 to 1918
James R. McConnell
This a fun aviation story detailing the day-to-day adventures of a young American pilot who volunteered to join the French air force at the beginning of World War I. There were several Americans who did this, as America was not directly involved in the war, and the French military assembled them all together in an Escadrille (squadron). The trials of day to day flight using Nieuport fabric and wood airplanes, fighting German Bosches and Fokkers, are all charmingly explored in this short, easy read.More information on:
Flying for France
Simon Adams
Packed with photos on every double-page spread and dense with facts and snippets of analysis, this large-size volume in the Eyewitness series provides a quick, informative overview of WWI: how it started; who fought and why; the equipment used; what it was like in the trenches and at home; the horrific final cost. Even seasoned Web browsers accustomed to busy formats may sometimes feel bombarded by all the bits and pieces, especially when the tiny type is printed over colored pictures. It's the dramatic photos (many from London's Imperial War Museum) that will make readers pause and bring them close to the soldiers' experiences. Then there's John Singer Sargent's realistic painting Gassed, showing blinded soldiers led by their sighted colleagues toward a dressing station in northern France in 1918More information on:
World War I
Adam Hochschild
World War I stands as one of history’s most senseless spasms of carnage, defying rational explanation. In a riveting, suspenseful narrative with haunting echoes for our own time, Adam Hochschild brings it to life as never before. He focuses on the long-ignored moral drama of the war’s critics, alongside its generals and heroes. Thrown in jail for their opposition to the war were Britain’s leading investigative journalist, a future winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, and an editor who, behind bars, published a newspaper for his fellow inmates on toilet paper. These critics were sometimes intimately connected to their enemy hawks: one of Britain’s most prominent women pacifist campaigners had a brother who was commander in chief on the Western Front. Two well-known sisters split so bitterly over the war that they ended up publishing newspapers that attacked each other.More information on:
To End All Wars: A Story of Loyalty and Rebellion, 1914-1918
Michael Foley
This is the history of the Sportsmen's Battalion, Royal Fusiliers 23rd service battalion, which consisted almost entirely of men from the world of sport or entertainment. The battalion was privately raised and took men up to the age of 45. The battalion included a champion boxer, cricketers, footballers, MPs and the author John Chessire. They were men who did not need to serve in the First World War but had an unquestioning sense of duty. The history is enhanced by the letters and drawings by John Chessire, giving a first-hand account of their experiences. A man from the upper classes, a writer, poet and artist, he chose to serve as a private so he could do his duty, even when it conflicted with his religious beliefs and love for his family. The book covers the battalion's beginnings in London and progression to Hornchurch, France and then Germany. It includes their time at Vimy Ridge, at the Somme and at the Battle for Deville Wood.More information on:
Hard as Nails: The Sportsmen's Battalion of World War One
Brian Busby
a book that shows the reality of war through the poems of many soldiers who didn't return. Beautifully written.More information on:
In Flanders Fields: And Other Poems of the First World War
Several
Published to commemorate the eightieth anniversary of Armistice, this collection is intended to be an introduction to the great wealth of First World War Poetry. The sequence of poems is random - making it ideal for dipping into - and drawn from a number of sources, mixing both well-known and less familiar poetry. The work of 21 poets is represented: including Rupert Brooke, Robert Graves, Ivor Gurney, Thomas Hardy, Charlotte Mew, Alice Meynell, Wilfred Owen, Herbert Read, Isaac Rosenberg, Siegfried Sassoon and Edward ThomasMore information on:
Poems of the Great War: 1914-1918
Various
Packed full of analysis and interpretation, historical background, discussions and commentaries, York Notes will help you get right to the heart of the text you’re studying, whether it’s poetry, a play or a novel. You’ll learn all about the historical context of the piece; find detailed discussions of key passages and characters; learn interesting facts about the text; and discover structures, patterns and themes that you may never have known existed. In the Advanced Notes, specific sections on critical thinking, and advice on how to read critically yourself, enable you to engage with the text in new and different ways. Full glossaries, self-test questions and suggested reading lists will help you fully prepare for your exam, while internet links and references to film, TV, theatre and the arts combine to fully immerse you in your chosen text. York Notes offer an exciting and accessible key to your text, enabling you to develop your ideas and transform your studies!More information on:
Poetry of the First World War
Hana Sambrook
The York Notes series continues to be the leading range of GCSE and A-level study guides. If you are a GCSE student this will be invaluable for your coursework/exam preparation, as it covers all of the poems in the 'World War I' section of the AQA poetry anthology. Covering language, structure, form, style and context, amongst other useful exam information; the guide also offers a summary of each poem and some advice on how the poems can be compared. Essential book for students, and a competitive price on here.More information on:
York Notes on Poetry of the First World War
David Roberts
This anthology, based on "Minds at War" - by same author - has been prepared for the general reader who requires less background information, and for students, including GCSE and A Level. One of mankind's greatest tragedies was the First World War. For over four years whole nations unleashed the full might of their new-found destructive powers. Poets played their part in this war as promoters of it, soldiers, victims and onlookers. Their stories and their responses to their experiences are deeply moving, and their work includes some of the greatest poetry of the 20th Century. Many of the poems in Out in the Dark are currently selected by exam boards. The 19th Century poems, examples of the culture of Empire and militarism, help to explain both the rush to war and the nature of the early poetry of the First World War - 140 poems in all.More information on:
Out in the Dark: Poetry of the First World War in Context and with Basic Notes
Jon Stallworthy
This is an excellent introduction to the lives and work of twelve poets of WWI, many of whom were killed in action. The book was produced to accompany an exhibition at the Imperial War Museum and is illustrated with many photographs and original manuscripts. The famous are here - Owen and Sassoon- but there are also less well-known names - David Jones and Francis Ledwidge - whose work deserves recognition. I've read some of these poems many times, and I never fail to be moved by "Dulce et decorum est" (Owen), "Anthem for doomed youth" (Owen) and "When you see millions of the mouthless dead" (Sorley). The savagery and sarcasm of "The General" (Sassoon) and the grim humour of "Break of day" (Rosenberg), a meditation on a rat moving between the German and British lines, are also moving. Stallworthy tells the stories of their (mostly) brief lives sparingly, concentrating on the poetry and offering some interesting criticisms and insights. This poetry has influenced our imagery of the GreatMore information on:
Anthem for Doomed Youth
Robert Cedric Sherriff
Set in the First World War, Journey's End concerns a group of British officers on the front line and opens in a dugout in the trenches in France. Raleigh, a new eighteen-year-old officer fresh out of English public school, joins the besieged company of his friend and cricketing hero Stanhope, and finds him dramatically changed ... Laurence Olivier starred as Stanhope in the first performance of Journey's End in 1928; the play was an instant stage success and remains a remarkable anti-war classic.More information on:
Journey's End
Robert Graves
In 1929 Robert Graves went to live abroad permanently, vowing 'never to make England my home again'. This is his superb account of his life up until that 'bitter leave-taking': from his childhood and desperately unhappy school days at Charterhouse, to his time serving as a young officer in the First World War that was to haunt him throughout his life. It also contains memorable encounters with fellow writers and poets, including Siegfried Sassoon and Thomas Hardy, and covers his increasingly unhappy marriage to Nancy Nicholson. Goodbye to All That, with its vivid, harrowing descriptions of the Western Front, is a classic war document, and also has immense value as one of the most candid self-portraits of an artist ever written. About the Author Robert Ranke Graves (1895-1985) was a British poet, novelist, and critic. He is best known for the historical novel I, Claudius and the critical study of myth and poetry The White Goddess.More information on:
Goodbye to All That
G.J. Meyer
One only has to look at a few of today's "hotspots" (the Balkans and the Middle East) to realize that World War I's effects remain a determining factor in international relations. It may seem impossible to write an "intimate" account of such a global catastrophe, but Meyer has succeeded in doing just that: a masterful narrative history that eloquently conveys the sense of a civilization engaged in massive self-destruction, while its leaders, blinded by hubris, nationalism, or outright ignorance, led the charge. Although Meyer pays ample attention to the broad themes of causation and military strategies, he consistently reminds us that the war was a compilation of millions of individual tragedies. He captures the horror and futility of trench warfare, the slaughter at Gallipoli, and the genocide of Armenians as experienced by those who were there. Meyer also offers interesting and controversial insights into the motivations of many of the key participants. This is an outstanding surveyMore information on:
A World Undone: The Story of the Great War, 1914 to 1918
Peter Englund
In this masterly, highly original narrative history, Peter Englund takes a revelatory new approach to the history of World War I, magnifying its least examined, most stirring component: the experiences of the average man and woman—not only the tragedy and horror but also the absurdity and even, at times, the beauty. The twenty people from whose journals and letters Englund draws are from Belgium, Denmark, and France; Great Britain, Germany, and the Austro-Hungarian Empire; Italy, Australia, and New Zealand; Russia, Venezuela, and the United States. There is a young man in the British army infantry who had been considering emigrating until the war offered him its “grand promise of change” and a middle-aged French civil servant, a socialist and writer whose “faith simply crumbled” at the outbreak of war. There is a twelve-year-old German girl thrilled with the news of the army’s victories because it means that she and her classmates are allowed to shout and scream at school. There iMore information on:
The Beauty and the Sorrow: An Intimate History of the First World War
In a riveting narrative that puts diaries, letters and action reports to good use, British military historian Keegan (The Face of Battle, etc.) delivers a stunningly vivid history of the Great War. He is equally at easeAand equally generous and sympatheticAprobing the hearts and minds of lowly soldiers in the trenches or examining the thoughts and motivations of leaders (such as Joffre, Haig and Hindenburg) who directed the maelstrom. In the end, Keegan leaves us with a brilliant, panoramic portrait of an epic struggle that was at once noble and futile, world-shaking and pathetic. The war was unnecessary, Keegan writes, because the train of events that led to it could have been derailed at any time, "had prudence or common goodwill found a voice." And it was tragic, consigning 10 million to their graves, destroying "the benevolent and optimistic culture" of Europe and sowing the seeds of WWII. While Niall Ferguson's The Pity of War (Forecasts, Mar. 8) offers a revisionist, economic intMore information on:
The First World War
Neil Richardson
IRELAND'S FORGOTTEN LEGACY In 1914-1918, two hundred thousand Irishmen from all religions and backgrounds went to war. At least thirty-five thousand never came home. Those that did were scarred for the rest of their lives. Many of these survivors found themselves abandoned and ostracised by their countrymen, their voices seldom heard. The book includes: * The Irish soldier firing the first shot * The first Victoria Cross * Leading the way at Gallipoli and the Somme * North and South fighting side by side at Messines Ridge * Ireland's flying aces * Brothers-in-arms -- heart-rending stories of family sacrifice * The lucky escapes of some; the tragic end of others * The homecoming -- why there was no hero's welcomeMore information on:
A Coward If I Return, a Hero If I Fall: Stories of Irish Soldiers in World War I
Alan Axelrod Ph.D.
For history buffs, students, and anyone interested in the 20th century, this book reveals why World War I began, explores the "guns of August," describes the horrors of trench warfare and the first uses of poison gas, and explains why the Americans were so slow to enter the war. From the eastern front to the west, from Gallipoli to the Marne, from the Lafayette Escadrillo to Lawrence of Arabia, the book tells the whole story of "the war to end all wars."More information on:
The Complete Idiot's Guide to World War I
Michael Neiberg David Jordan
Recreates the battles and campaigns that raged at The Eastern Front during World War I Updated for 2012 with a new foreward by Dennis Showalter The front in the East was much longer than in the West. The theatre of war was delimited by the Baltic Sea in the West and Moscow in the East, a distance of 1,200kms, and Saint Petersburg in the North and the Black Sea in the South, a distance of more than 1,600kms. While World War I on the Western Front developed into trench warfare, the battle lines on the Eastern Front were much more fluid; trenches never truly developed. The greater length of the front ensured that the density of soldiers in the line was lower so the line was easier to break. Once broken, the sparse communication networks made it difficult for the defender to rush reinforcements to the rupture in the line, to mount a counteroffensive and seal off a breakthrough. Also, the terrain in the Eastern European theatre was quite solid, often making it near impossible to construct aMore information on:
The Eastern Front 1914 - 1920 (History of World War I)
Jeff Shaara
Moving on from the American Revolution and the Civil War, Shaara (The Glorious Cause, etc.) delivers an epic account of the American experience in WWI. As usual, he narrates from the perspective of actual historical figures, moving from the complexity of high-level politics and diplomacy to the romance of the air fight and the horrors of trench warfare. Gen. John J. "Black Jack" Pershing commands all American forces in France in 1917–1918 and must prepare his army for a new kind of war while resisting French and British efforts to absorb his troops into their depleted, worn-out units. Two aviators, American Raoul Lufbery and German Manfred von Richthofen (the Red Baron) fly primitive aircraft in an air war that introduces new ways to die. And Pvt. Roscoe Temple, U.S. Marine Corps, fights with rifle and bayonet in the mud and blood of Belleau Wood and the Argonne Forest. These men and a supporting cast of other real-life characters provide a gruesomely graphic portrayal of the brutalityMore information on:
To the Last Man: A Novel of the First World War
- The Wartime Memories Project is the original WW1 and WW2 commemoration website.
- 1st of September 2023 marks 24 years since the launch of the Wartime Memories Project. Thanks to everyone who has supported us over this time.
Want to find out more about your relative's service? Want to know what life was like during the Great War? Our Library contains many many diary entries, personal letters and other documents, most transcribed into plain text.
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The free to access section of The Wartime Memories Project website is run by volunteers and funded by donations from our visitors.If the information here has been helpful or you have enjoyed reaching the stories please conside making a donation, no matter how small, would be much appreciated, annually we need to raise enough funds to pay for our web hosting or this site will vanish from the web.
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- 22nd April 2024
Please note we currently have a massive backlog of submitted material, our volunteers are working through this as quickly as possible and all names, stories and photos will be added to the site. If you have already submitted a story to the site and your UID reference number is higher than 263973 your submission is still in the queue, please do not resubmit.
Wanted: Digital copies of Group photographs, Scrapbooks, Autograph books, photo albums, newspaper clippings, letters, postcards and ephemera relating to the Great War. If you have any unwanted photographs, documents or items from the First or Second World War, please do not destroy them. The Wartime Memories Project will give them a good home and ensure that they are used for educational purposes. Please get in touch for the postal address, do not sent them to our PO Box as packages are not accepted.
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