This classic WWI memoir by a decorated infantryman and historian presents a vivid account of life in the trenches on the Western Front.During World War One, Major Guy Chapman, OBE MC, served in the Royal Fusiliers and was awarded the Military Cross for his bravery. Joining soon after war was declared, Chapman was stationed in France and fought in the Battle of Arras.When Chapman's memoir, A Passionate Prodigality, was first published in 1933 it was...

The history of the conquest of Gaul, it has been said, would be far more obscure if twenty of Caesar's generals had written commentaries. In June 1940 the armies of France, Great Britain and Belgium succumbed to the onslaught of the German armies in less than six weeks. How this could have come about has hardly been illuminated by the accusations and counter-accusations of prominent French politicians and senior officers. The crossfire of charges is as blinding as a hailstorm.This ...

Legal systems like to think of themselves as impartial and fair, dispensing the objective morality of Justice. But, from time to time, a court of law can be as political, prejudiced, and biased as any other arm of the State. The classic instance is the story of the trials of Alfred Dreyfus.In December 1894 a French military tribunal found Alfred Dreyfus guilty of high treason. Dreyfus was a Jew; the War Office was determined that at all costs the honour and good name of the Army mu...

PULITZER PRIZE WINNER • “A brilliant piece of military history which proves up to the hilt the force of Winston Churchill’s statement that the first month of World War I was ‘a drama never surpassed.’”—NewsweekSelected by the Modern Library as one of the 100 best nonfiction books of all timeIn this landmark account, renowned historian Barbara W. Tuchman re-creates the first month of World War I: thirty days in the summer of 1914 th...

"A compelling and novel reassessment of World War I military history" ( Kirkus Reviews )"There is much in the work I really admire, not least its brilliant recasting of the traditional military narrative." —Niall Ferguson, author of The Pity of WarBased on previously unused French and German sources, this challenging and controversial new analysis of the war on the Wester...

This is Bill Cull's unforgettable story of his experiences in WW1: he fought at Gallipoli and on the Western Front where he was captured by the Germans and was a POW until the end of the war.Captain William Cull fought the First World War from both sides of the wire. As a young infantry officer on the Allied side of the Western Front, Cull frequently led patrols out into No Man's Land and raids on the German trenches. He took part in bitter fighting on the Somme at Pozi res, and in...

"A mesmerizing account that illuminates not just the Napoleonic wars but all of modern history . . . It reads like a novel" (Lynn Hunt, Eugen Weber Professor of modern European history, UCLA).The twentieth century is usually seen as "the century of total war." But as the historian David A. Bell argues in this landmark work, the phenomenon actually began much earlier, in the era of muskets, cannons, and sailing ships—in the age of Napoleon.In a sweeping, evo...

Adams served as a lieutenant in the 1st Battalion of the Royal Welsh Fusiliers and was stationed on the Western Front, primarily in the trenches of the Somme. In this memoir, he documents the daily life of a soldier, focusing on the mundane routines, camaraderie, and the moments of terror faced by men living in the trenches. Through his detailed and often stark writing, Adams captures the contrast between long periods of waiting and sudden bursts of violence that characterized trench warfa...

In this “engrossing,” (The New Yorker) vivid, and intensively researched volume, esteemed Napoleon scholar David Chandler outlines the military strategy that led the famous French emperor to his greatest victories—and to his ultimate downfall.Napoleonic war was nothing if not complex—an ever-shifting kaleidoscope of moves and intentions, which by themselves went a long way towards baffling and dazing his conventionally minded opponents into that state of d...

July 20, 1894. The German Military Attache in Paris. Colonel Maximillien von Schwarzkoppen received a visit from a seedy-looking middle-aged Frenchman who would not give his name. He told Schwarzkoppen that he was a French army officer serving on the General Staff; that he was in desperate need of money; and was therefore prepared to sell military secrets to the Germans.Captain Alfred Dreyfus, then aged 35, was a high-flying career artillery officer. Shy, reserved, sometimes awkwar...

Includes the First World War Illustrations Pack – 73 battle plans and diagrams and 198 photos"A young British soldier who went to war on two wheels"When the Great War broke out, the author of this book decided to leave his university studies and join the struggle. What attracted him immediately was the potential to combine his military service with his love of motorcycles and so it was that he found himself one of a select group of motorcycle despatch riders within the 5th Di...

One of the most decisive battles in military history, Waterloo saw the culmination of a generation of war to bring a definitive end to French hegemony and imperial ambitions in Europe. Both sides fought bitterly and Wellington later remarked that 'it was the nearest-run thing you ever saw in your life'.In this bloody engagement, more than 20,000 men were lost on the battlefield that day by each side, but it was the Anglo-Allies who emerged victorious. Their forces ...