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World War I The war to end all wars. |
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03 Sep 06, 06:07
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ACG Forums - Africanus Majoris
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Real Name: Jeroen
Join Date: Aug 2005
Location: Amman, Jordan
Posts: 8,264
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Gordon Corrigan: 'Mud, Blood and Poppycock'. Corrigan is a Gurkha officer who uses his knowledge of the army to describe warfare from the British trenches. He comes out with a much more positive picture than the traditional one drawn up by disaffected poets and revisionist historians. (Pictured at its funniest in 'Blackadder'. Corrigan is dry, witty and knowledgeable and tries to describe that the Brits in fact coped quite well with he circumstances. Not always convincing but certainly a very fresh new sound.
Other book I like to recommend is a novel from the German side of the trenches: Edlef Koeppen's: Army Report. ('Heeresbericht' in original German) Very like Erich Maria Remarque's 'Im Westen nichts Neues'.
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BoRG
You may not be interested in War, but War is interested in You - Leon Trotski, June 1919.
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03 Sep 06, 06:12
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Join Date: May 2005
Location: Plainview
Posts: 8,478
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Quote:
Originally Posted by captainsennef
Gordon Corrigan: 'Mud, Blood and Poppycock'. Corrigan is a Gurkha officer who uses his knowledge of the army to describe warfare from the British trenches. He comes out with a much more positive picture than the traditional one drawn up by disaffected poets and revisionist historians. (Pictured at its funniest in 'Blackadder'. Corrigan is dry, witty and knowledgeable and tries to describe that the Brits in fact coped quite well with he circumstances. Not always convincing but certainly a very fresh new sound.
Other book I like to recommend is a novel from the German side of the trenches: Edlef Koeppen's: Army Report. ('Heeresbericht' in original German) Very like Erich Maria Remarque's 'Im Westen nichts Neues'.
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Have you read John Ellis's Eye Deep in Hell. He paints a very dismal picture of life in the trenches. He calculated the weight of the great wool coats when soaked with water and caked with mud--then cites the number of drownings at the front.
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Leadership is the ability to rise above conventional wisdom.
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03 Sep 06, 06:21
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ACG Forums - Africanus Majoris
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Real Name: Jeroen
Join Date: Aug 2005
Location: Amman, Jordan
Posts: 8,264
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RNA, I haven't yet.
While I scrolled through this thread I saw your earlier recommendation of this book and given your sterling reputation  made a mental note to read it.
BTW: I'll start in Showalter's 'Clash of Empires' this week.
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BoRG
You may not be interested in War, but War is interested in You - Leon Trotski, June 1919.
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07 Sep 06, 07:20
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Join Date: May 2005
Location: Plainview
Posts: 8,478
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Quote:
Originally Posted by captainsennef
RNA, I haven't yet.
While I scrolled through this thread I saw your earlier recommendation of this book and given your sterling reputation  made a mental note to read it.
BTW: I'll start in Showalter's 'Clash of Empires' this week.
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CS,
I believe you will enjoy both. I haven't steered you wrong yet. If you enjoy Showalter's 'Clash of Empires', he cut his teeth on an earlier good read, "Railroads and Rifles: Soldiers, Technology, and the Unification of Germany" (Archon Books, 1975)
rna
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Leadership is the ability to rise above conventional wisdom.
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07 Sep 06, 11:34
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Real Name: Steve
Join Date: Mar 2004
Location: Birthplace of the American Idea
Posts: 2,817
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Does anyone know a book which has a good treatment of the impact of the flu on WWI particularly on the German side. I have been reading quite a bit about that pandemic as background to our preparation for another and some of the information I have seen would seem to imply the impact on German operational readinesss may have been horroific.
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Boston Strong!
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11 Sep 06, 11:54
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ACG Forums - Africanus Majoris
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Real Name: Jeroen
Join Date: Aug 2005
Location: Amman, Jordan
Posts: 8,264
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Quote:
Originally Posted by R.N. Armstrong
CS,
I believe you will enjoy both. I haven't steered you wrong yet. If you enjoy Showalter's 'Clash of Empires', he cut his teeth on an earlier good read, "Railroads and Rifles: Soldiers, Technology, and the Unification of Germany" (Archon Books, 1975)
rna
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RA, thanks so far! I'm enjoying Showalter whom I find a knowledgeable historian as well as an engaging writer. Pity I didn't discover him earlier in my career, I could have become a decent historian through his example.
His book 'Railroad and Rifles' is difficult to get, I tried to get it secondhand, but even this proved hard. (If anyone has a copy which is just gathering dust, I'm interested.) Instead, while at the 'Royal Library'  , I found Showalter's "Wars of the German Unification'. Hope it is equally good.
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BoRG
You may not be interested in War, but War is interested in You - Leon Trotski, June 1919.
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16 Nov 06, 23:49
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Join Date: Feb 2004
Location: Somewhere on the Western Front.
Posts: 3,272
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I did not see it mentioned here so I will add:
Paris 1919 by Margaret MacMillan ISBN 0-375-76052-0
This book was recently published and caused a sensation in Canada and the United States where it was praised as one of the best books ever written regarding the Versailles Treaty and its effects. An excellent read for anyone interested in the peace settlement and President Wilson.
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There cannot be a crisis next week. My schedule is already full. -Henry Kissinger
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24 Nov 06, 22:56
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Real Name: Mike
Join Date: Apr 2004
Location: Wisconsin
Posts: 531
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Has anyone read the book, 'With The German Guns' by Herbert Sulzbach? And if so what did you think?
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03 Jan 07, 14:05
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Join Date: Jan 2007
Location: Maryland
Posts: 7,850
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Oh, wow, Barbara Tuchman wrote "The Zimmerman Telegram"? I have to get that. That's such a fascinating topic. Americans sure don't like invasion; we declared war within a few days of learning about that interesting offer from Germany to help Mexico conquer our whole Southwest.
The British sure do win wars with their decoding talents.
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21 Feb 07, 00:16
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Join Date: May 2005
Location: Stunt Headquarters
Posts: 3,325
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I can't believe no-one has added this, but Price of Glory by Alistair Horne is an absolute corcker. Saw it recommended in Alan Clark's Barbarossa as the best book describing the 'subtarranean grappling' in Fort Vaux, and while forty years has passed I still found it absolutely engrossing. I also found it alone (along with Les Carlyon's The Great War) a fairly strong rebutall of the likes of Nielland's defence of the First World War Generals.
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Colonel Summers' widely quoted critique of US strategy in the Vietnam War is having a modest vogue...it is poor history, poor strategy, and poor Clausewitz to boot - Robet Komer, Survival, 27:2, p. 94.
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21 Feb 07, 06:16
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Real Name: Guy Leatch
Join Date: Dec 2006
Location: Adelaide
Posts: 729
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In no particular order, and with apologies to Sir Basil Liddell Hart.
1. All Quiet On The Western Front. Erich Maria Remarque.
2.The First World War. John Keegan.
3. Gallipoli. Les Carlyon.
4. Monash. The Outsider Who Won a War. Roland Perry.
5. The Great War. Les Carlyon.
6. On The Psychology Of Military Incompetence. Norman Dixon.
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War. Young men killing each other for the benefit of old men!
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21 Feb 07, 08:21
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Join Date: Sep 2006
Location: Melbourne Australia
Posts: 4,816
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All Quiet On The Western Front
The One Remarque Wrote After It And I Forget It's Title.
Johnny Got His Gun (The book that inspired that Metallica filmclip)
1915
The Great War
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The truth? You can't handle the truth! No truth handler you! I deride your truth handling abilities!
Sideshow Bob.
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21 Feb 07, 11:05
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Real Name: Guy Leatch
Join Date: Dec 2006
Location: Adelaide
Posts: 729
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Books by Eric Maria Remarque
All Quiet On the Western Front
The Road Back
Three Comrades
Flotsam
Arch of Triumph
The Spark of Life
A Time to Love and a Time to Die
The Black Obelisk
Heaven Has No Favorites
The Night in Lisbon
Shadows in Paradise
Full Circle
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War. Young men killing each other for the benefit of old men!
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23 Feb 07, 12:02
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Real Name: Benjamin Hartmann M. D.
Join Date: Feb 2007
Location: Tel- Aviv
Posts: 77
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My favorite book of W W 1 is " all quiet on the western front" by Erich
Maria Remarque. By the way his real name was Kramer . he changed the
order of the letters of his name to become "Remark" .
He was born in the city of Osanabrueck in Germany and served in the
German infantry and survived the horrors of the war.
So the book , though fiction ,is based on his own experience.
The Nazis hated him and boycotted his books and He had to leave Germany
to the USA . he died in Switzerland in 1970.
The book was made into a movie in 1930 and in 1979.
I think it`s a great movie ! with Ernst Bourgnin as the German Seargent.
I warmly recommed reading the book and watching the movie.
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23 Feb 07, 15:15
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Join Date: Aug 2002
Location: Dublin, Ireland
Posts: 2,333
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Got two nice ones 2nd hand in town the other day:
Storia Fotografica
Della
Grande Guerra
for 9.99 euros
This is a pictorial record of the fighting on the Italian Front in WWI, seems to have about 300+ photos in it. Commentry in Italian though but its one way to brush up on Italian!
Isonzo: The Forgotten Sacrifice of The Great War by John R Schindler
400 page history of those battles, cost 6.99 euros.
They had a bunch of other excellent 2n hand WWI titles in stock as well - looks like some WWI buff had passed on and his relatives sold the lot to 'Chapters' bookshop!
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