Books

[Colonel Sennef]

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'.

[R.N. Armstrong]

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'.

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.

[Colonel Sennef]

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.

[R.N. Armstrong]

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.

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

[JSMoss]

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.

[Colonel Sennef]

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

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.

[Napoleon]

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.

[Tiger1]

Has anyone read the book, 'With The German Guns' by Herbert Sulzbach? And if so what did you think?

[Phebe]

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.

[thejester]

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.

[leatchy]

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.

[Geek44]

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

[leatchy]

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

[benihartmann]

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.

[Wolfe Tone]

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!