What WW1 books are you reading?

[pylon1357]

On 03/04/2023 at 07:51, Marilyne said:

that the one by R.C. Featherstonehaugh??? 

I've got that one somewhere on the list too .

M.

Yes that is the one. I found a copy in near mint condition up in Ottawa Ontario, about 50 mins north of me. It is also available online as free download, but I like hard copies of actual books. 

[Marilyne]

@pylon1357 thanks. Please tell me if it's good. I'm currently busy with the ladies buries im Wimereux and Boulogne area and as McGill was very prominently active there... 

M.

[keithmroberts]

On 03/04/2023 at 12:51, Marilyne said:

Currently reading No 3 Canadian General Hospital (McGill) 1914-1919.

I'm about to start " No, 4 Canadian Hospital. The Letters of Professor .J.J. Mackenzie from the Salonika Front". 

I'm struggling to find the book by Maureen Duffus on Battlefront Nurses of the Canadian Medical Corps...  The Bod my normal fallback doesn't have a copy.

 

Keith

 

[Marilyne]

Interesting. I've looked up Maureen Duffus and it seems to be the combination of the diaries and letters of two nurses combined into making one story. They went from Salonika to Egypt and then to France. 

I never quite understood why Canada sent its nurses to those fronts as they were no Canadian soldiers there. Part of the greater effort, one guesses...  but it makes little sense...

M.

[keithmroberts]

4 hours ago, Marilyne said:

I never quite understood why Canada sent its nurses to those fronts as they were no Canadian soldiers there

It seems that there were two Canadian military hospitals in Salonika. I'm going to try the Canadian Official History volume on medical services, possibly during a very brief visit to the Bodleian next week, otherwise on a longer visit to Oxford in a few weeks. Its a bit of a rabbithole for me, but I have collected a number of items about medical matters in Salonika, with most being about the voluntary units including the SWH. The Duffus volume seems pretty much unobtainable, unless I can get to it online when in the Bod, but I'm not sure my  access will enable that.

[maxi]

With today being such a lovely day, I headed out into the countryside with my copy of  Richard van Emden's 'The Quick and the Dead' which looks at the lives of the wives and children affected by the losses of the Great War.

[trajan]

On 03/04/2023 at 03:00, PTrenton said:

I appreciate this thread. There is such a wealth of titles to check out! ... I would have to list these as my favorite so far: ... The Guns of August by Barbara W. Tuchman

One of the first historical accounts I read after completing the 'standard' war poets and 'All Quiet...', and a work I really enjoyed, and still consider it one of the best pieces of writing about the period.

Trajan 

[pylon1357]

On 06/04/2023 at 01:36, Marilyne said:

@pylon1357 thanks. Please tell me if it's good. I'm currently busy with the ladies buries im Wimereux and Boulogne area and as McGill was very prominently active there... 

M.

Yes, a very good book. It is pretty much their diary I would think. As I have a Trio and RRC to a Nursing Sister who enlisted with the No 3 CGH, this book is very good for my research and understanding. Some pretty interesting reading IMO.

 

[maxi]

I have just completed 'Life Since 1900' by Charles Furth.

Although not a truly dedicated WW1 book and written in the 1950s, it covers the changes in the social scene in Great Britain with a fair amount of emphasis on the Great War.

I found it in a charity shop and it turned out to be a little gem.

[phil andrade]

1 hour ago, maxi said:

I have just completed 'Life Since 1900' by Charles Furth.

Although not a truly dedicated WW1 book and written in the 1950s, it covers the changes in the social scene in Great Britain with a fair amount of emphasis on the Great War.

I found it in a charity shop and it turned out to be a little gem.

That’s something that reaches out and grabs my interest !

As a baby boomer, born in the early 1950s, I remember the impact made by the groundbreaking BBC documentary series The Great War , that was screened in the newly commissioned BBC2 to mark the fiftieth anniversary in 1964.

What intrigued me then was the omission of references to that war that characterised the 1950s : until that series, I’d had no idea that there had been such a ghastly predecessor to the war that my parents had fought.

So the reference to a 1950s book that makes significant allusion to 1914-18 is alluring to me.

 

Phil

[MaureenE]

7 hours ago, maxi said:

I have just completed 'Life Since 1900' by Charles Furth.

Although not a truly dedicated WW1 book and written in the 1950s, it covers the changes in the social scene in Great Britain with a fair amount of emphasis on the Great War.

Available on the Internet Archive https://archive.org/details/lifesince19000000unse/page/n7/mode/2up (with date of publication catalogued as 1911, instead of the correct date of 1956)

Maureen

[maxi]

Nice one Maureen, that is so kind of you to post this.

[phil andrade]

2 hours ago, maxi said:

Nice one Maureen, that is so kind of you to post this.

Yes !  Please let me second those thanks, Maureen .

 

Phil

[johntaylor]

I'm surprised it's on Internet Archive as I would have thought it was still in copyright. Maybe it's because they think it was published in 1911.

John

[Kimberley John Lindsay]

Dear All, and Maureen,

The Great War book I am reading/enjoying at present is "An Air Fighter's Scrapbook" by Ira Jones, DSO, MC, DFC, MM (1938, Nicholson & Watson, London).

Interestingly, the publishers omitted his MM on the spine title...!

The highly-decorated Jones devoted one photo page in the book to 'Men of Fame', and juxtaposed an unlikely five:-

Lord Nuffield; Lawrence of Arabia; HRH Prince of Wales (later EVIIR and Duke of Windsor); AVM Sir Sefton Brancker; and AM Sir W. G. S, Mitchell (?).

Kindest regards,

Kim.

[PTrenton]

Quote

I'm surprised it's on Internet Archive as I would have thought it was still in copyright. Maybe it's because they think it was published in 1911

It is quite possible the copyright was not renewed which would have been required of pre-1964 works under U.S. law.  I was not able to find the subject book in the Stanford database.  Minor works often slipped by like that whereas a Hemingway or lawyer for the estate/publisher would have been likely to renew popular/profitable book copyrights.

[The Scorer]

I've recently finished reading "The Flying Sikh" by Stephen Barker. 

It's part of the story of Hardit Singh Malik, who flew with the RFC and the RAF towards the end of the First World War ... but it's much more than just his story. Stephen Barker goes into the background to the efforts by Indians to join the forces during the war, and also the problems that they had to become commissioned officers. There were all manner of barriers put in their way, and the book explains what they were and how they were (partly) overcome. 

I said earlier that it's part of his story, and this is true. After leaving the RAF in the early 1920s, Hardit joined the Indian Civil Service and had a long career there. He later became the first Indian High Commissioner to Canada and was subsequently the Indian Ambassador to France. The book only touches on these, as it's really mostly about his war service. I'm now on the look out for his autobiography "A Little Work, A Little Play", which was published posthumously in 2011 - it promises to be a very good read. 

Finally ... he also played cricket for Sussex before and after the First World War which, as a cricket follower, I liked very much!

  

 

[KernelPanic]

On 21/04/2023 at 16:56, MaureenE said:

Available on the Internet Archive https://archive.org/details/lifesince19000000unse/page/n7/mode/2up (with date of publication catalogued as 1911, instead of the correct date of 1956)

Maureen

Interesting! It looks there are two copies of this on Archve.org. The one posted by Maureen (thanks!), and one I found after reading maxi's original post last Friday, which you have to borrow. My link goes to a copy that has the 1956 publication date, as opposed to the 'free' copy, which has the 1911 pub date. 

 

[trajan]

Just been reading Menning, B.W. 1992. Bayonets before Bullets. Indianapolis: IUP.  An account of the developing tactics of the Imperial Russian Army in the years preceeding and in WW1, with much on their doctrine of 'The bullet is a hag, the bayonet is a queen’

Julian

Edited 11 May , 2023 by trajan

[maxi]

Just for a bit of 'light reading', if such a thing can exist when covering the events of the Great War, I purchased a book called Myths and Legends by James Hayward.

All the usual suspects are there such as the Angels of Mons and the crucified Canadian soldier among others but I must say that it is a cracking good read.

[knittinganddeath]

Just finished Lindsey Fitzharris' The Facemaker about pioneering plastic surgeon Harold Gillies who treated face injuries during the war. Briskly paced and easy to read. I enjoyed it a lot and recommend it to anyone who wants a bit of light(ish) reading.

Following it up with John Buchan's Greenmantle and now Mr Standfast, which I'm finding hard going. I loved The 39 Steps, but the plots of the sequels get nuttier and nuttier while Buchan's racism, which I could ignore in the first volume, becomes ever more overt; his hatred of Jews, trade unionists, and pacifists is something else. The ever-increasing propagandistic bent is also a bit much for me. So although I find the novels interesting from an academic perspective, I'm not sure that I'll finish Mr Standfast.

[healdav]

23 hours ago, knittinganddeath said:

Just finished Lindsey Fitzharris' The Facemaker about pioneering plastic surgeon Harold Gillies who treated face injuries during the war. Briskly paced and easy to read. I enjoyed it a lot and recommend it to anyone who wants a bit of light(ish) reading.

Following it up with John Buchan's Greenmantle and now Mr Standfast, which I'm finding hard going. I loved The 39 Steps, but the plots of the sequels get nuttier and nuttier while Buchan's racism, which I could ignore in the first volume, becomes ever more overt; his hatred of Jews, trade unionists, and pacifists is something else. The ever-increasing propagandistic bent is also a bit much for me. So although I find the novels interesting from an academic perspective, I'm not sure that I'll finish Mr Standfast.

I'm not sure that you are being fair here. I was surprised to see in an old OED that 'Jew' is described as. 1. Someone with a shady reputation who deals with things (or something like that).2. Someone of the Jewish religion or race.

In other words he was using the usage of the time. Incidentally, Riddle of the Sands has the same.

Edited 1 June , 2023 by healdav

[FROGSMILE]

4 hours ago, knittinganddeath said:

Just finished Lindsey Fitzharris' The Facemaker about pioneering plastic surgeon Harold Gillies who treated face injuries during the war. Briskly paced and easy to read. I enjoyed it a lot and recommend it to anyone who wants a bit of light(ish) reading.

Following it up with John Buchan's Greenmantle and now Mr Standfast, which I'm finding hard going. I loved The 39 Steps, but the plots of the sequels get nuttier and nuttier while Buchan's racism, which I could ignore in the first volume, becomes ever more overt; his hatred of Jews, trade unionists, and pacifists is something else. The ever-increasing propagandistic bent is also a bit much for me. So although I find the novels interesting from an academic perspective, I'm not sure that I'll finish Mr Standfast.

I think you’re right that he became more of an extremist as he grew older, and bought into that narrative that there was some great malign conspiracy to bring down the empire and emasculate the British race.  I wonder if he supported the odious Oswald Mosley, it certainly wouldn’t surprise me.

[phil andrade]

Wasn’t this a trait apparent in many British people in those times ?  Rudyard Kipling displayed it, and also, I believe, Conan Doyle.

One of the most striking examples that comes to my mind is a comment in the British press attributing reasons for the outbreak of war in South Africa in 1899.

 

“ No doubt, the sharp features of the Hebrew will be discernible behind most of them. “
 

This I cite from memory, so I’ll welcome correction if I’m wrong.

 

As someone with more than a tincture of Jewish blood in my veins, such things stay in my mind.

 

Phil

[FROGSMILE]

1 hour ago, phil andrade said:

Wasn’t this a trait apparent in many British people in those times ?  Rudyard Kipling displayed it, and also, I believe, Conan Doyle.

One of the most striking examples that comes to my mind is a comment in the British press attributing reasons for the outbreak of war in South Africa in 1899.

 

“ No doubt, the sharp features of the Hebrew will be discernible behind most of them. “
 

This I cite from memory, so I’ll welcome correction if I’m wrong.

 

As someone with more than a tincture of Jewish blood in my veins, such things stay in my mind.

 

Phil

I think “many British people” too strong a description Phil, but certainly quite a number of the landed classes (often inveterate snobs) and some of the aristocracy (perhaps less common in the oldest families due to the code of noblesse oblige).  Ergo I don’t recall that there’s much evidence that the average working man, below those elevated echelons of society, took any kind of view about Jewry, let alone a negative one, until some of them were whipped up by the likes of Mosley, whose rhetoric was so pejorative and damning.

Edited 31 May , 2023 by FROGSMILE