The Official History of Australia in the War of 1914-1918: Volume XI - Australia During the War


Book Description

The eleventh volume of The Official History of Australia in the War of 1914-1918 is a companion to the earlier volumes that dealt with Australia's military operations. Scott's work covers the early unanimity with which the war was greeted, the growing unease at the cost of war, the anguish of the conscription referenda and the political turmoil that followed. Scott discusses censorship, the internment of aliens, the formation and equipment of Australia's forces and the development of a war economy. The Outbreak of War. The Political Scene. The Censorship. The Censorship (continued). The Enemy Within the Gates. The Governor-General. The Formation of Armies. The Formation of Armies (continued). The Equipment of Armies. Matters of Policy. Matters of Policy (continued). The First Conscription Referendum. Political Metamorphoses. Political Metamorphoses (continued). The Second Conscription Referendum. The Last Months of the War. Finance. Finance (continued). Australian Trade During the War. Australian Trade During the War (continued). Metals. The Wool Purchase. The Wheat Pool. Shipping. Pricing and Price Fixing. Labour Questions and the Industrial Ferment. Labour Questions and the Industrial Ferment (continued). The Patriotic Funds. The Peace Conference. The Peace Conference (continued). The Treaty and its Ratification. Repatriation. Repatriation (continued). Epilogue. The Official History of Australia in the War of 1914-1918 is a 12-volume series covering Australian involvement in the First World War. The series was edited by C.E.W. Bean, who also wrote six of the volumes, and was published between 1920 and 1942. The first seven volumes deal with the Australian Imperial Force while other volumes cover the Australian Naval and Military Expeditionary Force at Rabaul, the Royal Australian Navy, the Australian Flying Corps and the home front; the final volume is a photographic record. Unlike other official histories that have been aimed at military staff, Bean intended the Australian history to be accessible to a non-military audience. The relatively small size of the Australian forces enabled the history to be presented in great detail, giving accounts of individual actions that would not have been possible when covering a larger force.




Australia's War 1914-18


Book Description

Australia's War, 1914-18 explores Australia's involvement in the First World War and the effect this had on the nation' s society. In this very accessible book, Joan Beaumont, Pam Maclean, Marnie Haig-Muir and David Lowe focus on: where Australians fought and why; the tensions and realignments within Australian politics in the period of 1914-18; the stresses of the war on Australian society, especially on women and those whom wartime hysteria cast in the role of the 'enemy' at home; the impact of the war on the country's economy; the role played by Australia in international diplomacy; and finally, the creation and influence of the Anzac legend. Once dominated by the battlefield and official accounts of the war correspondent and official historian, C.E.W. Bean, Australian writing on the war has acquired a new depth and sophistication. Studies of the home front reveal a society riven by divisions without precedent in the nation's history. This single volume will be invaluable to tertiary students and of enormous interest to the reader concerned with the social, political and military history of Australia.




Anzac to Amiens


Book Description




Australians and the First World War


Book Description

This book contributes to the global turn in First World War studies by exploring Australians’ engagements with the conflict across varied boundaries and by situating Australian voices and perspectives within broader, more complex contexts. This diverse and multifaceted collection includes chapters on the composition and contribution of the Australian Imperial Force, the experiences of prisoners of war, nurses and Red Cross workers, the resonances of overseas events for Australians at home, and the cultural legacies of the war through remembrance and representation. The local-global framework provides a fresh lens through which to view Australian connections with the Great War, demonstrating that there is still much to be said about this cataclysmic event in modern history.




Australia and the War in the Air


Book Description

Drawing on archival records in Australasia, Europe and North America, Australia and the War in the Air provides a fresh perspective on Australia's involvement in the Great War and a revaluation of air power's early influence on warfare. From the earliest days of the Great War, Australians volunteered to fight in the air - warfare's newest arena, and one that would transform the nature of military operations. In the squadrons of the Australian Flying Corps and with Britain's flying services, Australian airmen fought in campaigns that spanned the length and breadth of the First World War; between 1914 and 1918 they served in the Middle East, the Mediterranean and on the Western Front. By 1919 over 4000 Australians had served with the empire's flying units. Though modest compared to some of the other British dominions, Australia's part had been the most conspicuous. Whereas the other dominions had opted to provide manpower to serve in Britain's flying services, the Commonwealth's insistence on a distinctly national contribution ensured recognition for Australia's support to the empire's effort in the air. This book examines Australia's role in history's first major air war. Unlike previous accounts, which focus on the airmen of the Australian Flying Corps in isolation, this study conceives the Australian part as one of an imperial - and international - whole. In addition to using Australian involvement as a case study to analyse the impact air power had on military operations, this study also addresses aspects of organisation, training, administration and command, as well as the imperial politics and strategic issues that contextualised dominion participation in the war. -- Provided by publisher.




Legs-Eleven


Book Description

For Australia the First World War remains the most costly conflict in terms of deaths and casualties. From a population of fewer than five million, 416,809 men enlisted, of which over 60,000 were killed and 156,000 wounded, gassed, or taken prisoner. In general terms with Australian unit histories the quality of authorship is very good, most of them share the common strength of making plentiful mention of the individual officers and men who served, fought, died, was wounded, or taken prisoner, or who came safely home at the end of it all. They are a prime source for genealogists and military historians.




Our Corner of the Somme


Book Description

By the time of the Armistice, Villers-Bretonneux - once a lively and flourishing French town - had been largely destroyed, and half its population had fled or died. From March to August 1918, Villers-Bretonneux formed part of an active front line, at which Australian troops were heavily involved. As a result, it holds a significant place in Australian history. Villers-Bretonneux has since become an open-air memorial to Australia's participation in the First World War. Successive Australian governments have valourised the Australian engagement, contributing to an evolving Anzac narrative that has become entrenched in Australia's national identity. Our Corner of the Somme provides an eye-opening analysis of the memorialisation of Australia's role on the Western Front and the Anzac mythology that so heavily contributes to Australians' understanding of themselves. In this rigorous and richly detailed study, Romain Fathi challenges accepted historiography by examining the assembly, projection and performance of Australia's national identity in northern France.




A World Undone


Book Description

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Drawing on exhaustive research, this intimate account details how World War I reduced Europe’s mightiest empires to rubble, killed twenty million people, and cracked the foundations of our modern world “Thundering, magnificent . . . [A World Undone] is a book of true greatness that prompts moments of sheer joy and pleasure. . . . It will earn generations of admirers.”—The Washington Times On a summer day in 1914, a nineteen-year-old Serbian nationalist gunned down Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo. While the world slumbered, monumental forces were shaken. In less than a month, a combination of ambition, deceit, fear, jealousy, missed opportunities, and miscalculation sent Austro-Hungarian troops marching into Serbia, German troops streaming toward Paris, and a vast Russian army into war, with England as its ally. As crowds cheered their armies on, no one could guess what lay ahead in the First World War: four long years of slaughter, physical and moral exhaustion, and the near collapse of a civilization that until 1914 had dominated the globe. Praise for A World Undone “Meyer’s sketches of the British Cabinet, the Russian Empire, the aging Austro-Hungarian Empire . . . are lifelike and plausible. His account of the tragic folly of Gallipoli is masterful. . . . [A World Undone] has an instructive value that can scarcely be measured”—Los Angeles Times “An original and very readable account of one of the most significant and often misunderstood events of the last century.”—Steve Gillon, resident historian, The History Channel




The Beauty and the Sorrow


Book Description

An intimate narrative history of World War I told through the stories of twenty men and women from around the globe--a powerful, illuminating, heart-rending picture of what the war was really like. In this masterful book, renowned historian Peter Englund describes this epoch-defining event by weaving together accounts of the average man or woman who experienced it. Drawing on the diaries, journals, and letters of twenty individuals from Belgium, Denmark, France, Great Britain, Germany, Austria, Hungary, Italy, Australia, New Zealand, Russia, Venezuela, and the United States, Englund’s collection of these varied perspectives describes not a course of events but "a world of feeling." Composed in short chapters that move between the home front and the front lines, The Beauty and Sorrow brings to life these twenty particular people and lets them speak for all who were shaped in some way by the War, but whose voices have remained unheard.