The Journal of Private Fraser, 1914-1918

The Journal of Private Fraser, 1914-1918
Author: Donald Fraser
Publisher: Sono Nis Press
Total Pages: 356
Release: 1985
Genre: History
ISBN:

Donald Fraser førte dagbog, medens han som menig infanterist kæmpede i Canadian Expeditionary Forces (CEF) igennem 22 måneder på slagmarkerne i Nordfrankrig og Flandern og overlevede kampene om St. Eloi, Mont-Sorrel, Somme, Vimy Ridge og Lens

Medicine and Duty

Medicine and Duty
Author: Harold W. McGill
Publisher: University of Calgary Press
Total Pages: 410
Release: 2007
Genre: Electronic books
ISBN: 1552381935

Medicine and Duty is the World War I memoir of Harold McGill, a medical officer in the 31st (Alberta) Battalion, Canadian Expeditionary Force. McGill attempted to have his memoir published by Macmillan of Canada in 1935, but unfortunately, due to financial constraints, the company was not able to complete the publication. Decades later, editor Marjorie Norris came upon a draft of the manuscript in the Glenbow Archives and took it upon herself to resurrect McGills story. Norris's painstaking archival research and careful editing skills have brought back to light a gripping first-hand account of the 31st Battalion and, on a larger scale, of Canada's participation in World War I. A wealth of additional information, including extensive notes and excerpts from letters written "from the trenches," lends a new sense of immediacy and realism to the original memoir, and provides a fascinating, harrowing glimpse into the day-to-day life of Canadian soldiers during the Great War.

Donald Fraser

Donald Fraser
Author: Donald Fraser Wendy
Publisher:
Total Pages:
Release: 2020-06-07
Genre:
ISBN: 9781715013790

Memoirs of Donald Fraser WW1 1914 - 1918 as told to his daughter Wendy

The Great War, 1914–18

The Great War, 1914–18
Author: R J Q Adams
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 204
Release: 1990-06-14
Genre: History
ISBN: 1349114545

The Great War is a collection of seven original essays and three critical comments by senior scholars dealing with the greatest conflict in modern history to its time - the 1914-18 World War. The Great War is edited by the distinguished historian of the First World War, R.J.Q.Adams.

The Embattled General

The Embattled General
Author: William F. Stewart
Publisher: McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP
Total Pages: 408
Release: 2015-11-01
Genre: History
ISBN: 0773598014

Lieutenant-General Sir Richard Turner (1871-1961) was a capable but controversial Canadian general who played a critical role in the development of the Canadian Corps up to 1917 and contributed significantly to its success thereafter. Despite his many accomplishments (including being awarded the Victoria Cross), Turner is often portrayed as a political appointee and repeated failure - representations that ignore, minimize, or misconstrue his successes as a combat commander and head of Canadian forces in England. In The Embattled General, William Stewart reveals Turner's tactical, operational, and administrative contributions to the Canadian war effort. Uniquely, Turner held senior commands in both combat arms and administration. Stewart narrates and analyzes Turner's successes and failures in the Boer War and the First World War's battles of Ypres, Festubert, St Eloi, and the Somme. He also studies Turner's career after his transfer to command Canadian forces in England in December 1916, where Turner reformed an administration in chaos. After the war, Turner post-war played a key role in the formation of the Royal Canadian Legion. Based on exhaustive research from over 1,200 volumes of material, including many previously untouched sources, The Embattled General provides a balanced and just re-evaluation of Turner, identifying his merits as well as his flaws.

A Weary Road

A Weary Road
Author: Mark Osborne Humphries
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
Total Pages: 500
Release: 2018-11-05
Genre: History
ISBN: 1442661410

More than 16,000 Canadian soldiers suffered from shell shock during the Great War of 1914 to 1918. Despite significant interest from historians, we still know relatively little about how it was experienced, diagnosed, treated, and managed in the frontline trenches in the Canadian and British forces. How did soldiers relate to suffering comrades? Did large numbers of shell shock cases affect the outcome of important battles? Was frontline psychiatric treatment as effective as many experts claimed after the war? Were Canadians treated any differently than other Commonwealth soldiers? A Weary Road is the first comprehensive study to address these important questions. Author Mark Osborne Humphries uses research from Canadian, British, and Australian archives, including hundreds of newly available hospital records and patient medical files, to provide a history of war trauma as it was experienced, treated, and managed by ordinary soldiers.

Other Combatants, Other Fronts

Other Combatants, Other Fronts
Author: James Kitchen
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
Total Pages: 325
Release: 2011-01-18
Genre: History
ISBN: 1443828122

The First World War is a subject that has fascinated the public as well as the academic community since the close of hostilities in 1918. Over the past thirty years in particular, the historiography associated with the conflict has expanded considerably to include studies whose emphases range between the economic, social, cultural, literary, and imperial aspects of the war, all coinciding with revisions to perceptions of its military context. Nevertheless, much of the discussion of the First World War remains confined to the experiences of a narrow collection of European armies on the battlefields of Northern France and Belgium. This volume seeks to push the focus away from the Western Front and to draw out the multi-spectral nature of the conflict, examining forgotten theatres and neglected experiences. The chapters explore the question of what ‘total war’ meant for the lives of people around the world implicated in this momentous event, broadening current debates on the First World War as well as developing, reinforcing, and refining the existing categories of analysis. The chapters are grouped into sections that reflect neglected elements of the transnational interpretation of the conflict and aspects of the total war debate. These encompass alternative forms of mobilisation, issues of neutrality, ideas of racial identity, and the scope of violence. The volume thus not only expands First World War studies but also contributes to the wider discourse on the shifting nature of warfare in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. With chapters by leading scholars and early career researchers, this volume draws on a diverse range of original archival research undertaken across disciplinary and national boundaries. The contributions to the volume provide an analysis of the conflict that draws out its full breadth and complexity. The First World War demonstrated the critically important relationship between national mobilisation and total war, and saw multiple mobilisations and re-mobilisations of European populations. This theme is explored at the national, regional, and local levels through examinations of the Sicilian province of Catania, the role of science in France and Britain, and the utilisation of the narrative of maritime heroism surrounding the British sailor Jack Cornwell. For Europe’s neutrals the First World War was often as total in its effects as for those states engaged in military operations. Chapters analyse the diverse range of these experiences of neutrality, from the economy and people of the Netherlands to the attitudes of Switzerland’s intellectuals. Racial interpretations of modern conflict have defined much of the historiography of total war. The complexities of racial analysis with respect to total war are highlighted in chapters dealing with white colonial internees in German East Africa, the treatment of prisoners of war in Europe, and the recruitment of India’s ‘primitive’ peoples for service in labour units. The final section of the volume considers the scale and broad scope of the violence unleashed during the First World War. Chapters on the continuation of German naval war culture after the conflict, the shaping of personal narratives of the war in the Ottoman Empire, and anti-alien violence among veterans in Canada serve to reinforce the extent to which the conflict affected wider aspects of twentieth-century history around the globe. Other Combatants, Other Fronts sheds light on the diverse experiences of neutral and belligerent states, and their combatants and civilians, during the tumultuous events of 1914-18. This brings to the fore the extent to which the mechanisms of conflict developed during the struggle had a truly global reach, and the impact this has had ever since in defining modern conflict. The collection reinforces the notion that although the First World War was a vast and often bewildering industrial conflict, it was ultimately a very human phenomenon.

Sam Hughes

Sam Hughes
Author: Ronald Haycock
Publisher: Wilfrid Laurier Univ. Press
Total Pages: 384
Release: 1986-10-26
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0889207860

This book is based on the public career of a highly controversial Canadian, Sam Hughes 1885–1916. He is one of the most colourful, even bizarre, figures in Canadian history. Though he died in 1921, his name can still conjure up controversy and not a little misunderstanding. His long career—in so many respects the quintessential story of a poor backwoods Ontario farm boy who made good by his own efforts—continues to exert a fascination that few other Canadian political figures could duplicate. Even though there has never been a major scholarly study of Sam Hughes, historians and other writers have developed definite opinions about him, and they are held nearly as vigorously as those of his contemporaries. These vary from insisting that Hughes was mentally unbalanced to proclaiming him a genius. Hughes’ defenders have rarely been professional historians. Neither side have not produced an extensive or definitive literature on Hughes in proportion to other figures of a similar public stature. Whatever side the studies have taken, the assessments are still incomplete because they have not examined the entirety of Sam Hughes’ public life. To a large extent these limitations have allowed the folk image of him to persist. But Hughes had fibre and substance beyond this. Since historical figures must be explained in terms of their environment, this study tries to redress the previous imbalances by examining Hughes’ public career. It is the only way his historical significance can be explained and reasonable judgments made.

The Secret History of Soldiers

The Secret History of Soldiers
Author: Tim Cook
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 444
Release: 2018-09-18
Genre: History
ISBN: 0735235279

There have been thousands of books on the Great War, but most have focused on commanders, battles, strategy, and tactics. Less attention has been paid to the daily lives of the combatants, how they endured the unimaginable conditions of industrial warfare: the rain of shells, bullets, and chemical agents. In The Secret History of Soldiers, Tim Cook, Canada's foremost military historian, examines how those who survived trench warfare on the Western Front found entertainment, solace, relief, and distraction from the relentless slaughter. These tales come from the soldiers themselves, mined from the letters, diaries, memoirs, and oral accounts of more than five hundred combatants. Rare examples of trench art, postcards, and even song sheets offer insight into a hidden society that was often irreverent, raunchy, and anti-authoritarian. Believing in supernatural stories was another way soldiers shielded themselves from the horror. While novels and poetry often depict the soldiers of the Great War as mere victims, this new history shows how the soldiers pushed back against the grim war, refusing to be broken in the mincing machine of the Western Front. The violence of war is always present, but Cook reveals the gallows humour the soldiers employed to get through it. Over the years, both writers and historians have overlooked this aspect of the men's lives. The fighting at the front was devastating, but behind the battle lines, another layer of life existed, one that included songs, skits, art, and soldier-produced newspapers. With his trademark narrative abilities and an unerring eye for the telling human detail, Cook has created another landmark history of Canadian military life as he reveals the secrets of how soldiers survived the carnage of the Western Front.