Early 20th Century and World War I, 1900-1918

Lloyd George and Churchill 15% off

Toye, Richard Normal price £25.00 — Discount price £21.25 — You save £3.75  <convert> 

The two most significant British political figures of the twentieth-century, Churchill and Lloyd George were political rivals but personal friends. Between them, their ministerial careers spanned seventy years and two world wars. Although they could not have been more different temperamentally, and often disagreed violently about politics, theirs was 'the longest political friendship in the life of Great Britain' and Churchill was the only person outside his family to call Lloyd George 'David'. Richard Toye's book is a dynamic account of their relationship. Drawing on diaries and letters, some never before published, (there are more than 1,000 pieces of correspondence between the two men), he explores their long-standing friendship and rivalry, the impact they had on each other's careers, and the fate of their respective reputations, arguing that Lloyd George's major achievements have been undeservedly overshadowed, in part as a consequence of Churchill's later mythmaking. It is a major work from a brilliant young historian.

Lawrence of Arabia 15% off

Greaves, Adrian Normal price £20.00 — Discount price £17.00 — You save £3.00  <convert> 

T.E. Lawrence is one of the most enigmatic characters in British history. At the outbreak of the First World War he was working as an archaeologist in the Middle East. He had no military training at all, and a strong distrust of politicians and senior officers alike. And yet he succeeded in a task where all these people had failed: not only did he unite the Arab nation - a nation at perpetual war with itself - but he also led them to victory against the Ottoman Empire.

How he managed to achieve these incredible feats has fascinated and confounded historians ever since. The myths that have grown up around this remarkable man have been enhanced by the untruths Lawrence himself propagated. He was never captured and tortured by the Turks as he claimed, neither was he the first to target Ottoman troops by dynamiting their trains. And yet the truth is every bit as compelling as the fiction. He was far more ruthless than he portrayed himself, and the battles he fought were every bit as barbarous as those fought by his Ottoman enemies. He was also strangely determined not to take credit for his achievements: when offered the VC at Buckingham Palace he refused it, leaving the king holding the box.

Tip and Run 20% off

Paice, Edward Normal price £25.00 — Discount price £20.00 — You save £5.00  <convert> 

In the aftermath of the Great War the East Africa campaign was destined to be dismissed by many in Britain as a remote 'sideshow' in which only a handful of names and episodes - the Konigsberg, von Lettow-Vorbeck, the 'Naval Expedition to Lake Tanganyika' - achieved any lasting notoriety. But to the other combatant powers - Germany, South Africa, India, Belgium and Portugal - it was, and would remain, a campaign of huge importance. Africa quite simply mattered.

A 'small war', consisting of a few 'local affairs', was all that was expected in August 1914 as Britain moved to eliminate the threat to the high seas of German naval bases in Africa. But two weeks after the Armistice was signed in Europe British and German troops were still fighting in Africa after four years of what one campaign historian described as 'a war of extermination and attrition without parallel in modern times'.

Death of Glory 20% off

Neillands, Robin Normal price £20.00 — Discount price £16.00 — You save £4.00  <convert> 

The First World War remains a controversy: the bitter reality clouded with damaging and popular myths. Many of these misconceptions relate to the competence of the generals. However, the reality of these battles has been gradually concealed by the allegation that the men were 'lions led by donkeys', and the donkeys -- the generals -- can therefore absorb much of the blame. In this well-researched and highly readable book, Robin Neillands reveals the truth behind this fallacy and the events surrounding the battles, and sets them in a wider context. 1915 was a tough year for the British in France, and the burden of fighting was shifting from the British Army to the Territorial Forces who, at this time, were enthusiastic amateurs at best. The battles were either disasters or inconclusive, but the real reason for despair was that this war, entered into for the liberation of Belgium, had lost its moral argument and was now just another bloody, senseless slaughter. Millions died on the Western Front in 1915 on muddy battlefields. There was no glory attached to their deaths: to all concerned, the war seemed endless and hopeless.

Field Marshal Sir Henry Wilson 10% off

Jeffery, Keith Normal price £35.00 — Discount price £31.50 — You save £3.50  <convert> 

Field Marshal Sir Henry Wilson, an Irishman who in June 1922 was assassinated on his doorstep in London by Irish republicans, was one of the most controversial British soldiers of the modern age. Before 1914 he did much to secure the Anglo-French alliance, and was responsible for the planning which saw the British Expeditionary Force successfully dispatched to France, after the outbreak of war with Germany. A passionate Irish unionist, he gained a reputation as an intensely 'political' soldier, especially during the 'Curragh crisis' of 1914, when some officers resigned their commissions rather than coerce Ulster unionists into a Home Rule Ireland. During the war he played a major role in Anglo-French liaison, and ended up as Chief of the Imperial General Staff, professional head of the army, a post he held until February 1922. After Wilson retired from the army, he became an MP and was chief security adviser to the new Northern Ireland government. As such, he became a target for nationalist Irish militants, being identified with the security policies of the Belfast regime, though wrongly with Protestant sectarian attacks on Catholics.

Unknown Soldier 15% off

Hanson, Neil Normal price £8.99 — Discount price £7.64 — You save £1.35  <convert> 

Of all the million British dead of the First World War, only one - the Unknown Soldier - was ever returned to his native land. An anonymous symbol of all those lost without trace in the carnage of the battlefields, he was laid to rest in Westminster Abbey amid an outpouring of grief that brought the whole nation to a standstill, far outweighing even the emotion expressed over the death of Princess Diana over eighty years later. Inspired by this example, almost every combatant nation buried its own Unknown Soldier and the graves became the focus of a pilgrimage that still continues today. Drawing on largely unpublished letters and diaries, Neil Hanson has resurrected the lives and experiences of three unknown soldiers - a Briton, a German and an American. Every word is based on the testimony of those who fought, those who died and those who mourned. Few books have ever shown the terrible reality of warfare in such compelling, unforgettable detail, or told such a moving story of human life and loss. Amid all their sufferings, the common humanity of the men and their loved ones shines through. Each soldier lives on in the memory of his family to this day.

The Forgotten Front The East African Campaign 1914-1918,
Ross Anderson
(15% off)

The New Penguin Book of First World War Poetry

Beneath Flanders Fields The Tunnellers War 1914-1918,
Peter Barton, Peter Doyle and Johan Vandewalle

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