The New Zealand Experience at Gallipoli and the Western Front by WRIGHT MATTHEW

$49.99 NZD

Category: First World War

In The New Zealand Experience at Gallipoli and the Western Front, historian Matthew Wright goes to the heart of how the First World War affected the lives of ordinary New Zealanders. The book analyses what it was like for New Zealand soldiers at the two main battle fronts where they fought, and frames i t with the social effects back home. Beginning with an outline of pre-war New Zealand society, Wright portrays the extraordinary world of war into which its young men plunged as they entered the baptism of fire at Gallipoli. The end of innocence that the withdrawal from the Dardanelles implied led to a harder, more fatalistic approach in the theatre of mechanised death that was the Western Front. By war's end, hope and glory had faded, replaced by a new view of military heroism - in a country forever changed ...Show more

Anzac The New Zealanders at Gallipoli by Christopher Pugsley

$25.00 NZD

Category: First World War

The Lost History of 1914: How the Great War Was Not Inevitable by Jack Beatty

$25.00 NZD

Category: First World War

In The Lost History of 1914, Jack Beatty examines the First World War and its cses, testing against fresh evidence the long-dominant assumption that it was inevitable. 'Most books set in 1914 map the path leading to war,' Beatty writes, 'this one maps the multiple paths that led away from it.' Radically challenging the standard account of the war's outbreak, Beatty presents the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand not as the catalyst of a war that would have broken out in any event over some other crisis, but rather as 'its all-but unique precipitant'. Chronicling largely forgotten events faced by each of the belligerent countries in the months before the war started in gust, Beatty shows how any one of them - a possible military coup in Germany; the threat to Britain of civil war in Ireland; the murder trial of the wife of the likely next premier of France, who sought d tente with Germany - might have derailed the arrival of war. Europe's ruling classes, Beatty shows, were so hnted by fear of those below that they mistook democratisation for revolution, and were tempted to 'escape forward' into war to head it off. Beatty's deeply insightful book - as elegantly written as it is thought-provoking and probing - lights a lost world about to blow itself up in what George Kennan called 'the seminal catastrophe of the twentieth century'. The Lost History of 1914 is a highly original and challenging work of history. ...Show more

The World Crisis 1911-1918

$25.00 NZD

Category: First World War

The Bells of Hell Go Tingalingling

$50.00 NZD

Category: First World War

Echoes of Gallipoli: In the Words of New Zealand's Mounted Riflemen by Terry Kinloch

$20.00 NZD

Category: First World War

The Gallipoli campaign of 1915 played an important part in making New Zealand the nation it is today. The heavy sacrifice of life affected the country for generations, and our annual remembrances on Anzac Day are still dominated by those battles 90 years ago. It is 20 years since the last book to tell t he full story of Gallipoli from the New Zealand perspective was published. Now we have a new account that adds significantly to our understanding of what happened during those fateful months. Terry Kinloch tells the story through the eyes of the men of the New Zealand Mounted Rifles Brigade, which fought at Gallipoli from May to December 1915. He has thoroughly researched their letters and diaries, cleverly weaving their eyewitness comments into his text. Much of this material has not been published before; the result is a book that reads with the immediacy of actually being there. The full story of the brigade is told: the mobilisation of the volunteers and their preparations in New Zealand, the long sea journey with thousands of horses, the frustrations of training in Egypt while the real war went on in Europe, the eventual arrival of the brigade at Gallipoli, the battles and skirmishes that were fought there, the disillusionment as the realities of trench warfare sank in, and finally their remarkable evacuation. The brigade emerged from the campaign battered and depleted, but with its reputation enhanced. More than 700 of the 4000 mounted riflemen who served on Gallipoli did not survive, and another 1200 were wounded. Heavily illustrated with original photographs, Echoes of Gallipoli is the ideal book for anyone wanting to understand what it was like to be a young soldier in 1915, what really happened at Gallipoli and the impact these events had on one of our finest fighting formations. ...Show more

In the Shadow of War - Voices of the First World War by Nicholas Boyack; Jane Tolerton

$15.00 NZD

Category: First World War

Australian and New Zealand Voices of the First World War by SCOTT FORBES (comp)

$75.00 NZD

Category: First World War

The First World War was an unprecedented conflict that reshaped the global political landscape and modern attitudes to warfare, valour and patriotism. And for the fledgling nations of Australia and New Zealand it was yet more: the cauldron in which their identities were forged, the international stage o n which they first performed and drew praise, the foundation of many of their institutions and traditions. This handsomely produced volume recounts the traumatic years of 1914 to 1918 through the 'voices' of those involved - the diaries and letters of officers, soldiers and nurses; the pronouncements of politicians and strategists; the songs sung on marches and in concert halls; the poems and memoirs that questioned the war, celebrated its victories and lamented its calamitous losses. Richly illustrated, it is a fascinating history, a beautiful commemorative keepsake, and a moving tribute to those who fought to defend their way of life. ...Show more

TOMMY GOES TO WAR by MALCOLM BROWN

$35.00 NZD

Category: First World War

The image of the innocent British soldier (or "Tommy") setting off with a spring in his step in 1914 to fight the "Great War" would not last long.Indeed that initial euphoria would soon give way to a deep-seated bitterness as these young men endured the horror of the First World War.In a new edition of this extraordinary book, the uncensored letters, diaries, documents and many photographs tell the story of the British soldier (nicknamed Tommy) in their own words.While there are flashes of their wit and humour, the overwhelming feeling is that of a generation who felt let down by their superiors and left to perish.There are visceral, terrifying insights into life in the trenches and agonising descriptions of the squalor and privations of war.This haunting account also looks at the aggressive drive to recruit more soldiers through the Pals Battalion or Chum's Battalion. Friends from the same town or village; professional bodies, or work colleagues among others were encouraged to enlist en masse. They would fight together alongside their friends or colleagues. Many of them would sadly die together and leave communities wild with grief for a lost generation, robbed of a future having barely had a past.With a concise analysis of the British Army in the First World War, we are reminded of the terror of war, the fury, the fear and the frustration of what has been described by some as a war typified by the devastating assessment: "lions led by donkeys". ...Show more

The War Effort of New Zealand

$80.00 NZD

Category: First World War

Voices of Gallipoli by Maurice Shadbolt

$20.00 NZD

Category: First World War | Reading Level: very good

Based on diary entries of New Zealand soldiers sent to fight the long and futile battle of Gallipoli in 1915 - during which nearly 3,000 of them died - this is an account of that tragic campaign, charting the suffering and disillusionment of those who arrived as innocent and loyal sons of the Empire. ...Show more

The Anzacs by Patsy Adam-Smith

$25.00 NZD

Category: First World War