In The Way of the Eagle, Philadelphia native Charles Biddle ’s account of flying in World War I, we have a classic aviation memoir, long out of print, that provides new insights into America’s participation in the Great War.Biddle volunteered and was active in France from 1917, where he flew as a volunteer, initially for the French in Escadrille 73, and then in the American 103rd Aero Squadron (the Lafayette Escadrille), and then the 13th Aero Squadron and 4th Pursuit Group (which he commanded).His memoir was published shortly after his return to the United States and so provides an immediacy that is lacking in other books that were written later. It is important in that accounts of U.S. pilots from this period are relatively rare, even as he also paints a compelling picture of a group of Americans fighting as volunteers for the French. Biddle’s U.S. compatriots soon established their own capability and wrung free of French direction—and as this book reveals it was largely because of their combat prowess.For his service Biddle was awarded the French Legion of Honour, the Croix de Guerre, the American Distinguished Service Cross and the Belgian Order of Leopold II. After the war, Biddle rejoined his family law firm in Philadelphia. He died in 1972.

Sixty Squadron RAF, which covers the period from the disastrous maelstrom of the Somme offensive to final victory, 1916-1919, is one of the classic histories of the Great War. It is the story of a squadron whose members were awarded 1 Victoria Cross, 5 Distinguished Service Orders, 1 Bar to the DSO, 37 Military Crosses and 5 Distinguished Flying Crosses. Pilots of No. 60 Squadron included Harold Balfour, Albert Ball, A.D. Bell-Irving, "Billy” Bishop, K.L. Caldwell, and the young T.B. McCudden, who was killed in action, but whose own accounts of the fighting have also become legendary. Organized in April 1916, No.60 Squadron went to France the next month. It participated in not only the Somme campaign but Arras, Passchendaele and the March 1918 offensive. Group Captain A.J.L. Scott has written in this book not only of the aces under his command but of their German opponents. His account begins with the early stages of scouting and closes with the final concepts of offensive aerial combat during World War I. In the intervening period No.60 Squadron achieved an impressive 274 victories over enemy aircraft. Many of those mentioned in these pages, first published in 1920, remained in aviation in the years after the war and during World War II, with considerable success.

The Lafayette Escadrille was an all-volunteer squadron of Americans who flew for France during World War I. One hundred years later, it is still arguably the best-known fighter squadron ever to take to the skies. In this work the entire history of these gallant volunteers – who named themselves after the Marquis Lafayette, who came to America’s aid during its Revolution – is laid out in both text and pictorial form. In time for the centennial celebration, this work not only tells the fascinating story of the Lafayette Escadrille, it shows it. Already a student of the squadron, the author spent a full year sifting through university and museum archives in the United States and France for photographs and documents relating to the famed unit. To complement these images, he traveled extensively, taking snapshots of existing markers and memorials honoring the men of the Lafayette Escadrille. In France, he specifically sought out locations where the squadron operated and its pilots frequented. In several cases, he was able to match his present-day color photos with contemporary images of the same scene, thus creating a unique then-and-now comparison. To add even more color, the author included artwork and aircraft profiles by recognized illustrators, along with numerous full-color photographs of artifacts relating to the squadron's men and airplanes, as they are displayed today in various museums in the United States and France. The result is undoubtedly the finest photographic collection of the Lafayette Escadrille to appear in print. Along with the expert text revealing air–combat experiences as well as life at the front during the Great War, it is a never-before-seen visual history that both World War I aviation aficionados and those with a passing interest in history will appreciate.

‘I never saw the man again, alive or dead. One will say that I saw him only for a moment, that it was misty at the time, and that even I did not recognise the features, covered as they were with grime and stubble. Yet I am sure that the taller of the two ragged civilians I saw in the chalk quarry that misty March morning of 1918 was that Lieutenant Peter Rawley, R. F.A., who the official records stated was killed near Arras the previous autumn.’ Behind the Lines is a thriller that follows on from the success of W. F. Morris’s first novel, Bretherton: Khaki or Field-Grey? Morris is again concerned with questions of identity, allegiance, chance, concealment and self-discovery. A subaltern is forced to flee when he accidentally kills an overbearing, taunting fellow officer: appearances are all against him and he does not trust to trench justice. He becomes a fugitive and has to join forces with other deserters, lost soldiers and outlaws in a hand-to-mouth existence in the no man’s land between opposing forces. A series of adventures and disasters ensue, including capture by the Germans and near death by firing squad. Only his own bravery and the devotion of his fiancé can rescue him from his plight. A contemporary commentator noted that ‘in spite of the flood of war books’, Morris was able to achieve ‘a quite different viewpoint from all the others’, and his book was ‘an outstanding success’.

A profound and very human account of the early years of the war, told from the perspective of a father rather than combatants, but no less revealing. Mr Britling lives in the quintessentially English town of Matching’s Easy in Essex. He is a great thinker, an essayist, but most of all an optimist. When war arrives he is forced to reassess many of the things he had been so sure of. The war brings great change - Belgian refugees come with dreadful stories and everywhere it seems there are young men dressed in khaki. The family’s young German tutor is forced to head back to Germany, and Mr Britling’s seventeen year old son enlists in the Territorials. Day by day and month by month, Wells chronicles the unfolding events and public reaction as witnessed by the inhabitants of one house in rural Essex. Each of the characters tries in a different way to keep their bearings in a world suddenly changed beyond recognition. Tragedy ensues, Mr Britling must wrestle with outrage, grief and attempts at rationalisation as he ‘sees it through’. Written in 1916, while the outcome of the war was still uncertain, this is both a fascinating portrait of Britain at war, and a chronicle of events seen from a contemporary perspective, and an insight into H G Wells himself, Mr Britling being a largely autobiographical character.

Set deep in the mountains of southern France, this charming short novel tells the story of a man from the Cèvennes Mountains called Roux, who refuses to join the army at the outbreak of war in 1914. Instead, he flees and hides in the hills, only returning occasionally to the farm where he left his mother and sisters. The people of the valley condemn his desertion and they hope the police will find his hideout. But as the months and the years go by, and the horrors of the trenches become known, the local people start to understand Roux’s actions. Roux begins to appear in the village more often, helping out and explaining that his decision was taken out of respect for the Bible. His arrest at the end of the War is therefore met with sadness and regret. Chamson explores questions of perception, morality and conscience with a lightness of touch coupled with an atmospheric picture of life in a WWI era rural community.

After the first successful flight by the Wright brothers in 1903, the age of aviation was born, and by 1910 army commanders in the United States and Europe began ordering aircraft and experimenting with them. But at the outbreak of World War I in 1914, no-one could yet possibly know how significant a role they would play in the fighting. Aerial reconnaissance, observation and photography impacted the fighting in many ways, but little has been written about it. Balloons and airplanes regulated artillery fire, infantry liaison aircraft followed attacking troops and the retreats of defenders, aerial photographers aided operational planners and provided the data for perpetually updated maps, and naval airplanes, airships, and balloons acted as aerial sentinels in a complex anti-submarine warfare organization. Reconnaissance crews at the Battles of the Marne and Tannenberg averted disaster. The story told here involves the early American Lafayette Escadrille pilots who were looking for heroic deeds and romantic adventure in aerial combat, as well as the German, British and French aces of popular imagination. But the real value of military aviation lay elsewhere; balloonists, unsung heroes, were an essential part of the observation chain, and forever altered the nature of artillery operations. Observation spotters from planes further enhanced the benefit of being able to extend the target range well out of the line of sight and direct artillery fire, though communicating information was far from easy and systems from weighted message bags through light flashes, smoke signals and wireless messages were tried and honed. Eyes All Over the Sky fully explores all the aspects of aerial reconnaissance, and its previously under-appreciated significance. Also included are the individual experiences of British, American and German airmen; true pioneers of aviation warfare.

This beautiful and evocative book gives an illustrated overview of the First World War, on land, on sea and in the air. With original drawings in full colour, Steven Patricia uses 30 years’ experience as a historical illustrator to give an informative and insightful account of the war, portraying the human faces of the participants and capturing moments in time with a vividness and immediacy that brings home both the emotional impact and the tragedy of war. Accompanied by soldier’s diary extracts and other contemporary literature, there are many drawings of the hardware of war: aircraft and airships, submarines and ships, guns and grenades. We also get a glimpse of weary officers relaxing in an RAF mess, see panicking sailors swimming desperately away from a sinking ship, soldiers stumbling across no-man’s land, and the dramatic scene of one of last great cavalry charges of any war, in Egypt. The role of animals is featured, including the importance of horses and rescue and messenger dogs. The text gives a concise introduction to the events of the war and why it started, with maps of the different fronts where fighting took place and a diagram of a trench system. Designed for readers with little familiarity of the conflict, this is a unique and unmissable book in the centenary of the ‘war to end all wars’.

Après Landser, Ordre Noir et Deutsche Luftwaffe, voici un nouveau livrede la même collection sur les troupes de choc de la Première Guerremondiale.Les premières unités d'assaut (Sturmtruppen) ont été formées au coursdu printemps et de l'été de 1916, quand le Sturmbataillon Rohr a étéorganisé et après que le général Falkenhayn, chef de la Ligue de l'Ontario,a donné les ordres pour la création de détachements spéciaux. Cesdétachements avaient pour mission de répandre une nouvelle tactiquequi a transformé de manières décisive les méthodes de combats del’armée allemande. Mais bien avant cela, un autre type de troupes avaitété crée au sein de l’infanterie allemande au cours de l’hiver 1914-1915 : lestroupes de choc (Stosstruppen), des groupes d’infanterie qui n’ont jamaisété officiellement reconnus comme tels et n’ayant jamais appartenu àune unité permanente, mais qui sont restés actifs jusqu’à la fin de laguerre et qui ont contribué à l’amélioration de la capacité offensive del’infanterie allemande.Ce livre est un récit de l’histoire des troupes d’assaut et il couvre leursméthodes de combat. Il propose une description complète de leursuniformes, de leur équipement, leurs armes, avec un grand nombred’illustrations et de photographies d’époque rarement vues.

One of the shortest lived and most battle hardened of the 1st Australian Imperial Force’s battalions, the 47th was formed in Egypt in 1916 and disbanded two years later having suffered one of the highest casualty rates of any Australian unit. Their story is remarkable for many reasons.Dogged by command and discipline troubles and bled white by the desperate attrition battles of 1916 and 1917, they fought on against a determined and skilful enemy in battles where the fortunes of war seemed stacked against them at every turn. Not only did they have the misfortune to be called into some of the A.I.F.’s most costly campaigns, chance often found them in the worst places within those battles.Though their story is one of almost unrelieved tragedy, it is also story of remarkable courage, endurance and heroism. It is the story of the 1st A.I.F. itself – punished, beaten, sometimes reviled for their indiscipline, they fought on - fewer, leaner and harder - until final victory was won. And at its end, in an extraordinary gesture of mateship, the remnants of the 47th Battalion reunited. Having been scattered to other units after their disbandment, the survivors gathered in Belgium for one last photo together. Only 73 remained.

Almost a century has passed since the signing of the armistice on 11 November 1918. Of all the soldiers who went through that hell on earth, photographs, letters, stories and old uniforms kept in attics are all that is left. Thanks to a collection of more than ten thousand documents, the author allows us to follow these young men with previously unseen photographs. All these faces, sometimes smiling, sometimes serious, have a story to tell. Many collectors have also allowed us access to their most precious objects, the fruit of their relentless research that helps save these objects that went through four terrible years of oblivion and destruction. Finally, being in the era of Internet, many links allow you to retrace the history of your ancestors and their regiments. During World War One, the well-known blue and red uniform of the French army has taken different shapes, but it is not the only thing that has changed: rifles, grenades, pistols, bayonets, head-wears, etc. have seen different forms or, for some of them, were introduced during the war. Those changes are shown in this short book about the French soldier’s equipment and his commitment within the French army.

Twentyoneyearold Leonhard Rempe volunteered to serve Germany in 1914. By the time World War One ended, he had seen action on both major fronts, witnessed the war from the back of a horse and the cockpit of plane, and amassed one of the more unique records of anyone in the Kaiser’s army. From German Cavalry Officer to Reconnaissance Pilot is his remarkable story. Rempe initially served as a cavalryman in the 35th (1st West Prussian) Field Artillery of the XX ArmeeKorps, fighting in several bloody and significant battles against the Russians on the Eastern Front. In 1916, he exchanged his spurs for the cockpit and transferred to the Western front. Flying specially built planes for reconnaissance work was dangerous duty, but Rempe relished his time in the open cockpits, flying at altitudes high and low to provide detailed intelligence information for the German army. He met and knew many of the pilots who flew in both fighter and reconnaissance planes, including Manfred von Richthoven—the Red Baron. Unlike so many of his fellow pilots, Rempe survived several crashes, and was shot down over Reims, France, in March of 1918.At war’s end, Rempe returned to a defeated Germany in the midst of turmoil and revolution and served briefly in a Freikorps (Free Corps) regiment dedicated to preserving the new government in Weimar against German Communists. Seeking a new beginning, he arrived at Ellis Island in the spring of 1923 to start his life as an American. He brought with him flight reports, other miscellaneous documents, and scores of remarkable photographs documenting his wartime service, most of which are published here for the first time. During 1956, the last year of his life, Rempe penned a brief memoir of his World War One service which, together with the photographic record, forms the basis of From German Cavalry Officer to Reconnaissance Pilot.Using primary and secondary sources Dr. Paul Rempe provides insight into the grim realities of Leonhard’s war while his father’s own memoir recalls his special comradeship with his fellow soldiers and airmen. From German Cavalry Officer to Reconnaissance Pilot adds substantially to the growing literature of the First World War, and paints a unique and compelling portrait of a young German caught up in the deadly jaws of mass industrialized war.

‘Mzee’ is the Swahili word for an ‘old timer’, a respected elder. Mzee Ali Kalikilima was born near the present-day town of Tabora in western Tanzania, probably in the 1870s—there is mention of ‘The Doctor’, Dr David Livingstone—to black Muslim parents of noble birth. Aged 14, Ali led his first slaving safari to the shores of Lake Tanganyika and thence, with his caravan of captured slaves and ivory, through the malaria-, tsetse fly- and lion-infested wilds, to the Arab markets of Dar es Salaam, some 1,200 kilometres away on the Indian Ocean. With the arrival of the German colonizers, Ali joined the German East African forces as an askari. He worked on the railway line that was being laid from Dar es Salaam to Dodoma and finally to Mwanza on the shores of Lake Victoria—a monumental feat. With the outbreak of the First World War, he found himself attached to the forces of the legendary German commander, General von Lettow-Vorbeck. He saw action at the Battle of Salaita Hill near Mombasa and was with the General to the end, fighting a guerrilla campaign through southern Tanganyika, Portuguese East Africa, Nyasaland, Northern Rhodesia and to final surrender. After the war, he joined the British Colonial Service as a game scout.

2014 marks the centenary of the declaration of the Great War, which devastated daily life and gastronomy for the French, even beyond the conflict. The war saw 8,500,000 Frenchmen mobilised, all of whom needed nourishment three times a day during the 1,500 days of the conflict. French logistics had to deal with this fantastic challenge in record time: the provisioning of four million meals, portioned correctly, to the combatants at the front. This was the proving ground for the fundamentals of modern catering.Passionate about history, Jerome Delile has collected numerous historical cooking utensils, from dishes to flasks, and more, which after a meticulous restoration can now be put in context for their use during the Great War. The authentic and simple recipes in this book, abundantly illustrated with numerous enticing photos, are an invitation to travel through history in an easy and informative way. The chefs of the past who played an indispensable role in the conflict will take you on a journey through time with authentic recipes such as:Pilaf de BoeufSoupe cultivateurSoupe vigneronneCrepe a la LorraineThe research for this manuscript is now finished. It is the first in a series of three (at minimum) which will detail the cuisine of France from the beginning of the Second World War through the rationing era, taking into account the lack of food available during the occupation. TEXT IN FRENCH

Superbly illustrated with 3D drawings and period photographs, this book presents the fighter, bomber and the most famous aircrafts of the First World War. During the four years of the Great War, all the tactics and techniques of aerial warfare were invented and are still valid today.THIS BOOK IS IN FRENCH.

August 1914 – the trigger for the Great War that threw millions of men together from the mud of Flanders to the heights of Verdun: in all, one of the most tragic epochs of the bloody 20th century. Within these anonymous masses, struggling through hardship and sacrifice, some unknowns would discover in themselves the ‘divine coupling of courage and fear’ that would lead them to their vocations as leaders of men. Charles de Gaulle, Winston Churchill, Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini, George S. Patton: these 5 men, hardened in the crucible of the First World War, would become the great decision-makers of the war to come. The ordeal they went through would mark them profoundly and influence the course of their careers and, decisively, the course of history. For the first time, these five destinies are presented together in one work: an exceptional iconography and an essential document for understanding the history of both wars, and the history of the 20th century.Text in French.