the first world war
Foreign fields forever England
In July 1915 the poet Edward Thomas enlisted as a soldier with the Artists’ Rifles, even though, at the age…
How to suck up in society — with the Cunards, the Corrigans and the Colefaxes
A more appropriate subtitle to this homage to the queen bees of the interwar years might have been ‘How to…
Was the bloodiest battle in history completely futile?
On 1 July 1916, along a frontage of 18 miles, 100,000 British infantrymen — considerably more than the entire strength…
My strategy for the first world war — by Allan Mallinson
In this centenary year of the Somme, it is refreshing to read a book about the Great War that is…
Sexual tension and Siberian magic mushrooms
On her arrival in Russia in 1914, Gerty Freely finds it refreshingly liberal compared to her native Britain: here servants…
T.E. Lawrence: from young romantic to shame-shattered veteran
T.E. Lawrence is seen as a ‘metaphor for imperialism, violence and betrayal’ in the Middle East. But woeful Arab leadership has also been to blame for the region’s problems, says Justin Marozzi
A fairytale return for Graham Swift
The opening of Graham Swift’s new novel clearly signals his intent. ‘Once upon a time’ tells us that this will…
Rex Whistler: ‘a desolate sense of loneliness amidst so much fun’
When Hugh and Mirabel Cecil’s book In Search of Rex Whistler was published in 2012, the late Brian Sewell reviewed…
What drove Europe into two world wars?
Sir Ian Kershaw won his knight’s spurs as a historian with his much acclaimed two-volume biography of Hitler, Hubris and…
Sebastian Faulks returns to the psychiatrist’s chair in Where My Heart Used to Beat
There can hardly be two novelists less alike than Sebastian Faulks and Will Self, in style and in content. Faulks…
The British army’s greatest catastrophe — and its most valuable lesson
Peter Parker spends 24 hours on the bloodsoaked battlefield of the Somme, scene of the British army’s greatest catastrophe
The honour of the Habsburgs was all that mattered to the imperial Austrian army
John Keegan, perhaps the greatest British military historian of recent years, felt that the most important book (because of its…
Edward Thomas: the prolific hack (who wrote a book review every three days for 14 years) turned to poetry just in time
Edward Thomas was gloomy as Eeyore. In 1906 he complained to a friend that his writing ‘was suffering more &…
Carnage on the home front: revisiting a forgotten disaster of the first world war
Philip Hensher on a little-known episode of first world war history when a munitions factory in Kent exploded in April 1916, claiming over 100 lives
The Irish Times: read by the smug denizens of Dublin 4 and responsible for the Celtic Tiger property bubble
The most successful newspapers have a distinct personality of their own with which their readers connect. In Britain, the Daily…
Kaiser Wilhelm's guide to ruining a country
The life of Kaiser Wilhelm II is also a guide to how to ruin a country, says Philip Mansel
Like Birdsong – only cheerful
It is difficult to know whether Clive Aslet intended a comparison between his debut novel, The Birdcage, set in Salonica…
To see how good Journey's End is, just look at who it's offended
‘You have no idea,’ wrote the publisher Ralph Hodder-Williams in 1929 to one of his authors, what terrible offence Journey’s…
Edwardian Requiem, by Michael Waterhouse - review
The photograph on the jacket, reproduced above, says it all — or at least all of what most of us…
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