In 1917, the American Expeditionary Forces (AEF) arrived in Europe to fight alongside the French and British allied forces. American journalist Heywood Broun followed the AEF and reported on their experiences. He published these sketches in book form in 1918. This project is part of the ongoing commemoration by LibriVox volunteers of the centenary of World War I. (Summary by MaryAnn) [chương_files]
The Influence of Sea Power Upon History: 1660–1783 is a history of naval warfare written in 1890 by Alfred Thayer Mahan. It details the role of sea power during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and discusses the various factors needed to support and achieve sea power, with emphasis on having the largest and most powerful fleet. Scholars consider it the single most influential book in naval strategy. – Summary by Wikipedia [chương_files]
Anne Stuart (1665-1714), Queen of England, Scotland, and Ireland, succeeded William III to the throne in 1702. She was the daughter of the deposed Catholic king, James II, but was of the Anglican faith. Liberal, Irish member of Parliament, Justin McCarthy, writing in 1902, creates in sparkling, uncluttered prose a panoramic canvas of Anne and her times. In the first of the two volumes, the brilliant commander, the Duke of Marlborough, defeats the French and Bavarians at the Battle of Blenheim, while the flagship of the admiral of the fleet, Sir Cloudesley Shovell, strikes the rocks near the Isles of Scilly and is lost with all eight hundred hands. We are at street level in rowdy London with its aristocratic bully boys, the Mohocks, its coffee houses, and its theaters. We meet the great Tories, Harley and Bolingbroke, and encounter the satiric spirit who haunts it all, Jonathan Swift. (Pamela Nagami) [chương_files]
In the course of May 1916, the Italian authorities expressed a desire that some independent observer from Great Britain should visit their lines and report his impressions. It was at the time when our brave and capable allies had sustained a set-back in the Trentino owing to a sudden concentration of the Austrians, supported by very heavy artillery. I was asked to undertake this mission. In order to carry it out properly, I stipulated that I should be allowed to visit the British lines first, so that I might have some standard of comparison. The War Office kindly assented to my request. Later I obtained permission to pay a visit to the French front as well. Thus it was my great good fortune, at the very crisis of the war, to visit the battle line of each of the three great Western allies. I only wish that it had been within my power to complete my experiences in this seat of war by seeing the gallant little Belgian army which has done so remarkably well upon the extreme left wing of the hosts of freedom. My experiences and impressions are here set down, and may have some small effect in counteracting those mischievous misunderstandings and mutual belittlements which are eagerly fomented by our cunning enemy. – Summary by Arthur Conan Doyle, Crowborough, July 1916. [chương_files]
Guilio Raimondo (Cardinal Mazarin, 1602-1661), Richelieu’s designated successor as chief minister of France, was a master of diplomacy. Though a cardinal, he was not a priest and was probably secretly married to the Queen-Mother, Anne of Austria. Together they ruled France, facing the great rebellion known as the Fronde, and with the help of the military genius of Turenne, prevailed over the armies of Spain, Austria, and the traitorous Grand Condé. Arthur Hassall writes of Mazarin that by the time of his death in 1661 he had, through “patience, perseverance, and sagacity,” fulfilled Richelieu’s foreign policy and made the twenty-one year-old Louis XIV the absolute monarch of Europe’s greatest power. (Pamela Nagami) [chương_files]
Better known today for his influential fantasy writings, Lord Dunsany also wrote a number of sketches during World War One. This compilation of essays written from time spent in France in 1916. Much more thoughtful and melancholy than the pieces written for the War Office earlier in the war. – Summary by Alan Winterrowd [chương_files]
The Art of War is an ancient Chinese military treatise attributed to Sun Tzu, a high-ranking military general, strategist and tactician. The text is composed of 13 chapters, each devoted to one aspect of warfare. It is commonly considered to be the definitive work on military strategy and tactics of its time. It has been the most famous and influential of China’s Seven Military Classics, and “for the last two thousand years it remained the most important military treatise in Asia, where even the common people knew it by name.” It has had an influence on Eastern and Western military thinking, business tactics, legal strategy and beyond. – Summary by Wikipedia [chương_files]
William Winwood Reade (1838 – 1875) was a British historian, explorer, and philosopher. His most famous work, the Martyrdom of Man (1872)—whose summary running head reads “From Nebula to Nation”—is a secular, “universal” history of the Western world. Structurally, it is divided into four “chapters” of approximately 150 pages each: the first chapter, “War”, discusses the imprisonment of men’s bodies, the second, “Religion”, that of their minds, the third, “Liberty”, is the closest thing to a conventional European political and intellectual history, and the fourth, “Intellect”, which discusses the cosmogony characteristic of a “universal history” Cecil Rhodes, an English-born South African politician and businessman, said that the book “made me what I am”. Other admirers of The Martyrdom of Man included H. G. Wells, Winston Churchill, Harry Johnston, George Orwell, Susan Isaacs, A. A. Milne and his son Christopher Robin, and Michael Foot. A laudatory reference is made to the book by Sherlock Holmes in the Sign of the Four. – Summary by Wikipedia [chương_files]
This is Part Four of the incredible story of the actions of the men and women of the Canadian Expeditionary Force, Canada’s contribution to the Great War 1914-1919, during the last 100 days of the First World War. After nearly 4 years of stalemate (trench warfare) the Allied Forces planned to break through the German Hindenburg Line and then push the enemy from their defensive positions. You will follow the CEF as they take Amiens (Part I), Arras (Part II), Cambrai (Part III) and then the pursuit of the German Forces from Valenciennes to Mons (Part IV) in Belgium, the same place where the war began on August 4, 1914 on November 11, 1918. (Summary by Richard Laughton.) Proof-Listeners: David Lawrence; Betty M.; Sarah Jennings. [chương_files]
The Art of War is a Chinese military treatise written during the 6th century BC by Sun Tzu. Composed of 13 chapters, each of which is devoted to one aspect of warfare, it has long been praised as the definitive work on military strategies and tactics of its time. (From Wikipedia.) [chương_files]
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