Thanks for kicking off the project Betty!
Setting this up has been a team effort, with most of the work done by others!
MaryAnn
Summary of Summaries:
1. Boys and Girls Victory Pamphlets: A set of pamphlets released by the United War Work Campaign near the end of the First World War to encourage boys and girls to join the Earn and Give Division and by "sacrifice" and hard work encourage them to pledge $5.00 towards a goal of more than $170 million dollars to make life more comfortable and enjoyable for the troops.
2. Open Letter to President Wilson by George Bernard Shaw: The famous playwright and socialist addresses a plea to the POTUS of the time to express condemnation of the warring parties Germany and England for conducting their battles on the territory of the hapless neutral state, Belgium.
3. "Nos amis d'Amérique", in Quelques aspects du vertige mondial by Pierre Loti: As war rages on in Europe, French writer and retired naval officer Pierre Loti pays tribute to US architect Whitney Warren and more generally to those American citizens who, despite their country's neutrality at that stage, did their best to support the Allies and document what was going on on the Western front.
4. Women Wanted by Mabel Potter Daggett, Ch 4 ''Women Who Wear War Jewelry'': Fascinating true stories of everyday and titled women who left their husbands and children to serve at or near the front during the war. These women's names are virtually unknown in history books but, in fact, many of them received the highest military honors their countries could bestow, including the Croix de Guerre.
5. Lettere di Giulio Cozzi in Lettere e testimonianze dei ferrovieri caduti per la patria: Hundreds of Italian railway workers had time to tell their loved ones about life on the front before being killed in battle. Giulio Cozzi is just one of them. He was one of the 10,000 to 13,000 Italian casualties at the infamous Battle of Caporetto.
6-7. A Diary Without Dates by Enid Bagnold, Part 3 "The Boys": In her first book, A Diary Without Dates, published in 1918, Enid Bagnold drew upon her experiences as a civilian volunteer in Woolwich Hospital during the First World War. In a highly personal, almost stream-of-consciousness style, she offered fragments similar to prose poems, without attempting to place them in a traditionally chronological narrative. These sketches of life in a wartime military hospital combine vivid snapshots of daily life with deeper reflections on human vulnerability to pain, fear, death, and loneliness. Bagnold went on to a long and successful writing career, remembered as the author of National Velvet and The Chalk Garden.
8. Celebrated Spies and Famous Mysteries of the Great War by George Barton, Ch 8 '"The Mystery of the Turkish Beauty": A tale of espionage and intrigue with a female spy hiding behind many names and in many places. Sending secrets she learns in the United States back to Germany, she was apprehended but never charged or incarcerated. How was she able to avoid being put in prison?
9. Celebrated Spies and Famous Mysteries of the Great War by George Barton, Ch 9 '"The Romantic Life of the Dutch-Javanese Dancer Who was Shot as a Spy": The humble beginnings and tragic ending of one of the world's most famous female spies, Marguerite Gertrude Zelle, or as more widely known, Mata Hari.
10. Waiting for Daylight by H. M. Tomlinson, Sec XIV, ''Authors and Soldiers'': Henry Major Tomlinson (21 June 1873 – 5 February 1958) was a British writer and journalist. He was known for anti-war and travel writing, novels and short stories, especially of life at sea. In World War I he was an official correspondent for the British Army, in France. In 1917 he returned to work with H. W. Massingham on The Nation, which opposed the war. His book of essays, “Waiting for Daylight” was published in 1922.
11. Catastrophe and Social Change Based Upon a Sociological Study of The Halifax Disaster by ____, Chapter 1: "About midway in the last two years of war—to be exact December, 1917,—a French munitioner heavily laden with trinitrotoluol, the most powerful of known explosives, reached Halifax from New York. On the early morning of the sixth of that month, she was proceeding under her own steam up the harbor-length toward anchorage in the basin—an oval expansion half-hidden by a blunt hill called Turple Head. Suddenly an empty Belgian relief ship swept through the Narrows directly in her pathway. There was a confusion of signals; a few agonized manoeuvers. The vessels collided; and the shock of their colliding shook the world!”
From the reader: "I first heard about the Halifax disaster thanks to a book blog by fellow LibriVoxer, Maria Kasper (commonsparrow3) In her list of books read in 2015, Maria mentions “Curse of the Narrows”, a non-fiction account of the disaster. The story of the disaster was fascinating and fit the category of material pertaining to World War I, although the explosion was not a deliberate act of war. I did a few recordings for the first and second prose volumes on World War I, but forgot about this incident until the third volume. I did a search on Gutenberg for “Halifax” and found “Catastrophe and Social Change Based Upon a Sociological Study of the Halifax Disaster.” This recording is the first chapter of that book."
12. Birds and the War by Hugh S Gladstone, Chapter 7, ''“Effects of Air-Raids and Aircraft on Birds'': In this chapter, Hugh Gladstone looks at the variety of reactions (or lack thereof) that English birds had to the presence of aircraft in general, and the several air raids by zeppelin and airplane in the later years of the war.
13. Wir Toten auf Urlaub by Kurt Eisner
14. Kurze Aufklärungen über Wesen und Ziel des Pazifismus by Alfred H. Fried Austrian, Preface & Ch 1: Nobel Peace Prize winner and co-publisher of several of Bertha von Suttner works, Dr. H. C. Alfred H. Fried, answers some short-sighted and prejudiced accusations of opponents of the peace movement. He wants to keep the discussion on a factual basis and in this excerpt, explains and defines peace, the absence of war, and pacifism.
15. "Poetry of the War", Chapter 1 of Part 2 from "French Literature of the Great War" by Albert Schinz. An overview of French and Belgian poets writing war poetry about and during the First World War, with a selection of some of their best poems recited in the original French. Includes excerpts from poems by Verhaeren, Péguy, Rostand, Dérieux, Leclerc, Mercier and Gregh, among others.
16. The Care of the Dead by Anonymous: This pamphet, printed in Great Britain in 1916, explains how British and French groups such as the “Army’s Graves Registration Unit” and others worked together to record data on soldiers killed in battle. People with these groups made sure that each grave was appropriately identified and cared for, and that friends and survivors were comforted knowing that loved ones were remembered with dignity and respect.
17-18. "Soldiers, Sailors, and Books" by the American Library Association, (War Service Committee). The American Library Association (ALA) was founded in 1876, and is the oldest and largest library association in the world. In 1917, as the U.S. mobilized for the First World War, the ALA organized its War Service Committee, with the goal of providing reading materials to the men being sent to war. This booklet details the organization's efforts to set up libraries in camps, aboard ships, in hospitals, and anywhere else the men were sent, even within the war zone itself. The booklet was published as part of a fundraiser in November 1917 for the United War Work Campaign, a joint effort by seven civilian organizations involved in service to the troops.
19. Little Rays of Moonshine by A. P. Herbert, ''Five Inches''. Although written in 1920, two years after the end of the First World War, the essay “Five Inches” from A. P. Herbert’s book “Little Rays of Moonshine” refers to the veterans of that war who lost limbs in battle. Herbert himself had first-hand knowledge of the war. He joined the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve at the outbreak of the War, later serving as an officer with the Royal Naval Division. He fought in the Gallipoli campaign and on the Western Front, becoming his battalion's adjutant in 1917, after which he was injured and did not return to the front line before the end of the war.
20. ''Militant Pacificism'' by Mary Whiton Calkins. "The one thing which unites the world to-day is the desire for the end of the Great War." A psychological essay about pugnacity.
21. ''Program for World Peace; The Fourteen Points'' by Woodrow Wilson, 8 January 1918
22. ''America's Purpose; International Justice and World Peace'' by Woodrow Wilson, New York, 27 September 1918
23. ''The Fourth of August--Europe at War,'' by H. G. Wells
24. ''Declares for War'' by Theobald von Bethmann-Hollweg
25. De Wapenstilstand Geteekend: On 11 November, 1918, the First World War ended. This newspaper article from a Dutch newspaper on that day brings the hopeful tidings that the war might be over, although it is filled with uncertainty of what the future will bring. The uncertainty of how Germany will deal with the terms of the ceasefire agreement, and whether the new German government will be strong enough to help the German people overcome the heavy blow they've been dealt, features strongly in this article.
26. Introduction to The Book of the Homeless by Theodore Roosevelt. Introduction to an anthology compiled for a charity assisting those displaced by the War in Europe. An invocation from President Roosevelt imploring Americans to assist refugees in crisis.
27. ''Internationalism'' from War, Peace, and the Future by Ellen Key. Internationalism is the path away from the cycle of war, and the natural direction for the human race.
28. ''Nationalism and Patriotism'' from War, Peace, and the Future by Ellen Key. We must reject nationalism in favor of patriotism, which emphasizes pride in a home country's cultural contribution to the international Human race over nationalism's blind jingoism and warmongering.
29. ''Russia in Literature'' by British Men of Letters, 23 December 1914. An open letter signed by a few dozen famous English authors (Barrie, Doyle, Wells, etc) on the eve of WWI 1914, addressed to the great writers of Russia.
30. ''The Victory'' from A Politica, 15 Novembro 1918
31. Democracy versus Autocracy by Karl Frederick Geiser, Chapters 1-4
32. ''Shall We End War?'' by Harry Emerson Fosdick, 5 June 1921. Harry Emerson Fosdick (1878-1969) was an American Protestant minister. He served as an Army chaplain in France during the First World War. After the war, he spoke out about the horror of modern war and its incompatibility with Christianity. This sermon “Shall We End War?” was delivered on June 5, 1921, at the First Presbyterian Church in New York City.
33. ''Probleme der Friedenswirtschaft'' from Gesammelte Schriften, Band 5 by Walther Rathenau
34. Extract from Gallipoli by John Masefield. Masefield's book describes the unsuccessful 1915 allied campaign against the Ottomans, its object being to gain control of the Dardenelles - the shipping route to Russia. The extract concerns the digging of trenches for concealment and protection for those attacking the heights of the Gallipoli Peninsula. The soldiers of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC) came to be known as “Diggers”.
35. “I Am Not Dead” from Experiences of the Great War by Ashby Williams. Ashby Williams was a 44 year old lawyer from Virginia who led the U.S. Army’s First Battalion, 320th Infantry Division in the Muse-Argonne Campaign of the First World War. It was during this battle, the deadliest in U.S. History, that Major Williams “had perhaps the narrowest escape of [his] life.”
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