This fascinating new book is devoted to an almost unknown period in the history of Sheffield. It sets the city's people and events against a background of key national developments by looking also at the way government regulations were tightened, how the country's morale was maintained, and how industry was encouraged to deliver more output.Sheffield in the Great War is written for the general reader, and a large number of the city's residents, companies and streets are mentioned by name. Many aspects of life and work are described and illustrated with more than one hundred original photographs. Numerous advertisements and excerpts are presented from the city's wartime newspapers, and highlighted Display Boxes in every chapter summarize particularly interesting or quirky themes. For more specialist readers, Notes at the end of the book provide additional detail and links to other publications and websites; general readers can of course ignore those. Two substantial Indexes make it easy to find personally-relevant people, topics and places.The book thus offers to the general reader an easy-to-read narrative with many pictures, and it provides a valuable source of information and reference to those who would like to learn more. Sheffield in the Great War starts with a brief account of the conflict itself, looking at its enormous cost not only in terms of money but also in thousands and thousands of men and horses killed or disabled. Next it presents short reviews of Britain and the city in 1914 to introduce national features which became important in wartime Sheffield. The following chapters describe Sheffield life in the four and a half years of war, with special attention to recruiting and the creation of more than twenty new military hospitals. Huge numbers of people devoted themselves to voluntary work, and the book includes much information that has been lost for the past hundred years.

This book is out of the ordinary. As well as describing the many changes in Sheffield between 1914 and 1918, it tells about the troubling events in following years as poverty and riots took hold.It is also special in identifying hundreds of small as well as large Sheffield companies that worked to provide the necessities of war. With many previously-hidden facts, the book describes the city's 'national factories', the new Ministry of Munitions, the government's control of companies, arguments about the employment of women, an increased emphasis on workers' welfare, the impact of the Sheffield Committee on Munitions of War, and the special contributions of the Cutlers' Company.Compulsory call-up, conscientious objectors and the work of the Sheffield Military Tribunal are also brought to life, as are problems caused by a shortage of food and the eventual imposition of rationing. The city's German prisoners of war are introduced, as are the ravages of influenza and the terrible poverty and conflict that soon afflicted the city. These local changes are presented against a background of important national events and with more than 100 original photographs.

This book examines strategic and diplomatic issues concerning Ireland at the beginning of the 20th century, together with espionage, sabotage, and propaganda operations of foreign powers trying to manipulate Ireland. Focussing on continental European powers such as Austria-Hungary, France, Germany, and to a lesser extent Russia, the book is based on research in diplomatic and military archives, notably in Berlin, Brussels, Paris, and Vienna. The research unearthed many unknown documents which in turn produced some unexpected revelations. During the Boer War, the French envisaged a landing in Ireland to strike at Britain. They had also financed the activities of certain Irish nationalists. The Germans and the French battled in the United States in order to control the influential Irish-American community. The comparison of documents found in archives in London and Berlin shows that some British officials let the Easter Rising of 1916 deliberately happen, the aim being the decapitation of the Irish republican movement. The book also reveals the existence of hitherto relatively unknown characters which played their part in the course of Irish history. The correspondence between George Freeman in New York and Professor Theodor Schiemann in Berlin sheds light on Germany's interest in Irish and Irish-American republican movements. France's diplomatic icons, Paul and Jules Cambon, became increasingly aware of the Irish world's threat after the signing of the Entente Cordiale in 1904.