Taking as its focus memorials of the First World War in Britain, this book brings a fresh approach to the study of public symbols by exploring how different motives for commemorating the dead were reconciled through the processes of local politics to create a widely valued form of collective expression. It examines how the memorials were produced, what was said about them, how support for them was mobilized and behaviour around them regulated. These memorials were the sites of contested, multiple and ambiguous meanings, yet out of them a united public observance was created. The author argues that this was possible because the interpretation of them as symbols was part of a creative process in which new meanings for traditional forms of memorial were established and circulated. The memorials not only symbolized emotional responses to the war, but also ambitions for the post-war era. Contemporaries adopted new ways of thinking about largely traditional forms of memorial to fit the uncertain social and political climate of the inter-war years.This book represents a significant contribution to the study of material culture and memory, as well as to the social and cultural history of modern warfare.

Volume II of III This volume is sub-titled The Battle of St Mihiel, and covers St Mihiel, Pont a Mouson and Metz. The first 18 pages provide the historical background, how the St Mihiel salient was formed in September 1914 and how it was eventually eliminated four years later, in September 1918. Details of the American forces (corps and divisions) involved are given with photos of some of their commanders. Then follow the outlines of three guided tours round the battlefields with comments on the scenes of interest and accounts of the fighting. The first tour covers Verdun to Commercy, via Calonne trench, Eparges, Apremont Forest, Ailly Wood and St Mihiel, including a visit to the latter. The next trip goes from Commercy to Metz, via Pont a Mousson and including a visit to Pretre Wood where there was heavy fighting from Sep 1914 to May 1915 when it finally passed into French hands and remained there. It ends with a tour of Metz. The third tour runs from Metz to Verdun via Etain, the main place of interest visited on this leg which does not take in the Verdun battlefield. Good maps and battlefield photos all make this an interesting piece of WWI history.

“The memoir of . . . an American pilot flying with the famous French Flying Corps’ American Layfayette Escadrille and provides a unique personal insight.”—Firetrench In 1915 James Roger McConnell enlisted as a US volunteer in the French Flying Corps. He was part of a remarkable band of American volunteers which were formed into the famous Lafayette Escadrille, which was then based at Verdun. This book brings his personal account of the war, Flying for France, to a new generation of readers. His memoirs produce an amazing insight into the early aerial battles and trace the evolution of aerial warfare as the rickety aircraft of 1915 rapidly evolved into the purpose-built fighters of 1917. Casualties among the American Escadrille were very high and McConnell’s own luck finally ran out when he was ambushed by two German fighters and was killed in action in March 1917. His gripping and detailed memoir of the war is his lasting memorial; his honest account of the everyday life of a pilot in the Great War is matched only by Sagittarius Rising. However, his dramatic description of the battlefield of Verdun viewed from above is one of the classic descriptions of any wartime memoir and is unmatched by any other Great War writer. “Resurrects an important part of the first-person literature of the Lafayette Escadrille. A long-lost gem.”—Over the Front “The memoir and letters give a surprising amount of detail about the pilot’s life and tactics employed. McConnell’s story is certainly an interesting one and this is a short and easily digestible introduction to the life of a First World War pilot.”—WW1 Geek