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As well as over 60 million soldiers who fought in the First World War, 16 million animals also ‘served’ and suffered colossal casualties. Over 8 million horses died, as did tens of thousands of dogs, cats and pigeons. They were killed hauling guns, rescuing the wounded, controlling vermin and carrying messages. Most died without recognition, but a few survived and became animal celebrities.Warrior, ‘the luckiest horse on the Western Front’ became an equine hero, Rin Tin Tin, a German Shepherd dog, was born in the trenches and went on to star in over 30 films, Percy the cat served in one of the first tanks and Cher Ami, a messenger pigeon, rescued a United States battalion from certain death.A menagerie of other animals served included a baboon, bear, camels, donkeys, elephants, maggots, pigs, ponies, slugs and even whales. In contrast to serving, mosquitoes, lice, and rats spread disease; more men dying in Salonika from malaria than from enemy fire. At home, many families kept chickens, rabbits or pigs while elephants replaced horses in the streets and fields, pulling carts and ploughs.This book commemorates and celebrates the role of animals throughout the conflict and tells the story of how all creatures great and small helped to win the Great War.

Delve deep into the trees and find wonder in our UK woodlands. Step back from the pressures of everyday life and reconnect with nature and its mindful magic with this absorbing and engaging guide. Learn what you can see at different times of the year and recognise the stunning trees, flowers and plants, multi-hued birds and insects, and mysterious mammals that call these habitats home. Soon you will be marvelling at rutting deer, soaking up the view of beautiful bluebells, and entering the world of bumbling badgers and fantastic foxes, while also enjoying the rapturous sound of glorious birdsong. Press pause on your modern worries and go back to your ancestors’ roots by foraging for nuts and berries. Become aware of the signs that indicate one season transforming into another. Search for fairytale mushrooms and at the same time understand why they are essential to our environment. Discover the science, history and folklore associated with the oak, ash and birch. On your seasonal adventures through our enigmatic woodlands, be humbled by their importance to our interconnected ecosystem, and be inspired to protect these precious places for the betterment of the world. This accessible guide, with its attractive and original photos, will help you to build an everlasting bond with your local wildlife and woodlands, thus enriching your well-being and life.

Princess Ileana of Romania (1909–1991), known later in life as Mother Alexandra, was the youngest daughter of King Ferdinand I of Romania and his consort, Queen Marie. Kind, intelligent, and beautiful, she was exalted among the royal courts of Europe and the darling of the Romanian people. She married Archduke Anton of Austria in 1931 and made Schloss Sonnberg her home before returning to Romania during World War II, where she converted the famous Bran Castle into a hospital for wounded soldiers. Exiled after the Soviet occupation of 1944, she eventually settled near Boston, Massachusetts, where Senator John F. Kennedy helped her on the path to citizenship. Having pawned the magnificent Vladimir Sapphire Kokoshnik crown, once the possession of Empress Alexandra Feodorovna of Russia, to buy a home and raise her six children in relative security, life could have taken a predictable course from then on—but not so for the princess. In 1961 she travelled to France to train as a monastic, and six years later founded a monastery in Ellwood, Pennsylvania. During the quiet decades that followed, she gradually revealed to intimate friends the startling secrets her mother had told her about the murder of her relatives, the Romanov family, by the Bolsheviks on July 16, 1918. Ileana of Romania: Princess, Exile and Mother Superior is both a narrative of an extraordinary life and an unveiling of new evidence pertaining to one of the great mysteries of the twentieth century. It is a story of war and struggle, the complete upending of an old order, and of finding peace at the end of it.

For the first time, this book chronicles all the daring escapes from Oflag IV-C Colditz Castle. By late 1939, the German Blitzkrieg offensive had swept up a number of prisoners of war who were housed in forts and purpose-built camps. To the committed escape artist this was an initiation test, and many officers made light work of regaining their freedom, however finding passage to safety was difficult and recapture was often the outcome. Gradually Allied officers became such persistent planners of escape that the German High Command required an escape-proof prison, deep in Eastern Germany. Colditz Castle, with it’s rich history and imposing walls, provided such a place. The Polish were amongst the first prisoners to be incarcerated at Colditz. On 7 November 1940 the first British contingent arrived to join the men who were already stationed at the camp known as Oflag IV-C, including the Laufen Six with Major Pat Reid. Gradually more Allied officers arrived, including Belgians, French and Dutch, all of whom were all branded as ‘troublesome or persistent escape artists’. They made up a community of committed officers hell-bent on escape with a wide variety of skills to exchange and hone, and there was also an escape by the Indian national, Dr Biren Mazumdar. The inmates also included Prominente who were political prisoners such as Giles Romilly, the nephew of Winston Churchill. These men were amongst the bravest to serve in the Second World War and risked everything to ensure maximum disruption to the German war machine. Over the next four years there were 183 recorded escape attempts. The security officer at Colditz, Reinhold Eggers, established a museum in the Castle with exhibits, disguises and forged identity papers to educate his guards and prevent further escapes. Vital resources were diverted to guarding these men and the effort, time and money required to track down the men who escaped harmed the war effort of Nazi Germany.

Born of private means, educated and eloquent, Robert Rose was once a fixture in the literary circles of 19th-century Manchester and Liverpool, but now nearly erased from history. Rose wrote poetry tinged with longing, loss, and quiet resistance. This deeply researched biography brings Rose back into the light, uncovering his words, his world, and the legacy he left behind. Though many questions remain, his story of displacement, artistic ambition, and the struggle for recognition resonates powerfully today. The Bard of Colour, Robert Rose brings Rose out of obscurity and into the light. This compelling biography explores his work, his world, and the prejudice he faced, offering a rare window into Black British life in the Victorian era.

After defeating a coalition of Athens, Thebes, Persia, and other Greek city-states at the end of the Corinthian War in 387 BC, Sparta tyrannized all of Greece with nearly unchecked power. But her empire had been hollowed by the cost of generations of war and a most unfavourable trend in demographics: a sharp decline in Spartan soldiers and citizens. With Sparta's infirmity came a desperately tighter grip on Greece. And Sparta’s renowned king, Agesilaus II, held a special hatred for Thebes. After conquering the city in 382 BC, Sparta dismantled Thebes and intended to permanently eliminate their Theban problem. Thebes, though, was stubbornly resilient in the face of Sparta’s cruelty and not only survived Spartan occupation, but soon overthrew Sparta and aimed to shatter her empire. Against the odds, Thebes succeeded. Her victory boiled down to the indomitable spirit of two men: the irreproachable general Epaminondas and the cunning statesman Pelopidas. The two formed a local resistance movement that first liberated their home from Spartan oppression in 378 and then challenged Sparta’s empire outright in the Theban-Spartan War. By 371 at the Battle of Leuctra, their vision of a free Thebes and broken Sparta was realized, and the infamous Spartan war machine was at long last defeated. For the first time since the age of mythology, Thebes reigned supreme over Greece. Leuctra was the lynchpin of the new Theban Hegemony, and began a new era of empire in Greece, and the first power in centuries that was not Athens or Sparta.

The debt of Ancient Greece to our own society has long been recognised. However, there is another side to the culture that bequeathed us such gifts as democracy, medicine, art and sports, one that does not glitter so much. Sex and Sexuality in Ancient Greece plunges headfirst into a society that holds very different values to our own, an alien world whose top God committed adultery whilst in the guise of a swan, where Spartan brides were dressed up as boys to consummate their marriage, doctors believed women were inside out men with wandering wombs that attacked their internal organs and Olympic athletes fought literally to the death for the chance to win a crown made of leaves. It’s time to ask the hard questions: were women really so devalued that they were locked up in their homes, was every man in ancient Athens homosexual and what’s with all the hardcore pornography on everyday crocker? ex and Sexuality in Ancient Greece seeks to answer these questions and many others, whilst trying not to flinch as it explores a topic that is both provoking and fascinating. You will never look at Ancient Greece in the same way again.

July of 1331 saw the gathering of a most unusual army; its billets scattered across the modest ports of Yorkshire’s eastern coast. Its purpose, the invasion of Scotland and the overthrow of the yet inchoate line of Bruce kings. This was a task monumentally disproportionate in scale to the tiny army that sought to undertake it. It was a goal which they would ultimately fail to realise, though not before experiencing some spectacular successes and forever changing the balance of power within Scottish politics. The most notable of these triumphs were the Battle of Dupplin Moor, and the better-known Battle of Halidon Hill. Such unlikely victories lent credibility to their cause, igniting another decade of war. The army was mostly English, but its masters were the disinherited sons and grandsons of what had once been the flower of Scottish knighthood, an alliance of related Scottish nobles who had been exiled from Scotland for their ongoing refusal to accept Robert Bruce’s claim to the throne. While they eagerly courted the support of the current English king, Edward III, they were no mere ciphers or puppets – their fathers and grandfathers had been amongst the fiercest proponents of Scottish freedom and independence. Edward I of England had seized upon the succession crisis that followed the death of Alexander III to insinuate himself into the centre of Scottish politics and attempt to compel the Scottish nobility into acquiescing to his claims of overlordship. Yet the following war was shaped as much by the struggle between rival Scottish dynasties as it was the imperial ambitions of successive English kings. Running parallel to the war to refute English overlordship of Scotland was an internecine conflict in which disparate factions of the Scottish nobility vied with one another to secure the throne. Both the Bruce and the Comyn family, from whom the majority of the exiles were descended, danced back and forth across the line between loyalists and collaborators in their attempts to dominate Scottish politics. The Bruces and their allies eventually triumphed in this dual struggle, but it was a victory of family and faction rather than kingdom or nation. The return of these disinherited nobles and the war they unleashed eventually re-awakened English ambitions to annex Scotland, spiralling into the Second War of Independence. This book explores the history of the families that produced these exiles, as well as their conduct in both Wars of Independence, to gain a valuable new perspective on Scotland’s historical struggle for independence and uncover the truth of the, all but forgotten, civil war that did so much to define it.

On a bleak January morning in 1972, a frightened fifteen-year-old stepped off a train at North Camp railway station and into a life he never wanted. Forced into the Junior Guardsman’s Wing with no say in his future, he arrived at the Guards Depot, Pirbright—an austere military world of khaki, command, and unforgiving discipline. But what began as coercion soon became transformation. Amid the rigid routines, harsh expectations, and relentless pressure, he discovered resilience he never knew he possessed.From the echoing wooden blocks of C3 to the parade grounds where boys were shaped into Guardsmen, he learned to embrace the path laid before him. Over four demanding years he rose through the ranks, earning the honour of escorting the Queen on state occasions and standing proud on Queens Life Guard duty at Whitehall—privileges granted only to the most trusted and exacting soldiers.But success in the Guards comes with shadows. Behind the immaculate uniforms and ceremonial splendour lay politics, envy, and agendas far beyond a young trooper’s control. When a fabricated scandal shook the ranks, he found himself at the centre of a storm he neither caused nor understood. In a single, devastating moment, a promising career was destroyed—not by failure, but by betrayal. He became a scapegoat for powerful institutions determined to protect themselves.Raw, compelling, and deeply human, this is the untold story of a boy soldier who rose above circumstance, only to be cast aside by the very establishment he served with honour.

Since the early days of mankind there seems to have been an urge to travel. The undertaking of arduous journeys to visit a sacred, or magical place seems to be an integral part of the human psyche. The peak of English pilgrimage was during the medieval period. Some pilgrims spent large sums of money and risked their lives to travel to the Holy Land to see the places where Jesus had lived and died. The other major destinations, and closer to home, were Rome and Santiago de Compostela. Yet most pilgrimages were of a day or two to local shrines. Pilgrimage could be made as a form of personal devotion, to ask for a cure of illness or in thankfulness for help from the saints. This book explores the stories of the people who went on pilgrimage. Where did they go? What inspired them to make the journey? What hardships would they endure on the way? What would they experience when they arrived at their destination. Would there be miracles? and how would their life be changed when they returned home. The history of pilgrimage is the story of people, their hopes and fears, in this life and the next.

Richard Marsden Pankhurst is an obscure figure, forgotten by history because he has been overshadowed by his dazzling wife, Emmeline, the great leader of the Suffragettes. Yet their partnership as campaigners was a critical element in her development and success. Her reaction to his death in 1898 led to her decision five years later to convene the Women's Social and Political Union, popularly known as the Suffragettes. Richard's intense character and devotion to ideals made him an object of both admiration and derision. He was widely respected as an honest man who put principle before self and party. Yet in worldly terms he was a failure. As a barrister, he should have been able to provide a comfortable home life for his family, but his political extremism hindered success in his career and the family struggled to afford the life to which they aspired. Even as a political campaigner Richard failed in several attempts to enter parliament. Nevertheless his marriage to young and beautiful Emmeline lent him a new glamour and soon resulted in a growing family. He moulded their beliefs and actions, creating a campaigning machine. Women's equality was a significant focus, but so too were the other radical causes they espoused on behalf of the poor, workers, children, and world peace. Emmeline had already begun to take the lead in political activism, due in no small measure to the support of her devoted and unconventional spouse. The startling tactics of the Suffragettes in the early 20th century owed much to the influence of Richard Pankhurst. Later overshadowed by his extraordinary wife and daughters, his memory has been erased, but his story is a vital component in understanding the remarkable Pankhurst women.

The year 1955 came at the height of a boom for passenger ships. World War II had ended a decade before, business was restored, global markets had reopened, and shipping for trade and transport was in high demand. Picture Encyclopedia of Passenger Ships 1955 is an international directory of worldwide passenger ships and their services in that peak year, when one could sail from Liverpool to Valparaiso, Genoa to Cape Town, or Hong Kong to San Francisco. Over 150 vessels are included, with photographs, itineraries and essential statistics, covering all the great shipping lines of the 1950s and their routes to every corner of the globe.

The Gloucestershire Regiment is the most decorated in British Army history. During its 300-year history, the regiment bore more battle honours on its Colours than any other. From the deserts of North Africa to the jungles of Burma, this book will give an insight into each individual conflict, the people who fought them and the political context that made them happen. Exclusive access to 15,000 unique archival documents, including personal accounts, secret documents and private diaries gives this work an exclusivity that no other can match, providing readers with a deeper knowledge and understanding of the regiment’s history. Never heard before personal stories of exceptional bravery are uncovered, including Lieutenant Irrwin tearing down a 12ft high brick wall with his bare hands to attack the French at Toulouse, CSM Gallagher becoming a POW in both Nazi Germany and North Korea, and Captain Maunsell leading a team of sharpshooters in the Crimea. The book is written chronologically and is sectioned according to campaigns or relevant historical periods, and is a valuable reference for those wanting to learn about the history of the ‘Glorious Glosters’.

This is the first biography of Michael Ward (1925–2005): mountaineer, surgeon, scientist, explorer and writer. Amongst his many accomplishments, it describes – from his unique perspective – the first ascent of Mount Everest in 1953, when he was expedition doctor. Before this, he instigated the 1951 Reconnaissance Expedition, which discovered the route climbers would take to Everest’s summit after poring over forgotten maps and aerial photographs. During the ground-breaking 1960–61 Himalayan Scientific and Mountaineering Expedition, he led the first ascent of the iconic Ama Dablam, notably during winter, a climb considered years ahead of its time. As an explorer, he was one of the first Europeans to travel through, and map, the remote northern regions of Bhutan, while conducting a medical survey of its inhabitants. He went on to write the first textbook on mountain medicine, which remains in print today. In 1981, just as China was opening up following its turbulent Cultural Revolution, Ward organised and led an expedition there, which made the first ascent of Mount Kongur. The following year, the Royal Geographic Society awarded him its highest honour, the Founder’s (Gold) Medal. Ward climbed with some of the legends of mountaineering: Eric Shipton, Ed Hillary, Tenzing Norgay and Chris Bonington; and this book relates many stories during his time with them. It also contains never-before published material, including Ward’s view of some controversial incidents during that history-making climb of Everest, as his widow allowed full access to his expedition diaries and his unpublished, hand-written autobiography.

While the Americans were fighting in Vietnam, a struggle of even greater strategic significance was taking place in the Middle East: the Sultanate of Oman guards the entrance to the Arabian Gulf, and thus controls the movement of oil from that region. In the 1960s and 70s, the Communists tried to seize this artery and, had they succeeded, the consequences for the West and for the Middle East would have been disastrous - and yet, few people have ever heard of this geo-political drama at the height of the Cold War. In the Service of the Sultan tells, first-hand, the largely unknown story of a small number of British officers who led Muslim soldiers in this hard-fought anti-insurgency war which has shaped today's Gulf. After outlining the historical, geographical and political background, the book describes military action in a stark and mountainous environment, including operations with irregular forces and the SAS as well as action in the air and at sea. The book gives a gripping, moving, funny account of all these and paints a powerful and illuminating picture of the realities of war. It will appeal to all who are interested in the Cold War and relationships between the Western and the Arab worlds. Politics, history, irregular warfare, religion, international affairs: all are ingredients in this absorbing, informative read. In the light of the current insurgencies in Iraq and Afghanistan, it is also timely to be reminded how a rare victory was won over Communist guerrillas.

As the Second World War loomed, the Territorial Army was doubled and 2nd Battalion, The London Rifle Brigade was formed. This title was short lived and 8th Rifle Brigade joined the newly raised 11th Armoured Division in the spring of 1941. Three years of training followed, with regular changes of tactics and developments in weapons and equipment. Some of these were still being implemented at the last moment before the invasion of North West Europe, including the issue of a mix of Lend Lease US halftracks. Deploying to Normandy, 8 RB’s companies were attached to their respective Sherman regiments of 29 Armoured Brigade and were well prepared for their part in Operation EPSOM. At the tip of the salient driven across the Odon, the Riflemen fought their first bloody action on Hill 112. Operation GOODWOOD followed in mid-July, with successful infantry assaults on villages before tank casualties and heavy rain brought a halt to the battle. At the end of the month, with the American breakout gaining momentum, the 11th Armoured Division was transferred west into the Bocage in Operation BLUECOAT. In very different terrain the Riflemen played a leading part in the advance south. Having reached Preseles, again at the tip of an advance, 8 RB fought a desperate defensive battle against an SS panzer division. But by now the Germans were becoming exhausted and over two weeks, the pattern was an advance 10 miles or so against delaying positions before facing a serious German position, usually based on an obstacle as dusk settled. Overnight the enemy withdrew again, and the process was repeated daily to Falaise and beyond. The distances covered in the pursuit to the Seine were greater but with the seizure of a crossing at Venon, the division was rushed forward and in a remarkable advance of many miles against disorganised German formations, the division took Amiens and secured bridges over the River Somme, forestalling enemy attempts to form a defensive line.