On 21 September 1918, with retreating German forces on their last legs, the 1st Battalion of the AIF was ordered to return to the front just as they were being relieved and preparing for a well-earnt rest. It wasn’t just the Germans who were on their last legs; the Australians were depleted and exhausted. In what was the largest such instance of mass ‘combat refusal’ in the AIF’s history, the men of one company in the 1st Battalion defied the order. The ‘mutiny’ spread to other companies, and when the battalion did eventually comply with the order, over 100 men were absent. The circumstances surrounding this mutiny have long been a matter of embarrassment for the AIF, and of fascination for military historians. While historians have approached the issue in purely military terms – the men as soldiers, over-extended service, rates of wounding, promotions, and so on – this book approaches these 100 plus men as human beings. Mutiny on the Western Front traces how these events played out in the context of the exhausting demands placed upon a unit that had seen practically continuous front-line action for weeks, if not months, in the war’s final, decisive stages. Author Greg Raffin considers what happens to men’s hearts and minds in the course of a prolonged conflict like the Great War. This story, which will surprise readers – is not just about a group of exhausted and war weary Australian soldiers in 1918, it is a story about humanity in war: about what men do in war, and what war does to men.

The Mutiny by the French Army Soldiers in 1917 in World War One

The shocking story of a WWII shootout between black and white GIs in a quiet Cornish town that put the British-US “special relationship” on trial. On September 26, 1943, racial tensions between American soldiers stationed in Cornwall erupted in gunfire. Labelled a ‘wild west’ mutiny by the tabloids, it became front page news in Great Britain and the USA. For Americans, it bolstered a fast-accelerating civil rights movement, while in the UK, it exposed unsettling truths about Anglo-American relations. With new archival research, journalist Kate Werran pieces together the shocking drama that authorities tried to hush up. Her narrative examines everything from the controversy of American segregation on British soil to the shocking event itself and the resulting court martial. Extracted from wartime cabinet documents, secret government surveys, opinion polls, diaries, letters and newspapers as well as testimony from those who remember it, this story offers a rare window into a little-known dark side of the ‘American Invasion.’

Gallipoli was the final resting place for thousands of young Australians. Death struck so fast there was no time for escape or burial. And when Gallipoli was over there was the misery of the European Campaign. Patsy Adam-Smith read over 8000 diaries and letters to write her acclaimed best-seller about the First World War. These are the extraordinary experiences of ordinary men – and they strike to the heart. The Anzacs remains unrivalled as the classic account of Australia's involvement in the First World War.

The story of an epochal event in German history, this is also the story of the most important revolution that you might never have heard of.

This book is an innovative comparative history of how German and British soldiers endured the horror of the First World War. Unlike existing literature, which emphasises the strength of societies or military institutions, this study argues that at the heart of armies' robustness lay natural human resilience. Drawing widely on contemporary letters and diaries of British and German soldiers, psychiatric reports and official documentation, and interpreting these sources with modern psychological research, this unique account provides fresh insights into the soldiers' fears, motivations and coping mechanisms. It explains why the British outlasted their opponents by examining and comparing the motives for fighting, the effectiveness with which armies and societies supported men and the combatants' morale throughout the conflict on both sides. Finally it challenges the consensus on the war's end, arguing that not a 'covert strike' but rather an 'ordered surrender' led by junior officers brought about Germany's defeat in 1918.