'Without question one of the classics of post-war historical scholarship, Stone's boldly conceived and brilliantly executed book opened the eyes of a generation of young British historians raised on tales of the Western trenches to the crucial importance of the Eastern Front in the First World War' Niall Ferguson 'Scholarly, lucid, entertaining, based on a thorough knowledge of Austrian and Russian sources, it sharply revises traditional assumptions about the First World War.' Michael Howard

A full century later, our picture of World War I remains one of wholesale, pointless slaughter in the trenches of the Western front. Expanding our focus to the Eastern front, as David R. Stone does in this masterly work, fundamentally alters—and clarifies—that picture. A thorough, and thoroughly readable, history of the Russian front during the First World War, this book corrects widespread misperceptions of the Russian Army and the war in the east even as it deepens and extends our understanding of the broader conflict. Of the four empires at war by the end of 1914—the Austro-Hungarian, Ottoman, German, and Russian—none survived. But specific political, social, and economic weaknesses shaped the way Russia collapsed and returned as a radically new Soviet regime. It is this context that Stone's work provides, that gives readers a more judicious view of Russia's war on the home front as well as on the front lines. One key and fateful difference in the Russian experience emerges here: its failure to systematically and comprehensively reorganize its society for war, while the three westernmost powers embarked on programs of total mobilization. Context is also vital to understanding the particular rhythm of the war in the east. Drawing on recent and newly available scholarship in Russian and in English, Stone offers a nuanced account of Russia's military operations, concentrating on the uninterrupted sequence of campaigns in the first 18 months of war. The eastern empires' race to collapse underlines the critical importance of contingency in the complete story of World War I. Precisely when and how Russia lost the war was influenced by the structural strengths and weaknesses of its social and economic system, but also by the outcome of events on the battlefield. By bringing these events into focus, and putting them into context, this book corrects and enriches our picture of World War I, and of the true strengths and weaknesses, triumphs and successes of the Russian Army in the Great War.

Collision of Empires is the first major historical work on the Eastern Front during World War I since the 1970s. One of the primary triggers of the outbreak of World War I was undoubtedly the myriad alliances and suspicions that existed between the Russian, German, and Austro-Hungarian empires in the early 20th century. Yet much of the actual fighting between these nations has been largely forgotten in the West. Driven by first-hand accounts and detailed archival research, Collision of Empires seeks to correct this imbalance. The first in a four-book series on the Eastern Front in World War I, Prit Buttar's dynamic retelling examines the tumultuous events of the first year of the war and reveals the chaos and destruction that reigned when three powerful empires collided. A war that was initially seen by all three powers as a welcome opportunity to address both internal and external issues would ultimately bring about the downfall of them all.

With the aid of over 300 black and white and colour photographs, complemented by full-colour maps, The Eastern Front provides a detailed guide to the background and conduct of the conflict on the Eastern Front, up to and including the Russian Civil War and the Russo-Polish War.

At the beginning of 1917, the three empires fighting on the Eastern Front were reaching their breaking points, but none was closer than Russia. After the February Revolution, Russia's ability to wage war faltered and her last desperate gamble, the Kerensky Offensive, saw the final collapse of her army. This helped trigger the Bolshevik Revolution and a crippling peace, but the Central Powers had no opportunity to exploit their gains and, a year later, both the German and Austro-Hungarian empires surrendered and disintegrated. Concluding his acclaimed series on the Eastern Front in World War I, Prit Buttar comprehensively details not only these climactic events, but also the 'successor wars' that raged long after the armistice of 1918. New states rose from the ashes of empire, and war raged as German forces sought to keep them under the aegis of the Fatherland. These unresolved tensions between the former Great Powers and the new states would ultimately lead to the rise of Hitler and a new, terrible world war only two decades later.

After the unprecedented destruction of the Great War, the world longed for a lasting peace. The victors, however, valued vengeance even more than stability and demanded a massive indemnity from Germany in order to keep it from rearming. The results, as eminent historian Norman Stone describes in this authoritative history, were disastrous. In World War Two, Stone provides a remarkably concise account of the deadliest war of human history, showing how the conflict roared to life from the ashes of World War One. Adolf Hitler rode a tide of popular desperation and resentment to power in Germany, promptly making good on his promise to return the nation to its former economic and military strength. He bullied Europe into giving him his way, and in so doing backed the victors of the Great War into a corner. Following the invasion of Poland in 1939, Britain and France declared war on Germany -- a decision that, Stone argues, was utterly irrational. Yet Hitler had driven the world mad, and the rekindling of European hostilities soon grew to a conflagration that spread across the globe, fanned by political and racial ideologies more poisonous -- and weaponry more destructive -- than the world had ever seen. With commanding expertise, Stone leads readers through the escalation, climax, and mournful denouement of this sprawling conflict. World War Two is an invaluable contribution to our understanding of the twentieth century and its defining struggle.

An engrossing history of the last year of the Second World War, charting the battles fought between the Soviet Red Army and the Nazis across German soil. The terrible months between the arrival of the Red Army on German soil and the final collapse of Hitler's regime were like no other in the Second World War. The Soviet Army's intent to take revenge for the horror that the Nazis had wreaked on their people produced a conflict of implacable brutality in which millions perished. From the great battles that marked the Soviet conquest of East and West Prussia to the final surrender in the Vistula estuary, this book recounts in chilling detail the desperate struggle of soldiers and civilians alike. These brutal campaigns are brought vividly to life by a combination of previously untold testimony and astute strategic analysis recognising a conflict of unprecedented horror and suffering.