1916

A fascinating examination of the First World War beyond the Western Front told through the significant global events of 1916, which dramatically altered the fate of many nations.The mud-filled, blood-soaked trenches of the Low Countries and North-Eastern Europe were essential battlegrounds during the First World War, but the war reached many other corners of the globe, and events elsewhere significantly affected its course. Covering the twelve months of 1916, eminent historian Keith Jeffery uses twelve moments from a range of locations and shows how they reverberated around the world. As well as discussing better-known battles such as Gallipoli, Verdun and the Somme, Jeffery examines Dublin, for the Easter Rising, East Africa, the Italian front, Central Asia and Russia, where the killing of Rasputin exposed the internal political weakness of the country's empire. And, in charting a wide range of wartime experience, he studies the 'intelligence war', naval engagements at Jutland and elsewhere, as well as the political consequences that ensued from the momentous United States presidential election. Using an extraordinary range of military, social and cultural sources, and relating the individual experiences on the ground to wider developments, these are the stories lost to history, the conflicts that spread beyond the sphere of Europe and the moments that transformed the war.

Jeffery gives the war a human face by focusing on the experience of individuals … An absorbing and multi-layered analysis, one of the most impressive books on the First World War to have appeared in the centenary period, Jeffery tells this history with a breadth and depth that has come to characterize his work, ‘It is no small achievement to fit so much diverse material and argument into a single fast-paced volume … Enthralling, Making sense of time and space at the midpoint of the First World War is the challenge to which Keith Jeffery rises triumphantly in this sparkling history ... Combining sharp analysis with superb storytelling and using a gallery of extraordinary characters, he discusses 1916 in 12 scenes … A global and truly illuminating perspective, A remarkable panorama … The writing is excellent

Keith Jeffery is Professor of British History at Queen’s University, Belfast, and a Member of the Royal Irish Academy. In 1998, he was the Lees Knowles Lecturer in Military Science at Trinity College, Cambridge, and in 2003-4, Parnell Fellow in Irish Studies at Magdalene College, Cambridge. He is the author of fourteen previous books, including MI6: The History of the Secret Intelligence Service 1909-1949. Keith Jeffery lives in Northern Ireland.