Wartime Wednesday: A book review

Wartime Wednesday: A book review

Today's Wartime Wednesday post is a review of Tamera Kraft's Resurrection of Hope set immediately following WWI (also known as The Great War). I'm not as familiar with this era as others I've heavily researched so I enjoyed the author's ability to set the stage and educate me without being dry or textbookish. I highly recommend this book - read on to find out why.

Resurrection of Hope started out with an attention-grabbing beginning and kept me turning pages late into the night. I finished the book in two sittings. The story was set immediately following WWI (The Great War), a time period I’m unfamiliar with, so I enjoyed the details and descriptions that educated me as well as helped immerse me into the era. Vivien and Henry both have so many issues, which frustrated me at some level, but created exquisite tension between them. Childhood baggage, misunderstandings, insecurities, and an inability to effectively communicate made their marriage a rocky road that seemed doomed to failure. Wounded by inept and cruel parents, both struggled to understand how God could care about them, and I wept for them as they sought answers to the difficult questions of life, especially why God allows those we love to be taken from us too early. The minor characters were not as well developed as I would have liked, and some of the solutions a little too pat, but the climax at the end was absolutely gripping. A story of grace and forgiveness, especially of ourselves. Highly recommended.

I received a copy of this book for free from CelebrateLit Publicity, and a positive review was not required. All opinions expressed are my own.

Purchase Link: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B01I8UNJGU

Mystery Monday: W. Somerset Maugham-Playwright, Novelist and Spy

W. Somerset Maugham-Playwright, Novelist and Spy

W. Somerset Maugham

Every August, the local hospital conducts a street fair of enormous proportions. It has been held for decades and is greatly anticipated by locals and visitors alike. The book tent, which is of course my favorite, holds thousands of books. I have found countless treasures in the past and am looking forward to this year’s fair.

One of last year’s finds was W. Somerset Maugham’s Ashenden, or the British Agent. A collection of loosely related stories, it follows the career of writer-turned-spy Ashenden who decides his new career is not nearly as exciting as he expected. At one point he complains that his life “is orderly and monotonous as a city clerks.” Despite being surrounded by murder, intrigue, and betrayal, his job is to watch and report back to the “powers that be.”

Set during WWI and the subsequent Russian Revolution, Ashenden is partly based on Maugham’s own experiences. By 1914, he had published ten plays and ten novels. His eleventh book, Of Human Bondage, was released in 1915 while he was serving in France in the British Red Cross’s Ambulance Corp.

During his return to England to promote the book, he was recruited by Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service. His first assignment was in Geneva where he set himself up as a French playwright and acted as liaison between field agents and headquarters in London. The reports were coded into his manuscripts and escaped notice of the Swiss. In 1917, Maugham was sent to Russia to gather intelligence on the German spy network.

Too old to enlist during WWII, Maugham spent the war in the United States, where he was asked by the British government to make speeches to encourage the US to send aid to the UK.

Most consider him to be the first author of spy stories who was actually a spy. He considered his exploits useful for his writing career, but not much else. In Ashenden’s forward Maugham writes, “The work of an agent in the Intelligence Department is on the whole monotonous. A lot of it is uncommonly useless.”

I wonder what today’s spies would think about his words.

Wartime Wednesday: Germans and the Easter Rising

Germans and the Easter Rising

This month marks the 100^th anniversary of the Easter Rising, also known as the Easter Rebellion. Occurring during Easter week, this armed insurrection was intended to end British rule in Ireland and establish an independent republic. Combatants hoped that Britain would be unable to contain them because of British troops being involved in WWI.

Led by Padraig Pearse, the incident lasted six days. Members of the Irish Volunteers banded together with the Irish Citizen Army to seize key locations in Dublin and declare an Irish Republic. However, the rebellion failed for several reasons, one of which was a lack of weapons.

The SS Libau was a German merchant steam ship that masqueraded as the SS Aud (a Norwegian ship that looked similar), in an attempt to smuggle a shipment of arms to the Ireland in preparation of the Easter Rising. Originally an English ship, it was captured by the Germans in 1914 and renamed.

Conflicting reports exist as to why the Libau’s mission was unsuccessful. One article states the date of the delivery changed and the ship did not receive the information. Another report states the ship did arrive on time, but was blockaded by several British ships who had been on the lookout for German ships because of some code that had been broken. Regardless of the reason, because of the Libau’s failure to provide the 20,000 rifles, 10 machine guns, 1,000,000,000 rounds of ammunition, and explosives, the rebels did not have the armaments required to conduct the insurrection.

Many Irish would hope for a German victory during WWII, with the thought that they would remove England from Irish soil and unify the country.

Wartime Wednesday: The Battle of Verdun

 Wartime Wednesday: The Battle of Verdun

This year marks the 100th anniversary of the Battle of Verdun. The campaign lasted for ten months, and was one of the largest battles of WWI. Fought on the Western Front, in the hills north of Verdun-sur-Meuse, this battle between Germany and France was costly. The two sides suffered combined casualties and losses of over one million men.

German General Erich von Falkenheyn initiated the fight in an effort to decimate as many of the French troops as possible. He led his forces to take over Fort Douaumont and Fort Vaux, but was unable to advance to the Verdun cathedral. 

His plan made sense but was ambitious. His ultimate failure was that he underestimated the French, assuming they'd be an easy target. Despite the poor morale of the French soldiers (there was talk of mutiny for many reasons - including the fact that factory workers earned significantly more salary than military troops), the men stayed and continued to fight. The Battle of Somme commenced during June, pulling the Germans into a second front. Von Falkenheyn was relieved of his command, and, the French reclaimed their forts by December of that year.

When I think of forts, images of impenetrable, stone-walls that reach into the sky, often from cliffs and other high places, come to mind. Verdun, however, was a city protected by a ring of underground forts. There were twenty major forts, and almost forty smaller forts. The Germans thought that Verdun held great historical significance to the French, and would therefore "fight to the last man," according to von Falkenheyn. He thought that if enough French soldiers were killed, Germany would emerge the ultimate victor.

Twenty-five years later, the Germans would again underestimate their foe. The London Blitz lasted for nine months. Hitler was sure that fear would overtake the English, and they would demand their government surrender on their behalf. It never happened, and England was able to defeat Germany with the help of other Allied countries.

Traveling Tuesday: Life in Germany

Traveling Tuesday: 

Life In Germany During the World Wars

I am an avid reader of fiction written during or about WWII. Initially, it was difficult to find many novels set during that time. Then several newscasters published books about “The Greatest Generation,” and it suddenly became a popular era about which to write. Oral history projects popped up as universities and museums sought to capture the stories of men and women who lived during the war.

It is often said that the winners are the ones who write the history books. I think there is a lot of validity in that statement. Whether it’s something as casual as sports or as serious as war, no one wants to hear from the losers. I don’t think an interview has ever been done with the guy who came in last during an Olympic race!

My novella Love’s Harvest is about a German man who was injured by mustard gas during WWI. In addition, I am in the outline stages of a novel in which the protagonist goes into German occupied territory during WWII. Therefore, I needed to research what life was like during the world wars.

Youtube has been a great tool for me to find interviews about nearly every topic. I also discovered a website devoted to the German homefront during WWII.

The most often asked interview question of Germans is “How could Germans have not known about the death camps?” One man’s answer: “The word used to describe what was happening to the Jews was ‘relocation.’ Where were they? People simply didn’t ask, because ‘relocation’ had an ominous ring, and they were scared to find out. When the Allies began seriously bombing Germany, Germans forgot about the Jews altogether.”

The same question could be posed to Americans: “How could Americans not have known about the Japanese ‘internment’ camps?”

Something to think about.