A Weekend With the Great War: Proceedings of the Fourth Annual Great War Interconference Seminar, Lisle, Illinois, 16-18 September 1995 (Cantigny Military History Series)

This volume examines the crisis of 1914-18 in papers and related texts presented at a 1994 seminar jointly sponsored by the Great War Society and the Western Front Association. The contributors from the United States, Canada, Great Britain, France, Belgium, and Russia explore a range of topics, including the mysterious death of German fighter ace Manfred von Richthofen (the "Red Baron"), and the even more mysterious life of British master spy Sidney Reilly; American heroes and Canadian prisoners; German soldiers; French fortifications at Verdun; the doomed cause of Russian liberals; the Western Front as a bizarre parody of urban life, and the war itself as a radical expression of cultural modernism. The book features excerpts from panel discussions and question-and-answer sessions in which the seminar's attendees took part. The result is a work that sheds much light on a dark but fascinating chapter in twentieth-century history.