The Pioneer Infantry Regiments are usually mentioned in passing, or in the footnotes of history. The Pioneer Infantry were similar to regular army troops in that they were trained in infantry tactics, but they were also trained in combat engineering. This book contains material common to all the Pioneer Infantry Regiments. For each Pioneer Infantry Regiment, there are origins, important dates, and training locations. Sailing dates and ship names are given for those regiments that served overseas. Battle participation is included for those regiments that saw combat. When available, other material about each regiment has been included. Additional sources are listed for each regiment, as is material relevant to all of the regiments. "They did everything the Infantry was too proud to do, and the Engineers too lazy to do."

Pioneer battalions, created as an expedient in 1914, were a new concept in the British Army. Intended to provide the Royal Engineers, with skilled labour and to relieve the infantry from some of its non-combatant duties, Pioneers became the work horses of

Unit history of the 2nd Pioneer Battalion AIF in World War 1. The history covers the formation of the battalion in Egypt in 1916 and its service on the Western Front. Anzac Pioneers chronicles the relatively unknown work of the pioneers on the Western Front, who worked in support of the infantry battalions. Eye-witness reports from contemporary diaries, letters, reports and journals of 2nd Pioneer Battalion men bring the history to life. Many of the photographs, journals and diaries are from private sources across Australia and therefore never published. The volume includes daily descriptions of life and death on the Western Front amidst battles such as Pozieres, Bullecourt, Menin Road, Amiens and Mont St Quentin. Detailed appendices include Nominal Roll, Honour Roll, Awards and Nominal Index.

Surviving the Great War is the first detailed analysis of Australians in German captivity in WW1. By placing the hardships of prisoners of war in a broader social and military content, this book adds a new dimension to the national wartime experience and challenges popular representations of Australia's involvement in the First World War.

This book addresses the potentially deadly challenge of getting across No Man's Land in good shape to fight at the other side. It explores the development of the British Army's infantry battle tactics during the Great War using the largest infantry regiment, the Northumberland Fusiliers, as a case study. Principles and, in particular, practice are covered. The study demonstrates the transformation of the British Army from an essentially Victorian army to a recognizably modern army; adapting tactics to the circumstances and saving lives in teh process. A novel research approach is used; comparing Army doctrine with the reality at battalion level which yields a unique insight into experience and learning on the Western Front. Two hundred and eleven attacks and 75 raids are identified through a census of all 28 of the Regiment's battalion war diaries covering 25,876 diary days. The analysis is set in the overall context of the War taking in the full sweep, from beginning to end, and also gives some small insight into the so called sideshows. A byproduct of the research approach has been a detailed activity analysis, the 'doings', summarizing what each Northumberland Fusiliers' battalion was engaged in every day and for the Regiment in aggregate. This is a secondary but no less valuable theme of the study, which also yields good material on infantry training. Furthermore, when activities are known on a daily basis, it is possible to correlate attacks with fatalities and to attempt to discover relationships between the two.

This Reconstruction Era historical study of the Freedman’s Bureau in Texas offers a personal view of the lives, struggles and misconceptions of its agents. Formed at the close of the Civil War to provide assistance to formerly enslaved people, the Freedmen’s Bureau became the epicenter of the debate about Reconstruction. Though its agents in Texas were vitally important, historians have only recently begun to focus on their operations. Specifically addressing the historiographical debates concerning the character of the Bureau and its sub-assistant commissioners (SACs), Too Great a Burden to Bear sheds new light on the work and reputation of these agents. Focusing on the agents on a personal level, author Christopher B. Bean reveals the type of man Bureau officials believed qualified to oversee the Freedpeople’s transition to freedom. This work shows that each agent, moved by his sense of fairness and ideas of citizenship, gender, and labor, represented the agency’s policy in his subdistrict. These men further ensured the Freedpeople’s right to an education and right of mobility, rights fiercely contested by many in the South.

Twice in the 20th century, a British Expeditionary Force has taken the field in Northern France to fight beside the French Army. Twice, the Expeditionary Force has survived threat of complete destruction. But the differences between the Retreat to Dunkirk in 1940 and the first encounter with the enemy at Mons in 1914 are significant.

In August 1914 the SWB consisted of two regular battalions, the 1st in Bordon with 3rd Brigade 1st Division, the 2nd in Tientsin; the 3rd Special Reserve Battalion in Brecon; and one Territorial battalion, the Brecknockshire Battalion, also in Brecon. By the end of the war a further 17 battalions had been raised eight of which went on active service and all of them feature in this excellent history, even if only briefly in the case of those that did not leave the UK. Total dead numbered some 5,500, 64 Battle Honours were awarded and six VCs were won. There is a list of Honours and Awards, including Mention in Despatches and foreign awards, and also the Roll of Honour in which officers are listed alphabetically, other ranks alphabetically by battalions; place and date of death are not given. Battalions of the regiment served on the Western Front, at Gallipoli (2nd and 4th), in Macedonia (7th and 8th) and Mesopotamia (4th). Two of the active service battalions, 11th and 12th, were disbanded in France in Feb 1918 when divisions in the BEF were reduced from twelve to nine battalions. The 1st Battalion landed in France on 13 August 1914 with 3rd Brigade, 1st Division, and stayed with them for the rest of the war, fighting on the Western Front. The 2nd Battalion was in China when war broke out, and its first operation was the capture of the German naval base of Tsingtao, in cooperation with the Japanese, and with this accomplished in November 1914 the battalion returned to the UK where it arrived in January 1915. Back home, it was allocated to the newly formed 'incomparable' 29th Division, the last of the regular divisions to be formed (apart from the Guards Division) and with which it landed on Gallipoli in April that year. After Gallipoli it went to France with the division, arriving in March 1916, and there it stayed to the end. The Brecknocks served throughout the war in Aden and India, the 4th went to Gallipoli with 13th (Western) Division and from there to Mesopotamia where it won two of regiment's six VCs. The 5th and 6th Battalions were Pioneers and fought in France as divisional pioneer battalions while the 7th and 8th, both in 22nd Division, after only a month in France went with the division to Macedonia in November 1915 where they saw out the rest of the war. The 10th and 11th Battalions served with 38th (Welsh) Division in France from the end of 1915, and finally the 12th (Bantam) Battalion crossed to France in June 1916 with 119th Brigade 40th Division in which it served till disbanded in Feb 1918.