rebases some old soldiers.
Volumes one and two of this new ground-breaking history of the Ulster Volunteer Force and the 36th Ulster Division 1886-1922.
Ulster Will Fight – Volume One - Home Rule & The Ulster Volunteer Force 1886-1922
The various attempts at Home Rule for Ireland ultimately culminated in the Third Home Rule Bill which directly contributed to the creation of the Ulster Volunteer Force. The UVF spanned not just the geographic rural and urban Protestant Ulster from the Atlantic coast of Donegal to the shipyards of east Belfast but also the diverse political ideals of individuals. By the outbreak of the Great War it had become an organization of armed volunteers, the first to use motorcycle dispatch riders and motor transport on a large scale and the first to use armored lorries in street patrols. It was also one of the first in the twentieth century to recognize the varied role for women in warfare against a backdrop of a rise in women's suffrage in the United Kingdom and the United States of America. The importance, role and significance of the existence of the UVF are well summed up in Sir Winston Churchill's book, 'Great Contemporaries', that "if Ulster had confined herself simply to constitutional agitation, it is extremely improbable that she would have escaped forcible inclusion in a Dublin Parliament." This book tells both the story of the Home Rule period and the Ulster Volunteer Force formed in response to the Home Rule crises. An important period in Irish politics and history this book draws on a number of first-hand accounts, contemporary newspaper reports, UVF papers and records from the Somme Museum. It is illustrated by a number of images never before published.
Hardback 245mm x 170mm
424 pages
c 350 black-and-white photographs & illustrations
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Ulster Will Fight Volume 2: The 36th (Ulster) Division in Training & at War 1914-1918
Despite what has been written in many books and magazine articles, the Ulster Division was not formed overnight by an en bloc enlistment from the Ulster Volunteer Force and Young Citizen Volunteers, nor were the YCV the youth wing of the UVF, as some believe. Despite the surge of patriotic enlistments on the outbreak of war, by December 1914, there was still a shortfall of 1,697 men, the majority of these shortages being in the divisional troops, not the infantry brigades. It was proving difficult to fill the ranks of the Royal Army Medical Corps, Army Service Corps, Cyclist Company and Royal Engineers, in fact any unit that required a degree of mechanical skill, however small. Despite these initial difficulties the Division sailed for France in October 1915 and by the following June had gained ample experience in trench life. However it was 1 July 1916, that would change the Division from naive volunteers into battle hardened warriors and ensure their undying fame. This study follows the division from its creation through to disbandment, drawing extensively on unpublished materials, official documents and newspapers. In doing so, it provides an up-to-date picture of this famous and important formation.
Hardback 245mm x 170mm
504 pages
c 375 black-and-white photographs & illustrations