Can anyone tell me what the lead up of WW1? I don’t know much history so what happened in the 19th century that was big to WW1 as well? I only know civil war history of that that time.

My history teacher told our class that some had range modifications (such as catapults). I was just looking for any backup for this, as any of my research has led nowhere.

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Thank you for any help!

Every depiction and account I see of the battle of the Somme is that the British command had sent men to their deaths and with no real gain; however the death tolls of the two sides are surprisingly similar. Was the Battle of the Somme a success for the Brits or was it just a suicide mission?

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Lately, I’ve been studying up on the battle of Jutland and I’ve come across countless stories about the loss of British ships there. I want to further understand the technical and tactical reasons for why British losses were so high when they supposedly had the advantage. Can anyone point me to some good resources for learning more? I’d also apperciate sources of first hand accounts of the battle. Thank you.

Dogs and horses have been part of human society for a long time and they can be trained to some extent but how well did they handle being surrounded by humans (and other animals) fighting and killing each other? Particularly once cannons and guns became commonplace, how did they not run away at the sounds of the explosions?

I'm looking for a good overview book of the Julio-Claudian dinasty or 1st century Rome in general (secondary source).

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I do veteran's advocacy work and a bit of the difficulty I have with the public is trying to figure out where their image of deployment comes from - but I think that's a broader question to go into later. The question I'm grappling with right now is about popular perceptions of the Combat Arms.

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Why does the public imagine combat to consist of only infantry and armour?

For most of my life, I assumed that I couldn't be descended from slave owners. The parts of my family I know the most specific details about came to America after the Civil War, or immigrated before the war to Union states where slavery would have been outlawed long before they arrived. But there are some parts of my family that did live in the South during slavery. I'd always assumed that they were poor subsistence farmers who wouldn't have owned slaves. But I don't know this for a fact.

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It should be fairly easy for me to find out the names of people in that part of the family who were alive and of age at least during and just after the Civil War. My grandmother on that side is alive, in her 80s, and mentally sharp as a tack. I also know fairly specifically where these folks lived back then. I'm dimly aware that I have one ancestor who briefly fought for the Confederacy, though we've never been able to find any documentation about this.

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What are the best resources for this type of research? Are there public documents that would include wills or details of ordinary non-wealthy people's estates? Would information about slaves changing hands be published in newspapers of the day? The people I'm thinking of definitely were not socially prominent or public figures or anything like that.

Societies obviously differ, so perhaps the upbringing made it less common? Was it regarded as cowardice? A curse from the gods?

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During the large military campaigns of the 18th and 19th century, as for instance the War of the Spanish Sucsession, Seven Years War and the Napoleonic Wars, different governments needed to equip and maintain huge standing armies, in different theatres of war, often over several years.

How were the warring governments able to recruit a sufficient number of soldiers over such a long time?