First of all, I am sorry if this is the wrong sub to ask this, please tell me if this should be the case.
I am looking for any books, podcasts, series etc. that can help me to understand more about the course of battles in World War 1. You always hear or even read about the biggest battles, mostly the Western Front, Flanders, Verdun, and many others, but I fail to get the bigger picture. It would be very interesting to understand what lead to some fronts, or what effect some offensives had.I was just hoping, that maybe someone can give me an idea or a direction where to look, and I am aware that this may be a weird question.
Thank you anyways for your time, and I am looking forward to any answer you may give!
You've got a pretty big task ahead of you there. The First World War was BIG. There was a lot going on in a range of different theatres, and how they all relate together is a pretty complex situation. But there are two things I'd probably point you toward in your initial stages of reading about the FWW outside of the Western Front. The first is 1914-1918-online. International Encyclopedia of the First World War put out by the Freie Universität Berlin and the second is The Cambridge History of the First World War.
1914-18 Online is a project run out of the Free University of Berlin that brings together a bunch of historians from universities and research groups from around the world and aims to produce a reference work that covers the breadth of the war. I'll just quote straight from them on what they offer.
The encyclopedia provides four different article types:
Survey Articles (Regional) offer an overview of the region or country Survey Articles (Thematic) offer a transnational and comparative overview of a topic Regional Thematic Articles treat a specific subject for a region or a country Encyclopedic Entries provide concise encyclopedic entries, e.g. on events, people, and organizations
So if you look at their East Africa article, you'll see an overview of the campaigns there, as well as sections on the specifics of waging war in the African colonies and all that entails. It's referenced throughout as well as linking to other sections of the encyclopedia and has a further reading list, as do I think all sections. At this point 1914-18 Online has over 1000 articles and is a super easy way of getting your head around the war, and as a place to kick off into further reading.
The Cambridge History of the First World War is a bit more narrow in some ways, but a lot more detailed in others. It's a three volume series, edited by US historian Jay Winter, but again, bringing together experts in each of the particular areas to contribute a section. The first volume is a military history, giving a narrative of the war as well as sections on theatres, but also approaches the topic thematically, with bigger parts on empires at war and the rules, laws and crimes of the war. If you're interested in strategy then I recommend Chapter 14 of Volume One, on the strategic command picture.
The second volume covers the war politically and economically and the third socially. All following the same narrative and thematic format.
Unlike 1914-18 Online, the Cambridge History series also includes bibliographic essays. Essentially huge reading lists for each of its chapters, which will direct you towards whatever you might be interested in. The Cambridge History is also online as ebooks through Cambridge University Press so your local library may have access to it. It's also available on certain library general websites
Between these two you should find just about everything you're looking for and a lot more besides.