The book "Weapons of the Great War. Grenades, chemical weapons and flamethrowers of the Russian army"

The author is Vladimir Glazkov. This book is dedicated to grenades, chemical weapons and flamethrowers of the Russian army of the early twentieth century. The material is presented primarily from the position of those who had to fight with these weapons — soldiers and officers of the Russian army. The book continues a series of publications telling about the armament of the Russian army during the First World War. This volume, already the fifth in the series, contains information about grenades (hand and rifle), chemical weapons and flamethrowers used in the period 1914-1917 in the Russian army. Thus, the subject matter of this volume is, as it were, intermediate between individual weapons and collective means of warfare. In addition to domestic samples, the book also contains data on imported and captured weapons used in the troops, the use of which was widespread at that time.

In the previously published literature, the stated topics were covered extremely unevenly: in specialized publications devoted to grenades, the period of the First World War was not highlighted in any way; publications on the history of flamethrower weapons are isolated and scattered, and the topic of the history of chemical weapons of that time, although it was raised in publications of the 1930s, but subsequently actually turned out to be under an informal ban.

In this edition, the material is presented primarily from the perspective of those who had to fight with these weapons — soldiers and officers of the Russian army of the early twentieth century. Considerable attention is paid to the use of weapons in the military, its advantages and disadvantages in the eyes of military personnel. The works of V. V. Glazkov are the first attempt in Russian practice to describe this kind, allowing today's reader to look at weapons and military equipment from the point of view of a warrior of that time.

When writing the book, materials from the funds of federal and regional archives were widely used, as well as published sources from the beginning of the twentieth century, primarily special and technical literature, which is very rare today. The narrative is complemented by a rich illustrative series, which invariably characterizes the publications of the Russian Knights Foundation. Most of the information published in the book becomes available to a wide range of readers for the first time. The format is 318*241 mm. The volume is 308 pages.