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Changing Tides
Changing Tides
Changing Tides is an exciting tale of intrigue and suspense which brings to life past events in a way which readers will be able to identify with, against a backdrop of a rapidly changing Europe in the early 1900’s.
Changing Tides charts the activities of an Anglo-German family prior to, and during much of WW1. These activities form the fictional foreground of actual historical events as seen through the eyes of the family, the British Government of the day, and other important figures. The opening scenario involves the collision between the SS Craithie and the SS Elbe in the North Sea in 1895, where some 350 people lost their lives. One of the very few survivors was a young German girl, who was a stowaway on the Elbe, and the first chapters describe how she reinvented herself to become the wife of Lord Trendham, a British spy. The book moves forward gathering interest and momentum as each member of the family play their part in the months approaching the First World War, and the early part of the war itself.
The family has two male children, identical twins, one of whom is an Anglophile who was educated in England and the other a Teutophile who was educated in Berlin. When war breaks out, there is a conflict of loyalties resulting in both sons facing each other across no-man’s land in the Somme. The resolution of this situation is fraught with difficulties which challenge the whole family.
Overarching this scenario are the spying activities of Lord Trendham, who had to use deception and misdirection as everyday tools in order to secure the information needed by the War Office. As an aside, Changing Tides discusses in some depth the technological challenges faced by inventors of this period, such as the development of the gas turbine engine, which freed the Royal Navy from the necessity of maintaining coal bunkering stations along strategic routes, and was a vital part of fleet modernisation.
The book also captures many little known and interesting historical facts concerning some of the characters of the period. In example, few are aware the inventor of the poison gas used in trench warfare during WW1 received a Nobel Prize in Chemistry after the war, and was subsequently employed by Cambridge University; or that the number plate of the car Archduke Franz Ferdinand was riding in when he was assassinated – the event which triggered WW1 – was AIII 118, which some have suggested indicates precognition, as it appears to reference Armistice Day, November 11, 1918: the day the war ended!
Changing Tides is an exciting tale of intrigue and suspense which brings to life past events in a way which readers will be able to identify with, against a backdrop of a rapidly changing Europe in the early 1900’s.
Changing Tides charts the activities of an Anglo-German family prior to, and during much of WW1. These activities form the fictional foreground of actual historical events as seen through the eyes of the family, the British Government of the day, and other important figures. The opening scenario involves the collision between the SS Craithie and the SS Elbe in the North Sea in 1895, where some 350 people lost their lives. One of the very few survivors was a young German girl, who was a stowaway on the Elbe, and the first chapters describe how she reinvented herself to become the wife of Lord Trendham, a British spy. The book moves forward gathering interest and momentum as each member of the family play their part in the months approaching the First World War, and the early part of the war itself.
The family has two male children, identical twins, one of whom is an Anglophile who was educated in England and the other a Teutophile who was educated in Berlin. When war breaks out, there is a conflict of loyalties resulting in both sons facing each other across no-man’s land in the Somme. The resolution of this situation is fraught with difficulties which challenge the whole family.
Overarching this scenario are the spying activities of Lord Trendham, who had to use deception and misdirection as everyday tools in order to secure the information needed by the War Office. As an aside, Changing Tides discusses in some depth the technological challenges faced by inventors of this period, such as the development of the gas turbine engine, which freed the Royal Navy from the necessity of maintaining coal bunkering stations along strategic routes, and was a vital part of fleet modernisation.
The book also captures many little known and interesting historical facts concerning some of the characters of the period. In example, few are aware the inventor of the poison gas used in trench warfare during WW1 received a Nobel Prize in Chemistry after the war, and was subsequently employed by Cambridge University; or that the number plate of the car Archduke Franz Ferdinand was riding in when he was assassinated – the event which triggered WW1 – was AIII 118, which some have suggested indicates precognition, as it appears to reference Armistice Day, November 11, 1918: the day the war ended!
269 pages, Kindle Edition
Published February 24, 2016
About the author
John Edmonds
44 books4 followersThis is the disambiguation profile for otherwise unseparated authors publishing as John Edmonds
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