The 7th Royal Berks in Salonika and Dobrudja

[purley]

The book is entitled 'Friends and Enemies' and tells of the 7th Royal Berks in Macedonia, the Dobrudja and the Caucausus. 260 pages, soft bound it will retail at £16-00 but any pals on the forum can have it for £15-00 post free by sending an e-mail to john.chapman@purley.eu with your name and address - an invoice will be sent with the books when I get the supply from the publisher - return it with no obligation if you don't like it.

From the Foreword by Alan Wakefield:-

Throughout the book, John has drawn on letters from men of the 7th Royal Berkshires published in local newspapers. As John points out, this is very much a source untapped by military historians, myself included. Whilst these letters provide the personal element to the narrative an equally valuable source of information provided in the book are many detailed operational orders issued to and by the battalion. These show the level of planning that went into even minor operations during the First World War, which helps to undermine the old ‘Lions led by Donkeys’ argument of men being sent blindly over the top into No-Man’s-Land. Thanks go to John for bringing these two sources of information into a single volume, along with a full battalion roll of honour and list of award winners.

I can recommend this book to anyone with an interest in the 7th Royal Berkshires, the regiment in general during the First World War, or those wanting the story of a typical infantry battalion serving with the BSF. With this book, a selection of maps and a good local guide one could confidently head back to the hills and plains of Macedonia to follow in the footsteps of a battalion that left England to fight the Kaiser’s army only to end up in the wilds of Northern Greece facing ‘Johnny Bulgar’, extremes of climate and malaria carrying mosquitoes.

regards

John