Best single account of Western Front by an ordinary British soldier

[Muerrisch]

On 26/01/2020 at 11:24, LCompton said:

Hello, new to the forum and my apologies if this has been answered already.  If you had to recommend one account of serving on the Western Front by an ordinary British soldier, which would it be?  From a search through the forum threads, the books most frequently mentioned are:

 

Frank Richards - Old Soldiers Never Die 

Frederic Manning - Her Privates We/The Middle Parts of Fortune 

 

I've read and enjoyed two of the classic memoirs by officers - Graves and Sassoon, and would not exclude a lightly fictionalised account.  As life is short and my to be read pile is an impossible ideal, I appreciate your help in narrowing this down.  I know there are many well-reviewed books which draw largely on soldiers' recollections but I'm looking for the best single author volume.  

 

 

Shameless advertising. If you go for Frank Richards, please PM me ..... I have the last stock of my hardback, illustrated, footnoted etc edition, authorised by Frank's daughter, and I do a good deal for GWF members. Fewer than 10 copies left.

 

Oh! and "There's a Devil in the Drum" is a good competitor.

[LCompton]

Nicely done! Is that a simultaneous vote and a plug?

[squirrel]

20 hours ago, LCompton said:

If you were forced to choose, which of those three?

Old Soldiers Never Die.

[LCompton]

So far, here is the rank of the rankers: 

 

1.

[Margaretnolan]

There’s a Devil in the Drum.

[LCompton]

So far, here is the rank of the rankers:

 

1.  There's a Devil in the Drum - by John Lucy                          6 votes

2.   Old Soldiers Never Die - by Frank Richards                        3 votes

3.   With A Machine Gun to Cambrai - by George Coppard      2 votes

4.   Four Years on the Western Front - by Aubrey Smith           1 votes

5.   Other Ranks - by W.V. Tilsley                                               1 vote 

 

This is incomplete because some forum members named more than one book so in the interest of fairness none of those choices have been counted.  Although this is an entirely subjective exercise, a consensus does seem to be emerging. Thank you to the contributors who have played along with my rather arbitrary rules.  I will keep the tally if further choices come in. 

[other ranker]

I had better put my nomination forward.. Nothing Of Importance by Bernard Adams.

[Muerrisch]

On 26/01/2020 at 17:59, kenf48 said:

 Well 'Her Privates We' is a fiction, and you asked for,  'one account of serving on the Western Front by an ordinary British soldier'.  Frank Richards account, in my opinion lacks credibility, perhaps more relevant than the appalling 'Somme Mud', sold as a true account but patently a fiction.  There was an avalanche of 'war books' in the late 1920s/30s and authors sought to cash in on their experience so gave the reader what they wanted until eventually the buying public tired of the genre.

 

Ken

 

 

Ken, that is interesting. As you may know I co-edited/ footnoted/ illustrated etc. the definitive edition, approved by FR's daughter. With my co-worker, Doctor John Krijnen, I crawled over, dug over, inspected, checked, cross-referenced every line. The geographical details and time-line are accurate to a high degree. They concur with the unit War Diary, which had not been made available to him. His nom-de-guerre characters are in the main identifiable as serving soldiers, name rank and number. We traced many.

 

How does his account lack credibility? Certainly the widely-held belief that Robert Graves virtually wrote it does not stand up. FR's post-war letters to Graves acknowledge his help in "paragraphing it" but not much more, certainly not the thrust and tone. I have a full copy of an intermediate typescript proofing of OSS with Graves's suggested changes ........ they are lightly cosmetic. Incidentally FR's many letters in the Regimental Collection read just like the books ..... clearly the same "voice".

[Muerrisch]

1 minute ago, other ranker said:

I had better put my nomination forward.. Nothing Of Importance by Bernard Adams.

 

Are you allowed another RWF nomination?! [Never mind Sassoon, Graves, etc]

[Dust Jacket Collector]

20 minutes ago, other ranker said:

I had better put my nomination forward.. Nothing Of Importance by Bernard Adams.

I’ll second that - an absolutely splendid book.

[David Filsell]

The more I think about it, the more I think selecting a single book to be something of a fools errand. The  fact is that there are many fine books. I could list a huge number of those which I think special and special for so many different reasons - just for a start they  range from accuracy to quality of authorship-translation and from quality of maps and illustrations to value as a research resort.

[Muerrisch]

31 minutes ago, Dust Jacket Collector said:

I’ll second that - an absolutely splendid book.

 

Surely a good book ..... but an officer.

[LCompton]

1 hour ago, David Filsell said:

The more I think about it, the more I think selecting a single book to be something of a fools errand. The  fact is that there are many fine books. I could list a huge number of those which I think special and special for so many different reasons - just for a start they  range from accuracy to quality of authorship-translation and from quality of maps and illustrations to value as a research resort.

Of course you're right. However the general reader (I include myself) has limited time, and wants to make the most of that time reading the very best works. The literature of the Great War is a specialist area and guidance from enthusiasts on the essential books is invaluable - hence my original post.  Most readers who replied were able to make a judgment, and the field has clearly narrowed to a few contenders.    

Edited 28 January , 2020 by LCompton

[Resurgam13]

"War is Like That" by John Stafford Gowland - a deeply affecting book.

[Black Maria]

2 hours ago, Resurgam13 said:

"War is Like That" by John Stafford Gowland - a deeply affecting book.

One of my favourites also , his writing style reminded me of that other classic ' With a Machine Gun to Cambrai ' . Shame it's so rare ,  definitely deserves a reprint .

[barkalotloudly]

Salute of Guns by Boyd  

The war the infantry Knew  by Dunn

[kenf48]

19 hours ago, Muerrisch said:

 

Ken, that is interesting. As you may know I co-edited/ footnoted/ illustrated etc. the definitive edition, approved by FR's daughter. With my co-worker, Doctor John Krijnen, I crawled over, dug over, inspected, checked, cross-referenced every line. The geographical details and time-line are accurate to a high degree. They concur with the unit War Diary, which had not been made available to him. His nom-de-guerre characters are in the main identifiable as serving soldiers, name rank and number. We traced many.

 

How does his account lack credibility? Certainly the widely-held belief that Robert Graves virtually wrote it does not stand up. FR's post-war letters to Graves acknowledge his help in "paragraphing it" but not much more, certainly not the thrust and tone. I have a full copy of an intermediate typescript proofing of OSS with Graves's suggested changes ........ they are lightly cosmetic. Incidentally FR's many letters in the Regimental Collection read just like the books ..... clearly the same "voice".

 

Unfortunately I do not possess the definitive edition.  I accept his military service and his courage, I also accept he is a man of his time but I do not like his writing style so regrettably I won't be purchasing one of the few remaining hardback editions you still have.  I did not consider the book was virtually written by Graves, to my mind there is no no poetic voice and I found his style crude.   I also wonder how many of the negative comments attributed to his 'nom-de-guerre characters' are simply  his own feelings and opinions.

 

One example highlights some of the issues I have, when he and his comrades are deciding whether or not to finish off a wounded soldier (so commonplace as to be a cliche in fiction and films) a 'stretcher bearer' takes off his clothes and has to be overpowered, this story has all the characteristics we now identify as 'urban myth', the 'stretcher bearer' is not one of us and is distracting us from what proves to be an unnecessary decision.  Everyone else, according to Frank is seized with terror, or incompetence but we never discover how he felt.   To me it's  the 'older I get, the faster I was' school of storytelling.   A teller of tall tales, I wasn't on the Western Front but have met many of those in other contexts and have a healthy distrust of their accounts of 'near misses'.

 

I acknowledge not only was he there but his courage was recognised by his awards, nevertheless I would not select 'old Soldiers Never Die  as 'the one book by an other rank' as an account of the Western Front either on lierary of factual grounds, you would and I respect your opinion.   As I said at the outset, and acknowledged by the OP, it's almost impossible to select just one, each of the shortlist had a different experience (surely the War the Infantry Knew by Captain J.C. Dunn does not qualify).  Richard's experience is no less relevant than the others but not to my taste and therefore not the single volume I would recommend.

 

Incidentally where perhaps you can see the influence of Graves is in his comment about GBTAT, when he said (from memory), 'The reader wanted accounts of battles,  I was in a a good few so I put them in", the inference being give the reading public what they want and how they imagine the war to have been with tales of derring-do and great battles, but leave out the maiming ('hit down low') or the crushing boredom of being out of the line but if you can even liven that up with a bit of titillation they will buy your book.

 

Ken

 

 

[Muerrisch]

Ken, I did not put OSND forward.

I am too close to it and its author to be objective, but then I did not expect the writings of a man who left a Poor School at 12 to have much of a poetic voice.

One strength that OSND has is that it covers the entire war and the aftermath. Warts and all, it figures prominently in bibliographies. Somebody else likes it.

[David Filsell]

Mr RC

You are of course right, I suspect few if any of the books suggested are not well worth reading. One simply has to take the plunge.  And of course, one man's meat is...

Regards

David

Edited 30 January , 2020 by David Filsell

[nigelcave]

Of Those We Loved, I L Read - a relatively late memoir, beautifully written and illustrated by his own, good, drawings. Superb.

 

The Journal of Private Fraser - a first rate CEF memoir.

 

An officer 'memoir' - actually based on his letters - The Master of Belhaven is outstanding.

 

Sydney Rogerson's (officer) two works.

 

Normal Gladden's (OR) two books.

 

Nothing of Importance, also gets my vote; plus The Weary Road (Douie).

[Black Maria]

For me it would be easier to name the memoirs i didn't like and the only one that i can think of is Stuart Dolden's ' Cannon Fodder '  which i found a bit tedious, every other memoir i have enjoyed and they have all increased my knowledge of what these men went through .

 

Edited 30 January , 2020 by Black Maria

[Resurgam13]

Strangely enough, the book I read after "War is Like That" was "Cannon Fodder" but the 1930 one by Haslam (otherwise Cresswell) and the difference could not have been more marked. Haslam/Cresswell came across as a rather obnoxious person and, in the end, it was a chore to finish the book.

[Black Maria]

21 minutes ago, Resurgam13 said:

Strangely enough, the book I read after "War is Like That" was "Cannon Fodder" but the 1930 one by Haslam (otherwise Cresswell) and the difference could not have been more marked. Haslam/Cresswell came across as a rather obnoxious person and, in the end, it was a chore to finish the book.

I must say that's the only book so far mentioned on this thread that i haven't read , i will read it next ( well if it's as bad as you say, i'll try ! ) . The only other book that i 

struggled to finish was Montague's 'Disenchantment ' , very tedious and full of quotations in Greek . Even then i got an interesting snippet of information out of it , he 

mentions whether the body of a dead British officer with false plans for Third Ypres may have been floated down the River Scarpe to be found by the Germans . I wondered

if the book had been read by the planners of Operation Mincemeat in WW2 and that's where they got their idea from .

[Hyacinth1326]

‘A subaltern on the Somme’ by Mark VII

[LCompton]

Thanks for the more recent suggestions.  Black Maria and others have emphasised the difficulty in choosing just one book, from which I infer that the standard of these memoirs is high.  Where more than one book has been recommended by a contributor, unless a clear favourite has been selected, they won't be counted towards the tally.