What WW1 books are you reading?

[MikeyH]

Picked up yesterday, a 2014 reprint 'With the Kaiser's army in 1914'.  The original published in England in 1915 was titled 'With the German Armies in the West', the author was Swedish, one Sven Hedin.  Have seen a mention somewhere that he was very much pro-German.  Is a hefty book at 517 pages.

 

Mike.

 

 

[Michelle Young]

Reading  In The Shadow Of Bois Hugo by Nigel Atter. A well researched book and nicely written.

 

Michelle 

[Scalyback]

The Wonder Book of Soldiers. 

 

Picked up in a second hand book shop for a few pounds. A deuce odd book as no print date but is a blatant propaganda book for young lads to get information about the British Army and does talk down on even the French Army. It does include a lot of photographs including cavalrymen using the horse as a shooting aid. I have never seen this or heard about this before. 

A very good section on uniforms(prices given for most uniforms) and badges including a picture guide to badges(including where certain parts of the badge go/changes for different units) that may be of interest to Grumpy/Frogsmile. Plus a few boys own articles of pure British stiff upper lip. 

 

Clearly a great war publication as it briefly refers to Kitchener recruits but no other reference to the war. All photos do pre date 1915 I would say as the equipment and uniforms "look" 1914/15. 

As I say a deuce odd publication but very informative as a contemporary publication. If any one is interested I will scan some of the pages . 

[daggers]

There was a long series of Wonder Books, and I expect the Soldiers version was updated from time to time.

Some books had wonderful endpapers by the great W. Heath Robinson.

D

[Scalyback]

On ‎26‎/‎08‎/‎2018 at 14:28, daggers said:

There was a long series of Wonder Books, and I expect the Soldiers version was updated from time to time.

Some books had wonderful endpapers by the great W. Heath Robinson.

D

 

It does indeed have a Heath Robinson cartoon at the rear, unfortunately a child at some point has used a paint brush on it. 

[Marilyne]

About time I started with something related to the last 100 days, just to keep the pace with history, and so I have discovered I had a copy of John Terraine's "To Win a War" in my library and after reviewing your thoughts on this forum, I have downloaded Charles Messenger's "The Day we Won the War" on my Kindle. 

 

M. 

[Crunchy]

Both are good books and well worth reading Marilyne. Some others you might read are:

 

Jonathan Boff Winning and Losing on the Western Front: The British Third Army and the Defeat of Germany 1918;

Ashley Ekins ( Editor) 1918: Year of Victory: The end of the Great War and the shaping of history;

David Stevenson With our Backs to the Wall: Victory and Defeat in 1918. Chapter 2 covers the 100 Days

 

For the Americans, a detailed account is Edward G. Lengel To Conquer Hell: The Battle of the Meuse - Argonne 1918.

 

Not much on the French effort as far as I know. Probably the best I have read is the relevant chapter in Robert A. Doughty Pyrrhic Victory: French Strategy and Operations in the Great War

 

Regards

Chris

[MikeMeech]

18 hours ago, Marilyne said:

About time I started with something related to the last 100 days, just to keep the pace with history, and so I have discovered I had a copy of John Terraine's "To Win a War" in my library and after reviewing your thoughts on this forum, I have downloaded Charles Messenger's "The Day we Won the War" on my Kindle. 

 

M. 

Hi Marilyne

 

You may find 'Pouring with rain - Troops fed up:  British Second Army and the Liberation Offensive in Flanders 1918' by Dennis Williams, of particular interest.

 

Mike

[Marilyne]

Thanks for the tip, Mike, I'll look that up! 

 

M. 

[Martin Bennitt]

Just finished "Elsie and Mairi go to war"by Diane Atkinson. A fascinating tale of two remarkable women who have featured in various threads on this Forum. The extra details Diane Atkinson has ferreted out, e.g. that Elsie Knocker's second husband, the aristocratic Belgian aviator, collaborated with the Germans in World War II, add a great deal to the story. I would quibble with a few things, but that's why I'm a member of the GWF.

 

Cheers Martin B

 

 

[Rob B]

Picked up 'March to Armistice 1918' by Christopher Haworth in a local Oxfam yesterday - so cracking on with that

[Biggles]

Hello Chaps,

 

Just finished reading 'For Love and Courage'.  It is made up of a series of letters from Lt-Colonel E W Hermon DSO, to his wife 1914-1917.  It is a great read and rather emotional since he was KIA on the 9th April 1917, while commanding 24th Btn. Northumberland Fusiliers.  One of his daughters kept all the letters and her daughter (his grand-daughter) put them into a book.

Certainly worth the read!

 

Cheers,

Caleb

[The Scorer]

On ‎01‎/‎08‎/‎2018 at 17:02, Barnbarroch said:

I'm glad you enjoyed the book, Frank was certainly a character though not very politically correct from the perspective of the 21st century. I think we opted for end notes because some of them were rather long and might have disrupted the text a bit.

Regards,

Jamie Vans.

 

On ‎01‎/‎08‎/‎2018 at 19:15, Black Maria said:

The endnotes were only a minor irritant   A brilliant book , thank you for editing and getting it published . The phrase "They don't make 'em like that anymore"

certainly applies to your great uncle . I'm just surprised the book hasn't had more coverage in the forum's book section , it certainly deserves to .

 

 

I've just finished reading the book, and I enjoyed it.

 

I don't have a problem with end notes, as long as I can discipline myself to keep a second marker in the book at the right place! It's often useful to know who the author is talking about, and also it's interesting to see who they served with or came across in their service.

 

I agree about Frank's character, but I was surprised to read what seemed to me to be complete hatred of Germany and (some) Germans. I think that this is rare amongst war books, most of whose authors are at pains not to utter such thoughts, even though they might have felt them at the time. Frank, though, didn't do that, and at times the book is an uncomfortable read - but it's also a reminder that at 100 years distance and in completely different circumstances, it's impossible to judge what they went through and saw.

 

I don't think that I have read a book which covered three different areas of service - the trenches, the tanks and captivity - before, and it taught me a lot about each of the areas. Jamie and Peter Widdowson deserve our thanks for bringing this book into being, and I would recommend it to anyone.

[Marilyne]

hi all,

 

Just started a two-weeks stint at a very boring "ops" in a very boring place in the Brussels suburbs but prepared for said boring two weeks by raiding the library and so, in the spirit on conttinuing the work on the Last 100 Days, have borrowed Gregory Blaxland's book on Amiens and Bill Rawling's "Une façon de faire la guerre: La prise de Cambrai, Octobre 2018".

Anybody else read that last one?? any good??

And as said already: Charles Messenger's "The day we won the War" is also on the list for the next weeks.

 

M.

 

[Guest]

Hello,Just starting G. P. A Fildes, "Iron Times With the Guards". Coldstream Guards Officer.

 

H.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Bernard_Lewis]

'The Unreturning Army' by Huntley Gordon. Nicely written with a bit of humour. After one soldier attended a cookery course, Gordon commented that the only change was that rissoles were now oblong not round!

 

Bernard

[Donald D]

On 20/09/2018 at 18:11, Bernard_Lewis said:

'The Unreturning Army' by Huntley Gordon. Nicely written with a bit of humour. After one soldier attended a cookery course, Gordon commented that the only change was that rissoles were now oblong not round!

 

Bernard

I've had that book for some time, 2 copies actually but that's another story, so after your comment I think that will be the next one to read!

[Bernard_Lewis]

3 hours ago, Donald D said:

I've had that book for some time, 2 copies actually but that's another story, so after your comment I think that will be the next one to read!

Finished it a couple of days ago. Thoroughly enjoyed it.

 

Bernard

[Black Maria]

If anyone has the original 1967 edition of 'Unreturning Army' I would recommend they also purchase the new edition . The original

book is 133pp but the manuscript had been twice as long and much was left out . In the new edition the author's son has reinstated

sections from the original manuscript and added photographs where the original had none.  There is also a postscript section at the

end which tells us what happened to the author after he was wounded. It contains an extra map of the 1918 Somme battlefields and

the 1918 section of the book is much expanded .

[Marilyne]

OK... the Defence Library has a copy of the original edition, so I guess I'll read that one... it's going on the pile marked "to lend" ...

 

M.

[Marilyne]

Just to get on about the progress... I've started Messenger's "the day we won the war" and am simultaneously reading "Bloody red Tabs" by Frank Davies. So far quite interesting.

I've got the Jenkins's adventures walking the entire front also for lighter reading close by, so definitely no lack of reading material for now...

 

M.

[hazelclark]

12 hours ago, Marilyne said:

Just to get on about the progress... I've started Messenger's "the day we won the war" and am simultaneously reading "Bloody red Tabs" by Frank Davies. So far quite interesting.

I've got the Jenkins's adventures walking the entire front also for lighter reading close by, so definitely no lack of reading material for now...

 

M.

I learned a lot from Messenger’s book.

H.

[Waddell]

I recently finished Christy Campbell's 'Band of Brigands' which I enjoyed but found hard going in places. I'm not that familiar with the history of the early tanks so I found it very informative and quite an eye opener as to what those early tank crews endured and how vulnerable they were in action. I enjoyed the accounts of the men and the descriptions of the types who served. Where I struggled with the book a bit was in the amount of detail that the author's research revealed. Campbell goes into the story deeply and I found I really had to focus and re-read sections of the book to keep on top of the subject matter, particularly the men involved in command and design of the tanks. Possibly more a reflection of the reader than the author. 

 

Scott

[paulgranger]

No, I enjoyed the book too, but you are right, it is overly detailed. Off topic, I had to give up on his book about  V Weapons in WW2 for that reason, though I may give it another go. 

[Nick Beale]

19 hours ago, paulgranger said:

No, I enjoyed the book too, but you are right, it is overly detailed. Off topic, I had to give up on his book about  V Weapons in WW2 for that reason, though I may give it another go. 

 

Conversely … I've just bought Band of Brigands, largely on the strength of enjoying Target London! (Off topic for this forum but the latter, I felt, made very good use of ULTRA and R.V. Jones' papers).