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Roland Leighton, Edward Brittain, Victor Richardson and Geoffrey Thurlow, the four subjects of this book, typify the experiences of many in a world turned upside down by the outbreak of the Great War in early August 1914. In the summer of that year they were all on the threshold of entry into Oxbridge. Not long after, all thoughts of university had been cast aside by three of them as they sought instead to obtain army commissions. The most remarkable feature of the days immediately following the declaration of war was the torrent of young men who besieged Army recruiting offices seeking to volunteer to serve King and Country. Some, who had the background and qualities that would fit them to become officers, were so keen to do their bit that they volunteered to serve in the ranks. Whatever their reasons, many of them would end by lending credence to the notion of the 'Lost Generation'. The belief that the enormity of the casualty lists amounted to the loss of a generation of future leaders in the political, commercial, academic and cultural fields, gained a hold on the popular imagination in the aftermath of the War. Whether this belief can be supported statistically or was merely impressionistic and largely based on disillusionment with political and economic developments between the two world wars will be assessed in the book. The four subjects of this book reached the Western Front in 1915 or 1916. There they died or were mortally wounded. Their brief lives are better known about than those of most of their contemporaries through their close association with Vera Brittain, whose best-selling autobiography of the war years, Testament of Youth, describes their lives and deaths. None That Go Return attempts to place the lives of the four men in their social environment and in the context of political developments and military strategy and operations which affected the activities of their respective battalions, brigades, divisions and armies and thereby made their contribution to the circumstances surrounding their deaths.

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9781906033835

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Don Farr was born and raised in southwest London. He was educated at Emanuel School, Wandsworth, where his lifelong interest in the First World War was kindled. The peripatetic nature of his career in the Diplomatic Service, which took him to most parts of the world over a period of forty years, curbed somewhat his ability to pursue this interest. But since his retirement in 1996 he has been able to make frequent visits to the battlefields of the Western Front, the primary focus of his interest in the Great War. These visits have made a major contribution to the research he has carried out in preparing for the writing of his three books, all published by Helion. The first of these, 'The Silent General', a biography of General Sir Henry Horne, Commander of the BEF's First Army 1916-18, was published in 2007. The second, 'Mons 1914-1918: the Beginning and the End', the story of the Belgian town of Mons and its involvement in the Great War, was published the following year. / Don Farr is married with three grown-up children and eight grandchildren. He and his wife live in Wokingham, Berkshire.

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