Overview

This graphic collection of first-hand accounts sheds new light on the experiences of the French army during the Great War. It reveals in authentic detail the perceptions and emotions of soldiers and civilians who were caught up in the most destructive conflict the world had ever seen. Their testimony gives a striking insight into the mentality of the troops and their experience of combat, their emotional ties to their relatives at home, their opinions about their commanders and their fellow soldiers, the appalling conditions and dangers they endured, and their attitude to their German enemy. In their own words, in diaries, letters, reports and memoirs - most of which have never been published in English before - they offer a fascinating inside view of the massive life-and-death struggle that took place on the Western Front. Ian Sumner provides a concise narrative of the war in order to give a clear context to the eyewitness material. In effect the reader is carried through the experience of each phase of the war on the Western Front and sees events as soldiers and civilians saw them at the time. This emphasis on eyewitness accounts provides an approach to the subject that is completely new for an English-language publication. The author's pioneering work will appeal to readers who may know something about the British and German armies on the Western Front, but little about the French army which bore the brunt of the fighting on the allied side. His book represents a milestone in publishing on the Great War. AUTHOR: Graham Sumner has written and illustrated a number of books and articles on the Roman Army and has illustrated other books on Roman history including Tim Strickland's Roman Chester and Roman Middlewich and Roman Britain by Plantagenet Somerset Fry. Graham's illustrations have appeared at the Grosvenor Museum, Chester; The Archaeological Museum, Durham; Vindolanda; the Roman Army Museum; Hadrian's Wall; the Museu d' Historia de Tarragona; and the 'Santi, Banchieri e Re' exhibition in Ravenna. SELLING POINTS: . The Great War as it was experienced by French soldiers and civilians . Uses letters, personal diaries, war diaries, reports and memoirs to give an inside view of the French army on the Western Front . Features eyewitness accounts never before published in English . Insight into the perceptions and emotions of a nation at war ILLUSTRATIONS: 30

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9781848842090

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This is the sort of book you pick up and wish you had found it twenty years ago. The experience of the French Army during the Great Wa is still not very well covered in English and even less has been published on the indidivual thoughts and experiences of the roughly 8.5 million men who were eventually mobilized. For anyone who is interested in such of things and has wished for years that someone would write about them, this one is for you. Ian Sumner is to be applauded for this work, which is highly recommended.

Author Information

Ian Sumner is a prolific writer and researcher who specializes in local and military history. He has made a particular study of the French army and air force during the First World War, his many books on the subject including The French Army 1914-18, French Poilu 1914-18, First Battle of the Marne 1914, They Shall Not Pass: The French Army on the Western Front 1914-1918, Kings of the Air: French Aces and Airmen of the Great War and The French Army at Verdun.

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