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Battle Beneath the Trenches by Robert K. Johns Pdf
Undermining the positions of the enemy is one of the most ancient activities. For almost 3000 years even before 1914, it was a popular siege-breaking technique. During the Great War, arguably the greatest siege the world had ever seen, it presented a conflict environment that perfectly favoured the skills of the military miner. During 1915, the Western Front was established as a static line that grew into a huge network of defence-in-depth earthworks. Siege conditions demanded siege tactics and as the ground was everywhere mineable, the Western Front was a prime candidate for underground warfare.??Royal Engineer tunnelling companies were specialist units of the Corps of Royal Engineers within the British Army, formed to dig attacking tunnels under enemy lines during the First World War. The Cornish Miners were one of these specialist units recruited from the tin mines of Cornwall.??In February 1915, eight Tunnelling Companies were created and operational in Flanders from March 1915. By mid-1916, the British Army had around 25,000 trained tunnellers, mostly volunteers taken from mining communities. This is their story.
Beneath Flanders Fields by Peter Barton,Peter Doyle,Johan Vandewalle Pdf
"The product of over twenty-five years of research, Beneath Flanders Fields illustrates the evolution of military mining, leading to its deployment in the greatest siege in military history - in the trenches of the Western Front." "In the words of the tunnellers themselves, and through previously unpublished photographs - many in colour - as well as contemporary plans and drawings, this book reveals how this most intense of battles was fought - and won. Few on the surface knew the horrific details of the tunnellers' work, yet this silent, claustrophobic conflict was a barbaric struggle that raged day and night for almost two and a half years, and one which generated mental and physical stresses often far beyond those suffered by the infantry in the trenches. On 7 June 1917 at Messines Ridge, the tension was broken with the opening of the most dramatic mine offensive in history."--BOOK JACKET.
Author : Will Davies Publisher : Random House Australia Page : 290 pages File Size : 50,8 Mb Release : 2010-05-01 Category : History ISBN : 9781864715842
The story of the Australian miners and soldiers who tunnelled under Hill 60 near Ypres and eventually broke through to create a new frontline. On 7 June 1917, 19 massive mines shattered the Messines ridge near Ypres. Ten thousand German soldiers died and the largest man-made explosion in history up until that time smashed open the German frontline. Two of these mines, at Hill 60 and the Caterpillar, were fired my men of the 1st Australian Tunnelling Company, made up of miners and engineers rather than parade-ground soldiers. This is the untold, devastatingly brutal story of the battle underground during the First World War, where men suffocated in the blue-grey clay, drowned in the liquid chalk, choked on the poisonous air or died violently in the darkness and foetid air in hand-to-hand fighting. Written by Will Davies, bestselling author of Somme Mud and In The Footsteps of Private Lynch, Beneath Hill 60 tells the complete and inspiring story behind the major motion picture.
'Magnificent - deeply moving' Sunday Times 'Engrossing, moving, and unforgettable' The Times In the heat of the French summer of 1910, young Englishman Stephen Wraysford arrives in Amiens to stay with the Azaire family. But soon a secret passion emerges that threatens to destroy the household. Six years later, Stephen finds himself on the Western Front with civilization itself in the balance. And in a maze of tunnels under the trenches he will fight for everything he has known and loved. An epic of love, death and redemption, Birdsong has moved millions of readers all over the world to become a contemporary classic.
Beneath the Killing Fields of the Western Front still lies a hidden landscape of industrialised conflict virtually untouched since 1918. This subterranean world is an ambiguous environment filled with material culture that that objectifies the scope and depth of human interaction with the diverse conflict landscapes of modern war. Covering the military reasoning for taking the war underground, as well as exploring the way that human beings interacted with these extraordinary alien environments, this book provides a more all-encompassing overview of the Western Front. The underground war was intrinsic to trench warfare and involved far more than simply trying to destroy the enemys trenches from below. It also served as a home to thousands of men, protecting them from the metallic landscapes of the surface. With the aid of cutting edge fieldwork conducted by the author in these subterranean locales, this book combines military history, archaeology and anthropology together with primary data and unique imagery of British, French, German and American underground defences in order to explore the realities of subterranean warfare on the Western Front, and the effects on the human body and mind that living and fighting underground inevitably entailed.
Underground Warfare in World War I by Charles River Charles River Editors Pdf
*Includes pictures *Includes accounts of mining by soldiers on both sides *Includes online resources and a bibliography for further reading "It was a pretty gloomy business. We started sinking this shaft and it filled with water, so we pumped it out with hand pumps-lift and force. We got down about 10 feet or so. It was heartbreaking-I hated it. But I had to keep my men going. The Boche [Germans] saved us. We were making a lot of noise with spiling [timbering the tunnels]. The Boche opposite us were Saxons, rather friendly, and they put up a notice on a blackboard 'No good your mining. We've tried. It can't be done.' The notice was in English. I reported this to my OC and it went up to HQ and they stopped the mine." - Major General F. Gordon Hyland World War I, also known in its time as the "Great War" or the "War to End all Wars," was an unprecedented holocaust in terms of its sheer scale. Fought by men who hailed from all corners of the globe, it saw millions of soldiers do battle in brutal assaults of attrition which dragged on for months with little to no respite. Tens of millions of artillery shells and untold hundreds of millions of rifle and machine gun bullets were fired in a conflict that demonstrated man's capacity to kill each other on a heretofore unprecedented scale, and as always, such a war brought about technological innovation at a rate that made the boom of the Industrial Revolution seem stagnant. World War I was the first truly industrial war, and it created a paradigm which reached its zenith with World War II and towards which virtually all equipment, innovation and training were dedicated throughout the Cold War and the remainder of the 20th century. To this day, modern warfare remains synonymous with tanks and mass infantry battles, although a confrontation of this nature has not occurred (except briefly during Operation Desert Storm) since World War II. The enduring image of World War I is of men stuck in muddy trenches, and of vast armies deadlocked in a fight neither could win. It was a war of barbed wire, poison gas, and horrific losses as officers led their troops on mass charges across No Man's Land and into a hail of bullets. While these impressions are all too true, they hide the fact that trench warfare was dynamic and constantly evolving throughout the war as all armies struggled to find a way to break through the opposing lines. Most books and documentaries about the war focus on the carnage of the trenches, depicting the ceaseless bombardment and sniping, and the assaults and counterattacks that took millions of lives. This was the experience of most frontline soldiers during that great conflict, but it was not the only experience. There was another war going on beneath the trenches, a war of tunnels and mines fought by men who didn't see sunlight for days at a time and who lived in constant fear of cave-ins and enemy detection. These men, who had mostly been miners in civilian life, lived a twilight existence, working long hours in silence and near darkness while great battles raged overhead. They suffered from fatigue, stress, and the knowledge that they could be killed at any time by an unseen enemy. Despite this, they persevered, and the mines they laid under enemy trench systems turned the tide of at least one major battle. Underground Warfare in World War I: The History and Legacy of the Fighting Beneath and Between the Trenches examines one of the most forgotten aspects of the fighting on the ground during the Great War. Along with pictures of important people, places, and events, you will learn about World War I's underground warfare like never before.
Written by Captain A. Radclyffe Dugmore of the King's Own Light Infantry, this personal memoir provides an excellent account of the Great War up to the Battle of the Somme. A wide ranging and perceptive relation of events, Radclyffe Dugmore's pedigree as a professional writer shines through. In 1914, Radclyffe Dugmore travelled to Belgium as a civilian observer where he was wounded before spending a brief time in German captivity. These experiences gained Radclyffe Dugmore a highly unusual viewpoint for the opening battles of the war, that of a civilian, and later as a participant on the?front lines of the Somme.??Originally published under the title When The Somme Ran Red in 1918, Radclyffe Dugmore's memoir has sadly been long out of print. Yet what the author modestly described as 'Being a very egotistical account of my own personal experiences and observations from the early days of the war in Belgium to the Great Battle of the Somme in July, 1916' proves to be anything but that, consisting of a fascinating and rare account, sympathetically dedicated to the memory of the officers and men of the King's Own Yorkshire Light Infantry who fell in the Battle of the Somme.??This new re-print of Radclyffe Dugmore's classic volume is a worthy addition to the primary source literature of the Great War, and casts new light on the experiences of the brave men who saw the terror of the Battle of the Somme first hand.
The riveting true story of America's first modern military battle, its first military victory during World War One, and its first steps onto the world stage At first light on Tuesday, May 28th, 1918, waves of American riflemen from the U.S. Army's 1st Division climbed from their trenches, charged across the shell-scarred French dirt of no-man's-land, and captured the hilltop village of Cantigny from the grip of the German Army. Those who survived the enemy machine-gun fire and hand-to-hand fighting held on for the next two days and nights in shallow foxholes under the sting of mustard gas and crushing steel of artillery fire. Thirteen months after the United States entered World War I, these 3,500 soldiers became the first "doughboys" to enter the fight. The operation, the first American attack ever supported by tanks, airplanes, and modern artillery, was ordered by the leader of America's forces in Europe, General John "Black Jack" Pershing, and planned by a young staff officer, Lieutenant Colonel George C. Marshall, who would fill the lead role in World War II twenty-six years later. Drawing on the letters, diaries, and reports by the men themselves, Matthew J. Davenport's First Over There tells the inspiring, untold story of these soldiers and their journey to victory on the Western Front in the Battle of Cantigny. The first American battle of the "war to end all wars" would mark not only its first victory abroad, but the birth of its modern Army.
Beneath Flanders Fields by Peter Barton,Peter Doyle,John Vandewalle Pdf
The result of over twenty-five years of research, Beneath Flanders Fields reveals how this intense underground battle was fought and won. The authors give the first full account of mine warfare in World War I through the words of the tunnellers themselves as well as plans, drawings, and previously unpublished archive photographs, many in colour. Beneath Flanders Fields also shows how military mining evolved. The tunnellers constructed hundreds of deep dugouts that housed tens of thousands of troops. Often electrically lit and ventilated, these tunnels incorporated headquarters, cookhouses, soup kitchens, hospitals, drying rooms, and workshops. A few dugouts survive today, a final physical legacy of the Great War, and are presented for the first time in photographs in Beneath Flanders Fields.
World War I on the Ground by Charles River Charles River Editors Pdf
*Includes pictures *Includes accounts of life in the trenches *Includes an online bibliography for further reading World War I, also known in its time as the "Great War" or the "War to End all Wars", was an unprecedented holocaust in terms of its sheer scale. Fought by men who hailed from all corners of the globe, it saw millions of soldiers do battle in brutal assaults of attrition which dragged on for months with little to no respite. Tens of millions of artillery shells and untold hundreds of millions of rifle and machine gun bullets were fired in a conflict that demonstrated man's capacity to kill each other on a heretofore unprecedented scale, and as always, such a war brought about technological innovation at a rate that made the boom of the Industrial Revolution seem stagnant. The enduring image of World War I is of men stuck in muddy trenches, and of vast armies deadlocked in a fight neither could win. It was a war of barbed wire, poison gas, and horrific losses as officers led their troops on mass charges across No Man's Land and into a hail of bullets. While these impressions are all too true, they hide the fact that trench warfare was dynamic and constantly evolving throughout the war as all armies struggled to find a way to break through the opposing lines. Most books and documentaries about the war focus on the carnage of the trenches, depicting the ceaseless bombardment and sniping, and the assaults and counterattacks that took millions of lives. This was the experience of most frontline soldiers during that great conflict, but it was not the only experience. There was another war going on beneath the trenches, a war of tunnels and mines fought by men who didn't see sunlight for days at a time and who lived in constant fear of cave-ins and enemy detection. These men, who had mostly been miners in civilian life, lived a twilight existence, working long hours in silence and near darkness while great battles raged overhead. They suffered from fatigue, stress, and the knowledge that they could be killed at any time by an unseen enemy. Despite this, they persevered, and the mines they laid under enemy trench systems turned the tide of at least one major battle. Though World War I is almost synonymous with trench warfare, that method of combat was nothing new. There had been extensive use of trenches during the later stages of the American Civil War (1864-1865), and trench warfare was constant during the Second Boer War (1899-1902), the Russo-Japanese War (1904-1905), and the Balkan Wars (1912-1913). These conflicts showed that modern firepower combined with entrenched positions gave a decisive advantage to the defender, yet European observers failed to learn any lessons from these conflicts, and the scale of trench warfare in World War I far eclipsed anything seen before or since, especially on the Western Front. World War I was the first truly industrial war, and it created a paradigm which reached its zenith with World War II and towards which virtually all equipment, innovation and training were dedicated throughout the Cold War and the remainder of the 20th century. To this day, modern warfare remains synonymous with tanks and mass infantry battles, although a confrontation of this nature has not occurred (except briefly during Operation Desert Storm) since World War II. World War I on the Ground: The History and Legacy of Life in the Trenches analyzes the technological advancements in weaponry that produced the deadliest conflict in history up to that time. Along with pictures of important people, places, and events, you will learn about life in the trenches like never before.
World War I, also known in its time as the “Great War” or the “War to End all Wars”, was an unprecedented holocaust in terms of its sheer scale. Fought by men who hailed from all corners of the globe, it saw millions of soldiers do battle in brutal assaults of attrition which dragged on for months with little to no respite. Tens of millions of artillery shells and untold hundreds of millions of rifle and machine gun bullets were fired in a conflict that demonstrated man's capacity to kill each other on a heretofore unprecedented scale, and as always, such a war brought about technological innovation at a rate that made the boom of the Industrial Revolution seem stagnant. The enduring image of World War I is of men stuck in muddy trenches, and of vast armies deadlocked in a fight neither could win. It was a war of barbed wire, poison gas, and horrific losses as officers led their troops on mass charges across No Man's Land and into a hail of bullets. While these impressions are all too true, they hide the fact that trench warfare was dynamic and constantly evolving throughout the war as all armies struggled to find a way to break through the opposing lines. Though World War I is almost synonymous with trench warfare, that method of combat was nothing new. There had been extensive use of trenches during the later stages of the American Civil War (1864-1865), and trench warfare was constant during the Second Boer War (1899-1902), the Russo-Japanese War (1904-1905), and the Balkan Wars (1912-1913). These conflicts showed that modern firepower combined with entrenched positions gave a decisive advantage to the defender, yet European observers failed to learn any lessons from these conflicts, and the scale of trench warfare in World War I far eclipsed anything seen before or since, especially on the Western Front. From the intro:"In my book, The Father of a Soldier, I have already stated the conditions under which this book of my son's was produced.He was wounded in the end of June, 1917, in the fierce struggle before Lens. He was at once removed to a base-hospital, and later on to a military hospital in London. There was grave danger of amputation of the right arm, but this was happily avoided. As soon as he could use his hand he was commandeered by the Lord High Commissioner of Canada to write an important paper, detailing the history of the Canadian forces in France and Flanders. This task kept him busy until the end of August, when he obtained a leave of two months to come home. He arrived in New York in September, and returned again to London in the end of October.The plan of the book grew out of his conversations with us and the three public addresses which he made. The idea had already been suggested to him by his London publisher, Mr. John Lane. He had written a few hundred words, but had no very keen sense of the value of the experiences he had been invited to relate. He had not even read his own published letters in Carry On. He said he had begun to read them when the book reached him in the trenches, but they made him homesick, and he was also afraid that his own estimate of their value might not coincide with ours, or with the verdict which the public has since passed upon them. He regarded his own experiences, which we found so thrilling, in the same spirit of modest depreciation. They were the commonplaces of the life which he had led, and he was sensitive lest they should be regarded as improperly heroic."
The War The Infantry Knew, 1914-1919 by Capt. J. C. Dunn Pdf
Memoirs of British medical officer J. C. Dunn during World War I: “The first duty of a battalion medical officer in War is to discourage the evasion of duty...not seldom against one’s better feelings, sometimes to the temporary hurt of the individual, but justice to all other men as well as discipline demands it.” “Sometimes, through word of mouth and shared enthusiasm, a secret book becomes famous. The War the Infantry Knew is one of them. Published privately in a limited edition of five hundred copies in 1938, it gained a reputation as an outstanding account of an infantry battalion's experience on the Western Front.”—Daily Telegraph “I have been waiting for a long time for someone to republish this classic. It is one of the most interesting and revealing books of its type and is a genuinely truthful and fascinating picture of the war as it was for the infantry”—John Keegan 'A remarkably coherent narrative of the battalion's experiences in diary form...a moving historical record which deserves to be added to the select list of outstanding accounts of the First World War”—Times Literary Supplement “A magnificent tour de force, the length of three ordinary books.”—London Review of Books
In the Trenches in World War I by Adam Hibbert Pdf
This book tells you all about World War 1 (1914-1918) - the devastating struggle for supremacy between the world's most powerful nations. Using vivid personal accounts to tell the stories of real people, it describes the terrible loss of life in the trenches on the Western Front, as well as on other battlegrounds around the world. Features First-hand accounts and quotations Maps and timelines A word bank on each page Find out: What was life like in the trenches? What happened on Christmas Day, 1914? In which major battle were tanks first used?
A rich and sobering exploration of war -- and of the meaning of history -- that will engage general readers and military buffs alike. The Western Front, the sinuous, deadly line of trenches that stretched from the English Channel to Switzerland during the First World War, also formed a scar on the imaginative landscape of our century. Back to the Front chronicles author, Stephen O'Shea's, 500-kilometre walk down what was once no man's land. In the process of making this singular trek through the old battlefields, O'Shea ruminates on the many meanings of the Front and on the nature of his own generation's - the Baby Boomer's - indifference to the past.
Canadian Expeditionary Force, 1914-1919 by G.W.L. Nicholson,Mark Osborne Humphries Pdf
Colonel G.W.L. Nicholson's Canadian Expeditionary Force, 1914-1919 was first published by the Department of National Defence in 1962 as the official history of the Canadian Army’s involvement in the First World War. Immediately after the war ended Colonel A. Fortescue Duguid made a first attempt to write an official history of the war, but the ill-fated project produced only the first of an anticipated eight volumes. Decades later, G.W.L. Nicholson - already the author of an official history of the Second World War - was commissioned to write a new official history of the First. Illustrated with numerous photographs and full-colour maps, Nicholson’s text offers an authoritative account of the war effort, while also discussing politics on the home front, including debates around conscription in 1917. With a new critical introduction by Mark Osborne Humphries that traces the development of Nicholson’s text and analyzes its legacy, Canadian Expeditionary Force, 1914-1919 is an essential resource for both professional historians and military history enthusiasts.