Featured battle : Messines

Part of First World War

Date : 07 June 1917 - 14 June 1917

A limited but successful attack by combined arms - Artillery, gas, tanks and mines as well as infantry. It set the pattern for the offensives of 1918.

Marching Fighting Dying.

Gareth Glover
This is a super read and those who, like me, are Gareth Glover fans will welcome this as a classic. The author has undertaken wide ranging research into primary sources and most of the text consists of excerpts from letters home from the Peninsular. There is very little about the battles as the bulk of the book is about activities off the battlefield e.g. the journey by ship or the entertainment when in winter quarters. The stories are entertaining and fascinating and lead one to gain a deeper insight into life in Wellington’s army. Here is the unvarnished detail of what the troops did and felt about it.
It would be enough to be an ‘interesting’ book but it is more important than just that. The substance of the correspondence brings into question many previously held ‘understandings’ of soldiering in the Napoleonic wars. The brief concluding paragraphs to each chapter and the summary Conclusion chapter are valuable correctors to many ‘widely accepted views’. This book is a big step towards historical truth.
We highly recommend it to all levels of readership.

Pen & Sword Military, 2021