There is perhaps no greater challenge to the historian of war than recounting the personal experiences of those who served in it. Political decisions are documented, units are described and their movements detailed, and battles fought and re-fought in the reports and other chronicles. But the activities of the ordinary soldier or sailor is too often lost to history. For most of human history, most of their experiences have been unaccounted due to simple illiteracy and a lack of interest by the record keepers. Yet even in our more literate era, many of those who fought leave their service unrecounted either for a lack of opportunity or an unwillingness to revisit the horrors they faced.

Nevertheless, some of their number do indeed take the time to describe their experiences in letters or to relate their experiences in postwar memoirs or fictionalized accounts. It is from these that Richard Holmes draws the details that inform his study of British Army service on the Western Front in the First World War. It’s an impressively comprehensive account that touches upon every aspect of their service, from their training to questions of morale and punishment, which is a formidable challenge given the variety of the experiences involved.

Part of the reason for this, as Holmes explains, was that in many respects the force that fought on the Western Front consisted not of one single army but of four of them: the small prewar “Old Army” of professional soldiers, the Territorial Army reserves, Kitchener’s “New Army” of volunteers who enlisted at the start of the hostilities, and the conscripted levies later in the conflict. Each of these armies, Holmes relates, was different in character, reflecting their different preparations and relationship to the conflict. While over time service in France and Belgium brought about a degree of homogenization, Holmes notes the distinctions that persisted, both between the various forces and the armies manning the different sectors of the Western Front.

These distinctions, however, were minor compared to the common experience of trench warfare. Holmes examines it through the various stages of their experience at the front and the types of service undertaken by the men. What emerges from his account is how the drudgery of routine predominated their lives, as they spent most of their days carrying out routine orders, performing manual labor, and coping with boredom and the elements. Looming over them constantly, however, was combat and the prospect of death, the form of which was ever evolving as both sides continually introduced new weapons and tactics designed to break the stalemate of trench warfare.

That the details of all this never detract from the narrative is a testament to Holmes’s ability as a writer. It helps as well that he devotes ample space to the words of the soldiers’ themselves, with generous quotes from their firsthand accounts. At times Holmes’s aspirations get the better of him, most notably with the first chapter in which he offers a fictionalized account of “Thomas Atkins” participating in an attack. Yet this can be skipped past to no detriment to what follows, which is a rich and evocative narrative describing the lives of the men who served in the British Expeditionary Force in the First World War, one that succeeds Denis Winter’s classic study Death's Men as the authoritative work on the subject. ( )

In 1914, five major powers, Germany and Austria-Hungary on the one hand, Russia, France, and Britain on the other, went to war over the small nations of Serbia and Belgium. The Austro-Hungarian army lost the capacity for independent action by the end of 1914. The Russian army collapsed into revolution and the French army succumbed to mutiny in 1917, thought it recovered somewhat by the following year. The German army was defeated in 1918. Alone among the original five powers, the army of Britain and it’s Empire went through the war intact. How did it manage this? The late [a:Richard Holmes|3002506|Richard Holmes|https://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1249593865p2/3002506.jpg] sets out to answer that question in this fine book.

This is not an arrows on maps history of the war, but an examination of the British army on the Western Front. We learn what motivated its soldiers to fight, how they fought, what happened to them when they didn't, what they did between fights, how they felt about each other, how they felt about their enemy, how they felt about the war, and much else besides.

These were men who might experience the following;

"One day...a shell hit the officers' latrine, sending the screen flying. I was shocked to see a man still sitting there on the throne and I thought he must be dead. I ran as hard as I could and arrived to find Ellison up and adjusting his trousers. He said with a grin, 'It was lucky that the shell came when it did as I was feeling a bit constipated'"

"(One soldier remembered) the sight of a Saxon boy crushed under a shattered tank, moaning 'Mutter, Mutter, Mutter,' out of ghastly grey lips. A British soldier, wounded in the leg, and sitting near by, hears the words, and dragging himself to the dying boy, takes his cold hand and says 'All right, son, it's all right, Mother's here with you'"

One great grandfather of mine went into the trenches in late 1914, made it through to the end, and lived until 1979. Another joined up in 1914 and was one of the Sheffield Pals, losing an arm and an eye in his first and only day of combat on the Somme on July 1st, 1916. His brother in law likewise joined up in 1914 and fought until September 1918 when he was killed, two months before the end of the war. I never met any of these men, but after reading this book I feel as though I know them a little better. ( )

Richard Holmes at his best. Excellent description of life for a British soldier in the First World War. He writes with technical proficiency, good scholarship, and underlying it all, strong sentiment. ( )

A good read and a great resource for those interested in the intricacies and nuances of the British military, especially the average "Tommy" during the First World War. Chock full of quotes, photos and annotations; well worth the effort to locate this seemingly hard to find book. I will absolutely seek out his Wellington book. ( )