The Retreat From Mons

Author : Richard Holmes
Publisher : Random House
ISBN 13 : 1845951093
Total Pages : 346 pages
Book Rating : 4.92/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Riding the Retreat written by Richard Holmes and published by Random House. This book was released on 2007 with total page 346 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The retreat of the British Expeditionary Force from Mons in the early months of the First World War is one of the great dramas of European history. Blending his recreation of the military campaign with contemporary testimony and an account of his own ride over the route, Richard Holmes takes the reader on a unique journey - to glimpse the summer the old world ended.

Author : Arthur Corbett-Smith
Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 288 pages
Book Rating : 4.40/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Retreat from Mons written by Arthur Corbett-Smith and published by . This book was released on 1916 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Author : Nigel Cave
Publisher : Casemate Publishers
ISBN 13 : 1783460709
Total Pages : 440 pages
Book Rating : 4.00/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Le Cateau written by Nigel Cave and published by Casemate Publishers. This book was released on 2008-03-26 with total page 440 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Le Cateau (26–27 August 1914) was the second major action fought by the BEF in the Great War. His men exhausted after fighting at Mons and by the subsequent speedy retreat, Lieutenant-General Horace Smith-Dorrien (commanding II Corps) decided that he had to make a stand in the vicinity of Le Cateau.There his men took on elements of four German corps in an action that succeeded in giving the BEF a respite, but at considerable cost. Amongst other elements of controversy in the conduct of the battle was the handling of the Royal Artillery.The battle also undermined the already fraught relationship between Smith-Dorrien and the BEF's commander, John French. The battlefield today remains largely as it was, open countryside, and it is an ideal location to view one of the most significant British battlefields of the early days of the war.In this action no less than five Victoria Crosses were won, three of them in one howitzer battery and two by men of the 2nd King's Own Yorkshire Light Infantry.

Author : George Stuart Gordon
Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 124 pages
Book Rating : 4.80/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Retreat from Mons written by George Stuart Gordon and published by . This book was released on 1917 with total page 124 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Author : John Terraine
Publisher : Wordsworth Editions
ISBN 13 : 9781840222432
Total Pages : 228 pages
Book Rating : 4.33/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Mons written by John Terraine and published by Wordsworth Editions. This book was released on 2000-01-17 with total page 228 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Twice in the 20th century, a British Expeditionary Force has taken the field in Northern France to fight beside the French Army. Twice, the Expeditionary Force has survived threat of complete destruction. But the differences between the Retreat to Dunkirk in 1940 and the first encounter with the enemy at Mons in 1914 are significant.

Author : David Lomas
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN 13 : 1782004440
Total Pages : 233 pages
Book Rating : 4.48/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Mons 1914 written by David Lomas and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2012-09-20 with total page 233 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When the First World War broke out in August 1914 the Imperial German Army mistakenly assumed that the BEF – 'that contemptible little army' – would be easily defeated. They were stopped in their tracks by the numerically inferior British force, whose excellent marksmanship cost the closed packed German ranks dear. Eventually forced to fall back by overwhelming German numbers, the British carried out a masterful fighting retreat across Belgium and northern France. At Mons, nine and a half British battalions held four German divisions at bay for an entire day. This book examines not just the battle of Mons itself but also the ensuing British retreat including the actions at Le Cateau and Villers-Cotterêts.

Author : Ben Macintyre
Publisher : Delta
ISBN 13 : 0385336799
Total Pages : 290 pages
Book Rating : 4.96/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Englishman's Daughter written by Ben Macintyre and published by Delta. This book was released on 2003-02-04 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the first terrifying days of World War I, four British soldiers found themselves trapped behind enemy lines on the western front. They were forced to hide in the tiny French village of Villeret, whose inhabitants made the courageous decision to shelter the fugitives until they could pass as Picard peasants. The Englishman’s Daughter is the never-before-told story of these extraordinary men, their protectors, and of the haunting love affair between Private Robert Digby and Claire Dessenne, the most beautiful woman in Villeret. Their passion would result in the birth of a child known as “The Englishman’s Daughter,” and in an act of unspeakable betrayal, a tragic legacy that would haunt the village for generations to come. Through the testimonies of the villagers and the last letters of the soldiers, acclaimed journalist Ben Macintyre has pieced together a harrowing account of how life was lived behind enemy lines during the Great War, and offers a compelling solution to a gripping mystery that reverberates to this day.

Author : A. Corbett-Smith
Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 0 pages
Book Rating : 4.38/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Retreat from Mons written by A. Corbett-Smith and published by . This book was released on 1916 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Author : Anthony Clayton
Publisher : Helion and Company
ISBN 13 : 1909384186
Total Pages : 119 pages
Book Rating : 4.87/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Battlefield Rations written by Anthony Clayton and published by Helion and Company. This book was released on 2013-11-19 with total page 119 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An Army marches on its stomach, observed Napoleon, a hundred and fifty years later General Rommel remarked that the British should always be attacked before soldiers had had an early morning cup of tea. This book, written to raise money for the Army Benevolent Fund and with a Foreword by General Lord Dannatt, sets out the human story of the food and "brew-ups" of the front-line soldier from the Boer War to Helmand. Throughout, the importance of the provision of food, or even a simple mug of tea, for morale and unit fellowship as well as for the need of the calories required for battle is highlighted with many examples over the century. For many, until 1942, the basis of food was "bully beef" and hard biscuit, supplemented by whatever could be found locally, all adequate but monotonous. Sometimes supply failed, on occasions water also. The extremes of hardship being when regiments were besieged, as in Ladysmith in the Boer War and Kut el-Amara in Iraq in the 1914-18 war. At Kut soldiers had, at best, hedgehogs or birds fried in axle-grease with local vegetation. On the Western Front the Retreat from Mons in August 1914 was almost as severe. The transport of food is as interesting a story as the food itself, ranging from oxen, horses, mules, camels, even reindeer and elephants to motor transport and aircraft in different theatres at different times. The first airdrop of food, not very successful, was in fact at Kut el-Amara in 1916. The inter-war years experiences of mountaineers and polar explorers, supplemented by academic diet studies of the unemployed in London and North England led to the introduction of the varied composite, or 'compo' rations, marking an enormous improvement in soldiers' food, an improvement commented upon by the bully beef and biscuits-fed 8th Army advancing into Tunisia from Libya on meeting the 1st Army which had landed in Algeria with tins of compo. The Italian campaigns of 1943-45, especially the Salerno and Anzio landings and the battle for Monte Cassino, presented particular difficulties. At Cassino food reached forward units on mules with Basuto muleteers and Indian porters for the last stage to men in ground holes or scrapes. Soldiers landing in Normandy and fighting on into Germany were generally well fed even during a hard 1944-45 winter. The worst suffering, though, fell on soldiers in the Burma campaign, especially in the Chindit columns. In one unit, the only food available at one time was the chaplain's store of Communion wafers. Many men died unnecessarily from the results of poor feeding. In the end of empire colonial campaigns soldiers were generally well fed even if the food was monotonous. Units in the Korean War experienced difficulties at the onset; in the Borneo jungle campaigns of the 1960s the problem was not so much the provision of food for patrols as how to eat it without the smell of the food and refuse from the packs giving positions away. For the Falklands War special cold weather compo had to be provided and was eaten on the long 'yomps' or 'tabs' marches. The soldier on the streets of Northern Ireland often lived on egg "banjo" sandwiches but real hardship was suffered by one Welsh battalion besieged by the Serbs in Gorazde during the Bosnia operations when Vitamin C deficiency led to scurvy. The book ends with food supply, often based on whole or part swapping with American military food (usually below British standards) in the Iraq operations and in Afghanistan. An appendix sets out the contents of a typical box of rations issued to a soldier in Helmand in 2011, very generous in quantity and easily prepared. One side of the box carries a stern message to the effect that a soldier must consume the entire contents in order to maintain full fighting efficiency. Such injunctions were not marked on the boxes of food sent forward to the troops in the Boer War; there the boxes were stamped with the initials of the Senior Catering Office Field Force. "Scoffs here at last." The work has been compiled from documents in the Royal Logistic Corps Museum at Deepcut, from memoirs, letters and interviews, and from the superb collection of regimental histories in the library of the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst. All royalties due to the author for this book will be sent to the Army Benevolent Fund, The Soldiers' Charity.

Author : A. Corbett-smith
Publisher : Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
ISBN 13 : 9781976241321
Total Pages : 164 pages
Book Rating : 4.24/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Retreat from Mons written by A. Corbett-smith and published by Createspace Independent Publishing Platform. This book was released on 2017-09-09 with total page 164 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Retreat from Mons