Author: Peter FitzSimons
Publisher: Random House Australia
ISBN: 0143783300
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 817
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Book Description
In the Trenches of Hell On July 19, 1916, 7000 Australian soldiers - in the first major action of the AIF on the Western Front - attacked entrenched German positions at Fromelles in northern France. By the next day, there were over 5500 casualties, including nearly 2000 dead - a bloodbath that the Australian War Memorial describes as 'the worst 24 hours in Australia's entire history. Just days later, three Australian Divisions attacked German positions at nearby Pozières, and over the next six weeks they suffered another 23,000 casualties. Of that bitter battle, the great Australian war correspondent Charles Bean would write, "The field of Pozières is more consecrated by Australian fighting and more hallowed by Australian blood than any field which has ever existed . . ." Yet the sad truth is that, nearly a century on from those battles, Australians know only a fraction of what occurred. This book brings the battles back to life and puts the reader in the moment, illustrating both the heroism displayed and the insanity of the British plan. With his extraordinary vigour and commitment to research, Peter FitzSimons shows why this is a story about which all Australians can be proud. And angry.
Author: Meleah Hampton
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1925675602
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 225
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Book Description
The Battle of Pozières has reverberated throughout Australia’s military history, long regarded as a costly battle that produced little meaningful gain. Pozières was characterised by the most intense artillery bombardment the Australians had experienced in the war thus far and ‘the hell that was Pozières’ became the yardstick by which subsequent bombardments were measured. The 13th Battalion’s Frank Massey described men who became ‘blithering idiots … Crying and weeping and — absolutely useless as a fighting man.’ The object of the battle was Pozières Ridge, a low rise that offered a good view of the German positions. Heavily fortified, the ridge and the pulverised remains of the village were contested bitterly and, during its six-week campaign, 1st Anzac Corps advanced little more than two miles and suffered 23,000 casualties. Charles Bean wrote that ‘Australian troops … fell more thickly on this ridge than on any other battlefield of the war.’ However, the first phase of the campaign was very successful, securing the fortified ruins of Pozières and the German second line. But follow-up operations failed to capitalise and subsequent assaults merely nibbled away at enemy positions without making significant headway. Yet the Battle of Pozières marks a significant achievement not only for 1st Anzac Corps, but for the British Expeditionary Force. In a war in which any advance was hard won, the wresting of the high ground from the Germans was crucial. For the battered Allied forces, the capture of Pozières Ridge provided faint hope of an end to a catastrophic war.
Author: Jonathan Walker
Publisher: Pen and Sword
ISBN: 1473853788
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 248
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Book Description
This controversial and stirring account of one of the bloodiest battles of the Great War recounts a heroic but disastrous engagement which left a lasting rift between the British and Australians. Drawing from a wealth of unpublished sources and eyewitness accounts, Jonathan Walker's study of the Battle of Bullecourt is vital to an understanding of the difficulties that faced Great War commanders. Central to The Blood Tub is a reassessment of Sir Hubert Gough, one of the Great War's most colourful generals.In the late spring of 1917, the Allies attacked at Arras, and a combined British and Australian force under General 'Thruster' Gough assaulted the fortress village of Bullecourt. Despite using the new wonder weapon, the tank, Gough's first attack ended in disaster and bitter recriminations. He then launched a second massive attack. For the next two weeks, the Battle of Bullecourt dominated British offensive action on the Western Front. It was the excessive brutality and ferocity of the hand-to-hand fighting that earned Bullecourt the name 'Blood Tub.'
Author: Peter Hart
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199836868
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 561
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Book Description
"First published in Great Britain in 2011 by Profile Books"--T.p. verso.
Author: Craig Deayton
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1921941251
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 373
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Book Description
"The dead and wounded of the 47th lay everywhere underfoot". With these words Charles Bean, Australia's Official War Historian, described the battlefield of Dernancourt on the morning of the 5th of April, 1918, strewn with the bodies of the Australian dead. It was the final tragic chapter in the story of the 47th Australian Infantry Battalion in the First World War. One of the shortest lived and most battle hardened of the 1st Australian Imperial Force's battalions, the 47th was formed in Egypt in 1916 and disbanded two years later having suffered one of the highest casualty rates of any Australian unit. Their story is remarkable for many reasons. Dogged by command and discipline troubles and bled white by the desperate attrition battles of 1916 and 1917, they fought on against a determined and skilful enemy in battles where the fortunes of war seemed stacked against them at every turn. Not only did they have the misfortune to be called into some of the A.I.F.'s most costly campaigns, chance often found them in the worst places within those battles. Though their story is one of almost unrelieved tragedy, it is also story of remarkable courage, endurance and heroism. It is the story of the 1st A.I.F. itself - punished, beaten, sometimes reviled for their indiscipline, they fought on - fewer, leaner and harder - until final victory was won. And at its end, in an extraordinary gesture of mateship, the remnants of the 47th Battalion reunited. Having been scattered to other units after their disbandment, the survivors gathered in Belgium for one last photo together. Only 73 remained.
Author: Hugh Sebag-Montefiore
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674545192
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 680
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Book Description
The notion of battles as the irreducible building blocks of war demands a single verdict of each campaign—victory, defeat, stalemate. But this kind of accounting leaves no room to record the nuances and twists of actual conflict. In Somme: Into the Breach, the noted military historian Hugh Sebag-Montefiore shows that by turning our focus to stories of the front line—to acts of heroism and moments of both terror and triumph—we can counter, and even change, familiar narratives. Planned as a decisive strike but fought as a bloody battle of attrition, the Battle of the Somme claimed over a million dead or wounded in months of fighting that have long epitomized the tragedy and folly of World War I. Yet by focusing on the first-hand experiences and personal stories of both Allied and enemy soldiers, Hugh Sebag-Montefiore defies the customary framing of incompetent generals and senseless slaughter. In its place, eyewitness accounts relive scenes of extraordinary courage and sacrifice, as soldiers ordered “over the top” ventured into No Man’s Land and enemy trenches, where they met a hail of machine-gun fire, thickets of barbed wire, and exploding shells. Rescuing from history the many forgotten heroes whose bravery has been overlooked, and giving voice to their bereaved relatives at home, Hugh Sebag-Montefiore reveals the Somme campaign in all its glory as well as its misery, helping us to realize that there are many meaningful ways to define a battle when seen through the eyes of those who lived it.
Author: Martin Middlebrook
Publisher: Pen and Sword
ISBN: 1473814243
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 344
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Book Description
A history of the British Army’s experience at the Battle of the Somme in France during World War I. After an immense but useless bombardment, at 7:30 AM on July 1, 1916, the British Army went over the top and attacked the German trenches. It was the first day of the battle of the Somme, and on that day, the British suffered nearly 60,000 casualties, two for every yard of their front. With more than fifty times the daily losses at El Alamein and fifteen times the British casualties on D-day, July 1, 1916, was the blackest day in the history of the British Army. But, more than that, as Lloyd George recognized, it was a watershed in the history of the First World War. The Army that attacked on that day was the volunteer Army that had answered Kitchener’s call. It had gone into action confident of a decisive victory. But by sunset on the first day on the Somme, no one could any longer think of a war that might be won. Martin Middlebrook’s research has covered not just official and regimental histories and tours of the battlefields, but interviews with hundreds of survivors, both British and German. As to the action itself, he conveys the overall strategic view and the terrifying reality that it was for front-line soldiers. Praise for The First Day on the Somme “The soldiers receive the best service a historian can provide: their story is told in their own words.” —The Guardian (UK)
Author: Graham Keech
Publisher: Pen and Sword
ISBN: 1473817331
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 220
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Book Description
The village sits on top of the ridge that bears its name, a ridge that was an objective on the 1st July 1916. As it was, the whole position was not finally cleared until early September 1916 as German, Australian and British troops fought tenaciously over it.
Author: Dale Blair
Publisher: Frontline Books
ISBN: 1848325878
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 209
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Book Description
In November 1918 the BEF under Field Marshal Haig fought a series of victorious battles on the Western Front that contributed mightily to the German armys defeat. They did so as part of a coalition and the role of Australian diggers and US doughboys is often forgotten. The Bellicourt Tunnel attack, fought in the fading autumn light, was very much an inter-Allied affair and marked a unique moment in the Allied armies endeavours. It was the first time that such a large cohort of Americans had fought in a British army. Additionally, untried American II Corps and experienced Australian Corps were to spearhead the attack under the command of Lieutenant General Sir John Monash with British divisions adopting supporting roles on the flanks. Blair forensically details the fighting and the largely forgotten desperate German defence. Although celebrated as a marvellous feat of breaking the Hindenburg Line, the American attack failed generally to achieve its set objectives and it took the Australians three days of bitter fighting to reach theirs. Blair rejects the conventional explanation of the US mop up failure and points the finger of blame at Rawlinson, Haig and Monash for expecting too much of the raw US troops, singling out the Australian Corps commander for particular criticism. Overall, Blair judges the fighting g a draw. At the end, like two boxers, the Australian-American force was gasping for breath and the Germans, badly battered, back-pedalling to remain on balance. Overall the day was calamitous for the German army, even if the clean break-through that Haig had hoped for did not occur. Forced out of the Hindenburg Line, the prognosis for the German army on the Western Front and hence Imperial Germany itself was bleak indeed.
Author: Edward P. F. Lynch
Publisher: ReadHowYouWant.com
ISBN: 1442977329
Category : Soldiers
Languages : en
Pages : 362
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Book Description
