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Khaki

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OH YES I DID ! ...and from you, personally, at the GWFC last year .

Your account of what happened to those Portuguese whetted my appetite to find out more.

Phil (PJA)

That's good! To be honest I am not sure that there would be enough on the Portuguese to fill a full size book. There is virtually nothing of any merit existing in English, and in researching I had to polish up my Portuguese to read the official accounts and some archival material. I give a talk on their story, which of course reaches a terrible crescendo on 9 April 1918, and there is much of interest in political terms (why they were sent, why they were all but abandoned in France, etc), but not a huge lot to say militarily. Other than the Lys, their time was mainly in training and then some cold months of trench holding, livened by some raids - which really would need work in archives in Portugal. The Portuguese also provided a detachment of heavy artillery, of which again there is very little significant mention in English or French but I suspect would not fill too many chapters.

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Histories of:

6th Dragoon Guards (Carabiniers)

The Inniskillings (6th Dragooons)

19th Royal Hussars (Queen Alexandra's Own)

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That's good! To be honest I am not sure that there would be enough on the Portuguese to fill a full size book.

All honour to you for what you've done, here, Chris.

What I actually had in mind was a book about the triumvirate of the tokens....comparing the experiences of all three. Like the Portuguese, the Italians underwent the ordeal of facing the initial blast of a huge German offensive; as for the Russians in the Nivelle Offensive, I know little, but have been led to believe that their contingent was badly bloodied in the fighting.

I visited the Portuguese cemetery at Neuve Chapelle, and the Italian one at Sans- Soupir on the Aisne. Another memorial caught my eye near Souchez : commemorating the ordeal of a Czech contingent that was incorporated into the Fench army.

Here I am, envisaging a book, but I'm all talk ! I don't have the discipline to knuckle down to the task.....I'm just an avid consumer of other peoples' efforts.

But I do feel that my idea has some merit. A more cosmopolitan aspect would enhance the literature.

Phil (PJA)

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The female snipers of Gallipoli :whistle:

German machine-gunners chained to their gun :w00t:

Neil

I'd buy several of these as gifts especially with an appendix on reversed bullets as anti tank weapons. :ph34r:

Austro Hungarian campaign. The French campaign 1915-1918. Royal Artillery for Idiots. German home politics. A modern description of GHQ day to day.

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Great War Generalship for Dummies (a companion volume to Great War Generals Were Dummies)

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  • 3 weeks later...

Living in a seaside town myself I know what an important role fishermen played but many fishing fleets were decimated by the war and many boats (therefore livelihoods) were destroyed or sunk. This merits further investigation.

http://www.pen-and-sword.co.uk/Fishermen-Against-the-Kaiser/p/2290/

Fishermen Against the Kaiser

Volume 1 Shockwaves of War 1914-1915

Douglas d'Enno

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