Jim Hastings Posted 9 February , 2012 Share Posted 9 February , 2012 Dear All, Looking to expand my WW1 Western Front library and noticed I have very little few 1915 books compared to the books I have covering 1916-18. All I have are "The Death of Innocence" by Lyn MacDonald and "The Death of Glory" by Robin Neillands - and i'd like to get some titles on Neuve Chappell, Aubers, Loos and Ypres - I've had a look on Amazon and read some reviews, but I'd be interested in some members opinions before I select my purchases So any 1915 Western Front titles anyone can suggest? Many thanks Jim Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
truthergw Posted 9 February , 2012 Share Posted 9 February , 2012 For a long time, there was a great scarcity of books on 1915 then suddenly, there were a few. I list the ones I have read. Official history, 2 volumes. Still the best reference. 1915: Campaign in France. A reprint by N&M Press of an official report. Loos 1915 by Nick Lloyd. Most Unfavourable Ground by forum member, Niall Cherry ( Loos), Loos 1915; The Unwanted Battle by Gordon Corrigan, A Serious Disappointment by Adrian Bristow, (Aubers Ridge and the shell scandal). There is a book on 2nd Ypres by an author whose name is Bennet. I cannot lay my hand on it but I am sure some one will know the book I mean. There are a few Battleground books with good maps and photos. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CROONAERT Posted 9 February , 2012 Share Posted 9 February , 2012 'Magnificent, but not War' by John Dixon (2nd Ypres) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Admin Michelle Young Posted 9 February , 2012 Admin Share Posted 9 February , 2012 Morale by John Baynes deals with Neuve Chapelle from the Cameronians point of view, there is also Loos by Philip Warner and of course not forgetting The Donkeys by Alan Clarke Michelle Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
truthergw Posted 9 February , 2012 Share Posted 9 February , 2012 I intended to include The Donkeys but it slipped my mind while hunting for the Bennett book. Everybody should read it, to let them see what the shouting and swearing were all about. There are classics which are well out of date but should be read because they are the touchstones of Great War literature. Clark's book is a classic which demonstrates how bad a book can be and still be popular. Of course, there is no need to expend digital ink in criticising it nowadays. It was of its time and is of merely historiographic import now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jim Hastings Posted 9 February , 2012 Author Share Posted 9 February , 2012 Many thanks one and all, greatly appreciated, some of these titles I have come across and others not, so I will go back and check them all and their availability and take it from there. It seems Loos has been covered a lot, so a choice to choose from Thanks again Jim Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
squirrel Posted 10 February , 2012 Share Posted 10 February , 2012 Worth a look is "1915 Campaign in France, the Battles of Aubers Ridge, Festubert and Loos" by Lt Col A Kearsey (N & MP)where the battles are "considered in relation to the Field Service Regulations". Also the Battleground Europe series on these battles. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jack Sheldon Posted 10 February , 2012 Share Posted 10 February , 2012 Jim For the perspective from the far side of No Man's Land, my The German Army on the Western Front 1915 is due to be published by Pen and Sword in 2-3 months' time. It contains chapters on all the battles which involved the BEF, together with Champagne (Winter and Autumn) and the Argonne. Jack Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
paulgranger Posted 10 February , 2012 Share Posted 10 February , 2012 Great news, Jack, that's gone straight on my wishlist. Hope your publishers are a bit more accurate with their timescales, than poor old Ralph Whitehead's; I've been looking fiorward to his second volume of 'The Other Side of the Wire' for ages, but it seems to get pushed back another couple of months as the latest claimed publication date gets closer. It looks as if your latest effort will be publshed slightly before it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jack Sheldon Posted 10 February , 2012 Share Posted 10 February , 2012 Glad to be of service Paul. I shall be interested in your feedback when you have seen it, because there is quite a bit on operations involving the French this time and I shall be interested to see how this aspect is received - especially because I have just embarked on the Spring Offensives of 1917, (Arras and, of course, Nivelle ... ). Jack Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
paulgranger Posted 10 February , 2012 Share Posted 10 February , 2012 Jack I shall be very interested in finding out more on the French experience. Except for various histories on Verdun, and some broad-brush accounts, there is very little in English about Frances' War, a fact bewailed on another current thread re books to be written on rarely-addressed aspects of the Great War, I'm just finishing William Philpotts 'Bloody Victory' and it's been an eye-opener to have an account of the French part in the Somme Offensive, an aspect I've only been vaguely aware of up to now, assuming their bit was simply a holding operation to support the British attacks and the counter-offensives at Verdun! I shall certainly look forward to your account of the Chemin-Des-Dames attack, For all its initial success, i've always felt the Arras battle was a major error, foisted on Haig by Lloyd George, who had been charmed into supporting the French by spurious promises from Nivelle. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steven Broomfield Posted 10 February , 2012 Share Posted 10 February , 2012 there is also Loos by Philip Warner Michelle We've discussed this before: I bought ut (very) cheap, may years ago (50p rings a bell) and felt cheated ever since. There are a lot better books about. Of the two recent ones on Loos (Lloyd or Cherry), I would probably go for Lloyd; Cherry's is very good as an operational history, but Lloyd's is a bigger picture. If you can afford both, get both, though. Although not on 1915, per se, Corrigan's Sepoys in the Trenches covers 1915 in some depth, of course. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
truthergw Posted 10 February , 2012 Share Posted 10 February , 2012 Jim For the perspective from the far side of No Man's Land, my The German Army on the Western Front 1915 is due to be published by Pen and Sword in 2-3 months' time. It contains chapters on all the battles which involved the BEF, together with Champagne (Winter and Autumn) and the Argonne. Jack I look forward to acquiring that one, Jack. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Admin Michelle Young Posted 10 February , 2012 Admin Share Posted 10 February , 2012 We've discussed this before: I bought ut (very) cheap, may years ago (50p rings a bell) and felt cheated ever since. There are a lot better books about. I agree you was robbed, a book which could have been so much better Michelle Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
truthergw Posted 10 February , 2012 Share Posted 10 February , 2012 Jack I shall be very interested in finding out more on the French experience. Except for various histories on Verdun, and some broad-brush accounts, there is very little in English about Frances' War, a fact bewailed on another current thread re books to be written on rarely-addressed aspects of the Great War, edit.... Yes, I'm afraid that my schoolboy French had to be dusted off when I became interested in the French experience. If the effort is made, there are stacks of post war PLON editions available at very little cost. The memoirs of Foch and Joffre with Mangin for spice, give a fair idea of the immediate post war picture as viewed by the French. For a different standpoint, Huguet's " Britain and the war" has been translated and might sting a bit. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jack Sheldon Posted 10 February , 2012 Share Posted 10 February , 2012 I agree with that Tom, but do you like me feel frustrated that Foch only covered 1914 and 1918 in his memoirs? I could really have used his insights for '1915'. Jack Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
phil andrade Posted 10 February , 2012 Share Posted 10 February , 2012 It's always amazed me that there has been relatively little literary output about the 1915 fighting on the Western Front. Those battles in Artois and Champagne were huge ; their casualty rates far exceeding those of Verdun the following year. Yet there is something Cinderella like about it in the historiography. From the British point of view, this is - to a degree - understandable, on acount of the vastly greater losses that were sustained as of July 1st 1916.....but for the life of me, I find it odd that the French do not make more of that terrible year. Phil (PJA) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
truthergw Posted 10 February , 2012 Share Posted 10 February , 2012 Hi Jack. I do wish that there was a lot more coverage and I also wish that my French was a lot better. I know that I miss a lot of the nuance and the idiom regularly goes over my head. I wonder if , and this applies to Phil's point too, we are faced here with a national approach, a difference in what we ( the Brits) and the French people wanted to read about. It has occurred to me that perhaps the French preferred to dwell upon the heroic battles of the frontiers culminating in the ' Miracle of the Marne ', and then the ultimate victory of 1918 where they finally evicted the enemy invader from the sacred soil of La Patrie. The British, on the other hand, seem to be obsessed by losses and will rush past the victory to weep and wail over the defeat. Michel's book is entitled, Les Oubliers de la Somme. Whatever the battle of the Somme may mean to the British , ' forgotten' is not part of it. There are some French booklets covering the battles in Champagne and Artois but I have pieced together more on them from the German side. My German is even worse than my French. Heavens alone knows what misperceptions I am carting around. Anyway., I am quite sure that your book will fill a gap in my view of 1915. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
phil andrade Posted 10 February , 2012 Share Posted 10 February , 2012 Jack's book is very eagerly awaited. The Germans' point of view in 1915 is especially signifcant because this was the year when they made their principal effort against the Russians. I wonder if they had their version of the Westerners versus the Easterners arguing during the spring and autumn of 1915, when they had to contain the terrific French attacks. When German soldiers in the trenches of the Western Front were regaled with news about the fall of Warsaw and tha capture of so many hundreds of thousands of Russians, did they feel that they were overlooked ? Phil (PJA) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
truthergw Posted 10 February , 2012 Share Posted 10 February , 2012 Jack's book is very eagerly awaited. The Germans' point of view in 1915 is especially signifcant because this was the year when they made their principal effort against the Russians. I wonder if they had their version of the Westerners versus the Easterners arguing during the spring and autumn of 1915, when they had to contain the terrific French attacks. When German soldiers in the trenches of the Western Front were regaled with news about the fall of Warsaw and tha capture of so many hundreds of thousands of Russians, did they feel that they were overlooked ? Phil (PJA) Not in 1915 but the success and lack of it must have registered. When Verdun ground to a halt, the CiC was replaced by the victorious team from the East. One small addition here to Jack's point of Foch's memoirs being confined to 1914 and 1918. I had a quick look and vol. 2 has a foreword by the editor. He gives a quick sketch of the missing years and mentions that while the French had some success at Vimy and some failure, the British had met with almost complete failure ' north of La Bassee'. Considering that the Battle of Loos was fought from the canal southwards, with only demonstrations northwards, that seems like a funny way of putting it. Raymond Poincarre covered 1915 in his memoirs as did Joffre. I will have a look to see if they have much to say. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
phil andrade Posted 10 February , 2012 Share Posted 10 February , 2012 . He gives a quick sketch of the missing years and mentions that while the French had some success at Vimy and some failure, the British had met with almost complete failure ' north of La Bassee'. in his memoirs as did Joffre. I will have a look to see if they have much to say. The beacon in the darkness, I suppose, being Neuve Chapelle, whch is north of La Basee ( still haven't learnt that accent method). That battle is cited as a disappointment, with failure to communicate and exploit......yet, it was surely successful in its initial stage, and quite markedly so. The French took note of this portentious affair, and were impressed by the British method. A year later, however, they were complaining that British tactics were "infantile". I am rather taken back at the extent to which French casualties in 1915 exceeded those of the following years. Yet even the French themselves during that year were quite excercised by the Balkan option, not to mention the Dardanelles. The fall of Belgrade, the capture of Warsaw, the entry of Bulgaria and Italy and the failure of the Gallipoli campaign were dramatic strategic events. Set against these, the "grignotage" in the West does not light up the history books, and is too readily dismissed. Phil (PJA) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
truthergw Posted 10 February , 2012 Share Posted 10 February , 2012 I believe the grignotage with its heavy casualties and its meagre results are the reason for the French tending to ignore 1915. Joffre's memoirs tend to be telegraphic anyway but he does list most actions which the entente engaged in. Joffre praises Neuve Chapelle but dismisses Aubers Ridge and Festubert. Hard to disagree with him. I find that Poincarre covered 1915 in 2 volumes and I only have the second one. August onwards, so I will get his reaction to the Autumn battles and Loos but not the early battles. I wouldn't expect much. The German history has little to say apart from N.C. and does not even dignify Loos with a special name. Sir John would have been livid if he had known. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
phil andrade Posted 10 February , 2012 Share Posted 10 February , 2012 I believe the grignotage with its heavy casualties and its meagre results are the reason for the French tending to ignore 1915. In this respect, then, the French are quite the reverse of their British allies, in historiographical terms. The popular British perception is to fixate on the heavy casualties and the meagre results, and to ignore the successes. A good deal has been done - and is now being done - to restore balance ; but the image persists. Since I have emphasised how heavy the French casualties were in 1915, I ought to add that the Germans, too, suffered more deaths that year than in any other. And they, too, make more of their sacrifice at First Ypres, Verdun and the Somme - and Third Ypres, too - than they do of those huge casualties of 1915. Perhaps, because they felt that they enjoyed a greater strategic initiative in 1915 than they did in 1916, they found the casualties easier to bear. This might also account for the French fixation on their losses at Verdun, which were modest compared with those of 1915. The only people that give due prominence to that year are the Aussies, who broadcast a soap opera TV effort called.....1915 ! Phil (PJA) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
marsyao Posted 11 February , 2012 Share Posted 11 February , 2012 The only book publish in English about the 1915 battles on the East Front I know is: "Breakthrough: The Gorlice-Tarnow Campaign, 1915" by Richard L. DiNardo Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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