Tim Carew

If you want to understand the British Army at the outbreak , and through the early months, of WW1 you can do no better than to read Tim Carew's The Vanishing Army and Wipers. Scornfully labled the 'contemptible little army' by the Kaiser, the woefully few survivors of the bloody slogging match from Mons to the First Battle of Ypres came to wear the title of 'Old Contemptibles' with honor. Old soldiers and reluctant returning reservists fought the advancing German army to a standstill, but at show more a terrible cost. The old 'hard case professional soldiers whose credo was fight, f**k and follow the flag' almost ceased to exist by the end of 1914. The army that eventually won the war would have been considered 'bloody amateurs and colonials' by the pre war professionals. Without the sacrifice of the professionals the Territorials, New Armies and armies from the Britain's old Empire would not have been able to form, train and come to the front. All too often in their turn to be slaughtered.
Highly recommended. show less

If you want to understand the British Army at the outbreak , and through the early months, of WW1 you can do no better than to read Tim Carew's The Vanishing Army and Wipers. Scornfully labled the 'contemptible little army' by the Kaiser, the woefully few survivors of the bloody slogging match from Mons to the First Battle of Ypres came to wear the title of 'Old Contemptibles' with honor. Old soldiers and reluctant returning reservists fought the advancing German army to a standstill, but at show more a terrible cost. The old 'hard case professional soldiers whose credo was fight, f**k and follow the flag' almost ceased to exist by the end of 1914. The army that eventually won the war would have been considered 'bloody amateurs and colonials' by the pre war professionals. Without the sacrifice of the professionals the Territorials, New Armies and armies from the Britain's old Empire would not have been able to form, train and come to the front. All too often in their turn to be slaughtered.
Highly recommended. show less

One of the first campaign books I ever read, and my copy was dated 1974. Somehow this seemed to have been written in the 1920's but it's not so.