Macdonald - To the last man: Spring 1918

Published by the Penguin Group

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First published by Viking 1998
Published in Penguin Books 1999

Copyright Lyn Macdonald, 1998
All rights reserved

The moral right of the author has been asserted

ISBN: 978-0-241-97218-2

PENGUIN BOOKS

Over the past twenty years Lyn Macdonald has established a reputation as a popular author and historian of the First World War. Her other books are They Called It Passchendaele, an account of the Passchendaele campaign in 1917; The Roses of No Mans Land, a chronicle of the war from the neglected viewpoint of the casualties and the medical teams who struggled to save them; Somme, a history of the legendary and horrifying battle that has haunted the minds of succeeding generations; 1914: The Days of Hope, a vivid account of the first months of the war and winner of the 1987 Yorkshire Post Book of the Year Award; 19141918: Voices and Images of the Great War, an illuminating account of the many different aspects of the war; and 1915: The Death of Innocence, a brilliant evocation of the year that saw the terrible losses of Aubers Ridge, Loos, Neuve Chapelle, Ypres and Gallipoli. All are based on the accounts of eyewitnesses and survivors, told in their own words, and cast a unique light on the First World War. All are published in Penguin.

Lyn Macdonald is married and lives in London.

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. Private Alex Jamieson, 11th Royal Scots, photographed with a friend

. Reinhold Spengler, February 1917 (Photo: Richard A. Baumgartner)

. Reinhold Spengler, 1918 (Photo: Richard A. Baumgartner)

. Traces of the Hindenburg Line near Urvillers

. The remains of the Hindenburg Line near Vendeuil

. The defensive posts of the Hindenburg Line along the Oise Canal

. The fortification of the Hindenburg Line

. C83 Batterys former position between Ly-Fontaine and Benay

. The railway embankment between Flavy-le-Martel and Faillouel

. The chateau at Rouez village

. The 10th Essex at Rouez and the keepers cottage in artists impression

. A modern view of the same spot

. The keepers cottage today

. The graves of German soldiers killed in the fight at Rouez

. Gauche Wood

. Graves of men of the Royal Naval Division near Gouzeaucourt

. Second Lieutenant Peter Wilson, MC

. Second Lieutenant Gerard Robin, RFC

. The temporary bridge at Masnires erected by the Germans above the wreck of the original bridge

. The sunken road south of the village of Beaumetz

. Major Ronald Ward of C293 Battery

. Major Ronald Ward, C293 Battery, caricatured by an artist comrade

. Looking towards Doignies from the sunken road at Beaumetz

. The forward gun of C293 Battery was situated in this field on the edge of Doignies

. Traces of the redoubts that formed the front line of the British battle zone round Hargicourt

. The entrenchments in the old quarries at Templeux-le-Gurard

. Abandoned British supply dumps

. Brigade-Major Harold Howitt, MC, leaving Buckingham Palace

. The village of Lechelle

. The road leading to Battalion HQ at Lechelle

. Lieutenant L. Chamberlen, MC, 2nd Rifle Brigade

. Leutnant Fritz Nagel (Photo: Richard A. Baumgartner)

. Gummed-paper strips reinforcing a window in Paris

. The Paris Gun

. Private Horace Haynes, 2/6th Royal Warwicks, with another young soldier

. Capitaine Dsir Wavrin, 62nd [French] Division

. The fast-firing French gun the Soixante-quinze

. Mailly-Maillet church in 1918

. A modern view of Mailly-Maillet church

. Private George McKay, NZ Rifle Brigade, in hospital

. Private George McKay at home in New Zealand

. New Zealand soldiers posing for an official photograph

. Soldiers humour on a postcard sent home

. A patriotic doll reproduced on one of the postcards made by French women

. Postcards sent to the relatives of wounded soldiers

. Lieutenant Jim Aldous, MC, with Captain West, MC, at Adinfer Wood

. The chateau of Grivesnes, sketched on 13 April

. The chateau of Grivesnes, restored after the war, now derelict and abandoned

. Dead German soldiers in the chateau park at Grivesnes after the fight on 31 March

. A poilu of the 350th Rgiment dInfanterie

. Lieutenant-Colonel Lagarde with survivors of the 350th Rgiment dInfanterie

. Commemorative plaques outside the chateau of Grivesnes

. British veterans welcomed by Monsieur Claude Dubois, mayor of Grivesnes, in July 1996

. Lance-Bombardier Robert Ford

. Major Harrison Johnston, in command of the 15th Cheshires

. Guns like these 18-pounders thwarted the enemys attempts to storm forward

. Private Stanley Sutcliffe, 51st Battalion, AIF

. Walter Hare welcomed by the owners of the farm close to where he was captured

. The letter written by Brigade-Major Harold Howitt to his wife during the Battle of Amiens

This book is for my own beloved boys, Benjamin and Daniel and Saul and Paul and Thomas, who are not so very different from the boys of that earlier generation, whose histories are part of their heritage.

*

there is only one degree of resistance and that is to the last round and the last man.

LIEUTENANT-COLONEL W. ELSTOB
16th Battalion,
The Manchester Regiment

The word horror has become inseparable from contemporary judgement of the First World War, but it is too glib an appraisal. In many years of conversing with former soldiers I can say with perfect honesty that I have never heard the word horror on their lips, though many of the experiences they spoke of were indeed horrific. A distinguished military historian, Sir John Fortescue, who was also librarian at Windsor Castle and author of the monumental