1914 – From Chandeliers to Annie Laurie

Description

1914 is a series of over thirty previous unpublished verbatim accounts, poems and anecdotes covering the early months of the First World War: the famous retreat from Mons, the battles of Le Cateau, Néry, Marne and Aisne and finally the desperate defence of Ypres.

There are accounts of nurses in Antwerp; naval disasters in the Broad Fourteens; forays into the Bay of Bengal and Mesopotamia, and the famous Christmas truce, which at one point involved the singing of the Scottish folk song Annie Laurie in perfect English by a German officer on Christmas Eve.

What is of great interest is the variety and poignancy of the soldier’s voices, the immediacy and honesty of their writing. This book is designed as a sequel to James Crowden’s earlier book about the Boer War called From Ladysmith to Archangel. What is remarkable is that even after 100 years these voices and words can still convey great depth of feeling and illuminate the war with very powerful images.