Book Description

Includes the First World War Illustrations Pack – 73 battle plans and diagrams and 198 photos A fascinating history of the First World War seen through the eyes of a highly respected and connected War Correspondent. Lieut.-Col. Charles à Court Repington was a career soldier in the British Army; renowned for his service in the Sudan, Burma and the Boer War, he was drummed out of the service for having an affair with the wife of British official in 1902. He was well known as an excellent staff officer and remained closely tied to the comrades that he had fought and served with including the future leaders of the British Army in the First World War. Cutting his teeth as a war correspondent during the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905, he was ideally placed as the War Correspondent of the Times when war broke out in 1914 to report on the unfolding tragedy. Using all of his connections and influence he visited the Western Front many times and was in intimate correspondence and contact with the senior figures of the British Army such as Sir John French, Sir Douglas Haig, Herbert Plumer and Horace Smith-Dorrien. No great respecter of private conversations or confidences he lost many friends when he wrote The First World War; his work was critical, well-written, caustic and unbiassed. These classic memoirs remain as valuable and vivid as they when they were written. This second volume covers the period from spring 1917 until the end of the war.