1915_ The Death of Innocence - Lyn Macdonald [0]
1915: THE DEATH OF INNOCENCE
Over the past twenty years Lyn Macdonald has established a reputation as a popular author and historian of the First World War. Her books are They Called It Passchendaele, an account of the Passchendaele campaign in 1917; The Roses of No Man’s 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; 1914–1918: 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. Her most recent book is To the Last Man: Spring 1918, the story of the massive German offensive that broke the British line and almost broke the British Army. All are based on the accounts of eye-witnesses and survivors, and cast a unique light on the First World War. All are published in Penguin.
Lyn Macdonald is married and lives in London.
1915 The Death of Innocence
Lyn Macdonald
PENGUIN BOOKS
PENGUIN BOOKS
Published by the Penguin Group
Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
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Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
www.penguin.com
First published by Hodder Headline 1993
Published in Penguin Books 1997
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Copyright © Lyn Macdonald, 1993
All rights reserved
The moral right of the author has been asserted
The poems on the part-title pages are reproduced with kind permission of the Estate of Robert Service, John Murray (Publishers) Ltd, Sidgwick and Jackson, Literary Executor of the estate of Roben Nichols, the Estate of Patrick MacGill
Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser
ISBN: 978-0-14-196117-0
Contents
Author’s Foreword and Acknowledgements
List of Maps
Part 1: ‘We’re here because we’re here, because we’re here…’
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Part 2: Into Battle: Neuve Chapelle
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Part 3: ‘This is the happy warrior – this is he!’
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Part 4: The Desperate Days
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Part 5: ‘Damn the Dardanelles – they will be our grave’
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Part 6: Slogging On: The Salient to Suvla
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Part 7: Loos: The Dawn of Hope
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Part 8: The Dying of the Year
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Bibliography
Author’s Note
Index
Author’s Foreword and Acknowledgements
In the chronicle of the Great