5 ms·
There is no more eerie account of what it was like to be a foot soldier caught up in trench warfare than Arthur Guy Empey's book "Over the Top" (1917). It is a
by grellas 10y ago
There is no more eerie account of what it was like to be a foot soldier caught up in trench warfare than Arthur Guy Empey's book "Over the Top" (1917).
It is available free as a Kindle ebook: https://www.amazon.com/Over-Top-Arthur-Guy-Empey-ebook/dp/B008478XB4/ref=sr_1_3?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1467665338&sr=1-3&keywords=Over+the+top#navbar https://www.amazon.com/Over-Top-Arthur-Guy-Empey-ebook/dp/B0... (some reviews can be found here: http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1517707.Over_The_Top http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1517707.Over_The_Top)
Empey was an American who managed to get in the mix with the British soldiers before America entered the war. His account is based entirely on his own first-hand experiences. His last patrol depicts an utterly futile foray at night in which dozens of his comrades lost their lives and he (and I believe one another) survived. I am going from memory here on something I read quite a while back and so my summary may be imprecise. But anyone wanting to get a sense of the horrors of what it meant to fight in such battles will most certainly get it through this account.
The strange thing is that this became a runaway bestseller in America in 1917 and 1918. Far from recoiling at the horrors, the public chose to celebrate the heroism of the soldiers who put themselves in such incredible danger.
It is in any case a bone-chilling account to read this and all the more so because its style is almost detached and matter-of-fact, even clinical in describing one horror after another.
- fiatjaf 10y agoFor anyone interested in getting a big picture of both reality at the front and the cultural moment of Europe during the Great War, I recommend Modris Eksteins's Rites of Spring: https://www.amazon.com/Rites-Spring-Great-Birth-Modern/dp/0395937582 https://www.amazon.com/Rites-Spring-Great-Birth-Modern/dp/03... Besides other interesting things, it contains a ton of evidence cited from soldier letters.
- mesofile 10y agoFor more in this vein: Lyn MacDonald's Somme is a highly regarded history of the battle told largely through first-person accounts.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- gadders 10y agoI'd also recommend The Face of Battle by John Keegan. It covers Agincourt, Waterloo and the Somme: "The Face of Battle is military history from the battlefield: a look at the direct experience of individuals at 'the point of maximum danger'. It examines the physical conditions of fighting, the particular emotions and behaviour generated by battle, as well as the motives that impel soldiers to stand and fight rather than run away." http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/275833.The_Face_of_Battle http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/275833.The_Face_of_Battle
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- abrie 10y agoThe posted article lacks substance, but I read "Over the Top" because of your comment. It is excellent. Thank you. I found my copy on archive.org[0]. I read it alongside "The Arms of Krupp"[1], and found the combination highly synergistic. The sensation of perspective is multiplied further if read with "All Quiet on the Western Front". [0] https://archive.org/details/overtopbyamerica00empe https://archive.org/details/overtopbyamerica00empe [1] https://openlibrary.org/books/OL24200511M/The_arms_of_Krupp_1587-1968 https://openlibrary.org/books/OL24200511M/The_arms_of_Krupp_...
- saiya-jin 10y ago"All Quiet on the Western Front" - the only book from cca 40 we were forced to read during high school classes that really consumed me - the horrors described, the progressive apathy to death all around and almost total randomness of survival... far from usual poetry. Still cannot comprehend such madness that was happening 100 years ago