Tommy

The British Soldier on the Western Front

Richard Holmes

• Publisher: HarperPress
• Year: 2011
• Print ISBN:
  9780007973378
• eBook ISBN:
  9780007383481
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Military Biographies
• Index: History

Groundbreaking and critically-acclaimed, Tommy is the first history of World War I to place the British soldier who fought in the trenches centre-stage.

Tommy tells the story of an epic and terrible war through the letters, diaries and memories of those who fought it. Epitomised by the character of Sgt Tommy Atkins, Richard Holmes portrays the strength and fallibility of the human spirit, the individuals behind the epic conflict, and their legacy.

REFERENCES

Introduction

1 Brian Bond The Unquiet Western Front (Cambridge 2002) p. 26.

2 Omer Bartov ‘Trauma and Absence: France and Germany 1914–1945’ in Paul Addison and Angus Calder (eds) Time to Kill: The Soldier’s Experience of War in the West 1939–45 (London 1997) pp. 348–58.

3 Charles Carrington Soldier from the Wars Returning (London 1965) p. 264.

4 Cyril Falls War Books (London 1995) pp. i-ix.

5 See Frank Davies and Graham Maddocks Bloody Red Tabs: General Officer Casualties of the Great War 1914–1918 (London 1995).

6 David Jones In Parenthesis (London 1961) p.XV.

7 Huntley Gordon The Unreturning Army (London 1967) p. 114.

The Old Front Line

1 This incident is based on an attack described in Hanway R. Cumming A Brigadier in France (London 1922), although I have varied the detail and changed some names. The tactics generally follow those laid down in the February 1917 General Staff Publication SS144, The Normal Formation for the Attack.

2 Statistics of the Military Effort of the British Empire During the War (London 1922) p. 64 (iii).

3 Statistics pp. 248, 251–2.

4 John Ellis The Sharp End of War (Newton Abbot 1980) p. 4.

5 Guy Chapman A Passionate Prodigality (London 1985) p. 187.

6 Henry Williamson The Wet Flanders Plain (London 1987) p. 96.

7 Graham Seton-Hutchison Warrior (London ND) p. 200.

8 Peter Doyle Geology of the Western Front (London 1988) p. 16.

9 ’Arrival on the Somme’, G. F. Ellenberger Papers, Department of Documents, Imperial War Museum.

10 Rowland Feilding War Letters to a Wife (London 1929) p. 76.

11 Bernard Martin Poor Bloody Infantry: A Subaltern on the Western Front (London 1987) p. 91.

12 Bruce Bairnsfather Bullets and Billets (London 1916) p. 238. Captain Bairnsfather was the originator of the fiercely-moustachioed cartoon character Old Bill, typical of the British regular in the early years of the war.

13 Quoted in Stéphane Audoin-Rouzeau 14–18: Les Combattants des tranchées (Paris 1986) p. 88. Author’s translation.

14 Michael Moynihan (ed) A Place Called Armageddon (Newton Abbot 1975) p. 128.

15 Peter Vansittart (ed) John Masefield’s Letters from the Front 1915–17 (London 1984) p. 193.

16 C. P. Blacker Have You Forgotten Yet? (London 2000) p. 60.

17 Capt. J. C. Dunn The War the Infantry Knew (London 1987) p. 261.

18 Frank Richards Old Soldiers Never Die (London 1933) p. 13.

19 Stapleton Tench Eachus Diary 16 June 1916 on www.wardiaries.co.uk.

20 Dunn The War p. 384.

21 Charles Carrington Soldier from the Wars p. 136.

22 A. Lytton Sells (trans. and ed.) The Memoirs of James 11: His Campaigns as Duke of York 1652–1660 (Bloomington, Indiana, 1962) pp. 157, 189.

23 Wipers Times (London 1973) p. 6.

24 ‘Not King, nor Prince, nor Duke, nor Count am I, I am the Lord of Coucy.’

25 Dunn The War p. 223.

26 Captain R. H. D. Tompson Diary 1 September 1914, Tompson Papers, private collection.

27 Dunn The War p. 236.

28 Feilding War Letters pp. 79, 33.

29 Second Lieutenant H. M. Stanford to his parents, 11 and 28 November 1914, private collection.

30 John Masefield Th...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• CONTENTS
• INTRODUCTION
• PROLOGUE TOMMY ATKINS
• I
• II
• III
• IV
• V
• VI
• ENVOI
• REFERENCES
• BIBLIOGRAPHY
• ABBREVIATIONS AND GLOSSARY
• Index
• ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
• P. S.
• Praise
• ALSO BY RICHARD HOLMES
• About the Publisher