The Somme chronicles : South Africans on the Western Front / Chris Schoeman.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Schoeman, Chris, 1948- author.

Contributor:

Class of 1939 Fund.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

South Africa. Army. Infantry Brigade, 1st--History.

South Africa.

South Africa. Army. Infantry Brigade, 1st.

Somme, 1st Battle of the, France, 1916--Personal narratives, South African.

Somme, 1st Battle of the, France, 1916.

History.

Delville Wood, Battle of, France, 1916.

World War, 1914-1918--Regimental histories--South Africa.

World War, 1914-1918.

World War, 1914-1918--Campaigns--France.

Genre:

Personal narratives -- South African.

Physical Description:

viii, 240 pages, 8 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations, maps ; 23 cm

Place of Publication:

Cape Town, South Africa : Zebra Press, 2014.

Summary:

So remembered William Thorne, a South African volunteer soldier who fought in the muddy trenches along the River Somme in France on Europe's Western Front. A boy of nineteen at the time, he was one of thousands of South Africans who took part in the 1916 Somme Offensive between the Allied forces and the Germans. It was one of the bloodiest and costliest conflicts of the First World War, resulting in over a million deaths. The men of the 1st South African Infantry Brigade were involved on a large scale and distinguished themselves in all major engagements during the campaign. But their bravery came at a price. In the first month alone, after six days of fighting to recapture the village of Longueval and clear Delville Wood of enemy soldiers, of the brigade's 3 433 soldiers, only 750 were left standing. The rest were dead or wounded. By the armistice, the South Africans had suffered some 15 000 casualties in France, of which one third had died. On the 100th anniversary of the start of the Great War, The Somme Chronicles tells the gripping stories of the men of the 1st South African Infantry Brigade via their letters and diaries, providing an invaluable, human account of one of history's most devastating conflicts. Book jacket.

Contents:

1 The birth of the South African brigade 5

2 Bernafay and Trônes woods 18

3 Longueval 37

4 Delville Wood 46

5 Life in the trenches 75

6 The Butte de Warlencourt 93

7 The Battle of Arras 107

8 The final push 120.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 227-229) and index.

Local Notes:

Acquired for the Penn Libraries with assistance from the Class of 1939 Fund.

ISBN:

1770226761

9781770226760

OCLC:

883377457

Publisher Number:

99963408016