42 Division 127 Infantry Brigade Manchester Regiment 1/6th Battalion
42 Division 127 Infantry Brigade Manchester Regiment 1/6th Battalion

Author:

Publisher:

Published: 2015-07-25

Total Pages: 720

ISBN-13: 9781474520966

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The War Diaries for the Great War, held under WO95, represent one of the most popular record collections held at the National Archives, Kew, London. For researchers and family historians, the War Diaries contain a wealth of information of far greater interest than the army could ever have predicted. They provide unrivalled insight into daily events on the front line and are packed with fascinating detail. They contain no modern editing, opinions or poorly judged comments, just the war day by day, written by the men who fought this 'War to end all Wars. They are without question, the most important source of information available on the war on the Western Front. Full colour facsimile of each page with specially created chronological index. What is a War Diary? The headquarters of each unit and formation of the British Army in the field was ordered to maintain a record of its location, movements and activities. For the most part, these details were recorded on a standard army form headed 'War diary or intelligence summary'. What details are given? Details given vary greatly, depending on the nature of the unit, what it was doing and, to some extent, the style of the man writing it. The entries vary from very simple and repetitive statements like 'Training' up to many pages of description when a unit was in battle. Production of the diary was the responsibility of the Adjutant of the headquarters concerned. Is there any other information or documents with the diaries? Some diaries have other documentation attached, such as maps, operational orders and after-action reports.

Private Papers of Captain H C L Heywood
Private Papers of Captain H C L Heywood

Author:

Publisher:

Published: 2019

Total Pages:

ISBN-13:

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Description: Photocopy of a soldiers journal compiled from edited extracts from his letters written while serving as a Lieutenant with the 1/6th Battalion Manchester Regiment (127th Infantry Brigade, 42nd Division) from May - December 1915. It describes: his embarkation in Egypt, the landing on 'W Beach', Cape Helles (6 May), his uncomfortable introduction to life under fire, the 2nd Battle of Krithia (May), being wounded, evacuated by hospital ship to Malta and England and his return to Lemnos (May - July) and Cape Helles (23 July), a costly attack (at which he was in command of a machine gun section) as a feint for the Suvla Bay landings (August), illness and repatriation via Malta and recuperation in England (September - December 1915). It gives excellent accounts of the hardships/relative pleasures of an officer's life on Gallipoli, in and out of the front line, his varying attitudes to death/carnage, his crises of conscience at leaving his unit on sick leave and criticisms of medical treatment, hospital ships and (with some praise also) of Australians, it also gives details of the fates of other officers of his Battalion and extracts from a printed copy of his Brigade Commander Brigadier General N Lee's May 1915 diary.

Winning and Losing on the Western Front
Winning and Losing on the Western Front

Author: Jonathan Boff

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2012-07-05

Total Pages: 309

ISBN-13: 1107024285

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An innovative study revealing how both sides adapted to the changing realities of the final months on the Western Front.

Gallipoli
Gallipoli

Author: Peter Hart

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2011-10-07

Total Pages: 561

ISBN-13: 0199911878

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One of the most famous battles in history, the WWI Gallipoli campaign began as a bold move by the British to capture Constantinople, but this definitive new history explains that from the initial landings--which ended with so much blood in the sea it could be seen from airplanes overhead--to the desperate attacks of early summer and the battle of attrition that followed, it was a tragic folly destined to fail from the start. Gallipoli forced the young Winston Churchill from office, established Turkey's iconic founder Mustafa Kemal (better known as "Ataturk"), and marked Australia's emergence as a nation in its own right. Drawing on unpublished eyewitness accounts by individuals from all ranks--not only from Britain, Australia and New Zealand, but from Turkey and France as well--Peter Hart weaves first-hand stories into a vivid narrative of the battle and its aftermath. Hart, a historian with the Imperial War Museum and a battlefield tour guide at Gallipoli, provides a vivid, boots-on-the-ground account that brilliantly evokes the confusion of war, the horrors of combat, and the grim courage of the soldiers. He provides an astute, unflinching assessment of the leaders as well. He shows that the British invasion was doomed from the start, but he places particular blame on General Sir Ian Hamilton, whose misplaced optimism, over-complicated plans, and unwillingness to recognize the gravity of the situation essentially turned likely failure into complete disaster. Capturing the sheer drama and bravery of the ferocious fighting, the chivalry demonstrated by individuals on both sides amid merciless wholesale slaughter, and the futility of the cause for which ordinary men fought with extraordinary courage and endurance--Gallipoli is a riveting account of a battle that continues to fascinate us close to a hundred years after the event.

British Infantry Battalion Commanders in the First World War
British Infantry Battalion Commanders in the First World War

Author: Peter E. Hodgkinson

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2016-04-15

Total Pages: 312

ISBN-13: 131717190X

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Recent studies of the British Army during the First World War have fundamentally overturned historical understandings of its strategy and tactics, yet the chain of command that linked the upper echelons of GHQ to the soldiers in the trenches remains poorly understood. In order to reconnect the lines of communication between the General Staff and the front line, this book examines the British army’s commanders at battalion level, via four key questions: (i) How and where resources were found from the small officer corps of 1914 to cope with the requirement for commanding officers (COs) in the expanding army; (ii) What was the quality of the men who rose to command; (iii) Beyond simple overall quality, exactly what qualities were perceived as making an effective CO; and (iv) To what extent a meritocracy developed in the British army by the Armistice. Based upon a prosopographical analysis of a database over 4,000 officers who commanded infantry battalions during the war, the book tackles one of the central historiographical issues pertaining to the war: the qualities of the senior British officer. In so doing it challenges lingering popular conceptions of callous incompetence, as well more scholarly criticism that has derided the senior British officer, but has done so without a data-driven perspective. Through his thorough statistical analysis Dr Peter Hodgkinson adds a valuable new perspective to the historical debate underway regarding the nature of British officers during the extraordinary expansion of the Army between 1914 and 1918, and the remarkable, yet often forgotten, British victories of The Hundred Days.

6th Battalion, the Manchester Regiment in the Great War
6th Battalion, the Manchester Regiment in the Great War

Author: John Hartley

Publisher: Casemate Publishers

Published: 2010-01-01

Total Pages: 289

ISBN-13: 1848843283

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The 6th Battalion, The Manchester Regiment, was a prewar Territorial unit. Many of its members held "white collar" positions employed by the City's legal, financial and stockbroking practices or worked for the major commercial organizations trading and manufacturing cotton goods. It went overseas in September 1914, taking with it many new recruits who would undertake their basic training whilst the Battalion formed part of the British garrison in Egypt. It saw action at Gallipoli from May 1915 until the evacuation at the end of the year and fascinating campaign is dealt with in considerable detail. The Battalion returned to Egypt until the spring of 1917 when it moved to France. The Manchesters saw regular action for most of 1918, coming under attack in the German offensive in March. Throughout the summer and autumn, the Battalion took part in the Advance to Victory and was still advancing when the Armistice was signed in November. The book also recounts the history of the second line battalion, the 2/6th Manchesters, from its inception in 1914 until it was all but destroyed in March 1918. The author draws on official records and personal accounts to tell the story of these fine battalions.

Gallipoli
Gallipoli

Author: Jenny Macleod

Publisher: Great Battles

Published: 2015

Total Pages: 276

ISBN-13: 019964487X

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The British-led Mediterranean Expeditionary Force that attacked the Ottoman Empire at Gallipoli in 1915 was a multi-national affair, including Australian, New Zealand, Irish, French, and Indian soldiers. Ultimately a failure, the campaign ended with the withdrawal of the Allied forces after less than nine months and the unexpected victory of the Ottoman armies and their German allies. In Britain, the campaign led to the removal of Churchill from his post as First Lord of the Admiralty and the abandonment of the plan to attack Germany via its 'soft underbelly' in the East. Thereafter, it was largely forgotten on a national level, commemorated only in specific localities linked to the campaign. In post-war Turkey, by contrast, the memory of Gallipoli played an important role in the formation of a Turkish national identity, celebrating both the ordinary soldier and the genius of the republic's first president, Mustafa Kemal. The campaign served a similarly important formative role in both Australia and New Zealand, where it is commemorated annually on Anzac Day. For the southern Irish, meanwhile, the bitter memory of service for the King in a botched campaign was forgotten for decades. Shaped initially by the imperatives of war-time, and the needs of the grief-stricken and the bereft, the memory of Gallipoli has been re-made time and again over the last century. For the Turks an inspirational victory, for many on the Allied side a glorious and romantic defeat, for others still an episode best forgotten, 'Gallipoli' has meant different things to different people, serving by turns as an occasion of sincere and heartfelt sorrow, an opportunity for separatist and feminist protest, and a formative influence in the forging of national identities.