Tommy: The British Soldier on the Western Front

Tommy: The British Soldier on the Western Front

Author: Richard Holmes

Publisher: HarperCollins UK

Published: 2011-12-21

Total Pages: 1093

ISBN-13: 0007383487

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

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.


Great War Tommy

Great War Tommy

Author: Peter Doyle

Publisher: Haynes Publishing UK

Published: 2013-12-01

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9780857332417

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

The Great War continues to fascinate, and never more so as we approach 2014, the centenary year of its outbreak. There is an abiding fascination in the uniform and equipment of the British Great War soldier. What was it like to wear? What were puttees? What does a gas mask look like? How heavy was the equipment? How did you dig a trench? These and other typical questions will be answered in Haynes Manual style, providing a vivid insight into life during the Great War for the average “Tommy Atkins."


Tommy French

Tommy French

Author: Julian Walker

Publisher: Pen and Sword Military

Published: 2021-05-12

Total Pages: 259

ISBN-13: 1526765934

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

‘Napoo’, ‘compray’, ‘san fairy ann’, ‘toot sweet’ are anglicized French phrases that came into use on the Western Front during the First World War as British troops struggled to communicate in French. Over four years of war they created an extraordinary slang which reflects the period and brings the conflict to mind whenever it is heard today. Julian Walker, in this original and meticulously researched book, explores the subject in fascinating detail. In the process he gives us an insight into the British soldiers’ experience in France during the war and the special language they invented in order to cope with their situation. He shows how French place-names were anglicized as were words for food and drink, and he looks at what these slang terms tell us about the soldiers’ perception of France, their relationship with the French and their ideas of home. He traces the spread of ‘Tommy French’ back to the Home Front, where it was popularized in songs and on postcards, and looks at the French reaction to the anglicization of their language.


Sahib: The British Soldier in India 1750–1914

Sahib: The British Soldier in India 1750–1914

Author: Richard Holmes

Publisher: HarperCollins UK

Published: 2011-10-06

Total Pages: 856

ISBN-13: 0007370342

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Sahib is a magnificent history of the British soldier in India from Clive to the end of Empire, making full use of personal accounts from the soldiers who served in the jewel in Britain’s Imperial Crown.


Tommy Atkins

Tommy Atkins

Author: John Laffin

Publisher: History Press

Published: 2011

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9780752460666

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

The story of the ordinary British 'tommy' and his place in history


Redcoat

Redcoat

Author: Richard Holmes

Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company

Published: 2002

Total Pages: 542

ISBN-13: 9780393052114

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Based on the letters and diaries of the British soldiers who served as the backbone of the army from 1760 to 1860, this illuminating book is rich in the history of a fascinating era. of illustrations.


Behind Enemy Lines

Behind Enemy Lines

Author: Richard Bath

Publisher: Random House

Published: 2011-01-11

Total Pages: 243

ISBN-13: 1907195386

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

With three Military Crosses, three Croix de guerre, a Légion d'honneur and a papal knighthood for his heroics during the Second World War, Sir Tommy Macpherson is the most decorated living soldier of the British Army. Yet for 65 years the Highlander's story has remained untold. Few know how, aged 21, he persuaded 23,000 SS soldiers of the feared Das Reich tank column to surrender, or how Tommy almost single-handedly stopped Tito's Yugoslavia annexing the whole of north-east Italy. Twice captured, he escaped both times, marching through hundreds of miles of German-held territory to get home. Still a schoolboy when war broke out, Tommy quickly matured into a legendary commando, and his remarkable story features a dizzyingly diverse cast of characters, including Winston Churchill, Field Marshal Montgomery and Charles de Gaulle.


Remembering Tommy

Remembering Tommy

Author: Peter Doyle

Publisher: The History Press

Published: 2013-10-01

Total Pages: 451

ISBN-13: 0752497480

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

The British soldier of the Great War has been depicted in many books. Invariably, a pen picture paints him as stoic, joining the army in a wave of patriotic fervour, and destined to serve four years on the Western Front in some of the most costly battles in history. Yet often the picture is difficult to resolve for the reader. What was it like in the trenches? How did the soldier live, where did he sleep? What was it like to go over the top, and when he did, what did he carry with him? For many, the idea of trench life is hazy, and usually involves ‘drowning in mud’, in, as one writer put it, ‘the pitiless misery’ of Passchendaele. Recently, military historians have presented an alternative picture, a picture in which the hopelessness of the First World War is given new life and purpose. Remembering Tommy pays tribute to the real life British soldier of the Great War from the moment of joining up to their final homecoming. Using original artefacts in historic settings, the men and their words are brought to life. The uniforms they wore, the equipment they carried, the letters they wrote home, their personal possessions, mementos and photographs come together in a powerful tribute to the indomitable Tommy. Each one of these precious artefacts bears witness to the men who left them behind – allowing us to almost reach out and touch history.


Tommy Goes to War

Tommy Goes to War

Author: Malcolm Brown

Publisher: Casemate Publishers

Published: 2018-10-30

Total Pages: 298

ISBN-13: 1784383309

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

The image of the innocent British soldier (or Tommy) setting off with a spring in his step in 1914 to fight the Great War would not last long.Indeed that initial euphoria would soon give way to a deep-seated bitterness as these young men endured the horror of the First World War.In a new edition of this extraordinary book, the uncensored letters, diaries, documents and many photographs tell the story of the British soldier (nicknamed Tommy) in their own words.While there are flashes of their wit and humour, the overwhelming feeling is that of a generation who felt let down by their superiors and left to perish.There are visceral, terrifying insights into life in the trenches and agonising descriptions of the squalor and privations of war.This haunting account also looks at the aggressive drive to recruit more soldiers through the Pals Battalion or Chums Battalion. Friends from the same town or village; professional bodies, or work colleagues among others were encouraged to enlist en masse. They would fight together alongside their friends or colleagues. Many of them would sadly die together and leave communities wild with grief for a lost generation, robbed of a future having barely had a past.With a concise analysis of the British Army in the First World War, we are reminded of the terror of war, the fury, the fear and the frustration of what has been described by some as a war typified by the devastating assessment: lions led by donkeys.


Tommy's War

Tommy's War

Author: Peter Doyle

Publisher: The Crowood Press

Published: 2020-10-26

Total Pages: 557

ISBN-13: 1785007645

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

The First World War has left an almost indelible mark on history, with battles such as the Somme and Passchendaele becoming watchwords for suffering unsurpassed. The dreadful fighting on the Western Front, and elsewhere in the world, remains vivid in the public imagination. Over the years dozens of books have been published dealing with the soldier's experience, the military history and the weapons and vehicles of the war, but there has been little devoted to the objects associated with those hard years in the trenches. This book (new in paperback) redresses that balance. With hundreds of carefully captioned photographs of items that would have been part of the everyday life for the British Tommy; from recruiting posters, uniforms and entrenching equipment to games, postcards and pieces of 'trench art', this book brings to life the experience of the Great War soldier through the objects with which he would have been surrounded.