Fields of Death

"Shell-fire was hellish all afternoon. . . the heat was intense. . . crouching in the trench, hugging the forward side, one could feel every moment small stones and lumps of earth ricochet off one’s helmet. Now and then one would be almost smothered by the parapet being blown in. The dirt flying about and the fumes from the lyddite added to our discomfiture. During a bombardment one developed a craze for two things: water and cigarettes. Few could ever eat under an intense bombardment, especially on the Somme, where every now and then a shell would blow pieces of mortality, or complete bodies, which had been putrefying in no man’s land, slap into one’s trench. Shell-fire, too, always stirred up swarms of black flies, of which there was an absolute plague on the Somme battlefields. . ."  —Captain Francis Hitchcock, Guillemont, 1916 An original and highly detailed approach to the history of World War I, combining contemporary accounts with a modern-day guide to the battlefields of the Western Front. This fascinating anthology provides a more authentic picture than any textbook could ever hope to give of the courage and the daily life of the men who served during World War I.