The extraordinary story of British Junior Officers in the First World War. Who led their men out of the trenches and faced a life expectancy of six weeks. Often straight out of school many junior officers went from the classroom to the most dangerous job in the world - that of a junior officer on the Western Front. This readable, disturbing book charts the short lives of many subalterns in the Great War from contemporary account and diaries. The role that the Public Schools played in this slaughter producing hundreds of new officers every year with 22% of their output killed within 6 weeks. This a a very readable book - though not without a certain ghoulish appeal. The detailed life; the training; the service and the death of young officers makes for compelling reading. There are also insights of those who survived and went onto greater things. Second Lieutenant Harold Macmillan (a future Prime Minister), was badly wounded in the left thigh by a machine gun he had successfully gone out to silence. He rolled into a shell hole where he alternated between unconsciousness and reading Aeschylus' Prometheus in Greek. He lay for 12 hours before being rescued. Highly reccommended for the earthy nuts and bolts of trench warefare.
Author: John Lewis-Stempel 2010