Tommy: The British Soldier on the Western Front

The first history of World War I to place centre-stage the British soldier who fought in the trenches | this superb and important book tells the story of an epic and terrible war through the letters | diaries and memories of those who fought it.Of the six million men who served in the British army | nearly one million lost their lives and over two million were wounded. This is the story of these men – epitomised by the character of Sgt Tommy Atkins – and the women they left behind.Using previously unseen letters | diaries | memoirs and poetry from the years 1914-1918 | Richard Holmes paints a moving picture of the generation that fought and died in the mud of Flanders. He follows men whose mental health was forever destroyed by shell shock | women who lost husbands and brothers in the same afternoon and those who wrote at lunchtime and died before tea.Groundbreaking and critically-acclaimed | this book tells the real story of trench warfare | the strength and fallibility of the human spirit | the individuals behind an epic event | and their legacy. It is an emotional and unforgettable masterpiece from one of our most important historians.