(Andy Simpson for Tom Donovan) A book of temoinages covering the realities of trench warfare as seen by the BEF in World War One. There is lots of nasty stuff without getting into the sad world of the Great War Poets. What came through to me is that aside from two features the experience was of most soldiers in most wars, they ran out of food, they lived in terrible conditions and many of them died from non-military causes. The two differences were immobility and the constant shelling on active sections (and by their nature it is these sectors whose witnesses are quoted). The true comparison is perhaps not to La Grande Armee in Russia but to the realities of siege warfare - for the Western Front might be considered the biggest siege in history (down even to the strangely similar exchanges of civility and courtesy between the two sides). An interesting but not exactly riveting book. More Book Corner: Hot Blood & Cold Steel The Rules of the Game Philip II Importing the European Army War and Society in early Modern Europe 1495-1715 First Punic War Warfare in the Latin East 1192-1291 Spanish Naval Power 1589 to 1665 The Anatomy of Glory The First Crusade and the Idea of Crusading The Kaiser Time to Kill First World War The Military Revolution Debate Pallas Armata titles Back to Perfidious Albion #95 Table of Contents Back to Perfidious Albion List of Issues Back to MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 1997 by Charles and Teresa Vasey. This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com