Shots from the Front
Richard Holmes HarperPress, HK$300
That a picture is worth a thousand words is one of the most well-worn cliches; but Richard Holmes' Shots from the Front: The British Soldier 1914-1918, breathes new life into this old adage and provides a fitting tribute to the Britons who suffered and died in the first world war.
While some of the photographs are familiar, Holmes, a military historian and television presenter, has combed the archives to illustrate comprehensively the metamorphosis that saw the mobilisation of an entire nation, from teenagers - the inscription on Private John Condon's tombstone ends with 'Age 14' - to pensioners such as retired stockbroker Henry Webber, who was killed on the Somme two years short of his 70th birthday.
The book vividly portrays 'the dirt beneath the fingernails of history', from a corpse flung into a tree by a shell-burst to ranks of pathetically malnourished recruits lined up in ill-fitting uniforms in spring 1918.
Holmes' selection is augmented by his wealth of knowledge and eye for detail, the author pointing out the shots that were posed for official photographers and the felt slippers worn by soldiers arming makeshift bombs (theirs was no place to strike a spark). He also notes, beside a picture of rations laid out on a muddy groundsheet, that most fresh food at the front would have tasted of the sandbags used to transport it.
Holmes points out there are few photographs of generals in the trenches - although they were by no means immune to shot and shell: 232 were killed or wounded on all fronts, while there are 'an awful lot of corporals'. Shots from the Front is the ordinary man's view of the war, the perspective being that of soldiers who were more lice-ridden than licentious, poorly fed and at times ill-led. Given the appalling conditions, the heroism of men such as William Hackett - posthumously awarded the Victoria Cross for standing by a wounded comrade trapped in a collapsed tunnel when he could have escaped - is all the more remarkable.
While the book is subtitled The British Soldier 1914-1918, its net is spread wider to encompass the armies of the empire, as well as the women who donned uniform to help the war effort, whether as nurses or canteen staff working within earshot of the front line. Walter Tull, the grandson of a slave in Barbados, was exceptionally granted a commission in 1917, as was Reginald Collins, a civil servant from the West Indies.
Indigenous labour was recruited from South Africa, India, Egypt and Fiji - freeing manpower for the front - and more than 96,000 Chinese were employed in France in 1918, serving on contract but subject to military law. Their thoughts on being transported into an utterly alien environment have sadly gone unrecorded.
Ninety years on from the end of the first world war there are almost no veterans left to tell of their experiences, so Shots from the Front is an important document.
