Jack Sheldon (1)
Autor von German Army on the Somme, 1914-1916
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Dr. Jack Sheldon retired from the British Army in 2003 after a thirty-five year career as a member of the Queen's Lancashire Regiment. He is a graduate of the German Command and Staff College in Hamburg and he held numerous international appointments, including that of Military Attach Berlin. For mehr anzeigen the past eighteen years he has been living in the Dauphin Alps of Southeast France, researching and writing his acclaimed series of books concerning the German Army during the First World War. The German Army on the Western Front 1915 is the sixth volume, following The German Army on the Somme 1914-1916, The German Army at Passchendaele, The German Army on Vimy Ridge 1914-1917, The German Army at Cambrai and The German Army at Ypres 1914 (all published by Pen and Sword Military). These have already become the standard works on the subject for both the specialist and the general reader. Jack Sheldon is a member of the British Commission for Military History, the Douglas Haig Fellowship Fellow for 2022 and a Vice President of the Western Front Association. He is in constant demand for his expertise on all aspects of the German military during the First World War. weniger anzeigen
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At 483 pages in my Kindle edition, "The German Army at Ypres" is not lightweight reading. Published by Pen and Sword in 2010, the book encompasses a forward, introduction, author's note, acknowledgments, prologue, eight numbered chapters, a postscript, an appendix comparing German and British Army ranks, a bibliography, and an index. Unacknowledged in the contents is a small selection of photographs between Chapters 3 and 4. There is a selection of annotated maps, which are critical to Sheldon's presentation of this story. The operations detailed in the book are confined to the area from Diksmuide in the north to Ploegsteert in the south, a pretty small section of what will become the Western Front. The book is arranged chronologically, with the author jumping from one segment of the battlefield to the next as German offensive operations unfolded. Not only are the geographic distances short; the action in the book takes place between 14 October and 11 November 1914.
As the battle developed geographically, Sheldon lays out his chapters accordingly. The first two chapters set the stage from the beginning of the war to the German march to the Yser River in Belgium. Chapter 3 discusses the epic German failure at Langemarck (the current site of one of the largest German WWI cemeteries), while Chapter 4 tells of the battles around the villages of Beselare, Geluveld, and the Menen Road. Chapter 5 details the fighting around Diksmuide, while Chapter 6 tells of the battles south of Ypres. Chapter 7 covers a second round of fruitless fighting around Langemarck, while Chapter 8 illustrates the end of Germany's offensive plans in the West during the final 1914 fighting for the Menen Road.
Sheldon lays out each of the main chapters in the same fashion: a general discussion about the section of the subject section of the battlefield, followed by the annotated map, followed by the personal accounts of the participants uncovered by the author's diligent research. The annotated map bears numbers that Sheldon uses to organize the participant/eyewitness accounts, which number five or more per chapter. These accounts are the heart of this book as they provide the details glossed over in more conventional histories. The reader gets some idea of what is was like to attack through the inundated farmland deliberately flooded by the Belgiums desperate to deny the countryside to the Germans, to live a miserable existence with sleep and eating impossible under the conditions, and to advance under a barrage of shrapnel shells.
Sheldon makes it clear to his reader of the flaws in some of his sources. Some memoirs and regimental histories came out after the rise of Nazism, and their stories were embellished to enhance the Nazi cause. Sheldon also addresses the "Kindermoerder" or slaughter of the students attributed to the attacks on Langemarck, another case where elements of truth were altered to fire up the zeal of potential German military and paramilitary recruits.
This book is not for the faint of heart. It is incredibly detailed and can be a slog at times. I found myself scrolling back and forth between maps and texts to understand the personal accounts Sheldon laid before me. However, a World War I historian should not pass on this treasure trove of German source material and Sheldon's thoughtful analysis of it.… (mehr)