Beneath Flanders Fields: The Tunnellers' War 1914-1918 - Rilegato

Barton, Peter; Doyle, Peter; Vandewalle, Johan

Rilegato

ISBN 10: 0773529497 ISBN 13: 9780773529496

Casa editrice: McGill Queens Univ, 2005

Riassunto

The product of over twenty-five years of research, Beneath Flanders Fields illustrates the evolution of military mining, leading to its deployment in the greatest siege in military history - in the trenches of the Western Front.
In the words of the tunnellers themselves, and through previously unpublished photographs - many in colour - as well as contemporary plans and drawings, this book reveals how this most intense of battles was fought - and won. Few on the surface knew the horrific details of the tunnellers' work, yet this silent, claustrophobic conflict was a barbaric struggle that raged day and night for almost two and a half years, and one which generated mental and physical stresses often far beyond those suffered by the infantry in the trenches. On 7 June 1917 at Messines Ridge, the tension was broken with the opening of the most dramatic mine offensive in history.

Su questo libro

L'autore:

Desmond Morton is Hiram Mills Professor of History, McGill University.

Product Description:

Below the battlefields of the Western Front, fifty thousand tunnellers, sewer workers, and miners were engaged in mine warfare in the Ypres Salient--a secret struggle beneath No Man's Land that combined daring engineering, technology, and science with calculated assassination. Few on the surface knew of the barbaric and claustraphobic work of the tunnellers, who not only suffered from mine explosions but regularly encountered hazardous gas and waterlogged ground. The result of over twenty-five years of research, "Beneath Flanders Fields" reveals how this intense underground battle was fought and won. The authors give the first full account of mine warfare in World War I through the words of the tunnellers themselves as well as plans, drawings, and previously unpublished archive photographs, many in colour. "Beneath Flanders Fields" also shows how military mining evolved. The tunnellers constructed hundreds of deep dugouts that housed tens of thousands of troops. Often electrically lit and ventilated, these tunnels incorporated headquarters, cookhouses, soup kitchens, hospitals, drying rooms, and workshops. A few dugouts survive today, a final physical legacy of the Great War, and are seen for the first time in photographs in "Beneath Flanders Fields."

Su questa edizione

• Editore: McGill Queens Univ
• Data di pubblicazione: 2005
• ISBN 10: 0773529497
• ISBN 13: 9780773529496
• Rilegatura: Copertina rigida
• Numero di pagine: 304