LIONEL SOTHEBY’S GREAT WAR: DIARIES AND LETTERS FROM THE WESTERN FRONT :: The Great War :: Time Periods

An exceptional memoir of the battles of 1915 on the Western Front, as seen through the eyes of Lionel Sotheby, a young Old Etonian who spared his family none of the horrors of war in these letters home. Still under 21, Sotheby was killed after going over the top in the Battle of Loos.

The Great War produced a huge crop of writing from the literate, public-school educated junior British officers who fought it. This volume is among the most poignant and vivid to have come our way. Lionel Sotheby was an Old Etonian who, in these letters home, spared his family few of the horrors of trench warfare as he fought the futile yet bloody battles of 1915. In one such action, Sotheby describes attacking with the Black Watch across 400 yards of No Man’s Land. Of 15 officers involved, eleven were killed, three wounded, and only Sotheby survived unscathed; lying between the trenches for four hours before he was able to crawl away. Yet, although he had a persistent premonition of his own death, Sotheby continued to do his duty until, still not yet 21, he was killed going over the top ‘cheerful and full of hope’ at the Battle of Loos on September 25th 1915. However many memoirs you may have read of the Great War, this one is quite exceptional.

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Details


Product Code:	11038
Author:	Edited and introduced by Donald C. Richter; Foreword by Peter H. Liddle
Format:	148pp, maps, diagrams, hb. Published Price £22
Shipping Time:	This item is usually dispatched Next Day
Retail Price:	~~£22.00~~
Our Price:	£12.95 save 41% January sale price: £10.36