4th (QUEEN’S OWN) HUSSARS IN THE GREAT WAR

In his foreword to this book, Winston Churchill rightly calls it a ‘plain yet careful record of the fortunes and services of the 4th (Queen’s Own) Hussars in the Great War (which) deserves and will repay attentive study from those to whom the history of the regiments of the British Army is of vivid interest’. The 4th Queen’s Own were one of the Army’s elite cavalry regiments which fulfilled their traditional role in the open warfare which characterised the campaigns in 1914 and 1918 at the beginning and end of the Great War. In between, of course, came the static horrors of trench warfare, when, as Churchill tactfully says: ‘the fond hopes which cavalry Generals and cavalry soldiers cherished of a great eruption of cavalry through the German lines as the culmination of a decisive battle never materialised’. Nevertheless, the 4th took part in the retreat from Mons in 1914; the first and second battle of Ypres – in which they experienced the first German poison gas attack – and the battles of Loos, the Somme and Arras. In 1918 they saw action in both the great German spring offensives and the victorious allied counter-attacks that summer and autumn. Illustrated with maps, photographs and appendices containing rolls of honour, decorations, lists of officers etc. this is a complete unit history for those interested in cavalry regiments in the Great War.