Why did the Germans brutally and illegally execute a group of British soldiers who had been trapped behind the lines during the retreat to the Marne in 1914? Hedley Malloch, in this gripping and meticulously researched account, vividly describes the fate the soldiers on the run, and of the French civilians who sheltered them. He tells a dramatic and tragic story of escape, betrayals and punishment that also gives a fascinating insight into the life stories of the soldiers and civilians involved and the mind-set of the German army on the Western Front. The book names the German officers responsible for this atrocity, and explores their motivations.
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KILLING OF THE IRON TWELVE An Account of the Largest Execution Soldiers on the Western Front in the First World War
Spring Sale: £4.79
On the morning of 25th February 1915, a volley of shots rang out and eleven British and Irish soldiers and one French civilian fell dead into a freshly prepared grave. They had been brutally executed under the walls of the Chateau in Guise by the occupying German forces. Their crime? Being trapped in occupied territory and treated as spies.
This gripping and meticulously researched hardback of 246 pages is a dramatic and tragic story of escape, betrayals and punishment during the Great War.