The book I read to research this post was In The Footsteps Of Private Lynch by Will Davies which is a very good book which I bought from a car boot sale. This book was published in 2009 and came about because the auhor saw a manuscript written by Private Lynch who died in 1980, about his experiences in the trenches in World War 1. He was Australian and strangely they didn’t have a memorial to the unknown soldier in Canberra until 1993. Australia was a relatively new country with a small population so there army only made up a small percentage of the Allied Forces. Private Lynch enlisted in the army and was sent to Northern France. In 1916-7 they had the worst winter in that area in living memory which froze the ground and made it rock. At least it minimized the trenches getting flooded but the soldiers were prone to hyperthermia. Soldiers slept in their boots because otherwise they would freeze and be impossible to put back on. The Germany put the Kaiser in charge of their armed forces which proved disastrous. When they came to their senses they concentrated more on defence than attack and defended in depth with lot of lines of defence one behind the other. When the Allieds attacked they fired shells about 30 metres ahead of there men to break up the defences and heavy cannons concentrated on attacking the German rear to help prevent reinforcements. As the men advanced the cannons attacking the frontline would be adjusted in increments of 100 metres. One of the biggest defeats of the war for Germany was Amiens where the Germans lost 200,000 men. Private Lynch also fought in the Somme where there were huge casualties for minimal gains. Probably the biggest factor in that war was when America came into it with its huge amounts of manpower and equipment. I did really enjoy this book and it is quite thought provoking and a very moving story.
