Charles Messenger – författare

How the British, ANZACs and Canadians finally broke the German army on the most decisive day of the Great War.The British attack at Amiens was the most decisive day of the Great War. In earlier offensives, a gain of a few hundred yards counted as a ''victory'', but this time our troops advanced seven miles in a day and broke clean through the German defences. The long agony on the Western Front was nearly over.Spearheaded by tanks and armoured cars and supported by the RAF, the attack was led by the Australian and Canadian Corps, with British and French troops on the flanks. Elaborate deception measures were employed to ensure surprise.Drawing on both primary and secondary sources, as well as eyewitness accounts, this book describes how the attack was conceived, the preparations, and the actual assault itself, as well as what happened on the subsequent days and how Amiens paved the way for the final victorious Allied advance.

This is a comprehensive account of how the British Army coped with and adapted to the enormous challenges and pressures of the First World War -- the first major continental war that the army had had to fight for almost a hundred years. Following the course of the War, both on the Western Front and in other theatres, Charles Messenger tells how the British Army managed the challenges of command, training, technology and new weapons of war. He examines officer selection, medicine, discipline, the manpower crisis of 1918, the integration of women into the forces and many other topics.Based on years of original research, this will become the standard work of reference on the organization and administration of the biggest army Britain has ever put into the field.