John Terraine – författare

This book is a classic narrative history of the last year of the First World War. Author John Terraine was associate producer and chief screenwriter of the 1963‒64 BBC TV documentary The Great War. He was the founder and President of the Western Front Association, a member of the Royal United Services Institute for Defence Studies and a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society.For the weary Allies, 1918 was truly a year of victories ‒ and at last, the final triumph. First came the defensive victories of the British and the French against the last desperate offensive launched by the Germans in the spring. Then came the turning point of Foch’s counter-offensive on the Marne followed by Haig’s great attack on 8 August, the black day of the German Army, the breaking of the Hindenburg Line and the pursuit of the defeated German Army across the wasteland of war.This challenging and perceptive book gives honour where it is due: to a victorious British Army in 1918.

At the outbreak of the First World War in 1914 Captain J. L. Jack was serving with the First Cameronians, one of the earliest British regiments to arrive in France. Almost every day while serving in France and Flanders, Jack kept a secret diary. This diary is unique. It presents the detail of a regular officer's life at war during virtually the whole of the First World War on the Western Front. Jack was witness not only to the horror and wretchedness of much that happened in the trenches but also to the bravery and spirit that kept the British soldiers in the line going through to the momentous battles of 1918 and final victory. Poignant and moving, as well as describing the reality of war on the Western Front, these diaries have been edited and linked with commentaries by the distinguished military historian John Terraine.