Jurgen Schmieschek – författare

Personal accounts of the Great War experiences of British soldiers are well known and plentiful, but similar accounts from the German side of no mans land are rare. This highly original book vividly describes the wartime lives and ultimate fates of ten Saxon soldiers facing the British in Flanders, revealed through their intimate diaries and correspondence. The stories of these men, from front-line trench fighters to a brigade commander, are in turn used to illustrate the wider story of thousands more who fought and died in Flanders for King and Country, Kaiser and Reich with the Royal Saxon Army. This ground-breaking work is illustrated with over 300 mostly unseen wartime photographs and other images, recording the German experience of the war in human detail and giving a rounded picture of how the Saxons lived and died in Flanders.

Personal accounts of the Great War experiences of British soldiers are well known and plentiful, but similar accounts from the German side of no man's land are rare. This highly original book vividly describes the wartime lives and ultimate fates of ten Saxon soldiers facing the British in Flanders, revealed through their intimate diaries and correspondence. The stories of these men, from front-line trench fighters to a brigade commander, are in turn used to illustrate the wider story of thousands more who fought and died in Flanders 'for King and Country, Kaiser and Reich' with the Royal Saxon Army. This ground-breaking work is illustrated with over 300 mostly unseen wartime photographs and other images, recording the German experience of the war in human detail and giving a rounded picture of how the Saxons lived and died in Flanders.

A detailed history of the Royal Saxon Army in Belgium during World War I, featuring photographs and personal letters.Following on from their pioneering account of the Saxon army in World War I—Fighting the Kaiser’s War—Andrew Lucas and Jürgen Schmieschek have compiled this remarkable sequel covering Saxony’s war in Flanders in much greater detail. Once again, they draw on vivid extracts from personal accounts and letters as well as regimental and documents from the Saxon archives, and they illustrate their powerful study with hundreds of previously unpublished personal photos that show every aspect of wartime experience in the front line and the rear areas.The role of the Saxon army in the three battles of Ypres is recorded in graphic detail, and rare photographs offer fresh perspectives on famous wartime locations on the Western Front including Ploegsteert Wood, the Menin Road, Bellewaarde, Wytschaete, and Passchendaele. The historic photographs—and the insights provided by the accompanying text—give us a fascinating inside view of the Saxon soldiers and their relations with the local population who were obliged to host them.The quality of the evocative personal material—text and images—collected by Andrew Lucas and Jürgen Schmieschek makes this exceptional work a major contribution to the literature on the German forces on the Western Front.