The First World War is deeply dug into the consciousness of the British. The images it conjures up are of blood, barbed wire, shell-holes filled with dead bodies; of subalterns with wispy moustaches who never had the chance to grow old; of soldiers with faces vacant from shell-shock; of great aunts who never married.The army that fought this war, warts and all, represented the greatest collective endeavour of the whole of British history. Over five million men served in the army, almost one million lost their lives, and over two million were wounded. As the war continued, these men drifted apart from the land that had raised them, and lived in a world with its own rules, values, beliefs and language. They celebrated the armistice in silence, not with wild rejoicing. Then they went home to pick up their lives.One veteran proudly affirmed that Tommy Atkins - the full private - was, when all is said and done, the one who won this war. He won it by sheer dogged pluck. Of this man too little has been heard, perhaps because he had a habit of going into places a thousand strong and coming out a remnant of a hundred or so. Dead men tell no tales of their own glory.Richard Holmes's landmark book Tommy puts the direct experience of the ordinary British soldier centre stage. This is not the war as interpreted retrospectively by historians, but the war as it was felt - in the midst of battle, enduring the boredom of waiting, the exhaustion of travelling to and from the Front, of sharing a mug of tea with a friend and seeing him blown to tatters moments later.This is not an army of `lions' led by `donkeys'. It eschews such cliches. This is the war as it was fought, in the words of those that fought it.
