List of Illustrations

  1. Private Alex Jamieson, 11th Royal Scots, photographed with a friend

  2. Reinhold Spengler, February 1917 (Photo: Richard A. Baumgartner)

  3. Reinhold Spengler, 1918 (Photo: Richard A. Baumgartner)

  4. Traces of the Hindenburg Line near Urvillers

  5. The remains of the Hindenburg Line near Vendeuil

  6. The defensive posts of the Hindenburg Line along the Oise Canal

  7. The fortification of the Hindenburg Line

  8. C83 Battery’s former position between Ly-Fontaine and Benay

  9. The railway embankment between Flavy-le-Martel and Faillouel

10. The chateau at Rouez village

11. The 10th Essex at Rouez and the keeper’s cottage in artist’s impression

12. A modern view of the same spot

13. The keeper’s cottage today

14. The graves of German soldiers killed in the fight at Rouez

15. Gauche Wood

16. Graves of men of the Royal Naval Division near Gouzeaucourt

17. Second Lieutenant Peter Wilson, MC

18. Second Lieutenant Gerard Robin, RFC

19. The temporary bridge at Masnières erected by the Germans above the wreck of the original bridge

20. The sunken road south of the village of Beaumetz

21. Major Ronald Ward of C293 Battery

22. Major Ronald Ward, C293 Battery, caricatured by an artist comrade

23. Looking towards Doignies from the sunken road at Beaumetz

24. The forward gun of C293 Battery was situated in this field on the edge of Doignies

25. Traces of the redoubts that formed the front line of the British battle zone round Hargicourt

26. The entrenchments in the old quarries at Templeux-le-Guérard

27. Abandoned British supply dumps

28. Brigade-Major Harold Howitt, MC, leaving Buckingham Palace

29. The village of Lechelle

30. The road leading to Battalion HQ at Lechelle

31. Lieutenant L. Chamberlen, MC, 2nd Rifle Brigade

32. Leutnant Fritz Nagel (Photo: Richard A. Baumgartner)

33. Gummed-paper strips reinforcing a window in Paris

34. The ‘Paris Gun’

35. Private Horace Haynes, 2/6th Royal Warwicks, with another young soldier

36. Capitaine Désiré Wavrin, 62nd [French] Division

37. The fast-firing French gun the ‘Soixante-quinze’

38. Mailly-Maillet church in 1918

39. A modern view of Mailly-Maillet church

40. Private George McKay, NZ Rifle Brigade, in hospital

41. Private George McKay at home in New Zealand

42. New Zealand soldiers posing for an official photograph

43. Soldier’s humour on a postcard sent home

44. A patriotic doll reproduced on one of the postcards made by French women

45 and 46. Postcards sent to the relatives of wounded soldiers

47. Lieutenant Jim Aldous, MC, with Captain West, MC, at Adinfer Wood

48. The chateau of Grivesnes, sketched on 13 April

49. The chateau of Grivesnes, restored after the war, now derelict and abandoned

50. Dead German soldiers in the chateau park at Grivesnes after the fight on 31 March

51. A poilu of the 350th Régiment d’Infanterie

52. Lieutenant-Colonel Lagarde with survivors of the 350th Régiment d’Infanterie

53. Commemorative plaques outside the chateau of Grivesnes

54. British veterans welcomed by Monsieur Claude Dubois, mayor of Grivesnes, in July 1996

55. Lance-Bombardier Robert Ford

56. Major Harrison Johnston, in command of the 15th Cheshires

57. Guns like these 18-pounders thwarted the enemy’s attempts to storm forward

58. Private Stanley Sutcliffe, 51st Battalion, AIF

59. Walter Hare welcomed by the owners of the farm close to where he was captured

60. The letter written by Brigade-Major Harold Howitt to his wife during the Battle of Amiens