1 The Times, 9 August 1914, p. 4.
2 McKisack, The Fourteenth Century, p. 432.
3 Churchill, Marlborough, vol. 2, pp. 92–125, 180–81, 570–71.
4 For Ypres’s general setting, see the stimulating chapter by Marc Derez in Liddle (ed.), Passchendaele in Perspective, pp. 437–58.
5 Kossmann, The Low Countries, pp. 503, 712, 719.
6 Bumpus, The Cathedrals and Churches of Belgium, p. 116, quoted by Marc Derez in Liddle (ed.), op. cit., pp. 437–8.
7 Baedeker’s Belgium and Holland, pp. 29–31.
8 For an informative map of railways at Ypres in 1918: Gilbert, Routledge Atlas of the First World War, p. 22.
9 Strachan, First World War, vol. 1, p. 209. See also J. Stengers on Belgium in Wilson (ed.), Decisions for War, pp. 151–6.
1 Macdonald, Voices and Images of the Great War, pp. 6–9, including an extract from the diary of Henri Desagneux in Paris; Brown, 1914, p. 101; C. A. Macartney to the author in conversation, December 1964.
2 Text of the memorandum in Ritter, The Schlieffen Plan, pp. 134–8. On Ritter’s study see L. C. F. Turner in Kennedy (ed.), The War Plans of the Great Powers, pp. 199–217.
3 Strachan, The First World War, vol. 1, pp. 176–9 and 207, for analysis of strength of invading army.
4 On Joffre and Plan 17, Strachan, op. cit., pp. 191–8. For the evolution of Joffre’s strategy, S. R. Williamson in Kennedy (ed.), op. cit., pp. 133–53.
5 Grey, Twenty Five Years, vol. 1, ch. 6. Hargreaves article on the ‘Origin of the Anglo-French Military Conversations’. J. McDermott, ‘The Revolution in British Military Thinking’ in Kennedy, op. cit., pp. 99–112. Howard, The Continental Commitment.
6 Ottley to first sea lord, Gooch and Temperley, British Documents on the Origins of the War, vol. 3, p. 186.
7 Grey to Lord Tweedmouth, Gooch and Temperley, ibid, p. 203.
8 The Barnardiston–Ducarne talks and plans can be followed in Gooch and Temperly, ibid, pp. 187–201.
9 See two articles in the Journal of Modern History: Helmreich ‘British concern over Neutrality and British Intervention’; Thomas, ‘Anglo-Belgian military relations and the Congo Question, 1911–13’.
10 Dubail–Wilson agreement: Gooch and Temperley, op. cit., vol. 7, no. 640; Callwell, Sir Henry Wilson, 1, pp. 98–9.
11 Minutes of CID meeting, 23 August 1911, NA, Cab. 38/19/49. Churchill, World Crisis, vol. 1, pp. 329–42.
12 Hankey’s comments: Hankey, The Supreme Command, vol. 1, pp. 81–2.
13 Williamson, The Politics of Grand Strategy, pp. 167–204. F. A. Johnson’s pioneer study of the CID, Defence by Committee is critically analysed in Mackintosh’s article ‘The role of the Committee of Imperial Defence’. Ch. 6 of Holmes’s biography of French, The Little Field Marshal, admirably assesses the impact of the Ulster crisis on the army commanders, but the fullest study of the Curragh affair is Beckett (ed.), The Army and the Curragh Incident. See also Keith Jeffery on Wilson, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (ODNB).
14 Brock and Brock (eds), Asquith: Letters, 24 July 1914, p. 123.
15 Grey, op. cit., vol. 1, p. 315; Churchill, World Crisis, vol. 1, p. 159; Brock and Brock, ibid, 26 July 1914, pp. 125–6.
16 Churchill, World Crisis, vol. 1, pp. 163–4.
17 Gilbert, Churchill, vol. 3, pp. 8–13.
18 Chandler (ed.), The Oxford Illustrated History of the British Army, pp. 206–11, 242–5.
19 Roskill, Hankey, vol. 1, pp. 107–8.
20 For eve-of-war cabinet discussions see Hazlehurst, Politicians at War, with ch. 5 assessing views of the non-interventionists.
21 Hazlehurst may be supplemented by Brock in Evans and Strandmann (eds), The Coming of the First World War, pp. 145–78.
22 Brown, 1914, pp. 50–51.
23 Cassar, Kitchener, pp. 172–7; Palmer, Victory 1918, pp. 1–3; Pollock, Kitchener, pp. 372–3.
24 Brock and Brock (eds), op. cit., 5 August 1914, p. 157; Cassar, ibid, pp. 174–86.
25 Churchill, World Crisis, vol. 1, pp. 188–9; Grey, op. cit., vol. 2, pp. 63–7; Hankey’s notes, N A Cab, 41/22/1; Blake (ed.), The Private Papers, pp. 68–9; Holmes, op. cit., pp. 196–8.
26 Interestingly, in his diary Haig twice comments on the report that Holland had been invaded; Sheffield and Bourne (eds), Douglas Haig, pp. 53 and 54.
27 Ibid, p. 55.
28 Ibid, p. 56.
29 Cassar, op. cit., pp. 185–90; Simkins, Kitchener’s Army, and his chapter in Chandler (ed.), op. cit., pp. 241–54.
30 Pollock, op. cit., p. 386.
31 Terraine, Mons, pp. 27–8.
32 Childs, Episodes and Reflections, p. 117.
33 Terraine, Mons, pp. 17–18.
34 Kitchener’s battle orders are reprinted from Edmonds’s official History of the Great War, vol. 1, pp. 442–3, as appendix 1 of Sheffield and Bourne (eds), op. cit., pp. 512–13.
35 Terraine, Mons, pp. 30–32; Barker, The RFC in France, vol. 1, pp. 29–30; O’Connor, Airfields and Aircraft, pp. 14–19.
36 Macdonald, 1914, p. 66; Brown, 1914, pp. 68–72.
37 No one has discovered the reason for the original rift between French and Smith-Dorrien. In his ODNB entry on ‘Dorrien’ (sic) Stephen Badsby mentions contemporary speculation of mischief-making by Wilson. For ramifications of the rift see Beckett (ed.), The Judgement of History.
38 Marshall-Cornwall, Foch, p. 59.
1 Macdonald, 1914, pp. 82–5.
2 Edmonds, Military Operations: France and Belgium, 1914, vol. 1, pp. 64–6.
3 Terraine, Mons, p. 91.
4 Ibid, pp. 108–11.
5 Holmes, The Little Field Marshal, p. 220.
6 Sir George Arthur, Life of Lord Kitchener, vol. 3, pp. 55–61.
7 Terraine, Mons, p. 211; Edmonds, Military Operations: France and Belgium, 1914, vol. 1, p. 494.
8 Reminiscences in Macdonald, 1914, pp. 228–36, and Brown, The Western Front, pp. 14–18.
9 J. French, 1914, pp.79–80; Cruttwell, History of the Great War, pp. 79–80; Holmes, op. cit., p. 223. Brock and Brock (eds), Asquith: Letters, p. 207.
10 Gliddon, VCs of the First World War, pp. 67–79.
11 Spears, Liaison, 1914, pp. 314, 336–7; Brock and Brock (eds), op. cit., pp. 213, 214, 217; Terraine, Mons, pp. 186–91.
12 Spears, ibid, pp. 366–71; Strachan, First World War, vol. 1, pp. 226–7.
13 Passingham, All the Kaiser’s Men, pp. 24–7, on German response to the long march.
14 Bloem, The Advance from Mons, p. 110.
15 Macdonald, 1914, pp. 206–7; Gibbs, The Pageant of the Years, p. 111.
16 Anon, History of The Times, vol. 4 (i), p. 220.
17 Chandler (ed.), Oxford Illustrated History of the British Army, pp. 204–5, on Boer War casualties.
18 Brock and Brock (eds), op. cit., p. 209, and fn 4, p. 210; History of the Times, vol. 4 (i), pp. 222–7.
19 Brock and Brock (eds), ibid, p. 217; Chandler (ed.), op. cit., p. 245.
20 Hatcher, Laurence Binyon, pp. 142–3. The book is both a biography and a literary assessment.
21 Keegan, The First World War, pp. 118–25.
22 Spears, Liaison, 1914, pp. 388–90, 394.
23 The best study of the Marne remains Tyng, The Campaign of the Marne, published more than 70 years ago; see also Isserlin, The Battle of the Marne.
24 Müller, Die Sendung von Oberleutnant Hentsch, pp. 13–21; Volkmann, Am Tor der neuen Zeit, pp. 47–83; Barnett, The Swordbearers, pp. 100–101.
25 Terraine, Mons, p. 217.
26 Marshall-Cornwall, Foch, pp. 104–5; Brown, 1914, p. 127.
27 Sheffield and Bourne (eds), Douglas Haig, p. 69.
28 Keegan, op. cit., p. 136; Macdonald, 1914, pp. 297–8.
29 Mason, ‘The Aisne’, pp. 289–90.
30 Holmes, op. cit., p. 240.
31 Reichsarchiv, Weltkrieg, vol. 5, pp. 3–25.
32 Görlitz (ed.), The Kaiser and his Court, pp. 35–6.
33 Holmes, op. cit., p. 242.
1 A biography of Brialmont by P. Crockaert was published in Brussels in 1925. For his political ideas see Kossmann, The Low Countries, p. 356. For developments after Brialmont’s death see Bitsch, La Belgique entre la France et l’Allemagne.
2 The fullest maps of the forts at Liège, Namur and Antwerp are in Banks, Military Atlas of the First World War, pp. 28–9.
3 Duffy, ‘The Siege of Antwerp’, p. 376.
4 Ibid, p. 377; Beckett, Ypres, pp. 17–18.
5 Roskill, Hankey, vol. 1, p. 142; Churchill, The World Crisis, vol. 1, pp. 263–4.
6 Tuchman, The Guns of August, pp. 433–4 and 539–40.
7 Churchill, The World Crisis, vol. 1, p. 264.
8 Gilbert, Churchill, vol. 3, pp. 98–9.
9 Ibid, pp. 65, 67–8, 74; Churchill, The World Crisis, vol. 1, pp. 268–72.
10 Churchill, The World Crisis, vol. 1, p. 273; Gilbert, Churchill, vol. 3, p. 73. See also opening ch. of Keith-Falconer, The Oxfordshire Hussars in the Great War.
11 Gilbert, Churchill, vol. 3, p. 74, 22 September. This section of the letter is omitted from the Brocks’s Asquith: Letters.
12 Duffy, op. cit., pp. 378–82; The Times, 1 October 1914.
13 Churchill, The World Crisis, vol. 1, pp. 299, 302.
14 Kitchener’s reluctance to send the 7th Division is clear from Churchill’s narrative: ibid, pp. 303 ff. See also, for creation of the division, the first ch. of Atkinson, The Seventh Division.
15 Holmes, The Little Field Marshal, pp. 242–3.
16 Gilbert, Churchill, vol. 3, pp. 103–19.
17 The conflict between King Albert and his government is well illustrated in Thielemans (ed.), Albert 1er, notably on pp. 40–41.
18 Gilbert, Churchill, vol. 3, Companion, pt 1, pp. 156–7.
19 Ibid, p. 163; Brock and Brock (eds), Asquith: Letters, p. 262, with fns 2 and 3.
20 On the creation of the Royal Naval Division (RND) see Gilbert, Churchill, vol. 3, pp. 47–52, with presence at Antwerp covered on pp. 107–25 passim. For a critical assessment of Churchill’s mission and the value of the naval brigades see Strachan, The First World War, vol. 1, p. 272.
21 For the war council: Thielemans (ed.), op. cit., p. 41; Gilbert, ibid, p. 118; Churchill, World Crisis, vol. 1, pp. 321–2.
22 Hassall, Rupert Brooke, p. 466.
23 For Londoners’ reactions to Belgian refugees see Palmer, The East End, p. 117.
24 Brown, 1914, p. 179.
25 Deguise’s account (1921), Duffy, op. cit., p. 380. Galet, Albert, pp. 247–53, criticizes Deguise, suggesting he could have held out longer.
26 For the changing moods at Charleville see Görlitz (ed.), The Kaiser and his Court, pp. 35–56; for Paterson’s comments on the Aisne: Brown, 1914, p. 159; Alexander Powell’s report on German entry is quoted in Gilbert, The First World War, pp. 87–8.
27 The photograph of the Germans on the captured bus is reproduced from The Times History of the War by Sir Martin Gilbert in his Churchill, vol. 3, as illustration 9.
1 Fr C. Delaere in Macdonald, 1914, pp. 344–5; Coombs, Before Endeavours Fade, p. 26.
2 Strachan, The First World War, pp. 270–72.
3 Macdonald, 1914, pp. 351–2.
4 Gunner Burrows’s diary cited in Macdonald, ibid, p. 353.
5 Foch, Memoirs, pp. 142–3; J. French, 1914, pp. 199–205.
6 Hamilton, Monty, vol. 1, pp. 82–4.
7 Macdonald, 1914, p. 354.
8 Holmes, The Little Field Marshal, p. 127.
9 Macdonald, 1914, p. 357.
10 Maria van Asche of Passchendaele village’s reminiscence in Macdonald, 1914, p. 358.
11 Blake (ed.), Private Papers, p. 74; Sheffield and Bourne (eds), Douglas Haig, p. 73.
12 Statistics on German Fourth Army from Reichsarchiv, Der Weltkrieg, vol. 5, pp. 282, 593.
13 Falkenhayn to Albrecht, 10 October 1914, ibid, p. 279.
14 Thielemans (ed.), Albert 1er, pp. 175–8; Galet, Albert, p. 265.
15 Ronarc’h and the French Marine Fusiliers: Beckett, Ypres, p. 22.
16 Strachan, The First World War, vol. 1, p. 275.
17 Reichsarchiv, Der Weltkrieg, vol. 5, p. 302; Gilbert, Churchill, vol. 3, p. 135; Churchill, The World Crisis, vol. 1, pp. 335–9.
18 Banks, Military Atlas of the First World War, pp. 67–71, has maps of the battle of the Yser, diagrams of the sluices and shows the inundated region in detail. Thielemans (ed.), op. cit., p. 43; Cammaerts, Albert of Belgium, pp. 196–9; Beckett, Ypres, pp. 86–7.
19 For a critical German commentary on the fall of Dixmude see Unruh, Langemarck, pp. 124–7.
20 Sheffield and Bourne (eds), op. cit., pp. 73–4 (a fuller entry than in Blake, op. cit., pp. 74–5).
21 Sheffield and Bourne (eds), ibid.
22 French’s diary quoted by Holmes, op. cit., p. 246.
23 Edmonds, Military Operations: France and Belgium, 1914, vol. 2, p. 168.
24 Holmes, op. cit., p. 246.
25 Hyndson, From Mons to the First Battle of Ypres, p. 80.
26 Corporal Letyford of the Royal Engineers, cited in Macdonald, 1914, p. 361.
27 Beckett, Ypres, p. 80, citing Dillon’s letter in IWM Dillon Mss 82/25/1.
28 Sulzbach, With the German Guns, p. 37.
29 Unruh, Langemarck, p. 9.
30 Binding, A Fatalist at War, p. 19.
31 See Fox, ‘The myths of Langemarck’, pp. 13–25; cf. Strachan, op. cit., vol. 1, p. 274.
32 Private Knight, cited in Beckett, Ypres, p. 95.
33 Atkinson, The Seventh Division, pp. 51–6.
34 Reichsarchiv, Der Weltkrieg, vol. 5, p. 317.
35 Beckett, Ypres, p. 93.
36 Sheffield and Bourne (eds), op. cit., p.75.
37 Beckett, Ypres, p. 94.
38 Reichsarchiv, Der Weltkrieg, vol. 5, p. 338
39 Strachan, op. cit., calculates two to one (p. 276); Cruttwell, A History of the Great War, suggests ‘six to one in all arms’ (p. 103).
40 Edmonds, Military Operations: France and Belgium, 1914, vol. 2, p. 282.
1 Beckett, Ypres, pp. 114, 116. Dr Beckett’s detailed analysis of these critical days is far superior to any other on the British role in this unusually far-flung battle. The maps in the official history (Edmonds, Military Operations: France and Belgium, 1914, vol. 2) are good and informative.
2 Kershaw, Hitler, pp. 90, 663, makes use of Hitler’s surviving letters, taken from A. Joachimsthaler, Korrektur eine Bibliographie: Adolf Hitler (Munich, 1989).
3 See the accounts from civilians used by Macdonald in 1914, pp. 370–71.
4 Holmes, The Little Field Marshal, p. 248. Marshall-Cornwall, Foch, p. 136. Dr Beckett (Ypres, p. 120) gives the impression that French wrote to Churchill on that day saying he hoped to be at Bruges and Ostend within a week, but the letter was dated four days earlier; see Asquith: Letters, p. 247, n. 7.
5 Beckett, ibid, pp. 123–4.
6 Foch, Memoirs, p. 156; earliest account by Meunier-Surcouf in Puaux, Marshal Foch, pp. 145–6; Anon, Armées Françaises, pt 4, annexe 4, p. 322; J. French, 1914, p. 245; Callwell, Sir Henry Wilson, vol. 1, p. 185.
7 Farrar-Hockley, Death of an Army, p. 153; Görlitz (ed.), The Kaiser and his Court, p. 41.
8 See, in general, Lindsay, The London Scottish in the Great War. For Ronald Colman see the biography by J. B. Colman, Ronald Colman, pp. 6–13. On Basil Rathbone, the entry in ODNB by Sheridan Morley. Rathbone was later commissioned in the Liverpool Scottish and received the Military Cross.
9 Accounts of the day’s fighting, based on memoirs and diaries, have been used by Beckett (Ypres, pp. 124–30) and by Macdonald (1914, pp. 388–95). See also Edmonds, Military Operations: France and Belgium, 1914, vol. 2, pp. 346–50, and the article by Goldsmith, ‘Territorial Vanguard’, pp. 230–38.
10 Beckett, ibid, p. 133
11 Macdonald, 1914, p. 384, here makes good use of Gunner Burrows’s diary.
12 In his History of the Great War (p. 104) Cruttwell credits General Fitzclarence with bringing the 2nd Worcesters into the line, but Dr Beckett, Ypres, p. 134, using Imperial War Museum archives, has shown that, while Fitzclarence took rapid action to check the German incursion, the pooling of reserves had been agreed by the divisional commanders on the previous evening. There is a good account of the counter-attack in Stacke, The Worcestershire Regiment in the Great War, pp. 32–5. See also Brown’s 1914, pp. 185–8, with map on p. 190.
13 On the Hooge disaster, Beckett, ibid, p. 135; Wyrall, History of the Second Division, pp. 136–7.
14 Sheffield and Bourne (eds), Douglas Haig, pp. 22–3; Gardner, Trial by Fire, pp. 220–21; Hussey, ‘A hard day at First Ypres’, pp. 75–89.
15 Beckett, Ypres, p. 137 (assessing approach of the official historian as shown by the Liddell Hart papers).
16 The comment on the Worcesters was made in February 1915: Bodleian Library, Selborne MSS, 73. For J. French’s account of his activities on 31 October see his 1914, pp. 252–60; cf. Holmes, op. cit., pp. 251–2. For the two versions of Haig’s diary, Sheffield and Bourne (eds), op. cit, p. 76. An early, and reliable, eye-witness account in Charteris, At GHQ, pp. 52–3.
17 Weygand, Foch, p. 87; General Weygand was writing as late as 1947. Foch’s Memoirs (pp. 157–8) also recall French’s fatalistic gloom. French himself, 1914, p. 260, merely says, ‘We all went thoroughly into the situation.’!
18 Edmonds, Military Operations: France and Belgium, 1914, vol. 2, pp. 342–3; Anon, Armées Françaises, vol. 1, pt 4, p. 353, and annexe 4, pp. 386–9.
19 Haig’s diary, 31 October 1914, Sheffield and Bourne (eds), op. cit., p. 76.
20 Edmonds, Military Operations; France and Belgium, 1914, vol. 2, p. 340.
21 Dauzet, La Bataille de Flandres, p. 114. This was one of the few occasions when Haig formally thanked the French for their support (Beckett, Ypres, p. 144).
22 Goldsmith. ‘Territorial vanguard’, pp. 231–8; Beckett, Ypres, p. 149; Gough, The Fifth Army, pp. 68–9.
23 Beckett, Ypres, p. 149.
24 For the Irish Guards at Zillebeke, Kipling, The Irish Guards in the Great War, pp. 38–9; for the cavalry charge, G. Arthur, The Story of the Household Cavalry, vol. 3, pp. 111–12.
25 Görlitz (ed.), op. cit., pp. 41–2.
26 Lyn Macdonald makes highly effective use of Gunner Burrows’s diary in her lovingly researched 1914. The entries quoted here are from pp. 406, 407 and 408.
27 Haig’s diary, 11 November 1914, Sheffield and Bourne (eds), op. cit., p. 79; Holbrook in Macdonald, 1914, p. 411.
28 Beckett, Ypres, pp. 168–9.
29 Edmonds, Military Operations: France and Belgium, 1914, vol. 2, pp. 439–41.
30 Roberts, Waterloo, p. 107.
31 Mockler-Ferryman, The Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry Chronicle, pp. 202–3. A vivid account of the action in Nonneboschen wood by Colonel Baines, taken from his papers in the Imperial War Museum, is in Brown, 1914, p. 200.
32 For Fitzclarence’s death the main source is Craster, Fifteen Rounds a Minute, pp. 151–2. For this phase of the battle in general: Beckett, Ypres, pp. 170–71.
33 Gliddon, VCs of the First World War, pp. 155–63.
34 Oxford reminiscences I noted in 1944 seem confirmed by Brittain’s Testament of Youth, p. 111. For the Lille meteorological figures see the research of Phillip Griffiths cited by John Hussey in Liddle (ed.), Passchendaele in Perspective, p. 155, n. 12.
35 Sergeant William Edginton in Brown, The Western Front, p. 52.
36 Roynon (ed.), Massacre of the Innocents, p. 28.
37 Lord Tennyson’s obituary, Wisden Cricketer’s Almanack, 1952, pp. 963–4; Brown, 1914, p. 199.
38 Anon, Ypres, p. 124; 25 November orders, Reichsarchiv, Weltkrieg, vol. 6, pp. 372, 398–404; Rupprecht von Bayern (ed. W. Frauendiest), Mein Kriegstagebuch, vol. 1, pp. 258–61.
39 German explanation in Anon, Ypres, op. cit., p. 15.
40 Sister Marguerite-Marie, B. Bryan, The Irish Nuns at Ypres, p. 76. For the town under bombardment see also Dendooven and Dewilde, The Reconstruction of Ieper, p. 51. My attention was drawn to these last three books by Ian Beckett’s use of them as sources for his ch. 7.
41 Particularly good prints of Antony of Ypres’s photographs illustrate Roynon’s Massacre of the Innocents, pp. 43–4.
1 Cruttwell, History of the Great War, p. 106. For Falkenhayn’s ‘broken instrument’ metaphor see Ritter, Staatskunst und Kriegshandwerk, vol. 3, p. 63. For Kitchener’s remark on war as he understood it, Grey, Twenty Five Years, vol. 2, pp. 68–9.
2 Definitive casualties remain elusive. Those given here are based on the official history: Edmonds, Military Operations: France and Belgium, 1914, vol. 2, pp. 276–7, 465; see also Beckett, Ypres, pp. 176–7. The figures include the 8th Division, which did not reach the trenches until 13 November. For the 7th Division see Cruttwell, History of the Great War, and the divisional history by Atkinson.
3 For Kitchener’s strategic views at this time, Cassar, Kitchener, especially pp. 268–70, and David French, British Strategy and War Aims. On the New Armies and their employment: Simkins, Kitchener’s Army; Blake (ed.), Private Papers, p. 84; see the contemporary account of life in their ranks by Hay, The First Hundred Thousand.
4 Jacques Weygand, Weygand, mon Père, p. 99.
5 Brittain, Testament of Youth, p. 113. Breakfast cartoon in Punch, 9 December 1914, p. 481. Partridge drawing, Punch, 23 December 1914, p. 519.
6 Fleming’s letter and Churchill’s observation to his wife: Gilbert, Churchill, vol. 3, Companion, pt 1, pp. 273–4.
7 Colonel Lord Loch, cited from IWM documents by Brown, 1914, p. 263. This aspect of the war is carefully documented in Brown and Seaton, Christmas Truce.
8 Anne Williamson, Henry Williamson, pp. 35–6; Williamson’s novel, A Fox under my Cloak, ch. 3, ‘Heilige Nacht’. The extracts given here are from Williamson’s contribution to Purnell’s History of the First World War, vol. 2, no. 4, pp. 552–6. For the comments of others, see Brown’s 1914, pp. 263–74.
9 Roynon (ed.), Massacre of the Innocents, p. 108 (4 January 1915). Roynon includes a facsimile of French’s ‘snorter’, p. 109.
10 Kershaw, Hitler: Hubris, p. 93, citing a dossier in A. Joachimsthaler, Korrektur eine Bibliographie: Adolf Hitler (Munich, 1989). For German Army Order of the Day, see Passingham, All the Kaiser’s Men, p. 48.
11 Daily Sketch, 9 January 1915, pp. 1–2, 6–7, facsimile in Williams (ed.), Newspapers of the First World War.
12 Churchill to Asquith, 29 December 1914: Gilbert, Churchill, vol. 3, Companion, pt 1, pp. 343–5.
13 All three memoranda are printed in Gilbert, ibid: Hankey, pp. 337–43; Churchill, pp. 347–9; Lloyd George, pp. 350–56. The companion includes the minutes of the War Councils, with the session of 13 January 1915 on pp. 391–6; for Churchill’s reference to the ‘coast game’ see p. 375. On Hankey: his Supreme Command, vol. 1, pp. 244–50; Roskill, Hankey, pp. 149–50. On Lloyd George see his War Memoirs, vol. 1, pp. 219–24, and Grigg, Lloyd George, p. 180, for his visit to the BEF; pp. 195–9 for the memorandum and its aftermath. The search for alternative battle fronts is treated with greater detail than here in Palmer, Victory 1918, pp. 15–17, 318.
14 Blake (ed.), Private Papers, p. 84; Marder, Dreadnought to Scapa Flow, vol. 2, pp 197–8; Thielemans (ed.), Albert 1er, p. 46; Gilbert, Churchill, vol. 3, Companion, pt 1, p. 334; for French to Kitchener on 26 December 1914, pp. 444–6, 469.
15 Lieutenant Neame VC, who served as a lieutenant-general in the Western Desert in 1941, wrote an autobiography, Playing with Strife, after being captured by the Italians. The book narrates an adventurous military career from Flanders and France in one world war to the Apennines in the other.
16 Facsimile in Roynon, op. cit., p. 170.
17 Sir John Keegan (The First World War, p. 209) suggests the German defenders ‘were about one-seventh the strength of their assailants’, but his figures seem to include the BEF’s back-up battalions while limiting the Germans to ‘two infantry regiments and a Jäger battalion’. Sir John’s account of the battle (pp. 208–13) is highly instructive and provides a clear analysis of the ‘functional and structural’ problems that ‘were to bedevil success in trench offensives’.
18 Ibid, pp. 208–13.
19 Oldham, Messines Ridge, pp. 36–7.
20 Ibid, pp. 32, 35.
21 Chaney’s biography of Barrie: Hide and Seek with Angels, pp. 307–9.
22 Cave, Hill 60, ch. 3, has much technical detail on mining operations; pp. 81–92 for April 1915.
23 Roynon, op. cit., pp. 198, 203–4.
24 Cave, Hill 60, pp. 20–31. Cave’s compact study is a masterly, detailed narrative.
25 Ibid, pp. 42–7, with Woolley’s own account.
26 Ibid, pp. 20–24, cites Johnston’s comments from the Bedfordshires’ regimental history.
27 Smith-Dorrien, Forty-Eight Years’ Service, p. 281.
1 Private Alfred Broomfield in Max Arthur, Forgotten Voices of the Great War, p. 77.
2 Ibid, pp. 79–80 (Underwood), and p. 82 (Dorgan). Lieutenant Strange’s report: Strange, Recollections, pp. 111–12; Willson, Ypres, pp. 71–2.
3 Falkenhayn, Die Oberste Heeresleitung, pp. 83–4.
4 Blake (ed.), Private Papers, p. 87. For Dundonald project in Crimean War: Palmer, The Banner of Battle, p. 74.
5 German Pioneer Regiment: Lieutenant Hahn in Macdonald, Voices and Images of the Great War, pp. 81–2.
6 Alan Clark’s The Donkeys, pp. 76–80, gives a succinct account of the battle with emphasis on the role of the Canadian division. For intelligence warnings of gas, see his appendix 2, pp. 190–91, and for the Robertson to and from Smith-Dorrien correspondence his appendix 3, pp. 192–5.
7 The account of the first stage of Second Ypres is based on the official history: Edmonds, Military Operations: France and Belgium, 1915, vol. 1, pp. 251–65. See also the article on Second Ypres by Swinson, pp. 827–37, especially for the dismissal of Smith-Dorrien. Cruttwell’s account (History of the Great War, pp. 152–8) is particularly interesting as he was serving in the Ypres trenches at the time.
8 Edmonds, ibid, pp. 288–9; Cave, Hill 60, pp. 52–5.
9 Cave, ibid, pp. 59–71, prints Greg’s graphic account of the fighting, from the Cheshire Regiment’s history.
10 Edmonds, Military Operations: France and Belgium, 1915, vol. 1, p. 397; see also Clark, The Donkeys, appendix 3.
11 In addition to the references above, Smithers, The Man Who Disobeyed, pp. 252–6.
12 These paragraphs are based on the official history by Edmonds and on Cruttwell’s account but see also Roynon’s Massacre of the Innocents, pp. 238–44 and 354.
13 ‘Into Battle’ is in many anthologies, including Philip Larkin’s 1973 edition of The Oxford Book of Twentieth Century Verse, pp. 226–6.
14 Haig’s diary, 30 April 1915, in Sheffield and Bourne, Douglas Haig, p.110.
15 Edmonds, Military Operations: France and Belgium, 1915, vol. 2, pp. 40–41, on Aubers Ridge.
16 The Times, 14 May 1915, p. 8. For Lloyd George and the problem of munitions, Grigg, Lloyd George, pp. 240, 248–82.
17 Lucy, There’s a Devil in the Drum, cited by Nigel Cave in his comprehensive Sanctuary Wood and Hooge, p. 33.
18 Schofield, Wavell, with the events of 1915 covered on pp. 58–9. See also the diary of Captain Billy Congreve in Fraser and Thornton, The Congreves, p. 269.
19 O’Connor, Airfields and Airmen, pp. 49–51.
20 Cave, Sanctuary Wood and Hooge, p. 52.
21 See the long extract from Pollard, Fire-Eater, cited under that title by Cave, ibid, pp. 32–5.
22 The battalion commander’s report is in Cave, ibid, pp. 66–9.
23 Crofton’s diary for 5 June 1915, Roynon, op. cit., p. 264.
24 Ibid, p. 265.
25 These paragraphs are based primarily on: Holmes, The Little Field Marshal, pp. 300–305; Sheffield and Bourne, op. cit., pp. 149–62; Heinz, Loretto, pp. 163–8, and the analysis by Cruttwell (a participant) in his History of the Great War, pp. 165–9.
26 Brittain, Testament of Youth, pp. 235–43.
27 Macdonald, Voices and Images of the Great War, pp. 116–17.
1 Charteris, At GHQ, p. 116.
2 Holmes, The Little Field Marshal, p. 305.
3 The Times of 2 November 1915 made the dispatch public.
4 Haig’s diary in Sheffield and Bourne (eds), Douglas Haig, pp. 130–31 (14 July), pp. 166–7 (24 October). For the king’s opinions of French and Haig and his influence on the change of command see Rose, King George V, pp. 192–3.
5 Alistair Horne’s classic study The Price of Glory summarizes Falkenhayn’s memorandum, pp. 42–5.
6 Haig’s diary, 26 December 1915, Blake (ed.), The Private Papers, p. 120. Sheffield and Bourne (eds), op. cit., include no diary entries between 14 December and 1 January.
7 For preparations for the Somme see Gilbert, Somme, pp. 11–30.
8 The talks at Dover and with Kitchener are more fully covered in Blake (ed.), op. cit., pp. 132–4 than in Sheffield and Bourne (eds), op. cit., pp. 181–2.
9 Oldham, Messines Ridge, pp. 43–54.
10 Williams, Byng of Vimy, pp. 128–9.
11 D.J. Goodspeed, ‘Prelude to the Somme, Mount Sorrel, June 1916’ in Cross and Bothwell (eds), Policy by Other Means, pp. 147–61.
12 For Churchill in Flanders, Gilbert, Winston S. Churchill, vol. 3, pp. 648–760, supplemented by the companion vol. 3, pt 2, pp. 1278–1502.
13 Holts, Battlefield Guide, p. 190, reproduces Hitler’s painting of the Sunken Road at Croonaert beside a photograph of the same scene today.
14 H. H. Morell recalling The Fancies in Roberts and Pearson (eds), The Wipers Times, p. 333.
15 See The Wipers Times (as above), the complete series of the ‘famous wartime trench newspaper’ repr. 2006 in book form, with intro. by Malcolm Brown and excellent notes by Patrick Beaver.
16 Ibid, p. 5.
17 Blunden, Undertones of War, p. 122. For Eliane Cossey and her sisters see also Holts, op. cit., pp. 164–5 (invaluable for anyone visiting Poperinghe today).
18 Chapman, A Haven in Hell, p. 14. (At Pusey House, Oxford, books and the provision of places to read them stimulated and sustained a meditative Anglo-Catholicism centred on Eucharistic worship.)
19 Ibid, p. 76. Paul Chapman’s book contains many extracts from Clayton’s letters and reminiscences.
20 Putowski and Sykes, Shot at Dawn, pp. 316–42, includes analytical tables listing the executions.
21 Kossmann, The Low Countries, p. 543.
22 Ibid (p. 533) is informative on Cardinal Mercier but, strangely, ignores the popular hero, Burgomaster Max.
23 Thielemans (ed.), Albert Ier: Foch and Gamelin, 20 January 1916, pp. 243–4; Haig and Curzon, 7 February, pp. 248–9; Maglinse, 5 December, p. 294.
24 Ibid, pp. 62, 102, 169, 256.
25 See Albert’s diary entry for 7 February 1916, Thielemans (ed.), op. cit., p. 248. Fischer, Germany’s Aims in the First World War, pp. 216–23, examines the Toerring–Waxweiler conversations.
26 See Thielemans (ed.), op. cit., pp. 266–7, for Albert’s account of Foch’s visit on 11 May.
27 Gilbert, Somme, pp. 23–6; Roskill, Hankey, pp. 266 and 268; Palmer, Victory 1918, p. 62.
28 Sheffield and Bourne (eds), op. cit., p. 188.
29 Cassar, Kitchener, pp. 476–80; for ‘pained hush’ see Daily Mirror, 7 June 1916, p. 5.
30 The following paragraphs are based on: Gilbert, Somme; Middlebrook, First Day on the Somme; Terraine, The Smoke and the Fire; Prior and Wilson, The Somme; Edmonds, Military Operations: France and Belgium, 1916.
31 Cruttwell, A History of the Great War, p. 277; Griffith, Battle Tactics of the Western Front, passim.
32 NA PRO CAB 42/24/13, Minutes of the War Committee, 20 November 1916, cited by D. French, The Strategy of the Lloyd George Coalition, p. 51.
1 Gilbert, Somme, pp. 244–5.
2 For the infighting that brought down Joffre see Dutton, ‘The Fall of General Joffre’, pp. 338–51.
3 Hankey’s diary, 15 January 1917: Roskill, Hankey, p. 361.
4 Sheffield and Bourne (eds), Douglas Haig, p. 259. Replacement of Asquith by Lloyd George: Grigg, Lloyd George, pp. 435–74; Jenkins, Asquith, pp. 479–519; Hankey, Supreme Command, vol. 2, pp. 553–70.
5 For the Rome conference: Roskill, Hankey, pp. 350–52; Robertson, Soldiers and Statesmen, vol. 2, pp. 135–7; Bonham-Carter, Soldier True, pp. 200–203; Lloyd George, War Memoirs, vol. 2, pp. 838–50. Milner’s Russian mission: Wrench, Alfred, Lord Milner, pp. 322–6. For Salonika: Palmer, The Gardeners of Salonika, pp. 108–31, supplemented by Nicol, Uncle George, pp. 118–20. Palmer, Victory 1918, pp. 16–284, recounts Lloyd George’s Italian, Balkan and Middle Eastern alternatives in detail.
6 D. French, Strategy of the Lloyd George Coalition, is an excellent study, in particular see pp. 53–61.
7 Blake (ed.), Private Papers, p. 184. Blake’s treatment of these critical months is more detailed than that of Sheffield and Bourne.
8 Blake (ed.), op. cit., pp. 193–4.
9 See Wiest, Passchendaele and the Royal Navy, summarized by Wiest in his chapter ‘The Planned Amphibious Assault’ in Liddle (ed.), Passchendaele in Perspective, pp. 201–14.
10 The fullest treatment of the Calais conference is in Blake (ed.), op. cit., pp. 198–212; see also Rose, King George V, pp. 200–203, and D. French, Strategy of the Lloyd George Coalition, pp. 56–7.
11 Woodward, Lloyd George and the Generals, pp. 150–51; D. French, ibid, p. 59.
12 Terraine, Douglas Haig, p. 336.
13 Sylvester in Arthur, Forgotten Voices of the Great War, p. 206; see also testimony of Private Haine of the HAC, p. 202. ‘Web-feet’, The B.E.F. Times, 5 March 1917, in Roberts and Pearson (eds), The Wipers Times, p. 171.
14 Kielmansegg, Deutschland und der Erste Weltkrieg, pp. 508–12; Heinz Hagenbücke, ‘The German High Command’ in Liddle (ed.), op. cit., pp. 45–56; Peter Oldham, The Hindenburg Line.
15 Thurlow’s The Pill Boxes of Flanders, though essentially an early guide book, provides a detailed study of German bunkers and fortifications as well as of British blockhouses.
16 Morton and Granarstein, Marching to Armageddon, passim.
17 Wynne, If Germany Attacks, pp. 166–84.
18 Spears, Prelude to Victory, pp. 489–509, gives a characteristically vivid account of the battle.
19 Watt, Dare Call It Treason, pp. 175–213.
20 F. E. Vandiver in Liddle (ed.), op. cit., p. 33; Blake (ed.), op. cit., p. 229.
21 Oldham, Messines Ridge, p. 86. For full treatment of Messines, Passingham, Pillars of Fire. For good contemporary reports see The Times, 8 and 9 June 1917.
22 Harrington, Plumer of Messines, p. 104. Haig at Cassel: Blake (ed.), op. cit., p. 236. In fairness to Haig, it should be added that he was in Cassel for a meeting with Pétain. This was the occasion when he heard of the mutinous state of the French army.
23 Fr van Walleghem’s account is in Macdonald, Voices and Images of the Great War, p. 214.
24 Liddle (ed.), op. cit., p. 482, and Prior and Wilson, Passchendaele, passim.
25 Blake, op. cit., pp. 236 and 239.
26 Callwell, Sir Henry Wilson, vol. 1, p. 359.
27 J. Bruce and K. Kelly, ‘The Royal Flying Corps and the Struggle for Supremacy in the Air over the Salient’ in Liddle (ed.), op. cit., pp. 159–73. For a full account of air operations in 1917 see Jones, The War in the Air.
28 B. Green (ed.), Wisden Anthology, 1900–1940 (London, 1980), pp. 436–8, 488–91. Quotations are from Wisden’s report of the match and obituary of Blythe.
29 Blake (ed.), op. cit., p. 246. Terraine, The Road to Passchendaele is a useful source book for all aspects of Third Ypres, accompanied by trenchant judgements.
1 My narrative of the battles is based largely on: the official history (Edmonds, Military Operations, France and Belgium, 1917, vol. 2, especially pp. 130–233 and 250–98); Wolf, In Flanders Fields, pp. 113–31, 143–56; Macdonald, They Called it Passchendaele; the several contributions to Liddle (ed.), Passchendaele in Perspective; Prior and Wilson, Passchendaele; Warner, Passchendaele.
2 Blake, The Private Papers, p. 248.
3 Ibid, p. 249.
4 Brown, The Imperial War Museum Book of the Western Front, p. 252.
5 A facsimile of Chapman’s diary entry is reproduced in Liddle, op. cit., p. 427. For Haig’s diary comments, Blake, op. cit., p. 250; for Crown Prince Rupprecht, Mein Kriegstagebuch, vol. 2, p. 232. The stretcher-bearer photograph was taken by J. W. Brooke: see Carmichael, First World War Photographers, p. 64.
6 Sheffield and Bourne, Douglas Haig, p. 313. Arthur, Forgotten Voices, pp. 218–46, includes graphic accounts of the horrors of death in the mud by men who never expected to survive the ordeal.
7 The planning and preparations for the landing are fully examined in Wiest’s invaluable Passchendaele and the Royal Navy and summarized in his chapter in Liddle (ed.), Passchendaele in Perspective, pp. 201–10.
8 Edmonds, Military Operations, France and Belgium, 1917, vol. 2, pp. 189–90.
9 See the division histories cited by John Lee in Liddle (ed.), op. cit., p. 218, including Inglefield, History of the 20th (Light) Division, from which the quotation is taken.
10 Halpern, A Naval History of World War I, pp. 408–10.
11 Vaughan, Some Desperate Glory, p. 230; Vaughan’s book is a tragic minor classic.
12 D. French, The Strategy of the Lloyd George Coalition, pp. 137–40. For the course of events in Italy and the influence of ‘sideshows’ on Lloyd George see Palmer, Victory 1918, pp. 119–46.
13 Terraine, The Road to Passchendaele, p. 339. The incident was told by Edmonds to Liddell Hart in 1927.
14 Sheffield and Bourne, Douglas Haig, p. 362.
15 Rupprecht, Mein Kriegstagebuch, vol. 2, p. 260.
16 Liddle (ed.), Passchendaele in Perspective, pp. 52, 53, 228, 233, 235.
17 Ibid, pp. 295, 299.
18 Stand-by order to Rawlinson: ibid, p. 209. Polygon Wood and Broodseinde: ibid, pp. 53, 107–8, 235, 278–82.
19 Ibid, p. 281.
20 Sheffield and Bourne, op. cit., p. 335.
21 See the account by Private Vincent of the 2nd Australian Division in Liddle (ed.), op. cit., p. 240.
22 Rupprecht, Mein Kriesgstagebuch, vol. 2, p. 271.
23 Wiest in Liddle (ed.), op. cit., p. 210, citing WO/158/239 NA/PRO.
24 For Canadian Corps and Second Passchendaele in general see Liddle (ed.), op. cit., pp. 244, 258–9, supplemented by Cave, Passchendaele, passim.
25 On the dispute, Liddle (ed.), op. cit., pp. 486–8.
26 Terraine, Road to Passchendaele, pp. 336–47.
1 Falls, Caporetto, pp. 31–62, 76–108.
2 Hankey, Supreme Command, vol. 2, pp. 719–26; D. French, Strategy of the Lloyd George Coalition, pp. 162–6.
3 Samuel letter in Brown, Western Front, p. 278. For the tanks see Cooper, Ironclads of Cambrai.
4 D. French, Strategy . . . Lloyd George, pp. 164–8.
5 Gilmour, Curzon, p. 495; Shepherd and Bourne, Douglas Haig, p. 370.
6 Hankey, op. cit., vol. 2, pp. 756–60; Roskill, Hankey, p. 485.
7 Passingham, All the Kaiser’s Men, pp. 179–80; Keegan, First World War, pp. 422–3.
8 D. French, Strategy . . . Lloyd George, pp. 219–21.
9 Blake (ed.), Private Papers, p. 291.
10 Cruttwell, History of the Great War, pp. 501–3. Cruttwell’s summary of the ensuing battle remains superb.
11 D.J. Polley papers in the Imperial War Museum, cited in Johnson, 1918, p. 43. For these events see also Terraine, To Win a War, pp. 59–64, and Middlebrook, The Kaiser’s Battle.
12 Sulzbach, With the German Guns, p. 150.
13 Görlitz (ed.), The Kaiser and his Court, pp. 343–5.
14 Blake (ed.), op. cit., p. 298; Foch, Memoirs, p. 300.
15 Palmer, Victory 1918, pp. 170, 174, 177.
16 Keegan, op. cit., p. 434.
17 See the diary of Captain Dartford, a member of the British military mission to the Portuguese, cited in Brown, Western Front, pp. 304–5.
18 Hammerson (ed.), No Easy Hopes or Lies, p. 251
19 Cruttwell, op. cit., pp. 514–20
20 Sheffield and Bourne, Douglas Haig, p. 399–400.
21 Churchill, World Crisis, vol. 2, p. 1302, includes a facsimile of Haig’s original draft.
22 Lieutenant-Colonel Murray’s letter in Brown, Western Front, p. 307. For the Hampshires see Freyberg, Bernard Freyberg VC, pp. 128–9.
23 Cruttwell, op. cit., p. 521.
24 Keyes, Naval Memoirs, vol. 1, pp. 249–56. The best account of the Zeebrugge Raid is in Pitt, Zeebrugge.
25 Palmer, Victory 1918, traces the course of these sideshows during 1918 in chs 12, 14, 15 and 17.
26 Terraine, To Win a War, pp. 70–73; Cruttwell, op. cit., pp. 524–7.
27 Lieutenant-Colonel Murray in Brown, Western Front, p. 327. In general, Palmer, Victory 1918, pp. 204–5 and Terraine, To Win a War, pp. 110–15.
28 Jeffrey, Military Correspondence . . . Wilson, p. 56; Blake (ed.), op. cit., pp. 323–4.
29 Kossmann, The Low Countries, p. 544.
30 Palmer, Victory 1918, pp. 211–12, with fuller account in Terraine, To Win a War, p. 167.
31 Thielemans (ed.), Albert Ier, p. 498.
32 Wheeler-Bennett, Hindenburg, pp. 164–9, for events in Spa and Berlin, with the letter printed on pp. 166–7. This paragraph simplifies complex political problems analysed more fully in Palmer, Victory 1918, chs 13 and 18.
33 As well as the books cited above, on the American position see MacMillan’s stimulating Peacemakers, pp. 21–8.
34 Sulzbach, op. cit., p. 237.
35 Dartford’s diary entry (1 November) in Brown, Western Front, p. 342.
1 Sulzbach, With the German Guns, pp. 250–54.
2 Wheeler-Bennett, King George VI, pp. 118–19, includes an extract from Prince Albert’s report to his father. For King Albert’s speech of 22 November: Kossmann, The Low Countries, p. 561; Thielemans, Albert Ier, p. 165. Kossmann’s work provides the most detailed history of Belgium in English.
3 Roberts and Pearson (eds), The Wipers Times, ‘Horrors of Peace’, p. 326; editorial, p. 319.
4 The fullest account of post-war Ypres’s problems is in Dendooven, Menin Gate and the Last Post. Beckles Willson publicized his views in his Ypres: The Holy Ground of British Arms, published as soon as he was demobilized. See also Beckett’s Ypres, pp. 181–4, and Marc Derez’s invaluable ‘A Belgian Salient for Reconstruction’ in Liddle (ed.), Passchendaele in Perspective, pp. 448–5.
5 Jacky Platteeuw’s photographic record, The Great War in Ypres, pp. 74, 78 and 79, shows the use made of both Nissen huts and the Albert Houses.
6 De Standaard, 9 July 1919, cited by Marc Derez in Liddle (ed.), op. cit., p. 446.
7 The Times, 25 July 1927; for background, Dendooven, op. cit., pp. 12–36, 40–53, 88–90.
8 ‘On Passing the New Menin Gate’, R. Hart-Davies (ed.), Siegfried Sassoon: The War Poems, p. 153. For ‘cemeteries and poppies’, see Gunner Harold Coulter’s postcard, cited by Brown in his Western Front, p. 347.
9 Major T. and Mrs V. Holt’s Battlefield Guide to the Ypres Salient is a compendium rich in details of war graves and memorials. An ingenious four-colour map to help locate them accompanies the guidebook.
10 Marc Derez in Liddle (ed.), op. cit., p. 451.
11 Holt, op. cit.: Langemarck, pp. 136–9; Vladslo, pp. 231–4.
12 See the illustrations in Platteeuw, op. cit., pp. 112–13.
13 MacMillan, Peacemakers, p. 285.
14 Danchev and Todman (eds), War Diaries, p. 61; Hamilton, Monty, vol. 1, p. 340. After the Second World War, van Overstraeten wrote a 750-page defence of his policies, Albert I-Leopold III.
15 Visscher and Vanlangenhove, Documents diplomatiques beiges, vol. 4, pp. 323–5.
1 Alexander, The Republic in Danger, and Horne, To Lose a Battle, pp. 149–52, 154, 157.
2 Hamilton, Monty, vol. 1, pp. 117–221 and 190; Danchev and Todman (eds), War Diaries, pp. 7 and 14.
3 In addition to Horne’s To Lose a Battle, pp. 172–201, see Field Marshal Lord Carver’s study of Manstein in Barnett, Hitler’s Generals, pp. 221–44.
4 For the Mechelen episode and its consequences: Vanwelkenhuyzen, ‘L’Alerte du 10 janvier 1940’, pp. 33–54.
5 Danchev and Tolman (eds), op. cit., pp. 30–31. For German invasion, Horne, To Lose a Battle, pp. 247–75.
6 Guderian, Panzer Leader, pp. 98–113, remains the best account of the panzer lightning war.
7 Weygand, Mémoires, pp. 79–80.
8 Ibid, pp. 80–81.
9 Ibid, pp. 95–6.
10 The main participants’ versions of the Ypres conference are given at length in Overstraeten, Albert I-Leopold III, pp. 642–63, and more succinctly in Weygand, ibid, pp. 98–101. For the British background see Churchill, The Second World War, vol. 2, pp. 51–65.
11 Overstraeten, op. cit., pp. 663 and 670.
12 Danchev and Tolman (eds), op. cit., pp. 67–73, are invaluable for the events of this momentous week.
13 General Montgomery’s diary, quoted by Hamilton, Monty, vol. 1, p 356, another major source.
14 Churchill entitled his chapter on the evacuation ‘The Deliverance of Dunkirk’, in The Second World War, vol. 2, pp. 87–104. For a judicious reassessment, see Harman, Dunkirk.
15 Kershaw, Hitler: Nemesis, p. 299, and n. 98 on p. 922. The dates of the visits are uncertain: 4 June and 27 June seem probable. The Holts in their Battlefield Guide use local sources to give 1 June for the first visit but, allowing for the complexity of the battle on that day, this seems to me too early. The Holts also reproduce a photograph, p. 139, of Hitler leaving Langemarck cemetery.
16 Chapman, A Haven in Hell, p. 121.
17 David Rennie in the Daily Telegraph, 21 August 2006, p. 16, with editorial comment p. 23.
18 Holt, op. cit., pp. 245–8.