On the heels of Jon Cooksey's excellent photo album of the 1/5th Yorkshire and Lancaster in 1915, Images of war: Flanders 1915, Pen & Sword brings us another collection of photographs from the First World War.
This time, we switch sides and are taken to 1918 and the German spring offensive. The collection - which must be well above 200 shots - covers a broad range of subjects, from St Quentin to the Lys and down to the Champagne. There are stormtroopers going into action, tanks, supply columns, artillery, casualties, British POWs and many other scenes evocative of the period. The collection is made up into sensible chapters, each beginning with a short text introduction and with a few maps added in order to make sense of the geography of the actions. Inevitably, the collection is not as human and intimate as Cooksey's work. That was essentially a family album, following the fortunes of a relatively small collection of men in their early experience of training and war. This is much more a panorama, in which we get a sense of scope and scale, but not of the men in feldgrau as they go in with great hopes and ultimately fail in their purpose. Each photo carries a caption, but very few individuals are identified.
I found it curious that there are absolutely no references to where these photos came from. "Wartime archives" is the nearest description. But what and where? Some of the images have been reproduced before (some many times) but most were new to me. References would have been valuable and the work suffers for it. But many readers will be more than satisfied with an absorbing album, nicely produced and at a reasonable price.
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