‘Sensitive and thought-provoking … As this compelling and well-researched book shows, the battlefield was not a place for heroes, but a place where young men were dehumanised and killed … Given such conditions who among us would not also have considered walking away?’ Sunday Telegraph‘[These] stories of individual human beings who eventually cracked under the strain of hardly imaginable fear and misery – are wonderful, unforgettable acts of witness, something salvaged from a time already sinking into the black mud of the past’ Guardian‘Gripping … painstaking … sympathetic … Glass reveals just how inglorious war really is’ The Times‘Charles Glass gives us something rare – he describes war, it’s foulness and demonic chaos, not from the heroes’ point of view but from a human point of view … A valuable work’ Evening Standard‘Remarkable’ Sunday Times‘With his own skill and sensitivity, Glass recreates the inhuman scenes that pummel the other soldiers he examines … Glass displays an unusual degree of empathy and kinship with these men … refreshing and stimulating – history told from the loser’s perspective. 5*’ Nicholas Shakespeare, Daily Telegraph‘Glass’s humane and groundbreaking history brings these untold, often tragic stories to light’ Sunday Telegraph‘An important and refreshing book, shedding light on a subject that deserves attention … deepens our understanding of the realities of modern warfare and is a welcome challenge to the unquestioning hagiography of “The Greatest Generation”’ Times Literary Supplement‘This is a world of frustrated and degrading brutality, racism and moral stupidity, of opportunistic greed, corruption, fear, mental disintegration and crime … the more familiar narratives of war seem uplifting in contrast … if Glass makes little attempt at neutrality few readers will mind that … If you have tears, prepare to shed them now’ David Crane, Spectator
