Liaison 1914 by Edward Spears

[Leman]

Liaison 1914 - a narrative of the Great Retreat, by Edward Spears (Liaison officer attached to the French Army)

Saw this in the Naval and Military Press summer sale (on until Aug.29th) at £3.99, so thought I'd take a punt. Postage puts it to still less than £8, but for a 500+ page hardback, RRP £30, written by someone who was actually there it seems like a reasonable buy. Should get it by Monday or Tuesday, so will report back in enough time for others to decide if they also want to have a look.

[Leman]

OK, started reading this with a few days of the sale left. First impressions:

It is very readable; nothing dry or dusty about chapter I and it presents an interesting take on how the approach of war was viewed in France in July and the first few days of August 1914.

A quick flick through revealed a plentiful number of clear maps showing the movement of troops, plus the key battles of Guise and the Marne.

A striking, though anomalous, cover showing a portrait of Edward Spears backed by a colour photo of two poilus, in horizon bleu and Adrian helmets, making their way through barbed wire bedecked trenches. A little odd, as the book is quite specifically about July to September 1914. Clearly the jacket designer has no grasp of changes in French army uniform or the nature of the war between its opening and mid-1915.

A good selection of black and white illustrations and photographs grouped in the middle of the book. One is a reproduction of a page given to French soldiers at the start of the war so that they could differentiate between British, Belgian, German and Austro-Hungarian troops. However there is again one anomalous photograph showing a group of French cavalry charging towards the cameraman: they are wearing horizon bleu uniforms and Adrian helmets.

There are no fewer than 36 appendices at the back of the book covering various orders, orders of battle, diary entries etc.

This is a reproduction of the 1968 revised version of the book with extra information gleaned by the author which was unavailable to him in 1930 when the book was first published. The main text runs to 469 pages.

Overall I think I have managed to get a bargain at £3.99 plus p and p. It was very well packaged and arrived about three days after ordering.