The Last of the Ebb: The Battle of the Aisne, 1918: Amazon.co.uk: Sidney Rogerson, Malcolm Brown: Books

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Review

Rogerson opens what is new ground to most English readers and gives a graphic account of the tragic involvement of five British divisions in the disaster on the Chemin des Dames of the French Sixth army under General Duchere in May 1918 --The Times

A first-hand account of one of the war s last and most fateful battles. Mr Rogerson * * that stay on own colour, wit and thrilling immediacy. --Observer

This is no nostalgic reminiscence; it is as vivid and actual as though it had all happened yesterday. There is much that is heroic in this book, much that is terrible but Mr Rogerson proves the tenor of his beautifully objective narrative without attempting either to scale the heights or plumb unutterable depths. This is the way war books shall be written, as an almost, but not quite, bald account of an eyewitness actively engaged in doing a jonb and without time to indulfe his emotions. The danger is, of course, that sentimentality may creep in, and facts become distorted but mr Rogerson never lets sentimentality blur his clear outlines of the events, which he jotted down soon after their occurence. Like his own, Twelve Days, it is among the best war books that have appeared --The Spectacle

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In 1918, the Germans launched the Spring Offensive. Aware that American troops would soon be arriving in Europe, the Germans saw this as their last chance to win the war. If they could overcome the Allied armies and reach Paris, victory might be possible. The German offensive was initially a great success. Striking at the Allied line's strongest point, the Chemin des Dames, they burst their way through and made quick progress towards Marne. However, the advance eventually stalled. With supply shortages and lack of reserves, this was to be the last ebb of the German war effort. Sidney Rogerson, a young officer in the West Yorkshire Regiment, describes the experiences of his battalion from the Aisne through to the Marne. Fighting under French command, the West Yorkshires were inadequately supported by artillery and practically without help from the air. The four tired divisions were forced to fight and run twenty-seven miles across wooded downlands and three rivers surviving on only emergency rations. In The Last of the Ebb, the author vividly conveys the great bravery and extraordinary resilience of the West Yorkshires, who were able to face up to the terrible ordeal of such a battle without loss of morale. Remarkably for a book of this period, an account by Major-General A. D. von Unruh, which gives the German perspective of the offensive, has been included. Sidney Rogerson was commissioned straight from Cambridge University Officers Training Corps into the West Yorkshire Regiment. After the First World War, he worked for the War Office, at the personal request of Winston Churchill. The author of six books, including Twelve Days on the Somme. He died in 1968. Malcolm Brown is a freelance historian at the Imperial War Museum.

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