The British Army in World War I (1): The Western Front ...

Mike Chappell comes from an Aldershot family with British Army connections stretching back several generations. He enlisted as a teenage private in the Royal Hampshire Regiment in 1952. Over the next 22 years of infantry soldiering, many of them spent with the Gloucester Regiment, he held every rank and many regimental appointments up to WO1 and Regimental Sergeant Major. he retired in 1974, as RSM of the 1st Battalion The Wessex Regiment (Rifle Volunteers), after seeing service in Malaya, Cyprus, Swaziland, Libya, Germany, Ulster and home garrisons. He began painting military subjects in 1968 and since then has gained worldwide popularity as a military illustrator. Mike has written and illustrated many quality books for Osprey.At the outbreak of World War I in August 1914 the British Army was unique: it was a small force raised entirely by voluntary recruitment. The first campaigns of the British Expeditionary Force brought admiration from the enemy, but by the end of 1914 it had been virtually eliminated. Kitchener's call for new volunteers drew such a patriotic response that by mid-1916 the BEF had grown to 55 divisions. This book explains and llustrates the uniform, equipment and organization of the British Army up to the end of the battle of the Somme.