![]() ![]() Sheer nonsense that ignores what the Germans and French Armies - the main fighting forces during the huge Battle of the Frontiers and the Battle of the Marne - were doing in favour of nationalistic breast-beating myths. This is especially the case early in the war where we have the legend of the 'Old Contemptibles' of the BEF on the Western Front in 1914. Popular histories often merely regurgitate myths based on wishful thinking and wartime propaganda. This is greatly helped by using carefully sieved personal experience accounts to bring the mingled drama, horrors and dark humour of the battlefield home to the reader. It is not so much that anything new can be said - it is that ideas and concepts hitherto largely the province of historians and academics can be presented to a wider audience in a manner which is readable and entertaining. ![]() How far do you feel that anything new can be said about the First World War? In this book you look at some of the myths that have grown up around the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) in 1914. ![]() His latest book is Fire and Movement, which takes a fresh look at the British Expeditionary Force in August 1914. He has written a number of books about various aspects of the First World War, including Gallipoli and aerial warfare. Peter Hart has been Oral Historian at the Imperial War Museum since 1981. ![]()
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