“The experience of combat was never more horrific than on the Western Front, come to life in this notable addition to the literature of war.” —Washington Examiner Founded in August 1914 with the principle that recruiting would be restricted to public school old boys, the volunteers gathered at Hurst Park racecourse in a spirit of youthful enthusiasm. A more somber mood soon set in. Despite many of the original volunteers leaving to take commissions in other regiments, the battalion, now officially the 7th Middlesex, remained an elite until its disbandment in 1917. The climax of the Battalions war came on 1 July 1916. Close to the Hawthorn Redoubt Crater are two cemeteries sited on either side of the Auchonvilliers Beaumont Hamel road. They contain row upon row of stones marking the graves of members of the Public Schools Battalion. The author, shocked by this discovery, has spent ten years researching the history of the Battalion and the events of that fateful day as they affected it. The result is a fascinating and moving record of a very uniquely British battalion. “It is eminently readable, and the personal reminiscences of those who were there add a great deal to its appeal. My main interest and fascination with the Great War is to do with the experiences of those who fought, and this book gives a great insight into that. Steve Hurst wanted to tell the story of the men who were there; he has done it very well.” —World War One Battlefields

In this pioneering and original book, Anthony Seldon and David Walsh study the impact that the public schools had on the conduct of the Great War, and vice versa. Drawing on fresh evidence from 200 leading public schools and other archives, they challenge the conventional wisdom that it was the public school ethos that caused needless suffering on the Western Front and elsewhere. They distinguish between the younger front-line officers with recent school experience and the older 'top brass' whose mental outlook was shaped more by military background than by memories of school.??The Authors argue that, in general, the young officers' public school education imbued them with idealism, stoicism and a sense of service. While this helped them care selflessly for the men under their command in conditions of extreme danger, it resulted in their death rate being nearly twice the national average.??This poignant and thought-provoking work covers not just those who made the final sacrifice, but also those who returned, and?whose lives were shattered as a result of their physical and psychological wounds. It contains a wealth of unpublished detail about public school life before and during the War, and how these establishments and the country at large coped with the devastating loss of so many of the brightest and best. Seldon and Walsh conclude that, 100 years on, public school values and character training, far from being concepts to be mocked, remain relevant and that the present generation would benefit from studying them and the example of their predecessors.??Those who read Public Schools and the Great War will have their prevailing assumptions about the role and image of public schools, as popularised in Blackadder, challenged and perhaps changed.

The Colcestrian in the years of the Great War, reproduced here in this book, both revealed the challenges which faced the school of the time and captured the very special quality that still characterises CRGS today. The bouleversement caused by war created an extraordinary backdrop to school life, and the insights given into the preoccupations of the time are truly fascinating.

The 'Die-Hards' is the nickname of the Middlesex Regiment, earned at the battle of Albuera in the Peninsular War in May 1811. The Regiment was one of five that had four regular battalions before the outbreak of war, it also had two Special Reserve battalions (5th and 6th) and four Territorial battalions, 7th to 10th. During the course of the war another thirty-nine battalions were formed making the Regiment the second largest along with the King's (Liverpool), though not all battalions survived to the end of the war; twenty-four of them went abroad, serving on the Western Front, Gallipoli, Italy, Macedonia, Mesopotamia, India, Egypt, Palestine, Gibraltar and Siberia. Losses amounted to 12,720, 81 Battle Honours and 5 VCs were awarded. The Middlesex were in it right from the start, the first soldier of the BEF to be killed was L/Cpl Parr, 4th Middlesex, on 21 August 1914, and the first officer to be killed was from the same battalion - Major W.H Abell, at Mons on 23 August. This is not a history that deals with each battalion independently, there are too many of them. The narrative describes the fortunes of the twenty-four active service battalions (with very good maps) in the various theatres of war, though mainly on the Western Front, and on every page there is, in the margin the date of the action or event being described and the battalion or battalions involved. The first volume covers 1914 to the end of 1916, and the second takes up the story from the beginning of 1917 to the armistice, including a chapter on operations in Siberia and Murmansk involving the 25th Battalion which didn't get home till September 1919. Speaking of his battalion [25th] the CO said: "One and all behaved like Englishmen - the highest eulogy that can be passed upon the conduct of men." Sentiments like that expressed today would almost get you clapped in irons! There is no Roll of Honour nor list of Honours and Awards. There is a very useful appendix listing all the active service battalions with the brigades and divisions to which they were allocated with any subsequent changes, and the theatres in which they served.