SUPREME SACRIFICE: A Small Village And The Great War

From the Prologue: 'These men were, as Shakespeare had put it, 'but warriors for the working day'. Much can be learned from them: not least we learn the awfulness of war. They never questioned the rightness of what they were doing. Some of them were unfortunate in their backgrounds. They might have resented what they were being asked to do. All of them, certainly, were asked to do more than any man should be. But British soldiers, unlike the armies of their allies, never broke collectively: there were no mutinies.' This is the story of 72 men from one village who fought and died in the Great War. They were awarded very few medals, and their military careers were unremarkable, except in the respect that they, like countless other civilians, answered their country's call in its time of need. The war was not won by the professional soldiers of the original British Expeditionary Force, superlatively professional as it was, because by the end of 1915 it no longer existed, its place first taken by volunteers and then by conscripts. The book traces the lives of these sons of Bridge of Weir, not just as soldiers, sailors and airmen, but as members of a small community which felt their loss intensely. At the same time it is also the story of the politicians and generals who planned the war and how it played out over four horrific years. The men from Bridge of Weir fought on the Western Front, Gallipoli, Mesopotamia, Palestine, Salonika, the Italian Front and East Africa, in the Mercantile Marine, the RAF, and Canadian and ANZAC Forces as well as the British Army and Royal Navy. With the larger picture, the stories of the 72 men, the third intention of the book is to tell the story of the war, why it was fought, how it was fought and why it was fought in that way. A unique and poignant picture of the First World War. 259pp, paperback. Archive photos, two maps and a diagram of army structure and strength and the order in which the men died by name, rank, regiment, date of death, age and place.