Beneath Flanders Fields

by Barton, Peter; Doyle, Peter; Vandewalle, Johan; Morton, Desmond

• ISBN13: 9780773529496
• ISBN10: 0773529497
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2005-08-01
• Publisher: McGill Queens Univ Pr

Summary

"The product of over twenty-five years of research, Beneath Flanders Fields illustrates the evolution of military mining, leading to its deployment in the greatest siege in military history - in the trenches of the Western Front." "In the words of the tunnellers themselves, and through previously unpublished photographs - many in colour - as well as contemporary plans and drawings, this book reveals how this most intense of battles was fought - and won. Few on the surface knew the horrific details of the tunnellers' work, yet this silent, claustrophobic conflict was a barbaric struggle that raged day and night for almost two and a half years, and one which generated mental and physical stresses often far beyond those suffered by the infantry in the trenches. On 7 June 1917 at Messines Ridge, the tension was broken with the opening of the most dramatic mine offensive in history."--BOOK JACKET.

Author Biography

Desmond Morton is Hiram Mills Professor of History, McGill University.

Table of Contents

Flanders fields : the Ypres Salient	p. 13
From seige war to world war	p. 27
Sappers and miners	p. 40
Mine warfare, tunnellers and pioniere, 1915	p. 53
Kriegsgeologie : going underground	p. 71
The silent war	p. 97
Enemies below	p. 125
The mine war deepens, 1915-1917	p. 142
'Earthquaking' the ridge : Messines, June 1917	p. 162
Mountains in the sky : Messines and after	p. 184
'A hole in the ground with a lid on'	p. 202
Degrees of protection, 1917-1918	p. 224
Back to the front : the legacy	p. 264
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