All of the accounts are written by ordinary soldiers, or at most, company commanders.  This is interesting since the book as a whole gives the reader a glimpse as to what it was like in the trenches.  Too often these personal histories are written by commanders; these are of course interesting and valuable, but end up giving a detached feel.  This book is written from the sharp end, and includes front-line accounts of forward artillery observers, ordinary infantrymen, a halftrack crewman, and flak troops.

The book also does a good job of capturing how desperate the Germans were at the end.  Some histories are stories of "holding out to the end" while others are harrowing escapes or desperate retreats.  It is very interesting to note some commonalties throughout the book.  Even though the writers were in unique situations, they all had some common goals: food and sleep.  These two issues were present in each account and in themselves tell a tale of a beaten, tired, and hungry army.

This is a very interesting book, and is well worth the read if you are interested in personal accounts of the war.  Each chapter is a different account, and typically covers a specific battle or activity.  They are relatively short and easy to read.  As with all edited collections, some are better than others.  The fact that the writers are not native English speakers comes through in some more than others, but as a whole, Le Tissier has done a decent job editing.  Again, as with all edited collections, some of the accounts are more interesting than others as well, but the book is not as uneven as some other collections I've read.

The two things I think could help the book would be to include a better "editor's introduction" to each chapter, and for the editor to annotate the accounts in a more meaningful way.  First, There are short "wrap-ups" by the editor after each chapter, but a stronger introduction to each account would be better: addressing the overall tactical situation of the two sides; a glimpse into what the author doing at the time or what was the author's unit doing; etc.  In short, not much context is given regarding each chapter.  Secondly, although Le Tissier includes a couple of footnotes for each chapter to explain certain things like weapons or historical tidbits, this could have been done to a much greater extent.  One important addition would have been to annotate unit identifications for both sides.

In a nutshell: A neat way to look at the very end of the war.

Email me with comments at michael.licari@uni.edu

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