Somme Mud

Somme Mud

'The conditions are almost unbelievable. We live in a world of Somme mud. We sleep in it, work in it, fight in it, wade in it and many of us die in it. We see it, feel it, eat it and curse it, but we can't escape it, not even by dying.'

Edward Lynch was only eighteen when he set off from his home in Bathurst, NSW to fight in the First World War. This is his story.

Lynch's powerfully evocative style recalls the horror of the trenches and the human waste of the battlefields. Like so many Australian soldiers, he had little idea of the horrors that would await him. Somme Mud is his vivid account of the realities of trench warfare from an ordinary infantryman's point of view.

"We stand and shiver through the wretchedly cold, drizzling rain for half the night. Half dopey from lack of sleep… Suddenly the stillness of the night is broken by a whispered 'stand to'… Covers are violently torn off rifles… three Lewis guns away up on the right are pouring burst after burst across no-man's land."

Bringing alive the traumatised soldiers and ravaged landscapes; the hatred, empathy, admiration, disillusionment and camaraderie, this incredible insight into the language and attitudes of early twentieth-century Australia is also a story of humanity and mateship.

Filled with archival photographs, a full glossary and editor Will Davies' explanatory chapter introductions, Somme Mud is both an illuminating text for students, and a memoir of one man's experience of the horror of war.

"I state something which, after 45 years of learning about the men of the First AIF, I never expected to say: this book compares with All Quiet on the Western Front" - Bill Gammage.

Will Davies is a historian, writer and filmmaker. Somme Mud: the war experiences of an Australian infantryman in France 1916-1919 which he edited, has become a bestseller in Australia and the UK and will soon be published in The Neverlands. In the Footsteps of Private Lynch has also been published to acclaim in Australia and the UK.

Somme Mud
Random House Australia
Author:
ISBN: 9781741668940
Price: $18.95