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The Final Days 1918 27th September - 6th November

$29.95

VCs of the First World War

Author - Gerald Gliddon
Published in 2000 (1st Edition) by Sutton Publishing, UK
Hardcover, 218 Pages
Size - 25.5cm * 18cm

Towards the end of September I918 the Allied Armies were poised to seize the Hindenburg Line - the end of the war on the Western Front was at last in sight. These final days became a series of battles to capture a number of river lines: as each one was captured by the Allies, the German Army fell back to the next. Despite stiff resistance from the enemy the British First and Third Armies managed to advance six miles during the Battle of the Canal du Nord on 27 September 1918 in which seven VCs were won. This success prepared the ground for the eventual capture of Cambrai. St. Quentin Canal and the Beaurevoir Line - a substantial enemy support system - were taken a few days later.

Cambrai, Flanders, Courtrai, Lille and Ostend all fell within the next two weeks. To the south, on 17 October, the Fourth Army began the eight-day Battle of the Selle in which they took the town of Valenciennes and advanced a further six miles. To the north, Allied progress was achieved at considerable cost with the British Fifth and Second Armies suffering 120,000 casualties after the fall of the Hindenburg Line. Unable to stem the inexorable advance of the Allies, the Germans were now utterly demoralised and about a quarter of their Army surrendered.

By the beginning of November the Allied Armies had closed in until they were flanking the Forest of Mormal, surrounding the enemy. On 11 November the Canadian Corps retook Mons and, after the signing of the Armistice, the guns finally fell silent at 1 I am.

This volume of `VCs of the First World War' covers the six weeks from the Battle of the Canal du Nord until Armistice Day. Arranged chronologically, the author's narrative tells the stories of the fifty-six VC-winners from France, Canada and Britain who fought in the victorious Allied advance.

GERALD GLIDDON is an authority on the VC winners of the First World War, edited Norfolk and Suffolk in the Great War (Gliddon Books, 1988) and compiled Legacy of the Somme (Sutton, 1996), a bibliography of the battle. He is also the author of VCs of 1914, The Somme, Arras and Messines Ridge 1917 and The Spring Offensive 1918 in Sutton Publishing's 'VCs of the First World War' series. He lives in Brooke, Norwich.

Illustrated with B&W photos (like above), and a few small maps