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Fromelles: French Flanders
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About this ebook
Historian Peter Pedersen examines the World War I battle on the Western Front that decimated an Australian regiment in Fromelles: French Flanders.
The attack at Fromelles is significant for a number of reasons. It was the Australians’ first major operation on the Western Front and pitted them against a part of the German line that was an object lesson in the siting of a defense. Before the battle, the Australian Gallipoli veterans had airily dismissed the fighting in the new theater as “pleasant”. After it, they said grimly that Anzac was “a picnic” compared to France.
Fromelles came as a terrible shock and was a foretaste of things to come. Both the genesis and aftermath of the operation were controversial. The objectives and the tactics employed to achieve them were changed several times and the sufficiency of resources vigorously debated. After the war, the British and Australian Official Historians argued as to how the battle should be interpreted. Most of the correspondence that accompanied their exchange of drafts has not been published.
Peter Pedersen’s thorough account of the battle explores the genesis of the operation through the aftermath covering this monumental moment in World War I history.
The attack at Fromelles is significant for a number of reasons. It was the Australians’ first major operation on the Western Front and pitted them against a part of the German line that was an object lesson in the siting of a defense. Before the battle, the Australian Gallipoli veterans had airily dismissed the fighting in the new theater as “pleasant”. After it, they said grimly that Anzac was “a picnic” compared to France.
Fromelles came as a terrible shock and was a foretaste of things to come. Both the genesis and aftermath of the operation were controversial. The objectives and the tactics employed to achieve them were changed several times and the sufficiency of resources vigorously debated. After the war, the British and Australian Official Historians argued as to how the battle should be interpreted. Most of the correspondence that accompanied their exchange of drafts has not been published.
Peter Pedersen’s thorough account of the battle explores the genesis of the operation through the aftermath covering this monumental moment in World War I history.
Author
Peter Pedersen
Dr. Peter Pedersen is one of Australia’s leading historians of the First World War and has written ten books on the conflict while also appearing frequently in the Australian media and as a speaker at military history conferences and seminars worldwide. A graduate of the Royal Military College, Duntroon, the Australian Command and Staff College, and the University of New South Wales, he commanded the 5th/7th Battalion, the Royal Australian Regiment, and was a political/strategic analyst in the Australian Office of National Assessments. Joining the Australian War Memorial as Senior Historian, he became Head of its Research Centre and then Acting Assistant Director of the Memorial and Head of the National Collection Branch. In 2013 he was appointed consultant historian for the Australian government’s commemorative projects on the Australian battlefields of the Western Front.
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Fromelles - Peter Pedersen
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