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Hamel (Paperback)

Military > Battlefield Guidebooks WWI > Battles & Campaigns > Somme

By Dr Peter Pedersen
Imprint: Pen & Sword Battleground
Series: Battleground: WWI
Pages: 176
ISBN: 9780850529388
Published: 6th June 2002
Last Released: 1st August 2007

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On 4 July 1918, the Australian Corps captured the village of Hamel and the ridge overlooking it, which had blocked any advance eastward on the south bank of the Somme. It was not a big battle: the equivalent of one Australian division and one battalion of newly arrived Americans were the only infantry involved. It was not a long battle: the ridge fell in ninety-three minutes. Nor is the battle particularly well known - Hamel is not a name that stands comfortably alongside the Somme or Passchendaele. Yet it was more sophisticated tactically than either. Whereas they were attritional battles, predictable and bloody, at Hamel machines went a long way towards relieving the infantry of the obligation to fight its way forward. After the battle, Haig's Headquarters promulgated its lessons for other commanders. Among the senior officers who visited Monash's Headquarters was a Brigadier-General named Bernard Montgomery. The military thinker and former Tank Corps officer, Major-General J.F.C. Fuller, thought Hamel more important in making the reputation of the Tank Corps than the battle of Cambrai. As an outstanding demonstration of how four independent arms could be co-ordinated on the battlefield, Hamel served as the blueprint for the bigger battles to come. The offensive before Amiens on August 8, which General Ludendorff, the German commander, famously called 'the black day of the German Army', was essentially Hamel on a much larger scale.

Key Selling Points
* A sophisticated and tactical battle using machines rather than infantry.

Excellent detail is given on the Cemeteries and Memorials, as well as various optional tours of the area - always an great element to this whole tremendous series, alongside personal tours to bring you on to the battlefield, with cemetery detail broken down. This book, like all in the series does its job; to act as an aid on the battlefield, and also to encourage the reader to want to visit this section of the Western Front.

Jon Sandison
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