Fighting the Kaiser's War: The Saxons in Flanders 1914-1918

Personal accounts of the Great War experiences of British soldiers are well known and plentiful, but similar accounts from the German side of no man's land are rare. This highly original book vividly describes the wartime lives and ultimate fates of ten Saxon soldiers facing the British in Flanders, revealed through their intimate diaries and correspondence. The stories of these men, from front-line trench fighters to a brigade commander, are in turn used to illustrate the wider story of thousands more who fought and died in Flanders 'for King and Country, Kaiser and Reich' with the Royal Saxon Army. This ground-breaking work is illustrated with over 300 mostly unseen wartime photographs and other images, recording the German experience of the war in human detail and giving a rounded picture of how the Saxons lived and died in Flanders. Author Details: Andrew Lucas first developed his passionate interest in the Kingdom of Saxony and its army while researching his great grandfather Arno Bierast's wartime service with 4. Kgl. Sachs. Feldartillerie-Regiment Nr.48. He has published several articles on the Saxons in Stand To! and contributed extensive research from the German side for his father Michael's book The Journey's End Battalion. He is also an active member of the 1914-21 Society, the only 'living history' group in the UK devoted to the Great War on the Eastern Front. Jurgen Schmieschek is a lifelong resident of Dresden. Since his first visit to Flanders in 1994 he has been fascinated by the First World War, and in particular how his fellow Saxons experienced the conflict. He has since travelled widely on the old Western and Eastern Fronts, formed friendships with fellow researchers and collectors in many countries, and amassed the extraordinary collection which forms the basis of this book. He has contributed to publications including several battlefield guidebooks to the Hartmannsweilerkopf, the Western Front Association's Belgium publication Ten oorlog met schop and houweel and The Journeys End Battalion.