Salford Pals by Michael Stedman
The "Pals" battalions were a phenomenon of the Great War, never repeated since. Under Lord Derby's scheme, and in response to Kitchener's famous call for a million volunteers, local communities raised (and initially often paid for) entire battalions for service on the Western Front. Their experience was all too frequently tragic, as men who had known each other all their lives, had worked, volunteered, and trained together, and had been shipped to France together, encountered the first full fury of modern battle on the Somme in July 1916. Many of the Pals battalions would not long survive that first brutal baptism, but their spirit and fighting qualities have gone down into history. This is the story of the four Salford battalions, many of whose original members were recruited from one of the most notorious, oppressive and desolate slums to arise from the Industrial Revolution. Salford was late in recruiting, but within a year had raised four Pals battalions and a reserve battalion - an enormous achievement for a town of its size, as Liverpool and Manchester each raised only four such battalions, and Sheffield just one. The book records the impact of the war on Salford (noting, for example, the widespread anti-war feeling in the early days), follows the difficulties and triumphs in raising the Pals battalions, and describes the subsequent events and actions, both great and small.
Stedman, Michael: - Michael Stedman was born in Salford in 1949 and graduated from the University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne after which he became a school teacher in Manchester for 24 years. During the 1980's his first book, The Salford Pals, was published, followed in the early 1990's by The Manchester Pals. He moved to Worcester in 1994, subsequently devoting his time to many projects most of which centre on the Great War's history. Since 1995 he has written numerous books on the history of the Great War including, Thiepval, La Boisselle, Fricourt, Guillemont and Advance to Victory in the Battleground Europe Series as well as Great Battles of the Great War which accompanied a Tyne Tees / ITV series of the same name. He is married to a doctor, Yvonne, and has two sons.
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9780850523560 |
| ISBN 10 | 0850523567 |
| Title | Salford Pals |
| Author | Michael Stedman |
| Series | Pals S |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Paperback |
| Publisher | Pen & Sword Books Ltd |
| Year published | 1993-02-01 |
| Number of pages | 264 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |