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Sir Frank Fox

First World War and WW2 Author, author of Breaker Morant

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The Times includes GHQ in its “Six of the best First World War reads”

September 12, 2018 by Ed Goodson


Buy the book: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0992890128/
Allan Mallinson from The Times reviewed new books on the wider aspects of the Great War. We were delighted that G.H.Q. was selected as one of the 6 books.

Sir Frank Fox’s G.H.Q., first published in 1920 and now reissued in a limited edition by his great-grandson, Charles Goodson- Wickes (Beaumont Fox, £25), is an absorb­ing study of Haig’s chateau-HQ at Montreuil-sur-Mer. Fox — a journalist and tempo­rary soldier — paints a vivid picture of the comprehensive com­plexity of the British Ex­peditionary Force, with organisational dia­grams, statistics and vi­gnettes of day-to-day life.

The BEF, or more correctly in the later stages of the war the British Armies in France, was the largest organisa­tion the country has ever maintained abroad — more than two million men. Montreuil-sur-Mer began to look as much like a colonial administration as an operational headquarters, with di­rectors of agricultural production (Brigadier-General the Earl of Radnor) and forestry (Brigadier-General Lord Lovat), controllers of labour, of salvage and of canteens, subordinate directors of docks, of inland water transport, of roads, and of light railways. The list goes on, testimony to the industrialisa­tion of the war and the sheer scale of Haig’s purview. For these and other reasons, on taking over as C-in-C at the end of 1915 he had moved GHQ back from Saint-Omer to Montreuil, almost on the Channel coast, placing him 70 miles and more behind the front line.

Fox writes: “It was the job of General Headquarters to try to see the war as a whole.” In fact. Haig found it difficult to see strategically beyond the Western Front or the tactical reality of the war in the trenches. Fox’s fascinating book explains a lot.”

The scan of the article is below and the link to the website here (summary only available to non-subscribers of The Times):
Six of the best First World War reads

You can also download the PDF of the article here: Six of the best First World War reads

Filed Under: G.H.Q. Montreuil-sur-Mer, WW1 books review

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BUY THE KING´S PILGRIMAGE

The King´s Pilgrimage WW1 In May 1922, King George V took a very small party to visit the opening of military cemeteries in Belgium and France which culminated in Etaples. Sir Frank Fox was invited to join them and wrote an evocative account (“The King’s Pilgrimage”) accompanied by unposed photographs and an introductory verse by Rudyard Kipling. This Limited Edition hardback book has been made available to commemorate the 100-year Anniversary of the Pilgrimage and Fox´s great-grandson Dr. Charles Goodson-Wickes, a veteran of the First Gulf War himself, contributes a new introduction to the book https://www.amazon.co.uk/Kings-Pilgrimage.../dp/0992890160/

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