Book description
A splendid book' - Niall Ferguson To Arras, 1917 is a biography of
the author's uncle, Ernest Reid, who died in 1917, an officer in the
Black Watch, of wounds sustained in the Battle of Arras. Born and
raised in Paisley, educated at Paisley Grammar School, then Glasgow
University, Ernest Reid intended to become a lawyer before he
volunteered for war service. The author the climate in which he grew
up, and the influences which formed him and his generation, the
generation which supplied the subalterns of the Great War. As a
result, although the book remains primarily a biography of its
subject, it also explored the spirit in which Britain, still
essentially Victorian, went to war in 1914. This is the true and
poignant account of a young Scottish officer, pinned down and fatally
wounded in No-man's land on the first day of the Battle of Arras, on
Easter Monday 1917. The gripping narrative creates a mood of sombre
inevitability. It does not simply set out the events of Captain Ernest
Reid's life, but puts Ernest's life into its moral as well as its
historical context and describes the cultural influences - the code of
duty, an unquestioning patriotism - that moulded him and his
contemporaries for service and sacrifice in the killing fields of
France and Flanders. In retrospect, he and they seem almost programmed
for the role they were required to play, and in this lies the pathos
at the heart of this moving book.
Walter Reid studied at Oxford University, where he read history, and
Edinburgh University. He is now based in the west of Scotland but spends
part of the year in France. His other books include Architect of
Victory: Douglas Haig and Churchill 1940-45: Under Friendly Fire.
