In The Ypres Salient
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€16.99
This short book by historian and journalist Beckles Willson is in memory to the Canadians who fought during the Great War around Hooge, near Ypres at the Battle of Mont Sorrel in 1916. The Battle of Mount Sorrel lasted for almost two weeks and cost the Canadians over 8,000 casualties. Having lost the first two phases of the battle, the Canadians achieved victory in the final operation. Careful planning and concentrated artillery bombardments had begun to tip the balance on the First World War battlefields in favour of attackers over entrenched defenders.
Henry Beckles Willson was a journalist and historian born in Montreal, Quebec, Canada in 1869. During the Great War he served as a senior officer with the Canadian Expeditionary Force under Lord Beaverbrook, then the War Office, finally, just after the Armistice in 1919, as the Town Major of Ypres to oversee the begining of the rebuilding of the ruins. He was also president of the Ypres League, founded in 1920 which led to the foundation of St George's Memorial Church. Beckles Willson was also instrumental in the creation of the Imperial War Museum, London in his role as the museum's field agent, where he believed the collections should reflect the detail of battle and involvement of ordinary soldiers at ground level. During the Second World War he was interned in Unoccupied France and died there in 1942.