Warfare in News

Posted on Thursday 14th November

On Saturday, 23 November, sculptor John Doubleday has agreed to open his Essex studio from 10am-4pm to showcase the clay original for the statue of Private Herbert Columbine VC. The event will be attended by the High Sheriff of Essex and is due to be featured on BBC Essex.

The statue will be the first full-length statue in the UK of a named Private soldier, and the only memorial to be erected to commemorate the centenary.

The statue is part of an initiative undertaken by Michael Turner, who sadly died on 2 November. The project aims to recognize the courage and devotion of the many thousands who lost their lives during the First World War. Private Columbine symbolizes all who fought for their country.

Dame Judi Dench is Patron of the project and has written the foreword for a new biography, Herbert Columbine VC.

Herbert Columbine's biographer Carole McEntee-Taylor will be in attendance on the day to sign copies of Herbert Columbine VC. You can purchase copies via the link above for a limited time at a concessionary price, and take them along for the author to sign.

John Doubleday's studio is at Goat Lodge Farm, Great Totham, Maldon (CM9 8BX). For more information, or to get in touch with John Doubleday or Carole McEntee-Taylor, contact Warfare at editorial@warfaremagazine.co.uk.

Further Reading

Herbert Columbine VC

Only £19.99

Herbert Columbine VC

(Hardback - 172 pages)
by Carole McEntee-Taylor

'Save Yourselves, I'll carry on'. These were the last known words of Herbert Columbine, shouted at his two companions on the afternoon of 22nd March 1918. At 9am that morning, in Hervilly Woods, France, 9 Squadron Machine Gun Corps had come under intense attack from a heavy force of German infantry. Private Columbine took command of an isolated gun, with no wire in front and began firing. As the German onslaught grew and casualties mounted,… Read more...

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Dates in History

German forces cross the Somme River

24th March 1918

On March 24, 1918, German forces cross the Somme River, achieving their first goal of the major spring offensive begun three days earlier on the Western Front. Operation Michael, engineered by the German chief of the general staff, Erich von Ludendorff, aimed to decisively break through the Allied lines on the Western Front and destroy the British and French forces. The offensive began on the morning of March 21, 1918, with an aggressive bombardment. The brunt of the attack that followed was directed at the British 5th Army, commanded by General Sir Hubert Gough, stationed along the Somme River in northwestern France. This section was the most poorly defended of any spot on the British lines, due to the fact that it had been held by the French until only a few weeks before and its defensive positions were not yet fully fortified. Panic spread up and down the British lines of command, intensified by communications failures between Gough and his subordinates in the field, and German gains increased over the subsequent days of battle. On March 23, Crown Prince Rupprecht, on the German side of the line, remarked that The progress of our offensive is so quick, that one cannot follow it with a pen. The next day, German troops stormed across the Somme, having previously captured its bridges before French troops could destroy them. Despite having resolved to concentrate on weaker points of the enemy lines, Ludendorff continued to throw his armies against the crucial villages of Amiens (a railway junction) and Arras—which the British and French were instructed to hold at all costs—hoping to break through and push on towards Paris. By that time, German troops were exhausted, and transportation and supply lines had begun to break down in the cold and bad weather. Meanwhile, Allied forces had recovered from the initial disadvantage and had begun to gain the upper hand, halting the Germans at Moreuil Wood on March 30. On April 5, Ludendorff called off Operation Michael. It had yielded nearly 40 miles of territory, the greatest gains for either side on the Western Front since 1914. He would launch four more offensive pushes over the course of the spring and summer, throwing all of the German army’s resources into this last, desperate attempt to win the war. (www.history.com)

Further Reading

The Somme
(Paperback - 355 pages)
by Richard van Emden

The offensive on the Somme took place between July and November 1916 and is perhaps the most iconic battle of the Great War. It was there that Kitchener’s famous ‘Pals’ Battalions were first sent into action en masse and it was a battlefield where many of the dreams and aspirations… Read more at Pen & Sword...

Only £14.99 at Pen & Sword Books.

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