Soldiers

Albert Alexandre was brought up in an orphanage and by the age of eleven was working down a quarry. At fifteen, lying about his age, he joined the army. He is now almost the only survivor of Passchendale. For Albert, the army is his family. Tom Parnell, a cavalryman, joined the army at seventeen, in 1935, was blinded at Alamein but three months later managed to fight his way through Italy. A German officer whom he took prisoner was so impressed by Parnell that he sought him out in the 1960s. Parnell still returns regularly to Germany where he is treated as an honoured friend. Philip Ziegler is fascinated by the values which the veterans share, and which the army must have inculcated in them: self-discipline, acceptance of risk and pain, patriotism, solidarity with their fellow soldiers. Of course, there is sometimes bigotry, narrow-mindedness, even blinkered stupidity. And Ziegler also addresses the question of whether army values are still admired in British society today. But above all, this book celebrates the lives and attitudes of soldiers, and comes to an understanding of the ethos that means so much to them.