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Brothers in War
Brothers in War
Oct 9, 2024 8:21 PM

Author:Michael Walsh

Brothers in War

Brothers in War is the immensely powerful and deeply tragic story of the Beechey brothers, and how they paid the ultimate price for King and country. All eight went to fight in the Great War on such far-flung battlefields as France, Flanders, East Africa and Gallipoli. Only three would return alive. Even amid the carnage of the trenches, it was a family trauma almost without parallel. Their wives and sweethearts were left bereft, their widowed mother Amy devastated. It is a tragedy that has remained forgotten and unmarked for nearly 90 years. Until now.

Kept in a small brown case handed down by the brothers' youngest sister, Edie, were hundreds of letters sent home from the front by the Beechey boys: scraps of paper scribbled on in the firing line, heartfelt messages written from a deathbed, exasperated correspondences detailing the absurdities of life in the trenches. From it all emerges the remarkable tale of the lost brothers.

Tragic and moving, poetic in its intensity, Brothers in War reveals first-hand the catastrophe that was the Great War; all told through one family forced to sacrifice everything.

Reviews

Deeply impressive ... uplifting to read

—— Margaret Forster

As harrowing as any story from any war

—— Daily Mirror

Successfully restores a human dimension to that epic slaughter

—— Mail on Sunday

A moving vignette about [the war's] tragic price for one family

—— Max Hastings , Sunday Times

A moving testament to the bravery and sacrifice of one British family

—— Daily Mail

A splendid and absorbing book

—— London Review of Books

The sort of book that will have social historians salivating

—— Literary Review

A strangely liberating and liberated catalogue of everyday grumbles, both great and small

—— Mail on Sunday

His story deserves not just revival but reflection ... Karski's electrifying words still speak only too eloquently for themselves

—— Marek Kohn , Independent

The searing experiences of Berliners are brought to life through often deeply morally compromised personal stories

—— Financial Times, Christmas round up

Moorhouse has a deep knowledge of wartime Germany...he has a nice eye for social detail

—— Sunday Times

Moorhouse has written an extraordinarily detailed account of ordinary life in Berlin during the Second World War

—— Sunday Herald

There's a pounding quietness to Moorhouse's description of life in Berlin

—— Vera Rule , Guardian

A well-researched, fluently-written and utterly absorbing account of what life (and, so very often) death was like for ordinary Germans in the capital of Hitler's Reich during the Second World War. The Berliners' capacity for suffering, for sacrifice, for self-delusion, but also astonishingly for love - and even on occasion humour - is superbly evoked by Moorhouse's cornucopia of new information

—— Andrew Roberts, author of The Storm of War

Berlin at War is a well-researched and beautifully composed account, vividly recreating those years of Nazi arrogance, oppression, and corruption, that ended in such terrible destruction and civilian suffering

—— Antony Beevor

Wonderful ... an amazing panoramic view ... I've rarely read anything like it

—— Claire Tomalin

A masterful account of lost and stolen lives

—— Sunday Times

Awesome ... one of the most unforgettable books I have ever read. I defy anyone to read it without weeping at its human suffering, cruelty and courage ... in this book these righteous heroes have their rightful memorial

—— Simon Sebag Montefiore , Mail on Sunday

Sheds new light on history that we thought we knew... meticulously detailed and very readable

—— David Willetts , New Statesman

The miracle is that there isn’t a dull page. As it moves towards its deadly climax, the story hangs together as tightly as a thriller. Into the Silence is as monumental as the mountain that soars above it; small wonder that it won the 2012 Samuel Johnson prize for non-fiction … Once you start wandering the snowy passes with Mallory and the lads, you won’t want to come down again. There can be no better way, surely, to spend a week in winter

—— Arminta Wallace , Irish Times

He sees the climbers as haunted dreamers, harrowed by their desperate experiences in the First World War, living amid romantic dreams of Imperial grandeur and the elemental, sublime grandeur of the mountain

—— Steve Barfield , Lady

This is the awesomely researched story of Mallory, Irvine and the early Everest expeditions. It puts their efforts and motivations into the context of Empire and the first world war in a way I don’t think previous books have ever managed

—— Chris Rushby , Norfolk Magazine

A vivid depiction of a monumental story…Wade Davis’ passion for the book shines through and I can only hope that his next book doesn’t take as long to write as I will certainly be reading it

—— Glynis Allen , Living North
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