Civil Service Rifles in the Great War

THE CIVIL SERVICE RIFLES 'All Bloody Gentlemen' Jill Knight. Pen and Sword, Barnsley. 2004 First Edition ISBN 1844150577 240pp Illustrated Hardback. Civil servants are not generally renowned for their soldierly qualities. Yet in the Great War, despite the Government's reluctance to release them, hundreds of clerical staff from all the main departments volunteered and took their place in the front line. The Prince of Wales' Own Civil Service Rifles, a volunteer unit comprising two battalions of 'civil servants and their friends,' fought with distinction as part of the London Regiment in major actions such as Loos, the Somme, Messines and Cambrai, and further afield in Salonika and at the capture of Jerusalem. In this extensively researched study, the first to be published since the 1920s, Jill Knight has successfully blended an inspiring tale of courage and endurance with new insights on the regiment's social composition and character and its relationship with the Civil Service of the day. Using previously unpublished memoirs and diaries to tell their extraordinary story from the men's viewpoint, she demonstrates how these desk-bound clerks and bureaucrats were transformed into a creditable fighting force and developed a strong esprit de corps which endured through years of fighting and heavy casualties. The book introduces many regimental personalities and describes the Civil Service Rifles' part in all the major actions. It has detailed appendices and - most important - a superb collection of over 200 photographs, many of which have never before been published. This work gives overdue recognition to a unique regiment for the part it played in and the price it paid for, ultimate victory. It will engage modern-day civil servants and family historians as well as all those with a general interest in the Great War and its effects on the individual men who fought and won it. This copy is in MINT condition in a MINT unclipped duswrapper.…