FIELDS OF BATTLE, LANDS OF PEACE 1914-1918: AN INTERVIEW WITH MICHAEL ST MAUR SHEIL

摘要

The Franco-German front along Chemin des Dames was the scene of some of the most destructive and demoralising fighting of the First World War. Nearly 100 years later, the great military historian Richard Holmes, on first reviewing one of Michael St Maur Sheil's pictures of the battlefield, wrote: I think that this is perhaps my favourite view of the Western Front… as one stands there one cannot but be humbled by the spirit and endurance required of the soldier in battle. You cannot really understand a battle without viewing the ground on which it was fought. Part of the process is intellectual: to see how ridges provided fields of fire and woods offered cover. But, part of it, too, is emotional. This landscape was once peopled by soldiers, embedded deep in the seams of the soil. All those elements are to be found in this landscape. When I look at it my throat tightens as I think of the brave spirits who died fighting on these slopes. Here is the story of war, the essence of which we are seeking to tell.