The First Seven Divisions was written by an officer who participated in this fighting as a regimental captain. The book is an extremely detailed record of the different military units which were involved in the fighting.
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| World War I Memorial (Mons, Belgium) |
But this detail is also a permanent record of the heroic deeds and sacrifices of the soldiers who fought in the battles of Mons, Ypres, and other locations. A detailed index adds to the reference value of the book.
The book is also a tribute to the pre-war British armed forces who were the first to go into battle. Hamilton wrote that book dealt "solely with the way in which the old regular army, led by the best in the land, saved the national honour in the acutest crisis in history, and practically ceased to exist in the doing of it." These soldiers were later succeeded by new recruits like those described in The First Hundred Thousand (1915), by Ian Hay.
The First Seven Divisions is subtitled "Being a Detailed Account of the Fighting from Mons to Ypres." At Mons, in Belgium, the British troops extended the line of French troops. They tried to stop the most western end of the long line of German soldiers who had swept through Belgium on their way to Paris.
The British army was unable to defend Mons, but it still put up enough of a fight to keep the Germans from outflanking the French. Hamilton wrote:
Was Mons, then, a defeat? For forty-eight hours the British had held up the German forces north of the Maubeuge-Valenciennes road; the left of the French Army had been effectively protected, and—over and above all—the British Force had succeeded in retiring in perfect order and intact, except for the ordinary wear and tear of battle.After the fighting in Mons, the British army made a careful retreat, and was involved in a large battle in La Cateau, France. Its retreat ended at the Marne River, where it helped French troops protect Paris from the invading German army.
Interestingly, Hamilton downplayed the British contribution to the famous Battle of the Marne. He jumped quickly to the army's involvement in pushing the Germans back to the Aisne River in France, helping to create the western front of fighting that tragically endured for four more years.
The British military leader, Field Marshal Sir John French, then made the crucial decision to transfer British troops to the area of Ypres, Belgium. This effort was part of the famous "race to the sea" that helped keep the Germans from taking control of the important port city of Calais, France, and threaten England with invasion.
The fighting around Ypres takes up the second half of The First Seven Divisions. Hamilton's writing gives a detailed sense of the desperate and intense fighting that was needed to stop the Germans in what many histories have described as a significant accomplishment by the British troops.
The extreme detail of The First Seven Divisions gives a sobering account of the human cost of war. An attempt to capture a small amount of territory might cost hundreds of lives, including many of the officers who had the terrible responsibility of leading the troops.
In the early pages of The First Seven Divisions, which describe the fighting in Mons in late August 1914, the reader might realize that only a few weeks earlier, these British troops were going about their civilian lives, unaware that they would seen be fighting, and even dying, on battlefields in Belgium and France.
A feeling of fatalism permeates much of The First Seven Divisions, as the reader realizes that decisions were being made every day to sacrifice a certain percentage of human beings to injury and death in pursuit of military objectives. What went through the minds of these soldiers as they marched into battle, fully aware that they would probably get injured or killed?
When you think about the human toll on the British army as it tried to resist Germany's march through France, you better understand the anger and thirst for revenge that many people felt towards Germany after the war ended in 1918.
The book ends on a note of reflection, with about 18 months elapsing between the events of the book and the book's publication. Hamilton observed:
There is a gospel in the very reticence of the records of the regiments concerned—in the dignity with which, without any blare of trumpets, they tell of the daily answer to the call of a duty which balanced them ceaselessly on the edge of eternity.The First Seven Divisions was praised as "a sober narrative, written in soldier style, and is valuable for those who wish to make a careful study of the military strategy developed in the present conflict." (The Brooklyn (New York) Daily Eagle, July 22, 1916)
The book was revised many times with additional information. The twenty-first edition of the book was published in January 1918.
The First Seven Divisions was first published around July 22, 1916, when a review of the book appeared in The Brooklyn (New York) Daily Eagle. Front page headlines of that edition of the Daily Eagle included:
- GERMANS READY FOR NEW ATTACKS ON SOMME LINE? / Evidently Prepared For Fresh Attempt to Check Allied Offensive / SHELL BRITISH FRONT
- GERMANY TO WITHDRAW FROM BELGIUM IF PAID 40,000,000,000 MARKS?
- MUST IMPOSE A VALID PEACE—WILL HAVE PAID FOR IT—GENERAL HAIG
Online versions (1916 first United States edition):
Newspaper information from Newspapers.com (https://www.newspapers.com/)
Photograph of Mons war memorial via Wikimedia Commons (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mons_-_Province_14-18_-_VTdJ.JPG)
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