Dunkirk, Alamein, Bologna

Dunkirk, Alamein, Bologna Book Description

Christopher Seton-Watson comes form a family of historians. His father, R. W. Seton-Watson, was Professor of Central European History at the School of Slavonic and East European Studies from 1922-1945, and his borther Hugh was Professor of Russian History at the same School from 1951-1983. From 1946 to 1983 Christopher devoted most of his academic life at Oriel College, Oxford, to the study of contemporary Italian history. As Michael Howard observes in his Foreword, he was remarkably lucky 'to have a life to devote to anything given his record of front-line service from the beginning to the very end of the Second World War'. As a young officer in the 2nd Regiment Royal Horse Artillery he took part in three retreats, in France in 1940, in Greece in 1941 and in North Africa in 1942. In October 1942 he participated in the victorious Battle of Alamein, and in May 1943 witnessed the surrender of the German Afrika Korps in Tunisia. From March 1944 to May 1945 he commanded I Battery RHA in the long, slow advance up Italy from Cassino to Bologna. In Michael Howard's words, Christopher Seton-Watson 'describes it all with vividness and accuracy that brings those compaigns into sharp focus. As descriptions of war experience, these are classic'. And for him it was 'a Good War in every sense of the word', military, moral and human: 'his positive experiences and achievements far outweighed the negative aspects inseparable from all military activity. There were for him good years, and his chronicle of them makes a fine book'. -- Inside jacket flap.