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Colonel Pechot: Tracks to the Trenches

By Sarah Wright

Colonel Pechot: Tracks to the Trenches

By Sarah Wright

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Description
Published in 2014 by Birse Press, Aboyne, Scotland. Dimensions 12" x 8.5". It is August 1914 and war has been declared. Since 1865 campaigns have been brutal but short or long and nasty but involving fairly few people. This war, everyone thought, would surely be over by Christmas. It was not. How did millions of combatants survive to bludgeon each other over four bloody years? Their rations, water and plentiful ammunition all had to be brought in from afar. By the war's end the technology of lorries, tanks and aeroplanes had developed, but in 1914, they were in their infancy or barely conceived. There was a technical fix available. Armies, especially on the Western Front, depended on thousands of kilometres of prefabricated railways, laid to 60cm gauge. They were placed and replaced, as required, between existing railheads and the battlegrounds. At the war's end, they were removed as quickly as they had been laid. The father of these military railways was a modest French soldier, Prosper Pechot. He realised their potential, not only in stopping the enemy but also in taking war to their doorstep. This is his story: how he developed this game-changer and how it was copied and used to deadly effect by both sides in World War One.
Product details
Number of Pages:
259
Publication Date:
2014
Publisher:
Birse Press
ISBN10:
190102301X
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