Six Weeks: The Short and Gallant Life of the British Officer in the First World War - Tapa dura

Best research resource ever. Beautiful book (Dan Stevens (Downton Abbey))

a harrowing but engrossing meditation on a national tragedy... This book could not demonstrate more vividly how those ideals [of chivalry, patriotism and self-sacrifice] which inspired such bravery were shattered. (DAILY MAIL)

a superb study... Lewis-Stempel's marvelously evocative book is full of throat-catching moments... The result is the most moving single book on the Great War that I have ever read - and I have read many... his book pays the subalterns the respect they deserve by entering into their distant mindsets. (Nigel Jones LITERARY REVIEW)

This well researched book tells the harrowing story of the men - or adolescents, many of them -who unhesitatingly answered the call by War Minister Lord Kitchener for volunteers, and continued to answer it even after it became clear that the life expectancy of a subaltern in the trenches averaged only six weeks... Lewis-Stempel is excellent on life in the trenches... for all the horror and pity of their struggle, their legacy is our freedom. (Andrew Roberts MAIL ON SUNDAY)

woven with great narrative skill...presents an incomparable portrait of a generation (MILITARY TIMES)

It is only rarely that a book deserves to be recommended unreservedly but John Lewis-Stempel's Six Weeks falls firmly into that category...This is a book that should be read by every young man who aspires to serve as an officer in the Army; it will educate him about how to behave in command of soldiers and about how to face the perils of war. (THE GUARDS MAGAZINE)

a valuable addition to the vast literature of the First World war (DAILY EXPRESS)