The Old Front Line (ISBN 0-85052-936-0) is a military history book by English poet John Masefield, first published in 1917. The book is a description of the battlefield front-line from which the British Army attacked on the first day on the Somme, 1 July 1916, and as such is perhaps the first battlefield guide of the First World War. Masefield had originally been asked to write a full account of the Battle of the Somme (in 1916 he had written a successful book on the Battle of Gallipoli) but the project fell through when he was refused access to official army documents. All he was able to produce was his description of the battlefield as seen in 1917 following the German withdrawal to the Hindenburg Line. Nevertheless, The Old Front Line is still frequently referenced today as an eye-witness description of the Somme terrain and it is written with lyrical prose that is rare in books on military history.
Masefield's The Old Front Line is relatively short at about 80 pages. It was reprinted in 1972 with a 70-page summary of the battle, contributed by Colonel Howard Green, MC. The 1972 version included photos of the battlefield taken in 1971, including the Lochnager mine crater, Delville Wood and the Butte de Warlencourt. A third revision was published in 2003 by Pen & Sword with a preface by Martin Middlebrook.
In 1919 Masefield succeeded in publishing a complete account of the battle as The Battle of the Somme.
Famous quotes containing the words the old, front and/or line:
“Wild Bill was indulging in his favorite pastime of a friendly game of cards in the old No. 10 saloon. For the second time in his career, he was sitting with his back to an open door. Jack McCall walked in, shot him through the back of the head, and rushed from the place, only to be captured shortly afterward. Wild Bill’s dead hand held aces and eights, and from that time on this has been known in the West as “the dead man’s hand.””
—State of South Dakota, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)
“The LORD went in front of them in a pillar of cloud by day, to lead them along the way, and in a pillar of fire by night, to give them light, so that they might travel by day and by night. Neither the pillar of cloud by day nor the pillar of fire by night left its place in front of the people.”
—Bible: Hebrew, Exodus 13:21,22.
“We are apt to say that a foreign policy is successful only when the country, or at any rate the governing class, is united behind it. In reality, every line of policy is repudiated by a section, often by an influential section, of the country concerned. A foreign minister who waited until everyone agreed with him would have no foreign policy at all.”
—A.J.P. (Alan John Percivale)