Verdun and the Somme

Összefoglaló

1916: Verdun and the Somme were two momentous military campaigns devised to break the stalemate at the Western Front, and have become, in the collective memory of the combatants, synonyms for Armageddon.They have shaped our image of the First World War.The traumatic front experience connected with these two campaigns is reflected in the war literature from both sides of the conflict. This study analyses British and German prose fiction (predominantly novels) written between 1916 and 1937, with different ideological points of view. The literary response to Verdun comes from German writers, that to the Somme is given by British authors. On the German side they include Fritz von Unruh, Josef M.Wehner, Werner Beumelburg and Arnold Zweig. Britain is represented by Alec J. Dawson, Alan P.Herbert, Arthur D.Gristwood, Frederic Manning and David Jones.