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A Foreign Field : A True Story of Love and Betrayal in the Great War
A wartime romance, survival saga and murder mystery set in rural France during the First World War. height of the fighting on the Western front in August 1914; unable to get back to their units, they shelter in the tiny French village of Villeret. Living in daily fear of capture and execution, they are fed, clothed and protected by the villagers including the local matriarch, Madame Dessenne, the baker and his wife. in love with the twenty-year-old-daughter of one of his protectors and in November 1915, with war waging a few miles away, she gives birth to a baby girl. The child is just six months old when someone betrays the men to the Germans. They are captured, tried as spies and summarily condemned to death. Using the testimonies of the daughter, the villagers, detailed town hall records and most movingly -- the soldiers' last letters -- Ben Macintyre reconstructs an extraordinarily story of love, duplicity and shame -- ultimately seeking to discover through decades of village rumour the answer to the question, 'Who betrayed Private Digby and his men?'
261 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2001
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1,716 people want to read
About the author
Ben Macintyre
33Ìýbooks3,875ÌýfollowersBen Macintyre is a writer-at-large for The Times (U.K.) and the bestselling author of The Spy and the Traitor, A Spy Among Friends, Double Cross, Operation Mincemeat, Agent Zigzag, and Rogue Heroes, among other books. Macintyre has also written and presented BBC documentaries of his work.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 124 reviews
September 25, 2012
It is clear this book is written by a journalist rather than a novelist. Wouldn’t you clearly recognize the difference between the words of a novel and those found in a newspaper? A newspaper article relates fact and number and dates. It states the people and places involved. You are told what happens. That is how this book is written. This book is based on official documents, letters, diaries and newspaper articles. Extensive research lies behind its content. The facts related are about the villagers of Villeret which during WW1 hid seven British soldiers. Three escaped to Britain. Someone betrayed these men. The remaining four were captured and killed. This was in 1916. Villeret is located where the Battle of the Somme raged. The battle, the movement of the front, the numbers killed and such statistics are related. These events are presented in a dry manner. The use of gas is described with these words:
Germany launched the first successful chlorine-gas attack in April, north of Ypres, sending a ten-foot-high cloud of lethal lichen-green vapour into the opposite trenches.. Thousands coughed themselves to death. The use of chlorine by the GermanStinkpioniere units was followed by asphyxiating phosgene gas, carbon oxychloride , treacherously invisible and twenty times more deadly. Phosgene did not kill immediately. Death came painfully by drowning, after the victim had retched up several pints of yellow mucus, the much praised phlegm of the British soldier turned lethally against him. (page 102)
I compare these lines with the heart-wrenching portrayal of the men fighting in the trenches as the gas engulfs them in . In Sebastian Barry’s book you are torn apart. In Macintyre’s you are interested. There is a huge difference. I am annoyed when the cover shows a quote from the Washington Times : “wrenching� thoroughly captivating …reminds one of the novels of Michael Ondaatje.� This book is clear and interesting, but not captivating or wrenching and I see no comparison to Ondaatje’s writing. It is a good book about the fighting around the Somme and what happened in one village in this area. One of the hidden British soldiers does fall in love with a woman of the village and they do have a child, but this is not a love story and one scarcely empathizes with any of the characters.
Only at the end of the book is one gripped by the story. Who could have betrayed these men? This is discussed in the last chapter. Here it is difficult to put the book down. The reasoning is clear and convincing. And you really do want to know.
The book does have two excellent maps and numerous black and white photos!
A good book about WW1 and the fighting on the Western Front. Interesting and well researched, but to use adjectives such as passionate and wrenching is to stretch it. Only the last chapter reads like a gripping mystery.
Germany launched the first successful chlorine-gas attack in April, north of Ypres, sending a ten-foot-high cloud of lethal lichen-green vapour into the opposite trenches.. Thousands coughed themselves to death. The use of chlorine by the GermanStinkpioniere units was followed by asphyxiating phosgene gas, carbon oxychloride , treacherously invisible and twenty times more deadly. Phosgene did not kill immediately. Death came painfully by drowning, after the victim had retched up several pints of yellow mucus, the much praised phlegm of the British soldier turned lethally against him. (page 102)
I compare these lines with the heart-wrenching portrayal of the men fighting in the trenches as the gas engulfs them in . In Sebastian Barry’s book you are torn apart. In Macintyre’s you are interested. There is a huge difference. I am annoyed when the cover shows a quote from the Washington Times : “wrenching� thoroughly captivating …reminds one of the novels of Michael Ondaatje.� This book is clear and interesting, but not captivating or wrenching and I see no comparison to Ondaatje’s writing. It is a good book about the fighting around the Somme and what happened in one village in this area. One of the hidden British soldiers does fall in love with a woman of the village and they do have a child, but this is not a love story and one scarcely empathizes with any of the characters.
Only at the end of the book is one gripped by the story. Who could have betrayed these men? This is discussed in the last chapter. Here it is difficult to put the book down. The reasoning is clear and convincing. And you really do want to know.
The book does have two excellent maps and numerous black and white photos!
A good book about WW1 and the fighting on the Western Front. Interesting and well researched, but to use adjectives such as passionate and wrenching is to stretch it. Only the last chapter reads like a gripping mystery.
April 12, 2008
True story of four British soldiers who found themselves lost behind enemy lines in 1914. For two years the villagers of occupied Villeret hid and protected them as best they could, but in 1916, the soldiers were exposed, rounded up and shot. Who betrayed them and why is the mystery Macintyre tries to uncover through extensive research and interviews with the village survivors and descendents, but the real focus of the book is the unrelenting horror of living under German occupation and the amazing stories of the soldiers—one man hid in a wardrobe, another dressed as a girl, one spoke French well enough he simply became a villager. Gripping � reads almost like a mystery novel, and it comes with pictures! Hardly realized I was reading non-fiction.
August 4, 2015
Soon after the beginning of World War I four British soldiers find themselves stuck behind enemy lines and unable to return to their units, they seek shelter in the French countryside hiding close to German troops just outside a French village.
They are soon discovered by the villagers of Villeret, a tiny village occupied by the Germans. The locals take the bold decision to shelter them in the barns and houses around the village, right under the nose of the enemy. Their uniforms are hidden, and the villagers provide peasant clothes so they blend in better, and they begin to settle into village life, even helping in the fields with the crops and harvest. Of the four there a natural leader emerges, Robert Digby, he comes from upper middle class society, even though he was a private in the war. He immerses himself in the village life so much he begins a passionate affair with a local girl, who soon falls pregnant, and in time give birth to a daughter.
The occupation of the village is harsh. The German army is very demanding of the resources of the village, helping themselves to all produce, emptying entire cellars of wine, demanding that all chickens provide a certain number of eggs a day, including cockerels. Soldiers going to and from from the front are billeted with the villagers too. It is a very harsh life. Soon it is discovered that there is a spy ring in the village, there is no direct link to the British soldiers, but it it thought that Digby might have know of it. The commander starts to ramp up the pressure on all the inhabitants to reveal everything that they have hidden.
Then one day they are betrayed. Three of them are rounded up fairly quickly, but Digby escapes. The captured men are 'tried' and sentenced to be shot the following day. Digby's location is revealed and he is caught and is put through the same trial and sentence. No one knows who is the person who is betrayed them, but the whole village turn out at the service the church. The commandant says that they are only allowed to lay one wreath per soldier, and the village responds by giving each of the men a enormous wreath each to spite him.
Macintyre has a way of bringing these historical stories to life. He has uncovered masses of dateline the life in the village at the time of the First World War, and using some artistic licence has made a readable narrative of their lives under cover. He has also looked at the evidence to see who it could have been that betrayed the men, partly to answer Digby's daughters question, but also to set the record straight. He has a list of possible suspects, and their motives, and reaches some kind of a conclusion given the evident that can be collected 100 years or so after the event.
It is a well written history of four men in World War i, the war where everyone suffered, and it does feel that a little bit of justice has been done.
They are soon discovered by the villagers of Villeret, a tiny village occupied by the Germans. The locals take the bold decision to shelter them in the barns and houses around the village, right under the nose of the enemy. Their uniforms are hidden, and the villagers provide peasant clothes so they blend in better, and they begin to settle into village life, even helping in the fields with the crops and harvest. Of the four there a natural leader emerges, Robert Digby, he comes from upper middle class society, even though he was a private in the war. He immerses himself in the village life so much he begins a passionate affair with a local girl, who soon falls pregnant, and in time give birth to a daughter.
The occupation of the village is harsh. The German army is very demanding of the resources of the village, helping themselves to all produce, emptying entire cellars of wine, demanding that all chickens provide a certain number of eggs a day, including cockerels. Soldiers going to and from from the front are billeted with the villagers too. It is a very harsh life. Soon it is discovered that there is a spy ring in the village, there is no direct link to the British soldiers, but it it thought that Digby might have know of it. The commander starts to ramp up the pressure on all the inhabitants to reveal everything that they have hidden.
Then one day they are betrayed. Three of them are rounded up fairly quickly, but Digby escapes. The captured men are 'tried' and sentenced to be shot the following day. Digby's location is revealed and he is caught and is put through the same trial and sentence. No one knows who is the person who is betrayed them, but the whole village turn out at the service the church. The commandant says that they are only allowed to lay one wreath per soldier, and the village responds by giving each of the men a enormous wreath each to spite him.
Macintyre has a way of bringing these historical stories to life. He has uncovered masses of dateline the life in the village at the time of the First World War, and using some artistic licence has made a readable narrative of their lives under cover. He has also looked at the evidence to see who it could have been that betrayed the men, partly to answer Digby's daughters question, but also to set the record straight. He has a list of possible suspects, and their motives, and reaches some kind of a conclusion given the evident that can be collected 100 years or so after the event.
It is a well written history of four men in World War i, the war where everyone suffered, and it does feel that a little bit of justice has been done.
April 7, 2023
There is a prologue which tells most of the ending. If this were fiction, that would be a terrific spoiler. And, frankly, if this were fiction, I'm not sure I would have bought this story. Real life can be sort of sappy sometimes. Boy meets girl, they fall in love, a child is born.
Following this prologue, we are taken to the very first days of the war in northern France not far from the Belgian border. It is so early in the war that trenches have not yet been dug. The Germans had the British and French in massive retreat. Robert Digby, the Englishman of the title, was wounded in the arm, and while he was being treated at an aid station, he lost contact with his unit.
At its beginning, I thought this book might just be a good 3-stars, but later I thought it a mite better. I will keep reading both fiction and nonfiction having to do with the 1914-1918 period, finding yet different tellings of this War to End All Wars, both military and civilian.
Following this prologue, we are taken to the very first days of the war in northern France not far from the Belgian border. It is so early in the war that trenches have not yet been dug. The Germans had the British and French in massive retreat. Robert Digby, the Englishman of the title, was wounded in the arm, and while he was being treated at an aid station, he lost contact with his unit.
To the south of the cornfield-battlefields where the baptismal blood of the Western Front began to soak into the land, lay Villeret, a small village of simple brick houses with roofs of slate, tile, and thatch, tucked into the folds of the Picardy countryside. A wanderer stumbling upon Villeret by chance in 1914—and few strangers ever came through save by accident, since Villeret was not on the way to anywhere—might have paused to take in the picturesque view from the hill above the village ...,WWI was horrific and not just for the combatants. As part of my delving into all things WWI, this book plays an important part. Villaret and other surrounding small towns were completely obliterated. By war's end over half of the British infantrymen were under 19 years of age. Over 1.5 million French had been killed leaving 600,000 widows and not enough men to go around for the half million young single women wanting to marry.
Of the approaching German army, and the carnage it had already wrought, Villeret knew almost nothing.
Villeret was an easy place to miss, an easy place to disdain, but as the Kaiser was about to discover, it was not an easy place to subdue.
At its beginning, I thought this book might just be a good 3-stars, but later I thought it a mite better. I will keep reading both fiction and nonfiction having to do with the 1914-1918 period, finding yet different tellings of this War to End All Wars, both military and civilian.
July 7, 2018
I can't offhand think of anything else I've come across dealing with life in the German-occupied portion of France during the First World War, so this was a fascinating change of pace with a lot of flavour: stranded British soldiers living in hiding, doomed wartime romances, conquered living with conquerors, spy rings, conspiracies. One has to be suspicious of any historical narrative whose only real sources are postwar accounts by the locals or family stories handed down from people's long-dead grandparents, but Macintyre clearly spent a long time on his research and he keeps his speculation to a minimum until the final chapter.
In that last chapter, he turns his attention to trying to untangle a mystery that must have been a huge part of his research throughout his preparation for the book, and I think it's a great choice on his part to refrain from mentioning it throughout the main part of the book. I had initially blanched when I saw how much longer the final chapter was than any of its antecedents, especially since it comes after the story is finished, but it represents such a change of tone and does so well tying together a bunch of strands from the main narrative that it wouldn't have occurred to the reader to connect, that I tore right through it. Macintyre has a real talent, with every new theory he presents, to get you to think, "Ah, this must be what actually happened," regardless of the fact that you just thought that exact same thing about the last possibility, that he was ideally suited to write a book with this sort of finish.
In that last chapter, he turns his attention to trying to untangle a mystery that must have been a huge part of his research throughout his preparation for the book, and I think it's a great choice on his part to refrain from mentioning it throughout the main part of the book. I had initially blanched when I saw how much longer the final chapter was than any of its antecedents, especially since it comes after the story is finished, but it represents such a change of tone and does so well tying together a bunch of strands from the main narrative that it wouldn't have occurred to the reader to connect, that I tore right through it. Macintyre has a real talent, with every new theory he presents, to get you to think, "Ah, this must be what actually happened," regardless of the fact that you just thought that exact same thing about the last possibility, that he was ideally suited to write a book with this sort of finish.
June 26, 2021
This is an older Ben Macintyre book that was written twenty years ago, well before his later books that I love so much. The story itself could be told in a few chapters but he fills out the book with really interesting insights into what it was like to live in a village in France near the front lines of World War 1. And I loved how he built a case for and against each possible informant in order to solve the central mystery.
May 27, 2023
Utterly dry. Nothing like his splendid .
November 13, 2015
From BBC Radio 4 Extra_ drama:
August 1914: After British decimation at the Battle of Mons, four soldiers hide out in rural France. Read by Tom Goodman-Hill.
2/5: Suspecting that enemy soldiers are posing as civilians, the Germans warn the French not to hide them.
3/5: As the British soldiers settle into the French village, complications arise when one falls in love.
4/5: The German hold on the French village intensifies, but the British soldiers are determined to escape.
5/5: May 1916: The last days of British soldier Robert Digby and the looming Battle of the Somme.
August 1914: After British decimation at the Battle of Mons, four soldiers hide out in rural France. Read by Tom Goodman-Hill.
2/5: Suspecting that enemy soldiers are posing as civilians, the Germans warn the French not to hide them.
3/5: As the British soldiers settle into the French village, complications arise when one falls in love.
4/5: The German hold on the French village intensifies, but the British soldiers are determined to escape.
5/5: May 1916: The last days of British soldier Robert Digby and the looming Battle of the Somme.
January 28, 2021
Otro buen libro del autor. La historia de los soldados británicos quedados detrás de las lÃneas enemigas durante la I Guerra Mundial, en especial de los refugiados en un pequeño poblado dentro de la jurisdicción alemana. Y aún más enfocado a uno de ellos, Robert Digby y su situación allÃ: una historia de amor que alteró su vida y la del resto.
No es una novela a pesar del romance. Es historia y, al mismo tiempo, la solución del misterio de quién traicionó a esos refugiados. Muy recomendable.
No es una novela a pesar del romance. Es historia y, al mismo tiempo, la solución del misterio de quién traicionó a esos refugiados. Muy recomendable.
July 18, 2017
Solid nonfiction of an interesting WWI story, British soldiers stranded behind German lines, in a French hamlet that eventually found itself directly in the battle for the Somme.
What is striking is the depravity of the 'Boche', the German military, in stripping the French of every morsel of food, personal possession, furnishings, jewelry, and finally, blowing up the village housing and church. Especially when this rapaciousness repeated in 30 years with WWII, on an even greater scale across Europe and the USSR. How much of the furnishings, jewelry, objet d'art in today's Germany was STOLEN during the first or second world war? [ never mind the revolting mountains of shoes at the camp museums---]
What is striking is the depravity of the 'Boche', the German military, in stripping the French of every morsel of food, personal possession, furnishings, jewelry, and finally, blowing up the village housing and church. Especially when this rapaciousness repeated in 30 years with WWII, on an even greater scale across Europe and the USSR. How much of the furnishings, jewelry, objet d'art in today's Germany was STOLEN during the first or second world war? [ never mind the revolting mountains of shoes at the camp museums---]
February 23, 2025
This book would have benefited from a list of characters and a more cogent explanation of the movements of three armies during World War I. Despite these flaws I disappeared into its pages. Trench warfare is an unspeakable horror. Soldiers trapped in deep holes filled
with water, rats, boredom and punctuated by moments of death and terror. This book tells the story of four British soldiers who escaped those trenches and found themselves behind enemy lines in a small French village. The villagers managed to bury their mistrust of foreigners and hid the fugitives for years. Things grew more complicated. The German regime was harsh and punitive, There were no happy endings for any of the players. Mr. Macintyre guides us through events ending with a quest to solve a wartime mystery that seemed to haunt him personally.
with water, rats, boredom and punctuated by moments of death and terror. This book tells the story of four British soldiers who escaped those trenches and found themselves behind enemy lines in a small French village. The villagers managed to bury their mistrust of foreigners and hid the fugitives for years. Things grew more complicated. The German regime was harsh and punitive, There were no happy endings for any of the players. Mr. Macintyre guides us through events ending with a quest to solve a wartime mystery that seemed to haunt him personally.
December 11, 2021
MacIntyre again does painstaking research to tell the story of 4 English soldiers hiding in German occupied territory in France during WWI. There really wasn’t much raw material to work with, but MacIntyre did a good job of weaving everything together into a compelling story. Enjoyable book.
April 17, 2021
3.5. This took me a while to read because the beginning was rather dry. It is interesting to see an early book written by Ben Macintyre and to see how his style has changed. WWI is a war that I don't know a great deal about. This book highlighted the plight of civilians in the war zone.
July 27, 2010
"The death of one man is a tragedy. The death of millions is a statistic." (Attributed to Joseph Stalin)
While reading MacIntyre's account of one man's fate during World War I, I couldn't help but reflect on the above quote. Truly, it's easier in some ways to accept the deaths of thousands of nameless, faceless individuals than come to terms with the death of single person whose name and face become known to us. It might be argued that the central figure in this book, Robert Digby, died a "good death," well clear of the mud, poison gas, excrement, and soul-numbing experience of the front which lay just a few miles away. Yet as the author slowly reveals in this absorbing account, there are different shades to death, and the deaths of Digby and his fellow soldiers were anything but straightforward.
The Englishman's Daughter" is the fifth book I've read by Ben MacIntyre; obviously, I enjoy his writing and even moreso his subject matter. He has a knack for selecting and researching tales on the periphery of known history; people and events that would otherwise continue to gather dust in the cupboard of the past. MacIntyre has a novelist's gift for colorful characters, but a journalist's nose for a good story. In this tale of an all-but-forgotten event during a war long past, he brings both skills to the fore, etching vivid portraits of the inhabitants of the small village of Villeret. It's clear that he relished pulling together the details of this tale, and, on the whole I found his meticulously researched narrative of life in Villaret during German occupation to be a singular one. We have many accounts of what life was like in the trenches, but far fewer of what life was like in an occupied zone.
If there was one unsatisfactory part of the book, at least for me, it is that its central figure seemed such a cipher. While I had a firm mental image of a number of prominent villagers, Robert Digby remained something of an enigma. {SPOILER ALERT} Of course, if, as MacIntyre suggests, Digby was working as a spy behind enemy lines, then this aura of impenetrability becomes more understandable. MacIntyre labors hard to make Digby a sympathetic person, framing him within the resonant lines of WWI poetry, but he remained for me a shell of a figure. Somehow I had the sense that Digby was reduced to a heroic figurehead, accorded all due respect and reverence, but one whose motives and character are ultimately unknowable.
Who betrayed Robert Digby and his compatriots? That is the central mystery of the book, and the reader can't help but hope that MacIntyre will make a final dramatic reveal. Alas, while the author builds a strong case against one particular villager, the matter is left unresolved. Yet he ends the book with such a wonderfully poetic image -- that of an immense, battle-scarred oak gradually absorbing the iron spikes which have been hammered into its trunk -- that not having a complete resolution to the mystery seemed, somehow, appropriate.
October 28, 2016
Perhaps instead of the subtitle of A True Story of Love and Betrayal in World War I a more apt subtitle for this book would be A True Story of a French Village during World War I. Maybe not as appealing but much more accurate. I found The Englishman's Daughter to be not so much a love story as a story about a small French village during World War I. Reading this book I got a good sense of what life was like for these French peasants before the war and during the German occupation. The affair between Englishman Robert Digby and French peasant Claire Dessenne only made up a small fraction of the narrative. Information about the daughter that was born as a result of the relationship was even more scarce.
The story was really slow and rather dry for at least the first half of the book. There was a lot of set up and explanations about the maneuvers and movements between the armies etc. The story of Robert and Claire does not even really make an appearance until about page 100 and only occupies a handful of pages throughout.
The Englishman's Daughter is about so much more than Robert and Claire. If you are looking for a good human interest/love story from WWI keep looking. If you are looking for the true story of what life was like in a small French village that harbored some English soldiers while the Germans occupied the area and what happened to them than this book might be worth the read.
**spoiler**
As I suspected throughout my reading there was no clear answer to who betrayed the English soldiers to the Germans. Macintyre did do a good job of presenting the likely suspects and working through what little evidence there is to try and determine who actually did turn them in but too many years and too many missing records make that all but impossible.
The story was really slow and rather dry for at least the first half of the book. There was a lot of set up and explanations about the maneuvers and movements between the armies etc. The story of Robert and Claire does not even really make an appearance until about page 100 and only occupies a handful of pages throughout.
The Englishman's Daughter is about so much more than Robert and Claire. If you are looking for a good human interest/love story from WWI keep looking. If you are looking for the true story of what life was like in a small French village that harbored some English soldiers while the Germans occupied the area and what happened to them than this book might be worth the read.
**spoiler**
As I suspected throughout my reading there was no clear answer to who betrayed the English soldiers to the Germans. Macintyre did do a good job of presenting the likely suspects and working through what little evidence there is to try and determine who actually did turn them in but too many years and too many missing records make that all but impossible.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
February 28, 2012
As Paris correspondent for the London Times, Macintyre went out to report on a meager ceremony in the tiny French village of Villeret commemorating four British soldiers who were executed there by the Germans during World War I. The soldiers had been hidden by the villagers of Villeret for two years.
At the close of the ceremony, an elderly woman in a wheelchair seeks out Macintyre to tell him the story of how seven British soldiers had been protected by the village, three of whom eventually escaped, and four who were shot. "Those seven British soldiers were our soldiers," she says. "One of them was my father."
From this astonishing disclosure, Macintyre weaves a satisfying tale of wartime horrors and humiliations, as the territory at the Western Front changed hands between German and Allied hands. In the confusion of battle, the seven British soldiers lost their regiments and became trapped behind enemy lines. They hid in the woods until a villager discovered them and convinced the village to first hide them, and then remake them into credible French peasants so they could live out in the open.
Although the title of the book makes a lot of the love story of one of the soldiers -- Robert Digby, the father of the elderly woman in the wheelchair -- and how it lead to the betrayal of the soldiers, I found more value in the book as a study of war. Macintyre is skilled in placing you at the Front and immersing you in the exhaustion, terror and shock of retreating soldiers. He also brings clarity to the daily struggles of occupied villages.
It's a pleasure to see that an event of so long ago can be recreated so completely -- even though the men's fate is tragic and there ultimately remains the unsolved mystery of who betrayed them.
At the close of the ceremony, an elderly woman in a wheelchair seeks out Macintyre to tell him the story of how seven British soldiers had been protected by the village, three of whom eventually escaped, and four who were shot. "Those seven British soldiers were our soldiers," she says. "One of them was my father."
From this astonishing disclosure, Macintyre weaves a satisfying tale of wartime horrors and humiliations, as the territory at the Western Front changed hands between German and Allied hands. In the confusion of battle, the seven British soldiers lost their regiments and became trapped behind enemy lines. They hid in the woods until a villager discovered them and convinced the village to first hide them, and then remake them into credible French peasants so they could live out in the open.
Although the title of the book makes a lot of the love story of one of the soldiers -- Robert Digby, the father of the elderly woman in the wheelchair -- and how it lead to the betrayal of the soldiers, I found more value in the book as a study of war. Macintyre is skilled in placing you at the Front and immersing you in the exhaustion, terror and shock of retreating soldiers. He also brings clarity to the daily struggles of occupied villages.
It's a pleasure to see that an event of so long ago can be recreated so completely -- even though the men's fate is tragic and there ultimately remains the unsolved mystery of who betrayed them.
March 10, 2018
This is an unusual and mysterious true story. 'Unusual' in that tells of four British soldiers who were stranded behind the German lines in the early weeks of the First World War and were then concealed for over eighteen months by the inhabitants of an occupied village until they were seemingly betrayed to the Germans and executed as spies. 'Mysterious' in that one asks why few if any attempts were made by these soldiers to escape - via Belgium perhaps - and also whether they - and in particular the main character, Private Robert Digby - were actually involved in spy networks. If so, this would partly explain their fate. The story is given colour by the love affair between Digby and a beautiful French girl which produced a daughter who was still alive when Ben Macintyre researched his book (turn of the Millenium).
The book is interesting and informative and does leave you wondering what was actually happening. It also provides a good insight into the experience of the French people who suffered German occupation in the First World War. We have more idea of the experiences of France in the Second World War but this book makes clear how savage and brutal life under German occupation was in the earlier great conflict.
Highly recommended.
The book is interesting and informative and does leave you wondering what was actually happening. It also provides a good insight into the experience of the French people who suffered German occupation in the First World War. We have more idea of the experiences of France in the Second World War but this book makes clear how savage and brutal life under German occupation was in the earlier great conflict.
Highly recommended.
December 9, 2010
I love an interesting story, told well. And Ben Macintyre's book delivers for the most part. A journalistic encounter-turned-project, it relates an episode in World War I in which battle lines shifted so quickly that some British soldiers ended up stranded in German-held territory in occupied France. Macintyre relates their tale, which contains elements of heroism (especially on the part of the resistance), romance and betrayal. Macintyre's research is impressive. He sets the story amid its gory history. But his interviews also unravel a decades-old mystery and point a fairly convincing finger at the likely suspect who betrayed the soldiers. My only quibble with the book is with its pace. It dragged at times. The carnage of World War I is rendered thoroughly, but there may be too much of it here. Context is important, but this book's focus is a SMALL chapter in World War I history. Readers who want more history about the war can look elsewhere.
January 1, 2013
The amount of research undertaken to develop this account of an 18 month period during WWI is staggering. The book tells the story of English soldiers,separated from their units, living in an occupied French village near the Western Front. The Englishman, of the title, falls in love with a village girl and fathers a child with her. Their relationship is not necessarily central to the story, which provides a fascinating level of detail about the daily lives and suffering of the villagers and their soldiers. The love story of Claire Dessene and Robert Digby remains to be told, but reading about the strength and loyalty of all involved in this bit of history, and particularly of their grace and stoicism in facing death and imprisonment was equally worthwhile. I thoroughly enjoyed the combination of historical fact, military strategy, and quotidian detail.
December 7, 2015
This was an excellent book. After reading the prologue anyone with any sense of curiosity would have to read the rest of the book. There has been so much written about the dreadful conditions in the trenches it was for me the first time that I had read anything about the way ordinary French people lived in the areas immediately behind the enemy lines. The book deals very sympathetically with the mixed feelings of patriotism, every day survival, the change of attitude towards Germans the people got to know. Knowing the fate of the four soldiers in no way lessened the tensions of discovery by the Germans for the soldiers and the French people who were concealing them. It was surprising how long they lasted without being detected and why they did not take the opportunity to surrender when the offer was made. The follow up after the war added to the overall picture of what happened.
October 4, 2016
Ben Macintryre's nose for a good yarn is equalled by his ability to tell it. A Foreign Field is a slow butner, but it develops into a book as gripping as any he has written.
It stems from an unpromising invitation to attend a memorial service for four British soldiers who wre executed during the first World War. Having discovered that France kept thousands of first hand testimony following 1918, and then forgot about them, he uncovers a remarkable series of events that took place in one small village close to the site of the battle of the Somme.
What emerges is a love story, a murder mystery, and a complex network of courage and betrayal. Macintyre is scrupulous in not taking sides, leaving the reader's sympathies to fluctuate with the day-to-day pressures of that horrific war.
It is a huge story told in miniature, moving and compelling as it moves to a surprising solution.
It stems from an unpromising invitation to attend a memorial service for four British soldiers who wre executed during the first World War. Having discovered that France kept thousands of first hand testimony following 1918, and then forgot about them, he uncovers a remarkable series of events that took place in one small village close to the site of the battle of the Somme.
What emerges is a love story, a murder mystery, and a complex network of courage and betrayal. Macintyre is scrupulous in not taking sides, leaving the reader's sympathies to fluctuate with the day-to-day pressures of that horrific war.
It is a huge story told in miniature, moving and compelling as it moves to a surprising solution.
July 14, 2017
I've yet to read a Ben Macintyre book I didn't thoroughly enjoy, and The Englishman's Daughter was no exception. Excellent narrative nonfiction, with amazing efforts at reportage and a lovely eye for details.
This is a fast read and covers one small but compelling story from WW1, but the intimacy and journalistic immediacy end up delivering deeper meaning than you might get from a more traditional strategy- or battle-focused overview of the war.
Because you spend the story focused on a small country village, with the foibles and decency of recognizable normal people, the relatively short stretches at the end covering the decimation of the countryside are all the more powerful.
This is a fast read and covers one small but compelling story from WW1, but the intimacy and journalistic immediacy end up delivering deeper meaning than you might get from a more traditional strategy- or battle-focused overview of the war.
Because you spend the story focused on a small country village, with the foibles and decency of recognizable normal people, the relatively short stretches at the end covering the decimation of the countryside are all the more powerful.
December 17, 2022
Compared to Ben Macintyre's World War II books, this one is slower and more deliberately paced. It took me awhile to warm to this true story, but eventually I did. Before reading it, I really had no idea of the true horror Germany wrought upon France during World War I. Their monstrous treatment of civilians is mind-boggling and heartbreaking. It's always a plus when the author has a chance to meet some of the people he or she is writing about-anything else I say will be a spoiler. These were unbelievably tough, courageous, and resolute people. It's a shame the world had to go through it again just a generation later.
September 1, 2020
A book about a small group of English soldiers trapped behind enemy lines during WW1, and how one town sheltered them from discovery until it all went wrong. It is a story of incredible courage equal to anything that happened in the trenches, and of the limits of human endurance when faced with unbelievable privation. A beautiful book.
March 12, 2018
Ben Macintyre’s book The Englishman’s Daughter is a book of war, love, friendship, and betrayal. It is a story about a group of nine ally soldiers that all find their way to a small town in northern France named Villeret after being left behind by there retreating units. The people in this town hide the soldiers and care for them as they hide under the noses of the German soldiers patrolling around the town. When the Germans start to get suspicious, five soldiers leave and four stayed and when back into hiding. Then an unknown townsperson betrayed the soldiers and told the germans the location of the hiding soldiers. The Villeret civilians and the ally soldiers were sentenced to different punishments, some worse than others. But the more you look into the book, the more understandings of the true meaning of the book are revealed.
This is a great story and I would recommend reading it. It can be hard to follow but it makes more sense the more your read. Macintyre uses quotes, names of people and cities in the language, and even went to the city to get the right information to best tell the story. He tells more of his experience there in the end of the book. He shares details that honestly don't need to be in the book, but make the story better. It tell the story from being to the end and even more into the future. Macintyre gets to visit this town and the relatives of the past citizens. he uses these experience to get multiple point of view of the story. When he asked who betrayed the soldiers, many people had many different answers. Macintyre was able to take many different version of one story and combine them to make the story in the book The Englishman’s Daughter.
Although The Englishman’s Daughter is a story that is not well known, it is much more. It is a story that show that love does not any boundaries and that with love, there is also sacrifice. The citizens of Villeret were loving and caring to the ally soldiers that were passing. The people did not have to help them. But because they helped the soldiers, they sacrificed their safety and freedom. This sacrifice is shown at the end of the book when the different sentences are give for the crimes committed. Although the soldier were eventually found and the punishments carried out, the story still lives on and the deaths of the four brave soldiers were not in vain.
Just like most books, there is a deeper meaning than the one you read on the top. To fully understand a book, you need to reread parts you didn’t understand the first time or direct the true meaning of the book. Many book have the same moral and many can have more than one moral, but every book has one. In the book The Englishman’s Daughter there are many morals. Some of which I might not of found yet. I do recommend reading this book if you are into WWI, and try to find some of the morals that i may have left out.
Rating: 3.5/5
This is a great story and I would recommend reading it. It can be hard to follow but it makes more sense the more your read. Macintyre uses quotes, names of people and cities in the language, and even went to the city to get the right information to best tell the story. He tells more of his experience there in the end of the book. He shares details that honestly don't need to be in the book, but make the story better. It tell the story from being to the end and even more into the future. Macintyre gets to visit this town and the relatives of the past citizens. he uses these experience to get multiple point of view of the story. When he asked who betrayed the soldiers, many people had many different answers. Macintyre was able to take many different version of one story and combine them to make the story in the book The Englishman’s Daughter.
Although The Englishman’s Daughter is a story that is not well known, it is much more. It is a story that show that love does not any boundaries and that with love, there is also sacrifice. The citizens of Villeret were loving and caring to the ally soldiers that were passing. The people did not have to help them. But because they helped the soldiers, they sacrificed their safety and freedom. This sacrifice is shown at the end of the book when the different sentences are give for the crimes committed. Although the soldier were eventually found and the punishments carried out, the story still lives on and the deaths of the four brave soldiers were not in vain.
Just like most books, there is a deeper meaning than the one you read on the top. To fully understand a book, you need to reread parts you didn’t understand the first time or direct the true meaning of the book. Many book have the same moral and many can have more than one moral, but every book has one. In the book The Englishman’s Daughter there are many morals. Some of which I might not of found yet. I do recommend reading this book if you are into WWI, and try to find some of the morals that i may have left out.
Rating: 3.5/5
January 17, 2025
A wartime romance, survival saga and murder mystery set in rural France during the First World War. Four young British soldiers find themselves trapped behind enemy lines at the height of the fighting on the Western front in August 1914; unable to get back to their units, they shelter in the tiny French village of Villeret. Living in daily fear of capture and execution, they are fed, clothed and protected by the villagers including the local matriarch, Madame Dessenne, the baker and his wife. The self-styled leader of the band of fugitives, Private Robert Digby, falls in love with the twenty-year-old-daughter of one of his protectors and in November 1915, with war waging a few miles away, she gives birth to a baby girl. The child is just six months old when someone betrays the men to the Germans. They are captured, tried as spies and summarily condemned to death. Using the testimonies of the daughter, the villagers, detailed town hall records and most movingly -- the soldiers' last letters -- Ben Macintyre reconstructs an extraordinarily story of love, duplicity and shame -- ultimately seeking to discover through decades of village rumour the answer to the question, 'Who betrayed Private Digby and his men?'
I have read this book for book group. This book is really is not my cup of tea. The reason being is that it is a factual book. I feel really bogged down with these types of books. I have read some of the book and have got a gist of the story and do know who betrayed the men. I would have enjoyed the book more had it been wrote as a work of fiction, or in letter and diary form. The characters then would have had their own voices and the book would have had some dimension to it. Factual books I find very flat.
I have read this book for book group. This book is really is not my cup of tea. The reason being is that it is a factual book. I feel really bogged down with these types of books. I have read some of the book and have got a gist of the story and do know who betrayed the men. I would have enjoyed the book more had it been wrote as a work of fiction, or in letter and diary form. The characters then would have had their own voices and the book would have had some dimension to it. Factual books I find very flat.
May 17, 2017
In 1914, the British faked a retreat to draw the Germans out of position to fight them but this retreat became disorganized and many English soldiers were lost behind enemy (German) lines. Most of them surrendered but a few hid with French villagers including four men in Villeret. They quickly assimilated with the villagers and learned the language and customs and became unnoticeable to the German occupiers. One of the men, Robert Digby, fell in love with a village girl and they had a child. Rather than unite the village, the girl caused a lot of controversy as her villager grandmother refused to acknowledge her and jealous men and women stirred up gossip. Finally, in 1918 someone reported the men to the German occupiers. The four men were arrested, tried in court as spies, and executed. A few months later, the village was relocated to internment camps in other regions. When the war was over many of the villagers did not come back to Villeret. Several decades later, Ben Macintyre found out about the Villeret story and decided to investigate it. Over several months he interviewed all the surviving Villeret inhabitants and discovered who betrayed the Englishmen.
I enjoyed reading this book because it was very interesting and extremely exciting. I did not enjoy the overload of factual information about World War One battles.
I would recommend this book to anyone who enjoys World War One books and escape stories.
I enjoyed reading this book because it was very interesting and extremely exciting. I did not enjoy the overload of factual information about World War One battles.
I would recommend this book to anyone who enjoys World War One books and escape stories.
January 10, 2023
Whilst this wasn't as good as some of the books I've read by Macintyre, it was still a well written and interesting story of love, betrayal, family feuds and the life of one village in France protecting a number of English soldiers, whilst being occupied in World War 1.
Macintyre has a real talent for bringing real life stories and the people involved to life, in a way that you can almost imagine you are part of the story. This was on show here and you were given a feel not just for the people in the story but the village of Villeret, its history, how it worked, its experience of occupation and in the concluding chapter what it is like now.
The story also highlights the utter futility of World War 1 and the immense suffering in the Trenches at the Somme.
I preferred some chapters to others, with some not quite hitting the mark for me and there was a tendency at times to drift off from the central story of the British soldiers in the village and how they were captured.
Overall though this is a very well written account of a piece of history I didn't know at all. Whilst not being his finest work, Macintyre still wrote a high quality account and did justice to the story. I wouldn't hesitate in recommending it.
Macintyre has a real talent for bringing real life stories and the people involved to life, in a way that you can almost imagine you are part of the story. This was on show here and you were given a feel not just for the people in the story but the village of Villeret, its history, how it worked, its experience of occupation and in the concluding chapter what it is like now.
The story also highlights the utter futility of World War 1 and the immense suffering in the Trenches at the Somme.
I preferred some chapters to others, with some not quite hitting the mark for me and there was a tendency at times to drift off from the central story of the British soldiers in the village and how they were captured.
Overall though this is a very well written account of a piece of history I didn't know at all. Whilst not being his finest work, Macintyre still wrote a high quality account and did justice to the story. I wouldn't hesitate in recommending it.
April 25, 2019
Not one of Macintyre’s best: the blurb makes it sound sensational, but this story of a French village in World War One � and the British soldiers hiding there, later to be betrayed � is rather aloof and clunky. In many of Macintyre’s later books, you’re swept along on a tide of bromance and gimmicky but lively prose; here you can really see the mechanics behind the construction: it often feels more like a history essay than a proper book. It’s quite atmospheric and occasionally moving, particularly the chapter set in 1930, while offering a vaguely alternative angle on a conflict where really everything has been said, but it plods when it should grip, and restricts the tackling of its central mystery � who betrayed the British soldiers? � to a fairly convincing but also short and rather wooly final chapter.
September 7, 2019
An interesting story but better suited for a smaller monogram.I didn’t know much about what happened behind the lines to French villagers under German control and was intrigued by a tale of some British soldiers left behind when the Allies retreated in September 1914.The soldiers were allowed by the villagers in merge into their lives as the best way to hide them.This was explained in a fairly leisurely way but the story became more interesting when somebody betrayed them.Their execution in 1916 and the aftermath was poignant and powerful.information about spy rings was also intriguing.Overall a good story but too long.
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