Description

With more than 400 photographs and 40 maps, this history of the Royal Newfoundland Regiment is a tribute to those who served and a guide for those who wish to retrace the soldiers’ steps. It is the essential travel companion to the battlefields and memorials of the Newfoundland Contingent in the Great War.

In 1914, the Dominion of Newfoundland stepped forward to stand to arms in aid of the British Empire, mobilizing a generation of young volunteers to fight the Central Powers. Unlike her Imperial cousins, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa, this rugged North Atlantic country did not have a standing army. From this inauspicious beginning, the 1st Newfoundland Regiment evolved into one of the toughest and most respected fighting units in the First World War, the only Regiment serving in the armies of the British Empire to be awarded the title “Royal” during these hostilities.

But the fighting cost them dearly. Suffering great losses, the Royal Newfoundland Regiment left many of its soldiers behind on the battlefields of France, Belgium, and Gallipoli. After the war, Padre Thomas Nangle of the Royal Newfoundland Regiment pioneered the commemoration of these soldiers through proper burials and the creation of magnificent memorials to the fallen.

More than a hundred years have passed since the beginning of the Great War, and new generations are visiting these memorials to bear witness to the heroism and sacrifice of their forebears. This book is a must-have for anyone making the pilgrimage to those battlefields.