Top military historian puts war literature in the firing line

The University of Aberdeen will next week (Wednesday, May 28) welcome one of the country's leading military historians, Professor Richard Holmes, CBE to deliver a prestigious lecture: War on Words: The British Army and the Western Front 1914-18.

Richard Holmes, best-known for his award-winning BBC television programmes including Soldiers and Battlefields, will discuss how the real picture of life on the Western front can be found in the writings of ordinary soldiers and officers.

Professor Holmes will deliver the Caledonian Research Foundation Prize Lecture, presented by the Royal Society of Edinburgh, at the King's College Conference Centre at 6.15pm.

He said: "The bloody struggle on the Western Front has polarised historians. Some have written of 'Lions led by Donkeys', while others see the British army's achievement as a 'Forgotten Victory'.

"But the letters and diaries of the British Army in the front line give a very different view of the war to that reflected in much of the war poetry and literature of the day."

In his lecture, War on Words: The British Army and the Western Front 1914-1918, Professor Holmes will argue that we should have less polemics about generals and look harder at the everyday lives of the men who won the war.

The Caledonian Research Foundation is a charity which sponsors and encourages research in Scotland. The Foundation's prize lecture was established in 1991 where distinguished scholars are invited to deliver lectures and visit staff in universities and research centres throughout Scotland.

Previous lecturers have included Dr Lewis Cantley of Harvard Medical School, historian and writer Sir Roy Strong, Professor George Steiner, Cambridge University and Nobel-prize winner Professor Harold Varmus of the University of California Medical School.