Book review: The Drowned And The Saved, by Les Wilson

The trenches and the slaughter on the Western Front dominate our memory of the First World War; understandably. It was a war like none before it and, happily, none since, a war fought by huge armies, mostly men who were civilians until the autumn of 1914 who had volunteered or been conscripted for service. Our understanding of it has been fixed by photography and the writing of the war poets. But even the British war wasn’t fought only in Flanders and Northern France. It was a naval war too, and the war in the Atlantic and northern waters was as terrible and important as the war on land. It was vital because both Britain and Germany were seeking to win an economic war, a war of blockade which would deny food and material to civilian populations. And the war of blockade was a close-run thing.