01 October 2008

Upcoming talk by Andrew Iarocci on the 1st Canadian Division

Sorry about the very short notice on this one.  Andrew Iarocci, postdoctoral research fellow at the Canadian War Museum, will be speaking on his latest book, "Shoestring Soldiers: The 1st Canadian Division at War, 1914-1915" (University of Toronto Press, 2008), at the Laurier Centre for Military Strategic and Disarmament Studies at 232 King Street, Kitchener-Waterloo, Ontario, on Thursday, 2 October, at 1900 hours.  As the release notes:
 
"In this exciting new work, Andrew Iarocci challenges the dominant view that the 1st Canadian Division was poorly prepared for war in 1914, and less than effective during battles in 1915.  He examines the first generations of men to serve overseas with the division: their training, leadership, morale, and combat operations from Salisbury Plain to the Ypres Salient, from the La Bassée Canal to Ploegsteert Wood.  Iarocci contends that setbacks and high losses in battle were not so much the products of poor training and weak leadership as the were of inadequate material resources on the Western Front.
 
Shoestring Soldiers incorporates a wealth of research material from official documents, soldiers' letters and diaries, and the battlefields themselves, surveyed extensively by the author.  It marks an important contribution to the growing body of literature on Canada in the First World War."

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