In the Beginning

Abstract

The overwhelming majority of the soldiers of the Allied armies making their weary and dangerous way across Northern Europe in 1944–5 had never before set foot in continental Europe. Even so, many must have reflected on the fact that the towns and villages along their path frequently had names with which they were vaguely familiar, having heard them as children from fathers or uncles; in fact, only a single generation separated them from a similar army engaged in similar battles over the same terrain. Indeed, they might well have pondered on the fact that their generals and field marshals had been field commanders in that earlier war also. There was, in other words, an ominous air of repetition about the whole business.