
Reflections on the Battlefield
From Infantryman to Chaplain 1914-1919
J. R. Rider(Author)
Liverpool University Press
Published on 1. October 2001
Book
Paperback/Softback
160 pages
978-0-85323-897-3 (ISBN)
Description
When Robert J. Rider died in 1961, he left to his descendants a typescript text, tentatively entitled Flashbacks, which would eventually become Reflections on the Battlefield. Broadly autobiographical, this text offers a unique account of its author who fought as an infantryman while also serving as a chaplain, thus exposing himself in peculiar directness to the ambiguities of chaplaincy service on the battlefield. A further particularity is that Rider was in a minority among chaplains, being a Methodist chaplain. In August 1914, Rider, aged twenty-five, was about to begin his third year of training for the ministry of the Wesleyan Methodist church, at Handsworth Theological College in Birmingham. Two months later he had enlisted with the First Birmingham Battalion, later termed the 14th Battalion, of the Royal Warwickshire Regiment. Rider's first-hand accounts of Ypres, the Somme and Arras reveal a man morally opposed to war and yet adamant that Germany and her allies needed to be defeated. Reflections on the Battlefield provides us with a personal and valuable contribution to the present-day debate about the contemporary understanding of the ethics of war, as expressed on the World War I battlefield.
More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
Liverpool
United Kingdom
Target group
College/higher education
Professional and scholarly
Dimensions
Height: 234 mm
Width: 156 mm
ISBN-13
978-0-85323-897-3 (9780853238973)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Content
List of Illustrations
Preface
Introduction
1 Trenches and Mines
2 A Minor Wound
3 Two Sundays
4 In Action
5 No-Man's-Land
6 Fear Overcome
7 Problems of a Padre
8 Blood and Fire
9 Talking of Death and Censoring Letters
10 Gas and Bombs
11 A Bad Job
12 Prisoners not Enemies
13 A German Service
14 Victory Hymns
15 Horses and Refugees
16 Liberation
17 Armistice
Epilogue
Index
Preface
Introduction
1 Trenches and Mines
2 A Minor Wound
3 Two Sundays
4 In Action
5 No-Man's-Land
6 Fear Overcome
7 Problems of a Padre
8 Blood and Fire
9 Talking of Death and Censoring Letters
10 Gas and Bombs
11 A Bad Job
12 Prisoners not Enemies
13 A German Service
14 Victory Hymns
15 Horses and Refugees
16 Liberation
17 Armistice
Epilogue
Index