Empire and War

Could you have survived a soldier's life in the wretched trenches of the Western Front or the strict Prussian POW camps of WWI? Having served in South Africa and British India, Joe Rutherford and his friends returned to their old way of life on Tyneside. They married and settled happily until the European Great War erupted in mid-1914. As reservists, Joe and his friends rejoin their old regiment and are shipped to the Western Front in France. There, they experience the perils of that horrific conflict in the deadly trenches and open, sodden farmlands under constant fire, where two of Joe's friends and many more lost their lives. Joe and his last remaining friend, Mike, are captured and taken to Germany, where they must survive in captivity by the enemy.

After a heroic attempt at escape, the friends are moved from one camp to another as living conditions gradually worsen. They cherish the care packages sent from home as they slow and trickle to a halt. They wonder why? At least they are in touch with their loved ones, experiencing their own difficulties at home, the women taking their places in the farms and factories. Will the soldiers and their families survive the war and the 1918 Flu pandemic? Will the soldiers overcome the harsh conditions of the POW camps, be freed and transported home to safety and medical treatment?

This second book of the Rutherford Chronicles traces the horror of WWI on the Western Front and in the POW Camps and how those prisoners and their families coped and survived such horrific times and events. Other personalities include Kaiser Wilhelm, Winston Churchill, Douglas Haig and the Canadians William Hart-McHarg and John McCrae.