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The Reckoning: Canadian Prisoners of War in the Great War
Following on the heels of his book The Forgotten comes a new book about the lives of Canadian prisoners of war in the First World War.
Conditions in German POW camps were generally vile, with soldiers having little to eat but thin soup and putrid meat. Canadian men were used as slave labourers in salt mines and coal mines, and those who refused the work were beaten. Any soldiers thought to have engaged in sabotage were beaten and tortured, and some were murdered.
Some POWs attempted escape, a few more than once, using ingenious and dangerous methods. One soldier attempted to escape by secreting himself in a wicker bask. Others, who were hearty frontiersmen, did escape, making their way out of Germany by hiding in forests and ditches and using magnetized razor blades as a compass.
In The Reckoning bestselling author and Governor General’s Award–nominee Nathan M. Greenfield explores life and death in the camps, as well as the attempts to run for freedom. These are the forgotten stories of our soldiers at war and in the camps, and of how they never gave up hope of making it out alive.
Conditions in German POW camps were generally vile, with soldiers having little to eat but thin soup and putrid meat. Canadian men were used as slave labourers in salt mines and coal mines, and those who refused the work were beaten. Any soldiers thought to have engaged in sabotage were beaten and tortured, and some were murdered.
Some POWs attempted escape, a few more than once, using ingenious and dangerous methods. One soldier attempted to escape by secreting himself in a wicker bask. Others, who were hearty frontiersmen, did escape, making their way out of Germany by hiding in forests and ditches and using magnetized razor blades as a compass.
In The Reckoning bestselling author and Governor General’s Award–nominee Nathan M. Greenfield explores life and death in the camps, as well as the attempts to run for freedom. These are the forgotten stories of our soldiers at war and in the camps, and of how they never gave up hope of making it out alive.
384 pages, Hardcover
Published October 25, 2016
About the author
Nathan M. Greenfield
11 books8 followersNATHAN M. GREENFIELD, PhD, is the Canadian correspondent for The Times Educational Supplement and is a contributor to Maclean’s, Canadian Geographic and The Times Literary Supplement. He is the author of The Damned, which was a finalist for the Governor General’s Award for Non-Fiction; Baptism of Fire, which was a finalist for the Edna Staebler Award for Creative Non-Fiction; and the widely praised The Battle of the St. Lawrence. Greenfield lives in Ottawa.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
February 17, 2020
This was a really interesting account of Canadian POWs during the First World War. I had no idea of the conditions they were living under. Very eye opening.
October 27, 2020
not a great book. some of it was interesting but it was really a listing rather than a story of the horrors of being a captured man in ww1
May 3, 2021
From the perspective of learning about an aspect of Canadian Great War history, it provided a unique aspect which I was unaware of. Similar to books I've read on the Great Escape of World War II. Contains diaries of individual soldiers. A bit disjointed but worth the read from the perspective of historical insights.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews