By Christian Méry. Ed. du Brévail. 303 pages fully illustrated with english text, colour and b&w photos, size 30 x 21,5 cm, hardcover, ref: 01ABL404
The 2019 edition of German Ersatz Bayonets is by no means a simple reissue of my first book on the topic but a completely new study, filled with much more information, photographs, and an updated, precise, and authoritative text. It has over 50 pages more than the original version, many of these pages filled with new photographs of this type of bayonet in its various versions, along with new unit-marked examples, as well as new photographs of German military personnel armed with these items.
The decision to substantially re-write the original book, and greatly enhance it with these new photographs, came in response to a growing interest in the German ersatz bayonet among collectors and others who want and need a reliable guide to them, and also as a means of identifying the real thing from the several fakes that have begun to appear in recent times on the European and American markets.
With more than 1000 colour and black and white photographs, this version provides without any doubt the most complete and comprehensive study of the German ersatz bayonet, many of them brought back by veterans on leave or at their discharge as war trophies, either as captured weapons, or collected from the battlefield itself. Most then became forgotten relics of the past, left in attics and the like, abandoned and left to rust. Yet they are tangible witnesses of what will always be known as the Great War, and now, over a century later, what were weapons made for killing have become treasured reminders of the years 1914-1918.
What this book does, then, is not just to present them as collectable items, but to breathe life into them as a way of paying homage to the hundreds of thousands of combatants from all countries who fought and died on the battlefields of World War One.
ISBN : 9781234567897
