Secret History: Charley meets an infamous character

in which Charley meets a young version of the most infamous character of World War II. He who cannot be named!

Welcome to my Secret History of Comics: my new book serialised on Substack. The first section was on Marshal Law: now it’s all about Charley’s War.

If you’re joining me for the first time, you can read the intro to the Secret History here, it’s available for everyone, and so is the intro to Charley’s War.

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After the stretcher-bearer story, there follows three episodes on the Battle of Cambrai. I deliberately didn’t have Charley in this conflict. Otherwise there was a danger of him being everywhere at all the key events of the Great War, which was just not realistic. It’s noteworthy that Cambrai, despite its initial success, was yet another disaster because – as I say in the story – ‘The Generals were so far behind the lines, there was a breakdown in command.’ Not being properly prepared for a breakout suggests, yet again, that there was no true desire for victory: instead the war was deliberately prolonged. The German counter-attack resulted in the front line being back where the British had started. But someone had to be blamed. ‘At the enquiry, the blame was put on ordinary soldiers. The Generals claimed the soldiers had lost their heads.’