Steady Drummer

The Balkan Front in the Great War…

…Overshadowed by the devastating Western Front.

In this memoir, Stanley Casson argues that the Balkan Front was in fact decisive for the eventual Allied victory.

This personal and pragmatic first hand account of the Great War describes a short spell in the Flanders trenches before injury, and then the rest of the war in the more congenial climate of Greece.

As an expert on the country, Casson joined the General Staff and was present on the Bulgarian Front when the British, French, Greek and Serb Allies pushed up into a defeated Austria.

Casson describes events with a rational and informed view.

The intense detail implies an immediacy of a man in the middle of the action.

Steady Drummer is an erudite and informative account of a campaign often overlooked but which he convincingly argues was no sideshow, but made a vital contribution to the final Allied victory.

Praise for Steady Drummer

‘A fine memoir of the Balkan front in the Great War.’ – Naval and Military Press

Stanley Casson (1889-1944) was an Oxford-educated scholar of ancient Greece. During his time in Flanders, he wrote war poetry. After the war Casson became director of the British School in Athens. He died during the Second World War in a plane crash while again serving as a liaison officer with the Greeks.