The third battle of Ypres, culminating in a desperate struggle for the ridge and little village of Passchendaele, was one of the most appalling campaigns in the First World War. In this masterly piece of oral history, Lyn Macdonald lets over 600 participants speak for themselves. A million Tommies, Canadians and Anzacs assembled at the Ypres Salient in the summer of 1917, mostly raw young troops keen to do their bit for King and Country. This book tells their tale of mounting disillusion a...

Over two decades' research puts Lyn Macdonald among the greatest popular chroniclers of the First World War. In 1915: The Death of Innocence, from the poignant memories of participants, she has once again created an unforgettable slice of military history.By the end of 1914, the battered British forces were bogged down, yet hopeful that promised reinforcements and spring weather would soon lead to a victorious breakthrough. A year later, after appalling losses at Aubers Ri...

2016 is the 100th anniversary of the Battle of the Somme'There was hardly a household in the land', writes Lyn Macdonald, 'there was no trade, occupation, profession or community, which was not represented in the thousands of innocent enthusiasts who made up the ranks of Kitchener's Army before the Battle of the Somme...'The year 1916 was one of the great turning-points in British history: as the youthful hopes of a generation were crushed in a desperate st...

THE INSPIRATION BEHIND THE BBC DRAMA THE CRIMSON FIELD'On the face of it,' writes Lyn Macdonald, 'no one could have been less equipped for the job than these gently nurtured girls who walked straight out of Edwardian drawing rooms into the manifest horrors of the First World War ...'Yet the volunteer nurses rose magnificently to the occasion. In leaking tents and draughty huts they fought another war, a war against agony and death, as men lay suffe...

Lyn MacDonald's acclaimed history 1914: The Days of Hope, is not so much the story of war as the story of an army.In this vivid account of the first months of the First World War, Lyn Macdonald draws on personal accounts of surviving veterans, bringing to life the disillusionment, the questioning and the heroism of the men of the British Army.The officers and men of 1914 were prepared to fight and ready to lay down their lives because it was their job. These men be...

'Hers is a formidable achievement.' - Sebastian FaulksThis is the account of the battle, the retreat and the stand at Amiens which saved the city, secured the line, and caused Ludendorff to call off his offensive in the spring of 1918. But mostly it is the story of the men who took part: the Commanders, the weary, resolute British Tommies, the exultant Germans, the French poilus rushed up to stiffen the defence and the still unblooded Doughboys from the U.S.

Brought to you by PenguinTHE INSPIRATION BEHIND THE BBC DRAMA THE CRIMSON FIELD'On the face of it,' writes Lyn Macdonald, 'no one could have been less equipped for the job than these gently nurtured girls who walked straight out of Edwardian drawing rooms into the manifest horrors of the First World War ...'Yet the volunteer nurses rose magnificently to the occasion. In leaking tents and draughty huts they fought another wa...

Brought to you by Penguin.'Four years of war turned Ypres into a ghost town. Not a leaf grew on a tree. Scarcely one stone stood upon another. From the battered ramparts the eye swept clean across a field of rubble to the swamp-lands beyond . . .'The Third Battle of Ypres, ending in a desperate struggle for the ridge and little village of Passchendaele, was one of the most appalling campaigns in the history of warfare. A million Tommies, Ca...

Brought to you by Penguin.'There was hardly a household in the land', writes Lyn Macdonald, 'there was no trade, occupation, profession or community, which was not represented in the thousands of innocent enthusiasts who made up the ranks of Kitchener's Army before the Battle of the Somme...'The year 1916 was one of the great turning-points in British history: as the youthful hopes of a generation were crushed in a desperate struggle to survive, and traditi...