The Battleground series is designed for both the battlefield visitor and the reader at home. For the former, this book is an invaluable guide and each site is described in detail. For everyone there are graphic descriptions of action, often through first-hand accounts, supported by illustrations, diagrams and maps.

Salford was late in recruiting for its Pals battalions, with many of its men already joining Territorial units and a new Pals battalion in Manchester. Yet within a year it had raised four Pals battalions and a reserve battalion. Raised mainly from Lancashire's most notorious slums, the men trained together in Wales, North East England, and on Salisbury Plain, they had great expectations of success. On the 1st of July 1916, the Somme offensive was launched and in the very epicenter of that ...

This is the latest book in the Battleground Europe series focusing on the Somme sector. Full of stories of both endeavour and heartbreak, it deals with action around the Triple Tambour Mine Craters, Bois Francais, Mansell Copse, Danzig Alley and the approaches to Mametz Wood.

The battle for Guillemont raged throughout August 1916. Like so many of the battles into which the 'Big Push' degenerated, the struggle centred around a wood, Trones, and a heavily fortified village. It was in this battle that Noel Chavasse won the first of his two Vcs.

Using national and local archives, documentary evidence, personal reminiscence and British and German unit histories, a guide to the Somme battlefield.Apart from the historical detail, La Boiselle is illuminated by a distinctive and detailed array of maps and aerial photographs which will guide the reader both at home and in the field. To support the maps, a sequence of contemporary and present-day photographs will enable students to plan and execute a ser...

Unlike its near neighbour, working-class Salford, Manchester proved able to raise eight Pals battalions. Initially, these battalions were composed of middle-class men who experience before the war years was within the commercial, financial and manufacturing interests which formed the foundations of Edwardian Manchesters life and prosperity. Manchester was undeniably proud of its pals battalions; that the area was capable of raising. Seven months after their arrival in France the battle of ...

Linking with a six part television programme (to be shown on ITV in November) covering the history of Gallipoli, The Somme and Ypres this book combines contemporary imagery with atmospheric photographs, revealing the very essence of these places. Quality photography is matched by powerful commentary encompassing the grand sweep of the Great War sustained by an intimate local knowledge.

Gritty, but witty, description of life and death on the front line in Afghanistan, by the bestselling author of BULLET MAGNET.Now Zad, Afghanistan: a small unit of British soldiers are beseiged on a hilltop, surrounded by Taliban. There is no way out but through ambush country, on roads full of IEDs. In any case, the British have no intention of running: they have promised the local population that they are here to stay. But every day the attacks on their position ...

The first novel by English writer Elizabeth Gaskell, Mary Barton was published in 1848. It tells of the plight of the lower class in Manchester during the 1830s and 1840s. Contrasting the gap between rich and poor, the first half of the novel tells of the humble lives of the Barton and Wilson families, the extreme poverty of the Davenports and the luxurious life of the Carsons. Symbolically, John Barton receives five shillings for selling most of his worldly possessions; Henry Carson has t...

For the first time ever, a special enhanced edition of the enchanting prelude to The Lord of the Rings, illustrated throughout with over 50 sketches, drawings, paintings and maps by J.R.R. Tolkien himself.Bilbo Baggins is a hobbit who enjoys a comfortable, unambitious life, rarely travelling further than the pantry of his hobbit-hole in Bag End. But his contentment is disturbed when the wizard, Gandalf, and a company of thirteen dwarves arrive on his doors...

On 1 July 1916, after a five-day bombardment, 11 British and 5 French divisions launched their long-awaited 'Big Push' on German positions on high ground above the Rivers Ancre and Somme on the Western Front. Some ground was gained, but at a terrible cost. In killing-grounds whose names are indelibly imprinted on 20th-century memory, German machine-guns – manned by troops who had sat out the storm of shellfire in deep dugouts – inflicted terrible losses on the British infantry.The ...

Through the first year of the First World War, Allied strategy had relied upon a series of small-scale assaults, which in reality achieved little or no ground gained. The Battle of Loos was to be different. Kitchener's Army was deployed in strength for the first time and an ambitious plan aimed to take ground over a 20-mile front.However, the battlefield was not the Allies' ideal site and the battle plans did not account for the lack of ammunition and artillery. It...