Geology controls the outcome of battle and no more so than during the trench warfare of the Great War; this new book by expert Peter Doyle takes us through the details. An understanding of terrain has been the mark of a great commander from at least the time of Sun Tzu, and most campaigns can be interpreted and understood from this standpoint. It is the Great War, a war of trenches and dug-outs, of mines and mud, that epitomises the struggles of commander and soldier alike in the prosecuti...

The First World War largely directed the course of the twentieth century. Fought on three continents, the war saw 14 million killed and 34 million wounded. Its impact shaped the world we live in today, and the language of the trenches continues to live in the modern consciousness.One of the enduring myths of the First World War is that the experience of the trenches was not talked about. Yet dozens of words entered or became familiar in the English language as a di...

Frank and Percy Talley of the 1st City of London Yeomanry (Rough Riders) were destined to leave England to take part in the last, and most costly, single-day battle of the Gallipoli Campaign, on 21 August 1915. In never-before published letters, the Talley brothers describe their training in England and their move to the East Coast to man the trenches there during the invasion scare of 1914 and the Zeppelin attack at Great Yarmouth. Their letters provide a rare insight int...

The failure of the Gallipoli campaign was instantly blamed on a great untruth – that the War Office was unprepared for Dardanelles operations and gave Sir Ian Hamilton little in the way of maps and terrain intelligence. This myth is repeated by current historians. The Dardanelles Commission became a battleground of accusation and counter-accusation. This book, incorporating much previously unpublished material, demonstrates that geographical intelligence preparations had i...

Objects allow us to reach out and touch the past and they play a living role in history today. Through them we can understand the experience of men and women during the First World War. They bear witness to the stories of men whose only morning comfort in the trenches was the rum ration, children who grew up with only one photograph of the father that they would never get to know, women who would sacrifice their girlhood in hospitals yards from the frontline, pinning a bro...

How much can you really find out about the Leaders and Commanders of the First World War in five minutes? This handy little history book will surpass all your expectations and leave you well versed on all you wish to know, and maybe even a little bit more… Who were the leaders? Who commanded the British Army on the Somme? Which general committed suicide in shame? Who stopped the German offensive at Verdun? Who invented stormtroopers? Jam-packed with facts and first-hand ac...

It was 2am on the 16th June 1915 and dawn was slowly breaking over Bellewaarde. It was exceptionally quiet, the troops of 3rd Division were situated on the western edge of Railway Wood and shrouded in a thick mist which reduced visibility and gave the illusion of safety. Across the few yards of no man's land, the German troops of Reserve Infantry Regiments (RIR) 248 and 246, and Unter-Elsssisches Infanterie-Regiment Nr. 132 were also blanketed in the thick damp mist. It swirled round their...

Girl Gangs, Biker Boys, and Real Cool Cats is the first comprehensive account of how the rise of postwar youth culture was depicted in mass-market pulp fiction. As the young created new styles in music, fashion, and culture, pulp fiction shadowed their every move, hyping and exploiting their behaviour, dress, and language for mass consumption and cheap thrills. From the juvenile delinquent gangs of the early 1950s through the beats and hippies, on to bikers, skinheads, and punks, ...

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...

In a campaign part sponsored by First Lord of the Admiralty Winston Churchill, the Battle of Gallipoli in 1915 remains one of the most resounding Allied defeats of the First World War, with both the Allied and Ottoman armies suffering in excess of 200,000 casualties.Despite this, many believed it would be a sure-fire success due to the preceding naval campaign, but increased losses at sea prompted the Allies to send in ground troops. Comprising a large ANZAC contin...

It was a war that shaped the modern world, fought on five continents, claiming the lives of ten million people. Two great nations met each other on the field of battle for the first time. But were they so very different? For the first time, and drawing widely on archive material in the form of original letters and diaries, Peter Doyle and Robin Schäfer bring together the two sides, 'Fritz' and 'Tommy', to examine cultural and military nuances that have until now been left ...

'A fascinating and brilliantly illustrated book, an invaluable guide for future generations of Great War archaeologists.' – Times Higher Education SupplementWhilst the war raged across Flanders fields, an equally horrifying and sometimes more dangerous battle took place underground. Beneath Flanders Fields tells the story of the tunnellers' war, which still remains one of the most misunderstood, misrepresented and mystify...