Villers-Bretonneux was the key to the strategically important communications centre of Amiens, a principal objective of the German offensive that began in March 1918. Until the Germans took the town, Amiens would remain beyond their grasp. The successful defence of Villers-Bretonneux has come to be regarded as an Australian battle but British formations were heavily involved as wel

Between 15,000 and 20,000 underage youths, some as young as ten, signed up to fight in Canada's armed forces in the First World War. They served in the trenches alongside their elders, and fought in all the major battles: Ypres, the Somme, Passchendaele, Vimy Ridge, and the rest. Many were injured or suffered psychological wounds. Many died. This is the first book to tell their story.Some boys joined up to escape unhappy homes and workplaces. Others went with their parents' blessin...

The story of the huge mobile battles of 1918, which finally ended the Great War.1918 was the critical year of battle as the Great War reached its brutal climax. Warfare of an epic scale was fought on the Western Front, where ordinary British soldiers faced the final test of their training, tactics and determination. That they withstood the storm and began an astonishing counterattack, is proof that by 1918, the British army was the most effective fighting force in ...

'One of the best half-dozen personal accounts of the Normandy campaign' - Richard HolmesStuart Hills embarked his Sherman DD tank on to an LCT at 6.45 a.m., Sunday 4 June 1944. He was 20 years old, unblooded, fresh from a public-school background and Officer Cadet training. He was going to war. Two days later, his tank sunk, he and his crew landed from a rubber dinghy with just the clothes they stood in. After that, the struggles through the Normandy bocage in a re...

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 ...

At Fromelles in July 1916 two divisions – one British and one Australian – within a few weeks of arriving in France – went into action for the first time. Their task was to prevent the Germans from moving troops to the Somme where a major British offensive was in progress, but the attack on 19/20 July was a disaster with nearly 7,000 casualties in a few hours. This account explores this battle which for many epitomises the futility of the Great War. In those few hours many...

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...

The definitive account of Passchendaele, the months-long battle that epitomizes the immense tragedy of the First World WarPasschendaele. The name of a small, seemingly insignificant Flemish village echoes across the twentieth century as the ultimate expression of meaningless, industrialized slaughter. In the summer of 1917, upwards of 500,000 men were killed or wounded, maimed, gassed, drowned, or buried in this small corner of Belgium.On the centennial of ...

The story of the first great tank battle, and the genesis of one of the most formidable weapons of the twentieth century.Cambrai was the last - and most influential - battle fought by the British on the Western Front in 1917. With many of the Allies on the brink of collapse, only Britain was still capable of holding the Germans at bay.Over time, many myths have grown up around what happened at Cambrai. The events of this iconic attack are now buried beneath...

For much of the First World War, the opposing armies on the Western Front were at a stalemate, with an unbroken line of fortified trenches stretching from the Belgian coast to the Swiss border. The Allied objective after the bloody Battle of the Somme drew to a close in November 1916 was to decisively break through the German 'Hindenburg Line' and engage the numerically inferior German forces in a war of movement. The Arras offensive was conceived to achieve this breakthro...

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 ...

Cambrai 1917 was the battle that sowed the seeds of future combined-arms tank and infantry warfare, while remaining a battle of singular drama in its own right. If you truly want to understand what happened and why – read Battle Story. Detailed profiles explore the background of the generals of the two opposing forces, as well as what made up the average German and British soldier. First-person, contemporary sources bring the reader into the world of the Battle of...