Andrew Jackson's new history tells the story of the Great War as it was experienced by the men of the 11th Battalion, East Lancashire Regiment (Accrington Pals), the 158th (Accrington and Burnley) Brigade, Royal Field Artillery (Howitzers) and their families. Using information gathered from years of painstaking research in national and local archives and in private collections, he reconstructs, in vivid detail, the role played by these men on the Western Front. His book, which draws extensively on diaries, memoirs and letters, follows both infantry and artillerymen into the British armys bloodiest battles of the war, giving a graphic close-up view of their experiences. It is a moving record of the wartime service of a select group of local men during a time of unprecedented conflict.

The First Battle of the Marne was one of the most pivotal battles in history. Fought outside Paris in September 1914, it turned the tide of the German invasion of France, and robbed Kaiser Wilhelm II of his best chance of winning the First World War.

September 1914, and the whole of Europe was at war following the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his beloved wife Sophie by Gavrilo Princip in Sarajevo on 28th June 1914. In France and Belgium, the British Expeditionary Force were struggling to hold back the German hoards as their casualties began to mount. Back in Britain the call went out for volunteers to join the ‘Pals’ battalions which were springing up in the northern towns of England, and one of the first to volunteer was young Jack Smallshaw of Accrington. On 15th September 1914, Jack became an ‘Accrington Pal,’ a member of a battalion of men who are remembered more than any other of the Pals battalions because of the appalling tragedy which befell them on the killing fields of the Somme. On that fateful day on 1st July 1916, the battalion attacked the fortified village of Serre and were virtually wiped out on the slopes in front of the village. Jack was one of the very few who survived. He continued to serve on the front throughout the remainder of 1916 and into 1917, where he took part in the battle at Oppy wood in May of that year. Shortly afterwards he was struck down by a second bout of trench fever and spent the rest of the year recovering in England. By February 1918 he was back in France serving on the front line, but Jack was never the same man. He was in the thick of the action again in March when the Germans launched their spring offensive against the allied lines. He weathered that too, and stuck it out to the bitter end. This then, is the story of a quite remarkable survivor of the ‘war to end all wars’, whose diaries have lain unpublished, in the possession of his family, since 1919.

The notion of battles as the irreducible building blocks of war demands a single verdict of each campaign—victory, defeat, stalemate. But this kind of accounting leaves no room to record the nuances and twists of actual conflict. In Somme: Into the Breach, the noted military historian Hugh Sebag-Montefiore shows that by turning our focus to stories of the front line—to acts of heroism and moments of both terror and triumph—we can counter, and even change, familiar narratives. Planned as a decisive strike but fought as a bloody battle of attrition, the Battle of the Somme claimed over a million dead or wounded in months of fighting that have long epitomized the tragedy and folly of World War I. Yet by focusing on the first-hand experiences and personal stories of both Allied and enemy soldiers, Hugh Sebag-Montefiore defies the customary framing of incompetent generals and senseless slaughter. In its place, eyewitness accounts relive scenes of extraordinary courage and sacrifice, as soldiers ordered “over the top” ventured into No Man’s Land and enemy trenches, where they met a hail of machine-gun fire, thickets of barbed wire, and exploding shells. Rescuing from history the many forgotten heroes whose bravery has been overlooked, and giving voice to their bereaved relatives at home, Hugh Sebag-Montefiore reveals the Somme campaign in all its glory as well as its misery, helping us to realize that there are many meaningful ways to define a battle when seen through the eyes of those who lived it.

Follow the footsteps of the Pals in their journey from Lancashire to their training camps in England and Wales and to the villages and battlefields of France. A comprehensive account, with maps and pictures, of a Pals Battalion's service throughout the war.

Imperial Germany's "Iron Regiment" of the First World War offers a rare English-language account of a premier German infantry unit. Renowned as the Iron Regiment for its fighting record in the legendary 1916 Battle of the Somme, its service spanned from WW I's earliest battles through its destruction by US Marines in the Argonne Forest in the war's final days. Inspired by a wartime journal written by the author's grandfather, an IR 169 veteran, much of the book is drawn from rare soldier accounts, many published here for the first time in English. The voice of these soldiers take us into the other side of the trenches and through the unimaginable horrors of the First World War. This second edition adds over 100 pages of text, maps, and pictures to the original publication. "An excellent writing looking at WW 1 from a German soldier's perspective. I highly recommend it to everyone interested in learning more about the Great War." Gerald York, Colonel (Ret), US Army Grandson of Sergeant Alvin York, famed US Army WW I Medal of Honor Recipient "This book stands head and shoulders above previously published unit histories and should not be ignored for its substantial value in providing the whole picture of many of the war's landmark battles." Roads to the Great War "War histories of German regiments during either the First or Second World War are comparatively rare, and this book is a welcome addition." Britain at War Magazine "A complete lifecycle account of a German regiment for the duration of the First World War, and so a rare contribution to those wishing to see the war from the German perspective." Great War Society ---------------- The author, John K. Rieth, is a retired US Army Lieutenant Colonel with a lifelong interest in military history. He is the author of Patton's Forward Observers: The History of the 7th Field Artillery Battalion and is a member of the US Army Historical Foundation and the Western Front Association.