The period covered in this memoir is from 13 January to 23 October 1915 when the author was with the 1st Battalion the Honourable Artillery Company (HAC) then part of 7th Brigade, 3rd Division. The whole nine months were spent in the Salient - Kemmel, Hooge, Sanctuary Wood, St Eloi- and if you want to get the feeling of what trench warfare was really like in that bloody (in more senses than one) Salient then you can do no better than read this book. Most vivid is Clapham s description of the attack on Bellewaerde Ridge, just north of Hooge, on 16 June. In fact the HAC history gives two accounts of this action, one is by the CO and the other, giving the rank and file view, is Clapham s story, extracted in full from his book. The action cost the battalion over 200 casualties, almost half the trench strength at the time. The narrative ends with the battalion being withdrawn from the line and transferred to GHQ Troops, and Clapham a corporal. A superb book.

This is a comprehensive account of how the British Army coped with and adapted to the enormous challenges and pressures of the First World War -- the first major continental war that the army had had to fight for almost a hundred years. Following the course of the War, both on the Western Front and in other theatres, Charles Messenger tells how the British Army managed the challenges of command, training, technology and new weapons of war. He examines officer selection, medicine, discipline, the manpower crisis of 1918, the integration of women into the forces and many other topics. Based on years of original research, this will become the standard work of reference on the organization and administration of the biggest army Britain has ever put into the field.

Of the many hard-fought battles on the Western Front, Ypres stands out as an example of almost inhuman endeavour. For four long years it was the focal point of desperate fighting. Officially there were four main battles in 1914, 1915, 1917 and 1918; these were more accurately peaks in a continuing struggle, for Ypres symbolised Belgian defiance, and the British continued to expend disproportionate resources on defending it. It never fell, although the Germans came close to its gates, and indeed its loss would have been a severe blow to morale.??The Battle Book of Ypres, originally published in 1927 and now presented again as a special Centenary Edition, comprises a chronological account of the fighting in the Ypres Salient during the First World War, followed by a useful and unique alphabetical reference to the events in and around each hamlet, village or wood Ð names familiar to those who fought or followed the course of war all those years ago, names now once again lost in insignificance. The names given to each stage of the struggle by the Battle Nomenclature Committee are listed in the appendix. Also included is an index of formations and units, an annotated bibliography and a new Foreword by military historian Nigel Cave.

The spectre of the Great War still haunts us. No other conflict so dramatically illustrates the waste of life, and the slaughter of innocents, as that of 1914-18. And none has so dramatically shaped the modern world: the Russian Revolution, the rise of Hitler, the break-up of Empire, the supremacy of America and World War II all stem from the four years of the 'war to end all wars'. Here is the eye-witness chronicle of that war, from the trenches of Flanders to the staff rooms of the Imperial Germany Army, from T. E. Lawrence in the desert to the 'Red Baron' in the air, from Land Girls in England to German U-boat crews in the Atlantic, it leaves nothing out. And if all the horror of the war fought by the Tommies in the trenches is captured, so too are the machinations of the 'top brass' and politicians.