Two Men in a Trench 2 provides an examination of six major battles: Bannockburn, Sedgemoor, Edgehill, Killiecrankie, RAF Hornchurch (The Battle of Britain 1940) and the Big Guns of World War II at Dover and Calais. Each chapter of the book presents a clear understanding of the events and causes of each battle, before its aftermath is considered. The personalities, armies, weapons and tactics involved are described; the archaeological techniques explained; and the groundbreaking results and their impact on our understanding of events discussed. sense of humour, Tony Pollard and Neil Oliver capture the drama, action and tragedy of past events and provide an insight into some of the bloodiest episodes of British history.

In this volume, Tony Pollard and Neil Oliver visit the sites of six major British battles, from Shrewsbury to Culloden, and carry out a full archaeological investigation at each. As they uncover artefacts abandoned in the heat and chaos of battle they closely follow the progress of each engagement and answer key historical questions, sometimes totally revising the accepted version of events. Each chapter is a fully framed investigation and follows an episode of the BBC television series. By using archaeology to unlock the secrets of the past, Tony and Neil prove that soldiers do not pass through fields of conflict like shadows, and in the process they show that battlefields are some of our most important national monuments.

A new play inspired by the true story of a miner who became entombed in a tunnel during World War One. As the horror threatens to engulf him, he discovers another world beneath the mud and death. Setting off on an epic journey of salvation, the boundaries between reality and fantasy blur as he questions what’s real, what’s not and whether it even matters? The Trench blends Les Enfants Terribles’ acclaimed brand of physical storytelling, verse, puppetry and live music from Alexander Wolfe.

The horrors of the First World War were the product of a new and unprecedented type of industrial warfare. To survive and win demanded not just new technology but the techniques to use it effectively. In Surviving Trench Warfare, Bill Rawling takes a close look at how technology and tactics came together in the Canadian Corps. Drawing on a wide range of sources, from interviews to staff reports, Rawling describes the range of new weapons that the Canadians adopted, including tanks, trench mortars, and poison gas, making it clear that the decisive factor in the war was not the new technology itself but how the Canadians responded to it. Only through intensive training, specialization, and close coordination between infantry and artillery could the Canadians overcome the deadly trinity of machine-guns, barbed wire, and artillery. Surviving Trench Warfare offers a whole new understanding of the First World War, replacing the image of a static trench war with one in which soldiers actively struggled for control over their weapons and their environment, and achieved it. Released to coincide with the centenary of the First World War, this edition includes a new introduction and afterword reflecting the latest scholarship on the conduct of the war.