"A fantastic overview of one of Britain's untold stories from the Great War"—the Salonika Campaign that pitted Allied forces against the Bulgarians (Burton Mail).The authors have researched the Salonika Campaign in every detail, from the arrival of the first British troops in 1915 to final victory. During this period large numbers of British and Allied troops were tied up in the strategically vital Balkans. Salonika was converted into a vast military base and over 7...

Acclaimed historian and best-selling author Antony Beevor vividly brings to life the epic struggles that took place in Second World War Crete - reissued with a new introduction.'The best book we have got on Crete' ObserverThe Germans expected their airborne attack on Crete in 1941 - a unique event in the history of warfare - to be a textbook victory based on tactical surprise. They had no idea that the British, using Ultra intercep...

Brave Battalion presents the story of four Canadian Highland regiments that were banded together as the 16th Battalion. Ninety years after the end of WWI, this work honours those soldiers and makes their stories a vivid reality. Focusing on the Canadian Scottish (Princess Mary’s) Battalion, Mark Zuehlke presents the harrowing experiences that bonded the men and which came to represent the uniting and rising of a nation beginning to realize its potential.Complemented by map...

This is an account of the British Expeditionary Forces battles in the summer and autumn of 1917. It begins with the Allied plan to free up the Flanders coast, to limit German naval and submarine attacks on British shipping.The opening offensive began with the detonation of nineteen mines on 7 June and ended with the capture of the Messines Ridge. The main offensive started with success on 31 July but was soon bogged down due to the August rains. Three huge attacks between 20 September and ...

This WWI history examines the significant yet overlooked British offensive that achieved major advances on the Western Front.Fought between April 9th and May 16th of 1917, the Battle of Arras was the most lethal and costly British offensive battle of the First World War. Lasting a brutal thirty-nine days, its average casualty rate was far higher than at either the Somme or Passchendaele. It also represented the longest advance against Germany up to that point since ...

The Somme. With over a million casualties, it was the most brutal battle of World War I.It is a clash that even now, over 90 years later, remains seared into the national consciousness, conjuring up images of muddy trenches and young lives tragically wasted. Its first day, July 1st 1916 - on which the British suffered 57,470 casualties, including 19,240 dead - is the bloodiest day in the history of the British armed forces to date. On the German side, an o...

Edgehill, 1642: Surveyingthe disastrous scene in the aftermath of the first battle of the English Civil War, Oliver Cromwell realizes that war can no longer be made in the old, feudal way: there has to be system and discipline, and therefore - eventually - a standing professional army.From the 'New Model Army' of Cromwell's distant vision, former soldier Allan Mallinson shows us the people and events that have shaped the army we know today. How Mar...

A major new history of the most infamous battle of the First World War, as described by the men who fought it.On 1 July 1916, Douglas Haig's army launched the 'Big Push' that was supposed finally to bring an end to the stalemate on the Western Front. What happened next was a human catastrophe: scrambling over the top into the face of the German machine guns and artillery fire, almost 20,000 British and Commonwealth soldiers were killed that day alone, and twice as ...

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 ...

The definitive guide to the main theater of WWI—"maps of the battles . . . military strategy . . . extraordinary anecdotes . . . it's a triumph" ( Daily Mail).Written by the author of the three previous bestselling Companions on Waterloo, Trafalgar and Gettysburg—now acclaimed as the definitive work of reference on each battle— The Western Front Companion is not a mere chronological account of the fighting. Rather, it is an astonishingly comprehen...

'For you, the war is over.' These famous words marked the end of the Second World War for nearly half a million allied servicemen, and the beginning of a very different battle in captivity. Waged against boredom, brutality, disease, hunger and despair, it was a battle for survival, fought without the aid of weapons against fully armed enemy captors.Based on interviews and correspondence with ex-POWs and their relatives over the last 30 years, Prisoner of War is a major sur...

'The scene was tragically macabre: the image of desolation, the flames spared nothing. As for our young men, a few minutes ago, so alert, so self-confident, all now lying dead on the bare deck, blackened burned skeletons, twisted in all directions, no trace of any clothing, the fire having devoured all.' Vice Admiral P. E. Guéprette recalls the damage to the French ship Suffen during a naval battle in 1915.One of the most famous battles in history, Gallipoli forced Churchi...