The First World War was one of the costliest conflicts in history, much of it fought over a narrow and bloody swathe of France and Flanders. At the outbreak of war, it was anticipated that conventional battle would bring a quick resolution, but four years later, strategy, tactics and the material of war had changed almost beyond recognition. For most of that time, the two sides had been locked in the stalemate of trench warfare, a battle conducted along a Western Front of over 400 miles, in which almost 3 million men were killed.

In this anniversary edition, World War I trench expert...

This engaging study pits the volunteers of Kitchener's 'New Armies' against the German veterans who defended the Somme sector in the bloody battles of July-November 1916. The mighty struggle for the Somme sector of the Western Front in the second half of 1916 has come to be remembered for the dreadful toll of casualties inflicted on Britain's 'New Armies' by the German defenders on the first day of the offensive, 1 July. The battle continued, however, throughout the autumn and only came to a close in the bitter cold of mid-November. The British plan relied on the power of artillery to...

World War I's defining weapon for many, Germany's MG 08 machine gun won a formidable reputation on battlefields from Tannenberg to the Somme, while its more mobile successor, the MG 08/15, played a central role in the revolutionary developments in infantry tactics that characterized the last months of the conflict. Even in the 1940s, the two weapons would be pressed into service with German forces fighting in a new world war.

Drawing upon eyewitness battlefield reports, this absorbing study assesses the technical performance and combat record of these redoubtable and influential...