At the Forward Edge of Battle is the first ever illustrated history of the Pakistan Armoured Corps. The Pakistan Armoured Corps is based on a unique blend of values and traditions inherited from its predecessors, and those of the post-Independence national army. The origins of this force can be traced back to the time when the cavalry units of the British India Army were mechanized, in the late 1930s. They were worked up and then deployed extensively during the Second World War, and further moulded during the post-independence period and two wars with India between 1948-1971. By the 1990s, the Pakistan Armoured Corps had evolved into a modern fighting force in thought, organization, and equipment. Based on decades of the author's first-hand experience, extensive research with the help of authentic sources and official documentation, this book provides a detailed and richly illustrated description of the build-up and expansion of the Pakistan Armoured Corps, its culture, organisation, doctrine, equipment, bases, a myriad of events and personalities, and combat operations that shaped it over the last 95 years. At the Forward Edge of Battle, Volume 2, is illustrated with over 100 rare and authentic photographs, 15 colour profiles, and a similar number of maps.

This is a major new account of the role and performance of the Italian army during the First World War. Drawing from original, archival research, it tells the story of the army's bitter three-year struggle in the mountains of Northern Italy, including the eleven bloody battles of the Isonzo, the near-catastrophic defeat at Caporetto in 1917 and the successful, but still controversial defeat of the Austro-Hungarian army at Vittorio Veneto on the eve of the Armistice. Setting military events within a broader context, the book explores pre-war Italian military culture and the interactions between domestic politics, economics and society. In a unique study of an unjustly neglected facet of the war, John Gooch illustrates how General Luigi Cadorna, a brutal disciplinarian, drove the army to the edge of collapse, and how his successor, general Armando Diaz, rebuilt it and led the Italians to their greatest victory in modern times.

A penetrating study of the German army's military campaigns, relations with the Nazi regime, and complicity in Nazi crimes across occupied Europe For decades after 1945, it was generally believed that the German army, professional and morally decent, had largely stood apart from the SS, Gestapo, and other corps of the Nazi machine. Ben Shepherd draws on a wealth of primary sources and recent scholarship to convey a much darker, more complex picture. For the first time, the German army is examined throughout the Second World War, across all combat theaters and occupied regions, and from multiple perspectives: its battle performance, social composition, relationship with the Nazi state, and involvement in war crimes and military occupation. This was a true people's army, drawn from across German society and reflecting that society as it existed under the Nazis. Without the army and its conquests abroad, Shepherd explains, the Nazi regime could not have perpetrated its crimes against Jews, prisoners of war, and civilians in occupied countries. The author examines how the army was complicit in these crimes and why some soldiers, units, and higher commands were more complicit than others. Shepherd also reveals the reasons for the army's early battlefield successes and its mounting defeats up to 1945, the latter due not only to Allied superiority and Hitler's mismanagement as commander-in-chief, but also to the failings-moral, political, economic, strategic, and operational-of the army's own leadership.

When the Wehrmacht rolled into the Soviet Union in World War II, it got more than it bargained for. Notwithstanding the Red Army's retreat, Soviet citizens fought fiercely against German occupiers, engaging in raids, sabotage, and intelligence gathering--largely without any oversight from Stalin and his iron-fisted rule.

Kenneth Slepyan provides an enlightening social and political history of the Soviet partisan movement, a people's army of irregulars fighting behind enemy lines. These insurgents included not only civilians-many of them women-but also stranded Red Army soldiers, national minorities, and even former collaborators. While others have documented the military contributions of the movement, Slepyan is the first to describe it as a social phenomenon and to reveal how its members were both challenged and transformed by the crucible of war.

By tracing the movement's origins, internal squabbles, and evolution throughout the war, Slepyan shows that people who suddenly had the autonomy to act on their own came to rethink the Stalinist regime. He assesses how partisan initiative and self-reliance competed with and countered the demands of state control and how social identities influenced relations among partisans, as well as between partisans and Soviet authorities.

Slepyan has tapped newly opened Soviet archives, as well as wartime radio broadcasts and Communist Party publications and memoirs, to depict the partisans as agents actively pursuing their own agendas. His book gives us a picture of their day-to-day struggle that was previously unknown to all but those few who personally survived the experience, paying special attention to questions of nationality, ethnicity, and gender to illuminate the sociopolitical relations within this diverse group. Through these varied accounts, he demonstrates that Soviet citizens reinterpreted Stalinism and the Soviet experience in the context of total war.

Offering numerous fresh insights into the partisans' multifaceted relationship with the state, Slepyan's book reveals the ways in which the war simultaneously reinforced and undermined both Stalinism and the Soviet system. Ultimately, his study rescues the Soviet partisans from obscurity to depict the complexity of their lives and underscore their vital contributions to the defense of their homeland.

The battle of Verdun lasted ten months. It was a battle in which at least 700,000 men fell, along a front of fifteen miles; the battle whose aim was less to defeat the enemy than bleed him to death; the battleground whose once fertile terrain even now resembles a haunted wilderness, battered and crumbling.

This book is more than a chronicle of the facts of battle. It is a profoundly moving, sympathetic study of the men who fought there, and show that Verdun is a key to understanding the First World War - a key to the minds of those who waged it, to the traditions that bound them, and to the world that gave them the opportunity. Continuously in print for over thirty years, this unabridged edition contains a new preface and additional photographs.

Regimental histories abound, but few can be as stirring as this story of the fortunes of the famous Yorkshire-based Green Howards. Raised in 1688 in response to a call for loyal troops, the Green Howards have maintained their tradition of loyalty over the past 300 years winning many superb battle honours. Their history reflects that of the British Army as there is hardly a major campaign that this Regiment has not been involved in; the French Wars of 1697-1793, the American War of Independence, Crimean War, First and Second World Wars, service in Suez, Malaya, Northern Ireland, peacekeeping operations in Bosnia and the war in the Gulf. This fine book brings the story of one of Britain's finest regiments right up to date.

Allan Wildman presents the first detailed study of the Army's collapse under the strains of war and of the front soldiers' efforts to participate in the Revolution. Originally published in 1980. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Literary and historical conventions have long painted the experience of soldiers during World War I as simple victimization. Leonard Smith, however, argues that a complex dialogue of resistance and negotiation existed between French soldiers and their own commanders. In this case study of wartime military culture, Smith analyzes the experience of the French Fifth Infantry Division in both pitched battle and trench warfare. The division established a distinguished fighting record from 1914 to 1916, yet proved in 1917 the most mutinous division in the entire French army, only to regain its elite reputation in 1918. Drawing on sources from ordinary soldiers to well-known commanders such as General Charles Mangin, the author explains how the mutinies of 1917 became an explicit manifestation of an implicit struggle that took place within the French army over the whole course of the war. Smith pays particular attention to the pivotal role of noncommissioned and junior officers, who both exercised command authority and shared the physical perils of men in the lower ranks. He shows that "soldiers," broadly defined, learned to determine rules of how they would and would not fight the war, and imposed these rules on the command structure itself. By altering the parameters of command authority in accordance with their own perceived interests, soldiers and commanders negotiated a behavioral space between mutiny and obedience. Originally published in 1994. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

The brutal conflict that raged across Spain and Portugal between 1808 and 1814 was one of the most devastating episodes of the Napoleonic Wars. It made Wellington and his redcoats heroes, crushed Napoleon’s army – and set the scene for his ultimate downfall. Yet the Peninsular War was, above all, an Iberian tragedy: where a once-invincible imperial power was plunged into terror and over a million were slaughtered, leaving a bitter legacy for years to come. This gripping book draws on the accounts of generals, soldiers and guerrilla fighters to take us into the heart of one of the bloodiest battles in European history.

The Kingdom of Serbia waged war against Austria-Hungary and the other Central Powers from 28 July 1914 when the Austro-Hungarian government declared war, until the capitulation of Austria-Hungary. In the first two years of the war, Serbia defeated the Austro-Hungarian Balkan Army. The following year, her army was faced with the Axis invasion. Unwilling to surrender, the Serbian Army retreated through Albania and evacuated to Corfu where it rested, rearmed and reorganised. From there the army transferred to the Salonika Front, where it recorded successes by 1916. After a long lull, the struggle to penetrate the Front began in September 1918. Serbian and other Allied forces broke through the Front and Bulgaria was soon forced to surrender. The Serbian Army advanced rapidly and on 1 November 1918 Belgrade was liberated. Thanks to the Serbian military victories and diplomatic efforts, the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (later Yugoslavia) was created. Serbia paid for her victory in the Great War in a disproportionately exorbitant manner: it is estimated that she lost close to one million inhabitants, of whom about 400,000 were conscripts and the rest civilians, which accounted for nearly a third of the total population, or close to 60% of the male population. No other country that participated in the Great War paid so dearly for its freedom. The Serbian Army in the Great War, 1914-1918 offers readers a very thorough analysis of the Serbian Army of the period, including its organisation, participation in military operations, weapons, equipment, uniforms, and system of orders and medals. This book is a synthesis of all available literature and periodicals, appearing for the first time in the English language. The book is well supported by around 500 illustrations, out of which more than 300 are contemporary photographs and other documents, while this is complemented by dozens of colour plates of uniform reconstructions and colour photographs of the preserved pieces of uniform, equipment and weapons. A special emphasis has been placed on the colours of Serbian uniforms from the period. The book is the result of two decades of research and will enable readers to gain a clearer picture of this subject.

Germany's surprise attack on June 22, 1941, shocked a Soviet Union woefully unprepared to defend itself. The day before the attack, the Red Army still comprised the world's largest fighting force. But by the end of the year, four and a half million of its soldiers lay dead. This new study, based on formerly classified Soviet archival material and neglected German sources, reveals the truth behind this national catastrophe.

Drawing on evidence never before seen in the West-including combat records of early engagements-David Glantz claims that in 1941 the Red Army was poorly trained, inadequately equipped, ineptly organized, and consequently incapable of engaging in large-scale military campaigns--and that both Hitler and Stalin knew it. He provides the most complete and convincing study of why the Soviets almost lost the war that summer, dispelling many of the myths about the Red Army that have persisted since the war and soundly refuting Viktor Suvorov's controversial thesis that Stalin was planning a preemptive strike against Germany.

"Stumbling Colossus" describes the Red Army's command leadership, mobilization and war planning, intelligence activities, and active and reserve combat formations. It includes the first complete Order of Battle of Soviet forces on the eve of the German attack, documents the strength of Soviet armored forces during the war's initial period, and reproduces the first available texts of actual Soviet war plans. It also provides biographical sketches of Soviet officers and tells how Stalin's purges of the late 1930s left the Red Army leadership almost decimated.

At a time when blame for the war in eastern Europe is being laid with a fallen regime, Glantz's book sets the record straight on the Soviet Union's readiness-and willingness-to fight. Boasting an extensive bibliography of Soviet and German sources, "Stumbling Colossus" is a convincing study that overshadows recent revisionist history and one that no student of World War II can ignore.

The British soldier of the Great War has been depicted in many books. Invariably, a pen picture paints him as stoic, joining the army in a wave of patriotic fervour, and destined to serve four years on the Western Front in some of the most costly battles in history. Yet often the picture is difficult to resolve for the reader. How did the soldier live, where did he sleep? What was it like to go over the top, and when he did, what did he carry with him? For many, the idea of trench life is hazy, and usually involves 'drowning in mud', in, as one writer put it, 'the pitiless misery' of Passchendaele. Remembering Tommy pays tribute to the real British soldier of the Great War. In stunning images of uniforms, equipment and ephemera, it conjures the atmosphere of the trenches through the belongings of the soldiers themselves - allowing us almost to reach out and touch history.

Some rebel groups abuse noncombatant populations, while others exhibit restraint. Insurgent leaders in some countries transform local structures of government, while others simply extract resources for their own benefit. In some contexts, groups kill their victims selectively, while in other environments violence appears indiscriminate, even random. This book presents a theory that accounts for the different strategies pursued by rebel groups in civil war, explaining why patterns of insurgent violence vary so much across conflicts. It does so by examining the membership, structure, and behavior of four insurgent movements in Uganda, Mozambique, and Peru. Drawing on interviews with nearly two hundred combatants and civilians who experienced violence firsthand, it shows that rebels' strategies depend in important ways on how difficult it is to launch a rebellion. The book thus demonstrates how characteristics of the environment in which rebellions emerge constrain rebel organization and shape the patterns of violence that civilians experience.

Col. Wesley Fox is a Medal of Honor recipient who wrote two widely-admired accounts of his wartime experiences in the Marine Corps. His Marine Rifleman: Forty-Three Years in the Corps and Courage and Fear: A Primer are considered classic war memoirs. Drawing on his long experience of being a leader, Fox presents the six essential elements of leadership that all good leaders employ to build successful organizations able to cope with any challenge because they are truly built on loyalty and trust. Impressed by the manner and methods of his most effective fellow Marines to guide and direct, Fox defines leadership is defined as having a strong focus on the strengths of comradeship and its core importance to all individuals and organizations. In his view, managers are concerned with the bottom line and making a profit, while leaders are concerned with their followers, their health, happiness, and daily lives. Recognition of the sources of leaders is addressed and followed with a discussion of the principles of leadership and the historical traits of a leader. The book covers the essential elements of leadership: care, personality, knowledge, motivation, commitment, and communication with a chapter on each element. Finally, Fox provides an account of his personal experience and how his views about leadership were forged by the Marine Corps and by the crucible of combat. He provides many examples of leadership displayed by those with whom he served in battle--his fellow Marine unit leaders. While draw from a military experience, Fox contends that his six elements apply to all who want to pursue leadership. Developed during forty-three years of leading Marines in two wars and in the peace time, his principles are designed to inspire and motivate others in all endeavors.

The AMX 13 was originally designed in the immediate aftermath of the Second World War. It represents French ambitions for national resurgence and withdrawal from wartime dependence on American military technology. Being a light tank it was an ambitious and far sighted departure from conventional tank design and it found a ready export market as well as being a critical part in the French Army arsenal. Its basic hull design lent itself to the development of a vast list of variants. French designers progressively modernised, and indeed reinvented, the AMX13 and enabled it to claim to be one of the most successful armoured vehicle programmes of the post-war period. It proved its worth in numerous small wars worldwide in the service of many countries. This, the first commercially published work on the AMX13 in English, examines in detail the technical industrial and tactical story of this remarkably successful armoured fighting vehicle. The authoritative text is backed by an impressive selection of images

This is a study of the African veterans of a European war. It is a story of men from the Cote d'Ivoire, many of whom had seldom traveled more than a few miles from their villages, who served France as tirailleurs (riflemen) during World War II.
Thousands of them took part in the doomed attempt to hold back the armies of the Third Reich in 1940; many were to spend the rest of the war as prisoners in Germany or Occupied France.
Others more fortunate came under the authority of Vichy France, and were deployed in the Defense of the Motherland and its overseas possessions against the threat posed by the Allies. By 1943, the tirailleur regiments had passed into the service of de Gaulle's free French and under Allied command, played a significant role in the liberation of Europe.
In describing these complex events, Dr. Lawler draws upon archives in both France and the Cote d'Ivoire. She also carried out an extensive series of interviews with Ivoirien veterans principally, but not exclusively, from the Korhogo region. The vividness of their testimony gives this study a special character. They talk freely not only of their wartime exploits, but also of their experiences after repatriation.
Lawler allows them to speak for themselves. They express their hatred of forced labor and military conscription, which were features of the colonial system, yet at the same time reveal a pride in having come to the defense of France. They describe their role in the nationalist struggle, as foot soldiers of Felix Houphouet-Boigny, but also convey their sense of having become a lost generation. They recognize that their experiences as French soldiers had become sadly irrelevant in a new nation in quest of its history.

Cady Hoyte, like many other young lads of his generation, proudly joined the army in 1915 to fight for his King and Country. From the Warwickshire town of Nuneaton, he joined the Warwickshire Yeomanry as a gunner in the Machine Gun Corps and quickly found that army life made no concessions for an eager young 19 year old. Never having ridden a horse before, he develops a relationship with the horses, which made it all the harder when he had to say farewell and leave them behind to sail aboard the stricken ship, the Leasowe Castle, to fight in the trenches of France. Written with humour, Cady's diary gives a detailed account of the daily struggles and constant dangers of army life in the First World War without ever losing sight of his respect for human life.

Since the publication of The Rifles Are There in 2005, which dealt with the 1st and 2nd Battalions Royal Ulster Rifles in the Second World War, it was felt by many that a follow up volume dealing with the Korean conflict was overdue. A limited yet competent history had been produced in 1953 by the then Adjutant Captain Hugh Hamill, although this has been long out of print. A New Battlefield follows the Battalion as it prepares for the first major conflict fought by Britain since the defeat of the Japanese in 1945. During the summer of 1950 the Battalion was stationed at Sobraon Barracks in Colchester and was in the process of being issued with desert kit for a tour of duty at Khartoum in the Sudan and its numbers were just under four hundred men. For service in Korea these numbers had to be drastically increased and drafts of volunteers and reservists were brought in from various sources. Consequently this 'Irish' Battalion contained men from the Lancastrian Brigade, Welsh Brigade, Mercian Brigade, the Light Infantry and other Battalions of the Irish Brigade. The Irish Brigade also reinforced other regiments, the Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers sending two officers and fifty 'other ranks' to the King's (Liverpool) Regiment. Despite their varied backgrounds all ranks soon coalesced into a professional unit that took the campaign in its stride. From winter temperatures that dropped well below 40f to a summer heat that rose to 105f with a humidity to match these men survived all and dealt with a brave and tenacious enemy. The Battalion sailed for Korea in October 1950 and fought its first major action in January 1951 at Chaegunghyon, or as it was known to the Rifles, 'Happy Valley'. Here, for the first time they faced an enemy that often literally fought to the death, despite overwhelming firepower, bombing and widespread use of napalm. Three months later, on the banks of the Imjin River, the Rifles, in conjunction with the remainder of 29 Brigade, faced an army that came in such numbers that running out of ammunition before the enemy ran out of men became a reality. Besides numerous photographs there are also appendices including Honours and Awards, Operation 'Spitfire', an Order of Battle for 29 Brigade, and a Nominal Roll, which includes casualties.

The greatest conquest in historyGenghis Khan left an empire more than twice the size of Alexander's: his successors went on to conquer and govern an area stretching from Korea to the River Danube. How did a band of nomadic herdsmen achieve so much, so fast? Despite these stunning achievements, many writers dismiss the Mongols as just ferocious barbarians. This bestselling book sets the record straight. The epic starts in 1206 - when Genghis became master of 'all the people with felt tents' and an unknown tribe took the first steps towards world domination - and ends with the empire's decline and fall, after Khubilai Khan's triumphant unification with China. Robert Marshall describes their devastating invasions, including that of feudal Europe and Christendom's clumsy attempts to understand and fend off these legendary warriors. Full of extraordinary events, painted on a vast and colourful canvas, Storm from the East brings to life a time when East and West finally came face to face and the contours of modern Asia were set. 'Storm from the East does not seek to excuse Mongol excesses - yet Robert Marshall appears to speak for the Mongols... A fascinating voyage through time and space' Thomas Nivison Haining in the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society

Keenie Meenie Services - the most powerful mercenary company you've never heard of - was involved in war crimes around the world from Sri Lanka to Nicaragua for which its shadowy directors have never been held accountable. Like its mysterious name, Keenie Meenie Services escaped definition and to this day has evaded sanctions. Now explosive new evidence - only recently declassified - exposes the extent of these war crimes, and the British government's tacit support for the company's operations. Including testimonies from SAS veterans, spy chiefs and diplomats, we hear from key figures battle-hardened by the Troubles in Northern Ireland and the Iranian Embassy siege. Investigative journalist Phil Miller asks, who were these mercenaries: heroes, terrorists, freedom fighters or war criminals? This book presents the first ever comprehensive case against Keenie Meenie Services, providing long overdue evidence on the crimes of the people who make a killing from killing.

A compelling and in-depth history of one of the world's greatest armoured warfare commanders, Hermann Balck (1897-1982). During World War II, Balck commanded panzer troops from the front line and led by example, putting himself in extreme danger when rallying his soldiers to surge forward. He fought battles that were masterpieces of tactical operations, utilizing speed, surprise and a remarkable ability to motivate his men to achieve what they considered to be impossible. We follow his journey through the fields of France, mountains of Greece and steppes of Russia. In Greece, through flair and innovative leadership, his soldiers overcame every obstacle to defeat determined Australian and New Zealand soldiers defending the narrow mountain passes. Balck personally led his men to victory in battles at Platamon Ridge on the Aegean coast and in the Vale of Tempe, before entering Athens. This is also the story of a cultured and complex man with a great love of antiquity and classical literature, who nevertheless willingly fought for Hitler's Third Reich while remaining strangely detached from the horrors around him. The book is the result of extensive research of primary and secondary sources, including Balck's battle reports and first-hand accounts written by Allied soldiers who opposed him, panzer division war diaries and campaign assessments, and declassified Pentagon documents.

Unstoppable and deadly, this is the gripping story of some of the most feared soldiers in the warThe daring, courage and skill of the highly-trained men who spearheaded German assaults in the blitzkrieg of 1940, dropping from the air to seize and overwhelm key invasion points, showed to an alarmed world that a new dimension had been added to the science of warfare. One spectacular success was the invasion and capture of Crete in May 1941, all be it achieved at a terrible price. The German paratroopers were an elite, justifying again and again their great reputation for courage and hard fighting in Russia, North Africa and Italy. Bestselling military historian James Lucas has researched deeply in Allied and German archives and interviewed many of the leading members of the Fallschirmjaegar who survived the war. This is an unmissable and dramatic account of the Second World War's most frightening elite, perfect for readers of James Holland and Max Hastings.

Perhaps the most far-reaching of the many changes wrought on the military by the First World War was the mechanisation of the armed services. After many centuries of use by the Army for patrols and communications, the trusty horse was finally supplanted by the newfangled motorcycle. This process of mechanisation gathered pace during the interwar years and in particular for the military motorcycle between 1925 and 1939. By the outbreak of the Second World War the motorcycle had become an important part of the military inventory and was deemed 'suitable for WD (War Department) requirements'. When it was first published in 1995, this fully illustrated book was unique in looking at all military motorcycles of British origin known to have been tested mainly by the Mechanical Warfare Experimental Establishment (later called the Mechanisation Experimental Establishment). This edition is fully revised and updated and includes three new chapters, covering standard parts, bike markings and paint schemes.

At the outbreak of the Second World War, Britain's manpower crisis forced them to turn to a previously untapped resource: women. For years it was thought women would be incapable of serving in uniform, but the ATS was to prove everyone wrong. Formed in 1938, the Women's Auxiliary Territorial Service was a remarkable legion of women; this is their story. They took over many roles, releasing servicemen for front-line duties. ATS members worked alongside anti-aircraft gunners as 'gunner-girls', maintained vehicles, drove supply trucks, operated as telephonists in France, re-fused live ammunition, provided logistical support in army supply depots and employed specialist skills from Bletchley to General Eisenhower's headquarters in Reims. They were even among the last military personnel to be evacuated from Dunkirk. They grasped their new-found opportunities for education, higher wages, skilled employment and a different future from the domestic role of their mothers. They earned the respect and admiration of their male counterparts and carved out a new future for women in Britain. They showed great skill and courage, with famous members including the young Princess Elizabeth (now about to celebrate her Diamond Jubilee as Britain's Queen) and Mary Churchill, Sir Winston's daughter. Girls in Khaki reveals their extraordinary achievements, romances, heartbreaks and determination through their own words and never-before published photographs.

Traditionally Scotland has made a contribution to Britain's wars well out of proportion to her population and her military achievements are recognised throughout the world. During the Second World War 40,000 Scottish men and women lost their lives and many more were wounded, both physically and emotionally. They served in every Corps and Department in the British Army, and with the Royal Navy, the Royal Marines and the Royal Air Force. Scotland on the Frontline provides an outline of Scotland's war effort drawing on extensive photographic evidence from commercial, state and personal collections, looking beyond the experience of individual regiments to provide a wider picture of the experience of the Scottish soldier, sailor and airman in the struggles against Germany, Japan and Italy. This book will provide any teacher or student of military history an insight into what it was really like at the Front.