Guillemont Road and the nearby Trones Wood were among the British objectives of the great assault of July 1, 1916. The wood was captured within two weeks, but Guillemont, scarcely a half-mile away, was not reached until September. Michael Stedman tells the story of Guillemont in depth and provides a detailed guide for those who might want to actually visit the site, with a text backed up by numerous maps, sketches and photographs in the familiar Battleground Europe style.

The Guillemont Road cemetery contains 2,200 graves, and monuments to the 16th (Irish) Division and other large units are nearby, but Guillemont also provides many examples of personal tragedy. Raymond Asquith, eldest son of Britain's wartime prime minister, was killed here, as were the grandson of Charles Dickens and many other promising young men.

Not everyone died, of course, and the Guillemont battle has been particularly well-described from the German side by Ernst Junger, who wrote of his wartime experiences in Storm of Steel, survived the war despite being wounded 14 times, and was still alive and still writing books over 80 years later.

Salford was late in recruiting for its Pals battalions, with many of its men already joining Territorial units and a new Pals battalion in Manchester. Yet within a year it had raised four Pals battalions and a reserve battalion. Raised mainly from Lancashire's most notorious slums, the men trained together in Wales, North East England and on Salisbury Plain, they had great expectations of success. On the 1st of July 1916 the Somme offensive was launched and in the very epicentre of that cauldron the first three of Salford's battalions were thrown at the massive defences of Thiepval - the men were decimated, Salford was shattered. Michael Stedman records the impact of the war from the start on Salford and follows the difficulties and triumphs. Whether the actions small or great the author writes graphically about them all. Unusual photographs and a variety of sources make this both a readable and a scholarly account.