Tuesday 31 March 2009

First World War Trench Warfare (2)

This is another book by Osprey, in the Elite series. Very good book, useful for history too. Gave a lot of detail. I haven't read the first book in this two part series on Trench Warfare in WWI, but it still made perfect sense and was easy enough to follow. It took the time from 1916, though it was an approximate divide. Explained the concept of defence in depth very well (basically, the Germans decided to have a more flexible defence system, with outlying machine gun posts as the first part, then going back into stronger and stronger defences). Also a lot of information about the development of helmets, which, admittedly, sounds rather geeky and pointless, but was well-written and interesting. I'd recommend this to anyone studying A-Level Modern History, as it really clarified a lot of points for me and was readily understandable, whilst giving a lot of detail you quite frankly do not get in the official Edexcel books. For those of you not studying history, well, it's still a very interesting book to read, if you have an interest in the topic. If not, you'll probably find it somewhat boring, as it is a rather specialised book. Also requires, I think, a general knowledge of the First World War, as it does make reference in brief to some of the battles.

Anyway, it's a good book, an interesting one, and it's not too OTT with regard to details. I wonder if that saying came from the First World War...

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