Fatal Avenue: A Traveller’s Guide to the Battlefields of Northern France and Flanders 1346-1945
This is the latest paperback edition of a book originally published in 1992, and which neatly combines both guidebook and military history. Professor Holmes writes with his usual lucidity and grasp of complex issues, together with an eye for the small details that bring history alive. So at Loos in September 1915 Sir Douglas Haig concluded that the wind was suitable for the first British use of poison gas on the battlefield by watching the smoke from an ADC’s cigarette drifting to the north-west.
Highly recommended, especially for anyone travelling in the area covered by the book.