On 21 May 1940 during the ill-fated Dunkirk Campaign the British launched an operation spearheaded by two tank regiments to help secure the city of Arras. This was the only significant armored operation mounted by the British during the campaign. Poorly coordinated and starting badly, the Matilda tanks ran into the flanks of Rommels over-extended 7th Panzer Division. With the German antitank guns, unable to penetrate the armor of the British tanks,...

Walking Arras marks the final volume in a trilogy of walking books about the British sector of the Western Front. Paul Reed once more takes us over paths trodden by men who were asked to make a huge and, for all too many, the ultimate sacrifice. The Battle of Arras falls between the Somme and Third Ypres; it marked the first British attempt to storm the Hindenburg Line defenses, and the first use of lessons learned from the events of 1916. But it...

At the core of this novel is the true fifteenth-century tragedy of, first, plague and hunger and, later, the brutal persecution of Jews and witches in the small French town of Arras. A Mass for Arras explores the personal and political consequences of fear, fanaticism, and fascism in the story of Jan, a young member of the intelligentsia. Arrogantly pious and full of revolutionary zeal, Jan wholeheartedly participates in the torments inflicted on...

Major-General Eugene Vincent Michael Strickland CMG, DSO, OBE, MM, CStJ, Star of Jordan, Strick, rose from penniless hardship to great military distinction. He was a tank man, a war hero who fought in France, North Africa and Italy during World War II, and whose name is revered even today among regiments that he commanded. His is the extraordinary tale of a man who gained a Regular Commission in the Indian Army from Sandhurst, but resigned soon afterwards....

A British Infantryman recounts his harrowing experiences on the Western Front of the Great War, from the Battle of Somme to Arras and beyond.
At the age of seventeen, full of idealism and patriotism, John Tucker enlisted in the London Kensington Regiment. Deployed to France in August 1915, he survived three years of bitter trench warfare, was seriously wounded, and returned home to Blighty a few months before Armistice Day.
During...

This is the first part of a planned four-volume series focusing on a hitherto largely neglected aspect of the Great War on the Western Front - the war underground. The subject has fascinated visitors to the battlefields from the very beginning of battlefield pilgrimages in the years immediately after the Armistice, and locations such as Hill 60 and the Grange Subway at Vimy have always been popular stops on such tours. Three other volumes will follow,...

This book documents the experiences of the Central Powers, specifically Austria-Hungary, Germany and the Ottoman Empire during 1917, as they fought on land, at sea and in the air. Drawing on hundreds of contemporary photographs, many of them never previously published, this book examines the experiences of these three nations, spotlighting not only the events that occurred throughout the year, but the lives of those individuals fighting and dying...

In 1817 a group of East Yorkshire gentry opened barrows in a large Iron Age cemetery on the Yorkshire Wolds at Arras, near Market Weighton, including a remarkable burial accompanied by a chariot with two horses, which became known as the King's Barrow. This was the third season of excavation undertaken there, producing spectacular finds including a further chariot burial and the so-called Queen's barrow, which contained a gold ring, many glass beads...

A biography on the unique military career and decorations of the British general Strick. He commanded no fewer than three armored regiments in World War II. Major-General Eugene Vincent Michael Strickland CMG, DSO, OBE, MM, CStJ, Star of Jordan — Strick — rose from penniless hardship to great military distinction. He was a tank man, a war hero who fought in France, North Africa and Italy during World War II, and whose name is revered even today...