I’m not really sure what I was expecting with this book, but it came through in flying colors. A well detailed look at life in the trenches during WWI. It covers the men, the trenches, the weapons and the machines that were part of the “empty battlefield” of WWI. Definitely not a dry read, it is well written and brings to you a good overall sense of what was going on during the trench warfare period. How new weapons and tactics were developed to break the static warfare from 1915 – 1917 and interspersed with actual accounts of men that were. It is filled with pictures and diagrams and an excellent bibliography that will help you really dig deep into the subject if you so desire. It even covers how the trenches were constructed and how they developed and evolved over this period. How they were used and in the end how the war moved from the trenches and back to the mobile battlefield. You can see the early stages of tactics used in WWII being developed in the trenches of WWI. A great book, a must have for the library.