WAR IN THE TRENCHES - COUNTDOWN TO BATTLE This is not a book about the broad sweep of war. Although the title mentions two major battles of the Great War, this account is, in fact, the story of just a few weeks between May 1917 and July 1917 as experienced by a subaltern of the Lancashire Fusiliers. It is a detailed account where personalities and small events seem to fifi ll its pages to become tellingly signififi cant-whole lifetimes seem to pass in months. Life in the trenches is recorded with all its dangers, tragedies and discomforts punctuated by lighter moments, as we share the inexorable build-up to the big attack and the fury of war that changed and ended lives in minutes. This is a fifi rst rate, intimate and personal account of the Western Front warfare the British infantry knew.