From the Belgian coast, across the fields of Flanders, over the valley of the Somme and down the line to the Argonne: all the major battlefields of the First World War — Ypres, Arras, Cambrai, Amiens, St Quentin, Mons, Le Cateau, Reims, Verdun and St Mihiel — are criss-crossed in this book over more than thirty different routes, each clearly shown on a Michelin map. Every significant feature is described in detail. Indispensable for anyone contemplating a tour of the battlefields in Belgium and France, this book combines the years of knowledge, travel and research of its author, Rose Coombs, who worked at the Imperial War Museum in London for nearly forty years. Since her death in 1991, After the Battle’s Editor, Karel Margry, has travelled every route, checking and revising the text where necessary, as well as re-photographing every ­memorial. Many new ones are included, yet we have striven to keep true to the flavour of Rose’s original concept . . . before endeavours fade. This book remains the essential single edition battlefield guide to the Western Front. It is now in it’s fourteenth edition and is much expanded on the original that dates back to 1976. I do not have one of those and in fact my first is from a relatively recent 2003. Even at that point the book was only in black and white and ran to a hundred and seventy six pages. The latest has added a further seventy-four and is now largely in colour. As with other recent After The Battle works, the use of Google satellite imagery is pretty much standard. So much for the mathematics, what about the history? Before Endeavours Fade was conceived and written by Rose Coombs, a lady who worked at the Imperial War Museum in London. I have met people who knew her and the general impression is left of someone who could be pretty direct and who was immensely passionate about the Great War. She was on a mission, a pilgrimage in truth, to see the Western Front and leave her mark on the telling of it’s story. There were no large guides and the pilgrim would be greatly assisted by a book that made it all easier to find. She succeeded. The original book comes from a time when interest in the war was niche, to say the least, when it was possible to visit hugely important locations where there were no fences or interpretation boards and other spots where the debris of the war was still very apparent. I have met people who remembered cycling around the Somme during the early 1970s picking up helmets and kit abandoned half a century before. Now this stuff is gold dust and while I am no field walker or souvenir hunter, it is always amazing to see relics – even if they are occasionally live and dangerous. When you first visit the Western Front, the temptation to bring home bits of Iron Harvest, or whatever, is intense and I did it. Now the two or three pig iron shrapnel shells I hauled back to Essex are in my garden shed. Rusty fuse heads I found at Auchonvillers are on the window ledge in my office. The grenades and live stuff I encountered are just photos in my archive. They are best left well alone. Shrapnel balls and spent bullets are less easy to spot and anything more personal has proven elusive to my friends and I. We always look in spare moments but these vestiges of the war are not our motivation for going. ! Uwagi: Oprawa lekko zarysowana i wytarta. Brzegi stron minimalnie zakurzone.