The Old Front Line

The book is a description of the battlefield front-line from which the British Army attacked on the first day on the Somme, 1 July 1916, and as such is perhaps the first battlefield guide of the First World War. Masefield had originally been asked to write a full account of the Battle of the Somme (in 1916 he had written a successful book on the Battle of Gallipoli) but the project fell through when he was refused access to official army documents. All he was able to produce was his description of the battlefield as seen in 1917 following the German withdrawal to the Hindenburg Line. Nevertheless, The Old Front Line is still frequently referenced today as an eye-witness description of the Somme terrain and it is written with lyrical prose that is rare in books on military history.