About the Author

Richard Holmes was educated at Cambridge, Northern Illinois and Reading University. He was a member of the Department of War Studies at RMA Sandhurst between 1969 and 1985, when he left to command 2nd Battalion The Wessex Regiment. He was appointed Professor of Military and Security Studies at Cranfield University in 1995. Professor Holmes has written over a dozen books on military topics, is general editor of Oxford University Press's Companion to Military History and he has written and presented several television programmes, including two six-part BBC TWO series, War Walks I and War Walks II, as well as a series on the Western Front which was televised in the summer of 1999.

Reviews

'The name Richard Holmes is to military history what Made in Britain once was to manufactured goods. There is no shoddiness in materials or labour; reliability is the hallmark, not flashiness, John Bull the proud emblem'. The Times