A huge number of books, articles and websites have provided me with the information required to write a compelling and factual account of the early months of the Great War. Too numerous to list all of them, I would like to give particular credit to the following books: The Great War, by Peter Hart; Valour in the Trenches, by N S Nash; Raiding on the Western Front, by Anthony Saunders; Trench Talk, by Peter Doyle and Julian Walker; The Beauty and the Sorrow, by Peter Englund; The Soldier’s War, by Richard Van Emden; 1914-1918, by David Stevenson; Last Post, by Max Arthur.
The National Archives at Kew and their beautifully kept war diaries have proved invaluable to better understanding movements and morale of troops at the start of the war.
The two battles featured within the book are based on real events. The German attack was taken from the accounts of Corporal Charlie Parke, 2nd Gordon Highlanders, regarding the first German assault he faced. The British attack was taken from the accounts of Major George Walker, 59th Field Coy, RE.