Charles de Gaulle called it a 'fatal avenue'. He was refering to that broad sweep of low-lying country stretching from the Channel coast of Normandy in the west to the valley of the Moselle on the eastern flank, and from Paris northwards to Flanders. Over the centuries invading armies have swept back and forth over this bloody terrain, and the names of the bitter battles fought here read like a dictionary of military history: Agincourt and Arras, Bethune and Bapaume, Calais and Crecy...through to Verdun, Vimy and Ypres. The English invaded in 1337, initiating the Hundred Years War, Marlboroguh fought Marechal Villars here in 1711, Wellington and the Allies came in 1814-15, the Prussians in 1870, the Germans in 1914 and again in 1940...Evidence of a martial past is never far away. It is a landscape speckled with military adventure from every epoch: medieval walls, Vauban's forts, ravelins and lunettes, to the concrete and cupolas of the twentieth century. Richard Holmes is a leading authority on the battlefields of the 'fatal avenue', and here he provides not only a military history of these regions from 1346 to 1945, but also a compelling guide to the battles and campaigns, the geography of the terrain that was fought over, the tactics that were employed by the respective armies, and the weoponry they used.