With a few notable exceptions, the French efforts on the Somme have been largely missing or minimised in British accounts of the Battle of the Somme. And yet when a Franco-British Offensive was originally planned int he winter of 1915 it was to be one dominated by the French, who were to provide at least twice as many divisions as Haig's BEF.

Dave O'Mara has been visiting the battlefields for many years. For more than twenty years his interest has moved to the French army and their areas of operations and he has built up a considerable resource of histories and illustrations on it. He has explored and walked miles of the French front, from the North Sea to the Swiss border. With extensive knowledge of both the major allied armies, combined with his knowledge of the ground and ability to work with German sources, he is the ideal person to write about the French Somme, a part of the story of that terrible battlefield that has been largely neglected until now.