Fatal Avenue: A Traveller's History of the Battlefields of Northern France and Flanders 1346-1945

A unique work combining military history and travel, which studies the most fought-over area on earth.De Gaulle called it a “fatal avenue” — that broad sweep of low-lying country stretching north east of Paris. Over the centuries, invading armies have swept back and forth over this bloody terrain, and the names of battles fought here read like a dictionary of military history — from Agincourt, Calais and Crecy to Verdun, Vimy and Ypres. Fatal Avenue is both a history and a guide — a unique study of a region that has witnessed more bitter military conflict than any other area of its size on earth.