Spring 1916, and three great armies - French, British and, on the other side of the wire, German - are locked in a stalemate of mud and blood on Europe`s Western Front. On the ground, young British soldiers lose their innocence in the hell that is No Man`s Land, while in the skies above the trenches a new breed of warrior, armed with a devastating new weapon, comes of age. As the conflict stretches into its third year, a neutral but woefully unprepared and ill-equipped America is slowly goaded into war. It falls to General John Pershing to galvanise his country`s army into readiness and as the first American troops reach the front in 1917, the world waits to see if the tide of a war that has already cost millions of lives can at last be turned. Combining an historian`s eye for detail with a novelist`s understanding of man`s hopes and fears, Shaara carries the reader into the hearts and minds of some of the war`s most memorable characters, from the heroic to the infamous, and vividly brings to life one of the greatest conflagrations in human history.