Ian Sumner was born in 1953 in Eccles, near Manchester, UK. He originally trained as a librarian in Newcastle-upon-Tyne but now devotes himself to full-time writing. He has written numerous titles for Osprey, and also several books on the history of the East Riding of Yorkshire, where he now lives with his wife. He has written a number of books on the French soldier in World War I and contributed to Osprey's War on the Western Front.

During World War One the French Army was in a state of disarray, plagued by indiscipline, mutinies and desertion. The ordinary French citizens that were called upon to defend their motherland - the Poilu - were disrespected and demoralized, and the infamous mutinies of 1917 by the Poilu were not protests against the war itself, but against how the war was conducted. Ian Sumner expertly charts the history of the Poilu, from the conscription of hundreds of thousands of men, through their training, to the horrors of the trenches and the fear of no man's land. Accompanied by new artwork and diagrams, this book provides a fascinating insight into the experiences of ordinary Frenchman called upon to defend their motherland.