What can you do to protect your war horse from a gas attack?

How do you design a barbed wire entanglement for a front line trench?

What does an 18-pounder artillery piece do best?

An amazing array of leaflets, books and manuals were issued by the War Office during the First World War to aid British soldiers on the Western Front. The Tommies’ Manual 1916 combines the best of them into a poignant facsimile. Most were supremely practical or highly technical; some became obsolete almost immediately, overtaken by technological advances; others hid the grim reality of war behind a prosaic title. All make fascinating reading and are reproduced here with an introduction and over seventy period illustrations.

• Latest

  addition to Amberley's bestselling 'manuals' series. Wartime

  books republished in facsimile are hugely popular – see the sales of Amberley's

  bestselling 'Spitfire Manual' and 'Instructions for American Servicemen in

  Britain, 1942' (Bodleian Library)

• Published

  to coincide with the centenary of the Battle of the Somme (1 July 2016). 2016

  will see a huge number of events commemorating the First World War

• Original

  1916 setting used and includes an accessible introduction to life in the

  trenches on the Western Front and the period facsimile manuals reproduced

• Subject of

  the book is relevant to many museums and visitor attractions, including the IWM

  (London), National Army Museum (Chelsea), Tank Museum (Dorset), Royal Artillery

  Museum (Woolwich London), Guards Museum (London), Royal Engineers Museum

  (Gillingham, Kent) and 138 regional regimental museums

• Reviews in

  history and military history magazines to include BBC History Magazine, BBC Who

  Do You Think You Are, The Great War Magazine, Military History Magazine and

  Soldier