A summary of the review on StrategyPage.Com:'Prof. Cassar (Eastern Michigan) gives us a rather analytical, well written, detailed account of British and Canadian troops during Second Ypres (Apr. 21-May 25, 1915), which saw the first use of poison gas on the Western Front. He opens with some background on the British (who were not all “long service professionals”) and the Canadians (almost all green volunteers). Then, Cassar plunges into the battle with a long chapter on the first days of the fighting. Cassar covers the German introduction of poison gas to the Western Front, its initial impact, the British and Canadian partially effective defensive efforts, and how gas changed the fighting. The chapters that follow, describe the nature of the fighting over the next weeks, often using the personal experiences of individual soldiers, while ranging from very small events on the ground up through the perceptions and decisions made at the highest levels, all of which shaped the events, until the final collapse of the German effort to take Ypres. This is a very good account of one of the most desperate fights of the Great War, primarily flawed by a rather superficial attention to the German side; there is no analysis of the German forces engaged in the fight, which included both ersatz and landwehr, hardly first line troops.'For the full review, see StrategyPage.Com