Battleground - Early Battles Ypres 1914 - Messines and Menin Road

[simond9x]

Apologies if this has been covered elsewhere (I did search to see). Does anyone know when Pen & Sword will be publishing the two follow-up titles to the excellent 'Ypres 1914: Langemark'? I bought the latter about a year ago and it was implied that the two other titles would follow in reasonably quick succession. Messines is currently pencilled in for later this month but Menin Road seems to have disappeared off the radar. I've written to P&S but not yet received a reply.

I think Nigel and Jack are both on this forum - any update please, guys?

Many thanks.

[nigelcave]

It has been a tortuous route for all sorts of unexpected reasons! However, even as I type the final checks on the proofs are being made and Jack is beavering away over the Index; the hope is that it will be published this side of Christmas.

The Menin Road will disappear off to be set in January; allow four months for the turnaround.

Actually, the delay has been fortuitous in many ways, as things keep changing - generally for the better, I must say (e.g. improved parking at Polygon Wood, for example), though the jury is possibly still out as regards Hill 60. I must make a visit up there in the next few months.

And, by the way, many thanks for comments on Langemarck: these Ypres 1914 battlegrounds have been very interesting to write and, what with two forthcoming DVDs on Ypres 1914 with Ed Skelding, I feel I have got to know so much better this really fascinating battlefield in what for me has become one of the most 'gripping' battles of the Great War.

(And of course, Jack has not been idle, as his new 1917 book is out; whilst I did a new intro for the reprint of the Burgoyne Diaries, an under-rated book[(not least hitherto by me] but which really has tremendous value for anyone interested at all in life in an infantry battalion - with all its particular challenges - in the winter/spring of 1914/15.)

[joe19612]

One of my favourite books the "Burgoyne Diaries".

Joe

[simond9x]

Thanks for the update, Nigel.

My wife's grandfather was in the 2/Wiltshires and was wounded and taken prisoner in the fighting between Becelaere and Terhand on 25th October 1914. Will that action be included within the scope of the Menin Road book?

[nigelcave]

Only peripherally, I am afraid; I am away from my copy of the draft text so will have to check. 2/Wilts does feature, but the Menin Road fighting ended up involving so many remnants of battalions - and went on for such a considerable period of time - that most battalions end up being part of the story of a bigger combination of units.