My co-author Pat Osborn and I are happy to announce that our book "The Hindenburg Line" will be available from Osprey Publishing in mid-October. The book is unique in that it explains the purpose, construction, and employment of all Hindenburg Line fortifications (generically called the Siegfried-Stellungen by the Germans) from late 1916 to 1918. The fortifications were far more than just those built opposite the BEF (i.e., the Hindenburg Line), but were a series a five major (Flandern, Wotan, Siegfried, Hunding, and Michel) and numerous smaller fortified positions that eventually stretched from the St Mihel salient to the Channel Coast. The book pays special attention to the anti-tank defenses built into the fortified positions in 1918. Based on German sources and post-war AEF engineer studies, the book is the only English-language work that covers the entire Hindenburg Line in detail. The book features a number of photos that have not been previously published, or perhaps only appeared in contemporary unit histories. The "samurai helmet" observation post on the cover is just one of many such examples.
