So great was the reputation of Scottish combat troops in the trench warfare of World War I that an unnamed commentator told Haldane, author of theHistory of the 4th Battalion, Seaforth Highlanders that 'the two most terrible engines of destruction ever made by man were the 51st and 15th Divisions, both Scottish. . .' In this new evaluation timed to mark the centenary of the Great War (1914?18), Colin Campbell allows the experience of the elite 51st Division to speak for itself. He has researched battalion and brigade official war diaries and regimental and battalion histories and blends them with first-hand accounts and letters, many of which have never been published before. It is said that German soldiers feared the 51st (Highland) Division more that any other British or Empire division. Both detailed and touching, The 51st (Highland) Division in the Great War is an amazing book in tribute to the Scottish soldier. AUTHOR: Colin Campbell studied History at Glasgow University and taught it in the West of Scotland, latterly becoming a secondary school headteacher in Easterhouse, Glasgow. Involved in politics since 1976, he was an MSP in the Scottish Parliament from 1999-2003. He has a lifelong interest in Scotland's part in the Great War. In 2004 he and Rosalind Green co-authored Can't Shoot a Man With a Cold, currently the only biography of the war poet Lieutenant Ewart Alan Mackintosh MC. He has lived happily in Kilbarchan, Renfrewshire since 1963 and has been, and is, actively involved in the community.
