Hell's Foundations

This history of the Gallipoli campaign shifts the focus from the grand strategic overview to the devastating impact on one Lancashire community, Bury, the regimental home of the Lancashire Fusiliers. Moorhouse masterfully anatomizes how a single day—the landings of April 25, 1915—shattered the town's social fabric, as it lost a catastrophic proportion of its youth. By moving beyond the familiar beaches and command failures, the book provides a granular, human-scale view of the Great War's true cost.

The power of this account lies in its relentless specificity, tracing how the Dardanelles campaign reverberated through the streets, families, and factories of a single mill town for generations. Readers who connect more with individual stories than with troop movements will find this local history approach profoundly moving and illuminating. This is a vital contribution to World War I literature, grounding a colossal military disaster in the intimate, enduring grief of one community.