The Salford Pals: The History of the Salford Brigade, the 15th, 16th, 19th and 20th (Service Battalions the Lancashire Fusiliers, 1914-1919)

The "Pals" battalions were a phenomenon of the Great War, never repeated since. Under Lord Derby's scheme, and in response to Kitchener's famous call for a million volunteers, local communities raised (and initially often paid for) entire battalions for service on the Western Front. Their experience was all too frequently tragic, as men who had known each other all their lives, had worked, volunteered, and trained together, and had been shipped to France together, encountered the first full fury of modern battle on the Somme in July 1916. Many of the Pals battalions would not long survive that first brutal baptism, but their spirit and fighting qualities have gone down into history. This is the story of the four Salford battalions, many of whose original members were recruited from one of the most notorious, oppressive and desolate slums to arise from the Industrial Revolution. Salford was late in recruiting, but within a year had raised four Pals battalions and a reserve battalion - an enormous achievement for a town of its size, as Liverpool and Manchester each raised only four such battalions, and Sheffield just one. The book records the impact of the war on Salford (noting, for example, the widespread anti-war feeling in the early days), follows the difficulties and triumphs in raising the Pals battalions, and describes the subsequent events and actions, both great and small.