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Writing a guide to content on the Internet is a thankless task and I am not sure why anyone would bother. I can only imagine that book publishers find it a profitable genre. When the average life of a website is figured in days, when content comes and goes or is moved, a directory of websites is inevitably obsolete before the last full stop is typed. The major search engine businesses invest huge sums of money in the technology to keep up with it all. What chance does a book have?

The better sites tend to remain longer. For example, the Long, Long Trail and Tom Morgan's "Hellfire Corner" have been around for more than a decade. It is this more enduring, quality content that the author of "A guide to military history on the Internet" sought to present.

The scope of coverage is enormous, taking in all wars and military activity from 1066 to around 1998. There is a decidedly British and English language slant to the selection, although many sites authored elsewhere are mentioned. Not surprisingly, there is a considerable focus on the two World Wars. There is no doubt that the author had searched many nooks and crannies of the world wide web and certainly there are dozens, hundreds perhaps, of websites mentioned that I had never heard of. Then again, I tend not to spend much time searching outside WW1. If I really did need information on the Wars of the Roses or the English Civil War or what happened to the Zulus in 1879, five minutes Googling would have found it. Fifteen seconds on a site gives me enough to tell me whether there is content worth believing and using. I simply cannot imagine I would have looked the sites up in a printed directory. Perhaps those new to the Internet would have - but it must be a very untutored web user who needs to be shown the way to Google, MSN and some of the general search engines and encyclopedias that are listed. I must say that I found this, plus the tips on how to start your own website and how to buy books over the Internet, to deflect from the stated intention of the work and reduce its overall value.

Taking WW1 as an area of focus, relevant websites appear in a number of sections: researching individuals, war memorials and rolls of honour, military museums and a 16-page section on the war itself. None of the sites I use frequently were missing and to a large extent I agree with the author's often candid views on their design or content.

The author selects a personal "Top Ten" in a closing chapter. The list is led by Wikipedia, which I find completely unreliable as a source of information and doubt it would figure in my top 100. It just goes to show how personal taste and the purposes for which an individual uses the Internet can affect views about the beauty and utility of any given site. Summing up, this is as thorough and up to date a work as you are likely to find. Considering the scope of coverage, it does a fine job of uncovering the key websites. It is very nicely and professionally produced and even at an undiscounted cover price of £9.99 is good value. I just don't see that I would find much use for it myself.

Arras is a curiously neglected battle in many ways, not least its coverage as a battlefield to visit. It is not unlike Ypres in that it has a charming and historic town, behind British lines, with plenty of museums, things to see and places to eat and stay. There are dozens of cemeteries, memorials and places of interest on the battlefield too. Arras sits midway between the vitally important location of Vimy Ridge and the Somme battlefield yet somehow does not grab the imagination in quite the same way as either of those areas.

This may be because the battlefield area is not as pretty and uplifting as the Somme, not as packed with "something historic at every bend in the road" as Ypres. Indeed, the outskirts of Arras town include some of what might be classed as the ugliest housing in Europe and a great part of the front line of April 1917 now lies below the tons of concrete forming the industrial estates built around the town. Some important WW1 craters are used as a rubbish dump by the local people. The Paris motorway and the TGV du Nord track cut right through the Arras battlefield too.

But for all that there are areas that are good walking country, with sweeping views across the valley of the River Scarpe and across the undulating ridges that were the epicentres of fighting in the spring of 1917.

Paul Reed's "Walking the Somme" is quite rightly a best seller in its class, opening up a new way of looking at that battlefield and exposing many new sites to the casual visitor. He had a much tougher job in tackling Arras and I am glad to say does not let us down.The Battleground Europe format will be familiar to many. A pocket sized softback, containing a number of guided walks that take in WW1 sites and provide some historical background to what can be seen.

Paul's walks take us first to Vimy Ridge (which is also covered in at least two other Battleground Europe guides), then cover in detail the area covered by the attack of 9 April 1917 . We are then taken to walks around Roeux and Bullecourt. The walks are well planned and the supporting information excellent.It is notable that the key points along the walks are the military cemeteries. There appears to be much more of this book devoted to descriptions of the cemeteries than I remember from similar works. I can understand this. Arras was a murderous battle with very heavy casualty rates and in general the area has many more smaller, battlefield, cemeteries than large post-war concentration plots. It is something that makes this battlefield distinctive, if the countryside and general atmosphere of the area is not perhaps one that would attract any but the most ardent battlefield visitor.All in all this is a good, reliable guide to the area and if it helps a few more stop and look around instead of whizzing past on their way between Ypres and the Somme, then a good job done.

Stephen McGreal's task in compiling a battlefield tour guide to the sites of the famous amphibious raids at Zeebrugge and Ostend is made no easier by the fact that very little now exists of the port facilities that were under German occupation in 1918. Zeebrugge has expanded into one of the busiest container ports of northern Europe, while Ostend is a bustling commercial and tourist resort. Both seem at times to be constant building sites. It is much to the author's credit that he has managed to produce an entertaining and worthwhile book that will have many a battlefield tourist walking the concrete wharfs and paths, trying in their imagination to piece together two stirring events. It was perhaps after the U-boat threat - having come so close to crippling British supply lines in the Atlantic - had already been overcome that it was decided to block the submarine bases at Zeebrugge and Ostend.

McGreal's work tells the story in great detail, drawing upon contemporary sources and published histories in order to do so. We meet many of the officers and men who undertook these hazardous operations and get a good feeling for what happened, placed into context on the ground by some good descriptions and maps. This is not like walking the battlefields of the Somme or Ypres. You are not in fields and woods, with cemeteries and memorials at every turn: the places of memory here are relatively few and surrounded by modern industrial and commercial development. Nonetheless, the depiction of the strength of the German batteries and defence works, and the shot and shell as the naval raids went in, helps the visitor to see past the seafront hotels and supermarkets. The author brings us the many stories of the Victoria Crosses and fates of men and ships, and a good read it is too.

As a handy starter to these actions, it can hardly be faulted. For the regular battlefield tourist looking for something new on the way to or back from the Western Front, "Zeebrugge & Ostend raids" is an excellent addition to the itinerary.