Is the tank now a military anachronism? Is it going the way of the cavalry it replaced?

We pose the question and leave it hanging as we mark the centenary of the debut of the tank in September 1916. In our special this issue, Jeremy Black assesses the military impact of the new weapon in the second half of the First World War, while Arnold Harvey selects some personal testimony from among the pioneers of armoured warfare.

Then we have three very different American stories. Fred Chiaventone recalls the epic last stand of a make-shift Texas militia at the Alamo in 1836. Like many last stands, it was the precursor to decisive victory – in this case that of San Jacinto, which established the independence of Texas.

Then Graham Goodlad continues our occasional Great Commanders series with an assessment of William Tecumseh Sherman, the iron man of the Union in the American Civil War, while Nigel Hamilton introduces his new study of the fraught wartime relationship between President Roosevelt and Prime Minister Churchill.

Finally, Patrick Mercer takes us into the hell of Mametz Wood in July 1916, alongside that famous (and very literary) British regiment, the Royal Welch Fusiliers.