The Western Front: A History of the Great War, 19141918

The Western Frontin This Epic Narrative History, The First Volume In A Groundbreaking Trilogy On The Great War, Acclaimed Military Historian Nick Lloyd Captures The Horrific Fighting On The Western Front Beginning With The Surprise German Invasion Of Belgium In August 1914 And Taking Us To The Armistice Of November 1918. Drawing On French, British, German, And American Sources, Lloyd Weaves A Kaleidoscopic Chronicle Of The Marne, Passchendaele, The Meuse-Argonne, And Other Critical Battles, Which Reverberated Across Europe And The Wider War. From The Trenches Where Men As Young As 17 Suffered And Died, To The Headquarters Behind The Lines Where Generals Haig, Joffre, Hindenburg, And Pershing Developed Their Plans For Battle, Lloyd Gives Us A View Of The War Both Intimate And Strategic, Putting Us Amid The Mud And Smoke While At The Same Time Depicting The Larger Stakes Of Every Encounter. He Shows Us A Dejected Kaiser Wilhelm Iisoon To Be Eclipsed In Power By His Own Generalslamenting The Botched Schlieffen Plan; French Soldiers Piling Atop One Another In The Trenches Of Verdun; British Infantryman Wandering Through The Frozen Wilderness In The Days After The Battle Of The Somme; And General Erich Ludendorff Pursuing A Ruthless Policy Of Total War, Leading An Eleventh-Hour Attack On Reims Even As His Men Succumbed To The Spanish Flu.As Lloyd Reveals, Far From A Site Of Attrition And Stalemate, The Western Front Was A Simmering, Dynamic Cauldron Of War Defined By Extraordinary Scientific And Tactical Innovation. It Was On The Western Front That The Modern Technologiesmachine Guns, Mortars, Grenades, And Howitzerswere Refined And Developed Into Effective Killing Machines. It Was On The Western Front That Chemical Warfare, In The Form Of Poison Gas, Was First Unleashed. And It Was On The Western Front That Tanks And Aircraft Were Introduced, Causing A Dramatic Shift Away From Nineteenth-Century Bayonet Tactics Toward Modern Combined Arms, Reinforced By Heavy Artillery, That Forever Changed The Face Of War.The Western Front