The Western Front : a history of the Great War, 1914-1918

The Western Front A history of the Great War, 1914-1918

Nick Lloyd

Book - 2021

"A panoramic history of the savage combat on the Western Front between 1914 and 1918 that came to define modern warfare. The Western Front evokes images of hardship and sacrifice, of young, mud-spattered men in water-logged trenches, shielded from artillery blasts by a few feet of dirt. Long considered the most futile arena of the First World War, the Western Front has persisted in our collective memory as a tragic waste of life. In this epic narrative history, Nick Lloyd brings together the latest research from America, France, Britain, and Germany, telling the full story of the war in France and Belgium from the German invasion in 1914 to the armistice four years later. His sweeping chronicle reveals that the trenches were, as often ...as not, sites of dramatic technological and tactical advances, and that superior generalship helped determine the outcome of the war. Brimming with gripping descriptions and insight, The Western Front is a historical account in the tradition of Barbara Tuchman, John Keegan, and Antony Beevor: an authoritative, magisterial portrait of men at war"--

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Subjects
World War, 1914-1918 > Campaigns > Western Front.
Published
New York, NY : Liveright Publishing Corporation, a division of W. W. Norton & Company, Inc [2021]
Language
English
Main Author
Nick Lloyd (author)
Edition
First edition
Physical Description
xxiv, 657 pages, 24 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations, maps ; 25 cm
Bibliography
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN
9781631497940
  • List of Illustrations
  • List of Maps
  • Glossary
  • Preface
  • Prologue:'An act of hostility'
  • Part I. 'War is not like manoeuvres': Liège to the Second Battle of Champagne (August 1914-November 1915)
  • 1. 'A vision of Attila'
  • 2. 'To the last extremity'
  • 3. 'Men of real worth'
  • 4. 'New conditions'
  • 5. 'A real bad business'
  • 6. 'Only inaction is shameful'
  • 7. 'No getting through'
  • Part 2. 'Scales of fate': Verdun to the Second Battle of the Aisne (December 1915-May 1917)
  • 8. 'A place of execution'
  • 9. 'Costly and fatal toils'
  • 10. 'Hunted on all sides'
  • 11. 'The future is darker than ever'
  • 12. 'The face of a general in victory'
  • 13. 'A very serious decision'
  • 14. 'An entirely new situation'
  • 15. 'Tortured ground'
  • Part 3. 'A matter of command': Messines Ridge to Compiègne (June 1917-November 1918)
  • 16. 'Patience and tenacity'
  • 17. 'Terrible butchery'
  • 18. 'Nothing but the war'
  • 19. 'The greatest effort we have made'
  • 20. 'I fear it means disaster'
  • 21. 'Hold the line at all hazards'
  • 22. 'It will be a glorious day'
  • 23. 'Keep steady'
  • 24. 'The full measure of victory'
  • Epilogue
  • Cast of Characters
  • Abbreviations
  • References
  • Select Bibliography
  • Index
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

In the sweeping first volume of a planned trilogy on WWI, historian Lloyd (Passchendaele: The Lost Victory of World War I) examines how the muddy battlefields of France and Belgium became "a bubbling, fermenting experiment in killing that changed the world." He vividly describes artillery fire raining down on the fortresses of Liège in the war's opening engagement, draws incisive profiles of commanders including German general Helmuth von Moltke ("there was always a strange, languid softness about "), and recounts fierce debates among political and military leaders on both sides of the conflict over battlefield tactics and troop movements. Lloyd also details how new technologies including aerial surveillance and poison gas contributed to staggering casualty rates, and documents U.S. general John Pershing's repeated refusals to integrate American troops into existing Allied ranks. Recounting weeks of tortured negotiations that followed the Meuse-Argonne offensive, Lloyd notes that Allied supreme leader Ferdinand Foch was "quite satisfied" with the conditions of the armistice, while Pershing and French general Henri Phillipe Pétain, the future head of Vichy France, would have preferred to keep fighting. Distinguished by its trenchant observations and massive level of detail marshaled into a fluid narrative, this is a sterling record of WWI's most consequential theater. (Mar.)

(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review

A rising-star military historian at King's College London, Lloyd ambitiously covers the Western Front from 1914 to 1918, providing intimate detail and showing how the war led to significant technological and tactical advances.

(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review

The first in a projected three-volume history of the bloody, chaotic "maelstrom" that was World War I. After several well-received accounts of individual campaigns, including Passchendaele and Loos, historian Lloyd takes on the entire war, focusing this installment on the fighting in France and Belgium. Since this is a military history, the author skips over the Byzantine diplomatic maneuvers following the June 1914 assassination of the Austrian archduke and begins with the declarations of war in August. He adds an eight-page epilogue for events after the 1918 armistice. Most readers know that Germany opened with a massive invasion through neutral Belgium, a mission that nearly succeeded in capturing Paris but, after two months of slaughter, settled into a bloody stalemate along 400 miles of trenches extending from Belgium across France to Switzerland. With Germany ensconced in France, the Allied powers "had little choice but to attack," writes Lloyd. "So they mounted a series of major offensives, each bigger than the last, to break up the trench network and return to mobile warfare." Only in 1918 did Germany's army, reinforced after Russia withdrew from the war, resume the offensive, which, like that in 1914, ended in a near miss. Many popular military histories focus on the common soldier, but Lloyd emphasizes senior commanders, all of whom were "trying to cope with a war that had shattered their lives as much as any other." Though most top officials had numerous flaws, the author rejects their characterization "as 'donkeys' or 'butchers': unfeeling military aristocrats fighting the wrong kind of war." The reality, as Lloyd demonstrates, was the usual messy picture of trial and error, with generals often learning from their mistakes and eager to adopt new technology. Tactics and firepower vastly improved throughout the war, but so did countermeasures. There are a few maps, but the author's emphasis on battles and maneuvers will require close attention and, perhaps, a WWI atlas at hand. Familiar ground, but Lloyd's keen insights and engaging prose make the book a valuable addition to the literature. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

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