In the English-speaking world the First World War is all too often portrayed primarily as a conflict between Britain and Germany. The vast majority of books focus on the Anglo-German struggle, and ignore the dominant part played by the French, who for most of the war provided the bulk of the soldiers fighting against the central powers. As such, this important and timely book joins the small but growing collection of works offering an overdue assessment of the French contribution to the Great War. Drawing heavily on French primary sources the book has two main foci: it is both an in-depth battle narrative and analysis, as well as a work on the tactical evolution of the French army in Spring 1915 as it endeavored aggressively to come to grips with trench warfare. This period is of crucial importance as it was in these months that the French army learned the foundations of trench warfare on which their conduct for the remainder of the war would rest. The work argues that many advanced practices often considered German innovations - such as the rolling barrage, infiltration tactics, and the effective planning and integration of artillery bombardments - can all be traced back to French writing and action in early 1915. The work argues that - contrary to received opinion - French army bureaucracy proved effective at very quickly taking in, digesting and then disseminating lessons learned at the front and French commanders proved to be both effective and professional. Such radical conclusions demand a fundamental rethink of the way we view operations on the Western Front.

In the English-speaking world the First World War is all too often portrayed primarily as a conflict between Britain and Germany. The vast majority of books focus on the Anglo-German struggle, and ignore the dominant part played by the French, who for most of the war provided the bulk of the soldiers fighting against the central powers. As such, this important and timely book joins the small but growing collection of works offering an overdue assessment of the French contribution to the Great War. Drawing heavily on French primary sources the book has two main foci: it is both an in-depth battle narrative and analysis, as well as a work on the tactical evolution of the French army in Spring 1915 as it endeavored aggressively to come to grips with trench warfare. This period is of crucial importance as it was in these months that the French army learned the foundations of trench warfare on which their conduct for the remainder of the war would rest. The work argues that many advanced practices often considered German innovations - such as the rolling barrage, infiltration tactics, and the effective planning and integration of artillery bombardments - can all be traced back to French writing and action in early 1915. The work argues that - contrary to received opinion - French army bureaucracy proved effective at very quickly taking in, digesting and then disseminating lessons learned at the front and French commanders proved to be both effective and professional. Such radical conclusions demand a fundamental rethink of the way we view operations on the Western Front.

A detailed reconstruction of life and death in the trenches of World War I, describing the construction and physical and spiritual environment of the trenches and the soldiers' daily routine.

Historians have portrayed British participation in World War I as a series of tragic debacles, with lines of men mown down by machine guns, with untried new military technology, and incompetent generals who threw their troops into improvised and unsuccessful attacks. In this book a renowned military historian studies the evolution of British infantry tactics during the war and challenges this interpretation, showing that while the British army's plans and technologies failed persistently during the improvised first half of the war, the army gradually improved its technique, technology, and, eventually, its' self-assurance. By the time of its successful sustained offensive in the fall of 1918, says Paddy Griffith, the British army was demonstrating a battlefield skill and mobility that would rarely be surpassed even during World War II. Evaluating the great gap that exists between theory and practice, between textbook and bullet-swept mudfield, Griffith argues that many battles were carefully planned to exploit advanced tactics and to avoid casualties, but that breakthrough was simply impossible under the conditions of the time. According to Griffith, the British were already masters of "storm troop tactics" by the end of 1916, and in several important respects were further ahead than the Germans would be even in 1918. In fields such as the timing and orchestration of all-arms assaults, predicted artillery fire, "Commando-style" trench raiding, the use of light machine guns, or the barrage fire of heavy machine guns, the British led the world. Although British generals were not military geniuses, says Griffith, they should at least be credited for effectively inventing much of the twentieth-century's art of war.

A major new account of the role and performance of the French army in the First World War.

This is a comprehensive new history of the French army's critical contribution to the Great War. Ranging across all fronts, Elizabeth Greenhalgh examines the French army's achievements and failures and sets these in the context of the difficulties of coalition warfare and the relative strengths and weaknesses of the enemy forces it faced. Drawing from new archival sources, she reveals the challenges of dealing with and replenishing a mass conscript army in the face of slaughter on an unprecedented scale, and shows how, through trials and defeats, French generals and their troops learned to adapt and develop techniques which eventually led to victory. In a unique account of the largest Allied army on the Western Front, she revises our understanding not only of wartime strategy and combat, but also of other crucial aspects of France's war, from mutinies and mail censorship to medical services, railways and weapons development.