No conflict of the Great War excites stronger emotions than the war in Flanders in the autumn of 1917, and no name better encapsulates the horror and apparent futility of the Western Front than Passchendaele. By its end there had been 275,000 Allied and 200,000 German casualties. Yet the territorial gains made by the Allies in four desperate months were won back by Germany in only three days the following March. The devastation at Passchendaele, the authors argue, was neither inevitable ...

At the outset of 1918 Germany faced certain defeat as a result of Allied technical innovation in tanks and aircraft, and the American entry into the war. Victory could only be gained by the immediate application of overwhelming force in new tactical form; the 'fire-waltz' artillery barrage and the storm-trooper infantry attack.1918 examines both the Germans' tactics and the Allies' preferred solution to fighting this war, the combination of artillery, tanks, infantry and a...

On 22 April 1915, the men of the 1st Canadian Division faced chlorine gas, a new lethal weapon against which they had no defence. In defiance of a particularly horrible death, or, at the very least, severe lung injury, these untested Canadians fought almost continuously for four days, often hand-to-hand, as they clung stubbornly against overwhelming odds to a vital part of the Allied line after the French units on their left fled in panic. By doing so, they saved 50,000 troops in the Ypres...

The true story of how Britain won the First World War.The popular view of the First World War remains that of BLACKADDER: incompetent generals sending brave soldiers to their deaths. Alan Clark quoted a German general's remark that the British soldiers were 'lions led by donkeys'. But he made it up.Indeed, many established 'facts' about 1914-18 turn out to be myths woven in the 1960s by young historians on the make. Gordon Corrigan's brilliant, witty histor...

Nicknamed 'The Desert Fox' for his cunning command of the Afrika Korps, Erwin Rommel remains one of the most popular and studied of Germany's World War II commanders.He got his first taste of combat in World War I, where his daring command earned him the Blue Max, Germany's highest decoration for bravery. He followed this up with numerous successes early in World War II in both Europe and Africa, before facing his biggest challenge – organizing the defence of Franc...

Contents Introduction 1914 – The War Begins 1915 – From the Trenches to Turkey 1916 - The Great Offensives 1917 - War in the Mud 1918 – Breakthrough   The battles of World War I were fought on an unprecedented scale. Both sides made use of industrial technology to inflict horrendous numbers of casualties on the other and armies composed of millions of men confronted each other in cataclysmic encounters, t...

Ypres was a medieval town known for its textiles; however, it became infamous during the Great War with trench warfare, poison gas and many thousands of casualties.As the German Army advanced through Belgium, it failed to take the Ypres Salient. On 13 October 1914, German troops entered Ypres. On looting the city, the Germans retreated as the British Expeditionary Force advanced. On 22 November 1914, the Germans commenced a huge artillery barrage killing many civil...

A year-by-year examination of key WWI battles and how the ongoing advances in artillery shaped strategy, tactics, and oprations; includes battlefield maps!World War I is often said to have been an artillery war, yet the decisive role artillery played in shaping military decisions—and therefor the war itself—has rarely been examined. Artillery in the Great War traces the development of this all-important technology, the differing approaches to its use, the ...

On the morning of April 9, 1917, troops of the Canadian Corps under General Julian Byng attacked the formidable German defences of Vimy Ridge. Since then, generations of Canadians have shared a deep emotional attachment to the battle, inspired partly by the spectacular memorial on the battlefield. Although the event is considered central in Canadian military history, most people know very little about what happened during that memorable Easter in northern France.Vimy Ridge: A C...

Miles Dempsey, Commander of the British Second Army in the invasion of Europe 1944-45, is almost unknown to the general public. Yet his part in Britains contribution to that campaign was second only to Montgomerys in importance. Dempsey survived two and a half years of bitter fighting as an infantry officer on the Western Front before accompanying his beloved Royal Berkshire Regiment in the little-known North West Persia campaign of 1920-21. In six years he rose from Major to command over ...

The History of World War I series recounts the battles and campaigns that took place during the 'Great War'. From the Falkland Islands to the lakes of Africa, across the Eastern and Western Fronts, to the former German colonies in the Pacific, the World War I series provides a six-volume history of the battles and campaigns that raged on land, at sea and in the air.Following the climactic battles of Verdun and the Somme the previous year, the Allies sought to finish the war on the ...

The name Waterloo has become synonymous with final, crushing defeat. Now this legendary battle is re-created in a groundbreaking book by an eminent British military historian making his major American debut. Revealing how and why Napoleon fell in Belgium in June 1815, The Battle of Waterloo definitively clears away the fog that has, over time, obscured the truth.With fresh details and interpretations, Jeremy Black places Waterloo within the context of the warfare of the period, sho...