Product Description

Portrays British participation in World War I as effective and skilful, arguing that the army's failed plans and technology during the first half of the war led to improved technique and self assurance by the time of its successful sustained offensive in the Autumn of 1918.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #285283 in Books
• Published on: 1996-04-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 302 pages

Customer Reviews

About as good as it gets
This book is a masterwork of scholarship and revisionism. It puts the achievement of the British Army post 1 July into context, and explains why it was able to defeat the allegedly far superior German forces consistently throughout the final stages of the war. The level of tactical detail and analysis is unrivalled in any other publication on the period.

There is no escaping the fact that the performance of the British Army in the Great War is still controversial, but to give this book one star on the grounds that it doesn't love the Greman Army and the writer didn't serve in the War is unfounded. Most historians don't live through the events they describe. That's why we call them historians.

If you want good, solid, factual information on the way the British Army fought, together with reasoned analysis this is the book for you. It is referenced in all the major revisionist works published since it appeared (eg works by Corrigan, Sheffield etc) and has genuine academic value.

And it does it without rubbishing the Greman Army or anyone else.

If you have any interest in this period at all, then buy it.

An excellent and thought provoking book.
Mr Griffith has written an outstanding review of WWI battle tactics that helps restore the fighting reputation of the British Empire forces in the Great War. He also restores the balance of view on the German Army, whose reputation in both wars appears to grow with every new publication (in spite of the fact that they were losers on two occasions!). The only reservation I have of the book is Mr. Griffith makes it difficult for you to agree with his conclusions because he sometimes appears to be pushing a strangely reactionary and conservative military barrow. As a citizen of a nation that suffered as much as any in the 1914-18 holocaust, his belief in the offensive sounds all to much like a justification the semi-mystical cult of the offensive that created that unnecessary disaster. But books are meant to stimulate, and Mr Griffith has created a fine work of well researched and highly readable prose that I would recommend to any history buff.

Why did the Allies win in 1918 on the Western Front ?
Goes a way to redressing the balance on the "uberGerman" school of thoughtlessness into why they "almost won the war" !

Britain and the Dominions certainly did not start the war with high intensity warfare doctrine and training but this book certainly shows that they learnt (the hard way unfortunately).

By 1918 they succeeded where the Germans had not - when needed for the advance they could bring the necessary firepower to bear and support the troops in the line with the necessary logistics over an extended period of "mobile" warfare.

Very good starting point to those who want to know why the Allies won on the battlefield rather than accept the discredited line that the Germans were "stabbed in the back".