Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #912285 in Books
• Published on: 2001-06-28
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 384 pages

Review
A compelling and novel reassessment of WWI military history. It is said that truth is the first casualty of war, and Mosier makes it clear that this aphorism is a tragic understatement when applied to WWI. Historians have repeatedly attempted explicate the primary mystery of the conflict-namely, why the Allied commanders saw fit to transform the fields of Belgium and France into human abattoirs with their repeated and quixotic attacks against entrenched German positions. In the battle of the Somme, for example, the British suffered 60,000 dead and wounded in the course of two hours-in exchange for a few meters of strategically worthless ground. The author's answer to this mystery is simple, but abundantly supported: The French and British commands operated under the delusion that German casualties far outstripped their own, and that the next big offensive would knock Germany out of the war. In fact, German losses, although horrendous in their own right, never approached the militarily unsupportable levels endured by the French and the British. Mosier analyzes the major battles of the Western Front from the Marne to Belleau Wood and persuasively argues that the superiority of the Germans' heavy guns, combined with a greater tactical sophistication on the part of their commanders, kept their casualties lower than the Allies and brought them battlefield successes that eluded the French and British. The standard perception of WWI as a stalemate that ended because the Germans became exhausted first is thus overturned; Mosier firmly believes that slowly but surely Germany was winning the war and that the Allies were saved only by America's entry on the Allied side. This last claim is likely to be the most controversial, as many historians still tend to downplay the American contribution, but historians who disagree will be compelled at the very least to come to terms with his argument. A necessary addition to any serious collection of military or WWI history. (Kirkus Reviews)

Customer Reviews

Exploding the Myths
The nit picking comments of the AEF apologists on this Site are a disgrace to academia. Professor Mosier of the Loyola University in New Orleans, has researched some of the more unpalatable aspects of World War One, and has discovered facts that seem to have eluded contemporary historians, either through poor research or deliberate obfuscation of important issues that detract from the celebration of British Victory on the Western Front.

In this book Professor Mosier has produced incontrovertible evidence to show that:

- British and French weapons were inferior to that of the German Army due to better design and application of long range artillery and short range mortars/flame throwers.

- German casualties were far less than those suffered by Britain and France, mainly due to the use made of these powerful weapons in attack and point defence.. .
- Both the French and, more particularly, the British entered the War with inadequate manufacturing potential for arms and explosives to replace German manufacturing sources upon which they had previously relied.

- The British and French Generals lied to their governments on the true outcome of major battles on the Western Front, where they repeatedly squandered manpower on massive frontal attacks against strong fortifications, and allowed fighting to continue long after it had become obvious that success was out of reach. Moreover, they began to believe their own optimistic propaganda, and continued to misread the strength and capabilities of the opposition, by continuing to think that a decisive breakthrough was just around the corner .

- By the autumn of 1917 both the British and French armies were worn out by repeated failures masked as local successes; and it was only after the entry of the Americans into the War that the German High Command began to realise that the injection of new blood, backed by massive financial and industrial resources, into the conflict had eliminated any possibility of victory for the Central Powers..

Had Professor Mosier really aimed to "put the boot" into those WW1 authors of works that he rightly calls a "shoddy intellectual exercise", he might have demonstrated more convincingly that most of the allied generals were "not fit for purpose", having been promoted way above their level of competence through antiquated methods of selection and promotion in the British Army based upon "who you knew" rather than "what you knew". A typical example of this can be found in the disastrous activities of Sir Henry Wilson, who had failed five times to gain entry to Sandhurst by examination; and was eventually commissioned through the back door into the Irish Militia. He was consumed throughout a military career, that took him to Chief of the Imperial General Staff, by archetypal francophillia. It was he who convinced the Asquith Liberal Government, against sound advice from others, to deploy six divisions of the BEF to France in August 1914 on the false premise that they could tip the balance in achieving an early and easy victory for the Allies over the Central Powers. Predictably it didn't happen. Furthermore, he continued to run interference at high level on behalf of the French in the prosecution of the war that resulted in the subordination of the BEF to the flawed and fanciful objectives of French generals and politicians that so undermined the limited capabilities of Haigh, and particularly the ever susceptible Sir John French, in the selection and maintenance of the aim of the BEF in their execution of the War. For these efforts Wilson was promoted to the rank of Field Marshal and rewarded by the British Government with a cheque for £10,000 and a baronetcy .

Absolutely dreadful!
This is without doubt the worst book on the Great War I have come across. Seriously factually inaccurate, it peddles a populist view of the Great War that has thankfully been debunked by serious academic study of the conflict. It sits alongside John Laffin's 'Butchers and Bunglers of World War One' as an example of military history at its very worst. There are many excellent books out there about the Great War (by the likes of Gary Sheffield, Paddy Griffiths, Trevor Wilson, Robin Prior, Tim Travers - all serious academic military historians) - avoid 'The Myth of the Great War'!

Terrible!!
Wrong, riddled with errors. Did this idiot live in a paralell universe where history was completely warped. Avoid at all costs. Utter tripe...Hmm now for Michael Moores latest ''epic''