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27 of 27 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Verdun, text book history writing, 19 Sep 2009
I have just spent two days visiting the battlefield. For anyone with a modest imagination this is a harrowing experience. It is an incredibly small space as World War 1 battlefields are but Verdun especially, it could almost fit inside Richmond Park. The shell holes have been preserved; now overgrown by trees the savage landscape remains visible. You can see the bones of 130,000 unidentified bodies in the Ossuary and walk inside the preserved forts of Douaumont and Vaux where unless you were able visit the gas chambers of Auschwitz (which were destroyed) where else could you descend into a place of such horror?
Why did this happen and what took place? It was not difficult to find Alistair Horne. The first history book I was unable to put it down missing a nights sleep was "The Fall of Paris - the Siege and Commune 1870-71". Horne is just good, he writes simply, orders his information; explains the Generals thinking and the soldiers experience with a clarity that cannot be faulted. There is not a superfluous bit of information and how things have changed - I defy any editor to alter a word. I have had to read so many bad or indifferent history books to realise how good he is. Horne tells the story chronologically; blends detail so by the end you are well-acquainted with strategy, tactics, and the political plays as well as what a 420mm shell did and a glutinous quagmire felt like. "Toujours le mot juste" and here just one small criticism, he occasionally uses non-translated French and German quotes which for non-linguists interrupts the narrative flow.
This book was published in 1963. I am sure someone is trying to make a name for themselves is writing a book "Verdun, France's Forgotten Victory" but it is the case facts simply told and well presented speak for themselves. Horne has talked to many who were there, he has read the memoirs of the decision makers and interpreted them. The sources are definitive and the interpretation intelligent, so who needs revisionism? Could it have been different? Horne offers some brief strategic alternatives but read this book for two reasons, to understand what took place at Verdun and as a masterpiece in historical writing. In passing I wonder if pre word processor historians had an advantage, they thought before they typed!
I came away from the battlefield with the book well thumbed; I feel I know 90% of what it was all about. I also read Christina Holstein "Walking Verdun" and "Fort Douaumont" the reprinted Illustrated Michelin Guide to the Battlefields "Verdun - and the Battles for Its Possession" published in 1919. There is much more you can factually learn beyond Horne, and this is a book of its time with different emphasis possible. For me Horne will do, I haven't the stomach for more and I wonder if it will - as the basic source - ever be bettered.
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14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
An essential introduction to WW1, 2 May 2000
By A Customer
In this magnificent book, the author makes a good case for the battle of Verdun to be considered the 'worst' battle in history - in no other battle was the slaughter so intense, so prolonged and concentrated in such a small area. It certainly puts a perspective on our peacetime sensibilities, when, for example, a train crash costing 20 lives is considered a 'disaster'. At Verdun, both sides considered 2000 lives a reasonable price to pay to gain, or defend, a minor tactical feature. And they paid it, day after day after day.In this book the author gets the balance exactly right between explaining the strategic deliberations of the commanders and describing the experience of the battle as perceived by the men who had to fight it. The terrible effects of high explosives on the human body are described in graphic detail, but for the majority of participants in the battle, this was all they experienced - having to endure relentless shelling by the enemy (or often their own) artillery, without even seeing an enemy infantryman. If I had the criticise the book, it would be that some of the generalisations the author makes about national characteristics (the Germans being ruthless and efficient, the French being temperamental and disorganised) are less easily acceptable now than in the less 'politically correct' times in which the book was written. Despite this minor quibble, however, this book should be read by anyone interested in that most terrible, and futile, of wars. It was rightly called the Great War.
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25 of 26 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Exemplary WWI history: thought-provoking masterpiece, 31 July 2002
The Price of Glory is one of the best written books on the First World War, and certainly the best on Verdun. Alistair Horne goes beyond description of the strategic forces that produced the battle, the battle itself and its effects. What he has written is more like a biography of the belligerents, describing the romantic military fantasies of the opposing armies' high commands, a combination of supreme national pride barely distinguishable from triumphalist racism and absolute faith in the cleansing power of mass destruction. Mr. Horne also makes the story come alive through his sympathetic, humane documentation of the miserable lives of the ordinary soldiers and field officers on both sides. As masterful a piece of work as any of Mr. Horne's books on France, and highly recommended.
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