The Western Front [Paperback]

Best known for his BBC series presentations in War Walks and War Walks II, military history buff Richard Holmes chronicles the bloodiest days of World War I in The Western Front. This detailed compendium covers everything from how the front was created and the British Army in France, to the battle of Verdun and the last Hundred Days of the war. Those put off by lengthy historical accounts will find comfort in Holmes' concise layout and heartfelt narrative. What's more, it's filled with photos, illustrations, diagrams, maps and quotations that give needed imagery to a highly complex and inhuman four years of history. As in the words of one French solider who was not able to distinguish "if the mud were flesh or the flesh were mud."

Of the 947,000 allied soldiers who died during the war, 750,000 died on the front; 128 000 are missing. Holmes captures the scale and intensity of the Great War and never lets you forget the human price: "As we now are, so once were they; as they now are, so must we be. Let us remember them all, not with bravado or bombast, but with the respect that their sacrifice demands." --Ida Kulest --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Of the myriad accounts available, few are better than Holmes: authoritative, concise, wide-ranging and readable; it is hard to see how it can be bettered.

A new edition of Richard Holmes' classic text published to commemorate the 90th anniversary of the end of the First World War --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

For the British, World War I was the Western Front, the trench line stretching from the Swiss Frontier to the North Sea. It was there that most of the 9 million British and Dominion soldiers who enlisted during the war served, and there that most of the 947,000 killed met their deaths. Richard Holmes brings the Western Front to life in this richly detailed and authoritative book, in a way that goes deep beneath scholarly debate, ripping off the veneer of cliche which now covers the war as it really was. The book, like the series, is both chronological and thematic, following the story of The Western Front whilst picking out particular episodes in its history to highlight more general themes. Individual events are thus used to illuminate wider truths to form a descriptive yet deeply analytical book.

Richard Holmes is Professor of Military and Security Studies at Cranfield University and the Royal Military College of Science. He has written more then a dozen books on military history, including the highly acclaimed Wellington, Redcoat and Tommy, and is the general editor of the Oxford Companion to Military History. He presented the BBC television series The Western Front, War Walks, Battlefields and In the Footsteps of Churchill and wrote the accompanying books. --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.