1914-1918 is a significant contribution to the growing canon of works on 'The Great War'. Ambitious and incisive, there is something in this masterful account of WWI for everyone - from the lay person to expert. Unlike much historiography on the conflict the causes of the war are not the main focus of the book. The crux of the text is rather the form the war took and why it endured for four painful years of bloody attrition. Tactics, mechanised warfare and the eponymous trenches of misery of France and Belgium are the beating heart of David Stevenson's weighty tome. For the reader interested in the minutiae of military tactics there is much to recommend in 1914-1918.
Indeed, Stevenson's analysis of the causes of stalemate on the Western Front are both convincing and illuminating. We are taken through the battles of WWI in evocative fashion by our expert guide, David Stevenson. Why the battles were lost but more commonly, how they ended in painful stalemate with the loss of thousands of men - eventually millions, over the course of the conflict. Both defenders and attackers were too evenly matched in terms of weapons, men, materiel for there to be a decisive result. Modern mechanised warfare was in the hands of a leadership with a pre-mechanised war mindset. Leaders on the battlefield were exposed for their inexperience of modern warfare, and as they came and went the question of how the war could be won persisted. This series of dilemmas, quandries and seeking of desperate solutions is at the heart of the book. But there are a number of weaknesses too. Stephenson eschews a narrative structure in favour of a series of thematic chapters. This leads to some repetition in parts of the text and no small amount of confusion. The most problematic aspect of the book is sometimes the lack of clarity in the analysis. Sentences tend to be rather long and wordy which makes it difficult for the reader to understand the pertinent points the author is making. Information often stands in for analysis, making large sections of the book opaque. It often appears that Stevenson is trying to cram too much into the book, making his narrative rather dense and confusing. Otherwise a great read.
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![1914-1918: The History of the First World War by [David Stevenson]](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/61MFgJDfH0L._SY346_.jpg)
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