Stalemate!: Great Trench Warfare Battles

This book offers a great insight into the type of warfarecharacteristic of the First World War. The major battles are coveredin a balanced manner and a fine analysis accompanies each battlediscussed. It is a good book to begin understanding the nature of warthat was "supposed to end all wars". I also recommendreading 'Real War, 1914-1918' by Liddell Hart for a non-specificanalysis. Overall, this book will be as useful to a professional as itwould be to a general reader.

The author has a distinct view of the WW1: stalemate. Via descriptions of the famous battles he attempts to portray the reasons behind the strategy, tactics, and apparent blunders. For example the volunteer army was considered too inexperienced to try any formation other than walking across 'no mans' land in a single row at the Somme. Everybody, including the generals, seemed to be unprepared for this type of warefare. Although the book is not about General Haig much of his decision making was, inevitably, commented upon or mentioned. Hitherto my opinion of him had always been from the 'Lions led by Donkey's ' camp, but some of his main strategic decisions appeared to be correct, eg place of attack. But as a tactical invovator? No! It took Haig until the latter half of 1918 to abandon the idea of the great strategic breakthrough by attacking the enemy at their strongest point. The German 'stormtroopers' in 1918 did the opposite and almost won the war. Tactics changed considerably after the final failure at Cambrai and a chapter detailing the changes would have been useful even if outside the scope of this book. The book rekindled my interest in the WW1 and I read it twice.

Covering the six major battles fought by the Brithish and its allies between 1915-1917 (Neuve Chapelle, Loos, The Somme, Arras, Third Ypres, and Cambrai) this book gives great insight into the tacticts and actions of the general staff on the Western Front.After the armies facing each other had become locked in siege warfare in the west by the end of 1914, the Brithish high command along with the French, sounght to destroy the German line and achieve a breakthrough to open a war of movement once more. What followed over the next three years was was a series of battles, neither of which had any degree of sucsess in breaking through only costing the Allies tens of thousands of lives. The Generals where often ignorant or not avare of the real situation on the battlefields, sending time after time thousands of soilders to their deaths in devastating frontal assaults against German trenches who shot them in the open with machine guns. Heavy bombardment, often lasting for weeks, had some effect in weakening the enemy or cutting the wire, but it turned the battlefield into a sea of mud making any large movement impossible. THis book is mostly concerned with the leader's point of view, especially the Brithish. If you looking for personal experiences of the individual soldier this book is not for you. But if you are interested in the tacticts, answers and the background stories to infamous military disasters such as the 'Somme' this is your book. I found this book very revealing, eventhough it tends to throw to much information at the reader in short passages from time, making it hard to keep up. Information is well researched and the maps are good to.