The First World War

As others noted, this book does not dive into a deep analysis. It also doesn't focus on the individual participants; however, I think it occupied a very nice middle ground. It gives and simple yet slightly nuanced year-by-year account of what happened and who the major players were The authors tie the book together by asking, from the prospective of what was accomplished the previous year, what the strategy should be for the following year. I think it would be best to follow this book up another book that fills in the spots not covered by this book. Of course "All Quiet on the Western Front" would be a good choice; my next book will be "The Pity of War" for more detail. I thought this book was very well illustrated, though sometimes the illustrations did not fit as well with the text as I would have liked. My main complaint is that none of the maps have a scale and there is no really comprehensive map to refer to. I found myself continually lost trying to figure out how close or far I was from a previously mentioned action. I would suggest reading this book with a good travel map of Europe.

In their contribution to the "Cassell History of Warfare", Robin Prior and Trevor Wilson offer an introduction to the strategic history of the First World War. They summarize the conflict in six easy chapters - one for each year on the fighting in Europe, plus one on the fighting in the "peripheries" - and they have an introduction and conclusion that covers the origins of the war and its aftermath. Prior and Wilson make no secret of their views on the war; they are unabashed "Westerners" with a healthy contempt for most of the political and military leadership involved, a judgment that emerges repeatedly when assessing the outcome of battles and the results of strategic decisions. Despite their approach, the authors do a good job of presenting the war. Well illustrated, the text is accompanied by a number of computer-generated maps of the various fronts and battlefields, and there is a section at the end with brief biographies of the leading military and civilian commanders of the conflict. Readers familiar with the war would do better to consult some of the books listed in the bibliography at the end, but for anyone seeking an introduction to the war this is a good book to start with.

This is another volume in Cassell's History of Warfare series, which combines a general history of each topic with lots of maps and photos. This addition to the series deals mostly with events on the West Front, although some *brief* coverage is offered for Gallipoli, Mesopotamia, Russia, Austria and Italy. In focusing on the West Front, the authors lavish the most attention on British and Commonwealth forces. Do not expect to find much on the naval or air forces involved.The book begins with a short analysis on the causes of the war. The authors place most of the blame squarely on the Kaiser and Moltke and seem to go out of their way to discount AJP Taylor's thesis that the Great Powers stumbled into war. They are probably correct in their analysis, but I'm not sure such an academic debate belongs in a general history such as this. The next several chapters deal with the chronological events of the war, year by year, with one chapter reserved for events on the peripherpal theaters.The book concludes with a decent summary of the Treaty of Versailles and how it led to World War II. All in all, I'd recommend the book to those looking for a general introduction to the land campaigns of World War I on the Western Front. While the maps are a tad busy, the photographs are well selected to enhance the text.