The Price of Glory: Verdun 1916; Revised Edition

It's a difficult task to write history that is well-researched, in depth, and factually precise, but at the same time aware of the narrative power of an evocative story well told. "The Price of Glory" is all these things. It's a powerful piece of writing, but also a serious and important work of historiography. It's the first book of Horne's I've read, but I intend now to track down several others. Horne makes a strong case that Verdun was not only a shocking slaughter in its own right ("It was the indecisive battle in an indecisive war; the unnecessary battle in an unnecessary war; the battle that had no victors in a war that had no victors." -- p. 331), but an event that had massive symbolic and physical consequences across nations and generations. This explains why Verdun is still relevant today, and why "The Price of Glory" is useful reading even for people who aren't armchair generals. As the title suggests -- and the narrative makes clear -- the simple military objective is only the start of the Verdun story. As the battle progressed, military objectives, and the lives of the men involved, became secondary to (allegedly) larger questions of "national honor." Blinded by the pursuit of pride, revenge, or honor, the bullheaded French insistence on *attaque à outrance* as much as the German plan to "bleed them white" virtually guaranteed a bloodbath -- especially when some men sought the glory while others paid the price. I think this is a book the reader will long remember -- not only for the lessons of the battle and the price paid to learn them, but also for the skill and elegance with which Alastair Horne recounts them.

If you want to understand World War I, this book about the battle of Verdun is a must-read. A history professor once told me that World War I, the French Revolution, and the U.S. Constitution had inspired more history than any other events or episodes. World War I exhausted Europe; at the outset, its armies, navies and colonies held dominion over much of the globe, but at the end it was a pauper continent, with both victors and vanquished shattered by deaths and debts, reparations and revolutions. And Verdun marked a pivotal moment in this transformation, for here the generals revealed that they had too few ideas about how to win--but too many men still to feed into the meatgrinder. Because of battles like Verdun, many associate World War I with images and episodes straight from "All Quiet on the Western Front" or "Paths of Glory"--futile attacks and counterattacks, weary and shell-shocked men running across pulverized land only to be killed or maimed by mass-produced bullets and explosives, victims of Europe's collective skill at the industries of war. In this meta-narrative, the perpetrators of this mass slaughter remain hidden, distant, aloof, living in idyllic chateaux miles away from the mud and the blood, their actions either inscrutable or idiotic. Horne pulls back the curtain to reveal the character and personality of those generals, showing their unique strengths and weaknesses and how those character traits played themselves out in one of the greatest battles in human history. By writing so well about the decision-makers, he makes the churned earth and spilled blood more tragic--and more understandable. Verdun, a battle Horne describes "the battlefield with the highest density of dead per square yard that has probably ever been known" was by all accounts a supreme test of wills for both France and Germany. In Horne's hands, though, it becomes something more tangible and real, a clash not just of armies, but of people. In addition to the excellent human descriptions, though, Horne writes wonderfully and vividly about the scenes of the battle. Some authors and books wring the life out of historical events, turning them into stale words on dead paper. But Horne brings this monstrous battle to life, vividly describing the claustrophobic underground tunnels of shell-battered Fort Douamont and the clutching terror of phosgene gas. Horne takes a catastrophic battle of mind-boggling proportions and makes it all too real.

I have read many books regarding the Great War. This one easily tops the list. By focusing on the Battle of Verdun as a microcosm of the war in general, Alstair Horne brings the war down to a more human level. His retelling of the fall of Fort Duamont and the defense of Fort Vaux are exceptional in their detail and makes you appreciate the soldiers experience in this most horrific of wars.

I have read literally hundreds of works on military history concerning the War Between the States, World War II, and World War I. I have also had the opportunity to visit the battlefield at Verdun. In all the works I have read there have been some "greats", but for the average "history buff", two stand out. They are "Inside the Third Reich" by Speer and "The Price of Glory" by Horne. Both not only tell the story, but they tell it in such clear and well written way, that you can open either at any page and be enthralled by the presentation of information. It is an honor to have the opportunity to review such an excellent work.

This is a recognized classic, published originally in 1963, and is frequently quoted or referenced in other books about the wars of this century. In spite of its "classic" nature, the book remains as relevant and fresh as ever, helped along no doubt by minor touch ups in its numerous later editions as the author discovered new information. The book is so well researched, and so well written, and has such a depth of understanding and insight as to the gigantic human struggle that was the Battle of Verdun that it is hard to imagine anyone ever writing a better book on this subject. The range of topics covered runs the entire gamut, from daily life in the trenches, individual accounts of battle, the effect of technology and weaponry on the battle, and detailed analyses of the tactics and character of the military commanders of both sides. All of this is written in a prose that exudes compassion and respect for the soldiers that endured the Battle of Verdun. The author avoids the usual mistake of historians writing long after the fact of looking back with too much 20-20 hindsight. For instance, the Germans already had at their disposal aircraft that could drop enough bombs to have completely severed the only functioning road that the French had left to supply their troops at Verdun. Why didn't they? The author simply quotes a German commander : "We did not understand how airplanes were to be used in this war". With such simple statements, the author reveals a great many insights. World War I is often thought of in hindsight now as a gigantic charnal house, the first war where the term "cannon fodder" became relevant, with the images of endless human waves of soldiers being mowed down by machine guns, sent to their deaths by unthinking and monumentally stupid military leaders. In fact, as the author writes in the preface, the reason for the enormous casualties was simply that in WWI, the battles were fought by technologically advanced nations that were essentially evenly matched, and that any such conflict would result in an enormous number of casualties. WWII simply shifted the numbers of casualties to a greater extent to the civilian population. In WWIII, the vast majority of such casualties would almost certainly be borne mainly by civilians. How to explain the seemingly senseless nature of trench warfare in WWI? The author makes clear in this book that WWI had a unique set of ingredients: a) machine guns and artillery, having essentially reached technological perfection, were well-understood by the military and so were the preeminent technological forces of this war. By themselves, both were relatively static weapons, that could be defended against only with trenches. b) a number of other weapons which made their first entry in WWI - airplanes, tanks, poison gas, flame-throwers, even motorized transportation, were too new to be well understood by the military leaders, and so were not used to any lasting advantage by either sid