You may have to Search all our reviewed books and magazines, click the sign up button below to create a free account.
This book details the history of Fort Douaumont and the men who fought there, providing a detailed narrative of Battle of Verdun, the fall of Fort Douaumont, and the bombardment by French forces compelling the Germans to retreat. It covers critical units and individuals and provides four different car tours of differing lengths and alternative routes. Numerous maps and various aerial and technical drawings accompany this guide of the battlefield.
A WWI historian and Verdun battleground guide shares her knowledge and expertise in this series ten of walking tours. On February 21st, 1916, the German Fifth Army launched a devastating offensive against French forces at Verdun and set in motion one of the most harrowing and prolonged battles of the Great War. By the time the struggle finished ten months later, over 650,000 men were left killed, wounded, or were missing. The terrible memory of the battle had been etched into the histories of France and Germany, as well as the ground on which it happened. This epic trial of military and national strength cannot be properly understood without visiting, and walking, the battlefield, and this is the purpose of Christina Holstein's invaluable guide. In a series of walks she takes the reader to all the key points on the battlefield, many of which have attained almost legendary status—from the spot where Colonel Driant was killed to the forts of Douaumont, Vaux and Souville, the Mort Homme ridge, and Verdun itself.
The bitter fight for Fort Vaux is one of the most famous episodes in the Battle of Verdun—it has achieved almost legendary status in French military history. The heroic resistance put up by the forts commander, Major Raynal, and his small, isolated garrison in the face of repeated German assaults was remarkable at the time, and it is still seen as an outstanding example of gallantry and determination. But what really happened inside the besieged fort during the German attacks, and how can visitors to the Verdun battlefield get an insight into the extraordinary events that took place there almost a century ago? In this precise, accessible account, Christina Holstein, one of the leading authorities on the Verdun battlefield and its monuments, reconstructs the fight for the fort in graphic day-by-day detail. Readers get a vivid sense of the sequence of events, of the intense experience of the defenders and a wider understanding of the importance of Fort Vaux in the context of the German 1916 offensive.
A tour of the historic French battlefield that goes beyond the usual dates and places, and reveals the full story of the fighting after the fighting. Despite the popular view, the French army did not cease offensive operations after the disastrous Nivelle Offensive of spring 1917 and the subsequent mutinies. Nor did the fighting at Verdun come to an end in 1916. The successful French counteroffensives at the end of that year led to preliminary planning for a two Army operation in 1917 to break out of the Verdun salient and recapture the strategically very significant Briey coal basin. The French Army mutinies of May and June 1917 led to a more limited version of the plan being implemented, w...
Fully illustrated with photographs and maps, this guide to the WWI battlefield of Verdun offers a deeper understanding of its history and its monuments. A visit to the battlefield of Verdun is usually dominated by the forts of Douaumont and Vaux, the museum at Fleury and the striking Ossuary. Although this gives a flavor of the horrific fighting that took place in the area during the Great War, the visitor who explores no further will have only skimmed the surface of this deeply fascinating site. This book seeks to guide the battlefield pilgrim on a series of walks that combine major sites with parts that are rarely visited. These four walking tours have been thoroughly researched and feature many physical remnants of combat, such as gun positions, bunkers and trench systems, the significance of which are fully explained. They are carefully curated to give visitors a greater understanding of why the fighting developed as it did and why such places as Fort Vaux were so significant to both sides. Though they vary in length, most take a half day to complete, while the longest—and last—takes a full day.
None
This is the eighth in Christina Holstein's masterly series of Battleground books on the Verdun area during the Great War, following the usual method of narrative to set the scene accompanied by detailed tours. Christina brings to bear her outstanding knowledge of the ground and her deep understanding of the military issues that faced both sides, aided by her ability to read both French and German sources. The six tours, expanding and developing the narrative chapters, and taking up over 70 per cent of the book, are richly illustrated and the whole is notably well mappedThe book focuses on the little-known fighting in the Verdun area in the first weeks of the First World War and the German at...
On 21 February 1916 the German Fifth Army launched a devastating offensive against French forces at Verdun and set in motion one of the most harrowing and prolonged battles of the Great War. By the time the struggle finished ten months later, over 650,000 men had been killed or wounded or were missing, and the terrible memory of the battle had been etched into the histories of France and Germany. This epic trial of military and national strength cannot be properly understood without visiting, and walking, the battlefield, and this is the purpose of Christina Holstein's invaluable guide. In a series of walks she takes the reader to all the key points on the battlefield, many of which have attained almost legendary status - the spot where Colonel Driant was killed, the forts of Douaumont, Vaux and Souville, the Mort Homme ridge, and Verdun itself.
In 1916, in an exchange of human flesh for war material, the Russian government sent to France two brigades to fight on the side of their French allies. By the end of World War I, these two brigades had experienced their own form of the Russian Revolution, had been isolated at a southern training post in a discipline move by the French government, had battled against each other in what was one of the first confrontations of the Russian Civil War, and had emerged from the conflict as a single force, the Russian Legion of Honor, which would remain loyal to France until the end of the war. The remarkable story of these Russian soldiers has been overlooked by historians until now. Jamie Cockfield here explores the journey and transformation of these men, and in so doing, he examines the impact of the revolution on the Russians who were caught in the middle of wartime alliances and nationalist ardor.
This book on French soldiers during WWI is “a first-class narrative with an abundance of personal testimony from the officers and men of the regiment” (The Great War Magazine, Editor’s Choice). Although the French fielded the largest number of Allied troops on the Western Front in the First World War, the story of their soldiers is little known to English readers. The immense size of the French armies, the number of battles they fought, and the enormous losses they incurred, make it difficult for us to comprehend their experience. But we can gain a genuine insight by focusing on one of the defining battles of that war, at Verdun in 1916, and by looking at it through the eyes of a small...