The French Army and the First World War

A major new account of the role and performance of the French army in the First World War.

Elizabeth Greenhalgh (Author)

9781107605688, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 13 November 2014

486 pages, 38 b/w illus. 15 maps 17 tables
22.6 x 15 x 2.8 cm, 0.61 kg

'Elizabeth Greenhalgh has written an indispensable book on France in the Great War. In fact, the book is indispensable more broadly to the history of the First World War, and to the history of modern France.' Richard Fogarty, H-War

This is a comprehensive new history of the French army's critical contribution to the Great War. Ranging across all fronts, Elizabeth Greenhalgh examines the French army's achievements and failures and sets these in the context of the difficulties of coalition warfare and the relative strengths and weaknesses of the enemy forces it faced. Drawing from new archival sources, she reveals the challenges of dealing with and replenishing a mass conscript army in the face of slaughter on an unprecedented scale, and shows how, through trials and defeats, French generals and their troops learned to adapt and develop techniques which eventually led to victory. In a unique account of the largest Allied army on the Western Front, she revises our understanding not only of wartime strategy and combat, but also of other crucial aspects of France's war, from mutinies and mail censorship to medical services, railways and weapons development.

Introduction
1. The pre-war army
2. 1914: from the frontiers to Flanders
3. 1915: on the offensive
4. 1916: Verdun and the Somme
5. General Nivelle and his 1917 offensive
6. Restoring the Army
7. 1918: German offensives
8. The path to victory
9. Armistices and demobilisation
10. From 1914 to 1919: aux armes, citoyens!
Bibliographic essay
Index.

Subject Areas: First World War [HBWN], Military history [HBW], 20th century history: c 1900 to c 2000 [HBLW], European history [HBJD], History [HB]