Paths of Glory

Author: Anthony Clayton
Publisher: Hachette UK
ISBN: 1474603335
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 299

Book Description
Anthony Clayton is an acknowledged expert on the French military, and his book is a major contribution to the study and understanding of the First World War. He reveals why and how the French army fought as it did. He profiles its senior commanders - Joffre, Petain, Nivelle and Foch - and analyses its major campaigns both on the Western Front and in the Near East and Africa. PATHS OF GLORY also considers in detail the officers, how they kept their trenches and how men from very different areas of France fought and died together. He scrutinises the make-up and performance of France's large colonial armies, and investigates the mutinies of 1917. Ultimately, he reveals how the traumatic French experience of the 1914-18 war indelibly shaped a nation.

French Poilu 1914–18

Author: Ian Sumner
Publisher: Osprey Publishing
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 68

Book Description
'Why,' the Kaiser enquired of Czar Nicholas in 1913, did he wish to ally himself with France when 'the Frenchman is no longer capable of being a soldier?' Indeed, during World War I (1914-1918) the French Army was in a state of disarray, plagued by indiscipline, mutinies and desertion. The ordinary French citizens that were called upon to defend their motherland, the Poilu, were disrespected and demoralized, and the infamous mutinies of 1917 by the Poilu were not protests against the war itself, but against how the war was conducted. The rebellions sent a stark warning, forcing a reform in the management of the war. Consequently, the performance of many French regiments improved and the Poilu went on to become the only European troops to fight the entire war within their own borders. Ian Sumner expertly charts the history of the Poilu, from the conscription of hundreds of thousands of men, through their training, to the horrors of the trenches and the fear of no-man's land, providing a fascinating insight into the events that led to the 1917 revolts. New artwork and diagrams illustrate the experiences of the soldiers as the comforts of civilian life were stripped away from them and the trenches became their homes.

Race and War in France

Author: Richard S. Fogarty
Publisher: JHU Press
ISBN: 0801888247
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 399

Book Description
Reservoirs of men -- Race and the deployment of troupes indigènes -- Hierarchies of rank, hierarchies of race -- Race and language in the army -- Religion and the "problem" of Islam in the French army -- Race, sex, and imperial anxieties -- Between subjects and citizens

French Foreign Legion 1831–71

Author: Martin Windrow
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1472817729
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 52

Book Description
Concluding his bestselling series on the French Foreign Legion, Martin Windrow explores the formation and development of the Legion during its 'first generation'. Raised in 1831, the Legion's formative years would see it fight continuous and savage campaigns in Algeria, aid the Spanish government in the Carlist War, join the British in the Crimean campaign and fight alongside the Swiss in the bloody battles of Magenta and Solferino. With the ever-changing combat environments they found themselves in, the Legion had to constantly adapt in order to survive. Taking advantage of the latest research, this lavishly illustrated study explores the evolution of the uniforms and kit of the French Foreign Legion, from their early campaigns in Algeria through to their iconic Battle of Camerone in Mexico and their role in the Franco-Prussian war.

Paths of Glory

Author: Anthony Clayton
Publisher: Weidenfeld & Nicolson
ISBN: 9780304359493
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 238

Book Description
A world-famous expert on the French military provides a major contribution to our understanding of World War I. He reveals why and how the French army fought as it did, with profiles of the senior commanders--Joffre, Ptain, Nivelle, and Foch--and analyzes the major campaigns on the Western Front, the Near East and Africa. There are details on the trenches, the makeup and performance of colonial armies, the mutinies of 1917, and how, ultimately, the wartime experience helped shape the nation.

Breaking Point of the French Army

Author: David Murphy
Publisher: Casemate Publishers
ISBN: 1473872928
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 190

Book Description
This historical analysis of the ill-fated Franco-British operation reveals how it nearly spelled defeat for the Triple Entente in WWI. In December of 1916, General Robert Nivelle was appointed Commander-in-Chief of the French armies fighting the Germans on the Western Front. A national hero, he had enjoyed a meteoric rise to high command and public acclaim since the beginning of the Great War. In return, he proclaimed he 'had the formula' that would ensure victory and end the conflict in 1917. But his offensive was a bloody and humiliating failure for France, one that could have opened the way for French defeat. Historian David Murphy presents a penetrating, in-depth analysis of The Nivelle Offensive, demonstrating why it failed and underscoring its importance in the course of the First World War. Murphy describes how the charismatic officer used his charm and intelligence to win the support of French and British politicians, but also how his vanity and braggadocio displayed no sense of operational security. By the opening of the campaign, his plan was an open secret and he had lost the ability to critically assess the operation as it developed. The result was disaster.

The March to the Marne

Author: Douglas Porch
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521545921
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 308

Book Description
An examination of the relationship between the french army and the regime in the Third Republic.

The French Army and the First World War

Author: Elizabeth Greenhalgh
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 110701235X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 487

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

The Marne 15 July - 6 August 1918

Author: Stephen C. McGeorge and Mason W. Watson
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 80

Book Description

Poilu

Author: Louis Barthas
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 030020695X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 729

Book Description
“An exceptionally vivid memoir of a French soldier’s experience of the First World War.”—Max Hastings, New York Times bestselling author Along with millions of other Frenchmen, Louis Barthas, a thirty-five-year-old barrelmaker from a small wine-growing town, was conscripted to fight the Germans in the opening days of World War I. Corporal Barthas spent the next four years in near-ceaseless combat, wherever the French army fought its fiercest battles: Artois, Flanders, Champagne, Verdun, the Somme, the Argonne. First published in France in 1978, this excellent new translation brings Barthas’ wartime writings to English-language readers for the first time. His notebooks and letters represent the quintessential memoir of a “poilu,” or “hairy one,” as the untidy, unshaven French infantryman of the fighting trenches was familiarly known. Upon Barthas’ return home in 1919, he painstakingly transcribed his day-to-day writings into nineteen notebooks, preserving not only his own story but also the larger story of the unnumbered soldiers who never returned. Recounting bloody battles and endless exhaustion, the deaths of comrades, the infuriating incompetence and tyranny of his own officers, Barthas also describes spontaneous acts of camaraderie between French poilus and their German foes in trenches just a few paces apart. An eloquent witness and keen observer, Barthas takes his readers directly into the heart of the Great War. “This is clearly one of the most readable and indispensable accounts of the death of the glory of war.”—The Daily Beast (“Hot Reads”)