Battle Tactics of the Western Front: The British Army's Art of Attack, 1916-18

Description

Historians have portrayed British participation in World War I as a series of tragic debacles, with lines of men mown down by machine guns, with untried new military technology, and incompetent generals who threw their troops into improvised and unsuccessful attacks. In this book a renowned military historian studies the evolution of British infantry tactics during the war and challenges this interpretation, showing that while the British army's plans and technologies failed persistently during the improvised first half of the war, the army gradually improved its technique, technology, and, eventually, its' self-assurance. By the time of its successful sustained offensive in the fall of 1918, says Paddy Griffith, the British army was demonstrating a battlefield skill and mobility that would rarely be surpassed even during World War II. Evaluating the great gap that exists between theory and practice, between textbook and bullet-swept mudfield, Griffith argues that many battles were carefully planned to exploit advanced tactics and to avoid casualties, but that breakthrough was simply impossible under the conditions of the time. According to Griffith, the British were already masters of "storm troop tactics" by the end of 1916, and in several important respects were further ahead than the Germans would be even in 1918. In fields such as the timing and orchestration of all-arms assaults, predicted artillery fire, "Commando-style" trench raiding, the use of light machine guns, or the barrage fire of heavy machine guns, the British led the world. Although British generals were not military geniuses, says Griffith, they should at least be credited for effectively inventing much of the twentieth-century's art of war.

Get the book

Amazon.com

Search the book

eBay.com

Search the book

Other editions

• 

  Battle Tactics of the Western Front: The British Army's Art...

  • 1994-01-01
  • 286 pages
  • Paperback
  • Yale University Press

Similar books

• 

  The Great War: Strategies & Tactics of the First World War

  This is a thorough examination of the campaigns of the “war to end all wars.” It analyzes the development of military theory and practice from the prewar period of Bismark’s Prussia to the creation of the League of Nations.

• 

  Rally Once Again: Battle Tactics of the American Civil War

  By Paddy Griffith

  Rally Once Again: Battle Tactics of the American Civil War

• 

  Battle Tactics of the German Army 1914-1918

  By William Balck

  Written by an internationally renowned expert on tactics and one of its generals, this is a definitive exploration of the Imperial German Army's art of war, from the trenches of France to the expanse of Eastern Europe to the Italian Alps.

• 

  Breakthrough!: Tactics, Technology, and the Search for Victory on the Western Front in World War I

  By Hubert C. Johnson

  The trench-warfare stalemate of World War I was the virtually inevitable result of new technology and the cultural mindset of the times. The machine gun had made the battlefield unhabitable...

• 

  A Handbook of Military Strategy and Tactics

  By Michiko Phifer

  The book discusses the importance of Military Strategy and Tactics during conflicts with some proven examples.

• 

  Battle Tactics of the Civil War

  By Paddy Griffith

  Analyzes the events, weapons, and strategies of the Civil War and argues that the introduction of modern weaponry did not have significant effect on the outcome or the conduct of the war

• 

  American Observers On The Battlefields Of The Western Front

  By Major James A. Vohr USMC

  Although during World War I the United States employed observers on the battlefields of the Western Front, the information they provided lacked the substance and conclusions required to evolve the tactical doctrine of the American ...

• 

  Atlas for the Great War

  By Thomas E. Griess

  This is a thorough examination of the campaigns of the "war to end all wars." It analyzes the development of military theory and practice from the prewar period of Bismark's Prussia to the creation of the League of Nations.

• 

  The First World War

  By Cyril Falls

  In this book, Captain Cyril Falls, known in British academic and governmental circles as an expert in military history, discusses the military side of World War I in the light of its battles, tactics and weapons; its problems of supply and ...

• 

  The Western Front: A History of the Great War, 1914-1918

  By Nick Lloyd

  John J. Pershing. Commander-in-Chief American Expeditionary Forces (Washington DC: Government Printing Office, 1919) Watson, A., Enduring the Great War. Combat, Morale and Collapse in the German and British Armies, 1914–1918 (Cambridge: ...