The Road to Verdun

"Verdun was the largest, the longest and the bloodiest battle between the French and Germans in the First World War, lasting from February 1916 until the end of the year and claiming more than 700,000 casualties. For the French in particular, it was always more than just a battle, being rather (in Paul Valery's words) 'a complete war in itself, inserted in the Great War'. Ian Ousby's new book gives a vivid, insightful account of the generals' planning and the troops' suffering. At the same time it challenges the narrow horizons of military history by locating the experience of Verdun in how the French had thought about themselves, their nation and their relations with their eastern neighbour since the debacle of the Franco-Prussian War. Verdun emerges as the mid-point in the cycle of Franco-German hostility, carrying both the burden of history and - if only by the presence on the battlefield of men like Petain and de Gaulle, France's two leaders in the next war - the seeds of the future. The Road to Verdun will radically challenge every reader's view of France - and of the very nature of warfare."