The Price of Glory: Verdun 1916 (Paperback)

~ Sir Alistair Horne (Author)
Key Phrases: flanking galleries, aerial barrage, ration parties, Crown Prince, Mort Homme, Fifth Army (more...)

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Product Description

The battle of Verdun lasted ten months. It was a battle in which at least 700,000 men fell, along a front of fifteen miles. Its aim was less to defeat the enemy than bleed him to death and a battleground whose once fertile terrain is even now a haunted wilderness. Alistair Horne's classic work, continuously in print for over fifty years, is a profoundly moving, sympathetic study of the battle and the men who fought there. It shows that Verdun is a key to understanding the First World War to the minds of those who waged it, the traditions that bound them and the world that gave them the opportunity.

About the Author

One of Britain's greatest historians, Sir Alistair Horne, CBE, is the author of several famous books on French history as well as a two-volume life of Harold Macmillan.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 388 pages
• Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics) (January 1, 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0140170413
• ISBN-13: 978-0140170412
• Product Dimensions: 7.7 x 5 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (57 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #49,843 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

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47 of 48 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A masterpiece about the Battle of Verdun, and WWI, September 4, 1997

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This is a recognized classic, published originally in 1963, and is frequently quoted or referenced in other books about the wars of this century. In spite of its "classic" nature, the book remains as relevant and fresh as ever, helped along no doubt by minor touch ups in its numerous later editions as the author discovered new information.

The book is so well researched, and so well written, and has such a depth of understanding and insight as to the gigantic human struggle that was the Battle of Verdun that it is hard to imagine anyone ever writing a better book on this subject. The range of topics covered runs the entire gamut, from daily life in the trenches, individual accounts of battle, the effect of technology and weaponry on the battle, and detailed analyses of the tactics and character of the military commanders of both sides. All of this is written in a prose that exudes compassion and respect for the soldiers that endured the Battle of Verdun.
The author avoids the usual mistake of historians writing long after the fact of looking back with too much 20-20 hindsight. For instance, the Germans already had at their disposal aircraft that could drop enough bombs to have completely severed the only functioning road that the French had left to supply their troops at Verdun. Why didn't they? The author simply quotes a German commander : "We did not understand how airplanes were to be used in this war".

With such simple statements, the author reveals a great many insights. World War I is often thought of in hindsight now as a gigantic charnal house, the first war where the term "cannon fodder" became relevant, with the images of endless human waves of soldiers being mowed down by machine guns, sent to their deaths by unthinking and monumentally stupid military leaders.

In fact, as the author writes in the preface, the reason for the enormous casualties was simply that in WWI, the battles were fought by technologically advanced nations that were essentially evenly matched, and that any such conflict would result in an enormous number of casualties. WWII simply shifted the numbers of casualties to a greater extent to the civilian population. In WWIII, the vast majority of such casualties would almost certainly be borne mainly by civilians.

How to explain the seemingly senseless nature of trench warfare in WWI? The author makes clear in this book that WWI had a unique set of ingredients:

a) machine guns and artillery, having essentially reached technological perfection, were well-understood by the military and so were the preeminent technological forces of this war. By themselves, both were relatively static weapons, that could be defended against only with trenches.

b) a number of other weapons which made their first entry in WWI - airplanes, tanks, poison gas, flame-throwers, even motorized transportation, were too new to be well understood by the military leaders, and so were not used to any lasting advantage by either side.

c) there having been a period of 44 years since the last major war (in 1870, between France and Germany), none of the military leaders had any combat experience, other than dealing with minor skirmishes in the colonies. The military heads were essentially all political appointees as a result. On all sides, the tactical thinking of the military leaders was based on outdated theories of how war should be conducted, with the only practical previous experience being one-sided wars with technologically inferior nations.

d) the hierarchical and structured nature of society in Europe of that period led to strict enforcement of authority, making it difficult to question the poor decisions of these military leaders, until well past the breaking point - this led to the French Army mutinies, the revolution in Russia, and the revolt in Germany.

37 of 37 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A glorious book about a tragic battle, February 6, 2005

By	Alfonso Mangione "Loves the three Rs: Readin'... (Chicago, IL United States) - See all my reviews

If you want to understand World War I, this book about the battle of Verdun is a must-read.

A history professor once told me that World War I, the French Revolution, and the U.S. Constitution had inspired more history than any other events or episodes. World War I exhausted Europe; at the outset, its armies, navies and colonies held dominion over much of the globe, but at the end it was a pauper continent, with both victors and vanquished shattered by deaths and debts, reparations and revolutions. And Verdun marked a pivotal moment in this transformation, for here the generals revealed that they had too few ideas about how to win--but too many men still to feed into the meatgrinder.

Because of battles like Verdun, many associate World War I with images and episodes straight from "All Quiet on the Western Front" or "Paths of Glory"--futile attacks and counterattacks, weary and shell-shocked men running across pulverized land only to be killed or maimed by mass-produced bullets and explosives, victims of Europe's collective skill at the industries of war. In this meta-narrative, the perpetrators of this mass slaughter remain hidden, distant, aloof, living in idyllic chateaux miles away from the mud and the blood, their actions either inscrutable or idiotic.

Horne pulls back the curtain to reveal the character and personality of those generals, showing their unique strengths and weaknesses and how those character traits played themselves out in one of the greatest battles in human history. By writing so well about the decision-makers, he makes the churned earth and spilled blood more tragic--and more understandable. Verdun, a battle Horne describes "the battlefield with the highest density of dead per square yard that has probably ever been known" was by all accounts a supreme test of wills for both France and Germany. In Horne's hands, though, it becomes something more tangible and real, a clash not just of armies, but of people.

In addition to the excellent human descriptions, though, Horne writes wonderfully and vividly about the scenes of the battle. Some authors and books wring the life out of historical events, turning them into stale words on dead paper. But Horne brings this monstrous battle to life, vividly describing the claustrophobic underground tunnels of shell-battered Fort Douamont and the clutching terror of phosgene gas. Horne takes a catastrophic battle of mind-boggling proportions and makes it all too real.

57 of 60 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Best English-language study of Verdun, October 18, 1999

By	J. Collins (Las Vegas, NV USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Until recently, I was a battlefield tour guide in Europe. One of our most popular tours was to Verdun. The best source in English we found for details of the battle was "The Price of Glory". Most English-language histories concentrate, naturally, on British and Empire contributions. However, Verdun was a bloodier battle than the Somme (it indirectly caused it), and was responsible for the change of mindset in France and Germany about this conflict being over by Christmas. Yet, Verdun is known only generally by most English-speaking historians. After 35 years this book is still "the" source for Verdun, and deserves to be in every WW1 historian's library. However, some of the author's prejudices are apparent (note I am NOT a PC historian): early on we read that he "dislikes Germans", and while French commanders are almost invariably described as embodying the "Gaullic Temperament/Ideal", their German equivalents are "beady-eyed, low-browed" brutes. French colonial troops are also given this patronizing treatment that is embarrassing to a reader in the late 1990's. Finally, I found a preponderance of views from the French side, the German perspective is slighted. Perhaps in future editions, the stereotypes will disappear, and more research on the Central Powers will balance this excellent work.