Verdun: The Longest Battle of the Great War 1st Edition

T’s Rating System
0 to 5 with 0 the lowest score and 5 the highest and NA for not applicable:
Books (nonfiction)
Content 5
Coverage of topic 5
Adequacy of descriptions 5
Detail 5
References 5
Illustrations 3
Size 4
Detail 3
Captions 3
Sufficient Maps 3
Sufficient Drawings NA
Sufficient Photos 4
Product worth the price - Yes, 5.
There are a number of ways to analyze a battle, especially if it is the most written about engagement of World War I. There are three current books on the subject, and the approach of each is strikingly different. One is McNab’s VERDUN 1916, BATTLE STORY, smaller and more economically priced than its competition, it is rather direct in giving the reader coverage of the battle and recommended. Then there is the most popular of the new books, Mosier’s THE LOST HISTORY OF THE MOST IMPORTANT BATTLE OF WORLD WAR I: VERDUN. The author has lost sight of his claim the “most important” while going off on tangents and producing a “Gee Wiz” type of book in which he points some interesting items (some incorrect) with which the average history buff may impress his friends. Then there is Jankowski’s VERDUN: The Longest Battle of the Great War. Unlike Mosier, he does not claim the battle lasted from 1914 to 1918, but actually covered the actual battle of 1916. Both Mosier and Jankowski include a long detail bibliography, but it is clear that only the latter actually read all those books and documents. Both have a good writing style, but that does not necessarily make a good history books. Jankowski does not provide the detail of the battle found in McNab’s book (Verdun, a Battle History), but if that is what you want Alstair Horne’s book (The Price of Glory) from the 1960s still provides a decent history.
Jankowski does an excellent job in assimilating all his sources to give the reader who already knows something about the battle a better picture of the various aspects of battle including tactics, leaders, and events. The various chapters attempt to tackle such things as the French and German point of view, how the battle affected the public, moral, medical services, desertion, losses and so on. For those who have read Joffre’s and Petain’s accounts, you may have noticed something is missing. These, and other generals, as the author points out, came from the rear depending on reports, and messages, while sending out their life and death orders without actually knowing or even caring what the soldiers at the front experienced. Their front line inspections amounted to little, although Petain seemed to have a much better understanding of what was happening to his men. Meanwhile, generals like Mangin led suicidal charges from behind a desk including a desperate attempt to retake Fort Douaumont. Other officers would refuse to carry some of the directives and on the German side things were no better. The troops in Feldgrau had also become distraught by being slaughtered by French 75s and machine-guns not destroyed in the massive bombardments. Even the German Crown Prince commanding the German 5th Army questioned the leadership and strategy of his commander, General Falkenhayn. Falkenhayn only tried to explain the battle after the war when he decided to claim it was to “bleed the French white.” Unlike the other two books mentioned, this one provides some interesting evidence of how morale rose and fell on both sides, the contribution of the battle to larger mutinies the following year, and even how both sides tried to turn the results of the battle into a victory. This book is for those who already know a little about the battle of Verdun and have sufficient grey matter to want to know how this battle played out and was not a battle of attrition, but one that defined the war.
Final Rating:
Verdun by McNab - Recommend for description of the actual battle *****
Verdun by Mosier - Only recommend if your just wanting some facts to impress your friends, but not improve your understanding
of the battle. Better selection of maps than the other two books, but rather simple. Remember it includes a
number of errors and the author thinks the battle lasted 4 years. **
Verdun by Janowski - Recommend for an understanding of the various aspects of the battle and its significance. Maps not
much better than Mosier book and more needed. *****

Very poorly written book. Extremely lexiphanic writing, (you will need a dictionary nearby as you read.) The writer continuously uses verbose and convoluted sentence structure. I found that I was constantly reading, and rereading sentences to comprehend what was being said.

The various chapters seemed to be completely disconnected from one another, with no chronological order. In addition, the author hashes and rehashes several points ad nauseam. I gave up on the book after the first four chapters.

Save your money, there are better books out there!

I feel as if posts regarding how much of this book is actually focused on verdun are not showing up like they should. Be warned if youre looking for a in depth tactical guide on verdun this is not the book for you. In fact not that much is even focused on the battle itself.

My biggest problem with this book is the authors language. You'll find yourself spending more time in the dictionary looking up the words he used than actually enjoying the flow the the book.

Well researched and informative. Corrected the long standing belief that Falkenhayn's stated objective was the reason for the battle.It was something else, but what?

I'm preparing to visit Verdun. This book has given me a lot of context. I'm very glad to have read it.

Product as advertised.

This book is not a straightforward discussion of the 1916 battle, but rather a collection of chapters which roam back and forth chronologically on various subjects some of which are interesting but most are boring. There are better books out there on this battle with all its aspects. At best this is a supplement to those other books.

Verdun. The short word evokes the horrors of a ten month battle, (actually a series of sanguinary engagements), pitting the flower of French and German military personnel. Dr. Paul Jankowski, professor of History at Brandeis University and the author of several well received books dealing with the Great War, has written a succinct, 254 page narrative of the Verdun fighting.
Jankowski's book is notable for making several points about the misunderstood, mythical battle.
1. The battle was actually a series of many battles fought between February and November, 1916.
2. The principal combatants were the French against the Germans without the participation of large numbers of members of the British Expeditionary Force, (BEF), commanded by Sir Douglas Haig. Haig was a doughty Scot Presbyterian warrior from the Haig Scottish whiskey dynasty.
3. The battle was not an overwhelming triumph by the French Army under the command of Marshal Petain. Petain later became infamous as the President of France under the Nazi controlled Vichy government. The battle was in actuality a bloody and horrific stalemate. The French casualties were between 120,000 and 160,000. The Germans lost about 150,000 casualties. Later, myth makers, for various political reasons, declared that France had achieved overwhelming superiority over the German 5th Army, commanded by Prince Wilhelm. This myth making is seen in French history textbooks for public school consumption. The 3rd Republican Government in Paris, under Georges Clemenceau, the "Lion of the Left," who led a tenuous coalition government with a predilection for overt and notorious concerning war casualties to the gullible French public. Newspapers were also guilty, with notable exceptions, of lying to the public regarding the battle at Verdun. The government banned the free access of reporters at the front to report the truth of the slaughter. Government censorship was in full force.
4. One problem in understanding the conflict at the Meuse-Argonne area where the tiny village of Verdun is located is due to its isolated location, far from Paris. The battle was fought in the frontier region straddling the French, Belgian, and German borders. Most reports reaching Paris and the Anglo-American people focused on the actions occurring along the Marne, Flanders, and Northern France.
5. Much of the battle action took place in the efforts of the Kaiser's troops to seize the concrete fortresses which dotted the shell torn landscape of Verdun.
6. The German army was much more advanced in the use of technological state of the art weaponry in the areas of aircraft, machine guns, mortars, and poison gas.
7. Nothing changed on the Verdun front until victory was finally achieved by the American Expeditionary Force, (AEF), commanded by General John Pershing. In essence, what the French had accomplished was hanging on by the nails until the involvement of the American army in 1917.
This book will appeal most to those readers who enjoy military history and have some prior understanding of the war. The book is also useful for those interested in the ways governments manipulate reports of battle, and speak in an Orwellian language of deception. The book contains useful photos and impressive bibliography.

M