355909
9781861053480
At the start of 1916 the Western Front Franco-British armies were hopeful...new technology - tanks and aircraft - was about to appear and they were about to mount co-ordinated offenses. Unfortunately the Germans struck first, at Verdun. Up to then the fighting had cost some two million lives...by the end of 1916 it had risen to four million - with negligible territorial gains. Focussing on this crucial year author Neillands, in a controversial and compelling text, points at the failure of the high commands to realise that until new offensive technology was invented to overcome the bias of defensive technology, the death toll could only rise. When that fatal year ended, victory and peace were as far away as ever, and another two million men had been lost.Neillands, Robin is the author of 'Attrition The Great War on the Western Front - 1916' with ISBN 9781861053480 and ISBN 1861053487.
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