The Road to Verdun: World War I's Most Momentous Battle and the Folly of Nationalism - Rilegato

Ousby, Ian

Rilegato

ISBN 10: 0385503938 ISBN 13: 9780385503938

Casa editrice: Doubleday, 2002

Riassunto

In a radical, iconoclastic reexamination of one of the bloodiest battles of World War I, the author of Occupation: The Ordeal of France 1940-1944 sheds new light on the devastating engagement, its impact on the soldiers who fought, and its long-term implications for the history of the twentieth century and Franco-German relations.

Su questo libro

Informazioni sull?autore

IAN OUSBY was the author of several books, including The Cambridge Guide to Literature in English and Occupation: The Ordeal of France 1940—1944, which won the 1997 Edith McLeod Literary Prize, given annually to the British book that has “contributed the most to Franco-British understanding,” and the 1997 Stern Silver PEN Award for Nonfiction. He passed away in August 2001.

Dal risvolto di copertina interno

A powerfully immediate and controversial account of one of the longest and bloodiest engagements of World War I.

In mid-February 1916, the Germans launched a surprise major offensive at Verdun, an important fortress in northeast France. By mid-March, more than 90,000 French troops had been killed or wounded. The fighting continued for seven long months, with casualties on both sides mounting in astonishing numbers. By the end of the year, the battle had claimed more than 700,000 victims. The butchery had little impact on the course of the war, and Verdun soon became the most potent symbol of the horrors of the war in general, and of trench warfare in particular.

Ian Ousby offers a radical, iconoclastic reevaluation of the meaning and import of this cataclysmic battle in The Road to Verdun. Moving beyond the narrow focus of most military historians, he argues that the French bear a tremendous responsibility for the senseless slaughter. In a work that merges intellectual substance and great battle writing, Ousby shows that the roots of the disaster lay in the French national character the grandiose, even delusional way they perceived themselves, and their relentless determination to demonize Germans, which began in the debacle of the Franco-Prussian War. Ousby analyzes the generals battle plans, and provides a graphic, gripping account of the deprivations and inhumane suffering of the troops who manned the trenches. His incisive, moving descriptions make it painfully clear why the influential French critic and poet Paul Val?ry called Verdun a complete war in itself, inserted in the Great War.

In telling the story of Verdun, Ousby demonstrates that the confrontation marked a critical midpoint in Franco-German hostility. The battle not only carried the burden of history, but with the presence on the battlefield of France s future leaders including Pétain and de Gaulle it fed an increasingly venomous enmity between France and Germany, and lay the groundwork for World War II.

Dettagli dell'edizione

• Editore: Doubleday
• Data di pubblicazione: 2002
• Lingua: Inglese
• ISBN 10: 0385503938
• ISBN 13: 9780385503938
• Rilegatura: Copertina rigida
• Numero edizione: 1
• Numero di pagine: 393
• Contatto del produttore: non disponibile
• Persona responsabile: non disponibile