1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910963117503321

Autore

Prete Roy A (Roy Arnold), <1943->

Titolo

Strategy and command : the Anglo-French coalition on the Western Front, 1914 / / Roy A. Prete

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Montreal ; ; Ithaca, : McGill-Queen's University Press, c2009

ISBN

9786612867392

9781282867390

1282867393

9780773576957

0773576959

Edizione

[1st ed.]

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (318 p.)

Classificazione

HIS027000

Disciplina

940.332

Soggetti

World War, 1914-1918 - Campaigns - Western Front

World War, 1914-1918 - France

World War, 1914-1918 - Great Britain

France Military policy 20th century

France Military relations Great Britain

Great Britain Military policy 20th century

Great Britain Military relations France

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Nota di contenuto

French and British prewar defence policies -- Entente strategic planning after 1911 -- War : power relationships and the deployment of the BEF in France -- Collapse and renewal : from the Battle of the Frontiers to the Battle of the Marne -- The move north, defence of Antwerp, and competition over Belgium -- The march on Lille, the Battle of Ypres, and the second command crisis -- End of an era -- Conclusion.

Sommario/riassunto

Histories of the First World War are often written from a British perspective, ignoring the coalition element of the conflict and the French point of view. In Strategy and Command, Roy Prete offers a major new interpretation supported by in-depth research in French archival sources. In the first of three projected volumes, Prete crafts a



behind-the-scenes look at Anglo-French command relations during World War I, from the start of the conflict until 1915, when trench warfare drastically altered the situation. Drawing on extensive archival research, Prete argues that the British government's primary interest lay in the defence of the empire; the small expeditionary force sent to France was progressively enlarged because the French, especially Commander-in-Chief Joseph Joffre, dragged their British ally into a progressively greater involvement. Several crises in Anglo-French command relations derived from these competing strategic objectives. New information gleaned from French public and private archives - including private diaries - enlarge our understanding of key players in the allied relationship. Prete shows that suspicion and distrust on the part of both sides of the alliance continued to inform relations well after the circumstances creating them had changed. Strategy and Command clearly establishes the fundamental strategic differences between the allies at the start of the war, setting the stage for the next two volumes.