Robert Cowley
An in-depth, authoritative account of the fall of 1914 on the Western Front and of the First Battle of Ypres, a true turning point in World War I and in the course of modern warfare—by the founding editor of MHQ: The Quarterly Journal of Military History
The Marne may have saved Paris and prevented a devastating setback for the Allies, but it did not spell eventual defeat for Germany. Ypres did.
The final months of 1914 were the bloodiest interval in a famously bloody war, a killing season. They ended with the First Battle of Ypres, a struggle in West Flanders, Belgium whose importance has been too long overlooked, until now. Robert Cowley's fresh, novelistic account of this crucial period describes how German armies in France were poised to sweep north to capture the Channel ports and knock England out of the war. What changed everything, and what the Germans did not count on, was a brilliant improvisation by a cobbled-together handful of desperate British, French, and Belgian troops.
In a re-examination of events that have long seemed set in stone--perhaps too long--Cowley combines a wide array of source materials with sharp portrayals both of military leaders and of the men they led. The Killing Season explores the dismal failures of commanders who had never been under fire, as well as some unexpected successes. One of the latter was Albert of Belgium, the world's last warrior king, who fought to preserve what remained of his nation. We follow the unlikely progress of French General Ferdinand Foch, the former professor of military science, who actually practiced what he taught (but who didn't hesitate to correct his mistakes). Memorable characters include Hendrik Geeraert, the alcoholic barge keeper, who emerged to pull off what was literally Albert's last ditch effort; Sir John French, the British commander, who displayed his greatest talent for maneuver in the bedroom; and Helmuth von Moltke the Younger, the man who pulled the switch that set the troop trains rolling. We also meet a young Adolf Hitler, who received his baptism of fire at Ypres (and may have panicked there), and Winston Churchill, who showed up uninvited at the siege of Antwerp and bought the time that may have saved the Allies.
The vast brawl of four armies in Flanders was not only a turning point but one that irrevocably changed the nature of modern warfare. In this visceral account, based on thirty years of research and picking up where Barbara Tuchman's The Guns of August left off, Robert Cowley details the crucial decisions and twists of fate that determined the outcome of the Great War--one that may have been decided by the unlikely happenings of a single afternoon.
