The Eastern Front

'The First World War from a refreshingly unfamiliar angle . . . masterly' Dominic Sandbrook, Sunday Times <BR><BR>'Compelling . . . The Eastern Front is essential reading' Margaret Macmillan, Financial Times<BR><BR>'A masterwork . . . This is the history of the Eastern Front I've waited all my life to read' Simon Sebag Montefiore<BR><BR>The definitive history of the Eastern Front in the First World War, from the acclaimed military historian and author of Passchendaele and The Western Front<BR><BR>***********<BR>In the second volume of his landmark First World War trilogy, Professor Nick Lloyd tells the story for the first time of what Winston Churchill once called the 'unknown war': the vast conflict in Eastern Europe and the Balkans that brought about the collapse of three empires.<BR><BR>Much has been written about the fighting in France and Belgium, yet the Eastern Front was no less bloody. Between 1914 and 1917, huge numbers of people - perhaps as many as 16 million soldiers and two million civilians - were killed, wounded or maimed in enormous battles that sometimes ranged across a front of 100 km in length. Through intimate eyewitness reports, diary entries and memoirs - many of which have never been translated into English before - Lloyd reconstructs the full story of a war that began in the Balkans as a local struggle between Austria-Hungary and Serbia, and which sucked in Russia, Germany and Italy, right through to the final collapse of the Habsburg Empire in 1918.<BR><BR>The Eastern Front paints a vivid and authoritative picture of a conflict that shook the world, and that remains central to understanding the tragic, blood-soaked trajectory of the twentieth century, and the current war in Ukraine.

** The latest volume in the World War One trilogy, The Eastern Front, is out now **<BR><BR>A SUNDAY TIMES BOOK OF THE YEAR<BR>A TELEGRAPH BOOK OF THE YEAR<BR><BR>'A tour de force of scholarship, analysis and narration . . . Lloyd is well on the way to writing a definitive history of the First World War' Lawrence James, The Times<BR><BR>'This well-researched, well-written and cogently argued new analysis . . . will undoubtedly now take its rightful place as the standard account of this vital theatre of the conflict' Andrew Roberts, author of Churchill: Walking with Destiny<BR>_________________<BR><BR>In the annals of military history, the Western Front stands as an enduring symbol of the folly and futility of war.<BR><BR>However, as bestselling military historian Nick Lloyd reveals in this highly-praised history - the first of an epic trilogy -- the story is not one of pointlessness and stupidity, but rather a heroic triumph against the odds. With a cast of hundreds and a huge canvas of places and events, Lloyd tells the whole tale, revealing what happened in France and Belgium between August 1914 and November 1918 from the perspective of all the main combatants - including French, British, Belgian, US and, most importantly, German forces.<BR><BR>Lloyd examines the most decisive campaigns of the Great War and explains the unprecedented innovation, adaptation and tactical development that have been too long obscured by legends of mud, blood and futility, drawing upon the latest scholarship on the war, wrongly overlooked first-person accounts, and archival material from every angle. Conveying the visceral assault of the battlefield with vivid detail, Lloyd ultimately redefines our understanding of a crucial theatre in this monumental tragedy.<BR>_________________<BR><BR>'Excellent on detail . . . Lloyd's book will be cherished by military history buffs' Max Hastings, Sunday Times<BR><BR>'It is the best modern single-volume history of war on the Western Front and is likely to remain the standard account for some time' Jonathan Boff, The Spectator