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The dramatic opening weeks of the Great War passed into legend long before the conflict ended. The British Expeditionary Force fought a mesmerizing campaign, outnumbered and outflanked but courageous and skillful, holding the line against impossible odds, sacrificing themselves to stop the last great German offensive of 1914. A remarkable story of high hopes and crushing disappointment, the campaign contains moments of sheer horror and nerve-shattering excitement; pathos and comic relief; occasional cowardice and much selfless courage--all culminating in the climax of the First Battle of Ypres. And yet, as Peter Hart shows in this gripping and revisionary look at the war's first year, for too long the British part in the 1914 campaigns has been veiled in layers of self-congratulatory myth: a tale of poor unprepared Britain, reliant on the peerless class of her regular soldiers to bolster the rabble of the unreliable French Army and defeat the teeming hordes of German troops.



About the Author

Peter Hart

Peter Hart is a British military historian. He grew up in Stanhope, 1955-1962; Barton under Needwood, 1962-1964 and Stone, 1964-1967. He moved to Chesterfield and attended School there from 1967-1973 and Liverpool University, from 1973-1976. He then did a post-graduate teaching course at Crewe & Alsager College, 1976-1977 and finally post-grad librarianship at Liverpool Polytechnic, 1979-1980. He has been an oral historian at Sound Archive of Imperial War Museum in London since 1981. He has written mainly on British participation in the First World War. His books include; The Somme, Jutland 1916, Bloody April on the air war in 1917, Passchendaele, Aces Falling (on the air war in 1918) , 1918 A Very British Victory and Gallipoli.



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