From the first page, Mosier challenges historians' view of the battle for Verdun, asserting that it was not just one battle as Alistair Horne would have you believe in "The Price of Glory.'
Mosier picks apart the accounts by the Allies, showing step by step how they glossed over what really happened. How stated objectives were not accomplished, battles claimed as victories were actually lost. How reports from the front were written to appeal to the public back home but didn't tell the whole story. Misrepresentation flourished in various accounts about the duration of battles and who had won in various reports sent on to Prime Minister Lloyd George. The Germans were no better.
There seems to be a great deal of confusion on the part of the Allies, the local French populace and the Germans as to what is meant by "Verdun." When referring to Verdun, do they mean the town itself? Or perhaps the area that borders the river referred to as the right bank or the left bank. To further confuse things, the French use "a mixture of legal, historic and local names for the same area. This leads to much confusion if you are not from there.
"So if the various names had different origins, different significations, what they all had in common was that none of them could be found on any map of France done since the French Revolution of 1789."
"Verdun" is an entertaining historical book that challenges the reader to set aside what they had previously read and learned about this Word War I battle.
If you enjoy reading about World War I, then you truly will enjoy this book. It is filled with facts, maps, photographs and challenges the reader at every turn to think again about the battle for Verdun as we have previously been told throughout history.
As its title states this book is all about " Verdun The Lost History of The Most Important Battle of World War I, 1914-1918."
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