Author: G Werth
Published: Lubbe, 1979
Format: Paperback
Pagination: 542 pages
Condition: VG, fairly tight bonding, slight handling wear to edges, no damage
The book's focus is with the two battles from February to July 1916 (German advance) and then from October to December 1916 (French riposte). The book was written at the end of the seventies, hence it does not compare to the books recently published in regards to the newest research results. What it offers though are countless eye-witness reports from German survivors interwoven with the author's narrative which made this a very readable book in my opinion. The author shows by using these accounts the less heroic parts of war where wounded soldiers were left behind to die by their comrades or dead soldiers unburied for rats to feast on them. The conditions under which the common soldiers of both sides "existed" are almost incomprehensible to modern readers.
The book goes into great detail about the individual fighting units on both sides and depicts the battle in great detail down to events that happened on a specific day.
