Pyrrhic Victory: French Strategy and Operations in the Great War

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Harvard University Press, Mar 31, 2008 - History - 592 pages

As the driving force behind the Allied effort in World War I, France willingly shouldered the heaviest burden. In this masterful book, Robert Doughty explains how and why France assumed this role and offers new insights into French strategy and operational methods.

French leaders, favoring a multi-front strategy, believed the Allies could maintain pressure on several fronts around the periphery of the German, Austrian, and Ottoman empires and eventually break the enemy's defenses. But France did not have sufficient resources to push the Germans back from the Western Front and attack elsewhere. The offensives they launched proved costly, and their tactical and operational methods ranged from remarkably effective to disastrously ineffective.

Using extensive archival research, Doughty explains why France pursued a multi-front strategy and why it launched numerous operations as part of that strategy. He also casts new light on France's efforts to develop successful weapons and methods and the attempts to use them in operations.

An unparalleled work in French or English literature on the war, Pyrrhic Victory is destined to become the standard account of the French army in the Great War.

 

Contents

The Transformation of the French Army
4
The War of Movement 1914
46
Siege Warfare 19141915
105
An Offensive Strategy MayOctober 1915
153
The Search for Strategic Alternatives 19151916
203
A Strategy of Attrition 1916
250
A Strategy of Dec1s1ve Battle Early 1917
311
A Strategy of Healing and Defense Late 1917
355
Responding to a German Offensive Spring 1918
405
A Strategy of Opportunism
461
The Misery of Victory
508
Abbreviations
519
Notes
521
Essay on Sources
565
Index
572
Copyright

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Page 1 - France insists upon the execution of the treaty it is not solely because it is a contract; it is because its nonexecution would very shortly place her in an impasse. The war bled us terribly. Out of our population of less than 38,000,000 there were mobilized 8,500,000; 5,300,000 of them were killed or wounded (1,500,000 killed, 800,000 mutiles, 3,000,000 wounded), not counting 500,000 men who have come back to us from German prisons in very bad physical condition. Almost 4,000,000 hectares of land...

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