Pyrrhic Victory: French Strategy and Operations in the Great War

This well-written, exhaustively researched history of France's role in WWI adds a French perspective not often found in English-language literature on these seminal military events. Explicating France's "grand strategy... [of] waging a multifront war against the Central Powers," West Point history department head Doughty (Breaking Point: Sedan and the Fall of France, 1940) convincingly debunks the cliché of "France's war effort as a series of ill-conceived but energetically executed operations with no connection to a coherent strategy." Doughty sheds light on Commander-in-Chief Joseph Joffre's point of view on the "bloody failures in the Artois, Champagne, and St.-Mihiel offensives" (1915), Nivelle's disastrous 1917 offensive and Pétain's salvation of the French army so that Allied Supreme Cmdr. Ferdinand Foch could lead it in the three-pronged 1917 Allied offensive, among other campaigns. Add his insight into military strategy to his portraits of lesser-known figures, such as Fifth Army commander Gen. Franchet d'Esperey, and the sum—pro-French but not uncritically so—is a valuable addition to WWI literature. (Nov.)