Ypres: The First Battle 1914

by Ian F.W. Beckett

In the first study of First Ypres for almost 40 years, Ian Beckett draws on a wide range of sources never previously used to reappraise the conduct of the battle, its significance and its legacy. The battle for Ypres in October and November 1914 represented the last opportunity for open, mobile warfare on the Western Front for the next four years. It marked the transition between war as it had been and war as it would become. The first battle to associate the British army with the 'immortal salient' and, indeed, regarded as the end of the 'old army', the mythologizing of the British struggle has obscured the major role of the French and Belgians in defending Flanders. But it has also been mythologised from the German perspective, the so-called kindermord (slaughter of the innocents) proving a useable myth for the Nazis through the participation of the young Adolf Hitler. Ideal for readers interested in the Firt World War.

Genres: Military History, History, Nonfiction, World War I

320 pages, Kindle Edition

First published October 26, 2004

About the author

Dr. Ian F.W. Beckett is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society and retired Professor of Military History at the University of Kent, Canterbury.

Reviews

[Dimitri · Rating 3 out of 5]

The subject is very focused; there is no introduction for Mons or Le Cateau. The tactical overview sometimes gets watered down by testimonial anecdotes. More information on the Franco-Belgian activity during october-november might've helped also.

[Piker7977 · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is pure military history of the first battle of Ypres told from a British perspective. Overall very good but at times the dry writing makes for muddled reading. The British focus is interesting but would have been worth a longer book to have incorporated more Belgian and French perspectives. Maybe even those of the civilians. Just nit picking here, overall good military history.

[Andy Hart · Rating 3 out of 5]

Taking a vast battlescape and laying down on paper in a narrative that can be understood by the reader is not easy and a skill that only a few of the best historians have mastered. While Beckett is a skilled academic and his book is laced with plenty of anecdote, he has not quite mastered the battle's storytelling.

I came away from this book with a sense of what it may have been like to have fought at Ypres in 1914 and some idea of the battle's major phases. But I am not much the wiser as to how the detailed building blocks fell together.

[James Webster · Rating 3 out of 5]

I knew very little about the First Battle of Ypres before reading this and don't feel sure that I KNOW a lot more now. A largely narrative account, this seems to me to lack the bite of some serious analysis or contextual explanation. This was clearly a transitional period between mobile and trench warfare and I would have found some tactical and operational details useful: just what did warfare mean at this stage?