Fight to the Finish: The First World War - Month by Month

by Allan Mallinson

‘Mallinson . . . combines the authority of a soldier-turned-military historian with the imaginative touch of the historical novelist.’ Lawrence James, THE TIMES

We remember months, because months have names, because they are linked to the seasons, and because they have their own character. Looking at the First World War month by month reveals its complexity while preserving a sense of time.

From the opening shots to the signing of the armistice, the First World War lasted almost 52 months. It was fought on land, sea and in the air. It became industrial, and poison gas, aerial bombing of cities, and the sinking without warning of merchantmen and passenger ships by submarines.

Casualties, military and civilian, probably exceeded 40 million. Four empires collapsed during the course of the war – the German, Austro-Hungarian, Russian and Ottoman.

The First World War is almost impossible to comprehend. Day-by-day narratives can be dizzying for the reader wanting to make sense of the conflict as a whole. Freer-flowing accounts, while helping to understand the broader trends and factors, can give less of a sense of the human dimension of time. The month is a more digestible gauge.

Based on the Allan Mallinson’s monthly commentaries in The Times throughout the centenary, Fight to the Finish is a new and original portrait of “The War to End War.”

Genres: World War I, History

420 pages, Paperback

Published October 3, 2019

About the author

Brigadier Allan Lawrence Mallinson is an English author and was an officer in the British Army.

Mallinson is best known for writing a series of novels chronicling the (fictional) life of Matthew Hervey, an officer serving in the (fictional) British 6th Light Dragoons from the late Napoleonic Wars through subsequent colonial conflicts in India, North America and south Africa.

Reviews

[Richard Barnes]

A grim but compelling account of the First World War.

Where the book excels is in presenting the global scale of the conflict. Most of the time, WW1 is presented as pretty much the Western Front and its miserable conflict of almost static, and horrifying, attrition. By presenting the whole conflict on a month by month basis, Mallinson is able to bring focus to more than western Europe taking in the wider areas of conflict, such as the Dardanelles, the Middle East, Africa and so on.

However, this is no dry relating of monthly events. Mallinson covers the big events in each month but also chooses to focus in more depth on certain areas as they arise. A good example is the truth around the Christmas truces of December 1914; but he also takes a spark in one month to provide a longer narrative around that specific event (such as the Russian revolution).

Highly recommended for bringing a wider context to what is often seen in a narrow perspective, but also giving a concise, yet still illuminating summary to a vast sprawl of history.

[Edoardo Albert]

The subtitle states that this is a history of the First World War month by month and that’s exactly what Mallinson does. The book derives from a monthly series of features Mallinson wrote for The Spectator magazine, starting on the centenary of the outbreak of the Great War, that followed the war through each month of the following four years.

This strictly calendrical approach is mainly a strength, almost allowing one to follow how the war would have unfolded to people at the time but with better access to what was going on, but on the odd occasion it forces him to squeeze a huge amount of events into a single chapter. Overall, though, it’s a structure that works very well. In particular, it allows Mallinson to show how this was truly a World War, and not one limited to the trench warfare of the Western front. Using this focus, he expands the view to take in the Eastern Front, the carnage of the mountain war between Italy and Austria/Hungary, the war in the Middle East and the Dardanelles – everywhere.

It’s also useful as a partial corrective to the old saw of lions led by donkeys. The generals of the First World War were not as clueless as portrayed in Blackadder although, in a telling insight, Mallinson gets to the crux of their key failure in understanding the war on the Western Front: it was siege warfare, with the walls of the castle stretching from the mountains to the sea. Some of the commanders realised this but it took a long time for their understanding to penetrate through to the higher ranks. But, once said, it becomes so obvious!

Highly recommended.

[Stephen Huntley]

This is a great potted history of the First World War which explains its progression in a clear, easy to follow and logical way. There's enough detail to include the significant moments and it still has room for background asides and stories of individual bravery and political manoeuvring. My only gripe is that, like many books where location is of major importance, the maps are too few and explain too little. For instance, there is a nice big map earlier on of the thrust of the Germans followed by dozens of pages mentioning places of engagement, including rivers and forests, most of which aren't indicated on the map. The same is repeated throughout. It's like they've found a generic map, and shove it in as it roughly covers the area talked about. I find the same lack of poor illustration in lots of books; maybe getting a good map illustrator is too expensive, but I'd settle for a wonky hand-drawn one as long as it was relevant and helped explain the narrative.

[David Slater]

A fascinating insight into WW1

[Roger Woods]

A very interesting account of the First World War month by month by the military historian Allan Mallinson.

[Paul Taylor]

Some interesting new perspectives on a history which I know so well.

[Peter]

Very interesting month by month history of the Kaiser’s War.