The dramatic opening weeks of the Great War passed into legend long
before the conflict ended. The British Expeditionary Force fought a
mesmerizing campaign, outnumbered and outflanked but courageous and
skillful, holding the line against impossible odds, sacrificing
themselves to stop the last great German offensive of 1914.
A remarkable story of high hopes and crushing disappointment, the
campaign contains moments of sheer horror and nerve-shattering
excitement, pathos and comic relief, occasional cowardice and much
selfless courage--all culminating in the climax of the First Battle of
Ypres. And yet, as Peter Hart shows in this gripping and revisionary
look at the war's first year, for too long the British part in the 1914
campaigns has been veiled in layers of self-congratulatory myth: a tale
of poor unprepared Britain, reliant on the peerless class of her regular
soldiers to bolster the rabble of the unreliable French Army and defeat
the teeming hordes of German troops. But the reality of those early
months is in fact far more complex--and ultimately, Hart argues, far
more powerful than the standard triumphalist narrative.
Fire and Movement places the British role in 1914 into a proper
historical context, incorporating the personal experiences of the men
who were present on the front lines. The British regulars were indeed
skillful soldiers, but as Hart reveals, they also lacked practice in
many of the required disciplines of modern warfare, and the inexperience
of officers led to severe mistakes. Hart also provides a more accurate
portrait of the German Army they faced--not the caricature of hordes of
automatons, but the reality of a well-trained and superlatively equipped
force that outfought the BEF in the early battles--and allows listeners
to come to a full appreciation of the role of the French Army, without
whom the Marne never would have been won.
The accompanying reference guide is included as a PDF on this disc.
