Verdun 1916

The Price of Glory

The classic account of one of the most terrible battles in Europe's history - 2016 marks the battle's centenary

The Price of Glory: Verdun 1916 is the second book of Alistair Horne's trilogy, which includes The Fall of Paris and To Lose a Battle and tells the story of the great crises of the rivalry between France and Germany. 
 
 The battle of Verdun lasted ten months. It was a battle in which at least 700,000 men fell, along a front of fifteen miles. Its aim was less to defeat the enemy than bleed him to death and a battleground whose once fertile terrain is even now a haunted wilderness. 
 
 Alistair Horne's classic work, continuously in print for over fifty years, is a profoundly moving, sympathetic study of the battle and the men who fought there. It shows that Verdun is a key to understanding the First World War to the minds of those who waged it, the traditions that bound them and the world that gave them the opportunity. 
 
 'Verdun was the bloodiest battle in history ... The Price of Glory is the essential book on the subject' &amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;Sunday Times 
 
 'It has almost every merit ... Horne sorts out complicating issues with the greatest clarity. He has a splendid gift for depicting individuals' &amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;A.J.P. Taylor, Observer 
 
 'A masterpiece' &amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;The New York Times 
 
 'Compellingly told ... Alastair Horne uses contemporary accounts from both sides to build up a picture of heroism, mistakes, even farce' &amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;Sunday Telegraph 
 
 'Brilliantly written ... very readable; almost like a historical novel - except that it is true' &amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;Field Marshal Viscount Montgomery 
 
 One of Britain's greatest historians, Sir Alistair Horne, CBE, is the author of a trilogy on the rivalry between France and Germany, The Price of Glory, The Fall of Paris and To Lose a Battle, as well as a two-volume life of Harold Macmillan.

One of Britain's greatest historians, Sir Alistair Horne, CBE, is the author of several famous books on French history as well as a two-volume life of Harold Macmillan.

The battle of Verdun lasted ten months.  It was a battle in which at least 700,000 men fell, along a front of fifteen miles. Its aim was less to defeat the enemy than bleed him to death and a battleground whose once fertile terrain is even now a haunted wilderness.  Alistair Horne's classic work, continuously in print for over fifty years, is a profoundly moving, sympathetic study of the battle and the men who fought there.  It shows that Verdun is a key to understanding the First World War to the minds of those who waged it, the traditions that bound them and the world that gave them the opportunity.

France 1940

To Lose a Battle

At last Horne's great trilogy of works on French history are published together.

To Lose a Battle: France 1940 is the final book of Alistair Horne's trilogy, which includes The Fall of Paris and The Price of Glory and tells the story of the great crises of the rivalry between France and Germany. 
 
 In 1940 Hitler sent his troops to execute the Fall of France. A six-week battle with lightning 'blitzkrieg' warfare and combined operations techniques, the offensive ended the Phony War and sent the French forces reeling as their government fled from occupied Paris. For the Axis, it was a dramatic victory. But how was this spectacular result possible? 
 
 In To Lose a Battle Alistair Horne tells the day-by-day, moment-by-moment story of the battle, sifted from the vast Nazi archives and the fragmentary records of the beaten Allies. Using eye-witness accounts of battle operations and personal memoirs of leading figures on both sides, this book steps far beyond the confines of military accounts to form a major contribution to our understanding of this important period in European history. 
 
 'Alistair Horne really brings home the pathos and human folly of war, and he writes brilliantly' &amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;The Times 
 
 'Horne follows his line unfalteringly. All the details are there: the small, fleeting triumphs, the greater disasters, the bravery, the cowardice, the stupidity and the intelligence ... that make war so fascinating and so terrible' &amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;Economist 
 
 'Horne completes his masterly trilogy ... the definitive account of one of the most efficient and astonishing campaigns of all time' &amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;The Times Literary Supplement 
 
 One of Britain's greatest historians, Sir Alistair Horne, CBE, is the author of a trilogy on the rivalry between France and Germany, The Price of Glory, The Fall of Paris and To Lose a Battle, as well as a two-volume life of Harold Macmillan.

One of Britain&rsquo;s greatest historians, Sir Alistair Horne, CBE, is the author of several famous books on French history as well as a two-volume life of Harold Macmillan.

In 1940, the German army fought and won an extraordinary battle with France in six weeks of lightning warfare. With the subtlety and compulsion of a novel, Horne&rsquo;s narrative shifts from minor battlefield incidents to high military and political decisions, stepping far beyond the confines of military history to form a major contribution to our understanding of the crises of the Franco-German rivalry. 
 
To Lose a Battle is the third part of the trilogy beginning with The Fall of Paris and continuing with The Price of Glory (already available in Penguin).

Alistair Horne

The Siege and the Commune 1870-71

The collapse of France in 1870 had an overwhelming impact &ndash; on Paris, on France and on the rest of the world. People everywhere saw Paris as the centre of Europe and the hub of culture, fashion and invention. Suddenly France, not least to the disbelief of her own citizens, was gripped in the vice of the Iron Chancellor&rsquo;s armies and forced to surrender on humiliating terms. In this brilliant study of the Siege and its aftermath, Alistair Horne evokes the high drama of those ten fantastic months and the spiritual agony which Paris and the Parisians suffered. 
 
The Fall of Paris is the first part of the trilogy including To Lose a Battle and The Price of Glory (already available in Penguin).

Alistair Horne

Books by Alistair Horne

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