A History of the First World War

The Western Front

** The latest volume in the World War One trilogy, The Eastern Front, is out now ** 
 
A SUNDAY TIMES BOOK OF THE YEAR 
A TELEGRAPH BOOK OF THE YEAR 
 
'A tour de force of scholarship, analysis and narration . . . Lloyd is well on the way to writing a definitive history of the First World War' Lawrence James, The Times 
 
'This well-researched, well-written and cogently argued new analysis . . . will undoubtedly now take its rightful place as the standard account of this vital theatre of the conflict' Andrew Roberts, author of Churchill: Walking with Destiny 
_________________ 
 
In the annals of military history, the Western Front stands as an enduring symbol of the folly and futility of war. 
 
However, as bestselling military historian Nick Lloyd reveals in this highly-praised history - the first of an epic trilogy -- the story is not one of pointlessness and stupidity, but rather a heroic triumph against the odds. With a cast of hundreds and a huge canvas of places and events, Lloyd tells the whole tale, revealing what happened in France and Belgium between August 1914 and November 1918 from the perspective of all the main combatants - including French, British, Belgian, US and, most importantly, German forces. 
 
Lloyd examines the most decisive campaigns of the Great War and explains the unprecedented innovation, adaptation and tactical development that have been too long obscured by legends of mud, blood and futility, drawing upon the latest scholarship on the war, wrongly overlooked first-person accounts, and archival material from every angle. Conveying the visceral assault of the battlefield with vivid detail, Lloyd ultimately redefines our understanding of a crucial theatre in this monumental tragedy. 
_________________ 
 
'Excellent on detail . . . Lloyd's book will be cherished by military history buffs' Max Hastings, Sunday Times 
 
'It is the best modern single-volume history of war on the Western Front and is likely to remain the standard account for some time' Jonathan Boff, The Spectator

This is a bold book. Nick Lloyd has written a tour de force of scholarship, analysis and narration . . . Lloyd is well on the way to writing a definitive history of the First World War

Excellent on detail...Lloyd's book will be cherished by military history buffs

Authoritative and fast-paced...By the end of the book, one has a panoramic view of this crucial theatre of war

A work of serious scholarship that reflects the author's understanding not merely of the military campaigns, but of the men who fought them. Lloyd has written a remarkably authoritative overview of an expansive subject, and a perfect introduction to a more granular study of the conflict

This well-researched, well-written and cogently argued new analysis overturns all our assumptions and received wisdom about the fighting on the most important front of the Great War. Nick Lloyd deserves congratulation for having written what will undoubtedly now take its rightful place as the standard account of this vital theatre of the conflict

Andrew Roberts, author of ‘Churchill: Walking with Destiny’

An enthralling read. Lloyd deftly guides us through a labyrinth of military detail while never allowing the pace of his narrative to slacken. His account of France's role on the Western Front, often less well documented in Anglo-Saxon accounts, is particularly revealing. Most of us are familiar with the names of the generals involved, but Lloyd brings them sharply to life with his sensitive portrayal of their personalities, idiosyncrasies and relationships with one another. This is an endlessly complex subject to which Lloyd has brought welcome lucidity while never for one moment allowing us to forget the enormity of its tragedy

Julia Boyd, author of Travellers in the Third Reich

There were many fronts in World War I, but the Western Front, where the industrialized great powers massed their men and resources, was the crucial one. Nick Lloyd has given us the most up-to-date account of the fighting there. He brings the key statesmen and generals to life, as well as the brutal combat from the first battles to the last. Lloyd crisply details the tactical and technological innovation that brought victory, as well as the coalition strategy, economic warfare, and home front management that boosted the Allies and disintegrated the Central Powers

Geoffrey Wawro, author of The Franco-Prussian War, A Mad Catastrophe, and Sons of Freedom, and director of the University of North Texas Military History Center

Although a non-specialist in the history of World War I, I have sought to learn as much as possible about that epochal calamity that cast a dark shadow over the subsequent century. At the core of a generation's agony was the Western Front, which I never fully understood until I read Nick Lloyd's comprehensive, lucid, and evocative narrative that made starkly clear what had previously been a confusing jumble

James M. McPherson, author of BATTLE CRY OF FREEDOM; THE CIVIL WAR ERA

This is harder to do than it looks, but [Nick Lloyd] has produced a well written, clear and snappy account of a familiar but always dramatic story... The Western Front sets a fine example of operational military history. It is the best modern single-volume history of war on the Western Front and is likely to remain the standard account for some time

The Western Front is an impressive achievement. It will, I am sure, become the standard narrative account, and deserves a wide readership

He writes with a lucidity and panache that makes the book a page-turner . . . [and] synthesises the latest thinking with such exceptional skill and subtlety . . . Without question, this book is an outstanding achievement, a brilliant one-volume military history of the war on the Western Front that combines narrative drive, acute pen-portraits, and penetrating analysis of military developments and command decisions

Nick Lloyd is Professor of Modern Warfare at King's College London, based at the Defence Academy UK in Shrivenham, Wiltshire. He is the author of four previous books, including Passchendaele: A New History, which was a Sunday Times top ten bestseller. He lives with his family in Cheltenham.

A New History

Passchendaele

THE SUNDAY TIMES TOP 10 BESTSELLER 
 
'A timely re-appraisal . . . a masterpiece' General Lord Richard Dannatt 
 
The Third Battle of Ypres was a 'lost victory' for the British Army in 1917. Between July and November 1917, in a small corner of Belgium, more than 500,000 men were killed or maimed, gassed or drowned - and many of the bodies were never found. The Ypres offensive represents the modern impression of the First World War: splintered trees, water-filled craters, muddy shell-holes. 
 
The climax was one of the worst battles of both world wars: Passchendaele. The village fell eventually, only for the whole offensive to be called off. But, as Nick Lloyd shows, notably through previously overlooked German archive material, it is striking how close the British came to forcing the German Army to make a major retreat in Belgium in October 1917. Far from being a pointless and futile waste of men, the battle was a startling illustration of how effective British tactics and operations had become by 1917 and put the Allies nearer to a major turning point in the war than we have ever imagined. 
 
Published for the 100th anniversary of this major conflict, Passchendaele is the most compelling and comprehensive account ever written of the climax of trench warfare on the Western Front.

A timely re-appraisal . . . a masterpiece

Sweeps aside mythology and provides a rational explanation and cool description of what took place

Nick Lloyd has unearthed a mass of new material for this harrowing account of one of the most infamous engagements of the Great War

Meticulously researched . . . A harrowing and important history

With clean, clear and often eviscerating writing, Nick Lloyd compels us to re-evaluate Passchendaele and all that word conjures

Paul Gross, director and star of the film 'Passchendaele'

Rigorously researched . . . one of the great features of this excellent book, absent from too many less rigorous histories of events in the First World War, is a clear account of how things were on the German side, and how the British attack not only gained ground, but devastated German morale . . . Lloyd's research is superb; the book is well-illustrated with photographs and maps; he brings the battle and its political context vividly to life . . . this is in almost every respect a model of what a work of military history should be, and is now perhaps the definitive account of this phase of the war on the Western Front

I thought it both precise and compassionate - a properly definitive history, with clear sightlines from the strategic planning, to the horror of the battle itself from both sides, through to its consequences for the war as it entered its complex final phase

A fresh and thorough examination of the events of July to November 1917 is definitely needed. Dr Nick Lloyd has achieved this in his book Passchendaele: A New History, an account that is both scholarly and gripping.

Glyn Harper, Professor of War Studies, Massey University

Confirms his position among the best young scholars of WWI in this comprehensively researched, convincingly presented analysis of the still-controversial 1917 battle of Passchendaele . . .Lloyd's thesis is controversial, but his scholarship makes it impossible to dismiss

His narrative of the campaign is superb and written with clarity and dispassion. He teaches military history at King's College London and has done his research thoroughly in German and Allied archives. It is fascinating to know the preoccupations, hopes and plans of the Kaiser ("The English must be made to grovel") and his generals, and to hear the voices of German frontline soldiers

'An eloquent retelling of one of the First World War's most mismanaged battles. Lloyd movingly recounts the ordeal of German and British infantry in the mud and blood of Passchendaele

Did Passchendaele mark the moment when German morale collapsed on the Western Front? Nick Lloyd makes a compelling case . . .  both as narrative and analysis, this book is masterly

Masterly . . . He argues convincingly

'A timely re-appraisal . . . a masterpiece' General Lord Richard Dannatt 
 
Between July and November 1917, in a small corner of Belgium, more than 500,000 men were killed or maimed, gassed or drowned - and many of the bodies were never found. The Ypres offensive represents the modern impression of the First World War: splintered trees, water-filled craters, muddy shell-holes. 
 
The climax was one of the worst battles of both world wars: Passchendaele. The village fell eventually, only for the whole offensive to be called off. But, as Nick Lloyd shows, notably through previously unexamined German documents, it put the Allies nearer to a major turning point in the war than we have ever imagined.

The End of the Great War

Hundred Days

An unmissable book that explores the brutal, heroic and extraordinary final days of the First World War 
 
On the eleventh hour of the eleventh day in November 1918, the guns of the Western Front fell silent. 
 
The Armistice, which brought the Great War to an end, marked a seminal moment in modern European and World history. Yet the story of how the war ended remains little-known. In this compelling and ground-breaking new study, Nick Lloyd examines the last days of the war and asks the question: how did it end? Beginning at the heralded turning-point on the Marne in July 1918, Hundred Days traces the epic story of the next four months, which included some of the bloodiest battles of the war. 
 
Using unpublished archive material from five countries, this new account reveals how the Allies - British, French, American and Commonwealth - managed to beat the German Army, by now crippled by indiscipline and ravaged by influenza, and force her leaders to seek peace. 
 
THE WESTERN FRONT BY NICK LLOYD IS AVAILABLE NOW 
 
'This is a powerful and moving book by a rising military historian. Lloyd's depiction of the great battles of July-November provides compelling evidence of the scale of the Allies' victories and the bitter reality of German defeat' Gary Sheffield (Professor of War Studies) 
 
'Lloyd enters the upper tier of Great War historians with this admirable account of the war's final campaign' Publishers Weekly

This is a powerful and moving book by a rising military historian. Lloyd's depiction of the great battles of July-November provides compelling evidence of the scale of the Allies' victories and the bitter reality of German defeat

Gary Sheffield (Professor of War Studies)

Lloyd enters the upper tier of Great War historians with this admirable account of the war's final campaign

Writing about the last 100 days of the war on the Western Front, Lloyd asks whether the Allies had learnt anything from the previous years of conflict and whether the Germans were really defeated in 1918

Lloyd's brisk and thoroughly engrossing book leaves no doubt that the Germans were beaten fair and square where it really mattered - on the battlefield

There is a grim fascination to the endgame, as the hopes still nursed by the Germans were finally extinguished and the Allies won a victory that in seemed inevitable in retrospect

Gives the reader an insight into the raw emotions of the period and lends immediacy to the more sober narrative

As Nick Lloyd's account of the great Allied counter-offensives of summer 1918 convincingly shows, the Allies had learned (if painfully slowly) how to win battles . . . the German army was absolutely, totally defeated in the field

Hundred Days is a bracing re-dramatization of the horrors that were most fresh in the minds of all concerned when those days were over

Very well-researched and well-written. Reminds us just how important this crushing endgame was

Conveys the epic sweep of events, as the allied troops relentlessly pushed the German divisions back, with staggering losses . . . Lloyd also gives the worm's eye-view of what it was like for the men on the ground. He is expert at bringing to life, in a few lines, the characters of the top brass

On the eleventh hour of the eleventh day in November 1918, the guns of the Western Front fell silent. 
 
The Armistice, which brought the Great War to a standstill, signalled an end to the greatest tragedy in European history. Beginning at the heralded turning-point on the Marne in July 1918, Hundred Days traces the epic narrative of the next four months, which saw some of the bloodiest battles of the war. Casualties were nothing short of catastrophic - over 700,000 Allied soldiers died or were wounded while the Germans lost another 785,000 men. Nick Lloyd reveals how the Allies - British, French, American and Commonwealth soldiers - managed to beat the German Army, by now crippled by indiscipline and ravaged by influenza, and force her leaders to seek peace. 
 
The brutal, heroic and extraordinary final Hundred Days is an astonishing tale of shot and shell, of battles on a scale unimaginable, of Tommies who fell within sight of the finishing line. In this compelling and groundbreaking new book, utilizing archive material from five countries, Nick Lloyd examines the last days of the war and asks the question: how did it end?

Nick Lloyd is Senior Lecturer in Defence Studies at King's College London, based at the Joint Services Command &amp; Staff College in Shrivenham, Wiltshire. He specialises in British military and imperial history in the era of the Great War and is the author of two books, Loos 1915 (2006), and The Amritsar Massacre: The Untold Story of One Fateful Day (2011).

On the eleventh hour of the eleventh day in November 1918, the guns of the Western Front fell silent. 
 
The Armistice, which brought the Great War to an end, marked a seminal moment in modern European and World history. Yet the story of how the war ended remains little-known. In this compelling and ground-breaking new study, Nick Lloyd examines the last days of the war and asks the question: how did it end? Beginning at the heralded turning-point on the Marne in July 1918, Hundred Days traces the epic story of the next four months, which included some of the bloodiest battles of the war.

Nick Lloyd

This masterly history makes well-known events feel refreshingly unfamiliar . . . One of the great strengths of Lloyd’s account, a masterly synthesis of sources from various countries, is that unlike many of the war’s participants, he never loses sight of how it all began

Compelling . . . The Eastern Front is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand the history of that troubled region up to and including the present

Nick Lloyd reminds us in The Eastern Front, his . . . highly-detailed and meticulously researched book, the consequences of the fighting in the central and south-eastern European theatres were profound for the future of the continent – indeed, of the world

A masterwork. Beautifully written. Astonishing scholarship. Amazing span of coverage. This is the history of the Eastern Front I’ve waited all my life to read

Simon Sebag Montefiore, author of The World: A Family History

A professor of modern warfare shows how the first world war redrew the world map. The first deep analysis of the Eastern Front in English in nearly fifty years

Lloyd has produced a strategic and operational narrative that proceeds chronologically without ever losing coherence as it switches from one sector to another . . . rigorous in its determination to remain comparative

Nothing was ever quiet on the Eastern Front as is vividly demonstrated in Nick Lloyd’s magisterial history of World War I waged in the fields, mountains, and marshes of eastern Europe. The warfare that produced the fall of two empires and the socialist revolution that shook the world is presented here in all its horror and complexity by a master storyteller and an expert in the field.

Serhii Plokhy, author of The Russo-Ukrainian War

An authoritative book written by one of the best military historians around

Lloyd brings all his formidable skills to bear in The Eastern Front, blending an authoritative synthesis of the written literature with cutting-edge research to craft a gripping narrative . . . A masterpiece of First World War history.

Artillery shells that only dent the frozen earth, mountainsides burning in the summer sun, the drone of aircraft over the wheat fields of Ukraine, whole armies in headlong retreat, flamethrowers and poison gas, and a cavalry general slipping away in the night to shoot himself in the head – this is the story of the First World War’s Eastern Front told on a Homeric scale. Nick Lloyd gives us not only a compelling account of warfare on the ‘long front’ from Riga to Thessalonica but also an intimate and disturbing portrait of the fighting taken from regimental histories, diaries, and the testimony of the dead

An exemplary study of a much-neglected subject. Nick Lloyd is at the very top of his game. . . . A fabulous historian.

Nick Lloyd brilliantly pulls together the manifold strands and brings to life the dark realities of an often ignored but hugely important theatre which paved the way for the horrors of World War II

Nick Lloyd searingly recreates the battlefields of the Eastern Front, Italy, and the Balkans in this taut, thrilling history in which he deploys all of his marvelous gifts to maximum effect: biography, political analysis, and operational military history. On a vast canvas extending from the Baltic coast to the Mediterranean, Lloyd depicts the strategic seesawing between the alliances and its dreadful impact on the troops of the line.

Geoffrey Wawro, author of A Mad Catastrophe: The Outbreak of the First World War and the Collapse of the Habsburg Empire

A huge achievement. Nick Lloyd’s readable and compelling narrative takes his reader into the vast geographical expanses of Eastern Europe, Italy, the Balkans and Macedonia, showing how consequential these lesser known fronts were to the struggle of 1914–18.

Alexander Watson, author of Ring of Steel: Germany and Austria-Hungary at War, 1914–1918

[H]arrowing . . . Mr. Lloyd’s excellent book draws on new scholarship and expert studies to revisit the terrain and help us to grasp anew the significance of the fighting there . . . As Mr. Lloyd emphasizes at the close of his masterly study, the disastrous events on the Eastern Front left a vacuum in Central and Eastern Europe that contributed to the next world war and to the Cold War that followed

In the second volume of his landmark First World War trilogy, Professor Nick Lloyd tells the story for the first time of what Winston Churchill once called the 'unknown war': the vast conflict in Eastern Europe and the Balkans that brought about the collapse of three empires. 
 
Much has been written about the fighting in France and Belgium, yet the Eastern Front was no less bloody. Between 1914 and 1917, huge numbers of people - perhaps as many as 16 million soldiers and two million civilians - were killed, wounded or maimed in enormous battles that sometimes ranged across a front of 100 km in length. 
 
Through intimate eyewitness reports, diary entries and memoirs - many of which have never been translated into English before - Lloyd reconstructs the full story of a war that began in the Balkans as a local struggle between Austria-Hungary and Serbia, and which sucked in Russia, Germany and Italy, right through to the final collapse of the Habsburg Empire in 1918. 
 
The Eastern Front paints a vivid and authoritative picture of a conflict that shook the world, and that remains central to understanding the tragic, blood-soaked trajectory of the entire twentieth century, including the current war in Ukraine.

Nick Lloyd

Praise for The Eastern Front

This masterly history makes well-known events feel refreshingly unfamiliar . . . One of the great strengths of Lloyd’s account, a masterly synthesis of sources from various countries, is that unlike many o ...

Compelling . . . The Eastern Front is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand the history of that troubled region up to and including the present

Nick Lloyd reminds us in The Eastern Front, his . . . highly-detailed and meticulously researched book, the consequences of the fighting in the central and south-eastern European theatres were profound for ...

This masterly history makes well-known events feel refreshingly unfamiliar . . . One of the great strengths of Lloyd’s account, a masterly synthesis of sources from various countries, is that unlike many o ...

Compelling . . . The Eastern Front is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand the history of that troubled region up to and including the present

Nick Lloyd reminds us in The Eastern Front, his . . . highly-detailed and meticulously researched book, the consequences of the fighting in the central and south-eastern European theatres were profound for ...

This masterly history makes well-known events feel refreshingly unfamiliar . . . One of the great strengths of Lloyd’s account, a masterly synthesis of sources from various countries, is that unlike many o ...

Compelling . . . The Eastern Front is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand the history of that troubled region up to and including the present

Nick Lloyd reminds us in The Eastern Front, his . . . highly-detailed and meticulously researched book, the consequences of the fighting in the central and south-eastern European theatres were profound for ...

Books by Nick Lloyd

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