Lanterna Rally

Author: George Clarke Musgrave

Publisher:

Published: 2015-07-06

Total Pages: 398

ISBN-13: 9781330815786

Excerpt from Under Four Flags for France This book has been published at the suggestion of an officer of the United States Army whom I met recently in Europe. A keen student of the world war, he had followed its phases in the newspapers and had delved liberally in the imposing array of war books. But when he reached France, he found that he lacked perspective. Focussed on the great events, public attention has been moved daily to different episodes in the far-flung areas of conflict, until the mental picture has become kaleidoscopic. The super-strategy of Germany was based on a plan to extend her frontier straight across France to the mouth of the Seine. Hinged on Metz, her armies were to carry her frontier posts outward across Luxemburg and Belgium and, in an impressive sweep, swing the line south to embrace all of northern France. The French Army was to be overwhelmed in the process, and the capture of Paris would have been the logical result. Unprepared for this violation of neutral territory, Joffre met super-strategy with simple strategy and super-tactics which modified the invasion and wrecked all chances of a German victory and the bid for world dominance. From the outset, the operations on the Western front must be approached as a prolonged battle with every unit consolidated in the general plan. Everyone has read of definite actions in certain sectors, while brilliant phases, on which the developments of the campaign were based, have frequently been unrecorded. On the great battlefield outlined by the virtues and failures of Joffre's strategy, the United States Army is taking its place. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.