Ypres : The First Battle, 1914

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Summary: Well told WW I Story
Review: Ypres: The First Battle, 1914 by Ian F W Beckett (Longman) First Ypres in 1914 was a devastating battle for the British and a turning point for all four of the major armies involved.
Ypres: The First Battle draws on a wide range of British, French, German and Belgian sources in order to reconstruct the battle from all sides. Many of these personal papers and public accounts have never before been published.
Through a shrewd analysis of the most recent secondary works as well as archival materials, Ian F. W. Beckett appraises the significance of First Ypres as a key moment in the Great War marking the transition from war as it had been to war as it would become.
The battle for Ypres in October and November 1914 represented the last opportunity for open, mobile warfare on the Western Front for the next four years. It marked the transition between war as it had been and war as it would become.
The first battle to associate the British army with the `immortal salient, and indeed regarded as the end of the old army, the mythologising of the British struggle has obscured the major role of the French and Belgians in defending Flanders.
But it has also been mythologised from the German perspective, the so called kindermord (slaughter of the innocents) providing a useable myth for the Nazis through the participation of the young Adolf Hitler. In the first study of First Ypres for almost 40 years, Ian F. W. Beckett draws on a wide range of previously neglected sources to reappraise the conduct of the battle, its significance and its legacy.