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Rating: 
Summary: Disappointing
Review: As others have pointed out, the book is not much of a history of the battle that is its subject. Alastair Horne's book is much more comprehensive.
Further, the book is disjointed. The author interrupts his narrative of the battle (after describing the battle events of February and March 1916) to look at Franco-German relations from the period of the Franco-Prussian War (1870) forward. I felt, however, that there was not much history in this discussion and far too much in the way of musing at a great level of generality about the era and about French perspectives on Prussia during this period. I wouldn't say (as the reviewer from Texas does) that this discussion is a diatribe against nationalism or the French. But on the other hand I didn't learn much from it. I was eager for the author to return to the topic of the battle. But when he finally does it is only to swoop over the events of March through December 1916 at the 40,000 foot level. I doubt there is anything in this discussion that is not in Horne's.
I see that one of the reviewers says that Ousby died before he could finish the book, or at least finish editing it. I don't know if that's the case or not but I can't recommend this book, which is unsatisfying both as an examination of the relations between the French and the Germans and as a history of the battle.
Rating:
Summary: Disappointing
Review: As others have pointed out, the book is not much of a history of the battle that is its subject. Alastair Horne's book is much more comprehensive.
Further, the book is disjointed. The author interrupts his narrative of the battle (after describing the battle events of February and March 1916) to look at Franco-German relations from the period of the Franco-Prussian War (1870) forward. I felt, however, that there was not much history in this discussion and far too much in the way of musing at a great level of generality about the era and about French perspectives on Prussia during this period. I wouldn't say (as the reviewer from Texas does) that this discussion is a diatribe against nationalism or the French. But on the other hand I didn't learn much from it. I was eager for the author to return to the topic of the battle. But when he finally does it is only to swoop over the events of March through December 1916 at the 40,000 foot level. I doubt there is anything in this discussion that is not in Horne's.
I see that one of the reviewers says that Ousby died before he could finish the book, or at least finish editing it. I don't know if that's the case or not but I can't recommend this book, which is unsatisfying both as an examination of the relations between the French and the Germans and as a history of the battle.
Rating: 
Summary: An Elucidating Book; But No Originality
Review: I read Alistair Horne's book about Verdun, THE PRICE OF GLORY, a few years ago (Mr. Ousby mentions this book in THE ROAD TO VERDUN). I became quite fascinated with the battle. I went to the battlefield a few years ago and it is an experience I doubt I will ever forget. The place is like a haunted house, a shattered moonscape beneath the new forest growth. I subsequently read Jules Romain's novel VERDUN. This book is a nice companion to THE PRICE OF GLORY. It explains very well the ideology and fear that led the French to defend Verdun with such suicidal ferocity. The folly of Verdun and allied tactics and general is explained very well in another recent book, THE MYTHS OF THE GREAT WAR, which explains how the German mastery of heavy artillery produced very disproportionate casualties in allied ranks (as compared to the Germans). What is lacking in the book is some originality. Hardly any historian asks the question of whether or not there is some stain of blood lust in the human soul that causes war. It is always taken for granted that war is horror. Yet, that does not deter military ventures. Niall Ferguson explores the possibility that some men actually enjoyed the experience of the Western Front in his book THE PITY OF WAR. He quotes some soldiers who fondly recall the comaraderie and daredevil antics of the front. I think that historians who neglect to examine this perspective hinder a true and complete understanding of these horrifying moments. If we are to prevent a future Verdun, it is necessary to take account of that (dark?) side of human nature which is often the cause or one of the causes of such debacles.
Rating:
Summary: Strong Middle Section
Review: Ian Ousby's The Road to Verdun is both about the battle itself and the growth of a particular form of French nationalism which took root after the disasters of the 1870 Franco-Prussian War. The middle section on the growth of nationalism is, by far, the most potent element in the book. The author makes effective use of his sources in making this period come alive. He is not quite as effective in connecting this directly with the battle of Verdun itself as an unique outgrowth of this nationalism but he does capture the truth of the battle in very graphic terms. His arguments demonstrating the folly of nationalism are always interesting, though. The use of letters from the front, diaries, and memoirs in building his case allows the reader to see the personal side of this clash. An often fascinating read.
Rating:
Summary: Strong Middle Section
Review: Ian Ousby's The Road to Verdun is both about the battle itself and the growth of a particular form of French nationalism which took root after the disasters of the 1870 Franco-Prussian War. The middle section on the growth of nationalism is, by far, the most potent element in the book. The author makes effective use of his sources in making this period come alive. He is not quite as effective in connecting this directly with the battle of Verdun itself as an unique outgrowth of this nationalism but he does capture the truth of the battle in very graphic terms. His arguments demonstrating the folly of nationalism are always interesting, though. The use of letters from the front, diaries, and memoirs in building his case allows the reader to see the personal side of this clash. An often fascinating read.
Rating: 
Summary: Anti-war propaganda
Review: In 1950 at the age of 18 on a visit to France I was taken to the battlefields of Verdun. The first stop was the ossuary, an almost 300 feet long building with a tower like a gothic lighthouse whose beam sweeps the thousands of white crosses in the sloping field in front of the building. I was taken to the rear of the building and asked to look through the porthole-like windows below the building's main floor. I was horrified to see a pile of human skulls and bones some 5 feet high that runs the length of the building. Later I was taken to the "Tranchee des Baionettes" and other sites. For two days after, I hardly spoke, haunted by the thought of the human slaughter less than 37 years before.
I have read many books in both English and French about the battle of Verdun and have subsequently visited the battlefields on several occassions as well as the Somme. When I read Alastair Horne's book, I imagined it could only be the last word and nothing new would ever be written about the battle again. I recall vividly his epilogue wherein he writes that he defies anyone knowing the history of the battle and the location to spend a night alone on the "Mort Homme". He writes of the poisoned soil, the loss in altitude of the hill due to incessant shellfire pounding away the terrain and the fact that only a moss-like growth covers the clayey-pebbled ground between the planted pines. I went to "Mort Homme" a few months later to scrabble up the moss and found Horne was not telling a tale.
When I got the book by Ian Ousby, it was because he did such a fine job in "Occupation". He does another fine job here, making his story an absorbing read as well as throwing in new thoughts on the 'mentalites' that led to WW1 and the senseless conflict. Yes, I knew of the controversies surrounding the origins of the war, yes I knew of the far from lucid reasons why Falkenhayn persuaded 'Little Willie' to authorize the attack on Verdun and the equally unenlightened reasons why the French decided to hold, no matter what. Still, Ousby puts these in a context from which I still managed to learn a few things.
Perhaps had Ousby lived, he would have written a more comprehensive account, but for me, this will do. It made me want to revisit yet again a sad monument to man's stupidity, endurance and courage.
If only Bush would read this book.. maybe it would diminish his equally foolish saber-rattling.
Rating: 
Summary: If you haven't seen Verdun, you haven't seen anything of war
Review: It is a shame that author Ian Ousby died before completing "The Road to Verdun." If he had lived to see the project all the way through, he might have shaped it into something more readable. Certainly, Ousby was a diligent researcher and a very astute historian. Unfortunately, the book's plodding prose and strange configuration (for example, a 58 page prologue!) have mangaged to drain all but the most scholarly interest from the famous World War I "battle" in which there were more than 700,000 casualties. Great works of history, particularly military history, make the past come alive in such a way that expands interest in the subject matter well beyond the academic world. Ultimately, "The Road to Verdun" doesn't come close to doing that.
Rating:
Summary: Moonscape of the patriots
Review: This new account of the battle of Verdun (cf. Alistair Horne's The Price of Glory) and its place in the warfare of World War I is not comprehensively detailed in its battlefield account (perhaps usefully so) but extremely good at the overall context, history since the era of 1870 and the Franco-Prussian war, and the mood, general tenor, and nationalistic mystique that mesmerized the defense of the great fort. It is disconcerting to consider abandoning Verdun in a step backward to the nearby rear terrain might have proven a better vantage and have saved lives. But the reflex to defend the 'symbol' at all costs, and a very steep cost at that, was overwhelming, and finally successful--in winning back some few squares miles of cratered moonscape. The strange character of this battle is its lack of definition, beginning with the ambiguous lack of direct objectives of the German Falkenhayn whose tactic seems to have been to send men over the top, merely to bleed the enemy through attrition. The author also brings out the issue of the Social Darwinism of the times, although, as all too often, letting Darwin's theory off the hook. There is little distinction between 'Social Darwinism' and 'Darwinism' in its shadowy background influence on the tenor of a whole generation. The description of the troops on the march returning meeting the troops arriving, along the Voie Sacree, tells the tale, the ghosts of the trenches, in a Verdun book of the dead.
Rating:
Summary: Road to Nowhere
Review: Well just as the soldier's thought this was going to be an exciting war with lots of action and glory only to find it to be tedious and boring most of the time. This indeed was how I found this book. As both sides where bogged down in the trenches I became bogged down with endless trivlality and different points of historical contoversy. Never the less Mr. Ousby covered it very well for the scholor and those in need of knowing why WW1 came to be. His points on this are the best and the clearest I have read.
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