The Eastern Front

Reviews

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 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. 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 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 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. 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 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 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 Expand reviews