Ian Sumner

The battle of the Marne was one of the decisive encounters of the World War I, saving France from a catastrophic defeat that would almost certainly have knocked her out of the war. Germany's failure to defeat the French committed her to a war on two fronts, which would lead to trench warfare and the war of attrition that the General Staff had hoped to avoid. The conduct of the battle served t...

This title explores the recruitment, training, and combat experiences of the famous ANZAC infantry in the opening years of World War I. When war broke out in 1914, men rushed to the colours even before their governments had formally offered troops to Britain. The decision to employ the ANZACs in the Dardanelles came as a complete surprise, but the events at the Anzac and Suvla beach-heads quickly ...

During World War One the French Army was in a state of disarray, plagued by indiscipline, mutinies and desertion. The ordinary French citizens that were called upon to defend their motherland - the Poilu - were disrespected and demoralized, and the infamous mutinies of 1917 by the Poilu were not protests against the war itself, but against how the war was conducted. Ian Sumner expertly charts the ...