Dimensions
158 x 242 x 36mm
The British entered World War I convinced of victory. As tradition has it, most even predicted an end to hostilities by Christmas. For the British Expeditionary Force, which was expected to prevail easily and was instead obliterated by 1915, this proved a costly assumption. In his robust re-examination of the onset of war, Robin Neillands reviews the exploits and character of the BEF, revealing how it came to be both the focus of hasty British hopes and, in the tragedy of its defeat, the catalyst for a policy shift without which the war would surely have been lost.
