A Storm in Flanders: The Ypres Salient, 1914-1918: Tragedy and Triumph on the Western Front

Novelist Winston Groom (Forrest Gump) brings his considerable skills as a storyteller and researcher to this gory tour of "the most notorious and dreaded place in all of the First World War, probably of any war in history." The Ypres salient, a small, hilly section of Belgium, witnessed the wholesale destruction of the old British professional army, "the Old Contemptibles"; it was the place where the great armies of England, France, and Germany were locked in a dance of death for four years, where "more than a million soldiers were shot, bayoneted, bludgeoned, bombed, grenaded, gassed, incinerated by flamethrowers, drowned in shell craters, smothered by caved-in trenches, obliterated by underground mines, or, more often than not, blown to pieces by artillery shells." Extraordinary moments occurred in that vast hell, including the renowned Christmas truce of 1914, when the armies set aside the killing for a few short hours, crossed the trenches, and celebrated together. But mostly the scenery was unbeautiful mud and blood, the makings of Groom's chilling canvas, one populated by the famed generals and ordinary soldiers who met in Flanders fields. The stuff of Groom's story will be familiar to readers of Liddell Hart, Keegan, and other scholars, and readers new to the history of the Great War will find it a memorable introduction. --Gregory McNamee