{"product_id":"the-eastern-front-a-history-of-the-great-war-19141918-9781324092711","title":"The Eastern Front: A History of the Great War  1914-1918","description":"\u003cp\u003eNEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER  An Economist Best Book of 2024  \"A superb historyso much has been forgotten  including the course of the war in the east across multiple theaters of operation and the strategies pursued by both sides. It is all this and more that Mr. Lloyd has resurrected in compelling detail.\" Economist  \"Harrowingexcellenta masterly study.\" William Anthony Hay  Wall Street Journal  The first major history in fifty years of the often overlooked Eastern Front of the First World War  where a more fluid conflict resulted in the destruction of great empires and the rise of the Soviet Union. Writing in the 1920s  Winston Churchill argued that the First World War on the Eastern Front was incomparably the greatest war in history. In its scale  in its slaughter  in the exertions of the combatants  in its military kaleidoscope  it far surpasses by magnitude and intensity all similar human episodes. It was  he concluded  the most frightful misfortune to fall upon mankind since the collapse of the Roman Empire before the Barbarians. Yet Churchill was an exception  and the war in the east has long been seen as a sideshow to the brutal combat on the Western Front. Finally  with The Eastern Frontthe first major history of that arena in fifty yearsthe acclaimed historian Nick Lloyd corrects the record. Drawing on the latest scholarship as well as eyewitness reports  diary entries  and memoirs  Lloyd moves from the great battles of 1914 to the final collapse of the Central Powers in 1918  showing how a local struggle between Austria-Hungary and Serbia spiraled into a massive conflagration that pulled in Germany  Russia  Italy  Romania  and Bulgaria. The Eastern Front was a vast theater of war that brought about the collapse of three empires and produced almost endless suffering. As many as sixteen million soldiers and two million civilians were killed or wounded in enormous battles that took place across as much as one hundred kilometers. Unlike in the west  where stalemate ruled the day  the war in the east was fluid  with armies embarking on penetrating advances. Lloyd narrates the repeated invasions of Serbia as well as the great battles between Russian  German  and Austrian forces at Tannenberg  Komarw  GorliceTarnw  and the Masurian Lakes. All along  he takes us into the strategy of the generals who decided the wars course  from the Germans Ludendorff and Hindenburg to the Austro-Hungarian chief  Conrad von Htzendorf  to the brilliant Russian Brusilov. Perhaps the most radical aspect of the struggle in the east was that the violence was not confined to combatants. The Eastern Front witnessed calculated attacks against civilians that ripped the ethnic and religious fabric of numerous societies  paving the way for the horrors of the Holocaust. Lloyds magisterial  definitive account of the war in the east will fundamentally alter our understanding of the cataclysmic events that reshaped Europe and the world. 42 illustrations\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"My Store","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":45647596978229,"sku":"ByrdShop_1324092718","price":62.68,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0627\/8139\/0901\/files\/9781324092711.jpg?v=1781695081","url":"https:\/\/atxbooks.com\/products\/the-eastern-front-a-history-of-the-great-war-19141918-9781324092711","provider":"ATX Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}