The Swordbearers: Supreme Command in the First World War

by Correlli Barnett

Book Overview

World War I is a conflict that continues to capture the imagination of readers more than 80 years after its end. In this history of the war, Correlli Barnett gives intimate portraits of the men who... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0253201756
• ISBN13: 9780253201751
• Release Date: April 1975
• Publisher: Indiana University Press
• Length: 392 Pages
• Weight: 2.12 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Outstanding!

Along with The Guns of August, this book influenced my perception of World War I more than any other. It should be stated that this is a study of supreme command during that war, and not a view from the trenches. If you want to understand how such a calamity could have occurred, however, and the thinking of those who steered it, this is the place to start. Barnett unleashes a devastating military and psychological study of these 4 leaders, and lays bare their misguided intentions and inability to grasp the true situation. No other book I know of lays it out this well. One of the best books on the subject in extant.

Insightful and Intelligent Review of Key Leaders

"Swordbearers" is an excellent look at four of the key military personalities in WWI as well as the political and cultural background in France, the UK and Germany. I was especially impressed by the section dealing with Jellicoe, Jutland, and Barnett's provocative hypotheses regarding the decline of the British Navy. His argument that the Navy had fallen behind technologically, in tandem with British industry in general, is extremely astute and thought-provoking. (It also meshes with Barnett's other later writing about the decline of Britain as a world power.) While the book does date from 1963, as another reviewer has noted, I would place it on the same high level as "The Guns of August," another work of similar vintage which still remains a potent read forty years later.