Pour La France

In the second volume of this, the first guide to the French Army 1914-1918 to be written in English since the British War Office Guide of 1914, the authors build on the coverage of divisions and regiments found in volume 1. The first part of the book provides a detailed history of a higher formations of the French Army: the army groups, armies and army corps. It is rare to find adequate coverage of such formations for any of the armies of the First World War. The authors hope to remedy this neglect. The higher direction of military operations, especially on the Western Front, was conducted through these three levels of command, which linked the commander-in-chief to the front line divisions and regiments under his command. The French army, at various times, employed four army groups on the Western Front. In addition, it formed 10 armies, a variety of temporary army-level detachments, and 36 corps, plus various temporary corps-level commands. The coverage of each higher formation includes information on leaders, troops under direct command, and a narrative history, which includes all divisions assigned to the relevant headquarters. From this information the reader can reconstruct the French order of battle for any given date between August 1914 and November 1918. After an alphabetical listing of French generals, the second part of the book provides an extensive series of orders of battle which includes both overviews of the entire Western Front, such as 11th November 1918, and of individual battles and campaigns such as Verdun in 1916. This coverage includes the French contributions to the Allied cause in Gallipoli, Salonika and Italy. This volume concludes with two guest contributions. Peter Abbott provides an overview of the contribution of those forces raised in the French colonies and Duncan Rogers provides a bibliographic essay designed to stimulate further study.