Changes

The author concludes with a short chapter on the potential for peace at the end of 1916, the point at which some British ministers doubted in clear-cut victory and felt that the rate of casualties was rising beyond acceptable levels. But hardliners, among them Lloyd George, who reminded doubters that it had taken twenty years for England to defeat Napoleon, ensured that the war would still be waged until the job was done. He has accomplished a thorough job in telling the story by building the picture up from several different theatres of war and combining them into a unified whole. It adds a new dimension to the prodigious number of books on the subject that have come our way since the centenary of 1914 approached, and in taking a rather different approach to that adopted by authors who have chosen to portray the story of the full four years, makes a valuable addition to their number.

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