Verdun: The Lost History of the Most Important Battle of World War I by John Mosier ISBN: 0451414632
Published by Dutton Caliber on October 7, 2014
Genres: Battles & Campaigns
Pages: 400
John Mosier is controversial, even reviled by some historians. His other works include The Myth of the Great War and The Blitzkrieg Myth, which exemplify his approach.
The review in The Journal of Military History by Robert A. Doughty noted that Mosier “charges military leaders such as Joseph Joffre and Ferdinand Foch with incompetence, ignorance, and, even worse, not caring about casualties.” Donkeys indeed!
Mosier consulted an “impressive” list of memoirs, diaries, and secondary sources published in France during and after the war that were highly critical of the high command. But Doughty also observed that “Mosier did not research in the French archives by saying, ‘We should be extremely wary of official documents.’”
Doughty concluded “this is an interesting, well-written, provocative book, but if there is anything new in the book, it is the author’s inclusion of the nine different battles that occurred in the vicinity of Verdun, not his unearthing of the supposed ‘lost history.’”
Reviewed by Dana Lombardy, publisher of WWOI
The Washington Times: “…one of the more entertainingly contrarian military historians writing today.”
The Myth of the Great War: A New Military History of World War I by 
Verdun: The Lost History of the Most Important Battle of World War I by 
