Overview

Nicholas Murray’s The Rocky Road to the Great War examines the evolution of field fortification theory and practice between 1877 and 1914. The technical and intellectual developments during this period were critical to the nature of the First World War. It is well known that the technology of the defensive (machine guns, barbed wire, and artillery) had become much more powerful in the decades prior to 1914. The challenge this combination of enhanced defensive technology presented to the offensive is familiar to us today.What is less well known is the evolution in the design of field fortifications, from above to below ground, which massively enhanced the power of the new defensive technology. Study of the evolution of field fortification construction has largely been neglected despite the fact that the battlefield landscape of the First World War, indeed industrial warfare in the twentieth century, owes its existence to the changes that occurred therein. It was the combination of new technology and new types of field fortification that was to reach a bloody dénouement in the Great War.Based largely on primary sources—including French, British, Austrian, and American military attaché reports—Murray’s enlightening study is unique in defining, fully examining, and contextualizing the theories and construction of field fortifications before World War I.

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Rocky Road is an excellent account of the technical and theoretical evolution of trench warfare. It is essential to the history of WWI because it illustrates that the combatants did not merely burrow into the ground in the fall of 1914. Instead they took advantage of what they had learned by observation or by experience in the years before the war. --Col. Gregory Fornenot (ret.), Military Review [I]nvaluable in contextualizing the use of trench warfare in World War I. --Army Magazine Murray has delivered an important work, taking us beyond the usual stereotypical treatments of the run-up to Armageddon. The volume is an important addition to a growing body of scholarship that contextualizes the Great War. --Gary P. Cox, Journal of Military History This is essential reading for those interested in the events of the early weeks of World War I. --A. A. Nofi, StrategyPage

<i>Rocky Road </i>is an excellent account of the technical and theoretical evolution of trench warfare. It is essential to the history of WWI because it illustrates that the combatants did not merely burrow into the ground in the fall of 1914. Instead they took advantage of what they had learned by observation or by experience in the years before the war. Col. Gregory Fornenot (ret.), <i>Military Review</i>--Military Review Col. Gregory Fornenot (ret.)

Rocky Road is an excellent account of the technical and theoretical evolution of trench warfare. It is essential to the history of WWI because it illustrates that the combatants did not merely burrow into the ground in the fall of 1914. Instead they took advantage of what they had learned by observation or by experience in the years before the war. Col. Gregory Fornenot (ret.), Military Review --Military Review Col. Gregory Fornenot (ret.)

This is essential reading for those interested in the events of the early weeks of World War I. --A. A. Nofi, StrategyPage--A. A. Nofi StrategyPage Murray has delivered an important work, taking us beyond the usual stereotypical treatments of the run-up to Armageddon. The volume is an important addition to a growing body of scholarship that contextualizes the Great War. --Gary P. Cox, Journal of Military History--Gary P. Cox Journal of Military History Rocky Road is an excellent account of the technical and theoretical evolution of trench warfare. It is essential to the history of WWI because it illustrates that the combatants did not merely burrow into the ground in the fall of 1914. Instead they took advantage of what they had learned by observation or by experience in the years before the war. --Col. Gregory Fornenot (ret.), Military Review--Military Review Col. Gregory Fornenot (ret.) [I]nvaluable in contextualizing the use of trench warfare in World War I. --Army Magazine-- Army Magazine

"""Rocky Road is an excellent account of the technical and theoretical evolution of trench warfare. It is essential to the history of WWI because it illustrates that the combatants did not merely burrow into the ground in the fall of 1914. Instead they took advantage of what they had learned by observation or by experience in the years before the war.""--Col. Gregory Fornenot (ret.), Military Review ""[I]nvaluable in contextualizing the use of trench warfare in World War I.""--Army Magazine ""Murray has delivered an important work, taking us beyond the usual stereotypical treatments of the run-up to Armageddon. The volume is an important addition to a growing body of scholarship that contextualizes the Great War.""--Gary P. Cox, Journal of Military History ""This is essential reading for those interested in the events of the early weeks of World War I.""--A. A. Nofi, StrategyPage"

Author Information

NICHOLAS MURRAY is an associate professor of history at the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College. He obtained his undergraduate degree in war studies at King’s College London and both his master’s and doctoral degrees in history from the University of Oxford. He was vice president and secretary of the Oxford University Strategic Studies Group and has taught at Middlebury College and the State University of New York–Adirondack. He lives in Lawrence, Kansas.

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