The Fighting Retreat To Paris

A concise narrative of the opening weeks of the western campaign, tracing the mobilisation and transport of the Expeditionary Force, official messages and orders, and the successive engagements and withdrawals that followed. It combines despatches with eyewitness reports and unit vignettes to depict actions at Mons, Charleroi and along the Meuse, artillery and cavalry encounters, heavy casualties, the fall of fortified points, and the subsequent fighting during the retreat toward Paris. Chapters cover operations around the Oise and at Compiègne, the enemy advance on the capital, government evacuation and siege preparations, and conclude with assessments of strategic shifts and the campaign’s outcome.