The Invasion 1914

In the Service of France

De: Raymond Poincaré

Narrado por: Virtual Voice

Raymond Poincaré was President of the Third French Republic at the outbreak of the Great War in 1914. These memoirs deal with the political, diplomatic and military events of the war between its outbreak and the end of the year. This translation is the first ever to be made of Poincaré's war memoirs - from the edition published in Paris in 1928 by Librarie Plon - and offers a unique perspective on the war, not just from the French point of view - too often ignored in British and other histories - but from that of the head of state of one of the world's major powers in a global war. Similar in scope to Churchill's epic memoirs of the Second World War, this book is part of Poincaré's nine-volume work covering the period of his presidency from 1912 to the end of the war on the western front in 1918. Beginning a few days after the German invasion of Belgium and declaration of war against France, the book describes France's efforts to gain allies, to mobilise its troops, defend its borders, then, in the face of a seemingly overwhelming German advance, how France was saved by victory at the Marne, and how the war became established as a bloody and almost futile struggle of trench warfare, raid, bombardment, attack and counter-attack, with little gained in territory, but much lost in blood and pain. Other volumes that deal with the war-time period will be published in the future : The Trenches 1915, Siege Warfare 1915 and Verdun 1916. As well as being his country's president and a long-serving political leader, Poincaré was an accomplished writer and a member of the Académie française.