Battles in the Alps - A history of the Italian front of the First Worl

[franzmaximilian]

I think I can copy here a review already published on Amazon, as it has been written by myself. I made only a few minor modifications for a better reading (sorry, but English is not my mother tongue).

Though useful to those who know very little about the Italian Front, G. Irving Root's " Battles in the Alps" is incomplete under many aspects. It is more a chronicle of the events, and a good one under this point of view, but lacks in interpretation and explanations. Also, the military structure of the Armies involved is not much detailed. As an example, the number of Divisions lined up at the front on both sides at a given time in a given sector of the front is often mentioned. Unfortunately one cannot find any information on their organization, size and strength, the figures for artilleries and machine-guns or the number of trucks and horses. Lacking this background, the simple "number of opposed Divisions" has little meaning. War in the air is mentioned many times along the book, but only with descriptions of the successes or the failures of the most notorious air aces. One cannot learn from this book which side had air superiority during any period along the war or which Air Force better supported its side with reconnaissance or bombing. A bit better is the information about the war on the seas.

A final remark is that very few of the texts mentioned in the bibliography are Italian, Austrian or German and all of them are dated back to the years immediately after the war. No modern historiography from both sides has been examined.

A good thing in this book is the number of maps depicting the main events. Some celebrated history books are much poorer under this regard. My suggestion anyway, is to keep a detailed atlas at hand while reading or visiting often one of the different map and aerial view services available on the Internet.

My final opinion about "Battles in the Alps" is that it can be useful to those who need a simple picture of this front of the First World War. Chronicle is detailed and accurate enough and not boring to read, but do not seek for much more in this book.