Robert Mueller, Fields of War: Fifty Key Battlefields in France and Belgium (2009) — a Mini Book Review

18 Jun 2015

Recommended, especially to American military people assigned to Western Europe

Robert Mueller’s, Fields of War: Fifty Key Battlefields in France and Belgium (2009) is outstanding guide.

Surprisingly, it has only five reviews at Amazon.com as of this writing. The book deserves more attention. It is a masterfully useful work.

Wars and battles covered

I have condensed these from the book’s table of contents:

Hundred Years War

Crécy — 1346

Agincourt — 1415

Orleans — 1428-1429

War of the Spanish Succession

Ramillies —1706

Oudenaarde —1708

Malplaquet — 1709

French Revolution and Napoleon

Valmy — 1792

Waterloo — 1815

Franco-Prussian War

Spicheren — 1870

Mars-la-Tour — 1870

Gravelotee-St. Privat — 1870

Sedan — 1870

World War I

Mons — 23-24 Aug 1914

Le Cateau — 26 Aug 1914

Yser — 18-31 Oct 1914

Ypres (first battle) — 19 Oct - 22 Nov 1914

Hill 60 — 17 Apr – 05 May 1915

Ypres (second battle) — 22 Apr – 25 May 1915

Artois/Arras — 27 Sep 1914 – 28 Sep 1915

Argonne — 14 Sep 1914 – Nov 1915

Forét d’Apremont — 26 Sep 1914 – 14 Apr 1915

Butte des Éparges — 21 Sep – 14 Oct 1915

Artois/Loos (third battle) — 25 Sep – 14 Oct 1915

Verdun — 21 Feb – 19 Dec 1916

Somme — 01 Jul – 18 Nov 1916

Fromelles — 19-20 Jul 1916

Vimy Ridge — 09-13 Apr 1917

Bullecourt (first and second battles) — 11 Apr and 3-17 May 1917

Aisne (second battle) — 16 Apr – 09 May 1917

Messines — 07-14 Jun 1917

Passchendaele — 31 Jul – 10 Nov 1917

Cambrai — 20 Nov – 07 Dec 1917

Villiers-Bretonneux — 24-27 Apr 1918

Belleau Wood — 06-25 Jun 1918

St. Mihiel — 12-18 Sep 1918

Campagne — 26 Sep – 28 Oct 1918

St. Quentin Canal — 29 Sep – 02 Oct 1918

Meuse-Argonne — 26 Sep - 11 Nov 1918

Rethondes Clairière de l’Armistice — 08-11 Nov 1918

World War II

Fort d’Eben-Emael — 10 May 1940

Dinant — 12-14 May 1940

Sedan — 12-14 May 1940

Maginot Line — 18 May – 22 Jun 1940

Calais — 23-26 May 1940

Dunkerque — 26 May – 04 Jun 1940

Dieppe — 19 Aug 1942

Normandy — 06 Jun 1944

Caen — 07 Jun – 22 Jul 1944

Ardennes — 16 Dec 1944 – 28 Jan 1945

Book’s organizational structure

Robert Mueller briefly:

summarizes the disputes that let to each war,

provides an overview of the battles listed,

closes each chapter with driving and walking directions,

that are sprinkled through a verbal tour of the battlefield —

with

additional glimpses into what happened at each spot.

This style is unavoidably disjointed in some spots, but it works admirably well.

The reader comes away with a sense of background about the history that violently swirled at each location and (therefore) can assess whether he or she wants to visit the region.

Black and white photographs provide a taste of what awaits in some areas. Each chapter closes with a list of recommended books that cover the specifics of the conflicts.

Writing style — samples

Here is Mueller providing a summarizing overview:

The great battles of 1816 at Somme and Verdun ground to a miserable, bloody, inconclusive halt. The losses in the Somme shocked the British public. British Prime Minister David Lloyd George’s antipathy for General Haig was undisguised and he believed that the generals were murderous fools for their insistence on attacking strong German positions in a contest to see who could create more casualties.

Another excerpt demonstrates how the book relays the specifics of each conflict — in this instance, Sedan (May 1940):

Beginning at 11:00 on 13 May, over nine hundred bombers, fighters, and dive-bombers attacked French positions around Sedan in waves. Command posts and communications lines were destroyed, isolating units from their headquarters and cutting links to artillery support. For five hours the howling sirens of Stukas added to the terror of exploding shells and the crack of machine-gun strafing. Despite the intense German aerial bombardment, the bunkers forming the riverside defense line remained intact; however, the psychological effect was crippling and contributed to the later rout.

Here is a sample taken from one of the verbal battlefield tours — the bold font is the book’s:

From the Point du Hoc Visitor’s Center the gravel path winds back toward the actual battlefield. First one large bomb crater is passed, then several more. The path then enters the only D-Day battlefield that remains unchanged since 1944. The lunar landscape of overlapping shell and bomb craters that greeted the Rangers has been softened by the intervening years, but the violence of the place is still evident.

The gravel path continues along the open-air and casemated gun positions and provides easy walking; however, broken rubble and craters make movement off the path much more difficult. Two positions have observation platforms built on top for better views. The command bunker, which once held the memorial plaque to Colonel Rudder, has been closed due to erosion; however, a more intact casemate had garrison bunker are open for exploration. The Ranger Monument, a granite pylon with tablets at its base, stands atop the command bunker. Nothing on the Pointe due Hoc battlefield is signed or identified. This site can be visited even when the information center is closed.

Last is a representative sample of Mueller’s clearly worded driving directions. This one occurs immediately after the above extract. Note that it has been subsequently corrected by the publisher’s thoughtful addition of an errata note:

Return to highway (D514) and reverse course, turning left toward Vierville. In less than 1.5 km, turn right (D204) and follow this road over 6 km before turning right toward Le Cambe (N13). Avoid entering the new Autoroute. In La Cambe turn left (D113), pass under the Autoroute, and enter into a large roundabout. Follow the signs to the Cimetière Militaire/Deutsche Soldatenfriedhof.

[With the following correction taken from a separately included errata note:]

p. 350: The German Command bunker has been reopened to visitors and most of its rooms can be viewed; the memorial plaque to Colonel Rudder has been relocated to the Visitor’s Center.

Caveat

I generally use a GPS unit and cannot comment upon the accuracy of the book’s driving directions.

The few that I have used so far have been helpful in confirming that my GPS is not operating on another planet, as it too frequently seems to.

Overall — Robert Mueller’s Fields of War is a masterpiece

Having been trained as a historian (before traipsing off to other occupations), I think that Robert Mueller’s intelligent effort in preparing this guide goes well beyond worthy. This is an admirable work.

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Robert Mueller, Fields of War: Fifty Key Battlefields in France and Belgium (2009) — a Mini Book Review