Set against the broad sweep of operations along the Western Front as the war of movement was transformed into the stalemate of trench warfare, this latest book in Jack Sheldon's acclaimed German Army series focuses on some of the most bitterly disputed battles of the first four months of the war. During the course of extraordinarily bloody clashes on the plain of Flanders, the so-called `Cockpit of Europe', the German army strained every sinew to rescue what remained of the ashes of the Schlieffen Plan, by attempting to outflank the northern wing of the Allied armies.<BR><BR>The intense fighting around the historic town of Ypres and north to the coast at Nieupoort was a taste of the terrible carnage that lay ahead and generated great layers of myth on both sides. From the German viewpoint, the abiding impression was of bitter battles in which untrained students and school boys were slaughtered in their thousands by the `Mad Minute' musketry of the BEF. The truth, however, is much more complex and interesting than these outdated and cliched ideas.<BR><BR>The German Army at Ypres 1914 is the first complete account of the operations of the German army in the battle for Flanders during the first autumn of The Great War. Due emphasis is placed on the fighting east of Ypres against the Old Contemptibles of the BEF, but the vital contribution of the French and Belgian armies is fully recognised. Although many believe that the BEF alone was all that saved world civilisation as 1914 drew to a close, the crushing defeat suffered by the German army was in truth an Allied triumph, which laid to rest the Kaiser's ambition of a swift victory in the west.