Download or read book The Swordbearers; Supreme Command in the First World War written by Correlli Barnett and published by London : Eyre & Spottiswoode. This book was released on 1975 with total page 454 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The theme of this book is the decisive effect of individual human character on history. The background, in sharpest contrast, is a sudden and violent transition to mass collectivised life - to twentieth-century industry civilisation. The principal actors are four national commanders-in-chief: two German, one Frenchman, one Englishman. Theirs was the novel task of directing these new and terrifying forces of mass power in battle. Each had been born and bred in the last age; each belonged to a highly conservative profession. Their abilities and defects reflected and illustrated those of their countries.