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A detailed and absorbing narrative of the campaigns fought on the ´forgotten´ Eastern Front of the Great War, vividly illustrating that these campaigns were no less costly, tragic and important than the catastrophes of the Somme, Verdun and Passchendaele.

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The massive offensives on the Eastern Front during 1915 are too often overshadowed by the events in Western Europe, but the scale and ferocity of the clashes between Imperial Germany, Habsburg Austria-Hungary and Tsarist Russia were greater than anything seen on the Western Front and ultimately as important to the final outcome of the war.
With the Russians hamstrung by weak supply lines and the
Austro-Hungarian leadership committed to a strategy of offensive drives despite diminishing manpower and adverse terrain, the fighting in early 1915 was a costly and futile exercise. By the summer, the Central Powers, increasingly dominated by Germany, had begun to gain the advantage, but even the Gorlice-Tarnów Offensive of 1915 - which ultimately resulted in the retreat
of Russian forces from Poland - failed to bring the conflict
to a conclusion.
Now with the work of internationally renowned Eastern Front expert Prit Buttar, this fascinating story is finally being told. From the bitter fighting in the Carpathian Mountains, to the sweeping advances through Serbia and the almost medieval battle for the fortress of Przemysl, this is a staggeringly ambitious history of some of the most important moments of the First World War.

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List of Illustrations /List of Maps /Author´s Note /Dramatis Personae /Introduction /1. The Combatants /2. The First Carpathian Campaign /3. Winter in Masuria /4. Springtime: Slaughter and Disappointment /5. Mackensen´s Breakthrough /6. The Exploitation /7. Lemberg /8. Decisions and Departures /9. The Great Retreat /10. Volhynia: The End of the Leash /11. The Fall of Serbia /12. The Burden of War /Notes /Bibliography /Index

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Prit Buttar studied medicine at Oxford and London before joining the British Army as a doctor. Since leaving the army, he has worked as a GP, first near Bristol and now in Abingdon. He is extensively involved in medical politics, both at local and national level, and served on the GPs´ Committee of the British Medical Association. He appears from time to time on local and national TV and radio, speaking on a variety of medical issues. He contributes regularly to the medical press. He has written a novel, and his first work of military history, Battleground Prussia (2010), received critical acclaim. Between Giants was his second book for Osprey. Alongside his two titles on World War II, Buttar is mid-way through a four-book series looking at the Eastern Front in World War I for Osprey, with the first two volumes, Collision of Empires and Germany Ascendant, now available.

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