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The Killing Season

A New History of Autumn 1914

Robert Cowley

$62.99

Hardback

Forthcoming
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English
Osprey
06 January 2026
An in-depth, authoritative account of the autumn of 1914 on the Western Front and the First Battle of Ypres, a true turning point in modern warfare.

The final months of 1914 were the bloodiest interval in a famously bloody war, a killing season. They ended with the First Battle of Ypres, a struggle in West Flanders, Belgium, the importance of which has been too long over-looked – until now.

Robert Cowley’s account of this crucial period describes how German armies in France were poised to sweep north to capture the Channel ports and knock England out of the war – and were only held back by a brilliant improvisation from a cobbled-together handful of desperate British, French and Belgium troops.

In a re-examination of events that have too long seemed set in stone, Cowley combines a wide array of source materials with sharp portrayals both of military leaders and the men they lead. We follow Albert of Belgium, the world’s last warrior king; French General Ferdinand Foch, a former professor of military science; and Hendrik Geeraert, an alcoholic barge keeper, who pulled off Albert’s literal last-ditch effort. Many other memorable characters emerge, including Sir John French along with both a young Adolf Hitler and Winston Churchill.

The vast brawl of four armies in Flanders was a turning point that irrevocably changed the nature of modern warfare. In this visceral account, based on 30 years of research and picking up where Barbara Tuchman’s The Guns of August left off, Cowley details the crucial decisions that determined the outcome of the Great War – which may have been decided by a single, extraordinary afternoon.
By:  
Imprint:   Osprey
Country of Publication:   United Kingdom
Dimensions:   Height: 236mm,  Width: 158mm,  Spine: 46mm
Weight:   725g
ISBN:   9781472874320
ISBN 10:   1472874323
Pages:   480
Publication Date:  
Audience:   General/trade ,  ELT Advanced
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Forthcoming

Robert Cowley is an authority on American and European military history whose writing spans the American Civil War to World War II. He has held several senior positions in book and magazine publishing and is the founding editor of the award-winning MHQ: The Quarterly Journal of Military History. As part of his research he drove and walked the entire length of the Western Front. He lives in Newport, Rhode Island.

Reviews for The Killing Season: A New History of Autumn 1914

The Killing Season has all the elements of an epic. A bloody, consequential battle, a cast of heroic characters, taut writing, superb research, and an unputdownable story, all make Robert Cowley’s a great book. It will stand as a classic of military history. * Barry Strauss, author of 'The War That Made the Roman Empire' * This is a masterful and heart-breaking book. If you want to know how modern warfare began, The Killing Season is for you. * Geoffrey C. Ward, co-author of 'The Civil War', 'The War,' and 'Vietnam' * Robert Cowley brilliantly brings to light how underappreciated British, Belgian, and French heroism – amid the modern world’s introduction to the horrific concert of shrapnel-spewing artillery, repeating rifles, and machine guns – blocked the German advance to sea... Revisionist and original military history at its finest. * Victor Davis Hanson, author of 'The End of Everything' * [A] thrilling and compellingly readable account of the Battle of Ypres in October 1914… a magnificent, monumental achievement. * Michael Korda, author of 'Muse of Fire' * With a novelist’s eye for drama, and a historian’s mastery of detail, Cowley delivers a powerfully immersive experience for the reader, viscerally conveying the sheer folly of a conflict that decimated Europe. * Ted Widmer, author of 'Lincoln on the Verge' * Robert Cowley’s agonising account of the bloody struggle for Ypres… transports us to the very heart of the action. * The Spectator *


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