Professor William Philpott
Major Publications
Books

Attrition: Fighting the First Word War (Little, Brown, 2014). US edition, War
of Attrition (Overlook, 2014), a Wall St Journal book of the year.

Bloody Victory: The Sacrifice on the Somme and the Making of the
Twentieth Century. (Little, Brown, July 2009). Winner of the Society for
Army Historical Research’s Templer Prize, 2010 & US Western Front
Association Norman B. Tomlinson Junior book prize, 2009. Abridged US
edition, Three Armies on the Somme: The First Battle of the Twentieth
Century (Alfred Knopf, 2010).

Anglo-French Relations and Strategy on the Western Front, 1914–1918
(Macmillan, 1996).

Anglo-French Defence Relations Between the Wars, (eds) W.J. Philpott &
M. S. Alexander (Palgrave Macmillan, 2002).

The Palgrave Concise Historical Atlas of the First World War, with
Matthew Hughes (Palgrave Macmillan 2005).

Palgrave Advances in Modern Military History (ed.) with Matthew Hughes
(Palgrave Macmillan, forthcoming 2006).
Journal Articles

‘Military History a Century after the Great War’, Revue Française de
Civilisation Britannique, Special edition, ‘Revisiting the Great War’, XX/1
(2015: online publication).

‘The Making of the Military Entente, 1904–1914: France, the British Army,
and the Prospect of War’, The English Historical Review CXXVII (2013),
pp. 1155–85.

‘France’s Forgotten Victory’, review article, Journal of Strategic Studies,
34 (2011), pp. 901–18.

‘The French and the British Field Force: Moral Support or Material
Contribution?’ (With Prof M.S. Alexander), The Journal of Military History,
71 (2007), pp. 743–72. Moncado prize winner.

‘The Anglo-French Victory on the Somme’, Diplomacy and Statecraft
special edition, ‘Anglo-French Relations from the late 18th to the late 20th
Century’, 17, (2006), pp. 731–751.

‘Gone Fishing? Sir John French’s Meeting with General Lanrezac in
August 1914’, Journal of the Society for Army Historical Research,
LXXXIV/339 (Autumn 2006), pp. 254–59.

‘The Big Push: l’armée Britannique sur la Somme’, in Revue Historique
des Armées, 242 (2006), pp. 70–83.

‘Why the British were Really on the Somme: A Reply to Elizabeth
Greenhalgh’, for War in History, September 2002, pp. 446–471, reprinted
in World War I, ed. M. Neiberg (Franham: Ashgate, The International
Library of Essays on Military History, 2005).

‘Squaring the Circle: The Co-ordination of the Entente in the Winter of
1915/16’, English Historical Review, September 1999, pp. 875–898.

‘The Origins and Significance of Britain’s Northern Flank Strategy’
(Origines et Signification de la Stratégie Britannique du Flanc Nord),
Guerres Mondiales et Conflits Contemporains (special edition: L'Alliance
Franco-Britannique Pendant la Grande Guerre), October 1995, pp. 47–63.

‘Britain and France go to War: Anglo-French Relations on the Western
Front’, War in History, January 1995, pp. 43–64.

‘Kitchener and the 29th Division; A Study in Anglo-French Strategic
Relations, 1914–1915’, The Journal of Strategic Studies, September 1993,
pp. 375–407.

‘“One Had to Stiffen One's Upper Lip”: The Royal Navy and the Battle of
Puerto Plata’, The Mariner's Mirror, February 1993, pp. 64–70.

‘The Strategic Ideas of Sir John French’, The Journal of Strategic Studies,
December 1989, pp. 458–478.
Book chapters

‘Attrition: How the War was Fought and Won’, in The Greater War: Other
Combatants and Other Fronts, 1914–1918 ed. Jonathan Krause
(Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014, ISBN 978-0-3338-0394-3), pp.
235–54.

‘Unequal Sacrifice? Two Armies, Two Wars?’ in Britain and France in Two
World Wars: Truth, Myth and Memory, ed. R. Tombs & E. Chabal
(London: Bloomsbury, 2013, ISBN 978-1-4411-6933-4), pp. 47–61.

‘Managing the British Way of Warfare: France and Britain’s Continental
Commitment, 1904–1918’, in The British Way in Warfare: Power and the
International System, 1856–1956, ed. G. Kennedy and K. Neilsen
(Farnham: Ashgage, 2010), pp. 83–100.

‘The Reputation of Foch in Great Britain’, in Ferdinand Foch: Apprenez à
Penser, ed. R. Porte & F. Cochet (Paris: SOTECA Éditions 14–18, 2010)

‘En reconnaissance des héros populaires: Les hauts décorations
britanniques dans la grande guerre’, in R. Porte (ed.), 90e anniversaire de
la Croix de Guerre (Vincennes: Service Historique de la Défense, 2006,
ISBN 2-11-095776-10), pp. 51–58.

‘Winning the War: Kitchener and Foch’, in Cross Channel Currents: 100
Years of the Entente Cordiale, ed. R. Tombs, R. Mayne and D. Johnson
(Routledge, for the Franco-British Council, 2004), pp. 54–61.

‘Government, Military and Empire in Britain, 1860-1890’, in Das Militär und
der Aufbruch in die Moderne, 1860–1890 [The Military and their Response
to the Modern Age] ed. M. Epkenhaus & G.P. Groß (Oldenbourg, 2003),
pp. 21–41.

‘The General Staff and the Paradoxes of Continental War’, in The British
General Staff: Reform and Innovation, 1890–1939, ed. D. French and B.
Holden Reid (Frank Cass, 2002), pp. 95–111. Winner of the Society for
Army Historical Research’s 2002 Templer Medal for British Military
History.

‘The Supreme War Council and the Allied War Effort’, in Anglo-French
Relations, 1898–1998: From Fashoda to Jospin, ed. P. Chassaigne and
M.L. Dockrill (Palgrave, 2002), pp. 109–24.

‘Marshal Ferdinand Foch and Allied Victory’, in Leadership in Conflict,
1914–1918, ed. M. Seligman and M. Hughes (Leo Cooper, 2000), pp. 38–
53.

‘Coalition War: Britain and France’, in The Great World War 1914–45: Vol.
1, Lightning Strikes Twice, ed. P. Liddle, J. Bourne and I. Whitehead
(Harper Collins, 2000), pp. 479–91.

‘Britain, France and the Belgian Army’, in Look to Your Front: Essays on
the First World War Prepared by the British Commission for Military
History, ed. B.J. Bond (Spellmount, 1999), pp. 121–136.

‘Haig and Britain’s European Allies’, in Sir Douglas Haig: Seventy Years
On, ed. B.J. Bond and N. Cave (Leo Cooper, 1999), pp. 128–144.

‘The Entente Cordiale and the Next War: Anglo-French Views on Future
Military Cooperation, 1928–40’, (with M. Alexander) in Knowing Your
Friends: Intelligence Inside Alliances and Coalitions from 1914 to the Cold
War, ed. M. Alexander (Frank Cass, 1998), pp. 53–84. Also published in
The Journal of Intelligence and National Security, spring 1998.

‘The Campaign for a Ministry of Defence Between the Wars’, pp. 109–154,
and (with E. Feuchtwanger) ‘Civil-Military Relations in a Period Without
Major Wars, 1855–85’, pp. 1–20, in Government and the Armed Forces in
Britain, 1856–1990, ed. P. Smith, (Hambledon Press, 1996).