This is the new book is the Western Front the first of three volumes of the history of the Great War,

I'm John Bachelor with Nick Lloyd. His new book is The Western Front, the first of three volumes of the history of the Great War, 1914 to

1918. The British themselves are a mystery because they put a toe in at the beginning of the conflict.

And then what follows is a series of decisions that are both political and military about how to

fight and what the aims are. It's striking how it's similar

to the putting a toe in in 1939 as well. Nick, we need to start with Asquith because he was the Prime Minister at the time.

And Asquith's Minister of War was Kichner, and Kichner's commander of what will become the British Expeditionary Force that goes to help the French after their attack.

It's John French. Those three men don't strike me as comfortable in the room together. Is that correct, Nick?

That is correct. They are quite, they're individuals with very different temperaments and they are thrown together, you know,

Asquith is when the war breaks out,

nobody understands or has any idea of how terrible it's going to be.

So, you know, Asquith is at the time of the wall breaks out, he's obsessed with sort of female confident Venetia Stanley that he's, you know, he's very interested in, so he's writing letters to Venetia in the in the wall cabinet so his

focus is somewhere else in many ways. Kitchener is a professional soldier, you know, one of the great heroes of the empire, Kitchener of Khark too.

And he is very wary of the British getting involved.

I think they've got to do something to keep the French going, but how much they're going to do and the sort of strictly limited

deployment of the British is always a major political military strategic issue because obviously the British, ideally the British want a small

expeditionary force that they can afford because the British don't have a big army that will do enough to

encourage the French but but without really, you know, exposing the British to massive

engagements that we see with the French and the Germans. But of course, for the French,

they have to get as many Brits over there as they can because

their appetite can never be sated and so this is a constant pull and

Kitchener because a global view the British Empire there's obviously there's conflict in the

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