Swordbearers - Supreme Command in the First World War - Correlli Barnett

Four key men, four key moments in the Great War. The principal actors are four national commanders-in-chief: two German, one Frenchman, one Englishman. Each in turn, as commander-in-chief, bore his nation's sword at a period when the course of the war pivoted on his judgement and will: four actors in a continental tragedy of death and re-birth.'