The French Army 1914–18 (Men-at-Arms, 286)

Tells you a lot about their tactics, strategies, weapons and equipment from 1914 to 1918.

Good good about WW1 French uniforms.

Interesting book I use as a painting guide.

The entire Men at Arms series are fascinating books with incredible detail. If you are a newbee to military history or an expert, you will love reading these.

Good mix of data and photos

great book

From the point of view of a modeler, this book is a great source on all details about WWI french soldiers. It has plenty of (black and white) photos as well as the usual Osprey center color plates, with complete explanations at the end.For even more complete information on the French Army, I'd recommend adding another Osprey book: THE FRENCH FOREIGN LEGION 1914-1945.

I generally like Osprey Publishing's military books. They are short 20-50 page briefs on various historical subjects packed with a lot of info and not a lot of filler. They are great for starting a knowledge base about the basic facts of a battle, weapon, army or other historical subject. However this brief was terrible. It was short, disjointed and didn't explain the evolution of the uniforms and equipment relative to the development of events in the war. The whole book just explains (poorly) how the various levels of the Army was organized and equipped when the war broke out, then how different branches of service and various colonial troops were uniformed. The book doesn't get into events like the mutiny of 1917 or any other event that shaped the French army during the war. The WW2 Japanese two volume series does a better job of explaining various uniforms and equipment sets and how they changed as the IJA won and lost campaigns how the equipment, uniforms and strategy also changed. This book would be worth it on a sale for the good visual references. But the content was lacking.