Table of Contents

INTRODUCTION
CHRONOLOGY
ATTACKER’S CAPABILITIES
The Entente air services in 1917
The French Service Aéronautique in the Nivelle Offensive
The Royal Flying Corps
Senior commanders
Army air commanders
British RFC brigade commanders
DEFENDER’S CAPABILITIES
The Luftstreitkräfte: German Imperial Air Service
Luftstreitkräfte organization in the 1917 campaign
German aircraft
Senior commanders
German Army aviation commanders
AIRPOWER IN 1917
The eyes of the big guns
Aircraft and the artillery
Fixed balloons and the artillery
The artillery flyers
Lessons from the Verdun and Somme campaigns
Lessons from the Somme: July–November, 1916
Air services and aircraft production
Aircraft attrition – the problem of quality control
Training for the air services
Fighter tactics
Squadron tactics
CAMPAIGN OBJECTIVES
The Nivelle Offensive
The strategic situation in early 1917
THE CAMPAIGN
Bloody April
March 1917: Germans withdraw to the Siegfriedstellung
Preparing the Nivelle Offensive
Air operations prior to the offensive
The French front
Attacking the balloons
The air campaign prior to the British attack
The Arras sector: the RFC’s bombing campaign
The attack at Vimy Ridge and Arras, 9–14 April
The British offensive continues, 10 April–4 May
Arras Front, 11 April–4 May
Battle on the Chemin des Dames Front
Chemin des Dames Front, 18 April–4 May
The French Army mutinies
Losses and lessons for the air campaigns of April 1917
AFTERMATH AND ANALYSIS
BIBLIOGRAPHY
INDEX

Promotional Information

Using original language sources, this is a uniquely well-informed and multi-faceted history of the WW1 air campaign of Bloody April.

About the Author

Dr James Corum is a retired US Army Reserve lieutenant colonel. He taught military history at Salford University, UK, from 2014 to 2019, and was Dean of the Baltic Defence College from 2009 to 2014. He served as a professor at the US Air Force School of Advanced Air and Space Power Studies and was an associate professor at the US Army Command and General Staff College. Dr Corum is the author of several books on military history, including The Luftwaffe: Creating the Operational Air War, 1918–1940 (1997) and Field Marshal Wolfram von Richthofen, Master of the German Air War (2008).

Reviews

Interesting stuff.
*The Armourer Magzine*