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The Killing Season

The Autumn of 1914, Ypres, and the Afternoon That Cost Germany a War

Author Robert Cowley
Hardcover
$40.00 US
| $54.00 CAN
Random House Group | Random House
On sale Sep 02, 2025 | 752 Pages | 9781400068524
Grades 9-12 + AP/IB
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An in-depth, authoritative account of the fall of 1914 on the Western Front and the First Battle of Ypres, a true turning point in World War I and in modern warfare—by the founding editor of MHQ: The Quarterly Journal of Military History

The Marne may have saved Paris and prevented a devastating setback for the Allies, but it did not spell eventual defeat for Germany. Ypres did.

The final months of 1914 were the bloodiest interval in a famously bloody war, a killing season. They ended with the First Battle of Ypres, a struggle in West Flanders, Belgium, whose importance has been too long overlooked—until now. Robert Cowley’s fresh, novelistic account of this crucial period describes how German armies in France were poised to sweep north to capture the Channel ports and knock England out of the war—and were only held back by a brilliant improvisation from a cobbled-together handful of desperate British, French, and Belgian troops.

In a re-examination of events that have too long seemed set in stone, Cowley combines a wide array of source materials with sharp portrayals both of military leaders and of the men they led. We follow Albert of Belgium, the world’s last warrior king; French General Ferdinand Foch, a former professor of military science; and Hendrik Geeraert, an alcoholic barge keeper, who pulled off Albert’s literal last-ditch effort. Many other memorable characters emerge, including Sir John French, a British commander, who displayed his greatest talent for maneuver in the bedroom; along with both a young Adolf Hitler and Winston Churchill.

The vast brawl of four armies in Flanders was a turning point that irrevocably changed the nature of modern warfare. In this visceral account, based on thirty years of research and picking up where Barbara Tuchman’s The Guns of August left off, Cowley details the crucial decisions that determined the outcome of the Great War—which may have been decided by a single, extraordinary afternoon.
“Robert Cowley brilliantly brings to light how underappreciated British, Belgian, and French heroism—amid the modern world’s introduction to the horrific concert of shrapnel-spewing artillery, repeating rifles, and machine guns—blocked the German advance to sea, and ensured that Germany could not win the war. Revisionist and original military history at its finest.”—Victor Davis Hanson, Senior Fellow, the Hoover Institution, Stanford University and New York Times bestselling author of The End of Everything

“Robert Cowley’s The Killing Season is a thrilling and compellingly readable account of the Battle of Ypres in October 1914, a pivotal moment which ended the war of movement and ushered in the four years of trench warfare which would cost millions of lives on both sides. . . . a magnificent, monumental achievement.”—Michael Korda, author of Muse of Fire

“Among military historians, nobody is better than Robert Cowley at breathing new life into long dead battles, demonstrating their true significance by presenting us with a host of key but never fully-considered factors. The Killing Season, the product of three decades of research, is a triumph of retrospection and reconsideration; but so well-written it’s easy to forget how much new ground is being broken. My advice is simple: Read This Book.”—Robert L. O’Connell, author of Revolutionary

“The Killing Season has all the elements of an epic. A bloody, consequential battle, a cast of heroic characters, taut writing, superb research, and an unputdownable story, all make Cowley’s a great book. It will stand as a classic of military history.”—Barry S. Strauss, author of The War that Made the Roman Empire

“This is a masterful and heartbreaking book. If you want to know how modern warfare began, The Killing Season is for you.”—Geoffrey C. Ward, co-author of The Civil War, The War, and Vietnam

“Robert Cowley’s The Killing Season crackles with excitement as it revisits the opening salvos of World War One . . . With a novelist's eye for drama, and a historian's mastery of detail, Cowley delivers a powerfully immersive experience for the reader, viscerally conveying the sheer folly of a conflict that decimated Europe . . . All in all, a deeply moving book, that brings back one of the most important autumns of the 20th century, and offers a salutary warning in another time of sleepwalking.”—Ted Widmer, author of Lincoln on the Verge
Robert Cowley is an authority on American and European military history whose writing spans the Civil War to World War II. He has held several senior positions in book and magazine publishing and is the founding editor of the award-winning MHQ: The Quarterly Journal of Military History. Cowley has also written and edited three collections of essays in counterfactual history known as What If?, and he is the author of the forthcoming book The Killing Season, a history of the first Battle of Ypres and the beginning of World War I. As part of his research, he drove and walked the entire length of the Western Front. He lives in Newport, Rhode Island. View titles by Robert Cowley

About

An in-depth, authoritative account of the fall of 1914 on the Western Front and the First Battle of Ypres, a true turning point in World War I and in modern warfare—by the founding editor of MHQ: The Quarterly Journal of Military History

The Marne may have saved Paris and prevented a devastating setback for the Allies, but it did not spell eventual defeat for Germany. Ypres did.

The final months of 1914 were the bloodiest interval in a famously bloody war, a killing season. They ended with the First Battle of Ypres, a struggle in West Flanders, Belgium, whose importance has been too long overlooked—until now. Robert Cowley’s fresh, novelistic account of this crucial period describes how German armies in France were poised to sweep north to capture the Channel ports and knock England out of the war—and were only held back by a brilliant improvisation from a cobbled-together handful of desperate British, French, and Belgian troops.

In a re-examination of events that have too long seemed set in stone, Cowley combines a wide array of source materials with sharp portrayals both of military leaders and of the men they led. We follow Albert of Belgium, the world’s last warrior king; French General Ferdinand Foch, a former professor of military science; and Hendrik Geeraert, an alcoholic barge keeper, who pulled off Albert’s literal last-ditch effort. Many other memorable characters emerge, including Sir John French, a British commander, who displayed his greatest talent for maneuver in the bedroom; along with both a young Adolf Hitler and Winston Churchill.

The vast brawl of four armies in Flanders was a turning point that irrevocably changed the nature of modern warfare. In this visceral account, based on thirty years of research and picking up where Barbara Tuchman’s The Guns of August left off, Cowley details the crucial decisions that determined the outcome of the Great War—which may have been decided by a single, extraordinary afternoon.

Reviews

“Robert Cowley brilliantly brings to light how underappreciated British, Belgian, and French heroism—amid the modern world’s introduction to the horrific concert of shrapnel-spewing artillery, repeating rifles, and machine guns—blocked the German advance to sea, and ensured that Germany could not win the war. Revisionist and original military history at its finest.”—Victor Davis Hanson, Senior Fellow, the Hoover Institution, Stanford University and New York Times bestselling author of The End of Everything

“Robert Cowley’s The Killing Season is a thrilling and compellingly readable account of the Battle of Ypres in October 1914, a pivotal moment which ended the war of movement and ushered in the four years of trench warfare which would cost millions of lives on both sides. . . . a magnificent, monumental achievement.”—Michael Korda, author of Muse of Fire

“Among military historians, nobody is better than Robert Cowley at breathing new life into long dead battles, demonstrating their true significance by presenting us with a host of key but never fully-considered factors. The Killing Season, the product of three decades of research, is a triumph of retrospection and reconsideration; but so well-written it’s easy to forget how much new ground is being broken. My advice is simple: Read This Book.”—Robert L. O’Connell, author of Revolutionary

“The Killing Season has all the elements of an epic. A bloody, consequential battle, a cast of heroic characters, taut writing, superb research, and an unputdownable story, all make Cowley’s a great book. It will stand as a classic of military history.”—Barry S. Strauss, author of The War that Made the Roman Empire

“This is a masterful and heartbreaking book. If you want to know how modern warfare began, The Killing Season is for you.”—Geoffrey C. Ward, co-author of The Civil War, The War, and Vietnam

“Robert Cowley’s The Killing Season crackles with excitement as it revisits the opening salvos of World War One . . . With a novelist's eye for drama, and a historian's mastery of detail, Cowley delivers a powerfully immersive experience for the reader, viscerally conveying the sheer folly of a conflict that decimated Europe . . . All in all, a deeply moving book, that brings back one of the most important autumns of the 20th century, and offers a salutary warning in another time of sleepwalking.”—Ted Widmer, author of Lincoln on the Verge

Author

Robert Cowley is an authority on American and European military history whose writing spans the Civil War to World War II. He has held several senior positions in book and magazine publishing and is the founding editor of the award-winning MHQ: The Quarterly Journal of Military History. Cowley has also written and edited three collections of essays in counterfactual history known as What If?, and he is the author of the forthcoming book The Killing Season, a history of the first Battle of Ypres and the beginning of World War I. As part of his research, he drove and walked the entire length of the Western Front. He lives in Newport, Rhode Island. View titles by Robert Cowley

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