"Les
Chars de la Victoire"
by Didier Guénaff & Bruno
Jurkiewicz
"Mangin sauve Paris"
by Yves Buffetaut & Bruno
Jurkiewicz
These two French books (both published by YSEC) are both history books proper, and not aimed at the modeller or AFV enthusiast proper. They both discuss less well known, but really important battles during the last year of the Great War: "Les Chars..." the battles on the Oise during the spring and summer of that year, "Mangin..." the savage and bloody fighting around Matz in June that summer, when French counterattacks stemmed the renewed German advance on Paris. What also makes them interesting, beside these discussions, and beyond the fact that your schoool french may not be quite up to scratch, is the fact that they contain a lot of previously unpublished photos of early french tanks in action.
I must say I was quite stunned by all the new photos, especially in "Les Chars..." (144 pages), where actually a majority of the pics are AFV related. (A lot of these show interiors in different ways.) And the book also gives you a total breakdown of the individual tank units that participated, down to the individual tank, with type, number and the name of the commander given. Also, a detailed background is given to the set up and organization of the french tank arm.
"Mangin..." (160 pages) is more general in approach, but still contains a lot of new pics, of both AFV:s and artillery. (And it also contains some nice colour artwork of Schneiders and S:t Chamonds.)
If you are at all interested in French WW1 tanks, especially the Schneider and the S:t Chamond, "Les Chars de la Victoire 1918" (ISBN: 2-84673-038-5) is a must, even if you don't read french. If you have the money to spare, and is interested in WW1 in general, you should ge "Mangin sauve Paris" (ISBN: 2-84673-003-2) as well.
I bought min copies in a Paris book store, but I guess it would be easy to get them from french Amazon. By the way, the book store in question was A&C Libraire, on 19 Avenue de la Republique, which is NOT to be missed when you are in Paris! But please reserve at least a couple of hours before you enter, because their selection is HUGE! You can find almost any Military-related book or publication there.
