Seeking Victory on the Western Front examines how, in the face of the devastating firepower advantages that modern weapons offered the Germans, the British army developed the means to reclaim the offense and break the stalemate of the western front to defeat their enemy. Within this context, Albert Palazzo demonstrates the importance of gas warfare to Britain's tactical success and argues that it was a much more efficient weapon than past historians have suggested. Despite British notions of tradition, gentlemanly conduct, and fair fighting, the high command realized that the war was to be won by employing new technologies and techniques to counteract the defensive advantages their well-fortified and entrenched opponent enjoyed on the western front. Through his study of the evolution of chemical warfare, Palazzo demonstrates that the British made the necessary transformation by successfully incorporating new weapons and tactics into their existing method of waging war. As a result, they created a new operational system that allowed the attacker to negate the defender's firepower advantage at all levels.

Albert Palazzo is a research fellow in the School of History at the University of New South Wales at the Australian Defence Force Academy in Sydney, Australia.

"Though World War I has been written about exhaustively, Palazzo offers a genuinely fresh dimension by focusing on the British Army's extensive and imaginative use of gas. The Germans may have pioneered its use in 1915, but the British developed it, devised and put into mass production the most lethal chemicals, and provided their troops with by far the better gas masks."—The Wilson Quarterly

"A major contribution to the goal of rescuing the reputation of the army from the 'donkeys' school of historiography. Palazzo's examination of the way in which the army incorporated gas into its armory underlines the conclusions of Tim Travers, Trevor Wilson, Robin Prior, and Paddy Griffith, that despite the obvious shortcomings of some prominent individuals, the BEF [British Expeditionary Force] was remarkably successful at recognizing the utility of new technologies and exploiting their military potential. . . . The author has examined a wide range of primary and secondary sources in Britain, Canada, and Australia and they are carefully set down in his copious notes. . . . It is squarely aimed at scholars interested in the war on the Western Front, but it deserves to be read more widely."—The Journal of Military History

"Palazzo's study is convincing in demonstrating that the British military command was not, contrary to the common belief, unwilling to adapt innovations in technology for use on the battlefield."—Virginia Quarterly Review