Robert Cowley ’52 spent years taking an in-depth look at the formation of the Western Front during World War I. The resulting book, The Killing Season: The Autumn of 1914, Ypres, and the Afternoon That Cost Germany a War, homes in on just a four-month span that was more deadly than any other period in that conflict.
Cowley, the founding editor of MHQ: The Quarterly Journal of Military History, says the book began nearly 40 years ago as an ambitious plan
to chronicle his journey of the entire 470-mile Western Front. He eventually narrowed his scope to just 50-odd miles and undertook extensive fieldwork, visiting key battle sites: meadows near the Yser River in Belgium; a French wheat field where a German patrol had withdrawn; and other battlefields where trenches, grenades, barbed wire and bones could still be found.
“I am a believer in seeing the places where history was made,” Cowley says. “Scenes of old violence still have stories to tell.”
In the 633-page book, he challenges long-accepted interpretations of the early war, theorizing that Ypres — not the Marne — was the true turning point. Cowley, a first-time author at age 90, notes that his grandson marveled at the weight of the final bound book and adds, “I hope the words carry the same heft.”
This article was first published in the fall 2025 issue of The Exeter Bulletin.
