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The First World War created the modern world. A conflict of unprecedented ferocity, it abruptly ended the relative peace and prosperity of the Victorian era, unleashing such demons of the twentieth century as mechanized warfare and mass death. It also helped to usher in the ideas that have shaped our times--modernism in the arts, new approaches to psychology and medicine, radical thoughts about economics and society--and in so doing shattered the faith in rationalism and liberalism that had prevailed in Europe since the Enlightenment. With The First World War, John Keegan, one of our most eminent military historians, fulfills a lifelong ambition to write the definitive account of the Great War for our generation. Probing the mystery of how a civilization at the height of its achievement could have propelled itself into such a ruinous conflict, Keegan takes us behind the scenes of the negotiations among Europe's crowned heads (all of them related to one another by blood) and ministers, and their doomed efforts to defuse the crisis. He reveals how, by an astonishing failure of diplomacy and communication, a bilateral dispute grew to engulf an entire continent. But the heart of Keegan's superb narrative is, of course, his analysis of the military conflict. With unequalled authority and insight, he recreates the nightmarish engagements whose names have become legend--Verdun, the Somme and Gallipoli among them--and sheds new light on the strategies and tactics employed, particularly the contributions of geography and technology. No less central to Keegan's account is the human aspect. He acquaints us with the thoughts of the intriguing personalities who oversaw the tragically unnecessary catastrophe--from heads of state like Russia's hapless tsar, Nicholas II, to renowned warmakers such as Haig, Hindenburg and Joffre. But Keegan reserves his most affecting personal sympathy for those whose individual efforts history has not recorded--"the anonymous millions, indistinguishably drab, undifferentially deprived of any scrap of the glories that by tradition made the life of the man-at-arms tolerable." By the end of the war, three great empires--the Austro-Hungarian, the Russian and the Ottoman--had collapsed. But as Keegan shows, the devastation ex-tended over the entirety of Europe, and still profoundly informs the politics and culture of the continent today. His brilliant, panoramic account of this vast and terrible conflict is destined to take its place among the classics of world history.… (more)
User reviews
LibraryThing member rolandallnach
For most people, the image of the First World War is probably centered around the trench war mess that characterized the Western Front. However, in Keegan's excellent take on the conflict, one is shown that this was in fact a world war, and very much a preliminary view of what was to come in World
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War II. But there is more than just a tale of war here, there is a splendid section discussing the run up to war, and the diplomatic processes that were exchanged. I for one found it ironic- if not unsettling- that, of all nations, Czarist Russia held the position that a world conflagration was impossible due to the interconnected international economic and banking systems. Sounds familiar, and perhaps a little too familiar for comfort. The scope of the war is all here, from start to end, land to sea, continent to continent, all told with Keegan's incredible knowledge of military history and his admirable lean toward impartiality. For those curious about those mud filled days of horror, there is so much more to learn, and this is an ideal source to tap. Show Less
LibraryThing member Miro
Having previously read A.J.P.Taylor's book "The First World War" I found Keegan's account preferable. They are both overviews, (the reader looking for detailed accounts of for example the Gallipolli landings or the sea war needs to look elsewhere) but Keegan writes in a more straightforward style
As he says (referring to the situation in July 1918), "Merely to make good loses suffered in the attacks so far, the German high command calculated, required 200.000 replacements each month but, even by drawing on the next annual class of eighteen year olds, only 300.000 recruits stood available." They just couldn't take the vast human losses involved in this new type of warfare.
Drawbacks to the book are his view that the First World War " ... destroyed the benevolent and optimistic culture of the European continent...", which has to be a doubtful statement. The rickety Austro-Hungarian empire was benevolent but certainly not optimistic and it lay at the root of the problem. A closer look in Brigitte Hamann's book, " Hitler's Vienna, A Dictator's Apprenticeship" reveals the chaotic nationalist, communist and racial polarization that was breaking the Empire apart and generating WW1 (and WW2).
He also contradicts himself, saying that, "Most of the accusations against the generals of the Great War - incompetence and incomprehension foremost among them - may therefore be seen to be misplaced." and, "Nothing in human affairs is predestinable, least of all in an exchange of energy as fluid and dynamic as a battle." while at the same time showing that;
- They (the generals) knew that the Germans had deep bunkers. If they had tested their basic strategy of intensive bombardment they would have found that most remained undamaged.
- If they had tested the effects of shelling on barbed wire they would have found that it mostly remained impassable. Again not what they assumed.
- They had seen the tremendous loss of life in attack but didn't consider building approach trenches to the German lines reducing the width of non-man's land as Brusilov did in Russia.
- They didn't think through the effect of the 10 minute delay between the lifting their artillery bombardment and the initiation of an attack . It allowed the Germans to lift machine guns from their deep protection and have them set up and ready.
I don't see how Keegan can exempt the Allied generals from blame while at the same time illustrating failures that could have been anticipated or at least identified and quickly corrected.
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without Taylor's cute and irritating comments and he explains in clearer terms the reason for the German defeat. As he says (referring to the situation in July 1918), "Merely to make good loses suffered in the attacks so far, the German high command calculated, required 200.000 replacements each month but, even by drawing on the next annual class of eighteen year olds, only 300.000 recruits stood available." They just couldn't take the vast human losses involved in this new type of warfare.
Drawbacks to the book are his view that the First World War " ... destroyed the benevolent and optimistic culture of the European continent...", which has to be a doubtful statement. The rickety Austro-Hungarian empire was benevolent but certainly not optimistic and it lay at the root of the problem. A closer look in Brigitte Hamann's book, " Hitler's Vienna, A Dictator's Apprenticeship" reveals the chaotic nationalist, communist and racial polarization that was breaking the Empire apart and generating WW1 (and WW2).
He also contradicts himself, saying that, "Most of the accusations against the generals of the Great War - incompetence and incomprehension foremost among them - may therefore be seen to be misplaced." and, "Nothing in human affairs is predestinable, least of all in an exchange of energy as fluid and dynamic as a battle." while at the same time showing that;
- They (the generals) knew that the Germans had deep bunkers. If they had tested their basic strategy of intensive bombardment they would have found that most remained undamaged.
- If they had tested the effects of shelling on barbed wire they would have found that it mostly remained impassable. Again not what they assumed.
- They had seen the tremendous loss of life in attack but didn't consider building approach trenches to the German lines reducing the width of non-man's land as Brusilov did in Russia.
- They didn't think through the effect of the 10 minute delay between the lifting their artillery bombardment and the initiation of an attack . It allowed the Germans to lift machine guns from their deep protection and have them set up and ready.
I don't see how Keegan can exempt the Allied generals from blame while at the same time illustrating failures that could have been anticipated or at least identified and quickly corrected.
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LibraryThing member cbl_tn
Keegan's history of the first World War is exactly what I was looking for as a foundation for this year's World War I reading project. Keegan analyzes Europe's military readiness before the war and describes the inevitability of international conflict once each nation's elaborate and detailed plans
American readers interested in learning about the U.S. involvement in the war will need to look to additional sources. The Americans don't appear until the last 75 pages or so, and even then the focus remains on the European nations and their armies. Keegan's writing isn't easy to read. He uses long sentences with complex structures. By the time I reached the end of some sentences, I had to go back and re-read the beginning to make sure I got the point. Readers with the patience for Keegan's style will be rewarded with a broad and thorough overview of the military history of World War I.
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had been triggered. His focus is primarily on military tactics and strategies and their effectiveness (or ineffectiveness). I now have a better understanding of the chronology of the war and its great tragedies. I was struck most by the contrast between technological advances in weaponry and in methods of communication. The size of the fronts and the logistics of wired communication resulted in generals far removed from the front and visual oversight of the area under their command. Armies developed elaborate plans for both offensive and defensive actions, and trusted to those in the chain of command to stick to the plan. Communication lines were quickly severed once fighting began, leaving front line commanders without a means of coordinating changes to the plan in response to circumstances.American readers interested in learning about the U.S. involvement in the war will need to look to additional sources. The Americans don't appear until the last 75 pages or so, and even then the focus remains on the European nations and their armies. Keegan's writing isn't easy to read. He uses long sentences with complex structures. By the time I reached the end of some sentences, I had to go back and re-read the beginning to make sure I got the point. Readers with the patience for Keegan's style will be rewarded with a broad and thorough overview of the military history of World War I.
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LibraryThing member parelle
An excellent one-book overview of the First World War, at the strategic level. Although I've had these topics before in various classes, having one chronological history to pull this together was helpful. Professor Keegan covers the war both in Europe and abroad in full - giving credit where it is
The one lack - and an understandable one - is due to its scope it cannot concentrate on any one unit or group for long: at best, a passing acquaintance with the generals is the most personal this reaches. However, from here it's easy to find more specific history to touch what you're interested in.
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due - the major campaigns, and yes, the disasters. The invocation of the Somme in particular is great in its awfulness, while the slow disintegration of the will to fight is so readily apparent.The one lack - and an understandable one - is due to its scope it cannot concentrate on any one unit or group for long: at best, a passing acquaintance with the generals is the most personal this reaches. However, from here it's easy to find more specific history to touch what you're interested in.
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LibraryThing member Parkerla1961
An excellent read. While providing a strong primer for those with a desire to delve into the cause and effect of The Great War, it provides additional deeper layers of understanding and insight for those with a stronger background of interest and knowledge.
LibraryThing member pjskimin
Keegan does a wonderful job of making the history of World War I very readable. Focus is not just given to the battles and dates that are important but also to the emerging technologies that changed the battlefield dynamics as the war progressed. Attention is also given to the social tensions that
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many countries suffered as a result of the war, as well as the consequences of this tension. A definite recommendation for anyone looking to fill a gap in their knowledge of history (military or otherwise). Show Less
LibraryThing member Widsith
Keegan's history of the First World War opens, unexpectedly, by talking about Adolf Hitler, and what I liked about this book was the way it presented 1914–18 as just the opening convulsions in a longer twentieth-century cataclysm to which it remains intimately connected.
A child's shoe in the
This is the kind of ruminative, slightly vague history writing that I really enjoy. Unfortunately there is rather little of it in the rest of the book, which too often becomes fixated on unnecessary military detail:
By 5 September the Sixth Army consisted, besides Sordet's Cavalry Corps and the 45th (Algerian) Division, of the VII Corps, brought from Alsace, and the 55th and 56th Reserve Divisions from Lorraine; the IV Corps was en route from Fourth Army. The Ninth Army, originally constituted as the Foch Detachment, comprised the IX and XI Corps transferred from Fourth Army, together with the 52nd and 60th Reserve Divisions and 9th Cavalry Division, the 42nd from Third Army and the 18th Division from Third Army.
…So?
Although Keegan does try to balance strategic explanations of the war with journals and other first-hand accounts, there is not nearly enough – for my tastes anyway – about the conditions soldiers served in, what they talked about, how they lived, what kind of social effects obtained in these countries during the war, how women and families coped while all the men in Europe were off shooting each other. It is quite a narrowly military approach.
There are also moments where you sense Keegan's own biases behind the facts; he seems a little too willing to get excited about the heroic Brits and it made me cautious of accepting some of his conclusions (‘Jutland was not a German victory’). Lazy comments about the ‘naturally warlike’ Serbs also eroded confidence.
Still, as a one-volume summary of things it does provide a pretty useful overview and it did help me contextualise the other reading I've done this year. The way the failure of the Shlieffen Plan created the trench lines of the Western Front, which barely moved in four years, is explained well. There is a decent look at the Eastern and Italian Fronts, as well as a lightning summary of Africa, although the situation in Turkey and the Middle East still feels a little underdeveloped. I though he was quite strong on the dovetailing of the First World War into civil war in Russia as well.
Keegan tries to be fair-minded to the generals, pointing out that contemporary strategy gave them very limited options. Douglas Haig still comes across as a borderline psychopath though, devoted to fundamentalist religious belief and utterly unmoved by human suffering, who ‘compensated for his aloofness with nothing whatsoever of the human touch’.
In no way – appearances, attitude, spoken pronouncement, written legacy – do [the generals] commend themselves to modern opinion or emotion. The impassive expressions that stare back at us from contemporary photographs do not speak of consciences or feelings troubled by the slaughter over which these men presided, nor do the circumstances in which they chose to live: the distant chateau, the well-polished entourage, the glittering motor cars, the cavalry escorts, the regular routine, the heavy dinners, the uninterrupted hours of sleep.
Again, when Keegan pulls back a little and reflects in this way, he is very good. He doesn't do it very often though. But despite the very military focus, most chapters here, and many single paragraphs, leave you wanting more and the bibliography has some good ideas for further exploration. For a broad account like this, that is crucial.
A child's shoe in the
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Polish dust, a scrap of rusting barbed wire, a residue of pulverized bone near the spot where the gas chambers worked, these are as much relics of the First as of the Second World War.This is the kind of ruminative, slightly vague history writing that I really enjoy. Unfortunately there is rather little of it in the rest of the book, which too often becomes fixated on unnecessary military detail:
By 5 September the Sixth Army consisted, besides Sordet's Cavalry Corps and the 45th (Algerian) Division, of the VII Corps, brought from Alsace, and the 55th and 56th Reserve Divisions from Lorraine; the IV Corps was en route from Fourth Army. The Ninth Army, originally constituted as the Foch Detachment, comprised the IX and XI Corps transferred from Fourth Army, together with the 52nd and 60th Reserve Divisions and 9th Cavalry Division, the 42nd from Third Army and the 18th Division from Third Army.
…So?
Although Keegan does try to balance strategic explanations of the war with journals and other first-hand accounts, there is not nearly enough – for my tastes anyway – about the conditions soldiers served in, what they talked about, how they lived, what kind of social effects obtained in these countries during the war, how women and families coped while all the men in Europe were off shooting each other. It is quite a narrowly military approach.
There are also moments where you sense Keegan's own biases behind the facts; he seems a little too willing to get excited about the heroic Brits and it made me cautious of accepting some of his conclusions (‘Jutland was not a German victory’). Lazy comments about the ‘naturally warlike’ Serbs also eroded confidence.
Still, as a one-volume summary of things it does provide a pretty useful overview and it did help me contextualise the other reading I've done this year. The way the failure of the Shlieffen Plan created the trench lines of the Western Front, which barely moved in four years, is explained well. There is a decent look at the Eastern and Italian Fronts, as well as a lightning summary of Africa, although the situation in Turkey and the Middle East still feels a little underdeveloped. I though he was quite strong on the dovetailing of the First World War into civil war in Russia as well.
Keegan tries to be fair-minded to the generals, pointing out that contemporary strategy gave them very limited options. Douglas Haig still comes across as a borderline psychopath though, devoted to fundamentalist religious belief and utterly unmoved by human suffering, who ‘compensated for his aloofness with nothing whatsoever of the human touch’.
In no way – appearances, attitude, spoken pronouncement, written legacy – do [the generals] commend themselves to modern opinion or emotion. The impassive expressions that stare back at us from contemporary photographs do not speak of consciences or feelings troubled by the slaughter over which these men presided, nor do the circumstances in which they chose to live: the distant chateau, the well-polished entourage, the glittering motor cars, the cavalry escorts, the regular routine, the heavy dinners, the uninterrupted hours of sleep.
Again, when Keegan pulls back a little and reflects in this way, he is very good. He doesn't do it very often though. But despite the very military focus, most chapters here, and many single paragraphs, leave you wanting more and the bibliography has some good ideas for further exploration. For a broad account like this, that is crucial.
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LibraryThing member RobertDay
The UK edition of this book is packaged in a way that "sells" it to a British audience, with an emphasis on the Western Front. However, Keegan goes much further than this, with a good focus on the other theatres of the war, emphasizing its "worldwide" nature.
The style is quite easy, although
Keegan makes a lot out of technological failings, in particular of communication technology; he also shows where some of the reputation of WWI commanders for heartlessness is undeserved because of the nature of the technological milieu they were working within. That said, he does not fail to hold generals up to criticism for their personal failings, Haig in particular. He also does not get over-involved in technological issues beyond communication matters: he writes quite tellingly of the introduction of tanks, but less so on military aviation, which had little strategic impact in WWI when compared to WW2.
Interestingly, he mentions key military figures who went on to have major roles in WW2, but only where they are relevant to his thesis - so Rommel at Caporetto and a couple of other German commanders get a mention, but Montgomery and (refreshingly!) Hitler (beyond a namecheck on page 1 to get him out of the way) do not.
Overall, then, a solid introduction to the key events of the First World War, with enough analysis to point the reader towards an understanding of the way the First war paved the way for the Second World War without bludgeoning the reader with that fact.
The style is quite easy, although
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occasionally there are atypical lapses into academic complexity. There is also a lot of detail of units and orders of battle, which can be fairly easily skimmed. A slightly less helpful fault (though not uncommon in books of this sort) is to find places mentioned in the text but not shown on the relevant maps in the book.Keegan makes a lot out of technological failings, in particular of communication technology; he also shows where some of the reputation of WWI commanders for heartlessness is undeserved because of the nature of the technological milieu they were working within. That said, he does not fail to hold generals up to criticism for their personal failings, Haig in particular. He also does not get over-involved in technological issues beyond communication matters: he writes quite tellingly of the introduction of tanks, but less so on military aviation, which had little strategic impact in WWI when compared to WW2.
Interestingly, he mentions key military figures who went on to have major roles in WW2, but only where they are relevant to his thesis - so Rommel at Caporetto and a couple of other German commanders get a mention, but Montgomery and (refreshingly!) Hitler (beyond a namecheck on page 1 to get him out of the way) do not.
Overall, then, a solid introduction to the key events of the First World War, with enough analysis to point the reader towards an understanding of the way the First war paved the way for the Second World War without bludgeoning the reader with that fact.
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LibraryThing member Sullywriter
Form the first page of the opening chapter:
"The First World War was a tragic and unnecessary conflict. Unnecessary because the train of events that led to its outbreak might have been broken at any point during the five weeks of crisis that preceded the first clash of arms, had prudence or common
"The First World War was a tragic and unnecessary conflict. Unnecessary because the train of events that led to its outbreak might have been broken at any point during the five weeks of crisis that preceded the first clash of arms, had prudence or common
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goodwill found a voice; tragic because the consequences of the first clash ended the lives of ten million human beings, tortured the emotional lives of millions more, destroyed the benevolent and optimistic culture of the European continent and left, when the guns at last fell silent four years later, a legacy of political rancour and racial hatred so intense that no explanation of the causes of the Second World War can stand without reference to those roots. The Second World War, five times more destructive of human life and incalculably more costly in material terms, was the direct outcome of the First." Show Less
LibraryThing member maunder
Millions of people died and entire generations were bled white by the first World War. Why and how this happened is the subject of Keegan's book. It discusses the strategies, logistics and politics of conducting the war in fascinating detail. It is a very readable book on a vast topic. Keegan
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corrects popular misconceptions about the Schlieffen plan and the effects of trench warfare on troop morale for all combatants. Definitely a must read. Show Less
LibraryThing member DeaconBernie
It is astonishing how much data Keegan has packed into such a comparatively short book. No part of the fighting that took place between 1914 and 1918 is overlooked. He describes the battles with excellent detail but avoids political comments about the generals who butchered so many soldiers. This
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is not anti-war stuff but rather just a carefully crafted report on what happened. Show Less
LibraryThing member hippypaul
John Keegan, who I think is our best living Military Historian, has written the definitive book on the First World War. It is a book that is rich with both detail and meaning. I have read a fair number of works on this subject but I came away from this book with a far greater understanding of the
Mr. Keegan not only outlines the complex causes of the war, traces the action and events, and discusses the outcome but he also shows how the events of this war lead to so much that made up the events of the twenty century.
Most of all the author never loses sight of the task of the writer of good history. He tells a powerful story in a way that holds your attention throughout the work. This is a fine book and a huge addition to the literature of conflict.
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conflict that I started the volume with.Mr. Keegan not only outlines the complex causes of the war, traces the action and events, and discusses the outcome but he also shows how the events of this war lead to so much that made up the events of the twenty century.
Most of all the author never loses sight of the task of the writer of good history. He tells a powerful story in a way that holds your attention throughout the work. This is a fine book and a huge addition to the literature of conflict.
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LibraryThing member billiecat
Good, solid general history of World War I. Keegan covers the battles and campaigns, as well as the strategic implications on all fronts very well. However, like the war itself the book tends to bog down at times, with sections that aren't easy to follow. Keegan also gives the War at Sea short
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shrift, a serious omission given Germany's reliance on unrestricted submarine warfare. He does spend some time recounting the "Cruiser War" of Germany's cruiser-raiders, but only briefly mentions operations in the North Sea and the afore-mentioned U-boats. Show Less
LibraryThing member wyclif
Top-shelf World War I military history. Recommended.
LibraryThing member nmele
Keegan's book cleared up many questions I had about the war, and some that I had but did not know were war-related. It is a concise, well-written and broadly comprehensive history. Somehow Keegan covers all the major fronts and battles as well as other influential factors like the Russian
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Revolution and the Russian Civil War. I am not only glad I read this book, I am glad I own it. Show Less
LibraryThing member HistoryMan
I can,t agree with the review by rachelrichardson.First of all I think it is ridiculous and unfair to complain that a book about a war overemphasizes the military apect of that particular conflict.That's what war is 'all' about.The author is a military historian and therefore his emphasis will lie
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on the military apects. Secondly rachel complains that there is next to nothing in the book about the role of women during this conflict.Now women did'nt fight in any substantial numbers during the WW1 and therefore in a military history there is not much to tell about them.Of course you can write about the subject from another angle.WW1 was very important in the history of womenslib.Most men were at the front so women had to manage by themselves.As a military history of WW1 this book is very good.It explains better than any other book why it took so long to break the stalemate on the Western Front.Most of all it were military technologies that canceled each other out so no combatant could get a definitive superiority.All the war's fronts get their due but the battles where the British fought get special attention.This book's minor drawbacks are indeed as rachel writes a perspective that is to much Allied centred and the author seems to run out of steam as the end of the conflict is in sight. Show Less
LibraryThing member jonfaith
1) One shouldn't read compact one volume surveys of epic events. It is safe to assume that The First World War meets the criteria of epic event. Any single volume will only distort and compact events. This was no exception
2) John Keegan is vastly overrated as a writer and scholar. I think the
3)Daniel Haig is lambasted as the autistic author of the slaughter at the Somme. Keegan may be guilty of similar callousness though he is constantly reminding the reader of late 20th Century outcomes of nations and regions.
3.1) This is an interesting adaptation of the former. Keegan does point out the Great War activities of WWII leaders and innovators.
This is not a terrible book, nor one of questionable erudition. It is a survey and if one wants the barest of narratives arcs, one could possibly do far worse.
2) John Keegan is vastly overrated as a writer and scholar. I think the
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latter was accidental. People projected authority, with his sober demeanor, who can blame them? Keegan routinely employs clumsy metaphors and speaks of terrifying events in terms of inefficiency. He also resorts to unflattering stereotypes which detract. Keegan uses little primary sources, instead he mines Alistair Horne's book on Verdun and similar secondary texts. 3)Daniel Haig is lambasted as the autistic author of the slaughter at the Somme. Keegan may be guilty of similar callousness though he is constantly reminding the reader of late 20th Century outcomes of nations and regions.
3.1) This is an interesting adaptation of the former. Keegan does point out the Great War activities of WWII leaders and innovators.
This is not a terrible book, nor one of questionable erudition. It is a survey and if one wants the barest of narratives arcs, one could possibly do far worse.
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LibraryThing member xestobium25
at times scintillating (in its compelling writing), at times boring (in its tactical detail), always tragic (in its outcome); with maps—by a pre-eminent military historian
LibraryThing member SteveJohnson
John Keegan's "The First World War" might be better titled "A Military History of the First World War." He spends copious amounts of time detailing the movements of the hundreds of Armies, Divisions and Corps that moved millions of troops around the Eastern and Western fronts in WWI, and sometimes
As he concedes, the battles were meaningless, the loss of life horrific, wiping out 10-30% of the young men of France, Britain, Russia, Germany, Turkey, and Austria-Hungary. It is hard to conceive of the stupendous stupidity of it all. An offensive gains three miles at the cost of 250,000 lives. Six months later the ground changes hands again, at a similar cost. There are no glorious, rousing tales of courage. Most of the dead were blown to bits by immense artillery barrages of millions of shells or riddled with machine gun fire as they made frontal assaults on dug-in enemy positions.
Keegan's story is not a personal one - we only rarely hear from the troops in the trenches. Instead he analyzes each major assault and assigns blame as to why it was misconceived or failed. But Keegan is a veteran military historian and he uses his deep knowledge to point out the fundamental flaws in military tactics that led to the horrendous bloodshed. Roads were poor, railroads not well-connected and most men marched on foot while their equipment was hauled by horses, hundreds of thousands of which died in the conflict. There was no opportunity for fast-moving offensives. The machine gun made frontal assaults suicidal, yet commanders on all sides believed that if their men just toughed it out a little more, the enemy could be over-run. Instead, by the end of the war, many of the troops on all sides were refusing to fight. The Russian Army had dissolved almost overnight after the Bolsheviks shoved the Tsar from power. French troops refused to march, German sailors would not leave port. By 1918, Germany, France and Britain were running out of replacement troops, but the entry ot the United States into the war promised almost limitless new blood, a final all-out German attack failed, and the Central Powers fell apart.
This is a thorough overview of a war that Keegan admits has never been understood. He does a masterful job of showing how the military tactics of the time, which emphasized the importance of mobilizing armies and rushing them to the front without delay, magnified a relatively local faceoff between the Austrians and Serbia over the assassination of a royal prince into five years of bitter slaughter. But Keegan concedes that he cannot understand how the leaders of a Europe that seemed so prosperous, cultured and at peace could so swiftly fall into a war with few goals other than national honor. Why the political leadership of the combatants failed to stop the fighting is beyond the scope of Keegan's book.
But that it did happen is a cautionary tale to anyone who would think it can never happen again.
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the writing seems repetitious. But that's not Keegan's fault - much of the war consisted of repeated frontal assaults across the same stretches of No Man's Land over which hundreds of thousands of men had already fought and died. As he concedes, the battles were meaningless, the loss of life horrific, wiping out 10-30% of the young men of France, Britain, Russia, Germany, Turkey, and Austria-Hungary. It is hard to conceive of the stupendous stupidity of it all. An offensive gains three miles at the cost of 250,000 lives. Six months later the ground changes hands again, at a similar cost. There are no glorious, rousing tales of courage. Most of the dead were blown to bits by immense artillery barrages of millions of shells or riddled with machine gun fire as they made frontal assaults on dug-in enemy positions.
Keegan's story is not a personal one - we only rarely hear from the troops in the trenches. Instead he analyzes each major assault and assigns blame as to why it was misconceived or failed. But Keegan is a veteran military historian and he uses his deep knowledge to point out the fundamental flaws in military tactics that led to the horrendous bloodshed. Roads were poor, railroads not well-connected and most men marched on foot while their equipment was hauled by horses, hundreds of thousands of which died in the conflict. There was no opportunity for fast-moving offensives. The machine gun made frontal assaults suicidal, yet commanders on all sides believed that if their men just toughed it out a little more, the enemy could be over-run. Instead, by the end of the war, many of the troops on all sides were refusing to fight. The Russian Army had dissolved almost overnight after the Bolsheviks shoved the Tsar from power. French troops refused to march, German sailors would not leave port. By 1918, Germany, France and Britain were running out of replacement troops, but the entry ot the United States into the war promised almost limitless new blood, a final all-out German attack failed, and the Central Powers fell apart.
This is a thorough overview of a war that Keegan admits has never been understood. He does a masterful job of showing how the military tactics of the time, which emphasized the importance of mobilizing armies and rushing them to the front without delay, magnified a relatively local faceoff between the Austrians and Serbia over the assassination of a royal prince into five years of bitter slaughter. But Keegan concedes that he cannot understand how the leaders of a Europe that seemed so prosperous, cultured and at peace could so swiftly fall into a war with few goals other than national honor. Why the political leadership of the combatants failed to stop the fighting is beyond the scope of Keegan's book.
But that it did happen is a cautionary tale to anyone who would think it can never happen again.
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LibraryThing member Nodosaurus
John Keegan’s book provides a very thorough look at World War I. It details the politics, both international and internal to each of the primary countries, in addition to the military status, targets and goals. It also summarizes the affects the war had on the world while raising some interesting
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questions. It is an excellent way to learn about this war and how it affected the world, something that is being forgotten in our schools. Show Less
LibraryThing member SeriousGrace
World War One rocked our planet to its core. There wasn't a corner of the globe that didn't feel its effects in some way or another. Historians like John Keegan call it the Great War because it left over ten million people dead and countless others shattered both mentally and physically beyond
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recognition. As Keegan explains, it was the first time world powers used ferocious modernized brutality to subdue their military enemies along with innocent women, children, and livestock. No living creature stood a chance against this new age of warfare. Keegan pushes you into the muddy trenches, onto the blood soaked battle fields, and into the intimate lives of courageous but doomed soldiers. Against this bloody backdrop Keegan also brilliantly sheds light on secret political and religious negotiations, heated war-room strategies, and closed-door council room debates. With Keegan you travel to the Western front, East Africa, the Carpathians and beyond. This is a comprehensive history of one of the most polarizing events known to man. Show Less
Awards
LA Times Book Prize (Finalist — History — 1999)
Duke of Wellington Medal for Military History (Winner — 1999)
Booklist Editor's Choice: Adult Books (History — 1999)