Status
Available
Call number
Publication
New York : Random House, [2009]
Description
It is one of the essential events of military history, a cataclysmic encounter that prevented a quick German victory in World War I and changed the course of two wars. This is a bold new account of the Battle of the Marne, giving, for the first time, all sides of the story. Military historian Holger H. Herwig reinterprets Germany's aggressive Schlieffen Plan as a carefully crafted design to avoid a protracted war against superior coalitions. He also provides cameos of the important players. In remarkable detail, and with exclusive information based on newly unearthed documents, Herwig re-creates the dramatic battle, revealing how the uncoordinated German forces were foiled and years of brutal trench warfare were made inevitable.--From publisher description.… (more)
Media reviews
For more than seven decades Sewell Tyng's "The Battle of the Marne, 1914" (1935) has defined how we view the opening battles of World War I, and it remains a great work of military history. Yet much material was not available to Tyng, an American lawyer and government official who had served in the
Show More
French army's ambulance service during the war—particularly the German military archives that became accessible only after the Berlin Wall fell. Mining them to good effect after a long career studying the war, the Canadian scholar Holger Herwig has now delivered an account of the Marne campaign that supplants Tyng's and makes plain how the German command failed to seize its victories and why it retired from the Marne's close-run battles. Along the way, Mr. Herwig demonstrates the resilience of the French commanders, who took advantage of what defeat brought them—short internal lines and an overextended enemy. Show Less
User reviews
LibraryThing member wmorton38
A fine history of the beginnings of the First World War through the first battle of the Marne. It is well written but quite detailed and with all the head swimming Prussian names and the fact that both armies all had 1st, 2nd, 3rd, etc. armies, divisions, etc. it was quite easy to become confused
Show More
about who was doing what where. What was not confusing, however, was the fact that the German military’s lack of control and communication at this early stage contributed greatly to their loss of the battle of the Marne and to the war. Show Less
LibraryThing member Shrike58
A readable, Germano-centric account of the how the great 1914 campaign in the West failed to yield victory for the Germans, and created the military stalemate that was the crucible for social and political conflict in the 20th century. Of particular value is how the German army commanders are
Show More
illuminated as players, as opposed to their usual status in English-language works as cyphers, as their inability to cooperate, and Moltke the Younger's unwillingness to take the reins, empowered the French struggle to stave off disaster. Show Less
LibraryThing member quizshow77
Holger Herwig has said for decades that the Schlieffen Plan was the most consequential government document anywhere in the world in the twentieth century. In this book he tracks the consequences of that plan, tracing the first six weeks or so of the fighting on the Western Front in 1914. His
Show More
writing is clear, and he well expresses his view that the course of the fighting, including the pivotal Battle of the Marne, embodied contingency and unpredictability. After narrating events through the Battle of the Marne, he argues for its importance by pointing out some obvious counterfactual effects that would have resulted if the battle had turned out significantly differently. He enhanced previous accounts by doing research in German archives that came available only after Communism fell in Europe. Show Less
LibraryThing member wildbill
There is much positive to say about this book but I did not find it an enjoyable read. The author lets the reader know from the beginning that he is writing his history of the events from the German point of view. He makes use of sources that just became available since the unification of Germany
One of the most severe deficiencies on the German side was the poor communication between the high command and the army commanders. On the French side Joffre is driven by his Grand Prix driver to speak in person with his army commanders. Moltke never moved from his command post and relied on staff members sent to communicate with the field commanders. Moltke's decision to allow von Bulow, the commander of the Second Army, to take over command of the right wing of the army also led to problems with the coordination of the Ist, 2nd and 3rd Armies. These coordination problems and von Kluck's hardheadedness led to the gap between the 1st and 2nd Armies that allowed the French to defeat the Germans at the Battle of the Marne.
I remember in high school they often had an athletic coach teach history. He often taught a very boring class shot through with statistics and facts all in search of an idea. This book reads at times like something written by that history teacher. The writing lacks the literary quality that I look for in good history writing.
The passages describing the shooting of civilians and the burning of Louvain are a good example of the domination of the narrative by the German point of view. This book emphasizes the German soldiers fear of the civilians. The Guns of August emphasizes the horrible loss created by the burning of the library at Louvain.
I also felt that the book lacked the the drama of the momentous events which occurred during the month that set the course for the rest of the war. I have read a number of other reviews that thought this was an excellent book. I do not share their opinion.
Show More
from what used to be East Germany. He shows a good command of the sources and makes good use of primary sources in explaining the events that led up to the Battle of the Marne.One of the most severe deficiencies on the German side was the poor communication between the high command and the army commanders. On the French side Joffre is driven by his Grand Prix driver to speak in person with his army commanders. Moltke never moved from his command post and relied on staff members sent to communicate with the field commanders. Moltke's decision to allow von Bulow, the commander of the Second Army, to take over command of the right wing of the army also led to problems with the coordination of the Ist, 2nd and 3rd Armies. These coordination problems and von Kluck's hardheadedness led to the gap between the 1st and 2nd Armies that allowed the French to defeat the Germans at the Battle of the Marne.
I remember in high school they often had an athletic coach teach history. He often taught a very boring class shot through with statistics and facts all in search of an idea. This book reads at times like something written by that history teacher. The writing lacks the literary quality that I look for in good history writing.
The passages describing the shooting of civilians and the burning of Louvain are a good example of the domination of the narrative by the German point of view. This book emphasizes the German soldiers fear of the civilians. The Guns of August emphasizes the horrible loss created by the burning of the library at Louvain.
I also felt that the book lacked the the drama of the momentous events which occurred during the month that set the course for the rest of the war. I have read a number of other reviews that thought this was an excellent book. I do not share their opinion.
Show Less
LibraryThing member dmmjlllt
The title is a bit misleading, as this basically covers the same ground as hundreds of other books, but at least it does cover the Battle of the Marne (unlike, say, Tuchman). Herwig's a reasonably good writer and he tells this story reasonably well. I don't know that there's any special insight
I have to knock off half a star for some bad editing/proofreading (I found multiple typos without really trying) and for the insufficient (in number and quality) maps.
Show More
here, though. And for a general reader, there's a bit too much of "the 43rd Reserve Infantry Brigade moved to the left of Sordet's CD". Overall, a solid 4-star history, though.I have to knock off half a star for some bad editing/proofreading (I found multiple typos without really trying) and for the insufficient (in number and quality) maps.
Show Less
Language
Original publication date
2009
Physical description
664 p.; 25 inches
ISBN
1588369099 / 9781588369093